The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 An Historical Romance

CHAPTER V.

Jo­ce­lyn Mounchensey.

Notwith­stand­ing the risk in­curred, the young man, whose feel­ings were ev­ident­ly deeply in­ter­est­ed, seemed dis­posed to pur­sue the dan­ger­ous theme; but per­ceiv­ing one of their op­po­site neigh­bours glanc­ing at them, Sir Fran­cis checked him; and fill­ing his glass es­sayed to change the con­ver­sa­tion, by in­quir­ing how long he had been in town, and where he lodged?

“I on­ly ar­rived in Lon­don yes­ter­day,” was the re­ply; “yet I have been here long enough to make me loth to re­turn to the woods and moors of Nor­folk. As to my lodg­ing, it is with­out the city walls, near St. Botolph's Church, and with­in a bow shot of Aldgate: a pleas­ant sit­ua­tion enough, look­ing to­wards the Spi­tal Fields and the open coun­try. I would fain have got me oth­ers in the Strand, or near Char­ing Cross, if my scanty means would have al­lowed me. Chance, as I have said, brought me here to-​day. Strolling forth ear­ly to view the sights of town, I crossed Lon­don Bridge, the mag­nif­icence of which amazed me; and, pro­ceed­ing along the Bank­side, en­tered Paris Gar­den, of which I had heard much, and where I was great­ly pleased, both with the mas­tiffs kept there, and the formidable an­imals they have to en­counter; and, methought, I should like to bait mine en­emies with those sav­age dogs, in­stead of the bear. Re­turn­ing to the op­po­site shore in a wher­ry, the wa­ter­man land­ed me at this wharf, and so high­ly com­mend­ed the Three Cranes, as af­ford­ing the best French or­di­nary and the best French wine in Lon­don, that see­ing many gen­tle­folk flock­ing to­wards it, which seemed to con­firm his state­ment, I came in with them, and have rea­son to be sat­is­fied with my en­ter­tain­ment, nev­er hav­ing dined so sump­tu­ous­ly be­fore, and, certes, nev­er hav­ing tast­ed wine so de­li­cious.”

“Let me fill your glass again. As I am a true gen­tle­man, it will not hurt you; a sin­gu­lar mer­it of pure Bor­deaux be­ing that you may drink it with im­puni­ty; and the like can­not be said of your so­phis­ti­cat­ed sack. We will crush an­oth­er flask. Ho! draw­er--Cy­prien, I say! More wine--and of the best Bor­deaux. The best, I say.”

And for a won­der the or­der was obeyed, and the flask set be­fore him.

“You have been at the Bank­side you say, young Sir? On my cred­it, you must cross the riv­er again and vis­it the the­atres--the Globe or the Rose. Our great ac­tor, Dick Bur­badge, plays Oth­el­lo to-​day, and, I war­rant me, he will de­light you. A lit­tle man is Dick, but he hath a mighty soul. There is none oth­er like him, whether it be Nat Field or Ned Al­leyn. Our fa­mous Shake­speare is for­tu­nate, I trow, in hav­ing him to play his great char­ac­ters. You must see Bur­badge, like­wise, in the mad Prince of Den­mark,--the part was writ­ten for him, and fits him ex­act­ly. See him al­so in gen­tle and love-​sick Romeo, in tyran­nous and mur­der­ous Mac­beth, and in crook­back Richard; in all of which, though dif­fer­ent, our Dick is equal­ly good. He hath some oth­er parts of al­most equal mer­it,--as Malev­ole, in the 'Mal­con­tent;' Frank­ford, in the 'Wom­an Killed with Kind­ness;' Brachi­ano, in Web­ster's 'White Dev­il;' and Ven­dice, in Cyril Tournour's 'Re­venger's Tragedy.'”

“I know not what may be the na­ture of that last-​named play,” the young man rather stern­ly re­marked; “but if the char­ac­ter of Ven­dice at all bears out its name, it would suit me. I am an avenger.”

“For­bear your wrongs awhile, I pray you, and drown your re­sent­ment in a cup of wine. As I am a true gen­tle­man! a bet­ter bot­tle than the first! Nay, taste it. On my cred­it, it is per­fect nec­tar. I pledge you in a brim­mer; wish­ing Suc­cess may at­tend you, and Con­fu­sion await your En­emies! May you speed­ily re­gain your Rights!”

“I drink that toast most hearti­ly, wor­thy Sir,” the young man ex­claimed, rais­ing his bead­ed flagon on high. “Con­fu­sion to my En­emies--Restora­tion to my Rights!”

And he drained the gob­let to its last drop.

“By this time he must be in a fit mood for my pur­pose,” Sir Fran­cis thought, as he watched him nar­row­ly. “Harkye, my good young friend,” he said, low­er­ing his tone, “I would not be over­heard in what I have to say. You were speak­ing just now of the short­est way to for­tune. I will point it out to you. To him, who is bold enough to take it, and who hath the req­ui­sites for the ven­ture, the short­est way is to be found at Court. Where think you most of those gal­lants, of whom you may catch a glimpse through the tra­verse, de­rive their rev­enues?--As I am a true gen­tle­man!--from the roy­al cof­fers. Not many years ago, with all of them; not many months ago, with some; those bril­liant and ti­tled cox­combs were ad­ven­tur­ers like your­self, hav­ing bare­ly a Ja­cobus in their purs­es, and scarce cred­it for board and lodg­ing with their re­spec­tive land­ladies. Now you see how nobly they feast, and how rich­ly they be­deck them­selves. On my cred­it! the like good for­tune may at­tend you; and hap­ly, when I dine at an or­di­nary a year hence, I may per­ceive you at the up­per ta­ble, with a cur­tain be­fore you to keep off the mean­er com­pa­ny, and your serv­ing-​man at your back, hold­ing your vel­vet man­tle and cap, like the best of your fel­low no­bles.”

“Heav­en grant it may be so!” the young man ex­claimed, with a sigh. “You hold a daz­zling pic­ture be­fore me; but I have lit­tle ex­pec­ta­tion of re­al­iz­ing it.”

“It will be your own fault if you do not,” the tempter re­joined. “You are equal­ly well-​favoured with the hand­somest of them; and it was by good looks alone that the whole par­ty rose to their present em­inence. Why not pur­sue the same course; with the same cer­tain­ty of suc­cess? You have courage enough to un­der­take it, I pre­sume?”

“If courage alone were want­ing, I have that,” the young man replied;--“but I am whol­ly un­known in town. How then shall I ac­com­plish an in­tro­duc­tion at Court, when I know not even its hum­blest at­ten­dant?”

“I have al­ready said you were lucky in meet­ing with me,” Sir Fran­cis replied; “and I find you were luck­ier than I sup­posed, when I told you so; for I knew not then to­wards what bent your de­sires tend­ed, nor in what way I could help you; but now, find­ing out the bold­ness of your flight, and the high game you aim at, I am able to of­fer you ef­fec­tu­al as­sis­tance, and give you an earnest of a pros­per­ous is­sue. Through my means you shall be pre­sent­ed to the king, and in such sort that the pre­sen­ta­tion shall not be idly made. It will rest then with your­self to play your cards dex­ter­ous­ly, and to fol­low up a win­ning game. Doubt­less, you will have many ad­ver­saries, who will trip up your heels if they can, and throw ev­ery ob­sta­cle in your way; but if you pos­sess the strong arm I fan­cy you do, and dar­ing to sec­ond it, you have noth­ing to fear. As I am a true gen­tle­man! you shall have good coun­sel, and a friend in se­cret to back you.”

“To whom am I in­debt­ed for this most gra­cious and un­looked-​for of­fer?” the young man asked, his breast heav­ing, and his eye flash­ing with ex­cite­ment.

“To one you may per­chance have heard of,” the knight an­swered, “as the sub­ject of some mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion; how just­ly ap­plied, you your­self will be able to de­ter­mine from my present con­duct. I am Sir Fran­cis Mitchell.”

At the men­tion of this name the young man start­ed, and a deep an­gry flush over­spread his face and brow.

Per­ceiv­ing the ef­fect pro­duced, the wily knight has­tened to re­move it.

“My name, I see, awak­ens un­pleas­ant as­so­ci­ations in your breast,” he said; “and your look shows you have been in­flu­enced by the calum­nies of my en­emies. I do not blame you. Men can on­ly be judged of by re­port; and those I have had deal­ings with have re­port­ed ill enough of me. But they have spo­ken false­ly. I have done no more than any oth­er per­son would do. I have ob­tained the best in­ter­est I could for my mon­ey; and my loss­es have been al­most equal to my gains. Folks are ready enough to tell all they can against you; but slow to men­tion aught they con­ceive to be in your favour. They stig­ma­tize me as a usurer; but they for­get to add, I am ev­er the friend of those in need. They use me, and abuse me. That is the way of the world. Where­fore, then, should I com­plain? I am no worse off than my neigh­bours. And the proof that I can be dis­in­ter­est­ed is the way in which I have act­ed to­wards you, a per­fect stranger, and who have no oth­er rec­om­men­da­tion to my good of­fices than your gra­cious mien and gen­tle man­ners.”

“I can­not ac­cept your prof­fered aid, Sir Fran­cis,” the young man replied, in an al­tered tone, and with great stern­ness. “And you will un­der­stand why I can­not, when I an­nounce my­self to you as Jo­ce­lyn Mounchensey.”

It was now the knight's turn to start, change colour, and trem­ble.