IN WHICH I BEGIN TO EARN MY LIVING
Take a town for all in all, in its sadness and pleasure, the shows that
pass through it, the proclamations of kings, the tolling of the great
bell, marshallings of men-at-arms and sermons of clerks; whatever it be
distracts or engages it, I say you will find, take all in all, full the
ten twelfths of a town's business to lie in the mere getting of wealth.
And in the exercise of this its proper office, I think that government,
whether good or bad, interfereth less than is supposed; for at the
best, that is, when the merchants and retailers be let alone (as would
to Heaven some great Councillors I could name did understand the matter
so), 'tis then that the interchange of goods and money is most readily
and happily effected; but at the worst, that is, when some untoward
imposition or restriction is laid upon the trade of a city, it results
not that men labour any the less at their buying and selling, but that
their lawful and expected profits be diverted, in part, into other
men's pockets. Which for all it is wrong enough, yet it makes not, I
am bold to say, one single vessel to go lacking her cargo, nor one
merchant to break upon Change. So a fig for Westminster! this way or
that, trade holds; and men bend their thoughts thereto, howe'er the
wind blow.
Now, I am no philosopher (my father having exhausted the philosophy of
our family), yet no man may live in London (as I had now done, for
above three months) but certain considerations must needs thrust
themselves upon him, and though he be no great thinker I suppose that
everybody knows when he is hungry; and being so, goes the best way he
can to remedy that daily disease.
And so it came to pass that, greatly as I detested to confine myself to
the weary commerce of trade, I nevertheless did so, and for the plain
reason that I could not help myself, having no money left, and not
being willing to remain any longer with the good folk on the Bridge, at
their charges. How I was received by Mr. Edward Osborne into his
counting-house I will tell later, but received I was, and there strove
to acquit myself honestly, so that within about a month (I think) I
could cast up the moneys of his great Day Book with but a two-three
errors to each sum total; the which, considering my inexperience, I
held to be not amiss.
It was while I was thus employed in the narrow wainscoted business room
where Mr. Osborne did the most of his business, in Chequer Lane off
Dowgate, it was then, I say, that I came to perceive the magnitude and
staggering quality of the City's negotiation and traffick; so that I
came near to rehearsing the Bridge warden's eulogy upon the London
merchants, as also his expressed contempt for all such dignities as did
not issue from the fount of trade. Nay, I went further, for neglecting
the current rumours and plain news even, that all stood not well with
the State, I applied myself to my accompts and disbursements, deriding
Mr. Secretary Cecil and the Queen's Council for a parcel of busybodies,
and reducing the policy of England to the compass of a balance sheet.
And yet, had I had the wit to know it, we were at that season come into
a crisis where bills of lading availed little, and the petty laws of
invection and navigation seemed like to be rudely set aside for the
sterner laws of conquest and foreign tyranny. Already, even, and
before I had left the Combe, there had been that business of the
signing of the National Bond and the imprisoning of many that favoured
the overthrow of Her Majesty; the which had been followed and confirmed
by such other acts and precautions as imported no easy continuance in
our old way, but rather the sure entering into that narrow passage and
race of fortune, whence the outlet is to so infinite and clouded a sea,
as a people's help therein lieth solely in God and their own clear
courage. Queen Mary of Scotland was yet alive, poor scheming desperate
woman! and lay a guarded danger in the land. The Dutch States,
moreover, that ought to have been our firm ally, we had done our best
to alienate and set at variance against us, who should have helped them
at all adventures; we being of one Faith together, and hating alike the
encroaching cruelties of Spain. To these considerations there was
added the fear of treason in our midst, and the increasing evidence of
the Jesuits' part therein, which the Queen's advisers sought upon all
occasions to discover and trample out; as indeed I had myself been
witness to, in that unhappy self-murder of Jacques de Courcy in the
secret dark mansion of Petty Wales.
It had been a little subsequent upon that dreadful affair, and when the
soldiers had left us, that I said to Idonia--
"In Heaven's name, mistress, what is this house used for then?" For I
was all wan and trembling with that sight of sudden death, else I
should not have spoken so harshly to the girl, who was in like case
with myself, and clung to me piteously for comfort. But at my words
she seemed to recover herself, and loosing her arms from my neck, she
cried--
"And what have I to do with other men's takings, that you question me
thus? If aught displease you, so! I cannot better it. And ... and
... oh, Mr. Denis, what a face of pity did he show!"--she covered her
eyes as she spoke--"and when he fell ... Oh, these things are not
rightly done; they stifle me. They wrench my faith. They leave out
God."
I did what I could, but it was with her own strength she must fight
down the terror, I knew, and so after awhile desisted. When she had
her full reason again she thanked me that I had not confused her with
many words.
"For I know not to what excess I should have run otherwise," she said.
"You have a quiet spirit, and are no talker, Master Denis. But there
be some things I cannot bear to see, and one is the sight of a single
man, even a malefactor, so overcome and brought to his death.... But
now," assuming a resolute cheerfulness she added, "now we must converse
awhile upon your own affairs, before you go. For look you, sir, I have
named you already of Mr. Osborne's service, and must make it good.
Else that stark-limbed Captain may hear of it, and discovering we lied,
make us smart for it."
"But how shall I prevail with Mr. Osborne to take me into his service,"
said I, "who know not an invoice from a State paper?"
"Everything hath a beginning," replied Idonia, "and if Rome was not
builded in a day, it is not likely we shall make an accountant of you
presently."
"No, nor in less time than it took to build Rome in, I doubt," quoth I,
pretty rueful. "But tell me how came yourself to be so proficient in
that study of cyphering?" For indeed the thought had puzzled me not a
little.
"By the good offices of one I purpose shall now assist you," said
Idonia; and told me that it was a certain scrivener named Enos Procter
that had lived a great while in Genoa, where they greatly affect the
putting of their negotiations into ledger-books and have well-nigh
perfected that invention.
"This Procter returning home after many years," she proceeded,
"suffered shipwreck, and was cast away upon the coast of Spain, whence
he was fortunate to escape half dead, and with the loss of all his
goods, saving only that monstrous ledger-book, which he would by no
means relinquish. He then coming to land here, at the Galley Quay,
besought us to harbour him and give him food and dry clothing, for
which he offered to pay us out of his wages when he was able. This we
did, and he, being a man of his word, repaid all that he owed, and
more, for he taught me something of his reckoning in cypher, and of the
distributing of every item of receipt or payment, this side and that of
an accompt, according to the practice of the great merchants of Genoa."
And thus it came about that the day following Idonia did as she had
promised, and wrought so with Mr. Enos Procter that I was immediately
taken into his employment upon my faithful promise to serve the lawful
occasions of the Governor and Merchants of the Turkey Company, and
(implicitly) those of Mr. Enos Procter, their principal clerk and
accountant.
With this worthy gentleman I spent, as was natural, the greatest part
of my time, and under his dark sidelong eye I managed my untrained
quill. He was a spare small man of an indomitable quick-silver nature,
that by long sojourning in the South, had become half Italian. When he
worked (which was always) he had a habit of warping his face into the
most diabolical grin, while he rolled upon his stool, back and forward,
with the motion of one rowing in a boat, muttering of a thousand
foreign curses with which was oddly mingled the recital of the
particular matter he had in hand. Thus, "Corpo di Baccho," would he
cry, "these bills mature not until the fifteenth day of June, and there
is scarce ... a million devils! Master Cleeve, had I formed my sevens
that gait in Genoa I had been sent to the galleys for a felon.... Of
Cartagena, say you? There be none but knaves there, and none but fools
to trust them. 'Tis an overdue reckoning, with thirty-five, forty,
forty-five thousand ducats, eh! forty-six thousand, Signor, Don
Cherubin of Cartagena, whom the Devil disport!"
But whatever the frailties of Mr. Procter, he was a kind and forbearing
tutor, and even succeeded in imparting to me also some portion of his
own extravagant affection for his great leather-bound books of account;
for he loved them so, as no man ever perceived more delicate beauties
in his mistress than this fever-hot scrivener did in the nice
adjustment of Debit to Credit; with all the entries, cross entries,
postings and balancings (to use his own crabbed language) that went to
it. He was, in sooth, a very Clerk-Errant, that ran up and down a
paper world, detecting errors, righting wrongs, spitting some miscreant
discount on his lance of goose-quill, or tearing the cloak from some
dubious monster of exchange. I could not but admire him, and the way
in which he regarded all things as mere matter for bookkeeping.
"They talk of their philosophies," he would say, "but what do they come
to more than this, and what ethick goes beyond this: that every right
hath a duty corresponding, and every fault its due reward? Ay, is it
so? and what do we poor scribes, but set down each accident of our
trading first on the left side and after on the right side, the one to
countervail the other, and all at the end to appear justly suspended in
the balance? We have no preferences, we accountants, we neither
applaud nor condemn, but evenly, and with a cold impartiality, set down
our good and bad, our profits and losses, our receipts and
disbursements, first as they affect ourselves and our honourable
Company, and after as they affect our neighbour. For consider," he
would proceed, leaping about on his stool, with the excitement that a
defence of his art always engendered, "consider this very item of the
silk bales, upon which my pen chances at this moment to rest--you have
it here to the credit of Mr. Andrea of Naples, seventy-nine pounds in
his tale of goods sold to this house. But is the matter so disposed
of? I trow not. For turn me to the accompt of goods purchased during
this year of our Redemption, and what have you? Seventy-nine pounds
upon the debtor. Philosophy, boy! There is nought beyond that, I say,
nor, for conciseness of statement, aught to equal it. Mr. Andrea's
rights become, transposed, our duties; and for the silk bales you wot
of, they be a load of debt to us, to account for to our masters, and
likewise a strengthening of the credit of this honest Neapolitan as any
man may read.
"Notwithstanding, there be some," said he in conclusion, with a sigh,
"and they divines of the Church, that call in question the avarice and
hard-dealing of us that live by barter and the negotiation of
merchandize! Yet where will you find (to ask but this one question,
Mr. Denis), where do you find written more clearly than in these
ledger-books of ours, that oft-disguised truth that what we own we do
also and necessarily owe?"
In such mingling of high discourse and plain work, then, I continued
with Mr. Procter a great while, in the dusty and ill-lighted
counting-house in Chequer Lane; earning my small wages, and upon the
whole not ill content with the changed life I now led, for all 'twas so
far removed from the course I had planned, now many months past, but
had already half forgotten. Sometimes my duties would take me to the
wharves where a great barque or brigantine would be lying, about to
leave upon our Company's business for Turkey or Barbary; or else some
other vessel would be returning thence to London Pool, whither I
repaired to the captain and supercargo to receive their schedules and
sealed papers. It was this last employment I especially delighted in,
and indeed I can scarce conceive any pleasure greater than I found
going very early in the morning to one of the quays upon the River or
as far as to Wapping Stairs, where I would watch the great ship slowly
coming up upon the tide, between the misted grey banks and dim roofs of
Limehouse and Rotherhithe; and could hear the rattle of the chains, and
the joyful cries of the mariners that were now, after their perilous
and long voyage, safely arrived at home. Then would I take boat and
row out into the stream, hailing the master in the Company's name, who
presently would let down a ladder by which I climbed aloft upon the
deck, where the crew would gather round to hear news and to tell it;
which telling of theirs I chiefly delighted in: the thousand adventures
they had had, and the accounts of strange lands and mysterious rich
cities beyond the seas. Thereafter, when the ship was berthed and our
business settled, I would bear off the master and the other officers to
Mr. Osborne, to be made welcome, when all was told o'er again, though
with more observance paid to such matters as affected profit and loss
than formerly I had heard the tale. The black little accountant was
had in too, at such times, into Mr. Osborne's privy room, where we all
sat round a great table, with Mr. Osborne at one end of it, very
handsome and stately in his starched ruff and suit of guarded velvet;
and the other principal persons of the Company about him on either
side, to listen to what the shipmen related, as I have said.
Then, if the adventure had been profitably concluded (as sometimes it
had not, though generally there was a fair sum cleared), oftentimes
would the Governor invite us to supper with him, and me with the rest,
I know not wherefore, save it were that Master Procter had praised me
to him for my diligence in his service. And so we passed many a merry
evening.
Yet this so brief summary of that time doth not cover all, nor perhaps
the greater part, since it leaves out my thoughts and hopes, which, all
said, is more of a man's life than all the other; and by so much the
more is noteworthy. And these thoughts of mine, particularly when I
lay quiet in bed in my little chamber on the Bridge, were concerned
about an infinite number of matters I had no opportunity to consider in
the hurry and press of the day. So, I would think of my father, his
evil estate, and the increasing pain he suffered, for I had lately
received news of him by the hand of Simon Powell, who, honest lad, had
bound himself to a smith of Tolland in order to be near his old master
and comfort him. Of Idonia, too, you will guess I thought much, and
the more that my business hindered our often meeting, though sometimes
I saw her when I went early in the morning to meet my ships; for later
in the day she begged me not to come to the house, and greatly though
this condition misliked me, I accepted it to please her. But, to be
open, it was this consideration of all I dwelt upon which most held me
in suspense, so that many a night I have slept scarce a wink, admiring
what the secret were that compassed Idonia about, and the strangeness
that clouded all her affairs.
"What is it goes on in that great still house?" I cried an hundred
times, and would con over with myself the half hints I had already
received; as of that swaggering Malpas, his attempted entrance; of the
concealed Jesuit; of the way of communication between the part of the
house Idonia lived in and the den of thieves where I had encountered
with Andrew Plat. Then I would fall into a muse, only to be awakened
on the sudden by the recollection of Guido Malpas, with his lean and
crafty face pressed close against the window of the room I had sat in
with Nelson and the Queen's yeoman, or by that older memory of my uncle
Botolph who, I was assured, was also Skene the attorney. Why, by how
great a rout of shadows was I compassed! and what a deal of infamy lay
ready to be discovered upon the lightest hazard or unconsidered word!
Nay, had not my love for Mistress Avenon so wholly possessed me, I
doubt I should have found in any the least strict review of her
behaviour something covert, and diffident; as indeed she had already
imparted from time to time much that a man more suspicious than I might
have seized upon to her disadvantage. But such motes as those troubled
me not, or rather troubled not the passion of love I cherished for her;
though, for the rest, I infinitely desired her removal from
circumstances that I could not but fear to be every way perilous.
Now it befell one day, in the early summer, that all London was
awakened with the news that the _Primrose_, Captain Foster, was coming
up the Thames with the Governor of Biscay aboard, a prisoner. So
admirable tidings had not often of late been ours to receive, and to
pother one's head with business upon such a day was not to be thought
on, at least not by the younger men; and thus I was soon running down
to the Port to learn the whole history of that memorable adventure,
wherein the _Primrose_, of all our shipping that lay upon the Spanish
Coast, and that were suddenly seized upon by those Papist dogs without
warning or possibility of escape--the _Primrose_, I say, not only got
off free, but in a most bloody fight destroyed the soldiers that had
privily got aboard her, and took prisoner their great Viceregent, or
(as they call him) Corregidor.
A host of men and women pressed upon Master Foster about the hithe,
applauding his so notable courage and triumph, and deriding the poor
Corregidor, who nevertheless remained steadfast, nor seemed not to
regard their taunts and menaces, but stood very quiet, and, I vow, was
as gallant a gentleman to see as any man could be. Now, all this
taking place about the Tower steps, whither for convenience the
prisoner had been brought, it followed I was but a stone's cast from
Idonia's dwelling, which no sooner had I remembered than I utterly
forgot her admonition not to see her except early, whereas it was now
high noon; but leaving the throng of idle cheering folk, I crept away
at once to the desolate house in Thames Street, where I made sure of
finding her.
As I went along, the bells were ringing from every steeple, which so
filled the air with victory, as I was intoxicated with the sound of
them, and on the sudden resolved that, come what would, I would tell
Idonia I tired of this sleek clerk's life I led, and would be done with
it straightway. Alas! for all such schemes of youth and stirrings of
liberty! and yet not altogether alas! perhaps, since 'tis the adverse
event of the most of such schemes that prepares and hardens us for
bitterer battles to come, when the ranks are thinning and the drums are
silent, and the powder is wasted to the last keg....
To my satisfaction I perceived the gate to be open, and as I came up I
saw a flutter of white in the dark of the hall, and a moment later the
mist of gold which was Idonia's hair.
"Good-morrow!" I bade her laughingly, as I entered and closed the door
behind me, "you did not look to have me visit you now, I warrant, when
the bells be all pealing without, and a right success of our arms to
acclaim!"
Idonia stood, one foot set upon the lowest stair, quite still. Not one
word of greeting did she give me, nor was any light of welcome in her
eyes, which were wide open and her lips parted as if to speak, though
no word said she.
I hung back astonished, not knowing what to think, when I heard a
rustle among the stuff beside me, and a man's voice that said very
quiet: "How now, master, methinks that is overmuch familiarity to use
with one that is under my ward."
I faced about instantly, laying my hand upon my sword, for this
untoward interference startled me not a little. Even in the half dark
I knew him; for 'twas none other than the attorney, John Skene.