HOW MR. JORDAN COULD NOT RUN COUNTER TO THE COURSE OF NATURE
I know not yet (and I thank Heaven for my ignorance) what may be the
peculiar weakness of old age, though I suspect it to lie in an
excessive regard for life; but of youth I have proved it to be a
contempt of life; which, despite the philosophic ring of the phrase, I
do affirm to be a fault, though I am willing to allow that I mean a
contempt, not of our own, but of another man's life, and a surprise
that he should hold dear so vulgar a commodity.
Thus, as I walked away from the house of Idonia, I pondered long and
carefully the small account that Mr. Malpas was of, and could not
conceive how he had the monstrous impudency to cling so tight as he did
to the habit of living, which (as a soiled shirt) he might well enough
have now been content to exchange. Indeed, the more I thought upon the
matter, the greater increased my sense of the absurdity that such a man
should claim his share of the world, or rather (to select the essential
quality of my complaint) his share of that corner of Thames Street
where Idonia lived, which goeth by the name of Petty Wales. From
thence, at all hazards, I was determined to exclude him. For had not
Idonia said: "I fear him"? and that was enough for me. Indeed it
seemed to elevate my jealousy into an obligation of chivalry, merely to
remember that sallow-faced swaggerer that said he loved her. Simon
Powell should have fitted me with some knight's part, methought, amidst
his Peredurs and Geraints, and I would have proved myself worthy as the
best of them.
But that was all very well. It was past ten o'clock, and when I got to
London Bridge I found it barred against me and the watch within the
gate-house snoring. I knocked twice or thrice pretty hard and at
length woke the watch; but so angered was he at thus losing of his
sleep, besides that he thought perhaps to recover upon his late
remissness, that he flew into an unnecessary zeal of watchfulness,
swearing I was some vagabond rogue, and, bidding me begone, shut the
wicket in my face. In vain did I endeavour to make myself known,
bawling my name through the gate, and Mr. Nelson's too; the porter had
returned to his interrupted repose, and nothing on earth would move him
again, for that night at least.
So after having launched one or two such observations as I thought
befitted the occasion, I made the best of it I could, and turned away
to seek for some cleanly house of receipt where I might pass the
remainder of the night. Some while I spent in ranging hither and
thither, without happening on such an hostelry as did please me (for I
confess to a niceness in these matters); but at length, coming into a
place where two streets met, I found there a very decent quiet house
that answered to my wishes so well that I immediately entered and
bespoke a chamber for the night. Here I slept exceeding soundly, and
in the morning awoke, though yet sore from my scratches, yet otherwise
refreshed and cheerful.
The better part of the travellers that had lain there were already up
and away ere I arose, so that I had the room to myself almost, wherein
I broke my fast, and, save for the lad that served me, held
conversation with none other. Had I known in what fashion we were to
meet later, I should no doubt have observed him with more closeness
than I did, but I saw in a trice he was one that a groat would buy the
soul of, and another groat the rest of him.
"'Twas late you came hither last night," he said as he set down my
tankard beside me upon the table.
I smiled without replying, and nodded once or twice, to give him a
supposition of my discretion; but he took it otherwise.
"Ay, you say truly," he ran on, "there is a liberty of inns that no
private house hath. Come when you list and go when you have a mind to;
there's no constraint nor question amongst us."
"Be pleased to fetch me the mustard," said I.
"You know what is convenient," he returned in a voice of keen approval,
as he brought it. "Now, I was once a serving man in Berkeley Inn,
called so of my lord Berkeley that lodgeth there. But whether he were
at home or absent, I was ever there. And where I was, you understand,
there must needs be necessaries bought, and such things as were, as I
say, convenient."
He leered upon me very sly as he spoke these mysteries; by which I
perceived I was already deep in his favour, as he was (like enough)
deep in villainies.
"I marvel how from a lord's mansion you came to serve in a common
tavern," said I, to check him.
"Oh, rest you easy, sir," he laughed, "for the difference is less than
one might suppose. There be pickings and leavings there as in an
hostelry, a nimble wit needed in both places indifferently, and for the
rest, work to be scanted and lies to be told. Hey! and lives to be
lived, master, and purses filled, and nought had, here nor there, but
must be paid for or else stolen."
Such light-hearted roguery I owed it to my conscience to condemn, but
for the life of me I could not, so that I fell into a great laughter
that no shame might control. I hope it was weakness of my body, and
not of virtue, pushed me to this length, but however come by, I could
not help it, and think moreover it did me good.
"Come, that is the note I like," said my tapster, whose name I learnt
was Jocelin; and, setting his lips close to my ear, he added, "London
town is but a lump of fat dough, master, till you set the yeast of wit
to work therein; but after, look you! there be fair risings, and a
handsome great loaf to share." His eyes sparkled. "I have the wit,
man, I am the yeast, and so..."
He had not finished his period, or if he did I marked him not, for just
at that season the gate of a great house over the way opening, a party
of horsemen rode forth into the street with a clatter of hoofs. They
wheeled off at a smart pace to the right-hand, laughing and calling out
to each other as they went, and sending the children a-skelter this way
and that before them. Yet, notwithstanding they were gone by so
speedily, I had yet espied the device upon their harness and cloaks,
which was the green dragon and Pembroke cognizance. I flung back my
chair.
"Is yon house Baynards Castle?" I cried.
"None other," he replied, nodding while he grinned. "I have certain
good friends there, too."
"Is Mr. Malpas of the number?" I demanded.
"Oh, he!" he answered with a shrug. "A bitter secret man! If 'a has
plots he keeps them close. He flies alone, though 'tis whispered he
flies boldly. But we be honest men," quoth he, and held his chin
'twixt finger and thumb. "We live and let live, and meet fortune with
a smile. But I hate them that squint upon the world sidelong, as he
doth." From which I drew inference that they twain had formerly
thieved together, and that Malpas had retained the spoil.
But I soon tossed these thoughts aside for another, which, as it came
without premeditation, so did I put it into practice immediately.
Having satisfied my charges at the inn, therefore, and without a word
to Jocelin, I ran across the street and into the gate-house of the
castle, before the porter had time to close the gate of it behind the
horsemen.
"Is Mr. Malpas within?" I accosted him eagerly.
The porter regarded me awhile from beneath raised brows.
"Have you any business with him, young master?" said he.
"Grave business," I replied, "knowing, as I do, who it was gave him
that hurt he lies sick withal."
The old man pushed the gate to with more dispatch than I had thought
him capable of using. "Ay, you know that?" he muttered, looking upon
me with extraordinary interest. "That should be comfortable news to
Signor Guido; that should be honey and oil to his wound;" and I saw by
that he understood his Malpas pretty well.
He led me aside into his lodge, and there, being set in his deep,
leathern chair, spread himself to listen.
"Who is he, now?" he asked, in that rich, low voice a man drops into
that anticipates the savour of scandal.
I looked him up and down as though to assure myself of his secrecy, and
then--
"'Twas Master Cleeve," said I.
Heavy man as he was, he yet near leapt from his chair.
"Is't come to that?" he cried. "Master Botolph Cleeve! Now the saints
bless us, young man, that it should be so, and they once so close to
hold as wind and the weather-cock!"
I saw his error and meant to profit by it, but not yet. If, indeed, my
uncle Botolph were hand-in-glove with Malpas, why, then, I was saved
the pains to deal with them singly. Having smelled out the smoke, it
should go hard but I would soon tread out the fire. Howbeit, I judged
that to question the old man further at that season would be to spoil
all; since by manifesting the least curiosity of my uncle, I should
deny my news (as he understood it) that my uncle, and not I, had near
robbed Malpas of his life. Noting the porter, then, for a man to be
considered later, I returned to my politic resolution to get speech of
Malpas himself, and to tell him, moreover, that Mistress Avenon
abhorred his addresses, which I was therefore determined should cease.
Perhaps I counted upon his sick condition in this, and upon a
correspondent meekness of behaviour, but regard it as you will, I was a
mere fool and deserved my rival should rise from his bed and beat the
folly out of me. Nevertheless, I take pride that my folly ran no
further, so that when the porter inquired who I might be that desired
to carry this message to the wounded man, I had sufficient wit to
answer frankly that I was Mr. Cleeve's nephew; which reply seemed to
set the seal of truth to that had preceded.
"Mass!" swore the porter, lying back in his chair, "then methinks your
news will doubly astonish Mr. Malpas, seeing who you be that bring it."
"It should somewhat surprise him to learn 'twas my uncle wounded him,"
quoth I modestly.
The porter: "Surprise him! 'Twill make him run mad! I admire how you
can venture into his chamber with such heady tidings."
"Oh, in the cause of truth, Master Porter," I returned stoutly, "one
should not halt upon the sacrificing of an uncle or so."
"Why, that's religiously said," quoth the porter, who, I could see,
having relieved his conscience in warning me, was glad I would not be
put off, and, indeed (old cock-pit haunter that he was!), did love the
prospect of battle with all his withered heart.
I asked him then what office about my lord's household Mr. Guido held,
and he told me he was keeper of the armoury, and served out the pikes
and new liveries; that, moreover, when my lord was absent he was
advanced to a place of greater trust.
"The which I hope he justifies," said I gravely, but the porter blew
out his cheeks and said nothing.
"Will you lead me to his chamber?" I asked him presently, and he bade
me follow him, first taking up his ring of keys.
We crossed the court together, going towards the west corner of it,
where he opened a door that led on to a winding stair, which we
ascended. When we had climbed almost to the roof as I thought, he
stayed before another door that I had not observed (so dark and
confined was the place), through which he preceded me into the gallery
beyond it, a low but very lightsome place, with a row of dormer windows
along the outer side of it, from one of which, when I paused to look
forth, I beheld the river Thames directly beneath us, and a fleet of
light craft thereon, wherries and barges and the like, and across the
Southwark flats, far distant, London Bridge, with Nonsuch House in the
midst of it, that cut in twain the morning light with a bar of grey.
While I stood thus gazing idly the great bell of the gate rang out with
a sudden clangour.
"Pox o' the knave that founded thee a brazen ass!" cried the porter.
"Ay, kick thy clapper-heels, ring on! Again! again! Shield us,
master, what doomsday din is there! Well, get gone your ways, Master
Nephew of Cleeve; that long, yellow man's chamber lieth beyond, upon
the right hand, in a bastion of the wall.... List to the bell!" and
with that he turned back in haste and clattered down the stair.
I followed his direction as well as I might, going forward down the
gallery to Malpas' room, although, to speak truly, I had come into some
distaste of that business already, and would have been glad enough to
forego it altogether had not my pride forbidden me so to return upon my
resolution. At the door I stooped down and listened for any sound of
groaning, which, when I plainly heard, I could not but confess 'twas
something less than merciful to trouble the poor man at such a time.
But having conjured up the figure of Idonia, my pity of her aggressor
fell away again, so that without more ado I knocked smartly upon the
door.
I was answered by a groan deeper than before.
"Have I leave to enter?" I demanded, but was told very petulantly I had
not.
"We are not unacquainted," said I, with my lips to the keyhole.
"The more reason you should stay without," said he, and I could hear
him beat his pillow flat, and turn over heavily upon his side.
"Hast thou forgot my sword so soon?" cried I in a great resentment that
the victor should be pleading thus at the chamber door of the
vanquished.
"Go, hack with thy tongue, Thersites!" came the voice again; but at
that I waited no further, but burst in. I had got scarce two paces
over the threshold when--
"Why, Master Jordan!" I cried out, for there on the bed lay my ancient
fat friend, his heavy Warham-face peering above the quilt, a tasselled
nightcap bobbing over his nose, and all else of him (and of the
furniture too) hid and o'erlaid by a very locust-swarm of folios.
At the first sight of me I thought he would have called upon the
mountains to bury him, from mere shame of his discovery.
"Away!" he gasped, when he could get breath to say it; "away, graceless
child! I am no foiner; I know you not. I am a man of peace, a
reverend doctor. My trade is in books. _Impallesco chartis_; I grow
pallid with conning upon the written word. What be your armies and
your invasions and your marchings to and fro? that lives should be
lived, and brains spent and lost therein. I tell you, one verse of
Catullus shall outweigh the clatter of a battalion, and Tully is the
only sergeant I salute." And so, having hurled his defiance, he sank
back amongst the bed clothes and drew down his nightcap an inch lower
upon his brow.
"You know me very well, good doctor," quoth I, and advanced to his
bedside, which was fortified with an huge _vallum_ of the Consolations.
"I am Denis Cleeve."
"'Tis like enough," said the old man with an air of infinite
resignation, and affecting still not to know me. "And I am my lord of
Pembroke's poor librarian, and at this time somewhat deeply engaged
upon the duties attaching to that service."
He drew forth a volume with a trembling hand as he spoke, and made as
if to consult it.
"Being so accustomed as you are to the use of parchments," said I, "I
had supposed you led a company of foot to tuck of drum."
He was so clearly abashed at my remembering his very words that he had
formerly spoken, that I had not the heart to proceed further in my
jesting, and so sitting down upon the couch beside him I told him that
I applauded this his exchange of resolutions, and that there was enough
of soldiers for any wars we were likely to have, but of scholars not so
ample a supply as he could be spared therefrom, save upon unlooked for
occasion. Mr. Jordan regarded me very mournfully while I spoke thus,
and when I had done lay a great while silent, fingering his folios and
shaking his tasselled head. At length he replied thus--
[Illustration: Mr. Jordan regarded me very mournfully. Chapter XII]
"You have a great heart, my son," said he with a sigh, "and think to
comfort one that lacks not virtue (I hope), although the diligence to
apply it manfully. Alas! much learning, Denis, hath made me
marvellously to hate confusion and strife. My mind burroweth as a
coney in the dark places of knowledge, but never my body endureth a
posture of opposition. Thought is a coward, all said: and philosophy
nought else but the harness we have forged to protect our hinder parts
while we shuffle ingloriously from the fray. 'Tis no hero's person we
assume, lad; and your old fool, your erudite scratchpole--_Graecis
litteris eruditus_, hey?--is everywhere and rightly derided."
I told him very earnestly I thought otherwise, but he would not hear me
out, affirming his contrary opinion, namely, that he was a coward and
trembled at the very name of an enemy, excepting only of his principal
enemy, to wit, his bed. "And with that," said he, "I have been forced
into concluding an unconditional alliance."
Now I could not bear he should thus contemptuously belittle his valour,
of which I had formerly seen sufficient proof in his dealing with the
thieves about Glastonbury, and said so roundly.
"Well, lad," he replied, and puckering up his face into a grim smile,
"be it as you will; and at bottom I confess I believe I have as much
courage as another man: of which quality indeed it needed some modicum
to encounter my conscience and return to the path I was set in by
Nature. For there is but little bravery in running counter to our
natures, Denis, and especially when applause and honour lie both that
way. Ay, I think," quoth he, "I have some obstinacy below, though you
must e'en stir in the sediment to raise it."
In reply to my asking how it had come about that he was installed
keeper of my lord's books, he said it had been consequent upon his
intention (while he yet held to it) of enrolling himself soldier; that
the magistrate to whom he had applied him for that purpose, when he
proposed the oath of allegiance had seen fit to eke it out and amplify
his warrant with so offensive a comparison betwixt the arts of letters
and war, to the utter disadvantage of letters, as he could not abide
the conclusion of, but made off; nor could he ever be induced to return
thither any more.
"And notwithstanding I cried out upon my defection daily," he
proceeded, "I perceived that fate had put the term to my military
service or ever 'twas begun, and so sought elsewhere for employment.
Indeed I had arrived at my last victual, and had scarce wherewithal to
meet the charges of my lodging. But in a good hour I fell in with
another of the like condition with mine, though for the rest, a poet,
and therefore of a more disordered spirit. His name was, as I
remember, Andrew Plat, but of where he dwelt I am ignorant. He was
boldly for stealing what he could not come by honestly, and so far put
his design into practice as, breaking into this very Castle, he
furnished his belly with the best, both of meat and drink. In the
morning he was found drunk, in which condition he confessed all, but
with such craven and mendacious addition as involved me also, who was
thereupon cited to appear.
"I excused myself, as you may suppose, very easily, but by an
inadvertence I excused myself in Latin.
"'How!' cried my lord, 'you make your apology in Latin?'
"'Have I so done?' said I, 'then judge me as a Roman, for amongst these
barbarians thou and I be the only two civilized.'
"He laughed very heartily at that, and having informed himself of my
merits, soon after delivered up his books into my charge.
"And thus I am, as you see me, returned to my former occupation, which
I shall never again pretermit upon any motion of magnanimity. If aught
in the future shall offend me, if evil rumours shall penetrate to this
quiet angle of the world, I take up no lance to combat the same, my
son, having a better remedy: which is to rinse out my mouth with great
draughts of Virgil and Cicero, and thereafter with a full voice to
thank the gods that I was not begot of the seed of Achilles."
He invited me to remain to dinner with him, but I would not, and went
away by the way I had come, my head so full of this strange case of Mr.
Jordan (whom I had only chanced upon through the lucky accident of my
having mistaken the porter's direction), that I remembered not so much
as Malpas his name even, until I was safe in the warden's house upon
the Bridge; where I found good Madam Nelson anxiously expecting my
return, who moreover had a steaming hot platter for me that she served
up with certain less palatable satires upon my night's absence.
However, I thought it wise to let them pass for that season, and not
justify myself therein; for a woman loveth not the man that answereth
her again; and especially when he is in the right of it.