f Church street turns
from Bull lane toward the river. It was roughly built of timber and
plaster, the black beams showing through the yellow lime in curious
squares and triangles. The roof was of red tiles, and where the
spreading elms leaned over it the peaked gable was green with moss.

At the side of the house was a garden of lettuce; beyond the garden a
rough wall on which the grass was growing. Sometimes wild primroses grew
on top of this wall, and once a yellow daffodil. Beyond the wall were
other gardens owned by thrifty neighbors, and open lands in common to
them all, where foot-paths wandered here and there in a free,
haphazard way.

Behind the house was a well and a wood-pile, and along the lane ran a
whitewashed paling fence with a little gate, from which the path went up
to the door through rows of bright, old-fashioned flowers.

Nick's mother was getting the breakfast. She was a gentle woman with a
sweet, kind face, and a little air of quiet dignity that made her doubly
dear to Nick by contrast with his father's unkempt ways. He used to
think that, in her worsted gown, with its falling collar of Antwerp
linen, and a soft, silken coif upon her fading hair, she was the most
beautiful woman in all the world.

She put one arm about his shoulders, brushed back his curly hair, and
kissed him on the forehead.

"Thou art mine own good little son," said she, tenderly, "and I will
bake thee a cake in the new chimley on the morrow for thy
May-day-feast."

Then she helped him fetch the trestles from the buttery, set the board,
spread the cloth, and lay the wooden platters, pewter cups, and old horn
spoons in place. Breakfast being ready, she then called his father from
the yard. Nick waited deftly upon them both, so that they were soon done
with the simple meal of rye-bread, lettuce, cheese, and milk.

As he carried away the empty platters and brought water and a towel for
them to wash their hands, he said quietly, although his eyes were bright
and eager, "The Lord High Admiral's company is to act a stage-play at
the guildhall to-morrow before Master Davenant the Mayor and the town
burgesses."

Simon Attwood said nothing, but his brows drew down.

"They came yestreen from London town by Oxford way to play in Stratford
and at Coventry, and are at the Swan Inn with Master Geoffrey
Inchbold--oh, ever so many of them, in scarlet jerkins, and cloth of
gold, and doublets of silk laced up like any lord! It is a ve