The aboriginal Britons, who first entered, were ushered in by two ancient Druids, whose h.o.a.ry hair was crowned with a chaplet of oak, and who bore in their hands branches of mistletoe. The maskers who followed these venerable figures were succeeded by two Bards, arrayed in white, and bearing harps, which they occasionally touched, singing at the same time certain stanzas of an ancient hymn to Belus, or the Sun. The aboriginal Britons had been selected from amongst the tallest and most robust young gentlemen in attendance on the court. Their masks were accommodated with long, s.h.a.ggy beards and hair; their vestments were of the hides of wolves and bears; while their legs, arms, and the upper parts of their bodies, being sheathed in flesh-coloured silk, on which were traced in grotesque lines representations of the heavenly bodies, and of animals and other terrestrial objects, gave them the lively appearance of our painted ancestors, whose freedom was first trenched upon by the Romans.
The sons of Rome, who came to civilize as well as to conquer, were next produced before the princely a.s.sembly; and the manager of the revels had correctly imitated the high crest and military habits of that celebrated people, accommodating them with the light yet strong buckler and the short two-edged sword, the use of which had made them victors of the world. The Roman eagles were borne before them by two standard-bearers, who recited a hymn to Mars, and the cla.s.sical warriors followed with the grave and haughty step of men who aspired at universal conquest.
The third quadrille represented the Saxons, clad in the bearskins which they had brought with them from the German forests, and bearing in their hands the redoubtable battle-axes which made such havoc among the natives of Britain. They were preceded by two Scalds, who chanted the praises of Odin.
Last came the knightly Normans, in their mail-shirts and hoods of steel, with all the panoply of chivalry, and marshalled by two Minstrels, who sang of war and ladies" love.
These four bands entered the s.p.a.cious hall with the utmost order, a short pause being made, that the spectators might satisfy their curiosity as to each quadrille before the appearance of the next. They then marched completely round the hall, in order the more fully to display themselves, regulating their steps to organs, shalms, hautboys, and virginals, the music of the Lord Leicester"s household. At length the four quadrilles of maskers, ranging their torch-bearers behind them, drew up in their several ranks on the two opposite sides of the hall, so that the Romans confronting the Britons, and the Saxons the Normans, seemed to look on each other with eyes of wonder, which presently appeared to kindle into anger, expressed by menacing gestures. At the burst of a strain of martial music from the gallery the maskers drew their swords on all sides, and advanced against each other in the measured steps of a sort of Pyrrhic or military dance, clashing their swords against their adversaries" shields, and clattering them against their blades as they pa.s.sed each other in the progress of the dance. It was a very pleasant spectacle to see how the various bands, preserving regularity amid motions which seemed to be totally irregular, mixed together, and then disengaging themselves, resumed each their own original rank as the music varied.
In this symbolical dance were represented the conflicts which had taken place among the various nations which had anciently inhabited Britain.
At length, after many mazy evolutions, which afforded great pleasure to the spectators, the sound of a loud-voiced trumpet was heard, as if it blew for instant battle, or for victory won. The maskers instantly ceased their mimic strife, and collecting themselves under their original leaders, or presenters, for such was the appropriate phrase, seemed to share the anxious expectation which the spectators experienced concerning what was next to appear.
The doors of the hall were thrown wide, and no less a person entered than the fiend-born Merlin, dressed in a strange and mystical attire, suited to his ambiguous birth and magical power.
About him and behind him fluttered or gambolled many extraordinary forms, intended to represent the spirits who waited to do his powerful bidding; and so much did this part of the pageant interest the menials and others of the lower cla.s.s then in the Castle, that many of them forgot even the reverence due to the Queen"s presence, so far as to thrust themselves into the lower part of the hall.
The Earl of Leicester, seeing his officers had some difficulty to repel these intruders, without more disturbance than was fitting where the Queen was in presence, arose and went himself to the bottom of the hall; Elizabeth, at the same time, with her usual feeling for the common people, requesting that they might be permitted to remain undisturbed to witness the pageant. Leicester went under this pretext; but his real motive was to gain a moment to himself, and to relieve his mind, were it but for one instant, from the dreadful task of hiding, under the guise of gaiety and gallantry, the lacerating pangs of shame, anger, remorse, and thirst for vengeance. He imposed silence by his look and sign upon the vulgar crowd at the lower end of the apartment; but instead of instantly returning to wait on her Majesty, he wrapped his cloak around him, and mixing with the crowd, stood in some degree an undistinguished spectator of the progress of the masque.
Merlin having entered, and advanced into the midst of the hall, summoned the presenters of the contending bands around him by a wave of his magical rod, and announced to them, in a poetical speech, that the isle of Britain was now commanded by a Royal Maiden, to whom it was the will of fate that they should all do homage, and request of her to p.r.o.nounce on the various pretensions which each set forth to be esteemed the pre-eminent 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, pa.s.sed in succession before Elizabeth, doing her, as they pa.s.sed, 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 a.s.sistants, 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 x.x.xVIII.
How is"t with me, when every noise appals me? --MACBETH.
"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 s.p.a.ce is pa.s.sed,--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 p.r.o.nounced 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 a.s.surance, 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 pa.s.sion 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 ent.i.tled to. YOU, Master Tressilian, are peculiarly so, and be a.s.sured you shall have it."
"I expect nothing less from your n.o.bleness," 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 pa.s.sage, 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 n.o.ble 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 under two or three different guises--you know what are his proper attributes--think you he is capable of playing his lady such a knave"s trick?"
Leicester was confounded, but the danger was urgent, and a reply absolutely necessary. "The ladies," he said, "think too lightly of one of their own s.e.x, in supposing she could deserve such a fate; or too ill of ours, to think it could be inflicted upon an innocent female."
"Hear him, my ladies," said Elizabeth; "like all his s.e.x, he would excuse their cruelty by imputing fickleness to us."
"Say not US, madam," replied the Earl. "We say that meaner women, like the lesser lights of heaven, have revolutions and phases; but who shall impute mutability to the sun, or to Elizabeth?"
The discourse presently afterwards a.s.sumed a less perilous tendency, and Leicester continued to support his part in it with spirit, at whatever expense of mental agony. So pleasing did it seem to Elizabeth, that the Castle bell had sounded midnight ere she retired from the company, a circ.u.mstance unusual in her quiet and regular habits of disposing of time. Her departure was, of course, the signal for breaking up the company, who dispersed to their several places of repose, to dream over the pastimes of the day, or to antic.i.p.ate those of the morrow.
The unfortunate Lord of the Castle, and founder of the proud festival, retired to far different thoughts. His direction to the valet who attended him was to send Varney instantly to his apartment. The messenger returned after some delay, and informed him that an hour had elapsed since Sir Richard Varney had left the Castle by the postern gate with three other persons, one of whom was transported in a horse-litter.
"How came he to leave the Castle after the watch was set?" said Leicester. "I thought he went not till daybreak."
"He gave satisfactory reasons, as I understand," said the domestic, "to the guard, and, as I hear, showed your lordship"s signet--"
"True--true," said the Earl; "yet he has been hasty. Do any of his attendants remain behind?"