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

"Here were a matter to wager upon, now," observed the captain: "Whether he met his mistress after all and bore her away, or whether he found her not and went wisely to bed."

A few steps farther brought the strollers opposite the mouth of Bread Street. The sound of men's voices came from within this narrow thoroughfare.

"Marry, here be other fellows abroad," quoth the captain. "How if we should 'light upon occasion for a brawl? Then we should see if we could put them down with big words. Come, lads."

They turned into the narrow street and proceeded toward a group whose four or five dark figures were indistinctly marked in the flickering glare of a single torch. This group appeared to be circled about a closed doorway opposite All-hallows Church, at the farther corner of Watling Street, in which doorway stood the object of its attention.

"Some drunken drab o' the streets, belike," said the captain, in a low voice, to his followers. "We'll feign to know her, and we'll call ourselves her friends; that will put us on brawling terms with those gentlemen. They are gallants, sure, by their cloaks and feathers."

The gentlemen were, it seemed, too disdainful of harm to interrupt their mirth by looking to see who came toward them. The heartless amusement on their faces, the tormenting tone of the jesting words they spoke, gave an impression somewhat like that of a pack of dogs surrounding a helpless animal which they dare not attack, but which they entertain themselves by teasing.

The captain stepped unchallenged into the little circle, and looked at the person shrinking in the doorway, who was quite visible in the torchlight.

"'Slight!" quoth the captain. "This is no trull; 'tis a young gentlewoman."

His surprise was so great as to make him for the moment forget the plan he had formed of precipitating a quarrel. The young gentlewoman looked very young indeed, and very gentle, being of a slight figure, and having a delicate face. She leaned close against the door, at which she had, as it seemed, put herself at bay. Her face, still wet with tears, retained something of the distortion of weeping, but was nevertheless charming. Her eyes, yet moist, were like violets on which rain had fallen. Her lips had not ceased to quiver with the emotion which had started her tears. Her hair, which was of a light brown, was in some disorder, partly from the wind; for the hood of the brown cloak she wore had been pulled back. It might easily be guessed who had pulled it, for the gentleman who stood nearest her, clad in velvet, and by whose behaviour the others seemed to be guided, held in his hand a little black mask, which he must have plucked from the girl's face.

This gentleman was tall, nobly formed, and of a magnificent appearance. His features were ruddy, bold, and cut in straight lines. He wore silken black moustaches, and a small black beard trimmed to two points.

At the captain's words, this gentleman looked around, took full note of the speaker in a brief glance, and scarce dropping his smile, – a smile careless and serene, of heartless humour, – said, calmly:

"Stand back, knave; she is not for your eyes."

The captain had already thought of the inequality between this fragile damsel and her persecutors; despite his account against womankind, her looks and attitude had struck within him a note of compassion; and now her chief tormentor had called him a knave. He remembered the purpose with which he had arrived upon the scene.

"Knave in your teeth, thou villain, thou grinning Lucifer, thou – thou – !" The captain was at a loss for some word of revilement that might be used against so fine a gentleman without seeming ridiculously misapplied. "Thou beater of the streets for stray fawns, thou frighter of delicate wenches!"

"Why, what motley is this?" replied the velvet gallant. "What mummer that is whole-clad above the girdle, and rags below? what mongrel, what patch, what filthy beggar in a stolen cloak? Avaunt, thing!"

The gentleman grasped the gilded hilt of his rapier, as if to enforce his command if need be.

"Ay, draw, and come on!" roared the captain. "You'll find me your teacher in that."

At the same moment a restraining clutch was put upon the gentleman's sleeve by one of his companions, who now muttered some quick words of prudence in his ear. Whether it was due to this, or to the captain's excellent flourish in unsheathing, he of the double-pointed beard paused in the very movement of drawing his weapon, and a moment later slid the steel back into its velvet scabbard. In his desistance from a violent course, there was evidently some consideration private to himself and his friend, some secret motive for the avoidance of a brawl.

"Say you so?" quoth the gentleman, blandly, as if no untoward words had passed. "Well, if you can be my teacher, you must be as good a rapier-and-dagger man as any in the kingdom, and there's an end on't. Are you that?"

"Sir, you might have tried me, and found out," said the captain, considerably mollified at the other's unexpected politeness, and putting up his sword.

"Why, marry, another time I may have occasion to see your skill – nay, I mean not a challenge; I should enjoy to see you fight any man."

"But what of this gentlewoman, sir?" said the captain, interrogatively.

"Why, you will not dispute, it is my prize, by right of discovery. You a swordman, and not know the laws of war? Faith, we men of the sea are better learned."

"Nay, but is she of the breed to make a prize of? Methinks she looks it not."

"Pish, man, a pretty thing or so; a citizen's filly, mayhap, that hath early slipped the halter; she will not tell her name; but what we find loose in the streets after curfew, we know what it is, whatsoever it may look."

The girl now spoke for the first time since the captain had seen her. Her voice, though disturbed by her feelings, was not shrill like a child's, but had the fulness of blossoming womanhood, and went with the smoothness common to well-bred voices.

"I was never in the streets at night before," she said, sobbingly. "There was one I was to meet, who was waiting for me at the Standard in Cheapside."

"Eh!" quoth the captain, with a suddenly increased interest.

"Some gallant 'prentice, belike," said the gentleman in velvet, with his singular smile of gaiety and cruelty. "Some brave cavalier of the flat cap, whom we frighted off."

"'Twas not so!" cried the girl. "He was not frighted off. I was going to him, and was near the place, but I could not see him yet, 'twas so dark. And then the watch came, with their lanterns, and I stood still, so they might not observe me. But I saw them go to the Standard, and take my – my friend that waited for me. I knew not what to do, and so I stayed where I was, all dismayed. And then, but not till the watch had gone away with him, came you cruel gentlemen and found me. So he was not frighted by you. Alas, if he had but seen me, and come to meet me!"

"But he was soon free of the watch," said the captain, wondering what such a damsel should have to do in surreptitiously meeting such a worshipful old married gentleman. "Came he not back to the place? 'Tis a good while since."

"How know you about him?" queried the girl, with wonder.

"'Tis no matter," said the captain, forgetting for the nonce to brag of an exploit. "He ought to have come back to the place to seek you; he was no true man, else."

"Belike he did, then," said the girl, quickly, with hope suddenly revived.

"Nay, 'tis certain he waits not at the Standard; we came from there but now. Doubtless his taking up by the watch gave him his fill of waiting there. He seemed a man with no stomach for night risks."

"Then," said the girl, mournfully, "he must have come back after I had run from these gentlemen. Then he would think I could not meet him; 'twas past the time we had set. Oh, villains, that I should run from you, and miss my friend, and yet be caught at last! He would give all up, and go to his inn, and back to the country at daybreak. All's over with me! Oh, ye have much to answer for!"