Sir Ludar Part 1

Sir Ludar.

by Talbot Baines Reed.

CHAPTER ONE.

HOW I SAW MY QUEEN.

Every story, whether wise or foolish, grave or gay, must needs have a beginning. How it comes to pa.s.s that my story begins on a certain day in May, in the year of our Lord 1585, I can never, although I am far on in life now, properly explain.

For that was not the day on which I was born. That adventure had befallen me eighteen years before, at the parson's little house in Felton Regis. Most people who write their histories have a pride in dragging their readers back to the moment when they first hallooed defiance to this wicked world; but I, since I have clean forgotten the event, must e'en confess that my story does not begin there. A like adventure chanced often at the parsonage, and, at nine years of age, I reigned king absolute over a nursery full of her Majesty's subjects who called me brother, and quailed before my nod like Helots before the crest of a Spartan. But, as I say, all that is neither here nor there in my story.

Nor, in truth, is that grey September day, when, on the tail of a country hay-cart, I rode tremulously at my dear father's side into London; where, with much pomp and taking of oaths, I was bound apprentice, body and soul, to Master Robert Walgrave, the printer, in the presence of the worshipful Master, Wardens, and a.s.sistants of the Company of Stationers, who enriched themselves by 2 shillings 6 pence at my father's cost, and looked upon me in a hungry way that made me tremble in my bones, and long to be out of their sight before they should order the bill of fare for their next feast. That was a day in my life truly, but it was ancient history when my story begins. I had grown a big lad since then, and was the king of Clubs without Temple Bar, and the terror of all young 'prentices for a mile round, who looked up with white cheeks when I swaggered by, and ran with their tails between their legs to hide behind counters and doorposts till I was out of sight.

No; nor yet does my story begin even at that sad day--alack!--when I stood by my widowed mother at the open grave of him who had been the pillar of our house and the pride of our lives. "Humphrey, my boy," she had said as she placed her hand on my arm and led me, like one in a dream, from the place, "it is G.o.d who has taken--He will surely also give. Shall I count all lost, with a stalwart arm like this to lean upon?" Then she kissed me, and I, for very shame, dried my eyes and held up my head. Ah me! that was but a year before; the world had still moved on, the gra.s.s covered his grave, 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 hoa.r.s.e, "G.o.d 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 n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sed 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 "G.o.d 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, with a mighty longing, that someone might dispute the way with us.

But we had no work for our clubs that morning. As we moved forward, our body, like a growing s...o...b..ll, was swelled by the 'prentices of each ward, shouting as l.u.s.tily as we, "Make way!" and hurling defiance, like us, on all the Queen's foes by land and by sea. Even the gay sparks of the Temple gave us no handle for a sally, for they shouted with the best of us.

And so, down Fleet Street and in at the Ludgate, past the square tower of Saint Paul's, and along merry Cheap, we pa.s.sed; our numbers swelling at every step, till it seemed as if all London was out escorting her Majesty through the city. As you pa.s.sed below Bow Church you could scarcely hear the clanging of the bells for the shouting of the people.

At the New Exchange there was like to be a battle at last. For the 'prentices, of the Bridge had heard the uproar from afar, and swarmed down upon us in a flood, so that had we not held our own stoutly, we should have been driven back upon the royal huntress herself.

"Stand, if you be men, and fall in after us!" I shouted.

"Ho! ho!" answered they; "since when was the printer's devil outside the Bar made mayor of our town? Follow you us."

It was not a time for bandying words. From behind us came a shout, "Pa.s.s on, pa.s.s on; room for the Queen!" And at the word we charged forward, shoulder to shoulder, and brushed those unmannerly mercers and barber-surgeons aside as a torrent the nettles that grow on its bank.

Let them follow as they list. The Queen went hunting to-day, and was not to be kept standing for a score of London Bridges, if we knew it.

After that we pa.s.sed shouting up the Cornhill, and so on to the Bishop's Gate, where at length we halted and made a lane in our midst for her Majesty to ride through.

Never, I think, did monarch ride down a prouder road than that, walled four-deep for the length of two furlongs by youths who would fain have spilt their blood twice over to do her service, and who, since that was denied them, flung their shouts to heaven as she pa.s.sed, and waved their caps club-high. I think, in truth, she needed no telling what kind of road it was, for as she cantered by her face was flushed and joyous, her head was erect, and the hand she waved clenched on the little whip, as though she grasped her people's hand. Then in a moment she was gone.

Thus for the first and only time did I set eyes on the great maiden Queen; and when all was over, and the clattering hoofs and yelping hounds and winding horns were lost in the distance, I came to myself and found I was both hungry and athirst.

The crowd melted away. Some returned the way they had come: some slunk back to their deserted shops: I to Finsbury Fields. For I accounted it a crime that day to work--I would as soon have set up types on Lord Mayor's Day. This day belonged to her Majesty, and I would e'en spend it in her service, wrestling and leaping in the meadows, and training my body to deeds of valour against her foes.

So I called on my clubs to follow me, and they came, and many besides; for those who might not see the Queen hunt might see her loyal citizens jump; and on a day like this it was odds if the nimblest 'prentices in all London were not there to make good sport.

Therefore we straggled in a long crowd to Moorgate--man and maid, n.o.ble and 'prentice, alderman and oyster-woman, jesting and scolding as we jostled one another in the narrow way, and rejoicing when at length we broke free into the pleasant meadows and smelt the sweetness of the early hay.

Already I spied sport, for there before us swaggered the mercers'

'prentices of London Bridge, ready to settle scores for the affront they had received at the New Exchange.

"Ho! ho!" quoth I, with vast content, "'tis time we had dinner, my lads, if it comes to that."

So we besieged the booths, and fortified ourselves with beef and ale, and felt ready for anything that might happen.

'Twas no battle after all; for, as ill-luck would have it, just as we faced them and bade them come on, the alderman of the Bridge Ward rode up.

"What! a shame on you to mar a day like this with your boyish wrangles!

Is there no wrestling-ring, or shooting-b.u.t.ts, or leaping-fence where you can vent your rivalry, without flying at one another's throats like curs? Call you that loyalty? Have we no enemies better worth our mettle than fellow-Englishmen?"

This speech abashed us a little, and the captain of the Bridge 'prentices said, sulkily:

"I care not to break their heads, worship; there's little to be got out of that. Come, lads, we can find better sport in the juggler's booth."

"His worship came in a good hour for you," cried we. "Thank him you can slink away on your own legs this time, and need no one to drag you feet foremost off the Fields."

"Come, come," said the good alderman, "away with such foolish talk.

Let's see a match struck up. I myself will give a new long-bow and a sheaf of arrows to the best jumper of you all. What say you? The highest leap and the broadest? Ho, there!" added he, calling a servant to him; "bid them clear a s.p.a.ce for a match 'twixt the gallant 'prentices of the Bridge and the gallant 'prentices without Temple Bar.

Come, boys; were I forty years younger I'd put you to it to distance me.

But my jumping days are gone by, and I am but a judge."

Then we gave him a cheer, the bluff old boy; and, forgetting all our quarrel in the thought of the long-bow and arrows, we trooped at his horse's tail to the open s.p.a.ce, and doffed our coats in readiness for the contest.

A great crowd stood round to see us jump. The scene remains in my mind's eye even now. 'Prentices, bare-headed, squatted cross-legged on the gra.s.s, bandying their noisy jests, and finding a laugh for everybody and everything. Behind them stood a motley throng of sightseers, men, women, and children, for the most part citizens, but interspersed here and there with gay groups of gentlefolk, and even some who wore the bright trappings of the Court. Behind them the beggars and pickpockets plied their arduous calling; and in the rear of all, at a little distance, wandered the horses of the gentles, cropping the fresh gra.s.s, with no eye to the achievements of Temple Bar or London Bridge. Beyond them soared the windmills and the hills of Isledon and Hoxton.

It was a scene familiar to me, for I had often taken it in before; and yet for a while to-day it seemed new, and my eye, as I waited at the post, wandered here and there to detect what it could be which made all seem so strange. After a while I discovered that, wherever else they roamed, my glances returned always to one bright spot, close by where stood a maiden.

It seemed to me I had never known what beauty meant till I looked on her. She was tall, and dressed more simply than many a citizen's wife, and yet her air was that of a G.o.ddess. Every movement of her head bore the signs of queenliness; and yet in every feature of her face lurked a sweetness irresistible. At first sight, as you saw her, tall, erect, with her short cl.u.s.tering hair and fearless eyes of blue, you would have been tempted to suppose her a boy in disguise. Yet if you looked a moment longer, the woman in her shone out in every step and gesture.