"Marry! there's old Billy Gander. How red his nose is! Why didn't he get some of thy powder thou art so fond of, Bowerman?"
"And look! there's Dicky Shide. By St Anthony! but he's got a worse squint than of old. Poor old Squint Eye!"
"Willie, my swain, there's Polly Bremeskete. I wouldn't let her see thee, that I wouldn't. She told Tom o' Kingston she meant to marry thee, come next Peter's day. And she always keeps her word."
"By'r lady, there's Yolande de Lisle; she looks more lovely than ever!" And Eustace Bowerman drew himself up, and sat his horse with greater importance than before, while even Richard Cheke and Maurice Woodville looked conscious, and glanced at their dress, squared their toes, and sat more erect on their steeds, holding their horses tighter with their knees, and making them step in lighter action.
Ralph glanced to where Bowerman had descried the object of all this homage, curious to see who it was that bore his name. He had heard that a great-uncle of his had returned to the island home of his ancestors in King Harry the Fourth's reign, but he had forgotten all about it, and had never given such remote genealogical questions a thought. However, now he heard the name mentioned, he recollected what he had been told, and what his father had said about the disinherited son, and the only daughter.
He had not to search long for the young lady who created so much admiration among the pages.
Sitting her palfrey with easy grace, and perfectly at home amid the noisy crowd and free manners of the rough troopers, was a girl or rather young woman of about eighteen or twenty, of very graceful, although somewhat robust, proportions, but remarkable for her brilliant complexion, lovely features, and sparkling blue eyes. Fun and health glowed in every line of her face, in her masses of wavy fair hair, which refused to be confined under the prim cap and horned head-dress in which the fashion of the time struggled hard to reduce them to order, in her soft cheeks, red lips, and graceful rounded figure. Ralph thought there never was anyone so lovely in the whole world. He forget everything. He gazed at her in rapt admiration, utterly oblivious of all that was going on.