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

"I must wish ye good night here, gentlemen. You will be at the Windmill again to-morrow, mayhap?"

"What?" said Master Maylands, carelessly. "Go you no farther our way? Where lodge you, then?"

"Oh, I lodge out Newgate way," replied the captain, vaguely. "A good night to ye all! Ye'll find me at the Windmill after dinner. Merry dreams, lads! Faith, I shall be glad to get under cover; the wind is higher, methinks."

A chorus of good nights answered him drowsily, and he was left in darkness, the link-boys going with the four gentlemen, who hung upon one another's arms as they plodded unsteadily along.

The captain trudged westward in Cheapside, in mechanical obedience to the suggestion pertaining to his lie.

"I should better have got myself taken up of the watch," he mused, as he gathered his new cloak about him, and made himself small against the wind. "Then I should have lain warm in the Counter. That scholar is a lucky fellow. But that would have lost me the opinion of my four sparks. Well, it shall go hard but they continue bountiful. Cloak, doublet, and bonnet already – a good night's booty. 'Tis well I found 'em in the right degree of drink. As for that wench – I was an ass, I should have let those roysterers have their way of her; 'twould have served my grudge against the sex. But such a child – ! Hey! What fellow comes here with the lantern and the wide breeches? An it be a constable, I'll vilify him, and be lodged in the Counter yet. How now, rascal! – what, Moll, is it thou, up to thy vixen tricks again?"

The newcomer, who now faced Ravenshaw and held up a lantern to see him the better, wore a man's doublet and hose, and a sword; but a careful scrutiny of the bold features would have revealed to any one that they were those of a sturdy young woman, of the lower class. The daughter of Frith, the shoemaker of Aldersgate, had yet to immortalise herself as Moll Cutpurse, but she had some time since run away from domestic service and taken to wearing men's clothes.

"Good even, Bully Ravenshaw," quoth she, in a hoarse, vigorous voice. "Why do you walk the night, old roaring boy?"

"For want of a lodging, young roaring girl."

"Is it so? Look ye, then; I'm abroad for the night, on matters of mine own. Here's my key; 'tis to the back yard gate of the empty house in Foster Lane, where the spirit walks. Dost fear ghosts?"

"Fear ghosts? Girl, I make 'em!"

"Then you'll find in that yard a penthouse, wherein is a feather-bed upon boards. 'Tis a good bed – I stole it from a brewer's widow."

And so the captain lodged that night in a coal-house, thankfully.

Now it happened that while Captain Ravenshaw and his companions were speeding up Bread Street toward Cheapside, the Spanish-hatted gentleman of whom they were in quest was plodding down Friday Street toward the tavern at whose door they had left his friends. When he arrived there, he gave a knock similar to that which had served to open the house to the handsome gallant of the double-pointed beard; and presently, after being inspected through a small grating in the door, he was admitted.

"Is Sir Clement Ermsby above?" he asked the sleepy menial who had let him in.

"Yes, your worship. An't please you, he and his friends came in but a little while ago. They're in the Neptune room. A cold night, your worship."

"How many of his friends?"

"Three, sir. There were e'en five or six more with him outside, at first; but they went their ways. Methinks there was some quarrel, but I know not."

The gentleman pushed his hat back from his brow, and looked a trifle relieved. He stood for a moment with his eye on the servant, as if to see that the man barred the door properly, and then he went up-stairs to a room at the rear of the tavern. The tapestry of this chamber represented the sea, with the ocean god and a multitude of other marine figures. Around the fire sat the newcomer's friends, smoking pipes; they greeted him with laughter.

"Ho, ho!" cried the handsome gallant. "She 'scaped you, after all! The pinnace was too fleet!"

"I gained all I wished," said the broad-breasted gentleman, coolly, speaking in curt syllables. "I had no mind to close in combat. I did not even let her know I was giving chase. But I saw what port she made into; I know where to seek her when the time is propitious."

With a faint smile of triumph over his comrades, the gentleman, who had thrown off his plain cloak while speaking, stepped close to the fire, removed his gloves, and began to warm his fingers. He was of middle stature, thick-bodied, heavily bearded, of a brown complexion; his expression of face was melancholy, moody, dreamy; as he gazed into the fire he seemed lost in his own thoughts. His momentary smile had brought a singularly sweet and noble light into his face; but that light had vanished with the smile.

"I must thank you, Ermsby, and all of ye," he said, after a short silence. "You drew the fellow away like the best of cozeners. How got you rid of him so soon?"

"Faith, by his taking note of your absence, and guessing what was afoot," replied the handsome gallant. "He's e'en looking for you now. A murrain on him! his ribs should have felt steel, but for thy fear of a brawl, Jerningham."

"Thou'rt a fool, Ermsby," answered Jerningham, continuing to gaze with saturnine countenance into the fire; "and my daring to call thee so tells how much I fear a fight for its own sake. How often must I put it to you in plain terms? If I be found concerned in roystering or rioting, I forfeit the countenance of my pious kinsman, the bishop. With that I forfeit the further use of his money in our enterprise. Without his money, how are we to complete the fitting of our ship? No ship, no voyage. No voyage, no possessing the fertile islands; and so no fortune, and there's an end. Pish, man, shall we lose all for a sight of some unknown rascal's filthy blood? Not I. You shall see me play the very Puritan till the day my ship lifts anchor for the Western seas."

"You have played the Puritan to-night, sooth," said Ermsby. "To steal after a wench under cover of night, and find out her house for your hidden purposes in future, – there's the soul of Puritanism. Where does she live?"

"I'll still be puritanical, and keep that knowledge to myself," said Jerningham, with the least touch of a smile.

"Nay, man, the secret is ours, too!" protested Ermsby. "We helped you to it. Come, you had best tell; that will put us on our honour to leave her all to you. If you don't, by my conscience, I'll hunt high and low till I find out for myself, and then I won't acknowledge any right of yours to her. Tell us, and make us your abettors; or tell us not, and make us your rivals."

Jerningham was silent for a moment, while he motioned the attending servant to pour him out some wine; then, evidently knowing his men, he replied:

"She led me but a short chase; which was well, as I had to go upon my toes – the sound of her steps was all I had to guide me. When the sound stopped, in Friday Street, I heard the creaking of a gate; it meant she had gone into a back yard. I went on softly, feeling the walls with my hands, till I came to the gate; and there I heard a key turning in a door. I had naught to do but find out what house the gate belonged to. 'Twas the house at the corner of Cheapside."

"And Friday Street? Which side of Friday Street?"

"The east side. 'Tis a goldsmith's shop. Does any one know what goldsmith dwells there?"

No one remembered. These were all gentlemen who, when they were not at sea, divided most of their time between the country and the court; at present they lodged toward the Charing Cross end of the Strand, in a row of houses opposite the riverside palaces of the great. But Jerningham himself lived with his kinsman, the bishop, in Winchester House, across the Thames.