Godmother’s direction to the chauffeur.
They were soon there, and Betty wonderingly followed the old lady down
a winding, narrow road between houses, till she stopped before an
ordinary-looking back-door, near which a board hung, with the words
_Roman Bath_ upon it. In another moment Betty was in a vaulted room,
gazing down at what seemed to be a little swimming-bath. It was paved
and lined with marble slabs, but these did not reach quite to the top,
and a rim of ancient bricks was visible.
“Once upon a time, two thousand years ago, perhaps,” said Godmother,
“there was a Roman villa on this spot, and here is the very bath
belonging to it! Under those steps that go down into the bath, there
is a spring of water, constantly bubbling up—the same spring that
filled it in Roman days.”
“And Roman people bathed here ages ago!” exclaimed Betty.
“It seems wonderful, doesn’t it? But there is the bath that they built
nearly two thousand years ago. The water that fills it, comes from a
stream forming a well, which in the Middle Ages was called Holy Well.
Only a very few years ago there was a street over there, on the other
side of the Strand, called Holywell Street, because it was built over
the old well.”
[Illustration]
“It’s awfully interesting to see something Roman that’s _not_ in a
Museum,” observed Betty. “And now I can so easily imagine the sort of
villa that was here,” she added. “It had gardens round it where all
these houses go down to the river, and the people who lived in it, saw
only fields and forests, and swampy land where now there are miles and
miles of streets and London houses. Oh, it _is_ wonderful to think
about!”
But Godmother was again consulting her watch, and in a moment or two
Betty was being driven in the car back to her home in Chelsea.
II
The Middle Ages
THE LONDON OF DICK WHITTINGTON
All the week, Betty went to a High School, but Saturday was a whole
holiday, and greatly to her satisfaction, it was arranged that she
should spend her Saturdays with Godmother.
It was just a week since she had visited the London of Roman times, but
not till the following Saturday, when she actually saw her Godmother,
did the memory of “the magic part” come back to her.
“It’s so exciting to remember the secret directly I see you!” she
exclaimed. “How far back are we going to-day? Oh, _do_ let us begin at
once, without wasting a single instant.”
Godmother laughed. “We won’t waste a single instant certainly. But
you’re not going back into the Past till this afternoon. I’ve ordered
the car, and we shall drive again into the City.”
By “the City” Betty knew she meant all the _business_ part of London,
to which thousands of people went every day to work in offices or
warehouses.
“Why is only this crowded part of London called the _City_?” she asked
presently when they were driving through bustling streets near St.
Paul’s. “I should have thought the _whole_ of London was a city?”
“So it is,” returned Godmother. “But as it all gradually spread, east
and west, north and south, from London Bridge, it has become usual to
speak of this busiest and earliest part of it as the _City_, and of
all the rest by different names, such as the West End, North London,
South London, and so forth. It’s such a huge place, you see, that such
divisions as these are necessary.”
“Now we’re coming to London Bridge. I’m glad we’re going over it
again,” Betty said presently, as they passed the Monument from which
the previous week she had looked far and wide.
“We will drive very slowly, and I want you to notice several buildings
that can be seen from the bridge.”
“There’s the Tower!” said Betty, looking to the left, where the solid
square of the main building, with a tower at each corner, was visible.
“And there’s St. Paul’s,” she added, turning to the right, and gazing
at its dome and cross.
“Look at all these wharves and warehouses lining each bank of the
river, with the great cranes hanging from them,” advised Godmother. “I
want you to remember this scene. Try to get a clear picture of it in
your mind.”
Betty looked with interest at the crowded shipping below the bridge,
and at the bales of goods, some being lowered into boats, others
hoisted up into the warehouses. She saw how, left and right, the river
was spanned by bridges, and how, as far as she could see, warehouses
and quays stretched in a continuous line, while smoke from thousands of
factory chimneys rose into the air.
“Now we are on the south side of the river,” said Godmother, when
the end of the bridge was reached. “All this district is called
_Southwark_, and beyond it there are miles of dingy streets and houses,
making up the parts of London called Bermondsey and Newington and
Camberwell, and so forth. But it’s houses, houses, and most of them
ugly houses, all the way. That black, dingy bridge overhead, spanning
the road, belongs to London Bridge railway station.”
“But here’s one beautiful place at least!” Betty remarked, pointing
to the right, where a fine church was hemmed in between walls of
hideous sheds and other buildings belonging to the railway. A narrow
churchyard, with a flagged path across it, separated the church from
these ugly dirty surroundings, and a few trees just breaking into leaf
showed brilliantly green against its ancient walls.
“Yes, I particularly want you to notice that church. It’s called St.
Saviour’s, Southwark. Look at it well, and don’t forget its name. We’ll
go back now to the north end of the bridge, and drive a little way
along that street which runs beside the river towards the Tower.”
“_Thames_ Street,” murmured Betty, reading its name on the wall as they
turned into it.
So crowded was this particular street, so full of heavy lorries and
wagons outside its warehouses, that they were soon obliged to leave
it, and drive into _Cheapside_, quite close, but farther back from the
river. Through St. Paul’s Churchyard, down Ludgate Hill into Fleet
Street they drove, and straight on down the Strand.
“There’s the Savoy Hotel, and the Savoy Theatre next to it, where I
saw ‘Alice in Wonderland’ once,” observed Betty, as they passed these
buildings.
“Remember that also,” said Godmother, “and try to get some of the names
of the streets into your head. These streets, I mean, that lead out of
the Strand. All of them, you see, go down to the river.”
Betty had already noticed some of them, as the car passed, and had
murmured their names. They were soon in Whitehall now, with the
well-known Abbey in sight, and therefore near home.
“Westminster Hall,” said Godmother, when they passed the Houses of
Parliament. She pointed to its long sloping roof, and added, “_That’s_
one of the buildings you must remember.”
Every time Godmother drew her special attention to something, Betty
gave a little smile of excitement, for she knew she would see that
particular place or building again—by _magic_. And the magic made all
the difference.
* * * * *
It was two or three hours later before she followed Godmother into the
white-panelled room.
“Oh, I _do_ hope it will be nice this time!” she exclaimed, full of
excited anticipation.
Godmother laughed as she went to the cabinet.
“Last Saturday the talisman was a Roman ring. What is it going to be
now?” Betty asked, as her godmother selected two objects from the
cabinet. One she saw was an old book, the other, when she held it in
her hand, she found to be a beautifully engraved gold chain.
“This book,” said Godmother, “was written by a poet—Geoffrey Chaucer
by name—who lived more than five hundred years ago. You will discover
to whom the chain once belonged, later on. Now, shut your eyes, hold
the chain in both hands, and say, after me, these words written by old
Chaucer, five hundred years ago.”
Betty obeyed, and repeated slowly after Godmother:
“ ... When that the month of May
Is comen, and that I hear the foules sing,
And that the floures ginnen for to spring,
Farewell my booke and my devotion....”
“Open your eyes,” said Godmother, after a silence. “We have gone back
to the year 1388. Richard the Second is king. This is London Bridge,
and it is May Day.”
Betty’s eyes, now wide open, wandered right and left. The London she
looked upon, was completely changed from the scene she had beheld on
her last magic visit. Gone were the Roman villas, gone the fortress,
gone the Roman Hall of Justice. But the wall that had then encircled
the city—or one very like it—was still there, for from where she
stood, she could see parts of it, with its massive gates at intervals
opening into the green country beyond. The bridge on which she stood,
was now built of stone, firm and strong. At either end, stood fortified
towers, with gates, and in the middle of the bridge, was a beautiful
little Chapel. Leaning over the parapet, Betty saw that the chapel was
in two parts, one built above the other, and from the lower one, steps
descended into the water.
“We’ll look at the people as they pass, before I tell you how all this
change has come about,” Godmother said. And indeed the people were
interesting and picturesque enough to occupy all Betty’s attention.
“How gay they are! What beautiful coloured clothes they wear!” she
cried. “Oh, Godmother, do look at this young man coming. Isn’t he
splendid?”
She pointed to a boy of eighteen or nineteen who came swinging along
the bridge, dressed in a short tunic edged with fur, and embroidered
all over with flowers. The tunic had long wide hanging sleeves tapering
to a point which almost reached the young gallant’s knee. He wore long
green silk stockings, boots ending in a peak, and his crimped fair hair
fell on either side of his face down to his shoulders.
[Illustration]
“What a lot of monks there are!” she exclaimed, when the beautiful
youth had gone by. Some of these were in rough grey habits with a
knotted rope round their waists; others wore white robes under a black
cloak, and there were many of them going to and fro upon the bridge.
“The grey ones are the Franciscans, or Grey Friars, and those with
the black cloak are the Dominicans, or Black Friars,” Godmother told
her.... “Here is an old countrywoman coming in from the southern gate
with her butter and eggs! Doesn’t she look comfortable?”
She was a stout old lady, with folds of white linen round her neck
drawn up on either side of her face under a flat broad-brimmed hat. Her
woollen skirt was very short, showing scarlet stockings and buckled
shoes, and she carried an enormous basket on one arm.
“That white linen arrangement round her face is called a _wimple_,”
said Godmother. “Nuns, if you remember, still wear the same sort of
thing.”
“She isn’t a bit like a nun though,” laughed Betty, watching the fat
old woman as she waddled past her.
The next moment her attention was attracted by a group of children
who came running along the bridge shouting and singing. They all had
flowers in their hands, and some of the little ones wore wreaths of
bluebells or primroses.
“Oh! don’t they look pretty!” exclaimed Betty in delight. “And they
must have picked the flowers in the fields and woods just outside that
gate at the end of the bridge,” she added.
[Illustration]
“You remember what is at the end of the bridge as we saw it this
morning? A railway station, and a railway arch over an ugly street,
with miles and miles of streets beyond. The Church of St. Saviour’s,
was the only beautiful thing visible—a change indeed,” said Godmother.
Betty watched the children and looked at their clothes with the
greatest interest. The little girls wore frocks looped up on one side
over a girdle, some of the boys had long stockings and short tunics and
wore tiny capes of linen, with a hood buttoned under the chin.
The whole merry party presently ran into one of the recesses of the
bridge where there was plenty of room, and began to play a singing
game, dancing as they sang.
Though some of the words sounded strange in Betty’s ears, she
understood most of them, and the verses of the song, if they were put
into the English to which we are now accustomed, would run something
after this fashion:
“London Bridge is broken down,
Dance over, my Lady Lee;
London Bridge is broken down
With a gay ladee.
How shall we build it up again?
Dance over, my Lady Lee;
How shall we build it up again?
With a gay ladee.
Build it up with stone so strong,
Dance over, my Lady Lee,
Then ’twill last for ages long
With a gay ladee.”
“That song is old even now—in this year 1388,” said Godmother. “The
great-grandmothers of these children may have sung it. It probably
celebrated the time when the last of the timber bridges was broken down
in a storm, and this stone one, upon which we are standing, was built
in its place about the time when Richard the First was reigning.”
“And we are in the reign of Richard the _Second_ now, nearly two
hundred years later,” Betty replied.
“The children are right when they say London Bridge will last for
ages long,” Godmother remarked. “It lasted more than six hundred
years—almost to our own time. My Grandfather, for instance, Betty,
was born the year _this_ Bridge upon which we are standing, was pulled
down, and the one you saw this morning, built.”
But Betty’s eyes were still fixed on the children who at intervals in
their game ran to offer their bunches of flowers to the passers-by,
shouting “May Day! May Day!”
Presently one little girl with a pretty voice, began to sing (in words
which were nearly, though not altogether, like the English of our own
day) a little song which, written down, was this:
“Summer is icumen in;
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweth sed, and bloweth med,
And springeth the wude nu—
Sing cuccu!”
It was easy to put this into modern English, and Betty knew what it
meant:
“Summer is a-coming in;
Loud sings cuckoo!
Groweth seed, and bloweth mead,
And springeth the wood new.
Sing cuckoo!”
“That’s the first verse of a song that is more than a hundred years
old even in this year 1388 to which we’ve gone back,” said Godmother.
“Yet you can understand it pretty well, can’t you? It shows how near to
the language we speak to-day, the speech of the fourteenth century is
growing.”
“Yes. And isn’t it lovely for those children to hear the cuckoo and
pick flowers just on the other side of London Bridge? Oh, I wish the
country came right up to the City now—like this,” sighed Betty,
nodding towards the fields and woods that made a green belt close
behind the wall.
“Godmother!” she exclaimed suddenly, pointing to a sort of castle near
the river bank. “There’s something I know! Why, surely it’s the Tower
of London? Only there’s not so much of it as there is now,” she added.
“Yes, it’s the Tower right enough—three hundred years old already in
1388, and eight hundred years old in our own time. But now, my dear,
before you get too distracted by all you’re seeing and hearing, I’m
going to take you in here to talk history for a few minutes.”
Betty followed her into the porch of the chapel on the Bridge, where
they sat down on a bench out of sight of all the gay life outside.
“We left London,” Godmother began, “empty and deserted, with a group
of our Saxon ancestors whom we may call _English_ people, standing
uncertainly outside the walls built round the city by the departed
Romans. What happened next?”
“Those English people settled in London, and in time made it alive and
busy again.”
Godmother nodded. “And what became of the _British_ who used to live
here?”
“They were driven West, into Wales, and are the Welsh people now.”
“Yes. And then?”
Betty reflected. “Oh! Why, the Danes came, didn’t they? Yes. The
English king, Alfred the Great, fought against them. And then
afterwards the Normans came and conquered England. And they spoke
_French_!... I don’t see why you call those Saxon people who stood
outside London, our _ancestors_, Godmother? Because we must be all
mixed up with the Danes and the Normans—especially with the Normans,
who were quite different, and had a different language. So I don’t
understand how those first English could be our ancestors exactly?”
“I’ll tell you how. When you say the Normans spoke a different
language, you’re right. But in saying they were ‘quite different,’
you’re wrong. What does the word _Norman_ mean? Merely a _North_man.
They came from the same northern countries as the English, and were
originally of the same race. The reason they spoke French, was, that
for two or three hundred years before they came to England they had
been living in the north of France. But when they conquered this
island and settled down here, what happened? Did the English people
learn to speak the language of their conquerors? Far from it. The
conquerors learnt to speak the tongue of the men they conquered, ‘mixed
up,’ as you say, with some of their own French. Three hundred years
after William the First landed, the people—conquerors and conquered
alike—have become _one_ people, speaking _one_ language, the _English_
language. Altered, of course, from the kind of language spoken by those
wild-looking men blowing their horns outside London walls. If you had
heard _them_ talking, you wouldn’t have understood a word (even though
it was the foundation of the English we talk to-day). But now, in this
year 1388, three hundred years after the Norman Conquest, you can
understand most of it, can’t you? Out of the mixture of the Norman’s
French and the English people’s early English, has come the language we
now speak. Well, now that the history lesson is over, let us see all
we can of the London the poet Chaucer knew in the reign of Richard the
Second. We may even meet Chaucer himself—if we’re lucky!” she added.
[Illustration]
“I want to see the Tower,” said Betty. “Dad took me there once. But it
looked different, from the Tower we can see from this bridge.”
“That’s because parts have been added to it since the reign of Richard
the Second. But you saw the keep, or White Tower, as it is called, when
you went with your father the other day. That keep, or central tower,
has been standing ever since William the Conqueror built it. Look at
the moat full of water round the castle. That was made when Richard the
First was king.”
“There’s no water there now,” Betty said. “When Dad and I went
over the Tower the other day, soldiers were drilling in the moat!
Oh, Godmother,” she went on after a moment, “isn’t it strange
and—_uncanny_ to think that none of the people on this bridge, know
all the things that are going to happen in that Tower?”
“The things _we_ know because we live in a later time, you mean? Yes.
Can you think of some of them?”
“The poor little princes are soon going to be murdered there, for one
thing,” began Betty eagerly. “And Sir Thomas More, a good deal later
on, will be beheaded. And——” she hesitated.
“Ah, yes, in the years to come many, many poor prisoners will go under
the Traitor’s Gate there, never to return,” said Godmother. “But we
won’t think of them now. Let us look at this beautiful little chapel
beside us on the bridge. It’s dedicated to the latest on the list of
saints. Can you guess who that is?”
Betty looked puzzled.
“St. Thomas à Becket. You remember all about _him_, and how he was
murdered in Canterbury Cathedral?”
“Yes! and there used to be pilgrimages to his tomb,” put in Betty.
“Later on we may see some of the pilgrims starting on their journey,”
Godmother told her. “Now let us take a boat and go westward up the
river.”
“That will lead to Westminster, won’t it? Oh, Godmother, do let us see
how Westminster has got on!” exclaimed Betty suddenly, remembering the
low swampy island of Roman times.
“That’s just what we’re going to do. We’ll take a boat from the steps
down there that lead from the lower chapel of St. Thomas to the water.
We shall be in time, if we make haste, to join that party of monks who
have been to say their prayers in the chapel, and are just going away
by boat.”
Betty hurried after her from the upper to the lower chapel, and she and
Godmother stepped into the boat with three or four of the Black Friars
as they were called—a merry party, and, as Betty thought, not at all
monk-like, in their conversation. Though she could not understand all
they said, because many of the words were pronounced in a way strange
to her, she gathered enough to know that they were talking about a
pilgrimage to Canterbury, to which they seemed to be looking forward
as a delightful pleasure trip.
Interesting as the friars were to watch, the river banks were still
more fascinating. Except for the landing-stages and a few quays
and wharves near London Bridge, they might have been floating on a
_country_ river, and Betty thought suddenly of the unending line of
warehouses, the smoke of a thousand chimneys, the noise and bustle near
the river she had seen only this morning.
“There’s the Strand,” exclaimed Godmother presently, pointing towards
the right-hand bank of the stream.
“The _Strand_?” echoed Betty, scarcely able to believe her eyes.
The Strand along which she had so recently driven, was a bustling
street of shops and theatres, with tall-steepled churches at the end
of it. Now she saw a country road lined with hedges, across which ran
swift streams hurrying to empty their waters in the main river. There
were bridges over the streams, and along the tree-shaded road, and
across the bridges, rode or trudged a constant procession of people.
“It’s the main road from the City to Westminster, you see,” said
Godmother, “so that’s why it’s so crowded.”
“I never knew what the _Strand_ meant before,” declared Betty, all at
once enlightened. “A strand is a shore, isn’t it? So that road is just
the shore of the river.”
“Just as it is now,” Godmother returned. “Nearly all the narrow streets
on the right of the Strand, as you walk up it from Charing Cross
station, lead down to the river. But except for lucky people like
ourselves, it needs a great deal of imagination to picture it as we see
it here, back in the fourteenth century, doesn’t it?”
Betty was now gazing with admiration at a line of beautiful great
houses whose gardens sloped to the water and were closed at its brink
by a stone gate.
“Those are the palaces of the great nobles,” Godmother told her. “The
one we are passing, is called the _Savoy_, and it belongs to John of
Gaunt.”
“Why, there’s the Savoy Hotel, and the Savoy Theatre in the Strand
now!” exclaimed Betty. “We passed them to-day.”
[Illustration]
“Yes, they stand on part of that very ground where now you see this
grand palace. Nearly every street leading from the Strand to the river
still bears the name of some nobleman’s palace, and shows where it
stood. Essex Street, Buckingham Street, Cecil Street—you noticed some
of them this morning? They all mark the site of some great house, now
vanished. Many of them—in this reign of Richard the Second—are not
yet built, and some of these at which we are looking, will be pulled
down and _re_-built before they are finally destroyed. We are only in
the fourteenth century as yet, remember.”
“This Savoy Palace is splendid!” Betty cried with enthusiasm. “Look,
Godmother. There are ladies and gentlemen walking on the terrace. Oh,
how beautifully they are dressed. Aren’t the colours lovely? I do wish
we had dresses like that now, don’t you? Do look at that lady with a
thing like a sugar-loaf on her head, and a gauzy veil floating from it.”
“Yes, the costumes of this fourteenth century are certainly beautiful,”
Godmother agreed. “Now you will understand why the English in the
fourteenth century had the reputation for being the most gaily dressed
people in Europe.”
“They look simply lovely on that terrace, and it’s such a beautiful
house—that Savoy Palace, isn’t it?”
“It’s a wonderful looking place,” agreed Godmother. “I don’t think King
John of France had a bad sort of prison, do you?”
“King John?” Betty looked puzzled.
“Don’t you remember how he was taken prisoner by John of Gaunt’s
brother—the Black Prince—at Poitiers, and how because he was unable
to pay his ransom, when he was set free, he returned to London like an
honourable gentleman, and lived here, at the Savoy, till his death?”
“And that isn’t so very long ago, is it? I mean, counting that we’re in
the fourteenth century now?”