Читать книгу Idonia: A Romance of Old London - Arthur Frederick Wallis - Страница 3

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)—

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."

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

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.