Then, with huge gestures of his hands, he uttered the words—
“This is the very word of God,” and began to read from the pages of his Bible. He read first the story of David and Saul, his great voice trembling with ecstasy.
“This David is our King,” he said. “This Saul that he slew is the Beast of Rome. The Solomon that cometh after shall be the gracious princeling that ye wot of, for already he is wise beyond his years and beyond most grown men.”
The citizens around the walls cried “Amen.” And because the strangers tarried to come, he called to his journeymen that stood in the inner doorway to bring him the sheets of the Bible whereon he had printed the story of Ehud and Eglon.
“This king that ye shall hear of as being slain,” he cried out, “is that foul bird the Kaiser Carl, that harries the faithful in Almain. This good man that shall slay him is some German lord. Who he shall be we know not yet; maybe it shall be this very stranger that tonight shall sit to hear us.”
His brethren muttered a low, deep, and uniform prayer that soon, soon the Lord should send them this boon.
But he had not got beyond the eleventh verse of this history before there came from without a sound of trumpets, and through the windows the light of torches and the scarlet of the guard that, it was said, the King had sent to do honour to this stranger.
“Come in, be ye who ye may!” the printer cried to the knockers at his door.
There entered the hugest masked man that they ever had seen. All in black he was, and horrifying and portentous he strode in. His sleeves and shoulders were ballooned after the German fashion, his sword clanked on the tiles. He was a vision of black, for his mask that appeared as big as another man’s garment covered all his face, though they could see he had a grey beard when sitting down. He gazed at the fire askance.
He said—his voice was heavy and husky—
“Gruesset Gott,” and those of the citizens that had painfully attained to so much of that tongue answered him with—
“Lobet den Herr im Himmels Reich!”
He had with him one older man that wore a half-mask, and was trembling and clean-shaven, and one younger, that was English, to act as interpreter when it was needed. He was clean-shaven, too, and in the English habit he appeared thin and tenuous. They said he was a gentleman of the Archbishop’s, and that his name was Lascelles.
He opened the meeting with saying that these great strangers were come from beyond the seas, and would hear answers to certain questions. He took a paper from his pouch and said that, in order that he might stick to the points that these strangers would know of, he had written down those questions on that paper.
“How say ye, masters?” he finished. “Will ye give answers to these questions truly, and of your knowledge?”
“Aye will we,” the printer said, “for to that end we are gathered here. Is it not so, my masters?”
And the assembly answered—
“Aye, so it is.”
Lascelles read from his paper:
“How is it with this realm of England?”
The printer glanced at the paper that was upon his lectern. He made answer—
“Well! But not over well!”
And at these words Lascelles feigned surprise, lifting his well-shapen and white hand in the air.
“How is this that ye say?” he uttered. “Are ye all of this tale?”
A deep “Aye!” came from all these chests. There was one old man that could never keep still. He had huge limbs, a great ruffled poll of grizzling hair, and his legs that were in jerkins of red leather kicked continuously in little convulsions. He peered every minute at some new thing, very closely, holding first his tablets so near that he could see only with one eye, then the whistle that hung round his neck, then a little piece of paper that he took from his poke. He cried out in a deep voice—“Aye! aye! Not over well. Witchcraft and foul weather and rocks, my mates and masters all!” so that he appeared to be a seaman—and indeed he traded to the port of Antwerp, in the Low Countries, where he had learned of some of the Faith.
“Why,” Lascelles said, “be ye not contented with our goodly King?”
“Never was a better since Solomon ruled in Jewry,” the shipman cried out.
“Is it, then, the Lords of the King’s Council that ye are discontented with?”
“Nay, they are goodly men, for they are of the King’s choosing,” one answered—a little man with a black pill-hat.
“Why, speak through your leader,” the stranger said heavily from the hearth-place. “Here is too much skimble-skamble.” The old man beside him leaned over his chair-back and whispered in his ear. But the stranger shook his head heavily. He sat and gazed at the brands. His great hands were upon his knees, pressed down, but now and again they moved as if he were in some agony.
“It is well that ye do as the Lord commandeth,” Lascelles said; “for in Almain, whence he cometh, there is wont to be a great order and observance.” He held his paper up again to the light. “Master Printer, answer now to this question: Find ye aught amiss with the judges and justices of this realm?”
“Nay; they do judge indifferent well betwixt cause and cause,” the printer answered from his paper.
“Or with the serjeants, the apparitors, the collectors of taxes, or the Parliament men?”
“These, too, perform indifferent well their appointed tasks,” the printer said gloomily.
“Or is
