The Armourer's Prentices

by Шарлотта Мэри Йондж

  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 brokenhearted 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 TWENTY FOUR. 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 find

  A 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 the Eighth. 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."

  Stephen had no sooner gathered the import of this intelligence than he sprang down almost as rapidly as his little boy, with his welcome. Nor did Giles Headley return at all in the dilapidated condition that had been predicted. He was stout, comely, and well fleshed, and very handsomely clad and equipped in a foreign style, with nothing of the lean wolfish appearance of Sir John Fulford. The two old comrades heartily shook one another by the hand in real gladness at the meeting. Stephen's welcome was crossed by the greeting and inquiry whether all was well.

  "Yea. The alderman is hale and hearty, but aged. Your mother is tabled at a religious house at Salisbury."

  "I know. I landed at Southampton and have seen her."

  "And Dennet," Stephen added with a short laugh, "she could not wait for you."

  "No, verily. Did I not wot well that she cared not a fico for me? I hoped when I made off that thou wouldst be the winner, Steve, and I am right glad thou art, man."

  "I can but thank thee, Giles," said Stephen, changing to the familiar singular pronoun. "I have oft since thought what a foolish figure I should have cut had I met thee among the Badgers, after having given leg bail because I might not brook seeing thee wedded to her. For I was sore tempted-only thou wast free, and mine indenture held me fast."

  "Then it was so! And I did thee a good turn! For I tell thee, Steve, I never knew how well I liked thee till I was wounded and sick among those who heeded neither God nor man! But one word more, Stephen, ere we go in. The Moor's little maiden, is she still unwedded?"

  "Yea," was Stephen's answer. "She is still waiting-maid to Mistress Roper, daughter to good Sir Thomas More; but alack, Giles, they are in sore trouble, as it may be thou hast heard-and my poor brother is like one distraught."

  Ambrose did indeed meet Giles like one in a dream. He probably would have made the same mechanical greeting, if the Emperor or the Pope had been at that moment presented to him; but Dennet, who had been attending to her father, made up all that was wanting in cordiality. She had always had a certain sense of shame for having flouted her cousin, and, as his mother told her, driven him to death and destruction, and it was highly satisfactory to see him safe and sound, and apparently respectable and prosperous.

  Moreover, grieved as all the family were for the fate of the admirable and excellent More, it was a relief to those less closely connected with him to attend to something beyond poor Ambrose's sorrow and his talk, the which moreover might be perilous if any outsider listened and reported it to the authorities as disaffection to the King. So Giles told his story, sitting on the gallery in the cool of the summer evening, and marvelling over and over again how entirely unchanged all was since his first view of the Dragon court as a proud, sullen, raw lad twenty summers ago. Since that time he had seen so much that the time appeared far longer to him than to those who had stayed at home.

  It seemed that Fulford had from the first fascinated him more than any of the party guessed, and that each day of the free life of the expedition, and of contact with the soldiery, made a return to the monotony of the forge, the decorous life of a London citizen, and the bridal with a child, to whom he was indifferent, seem more intolerable to him. Fulford imagining rightly that the knowledge of his intentions might deter young Birkenholt from escaping, enjoined strict secrecy on either lad, not intending them to meet till it should be too late to return, and therefore had arranged that Giles should quit the party on the way to Calais, bringing with him Will Wherry, and the horse he rode.

  Giles had then, been enrolled among the Badgers. He had little to tell about his life among them till the battle of Pavia, where he had had the good fortune to take three French prisoners; but a stray shot from a fugitive had broken his leg during the pursuit, and he had been laid up in a merchant's house at Pavia for several months. He evidently looked back to the time with gratitude, as having wakened his better associations, which had been well-nigh stifled during the previous years of the wild life of a soldier of fortune. His host's young daughter had eyes like Aldonza, and the almost forgotten possibility of returning to his love a brave and distinguished man awoke once more. His burgher thrift began to assert itself again, and he deposited a nest-egg from the ransoms of his prisoners in the hands of his host, who gave him bonds by which he could recover the sum from Lombard correspondents in London.

  He was bound by his engagements to join the Badgers again, or he would have gone home on his recovery; and he had shared in the terrible taking of Rome, of which he declared that he could not speak-with a significant look at Dennet and her children, who were devouring his words. He had, however, stood guard over a lady and her young children whom some savage Spaniards were about to murder, and the whole family had overpowered him with gratitude, lodged him sumptuously in their house, and shown themselves as grateful to him as if he had given them all the treasure which he had abstained from seizing.

  The sickness brought on by their savage excesses together with the Roman summer had laid low many of the Badgers. When the Prince of Orange drew off the army from the miserable city, scarce seven score of that once gallant troop were in marching order, and Sir John Fulford himself was dying. He sent for Giles, as less of a demon than most of the troop, and sent a gold medal, the only fragment of spoil remaining to him, to his daughter Perronel. T
o Giles himself Fulford bequeathed Abenali's well-tested sword, and he died in the comfortable belief-so far as he troubled himself about the matter at all-that there were special exemptions for soldiers.

  The Badgers now incorporated themselves with another broken body of Landsknechts, and fell under the command of a better and more conscientious captain. Giles, who had been horrified rather than hardened by the experiences of Rome, was found trustworthy and rose in command. The troop was sent to take charge of the Pope at Orvieto, and thus it was that he had fallen in with the Englishmen of Gardiner's suite, and had been able to send his letter to Ambrose. Since he had found the means of rising out of the slough, he had made up his mind to continue to serve till he had won some honour, and had obtained enough to prevent his return as a hungry beggar.

  His corps became known for discipline and valour. It was trusted often, was in attendance on the Emperor, and was fairly well paid. Giles was their "ancient" and had charge of the banner, nor could it be doubted that he had flourished. His last adventure had been the expedition to Tunis, when 20,000 Christian captives had been set free from the dungeons and galleys, and so grand a treasure had been shared among the soldiery that Giles, having completed the term of service for which he was engaged, decided on returning to England, before, as he said, he grew any older, to see how matters were going.

  "For the future," he said, "it depended on how he found things." If Aldonza would none of him, he should return to the Emperor's service. If she would go with him, he held such a position that he could provide for her honourably. Or he could settle in England. For he had a good sum in the hands of Lombard merchants; having made over to them spoils of war, ransoms, and arrears when he obtained them; and having at times earned something by exercising his craft, which he said had been most valuable to him. Indeed he thought he could show Stephen and Tibble a few fresh arts he had picked up at Milan.