"DOWN WITH PURVEYORS!"
The first streak of daylight found me already footing it through the
forest by paths known to few save the woodcutters, but with which many
a boyish exploration had made me familiar. From Coton End the London
road lies plain and fair through Stratford-on-Avon and Oxford. But my
plan, the better to evade pursuit, was, instead, to cross the forest
in a northeasterly direction, and, passing by Warwick, to strike the
great north road between Coventry and Daventry, which, running thence
southeastward, would take me as straight as a bird might fly through
Dunstable, St. Albans, and Barnet, to London. My baggage consisted
only of my cloak, sword, and dagger; and for money I had but a gold
angel, and a few silver bits of doubtful value. But I trusted that
this store, slender as it was, would meet my charges as far as London.
Once there I must depend on my wits either for providence at home or a
passage abroad.
Striding steadily up and down hill, for Arden Forest is made up of
hills and dells which follow one another as do the wave and trough of
the sea, only less regularly, I made my way toward Wootton Wawen. As
soon as I espied its battlemented church lying in a wooded bottom
below me, I kept a more easterly course, and, leaving Henley-in-Arden
far to the left, passed down toward Leek Wootton. The damp, dead
bracken underfoot, the leafless oaks and gray sky overhead, nay the
very cry of the bittern fishing in the bottoms, seemed to be at one
with my thoughts; for these were dreary and sad enough.
But hope and a fixed aim form no bad makeshifts for happiness.
Striking the broad London road as I had purposed I slept that
night at Ryton Dunsmoor, and the next at Towcester; and the third day,
which rose bright and frosty, found me stepping gayly southward,
travel-stained indeed, but dry and whole. My spirits rose with the
temperature. For a time I put the past behind me, and found amusement
in the sights of the road; in the heavy wagons and long trains of
pack-horses, and the cheery greetings which met me with each mile.
After all, I had youth and strength, and the world before me; and
particularly Stony Stratford, where I meant to dine.
There was one trouble common among wayfarers which did not touch me;
and that was the fear of robbers, for he would be a sturdy beggar who
would rob an armed foot-passenger for the sake of an angel; and the
groats were gone. So I felt no terrors on that account, and even when
about noon I heard a horseman trot up behind me, and rein in his horse
so as to keep pace with me at a walk, step for step--a thing which
might have seemed suspicious to some--I took no heed of him. I was
engaged with my first view of Stratford, and did not turn my head. We
had walked on so for fifty paces or more, before it struck me as odd
that the man did not pass me.
Then I turned, and shading my eyes from the sun, which stood just over
his shoulder, said, "Good-day, friend."
"Good-day, master," he answered.
He was a stout fellow, looking like a citizen, although he had a sword
by his side, and wore it with an air of importance which the sunshine
of opportunity might have ripened into a swagger. His dress was plain;
and he sat a good hackney as a miller's sack might have sat it. His
face was the last thing I looked at. When I raised my eyes to it, I
got an unpleasant start. The man was no stranger. I knew him in a
moment for the messenger who had summoned me to the Chancellor's
presence.
The remembrance did not please me; and reading in the fellow's sly
look that he recognized me, and thought he had made a happy discovery
on finding me, I halted abruptly. He did the same.
"It is a fine morning," he said, taken aback by my sudden movement,
but affecting an indifference which the sparkle in his eye belied. "A
rare day for the time of year."
"It is," I answered, gazing steadily at him.
"Going to London? Or may be only to Stratford?" he hazarded. He
fidgeted uncomfortably under my eye, but still pretended ignorance of
me.
"That is as may be," I answered.
"No offense, I am sure," he said.
I cast a quick glance up and down the road. There happened to be no
one in sight. "Look here!" I replied, stepping forward to lay my hand
on the horse's shoulder--but the man reined back and prevented me,
thereby giving me a clew to his character--"you are in the service of
the Bishop of Winchester?"
His face fell, and he could not conceal his disappointment at being
recognized. "Well, master," he answered reluctantly, "perhaps I am,
and perhaps I am not."
"That is enough," I said shortly. "And you know me. You need not lie
about it, man, for I can see you do. Now, look here, Master Steward,
or whatever your name may be----"
"It is Master Pritchard," he put in sulkily; "and I am not ashamed of
it."
"Very well. Then let us understand one another. Do you mean to
interfere with me?"
He grinned. "Well, to be plain, I do," he replied, reining his horse
back another step. "I have orders to look out for you, and have you
stopped if I find you. And I must do my duty, sir; I am sworn to it,
Master Cludde."
"Right," said I calmly; "and I must do mine, which is to take care of
my skin." And I drew my sword and advanced upon him with a flourish.
"We will soon decide this little matter," I added grimly, one eye on
him and one on the empty road, "if you will be good enough to defend
yourself."
But there was no fight in the fellow. By good luck, too, he was so
startled that he did not do what he might have done with safety;
namely, retreat, and keep me in sight until some passers-by came up.
He did give back, indeed, but it was against the bank. "Have a care,"
he cried in a fume, his eye following my sword nervously; he did not
try to draw his own. "There is no call for fighting, I say."
"But I say there is," I replied bluntly. "Call and cause! Either you
fight me, or I go where I please."
"You may go to Bath for me!" he spluttered, his face the color of a
turkey-cock's wattles with rage.
"Do you mean it, my friend?" I said, and I played my point about his
leg, half-minded to give him a little prod by way of earnest. "Make up
your mind."
"Yes!" he shrieked out, suspecting my purpose, and bouncing about in
his saddle like a parched pea. "Yes, I say!" he roared. "Do you hear
me? You go your way, and I will go mine."
"That is a bargain," I said quietly; "and mind you keep to it."
I put up my sword with my face turned from him, lest he should see the
curl of my lip and the light in my eyes. In truth, I was uncommonly
well pleased with myself, and was thinking that if I came through all
my adventures as well, I should do merrily. Outwardly, however, I
tried to ignore my victory, and to make things as easy as I could for
my friend--if one may call a man who will not fight him a friend, a
thing I doubt. "Which way are you going?" I asked amicably; "to
Stratford?"
He nodded, for he was too sulky to speak.
"All right!" I said cheerfully, feeling that my dignity could take
care of itself now. "Then so far we may go together. Only do you
remember the terms. After dinner each goes his own way."
He nodded again, and we turned, and went on in silence, eying one
another askance, like two ill-matched dogs coupled together. But,
luckily, our forced companionship did not last long, a quarter of a
mile and a bend in the road bringing us to the first low, gray houses
of Stratford; a long, straggling village it seemed, made up of inns
strewn along the road, like beads threaded on a rosary. And to be
sure, to complete the likeness, we came presently upon an ancient
stone cross standing on the green. I pulled up in front of this with a
sigh of pleasure, for on either side of it, one facing the other, was
an inn of the better class.
"Well," I said, "which shall it be? The Rose and Crown, or the Crown
without the Rose?"
"Choose for yourself," he answered churlishly. "I go to the other."
I shrugged my shoulders. After all, you cannot make a silk purse out
of a sow's ear, and if a man has not courage he is not likely to have
good-fellowship. But the words angered me, nevertheless, for a shabby,
hulking fellow lounging at my elbow overheard them and grinned; a
hiccoughing, blear-eyed man he was as I had ever met, with a red nose
and the rags of a tattered cassock about him. I turned away in
annoyance, and chose the "Crown" at hazard; and pushing my way through
a knot of horses that stood tethered at the door, went in, leaving the
two to their devices.
I found a roaring fire in the great room, and three or four yeomen
standing about it, drinking ale. But I was hot from walking, so, after
saluting them and ordering my meal, I went and sat for choice on a
bench by the window away from the fire. The window was one of a kind
common in Warwickshire houses; long and low and beetle-browed, the
story above projecting over it. I sat here a minute looking idly out
at the inn opposite, a heavy stone building with a walled courtyard
attached to it; such an inn as was common enough about the time of the
Wars of the Roses when wayfarers looked rather for safety than
comfort. Presently I saw a boy come out of it and start up the road at
a run. Then, a minute later, the ragged fellow I had seen on the green
came out and lurched across the road. He seemed to be making, though
uncertainly, for my inn, and, sure enough, just as my bread and
bacon--the latter hot and hissing--were put before me, he staggered
into the room, bringing a strong smell of ale and onions with him.
"_Pax vobiscum!_" he said, leering at me with tipsy solemnity.
I guessed what he was--a monk, one of those unfortunates still to be
found here and there up and down the country, whom King Henry, when he
put down the monasteries, had made homeless. I did not look on the
class with much favor, thinking that for most of them the cloister,
even if the Queen should succeed in setting the abbeys on their legs
again, would have few attractions. But I saw that the simple farmers
received his scrap of Latin with respect, and I nodded civilly as I
went on with my meal.
I was not to get off so easily, however. He came and planted himself
opposite to me.
"_Pax vobiscum_, my son," he repeated. "The ale is cheap here, and
good."
"So is the ham, good father," I replied cheerfully, not pausing in my
attack on the victuals. "I will answer for so much."
"Well, well," the knave replied with ready wit, "I breakfasted early.
I am content. Landlord, another plate and a full tankard. The young
gentleman would have me dine with him."
I could not tell whether to be angry or to laugh at his impudence.
"The gentleman says he will answer for it!" repeated the rascal, with
a twinkle in his eye, as the landlord hesitated. He was by no means so
drunk as he looked.
"No, no, father," I cried, joining in the general laugh into which the
farmers by the fire broke. "A cup of ale is in reason, and for that I
will pay, but for no more. Drink it, and wish me Godspeed."
"I will do more than that, lad," he answered. Swaying to and fro
my cup, which he had seized in his grasp, he laid his hand on the
window-ledge beside me, as though to steady himself, and stooped until
his coarse, puffy face was but a few inches from mine. "More than
that," he whispered hoarsely; and his eyes, peering into mine, were
now sober and full of meaning. "If you do not want to be put in the
stocks or worse, make tracks! Make tracks, lad!" he continued. "Your
friend over there--he is a niggardly oaf--has sent for the hundredman
and the constable, and you are the quarry. So the word is, Go! That,"
he added aloud, standing erect again, with a drunken smile, "is for
your cup of ale; and good coin too!"
For half a minute I sat quite still; taken aback, and wondering, while
the bacon cooled on the plate before me, what I was to do. I did not
doubt the monk was telling the truth. Why should he lie to me? And I
cursed my folly in trusting to a coward's honor or a serving-man's
good faith. But lamentations were useless. What was I to do? I had no
horse, and no means of getting one. I was in a strange country, and to
try to escape on foot from pursuers who knew the roads, and had the
law on their side, would be a hopeless undertaking. Yet to be haled
back to Coton End a prisoner--I could not face that. Mechanically I
raised a morsel of bacon to my lips, and as I did so, a thought
occurred to me--an idea suggested by some talk I had heard the evening
before at Towcester.
Fanciful as the plan was, I snatched at it; and knowing each instant
to be precious, took my courage in my hand--and my tankard. "Here," I
cried, speaking suddenly and loudly, "here is bad luck to purveyors,
Master Host!"
There were a couple of stablemen within hearing, lounging in the
doorway, besides the landlord and his wife and the farmers. A villager
or two also had dropped in, and there were two peddlers lying half
asleep in the corner. All these pricked up their ears more or less at
my words. But, like most country folk, they were slow to take in
anything new or unexpected; and I had to drink afresh and say again,
"Here is bad luck to purveyors!" before any one took it up.
Then the landlord showed he understood.
"Ay, so say I!" he cried, with an oath. "Purveyors, indeed! It is such
as they give the Queen a bad name."
"God bless her!" quoth the monk loyally.
"And drown the purveyors!" a farmer exclaimed.
"They were here a year ago, and left us as bare as a shorn sheep,"
struck in a strapping villager, speaking at a white heat, but telling
me no news; for this was what I had heard at Towcester the night
before. "The Queen should lie warm if she uses all the wool they took!
And the pack-horses they purveyed to carry off the plunder--why, the
packmen avoid Stratford ever since as though we had the Black Death!
Oh, down with the purveyors, say I! The first that comes this way I
will show the bottom of the Ouse. Ay, that I will, though I hang for
it!"
"Easy! easy, Tom Miller!" the host interposed, affecting an air of
assurance, even while he cast an eye of trouble at his flitches. "It
will be another ten years before they harry us again. There is
Potter's Pury! They never took a tester's worth from Potter's Pury!
No, nor from Preston Gobion! But they will go to them next, depend
upon it!"
"I hope they will," I said, with a world of gloomy insinuation in my
words. "But I doubt it!"
And this time my hint was not wasted. The landlord changed color.
"What are you driving at, master?" he asked mildly, while the others
looked at me in silence and waited for more.
"What if there be one across the road now!" I said, giving way to the
temptation, and speaking falsely--for which I paid dearly afterward.
"A purveyor, I mean, unless I am mistaken in him, or he tells lies. He
has come straight from the Chancellor, white wand, warrant, and all.
He is taking his dinner now, but he has sent for the hundredman, so I
guess he means business."
"For the hundredman?" repeated the landlord, his brows meeting.
"Yes; unless I am mistaken."
There was silence for a moment. Then the man they called Tom Miller
dashed his cap on the floor and, folding his arms defiantly, looked
round on his neighbors. "He has come, has he!" he roared, his face
swollen, his eyes bloodshot. "Then I will be as good as my word! Who
will help? Shall we sit down and be shorn like sheep, as we were
before, so that our children lay on the bare stones, and we pulled the
plow ourselves? Or shall we show that we are free Englishmen, and not
slaves of Frenchmen? Shall we teach Master Purveyor not to trouble us
again? Now, what say you, neighbors?"
So fierce a growl of impatience and anger rose round me as at once
answered the question. A dozen red faces glared at me and at one
another, and from the very motion and passion of the men as they
snarled and threatened, the room seemed twice as full as it was. Their
oaths and cries of encouragement, not loud, but the more dangerous for
that, the fresh burst of fury which rose as the village smith and
another came in and learned the news, the menacing gestures of a score
of brandished fists--these sights, though they told of the very effect
at which I had aimed, scared as well as pleased me. I turned red and
white, and hesitated, fearing that I had gone too far.
The thing was done, however; and, what was more, I had soon to take
care of myself. At the very moment when the hubbub was at its loudest
I felt a chill run down my back as I met the monk's eye, and, reading
in it whimsical admiration, read in it something besides, and that was
an unmistakable menace. "Clever lad!" the eye said. "I will expose
you," it threatened.
I had forgotten him--or, at any rate, that my acting would be
transparent enough to him holding the clew in his hand--and his look
was like the shock of cold water to me. But it is wonderful how keen
the wits grow on the grindstone of necessity. With scarcely a second's
hesitation I drew out my only piece of gold, and unnoticed by the
other men, who were busy swearing at and encouraging one another, I
disclosed a morsel of it. The monk's crafty eye glistened. I laid my
finger on my lips.
He held up two fingers.
I shook my head and showed an empty palm. I had no more. He nodded;
and the relief that nod gave me was great. Before I had time, however,
to consider the narrowness of my escape, a movement of the crowd--for
the news had spread with strange swiftness, and there was now a crowd
assembled which more than filled the room--proclaimed that the
purveyor had come out, and was in the street.
The room was nearly emptied at a rush. Though I prudently remained
behind, I could, through the open window, hear as well as see what
passed. The leading spirits had naturally struggled out first, and
were gathered, sullen and full of dangerous possibilities, about the
porch.
I suppose the Bishop's messenger saw in them nothing but a crowd of
country clowns, for he came hectoring toward the door, smiting his
boot with his whip, and puffing out his red cheeks mightily. He felt
brave enough, now that he had dined and had at his back three stout
constables sworn to keep the Queen's peace.
"Make way! Make way, there, do you hear?" he cried in a husky, pompous
voice. "Make way!" he repeated, lightly touching the nearest man with
his switch. "I am on the Queen's service, boobies, and must not be
hindered."
The man swore at him, but did not budge, and the bully, brought up
thus sharply, awoke to the lowering faces and threatening looks which
confronted him. He changed color a little. But the ale was still in
him, and, forgetting his natural discretion, he thought to carry
matters with a high hand. "Come! come!" he exclaimed angrily. "I have
a warrant, and you resist me at your peril. I have to enter this
house. Clear the way, Master Hundredman, and break these fellows'
heads if they withstand you."
A growl as of a dozen bulldogs answered him, and he drew back, as a
child might who has trodden on an adder. "You fools!" he spluttered,
glaring at them viciously. "Are you mad? Do you know what you are
doing? Do you see this?" He whipped out from some pocket a short white
staff and brandished it. "I come direct from the Lord Chancellor and
upon his business, do you hear, and if you resist me it is treason.
Treason, you dogs!" he cried, his rage getting the better of him, "and
like dogs you will hang for it. Master Hundredman, I order you to take
in your constables and arrest that man!"
"What man?" quoth Tom Miller, eying him fixedly.
"The stranger who came in an hour ago, and is inside the house."
"Him, he means, who told about the purveyor across the road,"
explained the monk with a wink.
That wink sufficed. There was a roar of execration, and in the
twinkling of an eye the Jack-in-office, tripped up this way and shoved
that, was struggling helplessly in the grasp of half a dozen men, who
fought savagely for his body with the Hundredman and the constables.
"To the river! To the Ouse with him!" yelled the mob. "In the Queen's
name!" shouted the officers. But these were to those as three to a
score, and taken by surprise besides, and doubtful of the rights of
the matter. Yet for an instant, as the crowd went reeling and fighting
down the road, they prevailed; the constables managed to drag their
leader free, and I caught a glimpse of him, wild-eyed and frantic with
fear, his clothes torn from his back, standing at bay like some
animal, and brandishing his staff in one hand, a packet of letters in
the other.
"I have letters, letters of state!" he screamed shrilly. "Let me
alone, I tell you! Let me go, you curs!"
But in vain. The next instant the mob were upon him again. The packet
of letters went one way, the staff was dashed another. He was thrown
down and plucked up again, and hurried, bruised and struggling, toward
the river, his screams for mercy and furious threats rising shrilly
above the oaths and laughter.
I felt myself growing pale as scream followed scream. "They will kill
him!" I exclaimed trembling, and prepared to follow. "I cannot see
this done."
But the monk, who had returned to my side, grasped my arm. "Don't be a
fool," he said sharply. "I will answer for it they will not kill him.
Tom Miller is not a fool, though he is angry. He will duck him, and
let him go. But I will trouble you for that bit of gold, young
gentleman."
I gave it to him.
"Now," he continued with a leer, "I will give you a hint in return. If
you are wise, you will be out of this county in twelve hours. Tethered
to the gate over there is a good horse which belongs to a certain
purveyor now in the river. Take it! There is no one to say you nay.
And begone!"
I looked hard at him for a minute, my heart beating fast. This was
horse-stealing. And horse-stealing was a hanging matter. But I had
done so much already that I felt I might as well be hanged for a sheep
as for a lamb. I was not sure that I had not incited to treason, and
what was stealing a horse beside that? "I will do it!" I said
desperately.
"Don't lose time, then," quoth my mentor.
I went out then and there, and found he had told the truth. Every soul
in the place had gone to see the ducking, and the street was empty.
Kicked aside in the roadway lay the bundle of letters, soiled but not
torn, and in the gutter was the staff. I stooped and picked up one and
the other--in for a lamb, in for a sheep! and they might be useful
some day. Then I jumped into the saddle, and twitched the reins off
the hook.
But before I could drive in the spurs, a hand fell on the bridle, and
the monk's face appeared at my knee. "Well?" I said, glaring down at
him--I was burning to be away.
"That is a good cloak you have got there," he muttered hurriedly.
"There, strapped to the saddle, you fool. You do not want that, give
it me. Do you hear? Quick, give it me," he cried, raising his voice
and clutching at it fiercely, his face dark with greed and fear.
"I see," I replied, as I unstrapped it. "I am to steal the horse that
you may get the cloak. And then you will lay the lot on my shoulders.
Well, take it!" I cried, "and go your way as fast as you can."
Throwing it at him as hard as I could, I shook up the reins and went
off down the road at a gallop. The wind whistled pleasantly past my
ears. The sounds of the town grew faint and distant. Each bound of the
good hack carried me farther and farther from present danger, farther
and farther from the old life. In the exhilaration and excitement of
the moment I forgot my condition; forgot that I had not a penny-piece
in my pocket, and that I had left an unpaid bill behind me; forgot
even that I rode a--well, a borrowed horse.