“Ay, in very deed,” replied the Colonel. “Had the boughs been bare, His Majesty had been taken without fail.”
“I saw him two days gone,” added Lord Wilmot, “and a sorry sight he was: his dress a leather doublet, with pewter buttons; a pair of old green breeches and a coat of the same; his own stockings, the embroidered tops cut off; a pair of old shoes, too small for him, cut and slashed to give ease to his feet; an old, grey, greasy hat, without lining, and a noggen shirt of the coarsest linen.”
The word noggen originally meant made of hemp, and had come to signify any texture which was thick, rough, and clumsy.
“Poor young gentleman!” exclaimed Mrs Lane.
“What a condition for the King of England!” said the Colonel, indignantly.
“Ay, truly,” answered Lord Wilmot. “The disgrace is England’s, not his own.”
Mr Lane was one of the party this evening. He was an elderly man, and an invalid, mostly keeping to his own quiet room. Mrs Lane, who was younger, and much more active, managed the house and estate with the help of her son; and the Colonel having for some years been practically the master, was generally spoken of as such among the tenants. The old man now rose, and said that he would go back to his own chamber. The Colonel gave his arm to his father to help him upstairs; and Mrs Jane, turning from the window, caught sight of Jenny’s tired, dull look.
“Come, we have had enough of talk!” said she. “Sweep the rushes aside, and let us end the evening with a dance.”
“You were best to dance after supper,” responded her mother, glancing at the clock. “There is but a half-hour now.”
Mrs Jane assented to this, and going to the virginals, called Jenny to come and sing. The half-hour passed rapidly, until the server, or waiter, came to say that supper was served in the hall, and the party sat down.