The Armourer's Prentices

by Шарлотта Мэри Йондж

  Then came death, for the first time nearly touching and affecting the youth, and making his soul yearn after further depths, which he might yet have found in the peace of the good old men, and the holy rites and doctrine that they preserved; but before there was time for these things to find their way into the wounds of his spirit, his expulsion from home had sent him forth to see another side of monkish and clerkly life.

  Father Shoveller, kindly as he was, was a mere yeoman with nothing spiritual about him; the monks of Hyde were, the younger, gay comrades, only trying how loosely they could sit to their vows; the elder, churlish and avaricious; even the Warden of Elizabeth College was little more than a student. And in London, fresh phases had revealed themselves; the pomp, state, splendour and luxury of Archbishop Wolsey's house had been a shock to the lad's ideal of a bishop drawn from the saintly biographies he had studied at Beaulieu; and he had but to keep his ears open to hear endless scandals about the mass-priests, as they were called, since they were at this time very unpopular in London, and in many cases deservedly so. Everything that the boy had hitherto thought the way of holiness and salvation seemed invaded by evil and danger, and under the bondage of death, whose terrible dance continued to haunt him.

  "I saw it, I saw it," he said, "all over those halls at York House. I seemed to behold the grisly shape standing behind one and another, as they ate and laughed; and when the Archbishop and his priests and the King came in it seemed only to make the pageant complete! Only now and then could I recall those blessed words, `Ye are free indeed.' Did he say from the bondage of death?"

  "Yea," said Tibble, "into the glorious freedom of God's children."

  "Thou knowst it. Thou knowst it, Tibble. It seems to me that life is no life, but living death, without that freedom! And I must hear of it, and know whether it is mine, yea, and Stephen's, and all whom I love. O Tibble, I would beg my bread rather than not have that freedom ever before mine eyes."

  "Hold it fast! hold it fast, dear sir," said Tibble, holding out his hands with tears in his eyes, and his face working in a manner that happily Ambrose could not see.

  "But how-how? The barefoot friar said that for an Ave a day, our Blessed Lady will drag us back from purgatory. I saw her on the wall of her chapel at Winchester saving a robber knight from the sea, yea and a thief from the gallows; but that is not being free."

  "Fond inventions of pardon-mongers," muttered Tibble.

  "And is one not free when the priest hath assoilsied him?" added Ambrose.

  "If, and if-" said Tibble. "But none shall make me trow that shrift in words, without heart-sorrow for sin, and the Latin heard with no thought of Him that bore the guilt, can set the sinner free. 'Tis none other that the Dean sets forth, ay, and the book that I have here. I thank my God," he stood up and took off his cap reverently, "that He hath opened the eyes of another!"

  His tone was such that Ambrose could have believed him some devout almost inspired hermit rather than the acute skilful artisan he appeared at other times; and in fact, Tibble Steelman, like many another craftsman of those days, led a double life, the outer one that of the ordinary workman, the inner one devoted to those lights that were shining unveiled and new to in any; and especially here in the heart of the City, partly from the influence of Dean Colet's sermons and catechisings at Saint Paul's, but also from remnants of Lollardism, which had never been entirely quenched. The ordinary clergy looked at it with horror, but the intelligent and thoughtful of the burgher and craftsman classes studied it with a passionate fervour which might have sooner broken out and in more perilous forms save for the guidance it received in the truly Catholic and open-spirited public teachings of Colet, in which he persisted in spite of the opposition of his brother clergy.

  Not that as yet the inquirers had in the slightest degree broken with the system of the Church, or with her old traditions. They were only beginning to see the light that had been veiled from them, and to endeavour to clear the fountain from the mire that had fouled it; and there was as yet no reason to believe that the aspersions continually made against the mass-priests and the friars were more than the chronic grumblings of Englishmen, who had found the same faults in them for the last two hundred years.

  "And what wouldst thou do, young sir?" presently inquired Tibble.

  "That I came to ask thee, good Tibble. I would work to the best of my power in any craft so I may hear those words and gain the key to all I have hitherto learnt, unheeding as one in a dream. My purpose had been to be a scholar and a clerk, but I must see mine own way, and know whither I am being carried, ere I can go farther."

  Tibble writhed and wriggled himself about in consideration. "I would I wist how to take thee to the Dean himself," he said, "but I am but a poor man, and his doctrine is `new wine in old bottles' to the master, though he be a right good man after his lights. See now, Master Ambrose, me seemeth that thou hadst best take thy letter first to this same priest. It may be that he can prefer thee to some post about the minster. Canst sing?"

  "I could once, but my voice is nought at this present. If I could but be a servitor at Saint Paul's School!"

  "It might be that the will which hath led thee so far hath that post in store for thee, so bear the letter to Master Alworthy. And if he fail thee, wouldst thou think scorn of aiding a friend of mine who worketh a printing-press in Warwick Inner Ward? Thou wilt find him at his place in Paternoster Row, hard by Saint Paul's. He needeth one who is clerk enough to read the Latin, and the craft being a new one 'tis fenced by none of those prentice laws that would bar the way to thee elsewhere, at thy years."

  "I should dwell among books!"

  "Yea, and holy books, that bear on the one matter dear to the true heart. Thou might serve Lucas Hansen at the sign of the Winged Staff till thou hast settled thine heart, and then it may be the way would be opened to study at Oxford or at Cambridge, so that thou couldst expound the faith to others."

  "Good Tibble, kind Tibble, I knew thou couldst aid me! Wilt thou speak to this Master Hansen for me?"

  Tibble, however, held that it was more seemly that Ambrose should first try his fate with Master Alworthy, but in case of this not succeeding, he promised to write a billet that would secure attention from Lucas Hansen.

  "I warn thee, however, that he is Low Dutch," he added, "though he speaketh English well." He would gladly have gone with the youth, and at any other time might have been sent by his master, but the whole energies of the Dragon would be taken up for the next week by preparations for the tilting-match at court, and Tibble could not be spared for another working hour.

  Ambrose, as he rose to bid his friend good-night, could not help saying that he marvelled that one such as he could turn his mind to such vanities as the tilt-yard required.

  "Nay," said Tibble, "'twas the craft I was bred to-yea, and I have a good master; and the Apostle Paul himself-as I've heard a preacher say-bade men continue in the state wherein they were, and not be curious to chop and change. Who knoweth whether in God's sight, all our wars and policies be no more than the games of the tilt-yard. Moreover, Paul himself made these very weapons read as good a sermon as the Dean himself. Didst never hear of the shield of faith, and helmet of salvation, and breastplate of righteousness? So, if thou comest to Master Hansen, and provest worthy of his trust, thou wilt hear more, ay, and maybe read too thyself, and send forth the good seed to others," he murmured to himself, as he guided his visitor across the moonlit court up the stairs to the chamber where Stephen lay fast asleep.

  CHAPTER TEN. TWO VOCATIONS.

  "The smith, a mighty man is he

  With large and sinewy hands;

  And the muscles of his brawny arms

  Are strong as iron bands."

  Longfellow.

  Stephen's first thought in the morning was whether the ex voto effigy of poor Spring was put in hand, while Ambrose thought of Tibble's promised commendation to the printer. They both, however, found their affairs must needs wait. Orders for weapons for the ti
lting-match had come in so thickly the day before that every hand must be employed on executing them, and the Dragon court was ringing again with the clang of hammers and screech of grind-stones.

  Stephen, though not yet formally bound, was to enter on his apprentice life at once; and Ambrose was assured by Master Headley that it was of no use to repair to any of the dignified clergy of Saint Paul's before mid-day, and that he had better employ the time in writing to his elder brother respecting the fee. Materials were supplied to him, and he used them so as to do credit to the monks of Beaulieu, in spite of little Dennet spending every spare moment in watching his pen as if he were performing some cabalistic operation.

  He was a long time about it. There were two letters to write, and the wording of them needed to be very careful, besides that the old court hand took more time to frame than the Italian current hand, and even thus, when dinner-time came, at ten o'clock, the household was astonished to find that he had finished all that regarded Stephen, though he had left the letters open, until his own venture should have been made.

  Stephen flung himself down beside his brother hot and panting, shaking his shoulder-blades and declaring that his arms felt ready to drop out. He had been turning a grindstone ever since six o'clock. The two new apprentices had been set on to sharpening the weapon points as all that they were capable of, and had been bidden by Smallbones to turn and hold alternately, but "that oaf Giles Headley," said Stephen, "never ground but one lance, and made me go on turning, threatening to lay the butt about mine ears if I slacked."

  "The lazy lubber!" cried Ambrose. "But did none see thee, or couldst not call out for redress?"

  "Thou art half a wench thyself, Ambrose, to think I'd complain. Besides, he stood on his rights as a master, and he is a big fellow."

  "That's true," said Ambrose, "and he might make it the worse for thee."

  "I would I were as big as he," sighed Stephen, "I would soon show him which was the better man."

  Perhaps the grinding match had not been as unobserved as Stephen fancied, for on returning to work, Smallbones, who presided over all the rougher parts of the business, claimed them both. He set Stephen to stand by him, sort out and hand him all the rivets needed for a suit of proof armour that hung on a frame, while he required Giles to straighten bars of iron heated to a white heat. Ere long Giles called out for Stephen to change places, to which Smallbones coolly replied, "Turnabout is the rule here, master."

  "Even so," replied Giles, "and I have been at work like this long enough, ay, and too long!"

  "Thy turn was a matter of three hours this morning," replied Kit-not coolly, for nobody was cool in his den, but with a brevity which provoked a laugh.

  "I shall see what my cousin the master saith!" cried Giles, in great wrath.

  "Ay, that thou wilt," returned Kit, "if thou dost loiter over thy business, and hast not those bars ready when called for."

  "He never meant me to be put on work like this, with a hammer that breaks mine arm."

  "What! crying out for that!" said Edmund Burgess, who had just come in to ask for a pair of tongs. "What wouldst say to the big hammer that none can wield save Kit himself?"

  Giles felt there was no redress, and panted on, feeling as if he were melting away, and with a dumb, wild rage in his heart, that could get no outlet, for Smallbones was at least as much bigger than he as he was than Stephen. Tibble was meanwhile busy over the gilding and enamelling of Buckingham's magnificent plate armour in Italian fashion, but he had found time to thrust into Ambrose's hand an exceedingly small and curiously folded billet for Lucas Hansen, the printer, in case of need. "He would be found at the sign of the Winged Staff in Paternoster Row," said Tibble, "or if not there himself, there would be his servant who would direct Ambrose to the place where the Dutch printer lived and worked." No one was at leisure to show the lad the way, and he set out with a strange feeling of solitude, as his path began decisively to be away from that of his brother.

  He did not find much difficulty in discovering the quadrangle on the south side of the minster where the minor canons lived near the deanery; and the porter, a stout lay brother, pointed out to him the doorway belonging to Master Alworthy. He knocked, and a young man with a tonsured head but a bloated face opened it. Ambrose explained that he had brought a letter from the Warden of Saint Elizabeth's College at Winchester.

  "Give it here," said the young man.

  "I would give it to his reverence himself," said Ambrose.

  "His reverence is taking his after-dinner nap and may not be disturbed," said the man.

  "Then I will wait," said Ambrose.

  The door was shut in his face, but it was the shady side of the court, and he sat down on a bench and waited. After full an hour the door was opened, and the canon, a good-natured looking man, in a square cap, and gown and cassock of the finest cloth, came slowly out. He had evidently heard nothing of the message, and was taken by surprise when Ambrose, doffing his cap and bowing low, gave him the greeting of the Warden of Saint Elizabeth's and the letter.

  "Hum! Ha! My good friend-Fielder-I remember him. He was always a scholar. So he hath sent thee here with his commendations. What should I do with all the idle country lads that come up to choke London and feed the plague? Yet stay-that lurdane Bolt is getting intolerably lazy and insolent, and methinks he robs me! What canst do, thou stripling?"

  "I can read Latin, sir, and know the Greek alphabeta."

  "Tush! I want no scholar more than enough to serve my mass. Canst sing?"

  "Not now; but I hope to do so again."

  "When I rid me of Bolt there-and there's an office under the sacristan that he might fill as well as another knave-the fellow might do for me well enow as a body servant," said Mr Alworthy, speaking to himself. "He would brush my gowns and make my bed, and I might perchance trust him with my marketings, and by and by there might be some office for him when he grew saucy and idle. I'll prove him on mine old comrade's word."

  "Sir," said Ambrose, respectfully, "what I seek for is occasion for study. I had hoped you could speak to the Dean, Dr John Colet, for some post at his school."

  "Boy," said Alworthy, "I thought thee no such fool! Why crack thy brains with study when I can show thee a surer path to ease and preferment? But I see thou art too proud to do an old man a service. Thou writst thyself gentleman, forsooth, and high blood will not stoop."

  "Not so, sir," returned Ambrose, "I would work in any way so I could study the humanities, and hear the Dean preach. Cannot you commend me to his school?"

  "Ha!" exclaimed the canon, "this is your sort, is it? I'll have nought to do with it! Preaching, preaching! Every idle child's head is agog on preaching nowadays! A plague on it! Why can't Master Dean leave it to the black friars, whose vocation 'tis, and not cumber us with his sermons for ever, and set every lazy lad thinking he must needs run after them? No, no, my good boy, take my advice. Thou shalt have two good bellyfuls a day, all my cast gowns, and a pair of shoes by the year, with a groat a month if thou wilt keep mine house, bring in my meals, and the like, and by and by, so thou art a good lad, and runst not after these new-fangled preachments which lead but to heresy, and set folk racking their brains about sin and such trash, we'll get thee shorn and into minor orders, and who knows what good preferment thou mayst not win in due time!"

  "Sir, I am beholden to you, but my mind is set on study."

  "What kin art thou to a fool?" cried the minor canon, so startling Ambrose that he had almost answered, and turning to another ecclesiastic whose siesta seemed to have ended about the same time, "Look at this varlet, Brother Cloudesley! Would you believe it? He comes to me with a letter from mine old friend, in consideration of which I offer him that saucy lubber Bolt's place, a gown of mine own a year, meat and preferment, and, lo you, he tells me all he wants is to study Greek, forsooth, and hear the Dean's sermons!"

  The other canon shook his head in dismay at such arrant folly. "Young stripling, be warned," he said. "Know what is good
for thee. Greek is the tongue of heresy."

  "How may that be, reverend sir," said Ambrose, "when the holy Apostles and the Fathers spake and wrote in the Greek?"

  "Waste not thy time on him, brother," said Mr Alworthy. "He will find out his error when his pride and his Greek forsooth have brought him to fire and faggot."

  "Ay! ay!" added Cloudesley. "The Dean with his Dutch friend and his sermons, and his new grammar and accidence, is sowing heretics as thick as groundsel."

  Wherewith the two canons of the old school waddled away, arm in arm, and Bolt put out his head, leered at Ambrose, and bade him shog off, and not come sneaking after other folk's shoes.

  Sooth to say, Ambrose was relieved by his rejection. If he were not to obtain admission in any capacity to Saint Paul's School, he felt more drawn to Tibble's friend the printer; for the self-seeking luxurious habits into which so many of the beneficed clergy had fallen were repulsive to him, and his whole soul thirsted after that new revelation, as it were, which Colet's sermon had made to him. Yet the word heresy was terrible and confusing, and a doubt came over him whether he might not be forsaking the right path, and be lured aside by false lights.

  He would think it out before he committed himself. Where should he do so in peace? He thought of the great Minster, but the nave was full of a surging multitude, and there was a loud hum of voices proceeding from it, which took from him all inclination to find his way to the quieter and inner portions of the sanctuary.