“There’s a customer at the shop, Tom Sot,” declared the shrew, leading her husband to the bridge, “who wants you. And lucky we are if he be honest, for I must needs leave him there to guard it while I come here and get you. But Sloth’s your name, and always will be. Had ever woman such a lazy clod to depend on?”
Thus she railed at the now miserable Watkins until they came to their shop at the sign of “The Roebuck,” on London Bridge. Finding it empty, the breeches-maker, with much alarm, looked up and down the street through the gathering darkness. The narrow way on the bridge was almost deserted save for a watchman slowly approaching from the London end with horn-sided lanthorn, and halberd in hand, who cried out monotonously his song of the familiar burden:
“Lanthorn and a whole candle-light!
Hang out your lights! Hear!”
And just across the bridge stood another man near the parapet, his tall frame sharply defined against the sky. It was to him that Watkins went in the hope of obtaining information concerning his departed customer.
“Can you tell me, sir, did any man just leave my shop at the sign of ‘The Roebuck’ there?”
“A man did,” replied the stranger. “I am he.”
“And you were left to guard it, sir, in Gammer Watkins’s absence,” complained the breeches-maker.
“I have guarded it. ’Twas but five minutes ago that I came out, and I’ve kept a close eye upon your doorway through every one of those five minutes. I tell you, Thomas, the time that has passed since I went out of your shop with a new pair of breeches is much longer.”
The leather-seller looked up keenly into the speaker’s face. “Salt and bread!” he exclaimed; “’tis Master Vytal!”