"RICARDE," said the preceptor, "you must forthwith (which is PROFECTO)
set forth so far as the top of the hill, and show this man of worship
Wayland Smith's workshop."
"A proper errand of a morning," said the boy, in better language than
Tressilian expected; "and who knows but the devil may fly away with me
before I come back?"
"Ay, marry may un," said Dame Sludge; "and you might have thought twice,
Master Domine, ere you sent my dainty darling on arrow such errand. It
is not for such doings I feed your belly and clothe your back, I warrant
you!"
"Pshaw--NUGAE, good Gammer Sludge," answered the preceptor; "I ensure
you that Satan, if there be Satan in the case, shall not touch a thread
of his garment; for Dickie can say his PATER with the best, and may defy
the foul fiend--EUMENIDES, STYGIUMQUE NEFAS."
"Ay, and I, as I said before, have sewed a sprig of the mountain-ash
into his collar," said the good woman, "which will avail more than your
clerkship, I wus; but for all that, it is ill to seek the devil or his
mates either."
"My good boy," said Tressilian, who saw, from a grotesque sneer on
Dickie's face, that he was more likely to act upon his own bottom than
by the instructions of his elders, "I will give thee a silver groat, my
pretty fellow, if you will but guide me to this man's forge."
The boy gave him a knowing side-look, which seemed to promise
acquiescence, while at the same time he exclaimed, "I be your guide to
Wayland Smith's! Why, man, did I not say that the devil might fly off
with me, just as the kite there" (looking to the window) "is flying off
with one of grandam's chicks?"
"The kite! the kite!" exclaimed the old woman in return, and forgetting
all other matters in her alarm, hastened to the rescue of her chickens
as fast as her old legs could carry her.
"Now for it," said the urchin to Tressilian; "snatch your beaver, get
out your horse, and have at the silver groat you spoke of."
"Nay, but tarry, tarry," said the preceptor--"SUFFLAMINA, RICARDE!"
"Tarry yourself," said Dickie, "and think what answer you are to make to
granny for sending me post to the devil."
The teacher, aware of the responsibility he was incurring, bustled up in
great haste to lay hold of the urchin and to prevent his departure; but
Dickie slipped through his fingers, bolted from the cottage, and sped
him to the top of a neighbouring rising ground, while the preceptor,
despairing, by well-taught experience, of recovering his pupil by speed
of foot, had recourse to the most honied epithets the Latin vocabulary
affords to persuade his return. But to MI ANIME, CORCULUM MEUM, and
all such classical endearments, the truant turned a deaf ear, and kept
frisking on the top of the rising ground like a goblin by moonlight,
making signs to his new acquaintance, Tressilian, to follow him.