THE MAY-DAY PLAY
It was soon afternoon. All Coventry was thronged with people keeping
holiday, and at the Blue Boar a scene of wild confusion reigned.
Tap-room and hall were crowded with guests, and in the cobbled court
horses innumerable stamped and whinnied. The players, with knitted
brows, stalked about the quieter nooks, going over their several parts,
and looking to their costumes, which were for the most part upon their
backs; while the thumping and pounding of the carpenters at work upon
the stage in the inn-yard were enough to drive a quiet-loving
person wild.
Nick scarcely knew whether he were on his head or on his heels. The
master-player would not let him eat at all after once breaking his fast,
for fear it might affect his voice, and had him say his lines a hundred
times until he had them pat. Then he was off, directing here, there, and
everywhere, until the court was cleared of all that had no business
there, and the last surreptitious small boy had been duly projected
from the gates by Peter Hostler’s hobnailed boot.
“Now, Nick,” said Carew, coming up all in a gale, and throwing a
sky-blue silken cloak about Nick’s shoulders, “thou’lt enter here”; and
he led him to a hallway door just opposite the gates. “When Master
Whitelaw, as the Duke, calls out, ‘How now, who comes?—I’ll match him
for the ale!’ be quickly in and answer to thy part; and, marry, boy,
don’t miss thy cues, or—tsst, thy head’s not worth a peascod!” With
that he clapped his hand upon his poniard and glared into Nick’s eyes,
as if to look clear through to the back of the boy’s wits. Nick heard
his white teeth grind, and was all at once very much afraid of him, for
he did indeed look dreadful.
So Nicholas Attwood stood by the entry door, with his heart in his
throat, waiting his turn.
He could hear the pages in the courtyard outside shouting for stools for
their masters, and squabbling over the best places upon the stage. Then
the gates creaked, and there came a wild rush of feet and a great crying
out as the ’prentices and burghers trooped into the inn-yard, pushing
and crowding for places near the stage. Those who had the money bawled
aloud for farthing stools. The rest stood jostling in a wrangling crowd
upon the ground, while up and down a girl’s shrill voice went all the
time, crying high, “Cherry ripe, cherry ripe! Who’ll buy my sweet May
cherries?”
Then there was another shout, and a rattling tread of feet along the
wooden balconies that ran around the walls of the inn-yard, and cries
from the apprentices below: “Good-day, fair Master Harrington! Good-day,
Sir Thomas Parkes! Good-day, sweet Mistress Nettleby and Master
Nettleby! Good-day, good-day, good-day!” for the richer folk were coming
in at twopence each, and all the galleries were full. And then he heard
the baker’s boy with sugared cakes and ginger-nuts go stamping up
the stairs.
The musicians in the balcony overhead were tuning up. There was a flute,
a viol, a gittern, a fiddle, and a drum; and behind the curtain, just
outside the door, Nick could hear the master-player’s low voice giving
hasty orders to the others.
So he said his lines all over to himself, and cleared his throat. Then
on a sudden a shutter opened high above the orchestra, a trumpet blared,
the kettledrum crashed, and he heard a loud voice shout:
“Good citizens of Coventry, and high-born gentles all: know ye now that
we, the players of the company of His Grace, Charles, Lord Howard, High
Admiral of England, Ireland, Wales, Calais, and Boulogne, the marches of
Normandy, Gascony, and Aquitaine, Captain-General of the Navy and the
Seas of Her Gracious Majesty the Queen—”
At that the crowd in the courtyard cheered and cheered again.
“—will, with your kind permission, play forthwith the laughable comedy
of ‘The Three Grey Gowns,’ by Master Thomas Heywood, in which will be
spoken many good things, old and new, and a brand-new song will be sung.
Now, hearken all—the play begins!”
The trumpet blared, the kettledrum crashed again, and as a sudden hush
fell over the throng without Nick heard the voices of the players
going on.
It was a broad farce, full of loud jests and nonsense, a great thwacking
of sticks and tumbling about; and Nick, with his eye to the crack of the
door, listened with all his ears for his cue, far too excited even to
think of laughing at the rough jokes, though the crowd in the inn-yard
roared till they held their sides.
Carew came hurrying up, with an anxious look in his restless eyes.
“Ready, Nicholas!” said he, sharply, taking Nick by the arm and lifting
the latch. “Go straight down front now as I told thee—mind thy
cues—speak boldly—sing as thou didst sing for me—and if thou wouldst
not break mine heart, do not fail me now! I have staked it all upon thee
here—and we _must_ win!”
“How now, who comes?” Nick heard a loud voice call outside—the
door-latch clicked behind him—he was out in the open air and down the
stage before he quite knew where he was.
The stage was built against the wall just opposite the gates. It was but
a temporary platform of planks laid upon trestles. One side of it was
against the wall, and around the three other sides the crowd was packed
close to the platform rail.
At the ends, upon the boards, several wealthy gallants sat on high,
three-legged stools, within arm’s reach of the players acting there. The
courtyard was a sea of heads, and the balconies were filled with
gentlefolk in holiday attire, eating cakes and chaffing gaily at the
play. All was one bewildered cloud of staring eyes to Nick, and the only
thing which he was sure he saw was the painted sign that hung upon the
curtain at the rear, which in the lack of other scenery announced in
large red print: “This is a Room in Master Jonah Jackdawe’s House.”
And then he heard the last quick words, “I’ll match him for the ale!”
and started on his lines.
It was not that he said so ill what little he had to say, but that his
voice was homelike and familiar in its sound, one of their own, with no
amazing London accent to the words—just the speech of every-day, the
sort that they all knew.
First, some one in the yard laughed out—a shock-headed ironmonger’s
apprentice, “Whoy, bullies, there be hayseed in his hair. ’Tis took off
pasture over-soon. I fecks! they’ve plucked him green!”
There was a hoarse, exasperating laugh. Nick hesitated in his lines. The
player at his back tried to prompt him, but only made the matter worse,
and behind the green curtain at the door a hand went “clap” upon a
dagger-hilt. The play lagged, and the crowd began to jeer. Nick’s heart
was full of fear and of angry shame that he had dared to try. Then all
at once there came a brief pause, in which he vaguely realized that no
one spoke. The man behind him thrust him forward, and whispering
wrathfully, “Quick, quick—sing up, thou little fool!” stepped back and
left him there alone.
[Illustration: “NICK THOUGHT OF HIS MOTHER’S SINGING ON A SUMMER’S
EVENING—DREW A DEEP BREATH AND BEGAN TO SING.”]
A viol overhead took up the time, the gittern struck a few sharp
notes. This unexpected music stopped the noise, and all was still. Nick
thought of his mother’s voice singing on a summer’s evening among the
hollyhocks, and as the viol’s droning died away he drew a deep breath
and began to sing the words of “Heywood’s newest song”:
“Pack, clouds, away, and welcome, day;
With night we banish sorrow;
Sweet air, blow soft; mount, lark, aloft,
To give my love good-morrow!”
It was only a part of a madrigal, the air to which they had fitted the
words,—the same air that Nick had sung in the woods,—a thing scarce
meant ever to be sung alone, a simple strain, a few plain notes, and at
the close one brief, queer, warbling trill like a bird’s wild song, that
rose and fell and rose again like a silver ripple.
The instruments were still; the fresh young voice came out alone, and it
was done so soon that Nick hardly knew that he had sung at all. For a
moment no one seemed to breathe. Then there was a very great noise, and
all the court seemed hurling at him. A man upon the stage sprang to his
feet. What they were going to do to him Nick did not know. He gave a
frightened cry, and ran past the green curtain, through the open door,
and into the master-player’s excited arms.
“Quick, quick!” cried Carew. “Go back, go back! There, hark!—dost not
hear them call? Quick, out again—they call thee back!” With that he
thrust Nick through the door. The man upon the stage came up, slipped
something into his hand—Nick, all bewildered, knew not what; and there
he stood, quite stupefied, not knowing what to do. Then Carew came out
hastily and led him down the stage, bowing, and pressing his hand to his
heart, and smiling like a summer sunrise; so that Nick, seeing this, did
the same, and bowed as neatly as he could; though, to be sure, his was
only a simple, country-bred bow, and no such ceremonious to-do as Master
Carew’s courtly London obeisance.
Every one was standing up and shouting so that not a soul could hear his
ears, until the ironmonger’s apprentice bellowed above the rest; “Whoy,
bullies!” he shouted, amid a chorus of cheers and laughter, “didn’t I
say ’twas catched out in the fields—it be a skylark, sure enough! Come,
Muster Skylark, sing that song again, an’ thou shalt ha’ my
brand-new cap!”
Then many voices cried out together, “Sing it again! The Skylark—the
Skylark!”
Nick looked up, startled. “Why, Master Carew,” said he, with a tremble
in his voice, “do they mean me?”
Carew put one hand beneath Nick’s chin and turned his face up, smiling.
The master-player’s cheeks were flushed with triumph, and his dark eyes
danced with pride. “Ay, Nicholas Skylark; ’tis thou they mean.”
The viol and the music came again from overhead, and when they ceased
Nick sang the little song once more. And when the master-player had
taken him outside, and the play was over, some fine ladies came and
kissed him, to his great confusion; for no one but his mother or his
kin had ever done so before, and these had much perfume about them, musk
and rose-attar, so that they smelled like rose-mallows in July. The
players of the Lord Admiral’s company were going about shaking hands
with Carew and with each other as if they had not met for years, and
slapping one another upon the back; and one came over, a tall, solemn,
black-haired man, he who had written the song, and stood with his feet
apart and stared at Nick, but spoke never a word, which Nick thought was
very singular. But as he turned away he said, with a world of pity in
his voice, “And I have writ two hundred plays, yet never saw thy like.
Lad, lad, thou art a jewel in a wild swine’s snout!” which Nick did not
understand at all; nor why Master Carew said so sharply, “Come, Heywood,
hold thy blabbing tongue; we are all in the same sty.”
“Speak for thyself, Gat Carew!” answered Master Heywood, firmly. “I’ll
have no hand in this affair, I tell thee once for all!”
Master Carew flushed queerly and bit his lip, and, turning hastily away,
took Nick to walk about the town. Nick then, for the first time, looked
into his hand to see what the man upon the stage had given him. It was a
gold rose-noble.