ps, and aided in inflaming the temper of
the people by passing jeering remarks, and loudly questioning the
statements of the preachers. These, unaccustomed to interruption, would
rapidly lose temper, and they and their partisans would make a rush
through the crowd to seize their interrogators. Then the apprentices
would interfere, blows would be exchanged, and not unfrequently the
fanatics were driven in to take refuge with the troops in St. Paul's.
Harry found a small printer of Royalist opinions, and with the
assistance of Jacob, strung together many doggerel verses, making a
scoff of the sour-faced rulers of England, and calling upon the people
not to submit to be tyrannized over by their own paid servants, the
army. These verses were then set in type by the printer, and in the
evening, taking different ways, they distributed them in the streets to
passers-by.

Day by day the feeling in the city rose higher, as the quarrels at
Westminster between the Independents, backed by the army and the
Presbyterian majority, waxed higher and higher. All this time the king
was negotiating with commissioners from the army, and with others sent
by the Scots, one day inclining to one party, the next to the other,
making promises to both, but intending to observe none, as soon as he
could gain his ends.

On Sunday, the 9th of April, Harry and his friends strolled up to Moor
Fields to look at the apprentices playing bowls there. Presently from
the barracks of the militia hard by a party of soldiers came out, and
ordered them to desist, some of the soldiers seizing upon the bowls.

"Now, lads," Harry shouted, "you will not stand that, will you? The
London apprentices were not wont to submit to be ridden rough-shod over
by troops. Has all spirit been taken out of you by the long-winded
sermons of these knaves in steeple hats?"

Some of the soldiers made a rush at Harry. His two friends closed in by
him. The two first of the soldiers who arrived were knocked down.
Others, however, seized the young men, but the apprentices crowded up,
pelted the soldiers with stones, and, by sheer weight, overthrew those
who had taken Harry and carried him off. The soldiers soon came pouring
out of their barracks, but fleet-footed lads had, at the commencement of
the quarrel, run down into the streets, raising the shout of "clubs,"
and swarms of apprentices came running up. Led by Harry and his
followers, who carried heavy sticks, they charged the mil