journeying from the New Forest to find their uncle in the train of the Archbishop of York.
“Birkenholt,” said Tibble, meditatively. “He beareth vert, a buck’s head proper, on a chief argent, two arrows in saltire. Crest, a buck courant, pierced in the gorge by an arrow, all proper.”
To which the brothers returned by displaying the handles of their knives, both of which bore the pierced and courant buck.
“Ay, ay,” said the man. “’Twill be found in our books, sir. We painted the shield and new-crested the morion the first year of my prenticeship, when the Earl of Richmond, the late King Harry of blessed memory, had newly landed at Milford Haven.”
“Verily,” said Ambrose, “our uncle Richard Birkenholt fought at Bosworth under Sir Richard Pole’s banner.”
“A tall and stalwart esquire, methinks,” said Master Headley. “Is he the kinsman you seek?”
“Not so, sir. We visited him at Winchester, and found him sorely old and with failing wits. We be on our way to our mother’s brother, Master Harry Randall.”
“Is he clerk or layman? My Lord of York entertaineth enow of both,” said Master Headley.
“Lay assuredly, sir,” returned Stephen; “I trust to him to find me some preferment as page or the like.”
“Know’st thou the man, Tibble?” inquired the master.
“Not among the men-at-arms, sir,” was the answer; “but there be a many of them whose right names we never hear. However, he will be easily found if my Lord of York be returned from Windsor with his train.”
“Then will we go forward together, my young Masters Birkenholt. I am not going to part with my doughty champions!”—patting Stephen’s shoulder. “Ye’d not think that these light-heeled knaves belonged to the brave craft of armourers?”
“Certainly not,” thought the lads, whose notion of armourers was derived from the brawny blacksmith of Lyndhurst, who sharpened their boar spears and shod their horses. They made some kind of assent, and Master Headley went on. “These be the times! This is what peace hath brought us to! I am called down to Salisbury to take charge of the goods, chattels, and estate of my kinsman, Robert Headley—Saints rest his soul!—and to bring home yonder spark, my godson, whose indentures have been made over to me. And I may not ride a mile after sunset without being set upon by a sort of robbers, who must have guessed over-well what a pack of cowards they had to deal with.”
“Sir,” cried the younger Giles, “I swear to you that I struck right and left. I did all that man could do, but these rogues of serving-men, they fled, and dragged me along with them, and I deemed you were of our company till we dismounted.”
“Did you so? Methought anon you saw me go down with three pikes in my breast. Come, come, godson Giles, speech will not mend it! Thou art but a green, town-bred lad, a mother’s darling, and mayst be a brave man yet, only don’t dread to tell the honest truth that you were afeard, as many a better man might be.”
The host chimed in with tales of the thieves and outlaws who then, and indeed for many later generations, infested Bagshot heath, and the wild moorland tracks around. He seemed to think that the travellers had had a hair’s-breadth escape, and that a few seconds’ more delay might have revealed the weakness of the rescuers and have been fatal to them.
However there was no danger so near the village in the morning, and, somewhat to Stephen’s annoyance, the whole place turned out to inspect the spot, and behold the burial of poor Spring, who was found stretched on the heather, just as he had been left the night before. He was interred under the stunted oak where Master Headley had been tied. While the grave was dug with a spade borrowed at the inn, Ambrose undertook to cut out the dog’s name on the bark, but he had hardly made the first incision when Tibble, the singed foreman, offered to do it for him, and made a much more sightly inscription than he could have done. Master Headley’s sword was found honourably broken under the tree, and was reserved to form a base for his intended ex voto. He uttered the vow in due form like a funeral oration, when Stephen, with a swelling heart, had laid the companion of his life in the little grave, which was speedily covered in.
CHAPTER V
THE DRAGON COURT
“A citizen
Of credit and renown;
A trainband captain eke was he
Of famous London town.”
In spite of his satisfaction at the honourable obsequies of his dog, Stephen Birkenholt would fain have been independent, and thought it provoking and strange that every one should want to direct his movements, and assume the charge of one so well able to take care of himself; but he could not escape as he had done before from the Warden of St. Elizabeth, for Ambrose had readily accepted the proposal that they should travel in Master Headley’s company, only objecting that they were on foot; on which the good citizen hired a couple of hackneys for them.
Besides the two Giles Headleys, the party consisted of Tibble, the scarred and withered foreman, two grooms, and two serving-men, all armed with the swords and bucklers of which they had made so little use. It appeared in process of time that the two namesakes, besides being godfather and godson, were cousins, and that Robert, the father of the younger one, had, after his apprenticeship in the paternal establishment at Salisbury, served for a couple of years in the London workshop of his kinsman to learn the latest improvements in weapons. This had laid the foundation of a friendship which had lasted through life, though the London cousin had been as prosperous as the country one had been the reverse. The provincial trade in arms declined with the close of the York and Lancaster wars. Men were not permitted to turn from one handicraft to another, and Robert Headley had neither aptitude nor resources. His wife was vain and thriftless, and he finally broke down under his difficulties, appointing by will his cousin to act as his executor, and to take charge of his only son, who had served out half his time as apprentice to himself. There had been delay until the peace with France had given the armourer some leisure for an expedition to Salisbury, a serious undertaking for a London burgess, who had little about him of the ancient northern weapon-smith, and had wanted to avail himself of the protection of the suite of the Bishop of Salisbury, returning from Parliament. He had spent some weeks in disposing of his cousin’s stock in trade, which was far too antiquated for the London market; also of the premises, which were bought by an adjoining convent to extend its garden; and he had divided the proceeds between the widow and children. He had presided at the wedding of the last daughter, with whom the mother was to reside, and was on his way back to London with his godson, who had now become his apprentice.
Giles Headley the younger was a fine tall youth, but clumsy and untrained in the use of his limbs, and he rode a large, powerful brown horse, which brooked no companionship, lashing out with its shaggy hoofs at any of its kind that approached it, more especially at poor, plump, mottled Poppet. The men said he had insisted on retaining that, and no other, for his journey to London, contrary to all advice, and he was obliged to ride foremost, alone in the middle of the road; while Master Headley seemed to have an immense quantity of consultation to carry on with his foreman, Tibble, whose quiet-looking brown animal was evidently on the best of terms with Poppet. By daylight Tibble looked even more sallow, lean, and sickly, and Stephen could not help saying to the serving-man nearest to him, “Can such a weakling verily be an armourer?”
“Yea, sir. Wry-mouthed Tibble, as they call him, was a sturdy fellow till he got a fell against the mouth of a furnace, and lay ten months in St. Bartholomew’s Spital, scarce moving
