Be that as it may, we burned bonfires that night in Moorfields, and I had my mistress' leave to take Jeannette with me to see the sport.

For by this time the sweet maid's lameness was nearly cured, and, like a prisoner newly uncaged, she loved to spread her wings a bit and go abroad.
Had the arm she leaned on been that of Peter Stoupe instead of mine, I wondered if she would have mended as fast as she did?
I was a vain coxcomb those days, and thought, no.

Yet, for anything she said to me or I to her, we were still 'prentice and young mistress.

Only, the duty I owed her was my great joy; and the service she had a right to claim of me, she sometimes prettily asked as a gift.
'Twas a wild, weird scene--those hundreds of citizens lit up by the fierce glare of the bonfires, whose roar mingled with the shoutings, and whose heat was less than the loyal fires which blazed in our bosoms.

I could feel Jeannette's hand tighten on my arm as the rabble surged closer round; and presently, seeing her tired and frightened, I made a way for her through the crowd.
As we reached the skirts there reeled against us a drunken man who, had I not caught him in my arm, would have fallen against my young mistress and done her some hurt.