■i'MMmMs: 
 
 m
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 aT
 
 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES
 
 ,s^ 

 
 THE 
 
 ARMOUKEK'S PRENTICES 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLOTTE M. YONGE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "the HEIR OF REDCLTFFE," "UNKNOWN TO HISTORY," ETC., ETt 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. L 
 
 Hontion : 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1884. 
 
 The Right oj Translation avd Beproduction is Lencrved.
 
 MS- 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 R. Cr.AV, Sons, and Taylor. 
 
 BKtAD STREBf HILI.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 I HAVE attempted here to sketch citizen life in the 
 early Tudor days, aided therein by Stowe's Survey of 
 London, supplemented by Mr. Loftie's excellent history, 
 and Dr. Burton's English Merchants. 
 
 Stowe gives a full account of the relations of 
 apprentices to their masters ; though I confess that 
 I do not know whether Edmund Burgess could have 
 become a citizen of York after serving an apprentice- 
 ship in London. Evil May Day is closely described 
 in Hall's Chronicle. The ballad, said to be by 
 Churchill, a contemporary, does not agree with it in 
 all respects ; but the story-teller may surely have 
 license to follow whatever is most suitable to the 
 purpose. The sermon is exactly as given by Hall, who 
 is also responsible for the description of the King's 
 sports and of the Field of the Cloth of Gold and of
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 Ardres. Knight's admirable Pictorial History of 
 Ungland tells of Barlow, the archer, dubbed by 
 Henry VIII. the King of Shoreditch. 
 
 Historic Winchester describes both St. Elizabeth 
 College and the Archer Monks of Hyde Abbey. The 
 tales mentioned as told by Ambrose to Dennet are 
 really New Forest legends. 
 
 The Moresco's Arabic Gospel and Breviary are 
 mentioned in Lady Calcott's History of Spain, but 
 she does not giv'e her authority. . Nor can I go 
 further than Knight's Pictorial History for the King's 
 adventure in the marsh. He does not say where it 
 happened, but as in Stowe's map " Dead Man's Hole" 
 appears in what is now Regent's Park, the marsh 
 was probably deep enough in places for the ad- 
 venture there. Brand's Popular Antiquities are the 
 authority for the nutting in St. John's Wood on 
 Holy Cross Day. Indeed, in some country parishes 
 I have heard that boys still think they have a license 
 to crack nuts at church on the ensuing Sunday. 
 
 Seebohm's Oxford Paformers and the Life of Sir 
 Thomas More, written by William Roper, are my other 
 authorities, tliuugh 1 touched somewhat unwillingly
 
 PREFACE. vii 
 
 on ground already lighted up by Miss Manning in her 
 Household of Sir Thomas More. 
 
 Gait's Life of Cardinal Wolsey afforded the de- 
 scription of his household taken from his faithful 
 Cavendish, and likewise the story of Patch the Fool. 
 In fact, a large portion of the whole book was built 
 on that anecdote. 
 
 I mention all this because I have so often been 
 asked my authorities in historical tales, that I think 
 people prefer to have what the French appropriately 
 call jpi^ces justificatives. 
 
 C. M. YONGE. 
 
 Axigust 1st, 1884.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 TAGE 
 THE VERDURER's LODGE 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE GRANGE OF SILKSTEDE 21 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 KINSMEN AND STRANGERS 39 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 A hero's fall 63 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DRAGON COURT 79 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A SUNDAY IN THE CITY 102 
 
 VOL. I. ^
 
 X CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 YORK HOUSE 126 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 yUIPSOME HA 1 146 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ARM.S SPIRITUAL AND TEMPOUAI. 168 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 TWO VOCATIONS 184 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 AY DI ME GRENADA 213 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A KING IX A QUAGMir.E 233 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A LONDON HOLIDAY . 257
 
 THE ARMOUKEK'S PRENTICES
 
 THE 
 
 ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE VERDURER's LODGE. 
 
 " Give me the poor allottery my father left me by testament, with 
 that I will go buy me fortunes." 
 ' ' Get you with him, you old dog. " 
 
 As Tmi Like It. 
 
 The officials of the New Forest have ever since tlie 
 days of tlie Conqueror enjoyed some of the pleasantest 
 dwellings that southern England can boast. 
 
 The home of the Birkenholt family was not one of the 
 least delightful. It stood at the foot of a rising erround, 
 on which grew a grove of magnificent beeches, their 
 large silveiy boles rising majestically like columns into 
 a lofty vaulting of branches, covered above with tender 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 Gfreen foliage. Here and there the shade beneath was 
 broken by the gilding of a ray of sunshine on a lower 
 twie, or on a white trunk, but the floor of the vast 
 arcades was almost entirely of the russet brown of the 
 fallen leaves, save where a fern or holly bush made a 
 spot of green. At the foot of the slope lay a stretch of 
 pasture ground, some parts covered by " lady-smocks, 
 all silver white," with the course of the little stream 
 through the midst indicated by a perfect golden river of 
 shining kingcups interspersed with ferns. Beyond lay 
 tracts of brown heath and brilliant gorse and broom, 
 which stretched for miles and miles along the flats, 
 while the dry ground was covered with holly brake, and 
 here and there woods of oak and beech made a sea of 
 verdure, purpling in the distance. 
 
 Cultivation was not attempted, but hardy little 
 ponies, cows, goats, sheep, and pigs were feeding, and 
 picking their way about in the marshy mead below, and 
 a small garden of pot-herbs, inclosed by a strong fence 
 of timber, lay on the sunny side of a spacious I'ambling 
 forest lodge, oidy one story high, built of solid tindier 
 and roofed with shingle. It was not without strong 
 pretensions to beauty, as well as to picturesqueness, for
 
 T.] THE VERDURER'S LODGE. 
 
 the posts of the door, the architecture of the deep porch, 
 the frames of the latticed windows, and the verge boards 
 were all richly carved in grotesque devices. Over the 
 door w^as the royal shield, between a pair of magnificent 
 antlers, the spoils of a deer reported to have been slain 
 by King Edward IV., as was denoted by the " glorious 
 sun of York " carved beneath the shield. 
 
 In the background among the trees were ranges of 
 stables and kennels, and on the grass-plat in front of 
 the windows was a row of beehives. A tame doe lay on 
 the little green sward, not far from a large rough deer- 
 hound, both close friends who could be trusted at large. 
 There was a mournful dispirited look about the hound, 
 evidently an aged animal, for the once black muzzle 
 ■was touched with grey, and there was a film over one of 
 the keen beautiful eyes, which opened eagerly as he 
 pricked his ears and lifted his head at the rattle of the 
 door latch. Then, as two boys came out, he rose, and 
 with a slowly waving tail, and a wistful appealing air, 
 came and laid his head against one of the pair who had 
 appeared in the porch. They were lads of fourteen and 
 fifteen, clad in suits of new mourning, with the short 
 belted doublet, puffed hose, small ruffs and little round 
 
 B 2
 
 4 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 caps of early Tudor times. They had dark eyes and 
 liair, and honest open faces, the younger ruddy and sun- 
 burnt, the elder thinner and more intellectual — and 
 they were so much the same size that the advantage 
 of age was always supposed to be on the side of Stephen, 
 though he was really the junior by nearly a year. Both 
 were sad and grave, and the eyes and cheeks of Stephen 
 showed traces of recent floods of tears, though there 
 was more settled dejection on the countenance of his 
 brother. 
 
 "Ay, Spring," said the lad, "'tis winter with tliee 
 now. A poor old rogue ! Did the new housewife talk 
 of a halter because he showed his teeth when her ill- 
 nurtured brat wanted to ride on him ? Nay, old Spring, 
 thou shalt share thy master's fortunes, changed though 
 they be. Oh, father ! father ! didst thou guess how it 
 would be with thy boys ! " And throwing himself on 
 the grass, he hid his face against the dog and sobbed. 
 
 " Come, Stephen, Stephen ; 'tis time to play the 
 man ! Wliat arc we to do out in the world if you weep 
 and wail ? " 
 
 " She might have let us stay for the month's mind," 
 was heard from Stephen.
 
 I.] THE VERDURER'S LODGE. 
 
 " Ay, and though we might be more glad to go, we 
 might carry bitterer thoughts along with us. Better be 
 done with it at once, say I." 
 
 " There would still be the Forest ! And I saw the 
 moorhen sitting yester eve ! And the wild ducklings 
 are out on the pool, and the woods are full of song. Oh ! 
 Ambrose ! I never knew how hard it is to part " 
 
 " Nay, now, Steve, where be all your plots for 
 bravery ? You always meant to seek your fortune — not 
 bide here like an acorn for ever." 
 
 " I never thought to be thrust forth the very day of 
 our poor father's burial, by a shrewish town-bred 
 vixen, and a base narrow^-souled " 
 
 " Hist ! hist !" said the more prudent Ambrose. 
 
 " Let him hear who will ! He cannot do w^orse for us 
 than he has done ! All the Forest will cry shame on 
 liim for a mean-hearted skinflint to turn his brothers 
 from their home, ere their father and his, be cold in his 
 grave," cried Stephen, clenching the grass with his 
 hands, in his passionate sense of wrong. 
 
 " That's womanish," said Ambrose. 
 
 " Who'll be the woman when the time comes for 
 drawing cold steel ? " cried Stephen, sitting up.
 
 G THE AEMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 At that moment there came through the porch a 
 man, a few years over thirty, likewise in mourning, 
 with a paler, sharper countenance than the brothers, 
 and an uncomfortable pleading expression of self- 
 justification. 
 
 "How now, lads!" he said, "what means this 
 passion ? You have taken the matter too hastily. 
 There was no thought that ye should part till you had 
 some purpose in view. Nay, we should be fain for 
 Ambrose to bide on here, so he would leave his portion 
 for me to deal with, and teach little Will his primer and 
 accidence. You are a quiet lad, Ambrose, and can rule 
 your tongue better than Stephen." 
 
 " Thanks, brother John," said Ambrose, somewhat 
 sarcastically, " but where Stephen goes I go." 
 
 " I would — I would have found Stephen a ])lace 
 among the prickers or rangers, if — " hesitated John. 
 "In sooth, I would yet do it, if he would make it ti]) 
 with the housewife." 
 
 " My father looked higher for his son than a pricker's 
 office," returned Ambrose. 
 
 "That do i wot," said John, "and therefore, 'tis 
 for his own good that I would send him forth. His
 
 1.] THE VEEDURER'S LODGE. 
 
 godfather, our uncle Birkenliolt, he will assuredly 
 provide for him, aud set him forth " 
 
 The door of the house was opened, and a shrewish 
 voice cried, " Mr. Birkenholt, here, husband ! You 
 are wanted. Here's little Kate crying to have yonder 
 smooth pouch to stroke, and I cannot reach it for 
 her." 
 
 " Father set store by that otter-skin pouch, for poor 
 Prince Arthur slew the otter," cried Stephen. " Surely, 
 John, you'll not let the babes make a toy of that ? " 
 
 John made a helpless gesture, and at a renewed 
 call, went indoors. 
 
 "You are right, Ambrose," said Stephen, " this is no 
 place for us. Why should we tarry any longer to see 
 evervthing moiled and set at nought ? I have couched 
 
 I/O o 
 
 in the forest before, and 'tis summer time." 
 
 "Nay," said Ambrose, "we must make uj^ our 
 fardels and have our money in our pouches before we 
 can depart. We must tarry the night, and call John to 
 his reckoning, and so might we set forth early enough 
 in the morning to lie at Winchester that night and 
 take counsel with our uncle Birkenholt." 
 
 " I would not stop short at Winchester," said Stephen.
 
 8 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 " London for me, where uncle Randall will find us 
 preferment ! " 
 
 " And what wilt do for Spring ! " 
 
 " Take him with me, of course ! " exclaimed 
 Stephen. " What ! would I leave him to be kicked 
 and pinched by Will, and hanged belike by Mistress 
 Maud?" 
 
 " I doubt me whether the poor old hound will brook 
 the journey." 
 
 " Then I'll carry him ! " 
 
 Ambrose looked at the big dog as if he thought it 
 woidd be a serious undertaking, but he had known and 
 loved Sjjring as his brother's property ever since his 
 memory began, and he scarcely felt that they could be 
 separable for ^yeal or woe. 
 
 The verdurers of the New Forest were of gentle 
 blood, and their office was well-nigh hereditary. The 
 Birkenholts had held it for many generations, and the 
 reversion passed as a matter of course to the eldest son 
 of the late holder, who had newly been laid in the 
 burial ground of BcauHeu Abbey. John Birkenholt, 
 whose mother had been of knightly lineage, had re- 
 sented his father's second marriage with the dauijhter
 
 I.] THE VERDURER'S LODGE. 9 
 
 of a yeoman on the verge of the Forest, suspected of a 
 strain of gipsy blood, and had lived little at home, 
 becoming a sort of agent at Southampton for business 
 connected with the timber which was yearly cut in the 
 Forest to supj^ly material for the shipping. He had 
 wedded the daughter of a person engaged in law busi- 
 ness at Southampton, and had only been an occasional 
 visitor at home, ever after the death of his stepmother. 
 She had left these two boys, unwelcome appendages in 
 his sight. They had obtained a certain amount of 
 education at Beaulieu Abbey, where a school was kept, 
 and where Ambrose daily studied, though for the last 
 few months Stephen had assisted his father in his 
 forest duties. 
 
 Death had come suddenly to break up the household 
 in the early spring of 1515, and John Birkenholt had 
 returned as if to a patrimony, bringing his wife and 
 children with him. The funeral ceremonies had been 
 conducted at Beaulieu Abbey on the extensive scale of 
 the sixteenth century, the requiem, the feast, and the 
 dole, all taking place there, leaving the Forest lodge in 
 its ordinary quiet. 
 
 It had always been understood that on their father's
 
 10 THE ARMOUREE'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 death the two younger sons must make their own way 
 in the world ; but he had hoped to hve until they were 
 a little older, when he might himself have started them 
 in life, or expressed his wishes respecting them to their 
 elder brother. As it was, however, there was no com- 
 mendation of them, nothing but a strip of parchment, 
 drawn up by one of the monks of Beaulieu, leaving 
 each of them twenty crowns, with a few small jewels 
 and properties left by their own mother, while every- 
 thing else went to their brother. 
 
 There might have been some jealousy excited by the 
 estimation in which Stephen's efficiency — boy as he was 
 — was evidently held by the plain-spoken underlings 
 of the vcrdurcr ; and this added to Mistress Birken- 
 holt's dislike to the presence of her husband's half- 
 brothers, whom she regarded as interlopers without a 
 right to exist. Matters were brouglit to a climax by 
 old Spring's resentment at being roughly teased by her 
 spoilt children. He had done nothing worse than 
 growl and show his teeth, but the town-bred dame had 
 taken alarm, and half in terror, half in spite, had 
 insisted on his instant execution, since he was too old 
 to be valuable. Stephen, who loved the dog only less
 
 i] THE VERDURER'S LODGE. 1] 
 
 than he loved his brother Ambrose, had come to high 
 words with her ; and the end of the altercation had 
 been that she had declared that she would suffer no 
 great lubbers of the half-blood to devour her children's 
 inheritance, and teach them ill manners, and that go 
 they must, and that instantly. John had muttered a 
 little about " not so fast, dame," and " for very shame," 
 but she had turned on him, and rated him with a 
 violence that demonstrated who was ruler in the house, 
 and took away all disposition to tarry long under the 
 new dynasty. 
 
 The boys possessed two uncles, one on each side of 
 the house. Their father's elder brother had been a 
 man-at-arms, having preferred a stirring life to the 
 Forest, and had fought in the last surges of the Wars of 
 the Roses. Having become disabled and infirm, he had 
 taken advantage of a corrody, or right of maintenance, 
 as being of kin to a benefactor of Hyde Abbey at Win- 
 chester, to which Birkenholt some generations back had 
 presented a few roods of land, in right of which, one 
 descendant at a time might be maintained in the 
 Abbey. Intelligence of his brother's death had been 
 sent to Richard Birkenholt, but answer had been
 
 12 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 returned that he was too evil-disposed with the gout to 
 attend the buriah 
 
 The other uncle, Harry Randall, had disappeared from 
 the country under a cloud connected with the king's deer, 
 leaving behind him the reputation of a careless, thrift- 
 less, jovial fellow, the best company in all the Forest, 
 and capable of doing every one's work save his own. 
 
 The two brothers, who were about seven and six 
 years old at the time of his flight, had a lively recollec- 
 tion of his charms as a playmate, and of their mother's 
 grief for him, and refusal to believe any ill of her Hal. 
 Rumours had come of his attainment to vague and 
 unknown greatness at court, under the patronage of the 
 Lord Archbishop of York, which the Yerdurer laughed 
 to scorn, thouofh his wife crave credit to them. Gifts 
 had come from time to time, passed through a succes- 
 sion of servants and officials of the king, such as a coral 
 and silver rosary, a jewelled bodkin, an agate carved 
 with St. Catherine, an ivory pouncet box witli a pierced 
 gold coin as the lid ; but no letter with them, as 
 indeed Hal Randall had never been induced to learn to 
 read or write. Master Birkenholt looked doubtfully at 
 the tokens and hoped Hal had come honestly by them ;
 
 I.] THE VERDURER'S LODGE. 13 
 
 but his wife had thoroughly imbued her sons with the 
 belief that Uncle Hal was shining in his proper sphere, 
 where he was better appreciated than at home. Thus 
 their one plan was to go to London to find Uncle Hal, 
 who was sure to put Stephen on the road to fortune, 
 and enable Ambrose to become a great scholar, his 
 favourite ambition. 
 
 His gifts would, as Ambrose observed, serve them as 
 tokens, and with the purpose of claiming them, they 
 re-entered the hall, a long low room, with a handsome 
 open roof, and walls tapestried with dressed skins, inter- 
 spersed with antlers, hung with weapons of the chase. 
 At one end of the hall was a small polished barrel, 
 always replenished with beer, at the other a hearth 
 with a wood fire constantly burning, and there was a 
 table running the whole length of the room ; at one 
 end of this was laid a cloth, with a few trenchers on it, 
 and horn cups, surrounding a barley loaf and a cheese, 
 this meagre irregular supper being considered as a 
 sufficient supplement to the funeral baked meats which 
 had abounded at Beaulieu. John Birkenholt sat at the 
 table with a trencher and horn before him, uneasily 
 using his knife to crumble, rather than cut, his bread.
 
 14 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap 
 
 His wife, a thin, pale, shrewish-looking woman, was 
 warming her child's feet at the fire, before putting him 
 to bed, and an old woman sat spinning and nodding on 
 a settle at a little distance. 
 
 " Brother," said Stephen, " we have thought on what 
 you said. We Avill put our stuff together, and if you 
 will count us out our portions, we will be afoot by 
 sunrise to-morrow." 
 
 " Nay, nay, lad, I said not there was such haste ; did 
 I, mistress housewife?" — (she snorted); "only that 
 thou art a well-grown lusty fellow, and 'tis time thoii 
 wentest forth. For thee, Ambrose, thou wettest I 
 made thee a fair offer of bed and board." 
 
 " That is," called out the wife, " if thou wilt make 
 a fair scholar of little "Will. 'Tis a mighty good offer. 
 There are not many who would let their child be taught 
 by a mere stripling like thee I" 
 
 " Nay," said Ambrose, who could not bring himself 
 to thank her, " I go with Stephen, mistress ; I would 
 mend my scholarship ere I teach." 
 
 "As you please," said Mistress Maud, shrugging her 
 shoulders, " only never say that a fair offer was not 
 made to you."
 
 1.] THE VERDURER'S LODGE. ]5 
 
 "And," said Stephen, " so please you, brother John, 
 hand us over our portions, and the jewels as bequeathed 
 to us, and we will be gone." 
 
 " Portions, quotha ? " returned John. " Boy, they be 
 not due to you till you be come to years of discretion," 
 
 The brothers looked at one another, and Stephen 
 said, " Nay, now, brother, I know not how that may be, 
 but I do know that you cannot drive us from our 
 father's house without maintenance, and detain what 
 belongs to us." 
 
 And Ambrose muttered something aboiit " my Lord 
 of Beaulieu." 
 
 "Look you, now," said John, "did I ever speak of 
 driving you from home without maintenance ? Hath 
 not Ambrose had his choice of staying here, and 
 Stephen of waiting till some office be found for him ? 
 As for putting forty crowns into the hands of striplings 
 like you, it were mere thro\\ing it to the robbers." 
 
 " That being so," said Ambrose turning to Stephen, 
 " we will to Beaulieu, and see what counsel my lord 
 will give us." 
 
 "Yea, do, like the vipers ye are, and embroil us with 
 my Lord of Beaulieu," cried Maud from the fire.
 
 16 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 " See," said John, in his more caressing fashion, " it 
 is not well to carry family tales to strangers, and — 
 and — " 
 
 He was disconcerted by a laugh from the old nurse, 
 " Ho ! John Birkenholt, thou wast ever a lad of smooth 
 tongue, but an thou, or madam here, think that thy 
 brothers can be put forth from thy father's door without 
 their due before the good man be cold in his grave, 
 and the Forest not ring with it, thou art mightily out 
 in thy reckoning ' " 
 
 "Peace, thou old hag; what matter is't of thine?" 
 began Mistress Maud, but again came the harsh laugh. 
 
 " Matter of mine ! Why, whose matter should it be 
 but mine, that have nursed all three of the lads, ay, and 
 their father before them, besides four more that lie in 
 the graveyard at BeauHeu ? Rest their sweet souls ! 
 And I tell thee, Master John, an thou do not riojhteouslv 
 by these thy brothers, thou mayst back to thy parch- 
 ments at Southampton, for not a man or beast in the 
 Forest will give thee good day." 
 
 They all felt the old woman's authority. She was 
 able and spirited in her homely way, and more mistress 
 of the house tlian Mrs. Birkenholt herself; and such
 
 I.] THE VERDURER'S LODGE. 17 
 
 were the terms of domestic service, that there was no 
 peril of losing her place. Even Maud knew that to 
 turn her out was an impossibility, and that she must be 
 accepted like the loneliness, damp, and other evils of 
 Forest life. John had been under her dominion, and 
 proceeded to persuade her. " Good now, Nurse Joan, 
 what have I denied these rash striplings that my father 
 would have granted them ? Wouldst thou have them 
 carry all their portion in their hands, to be cozened of 
 it at the first ale-house, or robbed on the next heath ? " 
 
 " I would have thee do a brother's honest part, John 
 Birkenholt. A loving part I say not. Thou wert 
 always like a very popple for hardness, and smoothness, 
 ay, and slipperiness. Heigh ho ! But what is right 
 by the lads, thou slialt do." 
 
 John cowered under her eye as he had done at six years 
 old, and faltered, " I only seek to do them right, nurse." 
 
 Nurse Joan uttered an emphatic grunt, but Mistress 
 Maud broke in, " They are not to hang about here in 
 idleness, eating my poor child's substance, and teaching 
 him ill manners." 
 
 " We would not stay here if you paid us for it," 
 returned Stephen. 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 18 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 " And whither would you go ? " asked John. 
 
 " To Winchester first, to seek counsel with our uncle 
 Birkenholt. Then to London, where uncle Randall will 
 help us to our fortunes." 
 
 " Gipsy Hal ! He is more like to help you to a halter," 
 sneered John, sotto voce, and Joan herself observed, 
 " Their uncle at Winchester will show them better than 
 to run after that there go-by-chance." 
 
 However, as no one wished to keep the youths, and 
 they were equally determined to go, an accommodati(3n 
 was come to at last, John was induced to give them 
 three crowns apiece and to yield them up the five small 
 trinkets specified, though not without some murmurs 
 from his wife. It was no doubt safer to leave the rest 
 of the money in his hands than to carry it with them, 
 and he undertook that it should be forthcoming, if 
 needed for any fit purpose, such as the purchase of an 
 office, an apprentice's fee, or an outfit as a squire. It 
 was a vague promise that cost him nothing just then, 
 and thus could be readily made, and John's great desire 
 was to get them away so that he could aver that they 
 had gone by their own free will, without any hardship, 
 for he had seen enough at his father's obsequies to show
 
 I.] THE YERUURER'S LODGE. 19 
 
 him that the love and sympathy of all the scanty 
 dwellers in the Forest was with them. 
 
 Nnrse Joaa had fought their battles, but with the 
 sore heart of one who was parting with her darlings 
 never to see them again. She bade them doff their 
 suits of mourning that she might make up their fardels, 
 as they would travel in their Lincoln-green suits. To 
 take these she repaired to the little rough shed-like 
 chamber where the two brothers lay for the last time on 
 their pallet bed, awake, and watching for her, with 
 Spring at their feet. The poor old woman stood over 
 them, as over the motherless nurslings whom she had 
 tended, and she should probably never see more, but 
 she was a woman of shrewd sense, and perceived that 
 " with the new madam in the hall " it was better that 
 they should be gone before worse ensued. 
 
 She advised leaving their valuables sealed up in the 
 hands of my Lord Abbot, but they were averse to this 
 — for they said their uncle Randall, who had not seen 
 them since they were little children, would not know 
 them without some pledge. 
 
 She shook her head. " The less you deal with Hal 
 Randall the better," she said. "Come now, lads, be 
 
 2
 
 20 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. i. 
 
 advised and go no farther than Winchester, where 
 Master Ambrose may get all the book-learning he is 
 ever craving for, and you, Master Steevie, may prentice 
 j^ourself to some good trade." 
 
 " Prentice ! " cried Stephen, scornfully. 
 
 " Ay, ay. As good blood as thine has been prenticed," 
 returned Joan. " Better so than be a cut-throat sword- 
 and-buckler fellow, ever slaying some one else or getting 
 thyself slain — a terror to all peaceful folk. But thine 
 uncle will see to that — a steady-minded lad always was 
 he — was Master Dick." 
 
 Consoling herself with this hope, the old woman 
 rolled up their new suits with some linen into two neat 
 knapsacks ; sighing over the thought that unaccus- 
 tomed fingers would deal with the shirts she had spun 
 bleached, and sewn. But she liad confidence in 
 " Master Dick," and concluded that to send his nephews 
 to him at Winchester gave a far better chance of their 
 being cared for, than letting them be flouted into ill- 
 doing by their grudging brother and his wife.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE GRANGE OF SILKSTEDE, 
 
 " All lichen's valley lay, 
 St. Catherine's breezy side and the woodlands far away, 
 The huge Cathedral sleeping in venerable gloom, 
 The modest College tower, and the bedesmen's Norman home." 
 
 Lord Selborne. 
 
 Very early in the morning, even according to the 
 habits of the time, were Stephen and Ambrose 
 Birkenholt astir. They were full of ardour to enter on 
 the new and unknown world beyond the Forest, and 
 much as they loved it, any change that kept them still 
 to their altered life would have been distasteful. 
 
 Nurse Joan, asking no questions, folded up their 
 fardels on their backs, and packed the wallets for their 
 day's journey with ample provision. She charged them 
 to be good lads, to say their Pater, Credo, and Ave 
 daily, and never omit Mass on a Sunday. They kissed
 
 22 THE AEMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 her like their mother and promised heartily — and 
 Stephen took his crossbow. They had had some hope 
 of setting forth so early as to avoid all other human 
 farewells, except that Ambrose wished to begin by going 
 to Beaulieu to take leave of the Father who had been 
 his kind master, and get his blessing and counsel. But 
 Beaulieu was three miles out of their way, and Stephen 
 had not the same desire, being less attached to his 
 schoolmaster and more afraid of hindrances being- 
 thrown in their way. 
 
 Moreover, contrary to their expectation, their elder 
 brother came forth, and declared his intention of setting 
 them forth on their way, bestowing a great amount of 
 good advice, to the same purport as that of nurse Joau, 
 namely, that they should let their uncle Kichard 
 Birkenholt find them some employment at Winchester, 
 where they, or at least Ambrose, might even obtain 
 admission into the famous college of St. Mary. 
 
 In fact, this excellent elder brother persuaded himself 
 that it would be doing them an absolute wrong to keep 
 such promising youths hidden in the Forest. 
 
 The purpose of his going thus far with them made 
 itself evident. It was to see them past the turning to
 
 ir.] THE GRANGE OF SILKSTEDE. 23 
 
 Beaulieu. No doubt he wished to tell the story in his 
 own way, and that they should not present themselves 
 there as orphans expelled from tlieir father's house. It 
 would sound much better that he had sent them to ask 
 counsel of their uncle at Winchester, the fit person to 
 take chai'ge of them. And as he represented that to 
 go to Beaulieu would lengthen their day's journey so 
 much that they might hardly reach Winchester that 
 night, while all Stephen's wishes were to go forward, 
 Ambrose could only send his greetings. There was 
 another debate over Spring, avIio had followed his 
 master as usual. John uttered an exclamation of 
 vexation at perceiving it, and bade Stephen drive the 
 dog back. "Or give me the leash to drag him. He 
 will never follow me." 
 
 " He goes with us," said Stephen. 
 
 " He ! Thou'lt never have the folly ! The old hound 
 is half blind and past use. No man will take thee in 
 with him after thee." 
 
 "Then they shall not take me in," said Stephen. 
 " I'll not leave him to be hanged by thee." 
 
 " Who spoke of hanging him ! " 
 
 " Thy wife will soon, if she hath not already."
 
 24 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 " Thou wilt be for hanging him thyself ere thou have 
 made a day's journey with him on the king's highway, 
 which is not like these forest paths, I would have thee 
 to know. Why, he limps already." 
 
 " Then I'll carry him," said Stephen, doggedly. 
 
 " What hast thou to say to that device, Ambrose ? " 
 asked John, appealing to the elder and wiser. 
 
 But Ambrose only answered "I'll help," and as John 
 had no particular desire to retain the superannuated 
 hound, and preferred on the whole to be spared sen- 
 tencing him, no more was said on the subject as they 
 went along, until all John's stock of good counsel had 
 been lavished on liis brothers' impatient ears. He bade 
 them farewell, and turned back to the lodge, and they 
 struck away along the woodland pathway which they 
 had been told led to Winchester, though they had 
 never been thither, nor seen any town save Southampton 
 and Romsey at long intervals. On they went, some- 
 times through beech and oak woods of noble, almost 
 primeval, trees, but more often across tracts of holly 
 underwood, illuminated here and there with the snowy 
 garlands of the wild cherry, and beneath with wide 
 spaces covered witli young green bracken, whose soft
 
 11.] THE GEANGE OF SILKSTEDE. 25 
 
 irregular masses on tlie undulating ground had some- 
 what the etfect of the waves of the sea. These 
 alternated with stretches of yellow gorse and brown 
 heather, sheets of cotton-grass, and pools of white 
 crowfoot, and all the vegetation of a mountain side, 
 only that the mountain was not there. 
 
 The brothers looked with eyes untaught to care for 
 beauty, but with a certain love of the home scenes, 
 tempered by youth's impatience for something new. 
 The nightingales sang, the thrushes flew out before 
 them, the wild duck and moorhen glanced on the 
 pools. Here and there they came on the furrows left 
 by the snout of the wild swine, and in the open tracts 
 rose the graceful heads of the deer, but of inhabitants 
 or travellers they scarce saw any, save when they halted 
 at the little hamlet of Minestead, where a small ale- 
 house w^as kept by one Will Purkiss, who claimed 
 descent from the charcoal-burner who had carried 
 William Rufus's corpse to burial at Winchester — the 
 one fact in history kuown to all New Foresters, though 
 perhaps Ambrose and John were the only persons 
 beyond the walls of Beaulieu who did not suppose the 
 affair to have taken place in the last generation.
 
 26 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 A draught of ale and a ?hort rest were welcome as 
 the heat of the day came on, making the old dog plod 
 wearily on with his tongue outj so that Stephen began 
 to consider whether he should indeed have to be his 
 bearer — a serious matter, for the creature at full length 
 measured nearly as much as he did. They met hardly 
 any one, and they and Spring were alike too well 
 known and trained, for difficulties to arise as to leadinj; 
 a dog through the Forest. Should they ever come to 
 the tenn of the Forest ? It was not easy to tell when 
 they were really beyond it, for the ground was much of 
 the same kind. Only the smooth, treeless ?iills, where 
 they had always been told Winchester lay, seemed more 
 defined, and they saw no more deer, but here and there 
 were inclosures where wheat and barley were growing, 
 and black timbered farm-houses began to show them- 
 selves at intervals. Herd boys, as rough and tmkempt 
 as their charges, could be seen looking after little 
 tawny cows, black-faced sheep, or spotted pigs, with 
 curs which barked fiercely at poor weary Spring, even 
 as their masters were more disposed to throw stones 
 than to answer questions. 
 
 By and by, on the further side of a green valley,
 
 II.] THE GRANGE OF SILKSTEDE. 27 
 
 could be seen buildings ^vith an encircling wall of flint 
 and mortar faced with ruddy brick, the dark red-tiled 
 roofs rising among walnut-trees, and an orchard in full 
 bloom spreading into a long green field. 
 
 "Winchester must be nigh. The sun is getting 
 low," said Stephen. 
 
 " We will ask. The good folk will at least give us 
 an answer," said Ambrose wearily. 
 
 As they reached the gate, a team of plough horses 
 was passing in led by a peasant lad, while a lay brother, 
 with his gown tucked up, rode sideways on one, 
 whistling. An Augustinian monk, ruddy, burly, and 
 sunburnt, stood in the farm-yard, to receive an account 
 of the day's work, and doffing his cap, Ambrose asked 
 whether Winchester were near. 
 
 " Three mile or thereaway, my good lad," said the 
 monk; "thou'lt see the towers an ye mount the 
 hill. Whence art thou ? " he added, looking at the 
 two young strangers. " Scholars ? The College elects 
 not yet a while." 
 
 " We be from the Forest, so please your reverence, 
 and are bound for Hyde Abbey, where our uncle, 
 Master Richard Birkenholt, dwells."
 
 28 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 " And oh, sir," added Stephen, " may we crave a 
 drop of water for our dog ? " 
 
 The monk smiled as he looked at Spring, who had 
 flung himself down to take advantage of the halt, hang- 
 ing out his tongue, and panting spasmodically. " A 
 noble beast," he said, " of the Windsor breed, is't not ? " 
 Then laying his hand on the graceful head, " Poor old 
 hound, thou art o'er travelled. He is aged for such a 
 journey, if you came from the Forest since morn. 
 Twelve years at the least, I should say, by his muzzle." 
 
 "Your reverence is right," said Stephen, "he is twelve 
 years old. He is two years younger than I am, and my 
 ather gave him to me when he was a little whelp." 
 
 " So thou must needs take him to seek thy fortune 
 with thee," said the good-natured Augustinian, not 
 knowing how truly he spoke. "Come in, my lads, 
 here's a drink for him. What said you was your 
 uncle's name ? " and as Ambrose repeated it, " Birken- 
 holt ! Living on a corrody at Hyde ! Ay ! ay ! My 
 lads, I have a call to Winchester to-morrow, you'd best 
 tarry the night here at Silkstede Grange, and fare 
 forward with me." 
 
 The tired boys were lieartily glad to accept the
 
 II.] THE GRANGE OF SILKSTEDE. 29 
 
 invitation, more especially as Spring, happy as lie was 
 with the trough of water before him, seemed almost too 
 tired to stand over it, and after the first, tried to lap 
 lying down. Silkstede was not a regular convent, only 
 a grange or farm-house, presided over by one of the 
 monks, with three or four lay brethren under him, and 
 a little colony of hinds, in the surrounding cottages, to 
 cultivate the farm, and tend a few cattle and numerous 
 sheep, the special care of the Augustinians. 
 
 Father Shoveller, as the good-natured monk who had 
 received the travellers was called, took them into the 
 spacious but homely chamber which served as refectory, 
 kitchen, and hall. He called to the lay brother who 
 was busy over the open hearth to fry a few more rashers 
 of bacon ; and after they had washed away the dust of 
 their journey at the trough where Spring had slaked 
 his thirst, they sat down with him to a hearty supper, 
 which smacked more of the grange than of the monas- 
 tery, spread on a large solid oak table, and washed down 
 with good ale. The repast was shared by the lay 
 brethren and farm servants, and also by two or three big 
 sheep dogs, who had to be taught their manners towards 
 Spring.
 
 30 THE ARMOUEER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 There was none of the formality that Ambrose was 
 accustomed to at Beaulieu in the great refectory, 
 where no one spoke, but one of the brethren read 
 aloud some theological book from a stone pulpit in 
 the wall. Here Brother Shoveller conversed without 
 stint, chiefly with the brother who seemed to be a kind 
 of bailiff, with whom he discussed the sheep that were 
 to be taken into market the next day, and the prices to 
 be given for them by either the college, the castle, or 
 the butchers of Boucher Row. He however found time 
 to talk to the two guests, and being sprung from a family 
 in the immediate neighbourhood, he knew the verdurer's 
 name, and ere he was a monk, had joined in the chase 
 in the Forest. 
 
 There was a little oratory attached to the hall, where 
 he and the lay brethren kept the hours, to a certain 
 degree, putting two or three services into one, on a 
 liberal interpretation of lahorare est orare. Ambrose's 
 responses made their host observe as they went out^ 
 " Thou hast thy Latin pat, my son, there's the making 
 of a scholar in tliee." 
 
 Then they took their first night's rest away from 
 home, in a small guest-chamber, with a good bed, though
 
 II ] THE GKANGE OF SILKSTEUE. 31 
 
 bare in all other respects. Brother Shoveller likewise 
 had a cell to himself, but the lay brethren slept promis- 
 cuously among their sheep-dogs on the floor of the 
 refectory. 
 
 All were afoot in the early morning, and Stephen and 
 Ambrose were awakened by the tumultuous bleatings 
 of the flock of sheep that were being driven from their 
 fold to meet their fate at Winchester market. They 
 heard Brother Shoveller shouting his orders to the 
 shepherds in tones a great deal more like those of a 
 farmer than of a monk, and they made haste to dress 
 themselves and join him as he was muttering a morning 
 abbreviation of his obligator}'' devotions in the oratory, 
 observing that they might be in time to hear mass at 
 one of the city churches, but the sheep might delay 
 them, and they had best break their fast ere starting. 
 
 It was Wednesday, a day usually kept as a moderate 
 fast, so the breakfast was of oatmeal porridge, flavoured 
 with honey, and washed down with mead, after which 
 Brother Shoveller mounted his mule, a sleek creature, 
 whose long ears had an air of great contentment, and 
 rode off, accommodating his pace to that of his young 
 companions up a stony cart-track which soon led them
 
 32 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 to the top of a chalk down, whence, as in a map, they 
 could see Winchester, surrounded by its walls, lying in 
 a hollow between the smooth green hills. At one end 
 rose the castle, its fortifications covering its own hill, 
 beneath, in the valley, the long, low massive Cathedral, 
 the college buildings and tower with its pinnacles, and 
 nearer at hand, among the trees, the Almshouse of 
 Noble Poverty at St. Cross, beneath the round hill of 
 St. Catherine. Churches and monastic buildings stood 
 thickly in the town, and indeed. Brother Shoveller 
 said, shaking his head, that there were well-nigh as many 
 churches as folk to go to them ; the place was decayed 
 since the time he remembered when Prince Arthur 
 was born there. Hyde Abbey he could not show 
 them, from where they stood, as it lay further off by 
 the river side, having been removed from the neigh- 
 bourhood of the Minster, because the brethren of St. 
 Grimbald could not agree with those of St. Swithun's 
 belonging to the Minster, as indeed their buildings 
 were so close together that it was hardly possible to 
 pass between them, and their bells jangled iu each 
 other's ears. 
 
 Brother Shoveller did not seem to entertain a very
 
 II.] THE GRANGE OF SILKSTEDE. 33 
 
 high opinion of the monks of St. Grimbald, and he 
 asked the boys whether they were expected there, 
 " No," they said ; " tidings of their father's death had 
 been sent by one of the woodmen, and the only answer 
 that had been returned Avas that Master Richard 
 Birkenholt was ill at ease, but would have masses said 
 for his brother's soul." 
 
 " Hem 1 " said the Augustinian ominously ; but at 
 that moment they came up with the sheep, and his 
 attention was wholly absorbed by them, as he joined 
 the lay brothers in directing the shepherds who were 
 driving them across the downs, steering them over the 
 hiffh ofround towards the arched West Gate close to the 
 royal castle. The street sloped rapidly down, and 
 Brother Shoveller conducted his young companions 
 between the overhanging houses, with stalls between 
 serving as shops, till they reached the open space 
 round the Market Cross, on the steps of which women 
 sat with baskets of eggs, butter, and poultry, raised 
 above the motley throug of cattle and sheep, with their 
 doQfs and drivers, the various cries of man and beast 
 forming an incongruous accompaniment to the bells of 
 the churches that surrounded the market-place. 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 Citizens' wives in hood and wimple were there, shrilly 
 bargaining for provision for their households, squires 
 and grooms in quest of hay for their masters' stables, 
 purveyors seeking food for the garrison, lay brethren 
 and sisters for their convents, and withal, the usual 
 margin of begging friars, wandering gleemen, jugglers 
 and pedlars, though in no great numbers, as this was 
 only a Wednesday market-day, not a fair. Ambrose 
 recognised one or two who made part of the crowd at 
 Beaulieu only two days previously, when he had " seen 
 through tears the juggler leap," and the jingling tune 
 one of them was playing on a rebeck brought back 
 associations of almost unbearable pain. Happily, 
 Father Shoveller, having seen his sheep safely bestowed 
 in a pen, bethought him of bidding the lay brother 
 in attendance show the young gentlemen the way to 
 Hyde Abbey, and turning up a street at right angles to 
 the principal one, they were soon out of the throng. 
 
 It was a lonely place, with a decayed uninhabited 
 appearance, and Brother Peter told them it had been 
 the Jewry, whence good King Edward had banished 
 all the unbelieving dogs of Jews, and where no one 
 chose to dwell after thorn.
 
 ii] THE GRANGE OF SILKSTEDE. 35 
 
 Soon they came in sight of a large' extent of mon- 
 astic buildings, partly of stone, but the more domestic 
 offices of flint and brick or mortar. Large meadows 
 stretched away to the banks of the Itchen, with cattle 
 grazing in them, but in one was a set of figures to 
 whom the lay brother pointed with a laugh of exulting 
 censure. 
 
 " Long bows ! " exclaimed Stephen. " Who be 
 they?" 
 
 " Brethren of St. Grimbald, sir. Such rule doth my 
 Lord of Hyde keep, mitred abbot though he be. They 
 say the good bishop hath called him to order, but 
 what recks he of bishops ? Good-day, Brother Bulpett, 
 here be two young kinsmen of Master Birkenholt 
 to visit him, and so henedicite, fair sirs. St. Austin's 
 grace be with you ! " 
 
 Through a gate between two little red octagonal 
 towers. Brother Bulpett led the two visitors, and called 
 to another of the monks, " Bcncdicite, Father Segrim, 
 here be two striplings wanting speech of old Birken- 
 holt." 
 
 " Looking after dead men's shoes, I trow," muttered 
 Father Segrim, with a sour look at the lads, as he led 
 
 D 2
 
 36 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 them through the outer court, where some fine horses 
 were being groomed, and then across a second court 
 surrounded with a beautiful cloister, with flower beds 
 in front of it. Here, on a stone bench, in the sun, 
 clad in a gown furred with rabbit skin, sat a decrepit 
 old man, both his hands clasped over his staff. Into 
 his deaf ears their guide shouted, " These boys say 
 they are your kindred, Master Birkenholt." 
 
 *' Anan ? " said the old man, trembling with palsy. 
 The lads knew him to be older than their father, but 
 they were taken by surprise at such feebleness, and the 
 monk did not aid them, only saying roughly, " There 
 he is. Tell your errand." 
 
 " How fares it with you, uncle ? " ventured Ambrose. 
 
 " Who be ye ? I know none of you," muttered the 
 old man, shaking his head still more. 
 
 " We are Ambrose and Stephen from the Forest," 
 shouted Ambrose. 
 
 " Ah ! Steve ! poor Stevie ! The accursed boar has 
 rent his goodly face so as I would never have known 
 him. Poor Steve ! Rest his soul ! " 
 
 The old man began to weep, while his nephews recol- 
 lected that they had heard tliat another uncle had been
 
 II.] THE GRANGE OF SILKSTEDE. 37 
 
 slain by the tusk of a wild boar in early manhood. Then 
 to their surprise, his eyes fell on Spring, and calling the 
 hound by name, he caressed the creature's head — 
 " Spring, poor Spring ! Stevie's faithful old dog. Hast 
 lost thy master? Wilt follow me now ? " 
 
 He was thinking of a Spring as well as of a Stevie 
 of sixty years ago, and he babbled on of how many 
 fawns were in the Queen's Bower this summer, and who 
 had best shot at the butts at Lyndhurst, as if he were 
 excited by the breath of his native Forest, but there 
 was no making him understand that he was speaking 
 with his nephews. The name of his brother John only 
 set him repeating that John loved the greenwood, and 
 would be content to take poor Stevie's place and dwell 
 in the verdurer's lodge ; but that he himself ought to 
 be abroad, he had seen brave Lord Talbot's ships ready 
 at Southampton, John might stay at home, but he 
 would win fame and honour in Gascony. 
 
 And while he thus wandered, and the boys stood by 
 perplexed and distressed. Brother Segrim came back, 
 and said, " So, young sirs, have you seen enough of your 
 doting kinsman ? The sub-prior bids me say that 
 we harbour no strange, idling, lubber lads nor strange
 
 38 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [cHAr. ir. 
 
 doffS here. 'Tis enough for us to be saddled with disso- 
 lute old men-at-arms without all their idle kin making 
 an excuse to come and pay their devoirs. These corro- 
 dies are a heavy charge and a weighty abuse, and if 
 there be the visitation the king's majesty speaks of, 
 they will be one of the first matters to be amended." 
 
 Wherewith Stephen and Ambrose found themselves 
 walked out of the cloister of St, Grimbald, and the 
 gates shut behind them.
 
 . CHAPTER III. 
 
 KINSMEN AND STKANGERS. 
 
 " The reul of St. Maure and of St. Beneit 
 Because that it was old and some deale strait 
 This ilke monk let old things pace ; 
 He held ever of the new world the trace." 
 
 Chaucer. 
 
 " The churls ! " exclaimed Stephen. 
 
 " Poor old man ! " said Ambrose ; "I hope they are 
 good to him ! " 
 
 " To think that thus ends all that once was gallant 
 talk of fighting under Talbot's banner," sighed Stephen, 
 thoughtful for a moment. " However, there's a good 
 deal to come first." 
 
 " Yea, and what next ? " said the elder brother. 
 
 " On to uncle Hal. I ever looked most to him. He 
 will purvey me to a page's place in some noble house - 
 hold, and get thee a clerk's or scholar's place in my
 
 40 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 Lord of York's house. Mayhap there will be room for 
 us both there, for my Lord of York hath a goodly 
 following of armed men." 
 
 " Which way lies the road to London ? " 
 
 " We must back into the town and ask, as well as 
 fill our st(;machs and our wallets," said Ambrose. 
 " Talk of their rule ! The entertaining of strans^ers 
 is better understood at Silkstede than at Hyde." 
 
 " Tush ! A grudged crust sticks in the gullet," 
 returned Stephen. " Come on, Ambrose, I marked 
 the sign of the White Hart by the market-place. 
 There will be a welcome there for foresters." 
 
 They returned on thuir steps past the dilapidated 
 buildings of the old Jewry, and presently saw the 
 market in full activity ; but the sounds and sights of 
 busy life where they were utter strangers, gave Am- 
 brose a sense of loneliness and desertion, and his heart 
 sank as the bolder Stephen threaded the way in the 
 direction of a broad entry over which stood a slender- 
 bodied hart with gold hoofs, horns, collar, and chain. 
 
 " How now. my sons ? " said a full cheery voice, and 
 to their joy, they found themselves pushed up against 
 Father Shoveller.
 
 Ill] KINSMEN AND STRANGERS. 41 
 
 " Returned already ! Did you get scant welcome at 
 Hyde ? Here, come where we can get a free breath, 
 and tell me." 
 
 They passed through the open gateway of the White 
 Hart, into the court, but before listening to them, the 
 monk exchanoed greetings with the hostess, who stood 
 at the door in a broad hat and velvet bodice, and 
 demanded what cheer there was for noon-meat. 
 
 " A jack, reverend sir, eels and a grampus fresh sent 
 up from Hampton ; also fresh-killed mutton for such lay 
 folk as are not curious of the Wednesday fast. They 
 are laying the board even now." 
 
 "Lay platters for me and these two young gentle- 
 men," said the Augustinian. " Ye be my guests, ye 
 wot," he added, "since ye tarried not for meat at 
 Hyde." 
 
 " Nor did they ask us," exclaimed Stephen ; " lubbers 
 and idlers were the best words they had for us." 
 
 " Ho ! ho ! That's the way with the brethren of 
 St. Grimbald ! And your uncle ? " 
 
 " Alas, sir, he doteth with age," said Ambrose. " He 
 took Stephen for his own brother, dead under King 
 Harry of Windsor."
 
 42 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 " So ! I had heard somewhat of his age and sick- 
 ness. Who was it who thrust you out ? " 
 
 " A lean brother with a thin red beard, and a 
 shrewd puckered visage." 
 
 " Ha ! By that token 'twas Segrim the bursar. 
 He wots how to drive a bargain. St. Austin ! but 
 lie deemed you came to look after your kinsman's 
 corrody." 
 
 " He said the king spake of a visitation to abolish 
 corrodies from religious houses," said Ambrose. 
 
 " He'll abolish the long bow from them first," said 
 Father Shoveller. " Ay, and miniver from my Lord 
 Abbot's hood. " I'd admonish you, my good brethren 
 of St. Grimbald, to be in no hurry for a visitation which 
 might scarce stop where you would fain have it. Well, 
 my sons, are ye bound for the Forest again ? An ye be, 
 we'll wend back together, and ye can lie at Silkstede 
 to-night." 
 
 " Alack, kind father, there's no more home for us in 
 the Forest," said Ambrose. 
 
 " Methought ye had a brother ? " 
 
 " Yea; but our brother hath a wife." 
 
 " Ho ! ho ! And the wife will none of you ? "
 
 Ill ] KINSMEN AND STRANGERS 43 
 
 "She would have kept Ambrose to teach her boy 
 his primer," said Stephen ; " but she would none of 
 Spring nor of me." 
 
 "We hoped to receive counsel from our uncle at 
 Hyde," added Ambrose. 
 
 " Have ye no purpose now ? " inquired the Father, 
 his jolly good-humoured face showing much concern. 
 
 "Yea," manfully returned Stephen. " 'Twas what 
 I ever hoped to do, to fare on and seek our fortune 
 in London." 
 
 " Ha ! To pick up gold and silver like Dick Whit- 
 tington. Poor old Spring here will scarce do you the 
 part of his cat," and the monk's hearty laugh angered 
 Stephen into muttering, " We are no fools,"' but Father 
 Shoveller only laughed the more, saying, " Fair and 
 softly, my son, ye'll never pick up the gold if ye cannot 
 brook a kindly quip. Have you friends or kindred 
 in London ? " 
 
 " Yea, that have we, sir," cried Stephen ; " our 
 mother's own brother. Master Eandall, hath come to 
 preferment there in my Lord Archbishop of York's 
 household, and hath sent us tokens from time to time, 
 which we will show you."
 
 44 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 " Not while we be feasting," said Father Shoveller, 
 hastily checking Ambrose, who was feeling in his 
 bosom. " See, the knaves be bringing their grampus 
 across the court. Here, we'll clean our hands, and be 
 ready for the meal ; " and he showed them, under a 
 projecting gallery in the inn yard a stone trough, 
 through which flowed a stream of water, in which he 
 proceeded to wash his hands and face, and to wipe 
 them in a coarse towel suspended nigh at hand. Cer- 
 tainly after handling sheep freely there was need, 
 though such ablutions were a refinement not indulged 
 in by all the company who assembled round the well- 
 spread board of the White Hart for the meal after the 
 market. They were a motley company. By the host's 
 side sat a knight on his way home from pilgrimage to 
 Compostella, or perhaps a mission to Spain, with a 
 couple of squires and other attendants, and converse 
 of political import seemed to be passing between him 
 and a shrewd-looking man in a lawyer's hood and 
 gown, the recorder of Winchester, who preferred being 
 a daily guest at the White Hart to keeping a table of 
 his own. Country franklins and yeomen, merchants 
 and men-at-arms, palmers and craftsmen, friars and
 
 IT!.] KINSMEN AND STRANGERS. 45 
 
 monks, black, white, and grey, and with almost all, 
 Father Shoveller had greeting or converse to ex- 
 change. He knew everybody, and had friendly talk 
 with all, on canons or crops, on war or wool, on the 
 prices of j^igs or prisoners, on tlie news of the country 
 side, or on the perilous innovations in learning at 
 Oxford, which might, it was feared, even affect 
 St. Mary's College at Winchester. 
 
 He did not affect outlandish fishes himself, and dined 
 upon pike, but observing the curiosity of his guests, 
 he took good care to have them well supplied with 
 grampus ; also in due time with varieties of the pud- 
 ding and cake kind which had never dawned on their 
 forest-bred imagination, and with a due projaortion of 
 good ale — the same over which the kni<jht mioht be 
 heard rejoicing, and lauding far above the Spanish or 
 French wines, on which he said he had been half 
 starved. 
 
 Father Shoveller mused a good deal over his pike 
 and its savoury stuffing. He was not by any means an 
 ideal monk, but he was equally far from being a scandal. 
 He was the shrewd man of business and manager of 
 his fraternity, conducting the farming operations and
 
 46 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES [chap. 
 
 making all the bargains, following his rule respectably 
 according to the ordinary standard of his time, but not 
 rising to any spirituality, and while duly observing the 
 fast day, as to the quality of his food, eating with the 
 appetite of a man who lived in the open fields. 
 
 But when their hunger was appeased, with many a 
 fragment given to Spring, the young Birkenholts, 
 wearied of the endless talk that was exchanged over 
 the tankard, began to grow restless, and after exchang- 
 ing signs across Father Shoveller's solid person, they 
 simultaneously rose, and began to thank him and say 
 they must pursue their journey. 
 
 " How now, not so fast, my sons," said the Father ; 
 " tarry a bit, I have more to say to thee. Prayers and 
 provender, thou knowst — I'll come anon. So, sir, didst 
 say yonder beggarly Flemings haggle at thy price for 
 thy Southdown fleeces. Weight of dirt forsooth ! Do 
 not we wash the sheep in the Poolhole stream, the 
 purest water in the shire ? " 
 
 Manners witliheld Ambrose from responding to 
 Stephen's hot impatience, while the merchant in the 
 sleek puce-coloured coat discussed the Flemish wool 
 market with the monk for a good half-hour longer.
 
 III.] KINSMEN AND STKANGERS. 
 
 By this time the knight's horses were brought into 
 the yard, and the merchant's men had made ready his 
 palfrey, his pack-horse being already on the way ; the 
 host's son came round with the reckoning, and there 
 was a general move. Stephen expected to escape, and 
 hardly could brook the good-natured authority with 
 which Father Shoveller put Ambrose aside, when he 
 would have discharged their share of the reckoning, 
 and took it upon himself. " Said I not ye were my 
 guests ? " quoth he. " We missed our morning mass, 
 it will do us no harm to hear Nones in the Minster." 
 
 " Sir, we thank you, but we should be on our 
 way," said Ambrose, incited by Stephen's impatient 
 gestures. 
 
 " Tut, tut. Fair and softly, my son, or more haste 
 may be worse speed. Methought ye had somewhat to 
 show me." 
 
 Stephen's youthful independence might chafe, but 
 the habit of submission to authorities made him 
 obediently follow the monk out at the back entrance 
 of the inn, behind wdiich lay the Minster yard, the 
 grand w^estern front rising in front of them, and the 
 buildings of St. Swithun's Abbey extending far to their
 
 48 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 right. The hour was nearly noon, and the space was 
 deserted, except for an old woman sitting at the great 
 western doorway with a basket of rosaries made of 
 nuts and of snail shells, and a workman or two employed 
 on the bishop's new reredos. 
 
 " Now for thy tokens," said Father Shoveller. " See 
 my young foresters, ye be new to the world. Take an 
 old man's counsel, and never show, nor speak of such 
 gear in an hostel. Mine host of the White Hart is an 
 old gossip of mine, and indifferent honest, but who shall 
 say who might be within earsliot ? " 
 
 Stephen had a mind to say that he did not see why 
 the meddling monk should wish to see them at all, and 
 Ambrose looked a little reluctant, but Father Shoveller 
 said in his good-humoured way, "As you please, young 
 sirs. 'Tis but an old man's wish to see whether he can 
 do aught to help you, that you be not as lambs among 
 wolves. Mayhap ye deem ye can walk into London 
 town, and that the iirst man you meet can point you to 
 your uncle — Kandall call ye him ? — as readily as I 
 could show you my brother, Thomas Shoveller of Cran- 
 bury. But you are just as like to meet with some 
 knave who might cozen you uf all yuu have, or mayhap
 
 in.] KINSMEN AND STRANGERS. 49 
 
 a beadle might take you up for vagabonds, and thrust 
 you in the stocks, or ever you get to London town, 
 so I wouki fain give you some commendation, an I 
 knew to whom to make it, and ye be not too proud 
 to take it." 
 
 "You are but too good to us, sir," said Ambrose 
 quite conquered, though Stephen only half believed in 
 the difficulties. The Father took them within the west 
 door of the Minster, and look-ing up and down the long 
 arcade of the southern aisle to see that no one was 
 watching, he inspected the tokens, and cross-examined 
 them on their knowledge of their uncle. 
 
 His latest gift, the rosary, had come by the hand of 
 Friar Hurst, a begging Minorite of Southampton, who 
 had it from another of his order at Winchester, who 
 had received it from one of the king's archers at the 
 Castle, with a message to Mistress Birkenholt that it 
 came from her brother. Master Kandall, who had good 
 preferment in London, in the house of my Lord Arch- 
 bishop of York, without whose counsel King Henry 
 never stirred. As to the coming of the agate and the 
 pouncet box, the minds of the boys were very hazy. 
 They knew that the pouncet box had been conveyed 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 through the attendants of the Abbot of Beaulieu, but 
 they were only sure that from that time the belief had 
 prevailed with their mother that her brother was pros- 
 pering in the house of the all-powerful Wolsey. The 
 good Augustinian, examining the tokens, thought they 
 gave colour to that opinion. The rosary and agate 
 might have been picked up in an ecclesiastical house- 
 hold, and the lid of the pouncet box was made of a 
 Spanish coin, likely to have come through some of the 
 attendants of Queen Katharine. 
 
 " It hath an appearance," he said. " I marvel 
 whether there be still at the Castle this archer who 
 hath had speech with Master Randall, for if ye know 
 no more than ye do at present, 'tis seeking a needle in 
 a bottle of hay. But see, here come the brethren that 
 be to sing Nones — sinner that I am, to have said no 
 Hours since the morn, being letted with lawful 
 business." 
 
 Again the unwilling Stephen had to submit. There 
 was no feeling for the incongruous in those days, and 
 reverence took very different directions from those in 
 which it now shows itself, so that nobody had any 
 objection to Spring's pacing gravely with the others
 
 III.] KINSMEN AND STRANGERS. 51 
 
 towards the Lady Chapel, where the Hours were sung, 
 since the Choir was in the hands of workmen, and the 
 sound of chipping stone could be heard from it, where 
 Bishop Fox's elaborate lace-work reredos was in course 
 of erection. Passing the shrine of St. Swithun, and 
 the grand tomb of Cardinal Beaufort, where his life- 
 coloured effigy filled the boys with wonder, they fol- 
 lowed their leader's example, and knelt within the 
 Lady Chapel, while the brief Latin service for the ninth 
 hour was sung through by the canon, clerks, and boys. 
 It really was the Sixth, but cumulative easy-going 
 treatment of the Breviary had made this the usual time 
 for it, as the name of noon still testifies. The boys' 
 attention, it must be confessed, was chiefly expended on 
 the wonderful miracles of the Blessed Virgin in fresco 
 on the walls of the chapel, all tending to prove that 
 here was hope for those who said their Ave in any 
 extremity of fire or flood. 
 
 Nones ended. Father Shoveller, with many a halt for 
 greeting or for gossip, took the lads up the hill towards 
 the wide fortified space where the old Castle and royal 
 Hall of Henry of Winchester looked down on the city 
 and after some friendly passages with the warder at the 
 
 E 2
 
 52 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap 
 
 gate, Father Shoveller explained that he was in quest 
 of . some one recently come from court, of whom the 
 striplings in his company could make inquiry concern- 
 ing a kinsman in the household of my Lord Archbishop 
 of York. The warder scratched his head, and bethink- 
 ing himself that Eastcheap Jockey was the reverend 
 father's man, summoned a horse-boy to call that worthy. 
 
 " Where was he ? " 
 
 " Sitting over his pottle in the Hall," was the reply, 
 and the monk, with a laugh savouring little of asceti- 
 cism, said he would seek him there, and accordingly 
 crossed the court to the noble Hall, with its lofty dark 
 marble columns, and the Round Table of King Arthur 
 suspended at the upper end. The governor of the 
 Castle had risen from his meal long ago, but the 
 garrison in the piping times of peace would make their 
 ration of ale last as far into the afternoon as their com- 
 manders would suffer. And half a dozen men still sat 
 there, one or two snoring, two playing at dice on a clear 
 <;orner of the board, and another, a smart well-dressed 
 fellow in a bright scarlet jerkin, laying down the law to 
 a country bumpkin, who looked somewhat dazed. The 
 first of these was, as it appeared, Eastcheap Jockey,
 
 in.] KINSMEN AND STRANGEKS. 53 
 
 and there was sometliing both of tlie readiness and the 
 impudence of the Londoner in his manner, when he 
 turned to answer the question. He knew many in my 
 Lord of York's house — as many as a man was like to 
 know where there was a matter of two hundred folk 
 between clerks and soldiers, he had often crushed a 
 pottle with them. No ; he had never heard of one 
 called Randall, neither in hat nor cowl, but he knew 
 more of them by face than by name, and more by 
 byname than surname or christened name. He was 
 certainly not the archer who had brought a token for 
 Mistress Birkenholt, and his comrades all avouched 
 equal ignorance on the subject. Nothing could be 
 gained there, and while Father Shoveller rubbed his 
 bald head in consideration, Stephen rose to take leave. 
 
 " Look you here, my fair son," said the monk. 
 " Starting at this hour, though the days be long, you 
 will not reach any safe halting place with daylight, 
 whereas by lying a night in this good city, you might 
 reach Alton to-morrow, and there is a home where the 
 name of Brother Shoveller will win you free lodging 
 and entertainment." 
 
 " And to-night, good Father ? " inquired Ambrose.
 
 54 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 " That will I see to, if ye will follow me." 
 
 Stephen was devoured with impatience during the 
 farewells in the Castle, but Ambrose represented that 
 the good man was giving them much of his time, and 
 that it would be unseemly and ungrateful to break 
 from him. 
 
 " What matter is it of his ? And why should he 
 make us lose a whole day ? " grumbled Stephen. 
 
 " What special gain would a day be to us ? " sighed 
 Ambrose. " I am thankful that any should take heed 
 for us." 
 
 *'Ay, you love leading-strings," returned Stephen. 
 " Where is he going now ? All out of our way ! " 
 
 Father Shoveller, however, as he went down the 
 Castle hill, explained that the Warden of St. Elizabeth's 
 Hospital was his friend, and knowing him to have 
 acquaintance among the clergy of St. Paul's, it would 
 be well to obtain a letter of commendation from 
 him, which might serve them in good stead in case 
 they were disappointed of finding their uncle at 
 once. 
 
 " It would be better for Spring to have a little 
 more rest," thought Stephen, thus mitigating his own
 
 III.] KINSMEX AND STRANGERS. 55 
 
 longing to escape from the monks and friars, of whom 
 Winchester seemed to be full. 
 
 They had a kindly welcome in the pretty little col- 
 lege of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, lying in the meadows 
 between William of Wykeham's College and the 
 round hill of St. Catharine. The Warden was a more 
 scholarly and ecclesiastical - looking person than his 
 friend, the good-natured Augustinian. After commend- 
 ing them to his care, and partaking of a drink of mead, 
 the monk of Silkstede took leave of the youths, with 
 a hearty blessing and advice to husband their few 
 crowns, not to tell every one of their tokens, and to 
 follow the counsel of the Warden of St. Elizabeth's, 
 assuring them that if they turned back to the Forest, 
 they should have a welcome at Silkstede. Moreover he 
 patted Spring pitifully, and wished him and his mas:ter 
 well through the journey. i : 
 
 St. Elizabeth's College was a hundred years older 
 than its neighbour St. Mary's, as was evident to 
 practised eyes by its arches and windows, but it had 
 been so entirely eclipsed by Wykeham's foundation 
 that the number of priests, students, and choir-boys 
 it was intended to maintain, had dwindled away, so
 
 56 THE ARMOURERS PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 that it now contained merely the Warden, a super- 
 annuated priest, and a couple of big lads who acted as 
 servants. There was an air of great quietude and 
 coolness about the pointed arches of its tiny cloister 
 on that summer's day, with the old monk dozing in his 
 chair over the manuscript he thought he was reading, 
 not far from the little table where the Warden was 
 eagerly studying Erasmus's Praise of Folly. But the 
 Birkenholts were of the age at which quiet means 
 dulness, at least Stephen was, and the Warden had 
 pity both on them and on himself; and hearing joyous 
 shouts outside, he opened a little door in the cloister 
 wall, and revealed a multitude of lads with their black 
 gowns tucked up " a playing at the ball " — these being 
 the scholars of St. Mary's. Beckoning to a pair of 
 elder ones, who were walking up and down more 
 quietly, he consigned the strangers to their care, 
 sweetening the introduction by an invitation to 
 supper, for which he would gain permission from 
 their Warden. 
 
 One of the young Wykehamists was shy and 
 churlish, and sheered off from the brothers, but the 
 other catechised them on their views of becomhig
 
 III.] KINSMEN AND STRANGERS. 57 
 
 scholars in the college. He pointed out the cloister 
 where the studies took place in all weathers, showed 
 them the hall, the chapel, and the chambeis, and 
 expatiated on the chances of attaining to !New College. 
 Being moreover a scholarly fellow, he and Ambrose fell 
 into a discussion over the passage of Virgil, copied out 
 on a bit of paper, which he was learning by heart. 
 Some other scholars having finished their game, and 
 become aware of the presence of a strange dog and two 
 strange boys, proceeded to mob Stephen and Spring, 
 whereupon the shy boy stood forth and declared that 
 the Warden of St. Elizabeth's had brought them in for 
 an hour's sport. 
 
 Of course, in such close quarters, the rival Warden 
 was esteemed a natural enemy, and went by the name 
 of " Old Bess," so that his recommendation went for 
 worse than nothing, and a dash at Spring was made by 
 the inhospitable young savages. Stephen stood to the 
 defence in act to box, and the shy lad stood by him, 
 calling for fair play and one at a time. Of course a 
 fight ensued, Stephen and his champion on the one 
 side, and two assailants on the other, till after a fall on 
 either side, Ambrose's friend interfered with a voice as
 
 58 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 thundering as the manly crack would permit, peace 
 was restored, Stephen found himself free of the 
 meads, and Spring was caressed instead of being 
 tormented. 
 
 Stephen was examined on his past, present, and 
 future, envied for his Forest home, and beguiled into 
 magnificent accounts, not only of the deer that had 
 fallen to his bow and the boars that had fallen to his 
 father's spear, but of the honours to which his uncle in 
 the Archbishop's household would prefer him — for he 
 viewed it as an absolute certainty that his kinsman was 
 captain among the men-at-arms, whom he endowed 
 on the spot with scarlet coats faced with black velvet, 
 and silver medals and chains. 
 
 Whereat one of the other boys was not behind in 
 telling how his father was pursuivant to my Lord Duke 
 of Norfolk, and never went abroad save with silver 
 lions broidered on back and breast, and trumpets going 
 before; and another dwelt on the splendours of the 
 mayor and aldermen of Southampton with their chains 
 and cups of gold. Stephen felt bound to surpass this 
 with the last report that my Lord of York's men rode 
 Flemish steeds in crimson velvet housings, passmented
 
 III.] KINSMEN AND STRANGERS. 59 
 
 with gold and gems, and of course his uncle had the 
 leading of them. 
 
 " Who be thine uncle ? " demanded a thin, squeaky 
 voice. " I have brothers likewise in my Lord of York's 
 meine." 
 
 " Mine uncle is Captain Hany Randall, of Shirley," 
 quoth Stephen magnificently, scornfully surveying 
 the small proportions of the speaker. " What is thy 
 brother ? " 
 
 " Head turnspit," said a rude voice, provoking a 
 general shout of laughter; but the boy stood his 
 ground, and said hotly : " He is page to the comp- 
 troller of my lord's household, and waits at the second 
 table, and I know every one of the captains." 
 
 " He'll say next he knows every one of the Seven 
 Worthies," cried another boy, for Stephen was becoming 
 a popular character. 
 
 " And all the paladins to boot. Come on, little 
 Rowley I" was the cry. 
 
 " I tell you my brother is page to the comptroller of 
 the household, and my mother dwells beside the Gate 
 House, and I know every man of them," insisted 
 Rowley, waxing hot. "As for that Forest savage
 
 60 THE ARMOUEER-S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 fellow's uncle being captain of the guard, 'tis more 
 like that lie is my lord's fool, Quipsome Hal ! " 
 
 Whereat there was a cry, in which were blended 
 exultation at tlie hit, and vituperation of the hitter. 
 Stephen flew forward to avenge the insult, but a big 
 bell was beginning to ring, a whole wave of black 
 gowns rushed to obey it, sweeping little Rowley away 
 with them ; and Stephen found himself left alone with 
 his brother and the two lads who had been invited 
 to St. Elizabeth's, and who now repaired thither with 
 them. 
 
 The supper party in the refectory was a small one, 
 and the rule of the foundation limited the meal to one 
 dish and a pittance, but the dish was of savoury eels, 
 and the Warden's good nature had added to it some 
 cates and comfits in consideration of his youthful 
 guests. 
 
 After some conversation with the elder Wykehamist, 
 the Warden called Ambrose and put him through an 
 examination on his attainments, which proved so satis- 
 factory, that it ended in an invitation to the brothers 
 to fill two of the empty scholarships of the college of 
 the dear St. Ehzabeth. It was a good offer, and one
 
 III.] KINSMEN AND STRANGEES. 61 
 
 that Ambrose would fain have accepted, but Stephen 
 had no mind for the cloister or for learning. 
 
 The Warden had no doubt that he could be appren- 
 ticed in the city of Winchester, since the brother at 
 home had in keeping a sum sufficient for the foe. 
 Though the trade of " capping " had fallen off, there 
 were still good substantial burgesses who would bo 
 willing to receive an active lad of good parentage, 
 some being themselves of gentle blood. Stephen, 
 however, would not brook the idea. " Out upon 
 you, Ambrose ! " said he, " to desire to bind your own 
 brother to base mechanical arts." 
 
 " 'Tis what Nurse Joan held to be best for us 
 both," said Ambrose. 
 
 " Joan ! Yea, like a woman, who deems a man safest 
 when he is a tailor, or a perfumer. An you be minded 
 to stay here with a black gown and a shaven crown, I 
 shall on with Spring and come to preferment. Maybe 
 thou'lt next hear of me when I have got some fat 
 canonry for thee." 
 
 " Nay, I quit thee not," said Ambrose. " If thou 
 fare forward, so do I. But I would thou couldst have 
 brought thy mind to rest there."
 
 62 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. hi. 
 
 " What ! wouldst thou be content with this worn-out 
 place, with more churches than houses, and more empty 
 houses than full ones ? No ! let us on where there is 
 something doing ! Thou wilt see that my Lord of 
 York will have room for the scholar as well as the 
 man-at-arms." 
 
 So the kind offer was declined, but Ambrose was 
 grieved to see that the Warden thought him foolish, and 
 perhaps ungrateful. 
 
 Nevertheless the good man gave them a letter to the 
 Reverend Master Alworthy, singing clerk at St. Paul's 
 Cathedral, telling Ambrose it might serve them in case 
 they failed to find their uncle, or if my Lord of York's 
 household should not be in town. He likewise gave 
 them a recommendation which would procure them a 
 night's lodging at the Grange, and after the morning's 
 mass and meat, sped them on their way with his bless- 
 ing, muttering to himself, " That elder one might have 
 been the staff of mine age ! Pity on him to be lost in 
 the great and evil City ! Yet 'tis a good lad to follow 
 that fiery spark his brother. Ta^iquam agnus inter 
 lupos. Alack ! "
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A hero's fall. 
 
 " These four came all afront and mainly made at me. I made no 
 more ado, but took their seven points on my target — thus—" 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 The journey to Alton was eventless. It was slow, 
 for the day was a broiling one, and the young foresters 
 missed their oaks and beeches, as they toiled over the 
 chalk downs that rose and sank in endless succession ; 
 though they would hardly have slackened their pace if 
 it had not been for poor old Spring, who was sorely 
 distressed by the heat and the want of water on the 
 downs. Every now and then he lay down, panting dis- 
 tressfully, with his tongue hanging out, and his young 
 masters always w^aited for him, often themselves not 
 sorry to rest in the fragment of shade from a solitary 
 thorn or juniper.
 
 64 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 The track was plain enough, and there were hamlets 
 at long intervals. Flocks of sheep fed on the short 
 grass, but there was no approaching the shepherds, as 
 they and their dogs regarded Spring as an enemy, to be 
 received with clamour, stones, and teeth, in spite of the 
 dejected looks which might have acquitted him of evil 
 intentions. 
 
 The travellers reached Alton in the cool of the even- 
 ing, and were kindly received by a monk, who had 
 charge of a grange just outside the little town, near 
 one of the springs of the River Wey, 
 
 The next day's journey was a pleasanter one, for 
 there was more of wood and heather, and they 
 had to skirt round the marshy borders of various 
 bogs. Spring was happier, being able to stop and lap 
 whenever he woukl, and the whole scene was less 
 unfriendly to them. But they scarcely made speed 
 enough, for they were still among tall whins and stiff 
 scrub of heather when the sun began to get low, 
 gorgeously lighting the t;dl plumes of golden broom, 
 and they had their doubts whether they might not be 
 off the track; but in such weather, there was nothing 
 alarming in spending a niglit out of doors, if only they
 
 IV.] A HEKO'S FALL. 65 
 
 had something for supper, Stephen took a bolt from 
 the purse at his girdle, and bent his crossbow, so as to 
 be ready in case a rabbit sprang out, or a duck flew 
 up from the marshes. 
 
 A small thicket of trees was in sight, and they were 
 making for it, when sounds of angry voices were heard, 
 and Spring, bristling up the mane on his neck, and 
 giving a few premonitory fierce growls like thunder, 
 bounded forward as though he had been seven years 
 younger. Stephen darted after him, Ambrose rushed 
 after Stephen, and breaking through the trees, they 
 beheld the dog at the throat of one of three men. As 
 they came on the scene, the dog was torn down and 
 hurled aside, giving a howl of agony, which infuriated 
 his master. Letting fly his crossbow bolt full at the 
 fellow's face, he dashed on, reckless of odds, waving 
 his knotted stick, and shouting with rage. Ambrose, 
 though more aware of the madness of such an assault, 
 still hurried to his support, and was amazed as well as 
 relieved to find the charge effectual. AVithout waiting 
 to return a blow, the miscreants took to their heels, 
 and Stephen, seeing nothing but his dog, dropped on 
 his knees beside the quivering creature, from whose 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 THE ARMOUEER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 neck blood was fast pouriiig. One glance of the faithful 
 wistful eyes, one feeble movement of the expressive 
 tail, and Spring had made his last farewell ! That 
 was all Stephen was conscious of; but Ambrose could 
 hear the cry, " Good sirs, good lads, set me free ! " and 
 was aware of a portly form bound to a tree. As he 
 cut the rope with his knife, the rescued traveller 
 hurried out thanks and demands — " Where are the rest 
 of you ? " and on the reply that there were no more, 
 proceeded, " Then we must on, on at once, or the villains 
 will return ! They must have thought you had a band 
 of hunters behind you. Two furlongs hence, and we 
 shall be safe in the hostel at Dogmersfield. Come on, 
 my boy," to Stephen, " the brave hound is quite dead, 
 more's the pity. Thou canst do no more for him, and 
 we shall soon be in his case if we dally here." 
 
 " I cannot, cannot leave him thus," sobbed Stephen, 
 who had the loving old head on his knees. " Ambrose ' 
 stay, we must bring him. There, his tail wagged ! If 
 the blood were staunched — " 
 
 " Stephen ! Indeed he is stone dead ! "Were he our 
 brother we could not do otherwise," reasoned Ambrose, 
 forcibly dragging his brother to his feet. "Go on we
 
 IV.] A HERO'S FALL. 67 
 
 must, WoulJst have us all slaughtered for his sake ? 
 Come ! The rogues will be upon us anon. Spring 
 saved this good man's life. Undo not his work. See ! 
 Is yonder your horse, sir ? This way, Stevie ! " 
 
 The instinct of catching the horse roused Stephen, 
 and it was soon accomplished, for the steed was a 
 plump, docile, city-bred palfrey, with dapple-grey 
 flanks like well-stuffed satin pincushions, by no means 
 resembling the shaggy Forest ponies of the boys' ex- 
 perience, but quite astray in the heath, and ready to 
 come at the master's whistle, and call of " Soh ! 
 Soh ! — now Poppet ! " Stephen caught the bridle, and 
 Ambrose helped the burgess into the saddle. " Now, 
 good boys," he said, " each of you lay a hand on my 
 pommel. We can make good speed ere the rascals 
 find out our scant numbers." 
 
 " You would make better speed without us, sir," said 
 Stephen, hankering to remain beside poor Spring. 
 
 " D'ye think Giles Headley the man to leave two 
 children, that have maybe saved my life as well as my 
 purse, to bear the malice of the robbers ? " demanded 
 the burgess angrily. " That were like those fellows of 
 mine who have shown their heels and left their master 
 
 F 2
 
 68 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 strapped to a tree ! Thou ! thou ! what's thy name, 
 that hast the most wit, bring thy brother, unless thou 
 wouldst have him laid by the side of his dog." 
 
 Stephen was forced to comply, and run by Poppet's 
 side, though his eyes were so full of tears that he could 
 not see his way, even when the pace slackened, and in 
 the twilight they found themselves among houses and 
 gardens, and thus in safety, the lights of an inn shining 
 not far off. 
 
 A figure came out in the road to meet them, crying, 
 " Master ! master ! is it you ? and without scathe ? 
 Oh, the saints be praised ! " 
 
 "Ay, Tibbie, 'tis I and no other, thanks to the saints 
 and to these brave lads ! What, man, I blame thee 
 not, I know thou canst not strike ; but where be the 
 rest ? " 
 
 " In the inn, sir. I strove to call up the hue and 
 cry to come to the rescue, but the cowardly hinds were 
 afraid of the thieves, and not one would come forth." 
 
 " I wish they may not be in league with them," said 
 Master Headley, " See ! I was delivered — ay, and in 
 time to save my purse, by these twain and their good 
 dog. Are ye from these parts, my fair lads ? "
 
 IV.] A HERO'S FALL. 69 
 
 " We be journeying from the New Forest to London,' 
 said Ambrose. " The poor dog heard the tumult, and 
 leapt to your aid, sir, and we made after him." 
 
 " 'Twas the saints sent him ! " was the fervent answer. 
 " And " (with a lifting of the cap) " I hereby vow to 
 St. Julian a hound of solid bronze a foot in length, 
 with a collar of silver, to his shrine in St. Faith's, 
 in token of my deliverance in body and goods ! To 
 London are ye bound ? Then will we journey on 
 together ! " 
 
 They were by this time near the porch of a large 
 country hostel, from the doors and large bay window 
 of which light streamed out. And as the casement 
 was open, those without could both see and hear all 
 that was passing within. 
 
 The table was laid for supper, and in the place of 
 honour sat a youth of some seventeen or eighteen 
 years, gaily dressed, with a little feather curling over 
 his crimson cap, and thus discoursing : — 
 
 " Yea, my good host, two of the rogues bear my 
 tokens, besides him whom I felled to the earth. He 
 came on at me with his sword, but I had my point 
 ready for him ; and down he went before me like an
 
 70 THE AEMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 ox. Then came on another, but him I dealt with by the 
 back stroke as used in the tilt-yard at Clarendon." 
 
 " I trow we shall know him again, sir. Holy saints ! 
 to think such rascals should haunt so nigh us," the 
 hostess was exclaiming. " Pity for the poor goodman, 
 Master Headley. A portly burgher was he, friendly of 
 tongue and free of purse. I well remember him when 
 he went forth on his way to Salisbury, little thinking, 
 poor soul, what was before him. And is he truly sped?" 
 
 " I tell thee, good woman, I saw him go down before 
 three of their pikes. What more could I do but drive 
 my horse over the nearest rogue who was rifling him ? " 
 
 " If he were still alive — which Our Lady grant ! — the 
 knaves will hold him to ransom," quoth the host, as he 
 placed a tankard on the table. 
 
 " I am afraid he is past ransom," said the youth, 
 shaking his head. " But an if he be still in the rogues' 
 hands and living, I will get me on to his house in 
 Cheapside, and arrange with his mother to find the 
 needful sum, as befits me, I being his heir and about 
 to wed his daughter. However, I shall do all that in 
 me lies to get the poor old seignior out of the hands 
 of the rogues. Saints defend me ! "
 
 IV.] A HERO'S FALL. 71 
 
 " The poor old seignior is much beholden to thee," 
 said Master Headley, advancing amid a clamour of 
 exclamations from three or four serving-men or grooms, 
 one protesting that he thought his master was with 
 him, another that his horse ran away with him, one 
 showing an arm which was actually being bound up, and 
 the youth declaring that he rode off to bring help. 
 
 " Well wast thou bringing it," Master Headley 
 answered. " I mio-ht be still standing bound like an 
 eagle displayed, against yonder tree, for aught you 
 fellows recked." 
 
 " Nay, sir, the odds — " began the youth. 
 
 " Odds ! such odds as were put to rout — by what, 
 deem you ? These two strijolings and one poor hound. 
 Had but one of you had the heart of a sparrow, ye had 
 not furnished a tale to be the laugh of the Barbican 
 and Cheapside. Look vv'ell at them. How old be 
 you, my brave lads ? " 
 
 " I shall be sixteen come Lammas day, and Stephen 
 fifteen at Martinmas day, sir," said Ambrose ; " but 
 verily we did nought. We could have done nought had 
 not the thieves thought more were behind us." 
 
 " There are odds between going forward and
 
 72 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 backward," said Master Headley, dryly. " Ha ! Art 
 hurt ? Thou bleedst," he exclaimed, laying his hand 
 on Stephen's shoulder, and drawing him to the 
 light. 
 
 " 'Tis no blood of mine," said Stephen, as Ambrose 
 likewise came to join in the examination. " It is 
 my poor Spring's. He took the coward's blow. His 
 was all the honour, and we have left him there on 
 the heath ! " And he covered his face with his hands, 
 
 " Come, come, my good cliild," said Master Headley ; 
 " we will back to the place by times to-morrow when 
 rogues hide and honest men walk abroad. Thou shalt 
 bury thine hound, as befits a good warrior, on the 
 battle-field. I would fain mark his points for the 
 effigy we will frame, honest Tibbie, for St. Julian. 
 And mark ye, fellows, thou godson Giles, above all, 
 who 'tis that boast of their valour, and who 'tis that be 
 modest of speech. Yea, thanks, mine host. Let us to 
 a chamber, and give us water to wash away soil of 
 travel and of fray, and then to supjDer. Young masters, 
 ye are my guests. Shame were it that Giles Headley 
 let go farther them that have, under Heaven and St. 
 Julian, saved him in life, limb, and purse,"
 
 IV.] A HERO'S FALL. 73 
 
 The inn was large, being the resort of many 
 travellers from the south, often of nobles and knights 
 riding to Parliament, and thus the brothers found 
 themselves accommodated with a chamber, where they 
 could prepare for the meal, while Ambrose tried to 
 console his brother by representing that, after all, poor 
 Spring had died gallantly, and with far less pain than 
 if he had suffered a wasting old age, besides being 
 honoured for ever by his effigy in St. Faith's, wherever 
 that might be, the idea which chiefly contributed to 
 console his master. 
 
 The two boys appeared in the room of the inn 
 looking so unlike the dusty, blood-stained pair who 
 had entered, that Master Headley took a second glance 
 to convince himself that they were the same, before 
 beckoning them to seats on either side of him, saying 
 . that he must know more of them, and bidding the 
 host load their trenchers well from the grand fabric of 
 beef-pasty which had been set at the end of the board. 
 The runaways, four or live in number, herded together 
 lower down, with a few travellers of lower degree, 
 ail except the youth who had been boasting before 
 their arrival, and who retained his seat at the board,
 
 74 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 thumping it with the handle of his knife to show his 
 impatience for the commencement of supper ; and not 
 far off sat Tibbie, the same who had hailed their 
 arrival, a thin, slight, one-sided looking person, with a 
 terrible red withered scar on one cheek, drawing the 
 corner of his mouth awry. He, like Master Headley 
 himself, and the rest of his party were clad in red, 
 guarded with white, and wore the cross of St. George 
 on the white border of their flat crimson caps, being no 
 doubt in the livery of their Company. The citizen 
 himself, having in the meantime drawn his conclusions 
 from the air and gestures of the brothers, and their 
 mode of dealing with their food, asked the usual 
 question in an affirmative tone, "Ye be of gentle 
 blood, young sirs ? " 
 
 To which they replied by giving their names, and 
 explaining that they were journeying from the New 
 Forest to find their imcle in the train of the Archbishop 
 of York. 
 
 " Birkenholt," said Tibbie, meditatively. " He bear- 
 eth vert, a buck's head proper, on a chief argent, two 
 arrows in saltire. Crest, a buck courant, pierced in the 
 gorge by an arrow, all proper."
 
 IV.] A HERO'S FALL. Y5 
 
 To Avhich the brothers returned by displaying the 
 handles of their knives, both of which bore the pierced 
 and coiirant buck. 
 
 " Ay, ay," said the man. " 'Twill be found in our 
 books, sir. We painted the shield and new-crested the 
 morion the first year of my prenticeship, when the 
 Earl of Richmond, the late King Harry of blessed 
 memory, had newly landed at Milford Haven." 
 
 " Verily," said Ambrose, " our uncle Richard Birken- 
 holt fought at Bosworth under Sir Richard Pole's 
 banner." 
 
 " A tall and stalwart esquire, methinks," said Master 
 Headley. " Is he the kinsman you seek ? " 
 
 "Not so, sir. We visited him at Winchester, and 
 found him sorely old and with failing wits. We be on 
 our way to our mother's brother, Master Harry Randall." 
 
 " Is he clerk or layman ? My Lord of York enter- 
 taineth enow of both," said Master Headley. 
 
 " Lay assuredly, sir," returned Stephen ; " I trust 
 to him to find me some preferment as page or the 
 like." 
 
 " Know'st thou the man, Tibbie ? " inquired the 
 master.
 
 7G THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 "uMot among the men-at-arms., sir," was the answer; 
 " but there be a many of them whose right names we 
 never hear. However, he will be easily found if my 
 Lord of York be returned from Windsor with his train." 
 
 " Then will we go forward together, my young 
 Masters Birkenholt. I am not going to part with my 
 doughty champions 1 " — patting Stephen's shoulder. 
 "Ye'd not think that these light-heeled knaves 
 belonged to the brave craft of armourers ? " 
 
 " Certainly not," thought the lads, whose notion of 
 armourers was derived from the brawny blacksmith 
 of Lyndhurst, who sharpened their boar spears and 
 shod their horses. They made some kind of assent, 
 and Master Headley went on. " These be the times ! 
 This is what peace hath brought us to ! I am called 
 down to Salisbury to take charge of the goods, chattels, 
 and estate of my kinsman, Robert Headley — Saints 
 rest his soul ! — and to bring home yonder spark, my 
 godson, whose indentures have been made over to me. 
 And I may not ride a mile after sunset without being 
 set upon by a sort of robbers, who must have guessed 
 over-well what a pack of cowards they had to deal 
 with."
 
 iv.] A HERO'S FALL. 
 
 / / 
 
 " Sir," cried the younger Giles, " I swear to you that 
 I struck right and left. I did all that man could do, 
 hut these rogues of serving-men, they fled, and dragged 
 me along with them, and T deemed you were of our 
 company till we dismounted." 
 
 " Did you so ? Methought anon you saw me go 
 down with three pikes in my breast. Come, come, 
 godson Giles, speech will not mend it ! Thou art but 
 a green, town-bred lad, a mother's darling, and mayst 
 be a brave man yet, only don't dread to tell the honest 
 truth that you were afeard, as many a better man 
 might be." 
 
 The host chimed in with tales of the thieves and 
 outlaws who then, and indeed for many later genera- 
 tions, infested Bagshot heath, and the wild moorland 
 tracks around. He seemed to think that the travellers 
 had had a hair's-breadth escape, and that a few seconds' 
 more delay might have revealed the weakness of the 
 rescuers and have been fatal to them. 
 
 However there was no danger so near the village in 
 the morning, and, somewhat to Stephen's annoyance, 
 the whole place turned out to inspect the spot, and 
 behold the burial of poor Sjjring, who was found
 
 78 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. iv. 
 
 stretched on the heather, just as he had been left the 
 night before. He was interred under the stunted oak 
 where Master Headley had been tied. While the grave 
 was dug with a spade borrowed at the inn, Ambrose 
 uudertook to cut out the dog's name on the bark, but 
 he had hardly made the first incision when Tibbie, the 
 singed foreman, offered to do it for him, and made a 
 much more sightly inscription than he could have done. 
 Master Headley's sword was found honourably broken 
 under the tree, and was reserved to form a base for 
 his intended ex voto. He uttered the vow in due form 
 like a funeral oration, when Stephen, with a swelling 
 heart, had laid the companion of his life in the little 
 grave, which was speedily covered in.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DRAGON COURT. 
 
 ' ' A citizen 
 Of credit and renown ; 
 A ti-ainband captain eke was lie 
 Of famous London town." 
 
 COWPER. 
 
 In spite of his satisfaction at the honourable obse- 
 quies of his dog, Stephen Birkenholt would fain have 
 been independent, and thought it provoking and strange 
 that every one should want to direct his movements, 
 and assume the charge of one so well able to take care 
 of himself; but he could not escape as he had done 
 before from the Warden of St. Elizabeth, for Ambrose 
 had readily accepted the proposal that they should 
 travel in Master Headley's company, only objecting that 
 they were on foot ; on which the good citizen hired a 
 couple of hackneys for them.
 
 80 THE AEMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 Besides the two Giles Headleys, the party consisted of 
 Tibbie, the scarred and withered foreman, two jrrooms, 
 and two serving-men, all armed with the swords and 
 bucklers of which they had made so little use. It 
 appeared in process of time that the two namesakes, 
 besides being godfather and godson, were cousins, and 
 that Robert, the father of the younger one, had, after 
 his apprenticeship in the paternal establishment at 
 Salisbury, served for a couple of years in the London 
 workshop of his kinsman to learn the latest improve- 
 ments in weapons. This had laid the foundation of a 
 friendship which had lasted through life, though the 
 London cousin had been as prosperous as the country 
 one had been the reverse. The provincial trade in arms 
 declined with the close of the York and Lancaster wars. 
 Men were not permitted to turn from one handicraft to 
 another, and Robert Headley had neither aptitude nor 
 resources. His wife was vain and thriftless, and he 
 finally broke down under his difficulties, appointing by 
 will his cousin to act as his executor, and to take charge 
 of his only son, who had served out half his time as 
 apprentice to himself. There had been delay until the 
 peace with France had given the armourer some leisure
 
 v.] THE DRAGOJT COURT. 81 
 
 for an expedition to Salisbury, a serious undertaking 
 for a London burgess, who had little about him of the 
 ancient northern weapon-smith, and had wanted to 
 avail himself of the protection of the suite of the Bishop 
 of Salisbury, returning from Parliament. He had spent 
 some weeks in disposing of his cousin's stock in trade, 
 which was far too antiquated for the London market ; 
 also of the premises, which were bought by an adjoining 
 convent to extend its garden ; and he had divided the 
 proceeds between the widow and children. He had 
 presided at the wedding of the last daughter, with 
 whom the mother was to reside, and was on his way 
 back to London with his godson, who had now become 
 his apprentice. 
 
 Giles Headley the younger was a fine tall youth, but 
 clumsy and untrained in the use of his limbs, and he 
 rode a large, powerful brown horse, which brooked no 
 companionship, lashing out with its shaggy hoofs at any 
 of its kind that approached it, more especially at poor, 
 plump, mottled Poppet. The men said he had insisted 
 on retaining that, and no other, for his joui'ney to Lon- 
 don, contrary to all advice, and he was obliged to ride 
 foremost, alone in the middle of the road ; while Master 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 HeacUey seemed to have an immense quantity of con- 
 sultation to carry on with his foreman, Tibbie, whose 
 quiet-looking brown animal was evidently on the best 
 of terms with Poppet. By daylight Tibbie looked even 
 more sallow, lean, and sickly, and Stephen could not 
 help saying to the serving-man nearest to him, " Can 
 such a weakling verily be an armourer ? " 
 
 " Yea, sir. Wry-mouthed Tibbie, as they call him, 
 was a sturdy fellow till he got a fall against the mouth 
 of a furnace, and lay ten months in St. Bartholomew's 
 
 Spital, scarce moving hand or foot. He cannot wield 
 a hammer, but he has a cunning hand for gilding, 
 and coloured devices, and is as good as Garter-king- 
 at-arms himself for all bearings of knights and 
 nobles." 
 
 " As we heard last night," said Stephen. 
 
 " Moreover in the spital he learnt to write and cast 
 accompts like a very scrivener, and the master trusts 
 him more than any, except maybe Kit Smallbones, 
 the head smith." 
 
 " What will Smallbones think of the new prentice ! " 
 said one of the other men. 
 
 " Prentice ! 'Tis plain enough what sort of prentice
 
 v.] THE DRAGON COURT. 83 
 
 the youth is like to be who beareth the name of a 
 master with one only daughter." 
 
 An emiDhatic grunt was the only answer, while 
 Ambrose pondered on the good luck of some people, 
 who had their futures cut out for them with no trouble 
 on their own part. 
 
 This day's ride was through more inhabited parts, 
 and was esteemed less perilous. They came in sight 
 of the Thames at Lambeth, but Master Headley, re- 
 membering how ill his beloved Poppet had brooked 
 the ferry, decided to keep to the south of the river by 
 a causeway across Lambeth marsh, which was just 
 passable in high and dry summers, and which conducted 
 them to a raised road called Bankside, where they 
 looked across to the towers of Westminster, and the 
 Abbey in its beauty dawned on the imagination of 
 Stephen and Ambrose. The royal standard floated 
 over the palace, whence Master Headley perceived that 
 the King was there, and augured that my Lord of 
 York's meine would not be far to seek. Then came 
 broad green fields with young corn growing, or hay 
 waving for the scythe, the tents and booths -of May 
 Fair, and the beautiful Market Cross in the midst of 
 
 G 2
 
 84 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 the village of Charing, while the Strand, immediately 
 opposite, began to be fringed with great monasteries 
 within their ample gardens, with here and there a 
 nobleman's castellated house and terraced garden, with 
 broad stone stairs leading to the Thames. 
 
 Barges and wherries plied up and down, the former 
 often gaily canopied and propelled by liveried oarsmen, 
 all plying their arms in unison, so that the vessel 
 looked like some brilliant many -limbed creature 
 treading the water. Presently appeared the heavy 
 walls inclosing the City itself, dominated by the tall 
 openwork timber spire of St. Paul's, with the four- 
 square, four-turreted Tower acting, as it has been well 
 said, as a padlock to a chain, and the river's breadth 
 spanned by London bridge, a very street of houses 
 built on the abutments. Now, Bankside had houses 
 on each side of the road, and Wry-mouthed Tibbie 
 showed evident satisfaction when they turned to cross 
 the bridge, where they had to ride in single file, not 
 without some refractoriness on the part of young 
 Headley's steed. 
 
 On they went, now along streets where each story of 
 the tall houses projected over the last, so that the
 
 v.] THE DRAGON COURT. 85 
 
 gables seemed ready to meet ; now beside walls of con- 
 vent gardens, now past churches, while the country 
 lads felt bewildered with the numbers passing to and 
 fro, and the air was full of bells. 
 
 Cap after cap was lifted in greeting to Master 
 Headley by burgess, artisan, or apprentice, and many 
 times did he draw Poppet's rein to exchange greetings 
 and receive congratulations on his return. On reaching 
 St. Paul's Minster, he halted and bade the servants 
 take home the horses, and tell the mistress, with his 
 dutiful greetings, that he should be at home anon, and 
 with guests. 
 
 " We must e'en return thanks for our safe journey 
 and great deliverance," he said to his young com- 
 panions, and thrusting his arm into that of a russet- 
 vested citizen, who met him at the door, he walked 
 into the cathedral, recounting his adventure. 
 
 The youths followed with some difficulty through 
 the stream of loiterers in the nave, Giles the younger 
 elbowing and pushing so that several of the crowd 
 turned to look at him, and it was well that his kinsman 
 soon astonished him by descending a stair into a cryj^t, 
 with solid, short, clustered columns, and high-pitched
 
 86 THE ARMOUREE'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 vaulting, fitted up as a separate church, namely that of 
 the parish of St. Faith. The great cathedral, having 
 absorbed the site of the original church, had given this 
 crypt to the parishioners. Here all was quiet and 
 solemn, in marked contrast to the hubbub in " Paul's 
 Walk," above in the nave. Against the eastern pillar 
 of one of the bays was a little altar, and the decorations 
 included St. Julian, the patron of travellers, with his 
 saltire doubly crossed, and his stag beside him. Little 
 shij)s, trees, and wonderful enamelled representations of 
 perils by robbers, field and flood, hung thickly on St. 
 Julian's pillar, and on the wall and splay of the window 
 beside it ; and here, after crossing himself. Master 
 Headley rapidly repeated a Paternoster, and ratified 
 his vow of presenting a bronze image of the hound to 
 whom he owed his rescue. One of the clergy came up 
 to register the vow, and the good armourer proceeded to 
 bespeak a mass of thanksgiving on the next morning, 
 also ten for the soul of Master John Birkenholt, late 
 Verdurer of the New Forest in Hampshire — a mode of 
 showing his gratitude which the two sons highly 
 appreciated. 
 
 Then, climbing up the steps again, and emerging
 
 v.] THE DRAGON COUET. 87 
 
 from the cathedral by the west door, the boys beheld a 
 scene for which their experiences of Romsey, and even 
 of Winchester, had by no means prepared them. It 
 was five o'clock on a summer evening, so that the 
 whole place Avas full of stir. Old women sat with 
 baskets of rosaries and little crosses, or images of saints, 
 on the steps of the cathedral, while in the open space 
 beyond, more than one horse was disj)laying his paces 
 for the benefit of some undecided purchaser, who had 
 been chaffering for hours in Paul's Walk. Merchants 
 in the costume of their countries, Lombard, Spanish, 
 Dutch, or French, were walking away in pairs, attended 
 by servants, from their Exchange, likewise in the nave. 
 Women, some alone, some protected by serving-men or 
 apprentices, were returning from their orisons, or, it 
 might be, from their gossipings. Priests and friars, as 
 usual, pervaded everything, and round the open space 
 were galleried buildings with stalls beneath them, 
 whence the holders were removing their wares for the 
 night. The great octagonal structure of Paul's Cross 
 stood in the centre, and just beneath the stone pulpit, 
 where the sermons were wont to be preached, stood a 
 man with a throng round him, declaiming a ballad at
 
 88 THE ARMOUREE'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 £> 
 
 the top of his sing-song voice, and causing much loud 
 laughter by some ribaldry about monks and friars. 
 
 Master Headley turned aside as quickly as he could, 
 through Paternoster Row, which was full of stalls, where 
 little black books, and larger sheets printed in black- 
 letter, seemed the staple commodities, and thence the 
 burgess, keeping a heedful eye on his young com- 
 panions among all his greetings, entered the broader 
 space of Cheapside, where numerous prentice lads 
 seemed to be playing at different sports after the 
 labours of the day. 
 
 Passing under an archway surmounted by a dragon 
 with shining scales, Master Headley entered a paved 
 courtyard, where the lads started at the figures of two 
 knights in full armour, their lances in rest, and their 
 horses with housings down to their hoofs, apparently 
 about to charge any intruder. But at that moment 
 there was a shriek of joy, and out from the scarlet and 
 azure petticoats of the nearest steed, there darted a 
 little girl, crying, "Father! father!" and in an in- 
 stant she was lifted in Master Headley's arms, and 
 was clinging round his neck, while he kissed and 
 blessed her, and as he set her on her feet, he said,
 
 v.] THE DRAGON COURT. 89 
 
 " Here, Dennet, greet thy cousin Giles Headley, and 
 these two brave young gentlemen. Greet them like a 
 courteous maiden, or they will think thee a little town 
 mouse." 
 
 In truth the child had a pointed little visage, and 
 bright brown eyes, somewhat like a mouse, but it was a 
 very sweet face that she lifted obediently to be kissed 
 not only by the kinsman, but by the two guests. Her 
 father meantime was answering with nods to the 
 respectful welcomes of the workmen, who thronged 
 out below, arid their wives looking down from the 
 galleries above ; while Popjaet and the other horses 
 were being rubbed down after their journey. 
 
 The ground-floor of the buildings surrounding the 
 oblong court seemed to be entirely occupied by forges, 
 workshops, warehouses and stables. Above, were open 
 railed galleries, with outside stairs at intervals, giving 
 access to the habitations of the workpeople on three 
 sides. The fourth, opposite to the entrance, had a 
 much handsomer, broad, stone stair, adorned on one side 
 with a stone figure of the princess fleeing from the 
 dragon, and on the other of St, George piercing 
 the monster's open mouth with his lance, the scaly
 
 90 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 convolutions of the two dragons forming the supports of 
 the handrail on either side. Here stood, cap in hand, 
 showing his thick curly hair, and with open front, dis- 
 playing a huge hairy chest, a giant figure, whom his 
 master greeted as Kit Smallbones, inquiring whether 
 all had gone well during his absence. 
 
 " 'Tis time you were back, sir, for there's a great tilt- 
 ing match on hand for the Lady Mary's wedding. Here 
 have been half the gentlemen in the Court after you, 
 and my Lord of Buckingham sent twice for you since 
 Sunday, and once for Tibbie Steelman, and his squire 
 swore that if you were not at his bidding before noon 
 to-morrow, he would have his new suit of Master 
 Hillyer of the Eagle." 
 
 " He shall see me when it suiteth me," said Mr. 
 Headley coolly. " He wotteth well that Hillyer hath 
 none who can burnish plate armour like Tibbie here." 
 
 "Moreover the last iron we had from that knave 
 Mepham is nouglit. It works short under the hammer." 
 
 " That shall be seen to. Kit. The rest of the budget 
 to-morrow. I must on to my mother." 
 
 For at the doorway, at the head of the stairs, there 
 stood the still trim and active figure of an old woman.
 
 v.] THE DKAGON COURT. 91 
 
 with something of the mouse likeness seen in her 
 grand-daughter, in the close cap, high hat, and cloth 
 dress, that sumptuary opinion, if not law, prescribed 
 for the burgher matron, a white apron, silver chain and 
 bunch of keys at her girdle. Due and loving greetings 
 passed between mother and son, after the longest and 
 most perilous absence of Master Headley's life, and he 
 then presented Giles, to whom the kindly dame offered 
 hand and cheek, saying, " Welcome, my young kinsman, 
 your good father was well known and liked here. May 
 you tread in his steps ! " 
 
 " Thanks, good mistress," returned Giles. " I am 
 thought to have a pretty taste in the fancy part of the 
 trade. My Lord of Montagu — " 
 
 Before he could get any farther. Mistress Headley was 
 inquiring what was the rumour she had heard of robbers 
 and dangers that had beset her son, and he was present- 
 ing the two young Birkenholts to her. " Brave boys ! 
 good boys," she said, holding out her hands and kissing 
 each according to the custom of welcome, " you have 
 saved my son for me, and this little one's father for her. 
 Kiss them, Dennet, and thank them." 
 
 " It was the poor dog," said the child, in a clear little
 
 92 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 voice, drawing back with a certain quaint coquetting 
 shyness ; " I would rather kiss him." 
 
 " Would that thou couldst, little mistress," said 
 Stephen, " My poor brave Spring ! " 
 
 "Was he thine own ? Tell me all about him," said 
 Dennet, somewhat imperiously. 
 
 She stood between the two strangers looking eagerly 
 up with sorrowfully interested eyes, while Stephen, out 
 of his full heart, told of his faithful comradeship with 
 his hound from the infancy of both. Her father mean- 
 while was exchanging serious converse with her grand- 
 mother, and Giles finding himself left in the background, 
 began : " Come hither, pretty coz, and I will tell thee 
 of my Lady of Salisbury's daintj^ little hounds." 
 
 '' I care not for dainty little hounds," returned 
 Dennet ; " I want to hear of the poor faithful dog that 
 flew at the wicked robber." 
 
 "A mighty stir about a mere chance," muttered 
 Giles. 
 
 " 1 know what i/oic did," said Dennet, turning her 
 bright brown eyes full upon him. " You took to your 
 heels." 
 
 Her look and little nod were so irresistibly comical
 
 v.] THE DRAGON COURT. 93 
 
 that the two brothers could not help laughing ; where- 
 upon Giles Headley turned upon them in a passion. 
 
 " What mean ye by this insolence, you beggars' brats 
 picked up on the heath ? " 
 
 "Better born than thou, braggart and coward that 
 thou art ! " broke forth Stephen, while Master Headley 
 exclaimed, " How now, lads ? No brawling here ! " 
 
 Three voices spoke at once. 
 
 " They were insolent." 
 
 " He reviled our birth." 
 
 " Father ! they did but laugh when I told cousin 
 Giles that he took to his heels, and he must needs call 
 them beggars' brats picked up on the heath." 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! wench, thou art woman enough already 
 to set them together by the ears," said her father, 
 laughing. " See here, Giles Headley, none who bears 
 my name shall insult a stranger on my hearth." 
 
 Stephen however had stepped forth holding out his 
 small stock of coin, and saying, " Sir, receive for our 
 charges, and let us go to the tavern we passed anon." 
 
 " How now, boy ! Said I not ye were my guests ? " 
 
 " Yea, sir, and thanks ; but we can give no cause for 
 being called beggars nor beggars' brats."
 
 94 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 " What beggary is there in being guests, my young 
 gentlemen ? " said the master of the house. " If any 
 one were picked up on the heath, it was I. We owned 
 you for gentlemen of blood and coat armour, and thy 
 brother there can tell thee that ye have no right to 
 put an affront on me, your host, because a rude prentice 
 from a country town hath not learnt to rule his tongue." 
 
 Giles scowled, but the armourer spoke with an 
 authority that imposed on all, and Stephen submitted, 
 while Ambrose spoke a few words of thanks, after 
 which the two brothers were conducted by an external 
 stair and gallery to a guest-chamber, in which to 
 prepare for supper. 
 
 The room was small, but luxuriously filled beyond all 
 ideas of the young foresters, for it was hung with 
 tapestry, representing the history of Joseph ; the bed 
 was curtained, there was a carved chest for clothes, a 
 table and a ewer and basin of bright brass with the 
 armourer's mark upon it, a twist in which the letter 
 H and the dragon's tongue and tail were ingeniously 
 blended. The City was far in advance of the country 
 in all the arts of life, and only the more magnificent 
 castles and abbej'S, which the boys had never seen,
 
 v.] THE DRAGON COURT. 95 
 
 possessed the amount of comforts to be found in the 
 dwellings of the superior class of Londoners. Stephen 
 was inclined to look with contempt upon the effeminacy 
 of a churl merchant. 
 
 " No churl," returned Ambrose, " if manners makyth 
 man, as we saw at Winchester." 
 
 " Then what do they make of that cowardly clown, 
 his cousin ? " 
 
 Ambrose laughed, but said, "Prove we our gentle 
 blood at least by not brawling with the fellow. 
 Master Headley will soon teach him to know his 
 place." 
 
 " That will matter nought to us. To-morrow shall 
 we be with our uncle Hal. I only wish his lord was 
 not of the ghostly sort, but perhaps he may prefer me 
 to some great knight's service. But oh ! Ambrose, 
 come and look. See ! The fellow they call Small- 
 "l)ones is come out to the fountain in the middle of the 
 court with a bucket in each hand. Look ! Didst ever see 
 such a giant ? He is as big and brawny as Ascapart 
 at the bar-gate at Southampton. See ! he lifts that 
 big pail full and brimming as though it were an egg 
 shell. See his arm ! 'Twere good to see him wield a
 
 96 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 hammer ! I must look into his smithv before goinsf 
 forth to-morrow." 
 
 Stephen clenched his fist and examined his muscles 
 ere donning his best mourning jerkin, and could scarce 
 be persuaded to complete his toilet, so much was he 
 entertained with the comings and goings in the court, a 
 little world in itself, like a college quadrangle. The 
 day's work was over, the forges out, and the smiths 
 were lounging about at ease, one or two sitting on a 
 bench under a large elm-tree beside the central well, 
 enjoying each his tankard of ale. A few more were 
 watching Poppet being combed down, and conversing 
 with the newly-arrived grooms. One was carrying a 
 little child in his arms, and a young man and maid 
 sitting on the low wall round the well, seemed to be 
 carrying on a courtship over the pitcher that stood 
 waiting to be filled. Two lads were playing at skittles, 
 children were running up and down the stairs and 
 along the wooden galleries, and men and women went 
 and came by the entrance gateway between the two 
 effigies of knights in armour. Some were servants 
 bringing helm or gauntlet for repair, or taking the like 
 away. Some might be known by their flat caps to be
 
 v.] THE DRAGON COURT. 97 
 
 apprentices, and two substantial burgesses walked in 
 together, as if to greet Master Headley on his return. 
 Immediately after, a man-cook appeared with white 
 cap and apron, bearing aloft a covered dish surrounded 
 by a steamy cloud, followed by other servants bearing 
 other meats; a big bell began to sound, the younger 
 men and apprentices gathered together and the brothers 
 descended the stairs, and entered by the big door 
 into the same large hall where they had been received. 
 The spacious hearth was full of green boughs, with a 
 beaupot of wild rose, honeysuckle, clove pinks and 
 gilliflowers ; the loAver parts of the walls were hung 
 with tapestry representing the adventures of St. George ; 
 the mullioned windows had their upper squares filled 
 with glass, bearing the shield of the City of London, 
 that of the Armourers' Company, the rose and portcullis 
 of the King, the pomegranate of Queen Catharine, and 
 other like devices. Others, belons^ino- to the Lancastrian 
 kings, adorned the pendants from the handsome open 
 roof and the front of a gallery for musicians which 
 crossed one end of the hall in the taste of the times of 
 Henry V. and Whittington. 
 
 Far more interesting to the hungry travellers was it 
 VOL, I. H
 
 98 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 that the long table, running the whole breadth of the 
 apartment, was decked with snowy linen, trenchers 
 stood ready with horns or tankards beside them, and 
 loaves of bread at intervals, while the dishes were being 
 placed on the table. The master and his entire estab- 
 lishment took their meals together, except the married 
 men, who lived in the quadrangle with their families. 
 There was no division by the salt-cellar, as at the tables 
 of the nobles and gentry, but the master, his family 
 and guests, occupied the centre, with the hearth behind 
 them, where the choicest of the viands were placed ; 
 next after them were the places of the journeymen 
 according to seniority, then those of the apprentices, 
 household servants, and stable-men, but the apprentices 
 had to assist the serving-men in waiting on the master 
 and his party before sitting down themselves. There 
 was a dignity and regularity about the whole, which 
 could not fail to impress Stephen and Ambrose with 
 the weight and importance of a London burgher, 
 warden of the Ai'mourers' Company, and alderman of 
 the Ward of (Hicap. There were carved chairs for 
 himself, his mother, and the guests, also a small Persian 
 carpet extending from the hearth beyond their seats.
 
 v.] THE DRAGON COURT. 99 
 
 This article filled the two foresters with amazement. 
 To put one's feet on what ought to be a coverlet ! They 
 Avould not have stepped on it, had they not been kindly 
 summoned by old Mistress Head ley to take their places 
 among the company, which consisted, besides the family, 
 of the two citizens who had entered, and of a priest 
 who had likewise dropped in to welcome Master 
 Headley's return, and had been invited to stay to 
 supper. Young Giles, as a matter of course, placed 
 himself amongst them, at which there were black looks 
 and whispers among the apprentices, and even Mistress 
 Headley wore an air of amazement. 
 
 " Mother," said the head of the family, speaking loud 
 enough for all to hear, " you will permit our young 
 kinsman to be placed as our guest this evening. To- 
 morrow he will act as an apprentice, as we all have 
 done in our time." 
 
 " I never did so at home ! " cried Giles, in his loud, 
 hasty voice. 
 
 " I trow not," dryly observed one of the guests. 
 
 Giles, however, went on muttering while the priest 
 was pronouncing a Latin grace, and thereupon the 
 same burgess observed, " Never did I see it better 
 
 H 2
 
 100 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 proved that folk in the country give their sons no good 
 breeding." 
 
 " Have patience with him, good Master Pepper," 
 returned Mr. Headley. " He hath been an only son, 
 greatly cockered by father, mother, and sisters, but ere 
 long he will learn what is befiting." 
 
 Giles glared round, but he met nothing encouraging. 
 Little Dennet sat with open mouth of astonishment, 
 her grandmother looked shocked, the household which 
 had been aggrieved by his presumption laughed at his 
 rebuke, for there was not much delicacy in those days ; 
 but something generous in the gentle blood of Ambrose 
 moved him to some amount of pity for the lad, who 
 thus suddenly became conscious that the tie he had 
 thought nominal at Salisbury, a mere preliminary to 
 municipal rank, was here absolute subjection, and a 
 bondage whence there was no escape. His was the 
 only face that Giles met which had any friendliness in 
 it, but no one spoke, for manners imposed silence upon 
 youth at table, except when spoken to ; and there was 
 general hunger enough prevailing to make Mistress 
 Headley 's fat capon the most interesting contemplation 
 for the present.
 
 v.] THE DRAGON COURT. 101 
 
 The elders conversed, for there was much for Master 
 Headley to hear of civic affairs that had passed in his 
 absence of two months, also of all the comino-s and 
 goings, and it was ascertained that my Lord Archbishop 
 of York was at his suburban abode, York House, now 
 Whitehall. 
 
 It was a very late supper for the times, not beginning 
 till seven o'clock, on account of the travellers ; and as 
 soon as it was finished, and the priest and burghers 
 had taken their leave. Master Headley dismissed the 
 household to their beds, although daylight was scarcely 
 departed.
 
 CHAPTEK VI. 
 
 A SUNDAY IN THE CITY, 
 
 " The rod of Heaven has touched them all, 
 The word from Heaven is spoken : 
 Rise, shine and sing, thou captive thrall, 
 Are not thy fetters broken ? " 
 
 Keble. 
 
 On Sunday morning, when the young Birkenholts 
 awoke, the whole air seemed full of bells from hundreds 
 of Church and Minster steeples. The Dragon Court wore 
 a holiday air, and there was no ring of hammers at the 
 forges; but the men who stood about were in holiday 
 attire : and the brothers assumed their best clothes. 
 
 Breakfast was not a meal much accounted of It 
 was reckoned effeminate to require more than two 
 meals a day, though, just as in the verdurer's lodge at 
 home, there was a barrel of ale on tap with drinking 
 horns beside it in the hall, and on a small round table
 
 CHAr. VI.] A SUNDAY IX THE CITY. 103 
 
 in the window a loaf of bread, to which city luxury 
 added a cheese, and a jug containing sack, with some 
 silver cups beside it, and a pitcher of fair water. 
 Master Headley, with his mother and daughter, was 
 taking a morsel of these refections, standing, and in 
 out-door garments, when the brothers appeared at 
 about seven o'clock in the morning. 
 
 " Ha ! that's well," quoth he, greeting them. " No 
 slugabeds, I see. Will ye come with us to hear mass 
 at St. Faith's ? " They agreed, and Master Headley 
 then told them that if they would tarry till the next 
 day in searching out their uncle, they could have the 
 company of Tibbie Steelman, who had to see one of 
 the captains of the guard about an alteration of his 
 corslet, and thus would have every opportunity of 
 facilitating their inquiries for their uncle. 
 
 The mass was an ornate one, though not more so 
 than they were accustomed to at Beaulieu. Ambrose 
 had his book of devotions, supplied by the good monks 
 who had brought him up, and old Mrs. Headley carried 
 something of the same kind ; but these did not neces- 
 sarily follow the ritual, and neither quiet nor attention 
 was regarded as requisite in " hearing mass. ' Dennet,
 
 104 THE ARMOURERS PRENTICES. [chav. 
 
 unchecked, was exchanging flowers from her Sunday 
 posy with another little girl, and with hooded fingers 
 carrying on in all innocence the satirical pantomime 
 of Father Francis and Sister Catharine ; and even 
 Master Headley himself exchanged remarks with his 
 friends, and returned greetings from burgesses and their 
 wives while the celebrant priest's voice droned on, and 
 the choir responded — the peals of the organ in the 
 Minster above coming in at inappropriate moments, for 
 there they were in a different part of High Mass using 
 the Liturgy peculiar to St. Paul's. 
 
 Thinking of last week at Beaulieu, Ambrose knelt 
 meantime with his head buried in his hands, in an 
 absorption of feeling that was not perhaps wholly 
 devout, but which at any rate looked more like devo- 
 tion than the demeanour of any one around. When 
 the Ite missa est was pronounced, and all rose up, 
 Stephen touched him and he rose, looking about, 
 bewildered. 
 
 " So please you, young sir, I can show you another 
 sort of thing by and by," said in his ear Tibbie 
 Steelman, who had come in late, and marked his 
 attitude.
 
 VI.] A SUNDAY IN THE CITY. 105 
 
 They went up from St. Faith's in a flood of talk, 
 with all manner of people welcoming Master Headley 
 after his journey, and thence came back to dinner, 
 which was set out in the hall very soon after their 
 return from church. Quite guests enough were there 
 on this occasion to fill all the chairs, and Master 
 Headley intimated to Giles that he must begin his 
 duties at table as an apprentice, under the tuition of the 
 senior, a tall young fellow of nineteen, by name Edmund 
 Burgess. He looked greatly injured and discomfited 
 above all when he saw his two travelling companions 
 seated at the table — though far lower than the night 
 before ; nor would he stir from where he was standing 
 a'3'ainst the wall to do the slightest service, although 
 Edmund admonished him sharply that unless he 
 bestirred himself it would be the worse for him. 
 
 When the meal was over, and grace had been said, 
 the boards were removed from their trestles, and the 
 elders drew round the small table in the window with 
 a flagon of sack and a plate of wastel bread in their 
 midst to continue their discussion of weighty Town 
 Council matters. Every one was free to make holi- 
 day, and Edmund Burgess good-naturedly invited the
 
 106 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 strangers to come to Mile End, where there was to be 
 shooting at the butts, and a match at singlestick was 
 to come off between Kit Smallbones and another giant, 
 who was regarded as the champion of the brewer's 
 craft. 
 
 Stephen was nothing loth, especially if he might take 
 his own crossbow ; but Ambrose never had much turn 
 for these pastimes and was in no mood for them. The 
 familiar associations of the mass had brought the grief 
 of orphanhood, homelessness, and uncertainty upon him 
 with the more force. His spirit yearned after his father, 
 and his heart was sick for his forest home. Moreover, 
 there was the duty incumbent on a good son of saying 
 his prayers for the repose of his father's soul. He 
 hinted as much to Stephen, who, boy-like, answered, 
 " Oh, we'll see to that when we get into my Lord of 
 York's house. Masses must be plenty there. And I 
 must see Smallbones floor the brewer." 
 
 Ambrose could trust his brother under the care of 
 Edmund Burgess, and resolved on a double amount 
 of repetitions of the appointed intercessions for the 
 dej)arted. 
 
 He was watching the party of youths set off, all
 
 VI.] A SUNDAY IN THE CITY. 107 
 
 except Giles Headley, who sulkily refused the invita- 
 tions, betook himself to a window and sat drummino; on 
 the glass, while Ambrose stood leaning on the dragon 
 balustrade, with his eyes dreamily following the merry 
 lads out at the gateway. 
 
 " You are not for such gear, sir," said a voice at his 
 ear, and he saw the scathed face of Tibbie Steelman 
 beside him. 
 
 " Never greatly so, Tibbie," answered Ambrose. 
 "And my heart is too heavy for it now." 
 
 " Ay, ay, sir. So I thought when I saw you in St. 
 Faith's. I have known what it was to lose a good 
 father in my time." 
 
 Ambrose held out his hand. It was the first really 
 sympathetic word he had heard since he had left Nurse 
 Joan. 
 
 " 'Tis the week's mind of his burial," he said, half 
 choked with tears. " Where shall I find a quiet church 
 where I may say his Be profundis in peace ? " 
 
 " Mayhap," returned Tibbie, " the chapel in the 
 Pardon churchyard would serve your turn. 'Tis not 
 greatly resorted to when mass time is over, when 
 there's no funeral in hand, and I oft go there to read
 
 108 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 my book in quiet on a Sunday afternoon. And then, 
 if 'tis your will, I will take you to what to my mind is 
 the best healing for a sore heart." 
 
 " Nurse Joan was wont to say the best for that was 
 a sight of the true Cross, as she once beheld it at Holy 
 Rood church at Southampton," said Ambrose. 
 
 " And so it is, lad, so it is," said Tibbie, with a strange 
 light on his distorted features. 
 
 So they went forth together, while Giles again hugged 
 himself in his doleful conceit, marvelling how a youth 
 of birth and nurture could walk the streets on a Sunday 
 with a scarecrow such as that ! 
 
 The hour was still early, there was a whole summer 
 afternoon before them ; and Tibbie, seeing how much 
 his young companion was struck with the grand vista 
 of church towers and spires, gave him their names as 
 they stood, though coupling them with short dry com- 
 ments on the way in which their priests too often 
 perverted them. 
 
 The Cheap was then still in great part an open 
 space, where boys were playing, and a tumbler was 
 attracting many spectators ; while the ballad-singer of 
 yesterday had again a large audience, who laughed
 
 VI.] A SUNDAY IN THE CITY. 100 
 
 loudly at every coarse jest broken upon mass-priests 
 and friars. 
 
 Ambrose was horrified at the stave that met his ears, 
 and asked how such profanity could be allowed. Tibbie 
 shrugged his shoulders, and cited the old saying, " Tlie 
 nearer the church " — adding, " Truth hath a voice, and 
 will out." 
 
 " But surely this is not the truth ? " 
 
 " 'Tis mighty like it, sir, though it might be spoken 
 in a more seemly fashion." 
 
 " What's this ? " demanded Ambrose. " 'Tis a noble 
 house." 
 
 " That's the Bishop's palace, sir — a man that hath 
 much to answer for." 
 
 " Liveth he so ill a life then ? " 
 
 " Not so. He is no scandalous liver, but he would 
 fain stifle all the voices that call for better things 
 Ay, you look back at yon ballad-monger ! Great folk 
 despise the like of him, never guessing' at the power 
 there may be in such ribald stuff ; while they would 
 fain silence that which might turn men from their evil 
 ways while yet there is time." 
 
 Tibbie muttered this to himself, unheeded by
 
 110 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 Ambrose, and then presently crossing the church- 
 yard, where a grave was being filled up, with nume- 
 rous idle children around it, he conducted the youth 
 into a curious little chapel, empty now, but with the 
 Host enthroned above the altar, and the trestles on 
 which the bier had rested still standing in the narrow 
 nave. 
 
 It was intensely still and cool, a fit place indeed for 
 Ambrose's filial devotions, while Tibbie settled himself 
 on the step, took out a little black book, and became 
 absorbed. Ambrose's Latin scholarship enabled him to 
 comprehend the language of the round of devotions he 
 was rehearsing for the benefit of his father's soul ; but 
 there was much repetition in them, and he had been so 
 trained as to believe their correct recital was much 
 more important than attention to their spirit, and thus, 
 while his hands held his rosary, his eyes were fixed 
 upon the walls where was depicted the Dance of Death. 
 In terrible repetition, the artist had aimed at depicting 
 every rank or class in life as alike the prey of the 
 grisly phantom. Triple-crowned pope, scarlet-hatted 
 cardinal, mitred prelate, priests, monks, and friars 
 of every degree ; emperors, kings, princes, nobles,
 
 VI.] A SUNDAY IN THE CITY. Ill 
 
 knights, squires, yeomen, every sort of trade, soldiers 
 of all kinds, beggars, even thieves and murderers, 
 and, in like manner, ladies of every degree, from the 
 queen and the abbess, down to the starving beggar, 
 Avere each represented as grappled with, and carried off 
 by the crowned skeleton. There was no truckling to 
 greatness. The bishop and abbot writhed and struggled 
 in the grasp of Death, while the miser clutched at his 
 gold, and if there were some nuns, and some poor 
 ploughmen who willingly clasped his bony fingers and 
 obeyed his summons joyfully, there were countesses 
 and prioresses who tried to beat him off, or implored 
 him to wait. The infant smiled in his arms, but the 
 middle-aged fought against his scythe. 
 
 The contemplation had a most depressing effect on 
 the boy, whose heart was still sore for his father. After 
 the sudden shock of such a loss, the monotonous repe- 
 tition of the snatching away of all alike, in the midst 
 of their characteristic worldly employments, and the 
 anguish and hopeless resistance of most of them, struck 
 him to the heart. He moved between each bead to a 
 fresh group ; staring at it with fixed gaze, while his 
 lips moved in the unconscious hope of something
 
 112 THE AEMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 consoling ; till at last, hearing some uncontrollable sobs, 
 Tibbie Steelman rose and found him crouchinof rather 
 than kneeling before the figure of an emaciated hermit, 
 who was greeting the summons of the King of Terrors, 
 with crucifix pressed to his breast, rapt countenance 
 and outstretched arms, seeing only the Angel who 
 hovered above. After some minutes of bitter weeping, 
 Avhich choked his utterance, Ambrose, feeling a friendly 
 hand on his shoulder, exclaimed in a voice broken by 
 sobs, " Oh, tell me, where may I go to become an 
 anchorite ! There's no other safety ! I'll give all my 
 portion, and spend all my time in prayer for my father 
 and the other poor souls in purgatory." 
 
 Two centuries earlier, nay, even one, Ambrose would 
 have been encouraged to follow out his purpose. As it 
 was, Tibbie gave a little dry cough and said, " Come 
 along with me, sir, and I'll show you another sort 
 of way." 
 
 " I want no entertainment ! " said Ambrose, " T 
 should feel only as if he," pointing to the phantom, 
 "were at hand, clutching me with his deadly claw," 
 and he looked over his shoulder with a shudder. 
 
 There was a box bv tlie door to receive alms for
 
 VI.] A SUNDAY IN THE CITY. 113 
 
 masses on behalf of the souls in purgatory, and here 
 he halted and felt for the pouch at his girdle, to pour 
 in all the contents ; but Steelman said, " Hold, sir, 
 are you free to dispose of your brother's share, you who 
 are purse-bearer for both ? " 
 
 " I would fain hold my brother to the only path of 
 safety. " 
 
 Again Tibbie gave his dry cough, but added, " He 
 is not in the path of safety who bestows that which is 
 not his own but is held in trust. I were foully to 
 blame if I let this grim portrayal so work on you as to 
 lead you to beggar not only yourself, but your brother, 
 with no consent of his." 
 
 For Tibbie was no impulsive Italian, but a sober- 
 minded Englishman of sturdy good sense, and Ambrose 
 was reasonable enough to listen and only drop in a few 
 Croats which he knew to be his own. 
 
 At the same moment, a church bell was heard, the 
 tone of which Steelman evidently distinguished from 
 all the others, and he led the way out of the Pardon 
 churchyard, over the space in front of St. Paul's. 
 Many persons were taking the same route ; citizens in 
 gowns and gold or silver chains, their wives in tall 
 VOL I. I
 
 114 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 pointed hats ; craftsmen, black-gowned scholarly men 
 with fur caps, but there was a much more scanty pro- 
 portion of i^riests, monks or friars, than was usual in 
 any popular assemblage. Many of the better class of 
 women carried foldincj stools, or had them carried bv 
 their servants, as if they expected to sit and wait. 
 
 " Is there a procession toward ? or a relic to be 
 displayed ? " asked Ambrose, trying to recollect whose 
 feast-day it might be. 
 
 Tibbie screwed up his mouth in an extraordinary 
 smile as he said. " Relic quotha ? yea, the soothest relic 
 there be of the Lord and Master of us all." 
 
 " Methought the true Cross was always displayed on 
 the High Altar," said Ambrose, as all turned to a side 
 aisle of the noble nave. 
 
 " Rather say hidden," muttered Tibbie. " Thou shalt 
 have it displayed, young sir, but neither in wood nor 
 gilded shrine. See, here he comes who setteth it 
 forth." 
 
 From the choir came, attended by half a dozen 
 clergy, a small, pale man, in the ordinary dress of a 
 priest, with a square cap on his head. He looked 
 spare, sickly, and wrinkled, but the furrows traced lines
 
 VI.] A SUNDAY IN THE CITY. 115 
 
 of sweetness, his mouth was wonderfully gentle, and 
 there was a keen brightness about his clear grey eye. 
 Every one rose and made obeisance as he passed along 
 to the stone stair leading to a pulpit projecting from 
 one of the columns. 
 
 Ambrose saw what was coming, though he had 
 only twice before heard preaching. The children of 
 the ante-reformation were not called upon to hear 
 sermons ; and the few exhortations given in Lent to 
 the monks of Beaulieu were so exclusively for the 
 reliirious that seculars were not invited to them. So 
 that Ambrose had only once heard a weary and heavy 
 discourse there plentifully garnished with Latin ; and 
 once he had stood among the throng at a wake at 
 Millbrook, and heard a begging friar recommend the 
 purchase of briefs of indulgence and the daily repeti- 
 tion of the Ave Maria by a series of extraordinary 
 miracles for the rescue of desperate sinners, related so 
 jocosely as to keep the crowd in a roar of laughter. 
 He had laughed with the rest, but he could not 
 imagine his guide, with the stern, grave eyebrows, 
 writhen features and earnest, ironical tone, covering — 
 as even he could detect — the deepest feeling, enjoying 
 
 I 2
 
 116 THE AEMOUREE'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 such broad sallies as tickled the slow merriment of 
 village clowns and forest deer-stealers. 
 
 All stood for a moment while the Paternoster was 
 repeated. Then the owners of stools sat down on them, 
 some leant on adjacent pillars, others curled themselves 
 on the floor, but most remained on their feet as 
 unwilling to miss a word, and of these were Tibbie 
 Steelman and his companion. 
 
 Omnis qui facit peccatum, scrims est peccati, followed 
 by the rendering in English, " Whosoever doeth sin is 
 sin's bond thrall." The words answered well to the 
 ghastly delineations that seemed stamped on Ambrose's 
 brain and which followed him about into the nave, so 
 that he felt himself in the grasp of the cruel fiend, and 
 almost expected to feel the skeleton claw of Death 
 about to hand him over to torment. He expected the 
 consolation of hearing that a daily " Hail Mary," per- 
 severed in through the foulest life, would obtain that 
 beams should be arrested in their fall, ships fail to 
 sink, cords to hang, till such confession had been 
 made as should insure ultimate salvation, after such a 
 proportion of the flames of purgatory as masses and 
 prayers might not mitigate.
 
 VI. J A SUNDAY IN THE CITY. 117 
 
 But his attention was soon caught. Sinfulness stood 
 before him not as the liabihty to penalty for trans- 
 gressing an arbitrary rule, but as a taint to the entire 
 being, mastering the will, perverting the senses, forging 
 fetters out of habit, so as to be a loathsome horror 
 paralysing and enchaining the whole being and making 
 it into the likeness of him who brought sin and death 
 into the world. The horror seemed to grow on 
 Ambrose, as his boyish faults and errors rushed on his 
 mind, and he felt pervaded by the contagion of the 
 pestilence, abhorrent even to himself. But behold, 
 what was he hearing now ? " The bond thrall abideth 
 not in the house for ever, but the Son abideth ever. 
 Si ergo Films lihcravit, veH liheri eritis." " If the Son 
 should make you free, then are ye free indeed." And 
 for the first time was the true liberty of the redeemed 
 soul comprehensibly proclaimed to the young spirit 
 that had begun to yearn for something beyond the 
 outside. Light began to shine through the outAvard 
 ordinances; the Church; the world, life, and death, were 
 revealed as something absolutely new ; a redeeming, 
 cleansing, sanctifying power was made known, and 
 seemed to inspire him with a new life, joy, and hope.
 
 lis THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 He was no longer feeling himself necessarily crushed 
 by the fetters of death, or only delivered from 
 absolute peril by a mechanism that had lost its 
 heart, but he could enter into the glorious liberty of 
 the sons of God, in process of being saved, not in sin 
 but from sin. 
 
 It was an era in his life, and Tibbie heard him 
 sobbing^, but with verv different sobs from those in 
 the Pardon chapel. When it was over, and the bless- 
 ing given, Ambrose looked up from the hands which 
 had covered his face with a new radiance in his 
 eyes, and drew a long breath. Tibbie saw that he 
 was like one in another world, and gently led him 
 away. 
 
 " Who is he ? What is he ? Is he an angel from 
 Heaven ? " demanded the boy, a little wildly, as they 
 neared the southern door. 
 
 " If an anfrel be a messenger of God, I trow he is 
 one," said Tibbie. " But men call him Dr. Colet. He 
 is Dean of St. Paul's Minster, and dwelleth in the 
 house you see below there." 
 
 " And are such words as these to be heard every 
 Sundav ? "
 
 VI.] A SUNDAY IN THE CIT7. Ill) 
 
 " On most Sundays doth lie preach here in the nave 
 to all sorts of folk." 
 
 " I must — I must hear it again !" exclaimed Ambrose. 
 
 " Ay, ay," said Tibbie, regarding him with a well- 
 pleased face. "You are one with whom it works." 
 
 " Every Sunday ! " repeated Ambrose. " Why do 
 not all — your master and all these," pointing to the 
 holiday crowds going to and fro — " why do they not all 
 come to listen ? " 
 
 "Master doth come by times," said Tibbie, in the 
 tone of irony that was hard to understand. " He 
 owneth the dean as a rare preacher." 
 
 Ambrose did not try to understand. He exclaimed 
 again, panting as if his thoughts were too strong for 
 his words — " Lo you, that preacher — dean call ye him ? 
 — putteth a soul into what hath hitherto been to me 
 but a dead and empty framework." 
 
 Tibbie held out his hand almost unconsciously, and 
 Ambrose pressed it. Man and boy, alike they had felt 
 the electric current of that truth, which, suppressed 
 and ignored among man's inventions, was coming as a 
 new revelation to many, and was already beginning to 
 convulse the Church and the world.
 
 120 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 Ambrose's mind was made up on one point. What- 
 ever he did, and wherever he went, he felt the doctrine 
 he had just heard as needful to him as vital air, and he 
 must be within reach of it. This, and not the hermit's 
 cell, was what his instinct craved. He had always 
 been a studious, scholarly boy, supposed to be marked 
 out for a clerical life, because a book was more to him 
 than a bow, and he had been easily trained in good 
 habits and practices of devotion ; but all in a childish 
 manner, without going beyond simple receptiveness, 
 until the experiences of the last week had made a man 
 of him, or more truly, the Pardon chapel and Dean 
 Colet's sermon had made him a new being, with the 
 realities of the inner life opened before him. 
 
 His present feeling was relief from the hideous load 
 he had felt while dwelling on the Dance of Death, and 
 therewith general goodwill to all men, Avhich found its 
 first issue in compassion for Giles Headley, whom he 
 found on his return seated on the steps — moody and 
 miserable. 
 
 "Would that you had been with us," said Ambrose, 
 sitting down beside him on the step. "Never have I 
 heard such words as to-day."
 
 vr.] A SUNDAY IN THE CITY. 121 
 
 " I would not be seen in tlie street with that scare- 
 crow," murmured Giles. " If my mother could have 
 guessed that he was to be set over me, I had never 
 come here." 
 
 " Surely you knew that he was foreman." 
 
 " Yea, but not that I should be under him — I whom 
 old Giles vowed should be as his own son — I that am to 
 wed yon little brown moppet, and be master here ! 
 So, forsooth," he said, "now he treats me like any 
 common low-bred prentice." 
 
 "Nay," said Ambrose, "an if you were his son, he 
 would still make you serve. It's the way with all 
 craftsmen — yea and with gentlemen's sons also. They 
 must be pages and squires ere they can be knights." 
 
 " It never was the way at home. I was only bound 
 prentice to my father for the name of the thing, that 
 I might have the freedom of the city, and become head 
 of our house." 
 
 "But how could you be a wise master without 
 learnino- the craft ? " 
 
 "What are journeymen for?" demanded the lad. 
 " Had I known how Giles Headley meant to serve me, 
 he might have gone whistle for a husband for his
 
 122 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 wench. I would have ridden in my Lady of Salis- 
 bury's train." 
 
 "You micfht have had rouu;her usaoe there than 
 here," said Ambrose. "Master Headley lays nothing 
 on you but what he has himself proved. I would I 
 could see you make the best of so happy a home." 
 
 " Ay, that's all very well for you, who are certain of 
 a great man's house." 
 
 " Woidd that I were certified that my brother would 
 be as well off as you, if you did but know it," said 
 Ambrose. " Ha ! here come the dishes ! 'Tis supper 
 time come on us unawares, and Stephen not returned 
 from Mile End ! " 
 
 Punctuality was not, however, exacted on these 
 summer Sunday evenings, when practice with the bow 
 and other athletic sports were enjoined by Government, 
 and, moreover, the youths were with so trustworthy 
 a member of the household as Kit Smallbones. 
 
 Sundry City magnates had come to supper with 
 Master Headley, and whether it were the effect of 
 Ambrose's counsel, or of the example of a handsome 
 lad who had come with his father, one of the worship- 
 ful guild of Merchant Taylors, Giles did vouchsafe to
 
 VI.] A SUNDAY IN THE CITY. 123 
 
 bestir himself in waiting, and in consideration of the 
 effort it must have cost him, old Mrs. Headley and her 
 son did not take notice of his blunders, but only Dennet 
 fell into a violent fit of laughter, when he presented 
 the stately alderman with a nutmeg under the im- 
 pression that it was an overgrown peppercorn. She 
 suppressed her mirth as well as she could, poor little 
 thing, for it was a great offence in good manners, but 
 she was detected, and, only child as she was, the con- 
 sequence was the being banished from the table and 
 sent to bed. 
 
 But when, after supper was over, Ambrose went out 
 to see if there were any signs of the return of Stephen 
 and the rest, he found the little maiden curled up in 
 the gallery with her kitten in her arms. 
 
 " Nay ! " she said, in a spoilt-child tone, " I'm not 
 going to bed before my tiaie for laughing at that great 
 oaf! Nurse Alice says he is to wed me, but I won't 
 have him ! I like the pretty boy who had the good 
 dog and saved father, and I like you. Master Ambrose. 
 Sit doAvn by me and tell me the story over again, and 
 we shall see Kit Smallbones come home. I know he'll 
 have beaten the brewer's fellow."
 
 124 THE ARMOUEEE'S PEENTICES. [cHAr. 
 
 Before Ambrose had decided whether thus far to 
 abet rebellion, she jumped up and cried: "Oh, I see 
 Kit ! He's got ray ribbon ! He has won the match ! " 
 
 And down she rushed, quite oblivious of her disgrace, 
 and Ambrose presently saw her uj^lifted in Kit Small- 
 bones' brawny arms to utter her congratulations. 
 
 Stephen was equally excited. His head was full of 
 Kit Smallbones' exploits, and of the marvels of the 
 sports he had witnessed and joined in with fair success. 
 He had thought Londoners poor effeminate creatures, 
 but he found that these youths preparing for the 
 trained bands understood all sorts of martial exercises 
 far better than any of his forest acquaintance, save 
 perhaps the hitting of a mark. He was half wild with 
 a boy's enthusiasm for Kit Smallbones and Edmund 
 Burgess, and when, after eating the supper that had 
 been reserved for the late comers, he and his brother 
 repaired to their own chamber, his tongue ran on in 
 description of the feats he had witnessed and his hopes 
 of emulating them, since he understood that Arch- 
 bishop as was my Lord of York, there was a tilt-yard 
 at York House. Ambrose, equally full of his new feel- 
 ings, essayed to make his brother a sharer in them, but
 
 vr.] A SUNDAY IN THE CITY. 125 
 
 Stephen entirely failed to understand more than that 
 his book- worm brother had heard something that de- 
 lighted him in his own line of scholarship, from which 
 Stephen had hapj^ily escaped a year ago !
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 YORK HOUSE. 
 
 " Then hath he servants five or six score, 
 Some behind and some before ; 
 A marvellous gi'eat company 
 Of which are lords and gentlemen, 
 With many grooms and yeomen 
 And also knaves among them." 
 
 Contemporary Poem oii IVolscy. 
 
 Early were hammers ringing on anvils in the 
 Dragon Court, and all was activity. Master Headley 
 was givinjf his orders to Kit Smallbones before settino- 
 forth to take the Duke of Buckingham's commands ; 
 Giles Headley, very much disgusted, was being in- 
 vested with a leathern apron, and entrusted to Edmund 
 Burgess to learn tliose primary arts of furbishing which, 
 but for his mother s vanity and his father's weakness, 
 he would have practised four years sooner, Tibbie
 
 CHAP, vii.] YOEK HOUSE. 127 
 
 Steelman was superintending the arrangement of lialf 
 a dozen corslets, which were to be carried by three 
 stout porters, under his guidance, to what is now White- 
 hall, then the residence of the Archbishop of York, 
 the king's prime adviser, Thomas Wolsey, 
 
 "Look you, Tib," said the kind-hearted armourer, 
 " if those lads find not their kinsman, or find him not 
 what they look for, bring them back hither, I cannot 
 have them cast adrift. They are good and brave 
 youths, and I owe a life to them." 
 
 Tibbie nodded entire assent, but when the boys 
 appeared in their mourning suits, with their bundles 
 on their backs, they were sent back again to put on 
 their forest green, Master Headley explaining that it 
 was reckoned ill-omened, if not insulting, to appear 
 before any great personage in black, unless to enhance 
 some petition directly addressed to himself He also 
 bade them leave their fardels behind, as, if they tarried 
 at York House, these could be easily sent after them. 
 
 They obeyed — even Stephen doing so with more 
 alacrity than he had hitherto shown to Master Headley's 
 behests ; for now that the time for departure had come, 
 he was really sorry to leave the armourer's household.
 
 128 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 Edmund Burgess had been very good-natured to the 
 raw country lad, and Kit Smallbones was, in his eyes, 
 an Ascapart in strength, and a Bevis in prowess and 
 kindliness. Mistress Headley too had been kind to the 
 orphan lads, and these two days had given a feeling 
 of being at home at the Dragon. When Giles wished 
 them a moody farewell, and wished he were going with 
 them, Stephen returned, " Ah ! you don't know when 
 you are well off." 
 
 Little Dennet came running down after them with 
 two pinks in her hands. " Here's a sop-in- wine for a 
 token for each of you young gentlemen," she cried, 
 " for you came to help father, and I would you were 
 going to stay and wed me instead of Giles." 
 
 " What, both of us, little maid ? " said Ambrose, 
 laughing, as he stooped to receive the kiss her rosy lips 
 tendered to him. 
 
 " Not but what she would have royal example," 
 muttered Tibbie aside. 
 
 Dennet put her head on one side, as considering. 
 " Nay, not both ; but you are gentle and courteous, and 
 he is brave and gallant — and Giles there is moody and 
 glum, and can do nought."
 
 VH.] YORK HOUSE. 129 
 
 " Ah ! you will see what a gallant fellow Giles can be 
 Avhen thou hast cured him of his home-sickness by 
 being good to him," said Ambrose, sorry for the youth 
 in the universal laughter at the child's plain speaking. 
 
 And thus the lads left the Dragon, amid friendly 
 farewells. Ambrose looked up at the tall spire of St, 
 Paul's with a strong determination that he would never 
 put himself out of reach of such words as he had 
 there drunk in, and which were indeed spirit and life 
 to him. 
 
 Tibbie took them down to the St. Paul's stairs on the 
 river, where at his whistle a wherry was instantly 
 brought to transport them to York stairs, only one of 
 the smiths going any further in charge of the corslets. 
 Very lovely was their voyage in the brilliant summer 
 morning, as the glittering water reflected in broken 
 ripples church spire, convent garden, and stately house. 
 Here rows of elm-trees made a cool walk by the river 
 side, there strawberry beds sloped down the Strand, and 
 now and then the hooded figures of nuns might be seen 
 gathering the fruit. There, rose the round church of 
 the Temple, and the beautiful gardens surrounding the 
 buildings, half monastic, half military, and already 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 inhabited by lawyers. From a barge at the Temple 
 stairs a legal personage descended, with a square beard 
 and open, benevolent, shrewd face, before whom Tibbie 
 removed his cap with eagerness, saying to Ambrose, 
 " Yonder is Master More, a close friend of the dean's, 
 a good and wise man, and forward in every good work." 
 
 Thus did they arrive at York House. Workmen 
 were busy on some portions of it, but it was inhabited 
 by the great Archbishop, the king's chief adviser. 
 The approach of the boat seemed to be instantly noti- 
 fied, as it drew near the stone steps giving entrance to 
 the gardens, with an avenue of trees leading up to the 
 principal entrance. 
 
 Four or five yeomen ran down the steps, calling out 
 to Tibbie that their corslets had tarried a long time, 
 and that Sir Thomas Drury had been storming for him 
 to get his tilting armour into order. 
 
 Tibbie followed the man who had undertaken to 
 conduct him through a path that led to the offices of 
 the great house, bidding the boys keep with him, and 
 asking for their uncle IMaster Harry Randall. 
 
 The yeoman shook his head. He knew no such 
 person in the household, and did not think there ever
 
 VII.] YOEK HOUSE. 131 
 
 had been such. Sir Thomas Drury was found in the 
 stable court, trying the paces of the horse he intended 
 to use in the approaching joust. " Ha ! old Wry- 
 mouth," he cried, "welcome at last ! I must have my 
 new device damasked on my shield. Come hither, and 
 I'll show it thee." 
 
 Private rooms were seldom enjoyed, even by knights 
 and gentlemen, in such a household, and Sir Thomas 
 could only conduct Tibbie to the armoury, where 
 numerous suits of armour hung on blocks, presenting 
 the semblance of armed men. The knight, a good- 
 looking personage, expatiated much on the device he 
 wished to dedicate to his lady-love, a pierced heart with 
 a forget-me-not in the midst, and it was not until the 
 directions were finished that Tibbie ventured to mention 
 
 the inquiry for Randall. 
 
 " I wot of no such fellow," returned Sir Thomas, " you 
 had best go to the comptroller, who keeps all the names." 
 
 Tibbie had to go to this functionary at any rate, to 
 obtain an order for payment for the corslets he had 
 brought home. Ambrose and Stephen followed him 
 across an enormous hall, where three longf tables were 
 
 being laid for dinner. 
 
 K 2
 
 132 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 The comptroller of tlie household, an esquire of good 
 birth, with a stiff little ruff round his neck, sat in a 
 sort of office inclosed by panels at the end of the hall. 
 He made an entry of Tibbie's account in a big book, 
 and sent a message to the cofferer to bring the amount. 
 Then Tibbie again put his -question on behalf of the 
 two young foresters, and the comptroller shook his head. 
 He did not know the name. " Was the gentleman " 
 (he chose that word as he looked at the boys) " layman 
 or clerk ? " " Layman, certainly," said Ambrose, some- 
 what dismayed to find how little, on interrogation, he 
 really knew. 
 
 " Was he a yeoman of the guard, or in attendance on 
 one of my lord's nobles in waiting ? " 
 
 " We thought he had been a yeoman," said Ambrose. 
 
 " See," said the comptroller, stimulated by a fee 
 administered by Tibbie, " 'tis just dinner time, and I 
 must go to attend on my Lord Archbishop ; but do you, 
 Tibbie, sit down with these striplings to dinner, and 
 then I will cast my eye over the books, and see if I can 
 find any such name. What, hast not time ? None ever 
 quits my lord's without breaking his fast." 
 
 Tibbie had no doubt that his master would be willing
 
 vii] YORK HOUSE. 133 
 
 tliat he should give up his time for this purpose, so he 
 accepted the invitation. The tables were by this time 
 nearly covered, but all stood waiting, for there flowed 
 in from the great doorway of the hall a gorgeous train 
 — first, a man bearing the double archiepiscopal cross of 
 York, fashioned in silver, and thick wdth gems — then, 
 with lofty mitre enriched with pearls and jewels, and 
 with flowino; violet lace-covered robes came the sturdv 
 square-faced ruddy prelate, who was then the chief 
 influence in England, and after him two glittering ranks 
 of priests in square caps and richly embroidered copes, 
 all in accordant colours. They were returning, as a 
 yeoman told Tibbie, from some great ecclesiastical 
 ceremony, and dinner would be served instantly. 
 
 " That for which Ralf Bowyer lives ! " said a voice 
 close by. "He Avould fain that the dial's hands were 
 Marie bones, the face blancmange, wherein the figures 
 should be grapes of Corinth ! " 
 
 Stephen looked round and saw a man close beside 
 him in what he knew at once to be the garb of a 
 jester. A tall scarlet velvet cap, with three peaks, 
 bound with gold braid, and each surmounted with a 
 little gilded bell, crowned his head, a small crimson
 
 134 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES [chap. 
 
 ridge to indicate the cock's comb running along the 
 front. His jerkin and hose were of motley, the left 
 arm and right leg being blue, their opposites, orange 
 tawny, while the nether stocks and shoes were in like 
 manner black and scarlet counterchanged. And yet, 
 somehow, whether from the way of wearing it, or from 
 the effect of the gold embroidery meandering over all, 
 the effect was not distressing, but more like that of a 
 gorgeous bird. The figure was tall, lithe, and active, 
 the brown ruddy face had none of the blank stare of 
 vacant idiocy, but was full of twinkling merriment, the 
 black eyes laughed gaily, and perhaps only so clear- 
 sighted and shrewd an observer as Tibbie would have 
 detected a weakness of purpose about the mouth. 
 
 There was a roar of laughter at the gibe, as indeed 
 there was at whatever was uttered by the man whose 
 profession was to make mirth. 
 
 " Thou likest thy food well enough thyself, quipsome 
 one," muttered Ralf. 
 
 " Hast found one who doth not, Ealf ? Then should 
 he have a free gift of my bauble," responded the jester, 
 shaking on high that badge, surmounted with the 
 golden head of an ass, and jingling with bells. " How
 
 VII.] YOEK HOUSE. 135 
 
 now, friend Wrymoutli ? 'Tis long since thou wert 
 here ! This house hath well-nigh been forced to its 
 ghostly weapons for lack of thy substantial ones. 
 Where hast thou been ? " 
 
 " At Salisbury, good Merry man." 
 
 " Have the Wilts men raked the moon yet out of the 
 pond ? Did they lend thee their rake, Tib, that thou 
 hast raked up a couple of green Forest palmerworms, 
 or be they the sons of the man in the moon, raked out 
 and all astray ? " 
 
 " Mayhap, for we met them with dog and bush," said 
 Tibbie, "and they dropped as from the moon to save 
 my poor master from the robbers on Bagshot heath ! 
 Come now, mine honest fellow, aid me to rake, as thou 
 sayest, this same household. They are come up from 
 the Forest, to seek out their uncle, one Randall, who 
 they have heard to be in this meine. Knowest thou 
 such a fellow ? " 
 
 "To seek a spider in a stubble-field ! Truly he 
 needs my bauble who sent them on such an errand," 
 said the jester, rather slowly, as if to take time 
 for consideration. "What's your name, my Forest 
 flies ? "
 
 136 THE AEMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 " Birkenholt, sir," answered Ambrose, " but our uncle 
 is Harry Randall." 
 
 " Here's fools enow to take away mine office," was 
 the reply. "Here's a couple of lads would leave the 
 greenwood and the free oaks and beeches, for this 
 stinking, plague-smitten London." 
 
 " We'd not have quitted it could we have tarried at 
 home," began Ambrose ; but at that moment there was 
 a sudden commotion, a trampling of horses was heard 
 outside, a loud imperious voice demanded, " Is my Lord 
 Archbishop within ? " a whisper ran round, " the King," 
 and there entered the hall with hasty steps, a figure 
 never to be forgotten, clad in a hunting dress of green 
 velvet embroidered with gold, with a golden hunting 
 horn slung round his neck. 
 
 Henry VIII. was then in the splendid prime of his 
 youth, in his twenty-seventh year, and in the eyes, not 
 only of his own subjects, but of all others, the very 
 type of a true king of men. Tall, and as yet of perfect 
 form for strength, agility, and grace ; his features were 
 of the beautiful straight Plantagenet type, and his 
 complexion of purely fair rosiness. Ids large well-opened 
 blue eyes full at once of frankness and keenness, and
 
 VII.] YORK HOUSE. 137 
 
 the short golden beard that fringed his square chin 
 giving the manly air that otherwise might have seemed 
 wanting: to the feminine tinting of his retrular linea- 
 ments. All caps were instantly doffed save the little 
 bonnet with one drooping feather that covered his short, 
 curled, yellow hair ; and the Earl of Derby, who was at 
 the head of Wolsey's retainers, made haste, 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 ? Where- 
 fore this coil ? Hath cloth of gold wearied yet of cloth 
 of frieze ? Is she willino- to ow^n her riixht 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 sisfht 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,"
 
 133 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 Again tlie 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, ap- 
 peared 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 
 kni'dits that of the steward of the household, who was
 
 VII.] YOEK HOUSE. 139 
 
 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 Tibbie and his two young com- 
 panions 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 Tibbie 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 con- 
 cerned 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 West 
 minster. 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 crv out."
 
 140 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 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 Eandolf 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
 
 VII.] YOEK HOUSE. 141 
 
 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 panto- 
 mime 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.
 
 142 THE AEMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chai\ 
 
 " 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 Tibbie, "and see what my master can do for 
 you. 
 
 " Stay a bit," said the fool. " Harry of Shirley ! 
 HaiTy 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 nunks 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
 
 VII.] YORK HOUSE. 143 
 
 black, and his eyes as black as sloes — or as thine own, 
 Master Jester." 
 
 The jester tumbled over into a more extraordinary 
 attitude tlian before, while Stephen said — 
 
 " John was w^ont 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 i 
 
 " 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."
 
 144 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 " 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 runairate ? " 
 
 " 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 Tibbie. " 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
 
 VII.] YORK HOUSE. 145 
 
 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 Tibbie 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." 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 QUIPSOME HAL. 
 
 " The sweet and bitter fool 
 AYill 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
 
 CHAP, vni.] QUIPSOME HAL. 14' 
 
 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 doino- 
 here." 
 
 L 2
 
 148 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 For a tall, well-made, well-dressed personage in the 
 black or sad colour of a le^al official, lookincr like a 
 prosperous householder, or superior artisan, was aj}- 
 proaching them, some attendant, as the boys concluded 
 belonging to the Temple. They expected to be turned 
 out, and Ambrose in an apologetic tone, began, " Sir, 
 we were bidden to meet a — a kinsman here." 
 
 " And even so am I," was the answer, in a grave, quiet 
 tone, " or rather to meet twain." 
 
 Ambrose looked up into a pair of dark eyes, and 
 exclaimed " Stevie, Stevie, 'tis he. 'Tis uncle Hal," 
 
 " Ay, 'tis all you're like to have for him," answered 
 Harry Randall, enfolding each in his embrace. " Lad, 
 how like thou art to my poor sister ! And is she indeed 
 gone — and your honest father too — and none left at 
 home but that hunks, little John ? How and when 
 died she ? " 
 
 " Two years agone come Lammastide," answered 
 Stephen. " There was a deadly creeping fever and 
 ague through the Forest. We two sickened, and Am- 
 brose was so like to die that Diggory went to the abbey 
 for the priest to housel and anneal him, but by the time 
 Father Simon came he was sound asleep, and soon was
 
 VIII.] QUIPSOME HAL. 149 
 
 "whole again. But before we were on our legs, our 
 blessed mother took the disease, and she passed away 
 ere many days were over. Then, though poor father 
 took not that sickness, he never was the same man 
 again, and only twelve days after last Pasch-tide he was 
 taken with a fit and never spake again." 
 
 Stephen was weeping by this time, and his uncle 
 had a hand on his shoulder, and with tears in his eyes, 
 threw in ejaculations of pity and affection. Ambrose 
 finished the narrative with a broken voice indeed, but 
 as one who had more self-command than his brother, 
 perhaps than his uncle, whose exclamations became 
 bitter and angry as he heard of the treatment the boys 
 had experienced from their half-brother, who, as he 
 said, he had always known as a currish mean-spirited 
 churl, but scarce such as this. 
 
 " Nor do I think he would have been, save for his 
 wife, Maud Pratt of Hamj)ton," said Ambrose. " Nay, 
 truly also, he deemed that we were only within a day's 
 journey of council from our vincle Richard at Hyde." 
 
 " Richard Birkenholt was a sturdy old comrade ! 
 Methinks he would give Master Jack a piece of his 
 mind."
 
 150 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 " Alack, good uncle, we found him in his dotage, and 
 the bursar of Hyde made quick work with us, for fear, 
 good Father Shoveller said, that we were come to look 
 after his corrody." 
 
 " Shoveller — what, a Shoveller of Cranbury ? How 
 fell ye in with him ? " 
 
 Ambrose told the adventures of their journey, and 
 Randall exclaimed " By my bau — I mean by my faith 
 — if ye have ill-luck in uncles, ye have had good luck 
 in friends." 
 
 " No ill-luck in thee, good, kind uncle," said Stephen, 
 catchinsj at his hand with the sense of comfort that 
 kindred blood gives. 
 
 " How wottest thou that, child ? Did not I — I mean 
 did not Merryman tell you, that mayhaj) ye would not 
 be willing to own your uncle ? " 
 
 " We deemed he was but jesting," said Stephen. 
 "Ah!" 
 
 For a sudden twinkle in the black eyes, an involun- 
 tary twist of the muscles of the face, were a sudden 
 revelation to him. He clutched hold of Ambrose with 
 a sudden grasp ; Ambrose too looked and recoiled for 
 a moment, while the colour spread over his foce.
 
 VIII.] QUIPSOME HAL. 151 
 
 " Yes, lads. Can you brook the thought ! — Harry 
 Randall is the poor fool ! " 
 
 Stephen, whose composure had already broken down, 
 burst into tears again, perhaps mostly at the downfall 
 of all his own expectations and glorifications of the 
 kinsman about whom he had boasted. Ambrose only 
 exclaimed " O uncle, you must have been hard pressed." 
 For indeed the grave, almost melancholy man, who 
 stood before them, regarding them wistfully, had little 
 in common with the lithe tumbler full of absurdities 
 whom they had left at York House. 
 
 " Even so, my good lad. Thou art right in that," 
 said he gravely. " Harder than I trust will ever be 
 the lot of you two, my sweet Moll's sons. She never 
 guessed that I was come to this." 
 
 " no," said Stephen. " She always thought thou 
 — thou hadst some high preferment in " 
 
 " And so I have," said Randall with something of his 
 ordinary humour. " There's no man dares to speak 
 such plain tnith to my lord — or for that matter to 
 King Harry himself, save his own Jack-a-Lee — and he, 
 being a fool of nature's own making, cannot use his 
 chances, poor rogue ! And so the poor lads came up
 
 152 THE AEMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 to London hoping to find a gallant captain who could 
 bring them to high preferment, and found nought but 
 — Tom Fool ! I could find it in my heart to weep for 
 them ! And so thou mindest clutching the mistletoe 
 on nunk Hal's shoulder. I warrant it grroweth still on 
 the crooked May bush ? And is old Bobbin alive ? " 
 
 They answered his questions, but still as if under a 
 great shock, and presently he said, as they paced up 
 and down the garden walks, "Ay, I have been sore 
 bestead, and I'll tell you how it came about, boys, and 
 mayhap ye will pardon the poor fool, who would not 
 own you sooner, lest ye should come in for mockery ye 
 have not learnt to brook." There was a sadness and 
 pleading in his tone that touched Ambrose, and he 
 drew nearer to his uncle, who laid a hand on his 
 shoulder, and presently the other on that of Stephen, 
 who shrank a little at first, but submitted. " Lads, I 
 need not tell you why I left fair Shirley and the good 
 greenwood. I was a worse fool then than ever I have 
 been since I wore the cap and bells, and if all had 
 been brought home to me, it might have brought your 
 father and mother into trouble — my sweet Moll wlio 
 had done her best for me. I deemed, as you do now,
 
 VIII.] QUIPSOME HAL. 153 
 
 that the way to fortune was open, but I found no path 
 before me, and I had tightened my belt many a time, 
 and was not much more than a bag of bones, when, by 
 chance, I fell in with a company of tumblers and glee- 
 men. I sang them the old hunting-song, and they 
 said I did it tunably, and, whereas they saw I could 
 already dance a hornpipe and turn a somersault pass- 
 ably well, the leader of the troop, old Nat Fire-eater, 
 took me on, and methinks he did not repent — nor I 
 neither — save when I sprained my foot and had time 
 to lie by and think. We had plenty to fill our bellies 
 and put on our backs; we had welcome wherever we 
 went, and the groats and pennies rained into our caps. 
 I was Clown and Jack Pudding and whatever served 
 their turn, and the very name of Quipsome Hal drew 
 crowds. Yea, 'twas a merry life ! Ay, I feel thee wince 
 and shrink, my lad ; and so should I have shuddered 
 when I was of thine age, and hoped to come to better 
 things." 
 
 "Methinks 'twere better than this present," said 
 Stephen rather gruffly. 
 
 " I had my reasons, boy," said Randall, speaking as 
 if he were pleading his cause with their father and
 
 1-54 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 mother rathei^ than with two such young lads. " There 
 was in our company an old man-at-arms who played 
 the lute and the rebeck, and sang ballads so long as 
 hand and voice served him, and with him went his 
 grandchild, a fair and honest little maiden, whom he 
 i^ept so jealously apart that 'twas long ere I knew of 
 her following the company. He had been a franklin 
 on my Lord of Warwick's lands, and had once been 
 burnt out by Queen Margaret's men, and just as things 
 looked up again with him, King Edward's folk ruined 
 all again, and slew his two sons. Wlien great folk j)lay 
 the fool, small folk pay the scot, as I din into his Grace's 
 ears whenever I may. A minion of the Duke of Clarence 
 got the steading, and poor old Martin Fulford was 
 turned out to shift as best he might. One sou he had 
 left, and with him he went to the Low Countries, where 
 they would have done well had they not been bitten 
 by faith in the fellow Perkin Warbeck. You've heard 
 of him ?" 
 
 " Yea," said Ambrose ; " the same who was taken 
 out of sanctuary at Beaulieu, and borne off to London. 
 Father said he was marvellous like in the face to all 
 the kings he had ever seen hunting in the Forest."
 
 Till.] QUIPSOME HAL. 155 
 
 " I know not ; but to the day of his death old Martiu 
 swore that he was a son of King Edward's, and they 
 came home again with the men the Duchess of Bur- 
 gundy gave Perkin — came bag and baggage, for young 
 Fulford had wedded a fair Flemish wife, poor soul ! 
 He left her with his father nigh to Taunton ere the 
 battle, and he was never heard of more, but as he was 
 one of the few men who knew how to fight, belike he 
 was slain. Thus old Martin was left with the Flemish 
 wife and her little one on his hands, for whose sake he 
 did what went against him sorely, joined himself to 
 this troop of jugglers and jDlayers, so as to live by the 
 minstrelsy he had learnt in better days, while his 
 daughter-in-law mended and made for the company 
 and kept them in smart and shining trim. By the 
 time I fell in with them his voice was well-nigh gone, 
 and his hand sorely shaking, but Fire-eating Nat, the 
 master of our troop, was not an ill-natured fellow, and 
 the glee-women's feet were well used to his rebeck. 
 Moreover, the Fire-eater had an eye to little Perronel, 
 though her mother had never let him train her — scarce 
 let him set an eye on her ; and when Mistress Fulford 
 died, poor soul, of ague, caught when we showed off
 
 156 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [cHAr. 
 
 before the merry Prior of Worcester, her last words 
 were that Perronel should never be a glee-maiden. 
 Well, to make an end of my tale, we had one day a 
 mighty show at Windsor, when the King and Court 
 were at the castle, and it was whispered to me at the 
 end that my Lord Ai'chbishop's household needed a 
 jester, and that Quipsome Hal had been thought to 
 make excellent fooling. I gave thanks at first, but said 
 I would rather be a free man, not bound to be a greater 
 fool than Dame Nature made me all the hours of the 
 day. But when I got back to the Garter, what should 
 I find but that poor old Martin had been stricken with 
 the dead palsy while he was playing his rebeck, and 
 would never twang a note more ; and there was pretty 
 Perronel weeping over him, and Nat Fire-eater pledg- 
 ing his word to give the old man bed, board, and all 
 that he could need, if so be that Perronel should be 
 trained to be one of his glee-maidens, to dance and 
 tumble and sing. And there was the poor old franklin 
 shaking his head more than the palsy made it shake 
 already, and trying to frame his lips to say, 'ra,ther 
 they both should die.' " 
 
 "Oh, uncle, I wot now what thou didst!" cried Stephen.
 
 VIII.] QUIPSOME HAL. 157 
 
 "Yea, lad, there was nought else to be done. I 
 asked Master Fulford to give me Perronel, plighting 
 my word that never should she sing or dance for any 
 one's pleasure save her own and mine, and letting him 
 know that I came of a worthy family. We were 
 wedded out of hand by the priest that had been sent 
 for to housel him, and in our true names. The Fire- 
 eater was fiery enough, and swore that, wedded or not 
 I was bound to him, that he would have both of us, and 
 would not drag about a helpless old man unless he 
 might have the wench to do his bidding. I verily 
 believe that, but for my being on the watch and 
 speaking a word to two or three stout yeomen of the 
 king's guard that chanced to be crushing a pot of sack 
 at the Garter, he would have played some villainous 
 trick on us. They gave a hint to my Lord of York's 
 steward, and he came down and declared that the 
 Archbishop required Quipsome Hal, and would — of his 
 grace — send a purse of nobles to the Fire-eater, where- 
 with he was to be off on the spot without more ado, 
 or he might find it the worse for him, and they, 
 together with mine host's good wife, took care that 
 the rogue did not carry away Perronel with him, as he
 
 158 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 was like to have done. To end my story, here am I, 
 getting showers of gold coins one day and nought but 
 kicks and gibes the next, while my good woman keeps 
 house nigh here on the banks of the Thames with 
 Gaffer Martin. Her Flemish thrift has set her to the 
 washing and clear-starching of the lawyers' ruffs, 
 whereby she makes enough to supply the defects of 
 my scanty days, or when I have to follow my lord's grace 
 out of her reach, sweet soul. There's my tale, nevoys. 
 And now, have ye a hand for Quipsome Hal ? " 
 
 " uncle ! Father would have honoured thee ! " 
 cried Stephen. 
 
 " Why didst thou not bring her down to the Forest ? " 
 said Ambrose. 
 
 " I conned over the thought," said Randall, " but 
 there was no way of living. I wist not whether the 
 Ranger might not stir up old tales, and moreover old 
 Martin is ill to move. We brought him down by boat 
 from Windsor, and he has never quitted the house 
 since, nor his bed for the last two years. You'll come 
 and see the housewife ? She hath a supper laying out 
 for you, and on the way we'll sj^eak of what ye are to 
 do, my poor lads."
 
 Tin.] QUIPSOME HAL. 159 
 
 "' I'd forgotten that," said Stephen. 
 
 " So had not I," returned his uncle ; " I fear me I 
 cannot aid you to preferment as you expected. None 
 know Quipsome Hal by any name but that of Harry 
 Merr3^man, and it were not well that ye should come in 
 there as akin to the poor fool." 
 
 "No," said Stephen, emphatically. 
 
 " Your father left you twenty crowns apiece ? " 
 
 " Ay, but John hath all save four of them." 
 
 " For that there's remedy. What saidst thou of the 
 Cheapside armourer? His fellow, the Wrymouth, 
 seemed to have a care of jou. Ye made in to the 
 rescue with poor old Spring." 
 
 " Even so," replied Ambrose, " and if Stevie would 
 brook the thought, I trow that Master Headley would 
 be quite willing to have him bound as his apprentice." 
 
 "Well said, my good lad!" cried Hal. "What 
 sayest thou, Stevie ? '* 
 
 " I had liefer be a man-at-arms." 
 
 " That thou couldst only be after being sorely knocked 
 about as horseboy and as groom. I tried that once, 
 but found it meant kicks, and oaths, and vile company 
 — such as I would not have for thy mother's son, Steve.
 
 160 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 Headley is a well-reported, God-fearing man, and will 
 do well by thee. And tliou wilt learn the use of arms 
 as well as handle them." 
 
 "1 like Master Headley and Kit Smallbones well 
 enough," said Stephen, rather gloomily, "and if a 
 gentleman must be a prentice, weapons are not so bad 
 a craft for him." 
 
 " Whittington was a gentleman," said Ambrose. 
 
 " I am sick of Whittington," muttered Stephen. 
 
 " Nor is he the only one," said Randall ; " there's 
 Middleton and Pole — ay, and many another who have 
 risen from the flat cajD to the open helm, if not to the 
 coronet. Nay, these London companies have rules 
 against taking any prentice not of gentle blood. Come 
 in to supper with my good woman, and then I'll go 
 with thee and hold converse with good Master Headley, 
 and if Master John doth not send the fee freely, why 
 then I know of them who shall make him disgoro^e it. 
 But mark," he added, as he led the way out of the 
 gardens, " not a breath of Quipsome Hal. Down here 
 they know me as a clerk of my lord's chamber, sad 
 and sober, and high in his trust, and therein they are 
 not far out."
 
 VIII.] QUIPSOME HAL. 161 
 
 In truth, though Harry Randall had been a wild and 
 frolicsome youth in his Hampshire home, the effect of 
 being a professional buffoon had actually made it a 
 relaxation of effort to him to be grave, quiet, and slow 
 in movement ; and this was perhaps a more effectual 
 disguise than the dark garments, and the false brown 
 hair, beard, and moustache, with which he concealed 
 the shorn and shaven condition required of the domestic 
 jester. Having been a player, he was well able to 
 adapt himself to his part, and yet Ambrose had con- 
 siderable doubts whether Tibbie had not suspected 
 his identity from the first, more especially as both the 
 lads had inherited the same dark eyes from their 
 mother, and Ambrose for the first time perceived a 
 considerable resemblance between him and Stephen, 
 not only in feature but in unconscious gesture. 
 
 Ambrose was considering whether he had better give 
 his uncle a hint, lest concealment should excite suspi- 
 cion ; when, niched as it were against an abutment of 
 the wall of the Temple courts, close to some steps 
 going down to the Thames, they came upon a tiny 
 house, at whose open door stood a young woman in 
 the snowiest of caps and aprons over a short black 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 THE AKMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 gown, beneath which were a trim pair of bkie hosen 
 and stout shoes ; a suspicion of yellow hair was allowed 
 to appear framing the honest, fresh, Flemish face, which 
 beamed a good-humoured welcome. 
 
 " Here they be ! here be the poor lads, Pernel mine," 
 She held out her hand, and offered a round comfort- 
 able cheek to each, saying, " Welcome to London, 
 young gentlemen." 
 
 Good Mistress Perronel did not look exactly the 
 stuff to make a glee-maiden of, nor even the beauty 
 for whom to sacrifice everything, even liberty and 
 respect. She was substantial in form, and broad in 
 face and mouth, without much nose, and with large 
 almost colourless eyes. But there was a wonderful 
 look of heartiness and friendliness about her person 
 and her house; the boys had never in their lives 
 seen anything so amazingly and spotlessly clean and 
 shining. In a corner stood an erection like a dark 
 oaken cupboard or wardrobe, but in the middle was 
 an opening about a yard square through which could 
 be seen the night-capped face of a white-headed, 
 white-bearded old man, propped against snowy pil- 
 lows. To him Randall went at once, saying, " So,
 
 VIII.] QUIPSOME HAL. 163 
 
 gaffer, how goes it ? You see I have brought com- 
 pany, my poor sister's sons — rest her soul ! " 
 
 Gaffer Maitin mumbled something to them incom- 
 prehensible, but which the jester comprehended, for 
 he called them up and named them to him, and Martin 
 put out a bony hand, and gave them a greeting. 
 Though his speech and limbs had failed him, his 
 intelhgence was evidently still intact, and there 
 was a tenderly-cared-for look about him, rendering 
 his condition far less pitiable than that of Richard 
 Birkenholt, who was so palpably treated as an 
 incumbrance. 
 
 The table was already covered with a cloth, and 
 Perronel quickly placed on it a yellow bowl of excellent 
 beef broth, savoury with vegetables and pot-herbs, and 
 with meat and dumplings floating in it. A lesser bowl 
 was provided for each of the company, with horn 
 spoons, and a loaf of good wheaten bread, and a 
 tankard of excellent ale. Randall declared that his 
 Perronel made far daintier dishes than my Lord 
 Archbishop's cook, who went every day in silk and 
 velvet. 
 
 He explained to her his views on the armourer, to 
 
 M 2
 
 164 THE AEMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 which she agreed with all her miofht, the old gentleman 
 in bed adding something which the boys began to 
 understand, that there was no worthier nor more 
 honourable condition than that of an English burgess, 
 specially in the good town of London, where the 
 kings knew better than to be ever at enmity with 
 their good towns. 
 
 "Will the armourer take both of you?" asked 
 Mistress Randall. 
 
 "Nay, it was only for Stephen we devised it," said 
 Ambrose. 
 
 " And what wilt thou do ? " 
 
 " I wish to be a scholar,'"' said Ambrose. 
 
 " A lean trade," quoth the jester ; " a monk now or 
 a friar may be a right jolly fellow, but I never yet saw 
 a man who throve upon books ! " 
 
 " I had rather study than thrive," said Ambrose 
 rather dreamily. 
 
 " He wotteth not what he saith," cried Stephen. 
 
 " Oh ho ! so thou art of that sort ! " rejoined his 
 uncle. " I know them ! A crabbed black and white 
 page is meat and drink to them ! There's that Dutch 
 fellow, with a long Latin name, thin and weazen as
 
 VIII.] QUIPSOME HAL. 165 
 
 never was Dutchman before ; they say he has read all 
 the books in the world, and can talk in all the tongues, 
 and yet when he and Sir Thomas More and the Dean 
 of St. Paul's get together at my lord's table one would 
 think they were bidding for my bauble. Such excel- 
 lent fooling do they make, that my lord sits holding 
 
 his sides." 
 
 " The Dean of St. Paul's ! " said Ambrose, experi- 
 encing a shock. 
 
 " Ay ! He's another of your lean scholars, and yet he 
 was born a wealthy man, son to a Lord Mayor, who, 
 they say, reared him alone out of a round score of 
 children," 
 
 " Alack ! poor souls," sighed Mistress Randall under 
 her breath, for, as Ambrose afterwards learnt, her two 
 babes had scarce seen the light. Her husband, while 
 giving her a look of affection, went on — " Not that 
 he can keep his wealth. He has bestowed the most 
 of it on Stepney church, and on the school he hath 
 founded for poor children, nigh to St. Paul's." 
 
 " Could I get admittance to that school ? " exclaimed 
 Ambrose. 
 
 " Thou art a big fellow for a school," said his
 
 166 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 uncle, looking him over. " However, faint heart never 
 won fair lady." 
 
 " I have a letter from the Warden of St. Elizabeth's 
 to one of the clerks of St. Paul's," added Ambrose. 
 " Alworthy is his name." 
 
 "That's well. We'll prove that same," said his 
 uncle. " Meantime, if ye have eaten your fill, we must 
 be on our way to thine armourer, nevoy Stephen, or 
 I shall be called for." 
 
 And after a private colloquy between the husband 
 and wife, Ambrose was by both of them desired to make 
 the little house his home until he could find admittance 
 into St. Paul's School, or some other. He demuiTed 
 somewhat from a mixture of feelings, in which there 
 was a certain amount of Stephen's longing for freedom 
 of action, and likewise a doubt whether he should not 
 thus be a great inconvenience in the tiny household — a 
 burden he was resolved not to be. But his uncle now 
 took a more serious tone. 
 
 " Look thou, Ambrose, thou art my sister's son, and 
 fool though I be, thou art bound in duty to me, and I 
 to have charge of thee, nor will I — for the sake of thy 
 father and mother — have thee lying I know not Avhere,
 
 Till.] QUIPSOME HAL. 167 
 
 among gulls, and cutpurses, and beguilers of youth here 
 in this city of London, So, till better befals thee, and 
 I wot of it, thou must be here no later than curfew, or 
 I will know the reason why." 
 
 " And I hope the young gentleman will find it no 
 sore grievance," said Perronel, so good-humouredly 
 that Ambrose could only protest that he had feared to 
 be troublesome to her, and promise to bring his bundle 
 the next day.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ARMS SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL. 
 
 " For him was leifer to have at his bedde's hexlde 
 Twenty books clothed in blacke or redde 
 Of Aristotle and his philosophie 
 Than robes riche or fiddle or psalterie. " 
 
 Chaucer. 
 
 Master Headley was foimd spending the summer 
 evening in the bay window of the hall. Tibbie sat 
 on a three-legged stool by him, writing in a crabbed 
 hand, in a big ledger, and Kit Smallbones towered 
 above both, holding in his hand a bundle of tally- 
 sticks. By the help of these, and of that accuracy of 
 memory which writing has destroyed, he was unfold- 
 ing, down to the very last farthing, the entire account 
 of payments and receipts during his master's absence, 
 the debtor and creditor account being preserved as 
 perfectly as if he had always had a pen in his huge
 
 CH. IX.] AEMS SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL. 
 
 169 
 
 fingers, and studied book-keeping by double or single 
 entry. 
 
 On the return of the two boys with such an appar- 
 ently respectable member of society as the handsome 
 well-dressed personage who accompanied them, little 
 Dennet, who had been set to sew her sampler on a 
 stool by her grandmother, under penalty of being sent 
 off to bed if she disturbed her father, sprang up with a 
 little cry of gladness, and running up to Ambrose, 
 entreated for the tales of his good greenwood Forest, 
 and the pucks and pixies, and the girl who daily shared 
 her breakfast with a snake and said, "Eat your own 
 side, Speckleback." Somehow, on Sunday night she 
 had gathered that Ambrose had a store of such tales, 
 and she dragged him off to the gallery, there to revel 
 in them, while his brother remained with her father. 
 
 Though Master Stephen had begun by being high 
 and mighty about mechanical crafts, and thought it a 
 great condescension to consent to be bound apprentice, 
 yet when once again in the Dragon court, it looked so 
 friendly and felt so much like a home that he found 
 himself very anxious tliat Master Headley should not 
 say that he could take no more apprentices at present.
 
 170 THE AEMOUREE'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 and that he should be satisfied with the terms uncle 
 Hal would propose. And oh ! suppose Tibbie should . 
 recognise Quipsome Hal I 
 
 However, Tibbie was at this moment entirely en- 
 grossed by the accounts, and his master left him and 
 his big companion to unravel them, while he himself 
 held speech with his guest at some distance— sending 
 for a cup of sack, wherewith to enliven the conversation. 
 He showed himself quite satisfied with what Randall 
 chose to tell of himself as a well known "housekeeper" 
 close to the Temple, his wife a " lavender " there, while 
 he himself was attached to the suite of the Archbishop of 
 York. Here alone was there any aj^proach to shuffling, 
 for Master Headley was left to suppose that Randall 
 attended Wolsey in his capacity of king's counsellor, 
 and therefore, having a house of his own, had not been 
 found in the roll of the domestic retainers and servants. 
 He did not think of inquiring further, the more so as 
 Randall was perfectly candid as to his own inferiority 
 of birth to the Birkenholt family, and the circumstances 
 under which he had left the Forest. 
 
 Master Headley professed to be quite willing to 
 accept Stephen as an apprentice, with or without a fee ;
 
 IX.] ARMS SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL. 171 
 
 but he aoTeed with Randall that it would be much 
 better not to expose him to having it cast in his teeth 
 that he was accepted out of charity; and Randall 
 undertook to get a letter so written and conveyed to 
 John Birkenholt that he should not dare to withhold the 
 needful sum, in earnest of which Master Headley would 
 accept the two crowns that Stephen had in hand, as 
 soon as the indentures could be drawn out by one of 
 the many scriveners who lived about St. Paul's. 
 
 This settled, Randall could stay no longer, but he 
 called both nephews into the court with him. " Ye can 
 write a letter ? " he said. 
 
 "Ay, sure, both of us; but Ambrose is the best 
 scribe," said Stephen. 
 
 " One of you had best write then. Let that cur John 
 know that I have my Lord of York's ear, and there 
 will be no fear but he will give it. I'll find a safe hand 
 among the clerks, when the judges ride to hold the 
 assize. Mayhap Ambrose might also write to the 
 Father at Beaulieu. The thing had best be bruited." 
 
 " I vashed to do so," said Ambrose. " It irked me to 
 have taken no leave of the good Fathers." 
 
 Randall then took his leave, having little more than
 
 172 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 time to return to York House, where the Archbishop 
 might perchance come home wearied and chafed from 
 the King, and the jester might be missed if not there to 
 put him in good humour. 
 
 The curfew sounded, and though attention to its notes 
 was not compulsory by law, it was regarded as the 
 break-up of the evening and the note of recall in all 
 well-ordered establishments. The apprentices and 
 journeymen came into the court, among them Giles 
 Headley, who had been taken out by one of the men 
 to be provided with a working dress, much to his dis- 
 gust. ; the grandmother summoned little Dennet and 
 carried her off to bed. Stephen and Ambrose bade 
 good-night, but Master Headley and his two confidential 
 men remained somewhat longer to wind up their 
 accounts. Doors were not, as a rule, locked within the 
 court, for though it contained from forty to fifty persons, 
 they were all regarded as a single family, and it was 
 enough to fasten the heavily bolted, iron-studded fold- 
 ing doors of the great gateway leading into Cheapside, 
 the key being brought to the master like that of a 
 castle, seven minutes, measured by the glass, after the 
 last note of the curfew in the belfry outside St. Paul's.
 
 IX.] ARMS SPIEITUAL AND TEMPORAL. 173 
 
 The summer twilight, however, lasted long after this 
 time of grace, and when Tibbie had completed his 
 accountant's work, and Smallbones' deep voiced " Good- 
 night, comrade," had resounded over the court, he 
 beheld a figure rise up from the steps of the gallery, 
 and Ambrose's voice said : " May I sj)eak to thee, 
 Tibbie ? I need thy counsel." 
 
 " Come hither, sir," said the foreman, muttering to 
 himself, " Methought 'twas working in him ! The 
 leaven ! the leaven ! " 
 
 Tibbie led the way up one of the side stairs into the 
 open gallery, where he presently opened a door, ad- 
 mitting to a small, though high chamber, the walls of 
 bare brick, and containing a low bed, a small table, a 
 three-legged stool, a big chest, and two cupboards, also 
 a cross over the head of the bed. A private room was 
 a luxury neither possessed nor desired by most persons 
 of any degree, and only enjoyed by Tibbie in considera- 
 tion of his great value to his master, his peculiar tastes, 
 and the injuries he had received. In point of fact, his 
 fall had been owing to a hasty blow, given in a jDassion 
 by the master himself when a young man. Dismay and 
 repentance had made Giles Headley a cooler and more
 
 174 THE ARMOUREK'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 self-controlled man ever since, and even if Tibbie bad 
 not been a superior workman, he might still have been 
 free to do almost anything he chose. Tibbie gave his 
 visitor the stool, and himself sat down on the chest, 
 saying : " So you have found your uncle, sir," 
 
 "Ay," said Ambrose, pausing in some expectation 
 that Tibbie would mention some suspicion of his 
 identity; but if the foreman had his ideas on the 
 subject he did not disclose them, and waited for more 
 communications. 
 
 " Tibbie ! " said Ambrose, with a long gasp, " I must 
 find means to hear more of him thou tookedst me to on 
 Sunday." 
 
 " None ever truly tasted of that well without longing 
 to come back to it," quoth Tibbie. " But hath not thy 
 kinsman done aught for thee ? " 
 
 " Nay," said Ambrose, " save to offer me a lodging 
 with his wife, a good and kindly lavender at the 
 Temple." 
 
 Tibbie, nodded. 
 
 " So far am I free," said Ambrose, " and I am glad 
 of it. I have a letter here to one of the canons, 
 one Master A 1 worthy, but ere I seek him I would
 
 IX.] ARMS SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL. 175 
 
 know somewhat from thee, Tibbie. What like 
 is he?" 
 
 " I cannot tell, sir," said Tibbie. " The canons are 
 rich and many, and a poor smith like me wots little of 
 their fashions. 
 
 " Is it true," again asked Ambrose, " that the Dean 
 — he who spake those words yesterday — hath a school 
 here for young boys ? " 
 
 " Ay. And a good and mild school it be, bringing 
 them up in the name and nurture of the Holy Child 
 Jesus, to whom it is dedicated." 
 
 " Then they are taught this same doctrine ? " 
 " I trow they be. They say the Dean loves them 
 like the children of his old age, and declares that they 
 shall be made in love with holy lore by gentleness 
 rather than severity." 
 
 " Is it likely that this same Alworthy could obtain me 
 entrance there ? " 
 
 " Alack, sir, I fear me thou art too old. I see none 
 but little lads among them. Didst thou . come to 
 London with that intent ? " 
 
 " Nay, for I only wist to-day that there was such a 
 school. I came with I scarce know what purpose, save
 
 176 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 to see Stephen safely bestowed, and then to find some 
 way of learning myself. Moreover, a change seems to 
 have come on me, as though I had hitherto been 
 walking in a dream." 
 
 Tibbie nodded, and Ambrose, sitting there in the 
 dark, was moved to pour forth all his heart, the ex- 
 perience of many an ardent soul in those spirit search- 
 ing days. Growing up happily under the care of the 
 simple monks of Beaulieu he had never looked beyond 
 their somewhat mechanical routine, accepted everything 
 implicitly, and gone on acquiring knowledge with the 
 receptive spirit but dormant thought of studious boy- 
 hood as yet unawakened, thinking that the studious 
 clerical life to which every one destined him would only 
 be a continuation of the same, as indeed it had been to 
 his master. Father Simon. Not that Ambrose expressed 
 this, beyond saying, " They are good and holy men, and 
 I thought all were like them, and fear that was all ! " 
 
 Then came death, for the first time nearly touching 
 and affecting the youth, and making his soul yearn 
 after further depths, which he might yet have found in 
 the peace of the good old men, and the holy rites and 
 doctrine that they preserved ; but before there was
 
 IX] ARMS SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL. 177 
 
 time for these things to find their way into the wounds 
 of his spirit, his expulsion from home had sent him 
 forth to see another side of monkish and clerkly 
 life. 
 
 Father Shoveller, kindly as he was, was a mere yeo- 
 man with nothing S23iritual about him ; the monks of 
 Hyde were, the younger, gay comrades, only trying how 
 loosely they could sit to their vows ; the elder, churlish 
 and avaricious ; even the Warden of Elizabeth College 
 was little more than a student. And in London, fresh 
 phases had revealed themselves ; the pomp, state, 
 splendour and luxury of Archbishop Wolsey's house had 
 been a shock to the lad's ideal of a bishop drawn from 
 the saintly biographies he had studied at Beaulieu ; and 
 he had but to keep his ears open to hear endless 
 scandals about the mass priests, as they were called, 
 since they were at this time very unpopular in London, 
 and in many cases deservedly so. Everything that the 
 boy had hitherto thought the way of holiness and salva- 
 tion seemed invaded by evil and danger, and under the 
 bondage of dea|li, whose terrible dance continued to 
 haunt him. 
 
 " I saw it, I saw it," he said, " all over those halls at 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 THE AEMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 York House. I seemed to behold the grisly shape stand- 
 ing behind one and another, as they ate and laughed ; 
 and when the Archbishop and his priests and the King 
 came in it seemed only to make the pageant complete ! 
 Only now and then could I recall those blessed words, 
 ' Ye are free indeed.' Did he say from the bondage of 
 death ? " 
 
 " Yea," said Tibbie, " into the glorious freedom of 
 God's children." 
 
 " Thou knowst it. Thou knowst it, Tibbie. It seems 
 to me that life is no life, but living death, without that 
 freedom ! And I must hear of it, and know whether it 
 is mine, yea, and Stephen's, and all whom I love. O 
 Tibbie, I would beg my bread rather than not have that 
 freedom ever before mine eyes." 
 
 " Hold it fast ! hold it fast, dear sir," said Tibbie, 
 holding out his hands with tears in his eyes, and his 
 face working in a manner that hapj)ily Ambrose could 
 not see. 
 
 " But how — how ? The barefoot friar said that for an 
 Ave a day, our Blessed Lady will drag us back from 
 purgatory. I saw her on the wall of her chapel at 
 Winchester saving a robber knight from the sea, yea
 
 IX.] ARMS SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL. 179 
 
 and a thief from the gallows; but that is not being 
 
 free." 
 
 " Fond inventions of pardon-mongers," muttered 
 
 Tibbie. 
 
 " And is one not free when the priest hath assoilsied 
 him ? " added Ambrose. 
 
 " If, and if—" said Tibbie. " But none shall make 
 me trow that shrift in words, without heart-sorrow for 
 sin, and the Latin heard with no thought of Him that 
 bore the guilt, can set the sinner free. 'Tis none other 
 that the Dean sets forth, ay, and the book that I have 
 here. I thank my God," he stood up and took off his 
 cap reverently, "that He hath opened the eyes of 
 another ! " 
 
 His tone was such that Ambrose could have believed 
 him some devout almost inspired hermit rather than the 
 acute skilful artisan he appeared at other times ; and in 
 fact, Tibbie Steelman, like many another craftsman of 
 those days, led a double life, the outer one that of the 
 ordinary workman, the inner one devoted to those lights 
 that were shining unveiled and new to many ; and 
 especially here in the heart of the City, partly from the 
 influence of Dean Colet's sermons and catechisings at 
 
 N 2
 
 180 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 St. Paul's, but also from remnants of Lollardism, which 
 had never been entirely quenched. The ordinary clergy 
 looked at it with horror, but the intelligent and thought- 
 ful of the burgher and craftsman classes studied it with 
 a passionate fervour which might have sooner broken 
 out and in more perilous forms save for the guidance it 
 received in the truly Catholic and open-spirited public 
 teachings of Colet, in which he persisted in spite of the 
 opposition of his brother clergy. 
 
 Not that as yet the inquirers had in the slightest 
 degree broken with the system of the Church, or with 
 her old traditions. They were only beginning to see 
 the lio-ht that had been veiled from them, and to en- 
 deavour to clear the fountain from the mire that had 
 fouled it ; and there was as yet no reason to believe 
 that the aspersions continually made against the mass 
 priests and the friars were more than the chronic 
 s-rumblings of Englishmen, who had found the same 
 faults in them for the last two hundred years. 
 
 " And what wouldst thou do, young sir ? " presently 
 
 inquired Tibbie. 
 
 "That I came to ask thee, good Tibbie. I would 
 
 work to the best of my power in any craft so I may
 
 IX.] ARMS SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL. 181 
 
 hear those words and gain the key to all I have hitherto 
 learnt, unheeding as one in a dream. My purpose had 
 been to be a scholar and a clerk, but I must see mine 
 own way, and know whither I am being carried, ere I 
 can go farther." 
 
 Tibbie writhed and wriggled himself about in con- 
 sideration. " I would I wist how to take thee to the 
 Dean himself," he said, " but I am but a poor man, and 
 his doctrine is 'new wine in old bottles' to the master, 
 though he be a right good man after his lights. See 
 now, Master Ambrose, me seemeth that thou hadst 
 best take thy letter first to this same priest. It may be 
 that he can prefer thee to some post about the minster. 
 Canst sing ? " 
 
 " I could once, but my voice is nought at this present. 
 If I could but be a servitor at St. Paul's School ! " 
 
 " It might be that the will which hath led thee so far 
 hath that post in store for thee, so bear the letter to 
 Master Alworthy, And if he fail thee, wouldst thou 
 think scorn of aiding a friend of mine who worketh a 
 printing-press in Warwick Inner Yard ? Thou wilt 
 find him at his place in Paternoster Row, hard by St. 
 Paul's. He needeth one who is clerk enough to read
 
 182 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 the Latin, and the craft being a new one 'tis fenced by 
 none of those prentice laws that would bar the way to 
 thee elsewhere, at thy years." 
 
 " I should dwell among books ! " 
 
 " Yea, and holy books, that bear on the one matter 
 dear to the true heart. Thou misxht serve Lucas 
 Hansen at the sign of the Winged Staff till thou 
 hast settled thine heart, and then it may be the way 
 would be opened to study at Oxford or at Cambridge, so 
 that thou couldst expound the faith to others." 
 
 " Good Tibbie, kind Tibbie, I knew thou couldst aid 
 me ! Wilt thou speak to this Master Hansen for me ? " 
 
 Tibbie, however, held that it was more seemly that 
 Ambrose should first try his fate with Master Alworthy, 
 but in case of this not succeeding, he promised to write 
 a billet that would secure attention from Lucas Hansen. 
 
 " I warn thee, however, that he is Low Dutch," he 
 added, " though he sj)eaketh English well." He would 
 gladly have gone with the youth, and at any other time 
 might have been sent by his master, but the whole 
 energies of the Dragon would be taken up for the next 
 week by preparations for the tilting-match at court, and 
 Tibbie could not be spared for another working hour.
 
 IX.] ARMS SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL. 183 
 
 Ambrose, as he rose to bid liis friend good-night, 
 could not help saying that he marvelled that one such 
 as he could turn his mind to such vanities as the 
 tilt-yard required. 
 
 " Nay," said Tibbie, " 'twas the craft I was bred to — 
 yea, and I have a good master ; and the Apostle Paul 
 himself — as I've heard a preacher say — bade men con- 
 tinue in the state wherein they were, and not be curious 
 to chop and change. Who knoAveth whether in God's 
 sight, all our wars and policies be no more than the 
 games of the tilt-yard. Moreover, Paul himself made 
 these very weapons read as good a sermon as the Dean 
 himself. Didst never hear of the shield of faith, and 
 helmet of salvation, and breastplate of righteousness ? 
 So, if thou comest to Master Hansen, and provest 
 worthy of his trust, thou wilt hear more, ay, and maybe 
 read too thyself, and send forth the good seed to others," 
 he murmured to himself, as he guided his visitor across 
 the moonlit court up the stairs to the chamber where 
 Stephen lay fast asleep.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 TWO VOCATIONS. 
 
 " The smith, a mighty man is he 
 With large and sinewy hands ; 
 And the muscles of his brawny arms 
 Are strong as iron bands." 
 
 IjONGFELLOW. 
 
 Stephen's first thouoflit in the mornino- was whether 
 the ex voto effigy of poor Spring was put in hand, while 
 Ambrose thought of Tibbie's promised commendation to 
 the printer. They both, however, found their affairs 
 must needs wait. Orders for weapons for the tilting- 
 match had come in so thickly the day before that every 
 hand must be employed on executing them, and the 
 Dragon court was ringing again with the clang of 
 hammers and screech of grind-stones. 
 
 Stephen, though not yet formally bound, was to enter 
 on his apj)rentice life at once ; and Ambrose was
 
 CHAP. X.] TWO VOCATIONS. 185 
 
 assured by Master Headley that it was of no use to 
 repair to any of the dignified clergy of St. Paul's before 
 mid-day, and that he had better employ the time in 
 writing to his elder brother respecting the fee. Mate- 
 rials were supplied to him, and he used them so as to 
 do credit to the monks of Beaulieu, in spite of little 
 Dennet spending every spare moment in watching his 
 pen as if he were performing some cabalistic operation. 
 
 He was a long time about it. There were two letters 
 to write, and the wording of them needed to be very 
 careful, besides that the old court hand took more time 
 to frame than the Italian current hand, and even thus, 
 when dinner-time came, at ten o'clock, the household 
 was astonished to find that he had finished all that 
 regarded Stephen, though he had left the letters open, 
 until his own venture should have been made. 
 
 Stephen flung himself down beside his brother hot 
 and panting, shaking his shoulder-blades and declaring 
 that his arms felt ready to drop out. He had been 
 turning a grindstone ever since six o'clock. The two 
 new apprentices had been set on to sharpening the 
 weapon points as all that they were capable of, and had 
 been bidden by Smallbones to turn and hold alternately.
 
 186 THE ARMOUEER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 but " that oaf Giles Headley," said Stephen, " never 
 ground but one lance, and made me go on turning, 
 threatening to lay the butt about mine ears if I 
 slacked." 
 
 " The lazy lubber ! " cried Ambrose. " But did none 
 see thee, or couldst not call out for redress ? " 
 
 " Thou art half a wench thyself, Ambrose, to think 
 I'd complain. Besides, he stood on his rights as a 
 master, and he is a big fellow." 
 
 " That's true," said Ambrose, " and he might make 
 it the worse for thee." 
 
 " I would I were as big as he," sighed Stephen, " I 
 would soon show him which was the better man." 
 
 Perhaps the grinding match had not been as unob- 
 served as Stephen fancied, for on returning to work, 
 Smallbones, who presided over all the rougher parts of 
 the business, claimed them both. He set Stephen to 
 stand by him, sort out and hand him all the rivets 
 needed for a suit of proof armour that hung on a frame, 
 while he required Giles to straighten bars of iron heated 
 to a white heat. Ere long Giles called out for Stephen 
 to change places, to which Smallbones coolly replied, 
 " Turnabout is the rule here, master."
 
 X.] TWO VOCATIONS. 187 
 
 " Even so," replied Giles, " and I have been at work 
 like this long enough, ay, and too long ! " 
 
 " Thy turn was a matter of three hours this morning," 
 replied Kit — not coolly, for nobody was cool in his den, 
 but with a brevity which provoked a laugh. 
 
 " I shall see what my cousin the master saith ! " 
 cried Giles, iu great wrath. 
 
 "Ay, that thou wilt," returned Kit, "if thou dost 
 loiter over thy business, and hast not those bars ready 
 when called for." 
 
 " He never meant me to be put on work like this, with 
 a hammer that breaks mine arm." 
 
 "What ! crying out for that !" said Edmund Burgess, 
 who had just come in to ask for a pair of tongs. " What 
 wouldst say to the big hammer that none can wield 
 save Kit himself? " 
 
 Giles felt there was no redress, and panted on, feeling 
 as if he were melting away, and with a dumb, wild rage 
 in his heart, that could get no outlet, for Smallbones 
 was at least as much bigger than he as he was than 
 Stephen. Tibbie was meanwhile busy over the gild- 
 ing and enamelling of Buckingham's magnificent plate 
 armour in Italian fashion, but he had found time to
 
 188 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 thrust into Ambrose's hand an exceedingly small and 
 curiously folded billet for Lucas Hansen, the printer, 
 in case of need. " He would be found at the sisrn of 
 the Winged Staff, in Paternoster Row," said Tibbie, 
 " or if not there himself, there would be his servant 
 who would direct Ambrose to the place where the 
 Dutch printer lived and worked." No one was at 
 leisure to show the lad the way, and he set out with 
 a strange feeling of solitude, as his path began decisively 
 to be away from that of his brother. 
 
 He did not find much difficulty in discovering the 
 (juadrangle on the south side of the minster where the 
 minor canons lived near the deanery ; and the porter, 
 a stout lay brother, pointed out to him the doorway 
 belonging to Master Alworthy. He knocked, and a young 
 man with a tonsured head but a bloated face opened it. 
 Ambrose explained that he had brought a letter from 
 the Warden of St. Elizabetli's College at Winchester. 
 
 " Give it here," said the young man. 
 
 " I would give it to his reverence himself," said 
 Ambrose. 
 
 " His reverence is taking his after-dinner nap and 
 may not be disturbed," said the man.
 
 X.] TWO VOCATIONS. 189 
 
 " Then I will wait," said Ambrose. 
 
 The door was shut in his face, but it was the shady- 
 side of the court, and he sat down on a bench and 
 waited. After full an hour the door was opened, and 
 the canon, a good-natured looking man, in a square cap, 
 and gown and cassock of the finest cloth, came slowly 
 out. He had evidently heard nothing of the message, 
 and was taken by surprise when Ambrose, doffing his 
 cap and bowing low, gave him the greeting of the 
 Warden of St. Elizabeth's and the letter. 
 
 "Hum ! Ha ! My good friend — Fielder — I remember 
 him. He was always a scholar. So he hath sent 
 thee here with his commendations. What should I do 
 with all the idle country lads that come up to choke 
 London and feed the plague ? Yet stay — that lurdane 
 Bolt is getting intolerably lazy and insolent, and me- 
 thinks he robs me ! What canst do, thou stripling ? " 
 
 " I can read Latin, sir, and know the Greek 
 alphabeta." 
 
 " Tush ! I want no scholar more than enough to serve 
 my mass. Canst sing ? " 
 
 " Not now ; but I hope to do so again." 
 
 " When I rid me of Bolt there — and there's an office
 
 190 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 under the sacristan that he might fill as well as another 
 knave — the fellow might do for me well enow as a body 
 servant " said Mr. Alworthy, speaking to himself. " He 
 would brush my gowns and make my bed, and I might 
 perchance trust him with my marketings, and by and 
 by there might be some office for him when he grew 
 saucy and idle. I'll prove him on mine old comrade's 
 word." 
 
 " Sir," said Ambrose, respectfully, " what I seek for 
 is occasion for study. I had hoped you could speak to 
 the Dean, Dr. John Colet, for some post at his school." 
 
 '' Boy," said Alworthy, " I thought thee no such 
 fool ! Why crack thy brains Avith study when I can 
 show thee a surer path to ease and preferment ? But 
 I see thou art too proud to do an old man a service. 
 Thou writst thyself gentleman, forsooth, and high blood 
 will not stoop." 
 
 " Not so, sir," returned Ambrose, " I would work in 
 any way so I could study the humanities, and hear the 
 Dean preach. Cannot you commend me to his school ? " 
 
 " Ha ! " exclaimed the canon, " this is your sort, is 
 it ? I'll have nought to do with it ! Preaching, i^reach- 
 ing ! Every idle child's head is agog on preaching
 
 X.] TWO VOCATIONS. 191 
 
 nowadays ! A plague on it ! Why can't Master Dean 
 leave it to the black fiiars, whose vocation 'tis, and not 
 cumber us with his sermons for ever, and set every lazy 
 lad thinking he must needs run after them ? No, no, 
 my good boy, take my advice. Thou shalt have two 
 good bellyfuls a day, all my cast gowns, and a pair of 
 shoes by the year, with a groat a month if thou wilt 
 keep mine house, bring in my meals, and the like, and 
 by and by, so thou art a good lad, and runst not after 
 these new-fangled preachments which lead but to 
 heresy, and set folk racking their brains about sin 
 and such trash, we'll get thee shorn and into minor 
 orders, and who knows what good preferment thou 
 mayst not win in due time ! " 
 
 " Sir, I am beholden to you, but my mind is set on 
 study." 
 
 " What kin art thou to a fool ? " cried the minor 
 canon, so startling Ambrose that he had almost an- 
 swered, and turning to another ecclesiastic whose siesta 
 seemed to have ended about the same time, " Look at 
 this varlet. Brother Cloudesley ! Would you believe 
 it? He comes to me with a letter from mine old 
 friend, in consideration of which I offer him that saucy
 
 192 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 lubber Bolt's place, a gown of mine own a year, meat 
 
 and preferment, and, lo you, he tells me all he wants 
 
 is to study Greek, forsooth, and hear the Dean's 
 
 sermons !" 
 
 The other canon shook his head in dismay at such 
 
 arrant folly. "Young stripling, be warned," he said. 
 
 " Know what is good for thee. Greek is the toDgue of 
 
 heresy." 
 
 " How may that be, reverend sir," said Ambrose, 
 " when the holy Apostles and the Fathers spake and 
 wrote in the Greek ? " 
 
 " Waste not thy time on him, brother," said Mr. 
 Alworthy. " He will find out his error when his pride 
 and his Greek forsooth have brought him to fire and 
 faggot." 
 
 "Ay! ay!" added Cloudesley. "The Dean with 
 his Dutch friend and his sermons, and his new 
 grammar and accidence, is sowing heretics as thick 
 as crroundsel." 
 
 Wherewith the two canons of the old school waddled 
 away, arm in arm, and Bolt put out his head, leered at 
 Ambrose, and bade him shog off, and not come sneaking 
 after other folk's shoes.
 
 X.] TWO VOCATIONS. 193 
 
 Sooth to say, Ambrose was relieved by his rejection. 
 If he were not to obtain admission in any capacity to 
 St. Paul's School, he felt more drawn to Tibbie's friend 
 the printer; for the self-seeking luxurious habits into 
 which so many of the beneficed clergy had fallen were 
 repulsive to him, and his whole soul thirsted after that 
 new revelation, as it were, which Colet's sermon had 
 made to him. Yet the word heresy was terrible and 
 confusing, and a doubt came over him whether he 
 might not be forsaking the right path, and be lured 
 aside by false lights. 
 
 He would think it out before he committed himself. 
 Where should he do so in peace ? He thought of the 
 great Minster, but the nave was full of a surging multi- 
 tude, and there was a loud hum of voices proceeding 
 from it, which took from him all inclination to find his 
 way to the quieter and inner portions of the sanctury. 
 
 Then he recollected the little Pardon Church, where 
 he had seen the Dance of Death on the walls ; and 
 crossing the burial-ground he entered, and, as he ex- 
 pected, found it empty, since the hours for masses for 
 the dead were now past. He knelt down on a step, 
 repeated the sext office, in warning for which the bells 
 
 VOL. I. o
 
 194 THE AEMOUEER'S PEENTICES. [chap. 
 
 were chiming all round, covering his face with his hands, 
 and thinking himself back to Beaulieu ; then, seating 
 himself on a step, leaning against the wall, he tried to 
 think out whether to give himself up to the leadings of 
 the new light that had broken on him, or whether to 
 wrench himself from it. Was this, which seemed to 
 him truth and deliverance, verily the heresy respecting 
 which rumours had come to horrify the country con- 
 vents? If he had only heard of it from Tibbie 
 Wrymouth, he would have doubted, in spite of its 
 power over him, but he had heard it from a man, wise, 
 good, and high in place, like Dean Colet. Yet to his 
 further perplexity, his uncle had spoken of Colet as 
 jesting at Wolsey's table. What course should he 
 take ? Could he bear to turn away from that which 
 drew his soul so powerfully, and return to the bounds 
 which seem to him to be grown so narrow, but which 
 he was told were safe ? Now that Stephen was settled, 
 it was open to him to return to St. Elizabeth's College, 
 but the young soul within him revolted against the 
 repetition of what had become to him unsatisfying, 
 unless illumined by the brightness he seemed to have 
 glimpsed at.
 
 X.] TWO VOCATIONS. 195 
 
 But Ambrose had gone through much unwonted 
 fatigue of late, and while thus musing he fell asleep, 
 with his head against the wall. He was half wakened 
 by the sound of voices, and presently became aware 
 that two persons were examining the walls, and com- 
 paring the paintings with some others, which one of 
 them had evidently seen. If he had known it, it was 
 with the Dance of Death on the bridge of Lucerne. 
 
 " I question," said a voice that Ambrose had heard 
 before, " whether these terrors be wholesome for men's 
 souls." 
 
 " For priests' pouches, they be," said the other, with 
 something of a foreign accent. 
 
 " Alack, when shall we see the day when the hope of 
 paradise and dread of purgatory shall be no longer 
 made the tools of priestly gain; and hatred of sin 
 taught to these poor folk, instead of servile dread of 
 punishment." 
 
 "Have a care, my Colet," answered the yellow 
 bearded foreigner ; " thou art already in ill odour with 
 those same men in authority; and though a Dean's 
 stall be fenced from the episcopal crook, yet there is a 
 rod at Rome which can reach even thither." 
 
 o 2
 
 196 THE AKMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 " I tell tliee, dear Erasmus, thou art too timid ; I 
 were well content to leave house and goods, yea, to go 
 to prison or to death, could I but bring home to one 
 soul, for which Christ died, the truth and hojje in every 
 one of those prayers and creeds that our poor folk are 
 taught to patter as a senseless charm." 
 
 " These are strange times," returned Erasmus. "Me- 
 thinks yonder phantom, be he skeleton or angel, will 
 have snatched both of 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
 
 X.] TWO VOCATIONS. 197 
 
 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 readv 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
 
 198 THE ARMOUKER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 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 -i^gis, 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 
 Oflices, while others, hoping that he was an incipient 
 clerk, offered breviaries, missals or portuaries, with the
 
 X.] TWO VOCATIONS. 199 
 
 Use of St. Paul's, or of Saruin, 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 yel- 
 low 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 Tibbie 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 Tibbie let me hope that I 
 might find both livelihood for the body and for the soul 
 with you, sir."
 
 200 THE ARMOUEER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 " Is it so ? " asked the printer, his face hghting 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 earnest- 
 ness, and Lucas Hansen said, " Bless thee, my son ! 
 Metliinks 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," re- 
 turned 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 ? "
 
 X.] TWO VOCATIONS. 201 
 
 " 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 gallincf 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
 
 202 THE ARMOUEER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 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 veril}', 
 sir, I would live on the humblest fare that will keep 
 body and soul together so that I may have such an 
 oj)portunity,"
 
 X.] TWO VOCATIONS. 203 
 
 " 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 Tibbie 
 Steelman would never send me to one who would not 
 truly give me what I need." 
 
 " Tibbie 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. Never- 
 theless, 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
 
 204 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 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 arrange- 
 ment 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 work- 
 shop. 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 aiTanged
 
 X.] TWO VOCATIONS. 205 
 
 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 tj^e 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 opera- 
 tion the whole strength of the establishment was re- 
 quired. 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 Sundavs 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 relations ; and with some
 
 206 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 misgivings on Ambrose's part, the two — since business 
 hours were almost over — walked together to the Temple 
 and to the little house, where Perronel was ironing 
 under her window. 
 
 Ambrose need not have doubted. The Dutch blood 
 on either side was stirred ; and the good housewife 
 commanded the little printer's respect as he looked 
 round on a kitchen as tidy as if it were in his own 
 country. And the bargain was struck that Ambrose 
 Birkenholt should serve Master Hansen for his meals 
 and two pence a week, while he was to sleep at the 
 little house of Mistress Randall, who would keep his 
 clothes and linen in order. 
 
 And thus it was that both Ambrose and Stephen 
 Birkenholt had found their vocations for the present, 
 and both were fervent in them. Master Headley 
 pshawed a little when he heard that Ambrose had 
 engaged himself to a printer and a foreigner ; and when 
 he was told it was to a friend of Tibbie's, only shook 
 his head, saying that Tib's only fault was dabbling in 
 matters of divinity, as if a plain man could not be 
 saved without them ! However, he respected the lad 
 for having known his own mind and not hung about
 
 X.] TWO VOCATIONS 207 
 
 in idleness, and he had no opinion of clerks, whether 
 monks or priests. Indeed, the low esteem in which 
 tlie clergy as a class were held in London was one 
 
 of the very evil signs of the times. Ambrose was 
 invited to dine and sup at the Dragon court every 
 Sunday and holiday, and he was glad to accept, since 
 the hospitality was so free, and he thus was able to see 
 his brother and Tibbie ; besides that, it prevented him 
 from burthening Mistress Randall, whom he really 
 liked, though he could not see her husband, either in 
 his motley or his plain garments, without a shudder of 
 repulsion, 
 
 Ambrose found that setting up type had not much 
 more to do with the study of new books than Stephen's 
 turning the grindstone had with figliting in the lists ; 
 and the mistakes he made in spelling from right to left, 
 and in confounding the letters, made him despair, 
 and prepare for any amount of just indignation from 
 his master ; but he found on the contrary that Master 
 Hansen had never had a pupil who made so few 
 blunders on the first trial, and augured well of him 
 from such a beginning. Paper was too costly, and 
 pressure too difficult, for many proofs to be struck off,
 
 208 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 but Hansen could read and correct his type as it 
 stood, and assured Ambrose that practice would soon 
 give him the same power ; and the correction was thus 
 completed, when Will Wherry, a big, stout fellow, came 
 in to dinner — the stall being left during that time, as 
 nobody came for books during the dinner-hour, and 
 Hansen, having an understanding with his next neigh- 
 bour, by which they took turns to keep guard against 
 thieves. 
 
 The master and the two lads dined together on the 
 contents of a cauldron, where pease and pork had been 
 simmering together on the stove all the morning. 
 Their strength was then united to work the press and 
 strike off a sheet, which the master scanned, finding 
 only one error in it. It was a portion of Lilly's 
 Grammar, and Ambrose regarded it with mingled 
 pride and delight, though he longed to go further 
 into those deeper revelations for the sake of which he 
 had come here. 
 
 Master Hansen then left the youths to strike off a 
 couple of hundred sheets, after which they were to wash 
 the types and re-arrange the letters in the compart- 
 ments in order, whilst he returned to the stall. The
 
 X.] TWO VOCATIONS. 209 
 
 customers requiring his personal attention were gener- 
 ally late ones. When all this was accomplished, and 
 the pot put on again in preparation for supper, the 
 lads might use the short time that remained as they 
 would, and Hansen himself showed Ambrose a shelf 
 of books concealed by a blue curtain, whence he 
 might read. 
 
 Will Wherry showed unconcealed amazement that 
 this should be the taste of his companion. He him- 
 self hated the whole business, and would never have 
 adopted it, but that he had too many brothers for all 
 to take to the water on the Thames, and their mother 
 was too poor to apprentice them, and needed the small 
 weekly pay the Dutchman gave him. He seemed a 
 good-natured, dull fellow, whom no doubt Hansen had 
 hired for the sake of the strong arms, developed by 
 generations of oarsmen upon the river. What he 
 specially disliked was that his master was a foreigner. 
 The whole court swarmed with foreigners, he said, 
 with the utmost disgust, as if they were noxious insects. 
 They made provisions dear, and undersold honest men, 
 and he wondered the Lord Mayor did not see to it and 
 drive them out. He did not so much object to the 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 210 THE AEMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 Dutch, but the Spaniards — no words could express his 
 horror of them. 
 
 By and by, Ambrose going out to fetch some water 
 from the conduit, found standing by it a figure entirely 
 new to him. It Avas a young girl of some twelve or 
 fourteen years old, in the round white cap worn by 
 all of her age and sex ; but from beneath it hung down 
 two thick plaits of the darkest hair he had ever seen, 
 and though the dress was of the ordinary dark serge 
 with a coloured apron, it was put on with an air that 
 made it look like some strange and beautiful costume 
 on the slender, lithe, little form. The vermilion 
 apron was further trimmed with a narrow border of 
 white, edged again with deep blue, and it chimed in 
 with the bright coral earrings and necklace. As 
 Ambrose came forward the creature tried to throw a 
 crimson handkerchief over her head, and ran into the 
 shelter of another door, but not before Ambrose had 
 seen a pair of large dark eyes so like those of a terri- 
 fied fawn that they seemed to carry him back to the 
 Forest. Going back amazed, he asked his companion 
 who the girl he had seen could have been. 
 
 Will stared. " I trow you mean the old blackamoor
 
 X.] TWO VOCATIONS. 211 
 
 sword-cutler's wench. He is one of those pestilent 
 strangers. An 'Ebrew Jew who worships Mahound 
 and is too bad for the Spanish folk themselves," 
 
 This rather startled Ambrose, though he knew enough 
 to see that the accusations could not both be true, but 
 he forgot it in the delight, when Will pronounced the 
 work done, of drawing back the curtain and feasting 
 his eyes upon the black backs of the books, and the 
 black-letter brochures that lay by them. There were 
 scarcely thirty, yet he gloated on them as on an inex- 
 haustible store, while Will, whistling wonder at his 
 taste, opined that since some one was there to look 
 after the stove, and the iron pot on it, he might go out 
 and have a turn at ball with Hob and Martin. 
 
 Ambrose was glad to be left to go over his coming 
 feast. There was Latin, English, and, alas ! baffling 
 Dutch. High or Low it was all the same to him. What 
 excited his curiosity most was the Enchiridion Militis 
 Ghristiani of Erasmus — in Latin of course, and that he 
 could easily read — but almost equally exciting was a 
 Greek and Latin vocabulary ; or again, a very thin book 
 in which he recognised the New Testament in the 
 Vulgate. He had heard chapters of it read from the 
 graceful stone pulpit overhanging the refectory at 
 
 P 2
 
 212 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. x. 
 
 Beaulieu, and, of course, the Gospels and Epistles at 
 mass, but they had been read with little expression and 
 no attention ; and that Sunday's discourse had filled 
 him with eagerness to look farther ; but the mere 
 reading the titles of the books was pleasure enough for 
 the day, and his master was at home before he had 
 fixed his mind on anything. Perhaps this was as well, 
 for Lucas advised him what to begin with, and how to 
 divide his studies so as to gain a knowledo-e of the 
 Greek, his great ambition, and also to read the Scripture, 
 The master was almost as much delighted as the 
 scholar, and it was not till the curfew was beginning to 
 sound that Ambrose could tear himself away. It was 
 still daylight, and the door of the next dwelling was 
 open. There, sitting on the ground cross-legged, in an 
 attitude such as Ambrose had never seen, was a mag- 
 nificent old man, with a huge long white beard, wearing, 
 indeed, the usual dress of a Londoner of the lower 
 class, but the gown flowed round him in a grand and 
 patriarchal manner, corresponding with his noble, some- 
 what aquiline features ; and behind him Ambrose 
 thought he caught a glimpse of the shy fawn he had 
 seen in the morning.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 AY DI ME GRENADA. 
 
 " In sooth it was a thing to weep 
 If then as now the level plain 
 Beneath was spreading like the deep, 
 
 The broad unruffled main. 
 If like a watch-tower of the sun 
 
 Above, the Alpuxarras rose, 
 Streaked, when the dying day was done, 
 With evening's roseate snows." 
 
 Archbishop Teench. 
 
 When Mary Tudor, released by death from lier first 
 dreary marriage, contracted for her brother's pleasure, 
 had appeased his wrath at her second marriage made to 
 please herself, Henry VIII. was only too glad to mark 
 his assent by all manner of festivities ; and English 
 chroniclers, instead of recording battles and politics, 
 had only to write of pageantries and tournaments 
 during the merry May of the year 1515 — a May, be it
 
 214 THE ARMOUREE'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 remembered, which, thauks to the old style, was at 
 least ten days nearer to Midsummer than our present 
 month. 
 
 How the two queens and all their court had gone 
 a-maying on Shooter's Hill, ladies and horses poetically 
 disguised and labelled with sweet summer titles, was 
 only a nine days' wonder when the Birkenholts had 
 come to London, but the approaching tournament at 
 Westminster on the Whitsun holiday was the great 
 excitement to the whole population, for, with all its 
 faults, the Court of bluff King Hal was thoroughly 
 genial, and every one, gentle and simple, might 
 participate in his pleasures. 
 
 Seats were reserved at the lists for the city dignitaries 
 and their families, and though old Mistress Headley 
 professed that she ought to have done with such 
 vanities, she could not forbear from going to see that 
 her son was not too much encumbered with the care of 
 little Dennet, and that the child herself ran into no 
 mischief Master Headley himself grumbled and sighed, 
 but he put himself into his scarlet gown, holding that 
 his presence was a befitting attention to the king, glad 
 to gratify his little daughter, and not without a desire
 
 XI.] AY DI ME GRENADA. 215 
 
 to see how his workmanship — good EngHsh ware — 
 held out against " mail and plate of Milan steel," the 
 fine armour brought home from France by the 
 new Duke of Suffolk. Giles donned his best in the 
 expectation of sitting in the places of honour as one of 
 the family, and was greatly disgusted when Kit Small- 
 bones observed, " What's all that bravery for ? The 
 tilting match quotha ? Ha ! ha ! my young springald, 
 if thou see it at all, thou must be content to gaze as 
 thou canst from the armourers' tent, if Tibbie there 
 chooses to be cumbered with a useless lubber like 
 thee." 
 
 " I always sat with my mother when there were 
 matches at Clarendon," muttered Giles, who had learnt 
 at least that it was of no use to complain of Smallbones' 
 plain speaking. 
 
 " If fulks cocker malapert lads at Sarum we know 
 better here," was the answer. 
 
 " I shall ask the master, my kinsman," returned the 
 youth. 
 
 But he got little by his move. Master Headley told 
 him, not unkindly, for he had some pity for the spoilt 
 lad, that not the Lord Mayor himself would take his
 
 216 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 own son with liim while yet an apprentice, Tibbie 
 Steelman would indeed go to one of the attendants' 
 tents at the further end of the lists, where repairs to 
 armour and weapons might be needed, and would take 
 an assistant or two, but who they might be must 
 depend on his own choice, and if Giles had any desire 
 to go, he had better don his working dress. 
 
 In fact, Tibbie meant to take Edmund Burgess and 
 one workman for use, and one of the new apprentices 
 for pleasure, letting them change in the middle of the 
 day. The swagger of Giles actually forfeited for him 
 the first turn, which — though he was no favourite with 
 the men — would have been granted to his elder years 
 and his relationship to the master ; but on his over- 
 bearing demand to enter the boat which was to carry 
 down a little anvil and charcoal furnace, with a few 
 tools, rivets, nails, and horse-shoes, Tibbie coolly re- 
 turned that he needed no such gay birds ; but if Giles 
 chose to be ready in his leathern coat when Stephen 
 Birkenholt came home at midday, mayhaj) he might 
 change with him. 
 
 Stephen went joyously in the plainest of attire, 
 though Tibbie in fur cap, grimy jerkin, and leathern
 
 XL] AY DI ME GRENADA. 217 
 
 apron was no elegant steersman ; and Edmund, who 
 was at the age of youthful foppery, shrugged his 
 shoulders a little, and disguised the garments of the 
 smithy with his best flat cap and newest mantle. 
 
 They kept in the wake of the handsome barge which 
 Master Headley shared with his friend and brother 
 alderman, Master Hope the draper, whose young wife, 
 in a beautiful black velvet hood and shining blue satin 
 kirtle, was evidently petting Dennet to her heart's 
 content, though the little damsel never lost an oppor- 
 tunity of nodding to her friends in the plainer barge in 
 the rear. 
 
 The Tudor tilting matches cost no lives, and seldom 
 broke bones. They were chiefly opportunities for the 
 display of brilliant enamelled and gilt armour, at the 
 very acme of cumbrous magnificence ; and of equally 
 gorgeous embroidery spread out over the vast expanse 
 provided by elephantine Flemish horses. Even if the 
 weapons had not been purposely blunted, and if the 
 champions had really desired to slay one another, they 
 would have found the task very difficult, as in eff"ect 
 they did in the actual game of war. But the spectacle 
 was a splendid one, and all the apparatus was ready in
 
 218 THE ARMOUEER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 the armourers' tent, marked by St. George and the 
 Dragon, Tibbie ensconced himself in the innermost 
 corner with a "tractate," borrowed from his friend 
 Lucas, and sent the apprentices to gaze their fill at the 
 rapidly filling circles of seats. They saw King Hany, 
 resplendent in gilded armour — " from their own anvil, 
 true English steel," said Edmund, proudly — hand to 
 her seat his sister the bride, one of the most beautiful 
 women then in existence, with a lovely and delicate 
 bloom on her fair face and exquisite Plautagenet 
 features. No more royally handsome creatures could 
 the world have offered than that brother and sister, 
 and the English world appreciated them and made the 
 lists ring with applause at the fair lady who had dis- 
 dained foreign princes to wed her true love, an honest 
 Englishman. 
 
 He — the cloth of frieze — in blue Milanese armour, 
 made to look as classical as possible, and with clasps 
 and medals engraven from antique gems — handed in 
 Queen Katharine, whose dark but glowing Spanish 
 complexion made a striking contrast to the dazzling 
 fairness of her young sister-in-law. Near them sat a 
 stout burly figure in episcopal purple, and at his feet
 
 XI.] AY DI ME GRENADA. 219 
 
 there was a form which nearly took away all Stephen's 
 pleasure for the time. For it was in motley, and he 
 could hear the bells jingle, while the hot blood rose in 
 his cheeks in the dread lest Burgess should detect the 
 connection, or recognise in the jester the grave personage 
 who had come to negotiate with Mr. Headley for his 
 indentures, or worse still, that the fool should see and 
 claim him. 
 
 However, Quipsome Hal seemed to be exchanging 
 droUeries with the young dowager of France, who, 
 sooth to say, giggled in a very unqueenly manner at 
 jokes which made the grave Spanish-born queen draw 
 up her stately head, and converse with a lady on her 
 other hand — an equally stately lady, somewhat older, 
 with the straight Plantagenet features, and by her side 
 a handsome boy, who, though only eight or nine years 
 old, was tonsured, and had a little scholar's gown. 
 " That," said Edmund, " is my Lady Countess of 
 Salisbury, of whom Giles Headley prates so much." 
 
 A tournament, which was merely a game between 
 gorgeously equipped princes and nobles, afforded little 
 scope for adventure worthy of record, though it gave 
 great diversion to the spectators. Stephen gazed like
 
 220 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 one fascinated at the gay panoply of liorse and man, 
 with the huge plumes on the heads of both, as they 
 rushed against one another, and he shared with Edmund 
 the triumph when the lance from their armoury held 
 good, the vexation if it were shivered. All would have 
 been perfect but for the sight of his uncle, playing off 
 his drolleries in a manner that gave him a sense of 
 personal degradation. 
 
 To escape from the sight almost consoled him when, 
 in the pause after the first courses had been run, Tibbie 
 told him and Burgess to return, and send Headley and 
 another workman with a fresh bundle of lances for the 
 afternoon's tilting. Stephen further hoped to find his 
 brother at the Dragon court, as it was one of those 
 holidays that set every one free, and separation began 
 to make the brothers value theu- meetings. 
 
 But Ambrose was not at the Dragon court, and when 
 Stephen went in quest of him to the Temple, Perronel 
 had not seen him since the early morning, but she said 
 he seemed so much bitten with the little old man's 
 scholarship that she had small doubt that he would be 
 found poring over a book in Warwick Inner Yard. 
 
 Thither therefore did Stephen repair. The place
 
 XI.] AY DI ME GKENADA. 221 
 
 was nearly deserted, for the inhabitants were mostly 
 either artisans or that far too numerous race who 
 lived on the doles of convents, on the alms of church- 
 goers, and the largesses scattered among the people on 
 public occasions, and these were for the most part 
 pursuing their vocation both of gazing and looking out 
 for gain among the spectators outside the lists. The 
 door that Stephen had been shown as that of Ambrose's 
 master was, however, partly open, and close beside it sat 
 in the sun a figure that amazed him. On a small mat 
 or rug, with a black and yellow handkerchief over her 
 head, and little scarlet legs crossed under a blue dress, 
 all lighted up by the gay May sun, there slept the little 
 dark, glowing maiden, with her head bent as it leant 
 against the wall, her rosy lips half open, her long black 
 plaits on her shoulders. 
 
 Stepping up to the half-open door, whence he heard 
 a voice reading, his astonishment was increased. At 
 the table were his brother and his master, Ambrose with 
 a black book in hand, Lucas Hansen with some papers, 
 and on the ground was seated a venerable, white- 
 bearded old man, something between Stephen's notions 
 of an apostle and of a magician, though the latter idea
 
 222 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 predominated at sight of a long parchment scroll 
 covered with characters such as belonged to no alpha- 
 bet that he had ever dreamt of. What were they 
 doing to his brother ? He was absolutely in an en- 
 chanter's den. Was it a pixy at the door, guarding 
 it ? " Ambrose ! " he cried aloud. 
 
 Everybody started. Ambrose sprang to his feet, 
 exclaiming, " Stephen ! " The pixy gave a little scream 
 and jumped up, flying to the old man, who quietly 
 rolled up his scroll. 
 
 Lucas rose up as Ambrose spoke. 
 
 " Thy brother ? " said he. 
 
 " Yea — come in search of me," said Ambrose. 
 
 " Thou hadst best go forth with him," said Lucas. 
 
 " It is not well that youth should study over long," 
 said the old man. " Thou hast aided us well, but do 
 thou now unbend the bow. Peace be with thee, my son." 
 
 Ambrose complied, but scarcely willingly, and the 
 instant they had made a few steps from the door, 
 Stephen exclaimed in dismay, " Who — what was it ? 
 Have they bewitched thee, Ambrose ? " 
 
 Ambrose laughed merrily. " Not so. It is holy lore 
 that those good men are reading."
 
 XI.] AY DI ME GRENADA. 223 
 
 " Nay now, Ambrose, Stand still — if thou canst, poor 
 fellow," he muttered, and then made the sign of the 
 cross three times over his brother, who stood smiling, 
 and said, " Art satisfied, Stevie ? Or wilt have me 
 rehearse my Credo ? " Wliich he did, Stephen listening 
 critically, and drawing a long breath as he recognised 
 each word, pronounced without a shudder at the critical 
 points. " Thou art safe so far," said Stephen. " But 
 sure he is a wizard. I even beheld his familiar spirit — 
 in a fair shape doubtless — like a pixy ! Be not deceived, 
 brother. Sorcery reads backwards — and I saw him so 
 read from that scroll of his. Laughest thou ! Nay 1 
 what shall I do to free thee ? Enter here ! " 
 
 Stephen dragged his brother, still laughing, into the 
 porch of the nearest church, and deluged him with holy 
 water with such good will, that Ambrose, putting up his 
 hands to shield his eyes, exclaimed, " Come now, have 
 done with this folly, Stephen — though it makes me 
 laugh to think of thy scared looks, and poor little 
 Aldonza being taken for a familiar spirit." And 
 Ambrose laughed as he had not laughed for weeks. 
 
 '•' But what is it, then ? " 
 
 " The old man is of thy calling, or something like it,
 
 224 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 Stephen, being that he maketh and tempereth sword- 
 blades after the prime Damascene or Toledo fashion, 
 and the familiar spirit is his little daughter." 
 
 Stephen did not however look mollified. "Sword- 
 blades ! None have a right to make them save our 
 craft. This is one of the rascaille Spaniards who have 
 poured into the city under favour of the queen to spoil 
 and ruin the lawful trade. Though could you but have 
 seen, Ambrose, how our tough English ashwood in King 
 Harry's hand — from our own armoury too — made all 
 go down before it, you would never uphold strangers 
 and their false wares that can only get the better by 
 sorcery." 
 
 " How thou dost harp upon sorcery ! " exclaimed 
 Ambrose. " I must tell thee the good old man's story 
 as 'twas told to me, and then wilt thou own that he is 
 as good a Christian as ourselves — ay, or better — and 
 bath little cause to love the Spaniards." 
 
 " Come on, then," said Stephen, " Methought if we 
 went towards Westminster we might yet get where we 
 could see the lists. Such a rare show, Ambrose, to see 
 the King in English armour, ay, and Master Headley's, 
 every inch of it, glittering in the sun, so that one could
 
 XI.] AY DI ME GRENADA. 225 
 
 scarce brook the dazzlinsf, on his horse like a rock 
 shattering all that came against him ! I warrant you 
 the lances cracked and shivered like faggots under old 
 Purkis's bill-hook. And that you should liefer pore over 
 crabbed monkish stuff with yonder old men ! My life 
 on it, there must be some spell ! " 
 
 " No more than of old, when I was ever for book and 
 thou for bow," said Ambrose ; " but I'll make thee 
 rueful for old Michael yet. Hast heard tell of the 
 Moors in Spain ? " 
 
 " Moors — blackamoors who worship Mahound and 
 Termagant. I saw a blackamoor last week behind his 
 master, a merchant of Genoa, in Paul's Walk. He 
 looked like the devils in the Miracle Play at Christ 
 Church, with blubber lips and wool for hair. I mar- 
 velled that he did not writhe and flee when he came 
 within the Minster, but Ned Burgess said he was a 
 christened man." 
 
 " Moors be not all black, neither be they all 
 worshippers of Mahound," rephed Ambrose. 
 
 However, as Ambrose's information, though a 
 few decrees more correct and intelligent than his 
 brother's, was not complete, it will be better not 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 to give the history of Lucas's strange visitors in his 
 words. 
 
 They belonged to the race of Saracen Arabs who 
 had brought the arts of life to such perfection in 
 Southern Spain, but who had received the general 
 appellation of Moors from those Africans who were 
 continually reinforcing them, and, bringing a certain 
 Puritan strictness of Mohammedanism with them, had 
 done much towards destroying the highest cultivation 
 among them before the Spanish kingdoms became 
 united, and finally triumphed over them. During the 
 loner interval of two centuries, while Castille was 
 occupied by internal wars, and Aragon by Italian 
 conquests, there had been little aggression on the 
 Moorish borderland, and a good deal of friendly inter- 
 course both in the way of traffic and of courtesy ; nor 
 had the bitter persecution and distrust of new con- 
 verts then set in, which followed the entire conquest 
 of Granada. Thus, when Ronda was one of the first 
 Moorish cities to surrender, a great merchant of the 
 unrivalled sword-blades whose secret had been brought 
 from Damascus, had, with all his family, been accepted 
 gladly when he declared himself ready to submit and
 
 XI.] AY DI ME GRENADA. 227 
 
 receive baptism. Miguel Abenali was one of the sons, 
 and though his conversion had at first been mere 
 comphance with his father's will and the family in- 
 terests, he had become sufficiently convinced of Chris- 
 tian truth not to take part with his own people in 
 the final struggle. Still, however, the inbred abhor- 
 rence of idolatry had influenced his manner of wor- 
 ship, and when, after half a life time, Granada had 
 fallen, and the Inquisition had begun to take cogni- 
 sance of new Christians from among the Moors as well 
 as the Jews, there were not lacking spies to report 
 the absence of all sacred images or symbols from the 
 house of the wealthy merchant, and that neither he 
 nor any of his family had been seen kneeling before 
 the shrine of Nuestra Sehora. The sons of Abenali 
 did indeed feel strongly the power of the national 
 reaction, and revolted from the religion which thev 
 saw cruelly enforced on their conquered countrymen. 
 The j\Ioor had been viewed as a gallant enemy, the 
 Morisco was only a being to be distrusted and perse- 
 cuted ; and the efforts of the good Bishop of Gra- 
 nada, who had caused the Psalms, Gospels, and large 
 portions of the Breviary to be translated into Arabic, 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 were frustrated by the zeal of those who imagined 
 that heresy lurked in the vernacular, and perhaps 
 that objections to popular practices might be 
 strengthened. 
 
 By order of Cardinal Ximenes, these Arabic versions 
 were taken away and burnt ; but Miguel Abenali had 
 secured his own copy, and it was what he there learnt 
 that withheld him from flying to his countrymen and 
 resuming their faith when he found that the Chris- 
 tianity he had professed for forty years was no longer 
 a protection to him. Having known the true Christ 
 in the Gospel, he could not turn back to Mohammed, 
 even though Christians persecuted in the Name they so 
 little understood. 
 
 The crisis came in 1507, when Ximenes, apparently 
 impelled by the dread that simulated conformity should 
 corrupt the Church, quickened the persecution of the 
 doubtful " Nuevos Cristianos," and the Abenali family, 
 who had made themselves loved and respected, received 
 warning that they had been denounced, and that their 
 only hope lay in flight. 
 
 The two sons, high-spirited young men, on whom 
 religion had far less hold than national feeling, fled to
 
 XI.] AY DI ME GRENADA. 22i) 
 
 the Alpuxarra Mountains, and renouncing the faith of 
 the persecutors, joined their countrymen in their gallant 
 and desperate warfare. Their mother, who had long 
 been dead, had never been more than an outward 
 Christian ; but the second wife of Abenali shared his 
 belief and devotion with the intelligence and force of 
 character sometimes found among the Moorish ladies of 
 Spain. She and her little ones fled with him in disguise to 
 Cadiz, with the precious Arabic Scriptures rolled round 
 their waists, and took shelter with an English merchant, 
 who had had dealins^s in sword-blades with Senor 
 Miguel, and had been entertained by him in his beauti- 
 ful Saracenic house at Ronda with Eastern hospitality. 
 This he requited by giving them the opportunity of 
 sailinor for Enorland in a vessel laden with Xeres sack ; 
 but the misery of the voyage across the Bay of Biscay 
 in a ship fit for nothing but wine, was excessive, and 
 creatures reared in the lovely climate and refined luxury 
 of the land of the palm and orange, exhausted too 
 already by the toils of the mountain journey, were in- 
 capable of enduring it, and Abenali's brave wife and 
 one of her children were left beneath the waves of the 
 Atlantic. With the one little girl left to him, he
 
 230 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 arrived in London, and the recommendation of his 
 Cadiz friend obtained for him work from a dealer in 
 foreign weapons, who was not unwilling to procure 
 them nearer home. Happily for him, Moorish masters, 
 however rich, were always required to be proficients in 
 their own trade ; and thus Miguel, or Michael as he 
 was known in England, was able to maintain himself 
 and his child by the fabrication of blades that no one 
 could distinguish from those of Damascus. Their per- 
 fection was a work of infinite skill, labour, and industry, 
 but .they were so costly, that their price, and an occa- 
 sional job of inlaying gold in other metal, sufficed to 
 maintain the old man and his little daughter. The 
 armourers themselves were sometimes forced to have 
 recourse to him, though unwillingly, for he was looked 
 on with distrust and dislike as an interloper of foreign 
 birth, belonging to no guild. A Biscay an or Castillian 
 of the oldest Christian blood incurred exactly the same 
 obloquy from the mass of London craftsmen and appren- 
 tices, and Lucas himself had small measure of favour, 
 though Dutchmen were less alien to the English mind 
 than Spaniards, and his trade did not lead to so much 
 rivalry and competition.
 
 XI.] AY DI ME GRENADA. 231 
 
 As much of this as Ambrose knew or understood he 
 told to Stephen, who listened in a good deal of be- 
 wilderment, understanding very little, but with a strong- 
 instinct that his brother's love of learnins; was leading- 
 him into dangerous company. And what were they 
 doing on this fine May holiday, when every one ought 
 to be out enjoying themselves ? 
 
 "Well, if thou wilt know," said Ambrose, pushed 
 hard, " there is one Master William Tindal, who hath 
 been doing part of the blessed Evangel into English, 
 and for better certainty of its correctness. Master 
 Michael was comparing it with his Arabic version, 
 while I overlooked the Latin." 
 
 " O Ambrose, 'thou wilt surely run into trouble. 
 Know you not how nurse Joan used to tell us of the 
 burninij of the Lollard books ? " 
 
 " Nay, nay, Stevie, this is no heresy. 'Tis such work 
 as the great scholar, Master Erasmus, is busied on — ay, 
 and he is loved and honoured by both the Archbishops 
 and the Kinsj's grace ! Ask Tibbie Steelman what he 
 thinks thereof." 
 
 " Tibbie Steelman would think nought of a beggarly 
 stranger calling himself a sword cutler, and practising
 
 232 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap, xi 
 
 the craft without prenticeship or license," said Stephen, 
 swelling with indignation. " Come on, Ambrose, and 
 sweep the cobwebs from thy brain. If we cannot get 
 into our own tent again, we can mingle with the out- 
 skirts, and learn how the day is going, and how our 
 lances and breastplates have stood where the knaves' 
 at the Eagle have gone like reeds and egg-shells — just 
 as I threw George Bates, the prentice at the Eagle 
 yesterday, in a wrestling match at the butts with the 
 trick old Diggory taught me."
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A KING IN A QUAGxMIRE. 
 
 For my pastance 
 Hunt, sing, and dance. 
 My heart is set 
 All godly sport 
 To my comfort. 
 "Who shall me let ? 
 The King's Balade, attributed to Henry VIII. 
 
 Life was a rough, hearty thing in the early six- 
 teenth century, strangely divided between thought and 
 folly, hardship and sjjlendour, misery and merriment, 
 toil and sport. 
 
 The youths in the armourer's household had ex- 
 perienced little of this as yet in their country life, but 
 in London they could not but soon begin to taste both 
 sides of the matter. Master Headley himself was a 
 good deal taken up with city affiiirs, and left the details
 
 234 THE ARMOUREE'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 of his business to Tibbie Steelman and Kit Smallbones, 
 though he might always appear on the scene, and he 
 had a wonderful knowledge of what was going on. 
 
 The breaking-in and training of the two new country 
 lads was entirely left to them and to Edmund Burgess. 
 Giles soon found that complaints were of no avail, and 
 only made matters harder for him, and that Tibbie 
 Steelman and Kit Smallbones had no notion of favouring 
 their master's cousin. 
 
 Poor fellow, he was very miserable in those first 
 weeks. The actual toil, to which he was an absolute 
 novice, though nominally three years an apprentice, 
 made his hands raw, and his joints full of aches, while 
 his groans met with nothing but laughter; and he 
 recognised with great displeasure, that more was laid 
 on him than on Stephen Birkenholt. This was partly 
 in consideration of Stephen's youth, partly of his ready 
 zeal and cheerfulness. His hands might be sore too, 
 but he was rather proud of it than otherwise, and his 
 hero worship of Kit Smallbones made him run on 
 errands, tug at the bellows staff, or fetch whatever was 
 called for with a bright alacrity that won the foremen's 
 hearts, and it was noted that he who was really a
 
 xir.j A KING IN A QUAGMIRE. 235 
 
 gentleman, had none of the airs that Giles Headley 
 showed. 
 
 Giles began by some amount of bullying, by way of 
 slaking his wrath at the preference shown for one whom 
 he continued to style a beggarly brat picked up on the 
 heath ; but Stephen was good-humoured, and accustomed 
 to give and take, and they both found their level, as 
 well in the Dragon court as among the world outside, 
 where the London prentices were a strong and redoubt- 
 able body, with rude, not to say cruel, rites of initiation 
 among themselves, plenty of rivahies and enmities 
 between house and house, guild and guild, but a united, 
 not to say ferocious, esprit dc corps against every one 
 else. Fisticuffs and wrestlings were the amenities that 
 passed between them, though always with a love of fair 
 play so long as no cowardice, or what was looked on as 
 such, was shown, for there was no mercy for the weak or 
 weakly. Such had better betake themselves at once to 
 the cloister, or life was made intolerable by constant 
 jeers, blows, baiting and huntings, often, it must be 
 owned, absolutely brutal. 
 
 Stephen and Giles had however passed through this 
 ordeal. The letter to John Birkenholt had been
 
 236 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 despatched by a trusty clerk riding Avitli the Judges of 
 Assize, whom Mistress Perronel knew might be safely 
 trusted, and who actually brought back a letter which 
 might have emanated from the most affectionate of 
 brothers, giving his authority for the binding Stephen 
 apprentice to the worshipful Master Giles Headley, and 
 sending the remainder of the boy's portion. 
 
 Stephen was thereupon regularly bound apprentice 
 to Master Headley. It was a solemn affair, which took 
 place in the Armourer's Hall in Coleman Street, before 
 sundry witnesses. Harry Randall, in his soberest garb 
 and demeanour, acted as guardian to his nephew, and 
 presented him, clad in the regulation prentice garb — 
 " flat round cap, close-cut hair, narrow falling bands, 
 coarse side coat, close hose, cloth stockings," coat with 
 the badge of the Armourers' Company, and Master 
 Headley's own dragon's tail on the sleeve, to which was 
 added a blue cloak marked in like manner. The in- 
 structions to apprentices were rehearsed, beginning, 
 " Ye shall constantly and devoutly on your knees 
 every day serve God, morning and evening " — pledging 
 him to " avoid evil company, to make speedy return 
 when sent on his master's business, to be fair, gentle
 
 xii.] A KING IN A QUAGMIRE. 237 
 
 and lowly in speech and carriage with all men," and 
 the like. 
 
 Mutual promises were interchanged between him and 
 his master, Stephen on his kaees ; the indentures were 
 signed, for Quipsome Hal could with much ado pro- 
 duce an autograph signature, though his penmanship 
 went no further, and the occasion was celebrated by a 
 great dinner of the whole craft at the Armourers' Hall, 
 to which the principal craftsmen who had been ap- 
 prentices, such as Tibbie Steelman and Kit Smallbones, 
 were invited, sitting at a lower table, while the masters 
 had the higher one on the dais, and a third was re- 
 served for the apprentices after they should have waited 
 on their masters — in fact it was an imitation of the 
 orders of chivalry, knights, squires, and p9.ges, and the 
 gradation of rank was as strictly observed as by the 
 nobility. Giles, considering the feast to be entirely in 
 his honour, though the transfer of his indentures had 
 been made at Salisbury, endeavoured to come out in 
 some of his bravery, but was admonished that such 
 presumption might be punished, the first time, at 
 his master's discretion, the second time, by a whip- 
 ping at the Hall of his Company, and the third
 
 238 THE ARMOUEER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 time bv six months beins^ added to the term of his 
 apprenticeship. 
 
 Master Randall was entertained in the place of 
 honour, where he comj)orted himself with great gravity, 
 though he could not resist alarming Stephen with an 
 occasional wink or gesture as the boy approached in 
 the course of the duties of waiting at the upper board 
 — a sj^lendid sight with cups and flagons of gold and 
 silver, with venison and capons and all that a City 
 banquet could command before the invention of the 
 turtle. 
 
 There was drinking of toasts, and among the fore- 
 most was that of Wolsey, who had freshly received his 
 nomination of cardinal, and whose hat was on its way 
 from Rome — -and here the jester could not help betray- 
 ing his knowledge of the domestic policy of the house- 
 hold, and t-^lling the company how it had become 
 known that the scarlet hat was actually on the way, 
 but in a " varlet's budget — a mere Italian common 
 knave, no better than myself," quoth Quipsome Hal, 
 whereat his nephew trembled standing behind his 
 chair, forgetting that the decorous solid man in the 
 sad-coloured gown and well-crimped ruff, neatest of
 
 XII.] A KING IN A QUAGMIRE. 239 
 
 Perronel's performances, was no such base comparison 
 for any varlet. Hal went on to describe, however, how 
 my Lord of York had instantly sent to stay the mes- 
 senger on his landing at Dover, and equip him with all 
 manner of costly silks by way of apparel, and with 
 attendants, such as might do justice to his freight, 
 " that so," he said, " men may not rate it but as a 
 scarlet cock's comb, since all men be but fools, and the 
 sole question is, who among them hath wit enough to 
 live by his folly." Therewith he gave a wink that so 
 disconcerted Stephen as nearly to cause an upset of the 
 bowl of perfumed water that he was bringing for the 
 washing of hands. 
 
 Master Headley, however, suspected nothing, and in- 
 vited the grave Master Randall to attend the domestic 
 festival on the presentation of poor Spring's effigy at 
 the shrine of St. Julian. This was to take place early 
 in the morning of the 14th of September, Holy Cross 
 Day, the last holiday in the year that had any of the 
 glory of summer about it, and on which the apprentices 
 claimed a prescriptive right to go out nutting in 
 St. John's "Wood, and to carry home their spoil to 
 the lasses of their acquaintance.
 
 240 THE ARMOUEER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 Tibbie Stcelman had completed the figure in bronze, 
 with a silver collar and chain, not quite without protest 
 that the sum had better have been bestowed in alms. 
 But from his master's point of view this would have 
 been giving to a pack of lying beggars and thieves what 
 was due to the holy saint ; no one save Tibbie, who 
 could do and say what he chose, could have ventured 
 on a word of remonstrance on such a subject ; and as 
 the full tide of iconoclasm, consequent on the discovery 
 of the original wording of the second commandment, 
 had not yet set in, Tibbie had no more conscientious 
 scruple against making the figure, than in moulding a 
 little straight-tailed lion for Lord Harry Percy's helmet. 
 
 So the party in early morning heard their mass, and 
 then, repairing to St. Julian's pillar, while the rising 
 sun came peeping through the low eastern window of 
 the vaulted Church of St. Faith, Master Headley on 
 his knees gave thanks for his preservation, and then 
 put forward his little daughter, holding on her joined 
 hands the figure of poor Spring, couchant, and beauti- 
 fully modelled in bronze with all Tibbie's best skill, 
 
 Hal Randall and Ambrose had both come up from 
 the little home where Perronel presided, for the hour
 
 XII.] A KING IN A QUAGMIRE. 241 
 
 was too early for the jester's absence to be remarked in 
 the luxurious household of the Cardinal elect, and he 
 even came to break his fast afterwards at the Dragon 
 court, and held such interesting discourse with old 
 Dame Headley on the farthingales and coifs of Queen 
 Katharine and her ladies, that she pronounced him 
 a man wondrous wise and understandins;, and de- 
 clared Stephen happy in the possession of such a 
 kinsman. 
 
 " And whither away now, youngsters ? " he said, as 
 he rose from table. 
 
 " To St. John's Wood ! The good greenwood, uncle," 
 said Ambrose. 
 
 " Thou too, Ambrose ? " said Stephen joyfully. " For 
 once away from thine ink and thy books ! " 
 
 "Ay," said Ambrose, "mine heart warms to the 
 woodlands once more. Uncle, would that thou couldst 
 come." 
 
 " Would that I could, boy ! We three would show 
 these lads of Cockayne what three foresters know of 
 wood craft ! But it may not be. Were I once there, 
 the old blood might stir again and I might bring you 
 into trouble, and ye have not two faces under one hood 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES, [chap. 
 
 as I have ! So fare ye well, I wisli yon many a bagful 
 of nuts ! " 
 
 The four mouths of city life, albeit the City was little 
 bigger than our moderate sized country towns, and far 
 from being au unbroken mass of houses, had yet made 
 the two young foresters delighted to enjoy a day of 
 thorough country in one another's society. Little 
 Dennet longed to go with them, but the prentice world 
 was far too rude for little maidens to be trusted in it, 
 and her father held out hopes of going one of these 
 days to High Park as he called it, while Edmund and 
 Stephen promised her all their nuts, and as many 
 blackberries as could be held in their flat caps. 
 
 " Giles has promised me none," said Dennet, with a 
 pouting lip, " nor Ambrose." 
 
 " Why sure, little mistress, thou 'It have enough to 
 crack thy teeth on ! " said Edmund Burgess. 
 
 "They ougJit to bring theirs to me," returned the 
 little heiress of the Dragon court with an air of offended 
 dignity that might have suited the heiress of the 
 kingdom. 
 
 Giles, who looked on Dennet as a kind of needful 
 appendage to the Dragon, a piece of property of his
 
 XII.] A KING IX A QUAGMIRE. 243 
 
 own, about whom he need take no trouble, merely 
 laughed and said, " Want must be thy master then." 
 But Ambrose treated her petulance in another fashion. 
 " Look here, pretty mistress," said he, " there dwells by 
 me a poor little maid nigh about thine age, who never 
 goeth further out than to St. Paul's minster, nor plucketh 
 flower, nor hath sweet cake, nor manchet bi'ead, nor 
 sugar-stick, nay, and scarce ever saw English hazel-nut 
 nor blackberrv. 'Tis for her that I want to fjather 
 them." 
 
 " Is she thy master's daughter ? " demanded Dennet, 
 who could admit the claims of another princess, 
 
 " Nay, my master hath no children, but she dwelleth 
 near him." 
 
 " I will send her some, and likewise of mine own 
 comfits and cakes," said Mistress Dennet. " Only thou 
 must bring all to me first." 
 
 Ambrose laughed and said, " It's a bargain then, 
 little mistress? " 
 
 " I keep my word," returned Dennet marching 
 away, while Ambrose obeyed a summons from good- 
 natured Mistress Headley to have his wallet filled with 
 bread and cheese like those of her own prentices. 
 
 K 2
 
 244 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 Off went the lads under the guidance of Edmund 
 Burgess, meeting parties of their own kind at every 
 turn, soon leaving behind them the City bounds, as they 
 passed under New Gate, and by and by skirting the 
 fields of the great Carthusian monastery, or Charter 
 House, with the burial-ground given by Sir Walter 
 Manny at the time of the Black Death. Beyond came 
 marshy ground through which they had to pick their 
 way carefully, over stepping-stones — this being no other 
 than what is now the Regent's Park, not yet in any 
 degree drained by the New River, but all quaking 
 ground, overgrown with rough grass and marsh-plants, 
 through which Stephen and Ambrose bounded by the 
 help of stout poles with feet and eyes well used to bogs, 
 and knowing where to look for a safe footing, while 
 many a flat-capped London lad floundered about and 
 sank over his yellow ankles or left his shoes behind 
 him, while lapwings shrieked pee-wheet, and almost 
 flapped him with their broad wings, and moorhens 
 dived in the dark pools, and wild ducks rose in long 
 famihes. 
 
 Stephen was able to turn the laugh against his chief 
 adversary and rival, George Bates of the Engic, who
 
 XII.] A KING IN A QUAGMIRE. 245 
 
 proposed seeking for the lapwing's nest in hopes of a 
 dainty dish of plovers' eggs ; being too great a cockney 
 to remember that in September the contents of the eggs 
 were probably flying over the heather, as well able to 
 shift for themselves as their parents. 
 
 Above all things the London prentices wei'e pugna- 
 cious, but as every one joined in the laugh against 
 George, and he was, besides, stuck fast on a quaking- 
 tussock of grass, afraid to proceed or advance, he could 
 not have his revenge. And when the slough was passed, 
 and the slight rise leading to the copse of St. John's 
 Wood was attained, behold, it was found to be in 
 possession of the lower sort of lads, the black guard as 
 they were called. They were of course quite as ready 
 to fight with the prentices as the prentices were with 
 them, and a battle royal took place, all along the front 
 of the hazel bushes — in which Stephen of the Dragon 
 and George of the Eagle fought side by side. Sticks 
 and fists were the weapons, and there were no very 
 severe casualties before the prentices, being the larger 
 number as well as the stouter and better fed, had 
 routed their adversaries, and driven them off towards 
 Harrow.
 
 246 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 There was crackling of boughs and fiUing of bags, 
 and cracking of nuts, and wild cries in pursuit of 
 startled hare or rabbit, and though Ambrose and 
 Stephen indignantly repelled the idea of St. John's 
 Wood being named in the same day with their native 
 forest, it is doubtful whether they had ever enjoyed 
 themselves more ; until just as they were about to turn 
 homeward, whether movtd by his hostility to Stephen 
 or by envy at the capful of juicy blackberries, carefully 
 covered with green leaves, George Bates, rushing up 
 from behind, shouted out " Here's a skulker ! Here's 
 one of the black guard ! Off to thy fellows, varlet ! " 
 at the same time deahng a dexterous blow under the 
 cap, which sent the blackbeiries up into Ambrose's 
 face. " Ha ! ha ! " shouted the ill-conditioned fellow. 
 " So much for a knave that^ serves rascally strangers ! 
 Here ! hand over that bag of nuts ! " 
 
 Ambrose was no tighter, but in defence of the bag 
 that was to purchase a treat fur little AUIonza, he 
 clenched his hsts, and bade George Bates couiC and 
 take them if he would. The quiet scholarly boy was, 
 however, no match for the young armourer, and made 
 but poor reply to the buffets of his adversary, who had
 
 xii.] A KING IN A QUAGMIRE. 24'i 
 
 hold of the bag, and was nearly choking him with the 
 strino- round his neck. 
 
 However, Stephen had already missed his brother, 
 and turning round, shouted out that the villain Bates 
 was mauling him, and rushed back, falling on Ambrose's 
 assailant with a sudden well-directed pommelling that 
 made him hastily turn about, with cries of " Two 
 against one ! " 
 
 " Not at all," said Stephen. " Stand by, Ambrose ; 
 I'll o'ive the coward his deserts." 
 
 In fact, though the boys were nearly of a size, George 
 somewhat the biggest, Stephen's country activity, and 
 perhaps the higher spirit of his gentle blood, generally 
 gave him the advantage, and on this occasion he soon 
 reduced Bates to roar for mercy. 
 
 " Thou must purchase it ! " said Stephen. " Thy 
 bag of nuts, in return for the berries thou hast 
 wasted ! " 
 
 Peaceable Ambrose would have remonstrated, but 
 Stephen was implacable. He cut the string, and cap- 
 tured the bag, then with a parting kick bade Bates go 
 after his comrades, for his Eagle was nought but a 
 thieving kite.
 
 248 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 Bates made off pretty quickly, but the two brothers 
 tarried a little to see how much damage the blackberries 
 had suffered, and to repair the losses as they descended 
 into the bog by gathering some choice dewberries. 
 
 " I marvel these fine fellows 'scaped our company," 
 said Stephen presently. 
 
 "Are we in the right track, thinkst thou ? Here is 
 a pool I marked not before," said Ambrose anxiously. 
 
 " Nay, we can't be far astray while we see St. Paul's 
 spire and the Tower full before us," said Stephen. 
 "Plainer marks than we had at home." 
 
 " That may be. Only where is the safe footing ? " 
 said Ambrose. " I wish we had not lost sight of the 
 others ! " 
 
 " Pish ! what good are a pack of City lubbers ! " 
 returned Stephen. " Don't we know a quagmire when 
 we see one, better than they do ? " 
 
 " Hark, they are shouting for us." 
 
 " Not they ! That's a Mconer's call. There's another 
 whistle ! See, there's the hawk. She's gfoinof down 
 the wind, as I'm alive," and Stephen began to bound 
 wildly along, making all the sounds and calls by 
 which falcons were recalled, and holding up as a lure
 
 XII.] A KING IN A QUAGMIRE. 249 
 
 a lapwing which he had knocked down. Ambrose, by no 
 means so confident in bog-trotting as his. brother, stood 
 still to await him, hearing the calls and shouts of the 
 falconer coming nearer, and presently seeing a figure, 
 flying by the help of a pole over the pools and dykes 
 that here made some attempt at draining the waste. 
 Suddenly, in mid career over one of these broad ditches, 
 there was a collapse, and a lusty shout for help as the 
 form disappeared. Ambrose instantly perceived what 
 had happened, the leaping pole had broken to the 
 downfall of its owner. Forgetting all his doubts as 
 to bogholes and morasses, he grasped his own pole, 
 and sprang from tussock to tussock, till he had reached 
 the bank of the ditch or water-course in which the 
 unfortunate sportsman was floundering. He was a large, 
 powerful man, but this was of no avail, for the slough 
 afforded no foothold. The further side was a steep 
 bank built wp of sods, the nearer sloped down grad ually, 
 and though it was not apparently very deep, the efforts 
 of the victim to struggle out had done nothing but 
 churn up a mass of black muddy water in which he 
 sank deeper every moment, and it was already nearly 
 to his shoulders when with a cry of joy, half choked
 
 250 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 however, by the mud, he cried, " Ha ! my good lad ! 
 Are there any more of ye ? " 
 
 " Not nigh, I faar," said Ambrose, beholding with 
 some dismay the breadth of the shoulders which were 
 all that appeared above the turbid water. 
 
 "Soh! Lie down, boy, behind that bunch of osier. 
 Hold out thy 23o]e. Let me see thine hands. Thou 
 art but a straw, but, our Lady be my speed ! Now 
 hangs England on a pair of wrists ! " 
 
 There was a great struggle, an absolute effort for 
 life, and but for the osier stump Ambrose would cer- 
 tainly have been dragged into the water, when the man 
 had worked along the pole, and grasping his hands, 
 pulled himself upwards. Happily the sides of the 
 dyke became harder higher up, and did not instantly 
 yield to the pressure of his knees, and by the time 
 Ambrose's hands and shoulders felt nearly wrenched 
 from their sockets, the stem of the osier had been 
 attained, and in another minute, the rescued man, 
 bareheaded, plastered with mud, and streaming with 
 water, sat by him on the bank, panting, gasping, and 
 trying to gather breath and clear his throat from the 
 mud he had swallowed.
 
 XII.] A KING IX A QUAGMIRE. 251 
 
 " Thanks, good lad, well done," he articulated. "Those 
 fellows ! where are they ? " And feeling in his bosom, 
 he brought out a gold whistle suspended by a chain, 
 " Blow it," he said, taking otf the chain, " my mouth is 
 too full of slime." 
 
 Ambrose blew a loud shrill call, but it seemed to 
 reach no one but Stephen, whom he presently saw 
 dashing towards them. 
 
 " Here is my brother coming, sir," he said, as he gave 
 his endeavours to help the stranger to free himself from 
 the mud that clung to him, and which was in some 
 places thick enough to be scrai^ed off with a knife. 
 He kept up a continual interchange of exclamations 
 at his plight, whistles and shouts for his people, and 
 imprecations on their tardiness, until Stephen was 
 near enough to show that the hawk had been recovered, 
 and then he joyfully called out, " Ha ! hast thou got 
 her ? Why, flat-caps as ye are, ye put all my fellows 
 to shame ! How now, thou errant bird, dost know thy 
 master, or take him for a mud wall ? Kite that thou 
 art, to have led me such a dance ! And what's your 
 name, my brave lads ? Ye must have been bred to 
 wood-craft."
 
 252 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 Ambrose explained both tbeir parentage and their 
 present occupation, but was apparently heeded but 
 little. " Wot ye how to get out of this quagmire ? " 
 was the question. 
 
 " I never was here before, sir," said Stephen ; " but 
 yonder lies the Tower, and if we keep along by this 
 dyke, it must lead us out somewhere." 
 
 " Well said, bo}^ I must be moving, or the mud will 
 dry on me, and I shall stand here as though I were 
 turned to stone by the Gorgon's head ! So have with 
 thee ! Go on first, master hawk-tamer. What will bear 
 thee will bear me ! " 
 
 There was an imperative tone about him that sur- 
 prised the brothers, and Ambrose looking at him from 
 head to foot, felt sure that it was some great man at 
 the least, whom it had been his hap to rescue. Indeed, 
 he began to have further suspicions when they came to 
 a pool of clearer water, beyond which was firmer ground, 
 and the stranger with an exclamation of joy, borrowed 
 Stephen's cap, and, scooping up tlie water with it, 
 washed his face and head, disclosing the s^olden hair and 
 beard, f;xir complexion, and handsome square face he had 
 seen more than once before.
 
 xii.] A KING IN A QUAGMIRE. 253 
 
 He whispered to Stephen " 'Tis the King ! " 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! " laughed Henry, " hast found him out, 
 hids ? Well, it may not be the worse for ye. Pity thou 
 shouldst not be in the Forest still, my young falconer, 
 but we know our good city of London too well to break 
 thy indentures. And thou " 
 
 He was turning to Ambrose when further shouts 
 were heard. The King hallooed, and bade the boys do 
 so, and in a few moments more they were surrounded 
 by the rest of the hawking party, full of dismay at the 
 king's condition, and deprecating his anger for having 
 lost him. 
 
 " Yea," said Henry ; " an it had not been for this good 
 lad, ye would never have heard more of the majesty of 
 England ! Swallowed in a quagmire had made a new 
 end for a king, and ye would have to brook the little 
 Scot." 
 
 The gentlemen who had come up were profuse in 
 lamentations. A horse was brought up for the king's 
 use, and he prepared to mount, being in haste to get 
 into dry clothes. He turned round, however, to the 
 boys, and said, " I'll not forget you, my lads. Keep 
 that ! " he added, as Ambrose, on his knee, would have 
 given him back the whistle, " 'tis a token that maybe
 
 254 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap 
 
 Avill serve thee, for I shall know it again. And thou, 
 my black-eyed lad My purse, Howard ! " 
 
 He handed the purse to Stephen — a velvet bag 
 richly wrought with gold, and containing ten gold 
 angels, besides smaller money — bidding them divide, 
 like good brothers as he saw they were, and then 
 galloped off with his train. 
 
 Twilight was coming on, but following in the direction 
 of the riders, the boys were soon on the Islington road. 
 The New Gate Avas shut by the time they reached it, 
 and their explanation that they were belated after a 
 nutting expedition would not have served them, had 
 not Stephen produced the sum of twopence wdiich 
 softened the surliness of the ^uard. 
 
 It was already dark, and though curfew had not yet 
 sounded, preparations were making for lighting the 
 watch-fires in the open spaces and throwing chains 
 across the streets, but the little door in the Dragon 
 court was open, and Ambrose went in with his brother 
 to deliver up his nuts to Dennet and claim her promise 
 of sending a share to Aldonza. 
 
 They found their uncle in his sober array sitting by 
 Master Headley, avIio was rating Edmund and Giles for 
 having lost sight of them, the latter excusing himself
 
 xiT.] A KING IN A QUAGMIRE. 255 
 
 by grumbling out that he could not be marking all 
 Stephen's brawls with George Bates. 
 
 When the two wanderers appeared, relief took the 
 form of anger, and there were sharp demands why 
 they had loitered. Their story was listened to with 
 many exclamations : Dennet jumped for joy, her grand- 
 mother advised that the angels should be consigned to 
 her own safe keeping, and when Master Headley heard 
 of Henry's scruples about the indentures, he declared 
 that it was a rare wise king who knew that an honest 
 craft was better than court favour. 
 
 " Yet mayhap he might do something for thee, friend 
 Ambrose," added the armourer. "Commend thee to 
 some post in his chapel royal, or put thee into some 
 college, since such is thy turn. How sayst thou, 
 Master Randall, shall he send in this same token, and 
 make his petition ? " 
 
 " If a foo— — if a plain man may be heard where the 
 wise hath spoken," said Randall, " he had best abstain- 
 Kino-s love not to be minded of mishaps, and our Hal's 
 humour is not to be reckoned on ! Lay up the toy in 
 case of need, but an thou claim overmuch he may 
 mind thee in a fashion not to thy taste."
 
 256 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. xii. 
 
 "Sure our King is of a more generous mould!" 
 exclaimed Mrs. Headley. 
 
 " He is like other men, good mistress, just as you 
 know how to have him, and he is scarce like to be 
 willing to be minded of the taste of mire, or of flounder- 
 ing like a hog in a salt marsh. Ha ! ha ! " and Quip- 
 some Hal went off into such a laugh as might have 
 betrayed his identity to any one more accustomed to 
 the grimaces of his professional character, but which 
 only infected the others with the same contagious 
 merriment. " Come thou home now," he said to 
 Ambrose ; " my good woman hath been in a mortal 
 fright about thee, and would have me come out to seek 
 after thee. Such are the women folk, Master Headley. 
 Let them have but a lad to look after, and they'll bleat 
 after him like an old ewe that has lost her lamb." 
 
 Ambrose only stayed for Dennet to divide the spoil, 
 and though the blackberries had all been lost or 
 crushed, the little maiden kept her promise generously, 
 and filled the bag not only with nuts but with three 
 red-cheeked apples, and a handful of comfits, for the 
 poor little maid who never tasted fruit or sweets.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A LONDON HOLIDAY. 
 
 " Up then spoke the apprentices tall 
 Living in London, one and all." 
 
 Old Ballad. 
 
 Another of the many holidays of the Londoners was 
 enjoyed on the occasion of the installation of Thomas 
 Wolsey as Cardinal of St. Cecilia, and Papal Legate. 
 
 A whole assembly of prelates and " lusty gallant 
 gentlemen " rode out to Blackheath to meet the Roman 
 envoy, who, robed in full splendour, with St. Peter's 
 keys embroidered on back and breast and on the 
 housings of his mule, appeared at the head of a gallant 
 train in the papal liveries, two of whom carried the 
 gilded pillars, the insignia of oflfice, and two more, a 
 scarlet and gold-covered box or casket containing the 
 Cardinal's hat. Probably no such reception of the 
 
 vol. l s
 
 258 THE AEMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 dignity was ever prepared elsewhere, and all was 
 calculated to give magnificent ideas of the office of 
 Cardinal and of the power of the Pope to those who 
 had not been let into the secret that the messeno-er 
 had been met at Dover ; and thus magnificently fitted 
 out to satisfy the requirements of the butcher's son 
 of Ipswich, and of one of the most ostentatious of 
 courts. 
 
 Old Gaifer Martin Fulford had muttered in his bed 
 that such pomp had not been the way in the time of 
 the true old royal blood, and that display had come in 
 with the upstart slips of the E,ed Rose — as he still chose 
 to style the Tudors ; and he maundered away about the 
 beauty and affability of Edward IV. till nobody could 
 understand him, and Perronel only threw in her " ay, 
 grandad," or " yea, gaffer," when she thought it was 
 expected of her. 
 
 Ambrose had an unfailing appetite for the sermons 
 of Dean Colet, who was to preach on this occasion in 
 Westminster Abbey, and his uncle had given him 
 counsel how to obtain standing ground there, entering 
 before the procession. He was alone, his friends Tibbie 
 and Lucas both had that part of the Lollard temper
 
 xiii.J A LONDON HOLIDAY. 259 
 
 which loathed the pride and wealth of the great 
 political clergy, and in spite of their admiration for the 
 Dean they could not quite forgive his taking part in the 
 pomp of such a raree show. 
 
 But Ambrose's devotion to the Dean, to say nothing 
 of youthful curiosity, outweighed all those scruples, and 
 as he listened, he was carried along by the curious 
 sermon in which the preacher likened the orders of the 
 hierarchy below to that of the nine orders of the 
 Angels, making the rank of Cardinal correspond to 
 that of the Seraphim, aglow with love. Of that holy 
 flame, the scarlet robes were the type to the spiritual- 
 ised mind of Colet, while others saw in them only the 
 relic of the imperial purple of old Rome ; and some 
 beheld them as the token that Wolsey was one step 
 nearer the supreme height that he coveted so earnestly. 
 But the great and successful man found himself per- 
 sonally addressed, bidden not to be puffed up with his 
 own greatness, and stringently reminded of the highest 
 Example of humility, shown that he that exalteth liim- 
 self shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself be 
 exalted. The preacher concluded witli a strong per- 
 sonal exhortation to do righteousness and justice alike 
 
 s 2
 
 260 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 to rich and poor, joined with truth and mercy, setting 
 God always before him. 
 
 The sermon ended, Wolsey knelt at the altar, and 
 Archbishop Wareham, who, like his immediate pre- 
 decessors, held legatine authority, performed the act of 
 investiture, placing the scarlet hat with its many loops 
 and tassels on his brother piimate's head, after which 
 a magnificent Te Dcitm rang through the beautiful 
 church, and the procession of prelates, peers, and eccle- 
 siastics of all ranks in their richest array formed to 
 escort the new Cardinal to banquet at his palace with 
 tlie King and Queen. 
 
 Ambrose, stationed by a column, let the throng rush, 
 tumble, and jostle one another to behold the show, till 
 the Abbey was nearly empty, while he tried to work 
 out the perplexing question whether all this pomp and 
 splendour were truly for the glory of God, or whethe'V 
 it were a delusion for the temptation of men's souls. 
 It was a debate on which his old and his new guides 
 seemed to him at issue, and he Avas drawn in both 
 directions — now by the beauty, order, and deep sym- 
 bolism of the Catholic ritual, now by the spirituality 
 and earnestness of the men among whom he lived. At
 
 XIII ] A LONDON HOLIDAY. 2(il 
 
 one moment the worldly pomp, the mechanical and 
 irreverent worship, and the gross and vicious habits 
 of many of the clergy repelled him ; at another the 
 reverence and conservatism of his nature held him 
 fast. 
 
 Presently he felt a hand on his shoulder, and started, 
 " Lost in a stud, as we say at home, boy," said the 
 jester, resplendent in a bran new motley suit. " Wilt 
 come in to the banquet ? 'Tis open house, and I can 
 find thee a seat without disclosing the kinship that sits 
 so sore on thy brother. Where is he ? " 
 
 " I have not seen him this day." 
 
 " That did I," returned Randall, " as I rode by on 
 mine ass. He was ruffling it so lustily that I could not 
 but give him a wink, the which my gentleman could 
 by no means stomach ! Poor lad ! Yet there be times, 
 Ambrose, when I feel in sooth that mine office is the 
 only honourable one, since who besides can sjDeak truth ? 
 I love my lord ; he is a kind, open-handed master, and 
 there's none I Avould so willingly serve, whether by 
 jest or earnest, but \vhat is he but that which I oft call 
 him in joke — the greater fool than I, selling peace and 
 ease, truth and hope^ this life and the next, for yonder
 
 262 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 scarlet hat, wliicli is after all of no more worth than 
 this jingling head-gear of mine." 
 
 " Deafening the spiritual ears far more, it may be," 
 said Ambrose, "since hamilcs exalfavcrint." 
 
 It was no small shock that there, in the midst of the 
 nave, the answer was a bound, like a ball, almost as 
 high as the caj^ital of the column by which they stood. 
 " There's exaltation ! " said Randall in a low voice, and 
 Ambrose perceived that some strangers were in sight. 
 "Come, seek thy brother out, boy, and bring him to 
 the banquet. I'll speak a word to Peter Porter, and 
 he'll let you in. There'll be plenty of fooling all the 
 afternoon, before my namesake King Hal, who can afford 
 to be an honester man in his fooling than any about him, 
 and whose laugh at a hearty jest is goodly to hear." 
 
 Ambrose thanked him and undertook the quest. 
 They parted at the great west door of the Abbey, 
 where, by way of vindicating his own character for 
 buffoonery, Randall exclaimed, "Where be mine ass?" 
 and not seeing the animal, immediately declared, 
 "There lie is!" and at the same time sprang upon 
 the back and shoulders of a gaping and astonished 
 clown who was gazing at the rear of the procession.
 
 XIII.] A LONDON HOLIDAY. 263 
 
 The crowd apj)lauded with shouts of coarse laughter, 
 but a man, who seemed to belong to the victim, broke 
 in with an angry oath, and " How now, sir ? " 
 
 "I cry you mercy," quoth the jester; "'twas mine 
 own ass I sought, and if I have fallen on thine, I will 
 but ride him to York House and then restore him. 
 So ho ! good jackass," crossing his ankles on the poor 
 fellow's chest so that he could not be shaken off. 
 
 The comrade lifted a cudgel, but there was a general 
 cry of "My Lord Cardinal's jester, lay not a finger 
 on him ! " 
 
 But Harry Randall was not one to brook immunity 
 on the score of his master's greatness. In another 
 second he was on his feet, had wrested the staff from 
 the hands of his astounded beast of burden, flourished 
 it round his head after the most approved manner of 
 Shirley champions at Lyndhurst fair, and called to his 
 adversary to " come on." 
 
 It did not take many rounds before Hal's dexterity 
 had floored his adversary, and the shouts of " Well 
 struck, merry fool ! " " Well played, Quipsome Hal ! " 
 were risinc: high when the Abbot of Westminster's 
 yeomen were seen making way through the throng,
 
 264 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 Avhicli fell back in terror on either side as they 
 came to seize on the brawlers in their sacred 
 precincts. 
 
 But here again my Lord Cardinal's fool was a privi- 
 leged person, and no one laid a hand on him, though 
 his blood being up, he would, spite of his gay attire, 
 have enjoyed a fight on equal terms. His quadruped 
 donkey was brought up to him amid general applause, 
 but when he looked round for Ambrose, the boy had 
 disappeared. 
 
 The better and finer the nature that displayed itself 
 in Randall, the more painful was the sight of his 
 buffooneries to his nephew, and at the first leap, 
 Ambrose had hurried away in confusion. He sought 
 his brother here, there, everywhere, and at last came 
 to the conclusion that Stephen must have gone home to 
 dinner. He walked quickly across the fields separating 
 Westminster from the City of London, hoping to reach 
 Cheapside before the lads of the Dragon should have 
 gone out again ; but just as he was near St. Paul's, 
 coming round Amen Corner, he heard the sounds of a 
 fray. " Have at the country lubbers ! Away with the 
 moonrakers ! Flat-caps, come on ! " " Hey ! lads of
 
 XIII.] A LONDON HOLIDAY. 265 
 
 the Eaofle ! Down with the Dragons ! Adders ! 
 Snakes — s-s s-s-s ! " 
 
 There was a kicking, struggling mass of bkie Lacks 
 and yellow legs before him, from out of which came 
 " Yah ! Down with the Eagles ! Cowards ! Kites ! 
 Cockneys ! " There were plenty of boys, men, women 
 with children in their arms hallooing on, " Well done. 
 Eagle ! " " Go it, Dragon ! " 
 
 The word Dragon filled the quiet Ambrose with hot 
 impulse to defend his brother. All his gentle, scholarly 
 habits gave way before that cry, and a shout that 
 he took to be Stephen's voice in the midst of the 
 melee. 
 
 He was fairly carried out of himself, and doubling his 
 fists, fell on the back of the nearest boys, intending to 
 break through to his brother, and he found an un- 
 expected ally. Will Wherry's voice called out, " Have 
 with you, comrade!" — and a pair of hands and arms 
 considerably stouter and more used to fighting than his 
 own, began to pommel right and left with such good 
 will that they soon broke through to the aid of their 
 friends ; and not before it was time, for Stephen, Giles, 
 and Edmund, with their backs against the wall, were
 
 266 THE ARMOUREE'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 defending themselves with all their might against tre- 
 mendous odds ; and just as the new allies reached them, 
 a sharp stone struck Giles in the eye, and levelled him 
 with the ground, his head striking against the wall. 
 Whether it were from alarm at his fall, or at the un- 
 expected attack in the rear, or j)robably from both 
 causes, the assailants dispersed in all directions without 
 waiting to perceive how slender the succouring force 
 really was. 
 
 Edmund and Stephen were raising up the unlucky 
 Giles, who lay quite insensible, with blood pouring from 
 his eye. Ambrose tried to wipe it away, and there 
 were anxious doubts whether the eye itself were safe. 
 They were some way from home, and Giles was the 
 biggest and heaviest of them all. 
 
 "Would that Kit Smallbones were here!" said 
 Stephen, preparing to take the feet, while Edmund 
 took the shoulders. 
 
 " Look here," said Will Wherry, pulling Ambrose's 
 sleeve, " our yard is much nearer, and the old Moor, 
 Master Michael, is safe to know what to do for him. 
 Tbat sort of cattle always are leeches. He wiled the 
 pain from my thumb when 'twas crushed in our printing
 
 xiii.] A LONDON HOLIDAY. 267 
 
 press. Maj^hap if he put some salve to him, he might 
 wet home on his own feet," 
 
 Edmund listened. " There's reason in that," he said. 
 " Dost know this leech, Ambrose ? " 
 
 " I know him well. He is a good old man, and 
 wondrous wise. Nay, no black arts; but he saith his 
 folk had great skill in herbs and the like, and though he 
 be no physician by trade, he hath much of their lore." 
 " Have with thee, then," returned Edmund, " the 
 rather that Giles is no small weight, and the guard 
 might come on us ere we reached the Dragon." 
 
 " Or those cowardly rogues of the Eagle might set 
 on us again," added Stephen; and as they went on 
 their way to Warwick Inner Yard, he explained that 
 the cause of the encounter had been that Giles had 
 thought fit to prank himself in his father's silver chain, 
 and thus George Bates, always owing the Dragon a 
 grudge, and rendered specially malicious since the 
 encounter on Holy Eood Day, had raised the cry 
 against him, and caused all the flat-caps around to 
 make a rush at the gaud as lawful prey. 
 
 " 'Tis clean against prentice statutes to wear one, is it 
 not ? " asked Ambrose.
 
 268 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap, 
 
 " Ay," returned Stephen ; " yet none of us but would 
 stand up for our own comrade against those meddUng 
 fellows of the Eao-le." 
 
 " But," added Edmund, '' we must beware the guard, 
 for if tbey looked into the cause of the fray, our master 
 might be called on to give Giles a whipping in the 
 Company's hall, this being a second offence of going 
 abroad in these vanities." 
 
 Ambrose went on before to prepare Miguel Abenali, 
 and entreat his good offices, explaining that the youth's 
 master, who was also his kinsman, would be sure to 
 give handsome payment for any good offices to him. 
 He scarcely got out half the words ; tlie grand old 
 Arab waved his hand and said, " When the wounded is 
 laid before the tent of Ben Ali, v.diere is the question 
 of recompense ? Peace be with thee, my son ! Bring 
 him hither. Aldonza, lay the carpet yonder, and the 
 cushions beneath the window, where I may have light 
 to look to his hurt." 
 
 Therewith he murmured a few words in an unknown 
 tongue, which, as Ambrose understood, were an invoca- 
 tion to the God of Abraham to bless his endeavours to 
 heal the stranger youtlr but which ha})pily were spoken
 
 XIII.] A LONDON HOLIDAY. 269 
 
 before the arrival of the others, who would certainly 
 have believed them an incantation. 
 
 The carpet though worn threadbare, was a beautiful 
 old Moorish rug, once glowing v/ith brilliancy, and still 
 rich in colouring, and the cushion was of thick damask 
 faded to a strange pale green. All in that double-stalled 
 partition, once belonging to the great earl's war-horses, 
 was scrupulously clean, for the Christian Moor liad 
 retained some of the peculiar virtues born of Moham- 
 medanism and of high civilisation. The apprentice 
 lads tramped in much as if they had been entering a 
 wizard's cave, though Stephen had taken care to assure 
 Edmund of his application of the test of holy Avater. 
 
 Following the old man's directions, Edmund and 
 Stephen deposited their burden on the rug. Aldonza 
 brought some warm water, and Abenali washed and 
 examined the wound, Aldonza standing by and handing 
 him whatever he needed, now and then assisting with 
 her slender brown hands in a manner astonishing to the 
 youths, who stood by anxious and helpless, wdiile their 
 companion began to show signs of returning life. 
 
 Abenali pronounced that the stone had missed the 
 eyeball, but the cut and bruise were such as to require
 
 270 THE AEMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 constant bathing, and the blow on the head was the 
 more serious matter, for when the patient tried to raise 
 himself he instantly became sick and giddy, so that it 
 would be wise to leave him where he was. This was 
 much against the will of Edmund Burgess, who shared 
 all the prejudices of the English prentice against 
 the foreigner — perhaps a wizard and rival in trade ; 
 but there was no lielp for it, and he could only 
 insist that Stephen should mount guard over the bed 
 until he had reported to his master, and returned witli 
 his orders. Therewith he departed, with such elaborate 
 thanks and courtesies to the host, as betrayed a little 
 alarm in the tall apprentice, who feared not quarter- 
 staff, nor wrestler, and had even dauntlessly confronted 
 the masters of his guild ! 
 
 Stephen, sooth to say, was not very much at ease; 
 everything around had such a strange un-Englisl^ 
 aspect, and he imploringly muttered, " Bide with me. 
 Am ! " to which his brother willingly assented, being 
 quite as comfortable in Master Michael's abode as by 
 his aunt's own hearth. 
 
 Giles meanwhile lay quiet, and then, as his senses 
 became less confused, and he could open one eye, he
 
 XIII.] A LONDON HOLIDAY. 271 
 
 looked dreamily about him, and presently began to 
 demand where he was, and what had befallen him, 
 grasping at the hand of Ambrose as if to hold fast by 
 something familiar ; but he still seemed too much dazed 
 to enter into the explanation, and j)resently murmured 
 something about thirst. Aldonza came softly np with 
 a cup of something cool. He looked very hard at her, 
 and when Ambrose would have taken it from her hand 
 to give it to him, he said, " Nay ! She /" 
 
 And she, with a sweet smile in her soft, dark, shady 
 eyes, and on her full lips, held the cup to his lips far 
 more daintily and dexterously than either of his boy 
 companions could have done ; then when he moaned and 
 said his head and eye pained him, the white-bearded 
 elder came and bathed his brow witli the soft sponge. 
 It seemed all to pass before him like a dream, and it 
 was not much otherwise with his unliurt companions, 
 especially Stephen, who followed with wonder the 
 movements made by the slippered feet of father and 
 daughter upon the mats which covered the stone 
 flooring of tl\e old stable. The mats were only of 
 English rushes and flags, and had been woven by 
 Abenali and the child ; but loose rashes strewing the
 
 272 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 floor were accounted a luxury in the Forest, and even 
 at the Dragon court the upper end of the hall alone 
 had any covering. Then the water was heated, and all 
 such other operations carried on over a curious round 
 vessel placed over charcoal ; the window and the door 
 had dark heavy curtains ; and a matted partition cut 
 off the further stall, no doubt to serve as Aldonza's 
 chamber. Stephen looked about for something to 
 assure him that the place belonged to no Avizard 
 enchanter, and was glad to detect a large white cross 
 on the wall, with a holy- water stoup beneath it, but of 
 imacfes there were none. 
 
 It seemed to him a long time before Master Headley's 
 ruddy face, full of anxiety, appeared at the door. 
 
 Blows were, of course, no uncommon matter ; per- 
 haps so long as no permanent injury was inflicted, the 
 master-armourer had no objection to anything that 
 might knock the folly out of his troublesome young 
 inmate ; but Edmund had made him uneasy for the 
 youth's eye, and still more so about the quarters he was 
 in, and he had brought a mattress and a couple of men 
 to carry the patient home, as well as Stoelman, his 
 prime minister, to advise him.
 
 XIII.] A LONDON HOLIDAY. 273 
 
 He had left all these outside, however, and advanced, 
 civilly and condescendingly thanking the sword-cutler, 
 in jDerfect ignorance that the man who stood before him 
 had been born to a home that was an absolute palace 
 compared with the Dragon court. The two men were 
 a curious contrast. There stood the Englishman with 
 his sturdy form inclining, with age, to corpulence, his 
 broad honest face telling of many a civic banquet, and 
 his short stubbly brown grizzled beard ; his whole air 
 giving a sense of worshipful authority and weight ; and 
 opposite to him the sparely made, dark, thin, aquiline- 
 faced, white-bearded Moor, a far smaller man in stature, 
 yet with a patriarchal dignity, refinement, and grace 
 in port and countenance, belonging as it were to 
 another sphere. ' 
 
 Speaking English perfectly, though with a foreign 
 accent, Abenali informed Master Headley that his 
 young kinsman would by Heaven's blessing soon 
 recover without injury to the eye, though perha^DS a 
 scar might remain. 
 
 Mr. Headley thanked him heartily for his care, and 
 said that he had brought men to carry the youth home, 
 if he could not walk ; and then he Avent up to the 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chap. 
 
 couch with a hearty " How now, Giles ? So thou hast 
 had hard measure to knock the foolery out of thee, my 
 poor lad. But come, we'll have thee home, and my 
 mother will see to thee." 
 
 " I cannot walk," said Giles, heavily, hardly raising 
 his eyes, and when he was told that two of the men 
 waited to bear him home, he only entreated to be let 
 alone. Somewhat sharply, Mr. Headley ordered him 
 to sit up and make ready, but when he tried to do so, 
 he sank back with a return of sickness and dizziness. 
 
 Abenali thereupon intreated that he might be left 
 to his care for that night, and stepping out into the 
 court so as to be unheard by the patient, explained 
 that the brain had had a shock, and that perfect quiet 
 for some hours to come was the only way to avert a 
 serious illness, possibly dangerous. Master Headley 
 did not like the alternative at all, and was a good deal 
 perplexed. He beckoned to Tibbie Steelman, who had 
 all this time been talking to Lucas Hansen, and now 
 came up prepared with his testimony that this Michael 
 was a good man and true, a godly one to boot, who had 
 been wealthy in his own land and was a rare artificer 
 in his own craft.
 
 xm.] A LONDON HOLIDAY. 275 
 
 " Though he hath no license to practise it here," 
 threw in Master Headley, sotto voce ; but he accepted 
 the assurance that Michael was a good Christian, and, 
 with his daughter, regularly went to mass ; and since 
 better might not be, he reluctantly consented to leave 
 Giles under his treatment, on Lucas reiterating the 
 assurance that he need have no fears of magic or foul 
 play of any sort. He then took the purse that hung 
 at his girdle, and declared that Master Michael (the 
 title of courtesy was wrung from him by the stately 
 appearance of the old man) must be at no charges 
 for his cousin. 
 
 But Abenali with a grace that removed all air of 
 offence from his manner, returned thanks for the inten- 
 tion, but declared that it never was the custom of the 
 sons of Ali to receive reward for the hospitality they 
 exercised to the stranger within their gates. Aud so 
 it was that Master Headley, a good deal puzzled, had 
 to leave his apprentice under the roof of the old sword- 
 cUtler for the nisfht at least. 
 
 O 
 
 " 'Tis passing strange," said he, as he walked back ; 
 " I know not what my mother will say, but T wish all 
 mav be right. I feel — I feel as if I had left the lad
 
 276 THE ARMOURER'S PRENTICES. [chzVP. 
 
 Giles with Abraham under the oak tree, as we saw 
 him in the miracle play ! " 
 
 This description did not satisfy Mrs. Headley, indeed 
 she feared that her son was likewise bewitched ; and 
 when, the next morning, Stephen, who had been sent 
 to inquire for the patient, reported him better, but still 
 unable to be moved, since he could not lift his head 
 without sickness, she became very anxious. Giles was 
 transformed in her estimate from a cross-grained slip 
 to poor Robin Headley's boy, the only son of a widow, 
 and nothing would content her but to make her son 
 conduct her to Warwick Inner Yard to inspect matters, 
 and carry thither a precious relic warranted proof 
 against all sorcery. 
 
 It was with great trepidation that the good old dame 
 ventured, but the result was that she was fairly sub- 
 dued by Abenali's patriarchal dignity. She had never 
 seen any manners to equal his, not even when King 
 Edward the Fourth had come to her father's house at 
 the Barbican, chucked her under the chin, and called 
 her a dainty duck ! 
 
 It was Aldonza, however, who specially touched her 
 feelings. Such a sweet little wench, with the air of
 
 xiii] A LONDON HOLIDAY. 277 
 
 being bred in a kingly or knightly court, to be living 
 there close to the very dregs of the city was a scandal 
 and a danger — speaking so prettily too, and knowing 
 how to treat her elders. She would be a good example 
 for Dennet, who, sooth to say, was getting too old for 
 spoilt-child sauciness to be always pleasing, while as to 
 Giles, he could not be in better quarters. Mrs. 
 Headley, well used to the dressing of the burns and 
 bruises incurred in the weapon smiths' business, could 
 not but confess that his eye had been dealt with as 
 skilfully as she could have done it herself. 
 
 END OF VOL. I.
 
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