kinsman’s Eldorado, never trust me if I do not believe he has found it in the pouches of some such gulls as thyself.—­But take no snuff in the nose about it; fall to and welcome, for here comes the supper, and I heartily bestow it on all that will take share, in honour of my hopeful nephew’s return, always trusting that he has come home another man.—­In faith, kinsman, thou art as like my poor sister as ever was son to mother.”

“Not quite so like old Benedict Lambourne, her husband, though,” said the mercer, nodding and winking.  “Dost thou remember, Mike, what thou saidst when the schoolmaster’s ferule was over thee for striking up thy father’s crutches?—­it is a wise child, saidst thou, that knows its own father.  Dr. Bircham laughed till he cried again, and his crying saved yours.”

“Well, he made it up to me many a day after,” said Lambourne; “and how is the worthy pedagogue?”

“Dead,” said Giles Gosling, “this many a day since.”

“That he is,” said the clerk of the parish; “I sat by his bed the whilst.  He passed away in a blessed frame.  ’MORIOR—­MORTUUS sum VEL FUI—­Mori’—­these were his latest words; and he just added, ’my last verb is conjugated.”

“Well, peace be with him,” said Mike, “he owes me nothing.”

“No, truly,” replied Goldthred; “and every lash which he laid on thee, he always was wont to say, he spared the hangman a labour.”

“One would have thought he left him little to do then,” said the clerk; “and yet Goodman Thong had no sinecure of it with our friend, after all.”

“Voto A DIOS!” exclaimed Lambourne, his patience appearing to fail him, as he snatched his broad, slouched hat from the table and placed it on his head, so that the shadow gave the sinister expression of a Spanish brave to eyes and features which naturally boded nothing pleasant.  “Hark’ee, my masters—­all is fair among friends, and under the rose; and I have already permitted my worthy uncle here, and all of you, to use your pleasure with the frolics of my nonage.  But I carry sword and dagger, my good friends, and can use them lightly too upon occasion.  I have learned to be dangerous upon points of honour ever since I served the Spaniard, and I would not have you provoke me to the degree of falling foul.”

“Why, what would you do?” said the clerk.

“Ay, sir, what would you do?” said the mercer, bustling up on the other side of the table.

“Slit your throat, and spoil your Sunday’s quavering, Sir Clerk,” said Lambourne fiercely; “cudgel you, my worshipful dealer in flimsy sarsenets, into one of your own bales.”