The Printer's Devil (24 page)

-I did tell you once, put not your trust in magic; that’s good counsel. Prayer too can aid a godly man; tho you have not the look of a man that’s over fond of the church, nor that calls much on God.

-Can you then tell an heretic from the cut on’s garments? I said, ’Tis well that the priests cannot do likewise.

And he made a smile that was no more than a little crooking of his mouth (as ’twere he did not wish to be overly amused) and said, -Not so; but most men drawn into such a moil of magic and meeting with demons would be a-down on their knees at the altar seven days in the week, in a muck-of-sweat betwixt God’s wrath and the devil’s magic.

-I go to church for my duty and no more, I said, I do not ask help of the Puritans’ God.

-Yet you ask it from me, said Nicholas Griffin. Do you believe I have more power nor the Lord?

-You argue like unto a lawyer, I said.

-Ah well, said he, I must needs be certain of you, do I endeavour to give you aid; I have mine own opinion of God and I’d give offence to a churchly man, most like. Mark you I do not deny God’s presence; ’tis simpler nor that; I merely misdoubt his concern for mankind.

-Well then we be of one mind, said I; Heretics both, and due both for stretched necks an the Puritans do find us out.

-Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly up-wards, quoth he (I did marvel that he quoted scripture); we’re all damned in their eyes for one nor another of the seven sins, all of which are but the nature of man.

-So have I thought too, I exclaimed. That do we deny lust, gluttony and greed, we’ll never strive towards any end; we’ll lie down and the Puritans shall order our lives for us, grayness without end; nor art, nor music, nor pleasure; and then be cast down by their puling God for all of eternity. Well I’ll none of it. This life be sufficient, as the day be sufficient unto itself.

-Well now, Master Stedman, quoth he, here’s my laboratory, for I am physician and apothecary both, as well as herbalist; here’s a rare collection of spagyrical remedies too.

He walked halt to a dresser filled with little drawers, and showed me all the boxes and pots with all the names and figures of the drogues and simples that they contained painted on them, and books by Gerard and Culpeper and others.

-You’ll know the place where Master Culpeper had his shop, said Nicholas Griffin, ’twas in Spittle-fields, in Red-Lyon-street; he dyed not iii years since, and did teach me much. See here, these herbs are all efficacious for women, being under the rule of Venus; mother-wort, arrach, plantago, May-weed, mug-wort, nep and pudding-grass; that’s good against sickness too; medlar and bistort both prevent abortion; juniper, bettony and the white lily help speed the delivery when she falls in labour. Balm and peony too, they’re good in childbed; celandine and dill can ease the pains; th’eringo’s a venereal plant; there’s rue and sanicle and even mulberries, and winter savory’s an excellent general specific; butterbur has his uses, and is even better mixed with zeodary or angelica; and bay, that’s also resistant to witchcraft. Vervain’s under the rule of Venus also, and it was named
herba sacra
by the Romans.

Nicholas Griffin while he did speak, pounded divers of these dried herbs and powders together with a mortar and pestle, and poured the mixtures into papers.

-This is for the
hypermesis gravidorum,
the sickness, quoth he; this to ease and strengthen the womb; and this to give her speedy delivery when she comes to her time; do you seethe a pinch in wine or ale and give it to her to drink.
Probatum est.
Do you concern yourself anent occupation?

-Oh ay, said I, on a sudden blushing like unto a green girl.

-’Tis well enough, he said, you may swive when it please you; you’ll not harm your wife, an you take care, nor the child neither; that’s an old-wife’s tale; they say also that excessive occupation maketh a woman barren, there’d be no folk in the world this day were that true. ’tis not a sin neither, but you’ll take no heed on that.

-As for th’other matter, he said when that I’d taken the packets of powders from him, I’ll say this: the demon’s too close-tied to your magus to do over-much harm to any other, even you, even your wife and your child; when he’s built him his house ‘twill be bound there, I’ll wager that. Till then, hyssop’s a good charm, the holy herb, and bay.

-Asperges me hyssopo, et mundabor,
⁶
said I.

-You too can quote from scripture then, an it please you, quoth he.

-Ay, for my father’s a sir-John and my brother also.

Nicholas. Griffin returned to his listing of efficacious herbs so: -Berries of rowan; St-Johns-wort, instiled
devil’s-flight;
vervain, and rue, the herb of grace. They are all here in this paper; an you feel a threat do you throw a pinch of the powder in th’aire. Then a silver jewel for you and your wife, also, will give protection; you stand not in peril, nonetheless, I am sure on’t. All these plants are not magic, not in themselves; their virtue lies in that which they bring out in your own self; for no demon can prevail against an armoured heart.

Straight from Nicholas. Griffin I found me a silversmith and did buy two rings of silver off him, and a little chain for our child to wear; and then I walked back to the river to find me a boat, well pleased with the day’s labour.

The sun was in a haze but there blew a pleasant wind; the brown Thames-river seemed not so stinking as of late, in spite of the thick scum begriming it along the bank. There was an old Jack-raker a-scraping filth off the path into the water; he had not a tooth in his head and wore a greasy rat-skin cap over his ears. I passed a pair of mermaids outside a dirty hot-house; one opened her gown to show a neble, and spat at me as I went by.

After that I’d gone by the whores I heard footsteps coming behind me very swift and with great haste and did turn with my hand ready on my sword-hilts; I beheld a mean filthy stinkerd with a wild staring eye; he passed me by in a reek of stale beer and I berated myself for a startle-cat. Nonetheless I kept my hand where it lay, and ’twas well I did so.

I had found me a boat and was haggling with the waterman when I herd a voice speak my name; I turned around and an explosion split the air, a fiery breath passed by my face, the waterman cried out and staggered

⁶
You will sprinkle me with hyssop, and I will be made clean backwards, and the whores began to braul at the tops of their voices. I had out my sword in the same instant that another boatman, a long timbersome fellow, seized hold of the assailant.

-Let fall your pistol, or I’ll slit your throat, I said to the man, ready to do so an he did or nay; ’twas only then that I recognised his countenance; I’d last seen him bleeding in an alley after that I’d broke his nose; ’twas crooked from that even now.

I looked to my boatman; he’d one hand griped round his other arm, his fingers all a-gored, and was rare white in the visage; I’d fain have left the would-be murderer to the mercy of that one’s fellow watermen save that some one had brought down the watch and they removed the man hence.

Following this I took an other boat downriver and was home anon, and was backwards pleased to behold Roger Southwell a-sitting in the shop, that was shut up by that time and the prentices and journeyman long gone home.

-What do you here? I asked, endeavouring to keep my voice from wrath.

-Such words for an old friend, Fabian? he said; have I fallen so low in your favour?

-Roger, said I, I’ve naught to thank you for.

-Naught save all your good fortune, he replied, and I never did come closer to giving him his lure; being yet a whit prudent I but shrugged my shoulders and stared at him.

For a wonder ’twas he that looked away first; then I did observe his countenance; he had the look of a man sick of the plague that knew he was dying and had little space to settle his affairs. So I stood with my arms a-folded and awaited his explanation.

After a space of time he looked up again and made a kind of Ingratiating smile.

-Will you write out your peal for me, Fabian? he asked, that I may live free of the demon which besets me; such a little thing ’tis to ask.

-I’d a thought you’d be weaving magics to send it back whence it came, said I.

-I verily believe that one is and will ever be beyond my powers, Roger replied soberly. Yet it may be that though I am unable to banish it in this life I may yet do so in another.

-Have you then learned to look beyond death? I asked.

-Nay, not so, said he; however my spirit shall live again when that the right man doth read the riddles I will leave for him.

I cared not; I’d had enough; I picked up a printed peal from the table, the Ink was yet wet, and smudged a trifle.

-Here take it, said I, get you hence and trouble us no more.

And he looked at me most strange and said, -Yet I’ll be within call, an you need me; took up the paper with my peal upon it, and departed.

Then did Catherine come from out another room and embraced me, though she did not mention Roger Southwell at all; and I found myself telling her all that Nicholas Griffin had said and all that had befallen me that day.

She looked at the folded papers I’d laid on the table and said, -This Nicholas Griffin, you think him an honest man?

-Ay, honest, said I, he has no truck with Roger’s magic; his potions are from herbs that grow and not from
the black arts. See, I said, unfolding a paper and smelling of the wondrous perfume within, naught that hath such a fine savour can do thee harm.

-’Tis like unto a garden in summer, she said; Am I to eat it?

-Nay, said I, we must needs seethe it first in ale or wine so that you may drink a draught of it. ’Twill save you from sickness and bring good humours. And see, I said, here’s a ring of silver that also hath virtue.

-Well now you have turned your coat indeed, said she, on a time ’twas only magic that you heeded, and now do you sit at the feet of an herbalist.

-You sound like unto a very critic, I said; I but mean the best for you and for our child.

-O I know, said she, and ’tis carrying the child that doth put me into such an ill temper. Let us try out one of these scented potions.

Between one thing and another ’tis some while since that I did last write in this journal; the month of August turned most unseasonable, wet and sickly, a most prodigious rain at the end of the month.

Matthew Boys hath made a most pretty song from the notes of my peal, he played it on a stringed Instrument he called a
Chitarrone
that was from Italy, that was like unto a lute but more ornamented; he’ll put it in his opera that he is writing with John Fletcher, ’twas he that wrote the lyric to this song, a kind of little sonnet about lost love, for the play’s the tale of Peter Abelard.

That’s a sorry tale enough, showing what barbarities the priests will do; for all it did occur five centuries past, and in France, and they were papists to boot, yet the breed’s the same today, howsoever they do cant and protest.

Perchance this little air can work, in his small way, to counteract the demon whose presence yet makes our weather so intemperate; Catherine learned to play and sing it, although the words are most sad, ’tis the song that Heloise doth sing when that she’s lost her lover and she’s to be made a nun. ’Tis most strange to hear the music-notes on the harpsichord that are wont to issue from the tower out of the great mouths of bells.

This doth call to my mind a man I did meet not so many days since, Thomas Chandler, come to beg employment at the bell-foundry in White-chapel; his father’s a bell-founder in Buckingham-shire and is imprisoned by the Puritans for taking of the mass. Thomas. and his brother Geoffrey hath fled; but they were not taking on men at the foundry. At that I bethought myself of Roger Southwell and his tower; I know not an he hath built it yet, yet I gave Thomas. Chandler a letter to take to him.

By and bye comes back from Roger a letter full of gratitude, he says his tower’s a-building and the Chandlers shall cast him bells this year or next. For me with weather so foul I’d liefer wait were it my task, no sooner had the pit been dug than ’twould be all filled up with rain and mud.

Catherine in some sickness so she drank of Master Griffin’s potion and it did ease her as he said; she’s around four months gone with the child, she should bear it late in February or March an it come to term.

I cannot but be concerned, the skies roil with tempest and all the seasons are turned about, ’tis not yet October but winter’s upon us. I do doubt yet the demon’s power, in spite of the words of Nicholas. Griffin.

My mind being full of these thoughts this is most like the cause of a strange dream I dreamt, strange and sad and so clear I did wake a-grieving until that I remembered my situation; I fancied that we had a little child, that he was dying of an ague, that we had sent for physicians but the river was all frozen up and the coach broke and so the poor mite perished.    
₁₁₆

When that I awoke and did reassure my self that it was in truth a dream I even did consider praying but that I thought it would be presumptious; an it be there’s a God in truth he’s not concerned with one man nor another, no more than with an hedge-sparrow or a pismire. Doth a bee-keeper number the names of his bees, though he care for them?

In December a fancy visited me, that I recalled muted merriment in years gone by at Christmas-tide when that I was a child; this is a thing the Puritans will not have us celebrate, they say ’tis superstitious mummery and the feast hath been but lean these many years.