Then I hyed me into Eastchepe;
One cryes rybbs of befe, and many a pye;
Pewter potts they clattered on a heape,
There was harpe, pype, and mynstrelsye.”
“What have you got hold of there?” asked her father, looking over her shoulder. “Oh, that funny ballad written by old John Lydgate in the Middle Ages. I expect it’s quite a good description of Cheapside as it was then.”
“It’s just right. It was exactly like that,” Betty exclaimed, thinking of the booths in the Chepe, piled with goods, and all the noise and bustle and shouting, and the sound of music from harps and pipes, mingled with the clashing of church bells.
“How do you know?” asked her father, smiling.
But Betty hadn’t the slightest idea—till she saw Godmother again.