Nick turned away.  A strange uneasiness had come upon him, as if some one were staring at him fixedly.  But no one was.  There was a Dutchman in the gate who had not been there just before.  “He must have sprung up out of the ground,” thought Nick, “or else he is a very sudden Dutchman!” He had on breeches like two great meal-sacks, and a Flemish sea-cloth jacket full of wrinkles, as if it had been lying in a chest.  His back was turned, and Nick could not help smiling, for the fellow’s shanks came out of his breeches’ bottoms like the legs of a letter A. He looked like a pudding on two skewers.

Cicely slowly took up the mutton-pie once more, but did not eat.  “Is na the pasty good?” asked Nick.

“Not now,” said she.

Nick turned away again.

The Dutchman was not in the gate.  He had crossed the inn-yard suddenly, and was sitting close within the shadow of the wall, though the sunny side was pleasanter by far.  His wig was hanging down about his face, and he was talking with the tapster’s knave, a hungry-looking fellow clad in rusty black as if some one were dead, although it was a holiday and he had neither kith nor kin.  The knave was biting his under lip and staring straight at Nick.

“And will I never see thee more?” asked Cicely.

“Oh, yes,” said Nick; “oh, yes.”

But he did not know whether she ever would or no.

“Gee-wup, Dobbin!  Yoicks, Ned!  Tschk—­tschk!” The leading cart rolled slowly through the gate.  A second followed it.  The drivers made a cracking with their whips, and all the guests came out to see them off.  But the Dutchman, as the rest came out, arose, and with the tapster’s knave went in at a narrow entrance beyond the tap-room steps.

“And when will Master Shakspere come for thee?” asked Cicely once more, the cold pie lying in her lap.

“I do na know.  How can I tell?  Do na bother me so!” cried Nick, and dug his heels into the cracks between the paving-stones; for after all that had come to pass the starting of the baggage-train had made him sick for home.

Cicely looked up at him; she thought she had not heard aright.  He was staring after the last cart as it rolled through the inn-yard gate; his throat was working, and his eyes were full of tears.

“Why, Nick!” said she, “art crying?”

“Nay,” said he, “but very near,” and dashed his hand across his face.  “Everything doth happen so all-at-once—­and I am na big enough, Cicely.  Oh, Cicely, I would I were a mighty king—­I’d make it all up different somehow!”

“Perhaps thou wilt be some day, Nick,” she answered quietly.  “Thou’ldst make a very lovely king.  I could be queen; and daddy should be Lord Admiral, and own the finest play-house in the town.”

But Nick was staring at the tap-room door.  A voice somewhere had startled him.  The guests were gone, and none was left but the tapster’s knave leaning against the inner wall.