"Marry, he was no brawler," Mistress Hodges protested warmly, "but ever cheerfullest when most in drink. They were thieving knaves who set upon him, and, God be good to sinners, ran him through the heart before the poor young man could so much as recite a couplet to prove himself a poet." "How thinkst thou poetry would save him?" Mistress Judd demanded curtly. "Marry, come up! What thief would kill a poet for his purse?" cried Mistress Hodges. "Quick, neighbor, get thy knitting!" she added hurriedly, and catching up a pewter plate began to polish with her apron as the stranger, attracted by their chatter, quickened his pace. He was a slight man, apparently of thirty or thereabout, with deep-set, penetrating eyes and a lean face ending in the short, sharp, pointed beard in fashion at the time. "Give you good-morrow, dames," he said, when within speaking distance; "can you direct me to some proper lodging here-about?" Mistress Hodges dropped a deeper courtesy to draw attention to herself as the person of most importance. "In truth an't please you, sir," she said, "'tis my good fortune to have this moment ready for your worship the fairest chambers to be had in all the town at four and six the week. Gentility itself could ask no better, for doth not the Lord Mayor live around the corner in his newly purchased Crosby Hall, the tallest house in London, and near at hand do not the gardens of Sir John Gresham stretch from Bishopsgate to Broad Street like a park? And if one would seek recreation, 'tis not five minutes to Cornhill, which is amusing as a fair o' pleasant evenings, with the jugglers and peddlers and goldsmiths and----" "Ah, by my faith," the stranger interrupted gravely, "I should seek elsewhere, for I am not a man born under Sol, that loveth honor, nor under Jupiter, that loveth business, for the contemplative planet carrieth me away wholly." "An you be disposed toward contemplation," interposed Mistress Hodges, quickly, "there can be found no purer place in London for such diversion than is my second story back. From thence one may contemplate at will either the almshouse gardens and the woodland beyond Houndsditch, or the turrets of the Tower itself, in winter when the leaves are gone." "Please Heaven the leaves are thick at present!" said the stranger with a grim half smile. "Nevertheless, I have a mind to look from your back windows. The almshouse gardens may at least teach one resignation." "Enter an't please you, sir," replied the landlady with a low obeisance. The stranger made a close inspection of the chamber, peering into cupboards, testing the bed and stools and chairs, and finally pausing before a small oak box secluded in a corner.