Idonia: A Romance of Old London Part 14

"'Tis very possible," said he, "for I write less than I think: and indeed publish less than I write."

"And how standeth it with your fasting, Master Poet?" quoth I.

"I feed my thoughts that way," he replied simply, "as 'twas in a fast I conceived my famous lines upon the Spring."

I bade him drink another draught of the wine, having no interest to sc.r.a.pe acquaintance with his Muse; but he was not so easily to be put off.

"It begins thus," said he, and tossing back his long and tawny hair from his eyes, lifted his right hand aloft and beat the air with his fingers as he proceeded--

"Fresh Spring, the lovely herald of great Love, On whose green tabard are the quarterings Of many flowers below and trees above In proper colours, as befits such things-- Go to my love----"

"Hold, hold!" I cried, "methinks I have read something very similar to these lines of yours in another man's verses."

He held his hand still suspended, though his eyes flashed in disdain of my commentary.

"An' you were not young and my benefactor," he said, with an extreme bitterness, "I would be tempted to clap you into a filthy ballad."

"Do you use to write your ballads, full?" I inquired, "seeing 'tis apparently your custom to steal your lyricks, empty."

He brought down his raised hand clenched upon the other.

"I steal nothing from any man," he cried in a great voice; but even as he spoke his face went white, and his eyes rolled in his head. I thought he had fallen into some fit of poetics, and offered him the wine again, but he cautioned me to be silent, at the same time cringing backward into the shadows.

"Why, what ails you?" I asked encouragingly.

He laid his forefinger to his lips, and then, laying his hand upon my arm, drew me to him.

"Spake I overloud?" he muttered, shivering, too, when I answered that he certainly had done.

"'Twould be my death were I heard," said the miserable fellow, and then told me, by starts and elliptic phrases all that I have set down about this mysterious fellowship of Petty Wales, and the cruel rigour in which its secrecy was maintained.

"'Tis no place for an honest man," he said, "for all here, but I, be notable thieves and outlaw villains, bawds, and blasphemers every one.

And were't not for the common table we keep, each man bringing to it that he may, but all equally partaking, and that we lie sheltered from foul weather and terror of the watch, I had long since avoided hence.

For I am a lyrical poet, sir, and have no commerce with such as steal."

I could have returned upon him there, with his unconscionable plagiarism and his a.s.sault upon Baynards Castle too, but judged it Christian to hold my peace. Furthermore, I had entered this unwholesome den for another purpose than to argue a point of authorship, and therefore said quietly enough, but in such a manner as he should perceive I meant it--

"Now listen to me, Master Poet," quoth I, "and answer me fair, else will I raise my voice to such pitch as your Captain shall take note of it for a contingent fault of thine to have loud-speaking friends.

"This great mansion, now," I went on, when I thought he could bear a part in the argument; "do all the parts of it join, and the dwellers herein have exchange of intercourse each with the other?"

"No," he said, "they do not."

"But once they had," said I.

"Long since they may have done," replied the poet, "but since the place hath been converted to its present use, it hath been divided by strong walls of part.i.tion, so as each man is now master of his own."

"How!" I cried, raising my voice of set purpose to frighten him. "In this nest of thieves what man is so absolute a master as another may not possess himself of his goods?"

"I know not, I know nothing," he wailed piteously.

"Are there no cracks in the wainscote even?" I persisted, for something in his denial led me to suspect he put me off. He shook his head, whispering that their new Captain reposed but a dozen paces distant and would hear, and kill us both.

"Enough," I said pretty stern, "for I see there be privy ways opened that you have at the least heard tell of (though you may not have dared investigate them), and communication hence through every party-wall."

"There is none," he repeated, near mad with apprehension.

"It is necessary I discover these pa.s.sages," I continued, "or rather one of them, as I think there is one leads to the great hall."

"What know you of such a place?" he almost screamed.

"Rest you easy, sweet singer," said I, laughing at the slip he made, "for we will not go headlong to this work, nor disturb your Captain's sleep where he lieth snug till nightfall; but you shall lead me by quiet ways thither, and when you shall have put me through, I will suffer you to depart in peace. But so much I most positively require of you."

He wept and wrung his hands, protesting I was grievously in error, and he the most miserable of men; indeed 'twas not until I pulled out my sword and showed him the blood on it, that he professed himself willing to serve me, though he still continued to pretend his inability therein.

"That we shall see," said I. "But first finish your bottle, and then advance, man, in Master Spenser's name!"

He drank it down, and then cramming the broken morsels of bread and meat into his wallet (where I saw he kept his verses also with a parcel of goose quills) he cautioned me to be silent, and stole ahead of me up the wide and broken stair.

Small light there was to see by, for the few windows which should have served us were all shuttered or roughly boarded up, and the wind piped through them shrilly. Upon the great open gallery he paused as in doubt which way to proceed, and, to speak justly, 'twould have puzzled a wiser man in that dimness to pursue any right course between the huge bales and chests of sea-merchandise that pestered our pa.s.sage. Nay, even the very roof and ceilings were become warehouses, so that once I espied so great a thing as a ship's c.o.c.kboat slung from the rafters above our heads, and once rasped my cheek against the dried slough of a monstrous water-snake that some adventurer had doubtless brought home from the Indies. But I knew well enough that we should have made twice our progress but for the infinite dread in which the poor poet went of crossing the lair where the officers of this unholy brotherhood awaited their hour to steal forth. At every rustle of wind he staggered so he could scarce stand, and had it not been for the invigorating coolness of my sword upon the nape of his neck, he would have fled thence an hundred times. Yet for all the dangers (to call them so) of our stolen march, the thought that stood in the front of my mind was: What lover, since the world began, hath gone in this fashion to his mistress? For insensibly my intention had narrowed down to the mere necessity of seeing Idonia again. Surely, never was a house of so many turnings and bewildered issues; so that we seemed to traverse half the ward in our quest, and for the most part in pitchy blackness, as I have said, until I almost could have believed the day had gone down into night while we shuffled tardily forward. But at last Mr. Andrew stopped. We had turned a coign of the wall, and come into an open s.p.a.ce palely lighted from above; and looking up I saw we stood beneath the vent wherein the crane worked that I had note from without the night before.

"If it be not closed up, 'tis here," whispered the poet, and enjoining upon me to succeed him, he took the crane-rope in his hand and pulled himself up thereby until he had ascended some fifteen feet, when he swung himself a little to the right hand where was a sort of ledge in the masonry of the wall (I mean not the front wall of the building, but a wall that joined it on the square), and there he stood firm. I was not slow to join him aloft and there found, behind the ledge or sill, a low arch in the thick of the wall, and within it a little wicket door.

"You have guided me well," I said, clasping his hand hard, "and I shall not forget it. If there be any favour I can show you before we part, name it, Mr. Plat, and I will use my endeavour to please you."

He considered some while before he replied, and then looking at me very earnestly, said--

"Since you seem to have some acquaintance with the poets, and thought fit to remark upon a certain fancied resemblance (though indeed there is none) betwixt my lyrick of the Spring and another's treatment of that subject, I would beg you, should you be in any company where my works are spoken of, as I make no pretence they shall be everywhere as soon as they be published, I say, I would beg you to refrain yourself from bringing in that ... from directing the attention of the company toward ... but I see you take me, sir, and so enough said."

However he would not let me go before he had begged my acceptance of a copy of his works, which he intended should be decently bound in calf leather, with a device of Britannia sitting upon Helicon, and his name of Andrew Plat entwined in a wreath of flowerets at her feet.

"And wherefore not upon her brow?" I asked him.

"Oh, sir," said the poet, flinging an arm about my shoulder, "you honour me too much."

I got him down the rope soon after, and saw him return along the pa.s.sage, his head high and his gait light as though he trod a measure.

"We be both in the same plight," I sighed, "and support ourselves upon favours not yet received."

Then I set open the door. A stout ladder reached down from thence to the hall where I had fought with Guido Malpas, or rather to a part of it that was full double the height of that part, and had entrance into it by means of a sort of wide arch betwixt pillars. The hall was empty, and I descended to it immediately.

"Well," thought I, pretty grave now I had accomplished this much of my business, "I would I knew in what case I shall depart hence."

At that moment I heard a footstep on the stair beyond the arches, and Mistress Avenon entered the hall.

At first she saw me not, but when she did she stood perfectly still, the colour fading from her face, and one hand upon her bosom. I bowed low, having no words to speak, and then expected with an infinite weight at my heart, until she should declare her will.

At length she came slowly toward me.