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

  CAPTAIN RAVENSHAW.

  CHAPTER I.

  MEN OF DESPERATE FORTUNES.

  "Though my hard fate has thrust me out to servitude, I tumbled into th' world a gentleman."--_The Changeling._

  It was long past curfew, yet Captain Ravenshaw still tarried in thefront room of the Windmill tavern, in the Old Jewry. With him weresome young gentlemen, at whose cost he had been drinking throughoutthe afternoon. For their bounty, he had paid with the satiricalconversation for which he was famed, as well as with richly embellishedanecdotes of his campaigns. Late in the evening, the company had beenjoined by a young gallant who had previously sent them, from anotherchamber, a quantity of Rhenish wine. This newcomer now ordered supperfor the party, a proceeding at which the captain dissembled hislong-deferred pleasure--for he had not eaten since the day before.Moreover, besides the prospect of supper, there was this to hold him atthe tavern: he knew not where he should look for a bed, or shelter,upon leaving it. The uncertainty was a grave consideration upon soblack and windy a night.

  Master Vallance, the gentleman who had ordered supper, had listenedto the last of Ravenshaw's brag with a rather scornful silence. Butthe other young men had been appreciative; it was their pose, oraffectation, to be as wicked as any man might; hence they looked up tothis celebrated bully as to a person from whom there was much to belearned, and in whom there was much to be imitated.

  The group had been sitting before the wide fireplace. But as soon asthe roast fowls were brought in, there was a movement to the longtable in the middle of the room. The captain was gifted with active,striding legs and long, slashing arms. So he was first to be seated,and, as he leaned forward upon his elbows, he seemed to cover more thanhis share of the table. He had a broad, solid forehead, an assertivenose, a narrow but forward chin, gray eyes accustomed to flash with adevil-may-care defiance, a firm mouth inured to a curve of sardonicderision. His rebellious hair, down-turning moustaches, and pointedbeard were of a dark brown hue. He was a man of good height; belowthe sword-belt, he was lank to the ground; above, he broadened outwell for chest and shoulders. His voice was quick, vigorous, and notunpleasantly metallic. He was under thirty, but rough experience hadhardened his visage to an older look. His jerkin, shirt, hose, shoes,and ruff also betokened much and severe usage.

  Master Vallance, in spotless velvet doublet and breeches, and perfectlyclean silk stockings, looked at him with contemptuous dislike.

  "Take heed you scorch not the capon with your nose, roaring Ravenshaw,"said the youth, quietly.

  It was not Ravenshaw's habit to resent allusions to his character asa "roaring boy;" indeed he encouraged the popular idea which saddledhim with that title, at that time applied to bullies of the taverns.But some circumstance of the moment, perhaps something in the youngcoxcomb's air of aristocratic ridicule, guided the epithet to asensitive spot.

  "_Captain_ Ravenshaw, by your leave," he said, instantly, in a loudtone, with an ironical show of a petitioner's deference.

  "Forsooth, yes; a captain of the suburbs," replied the young gentleman,with a more pronounced sneer.

  Now at this time--toward the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth--andfor a long time after, certain of the suburbs of London were inhabitednumerously by people of ill repute. There were, especially, women whomthe law sometimes took in hand and sent to the Bridewell to breakchalk, or treated to a public ride in a cart, as targets for rottenvegetables, addled eggs, and such projectiles. Many an unemployedsoldier, or bully who called himself soldier, would bestow, or impose,his protection upon some one of these frail creatures in the time ofher prosperity, exacting from her the means of livelihood. Hence didRavenshaw see in the title of "captain of the suburbs" an insult littleless than lay in that of "Apple-John," or "Apple-squire," itself.

  When a gentleman calls another by the name of a bad thing, it is notnecessarily implied that he thinks the other is that thing; but it iscertain that he means to be defiantly offensive. Therefore, in thiscase, the captain's part was not to deny, but to resent. Not only musthe keep up his reputation with the other gentlemen as a man not to beaffronted, but he really was in a towering rage at being bearded witheasy temerity by such a youngling.

  "What!" quoth he. "Thou sprig! Thy wits are strayed away, methinks. Orhas thy nurse been teaching thee to use a pert tongue?"

  "Nay, save your own tongue for the tasting of yon capon. I speak onlytruth. Your reputation is well known."

  "Why, thou saucy boy, I may not spit butterflies on my sword, norprovoke striplings by giving them the lie; else--"

  The captain finished with a shrug of vexation.

  "Look ye, gentlemen, he lays it to my youth," continued the persecutor,"but there's yet a horse of another colour. This captain is freeenough with his bluster and his sword; he has drawn quarts of bloodfor a single word that misliked him, upon occasion; but he will beara thousand scurvy affronts from any man for the sake of a supper. Youshall see--"

  "Supper!" echoed the captain, springing up. "Do you cast your filthysupper in my teeth? Nay, then, I'll cast it in thine own."

  With this, thoroughly enraged, Captain Ravenshaw seized the particularcapon to which the gallant had alluded, and flung it across the tableinto the gallant's face. It struck with a thud, and, rebounding, leftthe young man a countenance both startled and greasy. Not content,the offended captain thereupon reached forth to the fowl which hadbeen served as companion to the capon, and this he hurled in the samedirection. But he aimed a little too high, moreover the fop ducked hishead, and so the juicy missile sped across the room, to lodge plumpagainst the stomach of a person who had just then come into view in theopen doorway.

  This person showed lean in body and shabby in raiment. He made a swift,instinctive grasp at the thing with which he had come so unexpectedlyin contact, and happened to catch it before it could fall to thefloor. He held it up with both hands to his gaze a moment, and then,having ascertained beyond doubt its nature, he suddenly turned andvanished with it. Let us follow him, leaving behind us the scene in thetavern room, which scene, upon the landlady's rushing in to preserveorder for the good name of the house, was very soon after restored toa condition of peace by the wrathful departure of Ravenshaw from thecompany of an offender too young for him to chastise with the sword.

  The ill-clad person who clutched the cooked fowl, which accident hadthus summarily bestowed upon him, made short work of fleeing down thestairs and out into the black, chill February night. Once outside,though he could not see his hand before his face, he turned towardCheapside and stumbled forward along the miry way, his desire evidentlybeing to put himself so far from the Windmill tavern that he might notbe overtaken by any one who could lay claim to the fowl.

  The air was damp as well as cold. The fugitive, keeping his unglovedhands warm by spreading them around the fowl, which was fresh fromthe spit, had to grope his way through an inky wind. He listened forpossible footfalls behind him, but he heard none, and so he chuckledinwardly and held his prize close to his breast with a sense ofsecurity. Now and then he raised it to his nostrils, in anticipationof the feast he should enjoy upon arriving at the resting-place he hadin mind. He would have made a strange spectacle to anybody who mighthave been able to see him from one of the rattling casements as hepassed; but so dark it was that downlookers could no more have seen himthan he could see the painted plaster, carved cross-timbers, projectingwindows, and gabled roof-peaks of the tall houses that lined the narrowstreet through which he fled.

  At one place a lantern hanging over a door threw a faint light upon himfor a moment, and showed a young man's face, with sharp features and asoft expression; but the face was instantly gone in the darkness, andthere was no other night-walker abroad in the street to have seen itwhile it was visible.

  "Surely," he meditated, as he went, "the time of miracles has returned.And even a starved scholar is found worthy of Heaven's interposition.With the temerity of the famished, I enter a tavern, ascend the stairs,and steal into a room which I take to
be empty because no sound comesfrom it, my only hope being to pilfer a little warmth nobody will miss,perchance to fall heir to a drop of wine at the bottom of a glass, ora bone upon an uncleared table. And lo, I find myself in the presenceof a gentleman asleep before a pot of mulled canary, which he hasscarce wet his throat withal. In three swallows I make the canary myown, just in time to set down the pot before in comes a tapster. Ifeign I am in search of friends, who must be in t'other chamber. Tomake good the deceit, I must needs look in at t'other chamber door;when, behold, some follower of Mars, who looks as hungry as myself,pelts me with poultry. It is plainly a gift of the gods, and I am nosuch ill-mannered clown as to stay and inquire into the matter. Well,_gaudeamus igitur_, my sweet bird; here we are at St. Mary Cole Church,on the steps of which we shall make each other's better acquaintance.Jove!--or rather Bacchus!--what tumult a pint or so of mulled winemakes in the head of a poor master of arts, when too suddenly imbibed!"

  He went half-way up the steps and sat down, crouching into the smallestfigure possible, as if he might thus offer the least surface to thecold. Sinking his teeth into the succulent breast of the roast fowl, heforgot the weather in the joy of eating. But he had scarce taken twobites when he was fain to suspend his pleasure, for the sound of rapidfootfalls came along the way he had just traversed. He took alarm.

  "Sit quiet now, in God's name, Master Holyday!" he mentally adjuredhimself. "'Tis mayhap one in search of the fowl. Night, I am beholdento thee for thy mantle."

  The person strode past and into Cheapside without apprehension of thescholar's presence upon the steps. The scholar could not make out theman's looks, but could divine from sundry muttered oaths he gave ventto, and from his incautious haste of movement, that he was angry.

  "God 'a' mercy! how he takes to heart the loss of a paltry fowl!" musedMaster Holyday, resuming the consumption of his supper on the churchsteps. "For, certes, 'twas from the Windmill he came; from his voice,and the copiousness of his swearing, I should take him to be that verysoldier whom the gods impelled to provide me with supper. Well, he isnow out of hearing; and a good thing, too, for there comes the moon atlast from the ragged edge of yon black cloud. Blow, wind, and clear thesky for her. Pish! what is this? Can I not find my mouth? Ha, ha! 'tisthe mulled wine."

  The scholar had indeed struck his nose with the fowl, when he hadmeant to bring it again between his teeth. He was conscious of theincreased effect of the wine in other ways, too, and chiefly in apleasanter perception of everything, a sense of agreeable comicality inall his surroundings, a warmed regard for all objects within view orthought. This enhanced the enjoyment of his meal. The moonlight, thoughfrequently dimmed by rushing scraps of cloud, made visible the streetsnear whose junction he sat, so that the house fronts stood strangelyforth in weird shine and shadow. The scholar, shivering upon the steps,was the only living creature in the scene. Yet there seemed to be aqueer half-life come into inanimate things. The wind could be heardmoaning sometimes in unseen passages. The hanging signs creaked as ifthey now and then conversed one with another in brief, monosyllabiclanguage.

  "In the daylight," thought the scholar, "men and women possess thestreets, their customs prevail, and their opinions rule. But now,forsooth, the house fronts and the signs, the casements and theweathercocks, have their conference. Are they considering solely oftheir own matters, or do they tell one another tales of the foolishbeings that move about on legs, hurrying and chattering, by day?Faith, is it of me they are talking? See with what a blank look thosehouses gaze down at me, like a bench of magistrates at a rogue. Butthe house at the end, the tall one with the straight front,--I swearit is frowning upon me. And the one beside it, with the fat orielwindows, and whose upper stories belly so far out over the street,--asI'm a gentleman and a scholar, 'tis laughing at me. Has it come tothis?--to be a thing of mirth to a monster of wood and plaster, a hugeface with eyes of glass? For this did Ralph Holyday take his degreesat Cambridge University, and was esteemed as able a disputant as evercame forth of Benet College? Go thy ways, Ralph; better wert thousome fat citizen snoring behind yon same walls, than Master Holyday,_magister artium_, lodging houseless on the church steps with all thyscholarship. Not so, neither; thou wouldst be damned rather! Hark, whois it walks in Cheapside, and coming this way, too?"

  He might have recognised the tread as the same which had some minutesbefore moved in the opposite direction; though it was now less rapid,as if the owner of the feet had walked off some of his wrath. Cominginto view at the end of the Old Jewry, that owner proved to be in truththe very soldier of whom Holyday had caught a glimpse at the tavern.The soldier, turning by some impulse, saw the scholar on the steps; buthis warlike gaze had now no terror for Master Holyday, who had put atleast half of the fowl beyond possible recovery, and whose appetite wasno longer keen.

  "God save you, sir!" said the scholar, courteously. "Were you seeking acertain roast fowl?"

  "Not I, sirrah," replied Captain Ravenshaw, approaching Holyday. "Youare he that stood in the doorway, perchance? Rest easy; the fowl wasnone of mine. I should scorn to swallow a morsel of it."

  And yet he eyed it in such a manner that Master Holyday, who was a goodjudge of a hungry glance, said, placidly:

  "You are welcome to what is left of it here." Which offer the scholarenforced with a satisfied sigh, indicating fulness of stomach.

  The captain made a very brief pretence of silent hesitation, thenaccepted the remainder of the feast from the scholar's hands, saying:

  "Worshipful sir, it should go hard with me ere I would refusetrue hospitality. Have I not seen you about the town before thisnight?" He sat down beside Holyday, and began to devour the alreadymuch-diminished fowl.

  "I know not," replied the scholar, who had a mild, untroubled way ofspeaking. "'Twas last Michaelmas I came to London. I have kept someriotous company, but, if I have met you, I remember not."

  "'Slight! you know then who I be?"

  "Not I, truly."

  "Yet you call me riotous."

  "That argues no previous knowledge. Though I be a Cambridge man, ittakes none of my scholarship to know a gentleman of brawls at sight, aroaring boy, a swaggerer of the taverns--"

  "Why, boy, why! Do you mean offence in these names?"

  "No offence in the world. You see I bear no sword, being but apoor master of arts. None so bold of speech as the helpless, amonghonourable men of the sword."

  "Some truth in that. Look ye, young sir, hast ever heard of oneRavenshaw, a captain, about the town here?"

  "Ay, he is the loudest roarer of them all, I have heard; one whose biteis as bad as his bark, too, which is not the case with all of thesebraggadocios; but he is a scurvy rascal, is he not? a ragged hector ofthe ale-houses. Is it he you mean?"

  "Ha! that is his reputation? Well, to say truth, he may comfort himselfby knowing he deserves it. But the world used him scurvily first--nay,a plague on them that whine for themselves! I am that Ravenshaw."

  "Then I must deal softly; else I am a hare as good as torn to pieces bythe dogs."

  "Why, no, scholar, thou needst not be afeard. I like thee, youngnight-walker. Thou wert most civil concerning this fowl. 'Od's light!but for thee, my sudden pride had played my belly a sad trick thisnight. Thou art one to be trusted, I see, and when I have finished withthis bird, I will tell thee something curious of my rascal reputation.But while I eat, prithee, who art thou? and what is it hath sent theeto be a lodger on the steps of St. Mary Cole Church? Come, scholar;thou might do worse than make a friend of roaring Ravenshaw."

  "Nay, I have no enemies I would wish killed. But I am any man's gossip,if he have inclination for my discourse, and be not without lining tohis headpiece. My name is Ralph Holyday; I am only son to Mr. FrancisHolyday, a Kentish gentleman of good estate. He is as different amanner of man from me as this night is from a summer day. He isstubborn and tempestuous; he will have his way, though the house fallfor it. He has no love of books and learning, neither; but my mother,seeing that I was of a bookish mind
, worked upon him unceasingly tosend me to the university, till at last, for peace' sake, he packed meoff to Cambridge. While I was there, my mother died--rest her soul,poor lady! After I took my degrees, my father would have it that Icome home, and fit myself to succeed him. Home I went, perforce, butI had no stomach for the life he would lead me. I rather preferredto sit among my books, and to royster at the ale-house in companywith a parson, who had as great love for learned disputation as forbeer and venison. Many a pleasant day and night have I sat with goodSir Nicholas, drinking, and arguing upon the soul's immortality.This parson had sundry friends, too, good knaves, though less givento learning than to tossing the pot; they were poachers all, to saytruth, and none better with the crossbow at a likely deer than thevicar. Thus, when I ought to have been busy in the matter of preservingmy father's deer, I would be abroad in forbidden quest of other men's;'twas, I know not how, the more sportive and curious occupation. Well,my father stormed at these ways of mine, but there was no method ofcuring them. But one day he became fearful his blood should die out.He must have descendants, he swore, and to that end I must find awife straightway. Here is where we crossed weapons. I am not blind tothe charms of women, but I am cursed with such timidity of them, suchbashfulness when I am near them, that if I tried to court one, or ifone were put upon me as wife, I should fall to pieces for shaking. Iwould sooner attempt anew the labours of Hercules than go a-wooing fora wife."

  "'Tis a curious affliction," remarked the captain, pausing in hisfeast. "But many men have it; fighting men, too. There was Dick Rokeby,that was my comrade in France; he that fought with Harry Spence and me,each one 'gainst t'other two, upon the question of the properest oathfor a soldier to swear by. Harry was one of your Latin fellows, andheld for 'the buckler of Mars.' Dick Rokeby said an Englishman coulddo no better than swear by the lance of St. George. And I vowed by thespurs of Harry Fift' I would put down any man that thought better ofany other oath. We fought it out, three-cornered, in Grey's Inn Fields;and the spurs of Harry Fift' won the day. As for women, I am theirenemy on other grounds. There was one I trusted, and when I was at thewars she wronged me with my friend. I have sworn revenge upon the sex,curse 'em! So you would not marry?"

  "That I would not. The only women I can approach without tremblingat the knees, and my face burning, and my tongue sticking fast,are serving-maids and common drabs, and such as I would not raiseto a place of quality. So the end was that, after he had raged andthreatened for six months, my father cast me forth, swearing I shouldnever cross his doorsill, or have a penny of him, till I should comeback with a wife on my arm. And so I came last Michaelmas to London."

  "And how hast made shift to live since then?"

  "Why, first upon some money my friend Sir Nick thrust upon me; then bythe barter of my clothes in Cornhill; and meanwhile I had writ a play,a tragedy, that Master Henslowe gave me five pounds for."

  "I would fain see thy tragedy. How is it named?"

  "God knows when it may be played; it has not yet been. It is 'TheLamentable Tragedy of Queen Nitocris.' The story is in a Greekhistory."

  "What, you dare not even discourse with a mere gentlewoman, yet writethe intimate histories of queens?"

  "Yes, friend; there are many of us poor poets do so. We herd withtrulls, and dream of empresses. (A passable decasyllabic line, that!)But I have not been able to sell another tragedy, nor yet to have mysonnets printed, whereby I might get ten pounds for a dedication. Andso you see me as I am."

  "Well," said the captain, having by this time pretty well stuffedhimself, "I like thee the better for being a poet. Such as you know meto be, you will scarce believe it; but I am one--or was once--fittedby nature to take joy in naught so much as in poetry, and the sweetpastoral life that poets praise so. But never whisper this; I were adead man if the town knew the softness underneath my leathern outside.But in very truth, as for books, I would give all the Plutarchs in theworld for one canto of 'The Faerie Queene' or ten pages of the gentlerpart of Sidney's 'Arcadia.' Had I won my choice, I had passed my days,not in camps and battles, taverns and brawls, but in green meadows,sitting and strolling among flowers, reading some book of faery orshepherds--for I never could make up poetry of my own."

  "That picture belies the common report of Captain Ravenshaw."

  "Ay, Master Holyday; swaggering Ravenshaw is no shepherd of poesy.But hearken to what I promised thee: I, too, am a gentleman's son;the family is an old one in Worcestershire,--observe I call it not_my_ family. I was early a cast-off scion, and for no fault of mine,I swear. 'Twas the work of a woman, a she-devil, that bewitched myfather. But God forbid I should afflict any man, or rouse mine own deadfeelings, with the tale of my wrongs! I was no roaring boy then; I wasa tame youth, and a modest. But when I found myself out in the world,I soon learned that with a mild mien, unless a man have a craftiness Ilacked, he is ever thrust backward, and crushed against the wall, ortrodden upon in the ditch. And so for policy I took the time and painsto make myself a master of the sword, not that I might brawl, but thatI might go my ways in peace. In good time, I killed two men or so thatwere thought invincible; and I supposed the noise of this would save mefrom affronts after that."

  "And was it not so?"

  "Perchance it had been, if my manner had comported with the deed. ButI still went modest in my bearing, and so my prowess was soon forgot;some may have thought my victories an accident of fortune; besides,strangers knew not what I had done, and saw no daring in me; and so Ifound myself as unconsidered as ever. And at last, when the woman Iloved turned treacherous and robbed me of the friend at court on whommy fortune hung, and malice was hatched in me, I bethought me of a newtrick. I took on a bold front, an insolent outside; I became a swearer,a swaggerer, a roaring boy, a braggart; and lo! people soon steppedaside to let me pass. I found this blustering masquerade a thousandtimes more potent to secure immunity than my real swordsmanship hadbeen. The transformation was but skin-deep at first; but the wars,and my hard life and my poverty, helped its increase, so that now ithas worked in to the heart of me. There was a time it made me ill tosink my rapier into a man's soft flesh, but I grew to be of strongerstomach. And when I first put on the mask of brazen effrontery, I wasoften faint within when I seemed most insolent. But now I am indeedroaring Ravenshaw, all but a little of me, and that little oftensleeps."

  "But this insolence of thine, real or false, seems not to have made thyfortune."

  "Nay, but it has made my poverty the less contemptible. Lay not myundoing to it. When the war lasted, I fared well enough, as long asI kept the captainship my friend had got me ere the woman played mefalse. A score of things have happened to bring me to this pass. Mybraggadocio, ofttimes enforced with deeds, hath neither helped norhindered my downfall; it hath stood me in good stead in fair times andfoul. Pish, man, but for my reputation, and the fear of my enmity orviolence, could I have run up such scores at taverns as I have done,being penniless? How often have I roared dicing fools, and card-playingasses, out of the stakes when they had fairly won 'em? Could any but aman who has made himself feared do such things, and keep out of Newgateor at least the Counter i' the Poultry here?"

  "Why, is not that rank robbery, sir?"

  "Yes, sir, and rank filling of my empty stomach. Tut, scholar, you havebeen hungry yourself; roofless, too. Be so as oft as I have been, andwith as small chance of mending matters, and I'll give a cracked threefarthings for what virtue is left in you. Boy, boy, hast thou yet tolearn what a troublesome comrade thy belly is, in time of poverty? Whata leader into temptation? Am I, who was once a gentleman, a rascal aswell as a brawler? Yes, I am a rascal. So be it; and the more beholdenI to my rascality when it find me a dinner, or a warm place to sleep o'nights. Would it might serve us now. Who are these a-coming?"

  Some dark figures were approaching from up the Old Jewry, attended bytwo fellows bearing links, for the moonlight was not to be relied upon.The figures came arm in arm, at a blithe but unsteady gait, swayingand plunging. Presently the captain recognised the
gentlemen who hadbeen his afternoon companions at the sign of the Windmill. But MasterVallance was not with them, having doubtless taken lodging at one ofthe inns near the tavern. The sparks, jubilant with their wine, nosooner made out the captain's form than they hailed him heartily.

  "What, old war boy!" cried Master Maylands, a spruce and bold youngexquisite. "Well met, well met! Hey, gentles, we'll make a night on't.Captain, you shall captain us, captain!"

  "Ay, you shall captain us about the town," put in Master Hawes, whospoke shrilly, and with a lisp, for which he would have been admiredhad it been affected, but for which he was often ridiculed because itwas natural. "You shall teach us to roar as loud as you do. What sayyou, gallants? Shall we go to school to him to learn roaring? He is themaster swaggerer of all that ever swaggered."

  The proposal was received with noisy approval, the roysterers gatheringaround the captain where he sat, and grasping him by the sleeves todraw him along with them.

  "Softly, gentlemen, softly," said the captain. "Ye seem of a mind here.But do you consider? There is much I might impart, in the practice ofswaggering. Would you in good sooth have me for a tutor?"

  There was a chorus of affirmative protestation.

  The captain thought it politic to urge a scruple.

  "But bethink ye," quoth he, "to be a true swaggerer is no child's play.And you are of delicate rearing, all; meant to play lutes in ladies'chambers; court buds, gallants."

  "Why, then," said Maylands, "we shall be gallants and swaggerers, too;an you make swaggerers of us, we will make a gallant of you, will wenot, boys?"

  "Nay," replied Ravenshaw, "I have been a gallant in my time, and needbut the clothes to be one again; and so does my friend here, who is agentleman and a scholar, though out of favour with fortune. Now therebe many tricks in the swaggering trade; the choice of oaths is alone asubtle study, and that is but one branch of many. I'll not be any man'sschoolmaster for nothing."

  "Faith, man, who asks it?" cried Master Maylands. "We'll pay you. Foran earnest, take my cloak; my doublet is thick." He flung the richbroadcloth garment over the captain's uncloaked shoulders. "You needbut the clothes to be a gallant again? 'Fore God, I believe it! TomHawes, I've cloaked him; you doublet him. Barter your doublet forhis jerkin; your cloak will hide it for the night; you've a score ofdoublets at home."

  Master Maylands, in his zeal, fell upon the unobjecting Hawes, andin a trice had helped to effect the transfer, the captain feigninga helpless compliance in the hands of his insistent benefactors. Itoccurred to another of the youths, Master Clarington, to exchangehis jewelled German cap of velvet for Ravenshaw's ragged felt hat;whereupon Master Dauncey, not to be outdone, would have had hisbreeches untrussed by his link-boy, to bestow upon the captain, butthat the captain himself interposed on the score of the cold weather.

  "But I'll take it as kindly of you," said Ravenshaw, "if you shouldhave a cloak for my scholar friend. How say you, Master Holyday?Thou'lt be one of us? Thou'lt be a swaggering gallant, too?"

  Master Holyday, inwardly thanking his stars for the benevolent impulsewhich had made him share the fowl, and so elicit this gratitude, wouldhave agreed to anything under the moon (except to woo a woman) for thesake of warmer clothes.

  "Yes, sir," said he, with his wonted studious gravity of manner; "ifthese gentlemen will be so gracious."

  The gentlemen were readily so gracious. After a few rapid exchanges,which they treated as a great piece of mirth, they beheld the scholaralso cloaked and richly doubleted and hatted. He wore his fine garmentswith a greater sense of their comfort than of his improved appearance,yet with a somewhat pleasant scholastic grace.

  The captain strutted a little way down the street, to enjoy the effectof his new cloak; but, as he stepped into Cheapside, the moon wasclouded, and he could no longer see the garment tailing out finelyover his sword behind. A distant sound of plodding feet made him lookwestward in Cheapside, and he saw a few dim lanterns approaching fromafar.

  "Lads, the watch is coming," said he. "Shall we tarry here, and bechallenged for night-walkers?"

  "Marry," quoth Master Maylands, leaping forward to the captain's side,"we shall take our first lesson in swaggering now; we shall beat thewatch."

  "As good a piece of swaggering gallantry as any," said the captain."Come, my hearts!"

  And he led the way along Cheapside toward the approaching watchmen.