CHAPTER XII.

MASTER HOLYDAY IN FEAR AND TREMBLING.

"If I know what to say to her now In the way of marriage, I'm no graduate." --_A Chaste Maid in Cheapside._

As Ravenshaw climbed the narrow stairs to his room in darkness, he heard the voice of his fellow lodger in loud and continued denunciation. Wondering at this, for the scholar was wont to speak little and never vehemently, the captain hastened his upward steps, thinking to rescue Master Holyday from some quarrel with the landlord or other person. But when he burst into the chamber he found the poet alone, pacing the floor in the flickering light of an expiring candle, his hair tumbled, his eyes wild, one hand gesticulating, while the other held his new-written manuscript.

At sight of Ravenshaw the poet stopped short a moment, then finished the passage he had been spouting, dropped the manuscript on the table, and, coming back to the present with a kind of tired shiver, sank exhaustedly upon a joint stool.

"Excellent ranting," said the captain, "and most suitable to what I have to say." He threw his hat and sword-girdle on a bed in a corner of the room, filled and lighted a pipe of tobacco, and took up his stand before the chimney as one who had weighty matters to propound.

"How suitable?" queried Master Holyday, with a languor consequent upon his long stretch of poetic fervour.

"As thus," replied the captain, with a puff. "Your play there concerns the carrying away of a lady."

"Of Helen by Paris; yes. But that is only a little part--"

"'Tis a part that you have conducted properly and well, no doubt."

"Why, without boasting, I profess some slight skill in these matters."

"Well, now, look you. Your carrying away this lady in the spirit is well; 'tis a fit preparation for your carrying away a lady in the flesh."

Master Holyday broke off in the middle of a yawn and stared.

"You shall carry away this goldsmith's daughter to-morrow night. Now mark how all is to be done--"

"God's name, are you mad?" cried the scholar, roused from his lassitude into a great astonishment.

"No more mad than to have planned all this for the saving of that maid from dire calamities, and the making of your joy and fortune."

"My joy?"

"Ay, indeed; for to possess that maid--"

"Oh, the maid--hang all maids!" exclaimed Holyday, with a kind of shudder, and falling into perturbation. "I'll none of 'em!"

"And as to your fortune, how often have you told me what welcome and comfort wait you at your father's house the day you come to him with a wife?"

"Wife!" echoed Master Holyday, and first paled with horror, and then gave forth a ghastly laugh.

"Ay," said the captain, "and such a wife, your father will bless the day that made her his daughter! E'en though she come without dowry, he cannot choose but take her to his heart. Her father will not hold out for ever, perchance, when he finds her married to his old friend's son. But if he does, she hath an uncle who is like to make her his heir, I take it. And so, man, there's an end to this beggary for you. And now mark what is to be done--"

"No, no, no! I have not the stomach for it. I have not!"

"We must be stirring early in the morning," went on the captain, "for all must be arranged ere I leave London at noon. And first, how you are to call upon the goldsmith's family, and secretly get the girl's consent."

"Get her consent! Never, never! I'll do no wooing; not I!"

"By God, and you will that, and 'tis I that say so!"

The scholar looked wildly at the captain a moment, then rose and made for the door, as if to escape a fearful doom. Ravenshaw quickly caught up the manuscript of the puppet-play, and held it ready to tear it across. The poet stopped, with a sharp cry of alarm, and came back holding out his hand for the freshly covered sheets of paper. But the captain pushed him to a seat, and retained the manuscript.

"I'll tear it into fifty pieces, and burn 'em before your face," said Ravenshaw, "if you listen not quietly to what you must do."

Poor Holyday, keeping his eyes anxiously upon the precious work, gave a piteous groan, and sat limp and helpless.

"At daybreak," began Ravenshaw, "we shall go together and bespeak the boat that shall carry you and the maid, and your attendants, down the river in the evening. It shall be your business next to visit the goldsmith as if you came newly to London from your father in the country. Tell Master Etheridge you intend to marry a lady in Kent, and that you will be purchasing jewels and plate."

"But, God's sake!" objected the scholar, dismally, and as if he partly doubted the captain's sanity, "have you not passed yourself off to him as me? And how, then, will he believe that I am I?"

"Troth, I have been discovered to him as my true self."

"Well, then, as he has been once imposed on, he will treat me as an impostor, too," urged Holyday, desperately ready to find impediments.

"No, for if he makes any question, you need but stand upon your likeness to your mother. And then you can mention a thousand things that his memory must share with yours, where I could mention but the few you told me. And there was a mistake I made, saying it was a terrier that bit him in the leg the last time he was at your house, whereas it was a water-spaniel, as you had told me. If you speak of the spaniel biting him, you will prove yourself the true Holyday, and confirm it that I was a false one."

"Ne'ertheless," moaned the scholar, in despair at the whole matter, "'twill seem a dubious thing, two men appearing within three days' time, both calling themselves Francis Holyday's son."

"'Tis easily made clear. Say that, travelling to London three days ago, you fell in with that rascal, Ravenshaw, but knew not what a knave he was. Say that he won upon your confidence, you being free of mistrust, so that you told him many things of yourself, and your intended marriage, and your purpose in coming to London, and of Master Etheridge. And say that you both took lodgings for the night at an inn in Southwark; when you woke in the morning you found yourself ill, and two nights and a day had passed while you slept, so that Ravenshaw must have given you a draught in your wine, and gone to counterfeit you in the goldsmith's house, thinking to make some use of his freedom therein. Oh, they will swallow that without a sniff! And, look you, call me a thousand ill names, and say 'tis your dearest wish to kill the scurvy rogue that cozened you so."

Holyday uttered a deep sigh, and shook his head lugubriously.

"And note this," pursued Ravenshaw, "no word to any but the maid that she is the lady you came to marry. They are hot upon tying her to an old withered ass, a knight of Berkshire. That she may escape him, I have planned this good fortune for you; but all must be done to-morrow, for he is already in town for the wedding, and there is another danger threatens her, too, if she tarries in London. So, when you have been admitted to the family, you must find, or contrive, some time alone with Mistress Millicent, and speedily open the matter to her."

Holyday visibly trembled, and was the picture of woe. "Good God!" he exclaimed; "how I shall find voice to speak to her, and words to say, I know not!"

"One thing will make all easy in a trice. Her Uncle Bartlemy, whom you know, would serve her an he saw the way; and even to the last she has looked for some secret help from him. You shall therefore begin by saying you come from her Uncle Bartlemy, who bids her accept you as a husband. Say that his description of her beauty, and of her unhappy plight, hath so wrought upon your mind that you were deep in love ere you e'en saw her. And then say the reality so far outshines the description, your love is a thousand times confirmed and multiplied. She cannot but believe you are from her uncle, knowing you live in his part of the country. After that, if you have time for a few love speeches of a poetical nature, such as, no doubt, this work is full of" (he held up the manuscript)--

"Troth," said the poet, "'twere easier for me to write whole folios of love than speak a line of it to a real maid!"

"Oh, heart up, man!" said Ravenshaw. "'Twill be smooth sailing, once a start is made. But you will not have to say much. Your youth and figure will speak for you when she contrasts them with Sir Peregrine. In her present mind, any man were a sweet refuge from that old kex. I remember she said she would prefer a good swordman; tell her you are a good swordman, therefore. And then bid her meet you at her garden gate in Friday Street at dusk, ready for a journey. Not earlier, look you, for the men who will attend you may not be in waiting at the White Horse till sunset, and 'twere dangerous to miss them."

The scholar breathed fast and hard, as if a burden were being forced upon him, under which he must surely faint, and his eyes roved about as if seeking a way of evasion.

"Now all this must be agreed upon betwixt you and the maid a full hour before noon," proceeded Ravenshaw, "so that you may come to me with the news ere I set out from London. I wish to go to my new affairs with an easy mind. The place I go to is not far from that to which you and the maid shall go, and I will meet you in proper time. But take note of one thing. She is not to know that I have the least hand in this business; if she did, she would not stir a step in it, for she abhors the very name of Ravenshaw. Therefore, when you are with her, if my name comes up, be sure you vilify me roundly."

"I could vilify you now, for pushing me into this business!"

"Very like; and think not to get out of it till it's done; for, mark well, I shall not be far from you while you are in the goldsmith's house. I shall bring you in sight of the house, and shall wait in sight of it till you come out; and if you come not out by eleven o'clock, and with word that all is planned, then, by these two hands, I know not what will happen!"

The poor scholar shrank at the captain's fierce manner.

"And now, for your flight and marriage," resumed Ravenshaw, after an impressive pause; and he set forth particulars as to their being joined by Cutting Tom and his men, their taking boat, their trip down the river with the vantage of tide and moonlight, their landing at whatever point Holyday, in his knowledge of the country, should deem best. "You will then find your way as fast as may be," he continued, "to the house of your friend Sir Nicholas, the parson. Prevail upon him to keep you hid there till he can marry you by license, which can be quickly had of the bishop's commissary of Rochester. Being so much your friend, Sir Nicholas will wink at little shortcomings,--such as the consent of the girl's parents being omitted, and that of her friends sufficing. The maid can swear she is not precontracted; there is truly no consanguinity, and for names to a bond, the parson can scrape up another besides your own. And so, safely tied, you shall bear her to your father's house, and defy the world."

Master Holyday looked as if he fancied himself bound to the seat of a galley for life.

"The parson must lodge your attendants till the next day," added Ravenshaw, "when I will come and dismiss them. Stable room will do. Belike I will see you when I come; but she must not set eyes on me. When all's done, you may tell her what you will. Her uncle will stand your friend, I think. And so, a rascal's blessing on you both!"

The poet was silent and miserable. But after a time he looked up, and, stretching forth his hand, said, in a supplicating way:

"Give me back my puppet-play, then. 'Tis my masterwork, I think."

"You shall have it back when you are married," replied Ravenshaw, placing it carefully inside his doublet.

Master Holyday groaned, as one who gives himself up for lost.