in Whitehall." However, on went Loyalty, very well pleased with himself,
and next, amid much cheering, two great tinsel fish, a salmon and a
trout, symbolical of the wealth of Torridge, waddled along, by means
of two human legs and a staff apiece, which protruded from the fishes'
stomachs. They drew (or seemed to draw, for half the 'prentices in the
town were shoving it behind, and cheering on the panting monarchs of
the flood) a car wherein sate, amid reeds and river-flags, three or
four pretty girls in robes of gray-blue spangled with gold, their heads
wreathed one with a crown of the sweet bog-myrtle, another with hops
and white convolvulus, the third with pale heather and golden fern. They
stopped opposite Amyas; and she of the myrtle wreath, rising and bowing
to him and the company, began with a pretty blush to say her say:--

"Hither from my moorland home,
Nymph of Torridge, proud I come;
Leaving fen and furzy brake,
Haunt of eft and spotted snake,
Where to fill mine urns I use,
Daily with Atlantic dews;
While beside the reedy flood
Wild duck leads her paddling brood.
For this morn, as Phoebus gay
Chased through heaven the night mist gray,
Close beside me, prankt in pride,
Sister Tamar rose, and cried,
'Sluggard, up! 'Tis holiday,
In the lowlands far away.
Hark! how jocund Plymouth bells,
Wandering up through mazy dells,
Call me down, with smiles to hail,