Complete Works of Howard Pyle

by Howard Pyle

  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 wel
l 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.”

  The next morning they rose before their hostess, and took leave of her house without troubling her with farewells. They found new quarters in a shoemaker’s house in St. Martin’s-le-Grand, and avoided their old haunts for fear of arrest.

  The question of meals now grew difficult. Ravenshaw had become so well known that possible adversaries at the gaming-tables shunned him. What little credit he could still compass at ordinaries and taverns soon prepared the way for new threats of arrest. Sometimes the two companions contrived to eat once a day, sometimes once in two days. After a time, the captain agreed that Holyday might barter his clothes. The scholar speedily appeared in a suit of modest black, as if he were his gallant companion’s secretary; and for awhile the two feasted daily. But anon they were penniless again, and went hungry. The captain swore he would not part with his fine raiment; though he should starve, it would be as a swaggering gallant still.

  No Lent was ever better kept than was the latter part of that year’s Lent (though to no profit of the fishmongers) by those two undone men. Their cheeks became hollow, their bellies sank inward, they could feel their ribs when they passed their hands over their chests. They went feverish and gaunt, with parched mouths and griped stomachs. As hunger gnawed him, and the fear of sheriff’s officers beset him at every corner, and hope grew feeble within him, the captain became subject to alternations of grim resignation and futile rage. The scholar starved with serenity, as became a master of the liberal arts, being visited in his sleep by dreams of glorious banquets, upon which in his waking hours he made sonnets.

  In May the patience of the shoemaker in St. Martin’s-le-Grand was exhausted, and the two penniless men had other lodgings to seek.

  They spent much of their time now in St. Paul’s Church. Here employment was like to offer, and here was comparative safety from arrest, certain parts of the church being held sanctuary for debtors. To St. Paul’s, therefore, they went on the morning that found them again roofless; keeping a lookout on the way thither for any sheriff’s men who might with warrant be in quest of them. It was fortunate that none waylaid them, for the captain was in such mood that he would have gone near slaying any that had. Neither he nor Holyday had eaten for two days.

  They took their station against a pillar in the middle aisle of the great church, and watched with sharp eyes the many-coloured crowd of men, of every grade from silken gallants to burden-bearing porters, that passed up and down before them, making a ceaseless noise of footfalls and voices, and sometimes giving the pair scant room for their famished bodies.

  The St. Paul’s of that time was larger than the present cathedral. It covered three and a half acres, and was proportionately lofty. Thanks to its great doors and wide aisles, it afforded a short way through for those foot-goers in whose route it lay, — porters, labourers, and citizens going about their business. But its wide aisles served better still as a covered lounging-place for thos
e on whose hands time hung heavy, — gentlemen of fashion, men who lived by their wits, fellows who sought service, and the like. These were the true “Paul’s walkers.” It was a meeting-place, too, for those who had miscellaneous business to transact; a great resort for the exchange of news, in a day when newspapers did not exist. Certain of the huge pillars supporting the groined arches of the roof were used to post advertising bills upon. The services, in which a very fine organ and other instruments were employed, were usually held in the choir only, and the crowd in the nave and transepts did not much disturb itself on account of them. The time of most resort was the hour before the midday dinner; and it was then that Ravenshaw and Holyday took their stand before the pillar on this May morning.

  “There walks a poet that hath found a patron,” said the scholar. “Yet ’tis ten to one the verses he is showing are no better than these sonnets in my breeches pocket here.”

  “If you had a capon’s leg or two in your breeches pocket it were more to the purpose,” replied the captain.

  “‘Troth, my sonnets are full of capon’s legs and all other things good to eat,” sighed Holyday. “I’ve conceived rare dishes lately; I have writ of nothing else.”

  “If we could but eat the dishes out of thy sonnets!” muttered Ravenshaw. “How can you write sonnets while you are hungry?”

  “Why, your born poet finds discomfort a spur. There was the prophet Jonas writ a sonnet in the whale’s belly.”

  “Faith, I’d rather undertake to write one with a whale in my belly! I feel room for a whale there. Who the devil comes here?”