Captain Ravenshaw; Or, The Maid of Cheapside. A Romance of Elizabethan London
was drawn up and back from the water-front, which henceforth abounded with wharves, by the huge bulk of St. Paul's, which stood amidst a multitude of ordinary buildings like a giant among pigmies, – the old St. Paul's, Gothic, with its square tower in the centre, its crosses crowning the ends and corners, its delicate pinnacles rising from its flying buttresses, its beautiful doorways and rose windows. Coming still eastward, the eye swept a great mass of gabled houses ascending in irregular tiers from the river, the sky-line broken by church towers and steeples innumerable. Directly opposite Winchester House, the river stairs that fell from the tall, narrow buildings were mainly for commercial uses. A little further east, the view was shut in by the close-packed houses on the bridge, so that one could not see the Tower, or the larger shipping off the wharves in the lower river.
But this morning the sight was nothing to Master Jerningham, whose only answer to his friend was to look the more harassed and woebegone. Ermsby suddenly took alarm.
"How now? Has anything ill befallen at Deptford?" he asked.
"No. All goes forward fast – too fast." And Jerningham sighed.
"How too fast? How can that be? Good God, man, have you lost heart for the voyage?"
"Never that. You know me better. But we shall soon be sailing, and the hours go, and yet I am no further with – oh, a plague on secrecy, 'tis that wench. There is no way under heaven I can even get speech of her."
"What wench?" inquired Ermsby, in whose thoughts there had been more than one wench since the reader first made his acquaintance.
"What wench! Gods above, is there more than one? – worth a man's lying awake at night to sigh for, I mean."
"And is there one such, then? Faith, an there be, I have not seen her of late."
"Yes, you have. Scarce three months ago."
"That's three ages, where women are concerned. Who is this incomparable she?"
"That goldsmith's daughter – you remember the night we chased her from Cheapside down Bread Street, and came near a quarrel with Ravenshaw the bully, and I followed to see where she lived?"
"Faith, I remember. A pretty little thing. And she has held you off all this time? Man, man, you must have blundered terribly! What plan of campaign have you employed against her?"
"I have not been able to pass words with her, I tell you. She rarely goes forth from home at all, and when she does 'tis with both parents, and a woman, and a stout 'prentice or two. I have stood in wait night after night, thinking she might try to run away again; but she has not."
"Why, you know not your first letter in the study of how to woo citizens' womankind. Go to her father's shop while she is there, and contrive to have her wait upon you. Flattery, vows, and promises sound all the softer for being whispered over a counter."
"I have watched, and when I have been busy at the ship, my man Gregory has watched. But she never comes into the shop. She has a devil of shrewdness for a father; a rock-faced man, of few words, with eyes on everything. He already suspects me; for now whenever I go near his shop he comes from his business and stares at me as if he offered defiance."
"A plague on these citizens. They dare outface gentlemen nowadays. They are so rich, and the law is on their side, curse 'em! A goldsmith thinks himself as good as a lord."
"This one has taught his very 'prentices to look big at me as I pass. And Gregory – he is a sly hound, as you know, and when I put him on his mettle for the conveyance of a letter to the girl's waiting-woman, he was ready to sell himself to the devil for the wit to accomplish it. But he could not; and they have smelt a purpose in his doings, too. The last time he went near the shop, and stood trying to get the eye of some serving-maid at a window, two of the goldsmith's 'prentices came out and, pretending not to see him, ran hard against him and laid him sprawling in the street."
"And he let them go with whole skins? Had he no dagger?"
"Of what use? They are very stout fellows, all in that shop. And they would have had only to cry 'Clubs,' and every 'prentice in Cheapside would have come to cudgel Gregory to death. They have too many privileges in the city, pox on 'em!"
"You should have begun by making friends with the goldsmith openly, and so got access to his house. Then you could have cozened him when the time came."
"But 'tis too late for that now. Besides, these citizens distrust a man the first moment, when they have wives and daughters. Oh, we have tried every way, both myself and Gregory. Gregory found a pot-boy, at the White Horse tavern, that knew one of the maids in the house, and we tried to pass a letter by means of those two. But the letter got into the father's hands, and the maid was cast off, and I'm glad I signed a false name. I know not if Mistress Millicent ever saw the letter."
"Is Millicent her name?"
"Ay. She is the only child. Her father is Thomas Etheridge, the goldsmith, at the sign of the Golden Acorn, in Cheapside at the corner of Friday Street. And nothing more do I know of her, but that I am going mad for her. And now that I have opened all to you, in God's name tell me what I shall do. Though we sail in three days, I must have her in my arms for one sweet hour, at least, ere I go. Laugh if you will! Call it madness. 'Tis the worse, then, and the more needs quenching. What shall I do?"
"Use a better messenger; one that can get the ear of the maid and yet 'scape the eye of the father; one that can win her to a meeting with you. Such things are managed daily. Howsoever hedged by husbands, or fenced by fathers, the fair ones of the city are still to be come at. Employ a go-between."
"Have I not tried Gregory? Where he has failed, how shall any other servant fare? Not one of those at my command has a tithe of his wit. Nor has any of our sea-rogues."
"Why, the look of being a gentleman's serving-man will damn any knave in the eye of a wary citizen, nowadays. And Gregory hath the face of a rascal besides. Employ none of that degree. As for our sea-rogues, we chose 'em witless, for our own advantage."
"Troth, you might serve me in this matter, Ermsby. You have the wit; and you should find good pastime in it."
"Faith, not I. I know the taste of 'prentice's cudgel. I'll tell you a tale; 'twill warn you that, when love's path leads into the city, you'd best see it made sure and smooth ere you tread it yourself. One day as I was going to the play in Blackfriars, my glance fell upon as handsome a piece of female citizenship as you'll meet any day 'twixt Fleet Street and the Tower. She saw me looking, and looked in turn; and I resolved to let the play go hang, and follow her. She had with her an old woman and a 'prentice boy, and her look seemed to advise me not to accost her in their presence. So I walked behind her, smiling my sweetest each time she turned her head around. She led me into a grocer's shop in Bucklersbury. I could see by her manner there that she was at home; there was no husband in sight, the shop being kept by two 'prentices. Here she forthwith sent the woman up-stairs, and turned as if she would attend upon me herself. Now, thought I, my happiness is soon to be assured; and I was rejoicing within, for each time I had seen her face she had looked more lovely. Sooth, the ripeness of those lips – !"
"Well, well, what happened?"
"I went but to open the matter with a courteous kiss on the cheek; but the more luscious fruit hung too near, so I stopped me at the lips instead, and stopped overlong there. She made pretence – I swear 'twas pretence – to push me away, and to be much angry and abused. But the zany 'prentices knew not this virtuous resistance was make-believe, and they ran at me as if I were some thief caught in the act. I met the first with a clout in the face, but they were stout knaves and made nothing of laying hands upon me. I shook them off, and then, being at the back of the shop, drew my sword to ensure my passage to the street. But that instant they raised the cry, 'Clubs!' and ran and got their own cudgels, and came menacing me again. While I was making play with my rapier, thinking to fright them off, all the 'prentices in Bucklersbury began to pour into the shop, shouting clubs and brandishing 'em at the same time. I saw there was naught to do but cut my way through by letting out the blood of any grocer's knave or 'pothecary's boy that should stand before me. But ere I had made two thrusts in earnest, my rapier was knocked from my hand by a club. A cloud of other clubs rained on my head, shoulders, and body. And so I cowered helpless, seeing nothing before me but