“An I know not how to play at being Sir Robin, Lady Peggy’s chosen sweetheart, boldly and with a loud voice; know not how to swear and prance and pick a pretty quarrel, crying ‘Match me your Lady Diana with my Lady Peggy!’ then never did I dozen times for sport don my twin’s breeches and coat and masquerade at being that sweet creature,—a man! Ha! I have it all at fingers’ ends!” cries Peggy, fumbling in her discarded pocket. “Here’s the very letter I writ for Sir Robin to take and present to my brother. ’Twill stand me in good stead to-night that I forgot to give it to him. If Chockey but succeed in cajoling the man out of his wig, an’ if the gallants come not ere I can fit it to my head!”—opening the door impetuously almost to bump against the returning Chockey’s nose.
“Thou hast it! Oh Chock! ’Tis I! be not afraid. Come in; adjust it to my poll,—so! Lose not a moment; pick up my petticoats, leave not a scrap that bespeaks a woman; there! You’re dropping a hair-pin; now, up with ye to the loft! an’ no matter if rats nibble your toes, Chock, or mice come play bo-peep with your eye-winkers, or spiders weave across your mouth, an you stir, cry out, move an inch to the creaking of a board, I’ll leave you here your lone self to shift as best you may! Up girl!” touching the speechless Chockey with the rapier-tip urgingly, “and ’tis Sir Robin McTart that bids you!”
The obedient and trembling waiting-woman was not much sooner out of sight in the loft, than again the voice echoed up to where Lady Peggy stood in the gruesome ambush of the landing, well back in the darkest corner behind a pile of boards and débris, bricks and dust, and what-not-else tumbled there from the chimney during the last and many previous storms.
Nearer came the song, then the chorus, broken now with more of chat and laughter; the footsteps sound upon the street, the house-door opens, slams, and up they troop, stumbling in the blackness but knowing well the way, it seems; merry, jocund, up, up, with the refrain of the song still lingering amid their talk in snatches, until they gain the top.
“Are we then indeed at your door, Kennaston?” cries the first to reach, as he feels at the latch.
“Split me, Escombe, you’re there if you can go no farther. Egad! Sirs,” cries the young host, “an I never reach to pinnacle of Fame’s ladder, at the least do I lodge as high as I could get:—a roof that suits my empty purse!”
“Nay, Kennaston.” Peggy, in her man’s gear, trembles at sound of that tone, for ’tis Percy who speaks now, whiles they all push pell-mell into her twin’s chambers, strike lights, pull out candles from cupboard, stir the fire.
“Nay, Kennaston,” says this one, “while De Bohun lives there’s ever a full purse lad, t’ exchange for thy empty one,—and well thou know’st it.”
“Tut, tut!” answers the young man of letters, adding as he glances about, “’pon my soul, gentlemen, my Hebe has been outdoing herself. Saw we ever before in this room, stools lacking dust? floor, riff-raff? walls their festoons? hearth its ashes? coffee-pot its rust? and, by my life, the kettle filled and steaming!”
A peal of mirth greets this nimble sally, as the host pulls from the table drawer a pack of cards and his guests from their pockets a dozen bottles of Falernian.