The Adventure in Cheshire
N late September Calote and the peddler, having got as far north as the ancient city of Chester, fell in with a company of bold outlaws that dwelt in a wood some way without the city walls. Six of these men were villeins that had run from their land; three more had been soldiers beyond the sea and were now loth to lend their great limbs to any peaceful labours; the tenth man was a beggar by trade, yet for some cause best known to himself he would not beg in Chester; and there was yet another, a young lad who had slain his lord's bailiff. He had taken sanctuary and after abjured the realm, so that he was under oath to get him out of England by the nearest way; yet he lingered. Two women were also with this company: the one was light-o'-love to the youngest soldier of the three; the other was sister to the lad that had murdered the bailiff,—they two were orphaned.
After the peddler had come out of Devon, leaving his hood and pack on the cliff, he bought him a new pack in Bristol; but by now well-nigh all his gewgaws were sold, and he purposed to buy other at the October Fair in Chester. Meanwhile, he waited without the town, saving the cost of bed and board, and keeping his eyes and ears open to serve Calote.
These outlaws were no cowards, except it might be the young murderer, who screeched in his sleep of nights and woke up staring, in a cold sweat. They were a merry band; their food was berries and herbs and the small game that ran in the woods. Now and again they ventured on the high road and plundered solitary market-women or a farmer's boy. In winter and spring they dared even set upon a merchant or franklin; but at fair-time the merchants, coming to display their wares at Chester, travelled in so great companies for safety, that 't was but foolhardiness to attack them. So it fell that about the time Calote and the peddler came among them these robbers, were in a mood of discontent more than ordinary, having not so much as a groat wherewith to bless themselves. An Calote's tales had not charmed them when first they caught the couple a-wandering in the wood, no doubt it had gone hard with the peddler. But when they heard how he sang to his lute, and he said he had not peddled for many a day and 't was a poor trade, they looked no further than his pack; the bits of ribbon that were left in it the soldier gave to his wench.
“One eats all that one sells,” quoth the peddler; but when they saw how he did eat that night, they roared and said 't was plain he had sold little of late.
They were wondrous kind to Calote; they crowned her with a garland of green, and gave her of their best. Her tales of the Brotherhood, the Great Society, they heard with passion and impatience. They were for setting out to London without pause. The Vision went to their heads like strong drink, so that they cursed and beat upon the earth, and anon fell on each other's necks with kisses, in a kind of frenzy.
“Ye 'll be no more outlaws,” quoth Calote, “but makers of laws. Ye 'll be your own bailiffs on your own lands.”
The poor lad that had killed the bailiff cast himself on his face, at this, and wept, and his little sister also. And all those others did what they might to comfort him, with:—
“Ho, man! leave off tears; 't was bravely done!” and “Never grieve for a black heart!‘ and ’A pox o' bailiffs!”
The horn they handled greedily, counting the linked jewels in the chain and the pearls that were set about the image of the white hart. Calote kept it in a little bag that she had made of a bit of blanket the peddler gave her. This she wore by a string about her middle, and drew forth the horn willingly when they called for it. She was not aware how they coveted it, nor wherefore; but the peddler knew. He heard them when they sat about the fire of nights, after the women were gone to sleep. He listened the while they wrangled of the pearls. One said there were thirty, another swore by Saint Christopher there were but five and twenty.
“S-seven and twenty,” quoth the peddler; “I-I-I counted.”
They turned and looked on him. There were three awake, the beggar, a villein, and the youngest soldier. They called the villein Symme Tipuppe, and the soldier Nicholas Bendebowe; the beggar was only Haukyn.
Quoth Haukyn to the peddler: “Art thou kin to the maid?”
“N-nay,” said the peddler, “we met by the r-road.”
“Tell me,” said Symme, leaning forward. “Thou 'rt a kind of merchant, is the horn silver, or some baser metal?”
“T-t-true silver,” answered the peddler, and Nicholas Bendebowe, looking on Symme, set his thumb to his nose and wagged his fingers, with “Said I not so? I saw jewels in France, yea, and handled them.”
“'T would bring a pretty penny if 't were sold?” Symme questioned.
“N-no doubt,” the peddler made reply.
For a little while they sat silent, and the soldier laid a fresh bough on the blaze, for that the night was crisp and all these fellows were ragged and brier-torn.
Then said Haukyn the beggar, gloomily: “After to-morrow is the beginning of the Fair.”
“Small joy to such as we be,” snapped Nicholas Bendebowe.
“M-methought 't was the charité of Chester Fair th-that all men might gather there whether outlaw or-or-or runaway villein, and no one should l-l-lay hands on them while the Fair endured,” the peddler queried.
“Yea, 't is so,” assented Symme. “But what boots it me that I may go within Chester wall, if I must go empty-handed? The Rows are lined with spies that hale a man to the court of pie powder if he but stroke with his finger the furred edge of a hood that 's to sell. 'T were against reason to think a man will keep his hands off in midst of plenty.”
“B-but Haukyn 's a b-beggar only, he may ply his trade,” said the peddler.
“Haukyn does not ply his trade in Chester,” the beggar answered for himself. “If he cannot go in to buy like 's betters, he 's safest without.”
“Twenty-seven pearls,” mused Nicholas; and Symme and Haukyn sighed.
The peddler looked across the blaze of the fire to where Calote lay, a little way off at the foot of a tree, asleep. On the ground beside her was the bag with the horn in it, and the string went round her slim body.
After a bit the soldier snored; the beggar twitched awake and in a trice was off again, this time sound; the villein turned his back to the fire and drew up his legs, and presently the peddler heard him grinding his teeth, and knew that he too was asleep.
Throughout the next day the peddler was never far from Calote; thrice the villein had the horn out of her bag and fondled it, and the beggar came and looked over his shoulder. The soldier's wench hung the chain about her own neck one while, and saith she to her love:—
“Deck me in this wise!”
“By Our Lady o' Walsingham, that will I,” he swore, “when Calote and us common folk have put down the noblesse, and all men share alike.”
Again that night those three talked of the Fair after others slept, and the peddler sat beside them listening. On a sudden Symme Tipuppe turned to him and said:—
“If the horn were to sell, what would it fetch?”
“A g-goodly sum,” the peddler answered cautiously.
“Yea, but what 's that, a pound?”
“A pound, sayst thou?” the soldier scoffed. “If 't bring not five times a pound, rend out my guts.”
“H-haply 't might,” said the peddler.
“With the chain?” queried Haukyn.
“With the chain?” Symme echoed, his eyes on the peddler.
“N-nay, but alone.”
“Twenty for the chain, eh, peddler?” said Nicholas.
“N-nearer ten.”
Then there was a very long stillness, till at last Symme said:—
“Fifteen pound!”
“If the King loveth us,” grumbled the beggar, “he 'll never grudge fifteen pound. Hath not the maid said the King 's our friend?”
“Ho, fellows! 'T is our horn as well as the King's,” Nicholas blustered in a whisper. “Doth not the maid say we 'll share with him?”
“'T is the maid's,” said Symme, glancing aside uneasily at the peddler. “The King gave it to the maid.”
“Not so, 't is the King's!” persisted Nicholas. “'T is hers for a token only. Heh, peddler?”
“'T-'t is t-true, 't is the K-King's,” the peddler agreed.
Symme sighed as he were freed of a burden; the beggar moved more close to the peddler; Nicholas shook the peddler by the hand,—“A sober, sensible fellow, thou,” he said.
“The King would give her another token an she lost this one,” the beggar whined in his peevish way. “And though he 's King, he 's Earl o' Chester likewise; he 'd be kind to his own men, if they sold the horn for hunger.”
The soldier loosened his knife in his girdle with one hand, the other he laid on the peddler's shoulder.
“Wilt thou be one with us in this adventure, brother?” he asked.
Symme also drew his knife, and Haukyn laid his fingers up about the back of the peddler's throat.
“G-gladly, brothers,” said the peddler.
“Fifteen pound!” murmured Symme. “Fifteen pound!”
Then the young murderer began to moan and cry in his sleep, and, for a little, all were astir to soothe him; but when the place was quiet Symme said:—
“Who 'll sell it? Haukyn can go to the Fair.”
“'T is no safe token for a beggar to bear,” quoth Haukyn; “hold me excused. Men know me in Chester.”
“Peddler can go to the Fair,” said Nicholas; “he 's no outlawed man.”
“True!” agreed Symme. “And peddler knows to chaffer. Fifteen pound, peddler.”
“Or more,” said Haukyn.
“Who will take the horn from the maid?” asked Nicholas.
“I,” Haukyn answered him. “I found an old cow's horn yester morn; methought 't might prove a treasure. I 'll slip out one and slip in t' other.”
They chuckled.
“When she knoweth her loss, what then?” asked Symme.
“I 'll woo her prettily,” said Nicholas, “till she forget.”
“We 'll all go to Fair with the peddler,” Haukyn declared.
But now the peddler answered: “Nay, n-not so! If I go, I go alone. W-were I seen in your c-company, I 'd never sell it. M-my tabard is whole, m-my hosen are clean, m-my pack beareth me witness I 'm a peddler. Ye are ragged. I-I 'll swear on the horn afore I go that I 'll bring b-back the gold.”
So they gave consent unwillingly, and composed them to a nap.
When the peddler set out to Chester next morning, he had the horn in his pack. Symme, Nicholas, and Haukyn came to the edge of the wood with him and watched him out of sight. Before he went into the city, he stopped in the jousting-field outside the eastern wall; here were the showmen and minstrels, the dancers and jongleurs, and cheap-jacks of all kind. Among these the peddler wandered musing, till he came to pause before a man that sold black stuff in a bottle, “to make gray hair black.” The peddler had a coin or two in his hand, and he bought a bottle of this stuff and stowed it in his pack; but he took out the horn and hid it under his tabard. At the gate he showed his pack empty, with only the bottle in it, and was let pass without toll,—for all who brought in wares to sell must pay toll to the Fair. Within the city he bought a new hood, for he had had none since he came out of Devon, and Calote told him once the sun burned his hair, it grew rusty. He lingered above an hour among the Rows; but he bought no trinkets to fill his pack, neither did he enter any goldsmith's shop to chaffer for the horn. About noon he came out and walked by the Dee till he happed on a quiet, lonely place, screened by the bushes. Here, sitting down, he first rubbed his head well with the black dye, and let it dry in the sun the while he took out from some safe place within his tabard a pouch or bag, very full and heavy. When he undid the mouth of the bag and tipped it up, there plumped out gold and silver coin in a heap,—and he put his hand over it and looked about warily before he set to counting. But there was no one nigh, so presently he had made of one pile florins, and of another muttons, and three rose nobles of another; and the silver he separated likewise, into groats and pence. In the end he found that he had what he knew was there when he set a price upon the chain and the horn,—fifteen pound, odd pence. That the chain was of more value he guessed, but this was all he had,—a goodly sum for a peddler; 't were marvel if he had come by so much in trade. He was loth to part with all, yet he had not dared to offer less, for that the soldier was a shrewd rogue.
He swept all into the pouch and tucked the pouch within his breast; he dropped the horn into the point of his hood and slipped the hood over his head, the point wagging behind; he set his empty pack afloat on the river Dee, for now he had no money to buy trinkets. Except three groat, he was penniless. He laughed, as his thoughts had been new thoughts and amazing.
Meanwhile, in the brown dry woodland there was strife and a discovery.
Quoth the sister of the young lad that had slain the bailiff:—
“Let 's see the horn, Calote; I 've not laid eyes on 't this day.”
“Let be!” said Symme rudely. “How do ye pester the maid! ye 'll wear away the silver with fingering.”
“Nay, but I 'll show it gladly,” Calote protested. “'T is small courtesy I may show for kindness,” and she drew forth the old cow's horn.
“Saint Jame!” cried a villein, not Symme, but another.
“Saint Mary!” gasped Calote, pale as a pellet.
“'T is stolen, mistress!” said Nicholas Bendebowe.
“Stolen!” cried out those others all at once, with loud bluster; “Who stole 't?”—“Not I!”—“Nor I!”—“Nor I!”—“Will any dare say I stole it?”
“Where 's peddler?” asked the beggar.
They looked on one another. The soldier winked.
“Nay”—Calote cried; “he 's kind!”
“Poor wench!” said Haukyn. “Hearken! I saw him go to thee where thou wert asleep, at dawn; he knelt beside thee. When I came nigh he turned, and thrust a bright something in 's tabard.”
“Ah, woe, harrow!” said she.
“Now 't is plain why he 's gone so early to the Fair,” quoth Nicholas, a-shaking his head.
“He 's never gone to the Fair,” said the beggar craftily. “Trust him, he 'll show his face here no more. He 'll take horn to Lancashire or York. He 'll be afeared to sell it in Chester with the maid so nigh.”
Calote was looking from one to another, distressful. When she spoke, her voice was very low.
“I 'll go after him,” she said. “I 'll follow, and find him, or the horn. Oh, cruel, cruel! Good-day, sweet friends; my heart is heavy within me.”
Some of them, the women and the other villeins, and the murderer, went with her to put her on the high road, making loud lament; but Symme and Haukyn and the soldier looked on one another with a wink and a nod, and turned their faces to Chester.
“Best let her go,” said Nicholas. “'T will save the peddler a lie and me the wooing o' two maids side by side.”
“A pretty maid,” murmured Symme. “'T made mine eyes water to see her sorrow.”
The beggar said nothing till he saw the peddler coming up the road; then he laughed and grumbled out:—
“So, he 's honest,—more fool!”
The peddler came on smiling, and they caught him about the neck and looked covetous in his eyes, and thrust their fingers in his breast and his girdle, with:—
“Hast sold it?”
“Ha, ha, good cheap?”
“Fifteen pound?”
He pushed them away, and “Let 's sit,” he said, “wh-where 's shade. Th-the sun 's hot as s-summer to-day.”
So they sat down under a half-naked tree, and when he had taken the pouch out of his tabard, he undid the mouth and let flow out the gold and silver stream.
They sat and stared.
After a little the beggar thrust a dirty hand into the pile and let the moneys slip between his fingers. Symme began to cry for joy, and the soldier to laugh.
“Fifteen pound!” blubbered Symme.
“We 'll give each his share, and then to Chester,” cried Nicholas, shoving the beggar's greedy hand aside. “Come, count!”
“W-what for a t-tale have ye to t-tell the maid of her horn?” asked the peddler, scanning them each in turn.
“Ho, ho!” laughed Nicholas, “'t is already told. Hearken, brother! 'T is a merry gest; thou art saved a sad hour;—and I 'll keep mine old love. I 'm a constant man.”
Symme dried his eyes and snickered.
“The white-faced sister o' the lad must needs see the horn,” Nicholas continued. “Symme here would have hindered; but no, Calote put her hand in the bag and plucked out—ha, ha!”
They laughed, all three, and the peddler knit his brows.
“What next?” quoth he.
“'T was plain the horn was stolen, but who cared lay claim to be a thief?‘ went on Nicholas. ’Thou wert away,—we fixed the theft o' thee.”
“I thank ye of your courtesy,” said the peddler.
“Nay, naught 's to fear,” Symme assured him; “she 's gone.”
“Gone!” cried the peddler, leaping to his feet.
“Yea, to find thee and punish.”
“Which way,—not by Chester?”
“Nay, trust to us; we set her o' the wrong track. She went eastward and north on the highway.”
But ere Symme had said the last word, the peddler was off; and those others sat agape. Then Symme's eye caught the glitter of the gold.
“Come back,—come back!” he bawled. “Wilt have thy share?”
But the beggar choked him and the soldier dealt him a knock in the paunch. And whether the peddler heard or no, he did not turn back.
He took a short way through the wood and came out on the road not so far behind Calote, and she, looking backward, saw him. In the first moment she began to run away, but presently she bethought her how 't was silly to flee from a thief she had set out to take; and because he still came on at a good pace, she sat down on a stone to wait for him. So, at last, he came up panting and wiping the sweat from his face.
“Oh, thou wicked, cruel wight!” she cried. “Thou false friend!—I trusted thee. Alack!—I trusted thee!”
“L-l-lll-l- ww-w-,” said the peddler, striving for his breath.
“Hast sold the horn?—hast sold it, thou roberd?” quoth she very violently, wringing her hands.
“N-nay, nor stole it, neither,” he answered at last; and he took off his hood and shook the horn out of the point into her hand.
She stood in amaze.
“But 't was stole out o' my bag,” she said.
“N-not by me,” he made reply. “An I had chose, I might have s-stole it many a time in a s-solitary place where were no eye to see me take it. I m-might have s-sold it t-ten time over.”
“Then who stole it?” she cried. “Was 't a jest? A sorry jest, God wot! Nor no jest, neither, for they let me go on my way. Did they know?”
“L-let well alone, mistress!” said the peddler. “He-he-here 's the horn.”
“Nay, but I will be told,” she persisted. “What 's this thou 'rt keeping from me? I 'll go back to the wood and bid Symme Tipuppe rede the riddle. He was a kindly man.”
She turned away, but the peddler stayed her with his hand.
“He-hear then, an thou wilt,” said he. “But I warn thee, go not b-back.”
So he told her the tale of how they coveted the horn, and how he made shift to save it for her; and she listened with a still face. At the end she dropped her head upon her arms and wept silently a long while.
“L-look up,—take heart!” said the peddler. “The ho-horn 's safe.”
“But they are thieves and liars,” she answered wearily. “What hope?”
“Thou hast eat st-stolen meat this fortnight,” the peddler declared; “yet didst thou m-make no ou-ou-outcry.”
She lifted up her head and stared on him: “But this is not the same,” she said. “That meat we did eat ought, by right, to be the meat of every man, not lords' only.”
“So said Haukyn o' the horn. ''T is King's, quotha; 'King will sell 't for his people if they will ha-have it.'”
She was silent a little space; then she said: “But they took it away by stealth. Ah, woe,—they did not ask me!—They stole it!—And I brought them a message of love.”
“Th-they had no money in their purse. They saw other men go by to the Fair.”
“'T was not as if 't were mine own,” she protested; “but a token, that I might be known to speak for the King. Ah, bitter—cruel!”
“Th-they said, 'The King can give her another,—he ha-hath a plenty.'”
“Natheless, they are thieves,—roberds,—liars! What hope? What hope?”
“Who made them so?” quoth the peddler.—“The same that m-made them outlaws, and m-murderers;—I begin to s-see 't is the lords of England! Th-these do I blame! Wi-wilt thou forsake thy brothers for th-that they 're sinful? We be all sinful m-men. Come!—th-the message!”
She got up from the roadside stone and dried her eyes, and walked with him, but in a dreary silence. For many a mile they went on in this fashion. At even they came to a farm-house, and Calote went in and sang for her supper. The farmer's wife was alone, and she gave Calote a bed gladly, but she drove out the peddler,—who was peddler no longer,—for that she was afeared of his strange looks.
“But he 'll pay for 's bed,” said Calote.
“N-nay, mistress,” the peddler answered. “I 've n-no money but three groat. Th-those must wait for a r-rainy day. 'T is fresh i' the fields.” So he went out of the house; and she, remembering why he had no money, wept sorrowfully. Nevertheless, she did not know how great a sum he had paid for the horn.