“This sounds like practice upon me, sir,” replied Varney; “and if it proves so, by my soul you shall repent it!”

“Sir, the best hound will be sometimes at fault,” answered Lambourne; “how should it serve me that this fellow should have thus evanished?  You may ask mine host, Giles Gosling—­ask the tapster and hostler—­ask Cicely, and the whole household, how I kept eyes on Tressilian while he was on foot.  On my soul, I could not be expected to watch him like a sick nurse, when I had seen him fairly a-bed in his chamber.  That will be allowed me, surely.”

Varney did, in fact, make some inquiry among the household, which confirmed the truth of Lambourne’s statement.  Tressilian, it was unanimously agreed, had departed suddenly and unexpectedly, betwixt night and morning.

“But I will wrong no one,” said mine host; “he left on the table in his lodging the full value of his reckoning, with some allowance to the servants of the house, which was the less necessary that he saddled his own gelding, as it seems, without the hostler’s assistance.”

Thus satisfied of the rectitude of Lambourne’s conduct, Varney began to talk to him upon his future prospects, and the mode in which he meant to bestow himself, intimating that he understood from Foster he was not disinclined to enter into the household of a nobleman.

“Have you,” said he, “ever been at court?”

“No,” replied Lambourne; “but ever since I was ten years old, I have dreamt once a week that I was there, and made my fortune.”

“It may be your own fault if your dream comes not true,” said Varney.  “Are you needy?”

“Um!” replied Lambourne; “I love pleasure.”

“That is a sufficient answer, and an honest one,” said Varney.  “Know you aught of the requisites expected from the retainer of a rising courtier?”

“I have imagined them to myself, sir,” answered Lambourne; “as, for example, a quick eye, a close mouth, a ready and bold hand, a sharp wit, and a blunt conscience.”

“And thine, I suppose,” said Varney, “has had its edge blunted long since?”

“I cannot remember, sir, that its edge was ever over-keen,” replied Lambourne.  “When I was a youth, I had some few whimsies; but I rubbed them partly out of my recollection on the rough grindstone of the wars, and what remained I washed out in the broad waves of the Atlantic.”

“Thou hast served, then, in the Indies?”

“In both East and West,” answered the candidate for court service, “by both sea and land.  I have served both the Portugal and the Spaniard, both the Dutchman and the Frenchman, and have made war on our own account with a crew of jolly fellows, who held there was no peace beyond the Line.” [Sir Francis Drake, Morgan, and many a bold buccaneer of those days, were, in fact, little better than pirates.]

“Thou mayest do me, and my lord, and thyself, good service,” said Varney, after a pause.  “But observe, I know the world—­and answer me truly, canst thou be faithful?”