Page:Waverley Novels, vol. 23 (1831).djvu/206

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saw the verses; there is little savour in them, and her Grace has been already crammed full with such poetical compliments. She whispered to me, during the Recorder's speech yonder, at Ford-mill, as she entered the liberties of Warwick, how she was 'PERTAESA BARBARAE LOQUELAE.'"

"The Queen whispered to HIM!" said Blount, in a kind of soliloquy; "Good God, to what will this world come!"

His further meditations were interrupted by a shout of applause from the multitude, so tremendously vociferous that the country echoed for miles round. The guards, thickly stationed upon the road by which the Queen was to advance, caught up the acclamation, which ran like wildfire to the Castle, and announced to all within that Queen Elizabeth had entered the Royal Chase of Kenilworth. The whole music of 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 the cannon themselves, was but faintly heard amidst the roaring and reiterated welcomes of the multitude.

As the noise began to abate, a broad glare of light was seen to appear from the gate of the Park, and broadening and brightening as it came nearer, advanced along the open and fair avenue that led towards the Gallery-tower; and which, as we have already noticed, was lined on either hand by the retainers of the Earl of Leicester. The word was passed along the line, "The Queen! The Queen! Silence, and stand fast!" Onward came the cavalcade,