"My Lord Abbot of Furness, Sir Thomas, what news of him? Hath he yet signified his adherence to our cause? We hope you bring tidings of such auspicious import." "He doth yet procrastinate, I hear, until he have news from the court," replied Sir Thomas; "yet I trust his want of zeal and obedience will not hinder our march." "And the proud nobles of Lancashire, how stand they affected towards our good prospering?" "Truly, they are, as one may say, neither cold nor hot; but of a moderate temperature, midway, it would seem"---- "Which is an indication of neither zeal nor obedience," said Swartz, suddenly cutting short the tedious verbosity of Sir Thomas's intended harangue. "Open enemies before lukewarm friends!" "Prithee, general," said the priest, with a placid smile, during which his eyes seemed to shrink within their dim sockets, "be not over-hasty. We cannot reasonably hope that they should flock to our standard almost ere we unfurl it for their gathering." "Your speech hath a reasonable property in it," replied Sir Thomas, "and, as we may say, savoureth of great judgment, which, being of an excellent nature in itself, doth thereby control and exercise, in its own capacity, the nature and excellence of all others." This formidable issue of words was delivered with much earnestness of enunciation; but of its use or meaning, probably, the speaker was fully as ignorant as his hearers. Even at the fountain-head his ideas were sufficiently obscure, but when fairly rolling forth from the spring, they sometimes begat such a froth and turbidity in their course, that no reasonable discernment could fathom their depth or bearing. A short silence was the result, which none, for a while, cared to disturb, lest he should betray his lack of understanding in dark sentences. "We know your loyalty," said the king, "which hath a sufficient impress on it to pass current without scrutiny. Your example, Sir Thomas, will be of competent weight, without the casting or imposition of vain words into the scale. We acknowledge your ready zeal in our just cause." "Your highness' grace, my liege," said Lincoln, ere Sir Thomas could gather words for a fitting reply, "doth honey your confections well. Men swallow them without wincing or wry faces." Sir Thomas would not thus be deprived of his right to a reply; and was just commencing with a suitable attitude for the purpose, when lo! the trenchant knight, who sat on a small stool beside the corner buttress, with a loud cry, suddenly disappeared, and a gaping cavity in the floor sufficiently accounted for the precipitate mode of his departure. Uprising on the ruins of Sir Thomas, started forth a grotesque figure from the chasm, clad in coarse attire, a ludicrous solemnity on his strange and uncouth visage, as, with a shrill and squeaking tone, he cried--