The travellers then resumed the rapid rate of travelling which their discourse had interrupted, and soon arrived at the Royal Park of Woodstock.  This ancient possession of the crown of England was then very different from what it had been when it was the residence of the fair Rosamond, and the scene of Henry the Second’s secret and illicit amours; and yet more unlike to the scene which it exhibits in the present day, when Blenheim House commemorates the victory of Marlborough, and no less the genius of Vanbrugh, though decried in his own time by persons of taste far inferior to his own.  It was, in Elizabeth’s time, an ancient mansion in bad repair, which had long ceased to be honoured with the royal residence, to the great impoverishment of the adjacent village.  The inhabitants, however, had made several petitions to the Queen to have the favour of the sovereign’s countenance occasionally bestowed upon them; and upon this very business, ostensibly at least, was the noble lord, whom we have already introduced to our readers, a visitor at Woodstock.

Varney and Lambourne galloped without ceremony into the courtyard of the ancient and dilapidated mansion, which presented on that morning a scene of bustle which it had not exhibited for two reigns.  Officers of the Earl’s household, liverymen and retainers, went and came with all the insolent fracas which attaches to their profession.  The neigh of horses and the baying of hounds were heard; for my lord, in his occupation of inspecting and surveying the manor and demesne, was of course provided with the means of following his pleasure in the chase or park, said to have been the earliest that was enclosed in England, and which was well stocked with deer that had long roamed there unmolested.  Several of the inhabitants of the village, in anxious hope of a favourable result from this unwonted visit, loitered about the courtyard, and awaited the great man’s coming forth.  Their attention was excited by the hasty arrival of Varney, and a murmur ran amongst them, “The Earl’s master of the horse!” while they hurried to bespeak favour by hastily unbonneting, and proffering to hold the bridle and stirrup of the favoured retainer and his attendant.

“Stand somewhat aloof, my masters!” said Varney haughtily, “and let the domestics do their office.”

The mortified citizens and peasants fell back at the signal; while Lambourne, who had his eye upon his superior’s deportment, repelled the services of those who offered to assist him, with yet more discourtesy—­“Stand back, Jack peasant, with a murrain to you, and let these knave footmen do their duty!”

While they gave their nags to the attendants of the household, and walked into the mansion with an air of superiority which long practice and consciousness of birth rendered natural to Varney, and which Lambourne endeavoured to imitate as well as he could, the poor inhabitants of Woodstock whispered to each other, “Well-a-day!  God save us from all such misproud princoxes!  An the master be like the men, why, the fiend may take all, and yet have no more than his due.”