"And roast ye after at the fire!" said one of his men.
The gallants showed that they could rattle their hilts upon the innocent board as fiercely.
"Out of the room," shouted Maylands, "ere we pin ye to the wall and set dogs on ye!"
This was but the beginning of the contest, which soon attained a scurrility too shocking, not for Elizabethan ears, but for these pages. Meanwhile, Ravenshaw and Holyday waited below. At last a noise was heard in the passage above, and the four ill-favoured fellows came bounding down the stairs. Three of them left the house at once, but Cutting Tom, seeing that the gallants did not follow, stopped to whisper with the captain.
"'Twas good as a play," quoth he. "We held our own awhile, as you bade. Then we let 'em overbear us, and at last we feigned such fear they said they'd e'en make us tie their shoes. 'They're tied already,' quoth I. 'Then untie 'em,' said they. We untied 'em; and then they'd have us depart a-crawling on our hands and knees; and so we left 'em, on all fours; and that's the hell of it! I thought the women would have burst a-laughing."
"Here's the rest of the money," said Ravenshaw, parting with his last coin. "Now vanish, and come not here again this night, or you'll have me to answer!"
Cutting Tom examined the money by the candle-light, and went his way with a grunt.
"So far, good," said Ravenshaw, chuckling. "Our young cocks will think themselves the prime swaggerers of Christendom."
"Until they come upon the truth," said Holyday. "The next men they meet, they'll be for bullying; and then they're not like to come off as well."
"But they shall meet no men this night. The ladies above will keep 'em here till they be too sleepy with wine for any desire of roaring. We'll see 'em safe home, and to-morrow at dinner I'll ply 'em for a fat remuneration. When that's in our pockets, they may learn the truth and go hang. We'll hire a page to attend us, and we'll live like gentlemen. We're lucky to have found 'em constant so long. Come; we'll up to them, as if we happened in."