"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.