with
their chieftain's cognizance. A man of gigantic girth and stature,
who officiated as porter, leaning against the wall under the arch, now
emerged from the shadow, and with sufficient civility demanded the young
visitor's name and business. On hearing the former, he bowed low as he
doffed his hat, and conducted Marmaduke through the first quadrangle.
The two sides to the right and left were devoted to the offices and
rooms of retainers, of whom no less than six hundred, not to speak of
the domestic and more orderly retinue, attested the state of the Last of
the English Barons on his visits to the capital. Far from being then, as
now, the object of the great to thrust all that belongs to the service
of the house out of sight, it was their pride to strike awe into the
visitor by the extent of accommodation afforded to their followers: some
seated on benches of stone ranged along the walls; some grouped in the
centre of the court; some lying at length upon the two oblong patches of
what had been turf, till worn away by frequent feet,--this domestic
army filled the young Nevile with an admiration far greater than the
gay satins of the knights and nobles who had gathered round the lord of
Montagu and Northumberland at the pastime-ground.

This assemblage, however, were evidently under a rude discipline of
their own. They were neither noisy nor drunk. They made way with surly
obeisance as the cavalier passed, and closing on his track like some
horde of wild cattle, gazed after him with earnest silence, and then
turned once more to their indolent whispers with each other.

And now Nevile entered the last side of the quadrangle. The huge hall,
divided from the passage by a screen of stone fretwork, so fine as to
attest the hand of some architect in the reign of Henry III., stretched
to his right; and so vast, in truth, it was, that though more than fifty
persons were variously engaged therein, their number was lost in the
immense space. Of these, at one end of the longer and lower table
beneath the dais, some squires of good dress and mien were engaged at
chess or dice; others were conferring in the gloomy embrasures of
the casements; some walking to and fro, others gathered round the
shovel-board. At the entrance of this hall the porter left Marmaduke,
after exchanging a whisper with a gentleman whose dress eclipsed the
Nevile's in splendour; and this latter personage, who, though of high
birth, did not disdain to perform