“Well, if we cannot get in, no one shall get out,” observed the verger.  “The only key that opens this door is in my possession, so we have them safe enough.”

The party then returned to the cathedral, where they found Blaize, Pillichody, and the two other vergers keeping watch at the door near the choir.  No one had come forth.

Rochester then walked apart with his companions, while Bloundel, feeling secure so long as he kept the earl in view, folded his arms upon his breast, and determined to await the result.

By this time, the doors being opened, a great crowd was soon collected within the sacred structure.  Saint Paul’s Churchyard, as is well known, was formerly the great mart for booksellers, who have not, even in later times, deserted the neighbourhood, but still congregate in Paternoster-row, Ave-Maria-lane, and the adjoining streets.  At the period of this history they did not confine themselves to the precincts of the cathedral, but, as has been previously intimated, fixed their shops against the massive pillars of its nave.  Besides booksellers, there were seamstresses, tobacco-merchants, vendors of fruit and provisions, and Jews—­all of whom had stalls within the cathedral, and who were now making preparations for the business of the day.  Shortly afterwards, numbers who came for recreation and amusement made their appearance, and before ten o’clock, Paul’s Walk, as the nave was termed, was thronged, by apprentices, rufflers, porters, water-carriers, higglers, with baskets on their heads, or under their arms, fish-wives, quack-doctors, cutpurses, bonarobas, merchants, lawyers, and serving-men, who came to be hired, and who stationed themselves near an oaken block attached to one of the pillars, and which was denominated, from the use it was put to, the “serving-man’s log.”  Some of the crowd were smoking, some laughing, others gathering round a ballad-singer, who was chanting one of Rochester’s own licentious ditties; some were buying quack medicines and remedies for the plague, the virtues of which the vendor loudly extolled; while others were paying court to the dames, many of whom were masked.  Everything seemed to be going forward within this sacred place, except devotion.  Here, a man, mounted on the carved marble of a monument, bellowed forth the news of the Dutch war, while another, not far from him, on a bench, announced in lugubrious accents the number of those who had died on the previous day of the pestilence.  There, at the very font, was a usurer paying over a sum of money to a gallant—­it was Sir Paul Parravicin—­who was sealing a bond for thrice the amount of the loan.  There, a party of choristers, attended by a troop of boys, were pursuing another gallant, who had ventured into the cathedral booted and spurred, and were demanding “spur-money” of him—­an exaction which they claimed as part of their perquisites.