CHAPTER XV
LONDON TOWN
"Come," growled the blacksmith, gripping his tongs, "what wilt thou haveo' the lad?"
"What will I have o' the lad?" said Master Carew, mimicking theblacksmith in a most comical way, with a wink at the crowd, as if he hadnever been angry at all, so quickly could he change his face--"What willI have o' the lad?" and all the crowd laughed. "Why, bless thy gentleheart, good man, I want to turn his farthings into round gold crowns--ifthou and thine infernal hot shoe do not make zanies of us all! Why,Master Smith, 'tis to London town I'd take him, and fill his hands withmore silver shillings than there be cast-off shoes in thy whole shop."
"La, now, hearken till him!" gaped the smith, staring in amazement.
"And here thou needs must up and spoil it all, because, forsooth, thesilly child goes a trifle sick for home and whimpers for his minnie!"
"But the lad saith thou hast stealed him awa-ay from 's ho-ome,"rumbled the smith, like a doubtful earthquake; "and we'll ha' nostealing o' lads awa-ay from ho-ome in County Herts!"
"Nay, that we won't!" cried one. "Hurrah, John Smith--fair play, fairplay!" and there came an ugly, threatening murmur from the crowd.
"What! Fair play?" cried Master Carew, turning so sharply about, withhis hand upon his poniard, that each made as if it were not he but hisneighbor had growled. "Why, sirs, what if I took any one of ye out ofyour poverty and common clothes down into London town, horseback like aking, and had ye sing before the Queen, and play for earls, and talkwith the highest dames in all the land; and fed ye well, and spoke yefair, and lodged ye soft, and clad ye fine, and wrought the whole townon to cheer ye, and to fill your purses full of gold? What, sir," saidhe, turning to the gaping farrier--"what if I promised thee to turnthine every word to a silver sixpence, and thy smutty grins to goldenangels--what wouldst thou? Knock me in the head with thy dirty sledge,and bawl foul play?"
"Nay, that I'd not," roared the burly smith, with a stupid, ox-likegrin, scratching his tousled head; "I'd say, 'Go it, bully, and a plagueon him that said thee nay!'"
"And yet when I would fill this silly fellow's jerkin full of good goldHarry shovel-boards for the simple drawing of his breath, ye bawl'Foul play!'"
"What, here! come out, lad," roared the smith, with a great horse-laugh,swinging Nick forward and thwacking him jovially between the shoulderswith his brawny hand; "come out, and go along o' the master here,--'tisfor thy good,--and ho-ome wull keep, I trow, till thou dost come again."
But Nick hung back, and clung to the blacksmith's grimy arm, crying indespair: "I will na--oh, I will na!"
"Tut, tut!" cried Master Carew. "Come, Nicholas; I mean thee well, I'llspeak thee fair, and I'll treat thee true"--and he smiled so franklythat even Nick's doubts almost wavered. "Come, I'll swear it on myhilt," said he.
The smith's brow clouded. "Nay," said he; "we'll no swearing by hilts orby holies here; the bailiff will na have it, sir."
"Good! then upon mine honour as an Englishman!" cried Carew. "What, how,bullies? Upon mine honour as an Englishman!--how is it? Here we be, allEnglishmen together!" and he clapped his hand to Will Hostler'sshoulder, whereat Will stood up very straight and looked around, as ifall at once he were somebody instead of somewhat less than nobody at allof any consequence. "What!--ye are all for fair play?--and I am for fairplay, and good Master Smith, with his beautiful shoe, here, is for fairplay! Why, sirs, my bullies, we are all for fair play; and what more cana man ask than good, downright English fair play? Nothing, say I. Fairplay first, last, and all the time!" and he waved his hand. "Hurrah fordownright English fair play!"
"Hurrah, hurrah!" bellowed the crowd, swept along like bubbles in aflood. "Fair play, says we--English fair play--hurrah!" And those insidewaved their hands, and those that were outside tossed up their caps, insheer delight of good fair play.
"Hurrah, my bullies! That's the cry!" said Carew, in hishail-fellow-well-met, royal way. "Why, we're the very best of fellows,and the very fastest friends! Come, all to the old Three Lions inn, anddouse a can of brown March brew at my expense. To the Queen, to goodfair play, and to all the fine fellows in Albans town!"
And what did the crowd do but raise a shout, like a parcel ofschool-boys loosed for a holiday, and troop off to the Three Lions innat Master Carew's heels, Will Hostler and the brawny smith bringing upthe rear with Nick between them, hand to collar, half forgotten by therest, and his heart too low for further grief.
And while the crowd were still roaring over their tankards and cheeringgood fair play, Master Gaston Carew up with his prisoner into thesaddle, and, mounting himself, with the bandy-legged man grinningopposite, shook the dust of old St. Albans from his horse's heels.
"Now, Nicholas Attwood," said he, grimly, as they galloped away, "hark'e well to what I have to say, and do not let it slip thy mind. I amwilled to take thee to London town--dost mark me?--and to London townthou shalt go, warm or cold. By the whistle of the Lord High Admiral, Imean just what I say! So thou mayst take thy choice."
He gripped Nick's shoulder as they rode, and glared into his eyes as ifto sear them with his own. Nick heard his poniard grating in its sheath,and shut his eyes so that he might not see the master-player's horridstare; for the opening and shutting, opening and shutting, of the bluelids made him shudder.
"And what's more," said Carew, sternly, "I shall call thee MasterSkylark from this time forth--dost hear? And when I bid thee go, thou'ltgo; and when I bid thee come, thou'lt come; and when I say, 'Here,follow me!' thou'lt follow like a dog to heel!" He drew up his lip untilhis white teeth showed, and Nick, hearing them gritting together, shrankback dismayed.
"There!" laughed Carew, scornfully. "He that knows better how to tame avixen or to cozen a pack of gulls, now let him speak!" and said no moreuntil they passed by Chipping Barnet. Then, "Nick," said he, in a quiet,kindly tone, as if they had been friends for years, "this is the placewhere Warwick fell"; and pointed down the field. "There in the corner ofthat croft they piled the noble dead like corn upon a threshing-floor.Since then," said he, with quiet irony, "men have stopped making Englishkings as the Dutch make dolls, of a stick and a poll thereon."
Pleased with hearing his own voice, he would have gone on with manyanother thing; but seeing that Nick listened not at all to what he said,he ceased, and rode on silently or chatting with the others.
The country through Middlesex was in most part flat, and heavy forestsoverhung the road from time to time. There the players slipped theirponiards, and rode with rapier in hand; for many a dark deed and cruelrobbery had been done along this stretch of Watling street. And as theypassed, more than one dark-visaged rogue with branded hand and a priceupon his head peered at them from the copses by the way.
In places where the woods crept very near they pressed closer togetherand rode rapidly; and the horse-boy and the grooms lit up the matches oftheir pistolets, and laid their harquebuses ready in rest, and blew thecreeping sparkle snapping red at every turn; not so much really fearingan attack upon so stout a party of reckless, dashing blades, as beingoverawed by the great, mysterious silence of the forest, thesemi-twilight all about, and the cold, strange-smelling wind that fannedtheir faces.
The wild spattering of hoofs in water-pools that lay unsucked by the sunin shadowy stretches, the grim silence of the riders, and the wary eyingof each covert as they passed, sent a thrill of excitement into Nick'sheart too keen for any boy to resist.
Then, too, it was no everyday tale to be stolen away from home. It was awild, strange thing with a strange, wild sound to it, not altogetherterrible or unpleasant to a brave boy's ears in that wonder-filled age,when all the world was turned adventurer, and England led the fore; whenFrancis Drake and the "Golden Hind," John Hawkins and the "Victory,"Frobisher and his cockleshells, were gossip for every English fireside;when the whole world rang with English steel, and the wide sea foamedwith English keels, and the air was full of the blaze of the living andthe ghosts of the mighty dead. And down in Nick's plucky yo
ung Englishheart there came a spark like that which burns in the soul of a marinerwhen for the first time an unknown ocean rolls before his eyes.
So he rode on bravely, filled with a sense of daring and the thrill ofperils more remote than Master Carew's altogether too adjacent poniard,as well as with a sturdy determination to escape at the firstopportunity, in spite of all the master-player's threats.
Up Highgate Hill they rattled in a bracing northeast wind, the ruggedcountry bowling back against the tumbled sky. Far to south a rusty hazehad gloomed against the sun like a midday fog, mile after mile; andsuddenly, as they topped the range and cleared the last low hill, theysaw a city in the south spreading away until it seemed to Nick to girdlehalf the world and to veil the sky in a reek of murky sea-coal smoke.
"There!" said Carew, reining in the gray, as Nick looked up and felt hisheart almost stand still; "since Parma burned old Antwerp, and the LowCountries are dead, there lies the market-heart of all the biground world!"
"London!" cried Nick, and, catching his breath with a quick gasp, satspeechless, staring.
Carew smiled. "Ay, Nick," said he, cheerily; "'tis London town. Pluckup thine heart, lad, and be no more cast down; there lies a New Worldready to thine hand. Thou canst win it if thou wilt. Come, let it bethine Indies, thou Francis Drake, and I thy galleon to carry home thespoils! And cheer up. It grieves my heart to see thee sad. Be merryfor my sake."
"For thy sake?" gasped Nick, staring blankly in his face. "Why, whathast thou done for me?" A sudden sob surprised him, and he clenched hisfists--it was too cruel irony. "Why, sir, if thou wouldst only leaveme go!"
"Tut, tut!" cried Carew, angrily. "Still harping on that same oldstring? Why, from thy waking face I thought thou hadst dropped it longago. Let thee go? Not for all the wealth in Lombard street! Dost thinkme a goose-witted gull?--and dost ask what I have done for thee? Thousimpleton! I have made thee rise above the limits of thy wildestdream--have shod thy feet with gold--have filled thy lap withglory--have crowned thine head with fame! And yet, 'What have I done forthee?' Fie! Thou art a stubborn-hearted little fool. But, marry come up!I'll mend thy mind. I'll bend thy will to suit my way, or break it inthe bending!"
Clapping his hand upon his poniard, he turned his back, and did notspeak to Nick again.
And so they came down the Kentish Town road through a meadow-landthreaded with flowing streams, the wild hill thickets of Hampstead Heathto right, the huddling villages of Islington, Hoxton, and Clerkenwell toleft. And as they passed through Kentish Town, past Primrose Hill intoHampstead way, solitary farm-houses and lowly cottages gave way toburgher dwellings in orderly array, with manor-houses here and there,and in the distance palaces and towers reared their heads above thecrowding chimney-pots.
Then the players dressed themselves in fair array, and flung theirbanners out, and came through Smithfield to Aldersgate, mocking the grimold gibbet there with railing gaiety; and through the gate rode intoLondon town, with a long, loud cheer that brought the people crowding totheir doors, and set the shutters creaking everywhere.
Nick was bewildered by the countless shifting gables and the throngs ofpeople flowing onward like a stream, and stunned by the roar that seemedto boil out of the very ground. The horses' hoofs clashed on theunevenly paved street with a noise like a thousand smithies. The houseshung above him till they almost hid the sky, and seemed to be reelingand ready to fall upon his head when he looked up; so that he urged thelittle roan with his uneasy heels, and wished himself out of thismonstrous ruck where the walls were so close together that there was notelbow-room to live, and the air seemed only heat, thick and stifling,full of dust and smells.
Shop after shop, and booth on booth, until Nick wondered where thegardens were; and such a maze of lanes, byways, courts, blind alleys,and passages that his simple country footpath head went all into atangle, and he could scarcely have told Tottenham Court road from theriver Thames.
All that he remembered afterward was that, turning from High Holborninto the Farringdon road, he saw a great church, under Ludgate Hill,with spire burned and fallen, and its massive tower, black with age andsmoke, staring on the town. But he was too confused to know whither theywent or what he saw in passing; for of such a forest of houses he hadnever even dreamed, with people swarming everywhere like ants upon ahill, and among them all not one kind face he knew. Through the spiritof adventure that had roused him for a time welled up a greatheart-sickness for his mother and his home.
Out of a bewildered daze he came at last to realize this much: that themaster-player's house was very tall and very dark, standing in a dismal,dirty street, and that it had a gloomy hallway full of shadows thatcrept and wavered along the wall in the dim light of the late afternoon.
Then the master-player pushed him up a narrow staircase and along ablack corridor to a door at the end of the passage, through which hethrust him into a darkness like night, and slammed the door behind him.
Nick heard the bolts shoot heavily, and Master Carew call through theheavy panels: "Now, Jackanapes, sit down and chew the cud of solitudeawhile. It may cool thy silly pate for thee, since nothing else willserve. When thou hast found thy common sense, perchance thou'lt find thyfreedom, not before." Then his step went down the corridor, down thestair, through the long hall--a door banged with a hollow sound thatechoed through the house, and all was still.
At first, in the utter darkness, Nick could not see at all, and did notmove for fear of falling down some awful hole; but as his eyes grewused to the gloom he saw that he was in a little room. The only windowwas boarded up, but a dim light crept in through narrow cracks and madefaint bars across the air. Little motes floated up and down these thinblue bars, wavering in the uncertain light and then lost in thedarkness. Upon the floor was a pallet of straw, covered with a coarsesheet, and having a rough coverlet of sheepskin. A round log was theonly pillow.
Something moved. Nick, startled, peered into the shadows: it was a stripof ragged tapestry which fluttered on the wall. As he watched itflapping fitfully there came a hollow rattle in the wainscot, and anuncanny sound like the moaning of wind in the chimney.
"Let me out!" he cried, beating upon the door. "Let me out, I say!" Astealthy footstep seemed to go away outside. "Mother, mother!" he criedshrilly, now quite unstrung by fright, and beat frantically upon thedoor until his hands ached; but no one answered. The window was beyondhis reach. Throwing himself upon the hard pallet, he hid his eyes in thecoverlet, and cried as if his heart would break.