Read Ebook: The Man Who Was Good by Merrick Leonard Prothero John K John Keith Author Of Introduction Etc

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Ebook has 1164 lines and 64287 words, and 24 pages

"When did you hear the news of the death? Answer me--it wasn't to-night?"

"What's the difference," he muttered, "when I heard?"

"Oh!" she moaned, "go away from me, don't come near me! You coward!"

She sank on to the edge of the sofa, rocking herself to and fro. The man roamed aimlessly around. Once or twice he glanced across at her, but she paid no heed. His pipe was on the sideboard; he filled it clumsily, and drew at it in nervous pulls.

He was the first to speak again.

"I think I do know," she said bitterly--"better than you, perhaps. You're remembering how easily you could have taken the luck if your prayers to me had failed. And you're angered at me in your heart because the shame you feel spoils so much of the pleasure now."

He was humiliated to recognise that this was true. Her words described a mean nature, and his resentment deepened.

"When did you tell Miss Westland?" she faltered.

"Tell her?"

"The whole company may know to-morrow!" she answered, drying her eyes. "Seeing that I shall be gone, they may as well know to-morrow as later. Oh, how they will talk, all of them, how they'll talk about me--the Bowmans, and that boy, too!"

"You'll be gone to-morrow--what do you say?"

"Mary, there are--I must make some--good heavens! how will you go?--where? Mary, listen: by-and-by, when something is settled, in--in a month or more--I want to arrange to send--I couldn't let you want for money, don't you see!"

"I would not take a penny from you," she said, "not the value of a penny, if I were dying. I wouldn't, as Christ hears me! Our life together is over--I am going away."

He looked at her aghast.

"Now," he ejaculated, "at once? In the middle of the night?"

"Now at once--in the middle of the night."

Her coat and hat lay by the piano where she had cast them when she came in from the theatre. The man watched her put them on.

"Here's your ring!" she said.

The tears were running down her cheeks; she dabbed at them with a handkerchief as she spoke. The baseness of it all was eating into him. Though the ardour of his earlier passion was gone and his protestations of affection had been insults, her loss and her aversion served to display the growth of a certain attachment to her of which her possession and her constancy had left him unaware. Twice a plea to her to remain rose to his lips, and twice his tongue was heavy from self-interest, and from shame. He followed her instinctively into the passage; his limbs quaked, and his soul was cowed. She had already opened the door and set her foot on the step.

"Mary!" he gasped.

It was just beginning to get light. Under the faint paling of the sky the pavements gleamed cold and grey, forlornly visible in the darkness.

"Mary, don't go!"

A rush of chill air swept out of the silence, raising the hair from her brow. The coat fell about her loosely in thick folds. He put out nervous hands to touch her, and nothing but these folds seemed assailable; they enveloped and denied her to him.

"Don't go," he stammered; "stay--forget what I've done!"

She saw the impulse at its worth, but she was grateful for its happening. She knew that he would regret it if she listened, knew that he knew he would regret it. And yet, knowing and disdaining as she did, the gladfulness and thankfulness were there that he had spoken.

"I couldn't," she said--her voice was gentler; "there can never be anything between you and me any more. Good-bye, Tony."

The town lay around her desolate. Her footsteps smote the wretchedly-laid street, and echoed on the loneliness. A cold wind blew in fitful gusts, nipping her cheeks and hands. On the vagueness of the market-place the gilded statue, with its sheen obscured, loomed shapeless as she passed. She heard the lumber and creak of a wagon straining out of sight; the quaver of a cock-crow, then one shriller and more prolonged; two or three thin screams in quick succession from a distant train. She knew, rather than decided, that she would go to London, though there would not be a familiar face to greet her in all its leagues of houses, not a door among its countless doors to reveal a friend. She would go there because she was adrift in England and "England" meant a blur of names equally unpitying, and London, somehow, seemed the natural place to book to.

Few persons' ruin leaves them alone at once; the crash generally sees some friends who prove loyal beneath the shock of the catastrophe and drop away only afterwards under the wearisomeness of the worries. It is the situation of few to emerge from the wreck of a home without any personality dominating their consciousness as the counsellor to whom they must turn for aid. But it was the situation of Mary Brettan to be without a soul to turn to in the world; and briefly it had happened thus.

Her father had been a country doctor with a large practice among patients who could not afford to pay. From the standpoint of humanity his conduct was admirable; regarded from the domestic hearthstone perhaps it was a little less. The practitioner who neglected the wife of the Mayor in order to attend a villager, because the villager's condition was more critical, offered small promise of leaving his child provided for, and before Mary was sixteen the problems of the rent and butcher's book were as familiar to her as the surgery itself. The exemplary doctor and unpractical parent struggled along more or less placidly by means of the girl's surveillance. Had he survived her, it is difficult to determine what would have become of him; but, dying first, he had her protection to the end. She found herself after the funeral with a crop of bills, some shabby furniture, and the necessity for earning a living. The furniture and the bills were easy to dispose of; they represented a sum in division with nothing over. The problem was, what was she fitted to do? She knew none of those things which used to be called "accomplishments," and which are to-day the elements of education. Her French was the French of "Le Petit Pr?cepteur"; in German she was still bewildered by the article. And, a graver drawback, since the selling-price of education is an outrage on its cost--she had not been brought up to any trade. She belonged, ub Street was that in which arrows were finished. That manufacture died out, and the street, being in a Puritan neighbourhood, in the days of Elizabeth became the publishing place for violent attacks upon the bishops. "Martin Marprelate," the well-known series of that class of publication, was issued from this street. Then, by a natural transition, scurrilous lampoons in general, and not merely theological, came to be called "Grub Street tracts," because the phrase had become current; and the name stuck, and was applied to literary rubbish of any kind, Pope having endorsed the title in his satire. The name has, unfortunately, disappeared from the street within the last decade. The authorities, because the name had become obnoxious to fastidious ears, have changed it to Milton Street, the poet having been borne down it from Bunhill Fields, where he died, to be buried in St. Giles's Church.

And now we will simply name the most prominent events in the history of the city during our period.

The founding of the many religious houses during this period we have already mentioned. The building of the first stone bridge by Peter of Colechurch, which also belongs to this period, finds its place in another page.

PLANTAGENET TIMES.--The division of the city into wards dates from the beginning of this period or earlier. In 1348 came the terrible Black Death. "In London it was so outrageously cruel that every day at least twenty, sometimes forty or sixty, or more, dead corpses were thrown together into one pit, and the churchyard not sufficing for the dead, they were fain to set apart certain fields for additional places of burial.... But especially, between Candlemas and Easter in 1349, there were buried 200 corpses per diem" . It is chronicled that more than 50,000 persons were buried, during this pestilence, within the precincts of the Charterhouse alone. The trial of Wyclif in St. Paul's was a memorable event, when John of Gaunt stood forth as his champion.

Jack Cade's rebellion in 1450 seemed at first successful, so far as the city was concerned. He took possession of it, and for a while maintained order among his followers. But they broke out into outrages, slew Lord-Treasurer Saye, and other persons of consequence, and the citizens, with the assistance of the Governor of the Tower, rose up and expelled him. Soon afterwards he was killed. As a rule the citizens inclined to the House of York, and in consequence Edward IV, steadily favoured the Londoners. The setting up of Caxton's printing-press in his reign was a great epoch in the history of the world.

We should note the sumptuary law passed by the Mayor and Common Council in 1543 by which the Mayor was ordered to confine himself to seven dishes at dinner or supper; the Aldermen and Sheriffs to six; and the Sword-bearer to four.

"Spain's rod, Rome's ruin, Netherlands' relief, Heaven's gem, Earth's joy, World's wonder, Nature's chief. Britain's blessing, England's splendour, Religion's nurse, and Faith's defender."

In the neighbouring Church of St. Michael, Crooked Lane, the same year, was set up the following inscription. The contrast is refreshing:--

"Here lieth, wrapt in clay, The body of William Ray. I have no more to say."

Such was London towards the end of what we have defined as the Mediaeval period. But it was, thanks to the enterprise of the time, on the rapid move. The citizens were able to send sixteen ships fully equipped, and armed with 10,000 men, against the Spanish Armada. In 1594 the Thames water was first raised for the supply of the city. In 1613 Sir Hugh Myddleton completed the New River. In 1616 the paving of the streets with flagstones was first introduced. Many years, however, were to elapse before sanitary science could be called in for the public health. In 1603 the plague destroyed 30,578 lives.

CIVIC RULE.

In the very centre of the old city, and only just removed from the noise and bustle of its great thoroughfare, the Chepe, lay the Guildhall, the seat of civic government. The name itself is eloquent of mediaeval feeling, when the citizens were all enrolled under their various guilds, each owing strict obedience to the master and wardens of his guild seated at their hall; and the guilds themselves, close upon one hundred in number, being in their turn under the jurisdiction of the Mayor and Aldermen, sitting in their Court at the Guildhall. These were not the times of social liberty; the oppressive rule of the great feudal lords had been exchanged for the close personal supervision of the ward, the guild, and the church.

The site of the old Guildhall corresponded with that of the present structure, but the original entrance was from Aldermanbury. An enlargement of the ancient building appears to have taken place in the year 1326, during the Mayoralty of Richard le Breton, and further extensive repairs were carried out in the years 1341-3.

The porch was known as the Guildhall Gate, and there was a lower gate which was probably situated in a line with the Church of St. Lawrence Jewry, in Gresham Street.

The crypt is one of the best of the few mediaeval examples remaining in London. It forms the eastern portion of the sub-structure of the hall, and is 76 feet by 45-1/4, with an average height of 13 feet 7 inches. It is divided into three equal portions by clustered columns of Purbeck marble, from which spring the stone-ribbed groins of the vaulting. The bosses at the intersections are all carved with devices of the usual mediaeval character, and include the arms assigned to the Confessor and those of the See and City of London.

Of these crypts--a beautiful feature of ancient architecture in which London formerly abounded--the great part have disappeared. There are those of the Church of St. Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield; Bow Church, Cheapside ; Etheldreda's Chapel, Ely Place; the Priory Church of St. John, Clerkenwell; Lambeth Palace; Merchant Taylors' Hall; and St. Stephen's Chapel, Westminster. Several fine examples have been destroyed within quite recent times, including the crypt or Lower Chapel of Old London Bridge, Gerard's Hall crypt in Basing Lane, and that under the Manor of the Rose in Lawrence Pountney Hill, the two latter buildings being fine examples of the houses of distinguished citizens. To this tale of destruction must be added the crypts of Lamb's Chapel in Monkwell Street, Leathersellers' Hall, St. Martin's-le-Grand, and St. Michael, Aldgate.

The Guildhall was, in a very real sense, the centre of civic government. In early times the Mayor, Aldermen, and Sheriffs were practically the King's servants, and responsible to him at their personal peril for the good and quiet government of the city. For this purpose an adequate authority was conferred upon the civic magnates over the life and liberty of each individual citizen. The city was divided into twenty-five wards, over each of which an Alderman presided, who was responsible for its good government to the Mayor. Severe was the punishment for an insult offered to one of these dignitaries. In 1388, Richard Bole, a butcher, for insulting William Wotton, alderman of Dowgate, was, by order of the Mayor, imprisoned in Newgate, and ordered, as a penance, to carry a lighted torch, with head uncovered and bare legs and feet, from his stall in St. Nicholas' Shambles to the Chapel of the Guildhall. Rough-and-ready justice was administered by the Mayor and his brethren, the Aldermen. In 1319, William Spertyng, who was found guilty of exposing for sale at the shambles two putrid carcases, was sentenced to be put in the pillory, and to have the carcases burnt beneath him. A vintner named John Penrose, convicted in 1364 of selling bad wine, was ordered to drink a draught of the "same wine which he sold to the people," the remainder to be poured on his head, and he to forswear the calling of a vintner in the City of London for ever. For giving short weight, in 1377, two charcoal dealers were set in the stocks on Cornhill, whilst six of their badly filled sacks were burnt beside them. A baker, for selling bread of light weight, was dragged through the city on a hurdle with the offending loaf hung about his neck. An illustration of this punishment is given in an ancient book belonging to the city records, known as the "Liber de assisa panis." Another punishment which must have been sufficiently deterrent was that of whipping at the cart's tail for petty larceny and other minor offences.

One of the most ancient prisons of the city was the Tun, in Cornhill, the site of which is still marked by the Cornhill pump. The prison consisted of a wooden cage, with a pillory and pair of stocks attached. Below it was the conduit built by Henry Wallis, Mayor, in 1282.

The City Gates were also used for the confinement of prisoners, chiefly Ludgate and Newgate; the former was devoted to prisoners for debt, and the latter to those charged with criminal offences. The scanty accommodation afforded by these structures caused grievous suffering to the unhappy offenders, gaol-fever frequently breaking out, and raging not only amongst the prisoners themselves, but also among the judges and other officials of the neighbouring Courts of Justice.

Close by, on the east side of Farringdon Street, near Ludgate Circus of to-day, was the Fleet Prison, which, like that of Ludgate, had a grate, behind which the prisoners used to beg for relief from the passers by. Its early history can be traced back to the period of the Conquest; it formed part of the ancient possessions of the See of Canterbury, and was held in conjunction with the Manor of Leveland, in Kent, and with the "King's Houses" at Westminster. The wardenship or sergeancy was anciently held by eminent personages, who also had custody of the King's Palace at Westminster. This, with other city prisons, was burnt down by the followers of Wat Tyler in Richard the Second's reign.

Besides the King's prisons were the Compters, or city prisons, two in number--one belonging to each of the Sheriffs. They were used for the confinement of debtors, for remands and committals for trial, and for the custody of minor offenders.

The great prosperity of the City of London brought its citizens a large measure of wealth and influence. They were thus enabled, by gifts and loans to the various English sovereigns, who had constantly to contend with financial difficulties, to secure for themselves franchises and liberties far exceeding those of any other city or town. In several of their early charters they are addressed by the King as his Barons of the City of London. These privileges, or some of them, were frequently revoked by the early kings for real or alleged offences on the part of the citizens, but were always re-granted on the payment of a sufficient fine.

William the Conqueror's charter, as we have seen, is still preserved in the Guildhall. King John granted the Londoners the right of electing their Mayor, and in the following reign they were permitted to present their newly elected Mayor for the King's approval to the Barons of the Exchequer whenever the King was absent from Westminster. Previous to the election of a new Mayor, a religious service, consisting of the Mass of the Holy Ghost, was held in the Chapel of St. Mary Magdalen, adjoining the Guildhall. The ceremony of swearing in the new Mayor on the day before his assumption of office still takes place annually at the Guildhall, and has probably but little altered during the last four centuries. Besides presiding over the Court of Aldermen and the Courts of Common Council, Common Hall, and Husting, it was the duty of the Mayor, assisted by the Recorder and Common Serjeant, to administer justice in the Mayor's Court, as well as at the Newgate Sessions. He also attended St. Paul's Cathedral in state on several occasions in the year, as well as minor religious services at the Guildhall Chapel and elsewhere. The religious processions on these occasions, and the secular pageantry which was still more frequent, were ardently looked forward to by the citizens and their apprentices as an excuse for a holiday. Chaucer, speaking of the city apprentice of his day, says that--

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