168 MASTER SKYLARK

in a window on a dark street; so that both the high and
the low, the rich and the poor, came in to see them play
and dance, to hear them sing, and to laugh again at the
witty things which were written for them to say.

The songs that were set for Nick to sing were always
short, sweet, simple things that even the dull-eyed, toil-
worn folk upon the rough plank benches in the pit could
understand. Many a silver shilling came clinking down .
at the heels of the other boys from the galleries of the inn,
where the people of the better classes, wealthy merchants,
ladies and their dashing gallants, watched the children’s
company ; but when Nick’s songs were done the common
people down below seemed all gone daft. They tossed red
apples after him, ripe yellow pears, fat purple plums by
handfuls, called him by name and brought him back, and
cried for more and more and more, until the old precentor
shook his head behind the prompter’s-screen, and waved .
Nick off with a forbidding frown. Yet all the while he
chuckled to himself until it seemed as if his dry old ribs
would rattle in his sides; and every day, before Nick sang,
he had him up to his little room for a broken egg and a
cup of rosy cordial.

“To clear thy voice and to cheer the cockles of thine
heart,” said he; “and to tune that pretty throat of thine
ad gustum Reginae—which is to say, ‘to the Queen’s own
taste,’ —God bless Her Majesty!”

The other boys were cast for women’s parts, for women
never acted then; and a queer sight it was to Nick to see
his fellows in great farthingales of taffeta and starchy