THE LAST OF GASTON CAREW
It was Monday morning, and a beautiful day.
Master Will Shakspere was reading a new play to Masters Ben Jonson and
Diccon Burbage at the Mermaid Inn.
Thomas Pope, the player, and Peter Hemynge, the manager, were there with
them at the table under the little window. The play was a comedy of a
wicked money-lender named Shylock; but it was a comedy that made Nick
shudder as he sat on the bench by the door and listened to it through
happy thoughts of going home.
Sunday had passed like a wondrous dream. He was free. Master Carew was
done for. On Saturday morning Master Will Shakspere would set out on the
journey to Stratford town, for his regular summer visit there; and Nick
was going with him—going to Stratford—going home!
The comedy-reading went on. Master Burbage, his moving face alive,
leaned forward on his elbows, nodding now and then, and saying, “Fine,
fine!” under his breath. Master Pope was making faces suited to the
words, not knowing that he did so. Nick watched him, fascinated.
A man came hurrying down Cheapside, and peered in at the open door. It
was Master Dick Jones of the Admiral’s company. He looked worried and as
if he had not slept. His hair was uncombed, and the skin under his eyes
hung in little bags. He squinted so that he might see from the broad
daylight outside into the darker room.
“Gaston Carew wants to see thee, Skylark,” said he, quickly, seeing Nick
beside the door.
Nick drew back. It seemed as if the master-player must be lying in wait
outside to catch him if he stirred abroad.
“He says that he must see thee without fail, and that straightway. He is
in Newgate prison. Wilt come?”
Nick shook his head.
“But he says indeed he _must_ see thee. Come, Skylark, I will bring thee
back. I am no kidnapper. Why, it is the last thing he will ever ask of
thee. ’Tis hard to refuse so small a favor to a doomed man.”
“Thou’lt surely fetch me back?”
“Here, Master Will Shakspere,” called the Admiral’s player; “I am to
fetch the boy to Carew in Newgate on an urgent matter. My name is
Jones—Dick Jones, of Henslowe’s company. Burbage knows me. I’ll bring
him back.”
Master Shakspere nodded, reading on; and Burbage waved his hand,
impatient of interruption. Nick arose and went with Jones.
As they came up Newgate street to the crossing of Giltspur and the Old
Bailey, the black arch of the ancient gate loomed grimly against the
sky, its squinting window-slits peering down like the eyes of an old
ogre. The bell of St. Sepulchre’s was tolling, and there was a crowd
about the door, which opened, letting out a black cart in which was a
priest praying and a man in irons going to be hanged on Tyburn Hill. His
sweating face was ashen gray; and when the cart came to the church door
they gave him mockingly a great bunch of fresh, bright flowers. Nick
could not bear to watch.
The turnkey at the prison gate was a crop-headed fellow with jowls like
a bulldog, and no more mercy in his face than a chopping-block. “Gaston
Carew, the player?” he growled. “Ye can’t come in without a permit from
the warden.”
“We must,” said Jones.
“Must?” said the turnkey. “I am the only one who says ‘must’ in
Newgate!” and slammed the door in their faces.
The player clinked a shilling on the bar.
“It was a boy he said would come,” growled the turnkey through the
wicket, pocketing the shilling; “so just the boy goes up. A shilling’s
worth, ye mind, and not another wink.” He drew Nick in, and dropped
the bars.
It was a foul, dark place, and full of evil smells. Drops of water stood
on the cold stone walls, and a green mould crept along the floor. The
air was heavy and dank, and it began to be hard for Nick to breathe. The
men in the dungeons were singing a horrible song, and in the corner was
a half-naked fellow shackled to the floor. “Give me a penny,” he said,
“or I will curse thee.” Nick shuddered.
“Up with thee,” said the turnkey, gruffly, unlocking the door to the
stairs.
The common room above was packed with miserable wretches, fighting,
dancing, gibbering like apes. Some were bawling ribald songs, others
moaning with fever. The strongest kept the window-ledges near light and
air by sheer main force, and were dicing on the dirty sill. The turnkey
pushed and banged his way through them, Nick clinging desperately to
his jerkin.
In a cell at the end of the corridor there was a Spanish renegade who
cursed the light when the door was opened, and cursed the darkness when
it closed. “Cesare el Moro, Cesare el Moro,” he was saying over and over
again to himself, as if he feared that he might forget his own name.
Carew was in the middle cell, ironed hand and foot. He had torn his
sleeves and tucked the lace under the rough edges of the metal to keep
it from chafing the skin. He sat on a pile of dirty straw, with his face
in his folded arms upon his knees. By his side was a broken biscuit and
an empty stone jug. He had his fingers in his ears to shut out the
tolling of the knell for the man who had gone to be hanged.
The turnkey shook the bars. “Here, wake up!” he said.
Carew looked up. His eyes were swollen, and his face was covered with a
two days’ beard. He had slept in his clothes, and they were full of
broken straw and creases. But his haggard face lit up when he saw the
boy, and he came to the grating with an eager exclamation: “And thou
hast truly come? To the man thou dost hate so bitterly, but wilt not
hate any more. Come, Nick, thou wilt not hate me any more. ’Twill not
be worth thy while, Nick; the night is coming fast.”
“Why, sir,” said Nick, “it is not so dark outside—’tis scarcely noon;
and thou wilt soon be out.”
“Out? Ay, on Tyburn Hill,” said the master-player, quietly. “I’ve spent
my whole life for a bit of hempen cord. I’ve taken my last cue. Last
night, at twelve o’clock, I heard the bellman under the prison walls
call my name with the names of those already condemned. The play is
nearly out, Nick, and the people will be going home. It has been a wild
play, Nick, and ill played.”
“Here, if ye’ve anything to say, be saying it,” said the turnkey. “’Tis
a shilling’s worth, ye mind.”
Carew lifted up his head in the old haughty way, and clapped his
shackled hand to his hip—they had taken his poniard when he came into
the gaol. A queer look came over his face; taking his hand away, he
wiped it hurriedly upon his jerkin. There were dark stains upon
the silk.
“Ye sent for me, sir,” said Nick.
Carew passed his hand across his brow. “Yes, yes, I sent for thee. I
have something to tell thee, Nick.” He hesitated, and looked through the
bars at the boy, as if to read his thoughts. “Thou’lt be good and true
to Cicely—thou’lt deal fairly with my girl? Why, surely, yes.” He
paused again, as if irresolute. “I’ll trust thee, Nick. We’ve taken
money, thou and I; good gold and silver—tsst! what’s that?” He
stopped suddenly.
Nick heard no sound but the Spaniard’s cursing.
“’Tis my fancy,” Carew said. “Well, then, we’ve taken much good money,
Nick; and I have not squandered all of it. Hark’e—thou knowest the old
oak wainscot in the dining-hall, and the carven panel by the Spanish
chest? Good, then! Upon the panel is a cherubin, and—tsst! what’s
that, I say?”
There was a stealthy rustling in the right-hand cell. The fellow in it
had his ear pressed close against the bars. “He is listening,”
said Nick.
The fellow cursed and shook his fist, and then, when Master Carew
dropped his voice and would have gone on whispering, set up so loud a
howling and clanking of his chains that the lad could not make out one
word the master-player said.
“Peace, thou dog!” cried Carew, and kicked the grating. But the fellow
only yelled the louder.
Carew looked sorely troubled. “I dare not let him hear,” said he. “The
very walls of Newgate leak.”
“_Yak, yah, yah, thou gallows-bird!_”
“Yet I must tell thee, Nick.”
“_Yah, yah, dangle-rope!_”
“Stay! would Will Shakspere come? Why, here, I’ll send him word. He’ll
come—Will Shakspere never bore a grudge; and I shall so soon go where
are no grudges, envy, storms, or noise, but silence and the soft lap of
everlasting sleep. He’ll come—Nick, bid him come, upon his life, to
the Old Bailey when I am taken up.”
Nick nodded. It was strange to have his master beg.
Carew was looking up at a thin streak of light that came in through the
narrow window at the stair. “Nick,” said he, huskily, “last night I
dreamed I heard thee singing; but ’twas where there was a sweet, green
field and a stream flowing through a little wood. Methought ’twas on the
road past Warwick toward Coventry. Thou’lt go there some day and
remember Gaston Carew, wilt not, lad? And, Nick, for thine own mother’s
sake, do not altogether hate him; he was not so bad a man as he might
easily have been.”
“Come,” growled the turnkey, who was pacing up and down like a surly
bear; “have done. ’Tis a fat shilling’s worth.”
“’Twas there I heard thee sing first, Nick,” said Carew, holding to the
boy’s hands through the bars. “I’ll never hear thee sing again.”
“Why, sir, I’ll sing for thee now,” said Nick, choking.
The turnkey was coming back when Nick began suddenly to sing. He looked
up, staring. Such a thing dumfounded him. He had never heard a song like
that in Newgate. There were rules in prison. “Here, here,” he cried, “be
still!” But Nick sang on.
The groaning, quarreling, and cursing were silent all at once. The guard
outside, who had been sharpening his pike upon the window-ledge, stopped
the shrieking sound. Silence like a restful sleep fell upon the weary
place. Through dark corridors and down the mildewed stairs the quaint
old song went floating as a childhood memory into an old man’s dream;
and to Gaston Carew’s ear it seemed as if the melody of earth had all
been gathered in that little song—all but the sound of the voice of his
daughter Cicely.
It ceased, and yet a gentle murmur seemed to steal through the mouldy
walls, of birds and flowers, sunlight and the open air, of once-loved
mothers, and of long-forgotten homes. The renegade had ceased his
cursing, and was whispering a fragment of a Spanish prayer he had not
heard for many a day.
Carew muttered to himself. “And now old cares are locked in charmèd
sleep, and new griefs lose their bitterness, to hear thee sing—to hear
thee sing. God bless thee, Nick!”
“’Tis three good shillings’ worth o’ time,” the turnkey growled, and
fumbled with the keys. “All for one shilling, too,” said he, and kicked
the door-post sulkily. “But a plague, I say, a plague! ’Tis no one’s
business but mine. I’ve a good two shillings’ worth in my ears. ’Tis
thirty year since I ha’ heard the like o’ that. But what’s a gaol
for?—man’s delight? Nay, nay. Here, boy, time’s up! Come out o’ that.”
But he spoke so low that he scarcely heard himself; and going to the end
of the corridor, he marked at random upon the wall.
“Oh, Nick, I love thee,” said the master-player, holding the boy’s hands
with a bitter grip. “Dost thou not love me just a little? Come, lad, say
that thou lovest me.”
[Illustration: “‘WHY, SIR, I’LL SING FOR THEE NOW.’ SAID NICK,
CHOKING.”]
“Nay, Master Carew,” Nick answered soberly, “I do na love
thee, and I will na say I do, sir; but I pity thee with all my heart.
And, sir, if thy being out would keep me stolen, still I think I’d wish
thee out—for Cicely. But, Master Carew, do na break my hands.”
The master-player loosed his grasp. “I will not seek to be excused to
thee,” he said huskily. “I’ve prisoned thee as that clod prisons me;
but, Nick, the play is almost out, down comes the curtain on my heels,
and thy just blame will find no mark. Yet, Nick, now that I am fast and
thou art free, it makes my heart ache to feel that ’twas not I who set
thee free. Thou canst go when pleaseth thee, and thank me nothing for
it. And, Nick, as my sins be forgiven me, I truly meant to set thee free
and send thee home. I did, upon my word, and on the remnant of
mine honour!”
“Time’s good and up, sirs,” said the turnkey, coming back.
Carew thrust his hand into his breast.
“I must be going, sir,” said Nick.
“Ay, so thou must—all things must go. Oh, Nick, be friendly with me
now, if thou wert never friendly before. Kiss me, lad. There—now thy
hand.” The master-player clasped it closely in his own, and pressing
something into the palm, shut down the fingers over it. “Quick! Keep it
hid,” he whispered. “’Tis the chain I had from Stratford’s burgesses, to
some good usage come at last.”
“Must I come and fetch thee out?” growled the turnkey.
“I be coming, sir.”
“Thou’lt send Will Shakspere? And, oh, Nick,” cried Carew, holding him
yet a little longer, “thou’lt keep my Cicely from harm?”
“I’ll do my best,” said Nick, his own eyes full.
The turnkey raised his heavy bunch of keys. “I’ll ding thee out o’ this”
said he.
And the last Nick Attwood saw of Gaston Carew was his wistful eyes
hunting down the stairway after him, and his hand, with its torn fine
laces, waving at him through the bars.
And when he came to the Mermaid Inn Master Shakspere’s comedy was done,
and Master Ben Jonson was telling a merry tale that made the tapster
sick with laughing.