The Armourer's Prentices Part 14

"Nay," said Tibble, "'twas the craft I was bred to-yea, and I have a good master; and the Apostle Paul himself-as I've heard a preacher say-bade men continue in the state wherein they were, and not be curious to chop and change. Who knoweth whether in G.o.d's sight, all our wars and policies be no more than the games of the tilt-yard. Moreover, Paul himself made these very weapons read as good a sermon as the Dean himself. Didst never hear of the s.h.i.+eld of faith, and helmet of salvation, and breastplate of righteousness? So, if thou comest to Master Hansen, and provest worthy of his trust, thou wilt hear more, ay, and maybe read too thyself, and send forth the good seed to others," he murmured to himself, as he guided his visitor across the moonlit court up the stairs to the chamber where Stephen lay fast asleep.

CHAPTER X.

TWO VOCATIONS

"The smith, a mighty man is he With large and sinewy hands; And the muscles of his brawny arms Are strong as iron bands."

LONGFELLOW.

STEPHEN'S first thought in the morning was whether the _ex voto_ effigy of poor Spring was put in hand, while Ambrose thought of Tibble's promised commendation to the printer. They both, however, found their affairs must needs wait. Orders for weapons for the tilting-match had come in so thickly the day before that every hand must be employed on executing them, and the Dragon court was ringing again with the clang of hammers and screech of grind-stones.

Stephen, though not yet formally bound, was to enter on his apprentice life at once; and Ambrose was a.s.sured by Master Headley that it was of no use to repair to any of the dignified clergy of St. Paul's before mid-day, and that he had better employ the time in writing to his elder brother respecting the fee. Materials were supplied to him, and he used them so as to do credit to the monks of Beaulieu, in spite of little Dennet spending every spare moment in watching his pen as if he were performing some cabalistic operation.

He was a long time about it. There were two letters to write, and the wording of thorn needed to be very careful, besides that the old court hand took more time to frame than the Italian current hand, and even thus, when dinner-time came, at ten o'clock, the household was astonished to find that he had finished all that regarded Stephen, though he had left the letters open, until his own venture should have been made.

Stephen flung himself down beside his brother hot and panting, shaking his shoulder-blades and declaring that his arms felt ready to drop out.

He had been turning a grindstone ever since six o'clock. The two new apprentices had been set on to sharpening the weapon points as all that they were capable of, and had been bidden by Smallbones to turn and hold alternately, but "that oaf Giles Headley," said Stephen, "never ground but one lance, and made me go on turning, threatening to lay the b.u.t.t about mine ears if I slacked."

"The lazy lubber!" cried Ambrose. "But did none see thee, or couldst not call out for redress?"

"Thou art half a wench thyself, Ambrose, to think I'd complain. Besides, he stood on his rights as a master, and he is a big fellow."

"That's true," said Ambrose, "and he might make it the worse for thee."

"I would I were as big as he," sighed Stephen, "I would soon show him which was the better man."

Perhaps the grinding match had not been as un.o.bserved as Stephen fancied, for on returning to work, Smallbones, who presided over all the rougher parts of the business, claimed them both. He set Stephen to stand by him, sort out and hand him all the rivets needed for a suit of proof armour that hung on a frame, while he required Giles to straighten bars of iron heated to a white heat. Ere long Giles called out for Stephen to change places, to which Smallbones coolly replied, "Turnabout is the rule here, master."

"Even so," replied Giles, "and I have been at work like this long enough, ay, and too long!"

"Thy turn was a matter of three hours this morning," replied Kit-not coolly, for n.o.body was cool in his den, but with a brevity which provoked a laugh.

"I shall see what my cousin the master saith!" cried Giles in great wrath.

"Ay, that thou wilt," returned Kit, "if thou dost loiter over thy business, and hast not those bars ready when called for."

"He never meant me to be put on work like this, with a hammer that breaks mine arm."

"What! crying out for _that_!" said Edmund Burgess, who had just come in to ask for a pair of tongs. "What wouldst say to the big hammer that none can wield save Kit himself?"

Giles felt there was no redress, and panted on, feeling as if he were melting away, and with a dumb, wild rage in his heart, that could get no outlet, for Smallbones was at least as much bigger than he as he was than Stephen. Tibble was meanwhile busy over the gilding and enamelling of Buckingham's magnificent plate armour in Italian fas.h.i.+on, but he had found time to thrust into Ambrose's hand an exceedingly small and curiously folded billet for Lucas Hansen, the printer, in case of need.

"He would be found at the sign of the Winged Staff, in Paternoster Row,"

said Tibble, "or if not there himself, there would be his servant who would direct Ambrose to the place where the Dutch printer lived and worked." No one was at leisure to show the lad the way, and he set out with a strange feeling of solitude, as his path began decisively to be away from that of his brother.

He did not find much difficulty in discovering the quadrangle on the south side of the minster where the minor canons lived near the deanery; and the porter, a stout lay brother, pointed out to him the doorway belonging to Master Alworthy. He knocked, and a young man with a tonsured head but a bloated face opened it. Ambrose explained that he had brought a letter from the Warden of St. Elizabeth's College at Winchester.

"Give it here," said the young man.

"I would give it to his reverence himself," said Ambrose.

"His reverence is taking his after-dinner nap and may not be disturbed,"

said the man.

"Then I will wait," said Ambrose.

The door was shut in his face, but it was the shady side of the court, and he sat down on a bench and waited. After full an hour the door was opened, and the canon, a good-natured looking man, in a square cap, and gown and ca.s.sock of the finest cloth, came slowly out. He had evidently heard nothing of the message, and was taken by surprise when Ambrose, doffing his cap and bowing low, gave him the greeting of the Warden of St. Elizabeth's and the letter.

"Hum! Ha! My good friend-Fielder-I remember him. He was always a scholar. So he hath sent thee here with his commendations. What should I do with all the idle country lads that come up to choke London and feed the plague? Yet stay-that lurdane Bolt is getting intolerably lazy and insolent, and methinks he robs me! What canst do, thou stripling?"

"I can read Latin, sir, and know the Greek alphabeta."

"Tus.h.!.+ I want no scholar more than enough to serve my ma.s.s. Canst sing?"

"Not now; but I hope to do so again."

"When I rid me of Bolt there-and there's an office under the sacristan that he might fill as well as another knave-the fellow might do for me well enow as a body servant," said Mr. Alworthy, speaking to himself.

"He would brush my gowns and make my bed, and I might perchance trust him with my marketings, and by and by there might be some office for him when he grew saucy and idle. I'll prove him on mine old comrade's word."

"Sir," said Ambrose, respectfully, "what I seek for is occasion for study. I had hoped you could speak to the Dean, Dr. John Colet, for some post at his school."

"Boy," said Alworthy, "I thought thee no such fool! Why crack thy brains with study when I can show thee a surer path to ease and preferment? But I see thou art too proud to do an old man a service. Thou writst thyself gentleman, forsooth, and high blood will not stoop."

"Not so, sir," returned Ambrose, "I would work in any way so I could study the humanities, and hear the Dean preach. Cannot you commend me to his school?"

"Ha!" exclaimed the canon, "this is your sort, is it? I'll have nought to do with it! Preaching, preaching! Every idle child's head is agog on preaching nowadays! A plague on it! Why can't Master Dean leave it to the black friars, whose vocation 'tis, and not c.u.mber us with his sermons for ever, and set every lazy lad thinking he must needs run after them?

No, no, my good boy, take my advice. Thou shalt have two good bellyfuls a day, all my cast gowns, and a pair of shoes by the year, with a groat a month if thou wilt keep mine house, bring in my meals, and the like, and by and by, so thou art a good lad, and runst not after these new-fangled preachments which lead but to heresy, and set folk racking their brains about sin and such trash, we'll get thee shorn and into minor orders, and who knows what good preferment thou mayst not win in due time!"

"Sir, I am beholden to you, but my mind is set on study."

"What kin art thou to a fool?" cried the minor canon, so startling Ambrose that he had almost answered, and turning to another ecclesiastic whose siesta seemed to have ended about the same time, "Look at this varlet, Brother Cloudesley! Would you believe it? He comes to me with a letter from mine old friend, in consideration of which I offer him that saucy lubber Bolt's place, a gown of mine own a year, meat and preferment, and, lo you, he tells me all he wants is to study Greek, forsooth, and hear the Dean's sermons!"

The other canon shook his head in dismay at such arrant folly. "Young stripling, be warned," he said. "Know what is good for thee. Greek is the tongue of heresy."

"How may that be, reverend sir," said Ambrose, "when the holy Apostles and the Fathers spake and wrote in the Greek?"

"Waste not thy time on him, brother," said Mr. Alworthy. "He will find out his error when his pride and his Greek forsooth have brought him to fire and f.a.ggot."

"Ay! ay!" added Cloudesley. "The Dean with his Dutch friend and his sermons, and his new grammar and accidence, is sowing heretics as thick as groundsel."

Wherewith the two canons of the old school waddled away, arm in arm, and Bolt put out his head, leered at Ambrose, and bade him shog off, and not come sneaking after other folk's shoes.

Sooth to say, Ambrose was relieved by his rejection. If he were not to obtain admission in any capacity to St. Paul's School, he felt more drawn to Tibble's friend the printer; for the self-seeking luxurious habits into which so many of the beneficed clergy had fallen were repulsive to him, and his whole soul thirsted after that new revelation, as it were, which Colet's sermon had made to him. Yet the word heresy was terrible and confusing, and a doubt came over him whether he might not be forsaking the right path, and be lured aside by false lights.

He would think it out before he committed himself. Where should he do so in peace? He thought of the great Minster, but the nave was full of a surging mult.i.tude, and there was a loud hum of voices proceeding from it, which took from him all inclination to find his way to the quieter and inner portions of the sanctuary.

Then he recollected the little Pardon Church, where he had seen the _Dance of Death_ on the walls; and crossing the burial-ground he entered, and, as he expected, found it empty, since the hours for ma.s.ses for the dead were now past. He knelt down on a step, repeated the s.e.xt office, in warning for which the bells were chiming all round, covering his face with his hands, and thinking himself back to Beaulieu; then, seating himself on a step, leaning against the wall, he tried to think out whether to give himself up to the leadings of the new light that had broken on him, or whether to wrench himself from it. Was this, which seemed to him truth and deliverance, verily the heresy respecting which rumours had come to horrify the country convents? If he had only heard of it from Tibble Wry-mouth, he would have doubted, in spite of its power over him, but he had heard it from a man, wise, good, and high in place, like Dean Colet. Yet to his further perplexity, his uncle had spoken of Colet as jesting at Wolsey's table. What course should he take? Could he bear to turn away from that which drew his soul so powerfully, and return to the bounds which seem to him to be grown so narrow, but which he was told were safe? Now that Stephen was settled, it was open to him to return to St. Elizabeth's College, but the young soul within him revolted against the repet.i.tion of what had become to him unsatisfying, unless illumined by the brightness he seemed to have glimpsed at.