's threats.

Up Highgate Hill they rattled in a bracing northeast wind, the rugged
country bowling back against the tumbled sky. Far to south a rusty haze
had gloomed against the sun like a midday fog, mile after mile; and
suddenly, as they topped the range and cleared the last low hill, they
saw a city in the south spreading away until it seemed to Nick to girdle
half the world and to veil the sky in a reek of murky sea-coal smoke.

"There!" said Carew, reining in the gray, as Nick looked up and felt his
heart almost stand still; "since Parma burned old Antwerp, and the Low
Countries are dead, there lies the market-heart of all the big
round world!"

"London!" cried Nick, and, catching his breath with a quick gasp, sat
speechless, staring.

Carew smiled. "Ay, Nick," said he, cheerily; "'tis London town. Pluck
up thine heart, lad, and be no more cast down; there lies a New World
ready to thine hand. Thou canst win it if thou wilt. Come, let it be
thine Indies, thou Francis Drake, and I thy galleon to carry home the
spoils! And cheer up. It grieves my heart to see thee sad. Be merry
for my sake."

"For thy sake?" gasped Nick, staring blankly in his face. "Why, what
hast thou done for me?" A sudden sob surprised him, and he clenched his
fists--it was too cruel irony. "Why, sir, if thou wouldst only leave
me go!"

"Tut, tut!" cried Carew, angrily. "Still harping on that same old
string? Why, from thy waking face I thought thou hadst dropped it long
ago. Let thee go? Not for all the wealth in Lombard street! Dost think
me a goose-witted gull?--and dost ask what I have done for thee? Thou
simpleton! I have made thee rise above the limits of thy wildest
dream--have shod thy feet with gold--have filled thy lap with
glory--have crowned thine head with fame! And yet, 'What have I done for
thee?' Fie! Thou art a stubborn-hearted little fool. But, marry come up!
I'll mend thy mind. I'll bend thy will to suit my way, or break it in
the bending!"

Clapping his hand upon his poniard, he turned his back, and did not
speak to Nick again.

And so they came down the Kentish Town road through a meadow-land
threaded with flowing streams, the wild hill thickets of Hampstead Heath
to right, the huddling villages of Islington, Hoxton, and Clerkenwell to
left. And as they passed through Kentish Town, past Primrose Hill into
Hampstead way, solitary farm-houses and lowly cottages gave way to
burgher dwellings in orderly array, with ma