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RALPH

CHAPTER XXIV.

SEARCHES FOR SIMON D'YPRES IN STOURBRIDGE FAIR.

O find Simon d'Ypres in Stourbridge Fair was not so easy a task as Ralph had expected.

Not merely on account of the crowd and the noise and the dust. The crowd was indescribably motley, and the noise was a distracting compound of many sounds, each in itself harassing, from the horns and drums of travelling shows to the monotonous chants of sturdy beggars, and the more varied and clamorous yells of the vendors of pies and sweets and fruits. There was distraction enough for the ear, and the eye was also confused by the shifting, jostling throng, and the clouds of dust that every few minutes were whirled in upon them from the Barnwell Road.

Still there was a certain order in the medley. Every year as September came round the booths and tents of the various traffickers in the temporary market were raised in the same appointed stations. To find his cloth-merchant Ralph, familiar with the topography from his old Cambridge days, imagined that he had only to make his way to the Dudderies on the right side of the Barnwell road, and search among the booths there congregated.

He searched, easily and confidently at first, as one who had plenty of time before him and could afford to stop now and then to hear the voluble importunities of beggars No. 55.

and petty hawkers. But as he passed booth after booth without finding the object of his search, he became more impatient.

"What if, after all, he should not be there! What if he had made his market and gone!" The fair had now been open for three days.

At last to his great relief he recognised Lawrence, the merchant's lieutenant, standing behind a bench on which were displayed great rolls of cloth and linen.

Ralph walked up to him with a smile. Lawrence did not return it, but looking at the new-comer as one of a hundred of possible customers began to address him as such.

"Cloth or linen, fair sir? Fine linen for bed or table, rough frieze for your servants' kirtles, the finest broadcloth for your own gown, all of the best, the best make in Ypres." Ralph stared in amazement.

"You can trust us for a fair bargain. We are not of those who come here but once and dare not show our faces again. Regularly as September comes round you will find us at this station, provided with cloth than which there is none better in Stourbridge Fair. A good merchant

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Are you not Lawrence?" gasped Ralph. "The faithful servant of Simon d'Ypres. Yes, good sir, at your bidding for any kind of cloth or linen that

not hurry. Take your own time, touch and handle for yourself. Here is a web of excellent cloth. Feel it for yourself, good sir." And pushing the web towards Ralph, he turned to another customer, and continued to commend his wares without change of manner or countenance.

What could it mean? It must be pretence. He could not possibly have forgotten one whom he had seen so lately and under such circumstances. Could he have heard what had happened since, and did he distrust one who had found favour in high quarters ? Was this the explanation? Or was there anything suspicious in the appearance of the other customer to whom Lawrence now addressed himself? Was the faithful servant silent because it was not safe to talk before this stranger?

Ralph mechanically fingered the cloth, and deliberated, fairly puzzled, glancing from one to the other. Lawrence showed no consciousness of being observed. Spruce, dapper, ceremoniously deferential, he looked like any other efficient salesman whose whole soul was in his business, only that with his red hose, his blue kirtle of fresh cloth, and his fair, curling, neatly-parted hair, he looked smarter than most. There was not a smarter man of business in the fair than Lawrence. Who more unlike a revolutionary conspirator Ralph could hardly believe that it could be the same man whom he had seen, and who had identified him in the Sturmere dungeon. If Lawrence had denied his identity, Ralph would at once have accepted the denial. But he had admitted it. could the meaning be?

What

He was

Ralph glanced at the customer. substantially clad in undressed gray homespun. Probably a small freeholder.

Ralph remarked that he had a straw in his mouth. Free labourers at those fairs used to carry a straw in that way as a symbol that they were open to an engagement. This man was surely too well-dressed for a labourer.

Lawrence apparently remarked the incongruity too, for he laughingly drew the customer's attention to his symbol.

"It is a mere trick," said the customer. "Strange to say I have the same trick," answered Lawrence, and taking up a straw from the bench, he bit off a piece and proceeded to twist it about in his mouth.

Ralph fingered his cloth, and looked a little impatiently at Lawrence, but Lawrence took no notice.

The customer priced one or two pieces of cloth, but apparently could find none to suit him. Lawrence looked not in the least

disconcerted, and maintained the same mechanical courtesy when the customer finally shook his head and prepared to leave without having purchased anything.

"Do you often come to the fair?" he asked. "Have you been to Wandlebury, on the top of the Gog Magog? You can see very far from there. I generally walk there of a Sunday when I am at the fair."

And so with smiles the courteous tradesman parted with his visitor.

"What an ape this is!" thought Ralph to himself. Patience was not one of his virtues, and when Lawrence skipped up to him with his head cocked foppishly on one side, and asked with a smirk, "Have you been to Wandlebury, fair sir?" he answered with dry sternness :—

"I wish to see your master."

Very right, sir," said Lawrence. My master doubtless will be pleased to see you. But you will have rather a long journey to make."

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'How so? Is your master not at the fair?"

"Master Simon left last night, sir, for Ypres. May I ask why you wish to see him?" "I wish to see him on a matter of great consequence," said Ralph in dry tones.

"I am much in Master Simon's confidence," said Lawrence, with his head on one side. "Will you not intrust the business with me?"

Ralph hestitated for a moment.

"Am I not to be trusted?" said Lawrence with a sweet smile.

"I should have said you were a few days ago," answered Ralph, "but I do not understand your present conduct."

Without waiting for an answer he strode away. He was by no means convinced that Simon was not in the fair. It angered him to think that he was being played upon. What could be the object of it?

It is not pleasant to go on a message of conciliation and be received with insult. The old and experienced are prepared for it, and thus may be less disturbed when it comes : the naturally long-suffering accept it with patience as one of the many evils that have to be endured: but Ralph was young and hot-blooded.

So enraged was he at the servant's deliberate and unprovoked insolence that for a few moments he was half of a mind to leave the fair at once and give up his mission as hopeless. What good could he do by staying? The servant would never have dared to behave as he did of his own motives. The master must have given him

his instructions.

And why? What was the meaning of it? Why rescue him from prison one day and refuse to know him the next?

Still they had rescued him, and the recollection of this, while it increased Ralph's perplexity, somewhat allayed his anger. To obtain quiet in which to think, he withdrew into the little chapel at the corner of the fair. As he knelt there the roar of the crowd sounded faint and distant, and the peacefulness of the place by degrees calmed the agitation of his spirits. He prayed to be delivered from the snares of anger and hasty and impetuous judgment.

Half an hour later he left the chapel resolved to persevere,his resolution strengthened by shame at his momentary fit of anger and impatience. If he could not find Simon d'Ypres he would humble himself to deliver his message to the fantastic and insolent lieutenant. But reflection had convinced him that the pretended merchant was somewhere about in disguise, and he was determined first to make a thorough search through the fair. Bearing in mind that the name of Simon d'Ypres was an assumed one, he put a different construction on Lawrence's saying that Master Simon had left the fair. The man might still be there though the name was dropped and another disguise assumed.

:

All day long he continued to search through the crowds and the noise and the dust. He left no corner of the fair unvisited, from Fish Hill by the river to Cheapside on the Barnwell Road, from Timber Fair on the east to Brush Row on the west. He could not tell where this man of mystery was to be found he had not the slightest clue: his only course was to wander among the open booths and stalls and keep his eyes open. Wherever he saw a slight, short figure, he made narrow inspection of the face. More than once his heart leapt into his mouth, but on closer scrutiny the resemblance that had caught his eye flickered and disappeared. Every time that he made a mistake, he perceived to his alarm that his memory of the quiet-looking little man's features seemed to become more indistinct. The gray beard might have been shaved off, and he had never seen Simon without his hat there was little left to identify him by, and the more he thought of nose and eye, and eyelid and eyebrow, the harder he found it to recall the exact shape, and of the shape he had a more distinct recollection than of the colour. He could remember that the nose was slightly curved, and that the eyelids drooped a little, but the colour of the eyes baffled his memory. They were really

gray, with a tawny corona round the pupil ; but such eyes look very different in different lights and under different emotions.

Still Ralph searched resolutely on, clinging to the hope that he would recognise the features at once if only he could see them again. He sought them among the silversmiths and among the ironmongers, among the leather-sellers and the vendors of soap and tar. He explored taverns and drinking tents, thinking the conspirator might be busy there. Wherever he found a knot of people gathered round a pardoner, or a minstrel, or a juggler, he hovered round them and made careful scrutiny of performers as well as audience, for as the search went on, his conceptions of the possibilities of disguise enlarged, and he became more and more anxious to let none escape him. He was alive to the fact that the disguise of a disengaged labourer might afford facilities for the conspirator; and many a poor smockfrock waiting to be hired conceived hopes of an engagement from his earnest gaze. peered under the cowls of friars, and he gave apologetic alms to several ragged beggars whom he had offended by too suspicious an examination.

He

But anxious and penetrating though his search was, no trace could he find of the indispensable man. He began to fear that Lawrence had told him the truth, and that

he was really gone. It was near the hour for the closing of the fair for the day; most of the chaffering was done; preparations were making for the evening meal, and the crowd was becoming rougher and more noisy.

Ralph had made up his mind at last to speak again to Lawrence, and had taken his stand near the booth waiting for a favourable opportunity. Lawrence was engaged with another customer, and, without any sign of weariness, was going through the same smart pantomime which had disgusted Ralph before. Ralph before. Ralph was watching him. with unconscious intentness, and with something like a revival of the old disgust, and wondering whether, after all, it would be wise to trust such a fantastic ape, when presently his attention was quickened by seeing the smart salesman put a straw into his mouth and proceed to nibble it. Looking at the customer, he saw that he also was nibbling at a straw.

All at once a new light was thrown on Lawrence's fantastic behaviour. Ralph almost laughed aloud as the meaning of the symbolism suddenly dawned upon him. But hardly had the look of intelligence passed over his face, when he received a disagree

able reminder that there may be more than one observer in a crowd, and that the watcher may himself be watched. A rough jostle made him turn his attention to his neighbours.

He looked round, and was at once made aware that the jostle was not an accident.

A knot of half-a-dozen rough-looking labourers stood close by, scowling at him with a very ugly expression. Their hair was unkempt; their blouses of blue frieze were dirty and patched; their hoods and gaiters of blue worsted, and their shoes and girdles of untanned leather were much the worse

for wear. They placed themselves between Ralph and the booth.

"What find you to stare at there?" said the one who had jostled him.

"You clerks will always be prying into other men's business," said another, with a threatening gesture. "Home with you!"

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Always prying and spying!" cried a third. "Out of here! Home with you!" "Ay," cried the first speaker, "what have you to do here? It is not the time for clerks to be here. It is more than a week yet to Michaelmas. There should be no clerks in the fair yet."

"I saw him at it!"

"He is a spy! "Home with him!". came in quick succession from the men; and others, hearing the sound of angry voices, began to gather round.

Ralph, not being aware that his face had betrayed an intelligent interest in the proceedings at the booth, was at a loss to understand the cause of their anger. But good-nature and good-breeding combined to prevent him from losing his temper with inferiors.

My good friends," he said courteously, facing them without any sign of shrinking, "in what have I offended you?"

"For what did you look at yonder booth?" demanded one.

abandon their threatening attitude, and the presence of the crowd inclined them to stand to their first position. "We all know that clerks are clever at lies," said one. "Let us see whether he is known to John Trueman.

Ralph did not relish this proposition. remembering how Lawrence had denied al knowledge of him in the morning.

Fortunately for him a diversion was effected. A burly franklin riding by with four mounted retainers in his train forced his horse through the crowd that was form ing round the centre of dispute; and re cognising one of the labourers as a runaway bondman, instantly laid hands on him.

"Aha, Peterkin!" he cried; "I have caught you at last. You come with me."

The franklin had been drinking heavily over his bargains, and was flushed with the success of them, otherwise it would never have entered his head to try to apprehend a runaway in such circumstances. He soon had reason to repent of his recklessness. The bondman struggled to free himself from his late master's grasp. His friends took his part, and crowded in front of the horse. The franklin swore, and laid about him wildly with his whip, holding on to the bond man and trying to drag him along. One of the labourers seized the horse by the bridle another pummelled at the hand that held the bondman; a third threw a handful of dust in the franklin's eyes. This last manœuvre settled the business in an instant, before the retainers could come up, the bondman was out of his master's grasp, and had plunged into the thick of the fair.

The labourers, joined by a considerable crowd, proceeded to amuse themselves with the half-intoxicated franklin. He showed fight at first, but soon thought retreat his safest course, and was hooted and pelted well past the Priory, when the speed of his horse enabled him to escape.

The

This incident left Ralph at liberty. space in front of the booth was clear; the crowd had rushed after the flying franklin to see the rough sport. Ralph seized the opportunity to speak again to Lawrence.

"You pretended," he said, "not to know me in the morning. For this doubtless you had your own reasons, but I wish now to send through you a message to Master Simon d'Ypres. Will you take it ?"

Lawrence answered in a very different tone from what he had used in the morning. "Yes," he said; "I have seen him since I saw you."

Then he is in the fair?" said Ralph, with surprise.

'He has returned," answered Lawrence, with a smile. "He told me to ask you what your message was if I saw you again, and to tell you that you might trust me."

Ralph proceeded to relate how he had met the king, and what he had seen and heard of the king's favourable disposition to the poor commons. The idea that had possession of Ralph's mind was an inquiry by trustworthy commissions into the land and labour grievances of each district. Such commissions in isolated cases were familiar enough to the state-craft of the time to an ardent mind nothing seemed to be needed in the interests of justice except to make them general as regarded unfair exactions of rent and service. Ralph had heard the king express himself as favourable to such inquiries, and Burley had encouraged him to believe that they were practicable, provided only the commons would wait with patience the slow movement of redress.

All this Ralph expounded with earnest eloquence, dwelling strongly on the king's gentle and just disposition. Lawrence heard him to the end in silence, and made no comment. He simply said that he would report this to his master.

"Can I not see him?" asked Ralph.

He anticipated that Ralph, fully believing in the king's power to act out his wishes, would be perfectly frank and open in his movements, as the bearer of a message that might as well be proclaimed from the housetops. That the king was willing to inquire into the grievances of his poor subjects was not a dangerous secret, since this very willingness was a proof that he harboured no ill-will to their champions. It would not occur to Ralph that there was any reason for secrecy as regarded his dealings with those champions. He would not at least hesitate to talk freely to any one who should be designated to him as a proper recipient of his confidence as the negotiations went on. cordingly Burley designated the Master of Pembroke as a person to whom he might from day to day report what progress he had made. A meeting would probably be held by Simon d'Ypres and his friends to take into consideration the king's proposals. Of this meeting the Master would be informed, and he was confidentially instructed to inform the Sheriff of the county, who again had his instructions to arrest the whole gang at their rendezvous.

Ac

This was Burley's plan in its simplicity, based on the supposition that Ralph his emissary would conceal nothing, as seeing nothing that needed concealment. But if Ralph should be secretive, he had provided for this also. The Master of Pembroke was to provide a trusty man to watch his movements. On the evening after his vain search for Simon d'Ypres, the Master sent for Ralph, and cheerfully expressed a hope that he had had good speed. Had he seen the redoubtable Simon? How was the king's message received? In answer to which and other questions, Ralph promptly told him how the merchant's lieutenant had pretended not to know him at first, and how ultimately he had been promised an interview with the agitator on the following Sunday. In fact he kept back nothing except his knowledge of the secret sign, which he did not mention at all, and the place of meeting, which he said he had engaged not to reveal.

The Master smiled the smile of a kindly patron, and said he was quite right. A certain amount of secrecy was a matter of course in affairs of the kind. Ralph apologised again for keeping anything back, and the Master repeated that he would on no account press for confidence on the point.

What, indeed, was the need for pressing when all that was required in order to know the place of meeting was to have Ralph followed on the appointed day? The unsuspect