stock, from which the present natives, the happy subjects of that angelical Princess, derived their lineage.
In obedience to this mandate, the bands, each moving to solemn music, passed in succession before Elizabeth, doing her, as they passed, each after the fashion of the people whom they represented, the lowest and most devotional homage, which she returned with the same gracious courtesy that had marked her whole conduct since she came to Kenilworth.
The presenters of the several masques or quadrilles then alleged, each in behalf of his own troop, the reasons which they had for claiming pre-eminence over the rest; and when they had been all heard in turn, she returned them this gracious answer: 'That she was sorry she was not better qualified to decide upon the doubtful question which had been propounded to her by the direction of the famous Merlin, but that it seemed to her that no single one of these celebrated nations could claim pre-eminence over the others, as having most contributed to form the Englishman of her own time, who unquestionably derived from each of them some worthy attribute of his character. Thus,' she said, 'the Englishman had from the ancient Briton his bold and tameless spirit of freedom; from the Roman his disciplined courage in war, with his love of letters and civilization in time of peace; from the Saxon his wise and equitable laws; and from the chivalrous Norman his love of honour and courtesy, with his generous desire for glory.'
Merlin answered with readiness that it did indeed require that so many choice qualities should meet in the English, as might render them in some measure the muster of the perfections of other nations, since that alone could render them in some degree deserving of the blessings they enjoyed under the reign of England's Elizabeth.
The music then sounded, and the quadrilles, together with Merlin and his assistants, had begun to remove from the crowded hall, when Leicester, who was, as we have mentioned, stationed for the moment near the bottom of the hall, and consequently engaged in some degree in the crowd, felt himself pulled by the cloak, while a voice whispered in his ear, 'My Lord, I do desire some instant conference with you.'
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
How is't with me, when every noise appals me?
'I desire some conference with you.' The words were simple in themselves, but Lord Leicester was in that alarmed and feverish state of mind when the most ordinary occurrences seem fraught with alarming import; and he turned hastily round to survey the person by whom they had been spoken. There was nothing remarkable in the speaker's appearance, which consisted of a black silk doublet and short mantle, with a black vizard on his face; for it appeared he had been among the crowd of masks who had thronged into the hall in the retinue of Merlin, though he did not wear any of the extravagant disguises by which most of them were distinguished.
'Who are you, or what do you want with me?' said Leicester, not without betraying, by his accents, the hurried state of his spirits.
'No evil, my lord,' answered the mask, 'but much good and honour, if you will rightly understand my purpose. But I must speak with you more privately.'
'I can speak with no nameless stranger,' answered Leicester, dreading he knew not precisely what from the request of the stranger; 'and those who are known to me must seek another and a fitter time to ask an interview.'
He would have hurried away, but the mask still detained him.
'Those who talk to your lordship of what your own honour demands have a right over your time, whatever occupations you may lay aside in order to indulge them.'
'How! my honour? Who dare impeach it?' said Leicester.
'Your own conduct alone can furnish grounds for accusing it, my lord, and it is that topic on which I would speak with you.'
'You are insolent,' said Leicester, 'and abuse the hospitable license of the time, which prevents me from having you punished. I demand your name!'
'Edmund Tressilian of Cornwall,' answered the mask. 'My tongue has been bound by a promise for four- and-twenty hours. The space is passed,—I now speak, and do your lordship the justice to address myself first to you.'
The thrill of astonishment which had penetrated to Leicester's very heart at hearing that name pronounced by the voice of the man he most detested, and by whom he conceived himself so deeply injured, at first rendered him immovable, but instantly gave way to such a thirst for revenge as the pilgrim in the desert feels for the water-brooks. He had but sense and self-government enough left to prevent his stabbing to the heart the audacious villain, who, after the ruin he had brought upon him, dared, with such unmoved assurance, thus to practise upon him further. Determined to suppress for the moment every symptom of agitation, in order to perceive the full scope of Tressilian's purpose, as well as to secure his own vengeance, he answered in a tone so altered by restrained passion as scarce to be intelligible, 'And what does Master Edmund Tressilian require at my hand?'
'Justice, my lord,' answered Tressilian, calmly but firmly.
'Justice,' said Leicester, 'all men are entitled to. YOU, Master Tressilian, are peculiarly so, and be assured you shall have it.'
'I expect nothing less from your nobleness,' answered Tressilian; 'but time presses, and I must speak with you to-night. May I wait on you in your chamber?'
'No,' answered Leicester sternly, 'not under a roof, and that roof mine own. We will meet under the free cope of heaven.'
'You are discomposed or displeased, my lord,' replied Tressilian; 'yet there is no occasion for distemperature. The place is equal to me, so you allow me one half-hour of your time uninterrupted.'
'A shorter time will, I trust, suffice,' answered Leicester. 'Meet me in the Pleasance when the Queen has retired to her chamber.'
'Enough,' said Tressilian, and withdrew; while a sort of rapture seemed for the moment to occupy the mind of Leicester.
'Heaven,' he said, 'is at last favourable to me, and has put within my reach the wretch who has branded me with this deep ignominy—who has inflicted on me this cruel agony. I will blame fate no more, since I am afforded the means of tracing the wiles by which he means still further to practise on me, and then of at once convicting and punishing his villainy. To my task—to my task! I will not sink under it now, since midnight, at farthest, will bring me vengeance.'
While these reflections thronged through Leicester's mind, he again made his way amid the obsequious crowd, which divided to give him passage, and resumed his place, envied and admired, beside the person of his Sovereign. But could the bosom of him thus admired and envied have been laid open before the inhabitants of that crowded hall, with all its dark thoughts of guilty ambition, blighted affection, deep vengeance, and conscious sense of meditated cruelty, crossing each other like spectres in the circle of some foul enchantress, which of them, from the most ambitious noble in the courtly circle down to the most wretched menial who lived by shifting of trenchers, would have desired to change characters with the favourite of Elizabeth, and the Lord of Kenilworth?
New tortures awaited him as soon as he had rejoined Elizabeth.
'You come in time, my lord,' she said, 'to decide a dispute between us ladies. Here has Sir Richard Varney asked our permission to depart from the Castle with his infirm lady, having, as he tells us, your lordship's consent to his absence, so he can obtain ours. Certes, we have no will to withhold him from the affectionate charge of this poor young person; but you are to know that Sir Richard Varney hath this day shown himself so much captivated with these ladies of ours, that here is our Duchess of Rutland says he will carry his poor insane wife no farther than the lake, plunge her in to tenant the crystal palaces that the enchanted nymph told us of, and return a jolly widower, to dry his tears and to make up the loss among our train. How say you, my lord? We have seen Varney
