s and fame; and when his first
term was expired, his admiring fellow-citizens, after a few years, made
him Lord Mayor for a second time, and when the second term was past, for
a third. His third mayoralty happened in 1419, when King Henry the
Fourth was on the throne of England; and then it was his honours rose to
their highest pitch, for he entertained at his own table the king and
queen of the land in such grand style that Henry said of him, "Never
king had such a subject."

And never poor had such a friend. He never forgot the little forlorn
boy on Highgate Hill, and it was his delight to his latest day to make
the hearts of the needy glad, and show to all that it is not for money
nor grandeur but for an honest soul and a kind heart that a man is to be
loved and honoured by his fellows.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE, THE BOY WHO WON A BATTLE.

The sun rose brightly over the little village of Crecy on the morning of
Saturday, August 26, 1346. The golden corn was standing in the fields,
the cattle were quietly grazing in the meadows, the birds were
twittering in the woods, and in the still morning air rose the gentle
murmur of a joyous stream. Everything spoke of peace that bright summer
morning; little could one have dreamed that before that sun should have
set in the west the din and thunder of battle would wake the echoes of
those quiet woods, or that those sunny fields would be torn and
desolated by the angry tread of thousands of feet, or strewn with heaps
of dead or dying! Yet so it was to be. A large army was even then
halting in the cover of the forest over against the village, and far,
far away, if any one had listened, might have been heard, mingling with
the voices of the morning, the sound of a great host of horsemen and
soldiers advancing in hot pursuit, with now and then a trumpet blast
which echoed faintly among the hills.

The English soldiers, as they rose from their beds of turf and grass,
heard those far-off sounds, and knew--who better?--they must fight like
men to-day or perish.

So they sprang to their feet and seized their arms and armour, ready at
any instant to obey the summons to action.

Suddenly along the ranks came the cry, "The king and the prince!" and
directly afterwards appeared the great King Edward the Third of England
riding slowly down the line of his army, and at his side a stately boy
of sixteen years, dressed in black armour and mounted on a bla