Chapter Six.

Chapter Six.A Weary Journey.The first sensation had been one of deliverance. The second was more like despair.The waves breaking against rocks and shore looked more terrible than out in the open sea, and this sudden rush for safety on the part of the men had something about it so cowardly that it produced in Stephen a wretched sense of desolation. He supposed that in another moment Andrew would have followed his fellow sailors, and they would be left alone. Andrew had in fact rushed to the bows as the men leaped over, and Stephen, bitter in spirit at such a cruel desertion, strained his boy in his arms so that, if he could do no more, he might at least hide death from him.He almost started when he heard a voice. The master was standing over him with a face full of rage.“The cowardly loons!” he cried; “I would the waves had choked them! No Devon man would have played such a trick. I knew they were helpless oafs, but to save their skins like that! If they had stopped it would have been easy enough, but now we must think how to get thee on shore.” Stephen sprang up.“Think not on me. My life is nothing. Save Hugh, and I ask no more.”Andrew stared at him and began to laugh.“Prithee, dost thou suppose I should leave thee here to drown? Why one of thy precious drones’ hive would scarce be so unmanly, though, in truth, I can say nought against them after those base knaves of mine. But now, see here, if I fasten a rope round the mast—which will hold yet awhile—and go ashore with the other end, canst thou find thy way?”“The boy first.”“Ay, the boy first, and the monkey with him, if the beast has the sense to hold on. Thou wilt want both hands for thyself, Hugh.”“I will tie him to me,” cried the boy, hopefully. His hopes had risen with Andrew’s cheerfulness, and as for Bassett, with the revulsion of feeling, a new and extraordinary strength seemed to have come to him; he helped the master to fasten the rope securely, and stood, unheeding the buffet of wind and waves, watching the sailor when he had cast himself into the sea, and was fighting his way towards the shore. Once or twice he was sucked back by the retreating water and nigh overwhelmed, and the time seemed endless before they made out that he had gained a footing, and was with the other men on the beach. His shout only faintly touched their ears.“Now, Hugh,” said Bassett firmly.They had bound poor Agrippa as closely to him as they could, while round his own neck the carver had disposed a bag with money and such small specimens of his workmanship as were portable. His tools he was reluctantly obliged to leave behind him; his breathing could bear no further weight.“Thou wilt be sorely scratched by Agrippa,” he said. He was so hopeful he could smile. But the monkey was so cowed that he only clung closely, turning his head piteously from side to side, and realising that something terrible was about to happen. Hugh bore himself manfully.One or two of the sailors who had escaped, finding themselves safe, were ready to help Andrew with the rope, and though the boy was half choked and sorely beaten by the waves, he held on, reaching the shore after a tremendous tussle, by the end of which he was so spent that he fancied he must drop, when he felt himself clutched by Andrew and drawn through the remaining waves. He lay for a time exhausted on the beach; but life was young and strong in him, and he staggered to his feet, tried to comfort and warm the poor monkey, and to watch for his father’s coming.Andrew had scarcely thought that Bassett would have the strength to bear the passage through the surf. It relieved him greatly to find that the carver was slowly nearing the shore. Now and then he disappeared under the crest of a great wave, but he always reappeared, holding on with a tenacity which was little less than miraculous. Andrew, though even his strength was pretty well spent, again cast himself into the sea to help him in his last struggle, and the carver by his aid managed to reach the shore, but in so terrible a plight that Hugh cried out and flung himself by his side.And now a very dreadful thing happened, for, as Stephen lay there like a log and Hugh knelt calling on him to look up, the waves, which had but just had their prey snatched from them, as if they meant to show that in another case they had had their way, brought up something large and dark and motionless, and flung it at their very feet; and while Hugh, scarcely recognising what it was, yet shrank from it as from some fearful thing, two of the men ran hastily down and seized and dragged it beyond the water’s reach. Hugh caught the face then, and gave a cry of horror; it was the boy Jakes—dead.He must have swooned after this, for when he came to himself again he was lying higher up, at the mouth of a small natural cave formed in the sandstone rock. His father sat by him, and in the cave a fire of brushwood had been lit, close to which crouched Agrippa, munching black rye bread soaked in sea water, and jabbering with satisfaction.“Father,” said the boy, sitting up and rubbing his eyes, “are we safe?”“Saved by a miracle, my little lad.”“But Jakes—his face—what was it!”“He was drowned,” said Bassett, gravely; “he never got to land with the others. Eat some of this bread; I had it in my pocket.”“Is anyone else drowned?” asked Hugh, shuddering.“No, thank Heaven! And the master has gone off to see if perchance there might be some hut or cottage near where we can get lodging for the night and means of reaching Exeter.”“Father, you must be spent. Think no more of me. Sit by the fire, and take off your clothes to dry.”Hugh was almost himself again, although evidently deeply shocked at the death of Jakes, and with the burden on him of remorse for unkind thoughts which is hard to bear. But fire and food comforted them all in some measure, and Andrew came back before long to tell them that he had been lucky enough to reach a serf’s hut not far away, where they could at least find shelter, with hope of a horse.“You have done everything for us, and have lost more than any,” said Bassett, gratefully.“Nay, I know not what I have lost yet,” returned the sailor. “The bales of silk and woollen are spoiled; no hope for them. But maybe, if the gale goes down, I may have my boat again. I can put up with the rest.”When they had rested awhile they made their way up through a sort of gully piercing the red cliffs. This same redstone amazed Hugh, for the pools of rain were crimson to look at, and he had never seen anything like it before. But glad enough he was to turn his back on the wild sea.“I hate it! I would I might never see it again.”“Thou wouldst be a poor crusader,” panted Stephen, whose breath was sorely tried by the ascent.They stumbled on through tussocks of grass until they reached the top, where trees grew thickly, though somewhat one-sided and windblown with south-west gales. Andrew was not with them, but he had directed them fully, and they soon came upon a rough hovel, built of a mixture of mud and straw called cob, and coarsely thatched. A wild-looking herd and a wilder-looking woman stared at them from the doorway; but though uncouth they were not unkindly, and had got a fire of logs burning, together with bread and bacon and a large tankard of cider on the table.As usual, the monkey caused the greatest astonishment, and Hugh dared not loosen his hold of him because of a sheep-dog, who growled angrily at the strange party. The other sailors were already there, eating and drinking and drying their clothes, and presently Andrew came in. He was very short and surly with the men, though, as he told Stephen afterwards, unable to cast them off altogether, as he would willingly have done, because, if there were a chance of saving the boat, he would need their help in getting her off and in sailing her. All depended upon the abatement of the gale. If the wind went down with the tide there was a chance of floating her in calmer weather and of repairing damages. She was strongly built, and, so far, showed no signs of breaking up.To Hugh’s eyes his father seemed scarcely worse or more feeble than he had often been before. He was very pale it is true, his breathing was laboured, and he had a short, sharp cough, which scarcely ceased; but he was keen to push on, and would not rest until he had urged the herd to go that evening to the sheep-farm where he worked, and where he thought a horse might be bought. They were, as Stephen ascertained, not more than fifteen or sixteen miles from Exeter, the spot where they were wrecked being a little north of the mouth of the Teign; and this he was feverishly anxious to declare they could ride in a day. A strong horse could easily carry two; it was madness for him to think of remaining where he was for rest, since if he became worse there was no means of procuring a leech.“E’en go thy way,” said Andrew, half angrily, half sadly, for he had done enough for his passengers to feel a sincere liking for them.The hut, as usual, consisted of but one smoky room, in which they all bestowed themselves for the night. Andrew saw that Stephen had the best of the miserable accommodation; but little rest came to him owing to the constant torment of his cough, and he was up as soon as the sailor and out in the air, though not strong enough to go down to the cove. But what a change was there since the former night! The wind had shifted to the south-west, and blew as softly as if it had never known violence. The sun, though not yet showing much face through misty grey clouds, filled the air with delightful promise. All the land colouring was rich and varied, for the trees, though shaken by the past storm, were in their fullest and most gorgeous autumnal colouring, and the deep red of the soil, the vivid green of the grass, and the brown of the bracken made a splendid harmony of tint.The sailors followed the master to the cove; the herd went off to his work, promising that the horse should come when the morning was a little advanced, after the nine o’clock dinner; the wife made much of Hugh; and Stephen, looking and feeling wretchedly ill, tried to wear off his restlessness by wandering towards the edge of the cliff, but his strength giving out he was forced to crawl back and sit quiet. The horse arrived, and proved a strong, serviceable beast.Stephen could scarce touch the coarse food, being too feverish. Andrew came up quite hopeful, and laden with the carver’s tools and other possessions, which, though somewhat marred by the salt water, he was thankful to see again. The woman of the house dried the clothes; all the gear was securely strapped on the horse, and then came the farewells. The master would not consent to receive a penny for the cost of the voyage.“Nay,” he said, “we feasted on the grey brothers’ good cheer, and, by my troth, I shall never have the heart to call it a drones’ hive again. One of these days Moll and I will go and have speech with Friar Luke, and let him know what befell. Nay, I tell you, I can be obstinate too, though with no hope of evening thy powers in that matter. Wonderful it is that so little mischief has been done with all that turmoil; if the poor fool Jakes had but stayed on board he would have saved his skin.”“Have a mass said for his soul,” said Stephen, pressing a little money into his hand. “Nay, thou must not refuse, it is conscience money.”“Well, it shall go to the grey brothers,” said Andrew, who seemed to limit his new-born tolerance to the one monastery. “Hearken, Hugh, if thy father is spent, get him to stop for a night on the road. Some day I shall come to see thee at Exeter.”The kind-hearted sailor stood watching the pair when they had started, Stephen riding, Hugh stepping manfully through the bracken, and both turning back and waving their hands until they were lost in the thicket of underwood through which they had to pass before reaching the road.Road, indeed, it could scarce be called, for at this season the best were in some places nigh impassable, and Devonshire mud when it is left to follow its own will cannot easily be beaten. In sortie parts the road was little more than a channel worn by constant running of water, and leaving banks on either side; and, owing to the rain of the day before, the water flowed down these banks in little runnels, and rushed cheerfully along the course at the foot. Hugh, however, found it amusing enough to splash through these streams, or to leap from bank to bank, and clamber along through ivy and long grasses and briars and nut-bushes; such a thicket of greenery as he had never seen before. When he was tired he would scramble up behind his father, the stout grey making light of his double burden; and he was untroubled by Stephen’s anxiety lest these narrow lanes should offer opportunity for thieves and outlaws.They met no such dangerous folk. A ploughman passed and looked curiously at them, and a priest carrying a staff, and on his way to a sick parishioner, stopped and inquired whither they were bound. Bassett’s evident illness made the good man uneasy, and he would have had him rest at his house until better able to go on; indeed, pressed it on him. The carver shook his head.“I thank you heartily, sir priest, but I must push on, having, as you may judge, but little time before me. If, of your courtesy, you will point out the shortest and safest road, you will be doing us a kindness.”The old man, who had a very pleasant and earnest face, assured him that, so far as he could tell, the country for some miles round was tolerably free from rogues, though he could not answer for the neighbourhood of Exeter. He himself went a little way with them, and directed them the shortest path along the rocks, where the sea stretched on one side, softly grey, and only a little stirred with remembrance of yesterday’s gale, and pointed out Exmouth, which he said had an ill character for pirates, and then showed them the Exe stretching away, and told them how they should leave it on their right and take the inland road, and so left them with his blessing.It was all that Stephen could do to hide his increasing weakness from Hugh. There were times when he felt that he must give it all up, drop from the horse, and let himself die by the road-side. Only a will strong for his boy’s sake could have given him strength to sit upright. When they paused at a little hostelry for some food he did not dare get off his horse, fearing that he might lack the resolution to mount again. His suffering became so acute that he could not hide it from Hugh, and though the boy dreaded nothing worse than one of those sharp fits of illness which his father had weathered before, he did his best to induce him to seek a night’s lodging on the road. But Stephen refused almost irritably.Nor could he bear to follow where Hugh’s remorse would have led him—into talk of Jakes. It seemed as if he would put aside all that was harsh and painful, and he was either silent or—as the boy afterwards remembered—let fall words which showed that his thoughts were with the wife he had lost, or dwelling upon some of the talks he had had with Friar Luke. Once or twice Hugh was sorely perplexed by what he said, fancying that he could not have heard rightly; but Stephen seemed unable or unwilling to repeat the sentence, and murmured something else. Once they fell in with a gay party going to a neighbouring castle; there was a minstrel, and two or three glee maidens were of the company. When they overtook Stephen and Hugh they were making a great noise and merriment, and the boy wondered why, on seeing them, all their jests died away and they looked almost frightened. They made haste, too, to part company, saying they had no time to spare; and Hugh saw them looking back and pointing as at some strange sight.He was beginning to be alarmed himself, though not knowing why, perhaps chiefly because his father seemed to heed him so little, no longer asking if he were not tired, or noticing Agrippa’s merry pranks, but riding bent upon the horse’s neck, and seeming only to keep his seat with difficulty. Hugh called gladly to him when he saw before him a town which he guessed to be Exeter, lying on a hill above the river, with the fair cathedral standing in a very beautiful position about half-way up, and Stephen so far roused himself as to clasp his hands and to murmur, “God be thanked!” but with that fell back into silence.It was well that the road was plain enough to need no consultation; and poor little Hugh, wearied out, for he had ridden but little of late, thinking it oppressed his father, struggled manfully on, hoping to get in before sunset. It was well, too, that the last mile or two was of a tolerable flatness, and the road wider and less heavy, though always bad; for Stephen grew more and more bowed, and Hugh became so fearful lest he should fall that he had to steady him as he walked by his side.Thankful he felt when he came upon a few scattered hovels while the sun was yet some quarter of an hour from setting, at which time the town gates would be shut, and presently he saw the river running swiftly, swelled by the autumn rains, and spanning it a brave new bridge of stone, with houses and a chapel upon it.“Father, father, here is Exeter!” cried Hugh, with anxious longing for some reassuring word.But he got no answer, and not daring to pause lest the gates might be shut, he joined the throng of citizens who were pressing in for the same good reason, and passed through the gate before setting himself to ask any questions. The first person he addressed gave him a shove and told him to get out of his way; but the second, who by his dress and bearing might have been some kind of trader, stopped at once, and having satisfied his own curiosity as to who they were and where they came from, showed himself of a most friendly nature.“We are in the Western or High Street,” he said; “we have come through the West Gate, and the Franciscans have their house between this and the North Gate. But thou art a little varlet to have so much on thy hands, and thy father looks in a sore plight. A monkey, too! How far have you come?”“Some sixteen miles, noble sir.”“Nay, I am no noble; only plain Elyas Gervase. Sixteen miles, and a dy— a sick man who can scarce keep on his horse! What doth he work at?”“He is a wood-carver, sir.”“Why, that is somewhat my own craft, since I am a stone-cutter. Have you friends in this fair town?”“Father has a letter to the prior, and I am to seek out a cousin of my mother’s, Master James Alwyn,” said poor Hugh wearily.“The child himself is almost spent,” muttered the good citizen to himself. “Prothasy would make them welcome, and we are surely bidden to entertain strangers. Thou and thy father shall come home with me,” he added aloud, laying his hand kindly on Hugh’s shoulder. “My house is nigher than the monastery, and I will speak to a learned leech as we pass. Both of ye need a woman’s care.”If the boy was a little bewildered at this change of plan he could not oppose it, nor had he any desire to do so. There was something in Master Gervase’s honest face which instinctively inspired confidence. He was a man of about forty-five, somewhat light as to complexion and hair, his beard was forked, his eyebrows were straight, marking a kindly temper, and his eye was clear and open. He wore an under tunic of blue cloth, with buttons closely set from the wrist to the elbow of the tight sleeve, tight pantaloons, and low boots with long pointed toes. His hair hung a little below his ears, and was covered by a cap. He walked up the steep Western Street by the side of the horse, passing his strong arm round poor Stephen’s bowed form so as in some measure to support him, and he paused presently before a door, and sent in a boy to say that Master Gervase prayed Master Miles to come without delay. A few minutes after this they stopped again before a timbered house projecting far into the narrow street. Without a moment’s delay Gervase had lifted Stephen from the horse, and rather carried than led him in.“Prothasy!” he called, the moment he was in the passage.“I am coming!” answered a voice, and, following the sound, a young woman ran in, small, dark, bright-eyed, and scarcely more than a girl in appearance. “How late thou art, Elyas! And whom have we here?” starting back.“A sick man for thee to nurse. Nay, thou shalt hear more later, when we have got him to bed. Wat! Where’s Wat? Wat,” as a lad hastily appeared, “go out to the door and take the horse, and see that he has good food and litter. Send the boy that is there in here.”It was evident that Prothasy Gervase was a capable woman. She asked no questions, made no difficulties, but ran to see that all was right, and Stephen, too much exhausted to be aware of what was happening, was got into his crib-like bed in a little room overlooking the street, and Mistress Gervase had brought up some hot spiced wine and bidden Hugh take a drink of it before the doctor came. Then Elyas took the boy down to the common room, and asked him a number of questions. He was one of the burgesses who, by a recent law, was responsible for the good conduct of twelve—some say ten—citizens, and would have to furnish an account of the strangers, so that besides the call of natural curiosity, to which he was not insensible, it was necessary that he should know something of their history. He listened attentively to the story of the shipwreck.“And what brought thy father here?” he asked at last.“He thought,” faltered Hugh, for his spirits had sunk low, never having seen his father in such sore plight before, “that our cousin, Master Alwyn, might help him to get work in the great church of St. Peter’s.”“James Alwyn is dead,” said Gervase, gravely. Hugh’s face quivered. He seemed more lonely than ever.“He died a year ago, come Martinmas. What was thy mother’s name?”“Alice Alwyn.”“I mind me there was one of that name lived out by Clyst. And—but I warrant me thou wilt say, ay—is thy father a good craftsman?”“There is no better work,” said Hugh, proudly. “He will show it you, gentle sir, and you will see.”“Ay,” said Gervase, hesitatingly, “and thou wilt follow his craft?”“I would carve in stone,” muttered Hugh, turning away that his questioner might not see the tears which sprang into his eyes. He was tired, and his heart seemed strangely heavy.“Sayest thou so!” eagerly. “Thou art right, there is nought like it. We must see what can be done for thee, perchance—” he checked himself.“I must talk with Prothasy,” he added, under his breath.He was very good to the boy, leaving him to make a good meal while he went out to meet the doctor, a gaunt, melancholy man, dressed in bluish grey lined with thin silk, who spoke with bent head and joined finger-tips.“By virtue of the drugs I administered,” he began, “my patient hath revived a little, but Is in evil case.”“How long will he live, sir leech?” demanded Elyas bluntly.“Scarce more than a few days. I am going home to prepare a cordial, and I shall cast his horoscope to-night, when I doubt not to find evil influences in the ascendent.”“You may take that for granted without seeking to find out whether it is so,” said the other, with a short laugh. “However, let him want no care. Will you be back before curfew?”The doctor promised and kept his word. By eight o’clock all lights were out; Hugh was stretched on a rough pallet in his father’s room with Agrippa, at whom Mistress Prothasy looked askance, by his side, and all was silent, indoors and out, save for the quick laboured breathing of the sick man.

The first sensation had been one of deliverance. The second was more like despair.

The waves breaking against rocks and shore looked more terrible than out in the open sea, and this sudden rush for safety on the part of the men had something about it so cowardly that it produced in Stephen a wretched sense of desolation. He supposed that in another moment Andrew would have followed his fellow sailors, and they would be left alone. Andrew had in fact rushed to the bows as the men leaped over, and Stephen, bitter in spirit at such a cruel desertion, strained his boy in his arms so that, if he could do no more, he might at least hide death from him.

He almost started when he heard a voice. The master was standing over him with a face full of rage.

“The cowardly loons!” he cried; “I would the waves had choked them! No Devon man would have played such a trick. I knew they were helpless oafs, but to save their skins like that! If they had stopped it would have been easy enough, but now we must think how to get thee on shore.” Stephen sprang up.

“Think not on me. My life is nothing. Save Hugh, and I ask no more.”

Andrew stared at him and began to laugh.

“Prithee, dost thou suppose I should leave thee here to drown? Why one of thy precious drones’ hive would scarce be so unmanly, though, in truth, I can say nought against them after those base knaves of mine. But now, see here, if I fasten a rope round the mast—which will hold yet awhile—and go ashore with the other end, canst thou find thy way?”

“The boy first.”

“Ay, the boy first, and the monkey with him, if the beast has the sense to hold on. Thou wilt want both hands for thyself, Hugh.”

“I will tie him to me,” cried the boy, hopefully. His hopes had risen with Andrew’s cheerfulness, and as for Bassett, with the revulsion of feeling, a new and extraordinary strength seemed to have come to him; he helped the master to fasten the rope securely, and stood, unheeding the buffet of wind and waves, watching the sailor when he had cast himself into the sea, and was fighting his way towards the shore. Once or twice he was sucked back by the retreating water and nigh overwhelmed, and the time seemed endless before they made out that he had gained a footing, and was with the other men on the beach. His shout only faintly touched their ears.

“Now, Hugh,” said Bassett firmly.

They had bound poor Agrippa as closely to him as they could, while round his own neck the carver had disposed a bag with money and such small specimens of his workmanship as were portable. His tools he was reluctantly obliged to leave behind him; his breathing could bear no further weight.

“Thou wilt be sorely scratched by Agrippa,” he said. He was so hopeful he could smile. But the monkey was so cowed that he only clung closely, turning his head piteously from side to side, and realising that something terrible was about to happen. Hugh bore himself manfully.

One or two of the sailors who had escaped, finding themselves safe, were ready to help Andrew with the rope, and though the boy was half choked and sorely beaten by the waves, he held on, reaching the shore after a tremendous tussle, by the end of which he was so spent that he fancied he must drop, when he felt himself clutched by Andrew and drawn through the remaining waves. He lay for a time exhausted on the beach; but life was young and strong in him, and he staggered to his feet, tried to comfort and warm the poor monkey, and to watch for his father’s coming.

Andrew had scarcely thought that Bassett would have the strength to bear the passage through the surf. It relieved him greatly to find that the carver was slowly nearing the shore. Now and then he disappeared under the crest of a great wave, but he always reappeared, holding on with a tenacity which was little less than miraculous. Andrew, though even his strength was pretty well spent, again cast himself into the sea to help him in his last struggle, and the carver by his aid managed to reach the shore, but in so terrible a plight that Hugh cried out and flung himself by his side.

And now a very dreadful thing happened, for, as Stephen lay there like a log and Hugh knelt calling on him to look up, the waves, which had but just had their prey snatched from them, as if they meant to show that in another case they had had their way, brought up something large and dark and motionless, and flung it at their very feet; and while Hugh, scarcely recognising what it was, yet shrank from it as from some fearful thing, two of the men ran hastily down and seized and dragged it beyond the water’s reach. Hugh caught the face then, and gave a cry of horror; it was the boy Jakes—dead.

He must have swooned after this, for when he came to himself again he was lying higher up, at the mouth of a small natural cave formed in the sandstone rock. His father sat by him, and in the cave a fire of brushwood had been lit, close to which crouched Agrippa, munching black rye bread soaked in sea water, and jabbering with satisfaction.

“Father,” said the boy, sitting up and rubbing his eyes, “are we safe?”

“Saved by a miracle, my little lad.”

“But Jakes—his face—what was it!”

“He was drowned,” said Bassett, gravely; “he never got to land with the others. Eat some of this bread; I had it in my pocket.”

“Is anyone else drowned?” asked Hugh, shuddering.

“No, thank Heaven! And the master has gone off to see if perchance there might be some hut or cottage near where we can get lodging for the night and means of reaching Exeter.”

“Father, you must be spent. Think no more of me. Sit by the fire, and take off your clothes to dry.”

Hugh was almost himself again, although evidently deeply shocked at the death of Jakes, and with the burden on him of remorse for unkind thoughts which is hard to bear. But fire and food comforted them all in some measure, and Andrew came back before long to tell them that he had been lucky enough to reach a serf’s hut not far away, where they could at least find shelter, with hope of a horse.

“You have done everything for us, and have lost more than any,” said Bassett, gratefully.

“Nay, I know not what I have lost yet,” returned the sailor. “The bales of silk and woollen are spoiled; no hope for them. But maybe, if the gale goes down, I may have my boat again. I can put up with the rest.”

When they had rested awhile they made their way up through a sort of gully piercing the red cliffs. This same redstone amazed Hugh, for the pools of rain were crimson to look at, and he had never seen anything like it before. But glad enough he was to turn his back on the wild sea.

“I hate it! I would I might never see it again.”

“Thou wouldst be a poor crusader,” panted Stephen, whose breath was sorely tried by the ascent.

They stumbled on through tussocks of grass until they reached the top, where trees grew thickly, though somewhat one-sided and windblown with south-west gales. Andrew was not with them, but he had directed them fully, and they soon came upon a rough hovel, built of a mixture of mud and straw called cob, and coarsely thatched. A wild-looking herd and a wilder-looking woman stared at them from the doorway; but though uncouth they were not unkindly, and had got a fire of logs burning, together with bread and bacon and a large tankard of cider on the table.

As usual, the monkey caused the greatest astonishment, and Hugh dared not loosen his hold of him because of a sheep-dog, who growled angrily at the strange party. The other sailors were already there, eating and drinking and drying their clothes, and presently Andrew came in. He was very short and surly with the men, though, as he told Stephen afterwards, unable to cast them off altogether, as he would willingly have done, because, if there were a chance of saving the boat, he would need their help in getting her off and in sailing her. All depended upon the abatement of the gale. If the wind went down with the tide there was a chance of floating her in calmer weather and of repairing damages. She was strongly built, and, so far, showed no signs of breaking up.

To Hugh’s eyes his father seemed scarcely worse or more feeble than he had often been before. He was very pale it is true, his breathing was laboured, and he had a short, sharp cough, which scarcely ceased; but he was keen to push on, and would not rest until he had urged the herd to go that evening to the sheep-farm where he worked, and where he thought a horse might be bought. They were, as Stephen ascertained, not more than fifteen or sixteen miles from Exeter, the spot where they were wrecked being a little north of the mouth of the Teign; and this he was feverishly anxious to declare they could ride in a day. A strong horse could easily carry two; it was madness for him to think of remaining where he was for rest, since if he became worse there was no means of procuring a leech.

“E’en go thy way,” said Andrew, half angrily, half sadly, for he had done enough for his passengers to feel a sincere liking for them.

The hut, as usual, consisted of but one smoky room, in which they all bestowed themselves for the night. Andrew saw that Stephen had the best of the miserable accommodation; but little rest came to him owing to the constant torment of his cough, and he was up as soon as the sailor and out in the air, though not strong enough to go down to the cove. But what a change was there since the former night! The wind had shifted to the south-west, and blew as softly as if it had never known violence. The sun, though not yet showing much face through misty grey clouds, filled the air with delightful promise. All the land colouring was rich and varied, for the trees, though shaken by the past storm, were in their fullest and most gorgeous autumnal colouring, and the deep red of the soil, the vivid green of the grass, and the brown of the bracken made a splendid harmony of tint.

The sailors followed the master to the cove; the herd went off to his work, promising that the horse should come when the morning was a little advanced, after the nine o’clock dinner; the wife made much of Hugh; and Stephen, looking and feeling wretchedly ill, tried to wear off his restlessness by wandering towards the edge of the cliff, but his strength giving out he was forced to crawl back and sit quiet. The horse arrived, and proved a strong, serviceable beast.

Stephen could scarce touch the coarse food, being too feverish. Andrew came up quite hopeful, and laden with the carver’s tools and other possessions, which, though somewhat marred by the salt water, he was thankful to see again. The woman of the house dried the clothes; all the gear was securely strapped on the horse, and then came the farewells. The master would not consent to receive a penny for the cost of the voyage.

“Nay,” he said, “we feasted on the grey brothers’ good cheer, and, by my troth, I shall never have the heart to call it a drones’ hive again. One of these days Moll and I will go and have speech with Friar Luke, and let him know what befell. Nay, I tell you, I can be obstinate too, though with no hope of evening thy powers in that matter. Wonderful it is that so little mischief has been done with all that turmoil; if the poor fool Jakes had but stayed on board he would have saved his skin.”

“Have a mass said for his soul,” said Stephen, pressing a little money into his hand. “Nay, thou must not refuse, it is conscience money.”

“Well, it shall go to the grey brothers,” said Andrew, who seemed to limit his new-born tolerance to the one monastery. “Hearken, Hugh, if thy father is spent, get him to stop for a night on the road. Some day I shall come to see thee at Exeter.”

The kind-hearted sailor stood watching the pair when they had started, Stephen riding, Hugh stepping manfully through the bracken, and both turning back and waving their hands until they were lost in the thicket of underwood through which they had to pass before reaching the road.

Road, indeed, it could scarce be called, for at this season the best were in some places nigh impassable, and Devonshire mud when it is left to follow its own will cannot easily be beaten. In sortie parts the road was little more than a channel worn by constant running of water, and leaving banks on either side; and, owing to the rain of the day before, the water flowed down these banks in little runnels, and rushed cheerfully along the course at the foot. Hugh, however, found it amusing enough to splash through these streams, or to leap from bank to bank, and clamber along through ivy and long grasses and briars and nut-bushes; such a thicket of greenery as he had never seen before. When he was tired he would scramble up behind his father, the stout grey making light of his double burden; and he was untroubled by Stephen’s anxiety lest these narrow lanes should offer opportunity for thieves and outlaws.

They met no such dangerous folk. A ploughman passed and looked curiously at them, and a priest carrying a staff, and on his way to a sick parishioner, stopped and inquired whither they were bound. Bassett’s evident illness made the good man uneasy, and he would have had him rest at his house until better able to go on; indeed, pressed it on him. The carver shook his head.

“I thank you heartily, sir priest, but I must push on, having, as you may judge, but little time before me. If, of your courtesy, you will point out the shortest and safest road, you will be doing us a kindness.”

The old man, who had a very pleasant and earnest face, assured him that, so far as he could tell, the country for some miles round was tolerably free from rogues, though he could not answer for the neighbourhood of Exeter. He himself went a little way with them, and directed them the shortest path along the rocks, where the sea stretched on one side, softly grey, and only a little stirred with remembrance of yesterday’s gale, and pointed out Exmouth, which he said had an ill character for pirates, and then showed them the Exe stretching away, and told them how they should leave it on their right and take the inland road, and so left them with his blessing.

It was all that Stephen could do to hide his increasing weakness from Hugh. There were times when he felt that he must give it all up, drop from the horse, and let himself die by the road-side. Only a will strong for his boy’s sake could have given him strength to sit upright. When they paused at a little hostelry for some food he did not dare get off his horse, fearing that he might lack the resolution to mount again. His suffering became so acute that he could not hide it from Hugh, and though the boy dreaded nothing worse than one of those sharp fits of illness which his father had weathered before, he did his best to induce him to seek a night’s lodging on the road. But Stephen refused almost irritably.

Nor could he bear to follow where Hugh’s remorse would have led him—into talk of Jakes. It seemed as if he would put aside all that was harsh and painful, and he was either silent or—as the boy afterwards remembered—let fall words which showed that his thoughts were with the wife he had lost, or dwelling upon some of the talks he had had with Friar Luke. Once or twice Hugh was sorely perplexed by what he said, fancying that he could not have heard rightly; but Stephen seemed unable or unwilling to repeat the sentence, and murmured something else. Once they fell in with a gay party going to a neighbouring castle; there was a minstrel, and two or three glee maidens were of the company. When they overtook Stephen and Hugh they were making a great noise and merriment, and the boy wondered why, on seeing them, all their jests died away and they looked almost frightened. They made haste, too, to part company, saying they had no time to spare; and Hugh saw them looking back and pointing as at some strange sight.

He was beginning to be alarmed himself, though not knowing why, perhaps chiefly because his father seemed to heed him so little, no longer asking if he were not tired, or noticing Agrippa’s merry pranks, but riding bent upon the horse’s neck, and seeming only to keep his seat with difficulty. Hugh called gladly to him when he saw before him a town which he guessed to be Exeter, lying on a hill above the river, with the fair cathedral standing in a very beautiful position about half-way up, and Stephen so far roused himself as to clasp his hands and to murmur, “God be thanked!” but with that fell back into silence.

It was well that the road was plain enough to need no consultation; and poor little Hugh, wearied out, for he had ridden but little of late, thinking it oppressed his father, struggled manfully on, hoping to get in before sunset. It was well, too, that the last mile or two was of a tolerable flatness, and the road wider and less heavy, though always bad; for Stephen grew more and more bowed, and Hugh became so fearful lest he should fall that he had to steady him as he walked by his side.

Thankful he felt when he came upon a few scattered hovels while the sun was yet some quarter of an hour from setting, at which time the town gates would be shut, and presently he saw the river running swiftly, swelled by the autumn rains, and spanning it a brave new bridge of stone, with houses and a chapel upon it.

“Father, father, here is Exeter!” cried Hugh, with anxious longing for some reassuring word.

But he got no answer, and not daring to pause lest the gates might be shut, he joined the throng of citizens who were pressing in for the same good reason, and passed through the gate before setting himself to ask any questions. The first person he addressed gave him a shove and told him to get out of his way; but the second, who by his dress and bearing might have been some kind of trader, stopped at once, and having satisfied his own curiosity as to who they were and where they came from, showed himself of a most friendly nature.

“We are in the Western or High Street,” he said; “we have come through the West Gate, and the Franciscans have their house between this and the North Gate. But thou art a little varlet to have so much on thy hands, and thy father looks in a sore plight. A monkey, too! How far have you come?”

“Some sixteen miles, noble sir.”

“Nay, I am no noble; only plain Elyas Gervase. Sixteen miles, and a dy— a sick man who can scarce keep on his horse! What doth he work at?”

“He is a wood-carver, sir.”

“Why, that is somewhat my own craft, since I am a stone-cutter. Have you friends in this fair town?”

“Father has a letter to the prior, and I am to seek out a cousin of my mother’s, Master James Alwyn,” said poor Hugh wearily.

“The child himself is almost spent,” muttered the good citizen to himself. “Prothasy would make them welcome, and we are surely bidden to entertain strangers. Thou and thy father shall come home with me,” he added aloud, laying his hand kindly on Hugh’s shoulder. “My house is nigher than the monastery, and I will speak to a learned leech as we pass. Both of ye need a woman’s care.”

If the boy was a little bewildered at this change of plan he could not oppose it, nor had he any desire to do so. There was something in Master Gervase’s honest face which instinctively inspired confidence. He was a man of about forty-five, somewhat light as to complexion and hair, his beard was forked, his eyebrows were straight, marking a kindly temper, and his eye was clear and open. He wore an under tunic of blue cloth, with buttons closely set from the wrist to the elbow of the tight sleeve, tight pantaloons, and low boots with long pointed toes. His hair hung a little below his ears, and was covered by a cap. He walked up the steep Western Street by the side of the horse, passing his strong arm round poor Stephen’s bowed form so as in some measure to support him, and he paused presently before a door, and sent in a boy to say that Master Gervase prayed Master Miles to come without delay. A few minutes after this they stopped again before a timbered house projecting far into the narrow street. Without a moment’s delay Gervase had lifted Stephen from the horse, and rather carried than led him in.

“Prothasy!” he called, the moment he was in the passage.

“I am coming!” answered a voice, and, following the sound, a young woman ran in, small, dark, bright-eyed, and scarcely more than a girl in appearance. “How late thou art, Elyas! And whom have we here?” starting back.

“A sick man for thee to nurse. Nay, thou shalt hear more later, when we have got him to bed. Wat! Where’s Wat? Wat,” as a lad hastily appeared, “go out to the door and take the horse, and see that he has good food and litter. Send the boy that is there in here.”

It was evident that Prothasy Gervase was a capable woman. She asked no questions, made no difficulties, but ran to see that all was right, and Stephen, too much exhausted to be aware of what was happening, was got into his crib-like bed in a little room overlooking the street, and Mistress Gervase had brought up some hot spiced wine and bidden Hugh take a drink of it before the doctor came. Then Elyas took the boy down to the common room, and asked him a number of questions. He was one of the burgesses who, by a recent law, was responsible for the good conduct of twelve—some say ten—citizens, and would have to furnish an account of the strangers, so that besides the call of natural curiosity, to which he was not insensible, it was necessary that he should know something of their history. He listened attentively to the story of the shipwreck.

“And what brought thy father here?” he asked at last.

“He thought,” faltered Hugh, for his spirits had sunk low, never having seen his father in such sore plight before, “that our cousin, Master Alwyn, might help him to get work in the great church of St. Peter’s.”

“James Alwyn is dead,” said Gervase, gravely. Hugh’s face quivered. He seemed more lonely than ever.

“He died a year ago, come Martinmas. What was thy mother’s name?”

“Alice Alwyn.”

“I mind me there was one of that name lived out by Clyst. And—but I warrant me thou wilt say, ay—is thy father a good craftsman?”

“There is no better work,” said Hugh, proudly. “He will show it you, gentle sir, and you will see.”

“Ay,” said Gervase, hesitatingly, “and thou wilt follow his craft?”

“I would carve in stone,” muttered Hugh, turning away that his questioner might not see the tears which sprang into his eyes. He was tired, and his heart seemed strangely heavy.

“Sayest thou so!” eagerly. “Thou art right, there is nought like it. We must see what can be done for thee, perchance—” he checked himself.

“I must talk with Prothasy,” he added, under his breath.

He was very good to the boy, leaving him to make a good meal while he went out to meet the doctor, a gaunt, melancholy man, dressed in bluish grey lined with thin silk, who spoke with bent head and joined finger-tips.

“By virtue of the drugs I administered,” he began, “my patient hath revived a little, but Is in evil case.”

“How long will he live, sir leech?” demanded Elyas bluntly.

“Scarce more than a few days. I am going home to prepare a cordial, and I shall cast his horoscope to-night, when I doubt not to find evil influences in the ascendent.”

“You may take that for granted without seeking to find out whether it is so,” said the other, with a short laugh. “However, let him want no care. Will you be back before curfew?”

The doctor promised and kept his word. By eight o’clock all lights were out; Hugh was stretched on a rough pallet in his father’s room with Agrippa, at whom Mistress Prothasy looked askance, by his side, and all was silent, indoors and out, save for the quick laboured breathing of the sick man.

Chapter Seven.In the Warden’s Household.It was doubtless a satisfaction to the leech’s astrological mind to ascertain that, beyond a question, malignant conjunctions were threatening Stephen Bassett. But without this profound knowledge it was evident to the watchers that Master Gervase had brought home a dying man, who would not long be spared. He rallied a little, it is true, and though at times light-headed, and always taking young Mistress Prothasy to be his lost Alice, could understand and be grateful for the kindness shown him, and speak feebly to Hugh about his work. The prior’s letter had been taken to the Franciscan monastery, but no sign was given by that house of the kindly hospitality shown in London.“I knew it,” said Elyas, with some triumph to his wife. “When the boy told me whither they were bound, I could not bear they should have no more comfort than they would get from that fat prior. Now, the poor man shall want nothing.”“Truly, no,” said Prothasy, quite as heartily. “But it were best that our little Joan remained away a little longer with thy mother.”“I suppose so,” answered her husband, with a sigh. “The house seems strangely silent without Joan.”“We must have sent her away had she been here,” she said decidedly.He went to the door and came back.“Prothasy,” he said, with something like appeal in his voice, “that is a comely little lad.”“Ay, Elyas.”“What will become of him when his father is dead?”“Thou hadst best seek out some of his kin.”It was not the answer he wished for, yet, as always, it carried sense with it; he hesitated before he spoke again.“If he would be a stone-cutter?”“Thou hast two apprentices already.”“Ay, but a fatherless child—”“Elyas, thou wilt never learn prudence. All would come upon thee.”“The guild would help in case of need.”“So thou sayest, but never wouldst thou apply.”He made no answer, only seemed to be reflecting as he left the room. She walked quickly up and down, once or twice dropping her long dress and stumbling in it.“Was ever anyone so good as he, or so provoking!” she exclaimed, half crying. “A fine dowry will come to Joan, when her father spends his all upon strangers! And yet he makes me cry shame upon myself for close-fistedness, and wonder at the sweetness with which he bears my sourness. If he will, he shall have the boy as prentice, I’ll e’en put up with the monkey; but, do what I will, it is certain I shall season any kindness with sharp words, and Elyas will feel that all the while I am grudging. I would I had a better heart, or he a worse!”Elyas, meanwhile, all unknowing of these stormy signs of relenting, went slowly up to the little bare room where the carver lay, while Hugh, looking out of the small unglazed window, was telling him as much as he could see to be going on in the street. Stephen, however, was paying little attention, and when Gervase came in his eyes brightened at once.“Leave Agrippa here,” he said to Hugh, “and do thou run out and look at the Cathedral, and bring me back word what it is like.”His interview with his host was long, the more so as he could speak but slowly, and at times had to stop altogether from exhaustion. Then it was necessary that Elyas should see the carving, which took him altogether by surprise.“Truly,” he said, “this will make our good bishop’s mouth water! He is ever seeking for beautiful work for St. Peter’s, and thou mightest have made thy fortune with misereres and stalls. Perchance—” he said, looking hesitatingly at the carver. Stephen shook his head.“Never again,” he said. “But Hugh, young as he is, has it in him. If—if he could be thy apprentice?”Elyas almost started at having his thought so quickly presented to him from the other side, but he did not answer at once, and Stephen went on, his words broken by painful breathing—“There is a little money put by for him—in yonder bag—I meant it for this purpose—the horse may be sold—if I thought he could be with thee I should—die happy.”Gervase was not the man to resist such an appeal. He stooped down and clasped the sick man’s wasted hand in his.“The boy shall remain with me,” he said. “Rest content. I am warden of my guild. He shall learn his craft honestly and truly, shall be brought up in the holy Faith, and shall be to me as a son. There is my hand.”With one look of unutterable thankfulness the carver closed his eyes, and murmured something, which Elyas, bending over him, recognised as the thanksgiving of theNunc Dimittis. He said no more, but lay peacefully content until he roused himself to ask that a priest might be sent for; and when Hugh came in Elyas left him in charge, while he went to seek the parish priest, “and no monk,” as he muttered.Hugh was full of the glories of the Cathedral, to which he had made his way. It had remained unfinished longer than most of the others in the kingdom, but the last bishop, Quivil, and the present, Bitton, had pushed on the work with most earnest zeal, and Hugh described the rising roof and the beautiful clustered pillars of soft grey Purbeck marble with an enthusiasm which brought a smile of content upon the face of the dying man.“Would I could work there!” said the boy, with a sigh.“One day,” whispered his father, “Master Gervase will take thee as apprentice; thou wilt serve faithfully, my Hugh?”The boy pressed against him, and laid his cheek on the pillow.“Ay, to make thy name famous.”“No, no,” gasped Stephen, eagerly. “That dream is past—not mine nor thine—not for thyself but for the glory of God. Say that.”“For the glory of God,” Hugh repeated, gravely. “Father?”“Ay.”“Where wilt thou live?”There was a silence. Then the carver turned his eyes on the boy.“I am going on—a journey—a long journey.” Hugh shrank away a little. He began to understand and to tremble; and he dared not ask more questions. The priest came and he was sent from the room, and wandered miserably into a sort of yard with sheds at the back of the house, where the stone-cutting was going on, and journeymen and two apprentices were at work.One of these latter—the younger—was the boy called Wat, whom Hugh had already seen. He was a large-limbed, untidy-looking, moon-faced lad, the butt of many jibes and jests from the others, careless in his work, and yet so good-natured that his master had not the heart to rate him as he deserved. The other apprentice, Roger Brewer, was sixteen, and had been for six years with Gervase, who was very proud of his talents, and foretold great things for his future. He was a grave sallow youth, noticing everything and saying little, and with a perseverance which absolutely never failed. The journeymen, of whom there were three, were stone-workers who had been Gervase’s apprentices; their seven or eight years ended, they now worked by the day, and hoped in time to become masters. They wore the dress and hood of their guild, and one, William Franklyn, had the principal direction of the apprentices. Much of the stonework of the cathedral was being executed under Gervase’s orders.When Hugh appeared in the yard, Agrippa produced an immediate sensation, Wat and the men crowding round him, Roger alone going on with his work of carving the crockets of a delicate pinnacle. The boy’s eyes glistened as he glanced about at the fragments which were scattered here and there, while the others, on their part, were curiously examining the monkey.“Saw you ever the like!” cried Wat, planting himself before him, all agape, with legs outspread and hands on his knees. “Why, he hath a face like a man!”“Ay, Wat, now we know thy kin,” said one of the men, winking to the others, who answered by a loud laugh.“Where got ye the beast?” asked William, laying his hand on Hugh’s shoulder.“At Stourbridge fair,” answered the boy. He had to give an account of their adventures after this, and they stared at him the more to hear of London and the shipwreck.“And so thy father is sick to death in there?” said another man, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb. The tears rushed into Hugh’s eyes, and Franklyn interposed.“His craft is wood-carving, they say. Hast thou learnt aught of the trick of it?”“Nay, I shall be a stone-carver,” faltered the boy. “I am to be prenticed here.”“With Master Gervase?”“Ay.”William Franklyn looked black. He had a nephew of his own whom he had long tried to persuade the master to take into his house. That hope was now altogether at an end. He turned away angrily and went back to his work.“What wilt thou do with thy monkey?” cried Wat, hopping round in high delight.“No foreigners may work in the yard. That were against the guild laws,” said one of the men. “Down with all Easterlings!”They were a jesting, light-hearted set, who laughed loudly, lived rudely, had plenty of holidays, yet did excellent work. At another time the boy would have had his answer ready, but now was sick at heart, and wanting nothing so much as a woman’s comforting, and the men thought him sullen. He got back to his father as quickly as he could, leaving many remarks behind him.“An ungracious little varlet!” said one.“Tut, man, he could scarce keep back his tears,” said another who saw further.“What makes the master take another prentice? I thought Mistress Prothasy would never abide more than two. And there was thy nephew, William, if a third must be.”“The master will do what pleases him,” said Franklyn stiffly.“Or what pleases Mistress Prothasy, and most likely this is her fancy. She would have another Wat in the house.”This was followed by a loud laugh, for Wat’s awkwardnesses were well-known to bring him into sore disfavour with the mistress of the house.The day went by, and the night came on again. Elyas proposed sitting up himself, but Stephen refused, saying that he wanted no one but Hugh.“And I think I shall sleep well,” he added, with a feeble smile.Afterwards, Gervase thought he meant more than his words conveyed.Before Hugh lay down his father made him put back the shutter from the little window, and look out upon the night. All was quiet, lights were extinguished, every now and then the watchmen came up and down the street, but no other noises were abroad; the opposite houses rose up so closely that from the balconies it looked as if it were possible to touch hands, and over head, though it was late autumn, the moon shone in a serene sky, sending her silver rays into the narrow street and intensifying all the shadows. Stephen listened, while Hugh told him just what he could see.The boy closed the shutter and would have lain down, but Stephen called him feebly to his side.“Remember,” he whispered, with difficulty. “For the glory of God.”“Ay, father.”“And the—enemies. Fight the right enemies.”“Ay, father.”Something the carver murmured, it might have been a blessing, but Hugh caught only the word, “Alice.”“Shall I get thee aught, father?”“Nay. Lie down—I will call if I need aught.”It was his last self-denial for his child. The boy was soon asleep, but through the long hours, Stephen lay, fighting for breath, until the struggle ended in unconsciousness, and that, too, passed into death. When Elyas came in the early morning, and saw what had happened, he lifted Hugh in his strong arms and carried him into the room where the other boys slept. Wat was snoring peacefully with open mouth, but Roger was awake, and the master hastily whispered how it was to him.“Keep the boy here. Tell him his father must not be disturbed,” he said.It was Prothasy who, after all, broke the tidings. She shrank from it at first, saying that Elyas was tenderer in words and less strange to Hugh, but her husband looked so grieved that, as usual, she repented, and did his bidding. And she was really kind, leading him in herself to look upon the peaceful face of the dead, and soothing his burst of tears with great patience and gentleness.The days that followed were strange and miserable to poor Hugh. He had never been without his father, who had been father and mother both to him, and had made him so close a companion that in many ways he was much older than his years. And, in spite of all kindness, the sense of solitude and loneliness that swept over him when the funeral—which the guild of which Elyas was warden attended—was over, and he was back in the house, with a new life before him, to be lived among those who were, in good truth, strangers, was something which all his life long he could not forget.The good master had him rightly enrolled as his apprentice, and then judged it well to leave him alone for a day or two, telling him he might go where he liked until his work began. No place seemed so comforting to Hugh as the Cathedral. He would go and watch the workers, and feed his keen sense of beauty with gazing on the fair upspringing lines and the noble sheaves of pillars, and wonder whether the day would come when work of his should find a place there, and his father’s dream be fulfilled.

It was doubtless a satisfaction to the leech’s astrological mind to ascertain that, beyond a question, malignant conjunctions were threatening Stephen Bassett. But without this profound knowledge it was evident to the watchers that Master Gervase had brought home a dying man, who would not long be spared. He rallied a little, it is true, and though at times light-headed, and always taking young Mistress Prothasy to be his lost Alice, could understand and be grateful for the kindness shown him, and speak feebly to Hugh about his work. The prior’s letter had been taken to the Franciscan monastery, but no sign was given by that house of the kindly hospitality shown in London.

“I knew it,” said Elyas, with some triumph to his wife. “When the boy told me whither they were bound, I could not bear they should have no more comfort than they would get from that fat prior. Now, the poor man shall want nothing.”

“Truly, no,” said Prothasy, quite as heartily. “But it were best that our little Joan remained away a little longer with thy mother.”

“I suppose so,” answered her husband, with a sigh. “The house seems strangely silent without Joan.”

“We must have sent her away had she been here,” she said decidedly.

He went to the door and came back.

“Prothasy,” he said, with something like appeal in his voice, “that is a comely little lad.”

“Ay, Elyas.”

“What will become of him when his father is dead?”

“Thou hadst best seek out some of his kin.”

It was not the answer he wished for, yet, as always, it carried sense with it; he hesitated before he spoke again.

“If he would be a stone-cutter?”

“Thou hast two apprentices already.”

“Ay, but a fatherless child—”

“Elyas, thou wilt never learn prudence. All would come upon thee.”

“The guild would help in case of need.”

“So thou sayest, but never wouldst thou apply.”

He made no answer, only seemed to be reflecting as he left the room. She walked quickly up and down, once or twice dropping her long dress and stumbling in it.

“Was ever anyone so good as he, or so provoking!” she exclaimed, half crying. “A fine dowry will come to Joan, when her father spends his all upon strangers! And yet he makes me cry shame upon myself for close-fistedness, and wonder at the sweetness with which he bears my sourness. If he will, he shall have the boy as prentice, I’ll e’en put up with the monkey; but, do what I will, it is certain I shall season any kindness with sharp words, and Elyas will feel that all the while I am grudging. I would I had a better heart, or he a worse!”

Elyas, meanwhile, all unknowing of these stormy signs of relenting, went slowly up to the little bare room where the carver lay, while Hugh, looking out of the small unglazed window, was telling him as much as he could see to be going on in the street. Stephen, however, was paying little attention, and when Gervase came in his eyes brightened at once.

“Leave Agrippa here,” he said to Hugh, “and do thou run out and look at the Cathedral, and bring me back word what it is like.”

His interview with his host was long, the more so as he could speak but slowly, and at times had to stop altogether from exhaustion. Then it was necessary that Elyas should see the carving, which took him altogether by surprise.

“Truly,” he said, “this will make our good bishop’s mouth water! He is ever seeking for beautiful work for St. Peter’s, and thou mightest have made thy fortune with misereres and stalls. Perchance—” he said, looking hesitatingly at the carver. Stephen shook his head.

“Never again,” he said. “But Hugh, young as he is, has it in him. If—if he could be thy apprentice?”

Elyas almost started at having his thought so quickly presented to him from the other side, but he did not answer at once, and Stephen went on, his words broken by painful breathing—

“There is a little money put by for him—in yonder bag—I meant it for this purpose—the horse may be sold—if I thought he could be with thee I should—die happy.”

Gervase was not the man to resist such an appeal. He stooped down and clasped the sick man’s wasted hand in his.

“The boy shall remain with me,” he said. “Rest content. I am warden of my guild. He shall learn his craft honestly and truly, shall be brought up in the holy Faith, and shall be to me as a son. There is my hand.”

With one look of unutterable thankfulness the carver closed his eyes, and murmured something, which Elyas, bending over him, recognised as the thanksgiving of theNunc Dimittis. He said no more, but lay peacefully content until he roused himself to ask that a priest might be sent for; and when Hugh came in Elyas left him in charge, while he went to seek the parish priest, “and no monk,” as he muttered.

Hugh was full of the glories of the Cathedral, to which he had made his way. It had remained unfinished longer than most of the others in the kingdom, but the last bishop, Quivil, and the present, Bitton, had pushed on the work with most earnest zeal, and Hugh described the rising roof and the beautiful clustered pillars of soft grey Purbeck marble with an enthusiasm which brought a smile of content upon the face of the dying man.

“Would I could work there!” said the boy, with a sigh.

“One day,” whispered his father, “Master Gervase will take thee as apprentice; thou wilt serve faithfully, my Hugh?”

The boy pressed against him, and laid his cheek on the pillow.

“Ay, to make thy name famous.”

“No, no,” gasped Stephen, eagerly. “That dream is past—not mine nor thine—not for thyself but for the glory of God. Say that.”

“For the glory of God,” Hugh repeated, gravely. “Father?”

“Ay.”

“Where wilt thou live?”

There was a silence. Then the carver turned his eyes on the boy.

“I am going on—a journey—a long journey.” Hugh shrank away a little. He began to understand and to tremble; and he dared not ask more questions. The priest came and he was sent from the room, and wandered miserably into a sort of yard with sheds at the back of the house, where the stone-cutting was going on, and journeymen and two apprentices were at work.

One of these latter—the younger—was the boy called Wat, whom Hugh had already seen. He was a large-limbed, untidy-looking, moon-faced lad, the butt of many jibes and jests from the others, careless in his work, and yet so good-natured that his master had not the heart to rate him as he deserved. The other apprentice, Roger Brewer, was sixteen, and had been for six years with Gervase, who was very proud of his talents, and foretold great things for his future. He was a grave sallow youth, noticing everything and saying little, and with a perseverance which absolutely never failed. The journeymen, of whom there were three, were stone-workers who had been Gervase’s apprentices; their seven or eight years ended, they now worked by the day, and hoped in time to become masters. They wore the dress and hood of their guild, and one, William Franklyn, had the principal direction of the apprentices. Much of the stonework of the cathedral was being executed under Gervase’s orders.

When Hugh appeared in the yard, Agrippa produced an immediate sensation, Wat and the men crowding round him, Roger alone going on with his work of carving the crockets of a delicate pinnacle. The boy’s eyes glistened as he glanced about at the fragments which were scattered here and there, while the others, on their part, were curiously examining the monkey.

“Saw you ever the like!” cried Wat, planting himself before him, all agape, with legs outspread and hands on his knees. “Why, he hath a face like a man!”

“Ay, Wat, now we know thy kin,” said one of the men, winking to the others, who answered by a loud laugh.

“Where got ye the beast?” asked William, laying his hand on Hugh’s shoulder.

“At Stourbridge fair,” answered the boy. He had to give an account of their adventures after this, and they stared at him the more to hear of London and the shipwreck.

“And so thy father is sick to death in there?” said another man, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb. The tears rushed into Hugh’s eyes, and Franklyn interposed.

“His craft is wood-carving, they say. Hast thou learnt aught of the trick of it?”

“Nay, I shall be a stone-carver,” faltered the boy. “I am to be prenticed here.”

“With Master Gervase?”

“Ay.”

William Franklyn looked black. He had a nephew of his own whom he had long tried to persuade the master to take into his house. That hope was now altogether at an end. He turned away angrily and went back to his work.

“What wilt thou do with thy monkey?” cried Wat, hopping round in high delight.

“No foreigners may work in the yard. That were against the guild laws,” said one of the men. “Down with all Easterlings!”

They were a jesting, light-hearted set, who laughed loudly, lived rudely, had plenty of holidays, yet did excellent work. At another time the boy would have had his answer ready, but now was sick at heart, and wanting nothing so much as a woman’s comforting, and the men thought him sullen. He got back to his father as quickly as he could, leaving many remarks behind him.

“An ungracious little varlet!” said one.

“Tut, man, he could scarce keep back his tears,” said another who saw further.

“What makes the master take another prentice? I thought Mistress Prothasy would never abide more than two. And there was thy nephew, William, if a third must be.”

“The master will do what pleases him,” said Franklyn stiffly.

“Or what pleases Mistress Prothasy, and most likely this is her fancy. She would have another Wat in the house.”

This was followed by a loud laugh, for Wat’s awkwardnesses were well-known to bring him into sore disfavour with the mistress of the house.

The day went by, and the night came on again. Elyas proposed sitting up himself, but Stephen refused, saying that he wanted no one but Hugh.

“And I think I shall sleep well,” he added, with a feeble smile.

Afterwards, Gervase thought he meant more than his words conveyed.

Before Hugh lay down his father made him put back the shutter from the little window, and look out upon the night. All was quiet, lights were extinguished, every now and then the watchmen came up and down the street, but no other noises were abroad; the opposite houses rose up so closely that from the balconies it looked as if it were possible to touch hands, and over head, though it was late autumn, the moon shone in a serene sky, sending her silver rays into the narrow street and intensifying all the shadows. Stephen listened, while Hugh told him just what he could see.

The boy closed the shutter and would have lain down, but Stephen called him feebly to his side.

“Remember,” he whispered, with difficulty. “For the glory of God.”

“Ay, father.”

“And the—enemies. Fight the right enemies.”

“Ay, father.”

Something the carver murmured, it might have been a blessing, but Hugh caught only the word, “Alice.”

“Shall I get thee aught, father?”

“Nay. Lie down—I will call if I need aught.”

It was his last self-denial for his child. The boy was soon asleep, but through the long hours, Stephen lay, fighting for breath, until the struggle ended in unconsciousness, and that, too, passed into death. When Elyas came in the early morning, and saw what had happened, he lifted Hugh in his strong arms and carried him into the room where the other boys slept. Wat was snoring peacefully with open mouth, but Roger was awake, and the master hastily whispered how it was to him.

“Keep the boy here. Tell him his father must not be disturbed,” he said.

It was Prothasy who, after all, broke the tidings. She shrank from it at first, saying that Elyas was tenderer in words and less strange to Hugh, but her husband looked so grieved that, as usual, she repented, and did his bidding. And she was really kind, leading him in herself to look upon the peaceful face of the dead, and soothing his burst of tears with great patience and gentleness.

The days that followed were strange and miserable to poor Hugh. He had never been without his father, who had been father and mother both to him, and had made him so close a companion that in many ways he was much older than his years. And, in spite of all kindness, the sense of solitude and loneliness that swept over him when the funeral—which the guild of which Elyas was warden attended—was over, and he was back in the house, with a new life before him, to be lived among those who were, in good truth, strangers, was something which all his life long he could not forget.

The good master had him rightly enrolled as his apprentice, and then judged it well to leave him alone for a day or two, telling him he might go where he liked until his work began. No place seemed so comforting to Hugh as the Cathedral. He would go and watch the workers, and feed his keen sense of beauty with gazing on the fair upspringing lines and the noble sheaves of pillars, and wonder whether the day would come when work of his should find a place there, and his father’s dream be fulfilled.

Chapter Eight.Difficulties.It was about a week after this that Master Gervase in working dress went out into his yard. Dinner was over at an early hour, and the two meals of the day were long and plentiful as to cheer; so long and so plentiful, indeed, that there is a record in the preceding reign of thirty thousand dishes being served at one feast, and the sumptuary laws which regulated excesses in dress and food do not seem to have been uncalled for.In Master Gervase’s household there was no excess, but abundance in every kind, and hearty partaking of beef and cider, Mistress Prothasy being famous for her housekeeping and capable ways, so that Elyas went into his yard with all the contentment of a well-fed man.Men and prentices were hard at work in their different ways. Franklyn and Roger had the finest cutting, and Elyas paused before Roger’s crocket to examine his progress.“It is excellent,” he said, heartily, so that the lad’s sallow face flushed; “the cutting deep and clean—naught can be much better in good sooth than the workmanship. Thy design is not so good.”“No,” said Roger, quickly.“No. It wants freedom, boldness, it smacks too much of the yard and too little of the artist. There is thy stumbling-block, Roger. I can give thee the means of execution, but I cannot put this into thee. See!”He seized a piece of burnt stick which lay by, and on a rough plank hastily sketched a crocket similar in form to that on which Roger was working. But what a difference! What strength in the up-curved lines! What possibilities seemed to blossom out of the rapid outline! As Roger watched a look of bitter mortification gathered in his face; the ease and vigour of the drawing were, as he recognised, quite beyond his grasp. When the master moved on he drew the board close to him, yet so that it was concealed from other eyes, and tried with all his skill to bring his carving into better harmony with its spirit.Gervase glanced at all the work in the yard, giving a word to each, and special praise to a canopy which Franklyn and another man were engaged upon, and which was an order from a neighbouring abbey. To a fourth worker, Peter Sim, he pointed out that his moulding was thin and wanted richness.“Ay,” muttered his neighbour, “he is so thin himself he can see no beauty save in leanness.”“That will scarce be thy failing, Hal,” said Gervase, good-humouredly. “Now, Wat, what tool is that thou art using?”“It is broken, but it cuts well enough, sir,” said Wat, regarding his half chisel with affection.“Cuts well enough,” repeated the master, angrily, throwing the tool on one side; “and what thinkest thou, prithee, the guild would say if I suffered such a tool to be used in my yard? And how came it broken?”“There never was such a one for breaking his tools,” grumbled Franklyn, who had picked up the chisel and was examining it; “it is my belief he uses them to dig the ground with.”“Nay,” said Wat, scratching his head, “but the stone is hard.”“Thou shalt spend thy next holiday in finding out whether it be hard or not,” said Elyas, angrily, “an thou be not more careful. How now, Hugh, what work have they set thee to?”The good man’s heart melted as he looked at the boy, who seemed a sad little figure among the others. He had got into a far corner, and Agrippa peered down from a rafter in the shed.“Why art thou in this dark corner by thyself?” demanded Elyas.“They like not Agrippa, sir,” said Hugh, listlessly.Elyas looked vexed. His wife was also sorely set against the monkey, and he would gladly have had it away, yet he could not find it in his heart to deprive the boy of his only friend. He stood awhile watching Hugh work, and presently went across to Franklyn.“See that no harm comes to the monkey,” he said in a tone which all might hear; then, in a much lower voice, “that is hard work thou hast set him to do.”“He must learn his craft,” said Franklyn, gruffly.“But he is a little urchin.”“The more need he should begin at the beginning.”“His father told me he had a wonderful talent for his age.”“Fathers ever think their children wonders. Is it your pleasure, Master Gervase, that I treat him differently from any other prentice?”“Nay, nay,” said Elyas, hastily, and, knowing that the idea of favouritism would make Hugh very unpopular, he pushed the matter no further.The time that followed was full of bitterness to Hugh. Franklyn, though not a bad-hearted man, was sore and disappointed to have his nephew, as he thought, supplanted, and, since he could not visit it upon the master himself, he visited it upon Hugh. The other men sided with Franklyn, and Hugh made no efforts to gain their good-will; pride grows quickly, and he had been a good deal set-up on board the ship, although Jakes’s death had shocked him into a temporary shame. His self-importance was sorely wounded by finding himself treated as absolutely of no consequence, he, who had spoken, as he reflected with swelling heart, with King Edward himself. Mistress Prothasy was sincerely desirous to pleasure her husband, but she loved not boys, classing them all as untidy and unmannerly. It had been by her wish that Elyas had hitherto abstained from taking more than two apprentices, and, as she was proud of her influence over him, she had made it a matter of boasting when talking to gossips whose husbands were more wilful. She hated having to put up with what she now took to be their pitying smiles, and, without meaning to be unjust, her feelings towards Hugh were not friendly. It provoked her, moreover, to have the monkey, which she both feared and disliked, in the house, and she was constantly urging Elyas to send it away.But what Hugh felt sharply was Franklyn’s treatment of him as of one who must be taught the very beginning of his craft. He had learned much from his father, and had been made to use his tools when he was scarce six years old, so that in point of fact he was advanced already beyond Wat, who had gone through three years’ apprenticeship. But of all this, and in spite of the master’s hints, Franklyn was doggedly unheeding. He allowed the boy nothing but the roughest and simplest work. He explained with provoking carefulness each morning how this was to be carried out, and if, as frequently happened, the boy was inattentive, he rated him sharply. The discipline might have been good, but injustice is never wholesome, and feeling himself to be unfairly treated, Hugh set up his back more and more, took no pains to please, and moped in solitary corners.Elyas saw that things were moving wrongly, and was vexed, but he never willingly interfered with Franklyn’s rule, and having an easy-going genial nature was disposed to believe that with time and patience things would right themselves. He had ever a kindly word for Hugh, though not realising how the boy clung to him as to a link with that past which already seemed so far away and so happy.The weeks passed and November was well advanced. There was no lack of holidays and feastings, which Hugh in his present mood found almost more irksome than work. Agrippa was his chief companion, and yet his greatest care, as the monkey, if he took it with him, was ever likely to call a crowd together, and perhaps get pelted, until one day Elyas, coming upon him in one of these frays, advised him to have a basket and carry him thus, by which means he was able to take him to the cathedral itself.Wat was not unfriendly. He was awkward and ungainly, and ever falling into disgrace himself, but this afflicted him scarcely at all. He had a huge appetite, and stores of apples, nuts, and cakes, which he was ready enough to share, and could not understand that anything more was wanted for happiness. Hugh, caring little for these joys, despised Wat’s advances, and would not be beguiled into friendship. He was very miserable, poor boy, and inclined to wish that he had stayed with the Franciscans in London, as Friar Luke counselled, or to long—oh, how earnestly!—that his father had suffered him to accept Sir Thomas de Trafford’s offer and be brought up in the good knight’s household. As for learning his craft, that, he said bitterly to himself, was hopeless; he was more like to forget what his father had taught, and to sink into such coarse work as Wat’s. In fact he made up his mind to the worst, and would scarce have been contented with easier measure.Towards the end of November a new personage came into the family, small in size but of immense importance, Mistress Joan Gervase, aged five, who had been for some time staying with her grandmother, and had remained so long, owing to an attack of measles, or some such childish complaint. Great preparations were made for her home coming; Mistress Prothasy had the rooms furbished, and made all manner of spice-cakes, and Elyas rode off one day in high spirits, to sleep at his mothers and to bring back his little daughter on the morrow.It was a bad day for Hugh. He was sick of his work, and, instead of setting himself to do it as well as he could, all went the other way; careless chippings brought down Franklyn’s wrath upon him; he would take no pains, idled and played with Agrippa, and was altogether unsatisfactory. Franklyn had good reason for anger, though rather too ready to jump at it, and he was rating the boy loudly when Mistress Prothasy came into the yard to deliver some message with which she was charged from her husband.It was an expressed wish of his that she should never interfere with the conduct of the prentices at their work. Indoors she might say what she liked, and nothing displeased him more than a sign of disrespect on their part, but in the yard it was understood that she was silent. Nevertheless, on this occasion she asked Franklyn what Hugh had done, and hearing that Agrippa was in the matter burst out with her own grievances.“The hateful little beast, I would he were strangled! I am frighted out of my life to think of what he may do to Joan! But I will not bear it. Hark ye, Hugh, thou wilt have to dispose of him. I have threatened it before, and now I mean it, and I shall tell thy master that it makes thee idle over thy work. He or I go out of the house!”She swept away, leaving Hugh in a whirlwind of grief, bewilderment, and anger. Part with Agrippa, his one friend? Never! And yet—he knew from experience, and the men often spoke of it—Master Gervase never gainsaid his wife. He dashed down his tools, caught Agrippa in his arms, and faced Franklyn in a fury.“You have done nothing but spite me, and I hate you!” he cried. “You may kill me if you like, but I will never part with my monkey!”In his heart of hearts Franklyn was sorry that things had gone so far, but such rebellion could not be overlooked, and he fetched Hugh a sound buffet which made him tingle all over, told him the master should hear of it, and that he should have no supper but bread and water. Hugh sullenly picked up his chisel and went on with his work, paying no heed to Wat’s uncouth attempts at comfort. Work was to be put away some hours earlier than usual, and a feast provided for supper in honour of Mistress Joan’s return; but Hugh would go no farther than the balcony which ran outside the prentices’ room, supported by wooden posts, and here he crouched in a corner, hugging Agrippa, weeping hot tears of rage and turning over in his mind possible means of escape.He had heard tales of prentices running away from harsh masters, although he had an idea that dreadful penalties were due for such an offence; but he thought he might manage to avoid being re-taken, and cared not what risks he ran. Where should he go? If he could get to Dartmouth someone might keep him till Andrew the shipman came again and took him back to London, and the boundless hope of childhood made the wild plan seem possible as soon as it came into his mind. He had the king’s gold noble sewn into his clothes, and though he never intended to spend it, the feeling that it was about him gave him a sensation of riches. He had received his first month’s pay, as apprentice; this amounted, it is true, to no more than threepence, but Elyas had given him two groats from his father’s store, and he hoped that people would be willing to pay something when he had got far enough to let the monkey display his tricks without fear of detection.All these plans he made hastily, for the more he thought over the matter the more determined he was to run away at once. He must slip out of the gates before sunset, and while Elyas was absent; there would be so much excitement in the house with Joan’s return that he would not be missed until it was too late to follow him. Wat had gone off to see some men in the pillory; Hugh hastily rolled his father’s things in a bundle, slipped Agrippa into his basket, and was out of the house without meeting a soul.He could not help pausing at Broad Gate to look through it once more at the Cathedral, but something in the beautiful building, some memories of his father’s hopes, brought such a choking lump into his throat that he turned hastily away, hurrying down the Western Street and out at the West Gate, and flattering himself that he had passed unnoticed by the keeper of the gate.From one cause or another he had not gone that way since the evening they entered a month ago. Here was the new stone bridge; there in its midst stood the fair chapel where lay the good citizen who had given the bridge to the town, a little light burning ever before the altar. How well Hugh remembered touching his father’s arm to show it to him, and how he got no sign in return, and was frightened. And then but a minute or two later Master Gervase had come to their help like a good Samaritan, and he no longer felt so lonely.It was an inconvenient recollection, because he could not help recalling with a rush how thankful his father had seemed when he came to himself, and knew in whose house they were. Also with what earnestness he had prayed Master Gervase to take Hugh, telling him that he was a good boy and would be a credit to him.“But father never knew!” cried Hugh, stifling uneasy thoughts; “he never thought I should be set to fool’s work, and flouted at, and Agrippa taken away.”He pushed on with the thought. He fancied that he remembered a house some five or six miles away, where the woman had been kind, and would have had them come in and rest. This was the place where he meant to spend the night.But travelling in November was harder work than a month earlier. The road soon became a quagmire, lain began to fall, darkness set in, and there was no moon. He trudged on as bravely as he could, but he began to be very much frightened with the loneliness and the darkness, and the uneasy sense that, unlike the time when he passed before, he was not going the way in which he could expect the overshadowing Care in which his father had rested so confidently. Then more than once side roads branched off; he was not sure that he was keeping to that which was right, and little as he seemed to have to steal, there was the king’s gold noble which would be excellent booty for any cut-purse. The house seemed so long in coming that he began to think he must have passed it in the dark, and when at last he made it out, his heart sank to think that after all his efforts he had got no further; besides, there was not a light or sign of life about it, it looked so gloomy and forbidding that he was scarcely less terrified at it than at the lonely road. He ventured at last, however, to knock timidly at the door, but was answered by such a fierce growling that he clasped Agrippa the closer and fled.Fled—but where to flee? Wet to the skin, hungry, miserable, before he had got six miles on his way, what could he do? Creeping back to the house to see if there were no outside shelter under which he might crawl, he at last found a small stack of fuel piled close to the mud walls, and by pulling this out a little formed a small hole where he made shift to lie, shivering, and in a miserable plight.He slept, however, and forgot his misery until he awoke, cramped, aching all over, and hungrier than ever. He was too much afraid of the dog to venture to wait till the people were up and about, and set off again on his weary tramp, hoping he might reach some other hut where he could get food for himself and the monkey. Rain still fell, though not so heavily, and he could not understand why he got on so slowly, and found himself scarcely able to drag one leg after the other. Agrippa, too, also wet, cold, and hungry, shivered and chattered piteously.At last he reached a hut where the man had gone to work, and the woman gave him black bread and cider. But she had an evil face, and took more from him than the food was worth, casting greedy looks at the remainder, and the children ran after him and pelted him and Agrippa with stones; so that Hugh was forced to hurry on as fast as his aching limbs could carry him, and by the time he had gone up a little hill, felt as if all the breath were out of his body, and he must drop by the road-side. He knew now that he must be ill, it seemed to him, indeed, that he was dying, and it was horrible to picture himself lying unheeded among the piles of dead leaves, the dank and rotting vegetation, the deep red mud—no one would know, and his only friend, poor Agrippa, would die of cold and hunger by his side.It was no wonder that his thoughts went back with longing to Master Gervase’s house in Exeter, where food and shelter were never lacking.After this he still struggled on, but in a dazed, mechanical sort of way, until he was quite sure that he had been walking all day, and that night must be near at hand. And with this conviction, and all the horror of coming darkness sweeping over him, he felt he could go no farther, and flung himself down upon the wet bank, under a thick growth of nut-bushes.There Master Gervase found him.When Elyas reached home close on sunset the day before, there was so much welcoming and hugging of Joan, so many messages to give, so many things to be spoken about, that he did not at first miss Hugh, especially as Wat was also absent. By-and-by when Wat returned, open-mouthed with sights at the pillory, Elyas asked for the little boy, and Prothasy poured out her grievances. The monkey made him idle, and she had said it should not stay in the house, and then he had flown into a rage with William, and had been told he should have nought but bread and water.“And that is better than he deserves,” she ended. “Look you, husband, I am resolved. That evil beast shall not remain here with Joan. Thou knowest that my nay is ever nay.”Elyas looked very grave, but made no answer. Hugh was idle, and no rebellion against Franklyn could be permitted, yet his kind heart ached for the fatherless little fellow who had taken his fancy from the first. He would not interfere with the punishment, but he resolved that when supper was over, he would go upstairs and see whether he could not mend matters. And he was a little distraught throughout the long supper, whereat Joan reigned like a veritable queen, and, it must be owned, tyrannised in some degree over her subjects. She rather vexed her mother by demanding the new boy. Father had talked to her of him, and had told her of a wonderful little beast with a face like an old man’s, and hands to hold things by; she would love to see him—where was he, why didn’t he come to supper?“Think not of him, Joan,” said her mother quickly at last. “He is no playfellow for thee. He would bite and terrify thee.”This caused an interval of pondering, and Prothasy fondly hoped of impression, but presently Mistress Joan lifted her little golden head.“I want him,” she said. “I would kiss him.” Prothasy looked reproachfully at her husband, who was smiling.The supper, as has been said, was long, and before it was finished Joan, tired out with excitement, was leaning against her father’s arm, asleep. He lifted her tenderly and carried her to their room, where she slept, and where she was soon lying in her little crib, looking fairer than ever. Husband and wife stood gazing at her with overfull hearts, and Elyas, ever large in sympathies, let his thoughts go out to the wood-carver who had cared so much for his boy, and wished he could have taken Hugh with him that day, or that he could talk him into readier obedience to Franklyn. He was very desirous to temper justice with mercy when he left Joan and went to seek Hugh.It surprised him exceedingly to get no answer to his call. He lifted the light and looked round the room in vain, nor was Agrippa to be seen overhead among the rafters. It was possible that Hugh had slipped out and stayed thus late, but he had never done it before, and it was seven o’clock, dark and raining. Elyas began to feel very uneasy. He sought his wife, called Franklyn, who had not left the house, and questioned the other apprentices. Roger never paid any attention to Hugh, treating him as a little boy, whom it would be waste of time to notice; Wat reported that he had invited him to go out with him, but got no answer.“He had never seen a man in the pillory, either, and here were three,” added Wat cheerfully.Quick compunction seized Prothasy, though rather for her husband’s sake than Hugh’s; she said little, but ran hastily about the house, and even out into the wet yard, where, however, Franklyn had been before her, and then she stood in the doorway, looking up and down the street. Her husband’s voice behind startled her.“He hath run away,” he said gravely.“Thinkest thou so?” she said turning quickly. “Elyas, it was not much that I said, and it was not he but the monkey which provoked me.”“Nay, I am not blaming thee, I blame myself. He is but a little lad to be left friendless in the world, and I might have been more tender with him, and kept him more by mine own side. Then this would not have happened.”“Where will he go?”“That I must find out at the gates, which I will do presently, though it is too late to pass out to-night. Most likely he has taken the road he knew best.”He came back before long, saying it was as he thought, for the keeper of the West Gate had seen the boy go out. At sunrise Elyas said he would mount his good grey and follow. There was nothing else to be done, and he made as light of it as he could to Prothasy, saying the dreariness of the night might give a useful lesson.And so it was that early the next day, when poor Hugh had got no further than a bare two miles from the place where he had slept, although he felt as if he had been walking all day, Master Gervase came upon a little figure lying under a clump of nut-bushes, and with a pang in his heart, sprang off his horse, and gathering Hugh and Agrippa into his arms, mounted again, and rode back as quickly as he could to Exeter.

It was about a week after this that Master Gervase in working dress went out into his yard. Dinner was over at an early hour, and the two meals of the day were long and plentiful as to cheer; so long and so plentiful, indeed, that there is a record in the preceding reign of thirty thousand dishes being served at one feast, and the sumptuary laws which regulated excesses in dress and food do not seem to have been uncalled for.

In Master Gervase’s household there was no excess, but abundance in every kind, and hearty partaking of beef and cider, Mistress Prothasy being famous for her housekeeping and capable ways, so that Elyas went into his yard with all the contentment of a well-fed man.

Men and prentices were hard at work in their different ways. Franklyn and Roger had the finest cutting, and Elyas paused before Roger’s crocket to examine his progress.

“It is excellent,” he said, heartily, so that the lad’s sallow face flushed; “the cutting deep and clean—naught can be much better in good sooth than the workmanship. Thy design is not so good.”

“No,” said Roger, quickly.

“No. It wants freedom, boldness, it smacks too much of the yard and too little of the artist. There is thy stumbling-block, Roger. I can give thee the means of execution, but I cannot put this into thee. See!”

He seized a piece of burnt stick which lay by, and on a rough plank hastily sketched a crocket similar in form to that on which Roger was working. But what a difference! What strength in the up-curved lines! What possibilities seemed to blossom out of the rapid outline! As Roger watched a look of bitter mortification gathered in his face; the ease and vigour of the drawing were, as he recognised, quite beyond his grasp. When the master moved on he drew the board close to him, yet so that it was concealed from other eyes, and tried with all his skill to bring his carving into better harmony with its spirit.

Gervase glanced at all the work in the yard, giving a word to each, and special praise to a canopy which Franklyn and another man were engaged upon, and which was an order from a neighbouring abbey. To a fourth worker, Peter Sim, he pointed out that his moulding was thin and wanted richness.

“Ay,” muttered his neighbour, “he is so thin himself he can see no beauty save in leanness.”

“That will scarce be thy failing, Hal,” said Gervase, good-humouredly. “Now, Wat, what tool is that thou art using?”

“It is broken, but it cuts well enough, sir,” said Wat, regarding his half chisel with affection.

“Cuts well enough,” repeated the master, angrily, throwing the tool on one side; “and what thinkest thou, prithee, the guild would say if I suffered such a tool to be used in my yard? And how came it broken?”

“There never was such a one for breaking his tools,” grumbled Franklyn, who had picked up the chisel and was examining it; “it is my belief he uses them to dig the ground with.”

“Nay,” said Wat, scratching his head, “but the stone is hard.”

“Thou shalt spend thy next holiday in finding out whether it be hard or not,” said Elyas, angrily, “an thou be not more careful. How now, Hugh, what work have they set thee to?”

The good man’s heart melted as he looked at the boy, who seemed a sad little figure among the others. He had got into a far corner, and Agrippa peered down from a rafter in the shed.

“Why art thou in this dark corner by thyself?” demanded Elyas.

“They like not Agrippa, sir,” said Hugh, listlessly.

Elyas looked vexed. His wife was also sorely set against the monkey, and he would gladly have had it away, yet he could not find it in his heart to deprive the boy of his only friend. He stood awhile watching Hugh work, and presently went across to Franklyn.

“See that no harm comes to the monkey,” he said in a tone which all might hear; then, in a much lower voice, “that is hard work thou hast set him to do.”

“He must learn his craft,” said Franklyn, gruffly.

“But he is a little urchin.”

“The more need he should begin at the beginning.”

“His father told me he had a wonderful talent for his age.”

“Fathers ever think their children wonders. Is it your pleasure, Master Gervase, that I treat him differently from any other prentice?”

“Nay, nay,” said Elyas, hastily, and, knowing that the idea of favouritism would make Hugh very unpopular, he pushed the matter no further.

The time that followed was full of bitterness to Hugh. Franklyn, though not a bad-hearted man, was sore and disappointed to have his nephew, as he thought, supplanted, and, since he could not visit it upon the master himself, he visited it upon Hugh. The other men sided with Franklyn, and Hugh made no efforts to gain their good-will; pride grows quickly, and he had been a good deal set-up on board the ship, although Jakes’s death had shocked him into a temporary shame. His self-importance was sorely wounded by finding himself treated as absolutely of no consequence, he, who had spoken, as he reflected with swelling heart, with King Edward himself. Mistress Prothasy was sincerely desirous to pleasure her husband, but she loved not boys, classing them all as untidy and unmannerly. It had been by her wish that Elyas had hitherto abstained from taking more than two apprentices, and, as she was proud of her influence over him, she had made it a matter of boasting when talking to gossips whose husbands were more wilful. She hated having to put up with what she now took to be their pitying smiles, and, without meaning to be unjust, her feelings towards Hugh were not friendly. It provoked her, moreover, to have the monkey, which she both feared and disliked, in the house, and she was constantly urging Elyas to send it away.

But what Hugh felt sharply was Franklyn’s treatment of him as of one who must be taught the very beginning of his craft. He had learned much from his father, and had been made to use his tools when he was scarce six years old, so that in point of fact he was advanced already beyond Wat, who had gone through three years’ apprenticeship. But of all this, and in spite of the master’s hints, Franklyn was doggedly unheeding. He allowed the boy nothing but the roughest and simplest work. He explained with provoking carefulness each morning how this was to be carried out, and if, as frequently happened, the boy was inattentive, he rated him sharply. The discipline might have been good, but injustice is never wholesome, and feeling himself to be unfairly treated, Hugh set up his back more and more, took no pains to please, and moped in solitary corners.

Elyas saw that things were moving wrongly, and was vexed, but he never willingly interfered with Franklyn’s rule, and having an easy-going genial nature was disposed to believe that with time and patience things would right themselves. He had ever a kindly word for Hugh, though not realising how the boy clung to him as to a link with that past which already seemed so far away and so happy.

The weeks passed and November was well advanced. There was no lack of holidays and feastings, which Hugh in his present mood found almost more irksome than work. Agrippa was his chief companion, and yet his greatest care, as the monkey, if he took it with him, was ever likely to call a crowd together, and perhaps get pelted, until one day Elyas, coming upon him in one of these frays, advised him to have a basket and carry him thus, by which means he was able to take him to the cathedral itself.

Wat was not unfriendly. He was awkward and ungainly, and ever falling into disgrace himself, but this afflicted him scarcely at all. He had a huge appetite, and stores of apples, nuts, and cakes, which he was ready enough to share, and could not understand that anything more was wanted for happiness. Hugh, caring little for these joys, despised Wat’s advances, and would not be beguiled into friendship. He was very miserable, poor boy, and inclined to wish that he had stayed with the Franciscans in London, as Friar Luke counselled, or to long—oh, how earnestly!—that his father had suffered him to accept Sir Thomas de Trafford’s offer and be brought up in the good knight’s household. As for learning his craft, that, he said bitterly to himself, was hopeless; he was more like to forget what his father had taught, and to sink into such coarse work as Wat’s. In fact he made up his mind to the worst, and would scarce have been contented with easier measure.

Towards the end of November a new personage came into the family, small in size but of immense importance, Mistress Joan Gervase, aged five, who had been for some time staying with her grandmother, and had remained so long, owing to an attack of measles, or some such childish complaint. Great preparations were made for her home coming; Mistress Prothasy had the rooms furbished, and made all manner of spice-cakes, and Elyas rode off one day in high spirits, to sleep at his mothers and to bring back his little daughter on the morrow.

It was a bad day for Hugh. He was sick of his work, and, instead of setting himself to do it as well as he could, all went the other way; careless chippings brought down Franklyn’s wrath upon him; he would take no pains, idled and played with Agrippa, and was altogether unsatisfactory. Franklyn had good reason for anger, though rather too ready to jump at it, and he was rating the boy loudly when Mistress Prothasy came into the yard to deliver some message with which she was charged from her husband.

It was an expressed wish of his that she should never interfere with the conduct of the prentices at their work. Indoors she might say what she liked, and nothing displeased him more than a sign of disrespect on their part, but in the yard it was understood that she was silent. Nevertheless, on this occasion she asked Franklyn what Hugh had done, and hearing that Agrippa was in the matter burst out with her own grievances.

“The hateful little beast, I would he were strangled! I am frighted out of my life to think of what he may do to Joan! But I will not bear it. Hark ye, Hugh, thou wilt have to dispose of him. I have threatened it before, and now I mean it, and I shall tell thy master that it makes thee idle over thy work. He or I go out of the house!”

She swept away, leaving Hugh in a whirlwind of grief, bewilderment, and anger. Part with Agrippa, his one friend? Never! And yet—he knew from experience, and the men often spoke of it—Master Gervase never gainsaid his wife. He dashed down his tools, caught Agrippa in his arms, and faced Franklyn in a fury.

“You have done nothing but spite me, and I hate you!” he cried. “You may kill me if you like, but I will never part with my monkey!”

In his heart of hearts Franklyn was sorry that things had gone so far, but such rebellion could not be overlooked, and he fetched Hugh a sound buffet which made him tingle all over, told him the master should hear of it, and that he should have no supper but bread and water. Hugh sullenly picked up his chisel and went on with his work, paying no heed to Wat’s uncouth attempts at comfort. Work was to be put away some hours earlier than usual, and a feast provided for supper in honour of Mistress Joan’s return; but Hugh would go no farther than the balcony which ran outside the prentices’ room, supported by wooden posts, and here he crouched in a corner, hugging Agrippa, weeping hot tears of rage and turning over in his mind possible means of escape.

He had heard tales of prentices running away from harsh masters, although he had an idea that dreadful penalties were due for such an offence; but he thought he might manage to avoid being re-taken, and cared not what risks he ran. Where should he go? If he could get to Dartmouth someone might keep him till Andrew the shipman came again and took him back to London, and the boundless hope of childhood made the wild plan seem possible as soon as it came into his mind. He had the king’s gold noble sewn into his clothes, and though he never intended to spend it, the feeling that it was about him gave him a sensation of riches. He had received his first month’s pay, as apprentice; this amounted, it is true, to no more than threepence, but Elyas had given him two groats from his father’s store, and he hoped that people would be willing to pay something when he had got far enough to let the monkey display his tricks without fear of detection.

All these plans he made hastily, for the more he thought over the matter the more determined he was to run away at once. He must slip out of the gates before sunset, and while Elyas was absent; there would be so much excitement in the house with Joan’s return that he would not be missed until it was too late to follow him. Wat had gone off to see some men in the pillory; Hugh hastily rolled his father’s things in a bundle, slipped Agrippa into his basket, and was out of the house without meeting a soul.

He could not help pausing at Broad Gate to look through it once more at the Cathedral, but something in the beautiful building, some memories of his father’s hopes, brought such a choking lump into his throat that he turned hastily away, hurrying down the Western Street and out at the West Gate, and flattering himself that he had passed unnoticed by the keeper of the gate.

From one cause or another he had not gone that way since the evening they entered a month ago. Here was the new stone bridge; there in its midst stood the fair chapel where lay the good citizen who had given the bridge to the town, a little light burning ever before the altar. How well Hugh remembered touching his father’s arm to show it to him, and how he got no sign in return, and was frightened. And then but a minute or two later Master Gervase had come to their help like a good Samaritan, and he no longer felt so lonely.

It was an inconvenient recollection, because he could not help recalling with a rush how thankful his father had seemed when he came to himself, and knew in whose house they were. Also with what earnestness he had prayed Master Gervase to take Hugh, telling him that he was a good boy and would be a credit to him.

“But father never knew!” cried Hugh, stifling uneasy thoughts; “he never thought I should be set to fool’s work, and flouted at, and Agrippa taken away.”

He pushed on with the thought. He fancied that he remembered a house some five or six miles away, where the woman had been kind, and would have had them come in and rest. This was the place where he meant to spend the night.

But travelling in November was harder work than a month earlier. The road soon became a quagmire, lain began to fall, darkness set in, and there was no moon. He trudged on as bravely as he could, but he began to be very much frightened with the loneliness and the darkness, and the uneasy sense that, unlike the time when he passed before, he was not going the way in which he could expect the overshadowing Care in which his father had rested so confidently. Then more than once side roads branched off; he was not sure that he was keeping to that which was right, and little as he seemed to have to steal, there was the king’s gold noble which would be excellent booty for any cut-purse. The house seemed so long in coming that he began to think he must have passed it in the dark, and when at last he made it out, his heart sank to think that after all his efforts he had got no further; besides, there was not a light or sign of life about it, it looked so gloomy and forbidding that he was scarcely less terrified at it than at the lonely road. He ventured at last, however, to knock timidly at the door, but was answered by such a fierce growling that he clasped Agrippa the closer and fled.

Fled—but where to flee? Wet to the skin, hungry, miserable, before he had got six miles on his way, what could he do? Creeping back to the house to see if there were no outside shelter under which he might crawl, he at last found a small stack of fuel piled close to the mud walls, and by pulling this out a little formed a small hole where he made shift to lie, shivering, and in a miserable plight.

He slept, however, and forgot his misery until he awoke, cramped, aching all over, and hungrier than ever. He was too much afraid of the dog to venture to wait till the people were up and about, and set off again on his weary tramp, hoping he might reach some other hut where he could get food for himself and the monkey. Rain still fell, though not so heavily, and he could not understand why he got on so slowly, and found himself scarcely able to drag one leg after the other. Agrippa, too, also wet, cold, and hungry, shivered and chattered piteously.

At last he reached a hut where the man had gone to work, and the woman gave him black bread and cider. But she had an evil face, and took more from him than the food was worth, casting greedy looks at the remainder, and the children ran after him and pelted him and Agrippa with stones; so that Hugh was forced to hurry on as fast as his aching limbs could carry him, and by the time he had gone up a little hill, felt as if all the breath were out of his body, and he must drop by the road-side. He knew now that he must be ill, it seemed to him, indeed, that he was dying, and it was horrible to picture himself lying unheeded among the piles of dead leaves, the dank and rotting vegetation, the deep red mud—no one would know, and his only friend, poor Agrippa, would die of cold and hunger by his side.

It was no wonder that his thoughts went back with longing to Master Gervase’s house in Exeter, where food and shelter were never lacking.

After this he still struggled on, but in a dazed, mechanical sort of way, until he was quite sure that he had been walking all day, and that night must be near at hand. And with this conviction, and all the horror of coming darkness sweeping over him, he felt he could go no farther, and flung himself down upon the wet bank, under a thick growth of nut-bushes.

There Master Gervase found him.

When Elyas reached home close on sunset the day before, there was so much welcoming and hugging of Joan, so many messages to give, so many things to be spoken about, that he did not at first miss Hugh, especially as Wat was also absent. By-and-by when Wat returned, open-mouthed with sights at the pillory, Elyas asked for the little boy, and Prothasy poured out her grievances. The monkey made him idle, and she had said it should not stay in the house, and then he had flown into a rage with William, and had been told he should have nought but bread and water.

“And that is better than he deserves,” she ended. “Look you, husband, I am resolved. That evil beast shall not remain here with Joan. Thou knowest that my nay is ever nay.”

Elyas looked very grave, but made no answer. Hugh was idle, and no rebellion against Franklyn could be permitted, yet his kind heart ached for the fatherless little fellow who had taken his fancy from the first. He would not interfere with the punishment, but he resolved that when supper was over, he would go upstairs and see whether he could not mend matters. And he was a little distraught throughout the long supper, whereat Joan reigned like a veritable queen, and, it must be owned, tyrannised in some degree over her subjects. She rather vexed her mother by demanding the new boy. Father had talked to her of him, and had told her of a wonderful little beast with a face like an old man’s, and hands to hold things by; she would love to see him—where was he, why didn’t he come to supper?

“Think not of him, Joan,” said her mother quickly at last. “He is no playfellow for thee. He would bite and terrify thee.”

This caused an interval of pondering, and Prothasy fondly hoped of impression, but presently Mistress Joan lifted her little golden head.

“I want him,” she said. “I would kiss him.” Prothasy looked reproachfully at her husband, who was smiling.

The supper, as has been said, was long, and before it was finished Joan, tired out with excitement, was leaning against her father’s arm, asleep. He lifted her tenderly and carried her to their room, where she slept, and where she was soon lying in her little crib, looking fairer than ever. Husband and wife stood gazing at her with overfull hearts, and Elyas, ever large in sympathies, let his thoughts go out to the wood-carver who had cared so much for his boy, and wished he could have taken Hugh with him that day, or that he could talk him into readier obedience to Franklyn. He was very desirous to temper justice with mercy when he left Joan and went to seek Hugh.

It surprised him exceedingly to get no answer to his call. He lifted the light and looked round the room in vain, nor was Agrippa to be seen overhead among the rafters. It was possible that Hugh had slipped out and stayed thus late, but he had never done it before, and it was seven o’clock, dark and raining. Elyas began to feel very uneasy. He sought his wife, called Franklyn, who had not left the house, and questioned the other apprentices. Roger never paid any attention to Hugh, treating him as a little boy, whom it would be waste of time to notice; Wat reported that he had invited him to go out with him, but got no answer.

“He had never seen a man in the pillory, either, and here were three,” added Wat cheerfully.

Quick compunction seized Prothasy, though rather for her husband’s sake than Hugh’s; she said little, but ran hastily about the house, and even out into the wet yard, where, however, Franklyn had been before her, and then she stood in the doorway, looking up and down the street. Her husband’s voice behind startled her.

“He hath run away,” he said gravely.

“Thinkest thou so?” she said turning quickly. “Elyas, it was not much that I said, and it was not he but the monkey which provoked me.”

“Nay, I am not blaming thee, I blame myself. He is but a little lad to be left friendless in the world, and I might have been more tender with him, and kept him more by mine own side. Then this would not have happened.”

“Where will he go?”

“That I must find out at the gates, which I will do presently, though it is too late to pass out to-night. Most likely he has taken the road he knew best.”

He came back before long, saying it was as he thought, for the keeper of the West Gate had seen the boy go out. At sunrise Elyas said he would mount his good grey and follow. There was nothing else to be done, and he made as light of it as he could to Prothasy, saying the dreariness of the night might give a useful lesson.

And so it was that early the next day, when poor Hugh had got no further than a bare two miles from the place where he had slept, although he felt as if he had been walking all day, Master Gervase came upon a little figure lying under a clump of nut-bushes, and with a pang in his heart, sprang off his horse, and gathering Hugh and Agrippa into his arms, mounted again, and rode back as quickly as he could to Exeter.

Back to IndexNext