Chapter Two.
How I served a Disorderly Printer.
My assailants were a mixed crew, some being lackeys of the half-drowned gallant, some constables of the watch, others idle swashbucklers ready to lend a hand to any cause and against any man for a pot of ale. But they took no advantage from hiring themselves against a poor ’prentice from without Temple Bar, for they got sore heads for their pains.
I myself could not do over much till my comrades arrived, for I was in an open place and could not see all sides of me at once. So, after three of them had gone down, I was well-nigh being mastered by the rest, but for the timely help of my honest club-fellows.
Foremost among these who should come but honest Will Peake, my late enemy, who, when it was a matter between ’prentices and Court bullies, forgot all old sores, and laid about him like a man. Behind him came a score or two of honest lads, some of my ward, some of others; and between us all you may judge if the numskulls who set upon me had a merry time of it. We left them mostly on the ground in a sorry plight, and the rest we sent packing back to them that owned them, with a message to send a few of better mettle than they if they wanted to catch us.
Then, as the messengers did not return, we gave loud cheers for the Queen, and went each our several ways.
As for me, I was in no humour for the noisy company even of my own fellows, and excused myself from a march home through the wards. I made a pretext to go and find my coat and cap, and let them depart without me.
For I was haunted yet by the memory of that fair face and the sweet music of her voice, and I wished to be alone.
Moreover, it vexed me grievously that any servant of so gracious a Queen as ours could be base enough to offer a helpless maiden a discourtesy, and that in chastising him I must needs put an affront on the dignity of her Majesty’s Court. But that weighed less when I remembered what I had seen, and I would fain have had the doing of it all again, despite her gentle protest.
So I waited till the crowd was gone, and then paced, moodily enough, citywards.
But, at the entrance to the Fields, there overtook me a handful of horsemen, bravely equipped; amongst whom, as I looked round, I saw the author of all this mischief himself. His gay cloak hid the stains of the duck-weed, and as for his sword, he had borrowed another from one of his men. Mounted as he was, it was not likely he should notice a common ’prentice lad like me, yet I resolved notice me he should, even if I went to the pillory for it.
So I stood across the way, and said:
“Farewell, brave captain. The pond will be deeper next time, and Humphrey Dexter will be there to put you in it.”
He turned about, crimson in face, and cursed savagely as he saw me—for he knew (or guessed, shrewdly enough), who I was. Then calling loudly to his servants:
“An angel to the man who catches the knave!” cried he. “Seize him, and bring him to me.”
Whereat, being only one footman to a dozen horse, I gave a clean pair of heels.
I soon shook off my pursuers, who liked not the narrow alleys and winding lanes of our city, where their horses stumbled and they themselves missed their way. One only, whether from stubbornness or the hope of the angel, kept up the hue and cry, and, being mounted on a nimble pony, followed me close. At length it seemed shame to be running from a single man; so at the next corner I turned and waited for him. He ran at me with his weapon, and called loudly on the watch to help him, but I pulled him from his horse and had him up against the wall before he could cry again—yet not before he had pricked me in the arm with his blade.
He was a stout little man, and a brave one; but, by no fault of his, he was powerless in my grip. I wrenched the sword from his hand, and held him by the throat till he signalled a surrender.
“Tell me first your master’s name. On your knees, and with an oath, lest I find you lie,” said I, in none too sweet a mood.
He had naught else he could do; so, falling on his knees, took Heaven to witness that his master’s name was David Merriman, a captain in her Majesty’s service; lodging now at the Court, but presently about to join the Queen’s forces in Ireland.
That was enough for me.
“Tell Master David Merriman I shall remember his name, and bid him remember mine against we meet next—and so farewell.”
I left him puffing for breath against the wall, and departed. But hearing the watch raise a new hue and cry at my heels, I quickened my steps, and so after many a tedious circuit, ran into my master’s shop just as he was about to bolt the door for the night.
He received me sourly, as indeed I expected.
“So,” said he, “this is your faithful service which you swore to render me; and you a parson’s son, that should know what an oath is.”
He was for ever taunting me with my dear father’s holy calling, and it vexed me to hear it.
“I am also under oath to serve my Queen,” said I, “and I put that before all.”
“And you serve her by drunkenness, and rioting, and breaking the heads of her loyal subjects! I have heard of you this day. How comes it that your fellow ’prentice Peter Stoupe—”
“A plague on Peter Stoupe!” said I, for I disliked him. “And as for drunkenness, I was never drunk in my life; nor, by my own leave, a rioter.”
“By whose leave, then?” asked Master Walgrave.
“By the leave of them who behave themselves as knaves,” said I, getting hot as I thought of Captain Merriman; “and had they twenty skulls, and a crown on each, I’d crack ’em.”
“Had they no crowns, they would not be worth the cracking,” said a cheerful voice behind us; and there stood Mistress Walgrave herself. “Come, husband,” said she, soothingly, “be not too hard on Humphrey, he is but a lad. He serves us well most days, when the Queen is not to the front. I warrant thee, Robert, thou wast a merry ’prentice once thyself.”
“That I never was,” said Master Walgrave, with an acid face; “but get in with you, sirrah, and to bed. I had a mind to leave you on the other side of the door this night, to cool your hot blood.” And he bolted the door, whilst I slunk up to my garret.
Peter Stoupe was already asleep and snoring; and as he lay clean across the bed, I must needs arouse him to take his own side and make room for me.
“What, Humphrey!—I give God thanks to see thee back,” said he, drowsily; “I feared something was amiss. There was a rumour that you lodged this night in Newgate.”
“You listened to a lie, then,” said I.
“And it is not true, is it, that you naughtily assaulted a gentleman of the Court?”
“And what if I did?” I demanded.
“Alas! Humphrey, think of the trouble it is like to bring on our good master and mistress. Have you no thought for anyone but yourself? Yet, I give thanks thou art safe, so—far—my—good—Humpi—” and here he rolled off to sleep and left me in quiet.
Yet not in peace, for I could not sleep that night for many an hour. For my life seemed to have taken a strange turn round since morning. Before to-day I had thought the ’prentice’s life the merriest life in the world. I had cared for nobody, and it had troubled me little if nobody cared for me. Strange that now I felt like a greyhound in the leash, longing to be anywhere but where I was.
Besides, I had more solid grounds for wakefulness. However well to-day I had given my pursuers the slip, I guessed I had not heard the last of Captain Merriman and his merry men. They would find me out; and I might yet become, as Peter had said, a lodger in Newgate, and, worse than that, a cause of trouble and distress to good Master Walgrave and his lady.
For, however poorly I esteemed my master, I could ill afford to bring harm on his family. For my mistress was ever my champion and my friend, and her children I was wont to love as my own brothers and sisters.
So I spent half the night kicking in my bed—of which kicks Master Peter received his full share—and rose very early, resolved to try what hard work could do to cure my unrest.
No one was stirring that I could hear, and I went down the stairs silently and took up my labour at the case. My stick lay on the floor, where I had dropped it the morning before, and, alack! the squabbled type lay there too, a sight to make a man sad. Slowly and painfully I saved what I could, and was setting myself to make good the rest, when my ears caught a strange sound below my feet. It was a beating sound, followed by the dull fall of something, and, on listening, it came and went every two or three minutes.
I had guessed more than once before now that under the house was a cellar, although I had never been there, nor, indeed, knew how to approach it. For there was no opening, front or back, to the outer world that I knew of, and, if there at all, it must be pitch-dark and hard to breathe in. And yet the noise I now heard, if it came from anywhere, came from below. I looked about carefully, hoping for a crack in the floor through which to solve the mystery. But crack there was none. Only as I looked further I saw that the reams of paper, which lay usually near the press, were moved somewhat to one side. Now, as my master was always particular that the paper should lie always in the same place, it seemed strange to me they should be so disturbed. But on going nearer I perceived the reason. For there, usually hidden to view, was now exposed a cunning trap-door, opened by a hinge and sunken ring in the boards.
Now, having found so much, it would have been out of all nature had I gone back to my work and thought no more of the matter; besides, the strange noise still continued. I lifted the door cautiously about an inch and peeped below.
The cellar—for cellar it was—was bright with the light of a lamp, by which I could plainly discern my master (or, as I believed for a moment, my master’s ghost), with coat off, and sweating with the heat of the place, working like any journeyman at a printing-press, on which lay a forme of type, which he inked with his balls and struck off in print with the noises which had perplexed me above.
Then I pulled up the trap and called out:
“Master Walgrave, spare yourself so much toil, I pray you, and let me help you.”
He turned round, with a face the colour of dough, like a man who had just received an arrow in his vitals; then he rushed as if to put out the lamp. But his presence of mind returned before he got that length, and he demanded of me angrily enough how I dared to play the spy on him and come where I was not bidden.
I replied I was no spy, and, as for coming where I was not bidden, had I known who it was down there I would have stayed where I was. But, being there, might I help him, I asked, at the work? He answered angrily, “No,” and bade me begone. Whereupon I returned to my case, and waited till he should come up to the earth’s surface.
Meanwhile I recalled not a few rumours I had heard about Master Walgrave. One was, that, though he was only licenced to have one press, and seemed to have no more, yet (it was whispered of some), he had another in hiding, which now I found to be true. Moreover, as I was in Stationers’ Hall one day, a month or more ago, to pay the fee for a register, I overheard Timothy Ryder the beadle and another talking about my master.
“He prints more than he registers,” said one.
“And he should have his ears cropped for his pains,” said Timothy, “did I but know where to have him.”
Then seeing that I waited (for they had forgot to give me my acquittance), they dropped talking suddenly.
By all this I guessed that my master was no favourite with them of Stationers’ Hall, and, moreover, that he was addicted to disorderly practices contrary to the Acts binding printers. But so well did he keep his own secret, and so busy was I with my own affairs, that it all passed from my mind, and now only returned when I saw that what had been said of him was true.
He came up from below presently, and I was ready for him. “Master,” said I, “I have displeased you against my will, and I have seen what you would fain have kept a secret. You shall find it remains safe with me, for I am your ’prentice and bound to you. Therefore cheer up.”
He brightened at this.
“You are a good lad,” said he. “It concerns no one what I do below. ’Tis an amusement of my own, no more.”
As he stood there, pale and anxious, with weary eyes, it seemed to me an amusement which yielded him but little sport. However, I did not dispute the matter, and we said no more about it.
But after that day I observed that my master, although he seemed to like me less, was more sparing of his bitter words than heretofore. Whereby I guessed plainly enough that the amusement he spoke of, were it to come to the ears of the Master and Wardens of the Company, would get him into no little trouble.
Mistress Walgrave, his wife, as I said, was ever my good friend. She was no common woman, and how those two made a match of it always puzzled me. Before she came to England (so she had told me often), she lived at Rochelle, in France, where her first husband was a merchant in lace. Then, when he died of the plague ten years ago, she came with her two young children (the elder being but five years), to her mother’s home in Kent, where Robert Walgrave, being on a visit to Canterbury, met her, and offered her marriage. And in truth she had been the brightness of his house ever since, and her two French children, Jeannette and Prosper, now tall girl and boy, lived with her, as did some three other urchins who called Master Walgrave father. Sweet Jeannette was my favourite; for she was lame, and had her mother’s cheery smile, and thought ill of no one, least of all of me whom she called her big crutch, and tormented by talking French.
Many a summer afternoon, when work was slack, I carried her to the water-side, where she might sit and watch the river flowing past. And to reward me she made me read her about King Arthur and his knights, and stories from Mr Chaucer’s book; much of which I understood not, though (being a printer’s ’prentice), I knew the words.
One still evening as we sat thus, not a week after my adventure in Finsbury Fields, she broke in on my reading with—
“Voilà, see there, Master Humphrey; mais, comme elle est jolie!”
“I don’t know what you say, when you talk like that, mistress,” said I; for I liked not the French jargon, although by dint of long suffering it I had a better guess at the meaning of it often than I cared to own.
“Look, I say,” said she, “would not she be a queen of beauty for the knights of old to fight for?”
I looked where she pointed; and there, gliding within a few yards of us, passed a boat, and in it, drinking in the beauty of the evening, sat a maiden, at sight of whom I felt the blood desert my cheeks, and the hand that held the book tremble. Her old companion was beside her dozing, and the waterman lugged lazily at his oars, humming an air to himself.
Jeannette, happily, was looking not at me but at her, and so my troubled looks escaped her.
“I never saw a face more fair,” said she. “’Tis like a picture out of Mr Chaucer’s book. And now that she is past, the day seems darker. Go on reading, please, kind Master Humphrey.”
I tried to go on, but I blundered and lost my place, while my eyes tried to follow the boat.
Would she but have looked round! Could she but have known who it was that watched her! Could I myself have dared even to shout or call!
Alas! the boat glided by, and her form, stately, erect, fearless, lost itself in the distance. What dreamed she—a queen—of an uncouth London ’prentice?
“Master Dexter,” said Jeannette’s soft voice presently, “for five whole minutes you have been trying to read one little sentence, and it still lacks an ending. What ails you?”
“Nothing, mistress; but I am a bad scholar and the words are hard; I pray you forgive me. Besides it grows late. ’Tis time we went in.”
So I carried her in to her mother, and then ran wildly back to the river’s edge, if by good hap I might see that lady return, or at least catch sight of her boat in the far distance. But I did neither. The tide still ran out, and amongst the many boats that dotted the water citywards who was to say which was hers?
As I returned by way of the Temple to my master’s house, I met Peter Stoupe, my fellow ’prentice.
“I am glad I met thee,” he said. “A man came to me just now in the shop and said, ‘Be you Humphrey Dexter?’ I told him no, and asked him what he wanted. He told me that was his business. I bade him wait where he was and I would fetch you, for I had seen you go out; but he went away grumbling, saying he would choose his own time, not mine. Alas! Humphrey, you have brought us all into sad trouble by your naughty ways.”
“What trouble are you in, sirrah?” said I, wrathfully. “It matters little to you what comrade is laid by the heels, so that you get your platter full, morning and evening.”
“But our good master and mistress—” he began.
But I waited not for him and went quickly home.
That night my master called me as I was going to my bed, and said, “Humphrey, there is like to be sad trouble here on your account. A warrant, I am told, is out to seize you, you know best for what; but, if it be true, you struck a gentleman of the Queen’s household—”
“I struck a dog who affronted a defenceless maiden,” said I, “and I put him in the pond, to boot, and I care not if I go to the cage for it.”
“But I care. If I harbour you here I am like to receive the punishment which belongs to you. And if I give you up I lose a good ’prentice. I can say thus much for you.”
“Then,” said I, not heeding his flattery, “I had better go away myself.”
I never guessed he would take to this; but, to my surprise, he did.
“I and your mistress think so, too, Humphrey. Whilst the hue and cry lasts you are better anywhere than here. When it has ceased, you may safely return. Meanwhile, as fortune will have it, I can employ you still in my service.”
Then he told me how he desired to send a letter to a friend of his at Oxford, which, being of the gravest importance, he wished delivered by a trusty messenger—as he took me to be. Therefore, if I was ready to forward him in the matter, I might avoid my pursuers, and do him a service to boot.
I hailed the offer with joy and thankfulness. I longed for a change somewhere, I cared not where, and, if skulk I must, an errand like this would please me vastly more than hiding for a week in my master’s cellar.
“Be secret,” said he (meaning, I suppose, Stoupe). “To-morrow early be ready to start to Kingston, where you may get a horse. Meanwhile your mistress is herself making you a cloak which shall be proof against all weathers. So good-night, Humphrey, and see you rouse yourself betimes in the morning.”