The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 An Historical Romance

CHAPTER XII.

The Ar­rest and the Res­cue.

Lupo Vulp had en­deav­oured to dis­suade Sir Giles from putting his de­sign of ar­rest­ing Jo­ce­lyn in­to im­me­di­ate ex­ecu­tion; al­leg­ing the great risk he would in­cur, as well from the res­olute char­ac­ter of the young man him­self, who was cer­tain to of­fer de­ter­mined re­sis­tance, as from the tem­per of the com­pa­ny, which, be­ing de­cid­ed­ly ad­verse to any such step, might oc­ca­sion a dis­tur­bance that would prob­ably re­sult in the pris­on­er's res­cue.

“In any case, Sir Giles,” said the wily scriven­er, “let me coun­sel you to tar­ry till the greater part of the guests be gone, and the as­sem­blage out­side dis­persed; for I not­ed many tur­bu­lent 'pren­tices among the mob, who are sure to be trou­ble­some.”

“Since the young man shows no present dis­po­si­tion to quit the house,” Sir Giles replied, look­ing askance at Jo­ce­lyn, who just then had moved to an­oth­er part of the room with Madame Bonaven­ture, “there is no ur­gen­cy; and it may be pru­dent to pause a few mo­ments, as you sug­gest, good Lupo. But I will not suf­fer him to de­part. I per­ceive, from her ges­tures and glances, that our tricksy host­ess is plot­ting some scheme with him. Plot away, fair mis­tress; you must have more cun­ning than I give you cred­it for, if you out­wit me a sec­ond time in the same day. I can guess what she pro­pos­es. You note that side door near them, Lupo? She is ad­vis­ing the youth's flight that way; and he, like a hair-​brained fool, will not lis­ten to the sug­ges­tion. But it will be well to watch the out­let. Hark ye, Lanyere,” he added to the pro­mot­er, “take three men with you, and go round quick­ly to the pas­sage with which yon door com­mu­ni­cates. Sta­tion your­selves near the out­let; and if Mounchensey comes forth, ar­rest him in­stant­ly. You see the door I mean? About it, quick!”

And Lanyere in­stant­ly de­part­ed with three of the myr­mi­dons.

“I would this ar­rest could be law­ful­ly ef­fect­ed, Sir Giles,” said Lupo Vulp, “by a ser­jeant-​at-​arms or pur­suiv­ant. There would then be no risk. Again I ven­ture to coun­sel you to pro­ceed reg­ular­ly. No great de­lay would be oc­ca­sioned, if your wor­ship went to West­min­ster, and made a com­plaint against the young man be­fore the Coun­cil. In that case a mes­sen­ger of the Court would be despatched to at­tach his per­son; and even if he should quit the house in the mean­while, Lanyere will keep on his track. That were the surest course. As to the man­ner of pro­ceed­ing, I con­clude it will be by _Ore tenus_. It is not like­ly that this youth's head­strong tem­per, cou­pled with his fan­tas­tic no­tions of hon­our, will per­mit him to de­ny your wor­ship's ac­cu­sa­tion, and there­fore his con­fes­sion be­ing writ­ten down, and sub­scribed by him­self, will be ex­hib­it­ed against him when he is brought to the bar of the Star-​Cham­ber, and he will be judged _ex ore suo_. Your wor­ship will make quick work of it.”

“_Cum con­fi­tente reo citius est agen­dum_” replied Sir Giles. “No one knows bet­ter than thou, good Lupo, how prompt­ly and ef­fec­tu­al­ly the court of Star-​Cham­ber will vin­di­cate its au­thor­ity, and how severe­ly it will pun­ish those who dero­gate from its dig­ni­ty. No part of the sen­tence shall be re­mit­ted with my con­sent. This in­so­lent youth shall suf­fer to the same ex­tent as Lanyere. Pil­lo­ried, brand­ed, mu­ti­lat­ed, de­grad­ed, he shall serve as a warn­ing to my en­emies.”

“Your wor­ship can scarce make him more of a scare­crow than you have made of Lanyere,” Lupo re­marked with a grin. “But do you de­cide on ap­ply­ing in the first in­stance to the Coun­cil?”

“No,” Sir Giles replied, “I will not lose sight of him. He shall not have a chance of es­cape. Marked you not, Lupo, how the rash fool com­mit­ted him­self with Buck­ing­ham? And think you the proud Mar­quis would hold me blame­less, if, by ac­ci­dent, he should get off scot-​free, af­ter such an out­rage? But see! the room is well-​nigh cleared. On­ly a few loi­ter­ers re­main. The time is come.”

And he was about to or­der the at­tack, when the dis­tur­bance out­side reached his ears, and checked him for a mo­ment. Sir Giles was con­sid­er­ing what could be the cause of the tu­mult, and hes­itat­ing whether to go forth and sup­port Sir Fran­cis, in case he stood in need of as­sis­tance, when the dis­com­fit­ed myr­mi­dons rushed in­to the room. A few words suf­ficed to ex­plain what had oc­curred, and in­deed the bloody vis­ages of some of the men showed how rough­ly they had been han­dled. Though great­ly ex­as­per­at­ed, Sir Giles was de­ter­mined not to be baulked of his prey; and fear­ing Jo­ce­lyn might es­cape in the con­fu­sion, which an at­tack up­on the 'pren­tices would oc­ca­sion, he gave the word for his in­stant seizure, and rushed to­wards him, as be­fore re­lat­ed. How he was baf­fled has al­ready been told. His wrath knew no bounds when the young man dis­ap­peared. He hurled him­self fu­ri­ous­ly against the door, but it re­sist­ed all his ef­forts to burst it open. Sud­den­ly the bolt was with­drawn, and Clement Lanyere and his men stood be­fore him.

“Have you se­cured him?” Sir Giles de­mand­ed, try­ing to de­scry the fugi­tive among them. “Death and fiends! you have not let him es­cape?”

“No one has passed us, ex­cept Madame Bonaven­ture,” the pro­mot­er replied. “She was whol­ly unat­tend­ed, and came in this di­rec­tion. We were sta­tioned with­in yon an­ti-​cham­ber, which ap­pears to be the sole means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with this pas­sage, and we ought there­fore to have in­ter­cept­ed the young man when he came forth.”

“You were not wont to be thus short-​sight­ed, Lanyere. There must be some oth­er mode of ex­it, which you have failed to dis­cov­er,” Sir Giles cried fu­ri­ous­ly. “Ha! here it is!” he ex­claimed, dash­ing aside a piece of tapestry that seemed mere­ly hung against the wall, but in re­al­ity con­cealed a short flight of steps. “Pur­blind dolts that you are, not to find this out. You shall an­swer for your neg­li­gence here­after, if we take him not.”

And, ac­com­pa­nied by the troop, he hur­ried down the steps, which brought him to a low­er room, com­mu­ni­cat­ing on one hand with a small court, and, on the oth­er, with the kitchen and of­fices at­tached to the tav­ern. Di­rect­ing Lanyere to search the lat­ter, Sir Giles rushed in­to the court, and ut­tered a shout of sav­age joy on per­ceiv­ing Jo­ce­lyn, sword in hand, scal­ing a wall which sep­arat­ed the court from the bowl­ing-​green.

Some dif­fi­cul­ty, it ap­peared, had oc­curred to the host­ess in forc­ing open a pri­vate door in the yard lead­ing to the green, which be­ing rarely used (for the prin­ci­pal en­trance was sit­uat­ed else­where), its fas­ten­ings were rusty, and re­fused to act. This de­lay favoured the pur­suers; and on hear­ing their ap­proach, Jo­ce­lyn strove to ef­fect his re­treat in the man­ner de­scribed.

But Sir Giles was fur­ther served, though un­in­ten­tion­al­ly, by Madame Bonaven­ture, who suc­ceed­ed in draw­ing back the rusty bolt at the very mo­ment he came up; and no im­ped­iment now ex­ist­ing, the knight thrust her rude­ly aside, and sprang through the door­way just as Jo­ce­lyn leaped from the wall.

Dis­re­gard­ing Sir Giles's sum­mons to sur­ren­der, the young man hur­ried on till he reached the mid­dle of the bowl­ing-​green, where, find­ing flight im­pos­si­ble, as there was no ap­par­ent out­let at the fur­ther end of the gar­den, while it was cer­tain that the tip­staves would pluck him from the wall with their hooks if he at­tempt­ed to clam­ber over it, he turned, and stood up­on his de­fence.

Will­ing to have the cred­it of dis­arm­ing him un­aid­ed, and con­fi­dent in his own su­pe­ri­or strength and skill, Sir Giles signed to his myr­mi­dons to stand back, while he alone ad­vanced to­wards the young man. A turn in his strong wrist would, he imag­ined, suf­fice to ac­com­plish his pur­pose. But he found out his er­ror the mo­ment he en­gaged with his op­po­nent. In dex­ter­ity and force the lat­ter was ful­ly his match, while in nim­ble­ness of body Jo­ce­lyn sur­passed him. The dead­ly glances thrown at him by the young man showed that the an­imos­ity of the lat­ter would on­ly be sat­is­fied with blood. Chang­ing his pur­pose, there­fore, Sir Giles, in place of at­tempt­ing to cross his an­tag­onist's sword, rapid­ly dis­en­gaged his point, and de­liv­ered a stoc­ca­ta, or in mod­ern terms of fence, a thrust in carte, over the arm, which was in­stant­ly par­ried. For some min­utes the con­flict con­tin­ued with­out ma­te­ri­al suc­cess on ei­ther side. Hold­ing his rapi­er short, with the point to­wards his ad­ver­sary's face, Jo­ce­lyn re­treat­ed a few paces at first, but then, charg­ing in turn, speed­ily won back his ground. Stoc­catas, im­broc­catas, drit­tas, man­drit­tas, and river­sas were ex­changed be­tween them in a man­ner that de­light­ed the myr­mi­dons, most of whom were am­ateurs of sword-​play. In­fu­ri­at­ed by the un­ex­pect­ed re­sis­tance he en­coun­tered, Sir Giles, at length, re­solved to ter­mi­nate the fight; and, find­ing his an­tag­onist con­stant­ly up­on some sure ward, en­deav­oured to reach him with a half in­car­ta­ta; but in­stant­ly shift­ing his body with mar­vel­lous dex­ter­ity, Jo­ce­lyn struck down the oth­er's blade, and replied with a straight thrust, which must in­fal­li­bly have tak­en ef­fect, if his rapi­er had not been beat­en from his grasp by Clement Lanyere at the very mo­ment it touched his ad­ver­sary's breast. At the same time the young man's arms were grasped from be­hind by two of the myr­mi­dons, and he lay at his en­emy's dis­pos­al.

Sir Giles, how­ev­er, sheathed his rapi­er, say­ing, with a grim smile, “that he did not mean to de­prive him­self of the sat­is­fac­tion of see­ing his foe stand in the pil­lo­ry, and sub­mit to the sworn tor­tur­er's knife;” adding, “it was some­what strange that one who could guard his body so well, should keep such in­dif­fer­ent watch over his tongue.”

Jo­ce­lyn made no re­ply to the sar­casm, and the knight was prepar­ing to de­part with his fol­low­ers, when a loud and tu­mul­tuous up­roar pro­claimed the ap­proach of the ap­pren­tices. The posse of vic­to­ri­ous youths made their way to the bowl­ing-​green by the prin­ci­pal en­trance, sit­uat­ed, as be­fore men­tioned, at a dif­fer­ent point from the door by which the oth­ers had gained it. More ap­pre­hen­sive of los­ing his pris­on­er, than con­cerned for his per­son­al safe­ty (for though the ag­gres­sive par­ty great­ly ex­ceed­ed his own in num­bers, he knew well how to deal with them, be­ing ac­cus­tomed to such en­coun­ters), Sir Giles gave some or­ders re­spect­ing Jo­ce­lyn to Clement Lanyere, and then pre­pared to re­sist the on­slaught, by caus­ing his band to form a sol­id square; those armed with bills and staves be­ing placed in the fore­most ranks. This dis­po­si­tion be­ing quick­ly made, he drew his sword, and in a loud au­thor­ita­tive tone com­mand­ed the ap­pren­tices to stand back. Such was the ef­fect pro­duced by his voice, and the ter­rors of his coun­te­nance, which sel­dom failed to strike awe in­to be­hold­ers, that the in­tend­ing res­cuers came to a halt, and showed some hes­ita­tion in en­gag­ing him.

“What means this dis­tur­bance?” thun­dered Sir Giles; “and why do you of­fer to mo­lest me in the ex­ecu­tion of my du­ty? Know you not that as­sem­blages like yours are un­law­ful, and that you are li­able to se­vere pun­ish­ment, un­less you im­me­di­ate­ly dis­perse your­selves, and peace­ably de­part to your own habi­ta­tions? About your busi­ness, I say, and trou­ble me no longer! But first, I com­mand you to de­liv­er up your ringlead­ers, and es­pe­cial­ly those who, as I am told, have per­pe­trat­ed the gross out­rage and vi­olence up­on the per­son of Sir Fran­cis Mitchell. An ex­am­ple shall be made of them.”

“You waste your breath, Sir Giles, and your big words will avail you noth­ing with us,” Dick Tav­ern­er replied. “Now hear me in re­turn. We, the bold and loy­al 'pren­tices of Lon­don, who serve our mas­ters and our mas­ters' mas­ter, the king's high­ness, well and tru­ly, will not al­low an un­law­ful ar­rest to be made by you or by any oth­er man. And we com­mand you peace­ably to de­liv­er up your pris­on­er to us; or, by the rood! we will take him forcibly from your hands!”

“Out, in­so­lent fel­low!” cried Sir Giles; “thou wilt al­ter thy tune when thou art scourged at the cart's-​tail.”

“You must catch me first, Sir Giles,” replied Dick; “and two words will go to that. We have read Sir Fran­cis Mitchell a les­son he is not like­ly to for­get; and we will read you one, an you pro­voke us. We have a few old scores to wipe off.”

“Ay, mar­ry! have we,” cried an em­broi­der­er's ap­pren­tice; “these ex­tor­tion­ers have ru­ined my mas­ter's trade by their gold-​and-​sil­ver-​thread monopoly.”

“Hun­dreds of wor­thy men have been thrown out of em­ploy­ment by their prac­tices,” said a vint­ner's 'pren­tice. “We sell not half the wine we used to do. And no won­der! see­ing two-​thirds of the inns in Lon­don are shut up.”

“The brew­ers will be all ru­ined,” said a burly 'pren­tice, with a wood­en shov­el over his shoul­der; “since ev­ery day a fresh ale-​house is closed; and no new li­cences are grant­ed. Mur­rain seize all such mo­nop­olists! They are worse than the fly in hops, or smut in bar­ley.”

“Ay, plague take 'em!” ex­claimed Dick Tav­ern­er. “They are as bad as the lo­custs of Egypt. When they have de­voured the sub­stance of one set of trades­folk they will com­mence up­on that of an­oth­er. No one is safe from them. It will be your turn next, Mas­ter Mer­cer. Yours af­ter him, Mas­ter Iron­mon­ger, how­ev­er hard of di­ges­tion may be your wares. You will come third, Mas­ter Fish­mon­ger. You fourth, Mas­ter Gro­cer. And when they are sur­feit­ed with spiceries and fish, they will fall up­on you, tooth and nail, Mas­ter Gold­smith.”

“I trow not,” cried the ap­pren­tice last ap­pealed to. “Our mas­ters are too rich and too pow­er­ful to sub­mit to such us­age.”

“The very rea­son they will un­der­go it,” replied Dick. “Their rich­es are on­ly a temp­ta­tion to plun­der. I re­peat, no man is safe from these ex­tor­tion­ers. Since the law will not give us re­dress, and put them down, we must take the law in­to our own hands. They shall have Club Law.”

“Ay, ay--'Pren­tices' law--Club law!” cho­russed the oth­ers.

“Sir Giles will make a Star-​Cham­ber mat­ter of it. He will have us up be­fore the Coun­cil,” laughed the gold­smith's 'pren­tice.

“He will buy a monopoly of cud­gels to de­prive us of their use,” cried a bowyer.

“We will be­stow that patent up­on him gratis,” quoth Dick, mak­ing his staff whis­tle round his head.

“The pris­on­er!--gen­tle­men 'pren­tices--do not for­get him!” cried Cy­prien, who, with two oth­er serv­ing-​men and the cook, had joined the as­sail­ing par­ty. “Madame Bonaven­ture im­plores you to ef­fect his res­cue.”

“And so we will, my jovial Gas­con,” replied Dick. “Come, Sir Giles! are we to have the young gen­tle­man from you by force or free-​will?”

“You shall have him in nei­ther way, sir­rah,” the knight re­joined. “You, your­self, shall bear him com­pa­ny in the Fleet. Up­on them, my men, and make for the door!”

And as the com­mand was giv­en, he and his troop made a sud­den dash up­on the 'pren­tices, who, un­able to stand against the bills lev­elled against their breasts, gave way. Still, the gal­lant youths were by no means rout­ed. In­stant­ly clos­ing up­on their op­po­nents, and be­ing quite as nim­ble of foot as they, they con­trived to cut off their re­treat from the gar­den; and a sharp con­flict took place be­tween the par­ties, as they came to close quar­ters near the en­trance. Three of the myr­mi­dons were felled by Dick Tav­ern­er's cud­gel; and at last, watch­ing his op­por­tu­ni­ty, with both hands he launched a bowl which he had picked up at Sir Giles's head. If the mis­sile had tak­en ef­fect, the fight would have been over; but the knight avoid­ed the blow by stoop­ing down, and the bowl, pass­ing over him, hit Lupo Vulp full in the stom­ach, and brought him to the ground de­prived of breath. Mean­while, Sir Giles, spring­ing quick­ly for­ward, pinned the ap­pren­tice against the wall with his rapi­er's point.

“I have thee at last, knave,” he cried, seiz­ing Dick by the col­lar, and de­liv­er­ing him to the cus­tody of the myr­mi­dons near­est him--“I told thee thou should'st vis­it the Fleet. And so thou shalt.”

Notwith­stand­ing the cap­ture of their lead­er, the 'pren­tices fought man­ful­ly, and it still ap­peared doubt­ful whether Sir Giles would be able to ef­fect a re­treat af­ter all, em­bar­rassed as he now was with two pris­on­ers. Un­der these cir­cum­stances he made a sign to Clement Lanyere to with­draw with Jo­ce­lyn through the oth­er door, or­der­ing the two myr­mi­dons who had charge of Dick Tav­ern­er to fol­low him with their cap­tive.

It was no easy task to car­ry out the or­der; but the pro­mot­er man­aged to ac­com­plish it. Sin­gle-​hand­ed he drove back all who op­posed his progress, while the two pris­on­ers were borne to­wards the door by the men hav­ing them in cus­tody.

Hith­er­to Jo­ce­lyn had made no at­tempt at self-​lib­er­ation; await­ing, prob­ably, the re­sult of the 'pren­tices' ef­forts in his be­half, or some more favourable op­por­tu­ni­ty than had hith­er­to pre­sent­ed it­self. On reach­ing the lit­tle court the time for ex­er­tion seemed to be come. Shak­ing off the myr­mi­dons who pin­ioned him, and seiz­ing a bill from one of them, he in­stant­ly stretched the fel­low at his feet, and drove off his com­rade. This done, he lent im­me­di­ate as­sis­tance to Dick Tav­ern­er, set­ting him free, and arm­ing him with as much promp­ti­tude as he had used to ef­fect his own de­liv­er­ance.

While thus en­gaged, he re­ceived no in­ter­rup­tion from Clement Lanyere, though, if he had cho­sen, the pro­mot­er might no doubt have ef­fec­tu­al­ly op­posed him. But Lanyere ei­ther was, or feigned to be, en­gaged with some skir­mish­ers at the door; and it was on­ly when both the pris­on­ers had got free, that he rushed to­wards them, loud­ly rep­re­hend­ing the men for their care­less­ness. But if they were to blame, he was no less so, for he showed lit­tle ad­dress in fol­low­ing the fugi­tives, and man­aged to take a wrong turn in the pas­sage, which led both him and the myr­mi­dons astray, so that the pris­on­ers got clear off.

How Jo­ce­lyn and Dick Tav­ern­er con­trived to reach the Vin­try Wharf, nei­ther of them very dis­tinct­ly knew,--such was the hur­ried man­ner in which they passed through the tav­ern; but there they were, pre­cise­ly at the mo­ment that Sir Giles Mom­pes­son, hav­ing fought his way through all op­po­si­tion, is­sued from the porch at the head of his band.

Quite sat­is­fied with his pre­vi­ous en­counter with the re­doubtable knight, and anx­ious to es­cape be­fore his eva­sion should he dis­cov­ered, Dick beck­oned to his com­pan­ion, and, mak­ing all the haste they could to the stairs, they both jumped in­to the near­est wher­ry, when the ap­pren­tice or­dered the two wa­ter­men with­in it to row for their lives to Lon­don-​bridge.