“How!  Sir Richard,” said Leicester, smiling, “your new rank scarce suits the humility of this attendance.”

“I would disown that rank, my Lord,” said Varney, “could I think it was to remove me to a distance from your lordship’s person.”

“Thou art a grateful fellow,” said Leicester; “but I must not allow you to do what would abate you in the opinion of others.”

While thus speaking, he still accepted without hesitation the offices about his person, which the new-made knight seemed to render as eagerly as if he had really felt, in discharging the task, that pleasure which his words expressed.

“I am not afraid of men’s misconstruction,” he said, in answer to Leicester’s remark, “since there is not—­(permit me to undo the collar)—­a man within the Castle who does not expect very soon to see persons of a rank far superior to that which, by your goodness, I now hold, rendering the duties of the bedchamber to you, and accounting it an honour.”

“It might, indeed, so have been”—­said the Earl, with an involuntary sigh; and then presently added, “My gown, Varney; I will look out on the night.  Is not the moon near to the full?”

“I think so, my lord, according to the calendar,” answered Varney.

There was an abutting window, which opened on a small projecting balcony of stone, battlemented as is usual in Gothic castles.  The Earl undid the lattice, and stepped out into the open air.  The station he had chosen commanded an extensive view of the lake and woodlands beyond, where the bright moonlight rested on the clear blue waters and the distant masses of oak and elm trees.  The moon rode high in the heavens, attended by thousands and thousands of inferior luminaries.  All seemed already to be hushed in the nether world, excepting occasionally the voice of the watch (for the yeomen of the guard performed that duty wherever the Queen was present in person) and the distant baying of the hounds, disturbed by the preparations amongst the grooms and prickers for a magnificent hunt, which was to be the amusement of the next day.

Leicester looked out on the blue arch of heaven, with gestures and a countenance expressive of anxious exultation, while Varney, who remained within the darkened apartment, could (himself unnoticed), with a secret satisfaction, see his patron stretch his hands with earnest gesticulation towards the heavenly bodies.

“Ye distant orbs of living fire,” so ran the muttered invocation of the ambitious Earl, “ye are silent while you wheel your mystic rounds; but Wisdom has given to you a voice.  Tell me, then, to what end is my high course destined?  Shall the greatness to which I have aspired be bright, pre-eminent, and stable as your own; or am I but doomed to draw a brief and glittering train along the nightly darkness, and then to sink down to earth, like the base refuse of those artificial fires with which men emulate your rays?”