The Armourer's Prentices

“He was in the right there,” returned Stephen, hotly.

“Yea, save that by playing the fool, poor fellow, he hath yielded up the rights of a wise man.  Any way, all he gat by it was that the Cardinal bade two of the yeomen lay hands on him and bear him off.  Then there came on him that reckless mood, which, I trow, banished him long ago from the Forest, and brought him to the motley.  He fought with them with all his force, and broke away once—as if that were of any use for a man in motley!—but he was bound at last, and borne off by six of them to Windsor!”

“And thou stoodst by, and beheld it!” cried Stephen.

“Nay, what could I have done, save to make his plight worse, and forfeit all chance of yet speaking to him?”

“Thou wert ever cool!  I wot that I could not have borne it,” said Stephen.

They told the story to Perronel, who was on the whole elated by her husband’s promotion, declaring that the King loved him well, and that he would soon come to his senses, though for a wise man, he certainly had too much of the fool, even as he had too much of the wise man for the fool.

She became anxious, however, as the weeks passed by without hearing of or from him, and at length Ambrose confessed his uneasiness to his kind master, and obtained leave to attend him on the next summons to Windsor.

Ambrose could not find his uncle at first.  Randall, who used to pervade York House, and turn up everywhere when least expected, did not appear among the superior serving-men and secretaries with whom his nephew ranked, and of course there was no access to the state apartments.  Sir Thomas, however, told Ambrose that he had seen Quipsome Hal among the other jesters, but that he seemed dull and dejected.  Then Ambrose beheld from a window a cruel sight, for the other fools, three in number, were surrounding Hal, baiting and teasing him, triumphing over him in fact, for having formerly outshone them, while he stood among them like a big dog worried by little curs, against whom he disdained to use his strength.  Ambrose, unable to bear this, ran down stairs to endeavour to interfere; but before he could find his way to the spot, an arrival at the gate had attracted the tormentors, and Ambrose found his uncle leaning against the wall alone.  He looked thin and wan, the light was gone out of his black eyes, and his countenance was in sad contrast to his gay and absurd attire.  He scarcely cheered up when his nephew spoke to him, though he was glad to hear of Perronel.  He said he knew not when he should see her again, for he had been unable to secure his suit of ordinary garments, so that even if the King came to London, or if he could elude the other fools, he could not get out to visit her.  He was no better than a prisoner here, he only marvelled that the King retained so wretched a jester, with so heavy a heart.

“Once thou wast in favour,” said Ambrose.  “Methought thou couldst have availed thyself of it to speak for the Lord Cardinal.”

“What?  A senseless cur whom he kicked from him,” said Randall.  “’Twas that took all spirit from me, boy.  I, who thought he loved me, as I love him to this day.  To send me to be sport for his foes!  I think of it day and night, and I’ve not a gibe left under my belt!”

“Nay,” said Ambrose, “it may have been that the Cardinal hoped to secure a true friend at the King’s ear, as well as to provide for thee.”

“Had he but said so—”

“Nay, perchance he trusted to thy sharp wit.”

A gleam came into Hal’s eyes.  “It might be so.  Thou always wast a toward lad, Ambrose, and if so, I was cur and fool indeed to baulk him.”

Therewith one of the other fools danced back exhibiting a silver crown that had just been flung to him, mopping and mowing, and demanding when Patch would have wit to gain the like.  Whereto Hal replied by pointing to Ambrose and declaring that that gentleman had given him better than fifty crowns.  And that night, Sir Thomas told Ambrose that the Quipsome one had recovered himself, had been more brilliant than ever and had quite eclipsed the other fools.

On the next opportunity, Ambrose contrived to pack in his cloak-bag, the cap and loose garment in which his uncle was wont to cover his motley.  The Court was still at Windsor; but nearly the whole of Sir Thomas’s stay elapsed without Ambrose being able to find his uncle.  Wolsey had been very ill, and the King had relented enough to send his own physician to attend him.  Ambrose began to wonder if Hal could have found any plea for rejoining his old master; but in the last hour of his stay, he found Hal curled up listlessly on a window seat of a gallery, his head resting on his hand.

“Uncle, good uncle!  At last!  Thou art sick?”

“Sick at heart, lad,” said Hal, looking up.  “Yea, I took thy counsel.  I plucked up a spirit, I made Harry laugh as of old, though my heart smote me, as I thought how he was wont to be answered by my master.  I even brooked to jest with the night-crow, as my own poor lord called this Nan Boleyn.  And lo you now, when his Grace was touched at my lord’s sickness, I durst say there was one sure elixir for such as he, to wit a gold Harry; and that a King’s touch was a sovereign cure for other disorders than the King’s evil.  Harry smiled, and in ten minutes more would have taken horse for Esher, had not Madam Nan claimed his word to ride out hawking with her.  And next, she sendeth me a warning by one of her pert maids, that I should be whipped, if I spoke to his Grace of unfitting matters.  My flesh could brook no more, and like a born natural, I made answer that Nan Boleyn was no mistress of mine to bid me hold a tongue that had spoken sooth to her betters.  Thereupon, what think you, boy?  The grooms came and soundly flogged me for uncomely speech of my Lady Anne!  I that was eighteen years with my Lord Cardinal, and none laid hand on me!  Yea, I was beaten; and then shut up in a dog-hole for three days on bread and water, with none to speak to, but the other fools jeering at me like a rogue in a pillory.”

Ambrose could hardly speak for hot grief and indignation, but he wrung his uncle’s hand, and whispered that he had hid the loose gown behind the arras of his chamber, but he could do no more, for he was summoned to attend his master, and a servant further thrust in to say, “Concern yourself not for that rogue, sir, he hath been saucy, and must mend his manners, or he will have worse.”

“Away, kind sir,” said Hal, “you can do the poor fool no further good! but only bring the pack about the ears of the mangy hound.”  And he sang a stave appropriated by a greater man than he—

“Then let the stricken deer go weep,The hart ungalled play.”

The only hope that Ambrose or his good master could devise for poor Randall was that Sir Thomas should watch his opportunity and beg the fool from the King, who might part with him as a child gives away the once coveted toy that has failed in its hands; but the request would need circumspection, for all had already felt the change that had taken place in the temper of the King since Henry had resolutely undertaken that the wrong should be the right; and Ambrose could not but dread the effect of desperation on a man whose nature had in it a vein of impatient recklessness.

It was after dinner, and Dennet, with her little boy and girl, was on the steps dispensing the salt fish, broken bread, and pottage of the Lenten meal to the daily troop who came for her alms, when, among them, she saw, somewhat to her alarm, a gipsy man, who was talking to little Giles.  The boy, a stout fellow of six, was astride on the balustrade, looking up eagerly into the face of the man, who began imitating the note of a blackbird.  Dennet, remembering the evil propensities of the gipsy race, called hastily to her little son to come down and return to her side; but little Giles was unwilling to move, and called to her, “O mother, come!  He hath a bird-call!”  In some perturbation lest the man might be calling her bird away, Dennet descended the steps.  She was about to utter a sharp rebuke, but Giles held out his hand imploringly, and she paused a moment to hear the sweet full note of the “ouzel cock, with orange tawny bill” closely imitated on a tiny bone whistle.  “He will sell it to me for two farthings,” cried the boy, “and teach me to sing on it like all the birds—”

“Yea, good mistress,” said the gipsy, “I can whistle a tune that the little master, ay, and others, might be fain to hear.”

Therewith, spite of the wild dress, Dennet knew the eyes and the voice.  And perhaps the blackbird’s note had awakened echoes in another mind, for she saw Stephen, in his working dress, come out to the door of the shop where he continued to do all the finer work which had formerly fallen to Tibble’s share.

She lifted her boy from his perch, and bade him take the stranger to his father, who would no doubt give him the whistle.  And thus, having without exciting attention, separated the fugitive from the rest of her pensioners, she made haste to dismiss them.

She was not surprised that little Giles came running back to her, producing unearthly notes on the instrument, and telling her that father had taken the gipsy into his workshop, and said they would teach him bird’s songs by and by.

“Steve, Steve,” had been the first words uttered when the boy was out of hearing, “hast thou a smith’s apron and plenty of smut to bestow on me?  None can tell what Harry’s mood may be, when he finds I’ve given him the slip.  That is the reason I durst not go to my poor dame.”

“We will send to let her know.  I thought I guessed what black ouzel ’twas!  I mind how thou didst make the like notes for us when we were no bigger than my Giles!”

“Thou hast a kind heart, Stephen.  Here!  Is thy furnace hot enough to make a speedy end of this same greasy gipsy doublet?  I trust not the varlet with whom I bartered it for my motley.  And a fine bargain he had of what I trust never to wear again to the end of my days.  Make me a smith complete, Stephen, and then will I tell thee my story.”

“We must call Kit into counsel, ere we can do that fully,” said Stephen.

In a few minutes Hal Randall was, to all appearance, a very shabby and grimy smith, and then he took breath to explain his anxiety and alarm.  Once again, hearing that the Cardinal was to be exiled to York, he had ventured on a sorry jest about old friends and old wine being better than new; but the King, who had once been open to plain speaking, was now incensed, threatened and swore at him!  Moreover, one of the other fools had told him, in the way of boasting, that he had heard Master Cromwell, formerly the Cardinal’s secretary, informing the King that this rogue was no true “natural” at all, but was blessed (or cursed) with as good an understanding as other folks, as was well known in the Cardinal’s household, and that he had no doubt been sent to serve as a spy, so that he was to be esteemed a dangerous person, and had best be put under ward.

Hal had not been able to discover whether Cromwell had communicated his name, but he suspected that it might be known to that acute person, and he could not tell whether his compeer spoke out of a sort of good-natured desire to warn him, or simply to triumph in his disgrace, and leer at him for being an impostor.  At any rate, being now desperate, he covered his parti-coloured raiment with the gown Ambrose had brought, made a perilous descent from a window in the twilight, scaled a wall with the agility that seemed to have returned to him, and reached Windsor Forest.

There, falling on a camp of gipsies, he had availed himself of old experiences in his wild Shirley days, and had obtained an exchange of garb, his handsome motley being really a prize to the wanderers.  Thus he had been able to reach London; but he did not feel any confidence that if he were pursued to the gipsy tent he would not be betrayed.

In this, his sagacity was not at fault, for he had scarcely made his explanation, when there was a knocking at the outer gate, and a demand to enter in the name of the King, and to see Alderman Sir Giles Headley.  Several of the stout figures of the yeomen of the King’s guard were seen crossing the court, and Stephen, committing the charge of his uncle to Kit, threw off his apron, washed his face and went up to the hall, not very rapidly, for he suspected that since his father-in-law knew nothing of the arrival, he would best baffle the inquiries by sincere denials.

And Dennet, with her sharp woman’s wit, scenting danger, had whisked herself and her children out of the hall at the first moment, and taken them down to the kitchen, where modelling with a batch of dough occupied both of them.

Meantime the alderman flatly denied the presence of the jester, or the harbouring of the gipsy.  He allowed that the jester was of kin to his son-in-law, but the good man averred in all honesty that he knew nought of any escape, and was absolutely certain that no such person was in the court.  Then, as Stephen entered, doffing his cap to the King’s officer, the alderman continued, “There, fair son, this is what these gentlemen have come about.  Thy kinsman, it seemeth, hath fled from Windsor, and his Grace is mightily incensed.  They say he changed clothes with a gipsy, and was traced hither this morn, but I have told them the thing is impossible.”

“Will the gentlemen search?” asked Stephen.  The gentlemen did search, but they only saw the smiths in full work; and in Smallbones’ forge, there was a roaring glowing furnace, with a bare-armed fellow feeding it with coals, so that it fairly scorched them, and gave them double relish for the good wine and beer that was put out on the table to do honour to them.

Stephen had just with all civility seen them off the premises when Perronel came sobbing into the court.  They had visited her first, for Cromwell had evidently known of Randall’s haunts; they had turned her little house upside down, and had threatened her hotly in case she harboured a disloyal spy, who deserved hanging.  She came to consult Stephen, for the notion of her husband wandering about, as a sort of outlaw, was almost as terrible as the threat of his being hanged.

Stephen beckoned her to a store-room full of gaunt figures of armour upon blocks, and there brought up to her his extremely grimy new hand!

There was much gladness between them, but the future had to be considered.  Perronel had a little hoard, the amount of which she was too shrewd to name to any one, even her husband, but she considered it sufficient to enable him to fulfil the cherished scheme of his life, of retiring to some small farm near his old home, and she was for setting off at once.  But Harry Randall declared that he could not go without having offered his services to his old master.  He had heard of his “good lord” as sick, sad, and deserted by those whom he had cherished, and the faithful heart was so true in its loyalty that no persuasion could prevail in making it turn south.

“Nay,” said the wife, “did he not cast thee off himself, and serve thee like one of his dogs?  How canst thou be bound to him?”

“There’s the rub!” sighed Hal.  “He sent me to the King deeming that he should have one full of faithful love to speak a word on his behalf, and I, brutish oaf as I was, must needs take it amiss, and sulk and mope till the occasion was past, and that viper Cromwell was there to back up the woman Boleyn and poison his Grace’s ear.”

“As if a man must not have a spirit to be angered by such treatment.”

“Thou forgettest, good wife.  No man, but a fool, and to be entreated as such!  Be that as it may, to York I must.  I have eaten of my lord’s bread too many years, and had too much kindness from him in the days of his glory, to seek mine own ease now in his adversity.  Thou wouldst have a poor bargain of me when my heart is away.”

Perronel saw that thus it would be, and that this was one of the points on which, to her mind, her husband was more than half a veritable fool after all.

There had long been a promise that Stephen should, in some time of slack employment, make a visit to his old comrade, Edmund Burgess, at York; and as some new tools and patterns had to be conveyed thither, a sudden resolution was come to, in family conclave, that Stephen himself should convey them, taking his uncle with him as a serving-man, to attend to the horses.  The alderman gave full consent, he had always wished Stephen to see York, while he himself, with Tibble Steelman, was able to attend to the business; and while he pronounced Randall to have a heart of gold, well worth guarding, he still was glad when the risk was over of the King’s hearing that the runaway jester was harboured at the Dragon.  Dennet did not like the journey for her husband, for to her mind it was perilous, but she had had a warm affection for his uncle ever since their expedition to Richmond together, and she did her best to reconcile the murmuring and wounded Perronel by praises of Randall, a true and noble heart; and that as to setting her aside for the Cardinal, who had heeded him so little, such faithfulness only made her more secure of his true-heartedness towards her.  Perronel was moreover to break up her business, dispose of her house, and await her husband’s return at the Dragon.

Stephen came back after a happy month with his friend, stored with wondrous tales and descriptions which would last the children for a month.  He had seen his uncle present himself to the Cardinal at Cawood Castle.  It had been a touching meeting.  Hal could hardly restrain his tears when he saw how Wolsey’s sturdy form had wasted, and his round ruddy cheeks had fallen away, while the attitude in which he sat in his chair was listless and weary, though he fitfully exerted himself with his old vigour.

Hal on his side, in the dark plain dress of a citizen, was hardly recognisable, for not only had he likewise grown thinner, and his brown cheeks more hollow, but his hair had become almost white during his miserable weeks at Windsor, though he was not much over forty years old.

He came up the last of a number who presented themselves for the Archiepiscopal blessing, as Wolsey sat under a large tree in Cawood Park.  Wolsey gave it with his raised fingers, without special heed, but therewith Hal threw himself on the ground, kissed his feet, and cried, “My lord, my dear lord, your pardon.”

“What hast done, fellow?  Speak!” said the Cardinal.  “Grovel not thus.  We will be merciful.”

“Ah! my lord,” said Randall, lifting himself up, but with clasped hands and tearful eyes, “I did not serve you as I ought with the King, but if you will forgive me and take me back—”

“How now?  How couldst thou serve me?  What!”—as Hal made a familiar gesture—“thou art not the poor fool; Quipsome Patch?  How comest thou here?  Methought I had provided well for thee in making thee over to the King.”

“Ah! my lord, I was fool, fool indeed, but all my jests failed me.  How could I make sport for your enemies?”

“And thou hast come, thou hast left the King to follow my fallen fortunes?” said Wolsey.  “My poor boy, he who is sitting in sackcloth and ashes needs no jester.”

“Nay, my lord, nor can I find one jest to break!  Would you but let me be your meanest horse-boy, your scullion!”  Hal’s voice was cut short by tears as the Cardinal abandoned to him one hand.  The other was drying eyes that seldom wept.

“My faithful Hal!” he said, “this is love indeed!”

And Stephen ere he came away had seen his uncle fully established, as a rational creature, and by his true name, as one of the personal attendants on the Cardinal’s bed-chamber, and treated with the affection he well deserved.  Wolsey had really seemed cheered by his affection, and was devoting himself to the care of his hitherto neglected and even unvisited diocese, in a way that delighted the hearts of the Yorkshiremen.

The first idea was that Perronel should join her husband at York, but safe modes of travelling were not easy to be found, and before any satisfactory escort offered, there were rumours that made it prudent to delay.  As autumn advanced, it was known that the Earl of Northumberland had been sent to attach the Cardinal of High Treason.  Then ensued other reports that the great Cardinal had sunk and died on his way to London for trial; and at last, one dark winter evening, a sorrowful man stumbled up the steps of the Dragon, and as he came into the bright light of the fire, and Perronel sprang to meet him, he sank into a chair and wept aloud.

He had been one of those who had lifted the broken-hearted Wolsey from his mule in the cloister of Leicester Abbey, he had carried him to his bed, watched over him, and supported him, as the Abbot of Leicester gave him the last Sacraments.  He had heard and treasured up those mournful words which are Wolsey’s chief legacy to the world, “Had I but served my God, as I have served my king, He would not have forsaken me in my old age.”  For himself, he had the dying man’s blessing, and assurance that nothing had so much availed to cheer in these sad hours as his faithful love.

Now, Perronel might do what she would with him—he cared not.

And what she did was to set forth with him for Hampshire, on a pair of stout mules with a strong serving-man behind them.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE SOLDIER

“Of a worthy London prentice   My purpose is to speak,And tell his brave adventures   Done for his country’s sake.Seek all the world about   And you shall hardly findA man in valour to exceed   A prentice’ gallant mind.”The Homes of a London Prentice.

Six more years had passed over the Dragon court, when, one fine summer evening, as the old walls rang with the merriment of the young boys at play, there entered through the gateway a tall, well-equipped, soldierly figure, which caught the eyes of the little armourer world in a moment.  “Oh, that’s a real Milan helmet!” exclaimed the one lad.

“And oh, what a belt and buff coat!” cried another.

The subject of their admiration advanced muttering, “As if I’d not been away a week,” adding, “I pray you, pretty lads, doth Master Alderman Headley still dwell here?”

“Yea, sir, he is our grandfather,” said the elder boy, holding a lesser one by the shoulder as he spoke.

“Verily!  And what may be your names?”

“I am Giles Birkenholt, and this is my little brother, Dick.”

“Even as I thought.  Wilt thou run in to your grandsire, and tell him?”

The bigger boy interrupted, “Grandfather is going to bed.  He is old and weary, and cannot see strangers so late.  ’Tis our father who heareth all the orders.”

“And,” added the little one, with wide open grave eyes, “Mother bade us run out and play and not trouble father, because uncle Ambrose is so downcast because they have cut off the head of good Sir Thomas More.”

“Yet,” said the visitor, “methinks your father would hear of an old comrade.  Or stay, where be Tibble Steelman and Kit Smallbones?”

“Tibble is in the hall, well-nigh as sad as uncle Ambrose,” began Dick; but Giles, better able to draw conclusions, exclaimed, “Tibble!  Kit!  You know them, sir!  Oh! are you the Giles Headley that ran away to be a soldier ere I was born?  Kit!  Kit! see here—” as the giant, broader and perhaps a little more bent, but with little loss of strength, came forward out of his hut, and taking up the matter just where it had been left fourteen years before, demanded as they shook hands, “Ah!  Master Giles, how couldst thou play me such a scurvy trick?”

“Nay, Kit, was it not best for all that I turned my back to make way for honest Stephen?”

By this time young Giles had rushed up the stair to the hall, where, as he said truly, Stephen was giving his brother such poor comfort as could be had from sympathy, when listening to the story of the cheerful, brave resignation of the noblest of all the victims of Henry VIII.  Ambrose had been with Sir Thomas well-nigh to the last, had carried messages between him and his friends during his imprisonment, had handed his papers to him at his trial, had been with Mrs. Roper when she broke through the crowd and fell on his neck as he walked from Westminster Hall with the axe-edge turned towards him; had received his last kind farewell, counsel, and blessing, and had only not been with him on the scaffold because Sir Thomas had forbidden it, saying, in the old strain of mirth, which never forsook him, “Nay, come not, my good friend.  Thou art of a queasy nature, and I would fain not haunt thee against thy will.”

All was over now, the wise and faithful head had fallen, because it would not own the wrong for the right; and Ambrose had been brought home by his brother, a being confounded, dazed, seeming hardly able to think or understand aught save that the man whom he had above all loved and looked up to was taken from him, judicially murdered, and by the King.  The whole world seemed utterly changed to him, and as to thinking or planning for himself, he was incapable of it; indeed, he looked fearfully ill.  His little nephew came up to his father’s knee, pausing, though open-mouthed, and at the first token of permission, bursting out, “Oh! father!  Here’s a soldier in the court!  Kit is talking to him.  And he is Giles Headley that ran away.  He has a beauteous Spanish leathern coat, and a belt with silver bosses—and a morion that Phil Smallbones saith to be of Milan, but I say it is French.”