Chapter 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.