CHAPTER XVIII.
Traffic is thy god.--Timon.
"By my faith!" cried the Earl of Darby, as soon as they foundthemselves in the street, or rather lane, before the dwelling of SirCesar, "I know not in the least where we are; and if I had known itbefore, my brain is so unsettled with all this strange sight, that Ishould have forgotten it now. Which way did we turn?"
"The other way! the other way!" cried Sir Osborne, "and then to theright."
"Pray, sir, can you tell me where the devil I am?" demanded the earl,when they had reached the bottom of the lane, addressing a man who waswalking slowly past.
"I'll tell you what, my young gallant," answered the man, "if youdon't march home with your foolery, I'll lock you up. I am theconstable of the watch."
"It is my _way_ home that I want to know, friend constable," repliedthe earl. "For, 'fore God! I know not where I am any more than anew-born child, who, though he comes into the world without asking theway, finds himself very strange when he is in it."
"Why, marry, thou art at the back of Baynard's Castle, sir fool,"replied the constable.
"Ay; then I shall find my road," said the earl. "Thank thee, honestconstable; thou art a pleasant fellow, and a civil, and hast riskedhaving thy pate broken to-night more than thou knowest. So, fare theewell!" and turning away, he led his companion through various windinglanes into a broader street, which at length conducted them to themansion of the Duke of Buckingham.
"Now, by my faith, Darnley, or Maurice, or whatever you please to becalled," said the earl, "if you have any hospitality in your nature,you will give me board and lodging for a night. May you make so freewith the good duke's house?"
"Most willingly will I do it," said Sir Osborne, "and find myself nowdoubly happy in his grace's request, to use his mansion as if it weremy own."
"Were I you," said Lord Darby, "and had so much of Buckingham'sregard, I would hear more of that strange man, if he be a man, SirCesar; for 'tis said that the duke and Sir John Morton are the onlypersons that know who and what he really is. God help us! we have seenas strange a sight to-night as mortal eyes ever beheld."
"I have heard one of my companions in arms relate that a circumstanceprecisely similar happened to himself in Italy," replied the knight."The famous magician, Cornelius Agrippa, showed him out of friendshipa glass, wherein he beheld the lady of his love reading one of his ownletters,[10] which thing she was doing, as he ascertained afterwards,at the very minute and day that the glass was shown to him. I neverthought, however, to have seen anything like it myself."
It may be easily supposed that various were the remarks andconjectures of the two young noblemen during the rest of the evening,but with these it will be unnecessary to trouble the reader. Sufficeit that we have translated as literally as possible the account whichVonderbrugius gives of the circumstances; nor shall we make anycomment on the facts, leaving it to the reader's own mind to form whatconclusion he may think right. Whether the whole was an artifice onthe part of Sir Cesar, aided by strongly-excited imagination ontheirs, each person must judge for himself; but certain it is thatthey both firmly believed that they saw the same thing; and, as in thewell-known case of Lord Surrey, the argument is of avail, that themagician had no object or interest in deceiving those to whom hedisplayed his powers. The effect, however, upon the mind of SirOsborne was to give him new hope and courage; for so completely hadthe former prediction of Sir Cesar been fulfilled, that though hemight still doubt, yet his very hesitation leant to the side of hope.
Lord Darby laughed, and vowed 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange,and wrote it down in his tablets, lest he should not believe a word ofit the next morning. When the morning came, however, he found that hisbelief had not fled; and before leaving Sir Osborne, he talked overthe business with more gravity than he could usually command. Manyarrangements also were necessary to be made in regard to the knight'sintroduction to the court; but at length it was agreed that the earlshould account for his acquaintance with Sir Osborne by saying thattheir parents had been friends, and that, having been educated in thecourt of Burgundy, the knight was then in England for the first timesince his youth.
"All this is true," said Lord Darby, "for my father was well known toyours, though, perhaps, they could hardly be called friends; but,however, there are not above two grains of lie to an ounce of truth,so it will poison no one."
When all their plans were finally settled, Lord Darby took leave ofthe knight, and left him to make his preparations for the nextmorning. As soon as he had departed, Sir Osborne called for his horse,and, accompanied by Longpole, of whom he had seen little since hisarrival in London, set out for the house of the honest Flemishmerchant, William Hans, from whom, as we have said, he expected sundrysums of money.
As they proceeded, the worthy custrel, who, for the purpose of showinghim the way, rode by his side (permitting him, nevertheless, to keepabout a yard in advance), did not fail to take advantage of theirproximity to regale the knight's ears with many a quaint remark uponthe great bee-hive, as he called it, in which they were.
"Lord! Lord!" said he, "to think of the swarm of honey-getting, orrather money-getting insects, that here toil from morn to night, butto pile up within their narrow cells that sweet trash which, afterall, is none of theirs; for ever and anon comes my good lord king, themaster of the hive, and smokes them for a subsidy. Look at yon fatfellow, your worship! For God's sake, look at him! How proud he seems,waddling forward under the majesty of his belly! Well, if a paunchlike that be the damnation attached to an alderman's gown, heavenabsolve me from city feasts, I say! And his lean follower; see! withthe quill behind his ear, and inkhorn at his button, so meagre, as ifhe wished to mock his master's fatness. Oh! 'tis the way, 'tis theway; the fat merchant seems to absorb all the lean clerk's portion.Everything begets its like; fat gets fat, riches get riches, and evenleanness grows more lean, as it were, by living upon itself. Now tothe left, your worship, up that paved court."
The house of the merchant now stood before them, and Sir Osborne,dismounting from his horse, advanced to the door of what seemed to bea small dark counting-house, in which he found an old man, with many abook and many a slate before him, busily employed in adding to themultitude of little black marks with which the page under his eyes wascumbered.
In answer to the knight's inquiry for Master William Hans, he repliedthat he was in the warehouse, where he might find him if he wished tosee him. "Stay, stay! I will show you the way," cried he, with readypoliteness. "Lord, sir! our warehouse is a wilderness, wherein a manmight lose himself with blessed facility. Thanks be to God therefor;for on May-day, three years last past, called 'Evil May-day,' weshould have lost our good master, when the prentices, and watermen,and pick-purses, and vagabonds, broke into all the aliens' houses, andinjured many; but, happily, he hid himself under a pile of stockfish,which was in the far end of the little warehouse, to the left of thebarrel-room, so that they found him not."
While he pronounced this oration, the old clerk locked carefully thedoor of the counting-house, and led the knight into an immense vaultedchamber, wherein were piled on every side all kinds of things, ofevery sort and description that human ingenuity can apply to thesupply of its necessities or the gratification of its appetites. Onone side were displayed a thousand articles of foreign produce ormanufacture brought thither for the English market, and on the otherappeared the various productions of England, destined soon to bespread over half the world. The objects that met the eye were not morevarious than the smells that assailed the nose. Here was the deliciousodour of salted fish, there the delicate scent of whale oil; here dryskins spread their perfume around, and there a cask of fresh tallowwasted its sweetness on the warehouse air; while through the whole wasperceived, as a general medium for all the rest, the agglomeratedstink of a hundred unventilated years.
Making his way through all, Sir Osborne proceeded directly towards thespot where a small window in the roof poured its light upon a largebarrel, the conten
ts of which were undergoing inspection by the worthyFleming whom he sought. In Flanders the knight had known the goodburgess well, and had been sure to receive a visit from him wheneverbusiness had called his steps from his adopted to his native country.There might be both an eye to gratitude and an eye to interest in thisproceeding of Master William Hans; for the knight had twice procuredhim a large commission for the army, and, what was still more in thosedays, had procured him payment.
On perceiving his visitor in the present instance, the merchant caughtup his black furred gown, which he had thrown off while busied in lessdignified occupations, and having hastily insinuated his arms into thesleeves, advanced to meet the knight with a bow of profound respect."Welcome back to England, my lord!" cried he, in very good English,which could only be distinguished as proceeding from the mouth of aforeigner by a slight accent and a peculiar intonation. "Coot now, mylord, I hope you have not given up your company in Flanders. I havesuch a cargo of beans in the mouth of the Scheldt, it would havesuited the army very well indeet."
"But, my good Master Hans," answered the knight, "the army itself isgiven up since the peace. When I left Lisle, there were scarce threecompanies left."
After a good deal more of such preliminary conversation, in the courseof which the knight explained to the merchant the necessity of keepinghis name and title secret for the present, they proceeded to thearrangement of those affairs which yet remained unconcluded betweenthem. Conducting the knight back to the counting-house, William Hansturned over several of his great books, looking for the accounts.
"Here it is, I think," he cried, at length. "No! that is the Lady deGrey's."
"Lady Constance de Grey?" demanded Sir Osborne, in some surprise.
"Yes, yes!" answered the merchant. "I receive all the money for hermother's estates, who was a French lady. Did for her father, too, tillthe coot old lord died. Oh! it was hard work in the time of the war;but I got a Paris Jew to transmit the money to a Flemish Jew, who sentit over to me. They cot ten per cent. the thieves! for commission, butthat very thing saved the estates; for they would have been forfeitedby the old king Louis, if the Jew, who had given him money in hisneed, had not made such a noise about it, for fear of losing his tenper cent, that the king let it pass. Ah! here is the account. First,we have not settled since I furnished the wine for the companie, whenthey had the fever. Five hundred chioppines of wine, at a croat thechioppine, make just twenty-five marks: received thirty marks; fivecarried to your name. Then for the ransom of the Sire de Beaujeu: youput him at a ransom of two thousand crowns, not knowing who he was,but he has sent you six thousand; because, he says, he would not beransomed like an ?cuyer. Creat fool! Why the devil, when he could getoff for a little, pay a much?"[11]
"No true knight but would do the same," replied Sir Osborne. "It wasonly by my permission that he got away at all: therefore he was boundin honour to pay the full ransom of a person of his condition."
"Well, then," said the Fleming, "here comes the ransom of twoesquires, gentlemen they call themselves, five hundred crowns each,making in the whole seven thousand crowns, or two thousand six hundredand twenty-five marks. Then there is against you, freight and carriageof armour and goods, four marks; exchange and commission, three marks;porterage, a croat; warehouse-room, two croats: balance for you, twothousand six hundred and seventeen marks, five shillings, and twocroats, which I am ready to pay you, as well as to deliver the twosuits of harness and the packages."
"The money, at present, I do not want," replied Sir Osborne; "but Iwill be glad if you would send the arms, and the rest of the packages,to the manor of the Rose, in St. Lawrence Poultney."
"To the coot Duke of Buckingham's? Ah! that I will, that I will! But Ihope you will stay and take your noon-meal with me; though I know youmen of war do not like the company of us merchants. But I will say, Ihave never found you any way proud."
"I would most willingly, Master Hans," answered the knight; "but I goto the court to-morrow for the first time, and I have no smallpreparation to make with tailors and broiderers."
"Oh! stay with me, stay with me, and I will fit you to your desire,"answered the Fleming. "There is a tailor lives hard by who will suityou well. I am not going to give you a man who can make nothing but aburgomaster's gown or a merchant's doublet. I know your cootcompanions would laugh, and say you had had a merchant's tailor; butthis is a man who, if you like it, shall stuff out your breeches tillyou can't sit down, make all the seams by a plumb-line, tighten yourgirdle till you have no more waist than a wasp; and, moreover, he istailor to the Duke of Suffolk."
The knight found this recommendation quite sufficient; and agreeing todine with the honest Fleming, the tailor was sent for, who, with agreat display of sartorial learning, devised several suits, in whichSir Osborne might appear at court, without being either so gaudy asthe butterflies of the day, or so plain as to call particularattention. The only difficulty was to know whether the tailor couldfurnish a complete suit for the knight, and one for each of his fourattendants, by the next morning; but after much calculation, andsumming up of all the friendly tailors within his knowledge, heundertook to do it; and, what is wonderful for a tailor, kept hisword.