QUIPSOME HAL
“The sweet and bitter fool
Will presently appear,
The one in motley here
The other found out there.”
Shakespeare.
There lay the quiet Temple Gardens, on the Thames bank, cut out in
formal walks, with flowers growing in the beds of the homely kinds
beloved by the English. Musk roses, honeysuckle and virgin’s bower,
climbed on the old grey walls; sops-in-wine, bluebottles, bachelor’s
buttons, stars of Bethlehem and the like, filled the borders; May
thorns were in full sweet blossom; and near one another were the two
rose bushes, one damask and one white Provence, whence Somerset and
Warwick were said to have plucked their fatal badges; while on the
opposite side of a broad grass-plot was another bush, looked on as a
great curiosity of the best omen, where the roses were streaked with
alternate red and white, in honour, as it were, of the union of York
and Lancaster.
By this rose-tree stood the two young Birkenholts. Edmund Burgess
having, by his master’s desire, shown them the way, and passed them in
by a word and sign from his master, then retired unseen to a distance
to mark what became of them, they having promised also to return and
report of themselves to Master Headley.
They stood together earnestly watching for the coming of the uncle,
feeling quite uncertain whether to expect a frail old broken man, or to
find themselves absolutely deluded, and made game of by the jester.
The gardens were nearly empty, for most people were sitting over their
supper-tables after the business of the day was over, and only one or
two figures in black gowns paced up and down in conversation.
“Come away, Ambrose,” said Stephen at last. “He only meant to make
fools of us! Come, before he comes to gibe us for having heeded a
moment. Come, I say—here’s this man coming to ask us what we are doing
here.”
For a tall, well-made, well-dressed personage in the black or sad
colour of a legal official, looking like a prosperous householder, or
superior artisan, was approaching them, some attendant, as the boys
concluded belonging to the Temple. They expected to be turned out, and
Ambrose in an apologetic tone, began, “Sir, we were bidden to meet a—a
kinsman here.”
“And even so am I,” was the answer, in a grave, quiet tone, “or rather
to meet twain.”
Ambrose looked up into a pair of dark eyes, and exclaimed “Stevie,
Stevie, ’tis he. ’Tis uncle Hal.”
“Ay, ’tis all you’re like to have for him,” answered Harry Randall,
enfolding each in his embrace. “Lad, how like thou art to my poor
sister! And is she indeed gone—and your honest father too—and none left
at home but that hunks, little John? How and when died she?”
“Two years agone come Lammastide,” answered Stephen. “There was a
deadly creeping fever and ague through the Forest. We two sickened, and
Ambrose was so like to die that Diggory went to the abbey for the
priest to housel and anneal him, but by the time Father Simon came he
was sound asleep, and soon was whole again. But before we were on our
legs, our blessed mother took the disease, and she passed away ere many
days were over. Then, though poor father took not that sickness, he
never was the same man again, and only twelve days after last
Pasch-tide he was taken with a fit and never spake again.”
Stephen was weeping by this time, and his uncle had a hand on his
shoulder, and with tears in his eyes, threw in ejaculations of pity and
affection. Ambrose finished the narrative with a broken voice indeed,
but as one who had more self-command than his brother, perhaps than his
uncle, whose exclamations became bitter and angry as he heard of the
treatment the boys had experienced from their half-brother, who, as he
said, he had always known as a currish mean-spirited churl, but scarce
such as this.
“Nor do I think he would have been, save for his wife, Maud Pratt of
Hampton,” said Ambrose. “Nay, truly also, he deemed that we were only
within a day’s journey of council from our uncle Richard at Hyde.”
“Richard Birkenholt was a sturdy old comrade! Methinks he would give
Master Jack a piece of his mind.”
“Alack, good uncle, we found him in his dotage, and the bursar of Hyde
made quick work with us, for fear, good Father Shoveller said, that we
were come to look after his corrody.”
“Shoveller—what, a Shoveller of Cranbury? How fell ye in with him?”
Ambrose told the adventures of their journey, and Randall exclaimed “By
my bau—I mean by my faith—if ye have ill-luck in uncles, ye have had
good luck in friends.”
“No ill-luck in thee, good, kind uncle,” said Stephen, catching at his
hand with the sense of comfort that kindred blood gives.
“How wottest thou that, child? Did not I—I mean did not Merryman tell
you, that mayhap ye would not be willing to own your uncle?”
“We deemed he was but jesting,” said Stephen. “Ah!”
For a sudden twinkle in the black eyes, an involuntary twist of the
muscles of the face, were a sudden revelation to him. He clutched hold
of Ambrose with a sudden grasp; Ambrose too looked and recoiled for a
moment, while the colour spread over his face.
“Yes, lads. Can you brook the thought!—Harry Randall is the poor fool!”
Stephen, whose composure had already broken down, burst into tears
again, perhaps mostly at the downfall of all his own expectations and
glorifications of the kinsman about whom he had boasted. Ambrose only
exclaimed “O uncle, you must have been hard pressed.” For indeed the
grave, almost melancholy man, who stood before them, regarding them
wistfully, had little in common with the lithe tumbler full of
absurdities whom they had left at York House.
“Even so, my good lad. Thou art right in that,” said he gravely.
“Harder than I trust will ever be the lot of you two, my sweet Moll’s
sons. She never guessed that I was come to this.”
“O no,” said Stephen. “She always thought thou—thou hadst some high
preferment in—”
“And so I have,” said Randall with something of his ordinary humour.
“There’s no man dares to speak such plain truth to my lord—or for that
matter to King Harry himself, save his own Jack-a-Lee—and he, being a
fool of nature’s own making, cannot use his chances, poor rogue! And so
the poor lads came up to London hoping to find a gallant captain who
could bring them to high preferment, and found nought but—Tom Fool! I
could find it in my heart to weep for them! And so thou mindest
clutching the mistletoe on nunk Hal’s shoulder. I warrant it groweth
still on the crooked May bush? And is old Bobbin alive?”
They answered his questions, but still as if under a great shock, and
presently he said, as they paced up and down the garden walks, “Ay, I
have been sore bestead, and I’ll tell you how it came about, boys, and
mayhap ye will pardon the poor fool, who would not own you sooner, lest
ye should come in for mockery ye have not learnt to brook.” There was a
sadness and pleading in his tone that touched Ambrose, and he drew
nearer to his uncle, who laid a hand on his shoulder, and presently the
other on that of Stephen, who shrank a little at first, but submitted.
“Lads, I need not tell you why I left fair Shirley and the good
greenwood. I was a worse fool then than ever I have been since I wore
the cap and bells, and if all had been brought home to me, it might
have brought your father and mother into trouble—my sweet Moll who had
done her best for me. I deemed, as you do now, that the way to fortune
was open, but I found no path before me, and I had tightened my belt
many a time, and was not much more than a bag of bones, when, by
chance, I fell in with a company of tumblers and gleemen. I sang them
the old hunting-song, and they said I did it tunably, and, whereas they
saw I could already dance a hornpipe and turn a somersault passably
well, the leader of the troop, old Nat Fire-eater, took me on, and
methinks he did not repent—nor I neither—save when I sprained my foot
and had time to lie by and think. We had plenty to fill our bellies and
put on our backs; we had welcome wherever we went, and the groats and
pennies rained into our caps. I was Clown and Jack Pudding and whatever
served their turn, and the very name of Quipsome Hal drew crowds. Yea,
’twas a merry life! Ay, I feel thee wince and shrink, my lad; and so
should I have shuddered when I was of thine age, and hoped to come to
better things.”
“Methinks ’twere better than this present,” said Stephen rather
gruffly.
“I had my reasons, boy,” said Randall, speaking as if he were pleading
his cause with their father and mother rather than with two such young
lads. “There was in our company an old man-at-arms who played the lute
and the rebeck, and sang ballads so long as hand and voice served him,
and with him went his grandchild, a fair and honest little maiden, whom
he kept so jealously apart that ’twas long ere I knew of her following
the company. He had been a franklin on my Lord of Warwick’s lands, and
had once been burnt out by Queen Margaret’s men, and just as things
looked up again with him, King Edward’s folk ruined all again, and slew
his two sons. When great folk play the fool, small folk pay the scot,
as I din into his Grace’s ears whenever I may. A minion of the Duke of
Clarence got the steading, and poor old Martin Fulford was turned out
to shift as best he might. One son he had left, and with him he went to
the Low Countries, where they would have done well had they not been
bitten by faith in the fellow Perkin Warbeck. You’ve heard of him?”
“Yea,” said Ambrose; “the same who was taken out of sanctuary at
Beaulieu, and borne off to London. Father said he was marvellous like
in the face to all the kings he had ever seen hunting in the Forest.”
“I know not; but to the day of his death old Martin swore that he was a
son of King Edward’s, and they came home again with the men the Duchess
of Burgundy gave Perkin—came bag and baggage, for young Fulford had
wedded a fair Flemish wife, poor soul! He left her with his father nigh
to Taunton ere the battle, and he was never heard of more, but as he
was one of the few men who knew how to fight, belike he was slain. Thus
old Martin was left with the Flemish wife and her little one on his
hands, for whose sake he did what went against him sorely, joined
himself to this troop of jugglers and players, so as to live by the
minstrelsy he had learnt in better days, while his daughter-in-law
mended and made for the company and kept them in smart and shining
trim. By the time I fell in with them his voice was well-nigh gone, and
his hand sorely shaking, but Fire-eating Nat, the master of our troop,
was not an ill-natured fellow, and the glee-women’s feet were well used
to his rebeck. Moreover, the Fire-eater had an eye to little Perronel,
though her mother had never let him train her—scarce let him set an eye
on her; and when Mistress Fulford died, poor soul, of ague, caught when
we showed off before the merry Prior of Worcester, her last words were
that Perronel should never be a glee-maiden. Well, to make an end of my
tale, we had one day a mighty show at Windsor, when the King and Court
were at the castle, and it was whispered to me at the end that my Lord
Archbishop’s household needed a jester, and that Quipsome Hal had been
thought to make excellent fooling. I gave thanks at first, but said I
would rather be a free man, not bound to be a greater fool than Dame
Nature made me all the hours of the day. But when I got back to the
Garter, what should I find but that poor old Martin had been stricken
with the dead palsy while he was playing his rebeck, and would never
twang a note more; and there was pretty Perronel weeping over him, and
Nat Fire-eater pledging his word to give the old man bed, board, and
all that he could need, if so be that Perronel should be trained to be
one of his glee-maidens, to dance and tumble and sing. And there was
the poor old franklin shaking his head more than the palsy made it
shake already, and trying to frame his lips to say, ‘rather they both
should die.’”
“Oh, uncle, I wot now what thou didst!” cried Stephen.
“Yea, lad, there was nought else to be done. I asked Master Fulford to
give me Perronel, plighting my word that never should she sing or dance
for any one’s pleasure save her own and mine, and letting him know that
I came of a worthy family. We were wedded out of hand by the priest
that had been sent for to housel him, and in our true names. The
Fire-eater was fiery enough, and swore that, wedded or not, I was bound
to him, that he would have both of us, and would not drag about a
helpless old man unless he might have the wench to do his bidding. I
verily believe that, but for my being on the watch and speaking a word
to two or three stout yeomen of the king’s guard that chanced to be
crushing a pot of sack at the Garter, he would have played some
villainous trick on us. They gave a hint to my Lord of York’s steward,
and he came down and declared that the Archbishop required Quipsome
Hal, and would—of his grace—send a purse of nobles to the Fire-eater,
wherewith he was to be off on the spot without more ado, or he might
find it the worse for him, and they, together with mine host’s good
wife, took care that the rogue did not carry away Perronel with him, as
he was like to have done. To end my story, here am I, getting showers
of gold coins one day and nought but kicks and gibes the next, while my
good woman keeps house nigh here on the banks of the Thames with Gaffer
Martin. Her Flemish thrift has set her to the washing and
clear-starching of the lawyers’ ruffs, whereby she makes enough to
supply the defects of my scanty days, or when I have to follow my
lord’s grace out of her reach, sweet soul. There’s my tale, nevoys. And
now, have ye a hand for Quipsome Hal?”
“O uncle! Father would have honoured thee!” cried Stephen.
“Why didst thou not bring her down to the Forest?” said Ambrose.
“I conned over the thought,” said Randall, “but there was no way of
living. I wist not whether the Ranger might not stir up old tales, and
moreover old Martin is ill to move. We brought him down by boat from
Windsor, and he has never quitted the house since, nor his bed for the
last two years. You’ll come and see the housewife? She hath a supper
laying out for you, and on the way we’ll speak of what ye are to do, my
poor lads.”
“I’d forgotten that,” said Stephen.
“So had not I,” returned his uncle; “I fear me I cannot aid you to
preferment as you expected. None know Quipsome Hal by any name but that
of Harry Merryman, and it were not well that ye should come in there as
akin to the poor fool.”
“No,” said Stephen, emphatically.
“Your father left you twenty crowns apiece?”
“Ay, but John hath all save four of them.”
“For that there’s remedy. What saidst thou of the Cheapside armourer?
His fellow, the Wry-mouth, seemed to have a care of you. Ye made in to
the rescue with poor old Spring.”
“Even so,” replied Ambrose, “and if Stevie would brook the thought, I
trow that Master Headley would be quite willing to have him bound as
his apprentice.”
“Well said, my good lad!” cried Hal. “What sayest thou, Stevie?”
“I had liefer be a man-at-arms.”
“That thou couldst only be after being sorely knocked about as horseboy
and as groom. I tried that once, but found it meant kicks, and oaths,
and vile company—such as I would not have for thy mother’s son, Steve.
Headley is a well-reported, God-fearing man, and will do well by thee.
And thou wilt learn the use of arms as well as handle them.”
“I like Master Headley and Kit Smallbones well enough,” said Stephen,
rather gloomily, “and if a gentleman must be a prentice, weapons are
not so bad a craft for him.”
“Whittington was a gentleman,” said Ambrose.
“I am sick of Whittington,” muttered Stephen.
“Nor is he the only one,” said Randall; “there’s Middleton and Pole—ay,
and many another who have risen from the flat cap to the open helm, if
not to the coronet. Nay, these London companies have rules against
taking any prentice not of gentle blood. Come in to supper with my good
woman, and then I’ll go with thee and hold converse with good Master
Headley, and if Master John doth not send the fee freely, why then I
know of them who shall make him disgorge it. But mark,” he added, as he
led the way out of the gardens, “not a breath of Quipsome Hal. Down
here they know me as a clerk of my lord’s chamber, sad and sober, and
high in his trust, and therein they are not far out.”
In truth, though Harry Randall had been a wild and frolicsome youth in
his Hampshire home, the effect of being a professional buffoon had
actually made it a relaxation of effort to him to be grave, quiet, and
slow in movement; and this was perhaps a more effectual disguise than
the dark garments, and the false brown hair, beard, and moustache, with
which he concealed the shorn and shaven condition required of the
domestic jester. Having been a player, he was well able to adapt
himself to his part, and yet Ambrose had considerable doubts whether
Tibble had not suspected his identity from the first, more especially
as both the lads had inherited the same dark eyes from their mother,
and Ambrose for the first time perceived a considerable resemblance
between him and Stephen, not only in feature but in unconscious
gesture.
Ambrose was considering whether he had better give his uncle a hint,
lest concealment should excite suspicion; when, niched as it were
against an abutment of the wall of the Temple courts, close to some
steps going down to the Thames, they came upon a tiny house, at whose
open door stood a young woman in the snowiest of caps and aprons over a
short black gown, beneath which were a trim pair of blue hosen and
stout shoes; a suspicion of yellow hair was allowed to appear framing
the honest, fresh, Flemish face, which beamed a good-humoured welcome.
“Here they be! here be the poor lads, Pernel mine.” She held out her
hand, and offered a round comfortable cheek to each, saying, “Welcome
to London, young gentlemen.”
Good Mistress Perronel did not look exactly the stuff to make a
glee-maiden of, nor even the beauty for whom to sacrifice everything,
even liberty and respect. She was substantial in form, and broad in
face and mouth, without much nose, and with large almost colourless
eyes. But there was a wonderful look of heartiness and friendliness
about her person and her house; the boys had never in their lives seen
anything so amazingly and spotlessly clean and shining. In a corner
stood an erection like a dark oaken cupboard or wardrobe, but in the
middle was an opening about a yard square through which could be seen
the night-capped face of a white-headed, white-bearded old man, propped
against snowy pillows. To him Randall went at once, saying, “So,
gaffer, how goes it? You see I have brought company, my poor sister’s
sons—rest her soul!”
Gaffer Martin mumbled something to them incomprehensible, but which the
jester comprehended, for he called them up and named them to him, and
Martin put out a bony hand, and gave them a greeting. Though his speech
and limbs had failed him, his intelligence was evidently still intact,
and there was a tenderly-cared-for look about him, rendering his
condition far less pitiable than that of Richard Birkenholt, who was so
palpably treated as an incumbrance.
The table was already covered with a cloth, and Perronel quickly placed
on it a yellow bowl of excellent beef broth, savoury with vegetables
and pot-herbs, and with meat and dumplings floating in it. A lesser
bowl was provided for each of the company, with horn spoons, and a loaf
of good wheaten bread, and a tankard of excellent ale. Randall declared
that his Perronel made far daintier dishes than my Lord Archbishop’s
cook, who went every day in silk and velvet.
He explained to her his views on the armourer, to which she agreed with
all her might, the old gentleman in bed adding something which the boys
began to understand, that there was no worthier nor more honourable
condition than that of an English burgess, specially in the good town
of London, where the kings knew better than to be ever at enmity with
their good towns.
“Will the armourer take both of you?” asked Mistress Randall.
“Nay, it was only for Stephen we devised it,” said Ambrose.
“And what wilt thou do?”
“I wish to be a scholar,” said Ambrose.
“A lean trade,” quoth the jester; “a monk now or a friar may be a right
jolly fellow, but I never yet saw a man who throve upon books!”
“I had rather study than thrive,” said Ambrose rather dreamily.
“He wotteth not what he saith,” cried Stephen.
“Oh ho! so thou art of that sort!” rejoined his uncle. “I know them! A
crabbed black and white page is meat and drink to them! There’s that
Dutch fellow, with a long Latin name, thin and weazen as never was
Dutchman before; they say he has read all the books in the world, and
can talk in all the tongues, and yet when he and Sir Thomas More and
the Dean of St. Paul’s get together at my lord’s table one would think
they were bidding for my bauble. Such excellent fooling do they make,
that my lord sits holding his sides.”
“The Dean of St. Paul’s!” said Ambrose, experiencing a shock.
“Ay! He’s another of your lean scholars, and yet he was born a wealthy
man, son to a Lord Mayor, who, they say, reared him alone out of a
round score of children.”
“Alack! poor souls,” sighed Mistress Randall under her breath, for, as
Ambrose afterwards learnt, her two babes had scarce seen the light. Her
husband, while giving her a look of affection, went on—“Not that he can
keep his wealth. He has bestowed the most of it on Stepney church, and
on the school he hath founded for poor children, nigh to St. Paul’s.”
“Could I get admittance to that school?” exclaimed Ambrose.
“Thou art a big fellow for a school,” said his uncle, looking him over.
“However, faint heart never won fair lady.”
“I have a letter from the Warden of St. Elizabeth’s to one of the
clerks of St. Paul’s,” added Ambrose. “Alworthy is his name.”
“That’s well. We’ll prove that same,” said his uncle. “Meantime, if ye
have eaten your fill, we must be on our way to thine armourer, nevoy
Stephen, or I shall be called for.”
And after a private colloquy between the husband and wife, Ambrose was
by both of them desired to make the little house his home until he
could find admittance into St. Paul’s School, or some other. He
demurred somewhat from a mixture of feelings, in which there was a
certain amount of Stephen’s longing for freedom of action, and likewise
a doubt whether he should not thus be a great inconvenience in the tiny
household—a burden he was resolved not to be. But his uncle now took a
more serious tone.
“Look thou, Ambrose, thou art my sister’s son, and fool though I be,
thou art bound in duty to me, and I to have charge of thee, nor will
I—for the sake of thy father and mother—have thee lying I know not
where, among gulls, and cutpurses, and beguilers of youth here in this
city of London. So, till better befals thee, and I wot of it, thou must
be here no later than curfew, or I will know the reason why.”
“And I hope the young gentleman will find it no sore grievance,” said
Perronel, so good-humouredly that Ambrose could only protest that he
had feared to be troublesome to her, and promise to bring his bundle
the next day.