The Great Mogul

“Come hither, mountain! I’ll sell thee a town clock that shall serve thee as watch.”

“Hi, master! Let me show thee a trencher worthy of thy stomach.”

The last speaker held forth a salver of such ample circumference that the two young men were fain to laugh.

“I’ faith, friend,” said the giant, with utmost good-humor, “we are more needing meat than dishes. Nevertheless, you have ta’en my measure rightly.”

His North-country accent proclaimed him a Yorkshire dalesman, and the White Rose was popular just then in Fleet Street.

“If that be so,” said the sturdy silversmith’s assistant who had hailed him, “you must hie to Smithfield, where they shall roast you a bullock.”

“Come wi’ me, then. Mayhap they need a puppy for the spit.”

The answer turned the laugh against the apprentice. He bravely endeavored to rally.

“I cry your honor’s pardon,” he said. “I looked not for brains where there was so much beef.”

“Therein you further showed your observation. Ofttimes the cockloft is empty in those whom nature hath built many stories high.”

Again the buoyant spirits of the Colossus won him the suffrages of the crowd. Clearly, he had an even temper in his great frame of bone and sinew, for the easy play of his limbs showed that, big as he was, he held no superfluous flesh, while the heat of the day left him unmoved, notwithstanding his heavy garments.

But his companion caught him by the arm.

“Come, Roger,” he said quietly. “We must find our kinsman’s house. There is still much to be done ere night falls.”

The crowd made way for them. They passed westward through Temple Bar, which was not the frowning stone arch of later days, but a strong palisade, with posts and chains, capable of being closed during a tumult, or when darkness made it difficult to keep watch and ward in the city.

The Strand, which they entered, was an open road, with the mansions and gardens of great noblemen on the left, or south side. Each walled enclosure was separate from its neighbor, the alleys between leading to the water stairs, where passengers so minded took boat to Southwark or Lambeth.

On the north were other houses, some pretentious, but more closely packed together, and, on this hand, Drury Lane and St. Martin’s Lane were already becoming thoroughfares of note.

One of these houses, not far removed from the Church of St. Mary-le-Strand, thrust the high wall of its garden so far into the road that it narrowed the passage between it and Somerset House. Here, a group of young gallants had gathered, and some soldiers, of swarthy visage and foreign attire, were loitering in the vicinity.

“This, if my memory serves, should be the house of Gondomar, the Spanish Ambassador,” said Walter Mowbray, the elder and more authoritative of the pair.

“Gondomar! Another name for Old Nick! The devil should keep his proper name in all countries, as he keeps his nature in all places.”

“Hush, Roger, or we shall have a brawl on our hands. I am no lover of Spaniards, you know full well, yet we must pass Gondomar’s men without unseemly taunt. The King loves not to hear of naked blades.”

Thus admonished, his wonted grin of good-humor returned to Roger Sainton’s face, and, as the swaggering youngsters in the road were paying some heed to a covered litter rapidly approaching from the west, the friends essayed to pass them by taking the pavement close under the wall of the Ambassador’s garden.

As luck would have it, a sort of signal seemed to be given for a row to start. Swords were whipped out, men ran forward, and there was a sudden clash of steel.

A laughing fop, for his sins, turned to seek some one with whom to pick a quarrel; he chanced to find himself face to face with Mowbray, Roger being a little in front and at one side.

“I’ll have the wall of you, sirrah,” cried the stranger, frowning offensively.

Walter stepped back, and his right hand crossed to his sword hilt, so evident was the design of the other to insult him.

But Sainton laughed. He caught the would-be bully by the belt.

“Yea, and take the house, too, if the landlord be willing, my pretty buck,” he growled pleasantly, whereon he heaved the swaggerer bodily over the wall, and they heard the crash of his body into the window of a summer house.

Those who stood near were rendered aghast by this feat of strength; they had never seen its like. Young Lord Dereham was no light weight, and his lordship’s wriggling carcass had described sufficient parabola to clear coping-stones set ten feet above the pavement.

The incident passed unheeded by the greater mob in the roadway. For no reason whatever a crowd of struggling men surged around the litter. Mowbray, clutching his undrawn sword, planted his back against the wall from which the discomfited aristocrat would have ousted him; he called to Sainton: —

“Stand by, Roger! There is some treason afoot!”

The words had scarce left his mouth when a Spanish halberdier felled the two nearest litter-bearers, and a shriek of dismay came from behind the drawn curtains as the conveyance dropped to the ground.

Another rush, also preconcerted, enabled some of the well-dressed rascals to possess themselves of the litter-poles. The gates of Gondomar’s garden were suddenly opened, and a move was made to carry the litter thither.

At that instant Eleanor Roe, thrusting aside the curtains, showed her beautiful face, now distraught with fear, and cried aloud for help.

“Be not alarmed, fair one,” said one of her new escort, scarcely veiling his bold stare of admiration by an assumption of good manners. “We have saved you from some roistering knaves, and shall give you a pleasant refuge until the trouble be quelled.”

“Where are my father’s serving-men?” demanded another voice, and Anna looked forth, though anger rather than fear marked her expression.

“Prone in the dust, miladi,” answered the cavalier.

Both girls saw that they were being taken towards Gondomar’s house.

“I pray you convey us to Temple Bar,” cried Anna, an alarmed look now sending shadows across her dark eyes. “’Tis but a step, and there our names shall warrant us bearers in plenty.”

“You are much too pretty to trust to such varlets,” said the spokesman of the party, and, before another word of protest could be uttered, the litter was hustled within the gates, which were closed at once.

Now, both Mowbray and his huge companion were assured that the whole business was a trick. The only sufferers from the riot were the unfortunate litter-bearers and the nobleman who was pitched over the wall. All the rest was make-believe, save the unpleasing fact that two young and beautiful girls were left helpless in the hands of a number of unprincipled libertines such as followed the lead set by Carr, the Scottish page, and maintained, in later years, by “Steenie” and “Baby Charles” in a lewd and dissolute court.

But Mowbray was a comparative stranger in London, and Sainton had never before set eyes on the capital. Common prudence suggested that they should not raise a clamor at the gates of Gondomar, whose great influence with the erratic King was widely known and justly dreaded.

Yet, when did prudence ever withstand the pleading of a pretty face? Mowbray’s blood was boiling, and it needed but little to rouse him to action. The impetus was soon forthcoming.

The noise of the disturbance brought people running from Temple Bar. Others hurried up from the direction of Charing Cross. Then, as now, Londoners dearly loved a street row.

Again, by well-planned strategy, the soldiers and some of the exquisites mingled with the crowd and gave lying assurances that the rogues who fought had run off towards the Convent Garden. Roger recognized the silversmith’s apprentice among the gapers.

“Here, lad,” he said, beckoning him, “ask yon fellow holding a kerchief to his broken head who were the ladies he carried in the litter.”

The man, thus appealed to, gathered his wits sufficiently to answer, and the honored names of Cave and Roe acted as sparks on tinder. Forthwith, a number of city youths gathered round Mowbray and Sainton to hear their version of the fray.

As soon as they knew that the girls had been taken into Gondomar’s house, all the race hatred and religious bigotry of the time flamed forth in ungovernable fury.

“’Prentices! ’Prentices! Clubs! Clubs!” rang out the yell, and the war-cry of the guilds quickly reached to the city barrier, whence a torrent of youths poured headlong into the Strand.

“We’ll have ’em out, if all the ambassadors in St. James’s barred the way,” shouted the valiant silversmith, who contrived to keep very close to Roger in the press, and, when reinforcements arrived, a decided move was made towards the garden gate.

And now, indeed, a real fight was imminent. Seeing their ruse foiled, Gondomar’s adherents banded together for the defense. The citizens were determined to rescue the daughters of two men respected of all honest burgesses, but, if more numerous, they were not properly armed to attack swordsmen and halberdiers. Hence, blood would be spilt in plenty before they won the gate, had not Roger pulled back Walter Mowbray, who headed the attack.