"Is this Maude, or Langston, such a cur?"
Cavendish gave his head a shake that expressed unutterable things, saying: "Your kinsman, said you? I trust not on the Talbot side of the house?"
"No. On his mother's side. I wondered the more to see him here as he got that halt in the Rising of the North, and on the wrong side, and hath ever been reckoned a concealed Papist."
"Ay, ay. Dost not see, mine honest Humfrey, that's the very point that fits him for our purpose?"
"You mean that he is a double traitor and informer."
"We do not use such hard words in the Privy Council Board as you do on deck, my good friend," said Cavendish. "We have our secret intelligencers, you see, all in the Queen's service. Foul and dirty work, but you can't dig out a fox without soiling of fingers, and if there be those that take kindly to the work, why, e'en let them do it."
"Then there is a plot?"
"Content you, Humfrey! You'll hear enough of it anon. A most foul, bloody, and horrible plot, quite enough to hang every soul that has meddled in it, and yet safe to do no harm—like poor Hal's blunderbuss, which would never go off, except when it burst, and blew him to pieces."
Will felt that he had said quite enough to impress Humfrey with a sense of his statecraft and importance, and was not sorry for an interruption before he should have said anything dangerous. It was from Frank Pierrepoint, who had been Diccon's schoolmate, and was enchanted to see him. Humfrey was to stay one day longer in town in case Walsingham should wish to see him, and to show Diccon something of London, which they had missed on their way to Plymouth.
St. Paul's Cathedral was even then the sight that all Englishmen were expected to have seen, and the brothers took their way thither, accompanied by Frank Pierrepoint, who took their guidance on his hands. Had the lads seen the place at the opening of the century they would have thought it a piteous spectacle, for desecration and sacrilege had rioted there unchecked, the magnificent peal of bells had been gambled away at a single throw of the dice, the library had been utterly destroyed, the magnificent plate melted up, and what covetous fanaticism had spared had been further ravaged by a terrible fire. At this time Bishop Bancroft had done his utmost towards reparation, and the old spire had been replaced by a wooden one; but there was much of ruin and decay visible all around, where stood the famous octagon building called Paul's Cross, where outdoor sermons were preached to listeners of all ranks. This was of wood, and was kept in moderately good repair. Beyond, the nave of the Cathedral stretched its length, the greatest in England. Two sets of doors immediately opposite to one another on the north and south sides had rendered it a thoroughfare in very early times, in spite of the endeavours of the clergy; and at this time "Duke Humfrey's Walk," from the tomb of Duke Humfrey Stafford, as the twelve grand Norman bays of this unrivalled nave were called, was the prime place for the humours of London; and it may be feared that this, rather than the architecture, was the chief idea in the minds of the youths, as a babel of strange sounds fell on their ears, "a still roar like a humming of bees," as it was described by a contemporary, or, as Humfrey said, like the sea in a great hollow cave. A cluster of choir-boys were watching at the door to fall on any one entering with spurs on, to levy their spur money, and one gentleman, whom they had thus attacked, was endeavouring to save his purse by calling on the youngest boy to sing his gamut.