KENILWORTH - Penn State University

Sir Walter Scott“I would gladly pay your halves of the risk, sir,” saidTressilian, “to be permitted to accompany you on the adventure.”“In what would that advantage you, sir?” answeredLambourne.“In nothing, sir,” said Tressilian, “unless to mark the skilland valour with which you conduct yourself. I am a travellerwho seeks for strange rencounters and uncommon passages,as the knights of yore did after adventures and feats of arms.”“Nay, if it pleasures you to see a trout tickled,” answeredLambourne, “I care not how many witness my skill. And sohere I drink success to my enterprise; and he that will notpledge me on his knees is a rascal, and I will cut his legs off bythe garters!”The draught which Michael Lambourne took upon thisoccasion had been preceded by so many others, that reasontottered on her throne. He swore one or two incoherent oathsat the mercer, who refused, reasonably enough, to pledge himto a sentiment which inferred the loss of his own wager.“Wilt thou chop logic with me,” said Lambourne, “thouknave, with no more brains than are in a skein of ravelledsilk? By Heaven, I will cut thee into fifty yards of galloonlace!”But as he attempted to draw his sword for this doughtypurpose, Michael Lambourne was seized upon by the tapsterand the chamberlain, and conveyed to his own apartment,there to sleep himself sober at his leisure.The party then broke up, and the guests took their leave;much more to the contentment of mine host than of someof the company, who were unwilling to quit good liquor,when it was to be had for free cost, so long as they were ableto sit by it. They were, however, compelled to remove; andgo at length they did, leaving Gosling and Tressilian in theempty apartment.“By my faith,” said the former, “I wonder where our greatfolks find pleasure, when they spend their means in entertainments,and in playing mine host without sending in a reckoning.It is what I but rarely practise; and whenever I do, bySaint Julian, it grieves me beyond measure. Each of theseempty stoups now, which my nephew and his drunken comradeshave swilled off, should have been a matter of profit toone in my line, and I must set them down a dead loss. I can-29