Captain Ravenshaw; Or, The Maid of Cheapside. A Romance of Elizabethan London. Robert Neilson Stephens
of blame that would have followed when my wife had heard of it. You must know, sirs, I am a country gentleman, and I am not known to be in London; my detention would be noised about, and when it reached my wife's ears – 'sfoot, sirs, I am for ever your debtor in thankfulness!" And he looked his meaning most fervently.
"Why did the watch take you up?" inquired the captain.
"Why, for nothing but being abroad in the streets. The plaguey rascals said I was a night-walker, and that I behaved suspiciously. I did nothing but stand and wait at the Standard yonder, for one I had agreed to meet; but when I saw the watch coming I stepped back, to be out of their lantern-light. This stepping back, they said, proved I was a rogue; and so they clapped hands on me, and fetched me along. But now I bethink me, sirs: the person I was to meet – what will she do an she find me not at the place?" The old gentleman showed a reawakened distress, and, turning toward the direction whence the watch had brought him, looked wistfully and yet reluctantly into the darkness.
"Oho! She!" quoth the captain. "No wonder your wife – "
"Nay, think no harm, I beg. Nay, nay, good sirs! Sure, 'tis an evil-thinking world. Well, I must e'en bid ye good night, and leave ye my best thanks. Would I might some day repay you this courtesy. My name, sirs – but no, an ye'll pardon me, I durst not; the very stones might hear it, and report I was in London. But if I might know – "
"Surely. We have no wives in the country, that we must keep our doings from, have we, boys? And we are free of the streets of London, aren't we, boys? My name, sir, is Ravenshaw – Captain Ravenshaw; and this gentleman – "
He was about to introduce his companions by the names of great persons of the court, when, casting his eyes over the group for the first time since the link-boys had come up with their torches, he was suddenly otherwise concerned.
"Why, where's Master Holyday? Where the devil's our scholar?"
The gallants looked from one to another, and then peered into the surrounding darkness, but saw no one; nor came any answer to the captain's shout, "What ho, Holyday! Hollo, hollo!"
"An't please you," spoke up one of the link-boys, "while we waited yonder, the watchmen ran past us; and methought two of them dragged a man along between them; but 'twas so dark, and they went so fast – "
"Marry, that's how the wind lies," cried the captain. "Gallants, here's more business of a roaring nature. A rescue! Come, the hunt is up! To the cage, boys! We may catch 'em on the way."
Without more ado, Ravenshaw led his followers, link-boys and all, on a run toward the Poultry, leaving the grateful old gentleman in the darkness and to his own devices.
They hastened to the night-watch prison, but overtook no one on the way; it was clear that the watchmen had made themselves and their prisoner safe behind doors. An attack on the prison would have been a more serious business than the captain could see any profit in. So, abandoning the luckless scholar to the course of the law, the night-disturbers made their way back to Cheapside, wondering what riotous business they might be about next.
"What asses are these!" thought the captain. "They have warm beds to go to, yet they rather wear out their soles upon the streets in search of trouble. Well, it helps me pass the night, and I am every way the gainer by it; so if puppies must needs learn to play the lion, may they have no worse teacher."
When they came to the Standard, that ancient stone structure rising in the middle of the street, they walked around it to see if the old gentleman was there; but the place was deserted.
"Here were a matter to wager upon, now," observed the captain: "Whether he met his mistress after all and bore her away, or whether he found her not and went wisely to bed."
A few steps farther brought the strollers opposite the mouth of Bread Street. The sound of men's voices came from within this narrow thoroughfare.
"Marry, here be other fellows abroad," quoth the captain. "How if we should 'light upon occasion for a brawl? Then we should see if we could put them down with big words. Come, lads."
They turned into the narrow street and proceeded toward a group whose four or five dark figures were indistinctly marked in the flickering glare of a single torch. This group appeared to be circled about a closed doorway opposite All-hallows Church, at the farther corner of Watling Street, in which doorway stood the object of its attention.
"Some drunken drab o' the streets, belike," said the captain, in a low voice, to his followers. "We'll feign to know her, and we'll call ourselves her friends; that will put us on brawling terms with those gentlemen. They are gallants, sure, by their cloaks and feathers."
The gentlemen were, it seemed, too disdainful of harm to interrupt their mirth by looking to see who came toward them. The heartless amusement on their faces, the tormenting tone of the jesting words they spoke, gave an impression somewhat like that of a pack of dogs surrounding a helpless animal which they dare not attack, but which they entertain themselves by teasing.
The captain stepped unchallenged into the little circle, and looked at the person shrinking in the doorway, who was quite visible in the torchlight.
"'Slight!" quoth the captain. "This is no trull; 'tis a young gentlewoman."
His surprise was so great as to make him for the moment forget the plan he had formed of precipitating a quarrel. The young gentlewoman looked very young indeed, and very gentle, being of a slight figure, and having a delicate face. She leaned close against the door, at which she had, as it seemed, put herself at bay. Her face, still wet with tears, retained something of the distortion of weeping, but was nevertheless charming. Her eyes, yet moist, were like violets on which rain had fallen. Her lips had not ceased to quiver with the emotion which had started her tears. Her hair, which was of a light brown, was in some disorder, partly from the wind; for the hood of the brown cloak she wore had been pulled back. It might easily be guessed who had pulled it, for the gentleman who stood nearest her, clad in velvet, and by whose behaviour the others seemed to be guided, held in his hand a little black mask, which he must have plucked from the girl's face.
This gentleman was tall, nobly formed, and of a magnificent appearance. His features were ruddy, bold, and cut in straight lines. He wore silken black moustaches, and a small black beard trimmed to two points.
At the captain's words, this gentleman looked around, took full note of the speaker in a brief glance, and scarce dropping his smile, – a smile careless and serene, of heartless humour, – said, calmly:
"Stand back, knave; she is not for your eyes."
The captain had already thought of the inequality between this fragile damsel and her persecutors; despite his account against womankind, her looks and attitude had struck within him a note of compassion; and now her chief tormentor had called him a knave. He remembered the purpose with which he had arrived upon the scene.
"Knave in your teeth, thou villain, thou grinning Lucifer, thou – thou – !" The captain was at a loss for some word of revilement that might be used against so fine a gentleman without seeming ridiculously misapplied. "Thou beater of the streets for stray fawns, thou frighter of delicate wenches!"
"Why, what motley is this?" replied the velvet gallant. "What mummer that is whole-clad above the girdle, and rags below? what mongrel, what patch, what filthy beggar in a stolen cloak? Avaunt, thing!"
The gentleman grasped the gilded hilt of his rapier, as if to enforce his command if need be.
"Ay, draw, and come on!" roared the captain. "You'll find me your teacher in that."
At the same moment a restraining clutch was put upon the gentleman's sleeve by one of his companions, who now muttered some quick words of prudence in his ear. Whether it was due to this, or to the captain's excellent flourish in unsheathing, he of the double-pointed beard paused in the very movement of drawing his weapon, and a moment later slid the steel back into its velvet scabbard. In his desistance from a violent course, there was evidently some consideration private to himself and his friend, some secret motive for the avoidance of a brawl.
"Say you so?" quoth the gentleman, blandly, as if no untoward words had passed. "Well, if you can be my teacher, you must be as good a rapier-and-dagger man as any in the kingdom,