The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works (61 page)

Pierce's Supererogation
⁶⁴
printed, the change whereof the Doctor had promised to defray and be countable to Wolfe
⁶⁵
for, amounting (with his diet) to thirty-six pounds, from Saffron Walden no argent would be heard of, wherefore down he must go amongst his tenants, as he pretended (which are no other than a company of beggars, that lie in an out-barn of his mother's sometimes) and fetch up the grand sums, or
legem pone
.
⁶⁶

To accomplish this, Wolfe procured him horses and money for his expenses, lent him one of his prentices (for a serving creature) to grace him, clapping an old blue coat on his back, which was one of my Lord of Hertford's liveries (he pulling the badge off), and so away they went. Saint Christopher be their speed, and send them well back again. But so prays not our Dominico Civilian, for he had no such determination; but as soon as ever he had left London behind him, he insinuated with this Juventus
⁶⁷
to run away from his master and take him for his good lord and supporter. The page was easily mellowed with his attractive eloquence, as what heart of adamant or enclosed in a crocodile's skin (which no iron will pierce) that hath the power to withstand the Mercurian heavenly charm of his rhetoric? With him he stays half a year, rubbing his toes, and following him with his sprinkling-glass and his box of kissing-comfits from place to place; whiles his master, fretting and chafing to be thus colted
⁶⁸
of both of them, is ready
to send out process for the Doctor and get his novice cried in every market town in Essex. But they prevented him, for the imp or stripling, being almost starved in this time of his being with him, gave him warning he would no longer serve him, but would home to his master whatever shift
⁶⁹
he made.

Gabriel thought it not amiss to take him at his word, because his clothes were all greasy and worn out, and he is never wont to keep any man longer than the suit lasteth he brings with him, and then turn him to grass and get one in new trappings; and ever pick quarrels with him before the year's end, because he would be sure to pay him no wages. Yet in his provident forecast he concluded it better policy for him to send him back to his master than he should go of his own accord; and whereas he was to make a journey to London within a week or such a matter, to have his blue coat (being destitute of ever another trencher-carrier) credit him up, though it were threadbare. So considered, and so done; at an inn at Islington he alights and there keeps him aloof, London being too hot for him. His retinue or attendant, with a whole cloak-bag full of commendations to his master, he dismisseth, and instead of the thirty-six pounds he ought
⁷⁰
him, willed him to certify him that very shortly he would send him a couple of hens to shrove with.
⁷¹

Wolfe, receiving this message, and holding himself palpably flouted therein, went and fee'd bailies, and gets one Scarlet,
⁷²
a friend of his, to go and draw him forth and hold him with a tale whiles they might steal on him and arrest him. The watch-word given them when they should seize upon him was ‘Wolfe, I must needs say, hath used you very grossly.' And to the intent he might suspect nothing by Scarlet's coming, there was a kind letter framed in Wolfe's name, with ‘To the right worshipful of the laws' in a great text hand for superscription on the outside; and underneath
at the bottom ‘your Worship's ever to command, and pressed to do you service, John Wolfe.' The contents of it were about the talking with his lawyer, and the eager proceeding of his sister-in-law
⁷³
against him.

This letter delivered and read, and Scarlet and he (after the tasting of a cup of dead beer that had stood palling
⁷⁴
by him in a pot three days) descending into some conference, he began to find himself ill-apaid
⁷⁵
with Wolfe's encroaching upon him and asking him money for the printing of his book, and his diet whiles he was close prisoner, attending and toiling about it, and objecting how other men of less desert were liberally recompensed for their pains, whereas he, whose worth overbalanced the proudest, must be constrained to hire men to make themselves rich. ‘I appeal to you,' quoth he, ‘whether ever any man's works sold like mine.' ‘Ay, even from a child, good Master Doctor,' replied Scarlet, and made a mouth at him over his shoulder, so soothing him on forward till the bailie's cue came of Wolfe's abusing him very grossly; which they not failing to take at the first rebound, stepped into the room boldly (as they were two well-bumbasted
⁷⁶
swaggering fat-bellies, having faces as broad as the back of a chimney and as big as a town bag-pudding
⁷⁷
) and clapping the Doctor with a lusty blow on the shoulder, that made his legs bow under him and his guts cry quag again, ‘By your leave,' they said unto him (in a thundering yeoman's usher's diapason), ‘in God's name and the Queen's we do arrest you.'

Without more pause, away they hurried him, and made him believe they would carry him into the City where his creditor was, when coming under Newgate, they told him they had occasion to go speak with one there, and so thrust him in before them for good manners' sake, because he was a Doctor and their better, bidding the Keeper, as soon as ever he was in, to take charge of him.

Some lofty tragical poet help me, that is daily conversant in the fierce encounters of raw-head and bloody-bones,
⁷⁸
and whose pen, like the ploughs in Spain that often stumble on gold veins, still splits and stumps itself against old iron and raking o'er battered armour and broken truncheons, to recount and express the more than Herculean fury he was in when he saw he was so notably betrayed and bought and sold. He fumed, he stamped, he buffeted himself about the face, beat his head against the walls, and was ready to bite the flesh off his arms if they had not hindered him. Out of doors he would have gone (as I cannot blame him) or he swore he would tear down the walls and set the house on fire if they resisted him. ‘Whither,' quoth he, ‘you villains, have you brought me?' ‘To Newgate, good Master Doctor,' with a low leg they made answer. ‘I know not where I am.' ‘In Newgate,' again replied they, ‘good Master Doctor.' ‘Into some blind corner you have drawn me to be murdered.' ‘To no place,' replied they the third time, ‘but to Newgate, good Master Doctor.' ‘Murder, murder!' he cried out; ‘somebody break in or they will murder me!' ‘No murder, but an action of debt,' said they, ‘good Master Doctor.' ‘Oh you profane plebeians!' exclaimed he: ‘I will massacre, I will crucify you for presuming to lay hands thus on my reverent person.'

All this would not serve him, no more than Hacker's counterfeit madness
⁷⁹
would keep him from the gallows, but he was had and showed his lodgings where he should lie by it, and willed to deliver up his weapon. That wrung him on the withers worse than all the rest. ‘What? My arms, my defence, my weapon, my dagger?' quoth he. ‘My life then, I see, is conspired against, when you seek to bereave me of the instruments that should secure it.' They rattled him up soundly, and told him if he would be conformable to the order of the prison, so it was; otherwise he should be forced.

Force him no forces, no such mechanical
⁸⁰
drudges
should have the honour of his artillery. Marry, if some worthy magistrate came (as their master or mistress, it might be), upon good conditions for his life's safety and reservation, he would surrender. The mistress of the house (her husband being absent), understanding of his folly, came up to him and went about to persuade him. At her sight somewhat calmed he was, as it is a true amorous knight and hath no power to deny anything to ladies and gentlewomen, and he told her if she would command her servants forth (whom he scorned should have their eyes so much illuminated as to behold any martial engine of his), he would in all humility despoil himself of it. She so far yielded to him; when, as soon as they were out, he runs and swaps the door to, and draws his dagger upon her with ‘Oh I will kill thee! What could I do to thee now!' And so extremely terrified her, that she scritched out to her servants, who burst in in heaps, thinking he would have ravished her.

Never was our Tapthartharath
⁸¹
(though he hath run through many briars
⁸²
) in the like ruthful pickle he was then, for to the bolts
⁸³
he must, amongst thieves and rogues, and taste of the widow's alms
⁸⁴
for drawing his dagger in a prison; from which there was no deliverance, if basely he had not fallen upon his knees and asked her forgiveness.

Dinner being ready, he was called down, and there being a better man than he present, who was placed at the upper end of the board, for very spite that he might not sit highest, he straight flung to his chamber again, and vowed by heaven and earth and all the flesh on his back, he would famish himself before he eat a bit of meat as long as he was in Newgate. How inviolably he kept it, I will not conceal from you. About a two hours after, when he felt his craw
⁸⁵
empty, and his stomach began to wamble, he writ a supplication to his hostess that he might speak with her. To whom (at her approaching) he recited what a rash vow he
had made, and what a commotion there was in his entrails or pudding-house, for want of food; wherefore if she would steal to him a bit secretly and let there be no words of it, he would, ay marry would he (when he was released) perform mountains. She (in pity of him) seeing him a brainsick bedlam and an innocent, that had no sense to govern himself, being loth he should be damned and go to hell for a meal's meat, having vowed and through famine ready to break it, got her husband to go forth with him out of doors, to some cook's shop at Pie Corner
⁸⁶
thereabouts, or (as others will have it) to the tap-house under the prison, where having eaten sufficient his hungry body to sustain, the devil a scute
⁸⁷
had he to pay the reckoning, but the Keeper's credit must go for it.

How he got out of this Castle Dolorous, if any be with child to know, let them enquire of the Minister then serving at Saint Alban's in Wood Street, who in Christian charity, only for the name's sake
⁸⁸
(not being acquainted with him before), entered bond for him to answer it at law and, satisfied the house for his lodging and mangery.
⁸⁹
But being restored to the open air, the case with him was little altered, for no roof had he to hide his noddle in, or whither he might go to set up his rest, but in the streets under a bulk he should have been constrained to have kennelled and chalked out his cabin, if the said Minister had not the second time stood his friend, and preferred him to a chamber at one Rolfe's, a sergeant's in Wood Street whom, as I take it, he also proved to be equally bound with him for his new cousin's appearance to the law, which he never did, but left both of them in the lurch for him, and running in debt with Rolfe beside for house-room and diet, one day when he was from home, he closely conveyed away his trunk forth out of doors, and showed him a fair pair of heels.

At Saffron Walden, for the most part, from that his
flight to this present hath he mewed and cooped up himself invisible, being counted for dead, and no tidings of him, till I came in the wind of him at Cambridge. And so I wind up his thread of life, which, I fear, I have drawn out too large, although in three-quarters of it (of purpose to curtail it) I have left descant and tasked me to plainsong; whereof that it is any other than plain truth let no man distrust, it being by good men and true (word for word as I let fly amongst you) to me in the fear of God uttered, all yet alive to confirm it. Wherefore settle your faith immovably, and now you have heard his life, judge of his doctrine accordingly.

Have with you to Saffron Walden
(M., III,
60
–
62
;
73
;
75
;
76
;
79
;
91
–
94
;
96
–
102
).

1
. This is the only one of the Marprelate pamphlets now widely accepted as being by Nashe. McKerrow printed three others but later came to think they were not his work.

2
. G. R. Hibbard,
Thomas Nashe, A Critical Introduction
, London,
1962
.

3
. Also probably a reference to Nashe's presence at the ‘fatal banquet' of Rhenish wine and pickled herring that caused the death of Robert Greene, the playwright (see
Have with You
, M., I,
287
–
8
).

4
.
The Three Parnassus Plays
, ed. J. B. Leishman, London,
1949
.

5
.
ibid
., p.
245
.

6
. L. V. Ryan,
Roger Ascham
, Stanford,
1963
, pp.
16
–
22
.

7
. Preface to Greene's
Menaphon
, M, III,
317
–
18
.

8
. p.
476
.

9
.
Lenten Stuff
, p.
408
.

10
. In
A Countercuff to Martin Junior
, another of the pamphlets once thought to be by Nashe, the writer says ‘If the monster be dead': the
Theses Martinianae
, published in July
1589
, looked like a posthumous collection. But
The Protestation of Martin
came out of the Martinist press in October and showed the exequies to have been premature.

11
.
An Almond for a Parrot
, M., III,
347
.