greet her, than she began, 'Master Alderman Headley, I am here to know what you have done with my poor son!'
'Alack, good cousin!'
'Alack me no alacks,' she interrupted, holding up her riding rod. 'I'll have no dissembling, there hath been enough of that, Giles Headley. Thou hast sold him, soul and body, to one of yon cruel, bloodthirsty plundering, burning captains, that the poor child may be slain and murthered! Is this the fair promises you made to his father- wiling him away from his poor mother, a widow, with talking of teaching him the craft, and giving him your daughter! My son, Tiptoff here, told me the spousal was delayed and delayed, and he doubted whether it would ever come off, but I thought not of this sending him beyond seas, to make merchandise of him. And you call yourself an alderman! The gown should be stript off the back of you, and shall be, if there be any justice in London for a widow woman.'
'Nay, cousin, you have heard some strange tale,' said Master Headley, who, much as he would have dreaded the attack beforehand, faced it the more calmly and manfully because the accusation was so outrageous.
'Ay, so I told her,' began her son-in-law, 'but she hath been neither to have nor to hold since the-'
'And how should I be to have or to hold by a nincompoop like thee,' she said, turning round on him, 'that would have me sit down and be content forsooth, when mine only son is kidnapped to be sold to the Turks or to work in the galleys, for aught I know.'
'Mistress!' here Master Hope's voice came in, 'I would counsel you to speak less loud, and hear before you accuse. We of the City of London know Master Alderman Headley too well to hear him railed against.'
'Ah! you're all of a piece,' she began; but by this time Master Tiptoff had managed at least to get her into the hall, and had exchanged words enough with the alderman to assure himself that there was an explanation, nay, that there was a letter from Giles himself. This the indignant mother presently was made to understand-and as the alderman had borrowed the letter in order to copy it for her, it was given to her. She could not read, and would trust no one but her son-in-law to read it to her. 'Yea, you have it very pat,' she said, 'but how am I to be assured 'tis not all writ here to hoodwink a poor woman like me.'
''Tis Giles's hand,' averred Tiptoff.
'And if you will,' added the alderman, with wonderful patience, 'to-morrow you may speak with the youth who received it. Come, sit down and sup with us, and then you shall learn from Smallbones how this mischance befel, all from my sending two young heads together, and one who, though a good fellow, could not hold all in rule.'
'Ay-you've your reasons for anything,' she muttered, but being both weary and hungry, she consented to eat and drink, while Tiptoff, who was evidently ashamed of her violence, and anxious to excuse it, managed to explain that a report had been picked up at Romsey, by a bare-footed friar from Salisbury, that young Giles Headley had been seen at Ghent by one of the servants of a wool merchant, riding with a troop of Free Companions in the Emperor's service. All the rest was deduced from this intelligence by the dame's own imagination.
After supper she was invited to interrogate Kit and Stephen, and her grief and anxiety found vent in fierce scolding at the misrule which had permitted such a villain as Fulford to be haunting and tempting poor fatherless lads. Master Headley had reproached poor Kit for the same thing, but he could only represent that Giles, being a freeman, was no longer under his authority. However, she stormed on, being absolutely convinced that her son's evasion was every one's fault but his own. Now it was the alderman for misusing him, overtasking the poor child, and deferring the marriage, now it was that little pert poppet, Dennet, who had flouted him, now it was the bad company he had been led into-the poor babe who had been bred to godly ways.
The alderman was really sorry for her, and felt himself to blame so far as that he had shifted the guidance of the expedition to such an insufficient head as poor Smallbones, so he let her rail on as much as she would, till the storm exhausted itself, and she settled into the trust that Giles would soon grow weary and return. The good man felt bound to show her all hospitality, and the civilities to country cousins were in proportion to the rarity of their visits. So Mrs Headley stayed on after Tiptoff's return to Salisbury, and had the best view feasible of all the pageants and diversions of autumn. She saw some magnificent processions of clergy, she was welcomed at a civic banquet and drank of the loving cup, and she beheld the Lord Mayor's Show in all its picturesque glory of emblazoned barges on the river. In fact, she found the position of denizen of an alderman's household so very agreeable that she did her best to make it a permanency. Nay, Dennet soon found that she considered herself to be waiting there and keeping guard till her son's return should establish her there, and that she viewed the girl already as a daughter-for which Dennet was by no means obliged to her! She lavished counsel on her hostess, found fault with the maidens, criticised the cookery, walked into the kitchen and still- room with assistance and directions, and even made a strong effort to possess herself of the keys.
It must be confessed that Dennet was saucy! It was her weapon of self- defence, and she considered herself insulted in her own house.
There she stood, exalted on a tall pair of pattens before the stout oaken table in the kitchen where a glowing fire burned; pewter, red and yellow earthenware, and clean scrubbed trenchers made a goodly show, a couple of men-cooks and twice as many scullions obeyed her behests-only the superior of the two first ever daring to argue a point with her. There she stood, in her white apron, with sleeves turned up, daintily compounding her mince-meat for Christmas, when in stalked Mrs Headley to offer her counsel and aid-but this was lost in a volley of barking from the long-backed, bandy-legged, turnspit dog, which was awaiting its turn at the wheel, and which ran forward, yapping with malign intentions towards the dame's scarlet-hosed ankles.
She shook her petticoats at him, but Dennet tittered even while declaring that Tray hurt nobody. Mrs Headley reviled the dog, and then proceeded to advise Dennet that she should chop her citron finer. Dennet made answer 'that father liked a good stout piece of it.' Mistress Headley offered to take the chopper and instruct her how to compound all in the true Sarum style.
'Grammercy, mistress, but we follow my grand-dame's recipe!' said Dennet, grasping her implement firmly.
'Come, child, be not above taking a lesson from thine elders! Where's the goose? What?' as the girl looked amazed, 'where hast thou lived not to know that a live goose should be bled into the mince-meat?'
'I have never lived with barbarous, savage folk,' said Dennet-and therewith she burst into an irrepressible fit of laughter, trying in vain to check it, for a small and mischievous elf, freshly promoted to the office of scullion, had crept up and pinned a dish-cloth to the substantial petticoats, and as Mistress Headley whisked round to see what was the matter, like a kitten after its tail, it followed her like a train, while she rushed to box the ears of the offender, crying:
'You set him on, you little saucy vixen! I saw it in your eyes. Let the rascal be scourged.'
'Not so,' said Dennet, with prim mouth and laughing eyes. 'Far be it from me! But 'tis ever the wont of the kitchen, when those come there who have no call thither.'
Mistress Headley flounced away, dish-cloth and all, to go whimpering to the alderman with her tale of insults. She trusted that her cousin would give the pert wench a good beating. She was not a whit too old for it.
'How oft did you beat Giles, good kinswoman?' said Dennet demurely, as she stood by her father.
'Whisht, whisht, child,' said her father, 'this may not be! I cannot have my guest flouted.'
'If she act as our guest, I will treat her with all honour and courtesy,' said the maiden; 'but when she comes where we look not for guests, there is no saying what the black guard may take it on them to do.'
Master Headley was mischievously tickled at the retort, and not without hope that it might offend his kinswoman into departing; but she contented herself with denouncing all imaginable evils from Dennet's ungoverned condition, with which she was prevented in her beneficence from interfering by the father's foolish fondness. He would rue the day!
Meantime if the alderman's peace on one side was disturbed by his visitor, on the other, suitors for Dennet's hand gave him little rest. She was known to be a considerable heiress, and though Mistress Headley gave every one to understand that there was a contract with Giles, and that she was awaiting his return, this did not deter more wooers than Dennet ever knew of, from making proposals to her father. Jasper Hope was offered, but he was too young, and besides, was a mercer-and Dennet and her father were agreed that her husband must go on with the trade. Then there was a master-armourer, but he was a widower with sons and daughters as old as Dennet, and she shook her head and laughed at the bare notion. There also came a young knight who would have turned the Dragon court into a tilt-yard, and spent all the gold that long years of prudent toil had amassed.
If Mistress Headley deemed each denial the result of her vigilance for her son's interests, she was the more impelled to expatiate on the folly of leaving a maid of sixteen to herself, to let the household go to rack and ruin;
