Sir Thomas.

“Young man! dost thou understand Master Silas?”

William Shakspeare.

“But too well.  Not those couples in which it might be apprehended that your worship and my unworthiness should appear too close together; but those sorrowfuller which peradventure might unite Master Silas and me in our road to Warwick and upwards.  But I resign all right and title unto these as willingly as I did unto the other, and am as ready to let him go alone.”

Sir Silas.

“If we keep wheeling and wheeling, like a flock of pigeons, and rising again when we are within a foot of the ground, we shall never fill the craw.”

Sir Thomas.

“Do thou then question him, Silas.”

Sir Silas.

“I am none of the quorum; the business is none of mine.”

Then Sir Thomas took Master Silas again into the bay window, and said softly, —

“Silas, he hath no inkling of thy meaning.  The business is a ticklish one.  I like not overmuch to meddle and make therein.”

Master Silas stood dissatisfied awhile, and then answered, —

“The girl’s mother, sir, was housemaid and sempstress in your own family, time back, and you thereby have a right over her unto the third and fourth generation.”

“I may have, Silas,” said his worship, “but it was no longer than four or five years agone that folks were fain to speak maliciously of me for only finding my horse in her hovel.”

Sir Silas looked red and shiny as a ripe strawberry on a Snitterfield tile, and answered somewhat peevishly, —

“The same folks, I misgive me, may find the rogue’s there any night in the week.”

Whereunto replied Sir Thomas, mortifiedly,

“I cannot think it, Silas!  I cannot think it.”

And after some hesitation and disquiet, —

“Nay, I am resolved I will not think it; no man, friend or enemy, shall push it into me.”

“Worshipful sir,” answered Master Silas, “I am as resolute as any one in what I would think and what I would not think, and never was known to fight dunghill in either cockpit.

“Were he only out of the way, she might do duty, but what doth she now?

“She points his young beard for him; persuading him it grows thicker and thicker, blacker and blacker; she washes his ruff, stiffens it, plaits it, tries it upon his neck, removes the hair from under it, pinches it with thumb and fore-finger, pretending that he hath moiled it, puts her hand all the way round it, setting it to rights, as she calleth it —

“Ah, Sir Thomas! a louder whistle than that will never call her back again when she is off with him.”

Sir Thomas was angered, and cried tartly, —

“Who whistled?  I would know.”

Master Silas said submissively, —