Talk you of young Master Lancelot? --MERCHANT OF VENICE.
After some brief interval, Master Goldthred, at the earnest instigation
of mine host, and the joyous concurrence of his guest, indulged the
company with the following morsel of melody:--
“Of all the birds on bush or tree,
Commend me to the owl,
Since he may best ensample be
To those the cup that trowl.
For when the sun hath left the west,
He chooses the tree that he loves the best,
And he whoops out his song, and he laughs at his jest;
Then, though hours be late and weather foul,
We'll drink to the health of the bonny, bonny owl.
“The lark is but a bumpkin fowl,
He sleeps in his nest till morn;
But my blessing upon the jolly owl,
That all night blows his horn.
Then up with your cup till you stagger in speech,
And match me this catch till you swagger and screech,
And drink till you wink, my merry men each;
For, though hours be late and weather be foul,
We'll drink to the health of the bonny, bonny owl.”
“There is savour in this, my hearts,” said Michael, when the mercer had
finished his song, “and some goodness seems left among you yet; but what
a bead-roll you have read me of old comrades, and to every man's name
tacked some ill-omened motto! And so Swashing Will of Wallingford hath
bid us good-night?”
“He died the death of a fat buck,” said one of the party, “being shot
with a crossbow bolt, by old Thatcham, the Duke's stout park-keeper at
Donnington Castle.”
“Ay, ay, he always loved venison well,” replied Michael, “and a cup
of claret to boot--and so here's one to his memory. Do me right, my
masters.”
When the memory of this departed worthy had been duly honoured,
Lambourne proceeded to inquire after Prance of Padworth.
“Pranced off--made immortal ten years since,” said the mercer; “marry,
sir, Oxford Castle and Goodman Thong, and a tenpenny-worth of cord, best
know how.”
“What, so they hung poor Prance high and dry? so much for loving to walk
by moonlight. A cup to his memory, my masters-all merry fellows like
moonlight. What has become of Hal with the Plume--he who lived near
Yattenden, and wore the long feather?--I forget his name.”
“What, Hal Hempseed?” replied the mercer. “Why, you may remember he was
a sort of a gentleman, and would meddle in state matters, and so he
got into the mire about the Duke of Norfolk's affair these two or three
years since, fled the country with a pursuivant's warrant at his heels,
and has never since been heard of.”
“Nay, after these baulks,” said Michael Lambourne, “I need hardly
inquire after Tony Foster; for when ropes, and crossbow shafts, and
pursuivant's warrants, and such-like gear, were so rife, Tony could
hardly 'scape them.”
“Which Tony Foster mean you?” said the innkeeper.
“Why, him they called Tony Fire-the-Fagot, because he brought a light
to kindle the pile round Latimer and Ridley, when the wind blew out Jack
Thong's torch, and no man else would give him light for love or money.”
“Tony Foster lives and thrives,” said the host. “But, kinsman, I would
not have you call him Tony Fire-the-Fagot, if you would not brook the
stab.”
“How! is he grown ashamed on't?” said Lambourne, “Why, he was wont to
boast of it, and say he liked as well to see a roasted heretic as a
roasted ox.”
“Ay, but, kinsman, that was in Mary's time,” replied the landlord, “when
Tony's father was reeve here to the Abbot of Abingdon. But since that,
Tony married a pure precisian, and is as good a Protestant, I warrant
you, as the best.”
“And looks grave, and holds his head high, and scorns his old
companions,” said the mercer.
“Then he hath prospered, I warrant him,” said Lambourne; “for ever when
a man hath got nobles of his own, he keeps out of the way of those whose
exchequers lie in other men's purchase.”
“Prospered, quotha!” said the mercer; “why, you remember Cumnor Place,
the old mansion-house beside the churchyard?”
“By the same token, I robbed the orchard three times--what of that?
It was the old abbot's residence when there was plague or sickness at
Abingdon.”
“Ay,” said the host, “but that has been long over; and Anthony Foster
hath a right in it, and lives there by some grant from a great courtier,
who had the church-lands from the crown. And there he dwells, and has
as little to do with any poor wight in Cumnor, as if he were himself a
belted knight.”
“Nay,” said the mercer, “it is not altogether pride in Tony neither;
there is a fair lady in the case, and Tony will scarce let the light of
day look on her.”
“How!” said Tressilian, who now for the first time interfered in
their conversation; “did ye not say this Foster was married, and to a
precisian?”
“Married he was, and to as bitter a precisian as ever ate flesh in Lent;
and a cat-and-dog life she led with Tony, as men said. But she is dead,
rest be with her! and Tony hath but a slip of a daughter; so it is
thought he means to wed this stranger, that men keep such a coil about.”
“And why so?--I mean, why do they keep a coil about her?” said
Tressilian.
“Why, I wot not,” answered the host, “except that men say she is as
beautiful as an angel, and no one knows whence she comes, and every one
wishes to know why she is kept so closely mewed up. For my part, I never
saw her--you have, I think, Master Goldthred?”
“That I have, old boy,” said the mercer. “Look you, I was riding hither
from Abingdon. I passed under the east oriel window of the old mansion,
where all the old saints and histories and such-like are painted. It was
not the common path I took, but one through the Park; for the postern
door was upon the latch, and I thought I might take the privilege of an
old comrade to ride across through the trees, both for shading, as the
day was somewhat hot, and for avoiding of dust, because I had on my
peach-coloured doublet, pinked out with cloth of gold.”
“Which garment,” said Michael Lambourne, “thou wouldst willingly make
twinkle in the eyes of a fair dame. Ah! villain, thou wilt never leave
thy old tricks.”
“Not so-not so,” said the mercer, with a smirking laugh--“not altogether
so--but curiosity, thou knowest, and a strain of compassion withal; for
the poor young lady sees nothing from morn to even but Tony Foster, with
his scowling black brows, his bull's head, and his bandy legs.”
“And thou wouldst willingly show her a dapper body, in a silken
jerkin--a limb like a short-legged hen's, in a cordovan boot--and a
round, simpering, what-d'ye-lack sort of a countenance, set off with a
velvet bonnet, a Turkey feather, and a gilded brooch? Ah! jolly mercer,
they who have good wares are fond to show them!--Come, gentles, let
not the cup stand--here's to long spurs, short boots, full bonnets, and
empty skulls!”
“Nay, now, you are jealous of me, Mike,” said Goldthred; “and yet my
luck was but what might have happened to thee, or any man.”
“Marry confound thine impudence,” retorted Lambourne; “thou wouldst not
compare thy pudding face, and sarsenet manners, to a gentleman, and a
soldier?”
“Nay, my good sir,” said Tressilian, “let me beseech you will not
interrupt the gallant citizen; methinks he tells his tale so well, I
could hearken to him till midnight.”
“It's more of your favour than of my desert,” answered Master Goldthred;
“but since I give you pleasure, worthy Master Tressilian, I shall
proceed, maugre all the gibes and quips of this valiant soldier, who,
peradventure, hath had more cuffs than crowns in the Low Countries. And
so, sir, as I passed under the great painted window, leaving my rein
loose on my ambling palfrey's neck, partly for mine ease, and partly
that I might have the more leisure to peer about, I hears me the lattice
open; and never credit me, sir, if there did not stand there the person
of as fair a woman as ever crossed mine eyes; and I think I have looked
on as many pretty wenches, and with as much judgment, as other folks.”
“May I ask her appearance, sir?” said Tressilian.
“Oh, sir,” replied Master Goldthred, “I promise you, she was in
gentlewoman's attire--a very quaint and pleasing dress, that might have
served the Queen herself; for she had a forepart with body and sleeves,
of ginger-coloured satin, which, in my judgment, must have cost by the
yard some thirty shillings, lined with murrey taffeta, and laid down and
guarded with two broad laces of gold and silver. And her hat, sir, was
truly the best fashioned thing that I have seen in these parts, being of
tawny taffeta, embroidered with scorpions of Venice gold, and having a
border garnished with gold fringe--I promise you, sir, an absolute
and all-surpassing device. Touching her skirts, they were in the old
pass-devant fashion.”
“I did not ask you of her attire, sir,” said Tressilian, who had shown
some impatience during this conversation, “but of her complexion--the
colour of her hair, her features.”
“Touching her complexion,” answered the mercer, “I am not so special
certain, but I marked that her fan had an ivory handle, curiously
inlaid. And then again, as to the colour of her hair, why, I can
warrant, be its hue what it might, that she wore above it a net of green
silk, parcel twisted with gold.”
“A most mercer-like memory!” said Lambourne. “The gentleman asks him of
the lady's beauty, and he talks of her fine clothes!”
“I tell thee,” said the mercer, somewhat disconcerted, “I had little
time to look at her; for just as I was about to give her the good time
of day, and for that purpose had puckered my features with a smile--”
“Like those of a jackanape simpering at a chestnut,” said Michael
Lambourne.
“Up started of a sudden,” continued Goldthred, without heeding the
interruption, “Tony Foster himself, with a cudgel in his hand--”
“And broke thy head across, I hope, for thine impertinence,” said his
entertainer.
“That were more easily said than done,” answered Goldthred indignantly;
“no, no--there was no breaking of heads. It's true, he advanced his
cudgel, and spoke of laying on, and asked why I did not keep the
public road, and such like; and I would have knocked him over the pate
handsomely for his pains, only for the lady's presence, who might have
swooned, for what I know.”
“Now, out upon thee for a faint-spirited slave!” said Lambourne; “what
adventurous knight ever thought of the lady's terror, when he went
to thwack giant, dragon, or magician, in her presence, and for her
deliverance? But why talk to thee of dragons, who would be driven back
by a dragon-fly. There thou hast missed the rarest opportunity!”
“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.
“Wilt thou chop logic with me,” said Lambourne, “thou knave, with no
more brains than are in a skein of ravelled silk? By Heaven, I will cut
thee into fifty yards of galloon lace!”
But as he attempted to draw his sword for this doughty purpose, Michael
Lambourne was seized upon by the tapster and the chamberlain, and
conveyed to his own apartment, there to sleep himself sober at his
leisure.
The party then broke up, and the guests took their leave; much more
to the contentment of mine host than of some of the company, who were
unwilling to quit good liquor, when it was to be had for free cost, so
long as they were able to sit by it. They were, however, compelled to
remove; and go at length they did, leaving Gosling and Tressilian in the
empty apartment.
“By my faith,” said the former, “I wonder where our great folks find
pleasure, when they spend their means in entertainments, and in playing
mine host without sending in a reckoning. It is what I but rarely
practise; and whenever I do, by Saint Julian, it grieves me beyond
measure. Each of these empty stoups now, which my nephew and his drunken
comrades have swilled off, should have been a matter of profit to one in
my line, and I must set them down a dead loss. I cannot, for my heart,
conceive the pleasure of noise, and nonsense, and drunken freaks, and
drunken quarrels, and smut, and blasphemy, and so forth, when a man
loses money instead of gaining by it. And yet many a fair estate is lost
in upholding such a useless course, and that greatly contributes to the
decay of publicans; for who the devil do you think would pay for drink
at the Black Bear, when he can have it for nothing at my Lord's or the
Squire's?”
Tressilian perceived that the wine had made some impression even on the
seasoned brain of mine host, which was chiefly to be inferred from his
declaiming against drunkenness. As he himself had carefully avoided the
bowl, he would have availed himself of the frankness of the moment
to extract from Gosling some further information upon the subject
of Anthony Foster, and the lady whom the mercer had seen in his
mansion-house; but his inquiries only set the host upon a new theme of
declamation against the wiles of the fair sex, in which he brought, at
full length, the whole wisdom of Solomon to reinforce his own. Finally,
he turned his admonitions, mixed with much objurgation, upon his
tapsters and drawers, who were employed in removing the relics of the
entertainment, and restoring order to the apartment; and at length,
joining example to precept, though with no good success, he demolished
a salver with half a score of glasses, in attempting to show how such
service was done at the Three Cranes in the Vintry, then the most
topping tavern in London. This last accident so far recalled him to his
better self, that he retired to his bed, slept sound, and awoke a new
man in the morning.