England! Swallowed in a quagmire had made a new end for a king, and ye would have to brook the little Scot.'
The gentlemen who had come up were profuse in lamentations. A horse was brought up for the king's use, and he prepared to mount, being in haste to get into dry clothes. He turned round, however, to the boys, and said, 'I'll not forget you, my lads. Keep that!' he added, as Ambrose, on his knee, would have given him back the whistle, ''tis a token that maybe will serve thee, for I shall know it again. And thou, my black- eyed lad-My purse, Howard!'
He handed the purse to Stephen-a velvet bag richly wrought with gold, and containing ten gold angels, besides smaller money-bidding them divide, like good brothers as he saw they were, and then galloped off with his train.
Twilight was coming on, but following in the direction of the riders, the boys were soon on the Islington road. The New Gate was shut by the time they reached it, and their explanation that they were belated after a nutting expedition would not have served them, had not Stephen produced the sum of twopence which softened the surliness of the guard.
It was already dark, and though curfew had not yet sounded, preparations were making for lighting the watch- fires in the open spaces and throwing chains across the streets, but the little door in the Dragon court was open, and Ambrose went in with his brother to deliver up his nuts to Dennet and claim her promise of sending a share to Aldonza.
They found their uncle in his sober array sitting by Master Headley, who was rating Edmund and Giles for having lost sight of them, the latter excusing himself by grumbling out that he could not be marking all Stephen's brawls with George Bates.
When the two wanderers appeared, relief took the form of anger, and there were sharp demands why they had loitered. Their story was listened to with many exclamations: Dennet jumped for joy, her grandmother advised that the angels should be consigned to her own safe keeping, and when Master Headley heard of Henry's scruples about the indentures, he declared that it was a rare wise king who knew that an honest craft was better than court favour.
'Yet mayhap he might do something for thee, friend Ambrose,' added the armourer. 'Commend thee to some post in his chapel royal, or put thee into some college, since such is thy turn. How sayst thou, Master Randall, shall he send in this same token, and make his petition?'
'If a fool-if a plain man may be heard where the wise hath spoken,' said Randall, 'he had best abstain. Kings love not to be minded of mishaps, and our Hal's humour is not to be reckoned on! Lay up the toy in case of need, but an thou claim overmuch he may mind thee in a fashion not to thy taste.'
'Sure our King is of a more generous mould!' exclaimed Mrs Headley.
'He is like other men, good mistress, just as you know how to have him, and he is scarce like to be willing to be minded of the taste of mire, or of floundering like a hog in a salt marsh. Ha! ha!' and Quipsome Hal went off into such a laugh as might have betrayed his identity to any one more accustomed to the grimaces of his professional character, but which only infected the others with the same contagious merriment. 'Come thou home now,' he said to Ambrose; 'my good woman hath been in a mortal fright about thee, and would have me come out to seek after thee. Such are the women folk, Master Headley. Let them have but a lad to look after, and they'll bleat after him like an old ewe that has lost her lamb.'
Ambrose only stayed for Dennet to divide the spoil, and though the blackberries had all been lost or crushed, the little maiden kept her promise generously, and filled the bag not only with nuts but with three red-cheeked apples, and a handful of comfits, for the poor little maid who never tasted fruit or sweets.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN. A LONDON HOLIDAY.
'Up then spoke the apprentices tall
Living in London, one and all.'
Another of the many holidays of the Londoners was enjoyed on the occasion of the installation of Thomas Wolsey as Cardinal of Saint Cecilia, and Papal Legate.
A whole assembly of prelates and 'lusty gallant gentlemen' rode out to Blackheath to meet the Roman envoy, who, robed in full splendour, with Saint Peter's keys embroidered on back and breast and on the housings of his mule, appeared at the head of a gallant train in the papal liveries, two of whom carried the gilded pillars, the insignia of office, and two more, a scarlet and gold-covered box or casket containing the Cardinal's hat. Probably no such reception of the dignity was ever prepared elsewhere, and all was calculated to give magnificent ideas of the office of Cardinal and of the power of the Pope to those who had not been let into the secret that the messenger had been met at Dover; and thus magnificently fitted out to satisfy the requirements of the butcher's son of Ipswich, and of one of the most ostentatious of courts.
Old Gaffer Martin Fulford had muttered in his bed that such pomp had not been the way in the time of the true old royal blood, and that display had come in with the upstart slips of the Red Rose-as he still chose to style the Tudors; and he maundered away about the beauty and affability of Edward the Fourth till nobody could understand him, and Perronel only threw in her 'ay, grandad,' or 'yea, gaffer,' when she thought it was expected of her.
Ambrose had an unfailing appetite for the sermons of Dean Colet, who was to preach on this occasion in Westminster Abbey, and his uncle had given him counsel how to obtain standing ground there, entering before the procession. He was alone, his friends Tibble and Lucas both had that part of the Lollard temper which loathed the pride and wealth of the great political clergy, and in spite of their admiration for the Dean they could not quite forgive his taking part in the pomp of such a raree-show.
But Ambrose's devotion to the Dean, to say nothing of youthful curiosity, outweighed all those scruples, and as he listened, he was carried along by the curious sermon in which the preacher likened the orders of the hierarchy below to that of the nine orders of the Angels, making the rank of Cardinal correspond to that of the Seraphim, aglow with love. Of that holy flame, the scarlet robes were the type to the spiritualised mind of Colet, while others saw in them only the relic of the imperial purple of old Rome; and some beheld them as the token that Wolsey was one step nearer the supreme height that he coveted so earnestly. But the great and successful man found himself personally addressed, bidden not to be puffed up with his own greatness, and stringently reminded of the highest example of humility, shown that he that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself be exalted. The preacher concluded with a strong personal exhortation to do righteousness and justice alike to rich and poor, joined with truth and mercy, setting God always before him.
The sermon ended, Wolsey knelt at the altar, and Archbishop Wareham, who, like his immediate predecessors, held legatine authority, performed the act of investiture, placing the scarlet hat with its many loops and tassels on his brother primate's head, after which a magnificent
Ambrose, stationed by a column, let the throng rush, tumble, and jostle one another to behold the show, till the Abbey was nearly empty, while he tried to work out the perplexing question whether all this pomp and splendour were truly for the glory of God, or whether it were a delusion for the temptation of men's souls. It was a debate on which his old and his new guides seemed to him at issue, and he was drawn in both directions-now by the beauty, order, and deep symbolism of the Catholic ritual, now by the spirituality and earnestness of the men among whom he lived. At one moment the worldly pomp, the mechanical and irreverent worship, and the gross and vicious habits of many of the clergy repelled him; at another the reverence and conservatism of his nature held him fast.
Presently he felt a hand on his shoulder, and started, 'Lost in a stud, as we say at home, boy,' said the jester, resplendent in a bran new motley suit. 'Wilt come in to the banquet? 'Tis open house, and I can find thee a seat without disclosing the kinship that sits so sore on thy brother. Where is he?'
'I have not seen him this day.'
'That did I,' returned Randall, 'as I rode by on mine ass. He was ruffling it so lustily that I could not but give him a wink, the which my gentleman could by no means stomach! Poor lad! Yet there be times, Ambrose, when I feel in sooth that mine office is the only honourable one, since who besides can speak truth? I love my lord; he is a kind, open-handed master, and there's none I would so willingly serve, whether by jest or earnest, but what is he but that which I oft call him in joke-the greater fool than I, selling peace and ease, truth and hope, this life and the next, for yonder scarlet hat, which is after all of no more worth than this jingling head-gear of mine.'
