AT THE ANTELOPE
“Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race,
Disporting on thy margent green,
The paths of pleasure trace.”
—Gray.
Master Hope took all the guests by boat to Windsor, and very soon the
little party at the Antelope was in a state of such perfect felicity as
became a proverb with them all their lives afterwards. It was an inn
wherein to take one’s ease, a large hostel full of accommodation for
man and horse, with a big tapestried room of entertainment below, where
meals were taken, with an oriel window with a view of the Round Tower,
and above it a still more charming one, known as the Red Rose, because
one of the Dukes of Somerset had been wont to lodge there. The walls
were tapestried with the story of St. Genoveva of Brabant, fresh and
new on Mrs. Streatfield’s marriage; there was a huge bed with green
curtains of that dame’s own work, where one might have said
“Above, below, the rose of snow,
Twined with her blushing foe we spread.”
so as to avoid all offence. There was also a cupboard or sideboard of
the choicer plate belonging to the establishment, and another awmry
containing appliances for chess and backgammon, likewise two large
chairs, several stools, and numerous chests.
This apartment was given up to Mistress Randall and the two girls,
subject however to the chance of turning out for any very distinguished
guests. The big bed held all three, and the chamber was likewise their
sitting-room, though they took their meals down stairs, and joined the
party in the common room in the evening whenever they were not out of
doors, unless there were guests whom Perronel did not think desirable
company for her charges. Stephen and Giles were quartered in a small
room known as the Feathers, smelling so sweet of lavender and woodruff
that Stephen declared it carried him back to the Forest. Mrs.
Streatfield would have taken Jasper to tend among her children, but the
boy could not bear to be without Stephen, and his brother advised her
to let it be so, and not try to make a babe of him again.
The guest-chamber below stairs opened at one end into the innyard, a
quadrangle surrounded with stables, outhouses, and offices, with a
gallery running round to give access to the chambers above, where, when
the Court was at Windsor, two or three great men’s trains of retainers
might be crowded together.
One door, however, in the side of the guest-chamber had steps down to
an orchard, full of apple and pear trees in their glory of pink bud and
white blossom, borders of roses, gillyflowers, and lilies of the valley
running along under the grey walls. There was a broad space of grass
near the houses, whence could be seen the Round Tower of the Castle
looking down in protection, while the background of the view was filled
up with a mass of the foliage of Windsor forest, in the spring tints.
Stephen never thought of its being beautiful, but he revelled in the
refreshment of anything so like home, and he had nothing to wish for
but his brother, and after all he was too contented and happy even to
miss him much.
Master Streatfield was an elderly man, fat and easygoing, to whom
talking seemed rather a trouble than otherwise, though he was very
good-natured. His wife was a merry, lively, active woman, who had been
handed over to him by her father like a piece of Flanders cambric, but
who never seemed to regret her position, managed men and maids, farm
and guests, kept perfect order without seeming to do so, and made great
friends with Perronel, never guessing that she had been one of the
strolling company, who, nine or ten years before, had been refused
admission to the Antelope, then crowded with my Lord of Oxford’s
followers.
At first, it was enough for the prentices to spend most of their time
in lying about on the grass under the trees. Giles, who was in the best
condition, exerted himself so far as to try to learn chess from
Aldonza, who seemed to be a proficient in the game, and even defeated
the good-natured burly parson who came every evening to the Antelope,
to imbibe slowly a tankard of ale, and hear any news there stirring.
She and Giles were content to spend hours over her instructions in
chess on that pleasant balcony in the shade of the house. Though really
only a year older than Dennet Headley, she looked much more, and was so
in all her ways. It never occurred to her to run childishly wild with
delight in the garden and orchard as did Dennet, who, with little
five-years-old Will Streatfield for her guide and playfellow, rushed
about hither and thither, making acquaintance with hens and chickens,
geese and goslings, seeing cows and goats milked, watching butter
churned, bringing all manner of animal and vegetable curiosities to
Stephen to be named and explained, and enjoying his delight in them, a
delight which after the first few days became more and more vigorous.
By and by there was punting and fishing on the river, strawberry
gathering in the park, explorations of the forest, expeditions of all
sorts and kinds, Jasper being soon likewise well enough to share in
them. The boys and girls were in a kind of fairy land under Perronel’s
kind wing, the wandering habits of whose girlhood made the freedom of
the country far more congenial to her than it would have been to any
regular Londoner.
Stephen was the great oracle, of course, as to the deer respectfully
peeped at in the park, or the squirrels, the hares and rabbits, in the
forest, and the inhabitants of the stream above or below. It was he who
secured and tamed the memorials of their visit—two starlings for Dennet
and Aldonza. The birds were to be taught to speak, and to do wonders of
all kinds, but Aldonza’s bird was found one morning dead, and Giles
consoled her by the promise of something much bigger, and that would
talk much better. Two days after he brought her a young jackdaw.
Aldonza clasped her hands and admired its glossy back and queer blue
eye, and was in transports when it uttered something between “Jack” and
“good lack.” But Dennet looked in scorn at it, and said, “That’s a bird
tamed already. He didn’t catch it. He only bought it! I would have none
such! An ugsome great thieving bird!”
“Nay now, Mistress Dennet,” argued Perronel. “Thou hast thy bird, and
Alice has lost hers. It is not meet to grudge it to her.”
“I! Grudge it to her!” said Dennet, with a toss of the head. “I grudge
her nought from Giles Headley, so long as I have my Goldspot that
Stephen climbed the wall for, his very self.”
And Dennet turned majestically away with her bird—Goldspot only in the
future—perched on her finger; while Perronel shook her head bodingly.
But they were all children still, and Aldonza was of a nature that was
slow to take offence, while it was quite true that Dennet had been free
from jealousy of the jackdaw, and only triumphant in Stephen’s prowess
and her own starling.
The great pleasure of all was a grand stag-hunt, got up for the
diversion of the French ambassadors, who had come to treat for the
espousals of the infant Princess Mary with the baby “Dolphyne.”
Probably these illustrious personages did not get half the pleasure out
of it that the Antelope party had. Were they not, by special management
of a yeoman pricker who had recognised in Stephen a kindred spirit, and
had a strong admiration for Mistress Randall, placed where there was
the best possible view of hunters, horses, and hounds, lords and
ladies, King and ambassadors, in their gorgeous hunting trim? Did not
Stephen, as a true verdurer’s son, interpret every note on the horn,
and predict just what was going to happen, to the edification of all
his hearers? And when the final rush took place, did not the prentices,
with their gowns rolled up, dart off headlong in pursuit? Dennet
entertained some hope that Stephen would again catch some runaway
steed, or come to the King’s rescue in some way or other, but such
chances did not happen every day. Nay, Stephen did not even follow up
the chase to the death, but left Giles to do that, turning back
forsooth because that little Jasper thought fit to get tired and out of
breath, and could not find his way back alone. Dennet was quite angry
with Stephen and turned her back on him, when Giles came in all
glorious, at having followed up staunchly all day, having seen the fate
of the poor stag, and having even beheld the King politely hand the
knife to Monsieur de Montmorency to give the first stroke to the
quarry!
That was the last exploit. There was to be a great tilting match in
honour of the betrothal, and Master Alderman Headley wanted his
apprentices back again, and having been satisfied by a laborious letter
from Dennet, sent per carrier, that they were in good health,
despatched orders by the same means, that they were to hire horses at
the Antelope and return—Jasper coming back at the same time, though his
aunt would fain have kept him longer.
Women on a journey almost always rode double, and the arrangement came
under debate. Perronel, well accustomed to horse, ass, or foot,
undertook to ride behind the child, as she called Jasper, who—as a born
Londoner—knew nothing of horses, though both the other prentices did.
Giles, who, in right of his name, kindred, and expectations, always
held himself a sort of master, declared that “it was more fitting that
Stephen should ride before Mistiness Dennet.” And to this none of the
party made any objection, except that Perronel privately observed to
him that she should have thought he would have preferred the company of
his betrothed.
“I shall have quite enough of her by and by,” returned Giles; then
adding, “She is a good little wench, but it is more for her honour that
her father’s servant should ride before her.”
Perronel held her tongue, and they rode merrily back to London, and
astonished their several homes by the growth and healthful looks of the
young people. Even Giles was grown, though he did not like to be told
so, and was cherishing the down on his chin. But the most rapid
development had been in Aldonza, or Alice, as Perronel insisted on
calling her to suit the ears of her neighbours. The girl was just
reaching the borderland of maidenhood, which came all the sooner to one
of southern birth and extraction, when the great change took her from
being her father’s childish darling to be Perronel’s companion and
assistant. She had lain down on that fatal May Eve a child, she rose in
the little house by the Temple Gardens, a maiden, and a very lovely
one, with delicate, refined, beautifully cut features of a slightly
aquiline cast, a bloom on her soft brunette cheek, splendid dark liquid
eyes shaded by long black lashes, under brows as regular and well
arched as her Eastern cousins could have made them artificially,
magnificent black hair, that could hardly be contained in the close
white cap, and a lithe beautiful figure on which the plainest dress sat
with an Eastern grace. Perronel’s neighbours did not admire her. They
were not sure whether she were most Saracen, gipsy, or Jew. In fact,
she was as like Rachel at the well as her father had been to a
patriarch, and her descent was of the purest Saracen lineage, but a
Christian Saracen was an anomaly the London mind could not comprehend,
and her presence in the family tended to cast suspicion that Master
Randall himself, with his gipsy eyes, and mysterious comings and
goings, must have some strange connections. For this, however, Perronel
cared little. She had made her own way for many years past, and had won
respect and affection by many good offices to her neighbours, one of
whom had taken her laundry work in her absence.
Aldonza was by no means indocile or incapable. She shared in Perronel’s
work without reluctance, making good use of her slender, dainty brown
fingers, whether in cooking, household work, washing, ironing,
plaiting, making or mending the stiff lawn collars and cuffs in which
her hostess’s business lay. There was nothing that she would not do
when asked, or when she saw that it would save trouble to good mother
Perronel, of whom she was very fond, and she seemed serene and
contented, never wanting to go abroad; but she was very silent, and
Perronel declared herself never to have seen any living woman so
perfectly satisfied to do nothing. The good dame herself was
industrious, not only from thrift but from taste, and if not busy in
her vocation or in household business, was either using her distaff or
her needle, or chatting with her neighbours—often doing both at once;
but though Aldonza could spin, sew, and embroider admirably, and would
do so at the least request from her hostess, it was always a sort of
task, and she never seemed so happy as when seated on the floor, with
her dark eyes dreamily fixed on the narrow window, where hung her
jackdaw’s cage, and the beads of her rosary passing through her
fingers. At first Mistress Randall thought she was praying, but by and
by came to the conviction that most of the time “the wench was
bemused.” There was nothing to complain of in one so perfectly gentle
and obedient, and withal, modest and devout; but the good woman, after
having for some time given her the benefit of the supposition that she
was grieving for her father, began to wonder at such want of activity
and animation, and to think that on the whole Jack was the more
talkative companion.
Aldonza had certainly not taught him the phrases he was so fond of
repeating. Giles Headley had undertaken his education, and made it a
reason for stealing down to the Temple many an evening after work was
done, declaring that birds never learnt so well as after dark.
Moreover, he had possessed himself of a chess board, and insisted that
Aldonza should carry on her instructions in the game; he brought her
all his Holy Cross Day gain of nuts, and he used all his blandishments
to persuade Mrs. Randall to come and see the shooting at the popinjay,
at Mile End.
All this made the good woman uneasy. Her husband was away, for the
dread of sweating sickness had driven the Court from London, and she
could only take counsel with Tibble Steelman. It was Hallowmas Eve, and
Giles had been the bearer of an urgent invitation from Dennet to her
friend Aldonza to come and join the diversions of the evening. There
was a large number of young folk in the hall—Jasper Hope among
them—mostly contemporaries of Dennet, and almost children, all keen
upon the sports of the evening, namely, a sort of indoor quintain,
where the revolving beam was decorated with a lighted candle at one
end, and at the other an apple to be caught at by the players with
their mouths, their hands being tied behind them.
Under all the uproarious merriment that each attempt occasioned, Tibble
was about to steal off to his own chamber and his beloved books, when,
as he backed out of the group of spectators, he was arrested by
Mistress Randall, who had made her way into the rear of the party at
the same time.
“Can I have a word with you, privily, Master Steelman?” she asked.
Unwillingly he muttered, “Yea, so please you;” and they retreated to a
window at the dark end of the hall, where Perronel began—“The
alderman’s daughter is contracted to young Giles, her kinsman, is she
not?”
“Not as yet in form, but by the will of the parents,” returned Tibble,
impatiently, as he thought of the half-hour’s reading which he was
sacrificing to woman’s gossip.
“An it be so,” returned Perronel, “I would fain—were I Master
Headley—that he spent not so many nights in gazing at mine Alice.”
“Forbid him the house, good dame.”
“Easier spoken than done,” returned Perronel. “Moreover, ’tis better to
let the matter, such as it is, be open in my sight than to teach them
to run after one another stealthily, whereby worse might ensue.”
“Have they spoken then to one another?” asked Tibble, beginning to take
alarm.
“I trow not. I deem they know not yet what draweth them together.”
“Pish, they are mere babes!” quoth Tib, hoping he might cast it off his
mind.
“Look!” said Perronel; and as they stood on the somewhat elevated floor
of the bay window, they could look over the heads of the other
spectators to the seats where the young girls sat.
Aldonza’s beautiful and peculiar contour of head and face rose among
the round chubby English faces like a jessamine among daisies, and at
that moment she was undertaking, with an exquisite smile, the care of
the gown that Giles laid at her feet, ere making his venture.
“There!” said Perronel. “Mark that look on her face! I never see it
save for that same youngster. The children are simple and guileless
thus far, it may be. I dare be sworn that she is, but they wot not
where they will be led on.”
“You are right, dame; you know best, no doubt,” said Tib, in helpless
perplexity. “I wot nothing of such gear. What would you do?”
“Have the maid wedded at once, ere any harm come of it,” returned
Perronel promptly. “She will make a good wife—there will be no
complaining of her tongue, and she is well instructed in all good
housewifery.”
“To whom then would you give her?” asked Tibble.
“Ay, that’s the question. Comely and good she is, but she is
outlandish, and I fear me ’twould take a handsome portion to get her
dark skin and Moorish blood o’erlooked. Nor hath she aught, poor maid,
save yonder gold and pearl earrings, and a cross of gold that she says
her father bade her never part with.”
“I pledged my word to her father,” said Tibble, “that I would have a
care of her. I have not cared to hoard, having none to come after me,
but if a matter of twenty or five-and-twenty marks would avail—”
“Wherefore not take her yourself?” said Perronel, as he stood aghast.
“She is a maid of sweet obedient conditions, trained by a scholar even
like yourself. She would make your chamber fair and comfortable, and
tend you dutifully.”
“Whisht, good woman. ’Tis too dark to see, or you could not speak of
wedlock to such as I. Think of the poor maid!”
“That is all folly! She would soon know you for a better husband than
one of those young feather-pates, who have no care but of themselves.”
“Nay, mistress,” said Tibble, gravely, “your advice will not serve
here. To bring that fair young wench hither, to this very court, mind
you, with a mate loathly to behold as I be, and with the lad there ever
before her, would be verily to give place to the devil.”
“But you are the best sword-cutler in London. You could make a living
without service.”
“I am bound by too many years of faithful kindness to quit my master or
my home at the Dragon,” said Tibble. “Nay, that will not serve, good
friend.”
“Then what can be done?” asked Perronel, somewhat in despair. “There
are the young sparks at the Temple. One or two of them are already
beginning to cast eyes at her, so that I dare not let her help me carry
home my basket, far less go alone. ’Tis not the wench’s fault. She
shrinks from men’s eyes more than any maid I ever saw, but if she bide
long with me, I wot not what may come of it. There be rufflers there
who would not stick to carry her off!”
Tibble stood considering, and presently said, “Mayhap the Dean might
aid thee in this matter. He is free of hand and kind of heart, and
belike he would dower the maid, and find an honest man to wed her.”
Perronel thought well of the suggestion, and decided that after the
mass on All Soul’s Day, and the general visiting of the graves of
kindred, she would send Aldonza home with Dennet, whom they were sure
to meet in the Pardon Churchyard, since her mother, as well as Abenali
and Martin Fulford lay there; and herself endeavour to see Dean Colet,
who was sure to be at home, as he was hardly recovered from an attack
of the prevalent disorder.
Then Tibble escaped, and Perronel drew near to the party round the
fire, where the divination of the burning of nuts was going on, but not
successfully, since no pair hitherto put in would keep together.
However, the next contribution was a snail, which had been captured on
the wall, and was solemnly set to crawl on the hearth by Dennet, “to
see whether it would trace a G or an H.”
However, the creature proved sullen or sleepy, and no jogging of hands,
no enticing, would induce it to crawl an inch, and the alderman, taking
his daughter on his knee, declared that it was a wise beast, who knew
her hap was fixed. Moreover, it was time for the rere supper, for the
serving-men with the lanterns would be coming for the young folk.
London entertainments for women or young people had to finish very
early unless they had a strong escort to go home with, for the streets
were far from safe after dark. Giles’s great desire to convoy her home,
added to Perronel’s determination, and on All Souls’ Day, while knells
were ringing from every church in London, she roused Aldonza from her
weeping devotions at her father’s grave, and led her to Dennet, who had
just finished her round of prayers at the grave of the mother she had
never known, under the protection of her nurse, and two or three of the
servants. The child, who had thought little of her mother, while her
grandmother was alert and supplied the tenderness and care she needed,
was beginning to yearn after counsel and sympathy, and to wonder, as
she told her beads, what might have been, had that mother lived. She
took Aldonza’s hand, and the two girls threaded their way out of the
crowded churchyard together, while Perronel betook herself to the
Deanery of St. Paul’s.
Good Colet was always accessible to the meanest, but he had been very
ill, and the porter had some doubts about troubling him respecting the
substantial young matron whose trim cap and bodice, and full
petticoats, showed no tokens of distress. However, when she begged him
to take in her message, that she prayed the Dean to listen to her
touching the child of the old man who was slain on May Eve, he
consented; and she was at once admitted to an inner chamber, where
Colet, wrapped in a gown lined with lambskin, sat by the fire, looking
so wan and feeble that it went to the good woman’s heart and she began
by an apology for troubling him.
“Heed not that, good dame,” said the Dean, courteously, “but sit thee
down and let me hear of the poor child.”
“Ah, reverend sir, would that she were still a child—” and Perronel
proceeded to tell her difficulties, adding, that if the Dean could of
his goodness promise one of the dowries which were yearly given to poor
maidens of good character, she would inquire among her gossips for some
one to marry the girl. She secretly hoped he would take the hint, and
immediately portion Aldonza himself, perhaps likewise find the husband.
And she was disappointed that he only promised to consider the matter
and let her hear from him. She went back and told Tibble that his
device was nought, an old scholar with one foot in the grave knew less
of women than even he did!
However it was only four days later, that, as Mrs. Randall was hanging
out her collars to dry, there came up to her from the Temple stairs a
figure whom for a moment she hardly knew, so different was the long,
black garb, and short gown of the lawyer’s clerk from the shabby old
green suit that all her endeavours had not been able to save from many
a stain of printer’s ink. It was only as he exclaimed, “Good aunt, I am
fain to see thee here!” that she answered, “What, thou, Ambrose! What a
fine fellow thou art! Truly I knew not thou wast of such good mien!
Thou thrivest at Chelsea!”
“Who would not thrive there?” said Ambrose. “Nay, aunt, tarry a little,
I have a message for thee that I would fain give before we go in to
Aldonza.”
“From his reverence the Dean? Hath he bethought himself of her?”
“Ay, that hath he done,” said Ambrose. “He is not the man to halt when
good may be done. What doth he do, since it seems thou hadst speech of
him, but send for Sir Thomas More, then sitting at Westminster, to come
and see him as soon as the Court brake up, and I attended my master.
They held council together, and by and by they sent for me to ask me of
what conditions and breeding the maid was, and what I knew of her
father?”
“Will they wed her to thee? That were rarely good, so they gave thee
some good office!” cried his aunt.
“Nay, nay,” said Ambrose. “I have much to learn and understand ere I
think of a wife—if ever. Nay! But when they had heard all I could tell
them, they looked at one another, and the Dean said, ‘The maid is no
doubt of high blood in her own land—scarce a mate for a London butcher
or currier.”
“‘It were matching an Arab mare with a costard monger’s colt,’ said my
master, ‘or Angelica with Ralph Roisterdoister.’”
“I’d like to know what were better for the poor outlandish maid than to
give her to some honest man,” put in Perronel.
“The end of it was,” said Ambrose, “that Sir Thomas said he was to be
at the palace the next day, and he would strive to move the Queen to
take her countrywoman into her service. Yea, and so he did, but though
Queen Katharine was moved by hearing of a fatherless maid of Spain, and
at first spake of taking her to wait on herself, yet when she heard the
maid’s name, and that she was of Moorish blood, she would none of her.
She said that heresy lurked in them all, and though Sir Thomas offered
that the Dean or the Queen’s own chaplain should question her on the
faith, it was all lost labour. I heard him tell the Dean as much, and
thus it is that they bade me come for thee, and for the maid, take
boat, and bring you down to Chelsea, where Sir Thomas will let her be
bred up to wait on his little daughters till he can see what best may
be done for her. I trow his spirit was moved by the Queen’s hardness! I
heard the Dean mutter, ‘_Et venient ab Oriente et Occidente_.’”
Perronel hooked alarmed. “The Queen deemed her heretic in grain! Ah!
She is a good wench, and of kind conditions. I would have no ill befall
her, but I am glad to be rid of her. Sir Thomas—he is a wise man, ay,
and a married man, with maidens of his own, and he may have more wit in
the business than the rest of his kind. Be the matter instant?”
“Methinks Sir Thomas would have it so, since this being a holy day, the
courts be not sitting, and he is himself at home, so that he can
present the maid to his lady. And that makes no small odds.”
“Yea, but what the lady is makes the greater odds to the maid, I trow,”
said Perronel anxiously.
“Fear not on that score. Dame Alice More is of kindly conditions, and
will be good to any whom her lord commends to her; and as to the young
ladies, never saw I any so sweet or so wise as the two elder ones,
specially Mistress Margaret.”
“Well-a-day! What must be must!” philosophically observed Perronel.
“Now I have my wish, I could mourn over it. I am loth to part with the
wench; and my man, when he comes home, will make an outcry for his
pretty Ally; but ’tis best so. Come, Alice, girl, bestir thyself.
Here’s preferment for thee.”
Aldonza raised her great soft eyes in slow wonder, and when she had
heard what was to befall her, declared that she wanted no advancement,
and wished only to remain with mother Perronel. Nay, she clung to the
kind woman, beseeching that she might not be sent away from the only
motherly tenderness she had ever known, and declaring that she would
work all day and all night rather than leave her; but the more
reluctance she showed, the more determined was Perronel, and she could
not but submit to her fate, only adding one more entreaty that she
might take her jackdaw, which was now a spruce grey-headed bird.
Perronel said it would be presumption in a waiting-woman, but Ambrose
declared that at Chelsea there were all manner of beasts and birds,
beloved by the children and by their father himself, and that he
believed the daw would be welcome. At any rate, if the lady of the
house objected to it, it could return with Mistress Randall.
Perronel hurried the few preparations, being afraid that Giles might
take advantage of the holiday to appear on the scene, and presently
Aldonza was seated in the boat, making no more lamentations after she
found that her fate was inevitable, but sitting silent, with downcast
head, now and then brushing away a stray tear as it stole down under
her long eyelashes.
Meantime Ambrose, hoping to raise her spirits, talked to his aunt of
the friendly ease and kindliness of the new home, where he was
evidently as thoroughly happy as it was in his nature to be. He was
much, in the position of a barrister’s clerk, superior to that of the
mere servants, but inferior to the young gentlemen of larger means,
though not perhaps of better birth, who had studied law regularly, and
aspired to offices or to legal practice.
But though Ambrose was ranked with the three or four other clerks, his
functions had more relation to Sir Thomas’s literary and diplomatic
avocations than his legal ones. From Lucas Hansen he had learnt Dutch
and French, and he was thus available for copying and translating
foreign correspondence. His knowledge of Latin and smattering of Greek
enabled him to be employed in copying into a book some of the
inestimable letters of Erasmus which arrived from time to time, and Sir
Thomas promoted his desire to improve himself, and had requested Mr.
Clements, the tutor of the children of the house, to give him weekly
lessons in Latin and Greek.
Sir Thomas had himself pointed out to him books calculated to settle
his mind on the truth and catholicity of the Church, and had warned him
against meddling with the fiery controversial tracts which, smuggled in
often through Lucas’s means, had set his mind in commotion. And for the
present at least beneath the shadow of the great man’s intelligent
devotion, Ambrose’s restless spirit was tranquil.
Of course, he did not explain his state of mind to his aunt, but she
gathered enough to be well content, and tried to encourage Aldonza,
when at length they landed near Chelsea Church, and Ambrose led the way
to an extensive pleasaunce or park, full of elms and oaks, whose yellow
leaves were floating like golden rain in the sunshine.
Presently children’s voices guided them to a large chestnut tree. “Lo
you now, I hear Mistress Meg’s voice, and where she is, his honour will
ever be,” said Ambrose.
And sure enough, among a group of five girls and one boy, all between
fourteen and nine years old, was the great lawyer, knocking down the
chestnuts with a long pole, while the young ones flew about picking up
the burrs from the grass, exclaiming joyously when they found a full
one.
Ambrose explained that of the young ladies, one was Mistress Middleton,
Lady More’s daughter by a former marriage, another a kinswoman.
Perronel was for passing by unnoticed; but Ambrose knew better; and Sir
Thomas, leaning on the pole, called out, “Ha, my Birkenholt, a forester
born, knowst thou any mode of bringing down yonder chestnuts, which
being the least within reach, seem in course the meetest of all.”
“I would I were my brother, your honour,” said Ambrose, “then would I
climb the thee.”
“Thou shouldst bring him one of these days,” said Sir Thomas. “But thou
hast instead brought in a fair maid. See, Meg, yonder is the poor young
girl who lost her father on Ill May day. Lead her on and make her good
cheer, while I speak to this good dame.”
Margaret More, a slender, dark-eyed girl of thirteen, went forward with
a peculiar gentle grace to the stranger, saying, “Welcome, sweet maid!
I hope we shall make thee happy,” and seeing the mournful countenance,
she not only took Aldonza’s hand, but kissed her cheek.
Sir Thomas had exchanged a word or two with Perronel, when there was a
cry from the younger children, who had detected the wicker cage which
Perronel was trying to keep in the background.
“A daw! a daw!” was the cry. “Is’t for us?”
“Oh, mistress,” faltered Aldonza, “’tis mine—there was one who tamed it
for me, and I promised ever to keep it, but if the good knight and lady
forbid it, we will send it back.”
“Nay now, John, Cicely,” was Margaret saying, “’tis her own bird! Wot
ye not our father will let us take nought of them that come to him?
Yea, Al-don-za—is not that thy name?—I am sure my father will have thee
keep it.”
She led up Aldonza, making the request for her. Sir Thomas smiled.
“Keep thy bird? Nay, that thou shalt. Look at him, Meg, is he not in
fit livery for a lawyer’s house? Mark his trim legs, sable doublet and
hose, and grey hood—and see, he hath the very eye of a councillor
seeking for suits, as he looketh at the chestnuts John holdeth to him.
I warrant he hath a tongue likewise. Canst plead for thy dinner, bird?”
“I love Giles!” uttered the black beak, to the confusion and
indignation of Perronel.
The perverse bird had heard Giles often dictate this avowal, but had
entirely refused to repeat it, till, stimulated by the new
surroundings, it had for the first time uttered it.
“Ah! thou foolish daw! Crow that thou art! Had I known thou hadst such
a word in thy beak, I’d have wrung thy neck sooner than have brought
thee,” muttered Perronel. “I had best take thee home without more ado.”
It was too late, however, the children were delighted, and perfectly
willing that Aldonza should own the bird, so they might hear it speak,
and thus the introduction was over. Aldonza and her daw were conveyed
to Dame Alice More, a stout, good-tempered woman, who had too many
dependents about her house to concern herself greatly about the
introduction of another.
And thus Aldonza was installed in the long, low, two-storied red house
which was to be her place of home-like service.