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

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."

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—

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.