CHAPTER XXXIII
CICELY DISAPPEARS
That Master Will Shakspere should be so great seemed passing strange toNick, he felt so soon at home with him. It seemed as if the master-makerof plays had a magic way of going out to and about the people he met,and of fitting his humor to them as though he were a glover with theirmeasure in his hand.
With Nick he was nothing all day long but a jolly, wise, andgentle-hearted boy, wearing his greatness like an old cloth coat, as ifit were a long-accustomed thing, and quite beyond all pride, and wentabout his business in a very simple way. But in the evening when thewits were met together at his house, and Nick sat on the hindmost benchand watched the noble gentlemen who came to listen to the sport, MasterWill Shakspere seemed to have the knack of being ever best among themall, yet of never too much seeming to be better than the rest.
And though, for the most part, he said but little, save when some petfancy moved him, when he did speak his conversation sparkled like alittle meadow brook that drew men's best thoughts out of them likewater from a spring.
And when they fell to bantering, he could turn the fag-end of anotherman's nothing to good account in a way so shrewd that not even MasterBen Jonson could better him--and Master Ben Jonson set up for a wit. ButMaster Shakspere came about as quickly as an English man-of-war, dodgedhere and there on a breath of wind, and seemed quite everywhere at once;while Master Jonson tacked and veered, and loomed across the elementslike a great galleon, pouring forth learned broadsides with a mostprodigious boom, riddling whatever was in the way, to be sure, but oftenquite missing the point--because Master Shakspere had come about, hey,presto, change! and was off with the argument, point and all, upon atotally different tack.
Then "Tush!" and "Fie upon thee, Will!" Master Jonson would cry with hisgreat bluff-hearted laugh, "thou art a regular flibbertigibbet! I'llcatch thee napping yet, old heart, and fill thee so full of pepper-holesthat thou wilt leak epigrams. But quits--I must be home, or I shallcatch it from my wife. Faith, Will, thou shouldst see my little Ben!"
"I'll come some day," Master Shakspere would say; "give him my love";and his mouth would smile, though his eyes were sad, for his own sonHamnet was dead.
Then, when the house was still again, and all had said good-by, Nickdoffed his clothes and laid him down to sleep in peace. Yet he oftenwakened in the night, because his heart was dancing so.
In the morning, when the world began to stir outside, and the earlylight came in at the window, he slipped out of bed across the floor, andthrew the casement wide. Over the river, and over the town, and over thehills that lay blue in the north, was Stratford!
The damp, cool air from the garden below seemed a primrose whiff fromthe lane behind his father's house. He could hear the cocks crowing inSurrey, and the lowing of the kine. There was a robin singing in a bushunder the window, and there was some one in the garden with a pair ofpruning-shears. Snip-snip! snip-snip! he heard them going. The light inthe east was pink as a peach-bloom and too intense to bear.
"Good-morrow, Master Early-bird!" a merry voice called up to him, and anosegay dropped on the window-ledge at his side. He looked down. Therein the path among the rose-trees was Master Will Shakspere, laughing. Hehad on an ancient leathern jacket and a hat with a hole in its crown;and the skirts of the jacket were dripping with dew from the bushes.
"Good-morrow, sir," said Nick, and bowed. "It is a lovely day."
"Most beautiful indeed! How comes the sun?"
"Just up, sir; the river is afire with it now. O-oh!" Nick held hisbreath, and watched the light creep down the wall, darting long bars ofrosy gold through the snowy bloom of the apple-trees, until it restedupon Master Shakspere's face, and made a fleeting glory there.
Then Master Shakspere stretched himself a little in the sun, laughingsoftly, and said, "It is the sweetest music in the world--morning,spring, and God's dear sunshine; it starteth kindness brewing in theheart, like sap in a withered bud. What sayest, lad? We'll fetch thelittle maid to-day; and then--away for Stratford town!"
* * * * *
But when Master Shakspere and Nicholas Attwood came to Gaston Carew'shouse, the constables had taken charge, the servants were scatteringhither and thither, and Cicely Carew was gone.
The bandy-legged man, the butler said, had come on Sunday in greathaste, and packing up his goods, without a word of what had befallen hismaster, had gone away, no one knew whither, and had taken Cicely withhim. Nor had they questioned what he did, for they all feared the rogue,and judged him to have authority.
Nick caught a moment at the lintel of the door. The house was full ofvoices, and the sound of trampling feet went up and down from room toroom; but all he heard was Gaston Carew's worn voice saying, "Thou'ltkeep my Cicely from harm?"