“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 to-day; 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 they questioned what he did, for 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 he heard was Gaston Carew’s worn voice saying, “Thou’lt keep my Cicely from harm?” CHAPTER XXXIV THE BANDY-LEGGED MAN Until night fell they sought the town over for a trace of Cicely; but all to no avail. The second day likewise. The third day passed, and still there were no tidings. Master Shakspere’s face grew very grave, and Nick’s heart sickened till he quite forgot that he was going home. But on the morning of the fourth day, which chanced to be the 1st of May, as he was standing in the door of a printer’s stall in St. Paul’s Churchyard, watching the gaily dressed holiday crowds go up and down, while Robin Dexter’s apprentices bound white-thorn boughs about the brazen serpent overhead, he spied the bandy-legged man among the rout that passed the north gate by St. Martin’s le Grand. He had a yellow ribbon in his ear, and wore a bright plum-colored cloak, at sight of which Nick cried aloud, for it was the very cloak which Master Gaston Carew wore when he first met him in the Warwick road. The rogue was making for the way which ran from Cheapside to the river, and was walking very fast.