headed fellow with jowls like a bull-dog, and no more mercy in his face than a choppingblock. "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 be-d hind him. It was a foul, dark place, and full of evil smells. Drops of wa ter stood on the cold was a broken biscuit and an empty He had his fingers in "YE CAN'T COME IN WITHOUT A PERMIT FROM THE WARDEN,' THE TURNKEY GROWLED." 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 railed at the light when " 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 will not hate any more. Come, Nick, thou wilt not hate me 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 those of the 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. ""T is 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 prison. 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 'It 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 silvertsst! what's that?" He stopped suddenly. Nick heard no sound but the Spaniard's exclamations. The fellow muttered 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. Carew looked sorely troubled. “I dare not let him hear," said he. "The very walls of Newgate leak." "Yah, yah, yah, thou gallows-bird!" "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 't was where there was a sweet, green field and a stream flowing through a little wood. Methought 't was on the road past Warwick toward Coventry. Thou 'It 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. "T is a fat shilling's worth." ""T was there I first heard thee sing, Nick," said Carew, holding to the boy's hands through the bars. "I'll never hear thee sing again— 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 windowledge, stopped the shrieking sound. Silence "Peace, thou dog!" cried Carew, and kicked like a restful sleep fell upon the weary place. the grating. But the fellow only yelled the louder. 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 moldy 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 charméd sleep, and new griefs lose their bitterness, to hear thee sing― to hear thee sing. God bless thee, Nick!" "T is three good shillings' worth o' time," the turnkey growled, and fumbled with the keys. "All for one shilling, too," said he, and kicked the doorpost sulkily." But a plague, I say; a plague! 'T is no one's business but mine. I've a good two shillings' worth in my ears. "T is 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 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." 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 't was not I who "WHY, SIR, I'LL SING FOR THEE NOW,' SAID NICK, CHOKING." "Time 's good and up, sirs," said the turn- window, and there was some one in the garden key, coming back. Carew thrust his hand into his breast. "I must be going, sir," said Nick. 66 'Ay, so thou must. all things must go. Oh, Nick, be friendly with me now, if thou wert never friend 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. ""T is 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 'It 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. CHAPTER XXXIII. CICELY DISAPPEARS. WHEN Master Shakspere's house was still, and all had said good-by, Nick doffed his clothes and laid him down to sleep in peace. Yet he often wakened in the night, because his heart was dancing so. In the morning, when the world began to stir outside, and the early light came in at the window, he slipped out of bed across the floor, and threw the casement wide. Over the river, and over the town, and over the hills that lay blue in the north, was Stratford ! with a pair of pruning-shears. Snip-snip! snipsnip! he heard them going. The light in the east was pink as a peach-bloom and too intense to bear. "Good-morrow, Master Early-bird!" a merry voice called up to him, and a nosegay dropped on the window-ledge at his side. He looked down. There in the path among the rose-trees was Master Will Shakspere, laughing. He had on an ancient leathern jacket and a hat with a hole in its crown; and the skirts of the jacket were dripping with dew from the bushes. "Good-morrow, sir," said Nick, and bowed. "It is a lovely day." "Most beautiful indeed! How comes the sun?" "Just up, sir; the river is afire with it now. O-oh!" Nick held his breath, and watched the light creep down the wall, darting long bars of rosy gold through the snowy bloom of the apple-trees, until it rested upon Master Shakspere's face, and made a fleeting glory there. Then Master Shakspere stretched himself a little in the sun, laughing softly, and said, "It is the sweetest music in the world— morning, spring, and God's dear sunshine; it starteth kindness brewing in the heart, like sap in a withered bud. What sayest, lad? We'll fetch the little maid today; and then - away for Stratford town!" But when Master Shakspere and Nicholas Attwood came to Gaston Carew's house, the constables had taken charge, the servants were scattering hither and thither, and Cicely Carew was gone. The bandy-legged man, the butler said, had come on Sunday in great haste, and packing up his goods, without a word of what had befallen his master, had gone away, no one knew whither, and had taken Cicely with him. Nor had any of them dared to question what he did, for indeed they all feared the rogue, and judged him to have authority. Nick caught a moment at the lintel of the door. The house was full of voices, and the sound of trampling feet went up and down from room to room; but all Nick heard was Gaston Carew's worn voice, saying, "Thou 'It keep my Cicely from harm ?" (To be continued.) The damp, cool air from the garden below seemed a primrose whiff from the lane behind his father's house. He could hear the cocks crowing in Surrey, and the lowing of the kine. There was a robin singing in a bush under the |