PISTOL. And tidings do I bring, and lucky joys,

And happy news of price.

FALSTAFF. I prithee now deliver them like to men of this world.

PISTOL. A foutra for the world, and worldlings base!

I speak of Africa, and golden joys. --HENRY IV. PART II.

The public room of the Black Bear at Cumnor, to which the scene of

our story now returns, boasted, on the evening which we treat of,

no ordinary assemblage of guests. There had been a fair in the

neighbourhood, and the cutting mercer of Abingdon, with some of the

other personages whom the reader has already been made acquainted with,

as friends and customers of Giles Gosling, had already formed their

wonted circle around the evening fire, and were talking over the news of

the day.

A lively, bustling, arch fellow, whose pack, and oaken ellwand studded

duly with brass points, denoted him to be of Autolycus's profession,

occupied a good deal of the attention, and furnished much of the

amusement, of the evening. The pedlars of those days, it must be

remembered, were men of far greater importance than the degenerate

and degraded hawkers of our modern times. It was by means of these

peripatetic venders that the country trade, in the finer manufactures

used in female dress particularly, was almost entirely carried on; and

if a merchant of this description arrived at the dignity of travelling

with a pack-horse, he was a person of no small consequence, and company

for the most substantial yeoman or franklin whom he might meet in his

wanderings.

The pedlar of whom we speak bore, accordingly, an active and unrebuked

share in the merriment to which the rafters of the bonny Black Bear

of Cumnor resounded. He had his smile with pretty Mistress Cicely, his

broad laugh with mine host, and his jest upon dashing Master Goldthred,

who, though indeed without any such benevolent intention on his own

part, was the general butt of the evening. The pedlar and he were

closely engaged in a dispute upon the preference due to the Spanish

nether-stock over the black Gascoigne hose, and mine host had just

winked to the guests around him, as who should say, "You will have mirth

presently, my masters," when the trampling of horses was heard in the

courtyard, and the hostler was loudly summoned, with a few of the newest

oaths then in vogue to add force to the invocation. Out tumbled Will

Hostler, John Tapster, and all the militia of the inn, who had slunk

from their posts in order to collect some scattered crumbs of the mirth

which was flying about among the customers. Out into the yard sallied

mine host himself also, to do fitting salutation to his new guests; and

presently returned, ushering into the apartment his own worthy nephew,

Michael Lambourne, pretty tolerably drunk, and having under his escort

the astrologer. Alasco, though still a little old man, had, by altering

his gown to a riding-dress, trimming his beard and eyebrows, and so

forth, struck at least a score of years from his apparent age, and

might now seem an active man of sixty, or little upwards. He appeared at

present exceedingly anxious, and had insisted much with Lambourne that

they should not enter the inn, but go straight forward to the place of

their destination. But Lambourne would not be controlled. "By Cancer and

Capricorn," he vociferated, "and the whole heavenly host, besides all

the stars that these blessed eyes of mine have seen sparkle in the

southern heavens, to which these northern blinkers are but farthing

candles, I will be unkindly for no one's humour--I will stay and salute

my worthy uncle here. Chesu! that good blood should ever be forgotten

betwixt friends!--A gallon of your best, uncle, and let it go round to

the health of the noble Earl of Leicester! What! shall we not collogue

together, and warm the cockles of our ancient kindness?--shall we not

collogue, I say?"




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024