A March on London: Being a Story of Wat Tyler's Insurrection by G. A. Henty (best autobiographies to read .txt) 📖

if they separated, there would be no great danger of their being recognized. After taking farewell of the girl, who had all this time been sitting silently by her mother's bedside, they passed through the iron door, preceded by the Fleming carrying a lamp. After passing through the passage they went up a long flight of narrow steps until their course was arrested by a wooden panel. The Fleming applied first his eye and then his ear to a tiny peephole.

"Everything is quiet," he said; then touched a spring, pushed the panel open a short distance, and looked out.

"All is clear; you have but to open the door and go out."

He pushed the panel farther back, pressed the lads' hands as they went out, and then closed the entrance behind them. There was but a single bolt to undraw; then they opened the door and stepped into the street, Edgar waiting for half a minute to let Albert get well away before he went out.

The front wall of the opposite house, having fallen inward, quickly smothered the fire, and although a light smoke, mingled with tongues of flame, rose from the ruin, the place had ceased to have any attraction for the mob, who had wandered away to look for more exciting amusement elsewhere.

Scenes of this kind were being enacted throughout the city. Already the restriction against plundering was disregarded, and although the men from the counties still abstained from robbery, the released prisoners from the jail and the denizens of the slums of the city had no such scruples, and the houses of the Flemings were everywhere sacked and plundered. The two friends met again at Aldgate. When they reached Tower Hill, it was, they found, occupied by a dense throng of people, who beleaguered the Tower and refused to allow any provisions to be taken in, or any person to issue out.

"What had best be done, Edgar? So menacing is the appearance of the rabble that methinks this attire would be as much out of place among them as would our own."

"I agree with you there, Albert, and yet I know not what we are to do. What we need is either a craftsman's dress or that of a countryman, but I see not how the one or the other is to be obtained. Assuredly nothing is to be bought, save perhaps bread, for the rioters have ordered that all bakers' shops are to stand open."

He stood for a minute thinking. "I tell you what we might do," he went on. "Let us go back into Aldgate, and then down on to the wharf. There are many country boats there, and we might buy what we need from the sailors."

"That is a good idea indeed, Edgar."

In a quarter of an hour they were on the wharf. Many of the craft there had no one on board, the men having gone either to join the rioters or to look on at what had been done. The skipper of a large fishing-boat was sitting on the wharf looking moodily down into his vessel.

"Are you the captain of that craft?" Edgar asked him.

"I used to think so," he said; "but just at present no one obeys orders, as every Jack thinks that he is as good as his master. I ought to have gone out with the morning's tide, but my men would not have it so, and just at present they are the masters, not I. A murrain on such doings, say I. I was with them when it was but a talk of rights and privileges, but when it comes to burning houses and slaying peaceable men, I, for one, will have naught to do with it."

"Captain," Edgar said, "I see that you are an honest man, and maybe you will aid us. We find that there is peril in going about attired as we are, for we aided a short time since in saving a Flemish family from massacre by these fellows, and we need disguises. We want two countrymen's suits—it matters not whether they be new or old. We are ready to pay for them, but every shop is closed, and we have come down to the wharves to find someone who will sell."

"There is no difficulty about that," the skipper said, rising from his seat. "My own clothes would scarce fit you, but two of my crew are somewhat of your size. Step on board, and I will overhaul their lockers, and doubt not that I shall find something to serve your purpose. They will not mind if they find that there is money sufficient to buy them new ones. Indeed, there is no need for that, for if you leave behind you the clothes you wear they will sell at Colchester for enough to buy them two or three suits such as those you take."

There was in those days no distinctive dress worn by sailors. The captain went down into the little cabin forward and opened two lockers.

"There," he said, "suit yourselves out of these. They are their best, for they thought that aught would do for mixing up with the mob in the city."

So saying he went on deck again. The citizen's clothes were soon stripped off, and the lads dressed in those they took from the lockers, and in a few minutes they rejoined the skipper, looking like two young countrymen.

"That will do well," he said, with a laugh. "Hob and Bill would scarce know their clothes again if they saw them on you. No, no," he added, as Albert put his hand into his pouch, "there is no need for money, lads; they will be mightily content with the clothes you have left. Well, yes; I don't care if I do take a stoup of liquor. There is a tavern over there where they keep as good ale as you can find anywhere about here."

After drinking a pint of beer with the honest skipper, they again went off to the Tower, and mingled in the crowd. It was easy to see that it was composed of two different sections—the one quiet and orderly, the men looking grave and somewhat anxious, as if feeling that it was a perilous enterprise upon which they were embarked, although still bent upon carrying it out; the other noisy and savage—the men from the jails, the scum of Canterbury and Rochester, and the mob of the city. Between these classes there was no sympathy, the one was bent only upon achieving their deliverance from serfdom, the other was solely influenced by a desire for plunder, and a thirst for the blood of those obnoxious to them. Presently there was a loud shout from the crowd as the drawbridge was lowered.

"Perhaps they are going to make a sally, Albert. If so, we had best make off to our lodgings, throw off these garments, and appear in our own."

"'Tis the king!" Albert exclaimed; "and see, there is De Vere, the Earl of Kent, and other nobles riding behind him."

"Yes; and there is your father. The king and those with him are without armour or arms; if they had seen as much as we have seen the last two days, they would scarce trust themselves in such a garb."

A great shout arose as the boy king rode across the drawbridge. The lads noticed that the shout proceeded from the men who had hitherto been silent, and that the noisy portion of the crowd now held their peace. The king held up his hand for silence.

"My friends," he said, in a loud, clear voice, "there is no room here for