play ceased; the Alderman had fled. The
materials of mischief were at hand. The
spark burst into a flame when the cry went
forth—" Down with the Lombards!"

It was long after midnight when the riot
had ceased. At a house called Greengate,
near Leadenhall, dwelt a calender of worsted,
a native of Picardy, whose home was a great
resort of foreigners; and the furious people
rifled his house and destroyed his workshops.
In Blanchechapelton, in Aldgate, dwelt stranger
cordwainers; the people threw the boots and
shoes into the streets, but they could not find
the workmen, for they had fled for their lives.
In Newgate there were imprisoned some
artificers for molesting the strangers; the gaol
was broken, and the prisoners released. The
demon of mischief was at last satisfied.

The first beam of the May morning was
lighting the cross of the great spire of Paul's,
and yet a crowd lingered in the grey dawn.
They gathered, as they had gathered under
happier auspices, before the Church of St.
Andrew Undershaft. There, in an open space
near where now stands the India House, lay
a mighty shaft, from which the church derived
its name. It was "the Great Shaft of Cornhill,"
famous, under that name, in the days of
Chaucer—the wondrous May-pole, which, being
set up with all revelry of song and morris-
dance on May morning, stood higher than
the church-steeple. The wearied and excited
crowd rushed to their less dangerous work
with renewed strength. The shaft was reared,
and then went up a shout, which would have
awaked the heaviest sleeper in Aldgate—if any
were asleep on that morning, when the rites
of May were done with such evil observance.
There was not only the shout of riot, but the
boom of war. The Lieutenant of the Tower
discharged his ordnance against the city, and
the civic power had been raised, and men in
harness came in great force against the rioters,
who had dwindled down to some three
hundred apprentices. The great shaft of St.
Andrew soon looked down upon Cornhill in
solitude and silence; the apprentices were
hurried to the Tower.

There stood in the shade of the adjoining
shambles two men observing this scene. As
the watch stopped and questioned them, one
of the two gave a countersign, and the watch
passed on. The street was at length
perfectly tranquil.

"Sebastian," said the man of authority, "I
came in a lucky hour to your rescue."

The other replied in English, but with a
foreign accent, "Master More, I am grateful.
It is hard that I should be molested in my
secret chamber, poring over my charts at
midnight, and planning how I could carry
your nation's ships by the shortest cut to the
New World. Yes, Master More, it is hard;
you have saved my life, but my papers are
destroyed."

"And yet these people," said the Sheriff,
"are to be pitied even in their fury. I could
have stopped them, if that dull Alderman
had not come in with his watch and ward.
I said to them, 'Ye are breaking the laws;
some of ye will be hanged, others banished.
Silly apprentices, when ye are cast upon a
strange land with nothing but your craft to
give ye bread, how would ye like the foreigner
to maltreat you, as ye would maltreat these
aliens?' An Englishman, Master Sebastian
Cabot, is fierce as his country's mastiff; the
kind voice may subdue him, when the rough
hand is lifted in vain. But come; this gear
is mended, and I must bestow you in my
lodgings."

As the two friends quietly walked from
Cornhill to the Temple, they discoursed
much, in spite of the late fear and fatigue.

"Sebastian," said More, "methinks it is
some twenty years, as you have often told
me, since you first saw the American
continent from the prow of your father's
ship. You saw that continent a year before
Columbus."

"In the same year of 1497," replied Cabot,
"Vasco di Gama sailed from the Tagus on his
first voyage to India."

"Mighty events," said More, "that will
change the face of the world. And here—with
the wealth of these countries at the command
of enterprise and labour—we are fighting in
our streets, because a few aliens bear away
the poor payments for skill and industry.
Master Cabot, I think I see God's hand in
these revelations of distant empires, of which
the wisest of antiquity never dreamed."

"I am a blunt sailor, Master More," said
Cabot, "tossed on the rough Adriatic, a boy
before the mast—a Bristol mariner when my
father adopted England for his country. I
love that country, though its people be
sometimes rude and jealous. You have let the
Spaniard seize upon the empire of the Pacific.
Be it yours to command the shores of the
Atlantic. It shall go hard if I do not find you
the North-West passage."

"Sebastian," said More, "a man like you
is worth a legion of conquerors. The world
will be civilised by commerce, and not by
arms."

"The trinkets," said Cabot, "that we
exchanged twenty years ago with the savages of
Prima Vista,* have given them new desires
which are the spurs to new industry."

*The name by which the Cabots designated the first spot
they saw of the North American continent.

"Will the time ever arrive," interrupted
More, "when those regions, now the hunting-
grounds of a few starving tribes, shall be
peopled by Europeans? You tell me of a
country of forests and lakes. Will there be
ships on those waters, and towns in those
woods? Shall our seamen go fearlessly across
the ocean which divides us, and give the
handiworks of our looms for the native
products of the New Land? That time is a long
way off."

"But it will come," replied Cabot, "if