Master Skylark Part 16

Will Shakspere playing there, just across the river? Oh, if Nick could only find him, he would not let the son of his wife's own cousin be stolen away!

Nick looked around quickly.

The play-house stood a bowshot from the river, in the open fields. There was a moated manor-house near by, and beyond it a little stream with some men fis.h.i.+ng. Between the play-house and the Thames were gardens and trees, and a thin fringe of buildings along the bank by the landings. It was not far, and there were places where one could get a boat every fifty yards or so at the Bankside.

But--"Come in, come in," said Henslowe. "Growling never fed a dog; and we must be doing."

"Go ahead, Nick," said Carew, pus.h.i.+ng him by the shoulder, and they all went in. The door opened on a flight of stairs leading to the lowest gallery at the right of the stage, where the orchestra sat. A man was tuning up a viol as they came in.

"I want you to hear this boy sing," said Carew to Henslowe. "'Tis the best thing ye ever lent ear to."

"Oh, this is the boy?" said the manager, staring at Nick. "Why, Alleyn told me he was a country gawk!"

"He lied, then," said Carew, very shortly. "'Twas cheaper than the truth at my price. There, Nick, go look about the place--we have business."

Nick went slowly along the gallery. His hands were beginning to tremble as he put them out touching the stools. Along the rail were ornamental columns which supported the upper galleries and looked like beautiful blue-veined white marble; but when he took hold of them to steady himself he found they were only painted wood.

There were two galleries above. They ran all around the inside of the building, like the porches of the inn at Coventry, and he could see them across the house. There were no windows in the gallery where he was, but there were some in the second one. They looked high. He went on around the gallery until he came to some steps going down into the open s.p.a.ce in the center of the building. The stage was already set up on the trestles, and the carpenters were putting a shelter-roof over it on copper-gilt pillars; for it was beginning to drizzle, and the middle of the play-house was open to the sky.

The spectators were already coming into the pit at a penny apiece, although the play would not begin until early evening. Those for the galleries paid another penny to a man in a red cloak at the foot of the stairs where Nick was standing. There was a great uproar at the entrance. Some apprentices had caught a cutpurse in the crowd, and were beating him unmercifully. Every one pushed and shoved about, cursing the thief, and those near enough kicked and struck him.

Nick looked back. Carew and the manager had gone into the tiring-room behind the stage. He took hold of the side-rail and started down the steps. The man in the red cloak looked up. "Go back there," said he, sharply; "there's enough down here now." Nick went on around the gallery.

At the back of the stage were two doors for the players, and between them hung a painted cloth or arras behind which the prompter stood. Over these doors were two plastered rooms, twopenny private boxes for gentlefolk. In one of them were three young men and a beautiful girl, wonderfully dressed. The men were speaking to her, but she looked down at Nick instead. "What a pretty boy!" she said, and tossed him a flower that one of the men had just given her. It fell at Nick's feet. He started back, looking up. The girl smiled, so he took off his cap and bowed; but the men looked sour.

At the side of the stage was a screen with long leather fire-buckets and a pole-ax hanging upon it, and behind it was a door through which Nick saw the river and the gray walls of the old Dominican friary. As he came down to it, some one thrust out a staff and barred the way. It was the bandy-legged man with the ribbon in his ear, Nick looked out longingly; it seemed so near!

"Master Carew saith thou art not to stir outside--dost hear?" said the bandy-legged man.

"Ay," said Nick, and turned back.

There was a narrow stairway leading to the second gallery. He went up softly. There was no one in the gallery, and there was a window on the side next to the river; he had seen it from below. He went toward it slowly that he might not arouse suspicion. It was above his head.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "NICK PUT ONE LEG OVER THE SILL AND LOOKED BACK."]

There were stools for hire standing near. He brought one and set it under the window. It stood unevenly upon the floor, and made a wabbling noise. He was afraid some one would hear him; but the apprentices in the pit were rattling dice, and two or three gentlemen's pages were wrangling for the best places on the platform; while, to add to the general riot, two young gallants had brought gamec.o.c.ks and were fighting them in one corner, amid such a whooping and swas.h.i.+ng that one could hardly have heard the skies fall.

A printer's man was bawling, "Will ye buy a new book?" and the fruit-sellers, too, were raising such a cry of "Apples, cherries, cakes, and ale!" that the little noise Nick might make would be lost in the wild confusion.

Master Carew and the manager had not come out of the tiring-room. Nick got up on the stool and looked out. It was not very far to the ground--not so far as from the top of the big hayc.o.c.k in Master John Combe's field from which he had often jumped.

The sill was just breast-high when he stood upon the stool. Putting his hands upon it, he gave a little spring, and balanced on his arms a moment. Then he put one leg over the window-sill and looked back. No one was paying the slightest attention to him. Over all the noise he could hear the man tuning the viol. Swinging himself out slowly and silently, with his toes against the wall to steady him, he hung down as far as he could, gave a little push away from the house with his feet, caught a quick breath, and dropped.

CHAPTER XX

DISAPPOINTMENT

Nick landed upon a pile of soft earth. It broke away under his feet and threw him forward upon his hands and knees. He got up, a little shaken but unhurt, and stood close to the wall, looking all about quickly. A party of gaily dressed gallants were haggling with the horse-boys at the sheds; but they did not even look at him. A pa.s.sing carter stared up at the window, measuring the distance with his eye, whistled incredulously, and trudged on.

Nick listened a moment, but heard only the clamor of voices inside, and the zoon, zoon, zoon of the viol. He was trembling all over, and his heart was beating like a trip-hammer. He wanted to run, but was fearful of exciting suspicion. Heading straight for the river, he walked as fast as he could through the gardens and the trees, brus.h.i.+ng the dirt from his hose as he went.

There was a wherry just pus.h.i.+ng out from Old Marigold stairs with a single pa.s.senger, a gardener with a basket of truck.

"Holloa!" cried Nick, hurrying down; "will ye take me across?"

"For thrippence," said the boatman, hauling the wherry alongside again with his hook.

Thrippence? Nick stopped, dismayed. Master Carew had his gold rose-n.o.ble, and he had not thought of the fare. They would soon find that he was gone.

"Oh, I must be across, sir!" he cried. "Can ye na take me free? I be little and not heavy; and I will help the gentleman with his basket."

The boatman's only reply was to drop his hook and push off with the oar.

But the gardener, touched by the boy's pitiful expression, to say nothing of being tickled by Nick's calling him gentleman, spoke up: "Here, jack-sculler," said he; "I'll toss up wi' thee for it." He pulled a groat from his pocket and began spinning it in the air. "Come, thou lookest a gamesome fellow--cross he goes, pile he stays; best two in three flips--what sayst?"

"Done!" said the waterman. "Pop her up!"

Up went the groat.

Nick held his breath.

"Pile it is," said the gardener. "One for thee--and up she goes again!"

The groat twirled in the air and came down _clink_ upon the thwart.

"Aha!" cried the boatman, "'tis mine, or I'm a horse!"

"Nay, jack-sculler," laughed the gardener; "cross it is! Ka me, ka thee, my pretty groat--I never lose with this groat."

"Oh, sir, do be brisk!" begged Nick, fearing every instant to see the master-player and the bandy-legged man come running down the bank.

"More haste, worse speed," said the gardener; "only evil weeds grow fast!" and he rubbed the groat on his jerkin. "Now, jack-sculler, hold thy breath; for up she goes again!"

A man came running over the rise. Nick gave a little frightened cry. It was only a huckster's knave with a roll of fresh b.u.t.ter. The groat came down with a splash in the bottom of the wherry. The boatman picked it up out of the water and wiped it with his sleeve. "Here, boy, get aboard,"

said he, shoving off; "and be lively about it!"

The huckster's knave came running down the landing. He pushed Nick aside, and scrambled into the wherry, puffing for breath. The boat fell off into the current. Nick, making a plunge for it into the water, just managed to catch the gunwale and get aboard, wet to the knees. But he did not care for that; for although there were people going up Paris Garden lane, and a crowd about the entrance of the Rose, he could not see Master Carew or the bandy-legged man anywhere. So he breathed a little freer, yet kept his eyes fast upon the play-house until the wherry b.u.mped against Blackfriars stairs.

Picking up the basket of truck, he sprang ash.o.r.e, and, dropping it upon the landing, took to his heels up the bank, without stopping to thank either gardener or boatman.

The gray walls of the old friary were just ahead, scarcely a stone's throw from the river. With heart beating high, he ran along the close, looking eagerly for the entrance. He came to a wicket-gate that was standing half ajar, and went through it into the old cloisters.

Everything there was still. He was glad of that, for the noise and the rush of the crowd outside confused him.

The place had once been a well-kept garden-plot, but now was become a mere stack of odds and ends of boards and beams, shavings, mortar, and broken brick. A long-legged fellow with a green patch over one eye was building a pair of stairs to a door beside which a sign read: "Playeres Here: None Elles."