Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (297 page)

Something soft and heavy struck upon the flap of his helmet, and fastened itself round the steel bar of the visor and stuck clammily to his left eye. He was aware that there were two black shadows leaping at him; he put up his hand to feel, and his fingers were caught by a viscous, cold mass, like birdlime upon a bit of soft cloth. His hand came down with this muck all around it, and he heard a high shout, and thrust his hand into the face of the first figure to reach him.

The shout stopped; the figure threw up its arms and fell back, but in the darkness there fell upon Colman a heavy mass of humanity, that pinned both his arms straitly against his hips and shook him from side to side. So heavy was this second man, though his stature was so little his hat was pressed against Colman’s face, that he could hardly keep his feet, but his fingers being forced downwards, he twined them into the man’s belt. This struggle seemed to last for a long time, but Edward Colman wasted no breath with calling out to know what it meant; the little man at his chest wheézed incessantly, and grunted out, “The ropes now! The ropes!” In their struggle — for Edward Colman again and again nearly lost his feet — they came under a tree at the quay edge.

He thought that he would call out for help. But if these men were Dutch police or had Dutch warrants that would only bring more men to take him, and he struggled in silence.

“Ho,” Edward Colman thought to himself, “if I may come nearer the trunk I shall yet see Magdalena and the
Half Moon,”
and the next struggle of the little man brought them nearer the tree. He stayed for a moment to draw a breath, and cried out —

“The ropes now!” and then, casting out mightily with his legs, Edward Colman forced his chest towards the tree-trunk, so that the little man’s knees bent with the weight. His head was jammed, hard and heavily, against the tree, his arms loosened their hold, and Edward Colman, with his fingers in the belt, sprang backwards in the darkness, so that, with the impetus of his spring, he might swing the little man back into the canal. He knew that he had very strong arms, but the little man was very heavy; his left foot found only the air when next he stepped back, and both together they toppled, swayed inward for a moment, and they were in the air. For the moment he saw the lights of the procession far away, then no lights, then a wet chill enveloped him, the sound of water, and a great struggling. He came up close to the boat-steps and held his knee upon them, but the other man caught him by the leg and pulled him back; their arms clenched round each other’s necks, they went under again, each striking at the other; the struggle seemed endless in the stinking water; when they went under they just touched bottom; at times they left off fighting to hold to the steps. Edward Colman kept his temper; he knew that this fat villain had cast a mass of pitch from a string at his face from a little distance; if he had not chanced to wear his steel cap and to bend at the moment he would have been choked and senseless, and bound and carried away — and he struck heavy blows upon the wet skull of the man beside him in the water. But the man’s skull appeared to be of stone, and when he struck back it was only the steel cap that saved Colman from the weight of his fist.

They hung at last, both gasping and powerless, their elbows on the slimy granite of the steps, and then Edward Colman was aware of a harder, sharper blow upon his temple, a resounding clang of metal, and of stars in his eyes.

“By God!” he said, “that was a Stone. If I had not forgotten to take off this potlid I had been a dead man, and never seen Magdalena again.”

A larger stone struck the water beside him, and he hung there panting.

“These will crack nuts,” he said. “I think it is nearly done with me.”

The long man was peering over the quayside, his legs apart, and in his hand one of the great stones that were piled along the quay for the repairing of the roadway.

“Come down with the ropes,” the fat man whispered. “I will hold him till then.”

“That, by God, you shall not!” Edward Colman cried out. Because the men were so quiet, he realized quickly that these were outcasts employed by the English agent, or another, and that they were not empowered by any warrant to take him, and were very afraid of being heard. “We will go further out into the water and drown.” He began, too, to cry out lustily for help.

The little man again cast his arms round Edward Colman’s neck; Edward Colman set up a great outcry now, and pushed with his leg further out into the water, and their weary struggle began again, whilst the great stones fell from above all round them. Edward Colman felt the paralysis of the cold creep upon him; he could hardly keep hold upon the man’s wet leathern shoulders, they were so slippery; they went under once and twice, and, “God preserve my soul,” he said to himself, “but I am a finished volume.”

He heard a wail; the man’s arms about him were gone; he was quite free, and he grasped the step-side. A great stone had struck his adversary upon the brow.

“Ho, my friend, I have you!” he cried to the man on the quay above. “Wait you. I will come to you.”

He crawled out of the water and made to mount the steps. But the second man did not await him; the sound of his running was dying away down the quay.

Edward Colman sat down on the Step at the top; he was very wet and cold, and he pulled off his jerkin to be rid of it, but he was too tired to run up and down for warmth.

“By Heaven!” he said to Hudson and his wife when the boat came, “I warrant you stayed to wrangle which should go first down the stairs — the black box or the leather sack. But I am glad you came not sooner, for I have had the time to show myself a good fighter,”

PART III. TOWARDS THE POLE
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CHAPTER I
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WHEN Anne Jeal saw London town from Denmark Hill her heart sank very low; when she had passed over London Bridge she seemed to have no heart at all. From the Hill the city appeared to be ominous, for, even in the morning sun, such a pall hung above it that its limits could not be seen; its walls were high, its gates appeared like little holes, there were tiny boats like beetles in myriads all upon its river, and through the mists and smoke the great church threw up its tower like the great beam of a spear, and all around it went up a multitude of steeples and spires, like the masts of ships or like flagstaffs with the banners furled upon them. She counted six separate sparks of light where vanes and weathercocks caught the sun.

“Before God!” she said to herself, “I shall not very easily come to the King of this place!”

But when they rode over the bridge a great dizziness beset her. There were so many cries, the houses were so high, the street so narrow; there was such a throng of men, they were so strangely garbed and collared, and they spoke such a strange tongue. Their little company rode with little ease through the press; her horse reared, and many boys, capless, aproned, with yellow legs, called out horrid cries. In the streets beyond the houses were higher still; up above they almost touched, so that you could hardly see the sky; nauseating odours made her senses reel, and she had glimpses of narrow alleys between the immense buildings — alleys that seemed filled with twilight, to wind away to endless and unknown recesses between walls green with damp and slime.

“Before God!” she said, and this time she spoke to the cornet, “if I were lost in this place I should never come to the King.”

He could draw his horse alongside of hers, for there was less press in these streets, though a rabble followed the steel-clad and muddied band of men on horseback, shouting out that she was a papist rebel bound for the Tower.

“Faith!” he said. “You will come before the King very soon, whether you will or no.” For the Lord Dalgarno, who rode before them haughtily, was mighty anxious to be rid of the costs of his charge, and he was mighty intent to come before the King very quickly, before other lords his ill-wishers could discount the value of his discoveries; he was also anxious to press in before dinner, that his men might eat at the King’s table and expense. Thus he rode on before so expeditiously that when they came to a great gate in a long wall, where on one side there was a man in a suit of red with a halberd, and on the other a man in a suit of green with a long bow, they were able to follow his beckoning and go directly through the gateway and over the drawbridge. Anne Jeal had never seen so much of stone together. There were huge, straight, long walls, blackened with smoke and immensely high; there were no windows, but only loopholes so small that they appeared to be the places from which stones were missing. Underfoot it was all stone, and she could see no green thing. When they passed under such another little gate they came to a courtyard where there were trees and little houses, but all round great turrets and keeps towered tumultuously aloft, so that, though the courtyard was so big, where a company of men in steel were aligned and marching they seemed no larger than ravens amid giants’ houses. There were knaves that carried faggots, and ostlers that walked with chargers, and cook-boys with shaven heads that sat upon steps and teased little turnspit dogs waiting for their turn in the spit cages. But no one raised an eye to their cavalcade.

“Why, this must be the Palace of Gog-Magog!” she said, for these giants were said to dwell in that city.

“No,” he said. “This is the Tower of London, and upon that hill traitors find their ends.”

She gave a sudden wail of, “Owe! I am in prison.” And they passed through more gateways and passages than she could keep in memory. But her fear augmented her grief, and her grief came to the rescue of her hatred.

“Shall I soon see the King?” she said. “Shall I soon tell what I know of this traitor?”

“I do not know,” her companion answered.

They had clattered through a last archway, they were come to a little square yard before a huge tower, white but not very high. Many men were streaming up a little outside stairway of stone, many others stood around its bottom, with cuirasses of steel cut across by white or blue sashes. The cornet had grown suddenly stiff and rigid in his saddle, his voice was short and cold. The Lord Dalgarno set his knee over his saddle-bow and sprang to the ground. He was a very nimble man and light on his legs. He ran very hastily up the steps, pushing men aside in his hurry. They looked after him and shrugged their shoulders. Anne Jeal heard a man cry out —

“The Scot’s in a hurry to the lion’s den,” and others laughed.

Her own men lighted stiffly down and stood, each man at his horse’s neck, as the regulation there was; but Anne Jeal sat still and shivered, for the wind blew in great draughts round the corners of these stony places. She had many eyes upon her, but she felt the little image that she had in her pocket-place, and at the thought that, if this stroke failed her, she would melt this image till Edward Colman died; she felt no embarrassment, but only cold. And, at the last, the Lord Dalgarno came out of the little doorway in the white wall; his eye had a pleased glare in it, he walked jauntily down the stairway.

He came to her stirrup and aided her to descend; he led her up the stair, taking immense steps upwards and holding her by the finger-tips; he guided her up a tiny corkscrew stairway where it was very dark and smelt of old bones and into a huge white chapel, with pillars vast enough to hold up the world, where at the far end some Scottish clergymen in black gowns were bolding a service to themselves before a wooden communion table. In this place he said to her drily —

“You had best not curtsey, nor yet kneel; but stand with your hands folded before you.”

“But,” she cried out, “what shall I say?”

“God forbid,” he answered, in a high voice coming from his nose, “that I should answer you that.” And then he whispered fiercely, raising his brows and his mouth close to her ear, “Have we not concerted all that many times on the road?” He raised his voice to add, “Set ‘your Majesty’ and your Grace ‘like jewels in your discourse, or say’ Sire,’ for his Majesty is the true Father of his people.”

They went through a large room, empty save for a guard or two, unarmed, because the King hated to see edged weapons or pistols. Anne Jeal’s heart rose a good deal, because here there was so little state, only emptiness and blue space with a touch of mist in the mournful air and no furnishing, but only the bare brown wainscoting to the bare white ceiling. There was here, she said, nothing to alarm a woman with a good conscience, and she set her chin high and snuffed the misty air.

A lean man sat before the fire in the next huge room; all alone he gazed at the coals, but there were half-a-dozen others in a far window that stood and bent their heads together over their huge ruffs. James Stuart, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, gazed at the coals and was thinking of a Latin rebus; he sat upon a little stool, his pointed chin resting upon his hands and poked out at the blaze. When the Earl Dalgarno hemmed behind him, holding his fingers to his mouth, the King looked round cautiously over his shoulder, turning his entire neck as a hedgehog does.

“Ha! the Mayoress of Rye!” he uttered in shrill tones. He revolved slowly upon the stool-top until he faced her, with both hands upon his knees. At that time the King dwelt in the Tower because he had heard of a plot to kill him, and he was afraid to walk the streets. “Now,” he said, “ye come to tell me that tale, videlicet,” and he began sharply to recount in incomprehensible language and with tired comments all the story that Lord Dalgarno and she had agreed upon between them in the manor house of Bromley, where they had stayed on the last night but one. The King wore a plain suit of rusty black, his legs were very thin, but around his hips they were swelled out to a great size by his breeches; he had a crinkled ruff about his neck, so that his head appeared to be severed from his shoulders, and on his head there was a little pot hat with white lace tied about the brim. He had a hooked nose, that crooked. over to one side, a little moustachio that turned upwards, and little, tired, beady bright eyes that had many wrinkles beneath them. His voice was monotonous and haughty and, at the same time, querulous, and he recounted the terrible exploits of a monster called Edward Colman, who had organized a whole great conspiracy with the Anabaptists to defraud himself of his just dues and cause wool to leave the kingdom contrary to the laws and the statutes.

This recital of his own appeared to bore him and to tire him; but suddenly he came to a pause, lifted up one leg, caught the ankle of it with both hands and pulled it on to his knee. He beckoned then over his shoulder, with a little whimsy of feathers and beads of amber that hung round his neck by a silken string. He was anxious that the other lords should approach him that they might take pleasure in the sagacity of his queries. They moved from the great window all in a mass, with slow pacings as if they were a machine pushed forward from behind. Five of them were dark and wore chin-beards that fell down upon their ruffs, and they maintained airs of great gravity and were clothed in black. But the sixth was a fair youth with high eyebrows; he tittered often, and was habited in a suit of red, very slender about the waist and sewn all over, right down to his red stockings and shoes with large pearls. Later on he leaned over the King’s shoulder and made faces at Anne Jeal, kissing his finger tips and rubbing the jacket above his heart till the pearls came unsewn and dripped on to the dark floor.

“Now,” the King said, “this is my council; ye will give yourself the pain to answer me these questions forgetful of the dread quhilk doubtless you will be feeling at our majesty.”

He leaned right forward over his knee, that projected like a crooked elbow.

“Tell us just how that, being provost’s wife of a town, ye come blithering ill things thereof?”

Anne Jeal faltered and turned red; before she had been conscious of being alone in a great room, but now, with these hard men’s eyes reading her, she felt more lonely and more small in a vaster space than would have taken in all the room, and her red coat and green skirt were travel-stained, and her feather, though she had curled it, was bedraggled and dirty. She looked appealingly at Dalgarno, who stood beside her; the words that had assailed her seemed to have no sense or relation to anything in this world; but his eyes were half closed, his hand was upon his hip, one black leg was very crooked, one very straight.

“Nay,” the King said sharply, “you shall not claver with Dalgarno. Tell me, Mayor’s wife of Rye, how it is you bear tales?”

She faltered, clutching at the front of her gown—”Because of the great love our town bears you.”

He pointed a long finger at her.

“But how is it ye came lonely, why is the Mayor not here?”

“Because my father is afraid,” she said, and she took her courage into her hands; “my father is afraid of the knife of Edward Colman.”

The King said, “Oho! This augurs not a great love of your father to us, if he is so afraid of a knife he will not do us a service.”

She was afraid to answer him with a sharp reply, and she whispered —

“A dead witness would little help your Grace’s cause.”

He bade her speak up and not to mutter, and when she had repeated her words he rubbed his hands.

“Oho!” he said, “there is sense in this, we are coming to some sense,” and he looked at his lords for approbation, but appeared annoyed at their impassiveness. His tone to her became kindly and paternal. “Let us hear now what you will say to this,” he bleated. “How is it that your father, the Mayor, who is master of lancemen and archers and halberdiers and companioned with barons, even as I am” — and he tittered—” is afraid of the knife of but one man?”

She cast her eyes upon the ground, and then, remembering that she spoke in a good cause and had only herself to help her to her desires, she spoke boldly, looking into the King’s eyes, which was what he loved —

“Sire,” she said, “there are in our town and about our gates a great many of a folk called Puritans, Anabaptists, Knipperdollinck, Viderdibors and Latter-day Saints—”

The King muttered, “Oho! oho!” and looked round upon his council, as if he were gaining a victory over them.

“These folk,” Anne Jeal gained courage to say, “were given licence by the late Queen to dwell beside us. Then there were very few, now there are a great many — so many that lancemen and archers and halberdiers and loyal com-barons are not enow to protect us. But they are a mutinous, drunken, foul-swearing herd enow, that eat up our substance and affright us so that we do live in terror.”