She did not see the figure which
was more to her than all the rest, for he was among the knights and
guards waiting at the Cour des Princes to receive the bride when the
final ceremonies of the marriage were to be performed.
Ridley declared his intention of seeking out young Featherstone, but
Grisell impressed on him that she wished to remain unknown for the
present, above all to Sir Leonard Copeland, and he had been quite
sufficiently alarmed by the accusations of sorcery to believe in the
danger of her becoming known among the English.
"More by token," said he, "that the house of this Master Caxton as
you call him seems to me no canny haunt. Tell me what you will of
making manifold good books or bad, I'll never believe but that Dr.
Faustus and the Devil hatched the notion between them for the
bewilderment of men's brains and the slackening of their hands."
Thus Ridley made little more attempt to persuade his young lady to
come forth to the spectacles of the next fortnight to which he
rushed, through crowds and jostling, to behold, with the ardour of an
old warrior, the various tilts and tourneys, though he grumbled that
they were nothing but child's play and vain show, no earnest in them
fit for a man.
Clemence, however, was all eyes, and revelled in the sight of the
wonders, the view of the Tree of Gold, and the champion thereof in
the lists of the Hotel de Ville, and again, some days later, of the
banquet, when the table decorations were mosaic gardens with silver
trees, laden with enamelled fruit, and where, as an interlude, a
whale sixty feet long made its entrance and emitted from its jaws a
troop of Moorish youths and maidens, who danced a saraband to the
sound of tambourines and cymbals! Such scenes were bliss to the deaf
housewife, and would enliven the silent world of her memory all the
rest of her life.
Pages:
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226