The Armourer's Prentices, Charlotte Mary Yonge [christmas read aloud TXT] 📗

bowing to the ground, to assure him that my Lord Archbishop was but doffing his robes, and would be with his Grace instantly. Would his Grace vouchsafe to come on to the privy chamber where the dinner was spread?

At the same moment Quipsome Hal sprang forward, exclaiming, "How now, brother and namesake? Wherefore this coil? Hath cloth of gold wearied yet of cloth of frieze? Is she willing to own her right to this?" as he held out his bauble.

"Holla, old Blister! art thou there?" said the King, good- humouredly. "What! knowest not that we are to have such a wedding as will be a sight for sore eyes!"

"Sore! that's well said, friend Hal. Thou art making progress in mine art! Sore be the eyes wherein thou wouldst throw dust."

Again the King laughed, for every one knew that his sister Mary had secretly been married to the Duke of Suffolk for the last two months, and that this public marriage and the tournament that was to follow were only for the sake of appearances. He laid his hand good-naturedly on the jester's shoulder as he walked up the hall towards the Archbishop's private apartments, but the voices of both were loud pitched, and bits of the further conversation could be picked up. "Weddings are rife in your family," said the jester, "none of you get weary of fitting on the noose. What, thou thyself, Hal? Ay, thou hast not caught the contagion yet! Now ye gods forefend! If thou hast the chance, thou'lt have it strong."

Therewith the Archbishop, in his purple robes, appeared in the archway at the other end of the hall, the King joined him, and still followed by the jester, they both vanished. It was presently made known that the King was about to dine there, and that all were to sit down to eat. The King dined alone with the Archbishop as his host; the two noblemen who had formed his suite joined the first table in the higher hall; the knights that of the steward of the household, who was of knightly degree, and with whom the superior clergy of the household ate; and the grooms found their places among the vast array of yeomen and serving-men of all kinds with whom Tibble and his two young companions had to eat. A week ago, Stephen would have contemned the idea of being classed with serving-men and grooms, but by this time he was quite bewildered, and anxious enough to be thankful to keep near a familiar face on any terms, and to feel as if Tibble were an old friend, though he had only known him for five days.

Why the King had come had not transpired, but there was a whisper that despatches from Scotland were concerned in it. The meal was a lengthy one, but at last the King's horses were ordered, and presently Henry came forth, with his arm familiarly linked in that of the Archbishop, whose horse had likewise been made ready that he might accompany the King back to Westminster. The jester was close at hand, and as a parting shaft he observed, while the King mounted his horse, "Friend Hal! give my brotherly commendations to our Madge, and tell her that one who weds Anguish cannot choose but cry out."

Wherewith, affecting to expect a stroke from the King's whip, he doubled himself up, performed the contortion now called turning a coachwheel, then, recovering himself, put his hands on his hips and danced wildly on the steps; while Henry, shaking his whip at him, laughed at the only too obvious pun, for Anguish was the English version of Angus, the title of Queen Margaret's second husband, and it was her complaints that had brought him to his counsellor.

The jester then, much to the annoyance of the two boys, thought proper to follow them to the office of the comptroller, and as that dignitary read out from his books the name of every Henry, and of all the varieties of Ralf and Randolf among the hundred and eighty persons composing the household, he kept on making comments. "Harry Hempseed, clerk to the kitchen; ay, Hempseed will serve his turn one of these days. Walter Randall, groom of the chamber; ah, ha! my lads, if you want a generous uncle who will look after you well, there is your man! He'll give you the shakings of the napery for largesse, and when he is in an open-handed mood, will let you lie on the rushes that have served the hall. Harry of Lambeth, yeoman of the stable. He will make you free of all the taverns in Eastchepe."

And so on, accompanying each remark with a pantomime mimicry of the air and gesture of the individual. He showed in a second the contortions of Harry Weston in drawing the bow, and in another the grimaces of Henry Hope, the choir man, in producing bass notes, or the swelling majesty of Randall Porcher, the cross-bearer, till it really seemed as if he had shown off the humours of at least a third of the enormous household. Stephen had laughed at first, but as failure after failure occurred, the antics began to weary even him, and seem unkind and ridiculous as hope ebbed away, and the appalling idea began to grow on him of being cast loose on London without a friend or protector. Ambrose felt almost despairing as he heard in vain the last name. He would almost have been willing to own Hal the scullion, and his hopes rose when he heard of Hodge Randolph, the falconer, but alas, that same Hodge came from Yorkshire.

"And mine uncle was from the New Forest in Hampshire," he said.

"Maybe he went by the name of Shirley," added Stephen, "'tis where his home was."

But the comptroller, unwilling to begin a fresh search, replied at once that the only Shirley in the household was a noble esquire of the Warwickshire family.

"You must e'en come back with me, young masters," said Tibble, "and see what my master can do for you."

"Stay a bit," said the fool. "Harry of Shirley! Harry of Shirley! Methinks I could help you to the man, if so be as you will deem him worth the finding," he added, suddenly turning upside down, and looking at them standing on the palms of his hands, with an indescribable leer of drollery, which in a moment dashed all the hopes with which they had turned to him. "Should you know this minks of yours?" he added.

"I think I should," said Ambrose. "I remember best how he used to carry me on his shoulder to cull mistletoe for Christmas."

"Ah, ha! A proper fellow of his inches now, with yellow hair?"

"Nay," said Ambrose, "I mind that his hair was black, and his eyes as black as sloes--or as thine own, Master Jester."

The jester tumbled over into a more extraordinary attitude than before, while Stephen said -

"John was wont to twit us with being akin to Gipsy Hal."

"I mean a man sad and grave as the monks of Beaulieu," said the jester.

"He!" they both cried. "No, indeed! He was foremost in all sports." "Ah!" cried Stephen, "mind you not, Ambrose, his teaching us leap-frog, and aye leaping over one of us himself, with the other in his arms?"

"Ah! sadly changed, sadly changed," said the jester, standing upright, with a most mournful countenance. "Maybe you'd not thank me if I showed him to you, young sirs, that is, if he be the man."

"Nay! is he in need, or distress?" cried the brothers.

"Poor Hal!" returned the fool, shaking his head with mournfulness in his voice.

"Oh, take us to him, good--good jester," cried Ambrose. "We are young and strong. We will work for him."

"What, a couple of lads like you, that have come to London seeking for him to befriend you--deserving well my cap for that matter. Will ye be guided to him, broken and soured--no more gamesome, but a sickly old runagate?"

"Of course," cried Ambrose. "He is our mother's brother. We must care for him."

"Master Headley will give us work, mayhap," said Stephen, turning to Tibble. "I could clean the furnaces."

"Ah, ha! I see fools' caps must hang thick as beech masts in the Forest," cried the fool, but his voice was husky, and he turned suddenly round with his back to them, then cut three or four extraordinary capers, after which he observed--"Well, young gentlemen, I will see the man I mean, and if he be the same, and be willing to own you for his nephews, he will meet you in the Temple Gardens at six of the clock this evening, close to the rose-bush with the flowers in my livery--motley red and white."

"But how shall we know him?"

"D'ye think a pair of green caterpillars like you can't be marked-- unless indeed the gardener crushes you for blighting his roses." Wherewith the jester quitted the scene, walking on his hands, with his legs in the air.

"Is he to be trusted?" asked Tibble of the comptroller.

"Assuredly," was the answer; "none hath better wit than Quipsome Hal, when he chooseth to be in earnest. In very deed, as I have heard Sir Thomas More say, it needeth a wise man to be fool to my Lord of York."


CHAPTER VIII. QUIPSOME HAL


"The sweet and bitter fool
Will presently appear, The one in motley here
The other found out there."

SHAKESPEARE.

There lay the quiet Temple Gardens, on the Thames bank, cut out in formal walks, with flowers growing in the beds of the homely kinds beloved by the English. Musk roses, honeysuckle and virgin's bower, climbed on the old grey walls; sops-in-wine, bluebottles, bachelor's buttons, stars of Bethlehem and the like, filled the borders; May thorns were in full sweet blossom; and near one another were the two rose bushes, one damask and one white Provence, whence Somerset and Warwick were said to have plucked their fatal badges; while on the opposite side of a broad grass-plot was another bush, looked on as a great curiosity of the best omen, where the roses were streaked with alternate red and white, in honour, as it were, of the union of York and Lancaster.

By this rose-tree stood the two young Birkenholts. Edmund Burgess having, by his master's desire, shown them the way, and passed them in by a word and sign from his master, then retired unseen to a distance to mark what became of them, they having promised also to return and report of themselves to Master Headley.

They stood together earnestly watching for the coming of the uncle, feeling quite uncertain whether to expect a frail old broken man, or to find themselves absolutely deluded, and made game of by the jester.

The gardens were nearly empty, for most people were sitting over their supper-tables after the business of the day was over, and only one or two figures in black gowns paced up and down in conversation.

"Come away, Ambrose," said Stephen at last. "He only meant to make fools of us! Come, before he comes to gibe us for having heeded a moment. Come, I say--here's this man coming to ask us what we are doing