case of fire within or foe without. [41]

In a niche, near the Aldersgate, stood the headless statue of Fortitude,
which monks and pilgrims deemed some unknown saint in the old time, and
halted to honour. And in the midst of Bishopsgate-street, sate on his
desecrated throne a mangled Jupiter, his eagle at his feet. Many a
half-converted Dane there lingered, and mistook the Thunderer and the
bird for Odin and his hawk. By Leod-gate (the People's gate [42]) still
too were seen the arches of one of those mighty aqueducts which the Roman
learned from the Etrurian. And close by the Still-yard, occupied by "the
Emperor's cheap men" (the German merchants), stood, almost entire, the
Roman temple, extant in the time of Geoffrey of Monmouth. Without the
walls, the old Roman vineyards [43] still put forth their green leaves
and crude clusters, in the plains of East Smithfield, in the fields of
St. Giles's, and on the site where now stands Hatton Garden. Still
massere [44] and cheapmen chaffered and bargained, at booth and stall, in
Mart-lane, where the Romans had bartered before them. With every
encroachment on new soil, within the walls and without, urn, vase,
weapon, human bones, were shovelled out, and lay disregarded amidst heaps
of rubbish.

Not on such evidences of the past civilisation looked the practical eye
of the Norman Count; not on things, but on men, looked he; and as
silently he rode on from street to street, out of those men, stalwart and
tall, busy, active, toiling, the Man-Ruler saw the Civilisation that was
to come.

So, gravely through the small city, and over the bridge that spanned the
little river of the Fleet, rode the train along the Strand; to the left,
smooth sands; to the right, fair pastures below green holts, thinly
studded with houses; over numerous cuts and inlets running into the
river, rode they on. The hour and the season were those in which youth
enjoyed its holiday, and gay groups resorted to the then [45] fashionable
haunts of the Fountain of Holywell, "streaming forth among glistening
pebbles."

So they gained at length the village of Charing, which Edward had lately
bestowed on his Abbey of Westminster, and which was now filled with
workmen, native and foreign, employed on that edifice and the contiguous
palace. Here they loitered awhile at the Mews [46] (where the hawks were
kept), passed by the rude palace of stone and rubble, appropriated to the
tributary kings of Scotland [4