unpopular, harsh man.

"Wherefore?" demanded Giles.

"Thou shalt know," said the alderman, seizing his arm to drag him to the
Counter prison, but Giles resisted. Wat Ball struck at Sir John's arm
with his wooden sword, and as the alderman shouted for the watch and
city-guard, the lads on their side raised their cry, "Prentices and
Clubs! Flat-caps and Clubs!" Master Headley, struggling along, met his
colleague, with his gown torn into shreds from his back, among a host of
wildly yelling lads, and panting, "Help, help, brother Headley!" With
great difficulty the two aldermen reached the door of the Dragon, whence
Smallbones sallied out to rescue them, and dragged them in.

"The boys!--the boys!" was Master Headley's first cry, but he might as
well have tried to detach two particular waves from a surging ocean as
his own especial boys from the multitude on that wild evening. There
was no moon, and the twilight still prevailed, but it was dark enough to
make the confusion greater, as the cries swelled and numbers flowed into
the open space of Cheapside. In the words of Hall, the chronicler, "Out
came serving-men, and watermen, and courtiers, and by eleven of the
clock there were six or seven hundreds in Cheap. And out of Pawle's
Churchyard came three hundred which wist not of the others." For the
most part all was involved in the semi-darkness of the summer night, but
here and there light came from an upper window on some boyish face,
perhaps full of mischief, perhaps somewhat bewildered and appalled.
Here and there were torches, which cast a red glare round them, but
whose smoke blurred everything, and seemed to render the darkness
deeper.

Perhaps if the tumult had only been of the apprentices, provoked by
Alderman Mundy's interference, they would soon have dispersed, but the
throng was pervaded by men with much deeper design, and a cry arose--no
one knew from whence--that they would break into Newgate and set free
Studley and Bates.

By this time the torrent of young manhood was quite irresistible by any
force that had yet been opposed to it. The Mayor and Sheriffs stood at
the Guildhall, and read the royal proclamation by the light of a wax
candle, held in the trembling hand of one of the clerks; but no one
heard or heeded them, and the uproar was increased as the doors of
Newgate fell, and all the felons rushed out to join the rioters.

At the same time another shout rose, "Down with the aliens!" and th