it is with the old man and little maid?"

"There's a sort in our court that are ready for aught," said Ambrose.

On they hurried in the darkness, which was now at the very deepest of
the night; now and then a torch was borne across the street, and most of
the houses had lights in the upper windows, for few Londoners slept on
that strange night. The stained glass of the windows of the Churches
beamed in bright colours from the Altar lights seen through them, but
the lads made slower progress than they wished, for the streets were
never easy to walk in the dark, and twice they came on mobs assailing
houses, from the windows of one of which, French shoes and boots were
being hailed down. Things were moderately quiet around Saint Paul's,
but as they came into Warwick Lane they heard fresh shouts and wild
cries, and at the archway leading to the inner yard they could see that
there was a huge bonfire in the midst of the court--of what composed
they could not see for the howling figures that exulted round it.

"George Bates, the villain!" cried Stephen, as his enemy in exulting
ferocious delight was revealed for a moment throwing a book on the fire,
and shouting, "Hurrah! there's for the old sorcerer, there's for the
heretics!"

That instant Giles was flying on Bates, and Stephen, with equal, if not
greater fury, at one of his comrades; but Ambrose dashed through the
outskirts of the wildly screaming and shouting fellows, many of whom
were the miscreant population of the mews, to the black yawning doorway
of his master. He saw only a fellow staggering out with the screw of
the press to feed the flame, and hurried on in the din to call, "Master,
art thou there?"

There was no answer, and he moved on to the next door, calling again
softly, while all the spoilers seemed absorbed in the fire and the
combat. "Master Michael! 'Tis I, Ambrose!"

"Here, my son," cautiously answered a voice he knew for Lucas Hansen's.

"Oh, master! master!" was his low, heart-stricken cry, as by the leaping
light of a flame he saw the pale face of the old printer, who drew him
in.

"Yea! 'tis ruin, my son," said Lucas. "And would that that were the
worst."

The light flashed and flickered through the broken window so that
Ambrose saw that the hangings had been torn down and everything wrecked,
and a low sound as of stifled weeping directed his eyes to a corner
where Aldonza sat with her father's head on her lap. "Lives he? Is he
gr