THE QUEEN’S PLAISANCE
It was a frosty morning when they all marched down to the boats that
bumped along Paul’s wharf.
The roofs of London were white with frost and rosy with the dawn. In the
shadow of the walls the air lay in still pools of smoky blue; and in the
east the horizon stretched like a swamp of fire. The winking lights on
London Bridge were pale. The bridge itself stood cold and gray,
mysterious and dim as the stream below, but here and there along its
crest red-hot with a touch of flame from the burning eastern sky. Out of
the river, running inland with the tide, came steamy shreds that drifted
here and there. Then over the roofs of London town the sun sprang up
like a thing of life, and the veil of twilight vanished in bright day
with a million sparkles rippling on the stream.
Warm with piping roast and cordial, keen with excitement, and blithe
with the sharp, fresh air, the red-cheeked lads skipped and chattered
along the landing like a flock of sparrows alighted by chance in a land
of crumbs.
“Into the wherries, every one!” cried the old precentor. _“Ad unum
omnes_, great and small!”
“Into the wherries!” echoed the under-masters.
“Into the wherries, my bullies!” roared old Brueton the boatman, fending
off with a rusty hook as red as his bristling beard. “Into the wherries,
yarely all, and we’s catch the turn o’ the tide! ’Tis gone high
water now!”
Then away they went, three wherries full, and Master Gyles behind them
in a brisk sixpenny tilt-boat, resplendent in new ash-colored hose, a
cloak of black velvet fringed with gold, and a brand-new periwig curled
and frizzed like a brush-heap in a gale of wind.
How they had worked for the last few days! New songs, new dances, new
lines to learn; gallant compliments for the Queen, who was as fond of
flattery as a girl; new clothes, new slippers and caps to try, and a
thousand what-nots more. The school had hummed like a busy mill from
morning until night. And now that the grinding was done and they had
come at last to their reward,—the hoped-for summons to the court, which
had been sought so long in vain,—the boys of St. Paul’s bubbled with
glee until the under-masters were in a cold sweat for fear their
precious charges would pop from the wherries into the Thames, like so
many exuberant corks.
They cheered with delight as London Bridge was shot and the boats went
flying down the Pool, past Billingsgate and the oystermen, the White
Tower and the Traitors’ Gate, past the shipping, where brown,
foreign-looking faces stared at them above sea-battered bulwarks.
The sun was bright and the wind was keen; the air sparkled, and all the
world was full of life. Hammers beat in the builders’ yards; wild
bargees sang hoarsely as they drifted down to the Isle of Dogs; and in
slow ships that crept away to catch the wind in the open stream below,
with tawny sails drooping and rimmed with frost, they heard the hail of
salty mariners.
The tide ran strong, and the steady oars carried them swiftly down.
London passed; then solitary hamlets here and there; then dun fields
running to the river’s edge like thirsty deer.
In Deptford Reach some lords who were coming down by water passed them,
racing with a little Dutch boat from Deptford to the turn. Their boats
had holly-bushes at their prows and holiday garlands along their sides.
They were all shouting gaily, and the stream was bright with their
scarlet cloaks, Lincoln-green jerkins, and gold embroidery. But they
were very badly beaten, at which they laughed, and threw the Dutchmen a
handful of silver pennies. Thereupon the Dutchmen stood up in their boat
and bowed like jointed ninepins; and the lords, not to be outdone, stood
up likewise in their boats and bowed very low in return, with their
hands upon their breasts. Then everybody on the river laughed, and the
boys gave three cheers for the merry lords and three more for the sturdy
Dutchmen. The Dutchmen shouted back, “Goot Yule!” and bowed and bowed
until their boat turned round and went stern foremost down the stream,
so that they were bowing to the opposite bank, where no one was at all.
At this the rest all laughed again till their sides ached, and cheered
them twice as much as they had before.
And while they were cheering and waving their caps, the boatmen rested
upon their oars and let the boats swing with the tide, which thereabout
set strong against the shore, and a trumpeter in the Earl of Arundel’s
barge stood up and blew upon a long horn bound with a banner of blue
and gold.
Instantly he had blown, another trumpet answered from the south, and
when Nick turned, the shore was gay with men in brilliant livery. Beyond
was a wood of chestnut-trees as blue and leafless as a grove of spears;
and in the plain between the river and the wood stood a great palace of
gray stone, with turrets, pinnacles, and battlemented walls, over the
topmost tower of which a broad flag, blazoned with golden lions and
silver lilies square for square, whipped the winter wind. Amid a group
of towers large and small a lofty stack poured out a plume of sea-coal
smoke against the milky sky, and on the countless windows in the wall
the sunlight flashed with dazzling radiance.
There were people on the battlements, and at the port between two towers
where the Queen went in and out the press was so thick that men’s heads
looked like the cobbles in the street.
The shore was stayed with piling and with timbers like a wharf, so that
a hundred boats might lie there cheek by jowl and scarcely rub their
paint. The lords made way, and the children players came ashore through
an aisle of uplifted oars. They were met by the yeomen of the guard,
tall, brawny fellows clad in red, with golden roses on their breasts and
backs, and with them marched up to the postern two and two, Master Gyles
the last of all, as haughty as a Spanish don come courting fair
Queen Bess.
A smoking dinner was waiting them, of whitebait with red pepper, and a
yellow juice so sour that Nick’s mouth drew up in a knot; but it was
very good. There were besides, silver dishes full of sugared red
currants, and heaps of comfits and sweetmeats, which Master Gyles would
not allow them even to touch, and saffron cakes with raisins in them,
and spiced hot cordial out of tiny silver cups. Bareheaded pages clad in
silk and silver lace waited upon them as if they were fledgling kings;
but the boys were too hungry to care for that or to try to put on airs,
and waded into the meat and drink as if they had been starved for a
fortnight.
But when they were done Nick saw that the table off which they had eaten
was inlaid with pearl and silver filigree, and that the table-cloth was
of silk with woven metal-work and gems set in it worth more than a
thousand crowns. He was very glad he had eaten first, for such wonderful
service would have taken away his appetite.
And truly a wonderful palace was the Queen’s Plaisance, as Greenwich
House was called. Elizabeth was born in it, and so loved it most of all.
There she pleased oftenest to receive and grant audiences to envoys from
foreign courts. And there, on that account, as was always her proud,
jealous way, she made a blinding show of glory and of wealth, of
science, art, and power, that England, to the eyes which saw her there,
might stand in second place to no dominion in the world, however rich
or great.
It was a very house of gold.
Over the door where the lads marched in was the Queen’s device, a golden
rose, with a motto set below in letters of gold, “Dieu et mon droit”;
and upon the walls were blazoned coats of noble arms on branching golden
trees, of purest metal and finest silk, costly beyond compare. The royal
presence-chamber shone with tapestries of gold, of silver, and of
oriental silks, of as many shifting colors as the birds of paradise, and
wrought in exquisite design, The throne was set with diamonds, with
rubies, garnets, and sapphires, glittering like a pastry-crust of stars,
and garnished with gold-lace work, pearls, and ornament; and under the
velvet canopy which hung above the throne was embroidered in
seed-pearls, “Vivat Regina Elizabetha!” There was no door without a
gorgeous usher, no room without a page, no corridor without a guard, no
post without a man of noble birth to fill it.
On the walls of the great gallery were masterly paintings of great folk,
globes showing all the stars fast in the sky, and drawings of the world
and all its parts, so real that one could see the savages in the New
World hanging to the under side by their feet, like flies upon the
ceiling. How they stuck was more than Nick could make out; and where
they landed if they chanced to slip and fall troubled him a deal, until
in the sheer multiplication of wonders he could not wonder any more.
When they came to rehearse in the afternoon the stage was hung with
stiff, rich silks that had come in costly cedar chests from the looms of
old Cathay; and the curtain behind which the players came and went was
broidered with gold thread in flowers and birds like meteors for
splendor. The gallery, too, where the musicians sat, was draped with
silk and damask.
Some of the lads would have made out by their great airs as if this were
all a common thing to them; but Nick stared honestly with round eyes,
and went about with cautious feet, chary of touching things, and feeling
very much out of place and shy.
It was all too grand, too wonderful,—amazing to look upon, no doubt,
and good to outface foreign envy with, but not to be endured every day
nor lived with comfortably. And as the day went by, each passing moment
with new marvels, Nick grew more and more uneasy for some simple little
nook where he might just sit down and be quiet for a while, as one could
do at home, without fine pages peering at him from the screens, or
splendid guards patrolling at his heels wherever he went, or obsequious
ushers bowing to the floor at every turn, and asking him what he might
be pleased to wish. And by the time night fell and the attendant came to
light them to their beds, he felt like a fly on the rim of a wheel that
went so fast he could scarcely get his breath or see what passed him by,
yet of which he durst not let go.
The palace was much too much for him.