If other changes had taken place, in men and things, since he last trod the streets of London, the apprentices and serving lads of the shops were just as he had seen them last. "What do you lack! what do you lack!" they screamed one against the other, and they were just as ready to push him into the mire of the central gutter, that flowed down the middle of the street, as they were in the old days when he came to visit Master Tyndale, splashing him from head to foot, so that Mistress Monmouth would have to remove some of the filth from his garments, before he could go up to the little room in the turret.
"Is it—is it Sir Miles Paton at last?" exclaimed Master Monmouth.
The memory of it all came back to him, and he thought of the lonely life the merchant had lived, since his wife and family had all been carried off by the plague some years ago.
Thinking of these sad events, and wondering how he should find his old friend, he was a little startled to see the merchant come out of his shop almost the next moment, looking as comfortable and energetic as he did ten years before.
"Is it—is it Sir Miles Paton at last?" exclaimed Master Monmouth when he saw his visitor.
"It is, Master Monmouth! And I am right glad to see you looking so well," replied Miles, following Monmouth into his dim little shop.
The merchant led the way upstairs at once. "We may not say a word before those long-eared 'prentice lads, and I have much to tell you since you have come," said the merchant in explanation. Sir Miles could not help smiling now. He was getting used to this warning to be cautious, uttered by each in turn according to their varied experience, but all alike enforcing the terrible lesson, that free speech in England, even in one's own home, had become a danger.
As soon as the sitting-room had been reached, which Sir Miles remembered so well, the merchant bade him sit down, and then called: "Mistress Bainham, here is an old friend who would fain taste of your confections," and almost as he was speaking a young widow came into the room, bearing on her face the traces of sorrow; but it was a pleasant, peaceful face, and the merchant spoke as though she might have been his own daughter, as he asked her to set the wenches to prepare a meal with all speed.
"Have I seen this lady before?" asked Sir Miles.