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Darnley

<h4>CHAPTER XXVII.</h4><div class="poem0" style="margin-left:15%"> Norfolk.--What, are you chafed? Ask God for temperance; that's the appliance only Which your disease requires.--Shakspere. </div> As the day passed on, Sir Osborne grew more and more impatient under his confinement. He felt a sort of degradation in being thus pent up, like a wild beast in a cage; and though with invincible patience he had lain a thousand times more still in many an ambuscade, he felt an almost irresistible desire to unbolt the door, and assure himself that he was really at large, by going forth and exercising his limbs in the free air. But then came the remembrance that such a proceeding would almost infallibly transfer him to a still stricter prison, where, instead of being voluntary and but for one day, his imprisonment would be forced and long-continued. The thought, too, of Constance de Grey, and the hope of winning her yet, gave great powers of endurance; and he contented himself with every now and then marching up and down the little chamber, which, taken transversely, just afforded him space for three steps and a-half, and at other times with speaking in a whisper to Longpole, who, having brought the armour down with him, sat in one corner, polishing off any little dim spots that the damp of the night air might have left upon it. "This is very tiresome," said the knight. "Very tiresome, indeed, my lord!" replied Longpole. "I've been fancying myself a blackbird in a wicker cage for the last hour. May I whistle?" "No, no," cried the knight. "Give me the casque; I will polish that by way of doing something. Don't you think, Longpole, if underneath the volant-piece a stout sort of avantaille were carried down, about an inch broad and two inches long, of hard steel, it would prevent the visor from being borne in, as I have often seen, by the blow of a solid lance?" "Yes," answered Longpole; "but it would prevent your lordship from blowing your nose. Oh! I do hate improvement, my lord. Depend upon it, 'tis the worst thing in the world. Men improve, and improve, and improve, till they leave nothing that's original on the earth. I would wager your lordship a hundred marks, that, by two or three hundred years hence, people will have so improved their armour that there will be none at all." "Zounds, Bill!" cried a voice in the warehouse, "don't you hear some folks talking?" "It's some one in the street," answered another voice. "Yet it sounded vastly near, too." This, however, was quite sufficient warning for the knight to be silent; and taking up one of the books upon which he had been sitting, he found that it was an English version of the Bible, with copies of which it appears that Master William Hans was in the habit of supplying the English protestants. Our mother Eve's bad old habit of prying into forbidden sources of knowledge affects us all more or less; and as the Bible was at that time prohibited in England, except to the clergy, Sir Osborne very naturally opened it and began reading. What effect its perusal had upon his mind matters little: suffice it that he read on, and found sufficient matter of interest therein to occupy him fully. Hour after hour fled, and day waned slowly; but having once laid his hand upon that book, the knight no longer felt the tardy current of the time, and night fell before the day which he anticipated as so tedious seemed to have half passed away. A long while elapsed, after the darkness had interrupted Sir Osborne in his study, before the warehouse was closed for the night; which, however, was no sooner accomplished than good Master Hans, accompanied by his friend Skippenhausen, came to deliver them from their confinement. "He! he! he!" cried the merchant, as they came forth. "Did you hear what a noise they made, my coot lord, when they came searching this morning? They did not find them, though, for they were all in beside you." "What do you mean?" demanded the knight. "Who were in beside us? Nobody came here." "I mean the Bibles; I mean the Word of God," cried the merchant; "the bread of life, that those villains came seeking this morning, which, if they had got, they would have burnt most sacrilegiously, as an offering to the harlot of their idolatry." "Then I was wrong in supposing that they searched for me?" said the knight, with a smile at his own mistake. "Oh, no; not for you at all!" replied the merchant. "It was the Bibles that Skippenhausen brought over from Holland, for the poor English protestants, who are here denied to eat of the bread or drink of the water of salvation. But now, my lord, if you will condescend to be weighed, you will be ready to sail at four in the morning; for your horses and horse-armour are all weighed and aboard, and the cargo will be complete when your lordship and your gentleman are shipped." Finding that Master Skippenhausen was bent upon ascertaining his weight, Sir Osborne consented to get into the merchant's large scales; and being as it were lotted with Longpole, his horse-bags, and his armour, he made a very respectable entry in the captain's books. After this, Master Hans led him into his counting-house, and displayed his books before him; but as the items of his account might be somewhat tedious, it may be as well merely to say, that the young knight found he had expended, in the short time he had remained in Henry's luxurious court, more than two thousand five hundred marks; so that of the two thousand seven hundred which he had possessed in the hands of the Fleming, and the thousand which he had won at the Duke of Buckingham's, but one thousand two hundred and a trifle remained. Sir Osborne was surprised; but the accurate merchant left no point in doubt, and the young knight began to think that it was lucky he had been driven from the court before all his funds were completely expended. He found, however, to his satisfaction, that a great variety of arms and warlike implements, which he had gathered together while in Flanders, and had left in the warehouses of the merchant since he had been in England, had been shipped on board Skippenhausen's vessel, whose acknowledgment of having received them William Hans now put into his hand; and having paid him the sum due, and received an acquittance, he led him once more upstairs into the scene of the last night's revel. We shall pass over this second evening at the merchant's house without entering into any details thereof, only remarking that it passed more pleasantly than the former one, there being at the supper-table some dishes which an Englishman could eat, and which his stomach might probably digest. At an early hour Sir Osborne cast himself upon his bed, and slept, though every now and then the thoughts of his approaching voyage made him start up and wonder what was the hour; and then, as Skippenhausen did not appear, he would lie down and sleep again, each half-hour of this disturbed slumber seeming like a whole long night. At length, however, when he just began to enjoy a more tranquil rest, he was awakened by the seaman; and dressing himself as quickly as possible, he followed to William Hans's parlour, where the worthy merchant waited to drink a parting cup with his guests and wish them a prosperous voyage. As the easiest means of carrying their harness, Sir Osborne and Longpole had both armed themselves; and as soon as they had received the Fleming's benediction in a cup of sack, they donned their casques and followed the captain towards the vessel. It was a dull and drizzly morning, and many was the dark foul street, and many the narrow tortuous lane, through which they had to pass. Wapping, all dismal and wretched as it appears even now-a-days to the unfortunate voyager, who, called from his warm bed in a wet London morning, is rolled along through its long, hopeless windings, and amidst its tall, spiritless houses, towards the ship destined to bear him to some other land; and which, with a perversion of intellect only to be met with in ships, stage-coaches, and other woodenheaded things, is always sure to set out at an hour when all rational creatures are sleeping in their beds; Wapping, I say, as it stands at present, in its darkness and its filth, is gay and lightsome to the paths by which worshipful Master Skippenhausen conducted Sir Osborne and his follower towards his vessel. Sloppy, silent, and deserted, the streets boasted no living creature besides themselves, unless, indeed, it was some poor mechanic, who, with his shoulders up to his ear's, and his hands clasped together to keep them warm, picked his way through the dirt towards his early toil. The heavens frowned upon them, and the air that surrounded them was one of those chill, wet, thick, dispiriting atmospheres which no other city than London can boast in the month of May. There is a feeling of melancholy attached to quitting anything to which we have, even for a time, habituated our hopes and wishes, or even our thoughts: however dull, however uninteresting, a place may be in itself, if therein we have familiar associations and customary feelings, we must ever feel a degree of pain in leaving it. I am convinced there is a sort of glutinous quality in the mind of man, which sticks it to everything it rests upon; or is it attraction of cohesion? However, the knight had a thousand sufficient reasons for feeling melancholy and depressed, as he quitted the capital of his native land. He left behind him hopes, and expectations, and affection, and love; almost all those feelings which, like the various colours mingled in a sunbeam, unite to form the light of human existence, and without which it is dull, dark, and heavy, like heaven without the sun. And yet, perhaps, he would have felt the parting less had the morning looked more brightly on him; had there been one gleam of light to give a fair augury for willing hope to seize. But, no; it was all black and gloomy, and the very sky seemed to reflect the feelings of his own bosom. Thus, as he walked along after the captain, there was a stern, heavy determination in his footfall, unlike either the light step of expectation or the calm march of contentment. What he felt was not precisely despair: it was the bitterness of much disappointment; and he strode quickly onward, as if at once to conquer and to fly from his own sensations. At length a narrow lane brought them to the side of the river, where waited a boat to convey them to the Dutchman's ship, which lay out some way from the bank. Beside the stairs stood a man apparently on the watch, but he seemed quite familiar with Master Skippenhausen, who gave him a nod as he passed, and pointing to his companions said, "This is the gentleman and his servant." "Very well," said the man; "go on!" and the whole party, taking their places in the boat without further question, were speedily pulled round to the vessel by the two stout Dutchmen who awaited them. As soon as they were on board, the captain led the knight down into the cabin, which he found in a state of glorious confusion, but which Skippenhausen assured him would be the safest place for him, till they had got some way down the river; for that they might have visiters on board, whom he could not prevent from seeing all that were upon the deck, though he would take care that they should not come below. "Ay, Master Skippenhausen," cried Longpole; "for God's sake fetter all spies and informers with a silver ring, and let us up on deck again as soon as possible, for I am tired of being hid about in holes and corners, like a crooked silver groat in the box of a careful maid; and as for my lord, he looks more weary of it than even I am." The master promised faithfully, that as soon as the vessel had passed Blackwall he would give them notice, and then proceeded to the deck, where, almost immediately after, all the roaring and screaming made itself heard which seems absolutely necessary to get a ship under way. In truth, it was a concert as delectable as any that ever greeted a poor voyager on his outset: the yelling of the seamen, the roaring of the master and his subordinates, the creaking and whistling of the masts and cordage, together with volleys of clumsy Dutch oaths, all reached the ears of the knight, as he sat below in the close, foul cabin, and, joined to his own painful feelings, made him almost fancy himself in the Dutch part of Hades. Still the swinging of the vessel told that, though not as an effect, yet at least as an accompaniment to all this din, the ship was already on her voyage; and after a few minutes, a more regular and easy motion began to take place, as she glided down what is now called the Pool. However, much raving, and swearing, and cursing, to no purpose, still went on, whenever the vessel passed in the proximity of another; and, as there were several dropping down at the same time, manifold were the opportunities which presented themselves for the captain and the pilot to exercise their execrative faculties. But at length the disturbance began to cease, and the ship held her even course down the river, while the sun, now fully risen, dispelled the clouds that had hung over the early morning, and the day looked more favourably upon their passage. Sir Osborne gazed out of the little window in the stern, noticing the various villages that they passed on their way down, till the palace at Greenwich, and the park sweeping up behind, met his eye, together with many a little object associated with hopes, and feelings, and happiness gone by, recalling most painfully all that expectation had promised and disappointment had done away. It was too much to look upon steadily; and turning from the sight, he folded his arms on the table, and burying his eyes on them, remained in that position till the master descending told him that they were now free from all danger. On this information, the knight gladly mounted the ladder, and paced up and down the deck, enjoying the free air, while Longpole jested with Master Skippenhausen, teasing him the more, perhaps, because he saw that the seaman had put on that sort of surly, domineering air which the master of a vessel often assumes the moment his foot touches the deck, however gay and mild he may be on shore. Nevertheless, as we are now rapidly approaching that part of this book wherein the events become more thronged and pressing, we must take the liberty of leaving out all the long conversation which Vonderbrugius reports as having taken place between Skippenhausen and Longpole, as well as a very minute and particular account of a sail down the river Thames, wherewith the learned professor embellishes his history, and which, though doubtless very interesting to the Dutch burgomasters and their wives, of a century and a half ago, would not greatly edify the British public of the present day, when every cook-maid steps once a-year into the steam-packet, and is paddled down to Margate, with less trouble than it took an Englishman of the reign of Harry the Eighth to go from Charing cross to Lombard Street. The wind was in their favour, and the tide running strongly down, so that passing, one by one, Woolwich, Purfleet, Erith, Gravesend, and sundry other places, in a few hours they approached near the ocean limits of the English land; while the river, growing mightier and mightier as it rolled on, seemed to rush towards the sea with a sort of daring equality, rather a rival than a tributary, till, meeting its giant sovereign, it gave vent to its pride in a few frothy waves; and then, yielding to his sway, poured all its treasures in his bosom. Before they had reached the mouth of the river, they beheld a vessel which had preceded them suddenly take in sail and lie-to under the lee of the Essex shore; the reason of which was made very evident the moment after, by the vane at the mast-head wheeling round, and the wind coming in heavy squalls right upon their beam. The Dutchman's ship was not one at all calculated to sail near the wind; and paying little consideration to the necessity of Sir Osborne's case, he followed the example of the vessel before him, and gave orders for taking in sail and lying-to, declaring that the gale would not last. The knight remonstrated, but he might as well have talked to the wind itself. Skippenhausen was quite inflexible, not even taking the pains to answer a word, and, contenting himself with muttering a few sentences in high Dutch, interspersed with various objurgatory addresses to the sailors. Whether the worthy Hollander's conduct on this occasion was right, proper, and seaman-like, we must leave to some better qualified tribunal than our own weak noddle to determine, professing to be most profoundly ignorant on nautical affairs; but so the matter stood, that the knight was obliged to swing one whole night in an uncomfortable hammock in an uncomfortable ship, in the mouth of the river Thames, with a bitter fancy resting on his mind, that this waste of time was quite unnecessary, and that with a little courage and a little skill on the part of the master, he might before the next morning have been landed at Dunkirk, to which city he was to be safely carried, according to his agreement with the Dutchman. By daybreak the next morning the wind was rather more favourable, and at all events by no means violent, so that the vessel was soon once more under way. Still, however, they made but little progress; and even the ship that was before them, though a faster sailer and one that could keep nearer the wind, made little more way than themselves. While in this situation, trying by a long tack to mend their course, with about the distance of half-a-mile between them and the other vessel, they perceived a ship-of-war apparently run out from the Essex coast some way to windward, and bear down upon them with all sail set. "Who have we here, I wonder?" said the knight, addressing Skippenhausen, who had been watching the approaching vessel attentively for some minutes. "'Tis an English man-of-war," replied the master, "Coot now, don't you see the red cross on her flag? By my life, she is making a signal to us! It must be you she is wanting, my lord; for on my life I have nothing contraband but you aboard. I will not understand her signal, though; and as the breeze is coming up, I will run for it. Go you down in the cabin and hide yourself." "I will go down," replied the knight. "But hide myself I will not; I have had too much of it already." Skippenhausen, who, as we before hinted, had by the long habit of smuggling in a small way acquired a taste for the concealed and mysterious, tried in vain to persuade the knight to hide himself under a pile of bedding. On this subject Sir Osborne was as deaf as the other had been the night before, in regard to proceeding on their voyage; and all the concession that the master could obtain was that the two Englishmen would go below and wait the event, while he tried, by altering his course and running before the wind, to weary the pursuers, if they were not very hearty in the cause. "Well, Longpole," said Sir Osborne, "I suppose that we must look upon ourselves as caught at last." "Would your worship like us to stand to our arms?" demanded the yeoman. "We could make this cabin good a long while in case of necessity." "By no means," replied the knight. "I will on no account resist the king's will. Besides, it would be spilling good blood to little purpose; for we must yield at last." "As your lordship pleases," answered the custrel; "but knowing how fond you are of a good downright blow of estoc at a fair gentleman's head, I thought you might like to take advantage of the present occasion, which may be your last for some time." "Perhaps it may be a mistake still," answered the knight, "and pass away like the search for the Bibles when we were concealed in the warehouse. However, we shall soon see: at all events, till it comes I shall take no heed about it;" and casting himself into a seat, with a bitter smile, as if wearied out with Fortune's caprices, and resolved to struggle no longer for her favour, he gazed forth from the little stern window upon the wide expanse of water that rolled away towards the horizon. The aperture of this window, not being more than six inches either in height or width, and cut through the thick timbers of the Dutch vessel for considerably more than a foot in depth, was in fact not much better than a telescope without a glass, so that the knight's view was not a little circumscribed in respect to all the nearer objects, and he was only able to see, as the ship pitched, the glassy green waves, mingled with white foam, rushing tumultuously from under her stern as she now scudded before the wind, leaving a long, glistening, frothy track behind, to mark where she had made her path through the midst of the broad sea. As he looked farther out, however, the prospect widened; and at the extreme verge, where the sea and the sky, almost one in unity of hue, showed still a faint line of light to mark their boundary, he could perceive, rising up as it were from the bosom of the deep, the light tracery of masts and rigging belonging to far distant vessels, whose hulls were still concealed by the convexity of the waters. Nearer, but yet within the range that the narrowness of the window allowed his sight, appeared the vessel that had dropped down the river just before them, and the English ship-of-war, which, crowding all sail before the wind, seemed in full chase, not of their companion, but of themselves; for the other, in obedience to the signal, had hauled her wind and lay-to. Sir Osborne now watched to ascertain whether the man-of-war gained upon them, but an instant's observation put an end to all doubt. She evidently came nearer and nearer, and soon approached so close as scarcely to be within range of his view, being lost and seen alternately at every motion of the ship. At length, as the vessel pitched, she disappeared for a moment, then came in sight again; a quick flash glanced along her bow, and the moment after, when she was no longer visible to his eye, the sullen report of a cannon came upon the wind. By a sudden change in the motion of the vessel, together with various cries upon the deck, the knight now concluded that the Dutchman had at length obeyed this peremptory signal and lay-to, which was in fact the case; for passing over to the window on the other side, he again got a view of the English ship, which sailed majestically up, and then, when within a few hundred yards, put out and manned a boat, which rowed off towards them. Sir Osborne had not long an opportunity of observing the boat in her approach, as she soon passed out of the small space which he could see; but in a few minutes after, the voice of some one, raised to its very highest pitch, made itself heard from a distance, hardly near enough for the knight to distinguish the words, though he every now and then caught enough to perceive that the whole consisted of a volley of curses discharged at Master Skippenhausen for not having obeyed the signal. The Dutchman replied, in a tone of angry surliness, that he had not seen their signal; and in a minute or two more, a harsh grating rush against the vessel told that the boat was alongside. "I will teach you, you Dutch son of a dog-fish, not to lie-to when one of the king's ships makes the signal," cried a loud voice by the side. "Have you any passengers on board?" "Yes, five or six," answered the Dutchman. "Stop! I will come on board," cried the voice, and then proceeded, as if while climbing the ship's side, "have yon one Sir Osborne Maurice with you?" "No!" answered Skippenhausen, stoutly. "Well, we will soon see that," cried the other; "for I have orders to attach him for high treason. Come, bustle! disperse, my boys! You, Wilfred, go forward; I will down here and see who is in the cabin; and if I find him, Master Dutchman, I will slit your ears." <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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