16. XVI.
SIR THEODORE MAYHERNE.
The royal entry into London was an imposing pageant.
The king rode in front on horseback, reining
in his spirited charger, decorated with rich housings;
and on his left hand rode the Prince of Wales, afterwards
his majesty Charles II., at that time a handsome
boy of eleven.
Behind the king came the queen, in her state-coach
drawn by six white horses, their heads and backs surmounted
by nodding plumes. And in the royal coach
also rode the children of her majesty, bright-faced
little ones, looking with ardent interest upon the crowd.
Then came the coaches, with the royal suite; behind, the
Guards; last of all a vast multitude following, crowding
close, and shouting, “God save the king!”
'Tis impossible to recall this scene, when that cry
was heard for the last time, without sadness and a
sinking of the heart. Alas! the dark hours were coming,
the shadow was even then descending upon those
human beings.
The procession reached Whitehall and disappeared;
then the crowd dispersed.
I was just unbuckling my sword, when Harry, who
had entered the guard-room of the palace a moment
before me, said,—
“This hand of mine hurts confoundedly, Ned!
Serves me right for fighting with that awkward cub
Coftangry! It is swelling. I wish you would go ask
my friend Sir Theodore Mayherne to come look at it.”
“Sir Theodore Mayherne, Harry? Who is he?”
“Their majesties' household physician, and a great
friend of mine. He lives in Gray's Inn Lane, and is
a perfect wolf, but an excellent surgeon and gentleman.”
I set off at once to find the wolf, and soon reached
Gray's Inn Lane, where I was directed to a handsome
house and admitted by a servant in black. A moment
afterwards, a portly personage, with long gray hair flying
about his face, and the air of a lion interrupted in
his repast, entered the room like a hurricane.
“Your pleasure, sir!” thundered the lion, wolf, or
hurricane,—whichever the reader pleases.
“Sir Theodore Mayherne, I believe, sir?”
“An absurd question! Who else could I be?”
I smiled. “You might be a thunder-storm! if that
response be not too unceremonious, Sir Theodore.”
“Unceremonious? Not a bit! I hate ceremony!
A thunder-storm? Ha! ha!” And the portly person
shook. “That is the way I like people to talk to me,”
he added: “it's natural, expresses the thought. I'm sick
of mincing and cant, and bowing and scraping, and
French ways! What's your business?”
I saw that I had to do with an original who liked
coming to the point.
“Harry Cecil, of the queen's guards, has hurt his
hand in a duel, and wishes you to come look at it.”
“Harry Cecil!—a crack-brained jackanapes! What
the devil have I to do with Harry Cecil? 'Tis as much
as I can do to patch up her majesty's nerves, broken
down by her popish fasts and vigils and penances
and all the rest of their devil's inventions!”
I rose and bowed. “Thanks, Sir Theodore. I will
tell Harry you are coming, then.” The thunder-storm
looked at me with a lurking smile. “He is at Whitehall,”
I added.
“Well, I'll come! These scatterbrains, with their
roystering and fighting, and drinking and swearing,—
mark my words, sir, the canting rascals of parliament
will clip their love-locks! Harry Cecil is one of the
worst of them,—your brother, from the likeness, no
doubt,—a pestilent rascal!” And, turning his back
upon me abruptly, Sir Theodore Mayherne, physician
to their majesties, disappeared from the apartment.
