118 MASTER SKYLARK

by then.” With a curt bow he was off through the crowd,
Nick’s hand in his own clenched very tight.

They had hard work getting down the steps, for two
hot-headed gallants were quarreling there as to who should
come up first, and there was a great press. But Carew
scowled and showed his teeth, and clenched his poniard-
hilt so fiercely that the commoners fell away and let them
down.

Nick’s eyes were hungry for the printers’ stalls where
ballad-sheets were sold for a penny, and where the books
were piled along the shelves until he wondered if all
London were turned printer. He looked about to see if
he might chance upon Diccon Field; but Carew came so
quickly through the crowd that Nick had not time to
recognize Diccon if he had been there. Diccon had often
made Nick whistles from the pollard willows along the
Avon below the tannery when Nick was a toddler in
smocks, and the lad thought he would like to see him
before going back to Stratford. Then, too, his mother
had always liked Diccon Field, and would be glad to hear
from him. At thought of his mother he gave a happy
little skip; and as they turned into Paternoster Row,
“Master Carew,” said he, “how soon shall I go home?”

Carew walked a little faster.

There had arisen a sound of shouting and a trampling
of feet. The constables had taken a purse-cutting thief,
and were coming up to the Newgate prison with a great
rabble behind them. The fellow’s head was broken, and
his haggard face was all screwed up with pain; but that