The queen is playing now with her ladies at a courtly game called the marteaux, while others are amusing themselves as best befit them, according to the fashion of the times. King Edward is dancing with the Lady Elizabeth, his eldest daughter, and all is mirth and revelry, and joyousness, and well may those rejoice, who but a few days before knew not where to find a hiding-place. Who is that stately gentleman, whose dress and accent bespeak him from foreign parts, on whom all eyes are turned, and even the king salutes with more than kingly courtesy? The Lord of Grauthuse, Louis of Bruges. At once a nobleman, a merchant, and a man of letters, acting as deputy in the Low Countries for his master, Charles the Bold. He received and welcomed his royal guest, when in the preceding year the king fled from England, with a few attendants, "the most distressed company of creatures that were ever seen," for Edward had left his military coat, lined with martin's fur, with the master of the ship, having no other means of paying him, and was put on shore in his waistcoat. Unlike many in those days, who made the exiles of either faction, whether of the red or paler rose, pay dearly for their prison-houses, or hard fare, the Lord of Grauthuse fed and clothed the king and his attendants. He lent him ships and money, without which he could not have returned to his family, and afforded him every facility for making good his landing on the shores of Britain.[53] The minstrel has ceased now, and night and silence pervade the castle. The moon, which looked down on the white sail of King Edward, passing in its swiftness and its loneliness over the dark waters, shines now on the ancient turrets of Windsor Castle, wherein the king is sleeping. And there, too, his wife and children, his courtiers and his guards, are resting, and no sound is heard except the heavy tramp of the warders as they go their rounds, or perchance the deep bay of some listening hound, which the leveret's light step on the damp grass has roused from his slumber. Morning returns, and the cheerful sights and sounds of busy life. St. George's Chapel, with its painted windows and knights' banners are brightening in the sunbeams, while our lady's mass is sung, with the full harmony of the choristers' sweet voices. The king is there, Lady Elizabeth and the Lord Grauthuse, for it seems as if his late deliverance from so much peril had wrought good thoughts within him.