Page:Walter Scott - The Monastery (Henry Frowde, 1912).djvu/510

 upon several of the courtiers to ascertain who it could be who was so richly dressed and so slightly attended, and he was not recognized until he entered the presence-chamber. 'You are very brave, my lord,' said the King, as he received his homage; 'but where are all your men and attendants?' The Lord Somerville readily answered, 'If it please your Majesty, here they are,' pointing to the lace that was on his own and his pages' clothes; whereat the King laughed heartily, and having surveyed the finery more nearly, bade him have away with it all, and let him have his stout band of spears again.

There is a scene in Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour (Act, Scene vi), in which a Euphuist of the time gives an account of the effects of a duel on the clothes of himself and his opponent, and never departs a syllable from the catalogue of his wardrobe. We shall insert it in evidence that the foppery of our ancestors was not inferior to that of our own time.

Fastidius. Good faith, signior, now you speak of a quarrel, I'll acquaint you with a difference that happened between a gallant and myself, Sir Puntarvolo. You know him if I should name him—Signior Luculento.

Punt. Luculento! What inauspicious chance interposed itself to your two loves?

Fast. Faith, sir, the same that sundered Agamemnon and great Thetis' son; but let the cause escape, sir. He sent me a challenge, mixt with some few braves, which I restored; and, in fine, we met. Now indeed, sir, I must tell you, he did offer at first very desperately, but without judgement; for look you, sir, I cast myself into this figure; now he came violently on, and withal advancing his rapier to strike, I thought to have took his arm, for he had left his body to my election, and I was sure he could not recover his guard. Sir, I mist my purpose in his arm, rashed his doublet sleeves, ran him close by the left cheek and through his hair. He, again, light me here—I had on a gold cable hat-band, then new come up, about a murrey French hat I had; cuts my hatband, and yet it was massy goldsmith's work, cuts my brim, which, by good fortune, being thick embroidered with gold twist and spangles, disappointed the force of the blow; nevertheless it grazed on my shoulder, takes me away six purls of an Italian cut-work band I wore, cost me three pounds in the Exchange but three days before

Punt. This was a strange encounter.

Fast. Nay, you shall hear, sir. With this, we both fell out and breathed. Now, upon the second sign of his assault, I betook me to my former manner of defence; he, on the other side, abandoned his body to the same danger as before, and follow's me still with blows; but I, being loath to take the deadly advantage that lay before me of his left side, made a kind of stramazoun, ran him up to the hilt through the doublet, through the shirt, and yet missed the skin. He, making a reverse blow, falls upon my embossed girdle,—I had thrown off the hangers a little before,—strikes off a skirt of a thick-laced satin doublet I had, lined with four taffetas, cuts off two panes embroidered with pearl, rends through the drawings-out of tissue, enters the linings, and skips the flesh.

Car. I wonder he speaks not of his wrought shirt.

Fast. Here, in the opinion of mutual damage, we paused. But, ere I proceed, I must tell you, signior, that in the last encounter, not having leisure to put off my silver spurs, one of the rowels catched hold of the ruffles of my boot, and, being Spanish leather and subject to tear, overthrows me, rends me two pair of silk stockings that I put on, being somewhat of a raw' morning, a peach colour and another, and strikes me some half-inch deep into the side of the calf: he, seeing the blood come, presently takes horse and away; I having bound up my wound with a piece of my wrought shirt

Car. O, comes it in there?

Fast. Ride after him, and, lighting at the court-gate both together, embraced, and marched hand in hand up into the presence. Was not this business well carried?