d acquaintances in the town, and the bursts of
laughter with which each answer was received. Giles Gosling himself
was somewhat scandalized at the obstreperous nature of their mirth,
especially as he involuntarily felt some respect for his unknown guest.
He paused, therefore, at some distance from the table occupied by these
noisy revellers, and began to make a sort of apology for their license.

"You would think," he said, "to hear these fellows talk, that there was
not one of them who had not been bred to live by Stand and Deliver; and
yet tomorrow you will find them a set of as painstaking mechanics, and
so forth, as ever cut an inch short of measure, or paid a letter of
change in light crowns over a counter. The mercer there wears his hat
awry, over a shaggy head of hair, that looks like a curly water-dog's
back, goes unbraced, wears his cloak on one side, and affects a
ruffianly vapouring humour: when in his shop at Abingdon, he is, from
his flat cap to his glistening shoes, as precise in his apparel as if he
was named for mayor. He talks of breaking parks, and taking the highway,
in such fashion that you would think he haunted every night betwixt
Hounslow and London; when in fact he may be found sound asleep on his
feather-bed, with a candle placed beside him on one side, and a Bible on
the other, to fright away the goblins."

"And your nephew, mine host, this same Michael Lambourne, who is lord of
the feast--is he, too, such a would-be ruffler as the rest of them?"

"Why, there you push me hard," said the host; "my nephew is my nephew,
and though he was a desperate Dick of yore, yet Mike may have mended
like other folks, you wot. And I would not have you think all I said
of him, even now, was strict gospel; I knew the wag all the while, and
wished to pluck his plumes from him. And now, sir, by what name shall I
present my worshipful guest to these gallants?"

"Marry, mine host," replied the stranger, "you may call me Tressilian."

"Tressilian?" answered mine host of the Bear. "A worthy name, and, as I
think, of Cornish lineage; for what says the south proverb--

'By Pol, Tre, and Pen,
You may know the Cornish men.'

Shall I say the worthy Master Tressilian of Cornwall?"

"Say no more than I have given you warrant for, mine host, and so shall
you be sure you speak no more than is true. A man may have one of those
honourable prefixes to his name, yet be born far from Saint Michael's
Mount."

M