d known as inseparable from the carriages of our
time, especially the "elegant" ones, but was as graceful and pleasant in
line as a Wessex waggon. We got in, Dick and I. The girls, who had come
into the porch to see us off, waved their hands to us; the weaver nodded
kindly; the dustman bowed as gracefully as a troubadour; Dick shook the
reins, and we were off.

CHAPTER IV: A MARKET BY THE WAY

We turned away from the river at once, and were soon in the main road
that runs through Hammersmith. But I should have had no guess as to
where I was, if I had not started from the waterside; for King Street was
gone, and the highway ran through wide sunny meadows and garden-like
tillage. The Creek, which we crossed at once, had been rescued from its
culvert, and as we went over its pretty bridge we saw its waters, yet
swollen by the tide, covered with gay boats of different sizes. There
were houses about, some on the road, some amongst the fields with
pleasant lanes leading down to them, and each surrounded by a teeming
garden. They were all pretty in design, and as solid as might be, but
countryfied in appearance, like yeomen's dwellings; some of them of red
brick like those by the river, but more of timber and plaster, which were
by the necessity of their construction so like mediaeval houses of the
same materials that I fairly felt as if I were alive in the fourteenth
century; a sensation helped out by the costume of the people that we met
or passed, in whose dress there was nothing "modern." Almost everybody
was gaily dressed, but especially the women, who were so well-looking, or
even so handsome, that I could scarcely refrain my tongue from calling my
companion's attention to the fact. Some faces I saw that were
thoughtful, and in these I noticed great nobility of expression, but none
that had a glimmer of unhappiness, and the greater part (we came upon a
good many people) were frankly and openly joyous.

I thought I knew the Broadway by the lie of the roads that still met
there. On the north side of the road was a range of buildings and
courts, low, but very handsomely built and ornamented, and in that way
forming a great contrast to the unpretentiousness of the houses round
about; while above this lower building rose the steep lead-covered roof
and the buttresses and higher part of the wall of a great hall, of a
splendid and exuberant style of architecture, of which one can say little
more than that it