“The devil he has!” answered Varney, whose laugh, however, never exceeded a sarcastic smile.

“It is even as the juvenal hath said,” added the masker who spoke first; “Our major devil—­for this is but our minor one—­is even now at Lucina, FER OPEM, within that very TUGURIUM.”

“By Saint George, or rather by the Dragon, who may be a kinsman of the fiend in the straw, a most comical chance!” said Varney.  “How sayest thou, Lambourne, wilt thou stand godfather for the nonce?  If the devil were to choose a gossip, I know no one more fit for the office.”

“Saving always when my betters are in presence,” said Lambourne, with the civil impudence of a servant who knows his services to be so indispensable that his jest will be permitted to pass muster.

“And what is the name of this devil, or devil’s dam, who has timed her turns so strangely?” said Varney.  “We can ill afford to spare any of our actors.”

“Gaudet NOMINE SIBYLLAE,” said the first speaker; “she is called Sibyl Laneham, wife of Master Robert Laneham—­”

“Clerk to the Council-chamber door,” said Varney; “why, she is inexcusable, having had experience how to have ordered her matters better.  But who were those, a man and a woman, I think, who rode so hastily up the hill before me even now?  Do they belong to your company?”

Wayland was about to hazard a reply to this alarming inquiry, when the little diablotin again thrust in his oar.

“So please you,” he said, coming close up to Varney, and speaking so as not to be overheard by his companions, “the man was our devil major, who has tricks enough to supply the lack of a hundred such as Dame Laneham; and the woman, if you please, is the sage person whose assistance is most particularly necessary to our distressed comrade.”

“Oh, what! you have got the wise woman, then?” said Varney.  “Why, truly, she rode like one bound to a place where she was needed.  And you have a spare limb of Satan, besides, to supply the place of Mistress Laneham?”

“Ay, sir,” said the boy; “they are not so scarce in this world as your honour’s virtuous eminence would suppose.  This master-fiend shall spit a few flashes of fire, and eruct a volume or two of smoke on the spot, if it will do you pleasure—­you would think he had AEtna in his abdomen.”

“I lack time just now, most hopeful imp of darkness, to witness his performance,” said Varney; “but here is something for you all to drink the lucky hour—­and so, as the play says, ‘God be with Your labour!’”

Thus speaking, he struck his horse with the spurs, and rode on his way.

Lambourne tarried a moment or two behind his master, and rummaged his pouch for a piece of silver, which he bestowed on the communicative imp, as he said, for his encouragement on his path to the infernal regions, some sparks of whose fire, he said, he could discover flashing from him already.  Then having received the boy’s thanks for his generosity he also spurred his horse, and rode after his master as fast as the fire flashes from flint.