“Well, mine host, my grandfather, like some other Cornishmen, kept a warm affection to the House of York, and espoused the quarrel of this Simnel, assuming the title of Earl of Warwick, as the county afterwards, in great numbers, countenanced the cause of Perkin Warbeck, calling himself the Duke of York.  My grandsire joined Simnel’s standard, and was taken fighting desperately at Stoke, where most of the leaders of that unhappy army were slain in their harness.  The good knight to whom he rendered himself, Sir Roger Robsart, protected him from the immediate vengeance of the king, and dismissed him without ransom.  But he was unable to guard him from other penalties of his rashness, being the heavy fines by which he was impoverished, according to Henry’s mode of weakening his enemies.  The good knight did what he might to mitigate the distresses of my ancestor; and their friendship became so strict, that my father was bred up as the sworn brother and intimate of the present Sir Hugh Robsart, the only son of Sir Roger, and the heir of his honest, and generous, and hospitable temper, though not equal to him in martial achievements.”

“I have heard of good Sir Hugh Robsart,” interrupted the host, “many a time and oft; his huntsman and sworn servant, Will Badger, hath spoken of him an hundred times in this very house.  A jovial knight he is, and hath loved hospitality and open housekeeping more than the present fashion, which lays as much gold lace on the seams of a doublet as would feed a dozen of tall fellows with beef and ale for a twelvemonth, and let them have their evening at the alehouse once a week, to do good to the publican.”

“If you have seen Will Badger, mine host,” said Tressilian, “you have heard enough of Sir Hugh Robsart; and therefore I will but say, that the hospitality you boast of hath proved somewhat detrimental to the estate of his family, which is perhaps of the less consequence, as he has but one daughter to whom to bequeath it.  And here begins my share in the tale.  Upon my father’s death, now several years since, the good Sir Hugh would willingly have made me his constant companion.  There was a time, however, at which I felt the kind knight’s excessive love for field-sports detained me from studies, by which I might have profited more; but I ceased to regret the leisure which gratitude and hereditary friendship compelled me to bestow on these rural avocations.  The exquisite beauty of Mistress Amy Robsart, as she grew up from childhood to woman, could not escape one whom circumstances obliged to be so constantly in her company—­I loved her, in short, mine host, and her father saw it.”

“And crossed your true loves, no doubt?” said mine host.  “It is the way in all such cases; and I judge it must have been so in your instance, from the heavy sigh you uttered even now.”

“The case was different, mine host.  My suit was highly approved by the generous Sir Hugh Robsart; it was his daughter who was cold to my passion.”