"And good law it is, let me tell you Garret Weasel! Good and wholesome: wisely laid down by the burgesses, and wisely maintained by his Lordship. You rail without cause. Sober habits must be engendered:—your health, comrades! Then it behooves you publicans to be nice in your custom. We will none of your lurdans that can not pay scot and lot—your runagates that fall under the statute of outcry. Let them drink of the clear brook! There is wisdom and virtue in the law. Is it not so, Arnold?"
"It preaches well," replied the forester, as he sent forth a volume of smoke from his lips.
"Another flask, and we will drink to his Lordship," said Dauntrees, who now left the table and returned with the fourth bottle. "Fill up, friends; the evening wears apace. Here's to his Lordship, and his Lordship's ancestors of ever noble and happy memory!"
As Dauntrees smacked his lip upon emptying his cup, he flung himself back in his chair, and in a thoughtful tone ejaculated: "The good Lord Charles has had a heavy time of it since his return from England; these church brawlers would lay gunpowder under our hearth-stones. And then the death of young Lord Cecil, whilst his father was abroad, too; it was a heavy blow. My lady hath never held up her head since."
A pause succeeded to this grave reflection, during which the trio smoked their pipes in silence, which was at length broken by an attenuated sigh from the publican, as he exclaimed, "Well-a-day! the great have their troubles as well as the rest of us. It is my opinion that Heaven will have its will, Captain; that's my poor judgment." And having thus disburdened himself of this weighty sentiment—the weight of it being increased, perhaps, by the pressure of his previous potations—he drained the heel tap, which stood in his glass, and half whispered, when he had done, "That's as good a drop of Canary as ever grew within the horizon of the Peak of Teneriffe."
"Through the good will of friend Cocklescraft," interrupted Dauntrees, suddenly resuming his former gaiety.
"Pray you, Captain Dauntrees," said the publican, with a hurried concern, "think what hurt thy jest may bring upon me. Arnold knows not your merry humour, and may believe, from your speech, that I am not reputable."
"Pish, man; bridle thy foolish tongue! Did I not see the very cask on't at Trencher Rob's? Did I not mark how your sallow cheek took on an ashen complexion, when his Lordship's Secretary, a fortnight since, suddenly showed himself amongst the cedars upon the bank that overlooks your door, when your ill luck would have you to be rolling the cask in open day into thy cellar. The secretary was in a bookish mood, and saw thee not—or, peradventure, was kind, and would not heed."
To this direct testimony, Weasel could only reply by a faint-hearted and involuntary smile which surrendered the point, and left him in a state of silly confusion.
"Never droop in thy courage, worthy Weasel," exclaimed the Captain; "thou art as honest as thy betters; and, to my mind, the wine hath a better smack from its overland journey from St. Jerome's when there was no sun to heat it."