with their guns, caissons, and tumbrils. In the centre were the Cornish
body guard and the militia infantry in battalion six deep, while the
reserve and recruits brought up the rear. All but the last-named carried
matches for their firearms, which were loaded with blank cartridge. The
supports carried pikes. The drums beat, the colours flew, as Charles and
his staff, surrounded by an escort of the mounted infantry, emerging
from the south gate of the castle, rode along the low-water causeway.

Mme. de Maufant and her sister, mounted on sober but well-bred nags, and
accompanied by some of their farm hands in gala costume, occupied a
foremost place among the spectators. But the appearance of the castle
_cortège_ threatened their comfort, if not their safety. For the public
excitement grew from moment to moment, "and those behind cried forward!
and those before cried back!" The younger and more excitable especially,
spurred by the fine weather and the novel spectacle, pressed eagerly to
the front, mixed with mothers of scrofulous children, desirous of
gaining for them the healing virtue of the royal touch. The king's
horse, short of work, and participating in the general excitement,
reared and curvetted in the crowd, but was reined in by his skillful
rider.

Charles was in his purple velvet, with no token of a military purpose.
But on his left rode a gigantic guardsman in full panoply, while Elliot
came on the right (but with his horse half a length behind) in gorgeous
array, though more for show than for service. In his silver helmet
fluttered a lissom ostrich plume, his shining cuirass was damascened
with gold, which metal also glittered on the hilt of his sword. The tops
of his buff boots and gauntlets were fringed with costly Brussels point.
As they approached the crushed and alarmed ladies, a militia officer
rushing to their aid from his place between the guns and the nearest