“None, save to clear the apartment of yonder man. My clerk will remain with me—I have orders which must be written out.—Yet stay—Thou gavest my letter this morning to Mistress Alice?”
“I did.”
“Tell me, good Joceline, what she said when she received it?”
“She seemed much concerned, sir; and indeed I think that she wept a little—but indeed she seemed very much distressed.”
“And what message did she send to me?”
“None, may it please your honour—She began to say, ‘Tell my cousin Everard that I will communicate my uncle’s kind purpose to my father, if I can get fitting opportunity—but that I greatly fear’—and there checked herself, as it were, and said, ‘I will write to my cousin; and as it may be late ere I have an opportunity of speaking with my father, do thou come for my answer after service.’—So I went to church myself, to while away the time; but when I returned to the Chase, I found this man had summoned my master to surrender, and, right or wrong, I must put him in possession of the Lodge. I would fain have given your honour a hint that the old knight and my young mistress were like to take you on the form, but I could not mend the matter.”
“Thou hast done well, good fellow, and I will remember thee.—And now, my masters,” he said, advancing to the brace of clerks or secretaries, who had in the meanwhile sate quietly down beside the stone bottle, and made up acquaintance over a glass of its contents—“Let me remind you, that the night wears late.”
“There is something cries tinkle, tinkle, in the bottle yet,” said Wildrake, in reply.
“Hem! hem! hem!” coughed the Colonel of the Parliament service; and if his lips did not curse his companion’s imprudence, I will not answer for what arose in his heart,—“Well!” he said, observing that Wildrake had filled his own glass and Tomkins’s, “take that parting glass and begone.”
“Would you not be pleased to hear first,” said Wildrake, “how this honest gentleman saw the devil to-night look through a pane of yonder window, and how he thinks he had a mighty strong resemblance to your worship’s humble slave and varlet scribbler? Would you but hear this, sir, and just sip a glass of this very recommendable strong waters?”