IN WHICH PTOLEMY PHILPOT COMMENCES HIS STUDY OF THE LATIN TONGUE
It is, I conceive, natural in a young man to use more time than wisdom
in the building of hopes which be little else than dreams, though they
appear then more solid than gross reality. Thus I, in laying out my
future, saw all as clear as our own park-lands, and where I misliked
anything there I altered, working with a free hand, until the aspect of
my condition was at all points to my taste, and I itched to enter
forthwith into the manhood I had so diligently imagined.
Unwittingly, perhaps, I had allowed Simon Powell's tales of fantasy to
get the mastery of my mind, and in such sort that no prince of all his
mountains ever marched so lightly from adventure to adventure, nor came
off with so much grace and so acclaimed as I. My life (I told myself)
was to borrow no whit of my father's aversion from the world, which
disposition of his, for all my pity of the cause of it, I could not
find it in my heart to praise. Alas! I was but nineteen years of my
age, and pride was strong within me, and the lust of combat.
With Simon himself I consorted less frequently than of old, for I stood
already in the estate of a master; being acknowledged as such by all,
from Peter Sprot himself to the maids who came into the fields for the
gleaning, and courtsey'd to me as I rode between the stooks on my white
mare. But although I had necessarily become parted from my wild
preceptor, I had, as I say, my mind tutored to dreaming, which but for
Simon might have been dull and content with petty things, whereas it
was with a gay arrogance that I now regarded the ordering of the world,
and held myself ordained a champion to make all well. For this I
hereby thank Simon Powell with all my heart; and indeed it is a benefit
well-nigh inestimable. To such a height then had this humour of
errantry gone, that I would snatch at every occasion to gratify it; and
so would ride forth through the gate before the grey Combe Court, and
setting my mare at a gallop, would traverse the lanes athwart which the
level morning sun cast bars of pale gold and the trees their shadows,
and be up on the wide rolling moors or ever the mists were stirring in
the valley or the labourers risen to their tasks. Many a fancy held my
busy brain at such times, and as I looked backward upon our great
irregular house, which was built, a part of it, in the year of
Agincourt, so quiet it lay amidst its woods and pasture lands that it
seemed a place enchanted, upon which some magician had stolen with a
spell of sleep. 'Twas no home for active men, I said, and laughed as I
turned away and urged my poor jade again onward. Contempt is very
close to joy in a lad's heart, and his valour rouses (like old Rome) to
the summons of the goose-voice within him.
Some six months had passed since the steward first acquainted me with
the calamity which had made shipwreck of my father's life, when, upon a
memorable, clear, October morning, I rode forth as my custom was,
intending to shape my course towards the little hamlet of Roodwater,
and so by the flats to Dunster. The orchard-trees about the old Abbey
were rimed with frost, and a keenness in the air lifted me so that I
could have wept or sung indifferently. The dawn had scarce broke when
I set out, and 'twas not till I had ridden three or four miles that the
smoky redness of the sun showed between the pine stems on a spur of
hill behind me. My thoughts were all of victory, and in this temper
the events of the time, albeit I am no politician, confirmed me. For
news had reached us a little since of the disclosure of that horrid
plot of Throgmorton and the two Earls against Her Grace and our most
dear Sovereign, and of how sundry suspected persons of high estate were
arrested and confined. The Papists everywhere were said to be in great
confusion, for though many, and some said the most part, were loyal
subjects enough, yet the defection and proved villainy of the rest
shook all faith in those that professed still the old religion and
allegiance to the Pope. The Queen's ships were straitly ordered to
watch the ports, and even as I descended the hill beyond Roodwater to
the seashore, I saw, a little off Watchet Quay, a ship of war riding at
anchor, and a cock-boat pulling away from her side.
Moreover, it was no great while since, by order of Her Majesty's
Council, that notable Bond of Association had been signed for the
better defence of the Queen, my father signing with the rest, as a
chief person of these parts and a magistrate.
I am no politician, as I say, but there is small need of knowledge in
State affairs to make a man love his home; and when a plot of the
magnitude which this of Fr. Throgmorton's had, is brought to light,
why, every man is a politician perforce and a soldier too.
For Queen Mary Stuart, who was now more closely guarded, as indeed was
meet, and who later was to be led to her death, I say nought of her,
for tales be many, and men's minds confused, when it comes to question
of a woman sinning, and that the fairest of them all. That she was
guilty I suppose no one reasonably doubteth, and obnoxious to peace and
good government, but, when all is said, there is the pity of slaying a
delicate lady in order to the securing ourselves; and such a deed makes
quiet a cowardly thing, and puts a colour of shame on justice herself.
But that business was not come yet by two years and more, and for the
present all our thoughts were of gratitude for our deliverance from the
subtlety of forsworn plotters, and of courage and loyalty and the will
to be feared.
I spurred my mare down the rough lane, and was soon out upon the level
shore of the bay, beyond which lies Dunster in a fold of steep moor,
and the wooded promontory of Minehead further to the west. The tide
was out as I rode at full gallop along the bow of thin turf which
bounds the coast; while across the reach of sand the little waves
lapped and fretted with a sweet, low sound.
The sun was now risen pretty high, and the fisher-folk were busied here
and there with their nets and tackle as I passed them by. It was nigh
eight o'clock when I drew rein in Dunster market, before the chief inn
there--a clean place, and of good entertainment. My purpose was
immediately to break my fast, for I had a fierceness of hunger upon me
by reason of the sharp air and the early hour, and afterwards to visit
a certain sea captain whom I knew to be lodged there, Mr. Jonas Cutts,
of the _Three Lanterns_, one of Her Majesty's ships, though but a small
one; he being a gentleman I had met with upon the occasion of my
father's signing the Bond of Defence. What my further purpose was, if
indeed 'twere aught but to hear wonders and talk big about the
Spaniards, I cannot now charge my remembrance, but to him I was
determined to go after breakfast and waste an hour before returning
home.
I inquired his lodging out, therefore, over my dish of eggs, but
learned to my disappointment that he had left it suddenly, before
daybreak, to join his ship at Minehead, where it lay. This
intelligence, little though it affected me, save as it robbed my
idleness of some plea of purpose, I took ill enough, rating my host
like the angry boy I was, and dispraising the closeness of the ward
upon our coasts, though I had formerly praised the same, and indeed had
meant to enlarge with the captain upon this very theme.
In a very sour humour then I departed from the inn, and while my mare
was baiting took a turn about the town.
And so fair did I find all, the high street wide and sweet and the
houses thereon neat and well ordered, the great castle, moreover, on a
mount at the nether end, very fencible and stately builded, that it was
not long ere my spirits rose again, and I thought no more upon Captain
Cutts and his departing. Methought the countryside had never seemed so
pleasant as now under its web of frost, and the trees a kind of blue of
the colour of silver-work tarnished by age, the sky red behind them
reaching up from grey. I left the middle part of the town soon and got
into the lanes, where at length I came by chance upon an ancient mill,
which was once, I learned, a monkish mill whither every man had
perforce to bring his grain to be ground. Now as I stood idly by the
gate of the mill-house I heard voices of men in talk, and, without
further intention, could not but catch some words of their discourse.
It was evident that a bargain was going forward, and that one sold
grudgingly.
"Nay," said the one voice, "for this standard of red buckram,
sevenpence and no less, Master Ptolemy."
"Thou puttest me to uncommon great charges, Master Skegs," replied the
other invisible; "what with thy gilding and thy scarlet hoods, and now
this standard of the devil! Ay, and besides there is that crazy mitre
of Cayphas, which, o' my conscience, is not worth the half a groat."
"'A cost me two shillings not twelvemonth since," cried the first
invisible in a manifest rage, "yet am I willing to sell it thee for one
shilling and ninepence as I have set it down in the bill, where is also
to be found a coat of skins; item, a tabard; item, Herod's crest of
iron; all which I have grossly undervalued. Ah! there be some," he
interjected, in a whining voice, "there be some that would buy up all
Jewry for a parcel of bawdy, torn ballads. Art not ashamed, Ptolemy
Philpot, thou a Christian man, to purchase so divine a tragedy for so
mean a sum?" But the invisible Ptolemy not replying, the invisible
Skegs proceeded:
"Well, thou hast heard my price, master, which is three pounds sixteen
shillings in all, and look you! to avoid all bitterness and to make an
end, I will throw in the parchment beasts of the Deluge for the same."
What manner of cheapening was here I could not conceive, and so (still
chiding my lack of manners) crept through the gate and to a coign of
the mill-house, where I might observe these strange traders in
parchment beasts and red buckram. And observe them I did, indeed, and
they me at the same instant; which discovery so confused me that I
stood before them first on one foot and then on the other, with no
sense to go or stay, nor to cover my discourtesy with any plausible
excuse. Howbeit, one, whom I took (and rightly) to be Ptolemy, burst
into laughter at this my detected intrusion, and bade me step forward
and judge betwixt them. He was a big man, with a child's face for all
that he wore a great beard, and a terrible nose of the colour of the
stone they call agate, it being veined too and marvellous shining. Yet
his voice was small like a child's, and I saw at once that in any
bargain he was like to get the worse of it. The other man, whose name
was Skegs, had a woeful pallor, but an undaunted behaviour and a very
fierce eye. Between them stood the cause of their difference, which
was a sort of wheeled pageant or cart of two stages; the upper being
open and about five feet in breadth, with a painted cloth behind; the
lower room enclosed, and was, I learned, for the convenience and
disposal of the puppet master (this being a puppet-show and the puppets
appearing, as players do, on the stage above).
Coming forward, then, as I was bidden, I very modestly awaited the
argument between Mr. Skegs and Ptolemy, being pleased to be trusted in
so notable a cause. But it fell out otherwise, for Skegs swore by the
body of St. Rumbold he would have no arbitrament, and that his price
was three pound and sixteen shillings, as he had already said.
"It is a great sum," said Ptolemy, in his piping reed voice.
"How, great?" retorted Skegs, "seeing I sell thee the pageant-car
itself, together with Nicodemus, Pilate, and four stout Torturers,
besides the holy folk, and all their appurtenance. And were I not at
the gate of the grave myself, I would not part with so much as Joseph's
beard for twice this reckoning."
"He gives you also certain parchment beasts, Mr. Ptolemy," said I, very
judicially.
"I retract the beasts," cried the pageant master, whose red eyes blazed
terribly, and he danced with vexation of my ruling.
"Look you, now," grumbled Ptolemy, running his great hand through his
beard, "was ever such a fellow!"
"'Tis a part of the Deluge," said Mr. Skegs, "and to bring in beasts
before the judgment-seat of Pilate were against all Scripture. But
contrariwise, as it toucheth the Interlude of the Deluge, mass! without
those beasts of mine, the cats and dogs too (as the verse goes)--
"'Otter, fox, fulmart also;
Hares hopping gaily'
withouten these wherefore was Noah's ark builded, and so great a stir
made?"
"But if you be about to die, Master Skegs," I put in, "as you say you
are, of what advantage is this same Deluge to you?"
"Ay, truly," cried Ptolemy, "for thou hast no wife, man, nor any
dependent on thee. So thou be decently buried, 'tis all one whether I
have the parchment beasts or thou."
"Would you spoil me of my heritage?" cried the pallid man in an
extremity of rage, "and strip me naked before I be come to the grave?
I say thou shalt not have the beasts."
"Wilt thou sell me the Deluge outright?" asked Ptolemy after a silence,
"for I am no hand at this chaffering."
"Ay, for a further fourteen shillings, I will," said Skegs promptly,
"which maketh in all four pounds and ten shillings; and for that, I
give thee Noah, a new figure of wood, and Noah's wife, who truly is
somewhat worsened by usage, but not past mending; Shem also, Ham and
Japhet, stalwart lads all, and their wives corresponding. An ark there
is, moreover, which was builded in Rye by a shipwright out of battens
and good gummed canvas. The beasts be all whole, save the weasel, but
that signifieth not. I have a schedule of them, and the parts of the
players in good scrivener's hand. All these shalt thou have for a
matter of four pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence."
"Four pounds and ten shillings, Master Skegs," said Ptolemy, dismayed
at this unconscionable addition.
"Said I aught of the ark when I named that price?" asked Skegs
scornfully. "Wouldst thou haggle with a dying man, Ptolemy Philpot?"
"I will furnish the remainder shillings," I whispered to Ptolemy, who
stood in a maze to answer such imposture as Skegs sought to lay upon
him. "Strike the bargain, Mr. Ptolemy, and pay when thou hast checked
over the tale of beasts."
[Illustration: The argument between Mr. Skegs & Ptolemy. Chapter II]
He thanked me like a pleased stripling, and, to be short, purchased all
for the sum named, which, there being seven or eight pieces not found,
and Japhet's leg burst from the pin, methought sufficient, albeit Mr.
Skegs at every turn sought to increase it, or else detract some piece
of note, as Mount Ararat in pasteboard and the dove with a sprig of
olive.
"I have forgot the raven," he screamed after us, as at length we went
away with our cartful of miracles. "'Twas new varnished at Michaelmas,
and there is the cost of the varnish you must repay me, which is
three-pence halfpenny," at which, when we replied not, he ran into the
mill-house in a sort of fury, and as I understood, died there a week
later, muttering upon his "cocks and kites and crows," his
"Rooks and ravens, many rows;
Cuckoos, curlews, whoso knows,
Each one in his kind;"
and putting a price upon each particular fowl, like any poulter in
Cheape. I never met a man so engrossed in business to so little
purpose, nor one (to do him justice) so little put out of his humour of
acquisition by the near approach of death. He had bought the mill, so
Ptolemy told me, out of his former profits, knowing nothing of the
miller's trade, but because it was to be got at an advantage.
When we were out of the yard Mr. Philpot again thanked me immoderately
for my aid, which he said he would never forget (and as the event
proved, he did not); and told me moreover that he was bred to the
wax-chandlery, but had left it, having a taste for letters.
"How will this pageant help you any whit the more to study?" I asked
him.
"I shall go about the country," he replied, "and so I doubt not shall
fall in with very famous scholars, who are often to be found where they
be least expected. Have you ever read Horace now?" he asked me quickly.
I told him, a little.
"When I shall have learned Latin," he said, in his childlike manner, "I
shall do so also, and, indeed, I have bought his Satires already, but
can make little of them. The Romans must have been a marvellous
learned people," he observed with a sigh, "and 'tis small wonder they
conquered the world."
"Is there any attendance upon these old interludes?" I demanded, as we
passed upward through the town towards my inn, where I was to take out
my mare.
"Why, as to that," he replied something moodily, "I know not certainly
as yet, although I hope so, seeing that my proficiency in the Latin
tongue dependeth upon the popular favour towards them; and, indeed, I
may have been over eager at the bidding, since there doubtless hath
been some decline from the love of such plays that the vulgar was used
to show upon all occasions of their being enacted. Notwithstanding, I
have a design, as yet unperfected, by which, if I get no hearing for my
mysteries and moralities, I may yet prosper; and that is (to let you
into the secret), to turn this musty Deluge into a modern battle upon
the high seas, with Mr. John Hawkins for Noah--good seamen both; the
figure of Japhet, too, that hath by good fortune lost a leg, might
serve, with but slight alteration, for a veteran tall boatswain, and
Ham with the red beard, would as readily become a master-gunner. Ay, a
little skill would do all, Mr. Cleeve; and for the Spaniards, why, such
as were necessary to my purpose might be fashioned out of the greater
beasts, without any very notable difference from the original."
I would have questioned him further upon this venture of his, which was
surely as bold as any that Mr. Hawkins had made to the coast of Guinea
or the Indies, had not I at that moment espied our overseer, Peter
Sprot, by the door of the inn, his horse blown and sweating, and
himself sitting stiff with hard riding. I ran to him at once,
demanding if he sought me, which I knew already was so, and felt a fear
at my heart lest my father was suddenly fallen ill.
"His worship is not ill," replied Peter, "but sore troubled, and sends
for you home without delay." He cast a hard eye upon Ptolemy Philpot
as he spoke, for he had observed us in company, and being something
strait in matters of religion, held shows and dancing and such-like to
be idolatry and lewd sport. I have known him break a babe's rattle
that shook it on a Sunday, and quote the Pentateuch in defence of his
action.
"What hath troubled him, Peter?" I asked eagerly, while the ostler
brought out my mare.
"'Tis a letter," he said, and with that shut his mouth, so that I knew
it was vain to inquire further.
Now, as I was managing my beast, that was restive with the cold air,
comes Mr. Ptolemy to my side, and ere I understood his purpose had
thrust up a little parchment-bound book for me to read the title of it,
whispering that he would have read it long since himself, but that
'twas in Latin.
I told him briefly I could not read it then, being in an itch to be
gone; but he still detained me.
"There is one particular word there set down," said he, "that I have
often lighted upon in other books also, which if you would translate
'twould ease me mightily."
"What word is that?" cried I, impatiently.
"It is _Quemadmodum_," said he.
But before I could interpret to him, my mare had scoured away after
Peter Sprot's hackney, and we were a bowshot distant ere I had
recovered my seat.