"Good citizens of Coventry, and high-born gentles all: know ye now that we, the players of the company of His Grace, Charles, Lord Howard, High Admiral of England, Ireland, Wales, Calais, and Boulogne, the marches of Normandy, Gascony, and Aquitaine, Captain-General of the Navy and the Seas of Her Gracious Majesty the Queen--"

At that the crowd in the courtyard cheered and cheered again.

"--will, with your kind permission, play forthwith the laughable comedy of 'The Three Grey Gowns,' by Master Thomas Heywood, in which will be spoken many good things, old and new, and a brand-new song will be sung.

Now, hearken all--the play begins!"

The trumpet blared, the kettledrum crashed again, and as a sudden hush fell over the throng without Nick heard the voices of the players going on.

It was a broad farce, full of loud jests and nonsense, a great thwacking of sticks and tumbling about; and Nick, with his eye to the crack of the door, listened with all his ears for his cue, far too excited even to think of laughing at the rough jokes, though the crowd in the inn-yard roared till they held their sides.

Carew came hurrying up, with an anxious look in his restless eyes.

"Ready, Nicholas!" said he, sharply, taking Nick by the arm and lifting the latch. "Go straight down front now as I told thee--mind thy cues--speak boldly--sing as thou didst sing for me--and if thou wouldst not break mine heart, do not fail me now! I have staked it all upon thee here--and we _must_ win!"

"How now, who comes?" Nick heard a loud voice call outside--the door-latch clicked behind him--he was out in the open air and down the stage before he quite knew where he was.

The stage was built against the wall just opposite the gates. It was but a temporary platform of planks laid upon trestles. One side of it was against the wall, and around the three other sides the crowd was packed close to the platform rail.

At the ends, upon the boards, several wealthy gallants sat on high, three-legged stools, within arm's reach of the players acting there. The courtyard was a sea of heads, and the balconies were filled with gentlefolk in holiday attire, eating cakes and chaffing gaily at the play. All was one bewildered cloud of staring eyes to Nick, and the only thing which he was sure he saw was the painted sign that hung upon the curtain at the rear, which in the lack of other scenery announced in large red print: "This is a Room in Master Jonah Jackdawe's House."

And then he heard the last quick words, "I'll match him for the ale!"

and started on his lines.

It was not that he said so ill what little he had to say, but that his voice was homelike and familiar in its sound, one of their own, with no amazing London accent to the words--just the speech of every-day, the sort that they all knew.

First, some one in the yard laughed out--a shock-headed ironmonger's apprentice, "Whoy, bullies, there be hayseed in his hair. 'Tis took off pasture over-soon. I f.e.c.ks! they've plucked him green!"

There was a hoa.r.s.e, exasperating laugh. Nick hesitated in his lines. The player at his back tried to prompt him, but only made the matter worse, and behind the green curtain at the door a hand went "clap" upon a dagger-hilt. The play lagged, and the crowd began to jeer. Nick's heart was full of fear and of angry shame that he had dared to try. Then all at once there came a brief pause, in which he vaguely realized that no one spoke. The man behind him thrust him forward, and whispering wrathfully, "Quick, quick--sing up, thou little fool!" stepped back and left him there alone.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "NICK THOUGHT OF HIS MOTHER'S SINGING ON A SUMMER'S EVENING--DREW A DEEP BREATH AND BEGAN TO SING."]

A viol overhead took up the time, the gittern struck a few sharp notes. This unexpected music stopped the noise, and all was still. Nick thought of his mother's voice singing on a summer's evening among the hollyhocks, and as the viol's droning died away he drew a deep breath and began to sing the words of "Heywood's newest song":

"Pack, clouds, away, and welcome, day; With night we banish sorrow; Sweet air, blow soft; mount, lark, aloft, To give my love good-morrow!"

It was only a part of a madrigal, the air to which they had fitted the words,--the same air that Nick had sung in the woods,--a thing scarce meant ever to be sung alone, a simple strain, a few plain notes, and at the close one brief, queer, warbling trill like a bird's wild song, that rose and fell and rose again like a silver ripple.

The instruments were still; the fresh young voice came out alone, and it was done so soon that Nick hardly knew that he had sung at all. For a moment no one seemed to breathe. Then there was a very great noise, and all the court seemed hurling at him. A man upon the stage sprang to his feet. What they were going to do to him Nick did not know. He gave a frightened cry, and ran past the green curtain, through the open door, and into the master-player's excited arms.

"Quick, quick!" cried Carew. "Go back, go back! There, hark!--dost not hear them call? Quick, out again--they call thee back!" With that he thrust Nick through the door. The man upon the stage came up, slipped something into his hand--Nick, all bewildered, knew not what; and there he stood, quite stupefied, not knowing what to do. Then Carew came out hastily and led him down the stage, bowing, and pressing his hand to his heart, and smiling like a summer sunrise; so that Nick, seeing this, did the same, and bowed as neatly as he could; though, to be sure, his was only a simple, country-bred bow, and no such ceremonious to-do as Master Carew's courtly London obeisance.

Every one was standing up and shouting so that not a soul could hear his ears, until the ironmonger's apprentice bellowed above the rest; "Whoy, bullies!" he shouted, amid a chorus of cheers and laughter, "didn't I say 'twas catched out in the fields--it be a skylark, sure enough! Come, Muster Skylark, sing that song again, an' thou shalt ha' my brand-new cap!"

Then many voices cried out together, "Sing it again! The Skylark--the Skylark!"

Nick looked up, startled. "Why, Master Carew," said he, with a tremble in his voice, "do they mean me ?"

Carew put one hand beneath Nick's chin and turned his face up, smiling.

The master-player's cheeks were flushed with triumph, and his dark eyes danced with pride. "Ay, Nicholas Skylark; 'tis thou they mean."

The viol and the music came again from overhead, and when they ceased Nick sang the little song once more. And when the master-player had taken him outside, and the play was over, some fine ladies came and kissed him, to his great confusion; for no one but his mother or his kin had ever done so before, and these had much perfume about them, musk and rose-attar, so that they smelled like rose-mallows in July. The players of the Lord Admiral's company were going about shaking hands with Carew and with each other as if they had not met for years, and slapping one another upon the back; and one came over, a tall, solemn, black-haired man, he who had written the song, and stood with his feet apart and stared at Nick, but spoke never a word, which Nick thought was very singular. But as he turned away he said, with a world of pity in his voice, "And I have writ two hundred plays, yet never saw thy like.

Lad, lad, thou art a jewel in a wild swine's snout!" which Nick did not understand at all; nor why Master Carew said so sharply, "Come, Heywood, hold thy blabbing tongue; we are all in the same sty."

"Speak for thyself, Gat Carew!" answered Master Heywood, firmly. "I'll have no hand in this affair, I tell thee once for all!"

Master Carew flushed queerly and bit his lip, and, turning hastily away, took Nick to walk about the town. Nick then, for the first time, looked into his hand to see what the man upon the stage had given him. It was a gold rose-n.o.ble.

CHAPTER X

AFTER THE PLAY

Through the high streets of the third city of the realm Master Gaston Carew strode as if he were a very king, and Coventry his kingdom.

There was music everywhere,--of pipers and fiddlers, drums, tabrets, flutes, and horns,--and there were dancing bears upon the corners, with minstrels, jugglers, chapmen crying their singsong wares, and such a mighty hurly-burly as Nick had never seen before. And wherever there was a wonder to be seen, Carew had Nick see it, though it cost a penny a peep, and lifted him to watch the fencing and quarter-staff play in the market-place. And at one of the gay booths he bought gilt ginger-nuts and caraway cakes with currants on the top, and gave them all to Nick, who thanked him kindly, but said, if Master Carew pleased, he'd rather have his supper, for he was very hungry.

"Why, to be sure," said Carew, and tossed a silver penny for a scramble to the crowd; "thou shalt have the finest supper in the town."

Whereupon, bowing to all the great folk they met, and being bowed to most politely in return, they came to the Three Tuns.

Stared at by a hundred curious eyes, made way for everywhere, and followed by wondering exclamations of envy, it was little wonder that Nick, a simple country lad, at last began to think that there was not in all the world another gentleman so grand as Master Gaston Carew, and also to have a pleasant notion that Nicholas Attwood was no bad fellow himself.

The lordly innkeeper came smirking and bobbing obsequiously about, with his freshest towel on his arm, and took the master-player's order as a dog would take a bone.

"Here, sirrah," said Carew, haughtily; "fetch us some repast, I care not what, so it be wholesome food--a green Banbury cheese, some simnel bread and oat-cakes; a pudding, hark 'e, sweet and full of plums, with honey and a pasty--a meat pasty, marry, a pasty made of fat and toothsome eels; and moreover, fellow, ale to wash it down--none of thy penny ale, mind ye, too weak to run out of the spigot, but snapping good brew--dost take me?--with beef and mustard, tripe, herring, and a good fat capon broiled to a turn!"

The innkeeper gaped like a fish.

"How now, sirrah? Dost think I cannot pay thy score?" quoth Carew, sharply.

"Nay, nay," stammered the host; "but, sir, where--where will ye put it all without bursting into bits?"

"Be off with thee!" cried Carew, sharply. "That is my affair. Nay, Nick," said he, laughing at the boy's, astonished look; "we shall not burst. What we do not have to-night we'll have in the morning. 'Tis the way with these inns,--to feed the early birds with sc.r.a.ps,--so the more we leave from supper the more we'll have for breakfast. And thou wilt need a good breakfast to ride on all day long."

"Ride?" exclaimed Nick. "Why, sir, I was minded to walk back to Stratford, and keep my gold rose-n.o.ble whole."

"Walk?" cried the master-player, scornfully. "Thou, with thy golden throat? Nay, Nicholas, thou shalt ride to-morrow like a very king, if I have to pay for the horse myself, twelvepence the day!" and with that he began chuckling as if it were a joke.

But Nick stood up, and, bowing, thanked him gratefully; at which the master-player went from chuckling to laughing, and leered at Nick so oddly that the boy would have thought him tipsy, save that there had been nothing yet to drink. And a queer sense of uneasiness came creeping over him as he watched the master-player's eyes opening and shutting, opening and shutting, so that one moment he seemed to be staring and the next almost asleep; though all the while his keen, dark eyes peered out from between the lids like old dog-foxes from their holes, looking Nick over from head to foot, and from foot to head again, as if measuring him with an ellwand.

When the supper came, filling the whole table and the sideboard too, Nick arose to serve the meat as he was used at home; but, "Nay, Nicholas Skylark, my honey-throat," cried Carew, "sit thee down! Thou wait on me--thou songster of the silver tongue? Nay, nay, sweetheart; the knave shall wait on thee, or I'll wait on thee myself--I will, upon my word!

Why, Nick, I tell thee I love thee, and dost think I'd let thee wait or walk? nay, nay, thou'lt ride to-morrow like a king, and have all Stratford wait for thee!" At this he chuckled so that he almost choked upon a mouthful of bread and meat.

"Canst ride, Nicholas?"