MISTRESS BERTRAM.
"Ding! ding! ding! Aid ye the poor! Pray for the dead! Five o'clock and
a murky morning."
The noise of the bell, and the cry which accompanied it, roused me
from my first sleep in London, and that with a vengeance; the bell
being rung and the words uttered within three feet of my head. Where
did I sleep, then? Well, I had found a cozy resting-place behind some
boards which stood propped against the wall of a baker's oven in a
street near Moorgate. The wall was warm and smelt of new bread, and
another besides myself had discovered its advantages. This was the
watchman, who had slumbered away most of his vigil cheek by jowl with
me, but, morning approaching, had roused himself, and before he was
well out of his bed, certainly before he had left his bedroom, had
begun--the ungrateful wretch--to prove his watchfulness by disturbing
every one else.
I sat up and rubbed my eyes, grinding my shoulders well against the
wall for warmth. I had no need to turn out yet, but I began to think,
and the more I thought the harder I stared at the planks six inches
before my nose. My thoughts turned upon a very knotty point; one that
I had never seriously considered before. What was I going to do next?
How was I going to live or to rear the new house of which I have made
mention? Hitherto I had aimed simply at reaching London. London had
paraded itself before my mind--though my mind should have known
better--not as a town of cold streets and dreary alleys and shops open
from seven to four with perhaps here and there a vacant place for an
apprentice; but as a gilded city of adventure and romance, in which a
young man of enterprise, whether he wanted to go abroad or to rise at
home, might be sure of finding his sword weighed, priced, and bought
up on the instant, and himself valued at his own standard.
But London reached, the hoarding in Moorgate reached, and five o'clock
in the morning reached, somehow these visions faded rapidly. In the
cold reality left to me I felt myself astray. If I would stay at home,
who was going to employ me? To whom should I apply? What patron had I?
Or if I would go abroad, how was I to set about it? how find a vessel,
seeing that I might expect to be arrested the moment I showed my face
in daylight?
Here all my experience failed me. I did not know what to do, though
the time had come for action, and I must do or starve. It had been all
very well when I was at Coton, to propose that I would go up to
London, and get across the water--such had been my dim notion--to the
Courtenays and Killigrews, who, with other refugees, Protestants for
the most part, were lying on the French coast, waiting for better
times. But now that I was in London, and as good as an outlaw myself,
I saw no means of going to them. I seemed farther from my goal than I
had been in Warwickshire.
Thinking very blankly over this I began to munch the piece of bread
which I owed to the old dame at Tottenham; and had solemnly got
through half of it, when the sound of rapid footsteps--the footsteps
of women, I judged from the lightness of the tread--caused me to hold
my hand and listen. Whoever they were--and I wondered, for it was
still early, and I had heard no one pass since the watchman left
me--they came to a stand in front of my shelter, and one of them
spoke. Her words made me start; unmistakably the voice was a
gentlewoman's, such as I had not heard for almost a week. And at this
place and hour, on the raw borderland of day and night, a gentlewoman
was the last person I expected to light upon. Yet if the speaker were
not some one of station, Petronilla's lessons had been thrown away
upon me.
The words were uttered in a low voice; but the planks in front of me
were thin, and the speaker was actually leaning against them. I caught
every accent of what seemed to be the answer to a question. "Yes, yes!
It is all right!" she said, a covert ring of impatience in her tone.
"Take breath a moment. I do not see him now."
"Thank Heaven!" muttered another voice. As I had fancied, there were
two persons. The latter speaker's tone smacked equally of breeding
with the former's, but was rounder and fuller, and more masterful; and
she appeared to be out of breath. "Then perhaps we have thrown him off
the trail," she continued, after a short pause, in which she seemed to
have somewhat recovered herself. "I distrusted him from the first,
Anne--from the first. Yet, do you know, I never feared him as I did
Master Clarence; and as it was too much to hope that we should be rid
of both at once--they took good care of that--why, the attempt had to
be made while he was at home. But I always felt he was a spy."
"Who? Master Clarence?" asked she who had spoken first.
"Ay, he certainly. But I did not mean him, I meant Philip."
"Well, I--I said at first, you remember, that it was a foolhardy
enterprise, mistress!"
"Tut, tut, girl!" quoth the other tartly--this time the impatience lay
with her, and she took no pains to conceal it--"we are not beaten yet.
Come, look about! Cannot you remember where we are, nor which way the
river should be? If the dawn were come, we could tell."
"But with the dawn----"
"The streets would fill. True, and, Master Philip giving the alarm, we
should be detected before we had gone far. The more need, girl, to
lose no time. I have my breath again, and the child is asleep. Let us
venture one way or the other, and Heaven grant it be the right one!"
"Let me see," the younger woman answered slowly, as if in doubt. "Did
we come by the church? No; we came the other way. Let us try this
turning, then."
"Why, child, we came that way," was the decided answer. "What are you
thinking of? That would take us straight back into his arms, the
wretch! Come, come! you loiter," continued this, the more masculine
speaker, "and a minute may make all the difference between a prison
and freedom. If we can reach the Lion Wharf by seven--it is like to be
a dark morning and foggy--we may still escape before Master Philip
brings the watch upon us."
They moved briskly away as she spoke, and her words were already
growing indistinct from distance, while I remained still, idly seeking
the clew to their talk and muttering over and over again the name
Clarence, which seemed familiar to me, when a cry of alarm, in which I
recognized one of their voices, cut short my reverie. I crawled with
all speed from my shelter, and stood up, being still in a line with
the boards, and not easily distinguishable. As she had said, it was a
dark morning; but the roofs of the houses--now high, now low--could be
plainly discerned against a gray, drifting sky wherein the first signs
of dawn were visible; and the blank outlines of the streets, which met
at this point, could be seen. Six or seven yards from me, in the
middle of the roadway, stood three dusky figures, of whom I judged the
nearer, from their attitudes, to be the two women. The farthest seemed
to be a man.
I was astonished to see that he was standing cap in hand; nay, I was
disgusted as well, for I had crept out hot-fisted, expecting to be
called upon to defend the women. But, despite the cry I had heard,
they were talking to him quietly enough, as far as I could hear. And
in a minute or so I saw the taller woman give him something.
He took it with a low bow, and appeared almost to sweep the dirt with
his bonnet. She waved her hand in dismissal, and he stood back still
uncovered. And--hey, presto! the women tripped swiftly away.
By this time my curiosity was intensely excited, but for a moment I
thought it was doomed to disappointment. I thought that it was all
over. It was not, by any means. The man stood looking after them until
they reached the corner, and the moment they had passed it, he
followed. His stealthy manner of going, and his fashion of peering
after them, was enough for me. I guessed at once that he was dogging
them, following them unknown to them and against their will; and with
considerable elation I started after him, using the same precautions.
What was sauce for the geese was sauce for the gander! So we went,
two--one--one, slipping after one another through half a dozen dark
streets, tending generally southward.
Following him in this way I seldom caught a glimpse of the women. The
man kept at a considerable distance behind them, and I had my
attention fixed on him. But once or twice, when, turning a corner, I
all but trod on his heels, I saw them; and presently an odd point
about them struck me. There was a white kerchief or something attached
apparently to the back of the one's cloak, which considerably assisted
my stealthy friend to keep them in view. It puzzled me. Was it a
signal to him? Was he really all the time acting in concert with them;
and was I throwing away my pains? Or was the white object which so
betrayed them merely the result of carelessness, and the lack of
foresight of women grappling with a condition of things to which they
were unaccustomed? Of course I could not decide this, the more as, at
that distance, I failed to distinguish what the white something was,
or even which of the two wore it.
Presently I got a clew to our position, for we crossed Cheapside close
to Paul's Cross, which my childish memories of the town enabled me to
recognize, even by that light. Here my friend looked up and down, and
hung a minute on his heel before he followed the women, as if
expecting or looking for some one. It might be that he was trying to
make certain that the watch were not in sight. They were not, at any
rate. Probably they had gone home to bed, for the morning was growing.
And, after a momentary hesitation, he plunged into the narrow street
down which the women had flitted.
He had only gone a few yards when I heard him cry out. The next
instant, almost running against him myself, I saw what had happened.
The women had craftily lain in wait for him in the little court into
which the street ran and had caught him as neatly as could be. When I
came upon them the taller woman was standing at bay with a passion
that was almost fury in her pose and gesture. Her face, from which the
hood of a coarse cloak had fallen back, was pale with anger; her gray
eyes flashed, her teeth glimmered. Seeing her thus, and seeing the
burden she carried under her cloak--which instinct told me was her
child--I thought of a tigress brought to bay.
"You lying knave!" she hissed. "You Judas!"
The man recoiled a couple of paces, and in recoiling nearly touched
me.
"What would you?" she continued. "What do you want? What would you do?
You have been paid to go. Go, and leave us!"
"I dare not," he muttered, keeping away from her as if he dreaded a
blow. She looked a woman who could deal a blow, a woman who could both
love and hate fiercely and openly--as proud and frank and haughty a
lady as I had ever seen in my life. "I dare not," he muttered
sullenly; "I have my orders."
"Oh!" she cried, with scorn. "You have your orders, have you! The
murder is out. But from whom, sirrah? Whose orders are to supersede
mine? I would King Harry were alive, and I would have you whipped to
Tyburn. Speak, rogue; who bade you follow me?"
He shook his head.
She looked about her wildly, passionately, and I saw that she was at
her wits' end what to do, or how to escape him. But she was a woman.
When she next spoke there was a marvelous change in her. Her face had
grown soft, her voice low. "Philip," she said gently, "the purse was
light. I will give you more. I will give you treble the amount within
a few weeks, and I will thank you on my knees, and my husband shall be
such a friend to you as you have never dreamed of, if you will only go
home and be silent. Only that--or, better still, walk the streets an
hour, and then report that you lost sight of us. Think, man, think!"
she cried with energy--"the times may change. A little more, and Wyatt
had been master of London last year. Now the people are fuller of
discontent than ever, and these burnings and torturings, these
Spaniards in the streets--England will not endure them long. The times
will change. Let us go, and you will have a friend--when most you need
one."
He shook his head sullenly. "I dare not do it," he said. And somehow I
got the idea that he was telling the truth, and that it was not the
man's stubborn nature only that withstood the bribe and the plea. He
spoke as if he were repeating a lesson and the master were present.
When she saw that she could not move him, the anger, which I think
came more naturally to her, broke out afresh. "You will not, you
hound!" she cried. "Will neither threats nor promises move you?"
"Neither," he answered doggedly; "I have my orders."
So far, I had remained a quiet listener, standing in the mouth of the
lane which opened upon the court where they were. The women had taken
no notice of me; either because they did not see me, or because,
seeing me, they thought that I was a hanger-on of the man before them.
And he, having his back to me, and his eyes on them, could not see me.
It was a surprise to him--a very great surprise, I think--when I took
three steps forward, and gripped him by the scruff of his neck.
"You have your orders, have you?" I muttered in his ear, as I shook
him to and fro, while the taller woman started back and the younger
uttered a cry of alarm at my sudden appearance. "Well, you will not
obey them. Do you hear? Your employer may go hang! You will do just
what these ladies please to ask of you."
He struggled an instant; but he was an undersized man, and he could
not loosen the hold which I had secured at my leisure. Then I noticed
his hand going to his girdle in a suspicious way. "Stop that!" I said,
flashing before his eyes a short, broad blade, which had cut many a
deer's throat in Old Arden Forest. "You had better keep quiet, or it
will be the worse for you! Now, mistress," I continued, "you can
dispose of this little man as you please."
"Who are you?" she said, after a pause; during which she had stared at
me in open astonishment. No doubt I was a wild-looking figure.
"A friend," I replied. "Or one who would be such. I saw this fellow
follow you, and I followed him. For the last five minutes I have been
listening to your talk. He was not amenable to reason then, but I
think he will be now. What shall I do with him?"
She smiled faintly, but did not answer at once, the coolness and
resolution with which she had faced him before failing her now,
possibly in sheer astonishment, or because my appearance at her side,
by removing the strain, sapped the strength. "I do not know," she said
at length, in a vague, puzzled tone.
"Well," I answered, "you are going to the Lion Wharf, and----"
"Oh, you fool!" she screamed out loud. "Oh, you fool!" she repeated
bitterly. "Now you have told him all."
I stood confounded. My cheeks burned with shame, and her look of
contempt cut me like a knife. That the reproach was deserved I knew at
once, for the man in my grasp gave a start, which proved that the
information was not lost upon him. "Who told you?" the woman went on,
clutching the child jealously to her breast, as though she saw herself
menaced afresh. "Who told you about the Lion Wharf?"
"Never mind," I answered gloomily. "I have made a mistake, but it is
easy to remedy it." And I took out my knife again. "Do you go on and
leave us."
I hardly know whether I meant my threat or no. But my prisoner had no
doubts. He shrieked out--a wild cry of fear which rang round the empty
court--and by a rapid blow, despair giving him courage, he dashed the
hunting-knife from my hand. This done he first flung himself on me,
then tried by a sudden jerk to free himself. In a moment we were down
on the stones, and tumbling over one another in the dirt, while he
struggled to reach his knife, which was still in his girdle, and I
strove to prevent him. The fight was sharp, but it lasted barely a
minute. When the first effort of his despair was spent, I came
uppermost, and he was but a child in my hands. Presently, with my knee
on his chest, I looked up. The women were still there, the younger
clinging to the other.
"Go! go!" I cried impatiently. Each second I expected the court to be
invaded, for the man had screamed more than once.
But they hesitated. I had been forced to hurt him a little, and he was
moaning piteously. "Who are you?" the elder woman asked--she who had
spoken all through.
"Nay, never mind that!" I answered. "Do you go! Go, while you can. You
know the way to the Wharf."
"Yes," she answered. "But I cannot go and leave him at your mercy.
Remember he is a man, and has----"
"He is a treacherous scoundrel," I answered, giving his throat a
squeeze. "But he shall have one more chance. Listen, sirrah!" I
continued to the man, "and stop that noise or I will knock out your
teeth with my dagger-hilt. Listen and be silent. I shall go with these
ladies, and I promise you this: If they are stopped or hindered on
their way, or if evil happen to them at that wharf, whose name you had
better forget, it will be the worse for you. Do you hear? You will
suffer for it, though there be a dozen guards about you! Mind you," I
added, "I have nothing to lose myself, for I am desperate already."
He vowed--the poor craven--with his stuttering tongue, that he would
be true, and vowed it again and again. But I saw that his eyes did not
meet mine. They glanced instead at the knife-blade, and I knew, even
while I pretended to trust him, that he would betray us. My real hope
lay in his fears, and in this, that as the fugitives knew the way to
the wharf, and it could not now be far distant, we might reach it,
and go on board some vessel--I had gathered they were flying the
country--before this wretch could recover himself and get together a
force to stop us. That was my real hope, and in that hope only I left
him.
We went as fast as the women could walk. I did not trouble them with
questions; indeed, I had myself no more leisure than enabled me to
notice their general appearance, which was that of comfortable
tradesmen's womenfolk. Their cloaks and hoods were plainly fashioned,
and of coarse stuff, their shoes were thick, and no jewel or scrap of
lace, peeping out, betrayed them. Yet there was something in their
carriage which could not be hidden, something which, to my eye, told
tales; so that minute by minute I became more sure that this was
really an adventure worth pursuing, and that London had kept a reward
in store for me besides its cold stones and inhospitable streets.
The city was beginning to rouse itself. As we flitted through the
lanes and alleys which lie between Cheapside and the river, we met
many people, chiefly of the lower classes, on their way to work. Yet
in spite of this, we had no need to fear observation, for, though the
morning was fully come, with the light had arrived such a thick,
choking, yellow fog as I, being for the most part country-bred, had
never experienced. It was so dense and blinding that we had a
difficulty in keeping together, and even hand in hand could scarcely
see one another. In my wonder how my companions found their way, I
presently failed to notice their condition, and only remarked the
distress and exhaustion which one of them was suffering, when she
began, notwithstanding all her efforts, to lag behind. Then I sprang
forward, blaming myself much. "Forgive me," I said. "You are tired,
and no wonder. Let me carry the child, mistress."
Exhausted as she was, she drew away from me jealously.
"No," she panted. "We are nearly there. I am better now." And she
strained the child closer to her, as though she feared I might take it
from her by force.
"Well, if you will not trust me," I answered, "let your friend carry
it for a time. I can see you are tired out."
Through the mist she bent forward, and peered into my face, her eyes
scarcely a foot from mine. The scrutiny seemed to satisfy her. She
drew a long breath and held out her burden. "No," she said; "you shall
take him. I will trust you."
I took the little wrapped-up thing as gently as I could. "You shall
not repent it, if I can help it, Mistress----"
"Bertram," she said.
"Mistress Bertram," I repeated. "Now let us get on and lose no time."
A walk of a hundred yards or so brought us clear of the houses, and
revealed before us, in place of all else, a yellow curtain of fog.
Below this, at our feet, yet apparently a long way from us, was a
strange, pale line of shimmering light, which they told me was the
water. At first I could hardly believe this. But, pausing a moment
while my companions whispered together, dull creakings and groanings
and uncouth shouts and cries, and at last the regular beat of oars,
came to my ears out of the bank of vapor, and convinced me that we
really had the river before us.
Mistress Bertram turned to me abruptly. "Listen," she said, "and
decide for yourself, my friend. We are close to the wharf now, and in
a few minutes shall know our fate. It is possible that we may be
intercepted at this point, and if that happen, it will be bad for me
and worse for any one aiding me. You have done us gallant service, but
you are young; and I am loath to drag you into perils which do not
belong to you. Take my advice, then, and leave us now. I would I could
reward you," she added hastily, "but that knave has my purse."
I put the child gently back into her arms. "Good-by," she said, with
more feeling. "We thank you. Some day I may return to England, and
have ample power----"
"Not so fast," I answered stiffly. "Did you think it possible,
mistress, that I would desert you now? I gave you back the child only
because it might hamper me, and will be safer with you. Come, let us
on at once to the wharf."
"You mean it?" she said.
"Of a certainty!" I answered, settling my cap on my head with perhaps
a boyish touch of the braggart.
At any rate, she did not take me at once at my word; and her thought
for me touched me the more because I judged her--I know not exactly
why--to be a woman not over prone to think of others. "Do not be
reckless," she said slowly, her eyes intently fixed on mine. "I should
be sorry to bring evil upon you. You are but a boy."
"And yet," I answered, smiling, "there is as good as a price upon my
head already. I should be reckless if I stayed here. If you will take
me with you, let us go. We have loitered too long already."
She turned then, asking no questions; but she looked at me from time
to time in a puzzled way, as though she thought she ought to know
me--as though I reminded her of some one. Paying little heed to this
then, I hurried her and her companion down to the water, traversing a
stretch of foreshore strewn with piles of wood and stacks of barrels
and old rotting boats, between which the mud lay deep. Fortunately it
was high tide, and so we had not far to go. In a minute or two I
distinguished the hull of a ship looming large through the fog; and a
few more steps placed us safely on a floating raft, on the far side of
which the vessel lay moored.
There was only one man to be seen lounging on the raft, and the
neighborhood was quiet. My spirits rose as I looked round. "Is this
the _Whelp?_" the tall lady asked. I had not heard the other open her
mouth since the encounter in the court.
"Yes, it is the _Whelp_, madam," the man answered, saluting her and
speaking formally, and with a foreign accent. "You are the lady who is
expected?"
"I am," she answered, with authority. "Will you tell the captain that
I desire to sail immediately, without a moment's delay? Do you
understand?"
"Well, the tide is going out," quoth the sailor, dubiously, looking
steadily into the fog, which hid the river. "It has just turned, it is
true. But as to sailing----"
She cut him short. "Go, go! man. Tell your captain what I say. And let
down a ladder for us to get on board."
He caught a rope which hung over the side, and, swinging himself up,
disappeared. We stood below, listening to the weird sounds which came
off the water, the creaking and flapping of masts and canvas, the whir
of wings and shrieks of unseen gulls, the distant hail of boatmen. A
bell in the city solemnly tolled eight. The younger woman shivered.
The elder's foot tapped impatiently on the planks. Shut in by the
yellow walls of fog, I experienced a strange sense of solitude; it was
as if we three were alone in the world--we three who had come together
so strangely.