"Take it thyself, then, bully Mike," answered Goldthred. "Yonder is the
enchanted manor, and the dragon, and the lady, all at thy service, if
thou darest venture on them."
"Why, so I would for a quartern of sack," said the soldier--"or stay: I
am foully out of linen--wilt thou bet a piece of Hollands against these
five angels, that I go not up to the Hall to-morrow and force Tony
Foster to introduce me to his fair guest?"
"I accept your wager," said the mercer; "and I think, though thou hadst
even the impudence of the devil, I shall gain on thee this bout. Our
landlord here shall hold stakes, and I will stake down gold till I send
the linen."
"I will hold stakes on no such matter," said Gosling. "Good now, my
kinsman, drink your wine in quiet, and let such ventures alone. I
promise you, Master Foster hath interest enough to lay you up in
lavender in the Castle at Oxford, or to get your legs made acquainted
with the town-stocks."
"That would be but renewing an old intimacy, for Mike's shins and the
town's wooden pinfold have been well known to each other ere now," said
the mercer; "but he shall not budge from his wager, unless he means to
pay forfeit."
"Forfeit?" said Lambourne; "I scorn it. I value Tony Foster's wrath no
more than a shelled pea-cod; and I will visit his Lindabrides, by Saint
George, be he willing or no!"
"I would gladly pay your halves of the risk, sir," said Tressilian, "to
be permitted to accompany you on the adventure."
"In what would that advantage you, sir?" answered Lambourne.
"In nothing, sir," said Tressilian, "unless to mark the skill and valour
with which you conduct yourself. I am a traveller who seeks for strange
rencounters and uncommon passages, as the knights of yore did after
adventures and feats of arms."
"Nay, if it pleasures you to see a trout tickled," answered Lambourne,
"I care not how many witness my skill. And so here I drink success to my
enterprise; and he that will not pledge me on his knees is a rascal, and
I will cut his legs off by the garters!"
The draught which Michael Lambourne took upon this occasion had been
preceded by so many others, that reason tottered on her throne. He
swore one or two incoherent oaths at the mercer, who refused, reasonably
enough, to pledge him to a sentiment which inferred the loss of his own
wager.