“Speak it, and let me go,” said the Earl; “I think the Queen comes forth instantly.”
“My very good lord, I would fain bring a bed-fellow with me.”
“How, you irreverent rascal!” said Leicester.
“Nay, my lord, my meaning is within the canons,” answered his unblushing, or rather his ever-blushing petitioner. “I have a wife as curious as her grandmother who ate the apple. Now, take her with me I may not, her Highness's orders being so strict against the officers bringing with them their wives in a progress, and so lumbering the court with womankind. But what I would crave of your lordship is to find room for her in some mummery, or pretty pageant, in disguise, as it were; so that, not being known for my wife, there may be no offence.”
“The foul fiend seize ye both!” said Leicester, stung into uncontrollable passion by the recollections which this speech excited—“why stop you me with such follies?”
The terrified clerk of the chamber-door, astonished at the burst of resentment he had so unconsciously produced, dropped his staff of office from his hand, and gazed on the incensed Earl with a foolish face of wonder and terror, which instantly recalled Leicester to himself.
“I meant but to try if thou hadst the audacity which befits thine office,” said he hastily. “Come to Kenilworth, and bring the devil with thee, if thou wilt.”
“My wife, sir, hath played the devil ere now, in a Mystery, in Queen Mary's time; but me shall want a trifle for properties.”
“Here is a crown for thee,” said the Earl,—“make me rid of thee—the great bell rings.”
Master Robert Laneham stared a moment at the agitation which he had excited, and then said to himself, as he stooped to pick up his staff of office, “The noble Earl runs wild humours to-day. But they who give crowns expect us witty fellows to wink at their unsettled starts; and, by my faith, if they paid not for mercy, we would finger them tightly!” [See Note 6. Robert Laneham.]