Idonia: A Romance of Old London

by Arthur Frederick Wallis

  CHAPTER II

  IN WHICH PTOLEMY PHILPOT COMMENCES HIS STUDY OF THE LATIN TONGUE

  It is, I conceive, natural in a young man to use more time than wisdomin the building of hopes which be little else than dreams, though theyappear then more solid than gross reality. Thus I, in laying out myfuture, saw all as clear as our own park-lands, and where I mislikedanything there I altered, working with a free hand, until the aspect ofmy condition was at all points to my taste, and I itched to enterforthwith into the manhood I had so diligently imagined.

  Unwittingly, perhaps, I had allowed Simon Powell's tales of fantasy toget the mastery of my mind, and in such sort that no prince of all hismountains ever marched so lightly from adventure to adventure, nor cameoff with so much grace and so acclaimed as I. My life (I told myself)was to borrow no whit of my father's aversion from the world, whichdisposition of his, for all my pity of the cause of it, I could notfind it in my heart to praise. Alas! I was but nineteen years of myage, and pride was strong within me, and the lust of combat.

  With Simon himself I consorted less frequently than of old, for I stoodalready in the estate of a master; being acknowledged as such by all,from Peter Sprot himself to the maids who came into the fields for thegleaning, and courtsey'd to me as I rode between the stooks on my whitemare. But although I had necessarily become parted from my wildpreceptor, I had, as I say, my mind tutored to dreaming, which but forSimon might have been dull and content with petty things, whereas itwas with a gay arrogance that I now regarded the ordering of the world,and held myself ordained a champion to make all well. For this Ihereby thank Simon Powell with all my heart; and indeed it is a benefitwell-nigh inestimable. To such a height then had this humour oferrantry gone, that I would snatch at every occasion to gratify it; andso would ride forth through the gate before the grey Combe Court, andsetting my mare at a gallop, would traverse the lanes athwart which thelevel morning sun cast bars of pale gold and the trees their shadows,and be up on the wide rolling moors or ever the mists were stirring inthe valley or the labourers risen to their tasks. Many a fancy held mybusy brain at such times, and as I looked backward upon our greatirregular house, which was built, a part of it, in the year ofAgincourt, so quiet it lay amidst its woods and pasture lands that itseemed a place enchanted, upon which some magician had stolen with aspell of sleep. 'Twas no home for active men, I said, and laughed as Iturned away and urged my poor jade again onward. Contempt is veryclose to joy in a lad's heart, and his valour rouses (like old Rome) tothe summons of the goose-voice within him.

  Some six months had passed since the steward first acquainted me withthe calamity which had made shipwreck of my father's life, when, upon amemorable, clear, October morning, I rode forth as my custom was,intending to shape my course towards the little hamlet of Roodwater,and so by the flats to Dunster. The orchard-trees about the old Abbeywere rimed with frost, and a keenness in the air lifted me so that Icould have wept or sung indifferently. The dawn had scarce broke whenI set out, and 'twas not till I had ridden three or four miles that thesmoky redness of the sun showed between the pine stems on a spur ofhill behind me. My thoughts were all of victory, and in this temperthe events of the time, albeit I am no politician, confirmed me. Fornews had reached us a little since of the disclosure of that horridplot of Throgmorton and the two Earls against Her Grace and our mostdear Sovereign, and of how sundry suspected persons of high estate werearrested and confined. The Papists everywhere were said to be in greatconfusion, for though many, and some said the most part, were loyalsubjects enough, yet the defection and proved villainy of the restshook all faith in those that professed still the old religion andallegiance to the Pope. The Queen's ships were straitly ordered towatch the ports, and even as I descended the hill beyond Roodwater tothe seashore, I saw, a little off Watchet Quay, a ship of war riding atanchor, and a cock-boat pulling away from her side.

  Moreover, it was no great while since, by order of Her Majesty'sCouncil, that notable Bond of Association had been signed for thebetter defence of the Queen, my father signing with the rest, as achief person of these parts and a magistrate.

  I am no politician, as I say, but there is small need of knowledge inState affairs to make a man love his home; and when a plot of themagnitude which this of Fr. Throgmorton's had, is brought to light,why, every man is a politician perforce and a soldier too.

  For Queen Mary Stuart, who was now more closely guarded, as indeed wasmeet, and who later was to be led to her death, I say nought of her,for tales be many, and men's minds confused, when it comes to questionof a woman sinning, and that the fairest of them all. That she wasguilty I suppose no one reasonably doubteth, and obnoxious to peace andgood government, but, when all is said, there is the pity of slaying adelicate lady in order to the securing ourselves; and such a deed makesquiet a cowardly thing, and puts a colour of shame on justice herself.

  But that business was not come yet by two years and more, and for thepresent all our thoughts were of gratitude for our deliverance from thesubtlety of forsworn plotters, and of courage and loyalty and the willto be feared.

  I spurred my mare down the rough lane, and was soon out upon the levelshore of the bay, beyond which lies Dunster in a fold of steep moor,and the wooded promontory of Minehead further to the west. The tidewas out as I rode at full gallop along the bow of thin turf whichbounds the coast; while across the reach of sand the little waveslapped and fretted with a sweet, low sound.

  The sun was now risen pretty high, and the fisher-folk were busied hereand there with their nets and tackle as I passed them by. It was nigheight o'clock when I drew rein in Dunster market, before the chief innthere--a clean place, and of good entertainment. My purpose wasimmediately to break my fast, for I had a fierceness of hunger upon meby reason of the sharp air and the early hour, and afterwards to visita certain sea captain whom I knew to be lodged there, Mr. Jonas Cutts,of the _Three Lanterns_, one of Her Majesty's ships, though but a smallone; he being a gentleman I had met with upon the occasion of myfather's signing the Bond of Defence. What my further purpose was, ifindeed 'twere aught but to hear wonders and talk big about theSpaniards, I cannot now charge my remembrance, but to him I wasdetermined to go after breakfast and waste an hour before returninghome.

  I inquired his lodging out, therefore, over my dish of eggs, butlearned to my disappointment that he had left it suddenly, beforedaybreak, to join his ship at Minehead, where it lay. Thisintelligence, little though it affected me, save as it robbed myidleness of some plea of purpose, I took ill enough, rating my hostlike the angry boy I was, and dispraising the closeness of the wardupon our coasts, though I had formerly praised the same, and indeed hadmeant to enlarge with the captain upon this very theme.

  In a very sour humour then I departed from the inn, and while my marewas baiting took a turn about the town.

  And so fair did I find all, the high street wide and sweet and thehouses thereon neat and well ordered, the great castle, moreover, on amount at the nether end, very fencible and stately builded, that it wasnot long ere my spirits rose again, and I thought no more upon CaptainCutts and his departing. Methought the countryside had never seemed sopleasant as now under its web of frost, and the trees a kind of blue ofthe colour of silver-work tarnished by age, the sky red behind themreaching up from grey. I left the middle part of the town soon and gotinto the lanes, where at length I came by chance upon an ancient mill,which was once, I learned, a monkish mill whither every man hadperforce to bring his grain to be ground. Now as I stood idly by thegate of the mill-house I heard voices of men in talk, and, withoutfurther intention, could not but catch some words of their discourse.It was evident that a bargain was going forward, and that one soldgrudgingly.

  "Nay," said the one voice, "for this standard of red buckram,sevenpence and no less, Master Ptolemy."

  "Thou puttest me to uncommon great charges, Master Skegs," replied theother invisible; "what with thy gilding and thy scarlet hoods, and nowthis standard of t
he devil! Ay, and besides there is that crazy mitreof Cayphas, which, o' my conscience, is not worth the half a groat."

  "'A cost me two shillings not twelvemonth since," cried the firstinvisible in a manifest rage, "yet am I willing to sell it thee for oneshilling and ninepence as I have set it down in the bill, where is alsoto be found a coat of skins; item, a tabard; item, Herod's crest ofiron; all which I have grossly undervalued. Ah! there be some," heinterjected, in a whining voice, "there be some that would buy up allJewry for a parcel of bawdy, torn ballads. Art not ashamed, PtolemyPhilpot, thou a Christian man, to purchase so divine a tragedy for somean a sum?" But the invisible Ptolemy not replying, the invisibleSkegs proceeded:

  "Well, thou hast heard my price, master, which is three pounds sixteenshillings in all, and look you! to avoid all bitterness and to make anend, I will throw in the parchment beasts of the Deluge for the same."

  What manner of cheapening was here I could not conceive, and so (stillchiding my lack of manners) crept through the gate and to a coign ofthe mill-house, where I might observe these strange traders inparchment beasts and red buckram. And observe them I did, indeed, andthey me at the same instant; which discovery so confused me that Istood before them first on one foot and then on the other, with nosense to go or stay, nor to cover my discourtesy with any plausibleexcuse. Howbeit, one, whom I took (and rightly) to be Ptolemy, burstinto laughter at this my detected intrusion, and bade me step forwardand judge betwixt them. He was a big man, with a child's face for allthat he wore a great beard, and a terrible nose of the colour of thestone they call agate, it being veined too and marvellous shining. Yethis voice was small like a child's, and I saw at once that in anybargain he was like to get the worse of it. The other man, whose namewas Skegs, had a woeful pallor, but an undaunted behaviour and a veryfierce eye. Between them stood the cause of their difference, whichwas a sort of wheeled pageant or cart of two stages; the upper beingopen and about five feet in breadth, with a painted cloth behind; thelower room enclosed, and was, I learned, for the convenience anddisposal of the puppet master (this being a puppet-show and the puppetsappearing, as players do, on the stage above).

  Coming forward, then, as I was bidden, I very modestly awaited theargument between Mr. Skegs and Ptolemy, being pleased to be trusted inso notable a cause. But it fell out otherwise, for Skegs swore by thebody of St. Rumbold he would have no arbitrament, and that his pricewas three pound and sixteen shillings, as he had already said.

  "It is a great sum," said Ptolemy, in his piping reed voice.

  "How, great?" retorted Skegs, "seeing I sell thee the pageant-caritself, together with Nicodemus, Pilate, and four stout Torturers,besides the holy folk, and all their appurtenance. And were I not atthe gate of the grave myself, I would not part with so much as Joseph'sbeard for twice this reckoning."

  "He gives you also certain parchment beasts, Mr. Ptolemy," said I, veryjudicially.

  "I retract the beasts," cried the pageant master, whose red eyes blazedterribly, and he danced with vexation of my ruling.

  "Look you, now," grumbled Ptolemy, running his great hand through hisbeard, "was ever such a fellow!"

  "'Tis a part of the Deluge," said Mr. Skegs, "and to bring in beastsbefore the judgment-seat of Pilate were against all Scripture. Butcontrariwise, as it toucheth the Interlude of the Deluge, mass! withoutthose beasts of mine, the cats and dogs too (as the verse goes)--

  "'Otter, fox, fulmart also; Hares hopping gaily'

  withouten these wherefore was Noah's ark builded, and so great a stirmade?"

  "But if you be about to die, Master Skegs," I put in, "as you say youare, of what advantage is this same Deluge to you?"

  "Ay, truly," cried Ptolemy, "for thou hast no wife, man, nor anydependent on thee. So thou be decently buried, 'tis all one whether Ihave the parchment beasts or thou."

  "Would you spoil me of my heritage?" cried the pallid man in anextremity of rage, "and strip me naked before I be come to the grave?I say thou shalt not have the beasts."

  "Wilt thou sell me the Deluge outright?" asked Ptolemy after a silence,"for I am no hand at this chaffering."

  "Ay, for a further fourteen shillings, I will," said Skegs promptly,"which maketh in all four pounds and ten shillings; and for that, Igive thee Noah, a new figure of wood, and Noah's wife, who truly issomewhat worsened by usage, but not past mending; Shem also, Ham andJaphet, stalwart lads all, and their wives corresponding. An ark thereis, moreover, which was builded in Rye by a shipwright out of battensand good gummed canvas. The beasts be all whole, save the weasel, butthat signifieth not. I have a schedule of them, and the parts of theplayers in good scrivener's hand. All these shalt thou have for amatter of four pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence."

  "Four pounds and ten shillings, Master Skegs," said Ptolemy, dismayedat this unconscionable addition.

  "Said I aught of the ark when I named that price?" asked Skegsscornfully. "Wouldst thou haggle with a dying man, Ptolemy Philpot?"

  "I will furnish the remainder shillings," I whispered to Ptolemy, whostood in a maze to answer such imposture as Skegs sought to lay uponhim. "Strike the bargain, Mr. Ptolemy, and pay when thou hast checkedover the tale of beasts."

  The argument between Mr. Skegs & Ptolemy. Chapter II]

  He thanked me like a pleased stripling, and, to be short, purchased allfor the sum named, which, there being seven or eight pieces not found,and Japhet's leg burst from the pin, methought sufficient, albeit Mr.Skegs at every turn sought to increase it, or else detract some pieceof note, as Mount Ararat in pasteboard and the dove with a sprig ofolive.

  "I have forgot the raven," he screamed after us, as at length we wentaway with our cartful of miracles. "'Twas new varnished at Michaelmas,and there is the cost of the varnish you must repay me, which isthree-pence halfpenny," at which, when we replied not, he ran into themill-house in a sort of fury, and as I understood, died there a weeklater, muttering upon his "cocks and kites and crows," his

  "Rooks and ravens, many rows; Cuckoos, curlews, whoso knows, Each one in his kind;"

  and putting a price upon each particular fowl, like any poulter inCheape. I never met a man so engrossed in business to so littlepurpose, nor one (to do him justice) so little put out of his humour ofacquisition by the near approach of death. He had bought the mill, soPtolemy told me, out of his former profits, knowing nothing of themiller's trade, but because it was to be got at an advantage.

  When we were out of the yard Mr. Philpot again thanked me immoderatelyfor my aid, which he said he would never forget (and as the eventproved, he did not); and told me moreover that he was bred to thewax-chandlery, but had left it, having a taste for letters.

  "How will this pageant help you any whit the more to study?" I askedhim.

  "I shall go about the country," he replied, "and so I doubt not shallfall in with very famous scholars, who are often to be found where theybe least expected. Have you ever read Horace now?" he asked me quickly.

  I told him, a little.

  "When I shall have learned Latin," he said, in his childlike manner, "Ishall do so also, and, indeed, I have bought his Satires already, butcan make little of them. The Romans must have been a marvellouslearned people," he observed with a sigh, "and 'tis small wonder theyconquered the world."

  "Is there any attendance upon these old interludes?" I demanded, as wepassed upward through the town towards my inn, where I was to take outmy mare.

  "Why, as to that," he replied something moodily, "I know not certainlyas yet, although I hope so, seeing that my proficiency in the Latintongue dependeth upon the popular favour towards them; and, indeed, Imay have been over eager at the bidding, since there doubtless hathbeen some decline from the love of such plays that the vulgar was usedto show upon all occasions of their being enacted. Notwithstanding, Ihave a design, as yet unperfected, by which, if I get no hearing for mymysteries and moralities, I may yet prosper; and that is (to let youinto the secret), to turn this musty Del
uge into a modern battle uponthe high seas, with Mr. John Hawkins for Noah--good seamen both; thefigure of Japhet, too, that hath by good fortune lost a leg, mightserve, with but slight alteration, for a veteran tall boatswain, andHam with the red beard, would as readily become a master-gunner. Ay, alittle skill would do all, Mr. Cleeve; and for the Spaniards, why, suchas were necessary to my purpose might be fashioned out of the greaterbeasts, without any very notable difference from the original."

  I would have questioned him further upon this venture of his, which wassurely as bold as any that Mr. Hawkins had made to the coast of Guineaor the Indies, had not I at that moment espied our overseer, PeterSprot, by the door of the inn, his horse blown and sweating, andhimself sitting stiff with hard riding. I ran to him at once,demanding if he sought me, which I knew already was so, and felt a fearat my heart lest my father was suddenly fallen ill.

  "His worship is not ill," replied Peter, "but sore troubled, and sendsfor you home without delay." He cast a hard eye upon Ptolemy Philpotas he spoke, for he had observed us in company, and being somethingstrait in matters of religion, held shows and dancing and such-like tobe idolatry and lewd sport. I have known him break a babe's rattlethat shook it on a Sunday, and quote the Pentateuch in defence of hisaction.

  "What hath troubled him, Peter?" I asked eagerly, while the ostlerbrought out my mare.

  "'Tis a letter," he said, and with that shut his mouth, so that I knewit was vain to inquire further.

  Now, as I was managing my beast, that was restive with the cold air,comes Mr. Ptolemy to my side, and ere I understood his purpose hadthrust up a little parchment-bound book for me to read the title of it,whispering that he would have read it long since himself, but that'twas in Latin.

  I told him briefly I could not read it then, being in an itch to begone; but he still detained me.

  "There is one particular word there set down," said he, "that I haveoften lighted upon in other books also, which if you would translate'twould ease me mightily."

  "What word is that?" cried I, impatiently.

  "It is _Quemadmodum_," said he.

  But before I could interpret to him, my mare had scoured away afterPeter Sprot's hackney, and we were a bowshot distant ere I hadrecovered my seat.