CHAPTER XXX
AT THE FALCON INN
And then there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold; And ice mast-high came floating by, As green as emerald.
So says that wonder-ballad of the sea.
But over London came a gale that made the chimneys rock; and after itcame ice and snow, sharp, stinging sleet, and thumping hail, withsickening winds from the gray west, sour yellow fogs, and plunging rain,till all the world was weary of the winter and the cold.
But winter could not last forever. March crept onward, and the streetsof London came up out of the slush again with a glad surprise ofcobblestones. The sickly mist no longer hung along the river; andsometimes upon a breezy afternoon it was pleasant and fair, the sunshone warmly on one's back, and the rusty sky grew bluer overhead. Thetrees in Paris Garden put out buds; the lilac-tips began to swell; therewas a stirring in the roadside grass, and now and then a questing birdwent by upon the wind, piping a little silver thread of song. Nick'sheart grew hungry for the woods of Arden and the gathering rush of thewaking water-brooks among the old dead leaves. The rain beat in at hiswindow, but he did not care for that, and kept it open day and night;for when he wakened in the dark he loved to feel the fingers of the windacross his face.
Sometimes the moonlight through the ragged clouds came in upon thefloor, and in the hurry of the wind he almost fancied he could hear theAvon, bank-full, rushing under the old mill-bridge.
Then one day there came a shower with a warm south wind, sweet andhealthful and serene; and through the shower, out of the breakingclouds, a sun-gleam like a path of gold straight down to the heart ofLondon town; and on the south wind, down that path of gold, came April.
That night the wind in the chimney fluted a glad, new tune; and whenNick looked out at his casement the free stars danced before him in thesky. And when he felt that fluting wind blow warm and cool together onhis cheek, the chimneys mocked him, and the town was hideous.
* * * * *
It fell upon an April night, when the moon was at its full, that MasterCarew had come to the Falcon Inn, on the Southwark side of the river,and had brought Nick with him for the air. Master Heywood was along, andit was very pleasant there.
The night breeze smelled of green fields, and the inn was thronged withcompany. The windows were bright, and the air was full of voices. Tableshad been brought out into the garden and set beneath the arbor towardthe riverside. The vines of the arbor were shooting forth their firstpink-velvet leaves, and in the moonlight their shadows fell likelacework across the linen cloths, blurred by the glow of the lanternshung upon the posts.
The folds in the linen marked the table-tops with squares like achecker-board, and Nick stood watching from the tap-room door, as if itwere a game. Not that he cared for any game; but that watching dulledthe teeth of the hunger in his heart to be out of the town and backamong the hills of Warwickshire, now that the spring was there.
"What, there!--a pot of sack!" cried one gay fellow with asilver-bordered cloak. "A pot of sack?" cried out another with a featherlike a rose-bush in his cap; "two pots ye mean, my buck!" "Ods-fish myskin!" bawled out a third--"ods-fish my skin! Two pots of beggarly sackon a Saturday night and a moon like this? Three pots, say I--and make itmalmsey, at my cost! What, there, knave! the table full of pots--I'llpay the score."
At that they all began to laugh and to slap one another on the back, andto pound with their fists upon the board until the pewter tankardshopped; and when the tapster's knave came back they were singing at thetop of their lungs, for the spring had gotten into their wits, and theywere beside themselves with merriment.
Master Tom Heywood had a little table to himself off in a corner, andwas writing busily upon a new play. "A sheet a day," said he, "doth doa wonder in a year"; so he was always at it.
Gaston Carew sat beyond, dicing with a silky rogue who had the coldest,hardest face that Nick had ever seen. His eyes were black and beady as arat's, and were circled about by a myriad of little crowfoot lines; andhis hooked nose lay across his thin blue lips like a finger across aslit in a dried pie. His long, slim hands were white as any woman's; andhis fingers slipped among the laces at his cuffs like a weasel in atangle-patch.
They had been playing for an hour, and the game had gone beyond allreason. The other players had put aside the dice to watch the two, andthe nook in which their table stood was ringed with curious faces. Alantern had been hung above, but Carew had had it taken down, as itsbottom made a shadow on the board. Carew's face was red and white byturns; but the face of the other had no more color than candle-wax.
At the end of the arbor some one was strumming upon a gittern. It wasstrung in a different key from that in which the men were singing, andthe jangle made Nick feel all puckered up inside. By and by the playingceased, and the singers came to the end of their song. In the brief hushthe sharp rattle of the dice sounded like the patter of cold hailagainst the shutter in the lull of a winter storm.
Then there came a great shouting outside, and, looking through thearbor, Nick saw two couriers on galloway nags come galloping over thebowling-green to the arbor-side, calling for ale. They drank it intheir saddles, while their panting horses sniffed at the fresh younggrass. Then they galloped on. Through the vines, as he looked afterthem, Nick could see the towers of London glittering strangely in themoonlight. It was nearly high tide, and up from the river came the soundof women's voices and laughter, with the pulse-like throb of oars andthe hoarse calling of the watermen.
In the great room of the inn behind him the gallants were taking theirsnuff in little silver ladles, and talking of princesses they had met,and of whose coach they had ridden home in last from tennis at mylord's. Some were eating, some were drinking, and some were puffing atlong clay pipes, while others, by twos, locked arm in arm, wentswaggering up and down the room, with a huge talking of foreign landswhich they had never so much as seen.
"A murrain on the luck!" cried Carew, suddenly. "Can I throw nothing butthrees and fours?"
A muffled stir ran round. Nick turned from the glare of the open door,and looked out into the moonlight. It seemed quite dark at first. Themaster-player's face was bitter white, and his fingers were tapping aqueer staccato upon the table-top.
"A plague on the bedlam dice!" said he. "I think they are bewitched."
"Huff, ruff, and snuff!" the other replied. "Don't get themubble-fubbles, Carew: there's nought the matter with the dice."
A man came down from the tap-room door. Nick stepped aside to let himpass. He was a player, by his air.
He wore a riding-cloak of Holland cloth, neither so good nor so bad as ariding-cloak might be, but under it a handsome jerkin overlaid withlace, and belted with a buff girdle in which was a light Spanish rapier.His boots were russet cordovan, mid-thigh tall, and the rowels of hisclinking spurs were silver stars. He was large of frame, and his curlyhair was short and brown; so was his pointed beard. His eyes weresingularly bright and fearless, and bluff self-satisfaction marked hisstride; but his under lip was petulant, and he flicked his boot with hisriding-whip as he shouldered his way along.
"Ye cannot miss the place, sir," called the tapster after him. "'Tisjust beyond Ned Alleyn's, by the ditch. Ye'll never mistake the ditch,sir--Billingsgate is roses to it."
"Oh, I'll find it fast enough," the stranger answered; "but he shouldhave sent to meet me, knowing I might come at any hour. 'Tis a felonplace for thieves; and I've not heart to skewer even a goose on such anight as this."
At the sudden breaking of voices upon the silence, Carew looked up, witha quarrel ripe for picking in his eye. But seeing who spoke, such asmile came rippling from the corners of his mouth across his dark,unhappy face that it was as if a lamp of welcome had been lighted there."What, Ben!" he cried; "thou here? Why, bless thine heart, old gossip,'tis good to see an honest face amid this pack of rogues."
There was a surly muttering in the crowd. Carew threw his head backhaugh
tily and set his knuckles to his hip. "A pack of rogues, I say," herepeated sharply; "and a fig for the whole pack!" There was a certainwildness in his eyes. No one stirred or made reply.
"Good! Gaston," laughed the stranger, with a shrug; "picking thy companystill, I see, for quantity, and not for quality. No, thank 'e; none ofthe tap for me. My Lord Hunsdon was made chamberlain in his father'sstead to-day, and I'm off hot-foot with the news to Will's."
He gathered his cloak about him, and was gone.
"Ye've lost," said the man who was dicing with Carew.
Nick stepped down from the tap-room door. His ears were tingling withthe sound: "I'm off hot-foot with the news to Will's."
"Hot-foot with the news to Will's"?
To "Will's"? "Will" who?
The man was a player, by his air.
Nick hurriedly looked around. Carew's wild eyes were frozen upon thedice. The bandy-legged man was drinking at a table near the door. Thecrimson ribbon in his ear looked like a patch of blood.
He saw Nick looking at him, and made a horrible face. He would havesworn likewise, but there was half a quart of ale in his can; so heturned it up and drank instead. It was a long, long drink, and half hisface was buried in the pot.
When he put it down the boy was gone.