Idonia: A Romance of Old London

The irregular pile of buildings known as Petty Wales, of which considerable mention is made in this book, formerly stood at the northeast corner of Thames Street. The chronicler, Stow, writes of "some large buildings of stone, the ruins whereof do yet remain, but the first builders and owners of them are worn out of memory. Some are of opinion … that this great stone building was sometime the lodging appointed for the princes of Wales when they repaired to this city, and that therefore the street, in that part, is called Petty Wales;" and he further adds: "The merchants of Burdeaux were licensed to build at the Vintry, strongly with stone, as may yet be seen, and seemeth old though oft repaired; much more cause have these buildings in Petty Wales … to seem old, which, for many years, to wit, since the galleys left their course of landing there, hath fallen to ruin." It appears to have been let out for many uses, some disreputable; and a certain Mother Mampudding (of whom one would like to know more) kept a part of the house for victualling.

CHAPTER I

The first remembrance I hold of my father is of a dark-suited tall man of an unchanging gravity on all occasions. He had, moreover, a manner of saying "Ay, ay," which I early came to regard as the prologue to some definite prohibition; as when I asked him (I being then but a scrubbed boy) for his great sword, to give it to a crippled soldier at our gate, who had lost his proper weapon in the foreign wars—

"Ay, ay," said my father, nodding his grey head, "so he lost his good sword, and you would make good the loss with mine. Ay, 'twas a generous thought of yours, Denis, surely."

I was for reaching it down forthwith, where it hung by the wall in its red velvet scabbard, delighted at the pleasure I was to do my bedesman.

"Go to your chamber, boy," said my father in a voice smaller than ordinary.

"But, sir, the sword!" I cried.

"Ay, the sword," he replied, nodding as before. "But, go warn Simon Powell that he look to his poultry-lofts. And learn wisdom, Denis, for you have some need of it, in my judgment."

The same temperate behaviour he ever showed; granting little, and that never to prayers, but sometimes upon good reasoning. He seemed to have put by anger as having no occasion for the use of it, anger being neither buckler nor broadsword, he would say, but Tom Fool's motley. This calmness of his, I say, it was I first remember, and it was this too that put a distance between us; so that I grew from boyhood to nigh manhood, that is until my eighteenth year, without any clear understanding of what lay concealed behind his mask of quiet. That he had a passion for books I soon discovered, and the discovery confirmed me in the foolish timidity with which I regarded him. For hours together would he sit in the little high room beyond the hall, his beard buried in his ruff, while the men awaited his orders to go about the harvesting, and would read continuously in his great folios: the Lives of Plutarch, or Plato, or the Stoick Emperor, or other such works, until the day was gone and all labour lost. I have known our overseer to swear horrid great oaths when he learned that Master Cleeve had received a new parcel of books by the carrier, crying out that no estate would sustain the burden of so much learning so ill applied.

Our house stood within a steep combe close under the Brendon hills, and not far from the Channel, by which ships pass to Bristol, and outward-bound to the open sea. Many a time have I stood on a rise of ground between the Abbey, whence it is said we take our name of Cleeve, and the hamlet on the cliff above the seashore, gazing out upon the brave show of ships with all sails set, the mariners hauling at the ropes or leaning over the sides of their vessels; and wondered what rich cargo it was they carried from outlandish ports, until a kind of pity grew in me for my father in his little room with his rumpled ruff and his Logick and Physick and Ethick, and his carrier's cart at the door with Ethick and Physick and Logick over again.

At such times Simon Powell was often my companion, a lad of a strange wild spirit, lately come out of Wales across the Channel, and one I loved for the tales he had to tell of the admirable things that happened long since in his country, and indeed, he said, lately too. I cannot call to mind the names of the host of princes that filled his histories, save Arthur's only; but of their doings, and how they talked familiarly with beasts and birds, and how they exchanged their proper shapes at will, and how one of them bade his companions cut off his head and bear it with them to the White Mount in London; which journey of theirs continued during fourscore years; of all these marvels I have still the memory, and of Simon Powell's manner of telling them, which was very earnest, making one earnest who listened to him.

For ordinary teaching, that is, in Latin and divinity and arithmetick, I was sent to one Mr. Jordan, who lived across the combe, in a sort of hollow half way up the moor beyond, in a little house of but four rooms, of which two were filled with books, and his bed stood in one of them. The other two rooms I believe he never entered, which were the kitchen and the bedchamber. For having dragged his bed, many years before, into the room where he kept the most of his books, he found it convenient, as he said, to observe this order ever afterwards; and being an incredibly idle man, though a great and learned scholar, he would lie in bed the best part of a summer's day and pluck out book after book from their shelves, reading them half aloud, and only interrupting his lecture for extraordinary purposes. My father paid him handsomely for my tuition, though I learned less from him than I might have done from a far less learned man. He was very old, and the common talk was that he had been a clerk in the old Abbey before the King's Commission closed it. It was therefore strange that he taught me so little divinity as he did, unless it were that the reading of many pagan books had somewhat clouded his mind in this particular. For I am persuaded that for once he spoke of the Christian faith he spoke a hundred times of Minerva and Apollo, and the whole rout of Atheistical Deities which we rightly hold in abhorrence.

My chief occupation, when I was not at school with Mr. Jordan nor on the hills with Simon, was to go about our estates, which, although they were not very large, were fair, and on the whole well ordered. Our steward, for all his distaste of my father's sedentary habit, had a reverence for him, and said he was a good master, though he would never be a wealthy one.

"His worship's brother now," he once said, "who is, I think, one of the great merchants of London, would make this valley as rich and prosperous as any the Devon shipmasters have met with beyond the Western Sea."

I asked him who was my uncle of whom he spoke, and of whom I heard for the first time.

"'Tis Master Botolph Cleeve," he said. "But his worship does not see him this many a year, nor offer him entertainment since they drew upon each other in the great hall."

"Here, in this house!" I cried, for this was all news to me, and unsuspected.

"In this house it was, indeed, Master Denis," replied the steward, "while you were a poor babe not yet two year old. But there be some things best forgotten," he added quickly, and began to walk towards where the men were felling an alder tree by the combe-brook.

"Nay, Peter Sprot," I cried out, detaining him, "tell me all now, for things cannot be forgotten, save they have first been spoken of."

He laughed a little at this boyish argument, but would not consent at that time. Indeed, it was near a year afterwards, and when I had gained some authority about the estate, that he at length did as I demanded.

It was a sweet spring morning (I remember) with a heaven full of big white clouds come up from the westward over Dunkery on a high wind that bent the saplings and set the branches in the great woods stirring. We had gone up the moor, behind Mr. Jordan's house, with the shepherd, to recover a strayed sheep, which, about an hour before noon, the shepherd chanced to espy a long way off, dead, and a mob of ravens over her, buffeted about by the gale. The shepherd immediately ran to the place, where he beat off the ravens and afterwards took up the carcase on his shoulders and went down the combe, leaving us twain together.

"It is not often that he loses any beast," said the steward. "'Tis a careful man among the flocks, though among the wenches, not so."

I know not why, but this character of the shepherd put me again in mind of my uncle Botolph, upon whom I had not thought for a great while.

"Tell me, Peter Sprot," I said, "how it was my father and my uncle came to fighting."

"Nay, they came not so far as to fight," cried the steward, with a start.

"But they drew upon each other," said I.

He sat silent for a little, tugging at his rough hair, as was his wont when he meditated deeply.

After awhile, "You never knew your lady mother," he said, in a deep voice, "so that my tale must lack for that which should be chief of it. For to all who knew her, the things which befell seemed a part of her beauty, or rather to issue from it naturally, though, indeed, they were very terrible. Mr. Denis, it is the stream which runs by the old course bursts the bridges in time of winter, and down the common ways that trouble ever comes."

"But what trouble was in this," I asked, in the pause he made, "that it were necessary I should have known my mother to comprehend it?"

"Nay, not the trouble, master," he answered, "for that was manifest to all. But 'twas her grace and beauty, and her pretty behaviour, that none who knew not Madam Rachel your mother, may conjure e'en the shadow of.

"You were a toward lad at all times," he went on, "and when your brother was born, though you were scarce turned two, you would be singing and talking from dawn to dark. Ah! sir, your father did not keep his book-room then, but would be in the great chamber aloft, with you and your lady mother and the nurse, laughing at your new-found words and ditties, and riding you and fondling you—God save us!—as a man who had never lived till then.

"'Twas when little Master Hugh came that all changed. For what must 'a do, but have down Mr. Botolph from London to stand sponsor to him, at the christening. He came, a fine man, larger than his worship, and with a manner of bending his brow, which methought betokened a swiftness of comprehension and an impatience of all he found displeasing. Indeed, there was little he did not observe, noting it for correction or betterment. Though a city man and a merchant, Mr. Botolph had but to cast an eye over this place, and 'Brother,' said he, 'there be some things here ill done or but indifferent well'; and showed him that the ricks were all drenched and moulded where they stood, and bade him build them higher up the slope. Master Cleeve took his advice in good part, for they were friends yet.

"But within a little while, I know not how, a shadow fell athwart all. In the farm, matters went amiss, and the weather which had formerly been fine became foul, with snow falling, though it was come Eastertide, and all the lambs sickened. The maids whispered of Mr. Botolph, who had never so much as set eyes on my lady till that time (she having kept her bed to within a week of the christening), that he had spoken no word since the hour he saw her in, nor scarce once stirred from his chamber. His worship, they said, took no heed of this melancholy in his brother, or rather seemed not to do so, though he played no longer with you, and had small joy of the infant. But with Madam Rachel he sat long in chat, cheering her, and talking of what should be done in due season, and of how he would remove the state rooms to the upper floor (as was then generally being done elsewhere), and would build a noble staircase from the old hall; and of many other such matters as he had in mind.

"So for a week, and until the eve of the christening, nought could be called strange, save that Mr. Botolph kept himself apart, and that the shadow on all men's minds lay cold. I doubt if any slept that night, for without the wind was high as now it is, and charged with snow. We could hear the beasts snorting in their stalls and the horses whinnying. Little do I fear, Master Denis," said the old man, suddenly breaking off, "but I tell you there was something abroad that night was not in nature.

"'Twas about midnight that we heard laughter; your lady mother laughing in her silver voice, which yet had a sort of mockery in it, and his worship answering her now and then. After awhile comes he to my room, where I yet sleep, beyond the armoury.

"'Peter,' he says, 'hast seen my brother Botolph?'

"I told him no, but that I supposed he was in the guest-room down the long corridor.

"'Madam Cleeve cannot sleep,' says he again, 'thinking that he is out in the storm, and would have us seek him.'

"I lit a candle at this, for we had spoken in the dark hitherto, and when it had burned up, I saw his worship dressed and with his boots on. His sword he held naked in his hand, and with his other hand he would press upon his brow as one whose mind is dull. The gale nearly blew out the candle the while I dressed myself, and again we listened to the noises without.

"I took a staff from behind the door.

"'Whither shall we go?' he asked me.

"'Surely to his room, first of all,' said I, 'for it is likely that my lady is deceived.'

"'I think so,' he said gravely, and we went upstairs.

"Without summoning him, Mr. Cleeve opened the doors of his brother's chamber, and at once started back.

"'He is not within,' he said, in a low voice, and neither of us spoke nor even moved forward to search the room thoroughly. It was very manifest to us that the shadow under which we had been moving for many days was now to lift; and the certainty that it would lift upon black terror held us in a sort of trance.

"I am not of a ready wit at most times, Mr. Denis, but somehow without the use of wit, and almost upon instinct I said: 'Go you again to your own chamber, master, and if all be well there, be pleased to meet me below in the great hall,' and with that, hastening away, I left him.

"I ran at once to the stair, which has a window overlooking the base court; and as I ran methought the sound I had heard before of horses whinnying, was strangely clear and loud, they being safe in stable long since and the door shut. The candle which I still bore just then a gust of wind extinguished, so that I could scarce find my way to the window, so black was all, and I so distraught. But once there, I needed not to look a second time, for down below in the snow of the yard stood a great coach with four sturdy hackneys that kicked and whinny'd to be gone. 'Twas so dark I could distinguish nought else, yet I continued to stand and stare like a fool until on a sudden I heard another sound of steel clashing, which sent my blood to my heart, and a prayer for God's pity to my lips.

"It was in the hall I found them, my master and Mr. Botolph; he cloaked as for a journey; and beyond, swooning by the fire which had not yet burned out, but threw a dull light along the floor, Madam Rachel, your mother.

"Not many passes had they made, as I think, when I came between them. And indeed they did not resist me, for your father turned away at once, striding across the red floor to my lady, while Mr. Botolph, with just a sob of breath between his teeth, stole off, and as I suppose by the coach, which we heard wheel about and clatter up the yard. I got me to my cold bed then, Mr. Denis, leaving my master and mistress together. It was the chill she took that cruel night which became a fever suddenly, and of that she died, poor lady, and at the same time the infant died too."

He twitched his rough sheepskin coat about him as he concluded his tale, for the sky was gathering to a head of tempest, and after a little while we went down the moor towards the combe where the great house lay in which I had been born, and where, as I knew, my father at this moment was sitting solitary over some ancient folio, in the endless endeavour after that should stead him in his battle with the past.

CHAPTER II

It is, I conceive, natural in a young man to use more time than wisdom in the building of hopes which be little else than dreams, though they appear then more solid than gross reality. Thus I, in laying out my future, saw all as clear as our own park-lands, and where I misliked anything there I altered, working with a free hand, until the aspect of my condition was at all points to my taste, and I itched to enter forthwith into the manhood I had so diligently imagined.

Unwittingly, perhaps, I had allowed Simon Powell's tales of fantasy to get the mastery of my mind, and in such sort that no prince of all his mountains ever marched so lightly from adventure to adventure, nor came off with so much grace and so acclaimed as I. My life (I told myself) was to borrow no whit of my father's aversion from the world, which disposition of his, for all my pity of the cause of it, I could not find it in my heart to praise. Alas! I was but nineteen years of my age, and pride was strong within me, and the lust of combat.

With Simon himself I consorted less frequently than of old, for I stood already in the estate of a master; being acknowledged as such by all, from Peter Sprot himself to the maids who came into the fields for the gleaning, and courtsey'd to me as I rode between the stooks on my white mare. But although I had necessarily become parted from my wild preceptor, I had, as I say, my mind tutored to dreaming, which but for Simon might have been dull and content with petty things, whereas it was with a gay arrogance that I now regarded the ordering of the world, and held myself ordained a champion to make all well. For this I hereby thank Simon Powell with all my heart; and indeed it is a benefit well-nigh inestimable. To such a height then had this humour of errantry gone, that I would snatch at every occasion to gratify it; and so would ride forth through the gate before the grey Combe Court, and setting my mare at a gallop, would traverse the lanes athwart which the level morning sun cast bars of pale gold and the trees their shadows, and be up on the wide rolling moors or ever the mists were stirring in the valley or the labourers risen to their tasks. Many a fancy held my busy brain at such times, and as I looked backward upon our great irregular house, which was built, a part of it, in the year of Agincourt, so quiet it lay amidst its woods and pasture lands that it seemed a place enchanted, upon which some magician had stolen with a spell of sleep. 'Twas no home for active men, I said, and laughed as I turned away and urged my poor jade again onward. Contempt is very close to joy in a lad's heart, and his valour rouses (like old Rome) to the summons of the goose-voice within him.

Some six months had passed since the steward first acquainted me with the calamity which had made shipwreck of my father's life, when, upon a memorable, clear, October morning, I rode forth as my custom was, intending to shape my course towards the little hamlet of Roodwater, and so by the flats to Dunster. The orchard-trees about the old Abbey were rimed with frost, and a keenness in the air lifted me so that I could have wept or sung indifferently. The dawn had scarce broke when I set out, and 'twas not till I had ridden three or four miles that the smoky redness of the sun showed between the pine stems on a spur of hill behind me. My thoughts were all of victory, and in this temper the events of the time, albeit I am no politician, confirmed me. For news had reached us a little since of the disclosure of that horrid plot of Throgmorton and the two Earls against Her Grace and our most dear Sovereign, and of how sundry suspected persons of high estate were arrested and confined. The Papists everywhere were said to be in great confusion, for though many, and some said the most part, were loyal subjects enough, yet the defection and proved villainy of the rest shook all faith in those that professed still the old religion and allegiance to the Pope. The Queen's ships were straitly ordered to watch the ports, and even as I descended the hill beyond Roodwater to the seashore, I saw, a little off Watchet Quay, a ship of war riding at anchor, and a cock-boat pulling away from her side.

Moreover, it was no great while since, by order of Her Majesty's Council, that notable Bond of Association had been signed for the better defence of the Queen, my father signing with the rest, as a chief person of these parts and a magistrate.

I am no politician, as I say, but there is small need of knowledge in State affairs to make a man love his home; and when a plot of the magnitude which this of Fr. Throgmorton's had, is brought to light, why, every man is a politician perforce and a soldier too.

For Queen Mary Stuart, who was now more closely guarded, as indeed was meet, and who later was to be led to her death, I say nought of her, for tales be many, and men's minds confused, when it comes to question of a woman sinning, and that the fairest of them all. That she was guilty I suppose no one reasonably doubteth, and obnoxious to peace and good government, but, when all is said, there is the pity of slaying a delicate lady in order to the securing ourselves; and such a deed makes quiet a cowardly thing, and puts a colour of shame on justice herself.

But that business was not come yet by two years and more, and for the present all our thoughts were of gratitude for our deliverance from the subtlety of forsworn plotters, and of courage and loyalty and the will to be feared.

I spurred my mare down the rough lane, and was soon out upon the level shore of the bay, beyond which lies Dunster in a fold of steep moor, and the wooded promontory of Minehead further to the west. The tide was out as I rode at full gallop along the bow of thin turf which bounds the coast; while across the reach of sand the little waves lapped and fretted with a sweet, low sound.

The sun was now risen pretty high, and the fisher-folk were busied here and there with their nets and tackle as I passed them by. It was nigh eight o'clock when I drew rein in Dunster market, before the chief inn there—a clean place, and of good entertainment. My purpose was immediately to break my fast, for I had a fierceness of hunger upon me by reason of the sharp air and the early hour, and afterwards to visit a certain sea captain whom I knew to be lodged there, Mr. Jonas Cutts, of the Three Lanterns, one of Her Majesty's ships, though but a small one; he being a gentleman I had met with upon the occasion of my father's signing the Bond of Defence. What my further purpose was, if indeed 'twere aught but to hear wonders and talk big about the Spaniards, I cannot now charge my remembrance, but to him I was determined to go after breakfast and waste an hour before returning home.

I inquired his lodging out, therefore, over my dish of eggs, but learned to my disappointment that he had left it suddenly, before daybreak, to join his ship at Minehead, where it lay. This intelligence, little though it affected me, save as it robbed my idleness of some plea of purpose, I took ill enough, rating my host like the angry boy I was, and dispraising the closeness of the ward upon our coasts, though I had formerly praised the same, and indeed had meant to enlarge with the captain upon this very theme.

In a very sour humour then I departed from the inn, and while my mare was baiting took a turn about the town.

And so fair did I find all, the high street wide and sweet and the houses thereon neat and well ordered, the great castle, moreover, on a mount at the nether end, very fencible and stately builded, that it was not long ere my spirits rose again, and I thought no more upon Captain Cutts and his departing. Methought the countryside had never seemed so pleasant as now under its web of frost, and the trees a kind of blue of the colour of silver-work tarnished by age, the sky red behind them reaching up from grey. I left the middle part of the town soon and got into the lanes, where at length I came by chance upon an ancient mill, which was once, I learned, a monkish mill whither every man had perforce to bring his grain to be ground. Now as I stood idly by the gate of the mill-house I heard voices of men in talk, and, without further intention, could not but catch some words of their discourse. It was evident that a bargain was going forward, and that one sold grudgingly.