A month later we 'prentices had another holiday, this time to witness the end of that terrible business on Tyburn Hill. 'Twas a horrible sight--I would I could forget it--to see those traitors die, foul as their crime had been. Yet what sickened me the most was to think that Ludar perchance might presently follow to the same fate, if indeed he had not already shared it. But no news came. The weeks slipped by. Men ceased to talk of Babington, and spoke rather of the coming trial of the Scotch Queen for her life. And presently a time came when they even ceased to speak of that. And all the while, never a whisper came to me of Ludar. Now you are not to think that all this time I had forgot the message contained in the poet's letter concerning Captain Merriman and the maiden. Far from it. I haunted Whitehall after work hours in the hope of seeing or hearing something of them. But all in vain. It would have been easier to hear of Ludar, I think, than to get any news of an Irish maiden and her step-dame at Court, or of a swaggering captain. "What is that to thee?" said most whom I asked; and others pricked me out of their company with their swords. But late in the year, chance put in my way what all my pains had failed to procure. I remember, it was that same day that the news came to town that Mary Queen of Scots was condemned to die. London went mad with joy at the news. For our pity of the woman was swallowed up in joy that the evil destiny of our country was mastered, and that our gracious Queen was to be freed at one stroke from all her enemies. Be that as it may, we burned bonfires that night in Moorfields, and I had my mistress' leave to take Jeannette with me to see the sport. For by this time the sweet maid's lameness was nearly cured, and, like a prisoner newly uncaged, she loved to spread her wings a bit and go abroad. Had the arm she leaned on been that of Peter Stoupe instead of mine, I wondered if she would have mended as fast as she did? I was a vain coxcomb those days, and thought, no. Yet, for anything she said to me or I to her, we were still 'prentice and young mistress. Only, the duty I owed her was my great joy; and the service she had a right to claim of me, she sometimes prettily asked as a gift. 'Twas a wild, weird scene--those hundreds of citizens lit up by the fierce glare of the bonfires, whose roar mingled with the shoutings, and whose heat was less than the loyal fires which blazed in our bosoms. I could feel Jeannette's hand tighten on my arm as the rabble surged closer round; and presently, seeing her tired and frightened, I made a way for her through the crowd.