Chapter Five.
The Voyage, and what came of it.
Stephen Bassett was not the better for that day’s work, though the accident was too slight to have harmed a man in fair health, and it made a sound reason for Friar Luke to urge upon him that he should give up his wild project of going west in the Queen Maud. But the carver was, if possible, only the more bent upon the scheme. He wanted to get Hugh out of London, where was more stir of arms and rumour of wars than in the shires, and have him safely bound apprentice where there should be no withdrawing.
“He will not fail me, poor little lad,” he said; “but were I to be taken from him here his task would be ten times harder. Besides, I see no opening for him except what the good brothers offer, which he would hate worst of all.”
So he kept the tales of his aches and weakness to himself as much as he could, though it cost him not a little to avoid Friar Luke’s reproachful eye when he came in from the garden with his herbs; and, armed with a letter from the prior—written in Latin on a strip of vellum—to the head of the Franciscans in Exeter, and accompanied to the water’s edge by several of the brethren, and a hospitable store of provisions with which they insisted on supplying them, the little party and their gear got safely on board the vessel, and would go down the river by the next tide. Little Moll and her mother were there, which made it seem more friendly to poor Hugh, who looked about him with dismay, and had had all possible mischances put before him by the friars, who thought Bassett’s action nothing less than flying in the face of Providence.
Still, when the farewells had all been spoken, the cumbersome anchor dragged out of the mud, and the great square sail with its sprawling centre device rigged up, they went merrily down the river. It was getting towards the middle of October, and the great buildings of London, the Abbey of Westminster, the Church of the Templars, the Gothic spire of St. Paul’s, the Tower, and various beautiful conventual buildings, stood, mostly surrounded by fine trees, in all the glory of autumnal gold and red. The lesser buildings—the very hovels—were picturesque, the river ran clear and strong, the vessels flaunted bright sails, colour was everywhere, and the soft blue mists but made a fair background for the scene.
Stephen Bassett stood watching, with a feeling that it was for the last time, when Andrew the ship-master joined him.
“A fair prospect,” said the carver.