“Ay,” replied mine host, laughing, “and he who meets him may meet his match—­the pedlar is a tall man.”

“Is he?” said Goldthred.

“Is he?” replied the host; “ay, by cock and pie is he—­the very pedlar he who raddled Robin Hood so tightly, as the song says,—­

     ’Now Robin Hood drew his sword so good,
     The pedlar drew his brand,
     And he hath raddled him, Robin Hood,
     Till he neither could see nor stand.’”

“Hang him, foul scroyle, let him pass,” said the mercer; “if he be such a one, there were small worship to be won upon him.—­And now tell me, Mike—­my honest Mike, how wears the Hollands you won of me?”

“Why, well, as you may see, Master Goldthred,” answered Mike; “I will bestow a pot on thee for the handsel.—­Fill the flagon, Master Tapster.”

“Thou wilt win no more Hollands, think, on such wager, friend Mike,” said the mercer; “for the sulky swain, Tony Foster, rails at thee all to nought, and swears you shall ne’er darken his doors again, for that your oaths are enough to blow the roof off a Christian man’s dwelling.”

“Doth he say so, the mincing, hypocritical miser?” vociferated Lambourne.  “Why, then, he shall come down and receive my commands here, this blessed night, under my uncle’s roof!  And I will ring him such a black sanctus, that he shall think the devil hath him by the skirts for a month to come, for barely hearing me.”

“Nay, now the pottle-pot is uppermost, with a witness!” said the mercer.  “Tony Foster obey thy whistle!  Alas! good Mike, go sleep—­go sleep.”

“I tell thee what, thou thin-faced gull,” said Michael Lambourne, in high chafe, “I will wager thee fifty angels against the first five shelves of thy shop, numbering upward from the false light, with all that is on them, that I make Tony Foster come down to this public-house before we have finished three rounds.”

“I will lay no bet to that amount,” said the mercer, something sobered by an offer which intimated rather too private a knowledge on Lambourne’s part of the secret recesses of his shop.  “I will lay no such wager,” he said; “but I will stake five angels against thy five, if thou wilt, that Tony Foster will not leave his own roof, or come to ale-house after prayer time, for thee, or any man.”

“Content,” said Lambourne.—­“Here, uncle, hold stakes, and let one of your young bleed-barrels there—­one of your infant tapsters—­trip presently up to The Place, and give this letter to Master Foster, and say that I, his ingle, Michael Lambourne, pray to speak with him at mine uncle’s castle here, upon business of grave import.—­Away with thee, child, for it is now sundown, and the wretch goeth to bed with the birds to save mutton-suet—­faugh!”

Shortly after this messenger was dispatched—­an interval which was spent in drinking and buffoonery—­he returned with the answer that Master Foster was coming presently.