Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “And they say, Will Halifax,” said he, “that Sir Harry slew his man to silence a witness who might have tipped the scale against him in a lawsuit for recovery of debt.”

  I wasted no breath on denial, though I knew my father’s innocence of such foul motive. It was not his nature to act cowardly, nor had he ever cared enough for money to besmirch his knighthood on account of it. The shoe was on the other foot. The Earl of Leicester had despatched two men to seek a quarrel with him, knowing that my father had been privy to certain doings that it were highly inconvenient should reach the Queen’s ears. Nevertheless, I had no proof of that, and he who had slain my father had been sent in great haste by the Earl into the Low Countries. Nor did I know exactly what the secret was that had cost Sir Harry his life.

  I said to Roger Tunby while we sat at meat:

  “I will clear my father’s name in good time, he having given me a good enough one when he caused me to come into this world. And I have his kindness to remember, which shall spur me to the duty that I owe him. Nor will I reckon that debt paid before I make the author of foul rumour eat his words.”

  The old man screwed his mouth up. He was used to domineering his apprentices and took it ill that I should offer to him in his own house what might sound like a reproof. He drummed his knife-butt on the table-cloth. But the serving-wench mistook that for a summons, and when she came he changed his mind about answering me scurvily.

  “More ale, Jane!” he commanded. “Less attention to a guest’s good looks than to his comfort, or the ‘prentices will take you for a vulgar trullibub! A pox on your curiosity, girl! Remember I am an host, and shame me not! Such slovenly neglect! More ale — more ale! And pour it handsomely! Not too much foam, as if, forsooth, this were a pickpenny roadside tavern! Just enough to fill the nostrils pleasantly with good smell while the palate takes the flavour!”

  When the maid had served to turn his temper he addressed me fatherly:

  “Will Halifax, you will best let bygones be. My own son Edward thought to merit fortune by being, as it were, the echo of myself, even as you aspire to be your father’s echo and to do as he did. My good reputation was to be son Edward’s stock-in-trade; my knowledge, his credit on ‘change; my accomplishment, his boundary of what was worth the doing. He was so satisfied to be the son of Roger Tunby that my faults, which the Lord knows are more than enough, were as much virtues in his eyes as what small quality I have. He’d sooner be at breaking pates about some ‘prentice-talk against me than advance himself by giving rumour manful deeds to bruit abroad. He’d sell what I “‘Like father, like son, Edward,’ said I, ‘is a mare’s nest. It’s a sucked egg. It’s as good as boasting that a man’s son is his shadow on the wall. God forfend me from the sin o’ blasphemy. The Holy Scripture says the children’s teeth shall be set on edge, so that’s the way of it and, sinner though I may be, I will not o’er-reach myself to break the Lord’s Commandments. Powder-beef and pease-pudden,’ said I, ‘are more suitabler to make you feel your teeth than the brewis and pancakes you’re getting. So to sea you go, and face the wrath o’ man and nature for your own good name! My own name’s good enough for me,’ said I, ‘and if I lose it lacking you to cudgel the pates of ‘prentices, you may make a new name for yourself!’ And to sea I sent him under Master Hezekiah Greene, bidding him bite Spanishers if his teeth should get too sharp on the ship’s food for endurance. ‘Bite ’em, Edward,’ says I, ‘in the Lord’s name, not mine, and bring portuguese (A gold coin worth about $17.50.) and angels ( A gold coin worth about $1.70.) home with you. I’ll add you two for each one, and thereto I’ll give you this house o’ mine to marry in so soon as men on ‘change look envious at me because my son is lustier than theirs!’”

  I have no doubt but that was good enough advice, but Will Shakespeare spied a hole where he could drive his wit in, so he piped up:

  “Marry! Will you add two to every one that Will Halifax brings home? If so, I’ll go to sea with him!”

  “Is he my son? Are you?” old Tunby answered. “I have made him welcome for his father’s sake, and I gave him some good advice for his own. But he is too old for a ‘prentice, and I have no doubt he isn’t old enough to let the maids alone, on top of being too well born to stomach trade. He must shift for himself. But this I will do. For his father Sir Harry’s sake I’ll speak a word for him to a master-mariner whose ship lies in the Thames by Greenwich.”

  Now I knew I should make him my enemy an I said no to that offer; yet I doubted it were wise to say yes, and by the look in Will’s eyes I made certain he thought as I did. Old Tunby’s offer was too sudden-kind. If he were seeking to get rid of me, as was not impossible, then it might be that he owed my father money, of which, indeed I had long entertained a suspicion, although I had no proof.

  So, affecting a gratitude I did not altogether feel, I asked how soon he could arrange the matter. He answered it might need a few days, he not caring to take boat to Greenwich while the ague lingered in his bones, but that he looked to see the ague leave him with the first warm sunshine. Will and I might stay with him meanwhile if we would lend a hand among the ‘prentices.

  But I had seen men with the ague. If he had it, then I had it, too, and so had my horse Robin. Therefore, I began to feel sure that he hid some matter from me, since a reputable merchant would be hardly like to lie to a guest in his own house concerning such a simple matter unless his mind were on a greater and more complex issue, one lie leading to another.

  So I made a show of doubt that a merchant-adventurer would accept my services on board ship without a few score pounds to boot to balance inexperience. He did not mislike that, mistaking it for modesty on my part — a virtue in which he declared too many youths were lacking.

  After supper by the fireside he began to drink (The Elizabethan term for pipe-smoking.) tobacco (which I thought a filthy habit until later on I met Sir Walter Rawleigh and from admiration of him learned to do the trick myself). When we had talked a while old Tunby’s married daughter, Mistress Atkins, with a guard of noisy ‘prentices, came from her own house half-a-mile away to pay her duty to him and to find fault with the serving-maids, since Tunby kept no woman in the house to manage them, being not so long a widower that he wished to replace his wife’s tongue with another that might clack louder.

  After she had finished devilling the wenches, Mistress Atkins sat with us before the fire to do her sewing, deeply curious to learn how Will and I had come and for what foul purpose.

  Presently I spoke to her about my Mildred, thinking that a youngish woman with her second child due about May Day might admire a tale of lovers’ constancy. But she liked neither me nor my story and read me a shrew’s sermon on it, vowing that young men who defied their elders ended by marrying ne’er-do-wells, the more bitterly to regret it the longer they lived.

  I wished I had been silent about Mildred, but Will Shakespeare took the scolding merrily enough. He told her of his own wife in Stratford; whereat Mistress Atkins made bold to ask him how many pounds the year Ann had for keeping house the while her husband ruffled it in London.

  Will’s answer drew her anger as a good dog draws a bear: “Whoso puts,” said he, “a burden on a horse should feed him. Should the poor brute haul the wain up heavy hills and feed his owner likewise with the very juices of his strength?”

  The mean shrew flew into a passion, storming at her father that he wasted substance entertaining squibbes come begging with their hose patched on their heels. Masterless men, she called us, runagates, who should be haled before a magistrate and smartly whipped back to the parish where we shirked work; vagabonds, who might be spies for all an honest woman knew — Papish Jesuits, mayhap, in league against the Queen’s grace, fattening ourselves on English beef in English homes the while we plotted with the Scotch Queen and the French!

  In choler I rose from the settle to take my leave, late though the hour was. But Will stood up and nudged me until I caught his eye. There was such mischief there as gave me pau
se and he was smiling, although as for me the turkey-red went flaming up my temples and I could not speak for the wrath that boiled in me. Will pushed me back into the corner:

  “Mistress,” he said, “it were better done thus.”

  He struck an attitude, so sudden that she quailed. I, too, thought he would curse her. Tunby struggled to his feet, but sat down; I think he was not sorry to see his shrew-tongued daughter taken down a peg or two.

  And of a sudden Will began to pour forth words that stung and bit like summer horse-flies. They were like a whip’s crack. There was steel in them. Laden, they were, with the freight of a curse impending, all the dreadfuller because he never launched it; and his gestures, like a master-swordsman’s, terrified by their restraint suggestive of a passion leashed and ready to be loosed, yet held in check.

  For a minute — aye, more than a minute — I believed his venomous invective was assailing her; and so thought she, recoiling from him like a souse-wife (A woman who pickles pigs’ heads and feet.) in a back-street broil.

  But it presently appeared that he was teaching her a better way to void her spleen, not voiding his on her. With subtlety beyond my cunning to detect, when she was browbeat into speechlessness, he passed her by, as floods go rolling by a broken dam, and left her, as it were, behind him wondering to watch him overwhelm all levels lower than herself. We three became the audience, and he the player showing us how virtue triumphs over vice.

  And in time he paused — in good time. Subtle gesture changed him. He became the very creature he had overwhelmed with eloquence! He trembled and began to answer — stammered — tried to summon dignity — then turned away, recovering, to cloak his shame beneath a show of anger, coveting a passion that he could not feel, his very venom turned to water by the magic of his former speech. He seemed to try to gather new resources from the empty air, then hung his head and answered — nothing!

  Presently he smiled, and seemed to take us into confidence; now he was Will of Stratford, we his hosts.

  “All men,” he said, “play many parts. And that which we think worthy in us often shows itself weak wretchedness when nobler presences appear. Vainglorious Goliath falls before a David’s sling. A David cowers at a weak old man’s rebuke. Our chiefest powers glow but in comparison with lesser; in the flame of higher genius they fall like dross into the ashes of our self-contempt — inestimable — ugly — oh, oblivion shall swallow no more proper food than weakness that we thought was strength and self-esteem that we mistook for godliness!”

  He changed again. He took his seat, and like a cat before the hearth, drew comfort out of hospitality, contenting others with the spirit he exuded. Then he told us tales, so full of magic and the mystery of interest as kept us wakeful, until midnight saw the fire die low and Mistress Atkins had to beg grace of her father’s roof. She sent two ‘prentices to warn her husband she would not be home that night, old Tunby bidding the ‘prentices tread slyly lest the night-watch catch them and the magistrates impose a penalty next day for being out when honest lads should lie abed.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Of the meeting with Benjamin Berden by chance, and of the opportunity that came of it.

  I ROSE at dawn, leaving Will Shakespeare in the bed, and I was in the street before the ‘prentices took down the shutters, finding my way to Burbage’s mews where we had left the horses overnight. Will meant to follow custom and sell the nag that carried him to London, and we had heard the day before, along the road from Uxbridge, how good horses were in fine demand since so many knights and gentlemen had gone to the Low Countries at their own costs to help Dutchmen fight the King of Spain.

  But what with the purse my Mildred gave me, and Will Shakespeare’s impudence having saved us so much tavern expense, I was not feeling so bankrupt after all, and the thought had found lodging in my head that two good nags would make a better showing than one.

  So I aroused the drunken hostler, and he, thinking I would pay my reckoning, summoned Burbage from his bed, most scurvily ill-tempered to be called to pocket those few pence. I bade him offer me a price for Will’s mare, and what with his mislike of being up so early, and with his thinking I could not afford the charges and would therefore sell the mare cheap, he bid low. Whereat I cried a pox on his Jew’s avarice and came away before he could better the offer.

  Then I returned to the house and wakened Will, who was a lusty sleeper, and I offered him the same price for the mare that Burbage bid me. Will accepted it without ado, it being nearly twice as much as he had hoped to get for his old sorrel that he started with from Stratford, although much less than the mare was worth. I paid him there and then, he smiling as I counted out the money.

  “You will die rich or be hanged poor, one way or the other,” he said, pulling on his hose, “but if you always leave your victims richer for the chousing, you will not lack mourners.”

  I grew half-ashamed of having paid him such a low price, although the mare was in a way part mine, since it was I who had forced the exchange with Jeremy Crutch, but Will read my humour.

  “Rest you merry,” he adjured me. “Let me not know what the proper price is. In the good enough our true contentment lies. The better, unattained, frets disposition. I am only happy when I see no summits out o’ reach, nor no flights of imagination missed.”

  We ate our breakfast with the ‘prentices, Mistress Atkins being gone betimes in great dread that her household might have fallen into sloth for lack of clacking tongue. But ere our meal was done old Roger Tunby came among us in his nightcap, with a great red shawl about his shoulders, to admonish the ‘prentices and to bid me help them. He was full of spleen in the forenoons, showing whence his daughter had her sharpness, but methought he snailed and swounded (Snails! and Swounds! were favourite oaths.) more than natural, as if he spurred a discontent to cover motives. I was more than ever sure he hoped to keep me occupied until he could send me long leagues out of reach.

  The while I hesitated how I should avoid him without risking enmity, considering a lie about the horses, or a cousin’s cousin to be found, or some such subterfuge, Will Shakespeare stole my privilege, like Jacob robbing Esau. He proposed himself in my place, vowing he could sell two bales of merchandise to my one and declaring I was likelier to quarrel than to lure new custom or retain the old.

  Good shopmen, it appeared, were growing scarce, what with the war in Flanders and so many thoughts of our English volunteers going over there to fight the Dons. Our English merchants were harvesting a mint o’ money selling good cannon and poor wool cloth to both sides, but they were having to pay high prices for ill-trained shopsters. So old Tunby hesitated, doubting Will and yet remembering the magic of his tongue that certainly might serve in wooing custom. While they argued I went up and mucked on my best suit with the pointed sleeves, made by Fugger of Augsburg. (The famous German house of Fugger did a considerable business in readymade clothing, whereas English woollens were getting a bad reputation abroad.) I did don, too, my new short cloak of blue French velvet.

  When I came down Will was chaffering already with a purchaser of wool. Apparently he understood that trade (and by the rood, I have found little that he does not understand, except how to use weapons and act churlish). The ‘prentices, who were sweeping out the kennel (A gutter down the middle of the street.) before the shop, were in two minds, whether to listen to Will or to the common cryer, who was serving notice of an execution to be held at noon that day. I made my way to Cheapside unobserved (I thought) by any of them, and for a while I was hard put to it to bear myself with proper arrogance, so entertaining was the scene.

  Adown the middle of Cheapside rode gentry, picking their way through crowds of ‘prentices and loiterers of many nations.

  There was a constant movement, wondrous pleasing to the eye, enhanced as it was by the colours of men’s and women’s costumes against the painted woodwork of the houses and the heaps of soiled snow. When I stepped aside to dodge a horseman I was seized by half a dozen ‘prentices, wh
o were like to tear my cloak off, so eager they were to drag me into their master’s shop and sell me I know not what extravagances at double or treble the market price.

  I was irked to think they took me for a country lout, being flattered that I carried myself already with a proper townsman’s air, yet it was worth a man’s life, almost, to incur their enmity. I saw one instance of their storminess. While I was giving and taking repartee right merrily, to hide my anger and to rid myself of the rogues who picked me for an easy prey, a horseman, spurring in his haste, knocked down a ‘prentice.

  Instantly there was a cry of “Clubs! Clubs!” The clamour sped up Cheapside until the whole street rang with it. The ‘prentices left me, and swarms of others, like angered hornets, surged out of the shop-doors with their cudgels swinging. He on the horse made shift to gallop through their midst and faith, he sent a dozen of them down like ninepins, but he might have spared himself some drubbing had he put another face on it. They dragged him off his horse and cudgelled him until he lay stunned, whereafter they held him under a pump and soused him back to consciousness with his high boots full of water and his fine clothes muddied, mocking him for one of the Spanish ambassador’s men and telling him his master, and his master’s king to boot, were like to be hanged ere long with the other quartered Jesuits on London Bridge.

  Yet they were merry rogues, right eager to be friendly in their own way, not intolerant, but liking not at all stiff manners in a stranger. They who had made a sort of prisoner of me were well contented when I gave them money to buy ale, and when I asked where the house of Joshua Stiles might be they sent one of their number to escort me. He was named Jack Giles — a stocky, bull-necked lad in a yellow jerkin that matched his freckles and a flat green cap that seemed to have been used for many purposes.