With this promise Hal Randall bestowed his still dulled and half-stunned nephew carefully on the pallet provided by the care of the purveyors. Stephen slept dreamily at first, then soundly, and woke at the sound of the bells of Gravelines to the sense that a great crisis in his life was over, a strange wild dream of evil dispelled, and that he was to go home to see, hear, and act as he could, with a heartache indeed, but with the resolve to do his best as a true and honest man.
Smallbones was already afoot—for the start for Calais was to be made on that very day. The smith was fully himself again, and was bawling for his subordinates, who had followed his example in indulging in the good cheer, and did not carry it off so easily. Giles, rather silent and surly, was out of bed, shouting answers to Smallbones, and calling on Stephen to truss his points. He was in a mood not easy to understand, he would hardly speak, and never noticed the marks of the fray on Stephen’s temple—only half hidden by the dark curly hair. This was of course a relief, but Stephen could not help suspecting that he had been last night engaged in some revel about which he desired no inquiries.
Randall came just as the operation was completed. He was in a good deal of haste, having to restore the groom’s dress he wore by the time the owner had finished the morning toilet of the Lord Cardinal’s palfreys. He could not wait to inquire how Stephen had contrived to fall into the hands of Fulford, his chief business being to put under safe charge a bag of coins, the largesse from the various princes and nobles whom he had diverted—ducats, crowns, dollars, and angels all jingling together—to be bestowed wherever Perronel kept her store, a matter which Hal was content not to know, though the pair cherished a hope some day to retire on it from fooling.
“Thou art a good lad, Steve,” said Hal. “I’m right glad thou leavest this father of mine behind thee. I would not see thee such as he—no, not for all the gold we saw on the Frenchmen’s backs.”
This was the jester’s farewell, but it was some time before the waggon was under way, for the carter and one of the smiths were missing, and were only at noon found in an alehouse, both very far gone in liquor, and one with a black eye. Kit discoursed on sobriety in the most edifying manner, as at last he drove heavily along the street, almost the last in the baggage train of the king and queens—but still in time to be so included in it so as to save all difficulty at the gates. It was, however, very late in the evening when they reached Calais, so that darkness was coming on as they waited their turn at the drawbridge, with a cart full of scullions and pots and pans before them, and a waggon-load of tents behind. The warders in charge of the gateway had orders to count over all whom they admitted, so that no unauthorised person might enter that much-valued fortress. When at length the waggon rolled forward into the shadow of the great towered gateway on the outer side of the moat, the demand was made, who was there? Giles had always insisted, as leader of the party, on making reply to such questions, and Smallbones waited for his answer, but none was forthcoming. Therefore Kit shouted in reply, “Alderman Headley’s wain and armourers. Two journeymen, one prentice, two smiths, two waggoners.”
“Seven!” rejoined the warder. “One—two—three—four—five. Ha! your company seems to be lacking.”
“Giles must have ridden on,” suggested Stephen, while Kit, growling angrily, called on the lazy fellow, Will Wherry, to wake and show himself. But the officials were greatly hurried, and as long as no dangerous person got into Calais, it mattered little to them who might be left outside, so they hurried on the waggon into the narrow street.
It was well that it was a summer night, for lodgings there were none. Every hostel was full and all the houses besides. The earlier comers assured Kit that it was of no use to try to go on. The streets up to the wharf were choked, and he might think himself lucky to have his waggon to sleep in. But the horses! And food? However, there was one comfort—English tongues answered, if it was only with denials.
Kit’s store of travelling money was at a low ebb, and it was nearly exhausted by the time, at an exorbitant price, he had managed to get a little hay and water for the horses, and a couple of loaves and a haunch of bacon among the five hungry men. They were quite content to believe that Master Giles had ridden on before and secured better quarters and viands, nor could they much regret the absence of Will Wherry’s wide mouth.
Kit called Stephen to council in the morning. His funds would not permit waiting for the missing ones, if he were to bring home any reasonable proportion of gain to his master. He believed that Master Headley would by no means risk the whole party loitering at Calais, when it was highly probable that Giles might have joined some of the other travellers, and embarked by himself.
After all, Kit’s store had to be well-nigh expended before the horses, waggon, and all, could find means to encounter the miseries of the transit to Dover. Then, glad as he was to be on his native soil, his spirits sank lower and lower as the waggon creaked on under the hot sun towards London. He had actually brought home only four marks to make over to his master; and although he could show a considerable score against the King and various nobles, these debts were not apt to be promptly discharged, and what was worse, two members of his party and one horse were missing. He little knew how narrow an escape he had had of losing a third!
CHAPTER XXII
AN INVASION
“What shall be the maiden’s fate?
Who shall be the maiden’s mate?”
Scott.
No Giles Headley appeared to greet the travellers, though Kit Smallbones had halted at Canterbury, to pour out entreaties to St. Thomas, and the vow of a steel and gilt reliquary of his best workmanship to contain the old shoe, which a few years previously had so much disgusted Erasmus and his companion.
Poor old fellow, he was too much crest-fallen thoroughly to enjoy even the gladness of his little children; and his wife made no secret of her previous conviction that he was too dunderheaded not to run into some coil, when she was not there to look after him. The alderman was more merciful. Since there had been no invasion from Salisbury, he had regretted the not having gone himself to Ardres, and he knew pretty well that Kit’s power lay more in his arms than in his brain. He did not wonder at the small gain, nor at the having lost sight of the young man, and confidently expected the lost ones soon to appear.
As to Dennet, her eyes shone quietly, and she took upon herself to send down to let Mistress Randall know of her nephew’s return, and invite her to supper to hear the story of his doings. The girl did not look at all like a maiden uneasy about her lost lover, but much more like one enjoying for the moment the immunity from a kind of burthen; and, as she smiled, called for Stephen’s help in her little arrangements, and treated him in the friendly manner of old times, he could not but wonder at the panic that had overpowered him for a time like a fever of the mind.
There was plenty to speak of in the glories of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and the transactions with the knights and nobles; and Stephen held his peace as to his adventure, but Dennet’s eyes were sharper than Kit’s. She spied the remains of the bruise under his black curly hair; and while her father and Tib were unravelling the accounts from Kit’s brain and tally-sticks, she got the youth out into the gallery, and observed, “So thou hast a broken head. See here are grandmother’s lily-leaves in strong waters. Let me lay one on for thee. There, sit down on the step, then I can reach.”
“’Tis well nigh whole now, sweet mistress,” said Stephen, complying however, for it was too sweet to have those little fingers busy about him, for the offer to be declined.
“How gatst thou the blow?” asked Dennet. “Was it at single-stick? Come, thou mayst tell me. ’Twas in standing up for some one.”
“Nay, mistress, I would it had been.”
“Thou hast been in trouble,” she said, leaning on the baluster above him. “Or did ill men set on thee?”
“That’s the nearest guess,” said Stephen. “’Twas that tall father of mine aunt’s, the fellow that came here for armour, and bought poor Master Michael’s sword.”
“And sliced the apple on thine hand. Ay?”
“He would have me for one of his Badgers.”
“Thee! Stephen!” It was a cry of pain as well as horror.
“Yea, mistress; and when I refused, the fellow dealt me a blow, and laid me down senseless, to bear me off willy nilly, but that good old Lucas Hansen brought mine uncle to mine aid—”
Dennet clasped her hands. “O Stephen, Stephen! Now I know how good the Lord is. Wot ye, I asked of Tibble to take me daily to St. Faith’s to crave of good St. Julian to have you all in his keeping, and saith he on the way, ‘Methinks, mistress, our dear Lord would hear you if you spake to Him direct, with no go-between.’ I did as he bade me, Stephen, I went to the high Altar, and prayed there, and Tibble went with me, and lo, now, He hath brought you back safe. We will have a mass of thanksgiving on the very morn.”
Stephen’s heart could not but bound, for it was plain enough for whom the chief force of these prayers had been offered.
“Sweet mistress,” he said, “they have availed me indeed. Certes, they warded me in the time of sore trial and temptation.”
“Nay,” said Dennet, “thou couldst not have longed to go away from hence with those ill men who live by slaying and plundering?”
The present temptation was to say that he had doubted whether this course would not have been for the best both for himself and for her; but he recollected that Giles might be at the gate, and if so, he should feel as if he had rather have bitten out his tongue than have let Dennet know the state of the case, so he only answered—
“There be sorer temptations in the world for us poor rogues than little home-biding house crickets like thee wot of, mistress. Well that ye can pray for us without knowing all!”
Stephen had never consciously come so near love-making, and his honest face was all one burning glow with the suppressed feeling, while Dennet lingered till the curfew warned them of the lateness of the hour, both with a strange sense of undefined pleasure in the being together in the summer twilight.
Day after day passed on with no news of Giles or Will Wherry. The alderman grew uneasy, and sent Stephen to ask his brother to write to Randall, or to some one else in Wolsey’s suite, to make inquiries at Bruges. But Ambrose was found to have gone abroad in the train of Sir Thomas More, and nothing was heard till their return six weeks later, when Ambrose brought home a small packet which had been conveyed to him through one of the Emperor’s suite. It was tied up with a long tough pale wisp of hair, evidently from the mane or tail of some Flemish horse, and was addressed, “To Master Ambrose Birkenholt, menial clerk to the most worshipful Sir Thomas More, Knight, Under Sheriff of the City of London. These greeting—”
Within, when Ambrose could open the missive, was another small parcel, and a piece of brown coarse paper, on which was scrawled—
“Good Ambrose Birkenholt,—I pray thee to stand my friend, and let all know whom it may concern, that when this same billet comes to hand, I shall be far on the march to High Germany, with a company of lusty fellows in the Emperor’s service. They be commanded by the good knight, Sir John Fulford.
“If thou canst send tidings to my mother, bid her keep her heart up, for I shall come back a captain, full of wealth and honour, and that will be better than hammering for life—or being wedded against mine own will. There never was troth plight between my master’s daughter and me, and my time is over, so I be quit with them, and I thank my master for his goodness. They shall all hear of me some of these days. Will Wherry is my groom, and commends him to his mother. And so, commending thee and all the rest to Our Lady and the saints,
“Thine to command,“Giles Headley,“Man-at-Arms in the Honourable Companyof Sir John Fulford, Knight.”
On a separate strip was written—
“Give this packet to the little Moorish maid, and tell her that I will bring her better by and by, and mayhap make her a knight’s lady; but on thy life, say nought to any other.”
It was out now! Ambrose’s head was more in Sir Thomas’s books than in real life at all times, or he would long ago have inferred something—from the jackdaw’s favourite phrase—from Giles’s modes of haunting his steps, and making him the bearer of small tokens—an orange, a simnel cake, a bag of walnuts or almonds to Mistress Aldonza, and of the smiles, blushes, and thanks with which she greeted them. Nay, had she not burst into tears and entreated to be spared when Lady More wanted to make a match between her and the big porter, and had not her distress led Mistress Margaret to appeal to her father, who had said he should as soon think of wedding the silver-footed Thetis to Polyphemus. “Tilley valley! Master More,” the lady had answered, “will all your fine pagan gods hinder the wench from starving on earth, and leading apes in hell.”
Margaret had answered that Aldonza should never do the first, and Sir Thomas had gravely said that he thought those black eyes would lead many a man on earth before they came to the latter fate.
Ambrose hid the parcel for her deep in his bosom before he asked permission of his master to go to the Dragon court with the rest of the tidings.
“He always was an unmannerly cub,” said Master Headley, as he read the letter. “Well, I’ve done my best to make a silk purse of a sow’s ear! I’ve done my duty by poor Robert’s son, and if he will be such a fool as to run after blood and wounds, I have no more to say! Though ’tis pity of the old name! Ha! what’s this? ‘Wedded against my will—no troth plight.’ Forsooth, I thought my young master was mighty slack. He hath some other matter in his mind, hath he? Run into some coil mayhap with a beggar wench! Well, we need not be beholden to him. Ha, Dennet, my maid!”
Dennet screwed up her little mouth, and looked very demure, but she twinkled her bright eyes, and said, “My heart will not break, sir; I am in no haste to be wed.”
Her father pinched her cheek and said she was a silly wench; but perhaps he marked the dancing step with which the young mistress went about her household cares, and how she was singing to herself songs that certainly were not “Willow! willow!”
Ambrose had no scruple in delivering to Aldonza the message and token, when he overtook her on the stairs of the house at Chelsea, carrying up a lapful of roses to the still-room, where Dame Alice More was rejoicing in setting her step-daughters to housewifely tasks.
There came a wonderful illumination and agitation over the girl’s usually impassive features, giving all that they needed to make them surpassingly beautiful.
“Woe is me!” was, however, her first exclamation. “That he should have given up all for me! Oh! if I had thought it!” But while she spoke as if she were shocked and appalled, her eyes belied her words. They shone with the first absolute certainty of love, and there was no realising as yet the years of silent waiting and anxiety that must go by, nay, perhaps an entire lifetime of uncertainty of her lover’s truth or untruth, life or death.
Dame Alice called her, and in a rambling, maundering way, charged her with loitering and gadding with the young men; and Margaret saw by her colour and by her eyes that some strange thing had happened to her. Margaret had, perhaps, some intuition; for was not her heart very tender towards a certain young barrister by name Roper whom her father doubted as yet, because of his Lutheran inclinations. By and by she discovered that she needed Aldonza to comb out her long dark hair, and ere long, she had heard all the tale of the youth cured by the girl’s father, and all his gifts, and how Aldonza deemed him too great and too good for her (poor Giles!) though she knew she should never do more than look up to him with love and gratitude from afar. And she never so much as dreamt that he would cast an eye on her save in kindness. Oh yes, she knew what he had taught the daw to say, but then she was a child, she durst not deem it more. And Margaret More was more kind and eager than worldly wise, and she encouraged Aldonza to watch and wait, promised protection from all enforced suits and suitors, and gave assurances of shelter as her own attendant as long as the girl should need it.
Master Headley, with some sighing and groaning, applied himself to write to the mother at Salisbury what had become of her son; but he had only spent one evening over the trying task, when just as the supper bell was ringing, with Master Hope and his wife as guests, there were horses’ feet in the court, and Master Tiptoff appeared, with a servant on another horse, which carried besides a figure in camlet, on a pillion. No sooner was this same figure lifted from her steed and set down on the steps, while the master of the house and his daughter came out to greet her, than she began, “Master Alderman Headley, I am here to know what you have done with my poor son!”
“Alack, good cousin!”
“Alack me no alacks,” she interrupted, holding up her riding rod. “I’ll have no dissembling, there hath been enough of that, Giles Headley. Thou hast sold him, soul and body, to one of yon cruel, bloodthirsty plundering, burning captains, that the poor child may be slain and murthered! Is this the fair promises you made to his father—wiling him away from his poor mother, a widow, with talking of teaching him the craft, and giving him your daughter! My son, Tiptoff here, told me the spousal was delayed and delayed, and he doubted whether it would ever come off, but I thought not of this sending him beyond seas, to make merchandise of him. And you call yourself an alderman! The gown should be stript off the back of you, and shall be, if there be any justice in London for a widow woman.”
“Nay, cousin, you have heard some strange tale,” said Master Headley, who, much as he would have dreaded the attack beforehand, faced it the more calmly and manfully because the accusation was so outrageous.
“Ay, so I told her,” began her son-in-law, “but she hath been neither to have nor to hold since the—”
“And how should I be to have or to hold by a nincompoop like thee,” she said, turning round on him, “that would have me sit down and be content forsooth, when mine only son is kidnapped to be sold to the Turks or to work in the galleys, for aught I know.”
“Mistress!” here Master Hope’s voice came in, “I would counsel you to speak less loud, and hear before you accuse. We of the City of London know Master Alderman Headley too well to hear him railed against.”
“Ah! you’re all of a piece,” she began; but by this time Master Tiptoff had managed at least to get her into the hall, and had exchanged words enough with the alderman to assure himself that there was an explanation, nay, that there was a letter from Giles himself. This the indignant mother presently was made to understand—and as the alderman had borrowed the letter in order to copy it for her, it was given to her. She could not read, and would trust no one but her son-in-law to read it to her. “Yea, you have it very pat,” she said, “but how am I to be assured ’tis not all writ here to hoodwink a poor woman like me.”
“’Tis Giles’s hand,” averred Tiptoff.
“And if you will,” added the alderman, with wonderful patience, “to-morrow you may speak with the youth who received it. Come, sit down and sup with us, and then you shall learn from Smallbones how this mischance befel, all from my sending two young heads together, and one who, though a good fellow, could not hold all in rule.”
“Ay—you’ve your reasons for anything,” she muttered, but being both weary and hungry, she consented to eat and drink, while Tiptoff, who was evidently ashamed of her violence, and anxious to excuse it, managed to explain that a report had been picked up at Romsey, by a bare-footed friar from Salisbury, that young Giles Headley had been seen at Ghent by one of the servants of a wool merchant, riding with a troop of Free Companions in the Emperor’s service. All the rest was deduced from this intelligence by the dame’s own imagination.
After supper she was invited to interrogate Kit and Stephen, and her grief and anxiety found vent in fierce scolding at the misrule which had permitted such a villain as Fulford to be haunting and tempting poor fatherless lads. Master Headley had reproached poor Kit for the same thing, but he could only represent that Giles, being a freeman, was no longer under his authority. However, she stormed on, being absolutely convinced that her son’s evasion was every one’s fault but his own. Now it was the alderman for misusing him, overtasking the poor child, and deferring the marriage, now it was that little pert poppet, Dennet, who had flouted him, now it was the bad company he had been led into—the poor babe who had been bred to godly ways.
The alderman was really sorry for her, and felt himself to blame so far as that he had shifted the guidance of the expedition to such an insufficient head as poor Smallbones, so he let her rail on as much as she would, till the storm exhausted itself, and she settled into the trust that Giles would soon grow weary and return. The good man felt bound to show her all hospitality, and the civilities to country cousins were in proportion to the rarity of their visits. So Mrs. Headley stayed on after Tiptoff’s return to Salisbury, and had the best view feasible of all the pageants and diversions of autumn. She saw some magnificent processions of clergy, she was welcomed at a civic banquet and drank of the loving cup, and she beheld the Lord Mayor’s Show in all its picturesque glory of emblazoned barges on the river. In fact, she found the position of denizen of an alderman’s household so very agreeable that she did her best to make it a permanency. Nay, Dennet soon found that she considered herself to be waiting there and keeping guard till her son’s return should establish her there, and that she viewed the girl already as a daughter—for which Dennet was by no means obliged to her! She lavished counsel on her hostess, found fault with the maidens, criticised the cookery, walked into the kitchen and still-room with assistance and directions, and even made a strong effort to possess herself of the keys.
It must be confessed that Dennet was saucy! It was her weapon of self-defence, and she considered herself insulted in her own house.
There she stood, exalted on a tall pair of pattens before the stout oaken table in the kitchen where a glowing fire burned; pewter, red and yellow earthenware, and clean scrubbed trenchers made a goodly show, a couple of men-cooks and twice as many scullions obeyed her behests—only the superior of the two first ever daring to argue a point with her. There she stood, in her white apron, with sleeves turned up, daintily compounding her mincemeat for Christmas, when in stalked Mrs. Headley to offer her counsel and aid—but this was lost in a volley of barking from the long-backed, bandy-legged, turnspit dog, which was awaiting its turn at the wheel, and which ran forward, yapping with malign intentions towards the dame’s scarlet-hosed ankles.
She shook her petticoats at him, but Dennet tittered even while declaring that Tray hurt nobody. Mrs. Headley reviled the dog, and then proceeded to advise Dennet that she should chop her citron finer. Dennet made answer “that father liked a good stout piece of it.” Mistress Headley offered to take the chopper and instruct her how to compound all in the true Sarum style.
“Grammercy, mistress, but we follow my grand-dame’s recipe!” said Dennet, grasping her implement firmly.
“Come, child, be not above taking a lesson from thine elders! Where’s the goose? What?” as the girl looked amazed, “where hast thou lived not to know that a live goose should be bled into the mincemeat?”
“I have never lived with barbarous, savage folk,” said Dennet—and therewith she burst into an irrepressible fit of laughter, trying in vain to check it, for a small and mischievous elf, freshly promoted to the office of scullion, had crept up and pinned a dish-cloth to the substantial petticoats, and as Mistress Headley whisked round to see what was the matter, like a kitten after its tail, it followed her like a train, while she rushed to box the ears of the offender, crying,
“You set him on, you little saucy vixen! I saw it in your eyes. Let the rascal be scourged.”
“Not so,” said Dennet, with prim mouth and laughing eyes. “Far be it from me! But ’tis ever the wont of the kitchen, when those come there who have no call thither.”
Mistress Headley flounced away, dish-cloth and all, to go whimpering to the alderman with her tale of insults. She trusted that her cousin would give the pert wench a good beating. She was not a whit too old for it.
“How oft did you beat Giles, good kinswoman?” said Dennet demurely, as she stood by her father.
“Whisht, whisht, child,” said her father, “this may not be! I cannot have my guest flouted.”
“If she act as our guest, I will treat her with all honour and courtesy,” said the maiden; “but when she comes where we look not for guests, there is no saying what the black guard may take it on them to do.”
Master Headley was mischievously tickled at the retort, and not without hope that it might offend his kinswoman into departing; but she contented herself with denouncing all imaginable evils from Dennet’s ungoverned condition, with which she was prevented in her beneficence from interfering by the father’s foolish fondness. He would rue the day!
Meantime if the alderman’s peace on one side was disturbed by his visitor, on the other, suitors for Dennet’s hand gave him little rest. She was known to be a considerable heiress, and though Mistress Headley gave every one to understand that there was a contract with Giles, and that she was awaiting his return, this did not deter more wooers than Dennet ever knew of, from making proposals to her father. Jasper Hope was offered, but he was too young, and besides, was a mercer—and Dennet and her father were agreed that her husband must go on with the trade. Then there was a master armourer, but he was a widower with sons and daughters as old as Dennet, and she shook her head and laughed at the bare notion. There also came a young knight who would have turned the Dragon court into a tilt-yard, and spent all the gold that long years of prudent toil had amassed.
If Mistress Headley deemed each denial the result of her vigilance for her son’s interests, she was the more impelled to expatiate on the folly of leaving a maid of sixteen to herself, to let the household go to rack and ruin; while as to the wench, she might prank herself in her own conceit, but no honest man would soon look at her for a wife, if her father left her to herself, without giving her a good stepmother, or at least putting a kinswoman in authority over her.
The alderman was stung. He certainly had warmed a snake on his hearth, and how was he to be rid of it? He secretly winked at the resumption of a forge fire that had been abandoned, because the noise and smoke incommoded the dwelling-house, and Kit Smallbones hammered his loudest there, when the guest might be taking her morning nap; but this had no effect in driving her away, though it may have told upon her temper; and good-humoured Master Headley was harassed more than he had ever been in his life.
“It puts me past my patience,” said he, turning into Tibble’s special workshop one afternoon. “Here hath Mistress Hillyer of the Eagle been with me full of proposals that I would give my poor wench to that scapegrace lad of hers, who hath been twice called to account before the guild, but who now, forsooth, is to turn over a new leaf.”
“So I wis would the Dragon under him,” quoth Tibble.
“I told her ’twas not to be thought of, and then what does the dame but sniff the air and protest that I had better take heed, for there may not be so many who would choose a spoilt, misruled maid like mine. There’s the work of yonder Sarum woman. I tell thee, Tib, never was bull in the ring more baited than am I.”
“Yea, sir,” returned Tib, “there’ll be no help for it till our young mistress be wed.”
“Ay! that’s the rub! But I’ve not seen one whom I could mate with her—let alone one who would keep up the old house. Giles would have done that passably, though he were scarce worthy of the wench, even without—” An expressive shake of the head denoted the rest. “And now if he ever come home at all, ’twill be as a foul-mouthed, plundering scarecrow, like the kites of men-at-arms, who, if they lose not their lives, lose all that makes an honest life in the Italian wars. I would have writ to Edmund Burgess, but I hear his elder brother is dead, and he is driving a good traffic at York. Belike too he is wedded.”
“Nay,” said Tibble, “I could tell of one who would be true and faithful to your worship, and a loving husband to Mistress Dennet, ay, and would be a master that all of us would gladly cleave to. For he is godly after his lights, and sound-hearted, and wots what good work be, and can do it.”
“That were a son-in-law, Tib! Of who speakest thou? Is he of good birth?”
“Yea, of gentle birth and breeding.”
“And willing? But that they all are. Wherefore then hath he never made suit?”
“He hath not yet his freedom.”
“Who be it then?”
“He that made this elbow-piece for the suit that Queen Margaret ordered for the little King of Scots,” returned Tibble, producing an exquisite miniature bit of workmanship.