“And, hark ’e, Master Gyles,” said Carew, sternly all at once; “thou’lt come no royal placard and seizure on me—­ye have sworn.  The boy is mine to have and to hold with all that he earns, in spite of thy prerogatives.”

For the kings of old had given the masters of this school the right to take for St. Paul’s choir whatever voices pleased them, wherever they might be found, by force if not by favor, barring only the royal singers at Windsor; and when men have such privileges it is best to be wary how one puts temptation in their way.

“Thou hadst mine oath before I even saw the boy,” said the precentor, haughtily.  “Dost think me perjured—­Primus Magister Scholarum, Custos Morum, Quartus Custos Rotulorum? Pouf!  I know my place.  My oath’s my oath.  But, soft; enough—­here comes the boy.  Who could have told a skylark in such popinjay attire?”

CHAPTER XXIII

A NEW LIFE

And now a strange, new life began for Nicholas Attwood, in some things so grand and kind that he almost hated to dislike it.

It was different in every way from the simple, pinching round in Stratford, and full of all the comforts of richness and plenty that make life happy—­excepting home and mother.

Master Gaston Carew would have nothing but the best, and what he wanted, whether he needed it or not; so with him money came like a summer rain, and went like water out of a sieve:  for he was a wild blade.

They ate their breakfast when they pleased; dined at eleven, like the nobility; supped at five, as was the fashion of the court.  They had wheat-bread the whole week round, as only rich folk could afford, with fruit and berries in their season, and honey from the Surrey bee-farms that made one’s mouth water with the sight of it dripping from the flaky comb; and on Fridays spitchcocked eels, pickled herrings, and plums, with simnel-cakes, poached eggs and milk, cream cheese and cordial, like very kings; so that Nick could not help thriving.

The master-player very seldom left him by himself to mope or to be melancholy; but, while ever vaguely promising to let him go, did everything in his power to make him rather wish to stay; so that Nick was constantly surprised by the free-handed kindness of this man whom he had every other reason in the world, he thought, for deeming his worst enemy.

When there were any new curiosities in Fleet street,—­wild men with rings in their noses, wondrous fishes, puppet-shows, or red-capped baboons whirling on a pole,—­Carew would have Nick see them as well as Cicely; and often took them both to Bartholomew’s Fair, where there was a giant eating raw beef and a man dancing upon a rope high over the heads of the people.  He would have had Nick every Thursday to the bear-baiting in the Paris Garden circus beside; but one sight of that brutal sport made the boy so sick that they never went again, but to the stage-plays at the Rose instead, which Nick enjoyed immensely, for Carew himself acted most excellently, and Master Tom Heywood always came and spoke kindly to the lonely boy.