Mr. Talbot had to give his name and quality, and show his pass, at each of these gates, though they were still guarded by Shrewsbury retainers, with the talbot on their sleeves.  He was, however, received with the respect and courtesy due to a trusted kinsman of their lord; and Sir Ralf Sadler, a thin, elderly, careworn statesman, came to greet him at the door of the hall, and would only have been glad could he have remained a week, instead of for the single night he wished to spend at Wingfield.

Sadler was one of Mary’s most gentle and courteous warders, and he spoke of her with much kindness, regretting that her health had again begun to suffer from the approach of winter, and far more from disappointment.

The negotiation with Scotland on her behalf was now known to have been abortive.  James had fallen into the hands of the faction most hostile to her, and though his mother still clung with desperate hope to the trust that he, at least, was labouring on her behalf, no one else believed that he cared for anything but his own security, and even she had been forced to perceive that her liberation was again adjourned.

“And what think you was her thought when she found that road closed up?” said Sir Ralf.  “Why, for her people!  Her gentlewoman, Mrs. Mowbray, hath, it seems, been long betrothed.”

“Ay, to Gilbert Curll, the long-backed Scotch Secretary.  They were to be wed at Stirling so soon as she arrived there again.”

“Yea; but when she read the letter that overthrew her hopes, what did she say but that ’her servants must not grow gray-headed with waiting till she was set free’!  So she would have me make the case known to Sir Parson, and we had them married in the parish church two days since, they being both good Protestants.”

“There is no doubt that her kindness of heart is true,” said Richard.  “The poor folk at Sheffield and Ecclesfield will miss her plentiful almsgiving.”

“Some say it ought to be hindered, for that it is but a purchasing of friends to her cause,” said Sadler; “but I have not the heart to check it, and what could these of the meaner sort do to our Queen’s prejudice?  I take care that nothing goes among them that could hide a billet, and that none of her people have private speech with them, so no harm can ensue from her bounty.”

A message here came that the Queen was ready to admit Mr. Talbot, and Richard found himself in her presence chamber, a larger and finer room than that in the lodge at Sheffield, and with splendid tapestry hangings and plenishings; but the windows all looked into the inner quadrangle, instead of on the expanse of park, and thus, as Mary said, she felt more entirely the prisoner.  This, however, was not perceptible at the time, for the autumn evening had closed in; there were two large fires burning, one at each end of the room, and tall tapestry-covered screens and high-backed settles were arranged so as to exclude