“To the man I follow!” said the good Hugh, simply; and they drank. But the cups of Frazer and St. Magil for once stood untouched upon the table. Before the conversation had gone further the tap-room door opened, admitting a short, stout woman of middle age and rubicund visage. Glancing quickly about from one to another, her eyes at length rested on Thomas Watkins, who, having had his usually prominent place in the tavern gossip usurped by those of higher degree, and holding no small measure of ale within him, sat fast asleep and snoring. The sight of the breeches-maker in this position so enraged the new-comer that she awoke him by the startling method of boxing his ears soundly, and commanding him to follow her without delay. With a pained air, yet much alacrity, the poor leather-seller obeyed his orders. It was, indeed, his life-long obedience to his wife’s decrees that won him the pity of his fellow-men. “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!” “Yes, Tom, or Captain Vytal, as you will, being now a fighting man from the Low Countries.” “Oh, sir, your presence brings me pleasure and consolation, I may say. How the times have changed in these few years—within, sir, and without! Have you heard about Queen Mary, how we have been delivered from her plots these two months past in a very, I may say, forcible way? Have you heard—?”