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.

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:

Noah’s sons and their wives now entered, and the old man turned to them and told them of the flood that was coming:

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.

Then Ham spoke:

Japhet also intended to do his best:

But Noah’s wife at once showed by her grumbling speech that she was obstinate, and did not intend to do much work:

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:

The ark, now finished by the pretended labours of the men, Noah turned to his wife and family.

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:

said Noah, coaxingly.

she replied, while the crowd broke into roars of laughter to see the husband and wife quarrelling.

exclaimed Noah, amid fresh laughter,

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:

“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:

he chanted, holding up the figure of each beast before putting it in the ark.

Presently also Noah’s wife, very scornfully laughing, showed her animals:

she said.

Shem’s wife then went on with the list of creatures, first exclaiming at their number:

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:

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.

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.

“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.”

“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:

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.

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?”

“Ah! he’s going to ‘cast the lead’ in proper fashion, just as sailors do when they want to find out how deep the sea is,” explained Master Gyseburn. “Don’t forget that this is the Shipwrights’ pageant, and they are learned in all seafaring business, as you may imagine.”

“Yes! he’s unwinding the line!” cried Colin; “and I suppose he finds that the water has gone down? He can see the tops of the mountains now—can’t he?”

“The whole of the mountains, I should think!” returned Master Gyseburn, laughing. “Listen! he’s going to speak.”

“Oh! he’s going to let out a real raven!” said Margery joyfully. “What a big black thing! Look, how he’s clapping his wings!”

“There!—now he’s flown!” exclaimed Colin. “He’s gone right over the roofs of those houses opposite. See how the people are staring after him. He’ll never come back again!”

“But the dove will!” declared Margery excitedly. “Noah’s going to let a dove fly now. He’s talking to him—see!”

said Noah, as he threw the bird up into the air.

“It won’t be the same bird that comes back—will it?” asked Colin, looking up at Master Gyseburn, who smiled again.

“No—there’s another dove already fastened with a cord from the top of the stage. We shall see it in a minute!” And, sure enough, while he was speaking, the bird came fluttering down, almost into Noah’s hands.

“Oh! it’s got the olive-branch in its beak!” exclaimed Margery. “That shows that the trees are out of the water—doesn’t it?”

“Yes; listen—then you will hear Noah saying that the flood has gone down.”

By this time all the windows in the ark were open, disclosing the whole family, including Noah’s wife, who looked much subdued.

“She’s glad she’s saved now!” Margery remarked. “Look!—they’re all coming out, and God is talking to them.”

“He is promising that the rainbow shall be a sign from heaven that the earth shall never more be drowned,” said Master Gyseburn. “It’s all over now. Look!—the men are dragging the pageant away to the next halting-place.”

“And now it’s Abraham and Isaac!” said Margery joyfully.

VI
The Story of Abraham and of Isaac

Both the children looked anxiously in the direction from which all the pageants coming from the gates of the Priory, approached the market-place.

“It isn’t in sight yet!” said Colin in surprise, for hitherto one pageant had followed swiftly upon another.

“Oh! but here’s a man on horseback, dressed splendidly!” Margery cried. “What is he going to do?”

“He’s part of the play,” Master Gyseburn explained. “He is a messenger who is going to tell us what it’s all about.”

By this time the rider, who came from a side-street, was clattering over the stones of the market-place. Just beneath the window he drew up his horse, and, raising his plumed cap, began in these words to address the multitude:

Setting spurs to his horse, the messenger, a brilliant figure in a doublet of sapphire blue laced with gold, and long crimson hose, rode away, disappearing at the opposite corner of the market-place from that at which he had entered.

And now another figure came into view, also riding.

This was a stately man in long robes, wearing a curious turban of linen.

“Is that Abraham?” asked Colin. “But where is Isaac?”

“He doesn’t come yet,” answered Master Gyseburn. “The story, you see, begins long before Isaac is born. Abraham has just returned from his victory over the four kings. Listen! He is explaining how the kings took his nephew Lot prisoner, and how he released him, and conquered the kings.”

“Now there’s another man coming on horseback!” said Margery. “Oh! look how beautifully he is dressed, with rubies on his gown, and on the thing that comes over his forehead. Who is he?”

“That’s Melchizedek, King of Salem, and priest of the Most High God. He is coming to bless Abraham for conquering the kings, and to give him bread and wine.”

“Yes! A servant is holding up a golden cup to him and a golden plate!” said Colin. “And now he’s going to give the bread and wine to Abraham, I suppose.”

This duly happened as Colin had guessed, for Melchizedek, reining up his horse close to Abraham, began to speak, offering him presently the golden cup and platter: