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"Young Squire Delamere committed suicide ... you remember him? ... and Lord Cooke killed Sir Humphrey Clinton in a duel after that fracas we had here, when the police-patrol well-nigh seized upon your person.... Squire Delamere's suicide and Sir Humphrey's death caused much unpleasant talk. And old Mistress Delamere, the mother, hath I fear me, still a watchful eye on us.
The women screamed, and like so many frightened hens, ran into the corner of the room furthest out of reach of my Lord Protector's police-patrol, the men immediately forming a bulwark in front of them. The whole thing was not very heroic perhaps. A few idlers caught in an illicit act and under threat of arrest.
Outside, the ringing of a gong became audible. Then came a clattering of hoofs, as the police-patrol, nicely-timed by the conspirators, and summoned by a confederate, drew up at the box on the corner. Somebody struck another match, and a raw gas-light flared. From the hallway, two or three others crowded into the wrecked room.
A dull-toned roar, as from some great gulf below, rolled up from the street, a medley of slamming windows, the rush of feet as people poured from the houses, cries, shouts, and yells and high over all the shrill call of the police-patrol whistle and the CRACK, CRACK, CRACK of the Skeeter's revolver shots the Skeeter and his hellhounds for once self-appointed allies of the law!
Only my Lord Protector's new police-patrol fresh to its onerous task, solemnly marched down it once in twenty-four hours, keeping shoulder to shoulder, looking neither to right nor left, thankful when either issue was once more within sight. But in this same evening in August, 1657, it seemed as if quite a number of people had business in Bath Street off the Strand.
Who knows but what old Noll's police-patrol is lurking in this cutthroat alley? ... Endicott, take the bank again.... I'll swear I'll ruin ye ere the moon which I do not see disappears down the horizon.
"Then I shall ask you to accompany us to the room up stairs till the police-patrol arrives." "I will go," quietly. "Nonsense!" I objected. "On my word of honor, I do not know this lady. Our presence in the cellar was perfectly harmless. There is no valid reason for detaining her. It is an outrage!" "I am not going to stand here arguing with you," said Haggerty.
Anon when the police-patrol had gone by and was lost in the gloom there where Bath Street debouches on the river bank, two of these heavily cloaked figures walked rapidly down from the Strand, and like the others slipped quickly under the archway, and made straight for the narrow door on the left of the passage.
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