"With two and two together tied,
Through Temple Bar and Strand they go,
To Westminster, there to be tried,
Ropes about their necks also."
_Ill May Day_.
And where was Stephen? Crouching, wretched with hunger, cold,
weariness, blows, and what was far worse, sense of humiliation and
disgrace, and tenor for the future, in a corner of the yard of Newgate--
whither the whole set of lads, surprised in Warwick Inner Court by the
law students of the Inns of Court, had been driven like so many cattle,
at the sword's point, with no attention or perception that he and Giles
had been struggling against the spoilers.
Yet this fact made them all the more forlorn. The others, some forty in
number, their companions in misfortune, included most of the Barbican
prentices, who were of the Eagle faction, special enemies alike to
Abenali and to the Dragon, and these held aloof from Headley and
Birkenholt, nay, reviled them for the attack which they declared had
caused the general capture.
The two lads of the Dragon had, in no measured terms, denounced the
cruelty to the poor old inoffensive man, and were denounced in their
turn as friends of the sorcerer. But all were too much exhausted by the
night's work to have spirit for more than a snarling encounter of words,
and the only effect was that Giles and Stephen were left isolated in
their misery outside the shelter of the handsome arched gateway under
which the others congregated.
Newgate had been rebuilt by Whittington out of pity to poor prisoners
and captives. It must have been unspeakably dreadful before, for the
foulness of the narrow paved court, shut in by strong walls, was
something terrible. Tired, spent, and aching all over, and with boyish
callousness to dirt, still Giles and Stephen hesitated to sit down, and
when at last they could stand no longer, they rested, leaning against
one another. Stephen tried to keep up hope by declaring that his master
would soon get them released, and Giles alternated between despair, and
declarations that he would have justice on those who so treated his
father's son. They dropped asleep--first one and then the other--from
sheer exhaustion, waking from time to time to realise that it was no
dream, and to feel all the colder and more cramped.
By and by there were voices at the gate. Friends were there asking
after their own Will, or John, or Thomas, as the case might be. The
jailer opened a little wicket-window in the heavy door, and, no doubt
for a consideration, passed in food to certain lads whom he called out,
but it did not always reach its destination. It was often torn away as
by hungry wolves. For though the felons had been let out, when the
doors were opened; the new prisoners were not by any means all
apprentices. There were watermen, husbandmen, beggars, thieves, among
them, attracted by the scent of plunder; and even some of the elder lads
had no scruple in snatching the morsel from the younger ones.
Poor little Jasper Hope, a mischievous little curly-headed idle fellow,
only thirteen, just apprenticed to his brother the draper, and rushing
about with the other youths in the pride of his flat cap, was one of the
sufferers. A servant had been at the door, promising that his brother
would speedily have him released, and handing in bread and meat, of
which he was instantly robbed by George Bates and three or four more big
fellows, and sent away reeling and sobbing, under a heavy blow, with all
the mischief and play knocked out of him. Stephen and Giles called
"Shame!" but were unheeded, and they could only draw the little fellow
up to them, and assure him that his brother would soon come for him.