Captain Ravenshaw 6

Captain Ravenshaw 6

So soft and urbane had Master Jerningham suddenly grown, so tender and courteous was his voice, so sweet a smile had transformed his melancholy face, that the captain was disarmed. All the gentleman in Ravenshaw seemed to be touched by the other's manner; he would have felt graceless and churlish to resist. "If the business be one that goes less against my stomach, I will show my thanks in it," said he, in conciliated tones. "'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. "What cheer now?" queried Tom. "Fighting to be done? or coney-catching? You know I'm your man through sea-water and hell-fire, for a brace of angels or so." "I have a small matter afoot to-morrow night," replied Ravenshaw, gruffly, "wherein I can employ a man like you, and three or four under him." "Troth!" said Tom, becoming consequential, "I have some affairs of my own to-morrow night, and that's the hell of it." "Then good night to you!" "Oh, stay, captain!--I had some slight business; but to serve you, captain--" "You bottle-ale rogue, think not to cozen me into a higher price. Affairs of your own!--no more of that. Shall we deal, or no?" "Oh, I am all yours, captain. For you, I would put myself out any day. Say on." "Then you are first to raise four stout fellows whom you can trust as you do your false dice or your right hand." "They are near. Trust me for 'em." "At sunset to-morrow, you and your men, all well armed, and furnished with lights, be in waiting before the White Horse tavern in Friday Street,--that is to say, loitering in a manner not to make people inquisitive. There will come to you anon a young gentleman--with a young woman. The gentleman is one you have seen. He was with me the night you turned tail to those counterfeit roaring boys." "I have seen him with you since,--a lean, clerkly man." "Ay; and he and the maid will pass the White Horse tavern, as soon after sunset as may be. Now, be sure you mistake not the man,--it may be nightfall ere they come." "Never fear. I am a man of darkness. Mine eyes are an old tom-cat's." "Without stopping them, you and your men will close around the couple as a guard, and accompany where the gentleman shall direct. If any pursue, or try to molest them, you are to defend, and help their flight, at all risks. But they are not like to be sought for till they are out of London. They will take to the water at Queenhithe, and you five with them, all in the same boat. And so down the river with the tide, how many miles I know not exactly, till you land, upon the Kentish side. The gentleman will give orders where." "This should be worth ten pound, at the least, so far," said Cutting Tom, musingly, as if to himself. "You will not get ten pounds at the most, and yet you will go farther," replied Ravenshaw, curtly. "After you are put ashore, will come your chief service, which is to protect my gentleman and maid to their destination inland. How far this journey will be, I am not sure, but 'twill be some walking, through woods and by lonely ways, and by night; and you are to guard them against the dangers and fears of the way, that is all. When they come to the place they are bound for, they will dismiss you, and you may fare home to London as you choose." "Why, beshrew my body! 'tis an all-night business, then." "It should be over something after midnight, if begun early and well sped; I count not the time of your return to London. And look you: I am not to be named in the affair, that is of the first import. If the lady knew--well, in short, I am not to be named. The lady is not to know of my hand in it; if she did all would go wrong, and I should make you sorry." "I will remember. This should be worth, now, fifteen pound, at the smallest. I shall have to pay the men--" "You can pay them a pound apiece, and have two pounds for yourself. That will be six pounds." "Oh, jest not, I pray you! Ten pound and there's an end on't." After some discussion, they met each other at eight pounds. Then arose another question. "Since you are not to appear in the affair," said Cutting Tom, "and I know not the other gentleman save by sight, it behooves that you pay before we set forth." "Half ere you set forth," conceded the captain, knowing his man, "half when the work is done." "Then will the gentleman pay me the second half when we are at his destination?" "No. He will have no money with him. I would not put you in temptation upon the journey, or afterward. Though I shall not appear in the matter, I shall pay." He thought for a moment. It was safest that Cutting Tom should know him alone as master, deal with him alone where gold was to be handled, and yet that he should not pay the first money till the last possible moment before leaving London. Finally he said: "For the first four pounds, thus: to-morrow, at fifteen minutes before noon, no later, be at the hither end of London Bridge; I will meet you there and pay. For the other four pounds, thus: when the journey is finished, pass the rest of the night at the gentleman's destination,--he shall find you room in some stable-loft, or such,--and there I will come the next day with the gold, for I shall be in that neighbourhood." Cutting Tom grumbled a little; but Ravenshaw, after applying to him a few terms designed to make him think no better of himself, threatened to employ another man, and so brought him to agreement. The details having been repeated for the sake of accuracy, the captain left the place, and Tom returned to his amusements. Ravenshaw's concern now was to raise the promised eight pounds and such other money as would be required in the exploit. He must needs bestir himself. At this late hour there was not time for any elaborate enterprise. Some bold, shrewd stroke must serve him. But might he expect to perform such a wonder now, when he had not been able to perform one, even at the pressure of dire want, during the past weeks? Yes; for he had the stimulus of a new motive; and the very shortness of the time at his disposal would put an edge to his wit, and sharpen his sight to opportunities to which he would commonly be blind. The manifest thing to do first was to stake his few shillings at cards or dice. He entered the nearest dice-house; but here he was well known and no player would engage with him. He went into another place, where most of the gamesters were men from the country, whom a few hardened rooks of the town were fleecing. Here the captain got to work with the bones; but, as the dice were true, he soon, to his consternation, lost his last sixpence. In a desperate desire of getting some silver back in order to try for better luck elsewhere, he raised a howl of having been cheated with loaded dice, and proceeded to roar terror into his opponent. But the latter, frightened out of his wits, took bodily flight, and, though Ravenshaw pursued him out of the house, succeeded in losing himself in the darkness of Snow Hill. What was the captain now to do? For a moment he thought of taking his stand on Holborn bridge, and crying "Deliver!" to the first belated person who might be supposed to carry a fat purse. But there would be danger in that course, danger to his purpose, and he dared not risk that purpose as he would risk his own neck. He bethought himself with bitterness that there was not a human being in London, or in the world, who would lend him half the needed sum, to save his soul. Nerved by the reflection, he strode forward and swaggered into a tavern on the north side of Holborn, the door of which had just opened to let out three hilarious inns-of-court men who came forth singing:   "For three merry men, and three merry men,     And three merry men we be." He looked in at each open chamber door, and listened at each closed one. Neither eating, nor drinking, nor smoking, nor the music of begging fiddlers, had any attraction for him this time. But at last he came to a large upper room wherein money was passing, for he could hear the rattle of dice and the soft chink of gold amidst the exclamations of men, the voices of women, and the scraping of a couple of violins. Without knocking, he boldly flung open the door, and entered. Candles were plentiful in the room, which was hung with painted cloth. On a long table were the remains of a supper; at one end of this table the cloth had been turned back, and three gentlemen were throwing dice upon the bare oak. At the other part of the table sat two women, with painted cheeks and gorgeous gowns, and a fourth gentleman. Upon the window-seat were two vagabond-looking fellows a-fiddling. The women were dividing their attention between the gamesters and a lean greyhound, for which they would toss occasionally a bit of food into the air. Before each of the women there was a little pile of gold, to which her particular gamester would add or resort, as he won or lost. All this the captain took in with sharp eyes ere any one did him the honour to challenge his entrance with a look. "Oh, your pardon!" quoth he, when at last these people showed a kind of careless, insolent surprise at his presence. "I thought to find friends here; I have mistaken the room." But instead of withdrawing he stepped forward, his glance playing between the dice and the gold. "Oh, Jesu!" said one of the women, a great lazy blonde, with splendid eyes, and a slow voice; "'tis that swaggering filthy rascal Ravenshaw, with his beard cut off." "'Tis Samson shorn of his strength, then!" said the other woman, a little, Spanish-looking, brown beauty, who spoke in quick, shrill tones. She was dressed in brown velvet and scarlet satin. One of her hands lay in the ardent clasp of a large gentleman, who, with his own free hand, held the dice-box. He was handsome and simple-looking, and he now broke into loud laughter at her jest. "'Twould have needed a handsomer Delilah than any here, to do the shearing," said the captain, rudely. Having been a hater of women, he had been wont to treat this kind with caustic raillery. The large gallant roared at this, and said, "Faith, ladies, you brought that on yourselves!" But one of the other two gamesters, a lean, fox-faced, eager-looking little man, he whose pile of winnings lay before the indolent blonde, frowned with resentment on her behalf. First his frown was directed at Ravenshaw; but, deeming it prudent to aim it elsewhere, he turned it upon the large gentleman, saying: "Your mirth is easily stirred, Master Burney." The brunette shot a look of anger at the speaker for the offensive tone he used toward her gallant. The blonde noticed this, and took the little gentleman's hand in hers, to show where her allegiance lay; and then she drawled out, with a motion which might have come to a shrug of horror had she not been too lazy to finish it: "Oh, God! I pity Delilah, the poor woman, if her Samson was such a bottle-ale rogue as this beast!" Master Burney laughed at this sally, and somewhat reinstated himself in the favour of the little gallant. Ravenshaw bowed low. "I salute your most keen, subtle, elegant, biting wit, Lady Greensleeves! It cuts; oh, it cuts!" "'Lady Greensleeves!' Ho, ho, ho!" bawled Master Burney, and forthwith essayed to sing, with a tunelessness the worse for the opposition of the fiddlers, some lines of the familiar ballad:     "Greensleeves was all my joy,     Greensleeves was my delight;     Greensleeves was my heart of gold,     And who but Lady Greensleeves?" The point of the nickname lay in the fact that the pink silk gown which encased the large, shapely figure of the lady--a gown so cut as to reveal an ample surface of bust--was fitted with sleeves of light green. "Christ! what caterwauling!" quoth Lady Greensleeves, with a smile, not ill-naturedly. "'Tis not as bad as his laughing, at worst," said her gallant. "What is amiss with his laughing?" spoke up the brunette, pressing Master Burney's hand the more tightly. "Oh," replied the little gallant, "I find no fault that he laughs; but 'tis the manner of his laugh. If he but laughed like a Christian, I should not mind. But he laughs like a--like a--" "Like a what?" persisted the brunette, defiantly. "Like a pig," said Lady Greensleeves, placidly. The brunette's eyes flashed at the fair woman, but the latter's amiable, half-smiling look disarmed wrath, or seemed to put it in the wrong, and so for a moment nobody spoke. Meanwhile Ravenshaw had made these swift deductions: Here was one gentleman prone to laugh at anything; there was another gentleman quick to take offence at that laughter if it was directed against his mistress; neither gentleman was afraid of the other, but both were afraid of Ravenshaw, whose name gave him a fine isolation, making it as hard for him to find adversaries in fight as in gaming; and each gentleman was adored by his lady. In a flash, the captain saw what might be made out of the situation. "How is it you knew who I was, Lady Greensleeves?" he asked. "I think, if I had ever met you, I should have remembered you." "Oh, lord! I would not for a thousand pound rub against all the scurvy stuff that's in your memory! I was in Paris Garden the day you killed the bear that got loose among the people, and that is how I learned who you were. And oft since then I have seen you hanging about tavern doors, as I have gone about the town in my coach. I think I have seen you at prison windows, hanging down a box for pennies, but I'm not sure." This time Master Burney's laugh was upon the captain, and all joined in it. "No doubt," said Ravenshaw; "and I think you once put a penny in the box, but when I drew it up I found it was a bad one." "Troth, then," she said, "here's a good coin to make up for it." And she took up the smallest piece of gold from the pile in front of her, and threw it toward him. "Take it, and buy stale prunes to keep up your stale valour!" "Nay," he retorted, throwing it back; "keep it, and buy stale paint to keep up your stale beauty!"