Ay, for a fortnight; and then Gentleman Jack discovers that some wench of the Bankside hath brighter eyes and freer favors than the country beauty, and you hear no more of him until he has ne'er a penny left, and comes begging his friends to be surety for him, or to write to his grandam at Oxford, saying how virtuous a youth he is, and in how sad a plight. Good Lord, that were an end!—should you have to go back to the old dame at last, and become tapster—no more acting of your lordship and worship—what ho, there! thou lazy knave, a flask of Rhenish, and put speed into thy rascal heels!"
The cloud on his companion's face had been darkening.
"Peace, drunken fool!" he muttered—but between his teeth, for he did not seem to wish to anger this stranger.
"Come, come, man," the other said, jovially, "unwitch thee! unwitch thee! Fetch back thy senses. What?—wouldst thou become a jest and byword for every tavern table between the Temple and the Tower? Nay, I cannot believe it of thee, Jack. Serious? Ay, as you have been twenty times before. Lord, what a foot and ankle!—and she the queen o' the world—the rose and crown and queen o' the world—and the sighing o' moonlight nights—
'Mignonne, tant je vous aime,
Mais vous ne m'aimez pas'—
and we are all to be virtuous and live cleanly for the rest of our lives; but the next time you see Gentleman Jack, lo, you, now!—'tis at the Bear-house; his pockets lined with angels wrung from old Ely of Queenhithe; and as for his company—Lord! Lord! And as it hath been before, so 'twill be again, as said Solomon the wise man; only that this time—mark you now, Jack—this time it were well if you came to your senses at once; for I tell thee that Ely and the rest of them have lost all patience, and they know this much of thy Stratford doings, that if they cannot exactly name thy whereabout, they can come within a stone's-cast of thee. And if I come to warn thee—as is the office of a true friend and an old companion—why shouldst thou sit there with a sulky face, man? Did I ever treat thee so in Fetter Lane?"
While he had been talking, a savory odor had begun to steal into the apartment, and presently the farmer's wife appeared, and proceeded to spread the cloth for dinner. Her lodger had given no orders; but she had taken his return as sufficient signal, and naturally she assumed that his friend would dine with him. Accordingly, in due course, there was placed on the board a smoking dish of cow-heel and bacon, with abundance of ale and other garnishings; and as this fare seemed more tempting to the new-comer than the bread and cheese, he needed no pressing to draw his chair to the table. It was not a sumptuous feast; but it had a beneficial effect on both of them—sobering the one, and rendering the other somewhat more placable. Master Leofric Hope—as he had styled himself—was still in a measure taciturn; but his guest—whose name, it appeared, was Francis Lloyd—had ceased his uncomfortable banter; and indeed all his talk now was of the charms and wealth of a certain widow who lived in a house near to Gray's Inn, on the road to Hampstead. He had been asked to dine with the widow; and he gave a magniloquent description of the state she kept—of her serving-men, and her furniture, and her plate, and the manner in which she entertained her friends.
"And why was I," said he—"why was poor Frank Lloyd—that could scarce get the wherewithal to pay for a rose for his ear—why was he picked out for so great a favor? Why, but that he was known to be a friend of handsome Jack Orridge. 'Where be your friend Master Orridge, now?' she says, for she hath sometimes a country trick in her speech, hath the good lady. 'Business, madam—affairs of great import,' I say to her, 'keep him still in the country.' Would I tell her the wolves were waiting to rend you should you be heard of anywhere within London city? 'Handsome Jack, they call him, is't not so?' says she. Would I tell her thou wert called 'Gentleman Jack?' as if thou hadst but slim right to the title. Then says she to one of the servants, 'Fill the gentleman's cup.' Lord, Jack, what a sherris that was!—'twas meat and drink; a thing to put marrow in your bones—cool and clear it was, and rich withal—cool on the tongue and warm in the stomach. 'Fore Heaven, Jack, if thou hast not ever a cup of that wine ready for me when I visit thee, I will say thou hast no more gratitude than a toad. And then says she to all the company (raising her glass the while), 'Absent friends;' but she nods and smiles to me, as one would say: 'We know whom we mean; we know.' Lord, that sherris, Jack! I have the taste of it in my mouth now; I dream o' nights there is a jug of it by me."
"Dreaming or waking, there is little else in thy head," said the other; "nor in thy stomach, either."
"Is it a bargain, Jack?" he said, looking up from his plate and regarding his companion with a fixed look.