Page:Waverley Novels, vol. 22 (1831).djvu/39

 whatever in reason you list to call for. But I would I knew that that purse of thine, which thou vapourest of, were as well come by as it seems well filled.”

“Here is an infidel for you, my good neighbours!” said Lambourne, again appealing to the audience. “Here’s a fellow will rip up his kinsman’s follies of a good score of years standing—And for the gold, why, sirs, I have been where it grew, and was to be had for the gathering. In the New World have I been, man—in the Eldorado, where urchins play at cherry-pit with diamonds, and country wenches thread rubies for necklaces, instead of rowan-tree berries; where the pantiles are made of pure gold, and the paving-stones of virgin silver.”

“By my credit, friend Mike,” said young Laurence Goldthred, the cutting mercer of Abingdon, “that were a likely coast to trade to. And what may lawns, cypruses, and ribands fetch, where gold is so plenty?”

“O, the profit were unutterable,” replied Lambourne, “especially when a handsome young merchant bears the pack himself; for the ladies of that clime are bona-robas, and being themselves somewhat sunburnt, they catch fire like tinder at a fresh complexion like thine, with a head of hair inclining to be red.”

“I would I might trade thither,” said the mercer, chuckling.

“Why, and so thou mayst,” said Michael; “that is, if thou art the same brisk boy who was partner with me at robbing the Abbot’s orchard—’tis but a little touch of alchymy to decoct thy house and land