Chapter Three.Rescued.It was time. Stephen Bassett was all but spent, and Hugh, trying his best to shield him, was pressed backwards until, to his terror, he found himself close to the hairy form of the bear. But the instant the knights appeared the throng opened and fled, except the bear-leaders, who, hampered by their unwieldy animal, prepared to put the best face they could on the matter.For the first few minutes, indeed, there was nothing but trying to quiet the horses, frightened out of their senses by finding themselves in close neighbourhood with the bear, and this gave time for Hugh to look, and to cry out joyfully—“Father, it is Sir Thomas de Trafford! He will see justice done.”“How now, my masters?” cried the knight, a dark-haired, bright-eyed man with a red face. “What means this brawling?”“Your worship,” said Dick-o’-the-Hill, wiping his face with the back of his hand, “these knaves have been taken in the very act of stealing.”“Is that you, Dick Simpkins?” said Sir Thomas, with a laugh. “I might have guessed that heads could not be broken without your having a hand in the breaking. But the King will have none of this violence, and the Master of the Hospital will have thee up for it, neck and crop.”Dick, looking somewhat sheep-faced at this view of his conduct, was yet going to reply, when his cousin Matthew pushed forward.“Hearken not to him, your worship,” he began; “he is an ignorant though a well-meaning knave. But I humbly bid your worship take notice that these men be the culprits who have stolen our property, and, when we would have reclaimed it, set upon us, and were like to have killed us.”“Killed us forsooth!” muttered Dick, stirred to anger at last.”—Had your worship not come to our rescue. And as witness, knowing all the circumstances—none better—I claim, if they are put upon their trial, to take my place as one of the twelve jurors. It is a case of flagrant delict.”The culprits, conscious of their guilt, but not understanding the conversation, stood as pale as death, glancing from one to the other.“Let us hear in plain words what hath been stolen,” said Sir Thomas, impatiently.“Please your worship,” said Hugh, stepping forward and holding out the monkey, “it is Agrippa.”“A monkey! Why, thou must be the urchin my little maidens are for ever chattering about. And Edgar—where is Edgar? Not here? The youngster is stopping in the fair. And did these fellows steal thy monkey?”Bassett, who had recovered his breath, put in his word.“Ay, your worship; when we were away at your lady’s, showing her the carved work of mine she would see. We left the door of John the sacristan’s—where we are lodging—shut, and came back to find it open and the monkey gone.”“Might he not have escaped?”“He was too timid unless he had been driven forth. Besides, we have evidence that the boy, who hath shown much ill-will already in the matter, was seen to go in at the door with two others. If these men are questioned I believe they will tell us that they bought the beast from these boys, and your worship may hold their fault the less.”The knight growled something in his beard which was not flattering to foreign traders; but his sense of justice led him to take the course which Bassett suggested, and he put his questions in French to the Italians, who, watching the faces of those around (of whom a considerable number had now collected), were in mortal terror of short shrift. By all the saints in the calendar they vowed that no thought of stealing had crossed their minds. A boy had brought the monkey; they could understand no more than that he wanted to sell it, and, as they were glad of the opportunity, they gave him ten silver pennies for their bargain.Matthew was greatly vexed not to understand this defence, in which he would have been ready enough to pick holes; but Bassett, knowing that, though true in the main, their story said nothing to explain their denial of having seen the monkey or of its concealment in the bag, kept merciful silence. The men, at any rate, had been punished by fright, and when Sir Thomas de Trafford asked if he demanded that they should be haled back and given over to the college authorities he shook his head.“E’en let them go, so we have the monkey,” he said.The knight administered a sharp rating, and bade them tie up their comrade’s broken head and be off; a permission of which they were only too glad to avail themselves, the bear shuffling after them and causing a fresh panic among the horses.“Quiet, Saladin!” said Sir Thomas, irritably. “Master Carver, somebody must suffer for this, and the boy who stole and sold the beast is the worst offender. Thou—what is thy name—Hugo? Hugh?—what sayest thou should be done to him?”“Your worship,” said Hugh, tingling all over with eager thrill of hope, “your worship, I should like to fight him.”“Trial by combat,” said the knight, laughing.“Nay, nay, he’s a false loon, and that were too honourable a punishment. Here, Dick-o’-the-Hill, thou knowest every knave for miles round, go to the watch, and bid them take the thievish young varlet to the whipping-post, and let him remember it. Tell them I will answer for them to their masters.”“Tell them,” Matthew called after him, “that it is a case of flagrant delict.”“Here, Master Carver,” said Sir Thomas, moving his horse a few paces off and beckoning to Bassett, “that boy of thine is a gallant little urchin, and my babies have taken a fancy to him. Wilt thou spare him to us? He shall be well eared for; my lady has but too soft a heart, as I tell her, for the youngsters of the household.”“I am deeply beholden to your worship,” returned Stephen, hastily. “It sounds ungracious to refuse so good an offer, but I cannot part with him while I live. You may guess from my face that that will not be for long.”At the first part of this speech Sir Thomas had frowned heavily, but he could not be wroth with the end.“The more reason,” he said, “that the boy should have a protector.”“True,” Bassett answered. “I have thought much of that. But I hope to have time yet to place him somewhere where he can follow my craft and build his own fortunes.”“And you would throw away his advancement for a dream?”“Is it a dream?” said the carver. “Believe me, your worship, that, although you may find it hard to believe, we men of art have our ambitions as strong in us as in the proudest knight of King Edward’s court. Hugh has that in him which I have fostered and cherished, and which I believe will bear fruit hereafter and bring him, or his art, fame.”“Small profits, I fear me,” said Sir Thomas.“That is like enough. It may be not even a name. But something will he have done, as I believe, for the glory of God and the honour of his art.”“Well,” said the knight, half vexed, “I have made thee a fair offer, and the rest lies with thyself. Where go you after the fair?”“By Friar Nicholas’s advice, gentle sir, as far as to Exeter. He thinks I may meet with work there and a softer air.”“Since thy father will have nought better, I must find a gift for thee, boy,” said the knight, reining back his horse. He drew a richly-chased silver whistle from his breast and threw it to the boy. “Take good care of Agrippa; my little Nell would have broken her heart if she had heard he was gone. Good day, friend Matthew; good day, Master Carver.”The next moment the little party had clattered away, leaving Hugh with thanks faltering on his tongue, and Matthew on tip-toe with pride at his own discernment.“Never would you have seen your monkey again if I had not collared the knave,” he said. “Now, there is my cousin Dick, an honest fellow as ever swung a flail, but with no thought beyond what he can do with fists and staff; no use of his eyes, no putting two and two together. I’ll warrant me by the time he reaches the watch he will have forgotten the words I put into his mouth; and yet they are the very pith of the matter. I’ll e’en go after him.”He started off, while Bassett and his boy made their way back towards the church, Hugh ill at ease because, while the pommelling of Peter seemed a fine thing, his doom to the whipping-post, though no more than justice, gave him an uneasy feeling. But his father would hear of no going to beg him off, and, indeed, it would have been bootless. Peter’s offence was one for which whipping might be held a merciful punishment—“And may save him from turning into a cut-purse later on,” added Bassett.So Agrippa went back to his rafters and met with no more adventures. The fair ran its usual busy course; the friar came often to talk with Stephen Bassett and to give Hugh exercises in reading and writing; while, more rarely, Eleanor and Anne appeared with Mistress Judith—in great excitement the last time because the next day they were to set forth for their home. September was drawing to an end, the weather was rainy, and Bassett began to make inquiries as to parties who would be travelling the same road as himself. Dick-o’-the-Hill was certain that his cousin Mat would find the right people. He had implicit faith in his sagacity, and came with him in triumph one day to announce success. It seemed that a mercer, his wife, and son were going back to London and would be glad of company. And then it came out that Matthew himself was strongly drawn in the same direction.“A man,” he explained, “is like to have all his wits dulled who sees and hears none but clodhoppers. I feel at times as if I were no sharper than Dickon here. Now in London the citizens are well to the front. There is the Alderman-burgh, with the Law Courts and the King’s Bench, there is the Lord Mayor, there is the King’s Palace at Westminster and the great church of St. Paul’s; much for a man of understanding to see and meditate upon, Master Bassett, and I have half a mind—”“Have a whole one, man,” cried the carver, heartily; “and I would Dick would come too.”“Nay, in London I should be no better than an ass between two bundles of hay,” said honest Dick, shaking his head. “But if Mat goes he will bring us back a pack of news, and maybe might see the king himself.”It did not take much to give a final push to Matthew’s inclination. He had neither wife nor child, and, as he confided to Bassett, his bag of marks would bear a little dipping into. He bought a horse—or rather Dick bought it for him—the carver agreeing to pay him a certain sum for its partial use during their journey to London, and they set out at last, leaving the fair shorn of its glory.Folk were travelling in all directions; but London was the goal of the greater number, and the little knots of traders with one consent, for fear of cut-purses, kept well within sight of each other. The road was not bad, although a course of wet weather might quickly convert it into a quagmire; and it was easy enough to follow, for one of the king’s precautions against footpads was the clearing away of all brushwood and undergrowth for a space of two hundred feet on each side of the highway as well as round the gates of towns. A great deal of talk passed between the different groups, for fairs were the very centre of news, foreign and English, political and commercial, with a strong under-current of local gossip. The Hansards, Easterlings, and Lombards had brought the latest information about the French claims to Gascony, as well as much trading information from Bruges, which was then the great seat of commerce; the English merchants discussed the king’s wise and politic measures to promote the unity of the kingdom, a cause which Edward had much at heart, as necessary not only for the greatness but the safety of that England for whose good never king toiled more unselfishly.It was all deeply interesting to Stephen Bassett, who had left his own country many years before, and was amazed at the strides civil liberties had made since that time. Before this the making and the keeping of laws had depended upon the fancies of the reigning king, checked or enlarged as they might be by the barons. It was Edward the First who called his Commons to assist in the making of these laws, who summoned burgesses from the principal towns throughout the kingdom, who required the consent of the people for Acts proposed in Parliament, and enforced the keeping of these laws so powerfully that his greatest lords could no more break them with impunity than the meanest churl. He set up a fixed standard of weights and measures. Up to this time all attempts in this direction had been failures, and the inconvenience must have been great. He tried to encourage the growth of towns, freeing them from petty local restrictions and introducing staples or fixed markets. Under him taxation became more general and more even. He made a survey of the country yet more important than that of Domesday. And if that honourable hold of plighted word was—at any rate until late years—the proud characteristic of an Englishman, this national virtue, which does not come by chance any more than does a personal virtue, is owing in no small degree to the steady and strong example of the great king, who on his tomb left that bidding to his people—“Pactum serva”—keep covenant.Hugh, for love of his father, listened as well as he could to the talk; but he had good play-times as well, for there were many boys and girls on the road, and, indeed, the mercer with whom they travelled had his lad of thirteen with him. Agrippa, held by Dame Edith’s silken cord, was an immense object of interest; the mercer’s wife made him a new little coat of scarlet cloth, and, besides the black rye bread which he shared with his masters, the children were never tired of bringing him nuts, costard apples, and spice-nuts, so that he fared well. He showed great affection for Hugh, and was never so happy as when on his shoulder; tolerating Stephen and detesting Matthew.The hostels were crowded, and the accommodation of the roughest; but it was always a matter of rejoicing to have got through the day’s journey without encounter of outlaws. Highway robbery was one of the evils with which the king had vigorously to contend, and at their last halting-place the host’s wife had such a number of terrible stories at her fingers’ ends as made the more timorous shake in their shoes. She discoursed volubly as she brought in an excellent supper, which they ate with knives, forks being as yet a great luxury.“Alack-a-day, my masters!” she said. “I wot that shameful things have happened on this very road not so long ago. My lord Abbot from the neighbouring house, having but one brother with him, was seized and robbed, and left bound in the ditch. The thief made off with his palfrey, and that led to his being taken and hung; but the abbot, holy man! has scarce recovered from the shock.”One story brings another, and Matthew was seldom behindhand when anything had to be said.“Things be better, however, than they were ten years ago. Then was a time of riot. I mind me I had a cousin, living in Boston, when there came to the gates one night a party of monks wanting room in the monastery. Fine monks were these, for, when all honest citizens were in bed, out they slipped, stripped off their gowns, appeared in doublet and hose of green, and never trust me, my masters, if these merry men did not take the town so completely by surprise that they sacked and set fire to it before they left.”“There, see now!” cried the hostess, lifting up her hands; “and they might do the same by us now, and we sleeping in our beds like babes!”“I warrant that was what caused the king to ordain that town gates should be closed between sunset and sunrise, and makes him so strict in the matter,” said a monk who was seated at table, with a good helping of a fish called cropling on his trencher. “Nay, good mistress, look not mistrustfully on me. I wear no cassock of green, only that which belongs to the habit of St. Austin, of which I am an unworthy brother.”“There be land pirates and sea pirates,” said the little red-faced mercer, pompously; “both be enemies to an honest man’s trade.”“Alack, I know not how any can venture on the seas!” added his wife, putting her head as much on one side as her stiff gorget would allow.“There’s terrible venturesome folk nowadays,” put in the hostess, pouring out a tankard of ale.“They do say that ships be going so far as Spain; never will they come back again, that’s certain.” Bassett listened, smiling, to these doleful conjectures; at the same time, hearing more of the dangers of the highways made him think with some anxiety of the long journey to Exeter which lay before them. His strength had been tried by that now going on, and he wished it had been earlier in the year, when the days had been longer and roads better. But he was naturally hopeful, and, comforting himself with the thought that on the next day, if all was well, they would reach London, he listened patiently to much which Hugh had to tell about his comrades on the road and Agrippa’s cleverness before stretching themselves on the hard pallet which fell to their share in the common room.
It was time. Stephen Bassett was all but spent, and Hugh, trying his best to shield him, was pressed backwards until, to his terror, he found himself close to the hairy form of the bear. But the instant the knights appeared the throng opened and fled, except the bear-leaders, who, hampered by their unwieldy animal, prepared to put the best face they could on the matter.
For the first few minutes, indeed, there was nothing but trying to quiet the horses, frightened out of their senses by finding themselves in close neighbourhood with the bear, and this gave time for Hugh to look, and to cry out joyfully—
“Father, it is Sir Thomas de Trafford! He will see justice done.”
“How now, my masters?” cried the knight, a dark-haired, bright-eyed man with a red face. “What means this brawling?”
“Your worship,” said Dick-o’-the-Hill, wiping his face with the back of his hand, “these knaves have been taken in the very act of stealing.”
“Is that you, Dick Simpkins?” said Sir Thomas, with a laugh. “I might have guessed that heads could not be broken without your having a hand in the breaking. But the King will have none of this violence, and the Master of the Hospital will have thee up for it, neck and crop.”
Dick, looking somewhat sheep-faced at this view of his conduct, was yet going to reply, when his cousin Matthew pushed forward.
“Hearken not to him, your worship,” he began; “he is an ignorant though a well-meaning knave. But I humbly bid your worship take notice that these men be the culprits who have stolen our property, and, when we would have reclaimed it, set upon us, and were like to have killed us.”
“Killed us forsooth!” muttered Dick, stirred to anger at last.
”—Had your worship not come to our rescue. And as witness, knowing all the circumstances—none better—I claim, if they are put upon their trial, to take my place as one of the twelve jurors. It is a case of flagrant delict.”
The culprits, conscious of their guilt, but not understanding the conversation, stood as pale as death, glancing from one to the other.
“Let us hear in plain words what hath been stolen,” said Sir Thomas, impatiently.
“Please your worship,” said Hugh, stepping forward and holding out the monkey, “it is Agrippa.”
“A monkey! Why, thou must be the urchin my little maidens are for ever chattering about. And Edgar—where is Edgar? Not here? The youngster is stopping in the fair. And did these fellows steal thy monkey?”
Bassett, who had recovered his breath, put in his word.
“Ay, your worship; when we were away at your lady’s, showing her the carved work of mine she would see. We left the door of John the sacristan’s—where we are lodging—shut, and came back to find it open and the monkey gone.”
“Might he not have escaped?”
“He was too timid unless he had been driven forth. Besides, we have evidence that the boy, who hath shown much ill-will already in the matter, was seen to go in at the door with two others. If these men are questioned I believe they will tell us that they bought the beast from these boys, and your worship may hold their fault the less.”
The knight growled something in his beard which was not flattering to foreign traders; but his sense of justice led him to take the course which Bassett suggested, and he put his questions in French to the Italians, who, watching the faces of those around (of whom a considerable number had now collected), were in mortal terror of short shrift. By all the saints in the calendar they vowed that no thought of stealing had crossed their minds. A boy had brought the monkey; they could understand no more than that he wanted to sell it, and, as they were glad of the opportunity, they gave him ten silver pennies for their bargain.
Matthew was greatly vexed not to understand this defence, in which he would have been ready enough to pick holes; but Bassett, knowing that, though true in the main, their story said nothing to explain their denial of having seen the monkey or of its concealment in the bag, kept merciful silence. The men, at any rate, had been punished by fright, and when Sir Thomas de Trafford asked if he demanded that they should be haled back and given over to the college authorities he shook his head.
“E’en let them go, so we have the monkey,” he said.
The knight administered a sharp rating, and bade them tie up their comrade’s broken head and be off; a permission of which they were only too glad to avail themselves, the bear shuffling after them and causing a fresh panic among the horses.
“Quiet, Saladin!” said Sir Thomas, irritably. “Master Carver, somebody must suffer for this, and the boy who stole and sold the beast is the worst offender. Thou—what is thy name—Hugo? Hugh?—what sayest thou should be done to him?”
“Your worship,” said Hugh, tingling all over with eager thrill of hope, “your worship, I should like to fight him.”
“Trial by combat,” said the knight, laughing.
“Nay, nay, he’s a false loon, and that were too honourable a punishment. Here, Dick-o’-the-Hill, thou knowest every knave for miles round, go to the watch, and bid them take the thievish young varlet to the whipping-post, and let him remember it. Tell them I will answer for them to their masters.”
“Tell them,” Matthew called after him, “that it is a case of flagrant delict.”
“Here, Master Carver,” said Sir Thomas, moving his horse a few paces off and beckoning to Bassett, “that boy of thine is a gallant little urchin, and my babies have taken a fancy to him. Wilt thou spare him to us? He shall be well eared for; my lady has but too soft a heart, as I tell her, for the youngsters of the household.”
“I am deeply beholden to your worship,” returned Stephen, hastily. “It sounds ungracious to refuse so good an offer, but I cannot part with him while I live. You may guess from my face that that will not be for long.”
At the first part of this speech Sir Thomas had frowned heavily, but he could not be wroth with the end.
“The more reason,” he said, “that the boy should have a protector.”
“True,” Bassett answered. “I have thought much of that. But I hope to have time yet to place him somewhere where he can follow my craft and build his own fortunes.”
“And you would throw away his advancement for a dream?”
“Is it a dream?” said the carver. “Believe me, your worship, that, although you may find it hard to believe, we men of art have our ambitions as strong in us as in the proudest knight of King Edward’s court. Hugh has that in him which I have fostered and cherished, and which I believe will bear fruit hereafter and bring him, or his art, fame.”
“Small profits, I fear me,” said Sir Thomas.
“That is like enough. It may be not even a name. But something will he have done, as I believe, for the glory of God and the honour of his art.”
“Well,” said the knight, half vexed, “I have made thee a fair offer, and the rest lies with thyself. Where go you after the fair?”
“By Friar Nicholas’s advice, gentle sir, as far as to Exeter. He thinks I may meet with work there and a softer air.”
“Since thy father will have nought better, I must find a gift for thee, boy,” said the knight, reining back his horse. He drew a richly-chased silver whistle from his breast and threw it to the boy. “Take good care of Agrippa; my little Nell would have broken her heart if she had heard he was gone. Good day, friend Matthew; good day, Master Carver.”
The next moment the little party had clattered away, leaving Hugh with thanks faltering on his tongue, and Matthew on tip-toe with pride at his own discernment.
“Never would you have seen your monkey again if I had not collared the knave,” he said. “Now, there is my cousin Dick, an honest fellow as ever swung a flail, but with no thought beyond what he can do with fists and staff; no use of his eyes, no putting two and two together. I’ll warrant me by the time he reaches the watch he will have forgotten the words I put into his mouth; and yet they are the very pith of the matter. I’ll e’en go after him.”
He started off, while Bassett and his boy made their way back towards the church, Hugh ill at ease because, while the pommelling of Peter seemed a fine thing, his doom to the whipping-post, though no more than justice, gave him an uneasy feeling. But his father would hear of no going to beg him off, and, indeed, it would have been bootless. Peter’s offence was one for which whipping might be held a merciful punishment—
“And may save him from turning into a cut-purse later on,” added Bassett.
So Agrippa went back to his rafters and met with no more adventures. The fair ran its usual busy course; the friar came often to talk with Stephen Bassett and to give Hugh exercises in reading and writing; while, more rarely, Eleanor and Anne appeared with Mistress Judith—in great excitement the last time because the next day they were to set forth for their home. September was drawing to an end, the weather was rainy, and Bassett began to make inquiries as to parties who would be travelling the same road as himself. Dick-o’-the-Hill was certain that his cousin Mat would find the right people. He had implicit faith in his sagacity, and came with him in triumph one day to announce success. It seemed that a mercer, his wife, and son were going back to London and would be glad of company. And then it came out that Matthew himself was strongly drawn in the same direction.
“A man,” he explained, “is like to have all his wits dulled who sees and hears none but clodhoppers. I feel at times as if I were no sharper than Dickon here. Now in London the citizens are well to the front. There is the Alderman-burgh, with the Law Courts and the King’s Bench, there is the Lord Mayor, there is the King’s Palace at Westminster and the great church of St. Paul’s; much for a man of understanding to see and meditate upon, Master Bassett, and I have half a mind—”
“Have a whole one, man,” cried the carver, heartily; “and I would Dick would come too.”
“Nay, in London I should be no better than an ass between two bundles of hay,” said honest Dick, shaking his head. “But if Mat goes he will bring us back a pack of news, and maybe might see the king himself.”
It did not take much to give a final push to Matthew’s inclination. He had neither wife nor child, and, as he confided to Bassett, his bag of marks would bear a little dipping into. He bought a horse—or rather Dick bought it for him—the carver agreeing to pay him a certain sum for its partial use during their journey to London, and they set out at last, leaving the fair shorn of its glory.
Folk were travelling in all directions; but London was the goal of the greater number, and the little knots of traders with one consent, for fear of cut-purses, kept well within sight of each other. The road was not bad, although a course of wet weather might quickly convert it into a quagmire; and it was easy enough to follow, for one of the king’s precautions against footpads was the clearing away of all brushwood and undergrowth for a space of two hundred feet on each side of the highway as well as round the gates of towns. A great deal of talk passed between the different groups, for fairs were the very centre of news, foreign and English, political and commercial, with a strong under-current of local gossip. The Hansards, Easterlings, and Lombards had brought the latest information about the French claims to Gascony, as well as much trading information from Bruges, which was then the great seat of commerce; the English merchants discussed the king’s wise and politic measures to promote the unity of the kingdom, a cause which Edward had much at heart, as necessary not only for the greatness but the safety of that England for whose good never king toiled more unselfishly.
It was all deeply interesting to Stephen Bassett, who had left his own country many years before, and was amazed at the strides civil liberties had made since that time. Before this the making and the keeping of laws had depended upon the fancies of the reigning king, checked or enlarged as they might be by the barons. It was Edward the First who called his Commons to assist in the making of these laws, who summoned burgesses from the principal towns throughout the kingdom, who required the consent of the people for Acts proposed in Parliament, and enforced the keeping of these laws so powerfully that his greatest lords could no more break them with impunity than the meanest churl. He set up a fixed standard of weights and measures. Up to this time all attempts in this direction had been failures, and the inconvenience must have been great. He tried to encourage the growth of towns, freeing them from petty local restrictions and introducing staples or fixed markets. Under him taxation became more general and more even. He made a survey of the country yet more important than that of Domesday. And if that honourable hold of plighted word was—at any rate until late years—the proud characteristic of an Englishman, this national virtue, which does not come by chance any more than does a personal virtue, is owing in no small degree to the steady and strong example of the great king, who on his tomb left that bidding to his people—“Pactum serva”—keep covenant.
Hugh, for love of his father, listened as well as he could to the talk; but he had good play-times as well, for there were many boys and girls on the road, and, indeed, the mercer with whom they travelled had his lad of thirteen with him. Agrippa, held by Dame Edith’s silken cord, was an immense object of interest; the mercer’s wife made him a new little coat of scarlet cloth, and, besides the black rye bread which he shared with his masters, the children were never tired of bringing him nuts, costard apples, and spice-nuts, so that he fared well. He showed great affection for Hugh, and was never so happy as when on his shoulder; tolerating Stephen and detesting Matthew.
The hostels were crowded, and the accommodation of the roughest; but it was always a matter of rejoicing to have got through the day’s journey without encounter of outlaws. Highway robbery was one of the evils with which the king had vigorously to contend, and at their last halting-place the host’s wife had such a number of terrible stories at her fingers’ ends as made the more timorous shake in their shoes. She discoursed volubly as she brought in an excellent supper, which they ate with knives, forks being as yet a great luxury.
“Alack-a-day, my masters!” she said. “I wot that shameful things have happened on this very road not so long ago. My lord Abbot from the neighbouring house, having but one brother with him, was seized and robbed, and left bound in the ditch. The thief made off with his palfrey, and that led to his being taken and hung; but the abbot, holy man! has scarce recovered from the shock.”
One story brings another, and Matthew was seldom behindhand when anything had to be said.
“Things be better, however, than they were ten years ago. Then was a time of riot. I mind me I had a cousin, living in Boston, when there came to the gates one night a party of monks wanting room in the monastery. Fine monks were these, for, when all honest citizens were in bed, out they slipped, stripped off their gowns, appeared in doublet and hose of green, and never trust me, my masters, if these merry men did not take the town so completely by surprise that they sacked and set fire to it before they left.”
“There, see now!” cried the hostess, lifting up her hands; “and they might do the same by us now, and we sleeping in our beds like babes!”
“I warrant that was what caused the king to ordain that town gates should be closed between sunset and sunrise, and makes him so strict in the matter,” said a monk who was seated at table, with a good helping of a fish called cropling on his trencher. “Nay, good mistress, look not mistrustfully on me. I wear no cassock of green, only that which belongs to the habit of St. Austin, of which I am an unworthy brother.”
“There be land pirates and sea pirates,” said the little red-faced mercer, pompously; “both be enemies to an honest man’s trade.”
“Alack, I know not how any can venture on the seas!” added his wife, putting her head as much on one side as her stiff gorget would allow.
“There’s terrible venturesome folk nowadays,” put in the hostess, pouring out a tankard of ale.
“They do say that ships be going so far as Spain; never will they come back again, that’s certain.” Bassett listened, smiling, to these doleful conjectures; at the same time, hearing more of the dangers of the highways made him think with some anxiety of the long journey to Exeter which lay before them. His strength had been tried by that now going on, and he wished it had been earlier in the year, when the days had been longer and roads better. But he was naturally hopeful, and, comforting himself with the thought that on the next day, if all was well, they would reach London, he listened patiently to much which Hugh had to tell about his comrades on the road and Agrippa’s cleverness before stretching themselves on the hard pallet which fell to their share in the common room.
Chapter Four.God Save the King!The last day’s journey was a heavy one, owing to the rain which fell persistently. All the travellers wore their long pointed hoods, and carried tall, stout sticks, but their legs were not very well protected except by thick hose, and Bassett’s cough was none the better for the journey. He was glad enough when they came near the clusters of houses or villages which marked the outskirts of London, and saw the mist hanging over the city which, helped by the moisture from the marshes, the new use of coal was already beginning to produce. Matthew was in a high state of delight.“Truly something of a city!” he exclaimed, rubbing his hands, “sheltering within its walls something like forty thousand souls. A noble city! I’ll warrant a man of parts might make a name here. There are the walls.”The carver was almost too weary to bear Hugh’s questionings as to the Franciscan monastery in Newgate Street where they were to lodge, and whether the prior might object to the presence of Agrippa. When they reached the monastery, indeed, he was so sorely spent that the good friars at once called one of their number who had studied physic and consigned Bassett to his care, giving him, moreover, the best room in the guests’ quarters.It must be said that the monkey was very doubtfully received, indeed he might probably have been altogether refused, for some of the brethren looked upon him as an actual imp of Satan, or perhaps Satan himself. But the prior was of a larger nature, so that Hugh was suffered to take Agrippa with him into the room he shared with his father.And here, in spite of his impatience, Bassett was forced to spend a week, Friar Luke altogether refusing to allow his patient to leave the room until the cough and pain in his side were subdued. Had it not been for his strong longing to reach Exeter and see Hugh started as an apprentice this would have been a time of peace for the carver. His quarters were sunny and cheerful; Friar Luke was a herbalist, and in his search for healing plants would bring him back what autumn flowers yet lingered, and talking of them would draw out stores of simple learning. Agrippa, moreover, somewhat to Friar Luke’s discomfiture, had shown a strong attraction for his master’s physician, and would come flying down from all manner of unexpected places to greet him. Sometimes the prior would visit his guest, and, being a man of thought, his presence was a real delight to Stephen, while the prior was glad to hear the experiences of a man who had travelled largely and seen something of the world. As Stephen grew stronger Friar Luke allowed him to attend the services in the chapel.Then Hugh would come in, rosy and excited with his walks with Matthew, who would see everything, even to the hangings on the Tyburn elms. They went to mass at St. Paul’s, then surrounded by its own walls; they walked down the grassy spaces of Strand; they looked with some dread at the round church of the New Temple, and heard tales of the Templars fit to make the hair stand on end; they passed another day to the village of Westminster, where was the king’s palace and the beautiful abbey, together with the great hall where Parliament, when it met in London, assembled. It amused Hugh very well at first to see the crowds of suitors who poured up the stairs—those who had some complaints to make, grievances to be redressed, or petitions to be laid before the Triers. No hindrance was put in their way; everyone was free to come, each had a fair hearing. Outlaws came to beg for pardon, when, if the Triers thought fit, they were recommended to the king’s grace; men and women sought redress from wrongs inflicted perhaps by the lord of the manor; jurors who had perverted their office were brought up to receive judgment—all these lesser matters were as much the business of Parliament as granting aids to the king for carrying on the wars, and so fascinated was Matthew with the scene that Hugh was wearied to death of it before he could drag him away.He got him out at last, muttering to himself that had he but known how easy matters were made he would have looked up a case of his own against the University of Cambridge. Hugh, stirred by ambition to have to do with an actual suitor, which was much more exciting than looking on and listening to matters he did not understand, was for his going back again at once. Great was Matthew’s indignation at the idea.“Thou silly oaf!” he said, angrily. “To go without preparation!”“They but told a plain story,” returned Hugh, sturdily. “Anyone could do as much.”“Seest thou not the difference? They were ignorant men with whom the Council was wondrous patient, overlooking all their clipped words, and mercifully stooping to their simpleness. But for a man of understanding to put a case matters must be very different. Fit words must he use, and just pleadings must he make, and be ready to give good reason. Their worships know well with whom they have to do. I will take thee to the Guildhall one day, and there thou shalt see the lawyers in their white coifs. They are no longer monks, as once they were.”“I would liefer go down the river and see the ships,” said Hugh wearily.Matthew, who was really good-natured, yielded to this desire, and they picked their way along the swampy ground as best they could, and past the Tower. The great trade of London, even at this time when commerce was ever made secondary to politics, was so large that a number of vessels were in the river. Strange craft they were and of all shapes and sizes, the largest resembling nothing so much as a swollen half-circle, broadening at one end, and coming round so as to form a sort of shelter, and curving sharply to a point at the bow. No such thing as sea charts as yet existed, so that a voyage was a perilous matter, and, in spite of the Crusades and of the trade with the Mediterranean, few vessels ventured through the Straits of Gibraltar. Edward was turning his attention to the navy, and was the first to appoint admirals, but, so far, England’s strength lay altogether in her army and her famous bowmen, and the sea was no source of power, nor her sailors famous.Still, though Matthew professed the greatest contempt for his taste, Hugh found the river more delightful than the Council Hall, and was for lingering there as late as he could. Some of the vessels were unloading, others embarking corn from the eastern counties, so that there was much stir and turmoil, and more vessels were in than was usual, because the time of the autumn equinox was dangerous for sailing. Children, too, were, as ever, playing about, and one group attracted Hugh, because in it was a little maid much about the size of little Eleanor, and with something of her spirited ways. The boys, her companions, were rough, and at last one pushed her with such force that she fell, striking her head violently against a projecting plank. Hugh flew to avenge her, but the boys, frightened at seeing her lie motionless, fled, and Matthew stood growling at the manners of the age. Hugh, used to sickness, ran to the water’s brink, and scooped up a little water in his two hands. By the time he had poured it on her face and raised her head on his knee she opened her brown eyes with a cry of “Mother!” and the next moment a man in a sailor’s dress had leaped ashore from one of the vessels which were lading close by, had run to the group and taken her in his arms.“Art thou hurt, my Moll, and where?”“Father, ’twas Robin Bolton pushed me.”“Ay, and I wot Robin Bolton shall have a clout on his head when he comes within my reach. But there, thou wilt soon be well again. Thank thee for thy help,” he added, more roughly, to Hugh.“If you stand in need of a witness,” began Matthew, but the sailor interrupted him—“Witnesses? No! What she stood in need of was water, which thy boy fetched. He is quick enough to be a sailor,” he added, with a laugh.“Wilt thou come on a voyage to Dartmouth?”“I should be frighted on the sea,” said Hugh sturdily.“Nay, it’s not so bad, so you fall not in with pirates, which are the pest of our coasts. I’ve been lucky enough to escape them so far. But then,” he added with a wink, “they know me at Dartmouth, and folk sometimes tell evil tales of Dartmouth.”He was of a talkative nature, or perhaps thought it well to keep his Moll quiet on his knee, for he went on to tell them that his wife and child lived near the spot where they were, while he went on trading voyages, bringing up Cornish ore from Dartmouth and carrying back other ladings. He was very proud of his vessel, and yet prouder of his little maid, whom it was plain he did his best to spoil; and when he saw that she had taken a fancy to Hugh, he told him he might come on board his vessel one day before he sailed.“Which will be in a week,” he said, confidently. “The storms will be over by then.”Hugh was glad enough of the bidding, for Matthew, with his love for the law courts and for all that concerned the State, was but a dry companion to an eager boy. He went back to the monastery in high glee, to tell his father all that he had heard.Friar Luke was with Stephen, having brought his patient a decoction of coltsfoot, and also a little bunch of flowers which he was examining with enthusiastic patience.“See here,” he said, with a sigh, “though in good sooth one needs eyes of more than human power to examine so minute a structure. There is a talk that one of our order, Friar Bacon, who died not many years ago, could by means of a strange instrument so enlarge distant objects as to bring them into the range of a man’s vision. I know not. Many strange things are told of him, and many of our brethren believe that he had dealings with the black art. It might be he was only in advance of us all. But while he was about it I would he had taught us how to enlarge what is near. And, indeed, there is talk of a magic beryl—”“Father, father!” cried Hugh, rushing in breathless; “we have been to the river, and there was a ship, and a little maiden called Moll, and the master has bid me on board the ship before he sails for Dartmouth.”He poured out the history of the day, standing by his father’s knee, with Agrippa nestling in his arms. Bassett heard him so thoughtfully that Hugh began to think he was displeased.“Mayn’t I go?” he asked, tremulously.“Ay, ay,” said his father, absently. “Friar Luke, tell me truly, do you still dread for me this journey to Exeter?”“Rather more than less,” answered the friar.“The fatigue?”“Ay, fatigue and exposure, but chiefly the fatigue.”“Yet I must go.”“Ay, ay, there is ever a must in the mouth of a wilful man,” said the friar, testily. “And then you fall sick, and it is the fault of the leech.”“That it can never be in my case,” said the carver, gratefully, “for never had man a kinder or more skilful. But I will tell you why I ask. Hugh’s encounter has put into my mind the thought that we might go to Dartmouth by ship.”“The saints forbid!” said the friar, rapidly crossing himself. “You must be mad to think of it, Master Bassett.”“Nay, but why?”“The dangers, the discomforts!—shoals, rocks, pirates!”“Dangers there are in all journeys. The discomforts will no doubt be great, but put on the other side the fatigue you warn me against.”“You should not go at all,” said Friar Luke. “Remain here where you can be cared for. Hugh shall be a serving-boy, and take the habit when he is old enough.”“Wilt thou, Hugh?” demanded his father.A vehement shake of the head was his answer.“Nay, holy friar,” said Bassett, with a smile; “I am bending the twig so far that the strain is great, but your proposal, I fear, would snap it altogether. But about our voyage. I am greatly inclined to Hugh’s new friend. When does he sail?”“In a week,” said the boy, with some reluctance. He had not liked the voyage from Flanders, and this promised to be worse. Still he felt it incumbent upon him to show no fear.“That would do well. I tell thee what, Hugh, thou shalt ask the master to come and see me here if he has a mind for another kind of cargo.”With his usual hopefulness, the idea had taken hold of the wood-carver so strongly that he turned aside all remonstrances, though the prior himself came up to beg him not to be so foolhardy. But it was true, as Bassett maintained, that each kind of travelling had its dangers, and, if the sea offered the most, he felt a sick man’s longing to be spared trouble, and a feverish desire for the salt breezes. Matthew, too, thought it philosophical to be above listening to the tales of sea-perils which the brethren related, it need hardly be said, at second-hand; but it must be owned that he showed no desire to extend his own travels so far as Exeter. Hugh went down the next day and talked to the master, who at first shook his head.“Two landsmen on board? Where could we stow ye? And if we met with rough weather we should have you crying upon all the saints in the calendar. A sick man, too! How could he put up with our rough fare?”“My father does not get frighted,” said Hugh, indignantly, though pleased to be counted a landsman.“Thou art a sturdy little varlet,” said the master, looking at him approvingly. “If my Moll had been a boy, I should have been content had he likened thee. But I would not have her other than she is, and thou wast good to her the other day. I’ll come and see thy father, and if he is a good, honest man, and none of your dandy long-toed fops, he and thou shalt have a passage to Dartmouth.”The next day was Sunday, and, to the scandal of the grey friars, Matthew insisted upon taking Hugh to St. Bartholomew in Smithfield, the noble Norman church of the Augustinian friars. There was a good deal of jealousy between the orders, and each was ready enough to listen to or to repeat tales which told to the discredit of the others; so that, as Matthew said, black, white, and grey, each held their colour to be the only one in which a friar might travel to heaven. Mass being over at St. Bartholomew’s they went to great St. Paul’s.This was in that day a splendid Gothic church, twice as big as the present building, and with a dazzling high altar. But, in spite of its magnificence, and perhaps partly on account of its size, it was a notorious haunt of cut-purses and brawlers, and all manner of crimes were committed in the church; so that a few years before the king had given the Chapter leave to surround it with walls and gates, treating it indeed as a town, and keeping out suspicious characters.By this means matters had mended a little, but there was still a great deal of unseemly conduct which caused scandal to the more devout. Hugh came back to the monastery bursting with all he had to tell, and he was beyond measure delighted when his father said he would himself go out the next day.Before the sun had mounted high enough for Friar Luke to allow this the master of theQueen Maudarrived, and Stephen saw a sturdy, sunburnt man, with an open countenance, blue-eyed, light-haired, wearing a garment of coarse cloth which reached to his knees, who looked as uneasy at finding himself in a monastery as a freshly-trapped pony from his own wilds of Dartmoor might have looked in a walled town. His discomfort made him surly, so that he gave the carver no encouragement for the voyage.“Hard living and a perilous life, my master.”“That does not affright me.”“Because you know it not,” said the other, impatiently. “Here you sit in a drone’s hive and hear the winds blow outside, and have no fear. With a plank for your wall you would tell a different tale.”“I have tried the plank,” said Bassett, with a smile. “Though, as you say, Master Shipman, we know not other’s lives till we try them, and maybe you, if you lived here, would think more kindly of what you call a drone’s hive.”“The Church and the Pope swallow up all a poor man’s savings,” said the sailor, less gruffly. “’Tis nothing but fresh taxes, and these Lombard usurers are every whit as bad as the Jews. I would the king could make as clean a sweep of them. To make money without working for it is a sin and a shame.”“The king does what he can.”“Ay, does he,” said the other, heartily. “He is the poor man’s friend.”“Truly.”The sailor looked at him. “Why, then,” he said, “if thou lovest King Edward—”“No question of that.”“E’en come along with us. I am but taking down some bales of cloth and of silk, and as thou mindest not a rough life, and I have a fancy for thy boy, we may perchance rub along together.”So it was settled, and, in spite of the friar’s forebodings, Stephen Bassett thought of his venture with an excellent heart. Hugh was naturally fearless, and, though the sea was a great object of dread in those times, he believed his father knew best, and began to look forward also. But first he would have Bassett come forth for his promised walk, and without Matthew.“He has been very good to thee,” said the carver reproachfully.“Ay, but he has always something to say against everything. This might be better, or that couldn’t be worse. I believe he would find fault with King Edward himself.”“Poor Matthew! He has the critical spirit,” said Stephen, smiling.“Is that what makes him so thin?” demanded Hugh, innocently.“Ay. It often works that way, and is bad for the owner. Nevertheless, it has its advantages. Look at that bowl. If I listened to the good brothers I should deem it perfect; but when Matthew says, ‘Hum—I know not—is there not something lacking?’ I begin to search for a way of bettering it, and presently find that he was right. So his fault-finding does me a better service than all their praise. Keep that in mind, Hugh. Now we will forth. I will buy some cloth and take it to one of the tailors’ guild, that you may have a cloak for rough weather like mine.”This was a delightful errand, and when it was ended Stephen had not the heart to refuse Hugh when he begged that he would try to go towards St. Paul’s and see the noble church. The boy was very happy in acting as showman, pointing out the beautiful spire while they were yet at some distance. He had begged to bring Agrippa, promising to keep him covered by a piece of cloth, and the monkey was sufficiently alarmed by the strange noises and cries in the street to keep quiet. Hugh found it a rare opportunity to ask questions which Matthew had been either unable or unwilling to answer.“Look, father, look quickly! There is a woman with bread in her panniers! What is she doing?”“I have heard of her,” said Stephen, stopping. “Friar Luke told me that, instead of folk being forced to fetch the daily bread from the bakers, there was now a woman who had got leave to take it round from house to house. She has the thirteenth loaf for her pains. Truly there’s no knowing to what a pitch of luxury we may come! Are we nearly at our journey’s end, Hugh? My legs have fallen out of the way of walking, and are true sluggards.”He was in truth standing somewhat exhausted in the road under one of the black-timbered houses in Ludgate Hill, when a small cavalcade of knights and squires, some in armour, some in the scarlet cloaks of the Hospitallers, came sharply round the corner, so sharply, indeed, that in the narrow road one of the squires’ horses struck Stephen and sent him staggering against the wall.The party reined up at once. Hugh had uttered a cry and sprung to his father’s side, dropping the monkey as he stretched out his arms. Half a dozen men-at-arms crowded round; one of the red-cloaked knights leaped from his horse, but they all drew back before one who seemed the principal knight, a man of great stature, with brown hair and thick beard, and gravely searching blue eyes.“Is he hurt?” he demanded. “That is your squire’s rough riding, Sir John de Lacy.”“My liege, ’twas but a touch,” urged an older knight. “I saw it all. He can scarce be hurt.” Stephen, indeed, had well-nigh recovered himself, though dizzy with the shock, and scarcely knowing what had happened or why he was surrounded by horsemen. Hugh, seeing him revived, stared at the group with all his might, while the monkey, frightened to death at the horses, had run up a projection of the house and perched himself upon a carved wooden balcony, from which he scolded and chattered.“It is nothing, I am not hurt,” faltered Stephen; and then the colour rushed back to his white face, and he bent his knee hastily. “My Lord the King,” he stammered, “is it not?”“Ay,” said Edward, with one of his rare kindly smiles; “but it was not I who rode over thee. Art thou not hurt?”“Nay, my liege, it is but that I have been ill. It was no more than a touch.”It had all passed quickly, but a knot of bystanders had by this time collected, kept off by the men-at-arms.“He speaks truly, my lord,” said one of the Hospitallers who had dismounted. “He has not been hurt by the horse, but—”He paused significantly, and Edward glanced at Hugh. “Come hither, boy.”So Hugh, crimson with wonder and delight, stood by the king’s horse, and answered his questions as firmly as he could. His father was a wood-carver. They were going to Exeter to seek work—by ship, as he took care to state; and meanwhile, because father had been so ill, they were lodging at the Franciscan monastery in Newgate Street.“And is that thy beast?” asked the king, whose quick eye had caught sight of the monkey between the carved work of the balcony. “How wilt thou catch him? Let us see.”Hugh promptly stood under the balcony, opened his arms, and uttered a call, to which Agrippa responded, though fearfully, by swinging down by tail and hands and dropping into his master’s arms.“Well climbed indeed,” said Edward; and seeing that Stephen was in some degree recovered, he bade one of the men-at-arms lend him his horse and go with him to the convent. “And here is a gold piece for thee, boy—for remembrance,” he added, tossing him the coin as he moved off.“And a silver one for the monkey,” said a young knight, with a merry laugh, stooping to offer the mark to Agrippa, who cleverly clutched it, and then trotting after the king.All had passed so quickly that Hugh scarcely knew where he was or what had happened. He stood staring at the gold noble in his hand, while the bystanders closed up curiously, and one rough fellow, who looked as if he had been drinking, made as though he would have snatched it from his hand. A fat monk, with a red good-natured face, hit the fellow a sound buffet; the crowd laughed, and the man-at-arms made haste to get Bassett on his horse, and to hurry his charges away, the king being always roused to anger by any brawling in the streets.“Keep close to me,” he said to Hugh; “and give thy money to thy father. Now, where are we bound? The Grey Friars? I warrant me they brew good ale there, and supper-time is nigh enough to make a tankard right welcome.”“And that was the king,” said Hugh, drawing a deep breath.“Ay, the king. What thinkest thou of him?”“I would I could fight for him,” burst out the boy.“Why, so thou shalt!” said Hob Trueman, with a laugh. “Eat good beef, and drink good ale, and grow up a lusty yeoman. The king’s a good master, I have nought to say against him—saving that he is somewhat over strict,” he added, with qualifying remembrance. “We should be near by this time—”That night, before lying down in the wooden crib which served for bed, Stephen Bassett called his boy.“Hugh, thou hast not forgotten thy promise,” he said anxiously.“No, father;” in a low voice.“Fight for the king thou must, or be ready to fight. That is the law for all Englishmen. Does not that content thee?”Silence. Then—“I should like to be near him, to be one of the men-at-arms.”Bassett sighed.“I cannot yield to thee, Hugh.”“No, father.”“And I have no breath for talking to-night. We will speak of it again.”
The last day’s journey was a heavy one, owing to the rain which fell persistently. All the travellers wore their long pointed hoods, and carried tall, stout sticks, but their legs were not very well protected except by thick hose, and Bassett’s cough was none the better for the journey. He was glad enough when they came near the clusters of houses or villages which marked the outskirts of London, and saw the mist hanging over the city which, helped by the moisture from the marshes, the new use of coal was already beginning to produce. Matthew was in a high state of delight.
“Truly something of a city!” he exclaimed, rubbing his hands, “sheltering within its walls something like forty thousand souls. A noble city! I’ll warrant a man of parts might make a name here. There are the walls.”
The carver was almost too weary to bear Hugh’s questionings as to the Franciscan monastery in Newgate Street where they were to lodge, and whether the prior might object to the presence of Agrippa. When they reached the monastery, indeed, he was so sorely spent that the good friars at once called one of their number who had studied physic and consigned Bassett to his care, giving him, moreover, the best room in the guests’ quarters.
It must be said that the monkey was very doubtfully received, indeed he might probably have been altogether refused, for some of the brethren looked upon him as an actual imp of Satan, or perhaps Satan himself. But the prior was of a larger nature, so that Hugh was suffered to take Agrippa with him into the room he shared with his father.
And here, in spite of his impatience, Bassett was forced to spend a week, Friar Luke altogether refusing to allow his patient to leave the room until the cough and pain in his side were subdued. Had it not been for his strong longing to reach Exeter and see Hugh started as an apprentice this would have been a time of peace for the carver. His quarters were sunny and cheerful; Friar Luke was a herbalist, and in his search for healing plants would bring him back what autumn flowers yet lingered, and talking of them would draw out stores of simple learning. Agrippa, moreover, somewhat to Friar Luke’s discomfiture, had shown a strong attraction for his master’s physician, and would come flying down from all manner of unexpected places to greet him. Sometimes the prior would visit his guest, and, being a man of thought, his presence was a real delight to Stephen, while the prior was glad to hear the experiences of a man who had travelled largely and seen something of the world. As Stephen grew stronger Friar Luke allowed him to attend the services in the chapel.
Then Hugh would come in, rosy and excited with his walks with Matthew, who would see everything, even to the hangings on the Tyburn elms. They went to mass at St. Paul’s, then surrounded by its own walls; they walked down the grassy spaces of Strand; they looked with some dread at the round church of the New Temple, and heard tales of the Templars fit to make the hair stand on end; they passed another day to the village of Westminster, where was the king’s palace and the beautiful abbey, together with the great hall where Parliament, when it met in London, assembled. It amused Hugh very well at first to see the crowds of suitors who poured up the stairs—those who had some complaints to make, grievances to be redressed, or petitions to be laid before the Triers. No hindrance was put in their way; everyone was free to come, each had a fair hearing. Outlaws came to beg for pardon, when, if the Triers thought fit, they were recommended to the king’s grace; men and women sought redress from wrongs inflicted perhaps by the lord of the manor; jurors who had perverted their office were brought up to receive judgment—all these lesser matters were as much the business of Parliament as granting aids to the king for carrying on the wars, and so fascinated was Matthew with the scene that Hugh was wearied to death of it before he could drag him away.
He got him out at last, muttering to himself that had he but known how easy matters were made he would have looked up a case of his own against the University of Cambridge. Hugh, stirred by ambition to have to do with an actual suitor, which was much more exciting than looking on and listening to matters he did not understand, was for his going back again at once. Great was Matthew’s indignation at the idea.
“Thou silly oaf!” he said, angrily. “To go without preparation!”
“They but told a plain story,” returned Hugh, sturdily. “Anyone could do as much.”
“Seest thou not the difference? They were ignorant men with whom the Council was wondrous patient, overlooking all their clipped words, and mercifully stooping to their simpleness. But for a man of understanding to put a case matters must be very different. Fit words must he use, and just pleadings must he make, and be ready to give good reason. Their worships know well with whom they have to do. I will take thee to the Guildhall one day, and there thou shalt see the lawyers in their white coifs. They are no longer monks, as once they were.”
“I would liefer go down the river and see the ships,” said Hugh wearily.
Matthew, who was really good-natured, yielded to this desire, and they picked their way along the swampy ground as best they could, and past the Tower. The great trade of London, even at this time when commerce was ever made secondary to politics, was so large that a number of vessels were in the river. Strange craft they were and of all shapes and sizes, the largest resembling nothing so much as a swollen half-circle, broadening at one end, and coming round so as to form a sort of shelter, and curving sharply to a point at the bow. No such thing as sea charts as yet existed, so that a voyage was a perilous matter, and, in spite of the Crusades and of the trade with the Mediterranean, few vessels ventured through the Straits of Gibraltar. Edward was turning his attention to the navy, and was the first to appoint admirals, but, so far, England’s strength lay altogether in her army and her famous bowmen, and the sea was no source of power, nor her sailors famous.
Still, though Matthew professed the greatest contempt for his taste, Hugh found the river more delightful than the Council Hall, and was for lingering there as late as he could. Some of the vessels were unloading, others embarking corn from the eastern counties, so that there was much stir and turmoil, and more vessels were in than was usual, because the time of the autumn equinox was dangerous for sailing. Children, too, were, as ever, playing about, and one group attracted Hugh, because in it was a little maid much about the size of little Eleanor, and with something of her spirited ways. The boys, her companions, were rough, and at last one pushed her with such force that she fell, striking her head violently against a projecting plank. Hugh flew to avenge her, but the boys, frightened at seeing her lie motionless, fled, and Matthew stood growling at the manners of the age. Hugh, used to sickness, ran to the water’s brink, and scooped up a little water in his two hands. By the time he had poured it on her face and raised her head on his knee she opened her brown eyes with a cry of “Mother!” and the next moment a man in a sailor’s dress had leaped ashore from one of the vessels which were lading close by, had run to the group and taken her in his arms.
“Art thou hurt, my Moll, and where?”
“Father, ’twas Robin Bolton pushed me.”
“Ay, and I wot Robin Bolton shall have a clout on his head when he comes within my reach. But there, thou wilt soon be well again. Thank thee for thy help,” he added, more roughly, to Hugh.
“If you stand in need of a witness,” began Matthew, but the sailor interrupted him—
“Witnesses? No! What she stood in need of was water, which thy boy fetched. He is quick enough to be a sailor,” he added, with a laugh.
“Wilt thou come on a voyage to Dartmouth?”
“I should be frighted on the sea,” said Hugh sturdily.
“Nay, it’s not so bad, so you fall not in with pirates, which are the pest of our coasts. I’ve been lucky enough to escape them so far. But then,” he added with a wink, “they know me at Dartmouth, and folk sometimes tell evil tales of Dartmouth.”
He was of a talkative nature, or perhaps thought it well to keep his Moll quiet on his knee, for he went on to tell them that his wife and child lived near the spot where they were, while he went on trading voyages, bringing up Cornish ore from Dartmouth and carrying back other ladings. He was very proud of his vessel, and yet prouder of his little maid, whom it was plain he did his best to spoil; and when he saw that she had taken a fancy to Hugh, he told him he might come on board his vessel one day before he sailed.
“Which will be in a week,” he said, confidently. “The storms will be over by then.”
Hugh was glad enough of the bidding, for Matthew, with his love for the law courts and for all that concerned the State, was but a dry companion to an eager boy. He went back to the monastery in high glee, to tell his father all that he had heard.
Friar Luke was with Stephen, having brought his patient a decoction of coltsfoot, and also a little bunch of flowers which he was examining with enthusiastic patience.
“See here,” he said, with a sigh, “though in good sooth one needs eyes of more than human power to examine so minute a structure. There is a talk that one of our order, Friar Bacon, who died not many years ago, could by means of a strange instrument so enlarge distant objects as to bring them into the range of a man’s vision. I know not. Many strange things are told of him, and many of our brethren believe that he had dealings with the black art. It might be he was only in advance of us all. But while he was about it I would he had taught us how to enlarge what is near. And, indeed, there is talk of a magic beryl—”
“Father, father!” cried Hugh, rushing in breathless; “we have been to the river, and there was a ship, and a little maiden called Moll, and the master has bid me on board the ship before he sails for Dartmouth.”
He poured out the history of the day, standing by his father’s knee, with Agrippa nestling in his arms. Bassett heard him so thoughtfully that Hugh began to think he was displeased.
“Mayn’t I go?” he asked, tremulously.
“Ay, ay,” said his father, absently. “Friar Luke, tell me truly, do you still dread for me this journey to Exeter?”
“Rather more than less,” answered the friar.
“The fatigue?”
“Ay, fatigue and exposure, but chiefly the fatigue.”
“Yet I must go.”
“Ay, ay, there is ever a must in the mouth of a wilful man,” said the friar, testily. “And then you fall sick, and it is the fault of the leech.”
“That it can never be in my case,” said the carver, gratefully, “for never had man a kinder or more skilful. But I will tell you why I ask. Hugh’s encounter has put into my mind the thought that we might go to Dartmouth by ship.”
“The saints forbid!” said the friar, rapidly crossing himself. “You must be mad to think of it, Master Bassett.”
“Nay, but why?”
“The dangers, the discomforts!—shoals, rocks, pirates!”
“Dangers there are in all journeys. The discomforts will no doubt be great, but put on the other side the fatigue you warn me against.”
“You should not go at all,” said Friar Luke. “Remain here where you can be cared for. Hugh shall be a serving-boy, and take the habit when he is old enough.”
“Wilt thou, Hugh?” demanded his father.
A vehement shake of the head was his answer.
“Nay, holy friar,” said Bassett, with a smile; “I am bending the twig so far that the strain is great, but your proposal, I fear, would snap it altogether. But about our voyage. I am greatly inclined to Hugh’s new friend. When does he sail?”
“In a week,” said the boy, with some reluctance. He had not liked the voyage from Flanders, and this promised to be worse. Still he felt it incumbent upon him to show no fear.
“That would do well. I tell thee what, Hugh, thou shalt ask the master to come and see me here if he has a mind for another kind of cargo.”
With his usual hopefulness, the idea had taken hold of the wood-carver so strongly that he turned aside all remonstrances, though the prior himself came up to beg him not to be so foolhardy. But it was true, as Bassett maintained, that each kind of travelling had its dangers, and, if the sea offered the most, he felt a sick man’s longing to be spared trouble, and a feverish desire for the salt breezes. Matthew, too, thought it philosophical to be above listening to the tales of sea-perils which the brethren related, it need hardly be said, at second-hand; but it must be owned that he showed no desire to extend his own travels so far as Exeter. Hugh went down the next day and talked to the master, who at first shook his head.
“Two landsmen on board? Where could we stow ye? And if we met with rough weather we should have you crying upon all the saints in the calendar. A sick man, too! How could he put up with our rough fare?”
“My father does not get frighted,” said Hugh, indignantly, though pleased to be counted a landsman.
“Thou art a sturdy little varlet,” said the master, looking at him approvingly. “If my Moll had been a boy, I should have been content had he likened thee. But I would not have her other than she is, and thou wast good to her the other day. I’ll come and see thy father, and if he is a good, honest man, and none of your dandy long-toed fops, he and thou shalt have a passage to Dartmouth.”
The next day was Sunday, and, to the scandal of the grey friars, Matthew insisted upon taking Hugh to St. Bartholomew in Smithfield, the noble Norman church of the Augustinian friars. There was a good deal of jealousy between the orders, and each was ready enough to listen to or to repeat tales which told to the discredit of the others; so that, as Matthew said, black, white, and grey, each held their colour to be the only one in which a friar might travel to heaven. Mass being over at St. Bartholomew’s they went to great St. Paul’s.
This was in that day a splendid Gothic church, twice as big as the present building, and with a dazzling high altar. But, in spite of its magnificence, and perhaps partly on account of its size, it was a notorious haunt of cut-purses and brawlers, and all manner of crimes were committed in the church; so that a few years before the king had given the Chapter leave to surround it with walls and gates, treating it indeed as a town, and keeping out suspicious characters.
By this means matters had mended a little, but there was still a great deal of unseemly conduct which caused scandal to the more devout. Hugh came back to the monastery bursting with all he had to tell, and he was beyond measure delighted when his father said he would himself go out the next day.
Before the sun had mounted high enough for Friar Luke to allow this the master of theQueen Maudarrived, and Stephen saw a sturdy, sunburnt man, with an open countenance, blue-eyed, light-haired, wearing a garment of coarse cloth which reached to his knees, who looked as uneasy at finding himself in a monastery as a freshly-trapped pony from his own wilds of Dartmoor might have looked in a walled town. His discomfort made him surly, so that he gave the carver no encouragement for the voyage.
“Hard living and a perilous life, my master.”
“That does not affright me.”
“Because you know it not,” said the other, impatiently. “Here you sit in a drone’s hive and hear the winds blow outside, and have no fear. With a plank for your wall you would tell a different tale.”
“I have tried the plank,” said Bassett, with a smile. “Though, as you say, Master Shipman, we know not other’s lives till we try them, and maybe you, if you lived here, would think more kindly of what you call a drone’s hive.”
“The Church and the Pope swallow up all a poor man’s savings,” said the sailor, less gruffly. “’Tis nothing but fresh taxes, and these Lombard usurers are every whit as bad as the Jews. I would the king could make as clean a sweep of them. To make money without working for it is a sin and a shame.”
“The king does what he can.”
“Ay, does he,” said the other, heartily. “He is the poor man’s friend.”
“Truly.”
The sailor looked at him. “Why, then,” he said, “if thou lovest King Edward—”
“No question of that.”
“E’en come along with us. I am but taking down some bales of cloth and of silk, and as thou mindest not a rough life, and I have a fancy for thy boy, we may perchance rub along together.”
So it was settled, and, in spite of the friar’s forebodings, Stephen Bassett thought of his venture with an excellent heart. Hugh was naturally fearless, and, though the sea was a great object of dread in those times, he believed his father knew best, and began to look forward also. But first he would have Bassett come forth for his promised walk, and without Matthew.
“He has been very good to thee,” said the carver reproachfully.
“Ay, but he has always something to say against everything. This might be better, or that couldn’t be worse. I believe he would find fault with King Edward himself.”
“Poor Matthew! He has the critical spirit,” said Stephen, smiling.
“Is that what makes him so thin?” demanded Hugh, innocently.
“Ay. It often works that way, and is bad for the owner. Nevertheless, it has its advantages. Look at that bowl. If I listened to the good brothers I should deem it perfect; but when Matthew says, ‘Hum—I know not—is there not something lacking?’ I begin to search for a way of bettering it, and presently find that he was right. So his fault-finding does me a better service than all their praise. Keep that in mind, Hugh. Now we will forth. I will buy some cloth and take it to one of the tailors’ guild, that you may have a cloak for rough weather like mine.”
This was a delightful errand, and when it was ended Stephen had not the heart to refuse Hugh when he begged that he would try to go towards St. Paul’s and see the noble church. The boy was very happy in acting as showman, pointing out the beautiful spire while they were yet at some distance. He had begged to bring Agrippa, promising to keep him covered by a piece of cloth, and the monkey was sufficiently alarmed by the strange noises and cries in the street to keep quiet. Hugh found it a rare opportunity to ask questions which Matthew had been either unable or unwilling to answer.
“Look, father, look quickly! There is a woman with bread in her panniers! What is she doing?”
“I have heard of her,” said Stephen, stopping. “Friar Luke told me that, instead of folk being forced to fetch the daily bread from the bakers, there was now a woman who had got leave to take it round from house to house. She has the thirteenth loaf for her pains. Truly there’s no knowing to what a pitch of luxury we may come! Are we nearly at our journey’s end, Hugh? My legs have fallen out of the way of walking, and are true sluggards.”
He was in truth standing somewhat exhausted in the road under one of the black-timbered houses in Ludgate Hill, when a small cavalcade of knights and squires, some in armour, some in the scarlet cloaks of the Hospitallers, came sharply round the corner, so sharply, indeed, that in the narrow road one of the squires’ horses struck Stephen and sent him staggering against the wall.
The party reined up at once. Hugh had uttered a cry and sprung to his father’s side, dropping the monkey as he stretched out his arms. Half a dozen men-at-arms crowded round; one of the red-cloaked knights leaped from his horse, but they all drew back before one who seemed the principal knight, a man of great stature, with brown hair and thick beard, and gravely searching blue eyes.
“Is he hurt?” he demanded. “That is your squire’s rough riding, Sir John de Lacy.”
“My liege, ’twas but a touch,” urged an older knight. “I saw it all. He can scarce be hurt.” Stephen, indeed, had well-nigh recovered himself, though dizzy with the shock, and scarcely knowing what had happened or why he was surrounded by horsemen. Hugh, seeing him revived, stared at the group with all his might, while the monkey, frightened to death at the horses, had run up a projection of the house and perched himself upon a carved wooden balcony, from which he scolded and chattered.
“It is nothing, I am not hurt,” faltered Stephen; and then the colour rushed back to his white face, and he bent his knee hastily. “My Lord the King,” he stammered, “is it not?”
“Ay,” said Edward, with one of his rare kindly smiles; “but it was not I who rode over thee. Art thou not hurt?”
“Nay, my liege, it is but that I have been ill. It was no more than a touch.”
It had all passed quickly, but a knot of bystanders had by this time collected, kept off by the men-at-arms.
“He speaks truly, my lord,” said one of the Hospitallers who had dismounted. “He has not been hurt by the horse, but—”
He paused significantly, and Edward glanced at Hugh. “Come hither, boy.”
So Hugh, crimson with wonder and delight, stood by the king’s horse, and answered his questions as firmly as he could. His father was a wood-carver. They were going to Exeter to seek work—by ship, as he took care to state; and meanwhile, because father had been so ill, they were lodging at the Franciscan monastery in Newgate Street.
“And is that thy beast?” asked the king, whose quick eye had caught sight of the monkey between the carved work of the balcony. “How wilt thou catch him? Let us see.”
Hugh promptly stood under the balcony, opened his arms, and uttered a call, to which Agrippa responded, though fearfully, by swinging down by tail and hands and dropping into his master’s arms.
“Well climbed indeed,” said Edward; and seeing that Stephen was in some degree recovered, he bade one of the men-at-arms lend him his horse and go with him to the convent. “And here is a gold piece for thee, boy—for remembrance,” he added, tossing him the coin as he moved off.
“And a silver one for the monkey,” said a young knight, with a merry laugh, stooping to offer the mark to Agrippa, who cleverly clutched it, and then trotting after the king.
All had passed so quickly that Hugh scarcely knew where he was or what had happened. He stood staring at the gold noble in his hand, while the bystanders closed up curiously, and one rough fellow, who looked as if he had been drinking, made as though he would have snatched it from his hand. A fat monk, with a red good-natured face, hit the fellow a sound buffet; the crowd laughed, and the man-at-arms made haste to get Bassett on his horse, and to hurry his charges away, the king being always roused to anger by any brawling in the streets.
“Keep close to me,” he said to Hugh; “and give thy money to thy father. Now, where are we bound? The Grey Friars? I warrant me they brew good ale there, and supper-time is nigh enough to make a tankard right welcome.”
“And that was the king,” said Hugh, drawing a deep breath.
“Ay, the king. What thinkest thou of him?”
“I would I could fight for him,” burst out the boy.
“Why, so thou shalt!” said Hob Trueman, with a laugh. “Eat good beef, and drink good ale, and grow up a lusty yeoman. The king’s a good master, I have nought to say against him—saving that he is somewhat over strict,” he added, with qualifying remembrance. “We should be near by this time—”
That night, before lying down in the wooden crib which served for bed, Stephen Bassett called his boy.
“Hugh, thou hast not forgotten thy promise,” he said anxiously.
“No, father;” in a low voice.
“Fight for the king thou must, or be ready to fight. That is the law for all Englishmen. Does not that content thee?”
Silence. Then—“I should like to be near him, to be one of the men-at-arms.”
Bassett sighed.
“I cannot yield to thee, Hugh.”
“No, father.”
“And I have no breath for talking to-night. We will speak of it again.”
Chapter Five.The Voyage, and what came of it.Stephen Bassett was not the better for that day’s work, though the accident was too slight to have harmed a man in fair health, and it made a sound reason for Friar Luke to urge upon him that he should give up his wild project of going west in theQueen Maud. But the carver was, if possible, only the more bent upon the scheme. He wanted to get Hugh out of London, where was more stir of arms and rumour of wars than in the shires, and have him safely bound apprentice where there should be no withdrawing.“He will not fail me, poor little lad,” he said; “but were I to be taken from him here his task would be ten times harder. Besides, I see no opening for him except what the good brothers offer, which he would hate worst of all.”So he kept the tales of his aches and weakness to himself as much as he could, though it cost him not a little to avoid Friar Luke’s reproachful eye when he came in from the garden with his herbs; and, armed with a letter from the prior—written in Latin on a strip of vellum—to the head of the Franciscans in Exeter, and accompanied to the water’s edge by several of the brethren, and a hospitable store of provisions with which they insisted on supplying them, the little party and their gear got safely on board the vessel, and would go down the river by the next tide. Little Moll and her mother were there, which made it seem more friendly to poor Hugh, who looked about him with dismay, and had had all possible mischances put before him by the friars, who thought Bassett’s action nothing less than flying in the face of Providence.Still, when the farewells had all been spoken, the cumbersome anchor dragged out of the mud, and the great square sail with its sprawling centre device rigged up, they went merrily down the river. It was getting towards the middle of October, and the great buildings of London, the Abbey of Westminster, the Church of the Templars, the Gothic spire of St. Paul’s, the Tower, and various beautiful conventual buildings, stood, mostly surrounded by fine trees, in all the glory of autumnal gold and red. The lesser buildings—the very hovels—were picturesque, the river ran clear and strong, the vessels flaunted bright sails, colour was everywhere, and the soft blue mists but made a fair background for the scene.Stephen Bassett stood watching, with a feeling that it was for the last time, when Andrew the ship-master joined him.“A fair prospect,” said the carver.“Ay, though I love my red Devon hills better. But, tell me, master, is it true, as thy boy relates, that you met King Edward yesterday and spoke with him?”“I said not much, I had no breath left in my body,” said Stephen, smiling; “but it is true that the king spoke to us, chiefly to Hugh, and was very gracious.”“To think of that!” said the sailor, staring. He walked away, but after this it was evident that his respect for his passengers was mightily increased, and he seldom came near Stephen without putting some question as to how the king looked and spoke, while Hugh had the same to answer from them all—more, indeed, since he never tired of the subject, and his pride in it was immense. His father had sewn his gold piece into the lining of his vest; Hugh never intended to spend it, it was for “remembrance,” as he was never tired of telling his father; and Stephen used laughingly to inquire whether Hugh had begun to persuade himself that he had been the hero of some courageous adventure, for reward of which the king had bestowed the token upon him? The boy used to redden at this, for there was a certain truth in the jest, and finding himself listened to with such interest by the sailors was like to turn his head.Fortunately, as usual, there was a depreciating element. The youngest on board was a round-shouldered somewhat misshapen lad of seventeen, ill-favoured in temper as well as face, unpopular among his mates, except for one gift, that of storytelling. He could relate or invent tales with amazing ease, and on days when there was an idle calm the men, who at other times knocked him about roughly, would listen spell-bound for hours. This was his moment of glory.But on this voyage his power seemed gone. The real explanation was very simple: the wind had shifted so as to follow them favourably, they had got safely round the dangerous Goodwins, and swept down the Channel past Dover, its castle and old British church standing out sharply above the white cliffs, while the setting sun shone like fire on the great sail of the vessel. They cast anchor in the first convenient creek; this required care and labour with the oars to avoid shoals, and the men were too sleepy afterwards to listen to stories. So it went on; the breeze blew freshly from the east, Stephen, crouched under what shelter the stern could afford, shivered, but Andrew the master rubbed his hands, and there was no slackening sail or delay.This was really the reason why the sailors would not listen to the boy Jakes, but he chose to lay it to Hugh’s charge.“Young fool,” he muttered, “always boasting, and telling about the king, I wonder they hearken!”Such spite as he could work he was not slow to show. Many rough practical jokes he played, which Stephen counselled his boy to receive good-humouredly. But Hugh was set up with his Ludgate Hill adventure and the notice it had brought him, so that it made him mad to be jeered at for feeling sea-sick, or tripped up over ropes, or brought to the ground when he imagined himself to be sitting on something solid. Jakes was afraid of Agrippa, never having seen a monkey before, and fully sharing the idea that here was something uncanny, which was quite able to revenge itself if any harm was attempted. Jakes, therefore, let him alone, and even preferred to play his malicious jokes upon Hugh when the monkey had climbed the ropes and was out of reach and sight.The voyage had on the whole been a success, and theQueen Maudwas at length coasting along under the white cliffs of Dorsetshire, with the red ones of Devon lying rich and soft against a blue grey sky before them, and the sea leaping and whitening under the easterly wind.“Strange that it should blow so long at this season,” said the master, standing by Bassett and looking forwards.“If it goes on, we may get in to-morrow night?”“Ay, if it doesn’t freshen into a gale, which the saints forbid! I mind not a gale in my teeth, but rocks before and the wind driving behind is what I mislike. Methinks, master,” he added, abruptly, “it will be well for you to get to your journey’s end.”“I have a longer before me,” said Stephen, with a smile.“Ay, to Exeter,” answered Andrew, misunderstanding, “and I have been thinking I would put you ashore at Teignmouth, and save you a piece of your journey. I might try Exmouth, but—there are ill tales of Exmouth, as I told you there were of Dartmouth,” he added, with a laugh; “at Dartmouth they know me, but at Exmouth—there might by chance be a mistake.”Stephen thanked him heartily, saying, and truly, that the shortening of the road would be a great gain. They put in that night at a small harbour formed for the convenience of coasting vessels, but though their start was made with the first glimmer of dawn, Jakes, who generally had to be aroused by a rope’s end or a kick, had been on shore, and came back carrying a bag and grinning from ear to ear, so that Hugh was forced to ask him what he had got.“Apples,” he said, still grinning; “rare fine apples. Bide a bit, and shalt have one.”Hugh, who loved apples as well as any boy with a wholesome appetite should do, kept an eye on Jakes and his promise without suspecting that there might be anything unfriendly in this sudden change of disposition. The wind had freshened, of that there could be no doubt, and the sailors were busy with the lumbering sail, when Jakes beckoned Hugh forward to the bow, where was the bag.“Put in thy hand and pull’m out, quick!” he said, running back to his work; and, thinking no harm, Hugh thrust in boldly, to have his fingers instantly seized in a nip which made him feel as if by the next moment they would be all left behind in the bag.He cried out lustily, and dragged out his hand, to which a fine blue-black lobster was hanging, a creature at least as strange to Hugh as the monkey was to Jakes. The more he shook the tighter the lobster pinched, and when one of the sailors looked round the sail he could do nothing but split his sides with laughing. Hugh, crimson with pain and fright, was dancing about, vainly trying to disengage his hand. Jakes, the next to appear, broke into uproarious merriment.“Ha, ha, ha!” he yelled, “told him there were apples in the bag, and he went for to steal ’em! Serve him right, serve him right! How like you your apples, my master?”The buffeting of the wind in the sail and the rising noise of the sea had kept much of this from Stephen, but he at last became conscious that something unusual was going on, and made his way to the bows.“Father!” cried poor Hugh, flying to him.“Why, my little lad!” said Bassett, unable himself to avoid a smile, “what coil have you got into?”“What is it?” demanded the boy, in a shamefaced whisper, as his father proceeded quietly to loosen the great claws.“A lobster. Didst never see his like? He will be a dainty morsel for supper, and will change his blue coat for a scarlet. There,” he added, as he finished his task, “I counsel Agrippa not to let his curiosity jeopardise his tail. But how did he fasten on you?”“It was that wicked Jakes!” cried Hugh, with flashing eyes.“Were a stealing my apples,” Jakes retorted, defiantly. “Told him there was apples in the bag, and he put in his hand and the lobster caught un.” And clapping his unshapely hands on his knees, he roared with laughter once more, until he bent himself double. Hugh flew at him like a tiger, but the other sailor pulled him off.“Never heed the great lozel,” he said. “It was but an apple.”“He told me—he told me to put in my hand and take one out,” panted Hugh, struggling with his captor. “He’s a false liar!”“Softly, Hugh, softly,” said his father gravely.Jakes was for telling his story again with fresh detail, when the master’s voice was heard calling angrily. Stephen got Hugh back into shelter, and Agrippa, frightened by the creaking of the mast and the straining of ropes, clambered down to take refuge in his master’s arms. Hugh’s face was like a thunder-cloud. He burst out presently—“To call me a thief!”Stephen was silent.“If Dickon had left me alone, I would have made him own it was a false lie. I would I were a man!”“Why?”“I should be strong and could fight,” the boy said, surprised at the question.“I often think of that time,” returned Bassett thoughtfully. “I may not be here to see it, and I would fain know—” He paused.“What?” asked Hugh.“Who thou wilt fight?”“Who? Mine enemies,” said Hugh, lifting his head.“If you know them.”“I shall know them, because they will try to do me a mischief. Jakes—he is an enemy,” fiercely.“Thou hast worse than Jakes, my poor little lad,” Stephen said, tenderly, “and nearer at hand. Thine own passions will truly do thee a mischief, except thou keep them under. There’s fighting ground for thee. And, see here, I have long meant to say something to thee about King Edward, only I have an ill-trick of putting off. Thou thinkest the only way of serving him is by hard blows. He himself would tell thee that there be better ways. Serve the State faithfully as a peaceful citizen, keep the laws, and work for the glory of God and the honour of England. He would tell thee more. That his hardest work of government has been the task of governing himself. That is what has made him a great king. It seems small to thee just now, but one day, my Hugh, my words may come back.”A fit of coughing stopped him. Hugh’s ill-temper had had a little cooling time, but it had not by any means left him. It was not the pain, perhaps it was not even so much the being called a thief, for no one on board was like to listen much to Jakes, and as for his father he had not even cared to allude to the absurd accusation. What Hugh really so much hated was the being laughed at. He had heard the men roaring with merriment after Dickon joined them, even his father had laughed; it would be for ever a sort of standing joke. What turned his thoughts more than anything was the weather. Anyone could see how much the wind had strengthened since they put out to sea. The colours, which had been clear and distinct, now had become blurred; a wet mist, not yet rain, but near it, was driving up from the southeast; the waves had grown larger and rushed past them in wild hurly-burly; the air was full of noisy tumult; the clumsy vessel groaned and laboured on her way, and Stephen and Hugh could not find shelter enough to protect them from the clouds of spray which swept across the vessel.Andrew, the master, was too closely occupied with his work to come near them; he shouted directions to the man who was steering, but kept by the sail, and Bassett knew enough of the sea to suspect that they were in a position of some peril. For himself he thought it mattered little. He knew that he was even more ill than he outwardly appeared, and the wetting under which he was shivering was likely to quicken matters. But for Hugh? He could resign himself, it was a far harder matter to resign this young life, so full of vigorous promise—to give up with him all the hopes in which he had indulged of fame to come to his name, though not in his life. He had dreamt of late much of this; had pictured Hugh leaping to eminence, leaving his mark as a stone-carver in some beautiful cathedral, where age after age his work should stand, and when men asked who had done this great thing, the answer would be—Hugh Bassett. Was it all to end in an unknown grave under the grey waters which leaped so wildly round their prey?Every half-hour the storm seemed to increase in fury. The shores on either side were now blotted out, and the steering was a matter of great difficulty. Andrew took it himself for a time, but his quick eye and steady courage were needed for the look-out, and he went forward again until he gave orders to strike sail. Then he once more came back and stood near Bassett and Hugh, looking as undaunted as ever. But when he spoke they could scarce hear his voice for the turmoil of the sea.“Rough weather, goodman!”“Ay! Will the boat hold?”Andrew, who had stooped down to catch the carver’s words, straightened himself with a laugh.“Ay, ay, the boat will hold. No fear of her failing. But where she will carry us I would I could say so certainly. Thou wouldst fain be back in the drones’ hive hearkening to book and bell, eh?”“I am right glad to be remembered in the good brothers’ prayers,” said Stephen, quietly.“Well, it may be as you say. Those I have known—I would not have given a base pollard for the pardon-mongers’ prayers; but there are false loons in every craft.”They were silent again, for their voices were pretty well stormed down, and the sea broke so fiercely over the vessel that two or three of the men had to be constantly baling it out. Still she held her way gallantly. The shipmen of that day were not without an imperfect form of compass, in which the needle was laid upon a couple of straws in a vessel of water, but these contrivances were apt to get out of gear at the very time when they were most needed, such as a storm like that now raging round theQueen Maud, and hardy sailors trusted rather to their own skill and courage or their knowledge of the coast. Nothing was, therefore, so dangerous as fog or mist.To Hugh, however, what seemed most terrible was the wild driving storm and the rush of the waves against the boat, which shivered under each stroke as if she had received a mortal blow. Agrippa, wet and miserable, cowered in his master’s arms, and turned up a piteous little wrinkled face full of inquiry. Hugh crept closer to his father, and at last put his question—“Shall we be drowned?”Stephen turned and caught his hands in his.“Nay, my little lad, I know not, I know not! I should not have brought thee!”The boy looked in his face gallantly.“I am not frightened,” he said, “only I wish poor Agrippa were safe.”They were silent again after this. Andrew was evidently uneasy; he shouted orders to the sailors, and strained his eyes through the baffling mist as if he feared what might be in advance of him. His hope, and it was a feeble one, consisted in the chance that he might strike the estuary of the Teign, avoiding the bar, and, as the tide would be full, getting into the shelter of the river. He was one of the most skilful of the sailors of the west, knowing all the currents and dangers thoroughly; but navigation was then in its infancy, and vessels were clumsy, lumbering things, suited but to calm weather, when they would coast along from creek to creek. The bolder craft chiefly belonged to pirates. Still, England was beginning to awake to her sea powers, and Henry the Third had taken the title of Ruler of the Seas in honour of a victory gained over the Spaniards. Andrew himself had been down as far as Spain, and was held to be over-daring; moreover, he wanted to hasten his voyage and get back to his wife and to Moll, otherwise he would hardly have put out that morning in the teeth of a possible gale.And now, although nothing was to be seen except perhaps what seemed like a thickening of the mist, Stephen knew from the master’s face that the danger was worse. He was so numb and cold himself as to feel indifferent to his own fate—besides, as he reflected, at the most it was but shortening his life by a month or two—but his love for Hugh went up in a yearning cry that he might be saved. He touched him, and made the boy put his ear close to his mouth.“See here, Hugh,” he said, with labouring breath, “if you are spared out of this coil thou must make thy way to Exeter. The Franciscans will take thee in at first, but thou must seek out James Alwyn. I mind me that was the name of thy mother’s cousin. Get him to apprentice thee where thou canst learn thy trade. Thou hast it in thee—do not forget.”“No, father,” said poor little Hugh, glancing fearfully round.It was but a minute after that, or so it seemed, that they heard a cry from one of the sailors. The wall of mist had suddenly become solid; it loomed before them in unmistakable cliffs, so near that the man who was steering dropped the rudder and fell upon his knees. With a cry of rage Andrew leaped back from the bows, seized the rudder, and using all his strength forced her head somewhat round. It was a strange sight, this struggle of the man with the elements. The man standing undaunted in the midst of a hurly-burly which threatened quick death, facing his danger without flinching, resolute, bent upon snatching every advantage which skill could give him. That the vessel was drifting against the wall of red rock before them was plain; Stephen, clutching Hugh in his arms, wondered that the master should hope to avert it. Suddenly he saw Andrew’s face change. He set his teeth, and slackening the rudder drove straight for the cliffs.There was a breathless pause; the next minute the vessel struck a small sandy beach, driven up it and wedged there by the uplifting force of the waves. The master’s keen eye had noted the one comparative chance of safety, and had tried for it. Almost as the ship touched the sailors sprang forward and leaped into the sea. Only Andrew, Bassett, Hugh and Agrippa remained on board.
Stephen Bassett was not the better for that day’s work, though the accident was too slight to have harmed a man in fair health, and it made a sound reason for Friar Luke to urge upon him that he should give up his wild project of going west in theQueen Maud. But the carver was, if possible, only the more bent upon the scheme. He wanted to get Hugh out of London, where was more stir of arms and rumour of wars than in the shires, and have him safely bound apprentice where there should be no withdrawing.
“He will not fail me, poor little lad,” he said; “but were I to be taken from him here his task would be ten times harder. Besides, I see no opening for him except what the good brothers offer, which he would hate worst of all.”
So he kept the tales of his aches and weakness to himself as much as he could, though it cost him not a little to avoid Friar Luke’s reproachful eye when he came in from the garden with his herbs; and, armed with a letter from the prior—written in Latin on a strip of vellum—to the head of the Franciscans in Exeter, and accompanied to the water’s edge by several of the brethren, and a hospitable store of provisions with which they insisted on supplying them, the little party and their gear got safely on board the vessel, and would go down the river by the next tide. Little Moll and her mother were there, which made it seem more friendly to poor Hugh, who looked about him with dismay, and had had all possible mischances put before him by the friars, who thought Bassett’s action nothing less than flying in the face of Providence.
Still, when the farewells had all been spoken, the cumbersome anchor dragged out of the mud, and the great square sail with its sprawling centre device rigged up, they went merrily down the river. It was getting towards the middle of October, and the great buildings of London, the Abbey of Westminster, the Church of the Templars, the Gothic spire of St. Paul’s, the Tower, and various beautiful conventual buildings, stood, mostly surrounded by fine trees, in all the glory of autumnal gold and red. The lesser buildings—the very hovels—were picturesque, the river ran clear and strong, the vessels flaunted bright sails, colour was everywhere, and the soft blue mists but made a fair background for the scene.
Stephen Bassett stood watching, with a feeling that it was for the last time, when Andrew the ship-master joined him.
“A fair prospect,” said the carver.
“Ay, though I love my red Devon hills better. But, tell me, master, is it true, as thy boy relates, that you met King Edward yesterday and spoke with him?”
“I said not much, I had no breath left in my body,” said Stephen, smiling; “but it is true that the king spoke to us, chiefly to Hugh, and was very gracious.”
“To think of that!” said the sailor, staring. He walked away, but after this it was evident that his respect for his passengers was mightily increased, and he seldom came near Stephen without putting some question as to how the king looked and spoke, while Hugh had the same to answer from them all—more, indeed, since he never tired of the subject, and his pride in it was immense. His father had sewn his gold piece into the lining of his vest; Hugh never intended to spend it, it was for “remembrance,” as he was never tired of telling his father; and Stephen used laughingly to inquire whether Hugh had begun to persuade himself that he had been the hero of some courageous adventure, for reward of which the king had bestowed the token upon him? The boy used to redden at this, for there was a certain truth in the jest, and finding himself listened to with such interest by the sailors was like to turn his head.
Fortunately, as usual, there was a depreciating element. The youngest on board was a round-shouldered somewhat misshapen lad of seventeen, ill-favoured in temper as well as face, unpopular among his mates, except for one gift, that of storytelling. He could relate or invent tales with amazing ease, and on days when there was an idle calm the men, who at other times knocked him about roughly, would listen spell-bound for hours. This was his moment of glory.
But on this voyage his power seemed gone. The real explanation was very simple: the wind had shifted so as to follow them favourably, they had got safely round the dangerous Goodwins, and swept down the Channel past Dover, its castle and old British church standing out sharply above the white cliffs, while the setting sun shone like fire on the great sail of the vessel. They cast anchor in the first convenient creek; this required care and labour with the oars to avoid shoals, and the men were too sleepy afterwards to listen to stories. So it went on; the breeze blew freshly from the east, Stephen, crouched under what shelter the stern could afford, shivered, but Andrew the master rubbed his hands, and there was no slackening sail or delay.
This was really the reason why the sailors would not listen to the boy Jakes, but he chose to lay it to Hugh’s charge.
“Young fool,” he muttered, “always boasting, and telling about the king, I wonder they hearken!”
Such spite as he could work he was not slow to show. Many rough practical jokes he played, which Stephen counselled his boy to receive good-humouredly. But Hugh was set up with his Ludgate Hill adventure and the notice it had brought him, so that it made him mad to be jeered at for feeling sea-sick, or tripped up over ropes, or brought to the ground when he imagined himself to be sitting on something solid. Jakes was afraid of Agrippa, never having seen a monkey before, and fully sharing the idea that here was something uncanny, which was quite able to revenge itself if any harm was attempted. Jakes, therefore, let him alone, and even preferred to play his malicious jokes upon Hugh when the monkey had climbed the ropes and was out of reach and sight.
The voyage had on the whole been a success, and theQueen Maudwas at length coasting along under the white cliffs of Dorsetshire, with the red ones of Devon lying rich and soft against a blue grey sky before them, and the sea leaping and whitening under the easterly wind.
“Strange that it should blow so long at this season,” said the master, standing by Bassett and looking forwards.
“If it goes on, we may get in to-morrow night?”
“Ay, if it doesn’t freshen into a gale, which the saints forbid! I mind not a gale in my teeth, but rocks before and the wind driving behind is what I mislike. Methinks, master,” he added, abruptly, “it will be well for you to get to your journey’s end.”
“I have a longer before me,” said Stephen, with a smile.
“Ay, to Exeter,” answered Andrew, misunderstanding, “and I have been thinking I would put you ashore at Teignmouth, and save you a piece of your journey. I might try Exmouth, but—there are ill tales of Exmouth, as I told you there were of Dartmouth,” he added, with a laugh; “at Dartmouth they know me, but at Exmouth—there might by chance be a mistake.”
Stephen thanked him heartily, saying, and truly, that the shortening of the road would be a great gain. They put in that night at a small harbour formed for the convenience of coasting vessels, but though their start was made with the first glimmer of dawn, Jakes, who generally had to be aroused by a rope’s end or a kick, had been on shore, and came back carrying a bag and grinning from ear to ear, so that Hugh was forced to ask him what he had got.
“Apples,” he said, still grinning; “rare fine apples. Bide a bit, and shalt have one.”
Hugh, who loved apples as well as any boy with a wholesome appetite should do, kept an eye on Jakes and his promise without suspecting that there might be anything unfriendly in this sudden change of disposition. The wind had freshened, of that there could be no doubt, and the sailors were busy with the lumbering sail, when Jakes beckoned Hugh forward to the bow, where was the bag.
“Put in thy hand and pull’m out, quick!” he said, running back to his work; and, thinking no harm, Hugh thrust in boldly, to have his fingers instantly seized in a nip which made him feel as if by the next moment they would be all left behind in the bag.
He cried out lustily, and dragged out his hand, to which a fine blue-black lobster was hanging, a creature at least as strange to Hugh as the monkey was to Jakes. The more he shook the tighter the lobster pinched, and when one of the sailors looked round the sail he could do nothing but split his sides with laughing. Hugh, crimson with pain and fright, was dancing about, vainly trying to disengage his hand. Jakes, the next to appear, broke into uproarious merriment.
“Ha, ha, ha!” he yelled, “told him there were apples in the bag, and he went for to steal ’em! Serve him right, serve him right! How like you your apples, my master?”
The buffeting of the wind in the sail and the rising noise of the sea had kept much of this from Stephen, but he at last became conscious that something unusual was going on, and made his way to the bows.
“Father!” cried poor Hugh, flying to him.
“Why, my little lad!” said Bassett, unable himself to avoid a smile, “what coil have you got into?”
“What is it?” demanded the boy, in a shamefaced whisper, as his father proceeded quietly to loosen the great claws.
“A lobster. Didst never see his like? He will be a dainty morsel for supper, and will change his blue coat for a scarlet. There,” he added, as he finished his task, “I counsel Agrippa not to let his curiosity jeopardise his tail. But how did he fasten on you?”
“It was that wicked Jakes!” cried Hugh, with flashing eyes.
“Were a stealing my apples,” Jakes retorted, defiantly. “Told him there was apples in the bag, and he put in his hand and the lobster caught un.” And clapping his unshapely hands on his knees, he roared with laughter once more, until he bent himself double. Hugh flew at him like a tiger, but the other sailor pulled him off.
“Never heed the great lozel,” he said. “It was but an apple.”
“He told me—he told me to put in my hand and take one out,” panted Hugh, struggling with his captor. “He’s a false liar!”
“Softly, Hugh, softly,” said his father gravely.
Jakes was for telling his story again with fresh detail, when the master’s voice was heard calling angrily. Stephen got Hugh back into shelter, and Agrippa, frightened by the creaking of the mast and the straining of ropes, clambered down to take refuge in his master’s arms. Hugh’s face was like a thunder-cloud. He burst out presently—
“To call me a thief!”
Stephen was silent.
“If Dickon had left me alone, I would have made him own it was a false lie. I would I were a man!”
“Why?”
“I should be strong and could fight,” the boy said, surprised at the question.
“I often think of that time,” returned Bassett thoughtfully. “I may not be here to see it, and I would fain know—” He paused.
“What?” asked Hugh.
“Who thou wilt fight?”
“Who? Mine enemies,” said Hugh, lifting his head.
“If you know them.”
“I shall know them, because they will try to do me a mischief. Jakes—he is an enemy,” fiercely.
“Thou hast worse than Jakes, my poor little lad,” Stephen said, tenderly, “and nearer at hand. Thine own passions will truly do thee a mischief, except thou keep them under. There’s fighting ground for thee. And, see here, I have long meant to say something to thee about King Edward, only I have an ill-trick of putting off. Thou thinkest the only way of serving him is by hard blows. He himself would tell thee that there be better ways. Serve the State faithfully as a peaceful citizen, keep the laws, and work for the glory of God and the honour of England. He would tell thee more. That his hardest work of government has been the task of governing himself. That is what has made him a great king. It seems small to thee just now, but one day, my Hugh, my words may come back.”
A fit of coughing stopped him. Hugh’s ill-temper had had a little cooling time, but it had not by any means left him. It was not the pain, perhaps it was not even so much the being called a thief, for no one on board was like to listen much to Jakes, and as for his father he had not even cared to allude to the absurd accusation. What Hugh really so much hated was the being laughed at. He had heard the men roaring with merriment after Dickon joined them, even his father had laughed; it would be for ever a sort of standing joke. What turned his thoughts more than anything was the weather. Anyone could see how much the wind had strengthened since they put out to sea. The colours, which had been clear and distinct, now had become blurred; a wet mist, not yet rain, but near it, was driving up from the southeast; the waves had grown larger and rushed past them in wild hurly-burly; the air was full of noisy tumult; the clumsy vessel groaned and laboured on her way, and Stephen and Hugh could not find shelter enough to protect them from the clouds of spray which swept across the vessel.
Andrew, the master, was too closely occupied with his work to come near them; he shouted directions to the man who was steering, but kept by the sail, and Bassett knew enough of the sea to suspect that they were in a position of some peril. For himself he thought it mattered little. He knew that he was even more ill than he outwardly appeared, and the wetting under which he was shivering was likely to quicken matters. But for Hugh? He could resign himself, it was a far harder matter to resign this young life, so full of vigorous promise—to give up with him all the hopes in which he had indulged of fame to come to his name, though not in his life. He had dreamt of late much of this; had pictured Hugh leaping to eminence, leaving his mark as a stone-carver in some beautiful cathedral, where age after age his work should stand, and when men asked who had done this great thing, the answer would be—Hugh Bassett. Was it all to end in an unknown grave under the grey waters which leaped so wildly round their prey?
Every half-hour the storm seemed to increase in fury. The shores on either side were now blotted out, and the steering was a matter of great difficulty. Andrew took it himself for a time, but his quick eye and steady courage were needed for the look-out, and he went forward again until he gave orders to strike sail. Then he once more came back and stood near Bassett and Hugh, looking as undaunted as ever. But when he spoke they could scarce hear his voice for the turmoil of the sea.
“Rough weather, goodman!”
“Ay! Will the boat hold?”
Andrew, who had stooped down to catch the carver’s words, straightened himself with a laugh.
“Ay, ay, the boat will hold. No fear of her failing. But where she will carry us I would I could say so certainly. Thou wouldst fain be back in the drones’ hive hearkening to book and bell, eh?”
“I am right glad to be remembered in the good brothers’ prayers,” said Stephen, quietly.
“Well, it may be as you say. Those I have known—I would not have given a base pollard for the pardon-mongers’ prayers; but there are false loons in every craft.”
They were silent again, for their voices were pretty well stormed down, and the sea broke so fiercely over the vessel that two or three of the men had to be constantly baling it out. Still she held her way gallantly. The shipmen of that day were not without an imperfect form of compass, in which the needle was laid upon a couple of straws in a vessel of water, but these contrivances were apt to get out of gear at the very time when they were most needed, such as a storm like that now raging round theQueen Maud, and hardy sailors trusted rather to their own skill and courage or their knowledge of the coast. Nothing was, therefore, so dangerous as fog or mist.
To Hugh, however, what seemed most terrible was the wild driving storm and the rush of the waves against the boat, which shivered under each stroke as if she had received a mortal blow. Agrippa, wet and miserable, cowered in his master’s arms, and turned up a piteous little wrinkled face full of inquiry. Hugh crept closer to his father, and at last put his question—
“Shall we be drowned?”
Stephen turned and caught his hands in his.
“Nay, my little lad, I know not, I know not! I should not have brought thee!”
The boy looked in his face gallantly.
“I am not frightened,” he said, “only I wish poor Agrippa were safe.”
They were silent again after this. Andrew was evidently uneasy; he shouted orders to the sailors, and strained his eyes through the baffling mist as if he feared what might be in advance of him. His hope, and it was a feeble one, consisted in the chance that he might strike the estuary of the Teign, avoiding the bar, and, as the tide would be full, getting into the shelter of the river. He was one of the most skilful of the sailors of the west, knowing all the currents and dangers thoroughly; but navigation was then in its infancy, and vessels were clumsy, lumbering things, suited but to calm weather, when they would coast along from creek to creek. The bolder craft chiefly belonged to pirates. Still, England was beginning to awake to her sea powers, and Henry the Third had taken the title of Ruler of the Seas in honour of a victory gained over the Spaniards. Andrew himself had been down as far as Spain, and was held to be over-daring; moreover, he wanted to hasten his voyage and get back to his wife and to Moll, otherwise he would hardly have put out that morning in the teeth of a possible gale.
And now, although nothing was to be seen except perhaps what seemed like a thickening of the mist, Stephen knew from the master’s face that the danger was worse. He was so numb and cold himself as to feel indifferent to his own fate—besides, as he reflected, at the most it was but shortening his life by a month or two—but his love for Hugh went up in a yearning cry that he might be saved. He touched him, and made the boy put his ear close to his mouth.
“See here, Hugh,” he said, with labouring breath, “if you are spared out of this coil thou must make thy way to Exeter. The Franciscans will take thee in at first, but thou must seek out James Alwyn. I mind me that was the name of thy mother’s cousin. Get him to apprentice thee where thou canst learn thy trade. Thou hast it in thee—do not forget.”
“No, father,” said poor little Hugh, glancing fearfully round.
It was but a minute after that, or so it seemed, that they heard a cry from one of the sailors. The wall of mist had suddenly become solid; it loomed before them in unmistakable cliffs, so near that the man who was steering dropped the rudder and fell upon his knees. With a cry of rage Andrew leaped back from the bows, seized the rudder, and using all his strength forced her head somewhat round. It was a strange sight, this struggle of the man with the elements. The man standing undaunted in the midst of a hurly-burly which threatened quick death, facing his danger without flinching, resolute, bent upon snatching every advantage which skill could give him. That the vessel was drifting against the wall of red rock before them was plain; Stephen, clutching Hugh in his arms, wondered that the master should hope to avert it. Suddenly he saw Andrew’s face change. He set his teeth, and slackening the rudder drove straight for the cliffs.
There was a breathless pause; the next minute the vessel struck a small sandy beach, driven up it and wedged there by the uplifting force of the waves. The master’s keen eye had noted the one comparative chance of safety, and had tried for it. Almost as the ship touched the sailors sprang forward and leaped into the sea. Only Andrew, Bassett, Hugh and Agrippa remained on board.