"Nay, after these baulks," said Michael Lambourne, "I need hardly
inquire after Tony Foster; for when ropes, and crossbow shafts, and
pursuivant's warrants, and such-like gear, were so rife, Tony could
hardly 'scape them."
"Which Tony Foster mean you?" said the innkeeper.
"Why, him they called Tony Fire-the-Fagot, because he brought a light
to kindle the pile round Latimer and Ridley, when the wind blew out Jack
Thong's torch, and no man else would give him light for love or money."
"Tony Foster lives and thrives," said the host. "But, kinsman, I would
not have you call him Tony Fire-the-Fagot, if you would not brook the
stab."
"How! is he grown ashamed on't?" said Lambourne, "Why, he was wont to
boast of it, and say he liked as well to see a roasted heretic as a
roasted ox."
"Ay, but, kinsman, that was in Mary's time," replied the landlord, "when
Tony's father was reeve here to the Abbot of Abingdon. But since that,
Tony married a pure precisian, and is as good a Protestant, I warrant
you, as the best."
"And looks grave, and holds his head high, and scorns his old
companions," said the mercer.
"Then he hath prospered, I warrant him," said Lambourne; "for ever when
a man hath got nobles of his own, he keeps out of the way of those whose
exchequers lie in other men's purchase."
"Prospered, quotha!" said the mercer; "why, you remember Cumnor Place,
the old mansion-house beside the churchyard?"
"By the same token, I robbed the orchard three times--what of that?
It was the old abbot's residence when there was plague or sickness at
Abingdon."
"Ay," said the host, "but that has been long over; and Anthony Foster
hath a right in it, and lives there by some grant from a great courtier,
who had the church-lands from the crown. And there he dwells, and has
as little to do with any poor wight in Cumnor, as if he were himself a
belted knight."
"Nay," said the mercer, "it is not altogether pride in Tony neither;
there is a fair lady in the case, and Tony will scarce let the light of
day look on her."
"How!" said Tressilian, who now for the first time interfered in
their conversation; "did ye not say this Foster was married, and to a
precisian?"
"Married he was, and to as bitter a precisian as ever ate flesh in Lent;
and a cat-and-dog life she led with Tony, as men said. But she is dead,
rest be with her! and Tony hath but a slip of a daughter; so it is
thought he means to wed this stranger, that men keep such a coil about."