"Nay, Mike," replied his uncle, "as eighteen years have gone over thy
head, and I trust thou art somewhat amended in thy conditions, thou
shalt not leave my house at this hour, and shalt e'en have whatever
in reason you list to call for. But I would I knew that that purse of
thine, which thou vapourest of, were as well come by as it seems well
filled."

"Here is an infidel for you, my good neighbours!" said Lambourne, again
appealing to the audience. "Here's a fellow will rip up his kinsman's
follies of a good score of years' standing. And for the gold, why, sirs,
I have been where it grew, and was to be had for the gathering. In
the New World have I been, man--in the Eldorado, where urchins play
at cherry-pit with diamonds, and country wenches thread rubies for
necklaces, instead of rowan-tree berries; where the pantiles are made of
pure gold, and the paving-stones of virgin silver."

"By my credit, friend Mike," said young Laurence Goldthred, the cutting
mercer of Abingdon, "that were a likely coast to trade to. And what may
lawns, cypruses, and ribands fetch, where gold is so plenty?"

"Oh, the profit were unutterable," replied Lambourne, "especially when
a handsome young merchant bears the pack himself; for the ladies of that
clime are bona-robas, and being themselves somewhat sunburnt, they catch
fire like tinder at a fresh complexion like thine, with a head of hair
inclining to be red."

"I would I might trade thither," said the mercer, chuckling.

"Why, and so thou mayest," said Michael--"that is, if thou art the same