by those who sought to avenge insults committed during drunken brawls.
Now it would seem some orgie was meditated: liveried servants, one or two only bearing Clifford's coat, the rest wearing different badges, as belonging to different masters, had arrived during the previous day. Some of the ruined huts were pulled down to supply firewood, and the old chimnies sent out volumes of smoke; various carts, laden, some with eatables, fat bucks, young calves, pheasants, hares, and partridges, piles of bread, seven hooped casks of wine, were unladen in the mildew-stained hall. Other carts followed the first, bearing bedding, apparel, furniture, and, it was whispered by the idling villagers, arms. Several apartments were strewed thick with rushes, and the blazing fires, in spite of the tattered plaster and stained ceilings, imparted cheerfulness to the rooms. There was need of internal warmth; a thick snow-storm fell, sheeting the low fields, which, uninterspersed by trees, now looked doubly wild and drear. The waters of the moat and pool were frozen; a sharp north wind whistled round the house. For the first time for many years its poor dependents were cheered during the severe season by the crumbs, or rather large portions of superfluous food, from the mansion of their landlord.
The first guest that arrived came in a close litter, attended by a Moorish servant, and Clifford himself on horseback. Monina had forgotten her Flemish home: bright Andalusia—its orange groves, myrtle and geranium hedges, the evergreen forests which embowered Alcala, and the fertile laughing Vega of Granada, formed her image of such portions of fair earth, as, unencumbered by houses, afforded on its green and various surface sustenance to his inhabitants. She shivered before the northern blast, and gazed appalled on the white plain, where the drifting snow shifted in whole showers as the wind passed over it. The looks of the people, sallow, ill-clothed, and stupid, made her turn from contemplating them, as she yet answered the contemptuous and plaintive remarks of her Spanish attendant in a cheerful, deprecating voice.
For two successive days other guests continued to arrive. They were chiefly men of note, yet came attended by few domestics. There was Lord Fitzwater, dissatisfied at the part of rebel he was forced, he thought, to play; and on that account he was louder than any against King Henry. Sir Simon Mountford was a Yorkist of the days of Edward the Fourth; he personally bated Richmond, and looked on Richard's as a sacred cause. Sir Thomas Thwaites had been a friend of the earl of Rivers, and gladly seized this occasion to avenge his death, attributable
