by Howard Pyle
“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 peop
le 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.