“Ha! we are close to Allhallowes.  Let us adorn the door of the old madwoman, Lady Scrope.  They say she lives quite alone, and that her servants come in the morning and leave at night.  Sure they will none of them have courage to pass the threshold when that sign adorns it, and the old hag will have to come forth herself to seek them.  An excellent joke!  I will watch the house, and give her a kiss as she comes forth.”

Whereupon the whole crew burst into shouts of drunken laughter, and made a rush to the door, which stood flush in a grim-looking wall just beneath the shadow of the church of Allhallowes the Less.

Frederick had the paint pot in his hand, and he traced a fine red cross upon the door, all the while making his ribald jests upon the old woman within, he and his companions alike, far too drunk with wine and unholy mirth to have eyes or ears for what was happening close beside them.  They did not hear the sound of an opening window just above them.  They did not see a nightcapped head poked forth, the great frilled cap surrounding a small, wizened, but keenly-courageous face, in which the eyes were glittering like points of fire.

None of them saw this.  None of them heeded, and the head was for a moment silently withdrawn.  Then it was again cautiously protruded, and the next minute there descended on the head of Frederick a black hot mass of tar and bitumen.  It scalded his face, it blinded his eyes.  It choked and almost poisoned him by its vaporous pungency.  It matted itself in his voluminous periwig, and plastered it down to his shoulders; it clotted his lace frills, and ran in filthy rivulets down his smart clothes.  In a word, it rendered him in a moment a disgusting and helpless object, unable to see or hear, almost unable to breathe, and quite unable to rid himself of the sticky, loathsome mass in which he had suddenly become encased.

Then from the window above came a shrill, jeering cry: 

“To your task, bold Scourers—­to your task!  Scour your own fine friend and comrade.  Scour him well, for he will need it.  Scour him from head to foot.  A pest upon you, young villains!  I would every citizen in London would serve you the same!”

Then the window above was banged to.  The mob of roisterers fled helter skelter, laughing and jeering.  Not one amongst them offered to assist their wretched leader.  They left him alone in his sorry plight to get out of it as best he might.  They had not the smallest consideration for one even of their own number overtaken by misfortune.  Roaring with laughter at the frightful picture he presented, they dispersed to their own homes, and the wretched Frederick was left alone in the street to do the best he could with his black, unsavoury plaster.

He strove in vain to clear his vision, and to remove the peruke, which clung to him like a second skin.  He was in a horrible fright lest he should be seen and recognized in this ignominious plight; and although he felt sure his comrades would spread the story of his discomfiture all over the town, he did not wish to be seen by the watch, or by any law-abiding citizens who knew him.