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."
"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?"