The dinner over, the young men rushed from their colleges, flushed, full-fed, and eager for battle. If the Gown was angry, the Town, too, was on the alert. From Iffly and Barnwell, from factory and mill, from wharf and warehouse, the Town poured out to meet the enemy, and their battle was soon general. From the Addenbrook's hospital to the Blenheim turnpike, all Cambridge was in an uproar--the college gates closed--the shops barricaded--the shop-boys away in support of their brother townsmen--the battle raged, and the Gown had the worst of the fight.
A luncheon of many courses had been provided for Rafael Mendoza at his inn; but he smiled at the clumsy efforts of the university cooks to entertain him, and a couple of dates and a glass of water formed his meal. In vain the discomfited landlord pressed him to partake of the slighted banquet. "A breakfast! psha!" said he.
"My good man, I have nineteen cooks, at salaries rising from four hundred a year. I can have a dinner at any hour; but a Town and Gown row" (a brickbat here flying through the window crashed the caraffe of water in Mendoza's hand)--"a Town and Gown row is a novelty to me. The Town has the best of it, clearly, though: the men outnumber the lads. Ha, a good blow! How that tall townsman went down before yonder slim young fellow in the scarlet trencher cap.""That is the Lord Codlingsby," the landlord said.
"A light weight, but a pretty fighter," Mendoza remarked. "Well hit with your left, Lord Codlingsby; well parried, Lord Codlingsby;claret drawn, by Jupiter!"
"Ours is werry fine," the landlord said. "Will your Highness have Chateau Margaux or Lafitte?""He never can be going to match himself against that bargeman!"Rafael exclaimed, as an enormous boatman--no other than Rullock--indeed, the most famous bruiser of Cambridge, and before whose fists the Gownsmen went down like ninepins--fought his way up to the spot where, with admirable spirit and resolution, Lord Codlingsby and one or two of his friends were making head against a number of the town.
The young noble faced the huge champion with the gallantry of his race, but was no match for the enemy's strength and weight and sinew, and went down at every round. The brutal fellow had no mercy on the lad. His savage treatment chafed Mendoza as he viewed the unequal combat from the inn-window. "Hold your hand!" he cried to this Goliath; "don't you see he's but a boy?""Down he goes again!" the bargeman cried, not heeding the interruption. "Down he goes again: I likes wapping a lord!""Coward!" shouted Mendoza; and to fling open the window amidst a shower of brickbats, to vault over the balcony, to slide down one of the pillars to the ground, was an instant's work.
At the next he stood before the enormous bargeman.
. . . . . . . .
After the coroner's inquest, Mendoza gave ten thousand pounds to each of the bargeman's ten children, and it was thus his first acquaintance was formed with Lord Codlingsby.
But we are lingering on the threshold of the house in Holywell Street. Let us go in.
III.
Godfrey and Rafael passed from the street into the outer shop of the old mansion in Holywell Street. It was a masquerade warehouse to all appearance. A dark-eyed damsel of the nation was standing at the dark and grimy counter, strewed with old feathers, old yellow hoots, old stage mantles, painted masks, blind and yet gazing at you with a look of sad death-like intelligence from the vacancy behind their sockets.
A medical student was trying one of the doublets of orange-tawny and silver, slashed with dirty light blue. He was going to a masquerade that night. He thought Polly Pattens would admire him in the dress--Polly Pattens, the fairest of maids-of-all-work--the Borough Venus, adored by half the youth of Guy's.
"You look like a prince in it, Mr. Lint," pretty Rachel said, coaxing him with her beady black eyes.
"It IS the cheese," replied Mr. Lint; "it ain't the dress that don't suit, my rose of Sharon; it's the FIGURE. Hullo, Rafael, is that you, my lad of sealing-wax? Come and intercede for me with this wild gazelle; she says I can't have it under fifteen bob for the night. And it's too much: cuss me if it's not too much, unless you'll take my little bill at two months, Rafael.""There's a sweet pretty brigand's dress you may have for half de monish," Rafael replied; "there's a splendid clown for eight bob;but for dat Spanish dress, selp ma Moshesh, Mistraer Lint, ve'd ask a guinea of any but you. Here's a gentlemansh just come to look at it. Look 'ear, Mr. Brownsh, did you ever shee a nisher ting dan dat?" So saying, Rafael turned to Lord Codlingsby with the utmost gravity, and displayed to him the garment about which the young medicus was haggling.
"Cheap at the money," Codlingsby replied; "if you won't make up your mind, sir, I should like to engage it myself." But the thought that another should appear before Polly Pattens in that costume was too much for Mr. Lint; he agreed to pay the fifteen shillings for the garment. And Rafael, pocketing the money with perfect simplicity, said, "Dis vay, Mr. Brownsh: dere's someting vill shoot you in the next shop."Lord Codlingsby followed him, wondering.
"You are surprised at our system," said Rafael, marking the evident bewilderment of his friend. "Confess you would call it meanness--my huckstering with yonder young fool. I call it simplicity. Why throw away a shilling without need? Our race never did. Ashilling is four men's bread: shall I disdain to defile my fingers by holding them out relief in their necessity? It is you who are mean--you Normans--not we of the ancient race. You have your vulgar measurement for great things and small. You call a thousand pounds respectable, and a shekel despicable. Psha, my Codlingsby!
