CHAPTER XV
Next day I stayed within all the morning. Harry was in London, and though I had come thither to seek him, I dared not stir abroad for fear of meeting him. I dined in my lodging, sending Lashmer to the tavern for a quart of claret.
The food and the wine must have put new heart in me; for after they were done I sallied forth alone, resolved to prosecute my search. Still dreading success, I wandered eastward along the Strand. Many gallants, most splendid with new-fashioned hats and hose, were loitering along the way I went. I followed the stream, and so, passing Temple Bar and over the Fleet Bridge, I came through Ludgate before St. Paul's Church.
I stood a while admiring the grandeur of the front and the lofty tower. For then, being untravelled, I was unlearned in architecture, and saw not how rude were its proportions and barbarous its ornament beside the new style.
Many gallants went by me as I watched, laughing, and passed on into the church. Harry had often told me how it was a place of great resort, so I followed, thinking perhaps to find what I looked for and dreaded to see. The floor of the long and lofty nave was thronged with gallants and would-be gallants, strolling up and down, and laughing and talking with one another; while between the piers of clustered columns which supported the soaring roof-groins and dim triforium knots of men were gathered, who seemed for the most part to be merchants. From time to time I could see a bond or account-book fluttering white amidst their sober robes, but all was done with as little noise and bustle as could well be.
For it must be known that Paul's was not then the den of thieves it is now. It was not so long since the Queen's proclamation had been issued against such as should transact business, or make any fray, or shoot any hand-gun or dag within the precincts. It was still had in memory, though little regarded, and the place was not wholly disorderly.
Yet was it sufficiently out of order to see so gay a company glowing in their bright clothes of 'popinjay blue,' 'devil-in-the-head,' 'lusty gallant,' and I know not what other outlandish new-fashioned hues, and to hear their laughter rolling round the gray old walls, and the clink of their spurs and rapiers on the pavement, and the rustle of their silks and taffeta as they walked.
Wrapped as I was in myself, and shut off by my shame from all men, that thoughtless throng only made my sense of loneliness keener. Far more in sympathy with me than any creature there was the tall temple itself, which, stripped long since of all its altars and Popish adornments, seemed to look down in lofty contempt upon the irreverent crowd which insulted its ancient dignity. Solemn and sad and alone it seemed to wait in patient confidence for the day when their little paltry lives would have passed away to oblivion, and its days of worship would come again.
That there were many there more loyal with their tongues than in ought else I could see as I went forward and came near Duke Humphrey's tomb. Here the proclamation seemed wellnigh forgotten. Round the battered effigy the throng was thicker and full of ruffling loud-voiced swaggerers, who, from their ruffianly carriage and most vile Smithfield oaths, made me think their gentility much belied the bravery of their clothes. It was a thing I then first noted, and have since much grieved over, that men of low station nowadays take to wearing garments of gentleman's cut, no matter how common or ill-made, so long as they be as good as their scrapings, or stealings, or borrowings will buy.
Not wishing to mingle with this lewd throng I turned aside between the columns, that I might so pass into the aisle and avoid them. But before I could carry out my purpose I felt myself hustled roughly into the aisle by some one who thrust violently by me.
'Body of Bacchus!' said a loud, gruff voice, 'know you not better, base countryman, than to hustle a gentleman so?'
I turned and saw glaring at me a tall ruffian whom I had noted in the throng. He was dressed in garish and faded garments very vilely pinked and guarded, and wore on his head a most desperate hat. As though to give him a warlike note, his clothes were thrown on in a slovenly way, and his moustache frounced out so shock and bristling that it seemed from each hair-end a crackling oath must start with every word he said. I felt little inclined for a brawl, least of all in that place, though to quarrel with any man would perhaps have been a comfort in my present state; so I civilly told him I was sorry to have stood in his way.
'What, base minion!' said he very fierce, with a whole fusilada of oaths, 'think you to pass so lightly from a gentleman's wrath?'
'I pray you, sir, be content,' I replied as quietly as I could, for it seemed very silly to quarrel with such a mountebank. 'If I wronged your gentility it was unwittingly, and I crave your pardon.'
'Stay, rude rustic,' said he, stepping before me as I turned away, and clapping his hand to a rapier of extravagant length. 'This shall not serve you. Craving of pardons shall not serve you, nor your pardonnez-mois neither. A gentleman must have satisfaction by rule and circumstance, after the teaching of the inestimable Signor Rocco.'
I found myself by this time hemmed in by a throng of his fellows, as ruffianly and hectoring as himself, none of whom I dare have sworn could ever have afforded so much as their noses inside Signor Rocco's 'College,' so I thought best to make an end.
'Come then, sir,' said I, 'to a fitting place, and I will presently give you your desire.'
'Nay, but first name your friends,' my opponent replied. 'For know, base scullion, that town-bred gentlemen fight by rule and circumstance, and not like two rams in field, without supporters.'
'Yes, pretty shepherd,' cried the throng jeeringly, 'name first your friend, if you want a gentleman to walk with you.'
I now saw my evil case and what a trick was put on me, and knew not what to do. To draw my rapier, Harry's rapier, on this vermin was farthest from my thoughts. Yet the throng hustled me closer, and my bully swaggered and threatened loudly.
'I have no friend here,' said I, 'unless any gentleman among you will stand by me.'
'Hark to the scurvy rustic,' they cried, in answer to my look around to them. 'A pox on your familiarity. You will get no friend here.'
'Nay, my dry-livered lubbers, that he will,' cried a clear jolly voice, and I turned to see Frank Drake and another gentleman break through the throng to my side. 'What is it, Jasper? Stand back, ye lubberly porpoises, and give a seaman sea-room.'
'Stand back, I pray you, gentlemen,' cried my bully very condescending; 'I knew not that I spoke with a friend of Captain Drake's.'
'Or maybe you would not have spoken so loud, my pot-valiant Hercules,' said Frank's friend.
'What is all the coil about, Jasper?' said Frank again, while my bully tried to outstare the gentleman.
''Tis nothing,' said I. 'He wanted two friends for me, to help give him satisfaction for having been at the pain of jostling me.'
'Give him a tester, sir,' said Frank's friend, 'to buy sack withal. That is the best satisfaction for his most barrel-bellied worship.'
'No, gentlemen,' said my bully with great pomp, finding he could not outstare his new adversary, 'it is satisfaction enough to know the gentleman is a friend of the most valiant Captain Drake. I know of no quarrel here that a skin of muscadine will not assuage. I pray you, let me conduct you to a very honest tavern hard by where I am known, and where I will see you served with the best.'
'Most courtly offered!' said the gentleman. 'And peradventure your most sweet honesty will see us served also with very honest dice and very honest cards. 'Tis a pity we are promised elsewhere, but so it is, and we must perforce pray your valourship to bestow on us instead a full measure of your most delectable absence.'
'By the soul of Bacchus,' said the bully, swelling with contempt, 'were it not for the proclamation, blood should flow for this;' but we all laughed at him, and he strode away with his nose in the air, as proud as Alexander after Granicus. So we were rid of him and his fellows, who followed on his heels all growling, 'Were it not for the proclamation,' and swearing like drovers between their teeth.
'A happy meeting, Jasper,' said Frank. 'Yonder go as arrant a lot of thieves as any in all London. Be better acquainted with my friend, Mr. John Oxenham. A fellow-adventurer, Oxenham, Mr. Festing, but not, to my grief, a shipmate.'
'Pity you will not sail with us, Mr. Festing,' said Mr. Oxenham with a winning courtesy of manner. 'A man who can stand up to a throng of swaggerers like that should try his hand on Spaniards.'
'Why, so he has,' cried Frank,' and to their cost; but now he will be doing nothing but ram home most portentous charges of words into paper ordnance with a quill rammer. Heaven knows what giants they will bring down when they go off!'
We all laughed together, for I cannot say what it was to me to meet these two in the midst of my loneliness. I gladly accepted their invitation to a tavern, where we could talk in peace. For not only was I overjoyed to be with Frank again, but I was much taken with Mr. Oxenham.
He was a tall, well-dressed man with a very handsome face, and such courageous eyes that I did not wonder they had daunted the Paul's man. 'Tis true I should have liked him better had it not been for an amorous look he wore over all his manliness. Yet who was I to judge him for that? His talk was very pleasant, for he had been a rover from his youth, and spoke of what he had seen freely, without boasting. We sat drinking a long time, and talked of the glories of the West and a sailor's life, for which he had conceived a romantic enthusiasm.
'Ah, Mr. Festing,' burst out Mr. Oxenham at last, 'it is a pity you will not sail with us to the West, since you are bent on travel. I envy you your learning in these things, but none who have not seen can picture their glory. Compared with them, to potter about Europe from one pestered town to another, from one crowded country to another, is like the paddling of a duckling in a puddle beside the everlasting flight of the god-like albatross, that never lights, not even for love. This old world is gray, and worn, and stifling. Over there it is all colour and sunlight and freedom; where the golden land brings forth without labour, and he who will may pass through and enjoy. Why, when once you come to that Paradise where all is so wide and fresh and lovely, you lift your hands in wonder, as you look back to this dull corner far away, that your life can ever have been so little as to come within the bounds of such a prison; you shall hardly believe there was ever room here for aught large enough to cause a moment's grief or joy for your expanded soul. There you can see Nature and know at last what beauty is. There at last you shall drink her fragrant breath, feel the richness of her warm embrace, revel in the azure and rose colour and golden sheen that make up her divine beauty, and lie in her arms to know at last what it means to say, "This is delight."'
'And think, lad,' cried Frank, who hardly, I think, can have seen with Mr. Oxenham's eyes, 'think that it is Spaniards who have ravished this rich beauty. It is these idolatrous hell-hounds of Antichrist who have possessed this Shulamite woman whom the Lord had reserved as a bride for his saints. It will be a glorious smiting of them. Their lust has made them sleepy and womanish. They are puffed up into silly security with their Spanish pride. Why, man, they will leave whole estates in charge of one slave, and send out trains of a hundred Indians or more laden with gold with but a single negro over them. I know it all now. I know every way in and out, and every course and time their ships will sail, and I know harbours, lad, where none could ever find us, where we can lie in wait and pounce out like cats on the good things that come by. And then they have not a walled town on the coast, that I know of. We can swoop down on the Dons and be away again, made men, or ever they have time to wake up out of their beds. Why will not men see what there is to be done, if they will only do? One such stroke as I have in mind will do more to undo Antichrist than all your thinking. Yet you scholars will not see it, but will not cease your idle disputing and dreaming till the angels shall come down and cry to you in voice of thunder, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?"'
His words struck me very deep, and I began to see how idle was our scholars' contempt for men of action. So, with ever-growing interest, I listened as we talked together till long after supper, and Frank unfolded every detail of his plan in his honest practical way. Mr. Oxenham, moreover, ceased not to paint his glowing pictures not only of what was known of those regions, but also of the fairyland beyond, where no Christian had yet trod,—the unknown lands where he set my fancy playing with his till my imagination, on which I had already heaped so much that was inflammable from my books, was all on fire.
As for my reason, Frank's sound sense was enough to satisfy that, and his taunt at my standing still and gazing up into heaven while others were doing touched my pride nearly. What wonder, then, that when the time came to bid them good-night, when I saw before me my lonely lodging, when I pictured the blank morrow and all my life beyond, empty of hope or joy or fellowship, when they urged me once more most earnestly to sail with them, that I could not resist!
They were pressing on me the very course in which I could follow Mr. Follet's strangely-worded advice more fully and nobly than I had ever dreamed. In place of my faith a sense of destiny seemed to have come to me, and to be speaking clearly in this chance meeting. If there was anything in man's harmony with the music of the spheres, sure it was the wild adventurous war-note of the universal gamut that I heard far off in the height of heaven sounding low and clear for my soul's response.
My quest for Harry was forgotten, and with it whatever else tied me to the old life, which now began to seem but a body of death. For that strange voice had come over the wide ocean and whispered its witching summons in my ear also. I could not choose but obey.
So we three joined hands and drank a cup on my resolve, and one more was added to the throng who day by day were leaving all to taste the ripe lips of this New Helen in the West.