bankrupt am I, at this moment, of friends and advice, that I will willingly make a counsellor of thee, and tell thee the whole history, the rather that I have a favour to ask when my tale is ended.”
“Good Master Tressilian,” said the landlord, “I am but a poor innkeeper, little able to adjust or counsel such a guest as yourself. But as sure as I have risen decently above the world, by giving good measure and reasonable charges, I am an honest man; and as such, if I may not be able to assist you, I am, at least, not capable to abuse your confidence. Say away therefore, as confidently as if you spoke to your father; and thus far at least be certain, that my curiosity, for I will not deny that which belongs to my calling, is joined to a reasonable degree of discretion.”
“I doubt it not, mine host,” answered Tressilian; and while his auditor remained in anxious expectation, he meditated for an instant how he should commence his narrative. “My tale,” he at length said, “to be quite intelligible, must begin at some distance back.—You have heard of the battle of Stoke, my good host, and perhaps of old Sir Roger Robsart, who, in that battle, valiantly took part with Henry VII., the Queen’s grandfather, and routed the Earl of Lincoln, Lord Geraldin and his wild Irish, and the Flemings whom the Duchess of Burgundy had sent over, in the quarrel of Lambert Simnel?”
“I remember both one and the other,” said Giles Gosling, “it is sung of a dozen times a-week on my ale-bench below.—Sir Roger Robsart of Devon—
