Darnley; or, The Field of the Cloth of Gold

by G. P. R. James

  CHAPTER XXVII.

  _Norfolk_.--What, are you chafed? Ask God for temperance; that's the appliance only Which your disease requires.--Shakspere.

  As the day passed on, Sir Osborne grew more and more impatient underhis confinement. He felt a sort of degradation in being thus pent up,like a wild beast in a cage; and though with invincible patience hehad lain a thousand times more still in many an ambuscade, he felt analmost irresistible desire to unbolt the door, and assure himself thathe was really at large, by going forth and exercising his limbs in thefree air. But then came the remembrance that such a proceeding wouldalmost infallibly transfer him to a still stricter prison, where,instead of being voluntary and but for one day, his imprisonment wouldbe forced and long-continued. The thought, too, of Constance de Grey,and the hope of winning her yet, gave great powers of endurance; andhe contented himself with every now and then marching up and down thelittle chamber, which, taken transversely, just afforded him space forthree steps and a-half, and at other times with speaking in a whisperto Longpole, who, having brought the armour down with him, sat in onecorner, polishing off any little dim spots that the damp of the nightair might have left upon it.

  "This is very tiresome," said the knight.

  "Very tiresome, indeed, my lord!" replied Longpole. "I've beenfancying myself a blackbird in a wicker cage for the last hour. May Iwhistle?"

  "No, no," cried the knight. "Give me the casque; I will polish that byway of doing something. Don't you think, Longpole, if underneath thevolant-piece a stout sort of avantaille were carried down, about aninch broad and two inches long, of hard steel, it would prevent thevisor from being borne in, as I have often seen, by the blow of asolid lance?"

  "Yes," answered Longpole; "but it would prevent your lordship fromblowing your nose. Oh! I do hate improvement, my lord. Depend upon it,'tis the worst thing in the world. Men improve, and improve, andimprove, till they leave nothing that's original on the earth. I wouldwager your lordship a hundred marks, that, by two or three hundredyears hence, people will have so improved their armour that there willbe none at all."

  "Zounds, Bill!" cried a voice in the warehouse, "don't you hear somefolks talking?"

  "It's some one in the street," answered another voice. "Yet it soundedvastly near, too."

  This, however, was quite sufficient warning for the knight to besilent; and taking up one of the books upon which he had been sitting,he found that it was an English version of the Bible, with copies ofwhich it appears that Master William Hans was in the habit ofsupplying the English protestants. Our mother Eve's bad old habit ofprying into forbidden sources of knowledge affects us all more orless; and as the Bible was at that time prohibited in England, exceptto the clergy, Sir Osborne very naturally opened it and began reading.What effect its perusal had upon his mind matters little: suffice itthat he read on, and found sufficient matter of interest therein tooccupy him fully. Hour after hour fled, and day waned slowly; buthaving once laid his hand upon that book, the knight no longer feltthe tardy current of the time, and night fell before the day which heanticipated as so tedious seemed to have half passed away.

  A long while elapsed, after the darkness had interrupted Sir Osbornein his study, before the warehouse was closed for the night; which,however, was no sooner accomplished than good Master Hans, accompaniedby his friend Skippenhausen, came to deliver them from theirconfinement.

  "He! he! he!" cried the merchant, as they came forth. "Did you hearwhat a noise they made, my coot lord, when they came searching thismorning? They did not find them, though, for they were all in besideyou."

  "What do you mean?" demanded the knight. "Who were in beside us?Nobody came here."

  "I mean the Bibles; I mean the Word of God," cried the merchant; "thebread of life, that those villains came seeking this morning, which,if they had got, they would have burnt most sacrilegiously, as anoffering to the harlot of their idolatry."

  "Then I was wrong in supposing that they searched for me?" said theknight, with a smile at his own mistake.

  "Oh, no; not for you at all!" replied the merchant. "It was the Biblesthat Skippenhausen brought over from Holland, for the poor Englishprotestants, who are here denied to eat of the bread or drink of thewater of salvation. But now, my lord, if you will condescend to beweighed, you will be ready to sail at four in the morning; for yourhorses and horse-armour are all weighed and aboard, and the cargo willbe complete when your lordship and your gentleman are shipped."

  Finding that Master Skippenhausen was bent upon ascertaining hisweight, Sir Osborne consented to get into the merchant's large scales;and being as it were lotted with Longpole, his horse-bags, and hisarmour, he made a very respectable entry in the captain's books. Afterthis, Master Hans led him into his counting-house, and displayed hisbooks before him; but as the items of his account might be somewhattedious, it may be as well merely to say, that the young knight foundhe had expended, in the short time he had remained in Henry'sluxurious court, more than two thousand five hundred marks; so that ofthe two thousand seven hundred which he had possessed in the hands ofthe Fleming, and the thousand which he had won at the Duke ofBuckingham's, but one thousand two hundred and a trifle remained.

  Sir Osborne was surprised; but the accurate merchant left no point indoubt, and the young knight began to think that it was lucky he hadbeen driven from the court before all his funds were completelyexpended. He found, however, to his satisfaction, that a great varietyof arms and warlike implements, which he had gathered together whilein Flanders, and had left in the warehouses of the merchant since hehad been in England, had been shipped on board Skippenhausen's vessel,whose acknowledgment of having received them William Hans now put intohis hand; and having paid him the sum due, and received anacquittance, he led him once more upstairs into the scene of the lastnight's revel.

  We shall pass over this second evening at the merchant's house withoutentering into any details thereof, only remarking that it passed morepleasantly than the former one, there being at the supper-table somedishes which an Englishman could eat, and which his stomach mightprobably digest. At an early hour Sir Osborne cast himself upon hisbed, and slept, though every now and then the thoughts of hisapproaching voyage made him start up and wonder what was the hour; andthen, as Skippenhausen did not appear, he would lie down and sleepagain, each half-hour of this disturbed slumber seeming like a wholelong night.

  At length, however, when he just began to enjoy a more tranquil rest,he was awakened by the seaman; and dressing himself as quickly aspossible, he followed to William Hans's parlour, where the worthymerchant waited to drink a parting cup with his guests and wish them aprosperous voyage.

  As the easiest means of carrying their harness, Sir Osborne andLongpole had both armed themselves; and as soon as they had receivedthe Fleming's benediction in a cup of sack, they donned their casquesand followed the captain towards the vessel.

  It was a dull and drizzly morning, and many was the dark foul street,and many the narrow tortuous lane, through which they had to pass.Wapping, all dismal and wretched as it appears even now-a-days to theunfortunate voyager, who, called from his warm bed in a wet Londonmorning, is rolled along through its long, hopeless windings, andamidst its tall, spiritless houses, towards the ship destined to bearhim to some other land; and which, with a perversion of intellect onlyto be met with in ships, stage-coaches, and other woodenheaded things,is always sure to set out at an hour when all rational creatures aresleeping in their beds; Wapping, I say, as it stands at present, inits darkness and its filth, is gay and lightsome to the paths by whichworshipful Master Skippenhausen conducted Sir Osborne and his followertowards his vessel. Sloppy, silent, and deserted, the streets boastedno living creature besides themselves, unless, indeed, it was somepoor mechanic, who, with his shoulders up to his ear's, and his handsclasped together to keep them warm, picked his way through the dirttowards his early toil. The heavens frowned upon them, and the airthat surrounded them was one of those chill, wet, th
ick, dispiritingatmospheres which no other city than London can boast in the month ofMay.

  There is a feeling of melancholy attached to quitting anything towhich we have, even for a time, habituated our hopes and wishes, oreven our thoughts: however dull, however uninteresting, a place may bein itself, if therein we have familiar associations and customaryfeelings, we must ever feel a degree of pain in leaving it. I amconvinced there is a sort of glutinous quality in the mind of man,which sticks it to everything it rests upon; or is it attraction ofcohesion? However, the knight had a thousand sufficient reasons forfeeling melancholy and depressed, as he quitted the capital of hisnative land. He left behind him hopes, and expectations, andaffection, and love; almost all those feelings which, like the variouscolours mingled in a sunbeam, unite to form the light of humanexistence, and without which it is dull, dark, and heavy, like heavenwithout the sun. And yet, perhaps, he would have felt the parting lesshad the morning looked more brightly on him; had there been one gleamof light to give a fair augury for willing hope to seize. But, no; itwas all black and gloomy, and the very sky seemed to reflect thefeelings of his own bosom. Thus, as he walked along after the captain,there was a stern, heavy determination in his footfall, unlike eitherthe light step of expectation or the calm march of contentment. Whathe felt was not precisely despair: it was the bitterness of muchdisappointment; and he strode quickly onward, as if at once to conquerand to fly from his own sensations.

  At length a narrow lane brought them to the side of the river, wherewaited a boat to convey them to the Dutchman's ship, which lay outsome way from the bank. Beside the stairs stood a man apparently onthe watch, but he seemed quite familiar with Master Skippenhausen, whogave him a nod as he passed, and pointing to his companions said,"This is the gentleman and his servant."

  "Very well," said the man; "go on!" and the whole party, taking theirplaces in the boat without further question, were speedily pulledround to the vessel by the two stout Dutchmen who awaited them. Assoon as they were on board, the captain led the knight down into thecabin, which he found in a state of glorious confusion, but whichSkippenhausen assured him would be the safest place for him, till theyhad got some way down the river; for that they might have visiters onboard, whom he could not prevent from seeing all that were upon thedeck, though he would take care that they should not come below.

  "Ay, Master Skippenhausen," cried Longpole; "for God's sake fetter allspies and informers with a silver ring, and let us up on deck again assoon as possible, for I am tired of being hid about in holes andcorners, like a crooked silver groat in the box of a careful maid; andas for my lord, he looks more weary of it than even I am."

  The master promised faithfully, that as soon as the vessel had passedBlackwall he would give them notice, and then proceeded to the deck,where, almost immediately after, all the roaring and screaming madeitself heard which seems absolutely necessary to get a ship under way.In truth, it was a concert as delectable as any that ever greeted apoor voyager on his outset: the yelling of the seamen, the roaring ofthe master and his subordinates, the creaking and whistling of themasts and cordage, together with volleys of clumsy Dutch oaths, allreached the ears of the knight, as he sat below in the close, foulcabin, and, joined to his own painful feelings, made him almost fancyhimself in the Dutch part of Hades. Still the swinging of the vesseltold that, though not as an effect, yet at least as an accompanimentto all this din, the ship was already on her voyage; and after a fewminutes, a more regular and easy motion began to take place, as sheglided down what is now called the Pool.

  However, much raving, and swearing, and cursing, to no purpose, stillwent on, whenever the vessel passed in the proximity of another; and,as there were several dropping down at the same time, manifold werethe opportunities which presented themselves for the captain and thepilot to exercise their execrative faculties. But at length thedisturbance began to cease, and the ship held her even course down theriver, while the sun, now fully risen, dispelled the clouds that hadhung over the early morning, and the day looked more favourably upontheir passage.

  Sir Osborne gazed out of the little window in the stern, noticing thevarious villages that they passed on their way down, till the palaceat Greenwich, and the park sweeping up behind, met his eye, togetherwith many a little object associated with hopes, and feelings, andhappiness gone by, recalling most painfully all that expectation hadpromised and disappointment had done away. It was too much to lookupon steadily; and turning from the sight, he folded his arms on thetable, and burying his eyes on them, remained in that position tillthe master descending told him that they were now free from alldanger.

  On this information, the knight gladly mounted the ladder, and pacedup and down the deck, enjoying the free air, while Longpole jestedwith Master Skippenhausen, teasing him the more, perhaps, because hesaw that the seaman had put on that sort of surly, domineering airwhich the master of a vessel often assumes the moment his foot touchesthe deck, however gay and mild he may be on shore. Nevertheless, as weare now rapidly approaching that part of this book wherein the eventsbecome more thronged and pressing, we must take the liberty of leavingout all the long conversation which Vonderbrugius reports as havingtaken place between Skippenhausen and Longpole, as well as a veryminute and particular account of a sail down the river Thames,wherewith the learned professor embellishes his history, and which,though doubtless very interesting to the Dutch burgomasters and theirwives, of a century and a half ago, would not greatly edify theBritish public of the present day, when every cook-maid steps oncea-year into the steam-packet, and is paddled down to Margate, withless trouble than it took an Englishman of the reign of Harry theEighth to go from Charing cross to Lombard Street.

  The wind was in their favour, and the tide running strongly down, sothat passing, one by one, Woolwich, Purfleet, Erith, Gravesend, andsundry other places, in a few hours they approached near the oceanlimits of the English land; while the river, growing mightier andmightier as it rolled on, seemed to rush towards the sea with a sortof daring equality, rather a rival than a tributary, till, meeting itsgiant sovereign, it gave vent to its pride in a few frothy waves; andthen, yielding to his sway, poured all its treasures in his bosom.

  Before they had reached the mouth of the river, they beheld a vesselwhich had preceded them suddenly take in sail and lie-to under the leeof the Essex shore; the reason of which was made very evident themoment after, by the vane at the mast-head wheeling round, and thewind coming in heavy squalls right upon their beam. The Dutchman'sship was not one at all calculated to sail near the wind; and payinglittle consideration to the necessity of Sir Osborne's case, hefollowed the example of the vessel before him, and gave orders fortaking in sail and lying-to, declaring that the gale would not last.The knight remonstrated, but he might as well have talked to the winditself. Skippenhausen was quite inflexible, not even taking the painsto answer a word, and, contenting himself with muttering a fewsentences in high Dutch, interspersed with various objurgatoryaddresses to the sailors.

  Whether the worthy Hollander's conduct on this occasion was right,proper, and seaman-like, we must leave to some better qualifiedtribunal than our own weak noddle to determine, professing to be mostprofoundly ignorant on nautical affairs; but so the matter stood, thatthe knight was obliged to swing one whole night in an uncomfortablehammock in an uncomfortable ship, in the mouth of the river Thames,with a bitter fancy resting on his mind, that this waste of time wasquite unnecessary, and that with a little courage and a little skillon the part of the master, he might before the next morning have beenlanded at Dunkirk, to which city he was to be safely carried,according to his agreement with the Dutchman.

  By daybreak the next morning the wind was rather more favourable, andat all events by no means violent, so that the vessel was soon oncemore under way. Still, however, they made but little progress; andeven the ship that was before them, though a faster sailer and onethat could keep nearer the wind, made little more way than themselves.While in this situation, trying by
a long tack to mend their course,with about the distance of half-a-mile between them and the othervessel, they perceived a ship-of-war apparently run out from the Essexcoast some way to windward, and bear down upon them with all sail set.

  "Who have we here, I wonder?" said the knight, addressingSkippenhausen, who had been watching the approaching vesselattentively for some minutes.

  "'Tis an English man-of-war," replied the master, "Coot now, don't yousee the red cross on her flag? By my life, she is making a signal tous! It must be you she is wanting, my lord; for on my life I havenothing contraband but you aboard. I will not understand her signal,though; and as the breeze is coming up, I will run for it. Go you downin the cabin and hide yourself."

  "I will go down," replied the knight. "But hide myself I will not; Ihave had too much of it already."

  Skippenhausen, who, as we before hinted, had by the long habit ofsmuggling in a small way acquired a taste for the concealed andmysterious, tried in vain to persuade the knight to hide himself undera pile of bedding. On this subject Sir Osborne was as deaf as theother had been the night before, in regard to proceeding on theirvoyage; and all the concession that the master could obtain was thatthe two Englishmen would go below and wait the event, while he tried,by altering his course and running before the wind, to weary thepursuers, if they were not very hearty in the cause.

  "Well, Longpole," said Sir Osborne, "I suppose that we must look uponourselves as caught at last."

  "Would your worship like us to stand to our arms?" demanded theyeoman. "We could make this cabin good a long while in case ofnecessity."

  "By no means," replied the knight. "I will on no account resist theking's will. Besides, it would be spilling good blood to littlepurpose; for we must yield at last."

  "As your lordship pleases," answered the custrel; "but knowing howfond you are of a good downright blow of estoc at a fair gentleman'shead, I thought you might like to take advantage of the presentoccasion, which may be your last for some time."

  "Perhaps it may be a mistake still," answered the knight, "and passaway like the search for the Bibles when we were concealed in thewarehouse. However, we shall soon see: at all events, till it comes Ishall take no heed about it;" and casting himself into a seat, with abitter smile, as if wearied out with Fortune's caprices, and resolvedto struggle no longer for her favour, he gazed forth from the littlestern window upon the wide expanse of water that rolled away towardsthe horizon. The aperture of this window, not being more than sixinches either in height or width, and cut through the thick timbers ofthe Dutch vessel for considerably more than a foot in depth, was infact not much better than a telescope without a glass, so that theknight's view was not a little circumscribed in respect to all thenearer objects, and he was only able to see, as the ship pitched, theglassy green waves, mingled with white foam, rushing tumultuously fromunder her stern as she now scudded before the wind, leaving a long,glistening, frothy track behind, to mark where she had made her paththrough the midst of the broad sea. As he looked farther out, however,the prospect widened; and at the extreme verge, where the sea and thesky, almost one in unity of hue, showed still a faint line of light tomark their boundary, he could perceive, rising up as it were from thebosom of the deep, the light tracery of masts and rigging belonging tofar distant vessels, whose hulls were still concealed by the convexityof the waters. Nearer, but yet within the range that the narrowness ofthe window allowed his sight, appeared the vessel that had droppeddown the river just before them, and the English ship-of-war, which,crowding all sail before the wind, seemed in full chase, not of theircompanion, but of themselves; for the other, in obedience to thesignal, had hauled her wind and lay-to.

  Sir Osborne now watched to ascertain whether the man-of-war gainedupon them, but an instant's observation put an end to all doubt. Sheevidently came nearer and nearer, and soon approached so close asscarcely to be within range of his view, being lost and seenalternately at every motion of the ship. At length, as the vesselpitched, she disappeared for a moment, then came in sight again; aquick flash glanced along her bow, and the moment after, when she wasno longer visible to his eye, the sullen report of a cannon came uponthe wind.

  By a sudden change in the motion of the vessel, together with variouscries upon the deck, the knight now concluded that the Dutchman had atlength obeyed this peremptory signal and lay-to, which was in fact thecase; for passing over to the window on the other side, he again got aview of the English ship, which sailed majestically up, and then, whenwithin a few hundred yards, put out and manned a boat, which rowed offtowards them. Sir Osborne had not long an opportunity of observing theboat in her approach, as she soon passed out of the small space whichhe could see; but in a few minutes after, the voice of some one,raised to its very highest pitch, made itself heard from a distance,hardly near enough for the knight to distinguish the words, though heevery now and then caught enough to perceive that the whole consistedof a volley of curses discharged at Master Skippenhausen for nothaving obeyed the signal.

  The Dutchman replied, in a tone of angry surliness, that he had notseen their signal; and in a minute or two more, a harsh grating rushagainst the vessel told that the boat was alongside.

  "I will teach you, you Dutch son of a dog-fish, not to lie-to when oneof the king's ships makes the signal," cried a loud voice by the side."Have you any passengers on board?"

  "Yes, five or six," answered the Dutchman.

  "Stop! I will come on board," cried the voice, and then proceeded, asif while climbing the ship's side, "have yon one Sir Osborne Mauricewith you?"

  "No!" answered Skippenhausen, stoutly.

  "Well, we will soon see that," cried the other; "for I have orders toattach him for high treason. Come, bustle! disperse, my boys! You,Wilfred, go forward; I will down here and see who is in the cabin; andif I find him, Master Dutchman, I will slit your ears."