The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 An Historical Romance

CHAPTER XI.

John Wolfe.

When Jo­ce­lyn Mounchensey called for his reck­on­ing, Madame Bonaven­ture took him aside, show­ing, by her looks, that she had some­thing im­por­tant to com­mu­ni­cate to him, and be­gan by telling him he was hearti­ly wel­come to all he had par­tak­en of at her or­di­nary, adding that she con­sid­ered her­self very great­ly his debtor for the gal­lantry and zeal he had dis­played in her be­half.

“Not that I was in any re­al per­il, my fair young Sir,” she con­tin­ued, “though I feigned to be so, for I have pow­er­ful pro­tec­tors, as you per­ceive; and in­deed this was all a pre­con­cert­ed scheme be­tween my Lord Roos and his no­ble friends to turn the ta­bles on the two ex­tor­tion­ers. But that does not lessen my grat­itude to you; and I shall try to prove it. You are in more dan­ger than, per­chance, you wot of; and I feel quite sure Sir Giles means to car­ry his threat in­to ex­ecu­tion, and to cause your ar­rest.”

See­ing him smile dis­dain­ful­ly, as if he had no ap­pre­hen­sions, she added, some­what quick­ly--“What will your brav­ery avail against so many, _mon beau gen­til­homme? Mon Dieu_! noth­ing. No! no! I must get you as­sis­tance. Luck­ily I have some friends at hand, the 'pren­tices--_grands et forts gail­lards, avec des es­tocs;_--Cy­prien has told me they are here. Most cer­tain­ly they will take your part. So, Sir Giles shall not car­ry you off, af­ter all.”

Jo­ce­lyn's lips again curled with the same dis­dain­ful smile as be­fore.

“_Ah I vous etes trop temeraire!”_ Madame Bonaven­ture cried, tap­ping his arm. “Sit down here for awhile. I will give you the sig­nal when you may de­part with safe­ty. Do not at­tempt to stir till then. You un­der­stand?”

Jo­ce­lyn did not un­der­stand very clear­ly; but with­out mak­ing any ob­ser­va­tion to the con­trary, he took the seat point­ed out to him. The po­si­tion was well-​cho­sen, inas­much as it en­abled him to com­mand the move­ments of the foe, and of­fered him a re­treat through a side-​door, close at hand; though he was nat­ural­ly quite ig­no­rant whith­er the out­let might con­duct him.

While this was pass­ing, Sir Giles was en­gaged in giv­ing di­rec­tions re­spect­ing his part­ner, whose ine­bri­ate con­di­tion great­ly scan­dal­ized him; and it was in pur­suance of his or­ders that Sir Fran­cis was trans­port­ed to the wharf where the mis­ad­ven­ture be­fore re­lat­ed be­fel him. Nev­er for a mo­ment did Sir Giles' watch­ful eye quit Jo­ce­lyn, up­on whom he was ready to pounce like a tiger, if the young man made any move­ment to de­part; and he on­ly wait­ed till the tav­ern should be clear of com­pa­ny to ef­fect the seizure.

Mean­while an­oth­er per­son ap­proached the young man. This was the friend­ly stranger in the furred gown and flat cap, who had sat next him at din­ner, and who, it ap­peared, was not will­ing to aban­don him in his dif­fi­cul­ties. Ad­dress­ing him with much kind­ness, the wor­thy per­son­age in­formed him that he was a book­seller, named John Wolfe, and car­ried on busi­ness at the sign of the Bible and Crown in Paul's Church­yard, where he should be glad to see the young man, when­ev­er he was free to call up­on him.

“But I can­not dis­guise from you, Mas­ter Jo­ce­lyn Mounchensey--for your dis­pute with Sir Fran­cis Mitchell has ac­quaint­ed me with your name,” John Wolfe said--“that your rash­ness has placed you in im­mi­nent per­il; so that there is but lit­tle chance for the present of my show­ing you the hos­pi­tal­ity and kind­ness I de­sire. Sir Giles seems to hov­er over you as a ra­pa­cious vul­ture might do be­fore mak­ing his swoop. Heav­en shield you from his talons! And now, my good young Sir, ac­cept one piece of cau­tion from me, which my years and kind­ly feel­ings to­wards you en­ti­tle me to make. An you 'scape this dan­ger, as I trust you may, let it be a les­son to you to put a guard up­on your tongue, and not suf­fer it to out-​run your judg­ment. You are much too rash and im­petu­ous, and by your fol­ly (nay, do not quar­rel with me, my young friend--I can give no milder ap­pel­la­tion to your con­duct) have placed your­self in the pow­er of your en­emies. Not on­ly have you pro­voked Sir Fran­cis Mitchell, whose mal­ice is more eas­ily aroused than ap­peased, but you have de­fied Sir Giles Mom­pes­son, who is equal­ly im­pla­ca­ble in his en­mi­ties; and as if two such en­emies were not enough, you must needs make a third, yet more dan­ger­ous than ei­ther.”

“How so, good Mas­ter Wolfe?” Jo­ce­lyn cried. “To whom do you re­fer?”

“To whom should I re­fer, Mas­ter Jo­ce­lyn,” Wolfe re­joined, “but to my lord of Buck­ing­ham, whom you wan­ton­ly in­sult­ed? For the lat­ter in­dis­cre­tion there can be no ex­cuse, what­ev­er there may be for the for­mer; and it was sim­ple mad­ness to af­front a no­ble­man of his ex­alt­ed rank, sec­ond on­ly in au­thor­ity to the King him­self.”

“But how have I of­fend­ed the Mar­quis?” de­mand­ed Jo­ce­lyn, sur­prised.

“Is it pos­si­ble you can have spo­ken at ran­dom, and with­out knowl­edge of the force of your own words?” John Wolfe re­joined, look­ing hard at him. “It may be so, for you are plain­ly ig­no­rant of the world. Well, then,” he added, low­er­ing his tone, “when you said that these two abom­inable ex­tor­tion­ers were the crea­tures of some great man, who glozed over their vil­lain­ous prac­tices to the King, and gave a bet­ter ac­count of them than they de­serve, you were near­er the truth than you imag­ined; but it could hard­ly be agree­able to the Mar­quis to be told this to his face, since it is no­to­ri­ous to all (ex­cept to your­self) that he is the man.”

“Heav­ens!” ex­claimed Jo­ce­lyn, “I now see the er­ror I have com­mit­ted.”

“A grave er­ror in­deed,” re­joined Wolfe, shak­ing his head, “and most dif­fi­cult to be re­paired--for the plea of ig­no­rance, though it may suf­fice with me, will scarce­ly avail you with the Mar­quis. In­deed, it can nev­er be urged, since he dis­owns any con­nec­tion with these men; and it is sus­pect­ed that his half-​broth­er, Sir Ed­ward Vil­liers, goes be­tween them in all their se­cret trans­ac­tions. Of this, how­ev­er, I know noth­ing per­son­al­ly, and on­ly tell you what I have heard. But if it were not al­most trea­son­able to say it, I might add, that his Majesty is far too care­less of the means where­by his ex­che­quer is en­riched, and his favourites grat­ified; and, at all events, suf­fers him­self to be too eas­ily im­posed up­on. Hence all these patents and mo­nop­olies un­der which we groan. The favourites _must_ have mon­ey; and as the King has lit­tle to give them, they raise as much as they please on the cred­it of his name. Thus ev­ery­thing is _sold_; places, posts, ti­tles, all have their price--bribery and cor­rup­tion reign ev­ery­where. The lord-​keep­er pays a pen­sion to the Mar­quis--so doth the at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al--and si­mo­ny is open­ly prac­tised; for the Bish­op of Sal­is­bury paid him £3,500 for his bish­opric. But this is not the worst of it. Is it not ter­ri­ble to think of a proud no­ble­man, clothed al­most with supreme au­thor­ity, be­ing se­cret­ly leagued with sor­did wretch­es, whose prac­tices he open­ly dis­coun­te­nances and con­temns, and re­ceiv­ing share of their spoil? Is it not yet more ter­ri­ble to re­flect that the roy­al cof­fers are in some de­gree sup­plied by sim­ilar means?”

“'Tis enough to drive an hon­est man dis­tract­ed,” Jo­ce­lyn said, “and you can­not won­der at my in­dig­na­tion, though you may blame my want of cau­tion. I have said noth­ing half so strong as you have just ut­tered, Mas­ter Wolfe.”

“Ah! but, my good young Sir, I do not pub­licly pro­claim my opin­ions as you do. My lord of Buck­ing­ham's name must no more be called in ques­tion than his Majesty's. To as­so­ciate the Mar­quis's name with those of his known in­stru­ments were to give him mor­tal of­fence. Even to hint at such a con­nec­tion is suf­fi­cient to pro­voke his dis­plea­sure! But enough of this. My pur­pose is not to lec­ture you, but to be­friend you. Tell me frankly, my good young Sir--and be not of­fend­ed with the of­fer--will my purse be use­ful to you? If so, 'tis freely at your ser­vice; and it may help you in your present emer­gen­cy--for though there is not enough in it to bribe the mas­ter to forego his pur­pose against you, there is am­ply suf­fi­cient to pro­cure your lib­er­ation, priv­ily, from the men.”

“I thank you hearti­ly, good Mas­ter Wolfe, and be­lieve me, I am not with­held by false pride from ac­cept­ing your of­fer,” Jo­ce­lyn replied; “but I must trust to my own arm to main­tain my lib­er­ty, and to my own ad­dress to re­gain it, if I be tak­en. Again, I thank you, Sir.”

“I grieve that I can­not lend you oth­er aid,” John Wolfe replied, look­ing com­pas­sion­ate­ly at him; “but my peace­ful av­oca­tions do not per­mit me to take any part in per­son­al con­flicts, and I am loath to be mixed up in such dis­tur­bances. Nev­er­the­less, I do not like to stand by, and see out­rage done.”

“Con­cern your­self no more about me, wor­thy Sir,” in­ter­rupt­ed Jo­ce­lyn. “Per­haps I shall not be mo­lest­ed, and if I should be, I am well able to take care of my­self. Let those who as­sail me bear the con­se­quences.”

But John Wolfe still lin­gered. “If some of my ap­pren­tices were on­ly here,” he said, “and es­pe­cial­ly that ri­otous rogue, Dick Tav­ern­er, some­thing might be done to help you ef­fec­tu­al­ly.--Ha! what is that up­roar?” as a tu­mul­tuous noise, mixed with the cries of “Clubs!--Clubs!” was heard with­out, com­ing from the di­rec­tion of the wharf. “As I live! the 'pren­tices _are_ out, and en­gaged in some mis­chievous work, and it will be strange if Dick Tav­ern­er be not among them. I will see what they are about.” And as he spoke he hur­ried to the oriel win­dow which looked out up­on the wharf, ex­claim­ing--“Ay, ay,--'t is as I thought. Dick _is_ among them, and at their head. 'Fore heav­en! they are at­tack­ing those ruf­fi­an­ly brag­garts from White­fri­ars, and are lay­ing about them lusti­ly with their cud­gels. Ha! what is this I see? The Al­sa­tians and the myr­mi­dons are rout­ed, and the brave lads have cap­tured Sir Fran­cis Mitchell. What are they about to do with him? I must go forth and see.”

His pur­pose, how­ev­er, was pre­vent­ed by a sud­den move­ment on the part of Sir Giles and his at­ten­dants. They came in the di­rec­tion of Jo­ce­lyn Mounchensey, with the ev­ident in­ten­tion of seiz­ing the young man. Jo­ce­lyn in­stant­ly sprang to his feet, drew his sword, and put him­self in a pos­ture of de­fence. The myr­mi­dons pre­pared to beat down the young man's blade with their hal­berds, and se­cure him, when Jo­ce­lyn's cloak was plucked from be­hind, and he heard Madame Bonaven­ture's voice ex­claim--“Come this way!--fol­low me in­stant­ly!”

Thus en­joined, he dashed through the door, which was in­stant­ly fas­tened, as soon as he had made good his re­treat.