les
Mompesson."

"Lanyere is my name," replied the other; "and if I decline to attend
you, as you request, it is from no disrespect to you, but from distaste
to the society into which you propose to bring me. Your warrant does not
extend to me?"

"It does not, Sir," replied the serjeant-at-arms. "Nevertheless--"

"Arrest him!" cried a voice at the back of the house,--and a window
being thrown open, the face of Sir Giles Mompesson appeared at
it--"Arrest him!" repeated the extortioner.

The serjeant-at-arms made a movement, as if of compliance; but Lanyere
bent towards him, and whispered a few words in his ear, on hearing which
the official respectfully retired.

"Why are not my injunctions obeyed, Sir?" demanded Sir Giles,
furiously, from the window.

"Because he has rendered me good reason why he may not be molested by
us--or by any one else," replied the officer, significantly.

Lanyere looked with a smile of triumph at the extortioner, and then
turning to Sir Jocelyn, who seemed half disposed to make an attack upon
his enemy, said in an under-tone, "Harm him not. Leave him to me."

After which he quitted the cottage.

Sir Giles then signed to the serjeant-at-arms to remove his prisoner,
and disappeared; and the attendants, in sable cloaks, closing round Sir
Jocelyn, the party went forth.

CHAPTER XXII.

The Old Fleet Prison.

Mention is made of a prison-house standing near the River Fleet as early
as the reign of Richard I.; and this was one of the oldest jails in
London, as its first wardens, whose names are on record, Nathaniel de
Leveland, and Robert his son, paid, in 1198, a fine of sixty marks for
its custody; affirming "that it had been their inheritance ever since
the Conquest, and praying that they might not be hindered therein by the
counter-fine of Osbert de Longchamp," to whom it had been granted by the
lion-hearted monarch.

The next warden of the Fleet, in the days of John, was Simon
Fitz-Robert, Archdeacon of Wells,--probably a near relative of Robert de
Leveland, as the wardship of the daughter of the said Robert, as well as
the custody of the jail, was also committed to him. The freehold of the
prison continued in the Leveland family for upwards of three centuries;
until, in the reign of Philip and Mary it was, sold to John Heath for
L2300--a large sum in those days, but not more than the value of the
property, which from the way it was managed produced a large revenue to
its