Captain Ravenshaw; Or, The Maid of Cheapside. A Romance of Elizabethan London

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, registering 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?"

"Ay, we sail to-morrow. Is not the bishop to come and bid us Godspeed, and see us lift anchor? But the maid shall sail with us."

"Oho! Without her consent?"

"I cannot wait for that longer. I have been some time coming to this mind; in bed last night I resolved upon my course. Unless my man Gregory hath, by some marvel, put the matter forward in the meantime, I will take a band of those Wapping rascals" (he nodded toward some of his sailors who were drawing up casks alongside, singing at the work) "to the goldsmith's house to-night, force an upper window, and carry her off, though murder be done to accomplish it. We sail to-morrow; the deed will not be traced till we are far afloat, if ever."

"'Twill be luck if you get her safe from the house. Will you bring her straight to the ship, for the bishop to find when he comes to bless our venture?"

"I am not yet a parish fool. I will take her by boat to Blackwall; the Dutchman there will lock her up in his inn over night. To-morrow, when the bishop has seen us sail, we shall but round the Isle of Dogs, and then lay to at Blackwall and fetch the maid. A sleeping draught will make easy handling of her, and we can bring her aboard in a sack. Then ho for the seas, and the island; we shall set up our own kingdom there, I trow."

"If we might give the bishop the slip, and not tarry for his prayers, you'd be spared trusting the Dutchman."

"Oh, he thrives by keeping secrets; he is a safe, honest rogue. I durst not give the bishop the slip; he would be so fain to know the reason, he would send post to the warden of the Cinque Ports; and we should have a pinnace alongside as we came into the narrow seas. Especially as he would have heard of this maid's kidnapping. Such news flies."

"You were not always wont to be so wary; you think of every possibility."

"I have been warned, in my fortune, of an obstacle at the last hour. I must be watchful."

"Well, God reward your vigilance, and your enterprise with the wench," said Sir Clement, lightly. He would face anything, and yet cared little for anything, save when a whim possessed him.

Jerningham returned to Winchester House by horse, in good time before noon, to see Ravenshaw set out for the Grange, and to receive Gregory's report of the captain's doings.

Dismissing the servant who opened the gate at which he arrived, Jerningham tied his horse just within the entrance, and waited. He would be much disappointed if the captain came not, for he could not help thinking that the success of his project would be the less uncertain, the farther from London that man should be. If news of the maid's disappearance reached Ravenshaw's ears ere the ship was away beyond recall, things might go ill, for Ravenshaw knew whom to suspect. But to the lonely Grange, half-way between main road and river, reached by a solitary lane that led nowhere else, visited by no one, news never found its way. Once lodged there, Ravenshaw would stay till he gave up hope of receiving the further instructions which Jerningham had said he would send; and by that time Jerningham and the maid would be far beyond the swaggering captain's sword and his roar. The only fear was that Ravenshaw might have caught Gregory dogging him, and have thrown over the stewardship.

But at length a quick step was heard, there was a tapping at the gate, Jerningham drew it open, and the captain stood before him.

"Well, you have kept your word. Here is the horse."

"A trim beast," quoth Ravenshaw, looking at the animal with approval, and not failing to note the good quality of the saddle.

"He will scarce have a trim rider," said Jerningham, staring at Ravenshaw's face and clothing. "You look as if one horse had already thrown you. What's the matter?"

"Oh, there has been a riot, which I must needs leave, that I might not be late with you," said Ravenshaw, carelessly.

The two gazed at each other a moment in silence, as they had done at a former interview. Jerningham looked for any sign of Ravenshaw's having detected Gregory's espionage, and found none. Ravenshaw waited for Jerningham to mention Gregory's encounter with him in the goldsmith's garden, assuming that Gregory must have reported it the previous night. It was not for Ravenshaw to introduce the subject; so it was not introduced at all, and the captain mounted the horse.

"You remember all I told you yesterday, no doubt?" said Jerningham. "Touching the place you are going to, I mean."

"Yes; I shall find it easily enough. Ay, four o'clock, I know. And particular instructions will come in a few days. I can wait for instructions while provisions last. But one thing – a steward's chain – good gold, look you!"

"It shall be of the best," replied Jerningham, with his strange smile. "When it comes," he said to himself, as the captain rode out of the gate.

And the captain was saying to himself: "Either his knave has not told him, or he counts it of no matter. Ten to one, from his look, he is forging some plot against her; but she will be safe from all plots this time to-morrow, I think." And he headed his horse for the Canterbury road.

Jerningham went to his own chamber in Winchester House, a fair room looking toward the church of St. Mary Overie. He had not been there a quarter of an hour, when to him came Gregory, dusty and tired, but eager-eyed.

"What news?" inquired the master, with simulated coldness.

"An't please you, sir, I have stuck to his heels since you bade me. Twice they led me to that goldsmith's house."

"Ah! What happened there? Make short telling of it, knave!"

"The first time was last night. The maid talked with him alone in the garden. I could not hear what they said, until she called him by the name of Holyday."

"A false name. The rascal! – then he has his plot, too!"

"Ay, sir; and, thinking to nip it in the bud, I came forth and denounced him to her, saying he was Ravenshaw. Belike he spoke of it to you awhile ago."

"Go on. What did the maid then?"

"She spurned him as he were kennel mud, and he came away like a whipped hound. But I had already given him the slip, to save my skin."

"Troth, then, all betwixt her and him must have come to naught."

"So one would think. And yet – But you must know that I still dogged him, to carry out your full command. He kept me waiting outside many taverns, but at last went into a house in Smithfield which I took to be his lodging for the night. Bethinking me of the danger if he chanced to see me by daylight, I went to a friend of mine in that neighbourhood – a horse-stealer, if truth must be told – and borrowed a false beard and a countryman's russet coat. In these I followed the man when he set forth at daybreak with his companion, that lean young gentleman you saw with him in Paul's."

"Oh, fewer words. What hath the lean young gentleman to do – ?"

"Much, I trow, an it please you. The end of their going about was, that the lean companion, under some pressure from the captain, went to the goldsmith's house, while the captain waited behind the cross in Cheapside, e'en as I waited at the corner of Milk Street."

Gregory then described the occurrences in front of the goldsmith's shop. What to think of the fight between Ravenshaw and the scholar, he knew not, whether it marked a falling out between them or was part of a plot. Jerningham was of opinion it was part of a plot. The serving-man told of Ravenshaw's flight into the shop from the apprentices.

"They that ran after him," he continued, "came out presently, saying he must have fled by the back way. I pushed through to Friday Street, and saw the gate indeed open. Methought he would now fain come to you, for shelter and protection; and so I started hither. And lo! at t'other end of London Bridge, whom did I set eyes on but my captain, counting over money to another fellow of his own kind, but more scurvy. I kept out of sight till they parted, and then, while the captain crossed the bridge, I accosted the scurvy fellow and said there was one would deal with him as fairly as the captain had, if he chose."

"Well, well, and what said he?"

"He was for killing me, at first, but the end of it was that he is now waiting for a word with you yonder at the bridge. We have seen the captain ride away, and all is safe. I took off my beard and russet gown in the lane without, and hid them in the stable." And the faithful rascal, with bowed head, watched narrowly for the look of approval to which he felt entitled.

"You have done well, Gregory; and you shall eat, drink, and sleep, to pay for your abstinence, – but first come to the bridge and show me this man. And remember, if my Lord Bishop's servants are inquisitive, you lay at Deptford last night, as I did." A few minutes later Master Jerningham was in converse with Cutting Tom at the Southwark end of London Bridge, beneath the gate tower, on top of which was a forest of poles crowned with the weatherbeaten heads of traitors.

"Oh, but sell secrets, that is too much!" Cutting Tom was saying, in an injured tone. "A poor soldier hath little but his honour. Belike I am ill-favoured with wounds, and ragged with poverty through serving my country, but my honour, sir! my trust! my loyalty! Troth, 'tis mine only jewel, and if I sold it – well, I should want a good price, and there's the hell of it!"

But even when a price was fixed, Cutting Tom, dazzled on one side by his lifetime's chance of obtaining so excellent a patron, on the other side fearful of Ravenshaw's vengeance, temporised and mumbled and held back, until Jerningham assured him of protection and of Ravenshaw's long absence from London. The rascal then told all he knew of what was planned to be carried out that night.

Jerningham listened with apparent passivity, though at the last he averted his eyes lest his exultation should gleam out of them. Here was all trouble, all desperate and well-nigh impossible venturing, made needless on his part. He studied the matter for a minute, and then said, musingly:

"His companion and a maid – the White Horse – 'tis the nearest tavern – sooth, there can be no question it is she. Look you, sirrah, I must know to what place they are bound."

"I would I knew. 'Tis somewhere on the Kentish side of the river."

"What, would the rascal dare? – think you 'tis the place he is now riding to?"

"He said he would be in the neighbourhood of our destination, and he would come to-morrow to pay and dismiss us."

"If he is to come to you to-morrow, it cannot be to the Grange, – he will be there already. He knows more of that neighbourhood than he would have me think; he used the name Holyday – there's a Holyday family in that country. Well, I know not; but 'tis certain you will be near my house of Marshleigh Grange."

A grim smile flitted over Jerningham's face, as he saw another difficulty removed – for he could now dispense with the use of the Dutch innkeeper at Blackwall, and with the risk of putting his captive aboard from so public a place.

"Now mark," said he, while he held Cutting Tom with fixed eyes, "you will indeed have four men with you when you meet the gentleman and maid at the White Horse; but one of those four shall be a man I will send there betimes. You will easily know him; he is the man that brought you to see me. His beard, you must know, is false, and you will warn your men; else, detecting it, they might snatch it off in mirth. Without disguise, he would be known to the maid and gentleman, – then our business were undone. And so, to the journey."

Proceeding, he gave orders full and concise, to which Cutting Tom lent the best attention of his cunning mind. Then, being curtly dismissed, the rascal, between elation at his great windfall, and perturbation at the temerity of betraying Captain Ravenshaw, shambled off through the darkish lane that the rows of high shop-houses made of London Bridge.

Master Jerningham, returning to Winchester House, was rejoined by Gregory at the place where the serving-man had waited.

"You have five hours wherein to fill your stomach and sleep; and then you must be off upon a night's work that shall make you your own man, if it turn out well."

The zealous hound, a little staggered at the opening words of this announcement, took fresh life at its conclusion, and looked with new-lighted eyes for commands.

Having given these with the utmost particularity, Jerningham presented himself, in all docility and humbleness, to the bishop in the latter's study, where he made a careful tale of his readiness for sailing on the morrow.

He then took horse for Deptford; upon arriving, he related his good fortune, and set forth his new plan to Sir Clement Ermsby, on the deck of the ship.

"But how at the Grange, man, if Ravenshaw be there?" Sir Clement asked.

"I shall go there betimes, and send him straight upon some errand – some three days' journey that will not wait for daylight."

"He will think it curiously sudden. Besides, if he thinks to meet and pay his men in that neighbourhood to-morrow, he will not be for any three days' journey to-night."

"Most men will defer paying money, when their interests require. I can but try sending him."

"And if he refuse to stir? What will you then?"

"Kill him! There will be enough of us, in good sooth."

"Ay, no doubt," acquiesced Sir Clement, carelessly. "Methinks the weather bodes a change," he added, looking at the sky. "It may rain to-night."

"Rain or shine, storm or fair," replied Master Jerningham, his eyes aglow, "I feel it within me, this is the night shall give me my desire."

CHAPTER XV.
RAVENSHAW FALLS ASLEEP

 
"Thou liest. I ha' nothing but my skin,
And my clothes; my sword here, and myself."
 

– The Sea Voyage.

Captain Ravenshaw headed his horse for the Canterbury road, and, having soon left the town behind him, began to feel a pleasant content in the sunlight and soft air. The fresh green of spring, the flowers of May, the glad twitter of birds, met his senses on every side. Never since his boyhood had the sight and smell of hawthorn been more sweet. He conceived he had, for once, earned the right to enjoy so fair a day. He was tired and bruised, but he looked forward to rest upon his arrival. Peace, comparative solitude, country ease, seemed so inviting that he had not a regret for the town he left behind.

His road, at the first, was that which Chaucer's pilgrims had traversed blithely toward Canterbury. He had a few villages to ride through, clustered about gray churches, and drowsy in the spring sunshine; a few towered and turreted castles, a few gabled farmhouses, to pass in sight of. But for the most part his way was by greenwood and field and common, up and down the gentle inclines, and across the pleasant levels, of the wavy Kentish country. Often it was a narrow aisle through forest, with great trunks for pillars, and leafy boughs for pointed arches, and here and there a yellow splash where the green leaves left an opening for sunlight. And then it trailed over open heath dotted with solitary trees or little clumps, and along fields enclosed by green hedgerows. It was a good road for that time, wide enough for two riders to pass each other without giving cause for quarrel; ditchlike, uneven, rutted, here so stony that a horse would stumble, there so soft that a horse would sink deep at each step.

Ravenshaw had already turned out of the Canterbury road to the left, and was passing from a heath into a thick copse, when suddenly the narrow way before him became blocked with human creatures, or what seemed rather the remnants of human creatures, that limped out from among the trees at the sides.

He drew in his horse quickly to avoid riding over any one, while the newcomers thronged about him with outstretched palms and whining cries:

"Save your good worship, one little drop of money!" "A small piece of silver, for the love of God!" "Pity for a poor maimed soldier!" "A few pence to buy bread, kind gentleman!" "Charity for the lame and blind!"

"Peace, peace, peace!" cried the captain. "What be these the greenwood vomits up? Hath the forest made a dinner of men, and cast up the pieces it could not stomach?"

Pieces of men in truth they looked, and of two women also. All were in rags; the men had unkempt beards and hair; those that did not go upon crutches showed white eyes, or an empty sleeve, or great livid sores upon face and naked breast, or discoloured bandages; one of the women, fat and hoarse-voiced, went upon a single leg and a crutch; the other woman, a gaunt hag, petitioned with one skinny hand, and pointed with the other to her colourless eyeballs.

"Let go; I am in haste; I have no money," said Ravenshaw, for one of the men – a white-bearded old fellow poised on his only foot – had taken firm hold of the bridle near the horse's mouth.

But, so far from the man's letting go, some of his companions seized upon Ravenshaw's ankles, and the chorus of whines waxed louder and more urgent. With his free hand he reached for his dagger; but the lean woman, having already possessed herself of the handle, drew it from the sheath ere he knew what she was doing. He clapped his other hand to his sword-hilt; but his fingers closed around the two hands of a dwarf on a man's shoulders, who had grasped the hilt, and who now thrust his head forward and caught the captain's knuckles between his jaws.

"Oho!" exclaimed Ravenshaw, changing to a jovial manner. "I see I have walked into Beggars' Bush. Well, friends, I pray you believe me, I am a man wrung dry by war and ill fortune, and little less a beggar than any of ye. I have chanced upon a slight service will keep my body and soul together; if I lose time here I shall lose that. I have nothing but my weapons, which I need in my profession, and my clothes, which would not serve you in yours. The horse I require for my necessary haste, and – "

"He lies, he lies!" shrieked the lean hag, striking the pocket of Ravenshaw's breeches. "Hearken to the chinking lour! A handful!"

"A piece of gold for a poor maimed soldier!" cried the white-bearded man, whipping out a pistol from his wide breeches, whereupon other of the rogues brandished truncheons and staves. At sight of the clubs, Ravenshaw made a wry face, and his bruised body seemed to plead with him. He had one hand free, with which he might have seized the dwarf's neck, but he thought best to use it for holding the rein and guarding his pocket.

"Ay, there's money in the pocket," he said; "but I spoke truth when I said I had none. This is not mine; 'tis another man's, to whom I must pay it to-morrow."

"Let the other man give us charity, then!" cried the fat woman.

"Ay, we'd as lief have another man's money as yours," said the white-bearded rogue, aiming the pistol. The lean hag tried to force her hand into Ravenshaw's pocket, and men caught his clothing by the hooks at the ends of their staves.

"Nay, maunderers!" cried Ravenshaw; "shall not a gentry cove that cuts ben whids, and hath respect for the salamon, pass upon the pad but ye would be foisting and angling?" —

"Marry, you can cant," said the white-bearded beggar, his manner changing to one of approval, which spread at once to his associates.

"As ben pedlar's French as any clapperdudgeon of ye all," replied the captain.

"Belike you are a prigger of prancers," said the beggar, looking at the horse.

"No, my upright man, a poor gentry cuffin, as I have said, but one that hath passed many a night out-of-doors, and now fallen into a little poor service that I am like to forfeit by my delay. As for the lour in my pocket, I am a forsworn man if I deliver it not to-morrow. So I beg, in the name of all the maunders I have stood friend to in my time – "

"A ben cove," said the upright man. "Mort, take off your fambles; brother rufflers, down with your filches and cudgels. By the salamon, the canting cuffin shall go free upon the pad."

Released on every side, no more threatened, and his dagger restored to its sheath, the captain looked gratefully down upon the grotesque crew. As he did so, his nose became sensible of a faint, delicious odour, borne from a distance. He sniffed keenly.

"Cackling-cheats," said the chief beggar. "Our doxies and dells are roasting 'em in a glade yonder. Plump young ones, and fresh. We filched 'em but last darkmans. We be toward a ben supper, and you are welcome, – though we lack bouze."

The captain sighed. He had not dined; the fresh air of the country had whetted his stomach; roast chickens were good eating, hot or cold; and he had gathered, from the vague replies Jerningham had made to his inquiries about provisions, that his diet at the Grange would be a rather spare one of salt meat, stockfish, milk, and barley-cakes.

"Alas, if I durst but tarry!" He looked to see how far behind him the sun was, and then shook his head and gathered up his reins. "I must hasten on – tis a sweet smell of cookery, forsooth! – how soon, think you, will they be roasted?"

"Oh, half an hour, to be done properly."

"Then I must e'en thank ye, and ride on. I durst not – " He broke off to sniff the air again. "Marry, I have a thought. You lack bouze, say you? Now at the place whither I am bound, there is ale, or my gentleman has lied to me. I shall be in a sort the master there, with only a country wench and an old doting man – Know you Marshleigh Grange?"

"Ay," spoke up a very old cripple; "the lone house 'twixt the hills and the marshes; there hath been no ben filching there this many a year; the wild rogues pass it by as too far from the pads; neither back nor belly-cheats to be angled there."

Ravenshaw addressed himself again to the bearded chief of the beggars, received answer, passed a jovial compliment, and rode on alone in cheerful mood. In due time he turned into the by-road which accorded with Jerningham's description; and at length, emerging from a woody, bushy tract, he came upon a lonely plain wherein the one object for the eye was a gray-brown house, huddled against barn and outbuildings, at the left of the vanishing road, – a house of timber and plaster, warped and weather-beaten, its cracked gables offering a wan, long-suffering aspect to the sun and breeze. This was the Grange.

A short canter brought Ravenshaw to the rude wooden gate, studded with nails, in the stone wall that separated the courtyard from the road, which here came to an end. Ere the captain had time to knock, or cry "Ho, within!" the gate swung inward on its crazy hinges, and a thin, bent old man, with sparse white hair and blinking eyes, shambled forward to take the horse. At the same time, as further proof that Ravenshaw had been looked for, a woman appeared in the porched doorway of the house, and called out:

"Jeremy will see to your horse. Come within."

Ravenshaw looked at her with a little surprise; this robust, erect, full-coloured, well-shaped creature, upon whom common rustic clothes took a certain grace, and whose head stood back in the proud attitude natural to beauty, was scarce the country wench he had expected to meet. But he said nothing, and followed her into the hall. This was a wide, high apartment of some pretension, its ceiling, rafters, and walls being of oak. Bare enough, it yet had the appearance of serving as the chief living-room of the occupants of the house. Upon an oak table, at which was an old chair, stood a flagon of wine and some cakes. Meg offered Ravenshaw this repast by a gesture, while she scrutinised him with interest.

"Wine?" quoth he, promptly setting to. "'Tis more than I had thought to find."

"There is some left since the time when – when Master Jerningham used to come to the Grange oftener," said Meg. "Ale serves for me and old Jeremy."

"Troth – your health, mistress! – I am glad you have ale in store. Would there be enough to entertain a few guests withal – some dozen or score poor friends of mine, if they were travelling this way? To tell the truth, I should not like to waste this wine upon such."

"Travellers never pass this way," said Meg, plainly not knowing what to make of him.

"Oh, we are some way from the highroad here, indeed; but a foolish friend or so might turn out a mile for the pleasure of my company."

"I know not what you'd set before 'em to eat, if there were a dozen."

"Marry, they would have to bring eatables with 'em, – my reason for having 'em as guests. Only so there be ale enough."

"Oh, there is ale," said Meg, without further comment.

Ravenshaw, munching the cakes, and oft wetting his throat, looked around the hall. The front doorway faced a wide fireplace at the rear, now empty. At the right was a door to a small apartment, a kind of porter's room, lighted by a single high narrow window; farther back in the hall was the entrance to a passage communicating with other parts of the house; and still farther back, a door leading to the kitchen. At the left hand were, first, a door to a large room, and, second, the opening to a passage like that on the right.

By way of this left-hand passage, and a narrow staircase which led from it, the captain was presently shown by old Jeremy to his chamber. It was large and bare, hung with rotten arras, and contained a bed, a joint-stool, and a table with ewer and basin; its window looked into the courtyard.

He flung his bruised body on the bed, and soon sank deliciously to sleep.

Meanwhile old Jeremy, returning to the hall, found Meg sitting with her chin upon her hands, and gazing into the empty fireplace.

"A sturdy fellow," whispered the old man, pointing backward with his thumb, and taking on a jocular air. "Cast eyes on him; a goodly husband mends all; cast eyes on him!"

"Thou'rt a fool; go thy ways!" quoth Meg; but she did not move.