“You are right, you are right!” said Tressilian eagerly, “and I thank you for pointing out what I overlooked in my haste.  I little thought ever to have besought grace of Leicester; but I could kneel to the proud Dudley, if doing so could remove one shade of shame from this unhappy damsel.  You will assist me then to procure the necessary powers from Sir Hugh Robsart?”

The curate assured him of his assistance, and the herald nodded assent.

“You must hold yourselves also in readiness to testify, in case you are called upon, the openhearted hospitality which our good patron exercised towards this deceitful traitor, and the solicitude with which he laboured to seduce his unhappy daughter.”

“At first,” said the clergyman, “she did not, as it seemed to me, much affect his company; but latterly I saw them often together.”

“SEIANT in the parlour,” said Michael Mumblazen, “and passant in the garden.”

“I once came on them by chance,” said the priest, “in the South wood, in a spring evening.  Varney was muffled in a russet cloak, so that I saw not his face.  They separated hastily, as they heard me rustle amongst the leaves; and I observed she turned her head and looked long after him.”

“With neck REGUARDANT,” said the herald.  “And on the day of her flight, and that was on Saint Austen’s Eve, I saw Varney’s groom, attired in his liveries, hold his master’s horse and Mistress Amy’s palfrey, bridled and saddled proper, behind the wall of the churchyard.”

“And now is she found mewed up in his secret place of retirement,” said Tressilian.  “The villain is taken in the manner, and I well wish he may deny his crime, that I may thrust conviction down his false throat!  But I must prepare for my journey.  Do you, gentlemen, dispose my patron to grant me such powers as are needful to act in his name.”

So saying, Tressilian left the room.

“He is too hot,” said the curate; “and I pray to God that He may grant him the patience to deal with Varney as is fitting.”

“Patience and Varney,” said Mumblazen, “is worse heraldry than metal upon metal.  He is more false than a siren, more rapacious than a griffin, more poisonous than a wyvern, and more cruel than a lion rampant.”

“Yet I doubt much,” said the curate, “whether we can with propriety ask from Sir Hugh Robsart, being in his present condition, any deed deputing his paternal right in Mistress Amy to whomsoever—­”

“Your reverence need not doubt that,” said Will Badger, who entered as he spoke, “for I will lay my life he is another man when he wakes than he has been these thirty days past.”

“Ay, Will,” said the curate, “hast thou then so much confidence in Doctor Diddleum’s draught?”

“Not a whit,” said Will, “because master ne’er tasted a drop on’t, seeing it was emptied out by the housemaid.  But here’s a gentleman, who came attending on Master Tressilian, has given Sir Hugh a draught that is worth twenty of yon un.  I have spoken cunningly with him, and a better farrier or one who hath a more just notion of horse and dog ailment I have never seen; and such a one would never be unjust to a Christian man.”