The Armourer's Prentices by Charlotte M. Yonge (best way to read e books .txt) 📖

some of the secrets of the art. It was an effort to such a prime artificer as Steelman to ask instruction from any man, especially a foreigner, but Tibble had a nature of no common order, and set perfection far above class prejudice; and moreover, he felt Abenali to be one of those men who had their inner eyes devotedly fixed on the truth, though little knowing where the quest would lead them.

On his side Abenali underwent a struggle. “Woe is me!” he said. “Wottest thou, my son, that the secrets of the sword of light and swiftness are the heritage that Abdallah Ben Ali brought from Damascus in the hundred and fifty-third year of the flight of him whom once I termed the prophet; nor have they departed from our house, but have been handed on from father to son. And shall they be used in the wars of the stranger and the Christian?”

“I feared it might be thus,” said Tibble.

“And yet,” went on the old man, as if not hearing him, “wherefore should I guard the secret any longer? My sons? Where are they? They brooked not the scorn and hatred of the Castillian which poisoned to them the new faith. They cast in their lot with their own people, and that their bones may lie bleaching on the mountains is the best lot that can have befallen the children of my youth and hope. The house of Miguel Abenali is desolate and childless, save for the little maiden who sits by my hearth in the land of my exile! Why should I guard it longer for him who may wed her, and whom I may never behold? The will of Heaven be done! Young man, if I bestow this knowledge on thee, wilt thou swear to be as a father to my daughter, and to care for her as thine own?”

It was a good while since Tibble had been called a young man, and as he listened to the flowing Eastern periods in their foreign enunciation, he was for a moment afraid that the price of the secret was that he should become the old Moor’s son-in-law! His seared and scarred youth had precluded marriage, and he entertained the low opinion of women frequent in men of superior intellect among the uneducated. Besides, the possibilities of giving umbrage to Church authorities were dawning on him, and he was not willing to form any domestic ties, so that in every way such a proposition would have been unwelcome to him. But he had no objection to pledge himself to fatherly guardianship of the pretty child in case of a need that might never arise. So he gave the promise, and became a pupil of Abenali, visiting Warwick Inner Yard with his master’s consent whenever he could be spared, while the workmanship at the Dragon began to profit thereby.

The jealousy of the Eagle was proportionately increased. Alderman Itillyeo, the head of the Eagle, was friendly enough to Mr. Headley, but it was undeniable that they were the rival armourers of London, dividing the favours of the Court equally between them, and the bitterness of the emulation increased the lower it went in the establishment. The prentices especially could hardly meet without gibes and sneers, if nothing worse, and Stephen’s exploit had a peculiar flavour because it was averred that no one at the Eagle would have done the like.

But it was not till the Sunday that Ambrose chanced to hear of the feat, at which he turned quite pale, but he was prouder of it than any one else, and although he rejoiced that he had not seen it performed, he did not fail to boast of it at home, though Perronel began by declaring that she did not care for the mad pranks of roistering prentices; but presently she paused, as she stirred her grandfather’s evening posset, and said, “What saidst thou was the strange soldier’s name?”

“Fulford—Sir John Fulford” said Ambrose. “What? I thought not of it, is not that Gaffer’s name?”

“Fulford, yea! Mayhap—” and Perronel sat down and gave an odd sort of laugh of agitation—“mayhap ’tis mine own father.”

“Shouldst thou know him, good aunt?” cried Ambrose, much excited.

“Scarce,” she said. “I was not seven years old when he went to the wars—if so be he lived through the battle—and he reeked little of me, being but a maid. I feared him greatly and so did my mother. ’Twas happier with only Gaffer! Where saidst thou he was gone?”

Ambrose could not tell, but he undertook to bring Stephen to answer all queries on the subject. His replies that the Captain was gone in quest of his family to Somersetshire settled the matter, since there had been old Martin Fulford’s abode, and there John Fulford had parted with his wife and father. They did not, however, tell the old man of the possibility of his son’s being at home, he had little memory, and was easily thrown into a state of agitation; besides, it was a doubtful matter how the Condottiere would feel as to the present fortunes of the family. Stephen was to look out for his return in quest of his suit of armour, inform him of his father’s being alive, and show him the way to the little house by the Temple Gardens; but Perronel gave the strictest injunctions that her husband’s profession should not be explained. It would be quite enough to say that he was of the Lord Cardinal’s household.

Stephen watched, but the armour was finished and Christmas passed by before anything was seen of the Captain. At last, however, he did descend on the Dragon court, looking so dilapidated that Mr. Headley rejoiced in the having received payment beforehand. He was louder voiced and fuller of strange oaths than ever, and in the utmost haste, for he had heard tidings that “there was to be a lusty game between the Emperor and the Italians, and he must have his share.”

Stephen made his way up to speak to him, and was received with “Ha, my gallant lad! Art weary of hammer and anvil? Wouldst be a brave Badger, slip thine indentures, and hear helm and lance ring in good earnest?”

“Not so, sir,” said Stephen, “but I have been bidden to ask if thou hast found thy father?”

“What’s that to thee, stripling? When thou hast cut thy wisdom teeth, thou’lt know old fathers be not so easy found. ’Twas a wild goose chase, and I wot not what moved me to run after it. I met jolly comrades enough, bumpkins that could drink with an honest soldier when they saw him, but not one that ever heard the name of Fulford.”

“Sir,” said Stephen, “I know an old man named Fulford. His granddaughter is my uncle’s wife, and they dwell by the Temple.”

The intelligence seemed more startling and less gratifying than Stephen had expected. Sir John demanded whether they were poor, and declared that he had better have heard of them when his purse was fuller. He had supposed that his wife had given him up and found a fresh mate, and when he heard of her death, he made an exclamation which might be pity, but had in it something of relief. He showed more interest about his old father; but as to his daughter, if she had been a lad now, a’ might have been a stout comrade by this time, ready to do the Badger credit. Yea, his poor Kate was a good lass, but she was only a Flemish woman and hadn’t the sense to rear aught but a whining little wench, who was of no good except to turn fools’ heads, and she was wedded and past all that by this time.

Stephen explained that she was wedded to one of the Lord Cardinal’s meiné.

“Ho!” said the Condottiere, pausing, “be that the butcher’s boy that is pouring out his gold to buy scarlet hats, if not the three crowns. ’Tis no bad household wherein to have a footing. Saidst thou I should find my wench and the old Gaffer there?”

Stephen had to explain, somewhat to the disappointment of the Captain, who had, as it appeared, in the company of three or four more adventurous spirits like himself, taken a passage in a vessel lying off Gravesend, and had only turned aside to take up his new armour and his deposit of passage-money. He demurred a little, he had little time to spare, and though, of course, he could take boat at the Temple Stairs, and drop down the river, he observed that it would have been a very different thing to go home to the old man when he first came back with a pouch full of ransoms and plunder, whereas now he had barely enough to carry him to the place of meeting with his Badgers. And there was the wench too—he had fairly forgotten her name. Women were like she wolves for greed when they had a brood of whelps.

Stephen satisfied him that there was no danger on that score, and heard him muttering, that it was no harm to secure a safe harbour in case a man hadn’t the luck to be knocked on the head ere he grew too old to trail a pike. And he would fain see the old man.

So permission was asked for Stephen to show the way to Master Randall’s, and granted somewhat reluctantly, Master Headley saying, “I’ll have thee back within an hour, Stephen Birkenholt, and look thou dost not let thy brain be set afire with this fellow’s windy talk of battles and sieges, and deeds only fit for pagans and wolves.”

“Ay!” said Tibble, perhaps with a memory of the old fable, “better be the trusty mastiff than the wolf.”

And like the wolf twitting the mastiff with his chain, the soldier was no sooner outside the door of the Dragon court before he began to express his wonder how a lad of mettle could put up with a flat cap, a blue gown, and the being at the beck and call of a greasy burgher, when a bold, handsome young knave like him might have the world before him and his stout pike.

Stephen was flattered, but scarcely tempted. The hard selfishness and want of affection of the Condottiere shocked him, while he looked about, hoping some of his acquaintance would see him in company with this tall figure clanking in shining armour, and with a knightly helmet and gilt spurs. The armour, new and brilliant, concealed the worn and shabby leathern dress beneath, and gave the tall, spare figure a greater breadth, diminishing the look of a hungry wolf which Sir John Fulford’s aspect suggested. However, as he passed some of the wealthier stalls, where the apprentices, seeing the martial figure, shouted, “What d’ye lack, sir knight?” and offered silk and velvet robes and mantles, gay sword knots, or even rich chains, under all the clamour, Stephen heard him swearing by St. George what a place this would be for a sack, if his Badgers were behind him.

“If that poor craven of a Warbeck had had a spark of valour in him,” quoth he, as he passed a stall gay with bright tankards and flagons, “we would have rattled some of that shining gear about the lazy citizens’ ears! He, jolly King Edward’s son! I’ll never give faith to it! To turn his back when there was such a booty to be had for the plundering.”

“He might not have found it so easy. Our trainbands are sturdy enough,” said Stephen, whose esprit de corps was this time on the Londoners’ side, but the knight of the Badger snapped his fingers, and said, “So much for your burgher trainbands! All they be good for with their show of fight is to give honest landsknechts a good reason to fall on to the plunder, if so be one is hampered by a squeamish prince. But grammercy to St. George, there be not many of that sort after they he once fleshed!”

Perhaps a year ago, when fresh from the Forest, Stephen might have been more captivated by the notion of adventure and conquest. Now that he had his place in the community and looked on a civic position with wholesome ambition, Fulford’s longings for havoc in these peaceful streets made his blood run cold. He was glad when they reached their destination, and he saw Perronel with bare arms, taking in some linen cuffs and bands from a line across to the opposite wall. He could only call out, “Good naunt, here he be!”

Perronel turned round, the colour rising in her cheeks, with an obeisance, but trembling a good deal. “How now, wench? Thou art grown a buxom dame. Thou makst an old man of me,” said the soldier with a laugh. “Where’s my father? I have not the turning