Sir Yvo de Taillebois, with twenty or thirty of the greatest barons of the north country, his cotemporaries, and many of them his brothers-in-arms, and fellows at the council-table of their puissant Norman monarch, whom they admitted only to be first baron of the English barons, _primus inter pares_, brought up the rear of the procession, while yet behind them filed a long band of spears and pennoncelles, and again after these a countless multitude, from all the country side, rejoicing and exulting, to form a portion of the pageant which added so much to the customary pleasures of the Maying. Thus, for miles, they swept onward through the pleasant meadow-land, tufted and gemmed with unnumbered flowers, between tall hedges white with the many-blossomed May, and overrun with flaunting clusters of the delicious woodbine. Once and again they were met by troops of country girls scattering flowers, and as often rode beneath triumphal arches, deftly framed of green leaves and gay wild-flowers by rustic hands, in token of the heart's gratitude, until they reached the shores of the blue lake, where Sir Yvo's yacht awaited them, convoyed by every barque and boat that could be pressed into the service from all the neighboring meres and lakelets of the county. The wind blew fair and soft, and swelled the sails of cloth of silver, and waved the long azure pennants forward, as omens of happy days ahead; and smoothly over the rippling waters, to the sound of the soft bridal music, galleys and horse-boats, barques and barges, careered in fair procession, while the great multitude, afoot, rushed, like an entering tide, through the horse-roads and lanes around the head of the lake, eager to share the wedding-feast and the wedding dance, at least, if not to witness the nuptial ceremonial. At Bowness they took horse again, and escorted by the bailiff and burghers of Kendall, proceeded, at an increased pace, to the splendid Abbey Church, dim with the religious light which streamed through its deeply tinted window-panes, and was yet further obscured by the thick clouds from the tossed chalices of incense, through which swelled, like an angel's choir, the pure chant of girls and children, and the deep diapason of the mighty organ. The nuptial ceremony was followed by a feast fit for kings, served up in the grand hall of Kendal Castle, wherein, before the Norman conquest, the proud Saxon Earls, Morcar and Edwin, maternal ancestors of the fair bride, had banqueted and rioted in state, and where, as tradition related, they had held revel for the last time on the eve of their departure for the fatal field of Hastings, fatal to Saxon liberty, but harbinger of a prouder era, and first cause and creatrix of a nobler race, to rule in Merrie England.