'Heed not, I ever loved the black!' she cried, as her eyes sparkled.
'So I have done what was to thy mind, my lass?' said Master Headley, who, without ever having thought of consulting his daughter, was delighted to see that her heart was with him.
'Sir, I did not know fully-but indeed I should never have been so happy as I am now.
'Sir,' added Stephen, putting his knee to the ground, 'it nearly wrung my heart to think of her as belonging to another, though I never durst utter aught,'-and while Dennet embraced her father, Stephen sobbed for very joy, and with difficulty said in broken words something about a 'son's duty and devotion.'
They were broken in upon by Mistress Headley, who, after standing in mute consternation, fell on them in a fury. She understood the device now! All had been a scheme laid amongst them for defrauding her poor fatherless child, driving him away, and taking up this beggarly brat. She had seen through the little baggage from the first, and she pitied Master Headley. Rage was utterly ungovernable in those days, and she actually was flying to attack Dennet with her nails when the alderman caught her by the wrists; and she would have been almost too much for him, had not Kit Smallbones come to his assistance, and carried her, kicking and screaming like a naughty child, into the house. There was small restraint of temper in those days even in high life, and below it, there was some reason for the employment of the padlock and the ducking stool.
Floods of tears restored the dame to some sort of composure; but she declared she could stay no longer in a house where her son had been ill- used and deceived, and she had been insulted. The alderman thought the insult had been the other way, but he was too glad to be rid of her on any terms to gainsay her, and at his own charge, undertook to procure horse and escort to convey her safely to Salisbury the next morning. He advised Stephen to keep out of her sight for the rest of the day, giving leave of absence, so that the youth, as one treading on air, set forth to carry to his brother, his aunt, and if possible, his uncle, the intelligence that he could as yet hardly believe was more than a happy dream.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. UNWELCOME PREFERMENT.
'I am a poor fallen man, unworthy now
To be thy lord and master. Seek the king!
That sun I pray may never set.'
Shakespeare.
Matters flowed on peaceably with Stephen and Dennet. The alderman saw no reason to repent his decision, hastily as it had been made. Stephen gave himself no unseemly airs of presumption, but worked on as one whose heart was in the business, and Dennet rewarded her father's trust by her discretion.
They were happily married in the summer of 1522, as soon as Stephen's apprenticeship was over; and from that time, he was in the position of the master's son, with more and more devolving on him as Tibble became increasingly rheumatic every winter, and the alderman himself grew in flesh and in distaste to exertion.
Ambrose meanwhile prospered with his master, and could easily have obtained some office in the law courts that would have enabled him to make a home of his own; but if he had the least inclination to the love of women, it was all merged in a silent distant worship of 'sweet pale Margaret, rare pale Margaret,' the like-minded daughter of Sir Thomas More-an affection which was so entirely devotion at a shrine, that it suffered no shock when Sir Thomas at length consented to his daughter's marriage with William Roper.
Ambrose was the only person who ever received any communication from Giles Headley. They were few and far between, but when Stephen Gardiner returned from his embassy to Pope Clement the Seventh, who was then at Orvieto, one of the suite reported to Ambrose how astonished he had been by being accosted in good English by one of the imperial men-at-arms, who were guarding his Holiness in actual though unconfessed captivity. This person had sent his commendations to Ambrose, and likewise a laborious bit of writing, which looked as if he were fast forgetting the art. It bade Ambrose inform his mother and all his friends and kin that he was well and coming to preferment, and inclosed for Aldonza a small mother-of-pearl cross blessed by the Pope. Giles added that he should bring her finer gifts by and by.
Seven years' constancy! It gave quite a respectability to Giles's love, and Aldonza was still ready and patient while waiting in attendance on her beloved mistress.
Ambrose lived on in the colony at Chelsea, sometimes attending his master, especially on diplomatic missions, and generally acting as librarian and foreign secretary, and obtaining some notice from Erasmus on the great scholar's visit to Chelsea. Under such guidance, Ambrose's opinions had settled down a good deal; and he was a disappointment to Tibble, whose views advanced proportionably as he worked less, and read and thought more. He so bitterly resented and deplored the burning of Tindal's Bible that there was constant fear that he might bring on himself the same fate, especially as he treasured his own copy and studied it constantly. The reform that Wolsey had intended to effect when he obtained the legatine authority seemed to fall into the background among political interests, and his efforts had as yet no result save the suppression of some useless and ill-managed small religious houses to endow his magnificent project of York College at Oxford, with a feeder at Ipswich, his native town.
He was waiting to obtain the papacy, when he would deal better with the abuses. Randall once asked him if he were not waiting to be King of Heaven, when he could make root and branch work at once. Hal had never so nearly incurred a flogging!
And in the meantime another influence was at work, an influence only heard of at first in whispered jests, which made loyal-hearted Dennet blush and look indignant, but which soon grew to sad earnest, as she could not but avow, when she beheld the stately pomp of the two Cardinals, Wolsey and Campeggio, sweep up to the Blackfriars Convent to sit in judgment on the marriage of poor Queen Katharine.
'Out on them!' she said. 'So many learned men to set their wits against one poor woman!' And she heartily rejoiced when they came to no decision, and the Pope was appealed to. As to understanding all the explanations that Ambrose brought from time to time, she called them quirks and quiddities, and left them to her father and Tibble to discuss in their chimney corners.
They had seen nothing of the jester for a good while, for he was with Wolsey, who was attending the King on a progress through the midland shires. When the Cardinal returned to open the law courts as Chancellor at the beginning of the autumn term, still Randall kept away from home, perhaps because he had forebodings that he could not bear to mention.
On the evening of that very day, London rang with the tidings that the Great Seal had been taken from the Cardinal, and that he was under orders to yield up his noble mansion of York House and to retire to Esher; nay, it was reported that he was to be imprisoned in the Tower, and the next day the Thames was crowded with more than a thousand boats filled with people, expecting to see him landed at the Traitors' Gate, and much disappointed when his barge turned towards Putney.
In the afternoon, Ambrose came to the Dragon court.
Even as Stephen figured now as a handsome prosperous young freeman of the City, Ambrose looked well in the sober black apparel and neat ruff of a lawyer's clerk-clerk indeed to the first lawyer in the kingdom, for the news had spread before him that Sir Thomas More had become Lord Chancellor.
'Thou art come to bear us word of thy promotion-for thy master's is thine own,' said the alderman heartily as he entered, shaking hands with him. 'Never was the Great Seal in better hands.'
''Tis true indeed, your worship,' said Ambrose, 'though it will lay a heavy charge on him, and divert him from much that he loveth better still. I came to ask of my sister Dennet a supper and a bed for the night, as I have been on business for him, and can scarce get back to Chelsea.'
'And welcome,' said Dennet. 'Little Giles and Bess have been wearying for their uncle.'
'I must not toy with them yet,' said Ambrose, 'I have a message for my aunt. Brother, wilt thou walk down to the Temple with me before supper?'
'Yea, and how is it with Master Randall?' asked Dennet. 'Be he gone with my Lord Cardinal?'
'He is made over to the King,' said Ambrose briefly. ''Tis that which I must tell his wife.'
'Have with thee, then,' said Stephen, linking his arm into that of his brother, for to be together was still as great an enjoyment to them as in Forest days. And on the way, Ambrose told what he had not been willing to utter in full assembly in the hall. He had been sent by his master with a letter of condolence to the fallen Cardinal, and likewise of inquiry into some necessary business connected with the chancellorship. Wolsey had not time to answer before embarking, but as Sir Thomas had vouched for the messenger's ability and trustiness, he had bidden Ambrose come into his barge, and receive his instructions. Thus Ambrose had landed with him, just as a messenger
