"indeed I am not the man you
take me for; I am a sailor, bound to a merchant vessel, which in half-
an-hour is to sail on the tide for sea--"

"A sailor!" quoth he, "nay, by my body, thou'rt a soldier now, my lad,
and a brave one to boot. We want lads of thy build for the wars; so
rest thee content to travel by land instead of by sea. Here's money on
it," thrusting silver into my hand, "let's see how neatly thou can'st
turn up a tankard to the Queen's health!"

"No," cried I, letting the money drop, "I am no soldier. And as for
money," said I, pulling out my lady's purse, "here is an angel for you,
good man, if you but let me go."

"Oh, ho," cried he, "'tis a lad with a purse, is it? So much the better
for us. Here, comrades," cried he.

But I waited for no more. The bells of Cheap were already chiming the
hour. With a blow of my fist I felled him, and breaking through the
rest of them before they comprehended what I was about, I took to my
heels.

Then ensued a hue and cry the like of which Thames Street had not often
witnessed. The soldiers, encumbered as they were with their harness,
could only shout and raise the town. Others, more fleet, pressed me
hard; others, coming to meet the uproar, hustled me, and struck me at,
and tripped me as I went by. But I had not wrestled and played football
in Finsbury Fields for naught. At length the crowd became so great, all
running one way, that not a man knew why he ran, or what it was all
about. As for me, when I saw that, I mingled with the crowd, and
shouted, "Stop thief!" with the loudest of them. Then, when no one
thought of me, I slipped quickly down to the water's edge, and flung
myself into the first wherry I found.

But by this time the hour was long gone by. For we had been chasing
half-an-hour up and down; up Watling Street, across Cheap, behind the
New Exchange, up Cornhill, down Gracious Street, and along the new Fish
Street towards the Bridge; so that when, more dead than alive, I struck
out into the stream and shot the Bridge, not a sign was there of the
_Misericorde_.

I was tempted to give it up then, and let who would take me. And,
indeed, there seemed a good chance of that. For the owner of my wherry,
supposing me to be the thief I seemed, was already out after me, and in
another few minutes the hue and cry by water would be as loud as that by
land. So on I went on the rapid ebb for dear life. And casting my eyes
upward, I noticed th