Page:Waverley Novels, vol. 22 (1831).djvu/35

 ill of him lately. Many a wild colt has turned out a noble steed.—His name, I pray you?”

“Michael Lambourne,” answered the landlord of the Black Bear; “a son of my sister’s—there is little pleasure in recollecting either the name or the connexion.”

“Michael Lambourne!” said the stranger, as if endeavouring to recollect himself—“what, no relation to Michael Lambourne, the gallant cavalier who behaved so bravely at the siege of Venlo, that Grave Maurice thanked him at the head of the army? Men said he was an English cavalier, and of no high extraction.”

“It could scarcely be my nephew,” said Giles Gosling, “for he had not the courage of a hen-partridge for aught but mischief.”

“O, many a man finds courage in the wars,” replied the stranger.

“It may be,” said the landlord; “but I would have thought our Mike more likely to lose the little he had.”

“The Michael Lambourne whom I knew,” continued the traveller, “was a likely fellow—went always gay and well attired, and had a hawk’s eye after a pretty wench.”

“Our Michael,” replied the host, “had the look of a dog with a bottle at its tail, and wore a coat, every rag of which was bidding good-day to the rest.”

“O, men pick up good apparel in the wars,” replied the guest.

“Our Mike,” answered the landlord, “was more