Kings & rulers > Kenilworth > Volume 1

ItENIL WOR Tff.
friend for the hangman and his customers,” re¬
plied Foster, “hastthou the assurance to expect
countenance from any one whose neck is beyond
the compass of a Tyburn tippet ?”
“ It may be with me as you say,” replied Lam-
bourne ; “ and suppose I grant it to be so for ar¬
gument’s sake, I were still good enough society
for mine ancient friend Anthony Fire-the-Faggot,
though he be, for the present, by some indescri¬
bable title, the master of Cumnor-Place.”
“ Hark you, Michael Lambourne,” said Fos¬
ter; “you are a gambler now, and live by the
counting of chances—Compute me the odds that
I do not, on this instant, throw you out of that
window into the ditch there.”
“ Twenty to one that you do not,” answered
the sturdy visitor.
“ And wherefore, I pray you ?” demanded An¬
thony Foster, setting his teeth and compressing
his lips, like one who endeavours to suppress some
violent internal emotion.
“ Because,” said Lambourne, coolly, “ you dare
not for your life lay a finger on me. I am younger
and stronger than you, and have in me a double
portion of the fighting devil, though not, it may
be, quite so much of the undermining fiend, that
finds an under-ground way to his purpose—who
hides halters under folk’s pillows, and who puts
ratsbane into their porridge, as the stage-play
says.”
Foster looked at him earnestly, then turned
away and paced the room twice, with the same
steady and considerate pace with which he had
entered it; then suddenly came back and extend¬
ed his hand to Michael Lambourne, saying, “ Be
not wroth with me, good Mike; I did but try
whether thou hadst parted with aught of thine