The Armourer's Prentices Read online

  CHAPTER NINE.

  ARMS SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL.

  "For him was leifer to have at his bedde's hedde Twenty books clothed in blacke or redde Of Aristotle and his philosophie Than robes riche or fiddle or psalterie." Chaucer.

  Master Headley was found spending the summer evening in the bay windowof the hall. Tibble sat on a three-legged stool by him, writing in acrabbed hand, in a big ledger, and Kit Smallbones towered above both,holding in his hand a bundle of tally-sticks. By the help of these, andof that accuracy of memory which writing has destroyed, he wasunfolding, down to the very last farthing, the entire account ofpayments and receipts during his master's absence, the debtor andcreditor account being preserved as perfectly as if he had always had apen in his huge fingers, and studied book-keeping by double or singleentry.

  On the return of the two boys with such an apparently respectable memberof society as the handsome well-dressed personage who accompanied them,little Dennet, who had been set to sew her sampler on a stool by hergrandmother, under penalty of being sent off to bed if she disturbed herfather, sprang up with a little cry of gladness, and running up toAmbrose, entreated for the tales of his good greenwood Forest, and thepucks and pixies, and the girl who daily shared her breakfast with asnake and said, "Eat your own side, Speckleback." Somehow, on Sundaynight she had gathered that Ambrose had a store of such tales, and shedragged him off to the gallery, there to revel in them, while hisbrother remained with her father.

  Though Master Stephen had begun by being high and mighty aboutmechanical crafts, and thought it a great condescension to consent to bebound apprentice, yet when once again in the Dragon court, it looked sofriendly and felt so much like a home that he found himself very anxiousthat Master Headley should not say that he could take no moreapprentices at present, and that he should be satisfied with the termsuncle Hal would propose. And oh! suppose Tibble should recogniseQuipsome Hal!

  However, Tibble was at this moment entirely engrossed by the accounts,and his master left him and his big companion to unravel them, while hehimself held speech with his guest at some distance--sending for a cupof sack, wherewith to enliven the conversation.

  He showed himself quite satisfied with what Randall chose to tell ofhimself as a well known "housekeeper" close to the Temple, his wife a"lavender" there, while he himself was attached to the suite of theArchbishop of York. Here alone was there any approach to shuffling, forMaster Headley was left to suppose that Randall attended Wolsey in hiscapacity of king's counsellor, and therefore, having a house of his own,had not been found in the roll of the domestic retainers and servants.He did not think of inquiring further, the more so as Randall wasperfectly candid as to his own inferiority of birth to the Birkenholtfamily, and the circumstances under which he had left the Forest.

  Master Headley professed to be quite willing to accept Stephen as anapprentice, with or without a fee; but he agreed with Randall that itwould be much better not to expose him to having it cast in his teeththat he was accepted out of charity; and Randall undertook to get aletter so written and conveyed to John Birkenholt that he should notdare to withhold the needful sum, in earnest of which Master Headleywould accept the two crowns that Stephen had in hand, as soon as theindentures could be drawn out by one of the many scriveners who livedabout Saint Paul's.

  This settled, Randall could stay no longer, but he called both nephewsinto the court with him. "Ye can write a letter?" he said.

  "Ay, sure, both of us; but Ambrose is the best scribe," said Stephen.

  "One of you had best write then. Let that cur John know that I have myLord of York's ear, and there will be no fear but he will give it. I'llfind a safe hand among the clerks, when the judges ride to hold theassize. Mayhap Ambrose might also write to the Father at Beaulieu. Thething had best be bruited."

  "I wished to do so," said Ambrose. "It irked me to have taken no leaveof the good Fathers."

  Randall then took his leave, having little more than time to return toYork House, where the Archbishop might perchance come home wearied andchafed from the King, and the jester might be missed if not there to puthim in good humour.

  The curfew sounded, and though attention to its notes was not compulsoryby law, it was regarded as the break-up of the evening and the note ofrecall in all well-ordered establishments. The apprentices andjourneymen came into the court, among them Giles Headley, who had beentaken out by one of the men to be provided with a working dress, much tohis disgust; the grandmother summoned little Dennet and carried her offto bed. Stephen and Ambrose bade good-night, but Master Headley and histwo confidential men remained somewhat longer to wind up their accounts.Doors were not, as a rule, locked within the court, for though itcontained from forty to fifty persons, they were all regarded as asingle family, and it was enough to fasten the heavily bolted, iron-studded folding doors of the great gateway leading into Cheapside, thekey being brought to the master like that of a castle, seven minutes,measured by the glass, after the last note of the curfew in the belfryoutside Saint Paul's.

  The summer twilight, however, lasted long after this time of grace, andwhen Tibble had completed his accountant's work, and Smallbones' deepvoiced "Good-night, comrade," had resounded over the court, he beheld afigure rise up from the steps of the gallery, and Ambrose's voice said:"May I speak to thee, Tibble? I need thy counsel."

  "Come hither, sir," said the foreman, muttering to himself, "Methought'twas working in him! The leaven! the leaven!"

  Tibble led the way up one of the side stairs into the open gallery,where he presently opened a door, admitting to a small, though highchamber, the walls of bare brick, and containing a low bed, a smalltable, a three-legged stool, a big chest, and two cupboards, also across over the head of the bed. A private room was a luxury neitherpossessed nor desired by most persons of any degree, and only enjoyed byTibble in consideration of his great value to his master, his peculiartastes, and the injuries he had received. In point of fact, his fallhad been owing to a hasty blow, given in a passion by the master himselfwhen a young man. Dismay and repentance had made Giles Headley a coolerand more self-controlled man ever since, and even if Tibble had not beena superior workman, he might still have been free to do almost anythinghe chose. Tibble gave his visitor the stool, and himself sat down onthe chest, saying: "So you have found your uncle, sir."

  "Ay," said Ambrose, pausing in some expectation that Tibble wouldmention some suspicion of his identity; but if the foreman had his ideason the subject he did not disclose them, and waited for morecommunications.

  "Tibble!" said Ambrose, with a long gasp, "I must find means to hearmore of him thou tookedst me to on Sunday."

  "None ever truly tasted of that well without longing to come back toit," quoth Tibble. "But hath not thy kinsman done aught for thee?"

  "Nay," said Ambrose, "save to offer me a lodging with his wife, a goodand kindly lavender at the Temple."

  Tibble nodded.

  "So far am I free," said Ambrose, "and I am glad of it. I have a letterhere to one of the canons, one Master Alworthy, but ere I seek him Iwould know somewhat from thee, Tibble. What like is he?"

  "I cannot tell, sir," said Tibble. "The canons are rich and many, and apoor smith like me wots little of their fashions."

  "Is it true," again asked Ambrose, "that the Dean--he who spake thosewords yesterday--hath a school here for young boys?"

  "Ay. And a good and mild school it be, bringing them up in the name andnurture of the Holy Child Jesus, to whom it is dedicated."

  "Then they are taught this same doctrine?"

  "I trow they be. They say the Dean loves them like the children of hisold age, and declares that they shall be made in love with holy lore bygentleness rather than severity."

  "Is it likely that this same Alworthy could obtain me entrance there?"

  "Alack, sir, I fear me thou art too old. I see none but little ladsamong them. Didst thou come to London with that intent?"

  "Nay, for I only
wist to-day that there was such a school. I came withI scarce know what purpose, save to see Stephen safely bestowed, andthen to find some way of learning myself. Moreover, a change seems tohave come on me, as though I had hitherto been walking in a dream."

  Tibble nodded, and Ambrose, sitting there in the dark, was moved to pourforth all his heart, the experience of many an ardent soul in thosespirit searching days. Growing up happily under the care of the simplemonks of Beaulieu he had never looked beyond their somewhat mechanicalroutine, accepted everything implicitly, and gone on acquiring knowledgewith the receptive spirit but dormant thought of studious boyhood as yetunawakened, thinking that the studious clerical life to which every onedestined him would only be a continuation of the same, as indeed it hadbeen to his master, Father Simon. Not that Ambrose expressed this,beyond saying, "They are good and holy men, and I thought all were likethem, and fear that was all!"

  Then came death, for the first time nearly touching and affecting theyouth, and making his soul yearn after further depths, which he mightyet have found in the peace of the good old men, and the holy rites anddoctrine that they preserved; but before there was time for these thingsto find their way into the wounds of his spirit, his expulsion from homehad sent him forth to see another side of monkish and clerkly life.

  Father Shoveller, kindly as he was, was a mere yeoman with nothingspiritual about him; the monks of Hyde were, the younger, gay comrades,only trying how loosely they could sit to their vows; the elder,churlish and avaricious; even the Warden of Elizabeth College was littlemore than a student. And in London, fresh phases had revealedthemselves; the pomp, state, splendour and luxury of Archbishop Wolsey'shouse had been a shock to the lad's ideal of a bishop drawn from thesaintly biographies he had studied at Beaulieu; and he had but to keephis ears open to hear endless scandals about the mass-priests, as theywere called, since they were at this time very unpopular in London, andin many cases deservedly so. Everything that the boy had hithertothought the way of holiness and salvation seemed invaded by evil anddanger, and under the bondage of death, whose terrible dance continuedto haunt him.

  "I saw it, I saw it," he said, "all over those halls at York House. Iseemed to behold the grisly shape standing behind one and another, asthey ate and laughed; and when the Archbishop and his priests and theKing came in it seemed only to make the pageant complete! Only now andthen could I recall those blessed words, `Ye are free indeed.' Did hesay from the bondage of death?"

  "Yea," said Tibble, "into the glorious freedom of God's children."

  "Thou knowst it. Thou knowst it, Tibble. It seems to me that life isno life, but living death, without that freedom! And I _must_ hear ofit, and know whether it is mine, yea, and Stephen's, and all whom Ilove. O Tibble, I would beg my bread rather than not have that freedomever before mine eyes."

  "Hold it fast! hold it fast, dear sir," said Tibble, holding out hishands with tears in his eyes, and his face working in a manner thathappily Ambrose could not see.

  "But how--how? The barefoot friar said that for an _Ave_ a day, ourBlessed Lady will drag us back from purgatory. I saw her on the wall ofher chapel at Winchester saving a robber knight from the sea, yea and athief from the gallows; but that is not being free."

  "Fond inventions of pardon-mongers," muttered Tibble.

  "And is one not free when the priest hath assoilsied him?" addedAmbrose.

  "If, and if--" said Tibble. "But none shall make me trow that shrift inwords, without heart--sorrow for sin, and the Latin heard with nothought of Him that bore the guilt, can set the sinner free. 'Tis noneother that the Dean sets forth, ay, and the book that I have here. Ithank my God," he stood up and took off his cap reverently, "that Hehath opened the eyes of another!"

  His tone was such that Ambrose could have believed him some devoutalmost inspired hermit rather than the acute skilful artisan he appearedat other times; and in fact, Tibble Steelman, like many anothercraftsman of those days, led a double life, the outer one that of theordinary workman, the inner one devoted to those lights that wereshining unveiled and new to in any; and especially here in the heart ofthe City, partly from the influence of Dean Colet's sermons andcatechisings at Saint Paul's, but also from remnants of Lollardism,which had never been entirely quenched. The ordinary clergy looked atit with horror, but the intelligent and thoughtful of the burgher andcraftsman classes studied it with a passionate fervour which might havesooner broken out and in more perilous forms save for the guidance itreceived in the truly Catholic and open-spirited public teachings ofColet, in which he persisted in spite of the opposition of his brotherclergy.

  Not that as yet the inquirers had in the slightest degree broken withthe system of the Church, or with her old traditions. They were onlybeginning to see the light that had been veiled from them, and toendeavour to clear the fountain from the mire that had fouled it; andthere was as yet no reason to believe that the aspersions continuallymade against the mass-priests and the friars were more than the chronicgrumblings of Englishmen, who had found the same faults in them for thelast two hundred years.

  "And what wouldst thou do, young sir?" presently inquired Tibble.

  "That I came to ask thee, good Tibble. I would work to the best of mypower in any craft so I may hear those words and gain the key to all Ihave hitherto learnt, unheeding as one in a dream. My purpose had beento be a scholar and a clerk, but I must see mine own way, and knowwhither I am being carried, ere I can go farther."

  Tibble writhed and wriggled himself about in consideration. "I would Iwist how to take thee to the Dean himself," he said, "but I am but apoor man, and his doctrine is `new wine in old bottles' to the master,though he be a right good man after his lights. See now, MasterAmbrose, me seemeth that thou hadst best take thy letter first to thissame priest. It may be that he can prefer thee to some post about theminster. Canst sing?"

  "I could once, but my voice is nought at this present. If I could butbe a servitor at Saint Paul's School!"

  "It might be that the will which hath led thee so far hath that post instore for thee, so bear the letter to Master Alworthy. And if he failthee, wouldst thou think scorn of aiding a friend of mine who worketh aprinting-press in Warwick Inner Ward? Thou wilt find him at his placein Paternoster Row, hard by Saint Paul's. He needeth one who is clerkenough to read the Latin, and the craft being a new one 'tis fenced bynone of those prentice laws that would bar the way to thee elsewhere, atthy years."

  "I should dwell among books!"

  "Yea, and holy books, that bear on the one matter dear to the trueheart. Thou might serve Lucas Hansen at the sign of the Winged Stafftill thou hast settled thine heart, and then it may be the way would beopened to study at Oxford or at Cambridge, so that thou couldst expoundthe faith to others."

  "Good Tibble, kind Tibble, I knew thou couldst aid me! Wilt thou speakto this Master Hansen for me?"

  Tibble, however, held that it was more seemly that Ambrose should firsttry his fate with Master Alworthy, but in case of this not succeeding,he promised to write a billet that would secure attention from LucasHansen.

  "I warn thee, however, that he is Low Dutch," he added, "though hespeaketh English well." He would gladly have gone with the youth, andat any other time might have been sent by his master, but the wholeenergies of the Dragon would be taken up for the next week bypreparations for the tilting-match at court, and Tibble could not bespared for another working hour.

  Ambrose, as he rose to bid his friend good-night, could not help sayingthat he marvelled that one such as he could turn his mind to suchvanities as the tilt-yard required.

  "Nay," said Tibble, "'twas the craft I was bred to--yea, and I have agood master; and the Apostle Paul himself--as I've heard a preachersay--bade men continue in the state wherein they were, and not becurious to chop and change. Who knoweth whether in God's sight, all ourwars and policies be no more than the games of the tilt-yard. Moreover,Paul himself made these very weapons read as good a sermon as the Deanhimsel
f. Didst never hear of the shield of faith, and helmet ofsalvation, and breastplate of righteousness? So, if thou comest toMaster Hansen, and provest worthy of his trust, thou wilt hear more, ay,and maybe read too thyself, and send forth the good seed to others," hemurmured to himself, as he guided his visitor across the moonlit courtup the stairs to the chamber where Stephen lay fast asleep.