e tide to the stairs at Blackfriars. The
sun was setting when they landed, and columns of smoke rising from a
score of points showed that the city watchmen were lighting the evening
purifying fires at street corners and in the open spaces. The air on
the river had been cool and pleasant enough, but it was stifling in the
narrow lanes leading up from the stream to the hill of St. Paul's. The
pungent smoke from the newly-kindled wood piles came quite refreshingly
to the nostrils.

"We have had a most fortunate year in London," said Master Jeffreys.
"No case of plague, and very few of fever. The aldermen of the wards
were for stopping these fires a week ago, but the bishop resolved to
keep them going within his boundaries until October set in. 'Tis
wonderful how the smoke and flames do take the noisome vapour from the
air. If we could but get some good rains now to wash out the gutters
and conduits, the city would be cleansed and sweetened for the winter."

"For my part," answered the forester, "I should always breathe but
chokingly in these streets."

"Oh, the air is wholesome enough," said Jeffreys "and stout fellows
thrive on it. Just give an eye to yonder band of 'prentice lads. I
would not wish to see better limbs, and I'll warrant that no
forest-bred lad can give harder thwacks with oaken cudgel than can
these retailers of ribbons and fal-lals."

"The rogues are hearty enough," assented Johnnie, "and their lungs are
like bellows of leather. London is a fine place, and the air,
doubtless, sweet enough to those who have not the lingering fragrance
of the bracken in their nostrils. The scent of the woods or the salt
of the sea for me."

"And the salt of the sea is the sweeter. Ah!" Master Jeffreys sniffed
longingly.

Chepe was pretty full of leisurely pedestrians; the doorways of the
taverns were crowded; jugglers balanced themselves in the dusty gutter,
and merry maidens tripped it neatly in the inn courtyards to the sound
of pipe and tabor. The merchants' parlours over their shops were often
the scene of a friendly or family gathering, and more than one
sweetly-sung madrigal floated harmoniously out on the evening air.
Elizabethan London was a musical city, and part-singing was cultivated
beneath the rooftree of every well-to-do burgher. The fresh voices of
the young girls and the mellower notes of journeyman or apprentice
mingled tunefully together. The great city was resting from the
labours of