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

"Well, well, and what said he?"

"He was for killing me, at first, but the end of it was that he is now waiting for a word with you yonder at the bridge. We have seen the captain ride away, and all is safe. I took off my beard and russet gown in the lane without, and hid them in the stable." And the faithful rascal, with bowed head, watched narrowly for the look of approval to which he felt entitled.

"You have done well, Gregory; and you shall eat, drink, and sleep, to pay for your abstinence, – but first come to the bridge and show me this man. And remember, if my Lord Bishop's servants are inquisitive, you lay at Deptford last night, as I did." A few minutes later Master Jerningham was in converse with Cutting Tom at the Southwark end of London Bridge, beneath the gate tower, on top of which was a forest of poles crowned with the weatherbeaten heads of traitors.

"Oh, but sell secrets, that is too much!" Cutting Tom was saying, in an injured tone. "A poor soldier hath little but his honour. Belike I am ill-favoured with wounds, and ragged with poverty through serving my country, but my honour, sir! my trust! my loyalty! Troth, 'tis mine only jewel, and if I sold it – well, I should want a good price, and there's the hell of it!"

But even when a price was fixed, Cutting Tom, dazzled on one side by his lifetime's chance of obtaining so excellent a patron, on the other side fearful of Ravenshaw's vengeance, temporised and mumbled and held back, until Jerningham assured him of protection and of Ravenshaw's long absence from London. The rascal then told all he knew of what was planned to be carried out that night.

Jerningham listened with apparent passivity, though at the last he averted his eyes lest his exultation should gleam out of them. Here was all trouble, all desperate and well-nigh impossible venturing, made needless on his part. He studied the matter for a minute, and then said, musingly:

"His companion and a maid – the White Horse – 'tis the nearest tavern – sooth, there can be no question it is she. Look you, sirrah, I must know to what place they are bound."

"I would I knew. 'Tis somewhere on the Kentish side of the river."

"What, would the rascal dare? – think you 'tis the place he is now riding to?"

"He said he would be in the neighbourhood of our destination, and he would come to-morrow to pay and dismiss us."

"If he is to come to you to-morrow, it cannot be to the Grange, – he will be there already. He knows more of that neighbourhood than he would have me think; he used the name Holyday – there's a Holyday family in that country. Well, I know not; but 'tis certain you will be near my house of Marshleigh Grange."

A grim smile flitted over Jerningham's face, as he saw another difficulty removed – for he could now dispense with the use of the Dutch innkeeper at Blackwall, and with the risk of putting his captive aboard from so public a place.

"Now mark," said he, while he held Cutting Tom with fixed eyes, "you will indeed have four men with you when you meet the gentleman and maid at the White Horse; but one of those four shall be a man I will send there betimes. You will easily know him; he is the man that brought you to see me. His beard, you must know, is false, and you will warn your men; else, detecting it, they might snatch it off in mirth. Without disguise, he would be known to the maid and gentleman, – then our business were undone. And so, to the journey."

Proceeding, he gave orders full and concise, to which Cutting Tom lent the best attention of his cunning mind. Then, being curtly dismissed, the rascal, between elation at his great windfall, and perturbation at the temerity of betraying Captain Ravenshaw, shambled off through the darkish lane that the rows of high shop-houses made of London Bridge.

Master Jerningham, returning to Winchester House, was rejoined by Gregory at the place where the serving-man had waited.

"You have five hours wherein to fill your stomach and sleep; and then you must be off upon a night's work that shall make you your own man, if it turn out well."

The zealous hound, a little staggered at the opening words of this announcement, took fresh life at its conclusion, and looked with new-lighted eyes for commands.

Having given these with the utmost particularity, Jerningham presented himself, in all docility and humbleness, to the bishop in the latter's study, where he made a careful tale of his readiness for sailing on the morrow.

He then took horse for Deptford; upon arriving, he related his good fortune, and set forth his new plan to Sir Clement Ermsby, on the deck of the ship.

"But how at the Grange, man, if Ravenshaw be there?" Sir Clement asked.

"I shall go there betimes, and send him straight upon some errand – some three days' journey that will not wait for daylight."

"He will think it curiously sudden. Besides, if he thinks to meet and pay his men in that neighbourhood to-morrow, he will not be for any three days' journey to-night."

"Most men will defer paying money, when their interests require. I can but try sending him."

"And if he refuse to stir? What will you then?"

"Kill him! There will be enough of us, in good sooth."

"Ay, no doubt," acquiesced Sir Clement, carelessly. "Methinks the weather bodes a change," he added, looking at the sky. "It may rain to-night."

"Rain or shine, storm or fair," replied Master Jerningham, his eyes aglow, "I feel it within me, this is the night shall give me my desire."

CHAPTER XV.

RAVENSHAW FALLS ASLEEP

"Thou liest. I ha' nothing but my skin,And my clothes; my sword here, and myself."– The Sea Voyage.

Captain Ravenshaw headed his horse for the Canterbury road, and, having soon left the town behind him, began to feel a pleasant content in the sunlight and soft air. The fresh green of spring, the flowers of May, the glad twitter of birds, met his senses on every side. Never since his boyhood had the sight and smell of hawthorn been more sweet. He conceived he had, for once, earned the right to enjoy so fair a day. He was tired and bruised, but he looked forward to rest upon his arrival. Peace, comparative solitude, country ease, seemed so inviting that he had not a regret for the town he left behind.

His road, at the first, was that which Chaucer's pilgrims had traversed blithely toward Canterbury. He had a few villages to ride through, clustered about gray churches, and drowsy in the spring sunshine; a few towered and turreted castles, a few gabled farmhouses, to pass in sight of. But for the most part his way was by greenwood and field and common, up and down the gentle inclines, and across the pleasant levels, of the wavy Kentish country. Often it was a narrow aisle through forest, with great trunks for pillars, and leafy boughs for pointed arches, and here and there a yellow splash where the green leaves left an opening for sunlight. And then it trailed over open heath dotted with solitary trees or little clumps, and along fields enclosed by green hedgerows. It was a good road for that time, wide enough for two riders to pass each other without giving cause for quarrel; ditchlike, uneven, rutted, here so stony that a horse would stumble, there so soft that a horse would sink deep at each step.

Ravenshaw had already turned out of the Canterbury road to the left, and was passing from a heath into a thick copse, when suddenly the narrow way before him became blocked with human creatures, or what seemed rather the remnants of human creatures, that limped out from among the trees at the sides.

He drew in his horse quickly to avoid riding over any one, while the newcomers thronged about him with outstretched palms and whining cries:

"Save your good worship, one little drop of money!" "A small piece of silver, for the love of God!" "Pity for a poor maimed soldier!" "A few pence to buy bread, kind gentleman!" "Charity for the lame and blind!"

"Peace, peace, peace!" cried the captain. "What be these the greenwood vomits up? Hath the forest made a dinner of men, and cast up the pieces it could not stomach?"

Pieces of men in truth they looked, and of two women also. All were in rags; the men had unkempt beards and hair; those that did not go upon crutches showed white eyes, or an empty sleeve, or great livid sores upon face and naked breast, or discoloured bandages; one of the women, fat and hoarse-voiced, went upon a single leg and a crutch; the other woman, a gaunt hag, petitioned with one skinny hand, and pointed with the other to her colourless eyeballs.

"Let go; I am in haste; I have no money," said Ravenshaw, for one of the men – a white-bearded old fellow poised on his only foot – had taken firm hold of the bridle near the horse's mouth.

But, so far from the man's letting go, some of his companions seized upon Ravenshaw's ankles, and the chorus of whines waxed louder and more urgent. With his free hand he reached for his dagger; but the lean woman, having already possessed herself of the handle, drew it from the sheath ere he knew what she was doing. He clapped his other hand to his sword-hilt; but his fingers closed around the two hands of a dwarf on a man's shoulders, who had grasped the hilt, and who now thrust his head forward and caught the captain's knuckles between his jaws.

"Oho!" exclaimed Ravenshaw, changing to a jovial manner. "I see I have walked into Beggars' Bush. Well, friends, I pray you believe me, I am a man wrung dry by war and ill fortune, and little less a beggar than any of ye. I have chanced upon a slight service will keep my body and soul together; if I lose time here I shall lose that. I have nothing but my weapons, which I need in my profession, and my clothes, which would not serve you in yours. The horse I require for my necessary haste, and – "

"He lies, he lies!" shrieked the lean hag, striking the pocket of Ravenshaw's breeches. "Hearken to the chinking lour! A handful!"

"A piece of gold for a poor maimed soldier!" cried the white-bearded man, whipping out a pistol from his wide breeches, whereupon other of the rogues brandished truncheons and staves. At sight of the clubs, Ravenshaw made a wry face, and his bruised body seemed to plead with him. He had one hand free, with which he might have seized the dwarf's neck, but he thought best to use it for holding the rein and guarding his pocket.

"Ay, there's money in the pocket," he said; "but I spoke truth when I said I had none. This is not mine; 'tis another man's, to whom I must pay it to-morrow."

"Let the other man give us charity, then!" cried the fat woman.

"Ay, we'd as lief have another man's money as yours," said the white-bearded rogue, aiming the pistol. The lean hag tried to force her hand into Ravenshaw's pocket, and men caught his clothing by the hooks at the ends of their staves.

"Nay, maunderers!" cried Ravenshaw; "shall not a gentry cove that cuts ben whids, and hath respect for the salamon, pass upon the pad but ye would be foisting and angling?" —

"Marry, you can cant," said the white-bearded beggar, his manner changing to one of approval, which spread at once to his associates.

"As ben pedlar's French as any clapperdudgeon of ye all," replied the captain.

"Belike you are a prigger of prancers," said the beggar, looking at the horse.

"No, my upright man, a poor gentry cuffin, as I have said, but one that hath passed many a night out-of-doors, and now fallen into a little poor service that I am like to forfeit by my delay. As for the lour in my pocket, I am a forsworn man if I deliver it not to-morrow. So I beg, in the name of all the maunders I have stood friend to in my time – "

"A ben cove," said the upright man. "Mort, take off your fambles; brother rufflers, down with your filches and cudgels. By the salamon, the canting cuffin shall go free upon the pad."

Released on every side, no more threatened, and his dagger restored to its sheath, the captain looked gratefully down upon the grotesque crew. As he did so, his nose became sensible of a faint, delicious odour, borne from a distance. He sniffed keenly.

"Cackling-cheats," said the chief beggar. "Our doxies and dells are roasting 'em in a glade yonder. Plump young ones, and fresh. We filched 'em but last darkmans. We be toward a ben supper, and you are welcome, – though we lack bouze."

The captain sighed. He had not dined; the fresh air of the country had whetted his stomach; roast chickens were good eating, hot or cold; and he had gathered, from the vague replies Jerningham had made to his inquiries about provisions, that his diet at the Grange would be a rather spare one of salt meat, stockfish, milk, and barley-cakes.

"Alas, if I durst but tarry!" He looked to see how far behind him the sun was, and then shook his head and gathered up his reins. "I must hasten on – tis a sweet smell of cookery, forsooth! – how soon, think you, will they be roasted?"

"Oh, half an hour, to be done properly."

"Then I must e'en thank ye, and ride on. I durst not – " He broke off to sniff the air again. "Marry, I have a thought. You lack bouze, say you? Now at the place whither I am bound, there is ale, or my gentleman has lied to me. I shall be in a sort the master there, with only a country wench and an old doting man – Know you Marshleigh Grange?"

"Ay," spoke up a very old cripple; "the lone house 'twixt the hills and the marshes; there hath been no ben filching there this many a year; the wild rogues pass it by as too far from the pads; neither back nor belly-cheats to be angled there."

Ravenshaw addressed himself again to the bearded chief of the beggars, received answer, passed a jovial compliment, and rode on alone in cheerful mood. In due time he turned into the by-road which accorded with Jerningham's description; and at length, emerging from a woody, bushy tract, he came upon a lonely plain wherein the one object for the eye was a gray-brown house, huddled against barn and outbuildings, at the left of the vanishing road, – a house of timber and plaster, warped and weather-beaten, its cracked gables offering a wan, long-suffering aspect to the sun and breeze. This was the Grange.

A short canter brought Ravenshaw to the rude wooden gate, studded with nails, in the stone wall that separated the courtyard from the road, which here came to an end. Ere the captain had time to knock, or cry "Ho, within!" the gate swung inward on its crazy hinges, and a thin, bent old man, with sparse white hair and blinking eyes, shambled forward to take the horse. At the same time, as further proof that Ravenshaw had been looked for, a woman appeared in the porched doorway of the house, and called out:

"Jeremy will see to your horse. Come within."

Ravenshaw looked at her with a little surprise; this robust, erect, full-coloured, well-shaped creature, upon whom common rustic clothes took a certain grace, and whose head stood back in the proud attitude natural to beauty, was scarce the country wench he had expected to meet. But he said nothing, and followed her into the hall. This was a wide, high apartment of some pretension, its ceiling, rafters, and walls being of oak. Bare enough, it yet had the appearance of serving as the chief living-room of the occupants of the house. Upon an oak table, at which was an old chair, stood a flagon of wine and some cakes. Meg offered Ravenshaw this repast by a gesture, while she scrutinised him with interest.

"Wine?" quoth he, promptly setting to. "'Tis more than I had thought to find."

"There is some left since the time when – when Master Jerningham used to come to the Grange oftener," said Meg. "Ale serves for me and old Jeremy."

"Troth – your health, mistress! – I am glad you have ale in store. Would there be enough to entertain a few guests withal – some dozen or score poor friends of mine, if they were travelling this way? To tell the truth, I should not like to waste this wine upon such."

"Travellers never pass this way," said Meg, plainly not knowing what to make of him.

"Oh, we are some way from the highroad here, indeed; but a foolish friend or so might turn out a mile for the pleasure of my company."

"I know not what you'd set before 'em to eat, if there were a dozen."

"Marry, they would have to bring eatables with 'em, – my reason for having 'em as guests. Only so there be ale enough."

"Oh, there is ale," said Meg, without further comment.

Ravenshaw, munching the cakes, and oft wetting his throat, looked around the hall. The front doorway faced a wide fireplace at the rear, now empty. At the right was a door to a small apartment, a kind of porter's room, lighted by a single high narrow window; farther back in the hall was the entrance to a passage communicating with other parts of the house; and still farther back, a door leading to the kitchen. At the left hand were, first, a door to a large room, and, second, the opening to a passage like that on the right.

By way of this left-hand passage, and a narrow staircase which led from it, the captain was presently shown by old Jeremy to his chamber. It was large and bare, hung with rotten arras, and contained a bed, a joint-stool, and a table with ewer and basin; its window looked into the courtyard.

He flung his bruised body on the bed, and soon sank deliciously to sleep.

Meanwhile old Jeremy, returning to the hall, found Meg sitting with her chin upon her hands, and gazing into the empty fireplace.

"A sturdy fellow," whispered the old man, pointing backward with his thumb, and taking on a jocular air. "Cast eyes on him; a goodly husband mends all; cast eyes on him!"

"Thou'rt a fool; go thy ways!" quoth Meg; but she did not move.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE POET AS A MAN OF ACTION

"O father, where's my love? were you so carelessTo let an unthrift steal away your child?"– The Case Is Altered.

Millicent, after the riot had ceased and dinner had been eaten, passed the day with a palpitating heart but a resolved mind. Under cover of her usual needlework, she fashioned a sort of large linen wallet, in which to carry the few things she wished to take with her. Her emotions were, in a less degree, similar to those which had affected her in the hours preceding her former attempt to run away. At supper she looked often with a hidden tenderness at the composed, unsuspecting face of her mother. When the light of evening faded she slipped to her chamber, and put a few chosen objects into the receptacle she had made, wrapped this in a hooded cloak, and dropped it from her window into the concealed space behind the garden shrubbery. She then waited, watching from the window that part of Friday Street in which Master Holyday must appear.

At last his slender figure lurched into view in the dusk, and came to a stop outside the gate.

Millicent sped across her chamber. At the door she turned, with fast-beating heart, and cast an affectionate, tearful look at the place in which she had spent so much of her childhood and youth, and which seemed to share so many of her untold thoughts. It appeared for an instant to reproach her sorrowfully; but when in her swift thought she justified her action, its aspect changed to that of wishing her Godspeed, and counselling her to hasten.

She hurried through the house as if upon some indoor quest, found herself alone in the garden, recovered her cloak and parcel, and went to unfasten the gate.

"'Tis I, Master Holyday," she said, in a low tone, as she loosened the bolt.

"Good! good! excellent!" came the scholar's reply from outside the gate, in a voice rather parched and excited.

Having slid back the bolt, she made to pull the gate open, but it would not move.

"What is the matter?" quoth she. "I cannot open it. Push it from your side."

She heard his hands laid against it, then his shoulder, then his back. But it would not budge. She examined it closely in the dusky light, and suddenly gave a little cry of despair.

"Oh, me! There is a new lock on the gate, and God knows where is the key!"

During the afternoon, in fact, Master Etheridge, alarmed by the easy entrance obtained by Ravenshaw and Gregory the previous night, and by Ravenshaw's exit from the garden that day, – an exit after which the gate had been left open, – had caused an additional lock to be put on, a lock to be opened by means of a key which the goldsmith thought best to keep in his own care.

"Oh, what shall I do?" she cried, after a futile tug at the lock.

"Is there no other way to come out?" queried Holyday, in perturbation.

"Alas, no! There's the street door from the gallery, but my father locks it himself at supper-time and keeps the key. I durs'n't go through the shop; if it isn't closed, my father may be in the back shop and the apprentices will surely be in front."

"God's name, I know not what – " began the poet, agitated with perplexity and fear of failure, but broke off to "Can't you make another pretext to go out? – drop another wedding-ring into the street, or something?"

"Nay, they would sure stop my going or follow me out at this hour. Oh, would I could leap the wall! By St. Anne, 'tis too bad – Ha! wait a minute."

Under the impulse of her thought she sped away without listening for answer, unconscious that her last words had been spoken too low to go beyond the gate.

Hence she did not know that Master Holyday, attacked by an idea at the same moment, and expressing himself with equal inaudibility, had as suddenly made off toward the White Horse Tavern.

She was in the house ere it occurred to her that she ought to have rid herself of her burden by throwing it over the wall. She thought best not to retrace her steps. So she ran up-stairs and along the passage to a small window that looked down on Friday Street. She pushed open the casement, saw that no one was passing below, and dropped the parcel, trusting it to the darkness. She had a moment's idea of calling to Holyday to come and take it, but a second thought was wiser; she cast a single glance toward the gate, but was uncertain whether she made out his form or not in the decreasing light. Then she went down-stairs, and boldly into the back shop. Her father sat at his small table counting by candle-light the day's money.

"Eh! what is it?" he asked, looking sharply up. "What dost thou here, baggage?"

"I have an order for George," she replied, quietly, forcing her voice to steadiness, and praying that her throbbing heart and pale face might not betray her.

George was an apprentice whom, for his cleverness, Mistress Etheridge was wont to employ on errands. Millicent could see him now in the outer shop, busy with other apprentices in covering the cases and closing up the front.

"'Zooks!" grumbled the goldsmith; "thy mother would best take the lad for a page, and be done with it."

Millicent passed on to the front shop.

"George," said she, when out of her father's hearing, but in that of one or two of the other apprentices, "you are to come with me to Mistress Carroll's next door; there is something to fetch back. Nay, wait till you have done here; I'll run ahead, 'tis but a step."

Upon the hazard that her father, in the rear shop, would not lift up his eyes from his money for some little time, she passed out to Cheapside. In a breath she was around the corner, from the crowd and the window-lights, into the dusk and desertion of Friday Street. She stooped and picked up her cloak and bag; then ran on, to the gate.

"Speed! speed! there's not a moment to lose!" she whispered, catching the elbow of the man who stood there, and who had not heard her coming swiftly up behind him.

He turned and stared, putting his eyes close to hers on account of the darkness; she saw that he had a great, scarred, bearded face, and that his body was twice the breadth of Master Holyday's.

"Oh, God!" she exclaimed, drawing back. "I thought you were Master Holyday."

"Master Holyday, eh?" growled the man. "What of him?"

"I – I was to meet him here," she faltered, looking around with a sinking heart.

"Oh! – God's light! – you are the maid, belike? Well, troth, beshrew me but that's the hell of it!" And the fellow grinned with silent laughter.

"What mean you? What maid? Know you aught – ?"

"Of Master Holyday? Sooth, do I! He's on t'other side of this gate."

She stared at the closed gate in bewilderment. "What? In the garden?"

"Ay, in the garden." The man raised his voice a little. "Sure thou'rt there, Master Holyday?"