t the butter
was something to cry "but" thrice at (according to a conceit of our
school days), and the milk must have come from cows driven to water.
However, these evils were light compared with the heavy bill sent up to
me every Saturday afternoon; and knowing how my mother had pinched to
send me nobly to London, and had told me to spare for nothing, but live
bravely with the best of them, the tears very nearly came into my eyes,
as I thought, while I ate, of so robbing her.

At length, being quite at the end of my money, and seeing no other help
for it, I determined to listen to clerks no more, but force my way up to
the Justices, and insist upon being heard by them, or discharged from my
recognisance. For so they had termed the bond or deed which I had been
forced to execute, in the presence of a chief clerk or notary, the very
day after I came to London. And the purport of it was, that on pain of
a heavy fine or escheatment, I would hold myself ready and present, to
give evidence when called upon. Having delivered me up to sign this,
Jeremy Stickles was quit of me, and went upon other business, not but
what he was kind and good to me, when his time and pursuits allowed of
it.

[Illustration: 203.jpg Tailpiece]

CHAPTER XXV

A GREAT MAN ATTENDS TO BUSINESS

[Illustration: 204.jpg Westminster Hall, 1650]

Having seen Lord Russell murdered in the fields of Lincoln's Inn, or
rather having gone to see it, but turned away with a sickness and a
bitter flood of tears--for a whiter and a nobler neck never fell
before low beast--I strode away towards Westminster, cured of half my
indignation at the death of Charles the First. Many people hurried past
me, chiefly of the more tender sort, revolting at the butchery. In their
ghastly faces, as they turned them back, lest the sight should be coming
after them, great sorrow was to be seen, and horror, and pity, and some
anger.

In Westminster Hall I found nobody; not even the crowd of crawling
varlets, who used to be craving evermore for employment or for payment.
I knocked at three doors, one after other, of lobbies going out of it,
where I had formerly seen some officers and people pressing in and out,
but for my trouble I took nothing, except some thumps from echo. And at
last an old man told me that all the lawyers were gone to see the result
of their own works, in the fields of Lincoln's Inn.

However, in a few days' time, I had better fortune; for the court w