On Tressilian's arrival at Sayes Court, he found the place filled with
the retainers of the Earl of Sussex, and of the gentlemen who came to
attend their patron in his illness. Arms were in every hand, and a deep
gloom on every countenance, as if they had apprehended an immediate
and violent assault from the opposite faction. In the hall, however,
to which Tressilian was ushered by one of the Earl's attendants,
while another went to inform Sussex of his arrival, he found only two
gentlemen in waiting. There was a remarkable contrast in their dress,
appearance, and manners. The attire of the elder gentleman, a person
as it seemed of quality and in the prime of life, was very plain and
soldierlike, his stature low, his limbs stout, his bearing ungraceful,
and his features of that kind which express sound common sense, without
a grain of vivacity or imagination. The younger, who seemed about
twenty, or upwards, was clad in the gayest habit used by persons of
quality at the period, wearing a crimson velvet cloak richly ornamented
with lace and embroidery, with a bonnet of the same, encircled with a
gold chain turned three times round it, and secured by a medal. His hair
was adjusted very nearly like that of some fine gentlemen of our own
time--that is, it was combed upwards, and made to stand as it were on
end; and in his ears he wore a pair of silver earrings, having each a
pearl of considerable size. The countenance of this youth, besides being
regularly handsome and accompanied by a fine person, was animated and
striking in a degree that seemed to speak at once the firmness of
a decided and the fire of an enterprising character, the power of
reflection, and the promptitude of determination.
Both these gentlemen reclined nearly in the same posture on benches
near each other; but each seeming engaged in his own meditations, looked
straight upon the wall which was opposite to them, without speaking to
his companion. The looks of the elder were of that sort which convinced
the beholder that, in looking on the wall, he saw no more than the side
of an old hall hung around with cloaks, antlers, bucklers, old pieces
of armour, partisans, and the similar articles which were usually the
furniture of such a place. The look of the younger gallant had in it
something imaginative; he was sunk in reverie, and it seemed as if the
empty space of air betwixt him and the wall were the stage of a theatre
on which his fancy was mustering his own DRAMATIS PERSONAE, and treating
him with sights far different from those which his awakened and earthly
vision could have offered.