The Book of Air and Shadows - Michael Gruber [40]
In this wise a year passed & two & cometh then Ladye Day in the Yeare Three as I stoode before Maistre Matthew to get my wage he sayde well Richard think you I have used you harde? And being honeste I sayde yes Mr that you have. He laughed & sayde still you have grown two span & waxed more than a stone o’ weight & no more art thou the clerkely puling thynge thou wast but a true foundry-man: for you know wee pound on iron not because wee despise it but to mayke it stronge.
After that he used me more kindly & beggan to instruct me in all the mysteries of the founders art, viz. how to tell good iron-stone, that there wase enough shell in it else addyng more shellstone & when to tap heats & controll the bellowes its ayre so that the heat did not sicken the iron & what divers heats were goode for as: the first mere pigge iron, the seconde, bar & firebacks, the third tooles, the fourth smalle gonnes, as sakers & falcons & the last alone for the greate gonnes, viz. culverines, demicannon & cannon royal, &c. Also how to prepare the mandrel with corde & clay & how to packe the mould so it cracke not nor leake & how to rigge cordes & pulleys for the liftyng of heavie weightes. Soe another yeare passed, me growing in craft & art & size too for he sate me at his own tabel & fed me welle. Then at the ende of this yeare he shewed me how to loade & fyre the gonnes.
Hard it may be for you to understand Nan being but a woman, but when first I heard the cannones roare I wase a lost man I had a luste beyond alle tellyng to heare it again & see the flyte of the balle, it wase a drunkenesse of pouwer & might. Soe my cozzen sees this & of his goodnesse says—and this wase nowe sommertyme of the Yeare Fyve me being aged fifteen yeares & a littel—lad, I must stay & over-see the mending of the mill-race & wheel, do you goe along with oure brace of culverines to the Tower & see them assayed by the Ordnance. I was verey eager to do so having not seen my mother & father alle this tyme, so off I went in two cartes the gonnes bedded in strawes, six oxen to each & men hyred to drive & keep, from Titchfield to Portsmouth, thence by lugger to Gravesende & changed to barge up river to the Tower, me never ben on boat before now & lyked it well, nor was I sea-sick lyke some others that were aboard.
The gonnes delivered to the Tower without mishap for which I thanked God most heartilie for the moveing of two loades of 48 cwt each is no smalle thynge with the roades as they were in those daies & the drovers much given to drinke & the common perills of the sea. I repaired to Fish Street & wase welcomed with all friendlinesse bye my family who were much surprized at my mans appearance & kept me late with telling of what had befallen in the yeares since I last had seen them. But my fathere wished to uze me as he once hadde which I could hardlie stande, beinge now a man not a boy, yet I did beare it for my motheres sake & for the peece of the house & in accord with the commandment honor thy father &c. We had a new servante mayde Margaret Ames a sour canting creature if a goode Christian who for what raison I never descryed lyked me not.
Then the nexte morn earlie I made to the Tower for the assaye. The officer of the Ordnance Peter Hastynges by name wase amazed at my youth as he had expected my cozzen as in times before. So both culverin were double-charged to see if they brake but thank God did not. Aftewarde I sat at mete with Mr Hastynges &