Captain Ravenshaw Or The Maid of Cheapside. A Romance of Elizabethan London
: Robert Neilson Stephens
PREFACE.
Here is offered mere story, the sort of thing Mr. Howells
cannot tolerate. He will have none of us and our works, poor
"neo-romanticists" that we are. Curiously enough, we neo-romanticists,
or most of us, will always gratefully have him; of his works we cannot
have too many; one of us, I know, has walked miles to get the magazine
containing the latest instalment of his latest serial. This looks as
if we were more liberal than he. He would, for the most part, prohibit
fiction from being else than the record of the passing moment; it
should reflect only ourselves and our own little tediousnesses; he
would hang the chamber with mirrors, and taboo all pictures; or if he
admitted pictures they should depict this hour's actualities alone,
there should be no figures in costume.
But who shall decide in these matters what is to be and what is not
to be? Who shall deny that all kinds of fiction have equal right to
exist? Who shall dictate our choice of theme, or place, or time? Who
shall forbid us in our faltering way to imagine forth the past if we
like? The dead past, say you? As dead as yesterday afternoon, no more.
"Where's he that died o' Wednesday?" As dead as the Queen of Sheba.
But on the pages of Sienkiewicz, for example, certain little matters
of Nero's time seem no more dead than last week's divorce trial in the
columns of those realists, the newspaper reporters. All that is not
immediately before our eyes, whether dead or distant, can be visualised
only by imagination informed by description, and a small transaction
in the reign of Elizabeth can be made as sensible to the mind's eye as
a domestic scene between Mr. and Mrs. Jones in the administration of
McKinley. But how can one describe authentically what one can never
have seen? You may propound that question to the realists; they are
often doing it, or else they see extraordinary things now and then.
But, now that I remember it, Mr. Howells is not really illiberal. He
has, upon occasion, admitted a tolerance--nay, an admiration--for
"genuine romance." But what is genuine romance? Is psychological
romance, for instance, more "genuine" than melodramatic romance? Are
we not all--we "neo-romanticists"--aiming at genuine romance in some
kind? Shall there not be many misses to a hit? many inconsiderable
achievements to a masterpiece? And we suffer under limitations which
the great romancers had not to observe. We must be watchful against
anachronisms, against many liberties in style and matter which the
esteemed Sir Walter, for instance, might take--and did take--without
stint. One's fancy was less restrained, in his day. One cannot, as he
did, bring Shakespeare to Greenwich palace before the festivities at
Kenilworth occurred; or let a shopman recommend a pair of spectacles
to a doctor of divinity with the information that the king, having
tried them on, had pronounced them fit for a bishop; or make the divine
buy them with the cheerful remark that a certain reverend brother's
advancing age gives hopes of an early promotion. Fancy such an exchange
of jocularity between a shop "assistant" in Piccadilly and Doctor
Ingram, while the late Doctor Creighton was Bishop of London! Flow of
fancy is easier upon such terms; or, when one may even, as the great
Dumas did, be so free of care for details as to have the same character
in two places at the same time.
It is not meant to be implied that Mr. Howells is thought to consider
the work of Scott or Dumas genuine romance. If he has anywhere
mentioned an example of what he takes to be true romance, I have missed
that mention. I should like to read his definition (perhaps he has
published one which I have not seen) of genuine romance. But I would
rather he taught us by example than by precept. What a fine romance he
could write if he chose!
But as for us less-gifted ones, the "neo-romanticists," shackled
as Scott and Dumas were not, we must work a while under the new
conditions, the new checks upon our imagination, ere we shall get a
masterpiece. Meanwhile none of us yields to Mr. Howells in admiration
of a true romance, and none of us would be sorry to lay down the pen,
or shut up the typewriter, some fine afternoon and find it achieved.
But until then may we not have indifferent romances, just as we have
indifferent realistic novels? Why not, pray? Again, shall one man, one
group, one school, decide what shall be and what shall not? "Dost thou
think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?"
Now, of merits which mere story may possess, and usually does
possess in measure greater than the other sort of thing does, one
is--construction. Wherefore, the opponents of this sort of thing
belittle that merit. But it is a prime merit, nevertheless. Is not the
first thing for praise, in a picture, its composition? in a building,
its main design? in a group of statuary, its general effect? So, too,
in a work of fiction. "Real life does not contrive so curiously,"
says Professor Saintsbury. Precisely; if it did, what would be the
good of fiction? Neither does nature contrive well-ordered squares
of turf, with walks, flower-beds, hedge-rows, shrubbery, trees set
with premeditation; shall we, on that account, make no gardens for
ourselves? Who shall ordain that there be no well-constructed plots
in fiction because life, seen in sections as small as a novel usually
represents, is not well constructed? It is time somebody put in a word
for plot. When all is said and done, the main thing in a story _is_ the
story.
Mr. Howells said, long ago, that the stories were all told. It is
doubtful. But even if it were certain, what of it? Because there
was an old tale of a king's wife whose lover lost the ring she gave
him, whereupon the king, finding out, bade her wear it on a certain
soon-coming occasion, and she was put to much concern to get it in
time, was the world to go without the pleasure of D'Artagnan's mission
for Anne of Austria? And what though Dumas himself had used the old
situation of a real king imprisoned, and his "double" filling the
throne in his place, were we to have no "Prisoner of Zenda?" Or even
if the story of the man apparently wooing the handsome sister, while
really loving the plain sister, had already been told, as it had, was
Mr. Howells prohibited from making it twice told, in "Silas Lapham?"
Now, as to this little attempt at romance in a certain kind, I wish
merely to say, for the benefit of those who turn over the first leaves
of a novel in a bookstore or library before deciding whether to take
or leave it, that it differs from the usual adventure-story in being
concerned merely with private life and unimportant people. Though
it has incidents enough, and perils enough, it deals neither with
war nor with state affairs. It contains no royal person; not even a
lord--nor a baronet, indeed, for baronets had not yet been invented
at the period of the tale. The characters are every-day people of the
London of the time, and the scenes in which they move are the street,
the tavern, the citizen's house and garden, the shop, the river, the
public resort,--such places as the ordinary reader would see if a
miracle turned back time and transported him to London in the closing
part of Elizabeth's reign. The atmosphere of that place and time, as
one may find it best in the less known and more realistic comedies
of Shakespeare's contemporaries, in prose narratives and anecdotes,
and in the records left of actual transactions, strikes us of the
twentieth century as a little strange, somewhat of a world which we
can hardly take to be real. If I have succeeded in putting a breath of
this strangeness, this (to us) seeming unreality, into this busy tale,
and yet have kept the tale vital with a human nature the same then as
now, I have done something not altogether bad. Bad or good, I have
been a long time about it, for I have grown to believe that, though
novel-reading properly comes under the head of play, novel-writing
properly comes under the head of work. My work herein has not gone
to attain the preciosity of style which distracts attention from the
story, or the brilliancy of dialogue which--as the author of "John
Inglesant" says--"declares the glory of the author more frequently than
it increases reality of effect." My work has gone, very much, to the
avoidance of anachronisms. This is a virtue really possessed by few
novels which deal with the past, as only the writers of such novels
know. It may be a virtue not worth achieving, but it was a whim of
mine to achieve it. Ill health forbade fast writing, the success of my
last previous book permitted slow writing, and I resolved to utilise
the occasion by achieving one rare merit which, as it required neither
genius nor talent, but merely care, was within my powers. The result
of my care must appear as much in what the story omits as in what it
contains. The reader may be assured at the outset, if it matters a
straw to him, that the author of this romance of Elizabethan London
(and its neighbourhood) is himself at home in Elizabethan London; if
he fails to make the reader also a little at home there in the course
of the story, it is only because he lacks the gift, or skill, of
imparting.
ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS.
LONDON, June 1, 1901.
CONTENTS.
* * * * *
CHAPTER PAGE
I. MEN OF DESPERATE FORTUNES 11
II. DISTURBERS OF THE NIGHT 35
III. MASTER JERNINGHAM'S MADNESS 57
IV. THE ART OF ROARING 79
V. PENNILESS COMPANIONS 95
VI. REVENGE UPON WOMANKIND 107
VII. MISTRESS MILLICENT 119
VIII. SIR PEREGRINE MEDWAY 133
IX. THE PRAISE OF INNOCENCE 147
X. IN THE GOLDSMITH'S GARDEN 167
XI. THE RASCAL EMPLOYS HIS WITS 183
XII. MASTER HOLYDAY IN FEAR AND TREMBLING 203
XIII. A RIOT IN CHEAPSIDE 213
XIV. JERNINGHAM SEES THE WAY TO HIS DESIRE 238
XV. RAVENSHAW FALLS ASLEEP 250
XVI. THE POET AS A MAN OF ACTION 260
XVII. DIRE THINGS BEFALL IN THE FOREST 273
XVIII. RAVENSHAW'S SLEEP IS INTERRUPTED 285
XIX. KNAVE AGAINST GENTLEMAN 304
XX. HOLYDAY'S FURTHER ADVENTURES 338
XXI. THE CAPTAIN FORSWEARS SWAGGERING 352
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
"THERE WAS EXCHANGE OF THRUST AND PARRY" _Frontispiece_
(_see page 333_)
"'SHE LED ME BUT A SHORT CHASE'" 60
"'SIR, I THANK YOU FOR WHAT YOU DID THAT NIGHT'" 128
"BADE HIS VISITOR BE SEATED UPON A STONE BENCH, AND FACED
HER SULLENLY" 153
"ONE HAND GESTICULATING, WHILE THE OTHER HELD HIS NEW-WRITTEN
MANUSCRIPT" 203
"SUDDENLY THE NARROW WAY BEFORE HIM BECAME BLOCKED WITH HUMAN
CREATURES" 251
"THERE ... WAS THE MAID OF CHEAPSIDE, PALE AND BEWILDERED" 303
CAPTAIN RAVENSHAW.
CHAPTER I.
MEN OF DESPERATE FORTUNES.
"Though my hard fate has thrust me out to servitude, I tumbled into th'
world a gentleman."--_The Changeling._
It was long past curfew, yet Captain Ravenshaw still tarried in the
front room of the Windmill tavern, in the Old Jewry. With him were
some young gentlemen, at whose cost he had been drinking throughout
the afternoon. For their bounty, he had paid with the satirical
conversation for which he was famed, as well as with richly embellished
anecdotes of his campaigns. Late in the evening, the company had been
joined by a young gallant who had previously sent them, from another
chamber, a quantity of Rhenish wine. This newcomer now ordered supper
for the party, a proceeding at which the captain dissembled his
long-deferred pleasure--for he had not eaten since the day before.
Moreover, besides the prospect of supper, there was this to hold him at
the tavern: he knew not where he should look for a bed, or shelter,
upon leaving it. The uncertainty was a grave consideration upon so
black and windy a night.
Master Vallance, the gentleman who had ordered supper, had listened
to the last of Ravenshaw's brag with a rather scornful silence. But
the other young men had been appreciative; it was their pose, or
affectation, to be as wicked as any man might; hence they looked up to
this celebrated bully as to a person from whom there was much to be
learned, and in whom there was much to be imitated.
The group had been sitting before the wide fireplace. But as soon as
the roast fowls were brought in, there was a movement to the long
table in the middle of the room. The captain was gifted with active,
striding legs and long, slashing arms. So he was first to be seated,
and, as he leaned forward upon his elbows, he seemed to cover more than
his share of the table. He had a broad, solid forehead, an assertive
nose, a narrow but forward chin, gray eyes accustomed to flash with a
devil-may-care defiance, a firm mouth inured to a curve of sardonic
derision. His rebellious hair, down-turning moustaches, and pointed
beard were of a dark brown hue. He was a man of good height; below
the sword-belt, he was lank to the ground; above, he broadened out
well for chest and shoulders. His voice was quick, vigorous, and not
unpleasantly metallic. He was under thirty, but rough experience had
hardened his visage to an older look. His jerkin, shirt, hose, shoes,
and ruff also betokened much and severe usage.
Master Vallance, in spotless velvet doublet and breeches, and perfectly
clean silk stockings, looked at him with contemptuous dislike.
"Take heed you scorch not the capon with your nose, roaring Ravenshaw,"
said the youth, quietly.
It was not Ravenshaw's habit to resent allusions to his character as
a "roaring boy;" indeed he encouraged the popular idea which saddled
him with that title, at that time applied to bullies of the taverns.
But some circumstance of the moment, perhaps something in the young
coxcomb's air of aristocratic ridicule, guided the epithet to a
sensitive spot.
"_Captain_ Ravenshaw, by your leave," he said, instantly, in a loud
tone, with an ironical show of a petitioner's deference.
"Forsooth, yes; a captain of the suburbs," replied the young gentleman,
with a more pronounced sneer.
Now at this time--toward the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth--and
for a long time after, certain of the suburbs of London were inhabited
numerously by people of ill repute. There were, especially, women whom
the law sometimes took in hand and sent to the Bridewell to break
chalk, or treated to a public ride in a cart, as targets for rotten
vegetables, addled eggs, and such projectiles. Many an unemployed
soldier, or bully who called himself soldier, would bestow, or impose,
his protection upon some one of these frail creatures in the time of
her prosperity, exacting from her the means of livelihood. Hence did
Ravenshaw see in the title of "captain of the suburbs" an insult little
less than lay in that of "Apple-John," or "Apple-squire," itself.
When a gentleman calls another by the name of a bad thing, it is not
necessarily implied that he thinks the other is that thing; but it is
certain that he means to be defiantly offensive. Therefore, in this
case, the captain's part was not to deny, but to resent. Not only must
he keep up his reputation with the other gentlemen as a man not to be
affronted, but he really was in a towering rage at being bearded with
easy temerity by such a youngling.
"What!" quoth he. "Thou sprig! Thy wits are strayed away, methinks. Or
has thy nurse been teaching thee to use a pert tongue?"
"Nay, save your own tongue for the tasting of yon capon. I speak only
truth. Your reputation is well known."
"Why, thou saucy boy, I may not spit butterflies on my sword, nor
provoke striplings by giving them the lie; else--"
The captain finished with a shrug of vexation.
"Look ye, gentlemen, he lays it to my youth," continued the persecutor,
"but there's yet a horse of another colour. This captain is free
enough with his bluster and his sword; he has drawn quarts of blood
for a single word that misliked him, upon occasion; but he will bear
a thousand scurvy affronts from any man for the sake of a supper. You
shall see--"
"Supper!" echoed the captain, springing up. "Do you cast your filthy
supper in my teeth? Nay, then, I'll cast it in thine own."
With this, thoroughly enraged, Captain Ravenshaw seized the particular
capon to which the gallant had alluded, and flung it across the table
into the gallant's face. It struck with a thud, and, rebounding, left
the young man a countenance both startled and greasy. Not content,
the offended captain thereupon reached forth to the fowl which had
been served as companion to the capon, and this he hurled in the same
direction. But he aimed a little too high, moreover the fop ducked his
head, and so the juicy missile sped across the room, to lodge plump
against the stomach of a person who had just then come into view in the
open doorway.
This person showed lean in body and shabby in raiment. He made a swift,
instinctive grasp at the thing with which he had come so unexpectedly
in contact, and happened to catch it before it could fall to the
floor. He held it up with both hands to his gaze a moment, and then,
having ascertained beyond doubt its nature, he suddenly turned and
vanished with it. Let us follow him, leaving behind us the scene in the
tavern room, which scene, upon the landlady's rushing in to preserve
order for the good name of the house, was very soon after restored to
a condition of peace by the wrathful departure of Ravenshaw from the
company of an offender too young for him to chastise with the sword.
The ill-clad person who clutched the cooked fowl, which accident had
thus summarily bestowed upon him, made short work of fleeing down the
stairs and out into the black, chill February night. Once outside,
though he could not see his hand before his face, he turned toward
Cheapside and stumbled forward along the miry way, his desire evidently
being to put himself so far from the Windmill tavern that he might not
be overtaken by any one who could lay claim to the fowl.
The air was damp as well as cold. The fugitive, keeping his ungloved
hands warm by spreading them around the fowl, which was fresh from
the spit, had to grope his way through an inky wind. He listened for
possible footfalls behind him, but he heard none, and so he chuckled
inwardly and held his prize close to his breast with a sense of
security. Now and then he raised it to his nostrils, in anticipation
of the feast he should enjoy upon arriving at the resting-place he had
in mind. He would have made a strange spectacle to anybody who might
have been able to see him from one of the rattling casements as he
passed; but so dark it was that downlookers could no more have seen him
than he could see the painted plaster, carved cross-timbers, projecting
windows, and gabled roof-peaks of the tall houses that lined the narrow
street through which he fled.
At one place a lantern hanging over a door threw a faint light upon him
for a moment, and showed a young man's face, with sharp features and a
soft expression; but the face was instantly gone in the darkness, and
there was no other night-walker abroad in the street to have seen it
while it was visible.
"Surely," he meditated, as he went, "the time of miracles has returned.
And even a starved scholar is found worthy of Heaven's interposition.
With the temerity of the famished, I enter a tavern, ascend the stairs,
and steal into a room which I take to be empty because no sound comes
from it, my only hope being to pilfer a little warmth nobody will miss,
perchance to fall heir to a drop of wine at the bottom of a glass, or
a bone upon an uncleared table. And lo, I find myself in the presence
of a gentleman asleep before a pot of mulled canary, which he has
scarce wet his throat withal. In three swallows I make the canary my
own, just in time to set down the pot before in comes a tapster. I
feign I am in search of friends, who must be in t'other chamber. To
make good the deceit, I must needs look in at t'other chamber door;
when, behold, some follower of Mars, who looks as hungry as myself,
pelts me with poultry. It is plainly a gift of the gods, and I am no
such ill-mannered clown as to stay and inquire into the matter. Well,
_gaudeamus igitur_, my sweet bird; here we are at St. Mary Cole Church,
on the steps of which we shall make each other's better acquaintance.
Jove!--or rather Bacchus!--what tumult a pint or so of mulled wine
makes in the head of a poor master of arts, when too suddenly imbibed!"
He went half-way up the steps and sat down, crouching into the smallest
figure possible, as if he might thus offer the least surface to the
cold. Sinking his teeth into the succulent breast of the roast fowl, he
forgot the weather in the joy of eating. But he had scarce taken two
bites when he was fain to suspend his pleasure, for the sound of rapid
footfalls came along the way he had just traversed. He took alarm.
"Sit quiet now, in God's name, Master Holyday!" he mentally adjured
himself. "'Tis mayhap one in search of the fowl. Night, I am beholden
to thee for thy mantle."
The person strode past and into Cheapside without apprehension of the
scholar's presence upon the steps. The scholar could not make out the
man's looks, but could divine from sundry muttered oaths he gave vent
to, and from his incautious haste of movement, that he was angry.
"God 'a' mercy! how he takes to heart the loss of a paltry fowl!" mused
Master Holyday, resuming the consumption of his supper on the church
steps. "For, certes, 'twas from the Windmill he came; from his voice,
and the copiousness of his swearing, I should take him to be that very
soldier whom the gods impelled to provide me with supper. Well, he is
now out of hearing; and a good thing, too, for there comes the moon at
last from the ragged edge of yon black cloud. Blow, wind, and clear the
sky for her. Pish! what is this? Can I not find my mouth? Ha, ha! 'tis
the mulled wine."
The scholar had indeed struck his nose with the fowl, when he had
meant to bring it again between his teeth. He was conscious of the
increased effect of the wine in other ways, too, and chiefly in a
pleasanter perception of everything, a sense of agreeable comicality in
all his surroundings, a warmed regard for all objects within view or
thought. This enhanced the enjoyment of his meal. The moonlight, though
frequently dimmed by rushing scraps of cloud, made visible the streets
near whose junction he sat, so that the house fronts stood strangely
forth in weird shine and shadow. The scholar, shivering upon the steps,
was the only living creature in the scene. Yet there seemed to be a
queer half-life come into inanimate things. The wind could be heard
moaning sometimes in unseen passages. The hanging signs creaked as if
they now and then conversed one with another in brief, monosyllabic
language.
"In the daylight," thought the scholar, "men and women possess the
streets, their customs prevail, and their opinions rule. But now,
forsooth, the house fronts and the signs, the casements and the
weathercocks, have their conference. Are they considering solely of
their own matters, or do they tell one another tales of the foolish
beings that move about on legs, hurrying and chattering, by day?
Faith, is it of me they are talking? See with what a blank look those
houses gaze down at me, like a bench of magistrates at a rogue. But
the house at the end, the tall one with the straight front,--I swear
it is frowning upon me. And the one beside it, with the fat oriel
windows, and whose upper stories belly so far out over the street,--as
I'm a gentleman and a scholar, 'tis laughing at me. Has it come to
this?--to be a thing of mirth to a monster of wood and plaster, a huge
face with eyes of glass? For this did Ralph Holyday take his degrees
at Cambridge University, and was esteemed as able a disputant as ever
came forth of Benet College? Go thy ways, Ralph; better wert thou
some fat citizen snoring behind yon same walls, than Master Holyday,
_magister artium_, lodging houseless on the church steps with all thy
scholarship. Not so, neither; thou wouldst be damned rather! Hark, who
is it walks in Cheapside, and coming this way, too?"
He might have recognised the tread as the same which had some minutes
before moved in the opposite direction; though it was now less rapid,
as if the owner of the feet had walked off some of his wrath. Coming
into view at the end of the Old Jewry, that owner proved to be in truth
the very soldier of whom Holyday had caught a glimpse at the tavern.
The soldier, turning by some impulse, saw the scholar on the steps; but
his warlike gaze had now no terror for Master Holyday, who had put at
least half of the fowl beyond possible recovery, and whose appetite was
no longer keen.
"God save you, sir!" said the scholar, courteously. "Were you seeking a
certain roast fowl?"
"Not I, sirrah," replied Captain Ravenshaw, approaching Holyday. "You
are he that stood in the doorway, perchance? Rest easy; the fowl was
none of mine. I should scorn to swallow a morsel of it."
And yet he eyed it in such a manner that Master Holyday, who was a good
judge of a hungry glance, said, placidly:
"You are welcome to what is left of it here." Which offer the scholar
enforced with a satisfied sigh, indicating fulness of stomach.
The captain made a very brief pretence of silent hesitation, then
accepted the remainder of the feast from the scholar's hands, saying:
"Worshipful sir, it should go hard with me ere I would refuse
true hospitality. Have I not seen you about the town before this
night?" He sat down beside Holyday, and began to devour the already
much-diminished fowl.
"I know not," replied the scholar, who had a mild, untroubled way of
speaking. "'Twas last Michaelmas I came to London. I have kept some
riotous company, but, if I have met you, I remember not."
"'Slight! you know then who I be?"
"Not I, truly."
"Yet you call me riotous."
"That argues no previous knowledge. Though I be a Cambridge man, it
takes none of my scholarship to know a gentleman of brawls at sight, a
roaring boy, a swaggerer of the taverns--"
"Why, boy, why! Do you mean offence in these names?"
"No offence in the world. You see I bear no sword, being but a
poor master of arts. None so bold of speech as the helpless, among
honourable men of the sword."
"Some truth in that. Look ye, young sir, hast ever heard of one
Ravenshaw, a captain, about the town here?"
"Ay, he is the loudest roarer of them all, I have heard; one whose bite
is as bad as his bark, too, which is not the case with all of these
braggadocios; but he is a scurvy rascal, is he not? a ragged hector of
the ale-houses. Is it he you mean?"
"Ha! that is his reputation? Well, to say truth, he may comfort himself
by knowing he deserves it. But the world used him scurvily first--nay,
a plague on them that whine for themselves! I am that Ravenshaw."
"Then I must deal softly; else I am a hare as good as torn to pieces by
the dogs."
"Why, no, scholar, thou needst not be afeard. I like thee, young
night-walker. Thou wert most civil concerning this fowl. 'Od's light!
but for thee, my sudden pride had played my belly a sad trick this
night. Thou art one to be trusted, I see, and when I have finished with
this bird, I will tell thee something curious of my rascal reputation.
But while I eat, prithee, who art thou? and what is it hath sent thee
to be a lodger on the steps of St. Mary Cole Church? Come, scholar;
thou might do worse than make a friend of roaring Ravenshaw."
"Nay, I have no enemies I would wish killed. But I am any man's gossip,
if he have inclination for my discourse, and be not without lining to
his headpiece. My name is Ralph Holyday; I am only son to Mr. Francis
Holyday, a Kentish gentleman of good estate. He is as different a
manner of man from me as this night is from a summer day. He is
stubborn and tempestuous; he will have his way, though the house fall
for it. He has no love of books and learning, neither; but my mother,
seeing that I was of a bookish mind, worked upon him unceasingly to
send me to the university, till at last, for peace' sake, he packed me
off to Cambridge. While I was there, my mother died--rest her soul,
poor lady! After I took my degrees, my father would have it that I
come home, and fit myself to succeed him. Home I went, perforce, but
I had no stomach for the life he would lead me. I rather preferred
to sit among my books, and to royster at the ale-house in company
with a parson, who had as great love for learned disputation as for
beer and venison. Many a pleasant day and night have I sat with good
Sir Nicholas, drinking, and arguing upon the soul's immortality.
This parson had sundry friends, too, good knaves, though less given
to learning than to tossing the pot; they were poachers all, to say
truth, and none better with the crossbow at a likely deer than the
vicar. Thus, when I ought to have been busy in the matter of preserving
my father's deer, I would be abroad in forbidden quest of other men's;
'twas, I know not how, the more sportive and curious occupation. Well,
my father stormed at these ways of mine, but there was no method of
curing them. But one day he became fearful his blood should die out.
He must have descendants, he swore, and to that end I must find a
wife straightway. Here is where we crossed weapons. I am not blind to
the charms of women, but I am cursed with such timidity of them, such
bashfulness when I am near them, that if I tried to court one, or if
one were put upon me as wife, I should fall to pieces for shaking. I
would sooner attempt anew the labours of Hercules than go a-wooing for
a wife."
"'Tis a curious affliction," remarked the captain, pausing in his
feast. "But many men have it; fighting men, too. There was Dick Rokeby,
that was my comrade in France; he that fought with Harry Spence and me,
each one 'gainst t'other two, upon the question of the properest oath
for a soldier to swear by. Harry was one of your Latin fellows, and
held for 'the buckler of Mars.' Dick Rokeby said an Englishman could
do no better than swear by the lance of St. George. And I vowed by the
spurs of Harry Fift' I would put down any man that thought better of
any other oath. We fought it out, three-cornered, in Grey's Inn Fields;
and the spurs of Harry Fift' won the day. As for women, I am their
enemy on other grounds. There was one I trusted, and when I was at the
wars she wronged me with my friend. I have sworn revenge upon the sex,
curse 'em! So you would not marry?"
"That I would not. The only women I can approach without trembling
at the knees, and my face burning, and my tongue sticking fast,
are serving-maids and common drabs, and such as I would not raise
to a place of quality. So the end was that, after he had raged and
threatened for six months, my father cast me forth, swearing I should
never cross his doorsill, or have a penny of him, till I should come
back with a wife on my arm. And so I came last Michaelmas to London."
"And how hast made shift to live since then?"
"Why, first upon some money my friend Sir Nick thrust upon me; then by
the barter of my clothes in Cornhill; and meanwhile I had writ a play,
a tragedy, that Master Henslowe gave me five pounds for."
"I would fain see thy tragedy. How is it named?"
"God knows when it may be played; it has not yet been. It is 'The
Lamentable Tragedy of Queen Nitocris.' The story is in a Greek
history."
"What, you dare not even discourse with a mere gentlewoman, yet write
the intimate histories of queens?"
"Yes, friend; there are many of us poor poets do so. We herd with
trulls, and dream of empresses. (A passable decasyllabic line, that!)
But I have not been able to sell another tragedy, nor yet to have my
sonnets printed, whereby I might get ten pounds for a dedication. And
so you see me as I am."
"Well," said the captain, having by this time pretty well stuffed
himself, "I like thee the better for being a poet. Such as you know me
to be, you will scarce believe it; but I am one--or was once--fitted
by nature to take joy in naught so much as in poetry, and the sweet
pastoral life that poets praise so. But never whisper this; I were a
dead man if the town knew the softness underneath my leathern outside.
But in very truth, as for books, I would give all the Plutarchs in the
world for one canto of 'The Faerie Queene' or ten pages of the gentler
part of Sidney's 'Arcadia.' Had I won my choice, I had passed my days,
not in camps and battles, taverns and brawls, but in green meadows,
sitting and strolling among flowers, reading some book of faery or
shepherds--for I never could make up poetry of my own."
"That picture belies the common report of Captain Ravenshaw."
"Ay, Master Holyday; swaggering Ravenshaw is no shepherd of poesy.
But hearken to what I promised thee: I, too, am a gentleman's son;
the family is an old one in Worcestershire,--observe I call it not
_my_ family. I was early a cast-off scion, and for no fault of mine,
I swear. 'Twas the work of a woman, a she-devil, that bewitched my
father. But God forbid I should afflict any man, or rouse mine own dead
feelings, with the tale of my wrongs! I was no roaring boy then; I was
a tame youth, and a modest. But when I found myself out in the world,
I soon learned that with a mild mien, unless a man have a craftiness I
lacked, he is ever thrust backward, and crushed against the wall, or
trodden upon in the ditch. And so for policy I took the time and pains
to make myself a master of the sword, not that I might brawl, but that
I might go my ways in peace. In good time, I killed two men or so that
were thought invincible; and I supposed the noise of this would save me
from affronts after that."
"And was it not so?"
"Perchance it had been, if my manner had comported with the deed. But
I still went modest in my bearing, and so my prowess was soon forgot;
some may have thought my victories an accident of fortune; besides,
strangers knew not what I had done, and saw no daring in me; and so I
found myself as unconsidered as ever. And at last, when the woman I
loved turned treacherous and robbed me of the friend at court on whom
my fortune hung, and malice was hatched in me, I bethought me of a new
trick. I took on a bold front, an insolent outside; I became a swearer,
a swaggerer, a roaring boy, a braggart; and lo! people soon stepped
aside to let me pass. I found this blustering masquerade a thousand
times more potent to secure immunity than my real swordsmanship had
been. The transformation was but skin-deep at first; but the wars,
and my hard life and my poverty, helped its increase, so that now it
has worked in to the heart of me. There was a time it made me ill to
sink my rapier into a man's soft flesh, but I grew to be of stronger
stomach. And when I first put on the mask of brazen effrontery, I was
often faint within when I seemed most insolent. But now I am indeed
roaring Ravenshaw, all but a little of me, and that little often
sleeps."
"But this insolence of thine, real or false, seems not to have made thy
fortune."
"Nay, but it has made my poverty the less contemptible. Lay not my
undoing to it. When the war lasted, I fared well enough, as long as
I kept the captainship my friend had got me ere the woman played me
false. A score of things have happened to bring me to this pass. My
braggadocio, ofttimes enforced with deeds, hath neither helped nor
hindered my downfall; it hath stood me in good stead in fair times and
foul. Pish, man, but for my reputation, and the fear of my enmity or
violence, could I have run up such scores at taverns as I have done,
being penniless? How often have I roared dicing fools, and card-playing
asses, out of the stakes when they had fairly won 'em? Could any but a
man who has made himself feared do such things, and keep out of Newgate
or at least the Counter i' the Poultry here?"
"Why, is not that rank robbery, sir?"
"Yes, sir, and rank filling of my empty stomach. Tut, scholar, you have
been hungry yourself; roofless, too. Be so as oft as I have been, and
with as small chance of mending matters, and I'll give a cracked three
farthings for what virtue is left in you. Boy, boy, hast thou yet to
learn what a troublesome comrade thy belly is, in time of poverty? What
a leader into temptation? Am I, who was once a gentleman, a rascal as
well as a brawler? Yes, I am a rascal. So be it; and the more beholden
I to my rascality when it find me a dinner, or a warm place to sleep o'
nights. Would it might serve us now. Who are these a-coming?"
Some dark figures were approaching from up the Old Jewry, attended by
two fellows bearing links, for the moonlight was not to be relied upon.
The figures came arm in arm, at a blithe but unsteady gait, swaying
and plunging. Presently the captain recognised the gentlemen who had
been his afternoon companions at the sign of the Windmill. But Master
Vallance was not with them, having doubtless taken lodging at one of
the inns near the tavern. The sparks, jubilant with their wine, no
sooner made out the captain's form than they hailed him heartily.
"What, old war boy!" cried Master Maylands, a spruce and bold young
exquisite. "Well met, well met! Hey, gentles, we'll make a night on't.
Captain, you shall captain us, captain!"
"Ay, you shall captain us about the town," put in Master Hawes, who
spoke shrilly, and with a lisp, for which he would have been admired
had it been affected, but for which he was often ridiculed because it
was natural. "You shall teach us to roar as loud as you do. What say
you, gallants? Shall we go to school to him to learn roaring? He is the
master swaggerer of all that ever swaggered."
The proposal was received with noisy approval, the roysterers gathering
around the captain where he sat, and grasping him by the sleeves to
draw him along with them.
"Softly, gentlemen, softly," said the captain. "Ye seem of a mind here.
But do you consider? There is much I might impart, in the practice of
swaggering. Would you in good sooth have me for a tutor?"
There was a chorus of affirmative protestation.
The captain thought it politic to urge a scruple.
"But bethink ye," quoth he, "to be a true swaggerer is no child's play.
And you are of delicate rearing, all; meant to play lutes in ladies'
chambers; court buds, gallants."
"Why, then," said Maylands, "we shall be gallants and swaggerers, too;
an you make swaggerers of us, we will make a gallant of you, will we
not, boys?"
"Nay," replied Ravenshaw, "I have been a gallant in my time, and need
but the clothes to be one again; and so does my friend here, who is a
gentleman and a scholar, though out of favour with fortune. Now there
be many tricks in the swaggering trade; the choice of oaths is alone a
subtle study, and that is but one branch of many. I'll not be any man's
schoolmaster for nothing."
"Faith, man, who asks it?" cried Master Maylands. "We'll pay you. For
an earnest, take my cloak; my doublet is thick." He flung the rich
broadcloth garment over the captain's uncloaked shoulders. "You need
but the clothes to be a gallant again? 'Fore God, I believe it! Tom
Hawes, I've cloaked him; you doublet him. Barter your doublet for
his jerkin; your cloak will hide it for the night; you've a score of
doublets at home."
Master Maylands, in his zeal, fell upon the unobjecting Hawes, and
in a trice had helped to effect the transfer, the captain feigning
a helpless compliance in the hands of his insistent benefactors. It
occurred to another of the youths, Master Clarington, to exchange
his jewelled German cap of velvet for Ravenshaw's ragged felt hat;
whereupon Master Dauncey, not to be outdone, would have had his
breeches untrussed by his link-boy, to bestow upon the captain, but
that the captain himself interposed on the score of the cold weather.
"But I'll take it as kindly of you," said Ravenshaw, "if you should
have a cloak for my scholar friend. How say you, Master Holyday?
Thou'lt be one of us? Thou'lt be a swaggering gallant, too?"
Master Holyday, inwardly thanking his stars for the benevolent impulse
which had made him share the fowl, and so elicit this gratitude, would
have agreed to anything under the moon (except to woo a woman) for the
sake of warmer clothes.
"Yes, sir," said he, with his wonted studious gravity of manner; "if
these gentlemen will be so gracious."
The gentlemen were readily so gracious. After a few rapid exchanges,
which they treated as a great piece of mirth, they beheld the scholar
also cloaked and richly doubleted and hatted. He wore his fine garments
with a greater sense of their comfort than of his improved appearance,
yet with a somewhat pleasant scholastic grace.
The captain strutted a little way down the street, to enjoy the effect
of his new cloak; but, as he stepped into Cheapside, the moon was
clouded, and he could no longer see the garment tailing out finely
over his sword behind. A distant sound of plodding feet made him look
westward in Cheapside, and he saw a few dim lanterns approaching from
afar.
"Lads, the watch is coming," said he. "Shall we tarry here, and be
challenged for night-walkers?"
"Marry," quoth Master Maylands, leaping forward to the captain's side,
"we shall take our first lesson in swaggering now; we shall beat the watch." |
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