Captain Ravenshaw 3

Captain Ravenshaw 3

"What wench?" inquired Ermsby, in whose thoughts there had been more than one wench since the reader first made his acquaintance. "What wench! Gods above, is there more than one?--worth a man's lying awake at night to sigh for, I mean." "And is there one such, then? Faith, an there be, I have not seen her of late." "Yes, you have. Scarce three months ago." "That's three ages, where women are concerned. Who is this incomparable she?" "That goldsmith's daughter--you remember the night we chased her from Cheapside down Bread Street, and came near a quarrel with Ravenshaw the bully, and I followed to see where she lived?" "Faith, I remember. A pretty little thing. And she has held you off all this time? Man, man, you must have blundered terribly! What plan of campaign have you employed against her?" "I have not been able to pass words with her, I tell you. She rarely goes forth from home at all, and when she does 'tis with both parents, and a woman, and a stout 'prentice or two. I have stood in wait night after night, thinking she might try to run away again; but she has not." "Why, you know not your first letter in the study of how to woo citizens' womankind. Go to her father's shop while she is there, and contrive to have her wait upon you. Flattery, vows, and promises sound all the softer for being whispered over a counter." "I have watched, and when I have been busy at the ship, my man Gregory has watched. But she never comes into the shop. She has a devil of shrewdness for a father; a rock-faced man, of few words, with eyes on everything. He already suspects me; for now whenever I go near his shop he comes from his business and stares at me as if he offered defiance." "A plague on these citizens. They dare outface gentlemen nowadays. They are so rich, and the law is on their side, curse 'em! A goldsmith thinks himself as good as a lord." "This one has taught his very 'prentices to look big at me as I pass. And Gregory--he is a sly hound, as you know, and when I put him on his mettle for the conveyance of a letter to the girl's waiting-woman, he was ready to sell himself to the devil for the wit to accomplish it. But he could not; and they have smelt a purpose in his doings, too. The last time he went near the shop, and stood trying to get the eye of some serving-maid at a window, two of the goldsmith's 'prentices came out and, pretending not to see him, ran hard against him and laid him sprawling in the street." "And he let them go with whole skins? Had he no dagger?" "Of what use? They are very stout fellows, all in that shop. And they would have had only to cry 'Clubs,' and every 'prentice in Cheapside would have come to cudgel Gregory to death. They have too many privileges in the city, pox on 'em!" "You should have begun by making friends with the goldsmith openly, and so got access to his house. Then you could have cozened him when the time came." "But 'tis too late for that now. Besides, these citizens distrust a man the first moment, when they have wives and daughters. Oh, we have tried every way, both myself and Gregory. Gregory found a pot-boy, at the White Horse tavern, that knew one of the maids in the house, and we tried to pass a letter by means of those two. But the letter got into the father's hands, and the maid was cast off, and I'm glad I signed a false name. I know not if Mistress Millicent ever saw the letter." "Is Millicent her name?" "Ay. She is the only child. Her father is Thomas Etheridge, the goldsmith, at the sign of the Golden Acorn, in Cheapside at the corner of Friday Street. And nothing more do I know of her, but that I am going mad for her. And now that I have opened all to you, in God's name tell me what I shall do. Though we sail in three days, I must have her in my arms for one sweet hour, at least, ere I go. Laugh if you will! Call it madness. 'Tis the worse, then, and the more needs quenching. What shall I do?" "Use a better messenger; one that can get the ear of the maid and yet 'scape the eye of the father; one that can win her to a meeting with you. Such things are managed daily. Howsoever hedged by husbands, or fenced by fathers, the fair ones of the city are still to be come at. Employ a go-between." "Have I not tried Gregory? Where he has failed, how shall any other servant fare? Not one of those at my command has a tithe of his wit. Nor has any of our sea-rogues." "Why, the look of being a gentleman's serving-man will damn any knave in the eye of a wary citizen, nowadays. And Gregory hath the face of a rascal besides. Employ none of that degree. As for our sea-rogues, we chose 'em witless, for our own advantage." "Troth, you might serve me in this matter, Ermsby. You have the wit; and you should find good pastime in it." "Faith, not I. I know the taste of 'prentice's cudgel. I'll tell you a tale; 'twill warn you that, when love's path leads into the city, you'd best see it made sure and smooth ere you tread it yourself. One day as I was going to the play in Blackfriars, my glance fell upon as handsome a piece of female citizenship as you'll meet any day 'twixt Fleet Street and the Tower. She saw me looking, and looked in turn; and I resolved to let the play go hang, and follow her. She had with her an old woman and a 'prentice boy, and her look seemed to advise me not to accost her in their presence. So I walked behind her, smiling my sweetest each time she turned her head around. She led me into a grocer's shop in Bucklersbury. I could see by her manner there that she was at home; there was no husband in sight, the shop being kept by two 'prentices. Here she forthwith sent the woman up-stairs, and turned as if she would attend upon me herself. Now, thought I, my happiness is soon to be assured; and I was rejoicing within, for each time I had seen her face she had looked more lovely. Sooth, the ripeness of those lips--!" "Well, well, what happened?" "I went but to open the matter with a courteous kiss on the cheek; but the more luscious fruit hung too near, so I stopped me at the lips instead, and stopped overlong there. She made pretence--I swear 'twas pretence--to push me away, and to be much angry and abused. But the zany 'prentices knew not this virtuous resistance was make-believe, and they ran at me as if I were some thief caught in the act. I met the first with a clout in the face, but they were stout knaves and made nothing of laying hands upon me. I shook them off, and then, being at the back of the shop, drew my sword to ensure my passage to the street. But that instant they raised the cry, 'Clubs!' and ran and got their own cudgels, and came menacing me again. While I was making play with my rapier, thinking to fright them off, all the 'prentices in Bucklersbury began to pour into the shop, shouting clubs and brandishing 'em at the same time. I saw there was naught to do but cut my way through by letting out the blood of any grocer's knave or 'pothecary's boy that should stand before me. But ere I had made two thrusts in earnest, my rapier was knocked from my hand by a club. A cloud of other clubs rained on my head, shoulders, and body. And so I cowered helpless, seeing nothing before me but the chance of being pounded to a jelly by the crowd." "And what miracle occurred?" "The wit of woman intervened. She that I had followed laid hold of some box or bag, and thrust her fingers in, and began flinging the contents by handfuls into the air. It was ground pepper. In a moment every man Jack in the shop was sneezing as if there were a prize for it. Such a shaking, and bending forward of bodies, and holding of noses, was never seen elsewhere. Every fellow was taken with a sneezing fit that lasted minutes, for the woman still threw the pepper about, regardless of the work it had done. Limp and half-blind as every rascal was, and busied with each new spasm coming on, they paid no more heed to me; and so, sneezing like the rest, I pushed through unregarded to the street. I fled down Walbrook, and came not to an end of sneezing till I had taken boat at Dowgate wharf. I went home, then, and put my bruises to bed; and I know not how many days it was till I had done aching. Be thankful thou hast not fared in the goldsmith's shop e'en worse than I fared in the grocer's; for there is no pepper kept in goldsmith's shops." "I know not then what kind of emissary to send. As you say, a serving-man is too easily seen through. A gentleman will not risk the cudgel. I know a lawyer, a beggarly knave eager for any sort of questionable transaction." "Nay, he'll make a botch of it, as lawyers do of everything they set their hands to." "How if I tried a woman? 'Tis often done, I believe. As thieves are set to catch thieves, so set a woman--" "Ay, women have zest for the business; especially the tainted ones--they joy to infect their sisters whose purity they secretly envy. They that have spots take comfort in company, as misery doth. Yet they will serve you ill; for they ever bring entanglement on those they weave their plots for, as well as on those they weave against. City husbands and fathers have grown wiser, too; they've learned to look for love-plots in their women's fellowship with other women. Unless you'd risk some chance of failure with this maid--" "By God, that I will not! I must have a sure messenger." "I would mine own page yonder had the wit, that I might lend him. But when I choose a servant, 'tis rather for lack of wit in him; else he might take it into his head to outwit his master. My boy there serves well enough to carry sonnets to court ladies; but he would never do for your business. You say this goldsmith is watchful. Therefore, you want a man the most unlike the common go-betweens in such affairs; a man that looks the last in the world to be chosen as love's ambassador." "Some venerable Puritan, perchance," said Jerningham, with the slight irony of one not quite convinced. "Ay, if one could be found needy enough to want your money; but that's hopeless. We must seek a poor devil that hath a good wit and can act a part. If we had one such in our ship's company--What, Gregory! Have you been listening, knave?" Sir Clement's break was caused by his perceiving, upon suddenly turning around, that Jerningham's man stood near, with a suspicious cock of the head. This Gregory was just the fellow to steal up without noise; he had long cultivated the silent footfall. He was a lean man of about thirty-five years; a little bent, and with a long neck, so that his head always seemed hastening before his body, which could never catch up. He had a small, sharp face, of an ashen complexion, and with fishy, greenish eyes; his expression was that of cunning cloaked in calm impudence. "No offence, sirs," said he, glibly, stepping forward with bowed head. "I couldn't help hearing a little. If I may say so, sirs, my master needn't yet look abroad for one to do his business. I think I have a shift or two still, if I may be so bold." "You may not be so bold, Gregory," said Jerningham. "Disguises are well enough in Spanish tales and stage plays; but you'd be caught, and all brought home to me and the bishop's ears. He could stay our ship at the last hour, an he had a mind to. Go to; and do and speak when you are bid, not else." The serving-man stepped back, looking humiliated. "He's already green with jealousy of the man you shall employ," said Ermsby, with unkind amusement at the knave's discomfiture. "Ay, he's touchy that way. A faithful dog--and bound to be so, for I know a thing or two that would hang him. But to reach this maid, I must have another Mercury. Where shall I find this witty poor rascal that is to cozen old Argus, her father, and get me access to her?" "Why, but for going to Deptford, we might seek him forthwith. The hour before dinner is the right time. But--" "Then let us seek. There's no need we go to Deptford to-day. We cannot haste matters at the ship; all's in good hands there. In God's name, come find me this fellow." "Bid Gregory hail a boat, then," said Ermsby; and, after the servant had been sent ahead to the stairs on that errand, and Ermsby had motioned his own page to go thither, he continued: "We shall go to Paul's first, where we got so many of our shipmates; there we shall have choice of half the penniless companions, starved wits, masterless men, cast soldiers, skulking debtors, and serviceable rascals in London. Of a surety, you can buy any service there; there's truth in what the plays say." The two gentlemen, attended by Gregory and the page, were soon embarked in a wherry whose prow the watermen headed against the current, the destination being some distance up-stream on the opposite bank. "What of Meg Falkner?" Ermsby said, suddenly, in a tone too low for the servants to hear. "Are you rid of her yet?" Jerningham's brow turned darker by a shade. "That were as great a puzzle as to reach this goldsmith's wench," he replied. "I would have married her to Gregory; it seemed no mean fate for a yeoman's daughter that had buried a brat; but she'd have none of that. I durs'n't turn her out lest she make a noise that might come to the bishop. I'm lucky she hath kept quiet, as it is." "She lives still at your country-house?" "Ay; where else to lodge her? Rotten as it is, it does for that; and that is the only use it hath done me this many a year. There's a cow or two for her maintaining, and some hens. And for company, there's old Jeremy that's half-blind. He can quiet her fears o' nights, when the timbers creak and she thinks it is a ghost walking." "And what of the house when you are away on the voyage?" "Troth, all may out then, I care not! Let 'em sell the estate for the debts on it; they'll find themselves losers, I trow. And Mistress Meg will be left in the lurch, poor white-face! As for me, when the ship sails, I shall be quit of that plague." "Ay, but you'll be quit of this goldsmith's wench, too. Will your 'one sweet hour' or so suffice, think you?" The faintest smile came into Jerningham's face. "I will not prophesy," said he, softly. "But, as you well know, when we come to that island, if all goes well, I shall be in some sort a king there." "Certainly; but what of that, touching this wench?" "Why, will not the island have room for a queen as well?" "Oho!" quoth Ermsby, after a short silence. "So the wind blows that way in thy dreams!" Presently they landed at Paul's Wharf, climbed to Thames Street, which was noisy with carts and drays, and went on up a narrow thoroughfare toward the great church. CHAPTER IV. THE ART OF ROARING. "Damn me, I will be a roarer, or't shall cost me a fall."--_Amends for Ladies._ On the February morning when he rose from bed in the coal-house attached to the haunted dwelling in Foster Lane, Captain Ravenshaw waited about the yard for Moll Frith to return from her excursion of the night. When she appeared, he gave her back the key to the gate, and borrowed two angels from her. Armed with these, he bade her repent of her sins, and hastened to Cheapside, turning eastward with the purpose of finding out how and where his new friend, the scholar, fared in the hands of the law. Cheapside, which was in a double sense the Broadway of Elizabethan London, was already thronged with people going about their business, the shops and booths of the merchants being open, and the shopmen and 'prentices crying out their wares with the customary "What d'ye lack?" At the great conduit, the captain pushed his way through the crowd of jesting and quarrelling water-carriers who were filling their vessels, and washed his hands and face. Looking about for a means of drying himself, while the water dripped from his features, he espied a woman with a pitcher, to whom the uncouth water-carriers would not give place. The captain knocked several of them aside, gallantly took the woman by the hand, led her to the fountain, and enabled her to fill her pitcher. While she was doing this, he, with courteous gestures, took her kerchief from her head and dried himself therewith; after which he returned it with a bow so polite that, between her amazement and her sense of flattery, she could not find it in her to say a word against the proceeding. Going on his way refreshed, the captain suddenly met Master Holyday, who looked as unconcerned as if he had never been near a prison in his life. "What, lad, did not the watch take thee, then?" "Yes, faith, and kept me all night in a cage, where I think I have turned foul inside with the smell of stale tobacco smoke. I am come but now from the justice's hall." "Man, you've had a quick journey of it. By this light, you must have found money in those new clothes, and tickled the palm of a constable." "No; the justice might have sent me back to the stinking hole, for all the money I had to give anybody. When he asked me my name, I bethought me to reply, 'Sir Ralph Holyday;' which was no more than my right at Cambridge, when I became a graduate there. But, seeing me in these clothes instead of in black, the justice thought the 'Sir' was of knighthood, not of scholarship. And so he said he could make nothing out of the watchmen's stories, which agreed not. I then addressed him respectfully in Latin; and, lest it might be seen that he did not understand me, he got rid of me forthwith." "We'll drink his health--but not yet. While I have money to show, we'll bespeak lodgings, and so make sure of sleeping indoors, for a week o' nights, come what may. These clothes will get us curtseys and smiles from any hostess--except them that have already lodged me." "Ay, we are fine enough above the waist, but our poor legs and feet are sorry company for our upper halves." "Why, we must see to that when we meet our four asses again. Meanwhile our cloaks will cover us to the knees, and if we carry our heads high enough, nobody will dare look scornful at our feet. Remember, we are gallants while these clothes last; swaggering gallants, that give the wall to no man. And while we go seek lodgings, I'll tell thee how thou shalt earn thy share of these coxcombs' wastings. Hast ever travelled abroad?" "No," said the scholar, falling into the captain's stride as the pair went westward. "No matter. Thou hast read books of other countries, and heard travellers tell of foreign cities?" "Yes; I've read and heard much; and remembered some of it." "Then bear in mind, you are a great traveller. Your gentleman that hath not been abroad is counted a poor thing among gallants. Now these four silken gulls have never been out of England, and they look sheepish whene'er a travelled man talks of France or Italy in their company. They would give much to pass for travelled gallants; to talk of French fashions and Italian vices without exposing their inexperience. You shall instruct 'em, so they may fool others as you fool them. I'll broach the matter softly, and in such a way that they shall see the value of it. Thus, while you fill 'em up with tales of the foreign cities you have seen, we shall eat and drink at their cost. And so we shall hold 'em when they be tired of the swaggering lessons I mean to give 'em." "Well, I will do my best. What I don't know, I will e'en supply by invention. My stomach will inspire me, I trust." They took lodgings at the top of a house in St. Lawrence Lane, not far from its Cheapside end; and passed the time in walking about the streets till near noon, when they went to dinner at an ordinary where long tables were crowded with men of different degrees, who dined abundantly and cheaply. The two companions finally repaired to the Windmill tavern, where they had to wait an hour before their young gentlemen appeared. The four were now sober, and showed hardly as much relish in meeting the captain as he might have wished. They cast somewhat rueful glances at the clothes they had given away in their vinous generosity, and which they had now replaced with other articles suitable to their quality. They manifested no eagerness for lessons in swaggering, and seemed at first to have forgotten any understanding they may have formed with the captain in regard thereto. But Ravenshaw was prepared for this apathy. He took the risk of inviting the gentlemen to drink, and with the air of an accustomed host he bowed them into the room to which a tapster directed him. He trusted they would be of different mood when the time to pay the score should come. A little drinking, and a few of the captain's tales, warmed them up to some enthusiasm for his society; and in an hour he had them urging him to proceed straightway to their further education in the art of roaring. After some reluctance and some unwillingness to believe that their proposal of the previous night had been serious, he was persuaded to consent. With the faintest grimace of triumph, for the eyes of Master Holyday alone, who smoked a pipe temperately by the fire, he rose and began by illustrating how your true bully should "take the wall" of any man about to pass him in the street. The arras-hung partition of the room served as a street wall. The captain started at one end, Master Dauncey at the other. When the two met at the middle, the instructor enacted an elaborate scene of disputing the right to pass next the wall and so avoid the mud of the mid-street. He showed how to plant the feet, how to look fierce, how to finger the sword-hilt, what gestures to make; then what speeches to use, first of ironical courtesy, then of picturesque abuse, finally of daunting threat. Master Holyday, looking on from the fireplace, was amazed to see how much art could be displayed in what had ever seemed to him quite a simple matter. The captain went through every possible stage short of sword-thrusts; but there he stopped, saying that roaring ended where real fighting began. "If your man has not given way by this time," said he, "and you think he may be your better with the weapons, the next thing is to come gracefully out of the quarrel, by some jest or other shift. This is what many swaggering boys do, out of fear. When I do it myself, 'tis because I would avoid bloodshed, or out of mercy to my antagonist. But 'tis, in any case, a most important thing in the art of swaggering; I shall give examples of it in my next lesson." He then caused the gallants, in pairs, to go through such a scene as he had enacted. They made a foolish, perfunctory business of it at first, though he schooled them at every moment in attitude, gesture, or look, and supplied them with terms of revilement that made the scholar stare in admiration, and sanguinary threats before which a timid man might well tremble in his shoes. It would not do to carry his pupils too far forward at a step; he must keep them dependent upon him as long as possible. Nor was it safe to tire them with repetitions. So he put an end to the lesson in good time; and then, to hold them for the rest of the day, he set forth the possibility of their learning to pass as men that had travelled abroad. Master Holyday, while modestly admitting the extent of his wanderings in foreign countries, showed some disinclination to the task of imparting the observations he had made. "For, look ye," quoth he, "I once had a gossip whom I was wont to tell of things I had seen abroad. Like yourselves, he had never crossed the narrow seas; but by noting carefully my talk, he was able to make other people think he had travelled as far as I. There was one thing I had told him, which I had chanced to forget afterward. A dispute arose betwixt us one day, before company that knew not either of us well, touching certain customs in Venice. By my not mentioning the thing I had forgot, and by his parading it as a matter well known, which others in the company knew to be the case, I was made a laughing-stock, and he got reputation as a great traveller. And to this day he keeps that reputation, all at my expense." This ingenious speech brought the desired insistence; and that very afternoon was begun, at Antwerp, an imaginary journey through the chief cities of Europe, in which were seen many things more astonishing than any foreign traveller had ever observed before. It took several evenings to go through Flanders and France, and would have taken more, but that, after the gallants had satisfied their curiosity regarding Paris, they were in haste to arrive in Italy as soon as might be. Italy was then the great playground of English travellers; the fashions came from there, so did the inspiration to art and literature; the French got their cookery and their vices from Italy; the English imported some of the vices, but not the cookery. While the scholar led his four charges from city to city by routes often unusual and sometimes impossible, Captain Ravenshaw conducted them stage by stage toward proficiency in swaggering. He showed them how differently to bully their betters, their equals, their inferiors; how to bully before company, how without witnesses, how in the presence of ladies; how to overbear in every situation, from a simple jostle in the street to a dispute about a woman; how to meet a contradiction in argument, how to give and receive every degree of the lie, how to intimidate a winner out of the stakes at a gaming-table; and finally how, when the opponent was not to be talked down, either to slip out of a fight or to carry one through. The progress of the four would-be bullies in their fireside travels, and their swaggering education, was accompanied by further improvement in the dress of their instructors. At last the soldier and his friend were able to go clad in breeches, stockings, shoes, shirts, ruffs, and gloves, quite worthy of the cloaks, doublets, and hats they had previously received. The four young gentlemen were now eager to try their new accomplishments about the town. The captain postponed the test as long as he could; but finally their impatience was so peremptory that he had to consent. Now the captain knew that if his four apes should make a failure of their first attempt at swaggering, his favour with them were swiftly ruined; conversely, a success would warrant his demanding a substantial reward in money. Thus far his only payment, and Master Holyday's likewise, had been in the shape of dinners, suppers, tobacco, and clothes. The two had been compelled, from time to time, to put off payment for their lodgings, and to temporise with their laundress; and now their hostess's face wore a more and more inquiring look each morning as they went out. Ravenshaw had, it was true, obtained a little coin in the card-playing and dicing, by means of which he had illustrated to his pupils the uses of roaring in those pastimes. But this amount, small enough, he decided to lay out in ensuring the desired success of his coxcombs in their first bullying exhibition. He therefore made a sudden and secret excursion to the suburbs beyond Newgate. After searching the lower taverns and ale-houses about Holborn and Smithfield, he found, in a cookshop in Pye Corner, a man with whom he forthwith entered into negotiation. This man was a burly, middle-aged fellow, with a broken nose, a scarred cheek, a sullen attitude, and a husky voice. While he talked, he frequently spat in the rushes that covered the floor; and now and again he would finish a remark with the words, added without the least sense, "And that's the hell of it." He wore a dirty leather jerkin over other clothes, and his attire was little better than Ravenshaw's had been before his change of fortune. After some talk, Captain Ravenshaw handed over some money to this man, promised a further sum upon the issue of the business, received the bravo's assurance that all should go well, and hastened back alone to meet his companions at the sign of the Windmill. It was evening when the party sallied forth, the four coxcombs as keen for riot as ever was a colt for kicking up heels in a field. They would have barred the street against the first comers, or sought a brawl in the first tavern, but that Ravenshaw bade them save their mettle for adversaries worthy of their schooling. "I mean to pit ye 'gainst the first roarers of the suburbs," said he. "Nothing short of the kings of Turnbull Street shall suffice ye, lads. What think ye of Cutting Tom himself? I know where he and his comrades take their supper nowadays. Save your breath for such; an ye roar them down in their own haunts, it shall be heard of. Waste no wind upon citizens or spruce gallants. Strike high, win supremacy at the first trial, and you are made men." With such counsel he restrained them until he had led them through Smithfield to Cow Cross, near the town's edge. Like a bent arm, lying northwestward along the fields toward Clerkenwell, was the narrow lane of ramshackle houses called Turnbull Street. Leaving his followers, the captain went into one of these houses. He soon came back. "'Tis excellent," said he. "Cutting Tom and his friends are in the front room at the top o' the stairs. They are feasting it with the hostess and some of her gossips. You four shall go up and claim the room by right of superior quality. Master Holyday and I will stay below in talk with the bar-boy so they sha'n't know I'm with you; but if need be, call me." "Nay, we shall want no help," said Master Maylands; but the quaver of his voice belied his show of confidence. "'Tis well," replied Ravenshaw. "A rare thing to roar these braggarts from their own table, before the womankind of their own acquaintance! Come." A minute later the four sparks, huddled close together, and with white faces, thrust themselves into an ill-plastered room where four villainous-looking fellows and as many painted women sat at table. These people suddenly ceased their loud talk and coarse laughter, and one of them,--the broken-nosed rascal with whom Ravenshaw had that day conversed in the cook-shop--demanded thunderously: "Death and furies! Who the devil be these?" "Your betters, bottle-ale rogue!" cried Maylands, somewhat shrilly, and like an actor in a play. "Betters!" bellowed the broken-nosed man, rising to his feet. "Plagues, curses, and damnations! Does the dog live that says 'betters' to me? I am called Cutting Tom, thou bubble!--Cutting Tom, and that's the hell of it!" "An you be called Cutting Tom," replied Maylands, taking a little courage from the sound of his own voice, "'tis plain you are called so for the cuts you have received, not given. The wounds in your dirty face come not from war, but from bottles thrown by hostesses you've cheated. Out of this room, dog-face!--you and your scurvy crew. 'Twould take a forest of juniper to sweeten the place while you're in it. You are not fit for the presence of such handsome ladies." "A gentleman of spirit," whispered one of the ladies, audibly. "What, thou froth, thou vapour, thou fume!" roared Cutting Tom. "Avaunt! ere I stick you with my dagger and hang you up by the love-lock at a butcher's stall for veal." "Hence, thou slave," retorted Maylands, "thou pick-purse, thou horse-stealer, thou contamination, thou conglomeration of all plagues--!" "Thou bundle of refuse!" put in Master Hawes. "Thou heap of mud!" added Master Dauncey. "Thou filth out of the street-ditch!" cried Master Clarington. Meanwhile the women had scampered to the fireplace for safety. Cutting Tom's three comrades had found their feet, and they now joined their voices to his in a chorus of abuse, defiance, and threat; they beat the table fearsomely with their sheathed swords. In turn, the young gentlemen half-drew their blades and then pushed them violently back again, and trod angrily upon the rushes. Cutting Tom's party had all got to that side of the table farther from the door. The four intruders therefore advanced to the table, and with terrible words belaboured their adversaries across it. "A step more," cried Cutting Tom, banging his sword handle upon the table, "and I'll spit ye!" "And roast ye after at the fire!" said one of his men. The gallants showed that they could rattle their hilts upon the innocent board as fiercely. "Out of the room," shouted Maylands, "ere we pin ye to the wall and set dogs on ye!" This was but the beginning of the contest, which soon attained a scurrility too shocking, not for Elizabethan ears, but for these pages. Meanwhile, Ravenshaw and Holyday waited below. At last a noise was heard in the passage above, and the four ill-favoured fellows came bounding down the stairs. Three of them left the house at once, but Cutting Tom, seeing that the gallants did not follow, stopped to whisper with the captain. "'Twas good as a play," quoth he. "We held our own awhile, as you bade. Then we let 'em overbear us, and at last we feigned such fear they said they'd e'en make us tie their shoes. 'They're tied already,' quoth I. 'Then untie 'em,' said they. We untied 'em; and then they'd have us depart a-crawling on our hands and knees; and so we left 'em, on all fours; and that's the hell of it! I thought the women would have burst a-laughing." "Here's the rest of the money," said Ravenshaw, parting with his last coin. "Now vanish, and come not here again this night, or you'll have me to answer!" Cutting Tom examined the money by the candle-light, and went his way with a grunt. "So far, good," said Ravenshaw, chuckling. "Our young cocks will think themselves the prime swaggerers of Christendom." "Until they come upon the truth," said Holyday. "The next men they meet, they'll be for bullying; and then they're not like to come off as well." "But they shall meet no men this night. The ladies above will keep 'em here till they be too sleepy with wine for any desire of roaring. We'll see 'em safe home, and to-morrow at dinner I'll ply 'em for a fat remuneration. When that's in our pockets, they may learn the truth and go hang. We'll hire a page to attend us, and we'll live like gentlemen. We're lucky to have found 'em constant so long. Come; we'll up to them, as if we happened in." "Nay, not I, where there be women." "Oh, plague, man, you'll not be long bashful afore these trollops!" And he pulled the unwilling scholar after him by the arm. CHAPTER V. PENNILESS COMPANIONS.   "I walk in great danger of small debts. I owe money to several   hostesses."--_The Puritan._ The next day, after dinner, finding the four dupes as much puffed up with imagined valour as he had hoped, Ravenshaw put forward the matter of a fit reward. That they might more freely consider, he left them for half an hour, taking Holyday with him. "Troth," began Master Hawes, when the four were alone, "I think we have bestowed somewhat already upon these two. If they are pressed for money, why don't they pawn some of the clothes we've given 'em?" "They consider they must be well clad to go in our company," said Clarington. "If it comes to that," said Maylands, "we can dispense with 'em. We roared down this Cutting Tom and his Turnbull rangers, why should we be still beholden to this captain?" "And we've learned as much of t'other one's travels as we're like to remember," added Dauncey. "Let them go hang for any more gifts!" said Maylands. "Will you tell them so?" queried Hawes. "Faith, yes! An we can roar down four Turnbull rangers, can we not roar down this one captain? He has taught us all he knows himself." "Yet I would not have him think us stingy," said Hawes, who, as he was stingy, was sensitive as to being thought so. "Why, look you," replied Maylands. "When they come back, I'll say we'll satisfy 'em, touching a gift of money, ere the day be done. Then, presently, we'll find some occasion in their talk for a quarrel. Thereupon, we'll roar 'em down, and so break with 'em." The occasion arrived when Master Holyday was in the midst of a wonderfully imagined tale of travel. He told how he had escaped from Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean, and swum ashore to the harbour of--Fez! "What, man?" broke in Master Clarington. "Fez is not on the seacoast." "Most certainly it is," said the scholar, imperturbably. "'Tis not. I had an uncle, a merchant adventurer, was there once. He had to journey far inland." "Oh, ay," said Holyday, a little staggered; "the city of Fez is inland, but the country borders on the sea. 'Twas that I meant." "Nay, you spoke of the harbour; you must have meant the city." "Tush, tush!" put in Ravenshaw, anxious to keep up the scholar's credit. "He meant the country; a fool could see that." "Ay, truly," said Master Maylands, "a fool; but none else." "I'll thank you for better manners," said Ravenshaw, sharply. "Manners, thou braggart!" cried Maylands, seizing his opportunity. "Thou sponge, thou receptacle of cast clothing! Talk you of manners?" "What!--what!--what!--what!" was all the answer the amazed captain could make for the moment. "Ay, manners, thou base, scurvy knave; thou houseless parasite, thou resuscitated starveling!--thou and thy hungry scholar!" put in Master Hawes. "Oho! 'Tis thus? Ye think to try my swaggering lessons against me?" said the captain, springing to his feet. "Pish! You are no better than Cutting Tom," retorted Maylands. Ravenshaw's wrath knew no bounds. The four rebellious pupils and providers were on their feet, defiant and impudent. "You'd raise your weak breath against me, would ye? And you'd finger your sword-hilts, would ye?" he roared. "By this hand, ye shall draw them, too! Draw, and fend your numbskulls 'gainst the whacks I'll give 'em! Draw, and save your puny shoulders! I scorn to use good steel against ye, dunces, lispers, puppies! I'll rout ye with a spit!" They had drawn swords at his word, thinking he would wield his rapier against them. But, as it was, they had an ill time enough to defend themselves against the spit he had seized from the fireplace. Nimbly he knocked aside their blades, violently he charged among them, swiftly he laid about him on pates and bodies; so that in small time they fled, appalled and panic-stricken, not only from the room, but down the stairs. The captain did not take the trouble to follow them beyond the doorsill of the room. "Hang them, bubbles!" quoth he. "They shall come on their knees and lick my shoes, ere I'll take 'em back to favour again." But the scholar philosophically shrugged his shoulders. To make matters worse, as the two were about to leave the tavern, they were called upon to pay the score. Ravenshaw said the young gentlemen would pay, as usual. "Nay," said the hostess, "they went away cursing my tavern, and saying they would never come near it again. 'Twas you ordered, and I look to you to pay. 'Tis bad enough an you drive good customers from my house, and give it a bad name with your swaggering." "Peace, peace, sweetheart. We have no money to pay; there's not a groat between us." "Then you have clothes to pawn. I'll have my money, or I'll enter an action. So look to't, or, by this light, ye'll find yourselves in prison, I swear to ye!" The two unfortunates fled from her tongue, down the Old Jewry. It rains not but it pours; and when they reached their lodgings in St. Lawrence Lane they were confronted by the woman of the house, whose distrust had been brought to a head by their absence the previous night. She must have her money; let them go less bravely clad, and pay their honest debts, else they had best beware of sheriff's officers. When they were alone in their room, Holyday was for selling their fine clothes. "Never, never!" said Ravenshaw. "If we cannot make our fortunes in fine clothes, how shall we do it in rags? Though we go penniless, while we look gallant we shall be relied upon. Some enterprise will fall our way."