Roger has been born in a wonderful time. I almost wish I could have lived in it myself; for there is his old grandfather sitting in the great oak chair in the chimney corner, who can tell him truly that, when he was a boy, no sailors had dared sail far out of sight of land, lest they should come to the edge of the world and fall over, "For who then believed there was anything but pilchards to be found west of the Land's End?" said the old man.

And now it seemed as if the old world itself was longing to move westward to reach the new, so many were the gallant captains and the brave sailors who faced dangers in unknown seas and among unknown savages; and liked nothing better than what they called "a brush with the Spaniards," and a chance to fall in with the plate (gold and silver) fleet on its way from South America to Spain.

So you see the boy's mind must needs be full of the sea and the Spaniards, and you do not wonder that I have called him, in the title of this chapter, "the boy who longed to sail the Spanish Main."

But you ought to know something more of him besides this great longing, which, I promise you, will one day be gratified. So I will tell you some of the common facts of his daily life, what he wears, and eats and drinks, and how he lives.

How odd his cloth stockings would look to you, and his scholar's cap and gown, compared to your own trim suits; but knitted or woven stockings were so uncommon in those days that the queen herself had just received a present of her first pair, and she was so pleased with them that she resolved for the future to wear no more cloth stockings.

He sees the fine gentlemen in the streets, with their velvet hats and feathers fastened with clasps of gold and jewels, the long, curling lovelock tied with ribbon, and the rose behind the ear, the trunk hose, velvet tunic with slashed sleeves and lace ruffles, and swords by their sides.

And every day, on his way to school, he passes the barber's shop of Walter, the lovelocker, and that of Nicholas the tailor at the sign of the Needle, and he sees the shopmen, with goods displayed, crying to the passers-by, "What do ye lack?"

He meets the farmers' sons in their russet clothes, and knows well that the law allows them to wear no other; and that, if a farmer or tradesman should cover his head with a velvet cap, the law would quickly take it off him.

When his father has occasion to go out of an evening, he wears, if the streets are muddy, his pattens, made of ash-wood rimmed with iron, and a servant lad runs before him with a lantern, for the streets are neither paved nor lighted, nor over-safe from robbers.

At his father's table there are pewter plates instead of the wooden ones which his grandfather used, and the pretty wooden bowls of bird's eye maple are rimmed with silver, but there are no forks to eat with, "which is to be regretted," says a foreigner, writing of those days in England, "since all men's fingers are not equally clean."

On the table we see good roast beef and mutton and venison, but a potato is a rare luxury. Roger has tasted it but once in his life.

There is plenty of milk, but neither tea nor coffee, for, as yet, these drinks have never been heard of in England, and great cans of ale are on the table at breakfast, dinner, and supper,—supper, not tea, of course, for no one would know what you meant if you should invite him to tea.

His father's house has its second story projecting over the street, thus making the upper rooms larger and lighter than the lower ones.

In the upper front room stands a great chest shaped like a toy Noah's ark. It is made of oak wood, and is already dark with age, for it has belonged to his father's father, and perhaps to ancestors still more remote. It is the family treasure-chest, and holds many a goodly cloth, many a jewel and silver cup, rich with Spanish workmanship. And there are Spanish dollars in it too, for Spain supplies the whole trading world with current coin.

If our boy would know what time it is, he runs out to the old sun-dial that stands on the terrace, and throws its shadow upon a circle marked in clock-fashion. He has indeed heard of watches, and seen one at a distance, in the hands of a gentleman of the court, who stopped the other day at the Blue Lion tavern, to rest himself and his horses after his hard ride from London.

The Blue Lion itself would be a curiosity to you and me, with its great, swinging sign-board, whereon is painted a wondrous blue lion, such as no man has ever seen alive, and its bustling landlord brewing a tankard of sack for his noble guest.

Roger takes occasion to pass the Blue Lion as often as he can on his way to and from school, for many is the gallant gentleman, or the sturdy sea-captain that may be seen sitting in its bay-window, and talking of bold adventures or Spanish sea-fight, or of trade with Cathay. Search your whole map over and you will not find the name Cathay; for what was then called Cathay is now called China.

Telling you to search your maps reminds me of the maps that Roger has seen. Never a map of the whole world,—those eastern and western hemispheres so familiar to you,—and only once, a strange sort of map of Africa, which a ship-master was exhibiting at the Blue Lion, to some of his friends.

It was a copy of a curious chart made by a seaman who had been pilot for brave Christopher Columbus, and on it he had drawn castles and ships, strange men and beasts, and seacoasts and rivers so oddly intermixed, that one needs the carefully written name, Africa, in the corner, to help imagine the possible country it is intended to represent.

But to Roger it was a land of wonders, and he believed in every castle and gold-clad emperor there. From this map, and from a great white horn (perhaps not unlike the horn that Salvation Yeo gave to Amyas Leigh) on which were traced the voyages to the Indies, East and West, Roger had received all his map lessons, and we must not wonder if he held some rather curious notions of the world and its countries and people. He believes in mermaids and dragons; and he knows an old sailor, Simon Johnson, who wears in his bosom an agate stone, by which he keeps himself safe from the bite of the most deadly serpent. And this same Simon Johnson was with Sebastian Cabot, up the river La Plata, where serpents most venomous are plenty, and his agate must have saved him, for there he sits with his pot of ale on the bench outside the door of the Blue Lion, and tells to the boys all sorts of wondrous stories.

If you doubt about the dragons, and the rooms full of gold and silver, Roger will answer you, "But, Simon Johnson has seen them."

Just now there was some talk among his about mermaids, and Roger promptly settled all doubts by saying, "There are mermaids, for Simon Johnson has seen one," and he led the way to the old man's seat in the sunny door-way, that he might have his statement proved true.

"Yes, I seed mun with my own eyes," said old Simon. "It was when I was a sailing the South Seas. Her yellow hair floated abroad over the water, and her head bobbed up and down as if a beckoning of us. And the Spanish prisoner we had on board, he crossed hisself and called upon the saints to save him; but the rest of us just kept our eyes on mun, until she sunk away out of sight, with naught but her yellow hair a beckoning and a beckoning still to the last."

The boys listened in wonder, and believed every word of old Simon's story; and I think the old man himself believed it too.

One of Roger's gayest holidays is May Day.

I dare say you children go a Maying yourselves; but in these old days in England, not only the children, but also their fathers and mothers, were up at early dawn on May Day, to deck the house door-way with blossoming hawthorn, and trim the May-pole with garlands of flowers; for there were May-poles on the greens of all villages and towns, and even in the squares of London itself.

And among the young men there had been a rivalry for months as to who was the best archer, and should represent Robin Hood in the May games. For Robin Hood was king of the May, and with him came Maid Marian, and Little John and Friar Tuck; and there were morris dancers, with tinkling bells at knee and elbow; and there was the prancing hobby-horse, and the bellowing dragon, to remind the English boys of the famous old story of St. George and the dragon, and teach them the meaning of the grand old battle-cry, "St. George for merrie England!" and merrie England indeed it was in those days.

At the Blue Lion, Roger sees one day a sight that delights while it terrifies him; the great fire-breathing captain, who has sailed to the other side of the world, and, as the boys firmly believe, has seen headless men and flying dragons. You would laugh at him and say, "Fire-breathing, indeed! It is only a man smoking a cigar!"

But the world is full of wonders for this boy; even a newspaper, so common a sight to us all, is a wonder to him, for it is but just now that the English Mercury, filled with news many weeks old, of Spaniards, and trading voyages, and fights upon land or sea, is published once or twice a week, and sent by foot or horsemen to the principal cities of the kingdom.

When he goes with his companions for a long ramble out on the broad fields and downs, they step aside with care if they chance upon those mushroom rings which the pixies (as they call the fairies) have made for their midnight dances. And if you or I should try to tell him that there are really no pixies or fairies, he would not believe us. He knows better than that, and here he can show us the dancing rings to prove the truth.

He believes, too, that if he could be so fortunate as to gather fern-seed on St. John's Eve,—the only time in the whole year, according to fairy lore, when the fern produces seed,—he could walk invisible among his companions.

But now I must tell you how Roger went with his father to London, riding behind the servant on horseback, and spending two or three nights at the inns in Exeter, Taunton, and other fine old towns by the way.

"The lad may as well begin to learn what the world is like," said his father, "and there is no school better than experience."

At last, after nightfall of the sixth day, they reached London, and found themselves on paved streets, with here and there a lantern to make darkness visible.

They put up at a famous inn, called the "Bel Savage," and were just in time to witness one of those pageants of which Queen Elizabeth and her people were so fond. For the Queen was coming down the river from Westminster in her barge, and was to be received by a procession of merchants and tradespeople.

Across the street, near the inn, an arch had been erected, surmounted by a model of a ship under full sail, with a motto, "The Commerce of England. Her merchants serve and honor their queen."

How proud Roger was to stand beside his father and pull off his cap and shout, when the cry, "The Queen, the Queen!" sounded down the street; and the stately lady, with enormous ruff and jewelled head-dress, sitting in a carriage drawn by white horses, paused under the archway and let the procession pass slowly before her, while a little lad, no bigger than Roger himself, decked with flags and rare devices to suggest foreign lands, dropped on one knee and craved permission to introduce to her Majesty the characters as they passed.

The permission being graciously granted, first came her Majesty's imports from Cathay, spread open to view by a curiously grotesque Chinaman, and followed by Manila, with sugar and spices, in the person of a real little East Indian boy, page to the Countess of Essex, brought home by Master Cavendish when he sailed up the Thames with the famous silken sails displayed. Then came fruits and damasks and rich rugs from the Levant, and furs from Russia, and the woollens of the Flemish weavers, and their lovely laces too. But the crowning wonder of all was the American Indian, with beaver skins, and ores, supposed to be silver and gold; and the inscription "Virginia to the Virgin Queen;" for Raleigh had received his grant of land in the new world, and named it in honor of his sovereign.

I must not tell you more, for already you have heard enough to make you realize how different is Roger's life from your own; and you can read, in books of history, of voyages to the New World, and sea-fights with the Spaniards, which will tell you, better than I can, how, before many years, the boy realized his dreams and satisfied his longings, and grew up to be one of those bold, adventurous Englishmen who helped to make the New World what it is.

And so we will leave Roger, and pass on to the sadder experiences of Ezekiel Fuller, the Puritan boy.