"Is he?" said Goldthred.

"Is he?" replied the host; "ay, by cock and pie is he--the very pedlar
he who raddled Robin Hood so tightly, as the song says,--

'Now Robin Hood drew his sword so good,
The pedlar drew his brand,
And he hath raddled him, Robin Hood,
Till he neither could see nor stand.'"

"Hang him, foul scroyle, let him pass," said the mercer; "if he be such
a one, there were small worship to be won upon him.--And now tell me,
Mike--my honest Mike, how wears the Hollands you won of me?"

"Why, well, as you may see, Master Goldthred," answered Mike; "I will
bestow a pot on thee for the handsel.--Fill the flagon, Master Tapster."

"Thou wilt win no more Hollands, think, on such wager, friend Mike,"
said the mercer; "for the sulky swain, Tony Foster, rails at thee all to
nought, and swears you shall ne'er darken his doors again, for that your
oaths are enough to blow the roof off a Christian man's dwelling."

"Doth he say so, the mincing, hypocritical miser?" vociferated
Lambourne. "Why, then, he shall come down and receive my commands here,
this blessed night, under my uncle's roof! And I will ring him such a
black sanctus, that he shall think the devil hath him by the skirts for
a month to come, for barely hearing me."

"Nay, now the pottle-pot is uppermost, with a witness!" said the mercer.
"Tony Foster obey thy whistle! Alas! good Mike, go sleep--go sleep."

"I tell thee what, thou thin-faced gull," said Michael Lambourne, in
high chafe, "I will wager thee fifty angels against the first five
shelves of thy shop, numbering upward from the false light, with all
that is on them, that I make Tony Foster come down to this public-house
before we have finished three rounds."

"I will lay no bet to that amount," said the mercer, something
sobered by an offer which intimated rather too private a knowledge on
Lambourne's part of the secret recesses of his shop. "I will lay no such
wager," he said; "but I will stake five angels against thy five, if thou
wilt, that Tony Foster will not leave his own roof, or come to ale-house
after prayer time, for thee, or any man."

"Content," said Lambourne.--"Here, uncle, hold stakes, and let one
of your young bleed-barrels there--one of your infant tapsters--trip
presently up to The Place, and give this letter to Master Foster, and
say that I, his ingle, Michael Lambourne, pray to speak with him at mine
uncle's castle here, upon business of grave