Sir John Newark shook him heartily by the hand, with the air and warmth of an old friend.
"I am most happy to see you, Colonel Smeaton," he said. "I have already received a letter, giving me information that you would probably come to see me at my poor house." Then, dropping his voice to a whisper, he added, "from Lord Bolingbroke."
"The letter I bear is from the Duke of Ormond," said Smeaton, in a colder tone, the name of Bolingbroke appearing to have no great charms for him. "Will you say where I shall have the honour of delivering it, for at this moment it is not about me?"
"Nowhere, I trust, but at my poor manor-house at Ale," replied Sir John. "It is a pleasure that I have promised myself; and I was even now on the eve of hastening back thither for the purpose of meeting you on your arrival. My son was walking from his school to meet me, in order to go down with me to-morrow, when he was assaulted. But I think you told me, my dear Richard," he continued, "that this other gentleman had been very kind to you also."
And he looked towards Van Noost, who had been standing near the window while the conversation took place.
"O yes," answered the boy. "He gave me some nice stuff, and cockered me up famously; but it was the other that made the big bully take measure of the paving-stones."
"Will you not be seated, Sir John," said Van Noost, putting a chair for the knight, "and allow me to give you a glass of the nice stuff, as your son calls it, which did him so much good?"
"Well, I don't know what its name is," retorted the boy; "but I know it tasted like drinking gingerbread--hot and sweet--and a very nice taste besides."
"Dutch Cinnamon, I'll warrant," said Sir John Newark, laughing, and seating himself. "We are not very much accustomed to such things in my house. So he might well not know what it was. I have almost forgotten the taste of it; but I know it is very good; and I do not at all object, sir, to try your store."
Now, be it known to the reader that, at that period of history, the greater part of the English nation had became afflicted with a disease from which they are not altogether free even yet, although a great physician has lately been amongst them, undertaking its especial cure. The disease I mean is, dram-drinking, which, for some time, affected not only the lower but many of the higher classes. So that there was nothing at all extraordinary in Sir John Newark consenting to drink a glass of very strong spirit even before he had dined. But that worthy gentleman was not without his own particular motives in anything he did, and frequently covered, or attempted to cover, them by an air of frank and straightforward affability. At present, indeed, he seemed to have no thought but of Van Noost's good liquor, watching him as he brought from the corner-cupboard both the long-necked bottle I have before mentioned, and an exceedingly thin wine-glass, with a tall stalk lightly cut and gilt.