CHAPTER 5
THE EARL of Mackworth, as was customary among the great lords in
those days, maintained a small army of knights, gentlemen,
men-at-arms, and retainers, who were expected to serve him upon
all occasions of need, and from whom were supplied his quota of
recruits to fill such levies as might be made upon him by the
King in time of war.
The knights and gentlemen of this little army of horse and foot
soldiers were largely recruited from the company of squires and
bachelors, as the young novitiate soldiers of the castle were
called.
This company of esquires consisted of from eighty to ninety lads,
ranging in age from eight to twenty years. Those under fourteen
years were termed pages, and served chiefly the Countess and her
waiting gentlewomen, in whose company they acquired the graces
and polish of the times, such as they were. After reaching the
age of fourteen the lads were entitled to the name of esquire or
squire.
In most of the great houses of the time the esquires were the
especial attendants upon the Lord and Lady of the house, holding
such positions as body-squires, cup-bearers, carvers, and
sometimes the office of chamberlain. But Devlen, like some other
of the princely castles of the greatest nobles, was more like a
military post or a fortress than an ordinary household. Only
comparatively few of the esquires could be used in personal
attendance upon the Earl; the others were trained more strictly
in arms, and served rather in the capacity of a sort of
body-guard than as ordinary squires. For, as the Earl rose in
power and influence, and as it so became well worth while for the
lower nobility and gentry to enter their sons in his family, the
body of squires became almost cumbersomely large. Accordingly,
that part which comprised the squires proper, as separate from
the younger pages, was divided into three classes-- first,
squires of the body, who were those just past pagehood, and who
waited upon the Earl in personal service; second, squires of the
household, who, having regular hours assigned for exercise in the
manual of arms, were relieved from personal service excepting
upon especial occasions; and thirdly and lastly, at the head of
the whole body of lads, a class called bachelors--young men
ranging from eighteen to twenty years of age. This class was
supposed to exercise a sort of government over the other and
younger squires--to keep them in order as much as possible, to
marshal them upon occasions of importance, to see that their arms
and equipments were kept in good order, to call the roll for
chapel in the morning, and to see that those not upon duty in the
house were present at the daily exercise at arms. Orders to the
squires were generally transmitted through the bachelors, and the
head of that body was expected to make weekly reports of affairs
in their quarters to the chief captain of the body.
From this overlordship of the bachelors there had gradually risen
a system of fagging, such as is or was practised in the great
English public schools--enforced services exacted from the
younger lads--which at the time Myles came to Devlen had, in the
five or six years it had been in practice, grown to be an
absolute though unwritten law of the body--a law supported by all
the prestige of long-continued usage. At that time the bachelors
numbered but thirteen, yet they exercised over the rest of the
sixty-four squires and pages a rule of iron, and were
taskmasters, hard, exacting, and oftentimes cruel.
The whole company of squires and pages was under the supreme
command of a certain one-eyed knight, by name Sir James Lee; a
soldier seasoned by the fire of a dozen battles, bearing a score
of wounds won in fight and tourney, and withered by hardship and
labor to a leather-like toughness. He had fought upon the King's
side in all the late wars, and had at Shrewsbury received a wound
that unfitted him for active service, so that now he was fallen
to the post of Captain of Esquires at Devlen Castle--a man
disappointed in life, and with a temper imbittered by that
failure as well as by cankering pain.
Yet Perhaps no one could have been better fitted for the place he
held than Sir James Lee. The lads under his charge were a rude,
rough, unruly set, quick, like their elders, to quarrel, and to
quarrel fiercely, even to the drawing of sword or dagger. But
there was a cold, iron sternness about the grim old man that
quelled them, as the trainer with a lash of steel might quell a
den of young wolves. The apartments in which he was lodged, with
his clerk, were next in the dormitory of the lads, and even in
the midst of the most excited brawlings the distant sound of his
harsh voice, "Silence, messieurs!" would bring an instant hush to
the loudest uproar.
It was into his grim presence that Myles was introduced by
Gascoyne. Sir James was in his office, a room bare of ornament or
adornment or superfluous comfort of any sort--without even so
much as a mat of rushes upon the cold stone pavement to make it
less cheerless. The old one- eyed knight sat gnawing his
bristling mustaches. To anyone who knew him it would have been
apparent that, as the castle phrase went, "the devil sat astride
of his neck," which meant that some one of his blind wounds was
aching more sorely than usual.
His clerk sat beside him, with account-books and parchment spread
upon the table, and the head squire, Walter Blunt, a lad some
three or four years older than Myles, and half a head taller,
black-browed, powerfully built, and with cheek and chin darkened
by the soft budding of his adolescent beard, stood making his
report.
Sir James listened in grim silence while Gascoyne told his
errand.
"So, then, pardee, I am bid to take another one of ye, am I?" he
snarled. "As though ye caused me not trouble enow; and this one a
cub, looking a very boor in carriage and breeding. Mayhap the
Earl thinketh I am to train boys to his dilly-dally household
service as well as to use of arms."
"Sir," said Gascoyne, timidly, "my Lord sayeth he would have this
one entered direct as a squire of the body, so that he need not
serve in the household."
"Sayest so?" cried Sir James, harshly. "Then take thou my message
back again to thy Lord. Not for Mackworth--no, nor a better man
than he-- will I make any changes in my government. An I be set
to rule a pack of boys, I will rule them as I list, and not
according to any man's bidding. Tell him, sirrah, that I will
enter no lad as squire of the body without first testing an he be
fit at arms to hold that place." He sat for a while glowering at
Myles and gnawing his mustaches, and for the time no one dared to
break the grim silence. "What is thy name?" said he, suddenly.
And then, almost before Myles could answer, he asked the head
squire whether he could find a place to lodge him.
"There is Gillis Whitlock's cot empty," said Blunt. "He is in the
infirmary, and belike goeth home again when he cometh thence. The
fever hath gotten into his bones, and--"
"That will do," said the knight, interrupting him impatiently.
"Let him take that place, or any other that thou hast. And thou,
Jerome," said he to his clerk, "thou mayst enter him upon the
roll, though whether it be as page or squire or bachelor shall be
as I please, and not as Mackworth biddeth me. Now get ye gone."
"Old Bruin's wound smarteth him sore," Gascoyne observed, as the
two lads walked across the armory court. He had good-naturedly
offered to show the new-comer the many sights of interest around
the castle, and in the hour or so of ramble that followed, the
two grew from acquaintances to friends with a quickness that
boyhood alone can bring about. They visited the armory, the
chapel, the stables, the great hall, the Painted Chamber, the
guard-house, the mess-room, and even the scullery and the
kitchen, with its great range of boilers and furnaces and ovens.
Last of all Myles's new friend introduced him to the
armor-smithy.
"My Lord hath sent a piece of Milan armor thither to be
repaired," said he. "Belike thou would like to see it."
"Aye," said Myles, eagerly, "that would I."
The smith was a gruff, good-natured fellow, and showed the piece
of armor to Myles readily and willingly enough. It was a
beautiful bascinet of inlaid workmanship, and was edged with a
rim of gold. Myles scarcely dared touch it; he gazed at it with
an unconcealed delight that warmed the smith's honest heart.
"I have another piece of Milan here," said he. "Did I ever show
thee my dagger, Master Gascoyne?"
"Nay," said the squire.
The smith unlocked a great oaken chest in the corner of the shop,
lifted the lid, and brought thence a beautiful dagger with the
handle of ebony and silver-gilt, and a sheath of Spanish leather,
embossed and gilt. The keen, well- tempered blade was beautifully
engraved and inlaid with niello-work, representing a group of
figures in a then popular subject--the dance of Death. It was a
weapon at once unique and beautiful, and even Gascoyne showed an
admiration scarcely less keen than Myles's openly-expressed
delight.
"To whom doth it belong?" said he, trying the point upon his
thumb nail.
"There," said the smith, "is the jest of the whole, for it
belongeth to me. Sir William Beauclerk bade me order the weapon
through Master Gildersworthy, of London town, and by the time it
came hither, lo! he had died, and so it fell to my hands. No one
here payeth the price for the trinket, and so I must e'en keep it
myself, though I be but a poor man."
"How much dost thou hold it for?" said Gascoyne.
"Seventeen shillings buyeth it," said the armorer, carelessly.
"Aye, aye," said Gascoyne, with a sigh; "so it is to be poor, and
not be able to have such things as one loveth and would fain
possess. Seventeen shillings is nigh as much by half again as all
my yearly wage."
Then a sudden thought came to Myles, and as it came his cheeks
glowed as hot as fire "Master Gascoyne," said he, with gruff
awkwardness, "thou hast been a very good, true friend to me since
I have come to this place, and hast befriended me in all ways
thou mightest do, and I, as well I know, but a poor rustic clod.
Now I have forty shillings by me which I may spend as I list, and
so I do beseech thee that thou wilt take yon dagger of me as a
love-gift, and have and hold it for thy very own.
Gascoyne stared open-mouthed at Myles. "Dost mean it?" said he,
at last.
"Aye," said Myles, "I do mean it. Master Smith, give him the
blade."
At first the smith grinned, thinking it all a jest; but he soon
saw that Myles was serious enough, and when the seventeen
shillings were produced and counted down upon the anvil, he took
off his cap and made Myles a low bow as he swept them into his
pouch. "Now, by my faith and troth," quoth he, "that I do call a
true lordly gift. Is it not so, Master Gascoyne?"
"Aye," said Gascoyne, with a gulp, "it is, in soothly earnest."
And thereupon, to Myles's great wonderment, he suddenly flung his
arms about his neck, and, giving him a great hug, kissed him upon
the cheek. "Dear Myles," said he, "I tell thee truly and of a
verity I did feel warm towards thee from the very first time I
saw thee sitting like a poor oaf upon the bench up yonder in the
anteroom, and now of a sooth I give thee assurance that I do love
thee as my own brother. Yea, I will take the dagger, and will
stand by thee as a true friend from this time forth. Mayhap thou
mayst need a true friend in this place ere thou livest long with
us, for some of us esquires be soothly rough, and knocks are more
plenty here than broad pennies, so that one new come is like to
have a hard time gaining a footing."
"I thank thee," said Myles, "for thy offer of love and
friendship, and do tell thee, upon my part, that I also of all
the world would like best to have thee for my friend."
Such was the manner In which Myles formed the first great
friendship of his life, a friendship that was destined to last
him through many years to come. As the two walked back across the
great quadrangle, upon which fronted the main buildings of the
castle, their arms were wound across one another's shoulders,
after the manner, as a certain great writer says, of boys and
lovers.
