Page:Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869) v2.djvu/108

88 the Hallelujah League,—sects which flourished then, and which still exist at the present day. Then the cortége wound from street to street, making a zig-zag, choosing by preference lanes not yet built on, roads where the grass grew, and deserted alleys.

At length the cortége stopped in a narrow lane with no houses except two or three hovels. This narrow alley was bordered with two walls, the one on the left, low; the other, high. The high wall was black, and built in the Saxon style with narrow holes, scorpions, and large square gratings over narrow loop-holes. There was no window on it, but here and there slits, old embrasures for cross bows and long bows. At the foot of this high wall, like the hole at the bottom of a rat-trap, was a small wicket gate. This small door, encased in a full, heavy girding of stone, had a grated peep-hole, a heavy knocker, a large lock, hinges thick and knotted, a bristling of nails, an armour of plates, and hinges, so that altogether it was more of iron than of wood. There was no one in the lane,—no shops, no pedestrians; but in it there was a continual uproar, as if the lane ran parallel with a torrent. There was a tumult of voices and of carriages. It seemed as if on the other side of the black edifice there must be a great street, doubtless the principal street of Southwark, one end of which ran into the Canterbury road, and the other on to London Bridge.

All the length of the lane, except the cortége which surrounded Gwynplaine, a watcher would have seen no human face save that of Ursus peering out from the shadow of the corner of the wall; looking, yet fearing to see. He had posted himself behind the wall at a turn of the lane.

The constables grouped themselves before the wicket. Gwynplaine was in the centre, the wapentake and his