Diccon Talbot, hungry and eager, had let his equally restless pony convey him, he scarce knew where, from his father’s side, when he saw, making her way among the horses, the very woman with the basket whom he had encountered at Tideswell in the early morning.  How could she have gone such a distance in the time? thought the boy, and he presently caught the words addressed to one of the grooms of the Scottish Queen’s suite.  “Let me show my poor beads and bracelets.”  The Scotsman instantly made way for her, and she advanced to a wizened thin old Frenchman, Maitre Gorion, the Queen’s surgeon, who jumped down from his horse, and was soon bending over her basket exchanging whispers in the lowest possible tones; but a surge among those in the rear drove Diccon up so near that he was absolutely certain that they were speaking French, as indeed he well knew that M. Gorion never could succeed in making himself understood in English.

The boy, bred up in the perpetual caution and suspicion of Sheffield, was eager to denounce one who he was sure was a conspirator; but he was hemmed in among horses and men, so that he could not make his way out or see what was passing, till suddenly there was a scattering to the right and left, and a simultaneous shriek from the ladies in front.

When Diccon could see anything, his father was pressing forward to a group round some one prostrate on the ground before the house, and there were exclamations, “The poor young lady!  The chirurgeon!  To the front, the Queen is asking for you, sir,” and Cicely’s horse with loose bridle passed before his eyes.

“Let me through! let me through!” cried the boy; “it is my sister.”

He threw his bridle to a groom, and, squeezing between horses and under elbows, succeeded in seeing Cis lying on the ground with her eyes shut and her head in his mother’s lap, and the French surgeon bending over her.  She gave a cry when he touched her arm, and he said something in his mixture of French and English, which Diccon could not hear.  The Queen stood close by, a good deal agitated, anxiously asking questions, and throwing out her hands in her French fashion.  Diccon, much frightened, struggled on, but only reached the party just as his father had gathered Cicely up in his arms to carry her upstairs.  Diccon followed as closely as he could, but blindly in the crowd in the strange house, until he found himself in a long gallery, shut out, among various others of both sexes.  “Come, my masters and mistresses all,” said the voice of the seneschal, “you had best to your chambers, there is naught for you to do here.”