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, noble 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-butts, 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 space 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 space, and doffed our coats in readiness for the contest.