Table; from those very stables the caparisoned
horses came prancing out for the tournament; through that gateway strong,
weak, heroic, mean, splendid, Queen Elizabeth advanced to the castle, while
the waters of the lake gleamed under torchlights, and the battlements were
aflame with rockets; and cornet, and hautboy, and trumpet poured their
music on the air; and goddesses glided out from the groves to meet her; and
from turret to foundation Kenilworth trembled under a cannonade, and for
seventeen days, at a cost of five thousand dollars a day, the festival was
kept. Four hundred servants standing in costly livery; sham battles between
knights on horseback; jugglers tumbling on the grass; thirteen bears baited
for the amusement of the guests; three hundred and twenty hogsheads of beer
consumed, till all Europe applauded, denounced and stood amazed.

Where is the glory now? What has become of the velvet? Who wears the
jewels? Would Amy Robsart have so longed to get into the castle had she
known its coming ruin? Where are those who were waited on, and those who
waited? What has become of Elizabeth, the visitor, and Robert Dudley, the
visited? Cromwell's men dashed upon the scene; they drained the lakes; they
befouled the banquet hall; they dismantled the towers; they turned the
castle into a tomb, on whose scarred and riven sides ambition and cruelty
and lust may well read their doom. "So let all thine enemies perish, O
Lord; but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his
might."

CHAPTER XIII.

THE MIDNIGHT LECTURE.

At eight o'clock precisely, on consecutive nights, we stepped on the
rostrum at Chicago, Zanesville. Indianapolis, Detroit, Jacksonville,
Cleveland and Buffalo. But it seemed that Dayton was to be a failure. We
telegraphed from Indianapolis, "Missed connection. Cannot possibly meet
engagement at Dayton." Telegram came back saying, "Take a locomotive and
come on!" We could not get a locomotive. Another telegram arrived: "Mr.
Gale, the superintendent of railroad, will send you in an extra train. Go
immediately to the depot!" We gathered up our traps from the hotel floor
and sofa, and hurled them at the satchel. They would not go in. We put a
collar in our hat, and the shaving apparatus in our coat pocket; got on the
satchel with both feet, and declared the thing should go shut if it split
everything between Indianapolis and Dayton. Arriving at the depot, the
train was ready. We