by Howard Pyle
While Sir Peregrine was entertaining Mistress Etheridge with a minute account of how he had once cured himself of a calenture, Millicent suddenly asked:
“What is the posy in your wedding-ring, Master Holyday?”
The scholar screwed up his eyes to see the rhyme traced within the circlet.
“Nay, let me look,” she demanded, impatiently. “I have better eyes, I trow.”
He handed her the ring; she walked to the window, to examine it in good light; the casement was open, to let in the soft May air. Suddenly she turned to the others, with a cry:
“Mercy on me! I have dropped Master Holyday’s ring into the street.”
“Oh, thou madcap child!” exclaimed Mistress Etheridge.
“Oh, ’tis nothing,” said Holyday, confusedly, not yet seeing his way. “I can soon find it.”
“Nay, I saw where it fell,” said Millicent, quickly. “’Tis right I fetch it back.”
Ere any one could say nay, she ran from the room. Holyday, understanding, called out, “Nay, trouble not yourself!” and hastened after her as if to forestall her in recovering the ring. He was upon the stairs in time to see that she went out, not through the shop, but through the door from the passage into Friday Street. He followed, wondering what Ravenshaw would think on seeing the two. When they came into Cheapside she began to search a little at one side of the open shop-front, so as not to be seen from within. Glancing up, however, Holyday saw that Mistress Etheridge and Sir Peregrine were looking down from the window above. He dared not turn his eyes toward the cross, for fear of meeting those of Ravenshaw. Both he and the maid searched the cobble paving, within whispering space of each other.
“’Tis safe in my hand,” she said; “so we may be as long finding it as need be. What mean you with this talk of a maid’s uncle?”
“I mean thine Uncle Bartlemy,” said he, heartened up at the easy turn his task had taken. “He sent me to save you from wedding this old knight. The only escape is by wedding me instead. If you are willing, be at your garden gate in Friday Street this nightfall, ready for a journey by boat. The rest is in my hands.”
Thank Heaven, she reflected, it needed but a word from her to settle the matter. She could have swooned for joy at the unexpected prospect of escape. But she was not flattered by this young stranger’s unloverlike manner. The word could wait a moment.
“What, does my uncle think I will take the first husband he sends, and go straight to marriage without even a wooing beforehand?”
“Why,” said Holyday, thrown back into his agitation, “there’s no time for wooing before this marriage. It must wait till after.”
“Troth, how do I know ‘twill be to my liking, then, without ever a sample of it first?”
“Did I not say within,” he faltered, feeling very red and foolish, “that your charms overpower my tongue?”
“Well, if you think a maid is to be won for the mere asking, even though to save herself at a pinch, I marvel at you.”
Her tone was decidedly chill. He felt she was slipping from him, and he thought of the relentless man behind the cross; he must rouse himself to a decisive effort.
“Stay,” he said, as the perspiration came out upon his face. “If you must have wooing — god ‘a’ mercy! — Thy charms envelop me as some sweet cloud Of heavenly odours, making me to swoon.”
She threw him a side-glance of amazement, from her pretended search of the ground.
“Wooing!” he thought; “she shall have it, of the strongest.” And he went on: “And wert thou drowned in the floorless sea, Thine eyes would draw me to the farthest depths.”
“Why,” quoth she, “that sounds like what the players speak. Do you woo in blank verse?”
“’Tis mine own, I swear,” he said, truly enough, for it was from his new puppet-play of Paris and Helen. “I’ll give you as many lines as you desire, — only remember that time presses. I must away before eleven o’clock. Best agree to be waiting at the gate at nightfall, ready for flight.”
“If I wed you, shall I be your slave, or my own mistress?”
“Oh, no — yes, I mean — as you will. You shall have all your own way,” he said, glibly.
“No stint of gowns, free choice of what I shall wear, visits to London at my pleasure, my own time to go to the shops, milliners of my own choosing?”
“Yes, yes!”
“My own horses to ride, and a coach, and what maids I like, and what company I desire, and no company I don’t desire, and all the days to be spent after my liking?”
“Yes, anything, everything!”
“Why, then, this marriage will not be such a bad thing. But I cannot think you love me, if you give me so many privileges.”
“Oh,” said he, petulantly, worn almost out of patience, “’tis the vehemence of my love makes me promise all rather than lose you!” At the same time, he said in his heart: “I shall be happier, the more such a plague keeps away from me!”
“How you knock your sword against things!” she complained. “One would say you were not used to it.”
“’Tis my confusion in your presence,” he answered, wearily. “I can use the sword well enough.”
“Well,—” She paused a moment, trembling on the brink; then said, a little unsteadily: “I will be at the gate at nightfall.”
A coach was lumbering along at the farther half of the street. A large lady therein, masked, blonde-haired, called out toward the other side of the cross:
“How now, Captain Ravenshaw? Hast spent all that money? Art waiting for a purse to cut?”
Millicent gave Holyday a startled look, and exclaimed:
“She said Captain Ravenshaw! — the rogue that cozened you. He must be yonder.”
“Impossible!” gasped the scholar, turning pale.
“It must be he. She is laughing at him. What, are you afraid? — you that would make him pay for the lesson!”
In desperation, the fate-hounded poet grasped his sword-hilt, and strode to the other side of the cross, coming face to face with the captain.
“I’m not to blame,” said the terrified scholar, in an undertone. “She heard your name; I had to seek you—”
“Then feign to fight me,” answered Ravenshaw, whipping out his rapier. “All’s lost else.”
Holyday drew his sword, and began to make awkward thrusts.
“Has she consented?” whispered Ravenshaw, parrying and returning the lunges in such manner as not to touch the other’s flesh.
“Yes,” said the poet, continuing to fence, but backing from his formidable-looking antagonist in spite of himself, so that the two quickly worked away from the cross into full view of the goldsmith’s house.
Meanwhile, Lady Greensleeves’s coach had passed on; Mistress Etheridge and Sir Peregrine, from their window, had observed Holyday’s movement, and now recognised the captain; Millicent had run to the shop entrance, and her father, seeing her there, had come forth wondering what she was doing in the street, a question which yielded to his sudden interest in the fight. Shopkeepers hastened thither from their doors, people in the street quickly gathered around, but all kept safely distant from the clashing weapons.
“Give way, and take refuge in the shop,” said Ravenshaw to his adversary, in the low voice necessary between the two, “else somebody will come that knows us; if our friendship be spoken of, they’ll smell collusion.”
The scholar, making all the sword-play of which he was capable, rapidly yielded ground.
“But not too fast,” counselled the captain, using his skill to make his antagonist show the better, “else she’ll think you a sorry swordman.”
Poor Holyday, panting, perspiring, weak-kneed, light-headed, but upheld by the mysterious force of Ravenshaw’s steady gaze, did as he was bid. A murmur of excited comment arose from the crowd; the windows of the high-peaked houses began to be filled with faces. Ravenshaw perceived there must soon be an end of this; so, nodding for the scholar to fall back more rapidly, he advanced with
thrusts that looked dangerous.
Millicent, who had stood in bewilderment since the beginning of the fight, suddenly realised the folly of any ordinary man’s crossing swords with Captain Ravenshaw. If Holyday were slain or hurt, what of her escape?
“Good heaven!” she cried, in a transport of alarm. “Master Holyday will be killed! Father, help him!”
“Murder, murder!” shouted the goldsmith. “Constables! go for constables, some of ye!”
Even at that word, the captain’s rapier point came through a loose part of Master Holyday’s doublet, and the scholar, for an instant thinking himself touched, stumbled back in terror.
Millicent screamed. “Constables?” cried she; “a man might be killed ten times ere they came. Prentices! Clubs! clubs!”
With an answering shout, her father’s flat-capped lads rushed out from where they had been looking across the cases. With their bludgeon-like weapons in hand, they took up the cry, “Clubs! clubs!” and made for the fighters, intent upon getting within striking distance of Ravenshaw.
The captain turned to keep them off. Holyday, quite winded, staggered back to the shop entrance. Millicent caught him by the sleeve, and drew him into the rear apartment, scarce observed in the fresh interest that matters had taken in the street. He put away his sword, panting and trembling. She led him into the passage, and then to the Friday Street door, bidding him make good his flight, and saying she would be at the gate at nightfall. She then returned to the front of the shop.
As he ran down Friday Street, Holyday heard an increased tumult in Cheapside behind him; he knew that apprentices must be gathering from every side; Ravenshaw’s position would be that of a stag surrounded by a multitude of threatening hounds. A thrown club might bring him down at any moment. The scholar, with a sudden catching at the throat, ran into the White Horse tavern, and, seizing a tapster by the arms, said hoarsely in his ear:
“The noise in Cheapside — the prentices — they will kill Ravenshaw — for God’s sake, Tony! — the friend of all tapsters, he — but say not I summoned ye.”
He dashed out and away, while Tony was tearing off his apron and bawling out the name of every drawer in the place.
Meanwhile, in the middle of Cheapside, in the space left open by the swelling crowd for its own safety, a strange spectacle was presented: one man with sword and dagger, menaced by an ever increasing mob of apprentices with their clubs. It was a bear baited by dogs, the shouts of the apprentices dinning the ears of the onlookers like the barking of mastiffs in the ring on the Bankside. When the first band of apprentices rushed forth, two stopped short as his sword-point darted to meet them, and the others ran around to attack him from behind. But with a swift turn he was threatening these, and they sprang away to save themselves. Ere they could recover, he was around again to face the renewed oncoming of the first two. But now through the surging crowd, forcing their way with shouts and prods, came apprentices from the neighbouring shops, in quick obedience to the cry of “Clubs.” Ravenshaw was hemmed in on all quarters. By a swift rush in one direction, a swift turn in another, a swift side thrust of his rapier in a third, a swift slash of his dagger in a fourth, he contrived to make every side of him so dangerous that each menacing foe would fall back ere coming into good striking distance.
He had once thought of backing against the cross, so that his enemies might not completely encircle him; but he perceived in time that they could then fling their clubs at him without risk of hitting any one else. As it was, the first club hurled at his head, being safely dodged, struck one of the thrower’s own comrades beyond; a second one, too high thrown, landed among some women in the crowd, who set up an angry screaming; and a third had the fate of the first. Some clubs were then aimed lower, but as many missed the captain as met him, and those that met him were seemingly of no more effect than if they had been sausages. As those who threw their clubs had them to seek, and knew their short knives to be useless except at closer quarters than they dared come to, the apprentices abandoned throwing, and tried for a chance of striking him from behind.
But he seemed to be all front, so unexpected were his turns, so sudden his rushes. Had any of his foes continued engaging his attention till a simultaneous onslaught could be made from all sides, he had been done for; but this would have meant death to those that faced him, and not a rascal of the yelling pack was equal to the sacrifice. So they menaced him all around, approaching, retreating, running hither and thither for a better point of attack. But the man seemed to have four faces, eight hands; steel seemed to radiate from him. They attempted to strike down his sword-point, but were never quick enough. With set teeth, fast breath, glowing eyes, he thrust, and turned, and darted, maintaining around him a magic circle, into which it was death to set foot. Well he knew that he could not keep this up for long; the very pressure of the growing crowd of his foes must presently sweep the circle in upon him, and though he might kill three or four, or a dozen, in the end he must fall beneath a rain of blows.
And what then? Well, a fighting man must die some day, and the madness of combat makes death a trifle. But who would be at London Bridge before noon to pay Cutting Tom, and what would become of all his well-wrought designs to save the maid, her whose contumely against him it would be sweet to repay by securing her happiness? To do some good for somebody, as a slight balance against his rascally, worthless life — this had been a new dream of his. He cast a look toward the goldsmith’s house. She was now at the window, with her mother and Sir Peregrine, and she gazed down with a kind of self-accusing horror, as if frightened at the storm she had raised. God, could he but carry out his purpose yet! His eyes clouded for an instant; then he took a deep breath, and coolly surveyed his foes.
More apprentices struggled through the crowd. Their cries, thrown back by the projecting gables of the houses, were hoarse and implacable. Pushed from behind, a wave of the human sea of Ravenshaw’s enemies was flung close to him. He thrust out, and ran his point through a shoulder; instantly withdrawing his blade, he sprang toward another advancing group, and opened a great red gash in the foremost face. A fierce howl of rage went up, and even from the spectators came the fierce cry, “Down with Ravenshaw! death to the rascal!” Maddened, he plunged his weapons into the heaving bundles of flesh that closed in upon him, while at last the storm of clubs beat upon his head and body. The roar against him ceased not; it was all “Death to him!” Not a voice was for him, not a look showed pity, not a —
“Ravenshaw! Ravenshaw! Tapsters for Ravenshaw!”
What cry was this, from the narrow mouth of Friday Street, a cry fresh and shrill, and audible above the hoarse roar of the crowd? Everybody turned to look. Some among the apprentices, tavern-lads themselves, stood surprised, and then, seeing Tony and his fellow drawers from the White Horse beating a way through the crowd with clubs and pewter pots, promptly took up the cry, “Tapsters for Ravenshaw!” and fell to belabouring the shop apprentices around them. The new shout was echoed from the corner of Bread Street, as a troop of pot-boys from the Mermaid, apprised by a backyard messenger from the White Horse, came upon the scene. The prospect of a more general fight, against weapons similar to their own, acted like magic upon Ravenshaw’s assailants. Those who were not disabled turned as one man, to crack heads more numerous and easier to get at. Ravenshaw, with an exultant bound of the heart, made a final rush, upsetting all before him, for the goldsmith’s shop; ran through to the passage, turned and gained the door leading to the garden, dashed forward and across the turf, unfastened the gate, and plunged down Friday Street with all the breath left in him.
A few of the apprentices pursued him into the shop, knocking over a case of jewelry and small plate as they crowded forward. The goldsmith, appalled at the danger of loss and damage, flung himself upon them to drive them back. Those who got to the passage ran straight on through to the kitchen, instead of deviating to the garden door. After a search, they observed the latter.
But by that time Captain Ravenshaw, r
egistering an inward vow in favour of Tony and all tapsters, and knowing that the fight must soon die out harmlessly in the more ordinary phase it had taken, was dragging his aching body down Watling Street to meet Cutting Tom at London Bridge.
“A fit farewell to London,” said he to himself. “The town will deem itself well rid of a rascal, I trow.”
CHAPTER XIV.
JERNINGHAM SEES THE WAY TO HIS DESIRE.
“Stands the wind there, boy? Keep them in that key,
The wench is ours before to-morrow day.”
— The Merry Devil of Edmonton.
Master Jerningham, upon setting Gregory to dog the steps of Ravenshaw, had made all haste from the Temple Church to Deptford, where he passed the afternoon in busy superintendence, and where he lay that night. But whether at work, or in the vain attitude of sleep, he housed a furnace within him, the signs of which about his haggard eyes were terrible to see, to the experienced observation of Sir Clement Ermsby when that gentleman greeted him upon the deck of the anchored ship in the morning.
“Death of my life, man! thou hast the look of Bedlam in thy face. And thou wert formerly the man of rock! The wench is not to be thine, then?”
“She is, or I am to be the devil’s!” replied Jerningham.
“But we sail to-morrow. Or do we not?”