t.

"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