"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."