III. THE MYSTERY OF SIR EDMUND BERRY GODFREY



When London was a pleasanter place than it is to-day, when anglers
stretched their legs up Tottenham Hill on their way to fish in the
Lee; when the 'best stands on Hackney river' were competed for
eagerly by bottom fishers; when a gentleman in St. Martin's Lane,
between the hedges, could 'ask the way to Paddington Woods;' when a
hare haunted Primrose Hill and was daily pursued by a gallant pack
of harriers; enfin, between three and four on the afternoon of
October 17, 1678, two common fellows stepped into the White House
tavern in the fields north of Marylebone, a house used as a club by
a set of Catholic tradesmen. They had been walking in that region,
and, as the October afternoon was drawing in, and rain was falling,
they sought refuge in the White House. It would appear that they
had not the means of assuaging a reasonable thirst, for when they
mentioned that they had noticed a gentleman's cane, a scabbard, a
belt, and some add a pair of gloves, lying at the edge of a deep dry
ditch, overgrown with thick bush and bramble, the landlord offered
the new comers a shilling to go and fetch the articles.* But the
rain was heavy, and probably the men took the shilling out in ale,
till about five o'clock, when the weather held up for a while.

*A rather different account by the two original finders, Bromwell
and Walters, is in L'Estrange's Brief History, iii. pp. 97, 98. The
account above is the landlord's. Lords' MSS., Hist. MSS. Com., xi.
pp. 2, 46, 47.

The delay was the more singular if, as one account avers, the men