A joyous day was it for Windsor and great were the preparations made
by its loyal inhabitants for a suitable reception to their sovereign. At
an early hour the town was thronged with strangers from the
neighbouring villages, and later on crowds began to arrive from
London, some having come along the highway on horseback, and
others having rowed in various craft up the river. All were clad in
holiday attire, and the streets presented an appearance of unwonted
bustle and gaiety. The Maypole in Bachelors' Acre was hung with
flowers. Several booths, with flags floating above them, were erected
in the same place, where ale, mead, and hypocras, together with cold
pasties, hams, capons, and large joints of beef and mutton, might be
obtained. Mummers and minstrels were in attendance, and every kind
of diversion was going forward. Here was one party wrestling; there
another, casting the bar; on this side a set of rustics were dancing a
merry round with a bevy of buxom Berkshire lasses; on that stood a
fourth group, listening to a youth playing on the recorders. At one end
of the Acre large fires were lighted, before which two whole oxen were
roasting, provided in honour of the occasion by the mayor and
burgesses of the town; at the other, butts were set against which the
Duke of Shoreditch and his companions, the five marquises, were
practising. The duke himself shot admirably, and never failed to hit the
bulls-eye; but the great feat of the day was performed by Morgan
Fenwolf, who thrice split the duke's shafts as they stuck in the mark.

"Well done !" cried the duke, as he witnessed the achievement; "why,
you shoot as bravely as Herne the Hunter. Old wives tell us he used to
split the arrows of his comrades in that fashion."

"He must have learnt the trick from Herne himself in the forest," cried