Part 8 (2/2)

”G.o.d bless her,” he said very reverently, ”and give her a mind to perceive her own and her realm's, true good. And so He doth!” he broke off vehemently, ”and hath made her to be the greatest merchant of them all! Ask Master Drake, else, whose partner and fellow-adventurer she was when he sailed from Plymouth with but five poor s.h.i.+ps, and returned thence with such treasure of the Spaniards as it took two whole days to discharge upon the quay.”

In such converse we walked on, I straitly considering of these things he told, whether indeed those mighty lords, whose names were in everybody's mouth, were truly of less account than men trading in silk and furs and spices, as he would have me believe; and whether, also, overmuch service with the City Sheriffs had not worn out an esteem for greater folk in this honest stout warden of London Bridge.

When at length we arrived at my old lodging in Fetter Lane, Mr. Nelson said he would not enter, but would await me in the street, and so I went in alone. I found Madam Malt in a chamber behind the shop, with her daughters, and very busy upon a great piece, of needlework. She looked up swiftly as I entered, but never a word she spake.

”I come to make account of my prolonged absence,” said I, something out of countenance for this unlooked for rebuff.

”Judith,” said her mother, sharply, ”go see whether my babe wakes yet; Allison do this, and Maud do that,” said she, and so emptied her bower of the maids at a word, and left me standing.

”Lord!” quoth I low to myself, ”I am come into the garden of the Hesperides surely; yet I wist not that the Dragon was mother of them.”

But aloud I said, ”I am bound to thank you for the hospitality you extended to me, Madam, the which I cannot well repay.”

”I thought no less,” replied the lady, without raising her eyes from her work, ”and therefore made application for distraint, which being granted, I sold such stuff as you thought fit to leave and was not past laundering.”

”But there was my mare too,” I cried.

”Ay, the poor jade,” said she, ”the knacker put a price upon her, but it reached not to the value of a feed of oats, so I cried quits and kept her.”

”Then you have her yet?” quoth I.

”I have her not,” quoth she, ”for I gave her a gift to the parson of St. Dunstan's Church that hath been very full of encouragement to us in our trouble.”

”Your trouble, Madam?” I began, but she proceeded with a terrible quietness--

”'A preached a singular comfortable sermon two Sundays after your stealing off, upon the text, 'Happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us,' as would have melted the most shameless, Mr.

Denis.”

”Let us hope it did then,” said I, pretty tired of this oblique attack.

”He was not of the congregation, sir,” she blazed out, her eyes on mine.

”He was,” I retorted, ”for he both preached the sermon and hath my mare. But he shall give her me again, or else I will take her by force.”

”Ah, you would despoil the Church then, you heretick Turk!” cried the lady in a thin, hissing voice that befitted the Dragon I had formerly called her in my thoughts. ”Was it not enough that you should creep into a Christian household and steal all peace therefrom? What of the looks you were ever casting upon my tender Judith, and she so apt at her catechism and forward in works of grace. Your mare, quotha! What of her pretty beseeching ways that no man hath seen but saith she is rather Ruth than Judith--ay, and shall find her Boaz one day, I tell you, in despite of your heathen wiles and treachery. So, fetch away your beast from a churchman's stall, 'tis easy done every whit as get a simple maid's heart; and then off and abroad, while she weeps at home, poor la.s.s! that is so diligent a sempstress withal, and her father's prop of his age.”

Whilst she was delivering this astonis.h.i.+ng and very calumnious speech, Madam Malt had arisen from her chair and now stood close above me, wringing her hands that yet kept a hold of her piece of needlework, and shaking with rage. She was a marvellous large woman, with a face something loose-skinned about the jaw, and of a buff colour that mounted to a brownness in the folds and wrinkles. Her voice, as I have said, was very dragonlike, and her whole aspect and presence had something of an apocalyptic terribleness that seemed to draw the clouds about her as a garment. I see her yet in my dreams and awake shuddering.

Once or twice I strove to interpose a denial in the flood of her indictment, and to exonerate myself from her load of false charges, but could nowise make myself heard, or at least heeded, and so gave it over. Indeed, how all would have ended I know not, had not the infant in a lucky hour awakened and lamentably demanded sustenance; whereupon Judith running in (who I am persuaded had got no further than behind the door-c.h.i.n.k), the lady's thoughts were by the intelligence that her daughter brought, most happily diverted from me. Judith regarded me with one wistful glance, and then in the wake of the Dragon as she swept from the room, this last of the Hesperides departed from me for ever.

I stood some time very downcast, knowing not what to think, when the door opening a small s.p.a.ce, Mr. Richard's head was thrust in, his eyes winking with merriment.

”So you have returned to us, Mr. Prodigal,” he whispered, ”and have heard moreover how we take your leaving us so without ceremony as you did. Nay, be not melancholy, man,” he went on, coming beside me and laying a hand upon my shoulder, ”for we that use the playhouse and the jolly tavern understand these things well enough. No need for words where a nod sufficeth. But the women would have no men roysters, good souls! nor hardly allow us the stretch of a lap-dog's leash to gambol in. Eh!” he sang out in a pretty good mean voice, although from his late drinking not well controlled:

”'Better place no wit can find Cupid's yoke to loose or bind.'

But come you with me, Mr. Denis, one of these nights; for we be much of an age, and should sort handsomely together, if I mistake not.”

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