Page:Waverley Novels, vol. 22 (1831).djvu/150

 outright, you were best not thwart my courses, lest you are called to an old reckoning on a new score. ‘Thou shalt be master,’ did he say?—By my faith, he may find that he spoke truer than he is aware of—And thus he, who, in the estimation of so many wise-judging men, can match Burleigh and Walsingham in policy, and Sussex in war, becomes pupil to his own menial; and all for a hazel eye and a little cunning red and white, and so falls ambition. And yet if the charms of mortal woman could excuse a man’s politic pate for becoming bewildered, my lord had the excuse at his right hand on this blessed evening that has last passed over us. Well—let things roll as they may, he shall make me great, or I will make myself happy; and for that softer piece of creation, if she speak not out her interview with Tressilian, as well I think she dare not, she also must traffic with me for concealment and mutual support in spite of all this scorn—I must to the stables.—Well, my lord, I order your retinue now; the time may soon come that my master of the horse shall order mine own.—What was Thomas Cromwell but a smith’s son, and he died my lord—on a scaffold, doubtless, but that, too, was in character—And what was Ralph Sadler but the clerk of Cromwell, and he has gazed eighteen fair lordships,—via! I know my steerage as well as they.”

So saying, he left the apartment.

In the meanwhile the Earl had re-entered the bedchamber, bent on taking a hasty farewell of the lovely Countess, and scarce daring to trust himself