Brother Dusty-Feet (16 page)

After that it wasn’t so bad. It was cold, of course, and the gale still surged through the trees, roaring and beating its wings above them, and humming through the bell louvres in the churchtower high overhead; but close under the churchyard wall they were sheltered, and the long grass around the stocks only shivered now and then. Darker it grew, and darker yet, and Hugh, sitting beside Jonathan in the stocks and the windy darkness, screwed round to watch the firelit windows glowing from the cottages away beyond the church. The windows were gold and orange and apricot-tawny, criss-crossed by the shapes of the lashing boughs, and somehow the warmth of them was comforting to the cold emptiness of his inside.

But presently the lights began to go out, one by one, until only a saffron warmth in the window of the ale-house was left; and then that went out too.

‘The fine gentleman would seem to keep early hours,’ said Master Pennifeather.

It was very dark after that last light had gone, and it seemed to Hugh to get suddenly colder.

‘Lean against me, and try to go to sleep,’ said Jonathan, and put an arm round him.

So Hugh snuggled up to him as well as he could, and tried to go to sleep, because he always did what Jonathan told him. But he could not manage to get the least bit sleepy; he was too cold and empty and
his bruises ached too much; anyway, stocks were not comfortable for sleeping in.

After a time the moon rose, full and round and silver into a sky that showed deepest blue between the shreds of scudding silver cloud; and with the moon came the Fine Gentleman. They did not see him come, because he walked in the dark shadows at the side of the lane, and they did not hear him, because the hurly-burly wind drowned his footsteps, but suddenly he was there.

There was a large rent in the shoulder of his beautiful cloak, and by the flying moonlight they could see a dark smeary-looking bruise all along his cheek-bone, but somehow he did not look disreputable, as the Players did; he seemed to be one of those people who always look neat and tidy, like Hugh’s periwinkle.

Argos did not bark at him, as he generally did at strangers who came near in the dark, partly because he was half strangled by the rope round his neck, but also because he remembered that this particular stranger had been with him and his master in the battle. Instead, he wagged his plumy tail and whined throatily. For a moment the Players and the Fine Gentleman gazed at each other in the moonlight, and then the young man swept them a low bow, one hand on the hilt of his long rapier.

‘Good evening to you,’ said he. ‘I congratulate you, one and all! – I came to offer my condolences, and I find you sitting in a row, seemingly as comfortable as Aldermen at the Lord Mayor’s banquet!’

‘Though something emptier,’ said Master Pennifeather.

‘Ah, I was afraid of that,’ said the Fine Gentleman,
fishing inside his doublet. ‘Alas, we have no time for eating just now. Gentlemen, I have the honour to bring you the key of the stocks,’ and he fitted something into the heavy lock, while the Players simply sat and goggled at him.

Master Pennifeather was the first to get his breath back. ‘Ye saints and sinners! How did you get that?’ he gasped.

‘Oh, I got it off the Constable,’ said the young man airily, raising the foot-board. Everybody stretched their cramped legs and groaned in ecstasy, while Hugh and Jonathan made haste to untie Argos. ‘It was quite simple,’ he added, putting the key back in his doublet. ‘I told him he couldn’t go round locking up bunches of Walsingham’s secret agents without getting himself into trouble and probably into the Tower, but that if he gave me the key, I’d arrange for your escape, and hush the whole thing up. He was very glad to give me the key after I’d described to him the sort of dungeons they have in the Tower.’

Everybody gazed at the Fine Gentleman in admiration.

‘Walsingham’s – secret – agents!’ murmured Jasper Nye, wagging his head.

‘And he
believed
you?’ said Jonathan.

‘Of course. You’re just the sort of people who might be, you know’ (which was quite true. All sorts of queer people up and down the country, and in foreign lands too, were spies in the pay of Mr Secretary-of-State Walsingham). ‘And now, if you’ve got your legs back into marching order, we’d best collect the cart; Will Squance should have done loading up
by now, and the sooner you’re clear of this parish, the better.’

He was a very masterful young man, and they trooped after him like children after the Pied Piper, back to the ale-house. The tilt-cart, ready loaded, stood in the middle of the stable-yard, with Will Squance sitting on the shafts. He got up, grinning, when they appeared, and said, ‘You’ve got ’em safe then, Maister Walter.’

‘I’ve got them,’ said the young man. ‘Now to see them safely out of this hornets’ nest.’

Jonathan said quickly, ‘You’d best be getting indoors, master. You’ve done enough for us already, and ’twill do you no good to be found in our company; that story about our being Walsingham’s men won’t stand much looking into.’

But the young man only laughed. ‘I shan’t be found in your company. The whole village is abed and asleep by now, and there’s no fear of our waking them, in this wind.’

They got Saffronilla out of the stable and into the shafts without any trouble, the howling gale drowning the clippity-clop of her hooves and the trundling wheels as they led her and the cart out into the lane.

‘I’ll come and see you on your way,’ said the young man.

So they said good-bye to Will Squance, and set out together, back the way they had come that morning, for the road beyond the village was still blocked.

In a small silver clearing amid the lashing darkness of the forest, a long way from the unfriendly village, the little Company halted. A wind-ruffled stream ran through the clearing, and the Players bathed their cuts and bruises thankfully in the swift, cold water;
but they did not wait to change out of the tattered St Cecilia costumes before beginning on the food which the Fine Gentleman had produced from the tilt-cart where Will Squance must have put it.

The Players had not expected any supper that night, but they had not known how hungry they were until they saw the bread-and-cheese and cold bacon. They shared it out in a great hurry, and settled down on the grass, while the Fine Gentleman sat on the edge of the cart and watched them, with his arms akimbo and his battered bonnet on the back of his head.

‘Blessings on your head, my lord!’ said Benjamin, with his mouth full.

Master Pennifeather reached for the cheese, and asked, without any of his usual high-flown air, ‘Why have you put yourself out like this, for such as we, master?’

‘Fellow feeling,’ said the Fine Gentleman, blithely. ‘I do not like constables, and I like good fighting men. Also I gathered from Will that it was empty pockets that made you put on your play this afternoon without a licence, and I am – er – somewhat empty of pocket myself. Fellow feeling, yiss!’

They looked at him. They saw the gold clasp in his bonnet and the silver lace on his cloak, and the long, slender, velvet-sheathed rapier at his hip, and they did not believe him in the least.

The Fine Gentleman seemed to know that they didn’t believe him just as though they had said so, and he laughed in a joyous, crowing way.

‘Nay, but it’s the truth I’m telling you! It comes of having expensive tastes.’ And then, suddenly becoming tremendously eager, he leaned forward on
his perch, making quick wide gestures with his hands. ‘But I shall be rich one day!’ he said. ‘I shall have as much gold as the Incas of Peru! And not only I – England shall have it too. When that day comes we shall build a more glorious England, and everybody will be happy!’

They thought perhaps he was mad, but if he was, it was an exciting sort of madness.

Master Pennifeather asked, ‘And how are you going to get so much gold?’

And the Fine Gentleman said, ‘Make it, of course. Three times already I have almost discovered the Elixir, and each time I have made a slight mistake and had an explosion instead; but I know exactly what I did wrong last time, and next time I shall make no mistake at all.’

Then of course they knew that he was not mad, but only one of those people who believed that if you found the right Elixir to do it with, you could turn ordinary metals into purest gold. Lots of people believed that, in those days.

‘What shall you do with your gold when you have made it, master, besides building a new Heaven and a new Earth?’ asked Jonathan. Jonathan did not believe that anyone ever would find how to turn ordinary metals into gold, or that it would be at all a good idea if they did.

All at once the Fine Gentleman’s face went quiet in the moonlight, quiet and far-off looking; and he said, ‘I shall fit out tall ships, and sail them into the West, to win for the Queen a greater Indies than those of the King of Spain.’

Something turned right over inside Hugh, and he swallowed a piece of bacon in such a hurry that
he almost choked, and begged: ‘Oh
please
tell us about the Indies.’

So while they finished their supper, the Fine Gentleman told them, shouting above the wind. And the spell of his words lifted them up and carried them along with him, so that the wild wind and the ache of their bruises were forgotten, and the bread-and-cheese seemed a royal banquet, and the stars crowded down through the flying cloud-wrack and the lashing boughs, to listen. He told of wide green plains, and great falls of water taller than church steeples that filled all the river-gorges with spray through which the sun made rainbows; and rich land where English settlers could make another and richer England, if they got the chance. He told, too, about the cruelties of Spain: how King Philip was trying to claim all that wonderful country for himself, and selling the natives into slavery and robbing them of all their ancient treasure, but how Englishmen would one day drive the Dons out of the Indies and take them for the Queen’s Grace, because it was black shame that Gloriana of England should not have a greater Indies than Philip of Spain. . . .

At last, when the bread-and-cheese was all finished, he broke off his spell-binding, and got up from the edge of the cart; and the glory faded and the wind swooped back. It was time for the Players to be on their way.

‘Take the lane that leads off to your left, about a mile farther on,’ said the Fine Gentleman. ‘And turn left again at the cross-tracks, and by dawn you’ll be in a village that will appreciate good acting. I know this part of the forest.’

So, standing with their bonnets in their hands, they
thanked him, each and everyone, for having stood their friend, and for their supper; and Master Pennifeather asked: ‘May we know your name, sir?’

The young man bowed, doffing his own bonnet. ‘Willingly. I am Captain Raleigh – Walter Raleigh – lately returned from service in Ireland, and very much at your service,’ he said. ‘And now, good night to you, and good fortune, my friends.’

They watched him swinging away down the road village-ward, sometimes lost in the black tree-shadows, sometimes clear in silver moonshine, until he disappeared altogether.

Then they turned their faces towards the next village.

‘What a queer fellow!’ said Nicky, after they had trudged a little way in silence. ‘Nice queer – but queer, all the same!’

And Master Pennifeather shook his head, and said: ‘Aye, and what will he do if he doesn’t catch up with those dreams of his, my lords?’

‘I think that in that case, maybe he will die for them instead,’ said Jonathan, very softly, so softly that the wind blew his words quite away, and only Hugh, who was nearest to him, heard what he said.

The day came, years later, when the Players liked very much to tell people that Sir Walter Raleigh had once fought in their ranks, and afterwards rescued them from the stocks. And years and years later still, when Queen Elizabeth was dead and the new King had made a shameful friendship with Spain, and the glory was gone from England, and Sir Walter Raleigh did die for his dreams, on a scaffold in Old Palace Yard, Hugh remembered, as though it were
only yesterday, that wild, moonlit night when the Fine Gentleman had drawn the hearts out of their breasts with his talk of Golden Indies. And he was very, very glad of that night, ever afterwards.

Just beyond Shaftesbury, on a grey, drizzly morning, the Players found a foreign sailor. At least, it was Argos, galloping ahead, who found him first, and he was sitting in the damp ditch all among the primroses and starwort, looking as glum as a moulting blackbird, and nursing an injured foot.

Argos stood in front of him, staring very hard, and blowing his cheeks in and out in a friendly sort of way, and wagging his tail, and the foreign sailor stared back at Argos, and went on nursing his foot. Then Saffronilla and the tilt-cart came round the corner of the lane with the Players trudging alongside, and they all saw him.

‘Yon fellow would seem to be in trouble,’ said Master Pennifeather, and he went on ahead while the rest followed more slowly. (Saffronilla did not like hurrying.) They saw Master Pennifeather speak to the man, and the man show him his foot, and as the tilt-cart drew alongside, Master Pennifeather called, ‘Hi! Jonathan, here’s a job for you.’

So Saffronilla stopped and immediately fell asleep, and Jonathan crossed the road and knelt down in the ditch to look at the foreign sailor’s hurt, while the others gathered round to watch. They had known he was a sailor from the first moment they saw him, because of the seaman’s red bonnet on his curly
black head and because all his clothes had a seafaring look about them, but they had not known that he was foreign until they came close enough to see his olive-brown face and his bright black eyes that made them think of the Italian puppet-masters they sometimes met on the road. He had a deep cut in the sole of his foot, and Jonathan said: ‘That is an ugly gash. How did you come by it, friend?’

The sailor smiled uncertainly, and shrugged, and pointed to a sharp stone with a crimson stain on it, that lay in the wet grass nearby. ‘I ’ave wore thin the soles of the shoes,’ he said in slow, careful English. ‘The stone, it come through.’