CHAPTER XVII.
There grows
In my most ill-composed affection
A quenchless avarice, that were I king
I should cut off the nobles for their lands.--Macbeth.
Oh, the man in the moon! the man in the moon! What a prodigious sackful of good resolutions you must have, all broken through the middle. First, there are all sorts of resolutions of amendment, of every kind and description, except the resolution of a carter to amend his draught, or that of a gourmand whose appetite fails to drink Chateau Margaux instead of Lafitte. All, except these, my dear sir, you clutch by handfuls; and then you get all the resolutions of women of five-and-thirty never to marry whenever the opportunity happens; the resolutions of many young heirs not to be taken in, and of young coquettes not to go too far; of old gentlemen to look young, and of vulgar men to hold their tongues. Though I see, my dear sir, that your bag be almost bursting, yet I must trouble you with one more.
I had determined, as I hinted in a former chapter, never to quit my hero and go vagabondising about in my history from one part to the other, like a gipsy or a pedlar; but, on the contrary, to proceed in a quiet, respectable, straightforward manner, telling his story, and nobody else's story but his; but it is this individual resolution that I am now under the necessity of foregoing, for it is absolutely necessary, that I should return to what took place at the mansion of the Duke of Buckingham, in Kent, even if I should risk the breaking of my neck, as well as my resolution, in scampering back again afterwards.
Early in the morning of the day after that on which Sir Osborne had left the manor-house to proceed to the Benedictine Abbey, near Canterbury, Sir Payan Wileton, with a large suite, rode up to the gates, and demanded an audience of the duke, which was immediately granted. As the chamberlain marshalled him the way to the duke's closet, the knight caught a glance of the old man, Sir Cesar, passing out, from which he argued favourably for his purposes; doubting not that the discourse of the astrologer had raised the ambition and vanity of the duke, and fitted him to second the schemes with which he proposed to tempt him.
When the knight entered, the princely Buckingham was seated, and with that cold dignity which he knew well how to assume, he motioned his visiter to a chair, without, however, deigning to rise.
"He thinks himself already king," thought Sir Payan. "Well, his pride must be humoured. My lord duke," he said, after a few preliminary words on both parts, "I come to tender your grace my best service, and to beg you to believe, that should ever the occasion offer, you shall find me ready at your disposal, with heart and hand, fortune and followers."
"And what is it that Sir Payan Wileton would claim as his reward for such zealous doings?" demanded the duke, eyeing him coolly. "Sir Payan's wisdom is too well known to suppose that he would venture so much without proportionate reward."
"But your grace's favour," replied the knight, somewhat astonished at the manner in which his offers were received.
"Nay, nay, Sir Payan!" replied the duke; "speak plainly. What is it you would have? Upon what rich lordship have you cast your eyes? Whose fair estate has excited your appetite? Is there any new Chilham Castle to be had?"