KENILWORTH - Penn State University

Sir Walter Scott“We shall have him at that presently,” said Tressilian, “ifyou spare not your wit.”“Tush, I care not,” answered Raleigh; “but thou too,Tressilian, hast turned a kind of owl, that flies only by night—hast exchanged thy songs for screechings, and good companyfor an ivy-tod.”“But what manner of animal art thou thyself, Raleigh,” saidTressilian, “that thou holdest us all so lightly?”“Who—I?” replied Raleigh. “An eagle am I, that never willthink of dull earth while there is a heaven to soar in, and a sunto gaze upon.”“Well bragged, by Saint Barnaby!” said Blount; “but, goodMaster Eagle, beware the cage, and beware the fowler. Manybirds have flown as high that I have seen stuffed with strawand hung up to scare kites.—But hark, what a dead silencehath fallen on them at once!”“The procession pauses,” said Raleigh, “at the gate of theChase, where a sibyl, one of the Fatidicæ, meets the Queen,to tell her fortune. I saw the verses; there is little savour inthem, and her Grace has been already crammed full with suchpoetical compliments. She whispered to me, during theRecorder’s speech yonder, at Ford-mill, as she entered the libertiesof Warwick, how she was ‘pertaesa barbaræ loquelæ.’”“The Queen whispered to him!” said Blount, in a kind ofsoliloquy; “Good God, to what will this world come!”His further meditations were interrupted by a shout of applausefrom the multitude, so tremendously vociferous thatthe country echoed for miles round. The guards, thickly stationedupon the road by which the Queen was to advance,caught up the acclamation, which ran like wildfire to theCastle, and announced to all within that Queen Elizabethhad entered the Royal Chase of Kenilworth. The whole musicof the Castle sounded at once, and a round of artillery,with a salvo of small arms, was discharged from the battlements;but the noise of drums and trumpets, and even of thecannon themselves, was but faintly heard amidst the roaringand reiterated welcomes of the multitude.As the noise began to abate, a broad glare of light was seento appear from the gate of the Park, and broadening and brighteningas it came nearer, advanced along the open and fair avenuethat led towards the Gallery-tower; and which, as wehave already noticed, was lined on either hand by the retainers339