"Give this packet to the little Moorish maid, and tell her that I will
bring her better by and by, and mayhap make her a knight's lady; but on
thy life, say nought to any other."
It was out now! Ambrose's head was more in Sir Thomas's books than in
real life at all times, or he would long ago have inferred something--
from the jackdaw's favourite phrase--from Giles's modes of haunting his
steps, and making him the bearer of small tokens--an orange, a simnel
cake, a bag of walnuts or almonds to Mistress Aldonza, and of the
smiles, blushes, and thanks with which she greeted them. Nay, had she
not burst into tears and entreated to be spared when Lady More wanted to
make a match between her and the big porter, and had not her distress
led Mistress Margaret to appeal to her father, who had said he should as
soon think of wedding the silver-footed Thetis to Polyphemus. "Tilley
valley! Master More," the lady had answered, "will all your fine pagan
gods hinder the wench from starving on earth, and leading apes in hell."
Margaret had answered that Aldonza should never do the first, and Sir
Thomas had gravely said that he thought those black eyes would lead many
a man on earth before they came to the latter fate.
Ambrose hid the parcel for her deep in his bosom before he asked
permission of his master to go to the Dragon court with the rest of the
tidings.
"He always was an unmannerly cub," said Master Headley, as he read the
letter. "Well, I've done my best to make a silk purse of a sow's ear!
I've done my duty by poor Robert's son, and if he will be such a fool as
to run after blood and wounds, I have no more to say! Though 'tis pity
of the old name! Ha! what's this? `Wedded against my will--no troth
plight.' Forsooth, I thought my young master was mighty slack. He hath
some other matter in his mind, hath he? Run into some coil mayhap with
a beggar wench! Well, we need not be beholden to him. Ha, Dennet, my
maid!"
Dennet screwed up her little mouth, and looked very demure, but she
twinkled her bright eyes, and said, "My heart will not break, sir; I am
in no haste to be wed."
Her father pinched her cheek and said she was a silly wench; but perhaps
he marked the dancing step with which the young mistress went about her
household cares, and how she was singing to herself songs that certainly
were not "Willow! willow!"
Ambrose had no scruple in delivering to Aldonza the message and token,
when he overtook her on the stairs of the house at Chelsea, carrying up
a lapful of roses to the still-room, where Dame Alice More was rejoicing
in setting her step-daughters to housewifely tasks.
There came a wonderful illumination and agitation over the girl's
usually impassive features, giving all that they needed to make them
surpassingly beautiful.
"Woe is me!" was, however, her first exclamation. "That he should have
given up all for me! Oh! if I had thought it!" But while she spoke as
if she were shocked and appalled, her eyes belied her words. They shone
with the first absolute certainty of love, and there was no realising as
yet the years of silent waiting and anxiety that must go by, nay,
perhaps an entire lifetime of uncertainty of her lover's truth or
untruth, life or death.
Dame Alice called her, and in a rambling, maundering way, charged her
with loitering and gadding with the young men; and Margaret saw by her
colour and by her eyes that some strange thing had happened to her.
Margaret had, perhaps, some intuition; for was not her heart very tender
towards a certain young barrister by name Roper whom her father doubted
as yet, because of his Lutheran inclinations. By and by she discovered
that she needed Aldonza to comb out her long dark hair, and ere long,
she had heard all the tale of the youth cured by the girl's father, and
all his gifts, and how Aldonza deemed him too great and too good for
her, (poor Giles!) though she knew she should never do more than look up
to him with love and gratitude from afar. And she never so much as
dreamt that he would cast an eye on her save in kindness. Oh yes, she
knew what he had taught the daw to say, but then she was a child, she
durst not deem it more. And Margaret More was more kind and eager than
worldly wise, and she encouraged Aldonza to watch and wait, promised
protection from all enforced suits and suitors, and gave assurances of
shelter as her own attendant as long as the girl should need it.
Master Headley, with some sighing and groaning, applied himself to write
to the mother at Salisbury what had become of her son; but he had only
spent one evening over the trying task, when just as the supper bell was
ringing, with Master Hope and his wife as guests, there were horses'
feet in the court, and Master Tiptoff appeared, with a servant on
another horse, which carried besides a figure in camlet, on a pillion.
No sooner was this same figure lifted from her steed and set down on the
steps, while the master of the house and his daughter came out to greet
her, than she began, "Master Alderman Headley, I am here to know what
you have done with my poor son!"
"Alack, good cousin!"
"Alack me no alacks," she interrupted, holding up her riding rod. "I'll
have no dissembling, there hath been enough of that, Giles Headley.
Thou hast sold him, soul and body, to one of yon cruel, bloodthirsty
plundering, burning captains, that the poor child may be slain and
murthered! Is this the fair promises you made to his father--wiling him
away from his poor mother, a widow, with talking of teaching him the
craft, and giving him your daughter! My son, Tiptoff here, told me the
spousal was delayed and delayed, and he doubted whether it would ever
come off, but I thought not of this sending him beyond seas, to make
merchandise of him. And you call yourself an alderman! The gown should
be stript off the back of you, and shall be, if there be any justice in
London for a widow woman."
"Nay, cousin, you have heard some strange tale," said Master Headley,
who, much as he would have dreaded the attack beforehand, faced it the
more calmly and manfully because the accusation was so outrageous.
"Ay, so I told her," began her son-in-law, "but she hath been neither to
have nor to hold since the--"
"And how should I be to have or to hold by a nincompoop like thee," she
said, turning round on him, "that would have me sit down and be content
forsooth, when mine only son is kidnapped to be sold to the Turks or to
work in the galleys, for aught I know."
"Mistress!" here Master Hope's voice came in, "I would counsel you to
speak less loud, and hear before you accuse. We of the City of London
know Master Alderman Headley too well to hear him railed against."
"Ah! you're all of a piece," she began; but by this time Master Tiptoff
had managed at least to get her into the hall, and had exchanged words
enough with the alderman to assure himself that there was an
explanation, nay, that there was a letter from Giles himself. This the
indignant mother presently was made to understand--and as the alderman
had borrowed the letter in order to copy it for her, it was given to
her. She could not read, and would trust no one but her son-in-law to
read it to her. "Yea, you have it very pat," she said, "but how am I to
be assured 'tis not all writ here to hoodwink a poor woman like me."
"'Tis Giles's hand," averred Tiptoff.
"And if you will," added the alderman, with wonderful patience, "to-
morrow you may speak with the youth who received it. Come, sit down and
sup with us, and then you shall learn from Smallbones how this mischance
befel, all from my sending two young heads together, and one who, though
a good fellow, could not hold all in rule."
"Ay--you've your reasons for anything," she muttered, but being both
weary and hungry, she consented to eat and drink, while Tiptoff, who was
evidently ashamed of her violence, and anxious to excuse it, managed to
explain that a report had been picked up at Romsey, by a bare-footed
friar from Salisbury, that young Giles Headley had been seen at Ghent by
one of the servants of a wool merchant, riding with a troop of Free
Companions in the Emperor's service. All the rest was deduced from this
intelligence by the dame's own imagination.
After supper she was invited to interrogate Kit and Stephen, and her
grief and anxiety found vent in fierce scolding at the misrule which had
permitted such a villain as Fulford to be haunting and tempting poor
fatherless lads. Master Headley had reproached poor Kit for the same
thing, but he could only represent that Giles, being a freeman, was no
longer under his authority. However, she stormed on, being absolutely
convinced that her son's evasion was every one's fault but his own. Now
it was the alderman for misusing him, overtasking the poor child, and
deferring the marriage, now it was that little pert poppet, Dennet, who
had flouted him, now it was the bad company he had been led into--the
poor babe who had been bred to godly ways.
The alderman was really sorry for her, and felt himself to blame so far
as that he had shifted the guidance of the expedition to such an
insufficient head as poor Smallbones, so he let her rail on as much as
she would, till the storm exhausted itself, and she settled into the
trust that Giles would soon grow weary and return. The good man felt
bound to show her all hospitality, and the civilities to country cousins
were in proportion to the rarity of their visits. So Mrs Headley
stayed on after Tiptoff's return to Salisbury, and had the best view
feasible of all the pageants and diversions of autumn. She saw some
magnificent processions of clergy, she was welcomed at a civic banquet
and drank of the loving cup, and she beheld the Lord Mayor's Show in all
its picturesque glory of emblazoned barges on the river. In fact, she
found the position of denizen of an alderman's household so very
agreeable that she did her best to make it a permanency. Nay, Dennet
soon found that she considered herself to be waiting there and keeping
guard till her son's return should establish her there, and that she
viewed the girl already as a daughter--for which Dennet was by no means
obliged to her! She lavished counsel on her hostess, found fault with
the maidens, criticised the cookery, walked into the kitchen and still-
room with assistance and directions, and even made a strong effort to
possess herself of the keys.
It must be confessed that Dennet was saucy! It was her weapon of self-
defence, and she considered herself insulted in her own house.
There she stood, exalted on a tall pair of pattens before the stout
oaken table in the kitchen where a glowing fire burned; pewter, red and
yellow earthenware, and clean scrubbed trenchers made a goodly show, a
couple of men-cooks and twice as many scullions obeyed her behests--only
the superior of the two first ever daring to argue a point with her.
There she stood, in her white apron, with sleeves turned up, daintily
compounding her mince-meat for Christmas, when in stalked Mrs Headley
to offer her counsel and aid--but this was lost in a volley of barking
from the long-backed, bandy-legged, turnspit dog, which was awaiting its
turn at the wheel, and which ran forward, yapping with malign intentions
towards the dame's scarlet-hosed ankles.
She shook her petticoats at him, but Dennet tittered even while
declaring that Tray hurt nobody. Mrs Headley reviled the dog, and then
proceeded to advise Dennet that she should chop her citron finer.
Dennet made answer "that father liked a good stout piece of it."
Mistress Headley offered to take the chopper and instruct her how to
compound all in the true Sarum style.
"Grammercy, mistress, but we follow my grand-dame's recipe!" said
Dennet, grasping her implement firmly.
"Come, child, be not above taking a lesson from thine elders! Where's
the goose? What?" as the girl looked amazed, "where hast thou lived not
to know that a live goose should be bled into the mince-meat?"
"I have never lived with barbarous, savage folk," said Dennet--and
therewith she burst into an irrepressible fit of laughter, trying in
vain to check it, for a small and mischievous elf, freshly promoted to
the office of scullion, had crept up and pinned a dish-cloth to the
substantial petticoats, and as Mistress Headley whisked round to see
what was the matter, like a kitten after its tail, it followed her like
a train, while she rushed to box the ears of the offender, crying:
"You set him on, you little saucy vixen! I saw it in your eyes. Let
the rascal be scourged."
"Not so," said Dennet, with prim mouth and laughing eyes. "Far be it
from me! But 'tis ever the wont of the kitchen, when those come there
who have no call thither."
Mistress Headley flounced away, dish-cloth and all, to go whimpering to
the alderman with her tale of insults. She trusted that her cousin
would give the pert wench a good beating. She was not a whit too old
for it.
"How oft did you beat Giles, good kinswoman?" said Dennet demurely, as
she stood by her father.
"Whisht, whisht, child," said her father, "this may not be! I cannot
have my guest flouted."
"If she act as our guest, I will treat her with all honour and
courtesy," said the maiden; "but when she comes where we look not for
guests, there is no saying what the black guard may take it on them to
do."
Master Headley was mischievously tickled at the retort, and not without
hope that it might offend his kinswoman into departing; but she
contented herself with denouncing all imaginable evils from Dennet's
ungoverned condition, with which she was prevented in her beneficence
from interfering by the father's foolish fondness. He would rue the
day!
Meantime if the alderman's peace on one side was disturbed by his
visitor, on the other, suitors for Dennet's hand gave him little rest.
She was known to be a considerable heiress, and though Mistress Headley
gave every one to understand that there was a contract with Giles, and
that she was awaiting his return, this did not deter more wooers than
Dennet ever knew of, from making proposals to her father. Jasper Hope
was offered, but he was too young, and besides, was a mercer--and Dennet
and her father were agreed that her husband must go on with the trade.
Then there was a master-armourer, but he was a widower with sons and
daughters as old as Dennet, and she shook her head and laughed at the
bare notion. There also came a young knight who would have turned the
Dragon court into a tilt-yard, and spent all the gold that long years of
prudent toil had amassed.
If Mistress Headley deemed each denial the result of her vigilance for
her son's interests, she was the more impelled to expatiate on the folly
of leaving a maid of sixteen to herself, to let the household go to rack
and ruin; while as to the wench, she might prank herself in her own
conceit, but no honest man would soon look at her for a wife, if her
father left her to herself, without giving her a good stepmother, or at
least putting a kinswoman in authority over her.
The alderman was stung. He certainly had warmed a snake on his hearth,
and how was he to be rid of it? He secretly winked at the resumption of
a forge fire that had been abandoned, because the noise and smoke
incommoded the dwelling-house, and Kit Smallbones hammered his loudest
there, when the guest might be taking her morning nap; but this had no
effect in driving her away, though it may have told upon her temper; and
good-humoured Master Headley was harassed more than he had ever been in
his life.
"It puts me past my patience," said he, turning into Tibble's special
workshop one afternoon. "Here hath Mistress Hillyer of the Eagle been
with me full of proposals that I would give my poor wench to that
scapegrace lad of hers, who hath been twice called to account before the
guild, but who now, forsooth, is to turn over a new leaf."
"So I wis would the Dragon under him," quoth Tibble.
"I told her 'twas not to be thought of, and then what does the dame but
sniff the air and protest that I had better take heed, for there may not
be so many who would choose a spoilt, misruled maid like mine. There's
the work of yonder Sarum woman. I tell thee, Tib, never was bull in the
ring more baited than am I."
"Yea, sir," returned Tib, "there'll be no help for it till our young
mistress be wed."
"Ay! that's the rub! But I've not seen one whom I could mate with her--
let alone one who would keep up the old house. Giles would have done
that passably, though he were scarce worthy of the wench, even
without--" An expressive shake of the head denoted the rest. "And now
if he ever come home at all, 'twill be as a foul-mouthed, plundering
scarecrow, like the kites of men-at-arms, who, if they lose not their
lives, lose all that makes an honest life in the Italian wars. I would
have writ to Edmund Burgess, but I hear his elder brother is dead, and
he is driving a good traffic at York. Belike too he is wedded."
"Nay," said Tibble, "I could tell of one who would be true and faithful
to your worship, and a loving husband to Mistress Dennet, ay, and would
be a master that all of us would gladly cleave to. For he is godly
after his lights, and sound-hearted, and wots what good work be, and can
do it."
"That were a son-in-law, Tib! Of who speakest thou? Is he of good
birth?"
"Yea, of gentle birth and breeding."
"And willing? But that they all are. Wherefore then hath he never made
suit?"
"He hath not yet his freedom."
"Who be it then?"
"He that made this elbow-piece for the suit that Queen Margaret ordered
for the little King of Scots," returned Tibble, producing an exquisite
miniature bit of workmanship.
"Stephen Birkenholt! The fool's nephew! Mine own prentice!"
"Yea, and the best worker in steel we have yet turned out. Since the
sickness of last winter hath stiffened my joints and dimmed mine eyes, I
had rather trust dainty work such as this to him than to myself."
"Stephen! Tibble, hath he set thee on to this?"
"No, sir. We both know too well what becometh us; but when you were
casting about for a mate for my young mistress, I could not but think
how men seek far, and overlook the jewel at their feet."
"He hath nought! That brother of his will give him nought."
"He hath what will be better for the old Dragon and for your worship's
self, than many a bag of gold, sir."
"Thou sayst truly there, Tib. I know him so far that he would not be
the ingrate Jack to turn his back on the old master or the old man. He
is a good lad. But--but--I've ever set my face against the prentice
wedding the master's daughter, save when he is of her own house, like
Giles. Tell me, Tibble, deemst thou that the varlet hath dared to lift
his eyes to the lass?"
"I wot nothing of love!" said Tibble, somewhat grimly. "I have seen
nought. I only told your worship where a good son and a good master
might be had. Is it your pleasure, sir, that we take in a freight of
sea-coal from Simon Collier for the new furnace? His is purest, if a
mark more the chaldron."
He spoke as if he put the recommendation of the son and master on the
same line as that of the coal. Mr Headley answered the business
matters absently, and ended by saying he would think on the council.
In Tibble's workroom, with the clatter of a forge close to them, they
had not heard a commotion in the court outside. Dennet had been
standing on the steps cleaning her tame starling's cage, when Mistress
Headley had suddenly come out on the gallery behind her, hotly scolding
her laundress, and waving her cap to show how ill-starched it was.
The bird had taken fright and flown to the tree in the court; Dennet
hastened in pursuit, but all the boys and children in the court rushing
out after her, her blandishments had no chance, and "Goldspot" had
fluttered on to the gateway. Stephen had by this time come out, and
hastened to the gate, hoping to turn the truant back from escaping into
Cheapside; but all in vain, it flew out while the market was in full
career, and he could only call back to her that he would not lose sight
of it.
Out he hurried, Dennet waiting in a sort of despair by the tree for a
time that seemed to her endless, until Stephen reappeared under the
gate, with a signal that all was well. She darted to meet him. "Yea,
mistress, here he is, the little caitiff. He was just knocked down by
this country lad's cap--happily not hurt. I told him you would give him
a tester for your bird."
"With all my heart!" and Dennet produced the coin. "Oh! Stephen, are
you sure he is safe? Thou bad Goldspot, to fly away from me! Wink with
thine eye--thou saucy rogue! Wottest thou not but for Stephen they
might be blinding thy sweet blue eyes with hot needles?"
"His wing is grown since the moulting," said Stephen. "It should be cut
to hinder such mischances."
"Will you do it? I will hold him," said Dennet.
"Ah! 'tis pity, the beauteous green gold-bedropped wing--that no armour
of thine can equal, Stephen, not even that for the little King of Scots.
But shouldst not be so silly a bird, Goldie, even though thou hast
thine excuse. There! Peck not, ill birdling. Know thy friends, Master
Stare."
And with such pretty nonsense the two stood together, Dennet in her
white cap, short crimson kirtle, little stiff collar, and white bib and
apron, holding her bird upside down in one hand, and with the other
trying to keep his angry beak from pecking Stephen, who, in his leathern
coat and apron, grimed, as well as his crisp black hair, with soot,
stood towering above her, stooping to hold out the lustrous wing with
one hand while he used his smallest pair of shears with the other to
clip the pen-feathers.
"See there, Master Alderman," cried Mistress Headley, bursting on him
from the gallery stairs. "Be that what you call fitting for your
daughter and your prentice, a beggar lad from the heath? I ever told
you she would bring you to shame, thus left to herself. And now you see
it."
Their heads had been near together over the starling, but at this
objurgation they started apart, both crimson in the cheeks, and Dennet
flew up to her father, bird in hand, crying, "O father, father! suffer
her not. He did no wrong. He was cutting my bird's wing."
"I suffer no one to insult my child in her own house," said the
alderman, so much provoked as to be determined to put an end to it all
at once. "Stephen Birkenholt, come here."
Stephen came, cap in hand, red in the face, with a strange tumult in his
heart, ready to plead guilty, though he had done nothing, but imagining
at the moment that his feelings had been actions.
"Stephen," said the alderman, "thou art a true and worthy lad! Canst
thou love my daughter?"
"I--I crave your pardon, sir, there was no helping it," stammered
Stephen, not catching the tone of the strange interrogation, and
expecting any amount of terrible consequences for his presumption.
"Then thou wilt be a faithful spouse to her, and son to me? And Dennet,
my daughter, hast thou any distaste to this youth--though he bring
nought but skill and honesty!"
"O, father, father! I--I had rather have him than any other!"
"Then, Stephen Birkenholt and Dennet Headley, ye shall be man and wife,
so soon as the young man's term be over, and he be a freeman--so he
continue to be that which he seems at present. Thereto I give my word,
I, Giles Headley, Alderman of the Chepe Ward, and thereof ye are
witnesses, all of you. And God's blessing on it."
A tremendous hurrah arose, led by Kit Smallbones, from every workman in
the court, and the while Stephen and Dennet, unaware of anything else,
flew into one another's arms, while Goldspot, on whom the operation had
been fortunately completed, took refuge upon Stephen's head.
"O, Mistress Dennet, I have made you black all over!" was Stephen's
first word.
"Heed not, I ever loved the black!" she cried, as her eyes sparkled.
"So I have done what was to thy mind, my lass?" said Master Headley,
who, without ever having thought of consulting his daughter, was
delighted to see that her heart was with him.
"Sir, I did not know fully--but indeed I should never have been so happy
as I am now.
"Sir," added Stephen, putting his knee to the ground, "it nearly wrung
my heart to think of her as belonging to another, though I never durst
utter aught,"--and while Dennet embraced her father, Stephen sobbed for
very joy, and with difficulty said in broken words something about a
"son's duty and devotion."
They were broken in upon by Mistress Headley, who, after standing in
mute consternation, fell on them in a fury. She understood the device
now! All had been a scheme laid amongst them for defrauding her poor
fatherless child, driving him away, and taking up this beggarly brat.
She had seen through the little baggage from the first, and she pitied
Master Headley. Rage was utterly ungovernable in those days, and she
actually was flying to attack Dennet with her nails when the alderman
caught her by the wrists; and she would have been almost too much for
him, had not Kit Smallbones come to his assistance, and carried her,
kicking and screaming like a naughty child, into the house. There was
small restraint of temper in those days even in high life, and below it,
there was some reason for the employment of the padlock and the ducking
stool.
Floods of tears restored the dame to some sort of composure; but she
declared she could stay no longer in a house where her son had been ill-
used and deceived, and she had been insulted. The alderman thought the
insult had been the other way, but he was too glad to be rid of her on
any terms to gainsay her, and at his own charge, undertook to procure
horse and escort to convey her safely to Salisbury the next morning. He
advised Stephen to keep out of her sight for the rest of the day, giving
leave of absence, so that the youth, as one treading on air, set forth
to carry to his brother, his aunt, and if possible, his uncle, the
intelligence that he could as yet hardly believe was more than a happy
dream.