ST. GILES’S FAIR
There was a great gathering of townspeople and country people in the
old town of Oxford. “What can be going on?” exclaimed Miss Cavendish,
who, with her girls, was turning the corner by old St. Michael’s
Church. She stopped to question a gaping countryman, who looked at her
open-mouthed. What benighted being was this who could be upon the spot
and not know about St. Giles’s Fair? But he gathered sufficient pity
and understanding to tell them what they wanted to know.
“We must ask Mrs. Birch about it when we get back from market,” said
Sidney. This attending to their own marketing was a great frolic,
and one which added zest to their appetites when meal-time came. The
market offered fresh country vegetables and fruit and was an attractive
little place to the three who had come to regard bacon and eggs as a
dish to be avoided when possible. Here they could select according to
the taste of each and were always very content. Having completed this
duty, they went back to their lodgings to give their orders and to gain
information.
“Yes, ma’am, thank you, ma’am,” said their landlady. “I’ll do the
mushrooms for your luncheons, and ’ow would you like your heggs, miss?”
“They’d be good scrambled, wouldn’t they?” suggested Sidney.
“You may scramble them, Mrs. Birch,” said Miss Cavendish. But the
good woman looked mystified; she had never ’eard of scrambled heggs.
“Stirred eggs,” suggested Miss Cavendish. But this method seemed
no more familiar to Mrs. Birch than the other, there were further
explanations and at last a gleam of intelligence flashed from Mrs.
Birch’s eye. “Hit’s buttered heggs you mean, miss, thank you, miss.”
And thereafter buttered eggs became a part of their bill of fare.
St. Giles’s Fair, they were told, was not what it had been; it was a
noisy, foolish performance which Mrs. Birch doubted if the ladies would
care to see, but if they should like a glimpse of it the evening would
be the liveliest. Therefore they bided their time till night should
fall, and meanwhile they occupied themselves with the treasures of the
Bodleian Library, peeped in at Tom Quad, took a hasty view of the ivied
walls of Pembroke and other colleges which they would examine more
closely later on.
“I almost hate to leave our comfortable sitting-room,” said Sidney with
a regretful look at the lighted lamp and the open piano. “I have been
in no such homelike place since I left America.”
“We’ll have our homelike places all back again soon enough,” replied
Gabriella, “but we shall not be able to see St. Giles’s Fair.”
Therefore they started out and elbowed their way through a throng of
jostling men and women who had come a-fairing, and soon they found
themselves in the very centre of the excitement. Side shows were
everywhere, calliopes, street pianos, brazen horns, fairly deafened
them; and the vendors of nostrums and novelties crying their wares
added to the Babel of noise. For the rest, be it said, it was a quiet
crowd. There was little boisterous merriment, no loud-voiced, piercing,
nasal conversation. Indeed, it was ludicrously “unnoisy,” Gabriella
said. “The English have a silent way of taking things, anyhow,” she
remarked. “If a man gets angry with his wife, and chucks her out of
the house, he growls something in an undertone, you hear a dull thud
and that is all. One day in London I happened to hear two men who were
having an altercation; you could see by their set faces that they were
simply boiling mad inside, but all that I heard in the very lowest
pitched, contemptuous tones was ‘You are a wehm,’ from one man, and
the other one said in quite the same manner: ‘If I am a wehm, you are
a loathsome wehm,’ and that was all of it; vituperation could go no
further than to call a man a loathsome worm. Oh, do look, Gem.”
Miss Cavendish turned her head to see a quartette of girls with long
wands in their hands; the wands were tipped with something fuzzy with
which they touched the faces of such chance young man as took their
fancy, and the swain returned the attention by flinging a handful of
flour upon the damsel. In some cases when the little wand was too
persistently used the young woman was caught and kissed, though,
unlike an American girl upon such a provocation, she neither struggled
nor shrieked, neither did she laugh loudly. Her friends might giggle
softly, but the whole performance was so matter-of-fact, there was such
a spirit of imperturbability evidenced that Sidney and Gabriella were
amused beyond measure.
“It is the very funniest thing we have seen,” Sidney declared. “Imagine
such a scene at one of our county fairs. Picture one of our American
girls under similar circumstances and fancy her shrill laughter, her
high-pitched protestations and all the rest of it. All the noise upon
this occasion is made by those very unmusical instruments, and those
clap-trappers.”
A short survey of the fair served them, and they returned to their
lodgings, caring little for merry-go-rounds, Punch and Judy shows,
jugglers and charlatans.
“I am afraid I am fickle,” announced Gabriella as they entered the
cosey apartment. “I am beginning to feel myself false to Italy because
I am realizing the delights of clean English lodgings. Fancy being
able always to live in a beautiful old historic English town with
green meadows and winding streams at your very door, and of having
the comforts of home with no bother of servants; of being able to
do your own marketing and of feeling sure that your food will be
served and cooked perfectly and your rooms kept in exquisite order
by a soft-voiced, respectable woman who never is supercilious nor
condescending, but who, on the contrary, is humbly delighted that
you favor her house with your presence. It is such an entirely new
sensation that I am wondering if it isn’t the very idealest existence
of any.”
“Shall you take out naturalization papers to-morrow?” asked Sidney.
“Not quite so soon; I haven’t seen Scotland yet.”
“Nor Wales.”
A vivid blush overspread Gabriella’s cheek. “Please spare a trembling
maid,” she begged. “Have pity upon my condition of uncertainty and
dread.”
Sidney laughed and picked up her shining brass candlestick, remarking
that she had letters to write.
Oxford was left behind with reluctance. It was tantalizing not to be
able to wander down Addison’s walk more than once, not to become more
than half familiar with “the noblest old street in England,” nor to
linger more leisurely in the sweet gardens and the dignified college
halls. Yet, with passage taken for a settled sailing, time was pressing
and there was still much which they felt they could not leave out of
their trip. Warwick and Stratford-on-Avon held them for two or three
days, then, as they journeyed on from Lincoln to York and Durham, their
enthusiasm waxed warmer and warmer as the cathedral towns led them from
glory to glory.
“I don’t believe either of the others can be finer than Lincoln,”
declared Gabriella. “I have made my choice and nothing will budge me.
Where will you find anything as beautiful as that Angel Choir, where
anything as grotesque as that dear little imp? Where shall we see such
a wonderful vaulting as that which springs from that single shaft in
the Chapter House? And surely nothing can rival its site at the top of
that mighty hill overlooking the Witham. I may appear obstinate to you
after this, but Lincoln has my heart and I shall not give it to either
York or Durham.”
York was reached that same night, for it was intended to make the most
of time and to reach Durham early the next afternoon, take a hasty view
of the cathedral and arrive in Edinburgh that same evening, it being
Saturday.
“I have the address of a well recommended hotel,” said Miss Cavendish,
fumbling in her bag for her address book. “We will go there. It is
very near the station, I was told, so we can walk.” But though they
wandered about for half an hour, the small hotel seemed to have lost
itself utterly, for no trace of it could they discover and could
find no one who knew it. At last they were directed to an inn which
presented a very attractive exterior, fresh paint and a fine old
doorway giving them the impression that here they would find ease
and comfort. They inquired for rooms, and were told that though the
house was rather full they could be accommodated. A shock-headed youth
escorted them up the stairs, down a hallway and into a back room.
“Dear me,” Miss Cavendish looked at her companions, “I am afraid this
will not do.”
The youth stood stolidly, open-mouthed and unresponsive, but a direct
question brought the information that there was no other room to be had.
“It is too late to look elsewhere,” Miss Cavendish decided.
“But this is a feather bed,” said Gabriella; “we can never sleep on
that this warm night.”
No amount of questioning seemed to bring any suggestion to the vacant
brain of Boots. When he did venture upon the semblance of a sentence
it was in such unintelligible Yorkshire dialect that he might as well
have saved himself speech. At last Miss Cavendish inquired, “Is there
a chambermaid?” There was. “Send her to me.” To their relief the
chambermaid was a brisk capable body who took in the situation. It was
true that there was no other room vacant. The town was quite full, and
the hotels were pressed to their utmost capacity. The feather bed could
be removed and placed underneath the mattress if the ladies wished.
“Where’s that Boots?”
After some moments Boots reappeared, looking wholly scared, dense and
stupid, but his arms were muscular if his tongue was rusty and it
appeared to be little trouble to make such changes as should give the
travellers a hope of a good night’s rest.
The breakfast was execrable and the price charged by an over pious
text-quoting landlady was not modest. “Next time I arrive in York it
will be daylight,” decided Miss Cavendish as they took their departure
from the house.
“Yet,” returned Gabriella, “I wouldn’t have missed Boots for anything.
He answers so perfectly to my ideal of a thick-headed Yorkshire bumpkin
that I am satisfied to have met him under such circumstances rather
than to have had him left out of my life. He is the most deliciously
earth-born churl I have ever encountered. That shock head, that gaping
mouth, those lustreless eyes, that vacant stare, when shall we ever
meet their like again?”
“But there’s the Minster,” exclaimed Sidney as they approached the
great cathedral after their tour of the old city walls. The grand
proportions of the building impressed them all, the fantastic
gargoyles especially pleased Gabriella. Sidney was delighted with
the beautiful stained glass, Miss Cavendish was enthusiastic over the
Chapter House. They had walked the length and breadth of the immense
interior, had entered the crypt, and had examined many of the details
of the cathedral’s beautiful interior by the time the hour of twelve
warned them that they must soon leave.
“Stop,” whispered Sidney, “something is going to happen.” In the vast
aisles a grave company was assembling. From the chancel wound a long
procession of clergy and singers chanting a miserere which echoed
through the vast transept toward which the procession was moving. Then
through the door, from the bright September weather outside was borne
a bier. That this was an occasion of more than usual solemnity the
appearance of all indicated. This was the funeral of an esteemed member
of the clergy. There were vested priests and choir boys, long-veiled
deaconesses and members of guilds. The slow cortège proceeded up the
church and with the echoing minor notes of the music in their ears the
three Americans stepped out into the sunshine and life from which the
old canon had just been borne.
“It was the climax,” whispered Sidney. “Wasn’t it wonderful to see
that solemn procession, to hear that heart-breaking music in that most
wonderful of cathedrals? You may have Lincoln, Gabriella, but for my
part I am overpowered by the beauty of York.”
The train soon bore them to their next stopping-place, “Durham’s
Gothic shade,” and here Miss Cavendish became eloquent and declared
her allegiance given. “It is so splendidly and simply Norman. Look at
those ponderous columns, that combination of mightiness and simplicity,
and to think that here lie the bones of the Venerable Bede and of
St. Cuthbert. Then its history. Think of the Prelate of Durham so
splendidly placed in his fortress, really a sovereign who was rivalled
by only one other, the Bishop of Ely on his island. Then there is that
pretty legend of how the monks of Lindisfarne were led to the site by
a dun cow. You may have your Lincoln imp, Gabriella, it just suits
you, but give me the staid and historic dun cow. As soon as we get to
Edinburgh I shall sally forth and buy a copy of Scott’s poems. You
remember in ‘Marmion’ that it says:
“‘And after many wanderings past
He chose his lordly seat at last
Where his cathedral huge and vast,
Looks down upon the Wear.’”
“So this is the Wear,” said Sidney, “and a beautiful site it is indeed
for a cathedral. I am almost tempted to grant that it satisfies me as
well as York, yet it doesn’t quite.”
“How satisfactory it is for each of us to have a different cathedral,”
said Gabriella; “it makes it much more interesting.”
“Gem must have a little mooly cow to match your imp,” said Sidney. And
when they left the town a tiny silver effigy of Durham’s historic dun
cow was hanging from Miss Cavendish’s lorgnette chain. To Gabriella
Sidney had already presented the most grotesque imp that Lincoln could
furnish, and for her own satisfaction she had a pile of photographs of
York Minster.
They climbed the hill to the railway station, well pleased that they
had not left out of their trip the three cathedral towns which had
given them such delight. “I wish we could have seen other cathedrals,”
Miss Cavendish remarked as they left Durham behind them.
“Oh, but consider how hopelessly mixed up we would be,” returned
Gabriella. “Now each of us is entirely satisfied, for we have just one
apiece; there is no dividing of our affections, no half-heartedness in
the devotion each gives to her own. Possibly there may be others as
fine as Lincoln, but I shall never know it, and I am happy.”
“I will venture to say that there is none with a more romantic history,
nor which has such literary associations as Durham,” rejoined Miss
Cavendish.
“And I don’t believe there is such stained glass in any of them as
in York,” Sidney put in, and then they laughed and settled back in
their places to look upon the fast-fading landscape. Along a cold but
interesting coast their route lay for most of the journey. Once in a
while they caught glimpses of a steely blue sea, of ships far out, of
stretches of sandy beaches or green clad cliffs, and by nine o’clock
they were in Edinburgh.
A genial old cabman landed them safely at their lodgings in a clean,
comfortable house, from the window of which they could look over the
roofs of houses to the castle which crowned the hill beyond.
“It is going to be fascinating; I feel it,” announced Gabriella, taking
her first peep the next morning from her window. “The dear grey city
is going to enthrall me. It is not so big but that we can take it in
and become friendly with it and its castle. It is a good thing to have
a castle as part of the view, for then you feel as if the city had not
parted with its history; you feel that its links to the past have not
been broken by the sledge-hammer of modernity.”
“Who is making fine speeches?” said Sidney, coming in at that moment.
“We must hurry, mustn’t we? if we want to see the soldiers. We must be
at St. Giles’s by nine, you know. Don’t stop to prink, Gabriella.”
“If there ever was an occasion that called for prinking it is when I am
to attract the gaze of the Black Watch,” returned Gabriella.
[Illustration: “THEY WERE REWARDED BY SIGHT OF A COMPANY UNDER
INSPECTION.”]
“But they’ll get there before we do, if we don’t hurry, and we want to
see them marching in.”
Owing to Gabriella’s prinking they were late and the Highlanders were
in their places by the time the church was reached, so it was not till
after the hearty singing of “Onward, Christian soldiers,” in which all
joined, and the service was over that the girls had their chance of
seeing swinging kilts and swaying bonnets all in line. “Aren’t they
the loveliest ever?” whispered Gabriella as they stood on the pavement
outside. “I’d like to take one home with me just to keep and look at.
See that dickey little officer’s claymore; what a perfect beauty of a
cairngorm he has.”
“We must follow them up to the castle,” declared Sidney, no less eager
than Gabriella. “It is ever so long before it will be time to go to St.
Cuthbert’s, and we’ve nothing else to do.” So up the hill they followed
the swinging line to see the red coats and tartans disappear under the
grey stone gateway. But they lingered to look down from the parapet
upon the town and were rewarded by sight of a company under inspection.
“It is a picture, a perfect picture,” exclaimed Gabriella. “See that
officer coming out from the castle, isn’t he fine? It is the same one
who had that beauty cairngorm.”
“Yes, and he is quite aware that he is a thing of beauty himself,”
remarked Miss Cavendish.
“Never mind, he is a joy forever, and if I could wear a tartan, carry a
claymore, and have such a lovely swinging bonnet as that I’d be puffed
up, too. I don’t blame him one bit. I am afraid, Gem, that I shall
spend all the time we are here in running after the soldiers.”
“I never expected to be crazy over the military,” said Sidney, “but I
must say I never saw anything so fascinating as this uniform, nor a
finer set of men.”
“Come away, come away, you two,” laughed Miss Cavendish, “or you will
lose your wits. It is time we were starting for church if we expect to
hear ‘wee Jimmy McGregor’ preach to-day.” And with many a backward look
they went down the hill to be set upon by a horde of street urchins who
would fain show them the “Boby Burruns” house, but whom they smilingly
passed by.
“You girls are not living up to your opportunities,” Miss Cavendish
reproached her companions. “I don’t believe that you allowed either
your eyes or your thoughts to wander for one moment from those
soldiers. I don’t believe that you appreciated the fact that it was in
St. Giles’s that Jenny Geddes threw her stool at Dean Hanna, nor that
you were near the very site of the Heart of Midlothian when you came
away. You were simply bent upon tagging soldiers and I couldn’t get at
you.”
“We can hear about Jenny Geddes any time,” returned Gabriella, “but
when again will we see Gordon’s Forty-second coming home from service?”
“In the graveyard of St. Cuthbert’s we shall find the graves of De
Quincey and--”
“There goes one,” interrupted Sidney as she caught sight of a swaying
kilt and a pair of bare knees on the other side of the street. And Miss
Cavendish gave up in despair.