"What the devil can the king want with him?"
"Why, it's Captain Barecolt, of Randal's."
"I think the king might have chosen a better man."
"That's a lie. There is not a better man in the service."
"He's a bragging fool."
"I dare say a coward too."
"No, no, no coward, for all his brags."
Such were some of the observations which followed Barecolt's departure with the officer, while they wended on their way through the streets of Nottingham to the king's lodging, whither we shall take leave to follow them. The style and semblance of a court was kept up long after the royal authority was gone; and in the first room which Barecolt entered were a number of servants and attendants. Beyond that was a vacant chamber, and then a small anteroom, in which a pale boy, in a page's dress, sat reading by a lamp. He looked up, as the captain and his conductor appeared, but did not offer to move till the officer told him to go in, and say to his majesty, that Captain Barecolt was in attendance; on which he rose, opened a door opposite, and knocked at a second, which appeared within. Voices were heard speaking; and, after a moment's pause, the boy repeated the signal, when the door was opened, and he made the announcement.
"Let him wait," was the reply; and for about twenty minutes the worthy captain remained, his head getting each moment cooler, and freer from the fumes of the wine; but his fancy only became the more active and rampant, and running away with him over the open plain of possibility, without the slightest heed of whither she was carrying her rider. Having already given the reader a sample of her doings with Captain Barecolt in a preceding chapter, we will spare him on the present occasion, especially as it would take much more time to recount her vagaries in the good gentleman's brain that it did for her to enact them.
At length the door opened, and a voice pronounced the words, "Captain Barecolt!" at which sound the captain advanced and entered, not without some trepidation, for there is something in majesty, even when shorn of its beams, that is not to be lightlied by common men.