A KING IN A QUAGMIRE
For my pastance
Hunt, sing, and dance,
My heart is set
All godly sport
To my comfort.
Who shall me let?
The King’s Balade, _attributed to Henry VIII._
Life was a rough, hearty thing in the early sixteenth century,
strangely divided between thought and folly, hardship and splendour,
misery and merriment, toil and sport.
The youths in the armourer’s household had experienced little of this
as yet in their country life, but in London they could not but soon
begin to taste both sides of the matter. Master Headley himself was a
good deal taken up with city affairs, and left the details of his
business to Tibble Steelman and Kit Smallbones, though he might always
appear on the scene, and he had a wonderful knowledge of what was going
on.
The breaking-in and training of the two new country lads was entirely
left to them and to Edmund Burgess. Giles soon found that complaints
were of no avail, and only made matters harder for him, and that Tibble
Steelman and Kit Smallbones had no notion of favouring their master’s
cousin.
Poor fellow, he was very miserable in those first weeks. The actual
toil, to which he was an absolute novice, though nominally three years
an apprentice, made his hands raw, and his joints full of aches, while
his groans met with nothing but laughter; and he recognised with great
displeasure, that more was laid on him than on Stephen Birkenholt. This
was partly in consideration of Stephen’s youth, partly of his ready
zeal and cheerfulness. His hands might be sore too, but he was rather
proud of it than otherwise, and his hero worship of Kit Smallbones made
him run on errands, tug at the bellows staff, or fetch whatever was
called for with a bright alacrity that won the foremen’s hearts, and it
was noted that he who was really a gentleman, had none of the airs that
Giles Headley showed.
Giles began by some amount of bullying, by way of slaking his wrath at
the preference shown for one whom he continued to style a beggarly brat
picked up on the heath; but Stephen was good-humoured, and accustomed
to give and take, and they both found their level, as well in the
Dragon court as among the world outside, where the London prentices
were a strong and redoubtable body, with rude, not to say cruel, rites
of initiation among themselves, plenty of rivalries and enmities
between house and house, guild and guild, but a united, not to say
ferocious, _esprit de corps_ against every one else. Fisticuffs and
wrestlings were the amenities that passed between them, though always
with a love of fair play so long as no cowardice, or what was looked on
as such, was shown, for there was no mercy for the weak or weakly. Such
had better betake themselves at once to the cloister, or life was made
intolerable by constant jeers, blows, baiting and huntings, often, it
must be owned, absolutely brutal.
Stephen and Giles had however passed through this ordeal. The letter to
John Birkenholt had been despatched by a trusty clerk riding with the
Judges of Assize, whom Mistress Perronel knew might be safely trusted,
and who actually brought back a letter which might have emanated from
the most affectionate of brothers, giving his authority for the binding
Stephen apprentice to the worshipful Master Giles Headley, and sending
the remainder of the boy’s portion.
Stephen was thereupon regularly bound apprentice to Master Headley. It
was a solemn affair, which took place in the Armourer’s Hall in Coleman
Street, before sundry witnesses. Harry Randall, in his soberest garb
and demeanour, acted as guardian to his nephew, and presented him, clad
in the regulation prentice garb—“flat round cap, close-cut hair, narrow
falling bands, coarse side coat, close hose, cloth stockings,” coat
with the badge of the Armourers’ Company, and Master Headley’s own
dragon’s tail on the sleeve, to which was added a blue cloak marked in
like manner. The instructions to apprentices were rehearsed, beginning,
“Ye shall constantly and devoutly on your knees every day serve God,
morning and evening”—pledging him to “avoid evil company, to make
speedy return when sent on his master’s business, to be fair, gentle
and lowly in speech and carriage with all men,” and the like.
Mutual promises were interchanged between him and his master, Stephen
on his knees; the indentures were signed, for Quipsome Hal could with
much ado produce an autograph signature, though his penmanship went no
further, and the occasion was celebrated by a great dinner of the whole
craft at the Armourers’ Hall, to which the principal craftsmen who had
been apprentices, such as Tibble Steelman and Kit Smallbones, were
invited, sitting at a lower table, while the masters had the higher one
on the daïs, and a third was reserved for the apprentices after they
should have waited on their masters—in fact it was an imitation of the
orders of chivalry, knights, squires, and pages, and the gradation of
rank was as strictly observed as by the nobility. Giles, considering
the feast to be entirely in his honour, though the transfer of his
indentures had been made at Salisbury, endeavoured to come out in some
of his bravery, but was admonished that such presumption might be
punished, the first time, at his master’s discretion, the second time,
by a whipping at the Hall of his Company, and the third time by six
months being added to the term of his apprenticeship.
Master Randall was entertained in the place of honour, where he
comported himself with great gravity, though he could not resist
alarming Stephen with an occasional wink or gesture as the boy
approached in the course of the duties of waiting at the upper board—a
splendid sight with cups and flagons of gold and silver, with venison
and capons and all that a City banquet could command before the
invention of the turtle.
There was drinking of toasts, and among the foremost was that of
Wolsey, who had freshly received his nomination of cardinal, and whose
hat was on its way from Rome—and here the jester could not help
betraying his knowledge of the domestic policy of the household, and
telling the company how it had become known that the scarlet hat was
actually on the way, but in a “varlet’s budget—a mere Italian common
knave, no better than myself,” quoth Quipsome Hal, whereat his nephew
trembled standing behind his chair, forgetting that the decorous solid
man in the sad-coloured gown and well-crimped ruff, neatest of
Perronel’s performances, was no such base comparison for any varlet.
Hal went on to describe, however, how my Lord of York had instantly
sent to stay the messenger on his handing at Dover, and equip him with
all manner of costly silks by way of apparel, and with attendants, such
as might do justice to his freight, “that so,” he said, “men may not
rate it but as a scarlet cock’s comb, since all men be but fools, and
the sole question is, who among them hath wit enough to live by his
folly.” Therewith he gave a wink that so disconcerted Stephen as nearly
to cause an upset of the bowl of perfumed water that he was bringing
for the washing of hands.
Master Headley, however, suspected nothing, and invited the grave
Master Randall to attend the domestic festival on the presentation of
poor Spring’s effigy at the shrine of St. Julian. This was to take
place early in the morning of the 14th of September, Holy Cross Day,
the last holiday in the year that had any of the glory of summer about
it, and on which the apprentices claimed a prescriptive right to go out
nutting in St. John’s Wood, and to carry home their spoil to the lasses
of their acquaintance.
Tibble Steelman had completed the figure in bronze, with a silver
collar and chain, not quite without protest that the sum had better
have been bestowed in alms. But from his master’s point of view this
would have been giving to a pack of lying beggars and thieves what was
due to the holy saint; no one save Tibble, who could do and say what he
chose, could have ventured on a word of remonstrance on such a subject;
and as the full tide of iconoclasm, consequent on the discovery of the
original wording of the second commandment, had not yet set in, Tibble
had no more conscientious scruple against making the figure, than in
moulding a little straight-tailed lion for Lord Harry Percy’s helmet.
So the party in early morning heard their mass, and then, repairing to
St. Julian’s pillar, while the rising sun came peeping through the low
eastern window of the vaulted Church of St. Faith, Master Headley on
his knees gave thanks for his preservation, and then put forward his
little daughter, holding on her joined hands the figure of poor Spring,
couchant, and beautifully modelled in bronze with all Tibble’s best
skill.
Hal Randall and Ambrose had both come up from the little home where
Perronel presided, for the hour was too early for the jester’s absence
to be remarked in the luxurious household of the Cardinal elect, and he
even came to break his fast afterwards at the Dragon court, and held
such interesting discourse with old Dame Headley on the farthingales
and coifs of Queen Katharine and her ladies, that she pronounced him a
man wondrous wise and understanding, and declared Stephen happy in the
possession of such a kinsman.
“And whither away now, youngsters?” he said, as he rose from table.
“To St. John’s Wood! The good greenwood, uncle,” said Ambrose.
“Thou too, Ambrose?” said Stephen joyfully. “For once away from thine
ink and thy books!”
“Ay,” said Ambrose, “mine heart warms to the woodlands once more.
Uncle, would that thou couldst come.”
“Would that I could, boy! We three would show these lads of Cockayne
what three foresters know of wood craft! But it may not be. Were I once
there the old blood might stir again and I might bring you into
trouble, and ye have not two faces under one hood as I have! So fare ye
well, I wish you many a bagful of nuts!”
The four months of city life, albeit the City was little bigger than
our moderate sized country towns, and far from being an unbroken mass
of houses, had yet made the two young foresters delighted to enjoy a
day of thorough country in one another’s society. Little Dennet longed
to go with them, but the prentice world was far too rude for little
maidens to be trusted in it, and her father held out hopes of going one
of these days to High Park as he called it, while Edmund and Stephen
promised her all their nuts, and as many blackberries as could be held
in their flat caps.
“Giles has promised me none,” said Dennet, with a pouting lip, “nor
Ambrose.”
“Why sure, little mistress, thou’lt have enough to crack thy teeth on!”
said Edmund Burgess.
“They _ought_ to bring theirs to me,” returned the little heiress of
the Dragon court with an air of offended dignity that might have suited
the heiress of the kingdom.
Giles, who looked on Dennet as a kind of needful appendage to the
Dragon, a piece of property of his own, about whom he need take no
trouble, merely laughed and said, “Want must be thy master then.” But
Ambrose treated her petulance in another fashion. “Look here, pretty
mistress,” said he, “there dwells by me a poor little maid nigh about
thine age, who never goeth further out than to St. Paul’s minster, nor
plucketh flower, nor hath sweet cake, nor manchet bread, nor
sugar-stick, nay, and scarce ever saw English hazel-nut nor blackberry.
’Tis for her that I want to gather them.”
“Is she thy master’s daughter?” demanded Dennet, who could admit the
claims of another princess.
“Nay, my master hath no children, but she dwelleth near him.”
“I will send her some, and likewise of mine own comfits and cakes,”
said Mistress Dennet. “Only thou must bring all to me first.”
Ambrose laughed and said, “It’s a bargain then, little mistress?”
“I keep my word,” returned Dennet marching away, while Ambrose obeyed a
summons from good-natured Mistress Headley to have his wallet filled
with bread and cheese like those of her own prentices.
Off went the lads under the guidance of Edmund Burgess, meeting parties
of their own kind at every turn, soon leaving behind them the City
bounds, as they passed under New Gate, and by and by skirting the
fields of the great Carthusian monastery, or Charter House, with the
burial-ground given by Sir Walter Manny at the time of the Black Death.
Beyond came marshy ground through which they had to pick their way
carefully, over stepping-stones—this being no other than what is now
the Regent’s Park, not yet in any degree drained by the New River, but
all quaking ground, overgrown with rough grass and marsh-plants,
through which Stephen and Ambrose bounded by the help of stout poles
with feet and eyes well used to bogs, and knowing where to look for a
safe footing, while many a flat-capped London lad floundered about and
sank over his yellow ankles or left his shoes behind him, while
lapwings shrieked pee-wheet, and almost flapped him with their broad
wings, and moorhens dived in the dark pools, and wild ducks rose in
long families.
Stephen was able to turn the laugh against his chief adversary and
rival, George Bates of the Eagle, who proposed seeking for the
lapwing’s nest in hopes of a dainty dish of plovers’ eggs; being too
great a cockney to remember that in September the contents of the eggs
were probably flying over the heather, as well able to shift for
themselves as their parents.
Above all things the London prentices were pugnacious, but as every one
joined in the laugh against George, and he was, besides, stuck fast on
a quaking tussock of grass, afraid to proceed or advance, he could not
have his revenge. And when the slough was passed, and the slight rise
leading to the copse of St. John’s Wood was attained, behold, it was
found to be in possession of the lower sort of lads, the black guard as
they were called. They were of course quite as ready to fight with the
prentices as the prentices were with them, and a battle royal took
place, all along the front of the hazel bushes—in which Stephen of the
Dragon and George of the Eagle fought side by side. Sticks and fists
were the weapons, and there were no very severe casualties before the
prentices, being the larger number as well as the stouter and better
fed, had routed their adversaries, and driven them off towards Harrow.
There was crackling of boughs and filling of bags, and cracking of
nuts, and wild cries in pursuit of startled hare or rabbit, and though
Ambrose and Stephen indignantly repelled the idea of St. John’s Wood
being named in the same day with their native forest, it is doubtful
whether they had ever enjoyed themselves more; until just as they were
about to turn homeward, whether moved by his hostility to Stephen, or
by envy at the capful of juicy blackberries, carefully covered with
green leaves, George Bates, rushing up from behind, shouted out “Here’s
a skulker! Here’s one of the black guard! Off to thy fellows, varlet!”
at the same time dealing a dexterous blow under the cap, which sent the
blackberries up into Ambrose’s face. “Ha! ha!” shouted the
ill-conditioned fellow. “So much for a knave that serves rascally
strangers! Here! hand over that bag of nuts!”
Ambrose was no fighter, but in defence of the bag that was to purchase
a treat for little Aldonza, he clenched his fists, and bade George
Bates come and take them if he would. The quiet scholarly boy was,
however, no match for the young armourer, and made but poor reply to
the buffets of his adversary, who had hold of the bag, and was nearly
choking him with the string round his neck.
However, Stephen had already missed his brother, and turning round,
shouted out that the villain Bates was mauling him, and rushed back,
falling on Ambrose’s assailant with a sudden well-directed pounding
that made him hastily turn about, with cries of “Two against one!”
“Not at all,” said Stephen. “Stand by, Ambrose; I’ll give the coward
his deserts.”
In fact, though the boys were nearly of a size, George somewhat the
biggest, Stephen’s country activity, and perhaps the higher spirit of
his gentle blood, generally gave him the advantage, and on this
occasion he soon reduced Bates to roar for mercy.
“Thou must purchase it!” said Stephen. “Thy bag of nuts, in return for
the berries thou hast wasted!”
Peaceable Ambrose would have remonstrated, but Stephen was implacable.
He cut the string, and captured the bag, then with a parting kick bade
Bates go after his comrades, for his Eagle was nought but a thieving
kite.
Bates made off pretty quickly, but the two brothers tarried a little to
see how much damage the blackberries had suffered, and to repair the
losses as they descended into the bog by gathering some choice
dewberries.
“I marvel these fine fellows ’scaped our company,” said Stephen
presently.
“Are we in the right track, thinkst thou? Here is a pool I marked not
before,” said Ambrose anxiously.
“Nay, we can’t be far astray while we see St. Paul’s spire and the
Tower full before us,” said Stephen. “Plainer marks than we had at
home.”
“That may be. Only where is the safe footing?” said Ambrose. “I wish we
had not lost sight of the others!”
“Pish! what good are a pack of City lubbers!” returned Stephen. “Don’t
we know a quagmire when we see one, better than they do?”
“Hark, they are shouting for us.”
“Not they! That’s a falconer’s call. There’s another whistle! See,
there’s the hawk. She’s going down the wind, as I’m alive,” and Stephen
began to bound wildly along, making all the sounds and calls by which
falcons were recalled, and holding up as a lure a lapwing which he had
knocked down. Ambrose, by no means so confident in bog-trotting as his
brother, stood still to await him, hearing the calls and shouts of the
falconer coming nearer, and presently seeing a figure, flying by the
help of a pole over the pools and dykes that here made some attempt at
draining the waste. Suddenly, in mid career over one of these broad
ditches, there was a collapse, and a lusty shout for help as the form
disappeared. Ambrose instantly perceived what had happened, the leaping
pole had broken to the downfall of its owner. Forgetting all his doubts
as to bogholes and morasses, he grasped his own pole, and sprang from
tussock to tussock, till he had reached the bank of the ditch or
water-course in which the unfortunate sportsman was floundering. He was
a large, powerful man, but this was of no avail, for the slough
afforded no foothold. The further side was a steep built up of sods,
the nearer sloped down gradually, and though it was not apparently very
deep, the efforts of the victim to struggle out had done nothing but
churn up a mass of black muddy water in which he sank deeper every
moment, and it was already nearly to his shoulders when with a cry of
joy, half choked however, by the mud, he cried, “Ha! my good lad! Are
there any more of ye?”
“Not nigh, I fear,” said Ambrose, beholding with some dismay the
breadth of the shoulders which were all that appeared above the turbid
water.
“Soh! Lie down, boy, behind that bunch of osier. Hold out thy pole. Let
me see thine hands. Thou art but a straw, but, our Lady be my speed!
Now hangs England on a pair of wrists!”
There was a great struggle, an absolute effort for life, and but for
the osier stump Ambrose would certainly have been dragged into the
water, when the man had worked along the pole, and grasping his hands,
pulled himself upwards. Happily the sides of the dyke became harder
higher up, and did not instantly yield to the pressure of his knees,
and by the time Ambrose’s hands and shoulders felt nearly wrenched from
their sockets, the stem of the osier had been attained, and in another
minute, the rescued man, bareheaded, plastered with mud, and streaming
with water, sat by him on the bank, panting, gasping, and trying to
gather breath and clear his throat from the mud he had swallowed.
“Thanks, good lad, well done,” he articulated. “Those fellows! where
are they?” And feeling in his bosom, he brought out a gold whistle
suspended by a chain. “Blow it,” he said, taking off the chain, “my
mouth is too full of slime.”
Ambrose blew a loud shrill call, but it seemed to reach no one but
Stephen, whom he presently saw dashing towards them.
“Here is my brother coming, sir,” he said, as he gave his endeavours to
help the stranger to free himself from the mud that clung to him, and
which was in some places thick enough to be scraped off with a knife.
He kept up a continual interchange of exclamations at his plight,
whistles and shouts for his people, and imprecations on their
tardiness, until Stephen was near enough to show that the hawk had been
recovered, and then he joyfully called out, “Ha! hast thou got her?
Why, flat-caps as ye are, ye put all my fellows to shame! How now, thou
errant bird, dost know thy master, or take him for a mud wall? Kite
that thou art, to have led me such a dance! And what’s your name, my
brave lads? Ye must have been bred to wood-craft.”
Ambrose explained both their parentage and their present occupation,
but was apparently heeded but little. “Wot ye how to get out of this
quagmire?” was the question.
“I never was here before, sir,” said Stephen; “but yonder lies the
Tower, and if we keep along by this dyke, it must lead us out
somewhere.”
“Well said, boy, I must be moving, or the mud will dry on me, and I
shall stand here as though I were turned to stone by the Gorgon’s head!
So have with thee! Go on first, master hawk-tamer. What will bear thee
will bear me!”
There was an imperative tone about him that surprised the brothers, and
Ambrose looking at him from head to foot, felt sure that it was some
great man at the least, whom it had been his hap to rescue. Indeed, he
began to have further suspicions when they came to a pool of clearer
water, beyond which was firmer ground, and the stranger with an
exclamation of joy, borrowed Stephen’s cap, and, scooping up the water
with it, washed his face and head, disclosing the golden hair and
beard, fair complexion, and handsome square face he had seen more than
once before.
He whispered to Stephen “’Tis the King!”
“Ha! ha!” laughed Henry, “hast found him out, lads? Well, it may not be
the worse for ye. Pity thou shouldst not be in the Forest still, my
young falconer, but we know our good city of London to well to break
thy indentures. And thou—”
[Illustration: “Ha! ha!” laughed Henry, “hast found him out, lads?”]
He was turning to Ambrose when further shouts were heard. The King
hallooed, and bade the boys do so, and in a few moments more they were
surrounded by the rest of the hawking party, full of dismay at the
king’s condition, and deprecating his anger for having lost him.
“Yea,” said Henry; “an it had not been for this good lad, ye would
never have heard more of the majesty of England! Swallowed in a
quagmire had made a new end for a king, and ye would have to brook the
little Scot.”
The gentlemen who had come up were profuse in lamentations. A horse was
brought up for the king’s use, and he prepared to mount, being in haste
to get into dry clothes. He turned round, however, to the boys, and
said, “I’ll not forget you, my lads. Keep that!” he added, as Ambrose,
on his knee, would have given him back the whistle, “’tis a token that
maybe will serve thee, for I shall know it again. And thou, my
black-eyed lad—My purse, Howard!”
He handed the purse to Stephen—a velvet bag richly wrought with gold,
and containing ten gold angels, besides smaller money—bidding them
divide, like good brothers as he saw they were, and then galloped off
with his train.
Twilight was coming on, but following in the direction of the riders,
the boys were soon on the Islington road. The New Gate was shut by the
time they reached it, and their explanation that they were belated
after a nutting expedition would not have served them, had not Stephen
produced the sum of twopence which softened the surliness of the guard.
It was already dark, and though curfew had not yet sounded,
preparations were making for lighting the watch-fires in the open
spaces and throwing chains across the streets, but the little door in
the Dragon court was open, and Ambrose went in with his brother to
deliver up his nuts to Dennet and claim her promise of sending a share
to Aldonza.
They found their uncle in his sober array sitting by Master Headley,
who was rating Edmund and Giles for having lost sight of them, the
latter excusing himself by grumbling out that he could not be marking
all Stephen’s brawls with George Bates.
When the two wanderers appeared, relief took the form of anger, and
there were sharp demands why they had loitered. Their story was
listened to with many exclamations: Dennet jumped for joy, her
grandmother advised that the angels should be consigned to her own safe
keeping, and when Master Headley heard of Henry’s scruples about the
indentures, he declared that it was a rare wise king who knew that an
honest craft was better than court favour.
“Yet mayhap he might do something for thee, friend Ambrose,” added the
armourer. “Commend thee to some post in his chapel royal, or put thee
into some college, since such is thy turn. How sayst thou, Master
Randall, shall he send in this same token, and make his petition?”
“If a foo—if a plain man may be heard where the wise hath spoken,” said
Randall, “he had best abstain. Kings love not to be minded of mishaps,
and our Hal’s humour is not to be reckoned on! Lay up the toy in case
of need, but an thou claim overmuch he may mind thee in a fashion not
to thy taste.”
“Sure our King is of a more generous mould!” exclaimed Mrs. Headley.
“He is like other men, good mistress, just as you know how to have him,
and he is scarce like to be willing to be minded of the taste of mire,
or of floundering like a hog in a salt marsh. Ha! ha!” and Quipsome Hal
went off into such a laugh as might have betrayed his identity to any
one more accustomed to the grimaces of his professional character, but
which only infected the others with the same contagious merriment.
“Come thou home now,” he said to Ambrose; “my good woman hath been in a
mortal fright about thee, and would have me come out to seek after
thee. Such are the women folk, Master Headley. Let them have but a lad
to look after, and they’ll bleat after him like an old ewe that has
lost her lamb.”
Ambrose only stayed for Dennet to divide the spoil, and though the
blackberries had all been lost or crushed, the little maiden kept her
promise generously, and filled the bag not only with nuts but with
three red-checked apples, and a handful of comfits, for the poor little
maid who never tasted fruit or sweets.