An example
shall be made of them."
"You waste your breath, Sir Giles, and your big words will avail you
nothing with us," Dick Taverner replied. "Now hear me in return. We, the
bold and loyal 'prentices of London, who serve our masters and our
masters' master, the king's highness, well and truly, will not allow an
unlawful arrest to be made by you or by any other man. And we command
you peaceably to deliver up your prisoner to us; or, by the rood! we
will take him forcibly from your hands!"
"Out, insolent fellow!" cried Sir Giles; "thou wilt alter thy tune when
thou art scourged at the cart's-tail."
"You must catch me first, Sir Giles," replied Dick; "and two words will
go to that. We have read Sir Francis Mitchell a lesson he is not likely
to forget; and we will read you one, an you provoke us. We have a few
old scores to wipe off."
"Ay, marry! have we," cried an embroiderer's apprentice;
"these extortioners have ruined my master's trade by their
gold-and-silver-thread monopoly."
"Hundreds of worthy men have been thrown out of employment by their
practices," said a vintner's 'prentice. "We sell not half the wine we
used to do. And no wonder! seeing two-thirds of the inns in London are
shut up."
"The brewers will be all ruined," said a burly 'prentice, with a wooden
shovel over his shoulder; "since every day a fresh ale-house is closed;
and no new licences are granted. Murrain seize all such monopolists!
They are worse than the fly in hops, or smut in barley.
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