My most reverend Signior of the Low Countries of Kenilworth, know that our most notable master, Richard Varney, would give as much to have a hole in this same Tressilian's coat, as would make us some fifty midnight carousals, with the full leave of bidding the steward go snick up, if he came to startle us too soon from our goblets." "Nay, an that be the case, thou hast right," said Lawrence Staples, the upper-warder, or, in common phrase, the first jailer, of Kenilworth Castle, and of the Liberty and Honour belonging thereto.

"But how will you manage when you are absent at the Queen's entrance, Master Lambourne; for methinks thou must attend thy master there ?" "Why thou, mine honest prince of prisons, must keep ward in my absence.
Let Tressilian enter if he will, but see thou let no one come out.

If the damsel herself would make a break, as 'tis not unlike she may, scare her back with rough words; she is but a paltry player's wench after all." "Nay for that matter," said Lawrence, "I might shut the iron wicket upon her that stands without the double door, and so force per force she will be bound to her answer without more trouble." "Then Tressilian will not get access to her," said Lambourne, reflecting a moment.

"But 'tis no matter; she will be detected in his chamber, and that is all one.

But confess, thou old bat's-eyed dungeon-keeper, that you fear to keep awake by yourself in that Mervyn's Tower of thine ?" "Why, as to fear, Master Lambourne," said the fellow, "I mind it not the turning of a key; but strange things have been heard and seen in that tower.