PARDON
“What if;’ quoth she, ‘by Spanish blood
Have London’s stately streets been wet,
Yet will I seek this country’s good
And pardon for these young men get.’”
Churchill.
The night and morning had been terrible to the poor boys, who only had
begun to understand what awaited them. The fourteen selected had little
hope, and indeed a priest came in early morning to hear the confessions
of Giles Headley and George Bates, the only two who were in Newgate.
George Bates was of the stolid, heavy disposition that seems armed by
outward indifference, or mayhap pride. He knew that his case was
hopeless, and he would not thaw even to the priest. But Giles had been
quite unmanned, and when he found that for the doleful procession to
the Guildhall he was to be coupled with George Bates, instead of either
of his room-fellows, he flung himself on Stephen’s neck, sobbing out
messages for his mother, and entreaties that, if Stephen survived, he
would be good to Aldonza. “For you will wed Dennet, and—”
There the jailers roughly ordered him to hold his peace, and dragged
him off to be pinioned to his fellow-sufferer. Stephen was not called
till some minutes later, and had not seen him since. He himself was of
course overshadowed by the awful gloom of apprehension for himself, and
pity for his comrades, and he was grieved at not having seen or heard
of his brother or master, but he had a very present care in Jasper, who
was sickening in the prison atmosphere, and when fastened to his arm,
seemed hardly able to walk. Leashed as they were, Stephen could only
help him by holding the free hand, and when they came to the hall,
supporting him as much as possible, as they stood in the miserable
throng during the conclusion of the formalities, which ended by the
horrible sentence of the traitor being pronounced on the whole two
hundred and seventy-eight. Poor little Jasper woke for an interval from
the sense of present discomfort to hear it, he seemed to stiffen all
over with the shock of horror, and then hung a dead weight on Stephen’s
arm. It would have dragged him down, but there was no room to fall, and
the wretchedness of the lad against whom he staggered found vent in a
surly imprecation, which was lost among the cries and the entreaties of
some of the others. The London magistracy were some of them in tears,
but the indictment for high treason removed the poor lads from their
jurisdiction to that of the Earl Marshal, and thus they could do
nothing to save the fourteen foremost victims. The others were again
driven out of the hall to return to their prisons; the nearest pair of
lads doing their best to help Stephen drag his burthen along. In the
halt outside, to arrange the sad processions, one of the guards, of
milder mood, cut the cord that bound the lifeless weight to Stephen,
and permitted the child to be laid on the stones of the court, his
collar unbuttoned, and water to be brought. Jasper was just reviving
when the word came to march, but still he could not stand, and Stephen
was therefore permitted the free use of his arms, in order to carry the
poor little fellow. Thirteen years made a considerable load for
seventeen, though Stephen’s arms were exercised in the smithy, and it
was a sore pull from the Guildhall. Jasper presently recovered enough
to walk with a good deal of support. When he was laid on the bed he
fell unto an exhausted sleep, while Stephen kneeling, as the strokes of
the knell smote on his ear, prayed—as he had never prayed before—for
his comrade, for his enemy, and for all the unhappy boys who were being
led to their death wherever the outrages had been committed.
Once indeed there was a strange sound coming across that of the knell.
It almost sounded like an acclamation of joy. Could people be so cruel,
thought Stephen, as to mock poor Giles’s agonies? There were the knells
still sounding. How long he did not know, for a beneficent drowsiness
stole over him as he knelt, and he was only awakened, at the same time
as Jasper, by the opening of his door.
He looked up to see three figures—his brother, his uncle, his master.
Were they come to take leave of him? But the one conviction that their
faces beamed with joy was all that he could gather, for little Jasper
sprang up with a scream of terror, “Stephen, Stephen, save me! They
will cut out my heart,” and clung trembling to his breast, with arms
round his neck.
“Poor child! poor child!” sighed Master Headley. “Would that I brought
him the same tidings as to thee!”
“Is it so?” asked Stephen, reading confirmation as he looked from the
one to the other. Though he was unable to rise under the weight of the
boy, life and light were coming to his eye, while Ambrose clasped his
hand tightly, chocked by the swelling of his heart in almost an agony
of joy and thankfulness.
“Yea, my good lad,” said the alderman. “Thy good kinsman took my little
wench to bear to the King the token he gave thee.”
“And Giles?” Stephen asked, “and the rest?”
“Giles is safe. For the rest—may God have mercy on their souls.”
These words passed while Stephen rocked Jasper backwards and forwards,
his face hidden on his neck.
“Come home,” added Master Headley. “My little Dennet and Giles cannot
yet rejoice till thou art with them. Giles would have come himself, but
he is sorely shaken, and could scarce stand.”
Jasper caught the words, and loosing his friend’s neck, looked up. “Oh!
are we going home? Come, Stephen. Where’s brother Simon? I want my good
sister! I want nurse! Oh! take me home!” For as he tried to sit up, he
fell back sick and dizzy on the bed.
“Alack! alack!” mourned Master Headley; and the jester, muttering that
it was not the little wench’s fault, turned to the window, and burst
into tears. Stephen understood it all, and though he felt a passionate
longing for freedom, he considered in one moment whether there were any
one of his fellow prisoners to whom Jasper could be left, or who would
be of the least comfort to him, but could find no one, and resolved to
cling to him as once to old Spring.
“Sir,” he said, as he rose to his master, “I fear me he is very sick.
Will they—will your worship give me licence to bide with him till this
ends?”
“Thou art a good-hearted lad,” said the alderman with a hand on his
shoulder. “There is no further danger of life to the prentice lads. The
King hath sent to forbid all further dealing with them, and hath bidden
my little maid to set it about that if their mothers beg them grace
from good Queen Katherine, they shall have it. But this poor child! He
can scarce be left. His brother will take it well of thee if thou wilt
stay with him till some tendance can be had. We can see to that. Thanks
be to St. George and our good King, this good City is our own again!”
The alderman turned away, and Ambrose and Stephen exchanged a
passionate embrace, feeling what it was to be still left to one
another. The jester too shook his nephew’s hand, saying, “Boy, boy, the
blessing of such as I is scarce worth the having, but I would thy
mother could see thee this day.”
Stephen was left with these words and his brother’s look to bear him
through a trying time.
For the “Captain of Newgate” was an autocrat, who looked on his
captives as compulsory lodgers, out of whom he was entitled to wring as
much as possible—as indeed he had no other salary, nor means of
maintaining his underlings, a state of things which lasted for two
hundred years longer, until the days of James Oglethorpe and John
Howard. Even in the rare cases of acquittals, the prisoner could not be
released till he had paid his fees, and that Giles Headley should have
been borne off from the scaffold itself in debt to him was an invasion
of his privileges, which did not dispose him to be favourable to any
one connected with that affair; and he liked to show his power and
dignity even to an alderman.
He was found sitting in a comfortable tapestried chamber, handsomely
dressed in orange and brown, and with a smooth sleek countenance and
the appearance of a good-natured substantial citizen.
He only half rose from his big carved chair, and touched without
removing his cap, to greet the alderman, as he observed, without the
accustomed prefix of your worship—“So, you are come about your
prentice’s fees and dues. By St. Peter of the Fetters, ’tis an irksome
matter to have such a troop of idle, mischievous, dainty striplings
thrust on one, giving more trouble, and making more call and outcry
than twice as many honest thieves and pickpurses.”
“Be assured, sir, they will scarce trouble you longer than they can
help,” said Master Headley.
“Yea, the Duke and my Lord Edmund are making brief work of them,” quoth
the jailer. “Ha!” with an oath, “what’s that? Nought will daunt those
lads till the hangman is at their throats.”
For it was a real hurrah that reached his ears. The jester had got all
the boys round him in the court, and was bidding them keep up a good
heart, for their lives were safe, and their mothers would beg them off.
Their shouts did not tend to increase the captain’s good humour, and
though he certainly would not have let out Alderman Headley’s remaining
apprentice without his fee, he made as great a favour of permission,
and charged as exorbitantly, for a pardoned man to remain within his
domains as if they had been the most costly and delightful hostel in
the kingdom.
Master Hope, who presently arrived, had to pay a high fee for leave to
bring Master Todd, the barber-surgeon, with him to see his brother; but
though he offered a mark a day (a huge amount at that time) the captain
was obdurate in refusing to allow the patient to be attended by his own
old nurse, declaring that it was contrary to discipline, and (what
probably affected him much more) one such woman could cause more
trouble than a dozen felons. No doubt it was true, for she would have
insisted on moderate cleanliness and comfort. No other attendant whom
Mr. Hope could find would endure the disgrace, the discomfort, and
alarm of a residence in Newgate for Jasper’s sake; so that the drapers
gratitude to Stephen Birkenholt, for voluntarily sharing the little
fellow’s captivity, was great, and he gave payment to one or two of the
officials to secure the two lads being civilly treated, and that the
provisions sent in reached them duly.
Jasper did not in general seem very ill by day, only heavy, listless
and dull, unable to eat, too giddy to sit up, and unable to help crying
like a babe, if Stephen left him for a moment; but he never fell asleep
without all the horror and dread of the sentence coming over him. Like
all the boys in London, he had gazed at executions with the sort of
curiosity that leads rustic lads to run to see pigs killed, and now the
details came over him in semi-delirium, as acted out on himself, and he
shrieked and struggled in an anguish which was only mitigated by
Stephen’s reassurances, caresses, even scoldings. The other youths,
relieved from the apprehension of death, agreed to regard their
detention as a holiday, and not being squeamish, turned the yard into a
playground, and there they certainly made uproar, and played pranks,
enough to justify the preference of the captain for full grown
criminals. But Stephen could not join them, for Jasper would not spare
him for an instant, and he himself, though at first sorely missing
employment and exercise, was growing drowsy and heavy limbed in his
cramped life and the evil atmosphere, even the sick longings for
liberty were gradually passing away from him, so that sometimes he felt
as if he had lived here for ages and known no other life, though no
sooner did he lie down to rest, and shut his eyes, than the trees and
green glades of the New Forest rose before him, with all the hollies
shining in the summer light, or the gorse making a sheet of gold.
The time was not in reality so very long. On the 7th of May, John
Lincoln, the broker, who had incited Canon Peale to preach against the
foreigners, was led forth with several others of the real promoters of
the riot to the centre of Cheapside, where Lincoln was put death, but
orders were brought to respite the rest; and, at the same time, all the
armed men were withdrawn, the City began to breathe, and the women who
had been kept within doors to go abroad again.
The Recorder of London and several aldermen were to meet the King at
his manor at Greenwich. This was the mothers’ opportunity. The civic
dignitaries rode in mourning robes, but the wives and mothers,
sweethearts and sisters, every woman who had a youth’s life at stake,
came together, took boat, and went down the river, a strange fleet of
barges, all containing white caps, and black gowns and hoods, for all
were clad in the most correct and humble citizen’s costume.
“Never was such a sight,” said Jester Randall, who had taken care to
secure a view, and who had come with his report to the Dragon court.
“It might have been Ash Wednesday for the look of them, when they
landed and got into order. One would think every prentice lad had got
at least three mothers, and four or five aunts and sisters! I trow,
verily, that half of them came to look on at the other half, and get a
sight of Greenwich and the three queens. However, be that as it might,
not one of them but knew how to open the sluices. Queen Katharine noted
well what was coming, and she and the Queens of Scotland and France sat
in the great chamber with the doors open. And immediately there’s a
knock at the door, and so soon as the usher opens it, in they come,
three and three, every good wife of them with her napkin to her eyes,
and working away with her sobs. Then Mistress Todd, the
barber-surgeon’s wife, she spoke for all, being thought to have the
more courtly tongue, having been tirewoman to Queen Mary ere she went
to France. Verily her husband must have penned the speech for her—for
it began right scholarly, and flowery, with a likening of themselves to
the mothers of Bethlehem (lusty innocents theirs, I trow!), but ere
long the good woman faltered and forgot her part, and broke out ‘Oh!
madam, you that are a mother yourself, for the sake of your own sweet
babe, give us back our sons.’ And therewith they all fell on their
knees, weeping and wringing their hands, and crying out, ‘Mercy, mercy!
For our Blessed Lady’s sake, have pity on our children!’ till the good
Queen, with the tears running down her cheeks for very ruth, told them
that the power was not in her hands, but the will was for them and
their poor sons, and that she would strive so to plead for them with
the King as to win their freedom. Meantime, there were the aldermen
watching for the King in his chamber of presence, till forth he came,
when all fell on their knees, and the Recorder spake for them, casting
all the blame on the vain and light persons who had made that enormity.
Thereupon what does our Hal but make himself as stern as though he
meant to string them all up in a line. ‘Ye ought to wail and be sorry,’
said he, ‘whereas ye say that substantial persons were not concerned,
it appeareth to the contrary. You did wink at the matter,’ quoth he,
‘and at this time we will grant you neither favour nor good-will.’
However, none who knew Hal’s eye but could tell that ’twas all very
excellent fooling, when he bade them get to the Cardinal. Therewith, in
came the three queens, hand in hand, with tears in their eyes, so as
they might have been the three queens that bore away King Arthur, and
down they went on their knees, and cried aloud ‘Dear sir, we who are
mothers ourselves, beseech you to set the hearts at ease of all the
poor mothers who are mourning for their sons.’ Whereupon, the door
being opened, came in so piteous a sound of wailing and lamentation as
our Harry’s name must have been Herod to withstand! ‘Stand up, Kate,’
said he, ‘stand up, sisters, and hark in your ear. Not a hair of the
silly lads shall be touched, but they must bide lock and key long
enough to teach them and their masters to keep better ward.’ And then
when the queens came back with the good tidings, such a storm of
blessings was never heard, laughings and cryings, and the like, for
verily some of the women seemed as distraught for joy as ever they had
been for grief and fear. Moreover, Mistress Todd being instructed of
her husband, led up Mistress Hope to Queen Mary, and told her the tale
of how her husband’s little brother, a mere babe, lay sick in prison—a
mere babe, a suckling as it were—and was like to die there, unless the
sooner delivered, and how our Steve was fool enough to tarry with the
poor child, pardoned though he be. Then the good lady wept again, and
‘Good woman,’ saith she to Mistress Hope, ‘the King will set thy
brother free anon. His wrath is not with babes, nor with lads like this
other of whom thou speakest.’
“So off was she to the King again, and though he and his master pished
and pshawed, and said if one and another were to be set free privily in
this sort, there would be none to come and beg for mercy as a warming
to all malapert youngsters to keep within bounds, ‘Nay, verily,’ quoth
I, seeing the moment for shooting a fool’s bolt among them, ‘methinks
Master Death will have been a pick-lock before you are ready for them,
and then who will stand to cry mercy?’”
The narrative was broken off short by a cry of jubilee in the court.
Workmen, boys, and all were thronging together, Kit Smallbones’ head
towering in the midst. Vehement welcomes seemed in progress. “Stephen!
Stephen!” shouted Dennet, and flew out of the hall and down the steps.
“The lad himself!” exclaimed the jester, leaping down after her.
“Stephen, the good boy!” said Master Headley, descending more slowly,
but not less joyfully.
Yes, Stephen himself it was, who had quietly walked into the court.
Master Hope and Master Todd had brought the order for Jasper’s release,
had paid the captain’s exorbitant fees for both, and, while the sick
boy was carried home in a litter, Stephen had entered the Dragon court
through the gates, as if he were coming home from an errand; though the
moment he was recognised by the little four-year old Smallbones, there
had been a general rush and shout of ecstatic welcome, led by Giles
Headley, who fairly threw himself on Stephen’s neck, as they met like
comrades after a desperate battle. Not one was there who did not claim
a grasp of the boy’s hand, and who did not pour out welcomes and
greetings, while in the midst, the released captive looked, to say the
truth, very spiritless, faded, dusty, nay dirty. The court seemed
spinning round with him, and the loud welcomes roared in his ears. He
was glad that Dennet took one hand, and Giles the other, declaring that
he must be led to the grandmother instantly.
He muttered something about being in too foul trim to go near her, but
Dennet held him fast, and he was too dizzy to make much resistance. Old
Mrs. Headley was better again, though not able to do much but sit by
the fire kept burning to drive away the plague which was always
smouldering in London.
She held out her hands to Stephen, as he knelt down by her. “Take an
old woman’s blessing, my good youth,” she said. “Right glad am I to see
thee once more. Thou wilt not be the worse for the pains thou hast
spent on the little lad, though they have tried thee sorely.”
Stephen, becoming somewhat less dazed, tried to fulfil his long
cherished intention of thanking Dennet for her intercession, but the
instant he tried to speak, to his dismay and indignation, tears choked
his voice, and he could do nothing but weep, as if, thought he, his
manhood had been left behind in the jail.
“Vex not thyself,” said the old dame, as she saw him struggling with
his sobs. “Thou art worn out—Giles here was not half his own man when
he came out, nor is he yet. Nay, beset him not, children. He should go
to his chamber, change these garments, and rest ere supper-time.”
Stephen was fain to obey, only murmuring an inquiry for his brother, to
which his uncle responded that if Ambrose were at home, the tidings
would send him to the Dragon instantly; but he was much with his old
master, who was preparing to leave England, his work here being ruined.
The jester then took leave, accepting conditionally an invitation to
supper. Master Headley, Smallbones, and Tibble now knew who he was, but
the secret was kept from all the rest of the household, lest Stephen
should be twitted with the connection.
Cold water was not much affected by the citizens of London, but smiths’
and armourers’ work entailed a freer use of it than less grimy trades;
and a bath and Sunday garments made Stephen more like himself, though
still he felt so weary and depressed that he missed the buoyant joy of
release to which he had been looking forward.
He was sitting on the steps, leaning against the rail, so much tired
that he hoped none of his comrades would notice that he had come out,
when Ambrose hurried into the court, having just heard tidings of his
freedom, and was at his side at once. The two brothers sat together,
leaning against one another as if they had all that they could wish or
long for. They had not met for more than a week, for Ambrose’s finances
had not availed to fee the turnkeys to give him entrance.
“And what art thou doing, Ambrose?” asked Stephen, rousing a little
from his lethargy. “Methought I heard mine uncle say thine occupation
was gone?”
“Even so,” replied Ambrose. “Master Lucas will sail in a week’s time to
join his brother at Rotterdam, bearing with him what he hath been able
to save out of the havoc. I wot not if I shall ever see the good man
more.”
“I am glad thou dost not go with him,” said Stephen, with a hand on his
brother’s leather-covered knee.
“I would not put seas between us,” returned Ambrose. “Moreover, though
I grieve to lose my good master, who hath been so scurvily entreated
here, yet, Stephen, this trouble and turmoil hath brought me that which
I longed for above all, even to have speech with the Dean of St.
Paul’s.”
He then told Stephen how he had brought Dean Colet to administer the
last rites to Abenali, and how that good man had bidden Lucas to take
shelter at the Deanery, in the desolation of his own abode. This had
led to conversation between the Dean and the printer; Lucas, who
distrusted all ecclesiastics, would accept no patronage. He had a
little hoard, buried in the corner of his stall, which would suffice to
carry him to his native home and he wanted no more; but he had spoken
of Ambrose, and the Dean was quite ready to be interested in the youth
who had led him to Abenali.
“He had me to his privy chamber,” said Ambrose, “and spake to me as no
man hath yet spoken—no, not even Tibble. He let me utter all my mind,
nay, I never wist before even what mine own thoughts were till he set
them before me—as it were in a mirror.”
“Thou wast ever in a harl,” said Stephen, drowsily using the Hampshire
word for whirl or entanglement.
“Yea. On the one side stood all that I had ever believed or learnt
before I came hither of the one true and glorious Mother-Church to whom
the Blessed Lord had committed the keys of His kingdom, through His
holy martyrs and priests to give us the blessed host and lead us in the
way of salvation. And on the other side, I cannot but see the lewd and
sinful and worldly lives of the most part, and hear the lies whereby
they amass wealth and turn men from the spirit of truth and holiness to
delude them into believing that wilful sin can be committed without
harm, and that purchase of a parchment is as good as repentance. That
do I see and hear. And therewith my master Lucas and Dan Tindall, and
those of the new light, declare that all has been false even from the
very outset, and that all the pomp and beauty is but Satan’s bait, and
that to believe in Christ alone is all that needs to justify us,
casting all the rest aside. All seemed a mist, and I was swayed hither
and thither till the more I read and thought, the greater was the fog.
And this—I know not whether I told it to yonder good and holy doctor,
or whether he knew it, for his eyes seemed to see into me, and he told
me that he had felt and thought much the same. But on that one great
truth, that faith in the Passion is salvation, is the Church built,
though sinful men have hidden it by their errors and lies as befell
before among the Israelites, whose law, like ours, was divine. Whatever
is entrusted to man, he said, will become stained, soiled, and twisted,
though the power of the Holy Spirit will strive to renew it. And such
an outpouring of cleansing and renewing power is, he saith, abroad in
our day. When he was a young man, this good father, so he said, hoped
great things, and did his best to set forth the truth, both at Oxford
and here, as indeed he hath ever done, he and the good Doctor Erasmus
striving to turn men’s eyes back to the simplicity of God’s Word rather
than to the arguments and deductions of the schoolmen. And for the
abuses of evil priests that have sprung up, my Lord Cardinal sought the
Legatine Commission from our holy father at Rome to deal with them. But
Dr. Colet saith that there are other forces at work, and he doubteth
greatly whether this same cleansing can be done without some great and
terrible rending and upheaving, that may even split the Church as it
were asunder—since judgment surely awaiteth such as will not be
reformed. But, quoth he, ‘our Mother-Church is God’s own Church and I
will abide by her to the end, as the means of oneness with my Lord and
Head, and do thou the same, my son, for thou art like to be more sorely
tried than will a frail old elder like me, who would fain say his _Nunc
Dimittis_, if such be the Lord’s will, ere the foundations be cast
down.’”
Ambrose had gone on rehearsing all these words with the absorption of
one to whom they were everything, till it occurred to him to wonder
that Stephen had listened to so much with patience and assent, and
then, looking at the position of head and hands, he perceived that his
brother was asleep, and came to a sudden halt. This roused Stephen to
say, “Eh? What? The Dean, will he do aught for thee?”
“Yea,” said Ambrose, recollecting that there was little use in
returning to the perplexities which Stephen could not enter into. “He
deemed that in this mood of mine, yea, and as matters now be at the
universities, I had best not as yet study there for the priesthood. But
he said he would commend me to a friend whose life would better show me
how the new gives life to the old than any man he wots of.”
“One of thy old doctors in barnacles, I trow,” said Stephen.
“Nay, verily. We saw him t’other night perilling his life to stop the
poor crazy prentices, and save the foreigners. Dennet and our uncle saw
him pleading for them with the King.”
“What! Sir Thomas More?”
“Ay, no other. He needs a clerk for his law matters, and the Dean said
he would speak of me to him. He is to sup at the Deanery to-morrow, and
I am to be in waiting to see him. I shall go with a lighter heart now
that thou art beyond the clutches of the captain of Newgate.”
“Speak no more of that!” said Stephen, with a shudder. “Would that I
could forget it!”
In truth Stephen’s health had suffered enough to change the bold,
high-spirited, active lad, so that he hardly knew himself. He was quite
incapable of work all the next day, and Mistress Headley began to dread
that he had brought home jail fever, and insisted on his being
inspected by the barber-surgeon, Todd, who proceeded to bleed the
patient, in order, as he said, to carry off the humours contracted in
the prison. He had done the same by Jasper Hope, and by Giles, but he
followed the treatment up with better counsel, namely, that the lads
should all be sent out of the City to some farm where they might eat
curds and whey, until their strength should be restored. Thus they
would be out of reach of the sweating sickness which was already in
some of the purlieus of St. Katharine’s Docks, and must be specially
dangerous in their lowered condition.
Master Hope came in just after this counsel had been given. He had a
sister married to the host of a large prosperous inn near Windsor, and
he proposed to send not only Jasper but Stephen thither, feeling how
great a debt of gratitude he owed to the lad. Remembering well the good
young Mistress Streatfield, and knowing that the Antelope was a large
old house of excellent repute, where she often lodged persons of
quality attending on the court or needing country air, Master Headley
added Giles to the party at his own expense, and wished also to send
Dennet for greater security, only neither her grandmother nor Mrs. Hope
could leave home.
It ended, however, in Perronel Randall being asked to take charge of
the whole party, including Aldonza. That little damsel had been in a
manner confided to her both by the Dean of St. Paul’s and by Tibble
Steelman—and indeed the motherly woman, after nursing and soothing her
through her first despair at the loss of her father, was already loving
her heartily, and was glad to give her a place in the home which
Ambrose was leaving on being made an attendant on Sir Thomas More.
For the interview at the Deanery was satisfactory. The young man, after
a good supper, enlivened by the sweet singing of some chosen pupils of
St. Paul’s school, was called up to where the Dean sat, and with him,
the man of the peculiarly sweet countenance, with the noble and deep
expression, yet withal, something both tender and humorous in it.
They made him tell his whole life, and asked many questions about
Abenali, specially about the fragment of Arabic scroll which had been
clutched in his hand even as he lay dying. They much regretted never
having known of his existence till too late. “Jewels lie before the
unheeding!” said More. Then Ambrose was called on to show a specimen of
his own penmanship, and to write from Sir Thomas’s dictation in English
and in Latin. The result was that he was engaged to act as one of the
clerks Sir Thomas employed in his occupations alike as lawyer,
statesman, and scholar.
“Methinks I have seen thy face before,” said Sir Thomas, looking keenly
at him. “I have beheld those black eyes, though with a different
favour.”
Ambrose blushed deeply. “Sir, it is but honest to tell you that my
mother’s brother is jester to my Lord Cardinal.”
“Quipsome Hal Merriman! Patch as the King calleth him!” exclaimed Sir
Thomas. “A man I have ever thought wore the motley rather from excess,
than infirmity, of wit.”
“Nay, sir, so please you, it was his good heart that made him a
jester,” said Ambrose, explaining the story of Randall and his Perronel
in a few words, which touched the friends a good deal, and the Dean
remembered that she was in charge of the little Moresco girl. He lost
nothing by dealing thus openly with his new master, who promised to
keep his secret for him, then gave him handsel of his salary, and bade
him collect his possessions, and come to take up his abode in the house
of the More family at Chelsea.
He would still often see his brother in the intervals of attending Sir
Thomas to the courts of law, but the chief present care was to get the
boys into purer air, both to expedite their recovery and to ensure them
against being dragged into the penitential company who were to ask for
their lives on the 22nd of May, consisting of such of the prisoners who
could still stand or go—for jail-fever was making havoc among them, and
some of the better-conditioned had been released by private interest.
The remainder, not more than half of the original two hundred and
seventy-eight, were stripped to their shirts, had halters hung round
their necks, and then, roped together as before, were driven through
the streets to Westminster, where the King sat enthroned. There,
looking utterly miserable, they fell on their knees before him, and
received his pardon for their misdemeanours. They returned to their
masters, and so ended that Ill May-day, which was the longer remembered
because one Churchill, a ballad-monger in St. Paul’s Churchyard,
indited a poem on it, wherein he swelled the number of prentices to two
thousand, and of the victims to two hundred. Will Wherry, who escaped
from among the prisoners very forlorn, was recommended by Ambrose to
the work of a carter at the Dragon, which he much preferred to
printing.