“Yes. That was the money to pay the toll at the end of the bridge,” explained Godmother, “and now it’s at the bottom of the river.” But Betty soon forgot the little girl in her interest in watching the other people who passed and re-passed, and looking at the boats which floated up and down the stream laden with all sorts of merchandise. [Illustration: THE SLAVE MARKET] “London, as you see, was an important port even in these far-off days, four hundred years after Christ,” Godmother remarked. “Tin and iron and lead and oysters are going away in some of those boats to other countries, and all sorts of things are coming in as exchange.... Now let us go on to the fortress and climb up to the battlements. Fortunately no one will interfere with us, and we shall get a good view of the country from the top.” It was a very weird experience to pass unchallenged into the courtyard of the castle, filled with laughing, shouting and quarrelling soldiers. These men paid no attention to them, and Godmother led the way up a winding stone staircase to a pathway on the inner side of the battlements. From this height they had a wonderful view over the surrounding country, and as she gazed, Betty was lost in amazement. _The Monument_, that great column to the top of which she had so recently climbed, was, she remembered, close to London Bridge. Therefore she must now be standing near the very same spot as that from which only this morning she had looked over London. It was an amazing thought. She remembered the countless spires and domes and towers which rose far above their roofs, and the swarming traffic in all the streets. Upon what a different scene she looked now! In place of the miles and miles of streets and houses, she saw along a narrow strip of the shore, right and left of the wooden bridge, a few steep lanes or alleys, lined with poor low dwellings. A few wharves and quays stretched along the bank of the river just below. There certainly a busy life went on, for men were loading and unloading boats. Behind the lanes leading down to the river, there was a belt of cultivated land, dotted over with gleaming one-storied dwellings which Godmother said were Roman villas, and beyond them, enclosing all the cultivated land, rose a strong wall with towers at intervals. But behind the wall came a long stretch of marshy ground, leading to the edge of a huge forest—a dark and gloomy and endless forest, clothing a line of hills, and stretching away, away, as far as eye could see. Godmother was leaning on the parapet beside her. “We are facing north now,” she said, and added suddenly, “You’ve been to Hampstead Heath, of course?” Betty could not imagine what Hampstead Heath had to do with the scene upon which she was gazing, but she said, “Yes, we go nearly every Sunday.”