Chapter 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.