let Cuthbert go his own way freely, and did not forbid Cherry to accompany him sometimes to church, where she found much entertainment and pleasure in watching the fashionable people come and go; and perhaps her father divined that she would give more attention to the mode of the ladies’ headgears and hair dressing and the cut of their farthingales than to any matters of doctrine that might be aired in the pulpit.

As for Cuthbert, he drank in voraciously all that he heard and all that he saw in this strange place, which seemed to him like the Babylon of old that the Puritan pastors raved over in their pulpits.  He was to be allowed his full liberty for some weeks, to see the sights of the city and learn his way about it.  Perhaps after Christmastide his uncle would employ him in his shop or warehouse, but Martin wished to take the measure of the lad before he put him to any task.

So Cuthbert roamed the London streets wondering and amazed.  He saw many a street fight waged between the Templars and ’prentices, and got a broken head himself from being swept along the tide of mimic battle.  He saw the rude and rabble mob indulging in their favourite pastime of upsetting coaches (hell carts as they chose to dub them), and roaring with laughter as the frightened occupants strove to free themselves from the clumsy vehicles.  Cuthbert got several hard knocks as a reward for striving to assist these unlucky wights when they chanced to be ladies; but he was too well used to blows to heed them over much, and could generally give as good as he got.

The fighting instinct often got him into tight places, as when he suddenly found himself surrounded by a hooting mob of ruffians in one of the slums of “Alsatia,” as Whitefriars was called, where he had imprudently adventured himself.  And this adventure might have well had a fatal termination for him, as this was a veritable den of murderers and villains of the deepest dye, and even the authorities dared not venture within its purlieus to hunt out a missing criminal without a guard of soldiers with them.  The abuse of “Sanctuary” was well exemplified by the existing state of things here; and though Cuthbert was doing no ill to any soul, but merely gratifying his curiosity by prowling about the narrow dens and alleys, the cry of “A spy! a spy!” soon brought a mob about him, whilst his readiness to engage in battle caused the tumult to redouble itself in an instant.

The lad had just realized his danger, and faced the fact that the chances of escaping alive were greatly against him, when a window in a neighbouring house was thrown open, and a stern, musical voice exclaimed: 

“For shame, my children, for shame!  Is it to be one against a hundred?  Is that Alsatia’s honour?  What has the lad done?”

Cuthbert raised his eyes and beheld the tonsured head of a priest clad in a rusty black cassock, who was standing at the only window to be seen in a blank wall somewhat higher than that of the other houses surrounding it.  The effect of those words on the angry multitude was wonderful.  The hands raised to strike were lowered, and voices on all sides exclaimed: