the band was formed by the tipstaves--stout fellows with
hooks at the end of their poles, intended to capture a fugitive, or hale
him along when caught. With these were some others armed with
brown-bills. No uniformity prevailed in the accoutrements of the party,
each man arraying himself as he listed. Some wore old leather jerkins
and steel skirts; some, peascod doublets of Elizabeth's time, and
trunk-hose that had covered many a limb besides their own; others, slops
and galligaskins; while the poorer sort were robed in rusty gowns of
tuft-mockado or taffeta, once guarded with velvet or lined with skins,
but now tattered and threadbare. Their caps and bonnets were as varied
as their apparel,--some being high-crowned, some trencher-shaped, and
some few wide in the leaf and looped at the side. Moreover, there was
every variety of villainous aspect; the savage scowl of the desperado,
the cunning leer of the trickster, and the sordid look of the mean
knave. Several of them betrayed, by the marks of infamy branded on their
faces, or by the loss of ears, that they had passed through the hands of
the public executioner.

Amongst these there was one with a visage more frightfully mutilated
than those of his comrades; the nose having been slit, and subsequently
sewed together again, but so clumsily that the severed parts had only
imperfectly united, communicating a strange, distorted, and forbidding
look to the physiognomy. Clement Lanyere, the owner of this gashed and
ghastly face, who was also reft of his ears, and branded on the cheek,
had suffered infamy and degradation, owing to the licence he had given
his tongue in respect to the Star-Chamber. Prosecuted in that court by
Sir Giles Mompesson, as a notorious libeller and scandaller of the
judges and first personages of the realm, he was found guilty, and
sentenced accordingly. The court showed little leniency to such
offenders; but it was a matter of grace that his clamorous tongue was
not torn out likewise, in addition to the punishment actually inflicted.
A heavy fine and imprisonment accompanied the corporal penalties. Thus
utterly ruined and degraded, and a mark for the finger of scorn to point
at, Clement Lanyere, whose prospects had once been fair enough, as his
features had been prepossessing, became soured and malevolent,
embittered against the world, and at war with society. He turned
promoter, or, in modern parlance, informer; lodging complaints, seeking
out caus