emed placed for his accommodation beside the
gateway, and then ever and anon he started up, scratching his huge head,
and striding to and fro on his post, like one under a fit of impatience
and anxiety. It was while the porter was pacing before the gate in this
agitated manner, that Wayland, modestly, yet as a matter of course (not,
however, without some mental misgiving), was about to pass him, and
enter the portal arch. The porter, however, stopped his progress,
bidding him, in a thundering voice, "Stand back!" and enforcing his
injunction by heaving up his steel-shod mace, and dashing it on the
ground before Wayland's horse's nose with such vehemence that the
pavement flashed fire, and the archway rang to the clamour. Wayland,
availing himself of Dickie's hints, began to state that he belonged to a
band of performers to which his presence was indispensable, that he had
been accidentally detained behind, and much to the same purpose. But
the warder was inexorable, and kept muttering and murmuring something
betwixt his teeth, which Wayland could make little of; and addressing
betwixt whiles a refusal of admittance, couched in language which was
but too intelligible. A specimen of his speech might run thus:--"What,
how now, my masters?" (to himself)--"Here's a stir--here's a
coil."--(Then to Wayland)--"You are a loitering knave, and shall have no
entrance."--(Again to himself)--"Here's a throng--here's a thrusting.--I
shall ne'er get through with it--Here's a--humph--ha."--(To
Wayland)--"Back from the gate, or I'll break the pate of thee."--(Once
more to himself)--"Here's a--no--I shall never get through it."

"Stand still," whispered Flibbertigibbet into Wayland's ear, "I know
where the shoe pinches, and will tame him in an instant."

He dropped down from the horse, and skipping up to the porter, plucked
him by the tail of the bearskin, so as to induce him to decline his huge
head, and whispered something in his ear. Not at the command of the lord
of some Eastern talisman did ever Afrite change his horrid frown into
a look of smooth submission more suddenly than the gigantic porter
of Kenilworth relaxed the terrors of his looks at the instant
Flibbertigibbet's whisper reached his ears. He flung his club upon the
ground, and caught up Dickie Sludge, raising him to such a distance from
the earth as might have proved perilous had he chanced to let him slip.

"It is even so," he said, with a thundering sound of exultation