Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/69

1552.] where I have had time to remember and acknowledge Him, and to know also myself, for the which I do thank Him most heartily. And, my friends, more I have to say to you concerning religion: I have been always, being in authority, a furtherer of it to the glory of God to the uttermost of my power; whereof I am nothing soriy, but rather have cause and do rejoice most gladly that I have so done, for the greatest benefit of God that ever I had, or any man might have in this world, beseeching you all to take it so, and to follow it on still; for, if not, there will follow and come a worse and great plague.'

He was still speaking, when the crowd began suddenly to wave and shift. Through the breathless silence a noise was heard like the trampling of the feet of a large number of men approaching: some thought it was a rescue, some one thing, some another; shouts rose, away! away! the packed multitude attempted to scatter, and as the sound had created the alarm, the alarm now increased the sound. Some cried that it thundered, some that an army was coming down from heaven, some felt the earth shake under their feet. The mystery was merely that a company of soldiers, who had been ordered to be at Tower Hill by eight o'clock, and had found themselves late, were coming at a run through an adjoining street; but no one thought of looking for a reasonable cause. 'There was a rumbling,' says Machyn, 'as it had been guns shooting, and great horses