Master Skylark Part 14

CHAPTER XVII

CAREW'S OFFER

Next morning Carew donned his plum-colored cloak, and with Nick's hand held tightly in his own went out of the door and down the steps into a drifting fog which filled the street, the bandy-legged man with the ribbon in his ear following close upon their heels.

People pa.s.sed them like shadows in the mist, and all the houses were a blur until they came into a wide, open place where the wind blew free above a wall with many great gates.

In the middle of this open place a huge gray building stood, staring out over the housetops--a great cathedral, wonderful and old. Its walls were dark with time and smoke and damp, and the lofty tower that rose above it was in part but a hollow sh.e.l.l split by lightning and blackened by fire. But crowded between its ma.s.sive b.u.t.tresses were booths and chapmen's stalls; against its h.o.a.ry side a small church leaned like a child against a mother's breast; and in and round about it eddied a throng of men like ants upon a busy hill.

All around the outer square were shops with gilded fronts and most amazing signs: golden angels with outstretched wings, tiger heads, bears, brazen serpents, and silver cranes; and in and out of the shop-doors darted apprentices with new-bound books and fresh-printed slips; for this was old St. Paul's, the meeting-place of London town, and in Paul's Yard the printers and the bookmen dealt.

With a deal of elbowing the master-player came up the broad steps into the cathedral, and down the aisle to the pillars where the merchant-tailors stood with table-books in hand, and there ordered a brand-new suit of clothes for Nick of old Roger Shearman, the best cloth-cutter in Threadneedle street.

While they were deep in silk and silver thread, Haerlem linen, and Leyden camelot, Nick stared about him half aghast; for it was to him little less than monstrous to see a church so thronged with merchants plying their trades as if the place were no more sacred than a booth in the public square.

The long nave of the cathedral was crowded with mercers from Cheapside, drapers from Throgmorton street, stationers from Ludgate Hill, and goldsmiths from Foster lane, hats on, loud-voiced, and using the very font itself for a counter. By the columns beyond, sly, foxy-faced lawyers hobn.o.bbed; and on long benches by the wall, cast-off serving-men, varlets, grooms, pastry-bakers, and pages sat, waiting to be hired by some new master. Besides these who came on business there was a host of gallants in gold-laced silk and velvet promenading up and down the aisle, with no business there at all but to show their faces and their clothes. And all about were solemn shrines and monuments and tombs, and overhead a splendid window burned like a wheel of fire in the eastern wall.

While Nick stared, speechless, a party of the Admiral's placers came strolling by, their heads half hidden in their huge starched ruffs, and with prodigious swords that would have dragged along the ground had they not been c.o.c.ked up behind so fiercely in the air. Seeing Master Carew and the boy, they stopped in pa.s.sing to greet them gaily.

Master Heywood was there, and bowed to Nick with a kindly smile. His companion was a handsome, proud-mouthed man with a blue, smooth-shaven face and a jet-black periwig. Him Carew drew aside and spoke with in an earnest undertone. As he talked, the other began to stare at Nick as if he were some curious thing in a cage.

"Upon my soul," said Carew, "ye never heard the like of it. He hath a voice as sweet and clear as if Puck had burst a honey-bag in his throat."

"No doubt," replied the other, carelessly; "and all the birds will hide their heads when he begins to sing. But we don't want him, Carew--not if he had a voice like Miriam the Jew. Henslowe has just bought little Jem Bristow of Will Augusten for eight pound sterling, and business is too bad to warrant any more."

"Who spoke of selling?" said Carew, sharply. "Don't flatter your chances so, Master Alleyn. I wouldn't sell the boy for a world full of Jem Bristows. Why, his mouth is a mint where common words are coined into gold! Sell him? I think I see myself in Bedlam for a fool! Nay, Master Alleyn, what I am coming at is this: I'll place him at the Rose, to do his turn in the play with the rest of us, or out of it alone, as ye choose, for one fourth of the whole receipts over and above my old share in the venture. Do ye take me?"

"Take you? One fourth the whole receipts! Zounds! man, do ye think we have a spigot in El Dorado?"

"Tus.h.!.+ Master Alleyn, don't make a poor mouth; you're none so needy. You and Henslowe have made a heap of money out of us all."

"And what of that? Yesterday's b.u.t.ter won't smooth to-day's bread. 'Tis absurd of you, Carew, to ask one fourth and leave all the risk on us, with the outlook as it is! Here's that fellow Langley has built a new play-house in Paris Garden, nearer to the landing than we are, and is stealing our business most scurvily!"

Carew shrugged his shoulders.

"And what's more, the very comedy for which Ben Jonson left us, because we would not put it on, has been taken up by the Burbages on Will Shakspere's say-so, and is running famously at the Curtain."

"I told you so, Master Alleyn, when the fellow was fresh from the Netherlands," said Carew; "but your ears were plugged with your own conceit. Young Jonson is no flatfish, if he did lay brick; he's a plum worth anybody's picking."

"But, plague take it, Carew, those Burbages have all the plums! Since they weaned Will Shakspere from us everything has gone wrong. Kemp has left us; old John Lowin, too; and now the Lord Mayor and Privy Council have soured on the play again and forbidden all playing on the Bankside, outside the City or no."

Carew whistled softly to himself.

"And since my Lord Chamberlain has been patron of the Burbages he will not so much as turn a hand to revive the old game of bull- and bear-baiting, and Phil and I have kept the Queen's bulldogs going on a twelvemonth now at our own expense--a pretty canker on our profits! Why, Carew, as Will Shakspere used to say, 'One woe doth tread the other's heels, so fast they follow!' And what's to do?"

"What's to do?" said Carew. "Why, I've told ye what's to do. Ye've heard Will say, 'There is a tide leads on to fortune if ye take it at the flood'? Well, Master Alleyn, here's the tide, and at the flood. I have offered you an argosy. Will ye sail or stick in the mud? Ye'll never have such a chance again. Come, one fourth over my old share, and I will fill your purse so full of gold that it will gape like a stuffed toad.

His is the sweetest skylark voice that ever sugared ears!"

"But, man, man, one fourth!"

"Better one fourth than lose it all," said Carew. "But, pshaw! Master Ned Alleyn, I'll not beg a man to swim that's bent on drowning! We will be at the play-house this afternoon; mayhap thou'lt have thought better of it by then." With a curt bow he was off through the crowd, Nick's hand in his own clenched very tight.

They had hard work getting down the steps, for two hot-headed gallants were quarreling there as to who should come up first, and there was a great press. But Carew scowled and showed his teeth, and clenched his poniard-hilt so fiercely that the commoners fell away and let them down.

Nick's eyes were hungry for the printers' stalls where ballad-sheets were sold for a penny, and where the books were piled along the shelves until he wondered if all London were turned printer. He looked about to see if he might chance upon Diccon Field; but Carew came so quickly through the crowd that Nick had not time to recognize Diccon if he had been there. Diccon had often made Nick whistles from the pollard willows along the Avon below the tannery when Nick was a toddler in smocks, and the lad thought he would like to see him before going back to Stratford.

Then, too, his mother had always liked Diccon Field, and would be glad to hear from him. At thought of his mother he gave a happy little skip; and as they turned into Paternoster Bow, "Master Carew," said he, "how soon shall I go home?"

Carew walked a little faster.

There had arisen a sound of shouting and a trampling of feet. The constables had taken a purse-cutting thief, and were coming up to the Newgate prison with a great rabble behind them. The fellow's head was broken, and his haggard face was all screwed up with pain; but that did not stop the boys from hooting at him, and asking in mockery how he thought he would like to be hanged and to dance on nothing at Tyburn Hill.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "DICCON HAD OFTEN MADE NICK WHISTLES FROM THE WILLOWS ALONG THE AVON WHEN NICK WAS A TODDLER."]

"Did ye hear me, Master Carew?" asked Nick.

The master-player stepped aside a moment into a doorway to let the mob go by, and then strode on.

Nick tried again: "I pray thee, sir--"

"Do not pray me," said Carew, sharply; "I am no Indian idol."

"But, good Master Carew--"

"Nor call me good--I am not good."

"But, Master Carew," faltered Nick, with a sinking sensation around his heart, "when will ye leave me go home?"

The master-player did not reply, but strode on rapidly, gnawing his mustache.

CHAPTER XVIII

MASTER HEYWOOD PROTESTS

It was a cold, raw day. All morning long the sun had shone through the choking fog as the candle-flame through the dingy yellow horn of an old stable-lantern. But at noon a wind sprang up that drove the mist through London streets in streaks and strings mixed with smoke and the reek of steaming roofs. Now and then the blue gleamed through in ragged patches overhead; so that all the town turned out on pleasure bent, not minding if it rained stewed turnips, so they saw the sky.

But the fog still sifted through the streets, and all was damp and sticky to the touch, so Cicely was left behind to loneliness and disappointment.

Nick and the master-player came down Ludgate Hill to Blackfriars landing in a stream of merrymakers, high and low, rich and poor, faring forth to London's greatest thoroughfare, the Thames; and as the river and the n.o.ble mansions along the Strand came into view, Nick's heart beat fast.

It was a sight to stir the pulse.

Far down the stream, the grim old Tower loomed above the drifting mist; and, higher up, old London Bridge, lined with tall houses, stretched from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e. There were towers on it with domes and gilded vanes, and the river foamed and roared under it, strangled by the piers.

From the dock at St. Mary Averies by the Bridge to Barge-house stairs, the landing-stages all along the river-bank were thronged with boats; and to and fro across the stream, wherries, punts, barges, and water-craft of every kind were plying busily. In middle stream sail-boats tugged along with creaking sweeps, or brown-sailed trading-vessels slipped away to sea, with costly freight for Muscovy, Turkey, and the Levant. And amid the countless water-craft a mult.i.tude of stately swans swept here and there like snow-flakes on the dusky river.

Nick sniffed at the air, for it was full of strange odors--the smell of breweries, of pitchy oak.u.m, Norway tar, spices from hot countries, resinous woods, and chilly whiffs from the water; and as they came out along the wharf, there were brown-faced, hard-eyed sailors there, who had been to the New World--wild fellows with silver rings in their ears and a swaggering stagger in their petticoated legs. Some of them held short, crooked brown tubes between their lips, and puffed great clouds of pale brown smoke from their noses in a most amazing way.