Page:The Story of Nell Gwyn.djvu/147

Rh of Buckingham (the daughter of Sir Thomas Fairfax) deserves to be related. The court was at Audley End in the autumn of 1670, and the temptation of a fair in the neighbourhood induced the Queen and several of her attendants to visit it in disguise. They therefore dressed themselves like country girls, in red petticoats and waistcoats. Sir Bernard Gascoign rode on a cart-jade before the Queen, another gentleman in like fashion before the Duchess of Richmond, and a Mr. Roper before the Duchess of Buckingham. Their dresses, however, were, it is said, so much overdone, that they looked more like mountebanks than country clowns, and they were consequently followed as soon as they arrived at the fair by a crowd of curious people. The Queen, stepping into a booth to buy a pair of yellow stockings for her sweetheart, and Sir Bernard asking for a pair of gloves, striped with blue, for his sweetheart, they were at once detected by their false dialect and gibberish. A girl in the crowd remembered to have seen the Queen at dinner, and at once made known her discovery. The whole concourse of people were soon collected in one spot to see the Queen. It was high time therefore to get their horses and return to Audley End. They were soon remounted