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. 2, 1862.] day. The heat of the sunshine on the open hills was tempered by a pleasant breeze: and wherever the Buxton people looked out there were trains of country people, with their packhorses making their way in the direction of the fair. When her Grace mounted her horse, glances passed among the bystanders, for they had never seen her so beautiful. Her colour was high; her eyes, if not sparkling, were full of life and sensibility, and her bearing had none of the languor which had become almost habitual to her. Ordinary observers made the remark that her Grace was possibly as well pleased at the diversion as any of her ladies could be; indeed, she was young enough, though so often a widow, to relish a festival day. Closer watchers saw that her mind was full, as well as her spirits gay. The expression of her countenance told of something very unlike levity within.

When the first ascent out of the valley was passed, the stiffness of the cavalcade was relaxed. The bells of the packhorses, far and near, seemed to exhilarate the ladies; and yet more cheerful were they when the breeze brought the clang of church bells. Every church in Derbyshire sent out its bell music on occasions of public holiday. When the party reached the moorland, there was the bleating of innumerable sheep; and the foreign ladies were told that there were, within the county, as many as twenty thousand in a single flock. There was a great deal to be related of the popular discontent about enclosures, and of the endeavours of the clergy and the great landlords to convince the yeomen that by an enclosure they might each save the labour of a shepherd, and secure the manuring of the arable land. The question of the concentration of the sheep, and the better care of the fleece thus practicable, or of their dispersion over the hills and moors, whereby a regiment of shepherds was required, seemed to interest Mary of Scotland. She observed on the great extent of moorland in her own kingdom, and on the chances of increasing the production of wool. When Felton and Stansbury joined the cavalcade by a bridle path in the hills, her Grace summoned them to her side, as Derbyshire men, to give her information. While they were deep in the ostensible discussion of wool and grazing as against tillage,—a subject on which Bishop Latimer was quoted without any appearance of horror, the Lady Bess exchanged a few words with her chief man at arms. Here were two papists added already to her Grace’s train: it must be looked to that the number did not increase too far.

There seemed to be no reason to apprehend any difficulty. When the cavalcade paused on any ridge to survey the scenery, there were none but country people in sight. Country gentlemen there were, jogging on towards the fair; but they seemed to know nothing of the presence of any stray princess in their county. Most of them were unaware of the existence of any rival to their own Queen; and the rest had not heard of Mary’s arrival in England. For fourteen years to come they would hear more and more of her; but as yet there had not been time. It was only by means of these fairs that they heard any news beyond the rural incidents of their own parish. They were aware that the country had been growing prosperous under the rule of Queen Bess; and they would willingly have done anything in her service that could be proposed: but they had everything to learn of the politics of the case: and if told, at the moment when her Grace of Scotland turned her horse on the ridge, that that lady called herself, and was called by her train of foreigners, the Queen of England, as well as France and Scotland, they would have stared at her as much for her odd impertinence as they now did for her strange beauty.

At the fair all imaginable articles of ordinary consumption were sold retail, on the spot where the Earl had thoughts of erecting a market-house. The Countess seemed to forget the presence of her guest while conferring with her architect on the subject. She allowed the whole party to sit waiting in the hot sunshine,—their horses irritated by the flies, and their ears assailed by all the din of the fair. This was not all pre-occupation. She desired to observe who would venture to address the queen, and whether any attempt would be made to withdraw from her vigilance. Nothing of the sort happened. There was some ridicule perhaps of the Countess herself, which the queen did not repress. As for the rest, the gentlemen brought fruit and whey to the ladies, and busied themselves in learning whether the games promised much amusement. When the Countess rejoined the party, she made some approach to an apology for having kept them waiting. If she had seemed to neglect the convenience of her mounted guests, she said, it was for the sake of people who had to go on foot,—and some of them barefoot; and who had to bear not only the heat of the sun in August, but the winter blast, and the snowdrift, and the autumn rains. Fewer of them would be lost in the hill-fogs, perhaps, when there should be a market-house with a bell in it;—a bell which should be to the shepherds round like the shore-beacon to the mariner in stormy nights. Her Grace smiled upon the apology, and at once took an interest in the market-house,—putting Gadbury’s wits to flight as she, reputed a witch on that account, was apt to do, as often as she addressed herself to any stranger. To be accosted by a queen was not altogether a new thing to the architect. He had been called to attend his own sovereign when she rode through the streets of Norwich, and to the rising grounds made famous to that generation by Kett’s rebellion. He had guided her Majesty to Kett’s Castle on the hill; and had expounded to her the antiquities of Norwich Castle, and the architecture of the Bishop’s Palace, at which she had been lodging: and never once had he felt confounded, as he now did, when spoken to by a disgraced and exiled queen about a market-house in the Derbyshire hills. By the time her Grace had passed on towards the green where the archery was to take place, he had thought of several things which it would have been well to say. He followed, in hope of another chance; but he was so lost in vexing himself about his failure in manners that he saw little of what was going forward. He was conjecturing what the French and Scotch ladies would say, when alone, of the breeding of Bess of Hardwick and her architect.