Sir Ludar | Page 2

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 gaping Court ushers, past the royal jockeys, past the Queen herself (Heaven bless her!) past Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, and yapping beagles, through the echoing gates of Temple Bar, till we stood at the head of the procession, and longed,