The Armourer's Prentices

by Charlotte M. Yonge

He was sitting on the steps, leaning against the rail, so much tired that he hoped none of his comrades would notice that he had come out, when Ambrose hurried into the court, having just heard tidings of his freedom, and was at his side at once. The two brothers sat together, leaning against one another as if they had all that they could wish or long for. They had not met for more than a week, for Ambrose’s finances had not availed to fee the turnkeys to give him entrance.

“And what art thou doing, Ambrose?” asked Stephen, rousing a little from his lethargy. “Methought I heard mine uncle say thine occupation was gone?”

“Even so,” replied Ambrose. “Master Lucas will sail in a week’s time to join his brother at Rotterdam, bearing with him what he hath been able to save out of the havoc. I wot not if I shall ever see the good man more.”

“I am glad thou dost not go with him,” said Stephen, with a hand on his brother’s leather-covered knee.

“I would not put seas between us,” returned Ambrose. “Moreover, though I grieve to lose my good master, who hath been so scurvily entreated here, yet, Stephen, this trouble and turmoil hath brought me that which I longed for above all, even to have speech with the Dean of St. Paul’s.”

He then told Stephen how he had brought Dean Colet to administer the last rites to Abenali, and how that good man had bidden Lucas to take shelter at the Deanery, in the desolation of his own abode. This had led to conversation between the Dean and the printer; Lucas, who distrusted all ecclesiastics, would accept no patronage. He had a little hoard, buried in the corner of his stall, which would suffice to carry him to his native home and he wanted no more; but he had spoken of Ambrose, and the Dean was quite ready to be interested in the youth who had led him to Abenali.

“He had me to his privy chamber,” said Ambrose, “and spake to me as no man hath yet spoken—no, not even Tibble. He let me utter all my mind, nay, I never wist before even what mine own thoughts were till he set them before me—as it were in a mirror.”

“Thou wast ever in a harl,” said Stephen, drowsily using the Hampshire word for whirl or entanglement.

“Yea. On the one side stood all that I had ever believed or learnt before I came hither of the one true and glorious Mother-Church to whom the Blessed Lord had committed the keys of His kingdom, through His holy martyrs and priests to give us the blessed host and lead us in the way of salvation. And on the other side, I cannot but see the lewd and sinful and worldly lives of the most part, and hear the lies whereby they amass wealth and turn men from the spirit of truth and holiness to delude them into believing that wilful sin can be committed without harm, and that purchase of a parchment is as good as repentance. That do I see and hear. And therewith my master Lucas and Dan Tindall, and those of the new light, declare that all has been false even from the very outset, and that all the pomp and beauty is but Satan’s bait, and that to believe in Christ alone is all that needs to justify us, casting all the rest aside. All seemed a mist, and I was swayed hither and thither till the more I read and thought, the greater was the fog. And this—I know not whether I told it to yonder good and holy doctor, or whether he knew it, for his eyes seemed to see into me, and he told me that he had felt and thought much the same. But on that one great truth, that faith in the Passion is salvation, is the Church built, though sinful men have hidden it by their errors and lies as befell before among the Israelites, whose law, like ours, was divine. Whatever is entrusted to man, he said, will become stained, soiled, and twisted, though the power of the Holy Spirit will strive to renew it. And such an outpouring of cleansing and renewing power is, he saith, abroad in our day. When he was a young man, this good father, so he said, hoped great things, and did his best to set forth the truth, both at Oxford and here, as indeed he hath ever done, he and the good Doctor Erasmus striving to turn men’s eyes back to the simplicity of God’s Word rather than to the arguments and deductions of the schoolmen. And for the abuses of evil priests that have sprung up, my Lord Cardinal sought the Legatine Commission from our holy father at Rome to deal with them. But Dr. Colet saith that there are other forces at work, and he doubteth greatly whether this same cleansing can be done without some great and terrible rending and upheaving, that may even split the Church as it were asunder—since judgment surely awaiteth such as will not be reformed. But, quoth he, ‘our Mother-Church is God’s own Church and I will abide by her to the end, as the means of oneness with my Lord and Head, and do thou the same, my son, for thou art like to be more sorely tried than will a frail old elder like me, who would fain say his Nunc Dimittis, if such be the Lord’s will, ere the foundations be cast down.’”

Ambrose had gone on rehearsing all these words with the absorption of one to whom they were everything, till it occurred to him to wonder that Stephen had listened to so much with patience and assent, and then, looking at the position of head and hands, he perceived that his brother was asleep, and came to a sudden halt. This roused Stephen to say, “Eh? What? The Dean, will he do aught for thee?”