The Armourer's Prentices

As much of this as Ambrose knew or understood he told to Stephen, who listened in a good deal of bewilderment, understanding very little, but with a strong instinct that his brother’s love of learning was leading him into dangerous company.  And what were they doing on this fine May holiday, when every one ought to be out enjoying themselves?

“Well, if thou wilt know,” said Ambrose, pushed hard, “there is one Master William Tindal, who hath been doing part of the blessed Evangel into English, and for better certainty of its correctness, Master Michael was comparing it with his Arabic version, while I overlooked the Latin.”

“O Ambrose, thou wilt surely run into trouble.  Know you not how nurse Joan used to tell us of the burning of the Lollard books?”

“Nay, nay, Stevie, this is no heresy.  ’Tis such work as the great scholar, Master Erasmus, is busied on—ay, and he is loved and honoured by both the Archbishops and the King’s grace!  Ask Tibble Steelman what he thinks thereof.”

“Tibble Steelman would think nought of a beggarly stranger calling himself a sword cutler, and practising the craft without prenticeship or license,” said Stephen, swelling with indignation.  “Come on, Ambrose, and sweep the cobwebs from thy brain.  If we cannot get into our own tent again, we can mingle with the outskirts, and learn how the day is going, and how our lances and breastplates have stood where the knaves’ at the Eagle have gone like reeds and egg-shells—just as I threw George Bates, the prentice at the Eagle yesterday, in a wrestling match at the butts with the trick old Diggory taught me.”

CHAPTER XII

A KING IN A QUAGMIRE

   For my pastanceHunt, sing, and dance,My heart is setAll godly sportTo my comfort.Who shall me let?The King’s Balade, attributed to Henry VIII.

Life was a rough, hearty thing in the early sixteenth century, strangely divided between thought and folly, hardship and splendour, misery and merriment, toil and sport.

The youths in the armourer’s household had experienced little of this as yet in their country life, but in London they could not but soon begin to taste both sides of the matter.  Master Headley himself was a good deal taken up with city affairs, and left the details of his business to Tibble Steelman and Kit Smallbones, though he might always appear on the scene, and he had a wonderful knowledge of what was going on.

The breaking-in and training of the two new country lads was entirely left to them and to Edmund Burgess.  Giles soon found that complaints were of no avail, and only made matters harder for him, and that Tibble Steelman and Kit Smallbones had no notion of favouring their master’s cousin.

Poor fellow, he was very miserable in those first weeks.  The actual toil, to which he was an absolute novice, though nominally three years an apprentice, made his hands raw, and his joints full of aches, while his groans met with nothing but laughter; and he recognised with great displeasure, that more was laid on him than on Stephen Birkenholt.  This was partly in consideration of Stephen’s youth, partly of his ready zeal and cheerfulness.  His hands might be sore too, but he was rather proud of it than otherwise, and his hero worship of Kit Smallbones made him run on errands, tug at the bellows staff, or fetch whatever was called for with a bright alacrity that won the foremen’s hearts, and it was noted that he who was really a gentleman, had none of the airs that Giles Headley showed.

Giles began by some amount of bullying, by way of slaking his wrath at the preference shown for one whom he continued to style a beggarly brat picked up on the heath; but Stephen was good-humoured, and accustomed to give and take, and they both found their level, as well in the Dragon court as among the world outside, where the London prentices were a strong and redoubtable body, with rude, not to say cruel, rites of initiation among themselves, plenty of rivalries and enmities between house and house, guild and guild, but a united, not to say ferocious, esprit de corps against every one else.  Fisticuffs and wrestlings were the amenities that passed between them, though always with a love of fair play so long as no cowardice, or what was looked on as such, was shown, for there was no mercy for the weak or weakly.  Such had better betake themselves at once to the cloister, or life was made intolerable by constant jeers, blows, baiting and huntings, often, it must be owned, absolutely brutal.

Stephen and Giles had however passed through this ordeal.  The letter to John Birkenholt had been despatched by a trusty clerk riding with the Judges of Assize, whom Mistress Perronel knew might be safely trusted, and who actually brought back a letter which might have emanated from the most affectionate of brothers, giving his authority for the binding Stephen apprentice to the worshipful Master Giles Headley, and sending the remainder of the boy’s portion.

Stephen was thereupon regularly bound apprentice to Master Headley.  It was a solemn affair, which took place in the Armourer’s Hall in Coleman Street, before sundry witnesses.  Harry Randall, in his soberest garb and demeanour, acted as guardian to his nephew, and presented him, clad in the regulation prentice garb—“flat round cap, close-cut hair, narrow falling bands, coarse side coat, close hose, cloth stockings,” coat with the badge of the Armourers’ Company, and Master Headley’s own dragon’s tail on the sleeve, to which was added a blue cloak marked in like manner.  The instructions to apprentices were rehearsed, beginning, “Ye shall constantly and devoutly on your knees every day serve God, morning and evening”—pledging him to “avoid evil company, to make speedy return when sent on his master’s business, to be fair, gentle and lowly in speech and carriage with all men,” and the like.

Mutual promises were interchanged between him and his master, Stephen on his knees; the indentures were signed, for Quipsome Hal could with much ado produce an autograph signature, though his penmanship went no further, and the occasion was celebrated by a great dinner of the whole craft at the Armourers’ Hall, to which the principal craftsmen who had been apprentices, such as Tibble Steelman and Kit Smallbones, were invited, sitting at a lower table, while the masters had the higher one on the daïs, and a third was reserved for the apprentices after they should have waited on their masters—in fact it was an imitation of the orders of chivalry, knights, squires, and pages, and the gradation of rank was as strictly observed as by the nobility.  Giles, considering the feast to be entirely in his honour, though the transfer of his indentures had been made at Salisbury, endeavoured to come out in some of his bravery, but was admonished that such presumption might be punished, the first time, at his master’s discretion, the second time, by a whipping at the Hall of his Company, and the third time by six months being added to the term of his apprenticeship.

Master Randall was entertained in the place of honour, where he comported himself with great gravity, though he could not resist alarming Stephen with an occasional wink or gesture as the boy approached in the course of the duties of waiting at the upper board—a splendid sight with cups and flagons of gold and silver, with venison and capons and all that a City banquet could command before the invention of the turtle.

There was drinking of toasts, and among the foremost was that of Wolsey, who had freshly received his nomination of cardinal, and whose hat was on its way from Rome—and here the jester could not help betraying his knowledge of the domestic policy of the household, and telling the company how it had become known that the scarlet hat was actually on the way, but in a “varlet’s budget—a mere Italian common knave, no better than myself,” quoth Quipsome Hal, whereat his nephew trembled standing behind his chair, forgetting that the decorous solid man in the sad-coloured gown and well-crimped ruff, neatest of Perronel’s performances, was no such base comparison for any varlet.  Hal went on to describe, however, how my Lord of York had instantly sent to stay the messenger on his handing at Dover, and equip him with all manner of costly silks by way of apparel, and with attendants, such as might do justice to his freight, “that so,” he said, “men may not rate it but as a scarlet cock’s comb, since all men be but fools, and the sole question is, who among them hath wit enough to live by his folly.”  Therewith he gave a wink that so disconcerted Stephen as nearly to cause an upset of the bowl of perfumed water that he was bringing for the washing of hands.

Master Headley, however, suspected nothing, and invited the grave Master Randall to attend the domestic festival on the presentation of poor Spring’s effigy at the shrine of St. Julian.  This was to take place early in the morning of the 14th of September, Holy Cross Day, the last holiday in the year that had any of the glory of summer about it, and on which the apprentices claimed a prescriptive right to go out nutting in St. John’s Wood, and to carry home their spoil to the lasses of their acquaintance.

Tibble Steelman had completed the figure in bronze, with a silver collar and chain, not quite without protest that the sum had better have been bestowed in alms.  But from his master’s point of view this would have been giving to a pack of lying beggars and thieves what was due to the holy saint; no one save Tibble, who could do and say what he chose, could have ventured on a word of remonstrance on such a subject; and as the full tide of iconoclasm, consequent on the discovery of the original wording of the second commandment, had not yet set in, Tibble had no more conscientious scruple against making the figure, than in moulding a little straight-tailed lion for Lord Harry Percy’s helmet.

So the party in early morning heard their mass, and then, repairing to St. Julian’s pillar, while the rising sun came peeping through the low eastern window of the vaulted Church of St. Faith, Master Headley on his knees gave thanks for his preservation, and then put forward his little daughter, holding on her joined hands the figure of poor Spring, couchant, and beautifully modelled in bronze with all Tibble’s best skill.

Hal Randall and Ambrose had both come up from the little home where Perronel presided, for the hour was too early for the jester’s absence to be remarked in the luxurious household of the Cardinal elect, and he even came to break his fast afterwards at the Dragon court, and held such interesting discourse with old Dame Headley on the farthingales and coifs of Queen Katharine and her ladies, that she pronounced him a man wondrous wise and understanding, and declared Stephen happy in the possession of such a kinsman.

“And whither away now, youngsters?” he said, as he rose from table.

“To St. John’s Wood!  The good greenwood, uncle,” said Ambrose.

“Thou too, Ambrose?” said Stephen joyfully.  “For once away from thine ink and thy books!”

“Ay,” said Ambrose, “mine heart warms to the woodlands once more.  Uncle, would that thou couldst come.”

“Would that I could, boy!  We three would show these lads of Cockayne what three foresters know of wood craft!  But it may not be.  Were I once there the old blood might stir again and I might bring you into trouble, and ye have not two faces under one hood as I have!  So fare ye well, I wish you many a bagful of nuts!”

The four months of city life, albeit the City was little bigger than our moderate sized country towns, and far from being an unbroken mass of houses, had yet made the two young foresters delighted to enjoy a day of thorough country in one another’s society.  Little Dennet longed to go with them, but the prentice world was far too rude for little maidens to be trusted in it, and her father held out hopes of going one of these days to High Park as he called it, while Edmund and Stephen promised her all their nuts, and as many blackberries as could be held in their flat caps.

“Giles has promised me none,” said Dennet, with a pouting lip, “nor Ambrose.”

“Why sure, little mistress, thou’lt have enough to crack thy teeth on!” said Edmund Burgess.

“They ought to bring theirs to me,” returned the little heiress of the Dragon court with an air of offended dignity that might have suited the heiress of the kingdom.

Giles, who looked on Dennet as a kind of needful appendage to the Dragon, a piece of property of his own, about whom he need take no trouble, merely laughed and said, “Want must be thy master then.”  But Ambrose treated her petulance in another fashion.  “Look here, pretty mistress,” said he, “there dwells by me a poor little maid nigh about thine age, who never goeth further out than to St. Paul’s minster, nor plucketh flower, nor hath sweet cake, nor manchet bread, nor sugar-stick, nay, and scarce ever saw English hazel-nut nor blackberry.  ’Tis for her that I want to gather them.”

“Is she thy master’s daughter?” demanded Dennet, who could admit the claims of another princess.

“Nay, my master hath no children, but she dwelleth near him.”

“I will send her some, and likewise of mine own comfits and cakes,” said Mistress Dennet.  “Only thou must bring all to me first.”

Ambrose laughed and said, “It’s a bargain then, little mistress?”

“I keep my word,” returned Dennet marching away, while Ambrose obeyed a summons from good-natured Mistress Headley to have his wallet filled with bread and cheese like those of her own prentices.

Off went the lads under the guidance of Edmund Burgess, meeting parties of their own kind at every turn, soon leaving behind them the City bounds, as they passed under New Gate, and by and by skirting the fields of the great Carthusian monastery, or Charter House, with the burial-ground given by Sir Walter Manny at the time of the Black Death.  Beyond came marshy ground through which they had to pick their way carefully, over stepping-stones—this being no other than what is now the Regent’s Park, not yet in any degree drained by the New River, but all quaking ground, overgrown with rough grass and marsh-plants, through which Stephen and Ambrose bounded by the help of stout poles with feet and eyes well used to bogs, and knowing where to look for a safe footing, while many a flat-capped London lad floundered about and sank over his yellow ankles or left his shoes behind him, while lapwings shrieked pee-wheet, and almost flapped him with their broad wings, and moorhens dived in the dark pools, and wild ducks rose in long families.

Stephen was able to turn the laugh against his chief adversary and rival, George Bates of the Eagle, who proposed seeking for the lapwing’s nest in hopes of a dainty dish of plovers’ eggs; being too great a cockney to remember that in September the contents of the eggs were probably flying over the heather, as well able to shift for themselves as their parents.

Above all things the London prentices were pugnacious, but as every one joined in the laugh against George, and he was, besides, stuck fast on a quaking tussock of grass, afraid to proceed or advance, he could not have his revenge.  And when the slough was passed, and the slight rise leading to the copse of St. John’s Wood was attained, behold, it was found to be in possession of the lower sort of lads, the black guard as they were called.  They were of course quite as ready to fight with the prentices as the prentices were with them, and a battle royal took place, all along the front of the hazel bushes—in which Stephen of the Dragon and George of the Eagle fought side by side.  Sticks and fists were the weapons, and there were no very severe casualties before the prentices, being the larger number as well as the stouter and better fed, had routed their adversaries, and driven them off towards Harrow.

There was crackling of boughs and filling of bags, and cracking of nuts, and wild cries in pursuit of startled hare or rabbit, and though Ambrose and Stephen indignantly repelled the idea of St. John’s Wood being named in the same day with their native forest, it is doubtful whether they had ever enjoyed themselves more; until just as they were about to turn homeward, whether moved by his hostility to Stephen, or by envy at the capful of juicy blackberries, carefully covered with green leaves, George Bates, rushing up from behind, shouted out “Here’s a skulker!  Here’s one of the black guard!  Off to thy fellows, varlet!” at the same time dealing a dexterous blow under the cap, which sent the blackberries up into Ambrose’s face.  “Ha! ha!” shouted the ill-conditioned fellow.  “So much for a knave that serves rascally strangers!  Here! hand over that bag of nuts!”

Ambrose was no fighter, but in defence of the bag that was to purchase a treat for little Aldonza, he clenched his fists, and bade George Bates come and take them if he would.  The quiet scholarly boy was, however, no match for the young armourer, and made but poor reply to the buffets of his adversary, who had hold of the bag, and was nearly choking him with the string round his neck.

However, Stephen had already missed his brother, and turning round, shouted out that the villain Bates was mauling him, and rushed back, falling on Ambrose’s assailant with a sudden well-directed pounding that made him hastily turn about, with cries of “Two against one!”

“Not at all,” said Stephen.  “Stand by, Ambrose; I’ll give the coward his deserts.”

In fact, though the boys were nearly of a size, George somewhat the biggest, Stephen’s country activity, and perhaps the higher spirit of his gentle blood, generally gave him the advantage, and on this occasion he soon reduced Bates to roar for mercy.

“Thou must purchase it!” said Stephen.  “Thy bag of nuts, in return for the berries thou hast wasted!”

Peaceable Ambrose would have remonstrated, but Stephen was implacable.  He cut the string, and captured the bag, then with a parting kick bade Bates go after his comrades, for his Eagle was nought but a thieving kite.

Bates made off pretty quickly, but the two brothers tarried a little to see how much damage the blackberries had suffered, and to repair the losses as they descended into the bog by gathering some choice dewberries.

“I marvel these fine fellows ’scaped our company,” said Stephen presently.

“Are we in the right track, thinkst thou?  Here is a pool I marked not before,” said Ambrose anxiously.

“Nay, we can’t be far astray while we see St. Paul’s spire and the Tower full before us,” said Stephen.  “Plainer marks than we had at home.”

“That may be.  Only where is the safe footing?” said Ambrose.  “I wish we had not lost sight of the others!”

“Pish! what good are a pack of City lubbers!” returned Stephen.  “Don’t we know a quagmire when we see one, better than they do?”

“Hark, they are shouting for us.”

“Not they!  That’s a falconer’s call.  There’s another whistle!  See, there’s the hawk.  She’s going down the wind, as I’m alive,” and Stephen began to bound wildly along, making all the sounds and calls by which falcons were recalled, and holding up as a lure a lapwing which he had knocked down.  Ambrose, by no means so confident in bog-trotting as his brother, stood still to await him, hearing the calls and shouts of the falconer coming nearer, and presently seeing a figure, flying by the help of a pole over the pools and dykes that here made some attempt at draining the waste.  Suddenly, in mid career over one of these broad ditches, there was a collapse, and a lusty shout for help as the form disappeared.  Ambrose instantly perceived what had happened, the leaping pole had broken to the downfall of its owner.  Forgetting all his doubts as to bogholes and morasses, he grasped his own pole, and sprang from tussock to tussock, till he had reached the bank of the ditch or water-course in which the unfortunate sportsman was floundering.  He was a large, powerful man, but this was of no avail, for the slough afforded no foothold.  The further side was a steep built up of sods, the nearer sloped down gradually, and though it was not apparently very deep, the efforts of the victim to struggle out had done nothing but churn up a mass of black muddy water in which he sank deeper every moment, and it was already nearly to his shoulders when with a cry of joy, half choked however, by the mud, he cried, “Ha! my good lad!  Are there any more of ye?”

“Not nigh, I fear,” said Ambrose, beholding with some dismay the breadth of the shoulders which were all that appeared above the turbid water.

“Soh!  Lie down, boy, behind that bunch of osier.  Hold out thy pole.  Let me see thine hands.  Thou art but a straw, but, our Lady be my speed!  Now hangs England on a pair of wrists!”

There was a great struggle, an absolute effort for life, and but for the osier stump Ambrose would certainly have been dragged into the water, when the man had worked along the pole, and grasping his hands, pulled himself upwards.  Happily the sides of the dyke became harder higher up, and did not instantly yield to the pressure of his knees, and by the time Ambrose’s hands and shoulders felt nearly wrenched from their sockets, the stem of the osier had been attained, and in another minute, the rescued man, bareheaded, plastered with mud, and streaming with water, sat by him on the bank, panting, gasping, and trying to gather breath and clear his throat from the mud he had swallowed.

“Thanks, good lad, well done,” he articulated.  “Those fellows! where are they?”  And feeling in his bosom, he brought out a gold whistle suspended by a chain.  “Blow it,” he said, taking off the chain, “my mouth is too full of slime.”

Ambrose blew a loud shrill call, but it seemed to reach no one but Stephen, whom he presently saw dashing towards them.

“Here is my brother coming, sir,” he said, as he gave his endeavours to help the stranger to free himself from the mud that clung to him, and which was in some places thick enough to be scraped off with a knife.  He kept up a continual interchange of exclamations at his plight, whistles and shouts for his people, and imprecations on their tardiness, until Stephen was near enough to show that the hawk had been recovered, and then he joyfully called out, “Ha! hast thou got her?  Why, flat-caps as ye are, ye put all my fellows to shame!  How now, thou errant bird, dost know thy master, or take him for a mud wall?  Kite that thou art, to have led me such a dance!  And what’s your name, my brave lads?  Ye must have been bred to wood-craft.”

Ambrose explained both their parentage and their present occupation, but was apparently heeded but little.  “Wot ye how to get out of this quagmire?” was the question.

“I never was here before, sir,” said Stephen; “but yonder lies the Tower, and if we keep along by this dyke, it must lead us out somewhere.”

“Well said, boy, I must be moving, or the mud will dry on me, and I shall stand here as though I were turned to stone by the Gorgon’s head!  So have with thee!  Go on first, master hawk-tamer.  What will bear thee will bear me!”

There was an imperative tone about him that surprised the brothers, and Ambrose looking at him from head to foot, felt sure that it was some great man at the least, whom it had been his hap to rescue.  Indeed, he began to have further suspicions when they came to a pool of clearer water, beyond which was firmer ground, and the stranger with an exclamation of joy, borrowed Stephen’s cap, and, scooping up the water with it, washed his face and head, disclosing the golden hair and beard, fair complexion, and handsome square face he had seen more than once before.

He whispered to Stephen “’Tis the King!”

“Ha! ha!” laughed Henry, “hast found him out, lads?  Well, it may not be the worse for ye.  Pity thou shouldst not be in the Forest still, my young falconer, but we know our good city of London to well to break thy indentures.  And thou—”

He was turning to Ambrose when further shouts were heard.  The King hallooed, and bade the boys do so, and in a few moments more they were surrounded by the rest of the hawking party, full of dismay at the king’s condition, and deprecating his anger for having lost him.

“Yea,” said Henry; “an it had not been for this good lad, ye would never have heard more of the majesty of England!  Swallowed in a quagmire had made a new end for a king, and ye would have to brook the little Scot.”

The gentlemen who had come up were profuse in lamentations.  A horse was brought up for the king’s use, and he prepared to mount, being in haste to get into dry clothes.  He turned round, however, to the boys, and said, “I’ll not forget you, my lads.  Keep that!” he added, as Ambrose, on his knee, would have given him back the whistle, “’tis a token that maybe will serve thee, for I shall know it again.  And thou, my black-eyed lad—My purse, Howard!”