It would be unjust to any of the great men who own considerable estates in houses, shops, and tenements, built upon their grounds, to say, that they were, originally, bakers, butchers, brewers, mercers, or hardware men. Yet upon no other ground was Wolsey's father denominated a butcher. He was a merchant and a man of property, and married a lady of one of the highest families, short of nobility, yet truly noble in deed. The party were walking from the market-place towards St. Nicholas, where Wolsey's father resided, in a house which formed the termination of two thoroughfares now called St. Nicholas Street and Silent Street. They were proceeding in front of the area or open market-place by the shambles, just as two surly mastiff dogs were growling and quarrelling for a piece of offal which had been thrown to them. They were huge, tawny mastiff dogs of great power, and most formidable appearance. After eyeing each other with savage fierceness they flew to the conflict. Daundy, at any other time, would have passed by such savage contests among men, boys, or dogs, but having De Freston's daughter upon his left arm, and the animals passing a little too near him, bearing each other down, he hurled at them a small short stick he had in his hand. Had he boldly struck them, and kept the weapon in his hand, they might have been cowed, but as he had inflicted a blow and thrown away the weapon, they turned furiously upon him and his companion, who, in an instant, were borne to the ground. One savage seized the loyal burgess by the throat, and though he was kicked, and pulled, and beaten by Latimer and De Freston, he maintained his grasp. Ellen was seized by the arm, and the beast had already torn her garments, and the blood was starting from his jaws. It was then that Wolsey displayed his presence of mind and his prowess, for not choosing to waste his time upon the animal's sides, he seized a huge shin-bone of an ox, which lay upon the butcher's stall, and instantly dealt such a blow upon the mastiff's skull as dashed his brains upon the pavement. He then raised the terrified Ellen, who had fainted away with pain, and whilst a butcher, with a cleaver, administered the same punishment to the other mastiff, he had carried the poor girl into Cady's house, and committed her to the care of its good mistress. Wolsey still kept the shin-hone in his hand, and when his fellow townsmen saw him walking to his own house with the weapon, and they knew what he had done with it, they would have carried him in their arms in triumph to his father's house. But he had hastened home to tell his parents of the accident, and to request his mother to provide accommodation for Lord De Freston's daughter.