"
"Fy for shame, Adam Woodcock," replied the youth, determined to turn
the tables on him, and become in turn the counsellor of good order and
peaceable demeanour--"I say, fy for shame!--Alas, that you will speak
thus! Here are you sent with me, to prevent my innocent youth getting
into snares----"
"I wish your innocent youth were cut short with a halter, with all my
heart," said Adam, who began to see which way the admonition tended.
--"And instead of setting before me," continued Roland, "an example of
patience and sobriety becoming the falconer of Sir Halbert
Glendinning, you quaff me off I know not how many flagons of ale,
besides a gallon of wine, and a full measure of strong waters."
"It was but one small pottle," said poor Adam, whom consciousness of
his own indiscretion now reduced to a merely defensive warfare.
"It was enough to pottle you handsomely, however," said the page--"And
then, instead of going to bed to sleep off your liquor, must you sit
singing your roistering songs about popes and pagans, till you have
got your eyes almost switched out of your head; and but for my
interference, whom your drunken ingratitude accuses of deserting you,
yon galliard would have cut your throat, for he was whipping out a
whinger as broad as my hand, and as sharp as a razor--And these are
lessons for an inexperienced youth!--Oh, Adam! out upon you! out upon
you!"
"Marry, amen, and with all my heart," said Adam; "out upon my folly
for expecting any thing but impertinent raillery from a page like
thee, that if he saw his father in a scrape, would laugh at him,
instead of lending him aid.
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