“A poor trip, Carew,” said he, running his finger down the column of figures he was adding. “The play was hardly worth the candle—cleared but five pound; and then, after I had paid the carman three shilling fip to bring the stuff down from the City, ’twas lost in the river from the barge at Paul’s wharf! A good two pound.”
“Hard luck!” said Carew.
“Hard? Adamantine, I say! Why, ’tis very stones for luck, and the whole road rocky! Here’s Burbage, Condell, and Will Shakspere ha’ rebuilt Blackfriars play-house in famous shape; and, marry, where are we?”
Nick started. An idea came creeping into his head. Will Shakspere had married his mother’s own cousin, Anne Hathaway of Shottery; and he had often heard his mother say that Master Shakspere had ever been her own good friend when they were young.
“He and Jonson be thick as thieves,” said Henslowe; “and Chettle says that Will hath near done the book of a new play for the autumn—a master fine thing!—‘Romulus and Juliana,’ or something of that Italian sort, to follow Ben Jonson’s comedy. Ned Alleyn played a sweet fool about Ben’s comedy. Called it monstrous bad; and now it has taken the money out of our mouths to the tune of nine pound six the day—and here, while ye were gone, I ha’ played my Lord of Pembroke’s men in your ‘Robin Hood,’ Heywood, to scant twelve shilling in the house!”
Heywood flushed.
“Nay, Tom, don’t be nettled; ’tis not the fault of thy play. There’s naught will serve. We’ve tried old Marlowe and Robin Greene, Peele, Nash, and all the rest; but, what! they will not do—’tis Shakspere, Shakspere; our City flat-caps will ha’ nothing but Shakspere!”
Nick listened eagerly. Master Will Shakspere must indeed be somebody in London town! He stared across into the drifting cloud of mist and smoke which hid the city like a pall, and wondered how and where, in that terrible hive of more than a hundred thousand men, he could find one man.
“I tell thee, Tom Heywood, there’s some magic in the fellow, or my name’s not Henslowe!” cried the manager. “His very words bewitch one’s wits as nothing else can do. Why, I’ve tried them with ‘Pierce Penniless,’ ‘Groat’s Worth of Wit,’ ‘Friar Bacon,’ ‘Orlando,’ and the ‘Battle of Alcazar.’ Why, tush! they will not even listen! And here I’ve put Martin Gosset into purple and gold, and Jemmy Donstall into a peach-colored gown laid down with silver-gilt, for ‘Volteger’; and what? Why, we play to empty stools; and the rascals owe me for those costumes yet—sixty shillings full! A murrain on Burbage and Will Shakspere too!—but I wish we had him back again. We’d make their old Blackfriars sick!” He shook his fist at a great gray pile of buildings that rose above the rest out of the fog by the landing-place beyond the river.
Nick stared. That the play-house of Master Shakspere and the Burbages? Will Shakspere playing there, just across the river? Oh, if Nick could only find him, he would not let the son of his wife’s own cousin be stolen away!