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.
“Thy mother should come to live with us, and thy father, and all thy kin,” said Cicely, dreamily smiling; “and the people would love us, there would be no more war, and we should be happy forevermore.”