Host. I will hear you, Master Fenton; and I will, at the

least, keep your counsel.

Merry Wives of Windsor.

It becomes necessary to return to the detail of those circumstances which accompanied, and indeed occasioned, the sudden disappearance of Tressilian from the sign of the Black Bear at Cumnor. It will be recollected that this gentleman, after his rencounter with Varney, had returned to Giles Gosling’s caravansary, where he shut himself up in his own chamber, demanded pen, ink, and paper, and announced his purpose to remain private for the day. In the evening he appeared again in the public room, where Michael Lambourne, who had been on the watch for him, agreeably to his engagement to Varney, endeavoured to renew his acquaintance with him, and hoped he retained no unfriendly recollection of the part he had taken in the morning’s scuffle.

But Tressilian repelled his advances firmly, though with civility. “Master Lambourne,” said he, “I trust I have recompensed to your pleasure the time you have wasted on me. Under the show of wild bluntness which you exhibit, I know you have sense enough to understand me, when I say frankly that the object of our temporary acquaintance having been accomplished, we must be strangers to each other in future.”

“Voto!” said Lambourne, twirling his whiskers with one hand, and grasping the hilt of his weapon with the other; “if I thought that this usage was meant to insult me —”

“You would bear it with discretion, doubtless,” interrupted Tressilian, “as you must do at any rate. You know too well the distance that is betwixt us, to require me to explain myself further. Good evening.”

So saying, he turned his back upon his former companion, and entered into discourse with the landlord. Michael Lambourne felt strongly disposed to bully; but his wrath died away in a few incoherent oaths and ejaculations, and he sank unresistingly under the ascendency which superior spirits possess over persons of his habits and description. He remained moody and silent in a corner of the apartment, paying the most marked attention to every motion of his late companion, against whom he began now to nourish a quarrel on his own account, which he trusted to avenge by the execution of his new master Varney’s directions. The hour of supper arrived, and was followed by that of repose, when Tressilian, like others, retired to his sleeping apartment.

He had not been in bed long, when the train of sad reveries, which supplied the place of rest in his disturbed mind, was suddenly interrupted by the jar of a door on its hinges, and a light was seen to glimmer in the apartment. Tressilian, who was as brave as steel, sprang from his bed at this alarm, and had laid hand upon his sword, when he was prevented from drawing it by a voice which said, “Be not too rash with your rapier, Master Tressilian. It is I, your host, Giles Gosling.”

At the same time, unshrouding the dark lantern, which had hitherto only emitted an indistinct glimmer, the goodly aspect and figure of the landlord of the Black Bear was visibly presented to his astonished guest.

“What mummery is this, mine host?” said Tressilian. “Have you supped as jollily as last night, and so mistaken your chamber? or is midnight a time for masquerading it in your guest’s lodging?”

“Master Tressilian,” replied mine host, “I know my place and my time as well as e’er a merry landlord in England. But here has been my hang-dog kinsman watching you as close as ever cat watched a mouse; and here have you, on the other hand, quarrelled and fought, either with him or with some other person, and I fear that danger will come of it.”

“Go to, thou art but a fool, man,” said Tressilian. “Thy kinsman is beneath my resentment; and besides, why shouldst thou think I had quarrelled with any one whomsoever?”

“Oh, sir,” replied the innkeeper, “there was a red spot on thy very cheek-bone, which boded of a late brawl, as sure as the conjunction of Mars and Saturn threatens misfortune; and when you returned, the buckles of your girdle were brought forward, and your step was quick and hasty, and all things showed your hand and your hilt had been lately acquainted.”

“Well, good mine host, if I have been obliged to draw my sword,” said Tressilian, “why should such a circumstance fetch thee out of thy warm bed at this time of night? Thou seest the mischief is all over.”

“Under favour, that is what I doubt. Anthony Foster is a dangerous man, defended by strong court patronage, which hath borne him out in matters of very deep concernment. And, then, my kinsman — why, I have told you what he is; and if these two old cronies have made up their old acquaintance, I would not, my worshipful guest, that it should be at thy cost. I promise you, Mike Lambourne has been making very particular inquiries at my hostler when and which way you ride. Now, I would have you think whether you may not have done or said something for which you may be waylaid, and taken at disadvantage.”

“Thou art an honest man, mine host,” said Tressilian, after a moment’s consideration, “and I will deal frankly with thee. If these men’s malice is directed against me — as I deny not but it may — it is because they are the agents of a more powerful villain than themselves.”

“You mean Master Richard Varney, do you not?” said the landlord; “he was at Cumnor Place yesterday, and came not thither so private but what he was espied by one who told me.”

“I mean the same, mine host.”

“Then, for God’s sake, worshipful Master Tressilian,” said honest Gosling, “look well to yourself. This Varney is the protector and patron of Anthony Foster, who holds under him, and by his favour, some lease of yonder mansion and the park. Varney got a large grant of the lands of the Abbacy of Abingdon, and Cumnor Place amongst others, from his master, the Earl of Leicester. Men say he can do everything with him, though I hold the Earl too good a nobleman to employ him as some men talk of. And then the Earl can do anything (that is, anything right or fitting) with the Queen, God bless her! So you see what an enemy you have made to yourself.”

“Well — it is done, and I cannot help it,” answered Tressilian.

“Uds precious, but it must be helped in some manner,” said the host. “Richard Varney — why, what between his influence with my lord, and his pretending to so many old and vexatious claims in right of the abbot here, men fear almost to mention his name, much more to set themselves against his practices. You may judge by our discourses the last night. Men said their pleasure of Tony Foster, but not a word of Richard Varney, though all men judge him to be at the bottom of yonder mystery about the pretty wench. But perhaps you know more of that matter than I do; for women, though they wear not swords, are occasion for many a blade’s exchanging a sheath of neat’s leather for one of flesh and blood.”

“I do indeed know more of that poor unfortunate lady than thou dost, my friendly host; and so bankrupt am I, at this moment, of friends and advice, that I will willingly make a counsellor of thee, and tell thee the whole history, the rather that I have a favour to ask when my tale is ended.”

“Good Master Tressilian,” said the landlord, “I am but a poor innkeeper, little able to adjust or counsel such a guest as yourself. But as sure as I have risen decently above the world, by giving good measure and reasonable charges, I am an honest man; and as such, if I may not be able to assist you, I am, at least, not capable to abuse your confidence. Say away therefore, as confidently as if you spoke to your father; and thus far at least be certain, that my curiosity — for I will not deny that which belongs to my calling — is joined to a reasonable degree of discretion.”

“I doubt it not, mine host,” answered Tressilian; and while his auditor remained in anxious expectation, he meditated for an instant how he should commence his narrative. “My tale,” he at length said, “to be quite intelligible, must begin at some distance back. You have heard of the battle of Stoke, my good host, and perhaps of old Sir Roger Robsart, who, in that battle, valiantly took part with Henry VII., the Queen’s grandfather, and routed the Earl of Lincoln, Lord Geraldin and his wild Irish, and the Flemings whom the Duchess of Burgundy had sent over, in the quarrel of Lambert Simnel?”

“I remember both one and the other,” said Giles Gosling; “it is sung of a dozen times a week on my ale-bench below. Sir Roger Robsart of Devon — oh, ay, ’tis him of whom minstrels sing to this hour,—

‘He was the flower of Stoke’s red field,

When Martin Swart on ground lay slain;

In raging rout he never reel’d,

But like a rock did firm remain.’

7

Ay, and then there was Martin Swart I have heard my grandfather talk of, and of the jolly Almains whom he commanded, with their slashed doublets and quaint hose, all frounced with ribands above the nether-stocks. Here’s a song goes of Martin Swart, too, an I had but memory for it:—

‘Martin Swart and his men,

Saddle them, saddle them,

Martin Swart and his men;

Saddle them well.’”

8

“True, good mine host — the day was long talked of; but if you sing so loud, you will awake more listeners than I care to commit my confidence unto.”

“I crave pardon, my worshipful guest,” said mine host, “I was oblivious. When an old song comes across us merry old knights of the spigot, it runs away with our discretion.”

“Well, mine host, my grandfather, like some other Cornishmen, kept a warm affection to the House of York, and espoused the quarrel of this Simnel, assuming the title of Earl of Warwick, as the county afterwards, in great numbers, countenanced the cause of Perkin Warbeck, calling himself the Duke of York. My grandsire joined Simnel’s standard, and was taken fighting desperately at Stoke, where most of the leaders of that unhappy army were slain in their harness. The good knight to whom he rendered himself, Sir Roger Robsart, protected him from the immediate vengeance of the king, and dismissed him without ransom. But he was unable to guard him from other penalties of his rashness, being the heavy fines by which he was impoverished, according to Henry’s mode of weakening his enemies. The good knight did what he might to mitigate the distresses of my ancestor; and their friendship became so strict, that my father was bred up as the sworn brother and intimate of the present Sir Hugh Robsart, the only son of Sir Roger, and the heir of his honest, and generous, and hospitable temper, though not equal to him in martial achievements.”

“I have heard of good Sir Hugh Robsart,” interrupted the host, “many a time and oft; his huntsman and sworn servant, Will Badger, hath spoken of him an hundred times in this very house. A jovial knight he is, and hath loved hospitality and open housekeeping more than the present fashion, which lays as much gold lace on the seams of a doublet as would feed a dozen of tall fellows with beef and ale for a twelvemonth, and let them have their evening at the alehouse once a week, to do good to the publican.”

“If you have seen Will Badger, mine host,” said Tressilian, “you have heard enough of Sir Hugh Robsart; and therefore I will but say, that the hospitality you boast of hath proved somewhat detrimental to the estate of his family, which is perhaps of the less consequence, as he has but one daughter to whom to bequeath it. And here begins my share in the tale. Upon my father’s death, now several years since, the good Sir Hugh would willingly have made me his constant companion. There was a time, however, at which I felt the kind knight’s excessive love for field-sports detained me from studies, by which I might have profited more; but I ceased to regret the leisure which gratitude and hereditary friendship compelled me to bestow on these rural avocations. The exquisite beauty of Mistress Amy Robsart............