Beyond, a lane was preserved all down the length of the nave by the
tall, towering forms of the Scottish archers, in their rich
accoutrements, many of them gallant gentlemen, who had served under
the Marquess of Montrose; and in the aisles behind them surged the
whole multitude--gentlemen, ladies, bourgeois, fishwives, artisans,
all sorts of people, mixed up together, and treating one another with
a civility and forbearance of which my brother and sister confessed
and English crowd would have been incapable, though they showed
absolutely no reverence to the sacred place; and I must own the
ladies showed as little, for every one was talking, laughing, bowing
to acquaintance, or pointing out notorieties, and low whispers were
going about of some great and secret undertaking of the Queen-Regent.
Low, did I say! Nay, I heard the words 'Blancmesnil and Broussel'
quite loud enough to satisfy me that if the attempt had been
disclosed, it would not be possible to fix the blame of betraying it
on my little son more than on twenty others. Indeed the Queen of
England observed to her niece, loud enough for me to hear her, that
it was only too like what she remembered only seven years ago in
England, when her dear King had gone down to arrest those five rogues
of members, and all had failed because of that vile gossip Lady
Carlisle.
'And who told my Lady Carlisle?' demanded Mademoiselle with some
archness; whereupon Queen Henrietta became very curious to know
whether the handsome Duke of Beaufort were, after his foolish
fashion, in the crowd, making himself agreeable to the ladies of the
market-place.
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