dazzling, I warrant you the dame will not stoop her crest. She will
presently soar beyond reach of my whistle, Master Varney. I promise you,
she holds me already in slight regard."

"It is thine own fault, thou sullen, uninventive companion," answered
Varney, "who knowest no mode of control save downright brute force.
Canst thou not make home pleasant to her, with music and toys? Canst
thou not make the out-of-doors frightful to her, with tales of goblins?
Thou livest here by the churchyard, and hast not even wit enough to
raise a ghost, to scare thy females into good discipline."

"Speak not thus, Master Varney," said Foster; "the living I fear not,
but I trifle not nor toy with my dead neighbours of the churchyard. I
promise you, it requires a good heart to live so near it. Worthy Master
Holdforth, the afternoon's lecturer of Saint Antonlin's, had a sore
fright there the last time he came to visit me."

"Hold thy superstitious tongue," answered Varney; "and while thou
talkest of visiting, answer me, thou paltering knave, how came
Tressilian to be at the postern door?"

"Tressilian!" answered Foster, "what know I of Tressilian? I never heard
his name."

"Why, villain, it was the very Cornish chough to whom old Sir Hugh
Robsart destined his pretty Amy; and hither the hot-brained fool has
come to look after his fair runaway. There must be some order taken with
him, for he thinks he hath wrong, and is not the mean hind that will sit
down with it. Luckily he knows nought of my lord, but thinks he has only
me to deal with. But how, in the fiend's name, came he hither?"