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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/34105-8.txt b/34105-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e879d5a --- /dev/null +++ b/34105-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9425 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Idonia: A Romance of Old London, by Arthur F. Wallis + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Idonia: A Romance of Old London + +Author: Arthur F. Wallis + +Illustrator: Charles E. Brock + +Release Date: October 20, 2010 [EBook #34105] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IDONIA: A ROMANCE OF OLD LONDON *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: The great ledger-book--which I now saw turned to an +engine of our salvation. Chapter XIV] + + + + + +IDONIA: + +A ROMANCE OF OLD LONDON + + +BY + +ARTHUR F. WALLIS + + + + +ILLUSTRATED BY + +CHARLES E. BROCK + + + + +BOSTON + +LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY + +1914 + + + + +_Copyright, 1913_, + +By LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. + + +_All rights reserved_ + + + + +THE COLONIAL PRESS + +C. H. SIMONDS & CO., BOSTON, U. S. A. + + + + +AUTHOR'S NOTE + +The irregular pile of buildings known as Petty Wales, of which +considerable mention is made in this book, formerly stood at the +northeast corner of Thames Street. The chronicler, Stow, writes of +"some large buildings of stone, the ruins whereof do yet remain, but +the first builders and owners of them are worn out of memory. Some are +of opinion ... that this great stone building was sometime the lodging +appointed for the princes of Wales when they repaired to this city, and +that therefore the street, in that part, is called Petty Wales;" and he +further adds: "The merchants of Burdeaux were licensed to build at the +Vintry, strongly with stone, as may yet be seen, and seemeth old though +oft repaired; much more cause have these buildings in Petty Wales ... +to seem old, which, for many years, to wit, since the galleys left +their course of landing there, hath fallen to ruin." It appears to +have been let out for many uses, some disreputable; and a certain +Mother Mampudding (of whom one would like to know more) kept a part of +the house for victualling. + + + + +CONTENTS + + I. IN WHICH I LEARN FOR THE FIRST TIME THAT I HAVE AN UNCLE + II. IN WHICH PTOLEMY PHILPOT COMMENCES HIS STUDY OF THE LATIN + TONGUE + III. HOW A BROTHER, HAVING OFFENDED, WAS FORGIVEN + IV. IN WHICH I SAY FAREWELL THRICE + V. PRINCIPALLY TELLS HOW SIR MATTHEW JUKE WAS CAST AWAY UPON THE + HEBRIDES + VI. HOW THE OLD SCHOLAR AND I CAME TO LONDON + VII. IN WHICH I CONCEIVE A DISLIKE OF AN EARL'S SERVANT AND AN + AFFECTION FOR A MAN OF LAW + VIII. A CHAPTER OF CHEATS + IX. TELLS HOW I CHANGED MY LODGING AND LOST MY MARE + X. HOW I SAW AN ENEMY AT THE WINDOW + XI. IS SUFFICIENT IN THAT IT TELLS OF IDONIA + XII. HOW MR. JORDAN COULD NOT RUN COUNTER TO THE COURSE OF NATURE + XIII. PETTY WALES + XIV. HOW IDONIA TAUGHT ME AND A CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD HOW TO KEEP + BOOKS + XV. IN WHICH I BEGIN TO EARN MY LIVING + XVI. THE SIEGE OF PETTY WALES + XVII. HOW I FOUND AN OLD FRIEND IN A STRANGE PLACE, AND HOW PTOLEMY + RENEWED HIS STUDY OF THE LATIN TONGUE + XVIII. IN WHICH I RECEIVE A COMMISSION AND SUFFER A CHECK + XIX. IN WHICH I COME TO GRIPS WITH MR. MALPAS + XX. THE ADVENTURE OF THE CHINESE JAR + XXI. THE "FAIR HAVEN" OF WAPPING + XXII. HOW MY UNCLE BOTOLPH LOST HIS LUCK + XXIII. THE VOYAGE OF THE _SARACEN'S HEAD_ + XXIV. THE TEMPLE BENEATH THE WATERS + XXV. IN WHICH THE SHIPS OF WAR GO BY AND THE TALE ENDS + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +THE GREAT LEDGER-BOOK--WHICH I NOW SAW + TURNED TO AN ENGINE OF OUR SALVATION . . . _Frontispiece_ + +THE ARGUMENT BETWEEN MR. SKEGS AND PTOLEMY + +MR. JORDAN REGARDED ME VERY MOURNFULLY + +"YOU CANNOT BE IGNORANT THAT THIS AFFAIR IS + LIKE TO END BADLY FOR YOU, MR. DENIS" + + + + +IDONIA + + + +CHAPTER I + +IN WHICH I LEARN FOR THE FIRST TIME THAT I HAVE AN UNCLE + +The first remembrance I hold of my father is of a dark-suited tall man +of an unchanging gravity on all occasions. He had, moreover, a manner +of saying "Ay, ay," which I early came to regard as the prologue to +some definite prohibition; as when I asked him (I being then but a +scrubbed boy) for his great sword, to give it to a crippled soldier at +our gate, who had lost his proper weapon in the foreign wars-- + +"Ay, ay," said my father, nodding his grey head, "so he lost his good +sword, and you would make good the loss with mine. Ay, 'twas a +generous thought of yours, Denis, surely." + +I was for reaching it down forthwith, where it hung by the wall in its +red velvet scabbard, delighted at the pleasure I was to do my bedesman. + +"Go to your chamber, boy," said my father in a voice smaller than +ordinary. + +"But, sir, the sword!" I cried. + +"Ay, the sword," he replied, nodding as before. "But, go warn Simon +Powell that he look to his poultry-lofts. And learn wisdom, Denis, for +you have some need of it, in my judgment." + +The same temperate behaviour he ever showed; granting little, and that +never to prayers, but sometimes upon good reasoning. He seemed to have +put by anger as having no occasion for the use of it, anger being +neither buckler nor broadsword, he would say, but Tom Fool's motley. +This calmness of his, I say, it was I first remember, and it was this +too that put a distance between us; so that I grew from boyhood to nigh +manhood, that is until my eighteenth year, without any clear +understanding of what lay concealed behind his mask of quiet. That he +had a passion for books I soon discovered, and the discovery confirmed +me in the foolish timidity with which I regarded him. For hours +together would he sit in the little high room beyond the hall, his +beard buried in his ruff, while the men awaited his orders to go about +the harvesting, and would read continuously in his great folios: the +Lives of Plutarch, or Plato, or the Stoick Emperor, or other such +works, until the day was gone and all labour lost. I have known our +overseer to swear horrid great oaths when he learned that Master Cleeve +had received a new parcel of books by the carrier, crying out that no +estate would sustain the burden of so much learning so ill applied. + +Our house stood within a steep combe close under the Brendon hills, and +not far from the Channel, by which ships pass to Bristol, and +outward-bound to the open sea. Many a time have I stood on a rise of +ground between the Abbey, whence it is said we take our name of Cleeve, +and the hamlet on the cliff above the seashore, gazing out upon the +brave show of ships with all sails set, the mariners hauling at the +ropes or leaning over the sides of their vessels; and wondered what +rich cargo it was they carried from outlandish ports, until a kind of +pity grew in me for my father in his little room with his rumpled ruff +and his Logick and Physick and Ethick, and his carrier's cart at the +door with Ethick and Physick and Logick over again. + +At such times Simon Powell was often my companion, a lad of a strange +wild spirit, lately come out of Wales across the Channel, and one I +loved for the tales he had to tell of the admirable things that +happened long since in his country, and indeed, he said, lately too. I +cannot call to mind the names of the host of princes that filled his +histories, save Arthur's only; but of their doings, and how they talked +familiarly with beasts and birds, and how they exchanged their proper +shapes at will, and how one of them bade his companions cut off his +head and bear it with them to the White Mount in London; which journey +of theirs continued during fourscore years; of all these marvels I have +still the memory, and of Simon Powell's manner of telling them, which +was very earnest, making one earnest who listened to him. + +For ordinary teaching, that is, in Latin and divinity and arithmetick, +I was sent to one Mr. Jordan, who lived across the combe, in a sort of +hollow half way up the moor beyond, in a little house of but four +rooms, of which two were filled with books, and his bed stood in one of +them. The other two rooms I believe he never entered, which were the +kitchen and the bedchamber. For having dragged his bed, many years +before, into the room where he kept the most of his books, he found it +convenient, as he said, to observe this order ever afterwards; and +being an incredibly idle man, though a great and learned scholar, he +would lie in bed the best part of a summer's day and pluck out book +after book from their shelves, reading them half aloud, and only +interrupting his lecture for extraordinary purposes. My father paid +him handsomely for my tuition, though I learned less from him than I +might have done from a far less learned man. He was very old, and the +common talk was that he had been a clerk in the old Abbey before the +King's Commission closed it. It was therefore strange that he taught +me so little divinity as he did, unless it were that the reading of +many pagan books had somewhat clouded his mind in this particular. For +I am persuaded that for once he spoke of the Christian faith he spoke a +hundred times of Minerva and Apollo, and the whole rout of Atheistical +Deities which we rightly hold in abhorrence. + +My chief occupation, when I was not at school with Mr. Jordan nor on +the hills with Simon, was to go about our estates, which, although they +were not very large, were fair, and on the whole well ordered. Our +steward, for all his distaste of my father's sedentary habit, had a +reverence for him, and said he was a good master, though he would never +be a wealthy one. + +"His worship's brother now," he once said, "who is, I think, one of the +great merchants of London, would make this valley as rich and +prosperous as any the Devon shipmasters have met with beyond the +Western Sea." + +I asked him who was my uncle of whom he spoke, and of whom I heard for +the first time. + +"'Tis Master Botolph Cleeve," he said. "But his worship does not see +him this many a year, nor offer him entertainment since they drew upon +each other in the great hall." + +"Here, in this house!" I cried, for this was all news to me, and +unsuspected. + +"In this house it was, indeed, Master Denis," replied the steward, +"while you were a poor babe not yet two year old. But there be some +things best forgotten," he added quickly, and began to walk towards +where the men were felling an alder tree by the combe-brook. + +"Nay, Peter Sprot," I cried out, detaining him, "tell me all now, for +things cannot be forgotten, save they have first been spoken of." + +He laughed a little at this boyish argument, but would not consent at +that time. Indeed, it was near a year afterwards, and when I had +gained some authority about the estate, that he at length did as I +demanded. + +It was a sweet spring morning (I remember) with a heaven full of big +white clouds come up from the westward over Dunkery on a high wind that +bent the saplings and set the branches in the great woods stirring. We +had gone up the moor, behind Mr. Jordan's house, with the shepherd, to +recover a strayed sheep, which, about an hour before noon, the shepherd +chanced to espy a long way off, dead, and a mob of ravens over her, +buffeted about by the gale. The shepherd immediately ran to the place, +where he beat off the ravens and afterwards took up the carcase on his +shoulders and went down the combe, leaving us twain together. + +"It is not often that he loses any beast," said the steward. "'Tis a +careful man among the flocks, though among the wenches, not so." + +I know not why, but this character of the shepherd put me again in mind +of my uncle Botolph, upon whom I had not thought for a great while. + +"Tell me, Peter Sprot," I said, "how it was my father and my uncle came +to fighting." + +"Nay, they came not so far as to fight," cried the steward, with a +start. + +"But they drew upon each other," said I. + +He sat silent for a little, tugging at his rough hair, as was his wont +when he meditated deeply. + +After awhile, "You never knew your lady mother," he said, in a deep +voice, "so that my tale must lack for that which should be chief of it. +For to all who knew her, the things which befell seemed a part of her +beauty, or rather to issue from it naturally, though, indeed, they were +very terrible. Mr. Denis, it is the stream which runs by the old +course bursts the bridges in time of winter, and down the common ways +that trouble ever comes." + +"But what trouble was in this," I asked, in the pause he made, "that it +were necessary I should have known my mother to comprehend it?" + +"Nay, not the trouble, master," he answered, "for that was manifest to +all. But 'twas her grace and beauty, and her pretty behaviour, that +none who knew not Madam Rachel your mother, may conjure e'en the shadow +of. + +"You were a toward lad at all times," he went on, "and when your +brother was born, though you were scarce turned two, you would be +singing and talking from dawn to dark. Ah! sir, your father did not +keep his book-room then, but would be in the great chamber aloft, with +you and your lady mother and the nurse, laughing at your new-found +words and ditties, and riding you and fondling you--God save us!--as a +man who had never lived till then. + +"'Twas when little Master Hugh came that all changed. For what must 'a +do, but have down Mr. Botolph from London to stand sponsor to him, at +the christening. He came, a fine man, larger than his worship, and +with a manner of bending his brow, which methought betokened a +swiftness of comprehension and an impatience of all he found +displeasing. Indeed, there was little he did not observe, noting it +for correction or betterment. Though a city man and a merchant, Mr. +Botolph had but to cast an eye over this place, and 'Brother,' said he, +'there be some things here ill done or but indifferent well'; and +showed him that the ricks were all drenched and moulded where they +stood, and bade him build them higher up the slope. Master Cleeve took +his advice in good part, for they were friends yet. + +"But within a little while, I know not how, a shadow fell athwart all. +In the farm, matters went amiss, and the weather which had formerly +been fine became foul, with snow falling, though it was come +Eastertide, and all the lambs sickened. The maids whispered of Mr. +Botolph, who had never so much as set eyes on my lady till that time +(she having kept her bed to within a week of the christening), that he +had spoken no word since the hour he saw her in, nor scarce once +stirred from his chamber. His worship, they said, took no heed of this +melancholy in his brother, or rather seemed not to do so, though he +played no longer with you, and had small joy of the infant. But with +Madam Rachel he sat long in chat, cheering her, and talking of what +should be done in due season, and of how he would remove the state +rooms to the upper floor (as was then generally being done elsewhere), +and would build a noble staircase from the old hall; and of many other +such matters as he had in mind. + +"So for a week, and until the eve of the christening, nought could be +called strange, save that Mr. Botolph kept himself apart, and that the +shadow on all men's minds lay cold. I doubt if any slept that night, +for without the wind was high as now it is, and charged with snow. We +could hear the beasts snorting in their stalls and the horses +whinnying. Little do I fear, Master Denis," said the old man, suddenly +breaking off, "but I tell you there was something abroad that night was +not in nature. + +"'Twas about midnight that we heard laughter; your lady mother laughing +in her silver voice, which yet had a sort of mockery in it, and his +worship answering her now and then. After awhile comes he to my room, +where I yet sleep, beyond the armoury. + +"'Peter,' he says, 'hast seen my brother Botolph?' + +"I told him no, but that I supposed he was in the guest-room down the +long corridor. + +"'Madam Cleeve cannot sleep,' says he again, 'thinking that he is out +in the storm, and would have us seek him.' + +"I lit a candle at this, for we had spoken in the dark hitherto, and +when it had burned up, I saw his worship dressed and with his boots on. +His sword he held naked in his hand, and with his other hand he would +press upon his brow as one whose mind is dull. The gale nearly blew +out the candle the while I dressed myself, and again we listened to the +noises without. + +"I took a staff from behind the door. + +"'Whither shall we go?' he asked me. + +"'Surely to his room, first of all,' said I, 'for it is likely that my +lady is deceived.' + +"'I think so,' he said gravely, and we went upstairs. + +"Without summoning him, Mr. Cleeve opened the doors of his brother's +chamber, and at once started back. + +"'He is not within,' he said, in a low voice, and neither of us spoke +nor even moved forward to search the room thoroughly. It was very +manifest to us that the shadow under which we had been moving for many +days was now to lift; and the certainty that it would lift upon black +terror held us in a sort of trance. + +"I am not of a ready wit at most times, Mr. Denis, but somehow without +the use of wit, and almost upon instinct I said: 'Go you again to your +own chamber, master, and if all be well there, be pleased to meet me +below in the great hall,' and with that, hastening away, I left him. + +"I ran at once to the stair, which has a window overlooking the base +court; and as I ran methought the sound I had heard before of horses +whinnying, was strangely clear and loud, they being safe in stable long +since and the door shut. The candle which I still bore just then a +gust of wind extinguished, so that I could scarce find my way to the +window, so black was all, and I so distraught. But once there, I +needed not to look a second time, for down below in the snow of the +yard stood a great coach with four sturdy hackneys that kicked and +whinny'd to be gone. 'Twas so dark I could distinguish nought else, +yet I continued to stand and stare like a fool until on a sudden I +heard another sound of steel clashing, which sent my blood to my heart, +and a prayer for God's pity to my lips. + +"It was in the hall I found them, my master and Mr. Botolph; he cloaked +as for a journey; and beyond, swooning by the fire which had not yet +burned out, but threw a dull light along the floor, Madam Rachel, your +mother. + +"Not many passes had they made, as I think, when I came between them. +And indeed they did not resist me, for your father turned away at once, +striding across the red floor to my lady, while Mr. Botolph, with just +a sob of breath between his teeth, stole off, and as I suppose by the +coach, which we heard wheel about and clatter up the yard. I got me to +my cold bed then, Mr. Denis, leaving my master and mistress together. +It was the chill she took that cruel night which became a fever +suddenly, and of that she died, poor lady, and at the same time the +infant died too." + +He twitched his rough sheepskin coat about him as he concluded his +tale, for the sky was gathering to a head of tempest, and after a +little while we went down the moor towards the combe where the great +house lay in which I had been born, and where, as I knew, my father at +this moment was sitting solitary over some ancient folio, in the +endless endeavour after that should stead him in his battle with the +past. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +IN WHICH PTOLEMY PHILPOT COMMENCES HIS STUDY OF THE LATIN TONGUE + +It is, I conceive, natural in a young man to use more time than wisdom +in the building of hopes which be little else than dreams, though they +appear then more solid than gross reality. Thus I, in laying out my +future, saw all as clear as our own park-lands, and where I misliked +anything there I altered, working with a free hand, until the aspect of +my condition was at all points to my taste, and I itched to enter +forthwith into the manhood I had so diligently imagined. + +Unwittingly, perhaps, I had allowed Simon Powell's tales of fantasy to +get the mastery of my mind, and in such sort that no prince of all his +mountains ever marched so lightly from adventure to adventure, nor came +off with so much grace and so acclaimed as I. My life (I told myself) +was to borrow no whit of my father's aversion from the world, which +disposition of his, for all my pity of the cause of it, I could not +find it in my heart to praise. Alas! I was but nineteen years of my +age, and pride was strong within me, and the lust of combat. + +With Simon himself I consorted less frequently than of old, for I stood +already in the estate of a master; being acknowledged as such by all, +from Peter Sprot himself to the maids who came into the fields for the +gleaning, and courtsey'd to me as I rode between the stooks on my white +mare. But although I had necessarily become parted from my wild +preceptor, I had, as I say, my mind tutored to dreaming, which but for +Simon might have been dull and content with petty things, whereas it +was with a gay arrogance that I now regarded the ordering of the world, +and held myself ordained a champion to make all well. For this I +hereby thank Simon Powell with all my heart; and indeed it is a benefit +well-nigh inestimable. To such a height then had this humour of +errantry gone, that I would snatch at every occasion to gratify it; and +so would ride forth through the gate before the grey Combe Court, and +setting my mare at a gallop, would traverse the lanes athwart which the +level morning sun cast bars of pale gold and the trees their shadows, +and be up on the wide rolling moors or ever the mists were stirring in +the valley or the labourers risen to their tasks. Many a fancy held my +busy brain at such times, and as I looked backward upon our great +irregular house, which was built, a part of it, in the year of +Agincourt, so quiet it lay amidst its woods and pasture lands that it +seemed a place enchanted, upon which some magician had stolen with a +spell of sleep. 'Twas no home for active men, I said, and laughed as I +turned away and urged my poor jade again onward. Contempt is very +close to joy in a lad's heart, and his valour rouses (like old Rome) to +the summons of the goose-voice within him. + +Some six months had passed since the steward first acquainted me with +the calamity which had made shipwreck of my father's life, when, upon a +memorable, clear, October morning, I rode forth as my custom was, +intending to shape my course towards the little hamlet of Roodwater, +and so by the flats to Dunster. The orchard-trees about the old Abbey +were rimed with frost, and a keenness in the air lifted me so that I +could have wept or sung indifferently. The dawn had scarce broke when +I set out, and 'twas not till I had ridden three or four miles that the +smoky redness of the sun showed between the pine stems on a spur of +hill behind me. My thoughts were all of victory, and in this temper +the events of the time, albeit I am no politician, confirmed me. For +news had reached us a little since of the disclosure of that horrid +plot of Throgmorton and the two Earls against Her Grace and our most +dear Sovereign, and of how sundry suspected persons of high estate were +arrested and confined. The Papists everywhere were said to be in great +confusion, for though many, and some said the most part, were loyal +subjects enough, yet the defection and proved villainy of the rest +shook all faith in those that professed still the old religion and +allegiance to the Pope. The Queen's ships were straitly ordered to +watch the ports, and even as I descended the hill beyond Roodwater to +the seashore, I saw, a little off Watchet Quay, a ship of war riding at +anchor, and a cock-boat pulling away from her side. + +Moreover, it was no great while since, by order of Her Majesty's +Council, that notable Bond of Association had been signed for the +better defence of the Queen, my father signing with the rest, as a +chief person of these parts and a magistrate. + +I am no politician, as I say, but there is small need of knowledge in +State affairs to make a man love his home; and when a plot of the +magnitude which this of Fr. Throgmorton's had, is brought to light, +why, every man is a politician perforce and a soldier too. + +For Queen Mary Stuart, who was now more closely guarded, as indeed was +meet, and who later was to be led to her death, I say nought of her, +for tales be many, and men's minds confused, when it comes to question +of a woman sinning, and that the fairest of them all. That she was +guilty I suppose no one reasonably doubteth, and obnoxious to peace and +good government, but, when all is said, there is the pity of slaying a +delicate lady in order to the securing ourselves; and such a deed makes +quiet a cowardly thing, and puts a colour of shame on justice herself. + +But that business was not come yet by two years and more, and for the +present all our thoughts were of gratitude for our deliverance from the +subtlety of forsworn plotters, and of courage and loyalty and the will +to be feared. + +I spurred my mare down the rough lane, and was soon out upon the level +shore of the bay, beyond which lies Dunster in a fold of steep moor, +and the wooded promontory of Minehead further to the west. The tide +was out as I rode at full gallop along the bow of thin turf which +bounds the coast; while across the reach of sand the little waves +lapped and fretted with a sweet, low sound. + +The sun was now risen pretty high, and the fisher-folk were busied here +and there with their nets and tackle as I passed them by. It was nigh +eight o'clock when I drew rein in Dunster market, before the chief inn +there--a clean place, and of good entertainment. My purpose was +immediately to break my fast, for I had a fierceness of hunger upon me +by reason of the sharp air and the early hour, and afterwards to visit +a certain sea captain whom I knew to be lodged there, Mr. Jonas Cutts, +of the _Three Lanterns_, one of Her Majesty's ships, though but a small +one; he being a gentleman I had met with upon the occasion of my +father's signing the Bond of Defence. What my further purpose was, if +indeed 'twere aught but to hear wonders and talk big about the +Spaniards, I cannot now charge my remembrance, but to him I was +determined to go after breakfast and waste an hour before returning +home. + +I inquired his lodging out, therefore, over my dish of eggs, but +learned to my disappointment that he had left it suddenly, before +daybreak, to join his ship at Minehead, where it lay. This +intelligence, little though it affected me, save as it robbed my +idleness of some plea of purpose, I took ill enough, rating my host +like the angry boy I was, and dispraising the closeness of the ward +upon our coasts, though I had formerly praised the same, and indeed had +meant to enlarge with the captain upon this very theme. + +In a very sour humour then I departed from the inn, and while my mare +was baiting took a turn about the town. + +And so fair did I find all, the high street wide and sweet and the +houses thereon neat and well ordered, the great castle, moreover, on a +mount at the nether end, very fencible and stately builded, that it was +not long ere my spirits rose again, and I thought no more upon Captain +Cutts and his departing. Methought the countryside had never seemed so +pleasant as now under its web of frost, and the trees a kind of blue of +the colour of silver-work tarnished by age, the sky red behind them +reaching up from grey. I left the middle part of the town soon and got +into the lanes, where at length I came by chance upon an ancient mill, +which was once, I learned, a monkish mill whither every man had +perforce to bring his grain to be ground. Now as I stood idly by the +gate of the mill-house I heard voices of men in talk, and, without +further intention, could not but catch some words of their discourse. +It was evident that a bargain was going forward, and that one sold +grudgingly. + +"Nay," said the one voice, "for this standard of red buckram, +sevenpence and no less, Master Ptolemy." + +"Thou puttest me to uncommon great charges, Master Skegs," replied the +other invisible; "what with thy gilding and thy scarlet hoods, and now +this standard of the devil! Ay, and besides there is that crazy mitre +of Cayphas, which, o' my conscience, is not worth the half a groat." + +"'A cost me two shillings not twelvemonth since," cried the first +invisible in a manifest rage, "yet am I willing to sell it thee for one +shilling and ninepence as I have set it down in the bill, where is also +to be found a coat of skins; item, a tabard; item, Herod's crest of +iron; all which I have grossly undervalued. Ah! there be some," he +interjected, in a whining voice, "there be some that would buy up all +Jewry for a parcel of bawdy, torn ballads. Art not ashamed, Ptolemy +Philpot, thou a Christian man, to purchase so divine a tragedy for so +mean a sum?" But the invisible Ptolemy not replying, the invisible +Skegs proceeded: + +"Well, thou hast heard my price, master, which is three pounds sixteen +shillings in all, and look you! to avoid all bitterness and to make an +end, I will throw in the parchment beasts of the Deluge for the same." + +What manner of cheapening was here I could not conceive, and so (still +chiding my lack of manners) crept through the gate and to a coign of +the mill-house, where I might observe these strange traders in +parchment beasts and red buckram. And observe them I did, indeed, and +they me at the same instant; which discovery so confused me that I +stood before them first on one foot and then on the other, with no +sense to go or stay, nor to cover my discourtesy with any plausible +excuse. Howbeit, one, whom I took (and rightly) to be Ptolemy, burst +into laughter at this my detected intrusion, and bade me step forward +and judge betwixt them. He was a big man, with a child's face for all +that he wore a great beard, and a terrible nose of the colour of the +stone they call agate, it being veined too and marvellous shining. Yet +his voice was small like a child's, and I saw at once that in any +bargain he was like to get the worse of it. The other man, whose name +was Skegs, had a woeful pallor, but an undaunted behaviour and a very +fierce eye. Between them stood the cause of their difference, which +was a sort of wheeled pageant or cart of two stages; the upper being +open and about five feet in breadth, with a painted cloth behind; the +lower room enclosed, and was, I learned, for the convenience and +disposal of the puppet master (this being a puppet-show and the puppets +appearing, as players do, on the stage above). + +Coming forward, then, as I was bidden, I very modestly awaited the +argument between Mr. Skegs and Ptolemy, being pleased to be trusted in +so notable a cause. But it fell out otherwise, for Skegs swore by the +body of St. Rumbold he would have no arbitrament, and that his price +was three pound and sixteen shillings, as he had already said. + +"It is a great sum," said Ptolemy, in his piping reed voice. + +"How, great?" retorted Skegs, "seeing I sell thee the pageant-car +itself, together with Nicodemus, Pilate, and four stout Torturers, +besides the holy folk, and all their appurtenance. And were I not at +the gate of the grave myself, I would not part with so much as Joseph's +beard for twice this reckoning." + +"He gives you also certain parchment beasts, Mr. Ptolemy," said I, very +judicially. + +"I retract the beasts," cried the pageant master, whose red eyes blazed +terribly, and he danced with vexation of my ruling. + +"Look you, now," grumbled Ptolemy, running his great hand through his +beard, "was ever such a fellow!" + +"'Tis a part of the Deluge," said Mr. Skegs, "and to bring in beasts +before the judgment-seat of Pilate were against all Scripture. But +contrariwise, as it toucheth the Interlude of the Deluge, mass! without +those beasts of mine, the cats and dogs too (as the verse goes)-- + + "'Otter, fox, fulmart also; + Hares hopping gaily' + +withouten these wherefore was Noah's ark builded, and so great a stir +made?" + +"But if you be about to die, Master Skegs," I put in, "as you say you +are, of what advantage is this same Deluge to you?" + +"Ay, truly," cried Ptolemy, "for thou hast no wife, man, nor any +dependent on thee. So thou be decently buried, 'tis all one whether I +have the parchment beasts or thou." + +"Would you spoil me of my heritage?" cried the pallid man in an +extremity of rage, "and strip me naked before I be come to the grave? +I say thou shalt not have the beasts." + +"Wilt thou sell me the Deluge outright?" asked Ptolemy after a silence, +"for I am no hand at this chaffering." + +"Ay, for a further fourteen shillings, I will," said Skegs promptly, +"which maketh in all four pounds and ten shillings; and for that, I +give thee Noah, a new figure of wood, and Noah's wife, who truly is +somewhat worsened by usage, but not past mending; Shem also, Ham and +Japhet, stalwart lads all, and their wives corresponding. An ark there +is, moreover, which was builded in Rye by a shipwright out of battens +and good gummed canvas. The beasts be all whole, save the weasel, but +that signifieth not. I have a schedule of them, and the parts of the +players in good scrivener's hand. All these shalt thou have for a +matter of four pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence." + +"Four pounds and ten shillings, Master Skegs," said Ptolemy, dismayed +at this unconscionable addition. + +"Said I aught of the ark when I named that price?" asked Skegs +scornfully. "Wouldst thou haggle with a dying man, Ptolemy Philpot?" + +"I will furnish the remainder shillings," I whispered to Ptolemy, who +stood in a maze to answer such imposture as Skegs sought to lay upon +him. "Strike the bargain, Mr. Ptolemy, and pay when thou hast checked +over the tale of beasts." + +[Illustration: The argument between Mr. Skegs & Ptolemy. Chapter II] + +He thanked me like a pleased stripling, and, to be short, purchased all +for the sum named, which, there being seven or eight pieces not found, +and Japhet's leg burst from the pin, methought sufficient, albeit Mr. +Skegs at every turn sought to increase it, or else detract some piece +of note, as Mount Ararat in pasteboard and the dove with a sprig of +olive. + +"I have forgot the raven," he screamed after us, as at length we went +away with our cartful of miracles. "'Twas new varnished at Michaelmas, +and there is the cost of the varnish you must repay me, which is +three-pence halfpenny," at which, when we replied not, he ran into the +mill-house in a sort of fury, and as I understood, died there a week +later, muttering upon his "cocks and kites and crows," his + + "Rooks and ravens, many rows; + Cuckoos, curlews, whoso knows, + Each one in his kind;" + +and putting a price upon each particular fowl, like any poulter in +Cheape. I never met a man so engrossed in business to so little +purpose, nor one (to do him justice) so little put out of his humour of +acquisition by the near approach of death. He had bought the mill, so +Ptolemy told me, out of his former profits, knowing nothing of the +miller's trade, but because it was to be got at an advantage. + +When we were out of the yard Mr. Philpot again thanked me immoderately +for my aid, which he said he would never forget (and as the event +proved, he did not); and told me moreover that he was bred to the +wax-chandlery, but had left it, having a taste for letters. + +"How will this pageant help you any whit the more to study?" I asked +him. + +"I shall go about the country," he replied, "and so I doubt not shall +fall in with very famous scholars, who are often to be found where they +be least expected. Have you ever read Horace now?" he asked me quickly. + +I told him, a little. + +"When I shall have learned Latin," he said, in his childlike manner, "I +shall do so also, and, indeed, I have bought his Satires already, but +can make little of them. The Romans must have been a marvellous +learned people," he observed with a sigh, "and 'tis small wonder they +conquered the world." + +"Is there any attendance upon these old interludes?" I demanded, as we +passed upward through the town towards my inn, where I was to take out +my mare. + +"Why, as to that," he replied something moodily, "I know not certainly +as yet, although I hope so, seeing that my proficiency in the Latin +tongue dependeth upon the popular favour towards them; and, indeed, I +may have been over eager at the bidding, since there doubtless hath +been some decline from the love of such plays that the vulgar was used +to show upon all occasions of their being enacted. Notwithstanding, I +have a design, as yet unperfected, by which, if I get no hearing for my +mysteries and moralities, I may yet prosper; and that is (to let you +into the secret), to turn this musty Deluge into a modern battle upon +the high seas, with Mr. John Hawkins for Noah--good seamen both; the +figure of Japhet, too, that hath by good fortune lost a leg, might +serve, with but slight alteration, for a veteran tall boatswain, and +Ham with the red beard, would as readily become a master-gunner. Ay, a +little skill would do all, Mr. Cleeve; and for the Spaniards, why, such +as were necessary to my purpose might be fashioned out of the greater +beasts, without any very notable difference from the original." + +I would have questioned him further upon this venture of his, which was +surely as bold as any that Mr. Hawkins had made to the coast of Guinea +or the Indies, had not I at that moment espied our overseer, Peter +Sprot, by the door of the inn, his horse blown and sweating, and +himself sitting stiff with hard riding. I ran to him at once, +demanding if he sought me, which I knew already was so, and felt a fear +at my heart lest my father was suddenly fallen ill. + +"His worship is not ill," replied Peter, "but sore troubled, and sends +for you home without delay." He cast a hard eye upon Ptolemy Philpot +as he spoke, for he had observed us in company, and being something +strait in matters of religion, held shows and dancing and such-like to +be idolatry and lewd sport. I have known him break a babe's rattle +that shook it on a Sunday, and quote the Pentateuch in defence of his +action. + +"What hath troubled him, Peter?" I asked eagerly, while the ostler +brought out my mare. + +"'Tis a letter," he said, and with that shut his mouth, so that I knew +it was vain to inquire further. + +Now, as I was managing my beast, that was restive with the cold air, +comes Mr. Ptolemy to my side, and ere I understood his purpose had +thrust up a little parchment-bound book for me to read the title of it, +whispering that he would have read it long since himself, but that +'twas in Latin. + +I told him briefly I could not read it then, being in an itch to be +gone; but he still detained me. + +"There is one particular word there set down," said he, "that I have +often lighted upon in other books also, which if you would translate +'twould ease me mightily." + +"What word is that?" cried I, impatiently. + +"It is _Quemadmodum_," said he. + +But before I could interpret to him, my mare had scoured away after +Peter Sprot's hackney, and we were a bowshot distant ere I had +recovered my seat. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +HOW A BROTHER, HAVING OFFENDED, WAS FORGIVEN + +I found my father sitting as his wont was in the high wainscoted +book-room beyond the hall. When I entered he looked up from a pile of +papers he had been diligently perusing, and smiled upon me pleasantly. +I was surprised to note the serenity of his brow, having indeed +prepared myself for a worse condition of health in him than Peter Sprot +had allowed. But whatever trouble he had he laid it by to bid me +good-morrow, and to excuse himself for so hastily summoning me. + +"Upon so fine a morning, Denis," he said, "I would not willingly have +cut short your pleasure, and do not so for my own business, which is +simple enough at most times, as a man's should be who hath ever studied +to be quiet." He paused a small while and cast his eye over an open +book that lay beside him on the table, and I knew it to be the +"Discourses of Epictetus." A wonder crept into my mind at this, that +while the words of Scripture would oftentimes be in his mouth, his +reading was generally in the heathens, and his way of life more +according to the ancient Stoicks (of whom Mr. Jordan had often +discoursed), than to the precepts of the Church of England of which he +nevertheless professed himself a member. Such fancies however being +foreign to the matter, I put them from me, expecting the sequel +anxiously, and in the meantime assuring my father that I would never +have gone thus upon my twilight journey had I known he required me; +which was indeed true, and he acknowledged it handsomely. + +"I know where to trust and where to doubt, Denis," he said, in his +quiet voice, "and I know likewise that where trust is broken there +stands occasion for lenity, though the using of it is hard at all +times; severity being more aptly come by, and by the vulgar commended." + +I knew by this that his thoughts had slid from the present into that +sad channel of the past, and marvelled that he could speak so of +forgiveness where his honour had been engaged, and, in the event, my +mother's life forfeit. + +"'Twas well that Peter had some inkling of your road," my father went +on and in a livelier manner, "else we might still be seeking you o'er +half Exmoor. But tell me what it was led you to Dunster, lad?" And he +looked at me methought somewhat keenly as he spoke. + +"I had hoped to meet with Captain Cutts," I returned boldly, though I +was conscious of the emptiness of the reason, "and to hear of the +chance of war." + +To my surprise my father appeared relieved by my answer, but presently +explained himself. + +"It had lain upon me that you were perhaps courting some lass there, +Denis; not that I should censure you therefor, but having need of you +myself awhile, I would not suddenly interfere with that is proper +enough for you to consider of at your age. Well, so much for +prologue," he broke off swiftly, and betook himself again to scanning +the papers on his desk. + +"So Mr. Cutts having avoided the town before you arrived," he said +presently, glancing up, "the direct purpose of your errand failed." + +I was about to reply when he added: "You have little cause to grieve in +that, Denis, seeing his commission is cancelled and he to be +apprehended for malpractices of which I have here the note before me." + +"I would all such villains were hanged as soon as apprehended," cried +I, in a sudden rage at this disclosed infamy; but my father put up his +hand peremptorily to stop me. + +"Hast ever heard of thine uncle Botolph?" he asked me presently, and +with the same piercing glance as before. + +I told him yes, and that Peter Sprot had related some part of his story +to me. + +"That was not altogether well," replied my father with a little +movement of his brows, "and not what I looked for from his discretion." +He set his ruff even and took up his pen as if to write, but sat so +awhile without either writing or speaking. + +"I forced him to tell me," I said, for I thought he blamed Peter for +what was truly my own curiosity. + +"Tut," said my father, "'tis a small matter, and being known saves many +words to no purpose. I have received a letter from him," he said. + +This amazed me, for I had thought him (I know not wherefore) to be dead. + +"Why, where is he?" I asked. + +"He is in the Tower," said my father. + +At these words my blood leapt to my heart in a tumult, for I knew well +enough what this meant, and that in such a time of danger as now we +lived in, when all was suspicion and betrayal, few men that had once +come into that foul dungeon ever left it living. Until now I had found +frequent matter for rejoicing in this very process and summary action +of the Council, being confident that 'twas for the better security of +the realm, and deriding them that would have accorded an open trial to +all, and the means of a man's clearing himself at the law. But now +that our own family stood thus impeached, I had nothing to say, nor +aught to think, but upon the terror of it and the disgrace to our house +and ancient name. + +"What is the cause?" I inquired, when I had something recovered myself; +but my lips were dry and my face (I am assured) as white as paper. + +"He has had licence granted to write," returned my father; "which is a +mark of favour not oftentimes bestowed. He saith he is well treated, +though for the rest his chamber is but a mean cold one and evil +smelling, and the ward upon him strict, especially when he is had in to +the Constable for examination, which hath been several times renewed. +As for the cause, there would appear by his letter to be little enough, +save such as gathers from a host of fears, and from his known devotion +to my Lord of Arundel; which indeed was the direct occasion of his +apprehension. Of a former intimacy with that witless Somerville +moreover, he is accused, and the mere supposition of it goes hard +against him; but upon this head he hath strong hope of his exculpation, +having only, as he writes, once met with the man, and then in a public +place without any the least concealment." + +He rose from his seat as he ended speaking, and took a turn or two +about the room, his hands clasped behind his back and his head bent in +thought. I suppose that never before had I observed my father with so +close attention, having ever held him (as I have said) in a kind of +negligent contempt for his mild and bookish ways. But now I perceived +a nobility of bearing in him which took me strangely, and withal, a +secret strength. His scholar's indifference he had quite cast aside, +and appeared full of purpose, shrewdly weighing each circumstance of +his brother's case, and examining the good and bad in it, in order to +the more directly assist him. This unused activity of his so engaged +me that for awhile I could do nought but follow him with my eyes, until +the vision of my father always thus (as thus he might have been, save +for that great weight of sorrow warping him from his natural aptness), +this vision, I say, so moved me in his favour and against my uncle +Botolph, who was surely now receiving chastisement for his former sin, +that I could not contain myself. + +"But, sir," I cried, "why should you concern yourself for a man that +hath wronged you so basely as my uncle did? And besides that," I +bethought myself to add in order to strengthen our excuse for leaving +him alone, "besides that, there is the unseemliness of your aiding a +man that the Queen's Majesty is offended withal. It is very probable +he is implicated in these treasons, who hath brought such treason into +household affairs, and the likelier still for his denying it." + +Something in my father's countenance stayed me there, else would I have +spoken more; for there is nought so easy as to persuade ourselves 'tis +right to do nothing in a dangerous pass. + +"Ay, ay," said my father slowly, "then your advice is to leave my +brother to perish." + +"You are a magistrate, sir," I stammered, "and it surely behoves you to +assist in the arrest of traitors." + +"Ay, and so it doth, Denis," said he, nodding, "but then, this +gentleman being already arrested, it seems that my poor assistance +therein is rendered in advance superfluous." + +"But you are minded to help him, sir," said I, "so far as you be able." + +"Leaving that aside," he said, "let us return to your former argument, +which was, as I remember, that because he had once badly wronged me so +I should not now concern myself on his behalf. Why then do you +afterwards bring me in as a magistrate, when you have so potently +addressed my prejudice as a man? Nay, Denis," he said, smiling at my +discomfiture, "you speak for my ease, I know well, and I thank you; but +this may not be. Nor, indeed, does your uncle desire it to be as you +understand the case. He prays me here," he struck the open letter +lightly, "to gain him fair trial, if such a thing may be come by, and +by it he is content to be judged. Were it I, who stood in this +jeopardy, Denis, and not he, would you deny me your offices?" + +His grave manner and contempt of the revenge I had held out to him, +wrought upon me so that I could not answer him, but going forward I +knelt and kissed his hand. I think now he was the best man I ever +knew, and one that, without hesitancy, ever chose the untainted course. + +We fell to business after that with a will; my father opening with me +upon many matters of procedure at the law, in which I was surprised to +find him perfect, and giving me his reasons for supposing that my uncle +Botolph would be suffered to stand upon his delivery in open court. He +read me his whole letter too, which I had to confess was very simply +written and bore the impress of truth. + +"You see that he speaks here of councillors to defend him, which is +very needful," my father continued, "though the emoluments of that +office be higher than I had hoped to find. He writes that a less sum +than five hundred pounds would avail little, which, if it include the +necessary expenses of seeking out witnesses (of whom he names one in +Flanders who must be brought home), if it include this, I say, and the +procuring of documents, that may well be, though I am sorry to find +justice sold at so high a rate." + +"But, sir, can you employ so much money in this affair?" I asked, for +it sounded an infinite treasure to me. + +"I think so," he replied, "though I would it were not so urgent. I +must however encumber the estate for awhile, Denis; as indeed hath been +done before by my grandfather, at the time the Scriptures were printed +in English secretly, three score years since; which work he was bold to +forward, and spared neither pains nor moneys therein. But that +concerns thee not, Denis," he broke off, "and for the getting together +of the ransom, for so it is, I will engage to effect it. Only your +part will be to convey it to London and deliver it to my brother's +agent and good friend, one Mr. John Skene, an attorney of Serjeants +Inn, in Fleet Street, who will use it, as your uncle believes, and I +doubt not, to advantage." + +Our conference ended, and my doubts resolved of what it stood me to do, +I went away, leaving my father still in his book-room, who had letters +to write to Exeter, about the business of the loan. The discourse I +had had, and especially the peril imminent over one so near in blood to +us, had excited my imagination greatly; so that 'twas a long while ere +I could examine each particular soberly, as a merchant doth a bill of +goods, and, as it were, piece by piece. Everything hung confused in my +brain like a wrack of cloud, which, parting, discloses now one thing +and now another but nothing clearly, nor whole. Immersed in such +considerations I had wandered a great way, and unawares had begun to +mount the steep hill that stands above the Combe Court, and now gazed +down through the trees upon our house, which I had once likened to a +place enchanted, so evenly did all go there and with the regularity of +one breathing in his sleep. The old gabled tower, with the great bell +in the clochard or belfry beside it, I had oftentimes laughed at with +Simon Powell, as at a thing of more pretence than usage; the alarm not +having been rung therefrom for nigh a hundred years. But now the sight +of it brought tears to my eyes for the very peace which clung about it. +For well I knew that I was come at the end of my time of quiet and was +to adventure forth of my old home into regions full as strange and +difficult as any of Simon's uncouth caves and elvish forests. And I +thought of that hero of his which bade them cut off his head and bear +it, still sweet, to the White Mount in London, whither I was now going. + +Then I looked again down upon the yard before the house, with its fine +brick gate upon the road, and behind the house, upon the base court +with the offices beside it, and the stables beyond, and beyond again +the green bottom of the combe and the cattle feeding. It was a fair +estate, and one that no man would encumber in a trivial cause. But +once before it had been so laid under bond, which was, as my father +said, in order to the advancement of the glory of God; and now, the +second time 'twas so to be for no better purpose than the enlargement +of a traitor. A youth argues narrowly perforce, being hedged between +lack of experience and lack of charity, but the force of his +conclusion, for this very want, I suppose, hath an honest vigour in it +which is beyond the competence of many an elder man. So I, being +persuaded of my uncle Botolph's villainy, there on that hillside swore +that, albeit I would faithfully labour for his release, as I was bound +to do, yet I would thereafter bring him to book with a vengeance. And +how I kept my word you shall see. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +IN WHICH I SAY FAREWELL THRICE + +In the middle of the month of November our business was pretty well +settled, and the day of my departure ordained, which was to be upon the +Wednesday following, there being a friend of my father's about to +journey to Devizes on that day, with whom it was intended I should so +far travel. To be honest, it was with some feelings of concern that I +expected this my first entrance into the world, where I was to meet +with a sort of folk I had no knowledge of: learned attorneys of the +Inns, Judges of the Queen's Bench (if we ever got so far); and that +gaunt figure of the Constable with the keys of the Tower at his girdle +and a constant lamentation of prisoners in his ear. My duty at the +beginning was plain enough, my father having often rehearsed the same +to me; as that I should take lodging in Fetter Lane at the house of one +Malt, a hosier, who should use me honestly, he being a West-Country +man. Thereafter and as soon as my convenience would allow, I was to +betake myself to a certain goldsmith of repute, whose shop stood hard +by the new Burse in Cornhill, and there receive gold in exchange for +the letters I bore, the which my father had gotten upon articles signed +in Exeter. So provided, I was to put myself under the direction and +command of Mr. Skene, who would employ me as his occasions required. + +The last day of my home-keeping broke in fair weather, of which I was +glad, for I purposed to spend it in bidding farewell to my neighbours +and the persons I especially loved about the estate. + +And first I sought my old companion Simon, whom I found by the brook, +in a place where there be otters, some ten or twelve furlongs up the +valley that descends into our combe from the westward, where the trees +grow very thickly and in summer there is a pleasant shade. Thither we +had often gone together in times past, and there I shrewdly guessed I +should discover him. + +I came upon him crouched beside the stream among the withered bracken, +his cross-bow laid aside with which he had been fowling, and a great +dead pheasant cock in the grass at his feet. I hailed him twice before +he heard me, when he rose at once and spreading his sheepskin mantle +for me (the air being very bitter) he told me he had thought I forgot +him. + +"I should not have gone without bidding thee farewell, Simon," I +replied, for his reproach stung me the more that I had neglected him of +late, and knew not wherefore. "I have been deeply engaged about this +journey to London, and the hours I have been idle my mind hath been too +anxious for chat. 'Tis an employment I mislike, Simon," I said +earnestly, "and one I do not see to the end of." + +"When does his worship think it will be concluded?" asked Simon Powell. + +"Oh, these things depend upon their law-terms," I said, willing to let +him perceive my knowledge in such affairs. "The Bench doth not try +causes unremittingly." + +"Ay," he said, nodding, the while he regarded me with a strange look of +the eyes, "but subject to the judges' convenience, I would have said. +Will you return by Lady Day, think you?" + +"Why, that is four months distant," I cried, for his question had +something startled me. "I shall surely be safe home in half that time." + +But Simon shook his head. "Since I first heard of this errand," he +said, "the thought of it hath never left me, sleeping nor waking, Mr. +Denis. And as there be some things that every man may tell certainly +that they will happen, as the seasons to pass in due order, and the red +deer to come down to the pools in the evening, and the sun to set and +rise; so there be other things, though not in the rule of nature, which +a man may yet discern that hath bent his will that way. So did that +knight who, in a dream, saw strange and way-worn men bringing tribute +to Arthur from the Islands of Greece, which was not then, but was +certainly to be, and now in these days we shall see the same; ay, +Arthur receiving tribute from all the nations and not Greece only, and +everywhere triumphing." + +I sat suspended in amaze while he spoke thus, his dark eyes sparkling +and his fingers straitly interlaced. It was a mood he had never before +revealed, though he had often, as I have said, told me tales of his old +heroes and wizards, but not with this stress of fervour and (as it +were) prophetic sureness. Such power as he manifested in his words +surely confounds distinctions of rank and erases the badge of servant. +For there may be no mastery over them that can convince our souls, as +this Welsh lad convinced mine. + +When he spoke again, it was with some shame in his voice, as though he +had betrayed his secret mind and feared my laughter; which had he known +it, he need by no means have done. + +"My meaning is," he went on, "that I feel this adventure which you set +about will continue longer than you imagine, Mr. Denis, though I have +no proof thereof; at least, none I may put into words; and you may well +deride the notion. Notwithstanding, it sticks with me that you will +not return to the Combe Court until many a strange accident shall have +befallen, of which we be now ignorant." + +"Why, however long it be, Simon," said I cheerily, for I wished to +lighten our conversation somewhat, "you may rest well-assured of my +remembrance of you, and that though I wander as far forth as to those +same Islands of Greece you spake of, yet shall my affections draw me +home again." + +He leapt to his feet at that, with an apparent gladness that warmed me +marvellously, though 'twas but a frolic sentence I had made, and spoken +smiling. So do we often probe into the future with a jest, and, as it +were, speak the fool's prologue to our own tragedy. + +Our leaving-taking ended in laughter, then, as perhaps 'tis best, and +Simon remaining to shoot fowl, I left him to bid farewell to old Peter +Sprot; who gave me good advice in the matter of stage-plays and the +choice of food, which I promised, so far as I was able, to observe. + +"For other things," he said, "I leave you to your conscience, master, +as in the end, 'tis necessary. But this I say: that I have small love +of players, and such as, not content with the condition and quality +they were born to, must needs pretend to principalities and lordships, +which they sustain for a weary hour or so, and after return, like the +swine of the Scripture, to their wallowing in the mire." + +"I think there is no probability of my playing any prince's part, +Peter," quoth I. + +"Nor of seeing it played neither, I hope," he replied, "for though we +be all sinners, yet we sinners that witness neither stage-plays nor +pageants, Mr. Denis, be hugely better than they that do; and mark me, +sir, it shall so appear hereafter." + +This I knew to be a thrust at Mr. Ptolemy and his puppet-show no less +than at the public theatre in Finsbury Fields, which had then been set +up about seven or eight years. + +"Eat beef and mutton, Mr. Denis," he proceeded gravely, "and fish also. +There is a good market for fish in London, though they that vend there +be something inclined to blasphemy; I know not wherefore; but strange +dishes eschew, and particularly those of the French. For the French +nation is given up to Popery, dancing and the compounding of +unwholesome foods. Nay, this late commerce of our nobility with the +effeminate and godless Frenchmen hath gone far to the ruin of both +stomach and religion that should be simply fed, the one by such meats +as I have named, mutton (eaten with onions, Mr. Denis), beef, and in +cold weather, pork; the other by sound doctrine and preaching of the +Word." He paused awhile, and I thought had concluded his admonition; +when he seemed to recover something notable. "There be divers ways of +dressing a capon, Mr. Denis," said he, "of which the goodwife hath a +particular knowledge, as also of the sauces to be served therewith. +These I will, by your leave, procure to be transcribed for your use, +and so, God keep you." + +I thanked him heartily for his good will, although I secretly admired +the fashion in which he interlarded sound doctrine with strong meats. +But every man out of the abundance of his heart speaketh, and I knew +that Peter dealt with me lovingly in meddling virtue with appetite in +so singular a manner. Now, when I had parted from the honest steward, +I considered with myself whom next I should salute, and determined that +it should be the maidservants and Ursula the cook; and to this end +returned toward the house, but unwillingly, for I have ever been +abashed in the presence of womenfolk, at least within doors, where a +man is at a disadvantage but they at their ease. And so greatly did +this distaste and backwardness grow upon me that I hung about the gate +of the yard behind the house, fearing to venture forward, and as it +were into a den of mocking lions, until I should more perfectly have +rehearsed my farewell speeches. It was then (as I always believe) that +a door was opened unto me of that Providence which rules our motions, +and a way of escape made plain; the which door was my old pedagogue, +Mr. Jordan, whom I suddenly remembered (though I had scarce thought +upon him these two years) and whom I had such a compelling inclination +to visit as sent the maids out of my head, and my heels out of the yard +on the instant. When I bade good-bye to Ursula and the rest on the +morrow, I was in the open air and mounted, so that I cared not a jot +for their laughter (which indeed soon led into tears; my own being +pretty near to my eyes too), but made them a great speech as full of +ego as a schoolboy's first lesson in Latin. + +Up the hill towards Mr. Jordan's house I climbed therefore to beg his +blessing upon me, and to thank him for all he had done for me in times +past. It was near dinner-time by this, and I conceived the kindness of +cooking the old scholar's meal for him as he lay in bed; for I doubted +not to find him so, as I had rarely found him otherwise than on his +pallet with a great folio or two by way of counterpane, and a Plato's +"Republick" to his pillow. There had been a little snow fallen in the +night which still clung upon the uplands, and when I had ascended to +his dwelling I found a drift about the door and the thatched eaves +considerably laden upon the weather side of them with snow. But what +surprised me mightily was certain vestiges before the threshold, and +regularly iterated, as by a sentinel's marchings to and fro. My +bewilderment increased moreover, or rather gave place to alarm when I +chanced to observe beside the window of that I knew for his study (to +wit the room he slept in), a great halberd resting, and a military +steel cap. Then did I painfully call to mind those former pursuits of +my poor old preceptor when (as was reported) he had been a novice in +the old Abbey of Cleeve, and knowing the present ill estimation in +which the Papists everywhere were held, I understood that Mr. Jordan +had not escaped the vigilance of the Commission, but was now under +arrest, or at least that his liberty was so encroached on as made it +mere confinement within his own house. Greatly distressed for this +opinion, I approached near to the little window, of which the shutter +(there being no glass) hung on the jar, and timorously gazed within. +The bed stood empty, and no one that I could see was in the chamber. +This confirmed me in my suspicion, and at the same time emboldened me +to demand admittance. Some hope that my witness (or rather the weight +of our authority) would bestead him, moved me to this course, and I +knocked loudly on the door. Hardly had I done so, when I heard from +within a horrid clatter of arms upon the flags as of a man falling in a +scuffle, and so without more ado I lifted the latch and sprang into the +house. Mr. Jordan lay at full length along the floor. + +"Who hath done this, Master?" I cried out in a sudden gust of wrath, +for he was an old man and a reverend. He lifted himself painfully, +regarding me as he did so with an inscrutable mildness which I took to +be of despair. His assailant was evidently fled in the meanwhile, or +perhaps went to summon a posse comitatus for my tutor's apprehension. + +"I will undertake your enlargement," said I, and indeed felt myself +strong enough to dispose of a whole sergeant's guard unaided. + +"I am beholden to you, young master," replied Mr. Jordan, "and now that +I look more closely, I take you to be that degenerate young Denis +Cleeve, to whom Syntax and Accidence were wont to be as felloes in the +wheel of Ixion, and Prosody a very stone of Sisyphus. Art thou not he, +my son?" + +"I am Denis Cleeve," I answered impatiently, "but I think my lack of +Latin concerns us not now, when we are in danger of the law." + +"Ah! thou hast come into some scrape," he said, sitting up on the +stones, and gathering up his knees. "Such as thou art, was the +Telamonian Ajax, whom Homer represents as brave enough, though in +learning but a fool. Why, what hast thou done, little Ajax, that thou +hast wantonly forfeited the protection of the laws? But be brief in +the telling, since I sit here in some discomfort, having entangled a +great sword in my legs and fallen something heavily, which in a man of +my years and weight is as if Troy herself fell; a catastrophe +lamentable even to the gods." + +At this I could not contain my laughter, partly for the mistake into +which he had been led that I feared a danger which was in truth his +own, and partly for the accident of the sword which had tripped him up +thus headlong; but more than either for the tragi-comick simile he had +used in comparing himself in his downfall with the ancient city of Troy. + +"To return to my first question," I said as soon as I had settled my +countenance. "Who hath set upon you? and whither has he fled?" + +"None hath set upon me, young sir," he replied sadly, "and ergo, we +need search for no fugitive. I had armed myself, and the harness +encumbering me (as indeed I have had little occasion for its use these +forty years), I fell, in the manner you saw. And had not nature folded +me in certain kindly wrappages of flesh above the common, my frame had +been all broken and disjointed by this lapsus, which even now hath left +me monstrous sore." + +I lifted him to his feet, though with some difficulty, for it was true +that nature had dealt liberally with him in the matter of flesh; and +having set him in a chair, I asked him how it was he came thus +accoutred, since it was not (as he affirmed) to withstand any +molestation. + +"Why, 'tis in order to molest others, numskull!" he cried, making as if +to pass upon me with his recovered weapon. "And for withstanding, 'tis +to withstand the Queen's enemies, and affront them that pretend +annoyance to her Grace's peace. I am the scholar in arms, boy! the +clerk to be feared. I am Sapientia Furens, and wisdom in the camp. +Furthermore I am, though a poor professor of the Catholick Faith, yet +one that detests the malignity of such as would establish that faith +again by force of arms. It is by way of protest therefore, and in the +vigour of loyalty, that I buckle on this, alas! too narrow panoply; and +when I should be setting towards my grave, go forth upon my first +campaign." + +"You are taking service in the Queen's army, Mr. Jordan?" I stammered, +for the prospect of it was hardly to be credited. + +"If she will receive it, yea," he returned, with a melancholy +determination. "And if she reject me as that I am too far declined +from juvenility, I will crave at the least a pair of drums, having +served some apprenticeship to parchment, Denis, so that I could +doubtless sound a tuck upon occasion." + +Beneath his apparent levity I could discern the hardness of his +purpose, and honoured him extremely, knowing the rigour which attendeth +service in the field and the conversation (offensive to a scholar) of +the gross and ignorant soldiery. While I thus pondered his resolution, +he proceeded quietly in his work of scouring certain antique pieces and +notched blades that he told me had been his father's; and when they +responded to his liking he would lunge and parry with them according to +some theoretick rule he had, the which I suspected to have been drawn +from the precepts of a Gothick sergeant, at the Sack of Rome. His +pallid broad countenance was reddened by this exercise, and an +alertness so grew upon his former unwieldy motions that I admired him +for the recovery of the better part of youth, although he must at that +time have passed his three score years and ten. And ever and anon as +he scoured or smote, he would utter some tag of Latin apposite to the +occasion (at least I suppose so) and seemed to gather a secret comfort +from the allusion. I have never encountered with a man so little +moulded to the age he lived in, nor so independent of its customary +usages. His words were, as I have said, generally spoken in the dead +languages, while his features were rather formed upon the model of +those divines that flourished half a century since, and are now but +seldom met with in any. I have seen a picture of the Archbishop and +Lord Chancellor, Warham, which greatly resembled Mr. Jordan, and +especially in the heavy eyelids and the lines of sadness about the +mouth. On ordinary occasion my old tutor wore moreover a close-fitting +cap of black velvet such as Master Warham wore also, cut square over +the ears and set low upon the brow. + +I have drawn his character somewhat tediously perhaps, but it is +because he has become in my imagination a sort of symbol and gigantic +figure that stands between my old life and my new. When I look back +upon my boyhood there is Mr. Jordan a-sprawl on his bed amid a host of +books, and when the prospect of my early manhood opens it is half +obliterated by his genial bulk. + +I learned to my satisfaction that he purposed to depart on the morrow +for London, where also he hoped to pass muster into some company of the +Queen's troops. His delight, I think, was equal to my own, when I told +him that I was bound thither likewise, and we accordingly parted until +daybreak with mutual encouragements and good will. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +PRINCIPALLY TELLS HOW SIR MATTHEW JUKE WAS CAST AWAY UPON THE HEBRIDES + +I awoke long before dawn on that memorable Wednesday which was to set a +term to my pleasant and not altogether idle life in the Combe. Yet +early as I had awakened, my father preceded me, and coming into my +attic chamber where I had always slept in the tower, sat down by my +bedside, fully dressed, while I was still rubbing the sleep out of my +eyes. What passed betwixt us in that still hour I may not recount, but +let it suffice that it left me weeping. There be words spoken +sometimes that have the effect and impress of a passage of time, so +potently do they dissever us from the past, leading us into a sudden +knowledge which by time only is generally acquired, and that painfully. +Such an experience it was mine to gain then, so that my boyish follies +and the ignorant counterfeits which make up a boy's wisdom fell away +the while my father discoursed gravely of this and that, and I +marvelled how I could ever have held such stock of vain opinions. +Alas! for my presumption, and alas! too, that opinions as vain may +beset a man full as closely as a boy; and follies the more indecent +that they be wrought without ignorance. + +One thing I find it in my heart to speak of, because it exemplifies my +father's forbearance, though at a cost which he would well have spared. +My uncle's name having been made mention of between us, my thoughts +flew from him to the mother I had never known, and in a luckless hour I +demanded whether my father had not any picture of her, that I might +carry her image clear in my mind. His brow clouded as I begged this +favour, and rising from his seat, he went to the window, where he +seemed about to draw aside the shutters that closed it, but desisted. +I could have bitten my tongue out for my imprudence, but could think of +no words to recover or mitigate it and so sat still, gazing upon his +tall figure all dim in the twilight, and wishing for my life that he +would refuse my request. + +But he did not. For with a strong motion he suddenly flung back the +shutters, letting in the grey light, and turned upon me with a smile. + +"Why, that is a natural thing to desire, Denis," he said, "and one I +ought to have thought to do without your asking." He put his hand into +the bosom of his doublet as he spoke, so that I certainly knew he had +worn her picture all these years against his heart. He plucked out +presently a little case of green leather clasped with silver, and oval +in shape, and, having first detached it from the silver chain by which +it was secured, he laid it in my hands and straightway left the room. + +'Twas a face very pale limned, in which there yet appeared each +minutest feature, hue, and lock of hair even, so ingeniously was all +done. Behind the face was a foil of plain blue to show it off; and so +exact and perfect as the thing was, it lay in my palm no bigger than a +crown piece. I examined it closely. There was a kind of pride in the +eyes which looked at you direct, and the eyebrows descended a little +inwards towards the nose, as one sees them sometimes in a man that +brooks not to be crossed, but seldom in a girl. Her mouth and chin +were small and shapely, yet otherwise of no particular account. I +judged it to be the picture of one that saw swiftly and without fear, +and moreover that the mere sight of things, and a quick apprehension of +them, determined her actions. Somehow so (methought) looked that +scrupulous Saint that doubted his Lord without proof of vision; whereat +calling to mind his tardy and so great repentance, I felt a catch of +hope that my mother repented likewise, and by her repentance was +justified. + +My father entering then, I gave up the locket, which he took from me +quietly, saying it was by an Exeter youth that had since gone to Court +and painted many notable persons there; one N. Hillyard, whose father +had been High Sheriff of Exeter twenty years since, his mother being a +London woman named Laurence Wall, and that the lady's father had been a +goldsmith; moreover (which was singular) 'twas to one of the same +family (I think a son) that I was directed to present my letters of +exchange. The hour then drawing towards the time I was to meet with my +father's friend, and there being many things to be attended to, I +dressed hastily and was soon ready below, where I found my father +again, and Sprot, in the great hall, with my clothes and other +necessaries, which they bestowed in two or three deerskin wallets that +lay open on the floor. These were to go forward by the carrier, who +undertook to deliver them as far as to Devizes, whence I was to hire +such means of carriage as seemed advisable, whether by sumpter-beasts +or waggon, for the rest of my journey. + +A little after, and when I had taken breakfast, we heard a noise of +horses in the forecourt, and knew it for Sir Matthew Juke, of +Roodwater, my companion, and his retinue. My father went at once to +the door and invited him in, but he would not dismount, he said, +thinking indeed 'twas already time to set forward. He spoke in a quick +petulant fashion and was (as I since discovered) in a considerable +trepidation upon certain rumours of thieves in the wild country betwixt +Taunton and Glastonbury, the which greatly daunted him. He wore a +cuirass over his doublet, and carried his sword loose in the scabbard, +while his men bore their pieces in their hands openly. A wain with his +goods in, that followed, had an especial guard; though they seemed to +be but mere patches spared from the farm, and I was assured, would have +dropped their calivers and fled at the first onslaught. + +I was soon horsed, with a dozen hands to help, and a ring of women +beyond, admiring and weeping and bidding me God speed; to whom I +addressed myself, as I have said, with as much gratitude as little +modesty; being strangely excited by the circumstance and noise which +attended our departure. I had a pair of great pistols in the holsters +of my saddle which I could scarce forbear to flourish in either hand, +and the sword at my belt delighted me no less, it being the first I had +yet worn. + +"'Tis the one you would have given to the cheat," my father had told me +as he tightened my belt-strap. "But give it to none now, Denis, nor +draw it not, save in defence of yourself (as I pray God you need draw +it seldom), and of such as, but for you, be defenceless." + +At our parting, I bent at a sign, when he kissed me, and I him, and so +set forward with our train. A great shout followed us, and at the +hedge-end stood Simon Powell, his bonnet in his hand, which he waved as +we went by, crying out a deal of Welsh (having forgot the Queen's +English altogether, he told me afterwards), and in so shrill a voice as +set the knight's horse capering and himself in a rage of blasphemy. + +We fell in with Mr. Jordan, whom I had almost feared had given over his +enterprise, some mile or so distant, at a smith's in a little village +we passed through, where he was having his armour eased about the +middle, and a basket hilt put upon his sword. + +"Who is this fellow?" asked Sir Matthew testily, when I hailed and +accosted him. + +"It is my old preceptor, sir," said I, "who is coming with us, if he +have your leave." + +"Hast heard of any robbers by the way, Doctor?" inquired the knight at +that, and I saw he was marvellous glad of this increase in his +auxiliaries. + +"I hear of nought else," replied the scholar sturdily, while the other +turned very pale. But continuing, the scholar said: "Seeing that in a +treatise I wrote awhile since and caused to be printed, there is a +notable paragraph hath been bodily seized upon by a beggarly student of +Leyden, and impudently exhibited to the world as his own. Heard you +ever such? Robbers quotha? How of my labour, and inquiry into the +nature of the lost digamma----" + +"Hold!" cried Sir Matthew. "I see we talk athwart. This lost thing or +person of yours (for I understand no whit of what it may be) is nothing +to the purpose. I spoke of robbers on the highway, villains and +cutpurses." + +"Of them I reck little," said Mr. Jordan coolly, "seeing I have no +purse to be cut." + +"They are dangerous nevertheless," said the other loftily. + +"For which reason you go sufficiently attended," muttered the scholar, +with a cursory eye backward upon the knight's warlike following; and +with that we all fell, although for different causes, into an uniform +silence. At length, being come to the top of a hill up which we had +ascended painfully for near the half of an hour, and especially the +waggons found it hard to overcome, we stood out upon an open and +circular piece of ground, bordered about by noble great beech trees, +but itself clear save for the sweet grass that covered it; and the turf +being dry and the air refreshing after our late labour, we were glad to +dismount there and rest awhile. + +Sir Matthew ordered one of his men to fetch cooked meat and two bottles +of wine from the cart, and showed himself very generous in inviting us +to join him at this repast. + +"I have always gone provided in these matters," he told us as we sat +together thus, "since I went upon my first voyage to the Baltic, being +but a boy then, although accounted a strong one." (I know not +wherefore; for he must ever have been little, and his back not above +two hands' breadth.) "Howbeit," he continued, "we had the ill luck to +be cast away upon the Hebrides, the weather being very tempestuous and +our ship not seaworthy; so that about the fourth day it broke in pieces +utterly. I held to a piece of the keel," he said, looking anxiously +from one to the other as his memory or invention helped him to these +particulars, "upon which, too, clung our purser, whom I did my best to +comfort in this our common and marvellous peril. How we got to shore I +never understood, but we did, although half dead, and the purser +raving." + +"Since which time," said Mr. Jordan, pausing in the conveyance to his +mouth of a great piece of a fowl's wing, "you have, as you say, gone +provided against the repetition of such accidents, even upon the dry +land." + +"And wisely, sir, as I think," added Sir Matthew. + +"Was there then no food to be had in Scotland?" asked Mr. Jordan simply. + +"Not where we landed, in the Hebrides," replied the knight tartly. "As +to the rest of that country I know nothing, save that 'tis a poor +starved foggy place, and the people savage, half naked and inclining to +Presbytery, which is a form of religion I abhor, and to any that +professeth the same I am ready to prove it wholly erroneous and false." + +The knight's tale seeming likely to digress into theology, we ended our +dinner hastily without more words; albeit from time to time later, it +was evident that Sir Matthew's thoughts were still upon shipping and +the sea; so that scarce an accident we met with but he found in it +occasion for casting us naked on the Hebrides, or drowning us in the +Baltic. + +We had halted, I say, upon a considerable eminence, and the ground +falling away in our front very steeply, the view thence was of an +unparalleled breadth and variety. For stretched at our very feet, as +it seemed, lay a fair and fertile champaign diversified here and there +with woodland and open heath. Beyond the vale rose the wild and +untracked downs all dark and clouded; and to the left hand (as we +stood) the bar of the Quantock Hills. Surely a man must travel far who +would behold a land more pleasant than this sweet vale of Taunton; nay, +were he to do so, as indeed the exiled Israelites found pleasanter +waters in Babylon than they had left in Jewry, yet must he needs (as +they did) weep at the remembrance of it; for there is no beauty +ascendeth to the height of that a man's own country hath--I mean at +least if it be the West Country, as mine is. + +We continued our progress, going through two or three hamlets where the +old folk and children stood about the doors to watch us pass, for we +were a notable spectacle, and Sir Matthew Juke a stern figure in the +van; travelling thus without any great fatigue, for we kept at a foot's +pace on account of the waggon, and of Mr. Jordan also, who had no +horse. I frequently besought him to ride my own mare, but he would not +until we were within sight of the great belfry tower of St. Mary's +Church in Taunton, when he consented, being indeed pretty faint by +that, and thanked me handsomely out of Æsop. + +In Taunton we dined, and there too I hired a beast for the scholar +because (to speak the truth) I could not bear to be parted any longer +from my holsters with the new pistols in. No adventure befell us +worthy recording, or rather nothing of such magnitude as Sir Matthew's +shipwreck which I have above set down, until we reached Glastonbury, +where we were to lie that night. + +On the morrow we departed early, observing still the same order, save +that we rode more closely before the baggage upon a persistent report +in the inn of a horrid robbery with murder on the Frome road: which +town lay in our way to Devizes. Even the Baltic dried up at this, and +we kept a pretty close look-out as we crossed the flat marsh lands +thereabout; and once Juke shot off his piece suddenly upon some alarm, +but with so trembling and ill an aim that Mr. Jordan's high crowned hat +(that he still wore) was riddled through the brim, and a verse of +Ovid's which was in his mouth, cut off smartly at the cæsura. Matter +of ridicule though this were, I had been alert to note some other +circumstance of more gravity (as I conceived) though I spoke not of it +then; the cause of my anxiety being indeed too near for open conference +thereupon. For I had, by accident, observed certain becks and glances +to pass between two of the fellows of our guard; the one of whom, a +pikeman (by name Warren), trudged beside the cart wherein were laid up +the knight's goods, and his fellow in the plot (to call it as I feared +it) was the elder of the two horsemen that wore the knight's livery and +were particularly engaged in his defence. After two or three such +furtive signals run up, as it were, and answered betwixt these twain, I +could be in no further doubt of their purpose, but studied what to do, +should they fall upon us suddenly. That their main design was to seize +upon the contents of the waggon that was by all supposed valuable, I +made sure; but what I could not yet guess was the degree of complicity +or indifference in which the rest of our company stood towards the +projected assault. I conceived them to be chiefly cowards, however, +and resolved therefore, if I might, to enlist their aid upon the first +advantage: for cowards ever succeed to the party that rises dominant, +and protest their loyalty loudest when 'tis most to be questioned. + +Because I was a boy, I suppose, but at all events very impudently, my +conspirators took small pains to hide their deliberations from my eyes, +having first assured themselves that neither Juke nor the scholar had +any cognizance of their doings. And this disdain of me it was that +brought matters to a head; for I could no longer brook it, but, +wheeling my horse about, I faced them both, and drawing a pistol from +my holster shouted: "Halt, sirs! here be traitors amongst us." + +I never saw men so immediately fall into confusion as did all of them, +but chiefly the rearward, that, every man of them, fled hither and +thither with little squealing pitiful cries; some running beneath the +waggon or behind it; others leaping off the causeway amidst the fenny +ooze and peat-bogs that it wends through in these parts, where they +were fain to shelter themselves in the grasses and filthy holes that +everywhere there abound. I caught a sight of Sir Matthew, on the +instant, exceedingly white, and his sword half drawn; but he then +losing a stirrup (as he told me afterwards he did) was borne from the +conflict unwillingly a great way down the road ere he could recover +himself. Only the younger serving man, whose name was Jenning, and Mr. +Jordan, retained their courages, and both came at once to my +assistance, which in truth was not too soon. For the footman (that is +the villain with the pike) ran in under my guard and dealt me a keen +thrust into the thigh which sore troubled although it did not unhorse +me. I returned upon him with my pistol, discharging it close to his +body, and hurt him in the shoulder, as I knew, because he dropped his +pike and clapped his hand there, grinning at me the while like a dog. + +Just then I heard the click of a snaphance, and perceived that the +caliver that Jenning carried had hung fire; and following upon this, a +great laughter from the elder man, whose name was Day, a hard-favoured +fellow, having a wicked pursed mouth and little dull green eyes. + +"Shouldst 'a looked to thy priming, Master Jenning," he called out +mockingly; by which I saw that he had tampered with the poor man's +piece while we lay at the inn in Glastonbury; and this much said, he +raised his own piece and fired directly at him, who fell at once all +huddled upon his horse's neck, stark dead. Before I could draw forth +my second pistol, Mr. Jordan had rid forward very boldly, though armed +but with his antique broadsword, and laid about him with good swinging +blows, the one of which happening upon his opponent's mare, it cut into +her cheek with a great gash, at the same time bursting the rein and +headstall, to the end she was quite unmanageable, and despite of Day's +furious restraint (who, to do him credit, would have continued the +contest, two to one), charged away at a great pace, carrying him with +her along the road until they were fairly out of sight. + +When I had satisfied myself that the villain would certainly not +return, I drew my sword and looked about for his companion, the +pikeman, whom I had wounded; but whether he had crept into the +concealment of the high bog grass, as the most part of the guard had +done, or else had gone backward down the road, I could not get any +certainty; and Sir Matthew who now rode up said he had not gone that +way, else he would assuredly have met and slain him, which, seeing that +the man was disabled, is likely; and so I gave over the search. + +It cost us some pains to rally our forces, but in the end we did, Mr. +Jordan persuading them very cogently with his great sword wherever he +found them: he having groped for the digamma in stranger places, he +said, and worn away the better part of his life in the prosecution of +things more hard to come by than this, our bog-shotten escort. + +We reverently bestowed the body of poor Jenning upon the stuff in the +waggon, and with heavy hearts (though not without some thrill of +victory in mine) set onward again towards Frome and Devizes, which last +place the knight was now in a fever to attain to before sundown. + +"I think I have not been in such jeopardy," he said, "since I suffered +shipwreck off the barren coast of the Hebrides, as I related to you +yesterday." + +"The dangers would be about upon an equality," quoth Mr. Jordan. + +Nothing occurred to renew our fears nor to cause us to assume a posture +of defence for the remainder of our passage; the only accident any way +memorable being that through some mischance we got into the town of +Devizes at the wrong end of it, and were diligently proceeding quite +contrary to our purposed direction before we discovered our error. I +set this down because I have so done since also (in spite of clear +information received), and have therefore cause to regard Devizes as +something extraordinary in the approaches thereto, although Sir +Matthew, to whom I spoke of it, said that such divergences were common +enough at sea, where a man might set his course for the Baltic and +fetch up off the Hebrides, or indeed the devil knew where. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +HOW THE OLD SCHOLAR AND I CAME TO LONDON + +I leave you to imagine whether Sir Matthew made much or little of our +adventure in the marshes, and of the part he took therein, when, having +parted from us, he found himself free to relate the same privately to +his family; they having preceded him (without any escort at all) to his +new great mansion in Devizes. Upon our part, we, that is Mr. Jordan +and I, having inquired out the Inn to which my chattels had been +already carried, took up our lodging there for the night, being pretty +well fatigued (and I wounded too) so that of all things we desired +rest. Nevertheless my old schoolmaster would by no means suffer me to +go to bed until he had procured me a surgeon, who bound up my thigh and +took his fee without any word good or bad; afterwards going himself +into the kitchen (I mean Mr. Jordan did) in order to my more careful +attendance, so that the host his daughter brought me up of her best, +and called me poor child, though I was older than she by half a year. + +Now, I learned next morning that Mr. Jordan at his supper had put so +heroical a construction upon our exploit as transformed us into men +above nature almost, and I loathed to descend into the common room +where all the ostlers and maids would be gaping after us for a pair of +paladins. Mr. Jordan took the prospect of such adulation very coolly, +saying that the wise man was he that nothing moved; but for all that I +saw he liked it, and indeed he had been at considerable pains to +prepare the ovation he now affected to despise. However, it so fell +out that when at length we descended amongst the people of the Inn, our +arrival quite failed of applause, and that for the simplest, although a +tragical, reason. + +For it appeared that when, on the yesternight, Sir Matthew, having +discharged his baggage-wain and bestowed his goods and valuable stuff +within the house, had gone to bed, it being then about midnight and all +quiet, comes there, lurking through the dark night, that villain +serving-man Day, whose late defeat had nothing distracted him from his +hopes of plunder. With his poniard he cuts out a panel of the postern +door, and privily entering thereby, goes rummaging through the house +from loft to cellar, cutting and wasting what he could not carry off, +but for the money, of which he found good store, and sundry gold +ornaments thereto that were my lady Juke's, he fills his doublet full +of them, as is proved upon him, said the teller, beyond dispute. + +"But then," proceeded the man, who now held our whole company +expectant, "even as he was about to steal away by the way he had come, +he heard a little grating noise, as of a weapon which one struck +against some impediment, close beside him in the dark where he was; and +supposing this to be the knight who had unluckily heard him, he drew +boldly upon him with his sword. The other thrust out upon the instant, +and a horrid conflict ensued, the men coming to grips shortly and +stabbing out of all rule. At length the serving-man, whose name is +Day, dealt his adversary his death-blow and prepared to flee away with +his booty, when it appeared (and as Day himself told me it surprised +him out of measure) his legs would not bear him; so that he fell along +the floor from sheer loss and effusion of blood, a subtle blow having +pierced him unawares and mortally hurt him. Thus they lay both until +the morning, when the servants, and I that am the butler, found them +there, the one of them already stark and the other close upon his end +and all aghast." + +"Then thy master be murdered, Roger Butler," cried an old fellow from +the tail of the press. + +"Not so, Father Time," shouted the butler with a great laugh, "although +Day, by that same error, was led into striking down one he should have +gone in leash withal, namely his fellow-thief, one Warren, that was +gone about the same game as himself." + +"Why, 'tis the very knave that dealt Mr. Cleeve here that great wound I +told you of," cried Mr. Jordan, when the clamour of voices had somewhat +lessened; the which speech of his I could have wished not spoken, for +now all turned about, demanding this and that of me, and swearing I was +a brave lad; with such a deal of no-matter as put me into an extremity +of rage and shame, so that I was glad to escape away to the hall, where +I fell to at the ordinary, and drank to their confusion. + +But for all my spleen it was indeed a merry tale, beside that it was a +marvellous judgment upon two rogues. Day, it seemed, had breath enough +left in him properly to incriminate Warren, who was, as I say, already +dead, and then rolled over and died too. There was an inquest held of +necessity, as well upon the thieves as upon poor Jenning that Day +killed before; which process somewhat detained us; but in the afternoon +of the day following, having satisfied the Coroner, we were permitted +to depart on our way. + +Nevertheless there was a deal of time lost upon our reckoning, it being +now Saturday morning, and although we were now no further to be +hindered with the slowness of Juke's waggon, yet there was still a good +four score miles to go, and the Sunday falling on the morrow when we +were bound to rest, we could by no means reach London before Monday at +night, or even the Tuesday forenoon. My baggage I had sent on by the +common carrier, who engaged to transmit it at Reading, whither he +plied, to another carrier going to London. + +We rode out of the base court of the Inn gaily enough, and soon came +upon the high Wiltshire downs, which, there having been a deal of snow +fallen in the night, lay about us in that infinite solemnity of +whiteness that stills a man's heart suddenly, as few things else have +the power to do. + +Nought could we discern before and around us but ridge after ridge of +snow, above which hung a sky of unchanging grey; all features of the +country were quite obliterated, and but that some cart had gone that +way a while since, of which we picked out and followed the wheel marks +scrupulously, it had wanted little but we should have ridden bewildered +into some deep drift and perhaps perished. Indeed, we were fortunate +in that; and keeping close upon the track, although but slow going, in +time descended into the market town of Marlborough, which we reached +early in the afternoon. Here we refreshed ourselves and our beasts, +and then away into the Savernake forest, traversing it without mishap, +and so out upon the high road again by Hungerford, and into Newbury a +little after nightfall; having covered above thirty miles in all, the +ways bad too, and the day, because of the late season, very short. + +On the Sunday we remained all day in the Inn, except that I went in the +morning to the Church there, when I heard a sermon by the curate upon +Wars and the Rumours thereof, wherein he advised us very earnestly to +examine our pieces and have them ready to hand and not to keep our +powder in the loft under the leaky thatch. He brought in somewhat, +too, about the Sword of the Spirit and the Shield of Faith, but +listlessly, and I saw that no one attended much to that, all men being +full of fear of the Papists, to which they were particularly moved by +Mr. Will. Parry's malicious behaviour in the House of Commons. The +scholar did not accompany me to the Church, I suppose because he was +himself a Papist, though perhaps no very rigorous one, but feigned a +stiffness from riding; and when I returned I found him in the larder, +where he was discoursing amply of the Scythians and their method of +extracting a fermented liquor from the milk of mares, which was of a +grateful potency, but (he lamented) not now to be obtained. + +I wrote home a letter to my father after dinner, and in the evening +entertained the curate, who had got to hear of our going to London, and +came to speak with us thereon. He was an honest man, and of an +ingenuous complacency, which he manifested in telling us very quietly +that his Grace of Canterbury was of the same university as he, and he +doubted not, would be pleased to hear of him, and that he had taken +another rood of ground into the churchyard; all which I promised, if I +should meet his lordship, to relate. + +We departed as was our custom, betimes on the morrow, travelling +towards Reading, and thereafter to Windsor, where we beheld with +admiration the great Castle of her Majesty's that is there; howbeit we +went not into the place, but left it on our right hand, and proceeded +still forward. But the night falling soon afterwards, we were fain to +put up in the little hamlet of Brentford upon the river Thames, whither +we learned that 'twas fortunate we had without accident arrived, a +certain haberdasher of repute having been robbed of all he carried upon +the heath we had but lately rid over into that place, and left for dead +by the wayside. + +Perhaps it was this outrage which had made for our safety, and that, +being so far satisfied with the spoil of silks and rich stuff taken, +the malefactors had hastened to dispose of it to some that make a +living by that cowardly means, and are mostly dwellers about the Stocks +market, in the narrow lanes thereby, although some (as Culver Alley) +have been stopped up against such notorious use of thieves. + +Notwithstanding, I here affirm, that in the morning, when we saw the +monstrous charges our lodging stood us in, we found we had not far to +seek for a thief as big as any; and having paid the innkeeper, told him +so. + +But now we were come almost within view of the great City of which I +had so many times dreamed, and so beyond limits had advanced its +imagined glory, until it seemed to draw into itself all that was noble +and rich and powerful in the world; being Rome and Carthage too, I +thought, and the Indies added! nay, and only not Paris or Florence, +because it scorned the comparison. In such an exaltation I sat my +horse, looking to right and left as we rode through the lanes past +Hammersmith and Kensington, all the way being still deep in snow; +although hardened here by the traffic of country carts, or rather (I +said) by great equipages of the Court and the Queen's troops. Mr. +Jordan spoke twice or thrice upon indifferent matters, and chiefly, I +remember, of Olympus; but I regarded him contemptuously, having come +into a place where Olympus would be very cheaply esteemed as a hill, we +having our own Ludgate Hill, which, if not so high, is in all other +respects as good or better. But when he told me that we must soon each +take our leave of the other, all that vain mood left me, and I wished +him from my heart a thousand benefits and safety in his enterprise, in +which I would have joined him willingly had I not been bound to this +business of my uncle. He told me he should go to Moorfields, where he +had heard there was frequent exercise of arms, and there learn how to +set about his enrolment. + +About this time we came to Charing Cross, where no further speech was +possible between us; such strangeness we met with, and unused fashion +of things; and proceeding by way of the Strand, we noted an infinite +succession of sights, of which the least elsewhere would have staggered +me, but now giving place to others as marvellous, or more, they did but +increase my appetite for amazement, which they alternately satisfied +and renewed. Upon the clamour and the infinite throngs of the +townsfolk, I but briefly touch, for they transcend all description, as +do the palaces of the Savoy and Arundel House that we passed by; and +the Earl of Essex his mansion, and other the inns of the great nobles +which lie upon the right side of this famous street, and betwixt it and +the Thames. Somerset House, moreover, that is still building, we saw, +and artificers yet at work thereupon, which will be, I think, when +builded, the finest palace of all. At Temple Bar a man leaves the +liberty of the Duchy (as it is called) and enters within the liberty +(albeit yet without the walls) of the City of London, and here, a +little distance further on, I found Fetter Lane upon the left hand, +where my lodging was, and so (having first learned where I should have +word of him) sorrowfully parted with Mr. Jordan at the end of it, he +going still eastward towards Paul's, and I up the lane, that is +northward, to Mr. Malt's, where I was well received, and led to a clean +and pleasant chamber in the gable, which he told me was to be mine. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +IN WHICH I CONCEIVE A DISLIKE OF AN EARL'S SERVANT + AND AN AFFECTION FOR A MAN OF LAW + +I think I overlaid my conscience in the night, seeing I stayed abed +until near seven o'clock next morning, a thing I had never before done; +but, indeed, I had now some colour of excuse for so doing, for besides +my wound in the thigh, which the cold had made woefully to ache, there +was my new clothes which the carrier had not yet delivered, and I was +mighty loth to go abroad in my travel-stained riding dress and great +boots. As I lay there, the light then gathering mistily in my chamber, +I could hear the noises of the City and the cries of the multitude of +small vendors that go about the streets, as having no booth nor open +shop wherein to display their petty merchandise. From a church near by +I heard bells pealing, and soon from other churches too. Below my +window there was a maid singing, and a man with her that hawked +ballads, bawling their titles till my ears tingled. Nevertheless, the +confusion of all these strange cries and sounds heartened me +marvellously, and had I but got my new-fashioned doublet of dark cloth +and hose therewithal, I had been the merriest man of the parish, as I +was certainly the most curious. After awhile I could lie no longer, +but leapt up, and running to the casement, found London white, a sky of +frost, and a brave gay world before me. + +My chamber, as I said, was a sort of great attic in the gable, and full +as high up in the house as was my old tower room at home. But 'twas +less the height that astonished me, than the nearness into which the +houses were thrust together from either side of the street, so as they +almost met by the roofs; and I swear, had I been so inclined (and he +too) I could have crossed staves with the barber that had his dwelling +over against mine, or almost stolen his pewter shaving dish from the +sill where it lay. Of these conceits of mine, however, the barber was +necessarily ignorant, being then busily engaged upon the exercise of +his craft, which he carried on perforce above stairs, the shop below +and the other rooms being used by a haberdasher and alderman, that had +his goods stored there. I noted the barber particularly as well for +his extraordinary grace and courtesy, as for the activity he manifested +in his occupation. No hand's turn would he do but a flourish went to +it, and always his body bending and his head nodding and twisting to +that extent, I wondered how the man he shaved could sit his chair in +any degree of comfort. Perhaps he did not, though he seemed to suffer +the little man's attentions coolly enough, and when he went away, paid +him, I perceived, handsomely, and strode off with a careless ease, that +minded me, with some shame, of my own country manners. My thoughts +being thus returned upon my late secluded life, I fell into a +melancholy mood which was a little after happily dissipated by the maid +bringing me my new clothes and telling me moreover that the family +stayed for me at breakfast. + +I was soon enough dressed after this and, settling my starched ruff, of +which the pleats somewhat galled me, descended to the room where they +dined; and there found the whole family of the Malts (that with the +infant made up nine) set at the board and very ready for their delayed +meal. A long grace was said by the youngest maid, whose eyes were +fierce upon the eggs the while, and after that we fell to. Madam Malt +spoke kindly to me once or twice of my business, of which I had already +given her some slight and grudged particulars, but for the most part +she conversed in sidelong frowns with her children, of whose conduct it +was evident she wished I should think well. But in truth I cared +nothing for their conduct nor much for their persons (for all they were +personable enough) being in a fever to be gone upon my errand to the +goldsmith's and to commence work in earnest. + +Breakfast done then, I lost little time upon formalities and broke in +upon Madam Malt's excuse of her third (or fourth) daughter's mishap +over the small beer, with excuses of my own for leaving her; and so +taking up my hat left her staring. So eager indeed was I, that I ran +out of the door into the arms of a gentleman that stood by and nearly +sent him on his back in the snow. When he had recovered himself, with +my aid, and stood fronting me, I knew him directly for the man whom I +had seen in the barber's chair, and faltering upon my apology let fall +some foolish words by which I might be thought to claim his +acquaintance. He frowned suddenly at that and gazing upon me earnestly +said-- + +"It were easy to perceive you are of the country, young sir, and not +used to our town customs." + +"How so?" I asked very hotly, for his disdain went the deeper into me +that it was founded upon reason. + +"By your pretending to an intimacy with me," he replied, and drew +himself up very haughtily as he said it, "who know not your name even, +although doubtless you know mine, as all do, seeing the place I keep, +and the especial favour of my lord to me; yet I say that is no ground +for your familiarly accosting me in the public way." + +"Why, as to that," I cried out scorningly, "I know nothing of you save +that I saw you but now in the barber's chair, swathed up in a towel and +your face all lathered." + +He turned very pale at this out of mere discomfiture, and I expected +would have run upon me with his sword, so that I clapped my fist upon +my own and stepping closely to his side said-- + +"Sir, I am, as you imagine, but lately come out of the country and +therefore know not your customs here in London. But if there be places +reserved for the settlement of such brabbles as this, let us go thither +with all my heart." And then, after a breath or two taken: "For all +that," I added, "I had it in my mind to say I meant no insult, and if I +offended you, I am sorry." + +He stood without replying either to my threats or my amends, but gazed +upon me with a look that I saw meant mischief; though whether to be +done now or at a convenient time and secretly, I could not guess. + +He was a fine bold man, of an height a good span greater than my own. +He wore no hair on his face, but that I could see under his plumed cap +was thick and black. His dress was of rare stuff and I supposed very +costly, being all slashed and broidered, and tagged with gold. Indeed, +had he not let slip that boast of intimacy with some lord I should have +been sure of his being a lord himself and perhaps master of one of +those great palaces upon the Strand. Thus, then, we stood thwarting +each other a considerable space, and I (at least) doubting of the +upshot, when a great fellow in a livery of blue, with a badge on his +sleeve, came running up the lane, and casting an eye upon me, pushed in +between us and spoke with the tall man low and seriously. There +remaining therefore nought to hinder me longer about that brawl, I went +off, but asked one that stood by what was the badge the man in livery +bore, and he answered 'twas the Earl of Pembroke's emblem of the green +dragon, and that they twain that communed together thus secretly were +both of his household of Baynards Castle by Blackfriars. + +Without further mishap, but pondering rather heavily upon my late one, +I made my way through the streets, past the noble church of Paul's on +the south side of it, to Mr. Wall the goldsmith hard by the Exchange. +I have neither space nor words nor confidence either, to speak of all +the things I met with, beyond imagination marvellous to me; and even +where I was disappointed of my expectation; as in the little width of +the streets, and of Paul's that it lacked the spire it once had; +together with much else that lacked completion or seemed at hazard +builded; even there, I say, I found my idea bettered by the fact, and a +strange beauty in the irregularity and scant ordering of the City, that +the more bewildered me as I went the further into the midst of it. + +I found Mr. Wall in his shop, or house rather, a little down the lane +named of the Pope's Head tavern, where he expected me with the money +ready, that my father had desired him to have at my disposal. He +overread my letters of credit somewhat closely, after which he put to +me two or three such pertinent questions as sufficed to show a shrewd +aptitude in affairs of business, yet without any the least pedantry, or +vexatious delays. Indeed he dispatched all with an easy unconcern, as +if such matters were of every day and not considerable; although the +sum to be paid methought large enough in all conscience. The while I +counted over the gold pieces he talked idly, but with a pleasant +humour, of Mr. John Davis that was said to be projecting with others a +voyage for the discovery of the Northwest Passage (the which he +undertook in the summer following), and of Mr. Sanderson, a merchant +well known to him, that was especially committed to this adventure. + +"I would myself have gone upon this discovery," he said, "but for the +misfortune of a singular queasy stomach that layeth me low or ever I be +come upon the ship. Yet I thank Heaven I am not of their number that, +having themselves failed, pretend that success is the constant +attendant upon incompetence." + +When it came to the carriage of my gold he very courteously offered to +send his porter therewith, and as the weight was more by far than I had +looked for, I thanked him, and gave the bags to the man, who for his +part made nothing of them, but walked away briskly down Cornhill, I +following him as a convoy might follow a treasure ship, close upon her +chase. In such sort we arrived in time at the Serjeants Inn in Fleet +Street, where I had engaged to meet Mr. John Skene, that was my uncle's +attorney. In that Inn, or warren rather (for indeed it is nothing +less), we searched for any of the name of Skene, but could find none; +however, a stranger who chanced to pass over the court while we stood +at gaze courteously directing us, we soon after came upon his chambers, +which were at the head of a narrow stair in the south building and the +eastern end thereof; whereupon my porter gave me my leathern sacks into +my hands saying he must now go, which (I having paid him) he presently +did. + +Mr. Skene admitted me with a deal of ceremony, being, I could see, a +man of extreme punctuality and withal one to whom I took an immediate +liking. He was I think the most handsome-featured man I have ever met +with, in height tall, and of a stately port, his body stout although +not at all gross, and his hair, which was very plentiful, gone a +perfect silver. I supposed his age to be nearing three score, but he +might have been younger. His eye was very bright and kindly and seemed +to smile even when his lips were drawn close in meditation. The black +gown he wore as suited to his profession very well befitted his grave +demeanour; about his neck was a plain linen band, but the cap which the +Serjeants generally use he had not on, and I supposed kept it only for +wearing in the Court. His business room into which I had come appeared +meanly furnished, excepting in books and quires, of which there was a +great number scattered everywhere, but his table and the two or three +chairs were nothing so good as our own at home, and the floor unswept +and foul. While I took notice of these small matters Mr. Skene was +reaching from a shelf a great file of papers tied with silk; which +having got, he turned about and surprised me at that occupation. + +"A poor hole, you think, Mr. Cleeve," he said, with a merry smile at my +embarrassment, "but we men of law have scant occasion for leisure in +which to look about us, and luxury would be ill circumstanced here +where life and death be too often at grips. Come," he added after a +pause, "I do not mean to take the pulpit over you, but to bid you +expect such plainness in me as you find in my chamber; and so, enough," +he ended, and therewith drew out a parchment with a great seal attached +to it, upon which he pondered a while. + +"You have the main of this affair?" he asked abruptly, touching the +skin as he spoke. + +"Yes," I replied, "at least so much as that my uncle Botolph is in the +Tower, and hopes to clear himself if he may be brought to trial." + +"Then you have it all, or nearly so," he said nodding. "He was +arrested upon an order of the Council and secretly conveyed by water to +the place where he now lies. By especial grace I have once been +admitted to see him, and learned from his own mouth, although I needed +not to hear that I was already assured of, namely, the entire innocence +that he hath as touching these late revolts." + +He sat silent awhile and perhaps awaited my reply, albeit my reply when +he heard it seemed not much to his mind, and I myself was surprised at +my boldness in speaking it. + +"It lies upon my conscience, sir," said I, "to tell you that, had I my +will, my uncle should by no means come by this franchise we be +deliberating so painfully to procure. I believe him to be a most +absolute villain, and had not my father moved herein, I should have let +him rot in his dungeon and ne'er stirred a finger in this cause." + +I stopped there for mere lack of breath, being quite overcome by my +heat of passion against my uncle, but when I would have excused myself, +Mr. Skene prevented me with a motion of his hand. The pleasant light +in his eyes was clouded with a grave anxiety. + +"These be hard words, Master Denis," he said, "and I hope are +justified; or rather, I hope not; else I cannot for my honour undertake +this prisoner's defence. But tell me briefly upon what grounds you +believe him to be so worthless of relief." + +This put me into an unlooked for difficulty, because I could not bring +myself to tell him aught of my mother, and yet had I no other reason to +give him. But he, as if perceiving he had said something to vex me, +hastened to set me at my ease, and leaning forward upon his desk, said-- + +"You are still very young, Mr. Denis, and the young are apt to +prejudge. But for the cause of your anger I may tell you frankly that +I know it; and respect you both for it and also for your reticence in +naming it. I have been acquainted with your uncle," he went on, +speaking still in a thoughtful manner, but as if some pleasure joined +with the recollection of which he was to notify me: "I have been +acquainted with him above seven years now, and can lay claim to know +his private mind so far as a man's friend may do. You spoke of a fault +of his, when he was scarce older than yourself. Are we to send him to +the block for that? It is not the charge under which he now lies, Mr. +Denis, nor is it one"--he spoke this with so great an earnestness that +I dropped my eyes before his--"nor is it such an impeachment as you +would be willing to stand beside the block where he lay dead and say, +'I let him die because a score of years since a certain frail lady held +him higher than her honour.'" + +"Sir," I cried out at that, "have a care! The lady was my mother." + +He started back as if I had shot him. "I knew not that," he said, and +repeated it twice or thrice. "I had not thought it pressed so near. +Forgive me; I should have guessed it from your manner, if not from his +narration. But he was ever thus," he proceeded, half to himself. "It +hath been so, since our acquaintance even." He stopped short, leaning +back in his chair and then suddenly again forward: "If you desire it," +he said, "I will go no further in this matter. He deserves no pity, +but rather the last penalty of the law; and I make no question but that +by our abstention, he will come into the way to receive it." + +For awhile I could not speak, so wrought upon was I by this temptation, +which was none other than that I had set before my father, and he +rejected. At length I shook my head and without another word burst +into tears. Mr. Skene waited until I was something recovered, settling +his papers the while, and seeming to write upon his tablets; for which +delicacy I thanked him in my heart. When next he spoke, he changed the +direction of our discourse, inquiring pleasantly why I had troubled +myself with so great a sum as five hundred pounds, in coin, when my own +letters would equally have served. + +"I know not where to store it safely," he said, "until such time as I +shall be able to use it, or a part of it only, as I hope; which may be +not for many days or weeks even. If you take my advice, Mr. Denis, you +will restore it to Mr. Wall, whom I know very well, and beg him to +disburse it to you, as you, or I rather, may require." + +I blushed for my small knowledge that had led me into this laughable +error, and although the attorney made little of it I perceived he +thought but meanly of my dealings in exchange. + +In the end I wrote a letter to Mr. Wall requiring him to do as Mr. +Skene had advised, and requesting him further to fetch away my unlucky +bags of gold, which in the meanwhile the attorney promised to bestow in +one of the closets where his title-deeds and capital muniments were +lodged for their better security against thieves and fire. This done, +he told me to come to him again on the morrow and a little earlier than +I had done that day; by which time he would have, ready drawn and fair +writ, our petition to the Council praying for a fair trial at law of +Mr. Botolph Cleeve that was now detained in the Tower during her +Majesty's pleasure, and also to be furnished with the several counts of +the indictment against him directed, which it lay upon us to be +possessed of in order to the preparing of our answer thereto. I +marvelled at the industry and rapid address of the man in these +necessary (but by me unthought of) particulars, and told him that I +wished I loved my uncle better that I might rejoice the more in the +certainty of his release. He shook his head at that, however, saying +that at the best 'twas not impossible the prisoner would be brought to +trial even; and that for the event he could promise nothing, having +indeed more fear of it than he had yet allowed. + +I parted from him soon after, and it being then dinner time I was glad +to find a tavern hard by the Temple Bar where I partook heartily of the +excellent ordinary that is there maintained; and a little while +afterwards Mr. Richard Malt entering (a son of the worthy hosier with +whom I lodged), he entertained me with discourse of the comedies that +were then playing at the public theatres, and of the famous players +that were his friends; from all which I concluded that Mr. Richard +would scarce make so diligent a hosier as his father, whom indeed he +continually disparaged, terming him old buffle-head, and swearing he +had never so much as heard of the "Arraignment of Paris" nor of +"Campaspe" even; upon which I shrugged up my shoulders as who should +say: Is such ignorance possible in this age? and determined to apply +myself to some discreet person secretly, that should instruct me in all +matters of the stage, without delay. + +And so for that while did my uncle Botolph go clean out of my head. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +A CHAPTER OF CHEATS + +On the morrow I rose very contrite for the proneness of my mind towards +pleasures, and calling to remembrance with an excessive sadness, that +protestation of our bailiff's against stage-plays and ungodly shows. +Indeed I began to fear lest Mr. Richard should prove altogether a +perverter of my youth, and promised myself I would avoid his company +henceforward, nor inquire any further after Campaspe and the rest. +Which resolved upon, I felt joyfuller (as a man's recovered virtue doth +generally induce that comfortable feeling) and took pleasure in the +thought that I was this day to relieve the oppressed, and succour them +that were in prison: or at least one of them. + +But all these salutary thoughts broke a-scatter, when, chancing to cast +an eye across the street, I saw my gallant that I had withstood +yesterday, again set in his barber's chair, where he indolently +reclined; and the barber dancing before him like a second David with +razor for timbrel. An instant desire took me, to know who my late +adversary might be (so that in any future debate I might have a name to +clap villain to) and bethought me of an easy way whereby to satisfy +myself. Having patiently awaited his departure therefore, I stole +downstairs and over the lane; mounted to the barber's, three steps at +once, and was in his chair demanding to be shaved ere a man could tell +three score. + +"Your worship does me a great honour," cried the antick fellow, "and I +will dispatch your business in a trice," which he did, my beard being, +I confess, no great thing as yet. + +"Your house is well spoken of," I said carelessly, when he had done, +and I stood cleansing my chin at the basin. + +"It is well attended," he replied, bowing, "and that by the best." + +"Tell me some that use it," I said in a meditative manner, "it may hap +that I know them." + +"There is John a Nokes," replied the barber, with alacrity, "that is +host of the Chequers; but he comes hither no more. And there is Mr. +Nicholas Lovel, that promised me he would come on Wednesday last, +though indeed he failed so to do; and there is moreover the Master of +the Worshipful Company of Painter Stainers whom I used to meet with at +their great hall in Trinity Lane." + +"And him you shave," said I, seeing that he paused there. + +"Nay, for he hath a singular great beard," he said, "and when he sits +in Council amidst his Company of the Painter Stainers there is none +appeareth more lofty and worshipful than he. I have been a serving man +there," he added with a conspicuous pride, "and worn their livery, so +that it behoveth me to speak well of them, and to pray for their +continuance in prosperity." + +"That is all as it should be," quoth I, "but for my question, good +master barber, I do not find you have answered it." + +"Cry you mercy," said the little barber with an innocent air, "but +methought I had answered you full and fairly." + +"Hath any come hither this morning," I demanded, "besides myself?" + +"It is still very early, sir," he replied, rubbing his hands together +the while, "but I hope at noon, now, by the which hour as you know, a +man's beard commenceth to prick sorely..." + +"Hold!" I cried, "I speak not of your hopes, but of your performance. +Have you shaved any man this day?" + +"Oh, none, sir," he replied, as though it were a thing indecent, and I +shocked him. + +"You lie," said I coolly, "for one went forth but now." + +The barber: "Surely you mistake, sir ... but now I bethink me it was no +doubt my lord of Pembroke." + +"So then my lord of Pembroke serves my lord of Pembroke, belike," I +answered, laughing sourly, "and weareth his cast suits, as did he that +went hence." + +I never saw a man so taken aback, and all his graces drooped about him +like a sere garland. + +"Come, sir," said I at length, in a great voice, for I was both +wrathful at this fetch, and feared something behind it, "who is this +black-a-vised tall man in brave apparel, that you shave each morning?" + +"Oh, good Mr. Cleeve," he cried out trembling, but got no further, for +I had him by the collar. + +"Thou hast my name pat enough," said I, very low, and shifted my +fingers to his throat, which I must have held pretty tight, seeing his +face went black and his eyes started forth of it. "To the purpose," I +proceeded and released my grasp somewhat. + +He wrested himself loose and stood away gasping. + +"Who is the tall man of the narrowed eyes and black complexion?" I +demanded. + +"I dare not tell," he whispered, and as it were shook that answer from +his lips. + +"He spies upon me, and uses thine house for that purpose," I said, and +gathered certainty from the mere relation of my doubts. "But wherefore +doth he so? That thou must tell me, master barber, and presently, else +will I beat thee with thine own barber's staff." + +I made as if to seize him again, but he backed off, howling. + +"If you swear," he began, and seeing I paused, "you must swear by the +Book," he said sharply, for I had squeezed his voice as thin as a +knife; "and take what guilt of perjury should be mine in speaking." + +I said I would vouchsafe not to reveal who it was that told me, but +that was the extent of my promise; for the rest, I went in danger of my +life, it seemed, or at least of my peace and quiet, which my absolute +silence would but tend to confirm and increase. + +The barber appeared satisfied of the justice of this, and having +fetched out a Testament from a cupboard by the door, laid it open in my +hand, but then again hesitated. + +"This being so private a matter," he mumbled, "I will first bolt the +door at the foot of the stair, and thereafter will let you into so +great a secret"--he advanced his pinched and sallow face close to my +own and let his voice fall so low that I could scarce hear him--"a +secret so great that your blood shall run cold to hear it." + +This coming so pat upon my suspicions, I promise you my blood ran cold +at the sheer hint of it, and I suffered him to leave me and bolt the +great door on the stair, in order to our more perfect privacy. And +bolt the door indeed he did, but upon the wrong side of it; himself +fleeing away in an extremity of apprehension lest (I suppose) I should +get at his pulpy fat neck again and strangle him outright: which +consideration moved him to put the door betwixt us while there was +time; although I believe I should have burst it down despite its great +thickness had it not been that the haberdasher's 'prentices heard me, +and opened it from without. But the barber was clean gone by that, +with his yellow face and his fulsome big secret and the devil to boot. +The fellow's name was Pentecost Soper (so many syllables to so slight a +man), and I have never set eyes on him since. + +In no very good humour I returned to the family of the Malts and in ill +case to be spoken to. Yet was I obliged to attend how Madam Malt's +third (or fourth) daughter came to spill the small beer at breakfast +yesterday, and the history being interrupted at the least a score of +times by laughter and denials and (from the infant) by woeful +lamentations, it fell out that I had concluded my meal while the tale +still hung about the start, like an over-weighted galleon off a +lee-shore; until at length Madam Malt (an indifferent mariner) +confessed herself at fault, crying-- + +"But there! I will tell you all another time, Mr. Denis. It is a rare +tale I warrant you, though Mistress Judith would have had me keep it +secret; as a maid must have her secret, since time was a week gone in +Genesis." + +A day that had begun thus, with two secrets so necessary to be divulged +as were the barber's and Mistress Judith's, was (had I known it) to +issue in such horrid disclosures as were to change for me the whole +course of my living, and indeed awhile to suspend upon a doubtful +balance the very living itself. Consequent upon my promise to the old +attorney, I made haste to repair to his lodging as early as I judged it +proper to do so, and therefore after breakfast, it lacking then a +little of nine o'clock, I put on my cloak and hat and set forth. One +consideration I had as I walked, which had weighed heavily upon me +since my last conference with him, and that was whether, and if so +when, I should attempt to get speech of my uncle in prison. It seemed +to me right, and indeed due both to my father and myself (looking to +the hardships of my journey directly across England) that he should +both know and thank us for the diligence we were using in his behalf; +and it was to come at some means whereby I might procure this I had in +view, that I intended to speak with Mr. Skene, no less than to conclude +that we had already put in motion. + +'Twas a foggy and thick morning, the weather having suddenly in the +night passed from its extreme of cold into an opposite of mildness, so +that the snow was almost everywhere thawed, and the streets foul and +deep in mire. I was glad enough to turn out of Fleet Street, where +every cart and passenger I met with left me more filthily besprent; so +that twice or thrice I was like to have drawn upon some peaceable +citizen that unawares had sent his vestige mud upon my new bosom. So +hastening into the Inn yard I traversed it and was soon at Mr. Skene's +door, where I knocked loudly and awaited him. The door was soon opened +to me. "Is Mr. Skene within?" I asked; for he himself came not, as +yesterday he had, but an ancient woman, in a soiled coif and apparel +marvellous indecent, stood in the doorway. + +"Lord! there be no Skenes here," she said in a harsh voice, "nor aught +else but confusion and labour and sneaped wages, and they delayed. +Skenes!" she ran on like a course of mill-water, "ay, Skenes and scalds +and the quarten ague, and what doth the old fool live for, that was Ann +by the Garlickhithe fifty year since, and worth nigh five-and-thirty +marks or ever Tom Ducket beguiled her out of the virtuous way to the +havoc of her salvation; with a murrain o' his like and small rest to +their souls. A bright eye was mine then, master, that is dull now, and +the bloom of a peach by the southward wall. But now 'tis age and a +troubled mind that irks me, besides this pestering sort of knaves that +live by the law. Ah! Garlickhithe was fair on a May morning once, +lad, and the fairer, they told me, that Ann was fair featured who dwelt +there." + +I had suffered the old hag to rave thus far, out of mere astonishment. +For how came it, I asked, that she who cleansed the chamber knew +nothing of the man who occupied his business there. My brain faltered +in its office, and I reeled under the weight of my fears. + +"Who then uses these rooms?" I inquired when I could manage my words. + +"None to-day nor to-morrow, I warrant, so foul it is," replied the old +wife, and fell to work upon the floor again with her soused clouts, +while she proceeded, "but the day after 'tis one Master Roman from +Oxford removes hither to study at the law. Let him pay me my wages by +the law, lawfully, as he shall answer for it at the Judgment, for I +have been put to charges beyond belief in black soap (that is a +halfpenny the pound in the shops at Bow), and let no one think I take +less than fourpence by the day, for all I live on the Bank-side over +against the Clink." + +Without more ado I flung into the chamber past her, and running to the +closet where my money was, had it open on the instant. But the first +sight showed it to me quite bare. Nevertheless, I groped about the +vacancy like a man mad (as I was indeed), crying out that I was +infamously deceived and robbed of five hundred pound. Now searching +thus distractedly, and without either method or precaution, I chanced +to hit my leg a sore great blow against the iron of the latch, and +opened my wound afresh which was not near healed, so that it bled very +profusely. But this, although it weakened me, hindered me nothing, I +continuing a great while after to turn all upside down and to bewail my +loss and Skene's villainy that had undone me. + +In the end, however, my fever of dismay abating a little or giving +place to reason, I bethought myself of Mr. Wall, the goldsmith, to whom +perhaps the attorney had thought it safer to convey the gold; and +straightway therefore made off to his house on Cornhill, in a remnant +of hope that my apprehensions should after all prove to be ill-grounded. + +He saw me coming, I suppose, for he left his shop to greet me; but when +he observed my infinite distress, he would listen to no word of mine +until he had fetched forth a bottle of Rhenish, and made me drink of +it. The good wine refreshed me mightily, as also, and indeed more, did +the quiet behaviour of Mr. Wall, who counselled me wisely to rest +myself first and after to confine myself to relating the bare matter +without heat or flourish of any kind. "For out of an hot heart proceed +many things inconvenient, as the Apostle plainly shewed," he said, +"whereas out of a cold head proceedeth nothing but what is to the +purpose, and generally profitable; at least in the way of business, Mr. +Denis, I mean in the way of business, which is doubtless the cause of +your honouring me again with your company." + +Upon this I told him all, without passion, and directly as it had +befallen. His face, as I spoke, gradually came to assume a deeper +gravity, but he did not interrupt my narration, though I perceived that +in part it was not altogether clear. When I had made an end he sat +long, and then rising, went to his desk and returned to me with a +paper, which was the same I had given to Skene on the yesterday. + +"Do you acknowledge that for your hand, Mr. Denis?" he asked me briefly. + +"It is mine," I replied wondering. + +"Be pleased to read it," said he. + +So in a trembling voice I read it aloud, word for word as I had writ it +under Skene's direction; wherein I desired Mr. Wall that he would +disburse to our attorney, as he should have need of them, such sums as +should not in the total exceed five hundred pounds. + +"And such was my intention," cried I, infinitely relieved to find all +as I supposed it. But observing that the goldsmith regarded me +something oddly, I added: "I mean that he required the gold, not in +bulk, but in parcels from time to time; and as to that I took away +yesterday, that you were to send for it again." + +"You say not so here," said he very quietly. + +But upon the instant he had said it, I perceived how the villain had +used my letter, which was to double his booty already gotten; he having +not restored the former sum I had meant this to be in the place of, but +having even possessed himself of this treasure likewise. My +inadvertent laxness of instruction (purposely so phrased by Skene +himself) had given him the opportunity he sought, and I was now by my +folly and misgiven trust, a thousand pounds upon the score in the +goldsmith's books. + +There was no occasion for argument betwixt us, where all was manifest +enough, nor yet, by him, for empty expressions of regret, seeing he had +but acted punctually upon my demand. For his pity, I had it, I knew, +though Mr. Wall refrained himself from any expression of it. But +another feeling he had, I could see, which was a doubt whether my +father's credit was sufficient to bear this inordinately increased +burden; nay, whether he would not repudiate the note I had so ineptly +set hand to, staying his conscience on the satisfaction of his proper +bond. I had my answer to that ready, had Mr. Wall proposed the +question; but to his honour he did not. All he put in contribution to +our debate related to Skene's presentation of my note, which being +fairly written and legally expressed, he had neither reason nor scruple +for withholding the loan. As for the bearer of the message, he was a +gentleman of a very noble quiet manner, said Wall, and to this +description of Skene I could not but consent. + +In fine there being nought left to say, save on my part that I would +immediately write an account of all to my father (whom I would not +otherwise commit) we parted at the door, and I returned slowly through +the great unfriendly City, sick at heart. Now I had not proceeded far +upon my way when it came upon me that I would seek out my old tutor, +Mr. Jordan; for I greatly yearned after comfort and kindly speech, +which I knew would be his to give, upon the first hint of my +misfortune. By good hap I remembered the lodging where he had said he +might be found, which was in a room of a great house called +Northumberland House in the parish, and over against the Church, of St. +Katherine Colman; which mansion having fallen from its first estate (as +many other within the City have done also) is now parted among such as +do pay rent for their use of chambers therein, as few or many as they +please. + +Thither then I inquired out direction; but whether it were by reason of +the intricacy of manifold streets and alleys, or of the mist that from +first overcasting the sky had now descended and thickly muffled up even +the considerable buildings, or else of the opening again of my wound +that sorely sucked away my strength; I say whatsoever the cause were, I +soon confessed myself at a stand and quite bewildered. And moreover to +make bad worse, I perceived myself to have run into a foul and steep +lane, of a most unsavoury stench; the way being nought else than a +kennel pestered with garbage. None seemed to be inhabiting this +unclean byway, or at the least not occupying their business in it; but +the doors stood shut all, and the windows so guarded as one might think +the plague had visited the place and died for lack of life to feed on. + +Meanwhile the fog seemed to mitigate something of its blackness before +me; and this it was, I suppose, that drove me still forward rather than +by returning upon my steps to encounter the worst of it that yet hung +like a pall between the desolate houses. + +At length I issued at the bottom end into a sort of wide place or yard +(for I could not rightly tell which it were, so dim all lay and I so +confused by pain), but by a certain saltness in the air I guessed it +might be near beside the river, and perhaps led down to one of the +wharves or hithes thereupon. But that I was out of all bearing I knew, +and the knowledge sank my courage utterly, so that I could no more, but +sat down upon a stock by the wayside and wept for very bitterness. + +I remember that I said it over like a creed an hundred times that I was +alone, and although I said it not, it beat upon my brain that I was +very near to death. + +Soon after I seemed to stumble, and perhaps did indeed sink down from +the timber I rested on; whereat, opening my eyes hastily, I saw face to +face with me, a maid with the countenance of an angel, and an infinite +compassion in her eyes. But the fever altogether had me then, so that +what I report I may not now verify; yet methought she took me by the +hands and raised me, saying (as to herself), "Dear heart, how chill he +is," and then, "Lo! the hurt he hath, poor lad! and it not stanched but +bleeding." + +After that I must have swooned, for I remember no more; or at least not +such as I believe did happen, though from the cloud of wild dreams that +began to beset me there drew together as it were a masque of half-truth +in a scene not wholly fantastick. For I stood again in the midst of a +long and steep street, very dark and tempestuous, of which the houses +falling together suddenly with a great noise formed a sort of rift or +tunnel by which I might escape; and at the end of this length of ruin I +perceived a pale blue light burning, to the which painfully groping my +way I saw it was borne by a maid that came toward me; and all this +while I heard a mighty rushing as of water, and voices mingled with it, +loud and laughing. Then as the lass with the light approached me +nearer I knew her for Madam Malt's third (or fourth) daughter, and the +rushing sound I perceived to be the stream of small beer she had spilt; +and the laughter grew and increased horribly and the light went out. +And so, at length, I fell away into an inevitable and profound +forgetfulness. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +TELLS HOW I CHANGED MY LODGING AND LOST MY MARE + +I mind me of a sad play once I saw, that is played now in a duke's +palace, and after in a glade within a forest, where one of the persons, +a noble youth whom his presumption hath caused to be banished from his +mistress, saith, "Hope is a lover's staff; walk hence with that." The +play is called a comedy because it ends upon delight, yet after a world +of heaviness encountered, and such thwarting of wills, as makes one +weep to behold. And perhaps when all's said, we do wrong to name +anything of this world tragical, seeing we cannot look to the end of +it, and indeed sometimes (one must suppose) a play is but half played +out here, and that the sad half with all the tears. 'Tis another hand +manages the curtain, and, alas! that the too soon dropping of it hath +made many to say in their hearts, "There is no God." + +Much in this kind occupied my brain, when at length I was partially +recovered after my continued and grave sickness. I still lay abed, +taking babes' food and physick, and asking no questions, being yet too +weak for that, and so that I were left in peace, careful for nought +else. My body might have been another's, so little did it appear to +encumber me; a certain lightness and withal a sense of freedom from the +common restraints of life possessed me. I had, as it were, overpassed +the lists of experience, and become truly a new creature. In this +security and enfranchisement of my spirit I found an infinite, and my +only, pleasure in speculating upon the meaning of things I had never so +much as called in question hitherto, and then first perceived how wide +a gulf lay betwixt that a man may be and that a man must do. I saw all +bad but what rests still in idea, and bitterly condemned the +never-ending hurry of effort and business by which the course of life +is fouled, upward almost to her source. + +This exalted mood lasted I think about a week, during which time I had +got to so high a pitch of philosophy as I cannot now think on for +blushing; settling my notions after my own fashion very conveniently, +and mighty intolerant of those currently held. But afterwards, that +is, about the tenth day of my clear mind, I suffered myself to descend +some way toward common sense, which to my surprise I found not so +disagreeable as might have been. Certain 'tis I still saw all in a +mist of phantasy, and different from what it truly was; but, +notwithstanding, it marked my first motion of health, and a recovery of +my heritage in the world. Once set on this road, I soon grew to be +restive of the remnant of malady which yet kept me weak, and began to +fear I should ne'er be able again. At times I would be melancholy and +fret by the hour at my pitiful lot; then again would fall to piecing +together the events that had preceded this my disease, but could not +get them orderly, or at the least, not whole. + +At such a time it was that suddenly and without premonition, my memory +recovered the picture of that fair maid bending over me and murmuring, +"_Dear heart_!" I leapt up in bed on the instant, and would have had +on my clothes before any could hinder me, had not my impotence held me +without need of other prevention, and I sank back all dismayed. + +Henceforward my mind had matter enough and to spare with the thoughts +of her alone. If I desired life now it was that I might continue to +think of her and of her manner of saying, "_Dear heart! how chill he +is!_" and "_Lo, the hurt he hath, poor lad!_" I swore I would not +exchange those two sentences for a barony, nor the look that went with +them for a prince's thanks. That word of thanks brought me to a wonder +how I might compass the tendering of my thanks to the maid herself, +whom (now I recollected it) I knew not so much as the name of, nor yet +her place of lodging. This consideration greatly staggered me, and had +nigh sent me into a fever again. But I told myself that it was very +certain I must find her in time (and being young, time seemed to be a +commodity inexhaustible), and so for that while the fever held off. +However, I had still intervals of despair which were black enough; but +hope ever ensuing and at each return in larger measure, upon the +balance I found comfort. And thus, responding to the text of the old +play I have before set down (though I had not then seen it played), I +also might have cried, "Hope is the lover's staff," and with that to +lean on I determined to walk thence without further delay. + +Such were the interior passages (to call them so) of my sickness that +was now quite passed; for, with hope at length steadfast with me, it is +clear I lacked nothing of my perfect health, excepting only what strong +meat and sunlight would soon bring. + +And so it was I felt myself ready to go upon a certain discovery I had +in mind (and did presently put into execution), which was to determine +precisely where in the world I might be! For the whiles I had lain +idle this question had intermittently perplexed me: my chamber being +very narrow and low, and bearing, I thought, small likeness to my room +in Mr. Malt's house, of which the window was a large and latticed one, +whereas this I now had was little and barred. My meals, too, were +served by a woman I could not remember to have seen; a pleasant, +bustling body, with a mouth widened by smiling and eyes narrowed by +shrewd discernment. But what troubled me more than all was a +persistent sound of water lapping about the house, which led me to +suppose I was somehow lodged upon an island; or else in the prison +beside the Fleet River--though I thought this could not well be. + +Using more precaution, then, than I had done previously, I got out of +my bed, and sitting on the edge of it, was soon half dressed. The +exercise fatigued me but slightly, and as soon as I had my clothes on +completely I ventured across the floor (that was about an ell in +width), and leaned forth between the bars of the window... + +I burst into laughter at the easy resolution of my doubts, which the +first view thence afforded me. For I was upon London Bridge, in one of +the houses that are builded thereupon, on either side of it. Below me +lay the narrow bridge-way that is spanned across by divers arches +(which be houses too), and is full, at most hours, as it was when I +beheld it, of people that cheapened stuffs and trinkets at the booths +there set up, or else hastened on, north or south continuously. + +'Twas the strangest sight by far I had yet seen; this little +market-world above the waters, so straitened and fantastick, and withal +so intent and earnest upon its affairs, with never a thought to the +great shining river (its very cause and origin) that flowed scarce two +fathom beneath it. I stood awhile fairly entranced by the prospect, +and followed with my eyes every motion and frolick adventure. Thus, +there would be a fine lady that bought an infinite deal of scarlet +cloth, and a pannier-ass that, in turning, struck it from her arm and +unrolled the length of it, so that the ass continued on her way grave +as any judge, with her hoofs upon the cloth like a spread carpet, while +my lady stood by, bewailing her loss. Then there would be a company of +halberdiers that went by at a great swinging stride to quell some riot +(I heard one say) in Southwark by the Bear-garden. By and by, with +more noise, comes there a score of mariners that had left their galley +in the Pool, and after their late hardships on the sea seemed gone into +an excess of jollity, and sacked the shops for toys. Grey-haired +mercers that stood and conversed in groups, and coltish apprentices in +flat caps and suits of blue I noted, and otherwhiles dancers and +mountebanks with a host of idle folk following. + +So engrossed indeed was I, that I did not hear the woman, that in the +meantime had entered my chamber, calling upon me to return to my bed; +until at length she enforced her command with a buffet on my shoulder. + +"Thou art but a graceless lad to be chilling thy marrow at an open +window," she cried; yet I could see she was rather pleased than +wrathful to find me there. + +"Nay, I am whole again, mistress," I answered quickly, and then looking +forth again, cried, "But who be those that go by in a troop, with great +bonnets on and red coats?" + +"Why, who but the Queen's yeomen?" she said, and stood beside me to +catch a sight of them. "Ay, and there goes my husband's brother at +their head, their sergeant, and a proper soldier too, that hath seen +service abroad." + +"Whither go they?" I asked, breathless for the pleasure I took in this +brave show. + +"To the Tower, lad. But now, back to your couch, or at least to a +chair, for the goodman would speak with you." + +"How came I to this house?" I asked, when I had left the window, "for I +remember nought of the matter." + +"Enough of words," she laughed pleasantly. "And enough too that you be +here, and your rantings and ravings o'er. I tell you we were like to +have had the watch about us for harbouring a masterless rogue, so +impudently did your sick tongue wag; and that at all hours of the night +too." + +She went away soon after, still laughing; for which I blessed her; it +being a comfortable exercise to laugh, and as comforting a sound to +hear. I was full dressed, and expecting the good Samaritan her husband +a while ere he came, which when he did, I found he was a man of brief +speech and one to be trusted. He began by asking how I did, and when I +told him I was quite recovered and thanked him for his charity, he put +up his hand. + +"I did no more than your hurt required," he said. "'Twas fortunate we +had this room to lay you in, and a good physician near at hand upon the +Bridge. But now tell me (for I think it necessary I should know it) +how came you wounded?" + +I told him all simply, seeing no reason why I should not, and the whole +affair of my uncle; to which he listened in silence, his eyes on my +face. + +"My name is Gregory Nelson," he said, when I had done, "and of this +Bridge, where I have my lodging, I am one of the wardens. You may bide +here as long as you list, Master Cleeve, seeing that by this hellish +robbery of Skene's you should be nigh penniless, as you be also left +without friends to help you, unless it be that Mr. Malt accounts +himself so." + +"I pay him for my lodging," I said, "but cannot claim any friendship +with him." + +"Have you any goods left at his house?" he asked me, a little as though +he smiled inwardly. + +"Some spare apparel I have there," I replied, "and a parcel of linen or +so, besides my mare." + +"Seeing that you have been absent so long," said Master Nelson, "and +without warning, you may chance to find your chattels sold under a +sheriff's warrant against charges proved. Nay, that is lawful," he +added, seeing I made a motion of dissent, "and indeed you have been +near three weeks a truant." + +This disclosure shocked me, and particularly when I reflected that my +father had no knowledge of anything that had occurred to me, nor yet +where I now lay. Two things I did therefore with all speed, first +writing a full account of the attorney, how he had robbed me, and of my +illness so much as I thought necessary; and secondly, going to Fetter +Lane in the hope to recover my goods. On this errand the warden would +by no means suffer me to go alone, and I for my part was very glad of +his arm to lean upon, as I was also of his companionship by the way. + +In discourse I found him to be something more blunt than complacent, +and moreover to have set his notions, as it were, by the clock of his +profession. Thus, I chancing to speak of the great mansions of the +nobles that were frequent upon the bank about the Bridge-end, and +making mention of their power that lived therein, he answered me pretty +roundly that I was out. + +"If there be two or three wise heads amongst them," said he, "there be +two or three score otherwise disposed. 'Tis a common error, master, to +belaud all alike and merely because their honours be similar. But I +say, let her Grace ennoble any the least considered merchant on Change, +and nought should go worse for it, but rather the better. I say +further, 'tis in the shops and among the great Companies of the City +that England's worthies are now to be found, and her advancement lieth +less in the Great Council to be debated on, than in Cheape to be +accomplished. But enough!" said he, with a little shake of his head. +"I am a servant of this City, and perhaps it is for that I have a bias +of thinking well of what the City doth. Yet few will be bold enough to +deny that we owe much to our great citizens and merchants, as to Sir +Richard Whittington in the old days, and later to Sir Thomas Gresham, +that very praise-worthy knight; not forgetting Mr. Lamb that brought +sweet water in a conduit to Holborn; nor Mr. Osborne, which was Mayor +two year since, and now is Governor of the famous Turkey Company by +charter of the Queen established." + +"And what of the Queen's Grace herself?" quoth I, for my humour was not +a little tickled at this decrying of those in high estate, whose wisdom +and guidance we be commonly taught to extol. But at the Queen's name +Mr. Nelson had his cap off immediately. + +"God bless her," he said very reverently, "and give her a mind to +perceive her own and her realm's, true good. And so He doth!" he broke +off vehemently, "and hath made her to be the greatest merchant of them +all! Ask Master Drake, else, whose partner and fellow-adventurer she +was when he sailed from Plymouth with but five poor ships, and returned +thence with such treasure of the Spaniards as it took two whole days to +discharge upon the quay." + +In such converse we walked on, I straitly considering of these things +he told, whether indeed those mighty lords, whose names were in +everybody's mouth, were truly of less account than men trading in silk +and furs and spices, as he would have me believe; and whether, also, +overmuch service with the City Sheriffs had not worn out an esteem for +greater folk in this honest stout warden of London Bridge. + +When at length we arrived at my old lodging in Fetter Lane, Mr. Nelson +said he would not enter, but would await me in the street, and so I +went in alone. I found Madam Malt in a chamber behind the shop, with +her daughters, and very busy upon a great piece, of needlework. She +looked up swiftly as I entered, but never a word she spake. + +"I come to make account of my prolonged absence," said I, something out +of countenance for this unlooked for rebuff. + +"Judith," said her mother, sharply, "go see whether my babe wakes yet; +Allison do this, and Maud do that," said she, and so emptied her bower +of the maids at a word, and left me standing. + +"Lord!" quoth I low to myself, "I am come into the garden of the +Hesperides surely; yet I wist not that the Dragon was mother of them." +But aloud I said, "I am bound to thank you for the hospitality you +extended to me, Madam, the which I cannot well repay." + +"I thought no less," replied the lady, without raising her eyes from +her work, "and therefore made application for distraint, which being +granted, I sold such stuff as you thought fit to leave and was not past +laundering." + +"But there was my mare too," I cried. + +"Ay, the poor jade," said she, "the knacker put a price upon her, but +it reached not to the value of a feed of oats, so I cried quits and +kept her." + +"Then you have her yet?" quoth I. + +"I have her not," quoth she, "for I gave her a gift to the parson of +St. Dunstan's Church that hath been very full of encouragement to us in +our trouble." + +"Your trouble, Madam?" I began, but she proceeded with a terrible +quietness-- + +"'A preached a singular comfortable sermon two Sundays after your +stealing off, upon the text, 'Happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as +thou hast served us,' as would have melted the most shameless, Mr. +Denis." + +"Let us hope it did then," said I, pretty tired of this oblique attack. + +"He was not of the congregation, sir," she blazed out, her eyes on mine. + +"He was," I retorted, "for he both preached the sermon and hath my +mare. But he shall give her me again, or else I will take her by +force." + +"Ah, you would despoil the Church then, you heretick Turk!" cried the +lady in a thin, hissing voice that befitted the Dragon I had formerly +called her in my thoughts. "Was it not enough that you should creep +into a Christian household and steal all peace therefrom? What of the +looks you were ever casting upon my tender Judith, and she so apt at +her catechism and forward in works of grace. Your mare, quotha! What +of her pretty beseeching ways that no man hath seen but saith she is +rather Ruth than Judith--ay, and shall find her Boaz one day, I tell +you, in despite of your heathen wiles and treachery. So, fetch away +your beast from a churchman's stall, 'tis easy done every whit as get a +simple maid's heart; and then off and abroad, while she weeps at home, +poor lass! that is so diligent a sempstress withal, and her father's +prop of his age." + +Whilst she was delivering this astonishing and very calumnious speech, +Madam Malt had arisen from her chair and now stood close above me, +wringing her hands that yet kept a hold of her piece of needlework, and +shaking with rage. She was a marvellous large woman, with a face +something loose-skinned about the jaw, and of a buff colour that +mounted to a brownness in the folds and wrinkles. Her voice, as I have +said, was very dragonlike, and her whole aspect and presence had +something of an apocalyptic terribleness that seemed to draw the clouds +about her as a garment. I see her yet in my dreams and awake +shuddering. + +Once or twice I strove to interpose a denial in the flood of her +indictment, and to exonerate myself from her load of false charges, but +could nowise make myself heard, or at least heeded, and so gave it +over. Indeed, how all would have ended I know not, had not the infant +in a lucky hour awakened and lamentably demanded sustenance; whereupon +Judith running in (who I am persuaded had got no further than behind +the door-chink), the lady's thoughts were by the intelligence that her +daughter brought, most happily diverted from me. Judith regarded me +with one wistful glance, and then in the wake of the Dragon as she +swept from the room, this last of the Hesperides departed from me for +ever. + +I stood some time very downcast, knowing not what to think, when the +door opening a small space, Mr. Richard's head was thrust in, his eyes +winking with merriment. + +"So you have returned to us, Mr. Prodigal," he whispered, "and have +heard moreover how we take your leaving us so without ceremony as you +did. Nay, be not melancholy, man," he went on, coming beside me and +laying a hand upon my shoulder, "for we that use the playhouse and the +jolly tavern understand these things well enough. No need for words +where a nod sufficeth. But the women would have no men roysters, good +souls! nor hardly allow us the stretch of a lap-dog's leash to gambol +in. Eh!" he sang out in a pretty good mean voice, although from his +late drinking not well controlled: + + "'Better place no wit can find + Cupid's yoke to loose or bind.' + +But come you with me, Mr. Denis, one of these nights; for we be much of +an age, and should sort handsomely together, if I mistake not." + +It lies upon my conscience now, that I neither thanked him for his +intention, which I am sure was friendly meant; nor yet kicked him out +of door for his manifest profligacy. But as it was, I went straight +past him, looking him full in the face the while, and out of the house. +His cheeks turned a sort of yellow white at this insult and at the +surprise of it, while his hand slipped to his belt for the sword he +commonly wore, but he had it not by him, as indeed he was all unready +and his whole dress disordered after such a night spent as he supposed +I should be willing to join him in another, the like of it. + +I found Mr. Nelson without, who leaned very thoughtful against a post +by the door, and by my countenance I showed him plain enough the upshot +of that business. + +"'Twas no more than I conceived likely," he said. "These hired +lodgings be all one." + +Finding nothing convenient to return, I held my peace; and so we walked +slowly along Fleet Street, and over the hill by Paul's, to my new abode +upon the Bridge. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +HOW I SAW AN ENEMY AT THE WINDOW + +My father replied about ten days after to the letter I had writ him, +with another of so sweet a tenour (and yet shrewd enough in the +business parts of it), as reading it, I could have gone on my knees to +honour him. He made it clear at the outset that my bad bargain must at +all hazards be ratified, and Mr. Wall's loan in full repaid. This he +undertook to do, saying he had dispatched advices already to the +goldsmith, in which he acknowledged the debt, promising moreover to +acquit himself of it as soon as he could. + +"But at this present, Denis," he wrote, "to do so is not altogether +easy, though I hope 'twill not be long ere I shall compass it. And in +order to that end I have retired from the Court into a more modest +dwelling (as you will perceive by the subscription) in the hamlet of +Tolland, having been fortunate in letting at a fair rent the Court to +your old companion, Sir Matthew Juke, who, his new mansion in Devizes +not at all answering to his expectation, was at the very delivery of +your letter hot to be rid of it; and therefore upon my first making +offer of our house to him upon leasehold, he very eagerly assented to +my proposals." + +But if the notion of that thin-blooded knight established in our old +home greatly irked me, this which followed caused me an infinite deal +of sorrow; for I was to learn of a secret malady of my father's which +he had long been subject to, but had never before disclosed, although +it had grievously increased upon him even to the time of my departure +from the Combe, so that he sometimes had doubted of his being then +alive or, at the least, able to disguise any longer from me his +affliction. "Had it been otherwise," he proceeded, "be well assured +that upon your first motion of distress I would myself have come to +you, as indeed I would yet do (should Providence see fit to restore me) +were it not for the too great dispences of the journey. For I make of +it no mystery, Denis, but speak with you openly as to one of man's +estate, when I affirm that the charges in this affair be somewhat +larger than with our late accustomed easiness we may satisfy. And this +bringeth me to the gravest part yet, and that which most I loathe to +make mention of, seeing it is not otherwise to be accomplished than in +our continued severance. Notwithstanding between friends (as we are) +plain speech is best, and I therefore say that I have a mind you should +engage yourself in some occupation of trade in London; but such as +yourself shall elect to follow; and to you I leave the choosing +thereof. I will that you continue prosecuting our original design (I +intend your uncle's deliverance) as you shall have the opportunity and +I the means. So much sufficeth for this time, and therefore I bid you +farewell, + +"Who am your well-wishing and most fond father, + "HUMPHREY CLEEVE." + +(Followed the sign of the Inn he lay at, which I remembered to have +once noted going through Tolland, and passed it by as a place of mean +and beggarly entertainment.) + +This letter I overread a score of times, and each time with the more +admiration that a man of so principal a dignity and so observed, could +find it in his mind thus voluntarily to lay by his honourable estate +and depart a mere exile from his ancient home; and that with never a +murmur of self pity; but quitting all simply and with a grand +negligence, as a man might do that puts up a fair-bound book he has +been reading, but now hath concluded. + +'Twas sometime afterward I let my thought stay upon the meaning of that +he had writ of myself; and a longer time ere I could allow the plain +truth that we were come into an absolute poverty. I think not well to +set down all the shifting considerations that moved me then, nor the +weight of humiliation I undertook at this lapse and derogation from our +name. But all my dreams brake utterly asunder, and my hopes that had +until now sustained me in pride. To be penniless I found a greater +evil far than to be sick, and in the first rage of my disappointment, I +quite lost all remembrance of my father (sick too) in the wayside +tavern I had myself disdained to enter. + +I was aloft in my room in the warden's house when this letter was +delivered to me in the afternoon of the day following my passage with +the hosier's wife, and I remember how I sat by the window looking +across the Bridge street, betwixt the tall houses, out upon the River +and the great galleys in the Pool, and upon that square grey shadow of +the Tower. All I saw appeared to me so large and unfettered, and to be +spread so comely in the soft blue air that I could hardly bear to +reduce my thoughts to the narrowness and cooped discipline of my own +future. The eulogy which Mr. Nelson had seen fit to pronounce upon +merchants and traders troubled my spleen not a little at the +remembrance of it; and so out of measure did my resentment run that I +stood by the mullion gnawing at my nails and casting blame hither and +thither, so as none hardly escaped being made a party (as the attorneys +called it) to the case of poverty into which I was fallen. Amongst +other follies I allowed, was this: that I dared not now seek out my old +schoolmaster, lest from the height of his new soldier's calling he +should rail down upon me in Latin, which tongue seemeth to have been +expressly fashioned for satire. + +But such a resolution extended no further than to Mr. Jordan, for I +still cherished and held fast to the hope of discovering the maid and +of thanking her, as was necessary (or at least upon the necessity of it +I would admit no argument); and also of acquainting her of my present +and intolerable trouble. That she were, like enough, engaged in some +trade, as well as I, I never so much as conceived possible, but drew in +advance upon her store of pity for my singular misfortune. + +The day grew towards evening as I stood thus, debating of these +matters, and the River came over all misted and purple and very grand. +Here and there were lights too that went thwarting it, they being the +great lanterns of the wherries and barges that continually traversed +the stream; and the fixed lights were these set upon the hithes and +stairs, or else aloft in the houses by the bankside. 'Twas a wondrous +melancholy sight, methought, and seemed a sort of blazon and lively +image of surrender, this decline of day into dark. For boylike I +omitted the significance of the lights burning, and received the night +only into my soul. + +"Mr. Denis, will't please you come below?" came a shrill voice athwart +these reflections and startled me. + +"Is it supper?" I asked something petulantly, for I hated to be +disturbed. + +"Nay, Master Dumps, 'tis the goodman's brother, the Queen's yeoman, +that would speak with your little worship." + +Something in her manner forbade my gainsaying her, so I went down into +the great kitchen where we commonly sat, and there found the warden, +with the yeoman his brother in his scarlet apparel as I had before seen +him; his halberd set up in a corner where it took the glitter of the +fire, and his velvet bonnet laid on the table. Mr. Nelson at once +presented him to me, upon which he rose up with a salutation in the +military manner, very stately, and then sat down without a word. + +"I have ventured so far to meddle in your proper affairs, Mr. Cleeve," +said Gregory Nelson, "as to inquire of master sergeant here in what +sort your uncle is entreated in the Tower, as also whether the +Constable would likely grant you access to him, he lying under so +weighty an indictment." + +"You have done kindly," I said, and told them both of the letter I had +received from my father, in which he had iterated his desire I should +yet attempt his brother's release, or rather the procuring of his trial +to that end. The sergeant nodded once or twice the while I spoke in +this fashion, but did not interrupt me. Nevertheless Madam Nelson, who +perceived that something was forward of which she had heard never a +word, could scarce constrain herself to await the conclusion, which +when she had heard, she burst in-- + +"Ah, truly, Gregory Nelson," said she, setting a fist upon either hip +and speaking very high and scornful, "when Providence gave thee me to +wife, He gave thee a notable blessing, and one of a pleasant aptitude +to discourse, yet not beyond discretion, as we women have a name +(though without warrant) to go. But in giving thee to me, He furnished +me with nought but an ill-painted sign of the Dumb Man, so out of all +reason dost thou hide and dissemble thy thoughts. Why, I had as lief +be married to Aldgate Pump as to thee, for all the news thou impartest, +or comfort got of thee by the mouth's way; which was sure the way +intended of Him that made us with mouths and a comprehension of things +spoken. Yea, a very stockfish took I to mate in thee, Gregory, whose +habitation should be in Fishmongers Row, on a trestle-stall of +Billingsgate." + +The cogency of this speech of the warden's wife, great as it might be +in abuse, was yet so small in its effect upon her husband, that I was +fain to relate to the poor woman (who loved me for it ever after) the +whole story of Botolph Cleeve's imprisonment in the Tower, which her +husband had (so far prudently) kept silence upon. + +"Poor man," cried she pitifully when she knew all, "ah, these poor +solitary prisoners! I marvel how good men can find it in their hearts +to guard them from escaping thence. Were I a yeoman now," she added, +with an eye askance upon the sergeant and after upon her husband, "I +would suffer all such freely to depart thence without challenge, as +desired it, or at least such as led a Christian life and loved their +wives." + +"Is my uncle kindly dealt with there?" I demanded of the yeoman, but to +that question he hesitated so long in his reply that I cried-- + +"If he be not, 'tis ill done, so to use a man that I hope to prove +innocent of this charge." + +"'Tis because he is innocent belike, poor soul," quoth Madam Nelson, +"that they do so use him. In this world it hath ever been the virtuous +whose faces are ground." + +"Do you know where his dungeon is situate?" I asked, starting to my +feet as though I would go (and meant to) at once to the Lord Constable, +"or if not you, then who doth know it?" + +"None doth," he answered me slowly, "because he is not in the Tower." + +"What mean you?" cried I, as soon as I could for astonishment. "My +uncle is not a prisoner there?" + +"I trow otherwise!" retorted the warden's wife, who saw her pity ill +bestowed if she believed him. + +"There hath been none of his name apprehended, nor none of his +description," said the yeoman. + +"Then where is he?" I cried out bitterly, for I well enough perceived +that all that great sum which we had been enticed into spending was for +nothing lost, and ourselves beggars upon the mere fetch and cozening +imposture of a knave. + +"Where he may be I know not," said the Bridge warden, before the yeoman +could answer me, "but I think you came as near to him as might be, when +you gave your money into the hands of Mr. John Skene." + +"Skene--Skene! He--the attorney? You suppose him to be my uncle?" I +gasped forth the words as one drowning. + +He nodded. "It maketh the matter simple to suppose so," he said, +"which else is hardly to be understood." + +Perplexed as I then was, I could scarce believe him, albeit whatever +survey of the matter I made, I confessed the indications directed me, +after infinite wanderings, ever back to the same point, which was that +my uncle had manifestly lied in writing that he was kept prisoner, and +by our belief in that lie, who but himself did he mean should benefit? +Yet unless he were indeed Skene (and so received our twice five hundred +pounds) he had gained nothing upon that throw, but lost it to another +more cunning than he, which were a thing I thought scarcely to be +credited. + +The weight of this disclosure so whelmed me that I could do nor say no +more, but throwing my arm along the table, had my face down in it to +hide the tears which would have course, try as I might to restrain +them. Good Dame Nelson, all blubbered too, leant over my shoulder to +comfort me, although her sympathy must have been something doubtfully +extended to one that wept because his uncle was proved to be not a +prisoner, but in the full enjoyment of his liberty. + +But after continuing in this case some while there came into my mind +some considerations of revenge, and they greatly comforting me, I sat +upright in my chair, and begged the tolerance of the two men for my +late weakness. + +"Nay, say no more of it, lad," replied Mr. Nelson, "for no man liketh +to think of a villain at large, and in particular, if the villain be of +the family." + +And so, calling to his wife to serve up the supper, and to us to seat +ourselves about the board, he did his best to make me forget, for that +while, my troubles. + +However I could eat but little, though I made appearance as if I +relished the wholesome steaming food; and not I only, but the +sergeant-yeoman also, I soon perceived, did eat sparingly, and as one +whose mind was absent from the feast. And soon he ceased altogether, +laying aside his knife and platter and clearing his throat with a sort +of sob (which was the prelude to as moving a tale as ever I heard) and +resting his great bearded cheek upon his hand. + +"Why, what ails you, master sergeant?" cried Dame Nelson in quick +compassion; but it was to his brother, and not her, that he replied-- + +"You spake truly, Gregory," said he, "when you told Master Cleeve that +no man loveth to think of a villain at large if he be of one's own +family. But you spake it to my shame." + +"I intended it not so, truly," said the warden very earnestly. + +"I know it," said the yeoman, "but yet when you brought in the family +it touched me pretty near. Stay!" he said, when he saw that Gregory +would have interposed some further excuse. "You have not altogether +forgot my boy, Jack, that went a shipman in the Green Dragon upon a +voyage into Barbary, two year since." + +"I remember him very well," answered the warden, while his wife +whispered me that he had the finest pair of grey eyes you did ever see. + +"I have received certain news of him but this very day," continued the +yeoman, "which hath quite taken away my peace, and set my mind amidst +perilous thoughts." + +"A mercy on us!" cried the woman, starting up from the table; "what +words be these, master sergeant?" + +"He hath turned Turk," said the yeoman, in a thick voice. + +"As being enforced thereto, God help him!" said Mr. Nelson; but his +brother shook his head. + +"'Twas his own will to do so," he said, and rose from the bench; +whereupon we all rose too, though without well knowing wherefore, save +that we were strangely affected by his narrative. The yeoman went over +to the corner where his great pike rested, and returning thence with +it, he stood for some while quite still and upright (in such posture as +a soldier doth upon guard), his eyes upon the bright fire which threw +the distorted huge shadow of him against the ceiling. At the last, in +a small voice, as though he spake not to us, he said-- + +"From my youth I have been known for a God-fearing man, and one not +given over to lightness. To the Queen I pledged my faith once, and +have kept it. Had I so much as in one point failed of my word, I would +willingly and without extenuation answer the same. And no less have I +dealt with Heaven--faithfully, as befits a soldier. Then how comes it +that one born flesh of my flesh should do me this shame? Is it my +reward and wages for stout service? Nay, had Heaven a quarrel with me, +I would abide it. Had I defaulted, I should look to be punished in +mine own person. But to defame me through my son; to fasten the +reproach and scorn of a renegade upon me because he cowardly threw +aside his faith; I say I like not that, nor think not that Heaven hath +dealt with me as my captain would." He stayed his speech there quite +suddenly, and took up his black bonnet from the table, we all +marvelling the while, as much at his words as at the apostasy that had +occasioned them. But this speech that ensued, which was spoken with an +infinite simplicity as he was going, moved us who listened to him, I +think, more than all the rest. "And yet," said he, "there be armies in +heaven;" and with that he left us and went his way. + +The evening being very chill we were glad enough of an excuse to build +up a cheerful great fire on the hearth, and to sit before it for +comfort, although in truth we were sad at heart and but little inclined +to conversation. + +I think 'twas about eight o'clock, and quite dark without, when +something happened to divert our thoughts from the yeoman for that +night at least, while for the rest I doubt if the yeoman himself were +more staggered when he heard of his son's error than I, when, chancing +to lean back a little from the heat of the fire (and so turned my head +aside), I saw, pressed close to the lattice panes of the window, a +face, long and sallow, and with thick black curls clustered about it, +which I knew on the instant belonged to that enemy of mine that had +secretly spied upon me before, and now with an evident joy discovered +me again. But even as I looked he was gone; and I, with an exclamation +of wrath, caught up my sword and cap, and sprung out into the street to +follow him. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +IS SUFFICIENT IN THAT IT TELLS OF IDONIA + +There was a press of people about the door as I went forth, which so +hindered my passage as Mr. Nelson, who had started up in alarm of my +sudden departure, caught me ere I had run a dozen paces, and would have +reasoned me into returning. But I would not be led thus nor listen +either, and so telling him 'twas a man I greatly desired to have speech +of that I followed, shook myself free, and jostled hardly through the +throng. To my joy I could yet see the tall figure of my unknown +adversary about a stone's cast ahead of me and walking swiftly. But +the main part of the shops being now closed, there was but scant light +to serve me in my chase, and more than once I feared I had lost him or +ever he got half-way to the new tower by the Bridge end. Nevertheless, +by that time I had arrived pretty near, and, indeed, soon trod so close +in his steps, that I could hear the jar of his hanger against the +buckle of his belt; but it being no part of my design to accost him in +so public a place, I fell back a little, and when he passed under the +bow of the gate-house, where a pair of great lanterns hung suspended, I +made as if to tighten a lace of my shoe, bending low, lest upon a +sudden return he should observe me; which, however, he did not, but +went straight forward. I had supposed it probable he would go off to +the left hand, that is, westward, towards Baynards Castle, wherein, as +I already knew, he had his lodging; and was greatly surprised, +therefore, when, a little way up the street, he turned sharply to the +right hand, behind St. Magnus' Church, where the street goes down very +steep, and is moreover ill paved and (at such an hour) exceeding +darksome. The gallant descended this hill at a great pace, while I for +my better concealment followed him somewhat more tardily as being +secure of his escape thence, where there was but a scantling of folk +about the lane from whom he was very easily to be distinguished, they +being ill-habited and of the common sort. In such manner we proceeded +a great way, passing in our course by two or three alleys that led down +to the Thames, of which I could perceive the gleam of the water, yet so +narrowly visible that the sight of it was as a blade of steel hung up +between the houses. All this quarter of the City I was perfectly +ignorant of, my knowledge being limited to such parts of it only as I +had traversed betwixt the Bridge and Fetter Lane, if I except +Serjeant's Inn in Fleet Street, which to my cost I had come to know +pretty well. + +Whereto my exact intention reached, I should have found it difficult to +determine, but a settled hatred of the man possessed me, beside some +motions of fear (I confess now) that his continued espial had stirred +within me; and under the influence of fear, much more than of hatred, +we be ever apt to run into an excess of cruelty. Thus I remember well +enough the coolness with which I rehearsed my attack upon him, and the +considerations I maintained in my mind for and against the waylaying +him before he could stand upon his defence. Overrunning him with a +critical eye, I could not but admire his great stature and apparent +strength, to which I had to add a probable skill in fence, that I +lacked, having never been lessoned therein, though I had sometimes +played a heat or two with Simon, using a pair of old foils we found one +day in the stable loft at home. Notwithstanding, this defect weighed +nothing against my will, but rather exalted the desire I had to prove +my courage upon him, whose advantage was so every way manifest. + +A great moon hung above the Thames, but obscured now and then by +wreaths of river mist that a light wind lifted the edge of, yet could +not sustain the bulk to drive it. There was no sound but that my enemy +made with his accoutrements; for I, lurking along in the black shadows, +made none, and the street was now everywhere void. All went pat to my +purpose, and I loosened my sword in its sheath. Then I crossed the +road. + +But even as I did so, my man came to a sudden stand before an old and +very ruinous house, having a porch of stone, and within that a door +with a grid, whereon I presently heard him give a great sounding rap +with the pummel of his sword. And so unexpected was that act of his +(though why it surprised me I know not) that I stood quite still in the +full light, nor could for my life put into execution my policy that he +had thus distracted. The place wherein we had come I saw was near +under the Tower, of which I could, by the dim light, perceive the +undistinguished mass thwarting the bottom of the lane; and the house to +which the man demanded admittance was the last upon the left hand this +side the open space before the Tower. He remained some while, half hid +in the deepness of the gateway above which a lantern swung with a small +creaking noise; the light of it very dim and uncertain. After my first +arrestment of surprise, I had gone aside a little, yet not so far but I +could observe him, and the low oaken door at which he knocked. There +was something about this silent and decayed building which I liked not, +though I could not tell precisely wherefore; for indeed it showed signs +of some magnificence in the design of it, but now was all worn out by +neglect and foul usage; being turned over to the occasions of shipmen +and victuallers for storage of such things as their craft requires. +Thus, from a fair great window above, that I judged to have been +formerly the window of the hall or chapel, was now projected a sort of +spars and rough tackle, by which the slender mullion-shafts were all +thrust aside and broken. A high penthouse of timber with a crane +under, stood by the wall a little beyond, for the getting of goods in +and out, with other such disfigurements and mean devices of trade as a +mansion is wont to suffer that great folk have left, and small folk +have cheaply come by. + +At length I saw the grid within the door to be slid back very warily, +and by a faint access of light perceived that the porter bore a taper, +as being unwilling to open to one he knew not, or could not see. + +A conversation followed, but too low for me to hear it, though I +suspected from the manner of the man that he first besought, and after +demanded, admittance, which was still denied. Then he betook himself +(as I could tell) to threats, and was soon come to wresting at the bars +of the grid, like a madman. But that which sent me from my ambush was +a cry of terror from the other side of the gate at his so insolent +violence; for it was the cry of a girl. + +I strode forward. + +"Hold!" I said, mastering myself to speak within compass, and taking +the man by the sleeve with my right hand, while I kept my left upon my +poniard. "A guest that is not welcome should have the modesty to know +it." + +He swung round with a great oath, and would have flung me off, had I +not gripped him pretty hard. + +"Ay, is it thou?" said he, when he saw who held him, and I could swear +there was some respect in his way of saying it. + +"I come to tell you that your barber hath left his shop in Fetter +Lane," said I. + +He laughed aloud at that, high, and with a sort of scornful jollity, +though his narrow eyes never left my face. + +"You are right, lad," he said heartily, "and I have sought him +everywhere since." + +"Even upon London Bridge," said I, nodding. + +"Even there," replied the dark man. + +"I have myself some skill in that sort," I said, "so if the hour be not +too late for shaving we will get to business straightway." + +"As you will," said he, indifferently. "But now, to leave this +schoolboy humour a little, and seeing I have no quarrel with you nor +yet know (as I told you before) your name even, were it not better you +should state your grievance against me if you have one, as I suppose +you deem yourself to stand upon some right in thus constraining me?" + +The while he was speaking thus and in such easy parlance as I had +before noted was proper to him, my thoughts had returned to that girl's +cry I had heard behind the grid, and looking about swiftly, I saw the +gate itself now opened a small way, and the girl's form within the +opening in a posture of infinite eagerness. So taken with this sight +was I, that insensibly I slacked my hold of the man, who suddenly +withdrew his arm and stood away jeering. + +"The door is open," I said, in a low voice, and putting my hand on my +sword; "wherefore do you not enter?" + +"I will do so," said he, and before I could hinder him, he had swept me +aside with a great buffet, and run forward to the gate. Cursing my +lack of readiness to repel him, I drew at once and followed him, while +the maid, who at his approach had fled backward, pushed to the door; +yet not so quick--the hinges turning heavily--but he prevented her, +thrusting in his arm betwixt the post and the door, and had gained his +purpose easily, had not I sprung upon him from behind and so hindered +him that his hand was caught and crushed, ere he could release himself. + +"I owe you small thanks for that, Mr. Denis," said he, gravely, when he +had flung the door open and got his hand free; and by his disdain of +continuing the pretence not to know my name, I saw we were come into +the lists as open foes. + +"You owe somewhat elsewhere," said I, "and that is amends to this lady +for your discourtesy," and as I spoke I looked across to where she +stood in the hall, a distance off from us twain, by the foot of the +great stair. A light from some lamp, hung aloft out of sight, diffused +itself about her, so that she stood clear from the obscurity which +wrapped all else; and by that light I knew her for the maid I sought, +and would thank, and did already supremely love. The light falling +directly from above lay upon her hair and seemed to burn there, so +splendid a shining did it make. Of her face and body, the most of +which was dim in shadow, I could yet discern the exceeding grace and +lithe bearing. Her hands were outspread in terror for our clamorous +intrusion, and I thought by her swaying she was about to swoon. But +small leisure had I to proffer service, or indeed to do aught but +return to my guard, which I resumed none too soon, for the tall man had +drawn his great sword already and now caught up a piece of sailcloth +from the rummage about the hall, wrapping it about his injured arm. + +"So it would seem you know her, too, Mr. Denis," he let slip in a voice +of some wonder, and I thought paused upon the question how we were +become acquainted. + +"Have a care!" I cried, and so thrust at him without further parley. + +He caught the blow easily enough on his blade, turning it aside. +"Country play!" he muttered, and was content to let me recover myself +ere he took me in hand. However, I had the good luck to drive him a +pace or two backward, amidst the stuff that lay there about, bales and +cordage and the like, which hampered him not a little, though for the +rest I could not touch him; whereas he did me whenever he listed, but +so far without great harm. Yet notwithstanding his disdainful +clemency, or rather because of it, I lost all sense of the odds we +matched at, and laid about me with increasing fury, so that, for all he +was so expert and cool a swordsman, I kept him continually busy at the +fence and sometimes put him to more art than he would have wished to +use, in order to defend himself from my assaults. + +Now the hall where we fought thus, was, as I have said, full of all +sorts of impediments and ship's furniture, and was, besides, very low +and lighted by nothing but the gleam of the stair-lamp at the far end, +so that though we both lost advantage by these hindrances, yet his loss +was the greater; for with due light and space he could have ended when +he chose; but now was forced to expect until I should abate somewhat of +my persistence ere he did so; which, seeing I bled more than at first, +he no doubt looked for presently. And so indeed did I; but the +expectation seconded my little art in such sort that I broke down his +guard and, before I was aware, had caught him high up in the breast, by +the shoulder, and I could have laughed for pleasure as I felt the steel +sink in. Howbeit 'twas a flesh wound only, and thus no great matter, +as I knew; but it served to put him quite from his coolness, and as +well by his manner of fetching his breath, I could tell he was +distressed, as by his level brow that he meant to be rid of me. But +then-- + +"Oh, stay it here, gentlemen," cried the girl, who saw that we breathed +a space, though we still kept our points up and ready to be at it anew. +"If the watch pass now, you will be certainly apprehended as you go +forth. Have pity of each other," she said, and came forward almost +between us. "And you, sir" (to me), "if you do thus because he would +have entered here, I thank you. But now let him go, I pray you, as he +shall promise no further to offend." + +You may imagine how this talk of my letting him go, who was a thousand +times the better swordsman, angered my antagonist. + +"Ay, Mistress Avenon," he said, in that wicked, scorning voice he had, +"we shall stay it here surely to please you. But yet there be some +slight formalities accustomed to be used which must first be done; and +after I will go." + +"What be those formalities you speak of?" she asked, with an apparent +gladness that the worst was past. + +"Just that I must kill him," said the dark man, very quietly between +his teeth. + +"Good mistress," I cried out, for I was persuaded he spake truth and +dreaded lest she should see what in pity of her womanhood I would +should be hid, "go aside now. Go to your chamber." But to the man I +whispered, "Come without into the street." + +"There spoke a coward," was his word, and drawing back upon his ground +he swung up his sword arm to the height, and husbanding the weight of +his whole body, stood poised to cut me down. I saw the blow coming, +even in the dark, and despairing to avoid it, let drive right forward, +at the same moment muffling up my eyes in the sleeve of my idle arm, +for the terror of death was upon me then. Our swords sang.... But +even as I struck I knew that a miracle had been wrought, for his sword +never fell. Sick with amazement I opened my eyes, to see him go over +amongst the bales, where he sank down with a great sobbing cry. His +sword hung quivering from a rafter of the ceiling, which it had bitten +into by the blade's breadth. His tallness of stature, and hardly I, +had overthrown him and left me victor. + +"God be praised!" I said very low, when I perceived and could believe +how matters had gone; but "God have mercy!" whispered the maid. + +I turned about. + +"You had best go, Mistress Avenon," I said. "The rest must be my work." + +"You will not surrender yourself?" she asked, very white. + +"If he be dead..." I began, but could not finish for trembling. + +"He is not dead, I think," she interrupted hastily, and went back to +the stair, whence she soon returned with the lamp, which she set down +upon a hogshead, and then bent over the wounded man. + +"A kerchief," she said, briefly, "a scarf; something linen if you have +it." + +I tore off a strip from my sleeve and with that she staunched the +worst. We made a compress of my band, drenching it in cold water, and +for tightness buckled my belt upon it, which I gave her. + +"There is burnt wine in yonder firkin," she said, and I fetched a +draught in the cup of my two hands. + +When he sighed we looked at each other, and I said-- + +"Who is he?" + +"It is Master Guido Malpas," she whispered, and added, "I am glad you +have not killed him." + +But that speech went near spoiling all, seeing that I had gone into +that tourney her champion. + +"Ay, there would have been another tale to tell," I returned very +bitterly, "had your rafters been set but a span higher." + +"Oh, you mistake me, Mr. Denis (I think they call you so)," said she, +and bent low over the wounded man again. "I mean I am glad your +kindness to me hath not run so far as you must needs have wished to +recall it." + +It is a maid's voice more than her words that comforts a man, and so, +scarce had she spoken but I saw I had misjudged her. + +"Denis is my name," I said eagerly, "but tell me yours now." + +"You have heard it, and used it too," she answered smiling. "'Tis +Avenon." + +"Ay, but the other?" I cried. + +She paused before she told me "Idonia." + +"He loves you?" I said very quick, and nodded toward Malpas. + +"He saith so." + +"Doth he often trouble you thus?" + +"I fear him," she said so low I could scarce hear her. + +"But your father?" said I, "or your brothers? Have you none to protect +you?" + +"My father was slain in a sea-battle long since," she told me, "when he +went in the _Three Half Moons_ with others that traded with the Seville +merchants, but falling in with a fleet of Turkey, they were nearly all +taken prisoners, but my father was killed." + +"You were a child then?" I asked her, and she said she was but an +infant; and that her mother was long since dead also, and that she had +no brothers. + +She seemed as though she were about to add more, but just then the sick +man revived, opening his eyes and gazing upon us as one that seemed to +consider how we twain should be together in such a place. I got up +from where I had been kneeling beside him and stood to stretch myself; +but was surprised to find how painful my own hurts were, which I had +almost forgotten to have received. I suppose Idonia saw me flinch, for +she suddenly cried out, "Mr. Denis, Mr. Denis, I will come to you," and +leaving Malpas where he lay, rose and came over to me, when she took me +very gently by the arm and made me sit, as indeed I needed little +persuasion to do. Howbeit I was (as I have said) scarcely scratched, +and should have felt foolish at the elaborate business she made of it, +had not her hair been so near to my lips. + +But presently, and while we were thus employed, she with dressing my +hurts, and I with such and such affairs, Idonia whispered-- + +"Doth he know where you lodge?" + +"Yes," said I, "he discovered the place to-night," and told her where +it was, and of the kindness Master Gregory had shown me. + +"I knew not his name," she interrupted me hurriedly, while making +pretence to busy herself with the tightening a bandage, "nor of what +authority he were that took you from me when you were hurt before; but +he looked at me as at one that would not use you well, and in the end +spoke something roughly to me, so that I dared not follow you. Ah! +these upright staid men!" she added with a world of bitterness; but +then, "Now your lodging is known, you must leave it straightway, sir." + +"I am not used to run away," said I, more coldly than I had meant to +do, and she said no more. When we looked up Malpas had gone. + +We looked at each other without speaking for admiration of the strength +and secrecy he had shown in thus stealing off. + +"I must go too," I said presently, and saw her eyes widen in dismay. + +"Beware of him!" she whispered. "He doth not forget. And see! he hath +not neglected to take his sword;" as indeed, most marvellously, he had +done. + +"Well, he serves an honest gentleman," quoth I carelessly, "so that if +I have cause to think he plots against my life, I shall lay my +complaint before my lord Pembroke." + +But she shook her head as doubting the wisdom, or at least the +efficacy, of that, though she said nought either way, but led me soon +after to the great oaken door (which Malpas had left ajar when he went) +and set it wide. The night was very dark, with the moon now gone down +into the bank of cloud, and so still that we heard a sentinel challenge +one at the Bulwark Gate of the Tower. I thought too I heard the rattle +of an oar against the thole, as though a boat put off from the Galley +Quay a little below, but of that I was not sure. + +"God keep you," I said to the maid; but when she did not answer me I +looked down and saw she was weeping. + +When I went away, I heard the bolt shoot into its rusted socket, and +asked myself: how would my case stand now, had Idonia shot it, as she +essayed to do, at the first? + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +HOW MR. JORDAN COULD NOT RUN COUNTER TO THE COURSE OF NATURE + +I know not yet (and I thank Heaven for my ignorance) what may be the +peculiar weakness of old age, though I suspect it to lie in an +excessive regard for life; but of youth I have proved it to be a +contempt of life; which, despite the philosophic ring of the phrase, I +do affirm to be a fault, though I am willing to allow that I mean a +contempt, not of our own, but of another man's life, and a surprise +that he should hold dear so vulgar a commodity. + +Thus, as I walked away from the house of Idonia, I pondered long and +carefully the small account that Mr. Malpas was of, and could not +conceive how he had the monstrous impudency to cling so tight as he did +to the habit of living, which (as a soiled shirt) he might well enough +have now been content to exchange. Indeed, the more I thought upon the +matter, the greater increased my sense of the absurdity that such a man +should claim his share of the world, or rather (to select the essential +quality of my complaint) his share of that corner of Thames Street +where Idonia lived, which goeth by the name of Petty Wales. From +thence, at all hazards, I was determined to exclude him. For had not +Idonia said: "I fear him"? and that was enough for me. Indeed it +seemed to elevate my jealousy into an obligation of chivalry, merely to +remember that sallow-faced swaggerer that said he loved her. Simon +Powell should have fitted me with some knight's part, methought, amidst +his Peredurs and Geraints, and I would have proved myself worthy as the +best of them. + +But that was all very well. It was past ten o'clock, and when I got to +London Bridge I found it barred against me and the watch within the +gate-house snoring. I knocked twice or thrice pretty hard and at +length woke the watch; but so angered was he at thus losing of his +sleep, besides that he thought perhaps to recover upon his late +remissness, that he flew into an unnecessary zeal of watchfulness, +swearing I was some vagabond rogue, and, bidding me begone, shut the +wicket in my face. In vain did I endeavour to make myself known, +bawling my name through the gate, and Mr. Nelson's too; the porter had +returned to his interrupted repose, and nothing on earth would move him +again, for that night at least. + +So after having launched one or two such observations as I thought +befitted the occasion, I made the best of it I could, and turned away +to seek for some cleanly house of receipt where I might pass the +remainder of the night. Some while I spent in ranging hither and +thither, without happening on such an hostelry as did please me (for I +confess to a niceness in these matters); but at length, coming into a +place where two streets met, I found there a very decent quiet house +that answered to my wishes so well that I immediately entered and +bespoke a chamber for the night. Here I slept exceeding soundly, and +in the morning awoke, though yet sore from my scratches, yet otherwise +refreshed and cheerful. + +The better part of the travellers that had lain there were already up +and away ere I arose, so that I had the room to myself almost, wherein +I broke my fast, and, save for the lad that served me, held +conversation with none other. Had I known in what fashion we were to +meet later, I should no doubt have observed him with more closeness +than I did, but I saw in a trice he was one that a groat would buy the +soul of, and another groat the rest of him. + +"'Twas late you came hither last night," he said as he set down my +tankard beside me upon the table. + +I smiled without replying, and nodded once or twice, to give him a +supposition of my discretion; but he took it otherwise. + +"Ay, you say truly," he ran on, "there is a liberty of inns that no +private house hath. Come when you list and go when you have a mind to; +there's no constraint nor question amongst us." + +"Be pleased to fetch me the mustard," said I. + +"You know what is convenient," he returned in a voice of keen approval, +as he brought it. "Now, I was once a serving man in Berkeley Inn, +called so of my lord Berkeley that lodgeth there. But whether he were +at home or absent, I was ever there. And where I was, you understand, +there must needs be necessaries bought, and such things as were, as I +say, convenient." + +He leered upon me very sly as he spoke these mysteries; by which I +perceived I was already deep in his favour, as he was (like enough) +deep in villainies. + +"I marvel how from a lord's mansion you came to serve in a common +tavern," said I, to check him. + +"Oh, rest you easy, sir," he laughed, "for the difference is less than +one might suppose. There be pickings and leavings there as in an +hostelry, a nimble wit needed in both places indifferently, and for the +rest, work to be scanted and lies to be told. Hey! and lives to be +lived, master, and purses filled, and nought had, here nor there, but +must be paid for or else stolen." + +Such light-hearted roguery I owed it to my conscience to condemn, but +for the life of me I could not, so that I fell into a great laughter +that no shame might control. I hope it was weakness of my body, and +not of virtue, pushed me to this length, but however come by, I could +not help it, and think moreover it did me good. + +"Come, that is the note I like," said my tapster, whose name I learnt +was Jocelin; and, setting his lips close to my ear, he added, "London +town is but a lump of fat dough, master, till you set the yeast of wit +to work therein; but after, look you! there be fair risings, and a +handsome great loaf to share." His eyes sparkled. "I have the wit, +man, I am the yeast, and so..." + +He had not finished his period, or if he did I marked him not, for just +at that season the gate of a great house over the way opening, a party +of horsemen rode forth into the street with a clatter of hoofs. They +wheeled off at a smart pace to the right-hand, laughing and calling out +to each other as they went, and sending the children a-skelter this way +and that before them. Yet, notwithstanding they were gone by so +speedily, I had yet espied the device upon their harness and cloaks, +which was the green dragon and Pembroke cognizance. I flung back my +chair. + +"Is yon house Baynards Castle?" I cried. + +"None other," he replied, nodding while he grinned. "I have certain +good friends there, too." + +"Is Mr. Malpas of the number?" I demanded. + +"Oh, he!" he answered with a shrug. "A bitter secret man! If 'a has +plots he keeps them close. He flies alone, though 'tis whispered he +flies boldly. But we be honest men," quoth he, and held his chin +'twixt finger and thumb. "We live and let live, and meet fortune with +a smile. But I hate them that squint upon the world sidelong, as he +doth." From which I drew inference that they twain had formerly +thieved together, and that Malpas had retained the spoil. + +But I soon tossed these thoughts aside for another, which, as it came +without premeditation, so did I put it into practice immediately. +Having satisfied my charges at the inn, therefore, and without a word +to Jocelin, I ran across the street and into the gate-house of the +castle, before the porter had time to close the gate of it behind the +horsemen. + +"Is Mr. Malpas within?" I accosted him eagerly. + +The porter regarded me awhile from beneath raised brows. + +"Have you any business with him, young master?" said he. + +"Grave business," I replied, "knowing, as I do, who it was gave him +that hurt he lies sick withal." + +The old man pushed the gate to with more dispatch than I had thought +him capable of using. "Ay, you know that?" he muttered, looking upon +me with extraordinary interest. "That should be comfortable news to +Signor Guido; that should be honey and oil to his wound;" and I saw by +that he understood his Malpas pretty well. + +He led me aside into his lodge, and there, being set in his deep, +leathern chair, spread himself to listen. + +"Who is he, now?" he asked, in that rich, low voice a man drops into +that anticipates the savour of scandal. + +I looked him up and down as though to assure myself of his secrecy, and +then-- + +"'Twas Master Cleeve," said I. + +Heavy man as he was, he yet near leapt from his chair. + +"Is't come to that?" he cried. "Master Botolph Cleeve! Now the saints +bless us, young man, that it should be so, and they once so close to +hold as wind and the weather-cock!" + +I saw his error and meant to profit by it, but not yet. If, indeed, my +uncle Botolph were hand-in-glove with Malpas, why, then, I was saved +the pains to deal with them singly. Having smelled out the smoke, it +should go hard but I would soon tread out the fire. Howbeit, I judged +that to question the old man further at that season would be to spoil +all; since by manifesting the least curiosity of my uncle, I should +deny my news (as he understood it) that my uncle, and not I, had near +robbed Malpas of his life. Noting the porter, then, for a man to be +considered later, I returned to my politic resolution to get speech of +Malpas himself, and to tell him, moreover, that Mistress Avenon +abhorred his addresses, which I was therefore determined should cease. + +Perhaps I counted upon his sick condition in this, and upon a +correspondent meekness of behaviour, but regard it as you will, I was a +mere fool and deserved my rival should rise from his bed and beat the +folly out of me. Nevertheless, I take pride that my folly ran no +further, so that when the porter inquired who I might be that desired +to carry this message to the wounded man, I had sufficient wit to +answer frankly that I was Mr. Cleeve's nephew; which reply seemed to +set the seal of truth to that had preceded. + +"Mass!" swore the porter, lying back in his chair, "then methinks your +news will doubly astonish Mr. Malpas, seeing who you be that bring it." + +"It should somewhat surprise him to learn 'twas my uncle wounded him," +quoth I modestly. + +The porter: "Surprise him! 'Twill make him run mad! I admire how you +can venture into his chamber with such heady tidings." + +"Oh, in the cause of truth, Master Porter," I returned stoutly, "one +should not halt upon the sacrificing of an uncle or so." + +"Why, that's religiously said," quoth the porter, who, I could see, +having relieved his conscience in warning me, was glad I would not be +put off, and, indeed (old cock-pit haunter that he was!), did love the +prospect of battle with all his withered heart. + +I asked him then what office about my lord's household Mr. Guido held, +and he told me he was keeper of the armoury, and served out the pikes +and new liveries; that, moreover, when my lord was absent he was +advanced to a place of greater trust. + +"The which I hope he justifies," said I gravely, but the porter blew +out his cheeks and said nothing. + +"Will you lead me to his chamber?" I asked him presently, and he bade +me follow him, first taking up his ring of keys. + +We crossed the court together, going towards the west corner of it, +where he opened a door that led on to a winding stair, which we +ascended. When we had climbed almost to the roof as I thought, he +stayed before another door that I had not observed (so dark and +confined was the place), through which he preceded me into the gallery +beyond it, a low but very lightsome place, with a row of dormer windows +along the outer side of it, from one of which, when I paused to look +forth, I beheld the river Thames directly beneath us, and a fleet of +light craft thereon, wherries and barges and the like, and across the +Southwark flats, far distant, London Bridge, with Nonsuch House in the +midst of it, that cut in twain the morning light with a bar of grey. + +While I stood thus gazing idly the great bell of the gate rang out with +a sudden clangour. + +"Pox o' the knave that founded thee a brazen ass!" cried the porter. +"Ay, kick thy clapper-heels, ring on! Again! again! Shield us, +master, what doomsday din is there! Well, get gone your ways, Master +Nephew of Cleeve; that long, yellow man's chamber lieth beyond, upon +the right hand, in a bastion of the wall.... List to the bell!" and +with that he turned back in haste and clattered down the stair. + +I followed his direction as well as I might, going forward down the +gallery to Malpas' room, although, to speak truly, I had come into some +distaste of that business already, and would have been glad enough to +forego it altogether had not my pride forbidden me so to return upon my +resolution. At the door I stooped down and listened for any sound of +groaning, which, when I plainly heard, I could not but confess 'twas +something less than merciful to trouble the poor man at such a time. +But having conjured up the figure of Idonia, my pity of her aggressor +fell away again, so that without more ado I knocked smartly upon the +door. + +I was answered by a groan deeper than before. + +"Have I leave to enter?" I demanded, but was told very petulantly I had +not. + +"We are not unacquainted," said I, with my lips to the keyhole. + +"The more reason you should stay without," said he, and I could hear +him beat his pillow flat, and turn over heavily upon his side. + +"Hast thou forgot my sword so soon?" cried I in a great resentment that +the victor should be pleading thus at the chamber door of the +vanquished. + +"Go, hack with thy tongue, Thersites!" came the voice again; but at +that I waited no further, but burst in. I had got scarce two paces +over the threshold when-- + +"Why, Master Jordan!" I cried out, for there on the bed lay my ancient +fat friend, his heavy Warham-face peering above the quilt, a tasselled +nightcap bobbing over his nose, and all else of him (and of the +furniture too) hid and o'erlaid by a very locust-swarm of folios. + +At the first sight of me I thought he would have called upon the +mountains to bury him, from mere shame of his discovery. + +"Away!" he gasped, when he could get breath to say it; "away, graceless +child! I am no foiner; I know you not. I am a man of peace, a +reverend doctor. My trade is in books. _Impallesco chartis_; I grow +pallid with conning upon the written word. What be your armies and +your invasions and your marchings to and fro? that lives should be +lived, and brains spent and lost therein. I tell you, one verse of +Catullus shall outweigh the clatter of a battalion, and Tully is the +only sergeant I salute." And so, having hurled his defiance, he sank +back amongst the bed clothes and drew down his nightcap an inch lower +upon his brow. + +"You know me very well, good doctor," quoth I, and advanced to his +bedside, which was fortified with an huge _vallum_ of the Consolations. +"I am Denis Cleeve." + +"'Tis like enough," said the old man with an air of infinite +resignation, and affecting still not to know me. "And I am my lord of +Pembroke's poor librarian, and at this time somewhat deeply engaged +upon the duties attaching to that service." + +He drew forth a volume with a trembling hand as he spoke, and made as +if to consult it. + +"Being so accustomed as you are to the use of parchments," said I, "I +had supposed you led a company of foot to tuck of drum." + +He was so clearly abashed at my remembering his very words that he had +formerly spoken, that I had not the heart to proceed further in my +jesting, and so sitting down upon the couch beside him I told him that +I applauded this his exchange of resolutions, and that there was enough +of soldiers for any wars we were likely to have, but of scholars not so +ample a supply as he could be spared therefrom, save upon unlooked for +occasion. Mr. Jordan regarded me very mournfully while I spoke thus, +and when I had done lay a great while silent, fingering his folios and +shaking his tasselled head. At length he replied thus-- + +[Illustration: Mr. Jordan regarded me very mournfully. Chapter XII] + +"You have a great heart, my son," said he with a sigh, "and think to +comfort one that lacks not virtue (I hope), although the diligence to +apply it manfully. Alas! much learning, Denis, hath made me +marvellously to hate confusion and strife. My mind burroweth as a +coney in the dark places of knowledge, but never my body endureth a +posture of opposition. Thought is a coward, all said: and philosophy +nought else but the harness we have forged to protect our hinder parts +while we shuffle ingloriously from the fray. 'Tis no hero's person we +assume, lad; and your old fool, your erudite scratchpole--_Graecis +litteris eruditus_, hey?--is everywhere and rightly derided." + +I told him very earnestly I thought otherwise, but he would not hear me +out, affirming his contrary opinion, namely, that he was a coward and +trembled at the very name of an enemy, excepting only of his principal +enemy, to wit, his bed. "And with that," said he, "I have been forced +into concluding an unconditional alliance." + +Now I could not bear he should thus contemptuously belittle his valour, +of which I had formerly seen sufficient proof in his dealing with the +thieves about Glastonbury, and said so roundly. + +"Well, lad," he replied, and puckering up his face into a grim smile, +"be it as you will; and at bottom I confess I believe I have as much +courage as another man: of which quality indeed it needed some modicum +to encounter my conscience and return to the path I was set in by +Nature. For there is but little bravery in running counter to our +natures, Denis, and especially when applause and honour lie both that +way. Ay, I think," quoth he, "I have some obstinacy below, though you +must e'en stir in the sediment to raise it." + +In reply to my asking how it had come about that he was installed +keeper of my lord's books, he said it had been consequent upon his +intention (while he yet held to it) of enrolling himself soldier; that +the magistrate to whom he had applied him for that purpose, when he +proposed the oath of allegiance had seen fit to eke it out and amplify +his warrant with so offensive a comparison betwixt the arts of letters +and war, to the utter disadvantage of letters, as he could not abide +the conclusion of, but made off; nor could he ever be induced to return +thither any more. + +"And notwithstanding I cried out upon my defection daily," he +proceeded, "I perceived that fate had put the term to my military +service or ever 'twas begun, and so sought elsewhere for employment. +Indeed I had arrived at my last victual, and had scarce wherewithal to +meet the charges of my lodging. But in a good hour I fell in with +another of the like condition with mine, though for the rest, a poet, +and therefore of a more disordered spirit. His name was, as I +remember, Andrew Plat, but of where he dwelt I am ignorant. He was +boldly for stealing what he could not come by honestly, and so far put +his design into practice as, breaking into this very Castle, he +furnished his belly with the best, both of meat and drink. In the +morning he was found drunk, in which condition he confessed all, but +with such craven and mendacious addition as involved me also, who was +thereupon cited to appear. + +"I excused myself, as you may suppose, very easily, but by an +inadvertence I excused myself in Latin. + +"'How!' cried my lord, 'you make your apology in Latin?' + +"'Have I so done?' said I, 'then judge me as a Roman, for amongst these +barbarians thou and I be the only two civilized.' + +"He laughed very heartily at that, and having informed himself of my +merits, soon after delivered up his books into my charge. + +"And thus I am, as you see me, returned to my former occupation, which +I shall never again pretermit upon any motion of magnanimity. If aught +in the future shall offend me, if evil rumours shall penetrate to this +quiet angle of the world, I take up no lance to combat the same, my +son, having a better remedy: which is to rinse out my mouth with great +draughts of Virgil and Cicero, and thereafter with a full voice to +thank the gods that I was not begot of the seed of Achilles." + +He invited me to remain to dinner with him, but I would not, and went +away by the way I had come, my head so full of this strange case of Mr. +Jordan (whom I had only chanced upon through the lucky accident of my +having mistaken the porter's direction), that I remembered not so much +as Malpas his name even, until I was safe in the warden's house upon +the Bridge; where I found good Madam Nelson anxiously expecting my +return, who moreover had a steaming hot platter for me that she served +up with certain less palatable satires upon my night's absence. +However, I thought it wise to let them pass for that season, and not +justify myself therein; for a woman loveth not the man that answereth +her again; and especially when he is in the right of it. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +PETTY WALES + +If a young man's heels be seldom slow to follow after his heart whither +he hath left it for lost, he hath indeed so many classical examples to +draw upon as he need stand in no fear of censure save of such as have +neither loved at all, nor ever in their lives been young. And so it +was with me, who had no sooner swallowed down my pudding and as much as +I could stomach of the good wife's reproaches but I was off and away to +Petty Wales to inquire after Idonia, how she did. + +'Twas a quiet grey morning of the early year, and as I strode along +very gladsome, methought there could be few places in the world so +pleasant as Thames Street, nor any odour of spices comparable with the +healthful smell about Billingsgate and Somers Quay; although I confess +not to have remarked the fine qualities of either, the night before. A +great body of soldiers was marching, a little way before me, toward the +Tower, their drums beating, and their ensign raised in the midst; as +heartening a sight and sound as a lad could wish for, and of good omen +too. But for all my courage was high, and my steps directed towards +the lass I loved, there was yet a fleck of trouble in my mind I would +have wiped out willingly enough, and that was my father's expressed +desire (which I knew, too, was very necessary) that I should set about +earning my living at a trade. I suppose a boy's thoughts be naturally +averse from buying and selling, and from all the vexatious and mediate +delays which interpose between desires and their satisfaction; for +youth looketh ever to the end itself, and never to the means, whether +the means be money and matters of business, or patient toil, or +increase of knowledge. Success and the golden moment are youth's +affair, and all else of no account at all. Ah! of no account when we +be young, seem preparation and discipline and slow acquirement and the +gathering burden of years; but just to live, and to love, and to +win.... Imperious fools that we are: pitiful, glorious spendthrifts! + +I got to the great ruined house at length, as the troop swung out onto +Tower Hill, and the roll of their drums died down. Without loss of +time I drew my poniard and hammered with the haft upon the gate. To +come to her thus, wearing the arms I had used to defend her from the +man she feared and I had valorously overthrown, surely (said I) this +will get me her admiration and a thousand thanks. I would dismiss my +wounds with a shrug when she should say she hoped they were mended, and +swear they were not painful, yet with such slight dragging of the words +as she should not believe me but rather commend my fortitude in +suffering (though for that matter they were easy enough and only one of +them anyways deep). In short I savoured the sweet of our coming +colloquy as greedily as any feast-follower; and at the same time I +continued to rattle my dagger-heel on the oaken door. After some +minutes thus spent, the grid opened, and behind the bars was Idonia +facing me and very pale. + +"What would you, Mr. Denis?" said she. + +I dropped my jaw and simply stared upon her. + +"What would I?" I gasped out. + +"How do your wounds?" she asked hurriedly. Our conversation seemed +like to stay upon interrogatories. + +"But am I not to enter, then?" cried I, as near sobbing as I had ever +been in my life. + +"Can we not speak thus?" said Idonia, and glanced backward into the +hall. + +"Oh, Mistress Avenon!" I said to that, "is it thus you use me?" and so +turned away, smitten to the very heart. But I had not gone ten paces +from the gate, ere she caught me, and laid a hand upon my arm. + +"Ah, Mr. Denis," she whispered, "be not angry with me; say you are not +wroth, and then go. I beseech you to go away, but first say you are +not angry.... I must not talk with you; must not be seen to talk with +you, I mean." She might have said more had I not stopped her. + +"Not to be seen to talk with me? Am I a man to be scorned, then?" + +She answered below her breath: "'Tis rather I am a maid to be scorned, +methinks.... Oh, look not so!" she added swiftly, "I must go +within.... If they should know you have come..." + +"Who should know?" cried I, very big; "and what care I who knows? I am +not accustomed to shun them that question my behaviour." + +"No, no, you are brave," said she, "and 'tis there that my peril lies, +if not your own. You may defend yourself, a man may do so having a +sword. But we women have no weapon." + +"Who would hurt you?" I asked, moving a step back to the gate. "Not +Guido Malpas, I warrant, this many a day." + +"I live amongst wicked men coming and going," she replied. I could +feel her hand shake that I now held in mine. "But now go. I am not +worth this coil we make; you can do nothing that you have not done +already. I will remember you," said she in a strange pleading voice, +"and I think you will not forget me awhile either." She paused a +little, panting as though she had been weary. "And, Mr. Denis, my +heart is big with pride of your coming hither." + +These words she spoke in the deep full voice she used when moved, and +then turning from me, went within and shut to the door. + +"Now Heaven forbid me mercy," said I aloud, "if I probe not to the +bottom of this pool." + +I pulled down my jerkin in front, and set my ruff even. Then opening +the purse that hung at my belt, I counted the coins that were in it. +There were a dozen shillings and some few halfpence. "Certain 'tis +time I got employment," I mused, "yet I allow myself one day more;" and +with that I slid the coins back in my purse, and looked about me. + +Now, this great building of Petty Wales before which I stood was once +(or at least is reported to have been) an Inn of the Welsh Princes for +their occasions in the City, but was, upon their long disuse of it, +turned into tenements, as Northumberland House was where Mr. Jordan had +formerly lodged, and was now let out to marine traders, victuallers, +and such other as found it convenient to the quays. How it came about +that Idonia had her dwelling here I knew not yet, nor indeed did I at +that time know anything of all I am about to set down of this mansion, +which, however, it is very necessary should be understood, seeing how +large a space it occupies in my adventures. + +Besides the tenants, then, that by right inhabited there, there had +grown up another sort of secret tenants that lurked amid such odd nooks +and forgotten chambers herein as were overlooked, or of no advantage +for the stowage of merchandise. Between these mean unnoted folk, that +had crept thither like rats for shelter, and lay as close, there was +maintained a sort of fearful communion and grudged acquaintanceship. +But the house being strongly parted in twain by a stone wall built +throughout the middle of it, from back to front, it was as though there +were two separate houses, of which Idonia used the one, but these the +other. And since moreover there was but one gate upon the street side +of the house, the men of whom I speak, both the honest ships' brokers +and the lawless poor men, perforce used a certain low-pitched postern +door at the bottom of a narrow alley which ran behind the house. + +This door let on to a wide and decayed stair that (I was to learn) was +the poor men's hall and common room; here they met and shared their +stealthy mess together; here elected and deposed their captains, and +celebrated their improvident espousals. Living on sufferance, stricken +by poverty and terror of the law, hardly allowed as men and women, but +rather as abject orts of nature, they yet preserved amongst themselves +a perfect order from the very necessity of silence; and upon the least +motion of discontent the mutineer was instantly seized, his head +covered, and the captain's knife deep in his heart. 'Twas the women's +office, then, to lay the body out decently; and about midnight four men +bore it secretly to the riverside, and straightway returned. + +All this I was to learn from a strange accident that befell me when at +length I left loitering before Idonia's door, and skirted about the +place in search of any index to the riddle she had read me. For I was +persuaded that to reach the heart of the mystery, I must at all +adventures gain access to the house itself; I being then quite ignorant +of the dividing of it in the manner I have told. It was with an +extraordinary delight, therefore, that I discovered the lane to the +rearward of the house, and the low door. Somewhat to my surprise I +found the door not made fast, and so at once entering by it, I began +cautiously to ascend the rotten stair. But scarce had I gone half-way +to the first stage, when I stumbled over the body of a man that lay +stretched there in the dark, and was, I thought, dead. Howbeit, he was +not, and when I had him down into the air, and had loosened his +clothing, he opened his eyes. He stared upon me wildly. + +"How? You are not of the brotherhood?" he stammered. + +I said nothing in reply, but leaving him where he was, ran to a tavern +hard by upon Tower Hill, called _The Tiger_, whence I returned +presently with a flask of strong wine. The drinking of it revived him +marvellously, so that he was soon able to support himself on his feet, +although without strength to walk yet. I got him some meat, too, and +bread, both of which he ate like a wolf rather than a man; so far had +he gone in starvation. When he had done, he would have thanked me, but +I interrupted him, asking in my turn who he was, and what trade he was +of. He straightened his back at that, and looking me very proudly in +the face replied: "My name is Andrew Plat, and by the grace of Heaven I +am a lyrical poet." + +Upon the sudden I recalled Mr. Jordan. "So," I thought, "'tis the +worthy that stole my lord Pembroke's buttery-beer." However, all I +said was: "I think I have not read any of your writing, Mr. Plat." + +"'Tis very possible," said he, "for I write less than I think: and +indeed publish less than I write." + +"And how standeth it with your fasting, Master Poet?" quoth I. + +"I feed my thoughts that way," he replied simply, "as 'twas in a fast I +conceived my famous lines upon the Spring." + +I bade him drink another draught of the wine, having no interest to +scrape acquaintance with his Muse; but he was not so easily to be put +off. + +"It begins thus," said he, and tossing back his long and tawny hair +from his eyes, lifted his right hand aloft and beat the air with his +fingers as he proceeded-- + + "Fresh Spring, the lovely herald of great Love, + On whose green tabard are the quarterings + Of many flowers below and trees above + In proper colours, as befits such things-- + Go to my love----" + + +"Hold, hold!" I cried, "methinks I have read something very similar to +these lines of yours in another man's verses." + +He held his hand still suspended, though his eyes flashed in disdain of +my commentary. + +"An' you were not young and my benefactor," he said, with an extreme +bitterness, "I would be tempted to clap you into a filthy ballad." + +"Do you use to write your ballads, full?" I inquired, "seeing 'tis +apparently your custom to steal your lyricks, empty." + +He brought down his raised hand clenched upon the other. + +"I steal nothing from any man," he cried in a great voice; but even as +he spoke his face went white, and his eyes rolled in his head. I +thought he had fallen into some fit of poetics, and offered him the +wine again, but he cautioned me to be silent, at the same time cringing +backward into the shadows. + +"Why, what ails you?" I asked encouragingly. + +He laid his forefinger to his lips, and then, laying his hand upon my +arm, drew me to him. + +"Spake I overloud?" he muttered, shivering, too, when I answered that +he certainly had done. + +"'Twould be my death were I heard," said the miserable fellow, and then +told me, by starts and elliptic phrases all that I have set down about +this mysterious fellowship of Petty Wales, and the cruel rigour in +which its secrecy was maintained. + +"'Tis no place for an honest man," he said, "for all here, but I, be +notable thieves and outlaw villains, bawds, and blasphemers every one. +And were't not for the common table we keep, each man bringing to it +that he may, but all equally partaking, and that we lie sheltered from +foul weather and terror of the watch, I had long since avoided hence. +For I am a lyrical poet, sir, and have no commerce with such as steal." + +I could have returned upon him there, with his unconscionable +plagiarism and his assault upon Baynards Castle too, but judged it +Christian to hold my peace. Furthermore, I had entered this +unwholesome den for another purpose than to argue a point of +authorship, and therefore said quietly enough, but in such a manner as +he should perceive I meant it-- + +"Now listen to me, Master Poet," quoth I, "and answer me fair, else +will I raise my voice to such pitch as your Captain shall take note of +it for a contingent fault of thine to have loud-speaking friends. + +"This great mansion, now," I went on, when I thought he could bear a +part in the argument; "do all the parts of it join, and the dwellers +herein have exchange of intercourse each with the other?" + +"No," he said, "they do not." + +"But once they had," said I. + +"Long since they may have done," replied the poet, "but since the place +hath been converted to its present use, it hath been divided by strong +walls of partition, so as each man is now master of his own." + +"How!" I cried, raising my voice of set purpose to frighten him. "In +this nest of thieves what man is so absolute a master as another may +not possess himself of his goods?" + +"I know not, I know nothing," he wailed piteously. + +"Are there no cracks in the wainscote even?" I persisted, for something +in his denial led me to suspect he put me off. He shook his head, +whispering that their new Captain reposed but a dozen paces distant and +would hear, and kill us both. + +"Enough," I said pretty stern, "for I see there be privy ways opened +that you have at the least heard tell of (though you may not have dared +investigate them), and communication hence through every party-wall." + +"There is none," he repeated, near mad with apprehension. + +"It is necessary I discover these passages," I continued, "or rather +one of them, as I think there is one leads to the great hall." + +"What know you of such a place?" he almost screamed. + +"Rest you easy, sweet singer," said I, laughing at the slip he made, +"for we will not go headlong to this work, nor disturb your Captain's +sleep where he lieth snug till nightfall; but you shall lead me by +quiet ways thither, and when you shall have put me through, I will +suffer you to depart in peace. But so much I most positively require +of you." + +He wept and wrung his hands, protesting I was grievously in error, and +he the most miserable of men; indeed 'twas not until I pulled out my +sword and showed him the blood on it, that he professed himself willing +to serve me, though he still continued to pretend his inability therein. + +"That we shall see," said I. "But first finish your bottle, and then +advance, man, in Master Spenser's name!" + +He drank it down, and then cramming the broken morsels of bread and +meat into his wallet (where I saw he kept his verses also with a parcel +of goose quills) he cautioned me to be silent, and stole ahead of me up +the wide and broken stair. + +Small light there was to see by, for the few windows which should have +served us were all shuttered or roughly boarded up, and the wind piped +through them shrilly. Upon the great open gallery he paused as in +doubt which way to proceed, and, to speak justly, 'twould have puzzled +a wiser man in that dimness to pursue any right course between the huge +bales and chests of sea-merchandise that pestered our passage. Nay, +even the very roof and ceilings were become warehouses, so that once I +espied so great a thing as a ship's cockboat slung from the rafters +above our heads, and once rasped my cheek against the dried slough of a +monstrous water-snake that some adventurer had doubtless brought home +from the Indies. But I knew well enough that we should have made twice +our progress but for the infinite dread in which the poor poet went of +crossing the lair where the officers of this unholy brotherhood awaited +their hour to steal forth. At every rustle of wind he staggered so he +could scarce stand, and had it not been for the invigorating coolness +of my sword upon the nape of his neck, he would have fled thence an +hundred times. Yet for all the dangers (to call them so) of our stolen +march, the thought that stood in the front of my mind was: What lover, +since the world began, hath gone in this fashion to his mistress? For +insensibly my intention had narrowed down to the mere necessity of +seeing Idonia again. Surely, never was a house of so many turnings and +bewildered issues; so that we seemed to traverse half the ward in our +quest, and for the most part in pitchy blackness, as I have said, until +I almost could have believed the day had gone down into night while we +shuffled tardily forward. But at last Mr. Andrew stopped. We had +turned a coign of the wall, and come into an open space palely lighted +from above; and looking up I saw we stood beneath the vent wherein the +crane worked that I had note from without the night before. + +"If it be not closed up, 'tis here," whispered the poet, and enjoining +upon me to succeed him, he took the crane-rope in his hand and pulled +himself up thereby until he had ascended some fifteen feet, when he +swung himself a little to the right hand where was a sort of ledge in +the masonry of the wall (I mean not the front wall of the building, but +a wall that joined it on the square), and there he stood firm. I was +not slow to join him aloft and there found, behind the ledge or sill, a +low arch in the thick of the wall, and within it a little wicket door. + +"You have guided me well," I said, clasping his hand hard, "and I shall +not forget it. If there be any favour I can show you before we part, +name it, Mr. Plat, and I will use my endeavour to please you." + +He considered some while before he replied, and then looking at me very +earnestly, said-- + +"Since you seem to have some acquaintance with the poets, and thought +fit to remark upon a certain fancied resemblance (though indeed there +is none) betwixt my lyrick of the Spring and another's treatment of +that subject, I would beg you, should you be in any company where my +works are spoken of, as I make no pretence they shall be everywhere as +soon as they be published, I say, I would beg you to refrain yourself +from bringing in that ... from directing the attention of the company +toward ... but I see you take me, sir, and so enough said." + +However he would not let me go before he had begged my acceptance of a +copy of his works, which he intended should be decently bound in calf +leather, with a device of Britannia sitting upon Helicon, and his name +of Andrew Plat entwined in a wreath of flowerets at her feet. + +"And wherefore not upon her brow?" I asked him. + +"Oh, sir," said the poet, flinging an arm about my shoulder, "you +honour me too much." + +I got him down the rope soon after, and saw him return along the +passage, his head high and his gait light as though he trod a measure. + +"We be both in the same plight," I sighed, "and support ourselves upon +favours not yet received." + +Then I set open the door. A stout ladder reached down from thence to +the hall where I had fought with Guido Malpas, or rather to a part of +it that was full double the height of that part, and had entrance into +it by means of a sort of wide arch betwixt pillars. The hall was +empty, and I descended to it immediately. + +"Well," thought I, pretty grave now I had accomplished this much of my +business, "I would I knew in what case I shall depart hence." + +At that moment I heard a footstep on the stair beyond the arches, and +Mistress Avenon entered the hall. + +At first she saw me not, but when she did she stood perfectly still, +the colour fading from her face, and one hand upon her bosom. I bowed +low, having no words to speak, and then expected with an infinite +weight at my heart, until she should declare her will. + +At length she came slowly toward me. + +"What is this you have dared to do?" she murmured, so low I could +scarce hear her. + +"I could not help it," I said, and would have told her there and then +that I loved her, had not my courage all gone to wreck before her +visible anger. She drew herself to her full height, and keeping her +eyes on mine said in a louder voice-- + +"Ay, you could not help intruding upon a defenceless girl, and yet you +went nigh enough to slaying Mr. Malpas, poor man! for that same fault. +Have I not given you thanks enough, that you are come hither for more? +Are you greedy of so much praise? Else indeed wherefore have you come?" + +Her words so stung me, and her coldness after all I had suffered to get +speech with her, that I felt the tears very close behind my eyes, and, +as a schoolboy that has been detected in some misdemeanour casts about +for any excuse however vain, so did I; for all in a hurry I stammered +out-- + +"I came hither to tell you I have twelve shillings." + +Was ever any excuse so ill-considered? + +"Twelve shillings!" cried Idonia; but my self-respect was all down by +that time, and I could not stop; I spoke of my father's letter, mine +own penury, and the detestation in which I held the necessity to enter +into trade. + +"I have but twelve shillings in the whole world," said I, but she not +answering, I turned my head sharply to see how she had received it. To +my utter astonishment Idonia was laughing at me through a blind of +tears. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +HOW IDONIA TAUGHT ME AND A CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD HOW TO KEEP BOOKS + +"Now, cry you mercy, Mr. Denis!" said Idonia, "for indeed I guessed not +that affairs of trade were to be in debate between us." + +But so confused as I was by her laughter, I could neither deny nor +confirm that saying, but stood before her very hot in the face and, I +make no question, as sour to look upon as she was merry to see me so. + +"I had thought you had forced your way hither," she continued, setting +her head a little aside, "in order to rid me of such dangers as might +beset me here, albeit I know of none." + +"And knew you of any," said I, pretty desperate by this, "my sword +should make it none, if you would." + +Perhaps it was the bitter tone I used, or the knowledge that I spoke +not in mere idle boastfulness; but upon the sudden her manner changed +wholly and she was pleading with me in so tender and deep a voice as it +thrilled me through to hear it. + +"Ah, Mr. Denis," said she, coming close and laying her hand on my arm, +"we be friends surely, or if we be not, I know not where I am to seek +for a friend as true hearted, nor one that would venture as far to aid +me. I meant no harm, indeed I did not, though my tongue played my +meaning false, as it doth, alas! too often. If I laughed, 'twas to +fend off weeping, for once I fall to that, I know not when I should be +done." + +"Yet you said you had no especial trouble," I returned. + +"Nay, if I did, I lied," said Idonia, "for I am beset with troubles +here." + +"I thought no less," said I, "and 'twas for that very reason, and in +despite of your refusal to admit me awhile since, that I sought out +other ways to come to you." + +She smiled when she heard this honest confession. "So much trade as +that comes to, Mr. Denis, will hardly satisfy your father's debts, I +think." + +"I gave myself this one day more," I told her, "but to-morrow I must +necessarily seek employment, though the doing of it I can scarce abide +to think of." + +"Having but an half-handful of shillings," said she, "poor lad! there +seemeth nought else to do, unless indeed you steal." + +"Steal!" cried I. + +"And wherefore not?" said Idonia, with a little hard laugh, "seeing we +all do worse than steal here, or if we do not all so, yet do we stand +by permissively while others do. Oh, sir," she cried, "I warned you +this very morning I was not worth your thought of me, and 'twas truth, +or less than the truth, I told, who live amongst evil folk in this +place and secret men that whisper as they come and go." + +She hid her face in her hands so overcome was she by the horror she had +waked, and how to comfort her I knew not. + +"Of what quality be these men you speak of?" I demanded, thinking +perhaps they were the thieves beyond the partition wall, who overran +into this place too. "I will lay information against them, before the +magistrate if you will." + +Idonia looked at me with a sort of wonder. + +"But you know them not," said she, "nor where they bide, when they +leave us." + +"Is it not yonder then?" I asked her, and pointed to the little door +aloft in the wall. + +"They--poor folk!" she cried. "A pitiful lean company; would they were +no worse I ope the gate to! ... If you had known, when you would have +had me admit you, Mr. Denis.... But they be gone for this while ... +oh, I fear them!" said she, and fell again to weeping. + +'Twas evident she dared not be open with me as touching the business +nor estate of those she consorted with, nor, I found, dared give over +this life she led amongst them, for all the fear and horror she had of +it. So, notwithstanding I returned again and again to the question, +she put me off with a manifest dismay. + +"No, no," she would cry. "Even so much as I have already let fall is +haply more than wise for me to speak and you to hear. But now," in +conclusion she said, "let us return to your own affairs, in the which +it may chance I may assist you." + +She conceived from the first an infinite admiration of my father, +bidding me tell over again the tale of his renouncing all his wealth in +order to the ending his brother's supposed confinement, as well as to +pay that added debt which I had so foolishly incurred. Idonia drew in +her breath sharply when I had done, and then looking me full in the +face, said-- + +"Whatever may befall you to do, Mr. Denis, 'twill be less than he hath +the right to exact of you; although I believe that the least you will +do he will give you thanks for it." + +'Twas my father's nature just, and none could have bettered the +character. + +"What can you do?" she demanded briefly, and bade me sit (for we had +both stood this while); she sitting too, on a bundle of folded sails +that lay by the wall. + +I hesitated to reply, for leaving the few scraps of Latin and logick +that Master Jordan had been at such pains to drive into me and I had as +easy let slip again, my studies had been woefully neglected, or rather +I had profited by them so little, that there was nothing I knew anyways +whole. I stammered out at last that what I could do, I doubted would +scarce earn me a scavenger's wages, and looked (I suppose) so glum, +that Idonia laughed outright. + +"Come, there be books of account," said she, "can you not make shift to +cast moneys in figure?" + +I told her I thought I might compass that if I were given time enough; +though for that matter I did not see how I was like greatly to profit +the merchant that should employ me. + +But without replying by so much as a word, Idonia went over to an oaken +press by the stair, presently returning with a soiled leathern volume +clasped with a deal of brass and so heavy as to be hardly portable. +This she set open before me saying it was a record of trade done, and +had belonged to one Mr. Enos Procter, whom she knew, and bade me read +in it. + +"Lord!" said I, very grave, for I had never seen so intricate and +mysterious a labyrinth of words and cyphers as she then discovered. +"If Dives the rich man got his wealth that way, I suppose his life to +have been something less easy than our divines would have us believe." + +"It is a ledger-book," said Idonia. + +"Let it be what it will," said I, "it is more than I bargained for." + +"Nay, but observe this superscription," she went on, eagerly, "where it +commenceth as is customary: _Laus Deo_ in London, and so following." +She ran her finger along the line commenting with a facility that +astonished me. "This is the accompt of one Mendoza, as you see, a +wool-stapler of Antwerp, and as the Jews ever be, a punctual man of his +money. Look you, now, how differently this other sets to work, Jacob +Hornebolt of Amsterdam, and with what gross irregularity he +transmitteth his bills of exchange ... nay, here, I mean, upon the +Creditor side," cried she, for my eyes ran hither and thither, up and +down the page, like any Jack-apparitor, in quest of her accursed Dutch +Jacob and his pestilent bills. + +"Oh, a truce to this," quoth I, "or else turn o'er to a page where a +man's doings be set down in fair Queen's English, and not in such +crabbed and alchemist terms as one must have gone to school to the +Black Witch that should understand 'em. You point me here and you +point me there, and there's Creditor this and Debitor that, with an +whole history between them, good lack! mistress, but it makes my head +reel to hear tell of." + +"I had thought you understood me," said she very simply. + +"Then 'tis time you understood I did not," said I, roundly, "and what's +more I think you should not neither. It is not maidenly reading;" and +indeed I was staggered that so much of a man's actions should lie open +to any girl's eye that had the trick of cyphers, to peruse them. + +Idonia lifted her eyebrows pretty high, hearing me speak so, but +presently shut up the book, and putting it by, said a little wearily-- + +"I had meant to help you, Denis, but you are over-dull, I find; or if +you be apt 'tis not in learning. Some lads there be think to get a +living other ways, though other ways I know not to be so honest, though +haply as easy." + +'Twas on my tongue to retort upon her with a speech in the same kind, +but I had to confess I could not frame one half so wittily, and +therefore said very tragical-- + +"I stay not where I am not welcome," and taking up my cap, bowed very +low to Idonia, who for her part, paid no heed to me, and although I +halted once or twice on my way to the door, stood averse from me, as +being careless whether I stayed or went. + +"I am not reckoned over-dull at sword play," I muttered, when I had got +as far as I could, without departing altogether. + +"Oh, if you think to fence for a living, sir," said Idonia, over her +shoulder, "I pity your father." + +"He needs none of your pity, mistress," cried I. + +"I know not where better to bestow it," she replied, "unless it be upon +a boy with twelve shillings and no wit to add to them." + +Now, how one I had so handsomely benefited could yet run into this +excess of obstinacy as she did, I stood astonished to consider, and in +my heart called her a thankless wench, and myself a preposterous ass to +remain there any longer. Notwithstanding had I had the sense to read +the account between us whole, I doubt Mistress Avenon owed not a whit +more to me than I to her; although in my resentment she seemed then a +very Jacob Hornebolt, and as gross a defaulter upon the balance as that +dilatory Hollander. + +"Then I leave you to better companionship," said I, having run my +length, "and to such as have at the least the wit to please you, which +I have not, all done." + +What she would have said to that I cannot guess, for before she could +speak there came a thundering rattle at the door and a voice calling +upon her to open in the Queen's name. + +"Dear God!" whispered the girl. "'Tis the soldiers come," and stood +facing me, distraught and quaking. + +"Is it you they seek?" I asked, quick, but could not hear what she +answered me, for the knocking drowned all. + +"Up the ladder," I bade her. "Go, and draw it after. I will abide the +event." + +'Twas this advice steadied her, although she refused it. Instead, she +shook off my hand that would have led her, and going to the ladder by +which I had descended, drew it away from the trap in the wall and laid +it along the floor. + +"They would but use the same means to follow me," she said, and so +without more ado went to the door and opened it. A score of +halberdiers burst into the hall. + +"What is your will, masters?" demanded Idonia; and her pride I had +before denounced I found commendable enough, now she directed it +against these intruders. + +One that seemed to be their Captain stepped forth, and having slightly +saluted her with a hand to his morion, turned leisurely to his +following, and bade them shut the gate; which done, he posted them, +some before the ways accessible to the hall, and the rest under a +sergeant, in the rooms above it, that he commanded them strictly to +scrutinize. The soldiers had no sooner obeyed him than he drew forth a +paper largely sealed, which he told us, with a great air, was Her +Grace's commission and gave warrant to search this messuage of Petty +Wales for any such as might seem to be obnoxious to the Queen's peace, +there harbouring. + +The Captain was a tall, ill-favoured youth, of a behaviour quite +lacking of courtesy, yet well enough matched to the task he had in +hand; for he spoke in a slow and overbearing voice that betokened as +much doubt of another's honesty, as satisfaction for the power given +him to apprehend all that should withstand him. Idonia and I stood +some distance apart, and after a swift glance at me, the Captain +addressed himself to the girl solely, and with so evident a mistrust of +her, as it maddened me to hear him. + +"Your name, mistress?" said the Captain. + +"Idonia Avenon," she replied carelessly, though I could not but grieve +to note how pale she continued. + +"And your father, he lives here with you?" + +"He is dead," said she. + +"Who inhabits here, then, besides yourself?" + +"A many," replied Idonia, "though I have not their names." + +The Captain turned aside to his lieutenant with some whispered word of +offence that made the fellow smile broadly; and at that I could no +further refrain myself. + +"Stay within the limits of your commission, sir," said I hotly, "and +keep your jests for other seasons." + +He troubled not so much as to turn his head my way, but took up his +examination of Idonia again. + +"Nor you know not their trades either, I suppose?" said he with a sneer. + +"Saving this man's here present," replied the girl, "who keeps the +books of accompt in a great merchant's counting-house." + +You may judge whether I gasped at that, or no; and perhaps the Captain +noted my alarm, for he inquired at once who the merchant might be I +served. + +"'Tis Mr. Edward Osborne," said Idonia, "unless I mistake." + +"It is," said I, and remembering Mr. Nelson's words, added boldly that +he was Governor of the Turkey Company; but inwardly I said, "Whither +doth this lying tend?" + +"And what purposeth he in this house?" demanded the soldier, somewhat +taken aback by our credible answers. + +"What, but to learn me in the keeping of accompts?" replied she. + +"Ah, an apt scholar, I doubt not," cried the other, raising his chin +insolently. + +"I think I am not so backward for a maid," said Idonia modestly, and +reached forth her hand to the great ledger-book I had so maligned; the +which I now saw turned to an engine of our salvation; for opening it at +the former place she continued: + +"He instructs me that herein is set down the merchant's commerce with +one Mendoza, a wool-stapler of Antwerp, and a Jew, who despite the +scandal of his unbelief, is, as appeareth plainly, an honest man. I +pray you, sir, follow me," said she, and directed him to the page, "to +the end you may correct me if I be in error." + +I never saw a man's countenance fall so as the Captain's did then; who +having formerly stood so stiff upon his right, was now ready to +compound upon almost any terms; only Idonia would not, but interrupted +his pish's, and his well-well's, and go-to's, with a clear exposition +of the whole matter of wool, the while I, her supposed tutor, stood by +with open mouth and a heart charged with admiration of her wit. + +"Enough," shouted the Captain, at last. "I came not hither for this, +as you know, mistress, who are either the completest accountant or else +the prettiest wanton this side Bridewell Dock. Halberdiers, have a +care!" cried he, and so returning to them with a curse, marshalled them +into a body and would have withdrawn them forthwith, when a cry from +one of the chambers aloft suddenly sounding out, he ordered them again +to stand to their arms and ran forward to the foot of the stairs. I +chanced to look at Idonia then, and blessed Heaven that her examination +was done, and all eyes save mine averted from her, for she shook like +one in a palsy and staggered backward to the wall. I had bare leisure +to follow her thither and support her, before the whole troop of those +that had gone above returned down, bearing along with them in their +midst a man whom they held, or rather dragged along with them, so +without strength was he, and all aghast. + +"A good capture," said the Captain in his slow, cruel voice, and bade +the guard stand back from the abject fellow, but be ready to prevent +his escape. "I thought not to have had so fair a fortune," said he, +"although our information was exact enough that you lay here, Master +Jesuit, whom I believe to be (and require you to answer to it) that +notorious Jacques de Courcy, by some called Father Jacques, a Frenchman +and plotting Jesuit." + +"I am a poor schoolmaster of Norfolk," said the man, very humbly. + +"Do you deny you are this Courcy, and a devilish Papist?" asked the +Captain again. + +The prisoner looked around wildly, as if he hoped even now to get free, +but the ring about him was too close for that, and the pikes all +levelled at his breast. Something of the dignity which despair will +throw over a man that hath come into the extreme of peril, sustained +him mercifully then, so that he who was before but a pitiful shrinking +coward, became (and so remained to the end) a figure not all unmeet to +the part he played. + +"Were I to recite my creed," said he very low, "you would but make mock +of it; while for yourself, I see you be already minded to work your +will upon me." + +"We go no further than our Prince commands us," said the other loftily. + +"And I, no further than my Prince hath enjoined long since," said the +Jesuit. + +"Pish! words!" replied the Captain. "Do you still persist in denying +that you are Jacques de Courcy?" + +But the prisoner stood silent. Then one of the soldiers that stood +behind him went forward and took him something roughly by the collar, +bidding him answer; but the Jesuit turning about to see who it was +detained him thus, his coat burst open, and we saw he wore a little +leaden crucifix about his neck. A shout of laughter greeted the +discovery. "To the Tower with him, march!" cried the Captain. But ere +they could seize the man he had leapt forward upon the pikes, and by +main force taking one of the pike-heads into his two hands he thrust it +deep under his shoulder. + +After that I thank Heaven that I saw no more, for Idonia swooned away, +and I almost, in horror of that poor hunted man's death. The +halberdiers bore the body off with them, nor paid the least regard to +us twain, but left us where we were, Idonia prone upon the cold flags +of the hall, and me above her, tending her. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +IN WHICH I BEGIN TO EARN MY LIVING + +Take a town for all in all, in its sadness and pleasure, the shows that +pass through it, the proclamations of kings, the tolling of the great +bell, marshallings of men-at-arms and sermons of clerks; whatever it be +distracts or engages it, I say you will find, take all in all, full the +ten twelfths of a town's business to lie in the mere getting of wealth. + +And in the exercise of this its proper office, I think that government, +whether good or bad, interfereth less than is supposed; for at the +best, that is, when the merchants and retailers be let alone (as would +to Heaven some great Councillors I could name did understand the matter +so), 'tis then that the interchange of goods and money is most readily +and happily effected; but at the worst, that is, when some untoward +imposition or restriction is laid upon the trade of a city, it results +not that men labour any the less at their buying and selling, but that +their lawful and expected profits be diverted, in part, into other +men's pockets. Which for all it is wrong enough, yet it makes not, I +am bold to say, one single vessel to go lacking her cargo, nor one +merchant to break upon Change. So a fig for Westminster! this way or +that, trade holds; and men bend their thoughts thereto, howe'er the +wind blow. + +Now, I am no philosopher (my father having exhausted the philosophy of +our family), yet no man may live in London (as I had now done, for +above three months) but certain considerations must needs thrust +themselves upon him, and though he be no great thinker I suppose that +everybody knows when he is hungry; and being so, goes the best way he +can to remedy that daily disease. + +And so it came to pass that, greatly as I detested to confine myself to +the weary commerce of trade, I nevertheless did so, and for the plain +reason that I could not help myself, having no money left, and not +being willing to remain any longer with the good folk on the Bridge, at +their charges. How I was received by Mr. Edward Osborne into his +counting-house I will tell later, but received I was, and there strove +to acquit myself honestly, so that within about a month (I think) I +could cast up the moneys of his great Day Book with but a two-three +errors to each sum total; the which, considering my inexperience, I +held to be not amiss. + +It was while I was thus employed in the narrow wainscoted business room +where Mr. Osborne did the most of his business, in Chequer Lane off +Dowgate, it was then, I say, that I came to perceive the magnitude and +staggering quality of the City's negotiation and traffick; so that I +came near to rehearsing the Bridge warden's eulogy upon the London +merchants, as also his expressed contempt for all such dignities as did +not issue from the fount of trade. Nay, I went further, for neglecting +the current rumours and plain news even, that all stood not well with +the State, I applied myself to my accompts and disbursements, deriding +Mr. Secretary Cecil and the Queen's Council for a parcel of busybodies, +and reducing the policy of England to the compass of a balance sheet. + +And yet, had I had the wit to know it, we were at that season come into +a crisis where bills of lading availed little, and the petty laws of +invection and navigation seemed like to be rudely set aside for the +sterner laws of conquest and foreign tyranny. Already, even, and +before I had left the Combe, there had been that business of the +signing of the National Bond and the imprisoning of many that favoured +the overthrow of Her Majesty; the which had been followed and confirmed +by such other acts and precautions as imported no easy continuance in +our old way, but rather the sure entering into that narrow passage and +race of fortune, whence the outlet is to so infinite and clouded a sea, +as a people's help therein lieth solely in God and their own clear +courage. Queen Mary of Scotland was yet alive, poor scheming desperate +woman! and lay a guarded danger in the land. The Dutch States, +moreover, that ought to have been our firm ally, we had done our best +to alienate and set at variance against us, who should have helped them +at all adventures; we being of one Faith together, and hating alike the +encroaching cruelties of Spain. To these considerations there was +added the fear of treason in our midst, and the increasing evidence of +the Jesuits' part therein, which the Queen's advisers sought upon all +occasions to discover and trample out; as indeed I had myself been +witness to, in that unhappy self-murder of Jacques de Courcy in the +secret dark mansion of Petty Wales. + +It had been a little subsequent upon that dreadful affair, and when the +soldiers had left us, that I said to Idonia-- + +"In Heaven's name, mistress, what is this house used for then?" For I +was all wan and trembling with that sight of sudden death, else I +should not have spoken so harshly to the girl, who was in like case +with myself, and clung to me piteously for comfort. But at my words +she seemed to recover herself, and loosing her arms from my neck, she +cried-- + +"And what have I to do with other men's takings, that you question me +thus? If aught displease you, so! I cannot better it. And ... and +... oh, Mr. Denis, what a face of pity did he show!"--she covered her +eyes as she spoke--"and when he fell ... Oh, these things are not +rightly done; they stifle me. They wrench my faith. They leave out +God." + +I did what I could, but it was with her own strength she must fight +down the terror, I knew, and so after awhile desisted. When she had +her full reason again she thanked me that I had not confused her with +many words. + +"For I know not to what excess I should have run otherwise," she said. +"You have a quiet spirit, and are no talker, Master Denis. But there +be some things I cannot bear to see, and one is the sight of a single +man, even a malefactor, so overcome and brought to his death.... But +now," assuming a resolute cheerfulness she added, "now we must converse +awhile upon your own affairs, before you go. For look you, sir, I have +named you already of Mr. Osborne's service, and must make it good. +Else that stark-limbed Captain may hear of it, and discovering we lied, +make us smart for it." + +"But how shall I prevail with Mr. Osborne to take me into his service," +said I, "who know not an invoice from a State paper?" + +"Everything hath a beginning," replied Idonia, "and if Rome was not +builded in a day, it is not likely we shall make an accountant of you +presently." + +"No, nor in less time than it took to build Rome in, I doubt," quoth I, +pretty rueful. "But tell me how came yourself to be so proficient in +that study of cyphering?" For indeed the thought had puzzled me not a +little. + +"By the good offices of one I purpose shall now assist you," said +Idonia; and told me that it was a certain scrivener named Enos Procter +that had lived a great while in Genoa, where they greatly affect the +putting of their negotiations into ledger-books and have well-nigh +perfected that invention. + +"This Procter returning home after many years," she proceeded, +"suffered shipwreck, and was cast away upon the coast of Spain, whence +he was fortunate to escape half dead, and with the loss of all his +goods, saving only that monstrous ledger-book, which he would by no +means relinquish. He then coming to land here, at the Galley Quay, +besought us to harbour him and give him food and dry clothing, for +which he offered to pay us out of his wages when he was able. This we +did, and he, being a man of his word, repaid all that he owed, and +more, for he taught me something of his reckoning in cypher, and of the +distributing of every item of receipt or payment, this side and that of +an accompt, according to the practice of the great merchants of Genoa." + +And thus it came about that the day following Idonia did as she had +promised, and wrought so with Mr. Enos Procter that I was immediately +taken into his employment upon my faithful promise to serve the lawful +occasions of the Governor and Merchants of the Turkey Company, and +(implicitly) those of Mr. Enos Procter, their principal clerk and +accountant. + +With this worthy gentleman I spent, as was natural, the greatest part +of my time, and under his dark sidelong eye I managed my untrained +quill. He was a spare small man of an indomitable quick-silver nature, +that by long sojourning in the South, had become half Italian. When he +worked (which was always) he had a habit of warping his face into the +most diabolical grin, while he rolled upon his stool, back and forward, +with the motion of one rowing in a boat, muttering of a thousand +foreign curses with which was oddly mingled the recital of the +particular matter he had in hand. Thus, "Corpo di Baccho," would he +cry, "these bills mature not until the fifteenth day of June, and there +is scarce ... a million devils! Master Cleeve, had I formed my sevens +that gait in Genoa I had been sent to the galleys for a felon.... Of +Cartagena, say you? There be none but knaves there, and none but fools +to trust them. 'Tis an overdue reckoning, with thirty-five, forty, +forty-five thousand ducats, eh! forty-six thousand, Signor, Don +Cherubin of Cartagena, whom the Devil disport!" + +But whatever the frailties of Mr. Procter, he was a kind and forbearing +tutor, and even succeeded in imparting to me also some portion of his +own extravagant affection for his great leather-bound books of account; +for he loved them so, as no man ever perceived more delicate beauties +in his mistress than this fever-hot scrivener did in the nice +adjustment of Debit to Credit; with all the entries, cross entries, +postings and balancings (to use his own crabbed language) that went to +it. He was, in sooth, a very Clerk-Errant, that ran up and down a +paper world, detecting errors, righting wrongs, spitting some miscreant +discount on his lance of goose-quill, or tearing the cloak from some +dubious monster of exchange. I could not but admire him, and the way +in which he regarded all things as mere matter for bookkeeping. + +"They talk of their philosophies," he would say, "but what do they come +to more than this, and what ethick goes beyond this: that every right +hath a duty corresponding, and every fault its due reward? Ay, is it +so? and what do we poor scribes, but set down each accident of our +trading first on the left side and after on the right side, the one to +countervail the other, and all at the end to appear justly suspended in +the balance? We have no preferences, we accountants, we neither +applaud nor condemn, but evenly, and with a cold impartiality, set down +our good and bad, our profits and losses, our receipts and +disbursements, first as they affect ourselves and our honourable +Company, and after as they affect our neighbour. For consider," he +would proceed, leaping about on his stool, with the excitement that a +defence of his art always engendered, "consider this very item of the +silk bales, upon which my pen chances at this moment to rest--you have +it here to the credit of Mr. Andrea of Naples, seventy-nine pounds in +his tale of goods sold to this house. But is the matter so disposed +of? I trow not. For turn me to the accompt of goods purchased during +this year of our Redemption, and what have you? Seventy-nine pounds +upon the debtor. Philosophy, boy! There is nought beyond that, I say, +nor, for conciseness of statement, aught to equal it. Mr. Andrea's +rights become, transposed, our duties; and for the silk bales you wot +of, they be a load of debt to us, to account for to our masters, and +likewise a strengthening of the credit of this honest Neapolitan as any +man may read. + +"Notwithstanding, there be some," said he in conclusion, with a sigh, +"and they divines of the Church, that call in question the avarice and +hard-dealing of us that live by barter and the negotiation of +merchandize! Yet where will you find (to ask but this one question, +Mr. Denis), where do you find written more clearly than in these +ledger-books of ours, that oft-disguised truth that what we own we do +also and necessarily owe?" + +In such mingling of high discourse and plain work, then, I continued +with Mr. Procter a great while, in the dusty and ill-lighted +counting-house in Chequer Lane; earning my small wages, and upon the +whole not ill content with the changed life I now led, for all 'twas so +far removed from the course I had planned, now many months past, but +had already half forgotten. Sometimes my duties would take me to the +wharves where a great barque or brigantine would be lying, about to +leave upon our Company's business for Turkey or Barbary; or else some +other vessel would be returning thence to London Pool, whither I +repaired to the captain and supercargo to receive their schedules and +sealed papers. It was this last employment I especially delighted in, +and indeed I can scarce conceive any pleasure greater than I found +going very early in the morning to one of the quays upon the River or +as far as to Wapping Stairs, where I would watch the great ship slowly +coming up upon the tide, between the misted grey banks and dim roofs of +Limehouse and Rotherhithe; and could hear the rattle of the chains, and +the joyful cries of the mariners that were now, after their perilous +and long voyage, safely arrived at home. Then would I take boat and +row out into the stream, hailing the master in the Company's name, who +presently would let down a ladder by which I climbed aloft upon the +deck, where the crew would gather round to hear news and to tell it; +which telling of theirs I chiefly delighted in: the thousand adventures +they had had, and the accounts of strange lands and mysterious rich +cities beyond the seas. Thereafter, when the ship was berthed and our +business settled, I would bear off the master and the other officers to +Mr. Osborne, to be made welcome, when all was told o'er again, though +with more observance paid to such matters as affected profit and loss +than formerly I had heard the tale. The black little accountant was +had in too, at such times, into Mr. Osborne's privy room, where we all +sat round a great table, with Mr. Osborne at one end of it, very +handsome and stately in his starched ruff and suit of guarded velvet; +and the other principal persons of the Company about him on either +side, to listen to what the shipmen related, as I have said. + +Then, if the adventure had been profitably concluded (as sometimes it +had not, though generally there was a fair sum cleared), oftentimes +would the Governor invite us to supper with him, and me with the rest, +I know not wherefore, save it were that Master Procter had praised me +to him for my diligence in his service. And so we passed many a merry +evening. + +Yet this so brief summary of that time doth not cover all, nor perhaps +the greater part, since it leaves out my thoughts and hopes, which, all +said, is more of a man's life than all the other; and by so much the +more is noteworthy. And these thoughts of mine, particularly when I +lay quiet in bed in my little chamber on the Bridge, were concerned +about an infinite number of matters I had no opportunity to consider in +the hurry and press of the day. So, I would think of my father, his +evil estate, and the increasing pain he suffered, for I had lately +received news of him by the hand of Simon Powell, who, honest lad, had +bound himself to a smith of Tolland in order to be near his old master +and comfort him. Of Idonia, too, you will guess I thought much, and +the more that my business hindered our often meeting, though sometimes +I saw her when I went early in the morning to meet my ships; for later +in the day she begged me not to come to the house, and greatly though +this condition misliked me, I accepted it to please her. But, to be +open, it was this consideration of all I dwelt upon which most held me +in suspense, so that many a night I have slept scarce a wink, admiring +what the secret were that compassed Idonia about, and the strangeness +that clouded all her affairs. + +"What is it goes on in that great still house?" I cried an hundred +times, and would con over with myself the half hints I had already +received; as of that swaggering Malpas, his attempted entrance; of the +concealed Jesuit; of the way of communication between the part of the +house Idonia lived in and the den of thieves where I had encountered +with Andrew Plat. Then I would fall into a muse, only to be awakened +on the sudden by the recollection of Guido Malpas, with his lean and +crafty face pressed close against the window of the room I had sat in +with Nelson and the Queen's yeoman, or by that older memory of my uncle +Botolph who, I was assured, was also Skene the attorney. Why, by how +great a rout of shadows was I compassed! and what a deal of infamy lay +ready to be discovered upon the lightest hazard or unconsidered word! + +Nay, had not my love for Mistress Avenon so wholly possessed me, I +doubt I should have found in any the least strict review of her +behaviour something covert, and diffident; as indeed she had already +imparted from time to time much that a man more suspicious than I might +have seized upon to her disadvantage. But such motes as those troubled +me not, or rather troubled not the passion of love I cherished for her; +though, for the rest, I infinitely desired her removal from +circumstances that I could not but fear to be every way perilous. + +Now it befell one day, in the early summer, that all London was +awakened with the news that the _Primrose_, Captain Foster, was coming +up the Thames with the Governor of Biscay aboard, a prisoner. So +admirable tidings had not often of late been ours to receive, and to +pother one's head with business upon such a day was not to be thought +on, at least not by the younger men; and thus I was soon running down +to the Port to learn the whole history of that memorable adventure, +wherein the _Primrose_, of all our shipping that lay upon the Spanish +Coast, and that were suddenly seized upon by those Papist dogs without +warning or possibility of escape--the _Primrose_, I say, not only got +off free, but in a most bloody fight destroyed the soldiers that had +privily got aboard her, and took prisoner their great Viceregent, or +(as they call him) Corregidor. + +A host of men and women pressed upon Master Foster about the hithe, +applauding his so notable courage and triumph, and deriding the poor +Corregidor, who nevertheless remained steadfast, nor seemed not to +regard their taunts and menaces, but stood very quiet, and, I vow, was +as gallant a gentleman to see as any man could be. Now, all this +taking place about the Tower steps, whither for convenience the +prisoner had been brought, it followed I was but a stone's cast from +Idonia's dwelling, which no sooner had I remembered than I utterly +forgot her admonition not to see her except early, whereas it was now +high noon; but leaving the throng of idle cheering folk, I crept away +at once to the desolate house in Thames Street, where I made sure of +finding her. + +As I went along, the bells were ringing from every steeple, which so +filled the air with victory, as I was intoxicated with the sound of +them, and on the sudden resolved that, come what would, I would tell +Idonia I tired of this sleek clerk's life I led, and would be done with +it straightway. Alas! for all such schemes of youth and stirrings of +liberty! and yet not altogether alas! perhaps, since 'tis the adverse +event of the most of such schemes that prepares and hardens us for +bitterer battles to come, when the ranks are thinning and the drums are +silent, and the powder is wasted to the last keg.... + +To my satisfaction I perceived the gate to be open, and as I came up I +saw a flutter of white in the dark of the hall, and a moment later the +mist of gold which was Idonia's hair. + +"Good-morrow!" I bade her laughingly, as I entered and closed the door +behind me, "you did not look to have me visit you now, I warrant, when +the bells be all pealing without, and a right success of our arms to +acclaim!" + +Idonia stood, one foot set upon the lowest stair, quite still. Not one +word of greeting did she give me, nor was any light of welcome in her +eyes, which were wide open and her lips parted as if to speak, though +no word said she. + +I hung back astonished, not knowing what to think, when I heard a +rustle among the stuff beside me, and a man's voice that said very +quiet: "How now, master, methinks that is overmuch familiarity to use +with one that is under my ward." + +I faced about instantly, laying my hand upon my sword, for this +untoward interference startled me not a little. Even in the half dark +I knew him; for 'twas none other than the attorney, John Skene. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE SIEGE OF PETTY WALES + +We had stood awhile fronting each other thus, when "By the Mass!" cried +Mr. Skene, clapping his open palm upon my shoulder, "'tis Mr. Denis +Cleeve or the devil is in it," and so led me forward to the light. + +"Are you two acquainted, then?" asked Idonia, her whole countenance of +gravity exchanged for a bewildered expectancy. "Oh, why knew I not of +this sooner? Oh, I am glad," she said, as she advanced to us, her +bosom heaving, and such a light of pleasure in her eyes, as it seemed +to lighten the very room itself, that had formerly showed so darksome +and sinister. + +"But tell me," she went on eagerly, and came so close that I could feel +the warmth of her breath on my cheek, "is it a long while you have been +friends?" + +Now so struck with amazement was I, no less by the suddenness of this +recognition than by the satire that Idonia's innocent speech implied, +as I could answer nothing; but leaving the handling my sword, I stood +resigned to what should follow. + +"I think we be hardly friends yet," said Skene, with a laugh of great +good nature, "and 'twould be a bolder coroner than I, who should +pronounce all enmity dead between us. Am I not in the right, Master +Cleeve?" he ended, on a note of some sharpness. + +I looked up at that, first at Idonia to see how she took the matter, +and then at Skene. + +"You are right," said I, "seeing you stole my money." + +"I knew your answer before you spoke it," replied Skene, nodding; "but +yet I am glad 'tis out, for all that. A hidden grievance is like a +dagger worn without a scabbard, that often hurts him that carries it +more than him he means to use it against. Nay, I am not angry," he +said with a motion of his hand. "Your case seemed to you perfect; I do +not blame you. Nor will you me neither, when you shall hear all that +hath befallen me 'twixt that and this. As for your money, it is safe +enough; and had it passed your mind to inform me of where you lodged +after you left Mr. Malt's in Fetter Lane, why, Mr. Cleeve, you could +have had it any time for the asking." His tone had changed while he +continued to speak, from a certain eagerness to slow reproach. + +"But, sir," I began, when he stopped me peremptorily. + +"It is ill bickering thus before a girl," he said, and going to the +great press whence Idonia had before fetched forth her ledger-book he +opened it, and without more ado restored to me my parcels of gold. I +could have cried for very shame. + +"Count them o'er," he said, with some contempt, but that was the word +that sent my blood back into my head again. For I was assured the man +was a villain and had meant to rob me, though by his cunning he had put +a complexion of honesty upon his dealings, and forced me into the wrong. + +"I will do so later," said I, coolly, "but now I would ask of you one +further question. What name shall I call you by?" Meaning, should I +name him my uncle Botolph or no, and so waited for the effect of that, +being sure that by how little soever he should falter upon his reply, I +should detect it. What measure of astonishment was mine, then, when he +turned to Idonia with a smile. + +"You shall reply for me," said he, "since you know me pretty well." + +"When my father was killed," said Idonia, looking at me with her eyes +all brimmed with tears, "in that affray under John Fox that I have +already related to you, my mother dying soon after of grief, she left +me a babe and quite friendless save for Mr. Skene, whom if you have +anything against, I beseech you put it by for my sake, and because he +had pity on me." + +Then going a pace or two nearer to Skene she laid a hand on his arm and +said-- + +"Sir, Mr. Cleeve has been kind to me, and protected me once from a +man's insolence when you were absent. I had thought you had been +friends before, but it seems you were enemies. We have enough of them, +God wot! and a plenty of suspicions and hatreds to contend with. Then +if it please you, sir, be friends now, you and he, else I know not what +shall be done." + +Whatever anger I still held, it died down (for that time) at her +entreaties, and 'twas with no further thought than to have done with +all strife that I offered my hand on the instant to Skene. And +although later I did somewhat censure myself for such precipitancy of +forgiveness in a case that more concerned my father than myself, yet I +silenced my misgivings with the thought that I might take the occasion +Skene had himself offered (when he said that I should learn what had +befallen to prevent his meeting me on the day appointed in Serjeants +Inn), and, if he should then fail to satisfy me, I would take up my +quarrel anew. + +The attorney took my hand with an apparent and equal openness. + +"I thank you," he said, quietly, "and so enough. Much there may be to +tell of that hath passed; but 'twill not lose by the keeping." + +A burst of ringing from All Hallow's Church, close at hand, seemed to +greet our new compact, or truce rather, with a shower of music. + +"Why, how merry the world goes!" exclaimed Idonia. "Is it the Queen's +birthday, or some proclaimed holiday? For I remember not the like of +it." + +I told her it was for the victory of the _Primrose_ that had returned +with the Governor of Biscay a prisoner. + +"And would to God we had more captures in that kind to show," quoth I, +"for they be a curse to the land, these Spaniards and black lurking +Jesuits." + +But no sooner were the words spoken, than I remembered the Jesuit +Courcy that had been discovered here in hiding in this house, and so +breaking short off I gazed full at Skene. He met my glance without +winking. + +"You speak very truly," he said, slowly, "and I swear by all I hold +most sacred, that had I the ability, I would so deal with that tribe as +the Israelites wrought with them beyond Jordan, and utterly destroy +them." Now, whether in this sentence the man spoke his true mind, or +damnably forswore himself, it remained with the sequel to be made clear. + +Idonia gave a little movement the while he was speaking, but whether by +way of assent or of a natural shrinking I could not tell. For myself I +said nought, but regarded Skene steadfastly, who soon added-- + +"I have business above, Idonia, which cannot be stayed. It is past +dinner time, and if Mr. Cleeve will so honour our poor house, I would +have him remain to dinner. I am engaged abroad, an hour hence, and +will take my meal then." He smiled. "Mr. Denis I leave to your care, +child, and believe you will use him well." He turned on his heel and +went upstairs, leaving us alone together in the hall. + +To relate all that ensued I think not necessary to the understanding of +this history, and also I should find it difficult to set down in +writing or by any understood rule of grammar the things that were said, +or elliptically expressed, between us. For Syntax helpeth no man at +such seasons, nor Accidence any maid; 'tis an ineffable intercourse +they use, from which slip away both mood and tense and reason, and the +world too ... all which apparatus and tophamper overboard I found it +surprisingly easy to convey my meaning; to which Idonia replied very +modestly that 'twas her meaning no less, and with that I withdrew my +arm and blessed High Heaven for my fortune. + +Idonia was a radiant spirit that day. Her hitherto coldness and the +backwardness with which she had been constrained to receive me I +perceived had been due to no other cause than a fear how her guardian +would regard my visits to the house; for despite his kindness to her +(which she acknowledged) I saw she stood in awe of the man, and hardly +ventured to cross him in the lightest matter. + +"Neither doth the company he maintains about him like me overmuch," +said she. "But now I care less than a little for such things, who +shall soon leave this place for ever; ah! dear heart, but I shall be +glad of such leaving, and no man shall ever have had so faithful and +loving a wife, nor one," she added swiftly, "so apt at the +book-keeping." + +I was thinking of her hair, and said so. + +"And I was thinking of a long-limbed boy with but three hairs to his +beard," quoth Idonia, "and for wits to his skull, not so much as would +varnish the back of a beetle. Why, how much doth your worship earn by +the week?" + +I told her, seven shillings, besides a new suit twice in the year. + +"It must be bettered, master," said Idonia, grave at once. + +"It shall be better spent," said I. + +"But 'tis not enough by the half," quoth she. + +"Well, we will eke out the rest by other ways, of which I have a store +in my head, that, being happily vacant of wits, hath the more room to +accommodate them." + +Idonia's answer to this, I, having considered the matter, pass over as +foreign to the argument. + +'Twas a little after, that starting up, she cried: "Why, bless my dull +appetite, we have not dined! And I with a fat hen upon the spit, fresh +from the Cheape this morning." + +"'Tis not enough by the half," said I, mocking her; but she would not +stay longer, saying I must eat, for I had a big body to fill; though +for my head, that was another song and a sad one; and ere I could let +her, she was gone from me into the great kitchen beyond the stair. + +I sat awhile where I was, marvellous happy and free from cares; and saw +my love of this maid, like a new Creation arising from the waters, to +make a whole world for me where before was nothing; for all seemed to +me as nothing in comparison with her, so that I forgot my troubles and +losses, my wounds and sickness, my father, my home, my uncle... + +"What was that?" said I, sitting up straight, for I had, I think, +fallen into a sort of trance, and imagined some noise had disturbed me. + +"Hist!" came a whisper from aloft, and I leapt to my feet. + +"Who is it speaks?" cried I, searching every corner of the dark hall +with narrowed eyes. + +"Hist!" said the voice again. "There is danger threatening to the folk +of this house." + +"What danger is there?" said I, who had now discovered who it was +spoke; for there, lurking in the aperture of the wall to which the +ladder reached up, I saw Andrew Plat, the lyrick poet, his tawny hair +wild about his pale face, and his neck craned forward like a heron's. +Yet for all the comick figure that he made I could not neglect the +apparent seriousness of his warning, and especially when he added in a +hoarse voice-- + +"Where is Mistress Avenon? O, fair Idonia, hasten hither, if you be +within this fated mansion!" + +"She is in the kitchen cooking a fowl," said I, pretty short, for this +adjuration of his mightily displeased me. + +"Cooking!--she!" returned the poet, with a despairing gesture. "Her +lily hands! O monstrous indignity, and cruel office of a cook!" + +I had thought he would fall headlong down the ladder, so distractedly +did he behave himself, and called upon him sharply to tell me wherein +lay this danger to Idonia he affected to fear. + +"I stand alone against a host," said he with a flourish, "but Love +maketh a man sufficient, and will fortify these arms." + +"Enough," I shouted, "or I will assuredly call in question the +authorship of a certain rascal poem you wot of." + +"It is mine own," he screamed, and danced upon the sill for very rage. +"There is no resemblance betwixt my verses and that preposterous +fellow's--whose name even I know not. I vow there hath been nought, +since Catullus, writ with so infinite and original an invention as my +Hymn to the Spring," and off he went with his "Fresh Spring, the lovely +herald of Great Love," with so great an eagerness of delight in the +poor cuckoo-chick words, as I could not but pity him. + +By this time our loud and contrary arguments had been overheard, and +ere he had done Idonia came running forth from the kitchen, her sleeves +above the elbow, and her dress all tucked up; while a little after, +Skene called over the stair-rail to inquire out the cause of this +disturbance. + +"'Tis Mr. Plat, the celebrated poet," I replied, "that says there is a +danger threatening this house, though of what nature I cannot learn." + +Suddenly recalled by my protest, the poet clapped his hand to his +forehead and cried out: + +"O, whither hath my Muse rapt me? Return, my soul, and of this tumult +tell..." + +"Out with it, man!" quoth Mr. Skene, in his usual calm manner of +command, that did more than all my attempts to come by the truth. + +"They are returning from the Tower," said the poet, "whither they have +carried off the Spaniard. They are coming hither, an incredible +company with staves and all manner of weapons." + +"And wherefore?" demanded Skene. + +"Because 'tis constantly affirmed that you have here concealed a sort +of plotting Jesuits and base men that would spy out the land, and +enslave us. Nay, they go so far as to say that one such was caught +here not so long ago in the open light of day, for which they swear to +beat the house about your ears and slay you every one. + +"Be silent," said the attorney briefly, and we all stood awhile +attentive to any sound of menace from without. We had not long to +wait, for almost on the instant there came a shuffle and rush of many +feet, and that deep unforgettable roll, as of drums, that means the +anger of confused and masterless multitudes. + +Skene addressed me: "You alone have a sword, sir. You will cover our +retreat." + +I bowed without speaking, and unsheathing my sword, went to the door, +where I clapped to the bolts and made all fast. + +"Oh, Denis, Denis!" cried Idonia, who saw it was intended I should +remain behind. "Sir," she pleaded with her guardian, "he must come +with me where'er you lead me." + +"He will follow," said he; and then to Plat-- + +"Do they compass the whole house, or is there a way of escape beyond?" + +"There is yet," he answered, having made espial; "for the attack goes +but upon the street side, leaving the lane free. But lose no time, for +they be already scattering--ah! 'tis for fuel to lay to the door," +cried he, all aghast now and scarce articulate. "Come away after me," +and so was gone. + +Skene said no more, but cast a quiet glance at me, that I knew meant he +trusted me, and for which, more than all I had yet had from him, I +thanked him. But hard work had I to refrain myself, when Idonia +besought me with tears not to leave her and, when presently her +guardian bore her half fainting up the ladder, to appear smiling and +confident. + +"I will follow you by and by," said I, and then sat down, suddenly sick +at heart, upon a wooden grate of ship's goods; for the tumult at the +gate was now grown intolerably affrighting. + +"You must try another way than this," said Skene, who had now gained +the sill, and I comprehended that he was about to draw up the ladder +after, in order to mask their way of escape when the door should be +forced in or burnt. I nodded, remembering that Idonia had been moved +by the same consideration formerly, when the soldiers came with their +warrant of search; and so the ladder was drawn up and I left. + +It is not fit that I should describe all that followed, for no man can +exactly report all, when all is in turmoil and an unchained madness +hurrieth through every mind; madness of defiance and that hideous +madness of fear. For if ever man gazed into the very eyes of the +spectre of fear, it was I then, whom nameless horror possessed, so that +more than once, when the hammering upon the gate shook even the flags +with which the hall was paven, I shrunk back to the farthest corner in +the dark, biting my knuckles till they bled; and even when the door was +half down, and I at the breach making play with my sword to fend off +the foremost that would enter, I felt my heart turn to water at the +sight of that grinning circle of desperate and blood-hungry faces, and +at the roar as of starved forest beasts ravening after their prey. + +My defence came to an end suddenly; for although I might have made +shift awhile longer to avert the danger from the gate (but indeed I was +nigh spent with my labours there), I chanced just then to gaze sidelong +at the shuttered window upon the left of it, and saw the shutter all +splintered, and a fellow with a great swart beard, already astraddle on +the ledge. Without a moment's parley I ran my sword half to the hilts +into his side, and as he sank down in a huddle, I left the sword +sticking where it was, and ran for my life. + +How I got free of the house I know not, but it was by a window of the +kitchen, I think, or else a hole I burst for myself; but by some +venture of frenzy I gained the street, or rather an enclosed court, +arched under at the further end by a sort of conduit or channel in the +wall; and so, half on my belly shuffling through this filthy bow, I +came by good hap into the open street, that I found was Tower Street, +where at length I thought it safe to take leisure to breathe, and look +about me. + +But even here I was deceived of my security; for my passage having +been, I suppose, easily discovered, there wanted not a full minute ere +I heard an halloo! and a scraping of feet beneath the arched way, by +which I perceived I was hotly followed. I stumbled to my feet +straightway and fled westward up the street, while in my ears rang the +alarm: "Stop thief! Jesuit! Hold, in the Queen's Name!" which, the +passengers taking it up, and themselves incontinently joining in the +pursuit, made my hopes of safety and my little remnant of strength to +shrink together utterly, like a scroll of parchment in the fire. + +I knew not how far I had gone, nor whither I had come, for all was +strange to my disordered vision, but I know now that I had won nigh to +the standard upon Cornhill (having turned to my right hand up +Gracechurch Street); and holding my pursuers a little in check by +repeated doublings, I found myself free to take refuge within a certain +yard giving upon the public way and close against a tavern that is +called the Leaden Porch. But fearing to remain openly in this place +for any man to apprehend me, I cast about for some means of +concealment, for I could go no further; and there being by good hap a +cart standing under the arch in the entry (the carter having doubtless +betaken himself to the tavern, as is the custom of such men), I got me +up into it, painfully crawling beneath the load it carried, which was, +methought, something oddly protected by a frame of timber hung about +with linen-stuff or such-like, that I skilled not to discover the use +of; and here I lay close, until very soon, as well from mere exhaustion +as from a despairing indifference to the event, I fell asleep. + +No thought of the money I had been so near to recovering disturbed my +repose, nor indeed for three full days after did I so much as remember +to have left the treasure bags behind me in the hurry of my flight. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +HOW I FOUND AN OLD FRIEND IN A STRANGE PLACE, AND HOW PTOLEMY RENEWED +HIS STUDY OF THE LATIN TONGUE + +I was in the midst of a most excellent and comforting dream of Idonia, +to whom I was again happily united, and we (if I rightly call it to +mind), Duke and Duchess of Salamanca or of some place like-sounding, +when I was roughly awakened by the jogging forward of the cart, to +which succeeded that a head was thrust in betwixt the curtains of my +extemporary great bed, and a voice cried: "Woe worth the day! what +gallows'-food is here?" + +Making no question but that I was arrested, yet being still bedrowsed +by sleep, I felt for my sword to deliver it up, but finding it not, +said very stately: "Master Corregidor of Biscay, I yield myself +prisoner," and so lay quiet, expecting what he should do further. + +But that he did, squared so ill with all I had ever heard tell of the +manners and behaviour of Corregidors or persons anyway notable, that I +sat up and stared upon him gaping; for he gave but one look at me, and +after, with such a squealing of laughter as one might, suppose coneys +to utter when they catch a weasel sleeping, he parted the curtains +wider and leapt into the place where I lay, when he seized me by both +my hands and wrung them up and down as they were flails. + +I was wide awake enough now, but yet for my life could not comprehend +the carter's apparent joy of seeing me, though as to that, 'twas a +better welcome than I had looked for, either from the Corregidor of my +dreams, or from the rabble I was so vehemently pursued by. + +Now when this mad fellow had something slackened the excess of his +complacency, I took occasion to demand whether my remaining within that +frame of timber (that was none too big for us twain) were irksome to +him. "For," said I, "if it be not, I have my reasons why I should wish +not to leave it." + +At this he ceased his exercise altogether and, withdrawing both his +hands from mine, regarded me reproachfully. + +"Hast so soon forgot Cayphas his mitre, and the ark of Noah?" said he. + +"Now of all the saints," I cried out, "'tis Ptolemy Philpot, the +pageant master!" and saw that the sanctuary into which I had entered +was within the pageant itself, I having my elbow even then resting on +the wooden box of his puppets, while about the narrow chamber were hung +the tabards, hats, pencils, fringed gowns of damask and other necessary +imagery of the interludes he showed. As to Master Ptolemy himself, he +had altered not a jot, so that I marvelled I had not sooner known him, +except that I was then heavy with sleep; for he spoke still in the same +small child's voice that issued from the middle of his bearded fierce +countenance, as a bird may twitter in the jaws of a pard that hath +caught her. Methought indeed that the agate colour was somewhat more +richly veined upon his nose, and that his body was more comfortably +overlaid than I had formerly remembered it, and supposed therefore that +his bargain with Skegs had gone happily against my fears and to his +advantage; the which he presently certified. + +"But it was not by any of the miracles or moralities he sold me, that I +have prospered," said he, "for wheresoever I played it none would stay +out the Deluge, no, not even in so goodly and well-considered a town as +is Devizes, whither I went first of all, and where I enacted the same +by the special desire of one Sir Matthew Juke, a principal person there +and a famous traveller, as he said; who took upon him to condemn my +navigation of the Ark ere I had half concluded: affirming that if ever +I should use the sea as he had done, and so handled my ship in the +manner of that voyage to Ararat, he would not answer for it, but I +should be utterly cast away and my venture lost. Howbeit he gave me, +in parting, a tester, which was all I had from that place, and yet more +by a sixpence than I got at Winchester whither I proceeded, and where I +was fain to exchange the Deluge for the Miracle of Cayphas; but 'twould +not serve, and I was suddenly put forth of that town of the beadle. +Thereafter I essayed the Pageant of Melchisedec as they have it at +Chester, and though some part of it liked the people pretty well, yet I +lost as much as I gained by reason of a tempest that broke while the +piece was a playing, whereby the motion was all drenched by the rain +and the hangings torn by the wind and Father Abraham his beard came +ungummed from his jowl, so that it cost me five shillings to repair all +that damage. Then did I make shift to patch my patriarch figures with +such modern habits and familiar countenances as should betoken our +famous captains (as I told you I meant to do), and to that end paid to +a clerk of Wallingford fifteen shillings for the writing of a +history-comedy, wherein were such assaults and batterings and victories +as suited to our late accomplishments at sea; but the illiterate and +filthy vulgar would have none of it, swearing I had turned Noah into +Captain Drake, and Mount Ararat into Vigo, with so slight addition upon +their originals as 'twas scandal to behold; all which was true enough, +doubtless, but the outcome mighty unprofitable to me, who thereby +beheld my fortune to be slid from under me and myself fallen into +absolute beggary." + +"How then came you to repair your fortune, Ptolemy?" said I, who had +listened with an infinite, though secret, struggling against laughter, +the while he had related his tale; "since it seemeth you no longer play +your pieces to an unkind audience." + +Mr. Philpot plunged his hand into his great beard, holding his chin +thoughtfully, and after, withdrawing it, rubbed his forefinger slowly +along his nose, as though to assure himself that he had come unchanged, +and with all his attributes, through the storm and multitude of +accidents that had assailed him. + +"'Tis an old saw and a true one, which saith, the miracles that happen +daily we suffer to go by us unregarded; as the sunrise, and the return +of consciousness after sleep, and so following," said the pageant +master, in his small reed voice, "and the same holds as with the rest, +with plays also; namely, that what is too well known is still +neglected, and where no itch of expectancy is, there will no wits be +scratching. 'Twas a reproach of the Athenians of old, master, that +they went continually in hopes to see or hear some new thing, and your +stage-audiences differ in nothing from your Athenians, save only in the +tongue they use, and the clothes they wear. I know not how the truth +came to be revealed to me," he proceeded pensively, "but come it did +and in a good hour; I mean the truth that every man loveth secrecy and +concealment, as a child his coral. What did I then, but clap all my +stock together, my mysteries, miracles, pageants, interludes and all, +pell mell, Herod and Pilate their proper speeches and cues to boot: the +diverting jests of Noah's wife with the admonitions of Abraham and the +sentences of the Angel; and from this medley so made I fished forth +such chanceable and ill-matched dialogues as a man must needs be +Solomon or a very ass that would read sense into them, or confess to +discovering a propriety between speaker and spoken word. Why, list but +a moment, and I will show you the whole matter," and with that he drew +forth a torn quire of unstitched papers that was marked at the head, +"The Masque of the Noble Shepherds," which word _Masque_, said Ptolemy, +served to cover all such impertinent matter as he should choose to +bring in, and acquainted me plainly with the way he had gone about his +authorship; in which, nevertheless, I perceived so great an ingenuity, +and such apparent gravity and fantastick leading up to nothing in the +world as, although I could comprehend no meaning in the piece (there +being none to comprehend) yet I could well enough imagine the curious +and close attention with which it would be heard and seen. + +"I tell you I have had all sorts of men come away pleased with it," +said Ptolemy in conclusion; "and each for a different reason, and +because he saw in it something that seemed to him to mean this, which +another said was that, and a third, the other." He looked upon me +triumphantly, and then added: "Why, I mind me how at Lambeth once, +where I played, a Bishop and two Canons of the Church thanked me +handsomely for my holding up the new sect to ridicule; and +contrariwise, a little after, a Puritanical grocer demanded of me in a +whisper how in this play I dared to rail as I did upon Church +Government." + +"But do you represent your persons still as prophets and peasants as +they used to appear?" + +"I do not," said Ptolemy, winking upon me very shrewdly, "but rather I +have ennobled them all, and call this one a King, and that an Earl, and +the other the Knight Alderman of Tavistock--in which place I was born; +for it behoveth us to honour the place of our birth; besides that, for +the rest, your Englishman loves nothing better than to see great +persons on the stage, and aye to follow the fashions that he sees +there." + +We were interrupted at that time by the drawing aside of the curtain, +and a shock-head boy, appearing, said-- + +"We be arrived at the place, master. Shall I sound the tabor and speak +the prologue now?" + +"Whither are we come?" I asked, for I thought I might safely leave my +city of refuge and depart. + +"This is Tower Hill," said Ptolemy, "and I see we shall not lack of a +sufficient audience to-day," he added, looking forth through a chink +upon the throng that was already assembled. + +Now when I heard that we were returned to the very place whence I had +fled in fear of my life, I shrank back into a corner of the frame and +begged Mr. Ptolemy to let me remain with him until the place should be +clear of folk and I able to go home without molestation. He seemed, I +thought, somewhat astonished, but at once agreed to keep me by him, and +indeed to do anything in return for the kindness I had shown him at +Dunster, only requiring me to give him as much room as I could for the +better management of his puppets, which he was now busy fitting to +their wires, while conning o'er the several parts they were due to +speak. + +Surely, no hunted man hath ever been so fantastically sheltered as I, +above whose head kicked and dangled Mr. Ptolemy's wooden kings, and +Aldermen of Tavistock; and ranted their unintelligible speeches to the +delight of them that would have torn down the show in a fury had they +known how near to them I lay concealed. + +In some such sort as follows the Masque commenced; the boy with the +tabor speaking: + + "My worthy master Ptolemy + Hath writ this prologue painfully + To th' intent that by it ye may see + What otherwise were dim. + The scene though pastorally laid + Is traversed by an Earl, arrayed + In shepherd-guise to win a maid + That loathes the sight of him." + +and so retired amidst a buzz of excitement. + +We had got through about half the piece in this manner, and without +mishap, when Mr. Ptolemy, that was then in the midst of a complaint of +the wooden Earl for the unkindness of his shepherdess; Mr. Ptolemy (I +say) turned to me suddenly, quite neglecting his book, and very +eagerly-- + +"How now," quoth he, "here is the very opportunity come I have sought +long since, and yet had nigh forgot it. What, I prythee, is the +meaning of that little word _Quemadmodum_?" + +But ere I could reply, there arose such a shrill murmur of resentment +from the auditors as no seeker after truth might withstand, and Mr. +Philpot, abruptly recalled to the necessary affairs of his love-sick +Earl, had much ado to get him to his feet again, he being by this time +all entangled by the wires of the motion. However, he did so, and the +play proceeded again. + +When all was done and the boy sent round amongst the people to solicit +their gratuities, Mr. Ptolemy breathed a deep sigh, and having put up +his puppets into the box, closed the lid and returned upon me with a +courteous request that I should now deal with him at large upon the +subject of _Quemadmodum_, which word, as he told me, he had oftentimes +met with in the books he continued to collect in the Latin tongue, and +to which, when he should have acquired a competency, he intended to +devote his leisure. + +"For there is nothing comparable with your Latin," said he, "to give a +cast of magnificence to that a man may say. My father had some words +of it that he used chiefly when he was wroth, and they did more, I +warrant you, than all else to bring him off happily in his +disputations. The principal saying he used was ... nay, I have forgot +it, but 'tis no great matter, for it was not of so catholick an +application as the _Quemadmodum_, nor so well sounding." + +I was about to comply with his simple demand, when the lad again thrust +in his head betwixt the hangings, crying out: "Come forth, master, +instantly; for here is my Lord Lumley come from his great house above, +that requires you to answer certain reflections made upon him, as he +thinks, in that character of the rejected Earl; which will lead us the +devil's gait an' you satisfy him not of your simplicity." + +"What told I you?" exclaimed the poor baulked Latinist, regarding me +with so tragick a countenance that I lost all inclination to laugh, +"there's none sees aught in all this but he hath brought it himself +hither in the thick o' the head, with a pest! and what is a poor player +to do!" + +He went away very sorrowfully to my Lord Lumley's house, and I, that +saw my way open (being unwilling to attend his return), slipped from my +cover and was soon enough safe at home. This adventure ended, and the +night come and gone, I went the next day to my work again, and there +continued for above a week, casting accompts under the strict eye of +Mr. Enos Procter, and never venturing nearer to Petty Wales than +sufficed to show me there was a pretty strong guard of yeomen kept +about the broken gate, who suffered no man to approach closely, nor +none (if indeed there were any left within) to depart thence. I +guessed by this, and by their leaving unprotected that lane behind the +other half of the great house, that they knew not of the connection and +passage between the two parts; and so tried to comfort myself that +Idonia was got safely away, or if she yet remained, that she did so +without any extraordinary peril; though for all that I was very +miserable to be kept ignorant of her present lodging, but resolved +that, before many days were passed, I would forcibly undertake her +discovery and rescue, or at the least come by such certain information +as should lead to our meeting, and the renewal of our pledged troth. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +IN WHICH I RECEIVE A COMMISSION AND SUFFER A CHECK + +The execution of my design was precipitated by a certain accident which +at that time befell me, and was by me regarded as happy or untoward, +according as I dwelt upon the recognition of merit it implied, or upon +the delayed return which it necessitated, to my intercourse with Idonia +Avenon. + +It happened then, that about eight or nine days after that riotous +siege of Petty Wales, I was at work upon my high stool in Chequer Lane, +where I was deeply engaged in computing the value of the several shares +the merchants of our Company were willing to take, upon charter party +with the owners of a certain ship called _The Saracen's Head_, Captain +Spurrier, that was about to set forth upon a voyage into Argiers, and +thereafter, unless otherwise ordered, yet further to the eastward. +Being so occupied as I say, there entered the counting-house a servant +of Sir Edward Osborne's that desired of Mr. Procter to tell him whether +one Denis Cleeve were there in that place; to which he answering that +he was, and that I was the man he inquired after, the servant saluted +me very properly and bade me go with him to the Governor's, that is, to +Sir Edward Osborne's, who expected me at his house. + +Marvelling what this should intend, I nevertheless made haste to follow +the servant, and was soon after ushered into a great chamber, +wainscoted very high up with walnut-wood, and with a table at one end +of it, whereon was a woollen cloth spread, very rich, and having the +coat and crest of the knight's family woven into the midst of it. +About the walls were hung many fair pictures, all of men save one, +which was of a maid of about ten years, that had a very winsome smiling +face and clustered curls about it. In this chamber I was left alone to +wait for some small space, when after there came in to me Sir Edward, +very gravely, together with his secretary, who straight sat him down at +the table and mended his pen. + +Upon their entering I did my courtesy, which the merchant quietly +received, and then, motioning me to a chair, immediately commenced: + +"I have sent for you, Mr. Cleeve," said he, sitting down also, "because +I have had a good report of you from him in whose charge you work, Mr. +Procter, who moreover hath made the addition that you are of a spirit +somewhat higher than seemeth necessary a scrivener should have, they +being for the most part a mild and inoffensive sort of men--what say +you, Mr. Secretary?" + +The man of the pen seemed greatly taken aback at this direct challenge +to his manhood, and could but stammer out that secretaries were +doubtless more faithful than arrogant, stealing at the same time such a +spleenful look upon me as I thought he would have sent his quill and +ink-horn after it. + +"Faithful--ay," said Master Osborne, with a little smile about the +eyes, "but nowise arrogant. I hope you be not arrogant either, Mr. +Cleeve," he added, fixing his gaze upon me. + +"I hope not, sir," said I, "nor think I am not either, for, as Mr. +Procter hath often told me, there is nothing checks a man's pride like +the book-keeping, that makes him put down a thing on both sides an +accompt in a just balance; which pride forbids a man to do." + +"It is as you say," cried the Governor, mighty pleased, "and you answer +well. But now tell me--and it is necessary you should deal with me +openly--do you truly love your ledger?" + +I thought upon this question a few moments ere I replied that I could +not say I loved it, but that I thought it a necessary book; that I +sometimes found a singular delight in the pursuing of the intricacies +of some great reckoning, but that I hated the casting of page upon page +of moneys, which seemed to make a miser of my head though I was none by +my pocket. In fine, that I honoured accountancy as a servant but could +not live with it as a friend. + +The merchant listened with no small amusement until I had done, and +then sat still, dallying with a packet of papers he had on the table +before him, from which at length he took one, and, running his eyes +over it carelessly, said-- + +"Upon what task were you engaged when I sent for you hither?" + +I said, upon the business of the apportioning the affreightment of the +_Saracen's Head_. + +"Know you aught of the Captain of that barque?" said he. + +"It is one Master Spurrier," I said, "a Harwich man, that was one time +Captain of the _Crane_, a ship of the Queen's." + +He nodded the while I spoke, as having knowledge of these particulars +already; and then demanded whether I were advised of how he came to +leave Her Majesty's service, which I had not, and said so. + +"Give him the Testament, Mr. Secretary," said the Governor, and made +him propose the oath to me that whatsoever I now heard I should be +secret in and faithful to all just commands laid upon me to fulfil +them. Which done, he leaned back in his deep chair and said-- + +"Mr. Cleeve, I am about to put into your hands a commission that may +carry with it some difficulty and more danger, from neither of which +have I any fear that you will anyways shrink. But there needeth more +yet than either courage or a common promptness to this affair, wherein +must be used an aptitude to see without seeming to do so, and to assume +such a negligence of behaviour as none that watches you (for you shall +be watched) may perceive you be attentive to aught beyond your proper +and understood duties." He paused awhile, and I was glad of this +respite, for my heart was beating so high that I could scarce conceal +my agitation. Nevertheless I had commanded myself before he renewed +his discourse. + +"I have received intelligence but two days since, from Her Majesty's +principal Secretary, that there be in this realm a sort of dissatisfied +men that, taking advantage of our present dissensions with Spain, and +hoping to secure to themselves an infamous benefit by the same, have +privily made offer of their services to our enemy, as to discover the +nature of our defences and extent of our preparedness to war. So much +is certainly known, and many names of such spies are set down. But, as +is always found in these devil's hucksterings, there is as it were a +frayed edge and doubtful margin of disloyalty, upon which a man may +stand in question how to appraise it; and of this quality is our Master +for this voyage, I mean Captain Spurrier. Something that the Governor +of Biscay hath let fall (that lies now in the Tower) inclines their +lordships of the Council to attach this Spurrier instantly for a +traitor; but yet they would not altogether so, hoping as well for +absolute proof of his villainy as that, by our apparent slackness, he +may be led to betray to one supposed his ordinary companion, the full +scope and ambit of his dealings; which being (to use the figure) noted +in our chart as shoals, we may circumvent them and come safe to harbour. + +"I design, therefore, that you go supercargo of the goods of this +vessel, that is to sail from the Pool in a week's time, and mark each +particular accident of the voyage, as what ships spoken, and what +course taken, together with the customary behaviour of the Captain, and +with whom of the officers he chiefly consorts. If he have any books or +papers you may overlook their general tenour but not handle them, for +sometimes they be traps set for that very purpose. At Argiers, if you +get so far and be not, as I suspect you will be, waylaid by some +Spanish ship of war, you may send me word; but yet either way, observe +your man closely; to whom, so far as may be possible, you shall make +yourself necessary. I say no more. It may happen that my advice shall +receive supplement from Her Majesty's Council, to whom I have already +given in your name as the agent I think likeliest to their occasions; +who on their part received it very well, knowing your father for an +honourable man and a loyal gentleman." + +The Governor rose from his place, and, bowing slightly, went from the +chamber, leaving me alone with his secretary, who, with less courtesy +than I thought he might have showed, instructed me in the customary +duties of a supercargo, and further bade me apply to him for whatever +money would be necessary for clothing and the rest, as well as arms, +with which I was now wholly unprovided. + +In conclusion he warned me to be discreet, wagging his head three or +four times as he said it, I suppose for my better apprehension of his +meaning. + +"Oh, I warrant you, Mr. Secretary," said I, "I will not write my +suspicions, nor speak them in soliloquy, nor yet clap my ear to the +keyhole, unless I see cause." + +"I have a mind to clap my cane to your worship's jolthead," quoth the +secretary, "until you see a thousand stars." + +No sooner were we parted (friends enough) and I in the street, than the +desire to see Idonia and bid her bless me to my sea-faring, came so hot +upon me as I made off directly to the thieves' lane of Petty Wales, and +neglecting all discretion, scrupled not to enter it publicly. But the +door by which I had formerly gained ready admittance was now closed, +and so strongly barred that I knew at the first glance 'twas impossible +of access; while the one small window beside it was likewise shuttered +up and made firm. I rapped twice or thrice as loud as I dared, but +none answering, I went away at length, exceeding downcast. On the day +following I came again; and the day after that too; but was still +repulsed by the defences that I supposed the thieves, and perhaps Skene +too, had raised against any attacks of the soldiery, or of the +populace, that were full as formidable as any army, and more cruel +because without discipline. Meanwhile the day nearly approached when +our barque was to set sail, and I with my secret strange commission to +go with her. I had writ a large letter to my father at Tolland, in +which I made mention of this voyage, begging him to remember me in his +prayers, and promising him withal, that I would not run into +unnecessary dangers, nor yet (as some have done) be so busy in my +office as to smell out treasons where none was meant. As to the nature +of my trust I could not deal explicitly with him, because of the oath I +was bound by, but I gave him to understand that our cargo of woollen +stuffs was the least part of my care, and whether safe in the hold, or +at the first occasion to be made jettison of, my owners would (I +thought) require no particular account of it at my hands. With the +writing of this, and one visit I was called upon to pay to my lords of +the Council, in which I met with more great men and ran into a thicker +mist of wisdom than hath been my fortune either before or since; with +these matters (I say) I eked out my waiting time heavily enough, for I +was necessarily released from my daily attendance at the +counting-house, having besides much to see to in the getting of such +clothing and arms as the crabbed secretary thought necessary to my +equipment. + +Well, walking thus very disconsolate one evening upon the Bridge, where +I had been concerned with a certain armourer there to buy my new sword +and hangers, whom should I light upon but, Master Andrew Plat, the +lyrick poet? At least by the back I judged it to be him, for he looked +another way, and was, I soon perceived, about the game he had so +decried to me as a nefarious pursuit and never by him followed, namely +stealing; for he stole silk goods from one of the open stalls that are +here set up; the which he so skilfully accomplished as I saw he was no +freshman, but rather an exhibitioner and graduated master. + +"Your Spring hath issued into a passing fruitful Summer," I said very +low in his ear, "and I think you did well to leave your lyricks for +this art, and the thankless Apollo for thieving Mercury." + +He leapt about with a white face, gasping. + +"I have stolen nothing in the world," said he. + +"No? Then come with me, Master Poet, for I must learn this way of +getting stuff that is neither paid for nor yet stolen," and taking him +under the arm I carried him with me at a great pace along the Bridge, +pausing not till we were come near to the end of Thames Street, and in +full view of the watch set about the battered door of Skene's house. + +"I go no further this way," cried Plat, struggling to get free. + +"We have nothing to fear, friend, being honest men." + +"Loose me, I say." + +"On conditions I will." + +"Ah--conditions?" + +"That you admit me to your house." + +"Never! Besides I have no house. I am homeless and destitute, master; +indeed I am in bitter want." + +"I will mend that," said I, and drew forth a gold piece from the pouch +at my belt. "But now, ponder the alternatives well, and as you choose, +so shall it be yours to have. Either you grant me presently the +liberty of that part of Petty Wales which you were used to inhabit, and +take this noble for your pains, or else I will hale you to yonder +watch, and denounce your theft of those silks you have about you." + +He shivered throughout at my proposals, and after hung as limp upon my +arm as a drenched clout. + +"If I should do as you desire, good master," said he, in a voice I +could scarce hear for its thinness, "our Captain would kill you out of +hand." + +"Forewarned is forearmed," said I. "Your next reason?" + +"That the place is locked." + +"Otherwise I should have had no need of you. The next?" + +"Oh," he wailed pitifully, "do not drive me thus, master. I dare not +obey you." + +"Forward then with a good heart," said I cheerfully, and bore him a +further ten paces down the street. + +"Stay, stay," cried the poet, "I yield, I capitulate, I open the gates +... and now give me my gold." + +I did so, and released him, when, cautioning me to be silent, he left +the street by a certain byway, and threading such devious passages as +in the growing darkness I could scarce distinguish to follow him by, he +led me on, up and down, through courts and alleys, beneath penthouse +roofs and neglected arches, until I came near to doubting his good +faith and was about to use my old device of retaining his allegiance at +the sword's point, when he came out suddenly into the lane, at the +opposite end to that I had before entered it from Tower Hill; and so +stood still before the secret low door. In the little light there was +(for the lane was lit by no lantern nor lamp of any sort) I could not +see whether the door was still barricaded, but judged it to be so by +Mr. Plat's climbing up about a fathom's height of the naked wall, +setting his feet within some shallow crevices he knew of, but I could +not perceive, until he made his standing sure, when, he giving a little +strange cry like a bird's, immediately a stone of the wall seemed to be +removed, some three spans' breadth, and into the opening thus made Plat +incontinently disappeared. I was mad to be fooled thus, for I +questioned not but he would now leave me to shift for myself: when with +an equal suddenness his head was thrust forth again, and he said-- + +"If you list you may mount up hither, though I warn you a second time, +that all here within, me only excepted, be ungodly thieves, pilferers, +cut-throat knaves, railers against the State, having no honesty nor +purpose to do well, illiterate, owning no government, lawless, base men +that acknowledge no merit of authors nor rules of prosody, ignorant +beasts, amongst whom I, a singular sweet singer, remain until a better +fate calls me hence to crown me with never-fading bay and myrtle," and +so, without more ado, he went away from the aperture, which +nevertheless he left open, as he had promised; but whither he went I +know not, for I did not see him after, nor have I come by his published +poems that were to render him immortal. + +I gazed after him a great while, as in doubt whether he would return, +but then shifting my new sword behind me, I addressed myself to the +ascent of the wall, which, after much scraping of my flesh, and one or +two falls headlong, I surmounted, and had my hands fast upon the nether +edge of the vent. It was but a brief while ere I had drawn myself up +and scrambled through; when I found I stood in a narrow and void +chamber, very foul and ill-smelling, from which I was glad enough to be +gone. + +But scarce had I gone forth into the passage beyond, when I heard such +a tumult and angry debate of voices as remembering Plat's assertion of +the Trappist silence that was in this house enjoined upon pain of death +I could not but suppose some very especial cause to have hurried the +thieves into so presumptuous an offence. It was now altogether night +within the building, and with these stifled cries sounding in my ears, +and execrations of men I knew to be desperate villains, I confess my +heart quailed within me and my strength all leaked away, so that I +could not even fly by the way I had come, but stood with my back to the +wall, sweating and staring, with never a thought but to remain +unperceived. Of the fashion and plan of the house I was perfectly +ignorant, having but once before been within it, and then trusting to +another to guide me through its secret recesses; yet I remembered that +there was somewhere that great wide staircase which Plat had said was +the common room and meeting-place of the thieves, where they transacted +their affairs and shared their food and treasure. 'Twas, then, with a +clutch of horrid surprise that I now saw, low down before me, a sort of +men bearing lanterns that issued from the shadows, and began to scale +the stairs; for by the uncertain light I could both distinguish them +and that I myself was standing in one of the open galleries that +surrounded the stairhead and overlooked the body of the hall. But no +sooner had I understood this, than any further discovery was thwarted +by a man's brushing past me in the dark, so close I could hear him +fetch his breath, and instantly upon that there followed the click of a +snaphance. + +"Stay there, you creeping lice!" he said, speaking in a cool middle +voice, "or I will shoot you down, man by man, where you stand." + +At this unlooked-for interruption, the men upon the stair came to a +sudden stand, while some that had advanced higher than the rest, fell +back, so that all hung crowded together, their lanterns raised and +their eyes seeking upward for the man that held them at bay. I have +never seen so dastardly and scarce human visages as they showed, some +with bleared eyes and matted hair, others dark and vengeful, their +brows and cheeks scarred with wounds or open sores. Here a man went +half-naked like a savage Indian; there one wore a ragged coat guarded +with silver; all were armed, though with such a hazardous sort of +weapons, that but for the assured skill and practice with which they +wielded them, one might have dared oppose the whole rout single-handed. +But in their hands these weapons seemed proper as claws to beasts, or +tushes to a wild boar, and instinctively, as the man raised his pistol, +I drew my sword from the sheath. The noise I made attracted the man's +attention to me, and he would perhaps have spoken, had not the +bloodthirsty rout, recking no further opposition, sprung forward again. + +"Hold, I say," cried the man, and this time with a dreadful menacing +vehemence. "I am your Captain, and you know me well. Another step, +and there's a soul writhing in hell. Back, go, you and your eggers-on! +I understand this business, as I understand too who 'twas inflamed you +to mutiny." + +"You took my wife, you scum!" shouted a great fellow clad in a +shipman's garb, that held a rust-bitten cutlass in his hand, and +struggled forward through the press. + +"Ay, did I, Jack?" quoth the Captain satirically, "but 'twas to provide +you with another bride, a bonny lass that the Churchmen say we shall +all embrace by turns. 'Tis that world-old witch I mean, named Death," +and at the word, he discharged his piece full in the other's blotched +face, and laid him bleeding on the topmost stair. + +A great hush came over the mutineers when they saw this deed, that +moreover so sickened me that I had already raised my sword to stab the +murderer in the back and have done with him, when the thieves suddenly +broke with a yell of defiance and charged upward in the mass. What I +would have done had I had longer to deliberate I know not, but in +default of any counsel to direct me, I sprang into action on the side +of the very man I had intended to slay, and shoulder to shoulder with +him, fought down those ghastly cruel faces and reaching hands. + +It was soon enough over. They were no match against the arms we used, +and the Captain calmly loading and discharging his piece, the while I +kept the stairhead clear with my sword, we made them give back foot by +foot, until at length each was scrambling to be the hindmost, and even +used his knife upon his companion in the urgency of his retreat. All +the lanterns were out now, save one that a dead man held in his stark +and upraised hand; and by that light the Captain wiped his smoking +barrel clean. + +"It is well concluded," said he, "and I thank you for your help, young +sir." + +I said nothing, so deeply did I loathe him. + +"We must be gone," he said, "and that quickly. The watch is up, and +the whole place will be searched before dawn. They will be caught like +rats in a drain," he added softly, drawing in his breath. "Follow me." + +He led me to the room I had left, and helped me to get through the hole +in the masonry, after which he followed me. + +"This way," said he, and took me through the lane until he came onto +Tower Hill, when, skirting the precincts of the Tower, we crept +unchallenged through the postern in the wall and turned down a narrow +cart-way to the eastward, I beside him, but neither speaking one word, +until after an hour or more, with waiting and going forward, we got to +Wapping a little ere daybreak, to a desolate mean tavern of shipmen +close beside the river, which we entered without question, for none +seemed to be stirring; and here, in the filthy guestroom, the Captain +flung himself down. + +"A good night's work, master," said he, grinning, "in which you did +your part so well that it grieves me much to name you my prisoner." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +IN WHICH I COME TO GRIPS WITH MR. MALPAS + +In the wan light, with which the room was now gradually filling, I +looked at the man I had been so strangely moved to succour, and knew +him for my old antagonist, Guido Malpas. However, I said no more at +that time, but that, prisoner or no, I sufficiently loathed him; and +so, crouching myself together upon a settle by the hearth (for I was +exceeding weary), I fell asleep. + +It was bright day when I awoke, stiff and uneasy, and sat up on my +bench. The room was empty, and 'twas some while ere I could collect +the passages incident to my being there, which, when they had skulked +back like tired truants to my brain, yet so monstrous did they seem as +I could scarce believe them to be acted events, but rather fantasies +left caught in the web of my waking; while as to that boast of the +thieves' Captain, that I was detained prisoner in an open hostelry, I +laughed aloud at the recollection. + +I got off my plank bed, and going to the door called for the host to +fetch me something to breakfast on, but he not immediately answering to +my demand, I thought fit to show him something of my quality, as +befitting an agent of the Queen's, and was for jangling down my +accoutrements on the table (which never fails of bringing your tapsters +running to attend on a man) when, to my astonishment, I found sword and +belt both wanting, and my purse gone with the rest. + +I stood horror-stricken at this catastrophe, for I perceived that while +I slept that malignant thief had shorn me, and so clapped my hand to +the bosom of my jerkin, where I had put up a letter I had received from +the Lord Treasurer, or rather from his secretary, touching my late +appearance before the Council; but almost before I had my hand in, I +knew certainly that it had been stolen, as indeed it was. Now, here I +saw instantly was matter enough to ruin me either way; with them that +employed me, whose secret I had so slovenly betrayed; with them I was +to spy upon, if (as I could nowise doubt) Malpas was of their company +and privy to their designs. Nevertheless, come what would, I must +report my delinquency to Sir Edward Osborne, and abide by his censure, +and for the rest hope that 'twas not yet too late to supersede me by +some other agent upon that voyage wherein I had promised myself no +small success and glory. + +Very heavy, then, but otherwise determined to do my plain duty in this +affair, I went out by the door with a firm step, pondering all the +cross accidents that had befallen me within so short a space, and very +wishful that all were at an end. + +"Not so fast, Mr. Agent," said that sneering voice of Malpas, whom I +near stumbled over as he sat on an upturned cask by the door. "I have +been expecting you this two hours, but would not disturb you; for it is +unprofitable discoursing with a man of your capacity to slumber. Well, +do you walk in your sleep now, little Denis, and dream upon treasons? +or have you your waking sense yet? I trow you seem reasonable glad to +see me, by which I suppose you to be in your right mind, and so bid you +good-morrow." + +For answer I drew off my glove, and struck him a stinging blow across +the mouth with it; upon which he leapt up, and, being extraordinarily +powerful, flung me from him into the tavern, where I lay prone upon the +flags. He did not shut the door, but stood in the doorway, of which +his head brushed the lintel, and, folding his arms, proceeded quietly-- + +"That was unwisely done, Denis. This house is well respected, and not +known for brawling. Besides, I mean we should be friends; that is, +should understand each other, as friends do--and traders. For in the +way of trade all goes by mutual understanding and a common trust; as I +to sell certain commodities and you to remit certain moneys; or +contrariwise, you to part with such merchandise as I am willing to lay +up in store and to render a good account of, little Denis--as you shall +confess, at the proper season. 'Tis a settlement somewhat deferred +doubtless, having had its beginning, if I mistake not, in a street +before a barber's I used formerly; whereafter was added to the bill a +shrewd item or two, whereby I come near to losing all credit: a grave +chance for such a merchant-adventurer as I; but I am since restored. I +allow a handsome rebate, Denis, that you put into the reckoning +yesterday. But the balance, upon the whole, going against me, it +remains that I must pay." + +"Had I known you last night," I said bitterly, "I would have cut off my +right hand rather than second you in that pass." + +He laughed long and low at that. + +"Do you regret the issue so much?" said he, "Then it was your ignorance +more than your sword I have to thank, it seems. Well, 'tis no more +than the world's way, that generally sees good deeds done at random, +but calculated villainies." + +"As stealing that poor devil's wife," said I. + +"Ay, or the lying-in-wait for Captain Spurrier upon commission," said +he. "So all's one for that." + +"You have read my packet, then?" + +"Even as you were licensed to read his." + +"And may do so yet," said I, galled beyond restraint by his gibing. + +"I think you something misapprehend the matter," said Malpas, with a +malignant affectation of patience, "or have forgot that I said you were +to be detained here. In what fashion you shall go forth, I have not +yet decided, but be assured it will not be to do a mischief, Mr. Denis. +There be other interests must be first consulted thereabout, and order +taken." + +I went over to the hearth, and sitting down upon the settle, strove to +get my position clear in my mind. That I was to be kept here until the +rest of the conspirators should be assembled to try me, I understood +well enough from Malpas his words; though of whom this council of +treason should consist, I could not guess, except that Spurrier himself +were one, and probably Skene. To escape I judged was impossible every +way; partly because I was entered into the very home and chosen +fortress of these plotters, of which the retiredness and neglected +condition sufficiently secured it from the vigilance of the watch, and +partly because I was a prize too valuable to be let slip. I considered +that, besides Malpas, there were certainly others in that house, +pledged to my ward, and answerable for me to him. Of Malpas I knew +enough, as well from that the poet had told me of the thieves' Captain, +how he killed out of hand any that dared disobey him, as also from my +own observance of his behaviour, to stand in little doubt of the upshot +of my business, how it would go. Nevertheless, I do not remember to +have had any extraordinary fear; none, I know, comparable with that +palsied terror I suffered when the mutineers came first upon the stairs +in the night. Perhaps it was the knowledge that formerly when we were +matched together I had come off happily, and left Malpas with so deep a +thrust as even now he went limping withal. + +Immersed in such reflections, I did not note the passage of time, and +was surprised when a little neat fellow, dressed like an ordinary +tavern-server, entered, bearing a tray with cheese on and a loaf and a +pot of good foaming ale. + +"Is it poisoned?" said I. + +"Poisoned? Sir--in this house!" cried he, starting back from the +table. "Your worship must be ignorant whither you have come--to the +_Fair Haven_ of Wapping, where all is sound provend and of the best +come to port." + +"Is it so, indeed, Master Jocelin?" I returned, for I had immediately +recognized, in this meek servitor, my old acquaintance of the hostelry +over against Baynards Castle. "And how goes it with that fat lump of +dough you were to set the yeast of your wit to work in?" + +But without the flicker of an eyelid, he answered me: "Jocelin is my +name, sir; but as to your dough and your yeast, I understand nothing of +your meaning." + +I could not withhold my laughter at his recovered innocence any better +than I did before at the manifest lapse of it; and laughing still, I +watched him put down my breakfast and depart. I fell to with a will +after that, and having a wholesome fondness for food, had soon made an +end of that meal, which, as Master Jocelin had said, was as good as +needs be. The whiles I was eating, my mind wandered oddly away to old +Peter Sprot, at home, whose sober admonition to me of the dietary I +should follow in London, I had until now (I fear) given no thought to, +but judged that I must even yet awhile delay the exact observance of it. + +Now it chanced that, looking up when I had about done, I saw Malpas +regarding me very earnestly, and with a manner as though he would have +asked me something, but apart from the tenour of our late conversation. +Marvelling what this should be, I kept silence: which 'twas not long +ere he broke, by saying-- + +"If you confess yourself vanquished and overborne in this business, +Master Cleeve, as I suppose you can scarce otherwise, I upon my part am +willing enough to allow that you came off victorious otherwhiles; so +that thus far we may cry quits. If there be no love lost between us, +there need be no petty rancours nor jealousies, and I am honest enough +to say that, now I have lost her, I wish you well of your suit to +Mistress Avenon." + +"Where is she now?" cried I, starting up. + +"Nay, if you know not," said Malpas, "how should I?" + +I sat down quite out of heart, for I saw, whether he had news or no, he +was still for fencing. Malpas came nearer, and bending low over the +table where I sat, laid his two hands upon it, and said-- + +"You cannot be ignorant that this affair is like to end badly for you, +Mr. Denis, and I am partly glad of it, but partly sorry too. Now, I +pray you to be open with me; for if I choose I may help you, seeing I +have some direction in this place, and of the occasions it is used for. +Judging from such things as you have seen doing, upon whose part do you +suppose Mr. Skene to stand in these negotiations with Spain? Oh, keep +your admiration!" said he, with a sudden sneer. "The reading of your +packet makes away all scruples to be longer secret. That there be such +negotiations you know as well as I; though of how far they stretch, or +who be deep in, I say nothing. All I require at your hands, is that +you say frankly whether Skene is on the Queen's part, or upon ours?" + +[Illustration: "You cannot be ignorant that this affair is like to end +badly for you, Mr. Denis." Chapter XIX] + +"You acknowledge your part to be contrary to Her Majesty's, then?" + +"I said so. Now as you answer me, I swear I will deal with you. I +will fling the door wide and let you go forth freely to Mistress +Idonia, whose present hiding-place I know; or else I will deliver you +over to those who shall choke your discretion in your fool's throat." + +"Your treason hath not commenced so well," said I, leaning back from +the table, "that hath begun in distrust of each other." + +"Be not over long about it," said Malpas darkly; "I am not used to +repeat my offers, that, moreover, you see are abundantly generous." + +"So generous," I replied, "that I doubt their worth." + +"They be surely worth more," said my captor, upon whose brow the blue +veins stood out, so sharp a curb did he put upon his mood; "they be of +more worth to you, a thousandfold, than the favour or disfavour of that +damned, cogging, glib-spoken traitor, your uncle." + +He had let it slip at last! My uncle Botolph and Skene were one. And +here, beyond belief, I held 'twixt my naked finger and thumb the +steelyard by which my uncle's fate should be weighed, who had crossed +me at every turn. A word of mine, and he that had first ruined my +father's life, and after had robbed him of his fortune, might be +contemptuously blotted out, as a man blots out some gross error in a +letter he has writ; for that was how Malpas would serve him, could I +bring myself to say he stood for the Queen. A little word spoken, and +he was condemned, but I was free ... I and Idonia! + +Indeed, it was clear justice, both to myself and to my uncle. For I +was not to name the man a traitor to his Sovereign; rather, to speak +well of him, as I expected a man should do of me. It was (now I was +come to think on't) mere decency that I should not be dumb in my +uncle's praise whom I had never had any, or at the least overt, cause +to mistrust. Put the case the other way; that I thought my uncle's +conduct treasonable. Should I denounce him to the Lord Treasurer and +the Council? I knew I should not. Should I then denounce him to +Malpas for the contrary cause, and upon the slight grounds I had, as of +the confession he made to me when the Jesuit was found in hiding in his +house? No, certainly. + +Why, all that was required of me was that I should confess I thought my +uncle honest, as likely enough he was. What should follow upon so fair +a declaration imported me nothing. I was concerned with no grudges nor +disputes of these men, to bethink me how a plain answer should work +with them. Nay, I stood for the Queen's Majesty, upon oath to serve +her, and would so stand, God willing, come what might; as Malpas was +well assured, who yet had passed his word I was within an hand's +breadth of going free; it only stayed upon my word. Then why should I +not deal with another so, allowing the honour due to a like +steadfastness with my own? My uncle would doubtless be let go free +too; or perhaps he was not even so much as come into jeopardy. I had +no suspicion but that he was still at large.... Indeed it was very +probable. + +All this while I sat still, musing upon that I should say, and Malpas +stood above me, expecting it. More than once I tried to speak, and +Heaven forgive me as I believe, had I spoken then, I should have sent +my uncle to his death; but somehow the words would not come. The +sophistry was too palpable; the truth too black a lie. I met my +captor's eyes. + +"If I tell you where my uncle is at this moment concealed," said I, +"will you let me go free?" + +Snatching at the apparent advantage: "I add it to the conditions of +your safety that you do so," he replied swiftly. + +"Then you have lost your game," said I, and getting up, I kicked the +chair aside and watched his baffled face of rage. "For if you know not +that, neither do you know where Idonia is, as you made pretence to do." + +"You cursed trickster!" he swore, his voice shaking with an +uncontrolled passion; "petty cheat and viper! So, that is it to be! +Ay, white face, laugh that you have run me these lengths; I should have +known you. 'Sdeath, ye be true Cleeves, uncle and nephew, unprofitable +knaves both! Well, I have done my part, but there's more to follow yet +and soon enough, uncle and nephew! Ah! and who shall be Idonia's +guardian then, when you lie stark? ... Never a word of truth he gave +me, that old fox, but kept me still dangling. 'He could not promise me +her hand, forsooth, but yet he liked me. She would come to like me +too, in time, no doubt; but I must have patience.' Patience--had he +such patience to wait when her mother lived, or did he fob off Miles +Avenon her father upon that fool's adventure wherein he was presently +slain, as Uriah was slain, Bathsheba's man? Ho! a prosperous sleek +lover, I warrant you, and a laugher too, until his Margaret died.... I +knew that Miles, and though I was but a child when he went away, I +remember the pride he had in his pretty frail wife and his joy of +Idonia, for she was his proper child, though Cleeve named himself her +guardian, for her mother's sake. + +"It was that made him terrible, that death of Margaret, and few men +dared go near him. But the fit passed. There have been Margarets enow +since, in good sooth! though he still held by the child. Perdition! +but there needs money to that game, a store, and he was glad of our +help at first, and for many a long day after. It was to be fair +sharing in all, and whiles I think he parted to the hair. Even to your +coming I trusted him, and spied upon you as he bade me, being content +to take the brunt, while he lay close. 'Twas then I claimed the maid +as a right, but he shook his grey sleek head and paltered. _Patience_! +that was the word, then. But it's another word now, Master Denis, for +you and for him. Ay, and another word for Idonia Avenon...." + +I was amazed hearing him talk so wild, whom I had thought tutored to a +perfect secrecy; but his blood was up at my catching him in that +baseness of lying, besides that he was disappointed of the hope I had +extended and withdrawn, of setting him upon my uncle, whose treachery +in their plot he so evidently feared. Why he did not spring upon me +there and then with his knife I did not understand, though it was +likely he reserved me a morsel to fling amongst his foul co-partners in +this business, and a grateful sacrifice. + +"Enough of this chat," said I, at length, "for I well perceive your +purpose both toward me and my uncle. But I warn you for the last time +I shall that 'tis safest you suffer me, Her Majesty's servant, to go +hence free." + +"It is refused," he replied curtly, and turning upon his heel, strode +out of the room and into the street. + +Seeing him gone thus, without mounting any especial guard upon me, I +bethought me to examine the defences with my own eyes, and therefore +followed him leisurely to the door. A stout sea-faring man was there +already, his arms crossed, blocking it. I saw the gleam of a cutlass +end beneath his rough jacket. + +"Be thou the host of this tavern?" he inquired, with a grin. + +Being unconcerned in his needs, I made no answer, and returned to my +room. The windows, which were all unglazed, were strongly barred, and +I at once saw useless to be attempted. Passing then to the hind part +of the house I noted a little postern door that seemed to give onto a +sort of jetty or wharf, the inn standing upon the riverside as I have +already said; but when I approached it, there was the neat tapster that +had brought my meal whistling some catch of a sea song, and polishing +of a great arquebus. + +"Ho! come not too nearly, master," he sang out, when he saw me, "for +these pieces be tickle things, a murrain of 'em! And I not +comprehending the least of the machine, it may chance shoot off +unawares." + +Perceiving that he had his finger pressed to the snaphance, and the +barrel turned my way, I judged it expedient to leave Mr. Jocelin to his +polishing and retire. Every avenue then was guarded, as I had looked +it should be, and so, without any particular design, I walked slowly up +the narrow, rotten stair into the chambers aloft. I went into three or +four, all vacant and ungarnished by any piece of furniture or hanging, +which meant sorry enough entertainment in a place purporting to be an +inn, thought I, though proper enough to a prison. + +But scarce had I gone forth into the gallery again, when I thought I +heard a sound that proceeded from a chamber I had not till then +observed, in a retired and somewhat darksome corner beyond the stairs. +I held my breath to listen, and the little rustling noise beginning +again after a space, I went directly to the door and opened it. + +Mistress Avenon sat within, in a nook by the window, tearing a paper +she had in her hands. + +"Idonia!" I cried, and running forward had her in my arms and her hot +face close against mine. "My bird," said I--for so she seemed as a +dainty bird caught in an iron trap--"my bird, who hath brought you into +this infamous place?" + +She leant back a little from my shoulder, yet without loosing me, and +looked up into my eyes with such a deal of honest, sweet pleasure to +see me there, that I had to pretermit my anxiety some while, and indeed +had near lost it by the time I renewed my question. + +"Why infamous?" inquired Idonia in her turn, "save that I knew not you +were here too. But now it is certainly not infamous, though something +lacking of luxuries, and a thought slack in the attendance they bestow +upon guests!" + +"You must not misconstrue my insistence," I said, "and you will not, +when you shall have heard all I have to tell you. But for the first, +where is Mr. Skene?" + +"He brought me here early last night," said she, but with a little of +reproach in her voice that I knew meant I wasted good time idly. + +"And whither is he gone?" + +"Do you desire he should be present, then?" asked Idonia, very +innocently. + +"No, but I would warn him if I could," I replied gravely, and so told +her everything as it had befallen me. + +"Always that Malpas!" whispered the maid, and trembled so I had to +clasp her tight to me. + +"He does not know you are here, that is clear," I said, as indeed it +was manifest to both of us. + +"My guardian hath used this place often ere this," said Idonia, "and I +suppose none thought to prate of what happened ordinarily." + +"Perhaps he has left you to seek out Malpas," I conjectured, and at +this she nodded. + +"They have had some design in hand together this great while, of which +I know nothing." + +I did not tell her that I knew it well enough, and was even +commissioned to prevent it, but said-- + +"Wherever he hath gone, Malpas hath certainly gone to seek him; but he +must not be found." + +"You owe him small thanks," whispered Idonia, her head low down, "and +if this intends a danger to you..." + +I did not suffer her to finish, but asked whether she were well enough +acquainted with the house to know of any means of egress from it, +besides the doors that were so straitly watched. She thought a great +while before she replied how, once, it might be eight years since, she +being lodged there, she had gone upon some occasion into the cellars, +and remembered to have noted that the window which lighted it was a +sort of grate within the river wall and was even then decayed and +corrupted by the salt water, so that by this time it should, she +thought, be easily broken through. + +"The tide is out," said I, "so that if I may but get through, there is +the dry bank above the pirates' gallows to go by; and after, the rest +should be plain enough." Which gallows I spoke of (now all rotten) yet +stood in the ooze to be flooded at high tide, it having been formerly +used against such pirates and river thieves as were caught and there +hanged, until, the tide rising, they were drowned. + +In reply to my further questionings, she said that Skene was to be +sought amidst the streets about the Tower Royal, which was where I had +gone that day I lost my way in the fog, when Idonia found me, and, +indeed, was no great distance from Chequer Lane. + +"When you shall have found him, or however it fall out, you will return +to me, dear heart?" said Idonia, who was now weeping so bitterly that I +could scarce keep hold of my resolution to be gone. But I did so at +length, and, going downstairs to the room I had left, found it to my +delight still free. Nigh choked with the beating of my heart, I soon +discovered the stone steps that led down to the cellars, which were a +narrow passage-room lit with a swinging lantern, and having three or +four locked doors of other vaults (used, I supposed, for storage of +wines and such-like) to the right and left of it. But in the +river-wall, when I looked, I could perceive no grid nor aperture of +such sort as Idonia had spoken, and for some moments remained as one +lost, for mere disappointment. However, recovering myself a little, I +felt along the whole, length of the wall, high and low, until to my +infinite pleasure my hand struck upon a new oaken door, bolted with a +great bolt that I slid back without the least noise. For the door +itself, I clearly perceived, it had been found necessary to put it in +place of the old, decayed grid, and 'twas sure as provident a repairing +as any it hath been my fortune to light on! + +Well, I think it stands not upon me to relate the several stages of my +prison-breaking, nor of my lurking along the river-bank under the very +eyes of my warders into safety; though I confess that more than once my +back burnt hot with the thought of the little peering tapster and of +that great arquebus he so diligently polished. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE ADVENTURE OF THE CHINESE JAR + +The events which succeeded upon my escape from the _Fair Haven_ of +Wapping have come to assume in my mind a significance and singular +quality of completeness that hath, therefore, moved me to bestow upon +them the name of the "Adventure of the Chinese Jar;" for, detached from +every circumstance, there yet stands out, clear and hard against my +background of memory, that odd, fantastic shape of a blue-painted jar, +with its dragon-guarded lid, its flowered panels, and a haunting +remnant scent of the spices it had once enclosed. + +I left the ooze and filthy slime of the river-bank when I had gone some +furlong or so, and, turning inland up a row of squalid cabins, got at +length into the Minories, and entered through the wall by Aldgate. +Methought that some of the guard I encountered about the gatehouse +regarded me with looks of surprise and ill-will, which, indeed, the +disorderliness of my clothing necessarily invited, as well, perhaps, as +a no very restrained gait and behaviour, for I was in a fever to be +forward upon my errand, and dreaded the least hindrance therein. +However, none accosting me, I passed by into the City, and was already +proceeding at a great rate towards Tower Royal, when I came upon a +group of persons that were talking eagerly and in loud voices, so that +I could not but hear a part of their discourse. + +"He will certainly be apprehended before nightfall," said one, a +merchant by his habit; "so close a watch do they keep in these days +upon all suspected malefactors." + +"I know not the man by either the names he goeth by; neither Skene nor +Cleeve," said another. + +"It is not likely you should," said the first, with a twinkle of his +grey eyes, "that are inquest-man of this wardmote, and brother to a +canon." + +I stepped close to the man had spoken last, and, doffing my cap, said: +"Sir, I am but just arrived in this town, but overhearing something of +that hath been made mention of betwixt you, I imagined that I heard the +name of one Cleeve in question." + +"You did," said the merchant; "Cleeve or Skene, for 'tis all one. But, +why? Do you know the fellow?" + +"It is my own name," I replied modestly; "at least, Cleeve is, and so +if you were inquiring after me, I am here to serve you." + +A great laughter moved the whole party at my seeming ingenuousness, and +the merchant replied-- + +"No, no, honest Mr. Cleeve; go your ways and keep your innocence. But +this other Cleeve is one grown old in treachery; a harbourer of Jesuits +and Spanish spies, against whom a writ runs for his immediate +attachment, and upon whose crafty head there is a price set." + +"Is he escaped away then?" said I. + +"He hath no settled habitation," replied one that held a paper in his +hands, upon which he continually looked, "but was last seen at a +certain great ruined house over against the Galley Quay, from which he +is now fled, no man knows whither. But from manifest evidence it +appeareth he is engaged in deep and secret designs against the State, +in which moreover he works not singly." + +"Now, I marvel how, if his abode were so positively known and his +conduct anyways dubious, he came to be allowed such freedom to go in +and out, as the sequel shows was done," I returned with some study of +resentment. + +"Why, as to that, it is but since he is gone that the case is proved +against him; for upon a search which was then made of all the chambers +of that house, there was discovered a very nest of those he was in +treaty with, whose names be here set down, and themselves are brought +to-day before the Council to be examined." He handed me the paper as +he spoke, wherein I read the list of them. There were three Spanish +men of high-sounding titles, and two or three alleged to be malignant +Papists. Here was answer enough to Master Malpas, I thought, and with +a vengeance! I returned the paper, and presently saluting, took my +leave. + +Very full of thought, I went forward until I had come into that web of +mean streets I spoke of, below Tower Royal, which was where Idonia had +said her guardian should probably be found. But although I spent the +greater part of the afternoon in that quarter, I saw him not, nor any I +dared trust, to inquire after him. Indeed, the longer I stayed, the +more ill-considered and absurd did my precipitancy to this business +appear, so that at last I gave it over altogether, and being by then +got as far as to the Three Cranes Wharf, I stood idly there a great +while, watching the wharfingers at their task of ordering the heavy +goods that were there piled up and stored. Against the wharf lay a +barge or lighter moored, which I perceived had but lately discharged +the cargo of some great galley that rested below bridge in the fairway. + +There is ever something that fascinates a man in this his own careless +regarding of other men at work; and I had already stayed upon the quay +no small while, before I bethought myself to return; though, when I had +so determined, it came upon me that 'twas one thing to get out of +prison (I mean mine Inn), but altogether a different matter to get in +again, and so fell to considering whether I should make my entrance +boldly by the ordinary door, or whether creep in after nightfall, by +the vent in the cellar-wall I had escaped by. + +Now I had not altogether decided this matter, when I found myself in +that steep little lane I had inadvertently descended so many months +since in the fog, of which the houses upon both sides stood almost all +of them closed up and shuttered as though (to repeat what I then said) +the place had been visited by the plague; which deathlike and stealthy +character it yet maintained. There was nobody, man nor child, in the +street as I slowly mounted it, a strange sense of abhorrence and +foreboding gathering about my heart: while to this distress of my mind +was now added the annoyance of a smart squall of rain and wind, that, +suddenly breaking, had soon wetted me through, but for my crouching +close beneath the shallow porch of a door upon the right hand, where I +availed myself of such shelter as it afforded. + +I had stood so about a quarter of an hour, as I suppose, and was +listening to a long roll of thunder that seemed to shake the very +foundations of these palsied buildings when, as if answering to the +call of the storm, there arose within the house behind me a cry so +agonized, so hopeless, and withal so horribly inhuman, as even now my +hair stirs to remember it. To avoid this cursed spot and begone was my +involuntary and half-acted purpose, checked, however, on the instant by +a blinding flash of lightning that seared my very eyes, while my brain +seemed all shattered in by the accompanying peal. Painfully wrought +upon as I have ever been by any loudness of sound, it was some moments +before I could recover myself, and indeed I was still reeling from the +shock, when the door was flung wide and the figure of a man +outlandishly clothed, and of a yellowness of skin such as I had never +before seen, hurried by me into the midst of the road, where it fell +quash in the kennel. The man was dead. It was evident from the mere +sight of him, and from the formless clutter of gaudy rags he was; I +turned about, and within the gap of the door ere it was shut-to, I saw +the delicate, handsome features of my uncle, Botolph Cleeve. + +How the storm went thereafter I know not, but I know that for a full +half-hour I stood wrenching at the door that callous fiend had locked +in my face, but could nowise move it. Then, with a thrill of disgust, +I went to the dead outcast, where he lay all wet and smirched, and drew +from between his shoulders the long thin knife that was stuck there to +the haft. This I cleaned and put up in my jerkin. It was my only +weapon. The body was of a man stout and of great strength, though not +tall, and as well by the cast of his features as by his clothing I knew +him for one of them they name Cataians, or Chinese, that perhaps had +been led to this inhospitable asylum by rascally allurements of +adventurers upon some Eastward voyage; as I had once seen two Indians, +that sat huddled on the ground in the Exchange, with a ring of laughing +apprentices about them, and of whom I heard it said that they were +princes in their own land. But by what marches of fate this poor +Chinese had been defeated, and sent down from his home in the East to +death in our inexorable London, I could by no means conjecture; nor yet +could I determine (which imported me more) what course it were fittest +I should herein follow. Howbeit, a certain strange faintness then +assailing me, partly from sheer hunger, but more by reason of the +horror of this murder, I saw my dilemma settled for that while; and so, +staggering forth of the lane into Royal Street, where is a good tavern, +I there made shift to eat, but principally drank, until I had rid +myself at least of the extremity of distress into which I had fallen. + +In that place I stayed a good hour, there being a merry company come +together of players and other (for which I was indeed glad, and it +cheered me more than all else), when the day beginning to fail, the +guests departed their several ways, and I also, upon my own. + +"The watch will certainly have been notified by this time," I said to +myself, "for 'tis impossible that a dead body should lie so long in the +streets unperceived. Well, my uncle will have got hence scot-free, as +he is accustomed to do in despite of all justice, and of writs of +attachment, or of black Malpas either; which saveth my conscience a +toll, and so I hope there's an end of my dealings with him." + +Nevertheless I could not refrain from going part way down the hill +again, to see whether the body were indeed removed. And so it was, as +I had looked that it should be; though it occasioned me some surprise +to note that the door of the house now stood wide, while a little +within the threshold two other Chinese hung wailing and wringing their +hands in the most abject misery. + +Excited at this opportunity to learn the cause of the outrage I had +been so close a witness to, I went over to the men, and accosting them, +demanded whether the dead man were their friend; but to my question +they replied by never a word, at least not in English, but continued to +lament as before. I then made signs that I knew all that had befallen, +and at that they ceased, and soon nodded, making eager signs that I +should tell them more; whereupon I drew forth the knife from my bosom +and handed it to the man I stood closest to, who received it with an +exclamation of fury, passing it to the other with the one significant +word--_Skene_! The other Chinese now came forward, and in the intense +hatred that twisted his yellow face, I read the recompense that should +be meted out to the murderer if ever they two should meet. "Skene," he +repeated twice or thrice, tapping his long fingers upon the blade; and +then with a gesture, pointing inward to the house, whispered, +"Here--house;" by which I understood that this was a favourite +lurking-place of my uncle's, who no doubt hoped, upon any domiciliary +inquisition, to divert the vigilance of the officers by making parade +of these uncouth strangers as alone inhabiting there; or in the last +event, perhaps, intended to disguise himself in their clothing, and so +steal off. I could not but admire the ingenuity of the man, for all my +disgust of his countless villainies. + +Meanwhile, the two Chinese were engaged upon a ceremony that at first I +could not come by the meaning of, though I soon perceived it to be a +solemn vow they made upon the dagger, to avenge their dead comrade. +Which concluded, they gave me back my knife, and seemed to wait my +further direction. All passion had left their faces, that now appeared +serene and patient, as I think the features of those of that nation do +generally, so that it quite overtasks an observer to guess their mood, +whether it be bloody or peaceable. + +"Have you any English?" I asked after a pause, at which one shrunk up +his shoulders as meaning he had not; but the other replied with such +childlike boastfulness, "English--much--yes, yes--English," that I +could not forbear laughing. + +"Do you propose to return home by ship?" I asked slowly, and made a +motion with my hands as of a ship sailing. But this neither seemed at +all to comprehend. + +"China--Cathay," said I, somewhat at a loss how to suggest my meaning, +but immediately the one who had so much English, replied vehemently-- + +"Skene--yes, yes--kill!" + +There could be no question then that it was to be revenge at all costs, +for the other Chinese, taking up the word, cried out too: +"Skene--kill," which he followed up with a peck of his own Romany cant +that I made no pretence to attend. However, the upshot was that they +stood upon the fulfilment of their vow, and fully expected I should +direct them therein. Now, that I was equally determined I would not; +for little as I cared how it should go with my uncle Botolph, I had no +stomach to set two bloodthirsty strangers at his throat, to dispatch +him in cold blood. So, turning to my interpreter, I bade him in the +simplest terms I might find, to have a care what he did, for that we +lived under a just and peace-loving Queen, whose constables and guards +were sworn to prevent such private revenges as they planned; in the +which if they proceeded, they would themselves certainly be brought +into confinement. But in truth I might have spared my breath, for I +saw that no intelligence of my warning reached them, though they had +evidently strained their apprehensions to the limit to receive it. + +"Skene--kill," they said, when I had done, and without more ado went +into one of the rooms where they kept their stuff, and took each of +them a small curved sword with a marvellous long haft, which, though +they made no pretence to conceal them from me, they carefully hid +within the folds of their loose silken coats. + +"This must be thwarted," I said to myself, and debated how it should +best be done. At length I hit on a plan that promised, I thought, +fairly, which was that I should contrive to divide their forces; +sending forth him that had no word of our language by himself, one way, +to search (and lose himself amidst) the streets thereabout; but as to +the other that was perhaps the more dangerous by reason of his capacity +to put such sloven-mumbled questions as might nevertheless lead to his +discovering Botolph Cleeve (though it was indeed hardly possible): that +I should take him with me as far as to Wapping, where I might easily +fob him off with any tidings of Skene I should profess then to gather; +and so be rid of him. + +It needed no small skill of mine to put the case before them in such +sort as they should not guess the motive, but rather should approve the +advantage, of my design; and in the result I brought them to my view. +By this time it was perfectly dark without, though the room where we +remained was faintly illumined by a little bronze lamp fashioned like a +beast with a fish's tail, that one of the men had already lit. By the +uncertain light it afforded, I gazed in admiration of the scene, so dim +and vague, yet so deeply charged with purpose. We had left conversing +together, for the two men had things to do that needed no speech to +forward them. It was manifest that they would not return to the house, +and therefore they applied themselves silently to the selection of such +articles as seemed at once necessary and portable. So engaged, they +moved about the shadowed chamber, their silken dresses slightly +rustling, and their yellow, peering faces now and again bent towards +the lamp, as they examined some piece of worth that they would carry +away: caskets of sweet-smelling wood, or trinkets of silver, or else +some mere idle toy they had bought in an English shop, not of a groat's +worth but by them infinitely prized. What a satire was in this their +so contemptible a fardel, who would lightly toss away another man's +dear life! Amongst the many treasures they thus overlooked, and either +kept or rejected, was a jar of about fifteen or eighteen inches height, +six-sided, and very gay with painted devices of flowers and leaves; and +upon this jar one of the Chinese dwelt long in doubt, as it seemed, +whether it should be saved, for it was something cumbersome, although +not of any groat burden. However he took it up at last with the rest, +or rather exchanged it for some other trifles that might be of less +value, and so ended his preparation. + +"Let us begone," said I, and holding open the door, signed to the one +of them to leave the house, which he did; and after, we, that is the +man with the jar and I, left it likewise, directing our course towards +Wapping and the _Fair Haven_ Inn. + +For a considerable time we trudged along together in this way through +the deserted streets; I already more than a little weary of an +enterprise in which I had, as it were, enlisted under force and without +reason. The tumult of the storm, the murder, the strangeness of the +habits and Eastern features of the two men, the disability to converse +in a common tongue, by which one seemed to be pleading with the masked +presences of some horrid dream, all these circumstances combined to +deject my mind to a degree I have never since experienced; and I +deplored this new plan for my uncle's safety more even than I did the +one upon which I had set forth. I stole a glance or two at my +companion, but wrapped in his placid reserve he never so much as raised +his dull eyes to mine, nor showed himself scarce aware of my presence, +save by the precision with which he paced by my side. Once and again +he would shift the weight of the Chinese jar he carried in the slack of +his coat, or finger the hilt of his sword. + +As we approached near to the gate in the City wall, I became suddenly +apprehensive of the danger we ran into, and cast about in my mind how +to avoid the guard that, howsoever in ordinary times one might look to +be passed through without much question, yet now in these times of +suspicion would be sure to detain so irregular a pair as we that were +thus about to present ourselves. Accordingly I turned off suddenly +upon the right hand towards the river, and coming to one of the quays +(I think Smart's Quay), was lucky enough to find a skiff there moored, +which I loosed, and motioning the Chinese to get in, followed him and +pushed off. The tide was again on the ebb, having passed its height +about an hour since, and so without use of oars we drifted easily down +stream, until in a pretty short while we got to Wapping, where I ran +the boat ashore and leapt out. I could see the _Fair Haven_ about a +hundred paces ahead, and, although there was no light in Idonia's +chamber, as in precaution she had doubtless left it dark, yet could I +see the dim square of the window frame, and pleased myself with the +hope that she was yet waking, and thought upon me. + +A little path of turfs laid upon the piles that here restrain the +river-course led right forward to the Inn, and trusting to the security +which had so far attended us, I perhaps diminished something of the +wariness I should have used; but at all events, we had gone a bare +score of paces when I stumbled upon a man that lay crouched in the rank +grass of the turfs. Recovering myself speedily, for I had not quite +fallen, I accosted him angrily, who, without replying, but yet +obstructing the narrow path so that I could not get past him, drew +forth a lantern he held concealed in his cloak, and lifting it high, +regarded the pair of us, but me especially, closely. + +"One at a time is better than neither," he said coolly, and I heard his +blade grate in the scabbard. + +But even as he fetched it forth, the Chinese had his crooked short +sword out, and leaping past me with the swiftness of a cat, brought our +opponent down. Against the starry sky I could see his arm work forward +and back, as he plunged in and withdrew the steel. The lantern rolled +from the dead man's hand, but, not immediately extinguished, threw +exaggerated shadows of the grass-bents along the path. + +Horrified at the fury of his onslaught, I flung myself upon the +grovelling heathen, crying out-- + +"This is not your man, you fool! This is not Skene." + +"No, my nephew," he replied quietly enough and in perfect English, "but +it is that black thief, Malpas, that would have done the same for me." +And without awaiting my reply, he took up the Chinese jar, which in the +assault he had necessarily relinquished, and having carefully wiped it, +went whistling softly down the causeway to the silent Inn. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE "FAIR HAVEN" OF WAPPING + +My father once, reading in a favourite philosopher, paused with his +finger on a certain passage to ask me what I made of the sense of that +he should read; and so continuing his lecture aloud, rehearsed some +score of good reasons there set down, why a man should do virtuously; +but that, either way, the gods ruled the event. When he had done I +asked him in my turn whether the whole book were in that kind, to which +he answered that such was indeed the tenour of it, though there were +yet other reasons given besides those he had read. But while I was yet +considering of my answer, he intercepted it, himself replying for me. + +"You think there are too many reasons," said he smiling, "and that if +these the author calls gods take occasion to correct our errors we may +do as we please; but that if they do not so, then must we do as we can." + +Then stroking down his beard with his hand, he bade me do virtuously, +at least so long as I was in any doubt about the gods; "which," said +he, "is a question only to be settled in that manner." + +How many times since then I had recalled my father's grave and tolerant +irony, I know not, but it was not often; nor certainly had it ever +returned upon me with so compelling an insistency as now, while I still +stared after his evil-hearted brother, that murderer of the man at my +feet. + +"If the gods rule the event out of this business," I thought, "how will +it go with thee, my uncle?" So easy is it to apply to another the +precepts were meant for ourselves! And truly, when I contrasted my own +qualities with Mr. Botolph Cleeve's, I came near to forgiving him, so +eminently did he make my own uprightness to appear. + +Now, very greatly though I desired Idonia should know of my safe +return, I yet could not bring myself to leave Malpas thus exposed and +subject to every chance indignity by the wayside, nor was I willing to +carry him openly to the Inn or any house at hand; so that, after some +while's reflection, I decided to lay him in the boat I had come down +by, covering his face with the sailcloth, and after, to launch him out +into the ebbing stream. The night was clear above, the thunder having +wholly passed; but from a mounting wrack of cloud that peered above the +edges of the sky and a chill light wind athwart the river, I judged we +should have rain before morning, and so hastened to be done with my +task (which unspeakably revolted me) and get into shelter against the +oncoming tempest. Notwithstanding 'twas the better part of an hour ere +I had completed these hasty and suspicious rites, and had shoved away +the skiff with its gaunt recumbent passenger outward (or was it +homeward?) bound. + +These pious offices done, I turned with a sigh from the black hurrying +water, and approached near to the Inn. I was surprised to see that a +light now shone in Idonia's chamber, and from the shadows that now and +then traversed it, I understood that she was not yet retired to rest. +How then I might direct her attention to me without at the same time +attracting such attention of others as I might well enough spare, I +very earnestly debated; but at length, minding myself of the knife I +had got from the dead Chinese, I drew it forth; and having torn off a +great burdock leaf where it grew by the bank, pricked with the knife's +point the one word Denis (sufficient for my purpose, I thought), and +running the blade through the midst of the leaf, poised, and let fly +with it at the window. It struck the sill fairly, and hung quivering. +My heart stood still during the interval that succeeded, but when +presently that sweet small head appeared, all dark against the glory of +her hair, it leapt to my very throat for excess of joy. + +"Idonia," I whispered hoarsely, and came right beneath her window as I +spoke her name; "Idonia, I have come back." + +"Hush, dear," she besought me, and leaned forth from the sill, so that +a strand or two of her hair hung down and touched the letters of my +name in the leaf. "Do not speak again.... Oh, I have been waiting for +you, Denis! But you are come; I can see your face. I can see your +eyes..." + +"You speak as if you feared something," I replied, in disregard of her +warning. "Are you threatened with any danger?" + +"No," she said; "at least I do not comprehend what may be dangers here. +For it is a house of mystery. My guardian has but now left me. He is +disguised: I cried out when I saw him.... Oh, Denis, I am horribly +afraid here.... It is all so silent, and yet I know the place is full +of men." + +I hesitated no longer. + +"Is there anything by which you can make a rope?" I asked, "any sheet +from your bed, or clothing?" + +She caught at my intention. + +"Yes, yes," she murmured, nodding. "There is my cloak. I will tear +it." + +"They may hear the sound of the tearing," I said. "Do not move from +the window." And so, returning to the little slip or inlet whence I +had sent down the boat, I found the oars which I had removed from it, +and carried them with me to the house. Idonia could just touch the +blade of one with extended fingers when I held it out at arm's length. + +"It is too short," said Idonia, with a pitiful catch in her voice. + +I bade her keep her heart up, and, unclasping my belt, laced the two +oars tightly together where they were frayed hollow by the thole. The +joined staff they made reached high enough now, and without awaiting my +instruction Idonia caught it to her (I holding it upright) and swung +herself lightly to the ground. + +"Free, oh free!" came her cry of exultation, and a moment after we held +each other closely in a long embrace. Her lips were fire. + +"Oh, Denis, Denis, do not let me go, nor never leave you," she said, +and I (witless braggart) swore that nought upon earth should sever us. + +I led her up the turf path, sheltering her from the rain that had +already begun to fall thickly. My thoughts were all astray and I had +no plan of any sort, but still to have my arm about her, and feel her +yielding to my touch, as spent with love and weary with the pride of so +much given. + +A man must feel humbled by the magnitude of that he asks of a maid, but +all I could say was, brokenly: "I will try to be worthy, sweetheart." +Poor words, but she thanked me for them joyfully. She besought me to +let her rest soon, and we sat down by a weather-twisted pile at the +water's edge, for I could not run into the jeopardy that might lurk +amid the inhospitable dark houses of this place, where everything +oppressed with a sense of evil. My cloak kept off the worst of the +rain, but, as the rising wind swept across the river, Idonia shivered +with the cold. Nevertheless she lost not a whit of her gaiety, which +indeed seemed to increase with her distress, and she would laugh more +loudly than I thought was altogether safe at some odd construction put +upon my remonstrance in her wayward speech. I could not long disguise +from myself her condition of fever, which at the same time I knew not +how to alleviate; but more than once I caught myself wishing I had left +her that night at the Inn, where, for all her fears, she had not been +any way molested, nor, I now thought, would likely have been, her +guardian having returned, and Malpas beyond the power to annoy her +further. + +A little later, and quite suddenly, she relaxed her extravagant +hilarity, and fell into a moodiness equally to be pitied. She wept a +deal then, and seemed to have got a strange perception of the malignant +influences that surrounded us. The sound of the wind terrified her, +and she would shrink down whispering that something tugged at her +cloak. I did what I could to soothe and comfort her, but she only +shook her head, or pressed my fingers with her hot hand. + +But the worst was when, by some trick of the brain, she thought herself +back in the Inn-room again, when Cleeve had entered in his horrid +uncouth dress, and with his yellow face and hands. + +"He said he was my guardian," she ran on, in a dull low voice, "but I +knew he was no one of this world. He said it was a foreign habit he +had filched from a dead man he had been enforced to kill, and that he +used it to escape detection of the watch. Ah! it is all escaping with +us--escaping and killing! I knew he had some secret lurking-place near +the river; he has often said so, and that he went disguised when any +great danger threatened. The watch ... and yet he used to laugh at it; +but lately he has come to fear arrest: why is it? and so he killed an +innocent man and took his coat to save himself.... His eyes, when he +told me he had been waylaid at last, and almost at the Inn door! but he +killed that man too, he said: he hindering him. Christ! how his eyes +do sift you.... + +"These jewels in the jar, now, I know they have all been worn by men he +has killed. I remember them perfectly well. There is the great cross +the Spaniard wore; and these rings. I wonder when it was you murdered +him. He was a fair-spoken gentleman, and I thought you were friends... + +"I forgot. This is you, Denis, not he I call my guardian. I do not +think he altogether trusts me any longer, although he gave me the jar +to keep ... and I have left it behind in the Inn. It was worth a +king's ransom, he said, and ordered me to keep it by me until he should +have finished a certain work he had below, that would not take him +long. I have left it, and he will be angry ... I fear him, Denis. He +is calm as death when he is angry.... + +"And yet he can laugh too. He laughed when he told me of the Chinese +he killed, and how he dared his fellow to betray him. Oh, he made a +merry tale of it, and of his forcing the poor wretch to simulate a +desire to take vengeance upon a man that had fled--when it was he, the +murderer himself, remained behind! Yes, and he laughed at you, Denis, +until my blood burnt me ... I shall never forget his wrinkled heathen +face as he laughed." + +It may appear an incredible motion of my mind, but I could have cried +out for joy at a diversion which, then befalling, served to turn Idonia +from these crazed memories; albeit the cause was one properly, and at +another time wholly, to be feared. For chancing to lift my eyes to one +of the houses that be here builded by the water's edge, and serve +doubtless for the storage of marine stores and tackle, I saw a man, and +after, another, and then a whole posse of men armed with cuirass and +halberd, that advanced directly towards us. Idonia saw them almost at +the same moment, and seeming to recover her wits in the suddenness of +the danger, she broke off, and turned to me with a swift glance of +inquiry. + +"Quick," I whispered; "down by the piles to the beach," and helped by +the darkness of the night we scrambled off the path on to the ribbon of +wet bank beneath it, where we crouched, perfectly concealed from the +soldiers. + +"Halt!" cried a voice above our heads, and the trampling footsteps +ceased. "We be thirty men strong, and none too many for this business. +Anthony, take you twelve and post them before the door. Six men go +with Will Huet; see that none escape by the windows. There is a light +burns at one yet. I will take the complement and go within. Now mark +me well: our warrant is principally to the capture of Skene, alias +Cleeve, and one Guido Malpas, that was of the Earl of Pembroke's +household, but since discharged. He is a tall black man and a +dangerous. It standeth upon us to apprehend the whole sort that here +congregate together. They will make resistance and you will defend +yourselves, but for the rest I have it in my authority that no blood be +wasted needlessly. A live captive may prove useful; a dead villain is +nothing worth. The password is _At last_. Set on." + +Idonia had half risen from her place; she watched the retreating men as +they filed along towards the Inn. + +"I must warn him," she cried impetuously, and had clambered on to the +turf path ere I could let her. + +"What madness is this?" I urged, aghast. "You would yourself be +arrested or ever you could get sight of that devil." + +"Devil or no," she panted, while she struggled to unclasp my +restraining arms, "devil or no, he is my guardian. Denis, I cannot +stand by idle and see him taken." + +"Sweetheart," I entreated her, "you can do nought, indeed. They be all +armed men..." + +"Hinder me no more!" + +"Idonia!" + +"Oh, it is cowardly, cowardly!" + +"Listen," I said, appealing. + +"Ah, Denis, let me not thus, or you will kill me.... See! they are +close to the house already. A little while and..." Her voice rose to +a scream of absolute terror that I vainly sought to stifle against my +heart. She flung her head back; her hair, shaken from the filet and +caught by the wind, streamed betwixt us like a cloud. We stood long +thus. + +"Loose my wrists," she whispered, "or I shall grow to hate you, Denis!" +and methought there went a sort of awe with the words. I let her go, +when suddenly, with a sob, she dropped down unresisting into my arms. + +I knew she had spoken under the stress of her disorder, but none the +less her words hurt me like a lash. It had revolted me to use my +strength upon her, although in love, and to hold her so straitly +against her will, who but a moment before had been leaning in free +confidence beside me. The wind and rain were now increased to such a +pitch as I have scarce known: the dim bulk of the Inn hung in a mist of +swinging vapour, through which the glimmer of the one light aloft, +shining, touched the edges of the slanted pikes. + +Idonia was plucking weakly at my sleeve. Her eyes were pitifully big. +"You look distressed, Denis," she said, in a crazed dull voice. "Why +do you look so stern and sad? We are together.... I forget how I got +away, but that does not matter now, does it? Some one was holding me +by the wrist and hurting me. I cried out, and you came. You always +come when they would be hurting me.... It is very cold," she shivered, +and drew down more closely within my arms; all wet as her cheek was, +its fever heat burnt through to my bosom. + +"You cannot walk," I said: "I will carry you." But all the while I was +thinking: "Is her reason gone?" + +"Whither, Denis? To the Inn? It would be warm there, out of the wind." + +"God forbid!" I answered her. + +"Ah! no ... I remember now. He is there.... His yellow face, and his +eyes when he gave me the jar to keep! ... Denis, Denis, Denis..." + +And so, without any further effort to beat off the oppression in her +brain and blood, she fell away into a long swoon: so long, indeed, that +I had almost despaired of reviving her, when I bethought me of the Inn, +to which she had hoped I was about to bear her. There would be strong +cordial wine in the vault, I knew; and a cordial she needed instantly. +I might quickly go and return again with the wine--if the vent were but +open. + +The Inn was scarce ten score paces distant. There was some risk, +perhaps, but not great: less, surely, than I took, kneeling helpless +beside her in the bitter storm. I bent over her and kissed her +passionately on her eyes and lips and brow; and then I hastened away. + +Had I known the upshot then, I would rather have lost my right hand +than leave her; but that was in God's mercy hid.... + +To speak my bottom thought, I had hardly dared to hope that the shutter +were still unhasped: but yet it was, and yielded easily to my touch. I +felt a strange tightening of the throat as I pushed it back and leapt +astride the sill. The vault below me was wholly dark. Without more +ado I swung myself in. I missed my footing, fell, and lay stunned. + +How long a while elapsed ere I recovered consciousness I know not, nor +yet how long I remained in that intermediate state where things outward +be still denied for real. A confusion of sounds assailed my aching +brain, from which I recked not to gather any purpose or tendency. But +at length, my head having somewhat cleared, I recalled my situation, +where I was in the narrow passage-vault; and soon perceived that the +sounds I had heard were those of men in earnest conference within one +of the vaults adjacent, that had formerly been barred. The lamp which +had lighted the passage had been removed, and from the pale ray that +issued from the chink of the door, I saw it was now used for their +purposes who spoke together beyond. + +Without, the storm raged very furiously, so that there were times when +I could hear nought else; but otherwhiles, whatever snatches of debate +I overheard they went always to the continuous deep second of the wind. +Some instinct of security held me silent, and after a little I dragged +myself painfully along the stone floor, until I had my ear at the +chink. The halberdiers were certainly not of the party; they had +either not yet entered, or else had come and, failing to discover these +men's place of concealment, had gone. A man was speaking; a jovial +rough voice it was, interrupted now and again by careless laughter. + +"You mind me of that tale of the two robbers," said the fellow, and I +heard the clink of a cup set down, "that were engaged to set upon a +certain Canon who should pass through the wood they lurked within. Now +a passenger approaching, the one was for killing him out of hand, but +his companion, being something scrupulous, would not, but bade him stay +his hand until the man should sing. + +"'I care not a jot how he sing,' says the Captain-robber. + +"'Nay, by his singing I can tell in a trice whether he be a canon or +no,' says the robber-squire. + +"By this the passenger was got free of their ambush and into a place +where two sheriff's men met him, at which he swore for mere joy. + +"'I would he had sung,' says the squire. + +"'Go to, buffle-head!' cries the other in a great rage, 'for by his +swearing I know him for the Father Abbot himself, and better your +squealing Canon, by how much noon-sun surpasses candle-light.'" + +A round of hoarse merriment went to this shrewd apologue, of which I +was yet to learn the application; but waited not long for it. + +"So then, Cutts, 'hold to that you have,' is your advice, trow?" + +"Ay, abbot or traitor, or barndoor fowl," replied Cutts (who was none +other, I found, than he that had fled away from Dunster so long since); +"'truss and lay by,' says the housewife." + +"Well, you have me trussed already," said a mild voice, that for all +its stillness overbore the murmurs which greeted Cutts his policy; and +at the sound of it I caught in my breath, for 'twas my uncle that +spoke, and by his words I knew they had him bound. + +"I am not in case to do you harm, as a traitor, nor yet to benefit you +as an abbot," my uncle proceeded very coolly. "But if it seem good to +your worships to restore me my freedom, I have my proofs of innocence +at hand to show to any that professes to doubt my faith." + +"Too late for that, Master Skene," said another. + +"Ay, Captain Spurrier, say you so?" returned my uncle, with a little +menacing thrill in the sweet of his voice. "I had thought you that use +the sea knew that one must luff and tack upon occasion. Delay is +sometimes necessary, when haste would mean sudden shipwreck. Wherefore +then do you say I speak too late?" + +"Where is Malpas?" cried Captain Spurrier, and by the grating of a +chair I perceived he had started to his feet. + +"I had thought to meet him here," said my uncle. "Our design stays for +him." + +There was a dead pause at that, and I could not but admire the +fortitude with which the baited man met and countered his opposites. + +"He denounced you to this council, ere he went forth," said that subtle +voice of the tavern-server, "and upon such positive testimony as we +could not but allow it. If any lead this enterprise it is Malpas, and +not thou, old fox." + +"So thou use better terms, friend Jocelin," said Cleeve, "it shall not +be amiss, nor yet if thou answer me why it was I returned freely hither +amongst you all? Had I aught to gain from you? But rather had I not +all to lose? There is a warrant out against me on the Queen's part; +had I not done wisely, being so disguised as no man might know me, to +avoid this suspected house? Yet I returned. Our ship is to sail +to-morrow. Captain Spurrier is here in his place. What lacks of our +engagement? What hath gone untowardly? Is it Malpas his failure? I +ask of you in my turn, where is Malpas? Is it not strange that upon +such a night he should not be here to bear his part, as I do, and Lucas +Spurrier and Jocelin, and the rest? I say there is something I like +not in this defection; but yet it fears me not. Let them that be +faint-hearted stay away; this enterprise is not for cowards. Do you +lack a leader? You trusted me once. Malpas trusted me, for all he +cozened you into a belief that he did not so; but he is gone." He +paused, and then with so strangely intense a malignancy as, despite my +knowledge, I could scarce credit that 'twas assumed, he added: "Would +that I knew whither Guido Malpas hath gone, and what to do!" + +There was such clamour of contrary opinions, oaths and hot argument, +when he had done, that I could not tell how it went, but gradually +conceived the opinion that they believed him and were about to set him +free, when, to my utter dismay, I heard the door at the stairhead open +and heavy steps descend to the passage where I lay concealed. I +crouched down on the instant, but dared not move from the place, nor +indeed had the opportunity to retreat by one step, when the men were +already in the room; but so dark it was I could not see their arms (for +I doubted nothing of their being the halberdiers) nor their numbers +that entered. They set the door open of the inner vault and trooped in +upon the conspirators. + +I saw them now. They were men that bore a body. The tide had set in +again. The boat with its burden had returned upon the flood. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +HOW MY UNCLE BOTOLPH LOST HIS LUCK + +The tide had turned. The river had given up its dead. There was no +appeal from this distorted corpse, smirched with yellow so about the +throat and breast, where my uncle's painted hands had gripped him. +Wedged deep in the dead man's heart (I heard it said) a certain +significant shred of blue silk was found that had been drawn in by the +swinging blade, and torn from the murderer's sleeve.... After that +there needed nothing more, and my uncle's luck, which a moment since +had trembled to its apogee, shot downward like a portent star. + +My pretence to write calmly of the sequel, to use the ordinary speech +of every day, I support not as purposing to deceive, for it would +deceive none, but rather as impelled thereto, lest writing as I feel +(even yet after so long an interval) I should seem to set down frenzy +itself in character, and illegible wild words. + +But I may at least report my uncle's apology, as above the clamour I +caught the most of it; and here affirm that, lying infamous villain as +he was, yet so consummate a dignity did mark his every motion, and as +it were attended upon all the situations in which he stood, as enforced +respect of those even who knew him altogether base. + +His judges had found against him to a man. + +"Well, then, you have it," said he in his cold clear voice, "and are +content enough this Malpas should have died, so you bring me in his +slayer. You little men! I found a scorpion in my path and trampled on +him; that's the sum of my offending. Or is it not? Nay, I had forgot +the chief; that I would not betray my country, as you petty thieves +would have done, and thought I did. What will you get of the +Spaniards, prythee? Money, honours or what? Will those creeping +Jesuits bestead you? Oh, you have their pledged words! I had as much. +More; for I had their secret plans of conquest; their Enterprise of +England forsooth! as they sat gnawing their crusts in my hall. There +was to be an universal uprising of Papists, they told me; mutinies of +the Queen's troops, and such; baubles of a fool! + +"I have had my laugh, you scum, and I have lost. Well, then, what you +shall hear may hearten you belike, and move you to laughter. If I have +not been a traitor all this while, how have I been employed? Not +having abetted their designs, why did I entertain these strangers? Let +this example stand: there was the envoy Spurrier brought in, Don +Florida of Seville, a fine bold gentleman and apt to lead a squadron of +such orts as ye. He laid his plans before me openly. So, I took him +by the throat and strangled him." + +I make no attempt to describe the tumult of their rage who heard him; +sufficient, that it passed. + +"He was not singular in this business," the prisoner continued, "though +he was perhaps the properest man. But what a nasty sort of spies I had +in charge! I swear I think no starved lazar of Spain but was judged +fit enough to come ambassador among us, and parcel out our land; and +all the while you stood by grinning: When we be altogether conquered, +ran your thoughts, we shall each get his share! Eh, you jolthead +hucksters, was it to be so? + +"But I was your leader, and that was where I had my laugh. For no +single one of those you gave me into my keeping did I fail to slay save +only that poor crazed Courcy whom the soldiers robbed me of, and some +that the Council took alive. The residue you may reckon at your +leisure; they lie rotting in two fathom of Thames water, 'twixt the +Customers Quay and the Galley, ay, rotten as their cause.... + +"It were a pretty thought now that I should crave a favour at the +Queen's hands for stout work done in her cause, though secretly; ay, +and I would do it, but for two or three considerations that something +hinder me; namely, that my life otherwise hath not been altogether +law-worthy. And, moreover, there is these bonds, that, being I confess +very workmanlike bound upon me, render my present access to Her Majesty +less easy than I could wish; so that I doubt my defence of her realm +shall go unrewarded.... + +"In such a company as this there is sure one clergyman. Let him shrive +me, for I am not at all points ready to die.... Well, level your +pieces and be done with it. I care not how soon. Foh! but you handle +your weapons awkwardly; I should be ashamed, were I still your +leader.... How--what is that?" + +I had heard it too. "It is the soldiers come," I said to myself, and +strained my ears to listen for a renewal of the sound. Within the room +all expected in a sudden silence what should ensue. It came again; a +dull noise as of men that rammed at the door with a heavy beam. + +"I had thought they had gone," said one, in a thick voice. + +"'Twas a fetch of theirs." + +"The cellar door is strong," said the tapster Jocelin, but without +confidence. "It will last." + +"Until what time?" asked my uncle, mocking them. "And then, whence +will you escape, you rats?" + +One had blown out the light at the first alarm, and they conferred in +the absolute dark. + +"Ha!" cried Jocelin at that taunt of the prisoner's, and with a +squealing note of triumph, "there is the new door in the sea-wall to +escape by," and scrambling through their midst to the cellar door, he +bade his comrades follow him forth. But at the door he stayed, as of +necessity he must; for 'twas locked, and I that had locked it was +within the room now, in the dark, with the key in my pocket. I had +scarce time to slip aside, ere the next man had flung Jocelin by for a +bungler, and the third trampled him down. Over his prostrate body the +rest passed surging. Knives were out, for all had run distraught at +this unlooked-for prevention. Treachery by each suspected was by every +hand revenged. I heard the sobbing of stricken men, as I felt my way +along the wall to the place where my uncle sat yet pinioned to his +chair. And all this while the daunting clangour continued, as of a +giant's mallet beating on the door; nay, even upon the stones of the +wall, for the whole room shivered and rocked to the hideous repeated +sound. + +I unloosed my uncle, cutting his thongs with a cutlass I had kicked +against and groped after on the floor; a hand still held it, but I got +it free. + +"Who is that?" asked my uncle composedly. + +"Hist!" I whispered. "I am your nephew, Denis Cleeve." + +"You add to my obligations, Mr. Denis," he replied, and stretched +himself. "But how does my good brother the magistrate?" + +"Enough of that," I said curtly; "how be we to get forth?" + +"Why, I supposed you had provided for that," he said in some surprise, +"else I were as well bound as free." + +I asked whether he could lay hand on his sword, but he answered, +scoffing, that his enemies had saved him the trouble of using it; and +indeed that bloody unseen strife about the door saved us both for that +while. Presently he drew me a little apart into a corner where, he +said, we might discourse together reasonably and without molestation. +He cleared his voice once or twice ere he made known his mind to me +thus-- + +"When the soldiers shall break in, as nothing can long withstand such +engines as they have brought to bear, slip you forth, Mr. Denis, and +ascend immediately to a small retired chamber above the stair where my +ward lies, Mistress Avenon. Lay your modesty aside for this once, and +enter. If she wake not, so much the better; as 'tis better she should +know nothing. But I am a fool! for who may sleep on such a night of +hell? Anywise enter, and I will answer for it, she will not repulse +you as she did yon Malpas, the brave lass! + +"She hath in keeping a certain jar of mine, Denis, a toy, that +nevertheless I set some value on; this I would have you privily convey +to the house where the Chinese inhabited--I make no question but you +know where it stands. Do this, my dear nephew, and I shall confess +myself every way bound to serve you when I shall come to be +enfranchised of this place; for I myself may not undertake the bearing +off of this jar (it stands in a little cupboard by the bed, Denis, now +I think on't), my dress being not such, as wearing it, I might hope to +escape challenge of the guard, but with you, Denis, 'twill be a mere +frolick adventure." He laid his mouth close to my ear. "Besides, +there is the lass Idonia..." + +What more he might have added, I know not, for his beastly greed in so +safeguarding his wealth, and that at my risk, who had delivered him, +sickened me in such sort as I could no longer abide to hear it, but +left him, and going straightway forward into the screaming press about +the door, struck out a path for myself through the midst of them. At +the same moment the hammering without in one peal ended; the half of a +wall fell in, and through the breach thus made came a wavering and +intermittent light. + +Unspeakably astonished, I gazed about me, upon the dead and writhing +bodies that lay at my feet thus uncertainly illumined, and upon my +uncle, huddled up in his torn silken robe. But when I had averted my +eyes with a shudder to the breach in the wall, I saw a sight I may +neither forget nor endure the remembrance of; for it seemed to me that +there entered in by that way a figure--inhuman tall, black visaged, and +of a most cruel aspect. Perhaps for the space of a man's counting ten, +he leaned forward through the aperture, regarding us all in that +ghostly dimness, and then, with an equal suddenness, was gone, and the +light with him.... + +No one word passed our trembling lips, for all felt the horror of +impending destruction. Only the dying yet moved a little, stirring in +their blood, but even they soon lay still. Meanwhile, through the +great rent in the wall, the wind blew exceeding strong, so that +although at the first we had postponed all thoughts to that one vision +of the giant presence, we now perceived by the direction of the wind +and the saltness of it that it was the river-wall was down, and not (as +in our confusion we had supposed) the inner wall, by which the soldiers +must necessarily have assaulted us. + +I am not altogether sure who it was by this means solved the mystery, +but I think it was Captain Spurrier; howbeit we had not endured that +sweeping gale above an half-minute, before some one cried out that the +apparition was nothing else than the carven prow of the _Saracen's +Head_, that dragging at her moorings by the wharf had run against the +Inn wall and destroyed it; which was presently confirmed by the ship's +again battering us, but broadside, and not head-on as before. For as I +have (I think) already said, the Inn was jutted out to the extreme edge +of the _Fair Haven_ wharf, so that at the high tide there was a +deepness of water sufficient for any ordinary ship to lie alongside and +discharge her cargo upon the quay; the tide mark running a little below +the vault where we were, that else would have been suddenly flooded by +the inflow of water through the broken wall. Beyond measure relieved +that we were besieged by neither soldier nor devil, we could not +restrain our joy, and so by a common impulse moved to be gone, the +whole company of us that yet remained alive and able, ran forward to +the breach, and to the ship's side, having her starboard light to +further us that had formerly so stricken us into dismay. And thus by +this way and that, grasping at whatever projection of blocks and +shrouds lay to our hands, some helping and other hindering our escape, +we had at length all clambered up into the ship, save only that traitor +Cutts, who, upon a sudden lurch of the ship, was crushed betwixt the +bulwark and the wall, and so died. + +I looked about for my uncle, and soon found him, leaning over the rail. + +"Ha, Denis," said he coolly, "so thou art escaped. I had a notion +'twas thou wert crushed against the wall." + +"You mistook then," said I, and might have said more, had not Captain +Spurrier laid a hand upon my collar, the whiles he clapped his pistol +to my uncle's ear, and called out-- + +"Lay me these men in irons, Attwood. I am master on my own good ship, +if not in that fiends' compter." + +We were seized upon instantly and hurried down to the hold, where, +heavily shackled, we were thrown among such stuff as there lay stored. +The vessel rolled horribly, and often drove against the impediments +upon the bank with a dreadful grinding noise, but about morning, as I +supposed, they got her about, and into the stream, where, the tempest +somewhat abating, she rode pretty free, though what course she kept I +could not be certain in, and indeed soon gave over the attempt to +follow their purposes that had us so utterly in their power. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE VOYAGE OF THE _SARACEN'S HEAD_ + +Whatever the doubts I may at first have entertained, it was soon enough +abundantly clear that the _Saracen's Head_ was under way toward the +open sea; for from my place in the hold I could hear the shipmen +calling to one another as such and such a landmark or hamlet came into +sight; as the green heights of Greenwich; and Tilbury, where there was +a troop of horse at exercise, the which sight was occasion of a good +deal of rough wit amongst the crew. At the mouth of the Medway we +spoke a great merchant galley that was returned from Venice, and put in +to Rochester for repairs, she having come by some damage in the late +storm. Of the passage of time I soon lost count lying in the dark +bottom of the ship, where was nought to denote those petty accidents by +which we customarily reckon it. So I knew not positively whether +'twere day or night I waked and slept in nor whether we made good +progress or slow. For awhile I tried to keep measure of the hours by +our meals, as it might be three meals to an whole day; but this would +not hold neither, for there was no regularity in the serving of them, +they being brought us quite by haphazard and as they were thought on: +which was seldom enough, and the food so stale and nauseating, as led +me suppose we only received it by afterthought, or in such grudging +contempt as is sometimes termed charity. To do him right, I must allow +that my uncle took this reversal of his fortunes with a perfect +indifference; as no doubt in the like situation my father would have +done, though upon a loftier consideration; but however come by, his +patience shamed me, who could by no means attain thereto, nor I think +did seriously attempt it. My sufferings were indeed very great, and in +that voyage I conceived such a passionate disgust of the sea as hath +caused me to regard it as being (what in fact it is) the element the +nearest to chaos, and therefore the least to be accounted for +perfect--and yet perhaps not altogether the least, for I soon found +myself doubting if a man's stomach were every way a sound device; it +being very certain that mine often fell away into the original +incoherence that all things had before the Creation, or ever I had gone +three leagues from the shore. + +No loathing can compare with that a man experienceth at such a time, +when dinner is a greater insult than a blow. And I am ashamed even now +to remember the hate I cherished for the honest mariner that stumbled +down the companion bearing my platter of salt beef; which feeling found +its vent in my imagining a world of tortures for the bearer of the beef +and for all jovial ruddy mariners, and for every shipwright since the +days of Noah. + +Nevertheless, since into what state soever we come, we be so framed as +by degrees to acquire a sort of habit, if not a content, therein, so it +befell that I also, in due time, from my amazing and profound malady +recovered some fragment of a willingness to live. It might have been +the third or fourth day after, that I ate without such consequences as +I had supposed necessarily incident to the act, and life came to assume +an aspect wherein it stood on favourable terms with sudden death. This +surprised me, seeing that of late I had conceived life to be (at the +best) but a protracted and indefinite dissolution; and I ate again.... + +"The devil take you!" I cried to the fellow that had just entered the +hold with a handful of biscuits and a little rundlet of burnt wine. +"What a meal is that to set before starving men?" + +"Courage, master," said the mariner with a great laugh, "we be come +within but a few leagues of the Straits, and perhaps shall touch at one +of the Spanish ports, where we may better provision the ship than our +Captain thought it altogether safe to do, the night we set sail." + +"And shall we be released then?" I asked eagerly. + +The man shrugged up his shoulders with a grin, and for the first time +my uncle, who all these days had lain quite silent in the dark of the +hold, leaned over from his place among the stuff, and thus accosted me-- + +"Are you so great a fool yet? When the pawn is taken, it is cast +aside, and the game goes on. Teach your mind to expect nothing, and +your tongue to require nothing. There is an hell where they and I +shall meet." He paused a space, and then with an intensity of purpose +that held my blood in the veins: "We shall meet there," he added +slowly, "and shall need all eternity for that we shall there do. 'Tis +the privilege of hell that no enmities be in that place forgot, nor +forgiven." + +When the mariner had left us, I asked my uncle what he considered our +fate would be; who answered that, as it had been put into the articles +of the false contract he had made with Spurrier, that offers of help +should be made to the Spaniards, in the which embassage he himself had +promised (though he intended nothing less) to undertake the chiefest +part; so, he being now deposed, it was probable that Spurrier would +take upon him the fulfilment of that office. + +"In the which event," he said with great deliberation, "we shall +certainly be given over to those devils, to be clapped up in their +filthy dungeons, or else sent to New Spain, to work in the mines there. +You spoke of a release a little since; there is but one release from +this pass." + +We conversed in this strain from time to time; but ordinarily kept +silence. By the running out of a cable, we knew that we were come into +that harbour the seaman spoke of, and momently looked for the trap +above in the deck to be opened, and ourselves to be haled out to our +dooms. A curious sense of unreality came over me in this interval, yet +joined to a minute perception of all that passed, as though I could +actually see the same with my eyes. For I seemed to detect the +departure of our Captain, that went ashore; I heard the rattle of the +oars against the pins as he was rowed off. Later, I understood that he +was returned again, and with him another, whose step upon the deck was +firm and stately. His spurs jangled as he moved. "It is the Governor +of this Port," I said to myself, "and they debate of treason together." + +The most of the crew hung about amidships; the principal persons being +upon the quarterdeck, and there remaining a great while. Some little +movement as of men dissatisfied, I noted later; and then there was the +business of the Governor's leaving us, I supposed to consult with +others, his lieutenants, upon the quay. + +Presently I was startled by the firing of a cannon, which made our ship +to reel as she would have split, and there was trampling and shouted +words of command. Spurrier's bargain had failed. + +"They had best have left it," said my uncle with a sneering laugh, when +he saw how things had gone. "A greedy boastful knave as Spurrier is, +none will be matched with. I know this Governor well, if this place we +be come to be, as I think, Puerto Real. 'Twas his brother I slew, Don +Florida. He would inquire after him, like enough, and wherefore he had +not returned into Spain, to which Spurrier would answer him astray and +then lie to mend it; a paltry bungler as he is! I might have played +this hand through, Denis, had I chosen. But being no traitor I would +not. Well, let them look to their stakes!" + +It may appear a strange thing, but 'tis true, that our old animosity +had quite sunk between us and although we used no particular courtesy +in our scanted speech, yet my uncle and I nevertheless found (I +believe) an equal pleasure in our enforced companionship. In the +presence of almost certain death, whether men fear or contemn it, there +is in the mere thought of it a compelling quality that directs the mind +to it only; and where two minds be thus constrained to the same point, +along whatever paths they may have moved, there is of necessity a kind +of sympathy betwixt them, and a resolution of their differences in that +common attent. + +Succeeding upon that firing of the great gun there was an immediate +confusion wherein we in our dungeon were wholly forgot. A cannon from +the fort answered our challenge a while after, but by its faintness +'twas easy to suppose we had got a good way out of the harbour and thus +were free from any present danger from a land attack. But whether +there were in the roads gathered any vessels of war that might do us +harm upon the sea we could not conjecture, though it appeared not +altogether likely, or at the least that they were not at all points +prepared upon the sudden to give chase. Our main fear lay in the +probability that, the alarm being given, messengers would be dispatched +to all points of the coast, with particulars given of the rank and +appearance of our ship, in order that, attempting to sail through the +Straits into the Mediterranean or to slip away again northward, we +should be made to answer for our gunnery salute in such sort as would +hardly please us. + +But however these considerations affected his two censors in the hold, +Captain Spurrier was evidently nothing moved thereby, who warped his +ship as it were along the very shore with a most insensate impudency +until he had her within the narrow waters about Gibraltar, where a man +could have slung a stone upon our decks, so nearly did we venture +ourselves into the enemy's power. Nay, a general madness seemed to +have grown to possess the whole crew, so disappointed were they of the +outcome of their late negotiations and proffers of treachery; and no +folly that presented itself to them, but they took it as a drunken man +takes water, feverishly. Thus our cannon were continually being shot +off, not of offence but for the mere show of bravery it put upon us; +and so likewise of defence, there was no order taken nor was any +especial guard kept, so far as we could tell who knew not the watches, +but yet could distinguish well enough the sounds of cups clinking and +of quarrelling and curses. Indeed I doubt whether, at any hour of this +our frenzied voyage, had a cock-boat of resolute men put out to +intercept us, we should not have been made prize of, before we were +aware that opposition was so much as offered. + +In the meanwhile we in our chains were, as I say, left undisturbed; and +as hour after hour went by the hunger we suffered increased so that I +think another day of such absolute privation, and of the burning thirst +that went with it, would have ended our business altogether. Yet it +was to this incredible affliction we owed our resolution to get free, +come what would thereafter. + +I must have fallen into some raving speech, that served to make +manifest to my uncle the abject condition I was in, for before I knew +of it, he had dragged himself over to me, and with his skeleton fingers +had loosened the band at my throat and chafed my hands together between +his own. + +"Oh, let me die," I cried fiercely. + +"You are like to," said he, without the least resentment; "but if you +will take the advice I shall give, you will either notably increase +your chances of it, or else will get what is hardly less to be desired, +I mean food." + +Too faint to demand what he intended by that, I lay still, careless +whether he made his purpose clear or not. + +"Seeing that we cannot get off our irons," he went on, "we must eat or +die, bound. Now I believe that it is night and most of the crew drunk. +If it be so, we shall get food enough and perhaps our freedom too. If +it be not so, you shall have your will presently and die; for it is you +who must go above, Denis, seeing I cannot do so, that have my ankle +broke with this cursed chain." + +I got upon my feet, all confused as I was and sick with famine; but his +greater courage moved me to obey him in this if I could, though I +expected but little good of it. + +"They will hear my chains," I said. + +"I will muffle them," he replied, and tore off three or four strips of +his silken coat that he yet wore, and with them wrapped up the links in +such sort as I should move along without noise, though still heavily. +After that I left him, going up the ladder to the trap in the roof of +the hold, which none had troubled to make fast, knowing, or at least +believing, that we were safe enough in our shackles, without further +precaution taken. + +It was indeed night, as my uncle had supposed; and such a night as +seemeth to lift a man out of his present estate, so limited and beat +upon by misfortunes, and to touch his lips with a savour of things +divine. There is a liberation in the wide spaces of the night, and a +glory unrevealed by any day. + +I stood awhile where I was upon the deck, simply breathing in the cool +air and taking no thought for my safety. A gunner lay beside his gun, +asleep with his head upon the carriage; I could have touched him with +my outstretched arm.... + +I looked about me. We were riding at anchor in a little bay that from +the aspect of the stars I took to be upon the Moorish side of the +Straits: an opinion that became certainty when I gradually made out the +form of that huge rock of Gibraltar to the northward and the +mountainous promontory which lieth thereabout. There was no wind at +all, which something excused the slack seamanship that was used amongst +us, and in this principally showed, that our sails were but some of +them furled up, although we rode at anchor; and the rest of them hung +flat upon the yards. The moon had not risen, or was already set, but +there was that soft diffused pallor of the stars by which, after +awhile, I could see very well. In the general negligence the ship's +lanterns were left unlit, but the gunner had one beside him, and also +(what imported me more to find) a few broken morsels of bread. To +carry these and the lantern down to the hold was my next concern, and +was happily effected; but I judged my enterprise incomplete until I had +got wine, or at least water, to wash it down, for even less to be +supported than our hunger was our horrible scorching thirst. + +Now, how I should have fared in my quest of that commodity I know not, +seeing I did not proceed further in it than just so far as the +prostrate gunner, whose leg in passing I chanced to touch and so woke +him. He raised himself on his elbow, grumbling that he was +o'er-watched, and would stand sentinel no more for all the Moors in +Barbary. Upon the impulse I fell upon and grappled with him, managing +the chain betwixt my wrists so that I had his neck in a loop of it, +upon which I pulled until his eyes and mouth were wide and the blood +pouring from his nose. Gradually I slackened my hold to let him +breathe, for he was pretty far gone. + +"You must knock off my irons," I whispered, "or else I will strangle +you outright," and made as if to begin again. + +He was beyond speech, but made signs he would do it, and implored me +with his eyes to desist. Then he made me to understand that his tools +were abaft in the gunroom, so that I was fain to follow him thither, or +rather to go beside him with my arms about his neck like a dear friend. +We encountered some dozen men in the way, but all sleeping, save one +that I made my captive put to silence, which he did very properly and +workmanlike. + +Not to be tedious in this matter, I say that at length I stood free; +for the which enfranchisement when my man had perfected it, perceiving +that he was like to be called in question, he fell on his knees before +me and besought me to let him escape with me. + +"I have had pity of you many a time," he cried, "when, but for me, you +must have starved;" which was indeed true, he being the bluff ruddy +fellow that had brought us our meals from time to time. + +Nevertheless I would not altogether promise to do as he wished, but +commanded him first to fetch drink and more food to my uncle, and to me +too; which when he had done, I told him we would at our leisure +consider of the success. + +"At your leisure, quotha!" cried the man, whose name was Attwood (a +Midland man and a famous forger of iron as I found). "'Twill be but an +hour ere the sun rise." + +"Whither are we bound?" I demanded. + +"To some port of Italy," he replied, "or Sicily, as I think. But upon +our voyage it is intended to snap up whatever craft we shall encounter +and may not be able to withstand us; at which trade, if it prosper, it +is purposed we shall continue, and perhaps join with others that do the +like. And to this course our Captain is principally moved by one, a +rascal Greek, that affecteth to have knowledge of a certain stronghold +and harbourage in an island to the northward of Sicily, where he saith +he is acquainted with a notable commander of armed galleys that should +welcome our adherence." + +"Bring forth our supper therefore, Master Attwood," said I, "for if not +now, I see not when we shall eat it." + +We ate and drank very heartily together; for we made Attwood of the +company, who knocked off my uncle's chains and bound his ankle very +deftly betwixt two battens to set it. Our conversation was naturally +upon what should be our means of escape, which would have been settled +out of hand had it not been for my uncle's broken bone that prevented +his swimming ashore as else we might have done; for our cock-boat had +been lost at the start in the gale, and we had nothing of which to make +a raft, or at least none we could get loose without risk of alarming +the crew. + +But as was usual my uncle gave the word by which we were ready to +abide, and that was that I should swim to shore alone and seize upon +one of the boats that would certainly be to be found drawn up on the +sands (for we lay close under the shore), and with this returning with +all dispatch, take them off that awaited me. Accordingly, I let myself +down by the side, Attwood assisting me, and swam toward the shore. But +scarce had I set foot upon it, when I saw a long boat, filled with a +troop of half-naked Moors, that rowed out from beyond the point and +aimed directly for the vessel I had left. + +Without any other thought but to save them if I could, I shouted to +Attwood that they were threatened by the Moors, and the distance being +as I say but small betwixt us, he heard me, and ran to his cannon. But +the stir he made aroused two or three of the mariners, so that soon all +stood upon their guard to defend themselves. The Captain ordered the +gunner to lay to his piece and sink the enemy, but they got away in the +dark, and so nothing was done. However, the Captain, who was greatly +affrighted by this accident, called out to them to weigh anchor, for he +would presently be gone; and about sunrise, a wind springing up, he +loosed from his moorings and made away eastward under all sail. + +Now, if it be admired why I neither returned to the ship, rather than +remain alone in this barbarous unknown country, nor yet extended a +finger to help my uncle and Attwood to their freedom, I must answer +that it was because I could not. For I had not stood above three +minutes upon that starlit shore, ere I was seized by two Moors, that +carried me with them to a rough hutch of skins they had hard by the +quay. And here they told me, by signs, I must await their king and by +him be judged for my swimming ashore in the night; which manner of +reaching the country was, I understood, as well open to suspicion as a +notable infraction of the rights of the licensed ferrymen. They seemed +to be honest fellows enough, and except that they kept me in pretty +close ward in the tent, treated me, in all else, very well. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE TEMPLE BENEATH THE WATERS + +Now, had I but had the luck to know it, my two captors were themselves +of this guild of the ferrymen whose rights they so stoutly stood by; +and I could have obtained my freedom at any hour of the night for +two-pence: the statutory passage money of which I had unwittingly +defrauded them. But upon this twopence saved were to depend many +events I could well have spared, together, too, with much I yet thank +Heaven for; so small a matter doth our fate require (as a rudder) to +steer us by along what course she will.... + +The sun came up, as I say, in a little fresh scud of wind, and athwart +the golden dancing waters went the good ship the _Saracen's Head_, fair +and free; while I, her supercargo, remained behind in this +evil-smelling tent of half-naked and infidel Moors; cursing the +mischance that had led me thither, and altogether discouraged. + +The thought of Idonia, that amid all the distractions of my late +captivity on board the ship had been predominant over all, affected me +more than ever now, as I sat in this pure light of dawn, in a perfect +silence save for the little lapping of the waves. I remembered the +wild look of love that her eyes had held, when she said: "Free, oh, +free!" and: "Denis, Denis, do not let me go!" I caught again the +drooping lassitude of her posture, when, spent by the varying terrors +of the night, she had swooned in my arms. For the thousandth time I +reviewed the dangers that threatened her, the bitter cold of the rain, +insults of the soldiers, her wandering wits and the nearness of the +river. To this was added a fearful burden of doubt whether I should at +all be suffered to return home, to seek her; knowing as I did that not +two or three, but many men that had set foot upon this coast, had been +sold as slaves or slain outright; while others, to escape the seeming +worst, abjuring their faiths (as Nelson the Yeoman's son had done), had +embraced the false religion of this country and by that currish means +gained favour and furtherance in their servitude. It seemed to me a +strange thing, as I sat in this place where all around was peace and +grave silence, that so small an interval might separate me from such +intolerable cruelties as we in England had oftentimes heard tell of as +continually practised by the men of these parts; and I in particular +had listened to this sort of tales, by the mariners of our Company +narrated, when, as I was used, I went to meet them and bring them to +Osborne the Governor. But there is (I find) a surprising declension +from the amusement got by hearing of the customs of other nations, to +that is got by going where they are practised; and I settled it in my +mind at that time (nor have I ever exchanged the opinion) that what +lieth beyond the West Country is of very small account; always +excepting the City of London and the Berkshire downs. + +Now when the sun had been risen about an hour, I perceived some stir to +grow in the town, and men to begin going about their daily business. +From the petty harbour I saw a barque or two warping their way out, and +was marvellous surprised when, presently, that great boat that had +rowed, as we all supposed, to the attack of the _Saracen's Head_, +returned very peaceably to the quayside laden with a fine catch of +fish; by the which it manifestly appeared that they were no robbers, +but a company of Moorish fisherfolk that had gone before daybreak to +cast their seines; and as the sequel showed, to good purpose. + +I laughed aloud at the error into which I had fallen, and the more when +I imagined with what consternation these simple men would have received +Master Attwood's cannon shot, had he prosecuted his intention and fired +it. + +My two guards looked upon me with some anxiety, when they saw me +laughing in this manner, and spoke together in a low voice; after which +the one of them got up softly and went away. Something perturbed, I +questioned the other man, by signs, that being our only method of +converse, whither it was he went; who answered, similarly, that he was +gone to see if the king were yet awake, and ready to administer justice +in my cause. I should have sought to learn more, had I not chanced to +observe upon one of the ships that lay by the wharf, a flag hauling up, +at which sight I was filled with an excessive joy; for it was the +English flag; and the ship, when I had more particularly noted her, one +of our Turkey Company's merchant vessels, namely, the _Happy +Adventure_, seventy tons burden and very sound craft. + +Leaping to my feet, I made signs to my Moor that these were friends of +mine who would speak for my general probity, and at the same time +offered him three or four pieces of silver (all I had) the better to +enforce my request. + +Never have I seen a man so metamorphosed as he, who, expecting at the +utmost to receive his legal two-pence, had suddenly thrust upon him a +handful of crowns. From a petty evader of duties, I became in his eyes +a fountain of generosity, and prince of swimmers. He fell prone on his +face before me in the sand, and covered my shoes with kisses, naming me +in his language his eternal benefactor, the light of his life, the +supporter of his age (or if not these then what you shall please, for I +understood nothing of it all save his cringing and kissing of my toe). + +Now while he was thus engaged, his companion returned together with him +they called their king, but was only an ordinary Moor to see to, +extremely fat (which is perhaps a sign of pre-eminence in these parts) +and abominably filthy. He had two curved swords stuck in his waist, +and wore a patched green cloak. + +But when he saw who it was approached, my newly purchased friend left +kissing me, and did obeisance to his king, very reverently saluting him +with his hands raised to his forehead; and the king in his turn bade +him, as well as he could for lack of breath, be at peace. Which done, +a long debate ensued among the three of them wherein my gratuity was +displayed and commented upon, with a great show of delight by the Moor, +with astonishment by the king, and with an uncontrolled disappointment +by the Moor that had gone to bring him. By the greedy looks with which +he, and soon the king too, regarded this chiefest feature of the case, +I understood that my acquittal was likely to depend upon the nature of +the evidence (that is the amount of the bribe) I could bring in, to +satisfy my second accuser, and after him the Judge. But satisfy them +in this kind I could not, for as I have said, I had imprudently parted +with my entire wealth to my first accuser, who, as I am assured, would +have been perfectly content with half a groat. The fat king, without +the least disguise, but pointing to my unlucky crown-pieces, told off +upon his fingers the rate at which I might obtain my discharge, while +the ferryman, whom anger seemed to have robbed of speech, convulsively +gripped at the haft of a very dangerous long knife he had, as if to +demonstrate the province of effective law. + +What course I might have followed herein I am not careful to imagine; +enough that it was decided for me by one of the ship's company of the +_Adventure_, who, observing us, came over a little way to see what +should be the occasion of this argument. To him then, without delay, I +dispatched my Moorish friend I had suborned, praying the mariner to +hasten to my assistance. And no sooner did he see the English pieces +in the fellow's hand than he understood it was a countryman of his in +peril, and so called together the rest of his crew, or at least such as +were within hail. A little after, therefore, I was set free, the whole +company coming about me, and thrusting away the poor fat king, that +they told me was but a petty chieftain, of no authority at all, except +that he took the half of the harbour dues; which being a mere pittance, +however, he was fain to eke out the stipend with the selling of sweet +oil and justice, as either was called for. + +But when they heard I was employed by the Turkey Company, as they were, +and moreover was acquainted with Sir Edward Osborne, whom every one +greatly honoured, there was no end to their protestations of +friendship; and in especial the master of that voyage, one Captain +Tuchet, offered to carry me with him to England; albeit he must first, +he said, finish his trading in these waters, as he had engaged to do. + +I thanked him very heartily for his kindness, and, at his request, +opened with him at large of my imprisonment on board the _Saracen's +Head_, and of all matters I have above set down, which he heard very +patiently and advised himself of the principal outrages that were +either committed or intended by Spurrier and the rest. He was a short, +squat man, of a very heavy appearance and so dull an eye that I had set +him down for almost a fool before he showed me pretty convincingly that +he was not, but rather of a nature at once astute and undaunted, he +being indeed at all points a commander and worthy of trust. + +"So you tell me that these gentlemen purpose to join themselves to a +certain pirate of note," he said, blinking his thick-lidded eyes, as we +leaned over the rail of his high deck. "And where might he be found, +prythee?" + +"It was upon some island, as I remember, to the northward of Sicily," I +answered. + +"'Tis as I thought then," said he, "and having a part of our cargo to +discharge at Amalfi, we will read our instructions something more +liberally than we be wont to do, and shape our course toward--well, +should we chance to make this island of yours upon the way, there's no +harm done, Master Supercargo;" and he blinked again. + +"You will give them chase?" cried I. + +"We be men peaceably inclined at all times," replied Tuchet, closing +his eyes altogether, "and I should be sorry if resistance to our +demands led to bloodshed." + +"But my uncle..." I said and hesitated. + +"Is a reasonable villain by all accounts," replied the Captain, and so +for that while dismissed me. + +The news that we were to alter our course in order to the end I have +named, soon spread amongst the crew, who one and all rejoiced at the +prospect of fighting it offered them; that being a luxury not often to +be indulged in upon a merchant ship and therefore the more highly +prized. From the mate I learned that there was an infinite number of +such secret nooks and fastnesses by pirates and desperate thieves +infested, in this sea, and that to any ordinary man it would appear an +absurd thing to attempt, from amongst so many, to discover the +particular refuge that Spurrier might affect. "So that were it not for +some hint we have to go upon, which our Captain thinks sufficient, we +might indeed run far astray; though now, if we do, I shall greatly +admire it." + +"Upon what place hath he fixed as likely?" I asked. + +"'Tis a little rock among the Æolian Islands," he answered me, "for it +is indeed hardly more than a bare rock. The people name it the Three +Towers, because of certain watch-towers formerly set up against the +Saracens and yet remaining: as you may see them likewise in Amalfi, and +other places too. It hath a fair anchorage and haven and a flat strip +of good land where they used to cultivate vines before the robbers took +the place and killed the islanders. There was a pleasant village there +among the vineyards, and a temple, nigh perfect, of the old heathen +gods. But now all is in ruins, except that those men have retained for +their safeguard, or for the storage of their treasure." + +"You seem to know their lurking-place pretty well," said I, with a +smile. + +He let the jest pass, it being none to him as I soon learned. + +"I should know it, master," he replied, "having lived there, and there +married and had children. 'Twas those devils of pirates drove me forth +... but not my wife. My children they slew in the room where the +wine-press stood. I think if we fall in with that company, sir, by how +much soever their number exceed ours, we shall yet get the better of +them, God helping us." + +All that day we held our course eastward, with a pretty strong wind +following, so that we had got about seventy or eighty miles from the +port by sunset. The night also continuing fair, with lucky weather, we +made a further good progress, by which the Captain hoped, within two or +three days at the most, we should make the Island of Tre Torre (that +is, the Three Towers aforesaid), and therefore set every one to the +preparing of his weapon, and the hauling up of the powder from the +magazine. + +For my part, while these preparations were making, I was full of heavy +thoughts, for it must needs be in this imminent battle that my uncle +and I should be opposites, who but lately were become friends. + +I doubted indeed whether Spurrier would grant him liberty to fight; but +the alternative was rather to be feared, namely that, unwilling to be +cumbered with the ward of prisoners at such a time, the Captain would +rid himself of him before the fight should begin. But either way I +certainly could not refuse to draw my sword against these pirates +merely because my uncle was kept prisoner by them, and especially since +our quarrel was like to extend to all such robbers as should choose to +take sides with Spurrier against us. It appeared indeed a mad +impossible enterprise we undertook, and had it not been for the extreme +faith all our crew had in Mr. Tuchet, I might perhaps have gone the +length of protesting against the risk we ran. + +However I did not, and am glad that I refrained, for no man loveth to +be thought a coward, though some that are not be content to appear so +in a noble cause; which I think is the greatest degree of courage a man +can attain to. + +Now, about the fourth morning, when the watch was changed, I being one +of those appointed to serve that turn, we remarked that the sky, which +until then had been quite clear, was now spread over with a thin haze, +such as ordinarily intendeth an excessive heat; and indeed as the day +wore on it became oppressively hot, the vapour remaining the while, or +rather withdrawing to an unusual height, so that there was no mist upon +the waters, but merely a white sky for a blue one. At noonday this +strange whiteness of the heavens became charged with a dull copper +colour particularly to the eastward, and the wind died away suddenly, +leaving us becalmed. + +Tuchet summoned the mate to him, to the upper deck, and held him long +in consultation of this mystery, presently calling me too to join them +there, when he put two or three brief questions to me as touching the +rig and burden of the _Saracen's Head_, which, when I had answered, he +resumed his conference with the mate, jerking his finger impatiently +toward some object far out to sea. + +I followed the direction of his finger, and at last perceived right +upon the clear line of the horizon a grey blot, that might have been a +rock or ship, or indeed anything, so great was the distance of it from +us. + +"I cannot tell," said the mate; "but I think 'tis not so big." + +"Tush!" said the Captain. "Consider it more closely." + +Again I strained my eyes for any indication of sail or hull that should +resolve my doubt; but even as I gazed the thing was lost as completely +as though the sea had opened to swallow it. + +"Why, 'tis gone!" I cried. + +Neither of the men spoke for a while, but after a full half minute the +mate said in a low voice-- + +"Yonder comes the eagre," meaning, as I learned afterwards, that great +wave that sometimes comes with the high tide, and is otherwise named +the Bore; the cause of it none knoweth certainly, though it is said to +follow upon an uncommon meeting of tides, or else is rolled back by +earthquakes and such-like horrid disturbances and visitations of the +Almighty. + +"Strike sail, lads," shouted the Captain, "and close up all hatches; +there's tempest at hand." + +We did what we could, but the time was brief enough, so that before we +had well concluded the wave struck us. The ship seemed to be lifted +like a plaything and tossed about as lightly as though a giant had put +forth his hand from the deep and flung us. Three men were washed +overboard at the first assault and our mizzen mast burst asunder, which +falling, grievously hurt one that stood by, who a little after died. + +Meanwhile the calm that had previously held us bound, was exchanged for +a furious hurricane worse almost to withstand than the shock of the +eagre-wave itself. The sky was now as black as night, with great +hurrying clouds urged on as it seemed by the pitiless goad of lightning +that lacerated them as they thundered by. Wave after wave swept over +us as we rose and fell, abject and waterlogged, now lying low in the +lane of waters, now impelled to the summit from which we looked forth +as from a falling tower in whose ruin we were presently to be +involved.... + +I cannot relate all that followed, for a spar struck me senseless, and +when I recovered we were riding in an untroubled bay, under a lee +shore. Too sick and weak to question those that stood about me, I +nevertheless could not but note the amazing beauty of the scene. Upon +an eminence a grove of palm trees stood out against the blue of the +sky, while upon the slope of this hill and below it to the water's edge +extended the buildings of a city, dazzling white and magnificently +builded with long arcades and lofty gateways and tiled domes. At first +I supposed we had been carried by the storm backward to that Moorish +port where I was held captive, but soon I perceived that this place +greatly exceeded it in splendour and apparent wealth. The city, in +fact, was Argiers, whither we had been carried wide of our course by +the stress of the storm: but being here our Captain thought fit to make +good our ship that was pretty near stove in. Some nine or ten days in +all we stayed, during which I not only regained my health but took an +infinite pleasure in going about in the town, which was like nothing I +had ever seen or imagined, so white it was, and so strangely supported +upon deep arches that caught the shade at all hours; and having high +towers with balconies, from which a man called these poor infidels to +prayer. The flies were abominable, and the stench incredibly +offensive; but saving these things, Argiers is a good town, and the +people of it (that is, the men, for I saw no women) very grave and +orderly. + +Our masts and timbers made good at length, Mr. Tuchet called the crew +aboard, and bade them cast off the hawser that held us, which was soon +done, and we departed. And because of the privilege extended to me and +the favour of the Captain, I left the common seamen and went upon the +deck that the Captain used, who spoke cheerily to me, saying he hoped +we should meet with no more disasters on this voyage. I laughed and +said I hoped not neither, and asked him when he thought we should come +to Amalfi; for it never entered my mind that he would prosecute his old +purpose of going against the pirates. + +"To Amalfi?" said Tuchet, scratching his grey stubble beard. "Oh, +about a week hence, Mr. Denis, if we get done with your uncle by +Thursday, as I expect to do." + +Nothing deterred him when he had once resolved upon any course, and I +am assured that had we lost half our complement of men and all our +ammunition, he would have gone into it with his fists. The Thursday +then, having doubled the Cape of Marsala, which is the westward point +of Sicily, we came amongst the Æolian Islands to the very hour Tuchet +had named; and towards evening we clearly descried the little rocky +islet of the Three Towers; whereat every man grasped his weapon, and +the gunner ran out his long brass piece. 'Twas no time for the conning +over of moral sentences but rather of rapid silent preparation; yet I +could not but feel the solemnity of this our slowly sailing onward +through the still autumn evening, whose outgoing seemed so sweetly +attuned to that praise for which the Scripture saith it was created, +but which for us meant no more than an unlucky light to shoot by. For, +as more than one stout fellow whispered, our ship having the sun behind +it was a mark for any fool to hit, while we upon our part could +distinguish nought upon that barren rock but the crumbled watch-towers +that crowned it. + +Without a word, we stole on. It was dangerous navigation, for there +were said to be sunken reefs to the westward (that is the nearest to us +as we came from the west), where the rock divided into two horns or +spurs, that, jutting out into the sea, enclosed the little parcel of +flat land where the vineyards used to be and the ruined temple. The +harbourage lay a little to the southward behind the right-hand spur I +have noted, and was therefore not yet to be seen; though we, +approaching so closely, must have been perfectly visible to any one +that lay concealed amidst the innumerable lurking-places and caves of +the rock. + +The mate, who knew the island but too well, had gone forward, but now +returned to us, that is to Tuchet and me, upon the high deck. His face +was very white. + +"The shore hath sunk," he said. + +"What do you mean?" cried Tuchet, turning about sharply. + +"Vineyard and all gone; our cottage and the garden where my boys +played.... The eagre hath whelmed them." + +"But the wave hath long since receded, man; it cannot be! You have +mistaken the place belike." + +"Mistaken!" repeated the mate with a hard laugh. "I tell you the whole +island hath been disturbed; its foundations shaken--Lo, there!" he +cried out. "A whole cliff hath gone down in the earthquake; and there +is driftwood under the headland, of wrecked ships." + +And even as he had said, so it was. + +For the late upheaval had had its origin in the recesses of this barren +rock, which it had burst open as a robber bursts forth from his ambush, +and loosed that charging hurricane upon the sea. And indeed not this +island of Tre Torre only, but all these islands to the northward of +Sicily be so eaten under by fire, and liable to sudden calamity +therefrom, as none may properly be named habitable, though the most of +them be inhabited in despite of almost constant threatenings, until, as +this place was, they be at length in a night destroyed. + +We sailed about the place in our ship, but found no living soul, and +night soon after falling, we were fain to use the shattered remnant of +the pirates' harbour, where we lay till the morning, very sad and +perplexed. + +But a great while before full day I rose up alone and went ashore, in +the hope to light upon some vestiges of my uncle, or if not of him, +then of any of that infamous crew of the _Saracen's Head_. From the +one of the watch-towers that I found to be the least shaken I surveyed +the rock over every part, but could discover nothing more than that we +had before espied, namely, the few broken boards of a ship and spars +strewn about the sweep of ground betwixt the two promontories, and so +descended slowly to where they lay. And having descended but a little +of the broken path that led, as I judged, to the submerged hamlet +amidst the vineyards, I looked out upon the waters of the bay; and on +the sudden, clear beneath them, saw the hamlet, house by house, and the +pergolas of hanging vines. So translucent and untroubled was the water +at that hour that scarce anything the least was hid, but even the grass +between the stones I saw, yet fresh and waving, and the rusted tools +abandoned in the fields. An untended way led further off to the +temple, of which I could dimly perceive the pillars, between which +great silver fish swam in and out, and upon its steps the seaweed +slightly stirred. + +But caught in the weed on the steps of the temple I saw a drowned man +lying, and when I had gone down to the edge of the shore, I knew him +for my uncle.... + +Of the rest we could find at first no trace at all, but (having sent +down divers into the deep water about the northward headland) we at +length recovered the bodies of Spurrier and Attwood and one or two +beside. When the ship had split, idly trusting to such pieces of the +wreck as they could lay hold of, they had evidently been dashed against +the rock, and so perished. But the prisoner in the hold had been +carried forward, as it seemed, almost into safety, but at the last had +been let slip. There was no hurt upon his body when we raised it, and +the features were unclouded by any premonition of his fate. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +IW WHICH THE SHIPS OF WAR GO BY AND THE TALE ENDS + +To tell all that befell me ere I set foot in England once more were +scarce less tedious to the reader than it was to me in the happening, +who counted each day for lost until I had got home; which was upon +Christmas Eve; and should prosecute my search for Idonia Avenon. + +But so strangely into peace did all my affairs seem to move, after my +uncle's death (as though upon his removal who had every way troubled us +so long, we were come into an unknown liberty and fulfilment of our +hopes), that my search was ended as soon almost as begun, and Idonia +restored to me within an hour of my landing at Wapping Stairs. + +'Twas the simplest cause that led me to her, as it was the simplest act +of mere gratitude that I should go at once to the kindly folk on the +Bridge, I mean Gregory Nelson and his wife, to requite them for all +they had done for me and to excuse myself in having gone away from them +so without warning as I did; which must at that time have appeared very +graceless in me and unhandsome. And being thus come to their house, as +I say, who should be in the doorway, as if expressly to greet me +(although she had heard nought of the arrival of the _Happy +Adventure_), but Idonia herself, sweet lass! and blithe as a carol +burden. 'Twas some while ere we got to relating our histories, but +when Idonia did at length relate her own, I learnt how Nelson's +brother, the yeoman, had found her that dreadful night, lurking about +the precincts of the _Fair Haven_ Inn, nigh distraught with weeping and +the terror of loneliness. He had questioned her straitly of her +purpose in being there, to whom she presently confessed she sought me, +and told him where I was used to lodge, which was in this house upon +London Bridge. And no sooner did the yeoman apprehend the matter, than +he got permission of his captain to leave watching of the Inn, and so +carried her home to his brother's wife, who tenderly cared for her, +until I should return. + +"As indeed I never doubted of your doing," said Idonia, her eyes +shining for very pride of this ineffable thing we had entered into +possession of; "though you have been gone a weary great while, dear +heart, and no tidings have I had to comfort me." + +"Ay, and mickle tidings you needed, housewife!" interposed the scolding +voice of Madam Nelson, that (good soul) had no notion to leave us two +by ourselves, but burst into whatever room we were in, upon the most +impertinent excuse, as of a mislaid thimble, or a paper of pins, or +else a "Lord! be you here still?" or a "Tell me, Denis, how do the +ladies of Barbary wear their hair?" until I swear I was ready to pitch +her out of the window for a second, but more virtuous, Jezebel. + +"Small tidings you needed, I wis," said she, "that turned even silence +to advantage, and the very winds of Heaven to your way of thinking! +'He will be safe in this weather,' would 'a say when 'twas calm; or if +it blew fresh, 'Denis hath no fear of a tempest!' and with such a +fulsome patience of belief, as I think, had she had positive news you +were dead, she would have said you feigned it on purpose to have +leisure to think upon her." + +"Had it not been for your own good courage, mother," replied Idonia, +with a run of laughter, "I had often enough desponded. And 'twas you +went to Mr. Osborne for me, as Mr. Nelson did to the Council, to give +account how matters had gone, and to exonerate this long lad of +remissness." + +"Tilly vally!" cried the lady. "I exonerate none of your lovers, not +I, that steal away at midnight, to leave their sweethearts weeping by +the shore!" And so, as if blown thence by the strong gust of her +resentment, she was gone from us, ere I could mend her wilful +misconstruction of the part I had been enforced to play. + +But that part of captive I was now content enough to continue in for +just so long as Idonia willed, who held me to her, and by a thousand +links bound me, pronouncing my sentence in terms I shall neither ever +forget nor shall I now repeat them. Such sweet words of a maid are not +singular, I think, but rather be common as death; to which for the +first time they give the only right meaning, as of a little ford that +lies in a hollow of the highway of love.... + +I told her gently of her guardian's drowning, at which report she +shuddered and turned away her face. But all she said was: "He was a +kind man to me, but otherwise, I fear, very wicked." + +We spoke of the Chinese jar, that had contained that great treasure of +diamonds and precious stones my uncle had rent away and stolen from +those he privily slew. Idonia said it had been seized upon by the +party of soldiers that had searched the Inn, and that the Queen had +confiscated it to her own use, as indeed she was accustomed to keep +whatever prizes came into her hands, without scruple of lawful +propriety. "Which was the occasion, I fear, of some sharp passages +betwixt Madam Nelson and her husband," said Idonia, with a smile, "she +being for his boldly demanding them of the Queen's Secretary, as +pertaining to my dowry, but he stoutly dissenting from such a course, +and, I hold, rightly. But in either case I would not have kept them, +knowing as I do how they were come by; and although the loss of them +leaveth us poor." + +I was of her mind in that, and said so. However, we were not to be so +poor as we then supposed; for besides the jewels which Her Grace had +possessed herself of, with her slender and capable fingers, there was +afterwards discovered a pretty big sum of money her guardian had laid +up, together with his testament and general devise of all he had to +Idonia Avenon, whom he named his sole heir. This we learned from the +attorney in whose hands as well the money was, as the will, which +himself had drawn; who, upon my solemn attestation, and the witness of +Captain Tuchet, admitted, and procured it to be allowed by the +magistrates, that Botolph Cleeve, the testator, was legally deceased, +and Idonia Avenon, the beneficiary, incontestably alive. And upon our +counting over the sum (we both being notable accountants, as is already +sufficiently known), we found it more by nigh a thousand pounds than my +father had formerly lost by this man whose death now allowed of the +restitution of all. For Idonia would hear of nothing done until my +father should be first paid, and of her own motion made proposal that +we should immediately journey down into Somerset to pay him, in the +which course I concurred with great contentment, for it was already +near upon two years since I had set eyes upon him, and upon our old +home of Combe. + +The snow lay somewhat less thickly upon the downs, as we rode over them +past Marlborough and Devizes, than it had done when I set out in the +company of that very warlike scholar, Mr. Jordan, whose campaign I had +seen to be diverted against the books and featherbeds of Baynards +Castle, with so singular a valour and so remote a prospect to be ever +determined. + +Idonia was delighted with these great fields, all white and shining, +that we passed over, they being like nothing she had ever seen, she +said, except once, when she had gone with her guardian into Kent, where +he lay one whole winter in hiding, though she did not know wherefore. + +By nights it was my custom to request a lodging for Idonia of the +clergyman of the town we rested at, while I myself would lie at the +inn; and by this means I was enabled to renew my pleasant acquaintance +with the Curate of Newbury; who (it will be remembered) had preached +that Philippic sermon against the Papists, and had moreover so +earnestly desired me that I should tell the Archbishop of his adding a +rood of ground to his churchyard. He seemed, methought, a little +dejected when I said I had had none occasion to His Grace, who +therefore remained yet in ignorance of the progress the Church made in +Newbury; but he soon so far forgot his disappointment as to tell me of +an improvement of his tithes-rents, by which he was left with seventeen +shillings to the good at Michaelmas; and with a part of this surplus he +had, he confessed, been tempted to purchase of a pedlar a certain book +in the French tongue called _Pantagruel_, from which he had derived no +inconsiderable entertainment, albeit joined to some scruples upon the +matters therein treated of, whether they were altogether such as he +should be known to read them. + +"However, since none here hath any French but I," said he, "I bethought +me that no public scandal was to be feared, and so read on." + +We rode into the little town of Glastonbury, where it lieth under its +strange and conical steep hill, about four o'clock in the afternoon; it +being then, I think, toward the end of January, and clear still +weather. And because it was already dusk I would not proceed further +that day; but in the morning, before daybreak, we proceeded again +forward, going by the ridgeway that, as a viaduct, standeth high above +the levels, then all veiled in chill grey mists. We got into Taunton a +little ere noon, and there baited our horses, being determined to end +our journey before nightfall, which we could not have done except by +this respite. The name of Simon Powell had been so oft upon my lips, +and I had with so many and lively strokes depainted him in conversation +with Idonia, that she had come to know him almost as well as I, and +thus I was hardly astonished when she turned about in her saddle to +gaze after a young man that walked in a meadow a little apart from the +highway as we were entering the hamlet of Tolland, and asked me whether +he were not, as in truth he was, my old companion. + +Marvellous glad to meet with Simon after this long interval, I drew +rein and beckoned to him, who, running forward almost at the same +instant, took my hand, gloved as it was, and covered it with kisses. + +"How doth my father?" I demanded eagerly, and ere he had concluded his +salutation. + +"His worship may mend when he sees you come home," said he gravely, and +by that I saw I was not to indulge too large a hope of his mending. + +"I would we were indeed arrived home, Simon," I replied; "but at all +events, this lodging shall soon be exchanged for a better; that is, if +he may yet bear to be moved." + +We walked our horses along very slowly, Simon between us as we went, to +whom Idonia addressed herself so kindly that the lad, falling instantly +in love with her, had nearly forgot the principal thing of all he had +to say, which was that Sir Matthew Juke had but at the Christmas +quarter-day past renounced his tenancy of the Court and gone to +Bristol, where he had formed the acquaintance of a merchant-adventurer +that was about to attempt the Northwest passage (as it is named, +although none hath yet found it); and upon this voyage the knight also +was set to go. + +"His head is full of the design," said Simon, "so that those about him +fear his wits unsettled, and indeed he spends the better part of every +day poring upon books of navigation, treatises of Sir Humphrey Gilbert +and the like, while his speech is ever of victualling and charts and +ships' logs, but of other things, and even in the Justices' room at the +Sessions, never a word." + +"Say you he hath resigned his lease of our house at Combe?" cried I, +interrupting him for the very impatience of my joy; and when I knew he +certainly had so done, struck the spurs into my tired beast and +galloped forward to the Inn. + +Of the interval I say nothing, nor of the mutual delight with which my +father and I embraced each other; and afterwards of the bestowal of his +welcome upon Idonia, which he did with that accustomed courtly grace of +his, and bound the maid to him in love by the simple manner of his +doing it. + +Within a week, or perhaps a little over, we were all returned to the +Court, where Idonia was at once proclaimed mistress; and a week after +Easter we were married. My father was for giving up to us the great +room, hung about with tapestries, he had always used, but neither +Idonia nor I would allow of it, preferring for our own chamber that +high narrow attic in the tower that had been mine before, and was, +moreover, as wholesome and sweet a place as any man could lead a wife +to, with a rare prospect of meadow and moorland from the window; too, +and away up the deep valley to where it is closed in ascending ranks of +pines. + +Here yet we live, Idonia and I: "Idonia of Petty Wales" I have named +her, and Simon is therefore wondrous pleased to suppose some affinity +in her to his wild ancestors, of whom he now tells her, as he formerly +did me, incredible long legends; yet none so out of all compass of +belief as is the story we might have told him, had we chosen, of that +ruinous secret house over against the Galley Quay, where she dwelt so +long, pure and brave, amidst desperate evil men. + +Here we live, as I say, Idonia and I, but no longer my father, who +after we had been married but a year, died. Worn out by that lingering +malady of which I have spoken, and having been for so long a while +confined to that poor shelter where, I learned, was to be had the +merest necessaries but nothing to foster his strength, he soon gave +manifest signs that the betterment of his fortune had come too late to +advantage him. To himself it had of necessity been well known, but the +knowledge neither discouraged him at all, nor caused him to exchange +his habitual discourse for those particular sentences that men in such +case will sometimes burden their speech withal. + +In Idonia's company he seemed to take an extraordinary quiet pleasure, +and indeed spoke with her (as she afterwards told me) of matters he had +seldom enlarged upon with me, but to which she opened so ready an +apprehension as drew him on from familiar chat to reveal to her the +most cherished speculations of his mind. To me he continued as I +always remember him, using that gentle satire that was a sauce to all +his sayings. He would oftenwhiles question me of the difficulties and +dangers of my sojourn in London, but although he would hear me +attentively, I knew he took small pleasure in tales of tumult and +strife. There was in his nature that touch of woman that, however, is +not womanliness but rather is responsive to the best a woman hath; and +thus it was, in the perfect sympathy that marked his converse with +Idonia, I read, more clearly than I had done in all the years we had +lived together, the measure of his loss in losing his wife, and the +pitiful great need which he endeavoured so continuously, in his +reading, to fill. + +I had supposed him to be a complete Stoick, and to have embraced +without reservation the teaching of that famous school; but Idonia, to +whom I spoke of it, told me that it was not altogether so. + +"For," she said, "it was but a week since, as we sat together on the +side of the moor yonder, that he repeated to me a sentence of the Roman +Emperor's, whose works he ever carrieth about with him, in which he +bids a wise man expect each day to meet with idle men and fools and +busybodies and arrogant men. But that, your father said, was to bid a +man shut himself up alone in a high tower, whence he should look down +upon his fellows instead of mixing with them and trying to understand +them. Expect rather, he said, to meet each day with honest, kindly +men; in which expectation if you be disappointed, then consider whether +the cause of offence lieth not in you; the other man being full as +likely to be inoffensive as yourself." + +Of time he was wont to say, "When one says to you: There is no time +like the present, reply to him that indeed there is no time but the +present: future and past being but as graven figures on a milestone +which a man readeth and passeth upon his road." + +"In order to the greatest happiness in this life," he said, "it is well +freely to give to others all they shall require at your hands, being +well assured that they will readily leave you in the enjoyment of that +the only real possession of yours, which is your thoughts." + +To Idonia, who once asked him why he had never written down the rules +he lived by, he answered with his grave smile that rules were the false +scent, subtle or obvious, with which the escaping outlaw, thought, +deludes its pursuers, sworn of the law. + +But the speech that hath struck the deepest in me was spoken when he +gave Idonia, as he did, that picture of my mother, of whom he said (but +not of himself) that she had known a world of sorrow, and after awhile +added that "he believed ere she died she had found her sorrow fashioned +to a splendid gift." + +I accurately remember the last day he lived, in every least accident of +it: the sense of beauty that all things seemed to have above the +ordinary, and the stillness that clung about the Combe. + +We had gone up, all three, and old Peter Sprot with us, to a little +coppice of firs upon the moor side, to see a squadron of the Queen's +ships, that went down the Channel under the command of Sir Richard +Grenville, who was lately appointed to survey the defences of the West, +and to marshal the trained bands that had been put into readiness +against the expected, but long delayed, invasion of the Spanish. + +Our talk was naturally of war, and the chances we had to withstand so +notable an army as was gathering against us, upon which my father said, +very quiet, that the principal thing was never victory, but the not +being afraid. Later on, as if pursuing a train of thought that this +observation had set him on, he said-- + +"That which we are accustomed to call the future hath been by the elder +men of all ages generally despaired of, or at the least feared; and I +think it always will be so, for an old man's courage naturally turneth +backward to the past and occupieth itself in enlarging the obstacles +himself hath overcome, which no young man again might do; and this +maketh him fearful, and oftentimes angry too." + +He paused there upon Idonia's pointing with her finger to the Admiral +that just then shook out her standard from the mast-head, but presently +proceeded, smiling: "Had England not already a motto to her shield I +would petition the Heralds to subscribe these words beneath it, that in +what estate so ever we be found, we be neither angry nor afraid." + +He sat silent after that, and I thought seemed to fetch his breath +something uneasily. However, he lay back against the bole of a fir +awhile as resting himself. + +"Of ourselves too," he went on at length, "I would have it written when +we die, not that we did no wrong, for of none may that be said, but +that as we entered into life without knowledge, so we departed from it +without shame. For to be ashamed is to deny." + +He closed his eyes then, and we thought slept. But when the ships had +gone by, Peter Sprot touched my arm and pointed to him. He was already +dead. + +We bore him down through the golden sunlight, strangely troubled, but I +think, too, filled with the thought of the majesty of such a dying. +And I was glad his end was upon the hills, rather than in the valley; +for life is ever an ascending, or should be, and to its consummation +reacheth with face upturned toward the vehicle of light. + + + + +THE END. + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Idonia: A Romance of Old London, by +Arthur F. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Idonia: A Romance of Old London + +Author: Arthur F. Wallis + +Illustrator: Charles E. Brock + +Release Date: October 20, 2010 [EBook #34105] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IDONIA: A ROMANCE OF OLD LONDON *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="img-front"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT="The great ledger-book--which I now saw turned to an engine of our salvation. Chapter XIV" BORDER="2" WIDTH="474" HEIGHT="712"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 474px"> +The great ledger-book—which I now saw turned to an engine of our salvation. <A HREF="#chap14">Chapter XIV</A> +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +IDONIA: +</H1> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +A ROMANCE OF OLD LONDON +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H4> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +ARTHUR F. WALLIS +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +ILLUSTRATED BY +</H4> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHARLES E. BROCK +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BOSTON +<BR> +LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY +<BR> +1914 +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H5 ALIGN="center"> +<I>Copyright, 1913</I>, +<BR> +By LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. +<BR><BR> +<I>All rights reserved</I> +</H5> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H5 ALIGN="center"> +THE COLONIAL PRESS +<BR> +C. H. SIMONDS & CO., BOSTON, U. S. A. +</H5> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +AUTHOR'S NOTE +</H3> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The irregular pile of buildings known as Petty Wales, of which +considerable mention is made in this book, formerly stood at the +northeast corner of Thames Street. The chronicler, Stow, writes of +"some large buildings of stone, the ruins whereof do yet remain, but +the first builders and owners of them are worn out of memory. Some are +of opinion ... that this great stone building was sometime the lodging +appointed for the princes of Wales when they repaired to this city, and +that therefore the street, in that part, is called Petty Wales;" and he +further adds: "The merchants of Burdeaux were licensed to build at the +Vintry, strongly with stone, as may yet be seen, and seemeth old though +oft repaired; much more cause have these buildings in Petty Wales ... +to seem old, which, for many years, to wit, since the galleys left +their course of landing there, hath fallen to ruin." It appears to +have been let out for many uses, some disreputable; and a certain +Mother Mampudding (of whom one would like to know more) kept a part of +the house for victualling. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="100%"> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">CHAPTER</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">I. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap01">IN WHICH I LEARN FOR THE FIRST TIME THAT I HAVE AN UNCLE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap02">IN WHICH PTOLEMY PHILPOT COMMENCES HIS STUDY OF THE LATIN TONGUE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap03">HOW A BROTHER, HAVING OFFENDED, WAS FORGIVEN</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap04">IN WHICH I SAY FAREWELL THRICE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap05">PRINCIPALLY TELLS HOW SIR MATTHEW JUKE WAS CAST AWAY UPON THE HEBRIDES</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap06">HOW THE OLD SCHOLAR AND I CAME TO LONDON</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap07">IN WHICH I CONCEIVE A DISLIKE OF AN EARL'S SERVANT AND AN AFFECTION FOR A MAN OF LAW</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap08">A CHAPTER OF CHEATS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap09">TELLS HOW I CHANGED MY LODGING AND LOST MY MARE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">X. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap10">HOW I SAW AN ENEMY AT THE WINDOW</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap11">IS SUFFICIENT IN THAT IT TELLS OF IDONIA</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap12">HOW MR. JORDAN COULD NOT RUN COUNTER TO THE COURSE OF NATURE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap13">PETTY WALES</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap14">HOW IDONIA TAUGHT ME AND A CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD HOW TO KEEP BOOKS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap15">IN WHICH I BEGIN TO EARN MY LIVING</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap16">THE SIEGE OF PETTY WALES</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap17">HOW I FOUND AN OLD FRIEND IN A STRANGE PLACE, AND HOW PTOLEMY RENEWED HIS STUDY OF THE LATIN TONGUE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap18">IN WHICH I RECEIVE A COMMISSION AND SUFFER A CHECK</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap19">IN WHICH I COME TO GRIPS WITH MR. MALPAS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap20">THE ADVENTURE OF THE CHINESE JAR</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap21">THE "FAIR HAVEN" OF WAPPING</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap22">HOW MY UNCLE BOTOLPH LOST HIS LUCK</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap23">THE VOYAGE OF THE <I>SARACEN'S HEAD</I></A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXIV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap24">THE TEMPLE BENEATH THE WATERS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap25">IN WHICH THE SHIPS OF WAR GO BY AND THE TALE ENDS</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS +</H2> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#img-front"> +THE GREAT LEDGER-BOOK—WHICH I NOW SAW +TURNED TO AN ENGINE OF OUR SALVATION . . . <I>Frontispiece</I> +</A> +</H4> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#img-020"> +THE ARGUMENT BETWEEN MR. SKEGS AND PTOLEMY +</A> +</H4> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#img-142"> +MR. JORDAN REGARDED ME VERY MOURNFULLY +</A> +</H4> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#img-230"> +"YOU CANNOT BE IGNORANT THAT THIS AFFAIR IS +LIKE TO END BADLY FOR YOU, MR. DENIS" +</A> +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +IDONIA +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IN WHICH I LEARN FOR THE FIRST TIME THAT I HAVE AN UNCLE +</H4> + +<P> +The first remembrance I hold of my father is of a dark-suited tall man +of an unchanging gravity on all occasions. He had, moreover, a manner +of saying "Ay, ay," which I early came to regard as the prologue to +some definite prohibition; as when I asked him (I being then but a +scrubbed boy) for his great sword, to give it to a crippled soldier at +our gate, who had lost his proper weapon in the foreign wars— +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, ay," said my father, nodding his grey head, "so he lost his good +sword, and you would make good the loss with mine. Ay, 'twas a +generous thought of yours, Denis, surely." +</P> + +<P> +I was for reaching it down forthwith, where it hung by the wall in its +red velvet scabbard, delighted at the pleasure I was to do my bedesman. +</P> + +<P> +"Go to your chamber, boy," said my father in a voice smaller than +ordinary. +</P> + +<P> +"But, sir, the sword!" I cried. +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, the sword," he replied, nodding as before. "But, go warn Simon +Powell that he look to his poultry-lofts. And learn wisdom, Denis, for +you have some need of it, in my judgment." +</P> + +<P> +The same temperate behaviour he ever showed; granting little, and that +never to prayers, but sometimes upon good reasoning. He seemed to have +put by anger as having no occasion for the use of it, anger being +neither buckler nor broadsword, he would say, but Tom Fool's motley. +This calmness of his, I say, it was I first remember, and it was this +too that put a distance between us; so that I grew from boyhood to nigh +manhood, that is until my eighteenth year, without any clear +understanding of what lay concealed behind his mask of quiet. That he +had a passion for books I soon discovered, and the discovery confirmed +me in the foolish timidity with which I regarded him. For hours +together would he sit in the little high room beyond the hall, his +beard buried in his ruff, while the men awaited his orders to go about +the harvesting, and would read continuously in his great folios: the +Lives of Plutarch, or Plato, or the Stoick Emperor, or other such +works, until the day was gone and all labour lost. I have known our +overseer to swear horrid great oaths when he learned that Master Cleeve +had received a new parcel of books by the carrier, crying out that no +estate would sustain the burden of so much learning so ill applied. +</P> + +<P> +Our house stood within a steep combe close under the Brendon hills, and +not far from the Channel, by which ships pass to Bristol, and +outward-bound to the open sea. Many a time have I stood on a rise of +ground between the Abbey, whence it is said we take our name of Cleeve, +and the hamlet on the cliff above the seashore, gazing out upon the +brave show of ships with all sails set, the mariners hauling at the +ropes or leaning over the sides of their vessels; and wondered what +rich cargo it was they carried from outlandish ports, until a kind of +pity grew in me for my father in his little room with his rumpled ruff +and his Logick and Physick and Ethick, and his carrier's cart at the +door with Ethick and Physick and Logick over again. +</P> + +<P> +At such times Simon Powell was often my companion, a lad of a strange +wild spirit, lately come out of Wales across the Channel, and one I +loved for the tales he had to tell of the admirable things that +happened long since in his country, and indeed, he said, lately too. I +cannot call to mind the names of the host of princes that filled his +histories, save Arthur's only; but of their doings, and how they talked +familiarly with beasts and birds, and how they exchanged their proper +shapes at will, and how one of them bade his companions cut off his +head and bear it with them to the White Mount in London; which journey +of theirs continued during fourscore years; of all these marvels I have +still the memory, and of Simon Powell's manner of telling them, which +was very earnest, making one earnest who listened to him. +</P> + +<P> +For ordinary teaching, that is, in Latin and divinity and arithmetick, +I was sent to one Mr. Jordan, who lived across the combe, in a sort of +hollow half way up the moor beyond, in a little house of but four +rooms, of which two were filled with books, and his bed stood in one of +them. The other two rooms I believe he never entered, which were the +kitchen and the bedchamber. For having dragged his bed, many years +before, into the room where he kept the most of his books, he found it +convenient, as he said, to observe this order ever afterwards; and +being an incredibly idle man, though a great and learned scholar, he +would lie in bed the best part of a summer's day and pluck out book +after book from their shelves, reading them half aloud, and only +interrupting his lecture for extraordinary purposes. My father paid +him handsomely for my tuition, though I learned less from him than I +might have done from a far less learned man. He was very old, and the +common talk was that he had been a clerk in the old Abbey before the +King's Commission closed it. It was therefore strange that he taught +me so little divinity as he did, unless it were that the reading of +many pagan books had somewhat clouded his mind in this particular. For +I am persuaded that for once he spoke of the Christian faith he spoke a +hundred times of Minerva and Apollo, and the whole rout of Atheistical +Deities which we rightly hold in abhorrence. +</P> + +<P> +My chief occupation, when I was not at school with Mr. Jordan nor on +the hills with Simon, was to go about our estates, which, although they +were not very large, were fair, and on the whole well ordered. Our +steward, for all his distaste of my father's sedentary habit, had a +reverence for him, and said he was a good master, though he would never +be a wealthy one. +</P> + +<P> +"His worship's brother now," he once said, "who is, I think, one of the +great merchants of London, would make this valley as rich and +prosperous as any the Devon shipmasters have met with beyond the +Western Sea." +</P> + +<P> +I asked him who was my uncle of whom he spoke, and of whom I heard for +the first time. +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis Master Botolph Cleeve," he said. "But his worship does not see +him this many a year, nor offer him entertainment since they drew upon +each other in the great hall." +</P> + +<P> +"Here, in this house!" I cried, for this was all news to me, and +unsuspected. +</P> + +<P> +"In this house it was, indeed, Master Denis," replied the steward, +"while you were a poor babe not yet two year old. But there be some +things best forgotten," he added quickly, and began to walk towards +where the men were felling an alder tree by the combe-brook. +</P> + +<P> +"Nay, Peter Sprot," I cried out, detaining him, "tell me all now, for +things cannot be forgotten, save they have first been spoken of." +</P> + +<P> +He laughed a little at this boyish argument, but would not consent at +that time. Indeed, it was near a year afterwards, and when I had +gained some authority about the estate, that he at length did as I +demanded. +</P> + +<P> +It was a sweet spring morning (I remember) with a heaven full of big +white clouds come up from the westward over Dunkery on a high wind that +bent the saplings and set the branches in the great woods stirring. We +had gone up the moor, behind Mr. Jordan's house, with the shepherd, to +recover a strayed sheep, which, about an hour before noon, the shepherd +chanced to espy a long way off, dead, and a mob of ravens over her, +buffeted about by the gale. The shepherd immediately ran to the place, +where he beat off the ravens and afterwards took up the carcase on his +shoulders and went down the combe, leaving us twain together. +</P> + +<P> +"It is not often that he loses any beast," said the steward. "'Tis a +careful man among the flocks, though among the wenches, not so." +</P> + +<P> +I know not why, but this character of the shepherd put me again in mind +of my uncle Botolph, upon whom I had not thought for a great while. +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me, Peter Sprot," I said, "how it was my father and my uncle came +to fighting." +</P> + +<P> +"Nay, they came not so far as to fight," cried the steward, with a +start. +</P> + +<P> +"But they drew upon each other," said I. +</P> + +<P> +He sat silent for a little, tugging at his rough hair, as was his wont +when he meditated deeply. +</P> + +<P> +After awhile, "You never knew your lady mother," he said, in a deep +voice, "so that my tale must lack for that which should be chief of it. +For to all who knew her, the things which befell seemed a part of her +beauty, or rather to issue from it naturally, though, indeed, they were +very terrible. Mr. Denis, it is the stream which runs by the old +course bursts the bridges in time of winter, and down the common ways +that trouble ever comes." +</P> + +<P> +"But what trouble was in this," I asked, in the pause he made, "that it +were necessary I should have known my mother to comprehend it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nay, not the trouble, master," he answered, "for that was manifest to +all. But 'twas her grace and beauty, and her pretty behaviour, that +none who knew not Madam Rachel your mother, may conjure e'en the shadow +of. +</P> + +<P> +"You were a toward lad at all times," he went on, "and when your +brother was born, though you were scarce turned two, you would be +singing and talking from dawn to dark. Ah! sir, your father did not +keep his book-room then, but would be in the great chamber aloft, with +you and your lady mother and the nurse, laughing at your new-found +words and ditties, and riding you and fondling you—God save us!—as a +man who had never lived till then. +</P> + +<P> +"'Twas when little Master Hugh came that all changed. For what must 'a +do, but have down Mr. Botolph from London to stand sponsor to him, at +the christening. He came, a fine man, larger than his worship, and +with a manner of bending his brow, which methought betokened a +swiftness of comprehension and an impatience of all he found +displeasing. Indeed, there was little he did not observe, noting it +for correction or betterment. Though a city man and a merchant, Mr. +Botolph had but to cast an eye over this place, and 'Brother,' said he, +'there be some things here ill done or but indifferent well'; and +showed him that the ricks were all drenched and moulded where they +stood, and bade him build them higher up the slope. Master Cleeve took +his advice in good part, for they were friends yet. +</P> + +<P> +"But within a little while, I know not how, a shadow fell athwart all. +In the farm, matters went amiss, and the weather which had formerly +been fine became foul, with snow falling, though it was come +Eastertide, and all the lambs sickened. The maids whispered of Mr. +Botolph, who had never so much as set eyes on my lady till that time +(she having kept her bed to within a week of the christening), that he +had spoken no word since the hour he saw her in, nor scarce once +stirred from his chamber. His worship, they said, took no heed of this +melancholy in his brother, or rather seemed not to do so, though he +played no longer with you, and had small joy of the infant. But with +Madam Rachel he sat long in chat, cheering her, and talking of what +should be done in due season, and of how he would remove the state +rooms to the upper floor (as was then generally being done elsewhere), +and would build a noble staircase from the old hall; and of many other +such matters as he had in mind. +</P> + +<P> +"So for a week, and until the eve of the christening, nought could be +called strange, save that Mr. Botolph kept himself apart, and that the +shadow on all men's minds lay cold. I doubt if any slept that night, +for without the wind was high as now it is, and charged with snow. We +could hear the beasts snorting in their stalls and the horses +whinnying. Little do I fear, Master Denis," said the old man, suddenly +breaking off, "but I tell you there was something abroad that night was +not in nature. +</P> + +<P> +"'Twas about midnight that we heard laughter; your lady mother laughing +in her silver voice, which yet had a sort of mockery in it, and his +worship answering her now and then. After awhile comes he to my room, +where I yet sleep, beyond the armoury. +</P> + +<P> +"'Peter,' he says, 'hast seen my brother Botolph?' +</P> + +<P> +"I told him no, but that I supposed he was in the guest-room down the +long corridor. +</P> + +<P> +"'Madam Cleeve cannot sleep,' says he again, 'thinking that he is out +in the storm, and would have us seek him.' +</P> + +<P> +"I lit a candle at this, for we had spoken in the dark hitherto, and +when it had burned up, I saw his worship dressed and with his boots on. +His sword he held naked in his hand, and with his other hand he would +press upon his brow as one whose mind is dull. The gale nearly blew +out the candle the while I dressed myself, and again we listened to the +noises without. +</P> + +<P> +"I took a staff from behind the door. +</P> + +<P> +"'Whither shall we go?' he asked me. +</P> + +<P> +"'Surely to his room, first of all,' said I, 'for it is likely that my +lady is deceived.' +</P> + +<P> +"'I think so,' he said gravely, and we went upstairs. +</P> + +<P> +"Without summoning him, Mr. Cleeve opened the doors of his brother's +chamber, and at once started back. +</P> + +<P> +"'He is not within,' he said, in a low voice, and neither of us spoke +nor even moved forward to search the room thoroughly. It was very +manifest to us that the shadow under which we had been moving for many +days was now to lift; and the certainty that it would lift upon black +terror held us in a sort of trance. +</P> + +<P> +"I am not of a ready wit at most times, Mr. Denis, but somehow without +the use of wit, and almost upon instinct I said: 'Go you again to your +own chamber, master, and if all be well there, be pleased to meet me +below in the great hall,' and with that, hastening away, I left him. +</P> + +<P> +"I ran at once to the stair, which has a window overlooking the base +court; and as I ran methought the sound I had heard before of horses +whinnying, was strangely clear and loud, they being safe in stable long +since and the door shut. The candle which I still bore just then a +gust of wind extinguished, so that I could scarce find my way to the +window, so black was all, and I so distraught. But once there, I +needed not to look a second time, for down below in the snow of the +yard stood a great coach with four sturdy hackneys that kicked and +whinny'd to be gone. 'Twas so dark I could distinguish nought else, +yet I continued to stand and stare like a fool until on a sudden I +heard another sound of steel clashing, which sent my blood to my heart, +and a prayer for God's pity to my lips. +</P> + +<P> +"It was in the hall I found them, my master and Mr. Botolph; he cloaked +as for a journey; and beyond, swooning by the fire which had not yet +burned out, but threw a dull light along the floor, Madam Rachel, your +mother. +</P> + +<P> +"Not many passes had they made, as I think, when I came between them. +And indeed they did not resist me, for your father turned away at once, +striding across the red floor to my lady, while Mr. Botolph, with just +a sob of breath between his teeth, stole off, and as I suppose by the +coach, which we heard wheel about and clatter up the yard. I got me to +my cold bed then, Mr. Denis, leaving my master and mistress together. +It was the chill she took that cruel night which became a fever +suddenly, and of that she died, poor lady, and at the same time the +infant died too." +</P> + +<P> +He twitched his rough sheepskin coat about him as he concluded his +tale, for the sky was gathering to a head of tempest, and after a +little while we went down the moor towards the combe where the great +house lay in which I had been born, and where, as I knew, my father at +this moment was sitting solitary over some ancient folio, in the +endless endeavour after that should stead him in his battle with the +past. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IN WHICH PTOLEMY PHILPOT COMMENCES HIS STUDY OF THE LATIN TONGUE +</H4> + +<P> +It is, I conceive, natural in a young man to use more time than wisdom +in the building of hopes which be little else than dreams, though they +appear then more solid than gross reality. Thus I, in laying out my +future, saw all as clear as our own park-lands, and where I misliked +anything there I altered, working with a free hand, until the aspect of +my condition was at all points to my taste, and I itched to enter +forthwith into the manhood I had so diligently imagined. +</P> + +<P> +Unwittingly, perhaps, I had allowed Simon Powell's tales of fantasy to +get the mastery of my mind, and in such sort that no prince of all his +mountains ever marched so lightly from adventure to adventure, nor came +off with so much grace and so acclaimed as I. My life (I told myself) +was to borrow no whit of my father's aversion from the world, which +disposition of his, for all my pity of the cause of it, I could not +find it in my heart to praise. Alas! I was but nineteen years of my +age, and pride was strong within me, and the lust of combat. +</P> + +<P> +With Simon himself I consorted less frequently than of old, for I stood +already in the estate of a master; being acknowledged as such by all, +from Peter Sprot himself to the maids who came into the fields for the +gleaning, and courtsey'd to me as I rode between the stooks on my white +mare. But although I had necessarily become parted from my wild +preceptor, I had, as I say, my mind tutored to dreaming, which but for +Simon might have been dull and content with petty things, whereas it +was with a gay arrogance that I now regarded the ordering of the world, +and held myself ordained a champion to make all well. For this I +hereby thank Simon Powell with all my heart; and indeed it is a benefit +well-nigh inestimable. To such a height then had this humour of +errantry gone, that I would snatch at every occasion to gratify it; and +so would ride forth through the gate before the grey Combe Court, and +setting my mare at a gallop, would traverse the lanes athwart which the +level morning sun cast bars of pale gold and the trees their shadows, +and be up on the wide rolling moors or ever the mists were stirring in +the valley or the labourers risen to their tasks. Many a fancy held my +busy brain at such times, and as I looked backward upon our great +irregular house, which was built, a part of it, in the year of +Agincourt, so quiet it lay amidst its woods and pasture lands that it +seemed a place enchanted, upon which some magician had stolen with a +spell of sleep. 'Twas no home for active men, I said, and laughed as I +turned away and urged my poor jade again onward. Contempt is very +close to joy in a lad's heart, and his valour rouses (like old Rome) to +the summons of the goose-voice within him. +</P> + +<P> +Some six months had passed since the steward first acquainted me with +the calamity which had made shipwreck of my father's life, when, upon a +memorable, clear, October morning, I rode forth as my custom was, +intending to shape my course towards the little hamlet of Roodwater, +and so by the flats to Dunster. The orchard-trees about the old Abbey +were rimed with frost, and a keenness in the air lifted me so that I +could have wept or sung indifferently. The dawn had scarce broke when +I set out, and 'twas not till I had ridden three or four miles that the +smoky redness of the sun showed between the pine stems on a spur of +hill behind me. My thoughts were all of victory, and in this temper +the events of the time, albeit I am no politician, confirmed me. For +news had reached us a little since of the disclosure of that horrid +plot of Throgmorton and the two Earls against Her Grace and our most +dear Sovereign, and of how sundry suspected persons of high estate were +arrested and confined. The Papists everywhere were said to be in great +confusion, for though many, and some said the most part, were loyal +subjects enough, yet the defection and proved villainy of the rest +shook all faith in those that professed still the old religion and +allegiance to the Pope. The Queen's ships were straitly ordered to +watch the ports, and even as I descended the hill beyond Roodwater to +the seashore, I saw, a little off Watchet Quay, a ship of war riding at +anchor, and a cock-boat pulling away from her side. +</P> + +<P> +Moreover, it was no great while since, by order of Her Majesty's +Council, that notable Bond of Association had been signed for the +better defence of the Queen, my father signing with the rest, as a +chief person of these parts and a magistrate. +</P> + +<P> +I am no politician, as I say, but there is small need of knowledge in +State affairs to make a man love his home; and when a plot of the +magnitude which this of Fr. Throgmorton's had, is brought to light, +why, every man is a politician perforce and a soldier too. +</P> + +<P> +For Queen Mary Stuart, who was now more closely guarded, as indeed was +meet, and who later was to be led to her death, I say nought of her, +for tales be many, and men's minds confused, when it comes to question +of a woman sinning, and that the fairest of them all. That she was +guilty I suppose no one reasonably doubteth, and obnoxious to peace and +good government, but, when all is said, there is the pity of slaying a +delicate lady in order to the securing ourselves; and such a deed makes +quiet a cowardly thing, and puts a colour of shame on justice herself. +</P> + +<P> +But that business was not come yet by two years and more, and for the +present all our thoughts were of gratitude for our deliverance from the +subtlety of forsworn plotters, and of courage and loyalty and the will +to be feared. +</P> + +<P> +I spurred my mare down the rough lane, and was soon out upon the level +shore of the bay, beyond which lies Dunster in a fold of steep moor, +and the wooded promontory of Minehead further to the west. The tide +was out as I rode at full gallop along the bow of thin turf which +bounds the coast; while across the reach of sand the little waves +lapped and fretted with a sweet, low sound. +</P> + +<P> +The sun was now risen pretty high, and the fisher-folk were busied here +and there with their nets and tackle as I passed them by. It was nigh +eight o'clock when I drew rein in Dunster market, before the chief inn +there—a clean place, and of good entertainment. My purpose was +immediately to break my fast, for I had a fierceness of hunger upon me +by reason of the sharp air and the early hour, and afterwards to visit +a certain sea captain whom I knew to be lodged there, Mr. Jonas Cutts, +of the <I>Three Lanterns</I>, one of Her Majesty's ships, though but a small +one; he being a gentleman I had met with upon the occasion of my +father's signing the Bond of Defence. What my further purpose was, if +indeed 'twere aught but to hear wonders and talk big about the +Spaniards, I cannot now charge my remembrance, but to him I was +determined to go after breakfast and waste an hour before returning +home. +</P> + +<P> +I inquired his lodging out, therefore, over my dish of eggs, but +learned to my disappointment that he had left it suddenly, before +daybreak, to join his ship at Minehead, where it lay. This +intelligence, little though it affected me, save as it robbed my +idleness of some plea of purpose, I took ill enough, rating my host +like the angry boy I was, and dispraising the closeness of the ward +upon our coasts, though I had formerly praised the same, and indeed had +meant to enlarge with the captain upon this very theme. +</P> + +<P> +In a very sour humour then I departed from the inn, and while my mare +was baiting took a turn about the town. +</P> + +<P> +And so fair did I find all, the high street wide and sweet and the +houses thereon neat and well ordered, the great castle, moreover, on a +mount at the nether end, very fencible and stately builded, that it was +not long ere my spirits rose again, and I thought no more upon Captain +Cutts and his departing. Methought the countryside had never seemed so +pleasant as now under its web of frost, and the trees a kind of blue of +the colour of silver-work tarnished by age, the sky red behind them +reaching up from grey. I left the middle part of the town soon and got +into the lanes, where at length I came by chance upon an ancient mill, +which was once, I learned, a monkish mill whither every man had +perforce to bring his grain to be ground. Now as I stood idly by the +gate of the mill-house I heard voices of men in talk, and, without +further intention, could not but catch some words of their discourse. +It was evident that a bargain was going forward, and that one sold +grudgingly. +</P> + +<P> +"Nay," said the one voice, "for this standard of red buckram, +sevenpence and no less, Master Ptolemy." +</P> + +<P> +"Thou puttest me to uncommon great charges, Master Skegs," replied the +other invisible; "what with thy gilding and thy scarlet hoods, and now +this standard of the devil! Ay, and besides there is that crazy mitre +of Cayphas, which, o' my conscience, is not worth the half a groat." +</P> + +<P> +"'A cost me two shillings not twelvemonth since," cried the first +invisible in a manifest rage, "yet am I willing to sell it thee for one +shilling and ninepence as I have set it down in the bill, where is also +to be found a coat of skins; item, a tabard; item, Herod's crest of +iron; all which I have grossly undervalued. Ah! there be some," he +interjected, in a whining voice, "there be some that would buy up all +Jewry for a parcel of bawdy, torn ballads. Art not ashamed, Ptolemy +Philpot, thou a Christian man, to purchase so divine a tragedy for so +mean a sum?" But the invisible Ptolemy not replying, the invisible +Skegs proceeded: +</P> + +<P> +"Well, thou hast heard my price, master, which is three pounds sixteen +shillings in all, and look you! to avoid all bitterness and to make an +end, I will throw in the parchment beasts of the Deluge for the same." +</P> + +<P> +What manner of cheapening was here I could not conceive, and so (still +chiding my lack of manners) crept through the gate and to a coign of +the mill-house, where I might observe these strange traders in +parchment beasts and red buckram. And observe them I did, indeed, and +they me at the same instant; which discovery so confused me that I +stood before them first on one foot and then on the other, with no +sense to go or stay, nor to cover my discourtesy with any plausible +excuse. Howbeit, one, whom I took (and rightly) to be Ptolemy, burst +into laughter at this my detected intrusion, and bade me step forward +and judge betwixt them. He was a big man, with a child's face for all +that he wore a great beard, and a terrible nose of the colour of the +stone they call agate, it being veined too and marvellous shining. Yet +his voice was small like a child's, and I saw at once that in any +bargain he was like to get the worse of it. The other man, whose name +was Skegs, had a woeful pallor, but an undaunted behaviour and a very +fierce eye. Between them stood the cause of their difference, which +was a sort of wheeled pageant or cart of two stages; the upper being +open and about five feet in breadth, with a painted cloth behind; the +lower room enclosed, and was, I learned, for the convenience and +disposal of the puppet master (this being a puppet-show and the puppets +appearing, as players do, on the stage above). +</P> + +<P> +Coming forward, then, as I was bidden, I very modestly awaited the +argument between Mr. Skegs and Ptolemy, being pleased to be trusted in +so notable a cause. But it fell out otherwise, for Skegs swore by the +body of St. Rumbold he would have no arbitrament, and that his price +was three pound and sixteen shillings, as he had already said. +</P> + +<P> +"It is a great sum," said Ptolemy, in his piping reed voice. +</P> + +<P> +"How, great?" retorted Skegs, "seeing I sell thee the pageant-car +itself, together with Nicodemus, Pilate, and four stout Torturers, +besides the holy folk, and all their appurtenance. And were I not at +the gate of the grave myself, I would not part with so much as Joseph's +beard for twice this reckoning." +</P> + +<P> +"He gives you also certain parchment beasts, Mr. Ptolemy," said I, very +judicially. +</P> + +<P> +"I retract the beasts," cried the pageant master, whose red eyes blazed +terribly, and he danced with vexation of my ruling. +</P> + +<P> +"Look you, now," grumbled Ptolemy, running his great hand through his +beard, "was ever such a fellow!" +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis a part of the Deluge," said Mr. Skegs, "and to bring in beasts +before the judgment-seat of Pilate were against all Scripture. But +contrariwise, as it toucheth the Interlude of the Deluge, mass! without +those beasts of mine, the cats and dogs too (as the verse goes)— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"'Otter, fox, fulmart also;<BR> +Hares hopping gaily'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +withouten these wherefore was Noah's ark builded, and so great a stir +made?" +</P> + +<P> +"But if you be about to die, Master Skegs," I put in, "as you say you +are, of what advantage is this same Deluge to you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, truly," cried Ptolemy, "for thou hast no wife, man, nor any +dependent on thee. So thou be decently buried, 'tis all one whether I +have the parchment beasts or thou." +</P> + +<P> +"Would you spoil me of my heritage?" cried the pallid man in an +extremity of rage, "and strip me naked before I be come to the grave? +I say thou shalt not have the beasts." +</P> + +<P> +"Wilt thou sell me the Deluge outright?" asked Ptolemy after a silence, +"for I am no hand at this chaffering." +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, for a further fourteen shillings, I will," said Skegs promptly, +"which maketh in all four pounds and ten shillings; and for that, I +give thee Noah, a new figure of wood, and Noah's wife, who truly is +somewhat worsened by usage, but not past mending; Shem also, Ham and +Japhet, stalwart lads all, and their wives corresponding. An ark there +is, moreover, which was builded in Rye by a shipwright out of battens +and good gummed canvas. The beasts be all whole, save the weasel, but +that signifieth not. I have a schedule of them, and the parts of the +players in good scrivener's hand. All these shalt thou have for a +matter of four pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence." +</P> + +<P> +"Four pounds and ten shillings, Master Skegs," said Ptolemy, dismayed +at this unconscionable addition. +</P> + +<P> +"Said I aught of the ark when I named that price?" asked Skegs +scornfully. "Wouldst thou haggle with a dying man, Ptolemy Philpot?" +</P> + +<P> +"I will furnish the remainder shillings," I whispered to Ptolemy, who +stood in a maze to answer such imposture as Skegs sought to lay upon +him. "Strike the bargain, Mr. Ptolemy, and pay when thou hast checked +over the tale of beasts." +</P> + +<A NAME="img-020"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-020.jpg" ALT="The argument between Mr. Skegs & Ptolemy. Chapter II" BORDER="2" WIDTH="471" HEIGHT="714"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 471px"> +The argument between Mr. Skegs & Ptolemy. Chapter II +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +He thanked me like a pleased stripling, and, to be short, purchased all +for the sum named, which, there being seven or eight pieces not found, +and Japhet's leg burst from the pin, methought sufficient, albeit Mr. +Skegs at every turn sought to increase it, or else detract some piece +of note, as Mount Ararat in pasteboard and the dove with a sprig of +olive. +</P> + +<P> +"I have forgot the raven," he screamed after us, as at length we went +away with our cartful of miracles. "'Twas new varnished at Michaelmas, +and there is the cost of the varnish you must repay me, which is +three-pence halfpenny," at which, when we replied not, he ran into the +mill-house in a sort of fury, and as I understood, died there a week +later, muttering upon his "cocks and kites and crows," his +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Rooks and ravens, many rows;<BR> +Cuckoos, curlews, whoso knows,<BR> +Each one in his kind;"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +and putting a price upon each particular fowl, like any poulter in +Cheape. I never met a man so engrossed in business to so little +purpose, nor one (to do him justice) so little put out of his humour of +acquisition by the near approach of death. He had bought the mill, so +Ptolemy told me, out of his former profits, knowing nothing of the +miller's trade, but because it was to be got at an advantage. +</P> + +<P> +When we were out of the yard Mr. Philpot again thanked me immoderately +for my aid, which he said he would never forget (and as the event +proved, he did not); and told me moreover that he was bred to the +wax-chandlery, but had left it, having a taste for letters. +</P> + +<P> +"How will this pageant help you any whit the more to study?" I asked +him. +</P> + +<P> +"I shall go about the country," he replied, "and so I doubt not shall +fall in with very famous scholars, who are often to be found where they +be least expected. Have you ever read Horace now?" he asked me quickly. +</P> + +<P> +I told him, a little. +</P> + +<P> +"When I shall have learned Latin," he said, in his childlike manner, "I +shall do so also, and, indeed, I have bought his Satires already, but +can make little of them. The Romans must have been a marvellous +learned people," he observed with a sigh, "and 'tis small wonder they +conquered the world." +</P> + +<P> +"Is there any attendance upon these old interludes?" I demanded, as we +passed upward through the town towards my inn, where I was to take out +my mare. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, as to that," he replied something moodily, "I know not certainly +as yet, although I hope so, seeing that my proficiency in the Latin +tongue dependeth upon the popular favour towards them; and, indeed, I +may have been over eager at the bidding, since there doubtless hath +been some decline from the love of such plays that the vulgar was used +to show upon all occasions of their being enacted. Notwithstanding, I +have a design, as yet unperfected, by which, if I get no hearing for my +mysteries and moralities, I may yet prosper; and that is (to let you +into the secret), to turn this musty Deluge into a modern battle upon +the high seas, with Mr. John Hawkins for Noah—good seamen both; the +figure of Japhet, too, that hath by good fortune lost a leg, might +serve, with but slight alteration, for a veteran tall boatswain, and +Ham with the red beard, would as readily become a master-gunner. Ay, a +little skill would do all, Mr. Cleeve; and for the Spaniards, why, such +as were necessary to my purpose might be fashioned out of the greater +beasts, without any very notable difference from the original." +</P> + +<P> +I would have questioned him further upon this venture of his, which was +surely as bold as any that Mr. Hawkins had made to the coast of Guinea +or the Indies, had not I at that moment espied our overseer, Peter +Sprot, by the door of the inn, his horse blown and sweating, and +himself sitting stiff with hard riding. I ran to him at once, +demanding if he sought me, which I knew already was so, and felt a fear +at my heart lest my father was suddenly fallen ill. +</P> + +<P> +"His worship is not ill," replied Peter, "but sore troubled, and sends +for you home without delay." He cast a hard eye upon Ptolemy Philpot +as he spoke, for he had observed us in company, and being something +strait in matters of religion, held shows and dancing and such-like to +be idolatry and lewd sport. I have known him break a babe's rattle +that shook it on a Sunday, and quote the Pentateuch in defence of his +action. +</P> + +<P> +"What hath troubled him, Peter?" I asked eagerly, while the ostler +brought out my mare. +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis a letter," he said, and with that shut his mouth, so that I knew +it was vain to inquire further. +</P> + +<P> +Now, as I was managing my beast, that was restive with the cold air, +comes Mr. Ptolemy to my side, and ere I understood his purpose had +thrust up a little parchment-bound book for me to read the title of it, +whispering that he would have read it long since himself, but that +'twas in Latin. +</P> + +<P> +I told him briefly I could not read it then, being in an itch to be +gone; but he still detained me. +</P> + +<P> +"There is one particular word there set down," said he, "that I have +often lighted upon in other books also, which if you would translate +'twould ease me mightily." +</P> + +<P> +"What word is that?" cried I, impatiently. +</P> + +<P> +"It is <I>Quemadmodum</I>," said he. +</P> + +<P> +But before I could interpret to him, my mare had scoured away after +Peter Sprot's hackney, and we were a bowshot distant ere I had +recovered my seat. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +HOW A BROTHER, HAVING OFFENDED, WAS FORGIVEN +</H4> + +<P> +I found my father sitting as his wont was in the high wainscoted +book-room beyond the hall. When I entered he looked up from a pile of +papers he had been diligently perusing, and smiled upon me pleasantly. +I was surprised to note the serenity of his brow, having indeed +prepared myself for a worse condition of health in him than Peter Sprot +had allowed. But whatever trouble he had he laid it by to bid me +good-morrow, and to excuse himself for so hastily summoning me. +</P> + +<P> +"Upon so fine a morning, Denis," he said, "I would not willingly have +cut short your pleasure, and do not so for my own business, which is +simple enough at most times, as a man's should be who hath ever studied +to be quiet." He paused a small while and cast his eye over an open +book that lay beside him on the table, and I knew it to be the +"Discourses of Epictetus." A wonder crept into my mind at this, that +while the words of Scripture would oftentimes be in his mouth, his +reading was generally in the heathens, and his way of life more +according to the ancient Stoicks (of whom Mr. Jordan had often +discoursed), than to the precepts of the Church of England of which he +nevertheless professed himself a member. Such fancies however being +foreign to the matter, I put them from me, expecting the sequel +anxiously, and in the meantime assuring my father that I would never +have gone thus upon my twilight journey had I known he required me; +which was indeed true, and he acknowledged it handsomely. +</P> + +<P> +"I know where to trust and where to doubt, Denis," he said, in his +quiet voice, "and I know likewise that where trust is broken there +stands occasion for lenity, though the using of it is hard at all +times; severity being more aptly come by, and by the vulgar commended." +</P> + +<P> +I knew by this that his thoughts had slid from the present into that +sad channel of the past, and marvelled that he could speak so of +forgiveness where his honour had been engaged, and, in the event, my +mother's life forfeit. +</P> + +<P> +"'Twas well that Peter had some inkling of your road," my father went +on and in a livelier manner, "else we might still be seeking you o'er +half Exmoor. But tell me what it was led you to Dunster, lad?" And he +looked at me methought somewhat keenly as he spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"I had hoped to meet with Captain Cutts," I returned boldly, though I +was conscious of the emptiness of the reason, "and to hear of the +chance of war." +</P> + +<P> +To my surprise my father appeared relieved by my answer, but presently +explained himself. +</P> + +<P> +"It had lain upon me that you were perhaps courting some lass there, +Denis; not that I should censure you therefor, but having need of you +myself awhile, I would not suddenly interfere with that is proper +enough for you to consider of at your age. Well, so much for +prologue," he broke off swiftly, and betook himself again to scanning +the papers on his desk. +</P> + +<P> +"So Mr. Cutts having avoided the town before you arrived," he said +presently, glancing up, "the direct purpose of your errand failed." +</P> + +<P> +I was about to reply when he added: "You have little cause to grieve in +that, Denis, seeing his commission is cancelled and he to be +apprehended for malpractices of which I have here the note before me." +</P> + +<P> +"I would all such villains were hanged as soon as apprehended," cried +I, in a sudden rage at this disclosed infamy; but my father put up his +hand peremptorily to stop me. +</P> + +<P> +"Hast ever heard of thine uncle Botolph?" he asked me presently, and +with the same piercing glance as before. +</P> + +<P> +I told him yes, and that Peter Sprot had related some part of his story +to me. +</P> + +<P> +"That was not altogether well," replied my father with a little +movement of his brows, "and not what I looked for from his discretion." +He set his ruff even and took up his pen as if to write, but sat so +awhile without either writing or speaking. +</P> + +<P> +"I forced him to tell me," I said, for I thought he blamed Peter for +what was truly my own curiosity. +</P> + +<P> +"Tut," said my father, "'tis a small matter, and being known saves many +words to no purpose. I have received a letter from him," he said. +</P> + +<P> +This amazed me, for I had thought him (I know not wherefore) to be dead. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, where is he?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"He is in the Tower," said my father. +</P> + +<P> +At these words my blood leapt to my heart in a tumult, for I knew well +enough what this meant, and that in such a time of danger as now we +lived in, when all was suspicion and betrayal, few men that had once +come into that foul dungeon ever left it living. Until now I had found +frequent matter for rejoicing in this very process and summary action +of the Council, being confident that 'twas for the better security of +the realm, and deriding them that would have accorded an open trial to +all, and the means of a man's clearing himself at the law. But now +that our own family stood thus impeached, I had nothing to say, nor +aught to think, but upon the terror of it and the disgrace to our house +and ancient name. +</P> + +<P> +"What is the cause?" I inquired, when I had something recovered myself; +but my lips were dry and my face (I am assured) as white as paper. +</P> + +<P> +"He has had licence granted to write," returned my father; "which is a +mark of favour not oftentimes bestowed. He saith he is well treated, +though for the rest his chamber is but a mean cold one and evil +smelling, and the ward upon him strict, especially when he is had in to +the Constable for examination, which hath been several times renewed. +As for the cause, there would appear by his letter to be little enough, +save such as gathers from a host of fears, and from his known devotion +to my Lord of Arundel; which indeed was the direct occasion of his +apprehension. Of a former intimacy with that witless Somerville +moreover, he is accused, and the mere supposition of it goes hard +against him; but upon this head he hath strong hope of his exculpation, +having only, as he writes, once met with the man, and then in a public +place without any the least concealment." +</P> + +<P> +He rose from his seat as he ended speaking, and took a turn or two +about the room, his hands clasped behind his back and his head bent in +thought. I suppose that never before had I observed my father with so +close attention, having ever held him (as I have said) in a kind of +negligent contempt for his mild and bookish ways. But now I perceived +a nobility of bearing in him which took me strangely, and withal, a +secret strength. His scholar's indifference he had quite cast aside, +and appeared full of purpose, shrewdly weighing each circumstance of +his brother's case, and examining the good and bad in it, in order to +the more directly assist him. This unused activity of his so engaged +me that for awhile I could do nought but follow him with my eyes, until +the vision of my father always thus (as thus he might have been, save +for that great weight of sorrow warping him from his natural aptness), +this vision, I say, so moved me in his favour and against my uncle +Botolph, who was surely now receiving chastisement for his former sin, +that I could not contain myself. +</P> + +<P> +"But, sir," I cried, "why should you concern yourself for a man that +hath wronged you so basely as my uncle did? And besides that," I +bethought myself to add in order to strengthen our excuse for leaving +him alone, "besides that, there is the unseemliness of your aiding a +man that the Queen's Majesty is offended withal. It is very probable +he is implicated in these treasons, who hath brought such treason into +household affairs, and the likelier still for his denying it." +</P> + +<P> +Something in my father's countenance stayed me there, else would I have +spoken more; for there is nought so easy as to persuade ourselves 'tis +right to do nothing in a dangerous pass. +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, ay," said my father slowly, "then your advice is to leave my +brother to perish." +</P> + +<P> +"You are a magistrate, sir," I stammered, "and it surely behoves you to +assist in the arrest of traitors." +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, and so it doth, Denis," said he, nodding, "but then, this +gentleman being already arrested, it seems that my poor assistance +therein is rendered in advance superfluous." +</P> + +<P> +"But you are minded to help him, sir," said I, "so far as you be able." +</P> + +<P> +"Leaving that aside," he said, "let us return to your former argument, +which was, as I remember, that because he had once badly wronged me so +I should not now concern myself on his behalf. Why then do you +afterwards bring me in as a magistrate, when you have so potently +addressed my prejudice as a man? Nay, Denis," he said, smiling at my +discomfiture, "you speak for my ease, I know well, and I thank you; but +this may not be. Nor, indeed, does your uncle desire it to be as you +understand the case. He prays me here," he struck the open letter +lightly, "to gain him fair trial, if such a thing may be come by, and +by it he is content to be judged. Were it I, who stood in this +jeopardy, Denis, and not he, would you deny me your offices?" +</P> + +<P> +His grave manner and contempt of the revenge I had held out to him, +wrought upon me so that I could not answer him, but going forward I +knelt and kissed his hand. I think now he was the best man I ever +knew, and one that, without hesitancy, ever chose the untainted course. +</P> + +<P> +We fell to business after that with a will; my father opening with me +upon many matters of procedure at the law, in which I was surprised to +find him perfect, and giving me his reasons for supposing that my uncle +Botolph would be suffered to stand upon his delivery in open court. He +read me his whole letter too, which I had to confess was very simply +written and bore the impress of truth. +</P> + +<P> +"You see that he speaks here of councillors to defend him, which is +very needful," my father continued, "though the emoluments of that +office be higher than I had hoped to find. He writes that a less sum +than five hundred pounds would avail little, which, if it include the +necessary expenses of seeking out witnesses (of whom he names one in +Flanders who must be brought home), if it include this, I say, and the +procuring of documents, that may well be, though I am sorry to find +justice sold at so high a rate." +</P> + +<P> +"But, sir, can you employ so much money in this affair?" I asked, for +it sounded an infinite treasure to me. +</P> + +<P> +"I think so," he replied, "though I would it were not so urgent. I +must however encumber the estate for awhile, Denis; as indeed hath been +done before by my grandfather, at the time the Scriptures were printed +in English secretly, three score years since; which work he was bold to +forward, and spared neither pains nor moneys therein. But that +concerns thee not, Denis," he broke off, "and for the getting together +of the ransom, for so it is, I will engage to effect it. Only your +part will be to convey it to London and deliver it to my brother's +agent and good friend, one Mr. John Skene, an attorney of Serjeants +Inn, in Fleet Street, who will use it, as your uncle believes, and I +doubt not, to advantage." +</P> + +<P> +Our conference ended, and my doubts resolved of what it stood me to do, +I went away, leaving my father still in his book-room, who had letters +to write to Exeter, about the business of the loan. The discourse I +had had, and especially the peril imminent over one so near in blood to +us, had excited my imagination greatly; so that 'twas a long while ere +I could examine each particular soberly, as a merchant doth a bill of +goods, and, as it were, piece by piece. Everything hung confused in my +brain like a wrack of cloud, which, parting, discloses now one thing +and now another but nothing clearly, nor whole. Immersed in such +considerations I had wandered a great way, and unawares had begun to +mount the steep hill that stands above the Combe Court, and now gazed +down through the trees upon our house, which I had once likened to a +place enchanted, so evenly did all go there and with the regularity of +one breathing in his sleep. The old gabled tower, with the great bell +in the clochard or belfry beside it, I had oftentimes laughed at with +Simon Powell, as at a thing of more pretence than usage; the alarm not +having been rung therefrom for nigh a hundred years. But now the sight +of it brought tears to my eyes for the very peace which clung about it. +For well I knew that I was come at the end of my time of quiet and was +to adventure forth of my old home into regions full as strange and +difficult as any of Simon's uncouth caves and elvish forests. And I +thought of that hero of his which bade them cut off his head and bear +it, still sweet, to the White Mount in London, whither I was now going. +</P> + +<P> +Then I looked again down upon the yard before the house, with its fine +brick gate upon the road, and behind the house, upon the base court +with the offices beside it, and the stables beyond, and beyond again +the green bottom of the combe and the cattle feeding. It was a fair +estate, and one that no man would encumber in a trivial cause. But +once before it had been so laid under bond, which was, as my father +said, in order to the advancement of the glory of God; and now, the +second time 'twas so to be for no better purpose than the enlargement +of a traitor. A youth argues narrowly perforce, being hedged between +lack of experience and lack of charity, but the force of his +conclusion, for this very want, I suppose, hath an honest vigour in it +which is beyond the competence of many an elder man. So I, being +persuaded of my uncle Botolph's villainy, there on that hillside swore +that, albeit I would faithfully labour for his release, as I was bound +to do, yet I would thereafter bring him to book with a vengeance. And +how I kept my word you shall see. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IN WHICH I SAY FAREWELL THRICE +</H4> + +<P> +In the middle of the month of November our business was pretty well +settled, and the day of my departure ordained, which was to be upon the +Wednesday following, there being a friend of my father's about to +journey to Devizes on that day, with whom it was intended I should so +far travel. To be honest, it was with some feelings of concern that I +expected this my first entrance into the world, where I was to meet +with a sort of folk I had no knowledge of: learned attorneys of the +Inns, Judges of the Queen's Bench (if we ever got so far); and that +gaunt figure of the Constable with the keys of the Tower at his girdle +and a constant lamentation of prisoners in his ear. My duty at the +beginning was plain enough, my father having often rehearsed the same +to me; as that I should take lodging in Fetter Lane at the house of one +Malt, a hosier, who should use me honestly, he being a West-Country +man. Thereafter and as soon as my convenience would allow, I was to +betake myself to a certain goldsmith of repute, whose shop stood hard +by the new Burse in Cornhill, and there receive gold in exchange for +the letters I bore, the which my father had gotten upon articles signed +in Exeter. So provided, I was to put myself under the direction and +command of Mr. Skene, who would employ me as his occasions required. +</P> + +<P> +The last day of my home-keeping broke in fair weather, of which I was +glad, for I purposed to spend it in bidding farewell to my neighbours +and the persons I especially loved about the estate. +</P> + +<P> +And first I sought my old companion Simon, whom I found by the brook, +in a place where there be otters, some ten or twelve furlongs up the +valley that descends into our combe from the westward, where the trees +grow very thickly and in summer there is a pleasant shade. Thither we +had often gone together in times past, and there I shrewdly guessed I +should discover him. +</P> + +<P> +I came upon him crouched beside the stream among the withered bracken, +his cross-bow laid aside with which he had been fowling, and a great +dead pheasant cock in the grass at his feet. I hailed him twice before +he heard me, when he rose at once and spreading his sheepskin mantle +for me (the air being very bitter) he told me he had thought I forgot +him. +</P> + +<P> +"I should not have gone without bidding thee farewell, Simon," I +replied, for his reproach stung me the more that I had neglected him of +late, and knew not wherefore. "I have been deeply engaged about this +journey to London, and the hours I have been idle my mind hath been too +anxious for chat. 'Tis an employment I mislike, Simon," I said +earnestly, "and one I do not see to the end of." +</P> + +<P> +"When does his worship think it will be concluded?" asked Simon Powell. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, these things depend upon their law-terms," I said, willing to let +him perceive my knowledge in such affairs. "The Bench doth not try +causes unremittingly." +</P> + +<P> +"Ay," he said, nodding, the while he regarded me with a strange look of +the eyes, "but subject to the judges' convenience, I would have said. +Will you return by Lady Day, think you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, that is four months distant," I cried, for his question had +something startled me. "I shall surely be safe home in half that time." +</P> + +<P> +But Simon shook his head. "Since I first heard of this errand," he +said, "the thought of it hath never left me, sleeping nor waking, Mr. +Denis. And as there be some things that every man may tell certainly +that they will happen, as the seasons to pass in due order, and the red +deer to come down to the pools in the evening, and the sun to set and +rise; so there be other things, though not in the rule of nature, which +a man may yet discern that hath bent his will that way. So did that +knight who, in a dream, saw strange and way-worn men bringing tribute +to Arthur from the Islands of Greece, which was not then, but was +certainly to be, and now in these days we shall see the same; ay, +Arthur receiving tribute from all the nations and not Greece only, and +everywhere triumphing." +</P> + +<P> +I sat suspended in amaze while he spoke thus, his dark eyes sparkling +and his fingers straitly interlaced. It was a mood he had never before +revealed, though he had often, as I have said, told me tales of his old +heroes and wizards, but not with this stress of fervour and (as it +were) prophetic sureness. Such power as he manifested in his words +surely confounds distinctions of rank and erases the badge of servant. +For there may be no mastery over them that can convince our souls, as +this Welsh lad convinced mine. +</P> + +<P> +When he spoke again, it was with some shame in his voice, as though he +had betrayed his secret mind and feared my laughter; which had he known +it, he need by no means have done. +</P> + +<P> +"My meaning is," he went on, "that I feel this adventure which you set +about will continue longer than you imagine, Mr. Denis, though I have +no proof thereof; at least, none I may put into words; and you may well +deride the notion. Notwithstanding, it sticks with me that you will +not return to the Combe Court until many a strange accident shall have +befallen, of which we be now ignorant." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, however long it be, Simon," said I cheerily, for I wished to +lighten our conversation somewhat, "you may rest well-assured of my +remembrance of you, and that though I wander as far forth as to those +same Islands of Greece you spake of, yet shall my affections draw me +home again." +</P> + +<P> +He leapt to his feet at that, with an apparent gladness that warmed me +marvellously, though 'twas but a frolic sentence I had made, and spoken +smiling. So do we often probe into the future with a jest, and, as it +were, speak the fool's prologue to our own tragedy. +</P> + +<P> +Our leaving-taking ended in laughter, then, as perhaps 'tis best, and +Simon remaining to shoot fowl, I left him to bid farewell to old Peter +Sprot; who gave me good advice in the matter of stage-plays and the +choice of food, which I promised, so far as I was able, to observe. +</P> + +<P> +"For other things," he said, "I leave you to your conscience, master, +as in the end, 'tis necessary. But this I say: that I have small love +of players, and such as, not content with the condition and quality +they were born to, must needs pretend to principalities and lordships, +which they sustain for a weary hour or so, and after return, like the +swine of the Scripture, to their wallowing in the mire." +</P> + +<P> +"I think there is no probability of my playing any prince's part, +Peter," quoth I. +</P> + +<P> +"Nor of seeing it played neither, I hope," he replied, "for though we +be all sinners, yet we sinners that witness neither stage-plays nor +pageants, Mr. Denis, be hugely better than they that do; and mark me, +sir, it shall so appear hereafter." +</P> + +<P> +This I knew to be a thrust at Mr. Ptolemy and his puppet-show no less +than at the public theatre in Finsbury Fields, which had then been set +up about seven or eight years. +</P> + +<P> +"Eat beef and mutton, Mr. Denis," he proceeded gravely, "and fish also. +There is a good market for fish in London, though they that vend there +be something inclined to blasphemy; I know not wherefore; but strange +dishes eschew, and particularly those of the French. For the French +nation is given up to Popery, dancing and the compounding of +unwholesome foods. Nay, this late commerce of our nobility with the +effeminate and godless Frenchmen hath gone far to the ruin of both +stomach and religion that should be simply fed, the one by such meats +as I have named, mutton (eaten with onions, Mr. Denis), beef, and in +cold weather, pork; the other by sound doctrine and preaching of the +Word." He paused awhile, and I thought had concluded his admonition; +when he seemed to recover something notable. "There be divers ways of +dressing a capon, Mr. Denis," said he, "of which the goodwife hath a +particular knowledge, as also of the sauces to be served therewith. +These I will, by your leave, procure to be transcribed for your use, +and so, God keep you." +</P> + +<P> +I thanked him heartily for his good will, although I secretly admired +the fashion in which he interlarded sound doctrine with strong meats. +But every man out of the abundance of his heart speaketh, and I knew +that Peter dealt with me lovingly in meddling virtue with appetite in +so singular a manner. Now, when I had parted from the honest steward, +I considered with myself whom next I should salute, and determined that +it should be the maidservants and Ursula the cook; and to this end +returned toward the house, but unwillingly, for I have ever been +abashed in the presence of womenfolk, at least within doors, where a +man is at a disadvantage but they at their ease. And so greatly did +this distaste and backwardness grow upon me that I hung about the gate +of the yard behind the house, fearing to venture forward, and as it +were into a den of mocking lions, until I should more perfectly have +rehearsed my farewell speeches. It was then (as I always believe) that +a door was opened unto me of that Providence which rules our motions, +and a way of escape made plain; the which door was my old pedagogue, +Mr. Jordan, whom I suddenly remembered (though I had scarce thought +upon him these two years) and whom I had such a compelling inclination +to visit as sent the maids out of my head, and my heels out of the yard +on the instant. When I bade good-bye to Ursula and the rest on the +morrow, I was in the open air and mounted, so that I cared not a jot +for their laughter (which indeed soon led into tears; my own being +pretty near to my eyes too), but made them a great speech as full of +ego as a schoolboy's first lesson in Latin. +</P> + +<P> +Up the hill towards Mr. Jordan's house I climbed therefore to beg his +blessing upon me, and to thank him for all he had done for me in times +past. It was near dinner-time by this, and I conceived the kindness of +cooking the old scholar's meal for him as he lay in bed; for I doubted +not to find him so, as I had rarely found him otherwise than on his +pallet with a great folio or two by way of counterpane, and a Plato's +"Republick" to his pillow. There had been a little snow fallen in the +night which still clung upon the uplands, and when I had ascended to +his dwelling I found a drift about the door and the thatched eaves +considerably laden upon the weather side of them with snow. But what +surprised me mightily was certain vestiges before the threshold, and +regularly iterated, as by a sentinel's marchings to and fro. My +bewilderment increased moreover, or rather gave place to alarm when I +chanced to observe beside the window of that I knew for his study (to +wit the room he slept in), a great halberd resting, and a military +steel cap. Then did I painfully call to mind those former pursuits of +my poor old preceptor when (as was reported) he had been a novice in +the old Abbey of Cleeve, and knowing the present ill estimation in +which the Papists everywhere were held, I understood that Mr. Jordan +had not escaped the vigilance of the Commission, but was now under +arrest, or at least that his liberty was so encroached on as made it +mere confinement within his own house. Greatly distressed for this +opinion, I approached near to the little window, of which the shutter +(there being no glass) hung on the jar, and timorously gazed within. +The bed stood empty, and no one that I could see was in the chamber. +This confirmed me in my suspicion, and at the same time emboldened me +to demand admittance. Some hope that my witness (or rather the weight +of our authority) would bestead him, moved me to this course, and I +knocked loudly on the door. Hardly had I done so, when I heard from +within a horrid clatter of arms upon the flags as of a man falling in a +scuffle, and so without more ado I lifted the latch and sprang into the +house. Mr. Jordan lay at full length along the floor. +</P> + +<P> +"Who hath done this, Master?" I cried out in a sudden gust of wrath, +for he was an old man and a reverend. He lifted himself painfully, +regarding me as he did so with an inscrutable mildness which I took to +be of despair. His assailant was evidently fled in the meanwhile, or +perhaps went to summon a posse comitatus for my tutor's apprehension. +</P> + +<P> +"I will undertake your enlargement," said I, and indeed felt myself +strong enough to dispose of a whole sergeant's guard unaided. +</P> + +<P> +"I am beholden to you, young master," replied Mr. Jordan, "and now that +I look more closely, I take you to be that degenerate young Denis +Cleeve, to whom Syntax and Accidence were wont to be as felloes in the +wheel of Ixion, and Prosody a very stone of Sisyphus. Art thou not he, +my son?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am Denis Cleeve," I answered impatiently, "but I think my lack of +Latin concerns us not now, when we are in danger of the law." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! thou hast come into some scrape," he said, sitting up on the +stones, and gathering up his knees. "Such as thou art, was the +Telamonian Ajax, whom Homer represents as brave enough, though in +learning but a fool. Why, what hast thou done, little Ajax, that thou +hast wantonly forfeited the protection of the laws? But be brief in +the telling, since I sit here in some discomfort, having entangled a +great sword in my legs and fallen something heavily, which in a man of +my years and weight is as if Troy herself fell; a catastrophe +lamentable even to the gods." +</P> + +<P> +At this I could not contain my laughter, partly for the mistake into +which he had been led that I feared a danger which was in truth his +own, and partly for the accident of the sword which had tripped him up +thus headlong; but more than either for the tragi-comick simile he had +used in comparing himself in his downfall with the ancient city of Troy. +</P> + +<P> +"To return to my first question," I said as soon as I had settled my +countenance. "Who hath set upon you? and whither has he fled?" +</P> + +<P> +"None hath set upon me, young sir," he replied sadly, "and ergo, we +need search for no fugitive. I had armed myself, and the harness +encumbering me (as indeed I have had little occasion for its use these +forty years), I fell, in the manner you saw. And had not nature folded +me in certain kindly wrappages of flesh above the common, my frame had +been all broken and disjointed by this lapsus, which even now hath left +me monstrous sore." +</P> + +<P> +I lifted him to his feet, though with some difficulty, for it was true +that nature had dealt liberally with him in the matter of flesh; and +having set him in a chair, I asked him how it was he came thus +accoutred, since it was not (as he affirmed) to withstand any +molestation. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, 'tis in order to molest others, numskull!" he cried, making as if +to pass upon me with his recovered weapon. "And for withstanding, 'tis +to withstand the Queen's enemies, and affront them that pretend +annoyance to her Grace's peace. I am the scholar in arms, boy! the +clerk to be feared. I am Sapientia Furens, and wisdom in the camp. +Furthermore I am, though a poor professor of the Catholick Faith, yet +one that detests the malignity of such as would establish that faith +again by force of arms. It is by way of protest therefore, and in the +vigour of loyalty, that I buckle on this, alas! too narrow panoply; and +when I should be setting towards my grave, go forth upon my first +campaign." +</P> + +<P> +"You are taking service in the Queen's army, Mr. Jordan?" I stammered, +for the prospect of it was hardly to be credited. +</P> + +<P> +"If she will receive it, yea," he returned, with a melancholy +determination. "And if she reject me as that I am too far declined +from juvenility, I will crave at the least a pair of drums, having +served some apprenticeship to parchment, Denis, so that I could +doubtless sound a tuck upon occasion." +</P> + +<P> +Beneath his apparent levity I could discern the hardness of his +purpose, and honoured him extremely, knowing the rigour which attendeth +service in the field and the conversation (offensive to a scholar) of +the gross and ignorant soldiery. While I thus pondered his resolution, +he proceeded quietly in his work of scouring certain antique pieces and +notched blades that he told me had been his father's; and when they +responded to his liking he would lunge and parry with them according to +some theoretick rule he had, the which I suspected to have been drawn +from the precepts of a Gothick sergeant, at the Sack of Rome. His +pallid broad countenance was reddened by this exercise, and an +alertness so grew upon his former unwieldy motions that I admired him +for the recovery of the better part of youth, although he must at that +time have passed his three score years and ten. And ever and anon as +he scoured or smote, he would utter some tag of Latin apposite to the +occasion (at least I suppose so) and seemed to gather a secret comfort +from the allusion. I have never encountered with a man so little +moulded to the age he lived in, nor so independent of its customary +usages. His words were, as I have said, generally spoken in the dead +languages, while his features were rather formed upon the model of +those divines that flourished half a century since, and are now but +seldom met with in any. I have seen a picture of the Archbishop and +Lord Chancellor, Warham, which greatly resembled Mr. Jordan, and +especially in the heavy eyelids and the lines of sadness about the +mouth. On ordinary occasion my old tutor wore moreover a close-fitting +cap of black velvet such as Master Warham wore also, cut square over +the ears and set low upon the brow. +</P> + +<P> +I have drawn his character somewhat tediously perhaps, but it is +because he has become in my imagination a sort of symbol and gigantic +figure that stands between my old life and my new. When I look back +upon my boyhood there is Mr. Jordan a-sprawl on his bed amid a host of +books, and when the prospect of my early manhood opens it is half +obliterated by his genial bulk. +</P> + +<P> +I learned to my satisfaction that he purposed to depart on the morrow +for London, where also he hoped to pass muster into some company of the +Queen's troops. His delight, I think, was equal to my own, when I told +him that I was bound thither likewise, and we accordingly parted until +daybreak with mutual encouragements and good will. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +PRINCIPALLY TELLS HOW SIR MATTHEW JUKE WAS CAST AWAY UPON THE HEBRIDES +</H4> + +<P> +I awoke long before dawn on that memorable Wednesday which was to set a +term to my pleasant and not altogether idle life in the Combe. Yet +early as I had awakened, my father preceded me, and coming into my +attic chamber where I had always slept in the tower, sat down by my +bedside, fully dressed, while I was still rubbing the sleep out of my +eyes. What passed betwixt us in that still hour I may not recount, but +let it suffice that it left me weeping. There be words spoken +sometimes that have the effect and impress of a passage of time, so +potently do they dissever us from the past, leading us into a sudden +knowledge which by time only is generally acquired, and that painfully. +Such an experience it was mine to gain then, so that my boyish follies +and the ignorant counterfeits which make up a boy's wisdom fell away +the while my father discoursed gravely of this and that, and I +marvelled how I could ever have held such stock of vain opinions. +Alas! for my presumption, and alas! too, that opinions as vain may +beset a man full as closely as a boy; and follies the more indecent +that they be wrought without ignorance. +</P> + +<P> +One thing I find it in my heart to speak of, because it exemplifies my +father's forbearance, though at a cost which he would well have spared. +My uncle's name having been made mention of between us, my thoughts +flew from him to the mother I had never known, and in a luckless hour I +demanded whether my father had not any picture of her, that I might +carry her image clear in my mind. His brow clouded as I begged this +favour, and rising from his seat, he went to the window, where he +seemed about to draw aside the shutters that closed it, but desisted. +I could have bitten my tongue out for my imprudence, but could think of +no words to recover or mitigate it and so sat still, gazing upon his +tall figure all dim in the twilight, and wishing for my life that he +would refuse my request. +</P> + +<P> +But he did not. For with a strong motion he suddenly flung back the +shutters, letting in the grey light, and turned upon me with a smile. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, that is a natural thing to desire, Denis," he said, "and one I +ought to have thought to do without your asking." He put his hand into +the bosom of his doublet as he spoke, so that I certainly knew he had +worn her picture all these years against his heart. He plucked out +presently a little case of green leather clasped with silver, and oval +in shape, and, having first detached it from the silver chain by which +it was secured, he laid it in my hands and straightway left the room. +</P> + +<P> +'Twas a face very pale limned, in which there yet appeared each +minutest feature, hue, and lock of hair even, so ingeniously was all +done. Behind the face was a foil of plain blue to show it off; and so +exact and perfect as the thing was, it lay in my palm no bigger than a +crown piece. I examined it closely. There was a kind of pride in the +eyes which looked at you direct, and the eyebrows descended a little +inwards towards the nose, as one sees them sometimes in a man that +brooks not to be crossed, but seldom in a girl. Her mouth and chin +were small and shapely, yet otherwise of no particular account. I +judged it to be the picture of one that saw swiftly and without fear, +and moreover that the mere sight of things, and a quick apprehension of +them, determined her actions. Somehow so (methought) looked that +scrupulous Saint that doubted his Lord without proof of vision; whereat +calling to mind his tardy and so great repentance, I felt a catch of +hope that my mother repented likewise, and by her repentance was +justified. +</P> + +<P> +My father entering then, I gave up the locket, which he took from me +quietly, saying it was by an Exeter youth that had since gone to Court +and painted many notable persons there; one N. Hillyard, whose father +had been High Sheriff of Exeter twenty years since, his mother being a +London woman named Laurence Wall, and that the lady's father had been a +goldsmith; moreover (which was singular) 'twas to one of the same +family (I think a son) that I was directed to present my letters of +exchange. The hour then drawing towards the time I was to meet with my +father's friend, and there being many things to be attended to, I +dressed hastily and was soon ready below, where I found my father +again, and Sprot, in the great hall, with my clothes and other +necessaries, which they bestowed in two or three deerskin wallets that +lay open on the floor. These were to go forward by the carrier, who +undertook to deliver them as far as to Devizes, whence I was to hire +such means of carriage as seemed advisable, whether by sumpter-beasts +or waggon, for the rest of my journey. +</P> + +<P> +A little after, and when I had taken breakfast, we heard a noise of +horses in the forecourt, and knew it for Sir Matthew Juke, of +Roodwater, my companion, and his retinue. My father went at once to +the door and invited him in, but he would not dismount, he said, +thinking indeed 'twas already time to set forward. He spoke in a quick +petulant fashion and was (as I since discovered) in a considerable +trepidation upon certain rumours of thieves in the wild country betwixt +Taunton and Glastonbury, the which greatly daunted him. He wore a +cuirass over his doublet, and carried his sword loose in the scabbard, +while his men bore their pieces in their hands openly. A wain with his +goods in, that followed, had an especial guard; though they seemed to +be but mere patches spared from the farm, and I was assured, would have +dropped their calivers and fled at the first onslaught. +</P> + +<P> +I was soon horsed, with a dozen hands to help, and a ring of women +beyond, admiring and weeping and bidding me God speed; to whom I +addressed myself, as I have said, with as much gratitude as little +modesty; being strangely excited by the circumstance and noise which +attended our departure. I had a pair of great pistols in the holsters +of my saddle which I could scarce forbear to flourish in either hand, +and the sword at my belt delighted me no less, it being the first I had +yet worn. +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis the one you would have given to the cheat," my father had told me +as he tightened my belt-strap. "But give it to none now, Denis, nor +draw it not, save in defence of yourself (as I pray God you need draw +it seldom), and of such as, but for you, be defenceless." +</P> + +<P> +At our parting, I bent at a sign, when he kissed me, and I him, and so +set forward with our train. A great shout followed us, and at the +hedge-end stood Simon Powell, his bonnet in his hand, which he waved as +we went by, crying out a deal of Welsh (having forgot the Queen's +English altogether, he told me afterwards), and in so shrill a voice as +set the knight's horse capering and himself in a rage of blasphemy. +</P> + +<P> +We fell in with Mr. Jordan, whom I had almost feared had given over his +enterprise, some mile or so distant, at a smith's in a little village +we passed through, where he was having his armour eased about the +middle, and a basket hilt put upon his sword. +</P> + +<P> +"Who is this fellow?" asked Sir Matthew testily, when I hailed and +accosted him. +</P> + +<P> +"It is my old preceptor, sir," said I, "who is coming with us, if he +have your leave." +</P> + +<P> +"Hast heard of any robbers by the way, Doctor?" inquired the knight at +that, and I saw he was marvellous glad of this increase in his +auxiliaries. +</P> + +<P> +"I hear of nought else," replied the scholar sturdily, while the other +turned very pale. But continuing, the scholar said: "Seeing that in a +treatise I wrote awhile since and caused to be printed, there is a +notable paragraph hath been bodily seized upon by a beggarly student of +Leyden, and impudently exhibited to the world as his own. Heard you +ever such? Robbers quotha? How of my labour, and inquiry into the +nature of the lost digamma——" +</P> + +<P> +"Hold!" cried Sir Matthew. "I see we talk athwart. This lost thing or +person of yours (for I understand no whit of what it may be) is nothing +to the purpose. I spoke of robbers on the highway, villains and +cutpurses." +</P> + +<P> +"Of them I reck little," said Mr. Jordan coolly, "seeing I have no +purse to be cut." +</P> + +<P> +"They are dangerous nevertheless," said the other loftily. +</P> + +<P> +"For which reason you go sufficiently attended," muttered the scholar, +with a cursory eye backward upon the knight's warlike following; and +with that we all fell, although for different causes, into an uniform +silence. At length, being come to the top of a hill up which we had +ascended painfully for near the half of an hour, and especially the +waggons found it hard to overcome, we stood out upon an open and +circular piece of ground, bordered about by noble great beech trees, +but itself clear save for the sweet grass that covered it; and the turf +being dry and the air refreshing after our late labour, we were glad to +dismount there and rest awhile. +</P> + +<P> +Sir Matthew ordered one of his men to fetch cooked meat and two bottles +of wine from the cart, and showed himself very generous in inviting us +to join him at this repast. +</P> + +<P> +"I have always gone provided in these matters," he told us as we sat +together thus, "since I went upon my first voyage to the Baltic, being +but a boy then, although accounted a strong one." (I know not +wherefore; for he must ever have been little, and his back not above +two hands' breadth.) "Howbeit," he continued, "we had the ill luck to +be cast away upon the Hebrides, the weather being very tempestuous and +our ship not seaworthy; so that about the fourth day it broke in pieces +utterly. I held to a piece of the keel," he said, looking anxiously +from one to the other as his memory or invention helped him to these +particulars, "upon which, too, clung our purser, whom I did my best to +comfort in this our common and marvellous peril. How we got to shore I +never understood, but we did, although half dead, and the purser +raving." +</P> + +<P> +"Since which time," said Mr. Jordan, pausing in the conveyance to his +mouth of a great piece of a fowl's wing, "you have, as you say, gone +provided against the repetition of such accidents, even upon the dry +land." +</P> + +<P> +"And wisely, sir, as I think," added Sir Matthew. +</P> + +<P> +"Was there then no food to be had in Scotland?" asked Mr. Jordan simply. +</P> + +<P> +"Not where we landed, in the Hebrides," replied the knight tartly. "As +to the rest of that country I know nothing, save that 'tis a poor +starved foggy place, and the people savage, half naked and inclining to +Presbytery, which is a form of religion I abhor, and to any that +professeth the same I am ready to prove it wholly erroneous and false." +</P> + +<P> +The knight's tale seeming likely to digress into theology, we ended our +dinner hastily without more words; albeit from time to time later, it +was evident that Sir Matthew's thoughts were still upon shipping and +the sea; so that scarce an accident we met with but he found in it +occasion for casting us naked on the Hebrides, or drowning us in the +Baltic. +</P> + +<P> +We had halted, I say, upon a considerable eminence, and the ground +falling away in our front very steeply, the view thence was of an +unparalleled breadth and variety. For stretched at our very feet, as +it seemed, lay a fair and fertile champaign diversified here and there +with woodland and open heath. Beyond the vale rose the wild and +untracked downs all dark and clouded; and to the left hand (as we +stood) the bar of the Quantock Hills. Surely a man must travel far who +would behold a land more pleasant than this sweet vale of Taunton; nay, +were he to do so, as indeed the exiled Israelites found pleasanter +waters in Babylon than they had left in Jewry, yet must he needs (as +they did) weep at the remembrance of it; for there is no beauty +ascendeth to the height of that a man's own country hath—I mean at +least if it be the West Country, as mine is. +</P> + +<P> +We continued our progress, going through two or three hamlets where the +old folk and children stood about the doors to watch us pass, for we +were a notable spectacle, and Sir Matthew Juke a stern figure in the +van; travelling thus without any great fatigue, for we kept at a foot's +pace on account of the waggon, and of Mr. Jordan also, who had no +horse. I frequently besought him to ride my own mare, but he would not +until we were within sight of the great belfry tower of St. Mary's +Church in Taunton, when he consented, being indeed pretty faint by +that, and thanked me handsomely out of Æsop. +</P> + +<P> +In Taunton we dined, and there too I hired a beast for the scholar +because (to speak the truth) I could not bear to be parted any longer +from my holsters with the new pistols in. No adventure befell us +worthy recording, or rather nothing of such magnitude as Sir Matthew's +shipwreck which I have above set down, until we reached Glastonbury, +where we were to lie that night. +</P> + +<P> +On the morrow we departed early, observing still the same order, save +that we rode more closely before the baggage upon a persistent report +in the inn of a horrid robbery with murder on the Frome road: which +town lay in our way to Devizes. Even the Baltic dried up at this, and +we kept a pretty close look-out as we crossed the flat marsh lands +thereabout; and once Juke shot off his piece suddenly upon some alarm, +but with so trembling and ill an aim that Mr. Jordan's high crowned hat +(that he still wore) was riddled through the brim, and a verse of +Ovid's which was in his mouth, cut off smartly at the cæsura. Matter +of ridicule though this were, I had been alert to note some other +circumstance of more gravity (as I conceived) though I spoke not of it +then; the cause of my anxiety being indeed too near for open conference +thereupon. For I had, by accident, observed certain becks and glances +to pass between two of the fellows of our guard; the one of whom, a +pikeman (by name Warren), trudged beside the cart wherein were laid up +the knight's goods, and his fellow in the plot (to call it as I feared +it) was the elder of the two horsemen that wore the knight's livery and +were particularly engaged in his defence. After two or three such +furtive signals run up, as it were, and answered betwixt these twain, I +could be in no further doubt of their purpose, but studied what to do, +should they fall upon us suddenly. That their main design was to seize +upon the contents of the waggon that was by all supposed valuable, I +made sure; but what I could not yet guess was the degree of complicity +or indifference in which the rest of our company stood towards the +projected assault. I conceived them to be chiefly cowards, however, +and resolved therefore, if I might, to enlist their aid upon the first +advantage: for cowards ever succeed to the party that rises dominant, +and protest their loyalty loudest when 'tis most to be questioned. +</P> + +<P> +Because I was a boy, I suppose, but at all events very impudently, my +conspirators took small pains to hide their deliberations from my eyes, +having first assured themselves that neither Juke nor the scholar had +any cognizance of their doings. And this disdain of me it was that +brought matters to a head; for I could no longer brook it, but, +wheeling my horse about, I faced them both, and drawing a pistol from +my holster shouted: "Halt, sirs! here be traitors amongst us." +</P> + +<P> +I never saw men so immediately fall into confusion as did all of them, +but chiefly the rearward, that, every man of them, fled hither and +thither with little squealing pitiful cries; some running beneath the +waggon or behind it; others leaping off the causeway amidst the fenny +ooze and peat-bogs that it wends through in these parts, where they +were fain to shelter themselves in the grasses and filthy holes that +everywhere there abound. I caught a sight of Sir Matthew, on the +instant, exceedingly white, and his sword half drawn; but he then +losing a stirrup (as he told me afterwards he did) was borne from the +conflict unwillingly a great way down the road ere he could recover +himself. Only the younger serving man, whose name was Jenning, and Mr. +Jordan, retained their courages, and both came at once to my +assistance, which in truth was not too soon. For the footman (that is +the villain with the pike) ran in under my guard and dealt me a keen +thrust into the thigh which sore troubled although it did not unhorse +me. I returned upon him with my pistol, discharging it close to his +body, and hurt him in the shoulder, as I knew, because he dropped his +pike and clapped his hand there, grinning at me the while like a dog. +</P> + +<P> +Just then I heard the click of a snaphance, and perceived that the +caliver that Jenning carried had hung fire; and following upon this, a +great laughter from the elder man, whose name was Day, a hard-favoured +fellow, having a wicked pursed mouth and little dull green eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Shouldst 'a looked to thy priming, Master Jenning," he called out +mockingly; by which I saw that he had tampered with the poor man's +piece while we lay at the inn in Glastonbury; and this much said, he +raised his own piece and fired directly at him, who fell at once all +huddled upon his horse's neck, stark dead. Before I could draw forth +my second pistol, Mr. Jordan had rid forward very boldly, though armed +but with his antique broadsword, and laid about him with good swinging +blows, the one of which happening upon his opponent's mare, it cut into +her cheek with a great gash, at the same time bursting the rein and +headstall, to the end she was quite unmanageable, and despite of Day's +furious restraint (who, to do him credit, would have continued the +contest, two to one), charged away at a great pace, carrying him with +her along the road until they were fairly out of sight. +</P> + +<P> +When I had satisfied myself that the villain would certainly not +return, I drew my sword and looked about for his companion, the +pikeman, whom I had wounded; but whether he had crept into the +concealment of the high bog grass, as the most part of the guard had +done, or else had gone backward down the road, I could not get any +certainty; and Sir Matthew who now rode up said he had not gone that +way, else he would assuredly have met and slain him, which, seeing that +the man was disabled, is likely; and so I gave over the search. +</P> + +<P> +It cost us some pains to rally our forces, but in the end we did, Mr. +Jordan persuading them very cogently with his great sword wherever he +found them: he having groped for the digamma in stranger places, he +said, and worn away the better part of his life in the prosecution of +things more hard to come by than this, our bog-shotten escort. +</P> + +<P> +We reverently bestowed the body of poor Jenning upon the stuff in the +waggon, and with heavy hearts (though not without some thrill of +victory in mine) set onward again towards Frome and Devizes, which last +place the knight was now in a fever to attain to before sundown. +</P> + +<P> +"I think I have not been in such jeopardy," he said, "since I suffered +shipwreck off the barren coast of the Hebrides, as I related to you +yesterday." +</P> + +<P> +"The dangers would be about upon an equality," quoth Mr. Jordan. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing occurred to renew our fears nor to cause us to assume a posture +of defence for the remainder of our passage; the only accident any way +memorable being that through some mischance we got into the town of +Devizes at the wrong end of it, and were diligently proceeding quite +contrary to our purposed direction before we discovered our error. I +set this down because I have so done since also (in spite of clear +information received), and have therefore cause to regard Devizes as +something extraordinary in the approaches thereto, although Sir +Matthew, to whom I spoke of it, said that such divergences were common +enough at sea, where a man might set his course for the Baltic and +fetch up off the Hebrides, or indeed the devil knew where. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +HOW THE OLD SCHOLAR AND I CAME TO LONDON +</H4> + +<P> +I leave you to imagine whether Sir Matthew made much or little of our +adventure in the marshes, and of the part he took therein, when, having +parted from us, he found himself free to relate the same privately to +his family; they having preceded him (without any escort at all) to his +new great mansion in Devizes. Upon our part, we, that is Mr. Jordan +and I, having inquired out the Inn to which my chattels had been +already carried, took up our lodging there for the night, being pretty +well fatigued (and I wounded too) so that of all things we desired +rest. Nevertheless my old schoolmaster would by no means suffer me to +go to bed until he had procured me a surgeon, who bound up my thigh and +took his fee without any word good or bad; afterwards going himself +into the kitchen (I mean Mr. Jordan did) in order to my more careful +attendance, so that the host his daughter brought me up of her best, +and called me poor child, though I was older than she by half a year. +</P> + +<P> +Now, I learned next morning that Mr. Jordan at his supper had put so +heroical a construction upon our exploit as transformed us into men +above nature almost, and I loathed to descend into the common room +where all the ostlers and maids would be gaping after us for a pair of +paladins. Mr. Jordan took the prospect of such adulation very coolly, +saying that the wise man was he that nothing moved; but for all that I +saw he liked it, and indeed he had been at considerable pains to +prepare the ovation he now affected to despise. However, it so fell +out that when at length we descended amongst the people of the Inn, our +arrival quite failed of applause, and that for the simplest, although a +tragical, reason. +</P> + +<P> +For it appeared that when, on the yesternight, Sir Matthew, having +discharged his baggage-wain and bestowed his goods and valuable stuff +within the house, had gone to bed, it being then about midnight and all +quiet, comes there, lurking through the dark night, that villain +serving-man Day, whose late defeat had nothing distracted him from his +hopes of plunder. With his poniard he cuts out a panel of the postern +door, and privily entering thereby, goes rummaging through the house +from loft to cellar, cutting and wasting what he could not carry off, +but for the money, of which he found good store, and sundry gold +ornaments thereto that were my lady Juke's, he fills his doublet full +of them, as is proved upon him, said the teller, beyond dispute. +</P> + +<P> +"But then," proceeded the man, who now held our whole company +expectant, "even as he was about to steal away by the way he had come, +he heard a little grating noise, as of a weapon which one struck +against some impediment, close beside him in the dark where he was; and +supposing this to be the knight who had unluckily heard him, he drew +boldly upon him with his sword. The other thrust out upon the instant, +and a horrid conflict ensued, the men coming to grips shortly and +stabbing out of all rule. At length the serving-man, whose name is +Day, dealt his adversary his death-blow and prepared to flee away with +his booty, when it appeared (and as Day himself told me it surprised +him out of measure) his legs would not bear him; so that he fell along +the floor from sheer loss and effusion of blood, a subtle blow having +pierced him unawares and mortally hurt him. Thus they lay both until +the morning, when the servants, and I that am the butler, found them +there, the one of them already stark and the other close upon his end +and all aghast." +</P> + +<P> +"Then thy master be murdered, Roger Butler," cried an old fellow from +the tail of the press. +</P> + +<P> +"Not so, Father Time," shouted the butler with a great laugh, "although +Day, by that same error, was led into striking down one he should have +gone in leash withal, namely his fellow-thief, one Warren, that was +gone about the same game as himself." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, 'tis the very knave that dealt Mr. Cleeve here that great wound I +told you of," cried Mr. Jordan, when the clamour of voices had somewhat +lessened; the which speech of his I could have wished not spoken, for +now all turned about, demanding this and that of me, and swearing I was +a brave lad; with such a deal of no-matter as put me into an extremity +of rage and shame, so that I was glad to escape away to the hall, where +I fell to at the ordinary, and drank to their confusion. +</P> + +<P> +But for all my spleen it was indeed a merry tale, beside that it was a +marvellous judgment upon two rogues. Day, it seemed, had breath enough +left in him properly to incriminate Warren, who was, as I say, already +dead, and then rolled over and died too. There was an inquest held of +necessity, as well upon the thieves as upon poor Jenning that Day +killed before; which process somewhat detained us; but in the afternoon +of the day following, having satisfied the Coroner, we were permitted +to depart on our way. +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless there was a deal of time lost upon our reckoning, it being +now Saturday morning, and although we were now no further to be +hindered with the slowness of Juke's waggon, yet there was still a good +four score miles to go, and the Sunday falling on the morrow when we +were bound to rest, we could by no means reach London before Monday at +night, or even the Tuesday forenoon. My baggage I had sent on by the +common carrier, who engaged to transmit it at Reading, whither he +plied, to another carrier going to London. +</P> + +<P> +We rode out of the base court of the Inn gaily enough, and soon came +upon the high Wiltshire downs, which, there having been a deal of snow +fallen in the night, lay about us in that infinite solemnity of +whiteness that stills a man's heart suddenly, as few things else have +the power to do. +</P> + +<P> +Nought could we discern before and around us but ridge after ridge of +snow, above which hung a sky of unchanging grey; all features of the +country were quite obliterated, and but that some cart had gone that +way a while since, of which we picked out and followed the wheel marks +scrupulously, it had wanted little but we should have ridden bewildered +into some deep drift and perhaps perished. Indeed, we were fortunate +in that; and keeping close upon the track, although but slow going, in +time descended into the market town of Marlborough, which we reached +early in the afternoon. Here we refreshed ourselves and our beasts, +and then away into the Savernake forest, traversing it without mishap, +and so out upon the high road again by Hungerford, and into Newbury a +little after nightfall; having covered above thirty miles in all, the +ways bad too, and the day, because of the late season, very short. +</P> + +<P> +On the Sunday we remained all day in the Inn, except that I went in the +morning to the Church there, when I heard a sermon by the curate upon +Wars and the Rumours thereof, wherein he advised us very earnestly to +examine our pieces and have them ready to hand and not to keep our +powder in the loft under the leaky thatch. He brought in somewhat, +too, about the Sword of the Spirit and the Shield of Faith, but +listlessly, and I saw that no one attended much to that, all men being +full of fear of the Papists, to which they were particularly moved by +Mr. Will. Parry's malicious behaviour in the House of Commons. The +scholar did not accompany me to the Church, I suppose because he was +himself a Papist, though perhaps no very rigorous one, but feigned a +stiffness from riding; and when I returned I found him in the larder, +where he was discoursing amply of the Scythians and their method of +extracting a fermented liquor from the milk of mares, which was of a +grateful potency, but (he lamented) not now to be obtained. +</P> + +<P> +I wrote home a letter to my father after dinner, and in the evening +entertained the curate, who had got to hear of our going to London, and +came to speak with us thereon. He was an honest man, and of an +ingenuous complacency, which he manifested in telling us very quietly +that his Grace of Canterbury was of the same university as he, and he +doubted not, would be pleased to hear of him, and that he had taken +another rood of ground into the churchyard; all which I promised, if I +should meet his lordship, to relate. +</P> + +<P> +We departed as was our custom, betimes on the morrow, travelling +towards Reading, and thereafter to Windsor, where we beheld with +admiration the great Castle of her Majesty's that is there; howbeit we +went not into the place, but left it on our right hand, and proceeded +still forward. But the night falling soon afterwards, we were fain to +put up in the little hamlet of Brentford upon the river Thames, whither +we learned that 'twas fortunate we had without accident arrived, a +certain haberdasher of repute having been robbed of all he carried upon +the heath we had but lately rid over into that place, and left for dead +by the wayside. +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps it was this outrage which had made for our safety, and that, +being so far satisfied with the spoil of silks and rich stuff taken, +the malefactors had hastened to dispose of it to some that make a +living by that cowardly means, and are mostly dwellers about the Stocks +market, in the narrow lanes thereby, although some (as Culver Alley) +have been stopped up against such notorious use of thieves. +</P> + +<P> +Notwithstanding, I here affirm, that in the morning, when we saw the +monstrous charges our lodging stood us in, we found we had not far to +seek for a thief as big as any; and having paid the innkeeper, told him +so. +</P> + +<P> +But now we were come almost within view of the great City of which I +had so many times dreamed, and so beyond limits had advanced its +imagined glory, until it seemed to draw into itself all that was noble +and rich and powerful in the world; being Rome and Carthage too, I +thought, and the Indies added! nay, and only not Paris or Florence, +because it scorned the comparison. In such an exaltation I sat my +horse, looking to right and left as we rode through the lanes past +Hammersmith and Kensington, all the way being still deep in snow; +although hardened here by the traffic of country carts, or rather (I +said) by great equipages of the Court and the Queen's troops. Mr. +Jordan spoke twice or thrice upon indifferent matters, and chiefly, I +remember, of Olympus; but I regarded him contemptuously, having come +into a place where Olympus would be very cheaply esteemed as a hill, we +having our own Ludgate Hill, which, if not so high, is in all other +respects as good or better. But when he told me that we must soon each +take our leave of the other, all that vain mood left me, and I wished +him from my heart a thousand benefits and safety in his enterprise, in +which I would have joined him willingly had I not been bound to this +business of my uncle. He told me he should go to Moorfields, where he +had heard there was frequent exercise of arms, and there learn how to +set about his enrolment. +</P> + +<P> +About this time we came to Charing Cross, where no further speech was +possible between us; such strangeness we met with, and unused fashion +of things; and proceeding by way of the Strand, we noted an infinite +succession of sights, of which the least elsewhere would have staggered +me, but now giving place to others as marvellous, or more, they did but +increase my appetite for amazement, which they alternately satisfied +and renewed. Upon the clamour and the infinite throngs of the +townsfolk, I but briefly touch, for they transcend all description, as +do the palaces of the Savoy and Arundel House that we passed by; and +the Earl of Essex his mansion, and other the inns of the great nobles +which lie upon the right side of this famous street, and betwixt it and +the Thames. Somerset House, moreover, that is still building, we saw, +and artificers yet at work thereupon, which will be, I think, when +builded, the finest palace of all. At Temple Bar a man leaves the +liberty of the Duchy (as it is called) and enters within the liberty +(albeit yet without the walls) of the City of London, and here, a +little distance further on, I found Fetter Lane upon the left hand, +where my lodging was, and so (having first learned where I should have +word of him) sorrowfully parted with Mr. Jordan at the end of it, he +going still eastward towards Paul's, and I up the lane, that is +northward, to Mr. Malt's, where I was well received, and led to a clean +and pleasant chamber in the gable, which he told me was to be mine. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IN WHICH I CONCEIVE A DISLIKE OF AN EARL'S SERVANT<BR> +AND AN AFFECTION FOR A MAN OF LAW +</H4> + +<P> +I think I overlaid my conscience in the night, seeing I stayed abed +until near seven o'clock next morning, a thing I had never before done; +but, indeed, I had now some colour of excuse for so doing, for besides +my wound in the thigh, which the cold had made woefully to ache, there +was my new clothes which the carrier had not yet delivered, and I was +mighty loth to go abroad in my travel-stained riding dress and great +boots. As I lay there, the light then gathering mistily in my chamber, +I could hear the noises of the City and the cries of the multitude of +small vendors that go about the streets, as having no booth nor open +shop wherein to display their petty merchandise. From a church near by +I heard bells pealing, and soon from other churches too. Below my +window there was a maid singing, and a man with her that hawked +ballads, bawling their titles till my ears tingled. Nevertheless, the +confusion of all these strange cries and sounds heartened me +marvellously, and had I but got my new-fashioned doublet of dark cloth +and hose therewithal, I had been the merriest man of the parish, as I +was certainly the most curious. After awhile I could lie no longer, +but leapt up, and running to the casement, found London white, a sky of +frost, and a brave gay world before me. +</P> + +<P> +My chamber, as I said, was a sort of great attic in the gable, and full +as high up in the house as was my old tower room at home. But 'twas +less the height that astonished me, than the nearness into which the +houses were thrust together from either side of the street, so as they +almost met by the roofs; and I swear, had I been so inclined (and he +too) I could have crossed staves with the barber that had his dwelling +over against mine, or almost stolen his pewter shaving dish from the +sill where it lay. Of these conceits of mine, however, the barber was +necessarily ignorant, being then busily engaged upon the exercise of +his craft, which he carried on perforce above stairs, the shop below +and the other rooms being used by a haberdasher and alderman, that had +his goods stored there. I noted the barber particularly as well for +his extraordinary grace and courtesy, as for the activity he manifested +in his occupation. No hand's turn would he do but a flourish went to +it, and always his body bending and his head nodding and twisting to +that extent, I wondered how the man he shaved could sit his chair in +any degree of comfort. Perhaps he did not, though he seemed to suffer +the little man's attentions coolly enough, and when he went away, paid +him, I perceived, handsomely, and strode off with a careless ease, that +minded me, with some shame, of my own country manners. My thoughts +being thus returned upon my late secluded life, I fell into a +melancholy mood which was a little after happily dissipated by the maid +bringing me my new clothes and telling me moreover that the family +stayed for me at breakfast. +</P> + +<P> +I was soon enough dressed after this and, settling my starched ruff, of +which the pleats somewhat galled me, descended to the room where they +dined; and there found the whole family of the Malts (that with the +infant made up nine) set at the board and very ready for their delayed +meal. A long grace was said by the youngest maid, whose eyes were +fierce upon the eggs the while, and after that we fell to. Madam Malt +spoke kindly to me once or twice of my business, of which I had already +given her some slight and grudged particulars, but for the most part +she conversed in sidelong frowns with her children, of whose conduct it +was evident she wished I should think well. But in truth I cared +nothing for their conduct nor much for their persons (for all they were +personable enough) being in a fever to be gone upon my errand to the +goldsmith's and to commence work in earnest. +</P> + +<P> +Breakfast done then, I lost little time upon formalities and broke in +upon Madam Malt's excuse of her third (or fourth) daughter's mishap +over the small beer, with excuses of my own for leaving her; and so +taking up my hat left her staring. So eager indeed was I, that I ran +out of the door into the arms of a gentleman that stood by and nearly +sent him on his back in the snow. When he had recovered himself, with +my aid, and stood fronting me, I knew him directly for the man whom I +had seen in the barber's chair, and faltering upon my apology let fall +some foolish words by which I might be thought to claim his +acquaintance. He frowned suddenly at that and gazing upon me earnestly +said— +</P> + +<P> +"It were easy to perceive you are of the country, young sir, and not +used to our town customs." +</P> + +<P> +"How so?" I asked very hotly, for his disdain went the deeper into me +that it was founded upon reason. +</P> + +<P> +"By your pretending to an intimacy with me," he replied, and drew +himself up very haughtily as he said it, "who know not your name even, +although doubtless you know mine, as all do, seeing the place I keep, +and the especial favour of my lord to me; yet I say that is no ground +for your familiarly accosting me in the public way." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, as to that," I cried out scorningly, "I know nothing of you save +that I saw you but now in the barber's chair, swathed up in a towel and +your face all lathered." +</P> + +<P> +He turned very pale at this out of mere discomfiture, and I expected +would have run upon me with his sword, so that I clapped my fist upon +my own and stepping closely to his side said— +</P> + +<P> +"Sir, I am, as you imagine, but lately come out of the country and +therefore know not your customs here in London. But if there be places +reserved for the settlement of such brabbles as this, let us go thither +with all my heart." And then, after a breath or two taken: "For all +that," I added, "I had it in my mind to say I meant no insult, and if I +offended you, I am sorry." +</P> + +<P> +He stood without replying either to my threats or my amends, but gazed +upon me with a look that I saw meant mischief; though whether to be +done now or at a convenient time and secretly, I could not guess. +</P> + +<P> +He was a fine bold man, of an height a good span greater than my own. +He wore no hair on his face, but that I could see under his plumed cap +was thick and black. His dress was of rare stuff and I supposed very +costly, being all slashed and broidered, and tagged with gold. Indeed, +had he not let slip that boast of intimacy with some lord I should have +been sure of his being a lord himself and perhaps master of one of +those great palaces upon the Strand. Thus, then, we stood thwarting +each other a considerable space, and I (at least) doubting of the +upshot, when a great fellow in a livery of blue, with a badge on his +sleeve, came running up the lane, and casting an eye upon me, pushed in +between us and spoke with the tall man low and seriously. There +remaining therefore nought to hinder me longer about that brawl, I went +off, but asked one that stood by what was the badge the man in livery +bore, and he answered 'twas the Earl of Pembroke's emblem of the green +dragon, and that they twain that communed together thus secretly were +both of his household of Baynards Castle by Blackfriars. +</P> + +<P> +Without further mishap, but pondering rather heavily upon my late one, +I made my way through the streets, past the noble church of Paul's on +the south side of it, to Mr. Wall the goldsmith hard by the Exchange. +I have neither space nor words nor confidence either, to speak of all +the things I met with, beyond imagination marvellous to me; and even +where I was disappointed of my expectation; as in the little width of +the streets, and of Paul's that it lacked the spire it once had; +together with much else that lacked completion or seemed at hazard +builded; even there, I say, I found my idea bettered by the fact, and a +strange beauty in the irregularity and scant ordering of the City, that +the more bewildered me as I went the further into the midst of it. +</P> + +<P> +I found Mr. Wall in his shop, or house rather, a little down the lane +named of the Pope's Head tavern, where he expected me with the money +ready, that my father had desired him to have at my disposal. He +overread my letters of credit somewhat closely, after which he put to +me two or three such pertinent questions as sufficed to show a shrewd +aptitude in affairs of business, yet without any the least pedantry, or +vexatious delays. Indeed he dispatched all with an easy unconcern, as +if such matters were of every day and not considerable; although the +sum to be paid methought large enough in all conscience. The while I +counted over the gold pieces he talked idly, but with a pleasant +humour, of Mr. John Davis that was said to be projecting with others a +voyage for the discovery of the Northwest Passage (the which he +undertook in the summer following), and of Mr. Sanderson, a merchant +well known to him, that was especially committed to this adventure. +</P> + +<P> +"I would myself have gone upon this discovery," he said, "but for the +misfortune of a singular queasy stomach that layeth me low or ever I be +come upon the ship. Yet I thank Heaven I am not of their number that, +having themselves failed, pretend that success is the constant +attendant upon incompetence." +</P> + +<P> +When it came to the carriage of my gold he very courteously offered to +send his porter therewith, and as the weight was more by far than I had +looked for, I thanked him, and gave the bags to the man, who for his +part made nothing of them, but walked away briskly down Cornhill, I +following him as a convoy might follow a treasure ship, close upon her +chase. In such sort we arrived in time at the Serjeants Inn in Fleet +Street, where I had engaged to meet Mr. John Skene, that was my uncle's +attorney. In that Inn, or warren rather (for indeed it is nothing +less), we searched for any of the name of Skene, but could find none; +however, a stranger who chanced to pass over the court while we stood +at gaze courteously directing us, we soon after came upon his chambers, +which were at the head of a narrow stair in the south building and the +eastern end thereof; whereupon my porter gave me my leathern sacks into +my hands saying he must now go, which (I having paid him) he presently +did. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Skene admitted me with a deal of ceremony, being, I could see, a +man of extreme punctuality and withal one to whom I took an immediate +liking. He was I think the most handsome-featured man I have ever met +with, in height tall, and of a stately port, his body stout although +not at all gross, and his hair, which was very plentiful, gone a +perfect silver. I supposed his age to be nearing three score, but he +might have been younger. His eye was very bright and kindly and seemed +to smile even when his lips were drawn close in meditation. The black +gown he wore as suited to his profession very well befitted his grave +demeanour; about his neck was a plain linen band, but the cap which the +Serjeants generally use he had not on, and I supposed kept it only for +wearing in the Court. His business room into which I had come appeared +meanly furnished, excepting in books and quires, of which there was a +great number scattered everywhere, but his table and the two or three +chairs were nothing so good as our own at home, and the floor unswept +and foul. While I took notice of these small matters Mr. Skene was +reaching from a shelf a great file of papers tied with silk; which +having got, he turned about and surprised me at that occupation. +</P> + +<P> +"A poor hole, you think, Mr. Cleeve," he said, with a merry smile at my +embarrassment, "but we men of law have scant occasion for leisure in +which to look about us, and luxury would be ill circumstanced here +where life and death be too often at grips. Come," he added after a +pause, "I do not mean to take the pulpit over you, but to bid you +expect such plainness in me as you find in my chamber; and so, enough," +he ended, and therewith drew out a parchment with a great seal attached +to it, upon which he pondered a while. +</P> + +<P> +"You have the main of this affair?" he asked abruptly, touching the +skin as he spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," I replied, "at least so much as that my uncle Botolph is in the +Tower, and hopes to clear himself if he may be brought to trial." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you have it all, or nearly so," he said nodding. "He was +arrested upon an order of the Council and secretly conveyed by water to +the place where he now lies. By especial grace I have once been +admitted to see him, and learned from his own mouth, although I needed +not to hear that I was already assured of, namely, the entire innocence +that he hath as touching these late revolts." +</P> + +<P> +He sat silent awhile and perhaps awaited my reply, albeit my reply when +he heard it seemed not much to his mind, and I myself was surprised at +my boldness in speaking it. +</P> + +<P> +"It lies upon my conscience, sir," said I, "to tell you that, had I my +will, my uncle should by no means come by this franchise we be +deliberating so painfully to procure. I believe him to be a most +absolute villain, and had not my father moved herein, I should have let +him rot in his dungeon and ne'er stirred a finger in this cause." +</P> + +<P> +I stopped there for mere lack of breath, being quite overcome by my +heat of passion against my uncle, but when I would have excused myself, +Mr. Skene prevented me with a motion of his hand. The pleasant light +in his eyes was clouded with a grave anxiety. +</P> + +<P> +"These be hard words, Master Denis," he said, "and I hope are +justified; or rather, I hope not; else I cannot for my honour undertake +this prisoner's defence. But tell me briefly upon what grounds you +believe him to be so worthless of relief." +</P> + +<P> +This put me into an unlooked for difficulty, because I could not bring +myself to tell him aught of my mother, and yet had I no other reason to +give him. But he, as if perceiving he had said something to vex me, +hastened to set me at my ease, and leaning forward upon his desk, said— +</P> + +<P> +"You are still very young, Mr. Denis, and the young are apt to +prejudge. But for the cause of your anger I may tell you frankly that +I know it; and respect you both for it and also for your reticence in +naming it. I have been acquainted with your uncle," he went on, +speaking still in a thoughtful manner, but as if some pleasure joined +with the recollection of which he was to notify me: "I have been +acquainted with him above seven years now, and can lay claim to know +his private mind so far as a man's friend may do. You spoke of a fault +of his, when he was scarce older than yourself. Are we to send him to +the block for that? It is not the charge under which he now lies, Mr. +Denis, nor is it one"—he spoke this with so great an earnestness that +I dropped my eyes before his—"nor is it such an impeachment as you +would be willing to stand beside the block where he lay dead and say, +'I let him die because a score of years since a certain frail lady held +him higher than her honour.'" +</P> + +<P> +"Sir," I cried out at that, "have a care! The lady was my mother." +</P> + +<P> +He started back as if I had shot him. "I knew not that," he said, and +repeated it twice or thrice. "I had not thought it pressed so near. +Forgive me; I should have guessed it from your manner, if not from his +narration. But he was ever thus," he proceeded, half to himself. "It +hath been so, since our acquaintance even." He stopped short, leaning +back in his chair and then suddenly again forward: "If you desire it," +he said, "I will go no further in this matter. He deserves no pity, +but rather the last penalty of the law; and I make no question but that +by our abstention, he will come into the way to receive it." +</P> + +<P> +For awhile I could not speak, so wrought upon was I by this temptation, +which was none other than that I had set before my father, and he +rejected. At length I shook my head and without another word burst +into tears. Mr. Skene waited until I was something recovered, settling +his papers the while, and seeming to write upon his tablets; for which +delicacy I thanked him in my heart. When next he spoke, he changed the +direction of our discourse, inquiring pleasantly why I had troubled +myself with so great a sum as five hundred pounds, in coin, when my own +letters would equally have served. +</P> + +<P> +"I know not where to store it safely," he said, "until such time as I +shall be able to use it, or a part of it only, as I hope; which may be +not for many days or weeks even. If you take my advice, Mr. Denis, you +will restore it to Mr. Wall, whom I know very well, and beg him to +disburse it to you, as you, or I rather, may require." +</P> + +<P> +I blushed for my small knowledge that had led me into this laughable +error, and although the attorney made little of it I perceived he +thought but meanly of my dealings in exchange. +</P> + +<P> +In the end I wrote a letter to Mr. Wall requiring him to do as Mr. +Skene had advised, and requesting him further to fetch away my unlucky +bags of gold, which in the meanwhile the attorney promised to bestow in +one of the closets where his title-deeds and capital muniments were +lodged for their better security against thieves and fire. This done, +he told me to come to him again on the morrow and a little earlier than +I had done that day; by which time he would have, ready drawn and fair +writ, our petition to the Council praying for a fair trial at law of +Mr. Botolph Cleeve that was now detained in the Tower during her +Majesty's pleasure, and also to be furnished with the several counts of +the indictment against him directed, which it lay upon us to be +possessed of in order to the preparing of our answer thereto. I +marvelled at the industry and rapid address of the man in these +necessary (but by me unthought of) particulars, and told him that I +wished I loved my uncle better that I might rejoice the more in the +certainty of his release. He shook his head at that, however, saying +that at the best 'twas not impossible the prisoner would be brought to +trial even; and that for the event he could promise nothing, having +indeed more fear of it than he had yet allowed. +</P> + +<P> +I parted from him soon after, and it being then dinner time I was glad +to find a tavern hard by the Temple Bar where I partook heartily of the +excellent ordinary that is there maintained; and a little while +afterwards Mr. Richard Malt entering (a son of the worthy hosier with +whom I lodged), he entertained me with discourse of the comedies that +were then playing at the public theatres, and of the famous players +that were his friends; from all which I concluded that Mr. Richard +would scarce make so diligent a hosier as his father, whom indeed he +continually disparaged, terming him old buffle-head, and swearing he +had never so much as heard of the "Arraignment of Paris" nor of +"Campaspe" even; upon which I shrugged up my shoulders as who should +say: Is such ignorance possible in this age? and determined to apply +myself to some discreet person secretly, that should instruct me in all +matters of the stage, without delay. +</P> + +<P> +And so for that while did my uncle Botolph go clean out of my head. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VIII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +A CHAPTER OF CHEATS +</H4> + +<P> +On the morrow I rose very contrite for the proneness of my mind towards +pleasures, and calling to remembrance with an excessive sadness, that +protestation of our bailiff's against stage-plays and ungodly shows. +Indeed I began to fear lest Mr. Richard should prove altogether a +perverter of my youth, and promised myself I would avoid his company +henceforward, nor inquire any further after Campaspe and the rest. +Which resolved upon, I felt joyfuller (as a man's recovered virtue doth +generally induce that comfortable feeling) and took pleasure in the +thought that I was this day to relieve the oppressed, and succour them +that were in prison: or at least one of them. +</P> + +<P> +But all these salutary thoughts broke a-scatter, when, chancing to cast +an eye across the street, I saw my gallant that I had withstood +yesterday, again set in his barber's chair, where he indolently +reclined; and the barber dancing before him like a second David with +razor for timbrel. An instant desire took me, to know who my late +adversary might be (so that in any future debate I might have a name to +clap villain to) and bethought me of an easy way whereby to satisfy +myself. Having patiently awaited his departure therefore, I stole +downstairs and over the lane; mounted to the barber's, three steps at +once, and was in his chair demanding to be shaved ere a man could tell +three score. +</P> + +<P> +"Your worship does me a great honour," cried the antick fellow, "and I +will dispatch your business in a trice," which he did, my beard being, +I confess, no great thing as yet. +</P> + +<P> +"Your house is well spoken of," I said carelessly, when he had done, +and I stood cleansing my chin at the basin. +</P> + +<P> +"It is well attended," he replied, bowing, "and that by the best." +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me some that use it," I said in a meditative manner, "it may hap +that I know them." +</P> + +<P> +"There is John a Nokes," replied the barber, with alacrity, "that is +host of the Chequers; but he comes hither no more. And there is Mr. +Nicholas Lovel, that promised me he would come on Wednesday last, +though indeed he failed so to do; and there is moreover the Master of +the Worshipful Company of Painter Stainers whom I used to meet with at +their great hall in Trinity Lane." +</P> + +<P> +"And him you shave," said I, seeing that he paused there. +</P> + +<P> +"Nay, for he hath a singular great beard," he said, "and when he sits +in Council amidst his Company of the Painter Stainers there is none +appeareth more lofty and worshipful than he. I have been a serving man +there," he added with a conspicuous pride, "and worn their livery, so +that it behoveth me to speak well of them, and to pray for their +continuance in prosperity." +</P> + +<P> +"That is all as it should be," quoth I, "but for my question, good +master barber, I do not find you have answered it." +</P> + +<P> +"Cry you mercy," said the little barber with an innocent air, "but +methought I had answered you full and fairly." +</P> + +<P> +"Hath any come hither this morning," I demanded, "besides myself?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is still very early, sir," he replied, rubbing his hands together +the while, "but I hope at noon, now, by the which hour as you know, a +man's beard commenceth to prick sorely..." +</P> + +<P> +"Hold!" I cried, "I speak not of your hopes, but of your performance. +Have you shaved any man this day?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, none, sir," he replied, as though it were a thing indecent, and I +shocked him. +</P> + +<P> +"You lie," said I coolly, "for one went forth but now." +</P> + +<P> +The barber: "Surely you mistake, sir ... but now I bethink me it was no +doubt my lord of Pembroke." +</P> + +<P> +"So then my lord of Pembroke serves my lord of Pembroke, belike," I +answered, laughing sourly, "and weareth his cast suits, as did he that +went hence." +</P> + +<P> +I never saw a man so taken aback, and all his graces drooped about him +like a sere garland. +</P> + +<P> +"Come, sir," said I at length, in a great voice, for I was both +wrathful at this fetch, and feared something behind it, "who is this +black-a-vised tall man in brave apparel, that you shave each morning?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, good Mr. Cleeve," he cried out trembling, but got no further, for +I had him by the collar. +</P> + +<P> +"Thou hast my name pat enough," said I, very low, and shifted my +fingers to his throat, which I must have held pretty tight, seeing his +face went black and his eyes started forth of it. "To the purpose," I +proceeded and released my grasp somewhat. +</P> + +<P> +He wrested himself loose and stood away gasping. +</P> + +<P> +"Who is the tall man of the narrowed eyes and black complexion?" I +demanded. +</P> + +<P> +"I dare not tell," he whispered, and as it were shook that answer from +his lips. +</P> + +<P> +"He spies upon me, and uses thine house for that purpose," I said, and +gathered certainty from the mere relation of my doubts. "But wherefore +doth he so? That thou must tell me, master barber, and presently, else +will I beat thee with thine own barber's staff." +</P> + +<P> +I made as if to seize him again, but he backed off, howling. +</P> + +<P> +"If you swear," he began, and seeing I paused, "you must swear by the +Book," he said sharply, for I had squeezed his voice as thin as a +knife; "and take what guilt of perjury should be mine in speaking." +</P> + +<P> +I said I would vouchsafe not to reveal who it was that told me, but +that was the extent of my promise; for the rest, I went in danger of my +life, it seemed, or at least of my peace and quiet, which my absolute +silence would but tend to confirm and increase. +</P> + +<P> +The barber appeared satisfied of the justice of this, and having +fetched out a Testament from a cupboard by the door, laid it open in my +hand, but then again hesitated. +</P> + +<P> +"This being so private a matter," he mumbled, "I will first bolt the +door at the foot of the stair, and thereafter will let you into so +great a secret"—he advanced his pinched and sallow face close to my +own and let his voice fall so low that I could scarce hear him—"a +secret so great that your blood shall run cold to hear it." +</P> + +<P> +This coming so pat upon my suspicions, I promise you my blood ran cold +at the sheer hint of it, and I suffered him to leave me and bolt the +great door on the stair, in order to our more perfect privacy. And +bolt the door indeed he did, but upon the wrong side of it; himself +fleeing away in an extremity of apprehension lest (I suppose) I should +get at his pulpy fat neck again and strangle him outright: which +consideration moved him to put the door betwixt us while there was +time; although I believe I should have burst it down despite its great +thickness had it not been that the haberdasher's 'prentices heard me, +and opened it from without. But the barber was clean gone by that, +with his yellow face and his fulsome big secret and the devil to boot. +The fellow's name was Pentecost Soper (so many syllables to so slight a +man), and I have never set eyes on him since. +</P> + +<P> +In no very good humour I returned to the family of the Malts and in ill +case to be spoken to. Yet was I obliged to attend how Madam Malt's +third (or fourth) daughter came to spill the small beer at breakfast +yesterday, and the history being interrupted at the least a score of +times by laughter and denials and (from the infant) by woeful +lamentations, it fell out that I had concluded my meal while the tale +still hung about the start, like an over-weighted galleon off a +lee-shore; until at length Madam Malt (an indifferent mariner) +confessed herself at fault, crying— +</P> + +<P> +"But there! I will tell you all another time, Mr. Denis. It is a rare +tale I warrant you, though Mistress Judith would have had me keep it +secret; as a maid must have her secret, since time was a week gone in +Genesis." +</P> + +<P> +A day that had begun thus, with two secrets so necessary to be divulged +as were the barber's and Mistress Judith's, was (had I known it) to +issue in such horrid disclosures as were to change for me the whole +course of my living, and indeed awhile to suspend upon a doubtful +balance the very living itself. Consequent upon my promise to the old +attorney, I made haste to repair to his lodging as early as I judged it +proper to do so, and therefore after breakfast, it lacking then a +little of nine o'clock, I put on my cloak and hat and set forth. One +consideration I had as I walked, which had weighed heavily upon me +since my last conference with him, and that was whether, and if so +when, I should attempt to get speech of my uncle in prison. It seemed +to me right, and indeed due both to my father and myself (looking to +the hardships of my journey directly across England) that he should +both know and thank us for the diligence we were using in his behalf; +and it was to come at some means whereby I might procure this I had in +view, that I intended to speak with Mr. Skene, no less than to conclude +that we had already put in motion. +</P> + +<P> +'Twas a foggy and thick morning, the weather having suddenly in the +night passed from its extreme of cold into an opposite of mildness, so +that the snow was almost everywhere thawed, and the streets foul and +deep in mire. I was glad enough to turn out of Fleet Street, where +every cart and passenger I met with left me more filthily besprent; so +that twice or thrice I was like to have drawn upon some peaceable +citizen that unawares had sent his vestige mud upon my new bosom. So +hastening into the Inn yard I traversed it and was soon at Mr. Skene's +door, where I knocked loudly and awaited him. The door was soon opened +to me. "Is Mr. Skene within?" I asked; for he himself came not, as +yesterday he had, but an ancient woman, in a soiled coif and apparel +marvellous indecent, stood in the doorway. +</P> + +<P> +"Lord! there be no Skenes here," she said in a harsh voice, "nor aught +else but confusion and labour and sneaped wages, and they delayed. +Skenes!" she ran on like a course of mill-water, "ay, Skenes and scalds +and the quarten ague, and what doth the old fool live for, that was Ann +by the Garlickhithe fifty year since, and worth nigh five-and-thirty +marks or ever Tom Ducket beguiled her out of the virtuous way to the +havoc of her salvation; with a murrain o' his like and small rest to +their souls. A bright eye was mine then, master, that is dull now, and +the bloom of a peach by the southward wall. But now 'tis age and a +troubled mind that irks me, besides this pestering sort of knaves that +live by the law. Ah! Garlickhithe was fair on a May morning once, +lad, and the fairer, they told me, that Ann was fair featured who dwelt +there." +</P> + +<P> +I had suffered the old hag to rave thus far, out of mere astonishment. +For how came it, I asked, that she who cleansed the chamber knew +nothing of the man who occupied his business there. My brain faltered +in its office, and I reeled under the weight of my fears. +</P> + +<P> +"Who then uses these rooms?" I inquired when I could manage my words. +</P> + +<P> +"None to-day nor to-morrow, I warrant, so foul it is," replied the old +wife, and fell to work upon the floor again with her soused clouts, +while she proceeded, "but the day after 'tis one Master Roman from +Oxford removes hither to study at the law. Let him pay me my wages by +the law, lawfully, as he shall answer for it at the Judgment, for I +have been put to charges beyond belief in black soap (that is a +halfpenny the pound in the shops at Bow), and let no one think I take +less than fourpence by the day, for all I live on the Bank-side over +against the Clink." +</P> + +<P> +Without more ado I flung into the chamber past her, and running to the +closet where my money was, had it open on the instant. But the first +sight showed it to me quite bare. Nevertheless, I groped about the +vacancy like a man mad (as I was indeed), crying out that I was +infamously deceived and robbed of five hundred pound. Now searching +thus distractedly, and without either method or precaution, I chanced +to hit my leg a sore great blow against the iron of the latch, and +opened my wound afresh which was not near healed, so that it bled very +profusely. But this, although it weakened me, hindered me nothing, I +continuing a great while after to turn all upside down and to bewail my +loss and Skene's villainy that had undone me. +</P> + +<P> +In the end, however, my fever of dismay abating a little or giving +place to reason, I bethought myself of Mr. Wall, the goldsmith, to whom +perhaps the attorney had thought it safer to convey the gold; and +straightway therefore made off to his house on Cornhill, in a remnant +of hope that my apprehensions should after all prove to be ill-grounded. +</P> + +<P> +He saw me coming, I suppose, for he left his shop to greet me; but when +he observed my infinite distress, he would listen to no word of mine +until he had fetched forth a bottle of Rhenish, and made me drink of +it. The good wine refreshed me mightily, as also, and indeed more, did +the quiet behaviour of Mr. Wall, who counselled me wisely to rest +myself first and after to confine myself to relating the bare matter +without heat or flourish of any kind. "For out of an hot heart proceed +many things inconvenient, as the Apostle plainly shewed," he said, +"whereas out of a cold head proceedeth nothing but what is to the +purpose, and generally profitable; at least in the way of business, Mr. +Denis, I mean in the way of business, which is doubtless the cause of +your honouring me again with your company." +</P> + +<P> +Upon this I told him all, without passion, and directly as it had +befallen. His face, as I spoke, gradually came to assume a deeper +gravity, but he did not interrupt my narration, though I perceived that +in part it was not altogether clear. When I had made an end he sat +long, and then rising, went to his desk and returned to me with a +paper, which was the same I had given to Skene on the yesterday. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you acknowledge that for your hand, Mr. Denis?" he asked me briefly. +</P> + +<P> +"It is mine," I replied wondering. +</P> + +<P> +"Be pleased to read it," said he. +</P> + +<P> +So in a trembling voice I read it aloud, word for word as I had writ it +under Skene's direction; wherein I desired Mr. Wall that he would +disburse to our attorney, as he should have need of them, such sums as +should not in the total exceed five hundred pounds. +</P> + +<P> +"And such was my intention," cried I, infinitely relieved to find all +as I supposed it. But observing that the goldsmith regarded me +something oddly, I added: "I mean that he required the gold, not in +bulk, but in parcels from time to time; and as to that I took away +yesterday, that you were to send for it again." +</P> + +<P> +"You say not so here," said he very quietly. +</P> + +<P> +But upon the instant he had said it, I perceived how the villain had +used my letter, which was to double his booty already gotten; he having +not restored the former sum I had meant this to be in the place of, but +having even possessed himself of this treasure likewise. My +inadvertent laxness of instruction (purposely so phrased by Skene +himself) had given him the opportunity he sought, and I was now by my +folly and misgiven trust, a thousand pounds upon the score in the +goldsmith's books. +</P> + +<P> +There was no occasion for argument betwixt us, where all was manifest +enough, nor yet, by him, for empty expressions of regret, seeing he had +but acted punctually upon my demand. For his pity, I had it, I knew, +though Mr. Wall refrained himself from any expression of it. But +another feeling he had, I could see, which was a doubt whether my +father's credit was sufficient to bear this inordinately increased +burden; nay, whether he would not repudiate the note I had so ineptly +set hand to, staying his conscience on the satisfaction of his proper +bond. I had my answer to that ready, had Mr. Wall proposed the +question; but to his honour he did not. All he put in contribution to +our debate related to Skene's presentation of my note, which being +fairly written and legally expressed, he had neither reason nor scruple +for withholding the loan. As for the bearer of the message, he was a +gentleman of a very noble quiet manner, said Wall, and to this +description of Skene I could not but consent. +</P> + +<P> +In fine there being nought left to say, save on my part that I would +immediately write an account of all to my father (whom I would not +otherwise commit) we parted at the door, and I returned slowly through +the great unfriendly City, sick at heart. Now I had not proceeded far +upon my way when it came upon me that I would seek out my old tutor, +Mr. Jordan; for I greatly yearned after comfort and kindly speech, +which I knew would be his to give, upon the first hint of my +misfortune. By good hap I remembered the lodging where he had said he +might be found, which was in a room of a great house called +Northumberland House in the parish, and over against the Church, of St. +Katherine Colman; which mansion having fallen from its first estate (as +many other within the City have done also) is now parted among such as +do pay rent for their use of chambers therein, as few or many as they +please. +</P> + +<P> +Thither then I inquired out direction; but whether it were by reason of +the intricacy of manifold streets and alleys, or of the mist that from +first overcasting the sky had now descended and thickly muffled up even +the considerable buildings, or else of the opening again of my wound +that sorely sucked away my strength; I say whatsoever the cause were, I +soon confessed myself at a stand and quite bewildered. And moreover to +make bad worse, I perceived myself to have run into a foul and steep +lane, of a most unsavoury stench; the way being nought else than a +kennel pestered with garbage. None seemed to be inhabiting this +unclean byway, or at the least not occupying their business in it; but +the doors stood shut all, and the windows so guarded as one might think +the plague had visited the place and died for lack of life to feed on. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile the fog seemed to mitigate something of its blackness before +me; and this it was, I suppose, that drove me still forward rather than +by returning upon my steps to encounter the worst of it that yet hung +like a pall between the desolate houses. +</P> + +<P> +At length I issued at the bottom end into a sort of wide place or yard +(for I could not rightly tell which it were, so dim all lay and I so +confused by pain), but by a certain saltness in the air I guessed it +might be near beside the river, and perhaps led down to one of the +wharves or hithes thereupon. But that I was out of all bearing I knew, +and the knowledge sank my courage utterly, so that I could no more, but +sat down upon a stock by the wayside and wept for very bitterness. +</P> + +<P> +I remember that I said it over like a creed an hundred times that I was +alone, and although I said it not, it beat upon my brain that I was +very near to death. +</P> + +<P> +Soon after I seemed to stumble, and perhaps did indeed sink down from +the timber I rested on; whereat, opening my eyes hastily, I saw face to +face with me, a maid with the countenance of an angel, and an infinite +compassion in her eyes. But the fever altogether had me then, so that +what I report I may not now verify; yet methought she took me by the +hands and raised me, saying (as to herself), "Dear heart, how chill he +is," and then, "Lo! the hurt he hath, poor lad! and it not stanched but +bleeding." +</P> + +<P> +After that I must have swooned, for I remember no more; or at least not +such as I believe did happen, though from the cloud of wild dreams that +began to beset me there drew together as it were a masque of half-truth +in a scene not wholly fantastick. For I stood again in the midst of a +long and steep street, very dark and tempestuous, of which the houses +falling together suddenly with a great noise formed a sort of rift or +tunnel by which I might escape; and at the end of this length of ruin I +perceived a pale blue light burning, to the which painfully groping my +way I saw it was borne by a maid that came toward me; and all this +while I heard a mighty rushing as of water, and voices mingled with it, +loud and laughing. Then as the lass with the light approached me +nearer I knew her for Madam Malt's third (or fourth) daughter, and the +rushing sound I perceived to be the stream of small beer she had spilt; +and the laughter grew and increased horribly and the light went out. +And so, at length, I fell away into an inevitable and profound +forgetfulness. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IX +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +TELLS HOW I CHANGED MY LODGING AND LOST MY MARE +</H4> + +<P> +I mind me of a sad play once I saw, that is played now in a duke's +palace, and after in a glade within a forest, where one of the persons, +a noble youth whom his presumption hath caused to be banished from his +mistress, saith, "Hope is a lover's staff; walk hence with that." The +play is called a comedy because it ends upon delight, yet after a world +of heaviness encountered, and such thwarting of wills, as makes one +weep to behold. And perhaps when all's said, we do wrong to name +anything of this world tragical, seeing we cannot look to the end of +it, and indeed sometimes (one must suppose) a play is but half played +out here, and that the sad half with all the tears. 'Tis another hand +manages the curtain, and, alas! that the too soon dropping of it hath +made many to say in their hearts, "There is no God." +</P> + +<P> +Much in this kind occupied my brain, when at length I was partially +recovered after my continued and grave sickness. I still lay abed, +taking babes' food and physick, and asking no questions, being yet too +weak for that, and so that I were left in peace, careful for nought +else. My body might have been another's, so little did it appear to +encumber me; a certain lightness and withal a sense of freedom from the +common restraints of life possessed me. I had, as it were, overpassed +the lists of experience, and become truly a new creature. In this +security and enfranchisement of my spirit I found an infinite, and my +only, pleasure in speculating upon the meaning of things I had never so +much as called in question hitherto, and then first perceived how wide +a gulf lay betwixt that a man may be and that a man must do. I saw all +bad but what rests still in idea, and bitterly condemned the +never-ending hurry of effort and business by which the course of life +is fouled, upward almost to her source. +</P> + +<P> +This exalted mood lasted I think about a week, during which time I had +got to so high a pitch of philosophy as I cannot now think on for +blushing; settling my notions after my own fashion very conveniently, +and mighty intolerant of those currently held. But afterwards, that +is, about the tenth day of my clear mind, I suffered myself to descend +some way toward common sense, which to my surprise I found not so +disagreeable as might have been. Certain 'tis I still saw all in a +mist of phantasy, and different from what it truly was; but, +notwithstanding, it marked my first motion of health, and a recovery of +my heritage in the world. Once set on this road, I soon grew to be +restive of the remnant of malady which yet kept me weak, and began to +fear I should ne'er be able again. At times I would be melancholy and +fret by the hour at my pitiful lot; then again would fall to piecing +together the events that had preceded this my disease, but could not +get them orderly, or at the least, not whole. +</P> + +<P> +At such a time it was that suddenly and without premonition, my memory +recovered the picture of that fair maid bending over me and murmuring, +"<I>Dear heart</I>!" I leapt up in bed on the instant, and would have had +on my clothes before any could hinder me, had not my impotence held me +without need of other prevention, and I sank back all dismayed. +</P> + +<P> +Henceforward my mind had matter enough and to spare with the thoughts +of her alone. If I desired life now it was that I might continue to +think of her and of her manner of saying, "<I>Dear heart! how chill he +is!</I>" and "<I>Lo, the hurt he hath, poor lad!</I>" I swore I would not +exchange those two sentences for a barony, nor the look that went with +them for a prince's thanks. That word of thanks brought me to a wonder +how I might compass the tendering of my thanks to the maid herself, +whom (now I recollected it) I knew not so much as the name of, nor yet +her place of lodging. This consideration greatly staggered me, and had +nigh sent me into a fever again. But I told myself that it was very +certain I must find her in time (and being young, time seemed to be a +commodity inexhaustible), and so for that while the fever held off. +However, I had still intervals of despair which were black enough; but +hope ever ensuing and at each return in larger measure, upon the +balance I found comfort. And thus, responding to the text of the old +play I have before set down (though I had not then seen it played), I +also might have cried, "Hope is the lover's staff," and with that to +lean on I determined to walk thence without further delay. +</P> + +<P> +Such were the interior passages (to call them so) of my sickness that +was now quite passed; for, with hope at length steadfast with me, it is +clear I lacked nothing of my perfect health, excepting only what strong +meat and sunlight would soon bring. +</P> + +<P> +And so it was I felt myself ready to go upon a certain discovery I had +in mind (and did presently put into execution), which was to determine +precisely where in the world I might be! For the whiles I had lain +idle this question had intermittently perplexed me: my chamber being +very narrow and low, and bearing, I thought, small likeness to my room +in Mr. Malt's house, of which the window was a large and latticed one, +whereas this I now had was little and barred. My meals, too, were +served by a woman I could not remember to have seen; a pleasant, +bustling body, with a mouth widened by smiling and eyes narrowed by +shrewd discernment. But what troubled me more than all was a +persistent sound of water lapping about the house, which led me to +suppose I was somehow lodged upon an island; or else in the prison +beside the Fleet River—though I thought this could not well be. +</P> + +<P> +Using more precaution, then, than I had done previously, I got out of +my bed, and sitting on the edge of it, was soon half dressed. The +exercise fatigued me but slightly, and as soon as I had my clothes on +completely I ventured across the floor (that was about an ell in +width), and leaned forth between the bars of the window... +</P> + +<P> +I burst into laughter at the easy resolution of my doubts, which the +first view thence afforded me. For I was upon London Bridge, in one of +the houses that are builded thereupon, on either side of it. Below me +lay the narrow bridge-way that is spanned across by divers arches +(which be houses too), and is full, at most hours, as it was when I +beheld it, of people that cheapened stuffs and trinkets at the booths +there set up, or else hastened on, north or south continuously. +</P> + +<P> +'Twas the strangest sight by far I had yet seen; this little +market-world above the waters, so straitened and fantastick, and withal +so intent and earnest upon its affairs, with never a thought to the +great shining river (its very cause and origin) that flowed scarce two +fathom beneath it. I stood awhile fairly entranced by the prospect, +and followed with my eyes every motion and frolick adventure. Thus, +there would be a fine lady that bought an infinite deal of scarlet +cloth, and a pannier-ass that, in turning, struck it from her arm and +unrolled the length of it, so that the ass continued on her way grave +as any judge, with her hoofs upon the cloth like a spread carpet, while +my lady stood by, bewailing her loss. Then there would be a company of +halberdiers that went by at a great swinging stride to quell some riot +(I heard one say) in Southwark by the Bear-garden. By and by, with +more noise, comes there a score of mariners that had left their galley +in the Pool, and after their late hardships on the sea seemed gone into +an excess of jollity, and sacked the shops for toys. Grey-haired +mercers that stood and conversed in groups, and coltish apprentices in +flat caps and suits of blue I noted, and otherwhiles dancers and +mountebanks with a host of idle folk following. +</P> + +<P> +So engrossed indeed was I, that I did not hear the woman, that in the +meantime had entered my chamber, calling upon me to return to my bed; +until at length she enforced her command with a buffet on my shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"Thou art but a graceless lad to be chilling thy marrow at an open +window," she cried; yet I could see she was rather pleased than +wrathful to find me there. +</P> + +<P> +"Nay, I am whole again, mistress," I answered quickly, and then looking +forth again, cried, "But who be those that go by in a troop, with great +bonnets on and red coats?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, who but the Queen's yeomen?" she said, and stood beside me to +catch a sight of them. "Ay, and there goes my husband's brother at +their head, their sergeant, and a proper soldier too, that hath seen +service abroad." +</P> + +<P> +"Whither go they?" I asked, breathless for the pleasure I took in this +brave show. +</P> + +<P> +"To the Tower, lad. But now, back to your couch, or at least to a +chair, for the goodman would speak with you." +</P> + +<P> +"How came I to this house?" I asked, when I had left the window, "for I +remember nought of the matter." +</P> + +<P> +"Enough of words," she laughed pleasantly. "And enough too that you be +here, and your rantings and ravings o'er. I tell you we were like to +have had the watch about us for harbouring a masterless rogue, so +impudently did your sick tongue wag; and that at all hours of the night +too." +</P> + +<P> +She went away soon after, still laughing; for which I blessed her; it +being a comfortable exercise to laugh, and as comforting a sound to +hear. I was full dressed, and expecting the good Samaritan her husband +a while ere he came, which when he did, I found he was a man of brief +speech and one to be trusted. He began by asking how I did, and when I +told him I was quite recovered and thanked him for his charity, he put +up his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"I did no more than your hurt required," he said. "'Twas fortunate we +had this room to lay you in, and a good physician near at hand upon the +Bridge. But now tell me (for I think it necessary I should know it) +how came you wounded?" +</P> + +<P> +I told him all simply, seeing no reason why I should not, and the whole +affair of my uncle; to which he listened in silence, his eyes on my +face. +</P> + +<P> +"My name is Gregory Nelson," he said, when I had done, "and of this +Bridge, where I have my lodging, I am one of the wardens. You may bide +here as long as you list, Master Cleeve, seeing that by this hellish +robbery of Skene's you should be nigh penniless, as you be also left +without friends to help you, unless it be that Mr. Malt accounts +himself so." +</P> + +<P> +"I pay him for my lodging," I said, "but cannot claim any friendship +with him." +</P> + +<P> +"Have you any goods left at his house?" he asked me, a little as though +he smiled inwardly. +</P> + +<P> +"Some spare apparel I have there," I replied, "and a parcel of linen or +so, besides my mare." +</P> + +<P> +"Seeing that you have been absent so long," said Master Nelson, "and +without warning, you may chance to find your chattels sold under a +sheriff's warrant against charges proved. Nay, that is lawful," he +added, seeing I made a motion of dissent, "and indeed you have been +near three weeks a truant." +</P> + +<P> +This disclosure shocked me, and particularly when I reflected that my +father had no knowledge of anything that had occurred to me, nor yet +where I now lay. Two things I did therefore with all speed, first +writing a full account of the attorney, how he had robbed me, and of my +illness so much as I thought necessary; and secondly, going to Fetter +Lane in the hope to recover my goods. On this errand the warden would +by no means suffer me to go alone, and I for my part was very glad of +his arm to lean upon, as I was also of his companionship by the way. +</P> + +<P> +In discourse I found him to be something more blunt than complacent, +and moreover to have set his notions, as it were, by the clock of his +profession. Thus, I chancing to speak of the great mansions of the +nobles that were frequent upon the bank about the Bridge-end, and +making mention of their power that lived therein, he answered me pretty +roundly that I was out. +</P> + +<P> +"If there be two or three wise heads amongst them," said he, "there be +two or three score otherwise disposed. 'Tis a common error, master, to +belaud all alike and merely because their honours be similar. But I +say, let her Grace ennoble any the least considered merchant on Change, +and nought should go worse for it, but rather the better. I say +further, 'tis in the shops and among the great Companies of the City +that England's worthies are now to be found, and her advancement lieth +less in the Great Council to be debated on, than in Cheape to be +accomplished. But enough!" said he, with a little shake of his head. +"I am a servant of this City, and perhaps it is for that I have a bias +of thinking well of what the City doth. Yet few will be bold enough to +deny that we owe much to our great citizens and merchants, as to Sir +Richard Whittington in the old days, and later to Sir Thomas Gresham, +that very praise-worthy knight; not forgetting Mr. Lamb that brought +sweet water in a conduit to Holborn; nor Mr. Osborne, which was Mayor +two year since, and now is Governor of the famous Turkey Company by +charter of the Queen established." +</P> + +<P> +"And what of the Queen's Grace herself?" quoth I, for my humour was not +a little tickled at this decrying of those in high estate, whose wisdom +and guidance we be commonly taught to extol. But at the Queen's name +Mr. Nelson had his cap off immediately. +</P> + +<P> +"God bless her," he said very reverently, "and give her a mind to +perceive her own and her realm's, true good. And so He doth!" he broke +off vehemently, "and hath made her to be the greatest merchant of them +all! Ask Master Drake, else, whose partner and fellow-adventurer she +was when he sailed from Plymouth with but five poor ships, and returned +thence with such treasure of the Spaniards as it took two whole days to +discharge upon the quay." +</P> + +<P> +In such converse we walked on, I straitly considering of these things +he told, whether indeed those mighty lords, whose names were in +everybody's mouth, were truly of less account than men trading in silk +and furs and spices, as he would have me believe; and whether, also, +overmuch service with the City Sheriffs had not worn out an esteem for +greater folk in this honest stout warden of London Bridge. +</P> + +<P> +When at length we arrived at my old lodging in Fetter Lane, Mr. Nelson +said he would not enter, but would await me in the street, and so I +went in alone. I found Madam Malt in a chamber behind the shop, with +her daughters, and very busy upon a great piece, of needlework. She +looked up swiftly as I entered, but never a word she spake. +</P> + +<P> +"I come to make account of my prolonged absence," said I, something out +of countenance for this unlooked for rebuff. +</P> + +<P> +"Judith," said her mother, sharply, "go see whether my babe wakes yet; +Allison do this, and Maud do that," said she, and so emptied her bower +of the maids at a word, and left me standing. +</P> + +<P> +"Lord!" quoth I low to myself, "I am come into the garden of the +Hesperides surely; yet I wist not that the Dragon was mother of them." +But aloud I said, "I am bound to thank you for the hospitality you +extended to me, Madam, the which I cannot well repay." +</P> + +<P> +"I thought no less," replied the lady, without raising her eyes from +her work, "and therefore made application for distraint, which being +granted, I sold such stuff as you thought fit to leave and was not past +laundering." +</P> + +<P> +"But there was my mare too," I cried. +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, the poor jade," said she, "the knacker put a price upon her, but +it reached not to the value of a feed of oats, so I cried quits and +kept her." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you have her yet?" quoth I. +</P> + +<P> +"I have her not," quoth she, "for I gave her a gift to the parson of +St. Dunstan's Church that hath been very full of encouragement to us in +our trouble." +</P> + +<P> +"Your trouble, Madam?" I began, but she proceeded with a terrible +quietness— +</P> + +<P> +"'A preached a singular comfortable sermon two Sundays after your +stealing off, upon the text, 'Happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as +thou hast served us,' as would have melted the most shameless, Mr. +Denis." +</P> + +<P> +"Let us hope it did then," said I, pretty tired of this oblique attack. +</P> + +<P> +"He was not of the congregation, sir," she blazed out, her eyes on mine. +</P> + +<P> +"He was," I retorted, "for he both preached the sermon and hath my +mare. But he shall give her me again, or else I will take her by +force." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, you would despoil the Church then, you heretick Turk!" cried the +lady in a thin, hissing voice that befitted the Dragon I had formerly +called her in my thoughts. "Was it not enough that you should creep +into a Christian household and steal all peace therefrom? What of the +looks you were ever casting upon my tender Judith, and she so apt at +her catechism and forward in works of grace. Your mare, quotha! What +of her pretty beseeching ways that no man hath seen but saith she is +rather Ruth than Judith—ay, and shall find her Boaz one day, I tell +you, in despite of your heathen wiles and treachery. So, fetch away +your beast from a churchman's stall, 'tis easy done every whit as get a +simple maid's heart; and then off and abroad, while she weeps at home, +poor lass! that is so diligent a sempstress withal, and her father's +prop of his age." +</P> + +<P> +Whilst she was delivering this astonishing and very calumnious speech, +Madam Malt had arisen from her chair and now stood close above me, +wringing her hands that yet kept a hold of her piece of needlework, and +shaking with rage. She was a marvellous large woman, with a face +something loose-skinned about the jaw, and of a buff colour that +mounted to a brownness in the folds and wrinkles. Her voice, as I have +said, was very dragonlike, and her whole aspect and presence had +something of an apocalyptic terribleness that seemed to draw the clouds +about her as a garment. I see her yet in my dreams and awake +shuddering. +</P> + +<P> +Once or twice I strove to interpose a denial in the flood of her +indictment, and to exonerate myself from her load of false charges, but +could nowise make myself heard, or at least heeded, and so gave it +over. Indeed, how all would have ended I know not, had not the infant +in a lucky hour awakened and lamentably demanded sustenance; whereupon +Judith running in (who I am persuaded had got no further than behind +the door-chink), the lady's thoughts were by the intelligence that her +daughter brought, most happily diverted from me. Judith regarded me +with one wistful glance, and then in the wake of the Dragon as she +swept from the room, this last of the Hesperides departed from me for +ever. +</P> + +<P> +I stood some time very downcast, knowing not what to think, when the +door opening a small space, Mr. Richard's head was thrust in, his eyes +winking with merriment. +</P> + +<P> +"So you have returned to us, Mr. Prodigal," he whispered, "and have +heard moreover how we take your leaving us so without ceremony as you +did. Nay, be not melancholy, man," he went on, coming beside me and +laying a hand upon my shoulder, "for we that use the playhouse and the +jolly tavern understand these things well enough. No need for words +where a nod sufficeth. But the women would have no men roysters, good +souls! nor hardly allow us the stretch of a lap-dog's leash to gambol +in. Eh!" he sang out in a pretty good mean voice, although from his +late drinking not well controlled: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"'Better place no wit can find<BR> +Cupid's yoke to loose or bind.'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +But come you with me, Mr. Denis, one of these nights; for we be much of +an age, and should sort handsomely together, if I mistake not." +</P> + +<P> +It lies upon my conscience now, that I neither thanked him for his +intention, which I am sure was friendly meant; nor yet kicked him out +of door for his manifest profligacy. But as it was, I went straight +past him, looking him full in the face the while, and out of the house. +His cheeks turned a sort of yellow white at this insult and at the +surprise of it, while his hand slipped to his belt for the sword he +commonly wore, but he had it not by him, as indeed he was all unready +and his whole dress disordered after such a night spent as he supposed +I should be willing to join him in another, the like of it. +</P> + +<P> +I found Mr. Nelson without, who leaned very thoughtful against a post +by the door, and by my countenance I showed him plain enough the upshot +of that business. +</P> + +<P> +"'Twas no more than I conceived likely," he said. "These hired +lodgings be all one." +</P> + +<P> +Finding nothing convenient to return, I held my peace; and so we walked +slowly along Fleet Street, and over the hill by Paul's, to my new abode +upon the Bridge. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER X +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +HOW I SAW AN ENEMY AT THE WINDOW +</H4> + +<P> +My father replied about ten days after to the letter I had writ him, +with another of so sweet a tenour (and yet shrewd enough in the +business parts of it), as reading it, I could have gone on my knees to +honour him. He made it clear at the outset that my bad bargain must at +all hazards be ratified, and Mr. Wall's loan in full repaid. This he +undertook to do, saying he had dispatched advices already to the +goldsmith, in which he acknowledged the debt, promising moreover to +acquit himself of it as soon as he could. +</P> + +<P> +"But at this present, Denis," he wrote, "to do so is not altogether +easy, though I hope 'twill not be long ere I shall compass it. And in +order to that end I have retired from the Court into a more modest +dwelling (as you will perceive by the subscription) in the hamlet of +Tolland, having been fortunate in letting at a fair rent the Court to +your old companion, Sir Matthew Juke, who, his new mansion in Devizes +not at all answering to his expectation, was at the very delivery of +your letter hot to be rid of it; and therefore upon my first making +offer of our house to him upon leasehold, he very eagerly assented to +my proposals." +</P> + +<P> +But if the notion of that thin-blooded knight established in our old +home greatly irked me, this which followed caused me an infinite deal +of sorrow; for I was to learn of a secret malady of my father's which +he had long been subject to, but had never before disclosed, although +it had grievously increased upon him even to the time of my departure +from the Combe, so that he sometimes had doubted of his being then +alive or, at the least, able to disguise any longer from me his +affliction. "Had it been otherwise," he proceeded, "be well assured +that upon your first motion of distress I would myself have come to +you, as indeed I would yet do (should Providence see fit to restore me) +were it not for the too great dispences of the journey. For I make of +it no mystery, Denis, but speak with you openly as to one of man's +estate, when I affirm that the charges in this affair be somewhat +larger than with our late accustomed easiness we may satisfy. And this +bringeth me to the gravest part yet, and that which most I loathe to +make mention of, seeing it is not otherwise to be accomplished than in +our continued severance. Notwithstanding between friends (as we are) +plain speech is best, and I therefore say that I have a mind you should +engage yourself in some occupation of trade in London; but such as +yourself shall elect to follow; and to you I leave the choosing +thereof. I will that you continue prosecuting our original design (I +intend your uncle's deliverance) as you shall have the opportunity and +I the means. So much sufficeth for this time, and therefore I bid you +farewell, +</P> + +<P> +"Who am your well-wishing and most fond father,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 4em">"HUMPHREY CLEEVE."</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P> +(Followed the sign of the Inn he lay at, which I remembered to have +once noted going through Tolland, and passed it by as a place of mean +and beggarly entertainment.) +</P> + +<P> +This letter I overread a score of times, and each time with the more +admiration that a man of so principal a dignity and so observed, could +find it in his mind thus voluntarily to lay by his honourable estate +and depart a mere exile from his ancient home; and that with never a +murmur of self pity; but quitting all simply and with a grand +negligence, as a man might do that puts up a fair-bound book he has +been reading, but now hath concluded. +</P> + +<P> +'Twas sometime afterward I let my thought stay upon the meaning of that +he had writ of myself; and a longer time ere I could allow the plain +truth that we were come into an absolute poverty. I think not well to +set down all the shifting considerations that moved me then, nor the +weight of humiliation I undertook at this lapse and derogation from our +name. But all my dreams brake utterly asunder, and my hopes that had +until now sustained me in pride. To be penniless I found a greater +evil far than to be sick, and in the first rage of my disappointment, I +quite lost all remembrance of my father (sick too) in the wayside +tavern I had myself disdained to enter. +</P> + +<P> +I was aloft in my room in the warden's house when this letter was +delivered to me in the afternoon of the day following my passage with +the hosier's wife, and I remember how I sat by the window looking +across the Bridge street, betwixt the tall houses, out upon the River +and the great galleys in the Pool, and upon that square grey shadow of +the Tower. All I saw appeared to me so large and unfettered, and to be +spread so comely in the soft blue air that I could hardly bear to +reduce my thoughts to the narrowness and cooped discipline of my own +future. The eulogy which Mr. Nelson had seen fit to pronounce upon +merchants and traders troubled my spleen not a little at the +remembrance of it; and so out of measure did my resentment run that I +stood by the mullion gnawing at my nails and casting blame hither and +thither, so as none hardly escaped being made a party (as the attorneys +called it) to the case of poverty into which I was fallen. Amongst +other follies I allowed, was this: that I dared not now seek out my old +schoolmaster, lest from the height of his new soldier's calling he +should rail down upon me in Latin, which tongue seemeth to have been +expressly fashioned for satire. +</P> + +<P> +But such a resolution extended no further than to Mr. Jordan, for I +still cherished and held fast to the hope of discovering the maid and +of thanking her, as was necessary (or at least upon the necessity of it +I would admit no argument); and also of acquainting her of my present +and intolerable trouble. That she were, like enough, engaged in some +trade, as well as I, I never so much as conceived possible, but drew in +advance upon her store of pity for my singular misfortune. +</P> + +<P> +The day grew towards evening as I stood thus, debating of these +matters, and the River came over all misted and purple and very grand. +Here and there were lights too that went thwarting it, they being the +great lanterns of the wherries and barges that continually traversed +the stream; and the fixed lights were these set upon the hithes and +stairs, or else aloft in the houses by the bankside. 'Twas a wondrous +melancholy sight, methought, and seemed a sort of blazon and lively +image of surrender, this decline of day into dark. For boylike I +omitted the significance of the lights burning, and received the night +only into my soul. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Denis, will't please you come below?" came a shrill voice athwart +these reflections and startled me. +</P> + +<P> +"Is it supper?" I asked something petulantly, for I hated to be +disturbed. +</P> + +<P> +"Nay, Master Dumps, 'tis the goodman's brother, the Queen's yeoman, +that would speak with your little worship." +</P> + +<P> +Something in her manner forbade my gainsaying her, so I went down into +the great kitchen where we commonly sat, and there found the warden, +with the yeoman his brother in his scarlet apparel as I had before seen +him; his halberd set up in a corner where it took the glitter of the +fire, and his velvet bonnet laid on the table. Mr. Nelson at once +presented him to me, upon which he rose up with a salutation in the +military manner, very stately, and then sat down without a word. +</P> + +<P> +"I have ventured so far to meddle in your proper affairs, Mr. Cleeve," +said Gregory Nelson, "as to inquire of master sergeant here in what +sort your uncle is entreated in the Tower, as also whether the +Constable would likely grant you access to him, he lying under so +weighty an indictment." +</P> + +<P> +"You have done kindly," I said, and told them both of the letter I had +received from my father, in which he had iterated his desire I should +yet attempt his brother's release, or rather the procuring of his trial +to that end. The sergeant nodded once or twice the while I spoke in +this fashion, but did not interrupt me. Nevertheless Madam Nelson, who +perceived that something was forward of which she had heard never a +word, could scarce constrain herself to await the conclusion, which +when she had heard, she burst in— +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, truly, Gregory Nelson," said she, setting a fist upon either hip +and speaking very high and scornful, "when Providence gave thee me to +wife, He gave thee a notable blessing, and one of a pleasant aptitude +to discourse, yet not beyond discretion, as we women have a name +(though without warrant) to go. But in giving thee to me, He furnished +me with nought but an ill-painted sign of the Dumb Man, so out of all +reason dost thou hide and dissemble thy thoughts. Why, I had as lief +be married to Aldgate Pump as to thee, for all the news thou impartest, +or comfort got of thee by the mouth's way; which was sure the way +intended of Him that made us with mouths and a comprehension of things +spoken. Yea, a very stockfish took I to mate in thee, Gregory, whose +habitation should be in Fishmongers Row, on a trestle-stall of +Billingsgate." +</P> + +<P> +The cogency of this speech of the warden's wife, great as it might be +in abuse, was yet so small in its effect upon her husband, that I was +fain to relate to the poor woman (who loved me for it ever after) the +whole story of Botolph Cleeve's imprisonment in the Tower, which her +husband had (so far prudently) kept silence upon. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor man," cried she pitifully when she knew all, "ah, these poor +solitary prisoners! I marvel how good men can find it in their hearts +to guard them from escaping thence. Were I a yeoman now," she added, +with an eye askance upon the sergeant and after upon her husband, "I +would suffer all such freely to depart thence without challenge, as +desired it, or at least such as led a Christian life and loved their +wives." +</P> + +<P> +"Is my uncle kindly dealt with there?" I demanded of the yeoman, but to +that question he hesitated so long in his reply that I cried— +</P> + +<P> +"If he be not, 'tis ill done, so to use a man that I hope to prove +innocent of this charge." +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis because he is innocent belike, poor soul," quoth Madam Nelson, +"that they do so use him. In this world it hath ever been the virtuous +whose faces are ground." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know where his dungeon is situate?" I asked, starting to my +feet as though I would go (and meant to) at once to the Lord Constable, +"or if not you, then who doth know it?" +</P> + +<P> +"None doth," he answered me slowly, "because he is not in the Tower." +</P> + +<P> +"What mean you?" cried I, as soon as I could for astonishment. "My +uncle is not a prisoner there?" +</P> + +<P> +"I trow otherwise!" retorted the warden's wife, who saw her pity ill +bestowed if she believed him. +</P> + +<P> +"There hath been none of his name apprehended, nor none of his +description," said the yeoman. +</P> + +<P> +"Then where is he?" I cried out bitterly, for I well enough perceived +that all that great sum which we had been enticed into spending was for +nothing lost, and ourselves beggars upon the mere fetch and cozening +imposture of a knave. +</P> + +<P> +"Where he may be I know not," said the Bridge warden, before the yeoman +could answer me, "but I think you came as near to him as might be, when +you gave your money into the hands of Mr. John Skene." +</P> + +<P> +"Skene—Skene! He—the attorney? You suppose him to be my uncle?" I +gasped forth the words as one drowning. +</P> + +<P> +He nodded. "It maketh the matter simple to suppose so," he said, +"which else is hardly to be understood." +</P> + +<P> +Perplexed as I then was, I could scarce believe him, albeit whatever +survey of the matter I made, I confessed the indications directed me, +after infinite wanderings, ever back to the same point, which was that +my uncle had manifestly lied in writing that he was kept prisoner, and +by our belief in that lie, who but himself did he mean should benefit? +Yet unless he were indeed Skene (and so received our twice five hundred +pounds) he had gained nothing upon that throw, but lost it to another +more cunning than he, which were a thing I thought scarcely to be +credited. +</P> + +<P> +The weight of this disclosure so whelmed me that I could do nor say no +more, but throwing my arm along the table, had my face down in it to +hide the tears which would have course, try as I might to restrain +them. Good Dame Nelson, all blubbered too, leant over my shoulder to +comfort me, although her sympathy must have been something doubtfully +extended to one that wept because his uncle was proved to be not a +prisoner, but in the full enjoyment of his liberty. +</P> + +<P> +But after continuing in this case some while there came into my mind +some considerations of revenge, and they greatly comforting me, I sat +upright in my chair, and begged the tolerance of the two men for my +late weakness. +</P> + +<P> +"Nay, say no more of it, lad," replied Mr. Nelson, "for no man liketh +to think of a villain at large, and in particular, if the villain be of +the family." +</P> + +<P> +And so, calling to his wife to serve up the supper, and to us to seat +ourselves about the board, he did his best to make me forget, for that +while, my troubles. +</P> + +<P> +However I could eat but little, though I made appearance as if I +relished the wholesome steaming food; and not I only, but the +sergeant-yeoman also, I soon perceived, did eat sparingly, and as one +whose mind was absent from the feast. And soon he ceased altogether, +laying aside his knife and platter and clearing his throat with a sort +of sob (which was the prelude to as moving a tale as ever I heard) and +resting his great bearded cheek upon his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, what ails you, master sergeant?" cried Dame Nelson in quick +compassion; but it was to his brother, and not her, that he replied— +</P> + +<P> +"You spake truly, Gregory," said he, "when you told Master Cleeve that +no man loveth to think of a villain at large if he be of one's own +family. But you spake it to my shame." +</P> + +<P> +"I intended it not so, truly," said the warden very earnestly. +</P> + +<P> +"I know it," said the yeoman, "but yet when you brought in the family +it touched me pretty near. Stay!" he said, when he saw that Gregory +would have interposed some further excuse. "You have not altogether +forgot my boy, Jack, that went a shipman in the Green Dragon upon a +voyage into Barbary, two year since." +</P> + +<P> +"I remember him very well," answered the warden, while his wife +whispered me that he had the finest pair of grey eyes you did ever see. +</P> + +<P> +"I have received certain news of him but this very day," continued the +yeoman, "which hath quite taken away my peace, and set my mind amidst +perilous thoughts." +</P> + +<P> +"A mercy on us!" cried the woman, starting up from the table; "what +words be these, master sergeant?" +</P> + +<P> +"He hath turned Turk," said the yeoman, in a thick voice. +</P> + +<P> +"As being enforced thereto, God help him!" said Mr. Nelson; but his +brother shook his head. +</P> + +<P> +"'Twas his own will to do so," he said, and rose from the bench; +whereupon we all rose too, though without well knowing wherefore, save +that we were strangely affected by his narrative. The yeoman went over +to the corner where his great pike rested, and returning thence with +it, he stood for some while quite still and upright (in such posture as +a soldier doth upon guard), his eyes upon the bright fire which threw +the distorted huge shadow of him against the ceiling. At the last, in +a small voice, as though he spake not to us, he said— +</P> + +<P> +"From my youth I have been known for a God-fearing man, and one not +given over to lightness. To the Queen I pledged my faith once, and +have kept it. Had I so much as in one point failed of my word, I would +willingly and without extenuation answer the same. And no less have I +dealt with Heaven—faithfully, as befits a soldier. Then how comes it +that one born flesh of my flesh should do me this shame? Is it my +reward and wages for stout service? Nay, had Heaven a quarrel with me, +I would abide it. Had I defaulted, I should look to be punished in +mine own person. But to defame me through my son; to fasten the +reproach and scorn of a renegade upon me because he cowardly threw +aside his faith; I say I like not that, nor think not that Heaven hath +dealt with me as my captain would." He stayed his speech there quite +suddenly, and took up his black bonnet from the table, we all +marvelling the while, as much at his words as at the apostasy that had +occasioned them. But this speech that ensued, which was spoken with an +infinite simplicity as he was going, moved us who listened to him, I +think, more than all the rest. "And yet," said he, "there be armies in +heaven;" and with that he left us and went his way. +</P> + +<P> +The evening being very chill we were glad enough of an excuse to build +up a cheerful great fire on the hearth, and to sit before it for +comfort, although in truth we were sad at heart and but little inclined +to conversation. +</P> + +<P> +I think 'twas about eight o'clock, and quite dark without, when +something happened to divert our thoughts from the yeoman for that +night at least, while for the rest I doubt if the yeoman himself were +more staggered when he heard of his son's error than I, when, chancing +to lean back a little from the heat of the fire (and so turned my head +aside), I saw, pressed close to the lattice panes of the window, a +face, long and sallow, and with thick black curls clustered about it, +which I knew on the instant belonged to that enemy of mine that had +secretly spied upon me before, and now with an evident joy discovered +me again. But even as I looked he was gone; and I, with an exclamation +of wrath, caught up my sword and cap, and sprung out into the street to +follow him. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XI +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IS SUFFICIENT IN THAT IT TELLS OF IDONIA +</H4> + +<P> +There was a press of people about the door as I went forth, which so +hindered my passage as Mr. Nelson, who had started up in alarm of my +sudden departure, caught me ere I had run a dozen paces, and would have +reasoned me into returning. But I would not be led thus nor listen +either, and so telling him 'twas a man I greatly desired to have speech +of that I followed, shook myself free, and jostled hardly through the +throng. To my joy I could yet see the tall figure of my unknown +adversary about a stone's cast ahead of me and walking swiftly. But +the main part of the shops being now closed, there was but scant light +to serve me in my chase, and more than once I feared I had lost him or +ever he got half-way to the new tower by the Bridge end. Nevertheless, +by that time I had arrived pretty near, and, indeed, soon trod so close +in his steps, that I could hear the jar of his hanger against the +buckle of his belt; but it being no part of my design to accost him in +so public a place, I fell back a little, and when he passed under the +bow of the gate-house, where a pair of great lanterns hung suspended, I +made as if to tighten a lace of my shoe, bending low, lest upon a +sudden return he should observe me; which, however, he did not, but +went straight forward. I had supposed it probable he would go off to +the left hand, that is, westward, towards Baynards Castle, wherein, as +I already knew, he had his lodging; and was greatly surprised, +therefore, when, a little way up the street, he turned sharply to the +right hand, behind St. Magnus' Church, where the street goes down very +steep, and is moreover ill paved and (at such an hour) exceeding +darksome. The gallant descended this hill at a great pace, while I for +my better concealment followed him somewhat more tardily as being +secure of his escape thence, where there was but a scantling of folk +about the lane from whom he was very easily to be distinguished, they +being ill-habited and of the common sort. In such manner we proceeded +a great way, passing in our course by two or three alleys that led down +to the Thames, of which I could perceive the gleam of the water, yet so +narrowly visible that the sight of it was as a blade of steel hung up +between the houses. All this quarter of the City I was perfectly +ignorant of, my knowledge being limited to such parts of it only as I +had traversed betwixt the Bridge and Fetter Lane, if I except +Serjeant's Inn in Fleet Street, which to my cost I had come to know +pretty well. +</P> + +<P> +Whereto my exact intention reached, I should have found it difficult to +determine, but a settled hatred of the man possessed me, beside some +motions of fear (I confess now) that his continued espial had stirred +within me; and under the influence of fear, much more than of hatred, +we be ever apt to run into an excess of cruelty. Thus I remember well +enough the coolness with which I rehearsed my attack upon him, and the +considerations I maintained in my mind for and against the waylaying +him before he could stand upon his defence. Overrunning him with a +critical eye, I could not but admire his great stature and apparent +strength, to which I had to add a probable skill in fence, that I +lacked, having never been lessoned therein, though I had sometimes +played a heat or two with Simon, using a pair of old foils we found one +day in the stable loft at home. Notwithstanding, this defect weighed +nothing against my will, but rather exalted the desire I had to prove +my courage upon him, whose advantage was so every way manifest. +</P> + +<P> +A great moon hung above the Thames, but obscured now and then by +wreaths of river mist that a light wind lifted the edge of, yet could +not sustain the bulk to drive it. There was no sound but that my enemy +made with his accoutrements; for I, lurking along in the black shadows, +made none, and the street was now everywhere void. All went pat to my +purpose, and I loosened my sword in its sheath. Then I crossed the +road. +</P> + +<P> +But even as I did so, my man came to a sudden stand before an old and +very ruinous house, having a porch of stone, and within that a door +with a grid, whereon I presently heard him give a great sounding rap +with the pummel of his sword. And so unexpected was that act of his +(though why it surprised me I know not) that I stood quite still in the +full light, nor could for my life put into execution my policy that he +had thus distracted. The place wherein we had come I saw was near +under the Tower, of which I could, by the dim light, perceive the +undistinguished mass thwarting the bottom of the lane; and the house to +which the man demanded admittance was the last upon the left hand this +side the open space before the Tower. He remained some while, half hid +in the deepness of the gateway above which a lantern swung with a small +creaking noise; the light of it very dim and uncertain. After my first +arrestment of surprise, I had gone aside a little, yet not so far but I +could observe him, and the low oaken door at which he knocked. There +was something about this silent and decayed building which I liked not, +though I could not tell precisely wherefore; for indeed it showed signs +of some magnificence in the design of it, but now was all worn out by +neglect and foul usage; being turned over to the occasions of shipmen +and victuallers for storage of such things as their craft requires. +Thus, from a fair great window above, that I judged to have been +formerly the window of the hall or chapel, was now projected a sort of +spars and rough tackle, by which the slender mullion-shafts were all +thrust aside and broken. A high penthouse of timber with a crane +under, stood by the wall a little beyond, for the getting of goods in +and out, with other such disfigurements and mean devices of trade as a +mansion is wont to suffer that great folk have left, and small folk +have cheaply come by. +</P> + +<P> +At length I saw the grid within the door to be slid back very warily, +and by a faint access of light perceived that the porter bore a taper, +as being unwilling to open to one he knew not, or could not see. +</P> + +<P> +A conversation followed, but too low for me to hear it, though I +suspected from the manner of the man that he first besought, and after +demanded, admittance, which was still denied. Then he betook himself +(as I could tell) to threats, and was soon come to wresting at the bars +of the grid, like a madman. But that which sent me from my ambush was +a cry of terror from the other side of the gate at his so insolent +violence; for it was the cry of a girl. +</P> + +<P> +I strode forward. +</P> + +<P> +"Hold!" I said, mastering myself to speak within compass, and taking +the man by the sleeve with my right hand, while I kept my left upon my +poniard. "A guest that is not welcome should have the modesty to know +it." +</P> + +<P> +He swung round with a great oath, and would have flung me off, had I +not gripped him pretty hard. +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, is it thou?" said he, when he saw who held him, and I could swear +there was some respect in his way of saying it. +</P> + +<P> +"I come to tell you that your barber hath left his shop in Fetter +Lane," said I. +</P> + +<P> +He laughed aloud at that, high, and with a sort of scornful jollity, +though his narrow eyes never left my face. +</P> + +<P> +"You are right, lad," he said heartily, "and I have sought him +everywhere since." +</P> + +<P> +"Even upon London Bridge," said I, nodding. +</P> + +<P> +"Even there," replied the dark man. +</P> + +<P> +"I have myself some skill in that sort," I said, "so if the hour be not +too late for shaving we will get to business straightway." +</P> + +<P> +"As you will," said he, indifferently. "But now, to leave this +schoolboy humour a little, and seeing I have no quarrel with you nor +yet know (as I told you before) your name even, were it not better you +should state your grievance against me if you have one, as I suppose +you deem yourself to stand upon some right in thus constraining me?" +</P> + +<P> +The while he was speaking thus and in such easy parlance as I had +before noted was proper to him, my thoughts had returned to that girl's +cry I had heard behind the grid, and looking about swiftly, I saw the +gate itself now opened a small way, and the girl's form within the +opening in a posture of infinite eagerness. So taken with this sight +was I, that insensibly I slacked my hold of the man, who suddenly +withdrew his arm and stood away jeering. +</P> + +<P> +"The door is open," I said, in a low voice, and putting my hand on my +sword; "wherefore do you not enter?" +</P> + +<P> +"I will do so," said he, and before I could hinder him, he had swept me +aside with a great buffet, and run forward to the gate. Cursing my +lack of readiness to repel him, I drew at once and followed him, while +the maid, who at his approach had fled backward, pushed to the door; +yet not so quick—the hinges turning heavily—but he prevented her, +thrusting in his arm betwixt the post and the door, and had gained his +purpose easily, had not I sprung upon him from behind and so hindered +him that his hand was caught and crushed, ere he could release himself. +</P> + +<P> +"I owe you small thanks for that, Mr. Denis," said he, gravely, when he +had flung the door open and got his hand free; and by his disdain of +continuing the pretence not to know my name, I saw we were come into +the lists as open foes. +</P> + +<P> +"You owe somewhat elsewhere," said I, "and that is amends to this lady +for your discourtesy," and as I spoke I looked across to where she +stood in the hall, a distance off from us twain, by the foot of the +great stair. A light from some lamp, hung aloft out of sight, diffused +itself about her, so that she stood clear from the obscurity which +wrapped all else; and by that light I knew her for the maid I sought, +and would thank, and did already supremely love. The light falling +directly from above lay upon her hair and seemed to burn there, so +splendid a shining did it make. Of her face and body, the most of +which was dim in shadow, I could yet discern the exceeding grace and +lithe bearing. Her hands were outspread in terror for our clamorous +intrusion, and I thought by her swaying she was about to swoon. But +small leisure had I to proffer service, or indeed to do aught but +return to my guard, which I resumed none too soon, for the tall man had +drawn his great sword already and now caught up a piece of sailcloth +from the rummage about the hall, wrapping it about his injured arm. +</P> + +<P> +"So it would seem you know her, too, Mr. Denis," he let slip in a voice +of some wonder, and I thought paused upon the question how we were +become acquainted. +</P> + +<P> +"Have a care!" I cried, and so thrust at him without further parley. +</P> + +<P> +He caught the blow easily enough on his blade, turning it aside. +"Country play!" he muttered, and was content to let me recover myself +ere he took me in hand. However, I had the good luck to drive him a +pace or two backward, amidst the stuff that lay there about, bales and +cordage and the like, which hampered him not a little, though for the +rest I could not touch him; whereas he did me whenever he listed, but +so far without great harm. Yet notwithstanding his disdainful +clemency, or rather because of it, I lost all sense of the odds we +matched at, and laid about me with increasing fury, so that, for all he +was so expert and cool a swordsman, I kept him continually busy at the +fence and sometimes put him to more art than he would have wished to +use, in order to defend himself from my assaults. +</P> + +<P> +Now the hall where we fought thus, was, as I have said, full of all +sorts of impediments and ship's furniture, and was, besides, very low +and lighted by nothing but the gleam of the stair-lamp at the far end, +so that though we both lost advantage by these hindrances, yet his loss +was the greater; for with due light and space he could have ended when +he chose; but now was forced to expect until I should abate somewhat of +my persistence ere he did so; which, seeing I bled more than at first, +he no doubt looked for presently. And so indeed did I; but the +expectation seconded my little art in such sort that I broke down his +guard and, before I was aware, had caught him high up in the breast, by +the shoulder, and I could have laughed for pleasure as I felt the steel +sink in. Howbeit 'twas a flesh wound only, and thus no great matter, +as I knew; but it served to put him quite from his coolness, and as +well by his manner of fetching his breath, I could tell he was +distressed, as by his level brow that he meant to be rid of me. But +then— +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, stay it here, gentlemen," cried the girl, who saw that we breathed +a space, though we still kept our points up and ready to be at it anew. +"If the watch pass now, you will be certainly apprehended as you go +forth. Have pity of each other," she said, and came forward almost +between us. "And you, sir" (to me), "if you do thus because he would +have entered here, I thank you. But now let him go, I pray you, as he +shall promise no further to offend." +</P> + +<P> +You may imagine how this talk of my letting him go, who was a thousand +times the better swordsman, angered my antagonist. +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, Mistress Avenon," he said, in that wicked, scorning voice he had, +"we shall stay it here surely to please you. But yet there be some +slight formalities accustomed to be used which must first be done; and +after I will go." +</P> + +<P> +"What be those formalities you speak of?" she asked, with an apparent +gladness that the worst was past. +</P> + +<P> +"Just that I must kill him," said the dark man, very quietly between +his teeth. +</P> + +<P> +"Good mistress," I cried out, for I was persuaded he spake truth and +dreaded lest she should see what in pity of her womanhood I would +should be hid, "go aside now. Go to your chamber." But to the man I +whispered, "Come without into the street." +</P> + +<P> +"There spoke a coward," was his word, and drawing back upon his ground +he swung up his sword arm to the height, and husbanding the weight of +his whole body, stood poised to cut me down. I saw the blow coming, +even in the dark, and despairing to avoid it, let drive right forward, +at the same moment muffling up my eyes in the sleeve of my idle arm, +for the terror of death was upon me then. Our swords sang.... But +even as I struck I knew that a miracle had been wrought, for his sword +never fell. Sick with amazement I opened my eyes, to see him go over +amongst the bales, where he sank down with a great sobbing cry. His +sword hung quivering from a rafter of the ceiling, which it had bitten +into by the blade's breadth. His tallness of stature, and hardly I, +had overthrown him and left me victor. +</P> + +<P> +"God be praised!" I said very low, when I perceived and could believe +how matters had gone; but "God have mercy!" whispered the maid. +</P> + +<P> +I turned about. +</P> + +<P> +"You had best go, Mistress Avenon," I said. "The rest must be my work." +</P> + +<P> +"You will not surrender yourself?" she asked, very white. +</P> + +<P> +"If he be dead..." I began, but could not finish for trembling. +</P> + +<P> +"He is not dead, I think," she interrupted hastily, and went back to +the stair, whence she soon returned with the lamp, which she set down +upon a hogshead, and then bent over the wounded man. +</P> + +<P> +"A kerchief," she said, briefly, "a scarf; something linen if you have +it." +</P> + +<P> +I tore off a strip from my sleeve and with that she staunched the +worst. We made a compress of my band, drenching it in cold water, and +for tightness buckled my belt upon it, which I gave her. +</P> + +<P> +"There is burnt wine in yonder firkin," she said, and I fetched a +draught in the cup of my two hands. +</P> + +<P> +When he sighed we looked at each other, and I said— +</P> + +<P> +"Who is he?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is Master Guido Malpas," she whispered, and added, "I am glad you +have not killed him." +</P> + +<P> +But that speech went near spoiling all, seeing that I had gone into +that tourney her champion. +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, there would have been another tale to tell," I returned very +bitterly, "had your rafters been set but a span higher." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you mistake me, Mr. Denis (I think they call you so)," said she, +and bent low over the wounded man again. "I mean I am glad your +kindness to me hath not run so far as you must needs have wished to +recall it." +</P> + +<P> +It is a maid's voice more than her words that comforts a man, and so, +scarce had she spoken but I saw I had misjudged her. +</P> + +<P> +"Denis is my name," I said eagerly, "but tell me yours now." +</P> + +<P> +"You have heard it, and used it too," she answered smiling. "'Tis +Avenon." +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, but the other?" I cried. +</P> + +<P> +She paused before she told me "Idonia." +</P> + +<P> +"He loves you?" I said very quick, and nodded toward Malpas. +</P> + +<P> +"He saith so." +</P> + +<P> +"Doth he often trouble you thus?" +</P> + +<P> +"I fear him," she said so low I could scarce hear her. +</P> + +<P> +"But your father?" said I, "or your brothers? Have you none to protect +you?" +</P> + +<P> +"My father was slain in a sea-battle long since," she told me, "when he +went in the <I>Three Half Moons</I> with others that traded with the Seville +merchants, but falling in with a fleet of Turkey, they were nearly all +taken prisoners, but my father was killed." +</P> + +<P> +"You were a child then?" I asked her, and she said she was but an +infant; and that her mother was long since dead also, and that she had +no brothers. +</P> + +<P> +She seemed as though she were about to add more, but just then the sick +man revived, opening his eyes and gazing upon us as one that seemed to +consider how we twain should be together in such a place. I got up +from where I had been kneeling beside him and stood to stretch myself; +but was surprised to find how painful my own hurts were, which I had +almost forgotten to have received. I suppose Idonia saw me flinch, for +she suddenly cried out, "Mr. Denis, Mr. Denis, I will come to you," and +leaving Malpas where he lay, rose and came over to me, when she took me +very gently by the arm and made me sit, as indeed I needed little +persuasion to do. Howbeit I was (as I have said) scarcely scratched, +and should have felt foolish at the elaborate business she made of it, +had not her hair been so near to my lips. +</P> + +<P> +But presently, and while we were thus employed, she with dressing my +hurts, and I with such and such affairs, Idonia whispered— +</P> + +<P> +"Doth he know where you lodge?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said I, "he discovered the place to-night," and told her where +it was, and of the kindness Master Gregory had shown me. +</P> + +<P> +"I knew not his name," she interrupted me hurriedly, while making +pretence to busy herself with the tightening a bandage, "nor of what +authority he were that took you from me when you were hurt before; but +he looked at me as at one that would not use you well, and in the end +spoke something roughly to me, so that I dared not follow you. Ah! +these upright staid men!" she added with a world of bitterness; but +then, "Now your lodging is known, you must leave it straightway, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"I am not used to run away," said I, more coldly than I had meant to +do, and she said no more. When we looked up Malpas had gone. +</P> + +<P> +We looked at each other without speaking for admiration of the strength +and secrecy he had shown in thus stealing off. +</P> + +<P> +"I must go too," I said presently, and saw her eyes widen in dismay. +</P> + +<P> +"Beware of him!" she whispered. "He doth not forget. And see! he hath +not neglected to take his sword;" as indeed, most marvellously, he had +done. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, he serves an honest gentleman," quoth I carelessly, "so that if +I have cause to think he plots against my life, I shall lay my +complaint before my lord Pembroke." +</P> + +<P> +But she shook her head as doubting the wisdom, or at least the +efficacy, of that, though she said nought either way, but led me soon +after to the great oaken door (which Malpas had left ajar when he went) +and set it wide. The night was very dark, with the moon now gone down +into the bank of cloud, and so still that we heard a sentinel challenge +one at the Bulwark Gate of the Tower. I thought too I heard the rattle +of an oar against the thole, as though a boat put off from the Galley +Quay a little below, but of that I was not sure. +</P> + +<P> +"God keep you," I said to the maid; but when she did not answer me I +looked down and saw she was weeping. +</P> + +<P> +When I went away, I heard the bolt shoot into its rusted socket, and +asked myself: how would my case stand now, had Idonia shot it, as she +essayed to do, at the first? +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +HOW MR. JORDAN COULD NOT RUN COUNTER TO THE COURSE OF NATURE +</H4> + +<P> +I know not yet (and I thank Heaven for my ignorance) what may be the +peculiar weakness of old age, though I suspect it to lie in an +excessive regard for life; but of youth I have proved it to be a +contempt of life; which, despite the philosophic ring of the phrase, I +do affirm to be a fault, though I am willing to allow that I mean a +contempt, not of our own, but of another man's life, and a surprise +that he should hold dear so vulgar a commodity. +</P> + +<P> +Thus, as I walked away from the house of Idonia, I pondered long and +carefully the small account that Mr. Malpas was of, and could not +conceive how he had the monstrous impudency to cling so tight as he did +to the habit of living, which (as a soiled shirt) he might well enough +have now been content to exchange. Indeed, the more I thought upon the +matter, the greater increased my sense of the absurdity that such a man +should claim his share of the world, or rather (to select the essential +quality of my complaint) his share of that corner of Thames Street +where Idonia lived, which goeth by the name of Petty Wales. From +thence, at all hazards, I was determined to exclude him. For had not +Idonia said: "I fear him"? and that was enough for me. Indeed it +seemed to elevate my jealousy into an obligation of chivalry, merely to +remember that sallow-faced swaggerer that said he loved her. Simon +Powell should have fitted me with some knight's part, methought, amidst +his Peredurs and Geraints, and I would have proved myself worthy as the +best of them. +</P> + +<P> +But that was all very well. It was past ten o'clock, and when I got to +London Bridge I found it barred against me and the watch within the +gate-house snoring. I knocked twice or thrice pretty hard and at +length woke the watch; but so angered was he at thus losing of his +sleep, besides that he thought perhaps to recover upon his late +remissness, that he flew into an unnecessary zeal of watchfulness, +swearing I was some vagabond rogue, and, bidding me begone, shut the +wicket in my face. In vain did I endeavour to make myself known, +bawling my name through the gate, and Mr. Nelson's too; the porter had +returned to his interrupted repose, and nothing on earth would move him +again, for that night at least. +</P> + +<P> +So after having launched one or two such observations as I thought +befitted the occasion, I made the best of it I could, and turned away +to seek for some cleanly house of receipt where I might pass the +remainder of the night. Some while I spent in ranging hither and +thither, without happening on such an hostelry as did please me (for I +confess to a niceness in these matters); but at length, coming into a +place where two streets met, I found there a very decent quiet house +that answered to my wishes so well that I immediately entered and +bespoke a chamber for the night. Here I slept exceeding soundly, and +in the morning awoke, though yet sore from my scratches, yet otherwise +refreshed and cheerful. +</P> + +<P> +The better part of the travellers that had lain there were already up +and away ere I arose, so that I had the room to myself almost, wherein +I broke my fast, and, save for the lad that served me, held +conversation with none other. Had I known in what fashion we were to +meet later, I should no doubt have observed him with more closeness +than I did, but I saw in a trice he was one that a groat would buy the +soul of, and another groat the rest of him. +</P> + +<P> +"'Twas late you came hither last night," he said as he set down my +tankard beside me upon the table. +</P> + +<P> +I smiled without replying, and nodded once or twice, to give him a +supposition of my discretion; but he took it otherwise. +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, you say truly," he ran on, "there is a liberty of inns that no +private house hath. Come when you list and go when you have a mind to; +there's no constraint nor question amongst us." +</P> + +<P> +"Be pleased to fetch me the mustard," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"You know what is convenient," he returned in a voice of keen approval, +as he brought it. "Now, I was once a serving man in Berkeley Inn, +called so of my lord Berkeley that lodgeth there. But whether he were +at home or absent, I was ever there. And where I was, you understand, +there must needs be necessaries bought, and such things as were, as I +say, convenient." +</P> + +<P> +He leered upon me very sly as he spoke these mysteries; by which I +perceived I was already deep in his favour, as he was (like enough) +deep in villainies. +</P> + +<P> +"I marvel how from a lord's mansion you came to serve in a common +tavern," said I, to check him. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, rest you easy, sir," he laughed, "for the difference is less than +one might suppose. There be pickings and leavings there as in an +hostelry, a nimble wit needed in both places indifferently, and for the +rest, work to be scanted and lies to be told. Hey! and lives to be +lived, master, and purses filled, and nought had, here nor there, but +must be paid for or else stolen." +</P> + +<P> +Such light-hearted roguery I owed it to my conscience to condemn, but +for the life of me I could not, so that I fell into a great laughter +that no shame might control. I hope it was weakness of my body, and +not of virtue, pushed me to this length, but however come by, I could +not help it, and think moreover it did me good. +</P> + +<P> +"Come, that is the note I like," said my tapster, whose name I learnt +was Jocelin; and, setting his lips close to my ear, he added, "London +town is but a lump of fat dough, master, till you set the yeast of wit +to work therein; but after, look you! there be fair risings, and a +handsome great loaf to share." His eyes sparkled. "I have the wit, +man, I am the yeast, and so..." +</P> + +<P> +He had not finished his period, or if he did I marked him not, for just +at that season the gate of a great house over the way opening, a party +of horsemen rode forth into the street with a clatter of hoofs. They +wheeled off at a smart pace to the right-hand, laughing and calling out +to each other as they went, and sending the children a-skelter this way +and that before them. Yet, notwithstanding they were gone by so +speedily, I had yet espied the device upon their harness and cloaks, +which was the green dragon and Pembroke cognizance. I flung back my +chair. +</P> + +<P> +"Is yon house Baynards Castle?" I cried. +</P> + +<P> +"None other," he replied, nodding while he grinned. "I have certain +good friends there, too." +</P> + +<P> +"Is Mr. Malpas of the number?" I demanded. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, he!" he answered with a shrug. "A bitter secret man! If 'a has +plots he keeps them close. He flies alone, though 'tis whispered he +flies boldly. But we be honest men," quoth he, and held his chin +'twixt finger and thumb. "We live and let live, and meet fortune with +a smile. But I hate them that squint upon the world sidelong, as he +doth." From which I drew inference that they twain had formerly +thieved together, and that Malpas had retained the spoil. +</P> + +<P> +But I soon tossed these thoughts aside for another, which, as it came +without premeditation, so did I put it into practice immediately. +Having satisfied my charges at the inn, therefore, and without a word +to Jocelin, I ran across the street and into the gate-house of the +castle, before the porter had time to close the gate of it behind the +horsemen. +</P> + +<P> +"Is Mr. Malpas within?" I accosted him eagerly. +</P> + +<P> +The porter regarded me awhile from beneath raised brows. +</P> + +<P> +"Have you any business with him, young master?" said he. +</P> + +<P> +"Grave business," I replied, "knowing, as I do, who it was gave him +that hurt he lies sick withal." +</P> + +<P> +The old man pushed the gate to with more dispatch than I had thought +him capable of using. "Ay, you know that?" he muttered, looking upon +me with extraordinary interest. "That should be comfortable news to +Signor Guido; that should be honey and oil to his wound;" and I saw by +that he understood his Malpas pretty well. +</P> + +<P> +He led me aside into his lodge, and there, being set in his deep, +leathern chair, spread himself to listen. +</P> + +<P> +"Who is he, now?" he asked, in that rich, low voice a man drops into +that anticipates the savour of scandal. +</P> + +<P> +I looked him up and down as though to assure myself of his secrecy, and +then— +</P> + +<P> +"'Twas Master Cleeve," said I. +</P> + +<P> +Heavy man as he was, he yet near leapt from his chair. +</P> + +<P> +"Is't come to that?" he cried. "Master Botolph Cleeve! Now the saints +bless us, young man, that it should be so, and they once so close to +hold as wind and the weather-cock!" +</P> + +<P> +I saw his error and meant to profit by it, but not yet. If, indeed, my +uncle Botolph were hand-in-glove with Malpas, why, then, I was saved +the pains to deal with them singly. Having smelled out the smoke, it +should go hard but I would soon tread out the fire. Howbeit, I judged +that to question the old man further at that season would be to spoil +all; since by manifesting the least curiosity of my uncle, I should +deny my news (as he understood it) that my uncle, and not I, had near +robbed Malpas of his life. Noting the porter, then, for a man to be +considered later, I returned to my politic resolution to get speech of +Malpas himself, and to tell him, moreover, that Mistress Avenon +abhorred his addresses, which I was therefore determined should cease. +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps I counted upon his sick condition in this, and upon a +correspondent meekness of behaviour, but regard it as you will, I was a +mere fool and deserved my rival should rise from his bed and beat the +folly out of me. Nevertheless, I take pride that my folly ran no +further, so that when the porter inquired who I might be that desired +to carry this message to the wounded man, I had sufficient wit to +answer frankly that I was Mr. Cleeve's nephew; which reply seemed to +set the seal of truth to that had preceded. +</P> + +<P> +"Mass!" swore the porter, lying back in his chair, "then methinks your +news will doubly astonish Mr. Malpas, seeing who you be that bring it." +</P> + +<P> +"It should somewhat surprise him to learn 'twas my uncle wounded him," +quoth I modestly. +</P> + +<P> +The porter: "Surprise him! 'Twill make him run mad! I admire how you +can venture into his chamber with such heady tidings." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, in the cause of truth, Master Porter," I returned stoutly, "one +should not halt upon the sacrificing of an uncle or so." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, that's religiously said," quoth the porter, who, I could see, +having relieved his conscience in warning me, was glad I would not be +put off, and, indeed (old cock-pit haunter that he was!), did love the +prospect of battle with all his withered heart. +</P> + +<P> +I asked him then what office about my lord's household Mr. Guido held, +and he told me he was keeper of the armoury, and served out the pikes +and new liveries; that, moreover, when my lord was absent he was +advanced to a place of greater trust. +</P> + +<P> +"The which I hope he justifies," said I gravely, but the porter blew +out his cheeks and said nothing. +</P> + +<P> +"Will you lead me to his chamber?" I asked him presently, and he bade +me follow him, first taking up his ring of keys. +</P> + +<P> +We crossed the court together, going towards the west corner of it, +where he opened a door that led on to a winding stair, which we +ascended. When we had climbed almost to the roof as I thought, he +stayed before another door that I had not observed (so dark and +confined was the place), through which he preceded me into the gallery +beyond it, a low but very lightsome place, with a row of dormer windows +along the outer side of it, from one of which, when I paused to look +forth, I beheld the river Thames directly beneath us, and a fleet of +light craft thereon, wherries and barges and the like, and across the +Southwark flats, far distant, London Bridge, with Nonsuch House in the +midst of it, that cut in twain the morning light with a bar of grey. +</P> + +<P> +While I stood thus gazing idly the great bell of the gate rang out with +a sudden clangour. +</P> + +<P> +"Pox o' the knave that founded thee a brazen ass!" cried the porter. +"Ay, kick thy clapper-heels, ring on! Again! again! Shield us, +master, what doomsday din is there! Well, get gone your ways, Master +Nephew of Cleeve; that long, yellow man's chamber lieth beyond, upon +the right hand, in a bastion of the wall.... List to the bell!" and +with that he turned back in haste and clattered down the stair. +</P> + +<P> +I followed his direction as well as I might, going forward down the +gallery to Malpas' room, although, to speak truly, I had come into some +distaste of that business already, and would have been glad enough to +forego it altogether had not my pride forbidden me so to return upon my +resolution. At the door I stooped down and listened for any sound of +groaning, which, when I plainly heard, I could not but confess 'twas +something less than merciful to trouble the poor man at such a time. +But having conjured up the figure of Idonia, my pity of her aggressor +fell away again, so that without more ado I knocked smartly upon the +door. +</P> + +<P> +I was answered by a groan deeper than before. +</P> + +<P> +"Have I leave to enter?" I demanded, but was told very petulantly I had +not. +</P> + +<P> +"We are not unacquainted," said I, with my lips to the keyhole. +</P> + +<P> +"The more reason you should stay without," said he, and I could hear +him beat his pillow flat, and turn over heavily upon his side. +</P> + +<P> +"Hast thou forgot my sword so soon?" cried I in a great resentment that +the victor should be pleading thus at the chamber door of the +vanquished. +</P> + +<P> +"Go, hack with thy tongue, Thersites!" came the voice again; but at +that I waited no further, but burst in. I had got scarce two paces +over the threshold when— +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Master Jordan!" I cried out, for there on the bed lay my ancient +fat friend, his heavy Warham-face peering above the quilt, a tasselled +nightcap bobbing over his nose, and all else of him (and of the +furniture too) hid and o'erlaid by a very locust-swarm of folios. +</P> + +<P> +At the first sight of me I thought he would have called upon the +mountains to bury him, from mere shame of his discovery. +</P> + +<P> +"Away!" he gasped, when he could get breath to say it; "away, graceless +child! I am no foiner; I know you not. I am a man of peace, a +reverend doctor. My trade is in books. <I>Impallesco chartis</I>; I grow +pallid with conning upon the written word. What be your armies and +your invasions and your marchings to and fro? that lives should be +lived, and brains spent and lost therein. I tell you, one verse of +Catullus shall outweigh the clatter of a battalion, and Tully is the +only sergeant I salute." And so, having hurled his defiance, he sank +back amongst the bed clothes and drew down his nightcap an inch lower +upon his brow. +</P> + +<P> +"You know me very well, good doctor," quoth I, and advanced to his +bedside, which was fortified with an huge <I>vallum</I> of the Consolations. +"I am Denis Cleeve." +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis like enough," said the old man with an air of infinite +resignation, and affecting still not to know me. "And I am my lord of +Pembroke's poor librarian, and at this time somewhat deeply engaged +upon the duties attaching to that service." +</P> + +<P> +He drew forth a volume with a trembling hand as he spoke, and made as +if to consult it. +</P> + +<P> +"Being so accustomed as you are to the use of parchments," said I, "I +had supposed you led a company of foot to tuck of drum." +</P> + +<P> +He was so clearly abashed at my remembering his very words that he had +formerly spoken, that I had not the heart to proceed further in my +jesting, and so sitting down upon the couch beside him I told him that +I applauded this his exchange of resolutions, and that there was enough +of soldiers for any wars we were likely to have, but of scholars not so +ample a supply as he could be spared therefrom, save upon unlooked for +occasion. Mr. Jordan regarded me very mournfully while I spoke thus, +and when I had done lay a great while silent, fingering his folios and +shaking his tasselled head. At length he replied thus— +</P> + +<A NAME="img-142"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-142.jpg" ALT="Mr. Jordan regarded me very mournfully. Chapter XII" BORDER="2" WIDTH="471" HEIGHT="714"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 471px"> +Mr. Jordan regarded me very mournfully. Chapter XII +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +"You have a great heart, my son," said he with a sigh, "and think to +comfort one that lacks not virtue (I hope), although the diligence to +apply it manfully. Alas! much learning, Denis, hath made me +marvellously to hate confusion and strife. My mind burroweth as a +coney in the dark places of knowledge, but never my body endureth a +posture of opposition. Thought is a coward, all said: and philosophy +nought else but the harness we have forged to protect our hinder parts +while we shuffle ingloriously from the fray. 'Tis no hero's person we +assume, lad; and your old fool, your erudite scratchpole—<I>Graecis +litteris eruditus</I>, hey?—is everywhere and rightly derided." +</P> + +<P> +I told him very earnestly I thought otherwise, but he would not hear me +out, affirming his contrary opinion, namely, that he was a coward and +trembled at the very name of an enemy, excepting only of his principal +enemy, to wit, his bed. "And with that," said he, "I have been forced +into concluding an unconditional alliance." +</P> + +<P> +Now I could not bear he should thus contemptuously belittle his valour, +of which I had formerly seen sufficient proof in his dealing with the +thieves about Glastonbury, and said so roundly. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, lad," he replied, and puckering up his face into a grim smile, +"be it as you will; and at bottom I confess I believe I have as much +courage as another man: of which quality indeed it needed some modicum +to encounter my conscience and return to the path I was set in by +Nature. For there is but little bravery in running counter to our +natures, Denis, and especially when applause and honour lie both that +way. Ay, I think," quoth he, "I have some obstinacy below, though you +must e'en stir in the sediment to raise it." +</P> + +<P> +In reply to my asking how it had come about that he was installed +keeper of my lord's books, he said it had been consequent upon his +intention (while he yet held to it) of enrolling himself soldier; that +the magistrate to whom he had applied him for that purpose, when he +proposed the oath of allegiance had seen fit to eke it out and amplify +his warrant with so offensive a comparison betwixt the arts of letters +and war, to the utter disadvantage of letters, as he could not abide +the conclusion of, but made off; nor could he ever be induced to return +thither any more. +</P> + +<P> +"And notwithstanding I cried out upon my defection daily," he +proceeded, "I perceived that fate had put the term to my military +service or ever 'twas begun, and so sought elsewhere for employment. +Indeed I had arrived at my last victual, and had scarce wherewithal to +meet the charges of my lodging. But in a good hour I fell in with +another of the like condition with mine, though for the rest, a poet, +and therefore of a more disordered spirit. His name was, as I +remember, Andrew Plat, but of where he dwelt I am ignorant. He was +boldly for stealing what he could not come by honestly, and so far put +his design into practice as, breaking into this very Castle, he +furnished his belly with the best, both of meat and drink. In the +morning he was found drunk, in which condition he confessed all, but +with such craven and mendacious addition as involved me also, who was +thereupon cited to appear. +</P> + +<P> +"I excused myself, as you may suppose, very easily, but by an +inadvertence I excused myself in Latin. +</P> + +<P> +"'How!' cried my lord, 'you make your apology in Latin?' +</P> + +<P> +"'Have I so done?' said I, 'then judge me as a Roman, for amongst these +barbarians thou and I be the only two civilized.' +</P> + +<P> +"He laughed very heartily at that, and having informed himself of my +merits, soon after delivered up his books into my charge. +</P> + +<P> +"And thus I am, as you see me, returned to my former occupation, which +I shall never again pretermit upon any motion of magnanimity. If aught +in the future shall offend me, if evil rumours shall penetrate to this +quiet angle of the world, I take up no lance to combat the same, my +son, having a better remedy: which is to rinse out my mouth with great +draughts of Virgil and Cicero, and thereafter with a full voice to +thank the gods that I was not begot of the seed of Achilles." +</P> + +<P> +He invited me to remain to dinner with him, but I would not, and went +away by the way I had come, my head so full of this strange case of Mr. +Jordan (whom I had only chanced upon through the lucky accident of my +having mistaken the porter's direction), that I remembered not so much +as Malpas his name even, until I was safe in the warden's house upon +the Bridge; where I found good Madam Nelson anxiously expecting my +return, who moreover had a steaming hot platter for me that she served +up with certain less palatable satires upon my night's absence. +However, I thought it wise to let them pass for that season, and not +justify myself therein; for a woman loveth not the man that answereth +her again; and especially when he is in the right of it. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap13"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +PETTY WALES +</H4> + +<P> +If a young man's heels be seldom slow to follow after his heart whither +he hath left it for lost, he hath indeed so many classical examples to +draw upon as he need stand in no fear of censure save of such as have +neither loved at all, nor ever in their lives been young. And so it +was with me, who had no sooner swallowed down my pudding and as much as +I could stomach of the good wife's reproaches but I was off and away to +Petty Wales to inquire after Idonia, how she did. +</P> + +<P> +'Twas a quiet grey morning of the early year, and as I strode along +very gladsome, methought there could be few places in the world so +pleasant as Thames Street, nor any odour of spices comparable with the +healthful smell about Billingsgate and Somers Quay; although I confess +not to have remarked the fine qualities of either, the night before. A +great body of soldiers was marching, a little way before me, toward the +Tower, their drums beating, and their ensign raised in the midst; as +heartening a sight and sound as a lad could wish for, and of good omen +too. But for all my courage was high, and my steps directed towards +the lass I loved, there was yet a fleck of trouble in my mind I would +have wiped out willingly enough, and that was my father's expressed +desire (which I knew, too, was very necessary) that I should set about +earning my living at a trade. I suppose a boy's thoughts be naturally +averse from buying and selling, and from all the vexatious and mediate +delays which interpose between desires and their satisfaction; for +youth looketh ever to the end itself, and never to the means, whether +the means be money and matters of business, or patient toil, or +increase of knowledge. Success and the golden moment are youth's +affair, and all else of no account at all. Ah! of no account when we +be young, seem preparation and discipline and slow acquirement and the +gathering burden of years; but just to live, and to love, and to +win.... Imperious fools that we are: pitiful, glorious spendthrifts! +</P> + +<P> +I got to the great ruined house at length, as the troop swung out onto +Tower Hill, and the roll of their drums died down. Without loss of +time I drew my poniard and hammered with the haft upon the gate. To +come to her thus, wearing the arms I had used to defend her from the +man she feared and I had valorously overthrown, surely (said I) this +will get me her admiration and a thousand thanks. I would dismiss my +wounds with a shrug when she should say she hoped they were mended, and +swear they were not painful, yet with such slight dragging of the words +as she should not believe me but rather commend my fortitude in +suffering (though for that matter they were easy enough and only one of +them anyways deep). In short I savoured the sweet of our coming +colloquy as greedily as any feast-follower; and at the same time I +continued to rattle my dagger-heel on the oaken door. After some +minutes thus spent, the grid opened, and behind the bars was Idonia +facing me and very pale. +</P> + +<P> +"What would you, Mr. Denis?" said she. +</P> + +<P> +I dropped my jaw and simply stared upon her. +</P> + +<P> +"What would I?" I gasped out. +</P> + +<P> +"How do your wounds?" she asked hurriedly. Our conversation seemed +like to stay upon interrogatories. +</P> + +<P> +"But am I not to enter, then?" cried I, as near sobbing as I had ever +been in my life. +</P> + +<P> +"Can we not speak thus?" said Idonia, and glanced backward into the +hall. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Mistress Avenon!" I said to that, "is it thus you use me?" and so +turned away, smitten to the very heart. But I had not gone ten paces +from the gate, ere she caught me, and laid a hand upon my arm. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, Mr. Denis," she whispered, "be not angry with me; say you are not +wroth, and then go. I beseech you to go away, but first say you are +not angry.... I must not talk with you; must not be seen to talk with +you, I mean." She might have said more had I not stopped her. +</P> + +<P> +"Not to be seen to talk with me? Am I a man to be scorned, then?" +</P> + +<P> +She answered below her breath: "'Tis rather I am a maid to be scorned, +methinks.... Oh, look not so!" she added swiftly, "I must go +within.... If they should know you have come..." +</P> + +<P> +"Who should know?" cried I, very big; "and what care I who knows? I am +not accustomed to shun them that question my behaviour." +</P> + +<P> +"No, no, you are brave," said she, "and 'tis there that my peril lies, +if not your own. You may defend yourself, a man may do so having a +sword. But we women have no weapon." +</P> + +<P> +"Who would hurt you?" I asked, moving a step back to the gate. "Not +Guido Malpas, I warrant, this many a day." +</P> + +<P> +"I live amongst wicked men coming and going," she replied. I could +feel her hand shake that I now held in mine. "But now go. I am not +worth this coil we make; you can do nothing that you have not done +already. I will remember you," said she in a strange pleading voice, +"and I think you will not forget me awhile either." She paused a +little, panting as though she had been weary. "And, Mr. Denis, my +heart is big with pride of your coming hither." +</P> + +<P> +These words she spoke in the deep full voice she used when moved, and +then turning from me, went within and shut to the door. +</P> + +<P> +"Now Heaven forbid me mercy," said I aloud, "if I probe not to the +bottom of this pool." +</P> + +<P> +I pulled down my jerkin in front, and set my ruff even. Then opening +the purse that hung at my belt, I counted the coins that were in it. +There were a dozen shillings and some few halfpence. "Certain 'tis +time I got employment," I mused, "yet I allow myself one day more;" and +with that I slid the coins back in my purse, and looked about me. +</P> + +<P> +Now, this great building of Petty Wales before which I stood was once +(or at least is reported to have been) an Inn of the Welsh Princes for +their occasions in the City, but was, upon their long disuse of it, +turned into tenements, as Northumberland House was where Mr. Jordan had +formerly lodged, and was now let out to marine traders, victuallers, +and such other as found it convenient to the quays. How it came about +that Idonia had her dwelling here I knew not yet, nor indeed did I at +that time know anything of all I am about to set down of this mansion, +which, however, it is very necessary should be understood, seeing how +large a space it occupies in my adventures. +</P> + +<P> +Besides the tenants, then, that by right inhabited there, there had +grown up another sort of secret tenants that lurked amid such odd nooks +and forgotten chambers herein as were overlooked, or of no advantage +for the stowage of merchandise. Between these mean unnoted folk, that +had crept thither like rats for shelter, and lay as close, there was +maintained a sort of fearful communion and grudged acquaintanceship. +But the house being strongly parted in twain by a stone wall built +throughout the middle of it, from back to front, it was as though there +were two separate houses, of which Idonia used the one, but these the +other. And since moreover there was but one gate upon the street side +of the house, the men of whom I speak, both the honest ships' brokers +and the lawless poor men, perforce used a certain low-pitched postern +door at the bottom of a narrow alley which ran behind the house. +</P> + +<P> +This door let on to a wide and decayed stair that (I was to learn) was +the poor men's hall and common room; here they met and shared their +stealthy mess together; here elected and deposed their captains, and +celebrated their improvident espousals. Living on sufferance, stricken +by poverty and terror of the law, hardly allowed as men and women, but +rather as abject orts of nature, they yet preserved amongst themselves +a perfect order from the very necessity of silence; and upon the least +motion of discontent the mutineer was instantly seized, his head +covered, and the captain's knife deep in his heart. 'Twas the women's +office, then, to lay the body out decently; and about midnight four men +bore it secretly to the riverside, and straightway returned. +</P> + +<P> +All this I was to learn from a strange accident that befell me when at +length I left loitering before Idonia's door, and skirted about the +place in search of any index to the riddle she had read me. For I was +persuaded that to reach the heart of the mystery, I must at all +adventures gain access to the house itself; I being then quite ignorant +of the dividing of it in the manner I have told. It was with an +extraordinary delight, therefore, that I discovered the lane to the +rearward of the house, and the low door. Somewhat to my surprise I +found the door not made fast, and so at once entering by it, I began +cautiously to ascend the rotten stair. But scarce had I gone half-way +to the first stage, when I stumbled over the body of a man that lay +stretched there in the dark, and was, I thought, dead. Howbeit, he was +not, and when I had him down into the air, and had loosened his +clothing, he opened his eyes. He stared upon me wildly. +</P> + +<P> +"How? You are not of the brotherhood?" he stammered. +</P> + +<P> +I said nothing in reply, but leaving him where he was, ran to a tavern +hard by upon Tower Hill, called <I>The Tiger</I>, whence I returned +presently with a flask of strong wine. The drinking of it revived him +marvellously, so that he was soon able to support himself on his feet, +although without strength to walk yet. I got him some meat, too, and +bread, both of which he ate like a wolf rather than a man; so far had +he gone in starvation. When he had done, he would have thanked me, but +I interrupted him, asking in my turn who he was, and what trade he was +of. He straightened his back at that, and looking me very proudly in +the face replied: "My name is Andrew Plat, and by the grace of Heaven I +am a lyrical poet." +</P> + +<P> +Upon the sudden I recalled Mr. Jordan. "So," I thought, "'tis the +worthy that stole my lord Pembroke's buttery-beer." However, all I +said was: "I think I have not read any of your writing, Mr. Plat." +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis very possible," said he, "for I write less than I think: and +indeed publish less than I write." +</P> + +<P> +"And how standeth it with your fasting, Master Poet?" quoth I. +</P> + +<P> +"I feed my thoughts that way," he replied simply, "as 'twas in a fast I +conceived my famous lines upon the Spring." +</P> + +<P> +I bade him drink another draught of the wine, having no interest to +scrape acquaintance with his Muse; but he was not so easily to be put +off. +</P> + +<P> +"It begins thus," said he, and tossing back his long and tawny hair +from his eyes, lifted his right hand aloft and beat the air with his +fingers as he proceeded— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Fresh Spring, the lovely herald of great Love,<BR> +On whose green tabard are the quarterings<BR> +Of many flowers below and trees above<BR> +In proper colours, as befits such things—<BR> +Go to my love——"<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Hold, hold!" I cried, "methinks I have read something very similar to +these lines of yours in another man's verses." +</P> + +<P> +He held his hand still suspended, though his eyes flashed in disdain of +my commentary. +</P> + +<P> +"An' you were not young and my benefactor," he said, with an extreme +bitterness, "I would be tempted to clap you into a filthy ballad." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you use to write your ballads, full?" I inquired, "seeing 'tis +apparently your custom to steal your lyricks, empty." +</P> + +<P> +He brought down his raised hand clenched upon the other. +</P> + +<P> +"I steal nothing from any man," he cried in a great voice; but even as +he spoke his face went white, and his eyes rolled in his head. I +thought he had fallen into some fit of poetics, and offered him the +wine again, but he cautioned me to be silent, at the same time cringing +backward into the shadows. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, what ails you?" I asked encouragingly. +</P> + +<P> +He laid his forefinger to his lips, and then, laying his hand upon my +arm, drew me to him. +</P> + +<P> +"Spake I overloud?" he muttered, shivering, too, when I answered that +he certainly had done. +</P> + +<P> +"'Twould be my death were I heard," said the miserable fellow, and then +told me, by starts and elliptic phrases all that I have set down about +this mysterious fellowship of Petty Wales, and the cruel rigour in +which its secrecy was maintained. +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis no place for an honest man," he said, "for all here, but I, be +notable thieves and outlaw villains, bawds, and blasphemers every one. +And were't not for the common table we keep, each man bringing to it +that he may, but all equally partaking, and that we lie sheltered from +foul weather and terror of the watch, I had long since avoided hence. +For I am a lyrical poet, sir, and have no commerce with such as steal." +</P> + +<P> +I could have returned upon him there, with his unconscionable +plagiarism and his assault upon Baynards Castle too, but judged it +Christian to hold my peace. Furthermore, I had entered this +unwholesome den for another purpose than to argue a point of +authorship, and therefore said quietly enough, but in such a manner as +he should perceive I meant it— +</P> + +<P> +"Now listen to me, Master Poet," quoth I, "and answer me fair, else +will I raise my voice to such pitch as your Captain shall take note of +it for a contingent fault of thine to have loud-speaking friends. +</P> + +<P> +"This great mansion, now," I went on, when I thought he could bear a +part in the argument; "do all the parts of it join, and the dwellers +herein have exchange of intercourse each with the other?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," he said, "they do not." +</P> + +<P> +"But once they had," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"Long since they may have done," replied the poet, "but since the place +hath been converted to its present use, it hath been divided by strong +walls of partition, so as each man is now master of his own." +</P> + +<P> +"How!" I cried, raising my voice of set purpose to frighten him. "In +this nest of thieves what man is so absolute a master as another may +not possess himself of his goods?" +</P> + +<P> +"I know not, I know nothing," he wailed piteously. +</P> + +<P> +"Are there no cracks in the wainscote even?" I persisted, for something +in his denial led me to suspect he put me off. He shook his head, +whispering that their new Captain reposed but a dozen paces distant and +would hear, and kill us both. +</P> + +<P> +"Enough," I said pretty stern, "for I see there be privy ways opened +that you have at the least heard tell of (though you may not have dared +investigate them), and communication hence through every party-wall." +</P> + +<P> +"There is none," he repeated, near mad with apprehension. +</P> + +<P> +"It is necessary I discover these passages," I continued, "or rather +one of them, as I think there is one leads to the great hall." +</P> + +<P> +"What know you of such a place?" he almost screamed. +</P> + +<P> +"Rest you easy, sweet singer," said I, laughing at the slip he made, +"for we will not go headlong to this work, nor disturb your Captain's +sleep where he lieth snug till nightfall; but you shall lead me by +quiet ways thither, and when you shall have put me through, I will +suffer you to depart in peace. But so much I most positively require +of you." +</P> + +<P> +He wept and wrung his hands, protesting I was grievously in error, and +he the most miserable of men; indeed 'twas not until I pulled out my +sword and showed him the blood on it, that he professed himself willing +to serve me, though he still continued to pretend his inability therein. +</P> + +<P> +"That we shall see," said I. "But first finish your bottle, and then +advance, man, in Master Spenser's name!" +</P> + +<P> +He drank it down, and then cramming the broken morsels of bread and +meat into his wallet (where I saw he kept his verses also with a parcel +of goose quills) he cautioned me to be silent, and stole ahead of me up +the wide and broken stair. +</P> + +<P> +Small light there was to see by, for the few windows which should have +served us were all shuttered or roughly boarded up, and the wind piped +through them shrilly. Upon the great open gallery he paused as in +doubt which way to proceed, and, to speak justly, 'twould have puzzled +a wiser man in that dimness to pursue any right course between the huge +bales and chests of sea-merchandise that pestered our passage. Nay, +even the very roof and ceilings were become warehouses, so that once I +espied so great a thing as a ship's cockboat slung from the rafters +above our heads, and once rasped my cheek against the dried slough of a +monstrous water-snake that some adventurer had doubtless brought home +from the Indies. But I knew well enough that we should have made twice +our progress but for the infinite dread in which the poor poet went of +crossing the lair where the officers of this unholy brotherhood awaited +their hour to steal forth. At every rustle of wind he staggered so he +could scarce stand, and had it not been for the invigorating coolness +of my sword upon the nape of his neck, he would have fled thence an +hundred times. Yet for all the dangers (to call them so) of our stolen +march, the thought that stood in the front of my mind was: What lover, +since the world began, hath gone in this fashion to his mistress? For +insensibly my intention had narrowed down to the mere necessity of +seeing Idonia again. Surely, never was a house of so many turnings and +bewildered issues; so that we seemed to traverse half the ward in our +quest, and for the most part in pitchy blackness, as I have said, until +I almost could have believed the day had gone down into night while we +shuffled tardily forward. But at last Mr. Andrew stopped. We had +turned a coign of the wall, and come into an open space palely lighted +from above; and looking up I saw we stood beneath the vent wherein the +crane worked that I had note from without the night before. +</P> + +<P> +"If it be not closed up, 'tis here," whispered the poet, and enjoining +upon me to succeed him, he took the crane-rope in his hand and pulled +himself up thereby until he had ascended some fifteen feet, when he +swung himself a little to the right hand where was a sort of ledge in +the masonry of the wall (I mean not the front wall of the building, but +a wall that joined it on the square), and there he stood firm. I was +not slow to join him aloft and there found, behind the ledge or sill, a +low arch in the thick of the wall, and within it a little wicket door. +</P> + +<P> +"You have guided me well," I said, clasping his hand hard, "and I shall +not forget it. If there be any favour I can show you before we part, +name it, Mr. Plat, and I will use my endeavour to please you." +</P> + +<P> +He considered some while before he replied, and then looking at me very +earnestly, said— +</P> + +<P> +"Since you seem to have some acquaintance with the poets, and thought +fit to remark upon a certain fancied resemblance (though indeed there +is none) betwixt my lyrick of the Spring and another's treatment of +that subject, I would beg you, should you be in any company where my +works are spoken of, as I make no pretence they shall be everywhere as +soon as they be published, I say, I would beg you to refrain yourself +from bringing in that ... from directing the attention of the company +toward ... but I see you take me, sir, and so enough said." +</P> + +<P> +However he would not let me go before he had begged my acceptance of a +copy of his works, which he intended should be decently bound in calf +leather, with a device of Britannia sitting upon Helicon, and his name +of Andrew Plat entwined in a wreath of flowerets at her feet. +</P> + +<P> +"And wherefore not upon her brow?" I asked him. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, sir," said the poet, flinging an arm about my shoulder, "you +honour me too much." +</P> + +<P> +I got him down the rope soon after, and saw him return along the +passage, his head high and his gait light as though he trod a measure. +</P> + +<P> +"We be both in the same plight," I sighed, "and support ourselves upon +favours not yet received." +</P> + +<P> +Then I set open the door. A stout ladder reached down from thence to +the hall where I had fought with Guido Malpas, or rather to a part of +it that was full double the height of that part, and had entrance into +it by means of a sort of wide arch betwixt pillars. The hall was +empty, and I descended to it immediately. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," thought I, pretty grave now I had accomplished this much of my +business, "I would I knew in what case I shall depart hence." +</P> + +<P> +At that moment I heard a footstep on the stair beyond the arches, and +Mistress Avenon entered the hall. +</P> + +<P> +At first she saw me not, but when she did she stood perfectly still, +the colour fading from her face, and one hand upon her bosom. I bowed +low, having no words to speak, and then expected with an infinite +weight at my heart, until she should declare her will. +</P> + +<P> +At length she came slowly toward me. +</P> + +<P> +"What is this you have dared to do?" she murmured, so low I could +scarce hear her. +</P> + +<P> +"I could not help it," I said, and would have told her there and then +that I loved her, had not my courage all gone to wreck before her +visible anger. She drew herself to her full height, and keeping her +eyes on mine said in a louder voice— +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, you could not help intruding upon a defenceless girl, and yet you +went nigh enough to slaying Mr. Malpas, poor man! for that same fault. +Have I not given you thanks enough, that you are come hither for more? +Are you greedy of so much praise? Else indeed wherefore have you come?" +</P> + +<P> +Her words so stung me, and her coldness after all I had suffered to get +speech with her, that I felt the tears very close behind my eyes, and, +as a schoolboy that has been detected in some misdemeanour casts about +for any excuse however vain, so did I; for all in a hurry I stammered +out— +</P> + +<P> +"I came hither to tell you I have twelve shillings." +</P> + +<P> +Was ever any excuse so ill-considered? +</P> + +<P> +"Twelve shillings!" cried Idonia; but my self-respect was all down by +that time, and I could not stop; I spoke of my father's letter, mine +own penury, and the detestation in which I held the necessity to enter +into trade. +</P> + +<P> +"I have but twelve shillings in the whole world," said I, but she not +answering, I turned my head sharply to see how she had received it. To +my utter astonishment Idonia was laughing at me through a blind of +tears. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap14"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIV +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +HOW IDONIA TAUGHT ME AND A CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD HOW TO KEEP BOOKS +</H4> + +<P> +"Now, cry you mercy, Mr. Denis!" said Idonia, "for indeed I guessed not +that affairs of trade were to be in debate between us." +</P> + +<P> +But so confused as I was by her laughter, I could neither deny nor +confirm that saying, but stood before her very hot in the face and, I +make no question, as sour to look upon as she was merry to see me so. +</P> + +<P> +"I had thought you had forced your way hither," she continued, setting +her head a little aside, "in order to rid me of such dangers as might +beset me here, albeit I know of none." +</P> + +<P> +"And knew you of any," said I, pretty desperate by this, "my sword +should make it none, if you would." +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps it was the bitter tone I used, or the knowledge that I spoke +not in mere idle boastfulness; but upon the sudden her manner changed +wholly and she was pleading with me in so tender and deep a voice as it +thrilled me through to hear it. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, Mr. Denis," said she, coming close and laying her hand on my arm, +"we be friends surely, or if we be not, I know not where I am to seek +for a friend as true hearted, nor one that would venture as far to aid +me. I meant no harm, indeed I did not, though my tongue played my +meaning false, as it doth, alas! too often. If I laughed, 'twas to +fend off weeping, for once I fall to that, I know not when I should be +done." +</P> + +<P> +"Yet you said you had no especial trouble," I returned. +</P> + +<P> +"Nay, if I did, I lied," said Idonia, "for I am beset with troubles +here." +</P> + +<P> +"I thought no less," said I, "and 'twas for that very reason, and in +despite of your refusal to admit me awhile since, that I sought out +other ways to come to you." +</P> + +<P> +She smiled when she heard this honest confession. "So much trade as +that comes to, Mr. Denis, will hardly satisfy your father's debts, I +think." +</P> + +<P> +"I gave myself this one day more," I told her, "but to-morrow I must +necessarily seek employment, though the doing of it I can scarce abide +to think of." +</P> + +<P> +"Having but an half-handful of shillings," said she, "poor lad! there +seemeth nought else to do, unless indeed you steal." +</P> + +<P> +"Steal!" cried I. +</P> + +<P> +"And wherefore not?" said Idonia, with a little hard laugh, "seeing we +all do worse than steal here, or if we do not all so, yet do we stand +by permissively while others do. Oh, sir," she cried, "I warned you +this very morning I was not worth your thought of me, and 'twas truth, +or less than the truth, I told, who live amongst evil folk in this +place and secret men that whisper as they come and go." +</P> + +<P> +She hid her face in her hands so overcome was she by the horror she had +waked, and how to comfort her I knew not. +</P> + +<P> +"Of what quality be these men you speak of?" I demanded, thinking +perhaps they were the thieves beyond the partition wall, who overran +into this place too. "I will lay information against them, before the +magistrate if you will." +</P> + +<P> +Idonia looked at me with a sort of wonder. +</P> + +<P> +"But you know them not," said she, "nor where they bide, when they +leave us." +</P> + +<P> +"Is it not yonder then?" I asked her, and pointed to the little door +aloft in the wall. +</P> + +<P> +"They—poor folk!" she cried. "A pitiful lean company; would they were +no worse I ope the gate to! ... If you had known, when you would have +had me admit you, Mr. Denis.... But they be gone for this while ... +oh, I fear them!" said she, and fell again to weeping. +</P> + +<P> +'Twas evident she dared not be open with me as touching the business +nor estate of those she consorted with, nor, I found, dared give over +this life she led amongst them, for all the fear and horror she had of +it. So, notwithstanding I returned again and again to the question, +she put me off with a manifest dismay. +</P> + +<P> +"No, no," she would cry. "Even so much as I have already let fall is +haply more than wise for me to speak and you to hear. But now," in +conclusion she said, "let us return to your own affairs, in the which +it may chance I may assist you." +</P> + +<P> +She conceived from the first an infinite admiration of my father, +bidding me tell over again the tale of his renouncing all his wealth in +order to the ending his brother's supposed confinement, as well as to +pay that added debt which I had so foolishly incurred. Idonia drew in +her breath sharply when I had done, and then looking me full in the +face, said— +</P> + +<P> +"Whatever may befall you to do, Mr. Denis, 'twill be less than he hath +the right to exact of you; although I believe that the least you will +do he will give you thanks for it." +</P> + +<P> +'Twas my father's nature just, and none could have bettered the +character. +</P> + +<P> +"What can you do?" she demanded briefly, and bade me sit (for we had +both stood this while); she sitting too, on a bundle of folded sails +that lay by the wall. +</P> + +<P> +I hesitated to reply, for leaving the few scraps of Latin and logick +that Master Jordan had been at such pains to drive into me and I had as +easy let slip again, my studies had been woefully neglected, or rather +I had profited by them so little, that there was nothing I knew anyways +whole. I stammered out at last that what I could do, I doubted would +scarce earn me a scavenger's wages, and looked (I suppose) so glum, +that Idonia laughed outright. +</P> + +<P> +"Come, there be books of account," said she, "can you not make shift to +cast moneys in figure?" +</P> + +<P> +I told her I thought I might compass that if I were given time enough; +though for that matter I did not see how I was like greatly to profit +the merchant that should employ me. +</P> + +<P> +But without replying by so much as a word, Idonia went over to an oaken +press by the stair, presently returning with a soiled leathern volume +clasped with a deal of brass and so heavy as to be hardly portable. +This she set open before me saying it was a record of trade done, and +had belonged to one Mr. Enos Procter, whom she knew, and bade me read +in it. +</P> + +<P> +"Lord!" said I, very grave, for I had never seen so intricate and +mysterious a labyrinth of words and cyphers as she then discovered. +"If Dives the rich man got his wealth that way, I suppose his life to +have been something less easy than our divines would have us believe." +</P> + +<P> +"It is a ledger-book," said Idonia. +</P> + +<P> +"Let it be what it will," said I, "it is more than I bargained for." +</P> + +<P> +"Nay, but observe this superscription," she went on, eagerly, "where it +commenceth as is customary: <I>Laus Deo</I> in London, and so following." +She ran her finger along the line commenting with a facility that +astonished me. "This is the accompt of one Mendoza, as you see, a +wool-stapler of Antwerp, and as the Jews ever be, a punctual man of his +money. Look you, now, how differently this other sets to work, Jacob +Hornebolt of Amsterdam, and with what gross irregularity he +transmitteth his bills of exchange ... nay, here, I mean, upon the +Creditor side," cried she, for my eyes ran hither and thither, up and +down the page, like any Jack-apparitor, in quest of her accursed Dutch +Jacob and his pestilent bills. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, a truce to this," quoth I, "or else turn o'er to a page where a +man's doings be set down in fair Queen's English, and not in such +crabbed and alchemist terms as one must have gone to school to the +Black Witch that should understand 'em. You point me here and you +point me there, and there's Creditor this and Debitor that, with an +whole history between them, good lack! mistress, but it makes my head +reel to hear tell of." +</P> + +<P> +"I had thought you understood me," said she very simply. +</P> + +<P> +"Then 'tis time you understood I did not," said I, roundly, "and what's +more I think you should not neither. It is not maidenly reading;" and +indeed I was staggered that so much of a man's actions should lie open +to any girl's eye that had the trick of cyphers, to peruse them. +</P> + +<P> +Idonia lifted her eyebrows pretty high, hearing me speak so, but +presently shut up the book, and putting it by, said a little wearily— +</P> + +<P> +"I had meant to help you, Denis, but you are over-dull, I find; or if +you be apt 'tis not in learning. Some lads there be think to get a +living other ways, though other ways I know not to be so honest, though +haply as easy." +</P> + +<P> +'Twas on my tongue to retort upon her with a speech in the same kind, +but I had to confess I could not frame one half so wittily, and +therefore said very tragical— +</P> + +<P> +"I stay not where I am not welcome," and taking up my cap, bowed very +low to Idonia, who for her part, paid no heed to me, and although I +halted once or twice on my way to the door, stood averse from me, as +being careless whether I stayed or went. +</P> + +<P> +"I am not reckoned over-dull at sword play," I muttered, when I had got +as far as I could, without departing altogether. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, if you think to fence for a living, sir," said Idonia, over her +shoulder, "I pity your father." +</P> + +<P> +"He needs none of your pity, mistress," cried I. +</P> + +<P> +"I know not where better to bestow it," she replied, "unless it be upon +a boy with twelve shillings and no wit to add to them." +</P> + +<P> +Now, how one I had so handsomely benefited could yet run into this +excess of obstinacy as she did, I stood astonished to consider, and in +my heart called her a thankless wench, and myself a preposterous ass to +remain there any longer. Notwithstanding had I had the sense to read +the account between us whole, I doubt Mistress Avenon owed not a whit +more to me than I to her; although in my resentment she seemed then a +very Jacob Hornebolt, and as gross a defaulter upon the balance as that +dilatory Hollander. +</P> + +<P> +"Then I leave you to better companionship," said I, having run my +length, "and to such as have at the least the wit to please you, which +I have not, all done." +</P> + +<P> +What she would have said to that I cannot guess, for before she could +speak there came a thundering rattle at the door and a voice calling +upon her to open in the Queen's name. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear God!" whispered the girl. "'Tis the soldiers come," and stood +facing me, distraught and quaking. +</P> + +<P> +"Is it you they seek?" I asked, quick, but could not hear what she +answered me, for the knocking drowned all. +</P> + +<P> +"Up the ladder," I bade her. "Go, and draw it after. I will abide the +event." +</P> + +<P> +'Twas this advice steadied her, although she refused it. Instead, she +shook off my hand that would have led her, and going to the ladder by +which I had descended, drew it away from the trap in the wall and laid +it along the floor. +</P> + +<P> +"They would but use the same means to follow me," she said, and so +without more ado went to the door and opened it. A score of +halberdiers burst into the hall. +</P> + +<P> +"What is your will, masters?" demanded Idonia; and her pride I had +before denounced I found commendable enough, now she directed it +against these intruders. +</P> + +<P> +One that seemed to be their Captain stepped forth, and having slightly +saluted her with a hand to his morion, turned leisurely to his +following, and bade them shut the gate; which done, he posted them, +some before the ways accessible to the hall, and the rest under a +sergeant, in the rooms above it, that he commanded them strictly to +scrutinize. The soldiers had no sooner obeyed him than he drew forth a +paper largely sealed, which he told us, with a great air, was Her +Grace's commission and gave warrant to search this messuage of Petty +Wales for any such as might seem to be obnoxious to the Queen's peace, +there harbouring. +</P> + +<P> +The Captain was a tall, ill-favoured youth, of a behaviour quite +lacking of courtesy, yet well enough matched to the task he had in +hand; for he spoke in a slow and overbearing voice that betokened as +much doubt of another's honesty, as satisfaction for the power given +him to apprehend all that should withstand him. Idonia and I stood +some distance apart, and after a swift glance at me, the Captain +addressed himself to the girl solely, and with so evident a mistrust of +her, as it maddened me to hear him. +</P> + +<P> +"Your name, mistress?" said the Captain. +</P> + +<P> +"Idonia Avenon," she replied carelessly, though I could not but grieve +to note how pale she continued. +</P> + +<P> +"And your father, he lives here with you?" +</P> + +<P> +"He is dead," said she. +</P> + +<P> +"Who inhabits here, then, besides yourself?" +</P> + +<P> +"A many," replied Idonia, "though I have not their names." +</P> + +<P> +The Captain turned aside to his lieutenant with some whispered word of +offence that made the fellow smile broadly; and at that I could no +further refrain myself. +</P> + +<P> +"Stay within the limits of your commission, sir," said I hotly, "and +keep your jests for other seasons." +</P> + +<P> +He troubled not so much as to turn his head my way, but took up his +examination of Idonia again. +</P> + +<P> +"Nor you know not their trades either, I suppose?" said he with a sneer. +</P> + +<P> +"Saving this man's here present," replied the girl, "who keeps the +books of accompt in a great merchant's counting-house." +</P> + +<P> +You may judge whether I gasped at that, or no; and perhaps the Captain +noted my alarm, for he inquired at once who the merchant might be I +served. +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis Mr. Edward Osborne," said Idonia, "unless I mistake." +</P> + +<P> +"It is," said I, and remembering Mr. Nelson's words, added boldly that +he was Governor of the Turkey Company; but inwardly I said, "Whither +doth this lying tend?" +</P> + +<P> +"And what purposeth he in this house?" demanded the soldier, somewhat +taken aback by our credible answers. +</P> + +<P> +"What, but to learn me in the keeping of accompts?" replied she. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, an apt scholar, I doubt not," cried the other, raising his chin +insolently. +</P> + +<P> +"I think I am not so backward for a maid," said Idonia modestly, and +reached forth her hand to the great ledger-book I had so maligned; the +which I now saw turned to an engine of our salvation; for opening it at +the former place she continued: +</P> + +<P> +"He instructs me that herein is set down the merchant's commerce with +one Mendoza, a wool-stapler of Antwerp, and a Jew, who despite the +scandal of his unbelief, is, as appeareth plainly, an honest man. I +pray you, sir, follow me," said she, and directed him to the page, "to +the end you may correct me if I be in error." +</P> + +<P> +I never saw a man's countenance fall so as the Captain's did then; who +having formerly stood so stiff upon his right, was now ready to +compound upon almost any terms; only Idonia would not, but interrupted +his pish's, and his well-well's, and go-to's, with a clear exposition +of the whole matter of wool, the while I, her supposed tutor, stood by +with open mouth and a heart charged with admiration of her wit. +</P> + +<P> +"Enough," shouted the Captain, at last. "I came not hither for this, +as you know, mistress, who are either the completest accountant or else +the prettiest wanton this side Bridewell Dock. Halberdiers, have a +care!" cried he, and so returning to them with a curse, marshalled them +into a body and would have withdrawn them forthwith, when a cry from +one of the chambers aloft suddenly sounding out, he ordered them again +to stand to their arms and ran forward to the foot of the stairs. I +chanced to look at Idonia then, and blessed Heaven that her examination +was done, and all eyes save mine averted from her, for she shook like +one in a palsy and staggered backward to the wall. I had bare leisure +to follow her thither and support her, before the whole troop of those +that had gone above returned down, bearing along with them in their +midst a man whom they held, or rather dragged along with them, so +without strength was he, and all aghast. +</P> + +<P> +"A good capture," said the Captain in his slow, cruel voice, and bade +the guard stand back from the abject fellow, but be ready to prevent +his escape. "I thought not to have had so fair a fortune," said he, +"although our information was exact enough that you lay here, Master +Jesuit, whom I believe to be (and require you to answer to it) that +notorious Jacques de Courcy, by some called Father Jacques, a Frenchman +and plotting Jesuit." +</P> + +<P> +"I am a poor schoolmaster of Norfolk," said the man, very humbly. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you deny you are this Courcy, and a devilish Papist?" asked the +Captain again. +</P> + +<P> +The prisoner looked around wildly, as if he hoped even now to get free, +but the ring about him was too close for that, and the pikes all +levelled at his breast. Something of the dignity which despair will +throw over a man that hath come into the extreme of peril, sustained +him mercifully then, so that he who was before but a pitiful shrinking +coward, became (and so remained to the end) a figure not all unmeet to +the part he played. +</P> + +<P> +"Were I to recite my creed," said he very low, "you would but make mock +of it; while for yourself, I see you be already minded to work your +will upon me." +</P> + +<P> +"We go no further than our Prince commands us," said the other loftily. +</P> + +<P> +"And I, no further than my Prince hath enjoined long since," said the +Jesuit. +</P> + +<P> +"Pish! words!" replied the Captain. "Do you still persist in denying +that you are Jacques de Courcy?" +</P> + +<P> +But the prisoner stood silent. Then one of the soldiers that stood +behind him went forward and took him something roughly by the collar, +bidding him answer; but the Jesuit turning about to see who it was +detained him thus, his coat burst open, and we saw he wore a little +leaden crucifix about his neck. A shout of laughter greeted the +discovery. "To the Tower with him, march!" cried the Captain. But ere +they could seize the man he had leapt forward upon the pikes, and by +main force taking one of the pike-heads into his two hands he thrust it +deep under his shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +After that I thank Heaven that I saw no more, for Idonia swooned away, +and I almost, in horror of that poor hunted man's death. The +halberdiers bore the body off with them, nor paid the least regard to +us twain, but left us where we were, Idonia prone upon the cold flags +of the hall, and me above her, tending her. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap15"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XV +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IN WHICH I BEGIN TO EARN MY LIVING +</H4> + +<P> +Take a town for all in all, in its sadness and pleasure, the shows that +pass through it, the proclamations of kings, the tolling of the great +bell, marshallings of men-at-arms and sermons of clerks; whatever it be +distracts or engages it, I say you will find, take all in all, full the +ten twelfths of a town's business to lie in the mere getting of wealth. +</P> + +<P> +And in the exercise of this its proper office, I think that government, +whether good or bad, interfereth less than is supposed; for at the +best, that is, when the merchants and retailers be let alone (as would +to Heaven some great Councillors I could name did understand the matter +so), 'tis then that the interchange of goods and money is most readily +and happily effected; but at the worst, that is, when some untoward +imposition or restriction is laid upon the trade of a city, it results +not that men labour any the less at their buying and selling, but that +their lawful and expected profits be diverted, in part, into other +men's pockets. Which for all it is wrong enough, yet it makes not, I +am bold to say, one single vessel to go lacking her cargo, nor one +merchant to break upon Change. So a fig for Westminster! this way or +that, trade holds; and men bend their thoughts thereto, howe'er the +wind blow. +</P> + +<P> +Now, I am no philosopher (my father having exhausted the philosophy of +our family), yet no man may live in London (as I had now done, for +above three months) but certain considerations must needs thrust +themselves upon him, and though he be no great thinker I suppose that +everybody knows when he is hungry; and being so, goes the best way he +can to remedy that daily disease. +</P> + +<P> +And so it came to pass that, greatly as I detested to confine myself to +the weary commerce of trade, I nevertheless did so, and for the plain +reason that I could not help myself, having no money left, and not +being willing to remain any longer with the good folk on the Bridge, at +their charges. How I was received by Mr. Edward Osborne into his +counting-house I will tell later, but received I was, and there strove +to acquit myself honestly, so that within about a month (I think) I +could cast up the moneys of his great Day Book with but a two-three +errors to each sum total; the which, considering my inexperience, I +held to be not amiss. +</P> + +<P> +It was while I was thus employed in the narrow wainscoted business room +where Mr. Osborne did the most of his business, in Chequer Lane off +Dowgate, it was then, I say, that I came to perceive the magnitude and +staggering quality of the City's negotiation and traffick; so that I +came near to rehearsing the Bridge warden's eulogy upon the London +merchants, as also his expressed contempt for all such dignities as did +not issue from the fount of trade. Nay, I went further, for neglecting +the current rumours and plain news even, that all stood not well with +the State, I applied myself to my accompts and disbursements, deriding +Mr. Secretary Cecil and the Queen's Council for a parcel of busybodies, +and reducing the policy of England to the compass of a balance sheet. +</P> + +<P> +And yet, had I had the wit to know it, we were at that season come into +a crisis where bills of lading availed little, and the petty laws of +invection and navigation seemed like to be rudely set aside for the +sterner laws of conquest and foreign tyranny. Already, even, and +before I had left the Combe, there had been that business of the +signing of the National Bond and the imprisoning of many that favoured +the overthrow of Her Majesty; the which had been followed and confirmed +by such other acts and precautions as imported no easy continuance in +our old way, but rather the sure entering into that narrow passage and +race of fortune, whence the outlet is to so infinite and clouded a sea, +as a people's help therein lieth solely in God and their own clear +courage. Queen Mary of Scotland was yet alive, poor scheming desperate +woman! and lay a guarded danger in the land. The Dutch States, +moreover, that ought to have been our firm ally, we had done our best +to alienate and set at variance against us, who should have helped them +at all adventures; we being of one Faith together, and hating alike the +encroaching cruelties of Spain. To these considerations there was +added the fear of treason in our midst, and the increasing evidence of +the Jesuits' part therein, which the Queen's advisers sought upon all +occasions to discover and trample out; as indeed I had myself been +witness to, in that unhappy self-murder of Jacques de Courcy in the +secret dark mansion of Petty Wales. +</P> + +<P> +It had been a little subsequent upon that dreadful affair, and when the +soldiers had left us, that I said to Idonia— +</P> + +<P> +"In Heaven's name, mistress, what is this house used for then?" For I +was all wan and trembling with that sight of sudden death, else I +should not have spoken so harshly to the girl, who was in like case +with myself, and clung to me piteously for comfort. But at my words +she seemed to recover herself, and loosing her arms from my neck, she +cried— +</P> + +<P> +"And what have I to do with other men's takings, that you question me +thus? If aught displease you, so! I cannot better it. And ... and +... oh, Mr. Denis, what a face of pity did he show!"—she covered her +eyes as she spoke—"and when he fell ... Oh, these things are not +rightly done; they stifle me. They wrench my faith. They leave out +God." +</P> + +<P> +I did what I could, but it was with her own strength she must fight +down the terror, I knew, and so after awhile desisted. When she had +her full reason again she thanked me that I had not confused her with +many words. +</P> + +<P> +"For I know not to what excess I should have run otherwise," she said. +"You have a quiet spirit, and are no talker, Master Denis. But there +be some things I cannot bear to see, and one is the sight of a single +man, even a malefactor, so overcome and brought to his death.... But +now," assuming a resolute cheerfulness she added, "now we must converse +awhile upon your own affairs, before you go. For look you, sir, I have +named you already of Mr. Osborne's service, and must make it good. +Else that stark-limbed Captain may hear of it, and discovering we lied, +make us smart for it." +</P> + +<P> +"But how shall I prevail with Mr. Osborne to take me into his service," +said I, "who know not an invoice from a State paper?" +</P> + +<P> +"Everything hath a beginning," replied Idonia, "and if Rome was not +builded in a day, it is not likely we shall make an accountant of you +presently." +</P> + +<P> +"No, nor in less time than it took to build Rome in, I doubt," quoth I, +pretty rueful. "But tell me how came yourself to be so proficient in +that study of cyphering?" For indeed the thought had puzzled me not a +little. +</P> + +<P> +"By the good offices of one I purpose shall now assist you," said +Idonia; and told me that it was a certain scrivener named Enos Procter +that had lived a great while in Genoa, where they greatly affect the +putting of their negotiations into ledger-books and have well-nigh +perfected that invention. +</P> + +<P> +"This Procter returning home after many years," she proceeded, +"suffered shipwreck, and was cast away upon the coast of Spain, whence +he was fortunate to escape half dead, and with the loss of all his +goods, saving only that monstrous ledger-book, which he would by no +means relinquish. He then coming to land here, at the Galley Quay, +besought us to harbour him and give him food and dry clothing, for +which he offered to pay us out of his wages when he was able. This we +did, and he, being a man of his word, repaid all that he owed, and +more, for he taught me something of his reckoning in cypher, and of the +distributing of every item of receipt or payment, this side and that of +an accompt, according to the practice of the great merchants of Genoa." +</P> + +<P> +And thus it came about that the day following Idonia did as she had +promised, and wrought so with Mr. Enos Procter that I was immediately +taken into his employment upon my faithful promise to serve the lawful +occasions of the Governor and Merchants of the Turkey Company, and +(implicitly) those of Mr. Enos Procter, their principal clerk and +accountant. +</P> + +<P> +With this worthy gentleman I spent, as was natural, the greatest part +of my time, and under his dark sidelong eye I managed my untrained +quill. He was a spare small man of an indomitable quick-silver nature, +that by long sojourning in the South, had become half Italian. When he +worked (which was always) he had a habit of warping his face into the +most diabolical grin, while he rolled upon his stool, back and forward, +with the motion of one rowing in a boat, muttering of a thousand +foreign curses with which was oddly mingled the recital of the +particular matter he had in hand. Thus, "Corpo di Baccho," would he +cry, "these bills mature not until the fifteenth day of June, and there +is scarce ... a million devils! Master Cleeve, had I formed my sevens +that gait in Genoa I had been sent to the galleys for a felon.... Of +Cartagena, say you? There be none but knaves there, and none but fools +to trust them. 'Tis an overdue reckoning, with thirty-five, forty, +forty-five thousand ducats, eh! forty-six thousand, Signor, Don +Cherubin of Cartagena, whom the Devil disport!" +</P> + +<P> +But whatever the frailties of Mr. Procter, he was a kind and forbearing +tutor, and even succeeded in imparting to me also some portion of his +own extravagant affection for his great leather-bound books of account; +for he loved them so, as no man ever perceived more delicate beauties +in his mistress than this fever-hot scrivener did in the nice +adjustment of Debit to Credit; with all the entries, cross entries, +postings and balancings (to use his own crabbed language) that went to +it. He was, in sooth, a very Clerk-Errant, that ran up and down a +paper world, detecting errors, righting wrongs, spitting some miscreant +discount on his lance of goose-quill, or tearing the cloak from some +dubious monster of exchange. I could not but admire him, and the way +in which he regarded all things as mere matter for bookkeeping. +</P> + +<P> +"They talk of their philosophies," he would say, "but what do they come +to more than this, and what ethick goes beyond this: that every right +hath a duty corresponding, and every fault its due reward? Ay, is it +so? and what do we poor scribes, but set down each accident of our +trading first on the left side and after on the right side, the one to +countervail the other, and all at the end to appear justly suspended in +the balance? We have no preferences, we accountants, we neither +applaud nor condemn, but evenly, and with a cold impartiality, set down +our good and bad, our profits and losses, our receipts and +disbursements, first as they affect ourselves and our honourable +Company, and after as they affect our neighbour. For consider," he +would proceed, leaping about on his stool, with the excitement that a +defence of his art always engendered, "consider this very item of the +silk bales, upon which my pen chances at this moment to rest—you have +it here to the credit of Mr. Andrea of Naples, seventy-nine pounds in +his tale of goods sold to this house. But is the matter so disposed +of? I trow not. For turn me to the accompt of goods purchased during +this year of our Redemption, and what have you? Seventy-nine pounds +upon the debtor. Philosophy, boy! There is nought beyond that, I say, +nor, for conciseness of statement, aught to equal it. Mr. Andrea's +rights become, transposed, our duties; and for the silk bales you wot +of, they be a load of debt to us, to account for to our masters, and +likewise a strengthening of the credit of this honest Neapolitan as any +man may read. +</P> + +<P> +"Notwithstanding, there be some," said he in conclusion, with a sigh, +"and they divines of the Church, that call in question the avarice and +hard-dealing of us that live by barter and the negotiation of +merchandize! Yet where will you find (to ask but this one question, +Mr. Denis), where do you find written more clearly than in these +ledger-books of ours, that oft-disguised truth that what we own we do +also and necessarily owe?" +</P> + +<P> +In such mingling of high discourse and plain work, then, I continued +with Mr. Procter a great while, in the dusty and ill-lighted +counting-house in Chequer Lane; earning my small wages, and upon the +whole not ill content with the changed life I now led, for all 'twas so +far removed from the course I had planned, now many months past, but +had already half forgotten. Sometimes my duties would take me to the +wharves where a great barque or brigantine would be lying, about to +leave upon our Company's business for Turkey or Barbary; or else some +other vessel would be returning thence to London Pool, whither I +repaired to the captain and supercargo to receive their schedules and +sealed papers. It was this last employment I especially delighted in, +and indeed I can scarce conceive any pleasure greater than I found +going very early in the morning to one of the quays upon the River or +as far as to Wapping Stairs, where I would watch the great ship slowly +coming up upon the tide, between the misted grey banks and dim roofs of +Limehouse and Rotherhithe; and could hear the rattle of the chains, and +the joyful cries of the mariners that were now, after their perilous +and long voyage, safely arrived at home. Then would I take boat and +row out into the stream, hailing the master in the Company's name, who +presently would let down a ladder by which I climbed aloft upon the +deck, where the crew would gather round to hear news and to tell it; +which telling of theirs I chiefly delighted in: the thousand adventures +they had had, and the accounts of strange lands and mysterious rich +cities beyond the seas. Thereafter, when the ship was berthed and our +business settled, I would bear off the master and the other officers to +Mr. Osborne, to be made welcome, when all was told o'er again, though +with more observance paid to such matters as affected profit and loss +than formerly I had heard the tale. The black little accountant was +had in too, at such times, into Mr. Osborne's privy room, where we all +sat round a great table, with Mr. Osborne at one end of it, very +handsome and stately in his starched ruff and suit of guarded velvet; +and the other principal persons of the Company about him on either +side, to listen to what the shipmen related, as I have said. +</P> + +<P> +Then, if the adventure had been profitably concluded (as sometimes it +had not, though generally there was a fair sum cleared), oftentimes +would the Governor invite us to supper with him, and me with the rest, +I know not wherefore, save it were that Master Procter had praised me +to him for my diligence in his service. And so we passed many a merry +evening. +</P> + +<P> +Yet this so brief summary of that time doth not cover all, nor perhaps +the greater part, since it leaves out my thoughts and hopes, which, all +said, is more of a man's life than all the other; and by so much the +more is noteworthy. And these thoughts of mine, particularly when I +lay quiet in bed in my little chamber on the Bridge, were concerned +about an infinite number of matters I had no opportunity to consider in +the hurry and press of the day. So, I would think of my father, his +evil estate, and the increasing pain he suffered, for I had lately +received news of him by the hand of Simon Powell, who, honest lad, had +bound himself to a smith of Tolland in order to be near his old master +and comfort him. Of Idonia, too, you will guess I thought much, and +the more that my business hindered our often meeting, though sometimes +I saw her when I went early in the morning to meet my ships; for later +in the day she begged me not to come to the house, and greatly though +this condition misliked me, I accepted it to please her. But, to be +open, it was this consideration of all I dwelt upon which most held me +in suspense, so that many a night I have slept scarce a wink, admiring +what the secret were that compassed Idonia about, and the strangeness +that clouded all her affairs. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it goes on in that great still house?" I cried an hundred +times, and would con over with myself the half hints I had already +received; as of that swaggering Malpas, his attempted entrance; of the +concealed Jesuit; of the way of communication between the part of the +house Idonia lived in and the den of thieves where I had encountered +with Andrew Plat. Then I would fall into a muse, only to be awakened +on the sudden by the recollection of Guido Malpas, with his lean and +crafty face pressed close against the window of the room I had sat in +with Nelson and the Queen's yeoman, or by that older memory of my uncle +Botolph who, I was assured, was also Skene the attorney. Why, by how +great a rout of shadows was I compassed! and what a deal of infamy lay +ready to be discovered upon the lightest hazard or unconsidered word! +</P> + +<P> +Nay, had not my love for Mistress Avenon so wholly possessed me, I +doubt I should have found in any the least strict review of her +behaviour something covert, and diffident; as indeed she had already +imparted from time to time much that a man more suspicious than I might +have seized upon to her disadvantage. But such motes as those troubled +me not, or rather troubled not the passion of love I cherished for her; +though, for the rest, I infinitely desired her removal from +circumstances that I could not but fear to be every way perilous. +</P> + +<P> +Now it befell one day, in the early summer, that all London was +awakened with the news that the <I>Primrose</I>, Captain Foster, was coming +up the Thames with the Governor of Biscay aboard, a prisoner. So +admirable tidings had not often of late been ours to receive, and to +pother one's head with business upon such a day was not to be thought +on, at least not by the younger men; and thus I was soon running down +to the Port to learn the whole history of that memorable adventure, +wherein the <I>Primrose</I>, of all our shipping that lay upon the Spanish +Coast, and that were suddenly seized upon by those Papist dogs without +warning or possibility of escape—the <I>Primrose</I>, I say, not only got +off free, but in a most bloody fight destroyed the soldiers that had +privily got aboard her, and took prisoner their great Viceregent, or +(as they call him) Corregidor. +</P> + +<P> +A host of men and women pressed upon Master Foster about the hithe, +applauding his so notable courage and triumph, and deriding the poor +Corregidor, who nevertheless remained steadfast, nor seemed not to +regard their taunts and menaces, but stood very quiet, and, I vow, was +as gallant a gentleman to see as any man could be. Now, all this +taking place about the Tower steps, whither for convenience the +prisoner had been brought, it followed I was but a stone's cast from +Idonia's dwelling, which no sooner had I remembered than I utterly +forgot her admonition not to see her except early, whereas it was now +high noon; but leaving the throng of idle cheering folk, I crept away +at once to the desolate house in Thames Street, where I made sure of +finding her. +</P> + +<P> +As I went along, the bells were ringing from every steeple, which so +filled the air with victory, as I was intoxicated with the sound of +them, and on the sudden resolved that, come what would, I would tell +Idonia I tired of this sleek clerk's life I led, and would be done with +it straightway. Alas! for all such schemes of youth and stirrings of +liberty! and yet not altogether alas! perhaps, since 'tis the adverse +event of the most of such schemes that prepares and hardens us for +bitterer battles to come, when the ranks are thinning and the drums are +silent, and the powder is wasted to the last keg.... +</P> + +<P> +To my satisfaction I perceived the gate to be open, and as I came up I +saw a flutter of white in the dark of the hall, and a moment later the +mist of gold which was Idonia's hair. +</P> + +<P> +"Good-morrow!" I bade her laughingly, as I entered and closed the door +behind me, "you did not look to have me visit you now, I warrant, when +the bells be all pealing without, and a right success of our arms to +acclaim!" +</P> + +<P> +Idonia stood, one foot set upon the lowest stair, quite still. Not one +word of greeting did she give me, nor was any light of welcome in her +eyes, which were wide open and her lips parted as if to speak, though +no word said she. +</P> + +<P> +I hung back astonished, not knowing what to think, when I heard a +rustle among the stuff beside me, and a man's voice that said very +quiet: "How now, master, methinks that is overmuch familiarity to use +with one that is under my ward." +</P> + +<P> +I faced about instantly, laying my hand upon my sword, for this +untoward interference startled me not a little. Even in the half dark +I knew him; for 'twas none other than the attorney, John Skene. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap16"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVI +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE SIEGE OF PETTY WALES +</H4> + +<P> +We had stood awhile fronting each other thus, when "By the Mass!" cried +Mr. Skene, clapping his open palm upon my shoulder, "'tis Mr. Denis +Cleeve or the devil is in it," and so led me forward to the light. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you two acquainted, then?" asked Idonia, her whole countenance of +gravity exchanged for a bewildered expectancy. "Oh, why knew I not of +this sooner? Oh, I am glad," she said, as she advanced to us, her +bosom heaving, and such a light of pleasure in her eyes, as it seemed +to lighten the very room itself, that had formerly showed so darksome +and sinister. +</P> + +<P> +"But tell me," she went on eagerly, and came so close that I could feel +the warmth of her breath on my cheek, "is it a long while you have been +friends?" +</P> + +<P> +Now so struck with amazement was I, no less by the suddenness of this +recognition than by the satire that Idonia's innocent speech implied, +as I could answer nothing; but leaving the handling my sword, I stood +resigned to what should follow. +</P> + +<P> +"I think we be hardly friends yet," said Skene, with a laugh of great +good nature, "and 'twould be a bolder coroner than I, who should +pronounce all enmity dead between us. Am I not in the right, Master +Cleeve?" he ended, on a note of some sharpness. +</P> + +<P> +I looked up at that, first at Idonia to see how she took the matter, +and then at Skene. +</P> + +<P> +"You are right," said I, "seeing you stole my money." +</P> + +<P> +"I knew your answer before you spoke it," replied Skene, nodding; "but +yet I am glad 'tis out, for all that. A hidden grievance is like a +dagger worn without a scabbard, that often hurts him that carries it +more than him he means to use it against. Nay, I am not angry," he +said with a motion of his hand. "Your case seemed to you perfect; I do +not blame you. Nor will you me neither, when you shall hear all that +hath befallen me 'twixt that and this. As for your money, it is safe +enough; and had it passed your mind to inform me of where you lodged +after you left Mr. Malt's in Fetter Lane, why, Mr. Cleeve, you could +have had it any time for the asking." His tone had changed while he +continued to speak, from a certain eagerness to slow reproach. +</P> + +<P> +"But, sir," I began, when he stopped me peremptorily. +</P> + +<P> +"It is ill bickering thus before a girl," he said, and going to the +great press whence Idonia had before fetched forth her ledger-book he +opened it, and without more ado restored to me my parcels of gold. I +could have cried for very shame. +</P> + +<P> +"Count them o'er," he said, with some contempt, but that was the word +that sent my blood back into my head again. For I was assured the man +was a villain and had meant to rob me, though by his cunning he had put +a complexion of honesty upon his dealings, and forced me into the wrong. +</P> + +<P> +"I will do so later," said I, coolly, "but now I would ask of you one +further question. What name shall I call you by?" Meaning, should I +name him my uncle Botolph or no, and so waited for the effect of that, +being sure that by how little soever he should falter upon his reply, I +should detect it. What measure of astonishment was mine, then, when he +turned to Idonia with a smile. +</P> + +<P> +"You shall reply for me," said he, "since you know me pretty well." +</P> + +<P> +"When my father was killed," said Idonia, looking at me with her eyes +all brimmed with tears, "in that affray under John Fox that I have +already related to you, my mother dying soon after of grief, she left +me a babe and quite friendless save for Mr. Skene, whom if you have +anything against, I beseech you put it by for my sake, and because he +had pity on me." +</P> + +<P> +Then going a pace or two nearer to Skene she laid a hand on his arm and +said— +</P> + +<P> +"Sir, Mr. Cleeve has been kind to me, and protected me once from a +man's insolence when you were absent. I had thought you had been +friends before, but it seems you were enemies. We have enough of them, +God wot! and a plenty of suspicions and hatreds to contend with. Then +if it please you, sir, be friends now, you and he, else I know not what +shall be done." +</P> + +<P> +Whatever anger I still held, it died down (for that time) at her +entreaties, and 'twas with no further thought than to have done with +all strife that I offered my hand on the instant to Skene. And +although later I did somewhat censure myself for such precipitancy of +forgiveness in a case that more concerned my father than myself, yet I +silenced my misgivings with the thought that I might take the occasion +Skene had himself offered (when he said that I should learn what had +befallen to prevent his meeting me on the day appointed in Serjeants +Inn), and, if he should then fail to satisfy me, I would take up my +quarrel anew. +</P> + +<P> +The attorney took my hand with an apparent and equal openness. +</P> + +<P> +"I thank you," he said, quietly, "and so enough. Much there may be to +tell of that hath passed; but 'twill not lose by the keeping." +</P> + +<P> +A burst of ringing from All Hallow's Church, close at hand, seemed to +greet our new compact, or truce rather, with a shower of music. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, how merry the world goes!" exclaimed Idonia. "Is it the Queen's +birthday, or some proclaimed holiday? For I remember not the like of +it." +</P> + +<P> +I told her it was for the victory of the <I>Primrose</I> that had returned +with the Governor of Biscay a prisoner. +</P> + +<P> +"And would to God we had more captures in that kind to show," quoth I, +"for they be a curse to the land, these Spaniards and black lurking +Jesuits." +</P> + +<P> +But no sooner were the words spoken, than I remembered the Jesuit +Courcy that had been discovered here in hiding in this house, and so +breaking short off I gazed full at Skene. He met my glance without +winking. +</P> + +<P> +"You speak very truly," he said, slowly, "and I swear by all I hold +most sacred, that had I the ability, I would so deal with that tribe as +the Israelites wrought with them beyond Jordan, and utterly destroy +them." Now, whether in this sentence the man spoke his true mind, or +damnably forswore himself, it remained with the sequel to be made clear. +</P> + +<P> +Idonia gave a little movement the while he was speaking, but whether by +way of assent or of a natural shrinking I could not tell. For myself I +said nought, but regarded Skene steadfastly, who soon added— +</P> + +<P> +"I have business above, Idonia, which cannot be stayed. It is past +dinner time, and if Mr. Cleeve will so honour our poor house, I would +have him remain to dinner. I am engaged abroad, an hour hence, and +will take my meal then." He smiled. "Mr. Denis I leave to your care, +child, and believe you will use him well." He turned on his heel and +went upstairs, leaving us alone together in the hall. +</P> + +<P> +To relate all that ensued I think not necessary to the understanding of +this history, and also I should find it difficult to set down in +writing or by any understood rule of grammar the things that were said, +or elliptically expressed, between us. For Syntax helpeth no man at +such seasons, nor Accidence any maid; 'tis an ineffable intercourse +they use, from which slip away both mood and tense and reason, and the +world too ... all which apparatus and tophamper overboard I found it +surprisingly easy to convey my meaning; to which Idonia replied very +modestly that 'twas her meaning no less, and with that I withdrew my +arm and blessed High Heaven for my fortune. +</P> + +<P> +Idonia was a radiant spirit that day. Her hitherto coldness and the +backwardness with which she had been constrained to receive me I +perceived had been due to no other cause than a fear how her guardian +would regard my visits to the house; for despite his kindness to her +(which she acknowledged) I saw she stood in awe of the man, and hardly +ventured to cross him in the lightest matter. +</P> + +<P> +"Neither doth the company he maintains about him like me overmuch," +said she. "But now I care less than a little for such things, who +shall soon leave this place for ever; ah! dear heart, but I shall be +glad of such leaving, and no man shall ever have had so faithful and +loving a wife, nor one," she added swiftly, "so apt at the +book-keeping." +</P> + +<P> +I was thinking of her hair, and said so. +</P> + +<P> +"And I was thinking of a long-limbed boy with but three hairs to his +beard," quoth Idonia, "and for wits to his skull, not so much as would +varnish the back of a beetle. Why, how much doth your worship earn by +the week?" +</P> + +<P> +I told her, seven shillings, besides a new suit twice in the year. +</P> + +<P> +"It must be bettered, master," said Idonia, grave at once. +</P> + +<P> +"It shall be better spent," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"But 'tis not enough by the half," quoth she. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, we will eke out the rest by other ways, of which I have a store +in my head, that, being happily vacant of wits, hath the more room to +accommodate them." +</P> + +<P> +Idonia's answer to this, I, having considered the matter, pass over as +foreign to the argument. +</P> + +<P> +'Twas a little after, that starting up, she cried: "Why, bless my dull +appetite, we have not dined! And I with a fat hen upon the spit, fresh +from the Cheape this morning." +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis not enough by the half," said I, mocking her; but she would not +stay longer, saying I must eat, for I had a big body to fill; though +for my head, that was another song and a sad one; and ere I could let +her, she was gone from me into the great kitchen beyond the stair. +</P> + +<P> +I sat awhile where I was, marvellous happy and free from cares; and saw +my love of this maid, like a new Creation arising from the waters, to +make a whole world for me where before was nothing; for all seemed to +me as nothing in comparison with her, so that I forgot my troubles and +losses, my wounds and sickness, my father, my home, my uncle... +</P> + +<P> +"What was that?" said I, sitting up straight, for I had, I think, +fallen into a sort of trance, and imagined some noise had disturbed me. +</P> + +<P> +"Hist!" came a whisper from aloft, and I leapt to my feet. +</P> + +<P> +"Who is it speaks?" cried I, searching every corner of the dark hall +with narrowed eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Hist!" said the voice again. "There is danger threatening to the folk +of this house." +</P> + +<P> +"What danger is there?" said I, who had now discovered who it was +spoke; for there, lurking in the aperture of the wall to which the +ladder reached up, I saw Andrew Plat, the lyrick poet, his tawny hair +wild about his pale face, and his neck craned forward like a heron's. +Yet for all the comick figure that he made I could not neglect the +apparent seriousness of his warning, and especially when he added in a +hoarse voice— +</P> + +<P> +"Where is Mistress Avenon? O, fair Idonia, hasten hither, if you be +within this fated mansion!" +</P> + +<P> +"She is in the kitchen cooking a fowl," said I, pretty short, for this +adjuration of his mightily displeased me. +</P> + +<P> +"Cooking!—she!" returned the poet, with a despairing gesture. "Her +lily hands! O monstrous indignity, and cruel office of a cook!" +</P> + +<P> +I had thought he would fall headlong down the ladder, so distractedly +did he behave himself, and called upon him sharply to tell me wherein +lay this danger to Idonia he affected to fear. +</P> + +<P> +"I stand alone against a host," said he with a flourish, "but Love +maketh a man sufficient, and will fortify these arms." +</P> + +<P> +"Enough," I shouted, "or I will assuredly call in question the +authorship of a certain rascal poem you wot of." +</P> + +<P> +"It is mine own," he screamed, and danced upon the sill for very rage. +"There is no resemblance betwixt my verses and that preposterous +fellow's—whose name even I know not. I vow there hath been nought, +since Catullus, writ with so infinite and original an invention as my +Hymn to the Spring," and off he went with his "Fresh Spring, the lovely +herald of Great Love," with so great an eagerness of delight in the +poor cuckoo-chick words, as I could not but pity him. +</P> + +<P> +By this time our loud and contrary arguments had been overheard, and +ere he had done Idonia came running forth from the kitchen, her sleeves +above the elbow, and her dress all tucked up; while a little after, +Skene called over the stair-rail to inquire out the cause of this +disturbance. +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis Mr. Plat, the celebrated poet," I replied, "that says there is a +danger threatening this house, though of what nature I cannot learn." +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly recalled by my protest, the poet clapped his hand to his +forehead and cried out: +</P> + +<P> +"O, whither hath my Muse rapt me? Return, my soul, and of this tumult +tell..." +</P> + +<P> +"Out with it, man!" quoth Mr. Skene, in his usual calm manner of +command, that did more than all my attempts to come by the truth. +</P> + +<P> +"They are returning from the Tower," said the poet, "whither they have +carried off the Spaniard. They are coming hither, an incredible +company with staves and all manner of weapons." +</P> + +<P> +"And wherefore?" demanded Skene. +</P> + +<P> +"Because 'tis constantly affirmed that you have here concealed a sort +of plotting Jesuits and base men that would spy out the land, and +enslave us. Nay, they go so far as to say that one such was caught +here not so long ago in the open light of day, for which they swear to +beat the house about your ears and slay you every one. +</P> + +<P> +"Be silent," said the attorney briefly, and we all stood awhile +attentive to any sound of menace from without. We had not long to +wait, for almost on the instant there came a shuffle and rush of many +feet, and that deep unforgettable roll, as of drums, that means the +anger of confused and masterless multitudes. +</P> + +<P> +Skene addressed me: "You alone have a sword, sir. You will cover our +retreat." +</P> + +<P> +I bowed without speaking, and unsheathing my sword, went to the door, +where I clapped to the bolts and made all fast. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Denis, Denis!" cried Idonia, who saw it was intended I should +remain behind. "Sir," she pleaded with her guardian, "he must come +with me where'er you lead me." +</P> + +<P> +"He will follow," said he; and then to Plat— +</P> + +<P> +"Do they compass the whole house, or is there a way of escape beyond?" +</P> + +<P> +"There is yet," he answered, having made espial; "for the attack goes +but upon the street side, leaving the lane free. But lose no time, for +they be already scattering—ah! 'tis for fuel to lay to the door," +cried he, all aghast now and scarce articulate. "Come away after me," +and so was gone. +</P> + +<P> +Skene said no more, but cast a quiet glance at me, that I knew meant he +trusted me, and for which, more than all I had yet had from him, I +thanked him. But hard work had I to refrain myself, when Idonia +besought me with tears not to leave her and, when presently her +guardian bore her half fainting up the ladder, to appear smiling and +confident. +</P> + +<P> +"I will follow you by and by," said I, and then sat down, suddenly sick +at heart, upon a wooden grate of ship's goods; for the tumult at the +gate was now grown intolerably affrighting. +</P> + +<P> +"You must try another way than this," said Skene, who had now gained +the sill, and I comprehended that he was about to draw up the ladder +after, in order to mask their way of escape when the door should be +forced in or burnt. I nodded, remembering that Idonia had been moved +by the same consideration formerly, when the soldiers came with their +warrant of search; and so the ladder was drawn up and I left. +</P> + +<P> +It is not fit that I should describe all that followed, for no man can +exactly report all, when all is in turmoil and an unchained madness +hurrieth through every mind; madness of defiance and that hideous +madness of fear. For if ever man gazed into the very eyes of the +spectre of fear, it was I then, whom nameless horror possessed, so that +more than once, when the hammering upon the gate shook even the flags +with which the hall was paven, I shrunk back to the farthest corner in +the dark, biting my knuckles till they bled; and even when the door was +half down, and I at the breach making play with my sword to fend off +the foremost that would enter, I felt my heart turn to water at the +sight of that grinning circle of desperate and blood-hungry faces, and +at the roar as of starved forest beasts ravening after their prey. +</P> + +<P> +My defence came to an end suddenly; for although I might have made +shift awhile longer to avert the danger from the gate (but indeed I was +nigh spent with my labours there), I chanced just then to gaze sidelong +at the shuttered window upon the left of it, and saw the shutter all +splintered, and a fellow with a great swart beard, already astraddle on +the ledge. Without a moment's parley I ran my sword half to the hilts +into his side, and as he sank down in a huddle, I left the sword +sticking where it was, and ran for my life. +</P> + +<P> +How I got free of the house I know not, but it was by a window of the +kitchen, I think, or else a hole I burst for myself; but by some +venture of frenzy I gained the street, or rather an enclosed court, +arched under at the further end by a sort of conduit or channel in the +wall; and so, half on my belly shuffling through this filthy bow, I +came by good hap into the open street, that I found was Tower Street, +where at length I thought it safe to take leisure to breathe, and look +about me. +</P> + +<P> +But even here I was deceived of my security; for my passage having +been, I suppose, easily discovered, there wanted not a full minute ere +I heard an halloo! and a scraping of feet beneath the arched way, by +which I perceived I was hotly followed. I stumbled to my feet +straightway and fled westward up the street, while in my ears rang the +alarm: "Stop thief! Jesuit! Hold, in the Queen's Name!" which, the +passengers taking it up, and themselves incontinently joining in the +pursuit, made my hopes of safety and my little remnant of strength to +shrink together utterly, like a scroll of parchment in the fire. +</P> + +<P> +I knew not how far I had gone, nor whither I had come, for all was +strange to my disordered vision, but I know now that I had won nigh to +the standard upon Cornhill (having turned to my right hand up +Gracechurch Street); and holding my pursuers a little in check by +repeated doublings, I found myself free to take refuge within a certain +yard giving upon the public way and close against a tavern that is +called the Leaden Porch. But fearing to remain openly in this place +for any man to apprehend me, I cast about for some means of +concealment, for I could go no further; and there being by good hap a +cart standing under the arch in the entry (the carter having doubtless +betaken himself to the tavern, as is the custom of such men), I got me +up into it, painfully crawling beneath the load it carried, which was, +methought, something oddly protected by a frame of timber hung about +with linen-stuff or such-like, that I skilled not to discover the use +of; and here I lay close, until very soon, as well from mere exhaustion +as from a despairing indifference to the event, I fell asleep. +</P> + +<P> +No thought of the money I had been so near to recovering disturbed my +repose, nor indeed for three full days after did I so much as remember +to have left the treasure bags behind me in the hurry of my flight. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap17"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +HOW I FOUND AN OLD FRIEND IN A STRANGE PLACE, <BR> +AND HOW PTOLEMY RENEWED HIS STUDY OF THE LATIN TONGUE +</H4> + +<P> +I was in the midst of a most excellent and comforting dream of Idonia, +to whom I was again happily united, and we (if I rightly call it to +mind), Duke and Duchess of Salamanca or of some place like-sounding, +when I was roughly awakened by the jogging forward of the cart, to +which succeeded that a head was thrust in betwixt the curtains of my +extemporary great bed, and a voice cried: "Woe worth the day! what +gallows'-food is here?" +</P> + +<P> +Making no question but that I was arrested, yet being still bedrowsed +by sleep, I felt for my sword to deliver it up, but finding it not, +said very stately: "Master Corregidor of Biscay, I yield myself +prisoner," and so lay quiet, expecting what he should do further. +</P> + +<P> +But that he did, squared so ill with all I had ever heard tell of the +manners and behaviour of Corregidors or persons anyway notable, that I +sat up and stared upon him gaping; for he gave but one look at me, and +after, with such a squealing of laughter as one might, suppose coneys +to utter when they catch a weasel sleeping, he parted the curtains +wider and leapt into the place where I lay, when he seized me by both +my hands and wrung them up and down as they were flails. +</P> + +<P> +I was wide awake enough now, but yet for my life could not comprehend +the carter's apparent joy of seeing me, though as to that, 'twas a +better welcome than I had looked for, either from the Corregidor of my +dreams, or from the rabble I was so vehemently pursued by. +</P> + +<P> +Now when this mad fellow had something slackened the excess of his +complacency, I took occasion to demand whether my remaining within that +frame of timber (that was none too big for us twain) were irksome to +him. "For," said I, "if it be not, I have my reasons why I should wish +not to leave it." +</P> + +<P> +At this he ceased his exercise altogether and, withdrawing both his +hands from mine, regarded me reproachfully. +</P> + +<P> +"Hast so soon forgot Cayphas his mitre, and the ark of Noah?" said he. +</P> + +<P> +"Now of all the saints," I cried out, "'tis Ptolemy Philpot, the +pageant master!" and saw that the sanctuary into which I had entered +was within the pageant itself, I having my elbow even then resting on +the wooden box of his puppets, while about the narrow chamber were hung +the tabards, hats, pencils, fringed gowns of damask and other necessary +imagery of the interludes he showed. As to Master Ptolemy himself, he +had altered not a jot, so that I marvelled I had not sooner known him, +except that I was then heavy with sleep; for he spoke still in the same +small child's voice that issued from the middle of his bearded fierce +countenance, as a bird may twitter in the jaws of a pard that hath +caught her. Methought indeed that the agate colour was somewhat more +richly veined upon his nose, and that his body was more comfortably +overlaid than I had formerly remembered it, and supposed therefore that +his bargain with Skegs had gone happily against my fears and to his +advantage; the which he presently certified. +</P> + +<P> +"But it was not by any of the miracles or moralities he sold me, that I +have prospered," said he, "for wheresoever I played it none would stay +out the Deluge, no, not even in so goodly and well-considered a town as +is Devizes, whither I went first of all, and where I enacted the same +by the special desire of one Sir Matthew Juke, a principal person there +and a famous traveller, as he said; who took upon him to condemn my +navigation of the Ark ere I had half concluded: affirming that if ever +I should use the sea as he had done, and so handled my ship in the +manner of that voyage to Ararat, he would not answer for it, but I +should be utterly cast away and my venture lost. Howbeit he gave me, +in parting, a tester, which was all I had from that place, and yet more +by a sixpence than I got at Winchester whither I proceeded, and where I +was fain to exchange the Deluge for the Miracle of Cayphas; but 'twould +not serve, and I was suddenly put forth of that town of the beadle. +Thereafter I essayed the Pageant of Melchisedec as they have it at +Chester, and though some part of it liked the people pretty well, yet I +lost as much as I gained by reason of a tempest that broke while the +piece was a playing, whereby the motion was all drenched by the rain +and the hangings torn by the wind and Father Abraham his beard came +ungummed from his jowl, so that it cost me five shillings to repair all +that damage. Then did I make shift to patch my patriarch figures with +such modern habits and familiar countenances as should betoken our +famous captains (as I told you I meant to do), and to that end paid to +a clerk of Wallingford fifteen shillings for the writing of a +history-comedy, wherein were such assaults and batterings and victories +as suited to our late accomplishments at sea; but the illiterate and +filthy vulgar would have none of it, swearing I had turned Noah into +Captain Drake, and Mount Ararat into Vigo, with so slight addition upon +their originals as 'twas scandal to behold; all which was true enough, +doubtless, but the outcome mighty unprofitable to me, who thereby +beheld my fortune to be slid from under me and myself fallen into +absolute beggary." +</P> + +<P> +"How then came you to repair your fortune, Ptolemy?" said I, who had +listened with an infinite, though secret, struggling against laughter, +the while he had related his tale; "since it seemeth you no longer play +your pieces to an unkind audience." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Philpot plunged his hand into his great beard, holding his chin +thoughtfully, and after, withdrawing it, rubbed his forefinger slowly +along his nose, as though to assure himself that he had come unchanged, +and with all his attributes, through the storm and multitude of +accidents that had assailed him. +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis an old saw and a true one, which saith, the miracles that happen +daily we suffer to go by us unregarded; as the sunrise, and the return +of consciousness after sleep, and so following," said the pageant +master, in his small reed voice, "and the same holds as with the rest, +with plays also; namely, that what is too well known is still +neglected, and where no itch of expectancy is, there will no wits be +scratching. 'Twas a reproach of the Athenians of old, master, that +they went continually in hopes to see or hear some new thing, and your +stage-audiences differ in nothing from your Athenians, save only in the +tongue they use, and the clothes they wear. I know not how the truth +came to be revealed to me," he proceeded pensively, "but come it did +and in a good hour; I mean the truth that every man loveth secrecy and +concealment, as a child his coral. What did I then, but clap all my +stock together, my mysteries, miracles, pageants, interludes and all, +pell mell, Herod and Pilate their proper speeches and cues to boot: the +diverting jests of Noah's wife with the admonitions of Abraham and the +sentences of the Angel; and from this medley so made I fished forth +such chanceable and ill-matched dialogues as a man must needs be +Solomon or a very ass that would read sense into them, or confess to +discovering a propriety between speaker and spoken word. Why, list but +a moment, and I will show you the whole matter," and with that he drew +forth a torn quire of unstitched papers that was marked at the head, +"The Masque of the Noble Shepherds," which word <I>Masque</I>, said Ptolemy, +served to cover all such impertinent matter as he should choose to +bring in, and acquainted me plainly with the way he had gone about his +authorship; in which, nevertheless, I perceived so great an ingenuity, +and such apparent gravity and fantastick leading up to nothing in the +world as, although I could comprehend no meaning in the piece (there +being none to comprehend) yet I could well enough imagine the curious +and close attention with which it would be heard and seen. +</P> + +<P> +"I tell you I have had all sorts of men come away pleased with it," +said Ptolemy in conclusion; "and each for a different reason, and +because he saw in it something that seemed to him to mean this, which +another said was that, and a third, the other." He looked upon me +triumphantly, and then added: "Why, I mind me how at Lambeth once, +where I played, a Bishop and two Canons of the Church thanked me +handsomely for my holding up the new sect to ridicule; and +contrariwise, a little after, a Puritanical grocer demanded of me in a +whisper how in this play I dared to rail as I did upon Church +Government." +</P> + +<P> +"But do you represent your persons still as prophets and peasants as +they used to appear?" +</P> + +<P> +"I do not," said Ptolemy, winking upon me very shrewdly, "but rather I +have ennobled them all, and call this one a King, and that an Earl, and +the other the Knight Alderman of Tavistock—in which place I was born; +for it behoveth us to honour the place of our birth; besides that, for +the rest, your Englishman loves nothing better than to see great +persons on the stage, and aye to follow the fashions that he sees +there." +</P> + +<P> +We were interrupted at that time by the drawing aside of the curtain, +and a shock-head boy, appearing, said— +</P> + +<P> +"We be arrived at the place, master. Shall I sound the tabor and speak +the prologue now?" +</P> + +<P> +"Whither are we come?" I asked, for I thought I might safely leave my +city of refuge and depart. +</P> + +<P> +"This is Tower Hill," said Ptolemy, "and I see we shall not lack of a +sufficient audience to-day," he added, looking forth through a chink +upon the throng that was already assembled. +</P> + +<P> +Now when I heard that we were returned to the very place whence I had +fled in fear of my life, I shrank back into a corner of the frame and +begged Mr. Ptolemy to let me remain with him until the place should be +clear of folk and I able to go home without molestation. He seemed, I +thought, somewhat astonished, but at once agreed to keep me by him, and +indeed to do anything in return for the kindness I had shown him at +Dunster, only requiring me to give him as much room as I could for the +better management of his puppets, which he was now busy fitting to +their wires, while conning o'er the several parts they were due to +speak. +</P> + +<P> +Surely, no hunted man hath ever been so fantastically sheltered as I, +above whose head kicked and dangled Mr. Ptolemy's wooden kings, and +Aldermen of Tavistock; and ranted their unintelligible speeches to the +delight of them that would have torn down the show in a fury had they +known how near to them I lay concealed. +</P> + +<P> +In some such sort as follows the Masque commenced; the boy with the +tabor speaking: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"My worthy master Ptolemy<BR> +Hath writ this prologue painfully<BR> +To th' intent that by it ye may see<BR> +What otherwise were dim.<BR> +The scene though pastorally laid<BR> +Is traversed by an Earl, arrayed<BR> +In shepherd-guise to win a maid<BR> +That loathes the sight of him."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +and so retired amidst a buzz of excitement. +</P> + +<P> +We had got through about half the piece in this manner, and without +mishap, when Mr. Ptolemy, that was then in the midst of a complaint of +the wooden Earl for the unkindness of his shepherdess; Mr. Ptolemy (I +say) turned to me suddenly, quite neglecting his book, and very +eagerly— +</P> + +<P> +"How now," quoth he, "here is the very opportunity come I have sought +long since, and yet had nigh forgot it. What, I prythee, is the +meaning of that little word <I>Quemadmodum</I>?" +</P> + +<P> +But ere I could reply, there arose such a shrill murmur of resentment +from the auditors as no seeker after truth might withstand, and Mr. +Philpot, abruptly recalled to the necessary affairs of his love-sick +Earl, had much ado to get him to his feet again, he being by this time +all entangled by the wires of the motion. However, he did so, and the +play proceeded again. +</P> + +<P> +When all was done and the boy sent round amongst the people to solicit +their gratuities, Mr. Ptolemy breathed a deep sigh, and having put up +his puppets into the box, closed the lid and returned upon me with a +courteous request that I should now deal with him at large upon the +subject of <I>Quemadmodum</I>, which word, as he told me, he had oftentimes +met with in the books he continued to collect in the Latin tongue, and +to which, when he should have acquired a competency, he intended to +devote his leisure. +</P> + +<P> +"For there is nothing comparable with your Latin," said he, "to give a +cast of magnificence to that a man may say. My father had some words +of it that he used chiefly when he was wroth, and they did more, I +warrant you, than all else to bring him off happily in his +disputations. The principal saying he used was ... nay, I have forgot +it, but 'tis no great matter, for it was not of so catholick an +application as the <I>Quemadmodum</I>, nor so well sounding." +</P> + +<P> +I was about to comply with his simple demand, when the lad again thrust +in his head betwixt the hangings, crying out: "Come forth, master, +instantly; for here is my Lord Lumley come from his great house above, +that requires you to answer certain reflections made upon him, as he +thinks, in that character of the rejected Earl; which will lead us the +devil's gait an' you satisfy him not of your simplicity." +</P> + +<P> +"What told I you?" exclaimed the poor baulked Latinist, regarding me +with so tragick a countenance that I lost all inclination to laugh, +"there's none sees aught in all this but he hath brought it himself +hither in the thick o' the head, with a pest! and what is a poor player +to do!" +</P> + +<P> +He went away very sorrowfully to my Lord Lumley's house, and I, that +saw my way open (being unwilling to attend his return), slipped from my +cover and was soon enough safe at home. This adventure ended, and the +night come and gone, I went the next day to my work again, and there +continued for above a week, casting accompts under the strict eye of +Mr. Enos Procter, and never venturing nearer to Petty Wales than +sufficed to show me there was a pretty strong guard of yeomen kept +about the broken gate, who suffered no man to approach closely, nor +none (if indeed there were any left within) to depart thence. I +guessed by this, and by their leaving unprotected that lane behind the +other half of the great house, that they knew not of the connection and +passage between the two parts; and so tried to comfort myself that +Idonia was got safely away, or if she yet remained, that she did so +without any extraordinary peril; though for all that I was very +miserable to be kept ignorant of her present lodging, but resolved +that, before many days were passed, I would forcibly undertake her +discovery and rescue, or at the least come by such certain information +as should lead to our meeting, and the renewal of our pledged troth. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap18"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVIII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IN WHICH I RECEIVE A COMMISSION AND SUFFER A CHECK +</H4> + +<P> +The execution of my design was precipitated by a certain accident which +at that time befell me, and was by me regarded as happy or untoward, +according as I dwelt upon the recognition of merit it implied, or upon +the delayed return which it necessitated, to my intercourse with Idonia +Avenon. +</P> + +<P> +It happened then, that about eight or nine days after that riotous +siege of Petty Wales, I was at work upon my high stool in Chequer Lane, +where I was deeply engaged in computing the value of the several shares +the merchants of our Company were willing to take, upon charter party +with the owners of a certain ship called <I>The Saracen's Head</I>, Captain +Spurrier, that was about to set forth upon a voyage into Argiers, and +thereafter, unless otherwise ordered, yet further to the eastward. +Being so occupied as I say, there entered the counting-house a servant +of Sir Edward Osborne's that desired of Mr. Procter to tell him whether +one Denis Cleeve were there in that place; to which he answering that +he was, and that I was the man he inquired after, the servant saluted +me very properly and bade me go with him to the Governor's, that is, to +Sir Edward Osborne's, who expected me at his house. +</P> + +<P> +Marvelling what this should intend, I nevertheless made haste to follow +the servant, and was soon after ushered into a great chamber, +wainscoted very high up with walnut-wood, and with a table at one end +of it, whereon was a woollen cloth spread, very rich, and having the +coat and crest of the knight's family woven into the midst of it. +About the walls were hung many fair pictures, all of men save one, +which was of a maid of about ten years, that had a very winsome smiling +face and clustered curls about it. In this chamber I was left alone to +wait for some small space, when after there came in to me Sir Edward, +very gravely, together with his secretary, who straight sat him down at +the table and mended his pen. +</P> + +<P> +Upon their entering I did my courtesy, which the merchant quietly +received, and then, motioning me to a chair, immediately commenced: +</P> + +<P> +"I have sent for you, Mr. Cleeve," said he, sitting down also, "because +I have had a good report of you from him in whose charge you work, Mr. +Procter, who moreover hath made the addition that you are of a spirit +somewhat higher than seemeth necessary a scrivener should have, they +being for the most part a mild and inoffensive sort of men—what say +you, Mr. Secretary?" +</P> + +<P> +The man of the pen seemed greatly taken aback at this direct challenge +to his manhood, and could but stammer out that secretaries were +doubtless more faithful than arrogant, stealing at the same time such a +spleenful look upon me as I thought he would have sent his quill and +ink-horn after it. +</P> + +<P> +"Faithful—ay," said Master Osborne, with a little smile about the +eyes, "but nowise arrogant. I hope you be not arrogant either, Mr. +Cleeve," he added, fixing his gaze upon me. +</P> + +<P> +"I hope not, sir," said I, "nor think I am not either, for, as Mr. +Procter hath often told me, there is nothing checks a man's pride like +the book-keeping, that makes him put down a thing on both sides an +accompt in a just balance; which pride forbids a man to do." +</P> + +<P> +"It is as you say," cried the Governor, mighty pleased, "and you answer +well. But now tell me—and it is necessary you should deal with me +openly—do you truly love your ledger?" +</P> + +<P> +I thought upon this question a few moments ere I replied that I could +not say I loved it, but that I thought it a necessary book; that I +sometimes found a singular delight in the pursuing of the intricacies +of some great reckoning, but that I hated the casting of page upon page +of moneys, which seemed to make a miser of my head though I was none by +my pocket. In fine, that I honoured accountancy as a servant but could +not live with it as a friend. +</P> + +<P> +The merchant listened with no small amusement until I had done, and +then sat still, dallying with a packet of papers he had on the table +before him, from which at length he took one, and, running his eyes +over it carelessly, said— +</P> + +<P> +"Upon what task were you engaged when I sent for you hither?" +</P> + +<P> +I said, upon the business of the apportioning the affreightment of the +<I>Saracen's Head</I>. +</P> + +<P> +"Know you aught of the Captain of that barque?" said he. +</P> + +<P> +"It is one Master Spurrier," I said, "a Harwich man, that was one time +Captain of the <I>Crane</I>, a ship of the Queen's." +</P> + +<P> +He nodded the while I spoke, as having knowledge of these particulars +already; and then demanded whether I were advised of how he came to +leave Her Majesty's service, which I had not, and said so. +</P> + +<P> +"Give him the Testament, Mr. Secretary," said the Governor, and made +him propose the oath to me that whatsoever I now heard I should be +secret in and faithful to all just commands laid upon me to fulfil +them. Which done, he leaned back in his deep chair and said— +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Cleeve, I am about to put into your hands a commission that may +carry with it some difficulty and more danger, from neither of which +have I any fear that you will anyways shrink. But there needeth more +yet than either courage or a common promptness to this affair, wherein +must be used an aptitude to see without seeming to do so, and to assume +such a negligence of behaviour as none that watches you (for you shall +be watched) may perceive you be attentive to aught beyond your proper +and understood duties." He paused awhile, and I was glad of this +respite, for my heart was beating so high that I could scarce conceal +my agitation. Nevertheless I had commanded myself before he renewed +his discourse. +</P> + +<P> +"I have received intelligence but two days since, from Her Majesty's +principal Secretary, that there be in this realm a sort of dissatisfied +men that, taking advantage of our present dissensions with Spain, and +hoping to secure to themselves an infamous benefit by the same, have +privily made offer of their services to our enemy, as to discover the +nature of our defences and extent of our preparedness to war. So much +is certainly known, and many names of such spies are set down. But, as +is always found in these devil's hucksterings, there is as it were a +frayed edge and doubtful margin of disloyalty, upon which a man may +stand in question how to appraise it; and of this quality is our Master +for this voyage, I mean Captain Spurrier. Something that the Governor +of Biscay hath let fall (that lies now in the Tower) inclines their +lordships of the Council to attach this Spurrier instantly for a +traitor; but yet they would not altogether so, hoping as well for +absolute proof of his villainy as that, by our apparent slackness, he +may be led to betray to one supposed his ordinary companion, the full +scope and ambit of his dealings; which being (to use the figure) noted +in our chart as shoals, we may circumvent them and come safe to harbour. +</P> + +<P> +"I design, therefore, that you go supercargo of the goods of this +vessel, that is to sail from the Pool in a week's time, and mark each +particular accident of the voyage, as what ships spoken, and what +course taken, together with the customary behaviour of the Captain, and +with whom of the officers he chiefly consorts. If he have any books or +papers you may overlook their general tenour but not handle them, for +sometimes they be traps set for that very purpose. At Argiers, if you +get so far and be not, as I suspect you will be, waylaid by some +Spanish ship of war, you may send me word; but yet either way, observe +your man closely; to whom, so far as may be possible, you shall make +yourself necessary. I say no more. It may happen that my advice shall +receive supplement from Her Majesty's Council, to whom I have already +given in your name as the agent I think likeliest to their occasions; +who on their part received it very well, knowing your father for an +honourable man and a loyal gentleman." +</P> + +<P> +The Governor rose from his place, and, bowing slightly, went from the +chamber, leaving me alone with his secretary, who, with less courtesy +than I thought he might have showed, instructed me in the customary +duties of a supercargo, and further bade me apply to him for whatever +money would be necessary for clothing and the rest, as well as arms, +with which I was now wholly unprovided. +</P> + +<P> +In conclusion he warned me to be discreet, wagging his head three or +four times as he said it, I suppose for my better apprehension of his +meaning. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I warrant you, Mr. Secretary," said I, "I will not write my +suspicions, nor speak them in soliloquy, nor yet clap my ear to the +keyhole, unless I see cause." +</P> + +<P> +"I have a mind to clap my cane to your worship's jolthead," quoth the +secretary, "until you see a thousand stars." +</P> + +<P> +No sooner were we parted (friends enough) and I in the street, than the +desire to see Idonia and bid her bless me to my sea-faring, came so hot +upon me as I made off directly to the thieves' lane of Petty Wales, and +neglecting all discretion, scrupled not to enter it publicly. But the +door by which I had formerly gained ready admittance was now closed, +and so strongly barred that I knew at the first glance 'twas impossible +of access; while the one small window beside it was likewise shuttered +up and made firm. I rapped twice or thrice as loud as I dared, but +none answering, I went away at length, exceeding downcast. On the day +following I came again; and the day after that too; but was still +repulsed by the defences that I supposed the thieves, and perhaps Skene +too, had raised against any attacks of the soldiery, or of the +populace, that were full as formidable as any army, and more cruel +because without discipline. Meanwhile the day nearly approached when +our barque was to set sail, and I with my secret strange commission to +go with her. I had writ a large letter to my father at Tolland, in +which I made mention of this voyage, begging him to remember me in his +prayers, and promising him withal, that I would not run into +unnecessary dangers, nor yet (as some have done) be so busy in my +office as to smell out treasons where none was meant. As to the nature +of my trust I could not deal explicitly with him, because of the oath I +was bound by, but I gave him to understand that our cargo of woollen +stuffs was the least part of my care, and whether safe in the hold, or +at the first occasion to be made jettison of, my owners would (I +thought) require no particular account of it at my hands. With the +writing of this, and one visit I was called upon to pay to my lords of +the Council, in which I met with more great men and ran into a thicker +mist of wisdom than hath been my fortune either before or since; with +these matters (I say) I eked out my waiting time heavily enough, for I +was necessarily released from my daily attendance at the +counting-house, having besides much to see to in the getting of such +clothing and arms as the crabbed secretary thought necessary to my +equipment. +</P> + +<P> +Well, walking thus very disconsolate one evening upon the Bridge, where +I had been concerned with a certain armourer there to buy my new sword +and hangers, whom should I light upon but, Master Andrew Plat, the +lyrick poet? At least by the back I judged it to be him, for he looked +another way, and was, I soon perceived, about the game he had so +decried to me as a nefarious pursuit and never by him followed, namely +stealing; for he stole silk goods from one of the open stalls that are +here set up; the which he so skilfully accomplished as I saw he was no +freshman, but rather an exhibitioner and graduated master. +</P> + +<P> +"Your Spring hath issued into a passing fruitful Summer," I said very +low in his ear, "and I think you did well to leave your lyricks for +this art, and the thankless Apollo for thieving Mercury." +</P> + +<P> +He leapt about with a white face, gasping. +</P> + +<P> +"I have stolen nothing in the world," said he. +</P> + +<P> +"No? Then come with me, Master Poet, for I must learn this way of +getting stuff that is neither paid for nor yet stolen," and taking him +under the arm I carried him with me at a great pace along the Bridge, +pausing not till we were come near to the end of Thames Street, and in +full view of the watch set about the battered door of Skene's house. +</P> + +<P> +"I go no further this way," cried Plat, struggling to get free. +</P> + +<P> +"We have nothing to fear, friend, being honest men." +</P> + +<P> +"Loose me, I say." +</P> + +<P> +"On conditions I will." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah—conditions?" +</P> + +<P> +"That you admit me to your house." +</P> + +<P> +"Never! Besides I have no house. I am homeless and destitute, master; +indeed I am in bitter want." +</P> + +<P> +"I will mend that," said I, and drew forth a gold piece from the pouch +at my belt. "But now, ponder the alternatives well, and as you choose, +so shall it be yours to have. Either you grant me presently the +liberty of that part of Petty Wales which you were used to inhabit, and +take this noble for your pains, or else I will hale you to yonder +watch, and denounce your theft of those silks you have about you." +</P> + +<P> +He shivered throughout at my proposals, and after hung as limp upon my +arm as a drenched clout. +</P> + +<P> +"If I should do as you desire, good master," said he, in a voice I +could scarce hear for its thinness, "our Captain would kill you out of +hand." +</P> + +<P> +"Forewarned is forearmed," said I. "Your next reason?" +</P> + +<P> +"That the place is locked." +</P> + +<P> +"Otherwise I should have had no need of you. The next?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," he wailed pitifully, "do not drive me thus, master. I dare not +obey you." +</P> + +<P> +"Forward then with a good heart," said I cheerfully, and bore him a +further ten paces down the street. +</P> + +<P> +"Stay, stay," cried the poet, "I yield, I capitulate, I open the gates +... and now give me my gold." +</P> + +<P> +I did so, and released him, when, cautioning me to be silent, he left +the street by a certain byway, and threading such devious passages as +in the growing darkness I could scarce distinguish to follow him by, he +led me on, up and down, through courts and alleys, beneath penthouse +roofs and neglected arches, until I came near to doubting his good +faith and was about to use my old device of retaining his allegiance at +the sword's point, when he came out suddenly into the lane, at the +opposite end to that I had before entered it from Tower Hill; and so +stood still before the secret low door. In the little light there was +(for the lane was lit by no lantern nor lamp of any sort) I could not +see whether the door was still barricaded, but judged it to be so by +Mr. Plat's climbing up about a fathom's height of the naked wall, +setting his feet within some shallow crevices he knew of, but I could +not perceive, until he made his standing sure, when, he giving a little +strange cry like a bird's, immediately a stone of the wall seemed to be +removed, some three spans' breadth, and into the opening thus made Plat +incontinently disappeared. I was mad to be fooled thus, for I +questioned not but he would now leave me to shift for myself: when with +an equal suddenness his head was thrust forth again, and he said— +</P> + +<P> +"If you list you may mount up hither, though I warn you a second time, +that all here within, me only excepted, be ungodly thieves, pilferers, +cut-throat knaves, railers against the State, having no honesty nor +purpose to do well, illiterate, owning no government, lawless, base men +that acknowledge no merit of authors nor rules of prosody, ignorant +beasts, amongst whom I, a singular sweet singer, remain until a better +fate calls me hence to crown me with never-fading bay and myrtle," and +so, without more ado, he went away from the aperture, which +nevertheless he left open, as he had promised; but whither he went I +know not, for I did not see him after, nor have I come by his published +poems that were to render him immortal. +</P> + +<P> +I gazed after him a great while, as in doubt whether he would return, +but then shifting my new sword behind me, I addressed myself to the +ascent of the wall, which, after much scraping of my flesh, and one or +two falls headlong, I surmounted, and had my hands fast upon the nether +edge of the vent. It was but a brief while ere I had drawn myself up +and scrambled through; when I found I stood in a narrow and void +chamber, very foul and ill-smelling, from which I was glad enough to be +gone. +</P> + +<P> +But scarce had I gone forth into the passage beyond, when I heard such +a tumult and angry debate of voices as remembering Plat's assertion of +the Trappist silence that was in this house enjoined upon pain of death +I could not but suppose some very especial cause to have hurried the +thieves into so presumptuous an offence. It was now altogether night +within the building, and with these stifled cries sounding in my ears, +and execrations of men I knew to be desperate villains, I confess my +heart quailed within me and my strength all leaked away, so that I +could not even fly by the way I had come, but stood with my back to the +wall, sweating and staring, with never a thought but to remain +unperceived. Of the fashion and plan of the house I was perfectly +ignorant, having but once before been within it, and then trusting to +another to guide me through its secret recesses; yet I remembered that +there was somewhere that great wide staircase which Plat had said was +the common room and meeting-place of the thieves, where they transacted +their affairs and shared their food and treasure. 'Twas, then, with a +clutch of horrid surprise that I now saw, low down before me, a sort of +men bearing lanterns that issued from the shadows, and began to scale +the stairs; for by the uncertain light I could both distinguish them +and that I myself was standing in one of the open galleries that +surrounded the stairhead and overlooked the body of the hall. But no +sooner had I understood this, than any further discovery was thwarted +by a man's brushing past me in the dark, so close I could hear him +fetch his breath, and instantly upon that there followed the click of a +snaphance. +</P> + +<P> +"Stay there, you creeping lice!" he said, speaking in a cool middle +voice, "or I will shoot you down, man by man, where you stand." +</P> + +<P> +At this unlooked-for interruption, the men upon the stair came to a +sudden stand, while some that had advanced higher than the rest, fell +back, so that all hung crowded together, their lanterns raised and +their eyes seeking upward for the man that held them at bay. I have +never seen so dastardly and scarce human visages as they showed, some +with bleared eyes and matted hair, others dark and vengeful, their +brows and cheeks scarred with wounds or open sores. Here a man went +half-naked like a savage Indian; there one wore a ragged coat guarded +with silver; all were armed, though with such a hazardous sort of +weapons, that but for the assured skill and practice with which they +wielded them, one might have dared oppose the whole rout single-handed. +But in their hands these weapons seemed proper as claws to beasts, or +tushes to a wild boar, and instinctively, as the man raised his pistol, +I drew my sword from the sheath. The noise I made attracted the man's +attention to me, and he would perhaps have spoken, had not the +bloodthirsty rout, recking no further opposition, sprung forward again. +</P> + +<P> +"Hold, I say," cried the man, and this time with a dreadful menacing +vehemence. "I am your Captain, and you know me well. Another step, +and there's a soul writhing in hell. Back, go, you and your eggers-on! +I understand this business, as I understand too who 'twas inflamed you +to mutiny." +</P> + +<P> +"You took my wife, you scum!" shouted a great fellow clad in a +shipman's garb, that held a rust-bitten cutlass in his hand, and +struggled forward through the press. +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, did I, Jack?" quoth the Captain satirically, "but 'twas to provide +you with another bride, a bonny lass that the Churchmen say we shall +all embrace by turns. 'Tis that world-old witch I mean, named Death," +and at the word, he discharged his piece full in the other's blotched +face, and laid him bleeding on the topmost stair. +</P> + +<P> +A great hush came over the mutineers when they saw this deed, that +moreover so sickened me that I had already raised my sword to stab the +murderer in the back and have done with him, when the thieves suddenly +broke with a yell of defiance and charged upward in the mass. What I +would have done had I had longer to deliberate I know not, but in +default of any counsel to direct me, I sprang into action on the side +of the very man I had intended to slay, and shoulder to shoulder with +him, fought down those ghastly cruel faces and reaching hands. +</P> + +<P> +It was soon enough over. They were no match against the arms we used, +and the Captain calmly loading and discharging his piece, the while I +kept the stairhead clear with my sword, we made them give back foot by +foot, until at length each was scrambling to be the hindmost, and even +used his knife upon his companion in the urgency of his retreat. All +the lanterns were out now, save one that a dead man held in his stark +and upraised hand; and by that light the Captain wiped his smoking +barrel clean. +</P> + +<P> +"It is well concluded," said he, "and I thank you for your help, young +sir." +</P> + +<P> +I said nothing, so deeply did I loathe him. +</P> + +<P> +"We must be gone," he said, "and that quickly. The watch is up, and +the whole place will be searched before dawn. They will be caught like +rats in a drain," he added softly, drawing in his breath. "Follow me." +</P> + +<P> +He led me to the room I had left, and helped me to get through the hole +in the masonry, after which he followed me. +</P> + +<P> +"This way," said he, and took me through the lane until he came onto +Tower Hill, when, skirting the precincts of the Tower, we crept +unchallenged through the postern in the wall and turned down a narrow +cart-way to the eastward, I beside him, but neither speaking one word, +until after an hour or more, with waiting and going forward, we got to +Wapping a little ere daybreak, to a desolate mean tavern of shipmen +close beside the river, which we entered without question, for none +seemed to be stirring; and here, in the filthy guestroom, the Captain +flung himself down. +</P> + +<P> +"A good night's work, master," said he, grinning, "in which you did +your part so well that it grieves me much to name you my prisoner." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap19"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIX +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IN WHICH I COME TO GRIPS WITH MR. MALPAS +</H4> + +<P> +In the wan light, with which the room was now gradually filling, I +looked at the man I had been so strangely moved to succour, and knew +him for my old antagonist, Guido Malpas. However, I said no more at +that time, but that, prisoner or no, I sufficiently loathed him; and +so, crouching myself together upon a settle by the hearth (for I was +exceeding weary), I fell asleep. +</P> + +<P> +It was bright day when I awoke, stiff and uneasy, and sat up on my +bench. The room was empty, and 'twas some while ere I could collect +the passages incident to my being there, which, when they had skulked +back like tired truants to my brain, yet so monstrous did they seem as +I could scarce believe them to be acted events, but rather fantasies +left caught in the web of my waking; while as to that boast of the +thieves' Captain, that I was detained prisoner in an open hostelry, I +laughed aloud at the recollection. +</P> + +<P> +I got off my plank bed, and going to the door called for the host to +fetch me something to breakfast on, but he not immediately answering to +my demand, I thought fit to show him something of my quality, as +befitting an agent of the Queen's, and was for jangling down my +accoutrements on the table (which never fails of bringing your tapsters +running to attend on a man) when, to my astonishment, I found sword and +belt both wanting, and my purse gone with the rest. +</P> + +<P> +I stood horror-stricken at this catastrophe, for I perceived that while +I slept that malignant thief had shorn me, and so clapped my hand to +the bosom of my jerkin, where I had put up a letter I had received from +the Lord Treasurer, or rather from his secretary, touching my late +appearance before the Council; but almost before I had my hand in, I +knew certainly that it had been stolen, as indeed it was. Now, here I +saw instantly was matter enough to ruin me either way; with them that +employed me, whose secret I had so slovenly betrayed; with them I was +to spy upon, if (as I could nowise doubt) Malpas was of their company +and privy to their designs. Nevertheless, come what would, I must +report my delinquency to Sir Edward Osborne, and abide by his censure, +and for the rest hope that 'twas not yet too late to supersede me by +some other agent upon that voyage wherein I had promised myself no +small success and glory. +</P> + +<P> +Very heavy, then, but otherwise determined to do my plain duty in this +affair, I went out by the door with a firm step, pondering all the +cross accidents that had befallen me within so short a space, and very +wishful that all were at an end. +</P> + +<P> +"Not so fast, Mr. Agent," said that sneering voice of Malpas, whom I +near stumbled over as he sat on an upturned cask by the door. "I have +been expecting you this two hours, but would not disturb you; for it is +unprofitable discoursing with a man of your capacity to slumber. Well, +do you walk in your sleep now, little Denis, and dream upon treasons? +or have you your waking sense yet? I trow you seem reasonable glad to +see me, by which I suppose you to be in your right mind, and so bid you +good-morrow." +</P> + +<P> +For answer I drew off my glove, and struck him a stinging blow across +the mouth with it; upon which he leapt up, and, being extraordinarily +powerful, flung me from him into the tavern, where I lay prone upon the +flags. He did not shut the door, but stood in the doorway, of which +his head brushed the lintel, and, folding his arms, proceeded quietly— +</P> + +<P> +"That was unwisely done, Denis. This house is well respected, and not +known for brawling. Besides, I mean we should be friends; that is, +should understand each other, as friends do—and traders. For in the +way of trade all goes by mutual understanding and a common trust; as I +to sell certain commodities and you to remit certain moneys; or +contrariwise, you to part with such merchandise as I am willing to lay +up in store and to render a good account of, little Denis—as you shall +confess, at the proper season. 'Tis a settlement somewhat deferred +doubtless, having had its beginning, if I mistake not, in a street +before a barber's I used formerly; whereafter was added to the bill a +shrewd item or two, whereby I come near to losing all credit: a grave +chance for such a merchant-adventurer as I; but I am since restored. I +allow a handsome rebate, Denis, that you put into the reckoning +yesterday. But the balance, upon the whole, going against me, it +remains that I must pay." +</P> + +<P> +"Had I known you last night," I said bitterly, "I would have cut off my +right hand rather than second you in that pass." +</P> + +<P> +He laughed long and low at that. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you regret the issue so much?" said he, "Then it was your ignorance +more than your sword I have to thank, it seems. Well, 'tis no more +than the world's way, that generally sees good deeds done at random, +but calculated villainies." +</P> + +<P> +"As stealing that poor devil's wife," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, or the lying-in-wait for Captain Spurrier upon commission," said +he. "So all's one for that." +</P> + +<P> +"You have read my packet, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"Even as you were licensed to read his." +</P> + +<P> +"And may do so yet," said I, galled beyond restraint by his gibing. +</P> + +<P> +"I think you something misapprehend the matter," said Malpas, with a +malignant affectation of patience, "or have forgot that I said you were +to be detained here. In what fashion you shall go forth, I have not +yet decided, but be assured it will not be to do a mischief, Mr. Denis. +There be other interests must be first consulted thereabout, and order +taken." +</P> + +<P> +I went over to the hearth, and sitting down upon the settle, strove to +get my position clear in my mind. That I was to be kept here until the +rest of the conspirators should be assembled to try me, I understood +well enough from Malpas his words; though of whom this council of +treason should consist, I could not guess, except that Spurrier himself +were one, and probably Skene. To escape I judged was impossible every +way; partly because I was entered into the very home and chosen +fortress of these plotters, of which the retiredness and neglected +condition sufficiently secured it from the vigilance of the watch, and +partly because I was a prize too valuable to be let slip. I considered +that, besides Malpas, there were certainly others in that house, +pledged to my ward, and answerable for me to him. Of Malpas I knew +enough, as well from that the poet had told me of the thieves' Captain, +how he killed out of hand any that dared disobey him, as also from my +own observance of his behaviour, to stand in little doubt of the upshot +of my business, how it would go. Nevertheless, I do not remember to +have had any extraordinary fear; none, I know, comparable with that +palsied terror I suffered when the mutineers came first upon the stairs +in the night. Perhaps it was the knowledge that formerly when we were +matched together I had come off happily, and left Malpas with so deep a +thrust as even now he went limping withal. +</P> + +<P> +Immersed in such reflections, I did not note the passage of time, and +was surprised when a little neat fellow, dressed like an ordinary +tavern-server, entered, bearing a tray with cheese on and a loaf and a +pot of good foaming ale. +</P> + +<P> +"Is it poisoned?" said I. +</P> + +<P> +"Poisoned? Sir—in this house!" cried he, starting back from the +table. "Your worship must be ignorant whither you have come—to the +<I>Fair Haven</I> of Wapping, where all is sound provend and of the best +come to port." +</P> + +<P> +"Is it so, indeed, Master Jocelin?" I returned, for I had immediately +recognized, in this meek servitor, my old acquaintance of the hostelry +over against Baynards Castle. "And how goes it with that fat lump of +dough you were to set the yeast of your wit to work in?" +</P> + +<P> +But without the flicker of an eyelid, he answered me: "Jocelin is my +name, sir; but as to your dough and your yeast, I understand nothing of +your meaning." +</P> + +<P> +I could not withhold my laughter at his recovered innocence any better +than I did before at the manifest lapse of it; and laughing still, I +watched him put down my breakfast and depart. I fell to with a will +after that, and having a wholesome fondness for food, had soon made an +end of that meal, which, as Master Jocelin had said, was as good as +needs be. The whiles I was eating, my mind wandered oddly away to old +Peter Sprot, at home, whose sober admonition to me of the dietary I +should follow in London, I had until now (I fear) given no thought to, +but judged that I must even yet awhile delay the exact observance of it. +</P> + +<P> +Now it chanced that, looking up when I had about done, I saw Malpas +regarding me very earnestly, and with a manner as though he would have +asked me something, but apart from the tenour of our late conversation. +Marvelling what this should be, I kept silence: which 'twas not long +ere he broke, by saying— +</P> + +<P> +"If you confess yourself vanquished and overborne in this business, +Master Cleeve, as I suppose you can scarce otherwise, I upon my part am +willing enough to allow that you came off victorious otherwhiles; so +that thus far we may cry quits. If there be no love lost between us, +there need be no petty rancours nor jealousies, and I am honest enough +to say that, now I have lost her, I wish you well of your suit to +Mistress Avenon." +</P> + +<P> +"Where is she now?" cried I, starting up. +</P> + +<P> +"Nay, if you know not," said Malpas, "how should I?" +</P> + +<P> +I sat down quite out of heart, for I saw, whether he had news or no, he +was still for fencing. Malpas came nearer, and bending low over the +table where I sat, laid his two hands upon it, and said— +</P> + +<P> +"You cannot be ignorant that this affair is like to end badly for you, +Mr. Denis, and I am partly glad of it, but partly sorry too. Now, I +pray you to be open with me; for if I choose I may help you, seeing I +have some direction in this place, and of the occasions it is used for. +Judging from such things as you have seen doing, upon whose part do you +suppose Mr. Skene to stand in these negotiations with Spain? Oh, keep +your admiration!" said he, with a sudden sneer. "The reading of your +packet makes away all scruples to be longer secret. That there be such +negotiations you know as well as I; though of how far they stretch, or +who be deep in, I say nothing. All I require at your hands, is that +you say frankly whether Skene is on the Queen's part, or upon ours?" +</P> + +<A NAME="img-230"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-230.jpg" ALT=""You cannot be ignorant that this affair is like to end badly for you, Mr. Denis." Chapter XIX" BORDER="2" WIDTH="474" HEIGHT="709"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 474px"> +"You cannot be ignorant that this affair is like to end badly for you, Mr. Denis." Chapter XIX +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +"You acknowledge your part to be contrary to Her Majesty's, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"I said so. Now as you answer me, I swear I will deal with you. I +will fling the door wide and let you go forth freely to Mistress +Idonia, whose present hiding-place I know; or else I will deliver you +over to those who shall choke your discretion in your fool's throat." +</P> + +<P> +"Your treason hath not commenced so well," said I, leaning back from +the table, "that hath begun in distrust of each other." +</P> + +<P> +"Be not over long about it," said Malpas darkly; "I am not used to +repeat my offers, that, moreover, you see are abundantly generous." +</P> + +<P> +"So generous," I replied, "that I doubt their worth." +</P> + +<P> +"They be surely worth more," said my captor, upon whose brow the blue +veins stood out, so sharp a curb did he put upon his mood; "they be of +more worth to you, a thousandfold, than the favour or disfavour of that +damned, cogging, glib-spoken traitor, your uncle." +</P> + +<P> +He had let it slip at last! My uncle Botolph and Skene were one. And +here, beyond belief, I held 'twixt my naked finger and thumb the +steelyard by which my uncle's fate should be weighed, who had crossed +me at every turn. A word of mine, and he that had first ruined my +father's life, and after had robbed him of his fortune, might be +contemptuously blotted out, as a man blots out some gross error in a +letter he has writ; for that was how Malpas would serve him, could I +bring myself to say he stood for the Queen. A little word spoken, and +he was condemned, but I was free ... I and Idonia! +</P> + +<P> +Indeed, it was clear justice, both to myself and to my uncle. For I +was not to name the man a traitor to his Sovereign; rather, to speak +well of him, as I expected a man should do of me. It was (now I was +come to think on't) mere decency that I should not be dumb in my +uncle's praise whom I had never had any, or at the least overt, cause +to mistrust. Put the case the other way; that I thought my uncle's +conduct treasonable. Should I denounce him to the Lord Treasurer and +the Council? I knew I should not. Should I then denounce him to +Malpas for the contrary cause, and upon the slight grounds I had, as of +the confession he made to me when the Jesuit was found in hiding in his +house? No, certainly. +</P> + +<P> +Why, all that was required of me was that I should confess I thought my +uncle honest, as likely enough he was. What should follow upon so fair +a declaration imported me nothing. I was concerned with no grudges nor +disputes of these men, to bethink me how a plain answer should work +with them. Nay, I stood for the Queen's Majesty, upon oath to serve +her, and would so stand, God willing, come what might; as Malpas was +well assured, who yet had passed his word I was within an hand's +breadth of going free; it only stayed upon my word. Then why should I +not deal with another so, allowing the honour due to a like +steadfastness with my own? My uncle would doubtless be let go free +too; or perhaps he was not even so much as come into jeopardy. I had +no suspicion but that he was still at large.... Indeed it was very +probable. +</P> + +<P> +All this while I sat still, musing upon that I should say, and Malpas +stood above me, expecting it. More than once I tried to speak, and +Heaven forgive me as I believe, had I spoken then, I should have sent +my uncle to his death; but somehow the words would not come. The +sophistry was too palpable; the truth too black a lie. I met my +captor's eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"If I tell you where my uncle is at this moment concealed," said I, +"will you let me go free?" +</P> + +<P> +Snatching at the apparent advantage: "I add it to the conditions of +your safety that you do so," he replied swiftly. +</P> + +<P> +"Then you have lost your game," said I, and getting up, I kicked the +chair aside and watched his baffled face of rage. "For if you know not +that, neither do you know where Idonia is, as you made pretence to do." +</P> + +<P> +"You cursed trickster!" he swore, his voice shaking with an +uncontrolled passion; "petty cheat and viper! So, that is it to be! +Ay, white face, laugh that you have run me these lengths; I should have +known you. 'Sdeath, ye be true Cleeves, uncle and nephew, unprofitable +knaves both! Well, I have done my part, but there's more to follow yet +and soon enough, uncle and nephew! Ah! and who shall be Idonia's +guardian then, when you lie stark? ... Never a word of truth he gave +me, that old fox, but kept me still dangling. 'He could not promise me +her hand, forsooth, but yet he liked me. She would come to like me +too, in time, no doubt; but I must have patience.' Patience—had he +such patience to wait when her mother lived, or did he fob off Miles +Avenon her father upon that fool's adventure wherein he was presently +slain, as Uriah was slain, Bathsheba's man? Ho! a prosperous sleek +lover, I warrant you, and a laugher too, until his Margaret died.... I +knew that Miles, and though I was but a child when he went away, I +remember the pride he had in his pretty frail wife and his joy of +Idonia, for she was his proper child, though Cleeve named himself her +guardian, for her mother's sake. +</P> + +<P> +"It was that made him terrible, that death of Margaret, and few men +dared go near him. But the fit passed. There have been Margarets enow +since, in good sooth! though he still held by the child. Perdition! +but there needs money to that game, a store, and he was glad of our +help at first, and for many a long day after. It was to be fair +sharing in all, and whiles I think he parted to the hair. Even to your +coming I trusted him, and spied upon you as he bade me, being content +to take the brunt, while he lay close. 'Twas then I claimed the maid +as a right, but he shook his grey sleek head and paltered. <I>Patience</I>! +that was the word, then. But it's another word now, Master Denis, for +you and for him. Ay, and another word for Idonia Avenon...." +</P> + +<P> +I was amazed hearing him talk so wild, whom I had thought tutored to a +perfect secrecy; but his blood was up at my catching him in that +baseness of lying, besides that he was disappointed of the hope I had +extended and withdrawn, of setting him upon my uncle, whose treachery +in their plot he so evidently feared. Why he did not spring upon me +there and then with his knife I did not understand, though it was +likely he reserved me a morsel to fling amongst his foul co-partners in +this business, and a grateful sacrifice. +</P> + +<P> +"Enough of this chat," said I, at length, "for I well perceive your +purpose both toward me and my uncle. But I warn you for the last time +I shall that 'tis safest you suffer me, Her Majesty's servant, to go +hence free." +</P> + +<P> +"It is refused," he replied curtly, and turning upon his heel, strode +out of the room and into the street. +</P> + +<P> +Seeing him gone thus, without mounting any especial guard upon me, I +bethought me to examine the defences with my own eyes, and therefore +followed him leisurely to the door. A stout sea-faring man was there +already, his arms crossed, blocking it. I saw the gleam of a cutlass +end beneath his rough jacket. +</P> + +<P> +"Be thou the host of this tavern?" he inquired, with a grin. +</P> + +<P> +Being unconcerned in his needs, I made no answer, and returned to my +room. The windows, which were all unglazed, were strongly barred, and +I at once saw useless to be attempted. Passing then to the hind part +of the house I noted a little postern door that seemed to give onto a +sort of jetty or wharf, the inn standing upon the riverside as I have +already said; but when I approached it, there was the neat tapster that +had brought my meal whistling some catch of a sea song, and polishing +of a great arquebus. +</P> + +<P> +"Ho! come not too nearly, master," he sang out, when he saw me, "for +these pieces be tickle things, a murrain of 'em! And I not +comprehending the least of the machine, it may chance shoot off +unawares." +</P> + +<P> +Perceiving that he had his finger pressed to the snaphance, and the +barrel turned my way, I judged it expedient to leave Mr. Jocelin to his +polishing and retire. Every avenue then was guarded, as I had looked +it should be, and so, without any particular design, I walked slowly up +the narrow, rotten stair into the chambers aloft. I went into three or +four, all vacant and ungarnished by any piece of furniture or hanging, +which meant sorry enough entertainment in a place purporting to be an +inn, thought I, though proper enough to a prison. +</P> + +<P> +But scarce had I gone forth into the gallery again, when I thought I +heard a sound that proceeded from a chamber I had not till then +observed, in a retired and somewhat darksome corner beyond the stairs. +I held my breath to listen, and the little rustling noise beginning +again after a space, I went directly to the door and opened it. +</P> + +<P> +Mistress Avenon sat within, in a nook by the window, tearing a paper +she had in her hands. +</P> + +<P> +"Idonia!" I cried, and running forward had her in my arms and her hot +face close against mine. "My bird," said I—for so she seemed as a +dainty bird caught in an iron trap—"my bird, who hath brought you into +this infamous place?" +</P> + +<P> +She leant back a little from my shoulder, yet without loosing me, and +looked up into my eyes with such a deal of honest, sweet pleasure to +see me there, that I had to pretermit my anxiety some while, and indeed +had near lost it by the time I renewed my question. +</P> + +<P> +"Why infamous?" inquired Idonia in her turn, "save that I knew not you +were here too. But now it is certainly not infamous, though something +lacking of luxuries, and a thought slack in the attendance they bestow +upon guests!" +</P> + +<P> +"You must not misconstrue my insistence," I said, "and you will not, +when you shall have heard all I have to tell you. But for the first, +where is Mr. Skene?" +</P> + +<P> +"He brought me here early last night," said she, but with a little of +reproach in her voice that I knew meant I wasted good time idly. +</P> + +<P> +"And whither is he gone?" +</P> + +<P> +"Do you desire he should be present, then?" asked Idonia, very +innocently. +</P> + +<P> +"No, but I would warn him if I could," I replied gravely, and so told +her everything as it had befallen me. +</P> + +<P> +"Always that Malpas!" whispered the maid, and trembled so I had to +clasp her tight to me. +</P> + +<P> +"He does not know you are here, that is clear," I said, as indeed it +was manifest to both of us. +</P> + +<P> +"My guardian hath used this place often ere this," said Idonia, "and I +suppose none thought to prate of what happened ordinarily." +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps he has left you to seek out Malpas," I conjectured, and at +this she nodded. +</P> + +<P> +"They have had some design in hand together this great while, of which +I know nothing." +</P> + +<P> +I did not tell her that I knew it well enough, and was even +commissioned to prevent it, but said— +</P> + +<P> +"Wherever he hath gone, Malpas hath certainly gone to seek him; but he +must not be found." +</P> + +<P> +"You owe him small thanks," whispered Idonia, her head low down, "and +if this intends a danger to you..." +</P> + +<P> +I did not suffer her to finish, but asked whether she were well enough +acquainted with the house to know of any means of egress from it, +besides the doors that were so straitly watched. She thought a great +while before she replied how, once, it might be eight years since, she +being lodged there, she had gone upon some occasion into the cellars, +and remembered to have noted that the window which lighted it was a +sort of grate within the river wall and was even then decayed and +corrupted by the salt water, so that by this time it should, she +thought, be easily broken through. +</P> + +<P> +"The tide is out," said I, "so that if I may but get through, there is +the dry bank above the pirates' gallows to go by; and after, the rest +should be plain enough." Which gallows I spoke of (now all rotten) yet +stood in the ooze to be flooded at high tide, it having been formerly +used against such pirates and river thieves as were caught and there +hanged, until, the tide rising, they were drowned. +</P> + +<P> +In reply to my further questionings, she said that Skene was to be +sought amidst the streets about the Tower Royal, which was where I had +gone that day I lost my way in the fog, when Idonia found me, and, +indeed, was no great distance from Chequer Lane. +</P> + +<P> +"When you shall have found him, or however it fall out, you will return +to me, dear heart?" said Idonia, who was now weeping so bitterly that I +could scarce keep hold of my resolution to be gone. But I did so at +length, and, going downstairs to the room I had left, found it to my +delight still free. Nigh choked with the beating of my heart, I soon +discovered the stone steps that led down to the cellars, which were a +narrow passage-room lit with a swinging lantern, and having three or +four locked doors of other vaults (used, I supposed, for storage of +wines and such-like) to the right and left of it. But in the +river-wall, when I looked, I could perceive no grid nor aperture of +such sort as Idonia had spoken, and for some moments remained as one +lost, for mere disappointment. However, recovering myself a little, I +felt along the whole, length of the wall, high and low, until to my +infinite pleasure my hand struck upon a new oaken door, bolted with a +great bolt that I slid back without the least noise. For the door +itself, I clearly perceived, it had been found necessary to put it in +place of the old, decayed grid, and 'twas sure as provident a repairing +as any it hath been my fortune to light on! +</P> + +<P> +Well, I think it stands not upon me to relate the several stages of my +prison-breaking, nor of my lurking along the river-bank under the very +eyes of my warders into safety; though I confess that more than once my +back burnt hot with the thought of the little peering tapster and of +that great arquebus he so diligently polished. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap20"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XX +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE ADVENTURE OF THE CHINESE JAR +</H4> + +<P> +The events which succeeded upon my escape from the <I>Fair Haven</I> of +Wapping have come to assume in my mind a significance and singular +quality of completeness that hath, therefore, moved me to bestow upon +them the name of the "Adventure of the Chinese Jar;" for, detached from +every circumstance, there yet stands out, clear and hard against my +background of memory, that odd, fantastic shape of a blue-painted jar, +with its dragon-guarded lid, its flowered panels, and a haunting +remnant scent of the spices it had once enclosed. +</P> + +<P> +I left the ooze and filthy slime of the river-bank when I had gone some +furlong or so, and, turning inland up a row of squalid cabins, got at +length into the Minories, and entered through the wall by Aldgate. +Methought that some of the guard I encountered about the gatehouse +regarded me with looks of surprise and ill-will, which, indeed, the +disorderliness of my clothing necessarily invited, as well, perhaps, as +a no very restrained gait and behaviour, for I was in a fever to be +forward upon my errand, and dreaded the least hindrance therein. +However, none accosting me, I passed by into the City, and was already +proceeding at a great rate towards Tower Royal, when I came upon a +group of persons that were talking eagerly and in loud voices, so that +I could not but hear a part of their discourse. +</P> + +<P> +"He will certainly be apprehended before nightfall," said one, a +merchant by his habit; "so close a watch do they keep in these days +upon all suspected malefactors." +</P> + +<P> +"I know not the man by either the names he goeth by; neither Skene nor +Cleeve," said another. +</P> + +<P> +"It is not likely you should," said the first, with a twinkle of his +grey eyes, "that are inquest-man of this wardmote, and brother to a +canon." +</P> + +<P> +I stepped close to the man had spoken last, and, doffing my cap, said: +"Sir, I am but just arrived in this town, but overhearing something of +that hath been made mention of betwixt you, I imagined that I heard the +name of one Cleeve in question." +</P> + +<P> +"You did," said the merchant; "Cleeve or Skene, for 'tis all one. But, +why? Do you know the fellow?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is my own name," I replied modestly; "at least, Cleeve is, and so +if you were inquiring after me, I am here to serve you." +</P> + +<P> +A great laughter moved the whole party at my seeming ingenuousness, and +the merchant replied— +</P> + +<P> +"No, no, honest Mr. Cleeve; go your ways and keep your innocence. But +this other Cleeve is one grown old in treachery; a harbourer of Jesuits +and Spanish spies, against whom a writ runs for his immediate +attachment, and upon whose crafty head there is a price set." +</P> + +<P> +"Is he escaped away then?" said I. +</P> + +<P> +"He hath no settled habitation," replied one that held a paper in his +hands, upon which he continually looked, "but was last seen at a +certain great ruined house over against the Galley Quay, from which he +is now fled, no man knows whither. But from manifest evidence it +appeareth he is engaged in deep and secret designs against the State, +in which moreover he works not singly." +</P> + +<P> +"Now, I marvel how, if his abode were so positively known and his +conduct anyways dubious, he came to be allowed such freedom to go in +and out, as the sequel shows was done," I returned with some study of +resentment. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, as to that, it is but since he is gone that the case is proved +against him; for upon a search which was then made of all the chambers +of that house, there was discovered a very nest of those he was in +treaty with, whose names be here set down, and themselves are brought +to-day before the Council to be examined." He handed me the paper as +he spoke, wherein I read the list of them. There were three Spanish +men of high-sounding titles, and two or three alleged to be malignant +Papists. Here was answer enough to Master Malpas, I thought, and with +a vengeance! I returned the paper, and presently saluting, took my +leave. +</P> + +<P> +Very full of thought, I went forward until I had come into that web of +mean streets I spoke of, below Tower Royal, which was where Idonia had +said her guardian should probably be found. But although I spent the +greater part of the afternoon in that quarter, I saw him not, nor any I +dared trust, to inquire after him. Indeed, the longer I stayed, the +more ill-considered and absurd did my precipitancy to this business +appear, so that at last I gave it over altogether, and being by then +got as far as to the Three Cranes Wharf, I stood idly there a great +while, watching the wharfingers at their task of ordering the heavy +goods that were there piled up and stored. Against the wharf lay a +barge or lighter moored, which I perceived had but lately discharged +the cargo of some great galley that rested below bridge in the fairway. +</P> + +<P> +There is ever something that fascinates a man in this his own careless +regarding of other men at work; and I had already stayed upon the quay +no small while, before I bethought myself to return; though, when I had +so determined, it came upon me that 'twas one thing to get out of +prison (I mean mine Inn), but altogether a different matter to get in +again, and so fell to considering whether I should make my entrance +boldly by the ordinary door, or whether creep in after nightfall, by +the vent in the cellar-wall I had escaped by. +</P> + +<P> +Now I had not altogether decided this matter, when I found myself in +that steep little lane I had inadvertently descended so many months +since in the fog, of which the houses upon both sides stood almost all +of them closed up and shuttered as though (to repeat what I then said) +the place had been visited by the plague; which deathlike and stealthy +character it yet maintained. There was nobody, man nor child, in the +street as I slowly mounted it, a strange sense of abhorrence and +foreboding gathering about my heart: while to this distress of my mind +was now added the annoyance of a smart squall of rain and wind, that, +suddenly breaking, had soon wetted me through, but for my crouching +close beneath the shallow porch of a door upon the right hand, where I +availed myself of such shelter as it afforded. +</P> + +<P> +I had stood so about a quarter of an hour, as I suppose, and was +listening to a long roll of thunder that seemed to shake the very +foundations of these palsied buildings when, as if answering to the +call of the storm, there arose within the house behind me a cry so +agonized, so hopeless, and withal so horribly inhuman, as even now my +hair stirs to remember it. To avoid this cursed spot and begone was my +involuntary and half-acted purpose, checked, however, on the instant by +a blinding flash of lightning that seared my very eyes, while my brain +seemed all shattered in by the accompanying peal. Painfully wrought +upon as I have ever been by any loudness of sound, it was some moments +before I could recover myself, and indeed I was still reeling from the +shock, when the door was flung wide and the figure of a man +outlandishly clothed, and of a yellowness of skin such as I had never +before seen, hurried by me into the midst of the road, where it fell +quash in the kennel. The man was dead. It was evident from the mere +sight of him, and from the formless clutter of gaudy rags he was; I +turned about, and within the gap of the door ere it was shut-to, I saw +the delicate, handsome features of my uncle, Botolph Cleeve. +</P> + +<P> +How the storm went thereafter I know not, but I know that for a full +half-hour I stood wrenching at the door that callous fiend had locked +in my face, but could nowise move it. Then, with a thrill of disgust, +I went to the dead outcast, where he lay all wet and smirched, and drew +from between his shoulders the long thin knife that was stuck there to +the haft. This I cleaned and put up in my jerkin. It was my only +weapon. The body was of a man stout and of great strength, though not +tall, and as well by the cast of his features as by his clothing I knew +him for one of them they name Cataians, or Chinese, that perhaps had +been led to this inhospitable asylum by rascally allurements of +adventurers upon some Eastward voyage; as I had once seen two Indians, +that sat huddled on the ground in the Exchange, with a ring of laughing +apprentices about them, and of whom I heard it said that they were +princes in their own land. But by what marches of fate this poor +Chinese had been defeated, and sent down from his home in the East to +death in our inexorable London, I could by no means conjecture; nor yet +could I determine (which imported me more) what course it were fittest +I should herein follow. Howbeit, a certain strange faintness then +assailing me, partly from sheer hunger, but more by reason of the +horror of this murder, I saw my dilemma settled for that while; and so, +staggering forth of the lane into Royal Street, where is a good tavern, +I there made shift to eat, but principally drank, until I had rid +myself at least of the extremity of distress into which I had fallen. +</P> + +<P> +In that place I stayed a good hour, there being a merry company come +together of players and other (for which I was indeed glad, and it +cheered me more than all else), when the day beginning to fail, the +guests departed their several ways, and I also, upon my own. +</P> + +<P> +"The watch will certainly have been notified by this time," I said to +myself, "for 'tis impossible that a dead body should lie so long in the +streets unperceived. Well, my uncle will have got hence scot-free, as +he is accustomed to do in despite of all justice, and of writs of +attachment, or of black Malpas either; which saveth my conscience a +toll, and so I hope there's an end of my dealings with him." +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless I could not refrain from going part way down the hill +again, to see whether the body were indeed removed. And so it was, as +I had looked that it should be; though it occasioned me some surprise +to note that the door of the house now stood wide, while a little +within the threshold two other Chinese hung wailing and wringing their +hands in the most abject misery. +</P> + +<P> +Excited at this opportunity to learn the cause of the outrage I had +been so close a witness to, I went over to the men, and accosting them, +demanded whether the dead man were their friend; but to my question +they replied by never a word, at least not in English, but continued to +lament as before. I then made signs that I knew all that had befallen, +and at that they ceased, and soon nodded, making eager signs that I +should tell them more; whereupon I drew forth the knife from my bosom +and handed it to the man I stood closest to, who received it with an +exclamation of fury, passing it to the other with the one significant +word—<I>Skene</I>! The other Chinese now came forward, and in the intense +hatred that twisted his yellow face, I read the recompense that should +be meted out to the murderer if ever they two should meet. "Skene," he +repeated twice or thrice, tapping his long fingers upon the blade; and +then with a gesture, pointing inward to the house, whispered, +"Here—house;" by which I understood that this was a favourite +lurking-place of my uncle's, who no doubt hoped, upon any domiciliary +inquisition, to divert the vigilance of the officers by making parade +of these uncouth strangers as alone inhabiting there; or in the last +event, perhaps, intended to disguise himself in their clothing, and so +steal off. I could not but admire the ingenuity of the man, for all my +disgust of his countless villainies. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile, the two Chinese were engaged upon a ceremony that at first I +could not come by the meaning of, though I soon perceived it to be a +solemn vow they made upon the dagger, to avenge their dead comrade. +Which concluded, they gave me back my knife, and seemed to wait my +further direction. All passion had left their faces, that now appeared +serene and patient, as I think the features of those of that nation do +generally, so that it quite overtasks an observer to guess their mood, +whether it be bloody or peaceable. +</P> + +<P> +"Have you any English?" I asked after a pause, at which one shrunk up +his shoulders as meaning he had not; but the other replied with such +childlike boastfulness, "English—much—yes, yes—English," that I +could not forbear laughing. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you propose to return home by ship?" I asked slowly, and made a +motion with my hands as of a ship sailing. But this neither seemed at +all to comprehend. +</P> + +<P> +"China—Cathay," said I, somewhat at a loss how to suggest my meaning, +but immediately the one who had so much English, replied vehemently— +</P> + +<P> +"Skene—yes, yes—kill!" +</P> + +<P> +There could be no question then that it was to be revenge at all costs, +for the other Chinese, taking up the word, cried out too: +"Skene—kill," which he followed up with a peck of his own Romany cant +that I made no pretence to attend. However, the upshot was that they +stood upon the fulfilment of their vow, and fully expected I should +direct them therein. Now, that I was equally determined I would not; +for little as I cared how it should go with my uncle Botolph, I had no +stomach to set two bloodthirsty strangers at his throat, to dispatch +him in cold blood. So, turning to my interpreter, I bade him in the +simplest terms I might find, to have a care what he did, for that we +lived under a just and peace-loving Queen, whose constables and guards +were sworn to prevent such private revenges as they planned; in the +which if they proceeded, they would themselves certainly be brought +into confinement. But in truth I might have spared my breath, for I +saw that no intelligence of my warning reached them, though they had +evidently strained their apprehensions to the limit to receive it. +</P> + +<P> +"Skene—kill," they said, when I had done, and without more ado went +into one of the rooms where they kept their stuff, and took each of +them a small curved sword with a marvellous long haft, which, though +they made no pretence to conceal them from me, they carefully hid +within the folds of their loose silken coats. +</P> + +<P> +"This must be thwarted," I said to myself, and debated how it should +best be done. At length I hit on a plan that promised, I thought, +fairly, which was that I should contrive to divide their forces; +sending forth him that had no word of our language by himself, one way, +to search (and lose himself amidst) the streets thereabout; but as to +the other that was perhaps the more dangerous by reason of his capacity +to put such sloven-mumbled questions as might nevertheless lead to his +discovering Botolph Cleeve (though it was indeed hardly possible): that +I should take him with me as far as to Wapping, where I might easily +fob him off with any tidings of Skene I should profess then to gather; +and so be rid of him. +</P> + +<P> +It needed no small skill of mine to put the case before them in such +sort as they should not guess the motive, but rather should approve the +advantage, of my design; and in the result I brought them to my view. +By this time it was perfectly dark without, though the room where we +remained was faintly illumined by a little bronze lamp fashioned like a +beast with a fish's tail, that one of the men had already lit. By the +uncertain light it afforded, I gazed in admiration of the scene, so dim +and vague, yet so deeply charged with purpose. We had left conversing +together, for the two men had things to do that needed no speech to +forward them. It was manifest that they would not return to the house, +and therefore they applied themselves silently to the selection of such +articles as seemed at once necessary and portable. So engaged, they +moved about the shadowed chamber, their silken dresses slightly +rustling, and their yellow, peering faces now and again bent towards +the lamp, as they examined some piece of worth that they would carry +away: caskets of sweet-smelling wood, or trinkets of silver, or else +some mere idle toy they had bought in an English shop, not of a groat's +worth but by them infinitely prized. What a satire was in this their +so contemptible a fardel, who would lightly toss away another man's +dear life! Amongst the many treasures they thus overlooked, and either +kept or rejected, was a jar of about fifteen or eighteen inches height, +six-sided, and very gay with painted devices of flowers and leaves; and +upon this jar one of the Chinese dwelt long in doubt, as it seemed, +whether it should be saved, for it was something cumbersome, although +not of any groat burden. However he took it up at last with the rest, +or rather exchanged it for some other trifles that might be of less +value, and so ended his preparation. +</P> + +<P> +"Let us begone," said I, and holding open the door, signed to the one +of them to leave the house, which he did; and after, we, that is the +man with the jar and I, left it likewise, directing our course towards +Wapping and the <I>Fair Haven</I> Inn. +</P> + +<P> +For a considerable time we trudged along together in this way through +the deserted streets; I already more than a little weary of an +enterprise in which I had, as it were, enlisted under force and without +reason. The tumult of the storm, the murder, the strangeness of the +habits and Eastern features of the two men, the disability to converse +in a common tongue, by which one seemed to be pleading with the masked +presences of some horrid dream, all these circumstances combined to +deject my mind to a degree I have never since experienced; and I +deplored this new plan for my uncle's safety more even than I did the +one upon which I had set forth. I stole a glance or two at my +companion, but wrapped in his placid reserve he never so much as raised +his dull eyes to mine, nor showed himself scarce aware of my presence, +save by the precision with which he paced by my side. Once and again +he would shift the weight of the Chinese jar he carried in the slack of +his coat, or finger the hilt of his sword. +</P> + +<P> +As we approached near to the gate in the City wall, I became suddenly +apprehensive of the danger we ran into, and cast about in my mind how +to avoid the guard that, howsoever in ordinary times one might look to +be passed through without much question, yet now in these times of +suspicion would be sure to detain so irregular a pair as we that were +thus about to present ourselves. Accordingly I turned off suddenly +upon the right hand towards the river, and coming to one of the quays +(I think Smart's Quay), was lucky enough to find a skiff there moored, +which I loosed, and motioning the Chinese to get in, followed him and +pushed off. The tide was again on the ebb, having passed its height +about an hour since, and so without use of oars we drifted easily down +stream, until in a pretty short while we got to Wapping, where I ran +the boat ashore and leapt out. I could see the <I>Fair Haven</I> about a +hundred paces ahead, and, although there was no light in Idonia's +chamber, as in precaution she had doubtless left it dark, yet could I +see the dim square of the window frame, and pleased myself with the +hope that she was yet waking, and thought upon me. +</P> + +<P> +A little path of turfs laid upon the piles that here restrain the +river-course led right forward to the Inn, and trusting to the security +which had so far attended us, I perhaps diminished something of the +wariness I should have used; but at all events, we had gone a bare +score of paces when I stumbled upon a man that lay crouched in the rank +grass of the turfs. Recovering myself speedily, for I had not quite +fallen, I accosted him angrily, who, without replying, but yet +obstructing the narrow path so that I could not get past him, drew +forth a lantern he held concealed in his cloak, and lifting it high, +regarded the pair of us, but me especially, closely. +</P> + +<P> +"One at a time is better than neither," he said coolly, and I heard his +blade grate in the scabbard. +</P> + +<P> +But even as he fetched it forth, the Chinese had his crooked short +sword out, and leaping past me with the swiftness of a cat, brought our +opponent down. Against the starry sky I could see his arm work forward +and back, as he plunged in and withdrew the steel. The lantern rolled +from the dead man's hand, but, not immediately extinguished, threw +exaggerated shadows of the grass-bents along the path. +</P> + +<P> +Horrified at the fury of his onslaught, I flung myself upon the +grovelling heathen, crying out— +</P> + +<P> +"This is not your man, you fool! This is not Skene." +</P> + +<P> +"No, my nephew," he replied quietly enough and in perfect English, "but +it is that black thief, Malpas, that would have done the same for me." +And without awaiting my reply, he took up the Chinese jar, which in the +assault he had necessarily relinquished, and having carefully wiped it, +went whistling softly down the causeway to the silent Inn. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap21"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXI +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE "FAIR HAVEN" OF WAPPING +</H4> + +<P> +My father once, reading in a favourite philosopher, paused with his +finger on a certain passage to ask me what I made of the sense of that +he should read; and so continuing his lecture aloud, rehearsed some +score of good reasons there set down, why a man should do virtuously; +but that, either way, the gods ruled the event. When he had done I +asked him in my turn whether the whole book were in that kind, to which +he answered that such was indeed the tenour of it, though there were +yet other reasons given besides those he had read. But while I was yet +considering of my answer, he intercepted it, himself replying for me. +</P> + +<P> +"You think there are too many reasons," said he smiling, "and that if +these the author calls gods take occasion to correct our errors we may +do as we please; but that if they do not so, then must we do as we can." +</P> + +<P> +Then stroking down his beard with his hand, he bade me do virtuously, +at least so long as I was in any doubt about the gods; "which," said +he, "is a question only to be settled in that manner." +</P> + +<P> +How many times since then I had recalled my father's grave and tolerant +irony, I know not, but it was not often; nor certainly had it ever +returned upon me with so compelling an insistency as now, while I still +stared after his evil-hearted brother, that murderer of the man at my +feet. +</P> + +<P> +"If the gods rule the event out of this business," I thought, "how will +it go with thee, my uncle?" So easy is it to apply to another the +precepts were meant for ourselves! And truly, when I contrasted my own +qualities with Mr. Botolph Cleeve's, I came near to forgiving him, so +eminently did he make my own uprightness to appear. +</P> + +<P> +Now, very greatly though I desired Idonia should know of my safe +return, I yet could not bring myself to leave Malpas thus exposed and +subject to every chance indignity by the wayside, nor was I willing to +carry him openly to the Inn or any house at hand; so that, after some +while's reflection, I decided to lay him in the boat I had come down +by, covering his face with the sailcloth, and after, to launch him out +into the ebbing stream. The night was clear above, the thunder having +wholly passed; but from a mounting wrack of cloud that peered above the +edges of the sky and a chill light wind athwart the river, I judged we +should have rain before morning, and so hastened to be done with my +task (which unspeakably revolted me) and get into shelter against the +oncoming tempest. Notwithstanding 'twas the better part of an hour ere +I had completed these hasty and suspicious rites, and had shoved away +the skiff with its gaunt recumbent passenger outward (or was it +homeward?) bound. +</P> + +<P> +These pious offices done, I turned with a sigh from the black hurrying +water, and approached near to the Inn. I was surprised to see that a +light now shone in Idonia's chamber, and from the shadows that now and +then traversed it, I understood that she was not yet retired to rest. +How then I might direct her attention to me without at the same time +attracting such attention of others as I might well enough spare, I +very earnestly debated; but at length, minding myself of the knife I +had got from the dead Chinese, I drew it forth; and having torn off a +great burdock leaf where it grew by the bank, pricked with the knife's +point the one word Denis (sufficient for my purpose, I thought), and +running the blade through the midst of the leaf, poised, and let fly +with it at the window. It struck the sill fairly, and hung quivering. +My heart stood still during the interval that succeeded, but when +presently that sweet small head appeared, all dark against the glory of +her hair, it leapt to my very throat for excess of joy. +</P> + +<P> +"Idonia," I whispered hoarsely, and came right beneath her window as I +spoke her name; "Idonia, I have come back." +</P> + +<P> +"Hush, dear," she besought me, and leaned forth from the sill, so that +a strand or two of her hair hung down and touched the letters of my +name in the leaf. "Do not speak again.... Oh, I have been waiting for +you, Denis! But you are come; I can see your face. I can see your +eyes..." +</P> + +<P> +"You speak as if you feared something," I replied, in disregard of her +warning. "Are you threatened with any danger?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," she said; "at least I do not comprehend what may be dangers here. +For it is a house of mystery. My guardian has but now left me. He is +disguised: I cried out when I saw him.... Oh, Denis, I am horribly +afraid here.... It is all so silent, and yet I know the place is full +of men." +</P> + +<P> +I hesitated no longer. +</P> + +<P> +"Is there anything by which you can make a rope?" I asked, "any sheet +from your bed, or clothing?" +</P> + +<P> +She caught at my intention. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, yes," she murmured, nodding. "There is my cloak. I will tear +it." +</P> + +<P> +"They may hear the sound of the tearing," I said. "Do not move from +the window." And so, returning to the little slip or inlet whence I +had sent down the boat, I found the oars which I had removed from it, +and carried them with me to the house. Idonia could just touch the +blade of one with extended fingers when I held it out at arm's length. +</P> + +<P> +"It is too short," said Idonia, with a pitiful catch in her voice. +</P> + +<P> +I bade her keep her heart up, and, unclasping my belt, laced the two +oars tightly together where they were frayed hollow by the thole. The +joined staff they made reached high enough now, and without awaiting my +instruction Idonia caught it to her (I holding it upright) and swung +herself lightly to the ground. +</P> + +<P> +"Free, oh free!" came her cry of exultation, and a moment after we held +each other closely in a long embrace. Her lips were fire. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Denis, Denis, do not let me go, nor never leave you," she said, +and I (witless braggart) swore that nought upon earth should sever us. +</P> + +<P> +I led her up the turf path, sheltering her from the rain that had +already begun to fall thickly. My thoughts were all astray and I had +no plan of any sort, but still to have my arm about her, and feel her +yielding to my touch, as spent with love and weary with the pride of so +much given. +</P> + +<P> +A man must feel humbled by the magnitude of that he asks of a maid, but +all I could say was, brokenly: "I will try to be worthy, sweetheart." +Poor words, but she thanked me for them joyfully. She besought me to +let her rest soon, and we sat down by a weather-twisted pile at the +water's edge, for I could not run into the jeopardy that might lurk +amid the inhospitable dark houses of this place, where everything +oppressed with a sense of evil. My cloak kept off the worst of the +rain, but, as the rising wind swept across the river, Idonia shivered +with the cold. Nevertheless she lost not a whit of her gaiety, which +indeed seemed to increase with her distress, and she would laugh more +loudly than I thought was altogether safe at some odd construction put +upon my remonstrance in her wayward speech. I could not long disguise +from myself her condition of fever, which at the same time I knew not +how to alleviate; but more than once I caught myself wishing I had left +her that night at the Inn, where, for all her fears, she had not been +any way molested, nor, I now thought, would likely have been, her +guardian having returned, and Malpas beyond the power to annoy her +further. +</P> + +<P> +A little later, and quite suddenly, she relaxed her extravagant +hilarity, and fell into a moodiness equally to be pitied. She wept a +deal then, and seemed to have got a strange perception of the malignant +influences that surrounded us. The sound of the wind terrified her, +and she would shrink down whispering that something tugged at her +cloak. I did what I could to soothe and comfort her, but she only +shook her head, or pressed my fingers with her hot hand. +</P> + +<P> +But the worst was when, by some trick of the brain, she thought herself +back in the Inn-room again, when Cleeve had entered in his horrid +uncouth dress, and with his yellow face and hands. +</P> + +<P> +"He said he was my guardian," she ran on, in a dull low voice, "but I +knew he was no one of this world. He said it was a foreign habit he +had filched from a dead man he had been enforced to kill, and that he +used it to escape detection of the watch. Ah! it is all escaping with +us—escaping and killing! I knew he had some secret lurking-place near +the river; he has often said so, and that he went disguised when any +great danger threatened. The watch ... and yet he used to laugh at it; +but lately he has come to fear arrest: why is it? and so he killed an +innocent man and took his coat to save himself.... His eyes, when he +told me he had been waylaid at last, and almost at the Inn door! but he +killed that man too, he said: he hindering him. Christ! how his eyes +do sift you.... +</P> + +<P> +"These jewels in the jar, now, I know they have all been worn by men he +has killed. I remember them perfectly well. There is the great cross +the Spaniard wore; and these rings. I wonder when it was you murdered +him. He was a fair-spoken gentleman, and I thought you were friends... +</P> + +<P> +"I forgot. This is you, Denis, not he I call my guardian. I do not +think he altogether trusts me any longer, although he gave me the jar +to keep ... and I have left it behind in the Inn. It was worth a +king's ransom, he said, and ordered me to keep it by me until he should +have finished a certain work he had below, that would not take him +long. I have left it, and he will be angry ... I fear him, Denis. He +is calm as death when he is angry.... +</P> + +<P> +"And yet he can laugh too. He laughed when he told me of the Chinese +he killed, and how he dared his fellow to betray him. Oh, he made a +merry tale of it, and of his forcing the poor wretch to simulate a +desire to take vengeance upon a man that had fled—when it was he, the +murderer himself, remained behind! Yes, and he laughed at you, Denis, +until my blood burnt me ... I shall never forget his wrinkled heathen +face as he laughed." +</P> + +<P> +It may appear an incredible motion of my mind, but I could have cried +out for joy at a diversion which, then befalling, served to turn Idonia +from these crazed memories; albeit the cause was one properly, and at +another time wholly, to be feared. For chancing to lift my eyes to one +of the houses that be here builded by the water's edge, and serve +doubtless for the storage of marine stores and tackle, I saw a man, and +after, another, and then a whole posse of men armed with cuirass and +halberd, that advanced directly towards us. Idonia saw them almost at +the same moment, and seeming to recover her wits in the suddenness of +the danger, she broke off, and turned to me with a swift glance of +inquiry. +</P> + +<P> +"Quick," I whispered; "down by the piles to the beach," and helped by +the darkness of the night we scrambled off the path on to the ribbon of +wet bank beneath it, where we crouched, perfectly concealed from the +soldiers. +</P> + +<P> +"Halt!" cried a voice above our heads, and the trampling footsteps +ceased. "We be thirty men strong, and none too many for this business. +Anthony, take you twelve and post them before the door. Six men go +with Will Huet; see that none escape by the windows. There is a light +burns at one yet. I will take the complement and go within. Now mark +me well: our warrant is principally to the capture of Skene, alias +Cleeve, and one Guido Malpas, that was of the Earl of Pembroke's +household, but since discharged. He is a tall black man and a +dangerous. It standeth upon us to apprehend the whole sort that here +congregate together. They will make resistance and you will defend +yourselves, but for the rest I have it in my authority that no blood be +wasted needlessly. A live captive may prove useful; a dead villain is +nothing worth. The password is <I>At last</I>. Set on." +</P> + +<P> +Idonia had half risen from her place; she watched the retreating men as +they filed along towards the Inn. +</P> + +<P> +"I must warn him," she cried impetuously, and had clambered on to the +turf path ere I could let her. +</P> + +<P> +"What madness is this?" I urged, aghast. "You would yourself be +arrested or ever you could get sight of that devil." +</P> + +<P> +"Devil or no," she panted, while she struggled to unclasp my +restraining arms, "devil or no, he is my guardian. Denis, I cannot +stand by idle and see him taken." +</P> + +<P> +"Sweetheart," I entreated her, "you can do nought, indeed. They be all +armed men..." +</P> + +<P> +"Hinder me no more!" +</P> + +<P> +"Idonia!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, it is cowardly, cowardly!" +</P> + +<P> +"Listen," I said, appealing. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, Denis, let me not thus, or you will kill me.... See! they are +close to the house already. A little while and..." Her voice rose to +a scream of absolute terror that I vainly sought to stifle against my +heart. She flung her head back; her hair, shaken from the filet and +caught by the wind, streamed betwixt us like a cloud. We stood long +thus. +</P> + +<P> +"Loose my wrists," she whispered, "or I shall grow to hate you, Denis!" +and methought there went a sort of awe with the words. I let her go, +when suddenly, with a sob, she dropped down unresisting into my arms. +</P> + +<P> +I knew she had spoken under the stress of her disorder, but none the +less her words hurt me like a lash. It had revolted me to use my +strength upon her, although in love, and to hold her so straitly +against her will, who but a moment before had been leaning in free +confidence beside me. The wind and rain were now increased to such a +pitch as I have scarce known: the dim bulk of the Inn hung in a mist of +swinging vapour, through which the glimmer of the one light aloft, +shining, touched the edges of the slanted pikes. +</P> + +<P> +Idonia was plucking weakly at my sleeve. Her eyes were pitifully big. +"You look distressed, Denis," she said, in a crazed dull voice. "Why +do you look so stern and sad? We are together.... I forget how I got +away, but that does not matter now, does it? Some one was holding me +by the wrist and hurting me. I cried out, and you came. You always +come when they would be hurting me.... It is very cold," she shivered, +and drew down more closely within my arms; all wet as her cheek was, +its fever heat burnt through to my bosom. +</P> + +<P> +"You cannot walk," I said: "I will carry you." But all the while I was +thinking: "Is her reason gone?" +</P> + +<P> +"Whither, Denis? To the Inn? It would be warm there, out of the wind." +</P> + +<P> +"God forbid!" I answered her. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! no ... I remember now. He is there.... His yellow face, and his +eyes when he gave me the jar to keep! ... Denis, Denis, Denis..." +</P> + +<P> +And so, without any further effort to beat off the oppression in her +brain and blood, she fell away into a long swoon: so long, indeed, that +I had almost despaired of reviving her, when I bethought me of the Inn, +to which she had hoped I was about to bear her. There would be strong +cordial wine in the vault, I knew; and a cordial she needed instantly. +I might quickly go and return again with the wine—if the vent were but +open. +</P> + +<P> +The Inn was scarce ten score paces distant. There was some risk, +perhaps, but not great: less, surely, than I took, kneeling helpless +beside her in the bitter storm. I bent over her and kissed her +passionately on her eyes and lips and brow; and then I hastened away. +</P> + +<P> +Had I known the upshot then, I would rather have lost my right hand +than leave her; but that was in God's mercy hid.... +</P> + +<P> +To speak my bottom thought, I had hardly dared to hope that the shutter +were still unhasped: but yet it was, and yielded easily to my touch. I +felt a strange tightening of the throat as I pushed it back and leapt +astride the sill. The vault below me was wholly dark. Without more +ado I swung myself in. I missed my footing, fell, and lay stunned. +</P> + +<P> +How long a while elapsed ere I recovered consciousness I know not, nor +yet how long I remained in that intermediate state where things outward +be still denied for real. A confusion of sounds assailed my aching +brain, from which I recked not to gather any purpose or tendency. But +at length, my head having somewhat cleared, I recalled my situation, +where I was in the narrow passage-vault; and soon perceived that the +sounds I had heard were those of men in earnest conference within one +of the vaults adjacent, that had formerly been barred. The lamp which +had lighted the passage had been removed, and from the pale ray that +issued from the chink of the door, I saw it was now used for their +purposes who spoke together beyond. +</P> + +<P> +Without, the storm raged very furiously, so that there were times when +I could hear nought else; but otherwhiles, whatever snatches of debate +I overheard they went always to the continuous deep second of the wind. +Some instinct of security held me silent, and after a little I dragged +myself painfully along the stone floor, until I had my ear at the +chink. The halberdiers were certainly not of the party; they had +either not yet entered, or else had come and, failing to discover these +men's place of concealment, had gone. A man was speaking; a jovial +rough voice it was, interrupted now and again by careless laughter. +</P> + +<P> +"You mind me of that tale of the two robbers," said the fellow, and I +heard the clink of a cup set down, "that were engaged to set upon a +certain Canon who should pass through the wood they lurked within. Now +a passenger approaching, the one was for killing him out of hand, but +his companion, being something scrupulous, would not, but bade him stay +his hand until the man should sing. +</P> + +<P> +"'I care not a jot how he sing,' says the Captain-robber. +</P> + +<P> +"'Nay, by his singing I can tell in a trice whether he be a canon or +no,' says the robber-squire. +</P> + +<P> +"By this the passenger was got free of their ambush and into a place +where two sheriff's men met him, at which he swore for mere joy. +</P> + +<P> +"'I would he had sung,' says the squire. +</P> + +<P> +"'Go to, buffle-head!' cries the other in a great rage, 'for by his +swearing I know him for the Father Abbot himself, and better your +squealing Canon, by how much noon-sun surpasses candle-light.'" +</P> + +<P> +A round of hoarse merriment went to this shrewd apologue, of which I +was yet to learn the application; but waited not long for it. +</P> + +<P> +"So then, Cutts, 'hold to that you have,' is your advice, trow?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, abbot or traitor, or barndoor fowl," replied Cutts (who was none +other, I found, than he that had fled away from Dunster so long since); +"'truss and lay by,' says the housewife." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you have me trussed already," said a mild voice, that for all +its stillness overbore the murmurs which greeted Cutts his policy; and +at the sound of it I caught in my breath, for 'twas my uncle that +spoke, and by his words I knew they had him bound. +</P> + +<P> +"I am not in case to do you harm, as a traitor, nor yet to benefit you +as an abbot," my uncle proceeded very coolly. "But if it seem good to +your worships to restore me my freedom, I have my proofs of innocence +at hand to show to any that professes to doubt my faith." +</P> + +<P> +"Too late for that, Master Skene," said another. +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, Captain Spurrier, say you so?" returned my uncle, with a little +menacing thrill in the sweet of his voice. "I had thought you that use +the sea knew that one must luff and tack upon occasion. Delay is +sometimes necessary, when haste would mean sudden shipwreck. Wherefore +then do you say I speak too late?" +</P> + +<P> +"Where is Malpas?" cried Captain Spurrier, and by the grating of a +chair I perceived he had started to his feet. +</P> + +<P> +"I had thought to meet him here," said my uncle. "Our design stays for +him." +</P> + +<P> +There was a dead pause at that, and I could not but admire the +fortitude with which the baited man met and countered his opposites. +</P> + +<P> +"He denounced you to this council, ere he went forth," said that subtle +voice of the tavern-server, "and upon such positive testimony as we +could not but allow it. If any lead this enterprise it is Malpas, and +not thou, old fox." +</P> + +<P> +"So thou use better terms, friend Jocelin," said Cleeve, "it shall not +be amiss, nor yet if thou answer me why it was I returned freely hither +amongst you all? Had I aught to gain from you? But rather had I not +all to lose? There is a warrant out against me on the Queen's part; +had I not done wisely, being so disguised as no man might know me, to +avoid this suspected house? Yet I returned. Our ship is to sail +to-morrow. Captain Spurrier is here in his place. What lacks of our +engagement? What hath gone untowardly? Is it Malpas his failure? I +ask of you in my turn, where is Malpas? Is it not strange that upon +such a night he should not be here to bear his part, as I do, and Lucas +Spurrier and Jocelin, and the rest? I say there is something I like +not in this defection; but yet it fears me not. Let them that be +faint-hearted stay away; this enterprise is not for cowards. Do you +lack a leader? You trusted me once. Malpas trusted me, for all he +cozened you into a belief that he did not so; but he is gone." He +paused, and then with so strangely intense a malignancy as, despite my +knowledge, I could scarce credit that 'twas assumed, he added: "Would +that I knew whither Guido Malpas hath gone, and what to do!" +</P> + +<P> +There was such clamour of contrary opinions, oaths and hot argument, +when he had done, that I could not tell how it went, but gradually +conceived the opinion that they believed him and were about to set him +free, when, to my utter dismay, I heard the door at the stairhead open +and heavy steps descend to the passage where I lay concealed. I +crouched down on the instant, but dared not move from the place, nor +indeed had the opportunity to retreat by one step, when the men were +already in the room; but so dark it was I could not see their arms (for +I doubted nothing of their being the halberdiers) nor their numbers +that entered. They set the door open of the inner vault and trooped in +upon the conspirators. +</P> + +<P> +I saw them now. They were men that bore a body. The tide had set in +again. The boat with its burden had returned upon the flood. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap22"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +HOW MY UNCLE BOTOLPH LOST HIS LUCK +</H4> + +<P> +The tide had turned. The river had given up its dead. There was no +appeal from this distorted corpse, smirched with yellow so about the +throat and breast, where my uncle's painted hands had gripped him. +Wedged deep in the dead man's heart (I heard it said) a certain +significant shred of blue silk was found that had been drawn in by the +swinging blade, and torn from the murderer's sleeve.... After that +there needed nothing more, and my uncle's luck, which a moment since +had trembled to its apogee, shot downward like a portent star. +</P> + +<P> +My pretence to write calmly of the sequel, to use the ordinary speech +of every day, I support not as purposing to deceive, for it would +deceive none, but rather as impelled thereto, lest writing as I feel +(even yet after so long an interval) I should seem to set down frenzy +itself in character, and illegible wild words. +</P> + +<P> +But I may at least report my uncle's apology, as above the clamour I +caught the most of it; and here affirm that, lying infamous villain as +he was, yet so consummate a dignity did mark his every motion, and as +it were attended upon all the situations in which he stood, as enforced +respect of those even who knew him altogether base. +</P> + +<P> +His judges had found against him to a man. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, you have it," said he in his cold clear voice, "and are +content enough this Malpas should have died, so you bring me in his +slayer. You little men! I found a scorpion in my path and trampled on +him; that's the sum of my offending. Or is it not? Nay, I had forgot +the chief; that I would not betray my country, as you petty thieves +would have done, and thought I did. What will you get of the +Spaniards, prythee? Money, honours or what? Will those creeping +Jesuits bestead you? Oh, you have their pledged words! I had as much. +More; for I had their secret plans of conquest; their Enterprise of +England forsooth! as they sat gnawing their crusts in my hall. There +was to be an universal uprising of Papists, they told me; mutinies of +the Queen's troops, and such; baubles of a fool! +</P> + +<P> +"I have had my laugh, you scum, and I have lost. Well, then, what you +shall hear may hearten you belike, and move you to laughter. If I have +not been a traitor all this while, how have I been employed? Not +having abetted their designs, why did I entertain these strangers? Let +this example stand: there was the envoy Spurrier brought in, Don +Florida of Seville, a fine bold gentleman and apt to lead a squadron of +such orts as ye. He laid his plans before me openly. So, I took him +by the throat and strangled him." +</P> + +<P> +I make no attempt to describe the tumult of their rage who heard him; +sufficient, that it passed. +</P> + +<P> +"He was not singular in this business," the prisoner continued, "though +he was perhaps the properest man. But what a nasty sort of spies I had +in charge! I swear I think no starved lazar of Spain but was judged +fit enough to come ambassador among us, and parcel out our land; and +all the while you stood by grinning: When we be altogether conquered, +ran your thoughts, we shall each get his share! Eh, you jolthead +hucksters, was it to be so? +</P> + +<P> +"But I was your leader, and that was where I had my laugh. For no +single one of those you gave me into my keeping did I fail to slay save +only that poor crazed Courcy whom the soldiers robbed me of, and some +that the Council took alive. The residue you may reckon at your +leisure; they lie rotting in two fathom of Thames water, 'twixt the +Customers Quay and the Galley, ay, rotten as their cause.... +</P> + +<P> +"It were a pretty thought now that I should crave a favour at the +Queen's hands for stout work done in her cause, though secretly; ay, +and I would do it, but for two or three considerations that something +hinder me; namely, that my life otherwise hath not been altogether +law-worthy. And, moreover, there is these bonds, that, being I confess +very workmanlike bound upon me, render my present access to Her Majesty +less easy than I could wish; so that I doubt my defence of her realm +shall go unrewarded.... +</P> + +<P> +"In such a company as this there is sure one clergyman. Let him shrive +me, for I am not at all points ready to die.... Well, level your +pieces and be done with it. I care not how soon. Foh! but you handle +your weapons awkwardly; I should be ashamed, were I still your +leader.... How—what is that?" +</P> + +<P> +I had heard it too. "It is the soldiers come," I said to myself, and +strained my ears to listen for a renewal of the sound. Within the room +all expected in a sudden silence what should ensue. It came again; a +dull noise as of men that rammed at the door with a heavy beam. +</P> + +<P> +"I had thought they had gone," said one, in a thick voice. +</P> + +<P> +"'Twas a fetch of theirs." +</P> + +<P> +"The cellar door is strong," said the tapster Jocelin, but without +confidence. "It will last." +</P> + +<P> +"Until what time?" asked my uncle, mocking them. "And then, whence +will you escape, you rats?" +</P> + +<P> +One had blown out the light at the first alarm, and they conferred in +the absolute dark. +</P> + +<P> +"Ha!" cried Jocelin at that taunt of the prisoner's, and with a +squealing note of triumph, "there is the new door in the sea-wall to +escape by," and scrambling through their midst to the cellar door, he +bade his comrades follow him forth. But at the door he stayed, as of +necessity he must; for 'twas locked, and I that had locked it was +within the room now, in the dark, with the key in my pocket. I had +scarce time to slip aside, ere the next man had flung Jocelin by for a +bungler, and the third trampled him down. Over his prostrate body the +rest passed surging. Knives were out, for all had run distraught at +this unlooked-for prevention. Treachery by each suspected was by every +hand revenged. I heard the sobbing of stricken men, as I felt my way +along the wall to the place where my uncle sat yet pinioned to his +chair. And all this while the daunting clangour continued, as of a +giant's mallet beating on the door; nay, even upon the stones of the +wall, for the whole room shivered and rocked to the hideous repeated +sound. +</P> + +<P> +I unloosed my uncle, cutting his thongs with a cutlass I had kicked +against and groped after on the floor; a hand still held it, but I got +it free. +</P> + +<P> +"Who is that?" asked my uncle composedly. +</P> + +<P> +"Hist!" I whispered. "I am your nephew, Denis Cleeve." +</P> + +<P> +"You add to my obligations, Mr. Denis," he replied, and stretched +himself. "But how does my good brother the magistrate?" +</P> + +<P> +"Enough of that," I said curtly; "how be we to get forth?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, I supposed you had provided for that," he said in some surprise, +"else I were as well bound as free." +</P> + +<P> +I asked whether he could lay hand on his sword, but he answered, +scoffing, that his enemies had saved him the trouble of using it; and +indeed that bloody unseen strife about the door saved us both for that +while. Presently he drew me a little apart into a corner where, he +said, we might discourse together reasonably and without molestation. +He cleared his voice once or twice ere he made known his mind to me +thus— +</P> + +<P> +"When the soldiers shall break in, as nothing can long withstand such +engines as they have brought to bear, slip you forth, Mr. Denis, and +ascend immediately to a small retired chamber above the stair where my +ward lies, Mistress Avenon. Lay your modesty aside for this once, and +enter. If she wake not, so much the better; as 'tis better she should +know nothing. But I am a fool! for who may sleep on such a night of +hell? Anywise enter, and I will answer for it, she will not repulse +you as she did yon Malpas, the brave lass! +</P> + +<P> +"She hath in keeping a certain jar of mine, Denis, a toy, that +nevertheless I set some value on; this I would have you privily convey +to the house where the Chinese inhabited—I make no question but you +know where it stands. Do this, my dear nephew, and I shall confess +myself every way bound to serve you when I shall come to be +enfranchised of this place; for I myself may not undertake the bearing +off of this jar (it stands in a little cupboard by the bed, Denis, now +I think on't), my dress being not such, as wearing it, I might hope to +escape challenge of the guard, but with you, Denis, 'twill be a mere +frolick adventure." He laid his mouth close to my ear. "Besides, +there is the lass Idonia..." +</P> + +<P> +What more he might have added, I know not, for his beastly greed in so +safeguarding his wealth, and that at my risk, who had delivered him, +sickened me in such sort as I could no longer abide to hear it, but +left him, and going straightway forward into the screaming press about +the door, struck out a path for myself through the midst of them. At +the same moment the hammering without in one peal ended; the half of a +wall fell in, and through the breach thus made came a wavering and +intermittent light. +</P> + +<P> +Unspeakably astonished, I gazed about me, upon the dead and writhing +bodies that lay at my feet thus uncertainly illumined, and upon my +uncle, huddled up in his torn silken robe. But when I had averted my +eyes with a shudder to the breach in the wall, I saw a sight I may +neither forget nor endure the remembrance of; for it seemed to me that +there entered in by that way a figure—inhuman tall, black visaged, and +of a most cruel aspect. Perhaps for the space of a man's counting ten, +he leaned forward through the aperture, regarding us all in that +ghostly dimness, and then, with an equal suddenness, was gone, and the +light with him.... +</P> + +<P> +No one word passed our trembling lips, for all felt the horror of +impending destruction. Only the dying yet moved a little, stirring in +their blood, but even they soon lay still. Meanwhile, through the +great rent in the wall, the wind blew exceeding strong, so that +although at the first we had postponed all thoughts to that one vision +of the giant presence, we now perceived by the direction of the wind +and the saltness of it that it was the river-wall was down, and not (as +in our confusion we had supposed) the inner wall, by which the soldiers +must necessarily have assaulted us. +</P> + +<P> +I am not altogether sure who it was by this means solved the mystery, +but I think it was Captain Spurrier; howbeit we had not endured that +sweeping gale above an half-minute, before some one cried out that the +apparition was nothing else than the carven prow of the <I>Saracen's +Head</I>, that dragging at her moorings by the wharf had run against the +Inn wall and destroyed it; which was presently confirmed by the ship's +again battering us, but broadside, and not head-on as before. For as I +have (I think) already said, the Inn was jutted out to the extreme edge +of the <I>Fair Haven</I> wharf, so that at the high tide there was a +deepness of water sufficient for any ordinary ship to lie alongside and +discharge her cargo upon the quay; the tide mark running a little below +the vault where we were, that else would have been suddenly flooded by +the inflow of water through the broken wall. Beyond measure relieved +that we were besieged by neither soldier nor devil, we could not +restrain our joy, and so by a common impulse moved to be gone, the +whole company of us that yet remained alive and able, ran forward to +the breach, and to the ship's side, having her starboard light to +further us that had formerly so stricken us into dismay. And thus by +this way and that, grasping at whatever projection of blocks and +shrouds lay to our hands, some helping and other hindering our escape, +we had at length all clambered up into the ship, save only that traitor +Cutts, who, upon a sudden lurch of the ship, was crushed betwixt the +bulwark and the wall, and so died. +</P> + +<P> +I looked about for my uncle, and soon found him, leaning over the rail. +</P> + +<P> +"Ha, Denis," said he coolly, "so thou art escaped. I had a notion +'twas thou wert crushed against the wall." +</P> + +<P> +"You mistook then," said I, and might have said more, had not Captain +Spurrier laid a hand upon my collar, the whiles he clapped his pistol +to my uncle's ear, and called out— +</P> + +<P> +"Lay me these men in irons, Attwood. I am master on my own good ship, +if not in that fiends' compter." +</P> + +<P> +We were seized upon instantly and hurried down to the hold, where, +heavily shackled, we were thrown among such stuff as there lay stored. +The vessel rolled horribly, and often drove against the impediments +upon the bank with a dreadful grinding noise, but about morning, as I +supposed, they got her about, and into the stream, where, the tempest +somewhat abating, she rode pretty free, though what course she kept I +could not be certain in, and indeed soon gave over the attempt to +follow their purposes that had us so utterly in their power. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap23"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXIII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE VOYAGE OF THE <I>SARACEN'S HEAD</I> +</H4> + +<P> +Whatever the doubts I may at first have entertained, it was soon enough +abundantly clear that the <I>Saracen's Head</I> was under way toward the +open sea; for from my place in the hold I could hear the shipmen +calling to one another as such and such a landmark or hamlet came into +sight; as the green heights of Greenwich; and Tilbury, where there was +a troop of horse at exercise, the which sight was occasion of a good +deal of rough wit amongst the crew. At the mouth of the Medway we +spoke a great merchant galley that was returned from Venice, and put in +to Rochester for repairs, she having come by some damage in the late +storm. Of the passage of time I soon lost count lying in the dark +bottom of the ship, where was nought to denote those petty accidents by +which we customarily reckon it. So I knew not positively whether +'twere day or night I waked and slept in nor whether we made good +progress or slow. For awhile I tried to keep measure of the hours by +our meals, as it might be three meals to an whole day; but this would +not hold neither, for there was no regularity in the serving of them, +they being brought us quite by haphazard and as they were thought on: +which was seldom enough, and the food so stale and nauseating, as led +me suppose we only received it by afterthought, or in such grudging +contempt as is sometimes termed charity. To do him right, I must allow +that my uncle took this reversal of his fortunes with a perfect +indifference; as no doubt in the like situation my father would have +done, though upon a loftier consideration; but however come by, his +patience shamed me, who could by no means attain thereto, nor I think +did seriously attempt it. My sufferings were indeed very great, and in +that voyage I conceived such a passionate disgust of the sea as hath +caused me to regard it as being (what in fact it is) the element the +nearest to chaos, and therefore the least to be accounted for +perfect—and yet perhaps not altogether the least, for I soon found +myself doubting if a man's stomach were every way a sound device; it +being very certain that mine often fell away into the original +incoherence that all things had before the Creation, or ever I had gone +three leagues from the shore. +</P> + +<P> +No loathing can compare with that a man experienceth at such a time, +when dinner is a greater insult than a blow. And I am ashamed even now +to remember the hate I cherished for the honest mariner that stumbled +down the companion bearing my platter of salt beef; which feeling found +its vent in my imagining a world of tortures for the bearer of the beef +and for all jovial ruddy mariners, and for every shipwright since the +days of Noah. +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless, since into what state soever we come, we be so framed as +by degrees to acquire a sort of habit, if not a content, therein, so it +befell that I also, in due time, from my amazing and profound malady +recovered some fragment of a willingness to live. It might have been +the third or fourth day after, that I ate without such consequences as +I had supposed necessarily incident to the act, and life came to assume +an aspect wherein it stood on favourable terms with sudden death. This +surprised me, seeing that of late I had conceived life to be (at the +best) but a protracted and indefinite dissolution; and I ate again.... +</P> + +<P> +"The devil take you!" I cried to the fellow that had just entered the +hold with a handful of biscuits and a little rundlet of burnt wine. +"What a meal is that to set before starving men?" +</P> + +<P> +"Courage, master," said the mariner with a great laugh, "we be come +within but a few leagues of the Straits, and perhaps shall touch at one +of the Spanish ports, where we may better provision the ship than our +Captain thought it altogether safe to do, the night we set sail." +</P> + +<P> +"And shall we be released then?" I asked eagerly. +</P> + +<P> +The man shrugged up his shoulders with a grin, and for the first time +my uncle, who all these days had lain quite silent in the dark of the +hold, leaned over from his place among the stuff, and thus accosted me— +</P> + +<P> +"Are you so great a fool yet? When the pawn is taken, it is cast +aside, and the game goes on. Teach your mind to expect nothing, and +your tongue to require nothing. There is an hell where they and I +shall meet." He paused a space, and then with an intensity of purpose +that held my blood in the veins: "We shall meet there," he added +slowly, "and shall need all eternity for that we shall there do. 'Tis +the privilege of hell that no enmities be in that place forgot, nor +forgiven." +</P> + +<P> +When the mariner had left us, I asked my uncle what he considered our +fate would be; who answered that, as it had been put into the articles +of the false contract he had made with Spurrier, that offers of help +should be made to the Spaniards, in the which embassage he himself had +promised (though he intended nothing less) to undertake the chiefest +part; so, he being now deposed, it was probable that Spurrier would +take upon him the fulfilment of that office. +</P> + +<P> +"In the which event," he said with great deliberation, "we shall +certainly be given over to those devils, to be clapped up in their +filthy dungeons, or else sent to New Spain, to work in the mines there. +You spoke of a release a little since; there is but one release from +this pass." +</P> + +<P> +We conversed in this strain from time to time; but ordinarily kept +silence. By the running out of a cable, we knew that we were come into +that harbour the seaman spoke of, and momently looked for the trap +above in the deck to be opened, and ourselves to be haled out to our +dooms. A curious sense of unreality came over me in this interval, yet +joined to a minute perception of all that passed, as though I could +actually see the same with my eyes. For I seemed to detect the +departure of our Captain, that went ashore; I heard the rattle of the +oars against the pins as he was rowed off. Later, I understood that he +was returned again, and with him another, whose step upon the deck was +firm and stately. His spurs jangled as he moved. "It is the Governor +of this Port," I said to myself, "and they debate of treason together." +</P> + +<P> +The most of the crew hung about amidships; the principal persons being +upon the quarterdeck, and there remaining a great while. Some little +movement as of men dissatisfied, I noted later; and then there was the +business of the Governor's leaving us, I supposed to consult with +others, his lieutenants, upon the quay. +</P> + +<P> +Presently I was startled by the firing of a cannon, which made our ship +to reel as she would have split, and there was trampling and shouted +words of command. Spurrier's bargain had failed. +</P> + +<P> +"They had best have left it," said my uncle with a sneering laugh, when +he saw how things had gone. "A greedy boastful knave as Spurrier is, +none will be matched with. I know this Governor well, if this place we +be come to be, as I think, Puerto Real. 'Twas his brother I slew, Don +Florida. He would inquire after him, like enough, and wherefore he had +not returned into Spain, to which Spurrier would answer him astray and +then lie to mend it; a paltry bungler as he is! I might have played +this hand through, Denis, had I chosen. But being no traitor I would +not. Well, let them look to their stakes!" +</P> + +<P> +It may appear a strange thing, but 'tis true, that our old animosity +had quite sunk between us and although we used no particular courtesy +in our scanted speech, yet my uncle and I nevertheless found (I +believe) an equal pleasure in our enforced companionship. In the +presence of almost certain death, whether men fear or contemn it, there +is in the mere thought of it a compelling quality that directs the mind +to it only; and where two minds be thus constrained to the same point, +along whatever paths they may have moved, there is of necessity a kind +of sympathy betwixt them, and a resolution of their differences in that +common attent. +</P> + +<P> +Succeeding upon that firing of the great gun there was an immediate +confusion wherein we in our dungeon were wholly forgot. A cannon from +the fort answered our challenge a while after, but by its faintness +'twas easy to suppose we had got a good way out of the harbour and thus +were free from any present danger from a land attack. But whether +there were in the roads gathered any vessels of war that might do us +harm upon the sea we could not conjecture, though it appeared not +altogether likely, or at the least that they were not at all points +prepared upon the sudden to give chase. Our main fear lay in the +probability that, the alarm being given, messengers would be dispatched +to all points of the coast, with particulars given of the rank and +appearance of our ship, in order that, attempting to sail through the +Straits into the Mediterranean or to slip away again northward, we +should be made to answer for our gunnery salute in such sort as would +hardly please us. +</P> + +<P> +But however these considerations affected his two censors in the hold, +Captain Spurrier was evidently nothing moved thereby, who warped his +ship as it were along the very shore with a most insensate impudency +until he had her within the narrow waters about Gibraltar, where a man +could have slung a stone upon our decks, so nearly did we venture +ourselves into the enemy's power. Nay, a general madness seemed to +have grown to possess the whole crew, so disappointed were they of the +outcome of their late negotiations and proffers of treachery; and no +folly that presented itself to them, but they took it as a drunken man +takes water, feverishly. Thus our cannon were continually being shot +off, not of offence but for the mere show of bravery it put upon us; +and so likewise of defence, there was no order taken nor was any +especial guard kept, so far as we could tell who knew not the watches, +but yet could distinguish well enough the sounds of cups clinking and +of quarrelling and curses. Indeed I doubt whether, at any hour of this +our frenzied voyage, had a cock-boat of resolute men put out to +intercept us, we should not have been made prize of, before we were +aware that opposition was so much as offered. +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile we in our chains were, as I say, left undisturbed; and +as hour after hour went by the hunger we suffered increased so that I +think another day of such absolute privation, and of the burning thirst +that went with it, would have ended our business altogether. Yet it +was to this incredible affliction we owed our resolution to get free, +come what would thereafter. +</P> + +<P> +I must have fallen into some raving speech, that served to make +manifest to my uncle the abject condition I was in, for before I knew +of it, he had dragged himself over to me, and with his skeleton fingers +had loosened the band at my throat and chafed my hands together between +his own. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, let me die," I cried fiercely. +</P> + +<P> +"You are like to," said he, without the least resentment; "but if you +will take the advice I shall give, you will either notably increase +your chances of it, or else will get what is hardly less to be desired, +I mean food." +</P> + +<P> +Too faint to demand what he intended by that, I lay still, careless +whether he made his purpose clear or not. +</P> + +<P> +"Seeing that we cannot get off our irons," he went on, "we must eat or +die, bound. Now I believe that it is night and most of the crew drunk. +If it be so, we shall get food enough and perhaps our freedom too. If +it be not so, you shall have your will presently and die; for it is you +who must go above, Denis, seeing I cannot do so, that have my ankle +broke with this cursed chain." +</P> + +<P> +I got upon my feet, all confused as I was and sick with famine; but his +greater courage moved me to obey him in this if I could, though I +expected but little good of it. +</P> + +<P> +"They will hear my chains," I said. +</P> + +<P> +"I will muffle them," he replied, and tore off three or four strips of +his silken coat that he yet wore, and with them wrapped up the links in +such sort as I should move along without noise, though still heavily. +After that I left him, going up the ladder to the trap in the roof of +the hold, which none had troubled to make fast, knowing, or at least +believing, that we were safe enough in our shackles, without further +precaution taken. +</P> + +<P> +It was indeed night, as my uncle had supposed; and such a night as +seemeth to lift a man out of his present estate, so limited and beat +upon by misfortunes, and to touch his lips with a savour of things +divine. There is a liberation in the wide spaces of the night, and a +glory unrevealed by any day. +</P> + +<P> +I stood awhile where I was upon the deck, simply breathing in the cool +air and taking no thought for my safety. A gunner lay beside his gun, +asleep with his head upon the carriage; I could have touched him with +my outstretched arm.... +</P> + +<P> +I looked about me. We were riding at anchor in a little bay that from +the aspect of the stars I took to be upon the Moorish side of the +Straits: an opinion that became certainty when I gradually made out the +form of that huge rock of Gibraltar to the northward and the +mountainous promontory which lieth thereabout. There was no wind at +all, which something excused the slack seamanship that was used amongst +us, and in this principally showed, that our sails were but some of +them furled up, although we rode at anchor; and the rest of them hung +flat upon the yards. The moon had not risen, or was already set, but +there was that soft diffused pallor of the stars by which, after +awhile, I could see very well. In the general negligence the ship's +lanterns were left unlit, but the gunner had one beside him, and also +(what imported me more to find) a few broken morsels of bread. To +carry these and the lantern down to the hold was my next concern, and +was happily effected; but I judged my enterprise incomplete until I had +got wine, or at least water, to wash it down, for even less to be +supported than our hunger was our horrible scorching thirst. +</P> + +<P> +Now, how I should have fared in my quest of that commodity I know not, +seeing I did not proceed further in it than just so far as the +prostrate gunner, whose leg in passing I chanced to touch and so woke +him. He raised himself on his elbow, grumbling that he was +o'er-watched, and would stand sentinel no more for all the Moors in +Barbary. Upon the impulse I fell upon and grappled with him, managing +the chain betwixt my wrists so that I had his neck in a loop of it, +upon which I pulled until his eyes and mouth were wide and the blood +pouring from his nose. Gradually I slackened my hold to let him +breathe, for he was pretty far gone. +</P> + +<P> +"You must knock off my irons," I whispered, "or else I will strangle +you outright," and made as if to begin again. +</P> + +<P> +He was beyond speech, but made signs he would do it, and implored me +with his eyes to desist. Then he made me to understand that his tools +were abaft in the gunroom, so that I was fain to follow him thither, or +rather to go beside him with my arms about his neck like a dear friend. +We encountered some dozen men in the way, but all sleeping, save one +that I made my captive put to silence, which he did very properly and +workmanlike. +</P> + +<P> +Not to be tedious in this matter, I say that at length I stood free; +for the which enfranchisement when my man had perfected it, perceiving +that he was like to be called in question, he fell on his knees before +me and besought me to let him escape with me. +</P> + +<P> +"I have had pity of you many a time," he cried, "when, but for me, you +must have starved;" which was indeed true, he being the bluff ruddy +fellow that had brought us our meals from time to time. +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless I would not altogether promise to do as he wished, but +commanded him first to fetch drink and more food to my uncle, and to me +too; which when he had done, I told him we would at our leisure +consider of the success. +</P> + +<P> +"At your leisure, quotha!" cried the man, whose name was Attwood (a +Midland man and a famous forger of iron as I found). "'Twill be but an +hour ere the sun rise." +</P> + +<P> +"Whither are we bound?" I demanded. +</P> + +<P> +"To some port of Italy," he replied, "or Sicily, as I think. But upon +our voyage it is intended to snap up whatever craft we shall encounter +and may not be able to withstand us; at which trade, if it prosper, it +is purposed we shall continue, and perhaps join with others that do the +like. And to this course our Captain is principally moved by one, a +rascal Greek, that affecteth to have knowledge of a certain stronghold +and harbourage in an island to the northward of Sicily, where he saith +he is acquainted with a notable commander of armed galleys that should +welcome our adherence." +</P> + +<P> +"Bring forth our supper therefore, Master Attwood," said I, "for if not +now, I see not when we shall eat it." +</P> + +<P> +We ate and drank very heartily together; for we made Attwood of the +company, who knocked off my uncle's chains and bound his ankle very +deftly betwixt two battens to set it. Our conversation was naturally +upon what should be our means of escape, which would have been settled +out of hand had it not been for my uncle's broken bone that prevented +his swimming ashore as else we might have done; for our cock-boat had +been lost at the start in the gale, and we had nothing of which to make +a raft, or at least none we could get loose without risk of alarming +the crew. +</P> + +<P> +But as was usual my uncle gave the word by which we were ready to +abide, and that was that I should swim to shore alone and seize upon +one of the boats that would certainly be to be found drawn up on the +sands (for we lay close under the shore), and with this returning with +all dispatch, take them off that awaited me. Accordingly, I let myself +down by the side, Attwood assisting me, and swam toward the shore. But +scarce had I set foot upon it, when I saw a long boat, filled with a +troop of half-naked Moors, that rowed out from beyond the point and +aimed directly for the vessel I had left. +</P> + +<P> +Without any other thought but to save them if I could, I shouted to +Attwood that they were threatened by the Moors, and the distance being +as I say but small betwixt us, he heard me, and ran to his cannon. But +the stir he made aroused two or three of the mariners, so that soon all +stood upon their guard to defend themselves. The Captain ordered the +gunner to lay to his piece and sink the enemy, but they got away in the +dark, and so nothing was done. However, the Captain, who was greatly +affrighted by this accident, called out to them to weigh anchor, for he +would presently be gone; and about sunrise, a wind springing up, he +loosed from his moorings and made away eastward under all sail. +</P> + +<P> +Now, if it be admired why I neither returned to the ship, rather than +remain alone in this barbarous unknown country, nor yet extended a +finger to help my uncle and Attwood to their freedom, I must answer +that it was because I could not. For I had not stood above three +minutes upon that starlit shore, ere I was seized by two Moors, that +carried me with them to a rough hutch of skins they had hard by the +quay. And here they told me, by signs, I must await their king and by +him be judged for my swimming ashore in the night; which manner of +reaching the country was, I understood, as well open to suspicion as a +notable infraction of the rights of the licensed ferrymen. They seemed +to be honest fellows enough, and except that they kept me in pretty +close ward in the tent, treated me, in all else, very well. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap24"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXIV +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE TEMPLE BENEATH THE WATERS +</H4> + +<P> +Now, had I but had the luck to know it, my two captors were themselves +of this guild of the ferrymen whose rights they so stoutly stood by; +and I could have obtained my freedom at any hour of the night for +two-pence: the statutory passage money of which I had unwittingly +defrauded them. But upon this twopence saved were to depend many +events I could well have spared, together, too, with much I yet thank +Heaven for; so small a matter doth our fate require (as a rudder) to +steer us by along what course she will.... +</P> + +<P> +The sun came up, as I say, in a little fresh scud of wind, and athwart +the golden dancing waters went the good ship the <I>Saracen's Head</I>, fair +and free; while I, her supercargo, remained behind in this +evil-smelling tent of half-naked and infidel Moors; cursing the +mischance that had led me thither, and altogether discouraged. +</P> + +<P> +The thought of Idonia, that amid all the distractions of my late +captivity on board the ship had been predominant over all, affected me +more than ever now, as I sat in this pure light of dawn, in a perfect +silence save for the little lapping of the waves. I remembered the +wild look of love that her eyes had held, when she said: "Free, oh, +free!" and: "Denis, Denis, do not let me go!" I caught again the +drooping lassitude of her posture, when, spent by the varying terrors +of the night, she had swooned in my arms. For the thousandth time I +reviewed the dangers that threatened her, the bitter cold of the rain, +insults of the soldiers, her wandering wits and the nearness of the +river. To this was added a fearful burden of doubt whether I should at +all be suffered to return home, to seek her; knowing as I did that not +two or three, but many men that had set foot upon this coast, had been +sold as slaves or slain outright; while others, to escape the seeming +worst, abjuring their faiths (as Nelson the Yeoman's son had done), had +embraced the false religion of this country and by that currish means +gained favour and furtherance in their servitude. It seemed to me a +strange thing, as I sat in this place where all around was peace and +grave silence, that so small an interval might separate me from such +intolerable cruelties as we in England had oftentimes heard tell of as +continually practised by the men of these parts; and I in particular +had listened to this sort of tales, by the mariners of our Company +narrated, when, as I was used, I went to meet them and bring them to +Osborne the Governor. But there is (I find) a surprising declension +from the amusement got by hearing of the customs of other nations, to +that is got by going where they are practised; and I settled it in my +mind at that time (nor have I ever exchanged the opinion) that what +lieth beyond the West Country is of very small account; always +excepting the City of London and the Berkshire downs. +</P> + +<P> +Now when the sun had been risen about an hour, I perceived some stir to +grow in the town, and men to begin going about their daily business. +From the petty harbour I saw a barque or two warping their way out, and +was marvellous surprised when, presently, that great boat that had +rowed, as we all supposed, to the attack of the <I>Saracen's Head</I>, +returned very peaceably to the quayside laden with a fine catch of +fish; by the which it manifestly appeared that they were no robbers, +but a company of Moorish fisherfolk that had gone before daybreak to +cast their seines; and as the sequel showed, to good purpose. +</P> + +<P> +I laughed aloud at the error into which I had fallen, and the more when +I imagined with what consternation these simple men would have received +Master Attwood's cannon shot, had he prosecuted his intention and fired +it. +</P> + +<P> +My two guards looked upon me with some anxiety, when they saw me +laughing in this manner, and spoke together in a low voice; after which +the one of them got up softly and went away. Something perturbed, I +questioned the other man, by signs, that being our only method of +converse, whither it was he went; who answered, similarly, that he was +gone to see if the king were yet awake, and ready to administer justice +in my cause. I should have sought to learn more, had I not chanced to +observe upon one of the ships that lay by the wharf, a flag hauling up, +at which sight I was filled with an excessive joy; for it was the +English flag; and the ship, when I had more particularly noted her, one +of our Turkey Company's merchant vessels, namely, the <I>Happy +Adventure</I>, seventy tons burden and very sound craft. +</P> + +<P> +Leaping to my feet, I made signs to my Moor that these were friends of +mine who would speak for my general probity, and at the same time +offered him three or four pieces of silver (all I had) the better to +enforce my request. +</P> + +<P> +Never have I seen a man so metamorphosed as he, who, expecting at the +utmost to receive his legal two-pence, had suddenly thrust upon him a +handful of crowns. From a petty evader of duties, I became in his eyes +a fountain of generosity, and prince of swimmers. He fell prone on his +face before me in the sand, and covered my shoes with kisses, naming me +in his language his eternal benefactor, the light of his life, the +supporter of his age (or if not these then what you shall please, for I +understood nothing of it all save his cringing and kissing of my toe). +</P> + +<P> +Now while he was thus engaged, his companion returned together with him +they called their king, but was only an ordinary Moor to see to, +extremely fat (which is perhaps a sign of pre-eminence in these parts) +and abominably filthy. He had two curved swords stuck in his waist, +and wore a patched green cloak. +</P> + +<P> +But when he saw who it was approached, my newly purchased friend left +kissing me, and did obeisance to his king, very reverently saluting him +with his hands raised to his forehead; and the king in his turn bade +him, as well as he could for lack of breath, be at peace. Which done, +a long debate ensued among the three of them wherein my gratuity was +displayed and commented upon, with a great show of delight by the Moor, +with astonishment by the king, and with an uncontrolled disappointment +by the Moor that had gone to bring him. By the greedy looks with which +he, and soon the king too, regarded this chiefest feature of the case, +I understood that my acquittal was likely to depend upon the nature of +the evidence (that is the amount of the bribe) I could bring in, to +satisfy my second accuser, and after him the Judge. But satisfy them +in this kind I could not, for as I have said, I had imprudently parted +with my entire wealth to my first accuser, who, as I am assured, would +have been perfectly content with half a groat. The fat king, without +the least disguise, but pointing to my unlucky crown-pieces, told off +upon his fingers the rate at which I might obtain my discharge, while +the ferryman, whom anger seemed to have robbed of speech, convulsively +gripped at the haft of a very dangerous long knife he had, as if to +demonstrate the province of effective law. +</P> + +<P> +What course I might have followed herein I am not careful to imagine; +enough that it was decided for me by one of the ship's company of the +<I>Adventure</I>, who, observing us, came over a little way to see what +should be the occasion of this argument. To him then, without delay, I +dispatched my Moorish friend I had suborned, praying the mariner to +hasten to my assistance. And no sooner did he see the English pieces +in the fellow's hand than he understood it was a countryman of his in +peril, and so called together the rest of his crew, or at least such as +were within hail. A little after, therefore, I was set free, the whole +company coming about me, and thrusting away the poor fat king, that +they told me was but a petty chieftain, of no authority at all, except +that he took the half of the harbour dues; which being a mere pittance, +however, he was fain to eke out the stipend with the selling of sweet +oil and justice, as either was called for. +</P> + +<P> +But when they heard I was employed by the Turkey Company, as they were, +and moreover was acquainted with Sir Edward Osborne, whom every one +greatly honoured, there was no end to their protestations of +friendship; and in especial the master of that voyage, one Captain +Tuchet, offered to carry me with him to England; albeit he must first, +he said, finish his trading in these waters, as he had engaged to do. +</P> + +<P> +I thanked him very heartily for his kindness, and, at his request, +opened with him at large of my imprisonment on board the <I>Saracen's +Head</I>, and of all matters I have above set down, which he heard very +patiently and advised himself of the principal outrages that were +either committed or intended by Spurrier and the rest. He was a short, +squat man, of a very heavy appearance and so dull an eye that I had set +him down for almost a fool before he showed me pretty convincingly that +he was not, but rather of a nature at once astute and undaunted, he +being indeed at all points a commander and worthy of trust. +</P> + +<P> +"So you tell me that these gentlemen purpose to join themselves to a +certain pirate of note," he said, blinking his thick-lidded eyes, as we +leaned over the rail of his high deck. "And where might he be found, +prythee?" +</P> + +<P> +"It was upon some island, as I remember, to the northward of Sicily," I +answered. +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis as I thought then," said he, "and having a part of our cargo to +discharge at Amalfi, we will read our instructions something more +liberally than we be wont to do, and shape our course toward—well, +should we chance to make this island of yours upon the way, there's no +harm done, Master Supercargo;" and he blinked again. +</P> + +<P> +"You will give them chase?" cried I. +</P> + +<P> +"We be men peaceably inclined at all times," replied Tuchet, closing +his eyes altogether, "and I should be sorry if resistance to our +demands led to bloodshed." +</P> + +<P> +"But my uncle..." I said and hesitated. +</P> + +<P> +"Is a reasonable villain by all accounts," replied the Captain, and so +for that while dismissed me. +</P> + +<P> +The news that we were to alter our course in order to the end I have +named, soon spread amongst the crew, who one and all rejoiced at the +prospect of fighting it offered them; that being a luxury not often to +be indulged in upon a merchant ship and therefore the more highly +prized. From the mate I learned that there was an infinite number of +such secret nooks and fastnesses by pirates and desperate thieves +infested, in this sea, and that to any ordinary man it would appear an +absurd thing to attempt, from amongst so many, to discover the +particular refuge that Spurrier might affect. "So that were it not for +some hint we have to go upon, which our Captain thinks sufficient, we +might indeed run far astray; though now, if we do, I shall greatly +admire it." +</P> + +<P> +"Upon what place hath he fixed as likely?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis a little rock among the Æolian Islands," he answered me, "for it +is indeed hardly more than a bare rock. The people name it the Three +Towers, because of certain watch-towers formerly set up against the +Saracens and yet remaining: as you may see them likewise in Amalfi, and +other places too. It hath a fair anchorage and haven and a flat strip +of good land where they used to cultivate vines before the robbers took +the place and killed the islanders. There was a pleasant village there +among the vineyards, and a temple, nigh perfect, of the old heathen +gods. But now all is in ruins, except that those men have retained for +their safeguard, or for the storage of their treasure." +</P> + +<P> +"You seem to know their lurking-place pretty well," said I, with a +smile. +</P> + +<P> +He let the jest pass, it being none to him as I soon learned. +</P> + +<P> +"I should know it, master," he replied, "having lived there, and there +married and had children. 'Twas those devils of pirates drove me forth +... but not my wife. My children they slew in the room where the +wine-press stood. I think if we fall in with that company, sir, by how +much soever their number exceed ours, we shall yet get the better of +them, God helping us." +</P> + +<P> +All that day we held our course eastward, with a pretty strong wind +following, so that we had got about seventy or eighty miles from the +port by sunset. The night also continuing fair, with lucky weather, we +made a further good progress, by which the Captain hoped, within two or +three days at the most, we should make the Island of Tre Torre (that +is, the Three Towers aforesaid), and therefore set every one to the +preparing of his weapon, and the hauling up of the powder from the +magazine. +</P> + +<P> +For my part, while these preparations were making, I was full of heavy +thoughts, for it must needs be in this imminent battle that my uncle +and I should be opposites, who but lately were become friends. +</P> + +<P> +I doubted indeed whether Spurrier would grant him liberty to fight; but +the alternative was rather to be feared, namely that, unwilling to be +cumbered with the ward of prisoners at such a time, the Captain would +rid himself of him before the fight should begin. But either way I +certainly could not refuse to draw my sword against these pirates +merely because my uncle was kept prisoner by them, and especially since +our quarrel was like to extend to all such robbers as should choose to +take sides with Spurrier against us. It appeared indeed a mad +impossible enterprise we undertook, and had it not been for the extreme +faith all our crew had in Mr. Tuchet, I might perhaps have gone the +length of protesting against the risk we ran. +</P> + +<P> +However I did not, and am glad that I refrained, for no man loveth to +be thought a coward, though some that are not be content to appear so +in a noble cause; which I think is the greatest degree of courage a man +can attain to. +</P> + +<P> +Now, about the fourth morning, when the watch was changed, I being one +of those appointed to serve that turn, we remarked that the sky, which +until then had been quite clear, was now spread over with a thin haze, +such as ordinarily intendeth an excessive heat; and indeed as the day +wore on it became oppressively hot, the vapour remaining the while, or +rather withdrawing to an unusual height, so that there was no mist upon +the waters, but merely a white sky for a blue one. At noonday this +strange whiteness of the heavens became charged with a dull copper +colour particularly to the eastward, and the wind died away suddenly, +leaving us becalmed. +</P> + +<P> +Tuchet summoned the mate to him, to the upper deck, and held him long +in consultation of this mystery, presently calling me too to join them +there, when he put two or three brief questions to me as touching the +rig and burden of the <I>Saracen's Head</I>, which, when I had answered, he +resumed his conference with the mate, jerking his finger impatiently +toward some object far out to sea. +</P> + +<P> +I followed the direction of his finger, and at last perceived right +upon the clear line of the horizon a grey blot, that might have been a +rock or ship, or indeed anything, so great was the distance of it from +us. +</P> + +<P> +"I cannot tell," said the mate; "but I think 'tis not so big." +</P> + +<P> +"Tush!" said the Captain. "Consider it more closely." +</P> + +<P> +Again I strained my eyes for any indication of sail or hull that should +resolve my doubt; but even as I gazed the thing was lost as completely +as though the sea had opened to swallow it. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, 'tis gone!" I cried. +</P> + +<P> +Neither of the men spoke for a while, but after a full half minute the +mate said in a low voice— +</P> + +<P> +"Yonder comes the eagre," meaning, as I learned afterwards, that great +wave that sometimes comes with the high tide, and is otherwise named +the Bore; the cause of it none knoweth certainly, though it is said to +follow upon an uncommon meeting of tides, or else is rolled back by +earthquakes and such-like horrid disturbances and visitations of the +Almighty. +</P> + +<P> +"Strike sail, lads," shouted the Captain, "and close up all hatches; +there's tempest at hand." +</P> + +<P> +We did what we could, but the time was brief enough, so that before we +had well concluded the wave struck us. The ship seemed to be lifted +like a plaything and tossed about as lightly as though a giant had put +forth his hand from the deep and flung us. Three men were washed +overboard at the first assault and our mizzen mast burst asunder, which +falling, grievously hurt one that stood by, who a little after died. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile the calm that had previously held us bound, was exchanged for +a furious hurricane worse almost to withstand than the shock of the +eagre-wave itself. The sky was now as black as night, with great +hurrying clouds urged on as it seemed by the pitiless goad of lightning +that lacerated them as they thundered by. Wave after wave swept over +us as we rose and fell, abject and waterlogged, now lying low in the +lane of waters, now impelled to the summit from which we looked forth +as from a falling tower in whose ruin we were presently to be +involved.... +</P> + +<P> +I cannot relate all that followed, for a spar struck me senseless, and +when I recovered we were riding in an untroubled bay, under a lee +shore. Too sick and weak to question those that stood about me, I +nevertheless could not but note the amazing beauty of the scene. Upon +an eminence a grove of palm trees stood out against the blue of the +sky, while upon the slope of this hill and below it to the water's edge +extended the buildings of a city, dazzling white and magnificently +builded with long arcades and lofty gateways and tiled domes. At first +I supposed we had been carried by the storm backward to that Moorish +port where I was held captive, but soon I perceived that this place +greatly exceeded it in splendour and apparent wealth. The city, in +fact, was Argiers, whither we had been carried wide of our course by +the stress of the storm: but being here our Captain thought fit to make +good our ship that was pretty near stove in. Some nine or ten days in +all we stayed, during which I not only regained my health but took an +infinite pleasure in going about in the town, which was like nothing I +had ever seen or imagined, so white it was, and so strangely supported +upon deep arches that caught the shade at all hours; and having high +towers with balconies, from which a man called these poor infidels to +prayer. The flies were abominable, and the stench incredibly +offensive; but saving these things, Argiers is a good town, and the +people of it (that is, the men, for I saw no women) very grave and +orderly. +</P> + +<P> +Our masts and timbers made good at length, Mr. Tuchet called the crew +aboard, and bade them cast off the hawser that held us, which was soon +done, and we departed. And because of the privilege extended to me and +the favour of the Captain, I left the common seamen and went upon the +deck that the Captain used, who spoke cheerily to me, saying he hoped +we should meet with no more disasters on this voyage. I laughed and +said I hoped not neither, and asked him when he thought we should come +to Amalfi; for it never entered my mind that he would prosecute his old +purpose of going against the pirates. +</P> + +<P> +"To Amalfi?" said Tuchet, scratching his grey stubble beard. "Oh, +about a week hence, Mr. Denis, if we get done with your uncle by +Thursday, as I expect to do." +</P> + +<P> +Nothing deterred him when he had once resolved upon any course, and I +am assured that had we lost half our complement of men and all our +ammunition, he would have gone into it with his fists. The Thursday +then, having doubled the Cape of Marsala, which is the westward point +of Sicily, we came amongst the Æolian Islands to the very hour Tuchet +had named; and towards evening we clearly descried the little rocky +islet of the Three Towers; whereat every man grasped his weapon, and +the gunner ran out his long brass piece. 'Twas no time for the conning +over of moral sentences but rather of rapid silent preparation; yet I +could not but feel the solemnity of this our slowly sailing onward +through the still autumn evening, whose outgoing seemed so sweetly +attuned to that praise for which the Scripture saith it was created, +but which for us meant no more than an unlucky light to shoot by. For, +as more than one stout fellow whispered, our ship having the sun behind +it was a mark for any fool to hit, while we upon our part could +distinguish nought upon that barren rock but the crumbled watch-towers +that crowned it. +</P> + +<P> +Without a word, we stole on. It was dangerous navigation, for there +were said to be sunken reefs to the westward (that is the nearest to us +as we came from the west), where the rock divided into two horns or +spurs, that, jutting out into the sea, enclosed the little parcel of +flat land where the vineyards used to be and the ruined temple. The +harbourage lay a little to the southward behind the right-hand spur I +have noted, and was therefore not yet to be seen; though we, +approaching so closely, must have been perfectly visible to any one +that lay concealed amidst the innumerable lurking-places and caves of +the rock. +</P> + +<P> +The mate, who knew the island but too well, had gone forward, but now +returned to us, that is to Tuchet and me, upon the high deck. His face +was very white. +</P> + +<P> +"The shore hath sunk," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean?" cried Tuchet, turning about sharply. +</P> + +<P> +"Vineyard and all gone; our cottage and the garden where my boys +played.... The eagre hath whelmed them." +</P> + +<P> +"But the wave hath long since receded, man; it cannot be! You have +mistaken the place belike." +</P> + +<P> +"Mistaken!" repeated the mate with a hard laugh. "I tell you the whole +island hath been disturbed; its foundations shaken—Lo, there!" he +cried out. "A whole cliff hath gone down in the earthquake; and there +is driftwood under the headland, of wrecked ships." +</P> + +<P> +And even as he had said, so it was. +</P> + +<P> +For the late upheaval had had its origin in the recesses of this barren +rock, which it had burst open as a robber bursts forth from his ambush, +and loosed that charging hurricane upon the sea. And indeed not this +island of Tre Torre only, but all these islands to the northward of +Sicily be so eaten under by fire, and liable to sudden calamity +therefrom, as none may properly be named habitable, though the most of +them be inhabited in despite of almost constant threatenings, until, as +this place was, they be at length in a night destroyed. +</P> + +<P> +We sailed about the place in our ship, but found no living soul, and +night soon after falling, we were fain to use the shattered remnant of +the pirates' harbour, where we lay till the morning, very sad and +perplexed. +</P> + +<P> +But a great while before full day I rose up alone and went ashore, in +the hope to light upon some vestiges of my uncle, or if not of him, +then of any of that infamous crew of the <I>Saracen's Head</I>. From the +one of the watch-towers that I found to be the least shaken I surveyed +the rock over every part, but could discover nothing more than that we +had before espied, namely, the few broken boards of a ship and spars +strewn about the sweep of ground betwixt the two promontories, and so +descended slowly to where they lay. And having descended but a little +of the broken path that led, as I judged, to the submerged hamlet +amidst the vineyards, I looked out upon the waters of the bay; and on +the sudden, clear beneath them, saw the hamlet, house by house, and the +pergolas of hanging vines. So translucent and untroubled was the water +at that hour that scarce anything the least was hid, but even the grass +between the stones I saw, yet fresh and waving, and the rusted tools +abandoned in the fields. An untended way led further off to the +temple, of which I could dimly perceive the pillars, between which +great silver fish swam in and out, and upon its steps the seaweed +slightly stirred. +</P> + +<P> +But caught in the weed on the steps of the temple I saw a drowned man +lying, and when I had gone down to the edge of the shore, I knew him +for my uncle.... +</P> + +<P> +Of the rest we could find at first no trace at all, but (having sent +down divers into the deep water about the northward headland) we at +length recovered the bodies of Spurrier and Attwood and one or two +beside. When the ship had split, idly trusting to such pieces of the +wreck as they could lay hold of, they had evidently been dashed against +the rock, and so perished. But the prisoner in the hold had been +carried forward, as it seemed, almost into safety, but at the last had +been let slip. There was no hurt upon his body when we raised it, and +the features were unclouded by any premonition of his fate. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap25"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXV +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IW WHICH THE SHIPS OF WAR GO BY AND THE TALE ENDS +</H4> + +<P> +To tell all that befell me ere I set foot in England once more were +scarce less tedious to the reader than it was to me in the happening, +who counted each day for lost until I had got home; which was upon +Christmas Eve; and should prosecute my search for Idonia Avenon. +</P> + +<P> +But so strangely into peace did all my affairs seem to move, after my +uncle's death (as though upon his removal who had every way troubled us +so long, we were come into an unknown liberty and fulfilment of our +hopes), that my search was ended as soon almost as begun, and Idonia +restored to me within an hour of my landing at Wapping Stairs. +</P> + +<P> +'Twas the simplest cause that led me to her, as it was the simplest act +of mere gratitude that I should go at once to the kindly folk on the +Bridge, I mean Gregory Nelson and his wife, to requite them for all +they had done for me and to excuse myself in having gone away from them +so without warning as I did; which must at that time have appeared very +graceless in me and unhandsome. And being thus come to their house, as +I say, who should be in the doorway, as if expressly to greet me +(although she had heard nought of the arrival of the <I>Happy +Adventure</I>), but Idonia herself, sweet lass! and blithe as a carol +burden. 'Twas some while ere we got to relating our histories, but +when Idonia did at length relate her own, I learnt how Nelson's +brother, the yeoman, had found her that dreadful night, lurking about +the precincts of the <I>Fair Haven</I> Inn, nigh distraught with weeping and +the terror of loneliness. He had questioned her straitly of her +purpose in being there, to whom she presently confessed she sought me, +and told him where I was used to lodge, which was in this house upon +London Bridge. And no sooner did the yeoman apprehend the matter, than +he got permission of his captain to leave watching of the Inn, and so +carried her home to his brother's wife, who tenderly cared for her, +until I should return. +</P> + +<P> +"As indeed I never doubted of your doing," said Idonia, her eyes +shining for very pride of this ineffable thing we had entered into +possession of; "though you have been gone a weary great while, dear +heart, and no tidings have I had to comfort me." +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, and mickle tidings you needed, housewife!" interposed the scolding +voice of Madam Nelson, that (good soul) had no notion to leave us two +by ourselves, but burst into whatever room we were in, upon the most +impertinent excuse, as of a mislaid thimble, or a paper of pins, or +else a "Lord! be you here still?" or a "Tell me, Denis, how do the +ladies of Barbary wear their hair?" until I swear I was ready to pitch +her out of the window for a second, but more virtuous, Jezebel. +</P> + +<P> +"Small tidings you needed, I wis," said she, "that turned even silence +to advantage, and the very winds of Heaven to your way of thinking! +'He will be safe in this weather,' would 'a say when 'twas calm; or if +it blew fresh, 'Denis hath no fear of a tempest!' and with such a +fulsome patience of belief, as I think, had she had positive news you +were dead, she would have said you feigned it on purpose to have +leisure to think upon her." +</P> + +<P> +"Had it not been for your own good courage, mother," replied Idonia, +with a run of laughter, "I had often enough desponded. And 'twas you +went to Mr. Osborne for me, as Mr. Nelson did to the Council, to give +account how matters had gone, and to exonerate this long lad of +remissness." +</P> + +<P> +"Tilly vally!" cried the lady. "I exonerate none of your lovers, not +I, that steal away at midnight, to leave their sweethearts weeping by +the shore!" And so, as if blown thence by the strong gust of her +resentment, she was gone from us, ere I could mend her wilful +misconstruction of the part I had been enforced to play. +</P> + +<P> +But that part of captive I was now content enough to continue in for +just so long as Idonia willed, who held me to her, and by a thousand +links bound me, pronouncing my sentence in terms I shall neither ever +forget nor shall I now repeat them. Such sweet words of a maid are not +singular, I think, but rather be common as death; to which for the +first time they give the only right meaning, as of a little ford that +lies in a hollow of the highway of love.... +</P> + +<P> +I told her gently of her guardian's drowning, at which report she +shuddered and turned away her face. But all she said was: "He was a +kind man to me, but otherwise, I fear, very wicked." +</P> + +<P> +We spoke of the Chinese jar, that had contained that great treasure of +diamonds and precious stones my uncle had rent away and stolen from +those he privily slew. Idonia said it had been seized upon by the +party of soldiers that had searched the Inn, and that the Queen had +confiscated it to her own use, as indeed she was accustomed to keep +whatever prizes came into her hands, without scruple of lawful +propriety. "Which was the occasion, I fear, of some sharp passages +betwixt Madam Nelson and her husband," said Idonia, with a smile, "she +being for his boldly demanding them of the Queen's Secretary, as +pertaining to my dowry, but he stoutly dissenting from such a course, +and, I hold, rightly. But in either case I would not have kept them, +knowing as I do how they were come by; and although the loss of them +leaveth us poor." +</P> + +<P> +I was of her mind in that, and said so. However, we were not to be so +poor as we then supposed; for besides the jewels which Her Grace had +possessed herself of, with her slender and capable fingers, there was +afterwards discovered a pretty big sum of money her guardian had laid +up, together with his testament and general devise of all he had to +Idonia Avenon, whom he named his sole heir. This we learned from the +attorney in whose hands as well the money was, as the will, which +himself had drawn; who, upon my solemn attestation, and the witness of +Captain Tuchet, admitted, and procured it to be allowed by the +magistrates, that Botolph Cleeve, the testator, was legally deceased, +and Idonia Avenon, the beneficiary, incontestably alive. And upon our +counting over the sum (we both being notable accountants, as is already +sufficiently known), we found it more by nigh a thousand pounds than my +father had formerly lost by this man whose death now allowed of the +restitution of all. For Idonia would hear of nothing done until my +father should be first paid, and of her own motion made proposal that +we should immediately journey down into Somerset to pay him, in the +which course I concurred with great contentment, for it was already +near upon two years since I had set eyes upon him, and upon our old +home of Combe. +</P> + +<P> +The snow lay somewhat less thickly upon the downs, as we rode over them +past Marlborough and Devizes, than it had done when I set out in the +company of that very warlike scholar, Mr. Jordan, whose campaign I had +seen to be diverted against the books and featherbeds of Baynards +Castle, with so singular a valour and so remote a prospect to be ever +determined. +</P> + +<P> +Idonia was delighted with these great fields, all white and shining, +that we passed over, they being like nothing she had ever seen, she +said, except once, when she had gone with her guardian into Kent, where +he lay one whole winter in hiding, though she did not know wherefore. +</P> + +<P> +By nights it was my custom to request a lodging for Idonia of the +clergyman of the town we rested at, while I myself would lie at the +inn; and by this means I was enabled to renew my pleasant acquaintance +with the Curate of Newbury; who (it will be remembered) had preached +that Philippic sermon against the Papists, and had moreover so +earnestly desired me that I should tell the Archbishop of his adding a +rood of ground to his churchyard. He seemed, methought, a little +dejected when I said I had had none occasion to His Grace, who +therefore remained yet in ignorance of the progress the Church made in +Newbury; but he soon so far forgot his disappointment as to tell me of +an improvement of his tithes-rents, by which he was left with seventeen +shillings to the good at Michaelmas; and with a part of this surplus he +had, he confessed, been tempted to purchase of a pedlar a certain book +in the French tongue called <I>Pantagruel</I>, from which he had derived no +inconsiderable entertainment, albeit joined to some scruples upon the +matters therein treated of, whether they were altogether such as he +should be known to read them. +</P> + +<P> +"However, since none here hath any French but I," said he, "I bethought +me that no public scandal was to be feared, and so read on." +</P> + +<P> +We rode into the little town of Glastonbury, where it lieth under its +strange and conical steep hill, about four o'clock in the afternoon; it +being then, I think, toward the end of January, and clear still +weather. And because it was already dusk I would not proceed further +that day; but in the morning, before daybreak, we proceeded again +forward, going by the ridgeway that, as a viaduct, standeth high above +the levels, then all veiled in chill grey mists. We got into Taunton a +little ere noon, and there baited our horses, being determined to end +our journey before nightfall, which we could not have done except by +this respite. The name of Simon Powell had been so oft upon my lips, +and I had with so many and lively strokes depainted him in conversation +with Idonia, that she had come to know him almost as well as I, and +thus I was hardly astonished when she turned about in her saddle to +gaze after a young man that walked in a meadow a little apart from the +highway as we were entering the hamlet of Tolland, and asked me whether +he were not, as in truth he was, my old companion. +</P> + +<P> +Marvellous glad to meet with Simon after this long interval, I drew +rein and beckoned to him, who, running forward almost at the same +instant, took my hand, gloved as it was, and covered it with kisses. +</P> + +<P> +"How doth my father?" I demanded eagerly, and ere he had concluded his +salutation. +</P> + +<P> +"His worship may mend when he sees you come home," said he gravely, and +by that I saw I was not to indulge too large a hope of his mending. +</P> + +<P> +"I would we were indeed arrived home, Simon," I replied; "but at all +events, this lodging shall soon be exchanged for a better; that is, if +he may yet bear to be moved." +</P> + +<P> +We walked our horses along very slowly, Simon between us as we went, to +whom Idonia addressed herself so kindly that the lad, falling instantly +in love with her, had nearly forgot the principal thing of all he had +to say, which was that Sir Matthew Juke had but at the Christmas +quarter-day past renounced his tenancy of the Court and gone to +Bristol, where he had formed the acquaintance of a merchant-adventurer +that was about to attempt the Northwest passage (as it is named, +although none hath yet found it); and upon this voyage the knight also +was set to go. +</P> + +<P> +"His head is full of the design," said Simon, "so that those about him +fear his wits unsettled, and indeed he spends the better part of every +day poring upon books of navigation, treatises of Sir Humphrey Gilbert +and the like, while his speech is ever of victualling and charts and +ships' logs, but of other things, and even in the Justices' room at the +Sessions, never a word." +</P> + +<P> +"Say you he hath resigned his lease of our house at Combe?" cried I, +interrupting him for the very impatience of my joy; and when I knew he +certainly had so done, struck the spurs into my tired beast and +galloped forward to the Inn. +</P> + +<P> +Of the interval I say nothing, nor of the mutual delight with which my +father and I embraced each other; and afterwards of the bestowal of his +welcome upon Idonia, which he did with that accustomed courtly grace of +his, and bound the maid to him in love by the simple manner of his +doing it. +</P> + +<P> +Within a week, or perhaps a little over, we were all returned to the +Court, where Idonia was at once proclaimed mistress; and a week after +Easter we were married. My father was for giving up to us the great +room, hung about with tapestries, he had always used, but neither +Idonia nor I would allow of it, preferring for our own chamber that +high narrow attic in the tower that had been mine before, and was, +moreover, as wholesome and sweet a place as any man could lead a wife +to, with a rare prospect of meadow and moorland from the window; too, +and away up the deep valley to where it is closed in ascending ranks of +pines. +</P> + +<P> +Here yet we live, Idonia and I: "Idonia of Petty Wales" I have named +her, and Simon is therefore wondrous pleased to suppose some affinity +in her to his wild ancestors, of whom he now tells her, as he formerly +did me, incredible long legends; yet none so out of all compass of +belief as is the story we might have told him, had we chosen, of that +ruinous secret house over against the Galley Quay, where she dwelt so +long, pure and brave, amidst desperate evil men. +</P> + +<P> +Here we live, as I say, Idonia and I, but no longer my father, who +after we had been married but a year, died. Worn out by that lingering +malady of which I have spoken, and having been for so long a while +confined to that poor shelter where, I learned, was to be had the +merest necessaries but nothing to foster his strength, he soon gave +manifest signs that the betterment of his fortune had come too late to +advantage him. To himself it had of necessity been well known, but the +knowledge neither discouraged him at all, nor caused him to exchange +his habitual discourse for those particular sentences that men in such +case will sometimes burden their speech withal. +</P> + +<P> +In Idonia's company he seemed to take an extraordinary quiet pleasure, +and indeed spoke with her (as she afterwards told me) of matters he had +seldom enlarged upon with me, but to which she opened so ready an +apprehension as drew him on from familiar chat to reveal to her the +most cherished speculations of his mind. To me he continued as I +always remember him, using that gentle satire that was a sauce to all +his sayings. He would oftenwhiles question me of the difficulties and +dangers of my sojourn in London, but although he would hear me +attentively, I knew he took small pleasure in tales of tumult and +strife. There was in his nature that touch of woman that, however, is +not womanliness but rather is responsive to the best a woman hath; and +thus it was, in the perfect sympathy that marked his converse with +Idonia, I read, more clearly than I had done in all the years we had +lived together, the measure of his loss in losing his wife, and the +pitiful great need which he endeavoured so continuously, in his +reading, to fill. +</P> + +<P> +I had supposed him to be a complete Stoick, and to have embraced +without reservation the teaching of that famous school; but Idonia, to +whom I spoke of it, told me that it was not altogether so. +</P> + +<P> +"For," she said, "it was but a week since, as we sat together on the +side of the moor yonder, that he repeated to me a sentence of the Roman +Emperor's, whose works he ever carrieth about with him, in which he +bids a wise man expect each day to meet with idle men and fools and +busybodies and arrogant men. But that, your father said, was to bid a +man shut himself up alone in a high tower, whence he should look down +upon his fellows instead of mixing with them and trying to understand +them. Expect rather, he said, to meet each day with honest, kindly +men; in which expectation if you be disappointed, then consider whether +the cause of offence lieth not in you; the other man being full as +likely to be inoffensive as yourself." +</P> + +<P> +Of time he was wont to say, "When one says to you: There is no time +like the present, reply to him that indeed there is no time but the +present: future and past being but as graven figures on a milestone +which a man readeth and passeth upon his road." +</P> + +<P> +"In order to the greatest happiness in this life," he said, "it is well +freely to give to others all they shall require at your hands, being +well assured that they will readily leave you in the enjoyment of that +the only real possession of yours, which is your thoughts." +</P> + +<P> +To Idonia, who once asked him why he had never written down the rules +he lived by, he answered with his grave smile that rules were the false +scent, subtle or obvious, with which the escaping outlaw, thought, +deludes its pursuers, sworn of the law. +</P> + +<P> +But the speech that hath struck the deepest in me was spoken when he +gave Idonia, as he did, that picture of my mother, of whom he said (but +not of himself) that she had known a world of sorrow, and after awhile +added that "he believed ere she died she had found her sorrow fashioned +to a splendid gift." +</P> + +<P> +I accurately remember the last day he lived, in every least accident of +it: the sense of beauty that all things seemed to have above the +ordinary, and the stillness that clung about the Combe. +</P> + +<P> +We had gone up, all three, and old Peter Sprot with us, to a little +coppice of firs upon the moor side, to see a squadron of the Queen's +ships, that went down the Channel under the command of Sir Richard +Grenville, who was lately appointed to survey the defences of the West, +and to marshal the trained bands that had been put into readiness +against the expected, but long delayed, invasion of the Spanish. +</P> + +<P> +Our talk was naturally of war, and the chances we had to withstand so +notable an army as was gathering against us, upon which my father said, +very quiet, that the principal thing was never victory, but the not +being afraid. Later on, as if pursuing a train of thought that this +observation had set him on, he said— +</P> + +<P> +"That which we are accustomed to call the future hath been by the elder +men of all ages generally despaired of, or at the least feared; and I +think it always will be so, for an old man's courage naturally turneth +backward to the past and occupieth itself in enlarging the obstacles +himself hath overcome, which no young man again might do; and this +maketh him fearful, and oftentimes angry too." +</P> + +<P> +He paused there upon Idonia's pointing with her finger to the Admiral +that just then shook out her standard from the mast-head, but presently +proceeded, smiling: "Had England not already a motto to her shield I +would petition the Heralds to subscribe these words beneath it, that in +what estate so ever we be found, we be neither angry nor afraid." +</P> + +<P> +He sat silent after that, and I thought seemed to fetch his breath +something uneasily. However, he lay back against the bole of a fir +awhile as resting himself. +</P> + +<P> +"Of ourselves too," he went on at length, "I would have it written when +we die, not that we did no wrong, for of none may that be said, but +that as we entered into life without knowledge, so we departed from it +without shame. For to be ashamed is to deny." +</P> + +<P> +He closed his eyes then, and we thought slept. But when the ships had +gone by, Peter Sprot touched my arm and pointed to him. He was already +dead. +</P> + +<P> +We bore him down through the golden sunlight, strangely troubled, but I +think, too, filled with the thought of the majesty of such a dying. +And I was glad his end was upon the hills, rather than in the valley; +for life is ever an ascending, or should be, and to its consummation +reacheth with face upturned toward the vehicle of light. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="finis"> +THE END. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Idonia: A Romance of Old London, by +Arthur F. 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Wallis + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Idonia: A Romance of Old London + +Author: Arthur F. Wallis + +Illustrator: Charles E. Brock + +Release Date: October 20, 2010 [EBook #34105] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IDONIA: A ROMANCE OF OLD LONDON *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: The great ledger-book--which I now saw turned to an +engine of our salvation. Chapter XIV] + + + + + +IDONIA: + +A ROMANCE OF OLD LONDON + + +BY + +ARTHUR F. WALLIS + + + + +ILLUSTRATED BY + +CHARLES E. BROCK + + + + +BOSTON + +LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY + +1914 + + + + +_Copyright, 1913_, + +By LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. + + +_All rights reserved_ + + + + +THE COLONIAL PRESS + +C. H. SIMONDS & CO., BOSTON, U. S. A. + + + + +AUTHOR'S NOTE + +The irregular pile of buildings known as Petty Wales, of which +considerable mention is made in this book, formerly stood at the +northeast corner of Thames Street. The chronicler, Stow, writes of +"some large buildings of stone, the ruins whereof do yet remain, but +the first builders and owners of them are worn out of memory. Some are +of opinion ... that this great stone building was sometime the lodging +appointed for the princes of Wales when they repaired to this city, and +that therefore the street, in that part, is called Petty Wales;" and he +further adds: "The merchants of Burdeaux were licensed to build at the +Vintry, strongly with stone, as may yet be seen, and seemeth old though +oft repaired; much more cause have these buildings in Petty Wales ... +to seem old, which, for many years, to wit, since the galleys left +their course of landing there, hath fallen to ruin." It appears to +have been let out for many uses, some disreputable; and a certain +Mother Mampudding (of whom one would like to know more) kept a part of +the house for victualling. + + + + +CONTENTS + + I. IN WHICH I LEARN FOR THE FIRST TIME THAT I HAVE AN UNCLE + II. IN WHICH PTOLEMY PHILPOT COMMENCES HIS STUDY OF THE LATIN + TONGUE + III. HOW A BROTHER, HAVING OFFENDED, WAS FORGIVEN + IV. IN WHICH I SAY FAREWELL THRICE + V. PRINCIPALLY TELLS HOW SIR MATTHEW JUKE WAS CAST AWAY UPON THE + HEBRIDES + VI. HOW THE OLD SCHOLAR AND I CAME TO LONDON + VII. IN WHICH I CONCEIVE A DISLIKE OF AN EARL'S SERVANT AND AN + AFFECTION FOR A MAN OF LAW + VIII. A CHAPTER OF CHEATS + IX. TELLS HOW I CHANGED MY LODGING AND LOST MY MARE + X. HOW I SAW AN ENEMY AT THE WINDOW + XI. IS SUFFICIENT IN THAT IT TELLS OF IDONIA + XII. HOW MR. JORDAN COULD NOT RUN COUNTER TO THE COURSE OF NATURE + XIII. PETTY WALES + XIV. HOW IDONIA TAUGHT ME AND A CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD HOW TO KEEP + BOOKS + XV. IN WHICH I BEGIN TO EARN MY LIVING + XVI. THE SIEGE OF PETTY WALES + XVII. HOW I FOUND AN OLD FRIEND IN A STRANGE PLACE, AND HOW PTOLEMY + RENEWED HIS STUDY OF THE LATIN TONGUE + XVIII. IN WHICH I RECEIVE A COMMISSION AND SUFFER A CHECK + XIX. IN WHICH I COME TO GRIPS WITH MR. MALPAS + XX. THE ADVENTURE OF THE CHINESE JAR + XXI. THE "FAIR HAVEN" OF WAPPING + XXII. HOW MY UNCLE BOTOLPH LOST HIS LUCK + XXIII. THE VOYAGE OF THE _SARACEN'S HEAD_ + XXIV. THE TEMPLE BENEATH THE WATERS + XXV. IN WHICH THE SHIPS OF WAR GO BY AND THE TALE ENDS + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +THE GREAT LEDGER-BOOK--WHICH I NOW SAW + TURNED TO AN ENGINE OF OUR SALVATION . . . _Frontispiece_ + +THE ARGUMENT BETWEEN MR. SKEGS AND PTOLEMY + +MR. JORDAN REGARDED ME VERY MOURNFULLY + +"YOU CANNOT BE IGNORANT THAT THIS AFFAIR IS + LIKE TO END BADLY FOR YOU, MR. DENIS" + + + + +IDONIA + + + +CHAPTER I + +IN WHICH I LEARN FOR THE FIRST TIME THAT I HAVE AN UNCLE + +The first remembrance I hold of my father is of a dark-suited tall man +of an unchanging gravity on all occasions. He had, moreover, a manner +of saying "Ay, ay," which I early came to regard as the prologue to +some definite prohibition; as when I asked him (I being then but a +scrubbed boy) for his great sword, to give it to a crippled soldier at +our gate, who had lost his proper weapon in the foreign wars-- + +"Ay, ay," said my father, nodding his grey head, "so he lost his good +sword, and you would make good the loss with mine. Ay, 'twas a +generous thought of yours, Denis, surely." + +I was for reaching it down forthwith, where it hung by the wall in its +red velvet scabbard, delighted at the pleasure I was to do my bedesman. + +"Go to your chamber, boy," said my father in a voice smaller than +ordinary. + +"But, sir, the sword!" I cried. + +"Ay, the sword," he replied, nodding as before. "But, go warn Simon +Powell that he look to his poultry-lofts. And learn wisdom, Denis, for +you have some need of it, in my judgment." + +The same temperate behaviour he ever showed; granting little, and that +never to prayers, but sometimes upon good reasoning. He seemed to have +put by anger as having no occasion for the use of it, anger being +neither buckler nor broadsword, he would say, but Tom Fool's motley. +This calmness of his, I say, it was I first remember, and it was this +too that put a distance between us; so that I grew from boyhood to nigh +manhood, that is until my eighteenth year, without any clear +understanding of what lay concealed behind his mask of quiet. That he +had a passion for books I soon discovered, and the discovery confirmed +me in the foolish timidity with which I regarded him. For hours +together would he sit in the little high room beyond the hall, his +beard buried in his ruff, while the men awaited his orders to go about +the harvesting, and would read continuously in his great folios: the +Lives of Plutarch, or Plato, or the Stoick Emperor, or other such +works, until the day was gone and all labour lost. I have known our +overseer to swear horrid great oaths when he learned that Master Cleeve +had received a new parcel of books by the carrier, crying out that no +estate would sustain the burden of so much learning so ill applied. + +Our house stood within a steep combe close under the Brendon hills, and +not far from the Channel, by which ships pass to Bristol, and +outward-bound to the open sea. Many a time have I stood on a rise of +ground between the Abbey, whence it is said we take our name of Cleeve, +and the hamlet on the cliff above the seashore, gazing out upon the +brave show of ships with all sails set, the mariners hauling at the +ropes or leaning over the sides of their vessels; and wondered what +rich cargo it was they carried from outlandish ports, until a kind of +pity grew in me for my father in his little room with his rumpled ruff +and his Logick and Physick and Ethick, and his carrier's cart at the +door with Ethick and Physick and Logick over again. + +At such times Simon Powell was often my companion, a lad of a strange +wild spirit, lately come out of Wales across the Channel, and one I +loved for the tales he had to tell of the admirable things that +happened long since in his country, and indeed, he said, lately too. I +cannot call to mind the names of the host of princes that filled his +histories, save Arthur's only; but of their doings, and how they talked +familiarly with beasts and birds, and how they exchanged their proper +shapes at will, and how one of them bade his companions cut off his +head and bear it with them to the White Mount in London; which journey +of theirs continued during fourscore years; of all these marvels I have +still the memory, and of Simon Powell's manner of telling them, which +was very earnest, making one earnest who listened to him. + +For ordinary teaching, that is, in Latin and divinity and arithmetick, +I was sent to one Mr. Jordan, who lived across the combe, in a sort of +hollow half way up the moor beyond, in a little house of but four +rooms, of which two were filled with books, and his bed stood in one of +them. The other two rooms I believe he never entered, which were the +kitchen and the bedchamber. For having dragged his bed, many years +before, into the room where he kept the most of his books, he found it +convenient, as he said, to observe this order ever afterwards; and +being an incredibly idle man, though a great and learned scholar, he +would lie in bed the best part of a summer's day and pluck out book +after book from their shelves, reading them half aloud, and only +interrupting his lecture for extraordinary purposes. My father paid +him handsomely for my tuition, though I learned less from him than I +might have done from a far less learned man. He was very old, and the +common talk was that he had been a clerk in the old Abbey before the +King's Commission closed it. It was therefore strange that he taught +me so little divinity as he did, unless it were that the reading of +many pagan books had somewhat clouded his mind in this particular. For +I am persuaded that for once he spoke of the Christian faith he spoke a +hundred times of Minerva and Apollo, and the whole rout of Atheistical +Deities which we rightly hold in abhorrence. + +My chief occupation, when I was not at school with Mr. Jordan nor on +the hills with Simon, was to go about our estates, which, although they +were not very large, were fair, and on the whole well ordered. Our +steward, for all his distaste of my father's sedentary habit, had a +reverence for him, and said he was a good master, though he would never +be a wealthy one. + +"His worship's brother now," he once said, "who is, I think, one of the +great merchants of London, would make this valley as rich and +prosperous as any the Devon shipmasters have met with beyond the +Western Sea." + +I asked him who was my uncle of whom he spoke, and of whom I heard for +the first time. + +"'Tis Master Botolph Cleeve," he said. "But his worship does not see +him this many a year, nor offer him entertainment since they drew upon +each other in the great hall." + +"Here, in this house!" I cried, for this was all news to me, and +unsuspected. + +"In this house it was, indeed, Master Denis," replied the steward, +"while you were a poor babe not yet two year old. But there be some +things best forgotten," he added quickly, and began to walk towards +where the men were felling an alder tree by the combe-brook. + +"Nay, Peter Sprot," I cried out, detaining him, "tell me all now, for +things cannot be forgotten, save they have first been spoken of." + +He laughed a little at this boyish argument, but would not consent at +that time. Indeed, it was near a year afterwards, and when I had +gained some authority about the estate, that he at length did as I +demanded. + +It was a sweet spring morning (I remember) with a heaven full of big +white clouds come up from the westward over Dunkery on a high wind that +bent the saplings and set the branches in the great woods stirring. We +had gone up the moor, behind Mr. Jordan's house, with the shepherd, to +recover a strayed sheep, which, about an hour before noon, the shepherd +chanced to espy a long way off, dead, and a mob of ravens over her, +buffeted about by the gale. The shepherd immediately ran to the place, +where he beat off the ravens and afterwards took up the carcase on his +shoulders and went down the combe, leaving us twain together. + +"It is not often that he loses any beast," said the steward. "'Tis a +careful man among the flocks, though among the wenches, not so." + +I know not why, but this character of the shepherd put me again in mind +of my uncle Botolph, upon whom I had not thought for a great while. + +"Tell me, Peter Sprot," I said, "how it was my father and my uncle came +to fighting." + +"Nay, they came not so far as to fight," cried the steward, with a +start. + +"But they drew upon each other," said I. + +He sat silent for a little, tugging at his rough hair, as was his wont +when he meditated deeply. + +After awhile, "You never knew your lady mother," he said, in a deep +voice, "so that my tale must lack for that which should be chief of it. +For to all who knew her, the things which befell seemed a part of her +beauty, or rather to issue from it naturally, though, indeed, they were +very terrible. Mr. Denis, it is the stream which runs by the old +course bursts the bridges in time of winter, and down the common ways +that trouble ever comes." + +"But what trouble was in this," I asked, in the pause he made, "that it +were necessary I should have known my mother to comprehend it?" + +"Nay, not the trouble, master," he answered, "for that was manifest to +all. But 'twas her grace and beauty, and her pretty behaviour, that +none who knew not Madam Rachel your mother, may conjure e'en the shadow +of. + +"You were a toward lad at all times," he went on, "and when your +brother was born, though you were scarce turned two, you would be +singing and talking from dawn to dark. Ah! sir, your father did not +keep his book-room then, but would be in the great chamber aloft, with +you and your lady mother and the nurse, laughing at your new-found +words and ditties, and riding you and fondling you--God save us!--as a +man who had never lived till then. + +"'Twas when little Master Hugh came that all changed. For what must 'a +do, but have down Mr. Botolph from London to stand sponsor to him, at +the christening. He came, a fine man, larger than his worship, and +with a manner of bending his brow, which methought betokened a +swiftness of comprehension and an impatience of all he found +displeasing. Indeed, there was little he did not observe, noting it +for correction or betterment. Though a city man and a merchant, Mr. +Botolph had but to cast an eye over this place, and 'Brother,' said he, +'there be some things here ill done or but indifferent well'; and +showed him that the ricks were all drenched and moulded where they +stood, and bade him build them higher up the slope. Master Cleeve took +his advice in good part, for they were friends yet. + +"But within a little while, I know not how, a shadow fell athwart all. +In the farm, matters went amiss, and the weather which had formerly +been fine became foul, with snow falling, though it was come +Eastertide, and all the lambs sickened. The maids whispered of Mr. +Botolph, who had never so much as set eyes on my lady till that time +(she having kept her bed to within a week of the christening), that he +had spoken no word since the hour he saw her in, nor scarce once +stirred from his chamber. His worship, they said, took no heed of this +melancholy in his brother, or rather seemed not to do so, though he +played no longer with you, and had small joy of the infant. But with +Madam Rachel he sat long in chat, cheering her, and talking of what +should be done in due season, and of how he would remove the state +rooms to the upper floor (as was then generally being done elsewhere), +and would build a noble staircase from the old hall; and of many other +such matters as he had in mind. + +"So for a week, and until the eve of the christening, nought could be +called strange, save that Mr. Botolph kept himself apart, and that the +shadow on all men's minds lay cold. I doubt if any slept that night, +for without the wind was high as now it is, and charged with snow. We +could hear the beasts snorting in their stalls and the horses +whinnying. Little do I fear, Master Denis," said the old man, suddenly +breaking off, "but I tell you there was something abroad that night was +not in nature. + +"'Twas about midnight that we heard laughter; your lady mother laughing +in her silver voice, which yet had a sort of mockery in it, and his +worship answering her now and then. After awhile comes he to my room, +where I yet sleep, beyond the armoury. + +"'Peter,' he says, 'hast seen my brother Botolph?' + +"I told him no, but that I supposed he was in the guest-room down the +long corridor. + +"'Madam Cleeve cannot sleep,' says he again, 'thinking that he is out +in the storm, and would have us seek him.' + +"I lit a candle at this, for we had spoken in the dark hitherto, and +when it had burned up, I saw his worship dressed and with his boots on. +His sword he held naked in his hand, and with his other hand he would +press upon his brow as one whose mind is dull. The gale nearly blew +out the candle the while I dressed myself, and again we listened to the +noises without. + +"I took a staff from behind the door. + +"'Whither shall we go?' he asked me. + +"'Surely to his room, first of all,' said I, 'for it is likely that my +lady is deceived.' + +"'I think so,' he said gravely, and we went upstairs. + +"Without summoning him, Mr. Cleeve opened the doors of his brother's +chamber, and at once started back. + +"'He is not within,' he said, in a low voice, and neither of us spoke +nor even moved forward to search the room thoroughly. It was very +manifest to us that the shadow under which we had been moving for many +days was now to lift; and the certainty that it would lift upon black +terror held us in a sort of trance. + +"I am not of a ready wit at most times, Mr. Denis, but somehow without +the use of wit, and almost upon instinct I said: 'Go you again to your +own chamber, master, and if all be well there, be pleased to meet me +below in the great hall,' and with that, hastening away, I left him. + +"I ran at once to the stair, which has a window overlooking the base +court; and as I ran methought the sound I had heard before of horses +whinnying, was strangely clear and loud, they being safe in stable long +since and the door shut. The candle which I still bore just then a +gust of wind extinguished, so that I could scarce find my way to the +window, so black was all, and I so distraught. But once there, I +needed not to look a second time, for down below in the snow of the +yard stood a great coach with four sturdy hackneys that kicked and +whinny'd to be gone. 'Twas so dark I could distinguish nought else, +yet I continued to stand and stare like a fool until on a sudden I +heard another sound of steel clashing, which sent my blood to my heart, +and a prayer for God's pity to my lips. + +"It was in the hall I found them, my master and Mr. Botolph; he cloaked +as for a journey; and beyond, swooning by the fire which had not yet +burned out, but threw a dull light along the floor, Madam Rachel, your +mother. + +"Not many passes had they made, as I think, when I came between them. +And indeed they did not resist me, for your father turned away at once, +striding across the red floor to my lady, while Mr. Botolph, with just +a sob of breath between his teeth, stole off, and as I suppose by the +coach, which we heard wheel about and clatter up the yard. I got me to +my cold bed then, Mr. Denis, leaving my master and mistress together. +It was the chill she took that cruel night which became a fever +suddenly, and of that she died, poor lady, and at the same time the +infant died too." + +He twitched his rough sheepskin coat about him as he concluded his +tale, for the sky was gathering to a head of tempest, and after a +little while we went down the moor towards the combe where the great +house lay in which I had been born, and where, as I knew, my father at +this moment was sitting solitary over some ancient folio, in the +endless endeavour after that should stead him in his battle with the +past. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +IN WHICH PTOLEMY PHILPOT COMMENCES HIS STUDY OF THE LATIN TONGUE + +It is, I conceive, natural in a young man to use more time than wisdom +in the building of hopes which be little else than dreams, though they +appear then more solid than gross reality. Thus I, in laying out my +future, saw all as clear as our own park-lands, and where I misliked +anything there I altered, working with a free hand, until the aspect of +my condition was at all points to my taste, and I itched to enter +forthwith into the manhood I had so diligently imagined. + +Unwittingly, perhaps, I had allowed Simon Powell's tales of fantasy to +get the mastery of my mind, and in such sort that no prince of all his +mountains ever marched so lightly from adventure to adventure, nor came +off with so much grace and so acclaimed as I. My life (I told myself) +was to borrow no whit of my father's aversion from the world, which +disposition of his, for all my pity of the cause of it, I could not +find it in my heart to praise. Alas! I was but nineteen years of my +age, and pride was strong within me, and the lust of combat. + +With Simon himself I consorted less frequently than of old, for I stood +already in the estate of a master; being acknowledged as such by all, +from Peter Sprot himself to the maids who came into the fields for the +gleaning, and courtsey'd to me as I rode between the stooks on my white +mare. But although I had necessarily become parted from my wild +preceptor, I had, as I say, my mind tutored to dreaming, which but for +Simon might have been dull and content with petty things, whereas it +was with a gay arrogance that I now regarded the ordering of the world, +and held myself ordained a champion to make all well. For this I +hereby thank Simon Powell with all my heart; and indeed it is a benefit +well-nigh inestimable. To such a height then had this humour of +errantry gone, that I would snatch at every occasion to gratify it; and +so would ride forth through the gate before the grey Combe Court, and +setting my mare at a gallop, would traverse the lanes athwart which the +level morning sun cast bars of pale gold and the trees their shadows, +and be up on the wide rolling moors or ever the mists were stirring in +the valley or the labourers risen to their tasks. Many a fancy held my +busy brain at such times, and as I looked backward upon our great +irregular house, which was built, a part of it, in the year of +Agincourt, so quiet it lay amidst its woods and pasture lands that it +seemed a place enchanted, upon which some magician had stolen with a +spell of sleep. 'Twas no home for active men, I said, and laughed as I +turned away and urged my poor jade again onward. Contempt is very +close to joy in a lad's heart, and his valour rouses (like old Rome) to +the summons of the goose-voice within him. + +Some six months had passed since the steward first acquainted me with +the calamity which had made shipwreck of my father's life, when, upon a +memorable, clear, October morning, I rode forth as my custom was, +intending to shape my course towards the little hamlet of Roodwater, +and so by the flats to Dunster. The orchard-trees about the old Abbey +were rimed with frost, and a keenness in the air lifted me so that I +could have wept or sung indifferently. The dawn had scarce broke when +I set out, and 'twas not till I had ridden three or four miles that the +smoky redness of the sun showed between the pine stems on a spur of +hill behind me. My thoughts were all of victory, and in this temper +the events of the time, albeit I am no politician, confirmed me. For +news had reached us a little since of the disclosure of that horrid +plot of Throgmorton and the two Earls against Her Grace and our most +dear Sovereign, and of how sundry suspected persons of high estate were +arrested and confined. The Papists everywhere were said to be in great +confusion, for though many, and some said the most part, were loyal +subjects enough, yet the defection and proved villainy of the rest +shook all faith in those that professed still the old religion and +allegiance to the Pope. The Queen's ships were straitly ordered to +watch the ports, and even as I descended the hill beyond Roodwater to +the seashore, I saw, a little off Watchet Quay, a ship of war riding at +anchor, and a cock-boat pulling away from her side. + +Moreover, it was no great while since, by order of Her Majesty's +Council, that notable Bond of Association had been signed for the +better defence of the Queen, my father signing with the rest, as a +chief person of these parts and a magistrate. + +I am no politician, as I say, but there is small need of knowledge in +State affairs to make a man love his home; and when a plot of the +magnitude which this of Fr. Throgmorton's had, is brought to light, +why, every man is a politician perforce and a soldier too. + +For Queen Mary Stuart, who was now more closely guarded, as indeed was +meet, and who later was to be led to her death, I say nought of her, +for tales be many, and men's minds confused, when it comes to question +of a woman sinning, and that the fairest of them all. That she was +guilty I suppose no one reasonably doubteth, and obnoxious to peace and +good government, but, when all is said, there is the pity of slaying a +delicate lady in order to the securing ourselves; and such a deed makes +quiet a cowardly thing, and puts a colour of shame on justice herself. + +But that business was not come yet by two years and more, and for the +present all our thoughts were of gratitude for our deliverance from the +subtlety of forsworn plotters, and of courage and loyalty and the will +to be feared. + +I spurred my mare down the rough lane, and was soon out upon the level +shore of the bay, beyond which lies Dunster in a fold of steep moor, +and the wooded promontory of Minehead further to the west. The tide +was out as I rode at full gallop along the bow of thin turf which +bounds the coast; while across the reach of sand the little waves +lapped and fretted with a sweet, low sound. + +The sun was now risen pretty high, and the fisher-folk were busied here +and there with their nets and tackle as I passed them by. It was nigh +eight o'clock when I drew rein in Dunster market, before the chief inn +there--a clean place, and of good entertainment. My purpose was +immediately to break my fast, for I had a fierceness of hunger upon me +by reason of the sharp air and the early hour, and afterwards to visit +a certain sea captain whom I knew to be lodged there, Mr. Jonas Cutts, +of the _Three Lanterns_, one of Her Majesty's ships, though but a small +one; he being a gentleman I had met with upon the occasion of my +father's signing the Bond of Defence. What my further purpose was, if +indeed 'twere aught but to hear wonders and talk big about the +Spaniards, I cannot now charge my remembrance, but to him I was +determined to go after breakfast and waste an hour before returning +home. + +I inquired his lodging out, therefore, over my dish of eggs, but +learned to my disappointment that he had left it suddenly, before +daybreak, to join his ship at Minehead, where it lay. This +intelligence, little though it affected me, save as it robbed my +idleness of some plea of purpose, I took ill enough, rating my host +like the angry boy I was, and dispraising the closeness of the ward +upon our coasts, though I had formerly praised the same, and indeed had +meant to enlarge with the captain upon this very theme. + +In a very sour humour then I departed from the inn, and while my mare +was baiting took a turn about the town. + +And so fair did I find all, the high street wide and sweet and the +houses thereon neat and well ordered, the great castle, moreover, on a +mount at the nether end, very fencible and stately builded, that it was +not long ere my spirits rose again, and I thought no more upon Captain +Cutts and his departing. Methought the countryside had never seemed so +pleasant as now under its web of frost, and the trees a kind of blue of +the colour of silver-work tarnished by age, the sky red behind them +reaching up from grey. I left the middle part of the town soon and got +into the lanes, where at length I came by chance upon an ancient mill, +which was once, I learned, a monkish mill whither every man had +perforce to bring his grain to be ground. Now as I stood idly by the +gate of the mill-house I heard voices of men in talk, and, without +further intention, could not but catch some words of their discourse. +It was evident that a bargain was going forward, and that one sold +grudgingly. + +"Nay," said the one voice, "for this standard of red buckram, +sevenpence and no less, Master Ptolemy." + +"Thou puttest me to uncommon great charges, Master Skegs," replied the +other invisible; "what with thy gilding and thy scarlet hoods, and now +this standard of the devil! Ay, and besides there is that crazy mitre +of Cayphas, which, o' my conscience, is not worth the half a groat." + +"'A cost me two shillings not twelvemonth since," cried the first +invisible in a manifest rage, "yet am I willing to sell it thee for one +shilling and ninepence as I have set it down in the bill, where is also +to be found a coat of skins; item, a tabard; item, Herod's crest of +iron; all which I have grossly undervalued. Ah! there be some," he +interjected, in a whining voice, "there be some that would buy up all +Jewry for a parcel of bawdy, torn ballads. Art not ashamed, Ptolemy +Philpot, thou a Christian man, to purchase so divine a tragedy for so +mean a sum?" But the invisible Ptolemy not replying, the invisible +Skegs proceeded: + +"Well, thou hast heard my price, master, which is three pounds sixteen +shillings in all, and look you! to avoid all bitterness and to make an +end, I will throw in the parchment beasts of the Deluge for the same." + +What manner of cheapening was here I could not conceive, and so (still +chiding my lack of manners) crept through the gate and to a coign of +the mill-house, where I might observe these strange traders in +parchment beasts and red buckram. And observe them I did, indeed, and +they me at the same instant; which discovery so confused me that I +stood before them first on one foot and then on the other, with no +sense to go or stay, nor to cover my discourtesy with any plausible +excuse. Howbeit, one, whom I took (and rightly) to be Ptolemy, burst +into laughter at this my detected intrusion, and bade me step forward +and judge betwixt them. He was a big man, with a child's face for all +that he wore a great beard, and a terrible nose of the colour of the +stone they call agate, it being veined too and marvellous shining. Yet +his voice was small like a child's, and I saw at once that in any +bargain he was like to get the worse of it. The other man, whose name +was Skegs, had a woeful pallor, but an undaunted behaviour and a very +fierce eye. Between them stood the cause of their difference, which +was a sort of wheeled pageant or cart of two stages; the upper being +open and about five feet in breadth, with a painted cloth behind; the +lower room enclosed, and was, I learned, for the convenience and +disposal of the puppet master (this being a puppet-show and the puppets +appearing, as players do, on the stage above). + +Coming forward, then, as I was bidden, I very modestly awaited the +argument between Mr. Skegs and Ptolemy, being pleased to be trusted in +so notable a cause. But it fell out otherwise, for Skegs swore by the +body of St. Rumbold he would have no arbitrament, and that his price +was three pound and sixteen shillings, as he had already said. + +"It is a great sum," said Ptolemy, in his piping reed voice. + +"How, great?" retorted Skegs, "seeing I sell thee the pageant-car +itself, together with Nicodemus, Pilate, and four stout Torturers, +besides the holy folk, and all their appurtenance. And were I not at +the gate of the grave myself, I would not part with so much as Joseph's +beard for twice this reckoning." + +"He gives you also certain parchment beasts, Mr. Ptolemy," said I, very +judicially. + +"I retract the beasts," cried the pageant master, whose red eyes blazed +terribly, and he danced with vexation of my ruling. + +"Look you, now," grumbled Ptolemy, running his great hand through his +beard, "was ever such a fellow!" + +"'Tis a part of the Deluge," said Mr. Skegs, "and to bring in beasts +before the judgment-seat of Pilate were against all Scripture. But +contrariwise, as it toucheth the Interlude of the Deluge, mass! without +those beasts of mine, the cats and dogs too (as the verse goes)-- + + "'Otter, fox, fulmart also; + Hares hopping gaily' + +withouten these wherefore was Noah's ark builded, and so great a stir +made?" + +"But if you be about to die, Master Skegs," I put in, "as you say you +are, of what advantage is this same Deluge to you?" + +"Ay, truly," cried Ptolemy, "for thou hast no wife, man, nor any +dependent on thee. So thou be decently buried, 'tis all one whether I +have the parchment beasts or thou." + +"Would you spoil me of my heritage?" cried the pallid man in an +extremity of rage, "and strip me naked before I be come to the grave? +I say thou shalt not have the beasts." + +"Wilt thou sell me the Deluge outright?" asked Ptolemy after a silence, +"for I am no hand at this chaffering." + +"Ay, for a further fourteen shillings, I will," said Skegs promptly, +"which maketh in all four pounds and ten shillings; and for that, I +give thee Noah, a new figure of wood, and Noah's wife, who truly is +somewhat worsened by usage, but not past mending; Shem also, Ham and +Japhet, stalwart lads all, and their wives corresponding. An ark there +is, moreover, which was builded in Rye by a shipwright out of battens +and good gummed canvas. The beasts be all whole, save the weasel, but +that signifieth not. I have a schedule of them, and the parts of the +players in good scrivener's hand. All these shalt thou have for a +matter of four pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence." + +"Four pounds and ten shillings, Master Skegs," said Ptolemy, dismayed +at this unconscionable addition. + +"Said I aught of the ark when I named that price?" asked Skegs +scornfully. "Wouldst thou haggle with a dying man, Ptolemy Philpot?" + +"I will furnish the remainder shillings," I whispered to Ptolemy, who +stood in a maze to answer such imposture as Skegs sought to lay upon +him. "Strike the bargain, Mr. Ptolemy, and pay when thou hast checked +over the tale of beasts." + +[Illustration: The argument between Mr. Skegs & Ptolemy. Chapter II] + +He thanked me like a pleased stripling, and, to be short, purchased all +for the sum named, which, there being seven or eight pieces not found, +and Japhet's leg burst from the pin, methought sufficient, albeit Mr. +Skegs at every turn sought to increase it, or else detract some piece +of note, as Mount Ararat in pasteboard and the dove with a sprig of +olive. + +"I have forgot the raven," he screamed after us, as at length we went +away with our cartful of miracles. "'Twas new varnished at Michaelmas, +and there is the cost of the varnish you must repay me, which is +three-pence halfpenny," at which, when we replied not, he ran into the +mill-house in a sort of fury, and as I understood, died there a week +later, muttering upon his "cocks and kites and crows," his + + "Rooks and ravens, many rows; + Cuckoos, curlews, whoso knows, + Each one in his kind;" + +and putting a price upon each particular fowl, like any poulter in +Cheape. I never met a man so engrossed in business to so little +purpose, nor one (to do him justice) so little put out of his humour of +acquisition by the near approach of death. He had bought the mill, so +Ptolemy told me, out of his former profits, knowing nothing of the +miller's trade, but because it was to be got at an advantage. + +When we were out of the yard Mr. Philpot again thanked me immoderately +for my aid, which he said he would never forget (and as the event +proved, he did not); and told me moreover that he was bred to the +wax-chandlery, but had left it, having a taste for letters. + +"How will this pageant help you any whit the more to study?" I asked +him. + +"I shall go about the country," he replied, "and so I doubt not shall +fall in with very famous scholars, who are often to be found where they +be least expected. Have you ever read Horace now?" he asked me quickly. + +I told him, a little. + +"When I shall have learned Latin," he said, in his childlike manner, "I +shall do so also, and, indeed, I have bought his Satires already, but +can make little of them. The Romans must have been a marvellous +learned people," he observed with a sigh, "and 'tis small wonder they +conquered the world." + +"Is there any attendance upon these old interludes?" I demanded, as we +passed upward through the town towards my inn, where I was to take out +my mare. + +"Why, as to that," he replied something moodily, "I know not certainly +as yet, although I hope so, seeing that my proficiency in the Latin +tongue dependeth upon the popular favour towards them; and, indeed, I +may have been over eager at the bidding, since there doubtless hath +been some decline from the love of such plays that the vulgar was used +to show upon all occasions of their being enacted. Notwithstanding, I +have a design, as yet unperfected, by which, if I get no hearing for my +mysteries and moralities, I may yet prosper; and that is (to let you +into the secret), to turn this musty Deluge into a modern battle upon +the high seas, with Mr. John Hawkins for Noah--good seamen both; the +figure of Japhet, too, that hath by good fortune lost a leg, might +serve, with but slight alteration, for a veteran tall boatswain, and +Ham with the red beard, would as readily become a master-gunner. Ay, a +little skill would do all, Mr. Cleeve; and for the Spaniards, why, such +as were necessary to my purpose might be fashioned out of the greater +beasts, without any very notable difference from the original." + +I would have questioned him further upon this venture of his, which was +surely as bold as any that Mr. Hawkins had made to the coast of Guinea +or the Indies, had not I at that moment espied our overseer, Peter +Sprot, by the door of the inn, his horse blown and sweating, and +himself sitting stiff with hard riding. I ran to him at once, +demanding if he sought me, which I knew already was so, and felt a fear +at my heart lest my father was suddenly fallen ill. + +"His worship is not ill," replied Peter, "but sore troubled, and sends +for you home without delay." He cast a hard eye upon Ptolemy Philpot +as he spoke, for he had observed us in company, and being something +strait in matters of religion, held shows and dancing and such-like to +be idolatry and lewd sport. I have known him break a babe's rattle +that shook it on a Sunday, and quote the Pentateuch in defence of his +action. + +"What hath troubled him, Peter?" I asked eagerly, while the ostler +brought out my mare. + +"'Tis a letter," he said, and with that shut his mouth, so that I knew +it was vain to inquire further. + +Now, as I was managing my beast, that was restive with the cold air, +comes Mr. Ptolemy to my side, and ere I understood his purpose had +thrust up a little parchment-bound book for me to read the title of it, +whispering that he would have read it long since himself, but that +'twas in Latin. + +I told him briefly I could not read it then, being in an itch to be +gone; but he still detained me. + +"There is one particular word there set down," said he, "that I have +often lighted upon in other books also, which if you would translate +'twould ease me mightily." + +"What word is that?" cried I, impatiently. + +"It is _Quemadmodum_," said he. + +But before I could interpret to him, my mare had scoured away after +Peter Sprot's hackney, and we were a bowshot distant ere I had +recovered my seat. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +HOW A BROTHER, HAVING OFFENDED, WAS FORGIVEN + +I found my father sitting as his wont was in the high wainscoted +book-room beyond the hall. When I entered he looked up from a pile of +papers he had been diligently perusing, and smiled upon me pleasantly. +I was surprised to note the serenity of his brow, having indeed +prepared myself for a worse condition of health in him than Peter Sprot +had allowed. But whatever trouble he had he laid it by to bid me +good-morrow, and to excuse himself for so hastily summoning me. + +"Upon so fine a morning, Denis," he said, "I would not willingly have +cut short your pleasure, and do not so for my own business, which is +simple enough at most times, as a man's should be who hath ever studied +to be quiet." He paused a small while and cast his eye over an open +book that lay beside him on the table, and I knew it to be the +"Discourses of Epictetus." A wonder crept into my mind at this, that +while the words of Scripture would oftentimes be in his mouth, his +reading was generally in the heathens, and his way of life more +according to the ancient Stoicks (of whom Mr. Jordan had often +discoursed), than to the precepts of the Church of England of which he +nevertheless professed himself a member. Such fancies however being +foreign to the matter, I put them from me, expecting the sequel +anxiously, and in the meantime assuring my father that I would never +have gone thus upon my twilight journey had I known he required me; +which was indeed true, and he acknowledged it handsomely. + +"I know where to trust and where to doubt, Denis," he said, in his +quiet voice, "and I know likewise that where trust is broken there +stands occasion for lenity, though the using of it is hard at all +times; severity being more aptly come by, and by the vulgar commended." + +I knew by this that his thoughts had slid from the present into that +sad channel of the past, and marvelled that he could speak so of +forgiveness where his honour had been engaged, and, in the event, my +mother's life forfeit. + +"'Twas well that Peter had some inkling of your road," my father went +on and in a livelier manner, "else we might still be seeking you o'er +half Exmoor. But tell me what it was led you to Dunster, lad?" And he +looked at me methought somewhat keenly as he spoke. + +"I had hoped to meet with Captain Cutts," I returned boldly, though I +was conscious of the emptiness of the reason, "and to hear of the +chance of war." + +To my surprise my father appeared relieved by my answer, but presently +explained himself. + +"It had lain upon me that you were perhaps courting some lass there, +Denis; not that I should censure you therefor, but having need of you +myself awhile, I would not suddenly interfere with that is proper +enough for you to consider of at your age. Well, so much for +prologue," he broke off swiftly, and betook himself again to scanning +the papers on his desk. + +"So Mr. Cutts having avoided the town before you arrived," he said +presently, glancing up, "the direct purpose of your errand failed." + +I was about to reply when he added: "You have little cause to grieve in +that, Denis, seeing his commission is cancelled and he to be +apprehended for malpractices of which I have here the note before me." + +"I would all such villains were hanged as soon as apprehended," cried +I, in a sudden rage at this disclosed infamy; but my father put up his +hand peremptorily to stop me. + +"Hast ever heard of thine uncle Botolph?" he asked me presently, and +with the same piercing glance as before. + +I told him yes, and that Peter Sprot had related some part of his story +to me. + +"That was not altogether well," replied my father with a little +movement of his brows, "and not what I looked for from his discretion." +He set his ruff even and took up his pen as if to write, but sat so +awhile without either writing or speaking. + +"I forced him to tell me," I said, for I thought he blamed Peter for +what was truly my own curiosity. + +"Tut," said my father, "'tis a small matter, and being known saves many +words to no purpose. I have received a letter from him," he said. + +This amazed me, for I had thought him (I know not wherefore) to be dead. + +"Why, where is he?" I asked. + +"He is in the Tower," said my father. + +At these words my blood leapt to my heart in a tumult, for I knew well +enough what this meant, and that in such a time of danger as now we +lived in, when all was suspicion and betrayal, few men that had once +come into that foul dungeon ever left it living. Until now I had found +frequent matter for rejoicing in this very process and summary action +of the Council, being confident that 'twas for the better security of +the realm, and deriding them that would have accorded an open trial to +all, and the means of a man's clearing himself at the law. But now +that our own family stood thus impeached, I had nothing to say, nor +aught to think, but upon the terror of it and the disgrace to our house +and ancient name. + +"What is the cause?" I inquired, when I had something recovered myself; +but my lips were dry and my face (I am assured) as white as paper. + +"He has had licence granted to write," returned my father; "which is a +mark of favour not oftentimes bestowed. He saith he is well treated, +though for the rest his chamber is but a mean cold one and evil +smelling, and the ward upon him strict, especially when he is had in to +the Constable for examination, which hath been several times renewed. +As for the cause, there would appear by his letter to be little enough, +save such as gathers from a host of fears, and from his known devotion +to my Lord of Arundel; which indeed was the direct occasion of his +apprehension. Of a former intimacy with that witless Somerville +moreover, he is accused, and the mere supposition of it goes hard +against him; but upon this head he hath strong hope of his exculpation, +having only, as he writes, once met with the man, and then in a public +place without any the least concealment." + +He rose from his seat as he ended speaking, and took a turn or two +about the room, his hands clasped behind his back and his head bent in +thought. I suppose that never before had I observed my father with so +close attention, having ever held him (as I have said) in a kind of +negligent contempt for his mild and bookish ways. But now I perceived +a nobility of bearing in him which took me strangely, and withal, a +secret strength. His scholar's indifference he had quite cast aside, +and appeared full of purpose, shrewdly weighing each circumstance of +his brother's case, and examining the good and bad in it, in order to +the more directly assist him. This unused activity of his so engaged +me that for awhile I could do nought but follow him with my eyes, until +the vision of my father always thus (as thus he might have been, save +for that great weight of sorrow warping him from his natural aptness), +this vision, I say, so moved me in his favour and against my uncle +Botolph, who was surely now receiving chastisement for his former sin, +that I could not contain myself. + +"But, sir," I cried, "why should you concern yourself for a man that +hath wronged you so basely as my uncle did? And besides that," I +bethought myself to add in order to strengthen our excuse for leaving +him alone, "besides that, there is the unseemliness of your aiding a +man that the Queen's Majesty is offended withal. It is very probable +he is implicated in these treasons, who hath brought such treason into +household affairs, and the likelier still for his denying it." + +Something in my father's countenance stayed me there, else would I have +spoken more; for there is nought so easy as to persuade ourselves 'tis +right to do nothing in a dangerous pass. + +"Ay, ay," said my father slowly, "then your advice is to leave my +brother to perish." + +"You are a magistrate, sir," I stammered, "and it surely behoves you to +assist in the arrest of traitors." + +"Ay, and so it doth, Denis," said he, nodding, "but then, this +gentleman being already arrested, it seems that my poor assistance +therein is rendered in advance superfluous." + +"But you are minded to help him, sir," said I, "so far as you be able." + +"Leaving that aside," he said, "let us return to your former argument, +which was, as I remember, that because he had once badly wronged me so +I should not now concern myself on his behalf. Why then do you +afterwards bring me in as a magistrate, when you have so potently +addressed my prejudice as a man? Nay, Denis," he said, smiling at my +discomfiture, "you speak for my ease, I know well, and I thank you; but +this may not be. Nor, indeed, does your uncle desire it to be as you +understand the case. He prays me here," he struck the open letter +lightly, "to gain him fair trial, if such a thing may be come by, and +by it he is content to be judged. Were it I, who stood in this +jeopardy, Denis, and not he, would you deny me your offices?" + +His grave manner and contempt of the revenge I had held out to him, +wrought upon me so that I could not answer him, but going forward I +knelt and kissed his hand. I think now he was the best man I ever +knew, and one that, without hesitancy, ever chose the untainted course. + +We fell to business after that with a will; my father opening with me +upon many matters of procedure at the law, in which I was surprised to +find him perfect, and giving me his reasons for supposing that my uncle +Botolph would be suffered to stand upon his delivery in open court. He +read me his whole letter too, which I had to confess was very simply +written and bore the impress of truth. + +"You see that he speaks here of councillors to defend him, which is +very needful," my father continued, "though the emoluments of that +office be higher than I had hoped to find. He writes that a less sum +than five hundred pounds would avail little, which, if it include the +necessary expenses of seeking out witnesses (of whom he names one in +Flanders who must be brought home), if it include this, I say, and the +procuring of documents, that may well be, though I am sorry to find +justice sold at so high a rate." + +"But, sir, can you employ so much money in this affair?" I asked, for +it sounded an infinite treasure to me. + +"I think so," he replied, "though I would it were not so urgent. I +must however encumber the estate for awhile, Denis; as indeed hath been +done before by my grandfather, at the time the Scriptures were printed +in English secretly, three score years since; which work he was bold to +forward, and spared neither pains nor moneys therein. But that +concerns thee not, Denis," he broke off, "and for the getting together +of the ransom, for so it is, I will engage to effect it. Only your +part will be to convey it to London and deliver it to my brother's +agent and good friend, one Mr. John Skene, an attorney of Serjeants +Inn, in Fleet Street, who will use it, as your uncle believes, and I +doubt not, to advantage." + +Our conference ended, and my doubts resolved of what it stood me to do, +I went away, leaving my father still in his book-room, who had letters +to write to Exeter, about the business of the loan. The discourse I +had had, and especially the peril imminent over one so near in blood to +us, had excited my imagination greatly; so that 'twas a long while ere +I could examine each particular soberly, as a merchant doth a bill of +goods, and, as it were, piece by piece. Everything hung confused in my +brain like a wrack of cloud, which, parting, discloses now one thing +and now another but nothing clearly, nor whole. Immersed in such +considerations I had wandered a great way, and unawares had begun to +mount the steep hill that stands above the Combe Court, and now gazed +down through the trees upon our house, which I had once likened to a +place enchanted, so evenly did all go there and with the regularity of +one breathing in his sleep. The old gabled tower, with the great bell +in the clochard or belfry beside it, I had oftentimes laughed at with +Simon Powell, as at a thing of more pretence than usage; the alarm not +having been rung therefrom for nigh a hundred years. But now the sight +of it brought tears to my eyes for the very peace which clung about it. +For well I knew that I was come at the end of my time of quiet and was +to adventure forth of my old home into regions full as strange and +difficult as any of Simon's uncouth caves and elvish forests. And I +thought of that hero of his which bade them cut off his head and bear +it, still sweet, to the White Mount in London, whither I was now going. + +Then I looked again down upon the yard before the house, with its fine +brick gate upon the road, and behind the house, upon the base court +with the offices beside it, and the stables beyond, and beyond again +the green bottom of the combe and the cattle feeding. It was a fair +estate, and one that no man would encumber in a trivial cause. But +once before it had been so laid under bond, which was, as my father +said, in order to the advancement of the glory of God; and now, the +second time 'twas so to be for no better purpose than the enlargement +of a traitor. A youth argues narrowly perforce, being hedged between +lack of experience and lack of charity, but the force of his +conclusion, for this very want, I suppose, hath an honest vigour in it +which is beyond the competence of many an elder man. So I, being +persuaded of my uncle Botolph's villainy, there on that hillside swore +that, albeit I would faithfully labour for his release, as I was bound +to do, yet I would thereafter bring him to book with a vengeance. And +how I kept my word you shall see. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +IN WHICH I SAY FAREWELL THRICE + +In the middle of the month of November our business was pretty well +settled, and the day of my departure ordained, which was to be upon the +Wednesday following, there being a friend of my father's about to +journey to Devizes on that day, with whom it was intended I should so +far travel. To be honest, it was with some feelings of concern that I +expected this my first entrance into the world, where I was to meet +with a sort of folk I had no knowledge of: learned attorneys of the +Inns, Judges of the Queen's Bench (if we ever got so far); and that +gaunt figure of the Constable with the keys of the Tower at his girdle +and a constant lamentation of prisoners in his ear. My duty at the +beginning was plain enough, my father having often rehearsed the same +to me; as that I should take lodging in Fetter Lane at the house of one +Malt, a hosier, who should use me honestly, he being a West-Country +man. Thereafter and as soon as my convenience would allow, I was to +betake myself to a certain goldsmith of repute, whose shop stood hard +by the new Burse in Cornhill, and there receive gold in exchange for +the letters I bore, the which my father had gotten upon articles signed +in Exeter. So provided, I was to put myself under the direction and +command of Mr. Skene, who would employ me as his occasions required. + +The last day of my home-keeping broke in fair weather, of which I was +glad, for I purposed to spend it in bidding farewell to my neighbours +and the persons I especially loved about the estate. + +And first I sought my old companion Simon, whom I found by the brook, +in a place where there be otters, some ten or twelve furlongs up the +valley that descends into our combe from the westward, where the trees +grow very thickly and in summer there is a pleasant shade. Thither we +had often gone together in times past, and there I shrewdly guessed I +should discover him. + +I came upon him crouched beside the stream among the withered bracken, +his cross-bow laid aside with which he had been fowling, and a great +dead pheasant cock in the grass at his feet. I hailed him twice before +he heard me, when he rose at once and spreading his sheepskin mantle +for me (the air being very bitter) he told me he had thought I forgot +him. + +"I should not have gone without bidding thee farewell, Simon," I +replied, for his reproach stung me the more that I had neglected him of +late, and knew not wherefore. "I have been deeply engaged about this +journey to London, and the hours I have been idle my mind hath been too +anxious for chat. 'Tis an employment I mislike, Simon," I said +earnestly, "and one I do not see to the end of." + +"When does his worship think it will be concluded?" asked Simon Powell. + +"Oh, these things depend upon their law-terms," I said, willing to let +him perceive my knowledge in such affairs. "The Bench doth not try +causes unremittingly." + +"Ay," he said, nodding, the while he regarded me with a strange look of +the eyes, "but subject to the judges' convenience, I would have said. +Will you return by Lady Day, think you?" + +"Why, that is four months distant," I cried, for his question had +something startled me. "I shall surely be safe home in half that time." + +But Simon shook his head. "Since I first heard of this errand," he +said, "the thought of it hath never left me, sleeping nor waking, Mr. +Denis. And as there be some things that every man may tell certainly +that they will happen, as the seasons to pass in due order, and the red +deer to come down to the pools in the evening, and the sun to set and +rise; so there be other things, though not in the rule of nature, which +a man may yet discern that hath bent his will that way. So did that +knight who, in a dream, saw strange and way-worn men bringing tribute +to Arthur from the Islands of Greece, which was not then, but was +certainly to be, and now in these days we shall see the same; ay, +Arthur receiving tribute from all the nations and not Greece only, and +everywhere triumphing." + +I sat suspended in amaze while he spoke thus, his dark eyes sparkling +and his fingers straitly interlaced. It was a mood he had never before +revealed, though he had often, as I have said, told me tales of his old +heroes and wizards, but not with this stress of fervour and (as it +were) prophetic sureness. Such power as he manifested in his words +surely confounds distinctions of rank and erases the badge of servant. +For there may be no mastery over them that can convince our souls, as +this Welsh lad convinced mine. + +When he spoke again, it was with some shame in his voice, as though he +had betrayed his secret mind and feared my laughter; which had he known +it, he need by no means have done. + +"My meaning is," he went on, "that I feel this adventure which you set +about will continue longer than you imagine, Mr. Denis, though I have +no proof thereof; at least, none I may put into words; and you may well +deride the notion. Notwithstanding, it sticks with me that you will +not return to the Combe Court until many a strange accident shall have +befallen, of which we be now ignorant." + +"Why, however long it be, Simon," said I cheerily, for I wished to +lighten our conversation somewhat, "you may rest well-assured of my +remembrance of you, and that though I wander as far forth as to those +same Islands of Greece you spake of, yet shall my affections draw me +home again." + +He leapt to his feet at that, with an apparent gladness that warmed me +marvellously, though 'twas but a frolic sentence I had made, and spoken +smiling. So do we often probe into the future with a jest, and, as it +were, speak the fool's prologue to our own tragedy. + +Our leaving-taking ended in laughter, then, as perhaps 'tis best, and +Simon remaining to shoot fowl, I left him to bid farewell to old Peter +Sprot; who gave me good advice in the matter of stage-plays and the +choice of food, which I promised, so far as I was able, to observe. + +"For other things," he said, "I leave you to your conscience, master, +as in the end, 'tis necessary. But this I say: that I have small love +of players, and such as, not content with the condition and quality +they were born to, must needs pretend to principalities and lordships, +which they sustain for a weary hour or so, and after return, like the +swine of the Scripture, to their wallowing in the mire." + +"I think there is no probability of my playing any prince's part, +Peter," quoth I. + +"Nor of seeing it played neither, I hope," he replied, "for though we +be all sinners, yet we sinners that witness neither stage-plays nor +pageants, Mr. Denis, be hugely better than they that do; and mark me, +sir, it shall so appear hereafter." + +This I knew to be a thrust at Mr. Ptolemy and his puppet-show no less +than at the public theatre in Finsbury Fields, which had then been set +up about seven or eight years. + +"Eat beef and mutton, Mr. Denis," he proceeded gravely, "and fish also. +There is a good market for fish in London, though they that vend there +be something inclined to blasphemy; I know not wherefore; but strange +dishes eschew, and particularly those of the French. For the French +nation is given up to Popery, dancing and the compounding of +unwholesome foods. Nay, this late commerce of our nobility with the +effeminate and godless Frenchmen hath gone far to the ruin of both +stomach and religion that should be simply fed, the one by such meats +as I have named, mutton (eaten with onions, Mr. Denis), beef, and in +cold weather, pork; the other by sound doctrine and preaching of the +Word." He paused awhile, and I thought had concluded his admonition; +when he seemed to recover something notable. "There be divers ways of +dressing a capon, Mr. Denis," said he, "of which the goodwife hath a +particular knowledge, as also of the sauces to be served therewith. +These I will, by your leave, procure to be transcribed for your use, +and so, God keep you." + +I thanked him heartily for his good will, although I secretly admired +the fashion in which he interlarded sound doctrine with strong meats. +But every man out of the abundance of his heart speaketh, and I knew +that Peter dealt with me lovingly in meddling virtue with appetite in +so singular a manner. Now, when I had parted from the honest steward, +I considered with myself whom next I should salute, and determined that +it should be the maidservants and Ursula the cook; and to this end +returned toward the house, but unwillingly, for I have ever been +abashed in the presence of womenfolk, at least within doors, where a +man is at a disadvantage but they at their ease. And so greatly did +this distaste and backwardness grow upon me that I hung about the gate +of the yard behind the house, fearing to venture forward, and as it +were into a den of mocking lions, until I should more perfectly have +rehearsed my farewell speeches. It was then (as I always believe) that +a door was opened unto me of that Providence which rules our motions, +and a way of escape made plain; the which door was my old pedagogue, +Mr. Jordan, whom I suddenly remembered (though I had scarce thought +upon him these two years) and whom I had such a compelling inclination +to visit as sent the maids out of my head, and my heels out of the yard +on the instant. When I bade good-bye to Ursula and the rest on the +morrow, I was in the open air and mounted, so that I cared not a jot +for their laughter (which indeed soon led into tears; my own being +pretty near to my eyes too), but made them a great speech as full of +ego as a schoolboy's first lesson in Latin. + +Up the hill towards Mr. Jordan's house I climbed therefore to beg his +blessing upon me, and to thank him for all he had done for me in times +past. It was near dinner-time by this, and I conceived the kindness of +cooking the old scholar's meal for him as he lay in bed; for I doubted +not to find him so, as I had rarely found him otherwise than on his +pallet with a great folio or two by way of counterpane, and a Plato's +"Republick" to his pillow. There had been a little snow fallen in the +night which still clung upon the uplands, and when I had ascended to +his dwelling I found a drift about the door and the thatched eaves +considerably laden upon the weather side of them with snow. But what +surprised me mightily was certain vestiges before the threshold, and +regularly iterated, as by a sentinel's marchings to and fro. My +bewilderment increased moreover, or rather gave place to alarm when I +chanced to observe beside the window of that I knew for his study (to +wit the room he slept in), a great halberd resting, and a military +steel cap. Then did I painfully call to mind those former pursuits of +my poor old preceptor when (as was reported) he had been a novice in +the old Abbey of Cleeve, and knowing the present ill estimation in +which the Papists everywhere were held, I understood that Mr. Jordan +had not escaped the vigilance of the Commission, but was now under +arrest, or at least that his liberty was so encroached on as made it +mere confinement within his own house. Greatly distressed for this +opinion, I approached near to the little window, of which the shutter +(there being no glass) hung on the jar, and timorously gazed within. +The bed stood empty, and no one that I could see was in the chamber. +This confirmed me in my suspicion, and at the same time emboldened me +to demand admittance. Some hope that my witness (or rather the weight +of our authority) would bestead him, moved me to this course, and I +knocked loudly on the door. Hardly had I done so, when I heard from +within a horrid clatter of arms upon the flags as of a man falling in a +scuffle, and so without more ado I lifted the latch and sprang into the +house. Mr. Jordan lay at full length along the floor. + +"Who hath done this, Master?" I cried out in a sudden gust of wrath, +for he was an old man and a reverend. He lifted himself painfully, +regarding me as he did so with an inscrutable mildness which I took to +be of despair. His assailant was evidently fled in the meanwhile, or +perhaps went to summon a posse comitatus for my tutor's apprehension. + +"I will undertake your enlargement," said I, and indeed felt myself +strong enough to dispose of a whole sergeant's guard unaided. + +"I am beholden to you, young master," replied Mr. Jordan, "and now that +I look more closely, I take you to be that degenerate young Denis +Cleeve, to whom Syntax and Accidence were wont to be as felloes in the +wheel of Ixion, and Prosody a very stone of Sisyphus. Art thou not he, +my son?" + +"I am Denis Cleeve," I answered impatiently, "but I think my lack of +Latin concerns us not now, when we are in danger of the law." + +"Ah! thou hast come into some scrape," he said, sitting up on the +stones, and gathering up his knees. "Such as thou art, was the +Telamonian Ajax, whom Homer represents as brave enough, though in +learning but a fool. Why, what hast thou done, little Ajax, that thou +hast wantonly forfeited the protection of the laws? But be brief in +the telling, since I sit here in some discomfort, having entangled a +great sword in my legs and fallen something heavily, which in a man of +my years and weight is as if Troy herself fell; a catastrophe +lamentable even to the gods." + +At this I could not contain my laughter, partly for the mistake into +which he had been led that I feared a danger which was in truth his +own, and partly for the accident of the sword which had tripped him up +thus headlong; but more than either for the tragi-comick simile he had +used in comparing himself in his downfall with the ancient city of Troy. + +"To return to my first question," I said as soon as I had settled my +countenance. "Who hath set upon you? and whither has he fled?" + +"None hath set upon me, young sir," he replied sadly, "and ergo, we +need search for no fugitive. I had armed myself, and the harness +encumbering me (as indeed I have had little occasion for its use these +forty years), I fell, in the manner you saw. And had not nature folded +me in certain kindly wrappages of flesh above the common, my frame had +been all broken and disjointed by this lapsus, which even now hath left +me monstrous sore." + +I lifted him to his feet, though with some difficulty, for it was true +that nature had dealt liberally with him in the matter of flesh; and +having set him in a chair, I asked him how it was he came thus +accoutred, since it was not (as he affirmed) to withstand any +molestation. + +"Why, 'tis in order to molest others, numskull!" he cried, making as if +to pass upon me with his recovered weapon. "And for withstanding, 'tis +to withstand the Queen's enemies, and affront them that pretend +annoyance to her Grace's peace. I am the scholar in arms, boy! the +clerk to be feared. I am Sapientia Furens, and wisdom in the camp. +Furthermore I am, though a poor professor of the Catholick Faith, yet +one that detests the malignity of such as would establish that faith +again by force of arms. It is by way of protest therefore, and in the +vigour of loyalty, that I buckle on this, alas! too narrow panoply; and +when I should be setting towards my grave, go forth upon my first +campaign." + +"You are taking service in the Queen's army, Mr. Jordan?" I stammered, +for the prospect of it was hardly to be credited. + +"If she will receive it, yea," he returned, with a melancholy +determination. "And if she reject me as that I am too far declined +from juvenility, I will crave at the least a pair of drums, having +served some apprenticeship to parchment, Denis, so that I could +doubtless sound a tuck upon occasion." + +Beneath his apparent levity I could discern the hardness of his +purpose, and honoured him extremely, knowing the rigour which attendeth +service in the field and the conversation (offensive to a scholar) of +the gross and ignorant soldiery. While I thus pondered his resolution, +he proceeded quietly in his work of scouring certain antique pieces and +notched blades that he told me had been his father's; and when they +responded to his liking he would lunge and parry with them according to +some theoretick rule he had, the which I suspected to have been drawn +from the precepts of a Gothick sergeant, at the Sack of Rome. His +pallid broad countenance was reddened by this exercise, and an +alertness so grew upon his former unwieldy motions that I admired him +for the recovery of the better part of youth, although he must at that +time have passed his three score years and ten. And ever and anon as +he scoured or smote, he would utter some tag of Latin apposite to the +occasion (at least I suppose so) and seemed to gather a secret comfort +from the allusion. I have never encountered with a man so little +moulded to the age he lived in, nor so independent of its customary +usages. His words were, as I have said, generally spoken in the dead +languages, while his features were rather formed upon the model of +those divines that flourished half a century since, and are now but +seldom met with in any. I have seen a picture of the Archbishop and +Lord Chancellor, Warham, which greatly resembled Mr. Jordan, and +especially in the heavy eyelids and the lines of sadness about the +mouth. On ordinary occasion my old tutor wore moreover a close-fitting +cap of black velvet such as Master Warham wore also, cut square over +the ears and set low upon the brow. + +I have drawn his character somewhat tediously perhaps, but it is +because he has become in my imagination a sort of symbol and gigantic +figure that stands between my old life and my new. When I look back +upon my boyhood there is Mr. Jordan a-sprawl on his bed amid a host of +books, and when the prospect of my early manhood opens it is half +obliterated by his genial bulk. + +I learned to my satisfaction that he purposed to depart on the morrow +for London, where also he hoped to pass muster into some company of the +Queen's troops. His delight, I think, was equal to my own, when I told +him that I was bound thither likewise, and we accordingly parted until +daybreak with mutual encouragements and good will. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +PRINCIPALLY TELLS HOW SIR MATTHEW JUKE WAS CAST AWAY UPON THE HEBRIDES + +I awoke long before dawn on that memorable Wednesday which was to set a +term to my pleasant and not altogether idle life in the Combe. Yet +early as I had awakened, my father preceded me, and coming into my +attic chamber where I had always slept in the tower, sat down by my +bedside, fully dressed, while I was still rubbing the sleep out of my +eyes. What passed betwixt us in that still hour I may not recount, but +let it suffice that it left me weeping. There be words spoken +sometimes that have the effect and impress of a passage of time, so +potently do they dissever us from the past, leading us into a sudden +knowledge which by time only is generally acquired, and that painfully. +Such an experience it was mine to gain then, so that my boyish follies +and the ignorant counterfeits which make up a boy's wisdom fell away +the while my father discoursed gravely of this and that, and I +marvelled how I could ever have held such stock of vain opinions. +Alas! for my presumption, and alas! too, that opinions as vain may +beset a man full as closely as a boy; and follies the more indecent +that they be wrought without ignorance. + +One thing I find it in my heart to speak of, because it exemplifies my +father's forbearance, though at a cost which he would well have spared. +My uncle's name having been made mention of between us, my thoughts +flew from him to the mother I had never known, and in a luckless hour I +demanded whether my father had not any picture of her, that I might +carry her image clear in my mind. His brow clouded as I begged this +favour, and rising from his seat, he went to the window, where he +seemed about to draw aside the shutters that closed it, but desisted. +I could have bitten my tongue out for my imprudence, but could think of +no words to recover or mitigate it and so sat still, gazing upon his +tall figure all dim in the twilight, and wishing for my life that he +would refuse my request. + +But he did not. For with a strong motion he suddenly flung back the +shutters, letting in the grey light, and turned upon me with a smile. + +"Why, that is a natural thing to desire, Denis," he said, "and one I +ought to have thought to do without your asking." He put his hand into +the bosom of his doublet as he spoke, so that I certainly knew he had +worn her picture all these years against his heart. He plucked out +presently a little case of green leather clasped with silver, and oval +in shape, and, having first detached it from the silver chain by which +it was secured, he laid it in my hands and straightway left the room. + +'Twas a face very pale limned, in which there yet appeared each +minutest feature, hue, and lock of hair even, so ingeniously was all +done. Behind the face was a foil of plain blue to show it off; and so +exact and perfect as the thing was, it lay in my palm no bigger than a +crown piece. I examined it closely. There was a kind of pride in the +eyes which looked at you direct, and the eyebrows descended a little +inwards towards the nose, as one sees them sometimes in a man that +brooks not to be crossed, but seldom in a girl. Her mouth and chin +were small and shapely, yet otherwise of no particular account. I +judged it to be the picture of one that saw swiftly and without fear, +and moreover that the mere sight of things, and a quick apprehension of +them, determined her actions. Somehow so (methought) looked that +scrupulous Saint that doubted his Lord without proof of vision; whereat +calling to mind his tardy and so great repentance, I felt a catch of +hope that my mother repented likewise, and by her repentance was +justified. + +My father entering then, I gave up the locket, which he took from me +quietly, saying it was by an Exeter youth that had since gone to Court +and painted many notable persons there; one N. Hillyard, whose father +had been High Sheriff of Exeter twenty years since, his mother being a +London woman named Laurence Wall, and that the lady's father had been a +goldsmith; moreover (which was singular) 'twas to one of the same +family (I think a son) that I was directed to present my letters of +exchange. The hour then drawing towards the time I was to meet with my +father's friend, and there being many things to be attended to, I +dressed hastily and was soon ready below, where I found my father +again, and Sprot, in the great hall, with my clothes and other +necessaries, which they bestowed in two or three deerskin wallets that +lay open on the floor. These were to go forward by the carrier, who +undertook to deliver them as far as to Devizes, whence I was to hire +such means of carriage as seemed advisable, whether by sumpter-beasts +or waggon, for the rest of my journey. + +A little after, and when I had taken breakfast, we heard a noise of +horses in the forecourt, and knew it for Sir Matthew Juke, of +Roodwater, my companion, and his retinue. My father went at once to +the door and invited him in, but he would not dismount, he said, +thinking indeed 'twas already time to set forward. He spoke in a quick +petulant fashion and was (as I since discovered) in a considerable +trepidation upon certain rumours of thieves in the wild country betwixt +Taunton and Glastonbury, the which greatly daunted him. He wore a +cuirass over his doublet, and carried his sword loose in the scabbard, +while his men bore their pieces in their hands openly. A wain with his +goods in, that followed, had an especial guard; though they seemed to +be but mere patches spared from the farm, and I was assured, would have +dropped their calivers and fled at the first onslaught. + +I was soon horsed, with a dozen hands to help, and a ring of women +beyond, admiring and weeping and bidding me God speed; to whom I +addressed myself, as I have said, with as much gratitude as little +modesty; being strangely excited by the circumstance and noise which +attended our departure. I had a pair of great pistols in the holsters +of my saddle which I could scarce forbear to flourish in either hand, +and the sword at my belt delighted me no less, it being the first I had +yet worn. + +"'Tis the one you would have given to the cheat," my father had told me +as he tightened my belt-strap. "But give it to none now, Denis, nor +draw it not, save in defence of yourself (as I pray God you need draw +it seldom), and of such as, but for you, be defenceless." + +At our parting, I bent at a sign, when he kissed me, and I him, and so +set forward with our train. A great shout followed us, and at the +hedge-end stood Simon Powell, his bonnet in his hand, which he waved as +we went by, crying out a deal of Welsh (having forgot the Queen's +English altogether, he told me afterwards), and in so shrill a voice as +set the knight's horse capering and himself in a rage of blasphemy. + +We fell in with Mr. Jordan, whom I had almost feared had given over his +enterprise, some mile or so distant, at a smith's in a little village +we passed through, where he was having his armour eased about the +middle, and a basket hilt put upon his sword. + +"Who is this fellow?" asked Sir Matthew testily, when I hailed and +accosted him. + +"It is my old preceptor, sir," said I, "who is coming with us, if he +have your leave." + +"Hast heard of any robbers by the way, Doctor?" inquired the knight at +that, and I saw he was marvellous glad of this increase in his +auxiliaries. + +"I hear of nought else," replied the scholar sturdily, while the other +turned very pale. But continuing, the scholar said: "Seeing that in a +treatise I wrote awhile since and caused to be printed, there is a +notable paragraph hath been bodily seized upon by a beggarly student of +Leyden, and impudently exhibited to the world as his own. Heard you +ever such? Robbers quotha? How of my labour, and inquiry into the +nature of the lost digamma----" + +"Hold!" cried Sir Matthew. "I see we talk athwart. This lost thing or +person of yours (for I understand no whit of what it may be) is nothing +to the purpose. I spoke of robbers on the highway, villains and +cutpurses." + +"Of them I reck little," said Mr. Jordan coolly, "seeing I have no +purse to be cut." + +"They are dangerous nevertheless," said the other loftily. + +"For which reason you go sufficiently attended," muttered the scholar, +with a cursory eye backward upon the knight's warlike following; and +with that we all fell, although for different causes, into an uniform +silence. At length, being come to the top of a hill up which we had +ascended painfully for near the half of an hour, and especially the +waggons found it hard to overcome, we stood out upon an open and +circular piece of ground, bordered about by noble great beech trees, +but itself clear save for the sweet grass that covered it; and the turf +being dry and the air refreshing after our late labour, we were glad to +dismount there and rest awhile. + +Sir Matthew ordered one of his men to fetch cooked meat and two bottles +of wine from the cart, and showed himself very generous in inviting us +to join him at this repast. + +"I have always gone provided in these matters," he told us as we sat +together thus, "since I went upon my first voyage to the Baltic, being +but a boy then, although accounted a strong one." (I know not +wherefore; for he must ever have been little, and his back not above +two hands' breadth.) "Howbeit," he continued, "we had the ill luck to +be cast away upon the Hebrides, the weather being very tempestuous and +our ship not seaworthy; so that about the fourth day it broke in pieces +utterly. I held to a piece of the keel," he said, looking anxiously +from one to the other as his memory or invention helped him to these +particulars, "upon which, too, clung our purser, whom I did my best to +comfort in this our common and marvellous peril. How we got to shore I +never understood, but we did, although half dead, and the purser +raving." + +"Since which time," said Mr. Jordan, pausing in the conveyance to his +mouth of a great piece of a fowl's wing, "you have, as you say, gone +provided against the repetition of such accidents, even upon the dry +land." + +"And wisely, sir, as I think," added Sir Matthew. + +"Was there then no food to be had in Scotland?" asked Mr. Jordan simply. + +"Not where we landed, in the Hebrides," replied the knight tartly. "As +to the rest of that country I know nothing, save that 'tis a poor +starved foggy place, and the people savage, half naked and inclining to +Presbytery, which is a form of religion I abhor, and to any that +professeth the same I am ready to prove it wholly erroneous and false." + +The knight's tale seeming likely to digress into theology, we ended our +dinner hastily without more words; albeit from time to time later, it +was evident that Sir Matthew's thoughts were still upon shipping and +the sea; so that scarce an accident we met with but he found in it +occasion for casting us naked on the Hebrides, or drowning us in the +Baltic. + +We had halted, I say, upon a considerable eminence, and the ground +falling away in our front very steeply, the view thence was of an +unparalleled breadth and variety. For stretched at our very feet, as +it seemed, lay a fair and fertile champaign diversified here and there +with woodland and open heath. Beyond the vale rose the wild and +untracked downs all dark and clouded; and to the left hand (as we +stood) the bar of the Quantock Hills. Surely a man must travel far who +would behold a land more pleasant than this sweet vale of Taunton; nay, +were he to do so, as indeed the exiled Israelites found pleasanter +waters in Babylon than they had left in Jewry, yet must he needs (as +they did) weep at the remembrance of it; for there is no beauty +ascendeth to the height of that a man's own country hath--I mean at +least if it be the West Country, as mine is. + +We continued our progress, going through two or three hamlets where the +old folk and children stood about the doors to watch us pass, for we +were a notable spectacle, and Sir Matthew Juke a stern figure in the +van; travelling thus without any great fatigue, for we kept at a foot's +pace on account of the waggon, and of Mr. Jordan also, who had no +horse. I frequently besought him to ride my own mare, but he would not +until we were within sight of the great belfry tower of St. Mary's +Church in Taunton, when he consented, being indeed pretty faint by +that, and thanked me handsomely out of AEsop. + +In Taunton we dined, and there too I hired a beast for the scholar +because (to speak the truth) I could not bear to be parted any longer +from my holsters with the new pistols in. No adventure befell us +worthy recording, or rather nothing of such magnitude as Sir Matthew's +shipwreck which I have above set down, until we reached Glastonbury, +where we were to lie that night. + +On the morrow we departed early, observing still the same order, save +that we rode more closely before the baggage upon a persistent report +in the inn of a horrid robbery with murder on the Frome road: which +town lay in our way to Devizes. Even the Baltic dried up at this, and +we kept a pretty close look-out as we crossed the flat marsh lands +thereabout; and once Juke shot off his piece suddenly upon some alarm, +but with so trembling and ill an aim that Mr. Jordan's high crowned hat +(that he still wore) was riddled through the brim, and a verse of +Ovid's which was in his mouth, cut off smartly at the caesura. Matter +of ridicule though this were, I had been alert to note some other +circumstance of more gravity (as I conceived) though I spoke not of it +then; the cause of my anxiety being indeed too near for open conference +thereupon. For I had, by accident, observed certain becks and glances +to pass between two of the fellows of our guard; the one of whom, a +pikeman (by name Warren), trudged beside the cart wherein were laid up +the knight's goods, and his fellow in the plot (to call it as I feared +it) was the elder of the two horsemen that wore the knight's livery and +were particularly engaged in his defence. After two or three such +furtive signals run up, as it were, and answered betwixt these twain, I +could be in no further doubt of their purpose, but studied what to do, +should they fall upon us suddenly. That their main design was to seize +upon the contents of the waggon that was by all supposed valuable, I +made sure; but what I could not yet guess was the degree of complicity +or indifference in which the rest of our company stood towards the +projected assault. I conceived them to be chiefly cowards, however, +and resolved therefore, if I might, to enlist their aid upon the first +advantage: for cowards ever succeed to the party that rises dominant, +and protest their loyalty loudest when 'tis most to be questioned. + +Because I was a boy, I suppose, but at all events very impudently, my +conspirators took small pains to hide their deliberations from my eyes, +having first assured themselves that neither Juke nor the scholar had +any cognizance of their doings. And this disdain of me it was that +brought matters to a head; for I could no longer brook it, but, +wheeling my horse about, I faced them both, and drawing a pistol from +my holster shouted: "Halt, sirs! here be traitors amongst us." + +I never saw men so immediately fall into confusion as did all of them, +but chiefly the rearward, that, every man of them, fled hither and +thither with little squealing pitiful cries; some running beneath the +waggon or behind it; others leaping off the causeway amidst the fenny +ooze and peat-bogs that it wends through in these parts, where they +were fain to shelter themselves in the grasses and filthy holes that +everywhere there abound. I caught a sight of Sir Matthew, on the +instant, exceedingly white, and his sword half drawn; but he then +losing a stirrup (as he told me afterwards he did) was borne from the +conflict unwillingly a great way down the road ere he could recover +himself. Only the younger serving man, whose name was Jenning, and Mr. +Jordan, retained their courages, and both came at once to my +assistance, which in truth was not too soon. For the footman (that is +the villain with the pike) ran in under my guard and dealt me a keen +thrust into the thigh which sore troubled although it did not unhorse +me. I returned upon him with my pistol, discharging it close to his +body, and hurt him in the shoulder, as I knew, because he dropped his +pike and clapped his hand there, grinning at me the while like a dog. + +Just then I heard the click of a snaphance, and perceived that the +caliver that Jenning carried had hung fire; and following upon this, a +great laughter from the elder man, whose name was Day, a hard-favoured +fellow, having a wicked pursed mouth and little dull green eyes. + +"Shouldst 'a looked to thy priming, Master Jenning," he called out +mockingly; by which I saw that he had tampered with the poor man's +piece while we lay at the inn in Glastonbury; and this much said, he +raised his own piece and fired directly at him, who fell at once all +huddled upon his horse's neck, stark dead. Before I could draw forth +my second pistol, Mr. Jordan had rid forward very boldly, though armed +but with his antique broadsword, and laid about him with good swinging +blows, the one of which happening upon his opponent's mare, it cut into +her cheek with a great gash, at the same time bursting the rein and +headstall, to the end she was quite unmanageable, and despite of Day's +furious restraint (who, to do him credit, would have continued the +contest, two to one), charged away at a great pace, carrying him with +her along the road until they were fairly out of sight. + +When I had satisfied myself that the villain would certainly not +return, I drew my sword and looked about for his companion, the +pikeman, whom I had wounded; but whether he had crept into the +concealment of the high bog grass, as the most part of the guard had +done, or else had gone backward down the road, I could not get any +certainty; and Sir Matthew who now rode up said he had not gone that +way, else he would assuredly have met and slain him, which, seeing that +the man was disabled, is likely; and so I gave over the search. + +It cost us some pains to rally our forces, but in the end we did, Mr. +Jordan persuading them very cogently with his great sword wherever he +found them: he having groped for the digamma in stranger places, he +said, and worn away the better part of his life in the prosecution of +things more hard to come by than this, our bog-shotten escort. + +We reverently bestowed the body of poor Jenning upon the stuff in the +waggon, and with heavy hearts (though not without some thrill of +victory in mine) set onward again towards Frome and Devizes, which last +place the knight was now in a fever to attain to before sundown. + +"I think I have not been in such jeopardy," he said, "since I suffered +shipwreck off the barren coast of the Hebrides, as I related to you +yesterday." + +"The dangers would be about upon an equality," quoth Mr. Jordan. + +Nothing occurred to renew our fears nor to cause us to assume a posture +of defence for the remainder of our passage; the only accident any way +memorable being that through some mischance we got into the town of +Devizes at the wrong end of it, and were diligently proceeding quite +contrary to our purposed direction before we discovered our error. I +set this down because I have so done since also (in spite of clear +information received), and have therefore cause to regard Devizes as +something extraordinary in the approaches thereto, although Sir +Matthew, to whom I spoke of it, said that such divergences were common +enough at sea, where a man might set his course for the Baltic and +fetch up off the Hebrides, or indeed the devil knew where. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +HOW THE OLD SCHOLAR AND I CAME TO LONDON + +I leave you to imagine whether Sir Matthew made much or little of our +adventure in the marshes, and of the part he took therein, when, having +parted from us, he found himself free to relate the same privately to +his family; they having preceded him (without any escort at all) to his +new great mansion in Devizes. Upon our part, we, that is Mr. Jordan +and I, having inquired out the Inn to which my chattels had been +already carried, took up our lodging there for the night, being pretty +well fatigued (and I wounded too) so that of all things we desired +rest. Nevertheless my old schoolmaster would by no means suffer me to +go to bed until he had procured me a surgeon, who bound up my thigh and +took his fee without any word good or bad; afterwards going himself +into the kitchen (I mean Mr. Jordan did) in order to my more careful +attendance, so that the host his daughter brought me up of her best, +and called me poor child, though I was older than she by half a year. + +Now, I learned next morning that Mr. Jordan at his supper had put so +heroical a construction upon our exploit as transformed us into men +above nature almost, and I loathed to descend into the common room +where all the ostlers and maids would be gaping after us for a pair of +paladins. Mr. Jordan took the prospect of such adulation very coolly, +saying that the wise man was he that nothing moved; but for all that I +saw he liked it, and indeed he had been at considerable pains to +prepare the ovation he now affected to despise. However, it so fell +out that when at length we descended amongst the people of the Inn, our +arrival quite failed of applause, and that for the simplest, although a +tragical, reason. + +For it appeared that when, on the yesternight, Sir Matthew, having +discharged his baggage-wain and bestowed his goods and valuable stuff +within the house, had gone to bed, it being then about midnight and all +quiet, comes there, lurking through the dark night, that villain +serving-man Day, whose late defeat had nothing distracted him from his +hopes of plunder. With his poniard he cuts out a panel of the postern +door, and privily entering thereby, goes rummaging through the house +from loft to cellar, cutting and wasting what he could not carry off, +but for the money, of which he found good store, and sundry gold +ornaments thereto that were my lady Juke's, he fills his doublet full +of them, as is proved upon him, said the teller, beyond dispute. + +"But then," proceeded the man, who now held our whole company +expectant, "even as he was about to steal away by the way he had come, +he heard a little grating noise, as of a weapon which one struck +against some impediment, close beside him in the dark where he was; and +supposing this to be the knight who had unluckily heard him, he drew +boldly upon him with his sword. The other thrust out upon the instant, +and a horrid conflict ensued, the men coming to grips shortly and +stabbing out of all rule. At length the serving-man, whose name is +Day, dealt his adversary his death-blow and prepared to flee away with +his booty, when it appeared (and as Day himself told me it surprised +him out of measure) his legs would not bear him; so that he fell along +the floor from sheer loss and effusion of blood, a subtle blow having +pierced him unawares and mortally hurt him. Thus they lay both until +the morning, when the servants, and I that am the butler, found them +there, the one of them already stark and the other close upon his end +and all aghast." + +"Then thy master be murdered, Roger Butler," cried an old fellow from +the tail of the press. + +"Not so, Father Time," shouted the butler with a great laugh, "although +Day, by that same error, was led into striking down one he should have +gone in leash withal, namely his fellow-thief, one Warren, that was +gone about the same game as himself." + +"Why, 'tis the very knave that dealt Mr. Cleeve here that great wound I +told you of," cried Mr. Jordan, when the clamour of voices had somewhat +lessened; the which speech of his I could have wished not spoken, for +now all turned about, demanding this and that of me, and swearing I was +a brave lad; with such a deal of no-matter as put me into an extremity +of rage and shame, so that I was glad to escape away to the hall, where +I fell to at the ordinary, and drank to their confusion. + +But for all my spleen it was indeed a merry tale, beside that it was a +marvellous judgment upon two rogues. Day, it seemed, had breath enough +left in him properly to incriminate Warren, who was, as I say, already +dead, and then rolled over and died too. There was an inquest held of +necessity, as well upon the thieves as upon poor Jenning that Day +killed before; which process somewhat detained us; but in the afternoon +of the day following, having satisfied the Coroner, we were permitted +to depart on our way. + +Nevertheless there was a deal of time lost upon our reckoning, it being +now Saturday morning, and although we were now no further to be +hindered with the slowness of Juke's waggon, yet there was still a good +four score miles to go, and the Sunday falling on the morrow when we +were bound to rest, we could by no means reach London before Monday at +night, or even the Tuesday forenoon. My baggage I had sent on by the +common carrier, who engaged to transmit it at Reading, whither he +plied, to another carrier going to London. + +We rode out of the base court of the Inn gaily enough, and soon came +upon the high Wiltshire downs, which, there having been a deal of snow +fallen in the night, lay about us in that infinite solemnity of +whiteness that stills a man's heart suddenly, as few things else have +the power to do. + +Nought could we discern before and around us but ridge after ridge of +snow, above which hung a sky of unchanging grey; all features of the +country were quite obliterated, and but that some cart had gone that +way a while since, of which we picked out and followed the wheel marks +scrupulously, it had wanted little but we should have ridden bewildered +into some deep drift and perhaps perished. Indeed, we were fortunate +in that; and keeping close upon the track, although but slow going, in +time descended into the market town of Marlborough, which we reached +early in the afternoon. Here we refreshed ourselves and our beasts, +and then away into the Savernake forest, traversing it without mishap, +and so out upon the high road again by Hungerford, and into Newbury a +little after nightfall; having covered above thirty miles in all, the +ways bad too, and the day, because of the late season, very short. + +On the Sunday we remained all day in the Inn, except that I went in the +morning to the Church there, when I heard a sermon by the curate upon +Wars and the Rumours thereof, wherein he advised us very earnestly to +examine our pieces and have them ready to hand and not to keep our +powder in the loft under the leaky thatch. He brought in somewhat, +too, about the Sword of the Spirit and the Shield of Faith, but +listlessly, and I saw that no one attended much to that, all men being +full of fear of the Papists, to which they were particularly moved by +Mr. Will. Parry's malicious behaviour in the House of Commons. The +scholar did not accompany me to the Church, I suppose because he was +himself a Papist, though perhaps no very rigorous one, but feigned a +stiffness from riding; and when I returned I found him in the larder, +where he was discoursing amply of the Scythians and their method of +extracting a fermented liquor from the milk of mares, which was of a +grateful potency, but (he lamented) not now to be obtained. + +I wrote home a letter to my father after dinner, and in the evening +entertained the curate, who had got to hear of our going to London, and +came to speak with us thereon. He was an honest man, and of an +ingenuous complacency, which he manifested in telling us very quietly +that his Grace of Canterbury was of the same university as he, and he +doubted not, would be pleased to hear of him, and that he had taken +another rood of ground into the churchyard; all which I promised, if I +should meet his lordship, to relate. + +We departed as was our custom, betimes on the morrow, travelling +towards Reading, and thereafter to Windsor, where we beheld with +admiration the great Castle of her Majesty's that is there; howbeit we +went not into the place, but left it on our right hand, and proceeded +still forward. But the night falling soon afterwards, we were fain to +put up in the little hamlet of Brentford upon the river Thames, whither +we learned that 'twas fortunate we had without accident arrived, a +certain haberdasher of repute having been robbed of all he carried upon +the heath we had but lately rid over into that place, and left for dead +by the wayside. + +Perhaps it was this outrage which had made for our safety, and that, +being so far satisfied with the spoil of silks and rich stuff taken, +the malefactors had hastened to dispose of it to some that make a +living by that cowardly means, and are mostly dwellers about the Stocks +market, in the narrow lanes thereby, although some (as Culver Alley) +have been stopped up against such notorious use of thieves. + +Notwithstanding, I here affirm, that in the morning, when we saw the +monstrous charges our lodging stood us in, we found we had not far to +seek for a thief as big as any; and having paid the innkeeper, told him +so. + +But now we were come almost within view of the great City of which I +had so many times dreamed, and so beyond limits had advanced its +imagined glory, until it seemed to draw into itself all that was noble +and rich and powerful in the world; being Rome and Carthage too, I +thought, and the Indies added! nay, and only not Paris or Florence, +because it scorned the comparison. In such an exaltation I sat my +horse, looking to right and left as we rode through the lanes past +Hammersmith and Kensington, all the way being still deep in snow; +although hardened here by the traffic of country carts, or rather (I +said) by great equipages of the Court and the Queen's troops. Mr. +Jordan spoke twice or thrice upon indifferent matters, and chiefly, I +remember, of Olympus; but I regarded him contemptuously, having come +into a place where Olympus would be very cheaply esteemed as a hill, we +having our own Ludgate Hill, which, if not so high, is in all other +respects as good or better. But when he told me that we must soon each +take our leave of the other, all that vain mood left me, and I wished +him from my heart a thousand benefits and safety in his enterprise, in +which I would have joined him willingly had I not been bound to this +business of my uncle. He told me he should go to Moorfields, where he +had heard there was frequent exercise of arms, and there learn how to +set about his enrolment. + +About this time we came to Charing Cross, where no further speech was +possible between us; such strangeness we met with, and unused fashion +of things; and proceeding by way of the Strand, we noted an infinite +succession of sights, of which the least elsewhere would have staggered +me, but now giving place to others as marvellous, or more, they did but +increase my appetite for amazement, which they alternately satisfied +and renewed. Upon the clamour and the infinite throngs of the +townsfolk, I but briefly touch, for they transcend all description, as +do the palaces of the Savoy and Arundel House that we passed by; and +the Earl of Essex his mansion, and other the inns of the great nobles +which lie upon the right side of this famous street, and betwixt it and +the Thames. Somerset House, moreover, that is still building, we saw, +and artificers yet at work thereupon, which will be, I think, when +builded, the finest palace of all. At Temple Bar a man leaves the +liberty of the Duchy (as it is called) and enters within the liberty +(albeit yet without the walls) of the City of London, and here, a +little distance further on, I found Fetter Lane upon the left hand, +where my lodging was, and so (having first learned where I should have +word of him) sorrowfully parted with Mr. Jordan at the end of it, he +going still eastward towards Paul's, and I up the lane, that is +northward, to Mr. Malt's, where I was well received, and led to a clean +and pleasant chamber in the gable, which he told me was to be mine. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +IN WHICH I CONCEIVE A DISLIKE OF AN EARL'S SERVANT + AND AN AFFECTION FOR A MAN OF LAW + +I think I overlaid my conscience in the night, seeing I stayed abed +until near seven o'clock next morning, a thing I had never before done; +but, indeed, I had now some colour of excuse for so doing, for besides +my wound in the thigh, which the cold had made woefully to ache, there +was my new clothes which the carrier had not yet delivered, and I was +mighty loth to go abroad in my travel-stained riding dress and great +boots. As I lay there, the light then gathering mistily in my chamber, +I could hear the noises of the City and the cries of the multitude of +small vendors that go about the streets, as having no booth nor open +shop wherein to display their petty merchandise. From a church near by +I heard bells pealing, and soon from other churches too. Below my +window there was a maid singing, and a man with her that hawked +ballads, bawling their titles till my ears tingled. Nevertheless, the +confusion of all these strange cries and sounds heartened me +marvellously, and had I but got my new-fashioned doublet of dark cloth +and hose therewithal, I had been the merriest man of the parish, as I +was certainly the most curious. After awhile I could lie no longer, +but leapt up, and running to the casement, found London white, a sky of +frost, and a brave gay world before me. + +My chamber, as I said, was a sort of great attic in the gable, and full +as high up in the house as was my old tower room at home. But 'twas +less the height that astonished me, than the nearness into which the +houses were thrust together from either side of the street, so as they +almost met by the roofs; and I swear, had I been so inclined (and he +too) I could have crossed staves with the barber that had his dwelling +over against mine, or almost stolen his pewter shaving dish from the +sill where it lay. Of these conceits of mine, however, the barber was +necessarily ignorant, being then busily engaged upon the exercise of +his craft, which he carried on perforce above stairs, the shop below +and the other rooms being used by a haberdasher and alderman, that had +his goods stored there. I noted the barber particularly as well for +his extraordinary grace and courtesy, as for the activity he manifested +in his occupation. No hand's turn would he do but a flourish went to +it, and always his body bending and his head nodding and twisting to +that extent, I wondered how the man he shaved could sit his chair in +any degree of comfort. Perhaps he did not, though he seemed to suffer +the little man's attentions coolly enough, and when he went away, paid +him, I perceived, handsomely, and strode off with a careless ease, that +minded me, with some shame, of my own country manners. My thoughts +being thus returned upon my late secluded life, I fell into a +melancholy mood which was a little after happily dissipated by the maid +bringing me my new clothes and telling me moreover that the family +stayed for me at breakfast. + +I was soon enough dressed after this and, settling my starched ruff, of +which the pleats somewhat galled me, descended to the room where they +dined; and there found the whole family of the Malts (that with the +infant made up nine) set at the board and very ready for their delayed +meal. A long grace was said by the youngest maid, whose eyes were +fierce upon the eggs the while, and after that we fell to. Madam Malt +spoke kindly to me once or twice of my business, of which I had already +given her some slight and grudged particulars, but for the most part +she conversed in sidelong frowns with her children, of whose conduct it +was evident she wished I should think well. But in truth I cared +nothing for their conduct nor much for their persons (for all they were +personable enough) being in a fever to be gone upon my errand to the +goldsmith's and to commence work in earnest. + +Breakfast done then, I lost little time upon formalities and broke in +upon Madam Malt's excuse of her third (or fourth) daughter's mishap +over the small beer, with excuses of my own for leaving her; and so +taking up my hat left her staring. So eager indeed was I, that I ran +out of the door into the arms of a gentleman that stood by and nearly +sent him on his back in the snow. When he had recovered himself, with +my aid, and stood fronting me, I knew him directly for the man whom I +had seen in the barber's chair, and faltering upon my apology let fall +some foolish words by which I might be thought to claim his +acquaintance. He frowned suddenly at that and gazing upon me earnestly +said-- + +"It were easy to perceive you are of the country, young sir, and not +used to our town customs." + +"How so?" I asked very hotly, for his disdain went the deeper into me +that it was founded upon reason. + +"By your pretending to an intimacy with me," he replied, and drew +himself up very haughtily as he said it, "who know not your name even, +although doubtless you know mine, as all do, seeing the place I keep, +and the especial favour of my lord to me; yet I say that is no ground +for your familiarly accosting me in the public way." + +"Why, as to that," I cried out scorningly, "I know nothing of you save +that I saw you but now in the barber's chair, swathed up in a towel and +your face all lathered." + +He turned very pale at this out of mere discomfiture, and I expected +would have run upon me with his sword, so that I clapped my fist upon +my own and stepping closely to his side said-- + +"Sir, I am, as you imagine, but lately come out of the country and +therefore know not your customs here in London. But if there be places +reserved for the settlement of such brabbles as this, let us go thither +with all my heart." And then, after a breath or two taken: "For all +that," I added, "I had it in my mind to say I meant no insult, and if I +offended you, I am sorry." + +He stood without replying either to my threats or my amends, but gazed +upon me with a look that I saw meant mischief; though whether to be +done now or at a convenient time and secretly, I could not guess. + +He was a fine bold man, of an height a good span greater than my own. +He wore no hair on his face, but that I could see under his plumed cap +was thick and black. His dress was of rare stuff and I supposed very +costly, being all slashed and broidered, and tagged with gold. Indeed, +had he not let slip that boast of intimacy with some lord I should have +been sure of his being a lord himself and perhaps master of one of +those great palaces upon the Strand. Thus, then, we stood thwarting +each other a considerable space, and I (at least) doubting of the +upshot, when a great fellow in a livery of blue, with a badge on his +sleeve, came running up the lane, and casting an eye upon me, pushed in +between us and spoke with the tall man low and seriously. There +remaining therefore nought to hinder me longer about that brawl, I went +off, but asked one that stood by what was the badge the man in livery +bore, and he answered 'twas the Earl of Pembroke's emblem of the green +dragon, and that they twain that communed together thus secretly were +both of his household of Baynards Castle by Blackfriars. + +Without further mishap, but pondering rather heavily upon my late one, +I made my way through the streets, past the noble church of Paul's on +the south side of it, to Mr. Wall the goldsmith hard by the Exchange. +I have neither space nor words nor confidence either, to speak of all +the things I met with, beyond imagination marvellous to me; and even +where I was disappointed of my expectation; as in the little width of +the streets, and of Paul's that it lacked the spire it once had; +together with much else that lacked completion or seemed at hazard +builded; even there, I say, I found my idea bettered by the fact, and a +strange beauty in the irregularity and scant ordering of the City, that +the more bewildered me as I went the further into the midst of it. + +I found Mr. Wall in his shop, or house rather, a little down the lane +named of the Pope's Head tavern, where he expected me with the money +ready, that my father had desired him to have at my disposal. He +overread my letters of credit somewhat closely, after which he put to +me two or three such pertinent questions as sufficed to show a shrewd +aptitude in affairs of business, yet without any the least pedantry, or +vexatious delays. Indeed he dispatched all with an easy unconcern, as +if such matters were of every day and not considerable; although the +sum to be paid methought large enough in all conscience. The while I +counted over the gold pieces he talked idly, but with a pleasant +humour, of Mr. John Davis that was said to be projecting with others a +voyage for the discovery of the Northwest Passage (the which he +undertook in the summer following), and of Mr. Sanderson, a merchant +well known to him, that was especially committed to this adventure. + +"I would myself have gone upon this discovery," he said, "but for the +misfortune of a singular queasy stomach that layeth me low or ever I be +come upon the ship. Yet I thank Heaven I am not of their number that, +having themselves failed, pretend that success is the constant +attendant upon incompetence." + +When it came to the carriage of my gold he very courteously offered to +send his porter therewith, and as the weight was more by far than I had +looked for, I thanked him, and gave the bags to the man, who for his +part made nothing of them, but walked away briskly down Cornhill, I +following him as a convoy might follow a treasure ship, close upon her +chase. In such sort we arrived in time at the Serjeants Inn in Fleet +Street, where I had engaged to meet Mr. John Skene, that was my uncle's +attorney. In that Inn, or warren rather (for indeed it is nothing +less), we searched for any of the name of Skene, but could find none; +however, a stranger who chanced to pass over the court while we stood +at gaze courteously directing us, we soon after came upon his chambers, +which were at the head of a narrow stair in the south building and the +eastern end thereof; whereupon my porter gave me my leathern sacks into +my hands saying he must now go, which (I having paid him) he presently +did. + +Mr. Skene admitted me with a deal of ceremony, being, I could see, a +man of extreme punctuality and withal one to whom I took an immediate +liking. He was I think the most handsome-featured man I have ever met +with, in height tall, and of a stately port, his body stout although +not at all gross, and his hair, which was very plentiful, gone a +perfect silver. I supposed his age to be nearing three score, but he +might have been younger. His eye was very bright and kindly and seemed +to smile even when his lips were drawn close in meditation. The black +gown he wore as suited to his profession very well befitted his grave +demeanour; about his neck was a plain linen band, but the cap which the +Serjeants generally use he had not on, and I supposed kept it only for +wearing in the Court. His business room into which I had come appeared +meanly furnished, excepting in books and quires, of which there was a +great number scattered everywhere, but his table and the two or three +chairs were nothing so good as our own at home, and the floor unswept +and foul. While I took notice of these small matters Mr. Skene was +reaching from a shelf a great file of papers tied with silk; which +having got, he turned about and surprised me at that occupation. + +"A poor hole, you think, Mr. Cleeve," he said, with a merry smile at my +embarrassment, "but we men of law have scant occasion for leisure in +which to look about us, and luxury would be ill circumstanced here +where life and death be too often at grips. Come," he added after a +pause, "I do not mean to take the pulpit over you, but to bid you +expect such plainness in me as you find in my chamber; and so, enough," +he ended, and therewith drew out a parchment with a great seal attached +to it, upon which he pondered a while. + +"You have the main of this affair?" he asked abruptly, touching the +skin as he spoke. + +"Yes," I replied, "at least so much as that my uncle Botolph is in the +Tower, and hopes to clear himself if he may be brought to trial." + +"Then you have it all, or nearly so," he said nodding. "He was +arrested upon an order of the Council and secretly conveyed by water to +the place where he now lies. By especial grace I have once been +admitted to see him, and learned from his own mouth, although I needed +not to hear that I was already assured of, namely, the entire innocence +that he hath as touching these late revolts." + +He sat silent awhile and perhaps awaited my reply, albeit my reply when +he heard it seemed not much to his mind, and I myself was surprised at +my boldness in speaking it. + +"It lies upon my conscience, sir," said I, "to tell you that, had I my +will, my uncle should by no means come by this franchise we be +deliberating so painfully to procure. I believe him to be a most +absolute villain, and had not my father moved herein, I should have let +him rot in his dungeon and ne'er stirred a finger in this cause." + +I stopped there for mere lack of breath, being quite overcome by my +heat of passion against my uncle, but when I would have excused myself, +Mr. Skene prevented me with a motion of his hand. The pleasant light +in his eyes was clouded with a grave anxiety. + +"These be hard words, Master Denis," he said, "and I hope are +justified; or rather, I hope not; else I cannot for my honour undertake +this prisoner's defence. But tell me briefly upon what grounds you +believe him to be so worthless of relief." + +This put me into an unlooked for difficulty, because I could not bring +myself to tell him aught of my mother, and yet had I no other reason to +give him. But he, as if perceiving he had said something to vex me, +hastened to set me at my ease, and leaning forward upon his desk, said-- + +"You are still very young, Mr. Denis, and the young are apt to +prejudge. But for the cause of your anger I may tell you frankly that +I know it; and respect you both for it and also for your reticence in +naming it. I have been acquainted with your uncle," he went on, +speaking still in a thoughtful manner, but as if some pleasure joined +with the recollection of which he was to notify me: "I have been +acquainted with him above seven years now, and can lay claim to know +his private mind so far as a man's friend may do. You spoke of a fault +of his, when he was scarce older than yourself. Are we to send him to +the block for that? It is not the charge under which he now lies, Mr. +Denis, nor is it one"--he spoke this with so great an earnestness that +I dropped my eyes before his--"nor is it such an impeachment as you +would be willing to stand beside the block where he lay dead and say, +'I let him die because a score of years since a certain frail lady held +him higher than her honour.'" + +"Sir," I cried out at that, "have a care! The lady was my mother." + +He started back as if I had shot him. "I knew not that," he said, and +repeated it twice or thrice. "I had not thought it pressed so near. +Forgive me; I should have guessed it from your manner, if not from his +narration. But he was ever thus," he proceeded, half to himself. "It +hath been so, since our acquaintance even." He stopped short, leaning +back in his chair and then suddenly again forward: "If you desire it," +he said, "I will go no further in this matter. He deserves no pity, +but rather the last penalty of the law; and I make no question but that +by our abstention, he will come into the way to receive it." + +For awhile I could not speak, so wrought upon was I by this temptation, +which was none other than that I had set before my father, and he +rejected. At length I shook my head and without another word burst +into tears. Mr. Skene waited until I was something recovered, settling +his papers the while, and seeming to write upon his tablets; for which +delicacy I thanked him in my heart. When next he spoke, he changed the +direction of our discourse, inquiring pleasantly why I had troubled +myself with so great a sum as five hundred pounds, in coin, when my own +letters would equally have served. + +"I know not where to store it safely," he said, "until such time as I +shall be able to use it, or a part of it only, as I hope; which may be +not for many days or weeks even. If you take my advice, Mr. Denis, you +will restore it to Mr. Wall, whom I know very well, and beg him to +disburse it to you, as you, or I rather, may require." + +I blushed for my small knowledge that had led me into this laughable +error, and although the attorney made little of it I perceived he +thought but meanly of my dealings in exchange. + +In the end I wrote a letter to Mr. Wall requiring him to do as Mr. +Skene had advised, and requesting him further to fetch away my unlucky +bags of gold, which in the meanwhile the attorney promised to bestow in +one of the closets where his title-deeds and capital muniments were +lodged for their better security against thieves and fire. This done, +he told me to come to him again on the morrow and a little earlier than +I had done that day; by which time he would have, ready drawn and fair +writ, our petition to the Council praying for a fair trial at law of +Mr. Botolph Cleeve that was now detained in the Tower during her +Majesty's pleasure, and also to be furnished with the several counts of +the indictment against him directed, which it lay upon us to be +possessed of in order to the preparing of our answer thereto. I +marvelled at the industry and rapid address of the man in these +necessary (but by me unthought of) particulars, and told him that I +wished I loved my uncle better that I might rejoice the more in the +certainty of his release. He shook his head at that, however, saying +that at the best 'twas not impossible the prisoner would be brought to +trial even; and that for the event he could promise nothing, having +indeed more fear of it than he had yet allowed. + +I parted from him soon after, and it being then dinner time I was glad +to find a tavern hard by the Temple Bar where I partook heartily of the +excellent ordinary that is there maintained; and a little while +afterwards Mr. Richard Malt entering (a son of the worthy hosier with +whom I lodged), he entertained me with discourse of the comedies that +were then playing at the public theatres, and of the famous players +that were his friends; from all which I concluded that Mr. Richard +would scarce make so diligent a hosier as his father, whom indeed he +continually disparaged, terming him old buffle-head, and swearing he +had never so much as heard of the "Arraignment of Paris" nor of +"Campaspe" even; upon which I shrugged up my shoulders as who should +say: Is such ignorance possible in this age? and determined to apply +myself to some discreet person secretly, that should instruct me in all +matters of the stage, without delay. + +And so for that while did my uncle Botolph go clean out of my head. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +A CHAPTER OF CHEATS + +On the morrow I rose very contrite for the proneness of my mind towards +pleasures, and calling to remembrance with an excessive sadness, that +protestation of our bailiff's against stage-plays and ungodly shows. +Indeed I began to fear lest Mr. Richard should prove altogether a +perverter of my youth, and promised myself I would avoid his company +henceforward, nor inquire any further after Campaspe and the rest. +Which resolved upon, I felt joyfuller (as a man's recovered virtue doth +generally induce that comfortable feeling) and took pleasure in the +thought that I was this day to relieve the oppressed, and succour them +that were in prison: or at least one of them. + +But all these salutary thoughts broke a-scatter, when, chancing to cast +an eye across the street, I saw my gallant that I had withstood +yesterday, again set in his barber's chair, where he indolently +reclined; and the barber dancing before him like a second David with +razor for timbrel. An instant desire took me, to know who my late +adversary might be (so that in any future debate I might have a name to +clap villain to) and bethought me of an easy way whereby to satisfy +myself. Having patiently awaited his departure therefore, I stole +downstairs and over the lane; mounted to the barber's, three steps at +once, and was in his chair demanding to be shaved ere a man could tell +three score. + +"Your worship does me a great honour," cried the antick fellow, "and I +will dispatch your business in a trice," which he did, my beard being, +I confess, no great thing as yet. + +"Your house is well spoken of," I said carelessly, when he had done, +and I stood cleansing my chin at the basin. + +"It is well attended," he replied, bowing, "and that by the best." + +"Tell me some that use it," I said in a meditative manner, "it may hap +that I know them." + +"There is John a Nokes," replied the barber, with alacrity, "that is +host of the Chequers; but he comes hither no more. And there is Mr. +Nicholas Lovel, that promised me he would come on Wednesday last, +though indeed he failed so to do; and there is moreover the Master of +the Worshipful Company of Painter Stainers whom I used to meet with at +their great hall in Trinity Lane." + +"And him you shave," said I, seeing that he paused there. + +"Nay, for he hath a singular great beard," he said, "and when he sits +in Council amidst his Company of the Painter Stainers there is none +appeareth more lofty and worshipful than he. I have been a serving man +there," he added with a conspicuous pride, "and worn their livery, so +that it behoveth me to speak well of them, and to pray for their +continuance in prosperity." + +"That is all as it should be," quoth I, "but for my question, good +master barber, I do not find you have answered it." + +"Cry you mercy," said the little barber with an innocent air, "but +methought I had answered you full and fairly." + +"Hath any come hither this morning," I demanded, "besides myself?" + +"It is still very early, sir," he replied, rubbing his hands together +the while, "but I hope at noon, now, by the which hour as you know, a +man's beard commenceth to prick sorely..." + +"Hold!" I cried, "I speak not of your hopes, but of your performance. +Have you shaved any man this day?" + +"Oh, none, sir," he replied, as though it were a thing indecent, and I +shocked him. + +"You lie," said I coolly, "for one went forth but now." + +The barber: "Surely you mistake, sir ... but now I bethink me it was no +doubt my lord of Pembroke." + +"So then my lord of Pembroke serves my lord of Pembroke, belike," I +answered, laughing sourly, "and weareth his cast suits, as did he that +went hence." + +I never saw a man so taken aback, and all his graces drooped about him +like a sere garland. + +"Come, sir," said I at length, in a great voice, for I was both +wrathful at this fetch, and feared something behind it, "who is this +black-a-vised tall man in brave apparel, that you shave each morning?" + +"Oh, good Mr. Cleeve," he cried out trembling, but got no further, for +I had him by the collar. + +"Thou hast my name pat enough," said I, very low, and shifted my +fingers to his throat, which I must have held pretty tight, seeing his +face went black and his eyes started forth of it. "To the purpose," I +proceeded and released my grasp somewhat. + +He wrested himself loose and stood away gasping. + +"Who is the tall man of the narrowed eyes and black complexion?" I +demanded. + +"I dare not tell," he whispered, and as it were shook that answer from +his lips. + +"He spies upon me, and uses thine house for that purpose," I said, and +gathered certainty from the mere relation of my doubts. "But wherefore +doth he so? That thou must tell me, master barber, and presently, else +will I beat thee with thine own barber's staff." + +I made as if to seize him again, but he backed off, howling. + +"If you swear," he began, and seeing I paused, "you must swear by the +Book," he said sharply, for I had squeezed his voice as thin as a +knife; "and take what guilt of perjury should be mine in speaking." + +I said I would vouchsafe not to reveal who it was that told me, but +that was the extent of my promise; for the rest, I went in danger of my +life, it seemed, or at least of my peace and quiet, which my absolute +silence would but tend to confirm and increase. + +The barber appeared satisfied of the justice of this, and having +fetched out a Testament from a cupboard by the door, laid it open in my +hand, but then again hesitated. + +"This being so private a matter," he mumbled, "I will first bolt the +door at the foot of the stair, and thereafter will let you into so +great a secret"--he advanced his pinched and sallow face close to my +own and let his voice fall so low that I could scarce hear him--"a +secret so great that your blood shall run cold to hear it." + +This coming so pat upon my suspicions, I promise you my blood ran cold +at the sheer hint of it, and I suffered him to leave me and bolt the +great door on the stair, in order to our more perfect privacy. And +bolt the door indeed he did, but upon the wrong side of it; himself +fleeing away in an extremity of apprehension lest (I suppose) I should +get at his pulpy fat neck again and strangle him outright: which +consideration moved him to put the door betwixt us while there was +time; although I believe I should have burst it down despite its great +thickness had it not been that the haberdasher's 'prentices heard me, +and opened it from without. But the barber was clean gone by that, +with his yellow face and his fulsome big secret and the devil to boot. +The fellow's name was Pentecost Soper (so many syllables to so slight a +man), and I have never set eyes on him since. + +In no very good humour I returned to the family of the Malts and in ill +case to be spoken to. Yet was I obliged to attend how Madam Malt's +third (or fourth) daughter came to spill the small beer at breakfast +yesterday, and the history being interrupted at the least a score of +times by laughter and denials and (from the infant) by woeful +lamentations, it fell out that I had concluded my meal while the tale +still hung about the start, like an over-weighted galleon off a +lee-shore; until at length Madam Malt (an indifferent mariner) +confessed herself at fault, crying-- + +"But there! I will tell you all another time, Mr. Denis. It is a rare +tale I warrant you, though Mistress Judith would have had me keep it +secret; as a maid must have her secret, since time was a week gone in +Genesis." + +A day that had begun thus, with two secrets so necessary to be divulged +as were the barber's and Mistress Judith's, was (had I known it) to +issue in such horrid disclosures as were to change for me the whole +course of my living, and indeed awhile to suspend upon a doubtful +balance the very living itself. Consequent upon my promise to the old +attorney, I made haste to repair to his lodging as early as I judged it +proper to do so, and therefore after breakfast, it lacking then a +little of nine o'clock, I put on my cloak and hat and set forth. One +consideration I had as I walked, which had weighed heavily upon me +since my last conference with him, and that was whether, and if so +when, I should attempt to get speech of my uncle in prison. It seemed +to me right, and indeed due both to my father and myself (looking to +the hardships of my journey directly across England) that he should +both know and thank us for the diligence we were using in his behalf; +and it was to come at some means whereby I might procure this I had in +view, that I intended to speak with Mr. Skene, no less than to conclude +that we had already put in motion. + +'Twas a foggy and thick morning, the weather having suddenly in the +night passed from its extreme of cold into an opposite of mildness, so +that the snow was almost everywhere thawed, and the streets foul and +deep in mire. I was glad enough to turn out of Fleet Street, where +every cart and passenger I met with left me more filthily besprent; so +that twice or thrice I was like to have drawn upon some peaceable +citizen that unawares had sent his vestige mud upon my new bosom. So +hastening into the Inn yard I traversed it and was soon at Mr. Skene's +door, where I knocked loudly and awaited him. The door was soon opened +to me. "Is Mr. Skene within?" I asked; for he himself came not, as +yesterday he had, but an ancient woman, in a soiled coif and apparel +marvellous indecent, stood in the doorway. + +"Lord! there be no Skenes here," she said in a harsh voice, "nor aught +else but confusion and labour and sneaped wages, and they delayed. +Skenes!" she ran on like a course of mill-water, "ay, Skenes and scalds +and the quarten ague, and what doth the old fool live for, that was Ann +by the Garlickhithe fifty year since, and worth nigh five-and-thirty +marks or ever Tom Ducket beguiled her out of the virtuous way to the +havoc of her salvation; with a murrain o' his like and small rest to +their souls. A bright eye was mine then, master, that is dull now, and +the bloom of a peach by the southward wall. But now 'tis age and a +troubled mind that irks me, besides this pestering sort of knaves that +live by the law. Ah! Garlickhithe was fair on a May morning once, +lad, and the fairer, they told me, that Ann was fair featured who dwelt +there." + +I had suffered the old hag to rave thus far, out of mere astonishment. +For how came it, I asked, that she who cleansed the chamber knew +nothing of the man who occupied his business there. My brain faltered +in its office, and I reeled under the weight of my fears. + +"Who then uses these rooms?" I inquired when I could manage my words. + +"None to-day nor to-morrow, I warrant, so foul it is," replied the old +wife, and fell to work upon the floor again with her soused clouts, +while she proceeded, "but the day after 'tis one Master Roman from +Oxford removes hither to study at the law. Let him pay me my wages by +the law, lawfully, as he shall answer for it at the Judgment, for I +have been put to charges beyond belief in black soap (that is a +halfpenny the pound in the shops at Bow), and let no one think I take +less than fourpence by the day, for all I live on the Bank-side over +against the Clink." + +Without more ado I flung into the chamber past her, and running to the +closet where my money was, had it open on the instant. But the first +sight showed it to me quite bare. Nevertheless, I groped about the +vacancy like a man mad (as I was indeed), crying out that I was +infamously deceived and robbed of five hundred pound. Now searching +thus distractedly, and without either method or precaution, I chanced +to hit my leg a sore great blow against the iron of the latch, and +opened my wound afresh which was not near healed, so that it bled very +profusely. But this, although it weakened me, hindered me nothing, I +continuing a great while after to turn all upside down and to bewail my +loss and Skene's villainy that had undone me. + +In the end, however, my fever of dismay abating a little or giving +place to reason, I bethought myself of Mr. Wall, the goldsmith, to whom +perhaps the attorney had thought it safer to convey the gold; and +straightway therefore made off to his house on Cornhill, in a remnant +of hope that my apprehensions should after all prove to be ill-grounded. + +He saw me coming, I suppose, for he left his shop to greet me; but when +he observed my infinite distress, he would listen to no word of mine +until he had fetched forth a bottle of Rhenish, and made me drink of +it. The good wine refreshed me mightily, as also, and indeed more, did +the quiet behaviour of Mr. Wall, who counselled me wisely to rest +myself first and after to confine myself to relating the bare matter +without heat or flourish of any kind. "For out of an hot heart proceed +many things inconvenient, as the Apostle plainly shewed," he said, +"whereas out of a cold head proceedeth nothing but what is to the +purpose, and generally profitable; at least in the way of business, Mr. +Denis, I mean in the way of business, which is doubtless the cause of +your honouring me again with your company." + +Upon this I told him all, without passion, and directly as it had +befallen. His face, as I spoke, gradually came to assume a deeper +gravity, but he did not interrupt my narration, though I perceived that +in part it was not altogether clear. When I had made an end he sat +long, and then rising, went to his desk and returned to me with a +paper, which was the same I had given to Skene on the yesterday. + +"Do you acknowledge that for your hand, Mr. Denis?" he asked me briefly. + +"It is mine," I replied wondering. + +"Be pleased to read it," said he. + +So in a trembling voice I read it aloud, word for word as I had writ it +under Skene's direction; wherein I desired Mr. Wall that he would +disburse to our attorney, as he should have need of them, such sums as +should not in the total exceed five hundred pounds. + +"And such was my intention," cried I, infinitely relieved to find all +as I supposed it. But observing that the goldsmith regarded me +something oddly, I added: "I mean that he required the gold, not in +bulk, but in parcels from time to time; and as to that I took away +yesterday, that you were to send for it again." + +"You say not so here," said he very quietly. + +But upon the instant he had said it, I perceived how the villain had +used my letter, which was to double his booty already gotten; he having +not restored the former sum I had meant this to be in the place of, but +having even possessed himself of this treasure likewise. My +inadvertent laxness of instruction (purposely so phrased by Skene +himself) had given him the opportunity he sought, and I was now by my +folly and misgiven trust, a thousand pounds upon the score in the +goldsmith's books. + +There was no occasion for argument betwixt us, where all was manifest +enough, nor yet, by him, for empty expressions of regret, seeing he had +but acted punctually upon my demand. For his pity, I had it, I knew, +though Mr. Wall refrained himself from any expression of it. But +another feeling he had, I could see, which was a doubt whether my +father's credit was sufficient to bear this inordinately increased +burden; nay, whether he would not repudiate the note I had so ineptly +set hand to, staying his conscience on the satisfaction of his proper +bond. I had my answer to that ready, had Mr. Wall proposed the +question; but to his honour he did not. All he put in contribution to +our debate related to Skene's presentation of my note, which being +fairly written and legally expressed, he had neither reason nor scruple +for withholding the loan. As for the bearer of the message, he was a +gentleman of a very noble quiet manner, said Wall, and to this +description of Skene I could not but consent. + +In fine there being nought left to say, save on my part that I would +immediately write an account of all to my father (whom I would not +otherwise commit) we parted at the door, and I returned slowly through +the great unfriendly City, sick at heart. Now I had not proceeded far +upon my way when it came upon me that I would seek out my old tutor, +Mr. Jordan; for I greatly yearned after comfort and kindly speech, +which I knew would be his to give, upon the first hint of my +misfortune. By good hap I remembered the lodging where he had said he +might be found, which was in a room of a great house called +Northumberland House in the parish, and over against the Church, of St. +Katherine Colman; which mansion having fallen from its first estate (as +many other within the City have done also) is now parted among such as +do pay rent for their use of chambers therein, as few or many as they +please. + +Thither then I inquired out direction; but whether it were by reason of +the intricacy of manifold streets and alleys, or of the mist that from +first overcasting the sky had now descended and thickly muffled up even +the considerable buildings, or else of the opening again of my wound +that sorely sucked away my strength; I say whatsoever the cause were, I +soon confessed myself at a stand and quite bewildered. And moreover to +make bad worse, I perceived myself to have run into a foul and steep +lane, of a most unsavoury stench; the way being nought else than a +kennel pestered with garbage. None seemed to be inhabiting this +unclean byway, or at the least not occupying their business in it; but +the doors stood shut all, and the windows so guarded as one might think +the plague had visited the place and died for lack of life to feed on. + +Meanwhile the fog seemed to mitigate something of its blackness before +me; and this it was, I suppose, that drove me still forward rather than +by returning upon my steps to encounter the worst of it that yet hung +like a pall between the desolate houses. + +At length I issued at the bottom end into a sort of wide place or yard +(for I could not rightly tell which it were, so dim all lay and I so +confused by pain), but by a certain saltness in the air I guessed it +might be near beside the river, and perhaps led down to one of the +wharves or hithes thereupon. But that I was out of all bearing I knew, +and the knowledge sank my courage utterly, so that I could no more, but +sat down upon a stock by the wayside and wept for very bitterness. + +I remember that I said it over like a creed an hundred times that I was +alone, and although I said it not, it beat upon my brain that I was +very near to death. + +Soon after I seemed to stumble, and perhaps did indeed sink down from +the timber I rested on; whereat, opening my eyes hastily, I saw face to +face with me, a maid with the countenance of an angel, and an infinite +compassion in her eyes. But the fever altogether had me then, so that +what I report I may not now verify; yet methought she took me by the +hands and raised me, saying (as to herself), "Dear heart, how chill he +is," and then, "Lo! the hurt he hath, poor lad! and it not stanched but +bleeding." + +After that I must have swooned, for I remember no more; or at least not +such as I believe did happen, though from the cloud of wild dreams that +began to beset me there drew together as it were a masque of half-truth +in a scene not wholly fantastick. For I stood again in the midst of a +long and steep street, very dark and tempestuous, of which the houses +falling together suddenly with a great noise formed a sort of rift or +tunnel by which I might escape; and at the end of this length of ruin I +perceived a pale blue light burning, to the which painfully groping my +way I saw it was borne by a maid that came toward me; and all this +while I heard a mighty rushing as of water, and voices mingled with it, +loud and laughing. Then as the lass with the light approached me +nearer I knew her for Madam Malt's third (or fourth) daughter, and the +rushing sound I perceived to be the stream of small beer she had spilt; +and the laughter grew and increased horribly and the light went out. +And so, at length, I fell away into an inevitable and profound +forgetfulness. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +TELLS HOW I CHANGED MY LODGING AND LOST MY MARE + +I mind me of a sad play once I saw, that is played now in a duke's +palace, and after in a glade within a forest, where one of the persons, +a noble youth whom his presumption hath caused to be banished from his +mistress, saith, "Hope is a lover's staff; walk hence with that." The +play is called a comedy because it ends upon delight, yet after a world +of heaviness encountered, and such thwarting of wills, as makes one +weep to behold. And perhaps when all's said, we do wrong to name +anything of this world tragical, seeing we cannot look to the end of +it, and indeed sometimes (one must suppose) a play is but half played +out here, and that the sad half with all the tears. 'Tis another hand +manages the curtain, and, alas! that the too soon dropping of it hath +made many to say in their hearts, "There is no God." + +Much in this kind occupied my brain, when at length I was partially +recovered after my continued and grave sickness. I still lay abed, +taking babes' food and physick, and asking no questions, being yet too +weak for that, and so that I were left in peace, careful for nought +else. My body might have been another's, so little did it appear to +encumber me; a certain lightness and withal a sense of freedom from the +common restraints of life possessed me. I had, as it were, overpassed +the lists of experience, and become truly a new creature. In this +security and enfranchisement of my spirit I found an infinite, and my +only, pleasure in speculating upon the meaning of things I had never so +much as called in question hitherto, and then first perceived how wide +a gulf lay betwixt that a man may be and that a man must do. I saw all +bad but what rests still in idea, and bitterly condemned the +never-ending hurry of effort and business by which the course of life +is fouled, upward almost to her source. + +This exalted mood lasted I think about a week, during which time I had +got to so high a pitch of philosophy as I cannot now think on for +blushing; settling my notions after my own fashion very conveniently, +and mighty intolerant of those currently held. But afterwards, that +is, about the tenth day of my clear mind, I suffered myself to descend +some way toward common sense, which to my surprise I found not so +disagreeable as might have been. Certain 'tis I still saw all in a +mist of phantasy, and different from what it truly was; but, +notwithstanding, it marked my first motion of health, and a recovery of +my heritage in the world. Once set on this road, I soon grew to be +restive of the remnant of malady which yet kept me weak, and began to +fear I should ne'er be able again. At times I would be melancholy and +fret by the hour at my pitiful lot; then again would fall to piecing +together the events that had preceded this my disease, but could not +get them orderly, or at the least, not whole. + +At such a time it was that suddenly and without premonition, my memory +recovered the picture of that fair maid bending over me and murmuring, +"_Dear heart_!" I leapt up in bed on the instant, and would have had +on my clothes before any could hinder me, had not my impotence held me +without need of other prevention, and I sank back all dismayed. + +Henceforward my mind had matter enough and to spare with the thoughts +of her alone. If I desired life now it was that I might continue to +think of her and of her manner of saying, "_Dear heart! how chill he +is!_" and "_Lo, the hurt he hath, poor lad!_" I swore I would not +exchange those two sentences for a barony, nor the look that went with +them for a prince's thanks. That word of thanks brought me to a wonder +how I might compass the tendering of my thanks to the maid herself, +whom (now I recollected it) I knew not so much as the name of, nor yet +her place of lodging. This consideration greatly staggered me, and had +nigh sent me into a fever again. But I told myself that it was very +certain I must find her in time (and being young, time seemed to be a +commodity inexhaustible), and so for that while the fever held off. +However, I had still intervals of despair which were black enough; but +hope ever ensuing and at each return in larger measure, upon the +balance I found comfort. And thus, responding to the text of the old +play I have before set down (though I had not then seen it played), I +also might have cried, "Hope is the lover's staff," and with that to +lean on I determined to walk thence without further delay. + +Such were the interior passages (to call them so) of my sickness that +was now quite passed; for, with hope at length steadfast with me, it is +clear I lacked nothing of my perfect health, excepting only what strong +meat and sunlight would soon bring. + +And so it was I felt myself ready to go upon a certain discovery I had +in mind (and did presently put into execution), which was to determine +precisely where in the world I might be! For the whiles I had lain +idle this question had intermittently perplexed me: my chamber being +very narrow and low, and bearing, I thought, small likeness to my room +in Mr. Malt's house, of which the window was a large and latticed one, +whereas this I now had was little and barred. My meals, too, were +served by a woman I could not remember to have seen; a pleasant, +bustling body, with a mouth widened by smiling and eyes narrowed by +shrewd discernment. But what troubled me more than all was a +persistent sound of water lapping about the house, which led me to +suppose I was somehow lodged upon an island; or else in the prison +beside the Fleet River--though I thought this could not well be. + +Using more precaution, then, than I had done previously, I got out of +my bed, and sitting on the edge of it, was soon half dressed. The +exercise fatigued me but slightly, and as soon as I had my clothes on +completely I ventured across the floor (that was about an ell in +width), and leaned forth between the bars of the window... + +I burst into laughter at the easy resolution of my doubts, which the +first view thence afforded me. For I was upon London Bridge, in one of +the houses that are builded thereupon, on either side of it. Below me +lay the narrow bridge-way that is spanned across by divers arches +(which be houses too), and is full, at most hours, as it was when I +beheld it, of people that cheapened stuffs and trinkets at the booths +there set up, or else hastened on, north or south continuously. + +'Twas the strangest sight by far I had yet seen; this little +market-world above the waters, so straitened and fantastick, and withal +so intent and earnest upon its affairs, with never a thought to the +great shining river (its very cause and origin) that flowed scarce two +fathom beneath it. I stood awhile fairly entranced by the prospect, +and followed with my eyes every motion and frolick adventure. Thus, +there would be a fine lady that bought an infinite deal of scarlet +cloth, and a pannier-ass that, in turning, struck it from her arm and +unrolled the length of it, so that the ass continued on her way grave +as any judge, with her hoofs upon the cloth like a spread carpet, while +my lady stood by, bewailing her loss. Then there would be a company of +halberdiers that went by at a great swinging stride to quell some riot +(I heard one say) in Southwark by the Bear-garden. By and by, with +more noise, comes there a score of mariners that had left their galley +in the Pool, and after their late hardships on the sea seemed gone into +an excess of jollity, and sacked the shops for toys. Grey-haired +mercers that stood and conversed in groups, and coltish apprentices in +flat caps and suits of blue I noted, and otherwhiles dancers and +mountebanks with a host of idle folk following. + +So engrossed indeed was I, that I did not hear the woman, that in the +meantime had entered my chamber, calling upon me to return to my bed; +until at length she enforced her command with a buffet on my shoulder. + +"Thou art but a graceless lad to be chilling thy marrow at an open +window," she cried; yet I could see she was rather pleased than +wrathful to find me there. + +"Nay, I am whole again, mistress," I answered quickly, and then looking +forth again, cried, "But who be those that go by in a troop, with great +bonnets on and red coats?" + +"Why, who but the Queen's yeomen?" she said, and stood beside me to +catch a sight of them. "Ay, and there goes my husband's brother at +their head, their sergeant, and a proper soldier too, that hath seen +service abroad." + +"Whither go they?" I asked, breathless for the pleasure I took in this +brave show. + +"To the Tower, lad. But now, back to your couch, or at least to a +chair, for the goodman would speak with you." + +"How came I to this house?" I asked, when I had left the window, "for I +remember nought of the matter." + +"Enough of words," she laughed pleasantly. "And enough too that you be +here, and your rantings and ravings o'er. I tell you we were like to +have had the watch about us for harbouring a masterless rogue, so +impudently did your sick tongue wag; and that at all hours of the night +too." + +She went away soon after, still laughing; for which I blessed her; it +being a comfortable exercise to laugh, and as comforting a sound to +hear. I was full dressed, and expecting the good Samaritan her husband +a while ere he came, which when he did, I found he was a man of brief +speech and one to be trusted. He began by asking how I did, and when I +told him I was quite recovered and thanked him for his charity, he put +up his hand. + +"I did no more than your hurt required," he said. "'Twas fortunate we +had this room to lay you in, and a good physician near at hand upon the +Bridge. But now tell me (for I think it necessary I should know it) +how came you wounded?" + +I told him all simply, seeing no reason why I should not, and the whole +affair of my uncle; to which he listened in silence, his eyes on my +face. + +"My name is Gregory Nelson," he said, when I had done, "and of this +Bridge, where I have my lodging, I am one of the wardens. You may bide +here as long as you list, Master Cleeve, seeing that by this hellish +robbery of Skene's you should be nigh penniless, as you be also left +without friends to help you, unless it be that Mr. Malt accounts +himself so." + +"I pay him for my lodging," I said, "but cannot claim any friendship +with him." + +"Have you any goods left at his house?" he asked me, a little as though +he smiled inwardly. + +"Some spare apparel I have there," I replied, "and a parcel of linen or +so, besides my mare." + +"Seeing that you have been absent so long," said Master Nelson, "and +without warning, you may chance to find your chattels sold under a +sheriff's warrant against charges proved. Nay, that is lawful," he +added, seeing I made a motion of dissent, "and indeed you have been +near three weeks a truant." + +This disclosure shocked me, and particularly when I reflected that my +father had no knowledge of anything that had occurred to me, nor yet +where I now lay. Two things I did therefore with all speed, first +writing a full account of the attorney, how he had robbed me, and of my +illness so much as I thought necessary; and secondly, going to Fetter +Lane in the hope to recover my goods. On this errand the warden would +by no means suffer me to go alone, and I for my part was very glad of +his arm to lean upon, as I was also of his companionship by the way. + +In discourse I found him to be something more blunt than complacent, +and moreover to have set his notions, as it were, by the clock of his +profession. Thus, I chancing to speak of the great mansions of the +nobles that were frequent upon the bank about the Bridge-end, and +making mention of their power that lived therein, he answered me pretty +roundly that I was out. + +"If there be two or three wise heads amongst them," said he, "there be +two or three score otherwise disposed. 'Tis a common error, master, to +belaud all alike and merely because their honours be similar. But I +say, let her Grace ennoble any the least considered merchant on Change, +and nought should go worse for it, but rather the better. I say +further, 'tis in the shops and among the great Companies of the City +that England's worthies are now to be found, and her advancement lieth +less in the Great Council to be debated on, than in Cheape to be +accomplished. But enough!" said he, with a little shake of his head. +"I am a servant of this City, and perhaps it is for that I have a bias +of thinking well of what the City doth. Yet few will be bold enough to +deny that we owe much to our great citizens and merchants, as to Sir +Richard Whittington in the old days, and later to Sir Thomas Gresham, +that very praise-worthy knight; not forgetting Mr. Lamb that brought +sweet water in a conduit to Holborn; nor Mr. Osborne, which was Mayor +two year since, and now is Governor of the famous Turkey Company by +charter of the Queen established." + +"And what of the Queen's Grace herself?" quoth I, for my humour was not +a little tickled at this decrying of those in high estate, whose wisdom +and guidance we be commonly taught to extol. But at the Queen's name +Mr. Nelson had his cap off immediately. + +"God bless her," he said very reverently, "and give her a mind to +perceive her own and her realm's, true good. And so He doth!" he broke +off vehemently, "and hath made her to be the greatest merchant of them +all! Ask Master Drake, else, whose partner and fellow-adventurer she +was when he sailed from Plymouth with but five poor ships, and returned +thence with such treasure of the Spaniards as it took two whole days to +discharge upon the quay." + +In such converse we walked on, I straitly considering of these things +he told, whether indeed those mighty lords, whose names were in +everybody's mouth, were truly of less account than men trading in silk +and furs and spices, as he would have me believe; and whether, also, +overmuch service with the City Sheriffs had not worn out an esteem for +greater folk in this honest stout warden of London Bridge. + +When at length we arrived at my old lodging in Fetter Lane, Mr. Nelson +said he would not enter, but would await me in the street, and so I +went in alone. I found Madam Malt in a chamber behind the shop, with +her daughters, and very busy upon a great piece, of needlework. She +looked up swiftly as I entered, but never a word she spake. + +"I come to make account of my prolonged absence," said I, something out +of countenance for this unlooked for rebuff. + +"Judith," said her mother, sharply, "go see whether my babe wakes yet; +Allison do this, and Maud do that," said she, and so emptied her bower +of the maids at a word, and left me standing. + +"Lord!" quoth I low to myself, "I am come into the garden of the +Hesperides surely; yet I wist not that the Dragon was mother of them." +But aloud I said, "I am bound to thank you for the hospitality you +extended to me, Madam, the which I cannot well repay." + +"I thought no less," replied the lady, without raising her eyes from +her work, "and therefore made application for distraint, which being +granted, I sold such stuff as you thought fit to leave and was not past +laundering." + +"But there was my mare too," I cried. + +"Ay, the poor jade," said she, "the knacker put a price upon her, but +it reached not to the value of a feed of oats, so I cried quits and +kept her." + +"Then you have her yet?" quoth I. + +"I have her not," quoth she, "for I gave her a gift to the parson of +St. Dunstan's Church that hath been very full of encouragement to us in +our trouble." + +"Your trouble, Madam?" I began, but she proceeded with a terrible +quietness-- + +"'A preached a singular comfortable sermon two Sundays after your +stealing off, upon the text, 'Happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as +thou hast served us,' as would have melted the most shameless, Mr. +Denis." + +"Let us hope it did then," said I, pretty tired of this oblique attack. + +"He was not of the congregation, sir," she blazed out, her eyes on mine. + +"He was," I retorted, "for he both preached the sermon and hath my +mare. But he shall give her me again, or else I will take her by +force." + +"Ah, you would despoil the Church then, you heretick Turk!" cried the +lady in a thin, hissing voice that befitted the Dragon I had formerly +called her in my thoughts. "Was it not enough that you should creep +into a Christian household and steal all peace therefrom? What of the +looks you were ever casting upon my tender Judith, and she so apt at +her catechism and forward in works of grace. Your mare, quotha! What +of her pretty beseeching ways that no man hath seen but saith she is +rather Ruth than Judith--ay, and shall find her Boaz one day, I tell +you, in despite of your heathen wiles and treachery. So, fetch away +your beast from a churchman's stall, 'tis easy done every whit as get a +simple maid's heart; and then off and abroad, while she weeps at home, +poor lass! that is so diligent a sempstress withal, and her father's +prop of his age." + +Whilst she was delivering this astonishing and very calumnious speech, +Madam Malt had arisen from her chair and now stood close above me, +wringing her hands that yet kept a hold of her piece of needlework, and +shaking with rage. She was a marvellous large woman, with a face +something loose-skinned about the jaw, and of a buff colour that +mounted to a brownness in the folds and wrinkles. Her voice, as I have +said, was very dragonlike, and her whole aspect and presence had +something of an apocalyptic terribleness that seemed to draw the clouds +about her as a garment. I see her yet in my dreams and awake +shuddering. + +Once or twice I strove to interpose a denial in the flood of her +indictment, and to exonerate myself from her load of false charges, but +could nowise make myself heard, or at least heeded, and so gave it +over. Indeed, how all would have ended I know not, had not the infant +in a lucky hour awakened and lamentably demanded sustenance; whereupon +Judith running in (who I am persuaded had got no further than behind +the door-chink), the lady's thoughts were by the intelligence that her +daughter brought, most happily diverted from me. Judith regarded me +with one wistful glance, and then in the wake of the Dragon as she +swept from the room, this last of the Hesperides departed from me for +ever. + +I stood some time very downcast, knowing not what to think, when the +door opening a small space, Mr. Richard's head was thrust in, his eyes +winking with merriment. + +"So you have returned to us, Mr. Prodigal," he whispered, "and have +heard moreover how we take your leaving us so without ceremony as you +did. Nay, be not melancholy, man," he went on, coming beside me and +laying a hand upon my shoulder, "for we that use the playhouse and the +jolly tavern understand these things well enough. No need for words +where a nod sufficeth. But the women would have no men roysters, good +souls! nor hardly allow us the stretch of a lap-dog's leash to gambol +in. Eh!" he sang out in a pretty good mean voice, although from his +late drinking not well controlled: + + "'Better place no wit can find + Cupid's yoke to loose or bind.' + +But come you with me, Mr. Denis, one of these nights; for we be much of +an age, and should sort handsomely together, if I mistake not." + +It lies upon my conscience now, that I neither thanked him for his +intention, which I am sure was friendly meant; nor yet kicked him out +of door for his manifest profligacy. But as it was, I went straight +past him, looking him full in the face the while, and out of the house. +His cheeks turned a sort of yellow white at this insult and at the +surprise of it, while his hand slipped to his belt for the sword he +commonly wore, but he had it not by him, as indeed he was all unready +and his whole dress disordered after such a night spent as he supposed +I should be willing to join him in another, the like of it. + +I found Mr. Nelson without, who leaned very thoughtful against a post +by the door, and by my countenance I showed him plain enough the upshot +of that business. + +"'Twas no more than I conceived likely," he said. "These hired +lodgings be all one." + +Finding nothing convenient to return, I held my peace; and so we walked +slowly along Fleet Street, and over the hill by Paul's, to my new abode +upon the Bridge. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +HOW I SAW AN ENEMY AT THE WINDOW + +My father replied about ten days after to the letter I had writ him, +with another of so sweet a tenour (and yet shrewd enough in the +business parts of it), as reading it, I could have gone on my knees to +honour him. He made it clear at the outset that my bad bargain must at +all hazards be ratified, and Mr. Wall's loan in full repaid. This he +undertook to do, saying he had dispatched advices already to the +goldsmith, in which he acknowledged the debt, promising moreover to +acquit himself of it as soon as he could. + +"But at this present, Denis," he wrote, "to do so is not altogether +easy, though I hope 'twill not be long ere I shall compass it. And in +order to that end I have retired from the Court into a more modest +dwelling (as you will perceive by the subscription) in the hamlet of +Tolland, having been fortunate in letting at a fair rent the Court to +your old companion, Sir Matthew Juke, who, his new mansion in Devizes +not at all answering to his expectation, was at the very delivery of +your letter hot to be rid of it; and therefore upon my first making +offer of our house to him upon leasehold, he very eagerly assented to +my proposals." + +But if the notion of that thin-blooded knight established in our old +home greatly irked me, this which followed caused me an infinite deal +of sorrow; for I was to learn of a secret malady of my father's which +he had long been subject to, but had never before disclosed, although +it had grievously increased upon him even to the time of my departure +from the Combe, so that he sometimes had doubted of his being then +alive or, at the least, able to disguise any longer from me his +affliction. "Had it been otherwise," he proceeded, "be well assured +that upon your first motion of distress I would myself have come to +you, as indeed I would yet do (should Providence see fit to restore me) +were it not for the too great dispences of the journey. For I make of +it no mystery, Denis, but speak with you openly as to one of man's +estate, when I affirm that the charges in this affair be somewhat +larger than with our late accustomed easiness we may satisfy. And this +bringeth me to the gravest part yet, and that which most I loathe to +make mention of, seeing it is not otherwise to be accomplished than in +our continued severance. Notwithstanding between friends (as we are) +plain speech is best, and I therefore say that I have a mind you should +engage yourself in some occupation of trade in London; but such as +yourself shall elect to follow; and to you I leave the choosing +thereof. I will that you continue prosecuting our original design (I +intend your uncle's deliverance) as you shall have the opportunity and +I the means. So much sufficeth for this time, and therefore I bid you +farewell, + +"Who am your well-wishing and most fond father, + "HUMPHREY CLEEVE." + +(Followed the sign of the Inn he lay at, which I remembered to have +once noted going through Tolland, and passed it by as a place of mean +and beggarly entertainment.) + +This letter I overread a score of times, and each time with the more +admiration that a man of so principal a dignity and so observed, could +find it in his mind thus voluntarily to lay by his honourable estate +and depart a mere exile from his ancient home; and that with never a +murmur of self pity; but quitting all simply and with a grand +negligence, as a man might do that puts up a fair-bound book he has +been reading, but now hath concluded. + +'Twas sometime afterward I let my thought stay upon the meaning of that +he had writ of myself; and a longer time ere I could allow the plain +truth that we were come into an absolute poverty. I think not well to +set down all the shifting considerations that moved me then, nor the +weight of humiliation I undertook at this lapse and derogation from our +name. But all my dreams brake utterly asunder, and my hopes that had +until now sustained me in pride. To be penniless I found a greater +evil far than to be sick, and in the first rage of my disappointment, I +quite lost all remembrance of my father (sick too) in the wayside +tavern I had myself disdained to enter. + +I was aloft in my room in the warden's house when this letter was +delivered to me in the afternoon of the day following my passage with +the hosier's wife, and I remember how I sat by the window looking +across the Bridge street, betwixt the tall houses, out upon the River +and the great galleys in the Pool, and upon that square grey shadow of +the Tower. All I saw appeared to me so large and unfettered, and to be +spread so comely in the soft blue air that I could hardly bear to +reduce my thoughts to the narrowness and cooped discipline of my own +future. The eulogy which Mr. Nelson had seen fit to pronounce upon +merchants and traders troubled my spleen not a little at the +remembrance of it; and so out of measure did my resentment run that I +stood by the mullion gnawing at my nails and casting blame hither and +thither, so as none hardly escaped being made a party (as the attorneys +called it) to the case of poverty into which I was fallen. Amongst +other follies I allowed, was this: that I dared not now seek out my old +schoolmaster, lest from the height of his new soldier's calling he +should rail down upon me in Latin, which tongue seemeth to have been +expressly fashioned for satire. + +But such a resolution extended no further than to Mr. Jordan, for I +still cherished and held fast to the hope of discovering the maid and +of thanking her, as was necessary (or at least upon the necessity of it +I would admit no argument); and also of acquainting her of my present +and intolerable trouble. That she were, like enough, engaged in some +trade, as well as I, I never so much as conceived possible, but drew in +advance upon her store of pity for my singular misfortune. + +The day grew towards evening as I stood thus, debating of these +matters, and the River came over all misted and purple and very grand. +Here and there were lights too that went thwarting it, they being the +great lanterns of the wherries and barges that continually traversed +the stream; and the fixed lights were these set upon the hithes and +stairs, or else aloft in the houses by the bankside. 'Twas a wondrous +melancholy sight, methought, and seemed a sort of blazon and lively +image of surrender, this decline of day into dark. For boylike I +omitted the significance of the lights burning, and received the night +only into my soul. + +"Mr. Denis, will't please you come below?" came a shrill voice athwart +these reflections and startled me. + +"Is it supper?" I asked something petulantly, for I hated to be +disturbed. + +"Nay, Master Dumps, 'tis the goodman's brother, the Queen's yeoman, +that would speak with your little worship." + +Something in her manner forbade my gainsaying her, so I went down into +the great kitchen where we commonly sat, and there found the warden, +with the yeoman his brother in his scarlet apparel as I had before seen +him; his halberd set up in a corner where it took the glitter of the +fire, and his velvet bonnet laid on the table. Mr. Nelson at once +presented him to me, upon which he rose up with a salutation in the +military manner, very stately, and then sat down without a word. + +"I have ventured so far to meddle in your proper affairs, Mr. Cleeve," +said Gregory Nelson, "as to inquire of master sergeant here in what +sort your uncle is entreated in the Tower, as also whether the +Constable would likely grant you access to him, he lying under so +weighty an indictment." + +"You have done kindly," I said, and told them both of the letter I had +received from my father, in which he had iterated his desire I should +yet attempt his brother's release, or rather the procuring of his trial +to that end. The sergeant nodded once or twice the while I spoke in +this fashion, but did not interrupt me. Nevertheless Madam Nelson, who +perceived that something was forward of which she had heard never a +word, could scarce constrain herself to await the conclusion, which +when she had heard, she burst in-- + +"Ah, truly, Gregory Nelson," said she, setting a fist upon either hip +and speaking very high and scornful, "when Providence gave thee me to +wife, He gave thee a notable blessing, and one of a pleasant aptitude +to discourse, yet not beyond discretion, as we women have a name +(though without warrant) to go. But in giving thee to me, He furnished +me with nought but an ill-painted sign of the Dumb Man, so out of all +reason dost thou hide and dissemble thy thoughts. Why, I had as lief +be married to Aldgate Pump as to thee, for all the news thou impartest, +or comfort got of thee by the mouth's way; which was sure the way +intended of Him that made us with mouths and a comprehension of things +spoken. Yea, a very stockfish took I to mate in thee, Gregory, whose +habitation should be in Fishmongers Row, on a trestle-stall of +Billingsgate." + +The cogency of this speech of the warden's wife, great as it might be +in abuse, was yet so small in its effect upon her husband, that I was +fain to relate to the poor woman (who loved me for it ever after) the +whole story of Botolph Cleeve's imprisonment in the Tower, which her +husband had (so far prudently) kept silence upon. + +"Poor man," cried she pitifully when she knew all, "ah, these poor +solitary prisoners! I marvel how good men can find it in their hearts +to guard them from escaping thence. Were I a yeoman now," she added, +with an eye askance upon the sergeant and after upon her husband, "I +would suffer all such freely to depart thence without challenge, as +desired it, or at least such as led a Christian life and loved their +wives." + +"Is my uncle kindly dealt with there?" I demanded of the yeoman, but to +that question he hesitated so long in his reply that I cried-- + +"If he be not, 'tis ill done, so to use a man that I hope to prove +innocent of this charge." + +"'Tis because he is innocent belike, poor soul," quoth Madam Nelson, +"that they do so use him. In this world it hath ever been the virtuous +whose faces are ground." + +"Do you know where his dungeon is situate?" I asked, starting to my +feet as though I would go (and meant to) at once to the Lord Constable, +"or if not you, then who doth know it?" + +"None doth," he answered me slowly, "because he is not in the Tower." + +"What mean you?" cried I, as soon as I could for astonishment. "My +uncle is not a prisoner there?" + +"I trow otherwise!" retorted the warden's wife, who saw her pity ill +bestowed if she believed him. + +"There hath been none of his name apprehended, nor none of his +description," said the yeoman. + +"Then where is he?" I cried out bitterly, for I well enough perceived +that all that great sum which we had been enticed into spending was for +nothing lost, and ourselves beggars upon the mere fetch and cozening +imposture of a knave. + +"Where he may be I know not," said the Bridge warden, before the yeoman +could answer me, "but I think you came as near to him as might be, when +you gave your money into the hands of Mr. John Skene." + +"Skene--Skene! He--the attorney? You suppose him to be my uncle?" I +gasped forth the words as one drowning. + +He nodded. "It maketh the matter simple to suppose so," he said, +"which else is hardly to be understood." + +Perplexed as I then was, I could scarce believe him, albeit whatever +survey of the matter I made, I confessed the indications directed me, +after infinite wanderings, ever back to the same point, which was that +my uncle had manifestly lied in writing that he was kept prisoner, and +by our belief in that lie, who but himself did he mean should benefit? +Yet unless he were indeed Skene (and so received our twice five hundred +pounds) he had gained nothing upon that throw, but lost it to another +more cunning than he, which were a thing I thought scarcely to be +credited. + +The weight of this disclosure so whelmed me that I could do nor say no +more, but throwing my arm along the table, had my face down in it to +hide the tears which would have course, try as I might to restrain +them. Good Dame Nelson, all blubbered too, leant over my shoulder to +comfort me, although her sympathy must have been something doubtfully +extended to one that wept because his uncle was proved to be not a +prisoner, but in the full enjoyment of his liberty. + +But after continuing in this case some while there came into my mind +some considerations of revenge, and they greatly comforting me, I sat +upright in my chair, and begged the tolerance of the two men for my +late weakness. + +"Nay, say no more of it, lad," replied Mr. Nelson, "for no man liketh +to think of a villain at large, and in particular, if the villain be of +the family." + +And so, calling to his wife to serve up the supper, and to us to seat +ourselves about the board, he did his best to make me forget, for that +while, my troubles. + +However I could eat but little, though I made appearance as if I +relished the wholesome steaming food; and not I only, but the +sergeant-yeoman also, I soon perceived, did eat sparingly, and as one +whose mind was absent from the feast. And soon he ceased altogether, +laying aside his knife and platter and clearing his throat with a sort +of sob (which was the prelude to as moving a tale as ever I heard) and +resting his great bearded cheek upon his hand. + +"Why, what ails you, master sergeant?" cried Dame Nelson in quick +compassion; but it was to his brother, and not her, that he replied-- + +"You spake truly, Gregory," said he, "when you told Master Cleeve that +no man loveth to think of a villain at large if he be of one's own +family. But you spake it to my shame." + +"I intended it not so, truly," said the warden very earnestly. + +"I know it," said the yeoman, "but yet when you brought in the family +it touched me pretty near. Stay!" he said, when he saw that Gregory +would have interposed some further excuse. "You have not altogether +forgot my boy, Jack, that went a shipman in the Green Dragon upon a +voyage into Barbary, two year since." + +"I remember him very well," answered the warden, while his wife +whispered me that he had the finest pair of grey eyes you did ever see. + +"I have received certain news of him but this very day," continued the +yeoman, "which hath quite taken away my peace, and set my mind amidst +perilous thoughts." + +"A mercy on us!" cried the woman, starting up from the table; "what +words be these, master sergeant?" + +"He hath turned Turk," said the yeoman, in a thick voice. + +"As being enforced thereto, God help him!" said Mr. Nelson; but his +brother shook his head. + +"'Twas his own will to do so," he said, and rose from the bench; +whereupon we all rose too, though without well knowing wherefore, save +that we were strangely affected by his narrative. The yeoman went over +to the corner where his great pike rested, and returning thence with +it, he stood for some while quite still and upright (in such posture as +a soldier doth upon guard), his eyes upon the bright fire which threw +the distorted huge shadow of him against the ceiling. At the last, in +a small voice, as though he spake not to us, he said-- + +"From my youth I have been known for a God-fearing man, and one not +given over to lightness. To the Queen I pledged my faith once, and +have kept it. Had I so much as in one point failed of my word, I would +willingly and without extenuation answer the same. And no less have I +dealt with Heaven--faithfully, as befits a soldier. Then how comes it +that one born flesh of my flesh should do me this shame? Is it my +reward and wages for stout service? Nay, had Heaven a quarrel with me, +I would abide it. Had I defaulted, I should look to be punished in +mine own person. But to defame me through my son; to fasten the +reproach and scorn of a renegade upon me because he cowardly threw +aside his faith; I say I like not that, nor think not that Heaven hath +dealt with me as my captain would." He stayed his speech there quite +suddenly, and took up his black bonnet from the table, we all +marvelling the while, as much at his words as at the apostasy that had +occasioned them. But this speech that ensued, which was spoken with an +infinite simplicity as he was going, moved us who listened to him, I +think, more than all the rest. "And yet," said he, "there be armies in +heaven;" and with that he left us and went his way. + +The evening being very chill we were glad enough of an excuse to build +up a cheerful great fire on the hearth, and to sit before it for +comfort, although in truth we were sad at heart and but little inclined +to conversation. + +I think 'twas about eight o'clock, and quite dark without, when +something happened to divert our thoughts from the yeoman for that +night at least, while for the rest I doubt if the yeoman himself were +more staggered when he heard of his son's error than I, when, chancing +to lean back a little from the heat of the fire (and so turned my head +aside), I saw, pressed close to the lattice panes of the window, a +face, long and sallow, and with thick black curls clustered about it, +which I knew on the instant belonged to that enemy of mine that had +secretly spied upon me before, and now with an evident joy discovered +me again. But even as I looked he was gone; and I, with an exclamation +of wrath, caught up my sword and cap, and sprung out into the street to +follow him. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +IS SUFFICIENT IN THAT IT TELLS OF IDONIA + +There was a press of people about the door as I went forth, which so +hindered my passage as Mr. Nelson, who had started up in alarm of my +sudden departure, caught me ere I had run a dozen paces, and would have +reasoned me into returning. But I would not be led thus nor listen +either, and so telling him 'twas a man I greatly desired to have speech +of that I followed, shook myself free, and jostled hardly through the +throng. To my joy I could yet see the tall figure of my unknown +adversary about a stone's cast ahead of me and walking swiftly. But +the main part of the shops being now closed, there was but scant light +to serve me in my chase, and more than once I feared I had lost him or +ever he got half-way to the new tower by the Bridge end. Nevertheless, +by that time I had arrived pretty near, and, indeed, soon trod so close +in his steps, that I could hear the jar of his hanger against the +buckle of his belt; but it being no part of my design to accost him in +so public a place, I fell back a little, and when he passed under the +bow of the gate-house, where a pair of great lanterns hung suspended, I +made as if to tighten a lace of my shoe, bending low, lest upon a +sudden return he should observe me; which, however, he did not, but +went straight forward. I had supposed it probable he would go off to +the left hand, that is, westward, towards Baynards Castle, wherein, as +I already knew, he had his lodging; and was greatly surprised, +therefore, when, a little way up the street, he turned sharply to the +right hand, behind St. Magnus' Church, where the street goes down very +steep, and is moreover ill paved and (at such an hour) exceeding +darksome. The gallant descended this hill at a great pace, while I for +my better concealment followed him somewhat more tardily as being +secure of his escape thence, where there was but a scantling of folk +about the lane from whom he was very easily to be distinguished, they +being ill-habited and of the common sort. In such manner we proceeded +a great way, passing in our course by two or three alleys that led down +to the Thames, of which I could perceive the gleam of the water, yet so +narrowly visible that the sight of it was as a blade of steel hung up +between the houses. All this quarter of the City I was perfectly +ignorant of, my knowledge being limited to such parts of it only as I +had traversed betwixt the Bridge and Fetter Lane, if I except +Serjeant's Inn in Fleet Street, which to my cost I had come to know +pretty well. + +Whereto my exact intention reached, I should have found it difficult to +determine, but a settled hatred of the man possessed me, beside some +motions of fear (I confess now) that his continued espial had stirred +within me; and under the influence of fear, much more than of hatred, +we be ever apt to run into an excess of cruelty. Thus I remember well +enough the coolness with which I rehearsed my attack upon him, and the +considerations I maintained in my mind for and against the waylaying +him before he could stand upon his defence. Overrunning him with a +critical eye, I could not but admire his great stature and apparent +strength, to which I had to add a probable skill in fence, that I +lacked, having never been lessoned therein, though I had sometimes +played a heat or two with Simon, using a pair of old foils we found one +day in the stable loft at home. Notwithstanding, this defect weighed +nothing against my will, but rather exalted the desire I had to prove +my courage upon him, whose advantage was so every way manifest. + +A great moon hung above the Thames, but obscured now and then by +wreaths of river mist that a light wind lifted the edge of, yet could +not sustain the bulk to drive it. There was no sound but that my enemy +made with his accoutrements; for I, lurking along in the black shadows, +made none, and the street was now everywhere void. All went pat to my +purpose, and I loosened my sword in its sheath. Then I crossed the +road. + +But even as I did so, my man came to a sudden stand before an old and +very ruinous house, having a porch of stone, and within that a door +with a grid, whereon I presently heard him give a great sounding rap +with the pummel of his sword. And so unexpected was that act of his +(though why it surprised me I know not) that I stood quite still in the +full light, nor could for my life put into execution my policy that he +had thus distracted. The place wherein we had come I saw was near +under the Tower, of which I could, by the dim light, perceive the +undistinguished mass thwarting the bottom of the lane; and the house to +which the man demanded admittance was the last upon the left hand this +side the open space before the Tower. He remained some while, half hid +in the deepness of the gateway above which a lantern swung with a small +creaking noise; the light of it very dim and uncertain. After my first +arrestment of surprise, I had gone aside a little, yet not so far but I +could observe him, and the low oaken door at which he knocked. There +was something about this silent and decayed building which I liked not, +though I could not tell precisely wherefore; for indeed it showed signs +of some magnificence in the design of it, but now was all worn out by +neglect and foul usage; being turned over to the occasions of shipmen +and victuallers for storage of such things as their craft requires. +Thus, from a fair great window above, that I judged to have been +formerly the window of the hall or chapel, was now projected a sort of +spars and rough tackle, by which the slender mullion-shafts were all +thrust aside and broken. A high penthouse of timber with a crane +under, stood by the wall a little beyond, for the getting of goods in +and out, with other such disfigurements and mean devices of trade as a +mansion is wont to suffer that great folk have left, and small folk +have cheaply come by. + +At length I saw the grid within the door to be slid back very warily, +and by a faint access of light perceived that the porter bore a taper, +as being unwilling to open to one he knew not, or could not see. + +A conversation followed, but too low for me to hear it, though I +suspected from the manner of the man that he first besought, and after +demanded, admittance, which was still denied. Then he betook himself +(as I could tell) to threats, and was soon come to wresting at the bars +of the grid, like a madman. But that which sent me from my ambush was +a cry of terror from the other side of the gate at his so insolent +violence; for it was the cry of a girl. + +I strode forward. + +"Hold!" I said, mastering myself to speak within compass, and taking +the man by the sleeve with my right hand, while I kept my left upon my +poniard. "A guest that is not welcome should have the modesty to know +it." + +He swung round with a great oath, and would have flung me off, had I +not gripped him pretty hard. + +"Ay, is it thou?" said he, when he saw who held him, and I could swear +there was some respect in his way of saying it. + +"I come to tell you that your barber hath left his shop in Fetter +Lane," said I. + +He laughed aloud at that, high, and with a sort of scornful jollity, +though his narrow eyes never left my face. + +"You are right, lad," he said heartily, "and I have sought him +everywhere since." + +"Even upon London Bridge," said I, nodding. + +"Even there," replied the dark man. + +"I have myself some skill in that sort," I said, "so if the hour be not +too late for shaving we will get to business straightway." + +"As you will," said he, indifferently. "But now, to leave this +schoolboy humour a little, and seeing I have no quarrel with you nor +yet know (as I told you before) your name even, were it not better you +should state your grievance against me if you have one, as I suppose +you deem yourself to stand upon some right in thus constraining me?" + +The while he was speaking thus and in such easy parlance as I had +before noted was proper to him, my thoughts had returned to that girl's +cry I had heard behind the grid, and looking about swiftly, I saw the +gate itself now opened a small way, and the girl's form within the +opening in a posture of infinite eagerness. So taken with this sight +was I, that insensibly I slacked my hold of the man, who suddenly +withdrew his arm and stood away jeering. + +"The door is open," I said, in a low voice, and putting my hand on my +sword; "wherefore do you not enter?" + +"I will do so," said he, and before I could hinder him, he had swept me +aside with a great buffet, and run forward to the gate. Cursing my +lack of readiness to repel him, I drew at once and followed him, while +the maid, who at his approach had fled backward, pushed to the door; +yet not so quick--the hinges turning heavily--but he prevented her, +thrusting in his arm betwixt the post and the door, and had gained his +purpose easily, had not I sprung upon him from behind and so hindered +him that his hand was caught and crushed, ere he could release himself. + +"I owe you small thanks for that, Mr. Denis," said he, gravely, when he +had flung the door open and got his hand free; and by his disdain of +continuing the pretence not to know my name, I saw we were come into +the lists as open foes. + +"You owe somewhat elsewhere," said I, "and that is amends to this lady +for your discourtesy," and as I spoke I looked across to where she +stood in the hall, a distance off from us twain, by the foot of the +great stair. A light from some lamp, hung aloft out of sight, diffused +itself about her, so that she stood clear from the obscurity which +wrapped all else; and by that light I knew her for the maid I sought, +and would thank, and did already supremely love. The light falling +directly from above lay upon her hair and seemed to burn there, so +splendid a shining did it make. Of her face and body, the most of +which was dim in shadow, I could yet discern the exceeding grace and +lithe bearing. Her hands were outspread in terror for our clamorous +intrusion, and I thought by her swaying she was about to swoon. But +small leisure had I to proffer service, or indeed to do aught but +return to my guard, which I resumed none too soon, for the tall man had +drawn his great sword already and now caught up a piece of sailcloth +from the rummage about the hall, wrapping it about his injured arm. + +"So it would seem you know her, too, Mr. Denis," he let slip in a voice +of some wonder, and I thought paused upon the question how we were +become acquainted. + +"Have a care!" I cried, and so thrust at him without further parley. + +He caught the blow easily enough on his blade, turning it aside. +"Country play!" he muttered, and was content to let me recover myself +ere he took me in hand. However, I had the good luck to drive him a +pace or two backward, amidst the stuff that lay there about, bales and +cordage and the like, which hampered him not a little, though for the +rest I could not touch him; whereas he did me whenever he listed, but +so far without great harm. Yet notwithstanding his disdainful +clemency, or rather because of it, I lost all sense of the odds we +matched at, and laid about me with increasing fury, so that, for all he +was so expert and cool a swordsman, I kept him continually busy at the +fence and sometimes put him to more art than he would have wished to +use, in order to defend himself from my assaults. + +Now the hall where we fought thus, was, as I have said, full of all +sorts of impediments and ship's furniture, and was, besides, very low +and lighted by nothing but the gleam of the stair-lamp at the far end, +so that though we both lost advantage by these hindrances, yet his loss +was the greater; for with due light and space he could have ended when +he chose; but now was forced to expect until I should abate somewhat of +my persistence ere he did so; which, seeing I bled more than at first, +he no doubt looked for presently. And so indeed did I; but the +expectation seconded my little art in such sort that I broke down his +guard and, before I was aware, had caught him high up in the breast, by +the shoulder, and I could have laughed for pleasure as I felt the steel +sink in. Howbeit 'twas a flesh wound only, and thus no great matter, +as I knew; but it served to put him quite from his coolness, and as +well by his manner of fetching his breath, I could tell he was +distressed, as by his level brow that he meant to be rid of me. But +then-- + +"Oh, stay it here, gentlemen," cried the girl, who saw that we breathed +a space, though we still kept our points up and ready to be at it anew. +"If the watch pass now, you will be certainly apprehended as you go +forth. Have pity of each other," she said, and came forward almost +between us. "And you, sir" (to me), "if you do thus because he would +have entered here, I thank you. But now let him go, I pray you, as he +shall promise no further to offend." + +You may imagine how this talk of my letting him go, who was a thousand +times the better swordsman, angered my antagonist. + +"Ay, Mistress Avenon," he said, in that wicked, scorning voice he had, +"we shall stay it here surely to please you. But yet there be some +slight formalities accustomed to be used which must first be done; and +after I will go." + +"What be those formalities you speak of?" she asked, with an apparent +gladness that the worst was past. + +"Just that I must kill him," said the dark man, very quietly between +his teeth. + +"Good mistress," I cried out, for I was persuaded he spake truth and +dreaded lest she should see what in pity of her womanhood I would +should be hid, "go aside now. Go to your chamber." But to the man I +whispered, "Come without into the street." + +"There spoke a coward," was his word, and drawing back upon his ground +he swung up his sword arm to the height, and husbanding the weight of +his whole body, stood poised to cut me down. I saw the blow coming, +even in the dark, and despairing to avoid it, let drive right forward, +at the same moment muffling up my eyes in the sleeve of my idle arm, +for the terror of death was upon me then. Our swords sang.... But +even as I struck I knew that a miracle had been wrought, for his sword +never fell. Sick with amazement I opened my eyes, to see him go over +amongst the bales, where he sank down with a great sobbing cry. His +sword hung quivering from a rafter of the ceiling, which it had bitten +into by the blade's breadth. His tallness of stature, and hardly I, +had overthrown him and left me victor. + +"God be praised!" I said very low, when I perceived and could believe +how matters had gone; but "God have mercy!" whispered the maid. + +I turned about. + +"You had best go, Mistress Avenon," I said. "The rest must be my work." + +"You will not surrender yourself?" she asked, very white. + +"If he be dead..." I began, but could not finish for trembling. + +"He is not dead, I think," she interrupted hastily, and went back to +the stair, whence she soon returned with the lamp, which she set down +upon a hogshead, and then bent over the wounded man. + +"A kerchief," she said, briefly, "a scarf; something linen if you have +it." + +I tore off a strip from my sleeve and with that she staunched the +worst. We made a compress of my band, drenching it in cold water, and +for tightness buckled my belt upon it, which I gave her. + +"There is burnt wine in yonder firkin," she said, and I fetched a +draught in the cup of my two hands. + +When he sighed we looked at each other, and I said-- + +"Who is he?" + +"It is Master Guido Malpas," she whispered, and added, "I am glad you +have not killed him." + +But that speech went near spoiling all, seeing that I had gone into +that tourney her champion. + +"Ay, there would have been another tale to tell," I returned very +bitterly, "had your rafters been set but a span higher." + +"Oh, you mistake me, Mr. Denis (I think they call you so)," said she, +and bent low over the wounded man again. "I mean I am glad your +kindness to me hath not run so far as you must needs have wished to +recall it." + +It is a maid's voice more than her words that comforts a man, and so, +scarce had she spoken but I saw I had misjudged her. + +"Denis is my name," I said eagerly, "but tell me yours now." + +"You have heard it, and used it too," she answered smiling. "'Tis +Avenon." + +"Ay, but the other?" I cried. + +She paused before she told me "Idonia." + +"He loves you?" I said very quick, and nodded toward Malpas. + +"He saith so." + +"Doth he often trouble you thus?" + +"I fear him," she said so low I could scarce hear her. + +"But your father?" said I, "or your brothers? Have you none to protect +you?" + +"My father was slain in a sea-battle long since," she told me, "when he +went in the _Three Half Moons_ with others that traded with the Seville +merchants, but falling in with a fleet of Turkey, they were nearly all +taken prisoners, but my father was killed." + +"You were a child then?" I asked her, and she said she was but an +infant; and that her mother was long since dead also, and that she had +no brothers. + +She seemed as though she were about to add more, but just then the sick +man revived, opening his eyes and gazing upon us as one that seemed to +consider how we twain should be together in such a place. I got up +from where I had been kneeling beside him and stood to stretch myself; +but was surprised to find how painful my own hurts were, which I had +almost forgotten to have received. I suppose Idonia saw me flinch, for +she suddenly cried out, "Mr. Denis, Mr. Denis, I will come to you," and +leaving Malpas where he lay, rose and came over to me, when she took me +very gently by the arm and made me sit, as indeed I needed little +persuasion to do. Howbeit I was (as I have said) scarcely scratched, +and should have felt foolish at the elaborate business she made of it, +had not her hair been so near to my lips. + +But presently, and while we were thus employed, she with dressing my +hurts, and I with such and such affairs, Idonia whispered-- + +"Doth he know where you lodge?" + +"Yes," said I, "he discovered the place to-night," and told her where +it was, and of the kindness Master Gregory had shown me. + +"I knew not his name," she interrupted me hurriedly, while making +pretence to busy herself with the tightening a bandage, "nor of what +authority he were that took you from me when you were hurt before; but +he looked at me as at one that would not use you well, and in the end +spoke something roughly to me, so that I dared not follow you. Ah! +these upright staid men!" she added with a world of bitterness; but +then, "Now your lodging is known, you must leave it straightway, sir." + +"I am not used to run away," said I, more coldly than I had meant to +do, and she said no more. When we looked up Malpas had gone. + +We looked at each other without speaking for admiration of the strength +and secrecy he had shown in thus stealing off. + +"I must go too," I said presently, and saw her eyes widen in dismay. + +"Beware of him!" she whispered. "He doth not forget. And see! he hath +not neglected to take his sword;" as indeed, most marvellously, he had +done. + +"Well, he serves an honest gentleman," quoth I carelessly, "so that if +I have cause to think he plots against my life, I shall lay my +complaint before my lord Pembroke." + +But she shook her head as doubting the wisdom, or at least the +efficacy, of that, though she said nought either way, but led me soon +after to the great oaken door (which Malpas had left ajar when he went) +and set it wide. The night was very dark, with the moon now gone down +into the bank of cloud, and so still that we heard a sentinel challenge +one at the Bulwark Gate of the Tower. I thought too I heard the rattle +of an oar against the thole, as though a boat put off from the Galley +Quay a little below, but of that I was not sure. + +"God keep you," I said to the maid; but when she did not answer me I +looked down and saw she was weeping. + +When I went away, I heard the bolt shoot into its rusted socket, and +asked myself: how would my case stand now, had Idonia shot it, as she +essayed to do, at the first? + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +HOW MR. JORDAN COULD NOT RUN COUNTER TO THE COURSE OF NATURE + +I know not yet (and I thank Heaven for my ignorance) what may be the +peculiar weakness of old age, though I suspect it to lie in an +excessive regard for life; but of youth I have proved it to be a +contempt of life; which, despite the philosophic ring of the phrase, I +do affirm to be a fault, though I am willing to allow that I mean a +contempt, not of our own, but of another man's life, and a surprise +that he should hold dear so vulgar a commodity. + +Thus, as I walked away from the house of Idonia, I pondered long and +carefully the small account that Mr. Malpas was of, and could not +conceive how he had the monstrous impudency to cling so tight as he did +to the habit of living, which (as a soiled shirt) he might well enough +have now been content to exchange. Indeed, the more I thought upon the +matter, the greater increased my sense of the absurdity that such a man +should claim his share of the world, or rather (to select the essential +quality of my complaint) his share of that corner of Thames Street +where Idonia lived, which goeth by the name of Petty Wales. From +thence, at all hazards, I was determined to exclude him. For had not +Idonia said: "I fear him"? and that was enough for me. Indeed it +seemed to elevate my jealousy into an obligation of chivalry, merely to +remember that sallow-faced swaggerer that said he loved her. Simon +Powell should have fitted me with some knight's part, methought, amidst +his Peredurs and Geraints, and I would have proved myself worthy as the +best of them. + +But that was all very well. It was past ten o'clock, and when I got to +London Bridge I found it barred against me and the watch within the +gate-house snoring. I knocked twice or thrice pretty hard and at +length woke the watch; but so angered was he at thus losing of his +sleep, besides that he thought perhaps to recover upon his late +remissness, that he flew into an unnecessary zeal of watchfulness, +swearing I was some vagabond rogue, and, bidding me begone, shut the +wicket in my face. In vain did I endeavour to make myself known, +bawling my name through the gate, and Mr. Nelson's too; the porter had +returned to his interrupted repose, and nothing on earth would move him +again, for that night at least. + +So after having launched one or two such observations as I thought +befitted the occasion, I made the best of it I could, and turned away +to seek for some cleanly house of receipt where I might pass the +remainder of the night. Some while I spent in ranging hither and +thither, without happening on such an hostelry as did please me (for I +confess to a niceness in these matters); but at length, coming into a +place where two streets met, I found there a very decent quiet house +that answered to my wishes so well that I immediately entered and +bespoke a chamber for the night. Here I slept exceeding soundly, and +in the morning awoke, though yet sore from my scratches, yet otherwise +refreshed and cheerful. + +The better part of the travellers that had lain there were already up +and away ere I arose, so that I had the room to myself almost, wherein +I broke my fast, and, save for the lad that served me, held +conversation with none other. Had I known in what fashion we were to +meet later, I should no doubt have observed him with more closeness +than I did, but I saw in a trice he was one that a groat would buy the +soul of, and another groat the rest of him. + +"'Twas late you came hither last night," he said as he set down my +tankard beside me upon the table. + +I smiled without replying, and nodded once or twice, to give him a +supposition of my discretion; but he took it otherwise. + +"Ay, you say truly," he ran on, "there is a liberty of inns that no +private house hath. Come when you list and go when you have a mind to; +there's no constraint nor question amongst us." + +"Be pleased to fetch me the mustard," said I. + +"You know what is convenient," he returned in a voice of keen approval, +as he brought it. "Now, I was once a serving man in Berkeley Inn, +called so of my lord Berkeley that lodgeth there. But whether he were +at home or absent, I was ever there. And where I was, you understand, +there must needs be necessaries bought, and such things as were, as I +say, convenient." + +He leered upon me very sly as he spoke these mysteries; by which I +perceived I was already deep in his favour, as he was (like enough) +deep in villainies. + +"I marvel how from a lord's mansion you came to serve in a common +tavern," said I, to check him. + +"Oh, rest you easy, sir," he laughed, "for the difference is less than +one might suppose. There be pickings and leavings there as in an +hostelry, a nimble wit needed in both places indifferently, and for the +rest, work to be scanted and lies to be told. Hey! and lives to be +lived, master, and purses filled, and nought had, here nor there, but +must be paid for or else stolen." + +Such light-hearted roguery I owed it to my conscience to condemn, but +for the life of me I could not, so that I fell into a great laughter +that no shame might control. I hope it was weakness of my body, and +not of virtue, pushed me to this length, but however come by, I could +not help it, and think moreover it did me good. + +"Come, that is the note I like," said my tapster, whose name I learnt +was Jocelin; and, setting his lips close to my ear, he added, "London +town is but a lump of fat dough, master, till you set the yeast of wit +to work therein; but after, look you! there be fair risings, and a +handsome great loaf to share." His eyes sparkled. "I have the wit, +man, I am the yeast, and so..." + +He had not finished his period, or if he did I marked him not, for just +at that season the gate of a great house over the way opening, a party +of horsemen rode forth into the street with a clatter of hoofs. They +wheeled off at a smart pace to the right-hand, laughing and calling out +to each other as they went, and sending the children a-skelter this way +and that before them. Yet, notwithstanding they were gone by so +speedily, I had yet espied the device upon their harness and cloaks, +which was the green dragon and Pembroke cognizance. I flung back my +chair. + +"Is yon house Baynards Castle?" I cried. + +"None other," he replied, nodding while he grinned. "I have certain +good friends there, too." + +"Is Mr. Malpas of the number?" I demanded. + +"Oh, he!" he answered with a shrug. "A bitter secret man! If 'a has +plots he keeps them close. He flies alone, though 'tis whispered he +flies boldly. But we be honest men," quoth he, and held his chin +'twixt finger and thumb. "We live and let live, and meet fortune with +a smile. But I hate them that squint upon the world sidelong, as he +doth." From which I drew inference that they twain had formerly +thieved together, and that Malpas had retained the spoil. + +But I soon tossed these thoughts aside for another, which, as it came +without premeditation, so did I put it into practice immediately. +Having satisfied my charges at the inn, therefore, and without a word +to Jocelin, I ran across the street and into the gate-house of the +castle, before the porter had time to close the gate of it behind the +horsemen. + +"Is Mr. Malpas within?" I accosted him eagerly. + +The porter regarded me awhile from beneath raised brows. + +"Have you any business with him, young master?" said he. + +"Grave business," I replied, "knowing, as I do, who it was gave him +that hurt he lies sick withal." + +The old man pushed the gate to with more dispatch than I had thought +him capable of using. "Ay, you know that?" he muttered, looking upon +me with extraordinary interest. "That should be comfortable news to +Signor Guido; that should be honey and oil to his wound;" and I saw by +that he understood his Malpas pretty well. + +He led me aside into his lodge, and there, being set in his deep, +leathern chair, spread himself to listen. + +"Who is he, now?" he asked, in that rich, low voice a man drops into +that anticipates the savour of scandal. + +I looked him up and down as though to assure myself of his secrecy, and +then-- + +"'Twas Master Cleeve," said I. + +Heavy man as he was, he yet near leapt from his chair. + +"Is't come to that?" he cried. "Master Botolph Cleeve! Now the saints +bless us, young man, that it should be so, and they once so close to +hold as wind and the weather-cock!" + +I saw his error and meant to profit by it, but not yet. If, indeed, my +uncle Botolph were hand-in-glove with Malpas, why, then, I was saved +the pains to deal with them singly. Having smelled out the smoke, it +should go hard but I would soon tread out the fire. Howbeit, I judged +that to question the old man further at that season would be to spoil +all; since by manifesting the least curiosity of my uncle, I should +deny my news (as he understood it) that my uncle, and not I, had near +robbed Malpas of his life. Noting the porter, then, for a man to be +considered later, I returned to my politic resolution to get speech of +Malpas himself, and to tell him, moreover, that Mistress Avenon +abhorred his addresses, which I was therefore determined should cease. + +Perhaps I counted upon his sick condition in this, and upon a +correspondent meekness of behaviour, but regard it as you will, I was a +mere fool and deserved my rival should rise from his bed and beat the +folly out of me. Nevertheless, I take pride that my folly ran no +further, so that when the porter inquired who I might be that desired +to carry this message to the wounded man, I had sufficient wit to +answer frankly that I was Mr. Cleeve's nephew; which reply seemed to +set the seal of truth to that had preceded. + +"Mass!" swore the porter, lying back in his chair, "then methinks your +news will doubly astonish Mr. Malpas, seeing who you be that bring it." + +"It should somewhat surprise him to learn 'twas my uncle wounded him," +quoth I modestly. + +The porter: "Surprise him! 'Twill make him run mad! I admire how you +can venture into his chamber with such heady tidings." + +"Oh, in the cause of truth, Master Porter," I returned stoutly, "one +should not halt upon the sacrificing of an uncle or so." + +"Why, that's religiously said," quoth the porter, who, I could see, +having relieved his conscience in warning me, was glad I would not be +put off, and, indeed (old cock-pit haunter that he was!), did love the +prospect of battle with all his withered heart. + +I asked him then what office about my lord's household Mr. Guido held, +and he told me he was keeper of the armoury, and served out the pikes +and new liveries; that, moreover, when my lord was absent he was +advanced to a place of greater trust. + +"The which I hope he justifies," said I gravely, but the porter blew +out his cheeks and said nothing. + +"Will you lead me to his chamber?" I asked him presently, and he bade +me follow him, first taking up his ring of keys. + +We crossed the court together, going towards the west corner of it, +where he opened a door that led on to a winding stair, which we +ascended. When we had climbed almost to the roof as I thought, he +stayed before another door that I had not observed (so dark and +confined was the place), through which he preceded me into the gallery +beyond it, a low but very lightsome place, with a row of dormer windows +along the outer side of it, from one of which, when I paused to look +forth, I beheld the river Thames directly beneath us, and a fleet of +light craft thereon, wherries and barges and the like, and across the +Southwark flats, far distant, London Bridge, with Nonsuch House in the +midst of it, that cut in twain the morning light with a bar of grey. + +While I stood thus gazing idly the great bell of the gate rang out with +a sudden clangour. + +"Pox o' the knave that founded thee a brazen ass!" cried the porter. +"Ay, kick thy clapper-heels, ring on! Again! again! Shield us, +master, what doomsday din is there! Well, get gone your ways, Master +Nephew of Cleeve; that long, yellow man's chamber lieth beyond, upon +the right hand, in a bastion of the wall.... List to the bell!" and +with that he turned back in haste and clattered down the stair. + +I followed his direction as well as I might, going forward down the +gallery to Malpas' room, although, to speak truly, I had come into some +distaste of that business already, and would have been glad enough to +forego it altogether had not my pride forbidden me so to return upon my +resolution. At the door I stooped down and listened for any sound of +groaning, which, when I plainly heard, I could not but confess 'twas +something less than merciful to trouble the poor man at such a time. +But having conjured up the figure of Idonia, my pity of her aggressor +fell away again, so that without more ado I knocked smartly upon the +door. + +I was answered by a groan deeper than before. + +"Have I leave to enter?" I demanded, but was told very petulantly I had +not. + +"We are not unacquainted," said I, with my lips to the keyhole. + +"The more reason you should stay without," said he, and I could hear +him beat his pillow flat, and turn over heavily upon his side. + +"Hast thou forgot my sword so soon?" cried I in a great resentment that +the victor should be pleading thus at the chamber door of the +vanquished. + +"Go, hack with thy tongue, Thersites!" came the voice again; but at +that I waited no further, but burst in. I had got scarce two paces +over the threshold when-- + +"Why, Master Jordan!" I cried out, for there on the bed lay my ancient +fat friend, his heavy Warham-face peering above the quilt, a tasselled +nightcap bobbing over his nose, and all else of him (and of the +furniture too) hid and o'erlaid by a very locust-swarm of folios. + +At the first sight of me I thought he would have called upon the +mountains to bury him, from mere shame of his discovery. + +"Away!" he gasped, when he could get breath to say it; "away, graceless +child! I am no foiner; I know you not. I am a man of peace, a +reverend doctor. My trade is in books. _Impallesco chartis_; I grow +pallid with conning upon the written word. What be your armies and +your invasions and your marchings to and fro? that lives should be +lived, and brains spent and lost therein. I tell you, one verse of +Catullus shall outweigh the clatter of a battalion, and Tully is the +only sergeant I salute." And so, having hurled his defiance, he sank +back amongst the bed clothes and drew down his nightcap an inch lower +upon his brow. + +"You know me very well, good doctor," quoth I, and advanced to his +bedside, which was fortified with an huge _vallum_ of the Consolations. +"I am Denis Cleeve." + +"'Tis like enough," said the old man with an air of infinite +resignation, and affecting still not to know me. "And I am my lord of +Pembroke's poor librarian, and at this time somewhat deeply engaged +upon the duties attaching to that service." + +He drew forth a volume with a trembling hand as he spoke, and made as +if to consult it. + +"Being so accustomed as you are to the use of parchments," said I, "I +had supposed you led a company of foot to tuck of drum." + +He was so clearly abashed at my remembering his very words that he had +formerly spoken, that I had not the heart to proceed further in my +jesting, and so sitting down upon the couch beside him I told him that +I applauded this his exchange of resolutions, and that there was enough +of soldiers for any wars we were likely to have, but of scholars not so +ample a supply as he could be spared therefrom, save upon unlooked for +occasion. Mr. Jordan regarded me very mournfully while I spoke thus, +and when I had done lay a great while silent, fingering his folios and +shaking his tasselled head. At length he replied thus-- + +[Illustration: Mr. Jordan regarded me very mournfully. Chapter XII] + +"You have a great heart, my son," said he with a sigh, "and think to +comfort one that lacks not virtue (I hope), although the diligence to +apply it manfully. Alas! much learning, Denis, hath made me +marvellously to hate confusion and strife. My mind burroweth as a +coney in the dark places of knowledge, but never my body endureth a +posture of opposition. Thought is a coward, all said: and philosophy +nought else but the harness we have forged to protect our hinder parts +while we shuffle ingloriously from the fray. 'Tis no hero's person we +assume, lad; and your old fool, your erudite scratchpole--_Graecis +litteris eruditus_, hey?--is everywhere and rightly derided." + +I told him very earnestly I thought otherwise, but he would not hear me +out, affirming his contrary opinion, namely, that he was a coward and +trembled at the very name of an enemy, excepting only of his principal +enemy, to wit, his bed. "And with that," said he, "I have been forced +into concluding an unconditional alliance." + +Now I could not bear he should thus contemptuously belittle his valour, +of which I had formerly seen sufficient proof in his dealing with the +thieves about Glastonbury, and said so roundly. + +"Well, lad," he replied, and puckering up his face into a grim smile, +"be it as you will; and at bottom I confess I believe I have as much +courage as another man: of which quality indeed it needed some modicum +to encounter my conscience and return to the path I was set in by +Nature. For there is but little bravery in running counter to our +natures, Denis, and especially when applause and honour lie both that +way. Ay, I think," quoth he, "I have some obstinacy below, though you +must e'en stir in the sediment to raise it." + +In reply to my asking how it had come about that he was installed +keeper of my lord's books, he said it had been consequent upon his +intention (while he yet held to it) of enrolling himself soldier; that +the magistrate to whom he had applied him for that purpose, when he +proposed the oath of allegiance had seen fit to eke it out and amplify +his warrant with so offensive a comparison betwixt the arts of letters +and war, to the utter disadvantage of letters, as he could not abide +the conclusion of, but made off; nor could he ever be induced to return +thither any more. + +"And notwithstanding I cried out upon my defection daily," he +proceeded, "I perceived that fate had put the term to my military +service or ever 'twas begun, and so sought elsewhere for employment. +Indeed I had arrived at my last victual, and had scarce wherewithal to +meet the charges of my lodging. But in a good hour I fell in with +another of the like condition with mine, though for the rest, a poet, +and therefore of a more disordered spirit. His name was, as I +remember, Andrew Plat, but of where he dwelt I am ignorant. He was +boldly for stealing what he could not come by honestly, and so far put +his design into practice as, breaking into this very Castle, he +furnished his belly with the best, both of meat and drink. In the +morning he was found drunk, in which condition he confessed all, but +with such craven and mendacious addition as involved me also, who was +thereupon cited to appear. + +"I excused myself, as you may suppose, very easily, but by an +inadvertence I excused myself in Latin. + +"'How!' cried my lord, 'you make your apology in Latin?' + +"'Have I so done?' said I, 'then judge me as a Roman, for amongst these +barbarians thou and I be the only two civilized.' + +"He laughed very heartily at that, and having informed himself of my +merits, soon after delivered up his books into my charge. + +"And thus I am, as you see me, returned to my former occupation, which +I shall never again pretermit upon any motion of magnanimity. If aught +in the future shall offend me, if evil rumours shall penetrate to this +quiet angle of the world, I take up no lance to combat the same, my +son, having a better remedy: which is to rinse out my mouth with great +draughts of Virgil and Cicero, and thereafter with a full voice to +thank the gods that I was not begot of the seed of Achilles." + +He invited me to remain to dinner with him, but I would not, and went +away by the way I had come, my head so full of this strange case of Mr. +Jordan (whom I had only chanced upon through the lucky accident of my +having mistaken the porter's direction), that I remembered not so much +as Malpas his name even, until I was safe in the warden's house upon +the Bridge; where I found good Madam Nelson anxiously expecting my +return, who moreover had a steaming hot platter for me that she served +up with certain less palatable satires upon my night's absence. +However, I thought it wise to let them pass for that season, and not +justify myself therein; for a woman loveth not the man that answereth +her again; and especially when he is in the right of it. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +PETTY WALES + +If a young man's heels be seldom slow to follow after his heart whither +he hath left it for lost, he hath indeed so many classical examples to +draw upon as he need stand in no fear of censure save of such as have +neither loved at all, nor ever in their lives been young. And so it +was with me, who had no sooner swallowed down my pudding and as much as +I could stomach of the good wife's reproaches but I was off and away to +Petty Wales to inquire after Idonia, how she did. + +'Twas a quiet grey morning of the early year, and as I strode along +very gladsome, methought there could be few places in the world so +pleasant as Thames Street, nor any odour of spices comparable with the +healthful smell about Billingsgate and Somers Quay; although I confess +not to have remarked the fine qualities of either, the night before. A +great body of soldiers was marching, a little way before me, toward the +Tower, their drums beating, and their ensign raised in the midst; as +heartening a sight and sound as a lad could wish for, and of good omen +too. But for all my courage was high, and my steps directed towards +the lass I loved, there was yet a fleck of trouble in my mind I would +have wiped out willingly enough, and that was my father's expressed +desire (which I knew, too, was very necessary) that I should set about +earning my living at a trade. I suppose a boy's thoughts be naturally +averse from buying and selling, and from all the vexatious and mediate +delays which interpose between desires and their satisfaction; for +youth looketh ever to the end itself, and never to the means, whether +the means be money and matters of business, or patient toil, or +increase of knowledge. Success and the golden moment are youth's +affair, and all else of no account at all. Ah! of no account when we +be young, seem preparation and discipline and slow acquirement and the +gathering burden of years; but just to live, and to love, and to +win.... Imperious fools that we are: pitiful, glorious spendthrifts! + +I got to the great ruined house at length, as the troop swung out onto +Tower Hill, and the roll of their drums died down. Without loss of +time I drew my poniard and hammered with the haft upon the gate. To +come to her thus, wearing the arms I had used to defend her from the +man she feared and I had valorously overthrown, surely (said I) this +will get me her admiration and a thousand thanks. I would dismiss my +wounds with a shrug when she should say she hoped they were mended, and +swear they were not painful, yet with such slight dragging of the words +as she should not believe me but rather commend my fortitude in +suffering (though for that matter they were easy enough and only one of +them anyways deep). In short I savoured the sweet of our coming +colloquy as greedily as any feast-follower; and at the same time I +continued to rattle my dagger-heel on the oaken door. After some +minutes thus spent, the grid opened, and behind the bars was Idonia +facing me and very pale. + +"What would you, Mr. Denis?" said she. + +I dropped my jaw and simply stared upon her. + +"What would I?" I gasped out. + +"How do your wounds?" she asked hurriedly. Our conversation seemed +like to stay upon interrogatories. + +"But am I not to enter, then?" cried I, as near sobbing as I had ever +been in my life. + +"Can we not speak thus?" said Idonia, and glanced backward into the +hall. + +"Oh, Mistress Avenon!" I said to that, "is it thus you use me?" and so +turned away, smitten to the very heart. But I had not gone ten paces +from the gate, ere she caught me, and laid a hand upon my arm. + +"Ah, Mr. Denis," she whispered, "be not angry with me; say you are not +wroth, and then go. I beseech you to go away, but first say you are +not angry.... I must not talk with you; must not be seen to talk with +you, I mean." She might have said more had I not stopped her. + +"Not to be seen to talk with me? Am I a man to be scorned, then?" + +She answered below her breath: "'Tis rather I am a maid to be scorned, +methinks.... Oh, look not so!" she added swiftly, "I must go +within.... If they should know you have come..." + +"Who should know?" cried I, very big; "and what care I who knows? I am +not accustomed to shun them that question my behaviour." + +"No, no, you are brave," said she, "and 'tis there that my peril lies, +if not your own. You may defend yourself, a man may do so having a +sword. But we women have no weapon." + +"Who would hurt you?" I asked, moving a step back to the gate. "Not +Guido Malpas, I warrant, this many a day." + +"I live amongst wicked men coming and going," she replied. I could +feel her hand shake that I now held in mine. "But now go. I am not +worth this coil we make; you can do nothing that you have not done +already. I will remember you," said she in a strange pleading voice, +"and I think you will not forget me awhile either." She paused a +little, panting as though she had been weary. "And, Mr. Denis, my +heart is big with pride of your coming hither." + +These words she spoke in the deep full voice she used when moved, and +then turning from me, went within and shut to the door. + +"Now Heaven forbid me mercy," said I aloud, "if I probe not to the +bottom of this pool." + +I pulled down my jerkin in front, and set my ruff even. Then opening +the purse that hung at my belt, I counted the coins that were in it. +There were a dozen shillings and some few halfpence. "Certain 'tis +time I got employment," I mused, "yet I allow myself one day more;" and +with that I slid the coins back in my purse, and looked about me. + +Now, this great building of Petty Wales before which I stood was once +(or at least is reported to have been) an Inn of the Welsh Princes for +their occasions in the City, but was, upon their long disuse of it, +turned into tenements, as Northumberland House was where Mr. Jordan had +formerly lodged, and was now let out to marine traders, victuallers, +and such other as found it convenient to the quays. How it came about +that Idonia had her dwelling here I knew not yet, nor indeed did I at +that time know anything of all I am about to set down of this mansion, +which, however, it is very necessary should be understood, seeing how +large a space it occupies in my adventures. + +Besides the tenants, then, that by right inhabited there, there had +grown up another sort of secret tenants that lurked amid such odd nooks +and forgotten chambers herein as were overlooked, or of no advantage +for the stowage of merchandise. Between these mean unnoted folk, that +had crept thither like rats for shelter, and lay as close, there was +maintained a sort of fearful communion and grudged acquaintanceship. +But the house being strongly parted in twain by a stone wall built +throughout the middle of it, from back to front, it was as though there +were two separate houses, of which Idonia used the one, but these the +other. And since moreover there was but one gate upon the street side +of the house, the men of whom I speak, both the honest ships' brokers +and the lawless poor men, perforce used a certain low-pitched postern +door at the bottom of a narrow alley which ran behind the house. + +This door let on to a wide and decayed stair that (I was to learn) was +the poor men's hall and common room; here they met and shared their +stealthy mess together; here elected and deposed their captains, and +celebrated their improvident espousals. Living on sufferance, stricken +by poverty and terror of the law, hardly allowed as men and women, but +rather as abject orts of nature, they yet preserved amongst themselves +a perfect order from the very necessity of silence; and upon the least +motion of discontent the mutineer was instantly seized, his head +covered, and the captain's knife deep in his heart. 'Twas the women's +office, then, to lay the body out decently; and about midnight four men +bore it secretly to the riverside, and straightway returned. + +All this I was to learn from a strange accident that befell me when at +length I left loitering before Idonia's door, and skirted about the +place in search of any index to the riddle she had read me. For I was +persuaded that to reach the heart of the mystery, I must at all +adventures gain access to the house itself; I being then quite ignorant +of the dividing of it in the manner I have told. It was with an +extraordinary delight, therefore, that I discovered the lane to the +rearward of the house, and the low door. Somewhat to my surprise I +found the door not made fast, and so at once entering by it, I began +cautiously to ascend the rotten stair. But scarce had I gone half-way +to the first stage, when I stumbled over the body of a man that lay +stretched there in the dark, and was, I thought, dead. Howbeit, he was +not, and when I had him down into the air, and had loosened his +clothing, he opened his eyes. He stared upon me wildly. + +"How? You are not of the brotherhood?" he stammered. + +I said nothing in reply, but leaving him where he was, ran to a tavern +hard by upon Tower Hill, called _The Tiger_, whence I returned +presently with a flask of strong wine. The drinking of it revived him +marvellously, so that he was soon able to support himself on his feet, +although without strength to walk yet. I got him some meat, too, and +bread, both of which he ate like a wolf rather than a man; so far had +he gone in starvation. When he had done, he would have thanked me, but +I interrupted him, asking in my turn who he was, and what trade he was +of. He straightened his back at that, and looking me very proudly in +the face replied: "My name is Andrew Plat, and by the grace of Heaven I +am a lyrical poet." + +Upon the sudden I recalled Mr. Jordan. "So," I thought, "'tis the +worthy that stole my lord Pembroke's buttery-beer." However, all I +said was: "I think I have not read any of your writing, Mr. Plat." + +"'Tis very possible," said he, "for I write less than I think: and +indeed publish less than I write." + +"And how standeth it with your fasting, Master Poet?" quoth I. + +"I feed my thoughts that way," he replied simply, "as 'twas in a fast I +conceived my famous lines upon the Spring." + +I bade him drink another draught of the wine, having no interest to +scrape acquaintance with his Muse; but he was not so easily to be put +off. + +"It begins thus," said he, and tossing back his long and tawny hair +from his eyes, lifted his right hand aloft and beat the air with his +fingers as he proceeded-- + + "Fresh Spring, the lovely herald of great Love, + On whose green tabard are the quarterings + Of many flowers below and trees above + In proper colours, as befits such things-- + Go to my love----" + + +"Hold, hold!" I cried, "methinks I have read something very similar to +these lines of yours in another man's verses." + +He held his hand still suspended, though his eyes flashed in disdain of +my commentary. + +"An' you were not young and my benefactor," he said, with an extreme +bitterness, "I would be tempted to clap you into a filthy ballad." + +"Do you use to write your ballads, full?" I inquired, "seeing 'tis +apparently your custom to steal your lyricks, empty." + +He brought down his raised hand clenched upon the other. + +"I steal nothing from any man," he cried in a great voice; but even as +he spoke his face went white, and his eyes rolled in his head. I +thought he had fallen into some fit of poetics, and offered him the +wine again, but he cautioned me to be silent, at the same time cringing +backward into the shadows. + +"Why, what ails you?" I asked encouragingly. + +He laid his forefinger to his lips, and then, laying his hand upon my +arm, drew me to him. + +"Spake I overloud?" he muttered, shivering, too, when I answered that +he certainly had done. + +"'Twould be my death were I heard," said the miserable fellow, and then +told me, by starts and elliptic phrases all that I have set down about +this mysterious fellowship of Petty Wales, and the cruel rigour in +which its secrecy was maintained. + +"'Tis no place for an honest man," he said, "for all here, but I, be +notable thieves and outlaw villains, bawds, and blasphemers every one. +And were't not for the common table we keep, each man bringing to it +that he may, but all equally partaking, and that we lie sheltered from +foul weather and terror of the watch, I had long since avoided hence. +For I am a lyrical poet, sir, and have no commerce with such as steal." + +I could have returned upon him there, with his unconscionable +plagiarism and his assault upon Baynards Castle too, but judged it +Christian to hold my peace. Furthermore, I had entered this +unwholesome den for another purpose than to argue a point of +authorship, and therefore said quietly enough, but in such a manner as +he should perceive I meant it-- + +"Now listen to me, Master Poet," quoth I, "and answer me fair, else +will I raise my voice to such pitch as your Captain shall take note of +it for a contingent fault of thine to have loud-speaking friends. + +"This great mansion, now," I went on, when I thought he could bear a +part in the argument; "do all the parts of it join, and the dwellers +herein have exchange of intercourse each with the other?" + +"No," he said, "they do not." + +"But once they had," said I. + +"Long since they may have done," replied the poet, "but since the place +hath been converted to its present use, it hath been divided by strong +walls of partition, so as each man is now master of his own." + +"How!" I cried, raising my voice of set purpose to frighten him. "In +this nest of thieves what man is so absolute a master as another may +not possess himself of his goods?" + +"I know not, I know nothing," he wailed piteously. + +"Are there no cracks in the wainscote even?" I persisted, for something +in his denial led me to suspect he put me off. He shook his head, +whispering that their new Captain reposed but a dozen paces distant and +would hear, and kill us both. + +"Enough," I said pretty stern, "for I see there be privy ways opened +that you have at the least heard tell of (though you may not have dared +investigate them), and communication hence through every party-wall." + +"There is none," he repeated, near mad with apprehension. + +"It is necessary I discover these passages," I continued, "or rather +one of them, as I think there is one leads to the great hall." + +"What know you of such a place?" he almost screamed. + +"Rest you easy, sweet singer," said I, laughing at the slip he made, +"for we will not go headlong to this work, nor disturb your Captain's +sleep where he lieth snug till nightfall; but you shall lead me by +quiet ways thither, and when you shall have put me through, I will +suffer you to depart in peace. But so much I most positively require +of you." + +He wept and wrung his hands, protesting I was grievously in error, and +he the most miserable of men; indeed 'twas not until I pulled out my +sword and showed him the blood on it, that he professed himself willing +to serve me, though he still continued to pretend his inability therein. + +"That we shall see," said I. "But first finish your bottle, and then +advance, man, in Master Spenser's name!" + +He drank it down, and then cramming the broken morsels of bread and +meat into his wallet (where I saw he kept his verses also with a parcel +of goose quills) he cautioned me to be silent, and stole ahead of me up +the wide and broken stair. + +Small light there was to see by, for the few windows which should have +served us were all shuttered or roughly boarded up, and the wind piped +through them shrilly. Upon the great open gallery he paused as in +doubt which way to proceed, and, to speak justly, 'twould have puzzled +a wiser man in that dimness to pursue any right course between the huge +bales and chests of sea-merchandise that pestered our passage. Nay, +even the very roof and ceilings were become warehouses, so that once I +espied so great a thing as a ship's cockboat slung from the rafters +above our heads, and once rasped my cheek against the dried slough of a +monstrous water-snake that some adventurer had doubtless brought home +from the Indies. But I knew well enough that we should have made twice +our progress but for the infinite dread in which the poor poet went of +crossing the lair where the officers of this unholy brotherhood awaited +their hour to steal forth. At every rustle of wind he staggered so he +could scarce stand, and had it not been for the invigorating coolness +of my sword upon the nape of his neck, he would have fled thence an +hundred times. Yet for all the dangers (to call them so) of our stolen +march, the thought that stood in the front of my mind was: What lover, +since the world began, hath gone in this fashion to his mistress? For +insensibly my intention had narrowed down to the mere necessity of +seeing Idonia again. Surely, never was a house of so many turnings and +bewildered issues; so that we seemed to traverse half the ward in our +quest, and for the most part in pitchy blackness, as I have said, until +I almost could have believed the day had gone down into night while we +shuffled tardily forward. But at last Mr. Andrew stopped. We had +turned a coign of the wall, and come into an open space palely lighted +from above; and looking up I saw we stood beneath the vent wherein the +crane worked that I had note from without the night before. + +"If it be not closed up, 'tis here," whispered the poet, and enjoining +upon me to succeed him, he took the crane-rope in his hand and pulled +himself up thereby until he had ascended some fifteen feet, when he +swung himself a little to the right hand where was a sort of ledge in +the masonry of the wall (I mean not the front wall of the building, but +a wall that joined it on the square), and there he stood firm. I was +not slow to join him aloft and there found, behind the ledge or sill, a +low arch in the thick of the wall, and within it a little wicket door. + +"You have guided me well," I said, clasping his hand hard, "and I shall +not forget it. If there be any favour I can show you before we part, +name it, Mr. Plat, and I will use my endeavour to please you." + +He considered some while before he replied, and then looking at me very +earnestly, said-- + +"Since you seem to have some acquaintance with the poets, and thought +fit to remark upon a certain fancied resemblance (though indeed there +is none) betwixt my lyrick of the Spring and another's treatment of +that subject, I would beg you, should you be in any company where my +works are spoken of, as I make no pretence they shall be everywhere as +soon as they be published, I say, I would beg you to refrain yourself +from bringing in that ... from directing the attention of the company +toward ... but I see you take me, sir, and so enough said." + +However he would not let me go before he had begged my acceptance of a +copy of his works, which he intended should be decently bound in calf +leather, with a device of Britannia sitting upon Helicon, and his name +of Andrew Plat entwined in a wreath of flowerets at her feet. + +"And wherefore not upon her brow?" I asked him. + +"Oh, sir," said the poet, flinging an arm about my shoulder, "you +honour me too much." + +I got him down the rope soon after, and saw him return along the +passage, his head high and his gait light as though he trod a measure. + +"We be both in the same plight," I sighed, "and support ourselves upon +favours not yet received." + +Then I set open the door. A stout ladder reached down from thence to +the hall where I had fought with Guido Malpas, or rather to a part of +it that was full double the height of that part, and had entrance into +it by means of a sort of wide arch betwixt pillars. The hall was +empty, and I descended to it immediately. + +"Well," thought I, pretty grave now I had accomplished this much of my +business, "I would I knew in what case I shall depart hence." + +At that moment I heard a footstep on the stair beyond the arches, and +Mistress Avenon entered the hall. + +At first she saw me not, but when she did she stood perfectly still, +the colour fading from her face, and one hand upon her bosom. I bowed +low, having no words to speak, and then expected with an infinite +weight at my heart, until she should declare her will. + +At length she came slowly toward me. + +"What is this you have dared to do?" she murmured, so low I could +scarce hear her. + +"I could not help it," I said, and would have told her there and then +that I loved her, had not my courage all gone to wreck before her +visible anger. She drew herself to her full height, and keeping her +eyes on mine said in a louder voice-- + +"Ay, you could not help intruding upon a defenceless girl, and yet you +went nigh enough to slaying Mr. Malpas, poor man! for that same fault. +Have I not given you thanks enough, that you are come hither for more? +Are you greedy of so much praise? Else indeed wherefore have you come?" + +Her words so stung me, and her coldness after all I had suffered to get +speech with her, that I felt the tears very close behind my eyes, and, +as a schoolboy that has been detected in some misdemeanour casts about +for any excuse however vain, so did I; for all in a hurry I stammered +out-- + +"I came hither to tell you I have twelve shillings." + +Was ever any excuse so ill-considered? + +"Twelve shillings!" cried Idonia; but my self-respect was all down by +that time, and I could not stop; I spoke of my father's letter, mine +own penury, and the detestation in which I held the necessity to enter +into trade. + +"I have but twelve shillings in the whole world," said I, but she not +answering, I turned my head sharply to see how she had received it. To +my utter astonishment Idonia was laughing at me through a blind of +tears. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +HOW IDONIA TAUGHT ME AND A CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD HOW TO KEEP BOOKS + +"Now, cry you mercy, Mr. Denis!" said Idonia, "for indeed I guessed not +that affairs of trade were to be in debate between us." + +But so confused as I was by her laughter, I could neither deny nor +confirm that saying, but stood before her very hot in the face and, I +make no question, as sour to look upon as she was merry to see me so. + +"I had thought you had forced your way hither," she continued, setting +her head a little aside, "in order to rid me of such dangers as might +beset me here, albeit I know of none." + +"And knew you of any," said I, pretty desperate by this, "my sword +should make it none, if you would." + +Perhaps it was the bitter tone I used, or the knowledge that I spoke +not in mere idle boastfulness; but upon the sudden her manner changed +wholly and she was pleading with me in so tender and deep a voice as it +thrilled me through to hear it. + +"Ah, Mr. Denis," said she, coming close and laying her hand on my arm, +"we be friends surely, or if we be not, I know not where I am to seek +for a friend as true hearted, nor one that would venture as far to aid +me. I meant no harm, indeed I did not, though my tongue played my +meaning false, as it doth, alas! too often. If I laughed, 'twas to +fend off weeping, for once I fall to that, I know not when I should be +done." + +"Yet you said you had no especial trouble," I returned. + +"Nay, if I did, I lied," said Idonia, "for I am beset with troubles +here." + +"I thought no less," said I, "and 'twas for that very reason, and in +despite of your refusal to admit me awhile since, that I sought out +other ways to come to you." + +She smiled when she heard this honest confession. "So much trade as +that comes to, Mr. Denis, will hardly satisfy your father's debts, I +think." + +"I gave myself this one day more," I told her, "but to-morrow I must +necessarily seek employment, though the doing of it I can scarce abide +to think of." + +"Having but an half-handful of shillings," said she, "poor lad! there +seemeth nought else to do, unless indeed you steal." + +"Steal!" cried I. + +"And wherefore not?" said Idonia, with a little hard laugh, "seeing we +all do worse than steal here, or if we do not all so, yet do we stand +by permissively while others do. Oh, sir," she cried, "I warned you +this very morning I was not worth your thought of me, and 'twas truth, +or less than the truth, I told, who live amongst evil folk in this +place and secret men that whisper as they come and go." + +She hid her face in her hands so overcome was she by the horror she had +waked, and how to comfort her I knew not. + +"Of what quality be these men you speak of?" I demanded, thinking +perhaps they were the thieves beyond the partition wall, who overran +into this place too. "I will lay information against them, before the +magistrate if you will." + +Idonia looked at me with a sort of wonder. + +"But you know them not," said she, "nor where they bide, when they +leave us." + +"Is it not yonder then?" I asked her, and pointed to the little door +aloft in the wall. + +"They--poor folk!" she cried. "A pitiful lean company; would they were +no worse I ope the gate to! ... If you had known, when you would have +had me admit you, Mr. Denis.... But they be gone for this while ... +oh, I fear them!" said she, and fell again to weeping. + +'Twas evident she dared not be open with me as touching the business +nor estate of those she consorted with, nor, I found, dared give over +this life she led amongst them, for all the fear and horror she had of +it. So, notwithstanding I returned again and again to the question, +she put me off with a manifest dismay. + +"No, no," she would cry. "Even so much as I have already let fall is +haply more than wise for me to speak and you to hear. But now," in +conclusion she said, "let us return to your own affairs, in the which +it may chance I may assist you." + +She conceived from the first an infinite admiration of my father, +bidding me tell over again the tale of his renouncing all his wealth in +order to the ending his brother's supposed confinement, as well as to +pay that added debt which I had so foolishly incurred. Idonia drew in +her breath sharply when I had done, and then looking me full in the +face, said-- + +"Whatever may befall you to do, Mr. Denis, 'twill be less than he hath +the right to exact of you; although I believe that the least you will +do he will give you thanks for it." + +'Twas my father's nature just, and none could have bettered the +character. + +"What can you do?" she demanded briefly, and bade me sit (for we had +both stood this while); she sitting too, on a bundle of folded sails +that lay by the wall. + +I hesitated to reply, for leaving the few scraps of Latin and logick +that Master Jordan had been at such pains to drive into me and I had as +easy let slip again, my studies had been woefully neglected, or rather +I had profited by them so little, that there was nothing I knew anyways +whole. I stammered out at last that what I could do, I doubted would +scarce earn me a scavenger's wages, and looked (I suppose) so glum, +that Idonia laughed outright. + +"Come, there be books of account," said she, "can you not make shift to +cast moneys in figure?" + +I told her I thought I might compass that if I were given time enough; +though for that matter I did not see how I was like greatly to profit +the merchant that should employ me. + +But without replying by so much as a word, Idonia went over to an oaken +press by the stair, presently returning with a soiled leathern volume +clasped with a deal of brass and so heavy as to be hardly portable. +This she set open before me saying it was a record of trade done, and +had belonged to one Mr. Enos Procter, whom she knew, and bade me read +in it. + +"Lord!" said I, very grave, for I had never seen so intricate and +mysterious a labyrinth of words and cyphers as she then discovered. +"If Dives the rich man got his wealth that way, I suppose his life to +have been something less easy than our divines would have us believe." + +"It is a ledger-book," said Idonia. + +"Let it be what it will," said I, "it is more than I bargained for." + +"Nay, but observe this superscription," she went on, eagerly, "where it +commenceth as is customary: _Laus Deo_ in London, and so following." +She ran her finger along the line commenting with a facility that +astonished me. "This is the accompt of one Mendoza, as you see, a +wool-stapler of Antwerp, and as the Jews ever be, a punctual man of his +money. Look you, now, how differently this other sets to work, Jacob +Hornebolt of Amsterdam, and with what gross irregularity he +transmitteth his bills of exchange ... nay, here, I mean, upon the +Creditor side," cried she, for my eyes ran hither and thither, up and +down the page, like any Jack-apparitor, in quest of her accursed Dutch +Jacob and his pestilent bills. + +"Oh, a truce to this," quoth I, "or else turn o'er to a page where a +man's doings be set down in fair Queen's English, and not in such +crabbed and alchemist terms as one must have gone to school to the +Black Witch that should understand 'em. You point me here and you +point me there, and there's Creditor this and Debitor that, with an +whole history between them, good lack! mistress, but it makes my head +reel to hear tell of." + +"I had thought you understood me," said she very simply. + +"Then 'tis time you understood I did not," said I, roundly, "and what's +more I think you should not neither. It is not maidenly reading;" and +indeed I was staggered that so much of a man's actions should lie open +to any girl's eye that had the trick of cyphers, to peruse them. + +Idonia lifted her eyebrows pretty high, hearing me speak so, but +presently shut up the book, and putting it by, said a little wearily-- + +"I had meant to help you, Denis, but you are over-dull, I find; or if +you be apt 'tis not in learning. Some lads there be think to get a +living other ways, though other ways I know not to be so honest, though +haply as easy." + +'Twas on my tongue to retort upon her with a speech in the same kind, +but I had to confess I could not frame one half so wittily, and +therefore said very tragical-- + +"I stay not where I am not welcome," and taking up my cap, bowed very +low to Idonia, who for her part, paid no heed to me, and although I +halted once or twice on my way to the door, stood averse from me, as +being careless whether I stayed or went. + +"I am not reckoned over-dull at sword play," I muttered, when I had got +as far as I could, without departing altogether. + +"Oh, if you think to fence for a living, sir," said Idonia, over her +shoulder, "I pity your father." + +"He needs none of your pity, mistress," cried I. + +"I know not where better to bestow it," she replied, "unless it be upon +a boy with twelve shillings and no wit to add to them." + +Now, how one I had so handsomely benefited could yet run into this +excess of obstinacy as she did, I stood astonished to consider, and in +my heart called her a thankless wench, and myself a preposterous ass to +remain there any longer. Notwithstanding had I had the sense to read +the account between us whole, I doubt Mistress Avenon owed not a whit +more to me than I to her; although in my resentment she seemed then a +very Jacob Hornebolt, and as gross a defaulter upon the balance as that +dilatory Hollander. + +"Then I leave you to better companionship," said I, having run my +length, "and to such as have at the least the wit to please you, which +I have not, all done." + +What she would have said to that I cannot guess, for before she could +speak there came a thundering rattle at the door and a voice calling +upon her to open in the Queen's name. + +"Dear God!" whispered the girl. "'Tis the soldiers come," and stood +facing me, distraught and quaking. + +"Is it you they seek?" I asked, quick, but could not hear what she +answered me, for the knocking drowned all. + +"Up the ladder," I bade her. "Go, and draw it after. I will abide the +event." + +'Twas this advice steadied her, although she refused it. Instead, she +shook off my hand that would have led her, and going to the ladder by +which I had descended, drew it away from the trap in the wall and laid +it along the floor. + +"They would but use the same means to follow me," she said, and so +without more ado went to the door and opened it. A score of +halberdiers burst into the hall. + +"What is your will, masters?" demanded Idonia; and her pride I had +before denounced I found commendable enough, now she directed it +against these intruders. + +One that seemed to be their Captain stepped forth, and having slightly +saluted her with a hand to his morion, turned leisurely to his +following, and bade them shut the gate; which done, he posted them, +some before the ways accessible to the hall, and the rest under a +sergeant, in the rooms above it, that he commanded them strictly to +scrutinize. The soldiers had no sooner obeyed him than he drew forth a +paper largely sealed, which he told us, with a great air, was Her +Grace's commission and gave warrant to search this messuage of Petty +Wales for any such as might seem to be obnoxious to the Queen's peace, +there harbouring. + +The Captain was a tall, ill-favoured youth, of a behaviour quite +lacking of courtesy, yet well enough matched to the task he had in +hand; for he spoke in a slow and overbearing voice that betokened as +much doubt of another's honesty, as satisfaction for the power given +him to apprehend all that should withstand him. Idonia and I stood +some distance apart, and after a swift glance at me, the Captain +addressed himself to the girl solely, and with so evident a mistrust of +her, as it maddened me to hear him. + +"Your name, mistress?" said the Captain. + +"Idonia Avenon," she replied carelessly, though I could not but grieve +to note how pale she continued. + +"And your father, he lives here with you?" + +"He is dead," said she. + +"Who inhabits here, then, besides yourself?" + +"A many," replied Idonia, "though I have not their names." + +The Captain turned aside to his lieutenant with some whispered word of +offence that made the fellow smile broadly; and at that I could no +further refrain myself. + +"Stay within the limits of your commission, sir," said I hotly, "and +keep your jests for other seasons." + +He troubled not so much as to turn his head my way, but took up his +examination of Idonia again. + +"Nor you know not their trades either, I suppose?" said he with a sneer. + +"Saving this man's here present," replied the girl, "who keeps the +books of accompt in a great merchant's counting-house." + +You may judge whether I gasped at that, or no; and perhaps the Captain +noted my alarm, for he inquired at once who the merchant might be I +served. + +"'Tis Mr. Edward Osborne," said Idonia, "unless I mistake." + +"It is," said I, and remembering Mr. Nelson's words, added boldly that +he was Governor of the Turkey Company; but inwardly I said, "Whither +doth this lying tend?" + +"And what purposeth he in this house?" demanded the soldier, somewhat +taken aback by our credible answers. + +"What, but to learn me in the keeping of accompts?" replied she. + +"Ah, an apt scholar, I doubt not," cried the other, raising his chin +insolently. + +"I think I am not so backward for a maid," said Idonia modestly, and +reached forth her hand to the great ledger-book I had so maligned; the +which I now saw turned to an engine of our salvation; for opening it at +the former place she continued: + +"He instructs me that herein is set down the merchant's commerce with +one Mendoza, a wool-stapler of Antwerp, and a Jew, who despite the +scandal of his unbelief, is, as appeareth plainly, an honest man. I +pray you, sir, follow me," said she, and directed him to the page, "to +the end you may correct me if I be in error." + +I never saw a man's countenance fall so as the Captain's did then; who +having formerly stood so stiff upon his right, was now ready to +compound upon almost any terms; only Idonia would not, but interrupted +his pish's, and his well-well's, and go-to's, with a clear exposition +of the whole matter of wool, the while I, her supposed tutor, stood by +with open mouth and a heart charged with admiration of her wit. + +"Enough," shouted the Captain, at last. "I came not hither for this, +as you know, mistress, who are either the completest accountant or else +the prettiest wanton this side Bridewell Dock. Halberdiers, have a +care!" cried he, and so returning to them with a curse, marshalled them +into a body and would have withdrawn them forthwith, when a cry from +one of the chambers aloft suddenly sounding out, he ordered them again +to stand to their arms and ran forward to the foot of the stairs. I +chanced to look at Idonia then, and blessed Heaven that her examination +was done, and all eyes save mine averted from her, for she shook like +one in a palsy and staggered backward to the wall. I had bare leisure +to follow her thither and support her, before the whole troop of those +that had gone above returned down, bearing along with them in their +midst a man whom they held, or rather dragged along with them, so +without strength was he, and all aghast. + +"A good capture," said the Captain in his slow, cruel voice, and bade +the guard stand back from the abject fellow, but be ready to prevent +his escape. "I thought not to have had so fair a fortune," said he, +"although our information was exact enough that you lay here, Master +Jesuit, whom I believe to be (and require you to answer to it) that +notorious Jacques de Courcy, by some called Father Jacques, a Frenchman +and plotting Jesuit." + +"I am a poor schoolmaster of Norfolk," said the man, very humbly. + +"Do you deny you are this Courcy, and a devilish Papist?" asked the +Captain again. + +The prisoner looked around wildly, as if he hoped even now to get free, +but the ring about him was too close for that, and the pikes all +levelled at his breast. Something of the dignity which despair will +throw over a man that hath come into the extreme of peril, sustained +him mercifully then, so that he who was before but a pitiful shrinking +coward, became (and so remained to the end) a figure not all unmeet to +the part he played. + +"Were I to recite my creed," said he very low, "you would but make mock +of it; while for yourself, I see you be already minded to work your +will upon me." + +"We go no further than our Prince commands us," said the other loftily. + +"And I, no further than my Prince hath enjoined long since," said the +Jesuit. + +"Pish! words!" replied the Captain. "Do you still persist in denying +that you are Jacques de Courcy?" + +But the prisoner stood silent. Then one of the soldiers that stood +behind him went forward and took him something roughly by the collar, +bidding him answer; but the Jesuit turning about to see who it was +detained him thus, his coat burst open, and we saw he wore a little +leaden crucifix about his neck. A shout of laughter greeted the +discovery. "To the Tower with him, march!" cried the Captain. But ere +they could seize the man he had leapt forward upon the pikes, and by +main force taking one of the pike-heads into his two hands he thrust it +deep under his shoulder. + +After that I thank Heaven that I saw no more, for Idonia swooned away, +and I almost, in horror of that poor hunted man's death. The +halberdiers bore the body off with them, nor paid the least regard to +us twain, but left us where we were, Idonia prone upon the cold flags +of the hall, and me above her, tending her. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +IN WHICH I BEGIN TO EARN MY LIVING + +Take a town for all in all, in its sadness and pleasure, the shows that +pass through it, the proclamations of kings, the tolling of the great +bell, marshallings of men-at-arms and sermons of clerks; whatever it be +distracts or engages it, I say you will find, take all in all, full the +ten twelfths of a town's business to lie in the mere getting of wealth. + +And in the exercise of this its proper office, I think that government, +whether good or bad, interfereth less than is supposed; for at the +best, that is, when the merchants and retailers be let alone (as would +to Heaven some great Councillors I could name did understand the matter +so), 'tis then that the interchange of goods and money is most readily +and happily effected; but at the worst, that is, when some untoward +imposition or restriction is laid upon the trade of a city, it results +not that men labour any the less at their buying and selling, but that +their lawful and expected profits be diverted, in part, into other +men's pockets. Which for all it is wrong enough, yet it makes not, I +am bold to say, one single vessel to go lacking her cargo, nor one +merchant to break upon Change. So a fig for Westminster! this way or +that, trade holds; and men bend their thoughts thereto, howe'er the +wind blow. + +Now, I am no philosopher (my father having exhausted the philosophy of +our family), yet no man may live in London (as I had now done, for +above three months) but certain considerations must needs thrust +themselves upon him, and though he be no great thinker I suppose that +everybody knows when he is hungry; and being so, goes the best way he +can to remedy that daily disease. + +And so it came to pass that, greatly as I detested to confine myself to +the weary commerce of trade, I nevertheless did so, and for the plain +reason that I could not help myself, having no money left, and not +being willing to remain any longer with the good folk on the Bridge, at +their charges. How I was received by Mr. Edward Osborne into his +counting-house I will tell later, but received I was, and there strove +to acquit myself honestly, so that within about a month (I think) I +could cast up the moneys of his great Day Book with but a two-three +errors to each sum total; the which, considering my inexperience, I +held to be not amiss. + +It was while I was thus employed in the narrow wainscoted business room +where Mr. Osborne did the most of his business, in Chequer Lane off +Dowgate, it was then, I say, that I came to perceive the magnitude and +staggering quality of the City's negotiation and traffick; so that I +came near to rehearsing the Bridge warden's eulogy upon the London +merchants, as also his expressed contempt for all such dignities as did +not issue from the fount of trade. Nay, I went further, for neglecting +the current rumours and plain news even, that all stood not well with +the State, I applied myself to my accompts and disbursements, deriding +Mr. Secretary Cecil and the Queen's Council for a parcel of busybodies, +and reducing the policy of England to the compass of a balance sheet. + +And yet, had I had the wit to know it, we were at that season come into +a crisis where bills of lading availed little, and the petty laws of +invection and navigation seemed like to be rudely set aside for the +sterner laws of conquest and foreign tyranny. Already, even, and +before I had left the Combe, there had been that business of the +signing of the National Bond and the imprisoning of many that favoured +the overthrow of Her Majesty; the which had been followed and confirmed +by such other acts and precautions as imported no easy continuance in +our old way, but rather the sure entering into that narrow passage and +race of fortune, whence the outlet is to so infinite and clouded a sea, +as a people's help therein lieth solely in God and their own clear +courage. Queen Mary of Scotland was yet alive, poor scheming desperate +woman! and lay a guarded danger in the land. The Dutch States, +moreover, that ought to have been our firm ally, we had done our best +to alienate and set at variance against us, who should have helped them +at all adventures; we being of one Faith together, and hating alike the +encroaching cruelties of Spain. To these considerations there was +added the fear of treason in our midst, and the increasing evidence of +the Jesuits' part therein, which the Queen's advisers sought upon all +occasions to discover and trample out; as indeed I had myself been +witness to, in that unhappy self-murder of Jacques de Courcy in the +secret dark mansion of Petty Wales. + +It had been a little subsequent upon that dreadful affair, and when the +soldiers had left us, that I said to Idonia-- + +"In Heaven's name, mistress, what is this house used for then?" For I +was all wan and trembling with that sight of sudden death, else I +should not have spoken so harshly to the girl, who was in like case +with myself, and clung to me piteously for comfort. But at my words +she seemed to recover herself, and loosing her arms from my neck, she +cried-- + +"And what have I to do with other men's takings, that you question me +thus? If aught displease you, so! I cannot better it. And ... and +... oh, Mr. Denis, what a face of pity did he show!"--she covered her +eyes as she spoke--"and when he fell ... Oh, these things are not +rightly done; they stifle me. They wrench my faith. They leave out +God." + +I did what I could, but it was with her own strength she must fight +down the terror, I knew, and so after awhile desisted. When she had +her full reason again she thanked me that I had not confused her with +many words. + +"For I know not to what excess I should have run otherwise," she said. +"You have a quiet spirit, and are no talker, Master Denis. But there +be some things I cannot bear to see, and one is the sight of a single +man, even a malefactor, so overcome and brought to his death.... But +now," assuming a resolute cheerfulness she added, "now we must converse +awhile upon your own affairs, before you go. For look you, sir, I have +named you already of Mr. Osborne's service, and must make it good. +Else that stark-limbed Captain may hear of it, and discovering we lied, +make us smart for it." + +"But how shall I prevail with Mr. Osborne to take me into his service," +said I, "who know not an invoice from a State paper?" + +"Everything hath a beginning," replied Idonia, "and if Rome was not +builded in a day, it is not likely we shall make an accountant of you +presently." + +"No, nor in less time than it took to build Rome in, I doubt," quoth I, +pretty rueful. "But tell me how came yourself to be so proficient in +that study of cyphering?" For indeed the thought had puzzled me not a +little. + +"By the good offices of one I purpose shall now assist you," said +Idonia; and told me that it was a certain scrivener named Enos Procter +that had lived a great while in Genoa, where they greatly affect the +putting of their negotiations into ledger-books and have well-nigh +perfected that invention. + +"This Procter returning home after many years," she proceeded, +"suffered shipwreck, and was cast away upon the coast of Spain, whence +he was fortunate to escape half dead, and with the loss of all his +goods, saving only that monstrous ledger-book, which he would by no +means relinquish. He then coming to land here, at the Galley Quay, +besought us to harbour him and give him food and dry clothing, for +which he offered to pay us out of his wages when he was able. This we +did, and he, being a man of his word, repaid all that he owed, and +more, for he taught me something of his reckoning in cypher, and of the +distributing of every item of receipt or payment, this side and that of +an accompt, according to the practice of the great merchants of Genoa." + +And thus it came about that the day following Idonia did as she had +promised, and wrought so with Mr. Enos Procter that I was immediately +taken into his employment upon my faithful promise to serve the lawful +occasions of the Governor and Merchants of the Turkey Company, and +(implicitly) those of Mr. Enos Procter, their principal clerk and +accountant. + +With this worthy gentleman I spent, as was natural, the greatest part +of my time, and under his dark sidelong eye I managed my untrained +quill. He was a spare small man of an indomitable quick-silver nature, +that by long sojourning in the South, had become half Italian. When he +worked (which was always) he had a habit of warping his face into the +most diabolical grin, while he rolled upon his stool, back and forward, +with the motion of one rowing in a boat, muttering of a thousand +foreign curses with which was oddly mingled the recital of the +particular matter he had in hand. Thus, "Corpo di Baccho," would he +cry, "these bills mature not until the fifteenth day of June, and there +is scarce ... a million devils! Master Cleeve, had I formed my sevens +that gait in Genoa I had been sent to the galleys for a felon.... Of +Cartagena, say you? There be none but knaves there, and none but fools +to trust them. 'Tis an overdue reckoning, with thirty-five, forty, +forty-five thousand ducats, eh! forty-six thousand, Signor, Don +Cherubin of Cartagena, whom the Devil disport!" + +But whatever the frailties of Mr. Procter, he was a kind and forbearing +tutor, and even succeeded in imparting to me also some portion of his +own extravagant affection for his great leather-bound books of account; +for he loved them so, as no man ever perceived more delicate beauties +in his mistress than this fever-hot scrivener did in the nice +adjustment of Debit to Credit; with all the entries, cross entries, +postings and balancings (to use his own crabbed language) that went to +it. He was, in sooth, a very Clerk-Errant, that ran up and down a +paper world, detecting errors, righting wrongs, spitting some miscreant +discount on his lance of goose-quill, or tearing the cloak from some +dubious monster of exchange. I could not but admire him, and the way +in which he regarded all things as mere matter for bookkeeping. + +"They talk of their philosophies," he would say, "but what do they come +to more than this, and what ethick goes beyond this: that every right +hath a duty corresponding, and every fault its due reward? Ay, is it +so? and what do we poor scribes, but set down each accident of our +trading first on the left side and after on the right side, the one to +countervail the other, and all at the end to appear justly suspended in +the balance? We have no preferences, we accountants, we neither +applaud nor condemn, but evenly, and with a cold impartiality, set down +our good and bad, our profits and losses, our receipts and +disbursements, first as they affect ourselves and our honourable +Company, and after as they affect our neighbour. For consider," he +would proceed, leaping about on his stool, with the excitement that a +defence of his art always engendered, "consider this very item of the +silk bales, upon which my pen chances at this moment to rest--you have +it here to the credit of Mr. Andrea of Naples, seventy-nine pounds in +his tale of goods sold to this house. But is the matter so disposed +of? I trow not. For turn me to the accompt of goods purchased during +this year of our Redemption, and what have you? Seventy-nine pounds +upon the debtor. Philosophy, boy! There is nought beyond that, I say, +nor, for conciseness of statement, aught to equal it. Mr. Andrea's +rights become, transposed, our duties; and for the silk bales you wot +of, they be a load of debt to us, to account for to our masters, and +likewise a strengthening of the credit of this honest Neapolitan as any +man may read. + +"Notwithstanding, there be some," said he in conclusion, with a sigh, +"and they divines of the Church, that call in question the avarice and +hard-dealing of us that live by barter and the negotiation of +merchandize! Yet where will you find (to ask but this one question, +Mr. Denis), where do you find written more clearly than in these +ledger-books of ours, that oft-disguised truth that what we own we do +also and necessarily owe?" + +In such mingling of high discourse and plain work, then, I continued +with Mr. Procter a great while, in the dusty and ill-lighted +counting-house in Chequer Lane; earning my small wages, and upon the +whole not ill content with the changed life I now led, for all 'twas so +far removed from the course I had planned, now many months past, but +had already half forgotten. Sometimes my duties would take me to the +wharves where a great barque or brigantine would be lying, about to +leave upon our Company's business for Turkey or Barbary; or else some +other vessel would be returning thence to London Pool, whither I +repaired to the captain and supercargo to receive their schedules and +sealed papers. It was this last employment I especially delighted in, +and indeed I can scarce conceive any pleasure greater than I found +going very early in the morning to one of the quays upon the River or +as far as to Wapping Stairs, where I would watch the great ship slowly +coming up upon the tide, between the misted grey banks and dim roofs of +Limehouse and Rotherhithe; and could hear the rattle of the chains, and +the joyful cries of the mariners that were now, after their perilous +and long voyage, safely arrived at home. Then would I take boat and +row out into the stream, hailing the master in the Company's name, who +presently would let down a ladder by which I climbed aloft upon the +deck, where the crew would gather round to hear news and to tell it; +which telling of theirs I chiefly delighted in: the thousand adventures +they had had, and the accounts of strange lands and mysterious rich +cities beyond the seas. Thereafter, when the ship was berthed and our +business settled, I would bear off the master and the other officers to +Mr. Osborne, to be made welcome, when all was told o'er again, though +with more observance paid to such matters as affected profit and loss +than formerly I had heard the tale. The black little accountant was +had in too, at such times, into Mr. Osborne's privy room, where we all +sat round a great table, with Mr. Osborne at one end of it, very +handsome and stately in his starched ruff and suit of guarded velvet; +and the other principal persons of the Company about him on either +side, to listen to what the shipmen related, as I have said. + +Then, if the adventure had been profitably concluded (as sometimes it +had not, though generally there was a fair sum cleared), oftentimes +would the Governor invite us to supper with him, and me with the rest, +I know not wherefore, save it were that Master Procter had praised me +to him for my diligence in his service. And so we passed many a merry +evening. + +Yet this so brief summary of that time doth not cover all, nor perhaps +the greater part, since it leaves out my thoughts and hopes, which, all +said, is more of a man's life than all the other; and by so much the +more is noteworthy. And these thoughts of mine, particularly when I +lay quiet in bed in my little chamber on the Bridge, were concerned +about an infinite number of matters I had no opportunity to consider in +the hurry and press of the day. So, I would think of my father, his +evil estate, and the increasing pain he suffered, for I had lately +received news of him by the hand of Simon Powell, who, honest lad, had +bound himself to a smith of Tolland in order to be near his old master +and comfort him. Of Idonia, too, you will guess I thought much, and +the more that my business hindered our often meeting, though sometimes +I saw her when I went early in the morning to meet my ships; for later +in the day she begged me not to come to the house, and greatly though +this condition misliked me, I accepted it to please her. But, to be +open, it was this consideration of all I dwelt upon which most held me +in suspense, so that many a night I have slept scarce a wink, admiring +what the secret were that compassed Idonia about, and the strangeness +that clouded all her affairs. + +"What is it goes on in that great still house?" I cried an hundred +times, and would con over with myself the half hints I had already +received; as of that swaggering Malpas, his attempted entrance; of the +concealed Jesuit; of the way of communication between the part of the +house Idonia lived in and the den of thieves where I had encountered +with Andrew Plat. Then I would fall into a muse, only to be awakened +on the sudden by the recollection of Guido Malpas, with his lean and +crafty face pressed close against the window of the room I had sat in +with Nelson and the Queen's yeoman, or by that older memory of my uncle +Botolph who, I was assured, was also Skene the attorney. Why, by how +great a rout of shadows was I compassed! and what a deal of infamy lay +ready to be discovered upon the lightest hazard or unconsidered word! + +Nay, had not my love for Mistress Avenon so wholly possessed me, I +doubt I should have found in any the least strict review of her +behaviour something covert, and diffident; as indeed she had already +imparted from time to time much that a man more suspicious than I might +have seized upon to her disadvantage. But such motes as those troubled +me not, or rather troubled not the passion of love I cherished for her; +though, for the rest, I infinitely desired her removal from +circumstances that I could not but fear to be every way perilous. + +Now it befell one day, in the early summer, that all London was +awakened with the news that the _Primrose_, Captain Foster, was coming +up the Thames with the Governor of Biscay aboard, a prisoner. So +admirable tidings had not often of late been ours to receive, and to +pother one's head with business upon such a day was not to be thought +on, at least not by the younger men; and thus I was soon running down +to the Port to learn the whole history of that memorable adventure, +wherein the _Primrose_, of all our shipping that lay upon the Spanish +Coast, and that were suddenly seized upon by those Papist dogs without +warning or possibility of escape--the _Primrose_, I say, not only got +off free, but in a most bloody fight destroyed the soldiers that had +privily got aboard her, and took prisoner their great Viceregent, or +(as they call him) Corregidor. + +A host of men and women pressed upon Master Foster about the hithe, +applauding his so notable courage and triumph, and deriding the poor +Corregidor, who nevertheless remained steadfast, nor seemed not to +regard their taunts and menaces, but stood very quiet, and, I vow, was +as gallant a gentleman to see as any man could be. Now, all this +taking place about the Tower steps, whither for convenience the +prisoner had been brought, it followed I was but a stone's cast from +Idonia's dwelling, which no sooner had I remembered than I utterly +forgot her admonition not to see her except early, whereas it was now +high noon; but leaving the throng of idle cheering folk, I crept away +at once to the desolate house in Thames Street, where I made sure of +finding her. + +As I went along, the bells were ringing from every steeple, which so +filled the air with victory, as I was intoxicated with the sound of +them, and on the sudden resolved that, come what would, I would tell +Idonia I tired of this sleek clerk's life I led, and would be done with +it straightway. Alas! for all such schemes of youth and stirrings of +liberty! and yet not altogether alas! perhaps, since 'tis the adverse +event of the most of such schemes that prepares and hardens us for +bitterer battles to come, when the ranks are thinning and the drums are +silent, and the powder is wasted to the last keg.... + +To my satisfaction I perceived the gate to be open, and as I came up I +saw a flutter of white in the dark of the hall, and a moment later the +mist of gold which was Idonia's hair. + +"Good-morrow!" I bade her laughingly, as I entered and closed the door +behind me, "you did not look to have me visit you now, I warrant, when +the bells be all pealing without, and a right success of our arms to +acclaim!" + +Idonia stood, one foot set upon the lowest stair, quite still. Not one +word of greeting did she give me, nor was any light of welcome in her +eyes, which were wide open and her lips parted as if to speak, though +no word said she. + +I hung back astonished, not knowing what to think, when I heard a +rustle among the stuff beside me, and a man's voice that said very +quiet: "How now, master, methinks that is overmuch familiarity to use +with one that is under my ward." + +I faced about instantly, laying my hand upon my sword, for this +untoward interference startled me not a little. Even in the half dark +I knew him; for 'twas none other than the attorney, John Skene. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE SIEGE OF PETTY WALES + +We had stood awhile fronting each other thus, when "By the Mass!" cried +Mr. Skene, clapping his open palm upon my shoulder, "'tis Mr. Denis +Cleeve or the devil is in it," and so led me forward to the light. + +"Are you two acquainted, then?" asked Idonia, her whole countenance of +gravity exchanged for a bewildered expectancy. "Oh, why knew I not of +this sooner? Oh, I am glad," she said, as she advanced to us, her +bosom heaving, and such a light of pleasure in her eyes, as it seemed +to lighten the very room itself, that had formerly showed so darksome +and sinister. + +"But tell me," she went on eagerly, and came so close that I could feel +the warmth of her breath on my cheek, "is it a long while you have been +friends?" + +Now so struck with amazement was I, no less by the suddenness of this +recognition than by the satire that Idonia's innocent speech implied, +as I could answer nothing; but leaving the handling my sword, I stood +resigned to what should follow. + +"I think we be hardly friends yet," said Skene, with a laugh of great +good nature, "and 'twould be a bolder coroner than I, who should +pronounce all enmity dead between us. Am I not in the right, Master +Cleeve?" he ended, on a note of some sharpness. + +I looked up at that, first at Idonia to see how she took the matter, +and then at Skene. + +"You are right," said I, "seeing you stole my money." + +"I knew your answer before you spoke it," replied Skene, nodding; "but +yet I am glad 'tis out, for all that. A hidden grievance is like a +dagger worn without a scabbard, that often hurts him that carries it +more than him he means to use it against. Nay, I am not angry," he +said with a motion of his hand. "Your case seemed to you perfect; I do +not blame you. Nor will you me neither, when you shall hear all that +hath befallen me 'twixt that and this. As for your money, it is safe +enough; and had it passed your mind to inform me of where you lodged +after you left Mr. Malt's in Fetter Lane, why, Mr. Cleeve, you could +have had it any time for the asking." His tone had changed while he +continued to speak, from a certain eagerness to slow reproach. + +"But, sir," I began, when he stopped me peremptorily. + +"It is ill bickering thus before a girl," he said, and going to the +great press whence Idonia had before fetched forth her ledger-book he +opened it, and without more ado restored to me my parcels of gold. I +could have cried for very shame. + +"Count them o'er," he said, with some contempt, but that was the word +that sent my blood back into my head again. For I was assured the man +was a villain and had meant to rob me, though by his cunning he had put +a complexion of honesty upon his dealings, and forced me into the wrong. + +"I will do so later," said I, coolly, "but now I would ask of you one +further question. What name shall I call you by?" Meaning, should I +name him my uncle Botolph or no, and so waited for the effect of that, +being sure that by how little soever he should falter upon his reply, I +should detect it. What measure of astonishment was mine, then, when he +turned to Idonia with a smile. + +"You shall reply for me," said he, "since you know me pretty well." + +"When my father was killed," said Idonia, looking at me with her eyes +all brimmed with tears, "in that affray under John Fox that I have +already related to you, my mother dying soon after of grief, she left +me a babe and quite friendless save for Mr. Skene, whom if you have +anything against, I beseech you put it by for my sake, and because he +had pity on me." + +Then going a pace or two nearer to Skene she laid a hand on his arm and +said-- + +"Sir, Mr. Cleeve has been kind to me, and protected me once from a +man's insolence when you were absent. I had thought you had been +friends before, but it seems you were enemies. We have enough of them, +God wot! and a plenty of suspicions and hatreds to contend with. Then +if it please you, sir, be friends now, you and he, else I know not what +shall be done." + +Whatever anger I still held, it died down (for that time) at her +entreaties, and 'twas with no further thought than to have done with +all strife that I offered my hand on the instant to Skene. And +although later I did somewhat censure myself for such precipitancy of +forgiveness in a case that more concerned my father than myself, yet I +silenced my misgivings with the thought that I might take the occasion +Skene had himself offered (when he said that I should learn what had +befallen to prevent his meeting me on the day appointed in Serjeants +Inn), and, if he should then fail to satisfy me, I would take up my +quarrel anew. + +The attorney took my hand with an apparent and equal openness. + +"I thank you," he said, quietly, "and so enough. Much there may be to +tell of that hath passed; but 'twill not lose by the keeping." + +A burst of ringing from All Hallow's Church, close at hand, seemed to +greet our new compact, or truce rather, with a shower of music. + +"Why, how merry the world goes!" exclaimed Idonia. "Is it the Queen's +birthday, or some proclaimed holiday? For I remember not the like of +it." + +I told her it was for the victory of the _Primrose_ that had returned +with the Governor of Biscay a prisoner. + +"And would to God we had more captures in that kind to show," quoth I, +"for they be a curse to the land, these Spaniards and black lurking +Jesuits." + +But no sooner were the words spoken, than I remembered the Jesuit +Courcy that had been discovered here in hiding in this house, and so +breaking short off I gazed full at Skene. He met my glance without +winking. + +"You speak very truly," he said, slowly, "and I swear by all I hold +most sacred, that had I the ability, I would so deal with that tribe as +the Israelites wrought with them beyond Jordan, and utterly destroy +them." Now, whether in this sentence the man spoke his true mind, or +damnably forswore himself, it remained with the sequel to be made clear. + +Idonia gave a little movement the while he was speaking, but whether by +way of assent or of a natural shrinking I could not tell. For myself I +said nought, but regarded Skene steadfastly, who soon added-- + +"I have business above, Idonia, which cannot be stayed. It is past +dinner time, and if Mr. Cleeve will so honour our poor house, I would +have him remain to dinner. I am engaged abroad, an hour hence, and +will take my meal then." He smiled. "Mr. Denis I leave to your care, +child, and believe you will use him well." He turned on his heel and +went upstairs, leaving us alone together in the hall. + +To relate all that ensued I think not necessary to the understanding of +this history, and also I should find it difficult to set down in +writing or by any understood rule of grammar the things that were said, +or elliptically expressed, between us. For Syntax helpeth no man at +such seasons, nor Accidence any maid; 'tis an ineffable intercourse +they use, from which slip away both mood and tense and reason, and the +world too ... all which apparatus and tophamper overboard I found it +surprisingly easy to convey my meaning; to which Idonia replied very +modestly that 'twas her meaning no less, and with that I withdrew my +arm and blessed High Heaven for my fortune. + +Idonia was a radiant spirit that day. Her hitherto coldness and the +backwardness with which she had been constrained to receive me I +perceived had been due to no other cause than a fear how her guardian +would regard my visits to the house; for despite his kindness to her +(which she acknowledged) I saw she stood in awe of the man, and hardly +ventured to cross him in the lightest matter. + +"Neither doth the company he maintains about him like me overmuch," +said she. "But now I care less than a little for such things, who +shall soon leave this place for ever; ah! dear heart, but I shall be +glad of such leaving, and no man shall ever have had so faithful and +loving a wife, nor one," she added swiftly, "so apt at the +book-keeping." + +I was thinking of her hair, and said so. + +"And I was thinking of a long-limbed boy with but three hairs to his +beard," quoth Idonia, "and for wits to his skull, not so much as would +varnish the back of a beetle. Why, how much doth your worship earn by +the week?" + +I told her, seven shillings, besides a new suit twice in the year. + +"It must be bettered, master," said Idonia, grave at once. + +"It shall be better spent," said I. + +"But 'tis not enough by the half," quoth she. + +"Well, we will eke out the rest by other ways, of which I have a store +in my head, that, being happily vacant of wits, hath the more room to +accommodate them." + +Idonia's answer to this, I, having considered the matter, pass over as +foreign to the argument. + +'Twas a little after, that starting up, she cried: "Why, bless my dull +appetite, we have not dined! And I with a fat hen upon the spit, fresh +from the Cheape this morning." + +"'Tis not enough by the half," said I, mocking her; but she would not +stay longer, saying I must eat, for I had a big body to fill; though +for my head, that was another song and a sad one; and ere I could let +her, she was gone from me into the great kitchen beyond the stair. + +I sat awhile where I was, marvellous happy and free from cares; and saw +my love of this maid, like a new Creation arising from the waters, to +make a whole world for me where before was nothing; for all seemed to +me as nothing in comparison with her, so that I forgot my troubles and +losses, my wounds and sickness, my father, my home, my uncle... + +"What was that?" said I, sitting up straight, for I had, I think, +fallen into a sort of trance, and imagined some noise had disturbed me. + +"Hist!" came a whisper from aloft, and I leapt to my feet. + +"Who is it speaks?" cried I, searching every corner of the dark hall +with narrowed eyes. + +"Hist!" said the voice again. "There is danger threatening to the folk +of this house." + +"What danger is there?" said I, who had now discovered who it was +spoke; for there, lurking in the aperture of the wall to which the +ladder reached up, I saw Andrew Plat, the lyrick poet, his tawny hair +wild about his pale face, and his neck craned forward like a heron's. +Yet for all the comick figure that he made I could not neglect the +apparent seriousness of his warning, and especially when he added in a +hoarse voice-- + +"Where is Mistress Avenon? O, fair Idonia, hasten hither, if you be +within this fated mansion!" + +"She is in the kitchen cooking a fowl," said I, pretty short, for this +adjuration of his mightily displeased me. + +"Cooking!--she!" returned the poet, with a despairing gesture. "Her +lily hands! O monstrous indignity, and cruel office of a cook!" + +I had thought he would fall headlong down the ladder, so distractedly +did he behave himself, and called upon him sharply to tell me wherein +lay this danger to Idonia he affected to fear. + +"I stand alone against a host," said he with a flourish, "but Love +maketh a man sufficient, and will fortify these arms." + +"Enough," I shouted, "or I will assuredly call in question the +authorship of a certain rascal poem you wot of." + +"It is mine own," he screamed, and danced upon the sill for very rage. +"There is no resemblance betwixt my verses and that preposterous +fellow's--whose name even I know not. I vow there hath been nought, +since Catullus, writ with so infinite and original an invention as my +Hymn to the Spring," and off he went with his "Fresh Spring, the lovely +herald of Great Love," with so great an eagerness of delight in the +poor cuckoo-chick words, as I could not but pity him. + +By this time our loud and contrary arguments had been overheard, and +ere he had done Idonia came running forth from the kitchen, her sleeves +above the elbow, and her dress all tucked up; while a little after, +Skene called over the stair-rail to inquire out the cause of this +disturbance. + +"'Tis Mr. Plat, the celebrated poet," I replied, "that says there is a +danger threatening this house, though of what nature I cannot learn." + +Suddenly recalled by my protest, the poet clapped his hand to his +forehead and cried out: + +"O, whither hath my Muse rapt me? Return, my soul, and of this tumult +tell..." + +"Out with it, man!" quoth Mr. Skene, in his usual calm manner of +command, that did more than all my attempts to come by the truth. + +"They are returning from the Tower," said the poet, "whither they have +carried off the Spaniard. They are coming hither, an incredible +company with staves and all manner of weapons." + +"And wherefore?" demanded Skene. + +"Because 'tis constantly affirmed that you have here concealed a sort +of plotting Jesuits and base men that would spy out the land, and +enslave us. Nay, they go so far as to say that one such was caught +here not so long ago in the open light of day, for which they swear to +beat the house about your ears and slay you every one. + +"Be silent," said the attorney briefly, and we all stood awhile +attentive to any sound of menace from without. We had not long to +wait, for almost on the instant there came a shuffle and rush of many +feet, and that deep unforgettable roll, as of drums, that means the +anger of confused and masterless multitudes. + +Skene addressed me: "You alone have a sword, sir. You will cover our +retreat." + +I bowed without speaking, and unsheathing my sword, went to the door, +where I clapped to the bolts and made all fast. + +"Oh, Denis, Denis!" cried Idonia, who saw it was intended I should +remain behind. "Sir," she pleaded with her guardian, "he must come +with me where'er you lead me." + +"He will follow," said he; and then to Plat-- + +"Do they compass the whole house, or is there a way of escape beyond?" + +"There is yet," he answered, having made espial; "for the attack goes +but upon the street side, leaving the lane free. But lose no time, for +they be already scattering--ah! 'tis for fuel to lay to the door," +cried he, all aghast now and scarce articulate. "Come away after me," +and so was gone. + +Skene said no more, but cast a quiet glance at me, that I knew meant he +trusted me, and for which, more than all I had yet had from him, I +thanked him. But hard work had I to refrain myself, when Idonia +besought me with tears not to leave her and, when presently her +guardian bore her half fainting up the ladder, to appear smiling and +confident. + +"I will follow you by and by," said I, and then sat down, suddenly sick +at heart, upon a wooden grate of ship's goods; for the tumult at the +gate was now grown intolerably affrighting. + +"You must try another way than this," said Skene, who had now gained +the sill, and I comprehended that he was about to draw up the ladder +after, in order to mask their way of escape when the door should be +forced in or burnt. I nodded, remembering that Idonia had been moved +by the same consideration formerly, when the soldiers came with their +warrant of search; and so the ladder was drawn up and I left. + +It is not fit that I should describe all that followed, for no man can +exactly report all, when all is in turmoil and an unchained madness +hurrieth through every mind; madness of defiance and that hideous +madness of fear. For if ever man gazed into the very eyes of the +spectre of fear, it was I then, whom nameless horror possessed, so that +more than once, when the hammering upon the gate shook even the flags +with which the hall was paven, I shrunk back to the farthest corner in +the dark, biting my knuckles till they bled; and even when the door was +half down, and I at the breach making play with my sword to fend off +the foremost that would enter, I felt my heart turn to water at the +sight of that grinning circle of desperate and blood-hungry faces, and +at the roar as of starved forest beasts ravening after their prey. + +My defence came to an end suddenly; for although I might have made +shift awhile longer to avert the danger from the gate (but indeed I was +nigh spent with my labours there), I chanced just then to gaze sidelong +at the shuttered window upon the left of it, and saw the shutter all +splintered, and a fellow with a great swart beard, already astraddle on +the ledge. Without a moment's parley I ran my sword half to the hilts +into his side, and as he sank down in a huddle, I left the sword +sticking where it was, and ran for my life. + +How I got free of the house I know not, but it was by a window of the +kitchen, I think, or else a hole I burst for myself; but by some +venture of frenzy I gained the street, or rather an enclosed court, +arched under at the further end by a sort of conduit or channel in the +wall; and so, half on my belly shuffling through this filthy bow, I +came by good hap into the open street, that I found was Tower Street, +where at length I thought it safe to take leisure to breathe, and look +about me. + +But even here I was deceived of my security; for my passage having +been, I suppose, easily discovered, there wanted not a full minute ere +I heard an halloo! and a scraping of feet beneath the arched way, by +which I perceived I was hotly followed. I stumbled to my feet +straightway and fled westward up the street, while in my ears rang the +alarm: "Stop thief! Jesuit! Hold, in the Queen's Name!" which, the +passengers taking it up, and themselves incontinently joining in the +pursuit, made my hopes of safety and my little remnant of strength to +shrink together utterly, like a scroll of parchment in the fire. + +I knew not how far I had gone, nor whither I had come, for all was +strange to my disordered vision, but I know now that I had won nigh to +the standard upon Cornhill (having turned to my right hand up +Gracechurch Street); and holding my pursuers a little in check by +repeated doublings, I found myself free to take refuge within a certain +yard giving upon the public way and close against a tavern that is +called the Leaden Porch. But fearing to remain openly in this place +for any man to apprehend me, I cast about for some means of +concealment, for I could go no further; and there being by good hap a +cart standing under the arch in the entry (the carter having doubtless +betaken himself to the tavern, as is the custom of such men), I got me +up into it, painfully crawling beneath the load it carried, which was, +methought, something oddly protected by a frame of timber hung about +with linen-stuff or such-like, that I skilled not to discover the use +of; and here I lay close, until very soon, as well from mere exhaustion +as from a despairing indifference to the event, I fell asleep. + +No thought of the money I had been so near to recovering disturbed my +repose, nor indeed for three full days after did I so much as remember +to have left the treasure bags behind me in the hurry of my flight. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +HOW I FOUND AN OLD FRIEND IN A STRANGE PLACE, AND HOW PTOLEMY RENEWED +HIS STUDY OF THE LATIN TONGUE + +I was in the midst of a most excellent and comforting dream of Idonia, +to whom I was again happily united, and we (if I rightly call it to +mind), Duke and Duchess of Salamanca or of some place like-sounding, +when I was roughly awakened by the jogging forward of the cart, to +which succeeded that a head was thrust in betwixt the curtains of my +extemporary great bed, and a voice cried: "Woe worth the day! what +gallows'-food is here?" + +Making no question but that I was arrested, yet being still bedrowsed +by sleep, I felt for my sword to deliver it up, but finding it not, +said very stately: "Master Corregidor of Biscay, I yield myself +prisoner," and so lay quiet, expecting what he should do further. + +But that he did, squared so ill with all I had ever heard tell of the +manners and behaviour of Corregidors or persons anyway notable, that I +sat up and stared upon him gaping; for he gave but one look at me, and +after, with such a squealing of laughter as one might, suppose coneys +to utter when they catch a weasel sleeping, he parted the curtains +wider and leapt into the place where I lay, when he seized me by both +my hands and wrung them up and down as they were flails. + +I was wide awake enough now, but yet for my life could not comprehend +the carter's apparent joy of seeing me, though as to that, 'twas a +better welcome than I had looked for, either from the Corregidor of my +dreams, or from the rabble I was so vehemently pursued by. + +Now when this mad fellow had something slackened the excess of his +complacency, I took occasion to demand whether my remaining within that +frame of timber (that was none too big for us twain) were irksome to +him. "For," said I, "if it be not, I have my reasons why I should wish +not to leave it." + +At this he ceased his exercise altogether and, withdrawing both his +hands from mine, regarded me reproachfully. + +"Hast so soon forgot Cayphas his mitre, and the ark of Noah?" said he. + +"Now of all the saints," I cried out, "'tis Ptolemy Philpot, the +pageant master!" and saw that the sanctuary into which I had entered +was within the pageant itself, I having my elbow even then resting on +the wooden box of his puppets, while about the narrow chamber were hung +the tabards, hats, pencils, fringed gowns of damask and other necessary +imagery of the interludes he showed. As to Master Ptolemy himself, he +had altered not a jot, so that I marvelled I had not sooner known him, +except that I was then heavy with sleep; for he spoke still in the same +small child's voice that issued from the middle of his bearded fierce +countenance, as a bird may twitter in the jaws of a pard that hath +caught her. Methought indeed that the agate colour was somewhat more +richly veined upon his nose, and that his body was more comfortably +overlaid than I had formerly remembered it, and supposed therefore that +his bargain with Skegs had gone happily against my fears and to his +advantage; the which he presently certified. + +"But it was not by any of the miracles or moralities he sold me, that I +have prospered," said he, "for wheresoever I played it none would stay +out the Deluge, no, not even in so goodly and well-considered a town as +is Devizes, whither I went first of all, and where I enacted the same +by the special desire of one Sir Matthew Juke, a principal person there +and a famous traveller, as he said; who took upon him to condemn my +navigation of the Ark ere I had half concluded: affirming that if ever +I should use the sea as he had done, and so handled my ship in the +manner of that voyage to Ararat, he would not answer for it, but I +should be utterly cast away and my venture lost. Howbeit he gave me, +in parting, a tester, which was all I had from that place, and yet more +by a sixpence than I got at Winchester whither I proceeded, and where I +was fain to exchange the Deluge for the Miracle of Cayphas; but 'twould +not serve, and I was suddenly put forth of that town of the beadle. +Thereafter I essayed the Pageant of Melchisedec as they have it at +Chester, and though some part of it liked the people pretty well, yet I +lost as much as I gained by reason of a tempest that broke while the +piece was a playing, whereby the motion was all drenched by the rain +and the hangings torn by the wind and Father Abraham his beard came +ungummed from his jowl, so that it cost me five shillings to repair all +that damage. Then did I make shift to patch my patriarch figures with +such modern habits and familiar countenances as should betoken our +famous captains (as I told you I meant to do), and to that end paid to +a clerk of Wallingford fifteen shillings for the writing of a +history-comedy, wherein were such assaults and batterings and victories +as suited to our late accomplishments at sea; but the illiterate and +filthy vulgar would have none of it, swearing I had turned Noah into +Captain Drake, and Mount Ararat into Vigo, with so slight addition upon +their originals as 'twas scandal to behold; all which was true enough, +doubtless, but the outcome mighty unprofitable to me, who thereby +beheld my fortune to be slid from under me and myself fallen into +absolute beggary." + +"How then came you to repair your fortune, Ptolemy?" said I, who had +listened with an infinite, though secret, struggling against laughter, +the while he had related his tale; "since it seemeth you no longer play +your pieces to an unkind audience." + +Mr. Philpot plunged his hand into his great beard, holding his chin +thoughtfully, and after, withdrawing it, rubbed his forefinger slowly +along his nose, as though to assure himself that he had come unchanged, +and with all his attributes, through the storm and multitude of +accidents that had assailed him. + +"'Tis an old saw and a true one, which saith, the miracles that happen +daily we suffer to go by us unregarded; as the sunrise, and the return +of consciousness after sleep, and so following," said the pageant +master, in his small reed voice, "and the same holds as with the rest, +with plays also; namely, that what is too well known is still +neglected, and where no itch of expectancy is, there will no wits be +scratching. 'Twas a reproach of the Athenians of old, master, that +they went continually in hopes to see or hear some new thing, and your +stage-audiences differ in nothing from your Athenians, save only in the +tongue they use, and the clothes they wear. I know not how the truth +came to be revealed to me," he proceeded pensively, "but come it did +and in a good hour; I mean the truth that every man loveth secrecy and +concealment, as a child his coral. What did I then, but clap all my +stock together, my mysteries, miracles, pageants, interludes and all, +pell mell, Herod and Pilate their proper speeches and cues to boot: the +diverting jests of Noah's wife with the admonitions of Abraham and the +sentences of the Angel; and from this medley so made I fished forth +such chanceable and ill-matched dialogues as a man must needs be +Solomon or a very ass that would read sense into them, or confess to +discovering a propriety between speaker and spoken word. Why, list but +a moment, and I will show you the whole matter," and with that he drew +forth a torn quire of unstitched papers that was marked at the head, +"The Masque of the Noble Shepherds," which word _Masque_, said Ptolemy, +served to cover all such impertinent matter as he should choose to +bring in, and acquainted me plainly with the way he had gone about his +authorship; in which, nevertheless, I perceived so great an ingenuity, +and such apparent gravity and fantastick leading up to nothing in the +world as, although I could comprehend no meaning in the piece (there +being none to comprehend) yet I could well enough imagine the curious +and close attention with which it would be heard and seen. + +"I tell you I have had all sorts of men come away pleased with it," +said Ptolemy in conclusion; "and each for a different reason, and +because he saw in it something that seemed to him to mean this, which +another said was that, and a third, the other." He looked upon me +triumphantly, and then added: "Why, I mind me how at Lambeth once, +where I played, a Bishop and two Canons of the Church thanked me +handsomely for my holding up the new sect to ridicule; and +contrariwise, a little after, a Puritanical grocer demanded of me in a +whisper how in this play I dared to rail as I did upon Church +Government." + +"But do you represent your persons still as prophets and peasants as +they used to appear?" + +"I do not," said Ptolemy, winking upon me very shrewdly, "but rather I +have ennobled them all, and call this one a King, and that an Earl, and +the other the Knight Alderman of Tavistock--in which place I was born; +for it behoveth us to honour the place of our birth; besides that, for +the rest, your Englishman loves nothing better than to see great +persons on the stage, and aye to follow the fashions that he sees +there." + +We were interrupted at that time by the drawing aside of the curtain, +and a shock-head boy, appearing, said-- + +"We be arrived at the place, master. Shall I sound the tabor and speak +the prologue now?" + +"Whither are we come?" I asked, for I thought I might safely leave my +city of refuge and depart. + +"This is Tower Hill," said Ptolemy, "and I see we shall not lack of a +sufficient audience to-day," he added, looking forth through a chink +upon the throng that was already assembled. + +Now when I heard that we were returned to the very place whence I had +fled in fear of my life, I shrank back into a corner of the frame and +begged Mr. Ptolemy to let me remain with him until the place should be +clear of folk and I able to go home without molestation. He seemed, I +thought, somewhat astonished, but at once agreed to keep me by him, and +indeed to do anything in return for the kindness I had shown him at +Dunster, only requiring me to give him as much room as I could for the +better management of his puppets, which he was now busy fitting to +their wires, while conning o'er the several parts they were due to +speak. + +Surely, no hunted man hath ever been so fantastically sheltered as I, +above whose head kicked and dangled Mr. Ptolemy's wooden kings, and +Aldermen of Tavistock; and ranted their unintelligible speeches to the +delight of them that would have torn down the show in a fury had they +known how near to them I lay concealed. + +In some such sort as follows the Masque commenced; the boy with the +tabor speaking: + + "My worthy master Ptolemy + Hath writ this prologue painfully + To th' intent that by it ye may see + What otherwise were dim. + The scene though pastorally laid + Is traversed by an Earl, arrayed + In shepherd-guise to win a maid + That loathes the sight of him." + +and so retired amidst a buzz of excitement. + +We had got through about half the piece in this manner, and without +mishap, when Mr. Ptolemy, that was then in the midst of a complaint of +the wooden Earl for the unkindness of his shepherdess; Mr. Ptolemy (I +say) turned to me suddenly, quite neglecting his book, and very +eagerly-- + +"How now," quoth he, "here is the very opportunity come I have sought +long since, and yet had nigh forgot it. What, I prythee, is the +meaning of that little word _Quemadmodum_?" + +But ere I could reply, there arose such a shrill murmur of resentment +from the auditors as no seeker after truth might withstand, and Mr. +Philpot, abruptly recalled to the necessary affairs of his love-sick +Earl, had much ado to get him to his feet again, he being by this time +all entangled by the wires of the motion. However, he did so, and the +play proceeded again. + +When all was done and the boy sent round amongst the people to solicit +their gratuities, Mr. Ptolemy breathed a deep sigh, and having put up +his puppets into the box, closed the lid and returned upon me with a +courteous request that I should now deal with him at large upon the +subject of _Quemadmodum_, which word, as he told me, he had oftentimes +met with in the books he continued to collect in the Latin tongue, and +to which, when he should have acquired a competency, he intended to +devote his leisure. + +"For there is nothing comparable with your Latin," said he, "to give a +cast of magnificence to that a man may say. My father had some words +of it that he used chiefly when he was wroth, and they did more, I +warrant you, than all else to bring him off happily in his +disputations. The principal saying he used was ... nay, I have forgot +it, but 'tis no great matter, for it was not of so catholick an +application as the _Quemadmodum_, nor so well sounding." + +I was about to comply with his simple demand, when the lad again thrust +in his head betwixt the hangings, crying out: "Come forth, master, +instantly; for here is my Lord Lumley come from his great house above, +that requires you to answer certain reflections made upon him, as he +thinks, in that character of the rejected Earl; which will lead us the +devil's gait an' you satisfy him not of your simplicity." + +"What told I you?" exclaimed the poor baulked Latinist, regarding me +with so tragick a countenance that I lost all inclination to laugh, +"there's none sees aught in all this but he hath brought it himself +hither in the thick o' the head, with a pest! and what is a poor player +to do!" + +He went away very sorrowfully to my Lord Lumley's house, and I, that +saw my way open (being unwilling to attend his return), slipped from my +cover and was soon enough safe at home. This adventure ended, and the +night come and gone, I went the next day to my work again, and there +continued for above a week, casting accompts under the strict eye of +Mr. Enos Procter, and never venturing nearer to Petty Wales than +sufficed to show me there was a pretty strong guard of yeomen kept +about the broken gate, who suffered no man to approach closely, nor +none (if indeed there were any left within) to depart thence. I +guessed by this, and by their leaving unprotected that lane behind the +other half of the great house, that they knew not of the connection and +passage between the two parts; and so tried to comfort myself that +Idonia was got safely away, or if she yet remained, that she did so +without any extraordinary peril; though for all that I was very +miserable to be kept ignorant of her present lodging, but resolved +that, before many days were passed, I would forcibly undertake her +discovery and rescue, or at the least come by such certain information +as should lead to our meeting, and the renewal of our pledged troth. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +IN WHICH I RECEIVE A COMMISSION AND SUFFER A CHECK + +The execution of my design was precipitated by a certain accident which +at that time befell me, and was by me regarded as happy or untoward, +according as I dwelt upon the recognition of merit it implied, or upon +the delayed return which it necessitated, to my intercourse with Idonia +Avenon. + +It happened then, that about eight or nine days after that riotous +siege of Petty Wales, I was at work upon my high stool in Chequer Lane, +where I was deeply engaged in computing the value of the several shares +the merchants of our Company were willing to take, upon charter party +with the owners of a certain ship called _The Saracen's Head_, Captain +Spurrier, that was about to set forth upon a voyage into Argiers, and +thereafter, unless otherwise ordered, yet further to the eastward. +Being so occupied as I say, there entered the counting-house a servant +of Sir Edward Osborne's that desired of Mr. Procter to tell him whether +one Denis Cleeve were there in that place; to which he answering that +he was, and that I was the man he inquired after, the servant saluted +me very properly and bade me go with him to the Governor's, that is, to +Sir Edward Osborne's, who expected me at his house. + +Marvelling what this should intend, I nevertheless made haste to follow +the servant, and was soon after ushered into a great chamber, +wainscoted very high up with walnut-wood, and with a table at one end +of it, whereon was a woollen cloth spread, very rich, and having the +coat and crest of the knight's family woven into the midst of it. +About the walls were hung many fair pictures, all of men save one, +which was of a maid of about ten years, that had a very winsome smiling +face and clustered curls about it. In this chamber I was left alone to +wait for some small space, when after there came in to me Sir Edward, +very gravely, together with his secretary, who straight sat him down at +the table and mended his pen. + +Upon their entering I did my courtesy, which the merchant quietly +received, and then, motioning me to a chair, immediately commenced: + +"I have sent for you, Mr. Cleeve," said he, sitting down also, "because +I have had a good report of you from him in whose charge you work, Mr. +Procter, who moreover hath made the addition that you are of a spirit +somewhat higher than seemeth necessary a scrivener should have, they +being for the most part a mild and inoffensive sort of men--what say +you, Mr. Secretary?" + +The man of the pen seemed greatly taken aback at this direct challenge +to his manhood, and could but stammer out that secretaries were +doubtless more faithful than arrogant, stealing at the same time such a +spleenful look upon me as I thought he would have sent his quill and +ink-horn after it. + +"Faithful--ay," said Master Osborne, with a little smile about the +eyes, "but nowise arrogant. I hope you be not arrogant either, Mr. +Cleeve," he added, fixing his gaze upon me. + +"I hope not, sir," said I, "nor think I am not either, for, as Mr. +Procter hath often told me, there is nothing checks a man's pride like +the book-keeping, that makes him put down a thing on both sides an +accompt in a just balance; which pride forbids a man to do." + +"It is as you say," cried the Governor, mighty pleased, "and you answer +well. But now tell me--and it is necessary you should deal with me +openly--do you truly love your ledger?" + +I thought upon this question a few moments ere I replied that I could +not say I loved it, but that I thought it a necessary book; that I +sometimes found a singular delight in the pursuing of the intricacies +of some great reckoning, but that I hated the casting of page upon page +of moneys, which seemed to make a miser of my head though I was none by +my pocket. In fine, that I honoured accountancy as a servant but could +not live with it as a friend. + +The merchant listened with no small amusement until I had done, and +then sat still, dallying with a packet of papers he had on the table +before him, from which at length he took one, and, running his eyes +over it carelessly, said-- + +"Upon what task were you engaged when I sent for you hither?" + +I said, upon the business of the apportioning the affreightment of the +_Saracen's Head_. + +"Know you aught of the Captain of that barque?" said he. + +"It is one Master Spurrier," I said, "a Harwich man, that was one time +Captain of the _Crane_, a ship of the Queen's." + +He nodded the while I spoke, as having knowledge of these particulars +already; and then demanded whether I were advised of how he came to +leave Her Majesty's service, which I had not, and said so. + +"Give him the Testament, Mr. Secretary," said the Governor, and made +him propose the oath to me that whatsoever I now heard I should be +secret in and faithful to all just commands laid upon me to fulfil +them. Which done, he leaned back in his deep chair and said-- + +"Mr. Cleeve, I am about to put into your hands a commission that may +carry with it some difficulty and more danger, from neither of which +have I any fear that you will anyways shrink. But there needeth more +yet than either courage or a common promptness to this affair, wherein +must be used an aptitude to see without seeming to do so, and to assume +such a negligence of behaviour as none that watches you (for you shall +be watched) may perceive you be attentive to aught beyond your proper +and understood duties." He paused awhile, and I was glad of this +respite, for my heart was beating so high that I could scarce conceal +my agitation. Nevertheless I had commanded myself before he renewed +his discourse. + +"I have received intelligence but two days since, from Her Majesty's +principal Secretary, that there be in this realm a sort of dissatisfied +men that, taking advantage of our present dissensions with Spain, and +hoping to secure to themselves an infamous benefit by the same, have +privily made offer of their services to our enemy, as to discover the +nature of our defences and extent of our preparedness to war. So much +is certainly known, and many names of such spies are set down. But, as +is always found in these devil's hucksterings, there is as it were a +frayed edge and doubtful margin of disloyalty, upon which a man may +stand in question how to appraise it; and of this quality is our Master +for this voyage, I mean Captain Spurrier. Something that the Governor +of Biscay hath let fall (that lies now in the Tower) inclines their +lordships of the Council to attach this Spurrier instantly for a +traitor; but yet they would not altogether so, hoping as well for +absolute proof of his villainy as that, by our apparent slackness, he +may be led to betray to one supposed his ordinary companion, the full +scope and ambit of his dealings; which being (to use the figure) noted +in our chart as shoals, we may circumvent them and come safe to harbour. + +"I design, therefore, that you go supercargo of the goods of this +vessel, that is to sail from the Pool in a week's time, and mark each +particular accident of the voyage, as what ships spoken, and what +course taken, together with the customary behaviour of the Captain, and +with whom of the officers he chiefly consorts. If he have any books or +papers you may overlook their general tenour but not handle them, for +sometimes they be traps set for that very purpose. At Argiers, if you +get so far and be not, as I suspect you will be, waylaid by some +Spanish ship of war, you may send me word; but yet either way, observe +your man closely; to whom, so far as may be possible, you shall make +yourself necessary. I say no more. It may happen that my advice shall +receive supplement from Her Majesty's Council, to whom I have already +given in your name as the agent I think likeliest to their occasions; +who on their part received it very well, knowing your father for an +honourable man and a loyal gentleman." + +The Governor rose from his place, and, bowing slightly, went from the +chamber, leaving me alone with his secretary, who, with less courtesy +than I thought he might have showed, instructed me in the customary +duties of a supercargo, and further bade me apply to him for whatever +money would be necessary for clothing and the rest, as well as arms, +with which I was now wholly unprovided. + +In conclusion he warned me to be discreet, wagging his head three or +four times as he said it, I suppose for my better apprehension of his +meaning. + +"Oh, I warrant you, Mr. Secretary," said I, "I will not write my +suspicions, nor speak them in soliloquy, nor yet clap my ear to the +keyhole, unless I see cause." + +"I have a mind to clap my cane to your worship's jolthead," quoth the +secretary, "until you see a thousand stars." + +No sooner were we parted (friends enough) and I in the street, than the +desire to see Idonia and bid her bless me to my sea-faring, came so hot +upon me as I made off directly to the thieves' lane of Petty Wales, and +neglecting all discretion, scrupled not to enter it publicly. But the +door by which I had formerly gained ready admittance was now closed, +and so strongly barred that I knew at the first glance 'twas impossible +of access; while the one small window beside it was likewise shuttered +up and made firm. I rapped twice or thrice as loud as I dared, but +none answering, I went away at length, exceeding downcast. On the day +following I came again; and the day after that too; but was still +repulsed by the defences that I supposed the thieves, and perhaps Skene +too, had raised against any attacks of the soldiery, or of the +populace, that were full as formidable as any army, and more cruel +because without discipline. Meanwhile the day nearly approached when +our barque was to set sail, and I with my secret strange commission to +go with her. I had writ a large letter to my father at Tolland, in +which I made mention of this voyage, begging him to remember me in his +prayers, and promising him withal, that I would not run into +unnecessary dangers, nor yet (as some have done) be so busy in my +office as to smell out treasons where none was meant. As to the nature +of my trust I could not deal explicitly with him, because of the oath I +was bound by, but I gave him to understand that our cargo of woollen +stuffs was the least part of my care, and whether safe in the hold, or +at the first occasion to be made jettison of, my owners would (I +thought) require no particular account of it at my hands. With the +writing of this, and one visit I was called upon to pay to my lords of +the Council, in which I met with more great men and ran into a thicker +mist of wisdom than hath been my fortune either before or since; with +these matters (I say) I eked out my waiting time heavily enough, for I +was necessarily released from my daily attendance at the +counting-house, having besides much to see to in the getting of such +clothing and arms as the crabbed secretary thought necessary to my +equipment. + +Well, walking thus very disconsolate one evening upon the Bridge, where +I had been concerned with a certain armourer there to buy my new sword +and hangers, whom should I light upon but, Master Andrew Plat, the +lyrick poet? At least by the back I judged it to be him, for he looked +another way, and was, I soon perceived, about the game he had so +decried to me as a nefarious pursuit and never by him followed, namely +stealing; for he stole silk goods from one of the open stalls that are +here set up; the which he so skilfully accomplished as I saw he was no +freshman, but rather an exhibitioner and graduated master. + +"Your Spring hath issued into a passing fruitful Summer," I said very +low in his ear, "and I think you did well to leave your lyricks for +this art, and the thankless Apollo for thieving Mercury." + +He leapt about with a white face, gasping. + +"I have stolen nothing in the world," said he. + +"No? Then come with me, Master Poet, for I must learn this way of +getting stuff that is neither paid for nor yet stolen," and taking him +under the arm I carried him with me at a great pace along the Bridge, +pausing not till we were come near to the end of Thames Street, and in +full view of the watch set about the battered door of Skene's house. + +"I go no further this way," cried Plat, struggling to get free. + +"We have nothing to fear, friend, being honest men." + +"Loose me, I say." + +"On conditions I will." + +"Ah--conditions?" + +"That you admit me to your house." + +"Never! Besides I have no house. I am homeless and destitute, master; +indeed I am in bitter want." + +"I will mend that," said I, and drew forth a gold piece from the pouch +at my belt. "But now, ponder the alternatives well, and as you choose, +so shall it be yours to have. Either you grant me presently the +liberty of that part of Petty Wales which you were used to inhabit, and +take this noble for your pains, or else I will hale you to yonder +watch, and denounce your theft of those silks you have about you." + +He shivered throughout at my proposals, and after hung as limp upon my +arm as a drenched clout. + +"If I should do as you desire, good master," said he, in a voice I +could scarce hear for its thinness, "our Captain would kill you out of +hand." + +"Forewarned is forearmed," said I. "Your next reason?" + +"That the place is locked." + +"Otherwise I should have had no need of you. The next?" + +"Oh," he wailed pitifully, "do not drive me thus, master. I dare not +obey you." + +"Forward then with a good heart," said I cheerfully, and bore him a +further ten paces down the street. + +"Stay, stay," cried the poet, "I yield, I capitulate, I open the gates +... and now give me my gold." + +I did so, and released him, when, cautioning me to be silent, he left +the street by a certain byway, and threading such devious passages as +in the growing darkness I could scarce distinguish to follow him by, he +led me on, up and down, through courts and alleys, beneath penthouse +roofs and neglected arches, until I came near to doubting his good +faith and was about to use my old device of retaining his allegiance at +the sword's point, when he came out suddenly into the lane, at the +opposite end to that I had before entered it from Tower Hill; and so +stood still before the secret low door. In the little light there was +(for the lane was lit by no lantern nor lamp of any sort) I could not +see whether the door was still barricaded, but judged it to be so by +Mr. Plat's climbing up about a fathom's height of the naked wall, +setting his feet within some shallow crevices he knew of, but I could +not perceive, until he made his standing sure, when, he giving a little +strange cry like a bird's, immediately a stone of the wall seemed to be +removed, some three spans' breadth, and into the opening thus made Plat +incontinently disappeared. I was mad to be fooled thus, for I +questioned not but he would now leave me to shift for myself: when with +an equal suddenness his head was thrust forth again, and he said-- + +"If you list you may mount up hither, though I warn you a second time, +that all here within, me only excepted, be ungodly thieves, pilferers, +cut-throat knaves, railers against the State, having no honesty nor +purpose to do well, illiterate, owning no government, lawless, base men +that acknowledge no merit of authors nor rules of prosody, ignorant +beasts, amongst whom I, a singular sweet singer, remain until a better +fate calls me hence to crown me with never-fading bay and myrtle," and +so, without more ado, he went away from the aperture, which +nevertheless he left open, as he had promised; but whither he went I +know not, for I did not see him after, nor have I come by his published +poems that were to render him immortal. + +I gazed after him a great while, as in doubt whether he would return, +but then shifting my new sword behind me, I addressed myself to the +ascent of the wall, which, after much scraping of my flesh, and one or +two falls headlong, I surmounted, and had my hands fast upon the nether +edge of the vent. It was but a brief while ere I had drawn myself up +and scrambled through; when I found I stood in a narrow and void +chamber, very foul and ill-smelling, from which I was glad enough to be +gone. + +But scarce had I gone forth into the passage beyond, when I heard such +a tumult and angry debate of voices as remembering Plat's assertion of +the Trappist silence that was in this house enjoined upon pain of death +I could not but suppose some very especial cause to have hurried the +thieves into so presumptuous an offence. It was now altogether night +within the building, and with these stifled cries sounding in my ears, +and execrations of men I knew to be desperate villains, I confess my +heart quailed within me and my strength all leaked away, so that I +could not even fly by the way I had come, but stood with my back to the +wall, sweating and staring, with never a thought but to remain +unperceived. Of the fashion and plan of the house I was perfectly +ignorant, having but once before been within it, and then trusting to +another to guide me through its secret recesses; yet I remembered that +there was somewhere that great wide staircase which Plat had said was +the common room and meeting-place of the thieves, where they transacted +their affairs and shared their food and treasure. 'Twas, then, with a +clutch of horrid surprise that I now saw, low down before me, a sort of +men bearing lanterns that issued from the shadows, and began to scale +the stairs; for by the uncertain light I could both distinguish them +and that I myself was standing in one of the open galleries that +surrounded the stairhead and overlooked the body of the hall. But no +sooner had I understood this, than any further discovery was thwarted +by a man's brushing past me in the dark, so close I could hear him +fetch his breath, and instantly upon that there followed the click of a +snaphance. + +"Stay there, you creeping lice!" he said, speaking in a cool middle +voice, "or I will shoot you down, man by man, where you stand." + +At this unlooked-for interruption, the men upon the stair came to a +sudden stand, while some that had advanced higher than the rest, fell +back, so that all hung crowded together, their lanterns raised and +their eyes seeking upward for the man that held them at bay. I have +never seen so dastardly and scarce human visages as they showed, some +with bleared eyes and matted hair, others dark and vengeful, their +brows and cheeks scarred with wounds or open sores. Here a man went +half-naked like a savage Indian; there one wore a ragged coat guarded +with silver; all were armed, though with such a hazardous sort of +weapons, that but for the assured skill and practice with which they +wielded them, one might have dared oppose the whole rout single-handed. +But in their hands these weapons seemed proper as claws to beasts, or +tushes to a wild boar, and instinctively, as the man raised his pistol, +I drew my sword from the sheath. The noise I made attracted the man's +attention to me, and he would perhaps have spoken, had not the +bloodthirsty rout, recking no further opposition, sprung forward again. + +"Hold, I say," cried the man, and this time with a dreadful menacing +vehemence. "I am your Captain, and you know me well. Another step, +and there's a soul writhing in hell. Back, go, you and your eggers-on! +I understand this business, as I understand too who 'twas inflamed you +to mutiny." + +"You took my wife, you scum!" shouted a great fellow clad in a +shipman's garb, that held a rust-bitten cutlass in his hand, and +struggled forward through the press. + +"Ay, did I, Jack?" quoth the Captain satirically, "but 'twas to provide +you with another bride, a bonny lass that the Churchmen say we shall +all embrace by turns. 'Tis that world-old witch I mean, named Death," +and at the word, he discharged his piece full in the other's blotched +face, and laid him bleeding on the topmost stair. + +A great hush came over the mutineers when they saw this deed, that +moreover so sickened me that I had already raised my sword to stab the +murderer in the back and have done with him, when the thieves suddenly +broke with a yell of defiance and charged upward in the mass. What I +would have done had I had longer to deliberate I know not, but in +default of any counsel to direct me, I sprang into action on the side +of the very man I had intended to slay, and shoulder to shoulder with +him, fought down those ghastly cruel faces and reaching hands. + +It was soon enough over. They were no match against the arms we used, +and the Captain calmly loading and discharging his piece, the while I +kept the stairhead clear with my sword, we made them give back foot by +foot, until at length each was scrambling to be the hindmost, and even +used his knife upon his companion in the urgency of his retreat. All +the lanterns were out now, save one that a dead man held in his stark +and upraised hand; and by that light the Captain wiped his smoking +barrel clean. + +"It is well concluded," said he, "and I thank you for your help, young +sir." + +I said nothing, so deeply did I loathe him. + +"We must be gone," he said, "and that quickly. The watch is up, and +the whole place will be searched before dawn. They will be caught like +rats in a drain," he added softly, drawing in his breath. "Follow me." + +He led me to the room I had left, and helped me to get through the hole +in the masonry, after which he followed me. + +"This way," said he, and took me through the lane until he came onto +Tower Hill, when, skirting the precincts of the Tower, we crept +unchallenged through the postern in the wall and turned down a narrow +cart-way to the eastward, I beside him, but neither speaking one word, +until after an hour or more, with waiting and going forward, we got to +Wapping a little ere daybreak, to a desolate mean tavern of shipmen +close beside the river, which we entered without question, for none +seemed to be stirring; and here, in the filthy guestroom, the Captain +flung himself down. + +"A good night's work, master," said he, grinning, "in which you did +your part so well that it grieves me much to name you my prisoner." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +IN WHICH I COME TO GRIPS WITH MR. MALPAS + +In the wan light, with which the room was now gradually filling, I +looked at the man I had been so strangely moved to succour, and knew +him for my old antagonist, Guido Malpas. However, I said no more at +that time, but that, prisoner or no, I sufficiently loathed him; and +so, crouching myself together upon a settle by the hearth (for I was +exceeding weary), I fell asleep. + +It was bright day when I awoke, stiff and uneasy, and sat up on my +bench. The room was empty, and 'twas some while ere I could collect +the passages incident to my being there, which, when they had skulked +back like tired truants to my brain, yet so monstrous did they seem as +I could scarce believe them to be acted events, but rather fantasies +left caught in the web of my waking; while as to that boast of the +thieves' Captain, that I was detained prisoner in an open hostelry, I +laughed aloud at the recollection. + +I got off my plank bed, and going to the door called for the host to +fetch me something to breakfast on, but he not immediately answering to +my demand, I thought fit to show him something of my quality, as +befitting an agent of the Queen's, and was for jangling down my +accoutrements on the table (which never fails of bringing your tapsters +running to attend on a man) when, to my astonishment, I found sword and +belt both wanting, and my purse gone with the rest. + +I stood horror-stricken at this catastrophe, for I perceived that while +I slept that malignant thief had shorn me, and so clapped my hand to +the bosom of my jerkin, where I had put up a letter I had received from +the Lord Treasurer, or rather from his secretary, touching my late +appearance before the Council; but almost before I had my hand in, I +knew certainly that it had been stolen, as indeed it was. Now, here I +saw instantly was matter enough to ruin me either way; with them that +employed me, whose secret I had so slovenly betrayed; with them I was +to spy upon, if (as I could nowise doubt) Malpas was of their company +and privy to their designs. Nevertheless, come what would, I must +report my delinquency to Sir Edward Osborne, and abide by his censure, +and for the rest hope that 'twas not yet too late to supersede me by +some other agent upon that voyage wherein I had promised myself no +small success and glory. + +Very heavy, then, but otherwise determined to do my plain duty in this +affair, I went out by the door with a firm step, pondering all the +cross accidents that had befallen me within so short a space, and very +wishful that all were at an end. + +"Not so fast, Mr. Agent," said that sneering voice of Malpas, whom I +near stumbled over as he sat on an upturned cask by the door. "I have +been expecting you this two hours, but would not disturb you; for it is +unprofitable discoursing with a man of your capacity to slumber. Well, +do you walk in your sleep now, little Denis, and dream upon treasons? +or have you your waking sense yet? I trow you seem reasonable glad to +see me, by which I suppose you to be in your right mind, and so bid you +good-morrow." + +For answer I drew off my glove, and struck him a stinging blow across +the mouth with it; upon which he leapt up, and, being extraordinarily +powerful, flung me from him into the tavern, where I lay prone upon the +flags. He did not shut the door, but stood in the doorway, of which +his head brushed the lintel, and, folding his arms, proceeded quietly-- + +"That was unwisely done, Denis. This house is well respected, and not +known for brawling. Besides, I mean we should be friends; that is, +should understand each other, as friends do--and traders. For in the +way of trade all goes by mutual understanding and a common trust; as I +to sell certain commodities and you to remit certain moneys; or +contrariwise, you to part with such merchandise as I am willing to lay +up in store and to render a good account of, little Denis--as you shall +confess, at the proper season. 'Tis a settlement somewhat deferred +doubtless, having had its beginning, if I mistake not, in a street +before a barber's I used formerly; whereafter was added to the bill a +shrewd item or two, whereby I come near to losing all credit: a grave +chance for such a merchant-adventurer as I; but I am since restored. I +allow a handsome rebate, Denis, that you put into the reckoning +yesterday. But the balance, upon the whole, going against me, it +remains that I must pay." + +"Had I known you last night," I said bitterly, "I would have cut off my +right hand rather than second you in that pass." + +He laughed long and low at that. + +"Do you regret the issue so much?" said he, "Then it was your ignorance +more than your sword I have to thank, it seems. Well, 'tis no more +than the world's way, that generally sees good deeds done at random, +but calculated villainies." + +"As stealing that poor devil's wife," said I. + +"Ay, or the lying-in-wait for Captain Spurrier upon commission," said +he. "So all's one for that." + +"You have read my packet, then?" + +"Even as you were licensed to read his." + +"And may do so yet," said I, galled beyond restraint by his gibing. + +"I think you something misapprehend the matter," said Malpas, with a +malignant affectation of patience, "or have forgot that I said you were +to be detained here. In what fashion you shall go forth, I have not +yet decided, but be assured it will not be to do a mischief, Mr. Denis. +There be other interests must be first consulted thereabout, and order +taken." + +I went over to the hearth, and sitting down upon the settle, strove to +get my position clear in my mind. That I was to be kept here until the +rest of the conspirators should be assembled to try me, I understood +well enough from Malpas his words; though of whom this council of +treason should consist, I could not guess, except that Spurrier himself +were one, and probably Skene. To escape I judged was impossible every +way; partly because I was entered into the very home and chosen +fortress of these plotters, of which the retiredness and neglected +condition sufficiently secured it from the vigilance of the watch, and +partly because I was a prize too valuable to be let slip. I considered +that, besides Malpas, there were certainly others in that house, +pledged to my ward, and answerable for me to him. Of Malpas I knew +enough, as well from that the poet had told me of the thieves' Captain, +how he killed out of hand any that dared disobey him, as also from my +own observance of his behaviour, to stand in little doubt of the upshot +of my business, how it would go. Nevertheless, I do not remember to +have had any extraordinary fear; none, I know, comparable with that +palsied terror I suffered when the mutineers came first upon the stairs +in the night. Perhaps it was the knowledge that formerly when we were +matched together I had come off happily, and left Malpas with so deep a +thrust as even now he went limping withal. + +Immersed in such reflections, I did not note the passage of time, and +was surprised when a little neat fellow, dressed like an ordinary +tavern-server, entered, bearing a tray with cheese on and a loaf and a +pot of good foaming ale. + +"Is it poisoned?" said I. + +"Poisoned? Sir--in this house!" cried he, starting back from the +table. "Your worship must be ignorant whither you have come--to the +_Fair Haven_ of Wapping, where all is sound provend and of the best +come to port." + +"Is it so, indeed, Master Jocelin?" I returned, for I had immediately +recognized, in this meek servitor, my old acquaintance of the hostelry +over against Baynards Castle. "And how goes it with that fat lump of +dough you were to set the yeast of your wit to work in?" + +But without the flicker of an eyelid, he answered me: "Jocelin is my +name, sir; but as to your dough and your yeast, I understand nothing of +your meaning." + +I could not withhold my laughter at his recovered innocence any better +than I did before at the manifest lapse of it; and laughing still, I +watched him put down my breakfast and depart. I fell to with a will +after that, and having a wholesome fondness for food, had soon made an +end of that meal, which, as Master Jocelin had said, was as good as +needs be. The whiles I was eating, my mind wandered oddly away to old +Peter Sprot, at home, whose sober admonition to me of the dietary I +should follow in London, I had until now (I fear) given no thought to, +but judged that I must even yet awhile delay the exact observance of it. + +Now it chanced that, looking up when I had about done, I saw Malpas +regarding me very earnestly, and with a manner as though he would have +asked me something, but apart from the tenour of our late conversation. +Marvelling what this should be, I kept silence: which 'twas not long +ere he broke, by saying-- + +"If you confess yourself vanquished and overborne in this business, +Master Cleeve, as I suppose you can scarce otherwise, I upon my part am +willing enough to allow that you came off victorious otherwhiles; so +that thus far we may cry quits. If there be no love lost between us, +there need be no petty rancours nor jealousies, and I am honest enough +to say that, now I have lost her, I wish you well of your suit to +Mistress Avenon." + +"Where is she now?" cried I, starting up. + +"Nay, if you know not," said Malpas, "how should I?" + +I sat down quite out of heart, for I saw, whether he had news or no, he +was still for fencing. Malpas came nearer, and bending low over the +table where I sat, laid his two hands upon it, and said-- + +"You cannot be ignorant that this affair is like to end badly for you, +Mr. Denis, and I am partly glad of it, but partly sorry too. Now, I +pray you to be open with me; for if I choose I may help you, seeing I +have some direction in this place, and of the occasions it is used for. +Judging from such things as you have seen doing, upon whose part do you +suppose Mr. Skene to stand in these negotiations with Spain? Oh, keep +your admiration!" said he, with a sudden sneer. "The reading of your +packet makes away all scruples to be longer secret. That there be such +negotiations you know as well as I; though of how far they stretch, or +who be deep in, I say nothing. All I require at your hands, is that +you say frankly whether Skene is on the Queen's part, or upon ours?" + +[Illustration: "You cannot be ignorant that this affair is like to end +badly for you, Mr. Denis." Chapter XIX] + +"You acknowledge your part to be contrary to Her Majesty's, then?" + +"I said so. Now as you answer me, I swear I will deal with you. I +will fling the door wide and let you go forth freely to Mistress +Idonia, whose present hiding-place I know; or else I will deliver you +over to those who shall choke your discretion in your fool's throat." + +"Your treason hath not commenced so well," said I, leaning back from +the table, "that hath begun in distrust of each other." + +"Be not over long about it," said Malpas darkly; "I am not used to +repeat my offers, that, moreover, you see are abundantly generous." + +"So generous," I replied, "that I doubt their worth." + +"They be surely worth more," said my captor, upon whose brow the blue +veins stood out, so sharp a curb did he put upon his mood; "they be of +more worth to you, a thousandfold, than the favour or disfavour of that +damned, cogging, glib-spoken traitor, your uncle." + +He had let it slip at last! My uncle Botolph and Skene were one. And +here, beyond belief, I held 'twixt my naked finger and thumb the +steelyard by which my uncle's fate should be weighed, who had crossed +me at every turn. A word of mine, and he that had first ruined my +father's life, and after had robbed him of his fortune, might be +contemptuously blotted out, as a man blots out some gross error in a +letter he has writ; for that was how Malpas would serve him, could I +bring myself to say he stood for the Queen. A little word spoken, and +he was condemned, but I was free ... I and Idonia! + +Indeed, it was clear justice, both to myself and to my uncle. For I +was not to name the man a traitor to his Sovereign; rather, to speak +well of him, as I expected a man should do of me. It was (now I was +come to think on't) mere decency that I should not be dumb in my +uncle's praise whom I had never had any, or at the least overt, cause +to mistrust. Put the case the other way; that I thought my uncle's +conduct treasonable. Should I denounce him to the Lord Treasurer and +the Council? I knew I should not. Should I then denounce him to +Malpas for the contrary cause, and upon the slight grounds I had, as of +the confession he made to me when the Jesuit was found in hiding in his +house? No, certainly. + +Why, all that was required of me was that I should confess I thought my +uncle honest, as likely enough he was. What should follow upon so fair +a declaration imported me nothing. I was concerned with no grudges nor +disputes of these men, to bethink me how a plain answer should work +with them. Nay, I stood for the Queen's Majesty, upon oath to serve +her, and would so stand, God willing, come what might; as Malpas was +well assured, who yet had passed his word I was within an hand's +breadth of going free; it only stayed upon my word. Then why should I +not deal with another so, allowing the honour due to a like +steadfastness with my own? My uncle would doubtless be let go free +too; or perhaps he was not even so much as come into jeopardy. I had +no suspicion but that he was still at large.... Indeed it was very +probable. + +All this while I sat still, musing upon that I should say, and Malpas +stood above me, expecting it. More than once I tried to speak, and +Heaven forgive me as I believe, had I spoken then, I should have sent +my uncle to his death; but somehow the words would not come. The +sophistry was too palpable; the truth too black a lie. I met my +captor's eyes. + +"If I tell you where my uncle is at this moment concealed," said I, +"will you let me go free?" + +Snatching at the apparent advantage: "I add it to the conditions of +your safety that you do so," he replied swiftly. + +"Then you have lost your game," said I, and getting up, I kicked the +chair aside and watched his baffled face of rage. "For if you know not +that, neither do you know where Idonia is, as you made pretence to do." + +"You cursed trickster!" he swore, his voice shaking with an +uncontrolled passion; "petty cheat and viper! So, that is it to be! +Ay, white face, laugh that you have run me these lengths; I should have +known you. 'Sdeath, ye be true Cleeves, uncle and nephew, unprofitable +knaves both! Well, I have done my part, but there's more to follow yet +and soon enough, uncle and nephew! Ah! and who shall be Idonia's +guardian then, when you lie stark? ... Never a word of truth he gave +me, that old fox, but kept me still dangling. 'He could not promise me +her hand, forsooth, but yet he liked me. She would come to like me +too, in time, no doubt; but I must have patience.' Patience--had he +such patience to wait when her mother lived, or did he fob off Miles +Avenon her father upon that fool's adventure wherein he was presently +slain, as Uriah was slain, Bathsheba's man? Ho! a prosperous sleek +lover, I warrant you, and a laugher too, until his Margaret died.... I +knew that Miles, and though I was but a child when he went away, I +remember the pride he had in his pretty frail wife and his joy of +Idonia, for she was his proper child, though Cleeve named himself her +guardian, for her mother's sake. + +"It was that made him terrible, that death of Margaret, and few men +dared go near him. But the fit passed. There have been Margarets enow +since, in good sooth! though he still held by the child. Perdition! +but there needs money to that game, a store, and he was glad of our +help at first, and for many a long day after. It was to be fair +sharing in all, and whiles I think he parted to the hair. Even to your +coming I trusted him, and spied upon you as he bade me, being content +to take the brunt, while he lay close. 'Twas then I claimed the maid +as a right, but he shook his grey sleek head and paltered. _Patience_! +that was the word, then. But it's another word now, Master Denis, for +you and for him. Ay, and another word for Idonia Avenon...." + +I was amazed hearing him talk so wild, whom I had thought tutored to a +perfect secrecy; but his blood was up at my catching him in that +baseness of lying, besides that he was disappointed of the hope I had +extended and withdrawn, of setting him upon my uncle, whose treachery +in their plot he so evidently feared. Why he did not spring upon me +there and then with his knife I did not understand, though it was +likely he reserved me a morsel to fling amongst his foul co-partners in +this business, and a grateful sacrifice. + +"Enough of this chat," said I, at length, "for I well perceive your +purpose both toward me and my uncle. But I warn you for the last time +I shall that 'tis safest you suffer me, Her Majesty's servant, to go +hence free." + +"It is refused," he replied curtly, and turning upon his heel, strode +out of the room and into the street. + +Seeing him gone thus, without mounting any especial guard upon me, I +bethought me to examine the defences with my own eyes, and therefore +followed him leisurely to the door. A stout sea-faring man was there +already, his arms crossed, blocking it. I saw the gleam of a cutlass +end beneath his rough jacket. + +"Be thou the host of this tavern?" he inquired, with a grin. + +Being unconcerned in his needs, I made no answer, and returned to my +room. The windows, which were all unglazed, were strongly barred, and +I at once saw useless to be attempted. Passing then to the hind part +of the house I noted a little postern door that seemed to give onto a +sort of jetty or wharf, the inn standing upon the riverside as I have +already said; but when I approached it, there was the neat tapster that +had brought my meal whistling some catch of a sea song, and polishing +of a great arquebus. + +"Ho! come not too nearly, master," he sang out, when he saw me, "for +these pieces be tickle things, a murrain of 'em! And I not +comprehending the least of the machine, it may chance shoot off +unawares." + +Perceiving that he had his finger pressed to the snaphance, and the +barrel turned my way, I judged it expedient to leave Mr. Jocelin to his +polishing and retire. Every avenue then was guarded, as I had looked +it should be, and so, without any particular design, I walked slowly up +the narrow, rotten stair into the chambers aloft. I went into three or +four, all vacant and ungarnished by any piece of furniture or hanging, +which meant sorry enough entertainment in a place purporting to be an +inn, thought I, though proper enough to a prison. + +But scarce had I gone forth into the gallery again, when I thought I +heard a sound that proceeded from a chamber I had not till then +observed, in a retired and somewhat darksome corner beyond the stairs. +I held my breath to listen, and the little rustling noise beginning +again after a space, I went directly to the door and opened it. + +Mistress Avenon sat within, in a nook by the window, tearing a paper +she had in her hands. + +"Idonia!" I cried, and running forward had her in my arms and her hot +face close against mine. "My bird," said I--for so she seemed as a +dainty bird caught in an iron trap--"my bird, who hath brought you into +this infamous place?" + +She leant back a little from my shoulder, yet without loosing me, and +looked up into my eyes with such a deal of honest, sweet pleasure to +see me there, that I had to pretermit my anxiety some while, and indeed +had near lost it by the time I renewed my question. + +"Why infamous?" inquired Idonia in her turn, "save that I knew not you +were here too. But now it is certainly not infamous, though something +lacking of luxuries, and a thought slack in the attendance they bestow +upon guests!" + +"You must not misconstrue my insistence," I said, "and you will not, +when you shall have heard all I have to tell you. But for the first, +where is Mr. Skene?" + +"He brought me here early last night," said she, but with a little of +reproach in her voice that I knew meant I wasted good time idly. + +"And whither is he gone?" + +"Do you desire he should be present, then?" asked Idonia, very +innocently. + +"No, but I would warn him if I could," I replied gravely, and so told +her everything as it had befallen me. + +"Always that Malpas!" whispered the maid, and trembled so I had to +clasp her tight to me. + +"He does not know you are here, that is clear," I said, as indeed it +was manifest to both of us. + +"My guardian hath used this place often ere this," said Idonia, "and I +suppose none thought to prate of what happened ordinarily." + +"Perhaps he has left you to seek out Malpas," I conjectured, and at +this she nodded. + +"They have had some design in hand together this great while, of which +I know nothing." + +I did not tell her that I knew it well enough, and was even +commissioned to prevent it, but said-- + +"Wherever he hath gone, Malpas hath certainly gone to seek him; but he +must not be found." + +"You owe him small thanks," whispered Idonia, her head low down, "and +if this intends a danger to you..." + +I did not suffer her to finish, but asked whether she were well enough +acquainted with the house to know of any means of egress from it, +besides the doors that were so straitly watched. She thought a great +while before she replied how, once, it might be eight years since, she +being lodged there, she had gone upon some occasion into the cellars, +and remembered to have noted that the window which lighted it was a +sort of grate within the river wall and was even then decayed and +corrupted by the salt water, so that by this time it should, she +thought, be easily broken through. + +"The tide is out," said I, "so that if I may but get through, there is +the dry bank above the pirates' gallows to go by; and after, the rest +should be plain enough." Which gallows I spoke of (now all rotten) yet +stood in the ooze to be flooded at high tide, it having been formerly +used against such pirates and river thieves as were caught and there +hanged, until, the tide rising, they were drowned. + +In reply to my further questionings, she said that Skene was to be +sought amidst the streets about the Tower Royal, which was where I had +gone that day I lost my way in the fog, when Idonia found me, and, +indeed, was no great distance from Chequer Lane. + +"When you shall have found him, or however it fall out, you will return +to me, dear heart?" said Idonia, who was now weeping so bitterly that I +could scarce keep hold of my resolution to be gone. But I did so at +length, and, going downstairs to the room I had left, found it to my +delight still free. Nigh choked with the beating of my heart, I soon +discovered the stone steps that led down to the cellars, which were a +narrow passage-room lit with a swinging lantern, and having three or +four locked doors of other vaults (used, I supposed, for storage of +wines and such-like) to the right and left of it. But in the +river-wall, when I looked, I could perceive no grid nor aperture of +such sort as Idonia had spoken, and for some moments remained as one +lost, for mere disappointment. However, recovering myself a little, I +felt along the whole, length of the wall, high and low, until to my +infinite pleasure my hand struck upon a new oaken door, bolted with a +great bolt that I slid back without the least noise. For the door +itself, I clearly perceived, it had been found necessary to put it in +place of the old, decayed grid, and 'twas sure as provident a repairing +as any it hath been my fortune to light on! + +Well, I think it stands not upon me to relate the several stages of my +prison-breaking, nor of my lurking along the river-bank under the very +eyes of my warders into safety; though I confess that more than once my +back burnt hot with the thought of the little peering tapster and of +that great arquebus he so diligently polished. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE ADVENTURE OF THE CHINESE JAR + +The events which succeeded upon my escape from the _Fair Haven_ of +Wapping have come to assume in my mind a significance and singular +quality of completeness that hath, therefore, moved me to bestow upon +them the name of the "Adventure of the Chinese Jar;" for, detached from +every circumstance, there yet stands out, clear and hard against my +background of memory, that odd, fantastic shape of a blue-painted jar, +with its dragon-guarded lid, its flowered panels, and a haunting +remnant scent of the spices it had once enclosed. + +I left the ooze and filthy slime of the river-bank when I had gone some +furlong or so, and, turning inland up a row of squalid cabins, got at +length into the Minories, and entered through the wall by Aldgate. +Methought that some of the guard I encountered about the gatehouse +regarded me with looks of surprise and ill-will, which, indeed, the +disorderliness of my clothing necessarily invited, as well, perhaps, as +a no very restrained gait and behaviour, for I was in a fever to be +forward upon my errand, and dreaded the least hindrance therein. +However, none accosting me, I passed by into the City, and was already +proceeding at a great rate towards Tower Royal, when I came upon a +group of persons that were talking eagerly and in loud voices, so that +I could not but hear a part of their discourse. + +"He will certainly be apprehended before nightfall," said one, a +merchant by his habit; "so close a watch do they keep in these days +upon all suspected malefactors." + +"I know not the man by either the names he goeth by; neither Skene nor +Cleeve," said another. + +"It is not likely you should," said the first, with a twinkle of his +grey eyes, "that are inquest-man of this wardmote, and brother to a +canon." + +I stepped close to the man had spoken last, and, doffing my cap, said: +"Sir, I am but just arrived in this town, but overhearing something of +that hath been made mention of betwixt you, I imagined that I heard the +name of one Cleeve in question." + +"You did," said the merchant; "Cleeve or Skene, for 'tis all one. But, +why? Do you know the fellow?" + +"It is my own name," I replied modestly; "at least, Cleeve is, and so +if you were inquiring after me, I am here to serve you." + +A great laughter moved the whole party at my seeming ingenuousness, and +the merchant replied-- + +"No, no, honest Mr. Cleeve; go your ways and keep your innocence. But +this other Cleeve is one grown old in treachery; a harbourer of Jesuits +and Spanish spies, against whom a writ runs for his immediate +attachment, and upon whose crafty head there is a price set." + +"Is he escaped away then?" said I. + +"He hath no settled habitation," replied one that held a paper in his +hands, upon which he continually looked, "but was last seen at a +certain great ruined house over against the Galley Quay, from which he +is now fled, no man knows whither. But from manifest evidence it +appeareth he is engaged in deep and secret designs against the State, +in which moreover he works not singly." + +"Now, I marvel how, if his abode were so positively known and his +conduct anyways dubious, he came to be allowed such freedom to go in +and out, as the sequel shows was done," I returned with some study of +resentment. + +"Why, as to that, it is but since he is gone that the case is proved +against him; for upon a search which was then made of all the chambers +of that house, there was discovered a very nest of those he was in +treaty with, whose names be here set down, and themselves are brought +to-day before the Council to be examined." He handed me the paper as +he spoke, wherein I read the list of them. There were three Spanish +men of high-sounding titles, and two or three alleged to be malignant +Papists. Here was answer enough to Master Malpas, I thought, and with +a vengeance! I returned the paper, and presently saluting, took my +leave. + +Very full of thought, I went forward until I had come into that web of +mean streets I spoke of, below Tower Royal, which was where Idonia had +said her guardian should probably be found. But although I spent the +greater part of the afternoon in that quarter, I saw him not, nor any I +dared trust, to inquire after him. Indeed, the longer I stayed, the +more ill-considered and absurd did my precipitancy to this business +appear, so that at last I gave it over altogether, and being by then +got as far as to the Three Cranes Wharf, I stood idly there a great +while, watching the wharfingers at their task of ordering the heavy +goods that were there piled up and stored. Against the wharf lay a +barge or lighter moored, which I perceived had but lately discharged +the cargo of some great galley that rested below bridge in the fairway. + +There is ever something that fascinates a man in this his own careless +regarding of other men at work; and I had already stayed upon the quay +no small while, before I bethought myself to return; though, when I had +so determined, it came upon me that 'twas one thing to get out of +prison (I mean mine Inn), but altogether a different matter to get in +again, and so fell to considering whether I should make my entrance +boldly by the ordinary door, or whether creep in after nightfall, by +the vent in the cellar-wall I had escaped by. + +Now I had not altogether decided this matter, when I found myself in +that steep little lane I had inadvertently descended so many months +since in the fog, of which the houses upon both sides stood almost all +of them closed up and shuttered as though (to repeat what I then said) +the place had been visited by the plague; which deathlike and stealthy +character it yet maintained. There was nobody, man nor child, in the +street as I slowly mounted it, a strange sense of abhorrence and +foreboding gathering about my heart: while to this distress of my mind +was now added the annoyance of a smart squall of rain and wind, that, +suddenly breaking, had soon wetted me through, but for my crouching +close beneath the shallow porch of a door upon the right hand, where I +availed myself of such shelter as it afforded. + +I had stood so about a quarter of an hour, as I suppose, and was +listening to a long roll of thunder that seemed to shake the very +foundations of these palsied buildings when, as if answering to the +call of the storm, there arose within the house behind me a cry so +agonized, so hopeless, and withal so horribly inhuman, as even now my +hair stirs to remember it. To avoid this cursed spot and begone was my +involuntary and half-acted purpose, checked, however, on the instant by +a blinding flash of lightning that seared my very eyes, while my brain +seemed all shattered in by the accompanying peal. Painfully wrought +upon as I have ever been by any loudness of sound, it was some moments +before I could recover myself, and indeed I was still reeling from the +shock, when the door was flung wide and the figure of a man +outlandishly clothed, and of a yellowness of skin such as I had never +before seen, hurried by me into the midst of the road, where it fell +quash in the kennel. The man was dead. It was evident from the mere +sight of him, and from the formless clutter of gaudy rags he was; I +turned about, and within the gap of the door ere it was shut-to, I saw +the delicate, handsome features of my uncle, Botolph Cleeve. + +How the storm went thereafter I know not, but I know that for a full +half-hour I stood wrenching at the door that callous fiend had locked +in my face, but could nowise move it. Then, with a thrill of disgust, +I went to the dead outcast, where he lay all wet and smirched, and drew +from between his shoulders the long thin knife that was stuck there to +the haft. This I cleaned and put up in my jerkin. It was my only +weapon. The body was of a man stout and of great strength, though not +tall, and as well by the cast of his features as by his clothing I knew +him for one of them they name Cataians, or Chinese, that perhaps had +been led to this inhospitable asylum by rascally allurements of +adventurers upon some Eastward voyage; as I had once seen two Indians, +that sat huddled on the ground in the Exchange, with a ring of laughing +apprentices about them, and of whom I heard it said that they were +princes in their own land. But by what marches of fate this poor +Chinese had been defeated, and sent down from his home in the East to +death in our inexorable London, I could by no means conjecture; nor yet +could I determine (which imported me more) what course it were fittest +I should herein follow. Howbeit, a certain strange faintness then +assailing me, partly from sheer hunger, but more by reason of the +horror of this murder, I saw my dilemma settled for that while; and so, +staggering forth of the lane into Royal Street, where is a good tavern, +I there made shift to eat, but principally drank, until I had rid +myself at least of the extremity of distress into which I had fallen. + +In that place I stayed a good hour, there being a merry company come +together of players and other (for which I was indeed glad, and it +cheered me more than all else), when the day beginning to fail, the +guests departed their several ways, and I also, upon my own. + +"The watch will certainly have been notified by this time," I said to +myself, "for 'tis impossible that a dead body should lie so long in the +streets unperceived. Well, my uncle will have got hence scot-free, as +he is accustomed to do in despite of all justice, and of writs of +attachment, or of black Malpas either; which saveth my conscience a +toll, and so I hope there's an end of my dealings with him." + +Nevertheless I could not refrain from going part way down the hill +again, to see whether the body were indeed removed. And so it was, as +I had looked that it should be; though it occasioned me some surprise +to note that the door of the house now stood wide, while a little +within the threshold two other Chinese hung wailing and wringing their +hands in the most abject misery. + +Excited at this opportunity to learn the cause of the outrage I had +been so close a witness to, I went over to the men, and accosting them, +demanded whether the dead man were their friend; but to my question +they replied by never a word, at least not in English, but continued to +lament as before. I then made signs that I knew all that had befallen, +and at that they ceased, and soon nodded, making eager signs that I +should tell them more; whereupon I drew forth the knife from my bosom +and handed it to the man I stood closest to, who received it with an +exclamation of fury, passing it to the other with the one significant +word--_Skene_! The other Chinese now came forward, and in the intense +hatred that twisted his yellow face, I read the recompense that should +be meted out to the murderer if ever they two should meet. "Skene," he +repeated twice or thrice, tapping his long fingers upon the blade; and +then with a gesture, pointing inward to the house, whispered, +"Here--house;" by which I understood that this was a favourite +lurking-place of my uncle's, who no doubt hoped, upon any domiciliary +inquisition, to divert the vigilance of the officers by making parade +of these uncouth strangers as alone inhabiting there; or in the last +event, perhaps, intended to disguise himself in their clothing, and so +steal off. I could not but admire the ingenuity of the man, for all my +disgust of his countless villainies. + +Meanwhile, the two Chinese were engaged upon a ceremony that at first I +could not come by the meaning of, though I soon perceived it to be a +solemn vow they made upon the dagger, to avenge their dead comrade. +Which concluded, they gave me back my knife, and seemed to wait my +further direction. All passion had left their faces, that now appeared +serene and patient, as I think the features of those of that nation do +generally, so that it quite overtasks an observer to guess their mood, +whether it be bloody or peaceable. + +"Have you any English?" I asked after a pause, at which one shrunk up +his shoulders as meaning he had not; but the other replied with such +childlike boastfulness, "English--much--yes, yes--English," that I +could not forbear laughing. + +"Do you propose to return home by ship?" I asked slowly, and made a +motion with my hands as of a ship sailing. But this neither seemed at +all to comprehend. + +"China--Cathay," said I, somewhat at a loss how to suggest my meaning, +but immediately the one who had so much English, replied vehemently-- + +"Skene--yes, yes--kill!" + +There could be no question then that it was to be revenge at all costs, +for the other Chinese, taking up the word, cried out too: +"Skene--kill," which he followed up with a peck of his own Romany cant +that I made no pretence to attend. However, the upshot was that they +stood upon the fulfilment of their vow, and fully expected I should +direct them therein. Now, that I was equally determined I would not; +for little as I cared how it should go with my uncle Botolph, I had no +stomach to set two bloodthirsty strangers at his throat, to dispatch +him in cold blood. So, turning to my interpreter, I bade him in the +simplest terms I might find, to have a care what he did, for that we +lived under a just and peace-loving Queen, whose constables and guards +were sworn to prevent such private revenges as they planned; in the +which if they proceeded, they would themselves certainly be brought +into confinement. But in truth I might have spared my breath, for I +saw that no intelligence of my warning reached them, though they had +evidently strained their apprehensions to the limit to receive it. + +"Skene--kill," they said, when I had done, and without more ado went +into one of the rooms where they kept their stuff, and took each of +them a small curved sword with a marvellous long haft, which, though +they made no pretence to conceal them from me, they carefully hid +within the folds of their loose silken coats. + +"This must be thwarted," I said to myself, and debated how it should +best be done. At length I hit on a plan that promised, I thought, +fairly, which was that I should contrive to divide their forces; +sending forth him that had no word of our language by himself, one way, +to search (and lose himself amidst) the streets thereabout; but as to +the other that was perhaps the more dangerous by reason of his capacity +to put such sloven-mumbled questions as might nevertheless lead to his +discovering Botolph Cleeve (though it was indeed hardly possible): that +I should take him with me as far as to Wapping, where I might easily +fob him off with any tidings of Skene I should profess then to gather; +and so be rid of him. + +It needed no small skill of mine to put the case before them in such +sort as they should not guess the motive, but rather should approve the +advantage, of my design; and in the result I brought them to my view. +By this time it was perfectly dark without, though the room where we +remained was faintly illumined by a little bronze lamp fashioned like a +beast with a fish's tail, that one of the men had already lit. By the +uncertain light it afforded, I gazed in admiration of the scene, so dim +and vague, yet so deeply charged with purpose. We had left conversing +together, for the two men had things to do that needed no speech to +forward them. It was manifest that they would not return to the house, +and therefore they applied themselves silently to the selection of such +articles as seemed at once necessary and portable. So engaged, they +moved about the shadowed chamber, their silken dresses slightly +rustling, and their yellow, peering faces now and again bent towards +the lamp, as they examined some piece of worth that they would carry +away: caskets of sweet-smelling wood, or trinkets of silver, or else +some mere idle toy they had bought in an English shop, not of a groat's +worth but by them infinitely prized. What a satire was in this their +so contemptible a fardel, who would lightly toss away another man's +dear life! Amongst the many treasures they thus overlooked, and either +kept or rejected, was a jar of about fifteen or eighteen inches height, +six-sided, and very gay with painted devices of flowers and leaves; and +upon this jar one of the Chinese dwelt long in doubt, as it seemed, +whether it should be saved, for it was something cumbersome, although +not of any groat burden. However he took it up at last with the rest, +or rather exchanged it for some other trifles that might be of less +value, and so ended his preparation. + +"Let us begone," said I, and holding open the door, signed to the one +of them to leave the house, which he did; and after, we, that is the +man with the jar and I, left it likewise, directing our course towards +Wapping and the _Fair Haven_ Inn. + +For a considerable time we trudged along together in this way through +the deserted streets; I already more than a little weary of an +enterprise in which I had, as it were, enlisted under force and without +reason. The tumult of the storm, the murder, the strangeness of the +habits and Eastern features of the two men, the disability to converse +in a common tongue, by which one seemed to be pleading with the masked +presences of some horrid dream, all these circumstances combined to +deject my mind to a degree I have never since experienced; and I +deplored this new plan for my uncle's safety more even than I did the +one upon which I had set forth. I stole a glance or two at my +companion, but wrapped in his placid reserve he never so much as raised +his dull eyes to mine, nor showed himself scarce aware of my presence, +save by the precision with which he paced by my side. Once and again +he would shift the weight of the Chinese jar he carried in the slack of +his coat, or finger the hilt of his sword. + +As we approached near to the gate in the City wall, I became suddenly +apprehensive of the danger we ran into, and cast about in my mind how +to avoid the guard that, howsoever in ordinary times one might look to +be passed through without much question, yet now in these times of +suspicion would be sure to detain so irregular a pair as we that were +thus about to present ourselves. Accordingly I turned off suddenly +upon the right hand towards the river, and coming to one of the quays +(I think Smart's Quay), was lucky enough to find a skiff there moored, +which I loosed, and motioning the Chinese to get in, followed him and +pushed off. The tide was again on the ebb, having passed its height +about an hour since, and so without use of oars we drifted easily down +stream, until in a pretty short while we got to Wapping, where I ran +the boat ashore and leapt out. I could see the _Fair Haven_ about a +hundred paces ahead, and, although there was no light in Idonia's +chamber, as in precaution she had doubtless left it dark, yet could I +see the dim square of the window frame, and pleased myself with the +hope that she was yet waking, and thought upon me. + +A little path of turfs laid upon the piles that here restrain the +river-course led right forward to the Inn, and trusting to the security +which had so far attended us, I perhaps diminished something of the +wariness I should have used; but at all events, we had gone a bare +score of paces when I stumbled upon a man that lay crouched in the rank +grass of the turfs. Recovering myself speedily, for I had not quite +fallen, I accosted him angrily, who, without replying, but yet +obstructing the narrow path so that I could not get past him, drew +forth a lantern he held concealed in his cloak, and lifting it high, +regarded the pair of us, but me especially, closely. + +"One at a time is better than neither," he said coolly, and I heard his +blade grate in the scabbard. + +But even as he fetched it forth, the Chinese had his crooked short +sword out, and leaping past me with the swiftness of a cat, brought our +opponent down. Against the starry sky I could see his arm work forward +and back, as he plunged in and withdrew the steel. The lantern rolled +from the dead man's hand, but, not immediately extinguished, threw +exaggerated shadows of the grass-bents along the path. + +Horrified at the fury of his onslaught, I flung myself upon the +grovelling heathen, crying out-- + +"This is not your man, you fool! This is not Skene." + +"No, my nephew," he replied quietly enough and in perfect English, "but +it is that black thief, Malpas, that would have done the same for me." +And without awaiting my reply, he took up the Chinese jar, which in the +assault he had necessarily relinquished, and having carefully wiped it, +went whistling softly down the causeway to the silent Inn. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE "FAIR HAVEN" OF WAPPING + +My father once, reading in a favourite philosopher, paused with his +finger on a certain passage to ask me what I made of the sense of that +he should read; and so continuing his lecture aloud, rehearsed some +score of good reasons there set down, why a man should do virtuously; +but that, either way, the gods ruled the event. When he had done I +asked him in my turn whether the whole book were in that kind, to which +he answered that such was indeed the tenour of it, though there were +yet other reasons given besides those he had read. But while I was yet +considering of my answer, he intercepted it, himself replying for me. + +"You think there are too many reasons," said he smiling, "and that if +these the author calls gods take occasion to correct our errors we may +do as we please; but that if they do not so, then must we do as we can." + +Then stroking down his beard with his hand, he bade me do virtuously, +at least so long as I was in any doubt about the gods; "which," said +he, "is a question only to be settled in that manner." + +How many times since then I had recalled my father's grave and tolerant +irony, I know not, but it was not often; nor certainly had it ever +returned upon me with so compelling an insistency as now, while I still +stared after his evil-hearted brother, that murderer of the man at my +feet. + +"If the gods rule the event out of this business," I thought, "how will +it go with thee, my uncle?" So easy is it to apply to another the +precepts were meant for ourselves! And truly, when I contrasted my own +qualities with Mr. Botolph Cleeve's, I came near to forgiving him, so +eminently did he make my own uprightness to appear. + +Now, very greatly though I desired Idonia should know of my safe +return, I yet could not bring myself to leave Malpas thus exposed and +subject to every chance indignity by the wayside, nor was I willing to +carry him openly to the Inn or any house at hand; so that, after some +while's reflection, I decided to lay him in the boat I had come down +by, covering his face with the sailcloth, and after, to launch him out +into the ebbing stream. The night was clear above, the thunder having +wholly passed; but from a mounting wrack of cloud that peered above the +edges of the sky and a chill light wind athwart the river, I judged we +should have rain before morning, and so hastened to be done with my +task (which unspeakably revolted me) and get into shelter against the +oncoming tempest. Notwithstanding 'twas the better part of an hour ere +I had completed these hasty and suspicious rites, and had shoved away +the skiff with its gaunt recumbent passenger outward (or was it +homeward?) bound. + +These pious offices done, I turned with a sigh from the black hurrying +water, and approached near to the Inn. I was surprised to see that a +light now shone in Idonia's chamber, and from the shadows that now and +then traversed it, I understood that she was not yet retired to rest. +How then I might direct her attention to me without at the same time +attracting such attention of others as I might well enough spare, I +very earnestly debated; but at length, minding myself of the knife I +had got from the dead Chinese, I drew it forth; and having torn off a +great burdock leaf where it grew by the bank, pricked with the knife's +point the one word Denis (sufficient for my purpose, I thought), and +running the blade through the midst of the leaf, poised, and let fly +with it at the window. It struck the sill fairly, and hung quivering. +My heart stood still during the interval that succeeded, but when +presently that sweet small head appeared, all dark against the glory of +her hair, it leapt to my very throat for excess of joy. + +"Idonia," I whispered hoarsely, and came right beneath her window as I +spoke her name; "Idonia, I have come back." + +"Hush, dear," she besought me, and leaned forth from the sill, so that +a strand or two of her hair hung down and touched the letters of my +name in the leaf. "Do not speak again.... Oh, I have been waiting for +you, Denis! But you are come; I can see your face. I can see your +eyes..." + +"You speak as if you feared something," I replied, in disregard of her +warning. "Are you threatened with any danger?" + +"No," she said; "at least I do not comprehend what may be dangers here. +For it is a house of mystery. My guardian has but now left me. He is +disguised: I cried out when I saw him.... Oh, Denis, I am horribly +afraid here.... It is all so silent, and yet I know the place is full +of men." + +I hesitated no longer. + +"Is there anything by which you can make a rope?" I asked, "any sheet +from your bed, or clothing?" + +She caught at my intention. + +"Yes, yes," she murmured, nodding. "There is my cloak. I will tear +it." + +"They may hear the sound of the tearing," I said. "Do not move from +the window." And so, returning to the little slip or inlet whence I +had sent down the boat, I found the oars which I had removed from it, +and carried them with me to the house. Idonia could just touch the +blade of one with extended fingers when I held it out at arm's length. + +"It is too short," said Idonia, with a pitiful catch in her voice. + +I bade her keep her heart up, and, unclasping my belt, laced the two +oars tightly together where they were frayed hollow by the thole. The +joined staff they made reached high enough now, and without awaiting my +instruction Idonia caught it to her (I holding it upright) and swung +herself lightly to the ground. + +"Free, oh free!" came her cry of exultation, and a moment after we held +each other closely in a long embrace. Her lips were fire. + +"Oh, Denis, Denis, do not let me go, nor never leave you," she said, +and I (witless braggart) swore that nought upon earth should sever us. + +I led her up the turf path, sheltering her from the rain that had +already begun to fall thickly. My thoughts were all astray and I had +no plan of any sort, but still to have my arm about her, and feel her +yielding to my touch, as spent with love and weary with the pride of so +much given. + +A man must feel humbled by the magnitude of that he asks of a maid, but +all I could say was, brokenly: "I will try to be worthy, sweetheart." +Poor words, but she thanked me for them joyfully. She besought me to +let her rest soon, and we sat down by a weather-twisted pile at the +water's edge, for I could not run into the jeopardy that might lurk +amid the inhospitable dark houses of this place, where everything +oppressed with a sense of evil. My cloak kept off the worst of the +rain, but, as the rising wind swept across the river, Idonia shivered +with the cold. Nevertheless she lost not a whit of her gaiety, which +indeed seemed to increase with her distress, and she would laugh more +loudly than I thought was altogether safe at some odd construction put +upon my remonstrance in her wayward speech. I could not long disguise +from myself her condition of fever, which at the same time I knew not +how to alleviate; but more than once I caught myself wishing I had left +her that night at the Inn, where, for all her fears, she had not been +any way molested, nor, I now thought, would likely have been, her +guardian having returned, and Malpas beyond the power to annoy her +further. + +A little later, and quite suddenly, she relaxed her extravagant +hilarity, and fell into a moodiness equally to be pitied. She wept a +deal then, and seemed to have got a strange perception of the malignant +influences that surrounded us. The sound of the wind terrified her, +and she would shrink down whispering that something tugged at her +cloak. I did what I could to soothe and comfort her, but she only +shook her head, or pressed my fingers with her hot hand. + +But the worst was when, by some trick of the brain, she thought herself +back in the Inn-room again, when Cleeve had entered in his horrid +uncouth dress, and with his yellow face and hands. + +"He said he was my guardian," she ran on, in a dull low voice, "but I +knew he was no one of this world. He said it was a foreign habit he +had filched from a dead man he had been enforced to kill, and that he +used it to escape detection of the watch. Ah! it is all escaping with +us--escaping and killing! I knew he had some secret lurking-place near +the river; he has often said so, and that he went disguised when any +great danger threatened. The watch ... and yet he used to laugh at it; +but lately he has come to fear arrest: why is it? and so he killed an +innocent man and took his coat to save himself.... His eyes, when he +told me he had been waylaid at last, and almost at the Inn door! but he +killed that man too, he said: he hindering him. Christ! how his eyes +do sift you.... + +"These jewels in the jar, now, I know they have all been worn by men he +has killed. I remember them perfectly well. There is the great cross +the Spaniard wore; and these rings. I wonder when it was you murdered +him. He was a fair-spoken gentleman, and I thought you were friends... + +"I forgot. This is you, Denis, not he I call my guardian. I do not +think he altogether trusts me any longer, although he gave me the jar +to keep ... and I have left it behind in the Inn. It was worth a +king's ransom, he said, and ordered me to keep it by me until he should +have finished a certain work he had below, that would not take him +long. I have left it, and he will be angry ... I fear him, Denis. He +is calm as death when he is angry.... + +"And yet he can laugh too. He laughed when he told me of the Chinese +he killed, and how he dared his fellow to betray him. Oh, he made a +merry tale of it, and of his forcing the poor wretch to simulate a +desire to take vengeance upon a man that had fled--when it was he, the +murderer himself, remained behind! Yes, and he laughed at you, Denis, +until my blood burnt me ... I shall never forget his wrinkled heathen +face as he laughed." + +It may appear an incredible motion of my mind, but I could have cried +out for joy at a diversion which, then befalling, served to turn Idonia +from these crazed memories; albeit the cause was one properly, and at +another time wholly, to be feared. For chancing to lift my eyes to one +of the houses that be here builded by the water's edge, and serve +doubtless for the storage of marine stores and tackle, I saw a man, and +after, another, and then a whole posse of men armed with cuirass and +halberd, that advanced directly towards us. Idonia saw them almost at +the same moment, and seeming to recover her wits in the suddenness of +the danger, she broke off, and turned to me with a swift glance of +inquiry. + +"Quick," I whispered; "down by the piles to the beach," and helped by +the darkness of the night we scrambled off the path on to the ribbon of +wet bank beneath it, where we crouched, perfectly concealed from the +soldiers. + +"Halt!" cried a voice above our heads, and the trampling footsteps +ceased. "We be thirty men strong, and none too many for this business. +Anthony, take you twelve and post them before the door. Six men go +with Will Huet; see that none escape by the windows. There is a light +burns at one yet. I will take the complement and go within. Now mark +me well: our warrant is principally to the capture of Skene, alias +Cleeve, and one Guido Malpas, that was of the Earl of Pembroke's +household, but since discharged. He is a tall black man and a +dangerous. It standeth upon us to apprehend the whole sort that here +congregate together. They will make resistance and you will defend +yourselves, but for the rest I have it in my authority that no blood be +wasted needlessly. A live captive may prove useful; a dead villain is +nothing worth. The password is _At last_. Set on." + +Idonia had half risen from her place; she watched the retreating men as +they filed along towards the Inn. + +"I must warn him," she cried impetuously, and had clambered on to the +turf path ere I could let her. + +"What madness is this?" I urged, aghast. "You would yourself be +arrested or ever you could get sight of that devil." + +"Devil or no," she panted, while she struggled to unclasp my +restraining arms, "devil or no, he is my guardian. Denis, I cannot +stand by idle and see him taken." + +"Sweetheart," I entreated her, "you can do nought, indeed. They be all +armed men..." + +"Hinder me no more!" + +"Idonia!" + +"Oh, it is cowardly, cowardly!" + +"Listen," I said, appealing. + +"Ah, Denis, let me not thus, or you will kill me.... See! they are +close to the house already. A little while and..." Her voice rose to +a scream of absolute terror that I vainly sought to stifle against my +heart. She flung her head back; her hair, shaken from the filet and +caught by the wind, streamed betwixt us like a cloud. We stood long +thus. + +"Loose my wrists," she whispered, "or I shall grow to hate you, Denis!" +and methought there went a sort of awe with the words. I let her go, +when suddenly, with a sob, she dropped down unresisting into my arms. + +I knew she had spoken under the stress of her disorder, but none the +less her words hurt me like a lash. It had revolted me to use my +strength upon her, although in love, and to hold her so straitly +against her will, who but a moment before had been leaning in free +confidence beside me. The wind and rain were now increased to such a +pitch as I have scarce known: the dim bulk of the Inn hung in a mist of +swinging vapour, through which the glimmer of the one light aloft, +shining, touched the edges of the slanted pikes. + +Idonia was plucking weakly at my sleeve. Her eyes were pitifully big. +"You look distressed, Denis," she said, in a crazed dull voice. "Why +do you look so stern and sad? We are together.... I forget how I got +away, but that does not matter now, does it? Some one was holding me +by the wrist and hurting me. I cried out, and you came. You always +come when they would be hurting me.... It is very cold," she shivered, +and drew down more closely within my arms; all wet as her cheek was, +its fever heat burnt through to my bosom. + +"You cannot walk," I said: "I will carry you." But all the while I was +thinking: "Is her reason gone?" + +"Whither, Denis? To the Inn? It would be warm there, out of the wind." + +"God forbid!" I answered her. + +"Ah! no ... I remember now. He is there.... His yellow face, and his +eyes when he gave me the jar to keep! ... Denis, Denis, Denis..." + +And so, without any further effort to beat off the oppression in her +brain and blood, she fell away into a long swoon: so long, indeed, that +I had almost despaired of reviving her, when I bethought me of the Inn, +to which she had hoped I was about to bear her. There would be strong +cordial wine in the vault, I knew; and a cordial she needed instantly. +I might quickly go and return again with the wine--if the vent were but +open. + +The Inn was scarce ten score paces distant. There was some risk, +perhaps, but not great: less, surely, than I took, kneeling helpless +beside her in the bitter storm. I bent over her and kissed her +passionately on her eyes and lips and brow; and then I hastened away. + +Had I known the upshot then, I would rather have lost my right hand +than leave her; but that was in God's mercy hid.... + +To speak my bottom thought, I had hardly dared to hope that the shutter +were still unhasped: but yet it was, and yielded easily to my touch. I +felt a strange tightening of the throat as I pushed it back and leapt +astride the sill. The vault below me was wholly dark. Without more +ado I swung myself in. I missed my footing, fell, and lay stunned. + +How long a while elapsed ere I recovered consciousness I know not, nor +yet how long I remained in that intermediate state where things outward +be still denied for real. A confusion of sounds assailed my aching +brain, from which I recked not to gather any purpose or tendency. But +at length, my head having somewhat cleared, I recalled my situation, +where I was in the narrow passage-vault; and soon perceived that the +sounds I had heard were those of men in earnest conference within one +of the vaults adjacent, that had formerly been barred. The lamp which +had lighted the passage had been removed, and from the pale ray that +issued from the chink of the door, I saw it was now used for their +purposes who spoke together beyond. + +Without, the storm raged very furiously, so that there were times when +I could hear nought else; but otherwhiles, whatever snatches of debate +I overheard they went always to the continuous deep second of the wind. +Some instinct of security held me silent, and after a little I dragged +myself painfully along the stone floor, until I had my ear at the +chink. The halberdiers were certainly not of the party; they had +either not yet entered, or else had come and, failing to discover these +men's place of concealment, had gone. A man was speaking; a jovial +rough voice it was, interrupted now and again by careless laughter. + +"You mind me of that tale of the two robbers," said the fellow, and I +heard the clink of a cup set down, "that were engaged to set upon a +certain Canon who should pass through the wood they lurked within. Now +a passenger approaching, the one was for killing him out of hand, but +his companion, being something scrupulous, would not, but bade him stay +his hand until the man should sing. + +"'I care not a jot how he sing,' says the Captain-robber. + +"'Nay, by his singing I can tell in a trice whether he be a canon or +no,' says the robber-squire. + +"By this the passenger was got free of their ambush and into a place +where two sheriff's men met him, at which he swore for mere joy. + +"'I would he had sung,' says the squire. + +"'Go to, buffle-head!' cries the other in a great rage, 'for by his +swearing I know him for the Father Abbot himself, and better your +squealing Canon, by how much noon-sun surpasses candle-light.'" + +A round of hoarse merriment went to this shrewd apologue, of which I +was yet to learn the application; but waited not long for it. + +"So then, Cutts, 'hold to that you have,' is your advice, trow?" + +"Ay, abbot or traitor, or barndoor fowl," replied Cutts (who was none +other, I found, than he that had fled away from Dunster so long since); +"'truss and lay by,' says the housewife." + +"Well, you have me trussed already," said a mild voice, that for all +its stillness overbore the murmurs which greeted Cutts his policy; and +at the sound of it I caught in my breath, for 'twas my uncle that +spoke, and by his words I knew they had him bound. + +"I am not in case to do you harm, as a traitor, nor yet to benefit you +as an abbot," my uncle proceeded very coolly. "But if it seem good to +your worships to restore me my freedom, I have my proofs of innocence +at hand to show to any that professes to doubt my faith." + +"Too late for that, Master Skene," said another. + +"Ay, Captain Spurrier, say you so?" returned my uncle, with a little +menacing thrill in the sweet of his voice. "I had thought you that use +the sea knew that one must luff and tack upon occasion. Delay is +sometimes necessary, when haste would mean sudden shipwreck. Wherefore +then do you say I speak too late?" + +"Where is Malpas?" cried Captain Spurrier, and by the grating of a +chair I perceived he had started to his feet. + +"I had thought to meet him here," said my uncle. "Our design stays for +him." + +There was a dead pause at that, and I could not but admire the +fortitude with which the baited man met and countered his opposites. + +"He denounced you to this council, ere he went forth," said that subtle +voice of the tavern-server, "and upon such positive testimony as we +could not but allow it. If any lead this enterprise it is Malpas, and +not thou, old fox." + +"So thou use better terms, friend Jocelin," said Cleeve, "it shall not +be amiss, nor yet if thou answer me why it was I returned freely hither +amongst you all? Had I aught to gain from you? But rather had I not +all to lose? There is a warrant out against me on the Queen's part; +had I not done wisely, being so disguised as no man might know me, to +avoid this suspected house? Yet I returned. Our ship is to sail +to-morrow. Captain Spurrier is here in his place. What lacks of our +engagement? What hath gone untowardly? Is it Malpas his failure? I +ask of you in my turn, where is Malpas? Is it not strange that upon +such a night he should not be here to bear his part, as I do, and Lucas +Spurrier and Jocelin, and the rest? I say there is something I like +not in this defection; but yet it fears me not. Let them that be +faint-hearted stay away; this enterprise is not for cowards. Do you +lack a leader? You trusted me once. Malpas trusted me, for all he +cozened you into a belief that he did not so; but he is gone." He +paused, and then with so strangely intense a malignancy as, despite my +knowledge, I could scarce credit that 'twas assumed, he added: "Would +that I knew whither Guido Malpas hath gone, and what to do!" + +There was such clamour of contrary opinions, oaths and hot argument, +when he had done, that I could not tell how it went, but gradually +conceived the opinion that they believed him and were about to set him +free, when, to my utter dismay, I heard the door at the stairhead open +and heavy steps descend to the passage where I lay concealed. I +crouched down on the instant, but dared not move from the place, nor +indeed had the opportunity to retreat by one step, when the men were +already in the room; but so dark it was I could not see their arms (for +I doubted nothing of their being the halberdiers) nor their numbers +that entered. They set the door open of the inner vault and trooped in +upon the conspirators. + +I saw them now. They were men that bore a body. The tide had set in +again. The boat with its burden had returned upon the flood. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +HOW MY UNCLE BOTOLPH LOST HIS LUCK + +The tide had turned. The river had given up its dead. There was no +appeal from this distorted corpse, smirched with yellow so about the +throat and breast, where my uncle's painted hands had gripped him. +Wedged deep in the dead man's heart (I heard it said) a certain +significant shred of blue silk was found that had been drawn in by the +swinging blade, and torn from the murderer's sleeve.... After that +there needed nothing more, and my uncle's luck, which a moment since +had trembled to its apogee, shot downward like a portent star. + +My pretence to write calmly of the sequel, to use the ordinary speech +of every day, I support not as purposing to deceive, for it would +deceive none, but rather as impelled thereto, lest writing as I feel +(even yet after so long an interval) I should seem to set down frenzy +itself in character, and illegible wild words. + +But I may at least report my uncle's apology, as above the clamour I +caught the most of it; and here affirm that, lying infamous villain as +he was, yet so consummate a dignity did mark his every motion, and as +it were attended upon all the situations in which he stood, as enforced +respect of those even who knew him altogether base. + +His judges had found against him to a man. + +"Well, then, you have it," said he in his cold clear voice, "and are +content enough this Malpas should have died, so you bring me in his +slayer. You little men! I found a scorpion in my path and trampled on +him; that's the sum of my offending. Or is it not? Nay, I had forgot +the chief; that I would not betray my country, as you petty thieves +would have done, and thought I did. What will you get of the +Spaniards, prythee? Money, honours or what? Will those creeping +Jesuits bestead you? Oh, you have their pledged words! I had as much. +More; for I had their secret plans of conquest; their Enterprise of +England forsooth! as they sat gnawing their crusts in my hall. There +was to be an universal uprising of Papists, they told me; mutinies of +the Queen's troops, and such; baubles of a fool! + +"I have had my laugh, you scum, and I have lost. Well, then, what you +shall hear may hearten you belike, and move you to laughter. If I have +not been a traitor all this while, how have I been employed? Not +having abetted their designs, why did I entertain these strangers? Let +this example stand: there was the envoy Spurrier brought in, Don +Florida of Seville, a fine bold gentleman and apt to lead a squadron of +such orts as ye. He laid his plans before me openly. So, I took him +by the throat and strangled him." + +I make no attempt to describe the tumult of their rage who heard him; +sufficient, that it passed. + +"He was not singular in this business," the prisoner continued, "though +he was perhaps the properest man. But what a nasty sort of spies I had +in charge! I swear I think no starved lazar of Spain but was judged +fit enough to come ambassador among us, and parcel out our land; and +all the while you stood by grinning: When we be altogether conquered, +ran your thoughts, we shall each get his share! Eh, you jolthead +hucksters, was it to be so? + +"But I was your leader, and that was where I had my laugh. For no +single one of those you gave me into my keeping did I fail to slay save +only that poor crazed Courcy whom the soldiers robbed me of, and some +that the Council took alive. The residue you may reckon at your +leisure; they lie rotting in two fathom of Thames water, 'twixt the +Customers Quay and the Galley, ay, rotten as their cause.... + +"It were a pretty thought now that I should crave a favour at the +Queen's hands for stout work done in her cause, though secretly; ay, +and I would do it, but for two or three considerations that something +hinder me; namely, that my life otherwise hath not been altogether +law-worthy. And, moreover, there is these bonds, that, being I confess +very workmanlike bound upon me, render my present access to Her Majesty +less easy than I could wish; so that I doubt my defence of her realm +shall go unrewarded.... + +"In such a company as this there is sure one clergyman. Let him shrive +me, for I am not at all points ready to die.... Well, level your +pieces and be done with it. I care not how soon. Foh! but you handle +your weapons awkwardly; I should be ashamed, were I still your +leader.... How--what is that?" + +I had heard it too. "It is the soldiers come," I said to myself, and +strained my ears to listen for a renewal of the sound. Within the room +all expected in a sudden silence what should ensue. It came again; a +dull noise as of men that rammed at the door with a heavy beam. + +"I had thought they had gone," said one, in a thick voice. + +"'Twas a fetch of theirs." + +"The cellar door is strong," said the tapster Jocelin, but without +confidence. "It will last." + +"Until what time?" asked my uncle, mocking them. "And then, whence +will you escape, you rats?" + +One had blown out the light at the first alarm, and they conferred in +the absolute dark. + +"Ha!" cried Jocelin at that taunt of the prisoner's, and with a +squealing note of triumph, "there is the new door in the sea-wall to +escape by," and scrambling through their midst to the cellar door, he +bade his comrades follow him forth. But at the door he stayed, as of +necessity he must; for 'twas locked, and I that had locked it was +within the room now, in the dark, with the key in my pocket. I had +scarce time to slip aside, ere the next man had flung Jocelin by for a +bungler, and the third trampled him down. Over his prostrate body the +rest passed surging. Knives were out, for all had run distraught at +this unlooked-for prevention. Treachery by each suspected was by every +hand revenged. I heard the sobbing of stricken men, as I felt my way +along the wall to the place where my uncle sat yet pinioned to his +chair. And all this while the daunting clangour continued, as of a +giant's mallet beating on the door; nay, even upon the stones of the +wall, for the whole room shivered and rocked to the hideous repeated +sound. + +I unloosed my uncle, cutting his thongs with a cutlass I had kicked +against and groped after on the floor; a hand still held it, but I got +it free. + +"Who is that?" asked my uncle composedly. + +"Hist!" I whispered. "I am your nephew, Denis Cleeve." + +"You add to my obligations, Mr. Denis," he replied, and stretched +himself. "But how does my good brother the magistrate?" + +"Enough of that," I said curtly; "how be we to get forth?" + +"Why, I supposed you had provided for that," he said in some surprise, +"else I were as well bound as free." + +I asked whether he could lay hand on his sword, but he answered, +scoffing, that his enemies had saved him the trouble of using it; and +indeed that bloody unseen strife about the door saved us both for that +while. Presently he drew me a little apart into a corner where, he +said, we might discourse together reasonably and without molestation. +He cleared his voice once or twice ere he made known his mind to me +thus-- + +"When the soldiers shall break in, as nothing can long withstand such +engines as they have brought to bear, slip you forth, Mr. Denis, and +ascend immediately to a small retired chamber above the stair where my +ward lies, Mistress Avenon. Lay your modesty aside for this once, and +enter. If she wake not, so much the better; as 'tis better she should +know nothing. But I am a fool! for who may sleep on such a night of +hell? Anywise enter, and I will answer for it, she will not repulse +you as she did yon Malpas, the brave lass! + +"She hath in keeping a certain jar of mine, Denis, a toy, that +nevertheless I set some value on; this I would have you privily convey +to the house where the Chinese inhabited--I make no question but you +know where it stands. Do this, my dear nephew, and I shall confess +myself every way bound to serve you when I shall come to be +enfranchised of this place; for I myself may not undertake the bearing +off of this jar (it stands in a little cupboard by the bed, Denis, now +I think on't), my dress being not such, as wearing it, I might hope to +escape challenge of the guard, but with you, Denis, 'twill be a mere +frolick adventure." He laid his mouth close to my ear. "Besides, +there is the lass Idonia..." + +What more he might have added, I know not, for his beastly greed in so +safeguarding his wealth, and that at my risk, who had delivered him, +sickened me in such sort as I could no longer abide to hear it, but +left him, and going straightway forward into the screaming press about +the door, struck out a path for myself through the midst of them. At +the same moment the hammering without in one peal ended; the half of a +wall fell in, and through the breach thus made came a wavering and +intermittent light. + +Unspeakably astonished, I gazed about me, upon the dead and writhing +bodies that lay at my feet thus uncertainly illumined, and upon my +uncle, huddled up in his torn silken robe. But when I had averted my +eyes with a shudder to the breach in the wall, I saw a sight I may +neither forget nor endure the remembrance of; for it seemed to me that +there entered in by that way a figure--inhuman tall, black visaged, and +of a most cruel aspect. Perhaps for the space of a man's counting ten, +he leaned forward through the aperture, regarding us all in that +ghostly dimness, and then, with an equal suddenness, was gone, and the +light with him.... + +No one word passed our trembling lips, for all felt the horror of +impending destruction. Only the dying yet moved a little, stirring in +their blood, but even they soon lay still. Meanwhile, through the +great rent in the wall, the wind blew exceeding strong, so that +although at the first we had postponed all thoughts to that one vision +of the giant presence, we now perceived by the direction of the wind +and the saltness of it that it was the river-wall was down, and not (as +in our confusion we had supposed) the inner wall, by which the soldiers +must necessarily have assaulted us. + +I am not altogether sure who it was by this means solved the mystery, +but I think it was Captain Spurrier; howbeit we had not endured that +sweeping gale above an half-minute, before some one cried out that the +apparition was nothing else than the carven prow of the _Saracen's +Head_, that dragging at her moorings by the wharf had run against the +Inn wall and destroyed it; which was presently confirmed by the ship's +again battering us, but broadside, and not head-on as before. For as I +have (I think) already said, the Inn was jutted out to the extreme edge +of the _Fair Haven_ wharf, so that at the high tide there was a +deepness of water sufficient for any ordinary ship to lie alongside and +discharge her cargo upon the quay; the tide mark running a little below +the vault where we were, that else would have been suddenly flooded by +the inflow of water through the broken wall. Beyond measure relieved +that we were besieged by neither soldier nor devil, we could not +restrain our joy, and so by a common impulse moved to be gone, the +whole company of us that yet remained alive and able, ran forward to +the breach, and to the ship's side, having her starboard light to +further us that had formerly so stricken us into dismay. And thus by +this way and that, grasping at whatever projection of blocks and +shrouds lay to our hands, some helping and other hindering our escape, +we had at length all clambered up into the ship, save only that traitor +Cutts, who, upon a sudden lurch of the ship, was crushed betwixt the +bulwark and the wall, and so died. + +I looked about for my uncle, and soon found him, leaning over the rail. + +"Ha, Denis," said he coolly, "so thou art escaped. I had a notion +'twas thou wert crushed against the wall." + +"You mistook then," said I, and might have said more, had not Captain +Spurrier laid a hand upon my collar, the whiles he clapped his pistol +to my uncle's ear, and called out-- + +"Lay me these men in irons, Attwood. I am master on my own good ship, +if not in that fiends' compter." + +We were seized upon instantly and hurried down to the hold, where, +heavily shackled, we were thrown among such stuff as there lay stored. +The vessel rolled horribly, and often drove against the impediments +upon the bank with a dreadful grinding noise, but about morning, as I +supposed, they got her about, and into the stream, where, the tempest +somewhat abating, she rode pretty free, though what course she kept I +could not be certain in, and indeed soon gave over the attempt to +follow their purposes that had us so utterly in their power. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE VOYAGE OF THE _SARACEN'S HEAD_ + +Whatever the doubts I may at first have entertained, it was soon enough +abundantly clear that the _Saracen's Head_ was under way toward the +open sea; for from my place in the hold I could hear the shipmen +calling to one another as such and such a landmark or hamlet came into +sight; as the green heights of Greenwich; and Tilbury, where there was +a troop of horse at exercise, the which sight was occasion of a good +deal of rough wit amongst the crew. At the mouth of the Medway we +spoke a great merchant galley that was returned from Venice, and put in +to Rochester for repairs, she having come by some damage in the late +storm. Of the passage of time I soon lost count lying in the dark +bottom of the ship, where was nought to denote those petty accidents by +which we customarily reckon it. So I knew not positively whether +'twere day or night I waked and slept in nor whether we made good +progress or slow. For awhile I tried to keep measure of the hours by +our meals, as it might be three meals to an whole day; but this would +not hold neither, for there was no regularity in the serving of them, +they being brought us quite by haphazard and as they were thought on: +which was seldom enough, and the food so stale and nauseating, as led +me suppose we only received it by afterthought, or in such grudging +contempt as is sometimes termed charity. To do him right, I must allow +that my uncle took this reversal of his fortunes with a perfect +indifference; as no doubt in the like situation my father would have +done, though upon a loftier consideration; but however come by, his +patience shamed me, who could by no means attain thereto, nor I think +did seriously attempt it. My sufferings were indeed very great, and in +that voyage I conceived such a passionate disgust of the sea as hath +caused me to regard it as being (what in fact it is) the element the +nearest to chaos, and therefore the least to be accounted for +perfect--and yet perhaps not altogether the least, for I soon found +myself doubting if a man's stomach were every way a sound device; it +being very certain that mine often fell away into the original +incoherence that all things had before the Creation, or ever I had gone +three leagues from the shore. + +No loathing can compare with that a man experienceth at such a time, +when dinner is a greater insult than a blow. And I am ashamed even now +to remember the hate I cherished for the honest mariner that stumbled +down the companion bearing my platter of salt beef; which feeling found +its vent in my imagining a world of tortures for the bearer of the beef +and for all jovial ruddy mariners, and for every shipwright since the +days of Noah. + +Nevertheless, since into what state soever we come, we be so framed as +by degrees to acquire a sort of habit, if not a content, therein, so it +befell that I also, in due time, from my amazing and profound malady +recovered some fragment of a willingness to live. It might have been +the third or fourth day after, that I ate without such consequences as +I had supposed necessarily incident to the act, and life came to assume +an aspect wherein it stood on favourable terms with sudden death. This +surprised me, seeing that of late I had conceived life to be (at the +best) but a protracted and indefinite dissolution; and I ate again.... + +"The devil take you!" I cried to the fellow that had just entered the +hold with a handful of biscuits and a little rundlet of burnt wine. +"What a meal is that to set before starving men?" + +"Courage, master," said the mariner with a great laugh, "we be come +within but a few leagues of the Straits, and perhaps shall touch at one +of the Spanish ports, where we may better provision the ship than our +Captain thought it altogether safe to do, the night we set sail." + +"And shall we be released then?" I asked eagerly. + +The man shrugged up his shoulders with a grin, and for the first time +my uncle, who all these days had lain quite silent in the dark of the +hold, leaned over from his place among the stuff, and thus accosted me-- + +"Are you so great a fool yet? When the pawn is taken, it is cast +aside, and the game goes on. Teach your mind to expect nothing, and +your tongue to require nothing. There is an hell where they and I +shall meet." He paused a space, and then with an intensity of purpose +that held my blood in the veins: "We shall meet there," he added +slowly, "and shall need all eternity for that we shall there do. 'Tis +the privilege of hell that no enmities be in that place forgot, nor +forgiven." + +When the mariner had left us, I asked my uncle what he considered our +fate would be; who answered that, as it had been put into the articles +of the false contract he had made with Spurrier, that offers of help +should be made to the Spaniards, in the which embassage he himself had +promised (though he intended nothing less) to undertake the chiefest +part; so, he being now deposed, it was probable that Spurrier would +take upon him the fulfilment of that office. + +"In the which event," he said with great deliberation, "we shall +certainly be given over to those devils, to be clapped up in their +filthy dungeons, or else sent to New Spain, to work in the mines there. +You spoke of a release a little since; there is but one release from +this pass." + +We conversed in this strain from time to time; but ordinarily kept +silence. By the running out of a cable, we knew that we were come into +that harbour the seaman spoke of, and momently looked for the trap +above in the deck to be opened, and ourselves to be haled out to our +dooms. A curious sense of unreality came over me in this interval, yet +joined to a minute perception of all that passed, as though I could +actually see the same with my eyes. For I seemed to detect the +departure of our Captain, that went ashore; I heard the rattle of the +oars against the pins as he was rowed off. Later, I understood that he +was returned again, and with him another, whose step upon the deck was +firm and stately. His spurs jangled as he moved. "It is the Governor +of this Port," I said to myself, "and they debate of treason together." + +The most of the crew hung about amidships; the principal persons being +upon the quarterdeck, and there remaining a great while. Some little +movement as of men dissatisfied, I noted later; and then there was the +business of the Governor's leaving us, I supposed to consult with +others, his lieutenants, upon the quay. + +Presently I was startled by the firing of a cannon, which made our ship +to reel as she would have split, and there was trampling and shouted +words of command. Spurrier's bargain had failed. + +"They had best have left it," said my uncle with a sneering laugh, when +he saw how things had gone. "A greedy boastful knave as Spurrier is, +none will be matched with. I know this Governor well, if this place we +be come to be, as I think, Puerto Real. 'Twas his brother I slew, Don +Florida. He would inquire after him, like enough, and wherefore he had +not returned into Spain, to which Spurrier would answer him astray and +then lie to mend it; a paltry bungler as he is! I might have played +this hand through, Denis, had I chosen. But being no traitor I would +not. Well, let them look to their stakes!" + +It may appear a strange thing, but 'tis true, that our old animosity +had quite sunk between us and although we used no particular courtesy +in our scanted speech, yet my uncle and I nevertheless found (I +believe) an equal pleasure in our enforced companionship. In the +presence of almost certain death, whether men fear or contemn it, there +is in the mere thought of it a compelling quality that directs the mind +to it only; and where two minds be thus constrained to the same point, +along whatever paths they may have moved, there is of necessity a kind +of sympathy betwixt them, and a resolution of their differences in that +common attent. + +Succeeding upon that firing of the great gun there was an immediate +confusion wherein we in our dungeon were wholly forgot. A cannon from +the fort answered our challenge a while after, but by its faintness +'twas easy to suppose we had got a good way out of the harbour and thus +were free from any present danger from a land attack. But whether +there were in the roads gathered any vessels of war that might do us +harm upon the sea we could not conjecture, though it appeared not +altogether likely, or at the least that they were not at all points +prepared upon the sudden to give chase. Our main fear lay in the +probability that, the alarm being given, messengers would be dispatched +to all points of the coast, with particulars given of the rank and +appearance of our ship, in order that, attempting to sail through the +Straits into the Mediterranean or to slip away again northward, we +should be made to answer for our gunnery salute in such sort as would +hardly please us. + +But however these considerations affected his two censors in the hold, +Captain Spurrier was evidently nothing moved thereby, who warped his +ship as it were along the very shore with a most insensate impudency +until he had her within the narrow waters about Gibraltar, where a man +could have slung a stone upon our decks, so nearly did we venture +ourselves into the enemy's power. Nay, a general madness seemed to +have grown to possess the whole crew, so disappointed were they of the +outcome of their late negotiations and proffers of treachery; and no +folly that presented itself to them, but they took it as a drunken man +takes water, feverishly. Thus our cannon were continually being shot +off, not of offence but for the mere show of bravery it put upon us; +and so likewise of defence, there was no order taken nor was any +especial guard kept, so far as we could tell who knew not the watches, +but yet could distinguish well enough the sounds of cups clinking and +of quarrelling and curses. Indeed I doubt whether, at any hour of this +our frenzied voyage, had a cock-boat of resolute men put out to +intercept us, we should not have been made prize of, before we were +aware that opposition was so much as offered. + +In the meanwhile we in our chains were, as I say, left undisturbed; and +as hour after hour went by the hunger we suffered increased so that I +think another day of such absolute privation, and of the burning thirst +that went with it, would have ended our business altogether. Yet it +was to this incredible affliction we owed our resolution to get free, +come what would thereafter. + +I must have fallen into some raving speech, that served to make +manifest to my uncle the abject condition I was in, for before I knew +of it, he had dragged himself over to me, and with his skeleton fingers +had loosened the band at my throat and chafed my hands together between +his own. + +"Oh, let me die," I cried fiercely. + +"You are like to," said he, without the least resentment; "but if you +will take the advice I shall give, you will either notably increase +your chances of it, or else will get what is hardly less to be desired, +I mean food." + +Too faint to demand what he intended by that, I lay still, careless +whether he made his purpose clear or not. + +"Seeing that we cannot get off our irons," he went on, "we must eat or +die, bound. Now I believe that it is night and most of the crew drunk. +If it be so, we shall get food enough and perhaps our freedom too. If +it be not so, you shall have your will presently and die; for it is you +who must go above, Denis, seeing I cannot do so, that have my ankle +broke with this cursed chain." + +I got upon my feet, all confused as I was and sick with famine; but his +greater courage moved me to obey him in this if I could, though I +expected but little good of it. + +"They will hear my chains," I said. + +"I will muffle them," he replied, and tore off three or four strips of +his silken coat that he yet wore, and with them wrapped up the links in +such sort as I should move along without noise, though still heavily. +After that I left him, going up the ladder to the trap in the roof of +the hold, which none had troubled to make fast, knowing, or at least +believing, that we were safe enough in our shackles, without further +precaution taken. + +It was indeed night, as my uncle had supposed; and such a night as +seemeth to lift a man out of his present estate, so limited and beat +upon by misfortunes, and to touch his lips with a savour of things +divine. There is a liberation in the wide spaces of the night, and a +glory unrevealed by any day. + +I stood awhile where I was upon the deck, simply breathing in the cool +air and taking no thought for my safety. A gunner lay beside his gun, +asleep with his head upon the carriage; I could have touched him with +my outstretched arm.... + +I looked about me. We were riding at anchor in a little bay that from +the aspect of the stars I took to be upon the Moorish side of the +Straits: an opinion that became certainty when I gradually made out the +form of that huge rock of Gibraltar to the northward and the +mountainous promontory which lieth thereabout. There was no wind at +all, which something excused the slack seamanship that was used amongst +us, and in this principally showed, that our sails were but some of +them furled up, although we rode at anchor; and the rest of them hung +flat upon the yards. The moon had not risen, or was already set, but +there was that soft diffused pallor of the stars by which, after +awhile, I could see very well. In the general negligence the ship's +lanterns were left unlit, but the gunner had one beside him, and also +(what imported me more to find) a few broken morsels of bread. To +carry these and the lantern down to the hold was my next concern, and +was happily effected; but I judged my enterprise incomplete until I had +got wine, or at least water, to wash it down, for even less to be +supported than our hunger was our horrible scorching thirst. + +Now, how I should have fared in my quest of that commodity I know not, +seeing I did not proceed further in it than just so far as the +prostrate gunner, whose leg in passing I chanced to touch and so woke +him. He raised himself on his elbow, grumbling that he was +o'er-watched, and would stand sentinel no more for all the Moors in +Barbary. Upon the impulse I fell upon and grappled with him, managing +the chain betwixt my wrists so that I had his neck in a loop of it, +upon which I pulled until his eyes and mouth were wide and the blood +pouring from his nose. Gradually I slackened my hold to let him +breathe, for he was pretty far gone. + +"You must knock off my irons," I whispered, "or else I will strangle +you outright," and made as if to begin again. + +He was beyond speech, but made signs he would do it, and implored me +with his eyes to desist. Then he made me to understand that his tools +were abaft in the gunroom, so that I was fain to follow him thither, or +rather to go beside him with my arms about his neck like a dear friend. +We encountered some dozen men in the way, but all sleeping, save one +that I made my captive put to silence, which he did very properly and +workmanlike. + +Not to be tedious in this matter, I say that at length I stood free; +for the which enfranchisement when my man had perfected it, perceiving +that he was like to be called in question, he fell on his knees before +me and besought me to let him escape with me. + +"I have had pity of you many a time," he cried, "when, but for me, you +must have starved;" which was indeed true, he being the bluff ruddy +fellow that had brought us our meals from time to time. + +Nevertheless I would not altogether promise to do as he wished, but +commanded him first to fetch drink and more food to my uncle, and to me +too; which when he had done, I told him we would at our leisure +consider of the success. + +"At your leisure, quotha!" cried the man, whose name was Attwood (a +Midland man and a famous forger of iron as I found). "'Twill be but an +hour ere the sun rise." + +"Whither are we bound?" I demanded. + +"To some port of Italy," he replied, "or Sicily, as I think. But upon +our voyage it is intended to snap up whatever craft we shall encounter +and may not be able to withstand us; at which trade, if it prosper, it +is purposed we shall continue, and perhaps join with others that do the +like. And to this course our Captain is principally moved by one, a +rascal Greek, that affecteth to have knowledge of a certain stronghold +and harbourage in an island to the northward of Sicily, where he saith +he is acquainted with a notable commander of armed galleys that should +welcome our adherence." + +"Bring forth our supper therefore, Master Attwood," said I, "for if not +now, I see not when we shall eat it." + +We ate and drank very heartily together; for we made Attwood of the +company, who knocked off my uncle's chains and bound his ankle very +deftly betwixt two battens to set it. Our conversation was naturally +upon what should be our means of escape, which would have been settled +out of hand had it not been for my uncle's broken bone that prevented +his swimming ashore as else we might have done; for our cock-boat had +been lost at the start in the gale, and we had nothing of which to make +a raft, or at least none we could get loose without risk of alarming +the crew. + +But as was usual my uncle gave the word by which we were ready to +abide, and that was that I should swim to shore alone and seize upon +one of the boats that would certainly be to be found drawn up on the +sands (for we lay close under the shore), and with this returning with +all dispatch, take them off that awaited me. Accordingly, I let myself +down by the side, Attwood assisting me, and swam toward the shore. But +scarce had I set foot upon it, when I saw a long boat, filled with a +troop of half-naked Moors, that rowed out from beyond the point and +aimed directly for the vessel I had left. + +Without any other thought but to save them if I could, I shouted to +Attwood that they were threatened by the Moors, and the distance being +as I say but small betwixt us, he heard me, and ran to his cannon. But +the stir he made aroused two or three of the mariners, so that soon all +stood upon their guard to defend themselves. The Captain ordered the +gunner to lay to his piece and sink the enemy, but they got away in the +dark, and so nothing was done. However, the Captain, who was greatly +affrighted by this accident, called out to them to weigh anchor, for he +would presently be gone; and about sunrise, a wind springing up, he +loosed from his moorings and made away eastward under all sail. + +Now, if it be admired why I neither returned to the ship, rather than +remain alone in this barbarous unknown country, nor yet extended a +finger to help my uncle and Attwood to their freedom, I must answer +that it was because I could not. For I had not stood above three +minutes upon that starlit shore, ere I was seized by two Moors, that +carried me with them to a rough hutch of skins they had hard by the +quay. And here they told me, by signs, I must await their king and by +him be judged for my swimming ashore in the night; which manner of +reaching the country was, I understood, as well open to suspicion as a +notable infraction of the rights of the licensed ferrymen. They seemed +to be honest fellows enough, and except that they kept me in pretty +close ward in the tent, treated me, in all else, very well. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE TEMPLE BENEATH THE WATERS + +Now, had I but had the luck to know it, my two captors were themselves +of this guild of the ferrymen whose rights they so stoutly stood by; +and I could have obtained my freedom at any hour of the night for +two-pence: the statutory passage money of which I had unwittingly +defrauded them. But upon this twopence saved were to depend many +events I could well have spared, together, too, with much I yet thank +Heaven for; so small a matter doth our fate require (as a rudder) to +steer us by along what course she will.... + +The sun came up, as I say, in a little fresh scud of wind, and athwart +the golden dancing waters went the good ship the _Saracen's Head_, fair +and free; while I, her supercargo, remained behind in this +evil-smelling tent of half-naked and infidel Moors; cursing the +mischance that had led me thither, and altogether discouraged. + +The thought of Idonia, that amid all the distractions of my late +captivity on board the ship had been predominant over all, affected me +more than ever now, as I sat in this pure light of dawn, in a perfect +silence save for the little lapping of the waves. I remembered the +wild look of love that her eyes had held, when she said: "Free, oh, +free!" and: "Denis, Denis, do not let me go!" I caught again the +drooping lassitude of her posture, when, spent by the varying terrors +of the night, she had swooned in my arms. For the thousandth time I +reviewed the dangers that threatened her, the bitter cold of the rain, +insults of the soldiers, her wandering wits and the nearness of the +river. To this was added a fearful burden of doubt whether I should at +all be suffered to return home, to seek her; knowing as I did that not +two or three, but many men that had set foot upon this coast, had been +sold as slaves or slain outright; while others, to escape the seeming +worst, abjuring their faiths (as Nelson the Yeoman's son had done), had +embraced the false religion of this country and by that currish means +gained favour and furtherance in their servitude. It seemed to me a +strange thing, as I sat in this place where all around was peace and +grave silence, that so small an interval might separate me from such +intolerable cruelties as we in England had oftentimes heard tell of as +continually practised by the men of these parts; and I in particular +had listened to this sort of tales, by the mariners of our Company +narrated, when, as I was used, I went to meet them and bring them to +Osborne the Governor. But there is (I find) a surprising declension +from the amusement got by hearing of the customs of other nations, to +that is got by going where they are practised; and I settled it in my +mind at that time (nor have I ever exchanged the opinion) that what +lieth beyond the West Country is of very small account; always +excepting the City of London and the Berkshire downs. + +Now when the sun had been risen about an hour, I perceived some stir to +grow in the town, and men to begin going about their daily business. +From the petty harbour I saw a barque or two warping their way out, and +was marvellous surprised when, presently, that great boat that had +rowed, as we all supposed, to the attack of the _Saracen's Head_, +returned very peaceably to the quayside laden with a fine catch of +fish; by the which it manifestly appeared that they were no robbers, +but a company of Moorish fisherfolk that had gone before daybreak to +cast their seines; and as the sequel showed, to good purpose. + +I laughed aloud at the error into which I had fallen, and the more when +I imagined with what consternation these simple men would have received +Master Attwood's cannon shot, had he prosecuted his intention and fired +it. + +My two guards looked upon me with some anxiety, when they saw me +laughing in this manner, and spoke together in a low voice; after which +the one of them got up softly and went away. Something perturbed, I +questioned the other man, by signs, that being our only method of +converse, whither it was he went; who answered, similarly, that he was +gone to see if the king were yet awake, and ready to administer justice +in my cause. I should have sought to learn more, had I not chanced to +observe upon one of the ships that lay by the wharf, a flag hauling up, +at which sight I was filled with an excessive joy; for it was the +English flag; and the ship, when I had more particularly noted her, one +of our Turkey Company's merchant vessels, namely, the _Happy +Adventure_, seventy tons burden and very sound craft. + +Leaping to my feet, I made signs to my Moor that these were friends of +mine who would speak for my general probity, and at the same time +offered him three or four pieces of silver (all I had) the better to +enforce my request. + +Never have I seen a man so metamorphosed as he, who, expecting at the +utmost to receive his legal two-pence, had suddenly thrust upon him a +handful of crowns. From a petty evader of duties, I became in his eyes +a fountain of generosity, and prince of swimmers. He fell prone on his +face before me in the sand, and covered my shoes with kisses, naming me +in his language his eternal benefactor, the light of his life, the +supporter of his age (or if not these then what you shall please, for I +understood nothing of it all save his cringing and kissing of my toe). + +Now while he was thus engaged, his companion returned together with him +they called their king, but was only an ordinary Moor to see to, +extremely fat (which is perhaps a sign of pre-eminence in these parts) +and abominably filthy. He had two curved swords stuck in his waist, +and wore a patched green cloak. + +But when he saw who it was approached, my newly purchased friend left +kissing me, and did obeisance to his king, very reverently saluting him +with his hands raised to his forehead; and the king in his turn bade +him, as well as he could for lack of breath, be at peace. Which done, +a long debate ensued among the three of them wherein my gratuity was +displayed and commented upon, with a great show of delight by the Moor, +with astonishment by the king, and with an uncontrolled disappointment +by the Moor that had gone to bring him. By the greedy looks with which +he, and soon the king too, regarded this chiefest feature of the case, +I understood that my acquittal was likely to depend upon the nature of +the evidence (that is the amount of the bribe) I could bring in, to +satisfy my second accuser, and after him the Judge. But satisfy them +in this kind I could not, for as I have said, I had imprudently parted +with my entire wealth to my first accuser, who, as I am assured, would +have been perfectly content with half a groat. The fat king, without +the least disguise, but pointing to my unlucky crown-pieces, told off +upon his fingers the rate at which I might obtain my discharge, while +the ferryman, whom anger seemed to have robbed of speech, convulsively +gripped at the haft of a very dangerous long knife he had, as if to +demonstrate the province of effective law. + +What course I might have followed herein I am not careful to imagine; +enough that it was decided for me by one of the ship's company of the +_Adventure_, who, observing us, came over a little way to see what +should be the occasion of this argument. To him then, without delay, I +dispatched my Moorish friend I had suborned, praying the mariner to +hasten to my assistance. And no sooner did he see the English pieces +in the fellow's hand than he understood it was a countryman of his in +peril, and so called together the rest of his crew, or at least such as +were within hail. A little after, therefore, I was set free, the whole +company coming about me, and thrusting away the poor fat king, that +they told me was but a petty chieftain, of no authority at all, except +that he took the half of the harbour dues; which being a mere pittance, +however, he was fain to eke out the stipend with the selling of sweet +oil and justice, as either was called for. + +But when they heard I was employed by the Turkey Company, as they were, +and moreover was acquainted with Sir Edward Osborne, whom every one +greatly honoured, there was no end to their protestations of +friendship; and in especial the master of that voyage, one Captain +Tuchet, offered to carry me with him to England; albeit he must first, +he said, finish his trading in these waters, as he had engaged to do. + +I thanked him very heartily for his kindness, and, at his request, +opened with him at large of my imprisonment on board the _Saracen's +Head_, and of all matters I have above set down, which he heard very +patiently and advised himself of the principal outrages that were +either committed or intended by Spurrier and the rest. He was a short, +squat man, of a very heavy appearance and so dull an eye that I had set +him down for almost a fool before he showed me pretty convincingly that +he was not, but rather of a nature at once astute and undaunted, he +being indeed at all points a commander and worthy of trust. + +"So you tell me that these gentlemen purpose to join themselves to a +certain pirate of note," he said, blinking his thick-lidded eyes, as we +leaned over the rail of his high deck. "And where might he be found, +prythee?" + +"It was upon some island, as I remember, to the northward of Sicily," I +answered. + +"'Tis as I thought then," said he, "and having a part of our cargo to +discharge at Amalfi, we will read our instructions something more +liberally than we be wont to do, and shape our course toward--well, +should we chance to make this island of yours upon the way, there's no +harm done, Master Supercargo;" and he blinked again. + +"You will give them chase?" cried I. + +"We be men peaceably inclined at all times," replied Tuchet, closing +his eyes altogether, "and I should be sorry if resistance to our +demands led to bloodshed." + +"But my uncle..." I said and hesitated. + +"Is a reasonable villain by all accounts," replied the Captain, and so +for that while dismissed me. + +The news that we were to alter our course in order to the end I have +named, soon spread amongst the crew, who one and all rejoiced at the +prospect of fighting it offered them; that being a luxury not often to +be indulged in upon a merchant ship and therefore the more highly +prized. From the mate I learned that there was an infinite number of +such secret nooks and fastnesses by pirates and desperate thieves +infested, in this sea, and that to any ordinary man it would appear an +absurd thing to attempt, from amongst so many, to discover the +particular refuge that Spurrier might affect. "So that were it not for +some hint we have to go upon, which our Captain thinks sufficient, we +might indeed run far astray; though now, if we do, I shall greatly +admire it." + +"Upon what place hath he fixed as likely?" I asked. + +"'Tis a little rock among the AEolian Islands," he answered me, "for it +is indeed hardly more than a bare rock. The people name it the Three +Towers, because of certain watch-towers formerly set up against the +Saracens and yet remaining: as you may see them likewise in Amalfi, and +other places too. It hath a fair anchorage and haven and a flat strip +of good land where they used to cultivate vines before the robbers took +the place and killed the islanders. There was a pleasant village there +among the vineyards, and a temple, nigh perfect, of the old heathen +gods. But now all is in ruins, except that those men have retained for +their safeguard, or for the storage of their treasure." + +"You seem to know their lurking-place pretty well," said I, with a +smile. + +He let the jest pass, it being none to him as I soon learned. + +"I should know it, master," he replied, "having lived there, and there +married and had children. 'Twas those devils of pirates drove me forth +... but not my wife. My children they slew in the room where the +wine-press stood. I think if we fall in with that company, sir, by how +much soever their number exceed ours, we shall yet get the better of +them, God helping us." + +All that day we held our course eastward, with a pretty strong wind +following, so that we had got about seventy or eighty miles from the +port by sunset. The night also continuing fair, with lucky weather, we +made a further good progress, by which the Captain hoped, within two or +three days at the most, we should make the Island of Tre Torre (that +is, the Three Towers aforesaid), and therefore set every one to the +preparing of his weapon, and the hauling up of the powder from the +magazine. + +For my part, while these preparations were making, I was full of heavy +thoughts, for it must needs be in this imminent battle that my uncle +and I should be opposites, who but lately were become friends. + +I doubted indeed whether Spurrier would grant him liberty to fight; but +the alternative was rather to be feared, namely that, unwilling to be +cumbered with the ward of prisoners at such a time, the Captain would +rid himself of him before the fight should begin. But either way I +certainly could not refuse to draw my sword against these pirates +merely because my uncle was kept prisoner by them, and especially since +our quarrel was like to extend to all such robbers as should choose to +take sides with Spurrier against us. It appeared indeed a mad +impossible enterprise we undertook, and had it not been for the extreme +faith all our crew had in Mr. Tuchet, I might perhaps have gone the +length of protesting against the risk we ran. + +However I did not, and am glad that I refrained, for no man loveth to +be thought a coward, though some that are not be content to appear so +in a noble cause; which I think is the greatest degree of courage a man +can attain to. + +Now, about the fourth morning, when the watch was changed, I being one +of those appointed to serve that turn, we remarked that the sky, which +until then had been quite clear, was now spread over with a thin haze, +such as ordinarily intendeth an excessive heat; and indeed as the day +wore on it became oppressively hot, the vapour remaining the while, or +rather withdrawing to an unusual height, so that there was no mist upon +the waters, but merely a white sky for a blue one. At noonday this +strange whiteness of the heavens became charged with a dull copper +colour particularly to the eastward, and the wind died away suddenly, +leaving us becalmed. + +Tuchet summoned the mate to him, to the upper deck, and held him long +in consultation of this mystery, presently calling me too to join them +there, when he put two or three brief questions to me as touching the +rig and burden of the _Saracen's Head_, which, when I had answered, he +resumed his conference with the mate, jerking his finger impatiently +toward some object far out to sea. + +I followed the direction of his finger, and at last perceived right +upon the clear line of the horizon a grey blot, that might have been a +rock or ship, or indeed anything, so great was the distance of it from +us. + +"I cannot tell," said the mate; "but I think 'tis not so big." + +"Tush!" said the Captain. "Consider it more closely." + +Again I strained my eyes for any indication of sail or hull that should +resolve my doubt; but even as I gazed the thing was lost as completely +as though the sea had opened to swallow it. + +"Why, 'tis gone!" I cried. + +Neither of the men spoke for a while, but after a full half minute the +mate said in a low voice-- + +"Yonder comes the eagre," meaning, as I learned afterwards, that great +wave that sometimes comes with the high tide, and is otherwise named +the Bore; the cause of it none knoweth certainly, though it is said to +follow upon an uncommon meeting of tides, or else is rolled back by +earthquakes and such-like horrid disturbances and visitations of the +Almighty. + +"Strike sail, lads," shouted the Captain, "and close up all hatches; +there's tempest at hand." + +We did what we could, but the time was brief enough, so that before we +had well concluded the wave struck us. The ship seemed to be lifted +like a plaything and tossed about as lightly as though a giant had put +forth his hand from the deep and flung us. Three men were washed +overboard at the first assault and our mizzen mast burst asunder, which +falling, grievously hurt one that stood by, who a little after died. + +Meanwhile the calm that had previously held us bound, was exchanged for +a furious hurricane worse almost to withstand than the shock of the +eagre-wave itself. The sky was now as black as night, with great +hurrying clouds urged on as it seemed by the pitiless goad of lightning +that lacerated them as they thundered by. Wave after wave swept over +us as we rose and fell, abject and waterlogged, now lying low in the +lane of waters, now impelled to the summit from which we looked forth +as from a falling tower in whose ruin we were presently to be +involved.... + +I cannot relate all that followed, for a spar struck me senseless, and +when I recovered we were riding in an untroubled bay, under a lee +shore. Too sick and weak to question those that stood about me, I +nevertheless could not but note the amazing beauty of the scene. Upon +an eminence a grove of palm trees stood out against the blue of the +sky, while upon the slope of this hill and below it to the water's edge +extended the buildings of a city, dazzling white and magnificently +builded with long arcades and lofty gateways and tiled domes. At first +I supposed we had been carried by the storm backward to that Moorish +port where I was held captive, but soon I perceived that this place +greatly exceeded it in splendour and apparent wealth. The city, in +fact, was Argiers, whither we had been carried wide of our course by +the stress of the storm: but being here our Captain thought fit to make +good our ship that was pretty near stove in. Some nine or ten days in +all we stayed, during which I not only regained my health but took an +infinite pleasure in going about in the town, which was like nothing I +had ever seen or imagined, so white it was, and so strangely supported +upon deep arches that caught the shade at all hours; and having high +towers with balconies, from which a man called these poor infidels to +prayer. The flies were abominable, and the stench incredibly +offensive; but saving these things, Argiers is a good town, and the +people of it (that is, the men, for I saw no women) very grave and +orderly. + +Our masts and timbers made good at length, Mr. Tuchet called the crew +aboard, and bade them cast off the hawser that held us, which was soon +done, and we departed. And because of the privilege extended to me and +the favour of the Captain, I left the common seamen and went upon the +deck that the Captain used, who spoke cheerily to me, saying he hoped +we should meet with no more disasters on this voyage. I laughed and +said I hoped not neither, and asked him when he thought we should come +to Amalfi; for it never entered my mind that he would prosecute his old +purpose of going against the pirates. + +"To Amalfi?" said Tuchet, scratching his grey stubble beard. "Oh, +about a week hence, Mr. Denis, if we get done with your uncle by +Thursday, as I expect to do." + +Nothing deterred him when he had once resolved upon any course, and I +am assured that had we lost half our complement of men and all our +ammunition, he would have gone into it with his fists. The Thursday +then, having doubled the Cape of Marsala, which is the westward point +of Sicily, we came amongst the AEolian Islands to the very hour Tuchet +had named; and towards evening we clearly descried the little rocky +islet of the Three Towers; whereat every man grasped his weapon, and +the gunner ran out his long brass piece. 'Twas no time for the conning +over of moral sentences but rather of rapid silent preparation; yet I +could not but feel the solemnity of this our slowly sailing onward +through the still autumn evening, whose outgoing seemed so sweetly +attuned to that praise for which the Scripture saith it was created, +but which for us meant no more than an unlucky light to shoot by. For, +as more than one stout fellow whispered, our ship having the sun behind +it was a mark for any fool to hit, while we upon our part could +distinguish nought upon that barren rock but the crumbled watch-towers +that crowned it. + +Without a word, we stole on. It was dangerous navigation, for there +were said to be sunken reefs to the westward (that is the nearest to us +as we came from the west), where the rock divided into two horns or +spurs, that, jutting out into the sea, enclosed the little parcel of +flat land where the vineyards used to be and the ruined temple. The +harbourage lay a little to the southward behind the right-hand spur I +have noted, and was therefore not yet to be seen; though we, +approaching so closely, must have been perfectly visible to any one +that lay concealed amidst the innumerable lurking-places and caves of +the rock. + +The mate, who knew the island but too well, had gone forward, but now +returned to us, that is to Tuchet and me, upon the high deck. His face +was very white. + +"The shore hath sunk," he said. + +"What do you mean?" cried Tuchet, turning about sharply. + +"Vineyard and all gone; our cottage and the garden where my boys +played.... The eagre hath whelmed them." + +"But the wave hath long since receded, man; it cannot be! You have +mistaken the place belike." + +"Mistaken!" repeated the mate with a hard laugh. "I tell you the whole +island hath been disturbed; its foundations shaken--Lo, there!" he +cried out. "A whole cliff hath gone down in the earthquake; and there +is driftwood under the headland, of wrecked ships." + +And even as he had said, so it was. + +For the late upheaval had had its origin in the recesses of this barren +rock, which it had burst open as a robber bursts forth from his ambush, +and loosed that charging hurricane upon the sea. And indeed not this +island of Tre Torre only, but all these islands to the northward of +Sicily be so eaten under by fire, and liable to sudden calamity +therefrom, as none may properly be named habitable, though the most of +them be inhabited in despite of almost constant threatenings, until, as +this place was, they be at length in a night destroyed. + +We sailed about the place in our ship, but found no living soul, and +night soon after falling, we were fain to use the shattered remnant of +the pirates' harbour, where we lay till the morning, very sad and +perplexed. + +But a great while before full day I rose up alone and went ashore, in +the hope to light upon some vestiges of my uncle, or if not of him, +then of any of that infamous crew of the _Saracen's Head_. From the +one of the watch-towers that I found to be the least shaken I surveyed +the rock over every part, but could discover nothing more than that we +had before espied, namely, the few broken boards of a ship and spars +strewn about the sweep of ground betwixt the two promontories, and so +descended slowly to where they lay. And having descended but a little +of the broken path that led, as I judged, to the submerged hamlet +amidst the vineyards, I looked out upon the waters of the bay; and on +the sudden, clear beneath them, saw the hamlet, house by house, and the +pergolas of hanging vines. So translucent and untroubled was the water +at that hour that scarce anything the least was hid, but even the grass +between the stones I saw, yet fresh and waving, and the rusted tools +abandoned in the fields. An untended way led further off to the +temple, of which I could dimly perceive the pillars, between which +great silver fish swam in and out, and upon its steps the seaweed +slightly stirred. + +But caught in the weed on the steps of the temple I saw a drowned man +lying, and when I had gone down to the edge of the shore, I knew him +for my uncle.... + +Of the rest we could find at first no trace at all, but (having sent +down divers into the deep water about the northward headland) we at +length recovered the bodies of Spurrier and Attwood and one or two +beside. When the ship had split, idly trusting to such pieces of the +wreck as they could lay hold of, they had evidently been dashed against +the rock, and so perished. But the prisoner in the hold had been +carried forward, as it seemed, almost into safety, but at the last had +been let slip. There was no hurt upon his body when we raised it, and +the features were unclouded by any premonition of his fate. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +IW WHICH THE SHIPS OF WAR GO BY AND THE TALE ENDS + +To tell all that befell me ere I set foot in England once more were +scarce less tedious to the reader than it was to me in the happening, +who counted each day for lost until I had got home; which was upon +Christmas Eve; and should prosecute my search for Idonia Avenon. + +But so strangely into peace did all my affairs seem to move, after my +uncle's death (as though upon his removal who had every way troubled us +so long, we were come into an unknown liberty and fulfilment of our +hopes), that my search was ended as soon almost as begun, and Idonia +restored to me within an hour of my landing at Wapping Stairs. + +'Twas the simplest cause that led me to her, as it was the simplest act +of mere gratitude that I should go at once to the kindly folk on the +Bridge, I mean Gregory Nelson and his wife, to requite them for all +they had done for me and to excuse myself in having gone away from them +so without warning as I did; which must at that time have appeared very +graceless in me and unhandsome. And being thus come to their house, as +I say, who should be in the doorway, as if expressly to greet me +(although she had heard nought of the arrival of the _Happy +Adventure_), but Idonia herself, sweet lass! and blithe as a carol +burden. 'Twas some while ere we got to relating our histories, but +when Idonia did at length relate her own, I learnt how Nelson's +brother, the yeoman, had found her that dreadful night, lurking about +the precincts of the _Fair Haven_ Inn, nigh distraught with weeping and +the terror of loneliness. He had questioned her straitly of her +purpose in being there, to whom she presently confessed she sought me, +and told him where I was used to lodge, which was in this house upon +London Bridge. And no sooner did the yeoman apprehend the matter, than +he got permission of his captain to leave watching of the Inn, and so +carried her home to his brother's wife, who tenderly cared for her, +until I should return. + +"As indeed I never doubted of your doing," said Idonia, her eyes +shining for very pride of this ineffable thing we had entered into +possession of; "though you have been gone a weary great while, dear +heart, and no tidings have I had to comfort me." + +"Ay, and mickle tidings you needed, housewife!" interposed the scolding +voice of Madam Nelson, that (good soul) had no notion to leave us two +by ourselves, but burst into whatever room we were in, upon the most +impertinent excuse, as of a mislaid thimble, or a paper of pins, or +else a "Lord! be you here still?" or a "Tell me, Denis, how do the +ladies of Barbary wear their hair?" until I swear I was ready to pitch +her out of the window for a second, but more virtuous, Jezebel. + +"Small tidings you needed, I wis," said she, "that turned even silence +to advantage, and the very winds of Heaven to your way of thinking! +'He will be safe in this weather,' would 'a say when 'twas calm; or if +it blew fresh, 'Denis hath no fear of a tempest!' and with such a +fulsome patience of belief, as I think, had she had positive news you +were dead, she would have said you feigned it on purpose to have +leisure to think upon her." + +"Had it not been for your own good courage, mother," replied Idonia, +with a run of laughter, "I had often enough desponded. And 'twas you +went to Mr. Osborne for me, as Mr. Nelson did to the Council, to give +account how matters had gone, and to exonerate this long lad of +remissness." + +"Tilly vally!" cried the lady. "I exonerate none of your lovers, not +I, that steal away at midnight, to leave their sweethearts weeping by +the shore!" And so, as if blown thence by the strong gust of her +resentment, she was gone from us, ere I could mend her wilful +misconstruction of the part I had been enforced to play. + +But that part of captive I was now content enough to continue in for +just so long as Idonia willed, who held me to her, and by a thousand +links bound me, pronouncing my sentence in terms I shall neither ever +forget nor shall I now repeat them. Such sweet words of a maid are not +singular, I think, but rather be common as death; to which for the +first time they give the only right meaning, as of a little ford that +lies in a hollow of the highway of love.... + +I told her gently of her guardian's drowning, at which report she +shuddered and turned away her face. But all she said was: "He was a +kind man to me, but otherwise, I fear, very wicked." + +We spoke of the Chinese jar, that had contained that great treasure of +diamonds and precious stones my uncle had rent away and stolen from +those he privily slew. Idonia said it had been seized upon by the +party of soldiers that had searched the Inn, and that the Queen had +confiscated it to her own use, as indeed she was accustomed to keep +whatever prizes came into her hands, without scruple of lawful +propriety. "Which was the occasion, I fear, of some sharp passages +betwixt Madam Nelson and her husband," said Idonia, with a smile, "she +being for his boldly demanding them of the Queen's Secretary, as +pertaining to my dowry, but he stoutly dissenting from such a course, +and, I hold, rightly. But in either case I would not have kept them, +knowing as I do how they were come by; and although the loss of them +leaveth us poor." + +I was of her mind in that, and said so. However, we were not to be so +poor as we then supposed; for besides the jewels which Her Grace had +possessed herself of, with her slender and capable fingers, there was +afterwards discovered a pretty big sum of money her guardian had laid +up, together with his testament and general devise of all he had to +Idonia Avenon, whom he named his sole heir. This we learned from the +attorney in whose hands as well the money was, as the will, which +himself had drawn; who, upon my solemn attestation, and the witness of +Captain Tuchet, admitted, and procured it to be allowed by the +magistrates, that Botolph Cleeve, the testator, was legally deceased, +and Idonia Avenon, the beneficiary, incontestably alive. And upon our +counting over the sum (we both being notable accountants, as is already +sufficiently known), we found it more by nigh a thousand pounds than my +father had formerly lost by this man whose death now allowed of the +restitution of all. For Idonia would hear of nothing done until my +father should be first paid, and of her own motion made proposal that +we should immediately journey down into Somerset to pay him, in the +which course I concurred with great contentment, for it was already +near upon two years since I had set eyes upon him, and upon our old +home of Combe. + +The snow lay somewhat less thickly upon the downs, as we rode over them +past Marlborough and Devizes, than it had done when I set out in the +company of that very warlike scholar, Mr. Jordan, whose campaign I had +seen to be diverted against the books and featherbeds of Baynards +Castle, with so singular a valour and so remote a prospect to be ever +determined. + +Idonia was delighted with these great fields, all white and shining, +that we passed over, they being like nothing she had ever seen, she +said, except once, when she had gone with her guardian into Kent, where +he lay one whole winter in hiding, though she did not know wherefore. + +By nights it was my custom to request a lodging for Idonia of the +clergyman of the town we rested at, while I myself would lie at the +inn; and by this means I was enabled to renew my pleasant acquaintance +with the Curate of Newbury; who (it will be remembered) had preached +that Philippic sermon against the Papists, and had moreover so +earnestly desired me that I should tell the Archbishop of his adding a +rood of ground to his churchyard. He seemed, methought, a little +dejected when I said I had had none occasion to His Grace, who +therefore remained yet in ignorance of the progress the Church made in +Newbury; but he soon so far forgot his disappointment as to tell me of +an improvement of his tithes-rents, by which he was left with seventeen +shillings to the good at Michaelmas; and with a part of this surplus he +had, he confessed, been tempted to purchase of a pedlar a certain book +in the French tongue called _Pantagruel_, from which he had derived no +inconsiderable entertainment, albeit joined to some scruples upon the +matters therein treated of, whether they were altogether such as he +should be known to read them. + +"However, since none here hath any French but I," said he, "I bethought +me that no public scandal was to be feared, and so read on." + +We rode into the little town of Glastonbury, where it lieth under its +strange and conical steep hill, about four o'clock in the afternoon; it +being then, I think, toward the end of January, and clear still +weather. And because it was already dusk I would not proceed further +that day; but in the morning, before daybreak, we proceeded again +forward, going by the ridgeway that, as a viaduct, standeth high above +the levels, then all veiled in chill grey mists. We got into Taunton a +little ere noon, and there baited our horses, being determined to end +our journey before nightfall, which we could not have done except by +this respite. The name of Simon Powell had been so oft upon my lips, +and I had with so many and lively strokes depainted him in conversation +with Idonia, that she had come to know him almost as well as I, and +thus I was hardly astonished when she turned about in her saddle to +gaze after a young man that walked in a meadow a little apart from the +highway as we were entering the hamlet of Tolland, and asked me whether +he were not, as in truth he was, my old companion. + +Marvellous glad to meet with Simon after this long interval, I drew +rein and beckoned to him, who, running forward almost at the same +instant, took my hand, gloved as it was, and covered it with kisses. + +"How doth my father?" I demanded eagerly, and ere he had concluded his +salutation. + +"His worship may mend when he sees you come home," said he gravely, and +by that I saw I was not to indulge too large a hope of his mending. + +"I would we were indeed arrived home, Simon," I replied; "but at all +events, this lodging shall soon be exchanged for a better; that is, if +he may yet bear to be moved." + +We walked our horses along very slowly, Simon between us as we went, to +whom Idonia addressed herself so kindly that the lad, falling instantly +in love with her, had nearly forgot the principal thing of all he had +to say, which was that Sir Matthew Juke had but at the Christmas +quarter-day past renounced his tenancy of the Court and gone to +Bristol, where he had formed the acquaintance of a merchant-adventurer +that was about to attempt the Northwest passage (as it is named, +although none hath yet found it); and upon this voyage the knight also +was set to go. + +"His head is full of the design," said Simon, "so that those about him +fear his wits unsettled, and indeed he spends the better part of every +day poring upon books of navigation, treatises of Sir Humphrey Gilbert +and the like, while his speech is ever of victualling and charts and +ships' logs, but of other things, and even in the Justices' room at the +Sessions, never a word." + +"Say you he hath resigned his lease of our house at Combe?" cried I, +interrupting him for the very impatience of my joy; and when I knew he +certainly had so done, struck the spurs into my tired beast and +galloped forward to the Inn. + +Of the interval I say nothing, nor of the mutual delight with which my +father and I embraced each other; and afterwards of the bestowal of his +welcome upon Idonia, which he did with that accustomed courtly grace of +his, and bound the maid to him in love by the simple manner of his +doing it. + +Within a week, or perhaps a little over, we were all returned to the +Court, where Idonia was at once proclaimed mistress; and a week after +Easter we were married. My father was for giving up to us the great +room, hung about with tapestries, he had always used, but neither +Idonia nor I would allow of it, preferring for our own chamber that +high narrow attic in the tower that had been mine before, and was, +moreover, as wholesome and sweet a place as any man could lead a wife +to, with a rare prospect of meadow and moorland from the window; too, +and away up the deep valley to where it is closed in ascending ranks of +pines. + +Here yet we live, Idonia and I: "Idonia of Petty Wales" I have named +her, and Simon is therefore wondrous pleased to suppose some affinity +in her to his wild ancestors, of whom he now tells her, as he formerly +did me, incredible long legends; yet none so out of all compass of +belief as is the story we might have told him, had we chosen, of that +ruinous secret house over against the Galley Quay, where she dwelt so +long, pure and brave, amidst desperate evil men. + +Here we live, as I say, Idonia and I, but no longer my father, who +after we had been married but a year, died. Worn out by that lingering +malady of which I have spoken, and having been for so long a while +confined to that poor shelter where, I learned, was to be had the +merest necessaries but nothing to foster his strength, he soon gave +manifest signs that the betterment of his fortune had come too late to +advantage him. To himself it had of necessity been well known, but the +knowledge neither discouraged him at all, nor caused him to exchange +his habitual discourse for those particular sentences that men in such +case will sometimes burden their speech withal. + +In Idonia's company he seemed to take an extraordinary quiet pleasure, +and indeed spoke with her (as she afterwards told me) of matters he had +seldom enlarged upon with me, but to which she opened so ready an +apprehension as drew him on from familiar chat to reveal to her the +most cherished speculations of his mind. To me he continued as I +always remember him, using that gentle satire that was a sauce to all +his sayings. He would oftenwhiles question me of the difficulties and +dangers of my sojourn in London, but although he would hear me +attentively, I knew he took small pleasure in tales of tumult and +strife. There was in his nature that touch of woman that, however, is +not womanliness but rather is responsive to the best a woman hath; and +thus it was, in the perfect sympathy that marked his converse with +Idonia, I read, more clearly than I had done in all the years we had +lived together, the measure of his loss in losing his wife, and the +pitiful great need which he endeavoured so continuously, in his +reading, to fill. + +I had supposed him to be a complete Stoick, and to have embraced +without reservation the teaching of that famous school; but Idonia, to +whom I spoke of it, told me that it was not altogether so. + +"For," she said, "it was but a week since, as we sat together on the +side of the moor yonder, that he repeated to me a sentence of the Roman +Emperor's, whose works he ever carrieth about with him, in which he +bids a wise man expect each day to meet with idle men and fools and +busybodies and arrogant men. But that, your father said, was to bid a +man shut himself up alone in a high tower, whence he should look down +upon his fellows instead of mixing with them and trying to understand +them. Expect rather, he said, to meet each day with honest, kindly +men; in which expectation if you be disappointed, then consider whether +the cause of offence lieth not in you; the other man being full as +likely to be inoffensive as yourself." + +Of time he was wont to say, "When one says to you: There is no time +like the present, reply to him that indeed there is no time but the +present: future and past being but as graven figures on a milestone +which a man readeth and passeth upon his road." + +"In order to the greatest happiness in this life," he said, "it is well +freely to give to others all they shall require at your hands, being +well assured that they will readily leave you in the enjoyment of that +the only real possession of yours, which is your thoughts." + +To Idonia, who once asked him why he had never written down the rules +he lived by, he answered with his grave smile that rules were the false +scent, subtle or obvious, with which the escaping outlaw, thought, +deludes its pursuers, sworn of the law. + +But the speech that hath struck the deepest in me was spoken when he +gave Idonia, as he did, that picture of my mother, of whom he said (but +not of himself) that she had known a world of sorrow, and after awhile +added that "he believed ere she died she had found her sorrow fashioned +to a splendid gift." + +I accurately remember the last day he lived, in every least accident of +it: the sense of beauty that all things seemed to have above the +ordinary, and the stillness that clung about the Combe. + +We had gone up, all three, and old Peter Sprot with us, to a little +coppice of firs upon the moor side, to see a squadron of the Queen's +ships, that went down the Channel under the command of Sir Richard +Grenville, who was lately appointed to survey the defences of the West, +and to marshal the trained bands that had been put into readiness +against the expected, but long delayed, invasion of the Spanish. + +Our talk was naturally of war, and the chances we had to withstand so +notable an army as was gathering against us, upon which my father said, +very quiet, that the principal thing was never victory, but the not +being afraid. Later on, as if pursuing a train of thought that this +observation had set him on, he said-- + +"That which we are accustomed to call the future hath been by the elder +men of all ages generally despaired of, or at the least feared; and I +think it always will be so, for an old man's courage naturally turneth +backward to the past and occupieth itself in enlarging the obstacles +himself hath overcome, which no young man again might do; and this +maketh him fearful, and oftentimes angry too." + +He paused there upon Idonia's pointing with her finger to the Admiral +that just then shook out her standard from the mast-head, but presently +proceeded, smiling: "Had England not already a motto to her shield I +would petition the Heralds to subscribe these words beneath it, that in +what estate so ever we be found, we be neither angry nor afraid." + +He sat silent after that, and I thought seemed to fetch his breath +something uneasily. However, he lay back against the bole of a fir +awhile as resting himself. + +"Of ourselves too," he went on at length, "I would have it written when +we die, not that we did no wrong, for of none may that be said, but +that as we entered into life without knowledge, so we departed from it +without shame. For to be ashamed is to deny." + +He closed his eyes then, and we thought slept. But when the ships had +gone by, Peter Sprot touched my arm and pointed to him. He was already +dead. + +We bore him down through the golden sunlight, strangely troubled, but I +think, too, filled with the thought of the majesty of such a dying. +And I was glad his end was upon the hills, rather than in the valley; +for life is ever an ascending, or should be, and to its consummation +reacheth with face upturned toward the vehicle of light. + + + + +THE END. + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Idonia: A Romance of Old London, by +Arthur F. 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