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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MASTER SKYLARK ***







“‘MASTER SKYLARK, THOU SHALT HAVE THY WISH,’ SAID QUEEN ELIZABETH.”



MASTER SKYLARK
A Story of
Shakspere’s Time
BY
JOHN BENNETT


ILLUSTRATIONS BY REGINALD B. BIRCH


ALL THAT NICHOLAS ATTWOOD’S MOTHER
WAS TO HIM, AND MORE, MY OWN MOTHER HAS BEEN TO ME
AND TO HER HERE I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK
WITH A NEVER-FAILING LOVE





CONTENTS


I THE LORD ADMIRAL’S PLAYERS II NICHOLAS ATTWOOD’S HOME III THE LAST STRAW IV OFF FOR COVENTRY V IN THE WARWICK ROAD VI THE MASTER-PLAYER VII “WELL SUNG, MASTER SKYLARK!” VIII THE ADMIRAL’S COMPANY IX THE MAY-DAY PLAY X AFTER THE PLAY XI DISOWNED XII A STRANGE RIDE XIII A DASH FOR FREEDOM XIV AT BAY XV LONDON TOWN XVI MA’M’SELLE CICELY CAREW XVII CAREW’S OFFER XVIII MASTER HEYWOOD PROTESTS XIX THE ROSE PLAY-HOUSE XX DISAPPOINTMENT XXI “THE CHILDREN OF PAUL’S” XXII THE SKYLARK’S SONG XXIII A NEW LIFE XXIV THE MAKING OF A PLAYER XXV THE WANING OF THE YEAR XXVI TO SING BEFORE THE QUEEN XXVII THE QUEEN’S PLAISANCE XXVIII CHRISTMAS WITH QUEEN BESS XXIX BACK TO GASTON CAREW XXX AT THE FALCON INN XXXI IN THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE XXXII THE LAST OF GASTON CAREW XXXIII CICELY DISAPPEARS XXXIV THE BANDY-LEGGED MAN XXXV A SUDDEN RESOLVE XXXVI WAYFARING HOME XXXVII TURNED ADRIFT XXXVIII A STRANGE DAY XXXIX ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL





LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


“MASTER SKYLARK, THOU SHALT HAVE THY WISH,” SAID QUEEN ELIZABETH THE LORD ADMIRAL’S PLAYERS. THE TRUMPETERS AND THE DRUMMERS LED, THEIR HORSES PRANCING, WHITE PLUMES WAVING IN THE BREEZE “WHUR BE-EST GOING, NICK?” ASKED ROGER DAWSON “WHAT! HOW NOW?” CRIED THE STRANGER, SHARPLY. “DOST LIKE OR LIKE ME NOT?” “NICK THOUGHT OF HIS MOTHER’S SINGING ON A SUMMER’S EVENING—DREW A DEEP BREATH AND BEGAN TO SING “NOBODY BREAKS NOBODY’S HEARTS IN OLD JO-OHN SMITHSES SHO-OP,” DRAWLED THE SMITH, IN HIS DEEP VOICE; “NOR STEALS NOBODY, NOTHER” “DICCON HAD OFTEN MADE NICK WHISTLES FROM THE WILLOWS ALONG THE AVON WHEN NICK WAS A TODDLER” NICK PUT ONE LEG OVER THE SILL AND LOOKED BACK “OH, NICK, THOU ART MOST BEAUTIFUL TO SEE!” CRIED CICELY “THAT VOICE, THAT VOICE!” NAT GILES PANTED TO HIMSELF NICK GAVE THE SILVER BUCKLE FROM HIS CLOAK TO A BOY WHO STOOD CRYING WITH COLD AND HUNGER IN THE STREET SO NICK RODE HOME UPON THE BACK OF THE EARL OF ARUNDEL’S MAN-AT-ARMS “WHY, SIR, I’LL SING FOR THEE NOW,” SAID NICK, CHOKING “DO NA THOU STRIKE ME AGAIN, THOU ROGUE!” SAID NICK “OH, NICK, WHAT IS IT?” SHE CRIED MASTER SHAKSPERE MET THEM WITH OUTSTRETCHED HANDS





MASTER SKYLARK





CHAPTER I
THE LORD ADMIRAL’S PLAYERS


There was an unwonted buzzing in the east end of Stratford on that next to the last day of April, 1596. It was as if some one had thrust a stick into a hive of bees and they had come whirling out to see.

The low stone guard-wall of old Clopton bridge, built a hundred years before by rich Sir Hugh, sometime Mayor of London, was lined with straddling boys, like strawberries upon a spear of grass, and along the low causeway from the west across the lowland to the town, brown-faced, barefoot youngsters sat beside the roadway with their chubby legs a-dangle down the mossy stones, staring away into the south across the grassy levels of the valley of the Stour.

Punts were poling slowly up the Avon to the bridge; and at the outlets of the town, where the streets came down to the waterside among the weeds, little knots of men and serving-maids stood looking into the south and listening. Some had waited for an hour, some for two; yet still there was no sound but the piping of the birds in white-thorn hedges, the hollow lowing of kine knee-deep in grassy meadows, and the long rush of the river through the sedge beside the pebbly shore; and naught to see but quiet valleys, primrose lanes, and Warwick orchards white with bloom, stretching away to the misty hills.

But still they stood and looked and listened.

The wind came stealing up out of the south, soft and warm and sweet and still, moving the ripples upon the river with gray gusts; and, scudding free before the wind, a dog came trotting up the road with wet pink tongue and sidelong gait. At the throat of Clopton bridge he stopped and scanned the way with dubious eye, then clapped his tail between his legs and bolted for the town. The laughing shout that followed him into the Warwick road seemed not to die away, but to linger in the air like the drowsy hum of bees—a hum that came and went at intervals upon the shifting wind, and grew by littles, taking body till it came unbroken as a long, low, distance-muffled murmur from the south, so faint as scarcely to be heard.

Nick Attwood pricked his keen young ears. “They’re coming, Robin—hark ’e to the trampling!”

Robin Getley held his breath and turned his ear toward the south. The far-off murmur was a mutter now, defined and positive, and, as the two friends listened, grew into a drumming roll, and all at once above it came a shrill, high sound like the buzzing of a gnat close by the ear.

Little Tom Davenant dropped from the finger-post, and came running up from the fork of the Banbury road, his feet making little white puffs in the dust as he flew. “They are coming! they are coming!” he shrieked as he ran.

Then up to his feet sprang Robin Getley, upon the saddle-backed coping-stones, his hand upon Nick Attwood’s head to steady himself, and looked away where the rippling Stour ran like a thread of silver beside the dust-buff London road, and the little church of Atherstone stood blue against the rolling Cotswold Hills.

“They are coming! they are coming!” shrilled little Tom, and scrambled up the coping like a squirrel up a rail.

A stir ran out along the guard-wall, some crying out, some starting up. “Sit down! sit down!” cried others, peering askance at the water gurgling green down below. “Sit down, or we shall all be off!”

Robin held his hand above his eyes. A cloud of dust was rising from the London road and drifting off across the fields like smoke when the old ricks burn in damp weather—a long, broad-sheeted mist; and in it were bits of moving gold, shreds of bright colors vaguely seen, and silvery gleams like the glitter of polished metal in the sun. And as he looked the shifty wind came down out of the west again and whirled the cloud of dust away, and there he saw a long line of men upon horses coming at an easy canter up the highway. Just as he had made this out the line came rattling to a stop, the distant drumming of hoofs was still, and as the long file knotted itself into a rosette of ruddy color amid the April green, a clear, shrill trumpet blew and blew again.

“They are coming!” shouted Robin, “they are coming!” and, turning, waved his cap.

A shout went up along the bridge. Those down below came clambering up, the punts came poling with a rush of foam, and a ripple ran along the edge of Stratford town like the wind through a field of wheat. Windows creaked and doors swung wide, and the workmen stopped in the garden-plots to lean upon their mattocks and to look.

“They are coming!” bellowed Rafe Hickathrift, the butcher’s boy, standing far out in the street, with his red hands to his mouth for a trumpet, “they are coming!” and at that the doors of Bridge street grew alive with eager eyes.

At early dawn the Oxford carrier had brought the news that the players of the Lord High Admiral were coming up to Stratford out of London from the south, to play on May-day there; and this was what had set the town to buzzing like a swarm. For there were in England then but three great companies, the High Chamberlain’s, the Earl of Pembroke’s men, and the stage-players of my Lord Charles Howard, High Admiral of the Realm; and the day on which they came into a Midland market-town to play was one to mark with red and gold upon the calendar of the uneventful year.

Away by the old mill-bridge there were fishermen angling for dace and perch; but when the shout came down from the London road they dropped their poles and ran, through the willows and over the gravel, splashing and thrashing among the rushes and sandy shallows, not to be last when the players came. And old John Carter coming down the Warwick road with a load of hay, laid on the lash until piebald Dobbin snorted in dismay and broke into a lumbering run to reach the old stone bridge in time.

The distant horsemen now were coming on again, riding in double file. They had flung their banners to the breeze, and on the changing wind, with the thumping of horses’ hoofs, came by snatches the sound of a kettledrummer drawing his drumhead tight, and beating as he drew, and the muffled blasts of a trumpeter proving his lips.

Fynes Morrison and Walter Stirley, who had gone to Cowslip lane to meet the march, were running on ahead, and shouting as they ran: “There’s forty men, and sumpter-mules! and, oh, the bravest banners and attire—and the trumpets are a cloth-yard long! Make room for us, make room for us, and let us up!”

A bowshot off, the trumpets blew a blast so high, so clear, so keen, that it seemed a flame of fire in the air, and as the brassy fanfare died away across the roofs of the quiet town, the kettledrums clanged, the cymbals clashed, and all the company began to sing the famous old song of the hunt:

“The hunt is up, the hunt is up,
Sing merrily we, the hunt is up!
The wild birds sing,
The dun deer fling,
The forest aisles with music ring!
Tantara, tantara, tantara!

“Then ride along, ride along,
Stout and strong!
Farewell to grief and care;
With a rollicking cheer
For the high dun deer
And a life in the open air!
Tantara, the hunt is up, lads;
Tantara, the bugles bray!
Tantara, tantara, tantara,
Hio, hark away!”

The first of the riders had reached old Clopton bridge, and the banners strained upon their staves in the freshening river-wind. The trumpeters and the drummers led, their horses prancing, white plumes waving in the breeze, and the April sunlight dancing on the brazen horns and the silver bellies of the kettledrums.

Then came the banners of the company, curling down with a silky swish, and unfurling again with a snap, like a broad-lashed whip. The greatest one was rosy red, and on it was a gallant ship upon a flowing sea, bearing upon its mainsail the arms of my Lord Charles Howard, High Admiral of England. Upon its mate was a giant-bearded man with a fish’s tail, holding a trident in his hand and blowing upon a shell, the Triton of the seas which England ruled; this flag was bright sea-blue. The third was white, and on it was a red wild rose with a golden heart, the common standard of the company.


THE LORD ADMIRAL’S PLAYERS. “THE TRUMPETERS AND THE DRUMMERS LED, THEIR HORSES PRANCING, WHITE PLUMES WAVING IN THE BREEZE.”

After the flags came twoscore men, the players of the Admiral, the tiring-men, grooms, horse-boys, and serving-knaves, well mounted on good horses, and all of them clad in scarlet tabards blazoned with the coat-armor of their master. Upon their caps they wore the famous badge of the Howards, a rampant silver demi-lion; and beneath their tabards at the side could be seen their jerkins of many-colored silk,

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