“Worse, sir, worse,” replied Wayland; “I have seen a basilisk. Thank God, I saw him first; for being so seen, and seeing not me, he will do the less harm.”
“In God's name, speak sense,” said Tressilian, “and say what you mean.”
“I have seen my old master,” said the artist. “Last night a friend whom I had acquired took me to see the Palace clock, judging me to be curious in such works of art. At the window of a turret next to the clock-house I saw my old master.”
“Thou must needs have been mistaken,” said Tressilian.
“I was not mistaken,” said Wayland; “he that once hath his features by heart would know him amongst a million. He was anticly habited; but he cannot disguise himself from me, God be praised! as I can from him. I will not, however, tempt Providence by remaining within his ken. Tarleton the player himself could not so disguise himself but that, sooner or later, Doboobie would find him out. I must away to-morrow; for, as we stand together, it were death to me to remain within reach of him.”
“But the Earl of Sussex?” said Tressilian.
“He is in little danger from what he has hitherto taken, provided he swallow the matter of a bean's size of the orvietan every morning fasting; but let him beware of a relapse.”
“And how is that to be guarded against?” said Tressilian.
“Only by such caution as you would use against the devil,” answered Wayland. “Let my lord's clerk of the kitchen kill his lord's meat himself, and dress it himself, using no spice but what he procures from the surest hands. Let the sewer serve it up himself, and let the master of my lord's household see that both clerk and sewer taste the dishes which the one dresses and the other serves. Let my lord use no perfumes which come not from well accredited persons; no unguents—no pomades. Let him, on no account, drink with strangers, or eat fruit with them, either in the way of nooning or otherwise. Especially, let him observe such caution if he goes to Kenilworth—the excuse of his illness, and his being under diet, will, and must, cover the strangeness of such practice.”
“And thou,” said Tressilian, “what dost thou think to make of thyself?”