IN WHICH I SAY FAREWELL THRICE
In the middle of the month of November our business was pretty well
settled, and the day of my departure ordained, which was to be upon the
Wednesday following, there being a friend of my father's about to
journey to Devizes on that day, with whom it was intended I should so
far travel. To be honest, it was with some feelings of concern that I
expected this my first entrance into the world, where I was to meet
with a sort of folk I had no knowledge of: learned attorneys of the
Inns, Judges of the Queen's Bench (if we ever got so far); and that
gaunt figure of the Constable with the keys of the Tower at his girdle
and a constant lamentation of prisoners in his ear. My duty at the
beginning was plain enough, my father having often rehearsed the same
to me; as that I should take lodging in Fetter Lane at the house of one
Malt, a hosier, who should use me honestly, he being a West-Country
man. Thereafter and as soon as my convenience would allow, I was to
betake myself to a certain goldsmith of repute, whose shop stood hard
by the new Burse in Cornhill, and there receive gold in exchange for
the letters I bore, the which my father had gotten upon articles signed
in Exeter. So provided, I was to put myself under the direction and
command of Mr. Skene, who would employ me as his occasions required.
The last day of my home-keeping broke in fair weather, of which I was
glad, for I purposed to spend it in bidding farewell to my neighbours
and the persons I especially loved about the estate.
And first I sought my old companion Simon, whom I found by the brook,
in a place where there be otters, some ten or twelve furlongs up the
valley that descends into our combe from the westward, where the trees
grow very thickly and in summer there is a pleasant shade. Thither we
had often gone together in times past, and there I shrewdly guessed I
should discover him.
I came upon him crouched beside the stream among the withered bracken,
his cross-bow laid aside with which he had been fowling, and a great
dead pheasant cock in the grass at his feet. I hailed him twice before
he heard me, when he rose at once and spreading his sheepskin mantle
for me (the air being very bitter) he told me he had thought I forgot
him.
"I should not have gone without bidding thee farewell, Simon," I
replied, for his reproach stung me the more that I had neglected him of
late, and knew not wherefore. "I have been deeply engaged about this
journey to London, and the hours I have been idle my mind hath been too
anxious for chat. 'Tis an employment I mislike, Simon," I said
earnestly, "and one I do not see to the end of."
"When does his worship think it will be concluded?" asked Simon Powell.
"Oh, these things depend upon their law-terms," I said, willing to let
him perceive my knowledge in such affairs. "The Bench doth not try
causes unremittingly."
"Ay," he said, nodding, the while he regarded me with a strange look of
the eyes, "but subject to the judges' convenience, I would have said.
Will you return by Lady Day, think you?"
"Why, that is four months distant," I cried, for his question had
something startled me. "I shall surely be safe home in half that time."
But Simon shook his head. "Since I first heard of this errand," he
said, "the thought of it hath never left me, sleeping nor waking, Mr.
Denis. And as there be some things that every man may tell certainly
that they will happen, as the seasons to pass in due order, and the red
deer to come down to the pools in the evening, and the sun to set and
rise; so there be other things, though not in the rule of nature, which
a man may yet discern that hath bent his will that way. So did that
knight who, in a dream, saw strange and way-worn men bringing tribute
to Arthur from the Islands of Greece, which was not then, but was
certainly to be, and now in these days we shall see the same; ay,
Arthur receiving tribute from all the nations and not Greece only, and
everywhere triumphing."
I sat suspended in amaze while he spoke thus, his dark eyes sparkling
and his fingers straitly interlaced. It was a mood he had never before
revealed, though he had often, as I have said, told me tales of his old
heroes and wizards, but not with this stress of fervour and (as it
were) prophetic sureness. Such power as he manifested in his words
surely confounds distinctions of rank and erases the badge of servant.
For there may be no mastery over them that can convince our souls, as
this Welsh lad convinced mine.
When he spoke again, it was with some shame in his voice, as though he
had betrayed his secret mind and feared my laughter; which had he known
it, he need by no means have done.
"My meaning is," he went on, "that I feel this adventure which you set
about will continue longer than you imagine, Mr. Denis, though I have
no proof thereof; at least, none I may put into words; and you may well
deride the notion. Notwithstanding, it sticks with me that you will
not return to the Combe Court until many a strange accident shall have
befallen, of which we be now ignorant."
"Why, however long it be, Simon," said I cheerily, for I wished to
lighten our conversation somewhat, "you may rest well-assured of my
remembrance of you, and that though I wander as far forth as to those
same Islands of Greece you spake of, yet shall my affections draw me
home again."
He leapt to his feet at that, with an apparent gladness that warmed me
marvellously, though 'twas but a frolic sentence I had made, and spoken
smiling. So do we often probe into the future with a jest, and, as it
were, speak the fool's prologue to our own tragedy.
Our leaving-taking ended in laughter, then, as perhaps 'tis best, and
Simon remaining to shoot fowl, I left him to bid farewell to old Peter
Sprot; who gave me good advice in the matter of stage-plays and the
choice of food, which I promised, so far as I was able, to observe.
"For other things," he said, "I leave you to your conscience, master,
as in the end, 'tis necessary. But this I say: that I have small love
of players, and such as, not content with the condition and quality
they were born to, must needs pretend to principalities and lordships,
which they sustain for a weary hour or so, and after return, like the
swine of the Scripture, to their wallowing in the mire."
"I think there is no probability of my playing any prince's part,
Peter," quoth I.
"Nor of seeing it played neither, I hope," he replied, "for though we
be all sinners, yet we sinners that witness neither stage-plays nor
pageants, Mr. Denis, be hugely better than they that do; and mark me,
sir, it shall so appear hereafter."
This I knew to be a thrust at Mr. Ptolemy and his puppet-show no less
than at the public theatre in Finsbury Fields, which had then been set
up about seven or eight years.
"Eat beef and mutton, Mr. Denis," he proceeded gravely, "and fish also.
There is a good market for fish in London, though they that vend there
be something inclined to blasphemy; I know not wherefore; but strange
dishes eschew, and particularly those of the French. For the French
nation is given up to Popery, dancing and the compounding of
unwholesome foods. Nay, this late commerce of our nobility with the
effeminate and godless Frenchmen hath gone far to the ruin of both
stomach and religion that should be simply fed, the one by such meats
as I have named, mutton (eaten with onions, Mr. Denis), beef, and in
cold weather, pork; the other by sound doctrine and preaching of the
Word." He paused awhile, and I thought had concluded his admonition;
when he seemed to recover something notable. "There be divers ways of
dressing a capon, Mr. Denis," said he, "of which the goodwife hath a
particular knowledge, as also of the sauces to be served therewith.
These I will, by your leave, procure to be transcribed for your use,
and so, God keep you."
I thanked him heartily for his good will, although I secretly admired
the fashion in which he interlarded sound doctrine with strong meats.
But every man out of the abundance of his heart speaketh, and I knew
that Peter dealt with me lovingly in meddling virtue with appetite in
so singular a manner. Now, when I had parted from the honest steward,
I considered with myself whom next I should salute, and determined that
it should be the maidservants and Ursula the cook; and to this end
returned toward the house, but unwillingly, for I have ever been
abashed in the presence of womenfolk, at least within doors, where a
man is at a disadvantage but they at their ease. And so greatly did
this distaste and backwardness grow upon me that I hung about the gate
of the yard behind the house, fearing to venture forward, and as it
were into a den of mocking lions, until I should more perfectly have
rehearsed my farewell speeches. It was then (as I always believe) that
a door was opened unto me of that Providence which rules our motions,
and a way of escape made plain; the which door was my old pedagogue,
Mr. Jordan, whom I suddenly remembered (though I had scarce thought
upon him these two years) and whom I had such a compelling inclination
to visit as sent the maids out of my head, and my heels out of the yard
on the instant. When I bade good-bye to Ursula and the rest on the
morrow, I was in the open air and mounted, so that I cared not a jot
for their laughter (which indeed soon led into tears; my own being
pretty near to my eyes too), but made them a great speech as full of
ego as a schoolboy's first lesson in Latin.
Up the hill towards Mr. Jordan's house I climbed therefore to beg his
blessing upon me, and to thank him for all he had done for me in times
past. It was near dinner-time by this, and I conceived the kindness of
cooking the old scholar's meal for him as he lay in bed; for I doubted
not to find him so, as I had rarely found him otherwise than on his
pallet with a great folio or two by way of counterpane, and a Plato's
"Republick" to his pillow. There had been a little snow fallen in the
night which still clung upon the uplands, and when I had ascended to
his dwelling I found a drift about the door and the thatched eaves
considerably laden upon the weather side of them with snow. But what
surprised me mightily was certain vestiges before the threshold, and
regularly iterated, as by a sentinel's marchings to and fro. My
bewilderment increased moreover, or rather gave place to alarm when I
chanced to observe beside the window of that I knew for his study (to
wit the room he slept in), a great halberd resting, and a military
steel cap. Then did I painfully call to mind those former pursuits of
my poor old preceptor when (as was reported) he had been a novice in
the old Abbey of Cleeve, and knowing the present ill estimation in
which the Papists everywhere were held, I understood that Mr. Jordan
had not escaped the vigilance of the Commission, but was now under
arrest, or at least that his liberty was so encroached on as made it
mere confinement within his own house. Greatly distressed for this
opinion, I approached near to the little window, of which the shutter
(there being no glass) hung on the jar, and timorously gazed within.
The bed stood empty, and no one that I could see was in the chamber.
This confirmed me in my suspicion, and at the same time emboldened me
to demand admittance. Some hope that my witness (or rather the weight
of our authority) would bestead him, moved me to this course, and I
knocked loudly on the door. Hardly had I done so, when I heard from
within a horrid clatter of arms upon the flags as of a man falling in a
scuffle, and so without more ado I lifted the latch and sprang into the
house. Mr. Jordan lay at full length along the floor.
"Who hath done this, Master?" I cried out in a sudden gust of wrath,
for he was an old man and a reverend. He lifted himself painfully,
regarding me as he did so with an inscrutable mildness which I took to
be of despair. His assailant was evidently fled in the meanwhile, or
perhaps went to summon a posse comitatus for my tutor's apprehension.
"I will undertake your enlargement," said I, and indeed felt myself
strong enough to dispose of a whole sergeant's guard unaided.
"I am beholden to you, young master," replied Mr. Jordan, "and now that
I look more closely, I take you to be that degenerate young Denis
Cleeve, to whom Syntax and Accidence were wont to be as felloes in the
wheel of Ixion, and Prosody a very stone of Sisyphus. Art thou not he,
my son?"
"I am Denis Cleeve," I answered impatiently, "but I think my lack of
Latin concerns us not now, when we are in danger of the law."
"Ah! thou hast come into some scrape," he said, sitting up on the
stones, and gathering up his knees. "Such as thou art, was the
Telamonian Ajax, whom Homer represents as brave enough, though in
learning but a fool. Why, what hast thou done, little Ajax, that thou
hast wantonly forfeited the protection of the laws? But be brief in
the telling, since I sit here in some discomfort, having entangled a
great sword in my legs and fallen something heavily, which in a man of
my years and weight is as if Troy herself fell; a catastrophe
lamentable even to the gods."
At this I could not contain my laughter, partly for the mistake into
which he had been led that I feared a danger which was in truth his
own, and partly for the accident of the sword which had tripped him up
thus headlong; but more than either for the tragi-comick simile he had
used in comparing himself in his downfall with the ancient city of Troy.
"To return to my first question," I said as soon as I had settled my
countenance. "Who hath set upon you? and whither has he fled?"
"None hath set upon me, young sir," he replied sadly, "and ergo, we
need search for no fugitive. I had armed myself, and the harness
encumbering me (as indeed I have had little occasion for its use these
forty years), I fell, in the manner you saw. And had not nature folded
me in certain kindly wrappages of flesh above the common, my frame had
been all broken and disjointed by this lapsus, which even now hath left
me monstrous sore."
I lifted him to his feet, though with some difficulty, for it was true
that nature had dealt liberally with him in the matter of flesh; and
having set him in a chair, I asked him how it was he came thus
accoutred, since it was not (as he affirmed) to withstand any
molestation.
"Why, 'tis in order to molest others, numskull!" he cried, making as if
to pass upon me with his recovered weapon. "And for withstanding, 'tis
to withstand the Queen's enemies, and affront them that pretend
annoyance to her Grace's peace. I am the scholar in arms, boy! the
clerk to be feared. I am Sapientia Furens, and wisdom in the camp.
Furthermore I am, though a poor professor of the Catholick Faith, yet
one that detests the malignity of such as would establish that faith
again by force of arms. It is by way of protest therefore, and in the
vigour of loyalty, that I buckle on this, alas! too narrow panoply; and
when I should be setting towards my grave, go forth upon my first
campaign."
"You are taking service in the Queen's army, Mr. Jordan?" I stammered,
for the prospect of it was hardly to be credited.
"If she will receive it, yea," he returned, with a melancholy
determination. "And if she reject me as that I am too far declined
from juvenility, I will crave at the least a pair of drums, having
served some apprenticeship to parchment, Denis, so that I could
doubtless sound a tuck upon occasion."
Beneath his apparent levity I could discern the hardness of his
purpose, and honoured him extremely, knowing the rigour which attendeth
service in the field and the conversation (offensive to a scholar) of
the gross and ignorant soldiery. While I thus pondered his resolution,
he proceeded quietly in his work of scouring certain antique pieces and
notched blades that he told me had been his father's; and when they
responded to his liking he would lunge and parry with them according to
some theoretick rule he had, the which I suspected to have been drawn
from the precepts of a Gothick sergeant, at the Sack of Rome. His
pallid broad countenance was reddened by this exercise, and an
alertness so grew upon his former unwieldy motions that I admired him
for the recovery of the better part of youth, although he must at that
time have passed his three score years and ten. And ever and anon as
he scoured or smote, he would utter some tag of Latin apposite to the
occasion (at least I suppose so) and seemed to gather a secret comfort
from the allusion. I have never encountered with a man so little
moulded to the age he lived in, nor so independent of its customary
usages. His words were, as I have said, generally spoken in the dead
languages, while his features were rather formed upon the model of
those divines that flourished half a century since, and are now but
seldom met with in any. I have seen a picture of the Archbishop and
Lord Chancellor, Warham, which greatly resembled Mr. Jordan, and
especially in the heavy eyelids and the lines of sadness about the
mouth. On ordinary occasion my old tutor wore moreover a close-fitting
cap of black velvet such as Master Warham wore also, cut square over
the ears and set low upon the brow.
I have drawn his character somewhat tediously perhaps, but it is
because he has become in my imagination a sort of symbol and gigantic
figure that stands between my old life and my new. When I look back
upon my boyhood there is Mr. Jordan a-sprawl on his bed amid a host of
books, and when the prospect of my early manhood opens it is half
obliterated by his genial bulk.
I learned to my satisfaction that he purposed to depart on the morrow
for London, where also he hoped to pass muster into some company of the
Queen's troops. His delight, I think, was equal to my own, when I told
him that I was bound thither likewise, and we accordingly parted until
daybreak with mutual encouragements and good will.