A RIOT IN CHEAPSIDE.
"Down with them! Cry clubs for prentices!"
--_The Shoemaker's Holiday._
Wan and tremulous, after a night of half-sleep varied by ominous
dreams, Master Holyday was led by the captain, in the early morning,
to the wharf where was to be found the waterman whom Ravenshaw knew
he could trust. The scholar attended in a kind of dumb trance to the
interview between Ravenshaw and the boatman, who was a powerful,
leather-faced fellow, one that listened intently, scrutinised keenly,
and expressed himself in quick nods and short grunts. Even the unwonted
sight of gold in the captain's hands did not stir the unhappy poet to
more than a transient look of faint wonder.
Ravenshaw pulled him by the sleeve to a cook's shop in Thames Street,
but the wretched graduate had difficulty in gulping down his food,
and scarce could have told whether it was hot pork pie or cold pease
porridge. It went differently with the ale which the captain caused to
be set before them afterward. Holyday poured this down his throat with
feverish avidity, and pushed forth his pot for more. At last Ravenshaw,
considering it time for the goldsmith's family to be up, grasped his
companion firmly by the crook of the arm, and said, curtly:
"Come!"
The poor scholar, limp and sinking, turned gray in the face, and went
forth with the look of a prisoner dragged to execution. The captain
had to exert force to keep him from lagging behind, as the two went
northward through Bread Street. They stopped once, to buy a cheap
sword, scabbard, and hanger; which Holyday dreamily suffered the
shopman to attach to his girdle. Nearing Cheapside, the doomed bachelor
hung back more and more, and when finally they turned into that
thoroughfare, his face all terror, he suddenly jerked from Ravenshaw's
hold, and made a bolt toward Cornhill.
But the captain, giving chase, caught him by the collar, in front of
Bow church, seized his neck as in a vice, turned him about toward the
goldsmith's house, took a tighter hold of his arm, and impelled him
relentlessly forward. From his affrighted eyes, ashen cheeks, and
dragging gait, people in the street supposed he was being taken to
Newgate prison by a queen's officer.
"Now, look you," said the captain, with grim earnestness, as they
approached Master Etheridge's shop, "I durst not go too near the place.
I shall leave you in a moment; but I shall go over the way, and take
my post behind the cross, where I can watch the house in safety. Mark
this: my hand shall be upon my sword-hilt, and if you try flight, or
come forth unsuccessful, you shall find yourself as dead a poet as
Virgil--what though I swing for you, I care not! Come forth not later
than the stroke of eleven; walk toward the Poultry, and I will join
you. Keep me not waiting, or, by this hand--Go; and remember!"
He gave the scholar a parting push, and strode across the street; a few
seconds later he was peering around the corner of the cross, and Master
Holyday was lurching into the goldsmith's shop.
The shop, as has been said, extended back to where a passage separated
it from domestic regions of the house; but it was, itself, in two
parts,--a front part, open to the street, and a more private part,
where the master usually stayed, with his most valuable wares.
In entering the outer shop, Holyday had to pass the end of a case, at
which a flat-capped, snub-nosed, solid-bodied apprentice was arranging
gold cups, chains, and trinkets.
"What is't you lack?" demanded this youth, squaring up to the scholar.
"God knows," thought Holyday. "My wits, I think." And then he found
voice to say that he desired speech of Master Etheridge.
The shopman pointed to the open door leading to the farther apartment,
and thither Holyday went. The place was mainly lighted by a side
window; the poet could not fail to distinguish the master, by his rich
cloth doublet and air of authority, from the journeymen who sat working
upon shining pieces of plate.
"What is it you lack, sir?" inquired Master Etheridge.
"Sir," replied Holyday, in a small, trembling voice, "I must pray you,
bear with me if I speak wildly. I am sick from a sleeping-drug that a
villain abused me with three days ago,--one Captain Ravenshaw--"
At this name the goldsmith, who had received elaborate accounts
from Sir Peregrine of last night's incident in the garden, suddenly
warmed out of his air of coldness and distrust, and began to show a
sympathetic curiosity which made it easier for Holyday to proceed with
his tale. When the scholar announced who he was, the goldsmith lapsed
for a moment into a hard incredulity; but this passed away as Holyday,
not daring to stop now that he had so good an impetus, deftly alluded
to his father,--"whom, they say, I scarce resemble, being all my mother
in face," quoth he parenthetically,--and hoped that Master Etheridge
had forgiven him his water-spaniel's bite the last time the two had
met.
"Aha! I knew it was a water-spaniel," said Master Etheridge,
triumphantly. "The rogue would have it a terrier." This hasty speech
required that the goldsmith should relate how the impostor had played
upon him and his household; at which news Master Holyday had to open
his eyes, and feign great astonishment and indignation. He found this
kind of acting easier than he had supposed, and was beginning to feel
like a live, normal creature; when suddenly his mind was brought back
to the real task before him by Master Etheridge, saying:
"Well, the rascal failed of his purpose here, whatever it was; and now
'twill please the women to see the true after the counterfeit. This
way, pray--what, art so ill? Tom, Dickon, hold him up!"
"Nay, I can walk, I thank ye," said poor Holyday, faintly, and
accompanied his host into the passage, and up the stairs to the large
room overlooking Cheapside. No one being there, the goldsmith went
elsewhere in search of his wife, leaving the scholar to a discomfiting
solitude. He gazed out of the window at the cross, and fancied he saw
the edge of a hat-brim that he knew, protruding from the other side.
He cursed the hour when he had fallen in with Ravenshaw, and wished an
earthquake might swallow the goldsmith's house.
When he heard Master Etheridge returning, and the swish of a feminine
gown, he felt that the awful moment had come. But it was only the
goldsmith's wife, and she proved such a motherly person that he found
it quite tolerable to sit answering her questions. Presently Master
Etheridge was called down to the shop, and his wife had some sewing
brought to her, at which she set to work, keeping up with Holyday a
conversation oft broken by many long pauses.
Each time the door opened, the scholar trembled for fear Mistress
Millicent would enter. But as time passed and she came not, a new fear
assailed him,--that he might not be able to see her at all, and that
the dread stroke of eleven should bring some catastrophe not to be
imagined. He was now as anxious for her arrival on the scene as he had
first dreaded it. His heart went up to his throat when the door opened
again; and down to his shoes when it let in nobody but Sir Peregrine
Medway.
The old knight inspected Holyday for a moment with the curiosity due
to genuine ware after one has been imposed upon by spurious; and then
he dropped the youth from attention as a person of no consequence, and
asked for Mistress Millicent.
"Troth," said Mistress Etheridge, "the baggage must needs be keeping
her bed two hours or so; said she was not well. She has missed her
lesson on the virginals. I know not what ails her of late. I'm sure
'twas not so with me when I was toward marriage,--but she sha'n't mope
longer in her chamber. Lettice!" she called, going to the door, and
gave orders to the woman.
Holyday breathed fast, and stared at the door. After a short while
Millicent entered, with pouting lips, crimson cheeks, and angry eyes;
she came forward in a reluctant way, and submitted to the tremulous
embrace of the old knight. Not until she was free of his shaking arms
did she take note of Master Holyday, and then she looked at him with
the faintest sign of inquiry.
As for the scholar, a single glance had given him a sweeping sense
of her beauty; daunted by it, he had dropped his eyes, and he dared
not raise them from the tips of her neatly shod feet, which showed
themselves beneath the curtain of her pink petticoat.
"'Tis my daughter, Master Holyday," said Mistress Etheridge, "and soon
to be Sir Peregrine's lady." Holyday bowed vaguely at the pretty shoes,
and cast a vacuous smile upon the old knight.
"What, another Master Holyday?" said Millicent, in an ironical manner
suited to her perverse mood.
"The true one," replied her mother; "that rogue cozened him as he did
us. Well, 'twas a lesson, Master Holyday, not to prate of your affairs
to strangers."
"The rogue shall pay for giving me the lesson," ventured Holyday,
bracing himself to play his part.
Mistress Millicent looked as if she doubted this.
"I know he is a much-vaunted swordman," added Holyday, catching her
expression; "but I have some acquaintance with steel weapons myself."
His small, unnatural voice was at such variance with his words, that
Millicent looked amused as well as doubting. He felt he was not getting
on well, and was for sinking into despair; but the thought of Ravenshaw
waiting behind the cross, hand on hilt, acted as a goad, and raised the
wretched poet to a desperate alertness.
Master Etheridge came in, holding out his hollowed palm. At sight of
its contents Mistress Millicent turned pale, and caught the back of a
chair. Sir Peregrine bent his eyes over them gloatingly, and took them
up in his lean fingers.
"The wedding-ring, sooth," he said. "Good lack, 'twas speedy work,
father. But which of the two is it?"
"Which you choose," replied the goldsmith. "They are like as twins. I
had the two made to the same measurement; 'tis so small, one of them
will be a pretty thing to keep in the shop for show. Belike there may
be another bride's finger in London 'twill fit."
"Troth now, my first wife had just such another finger," said the
knight. "I know not which to take; 'tis a pity both cannot be used."
Master Holyday was suddenly inspired with an impish thought, the very
conception of which brought courage with it.
"An you please, Master Etheridge," he said, "the lady I wish to marry
hath such another hand, in size, as your sweet daughter here can boast
of. It were a pleasant thing, now, an I might buy one of these rings."
"Nay, by my knighthood," quoth Sir Peregrine, with a burst of that
magniloquent generosity which went with his vanity, "buy it thou shalt
not, but have it thou shalt. I buy 'em both, father; see 'em both put
down to me. Here, young sir; and let thy bride know what 'tis the mate
of." And he tossed one of the rings to Holyday, not graciously, but as
one throws a bone to a dog.
"She will hold herself much honoured," said Holyday, coolly, picking up
the little circlet from among the rushes, and inwardly glad to make a
fool of such a supercilious old fop. Noticing that Millicent observed
his irony and approved it, he went on: "Of a truth, though, I am
somewhat beforehand in the matter; the maid's consent yet hangs fire."
And he cast her a look which he thought would set her thinking.
"Troth, then," said the goldsmith, good-humouredly, "you go the right
way to carry her by storm. Show her the wedding-ring, and tell her 'tis
for her, and I warrant all's done."
"I will take your counsel," said Holyday, glancing from the ring to
Millicent's finger. "She might be afflicted with a worse husband, I
tell her."
"Ay, young man," put in Sir Peregrine, for the sake of showing his
wisdom in such matters, "be not afraid to sound your own praises
to her. If you do not so yourself, who will?--except, of course,
your merits were such as show without being spoken for." The knight
unconsciously glanced down at himself.
"Oh, I have those to recommend me that have authority with her," said
the scholar. "She hath an uncle will plead my suit; and truly he ought
to, for 'twas he set me to wooing her, and from his account I became
her servant ere ever I had seen her."
"Hath the lady no parents, then?" queried Master Etheridge.
"Oh, yes; they are well inclined to me, too; I spoke of the uncle
because 'twas his word made me first seek her out."
"And did you find her all he had said?" asked Mistress Etheridge.
"Oh, even more beautiful. 'Tis her beauty makes me bashful in
commending myself to her."
"Oh, never be afraid," said Mistress Etheridge. "You have a good
figure, for one thing, and a modest mien."
"So her mother says," acquiesced Holyday, innocently.
"Your father hath a good estate," said Master Etheridge, "and that
speaks louder for you than modesty or figure."
"That is what her father hath the goodness to say for me. I hope she
will take her parents' words to mind. But I doubt not, in her heart she
thinks me better than some."
"Well, her parents are the best judges," said Master Etheridge. "I must
go down to the shop; you will eat dinner with us, friend Ralph?"
"I thank you, sir; but I must meet a gentleman elsewhere at eleven
o'clock."
If Mistress Millicent had taken his meaning, he thought, she would now
see the necessity of speedily having a word with him alone.
After the goldsmith had left the room, Sir Peregrine directed the
conversation into such channels that Holyday was perforce out of it.
The old knight evidently thought that enough talk had gone to the
affairs of this young gentleman from Kent.
The scholar, wondering how matters would go, agitated within but
maintaining a kind of preternatural calm without, ventured to scan
Millicent's face for a sign. She was regarding him furtively, as if
she apprehended, yet feared to find herself deceived; in truth, her
experience with Captain Ravenshaw had made it difficult for her to
hope, or trust, anew. But surely fate could not twice abuse her so;
this must indeed be Ralph Holyday,--her father was not likely to be
deceived a second time,--and the Holydays were neighbours of her uncle,
from whom she had not entirely ceased to look for aid. In any case,
there, in the shape of Sir Peregrine, was a horrible certainty, to
which a new risk was preferable. With a swift motion, therefore, she
put her finger to her lip; and Master Holyday felt a great load lifted
from his mind.
While Sir Peregrine was entertaining Mistress Etheridge with a minute
account of how he had once cured himself of a calenture, Millicent
suddenly asked:
"What is the posy in your wedding-ring, Master Holyday?"
The scholar screwed up his eyes to see the rhyme traced within the
circlet.
"Nay, let me look," she demanded, impatiently. "I have better eyes, I
trow."
He handed her the ring; she walked to the window, to examine it in good
light; the casement was open, to let in the soft May air. Suddenly she
turned to the others, with a cry:
"Mercy on me! I have dropped Master Holyday's ring into the street."
"Oh, thou madcap child!" exclaimed Mistress Etheridge.
"Oh, 'tis nothing," said Holyday, confusedly, not yet seeing his way.
"I can soon find it."
"Nay, I saw where it fell," said Millicent, quickly. "'Tis right I
fetch it back."
Ere any one could say nay, she ran from the room. Holyday,
understanding, called out, "Nay, trouble not yourself!" and hastened
after her as if to forestall her in recovering the ring. He was upon
the stairs in time to see that she went out, not through the shop, but
through the door from the passage into Friday Street. He followed,
wondering what Ravenshaw would think on seeing the two. When they came
into Cheapside she began to search a little at one side of the open
shop-front, so as not to be seen from within. Glancing up, however,
Holyday saw that Mistress Etheridge and Sir Peregrine were looking down
from the window above. He dared not turn his eyes toward the cross, for
fear of meeting those of Ravenshaw. Both he and the maid searched the
cobble paving, within whispering space of each other.
"'Tis safe in my hand," she said; "so we may be as long finding it as
need be. What mean you with this talk of a maid's uncle?"
"I mean thine Uncle Bartlemy," said he, heartened up at the easy turn
his task had taken. "He sent me to save you from wedding this old
knight. The only escape is by wedding me instead. If you are willing,
be at your garden gate in Friday Street this nightfall, ready for a
journey by boat. The rest is in my hands."
Thank Heaven, she reflected, it needed but a word from her to settle
the matter. She could have swooned for joy at the unexpected prospect
of escape. But she was not flattered by this young stranger's
unloverlike manner. The word could wait a moment.
"What, does my uncle think I will take the first husband he sends, and
go straight to marriage without even a wooing beforehand?"
"Why," said Holyday, thrown back into his agitation, "there's no time
for wooing before this marriage. It must wait till after."
"Troth, how do I know 'twill be to my liking, then, without ever a
sample of it first?"
"Did I not say within," he faltered, feeling very red and foolish,
"that your charms overpower my tongue?"
"Well, if you think a maid is to be won for the mere asking, even
though to save herself at a pinch, I marvel at you."
Her tone was decidedly chill. He felt she was slipping from him, and he
thought of the relentless man behind the cross; he must rouse himself
to a decisive effort.
"Stay," he said, as the perspiration came out upon his face. "If you
must have wooing--god 'a' mercy!--Thy charms envelop me as some sweet
cloud Of heavenly odours, making me to swoon."
She threw him a side-glance of amazement, from her pretended search of
the ground.
"Wooing!" he thought; "she shall have it, of the strongest." And he
went on: "And wert thou drowned in the floorless sea, Thine eyes would
draw me to the farthest depths."
"Why," quoth she, "that sounds like what the players speak. Do you woo
in blank verse?"
"'Tis mine own, I swear," he said, truly enough, for it was from his
new puppet-play of Paris and Helen. "I'll give you as many lines as you
desire,--only remember that time presses. I must away before eleven
o'clock. Best agree to be waiting at the gate at nightfall, ready for
flight."
"If I wed you, shall I be your slave, or my own mistress?"
"Oh, no--yes, I mean--as you will. You shall have all your own way," he
said, glibly.
"No stint of gowns, free choice of what I shall wear, visits to London
at my pleasure, my own time to go to the shops, milliners of my own
choosing?"
"Yes, yes!"
"My own horses to ride, and a coach, and what maids I like, and what
company I desire, and no company I don't desire, and all the days to
be spent after my liking?"
"Yes, anything, everything!"
"Why, then, this marriage will not be such a bad thing. But I cannot
think you love me, if you give me so many privileges."
"Oh," said he, petulantly, worn almost out of patience, "'tis the
vehemence of my love makes me promise all rather than lose you!" At the
same time, he said in his heart: "I shall be happier, the more such a
plague keeps away from me!"
"How you knock your sword against things!" she complained. "One would
say you were not used to it."
"'Tis my confusion in your presence," he answered, wearily. "I can use
the sword well enough."
"Well,--" She paused a moment, trembling on the brink; then said, a
little unsteadily: "I will be at the gate at nightfall."
A coach was lumbering along at the farther half of the street. A large
lady therein, masked, blonde-haired, called out toward the other side
of the cross:
"How now, Captain Ravenshaw? Hast spent all that money? Art waiting for
a purse to cut?"
Millicent gave Holyday a startled look, and exclaimed:
"She said Captain Ravenshaw!--the rogue that cozened you. He must be
yonder."
"Impossible!" gasped the scholar, turning pale.
"It must be he. She is laughing at him. What, are you afraid?--you that
would make him pay for the lesson!"
In desperation, the fate-hounded poet grasped his sword-hilt, and
strode to the other side of the cross, coming face to face with the
captain.
"I'm not to blame," said the terrified scholar, in an undertone. "She
heard your name; I had to seek you--"
"Then feign to fight me," answered Ravenshaw, whipping out his rapier.
"All's lost else."
Holyday drew his sword, and began to make awkward thrusts.
"Has she consented?" whispered Ravenshaw, parrying and returning the
lunges in such manner as not to touch the other's flesh.
"Yes," said the poet, continuing to fence, but backing from his
formidable-looking antagonist in spite of himself, so that the two
quickly worked away from the cross into full view of the goldsmith's
house.
Meanwhile, Lady Greensleeves's coach had passed on; Mistress Etheridge
and Sir Peregrine, from their window, had observed Holyday's movement,
and now recognised the captain; Millicent had run to the shop
entrance, and her father, seeing her there, had come forth wondering
what she was doing in the street, a question which yielded to his
sudden interest in the fight. Shopkeepers hastened thither from their
doors, people in the street quickly gathered around, but all kept
safely distant from the clashing weapons.
"Give way, and take refuge in the shop," said Ravenshaw to his
adversary, in the low voice necessary between the two, "else somebody
will come that knows us; if our friendship be spoken of, they'll smell
collusion."
The scholar, making all the sword-play of which he was capable, rapidly
yielded ground.
"But not too fast," counselled the captain, using his skill to make his
antagonist show the better, "else she'll think you a sorry swordman."
Poor Holyday, panting, perspiring, weak-kneed, light-headed, but upheld
by the mysterious force of Ravenshaw's steady gaze, did as he was bid.
A murmur of excited comment arose from the crowd; the windows of the
high-peaked houses began to be filled with faces. Ravenshaw perceived
there must soon be an end of this; so, nodding for the scholar to fall
back more rapidly, he advanced with thrusts that looked dangerous.
Millicent, who had stood in bewilderment since the beginning of the
fight, suddenly realised the folly of any ordinary man's crossing
swords with Captain Ravenshaw. If Holyday were slain or hurt, what of
her escape?
"Good heaven!" she cried, in a transport of alarm. "Master Holyday will
be killed! Father, help him!"
"Murder, murder!" shouted the goldsmith. "Constables! go for
constables, some of ye!"
Even at that word, the captain's rapier point came through a loose part
of Master Holyday's doublet, and the scholar, for an instant thinking
himself touched, stumbled back in terror.
Millicent screamed. "Constables?" cried she; "a man might be killed ten
times ere they came. Prentices! Clubs! clubs!"
With an answering shout, her father's flat-capped lads rushed out from
where they had been looking across the cases. With their bludgeon-like
weapons in hand, they took up the cry, "Clubs! clubs!" and made for the
fighters, intent upon getting within striking distance of Ravenshaw.
The captain turned to keep them off. Holyday, quite winded, staggered
back to the shop entrance. Millicent caught him by the sleeve, and drew
him into the rear apartment, scarce observed in the fresh interest that
matters had taken in the street. He put away his sword, panting and
trembling. She led him into the passage, and then to the Friday Street
door, bidding him make good his flight, and saying she would be at the
gate at nightfall. She then returned to the front of the shop.
As he ran down Friday Street, Holyday heard an increased tumult in
Cheapside behind him; he knew that apprentices must be gathering from
every side; Ravenshaw's position would be that of a stag surrounded by
a multitude of threatening hounds. A thrown club might bring him down
at any moment. The scholar, with a sudden catching at the throat, ran
into the White Horse tavern, and, seizing a tapster by the arms, said
hoarsely in his ear:
"The noise in Cheapside--the prentices--they will kill Ravenshaw--for
God's sake, Tony!--the friend of all tapsters, he--but say not I
summoned ye."
He dashed out and away, while Tony was tearing off his apron and
bawling out the name of every drawer in the place.
Meanwhile, in the middle of Cheapside, in the space left open by the
swelling crowd for its own safety, a strange spectacle was presented:
one man with sword and dagger, menaced by an ever increasing mob
of apprentices with their clubs. It was a bear baited by dogs, the
shouts of the apprentices dinning the ears of the onlookers like the
barking of mastiffs in the ring on the Bankside. When the first band of
apprentices rushed forth, two stopped short as his sword-point darted
to meet them, and the others ran around to attack him from behind. But
with a swift turn he was threatening these, and they sprang away to
save themselves. Ere they could recover, he was around again to face
the renewed oncoming of the first two. But now through the surging
crowd, forcing their way with shouts and prods, came apprentices from
the neighbouring shops, in quick obedience to the cry of "Clubs."
Ravenshaw was hemmed in on all quarters. By a swift rush in one
direction, a swift turn in another, a swift side thrust of his rapier
in a third, a swift slash of his dagger in a fourth, he contrived to
make every side of him so dangerous that each menacing foe would fall
back ere coming into good striking distance.
He had once thought of backing against the cross, so that his enemies
might not completely encircle him; but he perceived in time that
they could then fling their clubs at him without risk of hitting any
one else. As it was, the first club hurled at his head, being safely
dodged, struck one of the thrower's own comrades beyond; a second one,
too high thrown, landed among some women in the crowd, who set up an
angry screaming; and a third had the fate of the first. Some clubs
were then aimed lower, but as many missed the captain as met him, and
those that met him were seemingly of no more effect than if they had
been sausages. As those who threw their clubs had them to seek, and
knew their short knives to be useless except at closer quarters than
they dared come to, the apprentices abandoned throwing, and tried for a
chance of striking him from behind.
But he seemed to be all front, so unexpected were his turns, so sudden
his rushes. Had any of his foes continued engaging his attention till a
simultaneous onslaught could be made from all sides, he had been done
for; but this would have meant death to those that faced him, and not a
rascal of the yelling pack was equal to the sacrifice. So they menaced
him all around, approaching, retreating, running hither and thither
for a better point of attack. But the man seemed to have four faces,
eight hands; steel seemed to radiate from him. They attempted to strike
down his sword-point, but were never quick enough. With set teeth, fast
breath, glowing eyes, he thrust, and turned, and darted, maintaining
around him a magic circle, into which it was death to set foot. Well he
knew that he could not keep this up for long; the very pressure of the
growing crowd of his foes must presently sweep the circle in upon him,
and though he might kill three or four, or a dozen, in the end he must
fall beneath a rain of blows.
And what then? Well, a fighting man must die some day, and the madness
of combat makes death a trifle. But who would be at London Bridge
before noon to pay Cutting Tom, and what would become of all his
well-wrought designs to save the maid, her whose contumely against
him it would be sweet to repay by securing her happiness? To do some
good for somebody, as a slight balance against his rascally, worthless
life--this had been a new dream of his. He cast a look toward the
goldsmith's house. She was now at the window, with her mother and Sir
Peregrine, and she gazed down with a kind of self-accusing horror, as
if frightened at the storm she had raised. God, could he but carry out
his purpose yet! His eyes clouded for an instant; then he took a deep
breath, and coolly surveyed his foes.
More apprentices struggled through the crowd. Their cries, thrown back
by the projecting gables of the houses, were hoarse and implacable.
Pushed from behind, a wave of the human sea of Ravenshaw's enemies
was flung close to him. He thrust out, and ran his point through a
shoulder; instantly withdrawing his blade, he sprang toward another
advancing group, and opened a great red gash in the foremost face. A
fierce howl of rage went up, and even from the spectators came the
fierce cry, "Down with Ravenshaw! death to the rascal!" Maddened, he
plunged his weapons into the heaving bundles of flesh that closed in
upon him, while at last the storm of clubs beat upon his head and body.
The roar against him ceased not; it was all "Death to him!" Not a
voice was for him, not a look showed pity, not a--
"Ravenshaw! Ravenshaw! Tapsters for Ravenshaw!"
What cry was this, from the narrow mouth of Friday Street, a cry fresh
and shrill, and audible above the hoarse roar of the crowd? Everybody
turned to look. Some among the apprentices, tavern-lads themselves,
stood surprised, and then, seeing Tony and his fellow drawers from
the White Horse beating a way through the crowd with clubs and pewter
pots, promptly took up the cry, "Tapsters for Ravenshaw!" and fell
to belabouring the shop apprentices around them. The new shout was
echoed from the corner of Bread Street, as a troop of pot-boys from the
Mermaid, apprised by a backyard messenger from the White Horse, came
upon the scene. The prospect of a more general fight, against weapons
similar to their own, acted like magic upon Ravenshaw's assailants.
Those who were not disabled turned as one man, to crack heads more
numerous and easier to get at. Ravenshaw, with an exultant bound of the
heart, made a final rush, upsetting all before him, for the goldsmith's
shop; ran through to the passage, turned and gained the door leading to
the garden, dashed forward and across the turf, unfastened the gate,
and plunged down Friday Street with all the breath left in him.
A few of the apprentices pursued him into the shop, knocking over a
case of jewelry and small plate as they crowded forward. The goldsmith,
appalled at the danger of loss and damage, flung himself upon them to
drive them back. Those who got to the passage ran straight on through
to the kitchen, instead of deviating to the garden door. After a
search, they observed the latter.
But by that time Captain Ravenshaw, registering an inward vow in favour
of Tony and all tapsters, and knowing that the fight must soon die out
harmlessly in the more ordinary phase it had taken, was dragging his
aching body down Watling Street to meet Cutting Tom at London Bridge.
"A fit farewell to London," said he to himself. "The town will deem
itself well rid of a rascal, I trow."