Читать книгу For God and Gold - Julian Stafford Corbett - Страница 6

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So passed by the full days of my boyhood; I living, as I have said, chiefly at Ashtead in Harry Waldyve's company.

It was not alone in devouring grammar, and such dry bones of cosmography as Mr. Follet allowed us to pick, that our time was spent. Sir Fulke was not a man to keep boys wholly to such work. Although he had managed to acquire some show of skill in theology when King Henry brought it into fashion at Court, yet even that I soon saw had fallen into sad confusion in his mind, and in no sense was he a scholar.

Yet in all such pastimes and pleasant labours as are used in open places and the daylight, which in respect of peace or war are not only comely and decent, but also very necessary for a courtly gentleman to use—in these he still showed the remains of his former high skill, or at least a happy trick of imparting to us his great knowledge of their mysteries.

Almost every day he would have us out and exercise us under his own eye at riding, running at the ring and tilt, and in playing with weapons, being especially careful of our fence with the sword and spiked target. Like his master King Henry, he had a great love and skill for using the bow. This he taught us to use, and less willingly also the harquebuss.

We had little time for the sea—an element, as my guardian was wont to say, which sorted less with what pertained to a gentleman than the land. Yet he did not forbid it, and whenever he went up to the Court, which was not seldom, we laid aside awhile our courtly exercises, and were continually amongst the marshes and Saltings with Mr. Drake's boys, 'Isti dracones horrendi,' as Mr. Follet was wont to ease his mind by calling them.

After Sir Fulke's returns from Court it was always our scholarship that had the upper hand. For he was wise enough to see how things were changing at Court, and came back overflowing with praises of the young Queen's beauty and learning.

''Slight, lads,' he would say, 'she puts you both to shame, and goes beyond all young gentlemen of her time in the excellency of her learning. I tell you it is a sight to make England weep for joy to see her stand up, so fair and courteous, and make her speech in Latin, or French, or Spanish, or Italian, to the jabbering foreigners that come. And as for the Greek; why, Mr. Roger Ascham tells me she reads more of it with him in a day at Windsor than any prebendary of the church doth Latin in a week; he should know, seeing he had the setting forward of all her most excellent gifts of learning.'

'Then must we be double courtiers, sir,' said Harry, 'and court learning and the Queen as well, if we want to keep the Court, or the Queen shall have but half-courtiers.'

'Half-courtiers or double courtiers,' said Sir Fulke, 'I know that he who is out of learning will soon find himself out of Court.'

'Then is he in an evil case,' laughed Harry, 'for he that is out of Court is out of his suit, and he that is out of his suit shall be shamed unless he quickly suit himself with another. Come, Jasper, let us get Mr. Follet to make us breeches to go to Court with.'

And away he would run to his work, while Sir Fulke laughed at his boy's trick of turning words upside down. For he soon got the ways of that tripping wit which, it must be said, has since come to make far better passwords to places at Court than ever a hard-witted scholar could learn, did he read twice as much Greek as Mr. Ascham himself.

I say not this in envy, though I was too hard-witted ever to come by the trick. Harry's gifts were dearer to me than my own, and, God knows, I loved him for them, and never in my life envied him anything, except once, but for the present time let that pass.

Some three years after my father's death thus passed away before the sad day came when Harry and I were forced to separate, since our paths led diversely. It was high time that I should go to Cambridge, according to my father's wish. Sir Fulke's faith in scholarship was not large enough for him to suffer Harry to do the like. For him a place was found in the household of that most godly and warlike nobleman, Sir Francis Russell, Earl of Bedford, who was godfather to Frank Drake, since his renowned father, the first earl, being very earnest for the Reformation party, had been a good friend of Mr. Drake's when he lived at Tavistock.

Since my father's death I had known no day so sad as that on which I took my departure for Cambridge in company with Mr. Follet, who at my charges was to install me safely in Trinity College.

Harry rode with us as far as Gravesend, where we were to take the river for London. Mr. Drake, too, joined us at Rochester, and, riding by my side on his shaggy cob, beguiled the way with much good advice as to how I should bear myself at the University.

'I am, in a great measure,' said he, 'out of my former opinion against your becoming a scholar, not only because of the excellent parts I can see in you, which it were a sin to swathe in a napkin, but also because you will find that certain stout hearts amongst the godly, to whom I have written concerning you, are fast getting the upper hand at Cambridge. So that, I doubt not, you shall find yourself set amongst many goodly plants, with whom you shall grow to bear fruit medicinable for the purging away of all the clogging papistical humours that still be left to fester in the stomach of Reformation.'

'He were but a bitter tree,' laughed Harry, 'did he bear but purges.'

'A most wrong conclusion, my malapert Hal,' answered Mr. Drake; 'for your bitter pill is a sovereign sweetening of the inwards; and you shall find, moreover, that much fruit which grows at Court, though sweet in the mouth, is, for the most part, most bitter in the belly.'

'Then,' cried Harry, 'have I learnt a most notable piece of science, and can henceforth tell why courtiers' tongues are sweet and scholars' bitter. Still, I will be a courtier with a tongue tuned to sweet courtesy, and leave bitter railing to scholars.'

'Go, thou madcap,' chuckled Mr. Drake, whom Harry could never offend; 'go cry "Words, come and play with me," for surely thou wast born their play-fellow.'

Mr. Drake then fell to tell me, as he had a score of times before, that Trinity was the worthiest college in England, since it was that which his good friend, the renowned Earl of Bedford, had chosen for Frank's godfather, Lord Russell.

So largely did he speak of this and of the shining light that the young Earl had proved himself there, that his talk carried us all the way to Gravesend, where, most sadly, we bade adieu to him and Harry. As the strong flowing tide carried us up the beautiful Thames my spirits grew lighter; for I was not without comfort to soften the grief of my first parting with my brother.

As I never attained to his wit and skill in courtly exercises, being in no way apt thereto either by birth or nature, so I may say, since all men know it, in things pertaining to scholarship he was but a child beside me. I know not if I was unduly proud of all I had attained to under Mr. Follet's guidance, yet of a surety I know he was unduly proud to bring me to Cambridge.

'Were it not unworthy of a scholar, Jasper,' said the worthy man, as we sat in the tilt-boat that was carrying us to London, 'I could bring my heart to envy you the many and great delights that await you whither we are going. Most profitably have you attended to my precepts, and eschewing the light of experience, by which the vulgar walk, have trusted to books, which are the only true guide. Such well-fashioned vessels as I have made you it is now again the delight of Alma Mater to fill with her choicest nectar.'

'Did she, then, once choose other vessels?' asked I.

'Alas, dear discipulus, yes,' answered Mr. Pellet, with a little flush on his wan cheek; 'and then it was that I was cast forth. It was when those Elysian days, whereof the memory is a sweet savour to me still, were ended—the days when it was my happy fortune to find a place amongst that unmatched garland of fellows and scholars with which Dr. Medcalfe crowned St. John's College when he was Master, and afterwards when I was chosen out to be a most unworthy member of the new-founded house of Trinity. It was an honour I had little hoped to win; for (not to speak too much, because of the love I still bear to my old and dear college) this royal Trinity which our glorious King Henry founded, that colonia of St. John's, that matre pulchra filia pulchrior, to which you, I hope most humbly and reverently, are about to belong, I hold, above all foundations, learned or unlearned, that the world has ever seen, to be the most noble, princely, and magnificent.'

'What made you, then, leave so honourable a state?' asked I as he paused, as if lost in musing on the glories of our college.

'That is soon told,' said he sadly. 'The days I speak of ended with the most precious life of our scholar king. It was there, if I may make free with the fine figure of my most worthy friend, Mr. Roger Ascham, that the Hog of Rome passed over the seas into that most fair garden of Cambridge, and set to to root out the fair plants that were growing there, and tread them under his cloven feet. Then the blighting breath of idolatry carried seeds of tares thither, which, taking root, throve most rankly amidst the pollution that beast had made, till ignorance choked out scholarship, and I fled.'

'Surely, sir,' said I, for much talk with Mr. Drake had increased the hot opinions that were born in me; 'surely the breath of the beast of Rome is no better than the vapours from the mouth of hell.'

'Soft and fair, Jasper,' said the old scholar, 'soft and fair. Such words sit ill on a scholar's lips. Carry not the rancour of these present times into the holy shrine whither you go. The memory of the ruin that befell that fair-built fabric did somewhat carry me beyond the terms of good manners. Do not you follow me. As you love learning, help to guard the doors of yonder dear place against the savage turmoil of these shifting times.'

'Must a scholar, then,' said I, 'forget his religion and what he owes to his God?'

'No, not that, lad,' answered Mr. Follet, looking a little pained. 'Your most glorious college was, under the king's grace, as its charter recites, divinely appointed for the purpose of bringing the pure truth of Christianity into the realm, and repelling the nefarious and enormous abuses of the Roman papacy.'

'Then will I strive,' said I, 'with my college to do what King Henry said.'

'That is well, lad,' answered my poor tutor, without losing his troubled look. 'Still there is no need to forget your scholarship in doing parson's work. By learning shall you withstand Rome more than by controversy and railing. Love a scholar when you meet him, though he hate not Rome. Love him for his learning's sake, and forget Rome. Such was the way in the old days, when good Dr. Medcalfe was Master of St. John's.'

I saw how pained he was to think that the cargo he had laden with such care might be wrecked on the stormy seas which he could perceive ahead. So I said no more then, but contented myself with watching the multitudes of swans that came about us and the shipping which we passed, and with asking a hundred questions about the towns and villages on the banks, as well as of the great city which lay before, till by dark our sturdy rowers ceased their work at Paul's Chain, and we landed.

We lay but one night in London, and came to Cambridge on the fourth day. There Mr. Follet at once carried me to Dr. Beaumont, that I might be entered at Trinity.

The Doctor, as I must call him, though at that time he was only admitted B.D., was a man of about forty years of age, of good breeding and presence. In my eyes he seemed a very great person indeed, and my respect for good Mr. Follet was never so great as when I saw with what honour and affection the Master of Trinity received him.

'I have brought you a scholar, Beaumont,' said Mr. Follet, after very hearty commendations had passed between them, 'after my own heart; one who has imbibed the true principles of Aristotle, and is untainted with any new empiric heresy. I have taught him well in our own faith—to love learning, and despise experience as the common school-house of fools.'

'Ah, Follet,' said Dr. Beaumont, laying his hand on my tutor's shoulder fondly, and speaking to him smilingly, as though he had been a child, 'happy are you to have kept your scholarship so pure. Let us hope your scholar will do no worse, though, God knows, these are tainting times, and Cambridge grows so full of railing that ere long, I think, there will be no room left for the gentle disputations of scholars.'

With that he dismissed us to his brother, Mr. John Beaumont, the Vice-Master; who showed me where my lodging was to be in King's Hall, not far from the great gateway of King Edward.

How proud I felt as I sat that afternoon looking out upon the little court, for that was before Dr. Neville had pulled down the old buildings to make the present great court, which is now the envy of every college in Europe!

Cambridge seemed to me a hall of Paradise, and Trinity its daïs. In spite of what Dr. Beaumont had said, I looked forward to dwelling in it as in a realm where the pure quintessence of learning should reign over a quiet band of brothers, who in the impassive contemplation of wisdom should have lost all hate, and fear, and sorrow.

Suddenly my meditation was disturbed by a loud shout, and I saw a number of students surge tumultuously out of an archway into the court. In their midst was an effigy with an ox's skull for a head, clearly made to counterfeit the devil. This they had clothed in a surplice, and crowned with a square cap.

It seemed to delight them beyond measure; for while one held the thing the rest danced round it, laughing and shouting, and singing ribald verselets against it. Gradually they drew near the window of one of the fellows, named Saunderson, who was University Reader in Logic, and fell to crying, 'Fasting Johnnie, Fasting Johnnie, come and welcome your master, who is here to speak with you.'

Therewith Mr. Saunderson ran at them with a cudgel, but they drove him back, so that he could not come at the devil in the surplice.

By this time the uproar had brought a number of students to the gate, and Mr. Saunderson, seeing amongst them a number of King's College men, cried out, 'To me, to me, all lovers of the old faith, and stay this sacrilege.'

There was a rush from the gate at the effigy in answer to his call, and in a few moments I could see my college was being worsted. That was enough for me in the first blush of my pride, and, without thinking, I rushed down and out into the court, just in time to seize the effigy as it was being carried out of the gate.

What followed beyond a wild turmoil, in which I was fighting like the Drake boys themselves, I cannot say, but soon I knew I was standing in the midst of the court with the tattered effigy in my hands and my fellow-students shouting round me as if their lungs must burst.

At every pause in their shouting I could hear the voices of the Vice-Master and Mr. Saunderson railing at each other in a corner of the court with such good will, that every moment I thought it would come to blows.

I was feeling very proud of what I had done, though scarcely knew in the din what to do next, when all at once I saw a grave-looking young man standing in the gateway, which was now shut, and by his side my poor tutor looking at me as though his heart would break.

Then at last it burst upon me what I had done. At one blow the fair fabric I had raised in my day-dreams, the oft-repeated resolution to lead the life of pure scholarship, to soar impassive on the wings of science above the little turmoils of the world—at one blow it was all gone. Ere one sun had set upon my new life I was the hero of a vulgar broil.

In an agony of shame I cast down the detested cause of my grief, and, breaking passionately through the excited throng, fled to my rooms from the reproachful, heart-rending gaze of poor Mr. Follet.

With my head buried in my arms I sat for some minutes sobbing in black despair at my table, when, as I thought, I heard him open my door and come towards me; but the step was young, firm, and resolute, as unlike as it could be to my dear old tutor's shuffle. A strong hand was laid gently on my shoulder, and I heard a deep, full-toned voice speaking to me.

'Be of good heart, Mr. Festing,' it said; 'I know why you weep, and had I not long ago hardened my heart to the battle, I could weep with you.'

I looked up, and saw the same gentleman who had been standing with my tutor in the gateway. He was a somewhat ungainly, ill-favoured young man of some eight and twenty summers, but yet I felt drawn to him, as much by reason of his kindly words as of a look there was in his face of fearless resolution, and pure-strained intellect, which a certain aspect of weary melancholy softened into what was to me a most sweet and lovable expression.

'I am Mr. Thomas Cartwright,' he went on, still looking sorrowfully upon me, 'new-made major-fellow of Trinity, with whom you are to share this lodging. I have brought this about by the kindness of the Master, because Mr. Drake had written to me concerning you, with very hearty commendations.'

'Are you a friend of Mr. Drake's, then?' asked I, feeling greatly comforted.

'Yes, Mr. Festing,' answered he; 'and also of that most high-wrought scholar, Mr. Follet. I know more of you than you know of me, and I know why you grieve. It is not hidden from me that you were minded to make sacrifice to the Lord of the good parts He has given you, and by long hours of patient study to make them worthy His acceptance. Yet rejoice that He has shown you at your very going forth what His will is with you. Rejoice that we can say this day, as surely as Samuel did to Saul, that He has appointed you to go up with us against the Amalekites and destroy them utterly. Such is His will; and while men hearkened to Him the strong tide of Reformation flowed on in full flood under His mighty breath, till its living waters bid fair to fill the length and breadth of Christendom with their cleansing sweetness. But men wearied of the work, and spared the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and of the lambs, and destroyed them not. And now the Lord's ears are vexed with the bleating of the sheep and the lowing of the oxen amongst the people. He turns His face from them, and the tide is fast running back. Rise up, then, and do the work of the Lord. Think not of the treasure you have been laying up for Him; for, behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams!'

'Must I then abandon all scholarship,' I asked, when he had finished, 'to join in the din of these bitter controversies?'

'What could the son of Nicholas Festing wish for better?' Mr. Cartwright replied. 'For what you call bitter controversy is battle under the banner of the Lord of Hosts against the Amalekite. Moreover, you need not lay aside scholarship, but you must labour thereat, even as I have done, to make of it a weapon wherewith at last you shall hew Agag in pieces before the Lord.'

With such words he encouraged me not only then, but daily, till ere a term was half over I was as hot a young Puritan as any in Cambridge. I cannot blame myself that I so quickly made surrender to that remarkable young man, whom St. John's and my college were bidding against each other to possess, and who has since made so great a stir in England, becoming the very head and heart of the Puritan party.

I had not even good Mr. Follet's influence to help me, for he left Cambridge a few days after to take up his place as tutor to Harry and one or two other young gentlemen about the Court, to whom he had been commended by his good friend Mr. Ascham, a man who at that time was the very oracle of the nobility on all such matters.

I was glad enough my tutor was spared any further sight of the ill-conditioned state of his university, and, above all, the hornets' nest which I soon found my unhappy exploit had stirred up.

It was some days after his departure that I was sitting at the window of my lodging pretending to read, but in truth listening to the Vice-Master and Mr. Cartwright, who were talking over Mr. Saunderson's recent expulsion from his fellowship.

'And how think you the Vice-Chancellor will take it?' said Mr. Cartwright thoughtfully.

'Who cares how?' said Mr. Beaumont hotly. 'Who cares what a Romish mule like Baker thinks? If he cannot stomach it, so much the worse for his Cretan belly.'

'And yet I think he is like to take some order in the matter,' said Mr. Cartwright, 'seeing how sturdy a papist Saunderson was.'

'Doubt not he will talk big enough,' answered the Vice-Master. 'He thinks because he is Provost of King's he can lift up his head over Trinity men. Yet let him beware, or he shall find that Pharaoh will lift up the head of the King's Baker from off his shoulders, and good Protestant fowls shall eat the flesh from off him. And besides, what order can he take? For if we cannot expel a fellow for observing fasts and particular days, not to speak of using allegory and citing Plato when publicly discoursing on the Scriptures, we may just as well write ourselves heathen idolaters and Italian atheists at once.'

At this moment I heard the tramp of armed men below the window, and, looking out, I perceived the Proctor with the beadles and his watch in the court below halting at our staircase. At that time the Proctor's watch always went at night harnessed with good morions and corselets, for fear of the Mayor's constable and his men, but it was not common to see them so by day.

Mr. Proctor demanded admittance in the Vice-Chancellor's name, and therewith entered the room with the beadles and two halberdiers, whose bright armour seemed strangely out of place in our dim and dusty lodging.

'I arrest you, John Beaumont,' said the Proctor, 'for brawling and other offences against the peace and dignity of our Lady the Queen and this University.'

'At whose suit?' asked the Vice-Master.

'At Mr. Saunderson's,' he answered. 'Here is the warrant; I pray you come peaceably.'

'Oh, I will come gladly enough!' said Mr. Beaumont, 'if it were only to enjoy the discomfiture it will bring the King's Baker when Sir William Cecil hears of it. Thank God, we have a Chancellor who knows my brother and me for true men, and can make a traitor's ears tingle—ay, and his back too. Let my brother know all, Mr. Cartwright, and pray him write without delay to Sir William.'

The Proctor looked a little troubled at the mention of the great Secretary of State, but still he performed his task, and our Vice-Master was conducted to prison. And there indeed he lay till an answer came down from Sir William, with such a stinging reprimand for Dr. Baker that he was glad enough to release Mr. Beaumont and eat his humble pie, thanking God it was no worse.

Were I to speak at greater length of Cambridge as it was at that time, I should have little else to tell save ringing the changes on what happened to me in the first week of residence. Factions and contentions were our only occupation; and while the seniors quarrelled the students brawled, and grew daily more inordinate and contemptuous of rules for their orderly governance, as well in behaviour as in religion.

As for learning, it was only part and parcel with our manners. Our only philosophy was controversy concerning the ordinances of the English Church; while in grammar we studied nothing so much as how to rail in Ciceronian Latin,—and cunning professors we had, at least for the railing.

Sharing Mr. Cartwright's lodging, I was more fortunate than most. Though very earnest in the controversies, he would not neglect his scholarship nor mine. Every morning he rose between three and four, not allowing himself more than five hours' sleep, whatever happened. I rose with him, out of my love of him and learning; and pushing my trundle-bed under his standing bedstead, to make room for my stool beside him, read with him out of the books we loved so well till nigh ten o'clock, when dinner was served in the Hall.

After that the disputations in the schools began, which I always attended with him, being proud to carry the books of the most brilliant scholar and popular orator in Cambridge.

Between that and supper-time I exercised my body, as I had promised Sir Fulke, chiefly in the fencing-school. For there was newly come to Cambridge at that time an Italian master of fence, to whom all the best gentlemen in the University resorted to learn the new foining rapier play, to the great discomfiture of the teachers of sword and buckler. Moreover, I rode out continually to the artillery butts or the Gog-Magog hills, till Mr. Cartwright persuaded me to abandon the evil company that gathered there daily for pastime.

So things went with me and the University, till in the summer of the year of grace 1564 a great and notable thing for us came to pass.