THE VILLAGE: IN AND ABOUT IT 119 



fighting, on the model of a like scene in Ivanhoe. 

 But this was all imagination. As a matter of 

 fact, Wyatt failed to get across London Bridge, 

 the drawbridge in the middle having been taken 

 up and the gate beyond being stoutly guarded 

 against his advance. The Southwark people, 

 who had welcomed him to the Borough, begged 

 him to be gone when the Tower guns were 

 turned upon their homes. Setting out in the 

 morning, hampered by cannon to be dragged 

 along through miry ways, he did not get to 

 Kingston till well on in the afternoon. Here, 

 too, the bridge had been broken, but its defenders 

 fled from his guns ; some sailors swam across to 

 fetch back barges moored on the farther side; 

 the gap was hastily repaired with planks ; then 

 before midnight he was able to continue his 

 march. A gun breaking down delayed him at 

 Brentford, then perhaps the Kew people were 

 for the nonce rather thankful not to have a 

 bridge, as that force passed by to assail London 

 on the Middlesex side. So must they have been 

 in the next century, when across the river they 

 could hear the shouts and shots with which 

 Royalists set Roundheads flying through the 

 narrow streets of Brentford. 



