“WELL SUNG, MASTER SKYLARK!” 41

back against an oak, placidly munching the last of the
cheese, when Nick began to sing. He started, straighten-
ing up as if some one had called him suddenly out of a
sound sleep, and, turning his head, listened eagerly.

Nick mocked the wild bird, called again with a mellow,
warbling trill, and then struck up the quaint old madrigal
with the bird’s song running through it. Carew leaped to
his feet, with a flash in his dark eyes. “My soul! my
soul!” he exclaimed in an excited undertone. “It is not
—nay, it cannot be—why, ’t is—it is the boy! Upon my
heart, he hath a skylark prisoned in his throat! Well
sung, well sung, Master Skylark!” he cried, clapping his
hands in real delight, as Nick came singing up the bank.
“Why, lad, I vow I thought thou wert up in the sky some-
where, with wings to thy back! Where didst thou learn
that wonder-song?”

Nick colored up, quite taken aback. “I do na know,
sir,” said he; “mother learned me part, and the rest just
came, I think, sir.”

The master-player, his whole face alive and eager, now
stared at Nicholas Attwood as fixedly as Nick had stared
at him.

It was a hearty little English lad he saw, about eleven
years of age, tall, slender, trimly built, and fair. A gray
cloth cap clung to the side of his curly yellow head, and
he wore a sleeveless jerkin of dark-blue serge, gray home-
spun hose, and heelless shoes of russet leather. The white
sleeves of his linen shirt were open to the elbow, and his
arms were lithe and brown. His eyes were frankly clear