to be very scrupulous of the character of fair play to an
enemy, when the dwarf, exerting his cracked voice to the uttermost, and
shrieking like an exhausted herald, from the exalted station which he
still occupied on the bulk-head, exhorted them to accept the offer of
the worthy man of the mansion. "He himself," he said, as he reposed
himself after the glorious conquest in which he had some share, "had
been favoured with a beatific vision, too splendid to be described to
common and mere mortal ears, but which had commanded him, in a voice to
which his heart had bounded as to a trumpet sound, to take refuge with
the worthy person of the house, and cause his friends to do so."

"Vision!" said the Knight of the Peak,--"sound of a trumpet!--the little
man is stark mad."

But the cutler, in great haste, intimated to them that their
little friend had received an intimation from a gentlewoman of his
acquaintance, who spoke to him from the window, while he stood on the
bulk-head, that they would find a safe retreat in his landlord's; and
desiring them to attend to two or three deep though distant huzzas, made
them aware that the rabble were up still, and would soon be upon them
with renewed violence, and increased numbers.

The father and son, therefore, hastily thanked the officer and his
party, as well as the other gentlemen who had volunteered in their
assistance, lifted little Sir Geoffrey Hudson from the conspicuous post
which he had so creditably occupied during the skirmish, and followed
the footsteps of the tenant of the booth, who conducted them down a
blind alley and through one or two courts, in case, as he said, any one
might have watched where they burrowed, and so into a back-door. This
entrance admitted them to a staircase carefully hung with straw mats to
exclude damp, from the upper step of which they entered upon a tolerably
large withdrawing-room, hung with coarse green serge edged with gilded
leather, which the poorer or more economical citizens at that time use
instead of tapestry or wainscoting.

Here the poor cutler received from Julian such a gratuity for the
loan of the swords, that he generously abandoned the property to the
gentlemen who had used them so well; "the rather," he said, "that he
saw, by the way they handed their weapons, that they were men of mettle,
and tall fellows."

Here the dwarf smiled on him courteously, and bowed, thrusting at
the same time, his hand into his pocket, which h