revenge. Dark, terrible beings are they, who spend much of
their time in the gloomy depths of the mighty woodland or in the very
bowels of the earth. Wild Irish or Spaniards are nought to them. I
have seen them eat up such folk at a mouthful! This nymph is their
maiden queen. Have a care how ye all treat her!"

The plump hostess, who knew her knight for a merry jester, was yet half
inclined to believe his account of the forest dwellers, and she looked
with added interest upon the blushing Dolly. Master Morgan was quite
to her mind.

"I am a widow," she said in confidence to the captain, "and 'tis a
great comfort to have a fellow of so many inches, and an honest face
atop of them, under one's roof."

The captain agreed, and accepted the invitation of Mistress Stowe (the
hostess) to drink a cup of sack with her in her own parlour.

Sir Walter left his man with the forest folk in the capacity of guide
and counsellor, promising to come again early on the morrow and take
them the round of the city sights. Johnnie went abroad that evening,
down Chepe as far as Cornhill; but Dorothy and the captain preferred to
remain indoors, and Mistress Stowe entertained them with stories of the
great city, telling of the great changes that had taken place of late
years--how scores of churches and religious houses had been pulled down
and hundreds of priests and monks driven out because of the Reformation.

"I have heard my father say," she declared, "that in his time every
second man you met with in the streets of London was monk or priest;
churches stood everywhere, and there was a perpetual ding-dong of bells
from morn till night. Now you will look in vain for a monk; the bells
are grown silent; and the churches are heaps of ruins, or their sites
occupied by warehouses built of their stones. The monasteries and
nunneries are turned into dwelling-places for the rich folk and
favourites of the court."

She told them of the tournaments held in the great street called
"Chepe;" of the pageants on the river; the bull-baiting, bear-baiting,
and morris-dancing, and the plays at the theatres. She had an
entranced audience of two until Morgan and Jeffreys returned from their
ramble.

The next morning about eleven o'clock Sir Walter came in and found the
dinner just served, so he dined with his friends; and then, after a
pipe of tobacco--in which neither the captain nor Morgan ventured to
join him--he took them abroad. Down Chep