present enter, as her majesty was in the act of coming forth. The gentlemen used the name of the Earl of Sussex; but it proved no charm to subdue the officer, who alleged, in reply, that it was as much as his post was worth to disobey in the least tittle the commands which he had received.

"Nay, I told you as much before," said Blount. "Do, I pray you, my dear Walter, let us take boat and return."

"Not till I see the queen come forth," returned the youth, composedly.

"Thou art mad, stark mad, by the mass!" answered Blount. "And thou," said Walter, "art turned coward of the sudden. I have seen thee face half a score of shag-headed Irish kernes to thy own share of them, and now thou wouldst blink and go back to shun the frown of a fair lady!"

At this moment the gates opened, and ushers began to issue forth in array, preceded and flanked by the band of gentlemen pensioners. After this, amid a crowd of lords and ladies, yet so disposed around her that she could see and be seen on all sides, came Elizabeth herself, then in the prime of womanhood and in the full glow of what in a sovereign was called beauty, and who would in the lowest rank of life have been truly judged a noble figure, joined to a striking and commanding physiognomy. She leant on the arm of Lord Hunsdon, whose relation to her by her mother's side often procured him such distinguished marks of Elizabeth's intimacy.

The young cavalier we have so often mentioned had probably never yet approached so near the person of his sovereign; and he pressed forward as far as the line of warders permitted, in order to avail himself of the present opportunity. His companion, on the contrary, kept pulling him backward, till Walter shook him off impatiently and let his rich cloak drop carelessly from one shoulder,-a natural action, which served, however, to display to the best advantage his well-proportioned person. Unbonneting at the same time, he fixed his eager gaze on the queen's approach with a mixture of respectful curiosity and modest yet ardent admiration, which suited so well with his fine features, that the warders, struck with his rich attire and noble countenance, suffered him to approach the ground over which the queen was to pass, somewhat closer than was permitted to ordinary spectators. Thus the adventurous youth stood full in Elizabeth's eye, -an eye never indifferent to the admiration which she deservedly excited among her subjects, or to the fair proportions of external form which chanced to distinguish any of her courtiers. Accordingly, she fixed her keen glance on the youth, as she approached the place where he stood, with a look in which surprise at his boldness seemed to be unmingled with resentment, while a trifling accident happened which attracted her

attention towards him yet more strongly. The night had been rainy, and just where the young gentleman stood a small quantity of mud interrupted the queen's passage. As she hesitated to pass on, the gallant, throwing his cloak from his shoulders, laid it on the miry spot, so as to insure her stepping over it dry-shod. Elizabeth looked at the young man, who accompanied this act of devoted courtesy with a profound reverence and a blush that overspread his whole countenance. The queen was confused, and blushed in her turn, nodded her head, hastily passed on, and embarked in her barge without saying a word.

"Come along, sir coxcomb," said Blount; "your gay cloak will need the brush to-day, I wot. Nay, if you had meant to make a footcloth of your mantle, better have kept Tracy's old drab-de-bure, which despises all colors."

"This cloak," said the youth, taking it up and folding it, "shall never be brushed while in my possession.'

"And that will not be long; if you learn not a little more economy, we shall have you in cuerpo soon, as the Spaniard says." Their discourse was here interrupted by one of the band of pensioners.

"I was sent," said he, after looking at them attentively, "to a gentleman who hath no cloak, or a muddy one. You, sir, I think," addressing the young cavalier, "are the man; you will please to follow me."

"He is in attendance on me," said Blount; Earl of Sussex's master of horse."

on me, the noble

"I have nothing to say to that," answered the messenger; "my orders are directly from her majesty, and concern this gentleman only."

So saying, he walked away, followed by Walter, leaving the others behind,-Blount's eyes almost starting from his head with the excess of his astonishment. At length he gave vent to it in an exclamation,-"Who the good jere would have thought this?"-and, shaking his head with a mysterious air, he walked to his own boat, embarked, and returned to Deptford.

The young cavalier was, in the mean while, guided to the water-side by the pensioner, who showed him considerable respect, -a circumstance which, to persons in his situation, may be considered as an augury of no small consequence. He ushered him into one of the wherries which lay ready to attend the queen's barge, which was already proceeding up the river with the advantage of that flood-tide of which, in the course of their descent, Blount had complained to his associates.

The two rowers used their oars with such expedition, at the signal of the gentleman pensioner, that they very soon brought their little skiff under the stern of the queen's boat, where she sat beneath an awning, attended by two or three ladies and the

nobles of her household.

She looked more than once at the wherry in which the young adventurer was seated, spoke to those around her, and seemed to laugh. At length one of the attendants, by the queen's order apparently, made a sign for the wherry to come alongside, and the young man was desired to step from his own skiff into the queen's barge, which he performed with graceful agility at the forepart of the boat, and was brought aft to the queen's presence, the wherry at the same time dropping into the rear. The youth underwent the gaze of majesty not the less gracefully that his self-possession was mingled with embarrassment. The mudded cloak still hung upon his arm, and formed the natural topic with which the queen introduced the conversation.

"You have this day spoiled a gay mantle in our behalf, young man. We thank you for your service, though the manner of offering it was unusual, and something bold."

"In a sovereign's need," answered the youth, "it is each liegeman's duty to be bold."

"That was well said, my lord!" said the queen, turning to a grave person who sat by her, and answered with a grave inclination of the head, and something of a mumbled assent. "Well, young man, your gallantry shall not go unrewarded. Go to the wardrobe-keeper, and he shall have orders to supply the suit which you have cast away in our service. Thou shalt have a suit, and that of the newest cut, I promise thee, on the word of a princess.'

"May it please your grace," said Walter, hesitating, "it is not for so humble a servant of your majesty to measure out your bounties; but if it became me to choose"

"Thou wouldst have gold, I warrant me," said the queen, interrupting him; "fie, young man! I take shame to say that, in our capital, such and so various are the means of thriftless folly, to give gold to youth is giving fuel to fire, and furnishing them with the means of self-destruction. If I live and reign, these means of unchristian excess shall be abridged. Yet thou mayst be poor," she added, "or thy parents may be- It shall be gold, if thou wilt; but thou shalt answer to me for the use on't." Walter waited patiently until the queen had done, and then modestly assured her that gold was still less in his wish than the raiment her majesty had before offered.

"How, boy!" said the queen; "neither gold nor garment? What is it thou wouldst have of me, then?"

66

'Only permission, madam,-if it is not asking too high an honor, permission to wear the cloak which did you this trifling service.'

"Permission to wear thine own cloak, thou silly boy!" said the

queen.

"It is no longer mine," said Walter; "when your majesty's foot touched it, it became a fit mantle for a prince, but far toc rich a one for its former owner."

The queen again blushed, and endeavored to cover, by laughing, a slight degree of not unpleasing surprise and confusion.Kenilworth.

THE YOUNG FISHERMAN'S FUNERAL.

The Antiquary, being now alone, hastened his pace, and soon arrived before the half-dozen cottages at Mussel-Crag. They now had, in addition to their usual squalid and uncomfortable appearance, the melancholy attributes of the house of mourning. The boats were all drawn up on the beach; and, though the day was fine and the season favorable, the chant which is used by the fishers when at sea was silent, as well as the prattle of the children, and the shrill song of the mother as she sits mending her nets by the door. A few of the neighbors, some in their antique and well-saved suits of black, others in their ordinary clothes, but all bearing an expression of mournful sympathy with distress so sudden and unexpected, stood gathered around the door of Mucklebackit's cottage, waiting "till the body was lifted." the Laird of Monkbarns approached, they made way for him to enter, doffing their hats and bonnets, as he passed, with an air of melancholy courtesy, and he returned their salutes in the same

manner.

As

In the inside of the cottage was a scene which our Wilkie alone could have painted with that exquisite feeling of nature which characterizes his enchanting productions. The body was laid in its coffin within the wooden bedstead which the young fisher had occupied while alive. At a little distance stood the father, whose rugged, weather-beaten countenance, shaded by his grizzled hair, had faced many a stormy night and night-like day. He was apparently revolving his loss in his mind with that strong feeling of painful grief peculiar to harsh and rough characters, which almost breaks forth into hatred against the world and all that remain in it after the beloved object is withdrawn. The old man had made the most desperate efforts to save his son, and had been withheld only by main force from renewing them at a moment when, without the possibility of assisting the sufferer, he must himself have perished. All this apparently was boiling in his recollection. His glance was directed sidelong towards the coffin as to an object on which he could not steadfastly look, and yet from which he could not withdraw his eyes. His answers to the necessary questions which were occasionally put to him were brief, harsh, and almost fierce. His family had not yet dared to address to him a word, either of sympathy or consolation. His masculine wife, virago as she was, and absolute mistress of the

family, as she justly boasted herself on all ordinary occasions, was by this great loss terrified into silence and submission, and compelled to hide from her husband's observation the bursts of her female sorrow. As he had rejected food ever since the disaster had happened, not daring herself to approach him, she had that morning with affectionate artifice employed the youngest and favorite child to present her husband with some nourishment. His first action was to push it from him with an angry violence that frightened the child; his next, to snatch up the boy and devour him with kisses. Such was the disconsolate state of the

father.

In another corner of the cottage, her face covered by her apron, which was flung over it, sat the mother, the nature of her grief sufficiently indicated by the wringing of her hands, and the convulsive agitations of her bosom, which the covering could not conceal. Two of her gossips, officiously whispering into her ear the commonplace topic of resignation under irremediable misfortune, seemed as if they were endeavoring to stem the grief which they could not console. The sorrow of the children was mingled with wonder at the preparations they beheld around them, and at the unusual display of wheaten bread and wine, which the poorest peasant or fisher offers to the guests on these mournful occasions; and thus their grief for their brother's death was almost already lost in admiration of the splendor of his funeral.

The coffin, covered with a pall, and supported upon handspikes by the nearest relatives, now only waited the father to support the head, as is customary. Two or three of these privileged persons spoke to him, but he answered only by shaking his hand and his head in token of refusal.

The mourners in regular gradation, according to their rank or their relationship to the deceased, had filed from the cottage, while the younger male children were led along to totter after the bier of their brother, and to view with wonder a ceremonial which they could hardly comprehend. The female gossips next rose to depart, and, with consideration for the situation of the parents, carried along with them the girls of the family, to give the unhappy pair time and opportunity to open their hearts to each other and soften their grief by communicating it. But their kind intention was without effect. The last of them had darkened the entrance of the cottage as she went out, and drawn the door softly behind her, when the father, first ascertaining by a hasty glance that no stranger remained, started up, clasped his hands wildly above his head, uttered a cry of despair, which he had hitherto repressed, and, in all the impotent impatience of grief, half rushed, half staggered forward to the bed on which the coffin had been deposited, threw himself down upon it, and