THE SKYLARK’S SONG
Master Nathaniel Gyles, Precentor of St. Paul’s, had pipe-stem legs, and
a face like an old parchment put in a box to keep. His sandy hair was
thin and straggling, and his fine cloth hose wrinkled around his
shrunken shanks; but his eye was sharp, and he wore about his neck a
broad gold chain that marked him as no common man.
For Master Nathaniel Gyles was head of the Cathedral schools of acting
and of music, and he stood upon his dignity.
“My duty is laid down,” said he, “in most specific terms, sir,—_lex
cathedralis_,—that is to say, by the laws of the cathedral; and has
been, sir, since the reign of Richard the Third. _Primus Magister
Scholarum, Custos Morum, Quartus Custos Rotulorum_,—so the title
stands, sir; and I know my place.”
He pushed Nick into the anteroom, and turned to Carew with an irritated
air.
“I likewise know, sir, what is what. In plain words, Master Gaston
Carew, ye have grossly misrepresented this boy to me, to the waste of
much good time. Why, sir, he does not dance a step, and cannot act
at all.”
“Soft, Master Gyles—be not so fast!” said Carew, haughtily, drawing
himself up, with his hand on his poniard; “dost mean to tell me that I
have lied to thee? Marry, sir, thy tongue will run thee into a blind
alley! I told thee that the boy could sing, but not that he could act
or dance.”
“Pouf, sir,—words! I know my place: one peg below the dean, sir,
nothing less: ‘_Magister, et cetera’_—’tis so set down. And I tell
thee, sir, he has no training, not a bit; can’t tell a pricksong from a
bottle of hay; doesn’t know a canon from a crocodile, or a fugue from a
hole in the ground!”
“Oh, fol-de-riddle de fol-de-rol! What has that to do with it? I tell
thee, sir, the boy can sing.”
“And, sir, I say I know my place. Music does not grow like weeds.”
“And fa-la-las don’t make a voice.”
“What! How? Wilt thou teach me?” The master’s voice rose angrily. “Teach
me, who learned descant and counterpoint in the Gallo-Belgic schools,
sir; the best in all the world! Thou, who knowest not a staccato from a
stick of liquorice!”
Carew shrugged his shoulders impatiently. “Come, Master Gyles, this is
fool play. I told thee that the boy could sing, and thou hast not yet
heard him try. Thou knowest right well I am no such simple gull as to
mistake a jay for a nightingale; and I tell thee, sir, upon my word,
and on the remnant of mine honour, he has the voice that thou dost need
if thou wouldst win the favor of the Queen. He has the voice, and thou
the thingumbobs to make the most of it. Don’t be a fool, now; hear him
sing. That’s all I ask. Just hear him once. Thou’lt pawn thine ears to
hear him twice.”
The music-school stood within the old cathedral grounds. Through the
windows came up distantly the murmur of the throng in Paul’s Yard. It
was mid-afternoon, quite warm; blundering flies buzzed up and down the
lozenged panes, and through the dark hall crept the humming sound of
childish voices reciting eagerly, with now and then a sharp, small cry
as some one faltered in his lines and had his fingers rapped. Somewhere
else there were boyish voices running scales, now up, now down, without
a stop, and other voices singing harmonies, two parts and three
together, here and there a little flat from weariness.
The stairs were very dark, Nick thought, as they went up to another
floor; but the long hall they came into there was quite bright with
the sun.
At one end was a little stage, like the one at the Rose play-house, with
a small gallery for musicians above it; but everything here was painted
white and gold, and was most scrupulously clean. The rush-strewn floor
was filled with oaken benches, and there were paintings hanging upon the
wall, portraits of old head-masters and precentors. Some of them were so
dark with time that Nick wondered if they had been blackamoors.
Master Gyles closed the great door and pulled a cord that hung by the
stage. A bell jangled faintly somewhere in the wall. Nick heard the
muffled voices hush, and then a shuffling tramp of slippered feet came
up the outer stair.
“Pouf!” said the precentor, crustily. “_Tempus fugit_—that is to say,
we have no time to waste. So, marry, boy, _venite, exultemus_—in other
words, if thou canst sing, be up and at it. Come, _cantate_—sing, I bid
thee, and that instanter—if thou canst sing at all.”
The under-masters and monitors were pushing the boys into their seats.
Carew pointed to the stage. “Thou’lt do thy level best!” he said in a
low, hard tone, and something clashed beneath his cloak like steel
on steel.
Nick went up the steps behind the screen. It seemed cold in the room; he
had not noticed it before. Yet there were sweat-drops upon his forehead.
He felt as if he were a jackanapes he had seen once at the Stratford
fair, which wore a crimson jerkin and a cap. The man who had the
jackanapes played upon a pipe and a tabor; and when he said, “Dance!”
the jackanapes danced, for it was sorely afraid of the man. Yet when
Nick looked around and did not see the master-player anywhere in the
hall, he felt exceedingly lonely all at once without him, though he both
feared and hated him.
There still was a shuffling of feet and a low talking; but soon it
became very quiet, and they all seemed to be waiting for him to begin.
He did not care, but supposed he might as well: what else could he do?
There was a clock somewhere ticking quickly with its sharp, metallic
ring. As he listened, lonely, his heart cried out for home. In his
fancy the wind seemed rippling over the Avon, and the elm-leaves rustled
like rain upon the roof above his bed. There were red and white
wild-roses in the hedge, and in the air a smell of clover and of
new-mown hay. The mowers would be working in the clover in the
moonlight. He could almost see the sweep of the shining scythes, and
hear the chink-a-chank, chink-a-chank of the whetstone on the long,
curving blades. Chink-a-chank, chink-a-chank—’twas but the clock, and
he in London town.
Carew, sitting there behind the carven prompter’s-screen, put down his
head between his hands and listened. There were murmurings a little
while, then silence. Would the boy never begin? He pressed his knuckles
into his temples and waited. Bow Bells rang out the hour; but the room
was as still as a deep sleep. Would the boy never begin?
The precentor sniffed. It was a contemptuous, incredulous sniff. Carew
looked up—his lips white, a fierce red spot in each cheek. He was
talking to himself. “By the whistle of the Lord High Admiral!” he
said—but there he stopped and held his breath. Nick was singing.
Only the old madrigal, with its half-forgotten words that other
generations sang before they fell asleep. How queer it sounded there! It
was a very simple tune, too; yet, as he sang, the old precentor started
from his chair and pressed his wrinkled hands together against his
breast. He quite forgot the sneer upon his face, and it went fading out
like breath from a frosty pane.
He had twelve boys who could sing a hundred songs at sight from
unfamiliar notes; who kept the beat and marked the time as if their
throats were pendulums; could syncopate and floriate as readily as
breathe. And this was only a common country song.
But—“That voice, that voice!” he panted to himself: for old Nat Gyles
was music-mad; melody to him was like the very breath of life. And the
boy’s high, young voice, soft as a flute and silver clear, throbbed in
the air as if his very heart were singing out of his body in the sound.
And then, like the skylark rising, up, up it went, and up, up, up, till
the older choristers held their breath and feared that the vibrant tone
would break, so slender, film-like was the trembling thread of the boy’s
wild skylark song. But no; it trembled there, high, sweet, and clear, a
moment in the air; and then came running, rippling, floating down, as
though some one had set a song on fire in the sky, and dropped it
quivering and bright into a shadow world. Then suddenly it was gone, and
the long hall was still.
The old precentor stepped beyond the screen.
Gaston Carew’s face was in his hands, and his shoulders shook
convulsively. “I’ll leave thee go, lad, _—ma foi_, I’ll leave thee go.
But, nay, I dare not leave thee go!”
Some one came and tapped him on the shoulder. It was the sub-precentor.
“Master Gyles would speak with thee, sir,” said he, in a low tone, as if
half afraid of the sound of his own voice in the quiet that was in
the hall.
Carew drew his hand hastily over his face, as if to take the old one off
and put a new one on, then arose and followed the man.
[Illustration: “‘THAT VOICE, THAT VOICE,’ NAT GYLES PANTED TO
HIMSELF.”]
The old precentor stood with his hands still clasped against his
breast. “_Mirabile_!” he was saying with bated breath. “It is
impossible, and I have dreamed! Yet _credo_—I believe—_quia
impossibile est_—because it is impossible. Tell me, Carew, do I wake or
dream—or, stay, was it a soul I heard? Ay, Carew, ’twas a soul: the
lad’s own white, young soul. My faith, I said he was of no account!
_Satis verborum_—say no more. _Humanum est errare_—I am a poor old
fool; and there’s a sour bug flown in mine eye that makes it water so!”
He wiped his eyes, for the tears were running down his cheeks.
“Thou’lt take him, then?” asked Carew.
“Take him?” cried the old precentor, catching the master-player by the
hand. “Marry, that will I; a voice like that grows not on every bush.
Take him? Pouf! I know my place—he shall be entered on the rolls
at once.”
“Good!” said Carew. “I shall have him learn to dance, and teach him how
to act myself. He stays with me, ye understand; thy school fare is
miserly. I’ll dress him, too; for these students’ robes are shabby
stuff. But for the rest—”
“Trust me,” said Master Gyles; “he shall be the first singer of them
all. He shall be taught—but who can teach the lark its song, and not do
horrid murder on it? Faith, Carew, I’ll teach the lad myself; ay, all I
know. I studied in the best schools in the world.”
“And, hark ’e, Master Gyles,” said Carew, sternly all at once; “thou’lt
come no royal placard and seizure on me—ye have sworn. The boy is mine
to have and to hold with all that he earns, in spite of thy
prerogatives.”
For the kings of old had given the masters of this school the right to
take for St. Paul’s choir whatever voices pleased them, wherever they
might be found, by force if not by favor, barring only the royal singers
at Windsor; and when men have such privileges it is best to be wary how
one puts temptation in their way.
“Thou hadst mine oath before I even saw the boy,” said the precentor,
haughtily. “Dost think me perjured—_Primus Magister Scholarum, Custos
Morum, Quartus Custos Rotulorum?_ Pouf! I know my place. My oath’s my
oath. But, soft; enough—here comes the boy. Who could have told a
skylark in such popinjay attire?”