Nick landed upon a pile of soft earth. It broke away under his feet and threw him forward upon his hands and knees. He got up, a little shaken but unhurt, and stood close to the wall, looking all about quickly. A party of gaily dressed gallants were haggling with the horse-boys at the sheds; but they did not even look at him. A passing carter stared up at the window, measuring the distance with his eye, whistled incredulously, and trudged on.

Nick listened a moment, but heard only the clamor of voices inside, and the zoon, zoon, zoon of the viol. He was trembling all over, and his heart was beating like a trip-hammer. He wanted to run, but was fearful of exciting suspicion. Heading straight for the river, he walked as fast as he could through the gardens and the trees, brushing the dirt from his hose as he went.

There was a wherry just pushing out from Old Marigold stairs with a single passenger, a gardener with a basket of truck.

"Holloa!" cried Nick, hurrying down; "will ye take me across?"

"For thrippence," said the boatman, hauling the wherry alongside again with his hook.

Thrippence? Nick stopped, dismayed. Master Carew had his gold rose-noble, and he had not thought of the fare. They would soon find that he was gone.

"Oh, I must be across, sir!" he cried. "Can ye na take me free? I be little and not heavy; and I will help the gentleman with his basket."

The boatman's only reply was to drop his hook and push off with the oar.

But the gardener, touched by the boy's pitiful expression, to say nothing of being tickled by Nick's calling him gentleman, spoke up: "Here, jack-sculler," said he; "I'll toss up wi' thee for it." He pulled a groat from his pocket and began spinning it in the air. "Come, thou lookest a gamesome fellow--cross he goes, pile he stays; best two in three flips--what sayst?"

"Done!" said the waterman. "Pop her up!"

Up went the groat.

Nick held his breath.

"Pile it is," said the gardener. "One for thee--and up she goes again!" The groat twirled in the air and came down clink upon the thwart.

"Aha!" cried the boatman, "'tis mine, or I'm a horse!"

"Nay, jack-sculler," laughed the gardener; "cross it is! Ka me, ka thee, my pretty groat--I never lose with this groat."

"Oh, sir, do be brisk!" begged Nick, fearing every instant to see the master-player and the bandy-legged man come running down the bank.

"More haste, worse speed," said the gardener; "only evil weeds grow fast!" and he rubbed the groat on his jerkin. "Now, jack-sculler, hold thy breath; for up she goes again!"

A man came running over the rise. Nick gave a little frightened cry. It was only a huckster's knave with a roll of fresh butter. The groat came down with a splash in the bottom of the wherry. The boatman picked it up out of the water and wiped it with his sleeve. "Here, boy, get aboard," said he, shoving off; "and be lively about it!"

The huckster's knave came running down the landing. He pushed Nick aside, and scrambled into the wherry, puffing for breath. The boat fell off into the current. Nick, making a plunge for it into the water, just managed to catch the gunwale and get aboard, wet to the knees. But he did not care for that; for although there were people going up Paris Garden lane, and a crowd about the entrance of the Rose, he could not see Master Carew or the bandy-legged man anywhere. So he breathed a little freer, yet kept his eyes fast upon the play-house until the wherry bumped against Blackfriars stairs.

Picking up the basket of truck, he sprang ashore, and, dropping it upon the landing, took to his heels up the bank, without stopping to thank either gardener or boatman.

The gray walls of the old friary were just ahead, scarcely a stone's throw from the river. With heart beating high, he ran along the close, looking eagerly for the entrance. He came to a wicket-gate that was standing half ajar, and went through it into the old cloisters.

Everything there was still. He was glad of that, for the noise and the rush of the crowd outside confused him.

The place had once been a well-kept garden-plot, but now was become a mere stack of odds and ends of boards and beams, shavings, mortar, and broken brick. A long-legged fellow with a green patch over one eye was building a pair of stairs to a door beside which a sign read: "Playeres Here: None Elles."

Nick doffed his cap. "Good-day," said he; "is Master Will Shakspere in?"

The man put down his saw and sat back upon one of the trestles, staring stupidly. "Didst za-ay zummat?"

"I asked if Master Will Shakspere was in?"

The fellow scratched his head with a bit of shaving. "Noa; Muster Wull Zhacksper beant in."

Nick's heart stopped with a thump. "Where is he--do ye know?"

"A's gone awa-ay," drawled the workman, vaguely.

"Away? Whither!"

"A's gone to Ztratvoard to-own, whur's woife do li-ive--went a-yesterday."

Nick sat blindly down upon the other trestle. He did not put his cap on again: he had quite forgotten it.

Master Will Shakspere gone to Stratford--and only the day before!

Too late--just one little day too late! It seemed like cruel mockery. Why, he might be almost home! The thought was more than he could bear: who could be brave in the face of such a blow? The bitter tears ran down his face again.

"Here, here, odzookens, lad!" grinned the workman, stolidly, "thou'lt vetch t' river up if weeps zo ha-ard. Ztop un, ztop un; do now."

Nick sat staring at the ground. A beetle was trying to crawl over a shaving. It was a curly shaving, and as fast as the beetle crept up to the top the shaving rolled over, and dropped the beetle upon its back in the dust; but it only got up and tried again. Nick looked up.

"Is--is Master Richard Burbage here, then?"

Perhaps Burbage, who had been a Stratford man, would help him.

"Noa," drawled the carpenter; "Muster Bubbage beant here; doan't want un, nuther--nuvver do moind a's owen business--always jawin' volks. A beant here, an' doan't want un, nuther."

Nick's heart went down. "And where is he?"

"Who? Muster Bubbage? Whoy, a be-eth out to Zhoreditch, a-playin' at t' theater."

"And where may Shoreditch be?"

"Whur be Zhoreditch?" gaped the workman, vacantly. "Whoy--whoy, zummers over there a bit yon, zure"; and he waved his hand about in a way that pointed to nowhere at all.

"When will he be back?" asked Nick, desperately.

"Be ba-ack?" drawled the workman, slowly taking up his saw again; "back whur?--here? Whoy, a wun't pla-ay here no mo-ore avore next Martlemas."

Martinmas? That was almost mid-November. It was now but middle May.

Nick got up and went out at the wicket-gate. He was beginning to feel sick and a little faint. The rush in the street made him dizzy, and the sullen roar that came down on the wind from the town, mingled with the tramping of feet, the splash of oars, the bumping of boats along the wharves, and the shouts and cries of a thousand voices, stupefied him.

He was standing there motionless in the narrow way, as if dazed by a heavy fall, when Gaston Carew came running up from the river-front, with the bandy-legged man at his heels.