A laughing fop, for his sins, turned to seek some one with whom to pick a quarrel; he chanced to find himself face to face with Mowbray, Roger being a little in front and at one side.
“I’ll have the wall of you, sirrah,” cried the stranger, frowning offensively.
Walter stepped back, and his right hand crossed to his sword hilt, so evident was the design of the other to insult him.
But Sainton laughed. He caught the would-be bully by the belt.
“Yea, and take the house, too, if the landlord be willing, my pretty buck,” he growled pleasantly, whereon he heaved the swaggerer bodily over the wall, and they heard the crash of his body into the window of a summer house.
Those who stood near were rendered aghast by this feat of strength; they had never seen its like. Young Lord Dereham was no light weight, and his lordship’s wriggling carcass had described sufficient parabola to clear coping-stones set ten feet above the pavement.
The incident passed unheeded by the greater mob in the roadway. For no reason whatever a crowd of struggling men surged around the litter. Mowbray, clutching his undrawn sword, planted his back against the wall from which the discomfited aristocrat would have ousted him; he called to Sainton:—
“Stand by, Roger! There is some treason afoot!”
The words had scarce left his mouth when a Spanish halberdier felled the two nearest litter-bearers, and a shriek of dismay came from behind the drawn curtains as the conveyance dropped to the ground.
Another rush, also preconcerted, enabled some of the well-dressed rascals to possess themselves of the litter-poles. The gates of Gondomar’s garden were suddenly opened, and a move was made to carry the litter thither.