gutters and streets being very foul, and the by-lanes
impassable. And now the children of Paul's gave no more plays in the
yard of the Mitre Inn, but sang in their own warm hall; for winter
was at hand.

There came black nights when an ugly wind moaned in the shivering
chimneys and howled across the peaked roofs, nights when there was no
playing at the Rose, but it was hearty to be by the fire. Then sometimes
Carew sat at home all evening long, with Cicely upon his knee, and told
strange tales of lands across the sea, where he had traveled when he was
young, and where none spoke English but chance travelers, and even the
loudest shouting could not serve to make the people understand.

While he spun these wondrous yarns Nick would curl up on the hearth and
blow the crackling fire, sometimes staring at the master-player's
stories, sometimes laughing to himself at the funny faces carved upon
the sides of the chubby Dutch bellows, and sometimes neither laughing
nor listening, but thinking silently of home. Then Carew, looking at him
there, would quickly turn his face away and tell another tale.

But oftener the master-player stayed all night at the Falcon Inn with
Dick Jones, Tom Hearne, Humphrey Jeffs, and other reckless roysterers,
dicing and flipping shillings at shovel-board until his finger-nails
were sore. Then Nick would read aloud to Cicely out of the "Hundred
Merry Tales," or pop old riddles at her puzzled head until she,
laughing, cried, "Enough!" But most of all he liked the story of brave
Guy of Warwick, and would tell it again and again, with other legends of
Arden Wood, till bedtime came.

In the gray of the morning Carew would come home, unshaven and
leaden-eyed, with his bandy-legged varlet trotting like a watch-dog at
his heels; and then, if the gaming had gone well, he was a lord, an
earl, a duke, at least, so merry and so sprightly would he be withal;
but if the dice had fallen wrong, he would by turns be raving mad or
sodden as a sunken pie.

Yet, be his temper what it might, he was but one thing always to Cicely,
and doffed ill humor like a shabby hat when she came running to meet
him in the shadows of the hall; so that when he came into the lighted
room, with her upon his shoulder, his face was smiles, his step a
frolic, and his bearing that of a happy boy.

But day by day the weather grew worse, with snow and ice paving the
streets with a glassy glare and choking the frozen drains; and there wa