Arthur Frederick Wallis

“ Many a time have I stood on a rise of ground between the Abbey, whence it is said we take our name of Cleeve, and the hamlet on the cliff above the seashore, gazing out upon the brave show of ships with all sails set, the mariners hauling at the ropes or leaning over the sides of their vessels; and wondered what rich cargo it was they carried from outlandish ports, until a kind of pity grew in me for my father in his little room with his rumpled ruff and his Logick and Physick and Ethick, and his carrier's cart at the door with Ethick and Physick and Logick over again. ”

“ A man must feel humbled by the magnitude of that he asks of a maid, but all I could say was, brokenly: "I will try to be worthy, sweetheart." Poor words, but she thanked me for them joyfully. She besought me to let her rest soon, and we sat down by a weather-twisted pile at the water's edge, for I could not run into the jeopardy that might lurk amid the inhospitable dark houses of this place, where everything oppressed with a sense of evil. My cloak kept off the worst of the rain, but, as the rising wind swept across the river, Idonia shivered with the cold. ”

“ Enos Procter, whom she knew, and bade me read in it.
"Lord!" said I, very grave, for I had never seen so intricate and mysterious a labyrinth of words and cyphers as she then discovered. "If Dives the rich man got his wealth that way, I suppose his life to have been something less easy than our divines would have us believe."
"It is a ledger-book," said Idonia.
"Let it be what it will," said I, "it is more than I bargained for."
"Nay, but observe this superscription," she went on, eagerly, "where it commenceth as is customary: Laus Deo in London, and so following." ”

“ And soon he ceased altogether, laying aside his knife and platter and clearing his throat with a sort of sob (which was the prelude to as moving a tale as ever I heard) and resting his great bearded cheek upon his hand.
"Why, what ails you, master sergeant?" cried Dame Nelson in quick compassion; but it was to his brother, and not her, that he replied—
"You spake truly, Gregory," said he, "when you told Master Cleeve that no man loveth to think of a villain at large if he be of one's own family. But you spake it to my shame."
"I intended it not so, truly," said the warden very earnestly. ”

“ She answered below her breath: "'Tis rather I am a maid to be scorned, methinks.... Oh, look not so!" she added swiftly, "I must go within.... If they should know you have come..."
"Who should know?" cried I, very big; "and what care I who knows? I am not accustomed to shun them that question my behaviour."
"No, no, you are brave," said she, "and 'tis there that my peril lies, if not your own. You may defend yourself, a man may do so having a sword. But we women have no weapon."
"Who would hurt you?" I asked, moving a step back to the gate. "Not Guido Malpas, I warrant, this many a day." ”

“ At every rustle of wind he staggered so he could scarce stand, and had it not been for the invigorating coolness of my sword upon the nape of his neck, he would have fled thence an hundred times. Yet for all the dangers (to call them so) of our stolen march, the thought that stood in the front of my mind was: What lover, since the world began, hath gone in this fashion to his mistress? For insensibly my intention had narrowed down to the mere necessity of seeing Idonia again. ”

“ The sky was now as black as night, with great hurrying clouds urged on as it seemed by the pitiless goad of lightning that lacerated them as they thundered by. Wave after wave swept over us as we rose and fell, abject and waterlogged, now lying low in the lane of waters, now impelled to the summit from which we looked forth as from a falling tower in whose ruin we were presently to be involved.... ”

“ I said to myself, and strained my ears to listen for a renewal of the sound. Within the room all expected in a sudden silence what should ensue. It came again; a dull noise as of men that rammed at the door with a heavy beam.
"I had thought they had gone," said one, in a thick voice.
"'Twas a fetch of theirs."
"The cellar door is strong," said the tapster Jocelin, but without confidence. "It will last."
"Until what time?" asked my uncle, mocking them. "And then, whence will you escape, you rats?"
One had blown out the light at the first alarm, and they conferred in the absolute dark. ”

“ Contempt is very close to joy in a lad's heart, and his valour rouses (like old Rome) to the summons of the goose-voice within him.
Some six months had passed since the steward first acquainted me with the calamity which had made shipwreck of my father's life, when, upon a memorable, clear, October morning, I rode forth as my custom was, intending to shape my course towards the little hamlet of Roodwater, and so by the flats to Dunster. The orchard-trees about the old Abbey were rimed with frost, and a keenness in the air lifted me so that I could have wept or sung indifferently. ”

“ Now so struck with amazement was I, no less by the suddenness of this recognition than by the satire that Idonia's innocent speech implied, as I could answer nothing; but leaving the handling my sword, I stood resigned to what should follow.
"I think we be hardly friends yet," said Skene, with a laugh of great good nature, "and 'twould be a bolder coroner than I, who should pronounce all enmity dead between us. ”

“ Take a town for all in all, in its sadness and pleasure, the shows that pass through it, the proclamations of kings, the tolling of the great bell, marshallings of men-at-arms and sermons of clerks; whatever it be distracts or engages it, I say you will find, take all in all, full the ten twelfths of a town's business to lie in the mere getting of wealth. ”

“ Idonia had half risen from her place; she watched the retreating men as they filed along towards the Inn.
"I must warn him," she cried impetuously, and had clambered on to the turf path ere I could let her.
"What madness is this?" I urged, aghast. "You would yourself be arrested or ever you could get sight of that devil."
"Devil or no," she panted, while she struggled to unclasp my restraining arms, "devil or no, he is my guardian. Denis, I cannot stand by idle and see him taken."
"Sweetheart," I entreated her, "you can do nought, indeed. They be all armed men..." ”

“ Am I not in the right, Master Cleeve?" he ended, on a note of some sharpness.
I looked up at that, first at Idonia to see how she took the matter, and then at Skene.
"You are right," said I, "seeing you stole my money."
"I knew your answer before you spoke it," replied Skene, nodding; "but yet I am glad 'tis out, for all that. A hidden grievance is like a dagger worn without a scabbard, that often hurts him that carries it more than him he means to use it against. Nay, I am not angry," he said with a motion of his hand. "Your case seemed to you perfect; I do not blame you. ”

“ Upon the great open gallery he paused as in doubt which way to proceed, and, to speak justly, 'twould have puzzled a wiser man in that dimness to pursue any right course between the huge bales and chests of sea-merchandise that pestered our passage. Nay, even the very roof and ceilings were become warehouses, so that once I espied so great a thing as a ship's cockboat slung from the rafters above our heads, and once rasped my cheek against the dried slough of a monstrous water-snake that some adventurer had doubtless brought home from the Indies. ”

“ The wind and rain were now increased to such a pitch as I have scarce known: the dim bulk of the Inn hung in a mist of swinging vapour, through which the glimmer of the one light aloft, shining, touched the edges of the slanted pikes.
Idonia was plucking weakly at my sleeve. Her eyes were pitifully big. "You look distressed, Denis," she said, in a crazed dull voice. "Why do you look so stern and sad? We are together.... ”

“ For chancing to lift my eyes to one of the houses that be here builded by the water's edge, and serve doubtless for the storage of marine stores and tackle, I saw a man, and after, another, and then a whole posse of men armed with cuirass and halberd, that advanced directly towards us. Idonia saw them almost at the same moment, and seeming to recover her wits in the suddenness of the danger, she broke off, and turned to me with a swift glance of inquiry. ”

“ Nay, I went further, for neglecting the current rumours and plain news even, that all stood not well with the State, I applied myself to my accompts and disbursements, deriding Mr. Secretary Cecil and the Queen's Council for a parcel of busybodies, and reducing the policy of England to the compass of a balance sheet.
And yet, had I had the wit to know it, we were at that season come into a crisis where bills of lading availed little, and the petty laws of invection and navigation seemed like to be rudely set aside for the sterner laws of conquest and foreign tyranny. ”

“ Ah! there be some," he interjected, in a whining voice, "there be some that would buy up all Jewry for a parcel of bawdy, torn ballads. Art not ashamed, Ptolemy Philpot, thou a Christian man, to purchase so divine a tragedy for so mean a sum?" But the invisible Ptolemy not replying, the invisible Skegs proceeded:
"Well, thou hast heard my price, master, which is three pounds sixteen shillings in all, and look you! to avoid all bitterness and to make an end, I will throw in the parchment beasts of the Deluge for the same." ”

“ Howbeit, one, whom I took (and rightly) to be Ptolemy, burst into laughter at this my detected intrusion, and bade me step forward and judge betwixt them. He was a big man, with a child's face for all that he wore a great beard, and a terrible nose of the colour of the stone they call agate, it being veined too and marvellous shining. Yet his voice was small like a child's, and I saw at once that in any bargain he was like to get the worse of it. The other man, whose name was Skegs, had a woeful pallor, but an undaunted behaviour and a very fierce eye. ”

“ Perceiving that he had his finger pressed to the snaphance, and the barrel turned my way, I judged it expedient to leave Mr. Jocelin to his polishing and retire. Every avenue then was guarded, as I had looked it should be, and so, without any particular design, I walked slowly up the narrow, rotten stair into the chambers aloft. I went into three or four, all vacant and ungarnished by any piece of furniture or hanging, which meant sorry enough entertainment in a place purporting to be an inn, thought I, though proper enough to a prison. ”

“ My uncle Botolph and Skene were one. And here, beyond belief, I held 'twixt my naked finger and thumb the steelyard by which my uncle's fate should be weighed, who had crossed me at every turn. A word of mine, and he that had first ruined my father's life, and after had robbed him of his fortune, might be contemptuously blotted out, as a man blots out some gross error in a letter he has writ; for that was how Malpas would serve him, could I bring myself to say he stood for the Queen. A little word spoken, and he was condemned, but I was free ... I and Idonia! ”

“ Then I looked again down upon the yard before the house, with its fine brick gate upon the road, and behind the house, upon the base court with the offices beside it, and the stables beyond, and beyond again the green bottom of the combe and the cattle feeding. It was a fair estate, and one that no man would encumber in a trivial cause. But once before it had been so laid under bond, which was, as my father said, in order to the advancement of the glory of God; and now, the second time 'twas so to be for no better purpose than the enlargement of a traitor. ”

“ Methought the countryside had never seemed so pleasant as now under its web of frost, and the trees a kind of blue of the colour of silver-work tarnished by age, the sky red behind them reaching up from grey. I left the middle part of the town soon and got into the lanes, where at length I came by chance upon an ancient mill, which was once, I learned, a monkish mill whither every man had perforce to bring his grain to be ground. Now as I stood idly by the gate of the mill-house I heard voices of men in talk, and, without further intention, could not but catch some words of their discourse. ”

“ I cried out, and you came. You always come when they would be hurting me.... It is very cold," she shivered, and drew down more closely within my arms; all wet as her cheek was, its fever heat burnt through to my bosom.
"You cannot walk," I said: "I will carry you." But all the while I was thinking: "Is her reason gone?"
"Whither, Denis? To the Inn? It would be warm there, out of the wind."
"God forbid!" I answered her.
"Ah! no ... I remember now. He is there.... His yellow face, and his eyes when he gave me the jar to keep! ... Denis, Denis, Denis..." ”

“ He straightened his back at that, and looking me very proudly in the face replied: "My name is Andrew Plat, and by the grace of Heaven I am a lyrical poet."
Upon the sudden I recalled Mr. Jordan. "So," I thought, "'tis the worthy that stole my lord Pembroke's buttery-beer." However, all I said was: "I think I have not read any of your writing, Mr. Plat."
"'Tis very possible," said he, "for I write less than I think: and indeed publish less than I write."
"And how standeth it with your fasting, Master Poet?" ”