 outer gateway of the
Castle of Kenilworth.
    Under such disastrous circumstances, and in such singular company, did the
unfortunate Countess of Leicester approach, for the first time, the magnificent
abode of her almost princely husband.
 

                              Chapter Twenty-Sixth

            Snug: - Have you the lion's part written? pray, if it be, give it
            me, for I am slow of study.
             Quince: - You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.
                                                        Midsummer-Night's Dream.
 
When the Countess of Leicester arrived at the outer gate of the Castle of
Kenilworth, she found the tower, beneath which its ample portal arch opened,
guarded in a singular manner. Upon the battlements were placed gigantic warders,
with clubs, battle-axes, and other implements of ancient warfare, designed to
represent the soldiers of King Arthur; those primitive Britons, by whom,
according to romantic tradition, the Castle had been first tenanted, though
history carried back its antiquity only to the times of the Heptarchy. Some of
these tremendous figures were real men, dressed up with vizards and buskins;
others were mere pageants composed of pasteboard and buckram, which, viewed from
beneath, and mingled with those that were real, formed a sufficiently striking
representation of what was intended. But the gigantic porter who waited at the
gate beneath, and actually discharged the duties of warder, owed none of his
terrors to fictitious means. He was a man whose huge stature, thewes, sinews,
and bulk in proportion, would have enabled him to enact Colbrand, Ascapart, or
any other giant of romance, without raising himself nearer to heaven even by the
altitude of a chopin. The legs and knees of this son of Anak were bare, as were
his arms from a span below the shoulder; but his feet were defended with
sandals, fastened with cross straps of scarlet leather, studded with brazen
knobs. A close jerkin of scarlet velvet, looped with gold, with short breeches
of the same, covered his body and part of his limbs; and he wore on his
shoulders, instead of a cloak, the skin of a black bear. The head of this
formidable person was uncovered, except by his shaggy black hair, which
descended on either side around features of that huge, lumpish, and heavy cast,
which are often annexed to men of very uncommon size, and which, notwithstanding
some distinguished exceptions, have created a general prejudice against giants,
as being a dull and sullen kind of persons. This tremendous warder was
appropriately armed with a heavy club spiked with steel. In fine, he
