"Have you," said he, "ever been at court?"
"No," replied Lambourne; "but ever since I was ten years old, I have 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 circ.u.mstance, 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 G.o.dliness 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; "I have heard much talk of her beauty."
"It is a sunburnt beauty," said mine host, "well qualified to stand out rain and wind, but little calculated to please such critical gallants as yourself. She keeps her chamber, and cannot encounter the glance of such sunny-day courtiers as my n.o.ble guest."
"Well, peace be with her, my good host," answered Varney; "our horses are impatient--we bid you good day."
"Does my nephew go with you, so please you?" said Gosling.
"Ay, such is his purpose," answered Richard Varney.
"You are right--fully right," replied mine host--"you are, I say, fully right, my kinsman. Thou hast got a gay horse; see thou light not unaware upon a halter--or, if thou wilt needs be made immortal by means of a rope, which thy purpose of following this gentleman renders not unlikely, I charge thee to find a gallows as far from c.u.mnor as thou conveniently mayest. And so I commend you to your saddle."
The master of the horse and his new retainer mounted accordingly, leaving the landlord to conclude his ill-omened farewell, to himself and at leisure; and set off together at a rapid pace, which prevented conversation until the ascent of a steep sandy hill permitted them to resume it.
"You are contented, then," said Varney to his companion, "to take court service?"
"Ay, worshipful sir, if you like my terms as well as I like yours."
"And what are your terms?" demanded Varney.
"If I am to have a quick eye for my patron"s interest, he must have a dull one towards my faults," said Lambourne.
"Ay," said Varney, "so they lie not so grossly open that he must needs break his shins over them."
"Agreed," said Lambourne. "Next, if I run down game, I must have the picking of the bones."
"That is but reason," replied Varney, "so that your betters are served before you."
"Good," said Lambourne; "and it only remains to be said, that if the law and I quarrel, my patron must bear me out, for that is a chief point."
"Reason again," said Varney, "if the quarrel hath happened in your master"s service."
"For the wage and so forth, I say nothing," proceeded Lambourne; "it is the secret guerdon that I must live by."
"Never fear," said Varney; "thou shalt have clothes and spending money to ruffle it with the best of thy degree, for thou goest to a household where you have gold, as they say, by the eye."
"That jumps all with my humour," replied Michael Lambourne; "and it only remains that you tell me my master"s name."
"My name is Master Richard Varney," answered his companion.
"But I mean," said Lambourne, "the name of the n.o.ble lord to whose service you are to prefer me."
"How, knave, art thou too good to call me master?" said Varney hastily; "I would have thee bold to others, but not saucy to me."
"I crave your worship"s pardon," said Lambourne, "but you seemed familiar with Anthony Foster; now I am familiar with Anthony myself."
"Thou art a shrewd knave, I see," replied Varney. "Mark me--I do indeed propose to introduce thee into a n.o.bleman"s household; but it is upon my person thou wilt chiefly wait, and upon my countenance that thou wilt depend. I am his master of horse. Thou wilt soon know his name--it is one that shakes the council and wields the state."
"By this light, a brave spell to conjure with," said Lambourne, "if a man would discover hidden treasures!"
"Used with discretion, it may prove so," replied Varney; "but mark--if thou conjure with it at thine own hand, it may raise a devil who will tear thee in fragments."
"Enough said," replied Lambourne; "I will not exceed my limits."
The travellers then resumed the rapid rate of travelling which their discourse had interrupted, and soon arrived at the Royal Park of Woodstock. This ancient possession of the crown of England was then very different from what it had been when it was the residence of the fair Rosamond, and the scene of Henry the Second"s secret and illicit amours; and yet more unlike to the scene which it exhibits in the present day, when Blenheim House commemorates the victory of Marlborough, and no less the genius of Vanbrugh, though decried in his own time by persons of taste far inferior to his own. It was, in Elizabeth"s time, an ancient mansion in bad repair, which had long ceased to be honoured with the royal residence, to the great impoverishment of the adjacent village.
The inhabitants, however, had made several pet.i.tions to the Queen to have the favour of the sovereign"s countenance occasionally bestowed upon them; and upon this very business, ostensibly at least, was the n.o.ble lord, whom we have already introduced to our readers, a visitor at Woodstock.
Varney and Lambourne galloped without ceremony into the courtyard of the ancient and dilapidated mansion, which presented on that morning a scene of bustle which it had not exhibited for two reigns. Officers of the Earl"s household, liverymen and retainers, went and came with all the insolent fracas which attaches to their profession. The neigh of horses and the baying of hounds were heard; for my lord, in his occupation of inspecting and surveying the manor and demesne, was of course provided with the means of following his pleasure in the chase or park, said to have been the earliest that was enclosed in England, and which was well stocked with deer that had long roamed there unmolested. Several of the inhabitants of the village, in anxious hope of a favourable result from this unwonted visit, loitered about the courtyard, and awaited the great man"s coming forth. Their attention was excited by the hasty arrival of Varney, and a murmur ran amongst them, "The Earl"s master of the horse!" while they hurried to bespeak favour by hastily unbonneting, and proffering to hold the bridle and stirrup of the favoured retainer and his attendant.