TWO VOCATIONS
“The smith, a mighty man is he
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.”
Longfellow.
Stephen’s first thought in the morning was whether the _ex voto_ effigy
of poor Spring was put in hand, while Ambrose thought of Tibble’s
promised commendation to the printer. They both, however, found their
affairs must needs wait. Orders for weapons for the tilting-match had
come in so thickly the day before that every hand must be employed on
executing them, and the Dragon court was ringing again with the clang
of hammers and screech of grind-stones.
Stephen, though not yet formally bound, was to enter on his apprentice
life at once; and Ambrose was assured by Master Headley that it was of
no use to repair to any of the dignified clergy of St. Paul’s before
mid-day, and that he had better employ the time in writing to his elder
brother respecting the fee. Materials were supplied to him, and he used
them so as to do credit to the monks of Beaulieu, in spite of little
Dennet spending every spare moment in watching his pen as if he were
performing some cabalistic operation.
He was a long time about it. There were two letters to write, and the
wording of them needed to be very careful, besides that the old court
hand took more time to frame than the Italian current hand, and even
thus, when dinner-time came, at ten o’clock, the household was
astonished to find that he had finished all that regarded Stephen,
though he had left the letters open, until his own venture should have
been made.
Stephen flung himself down beside his brother hot and panting, shaking
his shoulder-blades and declaring that his arms felt ready to drop out.
He had been turning a grindstone ever since six o’clock. The two new
apprentices had been set on to sharpening the weapon points as all that
they were capable of, and had been bidden by Smallbones to turn and
hold alternately, but “that oaf Giles Headley,” said Stephen, “never
ground but one lance, and made me go on turning, threatening to lay the
butt about mine ears if I slacked.”
“The lazy lubber!” cried Ambrose. “But did none see thee, or couldst
not call out for redress?”
“Thou art half a wench thyself, Ambrose, to think I’d complain.
Besides, he stood on his rights as a master, and he is a big fellow.”
“That’s true,” said Ambrose, “and he might make it the worse for thee.”
“I would I were as big as he,” sighed Stephen, “I would soon show him
which was the better man.”
Perhaps the grinding match had not been as unobserved as Stephen
fancied, for on returning to work, Smallbones, who presided over all
the rougher parts of the business, claimed them both. He set Stephen to
stand by him, sort out and hand him all the rivets needed for a suit of
proof armour that hung on a frame, while he required Giles to
straighten bars of iron heated to a white heat. Ere long Giles called
out for Stephen to change places, to which Smallbones coolly replied,
“Turnabout is the rule here, master.”
“Even so,” replied Giles, “and I have been at work like this long
enough, ay, and too long!”
“Thy turn was a matter of three hours this morning,” replied Kit—not
coolly, for nobody was cool in his den, but with a brevity which
provoked a laugh.
“I shall see what my cousin the master saith!” cried Giles in great
wrath.
“Ay, that thou wilt,” returned Kit, “if thou dost loiter over thy
business, and hast not those bars ready when called for.”
“He never meant me to be put on work like this, with a hammer that
breaks mine arm.”
“What! crying out for _that_!” said Edmund Burgess, who had just come
in to ask for a pair of tongs. “What wouldst say to the big hammer that
none can wield save Kit himself?”
Giles felt there was no redress, and panted on, feeling as if he were
melting away, and with a dumb, wild rage in his heart, that could get
no outlet, for Smallbones was at least as much bigger than he as he was
than Stephen. Tibble was meanwhile busy over the gilding and enamelling
of Buckingham’s magnificent plate armour in Italian fashion, but he had
found time to thrust into Ambrose’s hand an exceedingly small and
curiously folded billet for Lucas Hansen, the printer, in case of need.
“He would be found at the sign of the Winged Staff, in Paternoster
Row,” said Tibble, “or if not there himself, there would be his servant
who would direct Ambrose to the place where the Dutch printer lived and
worked.” No one was at leisure to show the lad the way, and he set out
with a strange feeling of solitude, as his path began decisively to be
away from that of his brother.
He did not find much difficulty in discovering the quadrangle on the
south side of the minster where the minor canons lived near the
deanery; and the porter, a stout lay brother, pointed out to him the
doorway belonging to Master Alworthy. He knocked, and a young man with
a tonsured head but a bloated face opened it. Ambrose explained that he
had brought a letter from the Warden of St. Elizabeth’s College at
Winchester.
“Give it here,” said the young man.
“I would give it to his reverence himself,” said Ambrose.
“His reverence is taking his after-dinner nap and may not be
disturbed,” said the man.
“Then I will wait,” said Ambrose.
The door was shut in his face, but it was the shady side of the court,
and he sat down on a bench and waited. After full an hour the door was
opened, and the canon, a good-natured looking man, in a square cap, and
gown and cassock of the finest cloth, came slowly out. He had evidently
heard nothing of the message, and was taken by surprise when Ambrose,
doffing his cap and bowing low, gave him the greeting of the Warden of
St. Elizabeth’s and the letter.
“Hum! Ha! My good friend—Fielder—I remember him. He was always a
scholar. So he hath sent thee here with his commendations. What should
I do with all the idle country lads that come up to choke London and
feed the plague? Yet stay—that lurdane Bolt is getting intolerably lazy
and insolent, and methinks he robs me! What canst do, thou stripling?”
“I can read Latin, sir, and know the Greek alphabeta.”
“Tush! I want no scholar more than enough to serve my mass. Canst
sing?”
“Not now; but I hope to do so again.”
“When I rid me of Bolt there—and there’s an office under the sacristan
that he might fill as well as another knave—the fellow might do for me
well enow as a body servant,” said Mr. Alworthy, speaking to himself.
“He would brush my gowns and make my bed, and I might perchance trust
him with my marketings, and by and by there might be some office for
him when he grew saucy and idle. I’ll prove him on mine old comrade’s
word.”
“Sir,” said Ambrose, respectfully, “what I seek for is occasion for
study. I had hoped you could speak to the Dean, Dr. John Colet, for
some post at his school.”
“Boy,” said Alworthy, “I thought thee no such fool! Why crack thy
brains with study when I can show thee a surer path to ease and
preferment? But I see thou art too proud to do an old man a service.
Thou writst thyself gentleman, forsooth, and high blood will not
stoop.”
“Not so, sir,” returned Ambrose, “I would work in any way so I could
study the humanities, and hear the Dean preach. Cannot you commend me
to his school?”
“Ha!” exclaimed the canon, “this is your sort, is it? I’ll have nought
to do with it! Preaching, preaching! Every idle child’s head is agog on
preaching nowadays! A plague on it! Why can’t Master Dean leave it to
the black friars, whose vocation ’tis, and not cumber us with his
sermons for ever, and set every lazy lad thinking he must needs run
after them? No, no, my good boy, take my advice. Thou shalt have two
good bellyfuls a day, all my cast gowns, and a pair of shoes by the
year, with a groat a month if thou wilt keep mine house, bring in my
meals, and the like, and by and by, so thou art a good lad, and runst
not after these new-fangled preachments which lead but to heresy, and
set folk racking their brains about sin and such trash, we’ll get thee
shorn and into minor orders, and who knows what good preferment thou
mayst not win in due time!”
“Sir, I am beholden to you, but my mind is set on study.”
“What kin art thou to a fool?” cried the minor canon, so startling
Ambrose that he had almost answered, and turning to another
ecclesiastic whose siesta seemed to have ended about the same time,
“Look at this varlet, Brother Cloudesley! Would you believe it? He
comes to me with a letter from mine old friend, in consideration of
which I offer him that saucy lubber Bolt’s place, a gown of mine own a
year, meat and preferment, and, lo you, he tells me all he wants is to
study Greek, forsooth, and hear the Dean’s sermons!”
The other canon shook his head in dismay at such arrant folly. “Young
stripling, be warned,” he said. “Know what is good for thee. Greek is
the tongue of heresy.”
“How may that be, reverend sir,” said Ambrose, “when the holy Apostles
and the Fathers spake and wrote in the Greek?”
“Waste not thy time on him, brother,” said Mr. Alworthy. “He will find
out his error when his pride and his Greek forsooth have brought him to
fire and faggot.”
“Ay! ay!” added Cloudesley. “The Dean with his Dutch friend and his
sermons, and his new grammar and accidence, is sowing heretics as thick
as groundsel.”
Wherewith the two canons of the old school waddled away, arm in arm,
and Bolt put out his head, leered at Ambrose, and bade him shog off,
and not come sneaking after other folk’s shoes.
Sooth to say, Ambrose was relieved by his rejection. If he were not to
obtain admission in any capacity to St. Paul’s School, he felt more
drawn to Tibble’s friend the printer; for the self-seeking luxurious
habits into which so many of the beneficed clergy had fallen were
repulsive to him, and his whole soul thirsted after that new
revelation, as it were, which Colet’s sermon had made to him. Yet the
word heresy was terrible and confusing, and a doubt came over him
whether he might not be forsaking the right path, and be lured aside by
false lights.
He would think it out before he committed himself. Where should he do
so in peace? He thought of the great Minster, but the nave was full of
a surging multitude, and there was a loud hum of voices proceeding from
it, which took from him all inclination to find his way to the quieter
and inner portions of the sanctuary.
Then he recollected the little Pardon Church, where he had seen the
_Dance of Death_ on the walls; and crossing the burial-ground he
entered, and, as he expected, found it empty, since the hours for
masses for the dead were now past. He knelt down on a step, repeated
the sext office, in warning for which the bells were chiming all round,
covering his face with his hands, and thinking himself back to
Beaulieu; then, seating himself on a step, leaning against the wall, he
tried to think out whether to give himself up to the leadings of the
new light that had broken on him, or whether to wrench himself from it.
Was this, which seemed to him truth and deliverance, verily the heresy
respecting which rumours had come to horrify the country convents? If
he had only heard of it from Tibble Wry-mouth, he would have doubted,
in spite of its power over him, but he had heard it from a man, wise,
good, and high in place, like Dean Colet. Yet to his further
perplexity, his uncle had spoken of Colet as jesting at Wolsey’s table.
What course should he take? Could he bear to turn away from that which
drew his soul so powerfully, and return to the bounds which seem to him
to be grown so narrow, but which he was told were safe? Now that
Stephen was settled, it was open to him to return to St. Elizabeth’s
College, but the young soul within him revolted against the repetition
of what had become to him unsatisfying, unless illumined by the
brightness he seemed to have glimpsed at.
But Ambrose had gone through much unwonted fatigue of late, and while
thus musing he fell asleep, with his head against the wall. He was half
wakened by the sound of voices, and presently became aware that two
persons were examining the walls, and comparing the paintings with some
others, which one of them had evidently seen. If he had known it, it
was with the _Dance of Death_ on the bridge of Lucerne.
“I question,” said a voice that Ambrose had heard before, “whether
these terrors be wholesome for men’s souls.”
“For priests’ pouches, they be,” said the other, with something of a
foreign accent.
“Alack, when shall we see the day when the hope of paradise and dread
of purgatory shall be no longer made the tools of priestly gain; and
hatred of sin taught to these poor folk, instead of servile dread of
punishment.”
“Have a care, my Colet,” answered the yellow bearded foreigner; “thou
art already in ill odour with those same men in authority; and though a
Dean’s stall be fenced from the episcopal crook, yet there is a rod at
Rome which can reach even thither.”
“I tell thee, dear Erasmus, thou art too timid; I were well content to
leave house and goods, yea, to go to prison or to death, could I but
bring home to one soul, for which Christ died, the truth and hope in
every one of those prayers and creeds that our poor folk are taught to
patter as a senseless charm.”
“These are strange times,” returned Erasmus. “Methinks yonder phantom,
be he skeleton or angel, will have snatched both of us away ere we
behold the full issue either of thy preachings, or my Greek Testament,
or of our More’s Utopian images. Dost thou not feel as though we were
like children who have set some mighty engine in motion, like the great
water-wheels in my native home, which, whirled by the flowing streams
of time and opinion, may break up the whole foundations, and destroy
the oneness of the edifice?”
“It may be so,” returned Colet. “What read we? ‘The net brake’ even in
the Master’s sight, while still afloat on the sea. It was only on the
shore that the hundred and fifty-three, all good and sound, were drawn
to His feet.”
“And,” returned Erasmus, “I see wherefore thou hast made thy children
at St. Paul’s one hundred and fifty and three.”
The two friends were passing out. Their latter speeches had scarce been
understood by Ambrose, even if he heard them, so full was he of
conflicting feelings, now ready to cast himself before their feet, and
entreat the Dean to help him to guidance, now withheld by bashfulness,
unwillingness to interrupt, and ingenuous shame at appearing like an
eavesdropper towards such dignified and venerable personages. Had he
obeyed his first impulse, mayhap his career had been made safer and
easier for him, but it was while shyness chained his limbs and tongue
that the Dean and Erasmus quitted the chapel, and the opportunity of
accosting them had slipped away.
Their half comprehended words had however decided him in the part he
should take, making him sure that Colet was not controverting the
formularies of the Church, but drawing out those meanings which in
repetition by rote were well-nigh forgotten. It was as if his course
were made clear to him.
He was determined to take the means which most readily presented
themselves of hearing Colet; and leaving the chapel, he bent his steps
to the Row which his book-loving eye had already marked. Flanking the
great Cathedral on the north, was the row of small open stalls devoted
to the sale of books, or “objects of devotion,” all so arranged that
the open portion might be cleared, and the stock-in-trade locked up if
not carried away. Each stall had its own sign, most of them sacred,
such as the Lamb and Flag, the Scallop Shell, or some patron saint, but
classical emblems were oddly intermixed, such as Minerva’s Ægis,
Pegasus, and the Lyre of Apollo. The sellers, some middle-aged men,
some lads, stretched out their arms with their wares to attract the
passengers in the street, and did not fail to beset Ambrose. The more
lively looked at his Lincoln green and shouted verses of ballads at
him, fluttering broad sheets with verses on the lamentable fate of Jane
Shore, or Fair Rosamond, the same woodcut doing duty for both ladies,
without mercy to their beauty. The scholastic judged by his face and
step that he was a student, and they flourished at him black-bound
copies of Virgilius Maro, and of Tully’s Offices, while others, hoping
that he was an incipient clerk, offered breviaries, missals or
portuaries, with the Use of St. Paul’s, or of Sarum, or mayhap St.
Austin’s Confessions. He made his way along, with his eye diligently
heedful of the signs, and at last recognised the Winged Staff, or
caduceus of Hermes, over a stall where a couple of boys in blue caps
and gowns and yellow stockings were making a purchase of a small,
grave-looking, elderly but bright cheeked man, whose yellow hair and
beard were getting intermingled with grey. They were evidently those
St. Paul’s School boys whom Ambrose envied so much, and as they
finished their bargaining and ran away together, Ambrose advanced with
a salutation, asked if he did not see Master Lucas Hansen, and gave him
the note with the commendations of Tibble Steelman the armourer.
He was answered with a ready nod and “yea, yea,” as the old man opened
the billet and cast his eyes over it; then scanning Ambrose from head
to foot, said with some amazement, “But you are of gentle blood, young
sir.”
“I am,” said Ambrose; “but gentle blood needs at times to work for
bread, and Tibble let me hope that I might find both livelihood for the
body and for the soul with you, sir.”
“Is it so?” asked the printer, his face lighting up. “Art thou willing
to labour and toil, and give up hope of fee and honour, if so thou
mayst win the truth?”
Ambrose folded his hands with a gesture of earnestness, and Lucas
Hansen said, “Bless thee, my son! Methinks I can aid thee in thy quest,
so thou canst lay aside,” and here his voice grew sharper and more
peremptory, “all thy gentleman’s airs and follies, and serve—ay, serve
and obey.”
“I trust so,” returned Ambrose; “my brother is even now becoming
prentice to Master Giles Headley, and we hope to live as honest men by
the work of our hands and brains.”
“I forgot that you English herren are not so puffed up with pride and
scorn like our Dutch nobles,” returned the printer. “Canst live
sparingly, and lie hard, and see that thou keepst the house clean, not
like these English swine?”
“I hope so,” said Ambrose, smiling; “but I have an uncle and aunt, and
they would have me lie every night at their house beside the Temple
gardens.”
“What is thine uncle?”
“He hath a post in the meiné of my Lord Archbishop of York,” said
Ambrose, blushing and hesitating a little. “He cometh to and fro to his
wife, who dwells with her old father, doing fine lavender’s work for
the lawyer folk therein.”
It was somewhat galling that this should be the most respectable
occupation that could be put forward, but Lucas Hansen was evidently
reassured by it. He next asked whether Ambrose could read Latin,
putting a book into his hand as he did so; Ambrose read and construed
readily, explaining that he had been trained at Beaulieu.
“That is well!” said the printer; “and hast thou any Greek?”
“Only the alphabeta,” said Ambrose, “I made that out from a book at
Beaulieu, but Father Simon knew no more, and there was nought to study
from.”
“Even so,” replied Hansen, “but little as thou knowst ’tis as much as I
can hope for from any who will aid me in my craft. ’Tis I that, as thou
hast seen, furnish for the use of the children at the Dean’s school of
St. Paul’s. The best and foremost scholars of them are grounded in
their Greek, that being the tongue wherein the Holy Gospels were first
writ. Hitherto I have had to get me books for their use from Holland,
whither they are brought from Basle, but I have had sent me from
Hamburg a fount of type of the Greek character, whereby I hope to print
at home, the accidence, and mayhap the _Dialogues_ of Plato, and it
might even be the sacred Gospel itself, which the great Doctor, Master
Erasmus, is even now collating from the best authorities in the
universities.”
Ambrose’s eyes kindled with unmistakable delight. “You have the
accidence!” he exclaimed. “Then could I study the tongue even while
working for you! Sir, I would do my best! It is the very opportunity I
seek.”
“Fair and softly,” said the printer with something of a smile. “Thou
art new to cheapening and bargaining, my fair lad. Thou hast spoken not
one word of the wage.”
“I recked not of that,” said Ambrose. “’Tis true, I may not burthen
mine uncle and aunt, but verily, sir, I would live on the humblest fare
that will keep body and soul together so that I may have such an
opportunity.”
“How knowst thou what the opportunity may be?” returned Lucas, drily.
“Thou art but a babe! Some one should have a care of thee. If I set
thee to stand here all day and cry what d’ye lack? or to carry bales of
books twixt this and Warwick Inner Yard, thou wouldst have no ground to
complain.”
“Nay, sir,” returned Ambrose, “I wot that Tibble Steelman would never
send me to one who would not truly give me what I need.”
“Tibble Steelman is verily one of the few who are both called and
chosen,” replied Lucas, “and I think thou art the same so far as green
youth may be judged, since thou art one who will follow the word into
the desert, and never ask for the loaves and fishes. Nevertheless, I
will take none advantage of thy youth and zeal, but thou shalt first
behold what thou shalt have to do for me, and then if it still likes
thee, I will see thy kindred. Hast no father?”
Ambrose explained, and at that moment Master Hansen’s boy made his
appearance, returning from an errand; the stall was left in his charge,
while the master took Ambrose with him into the precincts of what had
once been the splendid and hospitable mansion of the great king-maker,
Warwick, but was now broken up into endless little tenements with their
courts and streets, though the baronial ornaments and the arrangement
still showed what the place had been.
Entering beneath a wide archway, still bearing the sign of the Bear and
Ragged Staff, Lucas led the way into what must have been one of the
courts of offices, for it was surrounded with buildings and sheds of
different heights and sizes, and had on one side a deep trough of
stone, fed by a series of water-taps, intended for the use of the
stables. The doors of one of these buildings was unlocked by Master
Hansen, and Ambrose found himself in what had once perhaps been part of
a stable, but had been partitioned off from the rest. There were two
stalls, one serving the Dutchman for his living room, the other for his
workshop. In one corner stood a white earthenware stove—so new a
spectacle to the young forester that he supposed it to be the printing
press. A table, shiny with rubbing, a wooden chair, a couple of stools,
a few vessels, mirrors for brightness, some chests and corner
cupboards, a bed shutting up like a box and likewise highly polished,
completed the furniture, all arranged with the marvellous orderliness
and neatness of the nation. A curtain shut off the opening to the other
stall, where stood a machine with a huge screw, turned by leverage.
Boxes of type and piles of paper surrounded it, and Ambrose stood and
looked at it with a sort of awe-struck wonder and respect as the great
fount of wisdom. Hansen showed him what his work would be, in setting
up type, and by and by correcting after the first proof. The machine
could only print four pages at a time, and for this operation the whole
strength of the establishment was required. Moreover, Master Hansen
bound, as well as printed his books. Ambrose was by no means daunted.
As long as he might read as well as print, and while he had Sundays at
St. Paul’s to look to, he asked no more—except indeed that his gentle
blood stirred at the notion of acting salesman in the book-stall, and
Master Hansen assured him with a smile that Will Wherry, the other boy,
would do that better than either of them, and that he would be entirely
employed here.
The methodical master insisted however on making terms with the boy’s
relations; and with some misgivings on Ambrose’s part, the two—since
business hours were almost over—walked together to the Temple and to
the little house, where Perronel was ironing under her window.
Ambrose need not have doubted. The Dutch blood on either side was
stirred; and the good housewife commanded the little printer’s respect
as he looked round on a kitchen as tidy as if it were in his own
country. And the bargain was struck that Ambrose Birkenholt should
serve Master Hansen for his meals and two pence a week, while he was to
sleep at the little house of Mistress Randall, who would keep his
clothes and linen in order.
And thus it was that both Ambrose and Stephen Birkenholt had found
their vocations for the present, and both were fervent in them. Master
Headley pshawed a little when he heard that Ambrose had engaged himself
to a printer and a foreigner; and when he was told it was to a friend
of Tibble’s, only shook his head, saying that Tib’s only fault was
dabbling in matters of divinity, as if a plain man could not be saved
without them! However, he respected the lad for having known his own
mind and not hung about in idleness, and he had no opinion of clerks,
whether monks or priests. Indeed, the low esteem in which the clergy as
a class were held in London was one of the very evil signs of the
times. Ambrose was invited to dine and sup at the Dragon court every
Sunday and holiday, and he was glad to accept, since the hospitality
was so free, and he thus was able to see his brother and Tibble;
besides that, it prevented him from burthening Mistress Randall, whom
he really liked, though he could not see her husband, either in his
motley or his plain garments, without a shudder of repulsion.
Ambrose found that setting up type had not much more to do with the
study of new books than Stephen’s turning the grindstone had with
fighting in the lists; and the mistakes he made in spelling from right
to left, and in confounding the letters, made him despair, and prepare
for any amount of just indignation from his master; but he found on the
contrary that Master Hansen had never had a pupil who made so few
blunders on the first trial, and augured well of him from such a
beginning. Paper was too costly, and pressure too difficult, for many
proofs to be struck off, but Hansen could read and correct his type as
it stood, and assured Ambrose that practice would soon give him the
same power; and the correction was thus completed, when Will Wherry, a
big, stout fellow, came in to dinner—the stall being left during that
time, as nobody came for books during the dinner-hour, and Hansen,
having an understanding with his next neighbour, by which they took
turns to keep guard against thieves.
The master and the two lads dined together on the contents of a
cauldron, where pease and pork had been simmering together on the stove
all the morning. Their strength was then united to work the press and
strike off a sheet, which the master scanned, finding only one error in
it. It was a portion of Lilly’s _Grammar_, and Ambrose regarded it with
mingled pride and delight, though he longed to go further into those
deeper revelations for the sake of which he had come here.
Master Hansen then left the youths to strike off a couple of hundred
sheets, after which they were to wash the types and re-arrange the
letters in the compartments in order, whilst he returned to the stall.
The customers requiring his personal attention were generally late
ones. When all this was accomplished, and the pot put on again in
preparation for supper, the lads might use the short time that remained
as they would, and Hansen himself showed Ambrose a shelf of books
concealed by a blue curtain, whence he might read.
Will Wherry showed unconcealed amazement that this should be the taste
of his companion. He himself hated the whole business, and would never
have adopted it, but that he had too many brothers for all to take to
the water on the Thames, and their mother was too poor to apprentice
them, and needed the small weekly pay the Dutchman gave him. He seemed
a good-natured, dull fellow, whom no doubt Hansen had hired for the
sake of the strong arms, developed by generations of oarsmen upon the
river. What he specially disliked was that his master was a foreigner.
The whole court swarmed with foreigners, he said, with the utmost
disgust, as if they were noxious insects. They made provisions dear,
and undersold honest men, and he wondered the Lord Mayor did not see to
it and drive them out. He did not _so_ much object to the Dutch, but
the Spaniards—no words could express his horror of them.
By and by, Ambrose going out to fetch some water from the conduit,
found standing by it a figure entirely new to him. It was a young girl
of some twelve or fourteen years old, in the round white cap worn by
all of her age and sex; but from beneath it hung down two thick plaits
of the darkest hair he had ever seen, and though the dress was of the
ordinary dark serge with a coloured apron, it was put on with an air
that made it look like some strange and beautiful costume on the
slender, lithe, little form. The vermilion apron was further trimmed
with a narrow border of white, edged again with deep blue, and it
chimed in with the bright coral earrings and necklace. As Ambrose came
forward the creature tried to throw a crimson handkerchief over her
head, and ran into the shelter of another door, but not before Ambrose
had seen a pair of large dark eyes so like those of a terrified fawn
that they seemed to carry him back to the Forest. Going back amazed, he
asked his companion who the girl he had seen could have been.
Will stared. “I trow you mean the old blackamoor sword-cutler’s wench.
He is one of those pestilent strangers. An ’Ebrew Jew who worships
Mahound and is too bad for the Spanish folk themselves.”
This rather startled Ambrose, though he knew enough to see that the
accusations could not both be true, but he forgot it in the delight,
when Will pronounced the work done, of drawing back the curtain and
feasting his eyes upon the black backs of the books, and the
black-letter brochures that lay by them. There were scarcely thirty,
yet he gloated on them as on an inexhaustible store, while Will,
whistling wonder at his taste, opined that since some one was there to
look after the stove, and the iron pot on it, he might go out and have
a turn at ball with Hob and Martin.
Ambrose was glad to be left to go over his coming feast. There was
Latin, English, and, alas! baffling Dutch. High or Low it was all the
same to him. What excited his curiosity most was the _Enchiridion
Militis Christiani_ of Erasmus—in Latin of course, and that he could
easily read—but almost equally exciting was a Greek and Latin
vocabulary; or again, a very thin book in which he recognised the New
Testament in the Vulgate. He had heard chapters of it read from the
graceful stone pulpit overhanging the refectory at Beaulieu, and, of
course, the Gospels and Epistles at mass, but they had been read with
little expression and no attention; and that Sunday’s discourse had
filled him with eagerness to look farther; but the mere reading the
titles of the books was pleasure enough for the day, and his master was
at home before he had fixed his mind on anything. Perhaps this was as
well, for Lucas advised him what to begin with, and how to divide his
studies so as to gain a knowledge of the Greek, his great ambition, and
also to read the Scripture.
The master was almost as much delighted as the scholar, and it was not
till the curfew was beginning to sound that Ambrose could tear himself
away. It was still daylight, and the door of the next dwelling was
open. There, sitting on the ground cross-legged, in an attitude such as
Ambrose had never seen, was a magnificent old man, with a huge long
white beard, wearing, indeed, the usual dress of a Londoner of the
lower class, but the gown flowed round him in a grand and patriarchal
manner, corresponding with his noble, somewhat aquiline features; and
behind him Ambrose thought he caught a glimpse of the shy fawn he had
seen in the morning.