The table was of immense length, as it had need to be, and flashed and sparkled in the wax lights with heaps of gold and silver plate, cut-glass, and precious porcelain.

Golden and crimson wines shone in the carved decanters; great silver baskets of fruit were strewn about, with piles of cakes and confectionery--not to speak of more solid substantials, wherein the heart of every true Englishman delighteth.
The queen sat in a great, raised chair at the head, and helped herself without paying much attention to anybody, and the remainder were ranged down its length, according to their rank--which, as they were all pretty much dukes and duchesses, was about equal.
The spirits of the company--depressed for a moment by the unpleasant little circumstance of seeing one of their number beheaded--seemed to revive under the spirituous influence of sherry, sack, and burgundy; and soon they were laughing, and chatting, and hobnobbing, as animatedly as any dinner-party Sir Norman had ever seen.

The musicians, too, appeared to be in high feather, and the merriest music of the day assisted the noble banqueters' digestion.
Under ordinary circumstances, it was rather a tantalizing scene to stand aloof and contemplate; and so the guards very likely felt; but Sir Norman's thoughts were of that room in black, the headsman's axe, and Leoline.

He felt he would never see her again--never see the sun rise that was to shine on their bridal; and he wondered what she would think of him, and if she was destined to fall into the hands of Lord Rochester or Count L'Estrange.

As a general thing, our young friend was not given to melancholy moralizing, but in the present case, with the headsman's axe poised like the sword of Damocles above him by a single hair, he may be pardoned for reflecting that this world is all a fleeting show, and that he had got himself into a scrape, to which the plague was a trifle.
And yet, with nervous impatience, he wished the dinner and his trial were over, his fate sealed, and his life ended at once, since it was to be ended soon.