To these might be added, the poor suitor, with his anxious
look and depressed mien--the officer, full of his brief authority,
elbowing his betters, and possibly his benefactors, out of the
road--the proud priest, who sought a better benefice--the proud baron,
who sought a grant of church lands--the robber chief, who came to
solicit a pardon for the injuries he had inflicted on his
neighbors--the plundered franklin, who came to seek vengeance for that
which he had himself received. Besides there was the mustering and
disposition of guards and soldiers--the despatching of messengers,
and the receiving them--the trampling and neighing of horses without
the gate--the flashing of arms, and rustling of plumes, and jingling
of spurs, within it. In short, it was that gay and splendid confusion,
in which the eye of youth sees all that is brave and brilliant, and
that of experience much that is doubtful, deceitful, false, and
hollow--hopes that will never be gratified--promises which will never
be fulfilled--pride in the disguise of humility--and insolence in that
of frank and generous bounty.
As, tired of the eager and enraptured attention which the page gave to
a scene so new to him, Adam Woodcock endeavoured to get him to move
forward, before his exuberance of astonishment should attract the
observation of the sharp-witted denizens of the court, the falconer
himself became an object of attention to a gay menial in a dark-green
bonnet and feather, with a cloak of a corresponding colour, laid down,
as the phrase then went, by six broad bars of silver lace, and welted
with violet and silver.
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