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

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  CAPTAIN RAVENSHAW

  "THERE WAS EXCHANGE OF THRUST AND PARRY." (_See page 333_).]

  CAPTAIN RAVENSHAW

  OR,

  THE MAID OF CHEAPSIDE

  _A Romance of Elizabethan London_

  By Robert Neilson Stephens

  Author of "Philip Winwood," "A Gentleman Player," "An Enemy to the King," etc., etc.

  _Illustrated by_ HOWARD PYLE and others

  "_Hang him, swaggering rascal!... He a captain!... He lives upon mouldy stewed prunes and dried cakes._" _--King Henry IV., Part II._

 

  _Boston_: L. C. PAGE & COMPANY Publishers. _Mdcccci_

  _Copyright, 1901_ BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY (INCORPORATED)

  _All rights reserved_

  Colonial Press: Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. Boston, Mass., U. S. A.

  PREFACE.

  Here is offered mere story, the sort of thing Mr. Howellscannot tolerate. He will have none of us and our works, poor"neo-romanticists" that we are. Curiously enough, we neo-romanticists,or most of us, will always gratefully have him; of his works we cannothave too many; one of us, I know, has walked miles to get the magazinecontaining the latest instalment of his latest serial. This looks asif we were more liberal than he. He would, for the most part, prohibitfiction from being else than the record of the passing moment; itshould reflect only ourselves and our own little tediousnesses; hewould hang the chamber with mirrors, and taboo all pictures; or if headmitted pictures they should depict this hour's actualities alone,there should be no figures in costume.

  But who shall decide in these matters what is to be and what is notto be? Who shall deny that all kinds of fiction have equal right toexist? Who shall dictate our choice of theme, or place, or time? Whoshall forbid us in our faltering way to imagine forth the past if welike? The dead past, say you? As dead as yesterday afternoon, no more."Where's he that died o' Wednesday?" As dead as the Queen of Sheba.But on the pages of Sienkiewicz, for example, certain little mattersof Nero's time seem no more dead than last week's divorce trial in thecolumns of those realists, the newspaper reporters. All that is notimmediately before our eyes, whether dead or distant, can be visualisedonly by imagination informed by description, and a small transactionin the reign of Elizabeth can be made as sensible to the mind's eye asa domestic scene between Mr. and Mrs. Jones in the administration ofMcKinley. But how can one describe authentically what one can neverhave seen? You may propound that question to the realists; they areoften doing it, or else they see extraordinary things now and then.

  But, now that I remember it, Mr. Howells is not really illiberal. Hehas, upon occasion, admitted a tolerance--nay, an admiration--for"genuine romance." But what is genuine romance? Is psychologicalromance, for instance, more "genuine" than melodramatic romance? Arewe not all--we "neo-romanticists"--aiming at genuine romance in somekind? Shall there not be many misses to a hit? many inconsiderableachievements to a masterpiece? And we suffer under limitations whichthe great romancers had not to observe. We must be watchful againstanachronisms, against many liberties in style and matter which theesteemed Sir Walter, for instance, might take--and did take--withoutstint. One's fancy was less restrained, in his day. One cannot, as hedid, bring Shakespeare to Greenwich palace before the festivities atKenilworth occurred; or let a shopman recommend a pair of spectaclesto a doctor of divinity with the information that the king, havingtried them on, had pronounced them fit for a bishop; or make the divinebuy them with the cheerful remark that a certain reverend brother'sadvancing age gives hopes of an early promotion. Fancy such an exchangeof jocularity between a shop "assistant" in Piccadilly and DoctorIngram, while the late Doctor Creighton was Bishop of London! Flow offancy is easier upon such terms; or, when one may even, as the greatDumas did, be so free of care for details as to have the same characterin two places at the same time.

  It is not meant to be implied that Mr. Howells is thought to considerthe work of Scott or Dumas genuine romance. If he has anywherementioned an example of what he takes to be true romance, I have missedthat mention. I should like to read his definition (perhaps he haspublished one which I have not seen) of genuine romance. But I wouldrather he taught us by example than by precept. What a fine romance hecould write if he chose!

  But as for us less-gifted ones, the "neo-romanticists," shackledas Scott and Dumas were not, we must work a while under the newconditions, the new checks upon our imagination, ere we shall get amasterpiece. Meanwhile none of us yields to Mr. Howells in admirationof a true romance, and none of us would be sorry to lay down the pen,or shut up the typewriter, some fine afternoon and find it achieved.But until then may we not have indifferent romances, just as we haveindifferent realistic novels? Why not, pray? Again, shall one man, onegroup, one school, decide what shall be and what shall not? "Dost thouthink, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?"

  Now, of merits which mere story may possess, and usually doespossess in measure greater than the other sort of thing does, oneis--construction. Wherefore, the opponents of this sort of thingbelittle that merit. But it is a prime merit, nevertheless. Is not thefirst thing for praise, in a picture, its composition? in a building,its main design? in a group of statuary, its general effect? So, too,in a work of fiction. "Real life does not contrive so curiously,"says Professor Saintsbury. Precisely; if it did, what would be thegood of fiction? Neither does nature contrive well-ordered squaresof turf, with walks, flower-beds, hedge-rows, shrubbery, trees setwith premeditation; shall we, on that account, make no gardens forourselves? Who shall ordain that there be no well-constructed plotsin fiction because life, seen in sections as small as a novel usuallyrepresents, is not well constructed? It is time somebody put in a wordfor plot. When all is said and done, the main thing in a story _is_ thestory.

  Mr. Howells said, long ago, that the stories were all told. It isdoubtful. But even if it were certain, what of it? Because therewas an old tale of a king's wife whose lover lost the ring she gavehim, whereupon the king, finding out, bade her wear it on a certainsoon-coming occasion, and she was put to much concern to get it intime, was the world to go without the pleasure of D'Artagnan's missionfor Anne of Austria? And what though Dumas himself had used the oldsituation of a real king imprisoned, and his "double" filling thethrone in his place, were we to have no "Prisoner of Zenda?" Or evenif the story of the man apparently wooing the handsome sister, whilereally loving the plain sister, had already been told, as it had, wasMr. Howells prohibited from making it twice told, in "Silas Lapham?"

  Now, as to this little attempt at romance in a certain kind, I wishmerely to say, for the benefit of those who turn over the first leavesof a novel in a bookstore or library before deciding whether to takeor leave it, that it differs from the usual adventure-story in beingconcerned merely with private life and unimportant people. Thoughit has incidents enough, and perils enough, it deals neither withwar nor with state affairs. It contains no royal person; not even alord--nor a baronet, indeed, for baronets had not yet been inventedat the period of the tale. The characters are every-da
y people of theLondon of the time, and the scenes in which they move are the street,the tavern, the citizen's house and garden, the shop, the river, thepublic resort,--such places as the ordinary reader would see if amiracle turned back time and transported him to London in the closingpart of Elizabeth's reign. The atmosphere of that place and time, asone may find it best in the less known and more realistic comediesof Shakespeare's contemporaries, in prose narratives and anecdotes,and in the records left of actual transactions, strikes us of thetwentieth century as a little strange, somewhat of a world which wecan hardly take to be real. If I have succeeded in putting a breath ofthis strangeness, this (to us) seeming unreality, into this busy tale,and yet have kept the tale vital with a human nature the same then asnow, I have done something not altogether bad. Bad or good, I havebeen a long time about it, for I have grown to believe that, thoughnovel-reading properly comes under the head of play, novel-writingproperly comes under the head of work. My work herein has not goneto attain the preciosity of style which distracts attention from thestory, or the brilliancy of dialogue which--as the author of "JohnInglesant" says--"declares the glory of the author more frequently thanit increases reality of effect." My work has gone, very much, to theavoidance of anachronisms. This is a virtue really possessed by fewnovels which deal with the past, as only the writers of such novelsknow. It may be a virtue not worth achieving, but it was a whim ofmine to achieve it. Ill health forbade fast writing, the success of mylast previous book permitted slow writing, and I resolved to utilisethe occasion by achieving one rare merit which, as it required neithergenius nor talent, but merely care, was within my powers. The resultof my care must appear as much in what the story omits as in what itcontains. The reader may be assured at the outset, if it matters astraw to him, that the author of this romance of Elizabethan London(and its neighbourhood) is himself at home in Elizabethan London; ifhe fails to make the reader also a little at home there in the courseof the story, it is only because he lacks the gift, or skill, ofimparting.

  ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS.

  LONDON, June 1, 1901.