by Anthology
"Nay--nay!" the taller of the two was saying, "I tell thee he made oath to't, Cicely. Knew ye ever Master Stephen to be forsworn?"
"A lover's oaths--truly!" laughed the other. "Why, they be made for breaking. I doubt not he hath made a like vow to a score of silly wenches ere this, coz!"
"Thou dost him wrong, Cicely. An he keep not the tryst, 'twill only be----"
"'Twill only be thy first misprision, eh?"
"Marry, then----"
Here their words were lost as they continued to move farther away, still disputing together.
"Well!" exclaimed Rebecca, turning to Phoebe. "Now I know where we've ben carried to. This is the Holy Land--Jerusalem or Bethlehem or Canaan or some sech place. Thou--thee--thy! Did ye hear those girls talkin' Bible language, Phoebe?"
Phoebe shook her head and was about to reply when there was a loud clamour of many tongues from the road near by.
"The May-pole! The May-pole!" and someone started a roaring song in which hundreds soon joined. The sisters could not distinguish the words, but the volume of sound was tremendous.
There was the tramp of many rushing feet and a Babel of cries behind them. They turned to see a party of twenty gayly clad young men bearing down upon them, carrying a mighty May-pole crowned with flowers and streaming with colored ribbons.
Around these and following after were three or four score merry lads and lasses, all running and capering, shouting and dancing, singly or in groups, hand in hand.
In a trice Rebecca found herself clinging to Phoebe with whom she was borne onward helpless by the mad throng.
The new-comers were clad in all sorts of fantastic garbs, and many of them were masked. Phoebe and her sister were therefore not conspicuous in their long scant black skirts and cloth jackets with balloon sleeves. Their costumes were taken for disguises, and as they were swallowed up in the mad throng they were looked on as fellow revellers.
Had Rebecca been alone, she would probably have succeeded in time in working her way out of this unwelcome crowd, but to her amazement, no sooner had they been surrounded by the young roysterers than Phoebe, breaking her long silence, seized her sister by the hand and began laughing, dancing, and running with the best of them. To crown all, what was Rebecca's surprise to hear her sister singing word for word the madcap song of the others, as though she had known these words all her life. She did not even skip those parts that made Rebecca blush.
It was incredible--monstrous--impossible! Phoebe, the sweet, modest, gentle, prudish Phoebe, singing a questionable song in a whirl of roystering Jerusalemites!
Up the broad road they danced--up to the northward, all men making way for them as, with hand-bag and umbrella flying in her left hand, she was dragged forward on an indecorous run by Phoebe, who held her tightly by the right.
On--ever on, past wayside inn and many a lane and garden, house and hedge. Over the stones and ruts, choking in clouds of dust.
Once Rebecca stumbled and a great gawky fellow caught her around the waist to prevent her falling.
"Lips pay forfeit for tripping feet, lass!" he cried, and kissed her with a sounding smack.
Furious and blushing, she swung her hand-bag in a circle and brought it down upon the ravisher's head.
"Take that, you everlastin' rascal, you!" she gasped.
The bumpkin dodged with a laugh and disappeared in the crowd and dust, cuffing, pushing, scuffling, hugging, and kissing quite heedless of small rebuffs.
When they had proceeded thus until Rebecca thought there was nothing left for it but to fall in her tracks and be trampled to death, the whole crowd came suddenly to a halt, and the young men began to erect the May-pole in the midst of a shaded green on one side of the main road.
Rebecca stood, angry and breathless, trying to flick the dust off her bag with her handkerchief, while Phoebe, at her side, her eyes bright and cheeks rosy, showed her pretty teeth in a broad smile of pleasure, the while she tried to restore some order to her hair. As for her hat, that had long ago been lost.
"I declare--I declare to goodness!" panted Rebecca, "ef anybody'd told me ez you, Phoebe Wise, would take on so--so like--like a--a----"
"Like any Zanny's light-o-love," Phoebe broke in, her bosom heaving with the violence of her exercise. "But prithee, sweet, chide me not. From this on shall I be chaste, demure, and sober as an abbess in a play. But oh!--but oh!" she cried, stretching her arms high over her head, "'twas a goodly frolic, sis! I felt a three-centuries' fasting lust for it, in good sooth!"
Rebecca clutched her sister by the arm and shook her.
"Phoebe Wise--Phoebe Wise!" she cried, looking anxiously into her face, "wake up now--wake up! What in the universal airth----"
A loud shout cut her short, and the two sisters turned amazed.
"The bull! The bull!"
There was an opening in the crowd as four men approached leading and driving a huge angry bull, which was secured by a ring in his nose to which ropes were attached. Another man followed, dragged forward by three fierce bull-dogs in a leash.
The bull was quickly tied to a stout post in the street, and the crowd formed a circle closely surrounding the bull-ring. It was the famous bull-ring of Blackman Street in Southwark.
A moment later the dogs were freed, and amid their hoarse baying and growling and the deep roaring of their adversary, the baiting began--the chief sport of high and low in the merry days of good Queen Bess.
The sisters found themselves in the front of the throng surrounding the raging beasts, and, before she knew it, Rebecca saw one of the dogs caught on the horns of the bull and tossed, yelping and bleeding, into the air.
For one moment she stood aghast in the midst of the delighted crowd of shouting onlookers. Then she turned and fiercely elbowed her way outward, followed by her sister.
"Come 'long--come 'long, Phoebe!" she cried. "We'll soon put a stop to this! I'll find the selectmen o' this town an' see ef this cruelty to animals is agoin' on right here in open daylight. I guess the's laws o' some kind here, ef it is Bethlehem or Babylon!"
Hot with indignation, the still protesting woman reached the outskirts of the throng and looked about her. Close at hand a tall, swaggering fellow was loafing about. He was dressed in yellow from head to foot, save where his doublet and hose were slashed with dirty red at elbows, shoulders, and hips. A dirty ruff was around his neck, and on his head he wore a great shapeless hat peaked up in front.
"Hey, mister!" cried Rebecca, addressing this worthy. "Can you tell me where I can find one o' the selectmen?"
The stranger paused in his walk and glanced first at Rebecca and then, with evidently increased interest, at Phoebe.
"Selectmen?" he asked. "Who hath selected them, dame?"
He gazed quizzically at the excited woman.
"Now you needn't be funny 'bout it," Rebecca cried, "fer I'm not goin' to take any impidence. You know who I mean by the selectmen jest's well as I do. I'd be obliged to ye ef ye'd tell me the way--an' drop that Bible talk--good every-day English is good enough fer me!"
"In good sooth, dame," he replied, "'tis not every day I hear such English as yours."
He paused a moment in thought. This was May-day--a season of revelry and good-natured practical joking. This woman was evidently quizzing him, so it behooved him to repay her in kind.
"But a truce to quips and quillets, say I," he continued. "'Twill do me much pleasure an your ladyship will follow me to the selectman. As it happens, his honor is even now holding court near London Bridge."
"London Bridge!" gasped Rebecca. "Why, London ain't a Bible country, is it?"
Deigning no notice to a query which he did not understand, the young fellow set off to northward, followed closely by the two women.
"Keep close to him, Phoebe," said Rebecca, warningly. "Ef we should lose the man in all this rabble o' folks we would not find him in a hurry."
"Thou seest, sweet sister," Phoebe replied, "'tis indeed our beloved city of London. Did I not tell thee
yon village was Newington, and here we be now in Southwark, close to London Bridge."
Rebecca had forgotten her sister's ailment in the fierce indignation which the bull-baiting had aroused. But now she was brought back to her own personal fears and aims with a rude shock by the strange language Phoebe held.
She leaped forward eagerly and touched their guide's shoulder.
"Hey, mister!" she exclaimed, "I'd be obliged to ye if ye'd show us the house o' the nearest doctor before we see the selectman."
The man stopped short in the middle of the street, with a cunning leer on his face. The change of purpose supported his belief that a May-day jest was forward.
"Call me plain Jock Dean, mistress," he said. "And now tell me further, wilt have a doctor of laws, of divinity, or of physic. We be in a merry mood and a generous to-day, and will fetch forth bachelors, masters, doctors, proctors, and all degrees from Oxford, Cambridge, or London at a wink's notice. So say your will."
Rebecca would have returned a sharp reply to this banter, but she was very anxious to find a physician for Phoebe, and so thought it best to take a coaxing course.
"What I want's a doctor," she said. "I think my sister's got the shakes or suthin', an' I must take her to the doctor. Now look here--you look like a nice kind of a young man. I know it's some kind of antiques and horribles day 'round here, an' all the folks hes on funny clothes and does nothin' on'y joke a body. But let's drop comical talk jest fer a minute an' get down to sense, eh?"
She spoke pleadingly, and for a moment Jock looked puzzled. He only understood a portion of what she was saying, but he realized that she was in some sort of trouble.
"Why bait the man with silly questions, Rebecca," Phoebe broke in. "A truce to this silly talk of apothecaries. I have no need of surgeons, I. My good fellow," she continued, addressing Jock with an air of condescension that dumfounded her sister, "is not yonder the Southwark pillory?"
"Ay, mistress," he replied, with a grin. "It's there you may see the selectman your serving-maid inquired for."
Rebecca gasped and clinched her hands fiercely on her bag and umbrella.
"Serving-maid!" she cried.
"Ahoy--whoop--room! Yi--ki yi!"
A swarm of small white animals ran wildly past them from behind, and after them came a howling, laughing, scrambling mob that filled the street. Someone had loosed a few score rabbits for the delight of the rabble.
There was no time for reflection. With one accord, Jock and the two women ran with all speed toward the pillory and the bridge, driven forward by the crowd behind them. To have held their ground would have been to risk broken bones at least.
Fortunately the hunted beasts turned sharply to the right and left at the first cross street, and soon the three human fugitives could halt and draw breath.
They found themselves in the outskirts of a crowd surrounding the pillory, and above the heads of those in front they could see a huge red face under a thatch of tousled hair protruding stiffly through a hole in a beam supported at right angles to a vertical post about five feet high. On each side of the head a large and dirty hand hung through an appropriate opening in the beam.
Under the prisoner's head was hung an account of his misdeeds, placed there by some of his cronies. These crimes were in the nature of certain breaches of public decorum and decency, the details of which the bystanders were discussing with relish and good-humor.
"Let's get out o' here," said Rebecca, suddenly, when the purport of what she heard pierced her nineteenth-century understanding. "These folks beat me!"
She turned, grasping Phoebe's arm to enforce her request, but she found that others had crowded in behind them and had hemmed them in. This would not have deterred her but, unaccountably, Phoebe did not seem inclined to move.
"Nay--nay!" she said. "'Tis a wanton wastrel, and he well deserves the pillory. But, Rebecca, I've a mind to see what observance these people will give the varlet. Last time I saw one pilloried, alas! they slew him with shards and paving-stones. This fellow is liker to be pelted with nosegays, methinks."
"Mercy me, Phoebe! Whatever--what--oh, goodness gracious grandmother, child!" Poor Rebecca could find only exclamations wherein to express her feelings. She began to wonder if she were dreaming.
At this moment a sprightly, dashing lad, in ragged clothing and bareheaded, sprang to the platform beside the prisoner and waved his arms for silence.
There were cries of "Hear--hear!" "Look at Baiting Will!" "Ho--ho--bully rook!" "Sh-sh-h!"
After a time the tumult subsided so that Baiting Will could make himself heard. He was evidently a well-known street wag, for his remarks were received with frequent laughter and vocal applause.
"Hear ye--hear ye--all good folk and merry!" he shouted. "Here ye see the liege lord of all May merry-makers. Hail to the King of the May, my bully boys!"
"Ho--ho! All hail!"
"Hurrah--crown him, crown him!"
"The King of the May forever!"
By dint of bawling for silence till he was red in the face, the speaker at length made himself heard again.
"What say ye, my good hearts--shall we have a double coronation? Where's the quean will be his consort? Bring her forward, lads. We'll crown the twain."
This proposal was greeted with a roar of laughter and approval, and a number of slattern women showing the effects of strong ale in their faces stepped boldly forward as competitors for coronation.
But again Baiting Will waved his arms for a chance to speak.
"Nay, my merry lads and lasses," he cried, "it were not meet to wed our gracious lord the king without giving him a chance to choose his queen!"
He leaned his ear close to the grinning head, pretending to listen a moment. Then, standing forward, he cried:
"His gracious and sovereign majesty hath bid me proclaim his choice. He bids ye send him up for queen yon buxom dame in the black doublet and unruffed neck--her wi' the black wand and outland scrip."
He pointed directly at Rebecca. She turned white and started to push her way out of the crowd, but those behind her joined hands, laughing and shouting: "A queen--a queen!"
Two or three stout fellows from just beneath the pillory elbowed their way to her side and grasped her arms.
She struggled and shrieked in affright.
Phoebe with indignant face seized the arm of the man nearest her and pulled lustily to free her sister.
"Stand aside, you knaves!" she cried, hotly. "Know your betters and keep your greasy hands for the sluttish queans of Southwark streets!"
The lads only grinned and tightened their hold. Rebecca was struggling fiercely and in silence, save for an occasional shriek of fear.
Phoebe raised her voice.
"Good people, will ye see a lady tousled by knavish street brawlers! What ho--a rescue--a Burton--a Burton--a rescue--ho!"
Her voice rose high above the coarse laughter and chatter of the crowd.
"What's this? Who calls?"
The crowd parted to right and left with screams and imprecations, and on a sudden two horsemen reined up their steeds beside the sisters.
"Back, ye knaves! Unhand the lady!" cried the younger of the two, striking out with his whip at the heads of Rebecca's captors.
Putting up their hands to ward off these blows, the fellows hastily retreated a few steps, leaving Rebecca and Phoebe standing alone.
"What's here!" cried the young man. "God warn us, an it be not fair Mistress Burton herself!"
He leaped from his horse, and with the bridle in one hand and his high-crowned hat in the other, he advanced, bowing toward the sisters.
He was a strongly built young man of middle height. His smooth face, broad brow, and pleasant eyes were lighted up by a happy smile wherein were shown a set of strong white teeth all too rare in the England of his time. His abundant blond hair was cut short on top, but hung down on each side, curling slightly over his ears. He wore a full-skirted, long-sleeved jerkin secured by a long row of many small button
s down the front. A loose lace collar lay flat over his shoulders and chest. His French hose was black, and from the tops of his riding-boots there protruded an edging of white lace.
He wore a long sword with a plain scabbard and hilt, and on his hands were black gloves, well scented.
Phoebe's face wore a smile of pleased recognition, and she stretched forth her right hand as the cavalier approached.
"You come in good time, Sir Guy!" she said.
"In very sooth, most fair, most mellific damsel, your unworthy servitor was erring enchanted in the paradise of your divine idea when that the horrific alarum did wend its fear-begetting course through the labyrinthine corridors of his auricular sensories."
Phoebe laughed, half in amusement half in soft content. Then she turned to Rebecca, who stood with wide-open eyes and mouth contemplating this strange apparition.
"Be not confounded, sweetheart," she said. "Have I not told thee I have ta'en on another's self. Come--thou art none the less dear, nor I less thine own."
She stepped forward and put her hand gently on her sister's.
Rebecca looked with troubled eyes into Phoebe's face and said, timidly:
"Won't ye go to a doctor's with me, Phoebe?"
There was a rude clatter of hoofs as the elder of the new-comers trotted past the two women and, with his whip drove back the advancing crowd, which had begun to close in upon them again.
"You were best mount and away with the ladies, Sir Guy," he said. "Yon scurvy loons are in poor humor for dalliance."
With a graceful gesture, Sir Guy invited Phoebe to approach his horse. She obeyed, and stepping upon his hand found herself instantly seated before his saddle. She seemed to find the seat familiar, and her heart beat with a pleasure she could scarce explain when, a moment later, the handsome cavalier swung into place behind her and put one arm about her waist to steady her.
Rebecca started forward, terror-stricken.
"Phoebe--Phoebe!" she cried. "Ye wouldn't leave me here!"