Читать книгу The Armourer's Prentices - Yonge Charlotte Mary - Страница 3

“The churls!” exclaimed Stephen.

“Poor old man!” said Ambrose; “I hope they are good to him!”

“To think that thus ends all that once was gallant talk of fighting under Talbot’s banner,” sighed Stephen, thoughtful for a moment.  “However, there’s a good deal to come first.”

“Yea, and what next?” said the elder brother.

“On to uncle Hal.  I ever looked most to him.  He will purvey me to a page’s place in some noble household, and get thee a clerk’s or scholar’s place in my Lord of York’s house.  Mayhap there will be room for us both there, for my Lord of York hath a goodly following of armed men.”

“Which way lies the road to London?”

“We must back into the town and ask, as well as fill our stomachs and our wallets,” said Ambrose.  “Talk of their rule!  The entertaining of strangers is better understood at Silkstede than at Hyde.”

“Tush!  A grudged crust sticks in the gullet,” returned Stephen.  “Come on, Ambrose, I marked the sign of the White Hart by the market-place.  There will be a welcome there for foresters.”

They returned on their steps past the dilapidated buildings of the old Jewry, and presently saw the market in full activity; but the sounds and sights of busy life where they were utter strangers, gave Ambrose a sense of loneliness and desertion, and his heart sank as the bolder Stephen threaded the way in the direction of a broad entry over which stood a slender-bodied hart with gold hoofs, horns, collar, and chain.

“How now, my sons?” said a full cheery voice, and to their joy, they found themselves pushed up against Father Shoveller.

“Returned already!  Did you get scant welcome at Hyde?  Here, come where we can get a free breath, and tell me.”

They passed through the open gateway of the White Hart, into the court, but before listening to them, the monk exchanged greetings with the hostess, who stood at the door in a broad hat and velvet bodice, and demanded what cheer there was for noon-meat.

“A jack, reverend sir, eels and a grampus fresh sent up from Hampton; also fresh-killed mutton for such lay folk as are not curious of the Wednesday fast.  They are laying the board even now.”

“Lay platters for me and these two young gentlemen,” said the Augustinian.  “Ye be my guests, ye wot,” he added, “since ye tarried not for meat at Hyde.”

“Nor did they ask us,” exclaimed Stephen; “lubbers and idlers were the best words they had for us.”

“Ho! ho!  That’s the way with the brethren of St. Grimbald!  And your uncle?”

“Alas, sir, he doteth with age,” said Ambrose.  “He took Stephen for his own brother, dead under King Harry of Windsor.”

“So!  I had heard somewhat of his age and sickness.  Who was it who thrust you out?”

“A lean brother with a thin red beard, and a shrewd, puckered visage.”

“Ha!  By that token ’twas Segrim the bursar.  He wots how to drive a bargain.  St. Austin! but he deemed you came to look after your kinsman’s corrody.”

“He said the king spake of a visitation to abolish corrodies from religious houses,” said Ambrose.

“He’ll abolish the long bow from them first,” said Father Shoveller.  “Ay, and miniver from my Lord Abbot’s hood.  I’d admonish you, my good brethren of S. Grimbald, to be in no hurry for a visitation which might scarce stop where you would fain have it.  Well, my sons, are ye bound for the Forest again?  An ye be, we’ll wend back together, and ye can lie at Silkstede to-night.”

“Alack, kind father, there’s no more home for us in the Forest,” said Ambrose.

“Methought ye had a brother?”

“Yea; but our brother hath a wife.”

“Ho! ho!  And the wife will none of you?”

“She would have kept Ambrose to teach her boy his primer,” said Stephen; “but she would none of Spring nor of me.”

“We hoped to receive counsel from our uncle at Hyde,” added Ambrose.

“Have ye no purpose now?” inquired the Father, his jolly good-humoured face showing much concern.

“Yea,” manfully returned Stephen.  “’Twas what I ever hoped to do, to fare on and seek our fortune in London.”

“Ha!  To pick up gold and silver like Dick Whittington.  Poor old Spring here will scarce do you the part of his cat,” and the monk’s hearty laugh angered Stephen into muttering, “We are no fools,” but Father Shoveller only laughed the more, saying, “Fair and softly, my son, ye’ll never pick up the gold if ye cannot brook a kindly quip.  Have you friends or kindred in London?”

“Yea, that have we, sir,” cried Stephen; “our mother’s own brother, Master Randall, hath come to preferment there in my Lord Archbishop of York’s household, and hath sent us tokens from time to time, which we will show you.”

“Not while we be feasting,” said Father Shoveller, hastily checking Ambrose, who was feeling in his bosom.  “See, the knaves be bringing their grampus across the court.  Here, we’ll clean our hands, and be ready for the meal;” and he showed them, under a projecting gallery in the inn yard a stone trough, through which flowed a stream of water, in which he proceeded to wash his hands and face, and to wipe them in a coarse towel suspended nigh at hand.  Certainly after handling sheep freely there was need, though such ablutions were a refinement not indulged in by all the company who assembled round the well-spread board of the White Hart for the meal after the market.  They were a motley company.  By the host’s side sat a knight on his way home from pilgrimage to Compostella, or perhaps a mission to Spain, with a couple of squires and other attendants, and converse of political import seemed to be passing between him and a shrewd-looking man in a lawyer’s hood and gown, the recorder of Winchester, who preferred being a daily guest at the White Hart to keeping a table of his own.  Country franklins and yeomen, merchants and men-at-arms, palmers and craftsmen, friars and monks, black, white, and grey, and with almost all, Father Shoveller had greeting or converse to exchange.  He knew everybody, and had friendly talk with all, on canons or crops, on war or wool, on the prices of pigs or prisoners, on the news of the country side, or on the perilous innovations in learning at Oxford, which might, it was feared, even affect St. Mary’s College at Winchester.

He did not affect outlandish fishes himself, and dined upon pike, but observing the curiosity of his guests, he took good care to have them well supplied with grampus; also in due time with varieties of the pudding and cake kind which had never dawned on their forest-bred imagination, and with a due proportion of good ale—the same over which the knight might be heard rejoicing, and lauding far above the Spanish or French wines, on which he said he had been half starved.

Father Shoveller mused a good deal over his pike and its savoury stuffing.  He was not by any means an ideal monk, but he was equally far from being a scandal.  He was the shrewd man of business and manager of his fraternity, conducting the farming operations and making all the bargains, following his rule respectably according to the ordinary standard of his time, but not rising to any spirituality, and while duly observing the fast day, as to the quality of his food, eating with the appetite of a man who lived in the open fields.

But when their hunger was appeased, with many a fragment given to Spring, the young Birkenholts, wearied of the endless talk that was exchanged over the tankard, began to grow restless, and after exchanging signs across Father Shoveller’s solid person, they simultaneously rose, and began to thank him and say they must pursue their journey.

“How now, not so fast, my sons,” said the Father; “tarry a bit, I have more to say to thee.  Prayers and provender, thou knowst—I’ll come anon.  So, sir, didst say yonder beggarly Flemings haggle at thy price for thy Southdown fleeces.  Weight of dirt forsooth!  Do not we wash the sheep in the Poolhole stream, the purest water in the shire?”

Manners withheld Ambrose from responding to Stephen’s hot impatience, while the merchant in the sleek puce-coloured coat discussed the Flemish wool market with the monk for a good half-hour longer.

By this time the knight’s horses were brought into the yard, and the merchant’s men had made ready his palfrey, his pack-horse being already on the way; the host’s son came round with the reckoning, and there was a general move.  Stephen expected to escape, and hardly could brook the good-natured authority with which Father Shoveller put Ambrose aside, when he would have discharged their share of the reckoning, and took it upon himself.  “Said I not ye were my guests?” quoth he.  “We missed our morning mass, it will do us no harm to hear Nones in the Minster.”

“Sir, we thank you, but we should be on our way,” said Ambrose, incited by Stephen’s impatient gestures.

“Tut, tut.  Fair and softly, my son, or more haste may be worse speed.  Methought ye had somewhat to show me.”

Stephen’s youthful independence might chafe, but the habit of submission to authorities made him obediently follow the monk out at the back entrance of the inn, behind which lay the Minster yard, the grand western front rising in front of them, and the buildings of St. Swithun’s Abbey extending far to their right.  The hour was nearly noon, and the space was deserted, except for an old woman sitting at the great western doorway with a basket of rosaries made of nuts and of snail shells, and a workman or two employed on the bishop’s new reredos.

“Now for thy tokens,” said Father Shoveller.  “See my young foresters, ye be new to the world.  Take an old man’s counsel, and never show, nor speak of such gear in an hostel.  Mine host of the White Hart is an old gossip of mine, and indifferent honest, but who shall say who might be within earshot?”

Stephen had a mind to say that he did not see why the meddling monk should wish to see them at all, and Ambrose looked a little reluctant, but Father Shoveller said in his good-humoured way, “As you please, young sirs.  ’Tis but an old man’s wish to see whether he can do aught to help you, that you be not as lambs among wolves.  Mayhap ye deem ye can walk into London town, and that the first man you meet can point you to your uncle—Randall call ye him?—as readily as I could show you my brother, Thomas Shoveller of Granbury.  But you are just as like to meet with some knave who might cozen you of all you have, or mayhap a beadle might take you up for vagabonds, and thrust you in the stocks, or ever you get to London town; so I would fain give you some commendation, an I knew to whom to make it, and ye be not too proud to take it.”

“You are but too good to us, sir,” said Ambrose, quite conquered, though Stephen only half believed in the difficulties.  The Father took them within the west door of the Minster, and looking up and down the long arcade of the southern aisle to see that no one was watching, he inspected the tokens, and cross-examined them on their knowledge of their uncle.

His latest gift, the rosary, had come by the hand of Friar Hurst, a begging Minorite of Southampton, who had it from another of his order at Winchester, who had received it from one of the king’s archers at the Castle, with a message to Mistress Birkenholt that it came from her brother, Master Randall, who had good preferment in London, in the house of my Lord Archbishop of York, without whose counsel King Henry never stirred.  As to the coming of the agate and the pouncet box, the minds of the boys were very hazy.  They knew that the pouncet box had been conveyed through the attendants of the Abbot of Beaulieu, but they were only sure that from that time the belief had prevailed with their mother that her brother was prospering in the house of the all-powerful Wolsey.  The good Augustinian, examining the tokens, thought they gave colour to that opinion.  The rosary and agate might have been picked up in an ecclesiastical household, and the lid of the pouncet box was made of a Spanish coin, likely to have come through some of the attendants of Queen Katharine.

“It hath an appearance,” he said.  “I marvel whether there be still at the Castle this archer who hath had speech with Master Randall, for if ye know no more than ye do at present, ’tis seeking a needle in a bottle of hay.  But see, here come the brethren that be to sing Nones—sinner that I am, to have said no Hours since the morn, being letted with lawful business.”

Again the unwilling Stephen had to submit.  There was no feeling for the incongruous in those days, and reverence took very different directions from those in which it now shows itself, so that nobody had any objection to Spring’s pacing gravely with the others towards the Lady Chapel, where the Hours were sung, since the Choir was in the hands of workmen, and the sound of chipping stone could be heard from it, where Bishop Fox’s elaborate lace-work reredos was in course of erection.  Passing the shrine of St. Swithun, and the grand tomb of Cardinal Beaufort, where his life-coloured effigy filled the boys with wonder, they followed their leader’s example, and knelt within the Lady Chapel, while the brief Latin service for the ninth hour was sung through by the canon, clerks, and boys.  It really was the Sixth, but cumulative easy-going treatment of the Breviary had made this the usual time for it, as the name of noon still testifies.  The boys’ attention, it must be confessed, was chiefly expended on the wonderful miracles of the Blessed Virgin in fresco on the walls of the chapel, all tending to prove that here was hope for those who said their Ave in any extremity of fire or flood.

Nones ended, Father Shoveller, with many a halt for greeting or for gossip, took the lads up the hill towards the wide fortified space where the old Castle and royal Hall of Henry of Winchester looked down on the city, and after some friendly passages with the warder at the gate, Father Shoveller explained that he was in quest of some one recently come from court, of whom the striplings in his company could make inquiry concerning a kinsman in the household of my Lord Archbishop of York.  The warder scratched his head, and bethinking himself that Eastcheap Jockey was the reverend.  Father’s man, summoned a horse-boy to call that worthy.

“Where was he?”

“Sitting over his pottle in the Hall,” was the reply, and the monk, with a laugh savouring little of asceticism, said he would seek him there, and accordingly crossed the court to the noble Hall, with its lofty dark marble columns, and the Round Table of King Arthur suspended at the upper end.  The governor of the Castle had risen from his meal long ago, but the garrison in the piping times of peace would make their ration of ale last as far into the afternoon as their commanders would suffer.  And half a dozen men still sat there, one or two snoring, two playing at dice on a clear corner of the board, and another, a smart well-dressed fellow in a bright scarlet jerkin, laying down the law to a country bumpkin, who looked somewhat dazed.  The first of these was, as it appeared, Eastcheap Jockey, and there was something both of the readiness and the impudence of the Londoner in his manner, when he turned to answer the question.  He knew many in my Lord of York’s house—as many as a man was like to know where there was a matter of two hundred folk between clerks and soldiers, he had often crushed a pottle with them.  No; he had never heard of one called Randall, neither in hat nor cowl, but he knew more of them by face than by name, and more by byname than surname or christened name.  He was certainly not the archer who had brought a token for Mistress Birkenholt, and his comrades all avouched equal ignorance on the subject.  Nothing could be gained there, and while Father Shoveller rubbed his bald head in consideration, Stephen rose to take leave.

“Look you here, my fair son,” said the monk.  “Starting at this hour, though the days be long, you will not reach any safe halting place with daylight, whereas by lying a night in this good city, you might reach Alton to-morrow, and there is a home where the name of Brother Shoveller will win you free lodging and entertainment.”

“And to-night, good Father?” inquired Ambrose.

“That will I see to, if ye will follow me.”

Stephen was devoured with impatience during the farewells in the Castle, but Ambrose represented that the good man was giving them much of his time, and that it would be unseemly and ungrateful to break from him.

“What matter is it of his?  And why should he make us lose a whole day?” grumbled Stephen.

“What special gain would a day be to us?” sighed Ambrose.  “I am thankful that any should take heed for us.”

“Ay, you love leading-strings,” returned Stephen.  “Where is he going now?  All out of our way!”

Father Shoveller, however, as he went down the Castle hill, explained that the Warden of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital was his friend, and knowing him to have acquaintance among the clergy of St. Paul’s, it would be well to obtain a letter of commendation from him, which might serve them in good stead in case they were disappointed of finding their uncle at once.

“It would be better for Spring to have a little more rest,” thought Stephen, thus mitigating his own longing to escape from the monks and friars, of whom Winchester seemed to be full.

They had a kindly welcome in the pretty little college of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, lying in the meadows between William of Wykeham’s College and the round hill of St. Catharine.  The Warden was a more scholarly and ecclesiastical-looking person than his friend, the good-natured Augustinian.  After commending them to his care, and partaking of a drink of mead, the monk of Silkstede took leave of the youths, with a hearty blessing and advice to husband their few crowns, not to tell every one of their tokens, and to follow the counsel of the Warden of St. Elizabeth’s, assuring them that if they turned back to the Forest, they should have a welcome at Silkstede.  Moreover he patted Spring pitifully, and wished him and his master well through the journey.

St. Elizabeth’s College was a hundred years older than its neighbour St. Mary’s, as was evident to practised eyes by its arches and windows, but it had been so entirely eclipsed by Wykeham’s foundation that the number of priests, students, and choir-boys it was intended to maintain, had dwindled away, so that it now contained merely the Warden, a superannuated priest, and a couple of big lads who acted as servants.  There was an air of great quietude and coolness about the pointed arches of its tiny cloister on that summer’s day, with the old monk dozing in his chair over the manuscript he thought he was reading, not far from the little table where the Warden was eagerly studying Erasmus’s Praise of Folly.  But the Birkenholts were of the age at which quiet means dulness, at least Stephen was, and the Warden had pity both on them and on himself; and hearing joyous shouts outside, he opened a little door in the cloister wall, and revealed a multitude of lads with their black gowns tucked up “a playing at the ball”—these being the scholars of St. Mary’s.  Beckoning to a pair of elder ones, who were walking up and down more quietly, he consigned the strangers to their care, sweetening the introduction by an invitation to supper, for which he would gain permission from their Warden.

One of the young Wykehamists was shy and churlish, and sheered off from the brothers, but the other catechised them on their views of becoming scholars in the college.  He pointed out the cloister where the studies took place in all weathers, showed them the hall, the chapel, and the chambers, and expatiated on the chances of attaining to New College.  Being moreover a scholarly fellow, he and Ambrose fell into a discussion over the passage of Virgil, copied out on a bit of paper, which he was learning by heart.  Some other scholars having finished their game, and become aware of the presence of a strange dog and two strange boys, proceeded to mob Stephen and Spring, whereupon the shy boy stood forth and declared that the Warden of St. Elizabeth’s had brought them in for an hour’s sport.

Of course, in such close quarters, the rival Warden was esteemed a natural enemy, and went by the name of “Old Bess,” so that his recommendation went for worse than nothing, and a dash at Spring was made by the inhospitable young savages.  Stephen stood to the defence in act to box, and the shy lad stood by him, calling for fair play and one at a time.  Of course a fight ensued, Stephen and his champion on the one side, and two assailants on the other, till after a fall on either side, Ambrose’s friend interfered with a voice as thundering as the manly crack would permit, peace was restored, Stephen found himself free of the meads, and Spring was caressed instead of being tormented.

Stephen was examined on his past, present, and future, envied for his Forest home, and beguiled into magnificent accounts, not only of the deer that had fallen to his bow and the boars that had fallen to his father’s spear, but of the honours to which his uncle in the Archbishop’s household would prefer him—for he viewed it as an absolute certainty that his kinsman was captain among the men-at-arms, whom he endowed on the spot with scarlet coats faced with black velvet, and silver medals and chains.

Whereat one of the other boys was not behind in telling how his father was pursuivant to my Lord Duke of Norfolk, and never went abroad save with silver lions broidered on back and breast, and trumpets going before; and another dwelt on the splendours of the mayor and aldermen of Southampton with their chains and cups of gold.  Stephen felt bound to surpass this with the last report that my Lord of York’s men rode Flemish steeds in crimson velvet housings, passmented with gold and gems, and of course his uncle had the leading of them.

“Who be thine uncle?” demanded a thin, squeaky voice.  “I have brothers likewise in my Lord of York’s meimé.”

“Mine uncle is Captain Harry Randall, of Shirley,” quoth Stephen magnificently, scornfully surveying the small proportions of the speaker, “What is thy brother?”

“Head turnspit,” said a rude voice, provoking a general shout of laughter; but the boy stood his ground, and said hotly: “He is page to the comptroller of my lord’s household, and waits at the second table, and I know every one of the captains.”

“He’ll say next he knows every one of the Seven Worthies,” cried another boy, for Stephen was becoming a popular character.

“And all the paladins to boot.  Come on, little Rowley!” was the cry.

“I tell you my brother is page to the comptroller of the household, and my mother dwells beside the Gate House, and I know every man of them,” insisted Rowley, waxing hot.  “As for that Forest savage fellow’s uncle being captain of the guard, ’tis more like that he is my lord’s fool, Quipsome Hal!”

Whereat there was a cry, in which were blended exultation at the hit, and vituperation of the hitter.  Stephen flew forward to avenge the insult, but a big bell was beginning to ring, a whole wave of black gowns rushed to obey it, sweeping little Rowley away with them; and Stephen found himself left alone with his brother and the two lads who had been invited to St. Elizabeth’s, and who now repaired thither with them.

The supper party in the refectory was a small one, and the rule of the foundation limited the meal to one dish and a pittance, but the dish was of savoury eels, and the Warden’s good nature had added to it some cates and comfits in consideration of his youthful guests.

After some conversation with the elder Wykehamist, the Warden called Ambrose and put him through an examination on his attainments, which proved so satisfactory, that it ended in an invitation to the brothers to fill two of the empty scholarships of the college of the dear St. Elizabeth.  It was a good offer, and one that Ambrose would fain have accepted, but Stephen had no mind for the cloister or for learning.

The Warden had no doubt that he could be apprenticed in the city of Winchester, since the brother at home had in keeping a sum sufficient for the fee.  Though the trade of “capping” had fallen off, there were still good substantial burgesses who would be willing to receive an active lad of good parentage, some being themselves of gentle blood.  Stephen, however, would not brook the idea.  “Out upon you, Ambrose!” said he, “to desire to bind your own brother to base mechanical arts.”

“’Tis what Nurse Joan held to be best for us both,” said Ambrose.

“Joan!  Yea, like a woman, who deems a man safest when he is a tailor, or a perfumer.  An you be minded to stay here with a black gown and a shaven crown, I shall on with Spring and come to preferment.  Maybe thou’lt next hear of me when I have got some fat canonry for thee.”

“Nay, I quit thee not,” said Ambrose.  “If thou fare forward, so do I.  But I would thou couldst have brought thy mind to rest there.”

“What! wouldst thou be content with this worn-out place, with more churches than houses, and more empty houses than full ones?  No! let us on where there is something doing!  Thou wilt see that my Lord of York will have room for the scholar as well as the man-at-arms.”

So the kind offer was declined, but Ambrose was grieved to see that the Warden thought him foolish, and perhaps ungrateful.

Nevertheless the good man gave them a letter to the Reverend Master Alworthy, singing clerk at St. Paul’s Cathedral, telling Ambrose it might serve them in case they failed to find their uncle, or if my Lord of York’s household should not be in town.  He likewise gave them a recommendation which would procure them a night’s lodging at the Grange, and after the morning’s mass and meat, sped them on their way with his blessing, muttering to himself, “That elder one might have been the staff of mine age!  Pity on him to be lost in the great and evil City!  Yet ’tis a good lad to follow that fiery spark his brother.  Tanquam agnus inter lupos.  Alack!”