There are stout yeomen and
chamber-queans in the house, enow to play the part of Lick-it-up-a',
as well as the threescore and ten priests of Bel, besides their wives
and children."
"And she is never seen in the family but when the hour of prayer
arrives?" said the master.
"Never, that I hear of," replied the servant.
"It is singular," said Nigel Olifaunt, musing. "Were it not for the
ornaments which she wears, and still more for her attendance upon the
service of the Protestant Church, I should know what to think, and
should believe her either a Catholic votaress, who, for some cogent
reason, was allowed to make her cell here in London, or some unhappy
Popish devotee, who was in the course of undergoing a dreadful
penance. As it is, I know not what to deem of it."
His reverie was interrupted by the linkboy knocking at the door of
honest John Christie, whose wife came forth with "quips, and becks,
and wreathed smiles," to welcome her honoured guest on his return to
his apartment.
CHAPTER VIII
Ay! mark the matron well--and laugh not, Harry,
At her old steeple-hat and velvet guard--
I've call'd her like the ear of Dionysius;
I mean that ear-form'd vault, built o'er his dungeon,
To catch the groans and discontented murmurs
Of his poor bondsmen--Even so doth Martha
Drink up, for her own purpose, all that passes,
Or is supposed to pass, in this wide city--
She can retail it too, if that her profit
Shall call on her to do so; and retail it
For your advantage, so that you can make
Your profit jump with hers.
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