The hours quickly flew, and a little before nine the knight and his companion presented themselves at the door of the king's private apartments, where they were admitted by a page. When they entered Henry was reading, and pursued the object of his study without taking any notice of their approach by word or sign. Nothing remained to be done but to stand profoundly still before him, waiting his good pleasure, which remained full a quarter of an hour unmanifested.
"Well, gentlemen both," cried the king at last, starting up and laying down the book; "I have kept ye long--ha? But now, to make amends, I will lead ye to the fair ladies. Oh, the disguises! the disguises! Bring the disguises, Minton; the three I chose but now. You, Darby, shall be a Muscovian; you, Maurice, a Polacco; and I an Almaine. Say, Darby, did you see my good lord cardinal this morning ere you came? Holds he his mind of going to York, as he stated yesterday?"
"I did not see the very reverend lord this morning," replied Lord Darby, who was Wolsey's ward, as well as the chief lord of his household. "But his master of the horse informed me that he still proposed going at ten this morning. Your grace knows that he never delays when business calls him; and in the present case he thinks that his presence may quell the murmurers of Yorkshire, as well as Lord Howard has put down the Rochester fools."
"Ah, 'twas a shrewd business that of Rochester," said the king. "Now would I give a thousand marks to know who 'twas that set that stone a-rolling. Be you sure, Darby, that the brute shipwrights would ne'er have dreamed such a thing themselves. They were set on! They were set on, man! Ha, the disguises! Quick! come into this closet, and we will robe us. 'Tis late, and our lady has promised to give, as well as to receive, a mask."
So saying, Henry led the way to a cabinet at the side of the saloon in which they were; and here the two young lords offered to assist in dressing him, but of this he would not permit, bidding them haste with their own robes, or he would be ready first. The disguise assigned to Sir Osborne was a splendid suit of gold brocade trimmed with fur, intended to represent the dress of a Pole; having a sort of pelisse with sleeves of rich gold damask and sables thrown over the back, and held by a baldrick, crossing from the right shoulder under the left arm. His head was covered with a square bonnet of cloth of gold, like his dress, with an edge of fur; and his face concealed by a satin mask with a beard of golden threads.
The dress of Lord Darby was not very dissimilar, with only this difference, that in place of the pelisse, he was furnished with a robe with short sleeves, and wore on his head a sort of turban, or toque, with a high feather. In a very different style was the king's disguise, being simply a splendid German dress of cloth of gold, trimmed with crimson velvet, but certainly not so unlike his usual garments as to afford any great degree of concealment. All being masked and prepared, Henry sent the page to see if the torchbearers were ready, and issuing out of the palace the three maskers, preceded by half-a-dozen attendants, crossed the greater quadrangle, passed out at the gate, and making a circuit round the building, came immediately under the windows of the queen's great hall, from each of which a broad blaze of light flashed forth upon the night, and cast a line of twinkling splendour across the river, that otherwise flowed on, dark and indistinct, under a clouded and moonless sky.
"Sir Osborne," said Henry, in a low voice, as they entered the open doors, and turned into a suite of apartments anterior to the room where the queen held her assembly--"Sir Osborne, your voice being unknown, you shall be our orator, and in your fine wit seek a fair compliment for our introduction."
Had his face been uncovered, perhaps the young knight might have sought to excuse himself; but there is wonderful assurance in a mask; and feeling a boldness in his disguise, which perhaps the eye of Constance de Grey might have robbed him of, had he not been concealed from its glance, he at once undertook the task, saying that he would do his best.
As he spoke, a couple of hautboys, by which Henry was preceded, paused at the entrance of the great hall, and placing themselves on each side, began a light duet, to announce that some masks were coming. The doors were thrown open, and a splendid scene burst on the view of Sir Osborne, full of bright and glittering figures, fleeting about in the blaze of innumerable lights, like the gay phastasms of a brilliant dream. The knight instinctively paused, but Henry urged him on.
"Quick! quick!" whispered he; "to the lady, to the lady; you forget your task."