Kenilworth, Walter Scott [children's books read aloud txt] 📗

circumstances forced upon her; and if the council in their wisdom should be of opinion that it was needful to continue some restraint on the person of her unhappy sister of Scotland, she trusted they would not blame her if she requested of the Countess of Shrewsbury to use her with as much kindness as might be consistent with her safe keeping. And with this intimation of her pleasure the council was dismissed.

Never was more anxious and ready way made for “my Lord of Leicester,” than as he passed through the crowded anterooms to go towards the river-side, in order to attend her Majesty to her barge—never was the voice of the ushers louder, to “make room, make room for the noble Earl”—never were these signals more promptly and reverently obeyed—never were more anxious eyes turned on him to obtain a glance of favour, or even of mere recognition, while the heart of many a humble follower throbbed betwixt the desire to offer his congratulations, and the fear of intruding himself on the notice of one so infinitely above him. The whole court considered the issue of this day's audience, expected with so much doubt and anxiety, as a decisive triumph on the part of Leicester, and felt assured that the orb of his rival satellite, if not altogether obscured by his lustre, must revolve hereafter in a dimmer and more distant sphere. So thought the court and courtiers, from high to low; and they acted accordingly.

On the other hand, never did Leicester return the general greeting with such ready and condescending courtesy, or endeavour more successfully to gather (in the words of one who at that moment stood at no great distance from him) “golden opinions from all sorts of men.”

For all the favourite Earl had a bow a smile at least, and often a kind word. Most of these were addressed to courtiers, whose names have long gone down the tide of oblivion; but some, to such as sound strangely in our ears, when connected with the ordinary matters of human life, above which the gratitude of posterity has long elevated them. A few of Leicester's interlocutory sentences ran as follows:—

“Poynings, good morrow; and how does your wife and fair daughter? Why come they not to court?—Adams, your suit is naught; the Queen will grant no more monopolies. But I may serve you in another matter.—My good Alderman Aylford, the suit of the City, affecting Queenhithe, shall be forwarded as far as my poor interest can serve.—Master Edmund Spenser, touching your Irish petition, I would willingly aid you, from my love to the Muses; but thou hast nettled the Lord Treasurer.”

“My lord,” said the poet, “were I permitted to explain—”

“Come to my lodging, Edmund,” answered the Earl “not to-morrow, or next day, but soon.—Ha, Will Shakespeare—wild Will!—thou hast given my nephew Philip Sidney, love-powder; he cannot sleep without thy Venus and Adonis under his pillow! We will have thee hanged for the veriest wizard in Europe. Hark thee, mad wag, I have not forgotten thy matter of the patent, and of the bears.”

The PLAYER bowed, and the Earl nodded and passed on—so that age would have told the tale; in ours, perhaps, we might say the immortal had done homage to the mortal. The next whom the favourite accosted was one of his own zealous dependants.

“How now, Sir Francis Denning,” he whispered, in answer to his exulting salutation, “that smile hath made thy face shorter by one-third than when I first saw it this morning.—What, Master Bowyer, stand you back, and think you I bear malice? You did but your duty this morning; and if I remember aught of the passage betwixt us, it shall be in thy favour.”

Then the Earl was approached, with several fantastic congees, by a person quaintly dressed in a doublet of black velvet, curiously slashed and pinked with crimson satin. A long cock's feather in the velvet bonnet, which he held in his hand, and an enormous ruff; stiffened to the extremity of the absurd taste of the times, joined with a sharp, lively, conceited expression of countenance, seemed to body forth a vain, harebrained coxcomb, and small wit; while the rod he held, and an assumption of formal authority, appeared to express some sense of official consequence, which qualified the natural pertness of his manner. A perpetual blush, which occupied rather the sharp nose than the thin cheek of this personage, seemed to speak more of “good life,” as it was called, than of modesty; and the manner in which he approached to the Earl confirmed that suspicion.

“Good even to you, Master Robert Laneham,” said Leicester, and seemed desirous to pass forward, without further speech.

“I have a suit to your noble lordship,” said the figure, boldly following him.

“And what is it, good master keeper of the council-chamber door?”

“CLERK of the council-chamber door,” said Master Robert Laneham, with emphasis, by way of reply, and of correction.

“Well, qualify thine office as thou wilt, man,” replied the Earl; “what wouldst thou have with me?”

“Simply,” answered Laneham, “that your lordship would be, as heretofore, my good lord, and procure me license to attend the Summer Progress unto your lordship's most beautiful and all-to-be-unmatched Castle of Kenilworth.”

“To what purpose, good Master Laneham?” replied the Earl; “bethink you, my guests must needs be many.”

“Not so many,” replied the petitioner, “but that your nobleness will willingly spare your old servitor his crib and his mess. Bethink you, my lord, how necessary is this rod of mine to fright away all those listeners, who else would play at bo-peep with the honourable council, and be searching for keyholes and crannies in the door of the chamber, so as to render my staff as needful as a fly-flap in a butcher's shop.”

“Methinks you have found out a fly-blown comparison for the honourable council, Master Laneham,” said the Earl; “but seek not about to justify it. Come to Kenilworth, if you list; there will be store of fools there besides, and so you will be fitted.”

“Nay, an there be fools, my lord,” replied Laneham, with much glee, “I warrant I will make sport among them, for no greyhound loves to cote a hare as I to turn and course a fool. But I have another singular favour to beseech of your honour.”

“Speak it, and let me go,” said the Earl; “I think the Queen comes forth instantly.”

“My very good lord, I would fain bring a bed-fellow with me.”

“How, you irreverent rascal!” said Leicester.

“Nay, my lord, my meaning is within the canons,” answered his unblushing, or rather his ever-blushing petitioner. “I have a wife as curious as her grandmother who ate the apple. Now, take her with me I may not, her Highness's orders being so strict against the officers bringing with them their wives in a progress, and so lumbering the court with womankind. But what I would crave of your lordship is to find room for her in some mummery, or pretty pageant, in disguise, as it were; so that, not being known for my wife, there may be no offence.”

“The foul fiend seize ye both!” said Leicester, stung into uncontrollable passion by the recollections which this speech excited—“why stop you me with such follies?”