Captain Ravenshaw; Or, The Maid of Cheapside. A Romance of Elizabethan London
pounded to a jelly by the crowd."
"And what miracle occurred?"
"The wit of woman intervened. She that I had followed laid hold of some box or bag, and thrust her fingers in, and began flinging the contents by handfuls into the air. It was ground pepper. In a moment every man Jack in the shop was sneezing as if there were a prize for it. Such a shaking, and bending forward of bodies, and holding of noses, was never seen elsewhere. Every fellow was taken with a sneezing fit that lasted minutes, for the woman still threw the pepper about, regardless of the work it had done. Limp and half-blind as every rascal was, and busied with each new spasm coming on, they paid no more heed to me; and so, sneezing like the rest, I pushed through unregarded to the street. I fled down Walbrook, and came not to an end of sneezing till I had taken boat at Dowgate wharf. I went home, then, and put my bruises to bed; and I know not how many days it was till I had done aching. Be thankful thou hast not fared in the goldsmith's shop e'en worse than I fared in the grocer's; for there is no pepper kept in goldsmith's shops."
"I know not then what kind of emissary to send. As you say, a serving-man is too easily seen through. A gentleman will not risk the cudgel. I know a lawyer, a beggarly knave eager for any sort of questionable transaction."
"Nay, he'll make a botch of it, as lawyers do of everything they set their hands to."
"How if I tried a woman? 'Tis often done, I believe. As thieves are set to catch thieves, so set a woman – "
"Ay, women have zest for the business; especially the tainted ones – they joy to infect their sisters whose purity they secretly envy. They that have spots take comfort in company, as misery doth. Yet they will serve you ill; for they ever bring entanglement on those they weave their plots for, as well as on those they weave against. City husbands and fathers have grown wiser, too; they've learned to look for love-plots in their women's fellowship with other women. Unless you'd risk some chance of failure with this maid – "
"By God, that I will not! I must have a sure messenger."
"I would mine own page yonder had the wit, that I might lend him. But when I choose a servant, 'tis rather for lack of wit in him; else he might take it into his head to outwit his master. My boy there serves well enough to carry sonnets to court ladies; but he would never do for your business. You say this goldsmith is watchful. Therefore, you want a man the most unlike the common go-betweens in such affairs; a man that looks the last in the world to be chosen as love's ambassador."
"Some venerable Puritan, perchance," said Jerningham, with the slight irony of one not quite convinced.
"Ay, if one could be found needy enough to want your money; but that's hopeless. We must seek a poor devil that hath a good wit and can act a part. If we had one such in our ship's company – What, Gregory! Have you been listening, knave?"
Sir Clement's break was caused by his perceiving, upon suddenly turning around, that Jerningham's man stood near, with a suspicious cock of the head. This Gregory was just the fellow to steal up without noise; he had long cultivated the silent footfall. He was a lean man of about thirty-five years; a little bent, and with a long neck, so that his head always seemed hastening before his body, which could never catch up. He had a small, sharp face, of an ashen complexion, and with fishy, greenish eyes; his expression was that of cunning cloaked in calm impudence.
"No offence, sirs," said he, glibly, stepping forward with bowed head. "I couldn't help hearing a little. If I may say so, sirs, my master needn't yet look abroad for one to do his business. I think I have a shift or two still, if I may be so bold."
"You may not be so bold, Gregory," said Jerningham. "Disguises are well enough in Spanish tales and stage plays; but you'd be caught, and all brought home to me and the bishop's ears. He could stay our ship at the last hour, an he had a mind to. Go to; and do and speak when you are bid, not else."
The serving-man stepped back, looking humiliated.
"He's already green with jealousy of the man you shall employ," said Ermsby, with unkind amusement at the knave's discomfiture.
"Ay, he's touchy that way. A faithful dog – and bound to be so, for I know a thing or two that would hang him. But to reach this maid, I must have another Mercury. Where shall I find this witty poor rascal that is to cozen old Argus, her father, and get me access to her?"
"Why, but for going to Deptford, we might seek him forthwith. The hour before dinner is the right time. But – "
"Then let us seek. There's no need we go to Deptford to-day. We cannot haste matters at the ship; all's in good hands there. In God's name, come find me this fellow."
"Bid Gregory hail a boat, then," said Ermsby; and, after the servant had been sent ahead to the stairs on that errand, and Ermsby had motioned his own page to go thither, he continued: "We shall go to Paul's first, where we got so many of our shipmates; there we shall have choice of half the penniless companions, starved wits, masterless men, cast soldiers, skulking debtors, and serviceable rascals in London. Of a surety, you can buy any service there; there's truth in what the plays say."
The two gentlemen, attended by Gregory and the page, were soon embarked in a wherry whose prow the watermen headed against the current, the destination being some distance up-stream on the opposite bank.
"What of Meg Falkner?" Ermsby said, suddenly, in a tone too low for the servants to hear. "Are you rid of her yet?"
Jerningham's brow turned darker by a shade.
"That were as great a puzzle as to reach this goldsmith's wench," he replied. "I would have married her to Gregory; it seemed no mean fate for a yeoman's daughter that had buried a brat; but she'd have none of that. I durs'n't turn her out lest she make a noise that might come to the bishop. I'm lucky she hath kept quiet, as it is."
"She lives still at your country-house?"
"Ay; where else to lodge her? Rotten as it is, it does for that; and that is the only use it hath done me this many a year. There's a cow or two for her maintaining, and some hens. And for company, there's old Jeremy that's half-blind. He can quiet her fears o' nights, when the timbers creak and she thinks it is a ghost walking."
"And what of the house when you are away on the voyage?"
"Troth, all may out then, I care not! Let 'em sell the estate for the debts on it; they'll find themselves losers, I trow. And Mistress Meg will be left in the lurch, poor white-face! As for me, when the ship sails, I shall be quit of that plague."
"Ay, but you'll be quit of this goldsmith's wench, too. Will your 'one sweet hour' or so suffice, think you?"
The faintest smile came into Jerningham's face.
"I will not prophesy," said he, softly. "But, as you well know, when we come to that island, if all goes well, I shall be in some sort a king there."
"Certainly; but what of that, touching this wench?"
"Why, will not the island have room for a queen as well?"
"Oho!" quoth Ermsby, after a short silence. "So the wind blows that way in thy dreams!"
Presently they landed at Paul's Wharf, climbed to Thames Street, which was noisy with carts and drays, and went on up a narrow thoroughfare toward the great church.
CHAPTER IV.
THE ART OF ROARING
"Damn me, I will be a roarer, or't shall cost me a fall."
On the February morning when he rose from bed in the coal-house attached to the haunted dwelling in Foster Lane, Captain Ravenshaw waited about the yard for Moll Frith to return from her excursion of the night. When she appeared, he gave her back the key to the gate, and borrowed two angels from her. Armed with these, he bade her repent of her sins, and hastened to Cheapside, turning eastward with the purpose of finding out how and where his new friend, the scholar, fared in the hands of the law.
Cheapside, which was in a double sense the Broadway of Elizabethan London, was already thronged with people going about their business, the shops and booths of the merchants being open, and the shopmen and 'prentices crying out their wares with the customary