The two friends spent much of their time in wandering about the streets of
London. To them all seemed peaceable and orderly; indeed, they kept in the
main thoroughfares where the better class of citizens were to be seen, and
knew little of those who lived in the lower haunts, issuing out seldom in
the daylight, but making the streets a danger for peaceable folks after
nightfall.

Upon one occasion, however, they took boat at Westminster and were rowed
to Richmond. They had ill-chosen the occasion, knowing nothing of the
hours of the tide, and so returned against it. It was therefore eight
o'clock when they reached the Stairs, and already growing dark. They knew
that orders had been given that the gates were to be closed to all at
eight, lest some of the great bodies of rioters should approach suddenly
and enter the city.

The watermen, wearied by their long row, refused to carry them any
further. There was nothing for it but to walk round the walls and so
return to their lodging. The moon was shining brightly, and it seemed to
them as they started that it would be a pleasant walk. They followed the
Strand, where on the right stood many houses of the nobles, and the great
palace of John of Gaunt at the Savoy, in which, after the battle of
Poictiers, the captive king of France had been lodged.

Turning off to the left some short distance before they reached the city
wall, they held their way round the north side of the city. London had
already overflowed its boundary, and although in some places fields still
stretched up to the foot of the walls, in others, especially where the
roads led from the gates, a large population had established themselves.
These were principally of a poorer class, who not only saved rent from
being outside the boundary of the city, but were free from the somewhat