Sir Ludar | Page 2

and still my story lacked a beginning.
How comes it, then, that this day in May, of all others, should stand up
like a wall, as I look back over my life, and seem to me the beginning

of all things? Perhaps this history may show--or, perhaps, he who reads
it may come to see that I was right when I said I could not explain it.
It was a great day in London, within and without Temple Bar; and for
me, if for no other reason, it was famous, because on that day, for the
first and last time, I saw the great Queen Elizabeth. About eight o'clock,
while I stood, as was my wont, setting types in my master's shop, I
looked from the window (as was also my wont), and spied two
falconers in their green coats, with a trumpeter riding in the midst,
ambling citywards. In a moment I dropped my stick (and with it, alack!
a pieful of my master's types), and was out, cap and club, in the Strand,
shouting till I was hoarse, "God save her Majesty!"
On the instant, from every shop far and near, darted 'prentices and
journeymen, shouting and waving caps--some because they saw me do
so, some because they guessed what was afoot, some because they saw,
even now, the flutter of approaching pennons, and caught the winding
of the royal huntsmen's horns along the Strand.
The Queen was coming!
I went mad that day with loyalty. I kicked my fellows for not shouting
louder, and such as shouted not at all, I made to shout in a way they
least expected. Through the open door of Master Straw's, the
horologer's, I spied his two 'prentices, deaf to all the clamour, basely
gorging a hasty pudding behind the bench.
"What!" shouted I, bursting in upon them, and seizing each by his
cropped head, "what, ye gluttonous pair of porkers, is this the way you
welcome her Majesty into our duchy? Is this a time for greasy pudding
and smacking of lips? Come outside and shout, or I'll brain you with
your own spoons."
Whereupon, forgetting what I did, I dipped the white face of each in his
own mess, and dragged them forth, where, to do them justice, they
shouted and howled as loud as any one.
And now the Strand overflowed from end to end with loyal citizens.

From the windows above, the faces of the city madams beamed, and
the white necks of their daughters craned; while behind, with half an
eye on us clubs below, peeped, on tiptoe, the maids. At each shop-door
stood the grave forms of our masters, thinking, perhaps, of a lost day's
profits, and setting the cost thereof against the blessings of her
Majesty's happy reign. At the roadside, beggar, scholar, yokel, knight,
and noble jostled in a motley throng. But the sight of all that crowd was
the 'prentices, who swarmed out into the road, and raised our shouts
above the clanging of Saint Clement's bells and the trumpets of the
Royal servants. 'Twas no pageant we had come out to see. Giants, and
whales, and bottomless pits, and salvage men, and the like we could see
to our hearts' content on Lord Mayor's Day; and the gilded barges and
smoking cannon on the river's side. But it was not every day her
Majesty ambled through the city on her hunting horse, and passed our
way with her gallants for a day's sport in Epping woods.
As for me, I had no eyes or throat for any but that queenly woman, as
she cantered boldly on her white palfrey, a pace or more ahead of her
glittering courtiers. Had any one said to me that Elizabeth was that day
neither young nor lovely--had anyone even dared to whisper that she
was not divine--I would have brained him with my club where he stood.
For a moment her head turned my way, she waved her hand--it had a
little whip in it--and her lips moved to some words. Then as I rent the
air with a "God save your Majesty!" she was past.
At Temple Bar, the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, arrayed for the hunt, with
buglers and dogs attending, stood across the way, and with mighty
ceremony and palaver admitted her to the City. Woe betide them, for
all their gold collars and maces, had they kept her out!
But the halt, short as it was, served our purpose. For there was no more
going back to work on a day like this.
"To the front, clubs, and lead the way," shouted I, with what voice was
left me.
It was enough for the lads without Temple Bar. They closed on me with
a cheer, and followed me at the run, past the