"Nay," said the hostess, "they went away cursing my tavern, and saying they would never come near it again. 'Twas you ordered, and I look to you to pay. 'Tis bad enough an you drive good customers from my house, and give it a bad name with your swaggering."
"Peace, peace, sweetheart. We have no money to pay; there's not a groat between us."
"Then you have clothes to pawn. I'll have my money, or I'll enter an action. So look to't, or, by this light, ye'll find yourselves in prison, I swear to ye!"
The two unfortunates fled from her tongue, down the Old Jewry. It rains not but it pours; and when they reached their lodgings in St. Lawrence Lane they were confronted by the woman of the house, whose distrust had been brought to a head by their absence the previous night. She must have her money; let them go less bravely clad, and pay their honest debts, else they had best beware of sheriff's officers.
When they were alone in their room, Holyday was for selling their fine clothes.
"Never, never!" said Ravenshaw. "If we cannot make our fortunes in fine clothes, how shall we do it in rags? Though we go penniless, while we look gallant we shall be relied upon. Some enterprise will fall our way."
The next morning they rose before their hostess, and took leave of her house without troubling her with farewells. They found new quarters in a shoemaker's house in St. Martin's-le-Grand, and avoided their old haunts for fear of arrest.
The question of meals now grew difficult. Ravenshaw had become so well known that possible adversaries at the gaming-tables shunned him. What little credit he could still compass at ordinaries and taverns soon prepared the way for new threats of arrest. Sometimes the two companions contrived to eat once a day, sometimes once in two days. After a time, the captain agreed that Holyday might barter his clothes. The scholar speedily appeared in a suit of modest black, as if he were his gallant companion's secretary; and for awhile the two feasted daily. But anon they were penniless again, and went hungry. The captain swore he would not part with his fine raiment; though he should starve, it would be as a swaggering gallant still.
No Lent was ever better kept than was the latter part of that year's Lent (though to no profit of the fishmongers) by those two undone men. Their cheeks became hollow, their bellies sank inward, they could feel their ribs when they passed their hands over their chests. They went feverish and gaunt, with parched mouths and griped stomachs. As hunger gnawed him, and the fear of sheriff's officers beset him at every corner, and hope grew feeble within him, the captain became subject to alternations of grim resignation and futile rage. The scholar starved with serenity, as became a master of the liberal arts, being visited in his sleep by dreams of glorious banquets, upon which in his waking hours he made sonnets.
In May the patience of the shoemaker in St. Martin's-le-Grand was exhausted, and the two penniless men had other lodgings to seek.