"Ay," said Varney, "so they lie not so grossly open that he must needs
break his shins over them."
"Agreed," said Lambourne. "Next, if I run down game, I must have the
picking of the bones."
"That is but reason," replied Varney, "so that your betters are served
before you."
"Good," said Lambourne; "and it only remains to be said, that if the law
and I quarrel, my patron must bear me out, for that is a chief point."
"Reason again," said Varney, "if the quarrel hath happened in your
master's service."
"For the wage and so forth, I say nothing," proceeded Lambourne; "it is
the secret guerdon that I must live by."
"Never fear," said Varney; "thou shalt have clothes and spending money
to ruffle it with the best of thy degree, for thou goest to a household
where you have gold, as they say, by the eye."
"That jumps all with my humour," replied Michael Lambourne; "and it only
remains that you tell me my master's name."
"My name is Master Richard Varney," answered his companion.
"But I mean," said Lambourne, "the name of the noble lord to whose
service you are to prefer me."
"How, knave, art thou too good to call me master?" said Varney hastily;
"I would have thee bold to others, but not saucy to me."
"I crave your worship's pardon," said Lambourne, "but you seemed
familiar with Anthony Foster; now I am familiar with Anthony myself."
"Thou art a shrewd knave, I see," replied Varney. "Mark me--I do indeed
propose to introduce thee into a nobleman's household; but it is upon
my person thou wilt chiefly wait, and upon my countenance that thou wilt
depend. I am his master of horse. Thou wilt soon know his name--it is
one that shakes the council and wields the state."
"By this light, a brave spell to conjure with," said Lambourne, "if a
man would discover hidden treasures!"
"Used with discretion, it may prove so," replied Varney; "but mark--if
thou conjure with it at thine own hand, it may raise a devil who will
tear thee in fragments."
"Enough said," replied Lambourne; "I will not exceed my limits."
The travellers then resumed the rapid rate of travelling which their
discourse had interrupted, and soon arrived at the Royal Park of
Woodstock. This ancient possession of the crown of England was then very
different from what it had been when it was the residence of the fair
Rosamond, and the scene of Henry the Second's secret and illicit amours;
and yet more unlike to the scene which it exhibits in the present day,
when Blenheim House commemorates the victory of Marlborough, and no less
the genius of Vanbrugh, though decried in his own time by persons of
taste far inferior to his own. It was, in Elizabeth's time, an ancient
mansion in bad repair, which had long ceased to be honoured with the
royal residence, to the great impoverishment of the adjacent village.
The inhabitants, however, had made several petitions to the Queen to
have the favour of the sovereign's countenance occasionally bestowed
upon them; and upon this very business, ostensibly at least, was the
noble lord, whom we have already introduced to our readers, a visitor at
Woodstock.