I
INTRODUCTION
Of all the delightful games which children play in the nursery or in the
schoolroom, perhaps the favourite one is dressing-up, and acting. And of
all the Christmas treats, perhaps the best is going to the
theatre—either to the pantomime or to one of the fairy plays which
fortunate children can now enjoy.
There are grown-up people too who never get tired of dressing-up and
acting, nor of going to the theatre to see other people act. It is a
taste which is shared by children and grown-up people alike. And it has
always been so. Long, long ago, when all the people in the world were
savage, there is no doubt that little naked children picked up their
fathers’ spears, and bows and arrows (or made smaller ones in imitation
of them), and “acted” the hunting of animals or the killing of enemies,
while their parents looked on, pleased and interested by the
performance.
Thousands of years have passed since the first “acting” took place on
some lonely beach, perhaps, or in a clearing of the forest where savage
children played; and now in all our big towns we have big houses
specially built for acting, and there are many men and women who spend
most of their time either in writing plays or in learning and acting
them.
Every evening in London hundreds of cabs and motor-cars stop before some
brilliantly lighted theatre to set down people who have come to see one
of the many plays performed night after night in this great city. And
seven hundred years ago people also crowded to see plays in London,
though it was a very different London then, and a very different
building at which they arrived.
Instead of ladies in evening gowns, and gentlemen all dressed alike in
black coats, stepping out of cabs and motor-cars to walk across a
pavement to the theatre door, you would have seen, on certain days long
ago, a curiously dressed crowd of men, women, and children, some on
horseback, some on foot, all pressing in one direction. There would be
barefooted monks, soldiers with breastplates and helmets of steel, nuns
with white caps and veils, little boys with long stockings, one red, one
green perhaps, and short tunics belted at the waist; ladies with full
flowing robes and strange head-dresses, some pointed like a sugar-loaf,
some with veils arranged over a frame in the shape of two horns. And all
these people in their quaint and varying costumes would be threading
their way through narrow, dirty streets, like lanes, between overhanging
houses, till they stopped—not before a big lighted house with playbills
outside, and a marble hall and gilded ceiling with doors leading to the
theatre within—but in front of the great gates of a church, and that
church might have been Westminster Abbey. For there the play they had
come to see was to be performed!
Strange as it may seem to us now, the first theatres in England were the
churches, and, as you may guess, the first plays to be acted were
religious plays.
Let us try to understand the reason for this. You remember that William
I conquered England in 1066—eight hundred years ago. Well, from the time
that he and his followers came to this country the English race has been
gradually growing into the nation to which we belong and into the sort
of people we see round us every day. Even the very poorest English
children nowadays go to school and can read and write. Children whose
parents are not so poor learn much besides reading and writing, and
thousands of the sons and daughters of rich or fairly well-to-do people
go to college, and spend years of their life in study. So that now, in
the twentieth century, English people are on the whole _educated_. But
it has taken a very long time to arrive at such a state of things as
this, and for hundreds of years after the Conquest, not only the poor,
but even the richer and quite rich people were ignorant. Very few men
except those who belonged to the Church studied at all. Thousands of the
rest could neither read nor write.
Now very naturally the Church considered that _religion_ at least must
in some way be taught and explained to these masses of ignorant folk.
Whatever else they knew, or did not know, it was necessary that they
should understand the faith they professed. They called themselves
Christians, yet how were people who could not read, to learn even the
Bible stories, or anything at all about the teaching of Christ?
“They might go to the churches,” you will say, perhaps, “where the Bible
would be read to them by the priests.” But _that_ would not do. For
remember that for hundreds of years after the Conquest the service was
always read in Latin, a language which very few people except lawyers,
priests, and scholars understood. No doubt, so far as they could, the
clergy privately explained the teaching of the Church to as many people
as they could reach. But thousands and thousands of them were never
reached privately at all. They just came to church on Sundays and on
Saints’ days, and went away without any real knowledge of what the
services meant.
It was a difficult problem, yet the monks and clergy conquered it. They
thought of a way of teaching for which no books were necessary. A way
moreover, by which hundreds of people could learn at the same time,
merely by using their eyes and their ears. The life of Christ, the lives
of the Saints, the whole Bible history, they discovered, could be
_shown_ to the people in the form of plays or acted stories. The clergy
should write the plays, they agreed, and the clergy themselves should
act them!
It was a clever idea, cleverly carried out. In various monasteries monks
began to write and to arrange such plays, to be acted in the churches on
special days, at special pauses in the service.
At first the religious scenes they prepared were very simple, and
performed chiefly in dumb show.
We know, for instance, of one little play that was acted about eight
hundred years ago in a church dedicated to S. Nicholas.
Now the priests of that church were naturally anxious for the people in
their charge to know as much as possible about the saint—their own
special saint, whose name they mentioned every time they spoke of the
church.
On the feast day of S. Nicholas therefore, before the service began,
they removed from its niche the stone image of the saint, and in its
place a priest stood, dressed as much like the statue as possible.
That was the beginning of the story. The rest had to be explained by
acting. Not only was S. Nicholas the special saint of children, he was
also the protector of travellers, and the play was meant to show how
powerful he was in this respect, and what miracles he could work for
those who put their trust in him.
The usual service was begun, and then, at a stated time, a pause was
made. The church doors were thrown open, and a priest dressed as a
traveller from a distant land, came in and bowed before the shrine of S.
Nicholas. The priest represented a heathen who had heard of the saint’s
power, and wanted to discover whether all he had been told was true. His
flowing robes and his jewelled turban showed the audience that he came
from a foreign land, and was not a Christian. Presently, from the folds
of his robe, this man took a rich treasure, and placing it at the feet
of the saint, told him that he was going on a journey, and prayed him to
guard the wealth he left in his keeping. Then he went his way out of the
church.
But no sooner had he departed, than other priests dressed as robbers,
crept in, and stealing up to the shrine, took the treasure and hurried
away with their booty. Meanwhile, the heathen, who felt uneasy about
leaving his wealth in the saint’s care, returned to make quite sure of
its safety and finding the treasure gone, began to storm and rave. He
was proceeding to beat and insult the image, when to his amazement it
moved! Stepping down from the niche, it went out to seek the robbers who
were hidden just outside the church. So terrified were they at the
approach of a living saint when as they thought, only a statue had
watched their theft, that they immediately restored the treasure, and
tremblingly followed S. Nicholas into the church. The heathen, overjoyed
and full of awe and wonder, fell at the saint’s feet. Then S. Nicholas
bade him become a Christian, and worship the true God.
So the play ended, and the interrupted service went on.
Simple as it was, the little scene no doubt persuaded the congregation
that S. Nicholas was a great and powerful personage, and the impression
it made upon them was one they were not likely to forget, because of the
strange and interesting manner in which the lesson was taught.
This is the first play we know anything about, but we may guess that
others more or less like it, began to be very popular, for we find from
old books—books written hundreds of years ago, that twice a year at
least, at Christmas and at Easter, the people were taught by means of
acting, two of the greatest events in the life of Christ.
Let us try to imagine a Christmas Eve in Westminster Abbey, long ago,
when Henry III was king. The Abbey was not nearly so large then as it is
to-day, for much of it has been built since. Yet the central part was
finished, and six hundred years ago people looked up at some of the same
soaring arches, and leant against some of the same pillars as those we
now see in the beautiful church.
The Abbey bells had been ringing for a long time, calling the Londoners
from their homes, and from the crooked narrow lanes of the city, through
the gates in the walls which then surrounded Westminster, there had come
flocking to the church a great crowd of gentle and simple folk. There
were merchants and shopkeepers, wearing hoods like jelly-bags with their
long points dangling at the back; ladies with strange fantastic
head-dresses; poor women and children muffled in cloaks; soldiers,
nobles, and monks of various orders. Some of them stood thronging the
aisles, others knelt on stools, or beside wooden benches.
The church was dark and mysterious. Only on the altars, candles blazed
like golden stars, and above them the arches rose stretching up into the
gloom overhead. The air was full of a sweet heavy scent—the scent of
incense.
Near the altar, surrounded by gleaming lights, the people could see a
rough cradle shaped like a manger, and beside it, dressed in long robes,
an image of the Virgin Mary.
Then from the side-doors leading to the space about the altar, there
entered, in twos and threes, men dressed as shepherds, holding crooks,
and driving before them real sheep. They were followed by dogs, who kept
the flock together, running round them, and ordering them in the
wonderful way of sheep-dogs. Some of the shepherds lay down as though to
sleep. Others watched their flock, wide awake and talking amongst
themselves.
Suddenly, while interested and curious the congregation looked on, a
blast of trumpets rang out, and before the startling sound had died
away, echoing through the aisles and the arches, an angel in a robe of
rose colour, with big white wings, appeared in the pulpit. Very sweet
and clear his voice sounded as he announced tidings of great joy.
_Christ was born in Bethlehem._
Then, somewhere from the darkness above, there followed, in a burst of
song, the voices of the angels.
“Glory to God in the highest,” they sang, “and on earth, peace, good
will toward men.”
Can you not imagine how the children gazed up through the gloom,
expecting to see the white-winged angels hovering down towards them? And
though the grown-up people knew that the music came from the singing
boys placed in a gallery high up over the windows, they too must have
felt that the message was a heavenly one, and many of them were filled
with awe. And now, when the beautiful voices were silent, the shepherds
began to crowd towards the altar. There, kneeling before the manger,
they adored the Baby and His Mother, and afterwards, walking in
procession through the church, past the watching crowd, they sang a hymn
of praise.
This was the scene which in numberless churches all over England took
place six hundred years ago on Christmas Eve, and even now a memory of
it dwells at Christmas-time in many churches.
Nearly every church in Roman Catholic countries gives up one of its
little chapels to a representation of the stable at Bethlehem. The
actors are no longer real, but figures of Joseph and Mary and the
shepherds take their place.
In Italy, the Christmas “manger scene” in the churches is often very
elaborate. I remember one in a church just outside Florence, before
which there was always a crowd of little children staring in delight.
The whole of a tiny chapel was turned into a sort of cave or grotto,
with winding paths from the heights, down which came figures to
represent the Wise Men from the East, with toy camels and leopards
following them. In the midst of the grotto there was a straw-filled
manger, and in it lay the Baby Jesus. The Virgin Mary with clasped hands
knelt beside it, and Joseph, leaning on his staff, looked over her
shoulder at the Child. A group of shepherds with crooks knelt near the
Holy Family, while their woolly toy flocks were huddled round them.
At Easter-time also, six hundred years ago, the people in England were
taught by means of acting that _Easter_ means the Resurrection of Christ
from the dead.
Before the altar, a grave was prepared, and at a certain part of the
service, choristers, representing the women who went to the sepulchre,
walked up the aisle, bearing the spices and the ointments. When they
arrived at the grave, they found seated beside it an angel, who said,
“Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen.”
Then the story as it is told in the Bible went on, acted by the clergy,
till one of them, representing Christ Himself, appeared to the rest,
announcing that He had risen from the grave. At this point the whole
choir burst into songs of “Alleluia,” and the play ended.
Like the “manger scene,” a memory of this old play persists in some
religious customs which still linger. In Italy, if you go to any of the
churches just before Easter, you will see in front of one of the altars
something that looks like a little garden of flowers. There are tubs of
blossoming shrubs; masses of tulips and daffodils and anemones, some in
pots, some in jars of water, and amongst the flowers you will find, cut
in wood perhaps, and painted to look as real as possible, the spear, the
nails, the cross—all the terrible things that were used at the
Crucifixion. And this little “arranged” plot of colour and scent is
called _The Sepulchre_. The Easter play is acted no more, but it is a
beautiful thought to make a _garden_ in memory of it, to show that death
is conquered. For the “sepulchre” holds not death, but life—the lovely
life of flowers.
This, you see, is another way of teaching people the meaning of the
Resurrection.
The first plays, then, were religious plays, and they were acted in
churches. But soon they grew so popular, and so many people crowded to
see them, that the churches were not large enough to contain the throng,
and by degrees the custom grew up of acting them _outside_ the church,
so that they might be seen by a much larger audience than the building
itself could hold.
From a very old play in which stage directions are given, we are able to
understand how the performance was arranged. The story of this play is
The Disobedience of Eve, and the loss of Paradise through her sin.
Just below one of the windows of the church, supported by scaffolding, a
platform was put up. From this platform, steps led to a lower stage, and
there was a space between this under platform and the ground.
Thus the church itself stood for Heaven. The first platform was
Paradise, the second Earth, and the space beneath it, Hell. So that when
God the Father descended from Heaven to walk in the garden of Paradise
“in the cool of the day,” the priest who represented Him, came from the
church window to the “Paradise” platform. And when Adam and Eve, having
tasted of the fruit, were driven out of the garden, they descended the
steps to the “Earth” stage, and at last to the space below which meant
Hell, where in the midst of clouds of smoke, and with great rattling of
chains, boys dressed as demons lay in wait for them.
A play such as this must have been a quaint and curious sight, and to us
who live so many years after the people who gazed at it from some
churchyard long ago, it seems childish and even occasionally horrible.
But we are in many ways unlike those homely folk who used to stand
open-mouthed in amazement before such a scene. We have read many books,
and our ideas about religion have changed so much that it is difficult
to imagine how greatly acting, even of this sort, must have impressed
the simple minds of men and women who had read nothing, and were often
full of fears and superstitions. They were like little children who have
to be taught in a way that will fix and hold their attention. Just as a
tiny boy or girl is taught its letters with bright and highly coloured
picture-blocks.
So far we have seen how these religious plays were at first acted in
churches, then came to be performed outside them. Now we shall discover
that a further change was presently to be made. As the years passed,
people began to expect more and more in the way of acting. They wanted
richer dresses for the players, more scenery, and bigger spaces for the
performances. Far from getting tired of these theatrical performances,
the taste for them grew, and greater and still greater throngs pressed
towards the churchyards every time a play was announced. You will
understand how disorder arose, and spread. Rough crowds spoilt the grass
in the churchyards, and trampled upon the graves, for the plays began to
be looked upon as amusements for a holiday, rather than as religious
ceremonies to be watched quietly and with reverence. So in time it was
felt that a churchyard was not a fit place for a boisterous throng. It
was too near the sacred building, which the people profaned with their
noise.
Yet if the plays were removed from the surroundings of the church, it no
longer seemed fitting that priests should take part in them. Thus it
happened that by the end of the thirteenth century, about the time when
Edward I was king, the clergy had left off acting, except at
Christmas-time and at Easter, when, as usual, the Nativity scene, and
the scene of the Resurrection were performed in the churches. Every
other sort of religious play was henceforward acted by the _laity_ (that
is, by people who, whatever they may be by trade or profession, are not
clergy). So a class of men grew up who were paid for acting, and often
gained their living in this way alone; and though the plays they acted
were still religious plays, the cost of them was borne by rich people,
and they were by degrees made into grand performances, as we shall see.
All through those years which are known as the Middle Ages it was the
custom for men who belonged to the same trade to form themselves into a
society, or _guild_ as it was called, to protect and help one another in
their own particular work. Each trade had its own guild, and its own
special saint as guardian. There was the Tanners’ Guild, the
Fishmongers’, the Carpenters’, the Armourers’, the Bakers’, and so
forth—too many of them to mention. Now many of these guilds in the
course of time had become very rich societies, and could afford to spend
a great deal of money upon anything that interested them. Plays
interested all the townsfolk immensely, and so even before the clergy
had quite left off acting in them, the guilds began to take the
management of these plays into their charge, paying the actors,
providing rich and costly dresses, such scenery as could in those days
be made, and everything in fact that is known as “stage property.”
The priests still _wrote_ the stories, but the acting and the whole
management of them passed into the care of the rich guilds.
_Miracle plays_ was the name given to these religious “acted stories,”
and very fortunately, four sets of Miracle plays have been found and
preserved, so that we can read the very words spoken by actors long ago
to audiences of eager and interested people.
These four sets are the York, Wakefield, Chester, and Coventry plays.
Each “set” includes a great many plays—in the York collection, for
instance, there are forty-eight—and year after year from the reign of
Edward III to the time of Henry VII they were acted at the four towns
mentioned. Not in these towns alone either, but all over England; for if
a city had no plays of its own it borrowed one of the York, Chester,
Wakefield, or Coventry set.
If we look at the York collection of Miracle plays, it will do as an
example of the rest. We find that it begins with the _Story of the
Creation of the World_, and all the chief stories of the Old and New
Testament follow in proper order. So that, even if he could not read,
any one who saw the whole series one after the other, would have a very
good idea of all the teaching of the Bible.
Now let us in thought go back to the Middle Ages, and try to picture the
scene in some old market-place, soon after Whitsuntide, the time when
Miracle plays were generally acted. To help us to do this, let us
imagine how the sight of them impressed two out of the thousands of
children who with their parents went to see these plays.
II
How Colin and Margery kept the Feast of Corpus Christi
Colin and Margery were two children who, five hundred years ago, lived
in the country, not far from York. Their father, who had a little farm,
held his land from the great lord whose castle with its battlements and
turrets stood up proudly on a neighbouring hill, and sometimes the
children had seen him when, with a great company of followers, he went
hawking, and rode past their cottage.
Now, except for the Lady Alicia, her young children, and a few
retainers, the castle stood empty. Its lord, with all his men-at-arms,
had gone to fight in the wars with France, for Henry V was king, and,
not content with ruling England, he wanted to be King of France as well.
The children’s father, Farmer Short, was not rich, but neither was he
very poor. The cottage in which he lived with his wife and his little
son and daughter was in those days considered comfortable.
It was built of stone, had low walls and a thatched roof, and the
kitchen, in which Colin and Margery slept, was paved with stone, and had
a wooden ceiling, which Farmer Short could easily touch with his hand.
Neither Colin nor Margery went to school. There was no school nearer
than York, some miles distant; and though Margery was nine and Colin
ten, they did not even know their letters, and all their lives they
never learnt to read. But without going to school there was plenty to do
all day long. Colin had to look after the cows and to help his father in
the fields; and every morning, besides learning to help her mother in
the house, Margery was sent out on to the common to watch the geese, and
to drive them back if they strayed too far.
One June evening both the children went to bed in a state of great
excitement. The next day was the Feast of Corpus Christi—a festival in
honour of the Lord’s Supper—and with their father and mother they were
to ride into York to see the Miracle plays. The last time they were in
church they had smiled at one another when they found it was Trinity
Sunday, because they knew that Corpus Christi would come on the
following Thursday, four days later. Now the great day was close at
hand, and, though they lay down on the little sacks of straw which
served them for beds, it was a long time before either of them slept.
Colin had once seen the plays, and his sister kept asking him questions
about them. What were they like? What did the people do? What did they
say? But Colin’s explanations did not satisfy her. He remembered a big
man dressed in bright clothes, who stamped and made a great noise, and
had a sword. He told her about angels with great white wings, and
something also about people with black faces and feathers and claws. But
Margery was very little the wiser; and presently, when she found her
brother’s voice growing drowsier and drowsier, she too curled round on
her straw bed and went to sleep.
It was light when she awoke, though the sun had not yet risen; and,
jumping up, she shook Colin, who directly he could be made to understand
that the day had come, also leaped from his bed and began to struggle
with the great bars of the kitchen-door. Just as he managed to undo them
and to throw open the door to make quite certain that the morning was
fine, his mother, Mistress Short, came clattering down the steps that
led from the upper room right into the kitchen.
She wore all her best things. A gown of grey material was looped high
over a girdle to show her red stockings and her buckled shoes. On her
head there was a white cap, indented over the forehead, and rising into
two wings on either side, while folds of linen were brought round her
neck under her chin. Over her arm she carried the children’s holiday
clothes, for this was a great occasion. The whole family was to spend
the day at the house of her husband’s sister, Mistress Harpham, a rich
glover’s wife in York, and Mistress Short was determined to make a good
appearance.
Colin and Margery were soon dressed, and if no idea of much washing
occurred to them, you must remember that they lived hundreds of years
ago, when soap and water were not considered so necessary as they are
now. They dipped their heads indeed, into a trough of water in the
farmyard just outside, and rubbing their faces with a cloth, were ready
to have the finishing-touches put to their clothes. In his long
stockings and little brown tunic, Colin looked quite charming, and
Margery was very proud of her green frock looped up over a girdle like
her mother’s. Both children wore little capes of linen, to which a hood
was attached, to be buttoned under the chin or left hanging, according
to the state of the weather.
Their mother had prepared a meal of cakes and ale, but they were almost
too excited to eat and drink, and it was not till their father, who had
gone to fetch the horses, appeared, riding on Dobbin and leading Jock,
that they could believe they were really going to start.
Margery was soon seated in front of her father on Dobbin’s broad saddle,
and Colin rode with his mother on Jock, the other farm-horse; and so,
long before the sun rose, they ambled out of the yard into a lane which
led to the high road to York.
The sky was clear, the larks were singing, and the wild roses in the
hedges were all wet with dew, as they rode under the arching trees.
Soon, however, they turned into the long white road, where already
groups of people, some on foot, some on horseback, others in wooden
carts, were wending their way to the city, whose walls and gates could
be seen in the distance.
Before long they were joined by several friends, and a company of ten or
twelve jogged along together, discussing the probable events of the day.
You might find it difficult to understand their conversation if you
could hear it now, for though these country people of course spoke
English, it was not the English of to-day. Though many of the words were
those we know well, there were others which have since fallen out of
use, or are pronounced differently; so if I put their talk into the
language to which we are accustomed, you must remember that though the
sense of it is the same, it was not spoken in just this way.
“Whereabouts does the first play begin?” asked Farmer Short, who had not
been to the city for a whole year.
“At the gates of the priory in Mikelgate,” said the man who rode next to
him.
Master Brigg was a townsman on a visit to his country relations, with
whom he was journeying.
“Next, at the door of Robert Harpham,” he went on. “Then at Skeldergate
End. After that, I don’t know. I’ve forgotten.”
Colin pricked up his ears.
“We shan’t have to wait long,” he whispered, leaning across to Margery.
“Aunt Harpham lives close to Mikelgate.”
“And who plays the _Creation_ this year?” his father was asking.
“The Plasterers,” replied Master Brigg.
“And _Adam and Eve_?”
“That I forget. But the Glovers have charge of _Cain and Abel_, and the
Shipwrights this year are giving _The Building of the Ark_.”
“A good thought! ’Tis the best play for shipwrights!” declared the
farmer, laughing. “I’ll be bound they’ll see it built well and truly.
What of _The Shepherds’ Play_?”
“The Chandlers have the care of that, and the Goldsmiths of _The Coming
of the Three Kings to Herod_.”
“That’s the man I told you about,” cried Colin. “The man that stamped,
and talked loud, and had a sword.”
“Oh, look!” interrupted Margery, excitedly. “We are coming quite close!
We shall soon be there!” And indeed, while they talked, the little
company had drawn near to the city, whose walls and frowning gates rose
up before them. In a very few minutes they had clattered under the
archway of Petergate, and the children found themselves in the city.
III
The Creation of the Angels, and the Fall of Lucifer
Margery, who had never been to any big town before, looked about her
with delight and amazement as they rode towards the inn where Dobbin and
Jock were to be left in the stables till the evening. The narrow streets
were paved with cobble-stones, and lined with houses which compared with
the little cottage at home, seemed to her marvellously grand and
imposing. They were built of plaster and timber, with gables curiously
carved, and as in many of them each story projected beyond the lower
one, the top windows on either side of the streets were close together,
so that opposite neighbours were near enough to shake hands. There was
such a crowd that the horses had to walk very slowly, pushing their way
amongst the people. Early as it still was, the whole city seemed to be
awake and astir, and the noise was deafening. Carts clattered over the
rough stones, their drivers shouting to the throng to make way. Boys
whistled and screamed, whips cracked; mothers called to their children
to keep close, and the whole crowd seemed to be moving in one direction.
“They are going to Mikelgate; that’s where the first play begins,”
called Colin, looking back over his shoulder. “Oh, father, make haste!
We shall be late.”
“Plenty o’ time! plenty o’ time!” declared Farmer Short. “Here we turn
in, at the sign of the ‘Dragon.’ Pull Jock’s head round, mother!”
They had now reached an archway, and following a procession of other
horses and carts, they soon found themselves in the big courtyard of the
inn, which had a wooden gallery upon which the living-rooms of the first
floor opened, running along three sides of it. Above the gallery there
was another story, surmounted by gabled roofs, with carvings upon them
of curious birds and beasts and hobgoblins. The blue sky formed the
ceiling over the courtyard.
A stableman ran to lift Margery from Dobbin’s back, and then to help
Mistress Short to dismount. Colin had slipped from the saddle by
himself, and his father following him, went to see that the horses were
as comfortably lodged as possible, for there were so many others that
there was scarcely room for them all in the stables.
The children waited impatiently till he reappeared, for they were to go
on foot to the house of Mistress Harpham, near Mikelgate.
“We shall be late! I know we shall be late!” Margery kept repeating till
her mother bade her be quiet.
“It will take at least an hour for the first play to reach the house of
your Aunt Harpham,” she assured her. “It has but just begun at
Mikelgate.”
But Margery was not happy till, having pushed their way out of the
throng in the courtyard, they found themselves on the way to their
kinswoman’s dwelling.
Master Harpham’s house appeared very grand to the children. It had a big
carved doorway leading to the shop, and the rooms above seemed to them
magnificently furnished, with their big oak chests, and their
high-backed chairs with leather seats, and the ornamented beams across
the ceiling. Mistress Harpham, a stout, rosy-faced dame, greeted them
very kindly, and called to her son to come and be introduced to his
little cousins.
“Giles is going to act!” she told them proudly. “But not yet. His turn
comes later. He is to be Isaac in the play of _Abraham’s Sacrifice_.”
Colin and Margery looked with awe and amazement upon their cousin. He
was a pretty boy of twelve, with fair hair hanging to his shoulders, and
a pale, delicate little face.
“Won’t you be frightened?” whispered Margery, gazing at him with
breathless interest.
“No; not very,” he said, laughing. “I have been in the plays before.
Last year I was an angel.”
“Take them to the window, Giles!” called his mother. “It’s time we were
in our seats. Little ones in the front; grown-ups at the back!”
The room was by this time full of townsfolk, invited by the glover and
his wife, and the first-floor windows, as well as the upper ones, were
crowded with people in holiday dresses; the women in snowy wimples, and
gowns of many colours; the men in tunics of russet brown or dull green.
Colin, Margery, and Giles sat on stools close to the window, and the
country children looked with interest at the scene before them. The
glover’s house was at the corner of the market-place, and the windows of
all the houses surrounding it were hung with gay cloths, and packed from
basement to roof with people.
Below, in the cobble-paved square, with a babel of noise and confusion,
the poorer folk crowded.
“There won’t be any room when the play _does_ come!” exclaimed Colin.
“The heralds will clear the way,” said Giles. “Last night it was such
fun to watch them! They rode through all the town reading the
proclamation. That’s a warning, you know, for every one to behave
properly to-day.”
“Oh, what did they say?” asked Margery, with interest.
“Well, they came to the market-place here, on horseback, with trumpets,
and one man shouted at the top of his voice. Let me see. What did he
say? I believe I can remember some of it. It was like this.... _Oyez.
We command, on the King’s behalf, and the Mayor and the Sheriffs of this
city, that no man go armed in this city with swords nor Carlisle axes,
nor none other defences in disturbance of the King’s peace and the play,
or hindering of the procession of Corpus Christi, and that they leave
their harness in their inns...._ I forget the words that came next, but
they meant that each guild was to act its play in proper order. And that
all manner of craftsmen who were responsible for a play should employ
‘good players well-arranged and openly speaking’ upon pain of a fine.
And all that sort of thing, you know.”
“I can’t think how you can remember it!” said Margery.
“Oh, when you act, you have a great deal to learn by heart, so you
_must_ have a good memory,” returned Giles, airily.
“Oh, look! look!” interrupted Colin. “Here they come! These are the
heralds, aren’t they?”
There was a stir and a swaying in the crowd, and all the people at the
windows began to crane their necks to see three or four horsemen, who
came riding down a narrow side-alley into the market-place, scattering
the throng, which pressed back before them. Then a silence fell.
“Oh, how beautiful they look!” Margery whispered. And indeed in their
tunics of blue and crimson, embroidered with gold, their horses also
decked in gay velvet trappings, the heralds, with their silver trumpets,
were quite magnificent.
One of them, after a long blast on his trumpet, had by this time begun
to announce the plays.
“Reverend lords and ladies all,
That at this time here assembled be,”
he chanted, and then went on to mention the subject of each play, and
the special guild by which it was to be acted.
The children exchanged delighted glances when the Parchment-makers’ and
Bookbinders’ Guild came in its place on the list, for in that play,
“Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac on an altar,” they were, of course,
specially interested.
At last, with another blast from the trumpets, the heralds clattered
away.
“The first pageant will be here in a minute,” said Giles. “It must be
nearly over at Mikelgate by this time. The heralds were late.”
“What are all those flags for?” asked Colin. He was looking down into
the market-place, where a great square was marked out by gay banners
stuck at intervals into the ground between the cobble-stones. Each
banner had the arms of the city painted upon it, and all the flags
fluttered bravely in the wind.
“They’re to mark the place where the pageant is to stand,” said Giles.
“It’s arranged like that all over the town. Wherever a platform is to be
placed, the banners are put to show the exact position.”
“Is Giles telling you all about it?” asked Master Harpham, leaning over
the shoulders of his friends at the window to pat Margery’s head. “Aye!
aye! You ask him anything you want to know, and I’ll warrant he’ll have
an answer ready. A fine fellow at the pageants is Giles! The Town
Council chose him out of a score of others to play Isaac. Aye, that they
did!” he added proudly, turning to the women who crowded behind the
children.
Margery looked up shyly at the big man, whom they had not seen before.
He had just come up from his shop in the basement to bring the news that
the first platform, or _pageant_, as every one called it, was on its
way; and now he was passing from group to group at the windows, greeting
his acquaintances in a loud, hearty voice, and inquiring whether every
one could see.
“Did you have to practise a long time for Isaac?” asked Margery, who
could not get over her awe at the knowledge that Giles was one of the
players.
“Oh, not so very long. We had about six rehearsals at the Town Hall. But
some of the people _were_ such a long time learning their parts!” said
Giles, sighing.
“It’s coming! it’s coming!” cried Colin; and every one turned eagerly to
the window.
Down below in the square there was a swaying amongst the crowd, and a
great murmur of expectation as at the corner of the market-place, a huge
object came into view, towering high above the heads of the people. It
was preceded by a body of young men, who pressed back the crowd with
clubs or with the flat sides of their swords, so as to clear the space
marked out by the banners.
“Who are all these people with clubs and swords?” inquired Colin
excitedly, while Margery’s eyes were fixed on the swaying blue canvas
that was approaching.
“They are the apprentices of the guild—the Tanners’ Guild, you
know”—Giles explained. “The apprentices of each guild have to keep the
crowd in order, and some of them have to drag the pageant along. Here
they come! That’s Master Smith pulling in front. We know him well. And
there’s Robin Coke next to him!”
The throng in the market-place was now well enough ordered for the
pageant to be clearly visible, and the children saw a big wooden stage
of two platforms, one above the other.
It ran upon huge wheels, and in front there were ropes, which were
passed round the waists of eight or ten men, who were pulling with all
their might.
On it came, jolting over the cobble-stones of the market-square till the
men ceased to pull, and the double platform stopped just in front of the
window at which the children sat.
The upper stage was just on a level with their eyes, and Margery clasped
her hands in delight.
“We’ve got the best place of all!” she whispered to her brother.
As yet the curtains of the upper platform were close drawn, and she had
time to look at the whole car before the play actually began.
The lower half, she noticed, was all covered in by brightly-coloured
painted cloths, so that nothing of the interior could be seen.
“That’s where the players dress,” Giles told her. “And there are
trap-doors and steps leading from it to the upper part, which is the
stage, you know. And——.”
But the curtains were now pulled aside, disclosing what seemed to the
children a grand and beautiful scene. A canopy, painted deep blue to
represent the sky, stretched above the head of an imposing figure seated
upon a gilt throne.
Those of you who have seen pictures of popes, can imagine the dress of
the player who represented Almighty God. He wore a mitre upon his head,
over hair that was made stiff with gold. His beard was also of stiff
gold, and his robes were magnificently embroidered and clasped with
jewels. In his hand he held a jewelled sceptre. The floor at his feet
was strewn with rushes, and at first there was nothing on the stage but
this stately figure, over-arched by the blue sky.
Then he spoke, chanting in a grave full voice, so that the sound of it
reached over the market-place; and these were his words, put into the
kind of English we speak to-day. Below on this page you will find them
as they were then written.
“I am gracious and great, God without beginning;
I am maker unmade, all might is in me;
I am life and way unto salvation winning;
I am foremost and first; as I bid shall it be.
My blessing of face shall be blinding,
And descending from harm to be hiding,
My body in bliss ever abiding,
Unending without any ending.”
“I am gracyus and grete, God without you begynning;
I am maker unmade, all mighte es in me;
I am lyfe and way unto welth wynnyng;
I am foremaste and fyrste, als I bid sall it be.
My blyssing of ble sall be blending,
And held and fro harme to be hydande,
My body in blys ay abydande,
Une dande withouten any endyng.”
Then, with other grave words, the Lord began the work of Creation. First
He brought into existence the angels, summoning them in nine orders of
rank and power, each order greater and more powerful than the last. One
after another they appeared from a platform at the back of the stage,
wearing coats of gilded skin, over which long robes hung to their feet.
Golden wings were fastened to their shoulders, and on their foreheads
diadems sparkled.
Then, greatest of all, and more beautiful and resplendent than the rest,
came Lucifer.
On him the Almighty conferred dignity and honour above all the other
spirits He had created. He was the Star of the Morning, the great and
splendid archangel.
But Lucifer, filled with pride, soon began to contend before God. He
claimed still higher powers than those which had been granted him,
trying to make himself the equal of the Almighty.
Then at last God spoke his sentence of banishment, and he and the angels
who worshipped him, were cast down from heaven.
“_O Lucifer, Star of the Morning, how art thou fallen!_” is a beautiful
line in the Bible, which alludes to the disgrace and banishment which
the audience now saw acted before their eyes.
Shortly after the fall of Lucifer, the curtains of the pageant closed
upon the scene of God enthroned, surrounded by the good angels singing
their praises to the one and only deity.
Margery, who had looked and listened in amazed delight, drew a long
breath when this first play was over. Colin, no less excited, began at
once to talk and to ask questions.
“Look! they are dragging the stage away!” he exclaimed, “There’s the man
you called Robin Coke, and there’s Master Smith, pulling with all his
might. Where are they going to take it now?”
“In front of John Gyseburn’s door; that’s where it’s played next,” said
Giles. “That’s his son, Matthew Gyseburn, the lawyer,” he added,
pointing out a man who stood at the other window.
“See!” called Margery. “Here comes another pageant. What is this,
Giles?”
“Still the _Creation_. The earth is made now, and the birds and fishes
and all the animals. This is the Plasterers’ pageant. Yesterday John
Wiseman showed me all the pigeons he had got for it.”
“Pigeons?” echoed Colin.
“You’ll see,” said Giles, nodding. “I wonder whether I ought to go?” he
added, looking back anxiously at his mother. “They’ll be doing the third
play now at Mikelgate, as the second one has just reached us.”
“Plenty of time,” declared Mistress Harpham, reassuringly. “You needn’t
go for another hour yet, my boy.”
Meanwhile Colin and Margery were already absorbed in the second pageant,
which, drawn as before by men (this time by the Plasterers’
apprentices), had stopped in the same place just beneath the window.
IV
The Making of Sun, Moon, and Stars: of Birds, Beasts, and Fishes: of
Man and Woman. The Garden of Eden
When the curtains were drawn aside, another figure, representing God
Almighty, was seen seated on a golden throne. When He spoke, it was to
bid the earth take shape; and as He uttered commands, various painted
cloths were unrolled, falling one over the other to form a background to
His throne.
First, He commanded the light to be divided from the darkness.
At the word, a curtain, half of which was black, the other half white,
fell from the canopy overhead down to the rush-strewn floor.
When He bade two great lights appear, “the greater light to rule the day
and the lesser light to rule the night,” when “He made the stars also,”
a painted sky was unrolled with the sun, the moon, and the stars upon
it, and a picture of the sea, with fish swimming in it, followed the
words, “Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that
hath life.”
“Now the birds are coming!” whispered Giles, just before the command
that fowl should “fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.”
Almost as he spoke, a flight of pigeons rose into the air, first
fluttering a moment above the pageant, then wheeling off in many
directions, while the crowd watched them open-mouthed.
“John Wiseman had them ready in a basket!” Giles eagerly explained. “He
is standing on the platform at the back of the stage, behind the sky,
you know; and he let them out just at the right moment, didn’t he? There
ought to have been a lot of other birds, but they are difficult to get.
You see what the direction says?”—he pointed to a page in a
parchment-covered book which he held, but Colin and Margery shook their
heads and looked with respect at their cousin, who could actually read!
They remembered that Giles was said to be a great scholar, and was
probably going to be a priest when he grew up. That, of course,
accounted for his learning.
“I’ll read it to you,” said the boy, remembering that his cousins knew
nothing of books. “The words of the pageant are here, and all the stage
directions, just as Robert Crowe, who wrote out the play for the
Plasterers, has copied them. This is what it says about the birds—_Then
one ought in secret to put little birds flying in the air and alighting
upon the_ _earth with the most foreign birds that one is able to
procure._”
“That’s all very well,” remarked Giles, closing the book; “but it’s
difficult. So they had to make pigeons do.”
“But they were so pretty!” Margery said. She did not mind talking for a
little while now, for there were no more painted scenes to look at, and
she scarcely understood the speech which followed the command for
“cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth” to come into
existence.
In a moment however, her attention was again arrested, for the curtains
were drawn, the pageant was pulled away, and, before it had disappeared,
a new one, the third, had come into sight.
“This is the _Cardmakers’_ play,” said Giles, consulting his pageant
book. “It is about God the Father creating Adam and Eve.”
“Cardmakers?” Margery asked, rather puzzled at the name. As a country
child she did not know all the trades of the town guilds.
“They are the people who make the cards for the wool to be combed on,
before it is made up into stuffs, you know,” Giles told her.
“Then comes the _Fullers’_ play,” he went on, reading from the book,
“God forbidding Adam and Eve to eat of the Tree of Life. Afterwards the
_Coopers_ do Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden; and the serpent
deceiving them with apples; and God speaking to them and cursing the
serpent, and with a sword driving them out of Paradise.”
“Come, children! you must be hungry!” called Mistress Harpham at this
moment. “Come and have something to eat.”
Margery turned reluctantly from the window, where, on the scaffolding,
the third play was just beginning; and her aunt laughed.
“Bless the child! You can’t sit looking at the pageants all day without
food!” she exclaimed. “There are plenty more of ’em in all conscience.
Come along now. Giles will have to go when he’s eaten something. He must
soon be starting for his play.”
By this time all of the guests were seated at trestle-tables, which had
been placed at the back of the room and spread with all sorts of food.
There were huge joints, and fat capons, and plenty of ale, to which the
guests did ample justice.
Colin and Margery, with Giles between them, were squeezed in at one of
the tables, and soon discovered that they were very hungry. There was a
great clattering of plates and knives, and a babel of conversation. The
pageants already seen, were criticized, praised, or condemned, and
compared with those of the preceding year; and all the guests politely
declared how they were looking forward to the play of the
Parchment-makers and Bookbinders, the guild to which their host
belonged.
“How is it that Giles is allowed to be here, and not with his company?”
inquired the grave but kind-looking man whom Giles had pointed out as
Matthew Gyseburn, the lawyer.
“The council gave him special permission to stay at home till the fifth
pageant was on its way,” explained his mother. “My husband is an
important man on the Town Council, as you know,” she added proudly. “And
you see, Giles isn’t a _paid_ player! He acts for the love of it—bless
him. And he’s none too strong,” she added, lowering her voice. “Those
hours of waiting would make him ill. But as soon as ever this Coopers’
pageant moves off, his father will take him to join his company and help
him to dress.”
“Are you going?” asked Margery sadly, as Giles got up from the table.
“I’m so sorry. There won’t be any one to tell us all about it now, and I
shan’t understand!”
“You shall sit by me, little mistress and master,” said the good-natured
lawyer, smiling. “I’ll do my best to make up for Giles. Here, boy! leave
me the ‘pageant-book,’ in case I’m asked more questions than I know how
to answer.”
Giles gave him the book, and, then anxiously pulling his father by the
arm, forced him to get up.
“So afraid he’ll be late!” cried Master Harpham, laughing. “There’s
heaps of time; but perhaps we’d better be starting.”
“Will you ever get through the crowd?” asked a woman anxiously.
“Oh, we know all the backways; don’t we, Giles? We shall slip along the
side-alleys in no time, up to where his pageant is waiting. See you
again, neighbours!” He nodded to the company, and, pushing Giles before
him, went out.
“May we go to the window now?” begged Margery, who could hear the
players talking, and was longing not to miss too many of the plays.
“To be sure, my dears, if you have had enough to eat,” said Mistress
Harpham.
The children ran to their places, and found the Coopers’ play going on.
This pageant, they noticed, had _three_ rooms or stages one beneath the
other. On the highest, or Heaven stage, sat God Almighty; beneath it, in
the Garden of Eden, were Adam and Eve; and the third, still lower stage,
represented Earth.
But the children’s attention was riveted on the second stage, round
which branches of trees and flowers were placed to represent a garden.
In the midst was the Tree of Life, with golden fruit upon it, and in the
shadow of the tree there was a strange group. Adam and Eve, both of whom
were played by tall boys dressed in close-fitting skins dyed
flesh-colour, were talking to a huge serpent who, coiled round the trunk
of the tree, was tempting them.
“There must be some one speaking inside him,” exclaimed Margery. “He’s
big enough to hide a boy at least—isn’t he?”
“Hush!” said Colin; “listen to what he’s saying.”
The serpent’s great head was turned towards Eve, and his voice was full
of persuasion. “Ye shall not surely die!” he told her; “for God doth
know that in the day ye eat thereof then your eyes shall be opened, and
ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”
Then Eve looked longingly at the golden fruit, and hesitated.
“She’s going to pick it!” whispered Margery.
“Yes! look! She has broken off a branch, and she’s giving the fruit to
Adam. Now she’s talking to him.”
“And now they’re eating the apples!” cried Colin; “and God will be
angry! They know He will be angry. See, they’re hiding themselves. They
can hear His voice!”
And presently, while they watched, God Almighty came down the steps
which led from Heaven to Paradise, and entered the garden. Here he
questioned Adam and Eve, and afterwards turned to the serpent and cursed
him. Then, holding a flashing sword above the heads of the guilty man
and woman, He told them of their punishment; and finally drove them
weeping from the garden, down to the earth, upon which they were
henceforth to live.
The Armourers’ pageant was by this time waiting its turn at the corner
of the market-place, and when the Coopers’ scaffold was dragged away it
speedily took its place.
“Now we shall see Adam and Eve’s life on the earth,” said the lawyer,
who had come to the window, and was standing just behind the children.
The curtains before the stage were drawn back, and Adam and Eve, no
longer happy and light-hearted, were seen on the earth, where henceforth
they had to work in sorrow and suffering. As they sadly talked together,
an angel with golden wings appeared to them. To Adam he gave a spade,
bidding him till the ground, and to Eve a distaff, commanding her to
work for her household.
The Glovers’ play came next. The characters in it were Cain and Abel,
and the story told of the murder of Abel by Cain, and of Cain’s
punishment.
It was all very interesting to the children, but they were looking
forward so eagerly to the following pageant that they could not refrain
from glancing every now and again towards the corner of the market-place
at which it would appear.
Noah’s ark was the subject, and the lawyer, Master Gyseburn, had told
them it would be an amusing play.
It did not seem strange to any of the people assembled that a few of the
plays should be written on purpose to make the audience laugh. It had
long been the custom to make into comic scenes one or two of the Bible
stories in which no sacred characters appeared. The monks who wrote the
plays remembered how long and how patiently the crowd had to stand, and
they thought that if the people sometimes laughed, their attention would
be kept fresh for the more serious part of the Bible teaching.
So Colin and Margery heard without surprise and with joyful anticipation
that Noah’s wife would be very funny. They were exceedingly anxious also
to see the ark, which Master Gyseburn described as a wonderful piece of
work.
There was altogether a good deal of excitement about the two following
plays, and much conversation concerning them went on amongst the guests
assembled at Master Harpham’s.
“They are not our plays—the York plays—at all, are they?” asked a pretty
young girl who sat near Margery.
“No,” returned a neighbour; “I hear they are both borrowed from Chester,
because they are better than our own pageants.”
“’Tis very fitting that Noah’s ark should be performed by the
Shipwrights and Mariners!” said Master Gyseburn. “If they don’t
understand seafaring business, who should?”
“Here it comes!” shouted Colin, and every one gazed eagerly at the
approaching pageant, which was drawn by the Shipwrights’ apprentices.
V
Noah’s Ark
It paused, as usual, just beneath Master Harpham’s window.
“Why, there’s no ark!” exclaimed Margery, in a disappointed tone.
“Wait a bit!” Colin warned her. “It’s behind those curtains at the back,
I expect. Noah has first to be told to build it, you see.”
Colin was right, for the play began with God’s announcement to Noah that
the Deluge was approaching, and His command that a ship should be built.
Then Noah, a venerable old man with a long white beard, praised God for
the warning, and spoke as follows:
“O Lorde, I thank Thee lowde and still,
That to me arte in suche will,
And spares me and my howse to spill,
As I now southly [truly] fynde.
Thy byddinge, Lorde, I shall fulfill,
And never more Thee greve nor grill [provoke]
That such grace hath sent me till,
Amongst all mankinde.”
Noah’s sons and their wives now entered, and the old man turned to them
and told them of the flood that was coming:
“Have done, you men and women all,
Hye you, lest this watter fall
To worche [work] this shippe chamber and hall
As God hath bidden us doe,”
he said.
For the first time now, Noah’s wife came in, and her appearance was
greeted by a roar of laughter from the crowd in the market-place and at
the windows. The people understood that she was meant to be a very
bad-tempered lady, and both her dress and her face were meant to make
them laugh. The part was of course acted by a man (no woman ever acted
in those days), and the player was a good actor whom every one knew.
At first the wife did not speak, though all the time her behaviour was
amusing. Meanwhile the sons declared themselves ready to help with the
ark.
“Father” (said Shem), “I am already bowne [prepared],
An axe I have, by my croune!
As sharp as any in all this toun
For to go thereto.”
Then Ham spoke:
“I have a hatchet, wonder keen
To bite well, as may be seen,
A better ground one, as I ween,
Is not in all this toun.”
Japhet also intended to do his best:
“And I can well make a pin,
And with this hammer knock it in,
Go and work without more din,
And I am ready bowne [prepared].”
But Noah’s wife at once showed by her grumbling speech that she was
obstinate, and did not intend to do much work:
“And we shall bring timber too,
For women nothing else to do;
Women be weak to undergo
Any great travail,”
she declared.
At last, to the children’s delight, the curtains at the back of the
stage parted, and they saw the ark. It was already very substantially
built, for of course in the few minutes at the actors’ disposal they
could do no more than _pretend_ to hammer and plane and saw. Indeed all
the time that it was not in use, this ark hung in one of the churches in
York, slung to the beams across the nave, from which place of safety it
was every year taken down to do duty in the pageant.
Margery and Colin gazed with admiration upon the big ship, which was
very much like the Noah’s arks we see nowadays in the toy-shops, only of
course enormously larger. It was roofed in at the top, and gaily
painted. There were little windows along the sides that opened and
showed glimpses of rooms within. A mast with sails and rigging appeared
above the roof, and altogether a more satisfactory and interesting ark
can scarcely be imagined.
Noah and his sons began at once to work very busily, as though they were
really building, Noah in these words explaining all there was to do:
“Now in the Name of God I will begin
To make the ship that we shall in,
That we be ready for to swim
At the coming of the flood.
These boards I join together,
To keep us safe from the weather,
That we may roam both hither and thither,
And safe be from this flood.
Of this tree will I have the mast,
Tied with cables that will last.
With a sail-yard for each blast,
And each thing in its kind.
With topmast high and bowsprit,
With cords and ropes I hold all fit
To sail forth at the next weete [tide]
This ship is at an end.”
The ark, now finished by the pretended labours of the men, Noah turned
to his wife and family.
“Wife” (he said), “in this castle we shall be kept;
My children and thou I would in leaped.”
But Noah’s wife immediately began to show her temper. She had been
looking all the time with scorn upon the building of the ship, and
laughing with her neighbours, or “gossips,” as she called them, to see
her husband and her sons working, as she considered, so foolishly; and
when Noah begged her to come into safety, this was her contemptuous
answer:
“In faith, Noe, I had as lief thou had slept,
For all thy frankishfare [nonsense],
For I will not do after thy rede [advice].”
“Good wife, do as I thee bid,”
said Noah, coaxingly.
“By Christ not, or I see more need,
Though thou stand all the day and rave,”
she replied, while the crowd broke into roars of laughter to see the
husband and wife quarrelling.
“Lord, that women be crabbed ay!”
exclaimed Noah, amid fresh laughter,
“And never are meek, that I dare say.
This is well seen of me to-day,
In witness of you each one.
Good wife, let all this beere [noise]
That thou makest in this place here;
For they all ween thou art master,
And so thou art, by St. John!”
But here, in order to attend to the various animals which had to be
taken into the ark, Noah was obliged to cease arguing for a time; and
the way in which this difficult business of the animals was represented,
greatly amused and interested the children.
Each of Noah’s sons and daughters-in-law mentioned the names of many
birds and beasts, and as they named them, they held up great figures
painted on parchment, and cut out to represent the various creatures of
which they spoke.
_Shem_ began the list:
“Sir, here are lions, leopards in,
Horses, mares, oxen, and swine,
Goats, calves, sheep, and kine
Here sitten [settled] may you see.”
“Oh, look at the lion!” exclaimed Margery. “Isn’t he beautiful? And the
pig, Colin! Did you ever see such a fat pig in your life?”
_Ham_ had now begun to show the animals in his charge:
“Camels, asses, men may find;
Buck, doe, hart, and hind,”
he chanted, holding up the figure of each beast before putting it in the
ark.
“Take here cats and dogs too (said _Japhet_),
Otter, fox, fulmart also;
Hares hopping gaily, can ye
Have kail here for to eat.”
Presently also Noah’s wife, very scornfully laughing, showed _her_
animals:
“And here are bears, wolves set,
Apes, owls, marmoset;
Weasels, squirrels, and ferret,
Here they eat their meat,”
she said.
Shem’s wife then went on with the list of creatures, first exclaiming at
their number:
“Yet more beasts are in this house!
Here cats come in full crowse [comfort],
Here a rat and here a mouse,
They stand nigh together.”
Margery wondered how the cats would get on with the rats and mice, but
Shem’s wife offered no explanation, and immediately after her followed
the wife of Ham:
“And here are fowls, less and more (she declared),
Herons, cranes, and bittern;
Swans, peacocks, have them before! [in front]
Meat for this weather.”
“Here are cocks, kites, crows (said Japhet’s wife),
Rooks, ravens, many rows;
Cuckoos, curlews, whoso knows,
Each one in his kind.
And here are doves, ducks, drakes,
Redshanks, running through the lakes—
And each fowl that language makes
In this ship men may find.”
At length, after the animals had all gone safely into the ark, Noah, to
the huge delight of the crowd, turned again to his wife, and once more
began to urge her to enter.
“Wife, come in, why standest thou there? (he entreated).
Thou art ever forward, that I dare swear;
Come on God’s half [behalf], time it were,
For fear lest that we drown.”
But the foolish woman could not be persuaded. Nothing would induce her
to enter the ark, she declared, unless her “gossips” were allowed to
come too; and that, as we know from the story of the Flood, was
forbidden, since only Noah and his family were allowed to embark.
“Yes, sir; set up your sail (said she),
And row forth with evil heale,
For without any fail
I will not out of this town;
But I have my gossips every one,
One foot further I will not go.
They shall not drown, by S. John!
If I may save their life.
They loved me full well, by Christ!
But thou wilt let them in thy chest,
Else row forth, Noah, whither thou list,
And get thee a new wife.”
“It’s rather nice of her to want to save her friends, though—isn’t it?”
exclaimed Margery, who was breathlessly interested.
“I don’t believe she cares a bit about them, really,” said Colin. “She
only wants to be obstinate, and to make a fuss.”
“Now what are they doing? Will she be left behind?” asked Margery,
anxiously.
“No,” said Master Gyseburn. “You see, Noah is sending his sons to make
her go in. Listen to what Japhet says. He is just going to speak to
her.”
“Mother (begged Japhet), we pray you altogether,
For we are here, your children;
Come into the ship for fear of the weather.”
“She won’t go! she won’t go!” cried Margery.
“Noah’s sending Shem to her again! There! he’s lifted her right in!”
Colin exclaimed. “Oh, isn’t she angry!”
The people all round were laughing so much by this time, that the
children could only just hear Shem’s words as he carried his mother up
the plank into the ark:
“In faith, mother, yet you shall,
Whether you will or not!”
“Welcome, wife, into this boat!” (cried Noah.)
“And have, then, that for thy note!” [trouble]
she returned, boxing her husband’s ears.
At this outbreak the crowd again shouted with laughter, and went on
laughing still more when Noah put his hands to his ears, moaning and
complaining. By degrees, however, as the flood was supposed to rise
higher and higher, he and his wife were quieted.
“Over the land the water spreads! (Noah explained.)
Now all this world is in a flood,
As I see well in sight,
This window will I close anon,
And into my chamber will I gone.”
The children eagerly watched him as, one after one, he closed the
windows of the ark, shutting in all the little company of people and all
the beasts and birds that were to be saved.
“Now you must imagine that the ark is floating on the water!” said
Master Gyseburn, smiling at Colin and Margery, who found no difficulty
at all in doing so. “The windows will be shut for a little while, and we
have to pretend that forty days have passed before Noah opens them
again. Soon we shall hear him singing, and then we shall see him once
more.”
In a few moments, indeed, voices were heard within the ark, upraised in
a psalm of praise; and when it was ended the windows were slowly slipped
back, and at one of them stood Noah, a leaden weight fastened to a long
cord in his hand.
“What’s that for?” asked Colin. “What is he going to do?”