The grinning ape--as I thought him--very nearly set me off into saying that I knew all about it; and that the yellow saddle-cloth was the colour the Duke of Monmouth used always; but I did not. It appeared to me then the worst of manners that these personages should come and make a mock of country-folk, so that even the servants laughed at us. * * * * * Our guests were downstairs when I came in again, and talking very merrily to my Cousin Dorothy, who was as much at her ease as last night. The Duke sneezed once or twice. "You have taken a cold, sir," said Dolly. "It was in a good cause," he said; and sneezed again. "_Salute_," said I. He gave me a quick look, astonished, I suppose, that a rustic should know the Italian ways. "_Grazie_," said he, smiling. "You have been in Italy, Mr. Mallock?" "Oh! I have been everywhere," I said, with a foolish idea of making him respect me. * * * * * When they rode away at last, we all stood at the gate to watch them go. The storm had cleared away wonderfully; and the air was fresh and summerlike, and ten thousand jewels sparkled on the limes. They made a very gallant cavalcade. The horses had recovered from their weariness, for they were finely bred, all five of them; and the Duke's horse especially was full of spirit, and curvetted a little, with pleasure and the strength of our corn, as he went along. The servants' liveries too were gay and pleasant to the eye:--(they were not the Duke's own liveries; for when he went about outside town he used a plainer sort)--and the Duke's dark blue, with his fair curls and his great hat which he waved as he went, and my Lord Essex's spruce figure in his buff, all made a very pretty picture as they went up the village street. It was this, I think, and my Cousin Dolly's silence as she looked after them, that determined me; and as we three went back again up the flagged path to the house, and the servants round again to the yard, I spoke. "Cousin Tom," I said. "Do you wish to know who our guests were?" He looked at me in astonishment, and my Cousin Dolly too. "Mr. Morton is the Duke of Monmouth," I said, "and Mr. Atkins, my Lord Essex." CHAPTER V