Fain would the lads have lingered to watch the shifting throng of clerks and their preceptors, as they streamed out from the lecture-rooms for the mid-day meal; but Hugh and Gilbert laughed at their eager curiosity, and drew them along to the left down Hammer Hall Lane, pausing suddenly upon reaching a small turret in the wall, which once had been open to the street, but was now closed in by a few mouldering boards. "Good!" cried Gilbert, as he pulled aside one of the boards; "the place has not been taken. Now look well at it, you two, and see if you think you can make shift to live here till a better place offers." Pushing their way within the circular recess, the lads saw that a rude stairway led up to some sort of chamber overhead. Mounting the rickety steps with care--for they had become loose and rotten--they found themselves in a small and not unpleasing little chamber, lighted by several long, narrow loopholes, and roofed in securely from the weather overhead. The flooring was rather decayed, and there was a mouldering smell pervading the place; but its former occupants had done various things to render habitation possible. A fireplace and chimney had been contrived in one corner, and some rude shutters had been affixed to keep out the cold air at night, or in inclement weather. A rickety shelf that would serve as a table still hung drooping from its nail. Plainly the place had been lived in before, and might well be again. Leofric and Jack looked round it, and smiled at one another. "We could live here like princes, if there be nothing to hinder," said the latter. "Can we come and fix our abode here without making payment to any one?" "Marry yes, since nobody uses the place. There be many such nooks along the walls, and poor clerks have settled themselves there again and again, no man saying them nay. In times of war they might post archers or marksmen at these loopholes; but short of a siege, I trow none will disturb you. And from without ye can climb easily upon the wall, and enjoy the air and watch what goes on beneath. Also there be the Fish Ponds just below, and I warrant ye will catch many a good supper from thence when ye be in need of a good meal." Jack laughed, for he had no small skill as a fisherman; but just now he was all agog to see Oxford and settle into these new quarters. "Had I but a few tools and some boards, I would fix us up bench and table, mend the stairs and the floor, and make the place as comfortable as heart could wish," he cried. "And I would gather rushes for the floor, and wood for the fire, and we should feast right royally on the last of the provisions we laid up for the way," added Leofric.