of his subjects.

Cuthbert mused idly of these things as he pushed out into the
middle of the river, and then eased up and looked about him to see
if his movements were observed. It was beginning to grow dusk now.
The sun had dipped behind the trees and buildings. The two sentries
on the wharf had turned their backs upon the river, and were
entering a tavern. The other wherries were all making for the
shore, and the tide was running in strongly and carrying Cuthbert's
boat upstream for him in the direction whither he would go.

Letting himself drift with the tide, and contenting himself with
keeping the prow in the right direction, Cuthbert drifted on his
way quite as fast as he cared to. He had not often been as far up
the stream as this, since business always took him down towards the
shipping in the mouth of the river. He had never before gone higher
up than the Temple Stairs, and now as he drifted past these and saw
the fine pile of Westminster rising before his eyes, he felt a
thrill of admiration and awe, and turned in his seat the better to
observe and admire.

Westminster was almost like another town in those days, divided
from the busy walled city of London by fields and gardens and fine
mansions standing in their own grounds. On the south side of the
river the houses were few and far between, and save at Southwark,
hardly any attempt at regular building had been made. Past the
great Palace of Whitehall and Westminster, with its Parliament
Houses rising majestic against the darkening sky, drifted the
lonely little boat. And then Cuthbert took his oars and pulled for
the southern bank; for he knew that Lambeth was not very much
farther away, and he recalled to mind the directions of the priest,
how to find it and know it.

Trees fringed the southern bank here, leafless at this season, but
still imparting a certain dark dreariness to the scene. The hoot of
an owl occasionally broke the silence, and sent light shivers
through Cuthbert's frame. He was not free from superstition, and
the evil-omened bird was no friend of his. He would rather not have
heard its harsh note just at this time; and he could have wished
that the river did not look so inky black, or that the trees did
not cast such weird shadows.

But the tide ran strong beneath the overhanging bank, and Cuthbert
was carried onwards without any effort of his own. There was
something just a little uncanny in this swift force. It reminded
Cuthbert of