CHAPTER XXIX
BACK TO GASTON CAREW
So they marched back out of the palace gates, down to the landing-place,the last red sunlight gleaming on the basinets of the tall halberdierswho marched on either side.
Nick looked out toward London, where the river lay like a serpent,bristling with masts; and beyond the river and the town to the forestsof Epping and Hainault; and beyond the forests to the hills, where thewaning day still lingered in a mist of frosty blue. At their back,midway of the Queen's park, stood up the old square tower Mirefleur, andon its top one yellow light like the flame of a gigantic candle. The dayseemed builded of memories strange and untrue.
A belated gull flapped by them heavily, and the red sun went down.England was growing lonely. A great barge laden with straw came out ofthe dusk, and was gone without a sound, its ghostly sail drawing in awind that the wherry sat too low to feel. Nick held his breath as thebarge went by: it was unreal, fantastical.
Then the river dropped between its banks, and the woods and the hillswere gone. The tide ran heavily against the shore, and the wake of thewherry broke the floating stars into cold white streaks and zigzagripplings of raveled light that ran unsteadily after them. The craft atanchor in the Pool had swung about upon the flow, and pointed down toGreenwich. A hush had fallen upon the never-ending bustle of the town;and the air was full of a gray, uncanny afterglow which seemed to comeup out of the water, for the sky was grown quite dark.
They were all wrapped in their boat-cloaks, tired and silent. Now andthen Nick dipped his fingers into the cold water over the gunwale.
This was the end of the glory.
He wished the boat would go a little faster. Yet when they came to thelanding he was sorry.
The man-at-arms who went with him to Master Carew's house was one of theEarl of Arundel's men, in a stiff-wadded jacket of heron-blue, with theearls colors richly worked upon its back and his badge upon the sleeves.Prowlers gave way before him in the streets, for he was broad and talland mighty, and the fear of any man was not in the look of his eye.
As they came up the slow hill, Nick sighed, for the long-leggedman-at-arms walked fast. "What, there!" said he, and clapped Nick on theshoulder with his bony hand; "art far spent, lad? Why, marry, get theeupon my back. I'll jog thee home in the shake of a black sheep's tail."
So Nick rode home upon the back of the Earl of Arundel's man-at-arms;and that, too, seemed a dream like all the rest.
When they came to Master Carew's house the street was dark, and Nick'sfoot was asleep. He stamped it, tingling, upon the step, and the emptypassage echoed with the sound. Then the earl's man beat the door withthe pommel of his dagger-hilt, and stood with his hands upon his hips,carelessly whistling a little tune.
Nick heard a sound of some one coming through the hall, and felt that atlast the day was done. A tired wonder wakened in his heart at how somuch had come to pass in such a little while; yet more he wondered whyit had ever come to pass at all. And what was the worth of it, anyway,now it was over and gone?
Then the door opened, and he went in.
Master Gaston Carew himself had come to the door, walking quicklythrough the hallway, with a queer, nervous twitching in his face. Butwhen he made out through the dusk that it was Nick, he seemed in no wisemoved, and said quite simply, as he gave the man-at-arms a penny: "Oh,is it thou? Why, we have heard somewhat of thee; and upon my word Ithought, since thou wert grown so great, thou wouldst come home in acoach-and-four, all blowing horns!"
Nevertheless he drew Nick quickly in, and kissed him thrice; and afterhe had kissed him kept fast hold of his hand until they came togetherthrough the hall into the great room where Cicely was sitting quitedismally in the chimney-seat alone.
"SO NICK RODE HOME UPON THE BACK OF THE EARL OF ARUNDEL'SMAN-AT-ARMS."]
"There, Nick," said he; "tell her thyself that thou hast come back. Shethought she had lost thee for good and all, and hath sung, 'Hey ho, myheart is full of woe!' the whole twilight, and would not be comforted.Come, Cicely, doff thy doleful willow--the proverb lies. 'Out of sight,out of mind'--fudge! the boy's come back again! A plague takeproverbs, anyway!"
But when the children were both long since abed, and all the house wasstill save for the scamper of rats in the wall, the heavy door of Nick'sroom opened stealthily, with a little grating upon the uneven sill, andMaster Carew stood there, peeping in, his hand upon the bolt outside.
He held a rush-light in the other. Its glimmer fell across the bed uponNick's tousled hair; and when the master-player saw the boy's head uponthe pillow he started eagerly, with brightening eyes. "My soul!" hewhispered to himself, a little quaver in his tone, "I would have swornmy own desire lied to me, and that he had not come at all! It cannotbe--yet, verily, I am not blind. _Ma foil_ it passeth understanding--afreed skylark come back to its cage! I thought we had lost him forever."
Nick stirred in his sleep. Carew set the light on the floor. "Thoufool!" said he, and he fumbled at his pouch; "thou dear-beloved littlefool! To catch the skirts of glory in thine hand, and tread the heels ofhappy chance, and yet come back again to ill-starred twilight--and tome! Ai, lad, I would thou wert my son--mine own, own son; yet Heavenspare thee father such as I! For, Nick, I love thee. Yet thou dost hateme like a poison thing. And still I love thee, on my word, and on theremnant of mine honour!" His voice was husky. "Let thee go?--send theeback?--eat my sweet and have it too?--how? Nay, nay; thy happy cakewould be my dough--it will not serve." He shook his head, and lookedabout to see that all was fast. "Yet, Nick, I say I love thee, onmy soul!"
Slipping to the bedside with stealthy step, he laid a fat little Banburycheese and some brown sweet cakes beside Nick's pillow; then came outhurriedly and barred the door.
The fire in the great hall had gone out, and the room was growing cold.The table stood by the chimney-side, where supper had been laid, Carewbrought a napkin from the linen-chest, and spread it upon the board.Then he went to the server's screen and looked behind it, and tried thelatches of the doors; and having thus made sure that all was safe, cameback to the table again, and setting the rush-light there, turned thecontents of his purse into the napkin.
There were both gold and silver. The silver he put back into the purseagain; the gold he counted carefully; and as he counted, laying thepieces one by one in little heaps upon the cloth, he muttered under hisbreath, like a small boy adding up his sums in school, saying over andover again, "One for me, and one for thee, and two for Cicely Carew. Onefor me, and one for thee, and two for Cicely Carew"; and told the coinsoff in keeping with the count, so that the last pile was as large asboth the others put together. Then slowly ending, "None for me, and onefor thee, and two for Cicely Carew," he laid the last three nobleswith the rest.
Then he arose and stood a moment listening to the silence in the house.An old he rat that was gnawing a rind on the hearth looked up, and ran alittle nearer to his hole. "Tsst! come back," said Carew, "I'm no cat!"and from the sliding panel in the wall took out a buckskin bag tied likea meal-sack with a string.
As he slipped the knot the throat of the bag sagged down, and a goldpiece jangled on the floor. Carew started as if all his nerves hadleaped within him at the unexpected sound, and closed the panel like aflash. Then, setting his foot upon the fallen coin, he stopped itsspinning, and with one hand on his poniard, peering right and left, blewthe candle out.
A little while he stood and listened in the dark; a little while hisfeet went to and fro in the darkness. The wind cried in the chimney. Nowand then the casements shivered. The timbers in the wall creaked withthe cold, and the boards in the stairway cracked. Then the old he ratcame back to his rind, and his mate came out of the crack in the wall,working her whiskers hungrily and snuffing the smell of the candle-drip;for there was no sound, and the coast of rat-land was clear.