Having beaten back the assault of the Fishwives’ Regiment with only light casualties, they crest the hill and enter into the widest part of Holbourn, which runs for a mile to St. Giles’s, passing between diverse expensive squares, all converted from cow-pastures during Jack’s lifetime. A Puritan in a black frock stands up on the street-island at Holbourn Bar, holding a Bible over his head, open to some passage he guesses Jack should know about. Another breaks through the cordon and climbs into the sledge with Jack and gets ready to baptize him with a bucket of water he’s brought along; but the Ordinary of Newgate, who’s been riding in the cart, isn’t having any of that. He’s down on the pavement in a trice, hustling along beside the sledge, and makes a grab for the handle of the Baptismal pail. This leads to a tug-of-war, and creates enough of a diversion that a short procession of Catholics—or so he assumes, from the monks’ robes they’re all wearing—is able to slip in, and make itself part of the parade. One is a priest, the others are burly monks, which makes perfect sense as a lone Papist wouldn’t survive for ten seconds in this crowd. The priest strides along behind the sledge, looks Jack in the eye, and begins to declaim rapidly in what Jack assumes is Latin. Jack is being given last rites! A very considerate gesture on someone’s part. This tiny and intrepid Popish strike force was probably despatched by Louis XIV from a secret chapel-headquarters in a vault beneath Versailles.