Captain Ravenshaw; Or, The Maid of Cheapside. A Romance of Elizabethan London

"What cheer now?" queried Tom. "Fighting to be done? or coney-catching? You know I'm your man through sea-water and hell-fire, for a brace of angels or so."

"I have a small matter afoot to-morrow night," replied Ravenshaw, gruffly, "wherein I can employ a man like you, and three or four under him."

"Troth!" said Tom, becoming consequential, "I have some affairs of my own to-morrow night, and that's the hell of it."

"Then good night to you!"

"Oh, stay, captain! – I had some slight business; but to serve you, captain – "

"You bottle-ale rogue, think not to cozen me into a higher price. Affairs of your own! – no more of that. Shall we deal, or no?"

"Oh, I am all yours, captain. For you, I would put myself out any day. Say on."

"Then you are first to raise four stout fellows whom you can trust as you do your false dice or your right hand."

"They are near. Trust me for 'em."

"At sunset to-morrow, you and your men, all well armed, and furnished with lights, be in waiting before the White Horse tavern in Friday Street, – that is to say, loitering in a manner not to make people inquisitive. There will come to you anon a young gentleman – with a young woman. The gentleman is one you have seen. He was with me the night you turned tail to those counterfeit roaring boys."

"I have seen him with you since, – a lean, clerkly man."

"Ay; and he and the maid will pass the White Horse tavern, as soon after sunset as may be. Now, be sure you mistake not the man, – it may be nightfall ere they come."

"Never fear. I am a man of darkness. Mine eyes are an old tom-cat's."

"Without stopping them, you and your men will close around the couple as a guard, and accompany where the gentleman shall direct. If any pursue, or try to molest them, you are to defend, and help their flight, at all risks. But they are not like to be sought for till they are out of London. They will take to the water at Queenhithe, and you five with them, all in the same boat. And so down the river with the tide, how many miles I know not exactly, till you land, upon the Kentish side. The gentleman will give orders where."

"This should be worth ten pound, at the least, so far," said Cutting Tom, musingly, as if to himself.

"You will not get ten pounds at the most, and yet you will go farther," replied Ravenshaw, curtly. "After you are put ashore, will come your chief service, which is to protect my gentleman and maid to their destination inland. How far this journey will be, I am not sure, but 'twill be some walking, through woods and by lonely ways, and by night; and you are to guard them against the dangers and fears of the way, that is all. When they come to the place they are bound for, they will dismiss you, and you may fare home to London as you choose."

"Why, beshrew my body! 'tis an all-night business, then."

"It should be over something after midnight, if begun early and well sped; I count not the time of your return to London. And look you: I am not to be named in the affair, that is of the first import. If the lady knew – well, in short, I am not to be named. The lady is not to know of my hand in it; if she did all would go wrong, and I should make you sorry."

"I will remember. This should be worth, now, fifteen pound, at the smallest. I shall have to pay the men – "

"You can pay them a pound apiece, and have two pounds for yourself. That will be six pounds."

"Oh, jest not, I pray you! Ten pound and there's an end on't."

After some discussion, they met each other at eight pounds. Then arose another question.

"Since you are not to appear in the affair," said Cutting Tom, "and I know not the other gentleman save by sight, it behooves that you pay before we set forth."

"Half ere you set forth," conceded the captain, knowing his man, "half when the work is done."

"Then will the gentleman pay me the second half when we are at his destination?"

"No. He will have no money with him. I would not put you in temptation upon the journey, or afterward. Though I shall not appear in the matter, I shall pay." He thought for a moment. It was safest that Cutting Tom should know him alone as master, deal with him alone where gold was to be handled, and yet that he should not pay the first money till the last possible moment before leaving London. Finally he said: "For the first four pounds, thus: to-morrow, at fifteen minutes before noon, no later, be at the hither end of London Bridge; I will meet you there and pay. For the other four pounds, thus: when the journey is finished, pass the rest of the night at the gentleman's destination, – he shall find you room in some stable-loft, or such, – and there I will come the next day with the gold, for I shall be in that neighbourhood."

Cutting Tom grumbled a little; but Ravenshaw, after applying to him a few terms designed to make him think no better of himself, threatened to employ another man, and so brought him to agreement. The details having been repeated for the sake of accuracy, the captain left the place, and Tom returned to his amusements.

Ravenshaw's concern now was to raise the promised eight pounds and such other money as would be required in the exploit. He must needs bestir himself. At this late hour there was not time for any elaborate enterprise. Some bold, shrewd stroke must serve him. But might he expect to perform such a wonder now, when he had not been able to perform one, even at the pressure of dire want, during the past weeks? Yes; for he had the stimulus of a new motive; and the very shortness of the time at his disposal would put an edge to his wit, and sharpen his sight to opportunities to which he would commonly be blind.

The manifest thing to do first was to stake his few shillings at cards or dice. He entered the nearest dice-house; but here he was well known and no player would engage with him. He went into another place, where most of the gamesters were men from the country, whom a few hardened rooks of the town were fleecing. Here the captain got to work with the bones; but, as the dice were true, he soon, to his consternation, lost his last sixpence. In a desperate desire of getting some silver back in order to try for better luck elsewhere, he raised a howl of having been cheated with loaded dice, and proceeded to roar terror into his opponent. But the latter, frightened out of his wits, took bodily flight, and, though Ravenshaw pursued him out of the house, succeeded in losing himself in the darkness of Snow Hill.

What was the captain now to do? For a moment he thought of taking his stand on Holborn bridge, and crying "Deliver!" to the first belated person who might be supposed to carry a fat purse. But there would be danger in that course, danger to his purpose, and he dared not risk that purpose as he would risk his own neck. He bethought himself with bitterness that there was not a human being in London, or in the world, who would lend him half the needed sum, to save his soul. Nerved by the reflection, he strode forward and swaggered into a tavern on the north side of Holborn, the door of which had just opened to let out three hilarious inns-of-court men who came forth singing:

"For three merry men, and three merry men,And three merry men we be."

He looked in at each open chamber door, and listened at each closed one. Neither eating, nor drinking, nor smoking, nor the music of begging fiddlers, had any attraction for him this time. But at last he came to a large upper room wherein money was passing, for he could hear the rattle of dice and the soft chink of gold amidst the exclamations of men, the voices of women, and the scraping of a couple of violins. Without knocking, he boldly flung open the door, and entered.

Candles were plentiful in the room, which was hung with painted cloth. On a long table were the remains of a supper; at one end of this table the cloth had been turned back, and three gentlemen were throwing dice upon the bare oak. At the other part of the table sat two women, with painted cheeks and gorgeous gowns, and a fourth gentleman. Upon the window-seat were two vagabond-looking fellows a-fiddling. The women were dividing their attention between the gamesters and a lean greyhound, for which they would toss occasionally a bit of food into the air. Before each of the women there was a little pile of gold, to which her particular gamester would add or resort, as he won or lost. All this the captain took in with sharp eyes ere any one did him the honour to challenge his entrance with a look.

"Oh, your pardon!" quoth he, when at last these people showed a kind of careless, insolent surprise at his presence. "I thought to find friends here; I have mistaken the room." But instead of withdrawing he stepped forward, his glance playing between the dice and the gold.

"Oh, Jesu!" said one of the women, a great lazy blonde, with splendid eyes, and a slow voice; "'tis that swaggering filthy rascal Ravenshaw, with his beard cut off."

"'Tis Samson shorn of his strength, then!" said the other woman, a little, Spanish-looking, brown beauty, who spoke in quick, shrill tones. She was dressed in brown velvet and scarlet satin. One of her hands lay in the ardent clasp of a large gentleman, who, with his own free hand, held the dice-box. He was handsome and simple-looking, and he now broke into loud laughter at her jest.

"'Twould have needed a handsomer Delilah than any here, to do the shearing," said the captain, rudely. Having been a hater of women, he had been wont to treat this kind with caustic raillery.

The large gallant roared at this, and said, "Faith, ladies, you brought that on yourselves!" But one of the other two gamesters, a lean, fox-faced, eager-looking little man, he whose pile of winnings lay before the indolent blonde, frowned with resentment on her behalf. First his frown was directed at Ravenshaw; but, deeming it prudent to aim it elsewhere, he turned it upon the large gentleman, saying:

"Your mirth is easily stirred, Master Burney."

The brunette shot a look of anger at the speaker for the offensive tone he used toward her gallant. The blonde noticed this, and took the little gentleman's hand in hers, to show where her allegiance lay; and then she drawled out, with a motion which might have come to a shrug of horror had she not been too lazy to finish it:

"Oh, God! I pity Delilah, the poor woman, if her Samson was such a bottle-ale rogue as this beast!"

Master Burney laughed at this sally, and somewhat reinstated himself in the favour of the little gallant.

Ravenshaw bowed low. "I salute your most keen, subtle, elegant, biting wit, Lady Greensleeves! It cuts; oh, it cuts!"

"'Lady Greensleeves!' Ho, ho, ho!" bawled Master Burney, and forthwith essayed to sing, with a tunelessness the worse for the opposition of the fiddlers, some lines of the familiar ballad:

"Greensleeves was all my joy,Greensleeves was my delight;Greensleeves was my heart of gold,And who but Lady Greensleeves?"

The point of the nickname lay in the fact that the pink silk gown which encased the large, shapely figure of the lady – a gown so cut as to reveal an ample surface of bust – was fitted with sleeves of light green.

"Christ! what caterwauling!" quoth Lady Greensleeves, with a smile, not ill-naturedly.

"'Tis not as bad as his laughing, at worst," said her gallant.

"What is amiss with his laughing?" spoke up the brunette, pressing Master Burney's hand the more tightly.

"Oh," replied the little gallant, "I find no fault that he laughs; but 'tis the manner of his laugh. If he but laughed like a Christian, I should not mind. But he laughs like a – like a – "

"Like a what?" persisted the brunette, defiantly.

"Like a pig," said Lady Greensleeves, placidly.

The brunette's eyes flashed at the fair woman, but the latter's amiable, half-smiling look disarmed wrath, or seemed to put it in the wrong, and so for a moment nobody spoke. Meanwhile Ravenshaw had made these swift deductions: Here was one gentleman prone to laugh at anything; there was another gentleman quick to take offence at that laughter if it was directed against his mistress; neither gentleman was afraid of the other, but both were afraid of Ravenshaw, whose name gave him a fine isolation, making it as hard for him to find adversaries in fight as in gaming; and each gentleman was adored by his lady. In a flash, the captain saw what might be made out of the situation.

"How is it you knew who I was, Lady Greensleeves?" he asked. "I think, if I had ever met you, I should have remembered you."

"Oh, lord! I would not for a thousand pound rub against all the scurvy stuff that's in your memory! I was in Paris Garden the day you killed the bear that got loose among the people, and that is how I learned who you were. And oft since then I have seen you hanging about tavern doors, as I have gone about the town in my coach. I think I have seen you at prison windows, hanging down a box for pennies, but I'm not sure."

This time Master Burney's laugh was upon the captain, and all joined in it.

"No doubt," said Ravenshaw; "and I think you once put a penny in the box, but when I drew it up I found it was a bad one."

"Troth, then," she said, "here's a good coin to make up for it." And she took up the smallest piece of gold from the pile in front of her, and threw it toward him. "Take it, and buy stale prunes to keep up your stale valour!"

"Nay," he retorted, throwing it back; "keep it, and buy stale paint to keep up your stale beauty!"

Master Burney's shout of mirth was cut short by a curse, and a slap in the face, both from Lady Greensleeves's lover, who had leaped to his feet and was the picture of fury. The struck man, with a loud roar of anger, sprang up instantly; and both had their rapiers in hand in a moment.

The two other gentlemen and the brunette rushed in to keep the angry gallants asunder; Lady Greensleeves sat like one helpless, and began to scream like a frightened child; the fiddlers broke off their tune of a sudden; the hound fled to the empty fireplace, and barked. The two opponents struggled fiercely to shake off the would-be peacemakers, and were for killing each other straightway.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen," shouted Ravenshaw above the tumult; "not before ladies! not indoors! There be the fields behind the tavern, and a good moonlight."

With this, he caught the brunette by the wrists, and drew her from the fray. Holding her with his left arm, he pushed Master Burney's enemy violently toward the door.

"To the fields, then!" cried the little gentleman. "To the fields an he dare follow!"

Master Burney's reply was drowned by the cries of the ladies, as he dashed after the other. The two neutral gentlemen, yielding to the trend of the incident, accompanied the angry ones forth. The captain, instead of following, slammed the door after them, released the brunette, and stood with his back to the closed door to stop any one else from leaving the room. The brunette, shrieking threats, tried again and again to pass him, but he pushed her back each time until she sank exhausted on a chair by the table; and all the while poor Lady Greensleeves wailed as if her heart would break.

"'Tis not for ladies to interfere in these matters," said Ravenshaw, when he could make himself heard. "A blow has been struck, and men of honour have but one course. Their friends will see all fitly done. Despair not, mistress: your gallant has great vantage in size and strength."

"Then you think he will win?" cried the brunette. "Heaven be praised!"

"Oh, God! oh, God!" moaned Lady Greensleeves. "Then my dear servant is a dead man. Woe's me! woe's me! I'll turn nun; nay, I'll take poison, that I will!"

"Why, madam," said Ravenshaw, "your gentleman will acquit himself well, be sure of it. He is so quick; and the other's bulk is in your man's favour."

It was now the brown beauty's turn to be dismayed.

"Oh, thank heaven!" cried Lady Greensleeves, smiling gratefully through her tears. "Yes, indeed, he is quick; he will give that big Burney a dozen thrusts ere the great fellow can move."

At this the dark woman started up for another struggle with Ravenshaw, but he stayed her with the words:

"Nay, the small gentleman is too light to thrust hard. Think of Master Burney's weight; when he does touch, 'twill go home, no doubt of that."

All this time the captain was on tenter-hooks lest the fight had really begun; a moment's loss of time would be fatal to his purpose; he must bring matters to a point.

"In very truth," he said, "as a man acquainted with these things, if I were to wager which of the two is like to be killed – "

"Which?" cried the women together, as he paused.

"Both!"

Even Greensleeves sprang up this time, and Ravenshaw found himself confronted by two desperate, sobbing creatures.

"Back, ladies!" he shouted, quickly. "I will stop their fighting!"

They stood still, regarding him with wondering inquiry.

"If you will stay in this room," he continued.

"We will not stir a step," cried Lady Greensleeves. "Make haste, for God's sake!"

"And if you will give me a handful of those yellow boys yonder," he added.

With a cry of joy, Greensleeves swept up a handful of the two little piles of gold, and held it out to him.

"Stay," said the brown lady, closing her palm over the gold in the other's hand. "He shall have it – when he brings the two gentlemen back to us, friends and unscathed."

"That's fair," said Ravenshaw; "so that you give it to me privately, ere they take note."

"Yes, yes!" panted the brunette; and "God's name, haste!" cried Greensleeves; and the captain, without another word, dashed out of the room, and down the stairs.

He ran through the garden behind the tavern, and so by a gate, which the gentlemen had left open, to the fields, which stretched northward to Clerkenwell and Islington. He descried the four gallants near at hand, where they had chosen a clean, level piece of turf. Fortunately, the many noises in the tavern, noises of music, laughter, gaming, and singing, had kept attention from being drawn to the tumult of this affair, and so no one had followed the four gentlemen out. The two who had tried to make peace had now fallen naturally into the place of seconds, and were finishing the preliminaries of the fight, while the adversaries stood with their doublets off, waiting for the time to begin. Just as their weapons met, with a musical ring of steel, the captain dashed in and struck up the rapiers with his own.

"Gentlemen, I am defrauded here," he said, as the combatants stood back in surprise. "I was the first to offend, in the house yonder, and the first to be offended. 'Tis my right to fight one of you first – I care not which – and, by this hand, you shall not proceed till my quarrel is settled!"

"Oh, pish, man!" said the little gallant; "we have no quarrel with you. Our fight is begun; I pray, stand aside, and let us have it out."

"Upon one condition, then," said Ravenshaw.

The two gallants raised their points, to rush at each other.

"That the survivor shall fight me afterward," he finished.

The two gallants lowered their points, and hesitated.

"Troth, I have taken no offence of you, sir," said Master Burney; "and given none, I think."

"But your ladies yonder gave me offence; and to whom shall I look for reparation, if not to you two?"

"Faith," said the small gallant, "a man who undertook to give reparation for every foolish word a woman spoke, would have no time to eat, drink, or sleep."

"I see how it is," said Ravenshaw, with a shrug. "I may not hope for satisfaction unless I force you to self-defence; and that would be murder. But, by the foot of a soldier, if I must go without reparation, I'll not be the only one! If I forego, so must you both. How like you that, Master Burney?"

"How can I? He struck me a blow."

"Well, no doubt, if I pray him, he will withdraw the blow. Will you not, sir?"

"I do not like to," answered the little man; "but if he will withdraw his laughter – "

"Why, forsooth, a man of known courage may withdraw anything, and no harm to his reputation," said the captain. "To prove it I will withdraw all offence I have given, and will take it that you two, on behalf of the ladies, withdraw all offence they have done me. Saviolo himself, I swear, could not adjust a quarrel more honourably. What say you, shall we go back now in peace and friendship to bring joy to the hearts of the ladies who are dying of fear? Come, gentlemen, my sword is the first to be put up, look you."

Somewhat sheepishly, the adversaries followed his example, to the amusement of the seconds, who would doubtless have acted with similar prudence had they been exposed to the risk of having to fight Captain Ravenshaw. The captain then took Master Burney and the little gentleman each by an arm, and started for the tavern, followed by the other two. The song of the three inns-of-court men returned to his mind, and he and the two fighters marched back to the ladies, singing at the top of their voices:

"For three merry men, and three merry men,And three merry men we be."

Lady Greensleeves folded the little gentleman in her arms till he grimaced with discomfort; the brown beauty leaped up and clung around Master Burney's neck; but, as she did so, she dangled behind his back a purse, in the face of Captain Ravenshaw, to whose hand she relinquished it a moment later. The captain stepped out into the passage, made sure that the purse really contained a handful of gold, and then fled down the stairs ere any but the brunette knew he was gone.

The fiddlers, who had waited through all the suspense of the women, now struck up a merry love tune, and Master Burney bawled for a drawer to bring some more wine, declaring he must drink the health of Captain Ravenshaw; but the captain was hastening to his lodging in Smithfield, grinning to himself, and fingering the heavy round pieces in the purse.

CHAPTER XII.

MASTER HOLYDAY IN FEAR AND TREMBLING

"If I know what to say to her nowIn the way of marriage, I'm no graduate."– A Chaste Maid in Cheapside.

As Ravenshaw climbed the narrow stairs to his room in darkness, he heard the voice of his fellow lodger in loud and continued denunciation. Wondering at this, for the scholar was wont to speak little and never vehemently, the captain hastened his upward steps, thinking to rescue Master Holyday from some quarrel with the landlord or other person. But when he burst into the chamber he found the poet alone, pacing the floor in the flickering light of an expiring candle, his hair tumbled, his eyes wild, one hand gesticulating, while the other held his new-written manuscript.

At sight of Ravenshaw the poet stopped short a moment, then finished the passage he had been spouting, dropped the manuscript on the table, and, coming back to the present with a kind of tired shiver, sank exhaustedly upon a joint stool.

"Excellent ranting," said the captain, "and most suitable to what I have to say." He threw his hat and sword-girdle on a bed in a corner of the room, filled and lighted a pipe of tobacco, and took up his stand before the chimney as one who had weighty matters to propound.

"How suitable?" queried Master Holyday, with a languor consequent upon his long stretch of poetic fervour.

"As thus," replied the captain, with a puff. "Your play there concerns the carrying away of a lady."

"Of Helen by Paris; yes. But that is only a little part – "

"'Tis a part that you have conducted properly and well, no doubt."

"Why, without boasting, I profess some slight skill in these matters."

"Well, now, look you. Your carrying away this lady in the spirit is well; 'tis a fit preparation for your carrying away a lady in the flesh."

Master Holyday broke off in the middle of a yawn and stared.

"You shall carry away this goldsmith's daughter to-morrow night. Now mark how all is to be done – "

"God's name, are you mad?" cried the scholar, roused from his lassitude into a great astonishment.

"No more mad than to have planned all this for the saving of that maid from dire calamities, and the making of your joy and fortune."

"My joy?"

"Ay, indeed; for to possess that maid – "

"Oh, the maid – hang all maids!" exclaimed Holyday, with a kind of shudder, and falling into perturbation. "I'll none of 'em!"

"And as to your fortune, how often have you told me what welcome and comfort wait you at your father's house the day you come to him with a wife?"