that the urgency of his summons touched no greater matter than the cleansing of the Fleet ditch, a fruitful source of dispute between the monarch and the city in those days.
Sir Thomas had wit enough to promise that the King’s wishes should be made known to the Common Council, and sense enough to wonder why he was called in such hot haste to attend a trivial thing.
It was a time when men sought hidden motives for aught that savored of the uncommon; the knight, borrowing a palfrey from a merchant of his acquaintance, rode homeward along the Strand revolving the puzzle in his mind. Long before he reached Temple Bar he was wiser if not happier.
Soon after Anna Cave and the sprightly Eleanor entered their litter to be carried swiftly through the Strand, two young men approached Temple Bar from the east. Their distinctive garments showed that while one was of gentle birth the other was a yeoman; that they were not master and man could be seen at a glance, as they conversed one with the other with easy familiarity, and repaid with ready good-humor the chaff which they received from the cheeky apprentices who solicited custom in the busy street.
Indeed, the appearance of the yeoman was well calculated to stir tongues less nimble than those of the pert salesmen of Fleet Street. Gigantic in height and width, his broad, ruddy face beaming with the delight afforded by the evidently novel sights of London, his immense size was accentuated by a coat of tough brown leather and high riding-boots of the same material which almost met the skirts of the coat. Tight-fitting trousers of gray homespun matched the color of his broad-brimmed felt hat, in which a gay plume of cock’s feathers was clasped by a big brooch of dull gold. The precious metal served to enclose a peculiar ornament, in the shape of a headless fossil snake, curled in a circle as in life and polished until it shone like granite.
Though his coat was girt by a sword-belt he carried no weapons of steel, apparently depending for protection, if such a giant required its aid, on a long and heavy ashplant. In other hands it would be a cumbrous stake; to him it served as a mere wand.
His immense size, aided by a somewhat unusual garb in well-dressed London, absolutely eclipsed, in the public eye, the handsome and stalwart youth who, in richer but studiously simple attire, strode by his side.
The apprentices, fearless in their numbers and unfettered in impudence, plied him with saucy cries.
“What d’ye lack, Master Samson? Here be two suits for the price of one, for one man’s clothes would never fit thee.”
“Come hither, mountain! I’ll sell thee a town clock that shall serve thee as watch.”
“Hi, master! Let me show thee a trencher worthy of thy stomach.”
The last speaker held forth a salver of such ample circumference that the two young men were fain to laugh.
“I’ faith, friend,” said the giant, with utmost good-humor, “we are more needing meat than dishes. Nevertheless, you have ta’en my measure rightly.”
His North-country accent proclaimed him a Yorkshire dalesman, and the White Rose was popular just then in Fleet Street.
“If that be so,” said the sturdy silversmith’s assistant who had hailed him, “you must hie to Smithfield, where they shall roast you a bullock.”
“Come wi’ me, then. Mayhap they need a puppy for the spit.”
The answer turned the laugh against the apprentice. He bravely endeavored to rally.
“I cry your honor’s pardon,” he said. “I looked not for brains where there was so much beef.”
“Therein you further showed your observation. Ofttimes the cockloft is empty in those whom nature hath built many stories high.”
Again the buoyant spirits of the Colossus won him the suffrages of the crowd. Clearly, he had an even temper in his great frame of bone and sinew, for the easy play of his limbs showed that, big as he was, he held no superfluous flesh, while the heat of the day left him unmoved, notwithstanding his heavy garments.
But his companion caught him by the arm.
“Come, Roger,” he said quietly. “We must find our kinsman’s house. There is still much to be done ere night falls.”
The crowd made way for them. They passed westward through Temple Bar, which was not the frowning stone arch of later days, but a strong palisade, with posts and chains, capable of being closed during a tumult, or when darkness made it difficult to keep watch and ward in the city.
The Strand, which they entered, was an open road, with the mansions and gardens of great noblemen on the left, or south side. Each walled enclosure was separate from its neighbor, the alleys between leading to the water stairs, where passengers so minded took boat to Southwark or Lambeth.
On the north were other houses, some pretentious, but more closely packed together, and, on this hand, Drury Lane and St. Martin’s Lane were already becoming thoroughfares of note.
One of these houses, not far removed from the Church of St. Mary-le-Strand, thrust the high wall of its garden so far into the road that it narrowed the passage between it and Somerset House. Here, a group of young gallants had gathered, and some soldiers, of swarthy visage and foreign attire, were loitering in the vicinity.
“This, if my memory serves, should be the house of Gondomar, the Spanish Ambassador,” said Walter Mowbray, the elder and more authoritative of the pair.
“Gondomar! Another name for Old Nick! The devil should keep his proper name in all countries, as he keeps his nature in all places.”
“Hush, Roger, or we shall have a brawl on our hands. I am no lover of Spaniards, you know full well, yet we must pass Gondomar’s men without unseemly taunt. The King loves not to hear of naked blades.”
Thus admonished, his wonted grin of good-humor returned to Roger Sainton’s face, and, as the swaggering youngsters in the road were paying some heed to a covered litter rapidly approaching from the west, the friends essayed to pass them by taking the pavement close under the wall of the Ambassador’s garden.
As luck would have it, a sort of signal seemed to be given for a row to start. Swords were whipped out, men ran forward, and there was a sudden clash of steel.
A laughing fop, for his sins, turned to seek some one with whom to pick a quarrel; he chanced to find himself face to face with Mowbray, Roger being a little in front and at one side.
“I’ll have the wall of you, sirrah,” cried the stranger, frowning offensively.
Walter stepped back, and his right hand crossed to his sword hilt, so evident was the design of the other to insult him.
But Sainton laughed. He caught the would-be bully by the belt.
“Yea, and take the house, too, if the landlord be willing, my pretty buck,” he growled pleasantly, whereon he heaved the swaggerer bodily over the wall, and they heard the crash of his body into the window of a summer house.
Those who stood near were rendered aghast by this feat of strength; they had never seen its like. Young Lord Dereham was no light weight, and his lordship’s wriggling carcass had described sufficient parabola to clear coping-stones set ten feet above the pavement.
The incident passed unheeded by the greater mob in the roadway. For no reason whatever a crowd of struggling men surged around the litter. Mowbray, clutching his undrawn sword, planted his back against the wall from which the discomfited
