‘Where are we?’ asked Brion, in a low voice. ‘Dowgate,’ answered the other--‘a rich and prolific quarter. Yonder’s the Steel yard, stronghold of the Hanse League. A murrain on them--German swine, crunching our good English acorns, in each of which might sleep the cradle of a lusty ship! But we’ve ringed their snouts of late, to limit their grubbing in our native soil, and give our own merchant adventurers a chance. Better still were they all packed neck and crop out of the country.’ He kicked at a barrel, an outlying one of many that littered the wharf hard by. ‘We’ve let them rob us,’ he growled, ‘the while our tolerant courtesy hath passed for folly or weakness with these hogs it favoured; like as though some petted guest brazenly repaid his host by bearing off the silver plate he’d fed on, and was honoured for his treachery. God’s truth! we can do our own trading, I hope, and farther, it may chance, than any Hanseatic shark can follow us. When that expedition of ours is launched----’ ‘We shall be over with to-night’s business,’ put in Brion. He was near dancing with impatience. What were all the sixty-six Hanse towns and their confederates to this one present corner of his own. A distant bell struck the three-quarters. Raleigh laughed and exclaimed:-- ‘Cry you mercy, poor lover! Do you perish while I prose? Well, we are betimes, but not more than she in her impatience, I’ll warrant. Come, now, and I’ll set thee on thy way.’ He led the young man to the opening of the lane--which appeared as a mere channel furrowed through a field of houses--and, bidding him traverse it some fifty yards, take the first turning to the right, and knock at a door he should see on his dexter hand, where was carved a rebus of a hotchpot, signifying a medley of good things. The password was _speedwell_, said he; and so giving him his blessing, and urging him to make the best of his opportunity, and not consider his friend, who in such a cause was prepared to linger out the night by the water if need be, he thrust the lantern into his hand, and, wishing him God-speed, went back to the boat. Brion, his heart beating high, his feet seeming to step on air, entered the lane and walked on. Twenty yards in he heard a casement opened overhead, and, to a shrill cry of ‘gardy-loo,’ a pail of slops was emptied into the street. It fell behind, and only just missed him; but it doused his mood of exaltation as effectually as if it had made a foul wet clout of the blue and miniver. As he sped on, keeping as near the middle of the way as practicable, he thought of nothing else than a possible, and more catastrophic, repetition of the performance; and he was still agitated by the memory of it, when he found the door and took shelter under its overhanging penthouse.