Idonia: A Romance of Old London

by Arthur Frederick Wallis

  CHAPTER VI

  HOW THE OLD SCHOLAR AND I CAME TO LONDON

  I leave you to imagine whether Sir Matthew made much or little of ouradventure in the marshes, and of the part he took therein, when, havingparted from us, he found himself free to relate the same privately tohis family; they having preceded him (without any escort at all) to hisnew great mansion in Devizes. Upon our part, we, that is Mr. Jordanand I, having inquired out the Inn to which my chattels had beenalready carried, took up our lodging there for the night, being prettywell fatigued (and I wounded too) so that of all things we desiredrest. Nevertheless my old schoolmaster would by no means suffer me togo to bed until he had procured me a surgeon, who bound up my thigh andtook his fee without any word good or bad; afterwards going himselfinto the kitchen (I mean Mr. Jordan did) in order to my more carefulattendance, so that the host his daughter brought me up of her best,and called me poor child, though I was older than she by half a year.

  Now, I learned next morning that Mr. Jordan at his supper had put soheroical a construction upon our exploit as transformed us into menabove nature almost, and I loathed to descend into the common roomwhere all the ostlers and maids would be gaping after us for a pair ofpaladins. Mr. Jordan took the prospect of such adulation very coolly,saying that the wise man was he that nothing moved; but for all that Isaw he liked it, and indeed he had been at considerable pains toprepare the ovation he now affected to despise. However, it so fellout that when at length we descended amongst the people of the Inn, ourarrival quite failed of applause, and that for the simplest, although atragical, reason.

  For it appeared that when, on the yesternight, Sir Matthew, havingdischarged his baggage-wain and bestowed his goods and valuable stuffwithin the house, had gone to bed, it being then about midnight and allquiet, comes there, lurking through the dark night, that villainserving-man Day, whose late defeat had nothing distracted him from hishopes of plunder. With his poniard he cuts out a panel of the posterndoor, and privily entering thereby, goes rummaging through the housefrom loft to cellar, cutting and wasting what he could not carry off,but for the money, of which he found good store, and sundry goldornaments thereto that were my lady Juke's, he fills his doublet fullof them, as is proved upon him, said the teller, beyond dispute.

  "But then," proceeded the man, who now held our whole companyexpectant, "even as he was about to steal away by the way he had come,he heard a little grating noise, as of a weapon which one struckagainst some impediment, close beside him in the dark where he was; andsupposing this to be the knight who had unluckily heard him, he drewboldly upon him with his sword. The other thrust out upon the instant,and a horrid conflict ensued, the men coming to grips shortly andstabbing out of all rule. At length the serving-man, whose name isDay, dealt his adversary his death-blow and prepared to flee away withhis booty, when it appeared (and as Day himself told me it surprisedhim out of measure) his legs would not bear him; so that he fell alongthe floor from sheer loss and effusion of blood, a subtle blow havingpierced him unawares and mortally hurt him. Thus they lay both untilthe morning, when the servants, and I that am the butler, found themthere, the one of them already stark and the other close upon his endand all aghast."

  "Then thy master be murdered, Roger Butler," cried an old fellow fromthe tail of the press.

  "Not so, Father Time," shouted the butler with a great laugh, "althoughDay, by that same error, was led into striking down one he should havegone in leash withal, namely his fellow-thief, one Warren, that wasgone about the same game as himself."

  "Why, 'tis the very knave that dealt Mr. Cleeve here that great wound Itold you of," cried Mr. Jordan, when the clamour of voices had somewhatlessened; the which speech of his I could have wished not spoken, fornow all turned about, demanding this and that of me, and swearing I wasa brave lad; with such a deal of no-matter as put me into an extremityof rage and shame, so that I was glad to escape away to the hall, whereI fell to at the ordinary, and drank to their confusion.

  But for all my spleen it was indeed a merry tale, beside that it was amarvellous judgment upon two rogues. Day, it seemed, had breath enoughleft in him properly to incriminate Warren, who was, as I say, alreadydead, and then rolled over and died too. There was an inquest held ofnecessity, as well upon the thieves as upon poor Jenning that Daykilled before; which process somewhat detained us; but in the afternoonof the day following, having satisfied the Coroner, we were permittedto depart on our way.

  Nevertheless there was a deal of time lost upon our reckoning, it beingnow Saturday morning, and although we were now no further to behindered with the slowness of Juke's waggon, yet there was still a goodfour score miles to go, and the Sunday falling on the morrow when wewere bound to rest, we could by no means reach London before Monday atnight, or even the Tuesday forenoon. My baggage I had sent on by thecommon carrier, who engaged to transmit it at Reading, whither heplied, to another carrier going to London.

  We rode out of the base court of the Inn gaily enough, and soon cameupon the high Wiltshire downs, which, there having been a deal of snowfallen in the night, lay about us in that infinite solemnity ofwhiteness that stills a man's heart suddenly, as few things else havethe power to do.

  Nought could we discern before and around us but ridge after ridge ofsnow, above which hung a sky of unchanging grey; all features of thecountry were quite obliterated, and but that some cart had gone thatway a while since, of which we picked out and followed the wheel marksscrupulously, it had wanted little but we should have ridden bewilderedinto some deep drift and perhaps perished. Indeed, we were fortunatein that; and keeping close upon the track, although but slow going, intime descended into the market town of Marlborough, which we reachedearly in the afternoon. Here we refreshed ourselves and our beasts,and then away into the Savernake forest, traversing it without mishap,and so out upon the high road again by Hungerford, and into Newbury alittle after nightfall; having covered above thirty miles in all, theways bad too, and the day, because of the late season, very short.

  On the Sunday we remained all day in the Inn, except that I went in themorning to the Church there, when I heard a sermon by the curate uponWars and the Rumours thereof, wherein he advised us very earnestly toexamine our pieces and have them ready to hand and not to keep ourpowder in the loft under the leaky thatch. He brought in somewhat,too, about the Sword of the Spirit and the Shield of Faith, butlistlessly, and I saw that no one attended much to that, all men beingfull of fear of the Papists, to which they were particularly moved byMr. Will. Parry's malicious behaviour in the House of Commons. Thescholar did not accompany me to the Church, I suppose because he washimself a Papist, though perhaps no very rigorous one, but feigned astiffness from riding; and when I returned I found him in the larder,where he was discoursing amply of the Scythians and their method ofextracting a fermented liquor from the milk of mares, which was of agrateful potency, but (he lamented) not now to be obtained.

  I wrote home a letter to my father after dinner, and in the eveningentertained the curate, who had got to hear of our going to London, andcame to speak with us thereon. He was an honest man, and of aningenuous complacency, which he manifested in telling us very quietlythat his Grace of Canterbury was of the same university as he, and hedoubted not, would be pleased to hear of him, and that he had takenanother rood of ground into the churchyard; all which I promised, if Ishould meet his lordship, to relate.

  We departed as was our custom, betimes on the morrow, travellingtowards Reading, and thereafter to Windsor, where we beheld withadmiration the great Castle of her Majesty's that is there; howbeit wewent not into the place, but left it on our right hand, and proceededstill forward. But the night falling soon afterwards, we were fain toput up in the little hamlet of Brentford upon the river Thames, whitherwe learned that 'twas fortunate we had without accident arrived, acertain haberdasher of repute having been robbed of all he carried uponthe heath we had but lately rid over into that place, and left for deadby the wayside.


  Perhaps it was this outrage which had made for our safety, and that,being so far satisfied with the spoil of silks and rich stuff taken,the malefactors had hastened to dispose of it to some that make aliving by that cowardly means, and are mostly dwellers about the Stocksmarket, in the narrow lanes thereby, although some (as Culver Alley)have been stopped up against such notorious use of thieves.

  Notwithstanding, I here affirm, that in the morning, when we saw themonstrous charges our lodging stood us in, we found we had not far toseek for a thief as big as any; and having paid the innkeeper, told himso.

  But now we were come almost within view of the great City of which Ihad so many times dreamed, and so beyond limits had advanced itsimagined glory, until it seemed to draw into itself all that was nobleand rich and powerful in the world; being Rome and Carthage too, Ithought, and the Indies added! nay, and only not Paris or Florence,because it scorned the comparison. In such an exaltation I sat myhorse, looking to right and left as we rode through the lanes pastHammersmith and Kensington, all the way being still deep in snow;although hardened here by the traffic of country carts, or rather (Isaid) by great equipages of the Court and the Queen's troops. Mr.Jordan spoke twice or thrice upon indifferent matters, and chiefly, Iremember, of Olympus; but I regarded him contemptuously, having comeinto a place where Olympus would be very cheaply esteemed as a hill, wehaving our own Ludgate Hill, which, if not so high, is in all otherrespects as good or better. But when he told me that we must soon eachtake our leave of the other, all that vain mood left me, and I wishedhim from my heart a thousand benefits and safety in his enterprise, inwhich I would have joined him willingly had I not been bound to thisbusiness of my uncle. He told me he should go to Moorfields, where hehad heard there was frequent exercise of arms, and there learn how toset about his enrolment.

  About this time we came to Charing Cross, where no further speech waspossible between us; such strangeness we met with, and unused fashionof things; and proceeding by way of the Strand, we noted an infinitesuccession of sights, of which the least elsewhere would have staggeredme, but now giving place to others as marvellous, or more, they did butincrease my appetite for amazement, which they alternately satisfiedand renewed. Upon the clamour and the infinite throngs of thetownsfolk, I but briefly touch, for they transcend all description, asdo the palaces of the Savoy and Arundel House that we passed by; andthe Earl of Essex his mansion, and other the inns of the great nobleswhich lie upon the right side of this famous street, and betwixt it andthe Thames. Somerset House, moreover, that is still building, we saw,and artificers yet at work thereupon, which will be, I think, whenbuilded, the finest palace of all. At Temple Bar a man leaves theliberty of the Duchy (as it is called) and enters within the liberty(albeit yet without the walls) of the City of London, and here, alittle distance further on, I found Fetter Lane upon the left hand,where my lodging was, and so (having first learned where I should haveword of him) sorrowfully parted with Mr. Jordan at the end of it, hegoing still eastward towards Paul's, and I up the lane, that isnorthward, to Mr. Malt's, where I was well received, and led to a cleanand pleasant chamber in the gable, which he told me was to be mine.