The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 An Historical Romance

CHAPTER VIII.

Of Lupo Vulp, Cap­tain Blud­der, Clement Lanyere, and Sir Giles's oth­er Myr­mi­dons.

Close be­hind Sir Giles, and a lit­tle in ad­vance of the rest of the myr­mi­dons, stood Lupo Vulp, the scriven­er.

Lupo Vulp was the con­fi­den­tial ad­vis­er of our two ex­tor­tion­ers, to whom they re­ferred all their ne­far­ious projects. He it was who pre­pared their bonds and con­tracts, and placed out their ill-​got­ten gains at ex­or­bi­tant us­ance. Lupo Vulp was in all re­spects wor­thy of his em­ploy­ers, be­ing just as wily and un­scrupu­lous as they were, while, at the same time, he was rather bet­ter versed in le­gal tricks and stratagems, so that he could give them apt coun­sel in any emer­gen­cy. A coun­te­nance more re­plete with cun­ning and knav­ery than that of Lupo Vulp, it would be dif­fi­cult to dis­cov­er. A sar­don­ic smile hov­ered per­pet­ual­ly about his mouth, which was gar­nished with ranges of the keen­est and whitest teeth. His fea­tures were sharp; his eyes small, set wide apart, of a light gray colour, and with all the sly­ness of a fox lurk­ing with­in their furtive glances. In­deed, his gen­er­al re­sem­blance to that as­tute an­imal must have struck a phys­iog­nomist. His head was shaped like that of a fox, and his hair and beard were of a red­dish-​tawny hue. His man­ner was stealthy, cow­er­ing, sus­pi­cious, as if he feared a blow from ev­ery hand. Yet Lupo Vulp could show his teeth and snap on oc­ca­sions. He was at­tired in a close-​fit­ting dou­blet of rus­se­ty-​brown, round yel­low hose, and long stock­ings of the same hue. A short brown man­tle and a fox-​skin cap com­plet­ed his cos­tume.

The lead­er of the troop was Cap­tain Blud­der, a huge Al­sa­tian bul­ly, with fierce­ly-​twist­ed mous­ta­chios, and fiery-​red beard cut like a spade. He wore a steeple-​crowned hat with a brooch in it, a buff jerkin and boots, and a sword and buck­ler dan­gled from his waist. Be­sides these, he had a cou­ple of petronels stuck in his gir­dle. The cap­tain drank like a fish, and swag­gered and swore like twen­ty troop­ers.

The rear of the band was formed by the tip­staves--stout fel­lows with hooks at the end of their poles, in­tend­ed to cap­ture a fugi­tive, or hale him along when caught. With these were some oth­ers armed with brown-​bills. No uni­for­mi­ty pre­vailed in the ac­cou­trements of the par­ty, each man ar­ray­ing him­self as he list­ed. Some wore old leather jerkins and steel skirts; some, peas­cod dou­blets of Eliz­abeth's time, and trunk-​hose that had cov­ered many a limb be­sides their own; oth­ers, slops and gal­li­gask­ins; while the poor­er sort were robed in rusty gowns of tuft-​mock­ado or taffe­ta, once guard­ed with vel­vet or lined with skins, but now tat­tered and thread­bare. Their caps and bon­nets were as var­ied as their ap­par­el,--some be­ing high-​crowned, some trencher-​shaped, and some few wide in the leaf and looped at the side. More­over, there was ev­ery va­ri­ety of vil­lain­ous as­pect; the sav­age scowl of the des­per­ado, the cun­ning leer of the trick­ster, and the sor­did look of the mean knave. Sev­er­al of them be­trayed, by the marks of in­famy brand­ed on their faces, or by the loss of ears, that they had passed through the hands of the pub­lic ex­ecu­tion­er.

Amongst these there was one with a vis­age more fright­ful­ly mu­ti­lat­ed than those of his com­rades; the nose hav­ing been slit, and sub­se­quent­ly sewed to­geth­er again, but so clum­si­ly that the sev­ered parts had on­ly im­per­fect­ly unit­ed, com­mu­ni­cat­ing a strange, dis­tort­ed, and for­bid­ding look to the phys­iog­no­my. Clement Lanyere, the own­er of this gashed and ghast­ly face, who was al­so reft of his ears, and brand­ed on the cheek, had suf­fered in­famy and degra­da­tion, ow­ing to the li­cence he had giv­en his tongue in re­spect to the Star-​Cham­ber. Pros­ecut­ed in that court by Sir Giles Mom­pes­son, as a no­to­ri­ous li­beller and scan­daller of the judges and first per­son­ages of the realm, he was found guilty, and sen­tenced ac­cord­ing­ly. The court showed lit­tle le­nien­cy to such of­fend­ers; but it was a mat­ter of grace that his clam­orous tongue was not torn out like­wise, in ad­di­tion to the pun­ish­ment ac­tu­al­ly in­flict­ed. A heavy fine and im­pris­on­ment ac­com­pa­nied the cor­po­ral penal­ties. Thus ut­ter­ly ru­ined and de­grad­ed, and a mark for the fin­ger of scorn to point at, Clement Lanyere, whose prospects had once been fair enough, as his fea­tures had been pre­pos­sess­ing, be­came soured and malev­olent, em­bit­tered against the world, and at war with so­ci­ety. He turned pro­mot­er, or, in mod­ern par­lance, in­former; lodg­ing com­plaints, seek­ing out caus­es for pros­ecu­tions, and bring­ing peo­ple in­to trou­ble in or­der to ob­tain part of the for­feits they in­curred for his pains. Strange to say, he at­tached him­self to Sir Giles Mom­pes­son,--the cause of all his mis­for­tunes,--and be­came one of the most ac­tive and use­ful of his fol­low­ers. It was thought no good could come of this al­liance, and that the pro­mot­er on­ly bid­ed his time to turn up­on his mas­ter, against whom it was on­ly nat­ural he should nour­ish se­cret vengeance. But, if it were so, Sir Giles seemed to en­ter­tain no ap­pre­hen­sions of him, prob­ably think­ing he could crush him when­ev­er he pleased. Ei­ther way the event was long de­ferred. Clement Lanyere, to all ap­pear­ance, con­tin­ued to serve his mas­ter zeal­ous­ly and well; and Sir Giles gave no sign what­ev­er of dis­trust, but, on the con­trary, treat­ed him with in­creased con­fi­dence. The pro­mot­er was at­tired whol­ly in black--cloak, cap, dou­blet, and hose were of sable. And as, ow­ing to the emol­uments spring­ing from his vile call­ing, his means were far greater than those of his com­rades; so his ha­bil­iments were bet­ter. When wrapped in his man­tle, with his mu­ti­lat­ed coun­te­nance cov­ered with a mask which he gen­er­al­ly wore, the in­former might have passed for a cav­alier; so tall and well formed was his fig­ure, and so bold his de­port­ment. The dan­ger­ous ser­vice he was em­ployed up­on, which ex­posed him to in­sult and in­jury, re­quired him to be well armed; and he took care to be so.

Two or three of Sir Giles's myr­mi­dons, hav­ing been se­lect­ed for par­tic­ular de­scrip­tion, the des­ig­na­tions of some oth­ers must suf­fice--such as Star­ing Hugh, a ras­cal of un­matched ef­fron­tery; the Gib Cat and Cut­ting Dick, dis­so­lute rogues from the Pickt-​hatch in Turn­bull Street, near Clerken­well; old Tom Woot­ton, once a no­to­ri­ous har­bour­er of “mas­ter­less men,” at his house at Smart's Quay, but now a sher­iffs of­fi­cer; and, per­haps, it ought to be men­tioned, that there were some half-​dozen swash-​buck­lers and sharpers from Al­sa­tia, un­der the com­mand of Cap­tain Blud­der, who was held re­spon­si­ble for their good con­duct.

Such was Sir Giles's body-​guard.

On his en­trance, it may be re­marked, the cur­tain in front of the raised ta­ble was more close­ly drawn, so as com­plete­ly to con­ceal the guests. But their im­por­tance might be in­ferred from the serv­ing-​men, in rich liv­er­ies, stand­ing be­fore the tra­verse.

Pro­found si­lence reigned through­out the as­sem­blage.

Hav­ing un­cov­ered, as be­fore men­tioned, and made a for­mal rev­er­ence to the com­pa­ny, Sir Giles spoke as fol­lows:--

“I crave your par­don, wor­thy Sirs,” he said, in a dis­tinct and res­olute voice, “for this in­tru­sion, and re­gret to be the means of mar­ring your fes­tiv­ity. I came hith­er whol­ly un­pre­pared to find such an as­sem­blage. Yet, though I would will­ing­ly have cho­sen a more fit­ting op­por­tu­ni­ty for my vis­it, and would post­pone, if I could, to an­oth­er oc­ca­sion, the un­pleas­ant du­ty I have to ful­fil; the mat­ter is ur­gent, and will not ad­mit of de­lay. You will hold me ex­cused, there­fore, if I pro­ceed with it, re­gard­less of your pres­ence; and I am well as­sured no let or in­ter­rup­tion will be of­fered me, see­ing I act with the roy­al li­cence and au­thor­ity, of which I am the un­wor­thy rep­re­sen­ta­tive.”

“Tru­ly, your con­duct re­quires ex­pla­na­tion,” Jo­ce­lyn Mounchensey cried, in a mock­ing tone. “If I had not been here in Lon­don, I should have judged, from your ap­pear­ance, and that of your at­ten­dants, that a band of des­per­ate ma­raud­ers had bro­ken in up­on us, and that we must draw our swords to de­fend our lives, and save the house from pil­lage. But af­ter what you have said, I con­clude you to be the sher­iff, come with your fol­low­ers to ex­ecute some writ of at­tach­ment; and there­fore, how­ev­er an­noy­ing the pres­ence of such a func­tionary may be,--how­ev­er ill-​timed may be your vis­it, and un­man­ner­ly your de­port­ment,--we are bound not to mo­lest you.”

Provo­ca­tion like this was rarely ad­dressed to Sir Giles; and the choler oc­ca­sioned by it was in­creased by the laugh­ter and cheers of the com­pa­ny. Nev­er­the­less he con­strained his anger, re­ply­ing in a stern, scorn­ful tone--

“I would not coun­sel you to mo­lest me, young man. The mis­take you have com­mit­ted in re­gard to my­self may be par­doned in one of your ev­ident in­ex­pe­ri­ence; who, fresh from the boor­ish so­ci­ety of the coun­try, finds him­self, for the first time, amongst well-​bred gen­tle­men. Of all here present you are prob­ably the sole per­son ig­no­rant that I am Sir Giles Mom­pes­son. But it is scarce­ly like­ly that they should be aware, as I chance to be, that the clown­ish in­so­lent who has dared to wag his tongue against me, is the son of a Star-​Cham­ber delin­quent.”