Then, in the intervals of the tournament, George had seen the eyes of several gallants directed towards Lady Pembroke's booth, and heard one man say,—
'There is a pretty maiden in the Countess's following. I lay a wager I will get a smile from her.'
'Not you,' was the reply; 'she has eyes for no one but Mr Sidney. She follows him with admiring glances; no one else has a chance.'
While George was inwardly fuming against the two men, one rode up to the booth, and bowing low, till his head nearly swept his horse's neck, he presented a posy, tied with a blue riband, to Lucy, who smiled and blushed with delight, quite indifferent to the scowl on George's face, as he sat grimly on his horse at the further end of the tilting-yard, where he was stationed, with several others, with a relay of horses in case fresh ones should be wanted by the combatants.
Unversed in the ways of the Court, George did not know that it was the habit of gallants to present posies, as they would have said, at the shrine of beauty. From the Maiden Queen upon the throne to the pretty bower-woman at her needle, this homage was expected, and received almost as a matter of course. But George, like many other men of his age, had his special divinity, and could not endure to see other worshippers at her feet.
All these memories of the two days' tournament occupied George Ratcliffe during his ride by his brother's side, and kept up a sort of accompaniment to the measured trot of the horses as they were brought up in the rear by the servants in charge of them. After a long silence, George said,—
'Did you see Mistress Lucy ere we started, Humphrey, to let her know of her sister's trouble.'
'No,' was the answer. 'No; I could not get permission to do so, but I sent a letter by the hand of one of Lord Pembroke's esquires, which would tell her of her sister's trouble.'
'It was an ill day for me,' George said, 'when Lucy Ratcliffe came to the Court. I have lost her now.'
'Nay now, George, do not be a craven and lose heart. You may win yet. There is time, and to spare, before you.'