Motion Picture Story Magazine (Feb-Jul 1911)

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® ® Catharine Howard o @ By John Olden I JOHN MINDENHAM, of Geddes? den, in the County of Dorset, where I was born and reared in the draper's trade, am the narrator of this strange story. I am not a talker or tale-teller by my trade, which lies in the feel of the hand, or am I by inclination. My habits are for a quiet corner away from travelers and roysterers, with a cosy dish and flagon; and it is for this reason that I was made the vehicle of a tale such as you shall hear. It was in the year of Our Lord, 1560, in the reign of good Queen Bess, that he first came among us; a drunken, broken soldier. Later, by means of grace, he was become my quiet company for many nights running into years. On a certain even, in winter, when the wind came new and cold from the sea, the "Bear and Signet" was full to o'er-crowding with the riff-raff of the road; guilclless artisans, clerks, strolling players, mendicants, scriveners out-at-elbow, sailor-men and what not. In one corner, seated at a high table, were some heavy merchants going into Hants. The hour was late, so paying my score, I started thru the tangled benches for the door. As I passed an oldish man, doddering in his cups, he grasped me by the skirts. "For Bluff King Hal/' he muttered, groping for his jack. "A murrian on this spewing ale." Now, as King Harry had been dead these thirteen years, I marvelled at his sotted toast, and tarried as he held me. I know not what impulse for good or evil held me helpless in his grasp, but stop I did and this to my undoing. Soon we were seated cheek by jowl. He was a creature from another age of Flodden Field and Spurs, of Wolsey and the holy foxes. Sure, no mate for my yardstick and broadcloth. Yet, before the cock crow, we were cosens of a kind. I have no memory of reaching my shop in Mercers' Lane, and of the doings for the clay. Suffice, at even again my habit took me to the inn, and there I found my erstwhile crony. I will not dwell on the growing of this intimacy, or how he learned to stretch a jack of malmsey thru a winter's evening. He was a huge broken man of strange whimsies, and with no intimates save me. His talk was always of the past, a stitch here and there; and I give it as it came. On the second day of our riding from Hunstanton to Norwich, where the King lay renting at a monastery, Eaffaeli, the royal alchemist, and I, of the King's own guard, neared the hamlet of Horsham. We were a pair of knaves, this Milanese and I, of a color ; on a secret mission of the Tudor's; he to scheme and I to do. It had come to us that Harry Howard, Duke of Norfolk, and the King's own friend, was pushing a feverish amour with a sweet young relative, one Catherine Howard, hard by at his castle of Horsham. It was our business to watch and report ; for, altho King Harry suffered with an ulcer of the leg, his heart was pricking for a new adventure. Raffaeli, the weasel, dismounted, and we led our nags beneath the leafy trees of Horsham Park. It was late spring and good riding; and mayhap the lovers would be stirring. Our guess 11