The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 An Historical Romance

CHAPTER XIII.

How Jo­ce­lyn Mounchensey en­coun­tered a masked horse­man on Stam­ford Hill.

Two days af­ter the events last record­ed, a horse­man, fol­lowed at a re­spect­ful dis­tance by a mount­ed at­ten­dant, took his way up Stam­ford Hill. He was young, and of sin­gu­lar­ly pre­pos­sess­ing ap­pear­ance, with a coun­te­nance full of fire and spir­it, and bloom­ing with health, and it was easy to see that his life had been passed in the coun­try, and in con­stant man­ly ex­er­cise; for though he man­aged his horse--a pow­er­ful bay charg­er--to per­fec­tion, there was noth­ing of the town gal­lant, or of the sol­dier, about him. His dou­blet and cloak were of a plain dark ma­te­ri­al, and had seen ser­vice; but they well be­came his fine sym­met­ri­cal fig­ure, as did the buff boots de­fend­ing his well-​made, vig­or­ous limbs. Bet­ter seat in sad­dle, or lighter hand with bri­dle, no man could pos­sess than he; and his no­ble steed, which like him­self was full of courage and ar­dour, re­spond­ed to all his move­ments, and obeyed the slight­est in­di­ca­tion of his will. His arms were rapi­er and dag­ger; and his broad-​leaved hat, or­na­ment­ed with a black feath­er, cov­ered the lux­uri­ant brown locks that fell in long ringlets over his shoul­ders. So _débon­nair_ was the young horse­man in de­port­ment, so grace­ful in fig­ure, and so come­ly in looks, that he had ex­cit­ed no lit­tle ad­mi­ra­tion as he rode forth at an ear­ly hour that morn­ing from Bish­op­gate Street, and pass­ing un­der the wide por­tal in the old city walls, speed­ed to­wards the then ru­ral dis­trict of Shored­itch, leav­ing Old Bed­lam and its sad­den­ing as­so­ci­ations on the right, and Fins­bury Fields, with its gar­dens, dog-​hous­es, and wind­mills, on the left. At the end of Bish­op­gate-​Street-​With­out a con­sid­er­able crowd was col­lect­ed round a par­ty of come­ly young milk­maids, who were ex­ecut­ing a live­ly and char­ac­ter­is­tic dance to the ac­com­pa­ni­ment of a bag­pipe and fid­dle. In­stead of car­ry­ing pails as was their wont, these milk­maids, who were all very neat­ly at­tired, bore on their heads a pile of sil­ver plate, bor­rowed for the oc­ca­sion, ar­ranged like a pyra­mid, and adorned with ribands and flow­ers. In this way they vis­it­ed all their cus­tomers and danced be­fore their doors. A pret­ty us­age then ob­served in the en­vi­rons of the metropo­lis in the month of May. The mer­ry milk­maids set up a joy­ous shout as the youth rode by; and many a bright eye fol­lowed his gal­lant fig­ure till it dis­ap­peared. At the Con­duit be­yond Shored­itch, a pack of young girls, who were draw­ing wa­ter, sus­pend­ed their task to look af­ter him; and so did ev­ery bux­om coun­try lass he en­coun­tered, whether seat­ed in tilt­ed cart, or on a pil­lion be­hind her stur­dy sire. To each salu­ta­tion ad­dressed to him the young man cor­dial­ly replied, in a voice blithe as his looks; and in some cas­es, where the greet­ing was giv­en by an el­der­ly per­son­age, or a cap was re­spect­ful­ly doffed to him, he un­cov­ered his own proud head, and dis­played his hand­some fea­tures yet more ful­ly.

So much for the mas­ter: now for the man. In his own opin­ion, at least--for he was by no means de­fi­cient in self-​con­ceit--the lat­ter came in for an equal share of ad­mi­ra­tion; and certes, if im­pu­dence could help him to win it, he lacked not the rec­om­men­da­tion. Star­ing most of the girls out of coun­te­nance, he leered at some of them so of­fen­sive­ly, that their male com­pan­ions shook their fists or whips at him, and some­times launched a stone at his head. Equal­ly free was he in the use of his tongue; and his jests were so scur­rilous and so lit­tle rel­ished by those to whom they were ad­dressed, that it was, per­haps, well for him, in some in­stances, that the speed at which he rode soon car­ried him out of harm's reach. The knave was not ill-​favoured; be­ing young, sup­ple of limb, olive-​com­plex­ioned, black-​eyed, saucy, rogu­ish-​look­ing, with a turned-​up nose, and ex­treme­ly white teeth. He wore no liv­ery, and in­deed his at­tire was rather that of a cit­izen's ap­pren­tice than such as be­seemed a gen­tle­man's lac­quey. He was well mount­ed on a stout sor­rel horse; but though the an­imal was tractable enough, and easy in its paces, he ex­pe­ri­enced con­sid­er­able dif­fi­cul­ty in main­tain­ing his seat on its back.

In this way, Jo­ce­lyn Mounchensey and Dick Tav­ern­er (for the read­er will have had no dif­fi­cul­ty in recog­nis­ing the pair) ar­rived at Stam­ford Hill; and the for­mer, draw­ing in the rein, pro­ceed­ed slow­ly up the gen­tle as­cent.

* * * * *

It was one of those de­li­cious spring morn­ings, when all na­ture seems to re­joice; when the new­ly-​opened leaves are green­est and fresh­est; when the lark springs blithest from the ver­dant mead, and soars near­est heav­en; when a thou­sand oth­er feath­ered cho­ris­ters war­ble forth their notes in copse and hedge; when the rooks caw mel­low­ly near their nests in the lofty trees; when gen­tle show­ers, hav­ing fall­en overnight, have kind­ly pre­pared the earth for the mor­row's ge­nial warmth and sun­shine; when that sun­shine, each mo­ment, calls some new ob­ject in­to life and beau­ty; when all you look up­on is pleas­ant to the eye, all you lis­ten to is de­light­ful to the ear;--in short, it was one of those exquisite morn­ings, on­ly to be met with in the mer­ry month of May, and on­ly to be ex­pe­ri­enced in full per­fec­tion in Mer­ry Eng­land.

* * * * *

Ar­rived at the sum­mit of the hill, com­mand­ing such ex­ten­sive­ly charm­ing views, Jo­ce­lyn halt­ed and looked back with won­der at the vast and pop­ulous city he had just quit­ted, now spread out be­fore him in all its splen­dour and beau­ty. In his eyes it seemed al­ready over-​grown, though it had not at­tained a tithe of its present pro­por­tions; but he could on­ly judge ac­cord­ing to his op­por­tu­ni­ty, and was un­able to fore­see its fu­ture mag­ni­tude. But if Lon­don has waxed in size, wealth, and pop­ula­tion dur­ing the last two cen­turies and a-​half, it has lost near­ly all the pe­cu­liar fea­tures of beau­ty which dis­tin­guished it up to that time, and made it so at­trac­tive to Jo­ce­lyn's eyes. The di­ver­si­fied and pic­turesque ar­chi­tec­ture of its an­cient habi­ta­tions, as yet undis­turbed by the in­no­va­tions of the Ital­ian and Dutch schools, and brought to full per­fec­tion in the lat­ter part of the reign of Eliz­abeth, gave the whole city a char­ac­ter­is­tic and fan­ci­ful ap­pear­ance. Old tow­ers, old bel­fries, old cross­es, slen­der spires in­nu­mer­able, rose up amid a world of quaint gables and an­gu­lar roofs. Sto­ry above sto­ry sprang those cu­ri­ous dwellings; ir­reg­ular yet ho­mo­ge­neous; dear to the painter's and the po­et's eye; elab­orate in or­na­ment; grotesque in de­sign; well suit­ed to the cli­mate, and ad­mirably adapt­ed to the wants and com­forts of the in­hab­itants; pic­turesque like the age it­self, like its cos­tume, its man­ners, its lit­er­ature. All these char­ac­ter­is­tic beau­ties and pe­cu­liar­ities are now ut­ter­ly gone. All the old pic­turesque habi­ta­tions have been de­voured by fire, and a New City has risen in their stead;--not to com­pare with the Old City, though--and con­vey­ing no no­tion what­ev­er of it--any more than you or I, wor­thy read­er, in our for­mal, and, I grieve to say it, ill-​con­trived at­tire, re­sem­ble the pic­turesque-​look­ing denizens of Lon­don, clad in dou­blet, man­tle, and hose, in the time of James the First.

An­oth­er ad­van­tage in those days must not be for­got­ten. The canopy of smoke over­hang­ing the vast Mod­ern Ba­bel, and of­ten­times ob­scur­ing even the light of the sun it­self, did not dim the beau­ties of the An­cient City,--sea coal be­ing but lit­tle used in com­par­ison with wood, of which there was then abun­dance, as at this time in the cap­ital of France. Thus the at­mo­sphere was clear­er and lighter, and served as a fin­er medi­um to re­veal ob­jects which would now be lost at a quar­ter the dis­tance.

Fair, sparkling, and clear­ly de­fined, then, rose up Old Lon­don be­fore Jo­ce­lyn's gaze. Gird­ed round with gray walls, de­fend­ed by bat­tle­ments, and ap­proached by lofty gates, four of which--to wit, Crip­ple­gate, Moor­gate, Bish­op­gate, and Aldgate--were vis­ible from where he stood; it riv­et­ed at­ten­tion from its im­mense con­gre­ga­tion of roofs, spires, pin­na­cles, and vanes, all glit­ter­ing in the sun­shine; while in the midst of all, and pre-​em­inent above all, tow­ered one gi­gan­tic pile--the glo­ri­ous Goth­ic cathe­dral. Far on the east, and be­yond the city walls, though sur­round­ed by its own mu­ral de­fences, was seen the frown­ing Tow­er of Lon­don--part fortress and part prison--a struc­ture nev­er viewed in those days with­out ter­ror, be­ing the scene of so many pass­ing tragedies. Look­ing west­ward, and rapid­ly sur­vey­ing the gar­dens and pleas­ant sub­ur­ban vil­lages ly­ing on the north of the Strand, the young man's gaze set­tled for a mo­ment on Char­ing Cross--the elab­orate­ly-​carved memo­ri­al to his Queen, Eleanor, erect­ed by Ed­ward I.--and then rang­ing over the palace of White­hall and its two gates, West­min­ster Abbey--more beau­ti­ful with­out its tow­ers than with them--it be­came fixed up­on West­min­ster Hall; for there, in one of its cham­bers, the ceil­ing of which was adorned with gild­ed stars, were held the coun­cils of that ter­ri­ble tri­bunal which had robbed him of his in­her­itance, and now threat­ened him with de­pri­va­tion of lib­er­ty, and mu­ti­la­tion of per­son. A shud­der crossed him as he thought of the Star-​Cham­ber, and he turned his gaze else­where, try­ing to bring the whole glo­ri­ous city with­in his ken.

A splen­did view, in­deed! Well might King James him­self ex­claim when stand­ing, not many years pre­vi­ous­ly, on the very spot where Jo­ce­lyn now stood, and look­ing up­on Lon­don for the first time since his ac­ces­sion to the throne of Eng­land--well might he ex­claim in rap­tur­ous ac­cents, as he gazed on the mag­nif­icence of his cap­ital--“At last the rich­est jew­el in a monarch's crown is mine!”

Af­ter sa­ti­at­ing him­self with this, to him, nov­el and won­der­ful prospect, Jo­ce­lyn be­gan to be­stow his at­ten­tion on ob­jects clos­er at hand, and ex­am­ined the land­scapes on ei­ther side of the em­inence, which, with­out of­fer­ing any fea­tures of ex­traor­di­nary beau­ty, were gen­er­al­ly pleas­ing, and ex­er­cised a sooth­ing in­flu­ence up­on his mind. At that time Stam­ford Hill was crowned with a grove of trees, and its east­ern de­cliv­ity was over­grown with brush­wood. The whole coun­try, on the Es­sex side, was more or less marshy, un­til Ep­ping For­est, some three miles off, was reached. Through a swampy vale on the left, the riv­er Lea, so dear to the an­gler, took its slow and silent course; while through a green val­ley on the right, flowed the New Riv­er, then on­ly just opened. Point­ing out the lat­ter chan­nel to Jo­ce­lyn, Dick Tav­ern­er, who had now come up, in­formed him that he was present at the com­ple­tion of that im­por­tant un­der­tak­ing. And a fa­mous sight it was, the ap­pren­tice said. The Lord May­or of Lon­don, the Al­der­men, and the Recorder were all present in their robes and gowns to watch the flood­gate opened, which was to pour the stream that had run from Amwell Head in­to the great cis­tern near Is­ling­ton. And this was done amidst deaf­en­ing cheers and the thun­der of ord­nance.

“A proud day it was for Sir Hugh My­ddle­ton,” Dick added; “and some re­ward for his per­se­ver­ance through dif­fi­cul­ties and dis­ap­point­ments.”

“It is to be hoped the good gen­tle­man has ob­tained more sub­stan­tial re­ward than that,” Jo­ce­lyn replied. “He has con­ferred an in­es­timable boon up­on his fel­low-​cit­izens, and is en­ti­tled to their grat­itude for it.”

“As to grat­itude on the part of the cit­izens, I can't say much for that, Sir. And it is not ev­ery man that meets with his desserts, or we know where our friends Sir Giles Mom­pes­son and Sir Fran­cis Mitchell would be. The good cits are con­tent to drink the pure wa­ter of the New Riv­er, with­out be­stow­ing a thought on him who has brought it to their doors. Mean­time, the work has well-​nigh beg­gared Sir Hugh My­ddle­ton, and he is like­ly to ob­tain lit­tle rec­om­pense be­yond what the con­scious­ness of his own benef­icent act will af­ford him.”

“But will not the King re­quite him?” Jo­ce­lyn asked.

“The King _has_ re­quit­ed him with a ti­tle,” Dick re­turned. “A ti­tle, how­ev­er, which may be pur­chased at a less price than good Sir Hugh has paid for it, now-​a-​days. But it must be owned, to our sovereign's cred­it, that he did far more than the cit­izens of Lon­don would do; since when they re­fused to as­sist Mas­ter My­ddle­ton (as he then was) in his most use­ful work, King James un­der­took, and bound him­self by in­den­ture un­der the great seal, to pay half the ex­pens­es. With­out this, it would prob­ably nev­er have been ac­com­plished.”

“I trust it may be prof­itable to Sir Hugh in the end,” Jo­ce­lyn said; “and if not, he will reap his re­ward here­after.”

“It is not un­like­ly we may en­counter him, as he now dwells near Ed­mon­ton, and is fre­quent­ly on the road,” Dick said; “and if so, I will point him out to you, I have some slight ac­quain­tance with him, hav­ing of­ten served him in my mas­ter's shop in Paul's Church­yard. Talk­ing of Ed­mon­ton, with your per­mis­sion, Sir, we will break our fast at the Bell,[1] where I am known, and where you will be well served. The host is a jovial fel­low and trusty, and may give us in­for­ma­tion which will be use­ful be­fore we pro­ceed on our per­ilous ex­pe­di­tion to Theobalds.”

“I care not how soon we ar­rive there,” Jo­ce­lyn cried; “for the morn­ing has so quick­ened my ap­petite, that the bare idea of thy host's good cheer makes all de­lay in at­tack­ing it un­sup­port­able.”

“I am en­tire­ly of your opin­ion, Sir,” Dick said, smack­ing his lips. “At the Bell at Ed­mon­ton we are sure of fresh fish from the Lea, fresh eggs from the farm-​yard, and stout ale from the cel­lar; and if these three things do not con­sti­tute a good break­fast, I know not what oth­ers do. So let us be jog­ging on­wards. We have bare­ly two miles to ride. Five min­utes to Tot­ten­ham; ten to Ed­mon­ton; 'tis done!”

It was not, how­ev­er, ac­com­plished quite so soon as Dick an­tic­ipat­ed. Ere fifty yards were tra­versed, they were brought to a stop by an un­looked-​for in­ci­dent.

Sud­den­ly emerg­ing from a thick covert of wood, which had con­cealed him from view, a horse­man plant­ed him­self di­rect­ly in their path; or­der­ing them in a loud, au­thor­ita­tive voice, to stand; and en­forc­ing at­ten­tion to the in­junc­tion by lev­el­ling a caliv­er at Jo­ce­lyn's head.

The ap­pear­ance of this per­son­age was as mys­te­ri­ous as formidable. The up­per part of his fea­tures was con­cealed by a black mask. His ha­bil­iments were sable; and the colour of his pow­er­ful steed was sable like­wise. Boots, cap, cloak, and feath­er, were all of the same dusky hue. His frame was strong­ly built, and be­sides the caliv­er he was armed with sword and poniard. Al­to­geth­er, he con­sti­tut­ed an un­pleas­ant ob­sta­cle in the way.

Dick Tav­ern­er was not able to ren­der much as­sis­tance on the oc­ca­sion. The sud­den­ness with which the masked horse­man burst forth up­on them scared his horse; and the an­imal be­com­ing un­man­age­able, be­gan to rear, and fi­nal­ly threw its rid­er to the ground--luck­ily with­out do­ing him much dam­age.

Mean­while the horse­man, low­er­ing his caliv­er, thus ad­dressed Jo­ce­lyn, who, tak­ing him for a rob­ber, was pre­pared to re­sist the at­tack.

“You are mis­tak­en in me, Mas­ter Jo­ce­lyn Mounchensey,” he said; “I have no de­sign up­on your purse. I call up­on you to sur­ren­der your­self my pris­on­er.”

“Nev­er, with life,” the young man replied. “In spite of your dis­guise, I recog­nise you as one of Sir Giles Mom­pes­son's myr­mi­dons; and you may con­clude from our for­mer en­counter, whether my re­sis­tance will be de­ter­mined or not.”

“You had not es­caped on that oc­ca­sion, but for my con­nivance, Mas­ter Jo­ce­lyn,” the man in the mask re­joined. “Now, hear me. I am will­ing to be­friend you on cer­tain con­di­tions; and, to prove my sin­cer­ity, I en­gage you shall go free if you ac­cept them.”

“I do not feel dis­posed to make any terms with you,” Jo­ce­lyn said stern­ly; “and as to my free­dom of de­par­ture, I will take care that it is not hin­dered.”

“I hold a war­rant from the Star-​Cham­ber for your ar­rest,” said the man in the mask; “and you will vain­ly of­fer re­sis­tance if I choose to ex­ecute it. Let this be well un­der­stood be­fore I pro­ceed. And now to show you the ex­tent of my in­for­ma­tion con­cern­ing you, and that I am ful­ly aware of your pro­ceed­ings, I will re­late to you what you have done since you fled with that froward ap­pren­tice, whose tricks will as­sured­ly bring him to Bridewell, from the Three Cranes. You were land­ed at Lon­don Bridge, and went thence with your com­pan­ion to the Rose at New­ing­ton Butts, where you lay that night, and re­mained con­cealed, as you fan­cied, dur­ing the whole of the next day. I say, you fan­cied your re­treat was un­known, be­cause I was aware of it, and could have seized you had I been so dis­posed. The next night you re­moved to the Crown in Bish­op­gate Street, and as you did not care to re­turn to your lodg­ings near Saint Botolph's Church with­out Aldgate, you priv­ily despatched Dick Tav­ern­er to bring your hors­es from the Fal­con in Gracechurch Street, where you had left them, with the fool­hardy in­ten­tion of set­ting forth this morn­ing to Theobalds, to try and ob­tain an in­ter­view of the King.”

“You have spo­ken the truth,” Jo­ce­lyn replied in amaze­ment; “but if you de­signed to ar­rest me, and could have done so, why did you de­fer your pur­pose?”

“Ques­tion me not on that point. Some day or oth­er I may sat­is­fy you. Not now. Enough that I have con­ceived a re­gard for you, and will not harm you, un­less com­pelled to do so by self-​de­fence. Nay more, I will serve you. You must not go to Theobalds. 'Tis a mad scheme, con­ceived by a hot brain, and will bring de­struc­tion up­on you. If you per­sist in it, I must fol­low you thith­er, and pre­vent greater mis­chief.”

“Fol­low me, then, if you list,” Jo­ce­lyn cried; “for go I shall. But be as­sured I will lib­er­ate my­self from you if I can.”

“Go, hot-​head­ed boy,” the man in the mask re­joined, but he then added quick­ly; “yet no!--I will not de­liv­er you thus to the pow­er of your en­emies, with­out a fur­ther ef­fort to save you. Since you are re­solved to go to Theobalds you must have a pro­tec­tor--a pro­tec­tor able to shield you even from Buck­ing­ham, whose en­mi­ty you have rea­son to dread. There is on­ly one per­son who can do this, and that is Count Gon­do­mar, the Span­ish lieger-​am­bas­sador. Luck­ily, he is with the King now. In place of mak­ing any idle at­tempts to ob­tain an in­ter­view of his Majesty, or forc­ing your­self unau­tho­rised on the roy­al pres­ence, which will end in your ar­rest by the Knight Mar­shall, seek out Count Gon­do­mar, and de­liv­er this to­ken to him. Tell him your sto­ry; and do what he bids you.”

And as he spoke the man in the mask held forth a ring, which Jo­ce­lyn took.

“I in­tend­ed to make cer­tain con­di­tions with you,” the mys­te­ri­ous per­son­age pur­sued, “for the ser­vice I should ren­der you, but you have thwart­ed my plans by your ob­sti­na­cy, and I must re­serve them to our next meet­ing. For we _shall_ meet again, and that ere long; and then when you ten­der your thanks for what I have now done, I will tell you how to re­quite the obli­ga­tion.”

“I swear to re­quite it if I can--and as you de­sire,” Jo­ce­lyn cried, struck by the oth­er's man­ner.

“Enough!” the masked per­son­age re­joined. “I am sat­is­fied. Pro­ceed on your way, and may good for­tune at­tend you! Your des­tiny is in your own hands. Obey Count Gon­do­mar's be­hests, and he will aid you ef­fec­tu­al­ly.”

And with­out a word more, the man in the mask struck spurs in­to his horse's sides, and dashed down the hill, at a head­long pace, in the di­rec­tion of Lon­don.

Jo­ce­lyn looked af­ter him, and had not re­cov­ered from his sur­prise at the sin­gu­lar in­ter­view that had tak­en place when he dis­ap­peared.

By this time, Dick Tav­ern­er hav­ing re­gained his feet, limped to­wards him, lead­ing his horse.

“It must be the Fiend in per­son,” quoth the ap­pren­tice, con­triv­ing to re­gain the sad­dle. “I trust you have made no com­pact with him, Sir.”

“Not a sin­ful one I hope,” Jo­ce­lyn replied, glanc­ing at the ring.

And they pro­ceed­ed on their way to­wards Tot­ten­ham, and were present­ly salut­ed by the mer­ry ring­ing of bells, pro­claim­ing some vil­lage fes­ti­val.

FOOT­NOTES:

[1] Lest we should be charged with an anachro­nism, we may men­tion that the Bell at Ed­mon­ton, im­mor­tal­ized in the sto­ry of John Gilpin, was in good re­pute in the days we treat of, as will ap­pear from the fol­low­ing ex­tract from John Sav­ile's Trac­tate en­ti­tled, _King James, his En­ter­tain­ment at Theobald's, with his Wel­come to Lon­don_. Hav­ing de­scribed the vast con­course of peo­ple that flocked forth to greet their new Sovereign on his ap­proach to the metropo­lis, hon­est John says--“Af­ter our break­fast at Ed­mon­ton at the sign of _the Bell_, we took oc­ca­sion to note how many would come down in the next hour, so com­ing up in­to a cham­ber next to the street, where we might both best see, and like­wise take no­tice of all pas­sen­gers, we called for an hour-​glass, and af­ter we had dis­posed of our­selves who should take the num­ber of the horse, and who the foot, we turned the hour-​glass, which be­fore it was half run out, we could not pos­si­bly tru­ly num­ber them, they came so ex­ceed­ing­ly fast; but there we broke off, and made our ac­count of 309 hors­es, and 137 foot­men, which course con­tin­ued that day from four o'clock in the morn­ing till three o'clock in the af­ter­noon, and the day be­fore al­so, as the host of the house told us, with­out in­ter­mis­sion.” Be­sides es­tab­lish­ing the ex­is­tence of the renowned _Bell_ at this pe­ri­od, the fore­go­ing pas­sage is cu­ri­ous in oth­er re­spects.