force it to plunge in the direction of the soldiers who
kept the little gate, before in the throng the butcher had reached the
ground. The woman was flogging at the mule with her reins. 'I have
killed 'un,' he shrieked.

He dived under the pikes of the soldiers and gripped the captain by
both shoulders. 'We be the cousins of the Duke of Norfolk,' he cried.
His square red beard trembled beneath his pallid face, and suddenly he
became speechless with rage.

Hands were already pulling the woman from her saddle, but the guards
held their pikes transversely against the faces of the nearest,
crushing in noses and sending sudden streaks of blood from jaws. The
uproar was like a hurricane and the woman's body, on high, swayed into
the little space that the soldiers held. She was crying with the pain
of her arm that she held with her other hand. Her cousin ran to her
and mumbled words of inarticulate tenderness, ending again in 'I have
killed 'un.'

The mob raged round them, but the soldiers stood firm enough. A
continual cry of 'Harlot, harlot,' went up. Stones were scarce on the
sward of the park, but a case bottle aimed at the woman alighted on
the ear of one of the guards. It burst in a foam of red, and he fell
beneath the belly of the mule with a dry grunt and the clang of iron.
The soldiers put down the points of their pikes and cleared more
ground. Men lay wallowing there when they retreated.

The man shouted at the captain: 'Can you clear us a way to yon
stairs?' and, at a shake of the head, 'Then let us enter this gate.'

The captain shook his head again.

'I am Thomas Culpepper. This is the Duke's niece, Kat,' the other
shouted.

The captain observed him stoically from over his thick and black
beard.

'The King's Highness is within this garden,' he said. He spoke to the
porter through the little niche at the wicket. A company of the City
soldiers, their wands beating like flails, cleared for a moment the
space in front of the guards.

Culpepper with the hilt of his sword was hammering at the studded
door. The captain caught him by the shoulder and sent him to stagger
against the mule's side. He was gasping and snatched at his hilt. His
bonnet had fallen off, his yellow hair was like a shock of wheat, and
his red beard flecked with foam that spattered from his mouth.

'I have killed one. I will kill thee,' he stuttered at the captain.
The woman caught him round the neck.

'Oh, be still,' she shrieked. 'St