"If 'twere not for avarice," said Longpole; "the fellow had all his better angels in his bags, and Sir Payan has store of avarice. I've seen him wrangle with a beggar for the change of a halfpenny, when the devil tempted him to commit a charity. And yet avarice, looked upon singly, is not a bad vice for a man to have either. It's a warm, a comfortable solid sin; and if most men will damn their own souls to get money, he can't be much worse off who damns his to keep it. Oh, I like avarice! Give me avarice for my sin. But I tire your worship."
"No, no, faith!" replied the knight. "Thy cheerfulness, together with the freedom of my limbs, give me new spirit, Heartley."
"Oh! good your worship," cried Longpole, "call me something else than Heartley. Since the fit is on us for casting our old names, I'll be after the fashion too, and have a new one."
"Well, then, I will call thee Longpole," said the knight, "which was a name we gave thee this morning, when thou wert watching us on the bank."
"Speak not of it, Sir Osborne," replied he; "that was a bad trick, the worst I ever was in. But call me Longpole, if your worship chooses. When I was with the army they called me Dick Fletcher,[[3]] because I made the arrows; and now I'll be Longpole, till such time as your honour Is established in all your rights again; and then I'll be merry Master Heartley, my lord's man."
"I fear me, Dick, that thou wilt have but little beside thy merriment for thy wages," said the knight, "at least for a while; for yon same Sir Payan has my bags too in safe custody, and also some good letters for his Grace of Buckingham. Yet I hope to receive in London the ransom of a knight and two squires, whom I made prisoners at Bouvines. Till then we must content ourselves on soldiers' fare, and strive not to grow sad because our purses are empty."
"Oh! your worship, my merriment never leaves me," said Longpole. "They say that I laughed when first I came into the world; and, with God's will, I will laugh when I go out of it. When good Dr. Wilbraham, your honour's tutor, used to teach me Latin, you were but a little thing then, some four years old; but, however, I was a great boy of twelve, and he would kindly have taught me, and made a clerk of me; but I laughed so at the gods and goddesses, that he never could get on. The great old fools of antiquity, as I used to call them; and then he would cane me, and laugh too, till he could not cane me for laughing. I was a wicked wag in those days; but since then I have grown to laugh at folks as much as with them. But I think you said, Sir Osborne, that you had letters for the Duke of Buckingham: if we walk on at this pace, we shall soon be upon his land."
"What! has he estates in this county?" asked the knight; "my letters were addressed to him at Thornbury, in Gloucestershire."
"Oh! but he has many a broad acre too in Kent," answered Longpole; "and a fine house, windowed throughout with glass, and four chimneys at each end; not a room but has its fire. They say that he is there even now. And much loved is he of the commons, being no way proud, as some of our lords are, with their upturned noses, as if they scorned to wind their mother earth."
"Were I but sure that his grace were there," said the knight, "I would e'en venture without the letters; for much has he been a friend to my father, and he is also renowned for his courtesy."