Page:Waverley Novels, vol. 22 (1831).djvu/291

 resolved I will have my own cloak, ay, and brush my doublet to boot, ere I stir forth with you."

"Well, well," said Blount, "here is a coil about a doublet and a cloak. Get thyself ready, a God's name!"

They were soon launched on the princely bosom of the broad Thames, upon which the sun now shone forth in all its splendour.

"There are two things scarce matched in the universe," said Walter to Blount--"the sun in heaven, and the Thames on the earth."

"The one will light us to Greenwich well enough," said Blount, "and the other would take us there a little faster if it were ebb-tide."

"And this is all thou thinkest--all thou carest--all thou deemest the use of the King of Elements and the King of Rivers--to guide three such poor caitiffs as thyself, and me, and Tracy, upon an idle journey of courtly ceremony!"

"It is no errand of my seeking, faith," replied Blount, "and I could excuse both the sun and the Thames the trouble of carrying me where I have no great mind to go, and where I expect but dog's wages for my trouble--and by my honour," he added, looking out from the head of the boat, "it seems to me as if our message were a sort of labour in vain, for, see, the Queen's barge lies at the stairs as if her Majesty were about to take water."

It was even so. The royal barge, manned with the Queen's watermen richly attired in the regal liveries, and having the Banner of England displayed, did indeed lie at the great stairs which ascended