And one night, after I had been late out, when I came back, I spied a light in the cellar below, and heard the rumble of a press there, and knew that, cost what it would, my master was once more risking his liberty and fortune at the bidding of his bishop-hating employers.
“Master,” said I, boldly marching below, to where he stood busily working his press, “since I am to be your son-in-law, I may as well share your peril. Have I your leave?”
He looked half-vexed and half-contented; and declared that what he did, though it might be against the rules, was yet a righteous thing, and he wanted not my help unless I thought the same. This tract, said he, could it but get abroad, would save God’s Church from much evil that threatened her; and to that end he was willing to risk his liberty in printing it.
Now, whether he was right or wrong, I was not scholar enough to understand all the tract said concerning the state of the Church. But since no one wished to see the Church improved more than I, I was ready to believe my master’s cause a righteous one, and told him as much.
And having once lent myself to the work, it suited my humour to carry it on without question, though not without sundry misgivings as to how far it sorted with my loyalty to my Queen to be thus flying in the face of a decree of her honourable Star Chamber.
But before this labour was done, a new task fell into my hands. For one day, as I worked at my case, I heard a voice at the door say:
“Is it here I find my Hollander, like Pegasus clipped of his wings, yet giving wings to the thoughts of the wise, so that they may fly abroad, as, in sooth, shall presently mine own burning numbers? Salute me, my once servant, now honoured to be called my friend, and the goal of my muse-sped wanderings.”
It was the poet. But how changed from the gay popinjay I knew on the Miséricorde!
He was so lean that the skin scarce held together over his bones; his face was shrunk and nipped with hunger; a ragged beard hung from his chin. His attire was the same as he had worn when last I saw him, but so tattered and dirty and threadbare that it was a marvel to me it did not fall to pieces before my eyes. The great ruff drooped brown and dank upon his shoulders. The gay shirt and doublet hung like grey sackcloth on his limbs. His shoes flapped in fragments about his feet, and the empty scabbard at his belt swung like the shreds of a worn rope between his legs.
He was a sorry spectacle in truth, and but for his unchanged speech I might have looked at him long ere I knew him.