Thus proceeding, it was near four o'clock before the little party entered Newark, and then it was with the greatest difficulty that they found accommodation in a fourth-rate inn, at the extreme verge of the town, on the side of Nottingham. All was bustle and confusion in the place, notwithstanding the proclamation; the court-yard was crowded with horses; and eating and drinking, which had begun at five in the morning, was still going on with undiminished voracity. A buzz of manifold voices came from every room in the house, above which arose, from time to time, various loud and angry calls for tapsters, ostlers, and landlord. Margery, the host's pretty daughter, had had more kisses ravished from her in one day than ever she bestowed willingly in her life; and the landlord, bustling about, and vowing that he should be ruined and undone by the confusion that reigned in his establishment, took ample care that if any one did, indeed, escape his vigilant eyes without paying their scores, the more honest, or less fortunate, should abundantly make up for the deficiency. For some time it seemed, though the citizens of Oakham had acquired a somewhat importunate appetite on the road, that no provisions were to be had for love or money; and, leaving Masters Smallit and Polty to settle that affair as they might, and get all ready against his return, Matthew Lakyn, with due reverence for the business with which he was intrusted, went out at once on feet, to deliver the letter to Sir Robert Cecil. Well aware of the difficulty of getting to a great man's presence in the midst of a court, Lakyn determined, in the first place, to inquire for one of the servants of the famous minister, with several of whom he had been acquainted when his master had frequented the gay scenes of the capital. On this errand he was bustling along through the crowds which nearly blocked up the principal street of the town, when, in a group of persons at one of the doors, he caught sight of the well-known colours of the Cecil family, and the badge, with its barry and escutcheoned field; and making his way through, he was soon shaking hands with an old compotator, whom he had not seen for several years. His business was easily explained; but, on hearing of the letter, the serving-man put on a wise and diplomatic look, such as official personages assume to nip a request in the bud before being driven actually to refuse it. "Is it a petition?" he asked; "for 'tis not easy to bring petitions to my good master. He abhors them as a love-sick maiden hates cheese."