On the Lightship Part 4

"Marry, they shall be yours and willingly," cried the woman, glad to be rid of dangerous property on such generous terms. And it was thus that the stranger became possessor of the chest of ma.n.u.scripts. His bargaining for the lodgings proved him a man of thrift to the point of meanness, a quality not to be despised in lodgers, for, as Mistress Hodges often said to Mistress Judd, "Gentlemen are ever most liberal who least mean to pay." In answer to reasonable inquiries he would say no more than, "My predecessor was known as Master Christopher; let me be, therefore, Master Francis, a poor scholar who promises only to take himself off before his purse is empty."

The new lodger entered into possession of his chamber on the afternoon of the day on which he saw it first. His luggage, brought thither by two porters on a single barrow, and consisting chiefly of books and ma.n.u.scripts, proved him to be the humble student he had represented himself, and in a week his neighbors were agreed in rating him a rather commonplace recluse. His days were spent in reverie by the open window or in writing at the parchment-littered table. If he stirred abroad at all it was but for an hour in the long twilight after supper, and his candle rarely burned later than ten o'clock. It was not until a fortnight had gone by that Mistress Hodges had the satisfaction of announcing a visitor.

"Come in!" cried Master Francis, responding to her knock at his chamber door, and not a little surprised by a summons so unusual, for the remnants of his supper had been removed, and he was himself preparing for his evening stroll.

"A gentleman attends below, an't please you, sir," she announced, entering hurriedly.

"Impossible!" her lodger protested, "for how should a visitor inquire for one who has no name?"

"By your description, an't please you, sir," replied the woman. "He drew you to the life. By my faith, there could be no mistake, and when he said you might be known as Master Francis how could I but admit him?

Grand gentleman that he is, with a servant at his heels and half a score of varlets waiting within call!"

Master Francis bit his lip and moved impatiently about the room.

"Go tell this grand gentleman that you were wrong," he said. "Tell him I was requested out to supper at half an hour before seven. Tell him what falsehood slips most easily from your tongue, and as you are a woman, tell it truthfully."

"'Twould not avail, for even now your visitor, grown impatient, mounts the stair," replied the hostess, while a heavy footfall coming every moment nearer testified to the truth of her a.s.sertion.

"Then off with you and let us be alone," commanded Master Francis, stopping resolutely in his walk, while Mistress Hodges in the doorway found herself thrust unceremoniously aside to give place to a dignified man in middle life. The visitor's dress was black, relieved only by a broad white ruff, yet of so rich a quality that the appointments of the room descended in the scale from homeliness to shabbiness by contrast.

But apparently he concerned himself no more with the apartment than with Mistress Hodges.

"How now, nephew?" he began at once. "What means this hiding like a hedgehog in a hole?"

Master Francis bowed with almost servile deference and clasped his hands, making at the same time a gesture with his foot intended to convey to Mistress Hodges an intimation that she was free to go.

"My uncle, this is far too great an honor that you pay me," he said, when the landlady had closed the door behind her.

"Odsblood! For once, I hear the truth from you. Why have you left your chambers in Gray's Inn for this?" the other answered with a movement of the nostrils as though the whole environment was comprehended in a whiff of Mistress Hodges' mutton broth.

"In truth, most gracious kinsman," the younger man rejoined, "since my exclusion from the Court some certain greasy bailiffs have favored me with their company a trifle over often, nor had I otherwhere to go while waiting for a fitting opportunity to recall myself to your lordship's memory."

"And pray you, to what end?" the other asked impatiently.

"You are not ignorant, uncle, of the state of my poor fortune," said the scholar.

"No," was the answer, "nor can you be forgetful, nephew, of my efforts in the past to mend that fortune."

"For all of which believe me truly grateful," responded Master Francis with a touch of irony. "'Tis to your gracious favor that I owe my appointment to the reversion of the Clerkship of the Star Chamber, worth sixteen hundred pounds a year, provided that I, a weak man, survive in poverty a strong affluence. 'Tis like another man's ground b.u.t.taling upon his house, which may mend his prospect but does not fill his barn."

The other, crossing to the open window, half seated himself upon the sill, folding his arms while fixing disapproving eyes on his nephew's face.

"This att.i.tude becomes you not at all," he said. "Through me you were returned to Parliament, and through me you might have been advanced to profitable office had you not seen fit to antagonize the Ministry, opposing, for the sake of paltry public favour, that four years' subsidy of which the Treasury stood in dire need to meet the Popish plots."

"I sought to shield the Ministry and Crown from public disapproval,"

replied Master Francis. "The country in my judgment was not able to endure the tax."

"'Twas most presumptuous to set up your judgment against that of your betters," said the other. "Your part is plain. This act of yours must be forgotten. It must be known that you have once for all abandoned public life for study. Publish some learned disquisition upon what you will. Absent yourself from town, and in a twelvemonth, perhaps, or less if things go well----"

"A twelvemonth!" cried Master Francis. "Unless my pockets be replenished I shall have starved to death by early summer."

The gentleman upon the window-sill remained for a s.p.a.ce silent with knitted brows. Presently he said:

"I shall arrange to pay you an allowance, small, but sufficient for your needs, upon condition that you go at once to France, where you already have acquaintances."

"It may be you are right, my lord," responded Master Francis, "but it suits my humor not at all to exile myself, and before accepting your offer grant me permission to speak to the Earl of Ess.e.x. He has the favor of the Queen."

The other laughed a scornful laugh, and rising deliberately drew on a glove he had been holding in one hand.

"Enough!" he said. "Depend on Ess.e.x's favor with the Queen and follow him to the Tower in good time."

"But, uncle, give me your kind permission at least to speak with him."

"My kind permission and my blessing!" the uncle answered suavely, moving toward the door. With his hand upon the latch he stood to add, across his shoulder, "You are behind the times in news, nephew. Three days ago my Lord of Ess.e.x departed somewhat suddenly for his estates--upon a hunting expedition, it is said, though beldame Rumor will insist that our most gracious Queen hath turned the icy eye at last upon his fawning."

"A morning frost!" cried Master Francis with a gesture. "A frost that the recurring sun of pity turns full soon to tender dew. But 'tis a chill of which to take advantage. Let me but follow my peevish lord to his retirement, lock in my humble cause with his, and in due season claim the meet reward of faithful service."

His manner had grown so earnest that the other turned to listen, albeit with a smile of contempt.

"Look you, uncle," the younger man went on, "were I to start at once, travelling in modest state, yet as befitting the nephew of the Lord Treasurer of England, well mounted and attended by a single man-servant, the whole adventure might be managed for a matter of one hundred pounds."

"Good!" cried the other with suspiciously ready acquiescence. "Thou art in verity a diplomat. By all means put your fortunes to the test, and when you have, acquaint me with the issue."

He turned and once more laid a hand upon the latch.

"But," protested Master Francis, "I have still to find the hundred pounds----"

"A riddle for diplomacy to solve!" replied the Lord Treasurer of England, laughing sardonically. "I can tell you no more than that you shall not find it in my purse!" And so saying, he strode from the room, leaving the door wide open.

For many minutes Master Francis paced the floor, muttering to himself, now angry imprecations at his own folly, now curses on the relentless arrogance of the Lord Treasurer. As the long twilight of the season fell he caught up his wide-brimmed hat and hurried from the house.

He took his way through narrow winding streets, and after several turnings came at length to one much wider, a thoroughfare lined with little shops, whose owners when not occupied with customers stood on their thresholds soliciting the patronage of pa.s.sers-by.

"What do you lack?" they cried; "hats, shoes, or hosiery; gloves, ruffs, or farthingales?" each setting forth the value of his wares in frantic effort to outshout compet.i.tors. Along the pavement worthy citizens sauntered with wives and sweethearts, or stood in interested groups about some mountebank or maker of music performing upon several ill-tuned instruments at once. On a patch of trodden gra.s.s young men played noisy games of bowls until a gilded coach in pa.s.sing wantonly destroyed their goal. Here a bout with single-stick was in progress, there a contest with bare fists which must have grown serious had not the watch arrived in time to separate the belligerents with their pikes.

But the centre of most interest was a seafaring man who smoked a long-stemmed pipe with rather ostentatious unconcern. The men regarded him with furtive admiration, the women disapprovingly, while children ran to catch a whiff of the strange aromatic scent. When he blew puffs of vapor from his nostrils everybody laughed.

Master Francis, moving hastily aside to make way for the smoker and his escort, came into collision with a man of his own age, whose broad good-humored face showed due appreciation of the scene.

"What think you, friend?" the stranger asked, laughing. "Will this new savagery become an inst.i.tution? Have we been at such pains to banish smoke from our churches only to turn our heads into censers? Mayhap this be another Popish plot?"

"It seems to me a bit of arrant folly," Master Francis answered somewhat listlessly, "and as such, certain to become the rage."

"They tell us it will prolong the life," went on the other, "for it is well known a herring when smoked outlasts a fresh one."

"Say rather he who smokes will live the longer because the wise die young," retorted Master Francis, pleased by the conceit.

"At least," remarked the stranger, "the fashion will make trade for fairy chimneysweeps."

Some further conversation followed naturally, for Master Francis, weary of his own society, was in the mood to welcome any companionship, and, moreover, the newcomer, who seemed a man of understanding, met another's eyes too frankly to leave the question of his honesty in doubt. They spoke of tobacco as a possible feature in social life, and both agreed that a whiff of the new herb might be an interesting experiment.