Deputy's self down to the waist- coateers in the alley, all of them are twiring and peeping betwixt their fingers when you pass; and yet you call yourself a miserable dog! and I must tell you all this over and over again, as if I were whistling the chimes of London to a pettish child, in order to bring the pretty baby into good-humour!'
The flattery of Dame Ursula seemed to have the fate of her cordial—it was swallowed, indeed, by the party to whom she presented it, and that with some degree of relish, but it did not operate as a sedative on the disturbed state of the youth's mind. He laughed for an instant, half in scorn, and half in gratified vanity, but cast a sullen look on Dame Ursley as he replied to her last words,
'You do treat me like a child indeed, when you sing over and over to me a cuckoo song that I care not a copper-filing for.'
'Aha!' said Dame Ursley; 'that is to say, you care not if you please all, unless you please one—You are a true lover, I warrant, and care not for all the city, from here to Whitechapel, so you could write yourself first in your pretty Peg-a-Ramsay's good-will. Well, well, take patience, man, and be guided by me, for I will be the hoop will bind you together at last.'
'It is time you were so,' said Jenkin, 'for hitherto you have rather been the wedge to separate us.'
Dame Suddlechop had by this time finished her cordial—it was not the first she had taken that day; and, though a woman of strong brain, and cautious at least, if not abstemious, in her potations, it may nevertheless be supposed that her patience was not improved by the regimen which she observed.
'Why, thou ungracious and ingrate knave,' said Dame Ursley, 'have not I done every thing to put thee in thy mistress's good graces? She loves gentry, the proud Scottish minx, as a Welshman loves cheese, and has her father's descent from that Duke of Daldevil, or whatsoever she calls him, as close in her heart as gold in a miser's chest, though she as seldom shows it—and none she will think of, or have, but a gentleman—and a gentleman I have made of thee, Jin Vin, the devil cannot deny that.'
'You have made a fool of me,' said poor Jenkin, looking at the sleeve of his jacket.
'Never the worse gentleman for that,' said Dame Ursley, laughing.
'And what is worse,' said he, turning his back to her suddenly, and writhing in his chair, 'you have made a rogue of me.'
'Never the worse gentleman for that neither,' said Dame Ursley, in the same tone; 'let a man bear his folly gaily and his knavery stoutly, and let me see if gravity or honesty will look him in the face now-a- days. Tut, man, it was only in the time of King Arthur or King Lud, that a gentleman was held to blemish his scutcheon by a leap over the line of reason or honesty—It is the bold look, the ready hand, the fine clothes, the brisk oath, and the wild brain, that makes the gallant now-a-days.'
'I know what you have made me,' said Jin Vin; 'since I have given up skittles and trap-ball for tennis and bowls, good English ale for thin Bordeaux and sour Rhenish, roast-beef and pudding for woodcocks and kickshaws—my bat for a sword, my cap for a beaver, my forsooth for a modish oath, my Christmas-box for a dice-box, my religion for the devil's matins, and mine honest name for—Woman, I could brain thee, when I think whose advice has guided me in all this!'
'Whose advice, then? whose advice, then? Speak out, thou poor, petty cloak-brusher, and say who advised thee!' retorted Dame Ursley, flushed and indignant—'Marry come up, my paltry companion—say by whose advice you have made a gamester of yourself, and a thief besides, as your words would bear—The Lord deliver us from evil!' And here Dame Ursley devoutly crossed herself.
'Hark ye, Dame Ursley Suddlechop,' said Jenkin, starting up, his dark eyes flashing with anger; 'remember I am none of your husband—and, if I were, you would do well not to forget whose threshold was swept when they last rode the Skimmington[18] upon such another scolding jade as yourself.'
'I hope to see you ride up Holborn next,' said Dame Ursley, provoked out of all her holiday and sugar-plum expressions, 'with a nosegay at your breast, and a parson at your elbow!'
'That may well be,' answered Jin Vin, bitterly, 'if I walk by your counsels as I have begun by them; but, before that day comes, you shall know that Jin Vin has the brisk boys of Fleet Street still at his wink.—Yes, you jade, you shall be carted for bawd and conjurer, double-dyed in grain, and bing off to Bridewell, with every brass basin betwixt the Bar and Paul's beating before you, as if the devil were banging them with his beef-hook.'
Dame Ursley coloured like scarlet, seized upon the half-emptied flask of cordial, and seemed, by her first gesture, about to hurl it at the head of her adversary; but suddenly, and as if by a strong internal effort, she checked her outrageous resentment, and, putting the bottle to its more legitimate use, filled, with wonderful composure, the two glasses, and, taking up one of them, said, with a smile, which better became her comely and jovial countenance than the fury by which it was animated the moment before—
'Here is to thee, Jin Vin, my lad, in all loving kindness, whatever spite thou bearest to me, that have always been a mother to thee.'
Jenkin's English good-nature could not resist this forcible appeal; he took up the other glass, and lovingly pledged the dame in her cup of reconciliation, and proceeded to make a kind of grumbling apology for his own violence—
'For you know,' he said, 'it was you persuaded me to get these fine things, and go to that godless ordinary, and ruffle it with the best, and bring you home all the news; and you said, I, that was the cock of the ward, would soon be the cock of the ordinary, and would win ten times as much at gleek and primero, as I used to do at put and beggar- my-neighbour—and turn up doublets with the dice, as busily as I was wont to trowl down the ninepins in the skittle-ground—and then you said I should bring you such news out of the ordinary as should make us all, when used as you knew how to use it—and now you see what is to come of it all!'
''Tis all true thou sayest, lad,' said the dame; 'but thou must have patience. Rome was not built in a day— you cannot become used to your court-suit in a month's time, any more than when you changed your long coat for a doublet and hose; and in gaming you must expect to lose as well as gain—'tis the sitting gamester sweeps the board.'
'The board has swept me, I know,' replied Jin Vin, 'and that pretty clean out.—I would that were the worst; but I owe for all this finery, and settling-day is coming on, and my master will find my accompt worse than it should be by a score of pieces. My old father will be called in to make them good; and I—may save the hangman a labour and do the job myself, or go the Virginia voyage.'
'Do not speak so loud, my dear boy,' said Dame Ursley; 'but tell me why you borrow not from a friend to make up your arrear. You could lend him as much when his settling-day came round.'
'No, no—I have had enough of that work,' said Vincent. 'Tunstall would lend me the money, poor fellow, an he had it; but his gentle, beggarly kindred, plunder him of all, and keep him as bare as a birch at Christmas. No —my fortune may be spelt in four letters, and these read, RUIN.'
'Now hush, you simple craven,' said the dame; 'did you never hear, that when the need is highest the help is nighest? We may find aid for you yet, and sooner than you are aware of. I am sure I would never have advised you to such a course, but only you had set heart and eye on pretty Mistress Marget, and less would not serve you—and what could I do but advise you to cast your city-slough, and try your luck where folks find fortune?'
'Ay, ay—I remember your counsel well,' said Jenkin; 'I was to be introduced to her by you when I was perfect in my gallantries, and as rich as the king; and then she was to be surprised to find I was poor Jin Vin, that used to watch, from matin to curfew, for one glance of her eye; and now, instead of that, she has set her soul on this Scottish sparrow-hawk of a lord that won my last tester, and be cursed to him; and so I am bankrupt in love, fortune, and character, before I am out of my time, and all along of you, Mother Midnight.'
'Do not call me out of my own name, my dear boy, Jin Vin,' answered Ursula, in a tone betwixt rage and coaxing,—'do not; because I am no saint, but a poor sinful woman, with no more patience than she needs, to carry her through a thousand crosses. And if I have done you wrong by evil counsel, I must mend it and put you right by good advice. And for the score of pieces that must be made up at settling-day, why, here is, in a good green purse, as much as will make that matter good; and we will get old Crosspatch, the tailor, to take a long day for your clothes; and—'
'Mother, are you serious?' said Jin Vin, unable to trust either his eyes or his ears.
'In troth am I,' said the dame; 'and will you call me Mother Midnight now, Jin Vin?'
'Mother Midnight!' exclaimed Jenkin, hugging the dame in his transport, and bestowing on her still comely cheek a hearty and not unacceptable smack, that sounded like the report of a pistol,—'Mother Midday, rather, that has risen to light me out of my troubles—a mother more dear than she who bore me; for she, poor soul, only
