Idonia: A Romance of Old London

This disclosure shocked me, and particularly when I reflected that my father had no knowledge of anything that had occurred to me, nor yet where I now lay. Two things I did therefore with all speed, first writing a full account of the attorney, how he had robbed me, and of my illness so much as I thought necessary; and secondly, going to Fetter Lane in the hope to recover my goods. On this errand the warden would by no means suffer me to go alone, and I for my part was very glad of his arm to lean upon, as I was also of his companionship by the way.

In discourse I found him to be something more blunt than complacent, and moreover to have set his notions, as it were, by the clock of his profession. Thus, I chancing to speak of the great mansions of the nobles that were frequent upon the bank about the Bridge-end, and making mention of their power that lived therein, he answered me pretty roundly that I was out.

"If there be two or three wise heads amongst them," said he, "there be two or three score otherwise disposed. 'Tis a common error, master, to belaud all alike and merely because their honours be similar. But I say, let her Grace ennoble any the least considered merchant on Change, and nought should go worse for it, but rather the better. I say further, 'tis in the shops and among the great Companies of the City that England's worthies are now to be found, and her advancement lieth less in the Great Council to be debated on, than in Cheape to be accomplished. But enough!" said he, with a little shake of his head. "I am a servant of this City, and perhaps it is for that I have a bias of thinking well of what the City doth. Yet few will be bold enough to deny that we owe much to our great citizens and merchants, as to Sir Richard Whittington in the old days, and later to Sir Thomas Gresham, that very praise-worthy knight; not forgetting Mr. Lamb that brought sweet water in a conduit to Holborn; nor Mr. Osborne, which was Mayor two year since, and now is Governor of the famous Turkey Company by charter of the Queen established."

"And what of the Queen's Grace herself?" quoth I, for my humour was not a little tickled at this decrying of those in high estate, whose wisdom and guidance we be commonly taught to extol. But at the Queen's name Mr. Nelson had his cap off immediately.

"God bless her," he said very reverently, "and give her a mind to perceive her own and her realm's, true good. And so He doth!" he broke off vehemently, "and hath made her to be the greatest merchant of them all! Ask Master Drake, else, whose partner and fellow-adventurer she was when he sailed from Plymouth with but five poor ships, and returned thence with such treasure of the Spaniards as it took two whole days to discharge upon the quay."

In such converse we walked on, I straitly considering of these things he told, whether indeed those mighty lords, whose names were in everybody's mouth, were truly of less account than men trading in silk and furs and spices, as he would have me believe; and whether, also, overmuch service with the City Sheriffs had not worn out an esteem for greater folk in this honest stout warden of London Bridge.

When at length we arrived at my old lodging in Fetter Lane, Mr. Nelson said he would not enter, but would await me in the street, and so I went in alone. I found Madam Malt in a chamber behind the shop, with her daughters, and very busy upon a great piece, of needlework. She looked up swiftly as I entered, but never a word she spake.

"I come to make account of my prolonged absence," said I, something out of countenance for this unlooked for rebuff.

"Judith," said her mother, sharply, "go see whether my babe wakes yet; Allison do this, and Maud do that," said she, and so emptied her bower of the maids at a word, and left me standing.

"Lord!" quoth I low to myself, "I am come into the garden of the Hesperides surely; yet I wist not that the Dragon was mother of them." But aloud I said, "I am bound to thank you for the hospitality you extended to me, Madam, the which I cannot well repay."

"I thought no less," replied the lady, without raising her eyes from her work, "and therefore made application for distraint, which being granted, I sold such stuff as you thought fit to leave and was not past laundering."

"But there was my mare too," I cried.

"Ay, the poor jade," said she, "the knacker put a price upon her, but it reached not to the value of a feed of oats, so I cried quits and kept her."

"Then you have her yet?" quoth I.

"I have her not," quoth she, "for I gave her a gift to the parson of St. Dunstan's Church that hath been very full of encouragement to us in our trouble."

"Your trouble, Madam?" I began, but she proceeded with a terrible quietness—

"'A preached a singular comfortable sermon two Sundays after your stealing off, upon the text, 'Happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us,' as would have melted the most shameless, Mr. Denis."

"Let us hope it did then," said I, pretty tired of this oblique attack.

"He was not of the congregation, sir," she blazed out, her eyes on mine.

"He was," I retorted, "for he both preached the sermon and hath my mare. But he shall give her me again, or else I will take her by force."

"Ah, you would despoil the Church then, you heretick Turk!" cried the lady in a thin, hissing voice that befitted the Dragon I had formerly called her in my thoughts. "Was it not enough that you should creep into a Christian household and steal all peace therefrom? What of the looks you were ever casting upon my tender Judith, and she so apt at her catechism and forward in works of grace. Your mare, quotha! What of her pretty beseeching ways that no man hath seen but saith she is rather Ruth than Judith—ay, and shall find her Boaz one day, I tell you, in despite of your heathen wiles and treachery. So, fetch away your beast from a churchman's stall, 'tis easy done every whit as get a simple maid's heart; and then off and abroad, while she weeps at home, poor lass! that is so diligent a sempstress withal, and her father's prop of his age."

Whilst she was delivering this astonishing and very calumnious speech, Madam Malt had arisen from her chair and now stood close above me, wringing her hands that yet kept a hold of her piece of needlework, and shaking with rage. She was a marvellous large woman, with a face something loose-skinned about the jaw, and of a buff colour that mounted to a brownness in the folds and wrinkles. Her voice, as I have said, was very dragonlike, and her whole aspect and presence had something of an apocalyptic terribleness that seemed to draw the clouds about her as a garment. I see her yet in my dreams and awake shuddering.

Once or twice I strove to interpose a denial in the flood of her indictment, and to exonerate myself from her load of false charges, but could nowise make myself heard, or at least heeded, and so gave it over. Indeed, how all would have ended I know not, had not the infant in a lucky hour awakened and lamentably demanded sustenance; whereupon Judith running in (who I am persuaded had got no further than behind the door-chink), the lady's thoughts were by the intelligence that her daughter brought, most happily diverted from me. Judith regarded me with one wistful glance, and then in the wake of the Dragon as she swept from the room, this last of the Hesperides departed from me for ever.

I stood some time very downcast, knowing not what to think, when the door opening a small space, Mr. Richard's head was thrust in, his eyes winking with merriment.

"So you have returned to us, Mr. Prodigal," he whispered, "and have heard moreover how we take your leaving us so without ceremony as you did. Nay, be not melancholy, man," he went on, coming beside me and laying a hand upon my shoulder, "for we that use the playhouse and the jolly tavern understand these things well enough. No need for words where a nod sufficeth. But the women would have no men roysters, good souls! nor hardly allow us the stretch of a lap-dog's leash to gambol in. Eh!" he sang out in a pretty good mean voice, although from his late drinking not well controlled:

"'Better place no wit can findCupid's yoke to loose or bind.'

But come you with me, Mr. Denis, one of these nights; for we be much of an age, and should sort handsomely together, if I mistake not."

It lies upon my conscience now, that I neither thanked him for his intention, which I am sure was friendly meant; nor yet kicked him out of door for his manifest profligacy. But as it was, I went straight past him, looking him full in the face the while, and out of the house. His cheeks turned a sort of yellow white at this insult and at the surprise of it, while his hand slipped to his belt for the sword he commonly wore, but he had it not by him, as indeed he was all unready and his whole dress disordered after such a night spent as he supposed I should be willing to join him in another, the like of it.

I found Mr. Nelson without, who leaned very thoughtful against a post by the door, and by my countenance I showed him plain enough the upshot of that business.

"'Twas no more than I conceived likely," he said. "These hired lodgings be all one."

Finding nothing convenient to return, I held my peace; and so we walked slowly along Fleet Street, and over the hill by Paul's, to my new abode upon the Bridge.

CHAPTER X

HOW I SAW AN ENEMY AT THE WINDOW

My father replied about ten days after to the letter I had writ him, with another of so sweet a tenour (and yet shrewd enough in the business parts of it), as reading it, I could have gone on my knees to honour him. He made it clear at the outset that my bad bargain must at all hazards be ratified, and Mr. Wall's loan in full repaid. This he undertook to do, saying he had dispatched advices already to the goldsmith, in which he acknowledged the debt, promising moreover to acquit himself of it as soon as he could.

"But at this present, Denis," he wrote, "to do so is not altogether easy, though I hope 'twill not be long ere I shall compass it. And in order to that end I have retired from the Court into a more modest dwelling (as you will perceive by the subscription) in the hamlet of Tolland, having been fortunate in letting at a fair rent the Court to your old companion, Sir Matthew Juke, who, his new mansion in Devizes not at all answering to his expectation, was at the very delivery of your letter hot to be rid of it; and therefore upon my first making offer of our house to him upon leasehold, he very eagerly assented to my proposals."

But if the notion of that thin-blooded knight established in our old home greatly irked me, this which followed caused me an infinite deal of sorrow; for I was to learn of a secret malady of my father's which he had long been subject to, but had never before disclosed, although it had grievously increased upon him even to the time of my departure from the Combe, so that he sometimes had doubted of his being then alive or, at the least, able to disguise any longer from me his affliction. "Had it been otherwise," he proceeded, "be well assured that upon your first motion of distress I would myself have come to you, as indeed I would yet do (should Providence see fit to restore me) were it not for the too great dispences of the journey. For I make of it no mystery, Denis, but speak with you openly as to one of man's estate, when I affirm that the charges in this affair be somewhat larger than with our late accustomed easiness we may satisfy. And this bringeth me to the gravest part yet, and that which most I loathe to make mention of, seeing it is not otherwise to be accomplished than in our continued severance. Notwithstanding between friends (as we are) plain speech is best, and I therefore say that I have a mind you should engage yourself in some occupation of trade in London; but such as yourself shall elect to follow; and to you I leave the choosing thereof. I will that you continue prosecuting our original design (I intend your uncle's deliverance) as you shall have the opportunity and I the means. So much sufficeth for this time, and therefore I bid you farewell,

"Who am your well-wishing and most fond father,

"HUMPHREY CLEEVE."

(Followed the sign of the Inn he lay at, which I remembered to have once noted going through Tolland, and passed it by as a place of mean and beggarly entertainment.)

This letter I overread a score of times, and each time with the more admiration that a man of so principal a dignity and so observed, could find it in his mind thus voluntarily to lay by his honourable estate and depart a mere exile from his ancient home; and that with never a murmur of self pity; but quitting all simply and with a grand negligence, as a man might do that puts up a fair-bound book he has been reading, but now hath concluded.

'Twas sometime afterward I let my thought stay upon the meaning of that he had writ of myself; and a longer time ere I could allow the plain truth that we were come into an absolute poverty. I think not well to set down all the shifting considerations that moved me then, nor the weight of humiliation I undertook at this lapse and derogation from our name. But all my dreams brake utterly asunder, and my hopes that had until now sustained me in pride. To be penniless I found a greater evil far than to be sick, and in the first rage of my disappointment, I quite lost all remembrance of my father (sick too) in the wayside tavern I had myself disdained to enter.

I was aloft in my room in the warden's house when this letter was delivered to me in the afternoon of the day following my passage with the hosier's wife, and I remember how I sat by the window looking across the Bridge street, betwixt the tall houses, out upon the River and the great galleys in the Pool, and upon that square grey shadow of the Tower. All I saw appeared to me so large and unfettered, and to be spread so comely in the soft blue air that I could hardly bear to reduce my thoughts to the narrowness and cooped discipline of my own future. The eulogy which Mr. Nelson had seen fit to pronounce upon merchants and traders troubled my spleen not a little at the remembrance of it; and so out of measure did my resentment run that I stood by the mullion gnawing at my nails and casting blame hither and thither, so as none hardly escaped being made a party (as the attorneys called it) to the case of poverty into which I was fallen. Amongst other follies I allowed, was this: that I dared not now seek out my old schoolmaster, lest from the height of his new soldier's calling he should rail down upon me in Latin, which tongue seemeth to have been expressly fashioned for satire.

But such a resolution extended no further than to Mr. Jordan, for I still cherished and held fast to the hope of discovering the maid and of thanking her, as was necessary (or at least upon the necessity of it I would admit no argument); and also of acquainting her of my present and intolerable trouble. That she were, like enough, engaged in some trade, as well as I, I never so much as conceived possible, but drew in advance upon her store of pity for my singular misfortune.

The day grew towards evening as I stood thus, debating of these matters, and the River came over all misted and purple and very grand. Here and there were lights too that went thwarting it, they being the great lanterns of the wherries and barges that continually traversed the stream; and the fixed lights were these set upon the hithes and stairs, or else aloft in the houses by the bankside. 'Twas a wondrous melancholy sight, methought, and seemed a sort of blazon and lively image of surrender, this decline of day into dark. For boylike I omitted the significance of the lights burning, and received the night only into my soul.

"Mr. Denis, will't please you come below?" came a shrill voice athwart these reflections and startled me.

"Is it supper?" I asked something petulantly, for I hated to be disturbed.

"Nay, Master Dumps, 'tis the goodman's brother, the Queen's yeoman, that would speak with your little worship."

Something in her manner forbade my gainsaying her, so I went down into the great kitchen where we commonly sat, and there found the warden, with the yeoman his brother in his scarlet apparel as I had before seen him; his halberd set up in a corner where it took the glitter of the fire, and his velvet bonnet laid on the table. Mr. Nelson at once presented him to me, upon which he rose up with a salutation in the military manner, very stately, and then sat down without a word.

"I have ventured so far to meddle in your proper affairs, Mr. Cleeve," said Gregory Nelson, "as to inquire of master sergeant here in what sort your uncle is entreated in the Tower, as also whether the Constable would likely grant you access to him, he lying under so weighty an indictment."

"You have done kindly," I said, and told them both of the letter I had received from my father, in which he had iterated his desire I should yet attempt his brother's release, or rather the procuring of his trial to that end. The sergeant nodded once or twice the while I spoke in this fashion, but did not interrupt me. Nevertheless Madam Nelson, who perceived that something was forward of which she had heard never a word, could scarce constrain herself to await the conclusion, which when she had heard, she burst in—

"Ah, truly, Gregory Nelson," said she, setting a fist upon either hip and speaking very high and scornful, "when Providence gave thee me to wife, He gave thee a notable blessing, and one of a pleasant aptitude to discourse, yet not beyond discretion, as we women have a name (though without warrant) to go. But in giving thee to me, He furnished me with nought but an ill-painted sign of the Dumb Man, so out of all reason dost thou hide and dissemble thy thoughts. Why, I had as lief be married to Aldgate Pump as to thee, for all the news thou impartest, or comfort got of thee by the mouth's way; which was sure the way intended of Him that made us with mouths and a comprehension of things spoken. Yea, a very stockfish took I to mate in thee, Gregory, whose habitation should be in Fishmongers Row, on a trestle-stall of Billingsgate."

The cogency of this speech of the warden's wife, great as it might be in abuse, was yet so small in its effect upon her husband, that I was fain to relate to the poor woman (who loved me for it ever after) the whole story of Botolph Cleeve's imprisonment in the Tower, which her husband had (so far prudently) kept silence upon.

"Poor man," cried she pitifully when she knew all, "ah, these poor solitary prisoners! I marvel how good men can find it in their hearts to guard them from escaping thence. Were I a yeoman now," she added, with an eye askance upon the sergeant and after upon her husband, "I would suffer all such freely to depart thence without challenge, as desired it, or at least such as led a Christian life and loved their wives."

"Is my uncle kindly dealt with there?" I demanded of the yeoman, but to that question he hesitated so long in his reply that I cried—

"If he be not, 'tis ill done, so to use a man that I hope to prove innocent of this charge."

"'Tis because he is innocent belike, poor soul," quoth Madam Nelson, "that they do so use him. In this world it hath ever been the virtuous whose faces are ground."

"Do you know where his dungeon is situate?" I asked, starting to my feet as though I would go (and meant to) at once to the Lord Constable, "or if not you, then who doth know it?"

"None doth," he answered me slowly, "because he is not in the Tower."

"What mean you?" cried I, as soon as I could for astonishment. "My uncle is not a prisoner there?"

"I trow otherwise!" retorted the warden's wife, who saw her pity ill bestowed if she believed him.

"There hath been none of his name apprehended, nor none of his description," said the yeoman.

"Then where is he?" I cried out bitterly, for I well enough perceived that all that great sum which we had been enticed into spending was for nothing lost, and ourselves beggars upon the mere fetch and cozening imposture of a knave.

"Where he may be I know not," said the Bridge warden, before the yeoman could answer me, "but I think you came as near to him as might be, when you gave your money into the hands of Mr. John Skene."

"Skene—Skene! He—the attorney? You suppose him to be my uncle?" I gasped forth the words as one drowning.

He nodded. "It maketh the matter simple to suppose so," he said, "which else is hardly to be understood."

Perplexed as I then was, I could scarce believe him, albeit whatever survey of the matter I made, I confessed the indications directed me, after infinite wanderings, ever back to the same point, which was that my uncle had manifestly lied in writing that he was kept prisoner, and by our belief in that lie, who but himself did he mean should benefit? Yet unless he were indeed Skene (and so received our twice five hundred pounds) he had gained nothing upon that throw, but lost it to another more cunning than he, which were a thing I thought scarcely to be credited.

The weight of this disclosure so whelmed me that I could do nor say no more, but throwing my arm along the table, had my face down in it to hide the tears which would have course, try as I might to restrain them. Good Dame Nelson, all blubbered too, leant over my shoulder to comfort me, although her sympathy must have been something doubtfully extended to one that wept because his uncle was proved to be not a prisoner, but in the full enjoyment of his liberty.

But after continuing in this case some while there came into my mind some considerations of revenge, and they greatly comforting me, I sat upright in my chair, and begged the tolerance of the two men for my late weakness.

"Nay, say no more of it, lad," replied Mr. Nelson, "for no man liketh to think of a villain at large, and in particular, if the villain be of the family."

And so, calling to his wife to serve up the supper, and to us to seat ourselves about the board, he did his best to make me forget, for that while, my troubles.

However I could eat but little, though I made appearance as if I relished the wholesome steaming food; and not I only, but the sergeant-yeoman also, I soon perceived, did eat sparingly, and as one whose mind was absent from the feast. And soon he ceased altogether, laying aside his knife and platter and clearing his throat with a sort of sob (which was the prelude to as moving a tale as ever I heard) and resting his great bearded cheek upon his hand.

"Why, what ails you, master sergeant?" cried Dame Nelson in quick compassion; but it was to his brother, and not her, that he replied—

"You spake truly, Gregory," said he, "when you told Master Cleeve that no man loveth to think of a villain at large if he be of one's own family. But you spake it to my shame."

"I intended it not so, truly," said the warden very earnestly.

"I know it," said the yeoman, "but yet when you brought in the family it touched me pretty near. Stay!" he said, when he saw that Gregory would have interposed some further excuse. "You have not altogether forgot my boy, Jack, that went a shipman in the Green Dragon upon a voyage into Barbary, two year since."

"I remember him very well," answered the warden, while his wife whispered me that he had the finest pair of grey eyes you did ever see.

"I have received certain news of him but this very day," continued the yeoman, "which hath quite taken away my peace, and set my mind amidst perilous thoughts."

"A mercy on us!" cried the woman, starting up from the table; "what words be these, master sergeant?"

"He hath turned Turk," said the yeoman, in a thick voice.

"As being enforced thereto, God help him!" said Mr. Nelson; but his brother shook his head.

"'Twas his own will to do so," he said, and rose from the bench; whereupon we all rose too, though without well knowing wherefore, save that we were strangely affected by his narrative. The yeoman went over to the corner where his great pike rested, and returning thence with it, he stood for some while quite still and upright (in such posture as a soldier doth upon guard), his eyes upon the bright fire which threw the distorted huge shadow of him against the ceiling. At the last, in a small voice, as though he spake not to us, he said—

"From my youth I have been known for a God-fearing man, and one not given over to lightness. To the Queen I pledged my faith once, and have kept it. Had I so much as in one point failed of my word, I would willingly and without extenuation answer the same. And no less have I dealt with Heaven—faithfully, as befits a soldier. Then how comes it that one born flesh of my flesh should do me this shame? Is it my reward and wages for stout service? Nay, had Heaven a quarrel with me, I would abide it. Had I defaulted, I should look to be punished in mine own person. But to defame me through my son; to fasten the reproach and scorn of a renegade upon me because he cowardly threw aside his faith; I say I like not that, nor think not that Heaven hath dealt with me as my captain would." He stayed his speech there quite suddenly, and took up his black bonnet from the table, we all marvelling the while, as much at his words as at the apostasy that had occasioned them. But this speech that ensued, which was spoken with an infinite simplicity as he was going, moved us who listened to him, I think, more than all the rest. "And yet," said he, "there be armies in heaven;" and with that he left us and went his way.