XVIII A STRANGE DAY
XXXIX ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"MASTER SKYLARK, THOU SHALT HAVE THY WISH," SAID QUEEN
ELIZABETH

THE LORD ADMIRAL'S PLAYERS. THE TRUMPETERS AND THE
DRUMMERS LED, THEIR HORSES PRANCING, WHITE PLUMES
WAVING IN THE BREEZE

"WHUR BE-EST GOING, NICK?" ASKED ROGER DAWSON

"WHAT! HOW NOW?" CRIED THE STRANGER, SHARPLY. "DOST
LIKE OR LIKE ME NOT?"

"NICK THOUGHT OF HIS MOTHER'S SINGING ON A SUMMER'S EVENING--DREW
A DEEP BREATH AND BEGAN TO SING

"NOBODY BREAKS NOBODY'S HEARTS IN OLD JO-OHN SMITHSES
SHO-OP," DRAWLED THE SMITH, IN HIS DEEP VOICE; "NOR
STEALS NOBODY, NOTHER"

"DICCON HAD OFTEN MADE NICK WHISTLES FROM THE WILLOWS
ALONG THE AVON WHEN NICK WAS A TODDLER"

NICK PUT ONE LEG OVER THE SILL AND LOOKED BACK

"OH, NICK, THOU ART MOST BEAUTIFUL TO SEE!" CRIED CICELY

"THAT VOICE, THAT VOICE!" NAT GILES PANTED TO HIMSELF

NICK GAVE THE SILVER BUCKLE FROM HIS CLOAK TO A BOY WHO
STOOD CRYING WITH COLD AND HUNGER IN THE STREET

SO NICK RODE HOME UPON THE BACK OF THE EARL OF ARUNDEL'S
MAN-AT-ARMS

"WHY, SIR, I'LL SING FOR THEE NOW," SAID NICK, CHOKING

"DO NA THOU STRIKE ME AGAIN, THOU ROGUE!" SAID NICK

"OH, NICK, WHAT Is IT?" SHE CRIED

MASTER SHAKSPERE MET THEM WITH OUTSTRETCHED HANDS

MASTER SKYLARK

CHAPTER I

THE LORD ADMIRAL'S PLAYERS

There was an unwonted buzzing in the east end of Stratford on that next
to the last day of April, 1596. It was as if some one had thrust a stick
into a hive of bees and they had come whirling out to see.

The low stone guard-wall of old Clopton bridge, built a hundred years
before by rich Sir Hugh, sometime Mayor of London, was lined with
straddling boys, like strawberries upon a spear of grass, and along the
low causeway from the west across the lowland to the town, brown-faced,
barefoot youngsters sat beside the roadway with their chubby legs
a-dangle down the mossy stones, staring away into the south across the
grassy levels of the valley of the Stour.

Punts were poling slowly up the Avon to the bridge; and at the outlets
of the town, where the streets came down to the waterside among the
weeds, little knots of men and serving-maids stood looking into the
south and listening. Some had waited for an hour, some for two; yet
still there was no sound but the piping of the birds in white-thorn
hedges, the hollow lowing of kine knee-deep in grassy meadows, and the
long rush of the river through