ayer, was sitting with his back against an
oak, placidly munching the last of the cheese, when Nick began to sing.
He started, straightening 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, 'tis--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 somewhere, 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 and
blue, and his red mouth had a trick of smiling that went straight to a
body's heart.

"Why, lad, lad," cried Carew, breathlessly, "thou hast a very fortune in
thy throat!"

Nick looked up in great surprise; and at that the master-player broke
off suddenly and said no more, though such a strange light came creeping
into his eyes that Nick, after meeting his fixed stare for a moment,
asked uneasily if they would not better be going on.

Without a word the master-player started. Something had come into his
head which seemed to more than fill his mind; for as he strode along he
whistled under his breath and laughed softly to himself. Then again he
snapped his fingers and took a dancing step or two across the road, and
at last fell to talking aloud to himself, though Nick could not make out
a single word he said, for it was in some foreign language.

"Nicholas," he said suddenly, as they passed the windin