"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.