Part 4 (1/2)

”Marry, they shall be yours and willingly,” cried the woman, glad to be rid of dangerous property on such generous terms. And it was thus that the stranger became possessor of the chest of ma.n.u.scripts. His bargaining for the lodgings proved him a man of thrift to the point of meanness, a quality not to be despised in lodgers, for, as Mistress Hodges often said to Mistress Judd, ”Gentlemen are ever most liberal who least mean to pay.” In answer to reasonable inquiries he would say no more than, ”My predecessor was known as Master Christopher; let me be, therefore, Master Francis, a poor scholar who promises only to take himself off before his purse is empty.”

The new lodger entered into possession of his chamber on the afternoon of the day on which he saw it first. His luggage, brought thither by two porters on a single barrow, and consisting chiefly of books and ma.n.u.scripts, proved him to be the humble student he had represented himself, and in a week his neighbors were agreed in rating him a rather commonplace recluse. His days were spent in reverie by the open window or in writing at the parchment-littered table. If he stirred abroad at all it was but for an hour in the long twilight after supper, and his candle rarely burned later than ten o'clock. It was not until a fortnight had gone by that Mistress Hodges had the satisfaction of announcing a visitor.

”Come in!” cried Master Francis, responding to her knock at his chamber door, and not a little surprised by a summons so unusual, for the remnants of his supper had been removed, and he was himself preparing for his evening stroll.

”A gentleman attends below, an't please you, sir,” she announced, entering hurriedly.

”Impossible!” her lodger protested, ”for how should a visitor inquire for one who has no name?”

”By your description, an't please you, sir,” replied the woman. ”He drew you to the life. By my faith, there could be no mistake, and when he said you might be known as Master Francis how could I but admit him?

Grand gentleman that he is, with a servant at his heels and half a score of varlets waiting within call!”

Master Francis bit his lip and moved impatiently about the room.

”Go tell this grand gentleman that you were wrong,” he said. ”Tell him I was requested out to supper at half an hour before seven. Tell him what falsehood slips most easily from your tongue, and as you are a woman, tell it truthfully.”

”'Twould not avail, for even now your visitor, grown impatient, mounts the stair,” replied the hostess, while a heavy footfall coming every moment nearer testified to the truth of her a.s.sertion.

”Then off with you and let us be alone,” commanded Master Francis, stopping resolutely in his walk, while Mistress Hodges in the doorway found herself thrust unceremoniously aside to give place to a dignified man in middle life. The visitor's dress was black, relieved only by a broad white ruff, yet of so rich a quality that the appointments of the room descended in the scale from homeliness to shabbiness by contrast.

But apparently he concerned himself no more with the apartment than with Mistress Hodges.

”How now, nephew?” he began at once. ”What means this hiding like a hedgehog in a hole?”

Master Francis bowed with almost servile deference and clasped his hands, making at the same time a gesture with his foot intended to convey to Mistress Hodges an intimation that she was free to go.

”My uncle, this is far too great an honor that you pay me,” he said, when the landlady had closed the door behind her.

”Odsblood! For once, I hear the truth from you. Why have you left your chambers in Gray's Inn for this?” the other answered with a movement of the nostrils as though the whole environment was comprehended in a whiff of Mistress Hodges' mutton broth.

”In truth, most gracious kinsman,” the younger man rejoined, ”since my exclusion from the Court some certain greasy bailiffs have favored me with their company a trifle over often, nor had I otherwhere to go while waiting for a fitting opportunity to recall myself to your lords.h.i.+p's memory.”

”And pray you, to what end?” the other asked impatiently.

”You are not ignorant, uncle, of the state of my poor fortune,” said the scholar.

”No,” was the answer, ”nor can you be forgetful, nephew, of my efforts in the past to mend that fortune.”

”For all of which believe me truly grateful,” responded Master Francis with a touch of irony. ”'Tis to your gracious favor that I owe my appointment to the reversion of the Clerks.h.i.+p of the Star Chamber, worth sixteen hundred pounds a year, provided that I, a weak man, survive in poverty a strong affluence. 'Tis like another man's ground b.u.t.taling upon his house, which may mend his prospect but does not fill his barn.”

The other, crossing to the open window, half seated himself upon the sill, folding his arms while fixing disapproving eyes on his nephew's face.

”This att.i.tude becomes you not at all,” he said. ”Through me you were returned to Parliament, and through me you might have been advanced to profitable office had you not seen fit to antagonize the Ministry, opposing, for the sake of paltry public favour, that four years' subsidy of which the Treasury stood in dire need to meet the Popish plots.”

”I sought to s.h.i.+eld the Ministry and Crown from public disapproval,”

replied Master Francis. ”The country in my judgment was not able to endure the tax.”

”'Twas most presumptuous to set up your judgment against that of your betters,” said the other. ”Your part is plain. This act of yours must be forgotten. It must be known that you have once for all abandoned public life for study. Publish some learned disquisition upon what you will. Absent yourself from town, and in a twelvemonth, perhaps, or less if things go well----”

”A twelvemonth!” cried Master Francis. ”Unless my pockets be replenished I shall have starved to death by early summer.”