He promises well,my lord,replied Varney ;but if your lordship were pleased to ride on,I could go back to Cumnor,and bring him to your lordship at Woodstock before you are out of bed.Why,I am asleep there,thou knowest,at this moment,said the Earl;and I pray you not to spare horse-flesh,that you may be with me at my levee.So saying,he gave his horse the spur,and proceeded on his journey,while Varney rode back to Cumnor by the public road,avoiding the park.The latter alighted at the door of the bonny Black Bear,and desired to speak with Master Michael Lambourne,That respectable character was not long of appearing before his new patron,but it was with downcast looks.
Thou hast lost the scent,said Varney,of thy comrade Tressilian.I know it by thy bang-dog visage.Is this thy alacrity,thou impudent knave?Cogswounds!said Lambourne,there was never a trail so finely hunted.I saw him to earth at mine uncle's here--stuck to him like bees'-wax--saw him at supper--watched him to his chamber,and,presto!he is gone next morning,the very hostler knows not where.This sounds like practice upon me,sir,replied Varney;and if it proves so,by my soul you shall repent it!Sir,the best hound will be sometimes at fault,answered Lambourne;how should it serve me that this fellow should have thus evanished?You may ask mine host,Giles Gosling--ask the tapster and hostler--ask Cicely,and the whole household,how Ikept eyes on Tressilian while he was on foot.On my soul,Icould not be expected to watch him like a sick nurse,when I had seen him fairly a-bed in his chamber.That will be allowed me,surely.Varney did,in fact,make some inquiry among the household,which confirmed the truth of Lambourne's statement.Tressilian,it was unanimously agreed,had departed suddenly and unexpectedly,betwixt night and morning.
But I will wrong no one,said mine host;he left on the table in his lodging the full value of his reckoning,with some allowance to the servants of the house,which was the less necessary that he saddled his own gelding,as it seems,without the hostler's assistance.Thus satisfied of the rectitude of Lambourne's conduct,Varney began to talk to him upon his future prospects,and the mode in which he meant to bestow himself,intimating that he understood from Foster he was not disinclined to enter into the household of a nobleman.
Have you,said he,ever been at court?
No,replied Lambourne;but ever since I was ten years old,Ihave dreamt once a week that I was there,and made my fortune.It may be your own fault if your dream comes not true,said Varney.Are you needy?Um!replied Lambourne;I love pleasure.
That is a sufficient answer,and an honest one,said Varney.
Know you aught of the requisites expected from the retainer of a rising courtier?I have imagined them to myself,sir,answered Lambourne;as,for example,a quick eye,a close mouth,a ready and bold hand,a sharp wit,and a blunt conscience.And thine,I suppose,said Varney,has had its edge blunted long since?I cannot remember,sir,that its edge was ever over-keen,replied Lambourne.When I was a youth,I had some few whimsies;but I rubbed them partly out of my recollection on the rough grindstone of the wars,and what remained I washed out in the broad waves of the Atlantic.Thou hast served,then,in the Indies?
In both East and West,answered the candidate for court service,by both sea and land.I have served both the Portugal and the Spaniard,both the Dutchman and the Frenchman,and have made war on our own account with a crew of jolly fellows,who held there was no peace beyond the Line.[Sir Francis Drake,Morgan,and many a bold buccaneer of those days,were,in fact,little better than pirates.]
Thou mayest do me,and my lord,and thyself,good service,said Varney,after a pause.But observe,I know the world--and answer me truly,canst thou be faithful?Did you not know the world,answered Lambourne,it were my duty to say ay,without further circumstance,and to swear to it with life and honour,and so forth.But as it seems to me that your worship is one who desires rather honest truth than politic falsehood,I reply to you,that I can be faithful to the gallows'
foot,ay,to the loop that dangles from it,if I am well used and well recompensed--not otherwise.To thy other virtues thou canst add,no doubt,said Varney,in a jeering tone,the knack of seeming serious and religious,when the moment demands it?It would cost me nothing,said Lambourne,to say yes;but,to speak on the square,I must needs say no.If you want a hypocrite,you may take Anthony Foster,who,from his childhood,had some sort of phantom haunting him,which he called religion,though it was that sort of godliness which always ended in being great gain.But I have no such knack of it.Well,replied Varney,if thou hast no hypocrisy,hast thou not a nag here in the stable?Ay,sir,said Lambourne,that shall take hedge and ditch with my Lord Duke's best hunters.Then I made a little mistake on Shooter's Hill,and stopped an ancient grazier whose pouches were better lined than his brain-pan,the bonny bay nag carried me sheer off in spite of the whole hue and cry.Saddle him then instantly,and attend me,said Varney.Leave thy clothes and baggage under charge of mine host;and I will conduct thee to a service,in which,if thou do not better thyself,the fault shall not be fortune's,but thine own.Brave and hearty!said Lambourne,and I am mounted in an instant.--Knave,hostler,saddle my nag without the loss of one second,as thou dost value the safety of thy noddle.--Pretty Cicely,take half this purse to comfort thee for my sudden departure.Gogsnouns!replied the father,Cicely wants no such token from thee.Go away,Mike,and gather grace if thou canst,though I think thou goest not to the land where it grows.Let me look at this Cicely of thine,mine host,said Varney;Ihave heard much talk of her beauty.
