| 'Both foot and hand go cold; But, belly, God send thee good ale enough, Whether it be new or old. I cannot eat but little meat, My stomach is not good; But sure I think that I can drink With him that wears a hood. Though I go bare, take ye no care, I am nothing a-cold,— I stuff my skin so full within Of jolly good ale and old. Back and side go bare,' &c. 'Now let them drink till they nod and wink, Even as good fellows should do; They shall not miss to have the bliss Good ale doth bring men to: And all poor souls that have scoured bowls, Or have them lustily troll'd, God save the lives of them and their wives, Whether they be young or old! Back and side go bare,' &c |
"Oh my father, my father!" cried Catherine, in sudden terror, "for what dreadful fate have I given up thy love and protection?"
Her accents, feeble as they were, reached the ears of Sterling; and ceasing his song, he looked down upon her face, saying, with a ludicrous assumption of gravity,
"How now, fair Titania, queen of moonshine, do you speak? 'Oh, speak again, bright angel!' So much for twenty drops of brown Sherry! these asses did nothing but talk about cold water."
"What are you, sir? and why—why do you thus hold me?"
"Egad, for no very good reason I know, seeing that I could not hold my own prisoner, and am but a milk-livered loon to hold the game of young Sparrow-Hawk. Thousand devils! knew I but where to turn White Surrey's snout, I should exit by side door, and so vanish, wench and all, were it only to give him a Roland for his Oliver."
"I know not what you mean," said Catherine, her terror restoring her to full consciousness—"I know not what you mean," she repeated, with increasing alarm, as the moon, peeping side-long through a rent in the clouds, threw a level and ghastly ray on the countenance of her supporter, revealing features which her fears converted into those of an evil being;—"but, oh sir! I conjure you to free me. Do me no harm,—suffer me to escape,—let me dismount, though it should be but to die on the way-side."
Unfortunately,—not for her prayer, for no idea of granting that could have ever entered the volunteer's brain,—but unfortunately for the maiden herself, the same ray which revealed his visage to her gaze fell brightly upon her own, which, although pallid as death, yet displayed a pair of eyes to which the excitement of terror gave unusual lustre, and which instantly converted the drunken indifference of Sterling into admiration. He stared at her for a moment, and then burst out, in the words of Romeo, and with an emphasis that preserved, along with his usual dramatic extravagance of fervour, some little touch of natural approbation,—
| "'Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, Having some business, do entreat her eyes To twinkle in their spheres, till they return!' |
Oho, Master Brook, sweet young Hawk! never trust me if I do not take thy minion in fair exchange for my own:—