Earl of Ealing, a youngster who had his spurs to win, who thought it
policy to serve the great time-server. Two others also came.

It was a morning little made for deeds of rancour or of blood. As they
passed, the early morning mists above the green fields of Kent and Essex
were being melted by the summer sun. The smell of ripening fruit came on
them with pungent sweetness, their feet crashed odorously through clumps
of tiger-lilies, and the dew on the ribbon-grass shook glistening drops
upon their velvets. Overhead the carolling of the thrush came swimming
recklessly through the trees, and far over in the fields the ploughmen
started upon the heavy courses of their labour; while here and there
poachers with bows and arrows slid through the green undergrowth, like
spies hovering on an army's flank.

To Lempriere the morning carried no impression save that life was well
worth living. No agitation passed across his nerves, no apprehension
reached his mind. He had no imagination; he loved the things that his
eyes saw because they filled him with enjoyment; but why they were, or
whence they came, or what they meant or boded, never gave him meditation.
A vast epicurean, a consummate egotist, ripe with feeling and rich with
energy, he could not believe that when he spoke the heavens would not
fall. The stinging sweetness of the morning was a tonic to all his
energies, an elation to his mind; he swaggered through the lush grasses
and boskage as though marching to a marriage.

Leicester, on his part, no more caught at the meaning of the morning, at
the long whisper of enlivened nature, than did his foe. The day gave to
him no more than was his right. If the day was not fine, then Leicester
was injured; but if the day was fine, then Leicester had his due. Moral
blindness made him blind for the million deep teachings trembling round