CAREW’S OFFER
Next morning Carew donned his plum-colored cloak, and with Nick’s hand
held tightly in his own went out of the door and down the steps into a
drifting fog which filled the street, the bandy-legged man with the
ribbon in his ear following close upon their heels.
People passed them like shadows in the mist, and all the houses were a
blur until they came into a wide, open place where the wind blew free
above a wall with many great gates.
In the middle of this open place a huge gray building stood, staring out
over the housetops—a great cathedral, wonderful and old. Its walls were
dark with time and smoke and damp, and the lofty tower that rose above
it was in part but a hollow shell split by lightning and blackened by
fire. But crowded between its massive buttresses were booths and
chapmen’s stalls; against its hoary side a small church leaned like a
child against a mother’s breast; and in and round about it eddied a
throng of men like ants upon a busy hill.
All around the outer square were shops with gilded fronts and most
amazing signs: golden angels with outstretched wings, tiger heads,
bears, brazen serpents, and silver cranes; and in and out of the
shop-doors darted apprentices with new-bound books and fresh-printed
slips; for this was old St. Paul’s, the meeting-place of London town,
and in Paul’s Yard the printers and the bookmen dealt.
With a deal of elbowing the master-player came up the broad steps into
the cathedral, and down the aisle to the pillars where the
merchant-tailors stood with table-books in hand, and there ordered a
brand-new suit of clothes for Nick of old Roger Shearman, the best
cloth-cutter in Threadneedle street.
While they were deep in silk and silver thread, Haerlem linen, and
Leyden camelot, Nick stared about him half aghast; for it was to him
little less than monstrous to see a church so thronged with merchants
plying their trades as if the place were no more sacred than a booth in
the public square.
The long nave of the cathedral was crowded with mercers from Cheapside,
drapers from Throgmorton street, stationers from Ludgate Hill, and
goldsmiths from Foster lane, hats on, loud-voiced, and using the very
font itself for a counter. By the columns beyond, sly, foxy-faced
lawyers hobnobbed; and on long benches by the wall, cast-off
serving-men, varlets, grooms, pastry-bakers, and pages sat, waiting to
be hired by some new master. Besides these who came on business there
was a host of gallants in gold-laced silk and velvet promenading up and
down the aisle, with no business there at all but to show their faces
and their clothes. And all about were solemn shrines and monuments and
tombs, and overhead a splendid window burned like a wheel of fire in the
eastern wall.
While Nick stared, speechless, a party of the Admiral’s placers came
strolling by, their heads half hidden in their huge starched ruffs, and
with prodigious swords that would have dragged along the ground had they
not been cocked up behind so fiercely in the air. Seeing Master Carew
and the boy, they stopped in passing to greet them gaily.
Master Heywood was there, and bowed to Nick with a kindly smile. His
companion was a handsome, proud-mouthed man with a blue, smooth-shaven
face and a jet-black periwig. Him Carew drew aside and spoke with in an
earnest undertone. As he talked, the other began to stare at Nick as if
he were some curious thing in a cage.
“Upon my soul,” said Carew, “ye never heard the like of it. He hath a
voice as sweet and clear as if Puck had burst a honey-bag in
his throat.”
“No doubt,” replied the other, carelessly; “and all the birds will hide
their heads when he begins to sing. But we don’t want him, Carew—not if
he had a voice like Miriam the Jew. Henslowe has just bought little Jem
Bristow of Will Augusten for eight pound sterling, and business is too
bad to warrant any more.”
“Who spoke of selling?” said Carew, sharply. “Don’t flatter your chances
so, Master Alleyn. I wouldn’t sell the boy for a world full of Jem
Bristows. Why, his mouth is a mint where common words are coined into
gold! Sell him? I think I see myself in Bedlam for a fool! Nay, Master
Alleyn, what I am coming at is this: I’ll place him at the Rose, to do
his turn in the play with the rest of us, or out of it alone, as ye
choose, for one fourth of the whole receipts over and above my old share
in the venture. Do ye take me?”
“Take you? One fourth the whole receipts! Zounds! man, do ye think we
have a spigot in El Dorado?”
“Tush! Master Alleyn, don’t make a poor mouth; you’re none so needy. You
and Henslowe have made a heap of money out of us all.”
“And what of that? Yesterday’s butter won’t smooth to-day’s bread. ’Tis
absurd of you, Carew, to ask one fourth and leave all the risk on us,
with the outlook as it is! Here’s that fellow Langley has built a new
play-house in Paris Garden, nearer to the landing than we are, and is
stealing our business most scurvily!”
Carew shrugged his shoulders.
“And what’s more, the very comedy for which Ben Jonson left us, because
we would not put it on, has been taken up by the Burbages on Will
Shakspere’s say-so, and is running famously at the Curtain.”
“I told you so, Master Alleyn, when the fellow was fresh from the
Netherlands,” said Carew; “but your ears were plugged with your own
conceit. Young Jonson is no flatfish, if he did lay brick; he’s a plum
worth anybody’s picking.”
“But, plague take it, Carew, those Burbages have all the plums! Since
they weaned Will Shakspere from us everything has gone wrong. Kemp has
left us; old John Lowin, too; and now the Lord Mayor and Privy Council
have soured on the play again and forbidden all playing on the Bankside,
outside the City or no.”
Carew whistled softly to himself.
“And since my Lord Chamberlain has been patron of the Burbages he will
not so much as turn a hand to revive the old game of bull- and
bear-baiting, and Phil and I have kept the Queen’s bulldogs going on a
twelvemonth now at our own expense—a pretty canker on our profits! Why,
Carew, as Will Shakspere used to say, ‘One woe doth tread the other’s
heels, so fast they follow!’ And what’s to do?”
“What’s to do?” said Carew. “Why, I’ve told ye what’s to do. Ye’ve heard
Will say, ‘There is a tide leads on to fortune if ye take it at the
flood’? Well, Master Alleyn, here’s the tide, and at the flood. I have
offered you an argosy. Will ye sail or stick in the mud? Ye’ll never
have such a chance again. Come, one fourth over my old share, and I will
fill your purse so full of gold that it will gape like a stuffed toad.
His is the sweetest skylark voice that ever sugared ears!”
“But, man, man, one fourth!”
“Better one fourth than lose it all,” said Carew. “But, pshaw! Master
Ned Alleyn, I’ll not beg a man to swim that’s bent on drowning! We will
be at the play-house this afternoon; mayhap thou’lt have thought better
of it by then.” With a curt bow he was off through the crowd, Nick’s
hand in his own clenched very tight.
They had hard work getting down the steps, for two hot-headed gallants
were quarreling there as to who should come up first, and there was a
great press. But Carew scowled and showed his teeth, and clenched his
poniard-hilt so fiercely that the commoners fell away and let them down.
Nick’s eyes were hungry for the printers’ stalls where ballad-sheets
were sold for a penny, and where the books were piled along the shelves
until he wondered if all London were turned printer. He looked about to
see if he might chance upon Diccon Field; but Carew came so quickly
through the crowd that Nick had not time to recognize Diccon if he had
been there. Diccon had often made Nick whistles from the pollard willows
along the Avon below the tannery when Nick was a toddler in smocks, and
the lad thought he would like to see him before going back to Stratford.
Then, too, his mother had always liked Diccon Field, and would be glad
to hear from him. At thought of his mother he gave a happy little skip;
and as they turned into Paternoster Bow, “Master Carew,” said he, “how
soon shall I go home?”
Carew walked a little faster.
There had arisen a sound of shouting and a trampling of feet. The
constables had taken a purse-cutting thief, and were coming up to the
Newgate prison with a great rabble behind them. The fellow’s head was
broken, and his haggard face was all screwed up with pain; but that
did not stop the boys from hooting at him, and asking in mockery how he
thought he would like to be hanged and to dance on nothing at
Tyburn Hill.
[Illustration: “DICCON HAD OFTEN MADE NICK WHISTLES FROM THE WILLOWS
ALONG THE AVON WHEN NICK WAS A TODDLER.”]
“Did ye hear me, Master Carew?” asked Nick.
The master-player stepped aside a moment into a doorway to let the mob
go by, and then strode on.
Nick tried again: “I pray thee, sir—”
“Do not pray me,” said Carew, sharply; “I am no Indian idol.”
“But, good Master Carew—”
“Nor call me good—I am not good.”
“But, Master Carew,” faltered Nick, with a sinking sensation around his
heart, “when will ye leave me go home?”
The master-player did not reply, but strode on rapidly, gnawing his
mustache.