Fulbroke park.

Now and then a heron, rising from the river, trailed its long legs
across the sky, or a kingfisher sparkled in his own splash. Once a
lonely fisherman down by the Avon started a wild duck from the sedge,
and away it went pattering up-stream with frightened wings and red feet
running along the water. And then a river-rat plumped into the stream
beneath the willows, and left a long string of bubbles behind him.

Nick's ill humor soon wore off as he breathed the fresh air, moist from
lush meadows, and sweet from hedges pink and white with hawthorn bloom.
The thought of being pent up on such a day grew more and more
unbearable, and a blithe sense of freedom from all restraint blunted the
prick of conscience.

"Why art going to Coventry, Nick?" inquired Roger suddenly, startled by
a thought coming into his wits like a child by a bat in the room.

"To see the stage-play that the burgesses would na allow in Stratford."

"Wull I see, too?"

"If thou hast eyes--the Mayor's show is free."

"Oh, feckins, wun't it be fine?" gaped Hodge. "Be it a tailors' show,
Nick, wi' Herod the King, and a rope for to hang Judas? An' wull they
set the world afire wi' a torch, an' make the earth quake fearful wi' a
barrel full o' stones? Or wull it be Sin in a motley gown a-thumping the
Black Man over the pate wi' a bladder full o' peasen--an' angels wi'
silver wingses, an' saints wi' goolden hair? Or wull it be a giant nine