The name was not a common
one; it was worth while to spend a hope or two on the chance of
doing Jane a kindness. Her look and voice when he bade her be of
good courage had touched him. In his rejected state, he felt that it
was pleasant to earn gratitude even from so humble a being as the
Peckovers' drudge.
His workshop, it has been mentioned, was in St. John's Square. Of
all areas in London thus defined, this Square of St. John is
probably the most irregular in outline. It is cut in two by
Clerkenwell Road, and the buildings which compose it form such a
number of recesses, of abortive streets, of shadowed alleys, that
from no point of the Square can anything like a general view of its
totality be obtained. The exit from it on the south side is by St.
John's Lane, at the entrance to which stands a survival from a
buried world--the embattled and windowed archway which is all that
remains above ground of the great Priory of St. John of Jerusalem.
Here dwelt the Knights Hospitallers, in days when Clerkenwell was a
rural parish, distant by a long stretch of green country from the
walls of London. But other and nearer memories are revived by St.
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