A SUDDEN RESOLVE
Nick and Cicely were sitting on a bench in the sun beside the tap-room
door, munching a savory mutton-pie which Tommy Webster had bought for
them. Beside them over the window-sill the tapster twirled his spigot
cheerfully, and in the door the carrier was bidding the
serving-maids good-by.
Around the inn-yard stood a row of heavy, canvas-covered wains and
lumbering two-wheeled carts, each surmounted by a well-armed guard, and
drawn by six strong horses with harness stout as cannon-leathers. The
hostlers stood at the horses’ heads, chewing at wisps of barley-straw as
though their other fare was scant, which, from their sleek rotundity,
was difficult to believe. The stable-boy, with a pot of slush, and a
head of hair like a last year’s haycock, was hastily greasing a
forgotten wheel; while, out of the room where the servants ate, the
drivers came stumbling down the steps with a mighty smell of onions and
brawn. The weekly train from London into the north was ready to be off.
A portly, well-clad countryman, with a shrewd but good-humored
countenance, and a wife beside him round and rosy of face as he, came
bustling out of the private door. “How far yet, Master John?” he asked
as he buckled on his cloak. “Forty-two miles to Oxford, sir,” replied
the carrier. “We must be off if we’re to lie at Uxbridge overnight; for
there hath been rain beyond, sir, and the roads be werry deep.”
Nick stared at the man for Oxford. Forty-two miles to Oxford! And Oxford
lay to the south of Stratford fifty miles and two. Ninety-four miles
from Stratford town! Ninety-four miles from home!
“When will my father come for us, Nick?” asked Cicely, turning her hand
in the sun to see the red along the edges of her fingers.
“Indeed, I can na tell,” said Nick; “Master Will Shakspere is coming
anon, and I shall go with him.”
“And leave me by myself?”
“Nay; thou shalt go, too. Thou’lt love to see his garden and the
rose-trees—it is like a very country place. He is a merry gentleman,
and, oh, so kind! He is going to take me home.”
“But my father will take us home when he comes.”
“To Stratford town, I mean.”
“Away from daddy and me? Why, Nick!”
“But my mother is in Stratford town.”
Cicely was silent. “Then I think I would go, too,” she said quite
softly, looking down as if there were a picture on the ground. “When
one’s mother is gone there is a hurting-place that nought doth ever
come into any more—excepting daddy, and—and thee. We shall miss thee,
Nick, at supper-times. Thou’lt come back soon?”
“I am na coming back.”
“Not coming back?” She laid the mutton-pie down on the bench.
“No—I am na coming back”
“Never?”
“Never.”
She looked at him as if she had not altogether understood.
Nick turned away. A strange uneasiness had come upon him, as if some one
were staring at him fixedly. But no one was. There was a Dutchman in the
gate who had not been there just before. “He must have sprung up out of
the ground,” thought Nick, “or else he is a very sudden Dutchman!” He
had on breeches like two great meal-sacks, and a Flemish sea-cloth
jacket full of wrinkles, as if it had been lying in a chest. His back
was turned, and Nick could not help smiling, for the fellow’s shanks
came out of his breeches’ bottoms like the legs of a letter A. He looked
like a pudding on two skewers.
Cicely slowly took up the mutton-pie once more, but did not eat. “Is na
the pasty good?” asked Nick.
“Not now,” said she.
Nick turned away again.
The Dutchman was not in the gate. He had crossed the inn-yard suddenly,
and was sitting close within the shadow of the wall, though the sunny
side was pleasanter by far. His wig was hanging down about his face,
and he was talking with the tapster’s knave, a hungry-looking fellow
clad in rusty black as if some one were dead, although it was a holiday
and he had neither kith nor kin. The knave was biting his under lip and
staring straight at Nick.
“And will I never see thee more?” asked Cicely.
“Oh, yes,” said Nick; “oh, yes.”
But he did not know whether she ever would or no.
“Gee-wup, Dobbin! Yoicks, Ned! Tschk—tschk!” The leading cart rolled
slowly through the gate. A second followed it. The drivers made a
cracking with their whips, and all the guests came out to see them off.
But the Dutchman, as the rest came out, arose, and with the tapster’s
knave went in at a narrow entrance beyond the tap-room steps.
“And when will Master Shakspere come for thee?” asked Cicely once more,
the cold pie lying in her lap.
“I do na know. How can I tell? Do na bother me so!” cried Nick, and dug
his heels into the cracks between the paving-stones; for after all that
had come to pass the starting of the baggage-train had made him sick
for home.
Cicely looked up at him; she thought she had not heard aright. He was
staring after the last cart as it rolled through the inn-yard gate; his
throat was working, and his eyes were full of tears.
“Why, Nick!” said she, “art crying?”
“Nay,” said he, “but very near,” and dashed his hand across his face.
“Everything doth happen so all-at-once—and I am na big enough, Cicely.
Oh, Cicely, I would I were a mighty king—I’d make it all up
different somehow!”
“Perhaps thou wilt be some day, Nick,” she answered quietly. “Thou’ldst
make a very lovely king. I could be queen; and daddy should be Lord
Admiral, and own the finest play-house in the town.”
But Nick was staring at the tap-room door. A voice somewhere had
startled him. The guests were gone, and none was left but the tapster’s
knave leaning against the inner wall.
“Thy mother should come to live with us, and thy father, and all thy
kin,” said Cicely, dreamily smiling; “and the people would love us,
there would be no more war, and we should be happy forevermore.”
But Nick was listening,—not to her,—and his face was a little pale. He
felt a strange, uneasy sense of some one staring at his back. He whirled
about—looked in at the tap-room window. For an instant a peering face
was there; then it was gone—there was only the Dutchman’s frowzy wig
and striped woolen cap. But the voice he had heard and the face he had
seen were the voice and the face of Gregory Goole.
“I should love to see thy mother, Nick,” said Cicely.
He got up steadily, though his heart was jolting his very ribs. “Thou
shalt right speedily!” said he.
The carts were standing in a line. The carrier came down the steps with
his stirrup-cup in hand. Nick’s heart gave a sudden, wild, resolute
leap, and he touched the carrier on the arm. “What will ye charge to
carry two as far as Stratford town?” he asked. His mouth was dry as a
dusty road, for the Dutchman had risen from his seat and was coming
toward the door.
“I do na haul past Oxford,” said the man.
“To Oxford, then—how much? Be quick!” Nick thrust his hand into his
breast where he carried the burgesses’ chain.
“Eightpence the day, for three days out—two shilling ’tis, and find
yourself; it is an honest fare.”
The tapster’s knave came down the steps; the Dutchman stood within the
shadow of the door.
“Wilt carry us for this?” Nick cried, and thrust the chain into the
fellow’s hands.
He gasped and almost let it fall. “Beshrew my heart! Gadzooks!” said he,
“art thou a prince in hiding, boy? ’T would buy me, horses, wains, and
all. Why, man alive, ’tis but a nip o’ this!”
“Good, then,” said Nick, “’tis done—we’ll go. Come, Cicely, we’re
going home!”
Staring, the carrier followed him, weighing the chain in his hairy hand.
“Who art thou, boy?” he cried again. “This matter hath a queer look.”
“’Twas honestly come by, sir,” cried Nick, no longer able to conceal a
quiver in his voice, “and my name is Nicholas Attwood; I come from
Stratford town.”
“Stratford-on-Avon? Why, art kin to Tanner Simon Attwood there, Attwood
of Old Town?”
“He is my father, sir. Oh, leave us go with thee—take the whole
chain!”
Slap went the carrier’s cap in the dirt! “Leave thee go wi’ me?
Gadzooks!” he cried, “my name be John Saddler—why, what? my daddy
liveth in Chapel lane, behind Will Underhill’s. I stole thy father’s
apples fifteen years. What! go wi’ me? Get on the wain, thou little
fool—get on all the wains I own, and a plague upon thine eightpence,
lad! Why, here; Hal telled me thou wert dead, or lost, or some such
fairy tale! Up on the sheepskin, both o’ ye!”
The Dutchman came from the tap-room door and spoke to the tapster’s
knave; but the words which he spoke to that tapster’s knave were
anything but Dutch.