You loggerheaded and unpolish'd grooms,
What, no attendance, no regard, no duty?
Where is the foolish knave I sent before?
--TAMING OF THE SHREW.
There is no period at which men look worse in the eyes of each other, or
feel more uncomfortable, than when the first dawn of daylight finds them
watchers. Even a beauty of the first order, after the vigils of a ball
are interrupted by the dawn, would do wisely to withdraw herself from
the gaze of her fondest and most partial admirers. Such was the pale,
inauspicious, and ungrateful light which began to beam upon those who
kept watch all night in the hall at Sayes Court, and which mingled its
cold, pale, blue diffusion with the red, yellow, and smoky beams of
expiring lamps and torches. The young gallant, whom we noticed in our
last chapter, had left the room for a few minutes, to learn the cause of
a knocking at the outward gate, and on his return was so struck with
the forlorn and ghastly aspects of his companions of the watch that
he exclaimed, "Pity of my heart, my masters, how like owls you look!
Methinks, when the sun rises, I shall see you flutter off with your eyes
dazzled, to stick yourselves into the next ivy-tod or ruined steeple."
"Hold thy peace, thou gibing fool," said Blount; "hold thy peace. Is
this a time for jeering, when the manhood of England is perchance dying
within a wall's breadth of thee?"
"There thou liest," replied the gallant.
"How, lie!" exclaimed Blount, starting up, "lie! and to me?"
"Why, so thou didst, thou peevish fool," answered the youth; "thou didst
lie on that bench even now, didst thou not? But art thou not a hasty
coxcomb to pick up a wry word so wrathfully? Nevertheless, loving and,
honouring my lord as truly as thou, or any one, I do say that, should
Heaven take him from us, all England's manhood dies not with him."
"Ay," replied Blount, "a good portion will survive with thee,
doubtless."
"And a good portion with thyself, Blount, and with stout Markham here,
and Tracy, and all of us. But I am he will best employ the talent Heaven
has given to us all."
"As how, I prithee?" said Blount; "tell us your mystery of multiplying."
"Why, sirs," answered the youth, "ye are like goodly land, which bears
no crop because it is not quickened by manure; but I have that rising
spirit in me which will make my poor faculties labour to keep pace with
it. My ambition will keep my brain at work, I warrant thee."