“I am not afraid of that,” answered Tod, “for I do not intend to go in this night, and I am loath to send thee in, for thou art a good man at tilting, and thou dost parry and thrust with strength and skill.”
“Ay,” answered Perkin and Wat together, “and that be the reason we set him against thee!”
“Any other of us would have been blowing bubbles in the water after thy second thrust,” said another of the band, “and that thou knowest, Master Tod.”
“Let us to the shore then,” quoth Tod, “for it is well on toward midnight.”
“The tide has turned,” called Tom True Tongue, “and Dismas has not come.”
“Mayhap he be sitting this moment at the hut awaiting our return.”
“He is not here,” called Bat from the shore, as all the boats came in.
“Then have I won the wager!” announced Tom True Tongue, “and I would have thee know that when he does return, to the ducking stool he goes, and ’twill do my heart good to see him go under, for I do not like the way he thinks to join our band and beat us at our own sport all in a fortnight’s time.”
“Mayhap we shall never set eyes on him again. What reason have we to think that he will come back for his ducking? Wouldst thou thyself return but for a ducking, Tom True Tongue?”
“Perhaps he will not return for his ducking, but didst think I would let him go as easily as that? Think ye he will return for this?” and Tom True Tongue drew from his breast a silver badge. The band drew around as he held it in his palm in the clear moonlight.
“’Tis three ostrich feathers encircled by a crown,” said Tom True Tongue, “and know ye whose badge is that?”
Each fenman looked at it in turn, and shook his head. Tod only withdrew, shaking inwardly with laughter.
“When he gave it to me,” continued Tom True Tongue, “he did say that he would return for it, or else that with it I would have no trouble in tracing him down.”
“Then thou must trace him down,” called Tod, “for since he has not come by this time, I do fear that he will not come.”
CHAPTER V
The Coffer Keys
It was market day in Boston. Since daybreak and the opening of the town gates, peasants had been streaming in from the surrounding countryside with heavily laden pack horses bearing vegetables, milk, poultry, butter and eggs, and sacks of grain. Every one was about some task or other, for the stalls had to be set up around the market place in the shadow of St. Botolph’s church from which even now people were coming from early mass. Town officials were collecting rent on the stalls already taken up, and apprentice boys were hurrying hither and yon at the excited bidding of their masters.
Johanna, accompanied by Caroline who carried a large flat basket for purchases, was among the early arrivals at the market, for it was well to be early if one wished the best of the wares. However, they were not as early as Dame Pinchbeck, whose loud voice could be heard above the general bustle and confusion, her broad back and still broader front with its full folds of gown gathered about her waist, assuring her a goodly space before any stall. She had been the first to answer the ringing of the market bell that announced the opening for trade.
“Come, Caroline,” said Johanna, “if we would have the full fun of market day, we must be within hearing of Dame Pinchbeck.” They crossed the square to the foot of the market cross and joined Dame Pinchbeck before the butcher’s booth.
“Good day, Dame Pinchbeck,” said Johanna, but Dame Pinchbeck had no breath for common words.
“I was but telling this knave of a butcher, and thy good father would agree with me, I doubt not, that I like not the way he throws out his odds and ends of hog so that I must even hold my nose as I come out mine own alley, and continue to hold it until I gain the next, all the time picking my way lest I slip on the grease. Dost think I will buy his hog? Not I. I shall buy from yonder butcher, for he befouls some other alley than mine. Come, let’s purchase our greens before there is naught left but the weeds that come with them!” From the vegetable stall, their baskets well laden, they were headed for the baker’s stall where Dame Pinchbeck was planning to express her mind freely in regard to a light loaf she believed she had been given the last time she had purchased, when an exciting, but not altogether unusual, event took place.
Dame Pinchbeck was in the lead and had but gained the most open part of the square when a flock of sheep on the way to the mart yard on the further side of the town burst in from a side street, followed by a harassed sheep dog and a howling shepherd. In another moment the place was filled with sheep, frightened creatures that piled up on each other, first against one stall, and then from that to another, where the shopkeepers and townsfolk together tried to save the trestle tables from collapse. Dame Pinchbeck was caught in the tide of oncoming sheep. First this way and then that was she hurried, and at no time was she given a chance to emerge, for always did she appear to form the center of the moving mass. Her vegetables were scattered, and with her empty basket she was adding to the confusion and her own implication in it, for, with both hands gripping its edge, she was belaboring the nearest sheep as the others closed in around her. At last the frantic sheep dog succeeded in heading them into an outlet, and Dame Pinchbeck was left alone in a state of great bewilderment.
It was not until their wares were safe that the townsfolk had time to laugh, but then such a wave of mirth swept through the market place that even the staid old burgesses held their sides and the apprentice boys rolled on the ground.
“She will never get her breath back to scold again!” said the butcher who had just received his share of her scolding.
“Alackaday!” laughed his apprentice, “she was skipping as gayly as a young maid round a Maypole!”
Johanna and Caroline hurried to her side, but Dame Pinchbeck had already recovered and had set about collecting what she could of the young cabbages she had purchased. Many of them had been trampled, but she assured Johanna they were no worse than many a peasant would like to sell her for the best price.
“In these days thou must keep thine eyes open if thou wouldst not be cheated,” she went on. “As I was saying before I got interrupted, if thou dost not prod under the bread trough while thy dough is being mixed, as like as not a rascal of an apprentice is set there to pull the dough away from underneath while thou countest full measures being poured in at the top. The world is full of rascals, but there be but few that get the best of Dame Pinchbeck!” She poked her head around a draper’s booth gay with its scarlet and green cloth, where a young apprentice sat swinging his legs and chanting, “What do ye lack? What do ye lack?”
“Art trying to be a linnet?” inquired Dame Pinchbeck with great scorn in her voice. “But I doubt not if I should buy of thee, I would lack a good half ell of my measure, for thy fat thumb would gain at least two inches on each turn of the stick. What askest thou for that bit of bright embroidery?”
“Two farthing the ell,” was the quick answer of the apprentice, “and I wager thou couldst not get a bit as fine as that anywhere else. It would look well on thy goodman’s gown, for I hear he is alderman these five months past.”
“Out upon thee for a rascal,” answered Dame Pinchbeck. “Two farthing the ell! Did I not get finer stuff than that from a chapman last week? And what thinkest thou that I gave him? Naught but a handful of old iron, as I live, and I left with five ells of the trimming, and good lengths at that.”
It was now time for the market to be opened for traders, for the custom was that the townsfolk should have the first opportunity to buy the necessaries, as butter, eggs, and poultry, before the traders bought up the supply. Johanna and Caroline had left Dame Pinchbeck and had finished their purchases before the second bell rang, and the market place became thronged with traders from far and near and with strangers of high rank and low.
As they passed by the tavern, Johanna noticed a group of men, drinking together at the broad table before the door.
“They be Easterlings,”
said Johanna to Caroline, as they hurried past, “and I like not their looks. Didst notice how coarse and red their faces were, and large-featured?”
“Ay, mistress,” answered Caroline, “they have not the clear, honest look of Englishmen.”
“If one can believe Dame Pinchbeck,” laughed Johanna, “there be no such thing as honesty in Englishmen either. Didst ever see a funnier sight than she floundering in a sea of sheep, her kerchief acting like a sail, while she plied her basket as madly as a boatman does his oar?” and Johanna laughed out merrily at the remembrance of the incident.
As her clear laugh reached the men at the table, one of them turned and followed her with his eyes.
“Herr Tilney’s daughter, nicht wahr?” he asked in a deep guttural voice, and went on in German: “Speak of the Devil, and his daughter passes!” From which it appears that Sir Frederick had been the subject of conversation.
“Speaking of the Devil himself,” broke in another, and he, too, spoke in German, “dost know the funny legend that these simpletons of Boston believe? It seems that there is always a gust of wind circulating at the foot of yonder tower,” and he pointed across to St. Botolph’s steeple. “It can be felt in the daytime, but at night it is worse. No good Boston folk will venture there after the sun goes down, and what think ye it is? It is the Devil himself blowing!” and the speaker burst into a loud guffaw, and brought his fist down sharply on the table.
“What makes them think so?” asked another curiously.
“Why, the story goes that their good saint himself, when he was puffed with pride with the good works that he had accomplished, was strolling there one evening, and the Devil appeared before him. Then did he know that the pride in him was but the Devil tempting him, and he fought with him forthwith. Such was the strength with which he grappled with him, that the poor Devil needs must puff and blow, and he puffs and he blows to this day, and will as long as St. Botolph’s steeple stands, for the Devil hopes to bring it down in revenge for his thrashing.”
“A good tale,” said the one who first spoke, “and is it true no townsman will go there after sundown?”
“True as I live, and I’ll pay for the ale if the innkeeper does not back me up.”
“I’ll believe thee, for well do I know thou wouldst not offer to do that without thou wert sure of thy ground. I have never known thee to throw thy money to the wind, even be it such a one as be raised by the Devil’s own blowing!”
“Come now, Ranolf,” said the other, “thou art in a pretty temper, and all because Herr Tilney caught thee trying to smuggle wool through. ’Tis a wonder he did not have thee put in the pillory so that all the townsfolk could shower thee with rotten eggs. All he did was to take from thee a few of thine ill-gotten gains.”
“He will repent the doing of that before I get through,” was the gruff response.
“Hast heard,” broke in another, “that he is going into the carrying trade himself? He has one ship already under way and a second one he thinks to purchase from a Lynn merchant, the one who sailed in the other day?”
“Let him! Dost think these simple Englishmen can ever compete with us on the high seas? Pfaff! They are like the silly sheep they raise and are only fit for shearing. But what thinkest thou of this?” and the one they called Ranolf threw a glance around to see who might be near enough to hear, and then leaning far over the table, he beckoned the others to draw close, and he spoke in low tones.
* * * *
Immediately after the close of the market, the bailiff and the town council met in the Guild Hall, for it was necessary to check the collections of the town officials, and open the town coffer to receive them.
Hugh Witham, High Bailiff, sat at the end of the huge table, covered with a green baize cloth, and around him were gathered the councilmen, among them Sir Frederick Tilney.
“My Lord Bailiff, before we can go very far with the business of the day,” began Sir Frederick, “I must announce a loss which has lately occurred to me. My key to the town coffer was taken from my house yesterday.” The bailiff’s face and the faces of three other men went white. “The loss of one key could not endanger the treasure, so that—” But here Sir Frederick was interrupted.
“I thought the same,” stammered Hugh Witham in great agitation, “for my key also is missing. How is it with thee, William Spayne, and thee, Roger Pinchbeck, and thee, Alan Marflete?”
One look at the faces of the councilmen thus called upon was sufficient for the assembled company to realize that they, too, were in the same predicament, and a general burst of dismay and consternation followed.
“The coffer has been robbed,” announced the bailiff in a weak voice, “and according to the last accounting it contained two hundred marks!”
“Two hundred marks!”
“We be ruined indeed!”
“Come now!” It was Sir Frederick who was the first to regain his composure. “The robbers must be found. Each one must tell how it was that his key was taken. As for me it was in this wise,” and he related the account given him by Lady Mathilda of the apprentice. When he had finished, he turned to Roger Pinchbeck. “Thou next, Roger Pinchbeck.”
Roger Pinchbeck was a large man with a round jovial face, which just now did not look as jovial as was its wont.
“Know then I do not tell my good wife everything I know for fear it may go farther, for she has a tongue. I left the key in my house without telling her it was of special value. She threw it in with a handful of iron which a chapman asked in exchange for some trinket she fancied, and I have not dared tell her yet what it is he has done, for she will berate me soundly, and say I was but a noddy not to give it into her keeping!”
A smile passed over the faces of the other councilmen, but the bailiff spoke sharply. “This is no time for smiling,” he said. “I cannot say how it was that I lost my key, and yet I do feel ’twas taken last night when I did stand but for a short space listening to a minstrel at the ‘Golden Fleece.’ Afterward when I reached home it was missing from my wallet. I went back thinking I did but drop it, but I could not find it anywhere. It is the minstrel I suspect, for he did jostle against me as he went the rounds, collecting his small fees.”
“Then there be four in league,” broke in William Spayne, who was a small man with rather a large head, surmounted with a flat cap and a long liripipe, “for I am sure mine must have fallen into a peasant’s sack when I was testing it to the bottom to see that all be fair. ’Twas not all fair, but full of husks and dust, so I sent him on his way. After he was gone, I missed the key which I wore around my neck. That was a week ago yesterday.”
“And what hast thou to say for thyself, Alan Marflete?” demanded the bailiff. “It is certain that we all be fools at the mercy of some band of rogues.”
“I know not who made the fool of me,” answered Marflete, getting redder than the red gown that he wore. “I am a religious man, and give my money to the church as ye all know, and far be it from me to suspect a friar who held converse with me last evening, but know ye that he did bid me close my eyes and pray with him a space, the which I did. Then he passed on around the Blackfriars convent, and I homeward in deep thought. Ere I reached my door I missed the key from my belt, and retraced my steps, even as our bailiff did, but there was no friar to be seen, only the minstrel whom we all heard sing not many minutes later.”
There was several minutes’ silence, for each pondered in wonderment at the variety of the tales that had been called forth. Then Hugh Witham spoke. “Summon Simon Gough, and we shall see if he can throw any light on this queer business. Mayhap he has noticed some of these same rogues coming or going past his gate.”
Not long after Simon Gough stood before them, wondering wherefore he had been summoned.
“Hast seen any suspicious people going over thy bridge this week past, Simon?” asked Sir Frederick.
“Ay, Sire, the world be full of rogues!” answered Simon with assurity.
“Didst mark any leave the town
today in company, a motley company forsooth, a minstrel, a friar, a peasant, a chapman, and an apprentice lad?”
For a second, light broke over Simon’s countenance, but he answered, “Nay, Sire. I have seen no such company.”
“Hast seen any of these separately leaving town?” asked the bailiff. “Thou didst look but now as if thou didst have some idea, forsooth.”
“Nay, your Honor, it is not separately they went.”
“We shall arrive at naught. Thou mayest return to thy duty, Simon.” Whereupon Simon withdrew, stepping as lightly as his heavy clogs allowed.
“The best thing we can do,” announced the bailiff, “is to make the loss known to the townsfolk. With every one on the watch it may not be too late to find the thieves.”
As Simon returned to his gatehouse he slapped his pouch, and then pushed back his hood, and scratched his head.
“Ay,” he thought, “I knew there was some trouble brewing, but what good would it do them to know that I have seen him? He be gone by this time, and it is not every one would have thought to have left Simon Gough with two good nobles!”
CHAPTER VI
Enter Lord Arundel
Great was the sensation in Boston when the news was spread that the keys to the town coffer had been taken, and tongues other than Dame Pinchbeck’s were busy the next morning. The story told by each of the town officers who had suffered the loss was stretched like the cloth that belonged to the fuller who wished to gain an ell or more in length, or to make up the requirement in breadth of two ells within the list.
“Knowest thou,” screamed Dame Pinchbeck from the alley to her neighbor, Dame Skilton, who was at her loom, “that ’twas a bold-faced thief of a minstrel who set upon our good bailiff—set upon him and knocked him senseless on the way to his home the night before last. The poor man’s head is still sore from the blow, and belike he will never be himself again. Tis likely enough we shall all be knocked about and robbed.”
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