“Nay, nay,” answered Wildrake, “I thought you asked me in your own person.—Lack-a-day! a great mercy—a glorifying mercy—a crowning mercy—a vouchsafing—an uplifting—I profess the malignants are scattered from Dan to Beersheba—smitten, hip and thigh, even until the going down of the sun!”
“Hear you aught of Colonel Thornhaugh’s wounds?”
“He is dead,” answered Wildrake, “that’s one comfort—the roundheaded rascal!—Nay, hold! it was but a trip of the tongue—I meant, the sweet godly youth.”
“And hear you aught of the young man, King of Scotland, as they call him?” said Everard.
“Nothing but that he is hunted like a partridge on the mountains. May God deliver him, and confound his enemies!—Zoons, Mark Everard, I can fool it no longer. Do you not remember, that at the Lincoln’s-Inn gambols—though you did not mingle much in them, I think—I used always to play as well as any of them when it came to the action, but they could never get me to rehearse conformably. It’s the same at this day. I hear your voice, and I answer to it in the true tone of my heart; but when I am in the company of your snuffling friends, you have seen me act my part indifferent well.”
“But indifferent, indeed,” replied Everard; “however, there is little call on you to do aught, save to be modest and silent. Speak little, and lay aside, if you can, your big oaths and swaggering looks—set your hat even on your brows.”
“Ay, that is the curse! I have been always noted for the jaunty manner in which I wear my castor—Hard when a man’s merits become his enemies!”
“You must remember you are my clerk.”
“Secretary,” answered Wildrake: “let it be secretary, if you love me.”
“It must be clerk, and nothing else—plain clerk—and remember to be civil and obedient,” replied Everard.