THE
ROYAL ROAD
LIBRARY
MAGIC LONDON
THE ROYAL ROAD
LIBRARY
_THE CARL EWALD BOOKS_
Translated by
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
1. TWO-LEGS
2. THE OLD WILLOW TREE AND OTHER STORIES
6. THE POND
_THE NETTA SYRETT BOOKS_
3. TOBY AND THE ODD BEASTS
4. RACHEL AND THE SEVEN WONDERS
8. MAGIC LONDON
_THE W. H. KOEBEL BOOKS_
5. THE BUTTERFLIES’ DAY
7. THE PAGEANT OF THE FLOWERS
[Illustration: THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON]
MAGIC
LONDON
BY NETTA SYRETT
ILLUSTRATED BY
HELEN JACOBS
[Illustration]
THORNTON BUTTERWORTH L^{TD}
15 BEDFORD S^{T.} STRAND, LONDON W.C.2
_Published 1922._
TO THE
LITTLE CITIZENS OF LONDON
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
May they find a “Godmother” who will take them to all the places
visited by Betty, so that, like her, they may discover they are really
living in a Magic City.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I MAGIC LONDON 13
Roman London
A Fairy Tale Museum
II THE MIDDLE AGES 43
The London of Dick Whittington
III IN TUDOR DAYS 81
The London of Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth
IV THE RESTORATION 117
The London of Charles II and of Mr. Samuel Pepys
V THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 145
The London of the Georges and of Dr. Johnson
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Great Fire of London (Colour) _Frontispiece_
She was beginning to think she liked her _Facing page_ 14
godmother
The Slave Market (Colour) " " 24
Canterbury Pilgrims (Colour) " " 72
The Royal Barge (Colour) " " 104
Charles I " " 124
The King entered, leading the Queen by the hand " " 130
A Sedan Chair (Colour) " " 160
I
Magic London
All her life up to the time she was eleven years old, Betty had heard
about, but never seen, her godmother. The reason for this, was that
until a year ago, Betty’s home had been far away in the country, while
Godmother Strangeways lived in London. Then, just when the child’s
father and mother moved to town, Godmother decided to travel abroad. So
it happened that Betty had been more than a year in London before she
met the old lady who afterwards made such a difference in her life.
She never forgot the first day she met her.
“Your godmother has come back,” said her mother one morning at
breakfast time, as with a curious smile she passed a letter to her
husband.
“Has she? Oh, I do want to see her!” exclaimed Betty.
“Well, you will. She wants you to spend the day with her to-morrow.”
“Aren’t you and Dad coming too?”
“No, she wants you alone. She’s sending her car to fetch you to-morrow
at eleven o’clock. Your father and I will go to see her another time.”
“I wish you were coming. I don’t know her, and I don’t want to be there
all day alone with her,” grumbled Betty. “What will there be to do?”
“You’ll find she’ll provide plenty to do,” laughed her father. “Mind
you don’t tell her though, how much you dislike London!” he added in
his teasing voice.
“Why?” asked Betty.
“Because your godmother loves it. She’s a great authority on London.
What she doesn’t know about it, isn’t worth knowing. It’s quite
uncanny. I wish she’d write a book about it.”
“I can’t think how any one _can_ love London,” Betty declared. “Such a
horrid, big, ugly, _dull_ place. I shall never, never like it!”
* * * * *
Godmother’s little car duly came round next morning, and after a drive,
Betty found herself in a tiny room, in a tiny house, in a tiny street
close to Westminster Abbey, seated opposite to a very handsome old lady.
“I’m sorry my godchild doesn’t like London,” this old lady remarked
suddenly, in the midst of a conversation about something else.
Betty blushed and looked uncomfortable. She felt shy of her godmother
who, as she had always heard, was very clever but “eccentric”—a word
she thought meant different from other people.
“It’s all so confusing and noisy and there are such lots of ugly
houses,” she began apologetically. “And I _do_ miss the lovely country
and our beautiful garden,” she added with tears in her voice.
“Of course you do,” said Godmother sympathetically. “But as it’s a pity
to hate the place you have to live in, I’m going to make you think
London the most fascinating town in the world.”
She spoke confidently, and just as confidently Betty said to herself,
“You’ll never do _that_.”
“You think it’s ugly, don’t you?” Godmother inquired. “Well, so it
is—in parts.”
[Illustration: SHE WAS BEGINNING TO THINK SHE LIKED HER GODMOTHER]
“Oh, it’s not _all_ ugly,” Betty hastened to allow. “This little street
is awfully pretty—and so quiet. It’s like a street in a country town.
You can forget you’re in London. It’s a very old street, isn’t it?”
She was forgetting her shyness and beginning to think she liked her
godmother. She certainly liked the look of her. Godmother Strangeways
was dressed in a way which Betty described to herself as “nicely
old-fashioned.” She had snow-white curls fastened back behind her ears
with tortoiseshell combs, and the ample-flowered silk dress she wore
was, as her godchild decided, “just right” for the small white-panelled
room with its old furniture and tall narrow cabinets filled with all
sorts of curious things.
“Old?” repeated her godmother. “It’s about two hundred years old, and
that, as London goes now, _is_ rather ancient. But it’s new compared
with the age of London itself. What is two hundred years compared with
nearly two thousand?”
“Is London as old as _that_?”
“Where’s your history? Didn’t the Romans live here once upon a time?”
asked Godmother Strangeways briskly.
“So they did,” murmured Betty.
“Well, some of them settled in this island soon after the birth of
Christ, and that _is_ nearly two thousand years ago.”
“But I didn’t know they lived in _London_?”
Godmother laughed. “They _made_ London, child. The first London. And
just in the place where it now stands, at the mouth of the Thames.”
“But was it called London then?”
“Something very like it. It’s earliest name was _Llyn-din_, and the
Romans called it _Londinium_. You see how easy it is to get _London_
out of that? They had another name for it as well—quite a different
one.—They sometimes called it _Augusta_.”
Betty was silent for a minute, then after a quick glance at her
godmother she said rather timidly, “Dad says what you know about London
is quite _uncanny_. He says he wonders you don’t write a book about
it. When you asked me to come to see you, he was very pleased because
he said if any one could make me like London it was you. And of course
as I have to live here I should _like_ to like it!” She sighed rather
hopelessly.
The old lady began to smile, and her smile was mysterious.
“Shall I tell you why I don’t write a book about London?” she said.
“It’s because if I did, it _would_ be considered uncanny, as Dad says.”
Betty began to look and feel excited.
“Oh, why? Do tell me why?”
“I’m not quite sure whether it would be of any use to tell you, but I
shall know better in a few hours’ time, when I’ve seen a little more of
you. I’m going to take you out for a drive now, before luncheon. The
car is still at the door.”
Ten minutes later, Betty took her seat beside the old lady, and the
car glided out of the quiet street into a busy thoroughfare. It was a
lovely spring day, and she was glad to be out of doors in a part of
London more or less new to her. She was also very curious about what
Godmother had recently hinted, though she scarcely liked to question
her on the subject.
[Illustration]
They were passing Westminster Abbey now, and nodding toward it
Godmother said:
“You don’t call _that_ ugly?”
Before Betty could answer, they had reached the end of Westminster
Bridge and turned on to the Embankment. Raised on the end parapet of
the bridge, was a group of statues in which the chief figure was a
woman in flowing robes furiously driving a strange-looking chariot.
“Do you know what that represents?” asked Godmother, when she saw Betty
glance at the monument with interest. “It’s Queen Boadicea driving into
battle. I only want you just to remember her name, because you may hear
something about her later.”
Again Godmother’s voice was mysterious, and Betty glanced at her, with
more curiosity than ever.
It was delightful to be driving by the side of the river with the
spring sunlight sparkling on the water, but she wondered where they
were going.
As though she guessed her thought, Godmother said presently, “We are
going first to drive slowly over London Bridge.”
In a few minutes they were upon it, and the car was threading its
way among the crowded traffic, between great vans and lorries and
taxicabs and the carts and wagons of all sorts that rolled along with
a ceaseless roar. Betty looked up and down the river lined with huge
buildings, its surface covered with shipping of every kind, and it
struck her that London was, after all, a wonderful city. At the other
end of the bridge, Godmother gave Williams, the chauffeur, an order
to return, and to stop as close as possible to _The Monument_, that
enormously tall pedestal near the Bridge, which, as Betty’s father had
told her, was put up in the reign of Charles II.
“Now I’m going to stay here comfortably in the car while you and
Williams climb to the top of that column,” said Godmother, when the
chauffeur had driven into a narrow side street. “Neither of you will
mind the steps, but I certainly should.”
Betty was only too delighted at the prospect, and with Williams as
escort, she mounted gaily higher and higher, till at last the final
step was reached, and she stepped out on to the caged-in top of the
pillar. What a marvellous view it was, of miles and miles of streets
and houses and domes and spires, with the river running like a silver
ribbon in the midst!
Williams also was impressed. “It’s a fine great city, miss!” he
exclaimed.
“Well?” demanded Godmother, when presently they returned to the car.
“What do you think of London in point of size?”
“It takes your breath away!” was Betty’s answer, as she settled herself
comfortably for the homeward drive.
“It’s been lovely,” she declared, when they sat down to lunch in the
quaint parlour below the sitting-room. “I do believe I’m going to like
London after all, Godmother. It somehow seems quite different seeing it
with you. I have such a funny feeling about it. Just as though it was a
sort of _magic_ place that might be awfully surprising.”
Godmother gave her a quick look, but said nothing except “I’m glad.”
After the meal, however, when they were once more in the white-panelled
sitting-room which Betty already loved, she exclaimed all at once, “Now
I’m going to tell you a secret.”
You may imagine how Betty pricked up her ears. But without giving
her time to speak, the old lady went on, sinking her voice to a most
thrilling whisper: “_I have a magic way of seeing London_. It’s a
special gift, and I’m not going to tell you how I discovered that I
possess it. Very, very few people have the gift, but from certain signs
I think _you_ possess it too. Would you like to try?”
Betty’s face was a study in perplexity.
“Yes—but how?” she stammered. “I don’t understand....”
Instead of explaining, Godmother Strangeways got up, and opened the
door of a cabinet that stood between two narrow square-paned windows,
took something from a shelf and, returning, dropped it into her
godchild’s hand.
Betty gazed at the little object. “It’s a ring,” she began. “But a very
old one, isn’t it? It’s so dark and stained.”
“It’s a very old one,” said Godmother. “It’s a ring once worn by a
young Roman nobleman. Put it on to your third finger.”
Betty obeyed. “Now say these words after me.” She began to chant
very slowly and distinctly certain words which, though she did not
understand them, her godchild knew to be Latin.
Feeling as though she were in a dream, Betty began to repeat them after
her, looking meanwhile at the clock on the mantelpiece which pointed to
three o’clock.
Outside in the street, a boy was calling “_Evening Paper! Evening
paper!_”
His voice was still ringing in her ears when the white-panelled room
vanished, and she found herself standing in the sunshine on the bank of
a river....
ROMAN LONDON
For a moment she felt frightened and lost, till she saw that Godmother
stood beside her. “Where are we? What is this place?” she stammered.
“London.”
Betty thought of the London through which she had driven this very
day. She saw again the crowded streets, the streams of traffic, the
long rows of shops, the huge buildings of all sorts; the churches, the
banks, the railways. How could _this_ be London?
She looked down at the long grass on which she was standing,—grass
that sloped to a clear river. On the opposite bank she saw something
rather like a castle or fortress, a large brick building with zigzag
battlements and turrets. This castle was reached by a bridge made
of broad beams resting on piles of wood driven into the water, and
beyond and on either side of the fort she saw, dotted here and there,
strange-looking houses, with orchards and gardens and fields all about
them.
“We drove over London Bridge this morning, didn’t we?” Godmother asked.
“Yes,” murmured Betty, bewildered.
“Well. There it is!” Godmother pointed to the bridge with its wooden
planks and roughly-made railings of wood. “The London you know to-day
began just about where we are standing now,” she went on, “and
_there_”—again she pointed—“you see the first bridge that was ever
built across the river.”
“Then we’re ever so far back in the Past?” asked Betty.
“We’ve gone back to a day four hundred years after the birth of Christ.”
Before she had time to realize the strangeness of this, Betty’s
attention was attracted by the most curious-looking boat she had ever
seen, coming round a bend of the river. It had a high curved prow, and
it was crowded with men wearing helmets that flashed in the sun, short
tunics to their knees, and plates of brass covering their legs. Two
rows of long oars stretched on either side of the boat, and as it drew
nearer Betty saw that, though it had a sail, the helmeted soldiers
were rowing it, and thus making it move very fast.
“Oh, look! look!” she almost shouted. “Who are these men?”
[Illustration]
“Roman soldiers, of course,” said Godmother. “Remember the date. It is
400 years after Christ, and our country (called _Britain_ then) has
been conquered by, and belongs to, Rome. Many Romans have been settled
here now for as long as three hundred years. That building,” she
pointed to the Castle, “is the fortress where the Roman soldiers live.
We shall see them disembark in a minute, and go into their barracks.
This boat of theirs is called a _galley_, and it was in boats like it
that the first Roman soldiers came sailing up this river Thames when
they conquered the country.”
“Yes! yes! the boat is stopping! Now they’re going into the fortress!”
exclaimed Betty excitedly, as with breathless interest she watched the
soldiers being marched along the river bank by their officers.
“Can we go across the bridge?” she asked a moment later.
“Of course we can. No one sees us. No one hears us. We are
invisible—for as long as we choose to be. Come, we’ll cross over to
the fortress.”
Dancing with excitement, Betty followed her on to the bridge,
over which, all the time she and Godmother had been standing on
the bank, people had been crossing and recrossing. They were the
strangest-looking folk imaginable, but so far she had been too confused
and too interested in the soldiers to do more than glance at them.
“Let us stand here a moment, and watch,” Godmother suggested, drawing
her back against the wooden parapet of the bridge.
“That’s a Roman nobleman,” she observed, as a fine-looking man passed,
wearing a tunic, a white cloak wrapped round part of his body, the end
flung over one shoulder, and sandals made of twisted leather. “That’s
his villa over there.” She pointed to a house at some little distance
set in the midst of blossoming fruit-trees.
“Here’s a British merchant coming!” she went on. “Look at his long
furry trousers under the cloak, or _toga_ as it is called, which he is
wearing in imitation of the Romans. He has become so ‘Romanized’ that
he copies the conquerors of his country in every possible way.”
“But for all that, he doesn’t look a bit like a Roman!” declared Betty,
as she stared at the man’s red hair, which hung to his shoulders. “Oh!
do look at this dear little girl!” she exclaimed almost in the same
breath.
A woman leading a pretty fair-haired child was moving towards them. The
little girl, who was bare-footed, wore a straight gown made of woollen
material, dyed blue. She had big blue eyes, and her tangled curly hair
hung loose about her face. All at once, just as she passed them, a coin
fell from her hand and, dropping through a chink between the planks of
the bridge, fell into the water with a splash.
The woman, talking angrily in a language that sounded strange and
barbarous, shook the child, who began to cry.
“Oh, poor little thing!” said Betty pitifully. “Her mother needn’t be
so cross with her! They’re British people, I suppose?”
[Illustration]
“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.”
“Well, then, you have seen a tiny bit that is left of that great forest
in front of you. There’s very little ‘forest’ about Hampstead Heath
now, certainly, but such as it is, it is the descendant of that very
one you see before you, which, a thousand years ago, stretched for
hundreds of miles over this island.”
From the other side of the fortress, to which they presently moved, the
view was equally strange, for here there was nothing to be seen but
swampy land, just emerging from the water which everywhere surrounded
it.
“We are looking south,” Godmother said, “and now that you see this
great stretch of water right and left, you will understand why the
first name of London was _the lake fort_.”
“Is that what Llyn-din means?” Betty asked.
“Yes. In the British language, Llyn-din means just that, and in the
_Roman_ language the word became _Londinium_—the Fortress on the Lake.”
“I do wish I could speak to some of the people,” said Betty, after a
moment during which she watched the sunlight sparkling on the great
expanse of water that ran under the oldest of all the London Bridges.
“Well, I can manage that for you. There’s no end to magic if you once
learn how to work it,” Godmother added with her curious smile. “Let’s
go down into the market-place.”
Between the houses that sloped down to the river just below, there was
an open space, and from where she stood, Betty could see it was filled
by a lively crowd of people, some evidently British, others Roman. They
were buying and selling, and the noise and shouting of the crowd could
be plainly heard.
“What’s that large building on the little hill just above the
market-place?” Betty asked.
“That’s the Roman Hall of Justice, where people who have done wrong are
tried, and sentenced to punishment,” replied the old lady as the child
followed her to the top of the steps.
A few minutes later they stood in the market-place, where Betty could
have lingered for hours watching the strange crowd. It was by no means
entirely made up of Romans and British. Many dark-skinned, dark-eyed
men from Eastern lands were there as well. “They are traders from lands
even farther off than Rome,” Godmother explained. “For London, you
know, has always been filled with foreign merchants. Some of these are
buying British slaves to take back with them in their ships to their
own countries. You see that little group of girls and boys over there,
wrapped in rough skin coats? They come from a part of Britain beyond
the forest, and they have been bought by that black-haired man with the
turban and the gold earrings.”
Betty looked at the poor children pityingly as they stood huddled
together, confused and frightened. It was dreadful to think of them
being sold as though they were sheep or cows! But her attention was all
at once distracted by a boy of about her own age, who, having passed
quite close, all at once turned round and stopped. It was the first
time that any one had _seen_ her, for up to this moment both she and
Godmother had been invisible. But it was evident that, to the boy at
least, this was no longer the case. He smiled, and walking towards her,
said, “You are a stranger? You would like to see my father’s house?”
He was a Roman boy, as Betty at once recognized, and strangely enough
she did not feel it at all odd that she should understand his speech,
though afterwards she knew it must be Latin. At the time, however, she
wondered how he guessed that she was desperately anxious to go into one
of the many Roman houses so beautifully set among orchards and gardens.
“Yes, if you please,” was all she could find to say.
“Come then,” said the boy, smiling again pleasantly, but paying no heed
to Godmother.
Betty turned to her, puzzled and uncertain, but Godmother only laughed.
“Don’t trouble about finding me again. It will be all right. Go with
him, and stay as long as you like. You’ll discover it’s not so long as
you imagine.”
Thus encouraged, Betty very willingly followed her guide. He was a
handsome boy, dressed very much as the Roman nobleman on the bridge
had been clothed, except that the cloak he wore over his tunic had a
broad purple band round its edge. That, as she afterwards learnt from
Godmother, being the usual dress for Roman boys, for it was not till
they were grown up, that they wore the tunic without this purple border.
“That is our villa,” he began presently when they came in sight of a
long one-storied house surrounded by trees and shrubs. “My father has
much land here, and many farms.”
“Will you tell me your name?” asked Betty shyly.
“My name is Lucius.... I will take you first straight through the
house,” said the boy. By this time they had reached its entrance, and
Betty caught a beautiful vision of rooms divided by pillars, each one
opening into the next; of painted ceilings and walls, of coloured
stone pavements, of couches with purple silk cushions upon them, and
pedestals upon which statues stood. It was only a flashing glimpse
she had of all this, and though she saw everything with the greatest
distinctness, she was somehow conscious that none of it was actually
_real_; that even Lucius was not really alive, even while she saw him
as plainly as though he had been flesh and blood. Deep down in her
mind, she knew that everything she saw and heard, was what had once
existed but was over and done with long, long ago, and was only revived
for a moment.
And yet everything _looked_ so real. Just as this sad feeling came to
her, she was walking over a pavement made of small coloured stones
fitted together to make a pattern. This she knew was called _mosaic_
work, and she noticed the design of it, which was that of a woman
seated on the back of some animal in the centre of the pavement.
By the time she had walked through the villa and out of it upon a
terrace overlooking the country, Betty had a confused idea of great
luxury and beauty, displayed in a very different sort of house from any
she had ever seen before.
“Ask me any questions you like,” said Lucius presently. But Betty
scarcely knew where to begin.
“This country is called Britain, isn’t it?” she said at last,
remembering her history. “And you Roman people conquered it?”
“We did,” answered the boy, smiling. “Long ago. Four hundred years ago.”
“And the British people are not angry about it anymore?”
“No. Why should they be? Everything is peaceful now.”
“But at first there was fighting, I suppose?”
“Long and bitter fighting,” said Lucius. “There is a story, which
I believe is true, that when my ancestors first came to Britain,
more than three hundred years ago, there was a British Queen who led
men to battle against us. She actually took and burnt this town of
Londinium—which was then, however, much smaller and less important
than it is now.”
[Illustration]
“Boadicea!” thought Betty, remembering in a flash the statue on
Westminster Bridge.
But Lucius was again speaking. “My own family has been settled here
nearly two hundred years. It was my great-grandfather who built this
villa, and he was born in Londinium.”
“We call it _London_,” murmured Betty. But Lucius did not seem to
hear her. “Then I suppose it was a good thing for the British to be
conquered?” she inquired.
The boy laughed. “Without doubt. They were savages when we came, and
we’ve taught them everything. From us they’ve learnt how to till the
land,”—he nodded towards a field. “Those are British labourers working
there now. They’ve learnt how to make roads after our famous Roman
plan. You can see one of our roads from this corner of the terrace.
And how to build houses and ships, and work in metal and do a thousand
other things. Some of them have grown rich, and have been educated, so
that they are as good scholars now as we are. Already Londinium is a
famous port to which foreign merchants come bringing riches. My father
says it will some day be a great city, equal to any city in the world.”
“It _has_ become a great city!” exclaimed Betty to herself, remembering
the London she knew. It was sad to think that if she had spoken aloud,
the boy would not have understood her, and she hastened to ask another
question.
“Are these British people Christians?”
“Oh yes!” said Lucius. “Ever since _we_ became Christians ourselves,
you know. Of course when my ancestors first came here, they themselves
were pagans. They worshipped gods and goddesses like Apollo and Venus.
But that’s a hundred years ago. Now Londinium is a Christian city, and
we’re teaching the British to be Christians also. It’s rather difficult
though, because a great many of them cling to their old gods. Still,
most of them at least _call_ themselves Christians.”
“Do you like living in this country—in Britain?” asked Betty after a
moment.
“Oh yes. It’s my home. I was born here. But I should like to go to
Rome—the city from which my great-grandfather came when he settled
here, and built this villa. Perhaps I shall, some day,” he went on
dreamily. “My father often says we may have to go back to our own land.
There are troubles there. The barbarians are growing stronger and
stronger, and some day Rome will need all the fighting men she can get
to defend her.”
“But the British will have no one to defend _them_ if you go,” objected
Betty.
Lucius shrugged his shoulders. “No, poor things. Their state will be
very desperate if enemies come to invade them when _we_ are gone....”
Betty scarcely listened to the end of his sentence, for she had made
a discovery which interested her too much. On his third finger Lucius
wore the very ring which not long ago had been in her own hand! But
before she could exclaim, Betty found herself standing once more upon
London Bridge, with her Godmother beside her, and strangely enough
Godmother was repeating almost the very words the boy had just uttered!
“Poor things! They little know what a terrible time is before their
children’s children!”
“You mean the British? When the Romans have gone?” said Betty, who by
this time was beginning to accept all the strange things that were
happening without much surprise.
“Yes. In a few years that villa you have just seen, and all the other
beautiful Roman houses, will have dropped into decay. There will be no
one left in London except perhaps a handful of British slaves, and most
of _them_ will have to flee to that forest over there, to escape from
the murderous people who will overrun this island....”
The people were still passing to and fro upon London Bridge, as Betty
gazed about her. The sunlight was still sparkling on the river, and
from the fortress came the sound of the tramping feet of the soldiers.
“There’s a little boat just putting off,” said Godmother. “The man in
it is going to fish higher up the river. We’ll step in with him. It’s a
great advantage to be invisible!” she added, smiling, as they hurried
down to the bank.
It was strange nevertheless to be seated opposite a shaggy-haired,
bare-legged fisherman, who took no notice of them, but as the boat
glided on, Betty was soon so interested in the scenery they were
passing that she almost forgot the silent man who was rowing them. Very
soon they had passed all the gardens and orchards on the banks, and now
on either side there was nothing but a waste of water with here and
there a low reed-covered island just showing above its level.
“We are now passing under Westminster Bridge,” observed Godmother
presently. “On our left is St. Thomas’s Hospital and Lambeth Palace,
and on our right the Houses of Parliament, with Westminster Abbey
behind it.”
Betty stared. She thought Godmother must be joking.
“Perfectly true,” the old lady assured her in answer to her smile. “On
that island just above the water on the right, in another six hundred
years, Westminster Abbey will rise.”
Betty heard the gurgling of the water as it washed between the reeds
and bulrushes of the island, and as she thought of the beautiful
Cathedral under whose shadow her godmother’s house stood, it seemed a
miracle that such a change could have taken place.
“Human beings _are_ rather wonderful, aren’t they?” remarked Godmother,
smiling, as though she read her thoughts. “They drain wet land and make
it useful for growing food, or for buildings. They bore tunnels through
solid rocks. They build bridges over rivers, and do a thousand things
to alter the world for their own convenience. Who could have imagined
that this great London of ours, the largest city in the world, could
have grown up from _this_?” Godmother waved her hand towards the swamps
and streams, east, west and south of where they sat rocking in the boat
beside the swampy island.
“Just think of it!” she exclaimed after a moment’s silence. “This
marsh, and that forest to the north, and all the open land as far as we
can see in every direction, is now covered with streets and shops, with
churches and schools and railway stations, and is the dwelling-place of
millions of people.”
“It’s almost as wonderful as this magic way of seeing it as it _used_
to be!” declared Betty. “Tell me again how far back in the Past we are?”
“All this is one thousand five hundred years ago,” said Godmother
softly.
The fisherman had tied up his boat to a stake driven into the shore
of the island, where later the great Cathedral of Westminster was to
stand. The sun was setting, the water was a sheet of gold and crimson,
and above the island a flight of birds rose suddenly with shrill
cries.... The next second they stood in the white-panelled parlour.
“Oh!” cried Betty, rubbing her eyes. She glanced at the clock on the
mantelpiece. “_Why!_” she stammered, “it was three o’clock the last
time I saw it, and it’s still three. It must have stopped!”
Godmother shook her head. “It hasn’t stopped. Time is almost as magic a
thing as——”
“As all we’ve seen,” put in Betty eagerly. “Oh, Godmother, it has been
wonderful! But no one will ever believe it.”
“Don’t try to make them,” replied Godmother. “You’ll find it quite easy
not to,” she added with her queer little smile. Then as the bell rang,
“Here comes your maid to fetch you.”
“Oh, but this isn’t the end of the magic? You’ll let me come again?
You’ll let me see how London goes on?” Betty implored.
“To-morrow I’m going to take you to a Museum,” returned the old lady.
“I don’t think you’ll find it dull,” she said comfortingly, as Betty’s
face fell. “I shall fetch you at three o’clock, and mind you don’t keep
me waiting.”
A FAIRY TALE MUSEUM
Punctually at three o’clock next day, Godmother’s pretty little car
pulled up at the door of Betty’s home in Chelsea, and a few minutes
later she was driving away with her.
“Well!” began Godmother, as she observed a curious expression upon the
face of her godchild, “did you try explaining to people all you saw
yesterday?”
“Why, Godmother, till I caught sight of you just now, I’d forgotten
all about it!” exclaimed Betty, breathless with surprise. “I mean I’d
forgotten all the magic part about the ring and actually going back to
_see_ London as it was when the Romans were here,” she explained. “I
kept wondering why I had a picture in my mind of London as it looked
then. I simply couldn’t think how it was I knew, and I’ve only just
remembered.”
“I told you that it wouldn’t be difficult to keep the secret,” returned
Godmother, laughing.
“Oh, it’s a lovely secret!” Betty exclaimed. “Where are we going now?”
“I’m taking you to a Museum. But as you will see, it is, in its own
way, a sort of fairy-tale place. A beautiful house, called Lancaster
House, close to St. James’s Palace, has been turned into a kind of
treasure-palace, containing all sorts of things that have to do with
London from the very earliest times up to the present day. It is called
_The London Museum_, and _you_ ought to find it even more fascinating
than it appears to most other people.”
“I generally hate Museums,” said Betty frankly. “But then I’ve never
been to one with you before.”
“You won’t hate this one,” was Godmother’s reply. They were driving
down St. James’s Street now, and in a few moments the car stopped
before a stately-looking house quite near to the old Palace of St.
James.
“Now,” said Godmother, as they went up the steps, “the way to see
Museums is to look at a very little at a time, so, though this place is
full of interesting things, I’m only going to show you one or two of
them. First of all, we go downstairs into the basement.”
Betty followed her to the left of an entrance hall from which a grand
staircase rose, into a corridor whose windows gave her a glimpse of
a pretty green garden; then down a flight of steps into a big hall
below. The floor of this had been hollowed out to look rather like a
swimming-bath, but instead of water, the hollow was filled up by the
skeleton of a great wooden boat. It was black with age, broken and
battered, but the pieces had been carefully fitted together, so that
one might at least guess how it looked more than a thousand years ago,
when it was new. “It’s a Roman galley!” cried Betty, who had recently
seen one, not ancient and decayed, but actually floating upon the
Thames. In her excitement she scarcely knew whether to look first at
the ancient boat, or at the picture which filled the end wall just
above it, and showed a galley rowed by Roman soldiers.
“I see! I see!” she cried eagerly. “That’s how the man who painted
that picture imagined it looked when it was new, ages ago? He hasn’t
imagined it badly, has he, Godmother? The boat is just passing the
fortress, and it’s very much like the one we really went up, isn’t it?
And he’s made the river clear, with grassy banks, just as it was.
And the soldiers are quite good too. They _did_ look like that! Oh!
Godmother, how did they find this boat?”
“Here’s a notice that will tell you. It was dug up, you see, a few
years ago—in 1910, to be precise—when men were at work on a road in
Lambeth.”
“Under a _road_?” echoed Betty. “But how did it get there?”
“Have you forgotten already what you saw yesterday? Don’t you remember
that the Thames then spread out all over what is now Lambeth as well
as over Westminster on the opposite bank? This boat was found in
what _then_ was the bed of the river, and is now land covered with
buildings.”
“Yes, I understand. Oh, Godmother, do you think it could be the very
galley we saw? Perhaps it is!”
Godmother smiled. “I’m afraid not. It is thought that this galley was
sunk a hundred years or so earlier than the one we saw when we stood on
the first London Bridge. But it must have been very like it.”
Betty looked up again at the picture. “It shows a piece of the wall
that went round London,” she said, gazing at it with interest. “And in
the background there is the great forest. Oh, I think the painter has
imagined it very well.”
“Considering that he hadn’t our magic advantage I think he _has_,”
agreed Godmother.
Betty was silent a moment, looking down thoughtfully at the remains
of the poor battered galley which once sailed so proudly on London’s
river, filled with soldiers, their armour and helmets glittering in
the sunshine of long ago. There were other things in this basement
hall that looked interesting, but Godmother would not let her stay to
examine them.
“We will go upstairs now,” she said. So up the narrow staircase they
went, into the corridor again, and thence to a room with _Roman London_
painted over the door.
No sooner had Betty entered it than she gave a little cry and stood
staring at the end wall, where a sort of picture in mosaic work was
hanging, filling up its whole space.
“That was in the villa that belonged to Lucius!” she exclaimed. “I
remember it quite well. It was the pavement of one of the rooms.
There’s the lady riding on that funny animal’s back with the border
round her, just as I saw it. Oh, Godmother! Just fancy its being here
after all these years and years.”
“It _is_ wonderful,” said Godmother. “How many of the thousands of
people who every day hurry along the streets near London Bridge either
know or remember that deep down under their feet lies a buried Roman
city? Every now and then a fragment of it, like this one, is dug up.
But there must be much, much more hidden far beneath houses and shops
and roads where trams and omnibuses roll and rattle. By the way,” she
added, “if you want to see the _actual_ piece of pavement that was in
the villa ‘that belonged to Lucius’ we shall have to go to the British
Museum. This one is only a copy of it.”
“I shall go one day,” Betty answered. “I should like to see the _very_
pavement I walked on. I’m luckier than any of the children in London,”
she added with a little chuckle of delight.
“Now look at some of the things in these cases,” advised Godmother.
“You will find them just as interesting.”
Betty obediently examined the contents of one of the glass boxes the
room contained, and soon found occasion for a fresh excitement. On a
label beside a collection of battered coins, she read: _Found in the
river bed near the present London Bridge._ Instantly a scene rose in
her mind of a little fair-haired girl crying and looking down through
the chinks of a wooden bridge into the shining water.
“Oh, Godmother, perhaps one of them is the very coin that poor little
girl dropped when her mother was so angry with her?” she cried.
“Perhaps,” said Godmother. “She dropped it one thousand five hundred
years ago, and that’s about the date of this group of coins.”
“How do people know that?”
“By the inscriptions on them, we discover which emperor was ruling in
Rome, and in that way we are often able to fix the date at which the
money was in use.”
In another moment Betty had discovered other things in the cases
which took her thoughts back to the “magic” experience. These were
ornamental pins for the hair, combs, and other toilet articles which
must once have been pretty and shining, but were dull and rusty now
from long burial in the earth. She thought of the glimpse she had had
of a bedroom (perhaps belonging to the mother of Lucius), in which
such things as these were lying on a marble table. In fact, everything
she saw in the cases reminded her of Roman London, with its beautiful
villas and gardens, now buried and almost as forgotten as though they
had never existed. And she sighed.
“It’s very sad to think of,” she said.
“Yes,” answered Godmother in an understanding voice. “But the life of
London still goes on, even though it’s a different life, and Roman
London is forgotten.” They were standing by the window of the room,
and beyond the garden upon which it looked, in the road outside St.
James’s Park, people were walking, children running, and taxicabs and
motor-cars swept past in a constant stream.
“When the Romans lived here, all this”—she waved her hand towards
the Park and the busy road—“was a dreary swamp, impossible for human
existence. Now you see it the home and pleasure-ground of thousands of
people whose turn it is to enjoy the sunshine, the blue sky, and all
the pleasant things the Romans and the British who lived side by side
in this London of ours, enjoyed long ago.”
“This _may_ be a Museum, but it’s an awfully nice one,” declared Betty,
as she and Godmother walked back towards the corridor. “It wouldn’t be
dull, even _without_ the magic. But that makes it a hundred times more
fascinating, of course. Can’t we look at some other things?”
“The only other thing I’m going to show you to-day, is a certain
picture,” returned Godmother. “But before we look at it, I must explain
a little, or you won’t understand it.”
They found a seat in the corridor, and she began at once.
“You will remember that when we saw London yesterday, on our magic
journey into the Past, I told you we were very near the end of the
Romans’ stay in Britain. Soon afterwards they had to go back to fight
against enemies in their own land, and you know what happened when the
British were left unprotected?”
“Enemies came to fight against _them_.”
“And who were those enemies?”
“The Jutes and the Angles and the Saxons,” replied Betty, who was quite
good at history.
“Yes, those names are all right; but the chief thing to remember about
them is that they were _our_ forefathers, and that before long they
were known as _the English people_. This island, once called Britain,
became _England_, and the original inhabitants—those British among
whom the Romans lived—though they were not entirely driven out of
the country, were hunted as far west as they could go, and received a
different name.”
“I remember!” cried Betty, nodding. “They are called the Welsh now, and
they live in Wales.”
“Well, for the future, in thinking about London, let us leave them
there, remembering that though nowadays we scarcely know Welsh from our
own countrymen, they are _not_ our countrymen. They are of a different
race, the descendants of the British, and though nearly all of them
now talk in English, their _native_ language is quite different from
ours. It is really the old _British_ language. Now, for goodness’ sake,
get that clearly into your mind, and never let me hear you muddle up
the British with the English, in the annoying way of most children!”
concluded Godmother in her sharpest voice.
“I won’t. I promise,” Betty said, laughing, for she was getting quite
used to Godmother, and was no longer afraid of her.
“Very well, then. Now you’re ready to look at the picture. Come along.”
Betty followed her down a corridor till she stopped before one of
several pictures hung in a line. It represented a group of wild-looking
men standing beneath the walls of a city which Betty at once saw was
meant to represent the London or Londinium of the Romans.
“You must imagine that the scene shown by this picture, is about a
hundred years after the Romans had gone,” said Godmother. “Those
great strong men looking up at London Wall are our forefathers, the
English. Awful things have been happening for the past hundred years;
terrible fighting between these invaders and the British, who by now
are being everywhere defeated and driven farther and farther west. The
Englishmen in the picture, have come suddenly into sight of a walled
city that looks dangerous to approach. They are hesitating. One of
them is blowing his horn to see whether any defenders will appear upon
the battlements. No answer comes to the loud blast, and the warriors
will presently rush at that gate, batter it down and enter. To their
amazement they will find within, beautiful houses such as they have
never seen or imagined. But all of them are empty and dropping into
decay. They will see the ruined gardens and orchards of buildings the
use of which they can’t even guess. For many, many years London has
lain deserted, because on account of the fighting in the country all
round, no food could reach it, and all its people have fled. Wondering
and afraid, believing, no doubt, all these decaying remains of luxury
to be some magic device of demons, those rough warriors will hurry away
from the silent city, leaving it to fall into still deeper ruin.”
“Poor London!” said Betty. “But how did it ever wake up again?”
“It had to wait till the worst of the fighting was over before it was
occupied again—this time by a different race—the _English_ race. Then
London once more came to life. But by this time probably nearly the
whole of the _Roman_ buildings had disappeared, and become buried under
the first rough _English_ houses where the new race of men lived who
once more made the city into a thriving port.”
“And these English people forgot all about the Romans, I suppose?”
“They never knew them, you see. Even the few British who were left
(the descendants of those who had lived under Roman rule), only had
legends about them. They used the great roads the Romans had made,
but they called them by new names—_English_ names. Watling Street,
for instance, was the name they gave to the great Roman road that led
northwards out of London. It is now partly Oxford Street and partly
Edgware Road. Roman London disappeared as though it had never been,
till bits of it, ages later, were, and are, being dug up.”
“Then didn’t the Romans ever have anything to do with the English at
all?”
“They had a great deal to do with them—later on. For one thing, as you
ought to remember, they converted them to Christianity.”
“Oh yes, of course. St. Augustine came from Rome, didn’t he, and taught
the English to be Christians? But that was a long time afterwards.”
“When we see London again, it will be a Christian city once more, just
as it was when you and I looked down upon it from the Roman fortress.”
“Only the people in it will be _English_—instead of British and
Roman,” said Betty. “Oh, Godmother, when shall we see it the ‘magic’
way again?”
“All in good time,” was Godmother’s reply, as she looked at her watch.
“I shall just have time to show you one little bit of Roman London
which remains to this day just where the Romans left it,” she added.
“Not in a museum then?”
“No. It’s in the very midst of London, at the back of a modern hotel.
You shall see it first, and I’ll tell you what I can about it,
afterwards.”