Nay, I'll hold touch--the game shall be play'd out;
It ne'er shall stop for me, this merry wager:
That which I say when gamesome, I'll avouch
In my most sober mood, ne'er trust me else. THE HAZARD TABLE.
“And how doth your kinsman, good mine host?” said Tressilian, when Giles
Gosling first appeared in the public room, on the morning following the
revel which we described in the last chapter. “Is he well, and will he
abide by his wager?”
“For well, sir, he started two hours since, and has visited I know not
what purlieus of his old companions; hath but now returned, and is at
this instant breakfasting on new-laid eggs and muscadine. And for his
wager, I caution you as a friend to have little to do with that, or
indeed with aught that Mike proposes. Wherefore, I counsel you to a warm
breakfast upon a culiss, which shall restore the tone of the stomach;
and let my nephew and Master Goldthred swagger about their wager as they
list.”
“It seems to me, mine host,” said Tressilian, “that you know not well
what to say about this kinsman of yours, and that you can neither blame
nor commend him without some twinge of conscience.”
“You have spoken truly, Master Tressilian,” replied Giles Gosling.
“There is Natural Affection whimpering into one ear, 'Giles, Giles, why
wilt thou take away the good name of thy own nephew? Wilt thou defame
thy sister's son, Giles Gosling? wilt thou defoul thine own nest,
dishonour thine own blood?' And then, again, comes Justice, and says,
'Here is a worthy guest as ever came to the bonny Black Bear; one who
never challenged a reckoning' (as I say to your face you never did,
Master Tressilian--not that you have had cause), 'one who knows not why
he came, so far as I can see, or when he is going away; and wilt thou,
being a publican, having paid scot and lot these thirty years in the
town of Cumnor, and being at this instant head-borough, wilt thou suffer
this guest of guests, this man of men, this six-hooped pot (as I may
say) of a traveller, to fall into the meshes of thy nephew, who is known
for a swasher and a desperate Dick, a carder and a dicer, a professor of
the seven damnable sciences, if ever man took degrees in them?' No,
by Heaven! I might wink, and let him catch such a small butterfly as
Goldthred; but thou, my guest, shall be forewarned, forearmed, so thou
wilt but listen to thy trusty host.”
“Why, mine host, thy counsel shall not be cast away,” replied
Tressilian; “however, I must uphold my share in this wager, having once
passed my word to that effect. But lend me, I pray, some of thy counsel.
This Foster, who or what is he, and why makes he such mystery of his
female inmate?”
“Troth,” replied Gosling, “I can add but little to what you heard last
night. He was one of Queen Mary's Papists, and now he is one of Queen
Elizabeth's Protestants; he was an onhanger of the Abbot of Abingdon;
and now he lives as master of the Manor-house. Above all, he was
poor, and is rich. Folk talk of private apartments in his old waste
mansion-house, bedizened fine enough to serve the Queen, God bless her!
Some men think he found a treasure in the orchard, some that he sold
himself to the devil for treasure, and some say that he cheated the
abbot out of the church plate, which was hidden in the old Manor-house
at the Reformation. Rich, however, he is, and God and his conscience,
with the devil perhaps besides, only know how he came by it. He has
sulky ways too--breaking off intercourse with all that are of the place,
as if he had either some strange secret to keep, or held himself to be
made of another clay than we are. I think it likely my kinsman and he
will quarrel, if Mike thrust his acquaintance on him; and I am sorry
that you, my worthy Master Tressilian, will still think of going in my
nephew's company.”
Tressilian again answered him, that he would proceed with great caution,
and that he should have no fears on his account; in short, he bestowed
on him all the customary assurances with which those who are determined
on a rash action are wont to parry the advice of their friends.
Meantime, the traveller accepted the landlord's invitation, and had just
finished the excellent breakfast, which was served to him and Gosling
by pretty Cicely, the beauty of the bar, when the hero of the preceding
night, Michael Lambourne, entered the apartment. His toilet had
apparently cost him some labour, for his clothes, which differed from
those he wore on his journey, were of the newest fashion, and put on
with great attention to the display of his person.
“By my faith, uncle,” said the gallant, “you made a wet night of it, and
I feel it followed by a dry morning. I will pledge you willingly in a
cup of bastard.--How, my pretty coz Cicely! why, I left you but a child
in the cradle, and there thou stand'st in thy velvet waistcoat, as tight
a girl as England's sun shines on. Know thy friends and kindred,
Cicely, and come hither, child, that I may kiss thee, and give thee my
blessing.”
“Concern not yourself about Cicely, kinsman,” said Giles Gosling, “but
e'en let her go her way, a' God's name; for although your mother were
her father's sister, yet that shall not make you and her cater-cousins.”
“Why, uncle,” replied Lambourne, “think'st thou I am an infidel, and
would harm those of mine own house?”
“It is for no harm that I speak, Mike,” answered his uncle, “but a
simple humour of precaution which I have. True, thou art as well gilded
as a snake when he casts his old slough in the spring time; but for all
that, thou creepest not into my Eden. I will look after mine Eve, Mike,
and so content thee.--But how brave thou be'st, lad! To look on thee
now, and compare thee with Master Tressilian here, in his sad-coloured
riding-suit, who would not say that thou wert the real gentleman and he
the tapster's boy?”
“Troth, uncle,” replied Lambourne, “no one would say so but one of your
country-breeding, that knows no better. I will say, and I care not who
hears me, there is something about the real gentry that few men come up
to that are not born and bred to the mystery. I wot not where the trick
lies; but although I can enter an ordinary with as much audacity, rebuke
the waiters and drawers as loudly, drink as deep a health, swear as
round an oath, and fling my gold as freely about as any of the jingling
spurs and white feathers that are around me, yet, hang me if I can ever
catch the true grace of it, though I have practised an hundred times.
The man of the house sets me lowest at the board, and carves to me the
last; and the drawer says, 'Coming, friend,' without any more reverence
or regardful addition. But, hang it, let it pass; care killed a cat. I
have gentry enough to pass the trick on Tony Fire-the-Faggot, and that
will do for the matter in hand.”
“You hold your purpose, then, of visiting your old acquaintance?” said
Tressilian to the adventurer.
“Ay, sir,” replied Lambourne; “when stakes are made, the game must be
played; that is gamester's law, all over the world. You, sir, unless
my memory fails me (for I did steep it somewhat too deeply in the
sack-butt), took some share in my hazard?”
“I propose to accompany you in your adventure,” said Tressilian, “if you
will do me so much grace as to permit me; and I have staked my share of
the forfeit in the hands of our worthy host.”
“That he hath,” answered Giles Gosling, “in as fair Harry-nobles as ever
were melted into sack by a good fellow. So, luck to your enterprise,
since you will needs venture on Tony Foster; but, by my credit, you had
better take another draught before you depart, for your welcome at
the Hall yonder will be somewhat of the driest. And if you do get into
peril, beware of taking to cold steel; but send for me, Giles Gosling,
the head-borough, and I may be able to make something out of Tony yet,
for as proud as he is.”
The nephew dutifully obeyed his uncle's hint, by taking a second
powerful pull at the tankard, observing that his wit never served him
so well as when he had washed his temples with a deep morning's draught;
and they set forth together for the habitation of Anthony Foster.
The village of Cumnor is pleasantly built on a hill, and in a wooded
park closely adjacent was situated the ancient mansion occupied at this
time by Anthony Foster, of which the ruins may be still extant. The park
was then full of large trees, and in particular of ancient and mighty
oaks, which stretched their giant arms over the high wall surrounding
the demesne, thus giving it a melancholy, secluded, and monastic
appearance. The entrance to the park lay through an old-fashioned
gateway in the outer wall, the door of which was formed of two huge
oaken leaves thickly studded with nails, like the gate of an old town.
“We shall be finely helped up here,” said Michael Lambourne, looking at
the gateway and gate, “if this fellow's suspicious humour should
refuse us admission altogether, as it is like he may, in case this
linsey-wolsey fellow of a mercer's visit to his premises has disquieted
him. But, no,” he added, pushing the huge gate, which gave way, “the
door stands invitingly open; and here we are within the forbidden
ground, without other impediment than the passive resistance of a heavy
oak door moving on rusty hinges.”
They stood now in an avenue overshadowed by such old trees as we have
described, and which had been bordered at one time by high hedges of yew
and holly. But these, having been untrimmed for many years, had run up
into great bushes, or rather dwarf-trees, and now encroached, with their
dark and melancholy boughs, upon the road which they once had screened.
The avenue itself was grown up with grass, and, in one or two places,
interrupted by piles of withered brushwood, which had been lopped from
the trees cut down in the neighbouring park, and was here stacked for
drying. Formal walks and avenues, which, at different points, crossed
this principal approach, were, in like manner, choked up and interrupted
by piles of brushwood and billets, and in other places by underwood and
brambles. Besides the general effect of desolation which is so strongly
impressed whenever we behold the contrivances of man wasted and
obliterated by neglect, and witness the marks of social life effaced
gradually by the influence of vegetation, the size of the trees and the
outspreading extent of their boughs diffused a gloom over the scene,
even when the sun was at the highest, and made a proportional impression
on the mind of those who visited it. This was felt even by Michael
Lambourne, however alien his habits were to receiving any impressions,
excepting from things which addressed themselves immediately to his
passions.
“This wood is as dark as a wolf's mouth,” said he to Tressilian, as they
walked together slowly along the solitary and broken approach, and had
just come in sight of the monastic front of the old mansion, with its
shafted windows, brick walls overgrown with ivy and creeping shrubs,
and twisted stalks of chimneys of heavy stone-work. “And yet,” continued
Lambourne, “it is fairly done on the part of Foster too for since he
chooses not visitors, it is right to keep his place in a fashion that
will invite few to trespass upon his privacy. But had he been the
Anthony I once knew him, these sturdy oaks had long since become the
property of some honest woodmonger, and the manor-close here had looked
lighter at midnight than it now does at noon, while Foster played fast
and loose with the price, in some cunning corner in the purlieus of
Whitefriars.”
“Was he then such an unthrift?” asked Tressilian.
“He was,” answered Lambourne, “like the rest of us, no saint, and no
saver. But what I liked worst of Tony was, that he loved to take his
pleasure by himself, and grudged, as men say, every drop of water that
went past his own mill. I have known him deal with such measures of wine
when he was alone, as I would not have ventured on with aid of the best
toper in Berkshire;--that, and some sway towards superstition, which he
had by temperament, rendered him unworthy the company of a good fellow.
And now he has earthed himself here, in a den just befitting such a sly
fox as himself.”
“May I ask you, Master Lambourne,” said Tressilian, “since your old
companion's humour jumps so little with your own, wherefore you are so
desirous to renew acquaintance with him?”
“And may I ask you, in return, Master Tressilian,” answered Lambourne,
“wherefore you have shown yourself so desirous to accompany me on this
party?”
“I told you my motive,” said Tressilian, “when I took share in your
wager--it was simple curiosity.”
“La you there now!” answered Lambourne. “See how you civil and discreet
gentlemen think to use us who live by the free exercise of our wits! Had
I answered your question by saying that it was simple curiosity which
led me to visit my old comrade Anthony Foster, I warrant you had set it
down for an evasion, and a turn of my trade. But any answer, I suppose,
must serve my turn.”
“And wherefore should not bare curiosity,” said Tressilian, “be a
sufficient reason for my taking this walk with you?”
“Oh, content yourself, sir,” replied Lambourne; “you cannot put
the change on me so easy as you think, for I have lived among the
quick-stirring spirits of the age too long to swallow chaff for grain.
You are a gentleman of birth and breeding--your bearing makes it good;
of civil habits and fair reputation--your manners declare it, and
my uncle avouches it; and yet you associate yourself with a sort of
scant-of-grace, as men call me, and, knowing me to be such, you make
yourself my companion in a visit to a man whom you are a stranger
to--and all out of mere curiosity, forsooth! The excuse, if curiously
balanced, would be found to want some scruples of just weight, or so.”
“If your suspicions were just,” said Tressilian, “you have shown no
confidence in me to invite or deserve mine.”
“Oh, if that be all,” said Lambourne, “my motives lie above water. While
this gold of mine lasts”--taking out his purse, chucking it into the
air, and catching it as it fell--“I will make it buy pleasure; and
when it is out I must have more. Now, if this mysterious Lady of the
Manor--this fair Lindabrides of Tony Fire-the-Fagot--be so admirable a
piece as men say, why, there is a chance that she may aid me to melt
my nobles into greats; and, again, if Anthony be so wealthy a chuff
as report speaks him, he may prove the philosopher's stone to me, and
convert my greats into fair rose-nobles again.”
“A comfortable proposal truly,” said Tressilian; “but I see not what
chance there is of accomplishing it.”
“Not to-day, or perchance to-morrow,” answered Lambourne; “I expect not
to catch the old jack till. I have disposed my ground-baits handsomely.
But I know something more of his affairs this morning than I did last
night, and I will so use my knowledge that he shall think it more
perfect than it is. Nay, without expecting either pleasure or profit, or
both, I had not stepped a stride within this manor, I can tell you; for
I promise you I hold our visit not altogether without risk.--But here we
are, and we must make the best on't.”
While he thus spoke, they had entered a large orchard which surrounded
the house on two sides, though the trees, abandoned by the care of man,
were overgrown and messy, and seemed to bear little fruit. Those which
had been formerly trained as espaliers had now resumed their natural
mode of growing, and exhibited grotesque forms, partaking of the
original training which they had received. The greater part of the
ground, which had once been parterres and flower-gardens, was suffered
in like manner to run to waste, excepting a few patches which had been
dug up and planted with ordinary pot herbs. Some statues, which had
ornamented the garden in its days of splendour, were now thrown down
from their pedestals and broken in pieces; and a large summer-house,
having a heavy stone front, decorated with carving representing the life
and actions of Samson, was in the same dilapidated condition.
They had just traversed this garden of the sluggard, and were within
a few steps of the door of the mansion, when Lambourne had ceased
speaking; a circumstance very agreeable to Tressilian, as it saved him
the embarrassment of either commenting upon or replying to the frank
avowal which his companion had just made of the sentiments and views
which induced him to come hither. Lambourne knocked roundly and boldly
at the huge door of the mansion, observing, at the same time, he had
seen a less strong one upon a county jail. It was not until they had
knocked more than once that an aged, sour-visaged domestic reconnoitred
them through a small square hole in the door, well secured with bars of
iron, and demanded what they wanted.
“To speak with Master Foster instantly, on pressing business of the
state,” was the ready reply of Michael Lambourne.
“Methinks you will find difficulty to make that good,” said Tressilian
in a whisper to his companion, while the servant went to carry the
message to his master.
“Tush,” replied the adventurer; “no soldier would go on were he
always to consider when and how he should come off. Let us once obtain
entrance, and all will go well enough.”
In a short time the servant returned, and drawing with a careful hand
both bolt and bar, opened the gate, which admitted them through an
archway into a square court, surrounded by buildings. Opposite to the
arch was another door, which the serving-man in like manner unlocked,
and thus introduced them into a stone-paved parlour, where there was but
little furniture, and that of the rudest and most ancient fashion. The
windows were tall and ample, reaching almost to the roof of the room,
which was composed of black oak; those opening to the quadrangle were
obscured by the height of the surrounding buildings, and, as they were
traversed with massive shafts of solid stone-work, and thickly painted
with religious devices, and scenes taken from Scripture history, by no
means admitted light in proportion to their size, and what did penetrate
through them partook of the dark and gloomy tinge of the stained glass.
Tressilian and his guide had time enough to observe all these
particulars, for they waited some space in the apartment ere the present
master of the mansion at length made his appearance. Prepared as he was
to see an inauspicious and ill-looking person, the ugliness of Anthony
Foster considerably exceeded what Tressilian had anticipated. He was
of middle stature, built strongly, but so clumsily as to border on
deformity, and to give all his motions the ungainly awkwardness of a
left-legged and left-handed man. His hair, in arranging which men at
that time, as at present, were very nice and curious, instead of being
carefully cleaned and disposed into short curls, or else set up on end,
as is represented in old paintings, in a manner resembling that used by
fine gentlemen of our own day, escaped in sable negligence from under
a furred bonnet, and hung in elf-locks, which seemed strangers to
the comb, over his rugged brows, and around his very singular and
unprepossessing countenance. His keen, dark eyes were deep set beneath
broad and shaggy eyebrows, and as they were usually bent on the ground,
seemed as if they were themselves ashamed of the expression natural to
them, and were desirous to conceal it from the observation of men.
At times, however, when, more intent on observing others, he suddenly
raised them, and fixed them keenly on those with whom he conversed, they
seemed to express both the fiercer passions, and the power of mind which
could at will suppress or disguise the intensity of inward feeling.
The features which corresponded with these eyes and this form were
irregular, and marked so as to be indelibly fixed on the mind of him
who had once seen them. Upon the whole, as Tressilian could not help
acknowledging to himself, the Anthony Foster who now stood before them
was the last person, judging from personal appearance, upon whom one
would have chosen to intrude an unexpected and undesired visit. His
attire was a doublet of russet leather, like those worn by the better
sort of country folk, girt with a buff belt, in which was stuck on the
right side a long knife, or dudgeon dagger, and on the other a
cutlass. He raised his eyes as he entered the room, and fixed a keenly
penetrating glance upon his two visitors; then cast them down as if
counting his steps, while he advanced slowly into the middle of the
room, and said, in a low and smothered tone of voice, “Let me pray you,
gentlemen, to tell me the cause of this visit.”
He looked as if he expected the answer from Tressilian, so true was
Lambourne's observation that the superior air of breeding and dignity
shone through the disguise of an inferior dress. But it was Michael who
replied to him, with the easy familiarity of an old friend, and a tone
which seemed unembarrassed by any doubt of the most cordial reception.
“Ha! my dear friend and ingle, Tony Foster!” he exclaimed, seizing
upon the unwilling hand, and shaking it with such emphasis as almost to
stagger the sturdy frame of the person whom he addressed, “how fares it
with you for many a long year? What! have you altogether forgotten your
friend, gossip, and playfellow, Michael Lambourne?”
“Michael Lambourne!” said Foster, looking at him a moment; then dropping
his eyes, and with little ceremony extricating his hand from the
friendly grasp of the person by whom he was addressed, “are you Michael
Lambourne?”
“Ay; sure as you are Anthony Foster,” replied Lambourne.
“'Tis well,” answered his sullen host. “And what may Michael Lambourne
expect from his visit hither?”
“VOTO A DIOS,” answered Lambourne, “I expected a better welcome than I
am like to meet, I think.”
“Why, thou gallows-bird--thou jail-rat--thou friend of the hangman
and his customers!” replied Foster, “hast thou the assurance to expect
countenance from any one whose neck is beyond the compass of a Tyburn
tippet?”
“It may be with me as you say,” replied Lambourne; “and suppose I grant
it to be so for argument's sake, I were still good enough society
for mine ancient friend Anthony Fire-the-Fagot, though he be, for the
present, by some indescribable title, the master of Cumnor Place.”
“Hark you, Michael Lambourne,” said Foster; “you are a gambler now, and
live by the counting of chances--compute me the odds that I do not, on
this instant, throw you out of that window into the ditch there.”
“Twenty to one that you do not,” answered the sturdy visitor.
“And wherefore, I pray you?” demanded Anthony Foster, setting his teeth
and compressing his lips, like one who endeavours to suppress some
violent internal emotion.
“Because,” said Lambourne coolly, “you dare not for your life lay a
finger on me. I am younger and stronger than you, and have in me a
double portion of the fighting devil, though not, it may be, quite so
much of the undermining fiend, that finds an underground way to his
purpose--who hides halters under folk's pillows, and who puts rats-bane
into their porridge, as the stage-play says.”
Foster looked at him earnestly, then turned away, and paced the room
twice with the same steady and considerate pace with which he had
entered it; then suddenly came back, and extended his hand to Michael
Lambourne, saying, “Be not wroth with me, good Mike; I did but try
whether thou hadst parted with aught of thine old and honourable
frankness, which your enviers and backbiters called saucy impudence.”
“Let them call it what they will,” said Michael Lambourne, “it is the
commodity we must carry through the world with us.--Uds daggers! I tell
thee, man, mine own stock of assurance was too small to trade upon. I
was fain to take in a ton or two more of brass at every port where I
touched in the voyage of life; and I started overboard what modesty and
scruples I had remaining, in order to make room for the stowage.”
“Nay, nay,” replied Foster, “touching scruples and modesty, you sailed
hence in ballast. But who is this gallant, honest Mike?--is he a
Corinthian--a cutter like thyself?”
“I prithee, know Master Tressilian, bully Foster,” replied Lambourne,
presenting his friend in answer to his friend's question, “know him
and honour him, for he is a gentleman of many admirable qualities; and
though he traffics not in my line of business, at least so far as I
know, he has, nevertheless, a just respect and admiration for artists
of our class. He will come to in time, as seldom fails; but as yet he is
only a neophyte, only a proselyte, and frequents the company of cocks of
the game, as a puny fencer does the schools of the masters, to see how a
foil is handled by the teachers of defence.”
“If such be his quality, I will pray your company in another chamber,
honest Mike, for what I have to say to thee is for thy private
ear.--Meanwhile, I pray you, sir, to abide us in this apartment, and
without leaving it; there be those in this house who would be alarmed by
the sight of a stranger.”
Tressilian acquiesced, and the two worthies left the apartment together,
in which he remained alone to await their return. [See Note 1. Foster,
Lambourne, and the Black Bear.]