_Norfolk_.--What, are you chafed?
Ask God for temperance; that's the appliance only
Which your disease requires.--Shakspere.
As the day passed on, Sir Osborne grew more and more impatient under
his confinement. He felt a sort of degradation in being thus pent up,
like a wild beast in a cage; and though with invincible patience he
had lain a thousand times more still in many an ambuscade, he felt an
almost irresistible desire to unbolt the door, and assure himself that
he was really at large, by going forth and exercising his limbs in the
free air. But then came the remembrance that such a proceeding would
almost infallibly transfer him to a still stricter prison, where,
instead of being voluntary and but for one day, his imprisonment would
be forced and long-continued. The thought, too, of Constance de Grey,
and the hope of winning her yet, gave great powers of endurance; and
he contented himself with every now and then marching up and down the
little chamber, which, taken transversely, just afforded him space for
three steps and a-half, and at other times with speaking in a whisper
to Longpole, who, having brought the armour down with him, sat in one
corner, polishing off any little dim spots that the damp of the night
air might have left upon it.
"This is very tiresome," said the knight.
"Very tiresome, indeed, my lord!" replied Longpole. "I've been
fancying myself a blackbird in a wicker cage for the last hour. May I
whistle?"
"No, no," cried the knight. "Give me the casque; I will polish that by
way of doing something. Don't you think, Longpole, if underneath the
volant-piece a stout sort of avantaille were carried down, about an
inch broad and two inches long, of hard steel, it would prevent the
visor from being borne in, as I have often seen, by the blow of a
solid lance?"
"Yes," answered Longpole; "but it would prevent your lordship from
blowing your nose. Oh! I do hate improvement, my lord. Depend upon it,
'tis the worst thing in the world. Men improve, and improve, and
improve, till they leave nothing that's original on the earth. I would
wager your lordship a hundred marks, that, by two or three hundred
years hence, people will have so improved their armour that there will
be none at all."
"Zounds, Bill!" cried a voice in the warehouse, "don't you hear some
folks talking?"
"It's some one in the street," answered another voice. "Yet it sounded
vastly near, too."
This, however, was quite sufficient warning for the knight to be
silent; and taking up one of the books upon which he had been sitting,
he found that it was an English version of the Bible, with copies of
which it appears that Master William Hans was in the habit of
supplying the English protestants. Our mother Eve's bad old habit of
prying into forbidden sources of knowledge affects us all more or
less; and as the Bible was at that time prohibited in England, except
to the clergy, Sir Osborne very naturally opened it and began reading.
What effect its perusal had upon his mind matters little: suffice it
that he read on, and found sufficient matter of interest therein to
occupy him fully. Hour after hour fled, and day waned slowly; but
having once laid his hand upon that book, the knight no longer felt
the tardy current of the time, and night fell before the day which he
anticipated as so tedious seemed to have half passed away.
A long while elapsed, after the darkness had interrupted Sir Osborne
in his study, before the warehouse was closed for the night; which,
however, was no sooner accomplished than good Master Hans, accompanied
by his friend Skippenhausen, came to deliver them from their
confinement.
"He! he! he!" cried the merchant, as they came forth. "Did you hear
what a noise they made, my coot lord, when they came searching this
morning? They did not find them, though, for they were all in beside
you."
"What do you mean?" demanded the knight. "Who were in beside us?
Nobody came here."
"I mean the Bibles; I mean the Word of God," cried the merchant; "the
bread of life, that those villains came seeking this morning, which,
if they had got, they would have burnt most sacrilegiously, as an
offering to the harlot of their idolatry."
"Then I was wrong in supposing that they searched for me?" said the
knight, with a smile at his own mistake.
"Oh, no; not for you at all!" replied the merchant. "It was the Bibles
that Skippenhausen brought over from Holland, for the poor English
protestants, who are here denied to eat of the bread or drink of the
water of salvation. But now, my lord, if you will condescend to be
weighed, you will be ready to sail at four in the morning; for your
horses and horse-armour are all weighed and aboard, and the cargo will
be complete when your lordship and your gentleman are shipped."
Finding that Master Skippenhausen was bent upon ascertaining his
weight, Sir Osborne consented to get into the merchant's large scales;
and being as it were lotted with Longpole, his horse-bags, and his
armour, he made a very respectable entry in the captain's books. After
this, Master Hans led him into his counting-house, and displayed his
books before him; but as the items of his account might be somewhat
tedious, it may be as well merely to say, that the young knight found
he had expended, in the short time he had remained in Henry's
luxurious court, more than two thousand five hundred marks; so that of
the two thousand seven hundred which he had possessed in the hands of
the Fleming, and the thousand which he had won at the Duke of
Buckingham's, but one thousand two hundred and a trifle remained.
Sir Osborne was surprised; but the accurate merchant left no point in
doubt, and the young knight began to think that it was lucky he had
been driven from the court before all his funds were completely
expended. He found, however, to his satisfaction, that a great variety
of arms and warlike implements, which he had gathered together while
in Flanders, and had left in the warehouses of the merchant since he
had been in England, had been shipped on board Skippenhausen's vessel,
whose acknowledgment of having received them William Hans now put into
his hand; and having paid him the sum due, and received an
acquittance, he led him once more upstairs into the scene of the last
night's revel.
We shall pass over this second evening at the merchant's house without
entering into any details thereof, only remarking that it passed more
pleasantly than the former one, there being at the supper-table some
dishes which an Englishman could eat, and which his stomach might
probably digest. At an early hour Sir Osborne cast himself upon his
bed, and slept, though every now and then the thoughts of his
approaching voyage made him start up and wonder what was the hour; and
then, as Skippenhausen did not appear, he would lie down and sleep
again, each half-hour of this disturbed slumber seeming like a whole
long night.
At length, however, when he just began to enjoy a more tranquil rest,
he was awakened by the seaman; and dressing himself as quickly as
possible, he followed to William Hans's parlour, where the worthy
merchant waited to drink a parting cup with his guests and wish them a
prosperous voyage.
As the easiest means of carrying their harness, Sir Osborne and
Longpole had both armed themselves; and as soon as they had received
the Fleming's benediction in a cup of sack, they donned their casques
and followed the captain towards the vessel.
It was a dull and drizzly morning, and many was the dark foul street,
and many the narrow tortuous lane, through which they had to pass.
Wapping, all dismal and wretched as it appears even now-a-days to the
unfortunate voyager, who, called from his warm bed in a wet London
morning, is rolled along through its long, hopeless windings, and
amidst its tall, spiritless houses, towards the ship destined to bear
him to some other land; and which, with a perversion of intellect only
to be met with in ships, stage-coaches, and other woodenheaded things,
is always sure to set out at an hour when all rational creatures are
sleeping in their beds; Wapping, I say, as it stands at present, in
its darkness and its filth, is gay and lightsome to the paths by which
worshipful Master Skippenhausen conducted Sir Osborne and his follower
towards his vessel. Sloppy, silent, and deserted, the streets boasted
no living creature besides themselves, unless, indeed, it was some
poor mechanic, who, with his shoulders up to his ear's, and his hands
clasped together to keep them warm, picked his way through the dirt
towards his early toil. The heavens frowned upon them, and the air
that surrounded them was one of those chill, wet, thick, dispiriting
atmospheres which no other city than London can boast in the month of
May.
There is a feeling of melancholy attached to quitting anything to
which we have, even for a time, habituated our hopes and wishes, or
even our thoughts: however dull, however uninteresting, a place may be
in itself, if therein we have familiar associations and customary
feelings, we must ever feel a degree of pain in leaving it. I am
convinced there is a sort of glutinous quality in the mind of man,
which sticks it to everything it rests upon; or is it attraction of
cohesion? However, the knight had a thousand sufficient reasons for
feeling melancholy and depressed, as he quitted the capital of his
native land. He left behind him hopes, and expectations, and
affection, and love; almost all those feelings which, like the various
colours mingled in a sunbeam, unite to form the light of human
existence, and without which it is dull, dark, and heavy, like heaven
without the sun. And yet, perhaps, he would have felt the parting less
had the morning looked more brightly on him; had there been one gleam
of light to give a fair augury for willing hope to seize. But, no; it
was all black and gloomy, and the very sky seemed to reflect the
feelings of his own bosom. Thus, as he walked along after the captain,
there was a stern, heavy determination in his footfall, unlike either
the light step of expectation or the calm march of contentment. What
he felt was not precisely despair: it was the bitterness of much
disappointment; and he strode quickly onward, as if at once to conquer
and to fly from his own sensations.
At length a narrow lane brought them to the side of the river, where
waited a boat to convey them to the Dutchman's ship, which lay out
some way from the bank. Beside the stairs stood a man apparently on
the watch, but he seemed quite familiar with Master Skippenhausen, who
gave him a nod as he passed, and pointing to his companions said,
"This is the gentleman and his servant."
"Very well," said the man; "go on!" and the whole party, taking their
places in the boat without further question, were speedily pulled
round to the vessel by the two stout Dutchmen who awaited them. As
soon as they were on board, the captain led the knight down into the
cabin, which he found in a state of glorious confusion, but which
Skippenhausen assured him would be the safest place for him, till they
had got some way down the river; for that they might have visiters on
board, whom he could not prevent from seeing all that were upon the
deck, though he would take care that they should not come below.
"Ay, Master Skippenhausen," cried Longpole; "for God's sake fetter all
spies and informers with a silver ring, and let us up on deck again as
soon as possible, for I am tired of being hid about in holes and
corners, like a crooked silver groat in the box of a careful maid; and
as for my lord, he looks more weary of it than even I am."
The master promised faithfully, that as soon as the vessel had passed
Blackwall he would give them notice, and then proceeded to the deck,
where, almost immediately after, all the roaring and screaming made
itself heard which seems absolutely necessary to get a ship under way.
In truth, it was a concert as delectable as any that ever greeted a
poor voyager on his outset: the yelling of the seamen, the roaring of
the master and his subordinates, the creaking and whistling of the
masts and cordage, together with volleys of clumsy Dutch oaths, all
reached the ears of the knight, as he sat below in the close, foul
cabin, and, joined to his own painful feelings, made him almost fancy
himself in the Dutch part of Hades. Still the swinging of the vessel
told that, though not as an effect, yet at least as an accompaniment
to all this din, the ship was already on her voyage; and after a few
minutes, a more regular and easy motion began to take place, as she
glided down what is now called the Pool.
However, much raving, and swearing, and cursing, to no purpose, still
went on, whenever the vessel passed in the proximity of another; and,
as there were several dropping down at the same time, manifold were
the opportunities which presented themselves for the captain and the
pilot to exercise their execrative faculties. But at length the
disturbance began to cease, and the ship held her even course down the
river, while the sun, now fully risen, dispelled the clouds that had
hung over the early morning, and the day looked more favourably upon
their passage.
Sir Osborne gazed out of the little window in the stern, noticing the
various villages that they passed on their way down, till the palace
at Greenwich, and the park sweeping up behind, met his eye, together
with many a little object associated with hopes, and feelings, and
happiness gone by, recalling most painfully all that expectation had
promised and disappointment had done away. It was too much to look
upon steadily; and turning from the sight, he folded his arms on the
table, and burying his eyes on them, remained in that position till
the master descending told him that they were now free from all
danger.
On this information, the knight gladly mounted the ladder, and paced
up and down the deck, enjoying the free air, while Longpole jested
with Master Skippenhausen, teasing him the more, perhaps, because he
saw that the seaman had put on that sort of surly, domineering air
which the master of a vessel often assumes the moment his foot touches
the deck, however gay and mild he may be on shore. Nevertheless, as we
are now rapidly approaching that part of this book wherein the events
become more thronged and pressing, we must take the liberty of leaving
out all the long conversation which Vonderbrugius reports as having
taken place between Skippenhausen and Longpole, as well as a very
minute and particular account of a sail down the river Thames,
wherewith the learned professor embellishes his history, and which,
though doubtless very interesting to the Dutch burgomasters and their
wives, of a century and a half ago, would not greatly edify the
British public of the present day, when every cook-maid steps once
a-year into the steam-packet, and is paddled down to Margate, with
less trouble than it took an Englishman of the reign of Harry the
Eighth to go from Charing cross to Lombard Street.
The wind was in their favour, and the tide running strongly down, so
that passing, one by one, Woolwich, Purfleet, Erith, Gravesend, and
sundry other places, in a few hours they approached near the ocean
limits of the English land; while the river, growing mightier and
mightier as it rolled on, seemed to rush towards the sea with a sort
of daring equality, rather a rival than a tributary, till, meeting its
giant sovereign, it gave vent to its pride in a few frothy waves; and
then, yielding to his sway, poured all its treasures in his bosom.
Before they had reached the mouth of the river, they beheld a vessel
which had preceded them suddenly take in sail and lie-to under the lee
of the Essex shore; the reason of which was made very evident the
moment after, by the vane at the mast-head wheeling round, and the
wind coming in heavy squalls right upon their beam. The Dutchman's
ship was not one at all calculated to sail near the wind; and paying
little consideration to the necessity of Sir Osborne's case, he
followed the example of the vessel before him, and gave orders for
taking in sail and lying-to, declaring that the gale would not last.
The knight remonstrated, but he might as well have talked to the wind
itself. Skippenhausen was quite inflexible, not even taking the pains
to answer a word, and, contenting himself with muttering a few
sentences in high Dutch, interspersed with various objurgatory
addresses to the sailors.
Whether the worthy Hollander's conduct on this occasion was right,
proper, and seaman-like, we must leave to some better qualified
tribunal than our own weak noddle to determine, professing to be most
profoundly ignorant on nautical affairs; but so the matter stood, that
the knight was obliged to swing one whole night in an uncomfortable
hammock in an uncomfortable ship, in the mouth of the river Thames,
with a bitter fancy resting on his mind, that this waste of time was
quite unnecessary, and that with a little courage and a little skill
on the part of the master, he might before the next morning have been
landed at Dunkirk, to which city he was to be safely carried,
according to his agreement with the Dutchman.
By daybreak the next morning the wind was rather more favourable, and
at all events by no means violent, so that the vessel was soon once
more under way. Still, however, they made but little progress; and
even the ship that was before them, though a faster sailer and one
that could keep nearer the wind, made little more way than themselves.
While in this situation, trying by a long tack to mend their course,
with about the distance of half-a-mile between them and the other
vessel, they perceived a ship-of-war apparently run out from the Essex
coast some way to windward, and bear down upon them with all sail set.
"Who have we here, I wonder?" said the knight, addressing
Skippenhausen, who had been watching the approaching vessel
attentively for some minutes.
"'Tis an English man-of-war," replied the master, "Coot now, don't you
see the red cross on her flag? By my life, she is making a signal to
us! It must be you she is wanting, my lord; for on my life I have
nothing contraband but you aboard. I will not understand her signal,
though; and as the breeze is coming up, I will run for it. Go you down
in the cabin and hide yourself."
"I will go down," replied the knight. "But hide myself I will not; I
have had too much of it already."
Skippenhausen, who, as we before hinted, had by the long habit of
smuggling in a small way acquired a taste for the concealed and
mysterious, tried in vain to persuade the knight to hide himself under
a pile of bedding. On this subject Sir Osborne was as deaf as the
other had been the night before, in regard to proceeding on their
voyage; and all the concession that the master could obtain was that
the two Englishmen would go below and wait the event, while he tried,
by altering his course and running before the wind, to weary the
pursuers, if they were not very hearty in the cause.
"Well, Longpole," said Sir Osborne, "I suppose that we must look upon
ourselves as caught at last."
"Would your worship like us to stand to our arms?" demanded the
yeoman. "We could make this cabin good a long while in case of
necessity."
"By no means," replied the knight. "I will on no account resist the
king's will. Besides, it would be spilling good blood to little
purpose; for we must yield at last."
"As your lordship pleases," answered the custrel; "but knowing how
fond you are of a good downright blow of estoc at a fair gentleman's
head, I thought you might like to take advantage of the present
occasion, which may be your last for some time."
"Perhaps it may be a mistake still," answered the knight, "and pass
away like the search for the Bibles when we were concealed in the
warehouse. However, we shall soon see: at all events, till it comes I
shall take no heed about it;" and casting himself into a seat, with a
bitter smile, as if wearied out with Fortune's caprices, and resolved
to struggle no longer for her favour, he gazed forth from the little
stern window upon the wide expanse of water that rolled away towards
the horizon. The aperture of this window, not being more than six
inches either in height or width, and cut through the thick timbers of
the Dutch vessel for considerably more than a foot in depth, was in
fact not much better than a telescope without a glass, so that the
knight's view was not a little circumscribed in respect to all the
nearer objects, and he was only able to see, as the ship pitched, the
glassy green waves, mingled with white foam, rushing tumultuously from
under her stern as she now scudded before the wind, leaving a long,
glistening, frothy track behind, to mark where she had made her path
through the midst of the broad sea. As he looked farther out, however,
the prospect widened; and at the extreme verge, where the sea and the
sky, almost one in unity of hue, showed still a faint line of light to
mark their boundary, he could perceive, rising up as it were from the
bosom of the deep, the light tracery of masts and rigging belonging to
far distant vessels, whose hulls were still concealed by the convexity
of the waters. Nearer, but yet within the range that the narrowness of
the window allowed his sight, appeared the vessel that had dropped
down the river just before them, and the English ship-of-war, which,
crowding all sail before the wind, seemed in full chase, not of their
companion, but of themselves; for the other, in obedience to the
signal, had hauled her wind and lay-to.
Sir Osborne now watched to ascertain whether the man-of-war gained
upon them, but an instant's observation put an end to all doubt. She
evidently came nearer and nearer, and soon approached so close as
scarcely to be within range of his view, being lost and seen
alternately at every motion of the ship. At length, as the vessel
pitched, she disappeared for a moment, then came in sight again; a
quick flash glanced along her bow, and the moment after, when she was
no longer visible to his eye, the sullen report of a cannon came upon
the wind.
By a sudden change in the motion of the vessel, together with various
cries upon the deck, the knight now concluded that the Dutchman had at
length obeyed this peremptory signal and lay-to, which was in fact the
case; for passing over to the window on the other side, he again got a
view of the English ship, which sailed majestically up, and then, when
within a few hundred yards, put out and manned a boat, which rowed off
towards them. Sir Osborne had not long an opportunity of observing the
boat in her approach, as she soon passed out of the small space which
he could see; but in a few minutes after, the voice of some one,
raised to its very highest pitch, made itself heard from a distance,
hardly near enough for the knight to distinguish the words, though he
every now and then caught enough to perceive that the whole consisted
of a volley of curses discharged at Master Skippenhausen for not
having obeyed the signal.
The Dutchman replied, in a tone of angry surliness, that he had not
seen their signal; and in a minute or two more, a harsh grating rush
against the vessel told that the boat was alongside.
"I will teach you, you Dutch son of a dog-fish, not to lie-to when one
of the king's ships makes the signal," cried a loud voice by the side.
"Have you any passengers on board?"
"Yes, five or six," answered the Dutchman.
"Stop! I will come on board," cried the voice, and then proceeded, as
if while climbing the ship's side, "have yon one Sir Osborne Maurice
with you?"
"No!" answered Skippenhausen, stoutly.
"Well, we will soon see that," cried the other; "for I have orders to
attach him for high treason. Come, bustle! disperse, my boys! You,
Wilfred, go forward; I will down here and see who is in the cabin; and
if I find him, Master Dutchman, I will slit your ears."