His arms were rapier and dagger, both having gilt and
graven handles, and sheaths of black velvet.
As he moved along, the sound of voices chanting vespers arose from
Saint George's Chapel; and while he paused to listen to the solemn
strains, a door, in that part of the castle used as the king's privy
lodgings, opened, and a person advanced towards him. The new-comer
had broad, brown, martial-looking features, darkened still more by a
thick coal-black beard, clipped short in the fashion of the time, and a
pair of enormous moustachios. He was accoutred in a habergeon,
which gleamed from beneath the folds of a russet-coloured mantle, and
wore a steel cap in lieu of a bonnet on his head, while a long sword
dangled from beneath his cloak. When within a few paces of the youth,
whose back was towards him, and who did not hear his approach, he
announced himself by a loud cough, that proved the excellence of his
lungs, and made the old walls ring again, startling the jackdaws
roosting in the battlements.
"What! composing a vesper hymn, my lord of Surrey?" he cried with a
laugh, as the other hastily thrust the tablets, which he had hitherto held
in his hand, into his bosom.
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