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

"'Tis a kind of stewardship over a little estate I have in Kent – if you mind not going to the country."

"Say on!" quoth the captain, opening his eyes at the beneficent prospect.

Master Jerningham depicted his small inheritance of neglected fields and crazy house in as favourable colours as he could safely use. The captain, dissembling not his satisfaction, averred he could wear the gold chain of stewardship as well as another man. An agreement was struck upon the spot; Jerningham imparted the general details, and said he would have the necessary writings made, and full instructions drawn up, within a few days; meanwhile, he desired the new steward to install himself in the house at once.

"Marry, a bite and a sup, and I am ready," cried Ravenshaw, gaily; then suddenly remembered his promise to meet the goldsmith's daughter that evening. "Nay, I forgot; I have some affairs to settle. I cannot go before to-morrow."

Jerningham, whose purpose had been so happily met by the captain's readiness, lost his gratified look.

"Oh, a plague on your affairs! You must go to-day," he said.

Ravenshaw shook his head. "I cannot go till to-morrow, and there's an end on't!"

Jerningham sighed with suppressed vexation. He dared not urge lest he arouse suspicion. It was too late to back out of the bargain without betraying himself. Moreover, to get the captain away on the morrow was better than nothing.

"Well, well; look to your affairs, then. But go early to-morrow."

Ravenshaw pondered a few moments. "I will start at noon, not before."

"But you must be at the Grange by four o'clock; I have given my word to the people there."

"I can do so, setting forth at noon. 'Tis eighteen miles, you say. I will go by horse."

"'Slight, man, have you a horse?"

"No, but you will give me one – or the means to buy one at Smithfield; and then may I die in Newgate if I be not at your country-house at four o'clock!"

After a little thought, Jerningham told him to call at a certain gate at Winchester House on the morrow at noon, where a horse would be in waiting; he then handed him a gold angel and dismissed him to his affairs.

The captain had no sooner strutted jauntily off than Jerningham quickly beckoned Gregory, and said earnestly:

"Dog his footsteps. Lose not his track till he comes to me to-morrow; and if he meets her– Begone! you will lose him. Haste!"

The jealous lackey, raised to sudden joy by this congenial commission, glided away like a cat.

"I will have her, 'gainst all the surly fathers and swaggering captains in London; and 'gainst her own will, and fiends and angels, to boot!" said Master Jerningham, in his heart.

About the same moment, Ravenshaw was saying in his heart, as he trod the stones of Fleet Street:

"Ere I leave London, I'll see her safe from the old man's hopes and the young man's devices. I'll pawn my brains, else!"

CHAPTER X.

IN THE GOLDSMITH'S GARDEN

"Rather than be yoked with this bridegroom is appointed me I would take up any husband almost upon any trust."

– Bartholomew Fair.

Ravenshaw found Master Holyday leaning back against a door-post, with the unconscious weariness of hunger, and listening with a mild interest to the oration of a quack doctor who had drawn a small crowd.

"Come, heart," cried the captain, "the mountebank will never cure thy empty stomach; here's the remedy for that," and he showed his gold piece, and dragged the scholar to an ordinary. After dinner, they bought paper, ink, and pens, and took a lodging at the house of a horse-courser in Smithfield, – a top-story room, with an open view of the horse markets backed by gabled buildings and the tower of St. Bartholomew's Church.

Ravenshaw left the poet at work upon his puppet-play, of which the title was to be: "The Tragical Comical History of Paris and Helen; otherwise the King a Cuckold; being the Sweet Sinful Loves of the Trojan Gallant and the Fair Queen of Menelaus; with the Mad, Merry Humours of the Foul-mouthed Roaring Greek Soldier, Thersites."

The captain whiled away the afternoon in the streets, where there were conjurers, jugglers, morris-dancers, monsters, and all manner of shows for the crowds of people in town for the law term. At evening he took home a supper from a cook's shop, and shared it with Holyday, who, being in the full flow of inspiration, continued writing with one hand while he ate from the other whatever the captain offered him; the poet knowing not what food he took, and oft staring or grimacing as he sought for expression or felt the passion or mirth of what he wrote. Ravenshaw presently placed a lighted candle on the writer's deal table, and stole out to keep his tryst with the goldsmith's daughter.

The day had gone eventfully at the goldsmith's house. In the morning Master Etheridge announced that he would give a supper, with dancing, that night, to show his pleasure at Sir Peregrine's recovery and arrival. This was an age when rich citizens missed no occasion for festivity. So there was much bustle of sending servants with invitations, hiring a band of musicians, cooking meats and fowls and birds, making cakes and marchpane and pasties, and other doings. Millicent uttered no plaint or protest; the time of pleadings and tears on her side, arguments and threats on her father's, was past; many and long had been the scenes between the two, such as were not uncommon in that age, and such as Shakespeare has represented in the brief passage between "Juliet" and her parents, and these had left the goldsmith firm as rock, Millicent weak and hopeless of resisting his will.

As for Sir Peregrine, he had never thought it necessary to urge; he took it for granted she adored him – what lady had not? – and that in her heart she counted herself supremely blessed in being picked out for him. He attributed her aloofness and sulkiness, even her outbursts of spoken detestation, to shyness, girlish perverseness, sense of unworthiness of the honour of his hand, and chiefly to jealousy of his former wives and present admirers. So he serenely ignored all signs of her feelings.

She bore her part in the day's preparations, a little uneasy in mind lest the festivities might prevent her appointed meeting at nightfall. She could not help counting much upon this new acquaintance; he seemed a man of such resource and ingenuity, and such willingness to deliver her, even though he was betrothed to another – what a pity he was betrothed! She checked herself, with a blush; but all the same she had an intuition that the other woman would not be the best wife for him.

So it befell that, as Ravenshaw approached the house at dark, he saw all the windows light, and from the open ones came forth the sounds of music, laughter, and gay voices. Nevertheless, he pushed gently at the Friday Street gate, which gave as he had hoped, and found himself alone in the garden. He softly closed the gate, went into the shadow of the apple-tree, and waited.

With his eyes upon the place where she must appear in coming from the house, he listened to the music of a stately dance, – the thin but elegant and spirit-like music of the time, produced on this occasion by violins, flutes, and shawms. When the strains died, they were soon followed by bursts of laughter from the open dining-room windows; then, presently, in the moonlight, he saw the figure he awaited. With a golden caul upon her head, and wearing the long robe and train necessary to the majestic pavan which she had recently been dancing, she glided across the turf, and stopped before him.

"You have come from great mirth," whispered the captain, looking toward the windows whence the laughter proceeded.

"It enabled me to escape," she whispered in reply. "They are listening to the tales of one Master Vallance; he has been telling of the rogueries of a rascal named Ravenshaw, a disbanded captain that swaggers about the town."

He stared at her, with open eyes and limp jaw; in a vague way he remembered one Master Vallance as a gallant who had insulted him one night in the Windmill tavern, the night he first met Master Holyday. Luckily, she did not notice his expression.

"As for me," she finished, "I think no better of gentlemen like Master Vallance for knowing such foul knaves."

"Ay, indeed," assented the captain.

"They are holding these little revels in welcome to Sir Peregrine," she went on. "You might have been invited, but I heard my father say he forgot where you lodged, if you told him."

"'Tis better to be here, at your invitation."

"Then I bid you welcome," she said, smiling, and holding out her hand.

"Faith, a right courteous maid," said he, and took the least motion as if to touch the hand with his lips; but thought what he was, and stood rigid. "Well, we must talk now of your – "

"Good heaven! Stand close behind the tree," she whispered. "'Tis Sir Peregrine, come after me."

Ravenshaw was instantly under cover. Sure enough, steps were shuffling along the sod, and a cracked old voice approached, saying:

"What, what, sweet? Wilt fly me still? wilt be still peevish? Nay, good lack, I perceive it now; thou knew'st I'd follow; thou wished to be alone with me, alone with thy chick. A pretty thought; I'll kiss thee for it."

Ravenshaw heard the smack of the old man's lips, and grated his teeth. She had stepped toward the knight, so as to meet him at a further distance from her secret visitor, of whom, manifestly, the old fellow's eyes had not caught a glimpse.

What was she to do? To send the interrupter back into the house upon a pretext was to be rid of him but a minute. She was not born to craft, or schooled in it; but her situation of late had sharpened her wits and altered her scruples. Ravenshaw, straining his ears, heard her say:

"I am angry with you, Sir Peregrine, and that is why I came away."

"What, angry, my bird, with thy faithfullest, ever-lovingest servant? Be I to blame if Mistress Felton smiled so at me?"

"Oh, Mistress Felton? – let her smile, I care not. I am angry because of thy gift. A goodly gift enough, and more than I deserve; but when you knew my heart was set upon the sapphire in your Italian bonnet – "

"Why, God's love, you never said you wished it! Sure, how – "

"Never said, with my lips, no doubt. But have I not said with my eyes, gazing on it by the hour? Troth, art grown so blind – ?"

"Oh, good lack, say no more, sweet! The sapphire is thine own; I'll fetch it to-morrow."

"Nay, but I wish it to-night, long for it to-night, must have it to-night; else I shall hate it, and never desire it, and throw it to a coal-carrier when you fetch it!"

"God-a-mercy! thou shalt have it to-night. 'Tis at mine inn; I'll send one of my men straightway."

"What, trust it to thy man? Such a jewel, that I have set my heart on? If he were to lose it, or be robbed of it, I should ne'er – "

"Oh, fear not. Humphrey is to be trusted; he hath served me fifty – ah – twenty year, come Michaelmas; he'll fetch it safe."

"Oh, well, then, if you fear to go alone for it after dark! – if you choose not to make a lover's errand of it! – if you are too old, why, then – "

"Oh, tush, I'll go for it! Too old! ha, ha! Thou'rt a jesting chick, thou art. See how soon I shall fetch it."

He strutted to the gate, and was gone. In a moment, Millicent was by Ravenshaw's side; neither of the two thinking to fasten the gate after the knight's departure.

"I see we must be quick," said Ravenshaw. "Your only escape from this marriage is to run away from it. Your only refuge, you once thought, was your uncle's house. But now that seems closed to you."

"I am not sure. My uncle wrote me so, when he was fresh from his mishap in London. But if he found me at his door, he might not have the heart to thrust me away."

"No doubt; but your father would seek you at your uncle's. You think you could be hid there; but if your father is the man he seems, and your uncle is the man he seems, your father would soon have you out of hiding; he would have the house down, else. Is it not so?"

"Perchance you are right; alas!"

"Now there is a way whereby it may be possible for you to find refuge elsewhere; or whereby you may e'en go to your uncle's and defy your father when he comes after you."

"In God's name, what is it?"

"Troth, have you ne'er thought on't? If you were already married – but not to Sir Peregrine or any such kind of stockfish – might not your husband take you to his own house? or if he took you to your uncle's, what good were your father's claim upon you against your husband's?"

She looked at him timidly but sweetly, and trembled a little.

"What?" quoth she, with pretended gaiety. "Escape a husband by seeking a husband?"

"By accepting, not seeking, one – one less unfit – one that a maid might find to her liking."

"Why, in good sooth – I hope I am not a bold hussy for saying so – but rather than be bound to that odious Sir Peregrine, I think I would choose blindfold any husband that offered! And if he were, as you say, to my liking – "

"I said he might be to the liking of some maids. Have you ever considered what manner of man your fancy might rest upon?"

He covered the seriousness of the question with a feigned merriment. She, too, wore a smile; in her confusion, she fingered the low-hanging apple-blossoms, and avoided his eyes, but, watching him furtively, she noticed how familiarly his hand reposed on his sword-hilt; ere she bethought herself, she answered:

"Oh, a man of good wit, a better wit than face, and yet a middling good face, too; a man that could handle a rapier well – yes, certainly a good swordman; and as for – "

A voice was suddenly heard from the dining-room window aloft:

"Millicent! What do you in the garden, child? Sure 'tis thy train I see on the grass. What dost thou behind the apple-tree?"

It was the girl's mother, – Ravenshaw dared not look from behind the tree, but he knew the voice.

"Say you are with Sir Peregrine," he whispered.

With a trembling voice, she obeyed.

"Oh!" exclaimed Mistress Etheridge, satisfied; but then, as with a suddenly engendered doubt, "I should have thought Sir Peregrine would speak for himself."

"Oh, heaven!" whispered Millicent; "she will send down to see."

"Good lack, sweet mother!" cried Ravenshaw, in well-nigh perfect imitation of Sir Peregrine's cracked voice, "may not young lovers steal away for a tender minute or so? May not doves coo in a corner unseen? Must sweethearts be called from a quiet bower, and made to show themselves, and to give answers?"

"Peace, peace, Sir Peregrine! I am much to blame," replied Mistress Etheridge; and went away from the window, as Millicent observed in peeping around the apple-tree.

"Faith," whispered Ravenshaw, "lest we be overheard, I should speak love to you in his voice henceforth."

"Nay, I'd rather you spoke it in your own voice," said Millicent, ere she realised.

Ravenshaw's heart bounded.

"'Slight, what fool's talk!" she added, quickly, in chagrin. "I do indeed forget the other maid!"

"What other maid?" he asked, off his guard.

"The maid you are to marry, of course."

"Oh! – faith, yes, I forgot her, too!" he answered, truly enough.

"Fie, Master Holyday!" she said, pride bidding her assume the mask of raillery.

"Holyday, say you?" called out an insolent, derisive voice, at which both Ravenshaw and Millicent started in surprise, for it came from within the garden. A moment later, a head was thrust forth from the shrubbery by the gate, – the head of Master Jerningham's man Gregory, who had patiently hounded Ravenshaw all afternoon and evening, and had slipped in when Sir Peregrine had left the gate unclosed.

"Holyday, forsooth!" he went on, instantly alive to the opportunity of serving his master by shattering the falsely won confidence he saw between the maid and Ravenshaw. "You are cozened, mistress. The man's name is not Holyday; 'tis Ravenshaw – and a scurvy name he has made of it, too!"

Astonishment and mortification had held the captain motionless; but now, with a sharp ejaculation, he flashed out his rapier, and ran for his exposer. But the cat-footed Gregory had as swiftly darted along between shrubbery and wall, and Ravenshaw, on reaching the place where he had appeared, had to stop and look about in vain for him.

"What does he mean?" demanded Millicent of the captain, whom she had followed. "Is your name Ravenshaw?"

He felt that his wrathful movement against his accuser had confirmed the accusation; moreover, there was that in her look which made it too repugnant to deceive her longer.

"I cannot deny it," he said, humbly.

"What! Not that Ravenshaw?"

"The one of whom you heard Master Vallance speak? – yes!"

Here Gregory's voice put in again from another part of the shrubbery:

"'Tis Ravenshaw, the roaring rascal, that calls himself captain, and lives by his wits and by blustering."

A slight sound told that this speech was followed by another prudent flight behind the shrubbery. Ravenshaw was minded to give chase and dig the fellow out at all cost, but was drawn from that intention, and from all thought of the spy, by the look of horror, indignation, and loathing that had come over Millicent's face. He took a step toward her; but, with a gesture of abhorrence, she ran from him across the garden. Knowing not what he would say or do in supplication, he went after her.

"Not another step!" she cried, turning upon him, and with the dignity of outraged trustfulness. "Go hence, villain, rascal, knave! Go, or I will call my father, to have his 'prentices throw you into the street! Good God! to think I should have trusted my secrets to such an ill-famed rogue! I know not what your purpose was, but for once you shall fail in your cheateries. I'd rather wed Sir Peregrine Medway thrice over than be beholden to – "

At this instant, and as Ravenshaw stood shrinking in the fire of her contempt, the unseen Gregory, having seized his chance for a concealed dash from the garden, reached the gate, and ran plump into the arms of Sir Peregrine, who was returning with the sapphire.

"Good lack, what the devil's this?" exclaimed the ancient knight, knocked out of breath; and he pluckily caught Gregory by the neck, and forced him back into the garden.

"Let him go," said Millicent, as the knight came forward in great amazement. "He is a knave, doubtless, but deserves well for unmasking this other knave."

"What, why, 'tis Master Holyday!" said Sir Peregrine, quite bewildered. "Call'st thou him a knave? And what dost thou here, Master Holyday? I knew not you were invited to the revels."

"'Tis no Master Holyday," said Millicent, "but one Captain Ravenshaw, whose name is a byword of the taverns; this man has declared him, and he denies it not. What his designs were, in passing upon my father by the name of Holyday, I know not."

"Good lack! here's wonders and marvels! And how comes he to be here to-night?"

Millicent hesitated. Ravenshaw spoke for the first time:

"I came through that gate, which you were so careless as to leave open, Sir Peregrine; I saw you go, as I stood without; and what my purposes were, you may amuse yourself in guessing. Yonder knave, I perceive, followed me – "

At this, Gregory, not liking the captain's tone, suddenly jerked from the old knight's grasp, and bolted out through the gate. Ravenshaw could not immediately pursue him, for he had been thinking swiftly, and had something yet to say:

"My designs being foiled, and to show that I am a man of pleasant humour, I will e'en give you a word of good counsel. When you tell Master Etheridge how he was fooled in his friend, young Holyday, let him suppose you were here when I entered this garden; for, look you, it will show ill in you to have left this lady alone, and the gate open; and it will appear careless in her, not to have made sure the gate was fastened. It will seem brave in you, moreover, to have been here and put me to rout when that knave betrayed me."

He paused, looking at Millicent to see whether she inwardly thanked him for saving the secret of her dealings with him; but, though she seemed to breathe a little more freely, as if she realised her advantage in his suggestion, she exhibited nothing for him but contempt; doubtless she supposed he had deeper motives for his advice, or that he was jesting.

Receiving no reply from either her or Sir Peregrine, the captain, after waiting a moment, made a low bow, turned, and swaggered out through the gate.

"No doubt 'tis wise to do as he counselled," faltered Millicent, in a low tone, after Sir Peregrine had carefully closed the gate, and as he led her to the house.

"Ay, so I think. I would not have your father know you were careless, sweet. Take the sapphire, chick, and give me a kiss for it."

As she felt his arms around her, and his moustache against her lip, and meditated that her last hope had proved worthless, she gave herself up as lost, and accounted herself rather a dead than a living person for the rest of her days.

Meanwhile Captain Ravenshaw, after stumbling over the protruding feet of a figure that huddled drunkenlike in the next doorway, plunged rapidly on in search of Gregory; dogged at a safe distance by the drunkenlike figure, which, on rising from the doorway, proved to be that of Gregory himself, firm upon shadowing his enemy until the latter's meeting with Jerningham next day.

At last abandoning the quest, during which Millicent's whiplike words of dismissal lashed his heart all the while, Ravenshaw returned to a part of Friday Street where he could stand in solitude and see the light, and hear the sprightly music, that came from the goldsmith's windows.

"Though you loathe me and cast me off," he whispered, looking toward the room in which she might be, "yet, against your knowledge, and against your will to be served by me, I will keep my promise, and save you! You may fling me forth, but you cannot stop me from that! Hope be with you in these revels, sweet; and sleep lie soft upon your eyelids afterward. Good night!"

After a little time, he made up his mind what to do, and took himself off through Cheapside, the keen-eyed, silent-footed serving-man still upon his track.

CHAPTER XI.

THE RASCAL EMPLOYS HIS WITS

"What shall I do? I can borrow no more of my credit: there's not any of my acquaintance, man or boy, but I have borrowed more or less of. I would I knew where to take a good purse."

– The London Prodigal.

Ravenshaw had not the slightest thought that he was being followed, or had been followed during the day. He had recognised Gregory as Jerningham's attendant, but he supposed Jerningham had sent the man, for want of a better instrument, to attempt what Ravenshaw himself had withdrawn from, or perchance to carry a letter; he thus accounted for the serving-man's unexpected presence in the garden.

He knew that the knave would not succeed, even if he tried it, in communicating with Mistress Millicent that night. But doubtless further efforts would be made soon, and, while he felt she was proof against any manifest overtures against her honour, he feared some cunning proposal which might have a false appearance of honesty, and to which, in her desperate desire to escape from Sir Peregrine, she might therefore give ear. Here was additional reason why he must work swiftly to place her out of all danger, either on Jerningham's side or on Sir Peregrine's, if sufficient reason did not already exist in the fact that he had to leave London at noon the next day. The arrangement for his serving Master Jerningham in the country could not be at all affected by his passage with Jerningham's man in the garden. Gregory's action there must have been on the inspiration of the moment, and formed no cause of quarrel with Jerningham; while Jerningham, on learning that Ravenshaw had again visited the goldsmith's daughter, would be the more desirous to get him out of London.

Walking out Cheapside, the captain gave final order to the plans he had been evolving all the afternoon.

He first made search and question in sundry ale-houses and such, about Pye Corner, for Cutting Tom; whom at last he found in a room filled with tobacco smoke, where a number of suburb rascals and sightseeing rustics were at the moment watching a fantastic fellow dance to a comrade's pipe and tabour. From this innocent amusement, Cutting Tom was easily drawn into the privacy of a little garden attached to the place.