manner.
CHAPTER TWO
It snowed softly on Christmas Eve in the year of our Lord 1628, which was the fourth year of King Charles the First’s reign, and on Christmas morning a fleece as white and soft as a Cotswold lamb lay over London town. It hid the wooden gables and the red roof tiles, it hid the piles of filth dumped into the narrow cobbled streets. It muffled the rumble of carts, the clop-clop of hooves, the acrid cries of the street vendors, but the church bells clanged out clear as ever above the stilled city. And while Elizabeth in the Fones apothecary shop impatiently pounded snail shells in a mortar, she heard rowdy singing directly outside the shop door on Old Bailey Street.
“Is it mummers?” she cried, throwing her pestle down on the counter top and rushing to the twinkling-paned, bow-fronted window. It was a group of mummers, disguised merrymakers, standing under the swinging apothecary sign of three fawns painted gold, in apt allusion to the Fones name.
“Lewd roisterers! I must bid them begone!” said Richard Fitch the apprentice sourly, in the nasal twang of Lincolnshire. “They’ll disturb the master.” He raised his eyes to the smoky, dark-beamed ceiling. Thomas Fones lay above in his chamber, suffering from a violent attack of rheumatics. “Mummers are a bawdy, godless crew,” went on Richard, pulling down the corners of his mouth as he peered through the window beside Elizabeth.
Elizabeth paid no attention to him. She was laughing at the cavortings on the snowy street. There was a boy dressed as a hobbyhorse, and a “green man” with bits of ivy and holly stuck all over him, and another in a shaggy skin who lumbered and shuffled like a dancing bear on a leash held by the Lord of Misrule - a striped jester with cap and bells. “God rest ye merry - “ bawled the mummers, “God rest ye merry, all good folk, Let nothing you dismay, for Christ our Saviour is born to us this Christmas Day.”
“ ‘Tis wanton, God has naught to do wi’ merriment,” said Richard Fitch, drawing back. “Roman blasphemies. They’re all drunk too and in broad daylight - that one’ he pointed with his thumb, ‘‘‘mumming as a bear - ‘tis Sim Perkins, ‘prentice to Mr. Thurlby, the grocer in Ludgate, what a beating he’ll get when ‘s master cotches him!” Richard nodded with satisfaction. He was a thin, pimply boy of twenty who had nearly served his time with Thomas Fones, and would soon set up for apothecary on his own. He was much given to psalm-singing, and the reading of his Geneva Bible, and his behaviour was so impeccable that in the five years he had been here he had never been beaten once. “Come, mistress, he said to Elizabeth, as he returned to the tobacco leaves he had been grading and chopping, “you’d best get on wi’ your task or the mithridate’ll never be ready in time for her Ladyship of Carlisle.”
“Oh Dickon!” cried Elizabeth. “This is Christmas Day! Most London folk don’t work today!”
“ Tis not the Sabbath - ‘tis a Thursday,” said Richard sternly, “The Bible says naught anywhere about Christ masses - that’s the Pope’s doing. The Scripture commandment says, ‘Six days shalt thou labour and do all - ‘ “
“I know what it says - “ cut in Elizabeth, “but even King Charles himself keeps Christmas, and there’ll be a royal masque today at Whitehall.”
The apprentice sniffed. “The King has a Papist queen to his bed, and women be like serpents to sting poison in a man unawares.”
“Oh fiddle-faddle!” snapped Elizabeth, returning to the counter and picking up the pestle. “How would you know? I’ll vow you’ve never had a woman in your bed, be she serpent, dove, or even Bank-side harlot.” She peered at the battered calfskin book which contained her father’s secret prescription for the famous mithridate remedy. Many apothecaries made “mithridates” of their own concocting, but this one was particularly efficacious. It contained
CHAPTER TWO
It snowed softly on Christmas Eve in the year of our Lord 1628, which was the fourth year of King Charles the First’s reign, and on Christmas morning a fleece as white and soft as a Cotswold lamb lay over London town. It hid the wooden gables and the red roof tiles, it hid the piles of filth dumped into the narrow cobbled streets. It muffled the rumble of carts, the clop-clop of hooves, the acrid cries of the street vendors, but the church bells clanged out clear as ever above the stilled city. And while Elizabeth in the Fones apothecary shop impatiently pounded snail shells in a mortar, she heard rowdy singing directly outside the shop door on Old Bailey Street.
“Is it mummers?” she cried, throwing her pestle down on the counter top and rushing to the twinkling-paned, bow-fronted window. It was a group of mummers, disguised merrymakers, standing under the swinging apothecary sign of three fawns painted gold, in apt allusion to the Fones name.
“Lewd roisterers! I must bid them begone!” said Richard Fitch the apprentice sourly, in the nasal twang of Lincolnshire. “They’ll disturb the master.” He raised his eyes to the smoky, dark-beamed ceiling. Thomas Fones lay above in his chamber, suffering from a violent attack of rheumatics. “Mummers are a bawdy, godless crew,” went on Richard, pulling down the corners of his mouth as he peered through the window beside Elizabeth.
Elizabeth paid no attention to him. She was laughing at the cavortings on the snowy street. There was a boy dressed as a hobbyhorse, and a “green man” with bits of ivy and holly stuck all over him, and another in a shaggy skin who lumbered and shuffled like a dancing bear on a leash held by the Lord of Misrule - a striped jester with cap and bells. “God rest ye merry - “ bawled the mummers, “God rest ye merry, all good folk, Let nothing you dismay, for Christ our Saviour is born to us this Christmas Day.”
“ ‘Tis wanton, God has naught to do wi’ merriment,” said Richard Fitch, drawing back. “Roman blasphemies. They’re all drunk too and in broad daylight - that one’ he pointed with his thumb, ‘‘‘mumming as a bear - ‘tis Sim Perkins, ‘prentice to Mr. Thurlby, the grocer in Ludgate, what a beating he’ll get when ‘s master cotches him!” Richard nodded with satisfaction. He was a thin, pimply boy of twenty who had nearly served his time with Thomas Fones, and would soon set up for apothecary on his own. He was much given to psalm-singing, and the reading of his Geneva Bible, and his behaviour was so impeccable that in the five years he had been here he had never been beaten once. “Come, mistress, he said to Elizabeth, as he returned to the tobacco leaves he had been grading and chopping, “you’d best get on wi’ your task or the mithridate’ll never be ready in time for her Ladyship of Carlisle.”
“Oh Dickon!” cried Elizabeth. “This is Christmas Day! Most London folk don’t work today!”
“ Tis not the Sabbath - ‘tis a Thursday,” said Richard sternly, “The Bible says naught anywhere about Christ masses - that’s the Pope’s doing. The Scripture commandment says, ‘Six days shalt thou labour and do all - ‘ “
“I know what it says - “ cut in Elizabeth, “but even King Charles himself keeps Christmas, and there’ll be a royal masque today at Whitehall.”
The apprentice sniffed. “The King has a Papist queen to his bed, and women be like serpents to sting poison in a man unawares.”
“Oh fiddle-faddle!” snapped Elizabeth, returning to the counter and picking up the pestle. “How would you know? I’ll vow you’ve never had a woman in your bed, be she serpent, dove, or even Bank-side harlot.” She peered at the battered calfskin book which contained her father’s secret prescription for the famous mithridate remedy. Many apothecaries made “mithridates” of their own concocting, but this one was particularly efficacious. It contained
Similar Books
