Page:Waverley Novels, vol. 22 (1831).djvu/102

 gaze at the sun, ere he soars on strong wing to meet it.”

“If holding her head aloft,” said Foster, “will keep her eyes from 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 know’st 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 talk’st 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