They rolled it up in silk and leather and put it in a metal cylinder, and shut the lid and sealed it with the King’s own seal, and then he gave it to me.
“Take this,” he said, “straight to the Queen, and give it into her own hands. Be close and silent, for you will know it were not meet to be robbed of thy news upon the road: but I need not tell you of what becomes a trusty messenger. There! so, strap it in thy girdle, and God speed thee—surely such big news was never packed so small before.”
I left the Royal tent and vaulted into the ready saddle without. One hour, I thought, as the swift steed’s head was turned to the westward, may take me to the shore, and two others may set me on foot in England. Then, if they have relays upon the road, three more will see me kneeling at the lady’s feet, the while her fingers burst these seals. Lord! how they shall shout this afternoon! how the ’prentices shall toss their caps, and the fat burghers crowd the narrow streets, and every rustic hamlet green ring to the sky with gratitude! Ah! six hours I thought might do the journey; but read, and you shall see how long it took.
Scouring over the low grassy plains as hard as the good horse could gallop, with the gray sea broadening out ahead with every mile we went, full of thoughts of a busy past and uncertain future, I hardly noticed how the wind was freshening. Yet, when we rode down at last by a loose hill road to the beach, strong gusts were piping amid the treetops, and the King’s galleys were lurching and rolling together at their anchors by the landing-stage as the short waves came crowding in, one close upon another, under the first pressure of a coming storm.
But, wind or no wind, I would cross; and I spoke to the captain of the galleys, showing him my pass with its Royal signet, and saying I must have a ship at once, though all the cave of Eblis were let loose upon us. That worthy, weather-beaten fellow held the mandate most respectfully in one hand, while he pulled his grizzled beard with the other and stared out into the north, where, under a black canopy of lowering sky, the sea was seamed with gray and hurrying squalls, then turned to the cluster of sailors who were crowded round us—guessing my imperious errand—to know who would start upon it. And those rough salts swore no man of sanity would venture out—not even for a King’s generous bounty—not even to please victorious Edward would they go—no, nor to ease the expectant hearts of twenty thousand wives, or glad the proud eyes of ten score hundred mothers. It was impossible, they said—see how the frothy spray was flying already over the harbor bar, and how shrill the frightened sea-mews were rising high above the land!—no ship would hold together in such a wind as that brewing out over there, no man this side of hell could face it—and yet, and yet, “Why!” laughed a leathery fellow, slapping his mighty fist into his other palm, “as I was born by Sareham, and knew the taste of salt spray nearly as early as I knew my mother’s milk, it shall never be said I was frightened by a hollow sky and a Frenchman’s wind. I’ll be your pilot, Sir.”
“And I will go wherever old Harry dares,” put in a stout young fellow. “And I,” “And I,” “And I,” was chorused on every side, as the brave English seamen caught the bold infection, and in a brief space there, under the lee of the gray harbor jetty, before a motley cheering crowd, all in the blustering wind and rain, I rode my palfrey up the sloping way, and on to the impatient tossing little bark that was to bear the great news to England.
We stabled the good steed safe under the half-deck forward, set the mizzen and cast off the hawser, and soon the little vessel’s prow was bursting through the crisp waves at the harbor mouth, her head for home, and behind, dim through the rainy gusts, the white house-fronts of the beach village, and far away the uplands where the English army lay. We reefed and set the sails as we drew from the land, but truly those fellows were right when they hung back from sharing the peril and the glory with me! The strong blue waters of the midland sea whereon I first sailed my merchant bark were like the ripples of a sheltered pond to the roaring trench and furrows of this narrow northern strait. All day long we fought to westward, and every hour we spent the wind came stronger and more keenly out of the black funnel of the north, and the waves swelled broader and more monstrous. By noon we saw the English shore gleam ghostly white through the flying reek in front; but by then, so fierce was the northeaster howling, that, though we went to windward and off again, doing all that good seamen could, now stealing a spell ahead, and anon losing it amid a blinding squall, we could not near the English port for which we aimed, there, in the cleft of the dim white cliffs.
After a long time of this, our captain came to me where I leaned, watchful, against the mast, and said:
“The King has made an order, as you will know, all vessels from France are to sail for his town of Dover there, and nowhere else, on a pain of a fine that would go near to swamp such as we.”
“Good skipper,” I answered, “I know the law, but there are exceptions to every rule, which, well taken, only cast the more honor on general stringency. King Edward would have you make that port at all reasonable times; but if you cannot reach it, as you surely cannot now, you are not bound to sail me, his messenger, to Paradise in lieu thereof. I pray you, put down your helm and run, and take the nearest harbor the wind will let us.” At this the captain turned upon his heel well pleased, and our ship came round, and now, before the gale, sailed perhaps a little easier.