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, "Pass on, pass 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 passed 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 passed, 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.