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+Project Gutenberg's The Children's Book of London, by Geraldine Edith Mitton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Children's Book of London
+
+Author: Geraldine Edith Mitton
+
+Release Date: June 15, 2008 [EBook #25804]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHILDREN'S BOOK OF LONDON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Bruce Albrecht, Martin Pettit and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The CHILDREN'S BOOK of LONDON
+
+BY
+
+G. E. MITTON
+
+WITH EIGHT FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
+
+
+A. & C. BLACK, LTD., 4, 5 & 6 SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W.1
+
+
+[Illustration: THE TOWER BRIDGE.]
+
+
+PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
+
+_First Published 1903_
+
+
+TO
+
+RENA, CU, AND ELFIE
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+LONDON AS IT IS
+
+
+CHAPTER                                                    PAGE
+
+    I. LONDON CHILDREN                                        3
+
+   II. LONDON                                                16
+
+  III. THE KING'S PALACES                                    29
+
+   IV. TRAINS AND HORSES                                     42
+
+    V. CHILDREN AT SCHOOL                                    52
+
+   VI. LONDON MARKETS                                        64
+
+  VII. CHILDREN'S HOSPITALS                                  77
+
+ VIII. STREETS AND SHOPS                                     89
+
+   IX. DOGS AND CATS                                        105
+
+    X. ODDS AND ENDS                                        115
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+HISTORICAL STORIES
+
+
+   XI. KING EDWARD V                                        131
+
+  XII. TOURNAMENTS AND PAGEANTS                             154
+
+ XIII. SIR THOMAS MORE                                      165
+
+  XIV. LADY JANE GREY                                       182
+
+   XV. GUNPOWDER PLOT                                       196
+
+  XVI. CHARLES I                                            204
+
+ XVII. THE GREAT PLAGUE AND FIRE                            222
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+THE SIGHTS OF LONDON
+
+
+XVIII. THE TOWER OF LONDON                                  241
+
+  XIX. THE TOWER OF LONDON--_continued_                     257
+
+   XX. THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS                               270
+
+  XXI. THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS--_continued_                  289
+
+ XXII. THE BRITISH MUSEUM                                   303
+
+XXIII. THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM                           311
+
+ XXIV. WESTMINSTER ABBEY, ST. PAUL'S, AND THE CENOTAPH      332
+
+  XXV. THE MINT, THE BANK, AND THE POST OFFICE              353
+
+ XXVI. THE LORD MAYOR'S SHOW AND OTHER THINGS               370
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+THE TOWER BRIDGE                                 _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                    FACING PAGE
+
+QUEEN VICTORIA MEMORIAL AND BUCKINGHAM PALACE                30
+
+TRAFALGAR SQUARE                                            132
+
+THE TRAITORS' GATE, TOWER OF LONDON                         180
+
+THE CENOTAPH, WHITEHALL                                     216
+
+ST. MARY-LE-STRAND AND BUSH HOUSE                           244
+
+THE CORONATION CHAIR, WESTMINSTER ABBEY                     340
+
+ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL                                        348
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+LONDON AS IT IS
+
+THE CHILDREN'S BOOK OF LONDON
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+LONDON CHILDREN
+
+
+To begin with, the streets of London are not paved with gold; but I need
+not have said that, for nowadays the very youngest child knows it. It
+was Dick Whittington who first imagined anything so foolish; but then he
+was only a country lad, and in his days there were not the same
+opportunities for finding out the truth about things as there are now.
+There were very few books for one thing, and those there were cost a
+great deal of money, and would hardly be likely to come in Dick's way;
+so that if there was by chance a book which described London as it was
+then, it is not at all probable that he would have seen it. There were
+no photographs, either, to show him what London was really like, so, of
+course, he had to make up ideas about it himself, just as you who live
+in the country and have heard people talking about London do now. Are
+the stories you invent at all like the stories Dick Whittington made up
+for himself? You can't answer because you're not writing this book, so I
+must answer for you. Perhaps you think London is a place where there are
+no lessons to do, and where there is always a great deal of fun going
+on; where you can go to see sights all day long; the huge waxwork
+figures at Madame Tussaud's, as big as real people; and lions and tigers
+and elephants and bears at the Zoo; and you think that the boys and
+girls who live in London spend all their time in seeing wonderful
+things.
+
+If this is what you think, some of it is true enough. There are a great
+many wonderful things to be seen in London, and if you want to hear
+about them at once you must skip all this chapter and a great many
+others besides, and go on to page 241, where you will find them
+described. But if you want to know what London itself is really like you
+must wait a little longer. The best people to tell you would be the
+children who live in London; they will read this book, and, of course,
+they could answer all your questions, but they would not all answer in
+the same way.
+
+Some would say: 'Oh yes, of course we all know the Zoo, but that's for
+small children; _we_ are quite tired of a dull place like that, where
+everyone goes; we like balls, with good floors for dancing, and
+programmes, and everything done as it is at grown-up balls; and we like
+theatres, where we can sit in the front row and look through
+opera-glasses and eat ices. Madame Tussaud's? Yes, it's there still; we
+went to it when we were quite little babies, but it's not at all
+fashionable.'
+
+And another child might say: 'I don't mind driving with mother in the
+Row when I'm really beautifully dressed.'
+
+But I'll tell you a secret about the little boys and girls who talk like
+this: they are not really children at all, they never have been and
+never will be; they are grown-up men and women in child shapes, and by
+the time their bodies have grown big they won't enjoy anything at all.
+Master Augustus will be a dull young man, who hates everybody, and does
+not know how to get through the long, dreary day; and Miss Ruby will be
+a mere heartless woman, who only cares to please herself, and does not
+mind how unhappy she makes everyone else. And all this will be because
+their foolish father and mother let them have everything they wanted,
+and allowed them to go everywhere they liked, and that is not at all
+good even for grown-up people, and it is very, very much worse for
+children.
+
+There are, however, many other sorts of children in London, and it is
+rather interesting to hear what they think of the town in which they
+live. For instance, there are the children of people who are not at all
+poor, who have nice houses and plenty of money, but who are yet sensible
+enough to know that their children must have something else besides
+pleasure. If we asked one of their children what he thought of London,
+he might say: 'I've seen the Zoo, of course, and Madame Tussaud's, and
+I've been to Maskelyne's Mysteries and the Hippodrome, and they're all
+jolly, especially the Zoo; but those things generally happen in the
+holidays: we don't have such fun every day.' A boy or a girl of this
+sort has really a much duller time than one who lives in the country.
+London is so big, so huge, that he sees only a wee bit of it.
+
+London is the capital town of England, as everyone knows. In Dick
+Whittington's time it was not very big, but it has grown and grown,
+until it is seventeen miles in one direction and twelve in another. You
+know what a mile is, perhaps; well, try to imagine seventeen miles one
+after another, end to end, on and on, all streets of houses, with here
+and there a park, very carefully kept, not in the least like a country
+park. And all these streets and streets of houses are not very
+interesting, and in many of them the houses are all alike, built of
+dull-coloured stone or red brick, or else they are covered with plaster.
+
+There is a great part of London where people only go to work, and from
+which they come away again at nights. In the mornings hundreds and
+hundreds of men pour into this part as fast as the trains can bring
+them, and go to their offices, which are in great buildings, many
+different offices being in one building; and the streets are filled with
+men hurrying this way and that, always in a hurry. There is no one
+standing about or idling. Omnibuses and carts and cabs are all mixed up
+together in the roadway, until you would think it was impossible for
+them ever to be disentangled again. And now and then some bold man on a
+bicycle dares to ride right into the middle of it all, between the
+wheels and under the horses' noses, and how he ever gets through without
+being crushed up as flat as a paper-knife is a wonder!
+
+At nights, when the men have done their day's work, they are in as much
+of a hurry to get out of this part of London, which is called the City,
+as they were to get into it in the morning. They go by cabs and
+omnibuses and trains back to their homes and their children, and the
+City is left still and silent, with just a quiet cat flitting across the
+street, and making a frightened jump when the big policeman turns his
+lantern on to her.
+
+The children of rich people seldom see this part of London. Perhaps
+their father goes there every day, and they hear him talk of the City,
+but it is like another town to them, so vague and far away it seems.
+These children probably have lessons with their governess at home, and
+when twelve o'clock comes they go for a walk. When they open the
+front-door they see a long street, stretching both ways, filled with
+dark, dull-looking houses just the same as their own. The street
+pavement is made of wood, which is quieter than stones, and when the
+cabs run past they make very little sound. If the children are lucky
+they live in a square, and there is a garden in the middle, with iron
+railings round it, and everyone who lives in the square has a key to
+open the gate; but it must not be left open, or other people would get
+in and use the garden too. It has green grass in it and flower-beds,
+and it is all very prim and proper, and not at all interesting; and,
+worst of all, the dear dogs, Scamp and Jim, cannot go there, even when
+they are led by a string. The gardener would turn them out, for he
+imagines they would kick about in his flower-beds and rake out the
+seeds. This is not the sort of garden that a country child would care
+for. But Jack and Ethel are not country children; they are quite used to
+their garden, and like it very much.
+
+We can see them start on their morning walk with Miss Primity, their
+governess. Both the children wear gloves--they never go out without
+them--and in the street they walk quietly; but when they have passed
+down the street and got into Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens, they can
+run about as much as they like. In the Gardens there is a big round
+pond, where Jack can sail his boat; and on Saturdays the water is
+covered with white sails, and even men come down and join in the sport,
+making their toy boats race against one another. The boats are often
+quite large, and the scene is very gay and pretty. There are a great
+many ducks, which clamour to be fed; and there are other children there
+too. These may be friends of Jack's and Ethel's, and they can play
+together, and Ethel can show her new doll, and Jack can boast of all the
+things he means to do when he grows up. The Gardens are very nice, but
+it is rather dull always having the same walk in the same place every
+day, and sometimes the children get a little tired of it, and are glad
+when a half-holiday comes and an aunt or uncle carries them off to see
+some of the wonderful things of which London is full.
+
+There is another part of London of which we have not yet spoken. We have
+heard of the City and of the West End--the City, where business men
+work, and the West End, where rich people live; but there is also the
+East End, lying beyond the City, and the people who live here are nearly
+all poor. If you asked any of the children of the East End if they had
+seen Madame Tussaud's or the Zoo, they would grin, and say, 'Garn!' and
+if you told them about these things they might say, 'Ye're kiddin',
+ye're,' which is their way of saying they don't believe you, and think
+you are telling stories. In the streets where these children live
+everything is dirty and nasty. A number of families live together in one
+house, perhaps even in one room, for I have heard of rooms where each
+family had a corner. The women never do anything more than they can
+help. They never mend their old dresses, or wash themselves or their
+children, or try to cook nicely; they do nothing. They spend the day
+sitting on their dirty doorsteps, with the youngest baby on their knees,
+and their hair is all uncombed, and their dresses are filthy and torn,
+and they shout out to other women across the street, and make remarks on
+anyone who happens to pass. The poor little baby gets dreadful things to
+eat--things that you would think would kill an ordinary child--bits of
+herring or apple, and anything else its mother eats, and sometimes even
+sips of beer or gin. If it cries, it is joggled about or slapped, and as
+soon as ever it is able to sit up, it is put down on the pavement among
+a number of other dirty, untidy children and left to take care of
+itself. When a little girl is seven she is thought quite old enough to
+look after all the younger ones, and on Saturdays she goes off with
+other little girls, pushing a rickety old perambulator or a wooden cart,
+with perhaps two babies in it and several smaller children hanging on to
+her skirt; and she goes down the foul street and on until she comes to a
+tiny little bit of ground, where there are seats and some bushes and
+hard paths, and this is a playground. But what do you think it really
+has been? A graveyard, and there are still graves and big stones,
+showing that people have been buried there long years ago. But the
+children who play in it do not mind this at all; they sit on the graves,
+and think that they are very lucky to get this place away from the
+street. Then the poor little babies are left in their go-carts or
+perambulators, very often in the sun, with their heads hanging down over
+the edge, while Liza talks to Bella; and they both put their hair in
+curl-papers, and show each other any small things they have picked up in
+the street. They have no need of dolls, for both Bella and Liza have
+living dolls, which are often very troublesome; but they are quite used
+to it, and if the live doll cries they just stop talking and rush up to
+it and push it up and down, or take it out and shake it about for a few
+minutes, and then put it back again and go on with their talk.
+Sometimes, not often, they have a feast, and perhaps Bella brings out a
+dirty bottle which she has picked up, and fills it with water at the
+fountain; and Liza takes from her pocket an apple and some sticky
+toffee, and perhaps one of the little ones has a bun. And then the apple
+is rubbed until it shines with a dirty bit of rag called a
+pocket-handkerchief, and they all sit down together in a row and share
+the things; and even the baby has a hard lump of apple stuffed into its
+mouth, for Liza and Bella do not mean to be unkind to their babies, for
+they have mother-hearts in them.
+
+Well, of course, there are many other sorts of children in London
+besides these: there are the children of working men, who are neatly
+dressed and go out on Sundays with their father and mother; there are
+chauffeurs' children who live near the garage, or in the mews, where
+rich people keep their motor-cars or carriages. It is not easy in London
+to find rooms for cars or carriages close to the house, so a number of
+stables were built together, making a long yard like a street, and the
+people who lived near kept their carriages there, but there are fewer
+carriages now, and often the rooms in the mews are empty or used by
+outside people, while the cars are kept at some big garage a little
+distance off. There are many others who are not so lucky as chauffeurs'
+or coachmen's children; think of the little children who belong to the
+organ-grinders, and who are taken about in a basket tied on to the
+grinding organ, with the hideous noise in their ears all day. I wonder
+that they can ever hear at all when they grow up. Many, very many, of
+the children have no playground at all but the street, the pavement,
+where people are passing all the time. They sit on the doorsteps and
+breathe in the dust, and all their playthings, if they have any--and
+even their food--are often thick with dust. I have seen a child rubbing
+a bit of bread-and-jam up and down on the dirty stone before it eats it.
+But the rich children and the poor children do not often meet, for if
+the rich children go through the streets in the poorer parts they are in
+motor-cars or cabs, and in their part of the park there are not many
+poor children, while in the parks where the poor children go you do not
+find many rich ones. And though there are parts of London where poor and
+rich are very near together, yet their lives never mix as the lives of
+country children do. Very often in the country a child knows the names
+of all the other children in its village, and who they are and all about
+them; but in London it is not so. And many rich children grumble all the
+time if they do not have everything they want, and never think of their
+poor little brothers and sisters, who would snatch eagerly at many of
+the things they throw away.
+
+Have you heard the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, who piped so
+wonderfully that he could make anything follow him when he liked, and
+how he piped so that all the rats ran after him, and he led them to the
+river and they were drowned? When he asked the mayor and chief men in
+the town to be paid for what he had done, they laughed, and said: 'No,
+now the rats are dead, you can't make them alive again; we have got what
+we wanted, and we won't pay you.' So the piper was very angry, and piped
+another tune, and all the children in the town followed him; and he led
+them on and on toward a great mountain, where a cave opened suddenly,
+and they all went in, and were never seen again. I think if that Pied
+Piper came to London he would find very many more different sorts of
+children than ever he found in Hamelin, where--
+
+
+     'Out came the children running:
+     All the little boys and girls,
+     With rosy checks and flaxen curls,
+     And sparkling eyes, and teeth like pearls,
+     Tripping and skipping ran merrily after
+     The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.'
+
+
+There would be London children whose eyes did not sparkle, and who had
+almost forgotten to laugh, as well as those like the children of
+Hamelin, who were so bright and so gay.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+LONDON
+
+
+Now, we have seen something of the children who live in London, and it
+is time to try to think a little of what London itself is like. As I
+have said, the boys and girls who live there do not know very much about
+it; they only know their own little corner of it, because London is so
+big that it is almost impossible even for a grown-up person to know it
+quite well in every part. I have told you it is about seventeen miles
+long and twelve broad, but you cannot understand really how long that
+is; you can only get some little idea. This great town stretches on for
+mile after mile, houses and houses and streets and streets, with here
+and there a park, but even the park is surrounded by houses. Children
+who live in small towns can always get out into the country and see
+green trees and grass and hedges, but many of the children who live in
+London have never seen the country, and have no idea what it is like.
+
+We heard in the last chapter just a little about this great town, how
+it is divided into three parts, that is to say, the West End, where the
+rich people live, and the City, where men go to work, and the East End,
+where the poor people live. Of course, it isn't quite so simple as that,
+because all the rich people don't live in the West End or all the poor
+people in the East. Some of the poor ones live in the West End, too, but
+roughly we may put it so, just to get some idea of the place.
+
+Through this great London there rolls a great river, and there is
+scarcely any need to say what the name of that river is, for every child
+knows about the Thames. The great river cuts London into two parts, and
+on the south side of it there are many poor streets with poor people
+living in them, and close to the river is a palace, where the Archbishop
+of Canterbury lives. He is head of all the clergymen and all the bishops
+of the English Church. The palace has stood there for many hundreds of
+years, and it is curious to think that this important man, who has so
+much power, and who has the right to walk before all the dukes and earls
+when he goes to Parliament, lives there among the poor people on the
+south side of the river.
+
+The City, where men have their offices and go to work, is really quite
+a small part of London, but it is very important. Here there is the Bank
+of England, where bank-notes are made, and where there is gold in great
+bars lying in the cellars. The Bank has streets all round its four
+sides, as if it were an island, and the streets were rivers, and inside,
+in the middle of the building, there is a yard, with trees in it and a
+garden. It does seem so funny to find a garden here amongst all the
+houses. If you went into the Bank to see it, you would meet a man
+wearing a funny cocked hat like those that men used to wear in old
+times; and if you showed him that you had leave to go all over the
+building, he would tell you where to go and be very civil. We shall hear
+more about the Bank later on.
+
+Close to the Bank is the Mansion House, where the Lord Mayor lives. The
+Lord Mayor is a very grand person indeed. He is the head of the City,
+and a new Lord Mayor is chosen every year. There are other big buildings
+around near the Bank, and just here seven streets meet, and there is an
+open space. Now, if you were suddenly dropped down into that open space
+at, say, the middle of the day, you would most certainly be run over
+unless you stood close beside the very biggest policeman you could see,
+for every thing on wheels is coming in every direction--big
+motor-omnibuses, generally painted the most vivid scarlet, crammed with
+people inside and on the top; taxi-cabs with patient drivers, who would
+not jump if a gunpowder explosion went off under their noses; they have
+to keep good-tempered all day long, in spite of the tangle of traffic;
+immense lorries loaded with beer barrels; and little tiny carts with
+greengrocer's stuff, perhaps dragged by a dear little donkey, who looks
+as if he could run right under the bodies of the big dray-horses. And
+all these things are coming so fast and so close to one another, that it
+seems a miracle anyone can get through. Not long ago an underground
+passage with steps leading down to it was built, so that people can go
+under instead of over the street, which is, I think, a very good thing.
+
+In the City there are a great many churches, nearly all built by one
+man, Sir Christopher Wren, a very clever man. But you will say, 'Why do
+people want churches in the City? Didn't you say that everyone went away
+to their own houses at night and on Sundays? Isn't the City, then, quite
+empty?'
+
+Yes, that is true; on Sundays the City is empty, except for people who
+come down to walk round and look at it. But the churches are still
+there, and there are still services in them on Sundays, because long
+years ago good men left money to pay the clergymen, and no one has any
+right to use it for any other purpose; so the clergymen preach, and very
+few people are there to hear. It seems odd, doesn't it? But there are
+many things odd in this great, dear, smoky London of ours. There used to
+be many more churches in the City than there are now; at one time there
+were seventy churches or more all in this small space! There aren't so
+many now, but still there are a good many left.
+
+If you went on beyond the City, further away from the West End, you
+would come to that miserable part where the poor people live, and in
+some parts here there are a great many foreigners, who come to England
+to get work, and who earn very little money, and are rough and rude, and
+all live together in one place. In some streets you would hardly hear
+English spoken at all. On Saturday nights here the streets are quite a
+sight, because the people have barrows or stalls by the sides of the
+road instead of shops, and when evening comes they light them up with
+flaming torches. And then they spread out all sorts of things for sale,
+and yell and shout for people to come and buy; and crowds of people do
+come, and the pavement is covered with people pushing and jostling to
+get things cheaply. On one stall you will see piles of fruit--cheap
+green grapes hanging in bunches, red apples, yellow oranges, and perhaps
+tomatoes; and on another stall nothing but raw meat, and here the women
+buy a little bit for their Sunday dinners; and on another stall there is
+nothing but yards and yards of white embroidery. It seems such a queer
+thing to sell there; but it is there: I have seen it, and the wonder is
+it does not get so black that no one could use it. Then another stall
+may have fish, and here all sorts of shell-fish will be lying in little
+saucers with a pinch of pepper and a spoonful of vinegar over them, and
+people take them up and eat them there and then. And all down the street
+the lights flare, until you would think they must set fire to
+everything, and the people at the stalls cry, 'Buy, buy, buy!' And
+perhaps in the midst of all this noise and confusion you might see a
+little baby, rolled up in a shawl, lying on the ground or in a box close
+to a stall.
+
+If you went down to the river from the East End you would find many very
+wonderful things, but here hardly any London people from the West End
+go; it is so far that very few of the people who live in London have
+ever been there at all. The great river rolls on to the sea, and twice
+in every day and night the sea sends a strong tide flooding up to
+London, and the barges, bringing coal and straw and wood and many other
+things, use the tide to come up the river, for otherwise they must have
+a small steamboat to drag them. And by the side of the river there are
+great houses built right on the edge of the water, where all day long
+men work, either taking things out of steamers or putting other things
+into other steamers to go away to foreign countries. The river is
+covered with steamers and barges and boats, just as the streets are
+crowded with omnibuses and cabs and carts. Always men are working and
+bringing things to the great City and sending things out. If it were not
+so the City could not live at all, because the people must be fed and
+clothed, and they can't make everything they want or grow what they want
+to eat in London itself.
+
+Down in this part of London there are huge docks, but I am quite sure
+you do not know what docks are. They are basins of water, like immense
+ponds or lakes, shut in on all sides except for one entrance from the
+river, and here ships can come in and lie snugly and safely without
+being pushed about by the tides, and they can be painted and mended and
+made fit to go to sea again. One of these docks on a fine afternoon in
+summer is a very beautiful sight; all the tall masts and funnels of the
+ships are mixed up together like a forest of trees, and the blue sky
+peeps through them and the blue water ripples round them. When you saw
+this sight you would understand a little what a wonderful city London
+is, and how she sends her ships out to all parts of the world.
+
+One of the great sights on the river is the Tower Bridge. This is not
+the newest bridge, but it was built later than most of the others. It
+has two great towers rising one on each side, to the sky, and the bridge
+lies across low down between these towers. But when a big ship comes and
+wants to get up the river under the bridge, what is to be done? The
+bridge is not high enough! Well, what does happen is this, and I hope
+that every one of you will see it one day, for it is one of the grandest
+things in all London: a man rings a bell, and the cabs and carriages and
+carts and people who are on the bridge rush quickly across to the other
+side, and when the bridge is quite empty then the man in the tower
+touches some machinery, and slowly the great bridge, which is like a
+road, remember, rises up into the air in two pieces, just as you might
+lift your hands while the elbows rested on your knees without moving,
+and the beautiful ship passes underneath, and the bridge goes back again
+quite gently into its place. This bridge has been called the Gate of
+London, and it is a very good name, for it looks like a giant gate over
+the river. Close to it is the Tower, of which you must often have read
+in your history books--the grim Tower where so many people who were not
+wicked at all were imprisoned, and where some of them were beheaded
+because, in the time when they lived, there were no laws such as there
+are now safeguarding people's lives. The Tower will have a chapter to
+itself later on.
+
+This is all I am going to tell you at present about the City and the
+East End, because it is quite impossible to tell everything. In the West
+End, too, there are many interesting things, and the most interesting of
+them must have chapters to themselves; for instance, the palaces
+belonging to the King, and the hospitals which are entirely for
+children. But there are other things which belong to the whole of
+London, and must be mentioned here. There is, for instance, the
+Embankment--rather a long word, but not a difficult one. It means the
+wall which was built for miles along beside the river to make a road and
+to prevent the river flooding right up to the houses. In old days, when
+people had their houses on the water's edge, when there came a high tide
+or a strong wind, the water washed up over them, and did a great deal of
+damage; so it was decided to build a strong wall beside the river, which
+the water, even in the highest tide, could not leap over. It was a
+wonderful piece of work. It is difficult to think of the number of
+cartloads of solid earth and stone that had to be put down into the
+water to make a firm foundation, and when that was done the wall had to
+be built on the top. But though the river had been banked up it could
+still make itself disagreeable. In 1928, driven by strong winds and high
+tides, after much rain, it flowed up over the Embankment in some places
+and broke through in others. It flooded many houses, and some people
+were drowned. The river also helps to cause fog; it seems as though it
+had gone to the smoke demon to find out what they could do to be
+spiteful, and they had agreed they could not do anything each by
+himself, but that together they could be very nasty. So every now and
+then the damp air which rises from the river, and the heavy smoke which
+comes out of the hundreds of chimneys, join together and make a thick
+black veil, and hang over London and come down into the streets so that
+people can't see where they are going, and when they breathe their noses
+and mouths are filled with nasty, dirty smuts. You who are London
+children know Mr. Fog-fiend very well. When you wake on a morning in
+November and find the room still dark, and are told it is time to get up
+when it looks like the middle of the night, then you know the fog has
+come; and he visits rich and poor alike. There is no keeping him in the
+East End.
+
+With all her money and her cleverness London has never found out
+anything good enough to tempt Mr. Fog-fiend to go right away. No, he
+comes often, and stays, perhaps, for weeks together, and the eyes of
+children smart and their throats feel thick, and they find it so dull to
+do lessons by artificial light; and when the time comes for the daily
+walk they cannot go out, because they might get run over, not being able
+to see. And everything is very quiet, for the omnibuses and taxi-cabs
+have to go at a walking pace for fear they might run into something.
+And it is no wonder sometimes that children get cross and tired when
+they cannot see the sun, which may be shining brightly in the country
+all day long. Mr. Fog-fiend has many dresses; sometimes he puts on a
+white one instead of a black one, and that is not so bad, because it is
+quite light, but just as if soft white shawls were hung in front of your
+eyes so that you couldn't see. But it is even more dangerous to try to
+cross the road in a white fog than in a black one. It is like living
+inside a big white cloud. Then there is a yellow dress, which is the
+ugliest of all. It is like yellow smoke, and it gets into people's
+throats and makes them cough, and it steals into all the rooms so that
+even the lamp across the room looks quite dim; and the air is full of
+it, and you taste it in all your food. But it is lucky that there are
+not always fogs in London, or no one could live; they only come in the
+last months of the year or the very early ones, and in the summer London
+children do not see fogs any more than country children do, though
+perhaps the sun does not shine always quite so brightly in London as it
+does in the country.
+
+Close to the river are the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey,
+both very wonderful. I have not told you about Westminster yet, because
+I was afraid of confusing you with too many things at once, but you
+ought to know now. You can tell for yourselves which side of London it
+is on from the name--that is, if you are not very stupid. Yes,
+Westminster is on the west side of the City, but what is rather odd is
+that once Westminster and London were two separate places with long
+green fields and hedges lying between them, but the houses grew and grew
+until they met. Westminster is very proud, and though now she is mixed
+up with London, she says, 'I will be a city, too.' And so she is a city
+within London, but there is no difference that you could tell between
+the two; the houses run on just the same, and no one could find out,
+merely by looking, where Westminster begins.
+
+Well, this is enough for one chapter, and in the next we will see some
+more things about this wonderful town of London, which can swallow a
+whole city like Westminster and allow her still to be a city, and yet
+not feel any indigestion!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE KING'S PALACES
+
+
+In the last chapter I said something about the King's palace. One of the
+first things that foreigners ask when they come to London is, 'Where
+does the King live?' and when they see his London house they are quite
+disappointed, because Buckingham Palace is not at all beautiful. It
+stands at one end of a park called St. James's Park, and it is a huge
+house, with straight rows of plain windows. In front there is a bare
+yard, with high railings round it, and beside the gate there are
+sentries on guard. The palace is large, but very ugly, and anyone seeing
+only the outside might wonder why the King of England, who is so rich,
+lived in such a dull house while he was in London. But Buckingham Palace
+is very magnificent inside, and if you saw it on a day when the ladies
+go to Court to be presented to the King and Queen, you would no longer
+think it dull. In the time of Queen Victoria, the ladies who wished to
+be presented, which means to be introduced to the Queen, had to go
+there in the daytime, and as they were obliged to wear evening dress and
+to have waving white feathers in their hair, and sometimes had to wait
+hours and hours before their turn came to kiss the Queen's hand, it
+cannot have been much pleasure to them, and they must have felt often
+very cross, especially when it was cold. But since the reign of King
+Edward VII., the Drawing-rooms, as they are called, when ladies are
+presented to their Sovereign, are in the evening, and Queen Mary has had
+garden parties where young girls are 'presented' too, in afternoon
+dress. It is not very interesting reading about descriptions of
+furniture, so I will only say that the great staircase in the palace is
+of white marble, and in the throne-room there is crimson satin and much
+gilt, and the walls of the rooms are hung with magnificent pictures, and
+everything is just like the palace that one reads about in fairy tales,
+to which the Prince took home the Princess when he had won her.
+
+[Illustration: QUEEN VICTORIA MEMORIAL AND BUCKINGHAM PALACE.]
+
+Before Buckingham Palace was built, the house which stood here belonged
+to a man called the Earl of Arlington, and in his time no one in England
+knew anything about tea. Beer was generally drunk at every meal--beer
+for breakfast, beer for dinner, beer for supper! But this Earl bought
+a pound of tea in Holland for sixty shillings, which was a great deal to
+give, for a pound of tea now costs about two shillings. And he brought
+it home to his house and made the tea there, so that it seems very
+likely that the first cup of tea ever drunk in England was made where
+Buckingham Palace now stands, and I expect there are very few people who
+know that.
+
+At the side of Buckingham Palace there is a big garden with high
+side-walls. In this garden are held the royal garden parties attended by
+thousands in gorgeous raiment, including many Eastern potentates, as
+well as ambassadors, generals, admirals, and others in uniform.
+Marlborough House, which was used by Queen Alexandra, King George's
+mother, during her lifetime, afterwards became the home of the Prince of
+Wales. Both his father and grandfather, King George and King Edward,
+lived here when they were Prince of Wales.
+
+St. James's Palace is just opposite. It is much more picturesque but not
+so convenient. With its rambling courtyards and turrets it really looks
+old. You shall hear about its history presently.
+
+The Duke of York, the second son of the King, is married. It was a joy
+to the nation when he chose for himself Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon,
+daughter of the Earl of Strathmore. Their baby daughter, Princess
+Elizabeth, has already won all hearts.
+
+All the children in our Royal Family have been very carefully and
+properly brought up. The Queen is an excellent mother and has set an
+example to all mothers. Not only have they received a special education,
+including the fluent use of many foreign tongues, but they have been
+taught manners and self-control and unselfishness. It is not so easy to
+be a good prince as some of you might think. The Prince of Wales must
+often be bored by all the hand-shaking and set speeches he has to
+endure, but he must always look pleased, and remember that though he is
+sick of these things yet the people he is speaking to consider it the
+occasion of their lives.
+
+The Prince's ready smile and pleasant nature have endeared him to
+thousands beyond the seas. And in his tours to India and the Dominions
+he has done more to bind together the British Empire than any statesman
+who ever lived. He and his next brother, the Duke of York, are much
+attached to one another. The Duke, who is still affectionately spoken
+of as Prince Albert, is of a serious turn of mind, and has already taken
+up philanthropic work for the hospitals and other institutions. Then
+comes Princess Mary, the only girl in this large family, and a great
+favourite, not only with her brothers, but with the whole nation. In
+1922 she married Viscount Lascelles, and has two sturdy boys, Hubert and
+Gerald. That she and her next brother should marry thus into the noble
+families of Britain has drawn the ties between the nation and Royal
+Family closer than before.
+
+Prince Henry, the third son, is in the army, and has proved himself a
+sportsman, excelling especially in polo and tent-pegging. He has chosen
+the army as his profession. Prince George is a sailor by profession,
+inheriting the love of the sea from the King.
+
+There is a story told of the Prince of Wales as a very small boy, which
+shows that, as well as being full of fun, he can also be very
+thoughtful. The nurse who was looking after him said he must go to sleep
+and not talk any more, so he answered: 'Well, I'll just say one thing
+more, and then I'll go to sleep. You know, nurse, that if I live I shall
+one day be King of England.' Yes, the nurse knew that very well. 'Then,'
+said the Prince, 'when I'm King I shall do three things: first, I'll
+make a law that no one is to cut off the puppy dogs' tails; then I'll
+make a law that no one is to put bearing-reins on horses.' As he was
+silent, the nurse asked what was the last thing. 'Oh, that,' he said:
+'I'm going to do away with all sin.'
+
+St. James's Palace is a very old place, and really looks like a palace.
+It has high towers and a great clock, and is made of dark-red brick. It
+was first built by King Henry VIII., and very many of the kings and
+queens of England have lived there. If you guessed all day you would
+never guess what stood here before the palace, so I will tell you. There
+was a hospital for poor women who had leprosy. King Henry VIII. had
+bought a good deal of the park, and he thought he would like to have the
+hospital too, so he just took it. It was what he was in the habit of
+doing when he wanted anything. But our kings and queens never do that
+now. King Henry turned out the fourteen poor women who lived there, but
+some people say he gave them money to make up for taking their home from
+them, and we hope he did. Then he built St. James's Palace. When
+Cromwell had beheaded King Charles I., there were some exciting times at
+St. James's Palace. King Charles's children, the Duke of York and the
+Duke of Gloucester and the Princess Elizabeth, were kept in prison
+here, and at last the Duke of York borrowed some clothes from a woman,
+and got out of the palace and into the park. Then he managed to get to
+the river, and took a boat, and so went down the river and escaped
+abroad, and was safe from his enemies. Afterwards, when England found
+out what a mistake she had made, and how wicked she had been to kill her
+King, she called back her King's son Charles to be Charles II. The Duke
+of York was his younger brother, so when Charles II. died without
+leaving any children, the Duke of York, who had escaped from the palace
+dressed like a woman, became king as James II. The night before he was
+crowned he slept at St. James's Palace, and he must have thought of the
+difference between his position then and when he had had to run away in
+terror at night, a poor frightened boy.
+
+St. James's Park, where Buckingham Palace, Marlborough House, and St.
+James's Palace stand, is very pretty. There is a great piece of water in
+it, and on this live many ducks and some other kinds of rare birds.
+During the war the water was partly drained off, though one end was left
+for the birds, on the other part were put up wooden offices for the
+clerks in government employ. Not far off you can see the permanent
+Government offices, where the men who have been appointed to do all the
+business of the country work. In the middle is the Horse Guards, where
+two magnificent soldiers on black horses are on guard. They have shining
+armour and helmets and waving white plumes, and look very splendid; but
+it must be rather dull for them sitting there on their horses for so
+many hours without moving until they are relieved by their comrades, who
+take it in their turn.
+
+In one of these great buildings, called the Treasury, all the work about
+the money which England has to spend on her soldiers and sailors is
+done; and in another, called the Admiralty, all the rules for the life
+of the sailors are arranged, and there are many others.
+
+A very long time ago, before anyone who is living now can remember,
+there was a garden in the corner of St. James's Park called Spring
+Gardens, and people used to go there to dance and enjoy themselves; here
+there were cows, and fashionable ladies used to get up early in the
+morning and go to drink the milk which had just been taken from the
+cows. At this place there was a spring of water, which used to start up
+from the ground if anyone walked over a particular piece of ground, and
+so pressed the grass with his foot. Sometimes a person did not know
+this, and would come walking quite gravely along and tread on that
+place, and a great stream of water would jump out of the ground all over
+him, and the other people would shout and laugh with amusement to see
+him so unexpectedly drenched. We would not like that much now--we should
+think it rather rude and unkind to laugh at such a thing; but people had
+rougher manners then. Now there are houses built nearly all over Spring
+Gardens. King Charles I., who had spent the night before he was murdered
+at St. James's Palace, walked this way when he went to be beheaded.
+
+There is a walk in St. James's Park called the Mall, and this name comes
+from Pall Mall, which was the name of an old game Charles II. used to
+play here. It must have been rather a funny game, and no one plays it
+now. The players had long mallets, which were not quite like croquet
+mallets, but more like golf clubs, and they had a wooden ball about the
+size of a croquet ball, and they tried to hit the ball through a hoop
+high up in the air hanging from a pole. It must have been difficult and
+rather dangerous to have a ball as big as a croquet ball hopping about
+and jumping up in the air, but we do not read of any accidents
+happening.
+
+Another palace in London, which is some way from the others and in
+another park, is Kensington Palace, and this is not now used by the King
+at all, but he allows some ladies and gentlemen to live there. This
+palace will always be of very great interest to all of us, because it
+was here that good Queen Victoria was born, and here she lived when she
+was a little girl. Do you remember my telling you about Kensington
+Gardens and the Round Pond, where Ethel and Jack went for their walk?
+Well, the palace is there, and I wonder how many children who run and
+play in the gardens every day ever think of the childhood of little
+Princess Victoria. You know, when she was quite a little girl, it was
+not known that she would be Queen of England, because there were other
+persons between her and the throne; but they died one by one, so that at
+last every one knew that Princess Victoria would one day be Queen of
+England. But no one ever guessed what a long and glorious reign she
+would have--longer than any other English Sovereign who has reigned; and
+not only longer, but better. Her uncle, King William, who reigned
+before her, was an old man, while she was still quite young, and he died
+very suddenly in the night; so the Archbishop of Canterbury and one of
+the most important Ministers of State rode off at once to Kensington
+Palace to tell Victoria that she was now Queen. They arrived about five
+in the morning, and, of course, everyone in the palace was asleep. So
+they knocked and rang and thumped, and at last they made the porter
+hear. But when they told him to tell the attendants they must see
+Princess Victoria, her maid was sent for, and she told them she had not
+the heart to wake the Princess, for she was in such a sweet sleep. So
+then they said: 'We have come to the QUEEN on business, and even her
+sleep must give way to that.' So the maid went away again and woke
+Princess Victoria. Fancy being awakened out of your sleep to be told
+that you were Queen of England! Victoria was told she must not keep the
+lords waiting, and so she threw a shawl round her nightdress and slipped
+her feet into slippers, and went through into another large room with
+all her long hair hanging down; and when they saw her those two great
+lords fell on their knees and kissed her hand. She was only eighteen
+then, and she had before her such a wonderful life. It is said that she
+had known for a little time before this that if anything happened to her
+uncle she would be Queen. So she was not quite unprepared, and when she
+had been warned of this, her first exclamation was; 'Oh, I will be
+good!' Which showed she was good, for I think most people would have
+been rather proud about it, and would not have thought just at that
+moment of being good.
+
+Kensington Gardens is one end of a great park, and the other end is
+called Hyde Park, where the fashionable people drive in the afternoons.
+There are now many who prefer to drive in motor-cars, but there are a
+few who still use open carriages, with the fine horses tossing their
+heads proudly as they trot. It is a great pity to see that so many
+people will put the rein, called a bearing-rein, upon their horses. This
+forces the poor animal's head up high, and holds it there, until his
+neck aches; and he tries to get rid of it, and foams and chews his bit,
+and then the ladies and men who are driving think he looks splendid, and
+never mind that he is suffering pain. But to anyone who really loves a
+horse there is nothing beautiful in this, and the horse looks far more
+beautiful when he is free and holds his head high, or tosses it just
+because he likes to do so.
+
+The flowers in Hyde Park are often lovely, and in summer when they are
+out, and form a background for the shining cars in which people wait for
+the Queen to pass, there is no grander sight to be seen anywhere. On
+Sundays, when it is fine, a great many fashionable people go to walk up
+and down in the Park after they have been to church, and then there are
+many smart dresses to be seen.
+
+There is a great piece of water here called the Serpentine, because it
+curves round like a serpent, and anyone can hire a boat and go for a
+row, and sometimes the whole of the water is covered with boats. At
+other times in the winter, when the ice is safe, there are hundreds and
+hundreds of skaters to be seen. And in the mornings very early a good
+many men and boys go here to bathe, so that the poor old Serpentine gets
+well used; but perhaps he likes it, and it keeps him from feeling
+lonely.
+
+During the Great War the open spaces of the Park were freely used for
+the drill and training of soldiers, and many people used to go to watch
+the fresh-faced young lads springing out of the trenches they had dug
+and prodding with their bayonets at stuffed swinging sacks representing
+the enemy. There is always something going on and something to see in
+Hyde Park.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+TRAINS AND HORSES
+
+
+London is so large that it takes a long time to get from one end to the
+other, and the men who go down to the City for their work and come back
+every day want means of getting about cheaply and quickly. So there are
+omnibuses and trains and cabs in numbers. But the trains in London do
+not run above ground--there would be no room for them in the crowded
+streets; so there are railways in the earth, deep down beneath all the
+houses, and on them there are trains that run round in a circle. Those
+of you who have frequently been by the Underground Railway think nothing
+of it; to you it seems quite natural, for you are used to it. But it
+really is a most astonishing piece of work, as you would realize if you
+saw it for the first time. Just imagine how long it must have taken to
+cut out and carry away all the masses of earth that had to be removed to
+make a tunnel of such a length--a tunnel which should run right round
+underneath London. The most wonderful thing is that the houses under
+which it ran did not fall down and break through into it. But that has
+never happened, for the men who built the tunnel made it very strong,
+and lined it with bricks. And all day long, while people are walking
+about in the streets and horses are trotting in the daylight, down below
+the trains in the underground are running, running in the dark. It
+cannot be a very pleasant life to be an engine-driver on this railway:
+it must be almost like the life of a pitman who works down in the depths
+of the earth; yet the men themselves seem quite happy. The worst part of
+the railway used to be that as there are not many places where the smoke
+and steam can get out into the air, they hung in the tunnels and made
+the air very thick and bad, and there was, consequently, nearly always a
+sort of fog down there, and it was unpleasant to breathe the thick air;
+but all this has been remedied now, for the trains are run by
+electricity instead of steam. There are other underground railways in
+London also run by electricity, and they go through different districts,
+so by means of one or the other people can get near to almost any street
+where they want to go to visit their friends or to shop. In these, the
+fares are on the same system as on other railways: you pay for your
+ticket according to the distance you wish to go; but in the first one
+you paid twopence for all distances alike--twopence if you wanted to go
+right from the West End to the City, and twopence all the same if you
+were going to get out at the next station. Therefore some people
+nicknamed this railway 'The Twopenny Tube.'
+
+Now, besides these underground trains, which are not seen, there are
+many huge motor-omnibuses to convey people about the streets above
+ground. These omnibuses are painted in very bright colours--generally
+red--and the newest of all are made very conveniently so that the
+passengers inside can mostly sit facing the way they are going, as they
+do outside. You can go inside or out, and in summer it is a very good
+way of seeing London to go on the top of an omnibus and watch all that
+goes on in the streets below; in the old days the horse omnibuses were
+often stuffy inside, with no windows to open at all, and it is a wonder
+anyone could be found to go in them. When the motor-omnibuses are full
+they carry a great many people. Those of the latest pattern carry
+fifty-four passengers inside and out. There is now a regulation to make
+omnibuses stop only at certain fixed places which are shown by
+sign-boards with the numbers of the 'buses on them. This saves the
+constant stopping and starting again, which is trying for the driver,
+and wastes much time. People are often very inconsiderate about this;
+they never think of getting off if the omnibus stops just a little way
+before the place they are going to. I have seen a woman--I'm afraid
+women are the worst in this respect--wave her umbrella to the conductor
+of an omnibus that was going at a good pace, so the omnibus stopped, and
+the woman took quite a long time to go across the street to it; and when
+she reached it she asked if it were going to the place she wanted, and
+it was not, so all the stopping and waiting had been for nothing. The
+motor 'buses go very much faster than the old horse 'buses, and as they
+carry, also, many more people, altogether, as we have seen, they do more
+work in the way of conveyance altogether.
+
+You can go a long way in an omnibus for a few pence, but taxi-cabs are
+much more expensive; they are also very comfortable--no stopping and
+waiting for other people then. You are carried swiftly and smoothly to
+your destination, unless you are held up by the traffic; and you always
+know just how much you will have to pay, as the little clock face
+beside the driver marks up the extra payment as the cab covers the
+ground.
+
+The motor cabs in London are more comfortable than the hansoms were. But
+the old hansom was very good for seeing in the streets, as the driver
+was behind and not in front of you. The four-wheel horse cabs seem very
+slow to us now, but they carried more luggage than the taxi-cabs can.
+Some of us think that the old omnibuses and cabs were more interesting
+than the modern ones.
+
+I will tell you a story an omnibus horse told me. His name is Billy, and
+he lives in the outskirts of London.
+
+'Oh yes,' he says, 'it's a deal better than being a cab-horse, this is.
+They think themselves very grand, and turn up their noses at us. Why,
+yes, I've known a cab-horse that turned his nose up so high he could
+never get it down again into his nose-bag when he wanted to eat his
+dinner, and they had to have a special sort of nose-bag made for him.
+Fact! And all along of an old bus-horse a-speaking to him friendly-like
+as they stood side by side one day. Silly things! they're running all
+day long, and never know how far they'll have to go, while I just have
+my one journey a day, and then I go back to my stable. You ought to see
+that stable. I live up two stories high, and I walk upstairs to bed
+every night. What are you laughing at? It's true. There are three
+stories at our place, and for staircases to reach the top ones there are
+long sloping boards, like those you've seen put for chickens to get into
+a hen-house, with little boards across to make steps, only, of course,
+ours are a bit bigger than the chickens'. Why, yes, don't laugh; I could
+not walk up a chicken-ladder, could I? In our stable we stand in long
+rows, a row on each side, with our heels together in the middle, and
+heads to the walls, and between the two rows of heels there's just
+enough room for a man to pass. Kick? Why, no; only the bad uns do that,
+and when they've done it once Tom (that's our stableman) he puts a rope
+across their heels to keep 'em in, and to show people they must take
+care. There's plenty to eat, and we don't have a bad time at all.
+There's eleven of us belong to one omnibus; that's two each time for
+five journeys, and one over. Well, in the mornings I go out with old
+Sally perhaps, and we trot up to the City and back; it's a matter of
+about eight miles each way. We don't have to go fast, but it's stop,
+stop, stop whenever a silly old woman wants to get on and get off, and
+it's a pull starting again, I can tell you. We know when the conductor
+rings the bell that means to start, and off we go without the driver
+telling us, and when the conductor rings again that's to stop; it's easy
+learnt. At the other end, the City end, we have perhaps a quarter of an
+hour or twenty minutes, and then we come back. The whole thing doesn't
+take much over three hours, and we're done for that day; but our driver
+he has to go on again with another pair, and then another, and so five
+times there and back. It takes a long time that; but then, of course,
+he's only got to sit up on the bus, and he doesn't pull it, and every
+second day he is off for two journeys. Once in ten days we get a day
+off, a holiday, while the odd horse, number eleven, he takes the bus in
+the place of one of us. We have a doctor, too, to ourselves, and when
+we're ill we get medicine just as you do. Did you say that you had heard
+a bus-horse didn't live very long--that the work killed him? Well,
+maybe; it depends on the horse. There's a mare there fifteen years old,
+and quite good yet; but seven years does for most of us. What's that
+you're giving me? Sugar, did you say? I don't know about that--I'd
+rather not; but if you had an apple now, or a bit of bread, I'll eat it
+and welcome.'
+
+You see, he was a common horse, this--not a gentleman, but a
+good-tempered, nice fellow, that wouldn't give his driver much trouble.
+But they're not all like that. Listen now to a cab-horse.
+
+'Did you say you'd been talking to a bus-horse? Nasty low creatures, not
+fit to talk to! Now I can tell you all you want to know. Yes, I'm only a
+cab-horse now, it's true, but once I was in a gentleman's carriage--one
+of a pair, with a coachman and footman on the box, and my lady herself
+used to pat my nose and give me sugar. They were grand times then--that
+is, they seem grand when I think of them now--very little to do, and we
+were scrubbed and polished until our coats were like satin. In the
+afternoon we danced round the Park. Yes, I say danced, because there was
+a horrid thing called a bearing-rein that hurt us so much that we had to
+dance and throw out our legs, and people said it was splendid. It made
+me feel so angry that I didn't know what to do. But then I had a bad
+temper from the beginning, and it's my temper that has done for me. One
+day I wheeled round and leaped over the traces, and kicked the coachman
+hard. We were standing in the mews, and I dashed out and ran away, and
+the other horse fell down, and the carriage was smashed. Well, then I
+was sold, and---- But I'm not going to tell you about that. Yes, I know
+it's my own fault, and I know I shouldn't have been a cab-horse if I'd
+behaved; but I was wicked, and I used to bite, and now I've been whipped
+and beaten until I daren't do anything. Yes, even now I kick, and I hate
+my life and I hate my driver. He gives me sugar sometimes, too; but
+that's just because he doesn't want me to run away and dash him off his
+box, but I shall some day. I shall smash him up against a lamp-post just
+because I hate everyone. Oh, it's not a fine life, I can tell you. It's
+all very well when I stand here waiting; but perhaps just when I've got
+my nose into my bag and begun to eat I hear a sharp whistle twice, and
+that means someone wants a hansom, and my master whisks away my bag,
+jumps on to his box, and gives me a cut that makes me furious, and we go
+galloping round the streets to see where the whistle comes from. And
+when we find the right house, where someone is waiting, perhaps a man
+jumps in, and says: "To the station as fast as you can, and half a crown
+if you do it in a quarter of an hour." Well, of course, it's my master
+who gets the money, but it's I that have to earn it. So we tear off full
+speed, and other things get in the way, and I have to pull up suddenly,
+and the horrid curb-bit cuts my mouth till I could rear with the pain.
+Then off again, and at last, all hot and angry, we dash up to the
+station, and the man inside leaps out and throws up the money and runs
+off. Then my master strokes me down, and says: "Jenny, old girl, I'm
+sorry to fluster you so, but we must make a bit for the bairns at home,
+eh, old girl?" And he pats me, and I'd bite his hand if I could. As if I
+cared about his bairns! And so it goes on all day long, and at night I'm
+in a nasty stuffy stable with other horses coming and going, until it
+makes me wild. I'll be glad when it's all over, I can tell you; but I
+have heard it said that there are worse things than even my life.'
+
+That horse, you see, was not good-tempered, and so even the kind cabman
+could not make her happy.
+
+There are still many horses in London drawing carts of all kinds and
+vans, and even private carriages, but every year they become fewer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CHILDREN AT SCHOOL
+
+
+Of course all London children must go to school or be taught at home,
+just as all country children are. And there is nothing very interesting
+in the ordinary schools in London, for they are like those anywhere
+else. But there are some special schools which belong to London, even if
+they are not still actually there; one of these is the Duke of York's
+School for soldier-boys, which used to be at Chelsea, but has been moved
+into the country near Dover. Five hundred little boys, the sons of
+soldiers, who are nearly all going to be soldiers themselves, are here
+trained. They are dressed in a scarlet uniform in summer, just like
+soldiers, and in winter wear dark-blue uniform, and the school is like a
+barracks where real soldiers live. The boys come here as young as nine
+years old, and stay until they are fourteen or fifteen, and then if they
+like it they go into the real army, and are drummer-boys. To see them on
+Sunday is a pleasant sight. They have a chapel and a chaplain of their
+own; on Sunday mornings the boys meet together and march up and down
+like an army. They march beautifully, keeping step all the time, and
+wheeling round just as the men do, for they are carefully drilled. Then
+the band plays, for they have a capital band, and they all go to church.
+During the service the boys are very good and still as mice, because
+they are well trained. But it is not long. It is a bright, short
+service, with a sermon, quite short and simple, so that the boys can
+understand it. There are many hymns, and when it is over they go back
+for dinner. Dinner is very important, but before I tell you about that I
+will tell you what they get to eat for all their meals. They have cocoa
+in the mornings for breakfast and bread-and-jam or bread-and-butter, and
+they have the same again at tea-time. On extra days they get cake too.
+For dinner on Sundays in winter they have pork, with potatoes and
+apple-sauce. I don't know if you like apple-sauce, but the soldier boys
+do, and they think it is waste to eat it with pork; so they leave it
+until they have finished their meat, and then spread it on their bread
+and eat it separately. Afterwards there are plum-puddings, an ordinary
+big plum-pudding for every table, and at each table there are eight
+boys. Each boy who sits at the head of a table marches out and marches
+in again carrying a plum-pudding, which he sets down on his own table;
+then he takes a knife and cuts it neatly across and across, making four
+pieces; then he cuts it across and across again, and makes eight pieces,
+and he gives each boy a piece, and there is no more plum-pudding. It is
+a pretty big bit that, an eighth of a plum-pudding, but it all goes
+somewhere; and the boy who cuts it has to be very careful to see that he
+does it quite fairly, so that no one gets more than anyone else. I think
+the plum-pudding and the pork must be a good mixture, for you hardly
+ever see elsewhere such bright-looking faces as there are here.
+
+There is a big playground, with plenty of room for games and sports, and
+there are long bedrooms, called dormitories, with rows of neat little
+beds. It is a good thing to think that these boys are growing up happy
+and good, and passing on into the army to be among England's brave
+soldiers. When it was decided to move this school into the country many
+people were very sorry, but all agreed it was better for the boys.
+
+There is another school very like this one for sailor-boys, only that
+is not in London either, but a long way down the river, so there is not
+much use in describing it here. There are homes for soldiers' daughters
+and for sailors' daughters, too; there is nothing very different about
+them from an ordinary school.
+
+Another school which belongs to London, though it too has now gone into
+the country, is the Foundling Hospital. It seems funny to call a school
+a hospital, but in old times the word 'hospital' did not mean, as it
+does now, a place for sick people, but any place where people were cared
+for and made comfortable. This is rather a sad school in some ways, for
+it is a home for the poor little children whose parents have deserted
+them or who have no parents; and the faces of the children are quite
+different from those of the boys in the Duke of York's School. The
+Foundling Hospital is a very large place indeed, and there are in it
+both boys and girls, who stay until they are old enough to earn their
+own living. The Hospital was begun many years ago by a kind captain of a
+ship, who had seen places like it when he went to foreign countries. He
+did not quite know how to begin, but he was sure there were many poor
+little neglected children in London who must need a home, so he gave
+money to some men and asked them to see about it for him; and these men
+put a notice in some papers, saying that any baby under two months old
+that was brought would be taken in and no questions asked. You would be
+astonished at the number of babies that were brought; it seemed quite
+impossible that so many mothers could want to give away their little
+children. And it was really like giving them away, for when the babies
+were taken into the hospital the mothers never came to see them; and if
+they did come to the school many years after and saw all the children
+running about, they could not tell which was their little boy or girl.
+Sometimes the nurses used to keep a locket or some little thing brought
+with a child, so that if ever it was wanted they could say which child
+belonged to which mother, but they never told anyone which was which.
+And many children had no locket or any other kind of token, and when
+they grew up they did not know who they were or who their mother and
+father had been. Many were just left at the door, and others were put
+into a big basket hung outside the door, and left there until someone
+inside the hospital heard them crying and came and took them in. And it
+was no wonder they cried, because sometimes the men or women who
+brought them stole all the clothes and left the poor little naked baby
+in the basket. Of course, these babies had no names, not even a surname,
+and the people at the Hospital used to make up names for them, and very
+funny some of them were; Richard No-More-Known was one little boy who
+died at five years old. Dorothy Butteriedore was another, because the
+little girl had been left beside a small door called a buttery-door,
+through which people used to pass food from the kitchen. We are told of
+Jane Friday-Street that she went to service aged six. Poor little Jane
+Friday-Street! She must have been too much of a baby to do any work; one
+would have thought she needed a nurse herself. The girl called Grace
+That-God-Sent-Us ought to have been a very good girl, and there was
+another Jane That-God-Sent-Us, too; and there was a boy called James
+Cinerius, because he was found on a cinder-heap.
+
+After a good many years it was found that there were far too many
+children left at the Hospital, and they could not all be kept; and so
+the men who looked after the place made a rule that the mother must
+bring her child and tell all she could about it, and if she was very
+poor, and the father would not give her money or take care of her and
+the child, then the child was taken in and kept.
+
+For a long time past babies who came to the hospital have been sent to
+the country, and now the older ones live in the country too. Then, when
+they are fourteen, the boys have to learn some trade to earn their
+living, or become soldiers, and the girls begin to work as little
+servants. The boys wear coats and trousers of a kind of chocolate colour
+with brass buttons and red waistcoats, and the girls' dresses are the
+same colour, and have trimmings of red. On Sundays the girls wear a high
+snowy-white cap and a large white collar, and they used to sit in the
+gallery of the chapel, the girls on one side of the organ and the boys
+on the other. It was one of the sights of London; many people used to go
+to the chapel on Sundays to see it.
+
+After chapel the children march to their dining-rooms and walk in, and
+stand round the table and sing their grace before dinner. On Sundays
+they get mutton and potatoes and bread, and on some other days meat and
+potatoes, and on some days fish and pudding. For breakfast they have
+bread, with butter or dripping, and boiled milk, or cocoa, or porridge;
+for tea they get bread-and-butter and milk, and for supper bread, with
+cheese, butter, or jam.
+
+It is a very good thing to think they are all being well taught and
+looked after and helped to turn into honest men and women, but it is
+very sad to think there are so many boys and girls whose parents don't
+want them, and will willingly give them away; and we can't help feeling
+that it can never be quite a happy place, for every child must feel that
+it is only one in a crowd of others, and that no one loves it
+especially.
+
+In old times it was the fashion for good men and women to found schools
+for children where all the children had to wear a particular sort of
+dress, and some of these were called Blue-coat Schools, and some
+Green-coat, and some Gray-coat; but they are very different now, and the
+children don't wear the dress they used to. There is one very big
+school, which went from London into the country, called the Blue-coat
+School; this is just like any other school where big boys go, except
+that the boys never wear hats, and have bright yellow stockings and a
+long sort of skirt on to their coats, which must be very awkward for
+them when they want to play cricket or football. What do you think they
+do with it then? They just tuck the long skirt into their belts, and
+run about like that, and very funny it looks. They will find this dress
+even more awkward in the country than it was in London. The beautiful
+school buildings that were begun by King Edward VI., who was a clever
+and learned boy himself, and always tried to help other boys to learn,
+are now pulled down. This is a great pity, and it will be a greater pity
+still if the curious old dress is done away with and the boys dress just
+like all other boys. It must be very odd never to wear a hat, whether it
+rains or whether the sun shines; but I suppose the boys get used to
+that, and would feel uncomfortable in a hat. This school is called
+Christ's Hospital as well as the Blue-coat School, so, you see, here is
+another instance of the word 'hospital' being used to mean a school or
+home.
+
+In old days the Blue-coat boys used to have a very hard time; their food
+was bad, and they did not get enough of it, and they ate it off wooden
+platters. There is a story told that the boys had a custom of never
+eating the fat of a particular sort of meat; they called it 'gags,' and
+though they might be very hungry they would never touch this fat. But
+one day they saw a boy go and gather up all the 'gags' that his
+companions had left, and take them away in his handkerchief. Very
+disgusting, wasn't it? The other boys thought so too, and they watched
+him to see if he went and ate them himself. But he did not; he slipped
+away when the others were not looking and went out into the town. So
+then they thought he went to sell them, and they were very angry, and
+would not speak to that boy or play with him, and left him alone; but
+still he used to get the 'gags' and carry them away. One day some other
+boys followed him, and what do you think they found? That he used to
+take the 'gags' to his own father and mother, who were very poor and
+almost beggars, and had nothing to eat. So the master praised him for
+being a good son, and not minding what the others said when he knew he
+could do something to help his poor parents.
+
+In those days when a Blue-coat boy tried to run away he was shut up in a
+little dark cell like a prison cell, and had only bread and water given
+to him, and saw no one and spoke to no one, and twice a week he was
+taken out and flogged. It was no wonder the boys wanted to run away, for
+the place was very wretched, and in the great dining-hall there were
+swarms of rats that came out at night to pick up the crumbs, and the
+boys used to go and catch them for fun, not in traps, but in their
+hands. I don't think girls would ever have liked that game, and there
+must have been some nasty bites and scratches sometimes.
+
+A very small boy was crying one day when he came back to the school
+after the holidays, and a master said to him: 'Boy, the school is your
+father; boy, the school is your mother; boy, the school is your brother,
+the school is your sister, your first cousin, your second cousin, and
+all the rest of your relations.' I don't suppose it made that boy feel
+any better. It is very different now, and the boys are very happy, and a
+great many clever men have been taught at that school, but in those
+early days it cannot have been very comfortable. But this is enough
+about the Blue-coat School.
+
+In one school the boys play on the roof, because they have no
+playground. This is in the City, near the great big cathedral of St.
+Paul's, and there is no room for playgrounds there; the land is too
+valuable, and is wanted for houses and streets. The school is for the
+choir-boys of the cathedral, who sing more beautifully than any other
+boys in the world. And if you were walking past the school you might
+suddenly hear a lovely voice rising higher and higher and higher, like
+a skylark or a nightingale, and this would be one of the boys practising
+his notes. The school is large and the roof is flat, and all over the
+top and at the sides are high railings filled in with wire, so that the
+balls at cricket or football can't jump over the edge and come down on
+the heads of the people walking in the street below. That would be a
+surprise, wouldn't it? to have a great football drop out of the sky on
+to your head. It is a funny idea, playing up there among the chimneys
+and the roofs, and I don't think it can be very clean; I expect the boys
+have always to wash their hands before they put on their pure white
+surplices and go into the great solemn cathedral to sing. There is going
+to be a chapter in this book telling something about the cathedral of
+St. Paul's, so you will remember this about the choir-boys when you come
+to it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+LONDON MARKETS
+
+
+There are seven millions of people in London. That does not give any
+idea of the real number, but if you were to begin now and count hard for
+three days and nights, you would not have counted a million then, even
+if you never stopped to eat or to sleep. Just think of it, that great
+crowd of people all wanting to be fed, and many of them wanting three
+good meals every day! If all the carts in the world were to be marching
+into London the whole time, you would think they could hardly bring food
+enough for this multitude of people. Yet somehow it is done, and it does
+not seem to be very difficult either. I think I hear someone saying,
+'But there are the shops; people can go and buy there.' Yes, they can,
+of course, but where do the shopmen get their stuff from? Where does all
+the meat come from, and the fruit and the flowers and vegetables, and
+all the things that must be kept fresh? Where does the shopman buy
+them? The shopman gets them from the markets, and the markets get them
+from the country. There are many great markets, and to-day we will visit
+three of them--that where we can see the meat, and that where the
+flowers and vegetables are, and that where the fish are. The flower
+market is much the nicest, of course, so we will keep it for the last.
+
+The fish market is down close by the river, just where you would expect
+it to be. If you want to see it you must not mind getting up very early,
+long before any cabs or omnibuses are about--in fact, it will be very
+difficult to get there at all unless you can bicycle or can walk a long
+way without being tired.
+
+Early one Saturday morning, then, when the light is still dim, and we
+have the streets all to ourselves, we start. It is so quiet. Not even
+the milkman is about yet, and the blinds of the houses are all down. The
+whole of the inhabitants of London seem asleep except you and me. We go
+right down into the City by London Bridge, and then in a very narrow
+dark street we suddenly find a number of people and hear a great noise.
+All over the street there are barrows and carts, and people are shouting
+and pushing, and everyone is trying to get in and out of the market at
+once. The market, which is called Billingsgate, is a great big place
+like a barn, and when once we have pushed in among all the rough men and
+women there, we see a wonderful sight. You would think you were at the
+seaside from the smell, for there are great lumps of seaweed lying about
+among the fish on the slabs, and they bring the breath of the sea with
+them. Here is a crawling pile of black lobsters; they are alive, and
+they turn bright-red when they have been boiled. Poor lobsters! they
+can't think where they have got to, and they are stretching out their
+long whiskers and looking about with their great goggle eyes, and the
+man who wants to sell them is shouting, 'Come, buy! come, buy! fine
+fresh lobsters alive, alive, oh!' All the fishmongers in London must be
+here, you would think, there are so many; and they buy the fish in great
+quantities, not as we do in the shops by the weight, but by the
+number--so much for each fish, whether it is big or little. And then
+they sell them for more money than they gave for them to the people who
+want them for breakfast and dinner, and so they make their living.
+Salmon, the king of all the fish, is always sold by weight, though, even
+in this market. Look at the salmon--huge silver fish lying on the
+stalls, with their scales gleaming in the early light. When they are cut
+open their flesh is pink, and all the other fish have white flesh. King
+Salmon was taking a little exercise one day, dashing about in the salt
+sea or sailing up the river, perhaps, when he ran his great stupid head
+into a net, and the more he struggled the worse it was, and strong as he
+was--as strong as a fairly big dog--he could not break that net, and so
+he was hauled out and brought to shore, where he died. Or perhaps he saw
+something very attractive in the water, and made a rush at it, only to
+find a cruel hook firmly fixed in his mouth. He might dash away or lie
+quiet, but wherever he was he knew the hook was still there; and when he
+was tired with all his struggles, the fisherman at the other end of the
+line began to haul it in gradually, and poor old salmon was drawn nearer
+and nearer to the land, and at last picked out of the water with a
+landing-net. And now he lies at Billingsgate, waiting for someone to buy
+him and take him to a shop to sell him again to be eaten. All round
+there are many cries--indeed, a noise such as you never heard before.
+What you hear is something like this: 'Haddock and cod, come buy! Fine
+fresh fish, fresh cod, buy, buy! Here you are; couldn't buy any finer.
+All this lot for ten shillings! Look here! look here! Whiting and
+turbot! crabs crawling all alive, alive, oh! Shrimps do you want? Fine
+shrimps, the very best! Here you are, buy! buy!' and so on, everyone
+shouting out to make the fishmongers buy their fish. Perhaps a crab
+crawls too near the edge of his stall, and falls over with a crash, and
+the man who owns him picks him up and throws him back, and off jumps
+Master Crab again as quick as you please, and does just the same thing
+again. You would think he would not want to tumble down: it must hurt
+him, even through such a thick shell; but he thinks if he goes on long
+enough perhaps he'll find again those lovely rocks all soaked with the
+great sea tide, which somehow he seems to have lost. So he goes on
+scuttling about and tumbling down until someone picks him up and throws
+him into a bag with the rest, and he is carried off to the shop, where,
+poor crab! he will never have a chance of finding his dear rocks again
+or hearing the water rushing in over the seaweed.
+
+He was perhaps lying under a great mass of seaweed in a deep pool, when
+a pole came walking along and poked into his side. He did not want it at
+all--in fact, he got quite angry with it, and shook himself free; but
+that pole only waggled about, and stuck into him again, and at last he
+seized it with his claws, and the more it shook, the tighter he held on,
+and he did not know that that was just what the man who was bending over
+the pool wanted. So the pole was pulled out with Master Crab sticking to
+it, and the man caught hold of him so neatly that he had not time to use
+his claws, and popped him into a bag, and he has never found the seaside
+since, and now he never will again. But perhaps he would not mind so
+much if he knew that Mrs. Crab did not miss him at all, for she went out
+to seek him when he did not come home, and she smelt a piece of dead
+fish, just the very thing she liked most of all. So she crawled up the
+side of the funny basket that was lying in the water, and found that the
+bit of dead fish was inside it. But that did not matter, for there was a
+hole at the top; so in popped Mrs. Crab, and there she had to stay, for
+she could not get out again. She tried and tried, but the hole was made
+with bits of stick pointed inwards, so that she could not get up to it
+from the inside. Many lobsters have been caught that way, and now Mrs.
+Crab was too; and when the men came in the evening to look at their
+baskets, they were quite pleased, for they found not only Mrs. Crab,
+but four of her friends whom she had invited inside because she felt
+lonely. So Mrs. Crab went to the market too, but it was not to the same
+market as her husband, and she did not meet him again. All those shrimps
+lying near were caught by boys with nets. The boys ran into the water
+with bare feet, and thrust their nets along the sandy bottom, and each
+time they came out they picked out the shrimps from the net and threw
+them into a pail, and only the very strongest managed to hop back on to
+the sand again; nearly all of them went to market.
+
+But while we have been looking at these things the market has been
+getting emptier; and now there are only a few young lads left, who have
+little barrows and carts, and are called costers, and they are walking
+round the stalls and picking out what they will buy after the
+fishmongers have got all the best of the fish. It is time to go away,
+and soon Billingsgate will be nearly desolate. It is not a nice place,
+and if there were not some policemen near I should not like to have
+brought you here.
+
+We cannot go to Covent Garden Market where the flowers are this morning,
+for it is nearly seven o'clock, and too late, as we ought to be there
+very early; but we can go to the meat market, which is not at all a
+pretty sight, and a long way off. But it is very wonderful. Here there
+is selling going on quite late, until about ten o'clock, perhaps, and
+even to the middle of the day the place is still busy. It is a huge
+place with a great glass roof, and there are rows of stalls with narrow
+passages like streets between them, and everywhere are great masses of
+raw meat. It is a city of meat; you walk down lanes of meat--meat
+everywhere. All the butchers in London come here to choose what they
+will buy, and from midnight onward all is bustle and business. Some of
+the meat comes to the market in vans, but the greater part comes by
+train. Right under the market there is a place scooped out in the earth
+like a cellar, and the railway lines run in under there, and then from
+the vans standing on the lines it is easy to lift the meat up into the
+market. Outside there is a great square, and in the early morning this
+square is filled with carts of every kind waiting to carry away the meat
+which the butchers buy. But all the meat does not come from England. A
+great deal of it comes from over the sea, from Australia and New
+Zealand, for England herself would never have enough to feed all her
+people. Close to the market at Smithfield there is another, where
+nothing but poultry is sold. Rows and rows of dead chickens go every day
+to fill all the shops--good chickens and bad chickens, the chickens that
+obeyed their mothers and the chickens that didn't; they come here just
+the same to supply the wants of the people of London.
+
+The flower market is very pretty, and it is a treat to go there. If you
+were grown up and had been to a ball in London, you might see, when you
+were coming back in the early morning, a cart piled high with cabbages,
+and a sleepy-looking man sitting on the shafts, while a dim lantern hung
+beside him. This is one of the carts bringing in the vegetables that
+London wants for her dinner next day. London itself is like a great
+ogre--eating, always eating. You remember the story of the giant who
+used to be quiet so long as the people brought him enough to eat? And
+how all the people in the country used to work day and night to bring in
+cartloads of things, for fear if they allowed him to go hungry he would
+eat them instead? The giant could swallow up those cartloads as if they
+were spoonfuls. And so it is with London. Men work day and night
+bringing, always bringing, cartloads of meat and fruit and vegetables,
+and London swallows them all up; and next day there are more carts and
+more food from the country, and so it goes on always.
+
+In the middle of the night, when most people are fast asleep, the man
+who wants to sell his flowers or vegetables at Covent Garden Market must
+be up and out. In the dim light he harnesses his horse and lights his
+lamp. Perhaps his faithful dog watches him, and runs about quite pleased
+to be going for a walk, even if it is in the middle of the night. Then
+the man starts off on his long, slow journey into London. Mile after
+mile over muddy or dusty roads, through villages where everyone is
+asleep, where not even a dog barks, on and on to London. It may be very
+cold, and the horse only goes slowly, so it cannot be very comfortable;
+but this is the man's work, and he must do it. Perhaps the cartman has a
+little boy, and takes him too, and you see the little boy, when the cart
+is coming back empty in the morning, lying sound asleep on the straw
+dead tired, while his father drives home.
+
+All the carts gather up to the market, and then they are unloaded. One
+brings vegetables, and another fruit, and another flowers, and by two
+o'clock everything is in its place and ready to be sold. Then the buyers
+come--shop people again, greengrocers and fruiterers--and they look
+round and try to get the best they can at the lowest prices.
+
+There is a great hall covered in with glass, and in this the flowers are
+arranged. It is lovely--like a huge flower-show. Of course, the flowers
+are different at different times of the year, but in the early summer
+you can see banks and banks of roses, all colours--red and yellow and
+white--and masses of sweet-scented carnations and lilies and heliotrope;
+and the smell is very sweet, so different from the market at
+Billingsgate. All the people here, except you and me, are busy people
+come to buy in order to sell again, and some of them don't look very
+rich. Do you see that girl there in the corner with a red shawl and a
+hat with huge untidy feathers all out of curl? She is a flower-girl, and
+she is going to spend two or three shillings on buying a basket of
+flowers. These she will do up into little bunches, and if she is lucky
+enough to sell them again she will make a few shillings before the
+evening. When she has chosen her flowers she goes away and sits down on
+a cold stone step, and begins pulling them about and blowing into the
+roses to make them open, and if you feel as I do you will not care to
+buy them then; you would much rather she left them just as they were
+and did not finger them. But she thinks people will be more likely to
+buy them if they are carefully arranged. When she has done she starts
+off to walk a long way to a stand where she goes every day, perhaps a
+place where two or three streets join and there is an open space. There
+is one in the West End, where there is an island of pavement between
+lines of traffic north and south, east and west; the flower-girls sit
+here all day. They don't seem to mind the rain or wet at all; they are
+quite used to it. They don't pay anything for being here; but they are
+very angry if another comes and takes their place, and the girl or woman
+to whom it belongs will perhaps fight the newcomer, and then the
+policeman has to come and separate them.
+
+Some of these places where the flower-women sit are made quite beautiful
+by the baskets of flowers. In the spring, when the daffodils are out, it
+looks as if a patch of sunshine had fallen from the sky into the dark
+street. But all these flowers don't come from England. A great many are
+grown abroad, and sent to Covent Garden Market from over the sea.
+
+At the market, when the cartman has finished arranging his vegetables,
+he goes to a coffee-stall. There are many there, and perhaps he gets a
+great cup of strong coffee and an immense hunch of bread or cake for
+breakfast, or perhaps he goes to the public-house at the corner; but at
+any rate, before he goes back, he has something to eat, and then he
+piles up his baskets, now empty, in which he brought the things and
+starts off home. One of the most surprising things at Covent Garden is
+the quantities of oranges that come there--boxes and boxes of oranges.
+These have been brought to England up the river in ships, and the men,
+with great cushions on their heads, carry them to the markets. The
+cushion is to make it soft and prevent the hard wood of the box hurting
+their heads, and they carry a huge boxful in this way more easily than
+you or I would carry a book.
+
+Long years ago, when London consisted of only a few houses and
+Westminster of another few houses, this market, which is now in the
+middle of streets, was really a garden, and it belonged to a convent for
+nuns, and it is strange that it should be like a garden still with all
+its fruit and flowers, though now it is part of a great town.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CHILDREN'S HOSPITALS
+
+
+We have seen children rich and children poor, children at work and
+children at play, but we have not yet seen any of the poor little
+children who cannot run about as others do, who have to be still, and
+who very often suffer pain. A lady began a school for poor children who
+were ill. She had been visiting poor people, and she had found out that
+sometimes a mother had to leave her sick child the whole day long alone
+in one dark room. And very often these children were not ill for a
+little time only, as any of you might be, but ill always from babyhood,
+without any hope of getting well. To take one case, little Beatrice
+Annie Jones had a mother who was a widow, and used to go out to scrub
+people's floors and clean the houses; that is what is called being a
+charwoman. She had sometimes to go quite a long way to her work, and
+could not come back in the middle of the day for dinner; so in the
+morning before she went she used to give Beatrice Annie a bit of bread
+and an egg, if she had enough money to buy one, and a few sticks, and a
+little pan with water in it. Then she used to tidy up the room and go
+away, leaving the child alone. The door must be locked, for a thief
+might come in and steal the few bits of things there were. The window
+was dirty and very high up; Beatrice Annie could only see out of it by
+climbing on a rickety chair, and she could not stand there long, for it
+hurt her legs and back, for they were not like other little girls' legs
+and back, but weak and painful, so that she used to drag herself about
+the floor on all fours, like a baby, rather than walk, even though she
+was seven years old. The room she and her mother lived in was up many,
+many stairs, and it was very seldom she could get out at all; for though
+she was very light and small, her mother was too tired to carry her down
+after her day's work. Beatrice Annie was suffering from a disease very
+common with poor children, called rickets. It means that the bones are
+not strong--they are like chalk, and will break very easily; even a fall
+off a chair might do it--and it is sometimes caused by the children not
+having had enough milk when they were babies.
+
+When her mother left her alone, Beatrice Annie used to look round the
+room and sigh. It was a very dreary room. When you are ill, everyone
+brings you nice things--flowers and jellies and pictures--to pass the
+time. This little girl had only one picture, a bright-coloured almanack,
+with a likeness of the King dressed in the scarlet uniform of a soldier,
+and she had looked at this so often she was tired of it. She was so
+lonely that she would have been glad if even a little mouse had come to
+play with her; but the mice did not come to that room; there were not
+enough crumbs to please Mr. Mouse. Beatrice Annie could not read; she
+had never been to school, for she was not strong enough. So she sat for
+a long time on the wooden floor and wondered what she should do. She had
+one dirty wooden doll, dressed in rags, and for a little time she washed
+its face, wiping it with a bit of rag dipped in the corner of the little
+pan she was going to boil her egg in; but she soon got tired of that.
+Then she tried to climb on the chair to look out of the window, but when
+she managed it, after trying several times, she could not stay long, it
+made her legs ache so; and the street was very far down, she could not
+see anything interesting. So the weary day went on. Long before one
+o'clock she had boiled her egg, and she ate it with great enjoyment;
+but that did not take very long, and then there were hours and hours to
+wait before at last the old stairs creaked and her mother put the key in
+the lock and came in with a tired face. She was a good woman this,
+though so poor and wretched, and she could not help her little girl's
+being left alone, and she always tried to bring home something for her
+to cheer her up.
+
+'Look, Beatrice Annie!' she cried, as she opened the door. 'What hever
+do ye think I've brought for yer?' And she held up a bunch of red
+radishes for a treat.
+
+Well, when this lady found out that there were many children like
+Beatrice Annie, she said that there might be a school just for such poor
+sick children, and that they could do as much or as little work as they
+liked. Several rich people joined in sharing the expense of starting the
+school, and one doctor gave a carriage that had two seats in it on which
+children could lie right down, and others where they could sit. Then a
+good kind nurse was found, and every morning the nurse went round and
+carried out or helped all the little sick children who were well enough
+to come, and took them driving in their own carriage to school. She had
+to begin very early, and go backwards and forwards several times, for
+the carriage did not hold a great many children at a time, and there
+were so many who wanted to come. She took them to a school in Tavistock
+Place, not very far from the British Museum, in a part of London called
+Bloomsbury, and by ten o'clock all the children were there.
+
+Then they began work, a little reading and writing, and a few sums; but
+they were always carefully watched, and if any child seemed tired she
+was made to stop and lie down on a sofa. At twelve o'clock dinner-time
+came. At first a few of the children used to bring their own dinners,
+and as the mothers were very poor, sometimes the dinners were very
+nasty, and not at all good for a delicate child. Perhaps one little boy,
+with a white face and a big head, would unroll a filthy bit of
+newspaper, and show some cold herring, which smelt horrid. Or another
+would bring out a lump of greasy pudding, as heavy as lead. So it was
+arranged that if the mother could give a few pence, varying from three
+halfpence to threepence, according to her means, the children should
+have dinner at the school, and for these sums it is marvellous what a
+dinner they get. Beef and mutton, with vegetables, light puddings of
+milk and fruit, and sometimes rich people send game, and then these
+poor little gutter children have dinners like princes and princesses.
+
+Though it is in the middle of London, there is a beautiful garden
+behind, which belongs to the Duke of Bedford, and he allows them to play
+there, for the house to which it belonged is now pulled down. Some of
+the children go hopping about on their crutches, and even play games
+upon the smooth turf under the great shady trees. After being out for an
+hour, they come in and do such interesting work. All sorts of things
+they make with their hands. The boys do iron work, and the girls lace;
+or the boys do painting and basket-making, and the girls embroidery. So
+that when they grow up and leave the school they may be able to earn a
+living for themselves.
+
+At about three o'clock the carriage comes again, and they begin to go
+home. Now, cannot you fancy what a new world this is to the children?
+Before they went to school they knew nothing about the world they lived
+in, or about history, or about plants and animals. They had nothing to
+think of to make them forget their pain. They could just sleep or lie
+still all day, like little animals. Now they are bright and happy. If by
+any chance they cannot go to school, or the carriage does not come,
+they cry bitterly. There are other schools begun now like this one, so
+perhaps in time all the children who are invalids can go to school.
+
+Of course, there are some cases where a child is too ill to attend any
+school, and then it must go to a hospital. There is one of these
+hospitals in Chelsea, and it looks out over the great gray river Thames.
+It is a large red-brick house, and boys and girls who can never get well
+can be taken in here and made comfortable, and saved as much pain as
+possible. It is a beautiful house, and it is very sad, but happy, too,
+to see the children, and how bright they look. They wear little red
+flannel jackets when they sit up in bed, and have a tray put across the
+bed, and upon it for them to play with are the toys that kind people
+have sent. The rooms are divided into two parts, for boys and girls, and
+the children are received between the ages of three and ten, so there
+are no tiny babies here. The large windows are down to the ground, so
+the children can see what is going on outside, and I will tell you what
+they see: first, the Embankment; I have told you about that. It is like
+a broad road, and taxi-cabs and bicycles and many other things are
+always passing and repassing. Then the river, up which the salt sea
+tide rolls every day, and when the weather is very cold and stormy the
+gray and white sea-gulls fly inland up the river, and wheel and scream;
+and when people throw bread for them they dart down upon it and catch it
+before it can touch the water, so quick are they.
+
+On the river there are, in summer, pleasure-steamers crowded with
+people; these stop at a pier quite near the children's hospital, and
+sometimes they are so full that not another person can get on. Then
+there are great barges going slowly along, dragged by a little
+steam-tug; perhaps there are three or four barges one after another, so
+low in the water that it almost washes over their decks. They carry
+great piles of hay or coal further up the river, and they look like
+great lazy porpoises being towed along by the fussy little steamer. If
+they are coming in with the tide, so that the current helps them, they
+do not need the steam-tug; but men stand up at one end and help the
+barge along, and guide it by a huge oar called a sweep. Some of these
+men and their wives live always on these barges, and earn their living
+by taking things up the river. There is only a tiny dirty little cabin,
+the size of the smallest room you ever saw, and so Mrs. Bargeman can't
+bring fine frocks with her; but that doesn't matter, for it isn't likely
+that she has any. The faces of the men and women get quite brown with
+being out always in the open air. It is a queer life that, always going
+up and down, to and fro, upon the gray water, watching the red sun sink
+at night and seeing him rise again; watching the sunlight ripple in the
+water by day, and seeing the lights from the shore shine out sparkling
+like jewels at night.
+
+The barges are quite low and have no funnels, so they can pass under the
+bridges; but the steamers have to bow down their funnels when they come
+to a bridge, and then they raise them up again, as if they were very
+polite gentlemen saying, 'How do you do?' to the bridge.
+
+Well, the children in the hospital can see these things, and for those
+whose beds don't face the windows there are looking-glasses so arranged
+that all that goes on is reflected in them, so that it is like a
+wonderful picture-book, changing all day long. Though they look so
+happy, poor children! some of them suffer dreadful pain, and it is sad
+to think this hospital is for incurable children--that is, children who
+can never be well in this world.
+
+In one room there is a large picture; I am sure you have seen one like
+it. It is Jesus Christ standing at a door, knocking, and the door is
+fast shut, and briars and brambles have grown all over it; but still
+Christ stands knocking, hoping it may open. In His hand there is a
+lantern, and the picture is called 'The Light of the World.' Now, the
+real picture, the one that the artist painted, from which all the others
+like it have been printed, was painted just where this children's
+hospital is; for the artist, whose name is Holman Hunt, had a house
+there before the hospital was built. So he gave a very large copy of his
+picture to the children, and wrote under it that it was from the artist
+who made that picture, in that place, to Christ's little ones.
+
+There are other hospitals for children, which are for all sorts of
+illnesses and not only for incurable ones. There is one in Chelsea, not
+far from here, and another, a very large one, in Great Ormond Street,
+not very far from the school for sick children.
+
+In the Great Ormond Street one they take in the very tiniest babies, and
+so the nurses have plenty to do looking after these mites. Sometimes a
+child is very naughty when it first comes in, and will do nothing but
+scream and cry, and the nurses have to be very patient; but it always
+happens that when it has been there for a time it loves them all so much
+that it cries when it gets well and has to go home. It is a funny sight
+to see a nurse or a sister having tea with perhaps three or four
+children who are well enough to be up. They climb all over her like
+little kittens, and love her so much she cannot get rid of them. In this
+hospital each ward is named after some member of the Royal Family:
+Helena Ward, Alice Ward, and so on, after the Princesses Helena and
+Alice, daughters of Queen Victoria.
+
+There is a home for cripple girls in London, and another for cripple
+boys in a part of the West End called Kensington. Here the boys are
+taken in and taught, not only lessons, but all kinds of things that boys
+can do without having to walk. Some are tailors, and some make harness
+for carriage-horses, and some carve wood, and learn carpentering or
+shoemaking. And so they can earn their own living when they grow up to
+be men. They all seem very happy, and when you meet them on a walk it is
+a touching sight; but yet not really sad, because their faces are bright
+and happy. Fancy meeting twenty or thirty boys going along together,
+every one of them lame or deformed in some way! Some go on crutches, and
+some hobble, and others limp; but they do not seem to mind, because,
+perhaps, they have never known what it is to be active like other boys,
+and there are plenty of pleasant things they can still do.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+STREETS AND SHOPS
+
+
+When I asked a little girl who was visiting London for the first time if
+it was like what she had expected, she said, 'No,' and when I asked how
+it differed from the idea she had had, she said: 'I expected to see long
+rows and rows of houses, going on for miles and miles, but I never
+thought there would be so many things in the streets--cabs and omnibuses
+and people; it's all so much fuller and gayer than I thought.'
+
+I think this is what would strike anyone who was seeing London for the
+first time, especially if they came in what is called 'the season.' The
+season lasts for three months--May, June, and July--and during that time
+the people who live in the country, but are rich enough to have houses
+in London, come up to town; and the people who have houses in London,
+but who go away a great deal during the rest of the year, make a point
+of being in London during the season; and many other people, who are
+gay and rich, come up to town just for those three months to meet all
+their friends and see what is going on. So the streets in the West End
+are very full indeed. In the beginning of May, when the fine weather
+comes, people in costly motor-cars appear in the Park in greater
+numbers, until at the height of the season there are rows and rows of
+them. If you were to go to the Park any fine afternoon about that time
+of the year and were to stand near one of the great gates at Hyde Park
+Corner, you would see all the traffic drawn up in double lines, with the
+well-dressed women inside the carriages waiting for something. They are
+interested in seeing H.M. the Queen, who is very fond of driving in the
+Park. Perhaps also there may be with her the popular Duchess of York,
+from her house in Piccadilly, and possibly baby Princess Elizabeth. When
+the royalties come there is quite a stir of excitement. The great iron
+gates opening on to Constitution Hill are thrown open--they are only
+opened for royalty; everyone else has to go through the side gates--and
+then there is a flash of scarlet liveries, and the crowd of people
+standing in the open space before Hyde Park call out, 'The Queen, the
+Queen!' And the much-loved Queen drives smiling through them, bowing
+this way and that, with that gracious manner that has made everyone love
+her; and the men raise their hats and the ladies wave their
+handkerchiefs as the carriage dashes across the open space, kept clear
+by the police, and goes into the Park, where all the waiting carriages
+are. The Queen has another lady with her, or perhaps her only daughter
+who has now a home of her own, and they drive round and round the Park
+several times, enjoying the fresh ah.
+
+The streets of London are in some places very narrow--too narrow to
+allow tram-cars to run through them as they do in some other large
+towns, and at the height of the season the blocks in the traffic in some
+of the West-End streets are quite alarming. Imagine a tightly-packed
+mass of vehicles, restive horses in splendid carriages, huge
+motor-omnibuses, smart automobiles, taxi-cabs, and tradesmen's vans, all
+squeezed together. Perhaps the policeman has held up his hand at a
+crossing to let some carriages get across from a side street, and
+everything has had to stop, public and private alike. Stand up on the
+top of an omnibus and look this way and that: what can you see? Rows and
+rows of great omnibuses crowded with people, both outside on the roof
+and inside, all waiting just because one man has held up his hand.
+Nothing astonishes foreigners more than this; indeed, some people say it
+is the one thing Frenchmen like most to see in London--the power of the
+policeman. He has perfect control of all the traffic, and if he says a
+thing must stop, it must obey him even if it be the carriage of a duke.
+In Paris they tried to imitate this, and they gave their policemen
+little white wands to hold up to stop the traffic when it was necessary;
+but the drivers of the cabs took no notice, and the poor French
+policeman would run about yelling at them and waving his little white
+wand and shouting to them to stop, and when they took no notice he grew
+more and more angry until he was almost frantic--so different from our
+calm, grave policeman with his majestic arm. Sometimes, when the roadway
+is thick with carts and cabs and carriages, there is a roar in the
+distance, a shout of many voices that makes your heart stand still. It
+comes again, louder and louder, nearer and nearer, and all the vehicles
+pull to one side and make a lane down the middle of the road. Right up
+this lane dashes a shining fire-engine, with the smoke and sparks flying
+out behind, the men in the glistening helmets clinging on to the sides,
+and the driver guiding it so skilfully as it spins over the ground far
+quicker than it takes to tell. In a minute they have dashed out of
+sight; then the traffic closes up again. But there is another shout,
+another roar, and another engine follows the first; the firemen clinging
+to it are shouting all together a noise that sounds like 'Ah-h-h!
+ah-h-h!' to warn other things to get out of their way. Soon a third
+comes, and then follows a great red ladder on wheels, pushed by men on
+foot--that is a fire-escape. The fire can't be far away, so we run after
+the excited crowd, and soon come to a street blocked with people, where
+flames and smoke are shooting out of the windows. It is a house where
+many girls are employed in a dressmaking business, and some of them have
+been got safely out; but there are others at those high windows,
+screaming for help and stretching out their arms. The brave firemen
+begin to send great spouts of water on to the raging flames; they put up
+the fire-escape, and one man mounts it, going right into the smoke. He
+brings down two of the girls from one story, and disappears for a moment
+into the room; then he comes back, for the flames are beating fiercely
+on him. In the wild confusion no one seems to know if all the girls are
+out or not; but presently one cries out that two are still in the
+back-rooms, now blazing fiercely. Up go the firemen again and plunge
+into the windows right into the flames. A long time elapses. We hold our
+breath; it seems as if the brave men must have perished. Then there is a
+cheer as a fireman appears with something in his arms. It is a girl
+unconscious; gently he lowers her down the ladder, and goes again to
+help his comrade. They reappear and come down in safety. Are all out
+now? No; for all at once, at the end of the building furthest from the
+fire-escape, a woman appears shrieking wildly. She cannot wait, though
+the men shout to her to do so; there are flames behind her clutching at
+her, her hair is on fire and her clothes. She stands on the window-sill,
+and it is seen she is going to leap into the street below; a blanket is
+held, and a hush falls on the crowd as she plunges down. Hurrah! the
+blanket has caught her; she will be no worse. All are out now, but still
+the flames are fearful, and the houses on either side are threatened.
+The firemen play water on to them to keep them from catching alight, and
+an incessant stream of water spouts upwards from the great hose. The
+roof goes in with a crash, but it is seen that the water is doing
+something--the flames are quieter. Yet, with all the care and patience,
+it is not for several hours the fire can be pronounced to have been put
+out. If we came to see the house next day, it would stand up bare and
+smoke-blackened, just four walls, with the roof burnt out, the
+staircases gone, and inside only a mass of rubbish. Someone will have to
+pay heavily, but, at any rate, at this particular fire no lives have
+been lost.
+
+The Fire Brigade is a wonderful power, and the brave men who belong to
+it perform heroic things in daily life without making any fuss. There
+are brigade stations all over London, and if a fire breaks out, it takes
+only a few minutes for the brigade to be summoned. Not so very long ago
+all the engines were drawn by specially trained horses who stood ready
+in their stalls, with the harness swinging above them. At the first
+sound of the alarm bell the harness was lowered, the straps buckled, and
+in a few moments the fire-engines were on the road. But now all the
+London fire-engines are run by motor power. In the streets there are
+little red posts with a glass at the top. By breaking it a bell is rung
+in the nearest fire station, and the men are warned. Mischievous boys or
+men sometimes broke these glasses 'just for fun,' and then ran away, and
+when the fire-engine dashed round the corner the men found no fire.
+This has been stopped by the infliction of a very heavy fine. If anyone
+is caught doing it now without cause he is made to pay richly for his
+mischief, and quite rightly too. Yet it does happen sometimes that men
+and engine are summoned on a false alarm, and when they arrive they find
+only a smouldering chimney, or perhaps even only a smoky one, and the
+people who have called them up have been needlessly alarmed. At
+Hampstead, in the north of London, where the ground is very high, there
+is a great tower rising many feet into the air, from which one can see
+almost all over London, and here there is a man always on duty to watch
+if fires break out. Of course, it would be a pretty big fire if he could
+see it from there, but then he could communicate with the nearest
+station and tell them to go to it. It must be a curious duty to stay all
+night at that great height overlooking the vast city of London.
+Sometimes a fire breaks out in some of the great warehouses down by the
+river, and then there is a magnificent sight. One such warehouse was
+full of paraffin oil, and you know paraffin burns more readily than
+anything else. As the barrels were caught by the flames the oil streamed
+out on to the water, and, floating on the top, seemed like a sea of
+flame. It must have been wonderful to see. The heat was so great that
+no one could go near, but on the opposite bank thousands of people
+assembled and watched the flames. There were flames above and flames
+below, fire shooting to the sky, and fire flowing down on the river's
+tide. The water reflected the fire above, and the fire that floated on
+its surface. It must have seemed like a burning world. That was a very
+difficult task for the brigade.
+
+Sometimes the brave men themselves are injured or killed in the
+execution of their work, and at all times when engaged with a fire they
+run some risk.
+
+But we have got a long way from the street where we saw the engine
+dashing down through the traffic, and we must come back again. All the
+bustle and the fuss that we have been talking of is on the roadway. What
+about the pavements? The pavement is often just as crowded, and though
+policemen don't hold up their hands to prevent people walking there, yet
+it is often quite a long time before you can get through, especially
+outside a gay shop window, where all the women want to stand and stare.
+In one place, where there are several big shops which stretch down one
+side of the street, with very pretty windows full of beautiful things,
+many nursemaids come to wheel babies in perambulators. This is not for
+the sake of the children, who are too young to care about shop windows,
+but it is for the sake of the nursemaids, who meet together and go
+slowly along two together, talking of all the fine things they want to
+buy, and staring with mouths and eyes round as saucers at the things
+they see. Now two nursemaids with two perambulators on a narrow pavement
+do not leave much room for anyone else, and people get tripped up and
+have their toes crushed by the wheels, or have to step off into the
+roadway to make way for Selina Ellen and Martha Theresa, who are far too
+much interested in their conversation to make way for anyone. Once a
+funny thing happened. An old gentleman was strolling along very slowly,
+and Selina Ellen, never looking where she was going, pushed her
+perambulator into him from behind. It took the old gentleman right off
+his legs, whereupon he sat down backwards on to the perambulator, baby
+and all! Poor baby! no wonder it screamed; it was a mercy it was not
+squashed up altogether!
+
+Yet there is some excuse for Selina Ellen and her kind, for the shops
+are very beautiful. Those of you who have only seen shops in small
+country towns can hardly imagine what they are like. The great
+plate-glass windows stretch down the side of a street, and if you go
+inside the shop you walk through room after room of beautiful things,
+all arranged to show to the best advantage. The toy department would be
+enough to make any little girl or boy happy even to look at it. There
+are toys large and toys small; engines that can be wound up to run by
+themselves; horses large enough to ride upon; balls of all colours and
+sizes; and dolls--oh, the dolls! Dolls black-eyed and brown-eyed and
+blue-eyed, dolls fair-haired and brown-haired, dolls dressed and
+undressed. It is perhaps just imagination, but it always seems to me if
+we could be there when the shop is shut up for the night and left quiet
+we should hear and see some strange things.
+
+One night, not very long before Christmas, in one of the largest shops,
+the young men and women who had sold things to customers all day long
+were putting away the ribbons and laces and folding up the great
+curtains and the dress-stuffs to leave everything tidy for the night
+before they went away to their homes. They had been there since nine
+o'clock that morning, and were very tired, for people, even ladies, are
+sometimes very tiresome when they come to buy; but the young men and
+women have to be very polite always, and never lose their temper, or
+they would be sent away. When the shop was just being shut up a lady
+hurried in, and said:
+
+'I want a doll, please, at once.'
+
+'This way, madam,' said the tall man in the frock-coat very politely,
+and he took her downstairs. 'Dolls, please,' he said to a tired,
+sweet-looking girl who stood there.
+
+'What sort of a doll did you wish, madam?' asked the girl.
+
+'Oh, it must be a baby doll in baby clothes with real lace. My little
+girl would not have one that wasn't dressed in real lace.'
+
+'I'm afraid we haven't any with real lace, madam, but we have one or two
+baby dolls,' said the girl, and she took down one or two from the
+shelves.
+
+'Oh no, those are hideous!' said the lady. 'The doll must have brown
+eyes and red-gold hair.'
+
+'I don't think we have any like that, madam. Here is one with blue eyes
+and----'
+
+'I didn't ask you for blue eyes,' said the lady rudely. 'If you can't
+show me what I want I must go elsewhere.'
+
+'One minute, madam; I believe there is just one doll such as you
+describe, if it hasn't been sold.'
+
+She looked about, and after a little while saw the doll she wanted on a
+shelf. She reached up for it and tried to pull it down, but another
+doll, rather larger, was leaning over it, so that she could not take one
+without the other. She thought the two seemed very close, but she
+disentangled them, and laid the baby doll on the counter. As she did so
+the big doll fell forward on the shelf, with its arms hanging over as if
+they were stretched out imploringly; but the girl never noticed it.
+
+'I think this will be what you are wanting, madam,' she said.
+
+The lady looked at it in a dissatisfied way.
+
+'It hasn't got real lace on its clothes, but as its hair and eyes seem
+right, I must take it, and tell my maid to sew some lace on to-night to
+be ready for Gladys in the morning,' she said.
+
+The girl tied it up in a parcel for her, and she left the shop. Very
+shortly after this everyone went home, and all was still in the dolls'
+department; and then suddenly there was a gentle little sniff, just as
+if a very wee kitten were crying, and a little movement from the shelf
+where the baby-doll had lain. Then a tiny little squeaky voice said:
+
+'Well, you needn't make such a fuss about it; you knew the baby would
+have to go some day.'
+
+'I--I--can't help it,' sobbed a gentle little voice; 'I did love that
+baby so.'
+
+'You behaved very badly,' said a gruff voice; and the two dolls jumped,
+for they knew it was the Gollywog speaking, and they were all afraid of
+him. 'You did what no doll should ever do--you nearly showed you were
+alive before human people.'
+
+'I know it was very wrong of me,' said the gentle little doll meekly.
+'But I did so want to keep that baby; I tried to lie on the top of her
+so that she shouldn't be seen.'
+
+'And you fell down and stretched out your arms. Let me tell you, madam,
+that you have merited severe punishment; you have broken the laws of
+dolldom, wherein we all swear never to speak or show a sign that we can
+understand the human world. You have broken the most solemn law in a
+daring way without provocation----'
+
+'Oh,' said the second doll with the squeaky voice, 'please, Mr.
+Gollywog, don't be so severe; I think she had provocation: she cared
+very much for the baby.'
+
+'What are you talking about?' growled the Gollywog. 'We don't want your
+opinion. We're going to have a trial now, and no women-dolls can sit on
+juries, so you won't have anything to say. Provocation, indeed! If she
+had pins stuck into her all over, or been roasted in front of a fire
+until she melted, as some dolls have done, you might have talked of
+provocation. She might have squeaked then, though many dolls have
+bravely endured these things in silence and died; but because a
+baby-doll she had taken a fancy to went away, to show off like that! She
+deserves death.'
+
+Whereupon he stumped down off his shelf, and hunted about for a man-doll
+to make a jury to try the poor gentle doll. It was rather difficult to
+find, for there were so few men-dolls; but at last he rummaged out of a
+corner a sailor-boy doll, who was terribly afraid of him, and of him he
+demanded:
+
+'What do you think that doll is guilty of?'
+
+'Please, sir,' said the sailor-boy, trembling all over, 'what do _you_
+think?'
+
+'I think she is guilty of a crime that deserves punishment by death.'
+
+'Punishment by death!' echoed the sailor-boy.
+
+Thereupon the Gollywog made a spring upwards to the shelf, and the poor
+little gentle doll gave a shriek and lost her balance, and fell head
+first on to the floor, where she was smashed to pieces.
+
+When the shopgirls came again in the morning, the one who had served
+the lady found her lying there with her pretty wax face all broken.
+
+'Oh dear,' she said, 'how careless of me! She fell off the shelf, to be
+sure; I remember seeing her fall down when I took away the other doll. I
+ought to have put her back.'
+
+But the Gollywog, who had returned safely to his own corner, chuckled to
+himself silently.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+DOGS AND CATS
+
+
+Have you ever heard of the Dogs' Home? It is for all the poor lost dogs
+that the policemen find in the streets of London. Once upon a time there
+was a very naughty little dog called Scamp; he had long pepper-and-salt
+hair, and very short legs, and he did not think it was fun to go with
+the children of the house he lived in for their walk in the Park: he
+wanted something more exciting, so he waited until they were not
+looking, and then scampered off after another big dog he saw in the
+distance. The big dog was very friendly, and began to play and run
+about, and Scamp went after him as fast as his little short legs would
+go; and by-and-by he grew tired, and lay down, panting, on the pavement,
+and the big dog went away home. Then Scamp saw a cat coming very slowly
+across the street to the little strip of grass that was surrounded by a
+railing on the other side, and if there was one thing he hated it was
+cats--nasty, cowardly, furry things! So he banged up suddenly, and the
+cat went off like a shot, and Scamp after her; but when he had chased
+her for quite a long time, she ran up a tree, and he could only stand
+and bark. A greengrocer's boy pretended to bark too, and teased him; so
+he grew cross, and thought he would go home. But he discovered all at
+once that he did not know where home was, or even in which direction;
+and he ran a little in one direction and a little in another, and then
+set off running at full speed, with his long tail down between his legs.
+A woman called to him and tried to stop him, but he only dodged her and
+ran faster, until he came to a wide street full of shops, and here
+people walking about, and carriages and cabs driving past, and he got
+quite bewildered; and then, just when he was in despair, a policeman
+caught hold of him and looked for his collar. Now, the silly little dog
+had not got his collar on. Ethel had taken it off that morning to rub up
+his name and address, and make them look nice and bright, and when she
+wanted to put it on again, he had raced round the room and played, and
+would not let her catch him until the governess had called out that it
+was lesson-time; so Ethel had gone down, leaving the collar lying on the
+table, and after lesson-time had forgotten all about it. So the big
+policeman did not know to whom the dog belonged or where to take him.
+Scamp was too well-mannered a little dog to bite, but he tried to get
+down when the policeman took him up and struggled hard. The policeman
+only laughed, and patted his head. 'No, no, my fine fellow,' he said
+good-naturedly; 'there'll be someone looking for you, or I'm much
+mistaken, and I must do my best to let them find you.' So he took him to
+a police-station near, and very soon Scamp was sent down with a
+shivering little fox-terrier to the Dogs' Home at Battersea.
+
+He did not understand that it was his only chance of getting home; for
+Ethel and Jack's father would know about the home, and send there to see
+if he were there first of all. And he thought that the people at the
+Dogs' Home were going to keep him all his life, and he did not like the
+idea at all. For many dogs it would have been a comfortable place. There
+were nice little kennels and good beds of hay, and plenty of drinking
+water and clean good biscuit to eat, and little yards to run about in;
+but Scamp was not happy. He was accustomed to live in the house and
+sleep on the chairs, and be petted and made a fuss with, and nobody took
+any notice of him here. He was very hungry, though, so he tried to eat
+a little of the dog-biscuit; but in the middle he suddenly thought of
+Ethel and Jack and how he loved them, and that he should never find them
+again, and he stopped eating because a great lump seemed to stick in his
+throat, and he went and sat down in a corner of the yard, just a heap of
+gray hair and unhappiness. Presently a man came and patted him and spoke
+kindly to him, but he took no notice. He thought how often he had been
+cross when Ethel had hurt him in combing his hair, though she had only
+been trying to make him look nice, and how sulky he had been many times
+when she wanted to play with him; and he thought if only he could get
+back he would be so good. All the bad things he had done in his life
+came into his mind as he sat in the yard. He remembered that, when he
+was only a puppy, about a year ago, he had worried one of Ethel's dolls,
+and she had cried, and he had licked her face and tried to tell her he
+was sorry, and she had flung her arms round him, and said: 'Never mind,
+dear good old Scamp! I love you more than all the dolls, and I know you
+didn't mean it.' How good she was always! He loved her better than Jack,
+though she did tease him. She had often dressed him up in her dolls'
+clothes and made him lie upside down in her arms in a very uncomfortable
+position, while she pretended he was a baby.
+
+He had killed a canary once, and once--it was very sad, and he did not
+quite know how it had happened--he had got on to the sideboard and eaten
+the cold beef while everyone was out at church on Sunday morning. The
+beef had been left there uncovered, and he was very hungry, and it smelt
+so good. He had climbed on to a chair and sniffed at it, and got a
+little nearer and nearer, and all the time he knew quite well he was
+doing wrong. And at last he jumped up and began to eat great juicy
+mouthfuls of it. Oh, how good it was! And he pulled it this way and
+that, and the cloth on the sideboard had got all crumpled up, and
+suddenly down went a dish of beetroot with a smash, and all the rich red
+juice streamed over the cloth and on to the carpet. He was frightened
+then, and turned to run away; but his broad, flat paws had got into the
+beetroot juice, and he left great marks all across the cloth. He heard
+the latchkey in the front-door just at that moment, and he ran upstairs
+and hid under Ethel's bed. Then the family came in, and he heard their
+cry of dismay, and Ethel called for him; but he only hid deeper under
+the bed. And then she came into the room, and said quite quietly, as if
+she knew he was there, though she never looked under the bed: 'Oh,
+Scamp! how could you?' And his broad tail went thump, thump against the
+floor. So he was dragged out and whipped, and he felt very much ashamed
+of himself.
+
+Oh dear! if he could only get back to them all he would never do such
+naughty things again!
+
+In the morning two or three other dogs were put into his yard, and
+though he wouldn't speak to them at all, and was too miserable to play,
+he heard what they said. One of them had been here before, and he
+explained that all the well-bred dogs, the good ones, were kept for a
+certain time to allow their people to come and find them, and if at the
+end of that time no one came for them they were sold; but the mongrels
+and little dogs that were of no value--well, it was very curious what
+happened to them. They went to sleep in a nice warm place like a drawer,
+but they never woke up again. They did not suffer at all, and it was all
+arranged very kindly. 'And of course,' said the dog who was speaking,
+'it is quite right there should be some distinction between me and a
+mongrel!' She was very proud of herself, being a King Charles's
+spaniel, with soft brown and white hair and hanging ears and large
+goggle eyes. She came up to talk to Scamp after awhile; but he would not
+say anything to her, for his heart was sore within him. Yet what he had
+heard gave him some hope. All that day he sat with his face pressed
+close to the wires of the yard, watching, watching for his own people.
+Why did they not come? They must have known he would be there. Once two
+ladies came past--gentle, kind ladies of the sort to which he was
+accustomed--and he sat up and begged. 'Oh, look at that dear doggie!'
+cried one. 'We couldn't choose a nicer one; let us have him.' But when
+they inquired about him they found that Scamp was not for sale just yet.
+
+Then toward evening, when it was growing dusk, he suddenly heard a voice
+that made his heart leap, and he jumped up and whined with excitement,
+and Ethel cried: 'Oh, father, there he is! Don't you hear him?' And he
+was let out, and she went down on her knees to kiss and hug him, and he
+jumped about her so wildly that he nearly knocked her hat off. Surely
+there was never a happier little dog went home that night than Scamp!
+
+There are homes for cats in London, too; but often poor cats have a
+much worse time than dogs. You remember that a great many of the
+fashionable people only stay in London for the season, and then they
+shut up their houses and go away into the country for several months.
+Well, sometimes they are so thoughtless as to leave their poor cats
+without any food or shelter--they forget about them. But a cat can't
+live on nothing any more than a dog can. Perhaps poor puss has been out
+for a walk, and comes back to find the house all shut and silent, and
+she waits patiently a long time; but no one comes, and the boys in the
+street throw stones at her. So she runs across to the square, and waits
+there; but still the door is never opened. If she is lucky and clever at
+hunting she may catch a little sparrow or find something in the roadway
+to eat; but as the days go on she gets thinner and thinner, and weaker
+and weaker, and at last, perhaps, dies of starvation unless some kind
+person takes the trouble to send her to a cats' home. The cats' homes
+are much the same as the dogs. If possible the cats are sold, and if not
+they are quietly and painlessly killed--a much better fate than starving
+in the streets. Sometimes the rich people do remember their cats, but
+can't take them away; and so before they go they send them to a cats'
+home, and pay for them to be kept there until they come back. Puss is
+then well fed and happy; for a cat makes herself happy anywhere where
+she is comfortable much more readily than a dog does, and then when the
+family return for the winter she goes back to her own snug kitchen.
+
+Some dogs who have lived in London all their lives as Scamp did, are
+used to it, and are happy enough, but it is not a good place for dogs.
+It is very difficult for them to run about enough, and they can't go out
+by themselves for fear of getting lost or stolen, so often a dog has a
+very unhappy time. There are dogs who are so much accustomed to London
+that they will follow an omnibus if their master is on it, and keep
+running by the side and looking up and barking. And they do not seem to
+get at all confused by the many, many omnibuses passing and repassing,
+but follow the right one all the time. But this is very exceptional.
+Generally a London life is an unhappy one for any but a very small
+house-dog.
+
+In one part of Hyde Park there is a dogs' burial-ground, where people
+can bury their pets. You can see it from the road as you pass, or you
+can go in and look at it. It is very full. There are numbers of small
+stones like little gravestones put to mark the places where many a loved
+dog lies. Most of the stones are alike--small rounded ones with the
+dogs' names on them, and some are flat on the ground. There are flowers
+growing there, and the place is very bright and well cared for. We read
+here the names of many dogs--Punch, Dinah, Crow, Ruby Heart, Bogey, and
+Girlie. Strange names for dogs. The stones do not tell us what sort of
+dogs they were, though that would have been interesting. We can't find
+one in memory of Scamp, and I'm quite sure if he had died Ethel would
+have had him buried here, so near the gardens where he often ran and
+played. So Scamp must be living still. But other sorrowing mistresses
+have lost their little companions, and the inscriptions show a world of
+tenderness. We read, 'Alas, poor Zoe! as deeply mourned as ever dog was
+mourned,' and 'Darling Vic,' 'Snow, a dear friend,' 'Loving little
+Charlie,' 'Our faithful little friend Wobbles,' 'Jack, most loving and
+most fondly loved,' and many another. It must have been a happy world
+for such loved dogs as these.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+ODDS AND ENDS
+
+
+This is to be a chapter about all sorts of odd things that cannot be
+fitted in anywhere else. For instance, have any of you heard about the
+Messenger Boys? If not, I think that will interest you. Someone once
+formed a scheme of having a number of boys trained to go messages, or
+take parcels, or do anything that was required in London. And he set up
+offices all over London, where anyone could get one of these boys and
+send him on a message by paying his expenses and a small sum also,
+according to the distance he had to go. At every one of the offices
+there are a certain number of boys always going and coming. They take
+the messages in order as they come, and they may get a nice one or a
+nasty one. If you went into one of these offices and saw the boys
+sitting on a bench waiting, you would soon see how it works. Some of the
+boys are playing draughts, some are reading, but all are ready at any
+minute to go where they are told. There is a young man in charge of the
+office, and someone comes in with a message. So he turns to No. 1, a
+bright, chubby-faced little lad, and says, 'Go to this address and call
+for a parcel for this lady, whose name is written down, and take the
+parcel to her house. Be as quick as you can, and you can take a
+taxi-cab.' Off goes the boy, delighted to get such a nice job, and he
+feels very important to call up a cab for himself. He knows exactly
+where to go and how much to pay the cabman, for he has learnt all that
+before. The next boy is a big, awkward-looking lad, very tall for his
+age, and the young man laughs a little as he gives him a message: 'You
+are to call at No. 50 in this street,' he says, 'and the lady will hand
+over to you two children aged three and four. You are to take them to
+the Zoo and let them have a good time, and bring them back before six
+o'clock.'
+
+The big boy makes a face. He does not fancy this idea at all; it is like
+being a nursemaid, and he thinks how silly he will look with two wee
+children. And all the other boys are grinning; but he cannot refuse. He
+is like a soldier, and must do just what he is told. So off he goes and
+asks for the children. But when he finds he can take them up in a cab,
+and that they are dear, bright, happy little things, full of mischief,
+he begins to enjoy himself, and they spend a lovely afternoon together;
+and when he brings them back safely, and the mother gives him half a
+crown for himself in addition to his fee, he feels he has had a good
+day.
+
+Some time elapses when he has left the office before smart little No. 3
+gets anything to do, and then he is told to go to King's Cross Station
+to meet two schoolboys and see their luggage is safe, and take them
+across to Charing Cross. When he gets there he finds both the boys are
+bigger than himself, but they are country boys going to school for the
+first time, and are very frightened and bewildered, and little No. 3
+cheers them up, so that they part quite good friends.
+
+But these are a few of the odd things the boys have to do, and most of
+their time is spent in taking notes about. You can see them anywhere in
+London in their neat dark-blue uniforms with silver decorations. Once a
+gentleman walked into one of the Messenger Boy offices, and said
+quietly, as if he were saying nothing extraordinary, 'I want a boy to
+take a note for me to America.'
+
+The man in charge showed no surprise, but only asked when the boy was
+to start. The gentleman said he might go the next day, which would give
+him time to get his clothes together.
+
+The boy who was next on the list was called Jaggers, and he was a
+bright, intelligent little lad. He ran home eagerly to ask if his
+parents would let him go, and having got permission, he went off
+cheerfully the next day across the Atlantic Ocean to New York. He
+arrived safely and delivered his message, and then went on to Chicago
+and Philadelphia, as he had been instructed. He returned in eighteen
+days, having travelled 8,000 miles, and he found he was quite a hero,
+and the man who had sent him gave him a medal with a clasp or bar of
+silver for each place he had gone to. I think many a boy might have been
+frightened when told to go off to the other side of the world so
+suddenly.
+
+After Jaggers another boy did an even pluckier thing. His name was
+Halsey, and he was sent to California, which is on the other side of
+America, much further than New York, and he had to go right across the
+continent and find the way all by himself, and he was given no time to
+get ready as Jaggers was, but started almost immediately. That boy
+afterwards fought for England in South Africa in the Imperial Yeomanry,
+and is now in a responsible position in the Messenger Service. Another
+boy was sent to the Sultan of Turkey to take a dog as a present. I think
+that must have been the most difficult to do of the three things, for
+the dog might have died on the way, and when the boy got to Turkey he
+would have the disadvantage of being in a country where a foreign
+language was spoken. These are exceptional cases, of course, but the
+boys are still sometimes sent to the Continent with messages. But enough
+about the Messenger Boys.
+
+There is a sight to be seen in London nearly every evening, and
+particularly on Saturday evenings, that always seems to me to be most
+touching, and that is the rows of little children waiting outside the
+shops for food that is sold cheaply. In great shops which sell food that
+soon perishes--for instance, fish, or fruit, or bread-stuffs--there is
+often a certain quantity left over at night that will not be quite fresh
+in the morning, and so it is sold cheaply, and it is this that the
+children of the poor come to buy. Some shops almost give it away. On
+Saturday night, outside a pastry-cook's, there was a row of patient boys
+and girls, each with a basket or bag, and some had been standing there
+for a long time, because it is a case of 'first come, first served,' and
+no pushing is allowed. As another little child arrived it took up its
+stand at the end of the row, and waited until the time came for closing
+the shop. Then each child paid so much--say sixpence--and got a large
+quantity of bread, and so much cake, and if there was not enough to go
+round the last ones had to go away without any.
+
+At the fish shops there are different ways of doing this at different
+shops. At one big shop all the fish that is over after the day's sale is
+done is put into a large basket--there may be a piece of cod, and
+several small fish, and some whiting or mackerel--and then each child
+pays twopence, and the man in the shop deals out the fish as it comes,
+giving so much to each, without asking what the children want. The poor
+little bairns watch eagerly until their own turn comes. See that big bit
+of cod? That would make a Sunday dinner for all of Ellen's people, and
+Ellen watches it anxiously. There is a very small girl in front of
+herself, and Ellen nearly cries when she sees the man put it into her
+bag; but she cheers up again when a whole fish, of what kind she is not
+quite sure, but still it looks very good, is passed on to her. There is
+no waiting afterwards. How the little feet run home, and how the shrill
+little voices cry, 'Mother, mother! look what I've got!' But it may be
+also that a disappointed little girl goes away, crying softly, for she
+came too late, so she had to stand quite at the end of the row, and when
+her turn came there was nothing left. 'No more to-night,' the shopman
+said cheerily, and seeing the pale, wistful little face, he added, 'Come
+in better time another week, little girl.'
+
+The little girl stole away quietly, but when she got to a dark corner
+she sat down and cried bitterly; it was not so much for the sake of the
+fish as because she knew she would get a beating from her drunken mother
+when she went home without it. Yet she could not help it; she had had so
+much to do that day--work, work, work from morning to night, partly at
+school, partly at home--and she had run to the fish shop as soon as ever
+she could, only to find herself too late. Children, there are sad times
+in the lives of little girls such as these which none of you will ever
+know.
+
+But, as we have said once or twice, the lives of street children are by
+no means all darkness; the merry games, the society of other children,
+and the stir and life of London make up for a great deal. In some of
+the streets you can see the boys running about on roller skates--bits of
+wood on tiny wheels, strapped on to their boots. The smooth London
+pavements are very good for this sport, and the boys skate about,
+getting wonderfully clever at it, and enjoying themselves immensely.
+Then they have their tops, which they spin on the pavements or in the
+roadway among the feet of the people walking, without minding in the
+least. There are tops all over the streets at some times of the year
+spinning gaily. The girls have their skipping-ropes, which are apt to be
+a nuisance to the people who want to walk on the pavements; but
+sometimes there is a side alley where no one goes, and here the children
+can skip undisturbed.
+
+One game that seems a great favourite with the children is called
+'Hop-scotch,' or 'London Town.' They draw a number of divisions on the
+pavement with white chalk, and then hop from one to the other kicking a
+bit of stone along the pavement with their toe; they must send it into
+the next square at every hop, and they must not put the other foot to
+the ground until they send it safely into the last division of all,
+which is Home or London. The little girls get quite clever at this,
+hopping lightly and daintily. Sometimes they draw a circle instead of a
+square, which makes it more difficult to do, but the game is the same.
+
+When the barrel-organ comes round, as it very often does, the children
+dance; they don't mind that it has travelled in wind and weather for
+perhaps ten years, and that it has lost all tune it may have had, and
+only grinds out a horrible noise: they like the noise, and dance up and
+down holding their little skirts, or twirling one another round in great
+enjoyment. The streets do not allow of wild, romping games, and it would
+be dangerous to dash about and try to catch one another, so most of
+these are games that can be played on the pavement in safety.
+
+The children who live near parks are luckier than those who have only
+the streets for playgrounds, and these parks are filled with children,
+especially on Saturday afternoons. There is one called Battersea Park,
+near the river, where you may sit on a little knoll at one end, and, in
+summer, as far as you can see there are boys playing cricket. They are
+so mixed up that it is difficult to tell which ball belongs to which,
+and often a good hit sends one ball flying into the middle of the next
+game. Some of them have real wickets, and at one end there is a
+carefully kept ground where men play; but some of the little boys have
+no wickets, and only a bit of wood for a bat. So they get a stick from
+somewhere and make it stand up in the ground, and then hang one of their
+shabby little coats round it to make a wicket; but they shout loudly
+with joy, and enjoy themselves at their game just as much as the bigger
+boys with real wickets.
+
+A thing you very often see in London, and, indeed, in other towns, too,
+is a man sitting on the bare stone pavement drawing pictures on the
+stones with coloured chalks. Sometimes he does them very well, and makes
+scenes of battles and views of pretty places or ships at sea, but at
+other times they are hideous and badly drawn. He does this in order that
+people may give him pennies as they pass. He is not allowed to beg, and
+if he tried to the policeman would come and take him up; but he doesn't
+like hard work, so he sits beside his pictures and holds his cap out
+piteously, and very often people give him pennies in passing, so he
+makes a living without too much trouble. But unless he is old or
+crippled, he ought to be doing better work than this. There are always a
+great many odd men who have no work to do in London; there are some who
+earn a living by going about in the early morning, when people put their
+dustbins out, and picking out anything that they think they can sell--a
+disgusting trade; others used to watch until they saw a cab with luggage
+on it, and then they ran after it sometimes for miles and miles, and
+when it stopped they would offer to carry the boxes upstairs. These men
+certainly earned their money, for they had to run fast and far, and to
+carry a box up the flights and flights of stairs in a London house is
+not an easy task; but, unfortunately, they were generally men who were
+out of work through their own fault, who had been drunken or idle or
+rude, and they were not at all pleasant to deal with, and sometimes they
+made themselves very disagreeable if they didn't get what they
+considered enough money, and refused to go out of the house until a
+policeman was fetched. So it is as well perhaps that now this means of
+extorting money is impossible, for no man could run fast enough to keep
+up with a taxi-cab.
+
+The barrel-organ man we have already mentioned. He is frequently an
+Italian, and has a dark-haired woman with him, and she wears a red
+handkerchief over her hair to make her look more foreign; and they go
+from house to house grinding out their awful tunes, and they get very
+well paid, for the people in the poorer shops and in the foreign parts
+of London like the noise, and give them pennies. Sometimes the man has a
+monkey, which always attracts the children. Other men walk about with
+barrows selling ice-cream; this is sold at a half-penny a time, and the
+children lick it out of little glasses and have no spoons: one wonders
+how often the glasses are washed. But that does not trouble the little
+street children at all; they follow the ice-cream man in throngs like
+flies in summer whenever it is hot. Poor little bairns! they have no
+milk to drink or nice cool rooms to go to, only the hot, dusty street,
+and they must often be thirsty. Well, all these things you can see in
+the streets daily, and a great many more. I have not spoken of the
+'sandwich' man; that is a funny name, and it means the man is sandwiched
+between two great boards, which he carries on his front and back. On
+these are written in large letters the name of a new play, or a
+restaurant, or anything else to which someone wants to attract
+attention. These men are paid a very little each day; they are hired a
+large number together, and walk along by the side of the pavement with
+their great boards one after another, so the people passing in the
+street read the boards, and perhaps go to see the play or to dine at
+the restaurant. The men are bound to keep on walking always together all
+day, and they very often are ashamed of their work; for they may have
+been something better than this, for to be a sandwich man is about the
+lowest work a man can do, but, at any rate, it is earning money
+honestly, without begging or stealing.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+HISTORICAL STORIES
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+KING EDWARD V
+
+
+I think I heard someone ask for stories, and there are many stories
+connected with London, though they are generally rather sad ones. There
+was once a boy who became Edward V., King of England, who had a sad life
+and a short one, and though he was a prince and a king I am sure he
+would much rather have been neither. His father was Edward IV., and he
+had not become King of England by inheritance, but because he had won
+the crown by fighting.
+
+Before him Henry VI. was king, and Edward claimed the throne by right of
+his birth. So they fought, and there was a civil war. You know what that
+is--a war between people of the same country who take different sides,
+and it is the worst of all wars. As Edward IV. was Duke of York, his
+side called themselves Yorkists, and wore a white rose as a badge; and
+Henry VI.'s side called themselves Lancastrians, and wore a red rose.
+Edward was very strong and very handsome, and a great many people
+admired him and fought for him because they thought he would make a fine
+king. And Henry was weak and feeble; but then he was king already, and
+his father had been king before him; so a great many people took his
+side for that reason. While they were still fighting Edward married
+secretly a beautiful woman, a widow, called Elizabeth Woodville, and
+soon after this he was so successful that he found he could settle in
+London and have himself crowned king, while Henry and his wife and son
+had to fly to Scotland. Then Edward told his great nobles that he was
+married, and for a time all went on well. Edward and Elizabeth were very
+happy. They lived in great state, and soon a little daughter was given
+to them, and they called her Elizabeth. All the time poor Henry and his
+brave Queen Margaret and his son Edward were hiding away in lonely
+places. Little did they think then that the time would soon come when it
+would be proud Edward IV. who had to fly and hide in his turn!
+
+[Illustration: TRAFALGAR SQUARE.]
+
+After awhile Edward IV. managed to capture Henry, and he put him in
+prison in the Tower of London, and then, no doubt, he felt he was
+very safe. But Edward had a follower called the Earl of Warwick, a
+very powerful man. And he was angry, because he had wanted the King to
+marry a sister of the King of France; but the King had not done as he
+wished, for he had married Elizabeth Woodville. So the Earl of Warwick
+waited for a good opportunity, and then raised up a disturbance in
+Yorkshire.
+
+King Edward was frightened when he heard of this, and travelled north to
+quell the disturbance. And Warwick, who was in the north himself, seized
+him and made him prisoner. It was very bold of him to make the King
+prisoner in his own country. Now there were two kings in England both
+prisoners--Edward in Yorkshire and Henry in London. However, King Edward
+was not the sort of man to remain in prison long, and he soon escaped,
+and Warwick had to fly to France. Here he found Queen Margaret, wife of
+Henry VI., and with her he persuaded the French King to get together a
+great army to go to England and fight against Edward. This was a
+surprise for Edward, who had never expected it, and he could not get
+together enough men to fight against Queen Margaret's army; so he had to
+fly, and he went over the sea to Holland. But he did not take his Queen
+with him; he left her in England with her children, for by this time
+she had two other daughters besides Elizabeth, called Cicely and Anne.
+Poor Queen Elizabeth was in great distress; she did not know where to go
+or whom she could trust. But she was advised to go to the Sanctuary at
+Westminster. You have heard of Westminster already, and you remember it
+is a part of London, and at that time one of the King's palaces was
+there. There was also a curious place like a strong, dark little castle.
+It was a safety-place, and if anyone had killed a man or done any
+wickedness and fled there he was safe; his enemies could not take him
+out. That was why it was called the Sanctuary, and it was like the
+cities of refuge in the Bible. It stood quite near to the place where
+the Abbey stands now, and many hunted people rushed there for safety.
+
+The Sanctuary was very dark, and had hardly any windows, and inside
+there was a chapel. There was a flat roof, so that anyone who had gone
+there for safety could climb up to the roof and peep over to see if his
+enemies were waiting until he came out. It was not the sort of place for
+a queen, and I should think Elizabeth must have felt very sad and lonely
+there. Perhaps she had only straw to lie upon instead of a soft bed, and
+bad food to eat instead of delicacies, and the darkness must have been
+terrifying. Every moment she expected to hear the footfalls of a man
+running with a message to say her husband had been caught or even
+killed, because, of course, there were no papers or telegraphs; all the
+news was sent by word of mouth or by messengers. Little Elizabeth was
+only about six or seven years old, and her sisters were still younger,
+and they could not have understood why they had to be in that nasty dark
+place; but perhaps the Queen explained to them something of the reason.
+It is very odd that little Elizabeth was afterwards Queen of England
+herself. She married the man who was on the Lancastrian side and claimed
+to be king when Edward her father and her two brothers were dead, and
+Henry VI. and his son were dead also, and so the York and Lancaster
+lines were joined in one.
+
+Now while the Queen and her little daughters were there God sent them
+some happiness, for a little baby-boy came to them, and he was Edward V.
+afterwards. He was too little to know anything about his mother's
+anxiety, and was, I dare say, quite as happy as most babies, and he must
+have brought some brightness with him for his mother and sisters.
+
+After this Edward IV. took heart again. Perhaps he felt that now he had
+a son to succeed him he must win back the throne, and he returned to
+England and fought again, and this time Queen Margaret and her men were
+quite defeated, and her son was killed. He was an Edward, too, and he
+was then about eighteen. Now Edward IV. was triumphant, and returned to
+London, and the very day he came back his enemy Henry VI. died, so there
+was no one to fight any more just then.
+
+Cannot you imagine what a happy time that would be when Elizabeth showed
+her husband the new little baby-boy? They christened him Edward after
+his father, and as he grew up he was always treated like a prince, and
+everyone knew that one day he would be king after his father. He had a
+brother also, called Richard, two years younger, and some other sisters
+younger still, called Katherine and Bridget. Bridget sounds to us now a
+very queer name for a princess, but it was quite fashionable then. The
+little boys were very beautiful; they learned to ride and play at games
+and to shoot, and do all the other things that young nobles in those
+days were taught. The royal brothers wore fine suits of velvet and
+satin, with little daggers at their waists, and their hair grew long on
+their shoulders. We should think long hair silly for boys now, but it
+was the fashion then. Even men wore their hair quite long. These boys
+and their younger sisters, Katherine and Bridget, had always been
+treated like princes and princesses; they could not remember the time
+when their father was an outcast and their mother had had to seek
+shelter in sanctuary. Even the older children would have but a dim
+recollection of those days of anxiety and gloom, and would think it
+quite natural that they should be surrounded by pretty things, and that
+everyone should serve them.
+
+According to a curious custom prevailing at that time, kings sometimes
+arranged marriages for their children when they were only a few years
+old, and sometimes even when they were babies. All King Edward's
+children were engaged to be married before they could speak! It
+happened, however, that most of these engagements were afterwards
+broken, but little Richard, who was created Duke of York, was actually
+married when he was five years old to a little girl called Anne,
+daughter of the Duke of Norfolk.
+
+Edward and Richard were devoted to each other, and very happy together.
+Perhaps this was partly because they were so unlike in disposition, for
+people who are not like each other often agree the best. Edward was a
+quiet, rather clever boy, and Richard was full of fun and very
+mischievous. They had a great many uncles and aunts, for their mother
+had five sisters all married to dukes and earls, and she had brothers as
+well. Her eldest brother was Earl Rivers, and he was very good to his
+nephews, and they loved him, and were always glad to see him. The boys
+had also some step-brothers, their mother's sons by her first marriage,
+and they liked these older brothers very much. So they had many people
+who took an interest in them, and I dare say they were a little bit
+spoilt.
+
+Their father, King Edward, had two brothers younger than himself. One
+was George, Duke of Clarence, and the other Richard, Duke of Gloucester.
+The Duke of Clarence was a weak, discontented man, who grumbled
+continually. The Duke of Gloucester was a hunchback, and he was as
+deformed in mind as in body; for he was of a malicious disposition,
+always ready to make mischief, and was so fond of his own way that he
+would kill anyone who dared to oppose him. He was jealous of Clarence,
+and so he told tales of him to King Edward; and King Edward believed
+him, and had Clarence seized and taken to the Tower. Then Gloucester was
+glad, and went about saying all the things he could think of against
+Clarence so that he should never again be let out of prison.
+
+At that time the Tower was both a prison and a palace, and the King
+sometimes stayed there himself; but he lived generally at the palace of
+Westminster, which stood where the Houses of Parliament stand now. The
+great hall of this palace is still there, forming a part of the Houses
+of Parliament, but the rest of the building is very different from what
+it was in King Edward's time. Then there was a high wall all round the
+palace, and within it were streets of quaint old houses, with gables and
+angles, and in them lived the people who had to work for the King and
+his Court--that is to say, all the carpenters, and blacksmiths, and
+other work-people. And when the King and the princes went riding through
+the streets on great occasions, these people used to hang out beautiful
+pieces of cloth of many colours--red and blue and gold--so that the
+curious narrow streets looked like fairyland. The great wall was a
+protection to all the people who lived inside, and made the palace and
+houses like a little town by themselves.
+
+One day when young Edward and Richard rode in after they had been
+playing with the nobles at some sports, they heard that their uncle
+Clarence was dead. They dared not ask how it was that he, a man in the
+prime of life, had died so suddenly, for their father looked very stern,
+and their uncle Richard seemed pretending to be sorry. But the truth was
+that Clarence had been killed by King Edward's orders, because Richard
+had made up stories about him, and pretended that he had discovered a
+plot of Clarence's to dethrone the King and make himself King instead,
+and, unfortunately, King Edward had believed this wicked lie. No one
+ever knew exactly how Clarence had been killed, but it was whispered
+that, as he was a king's son, he had been allowed to choose his own
+death, and he had chosen to be drowned in a great barrel of wine. This
+was the beginning of Richard's wickedness, and later he grew worse and
+worse, for he intended to be king himself some day, and so he
+deliberately murdered everyone who stood in his way. He had begun with
+Clarence, who was his elder brother, and who would have been king before
+him if anything had happened to the King and his sons, but he did not
+stop there.
+
+Prince Edward was only eight years old when this happened, and Richard
+was six.
+
+Five years more went by, and during that time, though all seemed to be
+well, there were really plots and schemes everywhere in the palace. The
+Duke of Gloucester was always creeping about after the handsome King and
+flattering him, and trying to win his confidence. The King still loved
+his wife, Queen Elizabeth, and he gave her relations, the Woodvilles,
+important posts about the Court and showed them favour. And this did not
+please Gloucester at all, for he hated the Queen, and was jealous of her
+relations; and so he made up stories against them and told them to the
+King, as he had done in the case of poor Clarence, but this time the
+King was not quite so ready to believe him.
+
+But when little Edward was thirteen the King died suddenly, and then the
+Duke of Gloucester and the Queen's relations both tried to get young
+Edward into their own hands, for they thought that a boy so young would
+be easily controlled and made to do as they wished. Edward, who was now
+King Edward V., loved his mother and all her family, and wished to be
+under the care of his aunts and uncles on her side of the family; so
+when she told him to go into the country with his uncle, Earl Rivers,
+and one of his half-brothers, Lord Grey, he went gladly. The Queen had
+planned this to keep him out of the power of the Duke of Gloucester,
+whom she feared. But the Duke was too clever a man to be put aside so
+easily. He had made his brother, the dead King, say before he died that
+he was to be young Edward's guardian, and on the strength of that he now
+claimed the young King. Finding, however, that he had already gone to
+the country, he sent a message to him saying he must come back, and he
+himself started out for the country to meet him half-way.
+
+You can imagine that Earl Rivers and Lord Grey were anxious when they
+received that message. But what could they do? If they refused to bring
+back the little King, the Duke would doubtless raise an army and come
+against them and compel them to give him up. So they thought the best
+way would be to pretend to do as Richard wished, but in reality to keep
+themselves very near to the young King and to guard him from harm. They
+set out for London, therefore, bringing Edward with them, and the Duke
+of Gloucester soon met them. He had with him a powerful noble called
+Lord Hastings, who, though he hated the Queen's relations and was
+jealous of them, was still an upright, brave man, who would not have
+hurt a hair of young Edward's head.
+
+When the Duke of Gloucester and Lord Hastings met the other party, they
+were very polite, and so friendly that Earl Rivers and Lord Grey thought
+that they must have been mistaken, and that the Duke meant nothing but
+good; so they foolishly gave up all precautions, and left themselves in
+the power of the Duke. Then he seized them, and sent them off as
+prisoners to a strong tower in Yorkshire.
+
+Poor Edward V. was terrified when he heard this, and found that he was
+alone with his uncle Gloucester, and he fell on his knees and cried--you
+must remember he was only thirteen--and begged his uncle to release the
+prisoners. Gloucester tried to comfort him, and assured him that he was
+only doing what was best for the safety of everyone. He told Edward that
+these men were bad men, and were plotting against him, and he said that
+it was for his safety he had seized them; and then he said that he was
+taking him back to London to his mother and brother and sisters, and
+that when he got there he should be crowned King. Then Edward was a
+little comforted.
+
+Lord Hastings, however, began to be anxious: he did not like the way in
+which Richard was getting all the power into his own hands; so though he
+was no friend of the Queen mother's, he sent her a message to say that
+he feared the Duke of Gloucester, and she would be wise to go to a place
+of safety. I expect Gloucester found out about this message, for he
+always hated Hastings afterwards, and never rested until he had punished
+him, as you shall hear.
+
+When the Queen received the message she left the palace at Westminster
+and hurried to the Sanctuary, where she had been once before, and she
+took all her children with her.
+
+A bishop went to see her there, and he wrote a book about it, so we can
+tell now just how he found her. She was sitting upon rushes, which in
+those days were used instead of carpets, and all around her were bags
+and bundles and furniture, which had been hastily brought across from
+the palace. The Queen could be more comfortable this time than she had
+been in the first dark and lonely days, for she had been able to bring
+some of her own belongings to the gloomy Sanctuary. All the children
+were there except Edward. The eldest girl, Elizabeth, was now seventeen,
+and must have been a great comfort to her mother; yet, in spite of all
+this, it was a hard time for all of them, and more so when Richard fell
+ill. Perhaps it was because he couldn't run about as usual; but they all
+took great care of him, and presently he began to get better. I must
+tell you that on the very place where the Sanctuary used to stand is now
+a large hospital called the Westminster Hospital; and so where little
+Prince Richard was nursed by his frightened mother more than 400 years
+ago, other people, and among them children, are now nursed back to
+health and strength.
+
+To go back to Edward and his uncle. The Duke was still pretending to be
+a good, kind uncle, and he treated Edward as a king. When they entered
+London the Lord Mayor and Aldermen came out to meet them. It was a
+splendid sight. The Lord Mayor was dressed in scarlet, and 500 of the
+citizens of London were in violet, and Edward himself, a very handsome
+boy, sat his horse like a king, while his long fair curls fell down over
+his blue velvet cloak. And the Duke of Gloucester took off his hat and
+bowed, and said to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, 'Behold your Prince and
+Sovereign Lord!'
+
+Then, as they rode on into the town, he told Edward that he should be
+crowned in a month. I wonder if Edward believed him? They went first to
+the Bishop of London's house, and then on to the Tower; but Edward did
+not feel afraid, because, as I said, the Tower was a palace as well as a
+prison, and as the palace at Westminster was very old and uncomfortable,
+it was natural to go to the Tower instead.
+
+Now, the wicked Richard of Gloucester had got one of the little boys
+into his power; but that was no use unless he could get the other one,
+for if he killed Edward the people would say Richard, Duke of York, must
+be king. And he dared not kill either of them while Lord Hastings was
+alive. So he thought of a plan, and this is what he did. He called a
+meeting of the great nobles to the Tower to talk about business of
+State. Lord Hastings came, of course, among the others. At first Richard
+seemed to be in very good spirits, and laughed and jested; but as the
+morning went on he grew crosser and crosser, and at last he scowled so
+much that all the nobles were afraid of him. Then suddenly he stretched
+out his bare arm, and showed them that it was shrivelled and old. It
+had been like that since he was a baby, but now he pretended that it had
+only happened suddenly, and that it was done by poor Queen Elizabeth,
+who was then in sanctuary with her children; and he said she was a witch
+and had bewitched him, and turning quickly to Lord Hastings, he said:
+'What should be done to those who did this thing? Ought they not to be
+killed?'
+
+Lord Hastings knew quite well that the Queen had not done it; but he did
+not dare to say so, so he answered: 'Ay, my lord, _if_ they have done
+this thing they deserve death.'
+
+Then Richard roared out in a fury: 'Dost thou answer me with "ifs"? By
+my head! I will not dine until thy head is off!'
+
+And he made a sign to some soldiers he had placed there before, and they
+rushed forward and carried out poor Lord Hastings on to the little strip
+of green outside, and there, before anyone could interfere, chopped off
+his head on a log of wood that lay there. No one dare do anything, for
+they were all afraid of the Duke of Gloucester; and Hastings suffered
+simply because he had been loyal to his little King. Richard had no
+heart to feel sorry for his victims; he just mowed down the people who
+stood between him and his wishes as if they had been daisies.
+
+Now at last he could get his own way, for the two most powerful men who
+would have opposed him were out of the way: the King's uncle, Rivers,
+was imprisoned at Pontefract in Yorkshire, and Hastings was dead. So
+Richard's next idea was to get the little Duke of York and take him to
+the Tower to his brother, and then he would have everything in his own
+hands.
+
+Even Richard of Gloucester could not go and drag his little nephew
+straight out of sanctuary, for the Archbishop would not have allowed it,
+and all the people would have been horrified at the sacrilege and risen
+against him; so he sent some men to try to persuade the Queen to give
+the boy up.
+
+The Archbishop and some nobles went on this errand, and they found Queen
+Elizabeth sitting in the midst of her children in the dark Sanctuary,
+and when they told her their reason for coming she said never would she
+let Richard go. She knew his uncle only wanted him to kill him, and she
+said of the Duke of Gloucester, 'He hath so tender a zeal unto him that
+he feareth nothing but that he should escape him,' which showed she
+guessed his wicked plans. Besides, she added, the boy had been ill, and
+he was only a little boy eleven years old, and he was better with his
+mother than with men in that gloomy Tower. But they told her Edward was
+lonely and wanted his brother to play with; so she answered that there
+were many other boys, the sons of nobles, he could play with instead of
+his little brother, who still was not well enough to play.
+
+It seems dreadful that these men, who must have known the reason why
+Gloucester wanted his little nephew, should have gone on trying to
+persuade the poor mother to give him up; but they did, and they said
+that sanctuary was not meant for children at all, only for people who
+had done wrong, and this boy had done nothing wrong, so he could not
+claim the right of sanctuary. Then poor Queen Elizabeth saw that they
+would take him whatever she said, and she could do no more. So she gave
+him to the Archbishop, and said he must be responsible for him, and if
+anything happened to the boy his blood would be on the Archbishop's
+head. Yet the Archbishop took him.
+
+So Richard kissed his mother and sisters and ran out, and the first
+person he met was his wicked uncle, the Duke of Gloucester. And
+Gloucester caught him up in his arms and kissed him, and pretended to
+be very fond of him, and took him at once to Edward. The brothers had
+not seen one another for some time, and Richard cried out with surprise
+when he found how tall Edward had grown--much taller than himself, and
+in the joy of meeting at first they were very happy together.
+
+The little boys were kept prisoners in the Tower, and suddenly they
+heard that all the preparations which had been made for Edward's
+coronation were going to do for the Duke of Gloucester's, and that he
+was going to make himself king even while his nephews were alive! Cannot
+you imagine how angry a high-spirited boy like Edward must have felt?
+But he could do nothing; he was in prison, and no one helped him. Then
+came the dreadful news that his two dear friends, his uncle Rivers and
+Lord Grey, had been beheaded in Yorkshire. And, worse than all, some
+page came talking, and said before Edward that he believed his uncle was
+going to have him to walk in his train at the coronation--walk behind
+his uncle like a page!
+
+Perhaps Edward cried out, and said furious things at this; for if ever
+the Duke of Gloucester had meant to do it he gave up the idea. Perhaps,
+also, his idea had been at first just to keep his nephews prisoners
+without harming them; but now he saw that every year they grew older
+they would be more dangerous to his plans, and so he resolved on a
+terrible deed.
+
+He sent for Robert Brackenbury, the keeper of the Tower, and told him
+plainly that if he would murder the little princes he should be well
+paid. Brackenbury was a brave man, and he refused boldly, saying he
+could not do such a wicked thing for all the money in the world. Then
+Richard said angrily: 'Will no man do what I want?' And a page who was
+sleeping on a couch near the door to guard it heard, and answered that
+he knew a man who would do anything the Duke wanted. Richard told him to
+fetch this man, who was Sir James Tyrrell, and between them they made up
+their dreadful plot. Tyrrell was to ask Brackenbury to give him the keys
+of the Tower for one night, and in that night he would see the deed was
+done. Now Brackenbury could not refuse. He might guess what was going to
+happen; but if he refused to give the keys his head would be cut off,
+and the little princes would be killed just the same. So he agreed, and
+went away sorrowfully.
+
+Then in the dark of the night Sir James Tyrrell took with him two
+men--rough, odious men, called Dighton and Probyn, who would have killed
+anyone for money. One was a gaoler at the Tower, and the other was
+Tyrrell's own groom, and the three crept up the dark winding stair to
+the room the boys were sleeping in. Even those rough men were horrified
+at what they had come to do when they saw those two beautiful boys with
+their curling golden hair falling on their shoulders and their faces
+close together, sleeping so sweetly. But they remembered the money they
+were to have if they succeeded and the anger of wicked Richard if they
+failed, and they took up great pillows and held them down over the boys'
+faces until they were smothered. Perhaps the boys did not suffer at all,
+but just dreamed away into death.
+
+When it was done the men showed the two bodies to Tyrrell, who was
+waiting, and then, hurrying down the heavy stone staircase, they pulled
+out some of the great stones at the foot, and buried them there and
+covered them up with stones. So that no one knew certainly what had
+become of the princes at the time. But two hundred years after, in doing
+some repairs, workmen came upon the bones of two boys, just about the
+sizes of the two little princes, at the foot of the stairs, and so the
+secret came out. And now, if you visit the Tower, you can see the very
+spot where they were buried.
+
+Well, that is the end of the story of Edward V., and perhaps he was no
+more unhappy dying as an innocent child than if he had lived to be a man
+and ruled England for many years. But wicked Richard did not enjoy the
+throne he had gained by so many murders; for he only reigned two years,
+and then he was conquered by another Henry, a relation of Henry VI., who
+married Elizabeth, the boys' sister, and they two were the next king and
+queen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+TOURNAMENTS AND PAGEANTS
+
+
+In the last chapter I spoke about the young nobles who played with the
+little princes, and of their sports. In this chapter I will try to
+explain how very different the lives of boys were then from what they
+are now.
+
+It was the fashion then for the sons of nobles to be taken from their
+homes when they were about twelve and sent to some other nobleman's
+house, to be brought up there and educated. These boys were called
+pages, and there were a great many of them about the Court. At the
+palace of Westminster especially there would be many, for it was
+considered a great thing for a boy to be noticed at Court. Every noble
+who came to see the King would bring with him some of these pages. The
+life must have been on the whole very pleasant for the boys, but there
+were many things in it that were disagreeable. For instance, it was one
+of the duties of the pages to wait at table and to carve the dishes on
+the sideboard, and they were taught to be very particular, and always to
+wash their hands before carving. We are told of one boy that his
+gentility was so great that he would not wipe his hands like the others,
+but waved them about in the air until they were dry! I think this must
+have made them red and rough, which would not be very genteel.
+
+The pages were gaily dressed, with short doublets of velvet and fur, and
+little daggers, and caps with a feather in them, and often they were
+much petted by the ladies, and were much spoilt in consequence.
+
+The boys joined in all the sports of the time, and there were many more
+sports then, when England was a wild country without many towns in it,
+than there are now. The chase of the wild boar or the wolf was a
+favourite sport, and stag-hunting was very popular. It was part of the
+duty of pages to know how to skin and cut up the stag. Can you fancy a
+refined boy of twelve enjoying that? The pages had to ride with their
+masters and lead an extra horse if it were wanted, and they were
+supposed always to be bright and courteous. This training served instead
+of going to a public school, as boys do at present. As for games, they
+had as many as the boys of the present time. One was the quintain. This
+was an upright post with two arms at the top, that swung round very
+easily. Tied to the end of one was a bag of sand and to the other a
+shield. The boy had to run up and hit the shield, and if he did not get
+out of the way very fast the bag of sand swung round and hit him on the
+back. Probably they played this in the courts of the palace, where are
+now the Houses of Parliament, and where one of the yards is still called
+New Palace Yard. Other old games of which we know only the names were
+'Hoop and Hide,' 'Harry Racket,' 'Hoodwink Play,' 'Loggats,' and
+'Stooleballe,' which was like our cricket. These were all very much
+liked in the days about the time that Edward's sister Elizabeth married
+Henry VII. and became Queen.
+
+When a boy grew older he ceased to be a page, and became an esquire.
+Nowadays everyone puts esq., meaning esquire, on letters in an address,
+but at that time a man had really to be an esquire before he could be
+called so. He served some knight and rode with him to the wars, or
+attended him at home. While he had still been a page he had waited on
+the ladies and played to them on the harp, or read to them while they
+embroidered; but when he became esquire he very seldom saw the ladies,
+and was taught to consider them almost as far above him as angels. For
+the next few years he had a great deal to do. He had to dress and
+undress his master as if he had been a servant. He had to look after his
+master's horse, and when there was any fighting he had to carry a shield
+and ride beside his master, ready to die for him if necessary.
+
+Among the games he played indoors were chess and draughts, both of which
+people still play. One knight had perhaps many squires, and they were
+all supposed to love him very much, and to be perfectly obedient to him.
+The young squires had games among themselves, and the squires of two
+different knights had little contests, each trying to beat the others.
+The squires were able to run and jump straight on to a horse even when
+they were covered all over with heavy armour. They danced and turned
+somersaults, and performed many other exercises to make them strong and
+agile. Even princes had to be squires before they could be knights, and,
+if you remember, when Edward the Black Prince was fighting the French at
+Crecy, he was not then a knight, but was made a knight because he had
+been so brave on that occasion. He took King John of France prisoner,
+and brought him to London to a great castle called the Savoy; and when
+he had brought him there he did not treat him as a prisoner at all, but
+himself took the part of a humble squire, and waited on the French King
+while he had supper. Very few princes would have done that; they would
+rather have gloried in showing their superiority to their captive. The
+palace of the Savoy was in London, further down the river than
+Westminster. It is all gone now except the chapel, where people still go
+to church on Sundays.
+
+Down beside this part of the river now runs a street with houses and
+shops on each side, and it is called the Strand. I wonder if you have
+ever heard of the strand at the seaside? It is an old word, meaning the
+beach beside water, and the Strand in London reminds us of the time when
+there was no embankment, but the houses were right on the edge of the
+water. Great palaces most of them were, where all the haughty nobles
+with their following of squires lived. They have all gone now, these
+great palaces, but one gate remains, a very handsome stone gate with
+steps, and this was the gate of a great palace belonging to the Duke of
+Buckingham, and here boats could come up so that the Duke could step
+into one from his stairs at the water gate; but when the embankment was
+made the river was hemmed in, and could not come so far up, and now the
+gate stands back a long way from the river in the middle of a green
+garden. The people used the river a great deal then, going by water as
+we go by land, and the water was covered with gaily-coloured barges and
+boats.
+
+After being a squire, the next thing was to be a knight. It was not
+every man who could be a knight. A man must have done some brave deed,
+or shown himself very faithful, or be the son of a powerful noble, or
+something of that kind; but when it was decided that a young man might
+be made a knight, he had to watch his armour alone all night in a
+church, and pray to be made worthy, and then in the morning he vowed
+always to help the weak and avenge them, and never to draw back or be
+afraid, and never to use his sword except for the right. Then the King
+received him, and he knelt down, and the King gave him a light blow on
+the shoulder with the flat side of the sword, and this made him a knight
+and gave him the right to use the title 'Sir' before his name.
+
+The knights used to have games that you and I would think were more like
+real fighting than play. They put on armour and mounted their horses,
+and then met to try to knock one another off. These fights were called
+tournaments, and all the ladies came to watch them as nowadays they go
+to watch men play at polo or cricket. The chief place in London for
+tournaments was a place we have been to already, called Smithfield. That
+is where the meat market is now, and it is still a wide, open square. A
+great many things happened at Smithfield, and we shall hear of it again
+before this book is finished.
+
+On the day of a grand tournament everything was made ready very early.
+There were high wooden seats arranged all round, covered with scarlet or
+purple cloth, and there were special seats like thrones for the King and
+Queen; and people came flocking up as if to a fair, dressed in crimson
+and gold and blue and green, with clothes made of velvet and silk, much
+brighter than anything we have now, and the men were quite as gay as the
+ladies. Before the time for the tournament, the knights who were going
+to take part in it would ride up on their prancing horses; some came
+from the Tower of London, and there is a street not far from St. Paul's
+Cathedral still called Knightrider Street, because the knights used to
+come riding up there to the tournaments at Smithfield.
+
+Cannot you imagine how a young knight's heart would beat when he first
+took part in a tournament? Perhaps he was just one-and-twenty, and still
+only a boy in heart, and when he rode into that great open space
+everyone cheered him, and he saw the ladies rising, sitting on tiers of
+seats that rose higher and higher, making a beautiful mass of colour,
+like a bed of flowers; and there was one there who he knew would see
+him, a girl only seventeen, very sweet and fair and shy, who was among
+the Queen's maids-of-honour, and the young knight could not see her just
+then for the crowds of other people there. But he knew that she would be
+watching, and that he was to fight for her. For the glove he wore fixed
+on to his helmet was hers: she had given it to him the day before; no
+one else knew it was hers. But if he fell off his horse and rolled in
+the mud, that glove would be rolled in the mud too, and then he would be
+so much ashamed he would never dare to look her in the face again.
+
+So he plucked up his courage, and looked round as if he were not at all
+nervous, and he saw the man he had to fight come riding toward him, a
+big strong man on a great black horse. The two knights held up their
+long lances to salute the King and Queen and ladies, and bowed to each
+other. A trumpet sounded, and the two horses rushed toward one another,
+the lances came against the strong armour with a crash, and the young
+knight felt a wrench, for his horse was thrown back on its haunches; but
+it recovered itself and dashed on, passing the other knight, until he
+wheeled it round and came to meet his opponent again. This time, just as
+they were going to meet, the horse of the older knight swerved, and his
+lance, striking crossways, broke in two, and the young knight could
+easily then have knocked him off his horse. But it was considered
+disgraceful to strike an unarmed man, so he lowered his lance and rode
+past without touching him, and all the people cheered. There was one
+more meeting to be faced, only one, and if he could manage to
+distinguish himself then, that fair girl would be proud of him, and
+perhaps smile sweetly when he met her again, and allow him to kiss her
+hand. The thought so fired the young knight that when his opponent had
+obtained a new lance and was awaiting him, he came on with such a pace
+and such a rush that he carried the other man clean out of his saddle,
+and laid him full length on the ground, where he lay helpless in his
+heavy armour until his squires ran across the field and raised him up.
+Then all the people shouted wildly, and the young knight rode modestly
+off the field feeling very happy.
+
+If you saw Smithfield now you would not think such things could ever
+have happened there, for it is so bare and dull, and it was then so
+magnificent.
+
+Besides the tournaments, the people of London had many other shows. When
+Queen Elizabeth was crowned there was a wonderful procession. We all
+heard a great deal about the coronation of King George V. Well, it is
+rather interesting to think that about three and a half centuries
+before, Queen Elizabeth, when crowned, had a grand ceremony, and
+afterwards made a tour round the city, as the King of England always
+does to this day after the ceremony has taken place. We have accounts of
+Elizabeth's procession that tells us exactly what it was like. The Queen
+went very slowly and stopped very often, and whenever she stopped a
+child came forward and recited dull verses to her. It must have taken a
+long time and been rather tiresome. But there were all sorts of
+beautiful things to look at in the meantime. In one place there was a
+high wooden scaffolding built up, and on it figures of Henry VII. and
+his Queen Elizabeth, who was the grandmother of the real Queen
+Elizabeth. You remember how Henry VII. married her because she was the
+sister of Edward V., and so the York and Lancaster sides were joined in
+one? Well, to show this there sprouted out of the hands of these two wax
+figures great boughs of roses, red and white mixed together, as a sign
+that the red and white roses of York and Lancaster were joined. At one
+place a child came forth and handed Elizabeth a copy of the Bible in
+English, the first copy that the English people had ever had in their
+own language; for, you know, the Bible was not written first in English,
+but in Hebrew and Greek, and up to this time no one had translated it
+into English. And everywhere children came out of odd places and said
+curious verses. I have heard one story, though I do not know if it is
+true, that a little child had been covered all over with gold paint, and
+was to be let down in a swing to greet the Queen as she passed
+underneath; and when the time came, and the little gilt child was
+lowered, it was found to be quite dead, stifled by the gold paint.
+
+That was a sad thing, and I did not want this chapter to be sad, because
+history is too full of sad things, and tournaments and games ought to be
+gay.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+SIR THOMAS MORE
+
+
+Sir Thomas More belongs entirely to London, because he was born there,
+he lived there, and he died there, so that his story cannot be missed
+out. But it is a story that is in some ways rather difficult to
+understand. When Sir Thomas was a little boy he was not Sir Thomas at
+all, but probably just Tom. He was born in a street called Milk Street,
+a name not difficult to remember. It is close by St. Paul's Cathedral,
+and now is a little narrow street full of warehouses, where merchants
+keep their goods. When Tom was fifteen he was sent, according to the
+custom of the times, to be a page. And the household to which he went
+was a very great one indeed, nothing less than that of the Archbishop of
+Canterbury, whose palace was not far from Westminster, on the other side
+of the river. At this time Henry VII. was king, and England was resting
+in peace after the long Wars of the Roses. Thomas waited at table like
+other pages, and learnt many things, such as riding and tilting, as well
+as Latin and Greek; but though he was a very bright, sweet-tempered boy,
+he was always more inclined to learning than to sport, and when he grew
+a little older it was thought a pity he should not learn more, so he was
+sent to Oxford University. When he had finished his time at Oxford he
+came back to London, and became a barrister, and very soon after he
+began to think about marrying.
+
+He knew at that time three girls, sisters, and he liked the second one
+very much; but then it was considered rather a disgrace if a younger
+sister were married before an elder one. And someone told him that the
+eldest sister liked him very much, so what did he do but propose to the
+eldest and marry her. She seems to have been a nice girl, and for six
+years they lived very happily together; and then she died, leaving him
+with four children--three little daughters, Margaret, Elizabeth, and
+Cicely, and one son, John.
+
+More felt that he could not leave his little ones motherless when they
+were so young, and so he determined to marry again, and this time he was
+not so fortunate, for he chose a rather plain, cross woman, many years
+older than himself, who was a widow. He thought perhaps she would be a
+careful manager, but the choice was unfortunate for him.
+
+King Henry VII. was now dead, and his son, the Henry VIII. who married
+six wives one after the other, was on the throne. He was very fond of
+More, and often had him at the Court at Westminster, and gave him all
+sorts of honours and dignities, and finally made him a knight, so that
+he was Sir Thomas, and his cross wife could call herself Lady Alice
+More, a title that pleased her very much.
+
+More had never liked the life of a city, and now that he was richer,
+owing to the King's kindness, he removed to a place that was then a
+village three miles from London called Chelsea. It seems odd to think of
+Chelsea ever being a village by itself, for it is now all a part of
+London. The houses have crept on and on, and covered up all the space
+between until Chelsea is right in London.
+
+It is still a very pretty place beside the river, with shady trees and
+beautiful houses, and in More's time it must have been charming. He had
+a large house with a garden stretching right down to the side of the
+water, and from this he could step into his barge and go down to
+Westminster to see the King.
+
+His little girls grew up here, and spent a happy childhood. They all,
+especially the eldest, adored their father. More himself was a very
+loving father, but he never spoilt his children, and always took care
+that they learnt their lessons. He used to say: 'Children, virtue and
+learning are the meat, and play but the sauce.' When any of them
+grumbled at little hardships, he used to say: 'We must not look to go to
+heaven on feather beds.' He was very fond of all of the children, but he
+loved the best his eldest daughter Margaret, Meg as he called her, and
+every day as Meg grew older she and her father were more and more to
+each other. Meg was clever, too; when still only a girl she could write
+letters in Latin and read many very difficult books.
+
+The home life was rather different from that which we know now. There
+were some pages in the household, boys of good family, who came to learn
+from More as he had learnt from the Archbishop. One of these, William
+Roper, was a very nice fellow, and he afterwards married Margaret. Then
+there was the Fool. It seems to us now such an odd idea to have a man
+paid to make jokes, but in those days it was the fashion. Some man who
+had a gift for saying funny things used to live in the household of a
+great nobleman and be as amusing as he could, and for this he received
+payment. More's fool was often rather impertinent, and at one time when
+there was a big dinner, and one of the guests happened to have a
+particularly large nose, the fool said out loud: 'What a terrible nose
+that gentleman has got!' So all the family pretended not to hear, and
+were rather uncomfortable, and when the fool saw that, he said: 'How I
+lied when I said that gentleman's nose was monstrous; now I come to look
+at it I really think it's rather a small nose!' Well, of course, no one
+could help laughing after that, and they all went off into peals of
+merriment, even the poor gentleman himself.
+
+In the early mornings when the air was fresh and sweet, and in summer
+the garden full of roses, More would wander round with his dear Meg, and
+perhaps the other children would come, too, to look at all the pets.
+They kept a number of strange animals; there were rabbits, a monkey, a
+fox, a ferret, a weasel, and many others, and the children themselves
+kept the cages clean, and were taught to be kind to them. Lady More did
+not care for these things, she liked better to dress herself very
+smartly and lace herself very tight; and when her husband laughed at
+her, she said, 'Tilly, vally, Sir Thomas! tilly, vally!' just as we
+should say, 'Tut, tut!'
+
+She once found a stray dog, however, to which she took a great fancy,
+and she petted it and fed it; but after a few days a beggar-girl walking
+in the street, who met her with the dog, suddenly cried out that it was
+hers, and the dog knew her, and rushed and danced round her and licked
+her hands. Lady More was very angry, and said it was her dog, and
+ordered her footman to pick it up and carry it back home. The
+beggar-girl followed them all the way, crying; but when she arrived at
+the house the door was shut, and she was left outside. When Sir Thomas
+came home that evening in his barge, as he stepped out on the land he
+saw a poor little dirty girl with her face all stained with tears. He
+was always kind, so he stopped and asked her what was the matter, and
+she told him all her story about having lost her dog. Now, Sir Thomas
+was at that time the head of all the judges in England, having been made
+Lord Chancellor, and he was a very just man, so he would never let his
+wife take what did not belong to her. He went, therefore, into his own
+great hall and sent for Lady More; then he asked her to stand at the
+top end of the hall, and placed the little dirty girl down at the lower
+end. Then he ordered a footman to bring in the dog and hold it in the
+middle between the two, and he said that the dog should decide for
+itself; it must know its own mistress. And when he gave the word the man
+must let it go, and both the women who claimed to be its mistress must
+call it, and whichever it chose to go to should keep it.
+
+So he gave the word, and Lady More cried out all the soft things she
+could think of; but the little girl just said the one word, the dog's
+name, and the dog bounded toward her in a moment, for it loved her, and
+did not care for Lady More. So Sir Thomas said that settled it; the dog
+clearly belonged to the little girl and not to his wife. Lady More then
+offered the girl much money if she would sell the dog, and as she was
+very poor she did sell it at last, and left it behind with its new
+mistress.
+
+There were always a great many people coming and going in More's house,
+and the table was always laden with good things, and much money was
+spent; but Sir Thomas himself did not care about eating and drinking,
+and liked best to have only vegetables and fruit and brown bread, and
+perhaps a little salt beef, which was much eaten in England then.
+
+Every day he said good-bye to his little girls, and told them to be good
+at their lessons, and then he went off in his barge up the river to the
+Court.
+
+The two elder girls, Meg and Elizabeth, learned very difficult things;
+but Cicely and little John were not so clever. John seems to have been
+rather a stupid boy. It is said that the first Mrs. More wanted a boy
+very much, and when he came and grew a little, and they found he would
+never be very clever, More said: 'Thou hast wanted a boy, and now thou
+wilt have one that will be a boy all his life.'
+
+In the evenings, when the barge came sweeping up the river, no doubt the
+girls watched for it, and ran to greet their father, and then they would
+all go in together to the house. Perhaps he had brought with him some
+clever and learned men who were his friends from London, or a young
+Dutch painter called Holbein, who was hardly at all known then, but is
+now counted among the greatest painters in the world.
+
+Sometimes, later in the evening, there would be seen a very grand barge
+indeed, with scarlet and cloth of gold, sweeping up to the
+landing-place; and then someone would call out 'The King!' and presently
+King Henry VIII. himself would step out and come up to see his
+Chancellor, and would walk up and down the garden with his arm round
+More's neck. He was very fond of More, and asked his advice about all
+sorts of things. More wanted to show him young Holbein's paintings, so
+he had his hall hung with many of them, and one day, when the King came
+in unexpectedly, he took him in there to show them to him. Henry was so
+delighted with them that he ordered Holbein to paint a picture of
+himself and others of many of his courtiers, and Holbein was well paid,
+and made a large fortune.
+
+One day, when the King had been very gracious, and had left Chelsea to
+go back to Westminster, young Roper said to More how lucky he was to be
+such a favourite with the King; but More knew what a tyrant Henry was,
+and how dangerous it was to have anything to do with him, and he
+answered at once he had no cause to be proud, for if his head would win
+the King a castle in France it would go. He was quite right; for his
+head went afterwards for a much less thing than that.
+
+When More was still in the height of his power his daughter Margaret
+married William Roper. But More could not bear to part with Meg, and the
+house was large, so he said the young married couple should go on living
+with him and his wife just the same as before.
+
+More built a chapel on to Chelsea old church--a chapel which is there
+now, and you may see it--and in it there is a large monument to his
+memory. Of his great house and garden all is gone except a bit of
+red-brick wall, which is said to have been the wall of the garden.
+
+Now, just about this time Henry had grown tired of his wife, Catherine
+of Arragon, and wanted to marry Anne Boleyn, so he thought he would
+divorce Catherine. But even a king can't get rid of his wives whenever
+he likes; so he asked all his lords and nobles to say that he was quite
+right, and that Catherine ought to be divorced, and that he ought never
+to have married her, because long years before she had been married to
+his brother, who had died. A great many of the nobles would have said
+anything Henry wanted, but More was braver than that; he said plainly
+that it would not be right for Henry to do this thing. So the King was
+very angry, and More found it impossible to continue to be Lord
+Chancellor; so he gave up his office, even though it meant that he would
+have to change all his way of living and be a poor man again. Lady More
+used to go to service in Chelsea church, and More sat in another part of
+the same church, and on Sundays she used to wait to hear that her
+husband was outside before she got up to go, and in order to let her
+know this a footman used to come and open the pew-door for her, and say:
+'Madam, the Chancellor has gone.'
+
+There is a story told that on the Sunday after More had given up being
+Chancellor he had not spoken to his wife about it, for he knew she would
+be very angry, and he always loved a joke; so he himself walked up the
+aisle and held open the pew-door, and said: 'Madam, the Chancellor has
+gone.' At first Lady More could not understand him, but when she did,
+and knew that he was no longer Chancellor, she was very angry indeed.
+
+Now, More said they must send away some of their servants and live very
+plainly, and Margaret and her husband went into a little house near; and
+so badly off were the Mores that they could not afford fires, and when
+the weather grew colder, More and his wife and children used to gather
+together in one room and burn a great bundle of fern just to make a big
+blaze and send them warm to bed. But through it all More was quite
+happy. He had never wanted to be a great man: he preferred to live
+simply with those he loved; but he was not long to be allowed to do even
+that.
+
+Henry devised a plan by which he could put More in prison. He drew up a
+long paper saying that the King was the head of the Church, and that
+whatever he did was right, and that if he chose to divorce his wife he
+could do it, because the power was in his own hands; and then he
+summoned all the bishops and More to sign this.
+
+Sir Thomas More knew quite well what this meant, that it was only a plan
+to get hold of him, for he could not sign what he did not think. It was
+on a spring morning that he left his house to go down to Lambeth Palace,
+where the paper was lying ready to be signed, and he knew quite well
+that it was very likely he should never come back; and he was quite
+right: he never did come back. He said good-bye to his children and
+stepped into his barge. When he got to Lambeth he found that all the men
+there assembled had signed except one called Bishop Fisher. Now, Fisher
+and More were Roman Catholics; that is to say, that they still believed
+in the power of the Pope--and they could not sign the paper without
+signing what they thought a lie. They had been taught this, and so they
+believed it, and they acted bravely according to their own consciences.
+More was given five days to think it over, but he did not go back to
+Chelsea, and at the end of five days he was taken to the Tower with old
+Bishop Fisher.
+
+When he landed at the Traitor's Gate, of which you shall hear more
+presently, the porter asked him for his outside clothes, according to a
+very bad custom of the time, which allowed the porters to rob the
+prisoners thus. More gave him his cap, but the man was not content with
+that, and he had to give his outside coat as well.
+
+It was just the beginning of the summer when the two men went to the
+Tower, and they were put in separate cells. At first they were not
+treated badly, and were allowed pens and paper to write letters; but
+afterwards these were taken from them, and More had to write his letters
+with a coal. However, he had one great consolation--his daughter was
+sometimes allowed to come to see him. Perhaps the King thought that she
+would persuade him to give in and sign the paper so that he might go
+back home.
+
+When the summer had passed and the weather grew colder, More and Fisher
+both suffered from the cold, but especially poor old Bishop Fisher,
+whose clothes were in rags. And it was not until a whole year after they
+had been sent to the Tower that they were brought up to be tried. More
+was taken on foot through the streets to Westminster, a very long
+way--more than three miles. He was dressed in common clothes and
+surrounded by a guard. Then he was tried at Westminster, and accused of
+treason in not acknowledging the King's authority, but the real reason
+was that he would not say the King was right in marrying Anne Boleyn.
+
+He was condemned to death. There was a custom in those days that when a
+man was condemned to death the executioner walked out of the
+judgment-hall before the prisoner with the sharp edge of the axe turned
+backwards towards him.
+
+More had been tried in Westminster Hall, of which you have heard
+already, and inside there it was very dark; but when he came out into
+the bright sunshine he was quite dazzled for the moment and could not
+see. But there was someone else who saw--someone who had been waiting in
+the crowd in terrible anxiety, and when he saw that axe turned with the
+sharp edge toward More he knew it meant death; and he gave a great
+shriek, and thrust himself through the guards and flung himself at
+More's feet. This was his son-in-law, William Roper, Margaret's husband.
+
+More was allowed to go back to the Tower by boat, and a sorrowful voyage
+it must have been, not for himself, but for thinking of all those dear
+ones he must leave.
+
+When he arrived at the Tower he saw standing on the quay two
+figures--his son John, then a man of twenty-five, and a tall, slight
+woman in deepest black, his dear Meg. Even the soldiers made way for her
+as she flung her arms round her father's neck and cried out of her
+breaking heart, 'My father! oh, my father!'--a cry which so touched some
+of those rough guards that they turned aside to hide the tears in their
+own eyes. More tried to comfort her, and presently gently drew himself
+away. He felt it was almost too much for him; but as she turned away she
+could not bear to let him go, and once more threw her arms round him
+with that pitiful cry, and only gave way when at last she sank fainting
+on the ground.
+
+More then went on and left her so, and when she came to herself she knew
+it was all over, and that she had no more hope. Six days later, at nine
+o'clock in the morning, More was led out to suffer beheading, as Bishop
+Fisher had already suffered. When he had first gone to the Tower he had
+been a man of middle age with a brown beard and brown hair; now after a
+year of confinement and anxiety his hair was quite gray. When he was
+told to make ready for his execution, he put on a silk robe, which when
+the gaoler saw he asked him to change for a common woollen one. More
+asked why, and was told that the clothes he was killed in became the
+property of the executioner, and the clothes he left behind in the Tower
+were taken by his gaolers, and that this gaoler thought the silk robe
+too good for the executioner. So More quietly changed to a commoner
+dress, for it mattered little to him. When he reached the scaffold, he
+found he was too feeble to climb up the steps without help, and he asked
+one of the men to give him an arm, adding: 'I pray you see me safe up;
+as for my coming down, I may shift for myself.' The executioner asked
+his forgiveness, which was granted; and then More knelt before the
+block, and carefully put his beard aside, saying: '_That_ at least has
+committed no treason.' Then with one stroke his head was cut off. His
+body was buried near the chapel in the Tower; but, according to the
+custom of that time, his head was stuck up on London Bridge.
+
+[Illustration: THE TRAITOR'S GATE, TOWER OF LONDON.]
+
+Fancy the horror of his loving daughter Meg when she heard this! What
+could she do? She could not suffer it to stay there, so she bribed two
+men and took a boat, and, going down the river, stole her own father's
+head, and, wrapping it in a cloth, returned with her gruesome burden to
+Chelsea, where she is said to have buried it in the church. Can you
+picture anything more awful than the task of this brave woman?
+
+Another of More's daughters was married, too, and she and Meg were both
+happy mothers with families of their own; but we may be quite sure that
+so long as they lived they never forgot their dear father.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+LADY JANE GREY
+
+
+There once lived a girl who was called Queen of England for twenty days,
+but who was never crowned; who lived a good and innocent life, yet was
+beheaded when she was only sixteen. This was Lady Jane Grey. She was a
+cousin of young King Edward VI., who succeeded his father Henry VIII.
+when he was a little boy of nine. At that time England had lately
+established the Protestant religion, the Church of England as we have it
+now, and all Roman Catholics had been forced to become Protestants or to
+leave the churches to those who were. Edward was a delicate little boy,
+and he had only reigned five years when he caught measles. He never
+seemed to recover from them; he had a cold afterwards, which settled on
+his chest, and it soon began to be whispered that the boy-king must die.
+At this there was much talking among the great nobles who were
+Protestants, for they knew that the next heir to the throne was
+Edward's elder sister Mary, a woman of thirty-eight, a strong Roman
+Catholic; and they feared that if Queen Mary sat on the throne all the
+Roman Catholics would be restored to their places, and the Protestants
+would be persecuted and perhaps murdered, all of which afterwards really
+did happen. Mary had a younger sister Elizabeth, who was only twenty,
+and she was a Protestant; and if the nobles could have put her on the
+throne instead of Mary, all would have been well with England. But that
+they could not do, for to set aside an older sister for a younger one
+would have been impossible. So they looked around for someone else, and
+fixed on little Lady Jane Grey.
+
+Lady Jane was one of the three daughters of a nobleman called the Duke
+of Suffolk; she was the eldest, and through her mother she was a cousin
+of King Edward's, and of his sisters Mary and Elizabeth, too. If Edward
+had had no sisters, Lady Jane would have been Queen after him. The
+nobles had wanted her to marry Edward, who was just her own age; but the
+boy had been too ill to think of marrying, and now he was going to die,
+and it was too late to make any arrangement of that sort. His guardian,
+the Duke of Northumberland, was a powerful and ambitious man, and he
+planned a scheme by which he would be still more powerful. He persuaded
+Edward that Lady Jane must reign after him, for if she did not England
+would suffer; and Edward, who loved the Protestant religion, consented.
+He made a will saying that Lady Jane was to be Queen instead of his
+sisters Mary and Elizabeth. Of course, he had no right to do this, for a
+king cannot say who is to reign after him; the throne must go to the
+next heir. But Northumberland thought if he and all the nobles declared
+Lady Jane Queen, they could force the people of England to acknowledge
+her. Then the clever Northumberland went further; he got Edward to
+consent to the marriage of Lady Jane to Northumberland's only son, young
+Lord Guildford Dudley. Dudley was then a boy of seventeen, and Lady Jane
+only fifteen, but that was quite old enough for marriage in those days.
+
+Lady Jane had lived very quietly up to this time; she was a gentle
+little girl who loved her books, and never thought of thrones and kings
+and queens. When she was quite young she could speak French and Italian,
+wrote Latin, and understood Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic. This was
+the more wonderful because in those days ladies were not supposed to
+know very much; if they could do beautiful tapestry work and ride and
+sing a little, it was considered quite enough. There is a story told of
+Lady Jane that one day when a very clever man named Roger Ascham came to
+stay with her father, he found her sitting in a window-seat reading a
+book. Outside stretched the beautiful park, with its green grass and
+great shady trees, and the voices of the visitors and the other little
+girls who were amusing themselves came in at the window; but Lady Jane
+sat curled up, as many little girls do nowadays, reading diligently, and
+never taking any notice of the bright world outside. And the book she
+was reading was the work of an ancient Greek philosopher called Plato,
+who wrote very interesting books, but ones that are hard even for
+grown-up people to understand. It must have made a pretty picture, that
+little pale girl bending over her book; and if anyone had said that in
+one short year she would be married, have been called Queen of England,
+and have been beheaded, it would not have been believed.
+
+Roger Ascham stopped and asked her why she read instead of playing, and
+she told him she loved books, and they gave her much more pleasure than
+the things in which people usually tried to find pleasure. Then he
+wanted to know how she had managed to learn so much, and she answered:
+
+'Sir, God hath blessed me with sharp and severe parents and a gentle
+schoolmaster; for when I am in the presence of either father or mother,
+whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merry
+or sad, be sewing, dancing, or doing anything else, I must do it, as it
+were, in such weight, measure, and number, even as perfectly as the
+world was made, or else I am so sharply taunted and cruelly
+threatened--yea, presently sometimes with pinches, nips, and bobs, and
+so cruelly disordered, that I think myself in hell until the time come
+that I go to Mr. Aylmer, who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, with
+such fair allurements to learning, that I think all the time as nothing
+that I am with him; and thus my book hath been so much my pleasure, and
+bringeth daily to me more pleasure and more, that in respect of it all
+other pleasures in very deed be but trifles and very troubles to me.'
+
+That is not quite the way a little girl would speak now, I think.
+
+When Jane had been younger she had seen a good deal of her cousin
+Elizabeth, who was about five years older, and they had been in the
+same house together; and, of course, if she had ever thought about it at
+all, she knew that first Mary, and after her Elizabeth, had the right to
+be Queen when Edward died. Before Edward died, however, Jane was told
+suddenly that she must marry young Guildford Dudley. He was a handsome
+boy and very gentle, and Jane seems to have loved him very dearly; so
+she made no objection, and the marriage took place in a great hurry. And
+at the same time her younger sister Katharine was also married to Lord
+Herbert, the son of the Earl of Pembroke, so the quiet life in the
+beautiful home in Leicestershire came to an end.
+
+Lady Jane knew, of course, that her cousin Edward was ill, and it must
+have grieved her very much; for she was fond of him, and being just the
+same age, they had learnt the same lessons together. But when Edward
+died she was not told of it until she received a message from her
+father-in-law, the Duke of Northumberland, to go to his great house,
+called Sion House, on the Thames, not far from London. She went, never
+thinking what was going to happen or why she was wanted; and when she
+was there Northumberland himself and her own father, the Duke of
+Suffolk, and some other lords came into the room, and, kneeling before
+her, told her that her young cousin Edward was dead, and that she must
+succeed him as Queen of England. Poor Lady Jane was so shocked and
+startled that she fainted away. When she came round again they told her
+she must be obedient and do as they told her. She pleaded with them, and
+said Mary must be Queen, and that for herself she was so young--only
+sixteen; and she did not care to be Queen, but only wanted to live a
+quiet life with her husband, Lord Dudley. But they argued with her, and
+told her she was a coward; that it was for the good of England, and that
+if she refused she would be wicked; and at last she consented. Then all
+her life was changed.
+
+As I have said before, people used the river then a great deal more than
+they do now, and all persons of importance had state barges with rowers
+to row them up and down the water. Some of these barges were very
+magnificent, with scarlet cloth and gold fringe, and looked like
+gorgeous birds floating on the water. A beautiful barge was waiting for
+Lady Jane in front of Sion House, and she stepped into it, and was rowed
+down the river through London to the Tower.
+
+Now up to this time this story has not had much to do with London, but
+after this all the rest of it happened in London. When Lady Jane entered
+the Tower the man who was then Lord Treasurer of England came to her,
+and, kneeling down, offered her the crown of England. And afterwards
+Northumberland and his party lost no time, but sent men all round London
+to cry out that Lady Jane Grey was now Queen of England.
+
+Meantime, Mary had been in the country. She had only just heard of her
+brother's death, when she heard, too, of what Northumberland had done.
+Now, she did not resemble her poor little cousin; she was not only very
+much older, but of a very stern disposition--not at all likely to sit
+down quietly and let another take her crown. So she made people go over
+all the countryside where she was and say that she was Queen, and that
+men might come and fight for her. Now many people felt that even if Mary
+were hard and cruel, still, it was fair that she should be Queen; so
+many nobles and gentlemen came to her, and she presently had a large
+army. When the story of the two Queens was heard, nearly everyone in
+England felt that Mary was right, and Northumberland began to think he
+had a harder fight before him than he had expected.
+
+Even the people in London began to riot and say that Mary was Queen,
+and when one of the nobles on her side went to St. Paul's Cathedral, and
+there, standing beside a cross called St. Paul's Cross, where
+proclamations were made, cried out Mary was Queen, all the people
+shouted for joy. Bonfires were lit in the streets, and everywhere was
+feasting and rejoicing, and no one seemed to care about Lady Jane in the
+Tower.
+
+So Northumberland saw how foolish he had been, and he hastened to send
+Jane back to Sion House; but he stayed in London himself, and cried out
+like the rest that Mary was Queen. For only three weeks Jane had been
+Queen, and all that time she had stayed in the gloomy Tower wishing she
+were back in her country home.
+
+Then Mary rode in state into London, and went straight to the Tower. Her
+first care was to have Edward's funeral celebrated--for he had not yet
+been buried--and then she began to think about her enemies.
+Northumberland, of course, was her prisoner, together with some other
+nobles, and Northumberland and two others were condemned to death. So a
+very short time after he had brought his son's wife to the Tower as a
+queen the Duke of Northumberland had his head cut off at the same
+Tower. Lady Jane and her husband were brought to the Tower as prisoners
+also, but were allowed to walk in the gardens, and were well treated;
+for at this time Mary seemed to think that they were not to blame,
+having been a mere boy and girl made to do wrong by their fathers, which
+was true. Perhaps they would have stayed in captivity for many years but
+for the foolish friends, who, by trying to help them, made their fate
+much worse. For after Mary had been Queen a short time she was hated.
+Her stern manners and her hard face made people fear her, and shortly
+after she was crowned people began to rise in different parts of England
+and say that Lady Jane ought to be Queen instead. And for some time Mary
+had to send troops to fight against the rebels, as those who rose in
+favour of Jane were called. At last one day an alarm was given that a
+man named Sir Thomas Wyatt had collected a large army, and was actually
+advancing on London. Mary was at that time staying at Whitehall Palace,
+and news came that Wyatt and all his men were going to attack the palace
+and carry her off. They really did come, too, and the army spread all
+over St. James's Park and all round the old palace--everywhere were
+soldiers. At that time there was a great gateway, called the Holbein
+Gate, that stood across Whitehall, and in this Queen Mary stayed and
+watched the fighting. With all her faults she was very brave, and when
+she saw her own guards driven in and dispersed, she showed no sign of
+fear. Then a gentleman rushed up to her, and, falling on his knees,
+said, 'All is lost,' and begged her to get into a barge on the river and
+fly to the Tower, where she would be safer; but Mary refused to go, and
+said all was not lost, and by her bravery and her words she so
+inspirited the men that they fought again, and succeeded in beating off
+Wyatt's men. So Wyatt went on toward the city, and all the way he had to
+fight, and at last he was taken prisoner on Ludgate Hill, which is not
+far from St. Paul's Cathedral.
+
+Then Mary knew that she was safe again; but she must have passed a
+sleepless night and thought a great deal, for she at last made up her
+mind she would order Lady Jane Grey and her husband to be beheaded, for
+so long as they lived other men would rise, as Wyatt had done, and try
+to make Jane Queen.
+
+It was a dreadful thing to do, but we must remember that in those days
+executions were not thought so much of as they would be now. In these
+days anyone would be horrified to hear that a man's or woman's head was
+to be cut off, and even the very worst murderers are only hanged; but in
+Mary's day a great many people were beheaded every year. So in the
+morning, when Mary rode down to the city to thank her nobles and knights
+for fighting so bravely and defending her, she knew that before the day
+was ended she would have signed the death-warrant of Lady Jane. When she
+came to Temple Bar she stopped. Now, Temple Bar was a great gateway that
+stood in the Strand, just where the City of London begins, and on it
+there were ugly iron spikes; and sometimes the heads of those who had
+been executed were stuck on these spikes, and stayed there until they
+rotted away. All the people passing along the street could look up and
+see the heads, and sometimes, when the wind was high, a ghastly head
+came tumbling down into the street. We cannot think of such things
+without horror; but in those days people were accustomed to them, and
+did not mind them very much. When Mary came to Temple Bar she asked for
+ink and paper, and wrote there the order for young Lady Jane and her
+husband to be beheaded.
+
+Lady Jane was in the Tower when the news was brought to her. She had now
+been a prisoner six months, and perhaps sometimes she had thought she
+might die as her father-in-law had died; so when the priest Queen Mary
+sent came to tell her the news, she received it quite calmly and without
+a shudder. But when he tried to make her turn Roman Catholic, she told
+him she should never do that. The priest hurried back to Queen Mary, and
+said if the execution could be put off three days he might make Lady
+Jane a Roman Catholic, so Queen Mary consented to delay a little. But
+when Jane was told that she was to live a little longer, she was sorry,
+for it was worse to wait than to be killed at once. During those three
+days she must sometimes have shuddered to think that not only must she
+die, but her young husband, so full of life and strength, must die too;
+yet she never gave way before people or seemed afraid. She was asked if
+she would see Guildford to say good-bye; but she said it was better not,
+for the parting might be too heartrending, and make them both break
+down. He was to die first, and when the morning came, very early the
+guards led him past Lady Jane's window on his way to death. Then indeed
+she must have felt that the bitterness of death was past. She had
+written a long letter to Queen Mary explaining how everything had
+happened, and that it was never her wish to be a queen; and she had
+written another to her father, knowing that he must be very sad, feeling
+it was all his fault that she had been led into this sad position; and
+another to her younger sister Katharine to say good-bye. And now all was
+done, and soon her husband would be dead, and what had she left to live
+for?
+
+The execution of Guildford did not take long. Presently a low rumble of
+cart-wheels over the stones told Lady Jane that they were bringing back
+his dead body, and then she knew her turn must come.
+
+One can imagine the horror with which she heard the door open and saw
+Sir John Brydges, the man who was to lead her out, standing and waiting.
+But she was very brave; she neither fainted nor screamed, but rose up,
+and, taking his hand, walked with him to the scaffold. When she arrived
+at the place of execution she made a little speech, saying that she
+ought never to have allowed anyone to persuade her to be queen; but that
+she was young--she had not known what was right. And then, without any
+show of fear, she laid her head on the block, and it was cut off at one
+blow.
+
+So died the poor girl at only sixteen--a girl who loved her books, and
+would have lived a quiet life if it had not been for the ambitious plans
+of her own father and her father-in-law.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+GUNPOWDER PLOT
+
+
+There is no need to tell anyone who lives in the country what happens on
+the fifth of November, for they are sure to know well. The beautiful
+fireworks, with their streams of coloured fire; the crackling of the
+squibs; the gorgeous catherine-wheels and the coloured Roman candles;
+the great rockets that shoot up into the air with a swish, leaving
+behind them a long tail of golden fire, and then burst into showers of
+stars--all these may be seen on the fifth of November; and if you are
+really lucky children, there will follow the great bonfire, with barrels
+of tar poured over it to make the flames roar upward. They lick the bare
+sticks put ready for them, and climb over the logs until they reach the
+figure of Guy Fawkes himself, a stuffed figure like a scarecrow, which
+stands at the highest point. The flames crackle gaily; the heat is in
+contrast with the fresh air of the November evening; all the people
+standing by look strange and unlike themselves with that weird glow on
+their faces. Then Guy's hands curl up, an arm wavers, and he topples
+headlong into the glowing flames, to be burnt up altogether. Guy is only
+made of straw, so we need not be sorry for him; but it is a curious
+custom, and we have to go to history to find out what it means. That
+there was a real man, a Guy Fawkes, who lived in James I.'s reign, you
+know perhaps. This Guy was at first a Protestant, and as a little boy
+used to go to church with his mother; but as he grew older he became a
+Roman Catholic. Now, at that time in England there were many very hard
+and unjust laws against the Roman Catholics, not allowing them to hold
+offices in the State, and preventing them from doing many things that
+Protestants might do. People are wiser now, and realize that a man may
+be a good man and a good servant of the country whatever his religion so
+long as he is in earnest, but in those days it was not so. Well, a
+certain number of lords and gentlemen who were Roman Catholics tried to
+get these laws altered; but they could not, and so they were very angry
+and bitter against the King and his Ministers, and joined together to
+make a plot to be revenged on them. Guy Fawkes was one of the men in
+this plot, and it may have been he who suggested the dreadful idea that
+was at last decided upon. However that may be, at first nothing was
+done, but the conspirators used to meet together in secret to talk
+things over. They dare not meet openly, for if so many Catholic
+gentlemen had been discovered together, the King and his Ministers would
+have suspected something wrong. In one great house in the country
+belonging to a young man called Sir Everard Digby, they met in a secret
+room, with a floor that moved, so that if ever the King's officers came
+suddenly to surprise them there, they could all escape by means of the
+floor, which slipped up and let them out, whence they could go from the
+house by means of a secret passage. Digby was quite young, little more
+than a boy, and he had just married a young and beautiful girl, when he
+became entangled in the detestable Gunpowder Plot.
+
+The plot, when it finally took form, was that the conspirators should
+hire a house near to the Houses of Parliament and dig an underground
+tunnel, which should reach right beneath the part of the House where the
+King would be when the Houses of Parliament were opened the next time;
+that they should then put gunpowder there, and blow up the whole
+building, killing the King and many of the great Ministers. While
+everyone was thrown into terror and confusion by this, the other
+conspirators were to seize one of the young princes, the King's sons,
+and carry him off; then, when everything was thus in the hands of the
+Catholics, they expected to be able to make their own terms, and get the
+laws against Catholics repealed by the nation.
+
+All this sounded very grand, but it was very difficult to do. It is
+wonderful that the conspirators managed to do so much as they did. They
+actually took a room near the Houses of Parliament, and began to dig
+their underground passage. But they found this a much more difficult job
+than they had anticipated, for every bit of the soil they dug out had to
+be carried away in baskets secretly by night; for people would naturally
+have noticed it if they had seen it, and begun to ask what was being
+done. But just when they had discovered how hard the work was going to
+be, they heard that a cellar right under the Houses of Parliament was to
+be let. Here was a chance! They took it at once, and gave up digging out
+their tunnel. Guy Fawkes was appointed to see that the scheme was
+carried out, and his was the dangerous part. He had to buy barrels of
+gunpowder singly and at different times, and see that they were carried
+into his cellar without anyone seeing them. Then he bought a great deal
+of wood in faggots and stacked it over the barrels of gunpowder, so that
+if anyone did come into that cellar, he would never suspect it was
+anything but an ordinary cellar for storing wood. The meeting of
+Parliament was to take place in October, and by August all was ready;
+then the meeting of Parliament was delayed, and the conspirators heard
+it was not to be until the fifth of November. The time now drew very
+near. Then it occurred to some of the conspirators that perhaps some of
+their own friends who were members of Parliament would be blown up with
+the rest, and they grew uneasy. Each one wanted to warn his own friend
+not to go to Parliament that day, but no one knew how to do it for fear
+of betraying the plot. At last, however, one of the conspirators, who
+was a brother-in-law of Lord Mounteagle's, sent Lord Mounteagle a
+letter, saying that he had better not go to Parliament on the day of
+opening, for the Parliament was to receive 'a terrible blow, and yet
+shall not see who hurts them.' Lord Mounteagle was naturally distressed
+to receive such a letter, without any sign who had sent it, and he took
+it to the King. James was a clever man in some ways, and he saw at once
+that a terrible blow, yet not seen, must mean something to do with
+gunpowder; so he had the cellars under the Houses of Parliament
+searched, and discovered the barrels of gunpowder. Now Guy Fawkes knew
+nothing of this, but came the night before the fifth to be in time to do
+his dreadful deed. He was a brave man, though a wicked one, caring
+little what evil he was doing. He had arranged a train of gunpowder
+running along the floor to what is called a slow match--that is to say,
+a long match that burns for perhaps five or ten minutes, so that the
+person who lights it has time to get away before the explosion
+occurs--and then he waited until the time when all the members of
+Parliament and the King should be there before setting a light to it.
+Cannot you picture Guy Fawkes alone in that gloomy cellar that night? He
+did not know that the plot was discovered; he thought that everything
+had been kept very secret, and that to-morrow he would set a light to
+that match and hurry away, and before he had got very far he would hear
+a sound that would seem to tear the very sky, and with a crash the
+Houses of Parliament would reel and fall, burying in their ruins
+hundreds of men and the King of England. These were not the same Houses
+of Parliament that stand now, but were burnt down many years after.
+
+In the dark shadows Guy waited; perhaps a mouse ran across the floor,
+and made him start. And then there was a sound of footsteps at the door,
+a whispering and a creaking of boots, and before he had time to do
+anything he found himself surrounded by soldiers, and knew that all was
+over; that the least he could hope for was death, which he had richly
+deserved, for he had intended to murder hundreds of men who had never
+wronged him.
+
+All the implements for his terrible scheme were found upon him--the slow
+match and the lights, and when the faggots were thrown aside there were
+the barrels of gunpowder. If the people could have got at Guy Fawkes, he
+would have been torn in pieces; but he was kept from them by the
+soldiers, and hurried off to the Tower. So all the people could do was
+to make a false Guy Fawkes stuffed with straw and burn him on a bonfire,
+and that is the origin of our fifth of November.
+
+Guy Fawkes was not put to death at once, as you will hear in the account
+of the Tower; he was tortured on the rack to make him give up the names
+of those who had been in the conspiracy with him. Again and again he
+refused, but at last the awful suffering weakened him so that he hardly
+knew what he was doing; and when the torturers told him some of his
+comrades had been taken, which was not true, he believed them, and
+moaned out the names of two or three of his fellow-conspirators. Among
+them was poor young Sir Everard Digby, who, when he heard that all was
+lost, mounted his horse and tried to get away to the sea to go across to
+the Continent; but he was taken, and with many of the others, including
+Guy Fawkes himself, was hanged.
+
+This, then, was the famous Gunpowder Plot which we celebrate on the
+fifth of November.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CHARLES I
+
+
+The story of Charles I. is one of the most dreadful in English history.
+It seems impossible to believe that so many of the English people could
+stand calmly round and watch their King executed like a common criminal
+without raising a finger to save him.
+
+We have met Charles once before in this book, if you remember, when he
+walked across Spring Gardens on his way to be murdered. He was born in
+Scotland, and he had an elder brother, Prince Henry, so that it was
+thought at first that Charles would not be King. But Prince Henry died
+when Charles was only twelve, and so Charles became Prince of Wales and
+heir to the throne.
+
+By this time the Kings of England lived, when in London, not in
+Westminster Palace, but in another palace called Whitehall. When Henry
+VIII. was King, the old palace of Westminster, of which you have heard
+so much in the story of Edward V., had fallen into ruins, so Henry
+looked about for another. Quite close to Westminster Palace there was a
+great house called York House, which belonged to the Archbishops of
+York, and which they used when they came to London. Henry arranged that
+he should have this for a new palace, so he moved there. It was not just
+one great building as we picture palaces in these days, but a number of
+smaller ones--courts and long ranges of houses--and in it lived all the
+people connected with the Court, as they had done at Westminster Palace.
+It was a little town in itself. There were no trains then, and when the
+King went from one of his palaces to another everything had to be taken
+in carts. We are told that three hundred carts went from Whitehall to
+Greenwich Palace at one time laden with linen cloths for the tables,
+wine, and gold and silver plate, and dresses and kitchen things, pots
+and pans, and other things. In that time people had tapestry hanging on
+the walls instead of our paper and paint. They had rough trestle-tables,
+which were only boards, and were put up and taken down again when they
+were not wanted. The floors were strewn with green leaves and scented
+plants, which had to be put there freshly every day. It was all so
+different from our own time that we can hardly imagine it.
+
+James I. was the father of Charles, and he gave many splendid
+entertainments at this palace, in which, no doubt, Prince Charles took
+part. There were dinners and dances, and other things not so harmless;
+for instance, it was supposed to be great sport to see two poor cocks
+fight until they tore each other almost to pieces, and people used to
+bet on one cock or the other. There were also fights between bears and
+greyhounds; and a wretched bull was tied to a stake and a number of
+savage dogs let loose on him, and the more the bull threw his head this
+way and that, and stuck his great horns into the dogs, and the more the
+dogs seized him at the back, where he could not defend himself, and tore
+his flesh with their teeth, the more the people laughed and applauded.
+Even ladies watched these sports. Prince Charles was never a strong boy,
+and always rather quiet and thoughtful, and he cannot have liked such
+cruelty; but then it was the fashion--everyone did it, so he thought it
+must be all right. King James was very fond of hunting, and while he
+lived the Court was always gay. But the palace was getting more and more
+old and inconvenient, and at last James thought he would build a new
+one. So he sent for his architect, a wonderful man called Inigo Jones,
+and ordered him to draw plans for a new palace that should be far more
+splendid than the old one. Inigo Jones did so. We still have copies of
+his plans, and we can see what a wonderful palace he meant to have
+built. It was to face the river on one side and to have rows of windows
+and high round towers, and all along the roof there were to be figures
+as large or larger than life standing on the parapet. It would have cost
+thousands and thousands of pounds. But this beautiful palace was never
+completed. The King died and Inigo Jones died, and the only bit of this
+great new palace that was ever built is still standing, and you can see
+it any day in London if you go down Whitehall. It is larger than an
+ordinary-sized house, and has pillars running up the front and two rows
+of windows, and is called the Banqueting Hall.
+
+Well, when James died his son Charles became King. Charles was then
+twenty-five years old, and was still delicate and thin, and not very
+tall. His hair was long, parted in the middle, and falling on each side
+of his face to his collar. His little neat beard was cut to a point, and
+his eyes were very sad. He liked better to live quietly than to be a
+king.
+
+Almost directly after his father's death he married a French Princess.
+She was young and gay, and if she had known she was going to marry the
+only King of England who was ever beheaded, I think she would have
+stayed in France. She was only just sixteen when she came to London, and
+all the strange faces and the strange language must have frightened her
+very much. Charles had never seen her before, and when they met he
+looked at her as if she was not quite so small as he had expected; and
+she laughed and showed him the heels of her shoes, which were quite
+flat, and said: 'Sir, I stand upon mine own feet. I have no helps of
+art. Thus high I am, and am neither higher nor lower.'
+
+Henrietta Maria was dark, with black eyes and dark-brown hair, and was
+very quick and bright, and Charles loved her always to the end of his
+life.
+
+After a time Henrietta was given Somerset House, a magnificent house in
+the Strand, for herself, and all her French attendants lived there with
+her. Perhaps Charles felt that the old palace at Whitehall was hardly
+fit for this bright little French woman, and perhaps it annoyed him to
+hear all the French people chattering about his own Court. Somerset
+House had been built by an uncle of Edward VI., the Duke of Somerset,
+who was such a greedy man that he had pulled down numbers of churches
+in order to take the stone of which they were built to make his own vast
+mansion. The Duke never lived there, for before it was finished he was
+imprisoned in the Tower, and then beheaded. When Henrietta was there the
+furniture was very magnificent and rich. We are told that one of the bed
+coverlets, of embroidered satin, was worth L1,000!
+
+This Somerset House was pulled down when George III. was King, and
+another great house called by the same name was built instead. This one
+is still standing, and in it there are offices belonging to the
+Government. In one part are all the wills that people have left when
+they died, and if anyone wants to see a particular will he can go there
+and see it if he pays a shilling.
+
+One day when Queen Henrietta Maria lived in old Somerset House, Charles
+came and told her he was going to send all her French attendants back to
+France except her lady's-maid and one other, for the French people were
+saying things against the King and making mischief. Henrietta was much
+grieved, but she had to obey the King, so she sent them back to France.
+Long years after the death of her husband, when her son was King, after
+many terrible wars, Henrietta once again came back to London and lived
+at her old home. Not far from Somerset House, close by Charing Cross
+Station, was another great house in the Strand called York House. I
+spoke of this before when I told you about the fine old water-gate still
+standing. That water-gate belonged to a handsome man called the Duke of
+Buckingham. Buckingham had been a great favourite with the old King,
+James I., and he had travelled abroad with Charles when he was Prince of
+Wales. Charles loved him very dearly, though he knew he was an
+ambitious, selfish man, fond of pleasure. Charles and Henrietta had been
+married three years, and during that time people had grumbled against
+Buckingham because he was the King's favourite; but though he was
+disliked, no one ever guessed what would happen. Buckingham had gone
+down to Portsmouth to arrange some matters about shipping, and there he
+was stabbed to the heart by a man named Felton. When Felton was brought
+to London to answer for his crime, the people followed him with shouts
+and acclamations, so pleased were they that he had killed the hated
+Buckingham. But King Charles himself was very sad at the loss of his
+friend. He was beginning to find out that being a king was not all
+pleasure.
+
+For one thing, he wanted money, and the Parliament would not give it to
+him. Then he asked rich people to lend him some, and many refused. Of
+course, he had a good deal of money; but he had very great expenses, and
+he wanted more. So he quarrelled with the Parliament, and that was the
+beginning of a long, sad contest. However, it did not get very serious
+all at once; but the quarrels between the King and the Parliament
+gradually grew worse and worse for many years.
+
+Charles and Henrietta had been married about five years when a little
+son came to them, and they called him Charles after his father. He was
+not long without a playfellow; for a year after there was a daughter
+called Mary, and then another son called James. There is still in
+existence a letter which his mother, the Queen, wrote to Prince Charles
+when he was a very little boy and was naughty, and would not take his
+medicine. Here it is:
+
+
+     'CHARLES,
+
+     'I am sure that I must begin my first letter by chiding you,
+     because I hear that you will not take physic. I hope it was only
+     for this day, and to-morrow you will do it; for if you will not I
+     must come to you and make you take it, for it is for your health. I
+     have given order to my Lord Newcastle to send me word whether you
+     will or not, therefore I hope you will not give me the pains to go.
+
+                             'Your affectionate,
+                                             'MOTHER.
+
+     'To my dear son the Prince.'
+
+
+I do not know where Henrietta was when she wrote that letter; perhaps
+she was staying away at one of the palaces in the country. In London
+King Charles still lived in Whitehall Palace, though he had another, of
+which you have heard, called St. James's Palace, in St. James's Park,
+quite near. In either of these he was not far from the Houses of
+Parliament, and it was to the members of Parliament he applied for
+money. When they would not give him any more he dissolved Parliament,
+and sent all the members away; but when he found he could not get money
+any other way, he called them together again.
+
+After these wretched quarrels it must have been a pleasure to him to go
+back to the royal nursery, and forget about being a king for a time in
+playing with his children. When little Charles was five years old there
+came another little daughter, Elizabeth, and she, as she grew up, was
+the favourite of her sad, gentle father.
+
+Mary was a good girl, affectionate and warm-hearted; but she was not
+clever like Elizabeth. I think Charles must have been a nice boy; but
+his brother James was such a horrid man when he came to be King years
+afterwards that he cannot ever have been nice at all, even as a boy.
+
+When Mary was ten a great event happened: she was married to a boy
+prince, the Prince of Orange, who lived in Holland. She still lived with
+her father and mother; but she knew when she grew up she would be
+Princess of Orange--would have to go to live in Holland with her
+husband. Her son, who married his cousin Mary, daughter of James II.,
+became King of England, as William III., many years after.
+
+It was not very long after this that the quarrels between King and
+Parliament grew so bad that Charles was afraid, and had to fly for his
+life. Little Charles, Prince of Wales, was twelve, and Elizabeth, the
+younger girl, was seven, and there was a younger boy, Henry, Duke of
+Gloucester, only four years old. Henry was far the nicest of the boys,
+and it was a pity he could not be King; but you shall hear more of him
+afterwards.
+
+Henrietta, the Queen, fled to France and afterwards to Holland, where
+she sold her jewels to raise money to pay soldiers to fight for the King
+her husband. The two eldest boys were sent over to France too. Princess
+Mary went to her husband's family in Holland, and little Elizabeth and
+Henry were taken prisoners by the Parliament.
+
+The story of the battles between Charles and the Parliament can be read
+in history, and does not belong particularly to London. The end was very
+sad. The King was taken prisoner by the Parliamentarians, who were now
+led by a man called Oliver Cromwell.
+
+Queen Henrietta had gone back to France, leaving a little baby named
+after herself in England. When this baby was two years old the Countess
+of Dorset, who had charge of her, wanted to take her over to her mother
+in France, and she was afraid that the little Princess would be
+recognised and seized by Cromwell's men, so she dressed her in a coarse
+stuff frock instead of the pretty laces and ribbons she had been
+accustomed to wear. But when they started on the journey the little
+child carefully explained, in her lisping, baby way, to everyone who
+spoke to her that she was generally dressed very differently, and the
+poor Countess was much afraid that people would find out she was a
+little princess. In spite of this they got safely over to France. When
+Henrietta grew up she was a gay, frivolous girl, very fond of clothes,
+as one might judge she would be from this story; and she married a
+Frenchman.
+
+To return to Charles and his two younger children, Elizabeth and Henry,
+who were now left in London. The King was taken to Westminster, and then
+for many days there was what the Parliamentarians called a 'trial.' They
+accused their King of breaking laws, of trying to hinder the liberty of
+the people, and of many other things. Through it all Charles was patient
+and gentle, and even at the end, when they condemned him to death, he
+showed no fear or horror. Some day you can go to Westminster and walk
+into that great hall where this mock trial took place, and imagine the
+scene. It is all bare now, a great empty place with a stone floor and
+stone walls and no seats, and it is not used for anything; but when the
+King was there it was filled with eager, bustling crowds all gone mad
+for a time, and willing to kill their King. Then Charles was told to
+prepare for death, but told also that he might see his children once
+again to bid them good-bye.
+
+These two children had been taken from one place to another by their
+enemies, and not treated at all like a prince and princess. Elizabeth
+was now fourteen and Henry ten. They had been called plain Master and
+Miss instead of Prince and Princess, and had lived very plainly in the
+houses of persons who were supposed to take care of them.
+
+When they saw their father and heard what he had to tell them, they were
+very unhappy. Charles said to his little boy: 'Sweetheart, now they will
+cut off thy father's head. Mark, child, what I say--they will cut off my
+head, and perhaps make thee King; but mark what I say, you must not be a
+king so long as your brothers Charles and James do live, for they will
+cut off your brothers' heads (if they can catch them), and cut off thy
+head, too, at the last; and therefore I charge you, do not be made a
+king by them.' At which the child, sighing, said: 'I will be torn in
+pieces first.'
+
+Charles thought that the Parliamentarians might make Henry King because
+he was a little boy, and they could force him to do as they liked; but
+they did not do that.
+
+[Illustration: THE CENOTAPH, WHITEHALL.]
+
+Then Charles went on to say that the two children must always be
+Protestants, and never become Roman Catholics. Their mother Henrietta
+was a Roman Catholic, and he was afraid she might try to make them
+change their religion. And he was quite right; for afterwards, when
+Henry went across to France, the Queen did everything in her power to
+make him change. She was very cruel to him, took away his dinner, and
+would not let him play or ride, and at last was going to send him to a
+Roman Catholic school. But Henry's brother Charles, who was still
+wandering about on the Continent, and had not then regained the throne,
+wrote to her saying that his brother must come to him, and he would take
+care of him. So brave little Henry was rescued. He lived to be nineteen,
+and to see his brother an English King, and then he died of small-pox.
+
+King Charles, after telling both the children they must never be Roman
+Catholics, turned to Elizabeth, and told her what books she must read so
+as to understand about the Protestant religion, and very difficult books
+they were for a little girl of fourteen; and he told her many other
+things, and that she must give his love to the other children. Then he
+said: 'Sweetheart, you will forget this?' And she answered: 'No, I
+shall never forget it while I live.'
+
+It must have been awful for those poor children to tear themselves away,
+knowing that their father, the King of all England and Scotland and
+Ireland, was to be killed. However, at last it was over, and Elizabeth
+and her brother were taken down to be kept in Carisbrooke Castle in the
+Isle of Wight. Here the little girl pined away, and died when she was
+only fifteen. She was found kneeling before her open Bible with her head
+lying on the text 'Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy
+laden,' and she had passed into her rest.
+
+When King Charles had said good-bye to them, he tried to fix his
+thoughts on the other world, and to forget all his wicked enemies. He
+slept that night at St. James's Palace, where our present Prince and
+Princess of Wales lived with their children until a short time ago. In
+the morning Charles walked across the Park and Spring Gardens, where, as
+he passed, he pointed out a tree that had been planted by his own elder
+brother Henry, who had died young. Then he went across to the Banqueting
+Hall.
+
+Hundreds and hundreds of people were waiting in Whitehall. They cannot
+all have been wicked, but they must all have been cowards, for not one
+dared to shout out and say, 'They must not, shall not, do this fearful
+wrong.' If anyone had, perhaps others would have joined in and helped to
+save their King. But no, all were silent. Perhaps they felt to the last
+minute that it could not be true, that something would happen to prevent
+it.
+
+King Charles walked right through the Banqueting Hall under a beautiful
+ceiling which he himself had paid a great painter to paint. You can walk
+there yourself now under the same ceiling, for the place is a museum,
+and anyone can go to see it.
+
+Then he went through one of the windows upstairs--no one is quite sure
+which, but it is supposed to be the second one from one end--and when he
+stepped out on to the scaffold there was the dreadful executioner, with
+his black mask on and his sharp axe. It was the custom for the
+executioner to wear a mask, and I think he must have been glad of it
+that day. The scaffold was all draped in black, and on it was a block,
+at which the King must kneel, and on which he must rest his head. He
+said gently the block was very low, and he had expected it to be higher;
+but they told him it must be so, and he said no more.
+
+Then he took off a beautiful star he wore, the decoration of an order,
+which he handed to a captain in the army, a friend of his own, in whose
+family it still remains, and some other things, which he gave to Bishop
+Juxon, who stood by, and as he did so he said: 'Remember.' No one has
+ever quite known what he meant by that, for the Bishop never told. It is
+supposed either he meant that Bishop Juxon was to remember to give these
+things to his son Prince Charles, or that he was to tell Prince Charles
+to remember to forgive his father's murderers.
+
+Then King Charles said to the executioner that he would put his head on
+the block, and when he stretched out his hands he might strike. In a few
+minutes he finished praying, and stretched out his hands. Down fell the
+sharp axe, and a deep groan rose up from all the multitude as King
+Charles was beheaded. Now every day hundreds of people walk up and down
+on the pavement before the Banqueting Hall, but hardly one thinks of
+that awful day when a King's blood was shed on this very place.
+
+The old palace of Whitehall has quite gone. Over the place where it was
+are houses and gardens; some of the houses are large and some are quite
+old. Only the Banqueting Hall remains, that part of the magnificent
+palace that Inigo Jones meant to build for James I.
+
+At the top of Whitehall at Charing Cross there is a statue of King
+Charles on a horse, as if he were riding down toward the place where he
+died. On the very spot where it stands, before it was put up, the worst
+of the men who murdered Charles were themselves executed only a short
+distance from the place of the King's execution. For after Cromwell's
+death England realized her wickedness, and Charles's son came back to
+reign. But never, never can be forgotten the dreadful deed that happened
+in Whitehall more than two hundred and fifty years ago.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE GREAT PLAGUE AND FIRE
+
+
+Of all the awful calamities that have befallen London, there is none
+more awful than the Great Plague, which happened when Charles II., son
+of King Charles I., was on the throne. He had been restored to his
+kingdom for less than five years when it happened. Two people died quite
+suddenly in Westminster, and men looked grave and said it was the
+plague. But at first they did not think much of it, for the plague had
+often visited England before. But this time it was to be far, far worse
+than anything anyone had ever known. It is said that the infection was
+brought over from the Continent in some bales of goods that merchants
+were bringing to sell in London, but this was never known for certain.
+All at once two more people died unaccountably, and then it seemed as if
+the plague leaped out from every corner, and people began dying all over
+London. There had been a hard frost, and it was when the frost thawed
+that the plague seemed to gain fresh strength. Everybody began to ask
+questions. What were they to do? Couldn't they go away at once? What
+were others doing to stop the spread of the infection? The awful
+suddenness of it terrified everyone. Persons who had been talking gaily
+and feeling quite well complained of feeling a swelling on the throat or
+a little sickness, and in an hour they were dead. Sometimes it began by
+a swelling that came under the arm (this was a sure sign), and sometimes
+by swellings on the neck. As the plague grew worse men dropped down in
+the streets seized with it, and before their friends could be found they
+were dead. All sorts of odd things were offered in order to keep away
+the infection. One, that a great many foolish people believed in, was a
+dried toad strung on a string round the neck--as if that could have made
+anyone safe!
+
+Very soon all the rich people left London and fled away into the
+country, though, of course, the country people did not want them, for
+fear that they had brought the infection. But there were hundreds and
+hundreds of people who stayed in London and even tried to carry on their
+business. At first they struggled bravely and pretended nothing was the
+matter, but very soon this was impossible.
+
+You could not imagine what London looked like then. No one drove in the
+streets, no one walked there if he could help it; grass grew up between
+the cobble-stones, and nearly all the houses had shutters up, showing
+that their inhabitants had gone away. A nurse would come quickly along
+holding a little red staff in her hand to show she had been nursing a
+plague patient, and that other people had better avoid her. Then slowly
+down the street would come a cart, with a man walking beside the horse,
+and he would call out: 'Bring out your dead! bring out your dead!' just
+as if he were shouting to sell coals. And in the cart were the bodies of
+the people who had died of the plague. It was extraordinary that any man
+could be found to drive that cart, and he had to have very high wages;
+and even then he must have been a low sort of man, without any
+imagination, a man who did not mind much what his work was so long as he
+had some money to spend in drink. One of these men was sitting on his
+cart one day when it was noticed that he seemed to be ill, and the next
+moment he fell off dead, having caught the plague.
+
+When people were dying by hundreds and hundreds there was no time to
+bury them properly: and yet they had to be buried, or the dead bodies
+would make it impossible for anyone to live at all. So great pits were
+dug many yards wide, and into these the bodies of men, women, and
+children were put in rows and rows, one row on the top of another, and
+the whole covered in with stuff called quicklime. Whenever anyone began
+with the plague, it was the duty of the head of the household to see
+that a red cross was marked on his door as a warning to others to keep
+away, and it must have been very sad to see these long red crosses on so
+many doors, with the grass-grown street in front of the houses, and the
+slow plague-cart going down the street.
+
+Another rule was that if anyone had a case of the plague within his
+house, he and all his household must be shut up indoors for forty days
+for fear of carrying the infection; but many people hated this so much
+that they used to hide the cases of the plague when they happened, and
+pretend that everyone was alive and well in their houses. When the
+police-officers found this out they used to visit the houses, and if
+they found anyone sick in one of them they would carry him or her off to
+a hospital called a pest-house, where all the sick could be together. If
+it is true what we read of these houses, it must have been almost worse
+to go there than to die. The smells and sights were so awful, and the
+shrieks of the poor wretches who had been seized with the plague were so
+terrifying, that there was not much chance of anyone who went there
+recovering.
+
+The people who were forced to stay in London, either because they had no
+money to go away or nowhere else to go to, used to meet in St. Paul's
+Cathedral and ask one another the news. This was not the same cathedral
+that is standing now, but one that was afterwards burnt in the Great
+Fire. The long aisle was called Paul's walk, and here in better times
+there were stalls for the sale of ribbons and laces and many other
+things, and people laughed and talked and strolled up and down, just as
+if it were a street and not a church at all. Now, in the plague time
+most of the stalls were shut, and the people no longer came to buy, but
+to ask in hushed voices how many had died last week, and if there were
+any sign that this awful disease was going to stop. It is almost
+impossible to believe, but it is true, that thieves were very busy then.
+They used actually to go into the houses deserted by their owners, or
+left because someone had died there of the plague, and steal things,
+without minding the risk of infection.
+
+The country people soon stopped bringing in fresh milk and vegetables,
+butter and eggs from the country, because they dared not come into the
+town; and so it was difficult to get these things at all, and those who
+were in London were worse off than ever, and in danger of starving.
+
+We can imagine children crying for bread, and their mother going out at
+last to try to find something for them to eat, and never coming back.
+Then the eldest boy would begin to be afraid that she had caught the
+plague and had died in the streets, and he would leave his little
+sisters and brothers and creep along the streets until he met the awful
+death-cart; and then he would ask, and perhaps the man would tell him
+where to go to find out about his mother, and someone might be able to
+describe a woman who had fallen down in the street seized by the plague,
+and had at once been carried off and buried. The boy would guess that
+that must have been his mother; and yet he could never be quite certain,
+for she had been buried in a plague-pit with dozens of others, and he
+would never see her. Perhaps he would beg a little oatmeal, and run back
+hastily to his brothers and sisters, and when he got there find them all
+frightened and crying, for the eldest girl was very sick. He might turn
+down her dress, and see on her neck the awful plague-spot, and know that
+she, too, would die. And very likely by the next day the whole of that
+family would be dead. Many people must have died of starvation, for all
+work was stopped, but for the money given by charitable persons. The
+King himself gave L1,000 a week.
+
+There is a story of a man who had a good deal of money, and he shut
+himself and his household up in his house, and allowed no member of his
+family to go out. The doors and windows were closed, so that it was all
+dark, and food was only got by tying a basket to a string and letting it
+down at a certain time each day, when a person who had been paid to do
+so filled it with food. In the morning the whole family had breakfast
+together in a lower room, and afterwards the children were sent up to
+play in the garret. In this way the greatest danger of infection was
+escaped.
+
+Of course, so soon as foreign nations heard of the plague they sent no
+more ships to England, and instead of being covered with vessels from
+all lands, the Thames was deserted and silent. Worse than that, numbers
+of people threw the dead bodies of their friends who had died into the
+water, and these floated down with the tide, or, catching in some pier
+or beside some boat, hung there until the air was filled with the
+dreadful smell of the rotting bodies. Cats and dogs were drowned, too,
+for fear that they should carry the infection, and their dead bodies
+made the river loathsome. Everywhere there were awful sights and sounds
+and smells; not even by the water could anyone escape. When the hot
+weather came in summer the plague grew worse; in one week four thousand
+persons died of it. Four thousand! It is difficult to imagine. But this
+was not the worst: the deaths went on until London was a city of the
+dead, and the living were very few. Fathers had lost children, husbands
+wives, children parents; there was no household that had not suffered
+from the plague. A preacher who used to go about the streets dressed
+only in a rough garment of fur like John the Baptist had prophesied that
+the grass should grow in the streets, and that the living should not be
+able to bury the dead. It was long since the first part of this had been
+true, and now the second became true, too. The people who were left were
+not enough to bury those who died, and even in the streets the bodies
+lay unburied. St. Paul's itself was used as a pest-house--that is to
+say, as a hospital for the plague-stricken. We can imagine that the
+people who were left alive felt as if they were living in some
+nightmare dream from which they could not awake. They must have lost all
+hope of ever seeing London restored to itself, and the streets clean and
+bright once more. It was not until the summer was past and the cold
+weather began that the deaths were fewer, and when the number was only
+one thousand a week everyone began to get hopeful again. People who had
+fled into the country began to come back, a few shopkeepers opened their
+shops, the country people came timidly to bring vegetables for sale, and
+so gradually things got a little better.
+
+The houses were cleaned and whitewashed, the streets were cleansed, and
+large fires were lit to burn up any rubbish that might still hold
+infection. St. Paul's Cathedral was cleaned out, and the beds that the
+patients had used were burned, and all seemed better.
+
+Then happened another terrifying thing, even more alarming than the
+plague to the unfortunate people who lived in London at that time. One
+night, when everyone had gone to bed, the church bells in the city began
+tolling, and soon feet were heard hurrying on the streets; cries of
+alarm woke even the laziest, and everyone hurried out to see what was
+the matter. Against the darkened evening sky they saw a lurid colour
+like a crimson flag, and this changed and waved as columns of smoke
+passed in front of it; there was no doubt that a big fire had been
+lighted somewhere.
+
+At first some may have thought this was only one of the bonfires that
+the police had lighted to burn up the rubbish, but they soon found it
+was much worse than that. Whole streets were on fire and burning, and,
+worse than all, a strong wind was blowing the flames right over London.
+
+The houses then were nearly all of wood, and, being old, were very dry.
+They burned splendidly; no man could have made a better bonfire. The
+flames seemed alive; they leaped from one to the other, they licked up
+the woodwork on the gable fronts, they danced into the windows and in at
+the doors--no one could stop them or save the houses once they had been
+touched. The great red demon Fire licked up house after house as if he
+swallowed them with his great red mouth, and the more he ate the more he
+wanted; his appetite grew larger instead of less. There were only old
+fire-engines, not like those we have to-day, and water was very scarce,
+and at first the people stood terrified, staring stupidly, and then
+began to run away. It was not for some time that the authorities
+thought of pulling down some houses so as to make a gap over which the
+great red flames could not leap. But it is not easy work to pull down
+houses, and before it could be done the flames leaped on again and again
+and drove them back. At first the poor people whose houses had caught
+fire threw their furniture and goods into the streets to save them. But
+they very soon saw this was no use; the flames got them just the same,
+for there was no time to carry the goods away, and what the flames did
+not get thieves in the crowd seized and ran away with.
+
+Now the wind seemed fairly to get hold of the fire, and drove it on with
+a roar like a steam-engine; the shrieks of people in the streets were
+drowned by the crash of the burning timbers as the roofs fell in. The
+heat was so great that some persons, pressed too near to the fire by the
+crowd, covered their scorched faces with their hands and screamed aloud.
+Everywhere was confusion and running to and fro, and yet no one could do
+anything to stop those terrible flames. When a big brewery was attacked
+by the fire, men rushed in and pulled out the casks into the street, and
+then, forgetting the perils of the plague and of the fire, drank until
+they reeled about the streets, and some even fell into the flames and
+were burnt.
+
+The place where the fire began was not far from London Bridge, and the
+red light reflected in the water lit the city up with an awful glare.
+Some of the people in the houses which were then standing on the bridge
+got into boats, and, without heeding the awful heat and the showers of
+smuts, rowed away up the river to a safer place.
+
+The churches began to go soon, and when one was fairly caught its high
+spire was seen to quiver for a moment as if it were in pain, and then
+topple right over with a crash. The dangers were increased by the
+falling of such great masses of stone. The whole of that night the
+flames roared on, and devoured everything in their course. Even those
+whose houses were at the west end began to tremble. King Charles II.
+himself had now come back to London, and when he was told of the great
+danger that threatened his city, he was the first to go to help and to
+suggest that houses must be pulled down to stop the flames. This was
+very difficult, because the houses to be pulled down had to be a long
+way in front of the fire, or there would not have been time to get them
+down before the fire reached them. And when the people to whom they
+belonged were told that they must come out because their houses were to
+be destroyed, they very naturally objected, and said they were quite
+sure the fire would never get so far as that; and, anyway, why should
+their houses be pulled down and not others?
+
+The fire had begun first in a poor quarter, but it soon came on to the
+houses of wealthy merchants, and then a strange sight was seen: these
+men, hastily gathering up their gold and silver, their rich bales of
+stuff and merchandise, hurried westward, and the streets were filled
+with carts and men laden with goods jostling, pushing, and hurrying in
+both directions. At the end of that day the fire still burned as if it
+would never stop; surely never before had there been such a bonfire. Not
+a single person in London could go to bed. How did he know that he might
+not be awakened by the flames leaping in at his windows? No, everyone
+was in the streets, either watching or talking or shouting, and very few
+did any good or knew what to do; they mostly got in the way of others
+who were trying to stop the flames.
+
+When that second awful night was past, the day dawned; but there was
+little light, for a great cloud of black smoke hung over everything,
+blotting out the sun. On the river were boats and barges and vessels of
+all sorts laden with goods; in the streets the same weary, excited
+crowd.
+
+Out in the fields there were tents put up for the people whose houses
+had been destroyed, and numbers of people camped there, crying and
+bemoaning their losses; many of them had lost all they possessed in the
+world, and had no clothes and sometimes no food.
+
+At last it was seen that the flames must reach St. Paul's Cathedral, and
+even those who were most careless held their breath at the thought of
+the destruction of so splendid a building. At that time St. Paul's was
+being repaired, and the scaffolding round the walls served as fuel for
+the flames, which leaped upon it and got such hold of it that the very
+stones became red hot. The roof and the tower of the cathedral were a
+blaze of fire; soon the lead with which the roof was covered began to
+melt, and ran down in golden rain from every gutter into the street
+below. You have perhaps seen in fireworks showers of golden rain, but
+that was harmless; this was real boiling lead, and if it had struck
+anyone would have scorched him up. Streaming as it did from that great
+height, it came down with force, and set everything that it fell on in
+a blaze. The flames got inside the cathedral, and roared upwards through
+the staircases as through so many funnels, and then it was seen that the
+fall of the roof was inevitable. It came at last with a tremendous
+crash, and showers of sparks shot upwards, lighting up the country for
+miles around.
+
+For the whole of the next day the flames continued, and on into the day
+after that; and then the wind fell, and the fire burnt with less fury.
+By this time, too, people had pulled down houses, and made great gaps
+which could not be bridged over by the flames, and so the Great Fire
+ceased.
+
+A most curious thing was that the fire had begun in the house of a baker
+in Pudding Lane, and the part where it was finally stopped was at Pye
+Corner, near Smithfield. It was very odd that both these names should
+have had to do with eating. No one knows how it began, but the general
+idea is that a servant-girl who was drying some sheets let them fall
+into the fire, and then, seeing them flame up, was afraid, and thrust
+them into the chimney; so the chimney caught fire, and the house, which
+was very dry and built of wood, flamed up, and the fire spread. But
+other people say it was done on purpose by a man throwing a light into
+the house window.
+
+Close to the spot where it began was put up later a tall monument, a
+great column, which is hollow inside, with a staircase to the top, and
+anyone may go up by paying threepence; and on the summit there is a
+little platform, which is caged in to prevent people from falling or
+flinging themselves over. From here there is a fine view of London; you
+can see the river, and the ships going up and down, and the bridges, and
+the tall steeples of all the churches built by Sir Christopher Wren for
+the new London that rose out of the ashes of the old.
+
+At the place where the fire is said to have stopped there is the figure
+of a funny little fat boy put up, and that you can see at Smithfield if
+you care to go there.
+
+The greater part of London was completely wiped out; the streets were
+all gone--none knew even where their own houses had stood; there were
+heaps of ashes everywhere, so hot that the boots of those who walked
+over them were scorched. For long afterwards, when the workmen were
+opening a pile to take away the rubbish and begin to build a new house,
+flames which had been smouldering below burst out again. The great task
+of rebuilding the city demanded all the energy and sense of which the
+people were capable. There were many quarrels, of course, between people
+who claimed more land than they ought to have had, and between others
+who were both quite sure their houses had stood on one spot. It was a
+long time before a new London was built. But though the fire cost the
+Londoners many millions of pounds, and though it ruined many persons and
+caused fearful loss, it was really a blessing, for it burnt away things
+that might have carried the plague infection; and it burnt the old
+unwholesome dirty wooden houses, and in their place were built better
+houses and wider streets, and health and comfort were greater.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+THE SIGHTS OF LONDON
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE TOWER OF LONDON
+
+
+If anyone were staying in London for the first time, what do you suppose
+he or she would want to see most? It would depend on the character and
+age of that person. If it were a boy, he would be almost sure to say the
+Zoological Gardens. A girl might choose Madame Tussaud's. But besides
+these there are many other things that could be chosen--St. Paul's
+Cathedral; the British Museum; Westminster Abbey. Also places of
+entertainment, like Maskelyne's Mysteries, where there is conjuring so
+wonderful that, having seen it no one can believe the sight of his own
+eyes. At Christmas time many of the large shops turn themselves into
+shows, with all sorts of attractive sights to be enjoyed free, so that
+people may be brought into the shop and possibly buy something. All
+these things are attractive. But there is one thing not yet mentioned,
+which is the best of all, and interesting to both boys and girls alike,
+as well as to men and women. This is the Tower of London.
+
+I am now going to imagine that you are staying with me on a visit, and
+every day we will do something enjoyable, and go to see something fresh.
+We could go on for days and days doing this in London, and not come to
+the end of the sights. But the first thing to see, the very first, ought
+to be the Tower, because it is one of the few old buildings left in
+London, and there are so many stories connected with it they would make
+a big fat book in themselves.
+
+On the first morning of your visit to London you would get up in a
+rather excited frame of mind, and be anxious to start off at once. That
+would be as well, because if we are to go to the Tower it will take us a
+long time to get there.
+
+Before the west end of London was built the Tower was in the important
+part of London. All that could then be called London clustered round it.
+In those days, when the country was unsettled and enemies appeared
+suddenly outside a town, and might burn and destroy houses, and steal
+all that they could lay hands on, it was necessary to have a wall all
+round the city. This wall was very strong and high, and could be
+defended by men with spears and arrows. It ran right round the city on
+three sides, and on the fourth was the river.
+
+In the reign of William the Conqueror there was no strong castle or
+palace for the King in London, but only an old fortress on one side of
+this wall, the east side, quite near to the river. This fortress had
+stood there for a long time. No one knew when it had been built. King
+William ordered it to be pulled down, and in its place he caused a
+strong castle to be built. Part of the city wall was pulled down to make
+room for this castle, and so began the Tower of London.
+
+If we, living in the West End, want to get to the Tower, we must take an
+omnibus or train and go right through the City until, at the place where
+the City and the East End meet, we shall find the Tower.
+
+It is a very fine building, with a great square tower in the middle.
+Round it are the gardens, and round the gardens, again, there is another
+line of buildings, which have smaller towers set here and there upon
+them at intervals. Circling round the outermost walls is a huge, deep
+ditch, as big and broad as a river. This was once a moat full of water.
+The water from the Thames ran into it and filled it, and it formed a
+strong barrier of defence for the Tower, and attacking forces would have
+found it a difficult matter to swim across that water with the archers
+and soldiers shooting down from the walls above, with flights of arrows
+as thick as flights of pigeons. And, of course, the enemies would never
+have been allowed to put a boat on the water, for the archers would have
+shot them while they were doing it. In old times the kings who lived
+here must have felt very safe with their huge thick stone walls and the
+great rolling stream of gray water all round. The windows were made very
+small, so that arrows could not get into them easily to wound the people
+inside the rooms, and the staircases were of stone, very narrow, and
+they wound round and round up into one of the towers. They were made so
+because then, if ever the enemies did manage to get inside the Tower and
+tramped upstairs, they would find that only one, or perhaps two, of them
+could get up the steps together to fight, and the men who were guarding
+the tower could keep them back for a long time. As I said also, the
+gardens are inside the Tower, so the people who lived there could walk
+safely in them surrounded by the great gloomy high stone walls.
+
+[Illustration: ST. MARY-LE-STRAND AND BUSH HOUSE.]
+
+Oh, how many stories that Tower has to tell! Every stone of it must have
+heard something interesting. But saddest of all must have been the
+groans and cries of sorrowful prisoners, for besides being the King's
+palace, as I have told you, it was also a prison. That seems very odd to
+us now. Fancy if we made part of Buckingham Palace, where the King
+lives, into a gaol! But in old times palaces and prisons were often in
+one building, partly because it was necessary for both to be very strong
+and to resist force, and it was not easy to build two strong buildings
+in one place, so they made one do for both. When William the Conqueror
+died he had not finished his building, and William Rufus, his son, went
+on with it. Rufus finished the square building in the middle, which has
+four little corner towers, and this is called the White Tower, not that
+it is white at all, though it may have been when first built. Now it has
+been blackened by many centuries of smoke. It was not until the reign of
+Richard Coeur de Lion that the moat was made, and by that time the Tower
+had grown very much, and was a strong place. John, Richard's brother,
+who tried to get the throne for himself while Richard was away fighting
+in the Holy Land, knew that the stronger he could make the Tower the
+better, for if he could hold it he would be King in London, and no one
+could seize him and punish him. We shall hear something more about John
+later. The moat was made when Richard was away in the Holy Land.
+
+When we draw near we see the White Tower standing up above all the rest.
+To cross the moat we have to go over a bridge, once a drawbridge--that
+is, a bridge which could be drawn up and let down again as the people in
+the Tower liked.
+
+Close by the drawbridge was, until just before Queen Victoria's reign, a
+place where lions and tigers and all sorts of wild animals lived. It
+seems curious they should have been kept there, where they could not
+have had any room to wander about, and when they were moved to the
+Zoological Gardens it must have been much better for them. The animals
+were here through the reigns of all the kings and queens of England,
+from Henry I. to Queen Victoria. If we go to the front of the Tower,
+which faces the river, we shall see a fine sight. There is the splendid
+Tower Bridge that we read of before; there is the gray, glittering
+river; and there are many ships and barges floating up and down on the
+water.
+
+Underneath our feet is a deep channel, now dry, where the river once ran
+in to fill up the moat. It flowed under a great gloomy archway with a
+gate, and when the river was running here everyone who came to the
+Tower by water had to land at that gate. It has an awful name, and some
+of the very saddest memories belong to it. It is called Traitor's Gate.
+In those old days, when people used their river much more than we do
+now, they owned barges, great boats covered with an awning, and when
+they wanted to go from Westminster to the Tower they did not think of
+driving, for the streets were narrow and badly paved, the roads between
+London and Westminster quite dangerous; and they could not go by train,
+for no one had ever imagined anything so wonderful as a train, so they
+went by water.
+
+When the prisoners who were in the Tower had to be tried before judges
+they were taken up the river in barges to Westminster, where all the
+evidence was heard, and then they were brought back again. How many of
+them made that last sad journey and entered the Traitor's Gate never to
+come out again! They had been to Westminster to be tried, feeling quite
+sure something would happen in their favour, and they would be set free;
+and then they had heard the sentence that they were to be beheaded! They
+came back down the river, and the sunshine might be just as gay, the
+water as sparkling, as when they went, but to them it would all seem
+different. The journey was short, too short for a man who knew it was
+his last! Then when they reached the Tower the barge would sail on up to
+the Traitor's Gate, and the dark shadow of the heavy walls would fall on
+the prisoner, and he would feel a chill at his heart as he stepped out
+on to those cold gray stones.
+
+Of some of those who suffered in the Tower you have heard. Sir Thomas
+More landed here when he came in his barge from Chelsea, but we know
+that he was too brave and good to feel much fear. Lady Jane Grey landed
+here when her father and father-in-law brought her here, calling her
+Queen; she came as a queen, but stayed here afterwards as a prisoner.
+Did any warning tell her this when she stepped out of the boat?
+
+Queen Elizabeth came here, too, when she was only a princess. Her sister
+Mary was on the throne, and Mary feared that people would make Elizabeth
+queen, so she sent her as a prisoner to the Tower. We know the very
+words Elizabeth said as she landed, though nearly three hundred and
+fifty years have passed since then. She exclaimed: 'Here landeth as true
+a subject, being a prisoner, as ever landed on these stairs, and before
+Thee, O God, I speak it, having none other friends but Thee.' Then she
+sat down on a stone, and said: 'Better sit on a stone than in a cell.'
+And only the entreaties of her attendant moved her to get up and go on.
+She was a prisoner for several years, and at first was not allowed to go
+out of her cell at all. Afterwards, when she became Queen on Mary's
+death, one of the first places she visited was the Tower, perhaps
+because she felt pleased at being a Queen instead of a prisoner, and
+wanted to enjoy the contrast.
+
+There were many, many others who landed here, never to come forth again
+as free men. Some died in imprisonment; some were beheaded; some
+suffered for their crimes; some were innocent, but suffered because they
+had aroused the anger of a jealous king. Some went into those walls to
+suffer tortures worse than death--tortures of the thumbscrew and rack,
+to make them betray the names of their companions. Some came here as
+martyrs, because they believed in God, and thought the suffering of the
+present time as nothing to the glory hereafter.
+
+Having looked long at the Traitor's Gate, we can pass on into the Tower
+and see what else is there.
+
+The prisoners went sometimes from the Traitor's Gate to the Bloody
+Tower, so called from the fact that it was in a room here Edward V. and
+his brother were murdered by the order of their wicked uncle. The boys'
+bones were afterwards found at the foot of a staircase in the White
+Tower. The Bloody Tower was not always called this awful name; it used
+to be known at first as the Garden Tower. In the Bloody Tower the Duke
+of Northumberland, who tried to make Lady Jane Grey a queen, was
+imprisoned before he was beheaded. He must have known he well deserved
+his fate; but if he had any conscience he must often have felt very
+miserable to think of Lady Jane and her young husband, his own son, who
+would be likely to suffer for his fault too.
+
+Very soon the dark walls beheld another prisoner, Archbishop Cranmer, a
+martyr in Queen Mary's reign. Cranmer was not a strong man by nature,
+and the long wearing imprisonment tried him so much that at last he gave
+in to his enemies, and said he would renounce his faith. He thought then
+he would be released; but no, he heard that he was to be burned all the
+same. We can imagine the horror of the poor prisoner, who had denied his
+religion and yet not saved his life. He realized then how weak he had
+been, and, like St. Peter, no doubt he wept bitterly. However, when the
+day came, and he was taken to Oxford to be burnt, he had recovered all
+his strength of mind. He declared himself firmly a Protestant, and when
+the faggots were stacked up round him and the fire lit, he held one arm,
+his right arm, into the flames, saying it should burn first, as it had
+signed his denial. He held it there until it was all burned away, and
+died the death of a brave martyr.
+
+Another well-known man was imprisoned in the Bloody Tower after Cranmer.
+This was Sir Walter Raleigh, who, as a handsome, gay young man, had
+attracted great favour from Queen Elizabeth. It is said that one day
+when she was going to cross a puddle Raleigh sprang forward and flung a
+beautiful cloak he was wearing over the mud as a carpet for her feet.
+The cloak was very rich and handsome, as were the cloaks the nobles wore
+then. Of course it was spoilt, and Elizabeth was much flattered by the
+courtesy of the young man. She made him a knight, and he was raised to
+great honour. He sailed across the seas and discovered new lands, and he
+brought back tobacco and introduced smoking into England. When the
+Spaniards attacked England, the gay and gallant Sir Walter fought
+valiantly, and came back covered with honour and glory. No man could
+have had a brighter life, no man could have risen higher. And then came
+his downfall. He was accused of plotting against King James, who had
+succeeded Queen Elizabeth. He was condemned to death and sent to the
+Tower. There seems to be no reason to believe that Raleigh was guilty,
+but, guilty or innocent, he spent fourteen years in the Tower. He was
+not the kind of man to sit idle, so he set to work and wrote a book on
+the history of the world, which kept him occupied, and showed that he
+was clever as well as gay and daring. Then once more he was let out for
+a short time while he sailed to the West to discover a gold-mine of
+which someone had told him. King James, who always wanted money, had let
+him go on giving his promise he would come back. Raleigh did not find
+the gold-mine, but he was a man of his word. He came back, though he
+knew the terrible prison and perhaps the block and axe were waiting for
+him. He was beheaded in Whitehall, where King James's own son was so
+soon after to be beheaded too. Raleigh's long imprisonment must have
+been dreadful to a man full of life and energy. Yet he had
+compensations: he was allowed to walk in the garden, and his history
+must always have been a solace to him.
+
+There were many others imprisoned in the Bloody Tower; but we must pass
+on.
+
+In walking from one part of the Tower to another we meet some men
+dressed very curiously in red dresses with velvet caps. These are the
+Beef-eaters, who guard the Tower, also called the Yeomen of the Guard.
+Their odd name and odd dress always attract people, and they are such
+fine men that children sometimes wonder if they are called Beef-eaters
+because they eat a lot of beef! That is not so. The name is said to come
+from an old French word _buffetier_, which means a man who waited at a
+buffet or sideboard; and in old times the beef-eaters waited on the King
+and Queen, and they still wear the same costume they wore three hundred
+years ago. Every night before midnight the chief Beef-eater goes to find
+the chief warder; the Beef-eater carries the keys of the Tower, and with
+a guard of men the two go together to lock up the outer gate. When the
+sentinel who keeps watch hears them, he calls out, 'Who goes there?' and
+the answer is, 'The Keys!' Then says the sentinel, 'Advance, King
+George's Keys!' This is a curious old custom. Close by the Bloody Tower
+is the Jewel House, where the crowns of the King and Queen and other
+royalties are kept. They are made of gold and set with precious stones,
+so big that it is difficult to believe that they are real--great rubies
+and pearls as large as pigeon's eggs, and huge glittering diamonds. In
+this room there is a man always on watch, day and night. Yet the jewels
+were once stolen by a daring man called Colonel Blood, who managed to
+get away from the Tower, but was caught soon after with the King's crown
+under his cloak. This was in the reign of Charles II.
+
+In the White Tower are rooms full of armour worn by English
+soldiers--armour of all the different ages, from the time when a man
+wore so much iron that if he fell down he could not get up again, and
+sometimes was actually smothered before he could get out of it, up to
+the present day.
+
+In the White Tower there is one very awful dungeon, a little narrow
+cell, without a ray of light, no window at all--nothing but dense
+blackness. There must have been many prisoners kept here, for on the
+walls there are sad cuttings, now half worn away, which tell how the
+poor men occupied their time in chipping their names in the stone. Many
+of the martyrs of Queen Mary's reign must have felt this terrible
+blackness, for there are texts of which the dates show that they were
+cut at that time. One of these is, 'Be faithful unto death, and I will
+give thee a crown of life.' The hand that traced out these letters long
+years ago is still. The martyr has long since passed from the darkness
+of the narrow cell to the great brightness of eternal light.
+
+The torture instruments are shown in the White Tower too, and many of
+these brave martyrs felt the torture before they reached the light. The
+rack was very commonly used. On it men--yes, and women too--were
+sometimes stretched as on a bed; their wrists were tied with cords above
+their heads, and their ankles with cords to the other end of the rack.
+Then a man turned a handle, and the hands and feet were slowly drawn in
+opposite directions. The poor wretch might shriek and scream, or he
+might turn as white as death and let never a sound escape him; but it
+was all the same: the rack moved on. There was a doctor there to feel
+the victim's heart and say when he could bear no more without dying. And
+then, when that happened, perhaps he fainted with the agony and was
+released, and carried away to be allowed to recover a little, only to be
+brought back another day. Sometimes he would bear it bravely enough the
+first time, but at the second time his courage would give way, and he
+would cry out and say he would do whatever it was his persecutors
+wanted, perhaps change his religion, perhaps reveal the names of his
+companions in a plot. There were other tortures, too--a kind of iron
+cage, called the Scavenger's Daughter, with a collar of iron to fasten
+round a man's neck and irons round his arms and legs, which cramped him
+up in an awful position, in which he was left for hours, until every
+bone ached as if it were red-hot. The thumbscrew was a little thing, but
+caused great agony. It was fixed on to anyone's thumb, and then made
+tighter and tighter, until sometimes the wretched victim fainted away.
+Another way that people were tortured was by being hung up by their
+thumbs, so that the whole weight of their bodies rested on the cords. In
+this position they were left for hours together.
+
+There is a very beautiful chapel in the White Tower which we must
+certainly see. Outside in the garden, opposite to another chapel, called
+St. Peter ad Vincula, is the execution ground, where so many people were
+beheaded. But I think this is enough for one chapter, and we will learn
+something more about the Tower in the next.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE TOWER OF LONDON--_continued_
+
+
+Nearly all the people condemned to be beheaded at the Tower were
+executed on Tower Hill, which lies outside the walls; only a few who
+were of royal birth or especially favoured were beheaded inside the
+walls, where they could not be seen by the great multitude. And the plot
+of ground outside the chapel is the place where these favoured few were
+killed. We can stand now on the spot where gentle Lady Jane Grey laid
+her little head on the block. She was not the first near the throne to
+have been executed here. Two of the Queens of the bloodthirsty Henry
+VIII. had died at the same place--Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard. Both
+these Queens had been received here by Henry in great state before their
+marriages, and little had they thought when they arrived and were
+greeted with guns firing and flags flying that very soon the bell would
+be tolling for their death. It is difficult to believe in the
+cold-heartedness of a man like Henry. Anne Boleyn was a bright, gay
+little woman; she was the mother of Queen Elizabeth, and she had done
+nothing whatever to merit death. But Henry had seen someone else he
+wanted to marry, so he ordered his wife to be beheaded. It is said that
+he waited under a great tree on a height in Richmond Park, some miles
+away, to see a rocket fired up from the Tower, which was to announce the
+death of Anne, and to let him know he could marry Jane Seymour. Anne had
+only been his wife three years when he tired of her, and she was
+twenty-nine when she was executed. Four years later the King married
+Katherine Howard, having had two wives--Jane Seymour and Anne of
+Cleves--in between. Poor Katherine was Queen only for two years, when
+she followed Anne to the block.
+
+The handsome and gallant Earl of Essex, who had been a favourite of
+Queen Elizabeth's, also suffered here. He had lost the Queen's favour,
+and, after having been one of the principal men at the Court, was
+treated with coldness and disdain. Essex's proud temper could not endure
+this, and he made plots against the Queen, one of which was to kidnap
+her and carry her off as his prisoner. Elizabeth heard of this, and sent
+her soldiers to seize him. Essex had then a house in the Strand, near
+St. Clement's Church, and he barricaded his house and defied the Queen's
+soldiers. Nothing could have been more mad. Elizabeth was furious when
+she heard it. Cannon were placed on the tower of St. Clement's Church,
+and from there they were fired at the house of the reckless Earl, who
+was at last forced to submit. He was tried, found guilty of high
+treason, and condemned to death. But all the time Elizabeth, who must
+still have cared for the high-spirited Essex, felt sure that he would
+not really be killed; for long years before she had given him a ring,
+and told him that whenever he was in great need he had only to send that
+ring to her, and she would help him. So she expected to receive the ring
+from him, and was very slow in signing his death-warrant; but the ring
+never came, so she signed the warrant, and then she recalled it. Yet
+still there was no sign from Essex. Elizabeth began to grow uneasy, and
+thought perhaps that the Earl was too proud to ask help from her when he
+had defied her. Well, if that were so, she could do nothing to save him,
+for she was a queen, and was too proud to give help where it was not
+asked for; so she signed the death-warrant a second time. Meantime,
+Essex was in the Tower, and he had remembered the ring and the Queen's
+promise; he had been rebellious and he was very proud, but now that he
+was going to die in the full strength of his manhood it did not seem too
+hard a thing to do to ask a favour from Elizabeth, who had been so kind
+to him and was his Queen. After all, he had behaved very badly, and he
+knew it, and it was right to ask pardon. Perhaps this was what he
+thought, and he gave the ring to the Countess of Nottingham to take to
+the Queen. But the Countess of Nottingham did not want the Earl to live;
+she was jealous of his influence over Elizabeth, and she thought that if
+she kept back the token Essex would surely die.
+
+So the time slipped away, and Elizabeth in her palace and Essex in his
+prison both thought bitterly of each other. The execution drew very
+near, and at last one day in February Essex was brought out to die.
+Perhaps he thought up to the last minute that a messenger would ride up
+carrying a pardon from the Queen; but no, no one came, and at last he
+laid his head on the block, and perished thinking hard things of his
+Queen. Not long after the Countess of Nottingham herself fell ill, and
+on her deathbed confessed to Elizabeth the wicked thing she had done.
+The knowledge that Essex had died believing her to have been faithless
+to her word so enraged the Queen that she said to the dying Countess:
+'May God forgive you, for I never can!'
+
+Many people spent most of their lives in the Tower. We have heard of Sir
+Walter Raleigh, who was here for fourteen years; but there were others
+imprisoned much longer. One man, a Duke of Orleans, afterwards King of
+France, was here for twenty-five years; and Lord Courtenay, son of the
+Earl of Exeter, who was of the Royal Family and descended from Edward
+IV., was kept in the Tower almost his whole life for fear that he might
+lay claim to the crown.
+
+When the King or Queen of England used the Tower as a palace, the part
+they occupied was quite distinct from the prison. This part is now the
+Governor's house, and the Governor, who is called the Lieutenant of the
+Tower, lives in it. Here there are many splendid rooms, including a
+great council-room, where the King and his nobles used to meet for
+consultation. Underneath the house is a room where Lord Nithsdale was
+imprisoned, and the story of his escape from the Tower is one of the
+most exciting in all history.
+
+In the reign of George I. a nobleman called the Earl of Nithsdale had
+joined in a plot to restore the Stuarts to the throne. You will remember
+that after the reign of James II. people said that Prince James was not
+his son at all, but a baby which had been adopted by the King, who had
+no son of his own; and as this was generally believed, after the King
+had been driven into exile, his daughters, the Princesses Mary and Anne,
+came to the throne and reigned one after the other. When they died the
+English crown was offered to a distant cousin, who was George I. But
+many English noblemen and gentlemen said that this was unfair, and that
+the son of James II. and his son after him should have been King. We can
+never tell now which was right; but all this caused a great deal of
+unhappiness and much fighting. Those who took up the cause of the
+Stuarts were called Jacobites, and among this number was the Earl of
+Nithsdale. He was taken prisoner, and condemned by King George to die
+with several others, and he was sent to the Tower, there to wait his
+fate.
+
+But he had a beautiful and determined wife, who was resolved to save his
+life. It was in the winter time, and, of course, there were then no
+trains to carry people swiftly and comfortably through the frosty air.
+So she started on her journey from Scotland on horseback, and rode as
+far as Newcastle; but she was not a great horse-woman, and being wearied
+with her exertions, she there took a coach and proceeded to York, taking
+with her her faithful maid Evans. But when they got to York they found
+that so much snow had fallen that the coach could not go on to London at
+all. Now, all this time the days were passing, and every day that passed
+made Lord Nithsdale's execution nearer. His poor wife was in a terrible
+state of suspense; but she did not sit down and despair. She said that
+if there were no coach then must she ride to London. And so she
+did--rode about one hundred and eighty miles through all the snow, which
+was often up to her horse's girths, and at times she thought she would
+not be able to get through after all. But at last she did, and when she
+arrived in London her husband was still alive. Never thinking of herself
+or of her own weariness, Lady Nithsdale went to the Court, and used all
+the influence she possessed to get King George I. to pardon her husband.
+But he was an obstinate, cruel little man, and he refused even to hear
+her, though she flung herself before him and caught at his coat.
+
+Then she saw that there was nothing for it but to help her husband to
+escape out of that gloomy Tower. She therefore begged permission to go
+to see him. At first even this was refused her, but she gave the guards
+money, and at last they let her into the Tower. What a meeting that must
+have been, and how cheered the husband must have been to think of the
+strong love that had made his wife do so much for his sake!
+
+But they had little time to talk about what was past, for they had to
+arrange for the future. Brave Lady Nithsdale formed a plan, but to carry
+it out it was necessary to get the help of two other women. She found
+one in a Mrs. Mills, in whose house she was lodging, and after some
+difficulty she found another, a friend of Mrs. Mills, called Mrs.
+Morgan. Now, by this time it was the day before that fixed for Lord
+Nithsdale's execution, and everything depended on getting him out of the
+Tower at once. Lady Nithsdale told her companions of her plan, which was
+to make her husband walk out boldly through the guards dressed like a
+woman; and for this end she made Mrs. Morgan, who was a little fair,
+slim woman, wear two sets of clothes one over the other, and one set she
+meant that Lord Nithsdale should wear. Mrs. Mills was a big, stout
+woman, with fair eyebrows and fair hair, and Lady Nithsdale hoped that
+when her husband came through dressed in woman's clothes the guards
+would think he was Mrs. Mills. When they arrived at the Tower, the poor
+wife got out and asked to be allowed to take a friend in to say farewell
+to her husband, and she was told she might take one lady in at a time.
+Accordingly, she and the thin Mrs. Morgan went in, and while they were
+in the cell where Lord Nithsdale was, Mrs. Morgan took off the extra
+clothes she had brought and left them for him to put on. Then she
+hurried back and told Mrs. Mills to come in. Lady Nithsdale ran to meet
+Mrs. Mills, who pretended to cry very much, and kept her handkerchief up
+to her face; and when she got into the cell they waited a little while
+and talked, for they hoped the gaolers, having seen some ladies passing
+backwards and forwards, would now forget how many had gone into the
+cell. After a time Mrs. Mills went out again, and Lady Nithsdale kept
+calling after her to tell her that she wanted her maid, and that the
+maid must come quickly, and then she went back again to her husband. She
+had painted his dark eyebrows fair, and she had put rouge on his cheeks
+and dressed him up in her own petticoats and the clothes Mrs. Morgan
+had left; and she had told him not to stride like a man, but to take
+little mincing steps, so that the guards should not notice any
+difference. But there was one thing she could not hide, and that was his
+beard, and she had no time to cut it off; so she tucked it into his
+cloak in front, and told him to keep his head down and hold his
+handkerchief to his face and pretend to be crying bitterly. It was now
+getting dusky, and she was afraid that if they waited any longer the
+gaolers would bring candles and see what was being done. How the hearts
+of both husband and wife must have been beating when they opened the
+door and stepped forth into the anteroom where the guards were! Lady
+Nithsdale talked a good deal rather loudly, and said she could not
+understand why her maid had not come, and that she must come at once;
+and she begged her husband, whom she called 'Mrs. Betty,' to run down to
+her lodgings to see if the maid were there and send her to the prison.
+And when they got to the outer door she let him go, and ran back to the
+cell herself. Then she talked again as if she were talking to her
+husband, so that the gaolers should hear, and made answers for him in a
+deep man's voice. Brave heart! she must have been well-nigh fainting
+with terror, and expecting to hear every minute a noise which would
+tell her she had been discovered. But after a time, when all seemed
+right, and when she could talk no more, she left the cell very slowly,
+and, shutting the door behind her, said to the gaolers that they need
+not take in lights until Lord Nithsdale asked for them, for he was
+praying, and did not wish to be disturbed. Then she went down to her
+coach.
+
+And he really did get safely away; and the King was furious, and said
+Lady Nithsdale had given him more trouble than any woman in Europe. But
+Lady Nithsdale went and waited at a friend's house until she heard where
+her husband was in hiding in a little poor house, and then she joined
+him, and they stayed there together until things could be arranged for
+him to get over to France. A friend brought them a bottle of wine and
+some bread, and on this they lived from Thursday to Saturday. But I do
+not expect they cared much what they ate, they must have been so happy
+to be together again.
+
+It was very seldom indeed anyone had escaped from the Tower. Once a man
+tried to, and let himself down by a rope from his window; but the rope
+broke, and he fell headlong and was killed. The countess's plan was much
+better. Luckily, she and her husband had good friends, and one of them
+lent Lord Nithsdale the livery of his servant, and, pretending he was a
+footman, took him to Dover, where he got a boat and managed to cross
+over to France in safety. His estates were all taken from him, but that
+was a little thing when he had saved his life. His devoted wife joined
+him in Rome, and they lived abroad for the rest of their days.
+
+Guy Fawkes, of whom we heard before, was examined in the King's house in
+the Tower, and the judges tried to make him give up the names of his
+companions; but villain as he was, Guy Fawkes was no coward, and he
+refused to turn traitor. Finding that he was obdurate, the judges
+decreed that he should suffer the torture of the rack, and accordingly
+he was racked again and again. At last in his agony he cried out that he
+would tell the history of the conspiracy, but not reveal the names of
+his fellow-conspirators. This was not enough. Once again he was brought
+to suffer the awful torture, and this time his gaolers told him that
+some of his comrades had been already taken, and were in the hands of
+the police. So Fawkes gave way and made a full confession, which was
+signed 'Guido Fawkes,' and is still kept. This was in November, and on
+the last day of the following January he and three of his associates
+were executed at Westminster.
+
+They were brought from the Tower to be executed, and Guy Fawkes was so
+weak and ill from the terrible tortures he had suffered that he could
+scarcely climb up the scaffold.
+
+In other parts of the Tower numbers of men and women were imprisoned,
+but we might as well write a history of England as tell all their
+stories here. In one tower there is the word 'Jane,' cut in the wall by
+Lady Jane Grey's husband, the young Lord Dudley, and on many of the
+walls are names and records cut by sorrowful men and women almost
+without hope.
+
+It is all changed now. No longer sobs and cries and executions are here,
+but only the voices of soldiers drilling or calling out to one another,
+the voices of little children at play on the wharf by the river, or of
+visitors who come to see the place. The soldiers are in barracks in the
+Tower, and they drill in the bottom of the deep moat, which is now quite
+dry.
+
+If we pass from the Tower we shall find outside Tower Hill, where by far
+the greater number of executions took place. It is just a wide, open
+space, paved like a street or market-place, and many people walk over it
+every day without giving a thought to all that has happened there in
+bygone times.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS
+
+
+If you go to the Zoological Gardens you ought to be a good walker and
+not easily tired. The animals are in cages, but they are not all close
+together; there are long stretches of green grass and trees and
+beautiful flower-beds between, and to go over the Zoo thoroughly takes a
+very long time. But it is not likely that any of you would want to know
+it thoroughly; the things you want most to look at are not the curious
+rare small animals or different sorts of birds, but the largest and
+best-known animals, such as the lions and tigers, the bears, elephants,
+and giraffes. Of all these the lions are the most interesting.
+
+If we arrive at the Zoo a little before four o'clock in the afternoon we
+ought to go straight to the lion-house, for four o'clock is the lions'
+dinner-time. The house is light and warm, and the cages are all down one
+side in a row. Behind them are the railed-in gardens belonging to the
+beasts; but sometimes the doors between are shut, and the lions are not
+allowed to walk in their gardens. On fine sunny days, however, we can
+see them there outside, licking their great lips and rolling about
+lazily on the warm ground. In the lion house about ten minutes to four
+all the great animals begin to get restless; they walk up and down and
+whine or howl, and as four o'clock draws near they get more and more
+excited, some of them going round and round in circles, always quicker
+and quicker. Though they have no watches, they know the time exactly,
+which is rather wonderful, for there is nothing to tell them four
+o'clock is near. This is their one meal in the day, so no wonder they
+look forward to it; and when you see what they get, it doesn't seem much
+for such a great big animal as a lion. Soon a rumbling sound is heard,
+and a little truck laden with raw meat runs up through a little passage
+between the cages, and the keeper pushes it along the front of the cages
+to the end. Then the animals get frantic; the sight of the raw meat
+makes them savage; they leap and howl--great howls that would make your
+blood run cold if you heard them on a dark night when you were out in
+the forest. The animal that goes round in circles goes so fast he
+nearly tumbles on his head, and the others trot backwards and forwards,
+and all is noise and confusion. The keeper undoes a bar at the bottom of
+the cage, which leaves just enough room to put the meat in; then he
+picks out the piece he means for that animal and thrusts it through at
+the end of an iron rod. The lion or tiger pounces on it, and growling,
+carries it into a corner of its den. The keeper replaces the bar, and
+goes on to the next one, and so on until all are fed. Then a deep
+silence follows; there is only a licking of great lips, a sort of
+purring of content, and a sound of bones being crunched or scraped, and
+we can look at the animals more easily than when they are running about.
+Here in front is a magnificent lion, with a great tawny mane; his broad
+nose is wrinkled as he crunches his bone. He has torn all the meat off
+it almost at once, and his rough tongue has licked it clean until it is
+quite polished; but he still goes on chewing it with those huge white
+teeth as long as your finger--teeth that would crunch through your arm
+in a moment. This old fellow is usually good-tempered for a lion, but
+when feeding-time comes his wife Mrs. Lioness has to go into the back
+den shut off by a little door to eat her dinner alone, or they would
+fight. Suddenly Mr. Lion raises his head and looks round grandly, as if
+he were ashamed of all those people who come to stare at him. He was a
+king in his own country, and now, alas! he is only a captive king.
+Perhaps he sees a woman carrying a little baby in her arms, and he fixes
+his eyes on that baby until it is out of sight. What a delicious morsel
+it would make for dessert! But he knows he cannot get through his bars;
+he learnt that long ago when he was first brought here. He was not born
+in the Zoo--oh no; he had been caught when he was full grown. He
+remembers quite well the wild, free life, where, if he were not sure of
+a dinner every day, at least every now and then he got more than he
+could eat. While he licks his bone he is in a quiet mood, and if you
+listened very hard you might hear him talking.
+
+'Yes,' he says (Lick, lick), 'that bone was very good, but there wasn't
+enough on it, and now I'm not going to get any more until to-morrow. Oh,
+those stupid humans, how they do stare! Have they never seen a gentleman
+eat his dinner before? They would open those silly round eyes a bit
+wider if these bars were not between us. I wish they could have seen me
+that day we caught the zebra. It was grand that!' (Lick, lick.) 'I had
+hunted all one night without getting even the whisk of a tail; and also
+during the day in the glaring, hot African sun, when I wanted to go to
+sleep; and I was very hungry. We, I and my wife, lay down in the shade a
+little while towards evening before we parted to see what we could pick
+up. There were the little ones to be considered, for when they had come
+running up and seen me with nothing, all their little tails dropped
+down, and you never saw such a set of little cats in your life. I told
+them I would bring them something next time for certain; and so I set
+off alone, as I said before, in the evening.
+
+'The sun had burnt up all the grass, which was a kind of dusty brick-red
+colour; but that's not a bad thing for a lion, because he doesn't show
+against it. It was a very wide open plain where I was, with just a few
+shrubs and odd bits of tree for shelter. Well, I crouched down under one
+of these, trying to make myself as small as I could, and praying that
+the still air wouldn't send the smell of me over the plain to warn all
+those silly creatures I wanted to catch.
+
+'Presently I smelt zebra. Now, good tender zebra makes a dish fit for a
+king, but the brute can trot at such a rate that I knew I shouldn't have
+a chance to catch him running. I must hide and leap out. The smell got
+stronger and stronger, and then I saw them half a mile off, a whole
+herd, galloping just as straight as they could come towards my
+hiding-place. I grew hot and cold then, I can tell you, and my tail
+quivered so I was afraid they would see it. I was in fine condition, and
+I reckoned that at the distance they would pass I could just by a very
+long spring land on the back of the leader. But then they might at any
+moment scent me, and I should be done for; up with their heels, and
+nothing more of supper should I see but a cloud of dust. So I waited,
+and they came right on. I shook with excitement. Then, just at the right
+moment, I gathered myself up, and with a great spring I cleared the
+distance and landed clean on the back of the leader. That was a surprise
+for him, I can tell you. He went down as if he had been shot, and the
+others, with snorts of terror, flew away like the wind. One stroke of my
+paw killed him, and then I stood up over his striped and quivering body
+and roared as loud as I could for my wife and little ones. They weren't
+far off, and they came as fast as they could; and to see those little
+beggars dancing about that zebra was a sight, almost as good a feeling
+it gave me as when I landed on that zebra's back. It had been a record
+jump that. We measured it afterwards in strides, and my wife said she
+was proud of me, and she always knew I could jump better than any other
+lion in South Africa.
+
+'Well, those little beggars jumped on that zebra, and bit at him; but
+the skin was too tough for their little teeth, bless them! It was the
+funniest sight. But when the old woman and I started in, we did more
+than that, I can tell you; we tore off great chunks of him, and the
+little ones ate what they could. They got in the way, too, and we had to
+give them a slap now and then to keep them in order; and they snarled
+and swore at each other until their mother had to quiet them. When we
+had done we felt as if we could hardly walk, and we just wanted to get
+home as fast as we could and do no more that night. We had pretty well
+finished up that zebra before we walked off, and the vultures came
+hopping round to clean up what we had left. I was feeling all right
+then, and we lay down comfortable and satisfied. Oh dear! I had quite
+forgotten where I was; and now I wake up to find myself in this dull
+place, where there is no hunting and no fun, where we are caged up in
+horrid bars.'
+
+Just as the lion finished speaking, Mrs. Lioness came out from the
+inner den. She was not nearly so handsome as her husband, and he thought
+her not nearly so handsome as his first wife, who had hunted with him in
+South Africa; still, she was company, and that was something.
+
+We have stayed a long time at this lions' cage, and we must pass over
+all the rest of the lions--some of them born in captivity, who have
+never known the delight of a wild, free life--and go on to the great
+striped Bengal tiger, with his magnificent head and handsome face. There
+is not the same tremendous strength in his appearance as in the lion's,
+but there is something almost more terrible in his long, gliding body
+and catlike movements, more ferocious altogether. In the wild state the
+lion prefers to prey upon animals, and will not turn on man unless he is
+desperate. But a tiger sometimes takes to the life of a man-eater for no
+reason but because he likes the taste of human flesh; and once he has
+begun to eat human beings, he is a man-eater to the end of his days. He
+turns man-eater sometimes, too, when he is old and his strong teeth
+fail; and then he will hang about outside villages to pounce on a
+soft-flesh man, who is easier to catch than a wild animal.
+
+Tigers are very fierce; a mother tiger with her cubs will attack
+anything. When the cubs are little she teaches them to hunt for
+themselves, taking them out with her on expeditions and showing them how
+to catch smaller animals, such as young calves or pigs, until they are
+strong enough to hunt larger ones, when they leave her and begin
+housekeeping on their own account. A great many tigers live in India,
+and many a wretched native has ended his life by being caught by one of
+them. You would think, to look at the royal tiger, with his reddish
+markings and black stripes, that he could be easily seen at a great
+distance, but this is not so. In the jungle where he lives the stems of
+the bamboos are light, and the markings of the tiger are so like his
+surroundings that you might get quite close to him and never know it. He
+walks through the dense thick jungle with the loose, springy step of a
+cat, and woe be to any luckless animal he sees! Sometimes he will find
+an enclosure with some young bullocks in it; then he will take one, and
+leave the others, for, unless he is a very young tiger, he does not kill
+for the love of it, but for food. He carries off his prey, and comes
+back a night or two after for a second one; and if the owner of the
+bullocks does not remove them he will soon have none left.
+
+Quite near to the lion house, on the other side, is the reptile house,
+where live snakes, crocodiles, and lizards, and all sorts of curious
+animals. The most interesting are the enormous snakes, called
+boa-constrictors, with bodies nearly as thick as a child's, and many
+yards in length. They are not in cages, but in glass houses, like glass
+boxes. The glass is very thick and strong, and the snake does not dash
+himself against it to get out. He would not take the trouble to do that,
+for he moves slowly, and when you see him at the Zoo you would think him
+very lazy. There he lies, with his oily body, covered with little
+scales, hanging round the branch of a dead tree which has been put into
+his house, or perhaps lying coiled up on the gravel floor in rings and
+rings, so beautifully neat that you wonder how he can take the trouble
+to fold himself up so nicely before he goes to sleep. He certainly would
+not get crumpled if he lay anyhow, as your clothes would get crumpled if
+you did not fold them up. Watch him very closely. You can see he
+breathes, and perhaps he glances up and winks with one eye, or darts out
+a wicked little tongue. How can a creature like that, so big and so
+slow, ever get any food? Well, he can go fast enough at times, and he
+does not often want a meal, because he eats so much at one time that it
+lasts him for many days. He writhes his great body along the ground in
+the thick woods of his native country, and lies so still that you might
+tread on him without seeing him. He lives in Brazil and other parts of
+South America. Perhaps a young deer comes down to drink, all unconscious
+of the hideous beast lying in watch. He stoops his pretty head, then,
+with a writhing movement, the boa is upon him. The deer struggles
+frantically, but the great folds of the snake close ever tighter and
+tighter round him with a strength that breaks his delicate bones and
+squeezes the life out of him. When the animal, crushed and breathless,
+ceases to struggle, the boa opens his gaping mouth, and bit by bit the
+whole animal--it may be still palpitating--is forced into that awful
+throat. The snake cannot tear his prey; he has no hands or feet, no
+claws or hoofs. He can only swallow it whole. It would seem impossible
+sometimes that he could get that mass into his comparatively narrow
+throat; but his muscles are elastic. He stops half-way through his
+horrid meal and lies still to rest, then another swallow and another. In
+the meantime, his teeth, like little sharp saws bent backwards, covering
+all the roof of his mouth as well as the jaws, are firmly fixed into
+the victim, so that it cannot draw back. When the disgusting meal is
+done the great snake lies helpless and swollen, and has to wait until
+his food is digested before he can get about comfortably.
+
+When he is in the Zoo he doesn't get anything so large as a deer, but
+rabbits and small things that he can swallow easily, and frogs, of which
+all snakes are very fond, perhaps because they are slimy and slip down
+quickly. There are many other snakes beside the boa, some not so large,
+but more poisonous. The boa is not poisonous. He relies on his huge
+strength to kill his enemies; but other snakes, such as vipers and
+rattlesnakes, are. Even when the head of a viper has been cut off it
+still remains poisonous, and may cause death. The rattlesnake is so
+called because it makes a funny rattle with its tail before it strikes.
+It is about five feet long sometimes, and the sound of its rattle sends
+terror into the heart of anyone who is near, as he knows that at any
+moment the snake may dart out upon him with its hideous head aloft and
+its wicked eyes gleaming. The rattlesnake is found in North America.
+
+The reptile house has been rebuilt and is very hot and damp, to suit the
+animals who live there. In the middle there is a large tank with
+numbers of ugly crocodiles living in it. They are dark greeny-brown,
+like a log that has been a long time in the water, and if you were
+floating down the Nile, or any river where crocodiles live, in a boat,
+and saw something floating that you thought a bit of old wood, it might
+very likely be the back or head of a crocodile. He has a bony coat like
+a suit of armour, and it would be very difficult indeed to break through
+it, and he swims along, using both his strong tail and his flat feet. He
+is what is called an amphibious animal, because he lives partly on land
+and partly in the water. He must breathe air, but he can shut up his
+nostrils by a fold of skin as we shut our eyes, and can remain under the
+water without breathing for some time. His enormous jaws are like a pair
+of great shears, and woe be to any animal or man who gets his leg
+between them. It will be cut off as cleanly as the gardener cuts a tall
+flower with his shears. The crocodile lives in water, and catches fish
+and other things; he comes out at times and lies on the banks, and in
+the evening, when the land animals come down to drink, he hides himself
+in the water, and catches anything he can with his ugly snout. Fancy a
+dainty antelope finding suddenly that his delicate nose was pinched
+tightly by Mr. Crocodile's teeth, and that he was being drawn down, down
+to a hideous death!
+
+But we have stayed much too long in the reptile house, and have not even
+mentioned the pretty little green frogs and the many other things to be
+found there.
+
+On the other side of the lion house, away from the reptiles, is the
+sea-lions' pond. Sea-lions are not the least little bit like real lions,
+but when sailors heard them roaring on the rocks far out to sea they
+thought they must be lions, and so they gained the name. There are
+several of them at the Zoo, huge clumsy looking creatures with big
+whiskers, and a skin like india-rubber. At one end of their pond is a
+mass of artificial rock with caves and terraces, and when the sea-lions
+are out of the water they gallop about on this in an astonishing way,
+considering that they have no legs, and only end in a fish's tail. They
+lollop along on two front flippers and their strong muscular tail, and
+then plunge off the rocks into the water as quick as a flash of light.
+Once in the water they seem to be everywhere at once, their movements
+are so fast and graceful. Diving at one end of the pond, they are up at
+the other before you have had time to take breath.
+
+The best time to see them is when they are fed, which is after the real
+lions. The keeper goes into the enclosure with a basket of fish, and in
+their excitement the sea-lions writhe and wind and chase each other till
+the pond seems full of gigantic eels. He throws the fish one by one in
+all directions, and the great beasts simply dance after them. Even after
+the last fish has gone, still the happy commotion continues for several
+minutes.
+
+A great change was made in the Zoo when the Mappin terraces were built.
+These were presented by a Mr. Mappin who wanted the animals to be seen
+in a more natural state than is possible when they are in cages. The
+great idea is that the animals are not separated from the sight-seers by
+bars, but by a very deep and wide ditch, ditch isn't the right word,
+fosse would be better, but fosse is not a very common word.
+
+Across this, people can look at the bears in safety, and see them far
+better than under the old conditions; while the bears themselves are in
+the open air, and have a good space to roam over and a fine pond to
+bathe in. They are some beautiful shaggy brown bears here, just the very
+model on which Teddy bears are made; and, if you are kind to them, and
+throw them bits of biscuits across the fosse, some of them will sit up
+in the most engaging way and hug their hind feet, rocking themselves
+backwards and forwards in their excitement about the promised dainty.
+
+High over the bears' open places, rise rocks on which various sorts of
+chamois and goats live happily. They can climb far above our heads and
+look down on us, or leap from rock to rock as if they were in their
+native haunts. I often wonder what they think of the bears running about
+below them! Sometimes they must watch in surprise as they see the bears
+chasing each other. There are one or two together in most of the big
+spaces, and they go through the most absurd antics, plunging in and out
+of their ponds, and eyeing one another cautiously as they stand with the
+water running off their fur.
+
+There are a great many other bears too, for whom there is not room on
+the Mappin terraces. These are in the old bear-quarters, which look
+rather like two rows of open fronted shops standing back to back. Here
+are black bears with big yellow or white collars and very smooth coats.
+They come from Malay, and are not at all like one's ordinary idea of a
+bear. There are also funny little bears who go head-over-heels to make
+people look at them. There is an open cage here, too, with a pond in
+it. Sometimes the grizzlies live here; very fearful they look too, with
+their terrible claws, as long as fingers. Or there may be a family of
+young ones romping together.
+
+Bears are to be found in nearly all parts of the world, and they are
+very different from one another. Bears in their natural state would not
+attack men, but when men follow them up and try to hunt them they become
+very savage. There is a bear-pit at the end of the double row of cages,
+and if we go up on the top and look down we shall see the two brown
+bears who climb up a pole to get buns.
+
+Now we will go back again to visit the Polar bears who live in a
+spacious place at the end of the Mappin terraces, and deserve a little
+more attention than the rest because they are so very different in their
+appearance and habits.
+
+One day I caught Mr. Polar Bear in a good humour, so that he was
+actually willing to talk to me. 'It's not so bad here sometimes,' said
+he. 'The keeper does give us plenty of fish. It isn't so good as seal,
+though. That's what I like--seal rich and juicy, and almost alive. But
+it doesn't matter much, after all, for I have no appetite, it's so hot,
+always hot; my great thick coat makes me feel abominably warm. The only
+comfortable place is the bath, and that's lukewarm. Cold, do you call
+it? Oh, you don't know what cold is--real keen, cutting cold, which
+makes one feel young again and ready for anything. Oh for those long
+blue Arctic nights, when the sun never rises for days together, and the
+stars flash like diamonds, and the aurora shoots over the gleaming
+sky!--nights when everything is still, held in the grip of a frost
+greater than you can imagine; where for miles and miles there is only
+the glittering ice reflecting the flashing sky and the deep blue shadows
+under hillocks of frozen snow. Then it's worth while to live. Shall I
+ever see it again? My wife used to say before she died that she didn't
+know what was the matter with me, I had grown so cross; I only growled
+at her. But I knew what was the matter with me. I can't breathe here,
+it's all so stuffy and dull--no excitement. You've never caught a seal
+in your life? Then you don't know what excitement is. You just try, and
+then come and tell me if it isn't the best sport in the world. These
+seals--silly things!--make holes in the ice, and come up to breathe now
+and then; and these holes are regular traps. Right down below the
+ice-cold water lies fathoms deep, still and dark, and we cannot get the
+silly things there; but here in the ice is a nice little round hole. I
+have been walking with great long silent strides over the beautiful
+frosty snow, and I come on one of these, and lie down beside it, hiding
+myself. I have to be very still; the slightest movement would send Mr.
+Seal far away. When I have waited there hour after hour, perhaps I hear
+a faint sound in the water, a little ripple, so faint that anyone not
+used to it would never notice it; and then I feel thrills all over me.
+By-and-by the silly round head of the seal peers out, all glistening
+with the wet. I am lying behind a hummock of snow--we call them hummocks
+there--and he looks all round, and finally drags himself up on to the
+ice; then with a bound I am on him. But there is only time for one
+try--he is as quick as lightning, I can assure you--and if I miss him,
+he's into that hole and down, down, down for ever, and there's my supper
+gone too. But if I get him, what a juicy feast, what masses of soft
+flesh and oily fat, what tearing and rending! Ah, the taste of seal!'
+
+He licked his lips, was silent suddenly; then, with a great growl,
+turned away. He had remembered where he was, poor fellow, and that the
+joys of seal-hunting would never be his any more!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS--_continued_
+
+
+We are now not far from the monkey house, where there are great cages
+the height of a room, with bars filled in by wire to prevent the monkeys
+from getting their little hands through to snatch, for if ever any
+saying was justified it is that one, 'as mischievous as a monkey'; yet,
+in spite of the bars, mischief is sometimes done. Stand near with a hat
+trimmed with flowers, and you will not have to wait long to prove it.
+That large monkey who has been sitting in a corner very quietly spies
+the brilliant flowers. He begins to move slowly and stealthily; then,
+with a sudden wild spring, almost before you realize what has happened,
+he has grabbed the bright flowers, torn them out, and danced back to the
+very highest corner of his cage, where, jabbering with delight, he picks
+the petals off one by one, and lets them float down to the ground. He is
+big, so none of the others dare take his prize from him; but woe betide
+any little monkey who finds such a treasure. He darts off with it, and
+then begins a wild race right across the cage; one monkey after another
+joins in, leaping in the air from one swinging rope to another, and
+springing up the bars of the cage. The little monkey jumps, catches a
+rope, drops to the ground, and springs at another rope. Now he is in a
+corner, the others have him; but no, with a dive and a wriggle he has
+slipped through them, and is chattering and grimacing on the other side
+of the cage.
+
+Feed one of them with nuts, a little wrinkled black hand is put out to
+receive them; if you touch it, you will feel it cold and clammy. The
+little black palm holds the nuts for a second, and then the monkey crams
+them into its cheek, which makes a sort of pouch, and, retiring to the
+top of the cage, cracks them one by one, throwing down the shells just
+as a boy would do. They are very human the monkeys; you cannot help
+feeling all the time they know a great deal more than they pretend. Have
+you ever looked into a monkey's eyes? If not, do so the next time you
+have the chance; they are the saddest eyes on earth--just as if the poor
+little monkey thought a great many things in his small head, but could
+never express them, and so was very unhappy. There are a large number
+of monkeys at the Zoo; they are never still, and so funny that they make
+you laugh outright sometimes. The bigger monkeys, which are called apes,
+are also very interesting, but are in another house altogether. They
+have glass in front of their cages. Of all of them the chimpanzees are
+the most human, and one or two of these are in separate cages, where
+they are bathed in artificial sunlight all day long to keep them in good
+health, as they are very delicate.
+
+One of the latest additions to the Zoo is a wonderful Aquarium, where
+all sorts of strange fishes and sea-creatures can be seen swimming about
+in natural surroundings, lit from above. From the huge wicked-looking
+octopuses with their snake-like feelers, to the tiny sea-horses with
+heads very like those of the knights in chess pieces, there are wonders
+untold.
+
+On this side of the Gardens there are many things we have not yet seen,
+but we must leave them and see the big animals, the elephants and
+rhinoceroses. To reach these, we go through a tunnel and come up on the
+other side.
+
+The first thing we see here is a row of most brilliantly coloured
+parrots; I do not suppose you ever saw such colours anywhere else--the
+brightest reds and blues and greens and oranges, all in the same bird.
+It seems almost impossible to believe that the feathers really grow like
+that; it seems as if someone must have taken a big paintbrush and daubed
+on the colours. If it is warm and fine the parrots are out of doors,
+each sitting on a perch, and tied by a little thin chain to one leg.
+What must it be to see them in their own native forests flying about
+among the green trees? Fancy, if we came across a great bird, as large
+as the largest doll, brilliantly coloured, flying about in the garden at
+home! The parrots come from South America, New Zealand, and Australia;
+so they like hot countries, but they seem to do very well in England,
+and look quite perky and happy. I will tell you what I think is the
+reason of this, the parrots are so conceited that they are pleased when
+people admire them, and they like nothing better than to be at the Zoo,
+where dozens of people come past every day and say:
+
+'Oh, just look at that one! Did you ever see such a beauty? Look at his
+scarlet and blue! Now, who would have thought a bird could be like
+that?'
+
+On dull or cold days the parrots are indoors, and if you go into their
+house you will hear a tremendous noise. All of them are shrieking and
+screaming at once. Perhaps suddenly in the midst of all this din you
+will hear a funny parrot voice saying: 'Thank you, my dear; Polly's
+quite well,' which will make you jump. When you turn round you will see
+it is one of the birds who is talking. They cannot all talk, and those
+who do just know a sentence or two without knowing the sense of it, and
+say it on all occasions; but very proud they are of the accomplishment.
+There are dear little green parrakeets, too, who fly about in flocks in
+Australia, looking like flights of animated green leaves.
+
+Besides parrots there are in the same house toucans, birds who have
+enormous bills and rather small bodies--in fact, they seem to have spent
+their time growing bills. The bill, or beak, is like the claw of a
+lobster, and is rich orange colour. The toucan's eye has bright blue
+round it, and round that again orange colour. The bird himself is black,
+but he has tips of scarlet on his costume and a white throat, so he is
+altogether very grand, and he is so solemn that you think he must
+imagine himself very superior.
+
+Just beyond the parrot house is a long range of buildings like a large
+stable, and here are the elephants and other big animals. Perhaps the
+elephant is out earning his living by walking round the Gardens with a
+seat on his back, on which anyone can have a ride who likes. He is very
+gentle and tame, though his enormous height and great swinging trunk
+make him appear rather fearful.
+
+If he is at home, and we pay him a visit, he coils up his trunk or lifts
+it over his head, and shows a huge three-cornered mouth, into which, he
+gently insinuates, he would like you to throw biscuits. There are both
+Indian and African elephants, and the African are generally the larger.
+
+Elephants as a rule have very good characters, and get fond of their
+keepers. They are big and gentle; yet in some cases they have suddenly
+turned savage without any apparent reason. In the wild state they live
+in dense forests, and unless they were very strong and their hides were
+very thick they could never get through the trees and shrubs at all; but
+they force them asunder with their great strength, and snap the long
+twining plants that hang from tree to tree. Any other animal would be
+wounded and torn with the spikes and thorns, but the elephant's hide is
+as strong as a board. He does not mind prickles, and the only sensitive
+part of him is just behind the ear, so when he is tamed a man sits on
+his neck, and with a little sharp-pointed spike pricks him behind the
+ear on the side he wants him to go. It does not hurt, but the elephant
+feels it and soon understands, and follows the directions as a horse
+follows the pull of the reins in driving. Elephants live entirely on
+green food and vegetables, and never want to eat flesh. In their forests
+they can find plenty of food, and they tear down great branches of rich
+trees with their long trunks, and then strip the leaves off neatly and
+put them into their mouths. When the elephant is thirsty he goes to a
+deep watercourse and drinks, and then, sucking up water in his trunk, he
+squirts it over his back and sides in a cooling shower-bath.
+
+If you understood elephant language, and came here one evening when the
+day's work was done and there were no other people about, you might hear
+the elephants talking.
+
+'Those silly fools of humans!' says the Indian elephant; 'not one of
+them can throw straight. I can tell you half my time is spent in picking
+up the bits of biscuit they mean to throw into my mouth and throw
+somewhere else. I would have a school for teaching them to throw
+straight if I were in authority. The bits are so little when you get
+them too--mere atoms.'
+
+'Always thinking about eating,' says the African one, who is a lady.
+'Really, I wish they would give you more hay or something to stuff
+yourself up with. For me, I don't care what I have to eat, but I do long
+for a little heat and a good plunge in a real river with soft muddy
+banks instead of my wretched tank sometimes.'
+
+'Ah!' the Indian elephant answers, 'is there anything like it, that
+plunge after a long, hot, sleepy day, when one has stood about under the
+trees? I used to have a particular tree I always went and leaned
+against. It just fitted my side, and I wore the trunk quite smooth. And
+there I stood all the long, hot day, with sound of the rich forest life
+in my ears, the buzz and hum of the myriad things that fly and swarm,
+and the dense leaves kept off the sun; it was dark and hot. Then, when
+evening came, and it grew a little cooler, we used to join together, all
+of us who belonged to the same herd, and go down to the water. Then what
+romping and splashing, what trumpeting and fun! We squirted each other
+with mud and water, and came out fresh and cool. Ah, those were grand
+times!'
+
+'You were a fool to get caught,' said the African one rudely, for she
+had not very good manners. 'How did it happen?'
+
+The Indian elephant looked quite sad, and winked his little eyes as if
+he thought he should cry. 'It was a terrible story that,' he said, 'and
+the lesson is, never depend on women. I met one day a handsome elephant
+in the forest, who seemed to me the nicest I had ever seen. She was not
+very big, but her ears were particularly large, and hung down so
+gracefully; and as for her feet, I don't think I've ever seen such
+beautiful great flat feet on an elephant. Well, I loved her, and she
+seemed to like me, and we talked together and rubbed trunks, and were
+very happy, and I forgot where I was quite; and the next thing was I
+found I was shut in between high palisades, and when I tried to get out
+the gate was shut. And then men threw ropes over me, and tied my feet to
+great poles; and the wicked little elephant ran away grinning, for she
+was a decoy. You've heard of them perhaps--elephants who are tamed by
+humans, who teach them to be wicked and go out into the forest just in
+order to trap their own kind and bring them into captivity? It was sad,
+very sad!'
+
+'But you are happy and contented here as a rule,' said the African.
+
+'Yes, yes, I can't grumble; they are very good to me, and I get some
+exercise walking about, and as some day I shall grow old, it's as well,
+perhaps, to be looked after. It's terrible to be old when one lives in
+the forest; besides, I should feel strange to go back to the old life.
+I've been here now thirty years.'
+
+'And I twenty. How time does go past!'
+
+All this and much more you might hear if you knew the elephants'
+language, for they are quite too clever not to have some means of
+talking to each other.
+
+The rhinoceros is very different. His eyes are wicked, he turns his head
+from side to side; he would like to stick that horn at the end of his
+nose into you if he could, and, holding you down with his great flat
+feet, rummage about inside you with it, and you would not live very long
+under that treatment. His skin hangs in great thick folds like plates of
+armour, and is so loose that it looks as if his tailor had fitted him
+very badly. He is much smaller than the elephant, and his thick-set body
+shows great strength. He is hideously ugly according to our ideas; but
+rhinoceros' ideas are different, and he would probably think the smooth
+pink-and-white skin of a child hideous. He lives in the jungle and eats
+the leaves of trees, which he tears off with his long upper lip. Some
+rhinoceroses have two horns on their nose and some only one. You can
+see both sorts in the Gardens. When the rhinoceros in its wild state has
+a little calf, as its young one is called, the little one runs along in
+front of the mother at the sound of any danger, and the mother follows
+in a wallowing trot behind, so that if necessary her body could guard it
+from danger. Sometimes hunters shoot rhinoceroses and kill them, and
+then eat part of them, which they say is very good, just like beef.
+
+After leaving the elephant and rhinoceros house, we pass some sheds and
+yards, with deer and other animals, and then come to another set of
+buildings like stables, where there are the hippopotami and giraffes. If
+you thought the rhinoceros ugly, what will you think of the
+hippopotamus, with his great shovel-like nose and little ears? He looks
+like a stupid fat pig, only many, many times larger than the largest pig
+that ever lived. There are two of these animals in the Gardens now--a
+lady hippo, born at the Zoo, and about thirty years old, and another,
+quite a boy yet, only ten or eleven years old, who was born in the
+Zoological Gardens at Antwerp. Neither of them have known what it is to
+wallow in the soft mud on the sides of rivers or the joy of living wild
+and free; they are fat, sleepy, stupid, and contented. There is a tank
+in their yard at the back, and they are free to walk out as much as they
+please. Sometimes they lie in the water with only their backs out for a
+whole afternoon at a time.
+
+The yards of the giraffe are next door, but separated by a high wire
+fence, so that even the long neck of the giraffe cannot bend over and
+touch the hippos. Of all animals, the giraffe is, perhaps, the most odd,
+his neck is so very long, and his markings so rich. He looks as if he
+had a stiff neck, he holds his head so high, and seems so grand.
+Giraffes are very delicate animals, and great care must be taken of
+them. When you think how difficult it must be to bring an animal with a
+neck like that over the sea and in a railway train to England, it seems
+wonderful that the Zoo ever owns one at all. Giraffes live on the open
+plains in Africa, and if they take fright they fly away over the ground
+with their long legs, covering yards at each stride. If ever a hunter
+gets near enough to one to throw a rope round him, he may think himself
+lucky indeed. If a giraffe has been caught like this, the hunters draw
+him, kicking and struggling, up to a tree, tie him there, and leave him
+to fight and try to get free for a whole day and a night; sometimes he
+fights so desperately that he kills himself. However, if he is still
+alive in the morning, the hunters come and find him exhausted, and they
+can then take him away without so much danger of being killed by a blow
+from his great hoof or a swing of his hard head, which he uses to strike
+with. Once down at the sea, a special place has to be made in the ship
+so that his long neck may not be cramped; and when landed in England
+there is a long box-like arrangement fitted on to a compartment of a
+train, and this can be bent down flat along the roof of the train when
+it passes under a tunnel. Just think of the many difficulties there are
+before a giraffe can be transferred from his native plains to England!
+If you look at a tall giraffe, with his sad, lovely eyes, you will think
+it cruel that he should be brought into captivity; but, after all, when
+he is here he is well looked after, and everything is done to make him
+comfortable. And if he had not been brought here, thousands of people
+would never have seen one of the most curious animals in the world. The
+giraffes at the Zoo are continually changing, for though some have been
+born here, they do not live long, and new ones have to be brought from
+Africa at great cost.
+
+Not far from the giraffe house are the zebras, with their beautiful
+black and white stripes, looking like wonderfully marked donkeys. They
+are very wild and untameable and of uncertain temper; it is best not to
+go too near them. Well, with the zebras we have finished seeing all the
+well-known animals of the larger kinds, and so we must say good-bye to
+the Zoo, perhaps to come again another day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE BRITISH MUSEUM
+
+
+The British Museum is a very wonderful place, so wonderful that few
+people understand what they see there. They wander along the corridors
+looking vaguely at the cases of precious and rare objects on every side;
+they are impressed by the size of the place, but they do not come to the
+Museum with the idea of looking for anything particular, and they go
+away without learning anything. No one man, however clever, could
+understand about all the things that he will find there; and as for a
+child appreciating even a small part of the treasures there collected,
+it is impossible. Supposing a very clever man, who had travelled in many
+foreign countries, had begun while he was still young to gather together
+all the valuable and curious things he saw to make a little museum, that
+would be worth seeing; but probably it would be made up of only certain
+things that that particular man liked and understood. Now, the British
+Museum is the museum belonging to the nation, and instead of only
+certain things being collected, there are curious and valuable things
+belonging to every kind of study. For instance, if you were studying the
+different nations or wild tribes of the earth, you would find things
+belonging to various tribes of people in the Museum; or if you were
+interested in rare old books, you would find more of them at the Museum
+than anywhere; or if you wanted to find out anything in any branch of
+study, you would find clever men at the Museum who would help you.
+
+Sometimes a man who has made a collection of interesting things in his
+lifetime leaves it to the Museum at his death, or perhaps the Museum
+buys his collection for the nation; and so every year more and more
+things are accumulated, until the value of the treasures stored in the
+great building is greater than anyone could imagine. I expect when you
+have read all this you will say: 'Then do let us go to the Museum. Even
+if I don't understand, I'd like to see it.'
+
+So we will go to this solid massive building across the wide space of
+gravel in front, where the pigeons wheel round our heads and run about
+on the ground almost under our feet, up the wide, shallow steps under
+the huge columns into the great entrance-hall. It is all free. The
+smallest child and the most important man can walk in there alike
+without anyone's asking questions. As we stand in the entrance-hall
+there is a wide staircase on one side, and in front of us are swinging
+glass doors leading by a passage to a great room called the
+reading-room. To go into this room it is necessary to get permission
+from the attendants in the hall, who make you sign your name on a piece
+of paper. Once inside, the size of the vast room almost takes your
+breath away. There is a great dome ceiling, and the walls are lined with
+books; there are shelves upon shelves, and thousands and thousands of
+them. In the middle of the room is a circular desk, where some men are
+sitting; and round this desk, again, there are shelves lined with huge
+books, and all these books are filled with nothing but the names of the
+other books which are kept at the Museum, and which anyone can see by
+taking certain precautions. People are allowed to walk in just to see
+the room, by asking in the hall; but if anyone wants to study here he
+has to write beforehand for a ticket, then he can go in and look in the
+catalogue (that is what the big books full of names are called) for the
+book he wants. He writes it on a slip of paper, and puts on the paper
+also the number of any seat in the room he has chosen. Then he places
+the piece of paper in a basket and goes away and waits, perhaps twenty
+minutes, for the books he wants--for he can ask for any number at one
+time--and presently a man brings them to him.
+
+From the centre desk there are other long lines of desks like the spokes
+of a wheel stretching out from the middle to the sides of the room, and
+here numbers of people sit reading all day long. It is very interesting
+that so many people should work so hard. Look at one of them. He is an
+old clergyman, gray-haired, and with many wrinkles on his face. He is
+reading books of sermons so that he can preach next Sunday a sermon made
+up out of the books. Next to him is a young girl dressed very plainly.
+She has eyeglasses on, and looks severe. She belongs to an office, and
+has been sent down here to write out some quotations from a book that
+cannot be got anywhere else than at the Museum. She earns her living by
+working for the office, and she likes it very much, and would not change
+her life with another girl who drives about in a carriage dressed in
+fifty-guinea frocks, and pays calls on rich people, even if she could.
+Near her there is a dark-skinned man, a negro. What can he want? Perhaps
+he is working up to pass an examination. And near him is a worn,
+tired-looking old fellow, who has gone to sleep over his books. He was
+well-off once and enjoyed his life, and many people were glad to be
+invited to his house. But he was foolish and lost all his money, and now
+he comes up and asks for a few books just as a pretence, so that he can
+sit there in the warmth and comfort for a little while. There are many
+authors in the room busy making books, books, still more books, out of
+those that have been already written. When will it stop?
+
+A copy of every book that is published has to go to the British Museum.
+The publishers are bound by law to send a copy here, and so hundreds of
+books pour in continually; there is no end to them. Even in the days of
+Solomon it was said: 'Of making many books there is no end, and much
+study is a weariness of the flesh.' But the books that were then written
+were as nothing to those that have since been written, and every year
+brings forth more than the one preceding.
+
+You have noticed that round this vast room the walls are covered with
+books looking gloomy and grey. But these are only a tiny part of the
+books stored here. If you ask the attendant in charge he will take you
+behind those walls, where you will think you have stepped straight into
+a dream-world, for there are passages and passages all lined with books.
+You might lose yourself, and wander on and on between streets of books
+higher than your head for many and many an hour. But the storage of
+books is not the only difficulty the librarian has. He has to keep
+copies of all the principal newspapers, too. Now, a newspaper in itself
+is a little thing, small and thin; but when you think of newspapers by
+the hundred, newspapers by the thousand, going on growing and
+accumulating, then you can understand how difficult it must be to find
+room for them all.
+
+Well, we can leave the book-room and go to other parts of the Museum. We
+can wander down corridors filled with beautiful statues or with mighty,
+enormous figures, far bigger than you can conceive until you have seen
+them--figures whose fist is bigger than your whole body, whose fingers
+are about the size of you, made by the ancient Egyptians, the wonderful
+people who held the Israelites in captivity--great frowning, mighty
+figures brought here from across the sea. Or you can go down other
+corridors lined with many things from savage lands--curious ornaments
+and boats, and rough skin clothes; or you can see, too, the most
+interesting part of all, where there are mummies.
+
+In the days long ago, when the land of Egypt was very great and
+powerful, while England was a lonely little island inhabited by savage
+men, who knew of nothing beyond their own shores, the Egyptians used to
+spend much time and money on preserving the bodies of their dead, for
+they thought that if a man's body were allowed to decay he could never
+live again in the other world; so when anyone died the body was cut open
+and filled with rich spices and wrapped in many bandages all steeped in
+certain ointments. And these things really did preserve the bodies from
+decay, so that now, two or three thousand years after, we, the English,
+who have learned to travel and understand many things, go to the land of
+Egypt, now not great and mighty any more, and pull out the dead bodies
+of their kings and queens, who lived and loved and reigned when our
+ancestors were savages, and we bring them back to England and put them
+in glass cases for everyone to see. There they lie, these people who
+thought so differently from us, who never knew anything about us, who
+were rich and powerful, and now are of no consequence. It seems strange,
+doesn't it? Some are still in the painted wooden cases, into which they
+fit as into coffins; others have been taken out, and are shown with all
+the red-brown bandages wound round and round their limbs, and in some
+cases part of these bandages have been undone and the foot or the leg of
+a mummied man or woman is visible.
+
+There is not much else here that can be explained in writing, though
+many things that you would care to see.
+
+At South Kensington there are many large fine buildings, and the finest
+of them all is the Victoria and Albert Museum, which was opened by King
+Edward in 1909. It contains all sorts of wonderful and beautiful art
+work.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM
+
+
+The Natural History Museum at South Kensington is a large building, and
+it is newer than the British Museum and not so gloomy. It is built of
+different sorts of yellow brick, and has tall towers, and stands among
+well-kept green lawns. When you go into the hall you see long galleries
+stretching out on each side. In one there are most beautifully stuffed
+birds of every sort you could name, and a great many you could not name.
+All of these are set up in glass cases, with the flowers and grass or
+bushes round that the birds choose to make their nests in when they are
+alive. We can see here all the different ways that birds take to hide
+their nests and young ones. Poor birds! they have so many enemies--the
+weasel, who sucks their eggs; the cat, who loves to eat their young
+ones; the birds larger than themselves, who prey upon them; and last,
+but not least, the cruel boys who destroy the nests 'for fun,' and a
+poor sort of fun it is.
+
+There are two ways birds hide their nests: one by really hiding
+them--that is to say, building them under a deep bank or in the thickest
+part of a tree--and the other by making them so like their surroundings
+that it is difficult to see them at all. You all know instances of the
+first way; the second is not so common. But perhaps the commonest is the
+plover, who just brings together a few straws on the mud of a field and
+lays her eggs there without any protection; yet the eggs are so like the
+mud-coloured surroundings that you might hunt for a long time, and even
+walk over them without seeing them.
+
+Down the middle of the room at the Museum are the more common British
+birds, and we will look at one or two. But it is quite impossible to
+talk about all of them, or we should still be talking when the keeper of
+the Museum came to turn everyone out and shut up the building for the
+night.
+
+Look first at this pretty clump of grass, with a bramble trailing over
+it and a bunch of primroses growing near. You would hardly have found
+the nest, so well hidden, unless you had known it must be there. It is a
+robin's, and the mother is bringing a caterpillar for her little
+family. Which of the three gaping yellow mouths will get the delicious
+morsel? Quite near is a wren's nest in some ivy, and so neatly is the
+nest made of moss woven together that there is only one tiny little hole
+left for the heads of the little wrens to peep out. The perky little
+father, with his tail cocked up, stands near. He is very shy and
+jealous, and so is his mate; if you put just the tip of your finger on
+the edge of a wren's nest the birds would desert at once, leaving the
+wretched young ones to starve. The little brown bird in the next case is
+the nightingale, who sings so sweetly; he is not much to look at, yet he
+has a picturesque home, with meadow-sweet and wild roses growing over
+it.
+
+It is odd how many birds build on or near the ground, which you would
+think was dangerous. The robin is particularly fond of this; it chooses
+an overhanging bank if it can find one, and though the nest is well
+hidden, there is nearly always a cat prowling near to seize the young
+ones just when their first feathers are growing, so it seems wonderful
+that robins ever escape at all. On the left side is the wood-wren, with
+a nest just like a handful of hay flung down among some dead leaves.
+Near here, too, are the house-martins, and further on the swallows and
+other birds, who build under the projecting eaves of houses; of all the
+nests, these look the most safe and cosy. The house-martin is a really
+clever builder; he takes little mouthfuls of clay in his beak and sticks
+them one by one under the deep overhanging tiles or slates of a house or
+barn, and gradually forms a complete nest like a ball of clay, which
+dries hard, and is stuck against the wall, with only one opening like a
+lip at the top. The nest does not look comfortable, but it is, for
+inside it is lined with the softest white feathers, whereon are laid the
+pearly-white eggs. The sand-martin, the house-martin's cousin, prefers
+the side of a cliff. He digs into a cliff or sandbank a long tunnel
+quite as long as your arm, and just big enough for him to pop in and out
+with comfort. At the very far end of this in the warm darkness he puts
+bits of straw and feathers to make a bed, and here the young are
+hatched. Until they grow older they never go down that long mysterious
+tunnel where mother and father run in and out, but only see in the
+distance the white gleam of a round hole. What a wonderful world it must
+seem to the young bird when he first steps out! He is very timid, and as
+he gets near the opening he hears the beating of the waves on the shore
+perhaps, and then the great wide ocean opens before him and the
+illimitable sky. What a big world! He must turn almost giddy with fright
+and amazement.
+
+Some birds choose furze-bushes to build in, which must be prickly and
+uncomfortable, but are thick. Here there is a woodpecker family. The
+woodpecker is a fairly big bird, and he has a beautiful crimson streak
+on his head; with his strong bill he carves out a deep hole in a tree,
+right into the trunk--it is wonderful that the bird should have the
+strength and patience to cut into the solid wood--and when he has made a
+deep hole, he begins to make it bend down, and in the dip he makes his
+nest. The young woodpeckers are therefore shut in very tightly and
+safely. The parent birds run up and down the trees seeking for insects,
+on which they live. To see them run straight up a tree as a cat would do
+is very curious; but they are shy birds, and not often seen.
+
+Other birds, like the reed-warbler, build in reeds; this seems a very
+safe plan. Here you see several tall green reeds growing out of the
+water, and about a foot above the water the bird has made a clever nest,
+twisting bits of roots and grass together, and lacing them in with the
+reeds, which are strong enough to hold such a dainty thing. So the
+little nest swings and sways with the wind over the water, and the
+reed-warbler is safe from cats, at all events; but one imagines the
+young birds must sometimes tumble out and get drowned before they can
+fly.
+
+A very odd bird is quite near this, and that is the butcher bird. He
+really is a butcher--that is to say, he kills tiny animals and even
+other little birds, and keeps them in a larder for use. For this purpose
+he chooses a bush with thorns, perhaps a hawthorn, and then when he
+catches any small creature he sticks it on the thorns and leaves it
+there spiked until it is wanted. Look at this one's larder. He has a
+wretched little dead sparrow hanging by its neck from a big thorn, and
+two or three bumble-bees spiked too. We can imagine the mamma saying to
+the little ones: 'No, dears, you mustn't have any sparrow to-night just
+before you go to bed; it would give you indigestion and make you dream.
+Papa will have some of that for his supper, but if you'll be good
+children I'll give you each a bit of bumble-bee.' The mother bird is
+talking to a young one who has got out of its nest. They are fat, strong
+little birds, as they should be with such food.
+
+After this we come to bigger birds--ducks and puffins. Puffins have
+beaks like poll parrots, and are about the size of a rook; they have
+neat white shirt-fronts, and their beaks are red and yellow and blue,
+but they have silly faces, as if they thought of nothing but their own
+fine clothes. They live near water on cliffs, and sometimes use an old
+rabbit burrow for a nest, in which they lay one pure white egg, and one
+only. When the young one is hatched the parent birds feed it on tiny
+fish and minnows. You can see here the puffin bringing up a minnow in
+his beak for supper.
+
+Beyond are great grey and white gulls, with their keen beaks and strong
+legs. They are pirates, the gulls, and will eat other birds' eggs if
+they can get them; they are wild and fierce. Another sea-bird, very
+different in appearance, is the little stormy petrel. Very small and
+graceful; he is a thin little bird, with a dark-brown coat, but at heart
+as wild as the proud gulls. He is never happy except when dancing over
+the cold grey waves and feeling the dash of the spray. The petrel is at
+sea all day, and scorns the quiet land and delights of home. The howl of
+the storm, the clash of the water is music to it, and it would pine and
+die in a cage on land. When it wants to lay an egg, it makes a nest not
+far from its beloved sea, and lays there one egg; but even when the
+young one is hatched the mother cannot give up her wandering life. She
+is a wanderer by nature, and she only comes back at nights to see that
+the little one has food; then away to the wild tossing grey water again.
+
+The next set of birds are the owls, and very wicked and ferocious some
+of them look. There is the long-eared owl, with his bent-in, short,
+hooked nose and funny feathered ears standing straight up. The little
+owls are balls of soft fluff, and are eagerly looking at the dead mouse
+that father owl has brought for them to eat. They have a very rough
+nest, merely a platform of pine-twigs thrown together in the fork of a
+fir-tree; but they are hardy little birds, and do not mind that at all.
+Close by is a monster owl, called the great eagle owl. He has bright
+yellow eyes, with very large pupils as black as jet; his tail is spread
+like a turkey-cock's, and altogether he looks very terrifying. You would
+not like to meet him alone if you had made him angry, for he is as large
+as a fair-sized dog, and his ugly claws and savage beak would make short
+work of your soft face and bright eyes. Luckily, you are not likely to
+meet him, for he doesn't live in England.
+
+It is worth while to cross over here to the other side of the gallery
+and see the great bustard, with his wonderful curving white feathers. He
+is about the size of a small turkey, whose cousin he is, and his plumes
+are like those on a field-marshal's helmet. Near here are two curious
+sorts of nests--one the Norfolk plover, or, as he is called, thick-knee;
+the eggs are just laid on the sand, and are so much the same colours as
+the speckled stones around that you have to look hard to find them, and
+at a little distance they seem to vanish altogether. The funny little
+wee birds, too, are just like rough sand, and have two black lines down
+their backs; crouching down without moving, they would be well hidden.
+The common tern lays its eggs amongst rough stones, where you would
+think that anything so fragile as an egg would easily get broken. Near
+his case there is a beautiful pure white gull, who lives in the Arctic
+regions among the ice and snow. It is a wonderful law of Nature that
+birds and animals often resemble their surroundings. We have seen that
+the tiger is not easily seen among his bamboo-stems, and that birds the
+colour of sand live on sand; well in the Arctic regions, where there is
+perpetual ice and snow, nearly all the creatures are pure white, from
+the great Polar bear down to the rabbits and gulls. This is explained by
+the fact that if an animal is not white he shows up against the ground,
+and then his enemies, other animals waiting to prey upon him, see him,
+and catch him and eat him; so the white ones escape, and as children
+take after their parents they are white, too. And if one of the children
+happens to be darker he is quickly eaten, and his whiter brothers and
+sisters escape. This white gull has made a nest that looks like nothing
+but a muff of moss lying on very rough and sharp stones; there is not
+much reason why the little ones should want to climb out, at all events,
+while their feet are tender. Some enormous eagles attract attention: one
+with strong beak and claws. A condor near is one of the largest birds in
+the world. His native place is in South America, and at first when
+travellers brought accounts of this gigantic bird they were not
+believed; but at last someone managed to shoot one and brought it to
+England, so then he had to be believed. The one here in the Museum has
+spread his wings, and the length from end to end is larger than the
+tallest man. The hideous vultures near have scraggy necks, with a ruff
+round them. The vultures never kill animals for their own food, but live
+on the refuse that is left by other animals or men. The eagle is like
+the lion among the animals, and the vulture is like the jackal, who runs
+about picking up all the nasty bits no one else will have. In the cases
+beyond there are graceful swans and chubby ducks and flamingoes, birds
+whose long pink legs make them look as if they stood on painted stilts,
+and who have beautiful rose-coloured edges to their white wings. At the
+very end of the gallery there are two huge cases as big as the side of
+an ordinary room, and it is well to sit down here and look at them, for
+both are full of interest. In part of one the space is taken up with a
+great cliff, in which is the home of the golden eagle, wildest and most
+untameable of all eagles. He lives far up on lonely mountain heights,
+where the air is cold and pure. His great wings sail over vast dark
+chasms, where men have sometimes lost their lives. His eye sees an
+extraordinary distance, and his flight is very swift. He chooses for his
+home a cave or natural hole on the face of a high cliff; this is called
+the eyrie, and here he gathers together sticks, and odds and ends to
+make a kind of bedding for his young. When the little eaglets are young
+they are just like balls of white cotton-wool, with streaks of black
+here and there, all fluff and down, like those you see here. The mother
+and father birds go sailing high up in the sky, and suddenly they
+descend with a swift dive and pounce on some tiny lamb who has strayed
+from his mother's side, and perhaps fallen over the edge of a cliff and
+cannot get back again. He has been bleating loudly to call his mother to
+him, for he is too little to know he may attract enemies as well as
+friends; and his cries have been heard by the eagle, who comes down like
+an avalanche, and, seizing him firmly in its great talons, carries him
+away higher and higher to the nest in the cliff. Then there is a whirr
+and swoop, and the mother or father eagle, whichever it is, alights on
+the rough platform in the cliff and lays the still warm and only
+half-dead woolly lamb before the young ones. There is not much chance
+for it then, but let us hope it has been stunned and made unconscious
+long before this by its swift whirling voyage through the air. Eagles
+catch rabbits, too, and anything they can find. In one nest there were
+found the remains of nine grouse, four hares, part of a lamb, and many
+other things. Here in the eagles' nest in the gallery you can see a
+half-eaten rabbit's leg hanging out over the edge, and other nasty
+remains.
+
+Crossing over to the big case on the other side, we see another cliff,
+bare and gray, and covered with white birds--geese and gulls of many
+different sorts. This is a copy of a bit of a famous rock off the coast
+of Scotland called the Bass Rock, which rises out of the sea like an
+enormous stone many hundreds of feet high. At the times of the year when
+birds make their nests it is white with wild sea-birds, and the nests
+are laid along the crevices and shelves of the bare rock, so near
+together that the birds can easily touch one another while they are
+sitting on them. If anyone fired a gun near the rock there would be a
+sudden flight up into the air of hundreds of birds all at once, like a
+gigantic cloud, flying, whirling, screaming, mixed up together, rising
+higher and higher in great circles till you would feel stunned and
+deafened and almost frightened, as if a piece of the sky had suddenly
+taken shape and broken up over your head. These wild birds know they are
+safe on the Bass Rock, and they take no care to protect their nests; no
+one could climb up those sheer precipices and steal the eggs. The birds
+sit there safely, looking down upon such heights as would make you
+giddy even to see; and in front the blue sea stretches for miles. It is
+a wild, free life.
+
+Going back down the room, there may be time to notice the cases on the
+sides of the partitions full of stuffed birds, many very beautiful, but
+not so interesting as those that are shown with their nests and young
+ones. Quite near the door is a case with some large birds as tall as a
+child of seven in it. They are cassowaries, with drooping dark-brown
+feathers that look rather out of curl, and necks of crimson and blue.
+Further on there is a family of ostriches, the great father bird very
+grand and with a black coat, and magnificent white tail-feathers--those
+feathers that ladies buy for their hats, and for which they give so much
+money. Ostriches are kept on farms in South Africa, and their
+tail-feathers are pulled out at certain seasons of the year; and then
+they grow, again and are soon ready to be pulled out again, and people
+make much money this way. I do not know how much pain this gives the
+ostrich, but it cannot be pleasant; and perhaps he wishes sometimes he
+was not quite so grand, but was dressed in a plain dull-brown suit
+trimmed with dirty white like his humble wife. The ostrich is very
+savage, and can never be depended on; he may turn upon the keeper who
+has fed him and cared for him for years, and, seizing him, kick him with
+his great feet until he is stunned, or dance upon him for no reason at
+all. He does not look safe; his narrow flat head and cruel eyes would
+make you think he was a tyrant. The little ones running about at his
+feet look so ridiculously small in comparison that you would hardly
+think they could be his children; but in time they, too, will grow big
+like papa and have splendid tails, and lord it over their poor wives.
+
+On the other side of the room are birds of paradise, who have also
+beautiful tails, but in quite a different style from the ostrich. They
+are smallish birds, but their long tails, reddish or yellowish in
+colour, fall like cascades or fountains of water on both sides. Ladies
+also wear these in their hats sometimes when they want to be very grand.
+Near them is one of the birds with the queerest habits of any bird. It
+builds a little bower or grotto, and decorates it with shells and
+whatever else it can pick up--it really seems to like to make it pretty;
+and then it runs about in and out of its bower for amusement. So it is
+called the bower bird. These birds live in Australia, and their bowers
+are made of bits of strong grass or thin stick woven over to make a
+sort of tunnel through which the bird can run. But the funniest thing is
+that they like to put bright things, such as shells or pretty stones
+about for decoration.
+
+We must now leave the birds, which have taught us so much, and go on to
+other galleries. Just across the great hall is a long gallery entirely
+filled with the bones and skeletons of animals which are now no longer
+found on earth. This does not sound attractive, but it is, almost more
+so than the birds we have just left, though, of course, we shall not
+find anything pretty here.
+
+Have you ever heard that there was a time when huge animals, larger than
+the largest elephant, lived and walked about on earth, not only in hot
+countries, but in England, too? If man lived at all in those days he
+must have been a poor, frightened, trembling little creature going in
+peril of his life from all the monsters who were around him. In England
+the river Thames was surrounded by a thick jungle, with mighty trees and
+creeping plants, like the jungles in India; and the climate was hot and
+steamy like the inside of a greenhouse. Here lived enormous elephants
+called mammoths. As we enter the gallery we see one in front of us, a
+monstrous creature, who makes the ordinary elephant put behind him to
+compare with him seem small. But larger still is the head of another
+behind that again. Can you even imagine a beast that could carry tusks
+about twelve feet long? That is to say, if two of the tallest men were
+laid end to end they would be as long as that elephant's tusks, and the
+thickness of the tusks was as great as a man's thigh. Think of all this
+weight! And it was resting on the head and neck of the elephant! His
+strength must have been like the strength of an engine. You would have
+been less to him than a mouse is to us. It is not only guessing that
+makes us say these animals lived in England, for here are the real
+skulls and skeletons actually found buried in the earth. Further on is
+what is called a sea-cow, a great fat beast weighing an enormous amount,
+which floated in the sea. And at the end of the room is one of the
+strangest of animals. Picture a creature as high as the room, standing
+up on its hind legs like a kangaroo, and having very strong fore-arms,
+with which it clutches a small tree. This is the skeleton we see now. It
+could have packed you away inside it and never known you were there;
+but, luckily for the children who lived on earth when it did (if there
+were any), it did not eat flesh, but only the leaves of trees and other
+vegetable things. It was called the giant ground sloth, and, as you may
+judge from this name, was not very quick in its movements. It was not
+found in England, but in South America, and there are now no more like
+it in existence; and if we had not got its skeleton we should never have
+known it had lived at all. There were many other curious creatures on
+earth then--some that lived in the water and had long necks like snakes,
+and fat bodies, and others like enormous lizards. There was also a big
+bird, bigger even than the ostrich, this you can see in a case near the
+sloth. Then in the centre of the room is the tall skeleton of a very,
+very big stag, which is to other stags as a giant would be to you. He is
+the Irish elk, and his skeleton was found in the peat bogs of Ireland;
+he must have been a magnificent creature to look at when alive, with his
+proud, free head and branching horns.
+
+Passing through the hall, we see three or four cases showing examples of
+the different colours of animals--the white ones among the snow, and the
+yellow ones on the sand, the protective colouring of which we spoke
+before; and on the staircase sits a statue of Darwin, the wonderful man
+who found out this about animals, and also many other wonderful things,
+and made us see animal life in altogether a new way. When you are a
+little older you will find many things of great interest in Darwin's
+books. Upstairs on one side is a gallery full of humming-birds, tiny
+birds some of them, no bigger than butterflies, and as brilliant as
+jewels, red and blue and green and yellow. It must be wonderful to see
+them flashing about in their native land and hovering over the gorgeous
+flowers; but here, so many together in one case, they lose half their
+beauty, and they lack the sunshine to bring out their lovely colours.
+There is also a gallery full of pressed flowers, and here you can learn
+anything about flowers, leaves, and seeds; and on the other side there
+is one full of stuffed animals. Now, we have seen the living animals at
+the Zoo, and we do not care to see the dead ones here so much, though we
+can just glance around it. But there is one animal you must see, because
+there is no living animal like it in the Zoo.
+
+This is a new animal called the okapi, only discovered during the last
+fifty years in the dense forests of Africa, and its skin was stuffed and
+set up and is now here. One would have thought that all the animals now
+living would have been known long ago, and it seems almost ridiculous
+to speak of a 'new' animal; but this one was new to us. He is very much
+like a mixture of several other animals. He is about the size of a large
+antelope, and he has a long upper lip like a giraffe, and a meek,
+patient face. His back slopes down like a giraffe's, too, and his body
+is a reddish colour like that of a cow; but his hind-legs are striped
+like a zebra. Now, what do you think of that for a new animal? You or I
+might have invented something more original. It is just as if he had
+been round to the other animals, and said: 'Please, I want to live. Will
+you give me something?' And the antelope had said: 'Well, you may be
+rather like me in size, but don't make yourself a shape that anyone
+could mistake for me.' So the poor, meek okapi had made himself the
+colour and size of the antelope, but had taken the sloping back of a
+giraffe; and then he had gone to the antelope, and said: 'Will this do?'
+And the antelope had not been altogether pleased, and he had said:
+'Humph! I'm not sure if it will; you've taken my colour, too. Some fool
+might think you were me at a distance.' So the meek okapi had added a
+few stripes on his legs, like a zebra, just to make him less like the
+scornful antelope.
+
+He lives in dense forests, and eats grass as a cow does, and is very
+shy; and the only people who have seen him alive are the natives, who
+told an Englishman about him, and then managed to shoot one, and bring
+its skin to sell to the Englishman. But now that he is known of, it will
+probably not be long before a live one is captured. He is so gentle that
+they might make him into what is called a domestic animal, like the cow;
+if he once understood that men were his friends and did not want to hurt
+him, then his shyness might vanish, and his gentleness would make him
+safe and easy to deal with.
+
+In this gallery we see all the animals of the Zoo, stuffed and peaceful.
+The tiger no longer prowls round and round his cage when the dinner-hour
+draws near, he will never be hungry again; the lion no longer is angry
+when the crowd stare, he cannot see them; the patient elephant has given
+up for ever carrying children on his back, and the hippo has ceased to
+wallow in the waters of his beloved bath. Even the silver-white polar
+bear does not mind the heat, and pines no longer for his ice and snow.
+All are at rest, at rest!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+WESTMINSTER ABBEY, ST. PAUL'S, AND THE CENOTAPH
+
+
+There are two great cathedrals in London called Westminster Abbey and
+St. Paul's. Westminster is much the older of the two, for, as you have
+heard, St. Paul's was burnt down in the Great Fire and entirely rebuilt
+then, so that it is not yet two hundred and fifty years old, but
+Westminster is much more ancient. Long years ago, before the Saxons
+invaded England, there was some sort of church at this place built by
+monks. In those days there were not all the bridges there are now over
+the river, but only one, London Bridge, and as there was a ford or
+shallow place in the water near Westminster, many people who were
+travelling and wanted to cross the river came down here, where they
+could wade across without fear.
+
+In very early times Westminster was an island called the Isle of
+Thorney, from the brambles that grew over it. The island lay very low,
+so that when the tide swept up the river it stood but little above the
+water; and even after many years, when the ditch running round the
+island was dried up, yet still the land was marshy. It was an odd place
+to choose for the building of a church. Then, as you have read in
+history, came the invasion of the Saxons, and the monks had to fly and
+leave their church, for the Saxons were not Christians, and they came to
+harry and ravage and burn; but after a long time, when the Saxons had
+made themselves lords of London and settled down, the Saxon king himself
+became a Christian, and so he rebuilt the church by the river. There is
+an old legend told about Westminster which, whether you believe it or
+not, is pretty. It is said that on the eve of the day when the new
+church was to be consecrated and dedicated to St. Peter, one Edric, a
+fisherman, who lived close by, was awakened in the night by a voice
+calling him. He thought the voice came out of the darkness on the other
+side of the river, and as he often had to bring people across in his
+boat, he went to find the person who called. On landing he found a very
+venerable-looking man, who carried some vessels that looked like holy
+vessels used in church. Edric wondered, but said nothing, and rowed him
+across, and when they reached the church the stranger entered, and all
+at once the church was lit up by a radiant light, and a thousand lovely
+voices were heard singing like angels. Then when they ceased the light
+disappeared as suddenly as it had come, and the stranger turned and
+said: 'I am St. Peter, and I have hallowed the church myself. I charge
+thee to tell the bishop, and for a sign put forth upon the river and
+cast in thy nets, and thou shalt receive a miraculous draught of
+fishes.'
+
+So the fisherman did as he was told, and he found that the fishes
+enclosed in his net were so many that he could scarcely raise them from
+the water.
+
+The same fate befell the Saxon church that had befallen the British one,
+for the Danes came down on England to plunder and to harry the Saxons,
+as the Saxons had harried the Britons, and they destroyed the church.
+After a hundred years the Danes, too, became Christians, and then the
+church was built once more. King Edward the Confessor caused a great
+part of this new church to be built, and since his time the magnificent
+Abbey that now stands has grown up bit by bit around his church, being
+added to and enriched by many kings.
+
+Since the very earliest times it has been used as the burial-place of
+kings and great men. It would be quite impossible to tell the names of
+all those who lie here--poets, soldiers, artists, statesmen, and
+authors--their graves are thick beneath the stones of the Abbey. It is
+the greatest honour that the nation can offer any man to give him burial
+in Westminster Abbey. In one corner there are many poets buried, and
+this is called the Poets' Corner. Another is peculiarly dedicated to the
+men who have ruled England as Prime Ministers or who have held office
+under the King. Near to the east end are many kings and queens and
+princes and princesses buried. But of all these there is one that stands
+out by itself without any like it. This is the grave of the 'Unknown
+Warrior,' a soldier who fell in the Great War, without any record of his
+name or regiment. His body was brought here to be buried with all honour
+so that he might represent the thousands who died for Britain.
+
+The coronation chair is in the Abbey, the chair which encloses the stone
+brought from Scone in Scotland. Do you know that story? When Edward I.
+made raids into Scotland to try to conquer the country which then had a
+king of its own, he brought away with him the sacred stone on which all
+the Scottish kings had been crowned up to that time, and he had it
+enclosed in a chair, and all the English kings since then have used it
+as their coronation chair. But now England and Scotland are one, and it
+was a Scottish and not an English king who first joined the two
+kingdoms. James, who was James VI. of Scotland, was, on the death of
+Queen Elizabeth, the heir to the throne of England through his mother,
+and England had not had a King James before; and so he was James I. of
+England and VI. of Scotland, and the two kingdoms were made one under
+the name of Great Britain.
+
+The last coronation was that of King George V., who was crowned on June
+22, 1911. All the streets of London had been made brilliant with flowers
+and lights until they were like those of a fairy town. Thousands and
+thousands of pounds had been spent, and people had given large sums for
+seats to see the procession going to the Abbey and coming away again.
+Great stands were erected at every open space and outside many of the
+houses on the route of the procession. Even standing room in a window
+was eagerly sought for, and very many people who had left their
+arrangements to the last minute could not find places at all.
+
+When I learned history at school Queen Victoria was still on the
+throne, and she had reigned so long a time that people had to be a great
+age to remember history books which ended at the reign of her uncle
+William IV. The two reigns before her were short ones and so was that of
+her son, Edward VII., who came after her. He reigned only nine years and
+died at the age of sixty-eight; by far the greater part of his long life
+had been spent preparing, as Prince of Wales, for the throne he filled
+so short a time. He was well over middle age before he became king.
+
+King Edward's eldest son, Prince Albert Victor, had died before him
+after he had grown to manhood. He had never been strong. So the only
+remaining son became our King, George V. Long before this, after the
+death of his brother, he had married a distant cousin, 'Princess May,'
+now our beloved Queen Mary; and, before their grandfather's death in
+1910, all the royal children at present living had been born. Prince
+Edward was seventeen when he was made Prince of Wales in 1911.
+
+So they all took part in the coronation of their parents. A very gallant
+figure was the fair young Prince of Wales in his magnificent dress. But
+he was not then known to the Empire as he is now when he has travelled
+thousands of miles to visit his father's dominions in the uttermost
+parts of the earth.
+
+Coronations do not happen very frequently and for this one people came
+from immense distances and from many foreign countries.
+
+When did the people begin gathering up in the streets to see the King on
+his way to be crowned? No one can certainly tell, but it was before the
+daylight dawned on June 22, 1911. In the darkness of the night the
+police marched to their positions in hundreds, and the soldiers who were
+to line the route that the King and Queen would traverse made their
+appearance. But even before the soldiers and the policemen took up their
+stations came shadowy forms, who crept up to good places in the glimmer
+of the street-lamps as they blew in the night wind. These were people
+who were so anxious to see the procession that they would gladly wait
+all night in the streets, so as to get a good view on the day itself.
+They gathered and gathered, and when the first rays of morning dawned
+every inch of pavement which commanded a front view was full already,
+and those who came after six o'clock could hardly find standing room.
+Unfortunately, the day was not brilliantly fine as the first one had
+been, but dull and cloudy. Hours went by before carriages containing
+the princes and princesses began to pass toward the great Abbey where
+the ceremony was to be, and though the people cheered a little at the
+sight of them they were not very enthusiastic, for they were waiting
+breathlessly to see the King and Queen, and princes and princesses did
+not seem very important on this great day.
+
+Just before eleven o'clock the splendid state coach drawn by eight
+cream-coloured horses came round from the stables to the front of
+Buckingham Palace, and then the people waiting near grew more intensely
+excited. The coach was just such as you might expect. It was all gold
+and glass, and swung upon high springs so lightly that as it stopped the
+body of the coach swayed about, and had to be steadied by the footmen.
+The cream-coloured horses wore harness of crimson and gold, and they
+tossed their heads and pawed the ground, as if they knew quite well what
+was expected of them and how important they were. Then the King and
+Queen took their seats, and as they were seen there was a great outburst
+of shouting, taken up and echoed again and again; it was a royal salute,
+and the volley of cheering rolled along the crowd from one to another,
+on and on, announcing to those who waited farther off that King George
+was really on his way to be crowned King of the greatest kingdom in the
+world. The King and Queen were in royal robes, and they both bowed and
+smiled, and the Queen's fair hair shone out like gold. As Princess she
+had been popular but as Queen and a model mother to her children, the
+darlings of the nation, she was to win a special position in the hearts
+of the people. The Royal couple did not wear their crowns on the way to
+the Abbey, but they would return in them after the ceremony.
+
+As it went along under the trees in the park, the royal procession
+passed close by some large stands built near St. James's Palace, these
+were filled with children from the Foundling Hospital, the homes for
+soldiers' sons and daughters and sailors' sons and daughters, of which
+you have read in another chapter.
+
+One of the most pathetic figures at the coronation was that of the
+widowed Queen-Mother, Alexandra, who had come as a beautiful young girl
+nearly forty years before from over the sea to marry King Edward.
+
+[Illustration: THE CORONATION CHAIR, WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]
+
+The royal coach was followed by an escort of soldiers, and all the way
+to the Abbey that loud roar of cheering was kept up. It must have
+been very delightful for the King and Queen to think how warmly all
+their people loved them, and how glad they were to see them crowned.
+
+Meantime, at the Abbey itself everything had been got ready for the
+ceremony. It is the custom at a coronation that all the peers and
+peeresses should be present, and that they should all dress alike in
+rich robes of crimson velvet and white ermine, and each peer and peeress
+has a little coronet which he or she does not put on at first, but keeps
+on a cushion until the King puts on his crown. Then all the little
+coronets are put on at the same instant. Now, the arrangements for the
+coronation were very difficult to make, for all the peers and peeresses
+had to have seats in the Abbey given to them, and there were so many
+that it was difficult for them all to get in. Quite early that morning,
+at seven o'clock, the Abbey doors had been opened, and the dukes,
+marquesses, earls, viscounts, and barons, with their wives, had rolled
+up in their carriages, and alighted and gone inside there to wait. I
+expect a good many of them had never been up so early in their lives,
+and had never waited patiently for so long before. Some of them did not
+come in carriages, but as it was fine walked across from their houses,
+which were only a short way off, and what a sight they made! Nowadays to
+see a man dressed in crimson velvet and white ermine, with white silk
+stockings, and with a page carrying a coronet on a cushion by his side,
+and another page holding up his long train, is not very usual. The
+people watching must have enjoyed all this unusual grandeur, and felt as
+if they were living in a page of English history.
+
+Then the royal carriages, with the scarlet-clad coachmen and footmen,
+began to sweep up, and the great festival had begun. The guns boomed
+out, telling that the King and Queen had left Buckingham Palace, and not
+very long after they arrived at the hall which had been built at one end
+of the Abbey, and there the Duke of Norfolk, bareheaded, waited to
+receive their Majesties. The Queen, being nearest to him, stepped out
+first, and she was clothed in cloth-of-gold, which shone and glittered
+even on that dull day. The King followed her, looking up with pleased
+surprise at the beautiful reception-hall that was prepared for him, and
+they entered the Abbey hall to make ready for the procession in the
+Abbey itself.
+
+Already we have spoken so much of the grandeur of the spectacle that it
+is difficult to say more; perhaps no one who did not see it can ever
+realize quite what it was like. The peers and peeresses took their
+places in the Abbey, and then the procession which was to walk up the
+aisle was formed. First came princes and princesses, with distinguished
+persons bearing their trains; then guests, invited by the King, and many
+high officials and nobles, with coronets carried after them by pages;
+and then the clergy, who were the King's own chaplains. After that came
+the Queen, with all her attendants and ladies and many more nobles, and
+the jewels of the coronation called the Regalia; and then the King, with
+bishops before and on either side. He was attended by eight royal pages,
+boys of about twelve to fourteen years, who were dressed alike in
+scarlet coats, with bunches of white ribbon on their shoulders. Most of
+these boys were peers in their own right, their fathers having died, and
+the titles having descended to them. They were followed by more nobles
+and more of the Court officials, and so the grand procession swept up
+the Abbey aisle to the east end to begin the service.
+
+The boys of Westminster School, which adjoins the Abbey, have the
+privilege of shouting out 'Vivat Rex!' at the coronation of their
+Sovereign--this means 'Let the King live'--and right heartily did the
+hundreds of young voices greet their King and Queen in this quaint way,
+shouting, 'Vivat, Vivat, Vivat Rex Georgius!' as the King was seen
+advancing up the aisle. The organ rang out, trumpets sounded, and a
+glorious mass of sound ascended to the roof and died away in echoes in
+the gray arches that have seen so many kings crowned and buried.
+
+We have heard that the first English Edward, the Confessor, began to
+build the present Abbey, and that the last Edward, seventh of that name,
+was crowned King in that place. It was an Edward, too, called the First
+of England, who had brought here the coronation stone. On the chair
+which enclosed this stone sat the King. Among other notable people
+present that day were the Duke of Connaught, the late King's only living
+brother, and the Princess Royal, King George's eldest sister, with her
+two daughters. Also his other sisters the Queen of Denmark and Princess
+Victoria.
+
+Among the reigning monarchs of other countries, who were guests, was the
+ex-Kaiser, of Germany, now living in exile. His mother was King Edward's
+sister. It is fortunate for her that she died before she saw all the
+misery and slaughter caused by her son in the Great War. There were
+perhaps some present even then who knew the Kaiser's evil dreams of
+world-power, and his wicked ambition, and feared what it might cause.
+
+After prayer the King turned to face the representatives of his people,
+and the Archbishop presented him, and everyone shouted together, 'God
+save King George!' There were many more prayers and beautiful singing by
+the rich voices of well-trained choir-boys; and then came the anointing,
+during which the Archbishop touched the King with oil in the form of a
+cross on head, breast, and hands. After many other ceremonies, in the
+course of which the King received the sceptre and the orb, made of gold
+and mounted with precious stones, symbols of his authority, the crown
+was brought forward, the magnificent crown, covered with rubies,
+sapphires, emeralds, and diamonds, and the Archbishop held it above the
+King's head, and a great hush fell on all that vast congregation. Slowly
+it was lowered, it touched the King's forehead, and the trumpets
+sounded, and all the nobles raised their coronets, and, putting them on
+their heads, shouted: 'God save the King!'
+
+Then, after many prayers, and the blessing, the nobles headed by the
+Archbishop, came to do homage to the newly-crowned King. The Archbishop
+knelt down and vowed to be faithful, and, rising, kissed the King's
+cheek, and then slowly made way for the Prince of Wales, who in his turn
+knelt and promised fidelity to his father, and kissed him on the cheek.
+Then all the nobles did the same in order of their importance and rank.
+There are very precise rules about all this. Those who bear title of the
+same rank take precedence of one another according to the ancientness of
+the title they bear. But the whole question of title is a puzzling one
+and we cannot go into it here.
+
+After this came the crowning of the Queen. A great pall of gold was
+supported at four corners by four duchesses, who held it up while the
+Queen knelt before the King to swear to be true to him always. She was
+then anointed and crowned, and as her crown was put on her head by the
+Archbishop the coronets of all the peeresses flashed on to their
+wearers' heads at the same moment, as the peers' coronets had done at
+the moment the King was crowned.
+
+The service was ended by the Holy Communion, and the King and Queen,
+wearing their crowns and looking like a fairy king and queen, went back
+in their royal coach to their palace, and the show, so far as
+Westminster Abbey was concerned, was ended. Westminster Abbey will
+always be associated with this great and splendid ceremony, which has
+been described so minutely, and whenever you visit the Abbey you will
+think of King George's coronation.
+
+Before leaving the Abbey there are some things you must certainly see.
+The first is the tomb of the 'Unknown Soldier.' This was a wonderful
+idea thought of after the Great War. So many thousands of men in the
+army gave their lives for their country, unknown and uncommemorated,
+that the body of one, unidentified, was chosen as a symbol for the rest,
+and buried with all the ceremony given to the most honoured dead of the
+nation. There the humble warrior lies, surrounded by the dust of kings
+and statesmen, authors, poets, and sages. Other countries imitated this
+idea, and now each nation of the Great War has its 'Unknown Soldier's'
+grave. In the Abbey, besides the many splendid statues, there is a set
+of curious wax figures, only eleven in number, representing Queen
+Elizabeth, King Charles II., King William and Queen Mary, Queen Anne,
+Admiral Nelson, and five other persons of less importance.
+
+So much for Westminster Abbey, the crowning-place of kings and the
+burial-place of kings and great men.
+
+St. Paul's Cathedral cannot claim the coronation of the kings, but it is
+a splendid building, with its great dome overlooking London far and
+wide. We can climb up through the belfry to the gallery which encircles
+the dome, and, looking down upon the street below, see the people
+crawling about like ants. Around us the pigeons flash their wings in the
+sun, and beyond the houses we can catch a glimpse of the gray river
+flowing down to the sea. Inside St. Paul's there is a great gallery
+running all around the dome, and if you stand at one side of this and
+whisper gently, the whisper runs round the walls, and reaches the person
+standing on the opposite side many yards away, across a great space.
+This is very curious, and because of it the gallery is called the
+Whispering Gallery.
+
+[Illustration: ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL.]
+
+Though St. Paul's cannot claim the coronations, it has always been the
+place to which our Sovereigns go for their services of thanksgiving.
+After great victories in old time, after deliverance from deadly
+illness, after unexpected blessings, the King or Queen of England has
+journeyed to St. Paul's to hold a thanksgiving service. The greatest of
+all these services were those at the Jubilee and Diamond Jubilee of
+Queen Victoria. Of course, you all know that good Queen Victoria, the
+mother of King Edward, reigned longer than any English Sovereign had
+done before her. The three who came nearest to her in this respect were
+George III., who reigned sixty years; Henry III., who reigned fifty-six
+years; and Edward III., who reigned fifty years. It was an odd
+coincidence that each should be the third of his name. Queen Victoria's
+reign was marked not only by its length, but by its happiness and
+prosperity. When she had been on the throne fifty years, she celebrated
+what is called a Jubilee, and then many foreign princes and sovereigns
+came over to England and joined in a procession, and went with her to
+give thanks in St. Paul's Cathedral. Ten years later, when she had
+completed her sixtieth year on the throne, it was felt that she ought to
+have another Jubilee, called a Diamond Jubilee, for having equalled the
+period of the longest reign in English history, and the Diamond Jubilee
+was hardly less splendid than the first one. After this Queen Victoria
+lived to the beginning of 1901, thus having reigned very nearly
+sixty-three years and a half. It is very rare for any sovereign to do
+this. To begin with, the sovereign must be quite young when he ascends
+the throne, and that is not always the case, and then he must live to a
+great age. Queen Victoria was only eighteen when she became Queen, and
+she was eighty-one when she died. At the two Jubilees the carriages of
+the Queen, with all the gorgeous attendants and outriders, formed a
+group outside the great west door of St. Paul's, and waited while the
+service was held; and all the stands and seats were thronged with
+people, and everyone cheered the Queen, who will in future times be
+known as Victoria the Good. The whole of the route to St. Paul's was
+magnificently decorated, and every window and balcony, and even the
+roofs, were crowded with spectators.
+
+Some very famous men are buried in St. Paul's, though not so many as
+there are in Westminster Abbey. Those who are here are chiefly military
+men, and the greatest soldier England has ever had is included among
+them, namely, the Duke of Wellington.
+
+If you have read history you will all know how the Duke of Wellington
+conquered Napoleon, who had so terrified the countries of Europe that
+none dare face him; and if England had not sent her soldiers under the
+great Duke to fight Napoleon, the whole course of European history would
+now be different. Napoleon had gone on from one success to another,
+until he began to think he was not to be conquered at all; but he met
+his fate at the Battle of Waterloo, and his career was ended. The King
+of England at that time was George III., who was very old and insane,
+and his son George was Prince Regent; and after the great victories of
+Wellington there was a procession formed to go to St. Paul's, and
+Wellington carried the sword of state before the Prince Regent to the
+cathedral.
+
+Our greatest sailor as well as our greatest soldier lies in St. Paul's,
+and we can see here his tomb. We have already seen his wax effigy in
+Westminster. The name of Nelson is familiar to every child, and his
+sea-fights are perhaps more exciting to read about than the land
+victories of Wellington. Nelson died nearly fifty years before
+Wellington, and his coffin was made of the wood of the ship _Orient_.
+
+Earl Haig, whose name became a household word to every British child
+during the Great War, had expressed a wish to be buried in the ruins of
+Dryburgh Abbey, near his own home, before he died, so his body is not
+found here, though as one of England's great generals it might well be
+here.
+
+The great architect who built the Cathedral, Sir Christopher Wren, is
+buried here, too, and in the inscription on his tombstone there are
+words in Latin, which mean, 'If thou desirest to see my monument, look
+around thee,' meaning that the splendid Cathedral is his best memorial.
+
+There is one monument in London which attracts, and will always attract,
+not only the attention of visitors, but the homage of the ordinary
+everyday man going about his business in the London streets. This is a
+curiously shaped great block of stone in the midst of Whitehall, about
+which the traffic divides and passes on either side. It rears itself up
+like a great cliff, and its base is never without wreaths and flowers
+swathing it. This is the Cenotaph, the national memorial to the British
+soldiers who gave their lives in the Great War, 1914-1918. It is simple
+in form, but very solemn in outline, and you could not help knowing that
+it meant something to do with the dead. On Armistice Day, each November
+11--for you know that the Great War ended at the eleventh hour of the
+eleventh day of the eleventh month--there is a solemn service here, and
+during the two minutes' silence, after the strokes of Big Ben have begun
+to sound, thousands of people stand bareheaded and absolutely immovable
+around it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE MINT, THE BANK, AND THE POST-OFFICE
+
+
+Has it ever occurred to you that money must be made somewhere? We do not
+find it ready made in the earth or growing on trees; and if you think a
+little, that could not be, for every country has its own money with its
+own King's or President's head on the coins. Here in England we have the
+King's head on one side and various designs on the other, which are
+different according to the coins they adorn. It would be rather nice if
+money did grow on bushes. Supposing we could have a row of them in the
+garden. The penny ones might be like gooseberry bushes, rather low down
+and stumpy, and mother would say, 'Now, who will go and see if there are
+any ripe pennies for me to-day?' and we should see the great round brown
+pennies hanging ready to drop, and the little wee ones just beginning to
+grow, or perhaps having grown to the size of halfpennies; and we might
+ask, 'Shall we gather all we find, or leave the halfpennies for another
+day to grow into pennies?'
+
+Then there would be silver trees, where shillings and half-crowns grew,
+and we should be told, 'You must not go near those, they are too
+valuable. You might drop some of the money and lose it in the mud;' and
+the gold, I think, would have to be reared in hothouses only, and kept
+locked up very carefully.
+
+Well, of course, this is just imagination. Take out a shilling and look
+at it. It probably has the King's head on it, or it may have King
+Edward's, or Queen Victoria's head if it is a very old one. Anything
+further back than that would be valuable as a curiosity. All these
+shillings are the same value, and it makes no difference which one you
+use, and they have all been made at the Mint in London. It is not
+difficult for anyone to get leave to go to see over the Mint, and it is
+a very interesting thing to do. The building is near the Tower, and does
+not look at all grand; in fact, it is difficult to believe that such
+riches can come out of any building so poor looking. Here all the money
+for England is coined--gold, silver, and copper. If we are lucky, the
+day we go we shall find the workmen making gold sovereigns, and pouring
+them out so fast that it is like the old fairy story of Rumpelstiltskin.
+
+In the first room there are great furnaces, with dirty-looking caldrons
+hanging over them, and in these caldrons there is not soup or anything
+to eat, but gold, pure gold. This gold has been found in far-away
+countries and brought to England, and the men who bring it get paid so
+much for it according to its weight, and then the Mint people turn it
+into coins. The gold is all liquid, seething and boiling. The man who
+stands by the caldron has a pair of thick leather gloves to protect his
+hands in case sparks fly out. Suddenly he seizes the caldron with a pair
+of pincers, and, dragging it from the fire, he tilts it up so that the
+molten gold runs out in a stream into a number of tubes like long
+straight jars joined together. The gold flows in, bubbles up, and that
+one is full to the top; and then the next is filled, and the next, and
+so on to the end. Then the gold is left to cool. The big caldron goes
+back on to the furnace to boil more gold. As the gold boils a tiny
+quantity of it gets into the sides of the caldron and sticks to them,
+and this is too valuable to lose, and so after the caldron has been used
+a certain number of times it is broken up and melted so as to recover
+this gold again, and not a grain is lost.
+
+When the gold which has been poured into the jars has cooled it is solid
+again, and has taken the shape of the jars--that is to say, it is in
+bars of gold. You will be given one to handle and feel; it is a flat bar
+of gleaming gold weighing a great deal. The bars are then taken and put
+under a machine something like a mangle, and the machine squeezes and
+presses them with such terrific force that they are squeezed out thinner
+and thinner, and, of course, get longer and longer in the process. Just
+think what tremendous force must be used to press out a bar of gold!
+When at last they are ready these long thin slabs of gold are the
+thickness of a sovereign.
+
+Now, each of these bars is passed through a machine, which cuts out of
+it a double row of holes just the size of sovereigns all the way down,
+and the little gold pieces thus neatly cut out drop down below into a
+box. Take one up and look at it; it is smooth and clean and round, the
+size of a sovereign, but it has as yet no King's head on it, and the
+edges are smooth, not rough as in a real sovereign. So each of these
+little round gold pieces is taken away to another room to be finished,
+and the remainder of the long thin strip out of which they were cut goes
+back to the caldron to be boiled up again and made into more sovereigns.
+
+You will notice that every time we go through a door at the Mint it is
+unlocked for us to go through, and locked again behind us; this is
+because the gold is so valuable. No one is allowed to pass in and out
+without being watched, lest they should carry some away with them. Every
+night each one of these rooms is carefully swept out, and the sweepings
+boiled up to get any little particles of gold that are lying about, and
+a large amount of money is saved in this way. The men who work in each
+room are responsible for the gold in it; the gold is weighed on coming
+in and on going out, and any weight lacking has to be made up by the men
+out of their wages.
+
+Now we have got the little round sovereigns, which are cleaned and
+polished and put into another machine; this machine has what is called a
+die in it--that is, a stamping instrument with the King's head on it
+ready to print on the coin. The little sovereign is put on to a tiny
+round place, with a little collar of metal all round, and this collar is
+rough, like the edge of a shilling or a sovereign. Down comes the die
+with enormous force, and stamps on the coin King George's head; the
+force is so great that the coin is a little flattened out and pressed
+against the rough collar, so the edges become rough, too. Thus are both
+sides done, and the sovereign is now a real sovereign, and could be used
+to buy things at a shop.
+
+There are rows of these machines all hard at work, and we feel we are in
+a fairy tale when we see the little round clean bits of gold drop, drop,
+drop without stopping on to the tiny round table with the collar; and
+the machine goes up and down, up and down, never stopping, and every
+time it does its work, and a new sovereign drops away into a box below.
+Drip, drip, drip, sovereigns are raining down, dozens every minute, all
+newly made; it seems as if we could easily get rich if we were allowed
+to make money like this. But the sovereigns are not finished yet; they
+must go to be weighed, and all those that are not exactly the right
+weight, but either too heavy or too light, go back to the melting-pot to
+be made all over again; and only those that are exactly right are passed
+out new-minted to the Bank, from whence they go to all the people in
+Great Britain and Ireland. It is reckoned that so many as one in every
+three has to go back to the melting-pot, and be boiled and hammered and
+squeezed all over again; so it is a good thing gold cannot feel.
+
+On other days silver and copper are made in the same way, but gold is
+much the most impressive to see.
+
+After leaving the Mint we might pay a visit to the Bank, which stands at
+the meeting of many streets in the very midst of the City. It is a
+strong place built round a courtyard, with all the windows inward so
+that burglars cannot get in. In the vaults below the Bank are many bars
+of gleaming gold, like those we have seen at the Mint; these are sent
+here for safety, and in time will go to the Mint to be coined. The Bank
+of England is very strong and safe, and anyone who keeps his money there
+has no fear that he will lose it. The Bank is allowed by law to make
+notes of its own, which are as good as money, and are received instead
+of money, but it cannot make more than a certain number of these notes
+in any one year. You have heard of bank-notes, perhaps? Have you ever
+seen one--a crisp, crackly bit of paper, with some printing on it, that
+could be burnt up any minute? These seem very unsafe to keep, but they
+are convenient. If a man wants to go away for some time he could not
+carry with him a great many gold sovereigns, for they would be so
+heavy; but if he takes a number of bank-notes they are quite light and
+easy to carry, and are just as good as money. The most common is a
+five-pound note. Of course, accidents do happen sometimes when people
+are careless. I heard of a man who lit his pipe with a five-pound note,
+thinking it was just an ordinary bit of paper, but this was very
+careless; it was an expensive pipe-light to cost five pounds.
+
+In the Bank you are shown many interesting things, and one of the chief
+of these is a book where are kept all the imitation bank-notes, called
+forgeries, that men have made and tried to persuade people were real
+ones. In some cases these are so cleverly done that even the bankers
+themselves hardly knew the difference, and many, many people had been
+cheated by them.
+
+The great machines for printing bank-notes are inside the bank, and each
+note has a different number. Let us follow one throughout its life. It
+is printed on special paper made for the bank, and not sold to anyone
+else, and it is printed in the Bank's own machine. It goes in at one end
+of the machine, just a blank bit of paper, and comes out at the other
+worth five pounds. This seems almost more wonderful than making gold
+coins. Downstairs, in the office of the Bank, a man comes in who has an
+account with the Bank--that is to say, he has given the Bank people a
+large sum of money to keep for him--and he takes out some of it when he
+likes. He comes this morning to ask for twenty pounds, and it is given
+to him in four five-pound notes, which he folds up and puts in his
+pocket-book and then he goes away. He has just got outside the Bank,
+when a friend comes up, and says: 'I say, old man, what about that five
+pounds you owe me?'
+
+So the first man gives him one five-pound note. The second man has to
+pay his landlady's rent, and he owes her three pounds; so he gives her
+the five-pound note, and she gives him two pounds in gold back again.
+From the landlady the note passes to a shopkeeper, and from him to
+another man; and so it goes on, wandering and wandering through the
+hands of hundreds of people. It started a very nice clean new note; but
+it gets crumpled and dirty, and at last one day it comes to a man who
+has had some money given to him which he wants to put into the Bank, and
+he pays this five-pound note in with the rest. So after its life it has
+rest. It never goes out again into the world; but when once it comes
+back to the Bank it is torn up and destroyed. A great many men are kept
+at work only tearing up bank-notes; so every day, while many new ones
+are being made, many old ones are being torn up, and the number keeps
+about the same.
+
+An old woman bought a mattress at a sale, and she thought she would undo
+it and shake up the stuff inside and make it softer, and when she cut it
+up she found among the stuffing some bits of paper that looked like
+bank-notes; but they were little tiny bits not bigger than a sixpence.
+She took them to the Bank, which examined them, and saw that, though a
+great deal was missing, there was enough left to show that there had
+been twelve five-pound notes sewn up inside the mattress. They gave the
+old woman sixty pounds for them, saying that a bank-note meant a promise
+on the part of the Bank to pay, and they would keep their promise,
+however long ago it had been made. So the old woman did a good day's
+work when she bought that mattress.
+
+From the Bank we might pass on to the General Post-Office, and see how
+London's letters are dealt with. You may say that there cannot be
+anything interesting in that--that it is quite simple to sort out
+letters and send them to the right persons. Yes, if you or I had perhaps
+six letters we could do it easily; but if we had six thousand it would
+be rather more difficult. The business of the General Post Office grows
+and increases every year, and the buildings are frequently enlarged.
+Even now they form the whole of a street to themselves. On one side is
+the telegraphic department, where all the telegrams are received. We can
+understand very little about this, because it requires a long training;
+but we can see something of the enormous number of people whose whole
+work in life it is to take and send telegrams. If we get there about
+five o'clock in the afternoon, we shall see some girls and little
+telegraph-boys hurrying about with trays, on which are piles of cut
+bread-and-butter, and with great tin cans, like the cans in which hot
+water is carried up for your bath. These cans are full of strong, hot
+tea. Then we enter one room, so big that it almost startles you, and
+see, seated at rows and rows of tables, many men, and nearly all of them
+are working away at the telegraph instrument before them--tick, tick,
+tick, tack; they cannot hear what you say, even though you talk quite
+close to them, for all their attention is taken up by their work. For
+eight hours every day they sit here and take and send telegrams. Here
+comes the tea; it is poured out into the large cup waiting for it, and
+the man takes a drink or a bite as he works. Some of the workers buy jam
+to spread on their bread. In one place we see a tray with a large pile
+of cakes and biscuits; but these are being sold, though the tea and
+bread-and-butter are supplied by the Post-Office to its workers free. It
+must be a big business to make tea for about fifteen hundred persons
+every day. No wonder cans are used to carry it about, for teapots would
+be of very little use. In one room there are men doing all the telegrams
+for the daily papers--accounts of great speeches, or races, or anything
+important that people expect to hear about--and by means of one
+instrument one man can send the same news to five different places at
+the same time. This sounds like a miracle to us, who do not understand
+how it is done. In another room there are many girls who do just the
+same work, and keep the same hours as the men, but are not paid so much
+simply because they are women; they are having tea too. They seem to be
+very fond of shrimp-paste, which they spread on their bread-and-butter
+instead of jam. In every room there is always a loud noise like the wash
+of waves; that is made up of hundreds of busy little instruments ticking
+away hard all at once. It seems wonderfully quiet when we leave it
+behind, and step out into the street again where the lamps are being
+lit.
+
+It is nearly six o'clock now, and opposite is the large building of the
+Post-Office where the letters are dealt with. Up the steps in front we
+see the huge letter-box, with a great gaping slit of a mouth into which
+boys and men are pouring letters as fast as they can; for at six o'clock
+the country letters are sent off, and any posted after that will not be
+delivered first thing next morning in the country, but will arrive
+later.
+
+Come inside; we have a special order so that we can be admitted without
+any difficulty. Now we see from the inside what we saw from the outside
+a minute ago. It is like looking at the inside of a piece of machinery.
+We see now only the big slit and the eager hands thrusting letters into
+it, more letters and more, which fly down inside like a snowstorm of
+enormous flakes. They drop into great clothes baskets, which are filled
+up every minute, and when full are dragged away by the postmen inside,
+who thrust others into their places, others which, incredibly quickly,
+are filled up, too, and dragged away. Rattle, rattle; down come the
+letters. One boy outside has a bag, which he empties by tipping it up so
+that a stream of letters runs down; he must be from an office. Here is
+another, and another; but at last six o'clock strikes, the great baskets
+have been dragged away, and no more letters for the country go until
+much later. The basketfuls have been emptied into sacks; these sacks are
+tied up with string and sealed with a piece of sealing-wax a good deal
+thicker than your wrist, and then they are flung down into the bright
+scarlet carts, which belong to the Post-Office, and which stand waiting
+outside. Each driver starts off punctually with his load, and drives to
+another great office in London where the country letters are sorted out
+and sent off. All this business used to be done here where we are, but
+in the last year or two it has been found better to keep the London and
+the country letters separate.
+
+Now we turn to look at the London ones. There is a separate box for them
+to be posted in. Perhaps you who live in the country have never seen
+that. At every large London office there are two boxes side by side, and
+into one the people put their letters meant for the country, and into
+the other those for London. The London letters are gathered from the box
+and thrown out upon large tables, and down each side a row of boys and
+men stand and sort them out like a pack of cards, putting them all
+together, face up, and with the stamp in the same position. When they
+are arranged the boys carry a great bundle to another man who has to
+stamp them, so as to mark the stamp in case it should be used again.
+There is a very clever contrivance for this. A little round wheel spins
+at a tremendous pace, and on it are dark lines covered with wet ink. A
+man holds the letters and pushes them one by one up to the wheel, which,
+when it touches them, drags them through a narrow space in front, and as
+they pass the wheel the ink-lines run across the stamp and mark it so
+that it cannot be used again. So quickly does the little wheel whirr and
+the letters spin past that five hundred are done in a minute. Think of
+that; it means nearly nine a second. Nine letters stamped while you say
+'One--two,' which is a second. Some letters are too thick and others too
+big to go through the little space by the wheel, so the man who is
+looking after them picks out those and throws them up on to a tray, from
+which they are gathered up and carried to another man, who stamps each
+by hand, a much slower process.
+
+When the letters are stamped they are carried off to other men, who sort
+them out, throwing them into different divisions, according to the part
+of London for which they are intended, and any that he cannot read, any
+that have not got a sufficient address, or any that have not a stamp on,
+are put aside. Those with bad or insufficient addresses are called
+'blind,' which is a funny word to use in this sense; they are carried
+off to some men, who sit with ponderous books in front of them, and who
+work solemnly, hunting out names and addresses. Perhaps one address is
+so badly written that it looks to you and me just as if a beetle had
+fallen into an ink-bottle and walked over the paper. But the man at the
+desk is accustomed to bad writing, he soon makes it out, and writes it
+neatly so that it can be read and the letter sent on. Another person has
+put the street, perhaps on his envelope, but not the district of London,
+and this is hunted up and supplied, and so on; and always as the men
+work, gradually reducing the pile of letters before them, more are
+added, so that it seems as if their work would never end. Near the first
+men who were sorting letters are others sorting out packets and throwing
+them into baskets. Fast as they work, they cannot keep up with the fresh
+piles always poured in. They pitch the parcels into the baskets with
+speed and accuracy generally, but sometimes in their haste a packet
+flies over the rail and hits the head of a person walking past.
+
+Here is a little table where a man is standing looking at some odd
+things--a clothes brush, a box of flowers, a locket, and a pair of
+gloves. What is he doing? These are things which have been badly tied
+up, and have consequently come undone in the post, and some of them have
+no addresses, but perhaps there is a letter inside the parcel. This
+letter begins 'My darling,' but there is no time to read it; all that is
+wanted is the address of the sender, to which the things can be
+returned. This is quickly found, and the parcel is tied up again and
+sent back. But if you do not want to have any of your letters seen by a
+man in the Post-Office, you had better tie them up very carefully when
+you send them by post. The things for which no addresses can be found go
+to the Dead Letter Office, and every now and then there is a sale of
+them.
+
+But the Post-Office does its best always to find the people to whom the
+things should be sent, and tries to please everyone, which is a
+difficult task, and it very often comes in for a great deal of blame.
+But we wonder as we leave the great building, not at the things that are
+occasionally lost, but at the great mass, the millions of letters, that
+are sent safely through to their journey's end without being either lost
+or delayed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+THE LORD MAYOR'S SHOW AND OTHER THINGS
+
+
+We have now seen a good deal of London, and know something about it; but
+there are a few facts that do not come very well into any of the
+preceding chapters, and so to end up I am going to make a chapter about
+the odd things.
+
+You remember that when Dick Whittington, weary and disheartened, would
+have gone away from London, he heard the bells of Bow Church ringing,
+and what they seemed to say to him was, 'Turn again, Whittington, thrice
+Lord Mayor of London.' And he was so much encouraged that he did turn
+again, and persevered, and in the end he rose so high as to be Lord
+Mayor, not once, but three times.
+
+It is a great thing to be the Lord Mayor. He is chosen every year, and
+rules the city for a year, and then resigns his grand position to his
+successor. There is a splendid house right in the heart of the City
+called the Mansion House, and here the Lord Mayor lives while he is
+Lord Mayor, and here he gives great banquets. Sometimes the King and
+Queen come to lunch with him, and all the great people from abroad who
+visit England go to see the Lord Mayor. When the King makes a procession
+through London in state he is met at Temple Bar, where the City begins,
+by the Lord Mayor, who hands him the keys of the City; not that there is
+any longer any gate that needs unlocking, but this ceremony is kept up
+in memory of the time when London was surrounded by a high wall, which
+prevented anyone getting in except by the gates.
+
+The ninth of November is Lord Mayor's Day. On that day the new Lord
+Mayor, who has been chosen for the year, makes a procession all round
+London. This is a great holiday; the shops are shut, and people put on
+their best clothes and turn out into the streets, and very early in the
+morning the police begin to stop the omnibuses and cabs that are going
+down the City streets and turn them into other streets more out of the
+way. Then the crowds grow thicker and thicker, walking all over the
+roadway, so that there would be no room for anyone to drive through even
+if it were permitted. At last the signal is given that the procession
+is coming. Then the police hurry about and push the people back, and
+make a way for the procession, and everyone stands on tiptoe and strains
+to see over his neighbour's shoulders. First come bands playing gay
+tunes and soldiers marching, and then more soldiers and more bands, and
+then perhaps sailors, and it may be the fire-engine, not racing along to
+put out a fire, but with the horses trotting gently, while the people
+shout and cheer, for everyone admires the Fire Brigade.
+
+These are followed by the lifeboat men, who save life at sea, and fight
+with the waves as the firemen fight with the flames. They have a great
+lifeboat on a car, and the people cheer themselves hoarse at the sight
+of it. Then follow shows, with people dressed up to represent India or
+Asia, dragged along on great cars. One year there were men dressed up to
+represent all the Lord Mayors there had been in the City since very
+early times, and the gay colours and the curious old-fashioned clothes
+were very pretty. There may follow next the Duke of York's little
+soldier boys that you have read about, marching along with their band
+playing, and enjoying themselves very much. It is a holiday for them.
+
+There are also carriages with the officers of the City, the sheriffs
+and aldermen, who help the Lord Mayor with his duties, and who will
+perhaps themselves take his place in turn; and at last there is a great
+shouting and cheering, and a huge coach appears painted with crimson and
+gold, like the glass coach that the fairy godmother made for Cinderella.
+It comes swinging along with the Lord Mayor inside. There are four
+horses covered with rich harness, and the fat coachman on the box, with
+his three-cornered hat and brilliant livery, looks very proud of himself
+and his position.
+
+When the procession has passed the people close in over the road again,
+and jostle and push and laugh, and everyone seems to be going in
+different directions, and Lord Mayor's Show is done for another year.
+
+When I began writing about the Lord Mayor I mentioned Dick Whittington
+and Bow bells. Bow Church is a very famous church. One way of expressing
+the fact of being a Londoner used to be to say 'born within sound of Bow
+bells.'
+
+The old church was burnt down with all the others in the Fire, and the
+church that now stands was built by Sir Christopher Wren. In the old
+church it was a rule that the bell should be rung every night, and when
+the shopmen heard the bell they shut up their shops. Now, the men who
+rang the bell sometimes were late, and this made the apprentices, the
+young men who worked in the shops, very angry, for they wanted to get
+away from their work and go out into the streets to enjoy themselves;
+but their masters would not let them go until the bell rang. So the
+young apprentices made up a rhyme:
+
+
+     'Clarke of the Bow bell, with thy yellow lockes,
+     For thy late ringing, thy head shall have knockes.'
+
+
+And the clerk was frightened, and said:
+
+
+     'Children of Cheape, hold you all still,
+     For you shall have Bow bell rung at your will.'
+
+
+Cheape was the name of the street where the church stands, and it is now
+called Cheapside. I expect the clerk kept his promise, for the young
+apprentices were very sturdy, and they would have given him 'knockes' at
+once. I do not know how they liked being called children.
+
+On the top of Bow spire there was a figure of a dragon, which looked
+very fine when the sun shone; and in another part of the City, near the
+Bank and the Mansion House, there was on the top of the Royal Exchange a
+grasshopper, which was the sign of a great merchant of Queen
+Elizabeth's time, who built the first Exchange. Now, there was an old
+saying that when the grasshopper from the Exchange and the dragon from
+Bow Church should meet, the streets of London would run with blood. But
+this did not seem at all likely to happen, for there is a long distance
+between the Exchange and Bow Church. But rather less than a hundred
+years ago the dragon was taken down to be cleaned, and at the same time
+someone thought the grasshopper wanted repair, and, as it happened, he
+took it to the very same builder's yard where the dragon was, and the
+dragon and the grasshopper lay side by side. Then someone remembered
+that old saying, and was terrified; but there was no fighting, and the
+streets of London did not run with blood, which shows that old sayings
+do not always come true.
+
+London City is now lighted by electricity, which has almost displaced
+gas, but there was a time not so long ago when the only lighting of the
+streets was done by candles, and every man who owned a window looking
+out on to the street was forced to burn a candle there from six to ten
+o'clock every night.
+
+You can imagine that these candles did not make a very good light, and
+there was plenty of opportunity for thieves and ruffians to annoy
+honest men. When people went out at night they used to hire boys with
+torches to run beside them. These boys were called link-boys, and they
+waited in the streets to be hired, just as cabmen wait about now. The
+torches they carried were flaming pieces of wood, which burned very
+brightly and made many sparks and much smell, and one would have thought
+they were very dangerous, as they might have set alight the ladies'
+dresses, but we never hear of any such accidents having happened.
+
+Well, this is all I am going to tell you about London at present, but it
+is by no means all there is to tell; only some things are not easy for
+children to understand, and others are difficult to describe in writing.
+For these you must wait until you are older, and until you can go to see
+them for yourselves. But if you understand ever so little from this book
+what a great and wonderful town London is, you will not have wasted your
+time in reading it.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LTD., LONDON AND EDINBURGH
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Children's Book of London, by
+Geraldine Edith Mitton
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