k with these somber-looking knaves,"
Jacob whispered.

"Yes," Harry said; "I would give much to be able to do so; but at the
present moment I scarcely wish to draw attention upon myself."

"Let us get out of this, then," Jacob said, "if there is no fun to be
had. I am sick of these long-winded orations."

They turned to go, and as they made their way through the crowd, Harry
trod upon the toe of a small man in a high steeple hat and black coat.

"I beg your pardon," Harry said, as there burst from the lips of the
little man an exclamation which was somewhat less decorous than would
have been expected from a personage so gravely clad. The little man
stared Harry in the face, and uttered another exclamation, this time of
surprise. Harry, to his dismay, saw that the man with whom he had come
in contact was the preacher whom he had left gagged on the guardroom bed
at Westminster.

"A traitor! A spy!" shouted the preacher, at the top of his voice,
seizing Harry by the doublet. The latter shook himself free just as
Jacob, jumping in the air, brought his hand down with all his force on
the top of the steeple hat, wedging it over the eyes of the little man.
Before any further effort could be made to seize them, the two lads
dived through the crowd, and dashed down a lane leading toward the
river.

This sudden interruption to the service caused considerable excitement,
and the little preacher, on being extricated from his hat, furiously
proclaimed that the lad he had seized, dressed as an apprentice, was a
malignant, who had bean taken prisoner at Brentford, and who had foully
ill-treated him in a cell in the guardroom at Finsbury. Instantly a
number of men set off in pursuit.

"What had we best do, Jacob?" Harry said, as he heard the clattering of
feet behind them.

"We had best jump into a boat," Jacob said, "and row for it. It is dark
now, and we shall soon be out of their sight."

At the bottom of the lane were some stairs, and at these a number of
boats. As it was late in the evening, and the night a foul one, the
watermen, not anticipating fares, had left, and the boys, leaping into a
boat, put out the sculls, and rowed into the stream, just as their
pursuers were heard coming down the lane.

"Which way shall we go?" Harry said.

"We had better shoot the bridge," Jacob replied. "Canst row well?"

"Yes," Harry said; "I have practiced at Abingdon with an oar."

"Then take the sculls," Jacob said, "and I will