"
"Under that condition, and coming from your friendly hand, I accept of
the sword," said Roland, taking it from his hand; "but credit me, if
we are to work together in any weighty emprise, as I am induced to
believe, some confidence and openness on your part will be necessary
to give the right impulse to my zeal--I press for no more at present,
it is enough that you understand me."
"I understand you!" said the page, exhibiting the appearance of
unfeigned surprise in his turn,--"Renounce me if I do!--here you stand
jiggeting, and sniggling, and looking cunning, as if there were some
mighty matter of intrigue and common understanding betwixt you and me,
whom you never set your eyes on before!"
"What!" said Roland Graeme, "will you deny that we have met before?"
"Marry that I will, in any Christian court," said the other page.
"And will you also deny," said Roland, "that it was recommended to us
to study each other's features well, that in whatever disguise the
time might impose upon us, each should recognize in the other the
secret agent of a mighty work? Do not you remember, that Sister
Magdalen and Dame Bridget----"
The messenger here interrupted him, shrugging up his shoulders, with a
look of compassion, "Bridget and Magdalen! why, this is madness and
dreaming! Hark ye, Master Holly-top, your wits are gone on
wool-gathering; comfort yourself with a caudle, and thatch your
brain-sick noddle with a woollen night-cap, and so God be with you!"
As he concluded this polite parting address, Adam Woodcock, who was
again seated by the table on which stood the now empty can, said to
him, "Will you drink a cup, young man, in the way of courtesy, now you
have done your errand, and listen to a good song?" and without waiting
for an answer, he commenced his ditty,--
"The Pope, that pagan full of pride,
Hath blinded us full lang--"
It is probable that the good wine had made some innovation in the
falconer's brain, otherwise he would have recollected the danger of
introducing any thing like political or polemical pleasantry into a
public assemblage at a time when men's minds were in a state of great
irritability.
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