time, during the rest of the journey.  Little heed was paid to his garrulity by the young couple.  They let him talk on, feigning to listen, but in reality noting scarce a word he said.  As they entered the park of Theobalds, however, they found their tongues, and Gillian became loud in her admiration of the beautiful glades that opened before them, and of the dappled denizens of the wood that tripped lightsomely across the sward, or hurried towards the thickets.  The park, indeed, looked beautiful with its fine oaks in their freshly-opened foliage of the tenderest green, its numerous spreading beeches, its scattered thorns white with blossom, and the young fern just springing from the seed in the brakes.  No wonder Gillian was delighted.  Dick was equally enchanted, and regretted he was not like King James, master of a great park, that he might hunt within it at his pleasure.  Of course, if he had been king, Gillian would naturally have been his queen, and have hunted with him.  Old Greenford, too, admired the scene, and could not but admit that the park was improved, though he uttered something like a groan as he thought that Queen Elizabeth and the Lord Treasurer could be seen in it no longer.

After riding for a couple of miles along a road which led them over beautifully undulating ground, affording glimpses of every variety of forest scenery—­sometimes plunging them into the depths of groves, where the path was covered by over-arching trees—­sometimes crossing the open chace, studded by single aged oaks of the largest size—­sometimes, skirting the margin of a pool, fringed with flags, reeds, and bulrushes for the protection of the water-fowl—­now passing the large heronry, to the strict preservation of which James attached the utmost importance; they at length approached the long avenue leading to the palace.  At its entrance they found Jocelyn waiting for them.

The young man, who cared not for their company, had ridden on in advance.  The strange events of the morning gave him plenty of material for reflection, and he longed to commune with himself.  Accordingly, when the others stopped at Edmonton, he quitted them, promising to halt till they came up, before entering the precincts of the palace.  If his ride was not so agreeable as their’s, it at least enabled him to regain, in some degree, his composure of mind, which had been greatly disturbed by his abrupt parting with Aveline.  Her image was constantly before him, and refusing to be dismissed, connected itself with every object he beheld.  At first he despaired of meeting her again; but as he gradually grew calmer, his hopes revived, and difficulties which seemed insuperable began to disperse.  By the time Dick Taverner and his companions came up, he felt some disposition to talk, and Gillian’s hearty merriment and high spirits helped to enliven him.  Having ascertained, from one of the royal keepers whom he had encountered, that the King, with a large company, was out hawking on the banks of the New River, which was cut through the park, and that he would in all probability return through the great avenue to the palace, he proposed that they should station themselves somewhere within it, in order to see him pass.  This arrangement pleased all parties, so proceeding slowly up the avenue, they took up a position as described.