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All that women can use was there, especially of clothes, to wit, bodices, plaited gowns, long robes, some of them bordered with fur, veils, aprons, item, the bridal shift with gold fringes, whereon the merry lord had laid some six or seven bunches of myrtle to make herself a wreath withal. Item, there was no end to the rings, neck-chains, eardrops, etc., the which I have in part forgotten.
Having brought her to Beltane, Roger loosed her, and wrenching away her bundle, opened it, and lo! a yellow-gleaming hoard of golden neck-chains, of rings and armlets, of golden spurs and belt-buckles, the which he incontinent scattered at Beltane's feet; whereon the gibbering creature screamed in high-pitched, cracked and ancient voice, and, screeching, threw herself upon the gold and fell to scrabbling among the dust with her gnarled and bony fingers; and ever as she raked and raked, she screeched harsh and high a hateful noise that ended, of a sudden, in a wheezing sob, and sinking down, she lay outstretched and silent, her wrinkled face in the dust and a cloth-yard shaft transfixing her yellow throat.
It is true that in their exact correctness they might have been mistaken for toast-masters, or, with the slight addition of silver neck-chains, for high officials in a costly restaurant. But great-stepuncle James could never have been mistaken for anything but a chip of the early nineteenth century flicked by the hammer of Fate into the twentieth.
One was a quiet little man in black, with a grey head and a jolly shrewd face the other was in all respects a splendid and remarkable individual. He was a tall and portly gentleman with a hooked nose and a profusion of curling brown hair and whiskers; his coat was covered with the richest frogs-braiding and velvet. He had under-waistcoats, many splendid rings, jewelled pins and neck-chains.
I agreed to accept them, and she pulled off her nose-rings and ear-rings, all her neck-chains, with their ornaments, and the bracelets from her wrists and ankles, and gave them to me in exchange for it. These ornaments would weigh more than a pound, and were made of solid gold at Timbuctoo.
Their beads, rings, bracelets, collars, carcanets, and neck-chains were all of precious stones, such as carbuncles, rubies, baleus, diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, turquoises, garnets, agates, beryls, and excellent margarites. Their head-dressing also varied with the season of the year, according to which they decked themselves.
For the rest, "he attired himself in pompous clothes, wearing doublets of brocade, cloaks trimmed with gold lace, gorgeous caps, neck-chains, and other vanities of a like description, fit for buffoons and mountebanks." In one of the frescoes of Monte Oliveto, Sodoma painted his own portrait, with some of his curious pets around him.
The liquor that Culpepper and Hogben had distributed had rendered them curious or full of mutiny and discontent, and they surrounded Throckmorton's brilliant figure in its purple velvet, with the gold neck-chains and the jewelled hat, and some of them asked for money, and some called him 'Frenchman, and some knew him for a spy, and some caught up stones and jawbones furtively to cast at him.
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