"Hold thy superstitious tongue," answered Varney; "and while thou

talkest of visiting, answer me, thou paltering knave, how came

Tressilian to be at the postern door?"

"Tressilian!" answered Foster, "what know I of Tressilian? I never heard

his name."

"Why, villain, it was the very Cornish chough to whom old Sir Hugh

Robsart destined his pretty Amy; and hither the hot-brained fool has

come to look after his fair runaway. There must be some order taken with

him, for he thinks he hath wrong, and is not the mean hind that will sit

down with it. Luckily he knows nought of my lord, but thinks he has only

me to deal with. But how, in the fiend's name, came he hither?"

"Why, with Mike Lambourne, an you must know," answered Foster.

"And who is Mike Lambourne?" demanded Varney. "By Heaven! thou wert best

set up a bush over thy door, and invite every stroller who passes by to

see what thou shouldst keep secret even from the sun and air."

"Ay! ay! this is a courtlike requital of my service to you, Master

Richard Varney," replied Foster. "Didst thou not charge me to seek out

for thee a fellow who had a good sword and an unscrupulous conscience?

and was I not busying myself to find a fit man--for, thank Heaven, my

acquaintance lies not amongst such companions--when, as Heaven would

have it, this tall fellow, who is in all his dualities the very flashing

knave thou didst wish, came hither to fix acquaintance upon me in the

plenitude of his impudence; and I admitted his claim, thinking to do

you a pleasure. And now see what thanks I get for disgracing myself by

converse with him!"

"And did he," said Varney, "being such a fellow as thyself, only

lacking, I suppose, thy present humour of hypocrisy, which lies as thin

over thy hard, ruffianly heart as gold lacquer upon rusty iron--did he,

I say, bring the saintly, sighing Tressilian in his train?"

"They came together, by Heaven!" said Foster; "and Tressilian--to speak

Heaven's truth--obtained a moment's interview with our pretty moppet,

while I was talking apart with Lambourne."

"Improvident villain! we are both undone," said Varney. "She has of late

been casting many a backward look to her father's halls, whenever her

lordly lover leaves her alone. Should this preaching fool whistle her

back to her old perch, we were but lost men."

"No fear of that, my master," replied Anthony Foster; "she is in no mood

to stoop to his lure, for she yelled out on seeing him as if an adder

had stung her."




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