When the captain had dismissed himself, he looked back for a moment from the threshold. The limping old coxcomb, more than ever self-satisfied after his supper, was bestowing a loverlike caress upon Mistress Millicent, who shrank from him as if she were a flower whose beauty might wither at his touch. With this vision before him, Ravenshaw was let out, by the side door, into Friday Street, and made his way eastward along Cheapside to meet the scholar by appointment among the evening idlers in the Pawn of the Exchange. He thought industriously, as he went.
[CHAPTER IX.]
THE PRAISE OF INNOCENCE.
"He keeps his promise best that breaks with hell."—The Widow.
The Royal Exchange, or Gresham's Bourse, formed an open quadrangle, where the merchants congregated by day, which was surrounded by a colonnade; the roofed galleries over the colonnade made up the Pawn, where ladies and gentlemen walked and lounged in the evening, among bazaars and stalls. Naturally the uses of such a resort were not lost upon Captain Ravenshaw and Master Holyday, who had reasons for knowing all places where a houseless man might keep warm or dry in bad weather without cost. When Ravenshaw entered, on this particular May evening, he found the Pawn crowded, and lighted in a manner brilliant for those days. The scholar was leaning, pensive, against a post.
"God save you, man, why look you so disconsolate? Is it the sight of so many ladies?"
"No. I heed 'em not, when I am not asked to speak to 'em," replied Holyday, listlessly. "How fared you?"