"Oh, father, father, what do ye mean?" cried Nick, his lips scarcely able to shape the words.

"Do na ye 'father' me no more," said Simon Attwood, bitterly; "I be na father to stage-playing, vagabond rogues. And be gone, I say. Dost hear?

Must I e'en thrust thee forth?" He raised his hand as if to strike.

Nick fell away from the latchet-gate, dumb-stricken with amazement, shame, and grief.

"Oh, Nick," cried Cicely, "come away--the wicked, wicked man!"

"It is my father, Cicely."

She stared at him. "And thou dost hate _my_ father so? Oh, Nick! oh, Nick!"

"Will ye be gone?" called Simon Attwood, half-way opening the gate; "must I set constables on thee?"

Nick did not move. A numbness had crept over him like palsy. Cicely caught him by the hand. "Come, let us go back to my father," she said.

"He will not turn us out."

Scarcely knowing what he did, he followed her, stumbling in the level path as though he were half blind or had been beaten upon the head. He did not cry. This was past all crying. He let himself be led along--it made no matter where.

In Chapel lane there was a crowd along the Great House wall; and on the wall Ned Cooke and Martin Addenbroke were sitting. There were heads of people moving on the porch and in the court, and the yard was all a-bustle and to-do. But there was n.o.body in the street, and no one looked at Nick and Cicely.

The Great House did look very fair in the sun of that May day, with its homely gables of warm red brick and sunburnt timber, its cheery roof of Holland tile, and with the sunlight flashing from the diamond panes that were leaded into the sashes of the great bay-window on the eastern garden side.

In the garden all was stir-about and merry voices. There was a little green court before the house, and a pleasant lawn coming down to the lane from the doorway porch. The house stood to the left of the entry-drive, and the barn-yard to the right was loud with the blithe crowing of the c.o.c.ks. But the high brick wall shut out the street where Nick and Cicely trudged dolefully along, and to Nick the lane seemed very full of broken crockery and dirt, and the sunlight all a mockery.

The whole of the year had not yet been so dark as this, for there had ever been the dream of coming home. But _now_--he suffered himself to be led along; that was enough.

They had come past the Great House up from Chapel street, when a girl came out of the western gate, and with her hand above her eyes looked after them. She seemed in doubt, but looked again, quite searchingly.

Then, as one who is not sure, but does not wish to miss a chance, called out, "Nick Attwood! Nick Attwood!"

Cicely looked back to see who called. She did not know the girl, but saw her beckon. "There is some one calling, Nick," said she.

Nick stopped in a hopeless sort of way, and looked back down the street.

When he had turned so that the girl at the gate could see his face, she left the gate wide open behind her, and came running quickly up the street after them. As she drew nearer he saw that it was Susanna Shakspere, though she was very much grown since he had seen her last. He watched her running after them as if it were none of his affair. But when she had caught up with them, she took him by the shoulder smartly and drew him back toward the gate. "Why, Nicholas Attwood," she cried, all out of breath, "come straightway into the house with me. My father hath been hunting after thee the whole way up from London town!"

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

A STRANGE DAY

There in the Great House garden under the mulberry-trees stood Master Will Shakspere, with Masters Jonson, Burbage, Hemynge, Condell, and a goodly number more, who had just come up from London town, as well as Alderman Henry Walker of Stratford, good old John Combe of the college, and Michael Drayton, the poet of Warwick. For Master Shakspere had that morning bought the Great House, with its gardens and barns, of Master William Underhill, for sixty pounds sterling, and was making a great feast for all his friends to celebrate the day.

The London players all clapped their hands as Nick and Cicely came up the garden-path, and, "Upon my word, Will," declared Master Jonson, "the lad is a credit to this old town of thine. A plucky fellow, I say, a right plucky fellow. Found the la.s.s and brought her home all safe and sound--why, 'tis done like a true knight-errant!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "MASTER SHAKSPERE MET THEM WITH OUTSTRETCHED HANDS."]

Master Shakspere met them with outstretched hands. "Thou young rogue,"

said he, smiling, "how thou hast forestalled us! Why, here we have been weeping for thee as lost, strayed, or stolen; and all the while thou wert nestling in the bosom of thine own sweet home. How is the beloved little mother?"

"I ha' na seen my mother," faltered Nick. "Father will na let me in."

"What? How?"

"My father will na have me any more, sir--saith I shall never be his son again. Oh, Master Shakspere, why did they steal me from home?"

They were all crowding about now, and Master Shakspere had hold of the boy. "Why, what does this mean?" he asked. "What on earth has happened?"

Between the two children, in broken words, the story came out.

"Why, this is a sorry tale!" said Master Shakspere. "Does the man not know that thou wert stolen, that thou wert kept against thy will, that thou hast trudged half-way from London for thy mother's sake?"

"He will na leave me tell him, sir. He would na even listen to me!"

"The muckle shrew!" quoth Master Jonson. "Why, I'll have this out with him! By Jupiter, I'll read him reason with a vengeance!" With a clink of his rapier he made as if to be off at once.

"Nay, Ben," said Master Shakspere; "cool thy blood--a quarrel will not serve. This tanner is a bitter-minded, heavy-handed man--he'd only throw thee in a pickling-vat"

"What? Then he'd never tan another hide!"

"And would that serve the purpose, Ben? The cure should better the disease--the children must be thought about."

"The children? Why, as for them," said Master Jonson, in his blunt, outspoken way, "I'll think thee a thought offhand to serve the turn.

What? Why, this tanner calls us vagabonds. Vagabonds, forsooth! Yet vagabonds are gallows-birds, and gallows-birds are ravens. And ravens, men say, do foster forlorn children. Take my point? Good, then; let us ravenous vagabonds take these two children for our own, Will,--thou one, I t' other,--and by praiseworthy fostering singe this fellow's very brain with shame."

"Why, here, here, Ben Jonson," spoke up Master Burbage, "this is all very well for Will and thee; but, pray, where do Hemynge, Condell, and I come in upon the bill? Come, man, 'tis a pity if we cannot all stand together in this real play as well as in all the make-believe."

"That's my sort!" cried Master Hemynge. "Why, what? Here is a player's daughter who has no father, and a player whose father will not have him,--orphaned by fate, and disinherited by folly,--common stock with us all! Marry, 'tis a sort of stock I want some of. Kind hearts are trumps, my honest Ben--make it a stock company, and let us all be in."

"That's no bad fancy," added Condell, slowly, for Henry Condell was a cold, shrewd man. "There's merit in the lad beside his voice--_that_ cannot keep its freshness long; but his figure's good, his wit is quick, and he has a very taking style. It would be worth while, d.i.c.k.

And, Will," said he, turning to Master Shakspere, who listened with half a smile to all that the others said, "he'll make a better _Rosalind_ than Roger Prynne for thy new play."

"So he would," said Master Shakspere; "but before we put him into 'As You Like It,' suppose we ask him how he does like it? Nick, thou hast heard what all these gentlemen have said--what hast thou to say, my lad?"

"Why, sirs, ye are all kind," said Nick, his voice beginning to tremble, "very, very kind indeed, sirs; but--I--I want my mother--oh, masters, I do want my mother!"

At that John Combe turned on his heel and walked out of the gate. Out of the garden-gate walked he, and down the dirty lane, setting his cane down stoutly as he went, past gravel-pits and pens to Southam's lane, and in at the door of Simon Attwood's tannery.

It was noon when he went in; yet the hour struck, and no one came or went from the tannery. Mistress Attwood's dinner grew cold upon the board, and Dame Combe looked vainly across the fields toward the town.

But about the middle of the afternoon John Combe came out of the tannery door, and Simon Attwood came behind him. And as John Combe came down the cobbled way, a trail of brown vat-liquor followed him, dripping from his clothes, for he was soaked to the skin. His long gray hair had partly dried in strings about his ears, and his fine lace collar was a drabbled shame; but there was a singular untroubled smile upon his plain old face.

Simon Attwood stayed to lock the door, fumbling his keys as if his sight had failed; but when the heavy bolt was shut, he turned and called after John Combe, so that the old man stopped in the way and dripped a puddle until the tanner came up to where he stood. And as he came up Attwood asked, in such a tone as none had ever heard from his mouth before, "Combe, John Combe, what's done 's done,--and oh, John, the pity of it,--yet will ye still shake hands wi' me, John, afore ye go?"

John Combe took Simon Attwood's bony hand and wrung it hard in his stout old grip, and looked the tanner squarely in the eyes; then, still smiling serenely to himself, and setting his cane down stoutly as he walked, dripped home, and got himself into dry clothes without a word.