The press was of consequence great around the entrance, and persons
of all kinds presented every sort of plea for admittance; to which the
guards turned an inexorable ear, pleading, in return to fair words,
and even to fair offers, the strictness of their orders, founded on the
Queen's well-known dislike to the rude pressing of a multitude. With
those whom such reasons did not serve they dealt more rudely, repelling
them without ceremony by the pressure of their powerful, barbed horses,
and good round blows from the stock of their carabines. These last
manoeuvres produced undulations amongst the crowd, which rendered
Wayland much afraid that he might perforce be separated from his charge
in the throng. Neither did he know what excuse to make in order to
obtain admittance, and he was debating the matter in his head with great
uncertainty, when the Earl's pursuivant, having cast an eye upon him,
exclaimed, to his no small surprise, "Yeomen, make room for the fellow
in the orange-tawny cloak.--Come forward, Sir Coxcomb, and make haste.
What, in the fiend's name, has kept you waiting? Come forward with your
bale of woman's gear."
While the pursuivant gave Wayland this pressing yet uncourteous
invitation, which, for a minute or two, he could not imagine was applied
to him, the yeomen speedily made a free passage for him, while, only
cautioning his companion to keep the muffler close around her face, he
entered the gate leading her palfrey, but with such a drooping crest,
and such a look of conscious fear and anxiety, that the crowd, not
greatly pleased at any rate with the preference bestowed upon them,
accompanied their admission with hooting and a loud laugh of derision.
Admitted thus within the chase, though with no very flattering notice
or distinction, Wayland and his charge rode forward, musing what
difficulties it would be next their lot to encounter, through the
broad avenue, which was sentinelled on either side by a long line of
retainers, armed with swords, and partisans richly dressed in the Earl
of Leicester's liveries, and bearing his cognizance of the Bear and
Ragged Staff, each placed within three paces of each other, so as to
line the whole road from the entrance into the park to the bridge. And,
indeed, when the lady obtained the first commanding view of the Castle,
with its stately towers rising from within a long, sweeping line of
outward walls, ornamented with battlements and turrets and platforms at
every point of defence, with many a banner streaming from its walls, and
such a bustle of gay crests and waving plumes disposed on the terraces
and battlements, and all the gay and gorgeous scene, her heart,
unaccustomed to such splendour, sank as if it died within her, and for a
moment she asked herself what she had offered up to Leicester to deserve
to become the partner of this princely splendour. But her pride and
generous spirit resisted the whisper which bade her despair.