CHAPTER XXXV

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.