Page:Waverley Novels, vol. 22 (1831).djvu/108

 and followed by such open debauchers and ruffianly swordsmen as Tidesly, Killigrew, this fellow Lambourne, whom you have put me to seek out for you, and other such, who bear the gallows in their face and murder in their right hand—who are a terror to peaceable men, and a scandal to my lord’s service?”

“Oh, content you, good Master Anthony Foster,” answered Varney; “he that flies at all manner of game must keep all kinds of hawks, both short and long-winged. The course my lord holds is no easy one, and he must stand provided at all points with trusty retainers to meet each sort of service. He must have his gay courtier, like myself, to ruffle it in the presence-chamber, and to lay hand on hilt when any speaks in disparagement of my lord’s honour”—

“Ay,” said Foster, “and to whisper a word for him into a fair lady’s ear, when he may not approach her himself.”

“Then,” said Varney, going on without appearing to notice the interruption, “he must have his lawyers—deep subtle pioneers—to draw his contracts, his pre-contracts, and his post-contracts, and to find the way to make the most of grants of churchlands, and commons, and licenses for monopoly—And he must have physicians who can spice a cup or a caudle—And he must have his cabalists, like Dee and Allan, for conjuring up the devil—And he must have ruffling swordsmen, who would fight the devil when he is raised and at the wildest—And above all, without prejudice to others, he must have such godly, innocent, puritanic souls as thou, honest