The youth, hearing these words, said unto him, —

“I fear, Master Silas, gentry like you often pray God to grant what he would rather not; and now and then what you would rather not.”

Sir Silas was wroth at this rudeness of speech about God in the face of a preacher, and said, reprovingly, —

“Out upon thy foul mouth, knave! upon which lie slaughter and venison.”

Whereupon did William Shakspeare sit mute awhile, and discomfited; then turning toward Sir Thomas, and looking and speaking as one submiss and contrite, he thus appealed unto him:-

“Worshipful sir! were there any signs of venison on my mouth, Master Silas could not for his life cry out upon it, nor help kissing it as ’twere a wench’s.”

Sir Thomas looked upon him with most lordly gravity and wisdom, and said unto him, in a voice that might have come from the bench: 

“Youth, thou speakest irreverently;” and then unto Master Silas:  “Silas! to the business on hand.  Taste the fat upon yon boor’s table, which the constable hath brought hither, good Master Silas!  And declare upon oath, being sworn in my presence, first, whether said fat do proceed of venison; secondly, whether said venison be of buck or doe.”

Whereupon the reverend Sir Silas did go incontinently, and did bend forward his head, shoulders, and body, and did severally taste four white solid substances upon an oaken board; said board being about two yards long, and one yard four inches wide,—­found in, and brought thither from, the tenement or messuage of Andrew Haggit, who hath absconded.  Of these four white solid substances, two were somewhat larger than a groat, and thicker; one about the size of King Henry the Eighth’s shilling, when our late sovereign lord of blessed memory was toward the lustiest; and the other, that is to say the middlemost, did resemble in some sort, a mushroom, not over fresh, turned upward on its stalk.

“And what sayest thou, Master Silas?” quoth the knight.

In reply whereunto Sir Silas thus averred:-

“Venison! o’ my conscience! 
Buck! or burn me alive!

The three splashes in the circumference are verily and indeed venison; buck, moreover,—­and Charlecote buck, upon my oath!”

Then carefully tasting the protuberance in the centre, he spat it out, crying, —

“Pho! pho! villain! villain!” and shaking his fist at the culprit.

Whereat the said culprit smiled and winked, and said off-hand, —

“Save thy spittle, Silas!  It would supply a gaudy mess to the hungriest litter; but it would turn them from whelps into wolvets.  ’T is pity to throw the best of thee away.  Nothing comes out of thy mouth that is not savoury and solid, bating thy wit, thy sermons, and thy promises.”

It was my duty to write down the very words, irreverent as they are, being so commanded.  More of the like, it is to be feared, would have ensued, but that Sir Thomas did check him, saying, shrewdly, —