And 'I know a way,' said the Bell of St. Martin's. 'Tell it, and be quick,' laughed the prentices below! 'Whittington shall marry her, marry her, marry her! Peal for a wedding,' said the big Bell of Bow. He shall take a kingdom up, and cast it on the sea again; He shall have his caravels to traffic for him now; He shall see his royal sails rolling up from Araby, And the crest--a honey-bee--golden at the prow. Whittington! Whittington! The world is all a fairy tale!-- Even so we sang for him.--But O, the tale is true! Whittington he married her, and on his merry marriage-day, O, we sang, we sang for him, like lavrocks in the blue. Far away from London, these happy prentice lovers Wandered through the fern to his western home again, Down by deep Dorset to the wooded isle of Purbeck, Round to little Kimmeridge, by many a lover's lane. There did they abide as in a dove-cote hidden Deep in happy woods until the bells of duty rang; Then they rode the way he went, a barefoot boy to London, Round by Hampshire forest-roads, but as they rode he sang:-- _Kimmeridge in Dorset is the happiest of places! All the little homesteads are thatched with beauty there! All the old ploughmen, there, have happy smiling faces, Christmas roses in their cheeks, and crowns of silver hair. Blue as are the eggs in the nest of the hedge-sparrow, Gleam the little rooms in the homestead that I know: Death, I think, has lost the way to Kimmeridge in Dorset; Sorrow never knew it, or forgot it, long ago! Kimmeridge in Dorset, Kimmeridge in Dorset, Though I may not see you more thro' all the years to be, Yet will I remember the little happy homestead Hidden in that Paradise where God was good to me._ * * * * So they turned to London, and with mind and soul he laboured, _Flos Mercatorum_, for the mighty years to be, Fashioning, for profit--to the years that should forget him!-- This, our sacred City that must shine upon the sea. London was a City when the Poulters ruled the Poultry! Rosaries of prayer were hung in Paternoster Row, Gutter Lane was Guthrun's, then; and, bright with painted missal-books, _Ave Mary Corner_, sirs, was fairer than ye know. London was mighty when her marchaunts loved their merchandise, Bales of Eastern magic that empurpled wharf and quay: London was mighty when her booths were a dream-market, Loaded with the colours of the sunset and the sea. There, in all their glory, with the Virgin on their bannerols, Glory out of Genoa, the Mercers might be seen, Walking to their Company of Marchaunt Adventurers;-- Gallantly they jetted it in scarlet and in green.