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

by Robert Neilson Stephens

  CHAPTER IV.

  THE ART OF ROARING.

  "Damn me, I will be a roarer, or't shall cost me a fall."--_Amends for Ladies._

  On the February morning when he rose from bed in the coal-houseattached to the haunted dwelling in Foster Lane, Captain Ravenshawwaited about the yard for Moll Frith to return from her excursion ofthe night. When she appeared, he gave her back the key to the gate, andborrowed two angels from her. Armed with these, he bade her repent ofher sins, and hastened to Cheapside, turning eastward with the purposeof finding out how and where his new friend, the scholar, fared in thehands of the law.

  Cheapside, which was in a double sense the Broadway of ElizabethanLondon, 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 "What d'ye lack?"At the great conduit, the captain pushed his way through the crowd ofjesting and quarrelling water-carriers who were filling their vessels,and washed his hands and face. Looking about for a means of dryinghimself, while the water dripped from his features, he espied a womanwith a pitcher, to whom the uncouth water-carriers would not giveplace. The captain knocked several of them aside, gallantly took thewoman by the hand, led her to the fountain, and enabled her to fill herpitcher. While she was doing this, he, with courteous gestures, tookher kerchief from her head and dried himself therewith; after which hereturned it with a bow so polite that, between her amazement and hersense of flattery, she could not find it in her to say a word againstthe proceeding.

  Going on his way refreshed, the captain suddenly met Master Holyday,who looked as unconcerned as if he had never been near a prison in hislife.

  "What, lad, did not the watch take thee, then?"

  "Yes, faith, and kept me all night in a cage, where I think I haveturned foul inside with the smell of stale tobacco smoke. I am come butnow from the justice's hall."

  "Man, you've had a quick journey of it. By this light, you must havefound money in those new clothes, and tickled the palm of a constable."

  "No; the justice might have sent me back to the stinking hole, for allthe money I had to give anybody. When he asked me my name, I bethoughtme to reply, 'Sir Ralph Holyday;' which was no more than my right atCambridge, when I became a graduate there. But, seeing me in theseclothes instead of in black, the justice thought the 'Sir' was ofknighthood, not of scholarship. And so he said he could make nothingout of the watchmen's stories, which agreed not. I then addressed himrespectfully in Latin; and, lest it might be seen that he did notunderstand me, he got rid of me forthwith."

  "We'll drink his health--but not yet. While I have money to show, we'llbespeak lodgings, and so make sure of sleeping indoors, for a week o'nights, come what may. These clothes will get us curtseys and smilesfrom any hostess--except them that have already lodged me."

  "Ay, we are fine enough above the waist, but our poor legs and feet aresorry company for our upper halves."

  "Why, we must see to that when we meet our four asses again. Meanwhileour cloaks will cover us to the knees, and if we carry our heads highenough, nobody will dare look scornful at our feet. Remember, we aregallants while these clothes last; swaggering gallants, that give thewall to no man. And while we go seek lodgings, I'll tell thee how thoushalt earn thy share of these coxcombs' wastings. Hast ever travelledabroad?"

  "No," said the scholar, falling into the captain's stride as the pairwent westward.

  "No matter. Thou hast read books of other countries, and heardtravellers tell of foreign cities?"

  "Yes; I've read and heard much; and remembered some of it."

  "Then bear in mind, you are a great traveller. Your gentleman that hathnot been abroad is counted a poor thing among gallants. Now these foursilken gulls have never been out of England, and they look sheepishwhene'er a travelled man talks of France or Italy in their company.They would give much to pass for travelled gallants; to talk of Frenchfashions and Italian vices without exposing their inexperience. Youshall instruct 'em, so they may fool others as you fool them. I'llbroach the matter softly, and in such a way that they shall see thevalue of it. Thus, while you fill 'em up with tales of the foreigncities you have seen, we shall eat and drink at their cost. And so weshall hold 'em when they be tired of the swaggering lessons I mean togive 'em."

  "Well, I will do my best. What I don't know, I will e'en supply byinvention. My stomach will inspire me, I trust."

  They took lodgings at the top of a house in St. Lawrence Lane, notfar from its Cheapside end; and passed the time in walking about thestreets till near noon, when they went to dinner at an ordinary wherelong tables were crowded with men of different degrees, who dinedabundantly and cheaply. The two companions finally repaired to theWindmill tavern, where they had to wait an hour before their younggentlemen appeared.

  The four were now sober, and showed hardly as much relish in meetingthe captain as he might have wished. They cast somewhat rueful glancesat the clothes they had given away in their vinous generosity, andwhich they had now replaced with other articles suitable to theirquality. They manifested no eagerness for lessons in swaggering, andseemed at first to have forgotten any understanding they may haveformed with the captain in regard thereto.

  But Ravenshaw was prepared for this apathy. He took the risk ofinviting the gentlemen to drink, and with the air of an accustomed hosthe bowed them into the room to which a tapster directed him. He trustedthey would be of different mood when the time to pay the score shouldcome.

  A little drinking, and a few of the captain's tales, warmed them upto some enthusiasm for his society; and in an hour he had them urginghim to proceed straightway to their further education in the art ofroaring. After some reluctance and some unwillingness to believe thattheir proposal of the previous night had been serious, he was persuadedto consent. With the faintest grimace of triumph, for the eyes ofMaster Holyday alone, who smoked a pipe temperately by the fire, herose and began by illustrating how your true bully should "take thewall" of any man about to pass him in the street.

  The arras-hung partition of the room served as a street wall. Thecaptain started at one end, Master Dauncey at the other. When thetwo met at the middle, the instructor enacted an elaborate scene ofdisputing the right to pass next the wall and so avoid the mud of themid-street. He showed how to plant the feet, how to look fierce, howto finger the sword-hilt, what gestures to make; then what speeches touse, first of ironical courtesy, then of picturesque abuse, finally ofdaunting threat. Master Holyday, looking on from the fireplace, wasamazed to see how much art could be displayed in what had ever seemedto him quite a simple matter. The captain went through every possiblestage short of sword-thrusts; but there he stopped, saying that roaringended where real fighting began.

  "If your man has not given way by this time," said he, "and you thinkhe may be your better with the weapons, the next thing is to comegracefully out of the quarrel, by some jest or other shift. This iswhat many swaggering boys do, out of fear. When I do it myself, 'tisbecause I would avoid bloodshed, or out of mercy to my antagonist. But'tis, in any case, a most important thing in the art of swaggering; Ishall give examples of it in my next lesson."

  He then caused the gallants, in pairs, to go through such a scene as hehad enacted. They made a foolish, perfunctory business of it at first,though he schooled them at every moment in attitude, gesture, or look,and supplied them with terms of revilement that made the scholar starein admiration, and sanguinary threats before which a timid man mightwell tremble in his shoes.

  It would not do to carry his pupils too far forward at a step; he mustkeep them dependent upon him as long as possible. Nor was it safe totire them with repetitions. So he put an end to the lesson in goodtime; and then, to hold them for the rest of the day, he set forththe possibility of their learning to pass as men that had travelledabroad. Master Holyday, while modestly admitting the extent of hiswanderings in foreign countries, showed some disinclination to the taskof imparting the observations
he had made.

  "For, look ye," quoth he, "I once had a gossip whom I was wont to tellof things I had seen abroad. Like yourselves, he had never crossedthe narrow seas; but by noting carefully my talk, he was able to makeother people think he had travelled as far as I. There was one thing Ihad told him, which I had chanced to forget afterward. A dispute arosebetwixt us one day, before company that knew not either of us well,touching certain customs in Venice. By my not mentioning the thing Ihad forgot, and by his parading it as a matter well known, which othersin the company knew to be the case, I was made a laughing-stock, andhe got reputation as a great traveller. And to this day he keeps thatreputation, all at my expense."

  This ingenious speech brought the desired insistence; and that veryafternoon was begun, at Antwerp, an imaginary journey through the chiefcities of Europe, in which were seen many things more astonishing thanany foreign traveller had ever observed before.

  It took several evenings to go through Flanders and France, and wouldhave taken more, but that, after the gallants had satisfied theircuriosity regarding Paris, they were in haste to arrive in Italy assoon as might be. Italy was then the great playground of Englishtravellers; the fashions came from there, so did the inspiration toart and literature; the French got their cookery and their vices fromItaly; the English imported some of the vices, but not the cookery.

  While the scholar led his four charges from city to city by routesoften unusual and sometimes impossible, Captain Ravenshaw conductedthem stage by stage toward proficiency in swaggering. He showedthem how differently to bully their betters, their equals, theirinferiors; how to bully before company, how without witnesses, howin the presence of ladies; how to overbear in every situation, from asimple jostle in the street to a dispute about a woman; how to meet acontradiction in argument, how to give and receive every degree of thelie, how to intimidate a winner out of the stakes at a gaming-table;and finally how, when the opponent was not to be talked down, either toslip out of a fight or to carry one through.

  The progress of the four would-be bullies in their fireside travels,and their swaggering education, was accompanied by further improvementin the dress of their instructors. At last the soldier and his friendwere able to go clad in breeches, stockings, shoes, shirts, ruffs,and gloves, quite worthy of the cloaks, doublets, and hats they hadpreviously received. The four young gentlemen were now eager to trytheir new accomplishments about the town. The captain postponedthe test as long as he could; but finally their impatience was soperemptory that he had to consent.

  Now the captain knew that if his four apes should make a failure oftheir first attempt at swaggering, his favour with them were swiftlyruined; conversely, a success would warrant his demanding a substantialreward in money. Thus far his only payment, and Master Holyday'slikewise, had been in the shape of dinners, suppers, tobacco, andclothes. The two had been compelled, from time to time, to put offpayment for their lodgings, and to temporise with their laundress;and now their hostess's face wore a more and more inquiring lookeach morning as they went out. Ravenshaw had, it was true, obtaineda little coin in the card-playing and dicing, by means of which hehad illustrated to his pupils the uses of roaring in those pastimes.But this amount, small enough, he decided to lay out in ensuring thedesired success of his coxcombs in their first bullying exhibition.

  He therefore made a sudden and secret excursion to the suburbs beyondNewgate. After searching the lower taverns and ale-houses about Holbornand Smithfield, he found, in a cookshop in Pye Corner, a man withwhom he forthwith entered into negotiation. This man was a burly,middle-aged fellow, with a broken nose, a scarred cheek, a sullenattitude, and a husky voice. While he talked, he frequently spat inthe rushes that covered the floor; and now and again he would finish aremark with the words, added without the least sense, "And that's thehell of it." He wore a dirty leather jerkin over other clothes, and hisattire was little better than Ravenshaw's had been before his change offortune.

  After some talk, Captain Ravenshaw handed over some money to this man,promised a further sum upon the issue of the business, received thebravo's assurance that all should go well, and hastened back alone tomeet his companions at the sign of the Windmill.

  It was evening when the party sallied forth, the four coxcombs as keenfor riot as ever was a colt for kicking up heels in a field. They wouldhave barred the street against the first comers, or sought a brawl inthe first tavern, but that Ravenshaw bade them save their mettle foradversaries worthy of their schooling.

  "I mean to pit ye 'gainst the first roarers of the suburbs," said he."Nothing short of the kings of Turnbull Street shall suffice ye, lads.What think ye of Cutting Tom himself? I know where he and his comradestake their supper nowadays. Save your breath for such; an ye roar themdown in their own haunts, it shall be heard of. Waste no wind uponcitizens or spruce gallants. Strike high, win supremacy at the firsttrial, and you are made men."

  With such counsel he restrained them until he had led them throughSmithfield to Cow Cross, near the town's edge.

  Like a bent arm, lying northwestward along the fields towardClerkenwell, was the narrow lane of ramshackle houses called TurnbullStreet. Leaving his followers, the captain went into one of thesehouses. He soon came back.

  "'Tis excellent," said he. "Cutting Tom and his friends are in thefront room at the top o' the stairs. They are feasting it with thehostess and some of her gossips. You four shall go up and claim theroom by right of superior quality. Master Holyday and I will stay belowin talk with the bar-boy so they sha'n't know I'm with you; but if needbe, call me."

  "Nay, we shall want no help," said Master Maylands; but the quaver ofhis voice belied his show of confidence.

  "'Tis well," replied Ravenshaw. "A rare thing to roar these braggartsfrom their own table, before the womankind of their own acquaintance!Come."

  A minute later the four sparks, huddled close together, and withwhite faces, thrust themselves into an ill-plastered room where fourvillainous-looking fellows and as many painted women sat at table.These people suddenly ceased their loud talk and coarse laughter, andone of them,--the broken-nosed rascal with whom Ravenshaw had that dayconversed in the cook-shop--demanded thunderously:

  "Death and furies! Who the devil be these?"

  "Your betters, bottle-ale rogue!" cried Maylands, somewhat shrilly, andlike an actor in a play.

  "Betters!" bellowed the broken-nosed man, rising to his feet. "Plagues,curses, and damnations! Does the dog live that says 'betters' to me? Iam called Cutting Tom, thou bubble!--Cutting Tom, and that's the hellof it!"

  "An you be called Cutting Tom," replied Maylands, taking a littlecourage from the sound of his own voice, "'tis plain you are called sofor the cuts you have received, not given. The wounds in your dirtyface come not from war, but from bottles thrown by hostesses you'vecheated. Out of this room, dog-face!--you and your scurvy crew. 'Twouldtake a forest of juniper to sweeten the place while you're in it. Youare not fit for the presence of such handsome ladies."

  "A gentleman of spirit," whispered one of the ladies, audibly.

  "What, thou froth, thou vapour, thou fume!" roared Cutting Tom."Avaunt! ere I stick you with my dagger and hang you up by thelove-lock at a butcher's stall for veal."

  "Hence, thou slave," retorted Maylands, "thou pick-purse, thouhorse-stealer, thou contamination, thou conglomeration of allplagues--!"

  "Thou bundle of refuse!" put in Master Hawes.

  "Thou heap of mud!" added Master Dauncey.

  "Thou filth out of the street-ditch!" cried Master Clarington.

  Meanwhile the women had scampered to the fireplace for safety. CuttingTom's three comrades had found their feet, and they now joined theirvoices to his in a chorus of abuse, defiance, and threat; they beatthe table fearsomely with their sheathed swords. In turn, the younggentlemen half-drew their blades and then pushed them violently backagain, and trod angrily upon the rushes. Cutting Tom's party had allgot to that side of the table farther from the door. The four intruderstherefore advance
d to the table, and with terrible words belabouredtheir adversaries across it.

  "A step more," cried Cutting Tom, banging his sword handle upon thetable, "and I'll spit ye!"

  "And roast ye after at the fire!" said one of his men.

  The gallants showed that they could rattle their hilts upon theinnocent board as fiercely.

  "Out of the room," shouted Maylands, "ere we pin ye to the wall and setdogs on ye!"

  This was but the beginning of the contest, which soon attained ascurrility too shocking, not for Elizabethan ears, but for thesepages. Meanwhile, Ravenshaw and Holyday waited below. At last a noisewas heard in the passage above, and the four ill-favoured fellowscame bounding down the stairs. Three of them left the house at once,but Cutting Tom, seeing that the gallants did not follow, stopped towhisper with the captain.

  "'Twas good as a play," quoth he. "We held our own awhile, as you bade.Then we let 'em overbear us, and at last we feigned such fear theysaid they'd e'en make us tie their shoes. 'They're tied already,' quothI. 'Then untie 'em,' said they. We untied 'em; and then they'd have usdepart a-crawling on our hands and knees; and so we left 'em, on allfours; and that's the hell of it! I thought the women would have bursta-laughing."

  "Here's the rest of the money," said Ravenshaw, parting with his lastcoin. "Now vanish, and come not here again this night, or you'll haveme to answer!"

  Cutting Tom examined the money by the candle-light, and went his waywith a grunt.

  "So far, good," said Ravenshaw, chuckling. "Our young cocks will thinkthemselves the prime swaggerers of Christendom."

  "Until they come upon the truth," said Holyday. "The next men theymeet, they'll be for bullying; and then they're not like to come off aswell."

  "But they shall meet no men this night. The ladies above will keep'em here till they be too sleepy with wine for any desire of roaring.We'll see 'em safe home, and to-morrow at dinner I'll ply 'em for a fatremuneration. When that's in our pockets, they may learn the truth andgo hang. We'll hire a page to attend us, and we'll live like gentlemen.We're lucky to have found 'em constant so long. Come; we'll up to them,as if we happened in."

  "Nay, not I, where there be women."

  "Oh, plague, man, you'll not be long bashful afore these trollops!" Andhe pulled the unwilling scholar after him by the arm.