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

us away ere we behold the full issue either of thy preachings, or my Greek Testament, or of our More's Utopian images. Dost thou not feel as though we were like children who have set some mighty engine in motion, like the great water-wheels in my native home, which, whirled by the flowing streams of time and opinion, may break up the whole foundations, and destroy the oneness of the edifice?"

"It may be so," returned Colet. "What read we? 'The net brake' even in the Master's sight, while still afloat on the sea. It was only on the shore that the hundred and fifty-three, all good and sound, were drawn to His feet."

"And," returned Erasmus, "I see wherefore thou hast made thy children at St. Paul's one hundred and fifty and three." The two friends were passing out. Their latter speeches had scarce been understood by Ambrose, even if he heard them, so full was he of conflicting feelings, now ready to cast himself before their feet, and entreat the Dean to help him to guidance, now withheld by bashfulness, unwillingness to interrupt, and ingenuous shame at appearing like an eavesdropper towards such dignified and venerable personages. Had he obeyed his first impulse, mayhap his career had been made safer and easier for him, but it was while shyness chained his limbs and tongue that the Dean and Erasmus quitted the chapel, and the opportunity of accosting them had slipped away.

Their half comprehended words had however decided him in the part he should take, making him sure that Colet was not controverting the formularies of the Church, but drawing out those meanings which in repetition by rote were well-nigh forgotten. It was as if his course were made clear to him.

He was determined to take the means which most readily presented themselves of hearing Colet; and leaving the chapel, he bent his steps to the Row which his book-loving eye had already marked. Flanking the great Cathedral on the north, was the row of small open stalls devoted to the sale of books, or "objects of devotion," all so arranged that the open portion might be cleared, and the stock- in-trade locked up if not carried away. Each stall had its own sign, most of them sacred, such as the Lamb and Flag, the Scallop Shell, or some patron saint, but classical emblems were oddly intermixed, such as Minerva's AEgis, Pegasus, and the Lyre of Apollo. The sellers, some middle-aged men, some lads, stretched out their arms with their wares to attract the passengers in the street, and did not fail to beset Ambrose. The more lively looked at his Lincoln green and shouted verses of ballads at him, fluttering broad sheets with verses on the lamentable fate of Jane Shore, or Fair Rosamond, the same woodcut doing duty for both ladies, without mercy to their beauty. The scholastic judged by his face and step that he was a student, and they flourished at him black-bound copies of Virgilius Maro, and of Tully's Offices, while others, hoping that he was an incipient clerk, offered breviaries, missals or portuaries, with the Use of St. Paul's, or of Sarum, or mayhap St. Austin's Confessions. He made his way along, with his eye diligently heedful of the signs, and at last recognised the Winged Staff, or caduceus of Hermes, over a stall where a couple of boys in blue caps and gowns and yellow stockings were making a purchase of a small, grave- looking, elderly but bright cheeked man, whose yellow hair and beard were getting intermingled with grey. They were evidently those St. Paul's School boys whom Ambrose envied so much, and as they finished their bargaining and ran away together, Ambrose advanced with a salutation, asked if he did not see Master Lucas Hansen, and gave him the note with the commendations of Tibble Steelman the armourer.

He was answered with a ready nod and "yea, yea," as the old man opened the billet and cast his eyes over it; then scanning Ambrose from head to foot, said with some amazement, "But you are of gentle blood, young sir."

"I am," said Ambrose; "but gentle blood needs at times to work for bread, and Tibble let me hope that I might find both livelihood for the body and for the soul with you, sir."

"Is it so?" asked the printer, his face lighting up. "Art thou willing to labour and toil, and give up hope of fee and honour, if so thou mayst win the truth?"

Ambrose folded his hands with a gesture of earnestness, and Lucas Hansen said, "Bless thee, my son! Methinks I can aid thee in thy quest, so thou canst lay aside," and here his voice grew sharper and more peremptory, "all thy gentleman's airs and follies, and serve-- ay, serve and obey."

"I trust so," returned Ambrose; "my brother is even now becoming prentice to Master Giles Headley, and we hope to live as honest men by the work of our hands and brains."

"I forgot that you English herren are not so puffed up with pride and scorn like our Dutch nobles," returned the printer. "Canst live sparingly, and lie hard, and see that thou keepst the house clean, not like these English swine?"

"I hope so," said Ambrose, smiling; "but I have an uncle and aunt, and they would have me lie every night at their house beside the Temple gardens."

"What is thine uncle?"

"He hath a post in the meine of my Lord Archbishop of York," said Ambrose, blushing and hesitating a little. "He cometh to and fro to his wife, who dwells with her old father, doing fine lavender's work for the lawyer folk therein."

It was somewhat galling that this should be the most respectable occupation that could be put forward, but Lucas Hansen was evidently reassured by it. He next asked whether Ambrose could read Latin, putting a book into his hand as he did so; Ambrose read and construed readily, explaining that he had been trained at Beaulieu.

"That is well!" said the printer; "and hast thou any Greek?"

"Only the alphabeta," said Ambrose, "I made that out from a book at Beaulieu, but Father Simon knew no more, and there was nought to study from."

"Even so," replied Hansen, "but little as thou knowst 'tis as much as I can hope for from any who will aid me in my craft. 'Tis I that, as thou hast seen, furnish for the use of the children at the Dean's school of St. Paul's. The best and foremost scholars of them are grounded in their Greek, that being the tongue wherein the Holy Gospels were first writ. Hitherto I have had to get me books for their use from Holland, whither they are brought from Basle, but I have had sent me from Hamburg a fount of type of the Greek character, whereby I hope to print at home, the accidence, and mayhap the Dialogues of Plato, and it might even be the sacred Gospel itself, which the great Doctor, Master Erasmus, is even now collating from the best authorities in the universities."

Ambrose's eyes kindled with unmistakable delight. "You have the accidence!" he exclaimed. "Then could I study the tongue even while working for you! Sir, I would do my best! It is the very opportunity I seek."

"Fair and softly," said the printer with something of a smile. "Thou art new to cheapening and bargaining, my fair lad. Thou hast spoken not one word of the wage."

"I recked not of that," said Ambrose. "'Tis true, I may not burthen mine uncle and aunt, but verily, sir, I would live on the humblest fare that will keep body and soul together so that I may have such an opportunity."

"How knowst thou what the opportunity may be?" returned Lucas, drily. "Thou art but a babe! Some one should have a care of thee. If I set thee to stand here all day and cry what d'ye lack? or to carry bales of books twixt this and Warwick Inner Yard, thou wouldst have no ground to complain."

"Nay, sir," returned Ambrose, "I wot that Tibble Steelman would never send me to one who would not truly give me what I need."

"Tibble Steelman is verily one of the few who are both called and chosen," replied Lucas, "and I think thou art the same so far as green youth may be judged, since thou art one who will follow the word into the desert, and never ask for the loaves and fishes. Nevertheless, I will take none advantage of thy youth and zeal, but thou shalt first behold what thou shalt have to do for me, and then if it still likes thee, I will see thy kindred. Hast no father?"

Ambrose explained, and at that moment Master Hansen's boy made his appearance, returning from an errand; the stall was left in his charge, while the master took Ambrose with him into the precincts of what had once been the splendid and hospitable mansion of the great king-maker, Warwick, but was now broken up into endless little tenements with their courts and streets, though the baronial ornaments and the arrangement still showed what the place had been.

Entering beneath a wide archway, still bearing the sign of the Bear and Ragged Staff, Lucas led the way into what must have been one of the courts of offices, for it was surrounded with buildings and sheds of different heights and sizes, and had on one side a deep trough of stone, fed by a series of water-taps, intended for the use of the stables. The doors of one of these buildings was unlocked by Master Hansen, and Ambrose found himself in what had once perhaps been part of a stable, but had been partitioned off from the rest. There were two stalls, one serving the Dutchman for his living room, the other for his workshop. In one corner stood a white earthenware stove--so new a spectacle to the young forester that he supposed it to be the printing press. A table, shiny with rubbing, a wooden chair, a couple of stools, a few vessels, mirrors for brightness, some chests and corner cupboards, a bed shutting up like a box and likewise highly polished, completed the furniture, all arranged with the marvellous orderliness and neatness of the nation. A curtain shut off the opening to the other stall, where stood a machine with a huge screw, turned by leverage. Boxes of type and piles of paper surrounded it, and Ambrose stood and looked at it with a sort of awe-struck wonder and respect as the great fount of wisdom. Hansen showed him what his work would be, in setting up type, and by and by correcting after the first proof. The machine could only print four pages at a time, and for this operation the whole strength of the establishment was required. Moreover, Master Hansen bound, as well as printed his books. Ambrose was by no means daunted. As long as he might read as well as print, and while he had Sundays at St. Paul's to look to, he asked no more--except indeed that his gentle blood stirred at the notion of acting salesman in the book-stall, and Master Hansen assured him with a smile that Will Wherry, the other boy, would do that better than either of them, and that he would be entirely employed here.

The methodical master insisted however on making terms with the boy's