On this piece of waste land I place the garden mentioned in connection with the house rented by Percy. This is far more probable than it was where Mr. Brewer has placed it, in the narrow court which leads from Parliament Place to the other side of Percy's house, and ends by the side of the Prince's Chamber. If this arrangement be accepted, it gets rid of the alleged populousness of neighbourhood. No doubt people flocked up and down from Parliament Stairs, but they would be excluded from the garden on the river side, and with few exceptions would pass on without turning to the right into the court. Nobody who had not business with Percy himself or with his neighbour on the south[151] would be likely to approach Percy's door. As far as that side of the house was concerned, it would be difficult to find a more secluded dwelling. The Thames was then the 'silent highway' of London, and the sight of a barge unloading before the back door of a house can have been no more surprising than the sight of a gondola moored to the steps of a palace on a canal in Venice. John Shepherd, for instance, was not startled by the sight:-- Memorandum that John Shepherd servant to the said Mr. Whynniard, saith that the fourth of September last being Wednesday before the Queen's Majesty removed from Windsor to Hampton Court,[152] he being taken suddenly sick, and therefore sent away to London, and coming late to lie at the Queen's Bridge,[153] the tide being high, he saw a boat lie close by the pale of Sir Thomas Parry's garden[154] and men going to and fro the water through the back door that leadeth into Mr. Percy's lodging, which he doth now bethink himself of, though then, being sick and late, he did not regard it.[155] It thus appears that this final supply of powder was carried in at night, and by a way through the garden--not by the more frequented Parliament Stairs.