gentlemen, to the number of about two hundred, on horseback.  Last came the foot-soldiers of the garrison and those who had lost their horses, in all some five hundred, stretching far away, round towards the citadel, beyond the sight.  Colours were flying and weapons glittering, and though all was silence except for the pawing of a horse here and there, and the ringing of chain-bridles, everything looked like an ordered march of triumph rather than a surrender and evacuation.  Still there was a something in the silence that seemed to tell the true tale.

In the front carriage were lady Glamorgan and the ladies Elizabeth, Anne, and Mary.  In the carriages behind came their gentlewomen and their lady visitors, with their immediate attendants.  Dorothy, mounted on Dick, with Marquis’s chain fastened to the pommel of her saddle, followed the last carriage.  Beside her rode young Delaware, and his father, the master of the horse.

‘Open the white gate,’ said the marquis from the stair as he descended.

The great clock of the castle struck, and with the last stroke of the twelve came the blast of a trumpet from below.

‘Answer, trumpets,’ cried the marquis.

The governor repeated the order, and a tremendous blare followed, in which the drums unbidden joined.

This was the signal to the warders at the brick gate, and they flung its two leaves wide apart.

Another blast from below, and in marched on horseback general Fairfax with his staff, followed by three hundred foot.  The latter drew up on each side of the brick gate, while the general and his staff went on to the marble gate.

As soon as they appeared within it, the marquis, who had halted in the midst of his descent, came down to meet them.  He bowed to the general, and said:—­

’I would it were as a guest I received you, sir Thomas, for then might I honestly bid you welcome.  But that I cannot do when you so shake my poor nest that you shake the birds out of it.  But though I cannot bid you welcome, I will notwithstanding heartily bid you farewell, sir Thomas, and I thank you for your courtesy to me and mine.  This nut of Raglan was, I believe, the last you had to crack.  Amen.  God’s will be done.’

The general returned civil answer, and the marquis, again bowing graciously, advanced to the foremost carriage, the door of which was held for him by sir Ralph, the steward, while lord Charles stood by to assist his father.  The moment he had entered, the two gentlemen mounted the horses held for them one on each side of the carriage, lord Charles gave the word, the trumpets once more uttered a loud cry, the marquis’s moved, the rest followed, and in slow procession lord Worcester and his people, passing through the gates, left for ever the house of Raglan, and in his heart Henry Somerset bade the world good-bye.