In the middle of this open place a huge gray building stood, staring out over the housetops—­a great cathedral, wonderful and old.  Its walls were dark with time and smoke and damp, and the lofty tower that rose above it was in part but a hollow shell split by lightning and blackened by fire.  But crowded between its massive buttresses were booths and chapmen’s stalls; against its hoary side a small church leaned like a child against a mother’s breast; and in and round about it eddied a throng of men like ants upon a busy hill.

All around the outer square were shops with gilded fronts and most amazing signs:  golden angels with outstretched wings, tiger heads, bears, brazen serpents, and silver cranes; and in and out of the shop-doors darted apprentices with new-bound books and fresh-printed slips; for this was old St. Paul’s, the meeting-place of London town, and in Paul’s Yard the printers and the bookmen dealt.

With a deal of elbowing the master-player came up the broad steps into the cathedral, and down the aisle to the pillars where the merchant-tailors stood with table-books in hand, and there ordered a brand-new suit of clothes for Nick of old Roger Shearman, the best cloth-cutter in Threadneedle street.

While they were deep in silk and silver thread, Haerlem linen, and Leyden camelot, Nick stared about him half aghast; for it was to him little less than monstrous to see a church so thronged with merchants plying their trades as if the place were no more sacred than a booth in the public square.

The long nave of the cathedral was crowded with mercers from Cheapside, drapers from Throgmorton street, stationers from Ludgate Hill, and goldsmiths from Foster lane, hats on, loud-voiced, and using the very font itself for a counter.  By the columns beyond, sly, foxy-faced lawyers hobnobbed; and on long benches by the wall, cast-off serving-men, varlets, grooms, pastry-bakers, and pages sat, waiting to be hired by some new master.  Besides these who came on business there was a host of gallants in gold-laced silk and velvet promenading up and down the aisle, with no business there at all but to show their faces and their clothes.  And all about were solemn shrines and monuments and tombs, and overhead a splendid window burned like a wheel of fire in the eastern wall.

While Nick stared, speechless, a party of the Admiral’s placers came strolling by, their heads half hidden in their huge starched ruffs, and with prodigious swords that would have dragged along the ground had they not been cocked up behind so fiercely in the air.  Seeing Master Carew and the boy, they stopped in passing to greet them gaily.

Master Heywood was there, and bowed to Nick with a kindly smile.  His companion was a handsome, proud-mouthed man with a blue, smooth-shaven face and a jet-black periwig.  Him Carew drew aside and spoke with in an earnest undertone.  As he talked, the other began to stare at Nick as if he were some curious thing in a cage.