river's breadth spanned by London
bridge, a very street of houses built on the abutments. Now, Bankside
had houses on each side of the road, and Wry-mouthed Tibble showed
evident satisfaction when they turned to cross the bridge, where they
had to ride in single file, not without some refractoriness on the part
of young Headley's steed.

On they went, now along streets where each story of the tall houses
projected over the last, so that the gables seemed ready to meet; now
beside walls of convent gardens, now past churches, while the country
lads felt bewildered with the numbers passing to and fro, and the air
was full of bells.

Cap after cap was lifted in greeting to Master Headley by burgess,
artisan, or apprentice, and many times did he draw Poppet's rein to
exchange greetings and receive congratulations on his return. On
reaching Saint Paul's Minster, he halted and bade the servants take home
the horses, and tell the mistress, with his dutiful greetings, that he
should be at home anon, and with guests.

"We must een return thanks for our safe journey and great deliverance,"
he said to his young companions, and thrusting his arm into that of a
russet-vested citizen, who met him at the door, he walked into the
cathedral, recounting his adventure.

The youths followed with some difficulty through the stream of loiterers
in the nave, Giles the younger elbowing and pushing so that several of
the crowd turned to look at him, and it was well that his kinsman soon
astonished him by descending a stair into a crypt, with solid, short,
clustered columns, and high-pitched vaulting, fitted up as a separate
church, namely that of the parish of Saint Faith. The great cathedral,
having absorbed the site of the original church, had given this crypt to
the parishioners. Here all was quiet and solemn, in marked contrast to
the hubbub in "Paul's Walk," above in the nave. Against the eastern
pillar of one of the bays was a little altar, and the decorations
included Saint Julian, the patron of travellers, with his saltire doubly
crossed, and his stag beside him. Little ships, trees, and wonderful
enamelled representations of perils by robbers, field and flood, hung
thickly on Saint Julian's pillar, and on the wall and splay of the
window beside it; and here, after crossing himself, Master Headley
rapidly repeated a Paternoster, and ratified his vow of presenting a
bronze image of the hound to whom he owed his rescue. One of