LONDON TOWN 97

with English keels, and the air was full of the blaze of the
living and the ghosts of the mighty dead. And down in
Nick’s plucky young English heart there came a spark like
that which burns in the soul of a mariner when for the
first time an unknown ocean rolls before his eyes.

So he rode on bravely, filled with a sense of daring and
the thrill of perils more remote than Master Carew’s alto-
gether too adjacent poniard, as well as. with a sturdy de-
termination to escape at the first opportunity, in spite of
all the master-player’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; ‘“’t is
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

’