“I pray thee, Walter,” said another of the company, “cease thy raillery, which suits neither time nor place, and tell us who was at the gate just now.”

“Doctor Masters, physician to her Grace in ordinary, sent by her especial orders to inquire after the Earl’s health,” answered Walter.

“Ha! what?” exclaimed Tracy; “that was no slight mark of favour.  If the Earl can but come through, he will match with Leicester yet.  Is Masters with my lord at present?”

“Nay,” replied Walter, “he is half way back to Greenwich by this time, and in high dudgeon.”

“Thou didst not refuse him admittance?” exclaimed Tracy.

“Thou wert not, surely, so mad?” ejaculated Blount.

“I refused him admittance as flatly, Blount, as you would refuse a penny to a blind beggar—­as obstinately, Tracy, as thou didst ever deny access to a dun.”

“Why, in the fiend’s name, didst thou trust him to go to the gate?” said Blount to Tracy.

“It suited his years better than mine,” answered Tracy; “but he has undone us all now thoroughly.  My lord may live or die, he will never have a look of favour from her Majesty again.”

“Nor the means of making fortunes for his followers,” said the young gallant, smiling contemptuously;—­“there lies the sore point that will brook no handling.  My good sirs, I sounded my lamentations over my lord somewhat less loudly than some of you; but when the point comes of doing him service, I will yield to none of you.  Had this learned leech entered, think’st thou not there had been such a coil betwixt him and Tressilian’s mediciner, that not the sleeper only, but the very dead might have awakened?  I know what larurm belongs to the discord of doctors.”

“And who is to take the blame of opposing the Queen’s orders?” said Tracy; “for, undeniably, Doctor Masters came with her Grace’s positive commands to cure the Earl.”

“I, who have done the wrong, will bear the blame,” said Walter.

“Thus, then, off fly the dreams of court favour thou hast nourished,” said Blount, “and despite all thy boasted art and ambition, Devonshire will see thee shine a true younger brother, fit to sit low at the board, carve turn about with the chaplain, look that the hounds be fed, and see the squire’s girths drawn when he goes a-hunting.”

“Not so,” said the young man, colouring, “not while Ireland and the Netherlands have wars, and not while the sea hath pathless waves.  The rich West hath lands undreamed of, and Britain contains bold hearts to venture on the quest of them.  Adieu for a space, my masters.  I go to walk in the court and look to the sentinels.”

“The lad hath quicksilver in his veins, that is certain,” said Blount, looking at Markham.

“He hath that both in brain and blood,” said Markham, “which may either make or mar him.  But in closing the door against Masters, he hath done a daring and loving piece of service; for Tressilian’s fellow hath ever averred that to wake the Earl were death, and Masters would wake the Seven Sleepers themselves, if he thought they slept not by the regular ordinance of medicine.”