Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (296 page)

“But first I have a visit to pay to my man of law.”

“I advise you,” Hudson said heavily, “that you walk not the streets of Amsterdam this evening!”

“Master mine,” Edward Colman laughed at him, “I am no seaman, but my affairs do lie upon the hard land, and I have a wife that must be fended for. So, in this matter, you cannot as well advise me as I can myself take counsel with myself.” Hudson grunted the grunt of a humorous man who has been told to put something in his pipe and smoke it.

“Well, if you will do things,” he said, “it faite upon me to devise how you may do them with thé least folly and danger.”

Edward Colman had set his affairs well in order that day, for they were to sail on the morrow, when the tide served. He had not wasted his time in Amsterdam, but had made an alliance with a merchant-shipper, Van der Gelderland, which would insure cargoes to such of his ships as came there out of Rye, and send orders back to merchant-shippers in Rye for cargoes to be sent into Amsterdam for the nine months to come. In this way alone his stay in this city had been profitable, and he had had time to make a calendar so that all his ships could run between Amsterdam and Rye, or Sandwich, or the port of Dover, throughout all that year. This calendar and a power of agent he had left with the lawyer Husum to put in force, and to have a check upon Husum and upon Van der Gelderland he had given a power of scrutiny to a bread merchant called Koop, who was Magdalena’s uncle, a rich man of the town council of Dordrecht. These things might not be as well done as they would have been could he have stayed there; nevertheless, he foresaw that by this year’s business he would make more money than in any year since he had inherited his father’s ships. But the news that Anne Jeal was in London made him consider that there were still two things that he could do to insure more protection for his house and for his wife; and those two things he must do, though it was dangerous, now that Sir Henry Wotton was come, to stay longer in that town or to walk the streets at all. For the world of that day was full of alarums and excursions amongst the great lords and powers. The United Provinces were upon the point of contracting a truce with Spain that should last for ten years; and though the United Provinces had always been stiffnecked in the matter of giving up foreign outlaws, it might well be that to gain some point of their own in negotiation they might surrender him as a prisoner to Sir Henry. If he were once upon the
Half Moon
it would be much safer for him, for the harbour laws of Amsterdam, as in all other great ports, were very different to the land laws, and the power of the East India Company, which was very great, would assuredly protect him, since, as Hudson’s servant, he was their man.

But before they sailed in the dawn he must see the lawyer Husum, and to see him he must go to him, since it chanced that for that twenty-four hours Husum was an acting syndic of the city, and must stay in his house all day and night to send any malefactors to the Round House.

“Wife,” Henry Hudson addressed his one-eyed partner, “there is one way that is best I” Their heavy boat was in the canal at the bottom of that inn’s hind court — for in those days Amsterdam was much more a city of canals than it has ever since been, and at the back of every house there was one of those waterways running right up to the walls. So that the Hudsons’ boat had come with them upon this visit. Most of Hudson’s gear was already on the
Half Moon,
but one chest remained to go.

Edward Colman’s own boat, the cock-boat of his own ship, the
Christopher,
that was then in the harbour, lay before his inn, with three of his own men, waiting to motion to his ship. But between it and the door was a broad quay, and upon this, if Sir Henry Wotton had made an attempt for his surrender, there might be waiting Dutch guards, who would arrest him as he crossed. There might or there might not; there was no saying — for there were always guards upon that quay, to take the customs dues of the country people that came in boats from the nearest water-gate. They could see from the window six fat men in buff jerkins, with large pikes and high boots, leaning back against stone posts in the dusk. There was no telling from the look of them whether they had or had not orders to take any one. Upon the edge of the quay there were two nondescript fellows, one in a peaked jerkin, the cast-off finery of the last age, and one, very small and round, with a leathern coat that paunched over his belt, holding what looked like a pudding in a dish-cloth hanging from his hand. They were beneath a lime-tree, leaning over and talking to some boat’s crew probably, invisible, on the canal edge. These were all that were to be seen, for most people were in their houses so near nightfall. None the less, Hudson was pleased that they had come to the back steps of that inn, and tried to take credit to himself for having come there out of prudence, till his wife insisted that it was she that had come that way to save time.

They counted that they would be rowed to the back stairs of Husum’s house, where his writing office was. They would go in the boat of the Hudsons, by the back ways, leaving the cockboat from the
Christopher
where it was, to mislead any that watched for him. Then they would send from the
Half Moon
for Edward Colman’s chests and cloaks. It was only the steel armour that troubled Edward Colman, for it was the duty of a proper man, if he had no page-boy, to let no one but himself finger or touch this honourable equipment. But he might not wear arms in the city, and the things were cumbersome to carry. However, Hudson bore the steel and leather greaves for him, and Mrs. Hudson his sword, and he himself carried in his arms the cuirass, and, for his ease, he put on his head the steel cap, that had a great steel flap before it. This flap was intended for turning aside the upper cut of sword strokes, and it was supported in front by a steel bar from the chin, that curved up till it met and upheld the flap itself.

They passed unseen through the stairways and passage of the house — for these Dutch inns were very quiet places, because no Dutchman moved more than he had occasion to. Before the little red brick bake-house in the red-tiled court there stood a Dutch maid in a gay skirt, with a clout over her head, wiping a brown earthenware bowl with a blue cloth; the three rowers of the Hudsons’ boat were asleep over their oars. They started to row with phlegmatic but very strong strokes, before their fares were well settled in the boat — for, because of the argumentativeness of Hudson’s wife, it was only with difficulty that Edward Colman could find a place for his cuirass to rest drily. He would have had it on his knees, but she would not suffer him to do that, because it would tire him after his fit of fever; it would not rest on a cross seat, and there was water on the bottom boards. This discussion was never ended, because Hudson observed suddenly, and with anger, that the boatmen had taken them swiftly through a little channel between the inn and the next house but two into the main canal itself. This annoyed him very much. The narrow canals between the housebacks had no quays and were very dark, like cracks in high cliffs, the house-sides yellow, gloomy, high, stained and patched with many windows, and black doors and pulleys. The sea boatmen disliked these little waterways, because there was only just room for the oars, and because the water stank very disagreeably when it was stirred up. The coxswain of this barge had a few words of English, and Hudson had told him very carefully that he wished to go to the Michaeli’s Gracht, where the Dutch lawyer dwelt, by way of these back canals. The main ways had quays and roadways upon each side of them, and here people walked, and it was possible to be seen.

But by the time that his thunderous denunciation of the coxswain had interrupted the discussion of his wife with Edward Colman, the nose of the barge was turned down the main canal, and they were almost abreast of the inn and the pinnace from the
Christopher,
that lay at the steps, with a seaman, cloaked to the ears, in its stern.

It was then too late to turn, and there seemed to be a great peace on the quay; the six halberds of the six guards were to be seen aligned and motionless; the two men, one of them with the pudding in the clout, were still leaning against the lime-tree at the edge of the quay, and because the water was very low where they were, it was possible to see only the upper parts of the inn itself — the gables, that mounted like steps to the sky, and the paintings of stags, and trees, and shields in their white fronts above the last tier of square windows in each. Only the boatman of the
Christopher
turned at the sound of Hudson’s voice, and rubbed his eyes in astonishment to see his master pass so close to him. But, “Stay you till I send,” Edward Colman called to him, and they went clear.

The Dutch coxswain shook his head stonily at Hudson’s upbraiding of him. He had hard blue eyes and dark red hair, so that without doubt his blood had much of the Spanish in it; and when Edward Colman spoke to him in Dutch, upbraiding him for having disobeyed Hudson’s command, he spat into the water alongside — he had great earrings of drops of silver, such as the Antwerp girls gave their sailor lovers — and he muttered —

“This man is our pilot at sea. Is not that shame enough for us? Shall we be piloted by him through our own city?”

Hudson suddenly spun around upon the cross seat; he raised his huge hand and struck the Dutchman one vast blow upon his shoulder near the neck.

“By God!” he said, “what a crew is this they have given me!” He had not waited for Edward Colman to interpret the words, but caught the tone of the voice. “One old man says it is ill-omened to sail with me, and then this collop — !” He continued to shake his fist before the coxswain’s eyes. “Oho! oho!” he cried out; “I will maim some of you ere again ye see your Keizersgracht!”

The man’s arm dropped at his side from the tiller; he passed his left hand across his body and took the oar, but he uttered no more words.

“Now I would fain know that man’s thoughts,”

Mrs. Hudson said, and she began to upbraid her husband for using so much brute strength, and thus another great quarrel arose in the boat, whilst the rowers pulled mechanically. It came into Edward Colman’s head that it was a thing to be avoided in the future, to tell Hudson of what the Dutchman said of him upon the voyage.

It had fallen nearly dark when they turned out of that main canal and came once more into a narrow way. Here once more it was all dark, and when they came to the door and water-steps of the lawyer Husum they could hardly have seen it save that it was painted black on the white walls. It profited them very little, however, to have found it, for, beat as they would upon it, it was not opened. And then Edward Colman remembered that it was the law and custom of that place that a lawyer’s back door must always be closed irrevocably at sunset-time, for the better preservation of order. For it was thought that in that way evil-doers, who dared not essay to come to their lawyer’s in the light of day, would be prevented from coming him thus at night, but might only come along the quays and frequented streets, where there was a better likelihood of their detention. It prevented, too, the coming and going of Spanish spies, with whom, at that time, the lawyers were suspected of complicity. Thus they were forced to row round to the great mainway, and to come to the steps of the quay before the Husum Huls. Here again the grey dusk showed them the houses, and because the quays were lower they saw them well, dwindling away in long parallel rows, white, rather low, because they were old, and gabled, the lights shining out between double rows of tree-trunks, but revealing very few people. The quay here was so broad that Edward Colman had full twenty yards to go before he came to the lawyer’s steps, but no one hindered him, and he went in.

It was arranged between them that, because he would be fully an hour within, the Hudsons should go back to their inn and fetch away Hudson’s chests, so that thus, for good and all, there would be an end of fetching and carrying. But when Edward Colman came out from the lawyer’s house it was nearly pitch dark; there was a procession with many torches just close at his right hand, but upon the gleaming water of the canal there was no boat below the quay. He stood at the edge to let the procession pass. First, appearing of portentous size in the frame of darkness, with two torches above a huge umbrella held high over his head, marched a great, brown-faced man with fierce eyes and a long grey moustache; round his shoulders was a pelisse of ermine; green robes dropped to his feet; a great turban of white fur was around his head, and, high up, an aigret swayed above a huge ruby-jewel. Behind him walked a Moor all in white, holding forward the umbrella with a strained and anxious attitude; and behind came many men in straight black cloaks, with high, black, sugarloaf hats and with white collars that caught the light. This was the ambassador from the Soldan of Berbery, who was being escorted back to his lodgings by the Dutch notables. He had come to beg the United Provinces to make no truce with Spain, that was the ancient foe of the Soldan’s, as of the Netherlander. The torches of the procession lit up the house-fronts for a little, and the tree-trunks and the cobble-stones of the quay; then, black interspersed with white, it moved slowly away. Edward Colman was aware that he had a pebble in his shoe; it had troubled him for a minute or so, and he was bending down — because, since he must wait for the barge, he had time — to undo the latchet.