till he
saw them safe out of the City, and then returned to make his report to
the Lady Anne, who failed not to pray that her lord might be protected
on his journey. Again she thanked Ernst for the benefit he had done her
lord.

And now the boy returned, with his heart beating more proudly than it
had ever beaten before, back to school: a line from Lady Anne,
explaining that he had been employed by his patron, saved him from the
penalty which he might have had to suffer for his absence.

Ernst got back to school: the master asked no questions. He might have
been aware that some of his boys had been out pelting the Spaniards with
snow-balls; but the crime, perchance, was not a great one in his eyes.

The following day, the Earl of Devonshire and a large assemblage of
other lords and gentlemen went down to the Tower Wharf to receive the
Spanish Ambassador, who came to arrange the terms of the Queen's
marriage. He travelled in great state, attended by a number of nobles
and others. He was Flemish--the Count of Egmont; hereafter to be seen
by Ernst under very different circumstances. As he landed thus in great
state, the Earl of Devonshire gave him his right hand, and assisted him
to mount a richly-caparisoned steed standing ready to carry him. Thus
the cavalcade of nobles, in their furred cloaks, proceeded on through
Cheapside, and so forth to Westminster. As the Count looked round him,
he might have suspected that his master Philip was in no respect welcome
to the English. There were many people, notwithstanding the cold, in
the streets; but none of them shouted or waved their hats, but on the
contrary held down their heads and turned aside, well knowing that his
visit boded no good to their country. Still more hateful were the
thoughts of the marriage to the people when the terms of the treaty
became known. The boys at Saint Paul's School were the first to invent
a new game, one half calling themselves Spaniards, the other English.
Ernst would never consent to join the Spaniards.

"No," he said; "they burned my father and my mother, and while I live I
will never unite with them. I tell you, boys, they will burn you and
your fathers and your mothers, and all you love, who dare to call
themselves Protestants, if they ever get power in this country of
England."

Often the battle raged furiously in the playground between the two
parties. On no occasion would the English allow themselves to be
beaten: indeed