It is unnatural that a poet should pay for his own pot of beer;
I will drink his tester for him, to save him from such shame; and when
his third night comes round, he shall have penniworths for his coin, I
promise you.--But here comes another-guess customer. Look at that
strange fellow--see how he gapes at every shop, as if he would swallow
the wares.--O! Saint Dunstan has caught his eye; pray God he swallow
not the images. See how he stands astonished, as old Adam and Eve ply
their ding-dong! Come, Frank, thou art a scholar; construe me that
same fellow, with his blue cap with a cock's feather in it, to show
he's of gentle blood, God wot--his grey eyes, his yellow hair, his
sword with a ton of iron in the handle--his grey thread-bare cloak--
his step like a Frenchman--his look like a Spaniard--a book at his
girdle, and a broad dudgeon-dagger on the other side, to show him
half-pedant, half-bully. How call you that pageant, Frank?"
"A raw Scotsman," said Tunstall; "just come up, I suppose, to help the
rest of his countrymen to gnaw old England's bones; a palmerworm, I
reckon, to devour what the locust has spared."
"Even so, Frank," answered Vincent; "just as the poet sings sweetly,--
'In Scotland he was born and bred,
And, though a beggar, must be fed.'"
"Hush!" said Tunstall, "remember our master."
"Pshaw!" answered his mercurial companion; "he knows on which side his
bread is buttered, and I warrant you has not lived so long among
Englishmen, and by Englishmen, to quarrel with us for bearing an
English mind.
Pages:
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64