The limits of the city were already left far behind; green meadows and noble trees now filled the place of the crowded haunts of wealth and industry, while here and there a lordly dwelling, with its trim avenues, and terraced gardens sloping to the water’s edge, adorned the prospect. The turrets of Nottingham house, the suburban palace of that powerful peer, were soon in view; when a pageant swept along the river, stemming the ebb tide with a proud and stately motion--a pageant which, at any other period, would have been calculated, above all things else, to wake the lion-like exultation of the queen, though now it was passed in silence, and unheeded. The rover Cavendish[H]--who, a few years before, a gentleman of wealth and worship, had dissipated his paternal fortunes, and in the southern seas and on the Spanish main had become a famous free-booter--was entering the river with his prizes in goodly triumph. The flag-ship, a caravel of a hundred and twenty tons only, led the van, close-hauled and laden almost gunwale-deep with the precious spoils of Spain. Her distended topsail flashed in the sunlight like a royal banner, a single sheet of the richest cloth of gold; her courses were of crimson damask, her mariners clad in garments of the finest silk; banners flaunted from every part of the rigging; and over all the “meteor flag of England,” the red cross of St. George, streamed rearward, as if pointing to the long train of prizes which followed. Nineteen vessels, of every size and description then in use--carracks of the western Indies, galleons of Castile and Leon, with the flag of Spain, so late the mistress of the sea, disgracefully reversed beneath the captor’s ensign--sailed on in long and even array; while in the rear of all, the remainder of the predatory squadron, two little sea-wasps of forty and sixty tons burden, presented themselves in proud contrast to their bulky prizes, the hardy crews filling the air with clamors, and the light cannon booming in feeble but proud exultation. Time was when such a sight had roused her enthusiastic spirit almost to frenzy, but now that spirit was occupied, engrossed by cares peculiarly its own. The coxswain of the royal barge, his eye kindling with patriotic pride, and presuming a little on his long and faithful services, put up the helm, as if about to run alongside of the leading galley; but a cold frown and a forward wafture of the hand repelled his ardor; and the men their oars bending to the work, the barge was at her moorings ere many minutes had elapsed, by the water-gate of Nottingham-house--and the queen made her way, unannounced and almost unattended, to the chamber of the aged countess.