am, and as the horse
rushed by with wagon and girls, nearly clipping our legs off, the Bard made
a leap for the tail board of the vehicle and landed in the midst of the
frightened girls. He then, as if inspired with the impulse of a tiger,
jumped on the back of the rushing animal, grabbed the trailing lines, and
neck of the horse, and steered him into a huge box hedge row that skirted
the castle walls of Windsor.

Every one went after the runaway to see the fate of the party; but strange
to say, the horse was lodged high and dry in the hedge row, while William
and the girls crawled out of the wreck without a scratch, soon recovering
from the fear, trepidation and danger that but a moment before reigned
supreme.

We put up for the night at the Red Lion Tavern, and you may be sure that
William was the hero of the town.

Rose and Bess Montagle were the young ladies whose lives had been
providentially saved, and their father was the head gamekeeper of Windsor.

William was invited for breakfast the next morning at the stone lodge to
receive hearty thanks and reward for his heroic action in risking his life
for the salvation of others; but the Bard excused himself, saying that he
must start by daylight for his last stretch to London, and only asked from
the young ladies a sprig of boxwood and lock of their golden hair.

At parting the father threw William a bag of gold, and the girls presented
him with the tokens desired, in addition to impulsive bashful kisses.

We were off promptly by sunrise, and steering our course to Houndslow,
Brentford, Kensington, and to the top of Primrose Hill, we first caught
sight of the spires, domes, turrets, temples and palaces of multitudinous,
universal London.

_"London, the needy villain's general home,
The common sewer of Paris and of Rome;
With eager thirst by folly or by fate,
Sucks in the dregs of each corrupted state."_

CHAPTER V.

LONDON. ITS GUILT AND GLORY.

_"They say, best men are molded out of faults;
And for the most, become much more the better
For being a little bad."_

It was on the 13th of September, 1586, that William and myself first
feasted our eyes on the variegated wilderness of wood, mortar, stone and
tile of wonderful London.

The evening was bright and clear, while a north-west wind blew away the
smoky clouds that hovered over the city like a funeral pall, displaying to
our view the silver sinuosities of old Fathe