MASTER JERNINGHAM'S MADNESS.
"I must and will obtain her; I am ashes else."--_The Humourous
Lieutenant._
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?"
[Illustration: "'SHE LED ME BUT A SHORT CHASE.'"]
"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.
"Time enough to learn that, and win a score of goldsmith's daughters,
and tire of 'em too, ere the ship is fitted," said Ermsby, losing
interest in the subject; whereupon the conversation shifted to the
matter of the ship, then being repaired at Deptford.
From this they fell to dicing,--all but Jerningham, who sat looking
steadily before him, as if he saw visions through the clouds of tobacco
smoke he sent forth. Presently was heard the noise of pounding at the
street door below.
"'Tis that rascal come back, ten to one; he has given over hunting
you," said Ermsby to Jerningham.
"Then be sure you open not, Timothy," said Jerningham, addressing the
tavern drawer who was staying up to wait upon those privileged to use
the house after closing hours.
"No fear," replied Timothy. "They may hammer till they be dead, an
they give not the right knock. I'll e'en go look down from the front
window, and see who 'tis."
Ermsby went with him; and presently returned with him, saying:
"'Tis our man; and Timothy here knows him. It seems he is one
Ravenshaw, a roaring captain. I've heard of the fellow; he talks loud
in taverns, and will fight any man for sixpence; a kind of ranger of
Turnbull Street--"
"Nay," corrected Timothy; "he is no counterfeit, as most of those
rangers be. He roars, and brags, and looks fierce, as they do; but
he was with Sir John Norris in Portugal and France, and he can use
the rapier, or rapier and dagger, with any man that ever came out of
Saviolo's school. I have seen him with the foils, in this very room,
when he made all the company wonder. And 'tis well known what duels he
has fought. One time, in Hogsdon fields--"
"Oh, that is the man, is it?" said Jerningham, cutting off the drawer's
threatened torrent of reminiscence. "Then so much the better he has
grown tired of beating at the door. He has gone away, I trust. As ye
love me, gentlemen, no scandals till the ship is armed, provisioned,
manned, and ready every way for the tide that shall bear us down the
Thames."
"And look that you bring no scandal in your siege of this goldsmith's
daughter," said Ermsby, jocularly.
"Trust me for that," replied Jerningham.
It was several weeks after this night, and the chilling frown of winter
had given place to the smile of May, when, upon a sunny morning, Sir
Clement Ermsby, followed by a young page, stepped from a Thames wherry
at Winchester stairs to confer with Master Jerningham upon the last
preparations for their voyage. They were to sail in three days.
Jerningham was pacing the terrace, frowning upon the ground at his
feet, his look more moody than ever, and with something distraught in
it; now and then he drew in his breath audibly between his lips, or
allowed some restless movement of the hands to belie his customary
self-control.
"What a devil is it afflicts you, man?" was Ermsby's greeting, while
his page stood at a respectful distance, and began playing with two
greyhounds that came bounding up. "This manner is something new. I've
seen it for a week in you. Beshrew me if I don't think an evil spirit
has crept into you. What's the matter?"
"Nothing's the matter," said Jerningham, in a growling tone. "'Tis my
humour."
"'Tis a humour there's no excuse for, then, on a day like this, and
with such a prospect before one's eyes." As Sir Clement spoke, he
looked over the balustrade to the Thames and the countless-gabled front
of the spire-studded city.
The Thames and London were fair to see then. The river was wider
than it is now, and was comparatively clean. Swans floated upon its
surface, and it was lively with passenger craft,--sailboats, rowboats,
tilt-boats, and boats with wooden cabins, gaily decorated barges
belonging to royalty and nobility. The Thames, with its numerous
landing-stairs, was the principal highway of London. When the queen
went from Whitehall to Greenwich, it was, of course, by this water
thoroughfare. It was the more convenient way of transit between the
city and Westminster, where the courts were held. It had but one bridge
at London then,--the old London Bridge of the children's song, "London
Bridge is falling down;" the bridge that was a veritable street of
houses, and which stood some distance east of where the present London
Bridge stands. To many people the better way of crossing to Southwark,
when they went to the playhouses or the bear-gardens, was by boat.
Water-men were at every landing-place, soliciting custom. When at work,
they often sang as they plied the oars. The rich, when they would amuse
themselves upon the river in their handsome tilt-boats, took musicians
with them. On a fine May day, in the reign of Elizabeth, when the
little green waves sparkled in the sunshine, the Thames alone was a
sight worth looking at from the terrace of Winchester House, which,
as everybody knows, was on the Southwark side, west of the beautiful
Church of St. Mary Overie (now St. Saviour's), and which thus commanded
a fine view of river and city-front.
Beginning at the far west, where the river came into sight after
passing Westminster and Whitehall, its northern bank presented first
the long row of great houses that came as far as to the Temple,--houses
that were really town castles, with spacious gardens, whose river
walls were broken by gates, whence were steps descending to the water.
Nearer, grew the stately trees of the Temple garden; nearer yet, rose
from the river's edge the frowning walls of the Bridewell, once a
palace, and of Baynard's Castle. And here the eye was drawn up and back
from the water-front, which henceforth abounded with wharves, by the
huge bulk of St. Paul's, which stood amidst a multitude of ordinary
buildings like a giant among pigmies,--the old St. Paul's, Gothic,
with its square tower in the centre, its crosses crowning the ends and
corners, its delicate pinnacles rising from its flying buttresses,
its beautiful doorways and rose windows. Coming still eastward, the
eye swept a great mass of gabled houses ascending in irregular tiers
from the river, the sky-line broken by church towers and steeples
innumerable. Directly opposite Winchester House, the river stairs that
fell from the tall, narrow buildings were mainly for commercial uses.
A little further east, the view was shut in by the close-packed houses
on the bridge, so that one could not see the Tower, or the larger
shipping off the wharves in the lower river.
But this morning the sight was nothing to Master Jerningham, whose
only answer to his friend was to look the more harassed and woebegone.
Ermsby suddenly took alarm.
"How now? Has anything ill befallen at Deptford?" he asked.
"No. All goes forward fast--too fast." And Jerningham sighed.
"How too fast? How can that be? Good God, man, have you lost heart for
the voyage?"
"Never that. You know me better. But we shall soon be sailing, and the
hours go, and yet I am no further with--oh, a plague on secrecy, 'tis
that wench. There is no way under heaven I can even get speech of her."
"What wench?" inquired Ermsby, in whose thoughts there had been more
than one wench since the reader first made his acquaintance.
"What wench! Gods above, is there more than one?--worth a man's lying
awake at night to sigh for, I mean."
"And is there one such, then? Faith, an there be, I have not seen her
of late."
"Yes, you have. Scarce three months ago."
"That's three ages, where women are concerned. Who is this incomparable
she?"
"That goldsmith's daughter--you remember the night we chased her from
Cheapside down Bread Street, and came near a quarrel with Ravenshaw the
bully, and I followed to see where she lived?"
"Faith, I remember. A pretty little thing. And she has held you off all
this time? Man, man, you must have blundered terribly! What plan of
campaign have you employed against her?"
"I have not been able to pass words with her, I tell you. She rarely
goes forth from home at all, and when she does 'tis with both parents,
and a woman, and a stout 'prentice or two. I have stood in wait night
after night, thinking she might try to run away again; but she has not."
"Why, you know not your first letter in the study of how to woo
citizens' womankind. Go to her father's shop while she is there, and
contrive to have her wait upon you. Flattery, vows, and promises sound
all the softer for being whispered over a counter."
"I have watched, and when I have been busy at the ship, my man Gregory
has watched. But she never comes into the shop. She has a devil of
shrewdness for a father; a rock-faced man, of few words, with eyes on
everything. He already suspects me; for now whenever I go near his
shop he comes from his business and stares at me as if he offered
defiance."
"A plague on these citizens. They dare outface gentlemen nowadays.
They are so rich, and the law is on their side, curse 'em! A goldsmith
thinks himself as good as a lord."
"This one has taught his very 'prentices to look big at me as I pass.
And Gregory--he is a sly hound, as you know, and when I put him on his
mettle for the conveyance of a letter to the girl's waiting-woman, he
was ready to sell himself to the devil for the wit to accomplish it.
But he could not; and they have smelt a purpose in his doings, too. The
last time he went near the shop, and stood trying to get the eye of
some serving-maid at a window, two of the goldsmith's 'prentices came
out and, pretending not to see him, ran hard against him and laid him
sprawling in the street."
"And he let them go with whole skins? Had he no dagger?"
"Of what use? They are very stout fellows, all in that shop. And they
would have had only to cry 'Clubs,' and every 'prentice in Cheapside
would have come to cudgel Gregory to death. They have too many
privileges in the city, pox on 'em!"
"You should have begun by making friends with the goldsmith openly, and
so got access to his house. Then you could have cozened him when the
time came."
"But 'tis too late for that now. Besides, these citizens distrust a
man the first moment, when they have wives and daughters. Oh, we have
tried every way, both myself and Gregory. Gregory found a pot-boy, at
the White Horse tavern, that knew one of the maids in the house, and we
tried to pass a letter by means of those two. But the letter got into
the father's hands, and the maid was cast off, and I'm glad I signed a
false name. I know not if Mistress Millicent ever saw the letter."
"Is Millicent her name?"
"Ay. She is the only child. Her father is Thomas Etheridge, the
goldsmith, at the sign of the Golden Acorn, in Cheapside at the corner
of Friday Street. And nothing more do I know of her, but that I am
going mad for her. And now that I have opened all to you, in God's name
tell me what I shall do. Though we sail in three days, I must have her
in my arms for one sweet hour, at least, ere I go. Laugh if you will!
Call it madness. 'Tis the worse, then, and the more needs quenching.
What shall I do?"
"Use a better messenger; one that can get the ear of the maid and yet
'scape the eye of the father; one that can win her to a meeting with
you. Such things are managed daily. Howsoever hedged by husbands, or
fenced by fathers, the fair ones of the city are still to be come at.
Employ a go-between."
"Have I not tried Gregory? Where he has failed, how shall any other
servant fare? Not one of those at my command has a tithe of his wit.
Nor has any of our sea-rogues."
"Why, the look of being a gentleman's serving-man will damn any knave
in the eye of a wary citizen, nowadays. And Gregory hath the face of a
rascal besides. Employ none of that degree. As for our sea-rogues, we
chose 'em witless, for our own advantage."
"Troth, you might serve me in this matter, Ermsby. You have the wit;
and you should find good pastime in it."
"Faith, not I. I know the taste of 'prentice's cudgel. I'll tell you
a tale; 'twill warn you that, when love's path leads into the city,
you'd best see it made sure and smooth ere you tread it yourself. One
day as I was going to the play in Blackfriars, my glance fell upon as
handsome a piece of female citizenship as you'll meet any day 'twixt
Fleet Street and the Tower. She saw me looking, and looked in turn;
and I resolved to let the play go hang, and follow her. She had with
her an old woman and a 'prentice boy, and her look seemed to advise me
not to accost her in their presence. So I walked behind her, smiling
my sweetest each time she turned her head around. She led me into a
grocer's shop in Bucklersbury. I could see by her manner there that she
was at home; there was no husband in sight, the shop being kept by two
'prentices. Here she forthwith sent the woman up-stairs, and turned as
if she would attend upon me herself. Now, thought I, my happiness is
soon to be assured; and I was rejoicing within, for each time I had
seen her face she had looked more lovely. Sooth, the ripeness of those
lips--!"
"Well, well, what happened?"
"I went but to open the matter with a courteous kiss on the cheek; but
the more luscious fruit hung too near, so I stopped me at the lips
instead, and stopped overlong there. She made pretence--I swear 'twas
pretence--to push me away, and to be much angry and abused. But the
zany 'prentices knew not this virtuous resistance was make-believe,
and they ran at me as if I were some thief caught in the act. I met
the first with a clout in the face, but they were stout knaves and
made nothing of laying hands upon me. I shook them off, and then,
being at the back of the shop, drew my sword to ensure my passage to
the street. But that instant they raised the cry, 'Clubs!' and ran and
got their own cudgels, and came menacing me again. While I was making
play with my rapier, thinking to fright them off, all the 'prentices
in Bucklersbury began to pour into the shop, shouting clubs and
brandishing 'em at the same time. I saw there was naught to do but
cut my way through by letting out the blood of any grocer's knave or
'pothecary's boy that should stand before me. But ere I had made two
thrusts in earnest, my rapier was knocked from my hand by a club. A
cloud of other clubs rained on my head, shoulders, and body. And so
I cowered helpless, seeing nothing before me but the chance of being
pounded to a jelly by the crowd."
"And what miracle occurred?"
"The wit of woman intervened. She that I had followed laid hold of some
box or bag, and thrust her fingers in, and began flinging the contents
by handfuls into the air. It was ground pepper. In a moment every man
Jack in the shop was sneezing as if there were a prize for it. Such
a shaking, and bending forward of bodies, and holding of noses, was
never seen elsewhere. Every fellow was taken with a sneezing fit that
lasted minutes, for the woman still threw the pepper about, regardless
of the work it had done. Limp and half-blind as every rascal was, and
busied with each new spasm coming on, they paid no more heed to me; and
so, sneezing like the rest, I pushed through unregarded to the street.
I fled down Walbrook, and came not to an end of sneezing till I had
taken boat at Dowgate wharf. I went home, then, and put my bruises to
bed; and I know not how many days it was till I had done aching. Be
thankful thou hast not fared in the goldsmith's shop e'en worse than
I fared in the grocer's; for there is no pepper kept in goldsmith's
shops."
"I know not then what kind of emissary to send. As you say, a
serving-man is too easily seen through. A gentleman will not risk
the cudgel. I know a lawyer, a beggarly knave eager for any sort of
questionable transaction."
"Nay, he'll make a botch of it, as lawyers do of everything they set
their hands to."
"How if I tried a woman? 'Tis often done, I believe. As thieves are set
to catch thieves, so set a woman--"
"Ay, women have zest for the business; especially the tainted
ones--they joy to infect their sisters whose purity they secretly envy.
They that have spots take comfort in company, as misery doth. Yet they
will serve you ill; for they ever bring entanglement on those they
weave their plots for, as well as on those they weave against. City
husbands and fathers have grown wiser, too; they've learned to look for
love-plots in their women's fellowship with other women. Unless you'd
risk some chance of failure with this maid--"
"By God, that I will not! I must have a sure messenger."
"I would mine own page yonder had the wit, that I might lend him. But
when I choose a servant, 'tis rather for lack of wit in him; else he
might take it into his head to outwit his master. My boy there serves
well enough to carry sonnets to court ladies; but he would never do for
your business. You say this goldsmith is watchful. Therefore, you want
a man the most unlike the common go-betweens in such affairs; a man
that looks the last in the world to be chosen as love's ambassador."
"Some venerable Puritan, perchance," said Jerningham, with the slight
irony of one not quite convinced.
"Ay, if one could be found needy enough to want your money; but that's
hopeless. We must seek a poor devil that hath a good wit and can act a
part. If we had one such in our ship's company--What, Gregory! Have you
been listening, knave?"
Sir Clement's break was caused by his perceiving, upon suddenly turning
around, that Jerningham's man stood near, with a suspicious cock of
the head. This Gregory was just the fellow to steal up without noise;
he had long cultivated the silent footfall. He was a lean man of about
thirty-five years; a little bent, and with a long neck, so that his
head always seemed hastening before his body, which could never catch
up. He had a small, sharp face, of an ashen complexion, and with fishy,
greenish eyes; his expression was that of cunning cloaked in calm
impudence.
"No offence, sirs," said he, glibly, stepping forward with bowed head.
"I couldn't help hearing a little. If I may say so, sirs, my master
needn't yet look abroad for one to do his business. I think I have a
shift or two still, if I may be so bold."
"You may not be so bold, Gregory," said Jerningham. "Disguises are well
enough in Spanish tales and stage plays; but you'd be caught, and all
brought home to me and the bishop's ears. He could stay our ship at the
last hour, an he had a mind to. Go to; and do and speak when you are
bid, not else."
The serving-man stepped back, looking humiliated.
"He's already green with jealousy of the man you shall employ," said
Ermsby, with unkind amusement at the knave's discomfiture.
"Ay, he's touchy that way. A faithful dog--and bound to be so, for I
know a thing or two that would hang him. But to reach this maid, I must
have another Mercury. Where shall I find this witty poor rascal that is
to cozen old Argus, her father, and get me access to her?"
"Why, but for going to Deptford, we might seek him forthwith. The hour
before dinner is the right time. But--"
"Then let us seek. There's no need we go to Deptford to-day. We cannot
haste matters at the ship; all's in good hands there. In God's name,
come find me this fellow."
"Bid Gregory hail a boat, then," said Ermsby; and, after the servant
had been sent ahead to the stairs on that errand, and Ermsby had
motioned his own page to go thither, he continued: "We shall go to
Paul's first, where we got so many of our shipmates; there we shall
have choice of half the penniless companions, starved wits, masterless
men, cast soldiers, skulking debtors, and serviceable rascals in
London. Of a surety, you can buy any service there; there's truth in
what the plays say."
The two gentlemen, attended by Gregory and the page, were soon embarked
in a wherry whose prow the watermen headed against the current, the
destination being some distance up-stream on the opposite bank.
"What of Meg Falkner?" Ermsby said, suddenly, in a tone too low for the
servants to hear. "Are you rid of her yet?"
Jerningham's brow turned darker by a shade.
"That were as great a puzzle as to reach this goldsmith's wench," he
replied. "I would have married her to Gregory; it seemed no mean fate
for a yeoman's daughter that had buried a brat; but she'd have none of
that. I durs'n't turn her out lest she make a noise that might come to
the bishop. I'm lucky she hath kept quiet, as it is."
"She lives still at your country-house?"
"Ay; where else to lodge her? Rotten as it is, it does for that; and
that is the only use it hath done me this many a year. There's a cow or
two for her maintaining, and some hens. And for company, there's old
Jeremy that's half-blind. He can quiet her fears o' nights, when the
timbers creak and she thinks it is a ghost walking."
"And what of the house when you are away on the voyage?"
"Troth, all may out then, I care not! Let 'em sell the estate for the
debts on it; they'll find themselves losers, I trow. And Mistress Meg
will be left in the lurch, poor white-face! As for me, when the ship
sails, I shall be quit of that plague."
"Ay, but you'll be quit of this goldsmith's wench, too. Will your 'one
sweet hour' or so suffice, think you?"
The faintest smile came into Jerningham's face.
"I will not prophesy," said he, softly. "But, as you well know, when we
come to that island, if all goes well, I shall be in some sort a king
there."
"Certainly; but what of that, touching this wench?"
"Why, will not the island have room for a queen as well?"
"Oho!" quoth Ermsby, after a short silence. "So the wind blows that way
in thy dreams!"
Presently they landed at Paul's Wharf, climbed to Thames Street, which
was noisy with carts and drays, and went on up a narrow thoroughfare
toward the great church.