The Armourer's Prentices, Charlotte M. Yonge [large screen ebook reader TXT] 📗
- Author: Charlotte M. Yonge
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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.
CLOTH OF GOLD ON THE SEAMY SIDE
Then you lost
The view of earthly glory: men might say
Till this time pomp was single; but now married
To one above itself.”
—Shakespeare.
If Giles Headley murmured at Aldonza’s removal, it was only to Perronel, and that discreet woman kept it to herself.
In the summer of 1519 he was out of his apprenticeship, and though Dennet was only fifteen, it was not uncommon for brides to be even younger. However, the autumn of that year was signalised by a fresh outbreak of the sweating sickness, apparently a sort of influenza, and no festivities could be thought of. The King and Queen kept at a safe distance from London, and escaped, so did the inmates of the pleasant house at Chelsea; but the Cardinal, who, as Lord Chancellor, could not entirely absent himself from Westminster, was four times attacked by it, and Dean Colet, a far less robust man, had it three times, and sank at last under it. Sir Thomas More went to see his beloved old friend, and knowing Ambrose’s devotion, let the young man be his attendant. Nor could those who saw the good man ever forget his peaceful farewells, grieving only for the old mother who had lived with him in the Deanery, and in the ninetieth year of her age, thus was bereaved of the last of her twenty-one children. For himself, he was thankful to be taken away from the evil times he already beheld threatening his beloved St. Paul’s, as well as the entire Church both in England and abroad; looking back with a sad sweet smile to the happy Oxford days, when he, with More and Erasmus,
“Strained the watchful eye
If chance the golden hours were nigh
By youthful hope seen gleaming round her walls.”
“But,” said he, as he laid his hand in blessing for the last time on Ambrose’s head, “let men say what they will, do thou cling fast to the Church, nor let thyself be swept away. There are sure promises to her, and grace is with her to purify herself, even though it be obscured for a time. Be not of little faith, but believe that Christ is with us in the ship, though He seem to be asleep.”
He spoke as much to his friend as to the youth, and there can be no doubt that this consideration was the restraining force with many who have been stigmatised as half-hearted Reformers, because though they loved truth, they feared to lose unity.
He was a great loss at that especial time, as a restraining power, trusted by the innovators, and a personal friend both of King and Cardinal, and his preaching and catechising were sorely missed at St. Paul’s.
Tibble Steelman, though thinking he did not go far enough, deplored him deeply; but Tibble himself was laid by for many days. The epidemic went through the Dragon court, though some had it lightly, and only two young children actually died of it. It laid a heavy hand on Tibble, and as his distaste for women rendered his den almost inaccessible to Bet Smallbones, who looked after most of the patients, Stephen Birkenholt, whose nursing capacities had been developed in Newgate, spent his spare hours in attending him, sat with him in the evenings, slept on a pallet by his side, carried him his meals and often administered them, and finally pulled him through the illness and its effects, which left him much broken and never likely to be the same man again.
Old Mistress Headley, who was already failing, did not have the actual disease severely, but she never again left her bed, and died just after Christmas, sinking slowly away with little pain, and her memory having failed from the first.
Household affairs had thus shipped
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