Then Hugh would come in, rosy and excited with his walks with Matthew, who would see everything, even to the hangings on the Tyburn elms. They went to mass at St. Paul’s, then surrounded by its own walls; they walked down the grassy spaces of Strand; they looked with some dread at the round church of the New Temple, and heard tales of the Templars fit to make the hair stand on end; they passed another day to the village of Westminster, where was the king’s palace and the beautiful abbey, together with the great hall where Parliament, when it met in London, assembled. It amused Hugh very well at first to see the crowds of suitors who poured up the stairs—those who had some complaints to make, grievances to be redressed, or petitions to be laid before the Triers. No hindrance was put in their way; everyone was free to come, each had a fair hearing. Outlaws came to beg for pardon, when, if the Triers thought fit, they were recommended to the king’s grace; men and women sought redress from wrongs inflicted perhaps by the lord of the manor; jurors who had perverted their office were brought up to receive judgment—all these lesser matters were as much the business of Parliament as granting aids to the king for carrying on the wars, and so fascinated was Matthew with the scene that Hugh was wearied to death of it before he could drag him away.
He got him out at last, muttering to himself that had he but known how easy matters were made he would have looked up a case of his own against the University of Cambridge. Hugh, stirred by ambition to have to do with an actual suitor, which was much more exciting than looking on and listening to matters he did not understand, was for his going back again at once. Great was Matthew’s indignation at the idea.
“Thou silly oaf!” he said, angrily. “To go without preparation!”
“They but told a plain story,” returned Hugh, sturdily. “Anyone could do as much.”
“Seest thou not the difference? They were ignorant men with whom the Council was wondrous patient, overlooking all their clipped words, and mercifully stooping to their simpleness. But for a man of understanding to put a case matters must be very different. Fit words must he use, and just pleadings must he make, and be ready to give good reason. Their worships know well with whom they have to do. I will take thee to the Guildhall one day, and there thou shalt see the lawyers in their white coifs. They are no longer monks, as once they were.”
“I would liefer go down the river and see the ships,” said Hugh wearily.
Matthew, who was really good-natured, yielded to this desire, and they picked their way along the swampy ground as best they could, and past the Tower. The great trade of London, even at this time when commerce was ever made secondary to politics, was so large that a number of vessels were in the river. Strange craft they were and of all shapes and sizes, the largest resembling nothing so much as a swollen half-circle, broadening at one end, and coming round so as to form a sort of shelter, and curving sharply to a point at the bow. No such thing as sea charts as yet existed, so that a voyage was a perilous matter, and, in spite of the Crusades and of the trade with the Mediterranean, few vessels ventured through the Straits of Gibraltar. Edward was turning his attention to the navy, and was the first to appoint admirals, but, so far, England’s strength lay altogether in her army and her famous bowmen, and the sea was no source of power, nor her sailors famous.
Still, though Matthew professed the greatest contempt for his taste, Hugh found the river more delightful than the Council Hall, and was for lingering there as late as he could. Some of the vessels were unloading, others embarking corn from the eastern counties, so that there was much stir and turmoil, and more vessels were in than was usual, because the time of the autumn equinox was dangerous for sailing. Children, too, were, as ever, playing about, and one group attracted Hugh, because in it was a little maid much about the size of little Eleanor, and with something of her spirited ways. The boys, her companions, were rough, and at last one pushed her with such force that she fell, striking her head violently against a projecting plank. Hugh flew to avenge her, but the boys, frightened at seeing her lie motionless, fled, and Matthew stood growling at the manners of the age. Hugh, used to sickness, ran to the water’s brink, and scooped up a little water in his two hands. By the time he had poured it on her face and raised her head on his knee she opened her brown eyes with a cry of “Mother!” and the next moment a man in a sailor’s dress had leaped ashore from one of the vessels which were lading close by, had run to the group and taken her in his arms.
“Art thou hurt, my Moll, and where?”
“Father, ’twas Robin Bolton pushed me.”