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 neednot have said that, for nowadays the very youngest child knows it. Itwas Dick Whittington who first imagined anything so foolish; but then hewas only a country lad, and in his days there were not the sameopportunities for finding out the truth about things as there are now. There were very few books for one thing, and those there were cost agreat 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 wasthen, it is not at all probable that he would have seen it. There wereno photographs, either, to show him what London was really like, so, ofcourse, he had to make up ideas about it himself, just as you who livein the country and have heard people talking about London do now. Arethe stories you invent at all like the stories Dick Whittington made upfor himself? You can't answer because you're not writing this book, so Imust answer for you. Perhaps you think London is a place where there areno lessons to do, and where there is always a great deal of fun goingon; where you can go to see sights all day long; the huge waxworkfigures at Madame Tussaud's, as big as real people; and lions and tigersand elephants and bears at the Zoo; and you think that the boys andgirls who live in London spend all their time in seeing wonderfulthings. 

If this is what you think, some of it is true enough. There are a greatmany wonderful things to be seen in London, and if you want to hearabout them at once you must skip all this chapter and a great manyothers besides, and go on to page 241, where you will find themdescribed. But if you want to know what London itself is really like youmust wait a little longer. The best people to tell you would be thechildren who live in London; they will read this book, and, of course, they could answer all your questions, but they would not all answer inthe same way. 

Some would say: 'Oh yes, of course we all know the Zoo, but that's forsmall children; _we_ are quite tired of a dull place like that, whereeveryone goes; we like balls, with good floors for dancing, andprogrammes, and everything done as it is at grown-up balls; and we liketheatres, where we can sit in the front row and look throughopera-glasses and eat ices. Madame Tussaud's? Yes, it's there still; wewent to it when we were quite little babies, but it's not at allfashionable. '

And another child might say: 'I don't mind driving with mother in theRow when I'm really beautifully dressed. '

But I'll tell you a secret about the little boys and girls who talk likethis: they are not really children at all, they never have been andnever will be; they are grown-up men and women in child shapes, and bythe 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 doesnot know how to get through the long, dreary day; and Miss Ruby will bea mere heartless woman, who only cares to please herself, and does notmind how unhappy she makes everyone else. And all this will be becausetheir foolish father and mother let them have everything they wanted, and allowed them to go everywhere they liked, and that is not at allgood even for grown-up people, and it is very, very much worse forchildren. 

There are, however, many other sorts of children in London, and it israther interesting to hear what they think of the town in which theylive. For instance, there are the children of people who are not at allpoor, who have nice houses and plenty of money, but who are yet sensibleenough to know that their children must have something else besidespleasure. 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, andI've been to Maskelyne's Mysteries and the Hippodrome, and they're alljolly, especially the Zoo; but those things generally happen in theholidays: we don't have such fun every day. ' A boy or a girl of thissort 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 DickWhittington'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. Youknow what a mile is, perhaps; well, try to imagine seventeen miles oneafter another, end to end, on and on, all streets of houses, with hereand there a park, very carefully kept, not in the least like a countrypark. And all these streets and streets of houses are not veryinteresting, and in many of them the houses are all alike, built ofdull-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 fromwhich they come away again at nights. In the mornings hundreds andhundreds of men pour into this part as fast as the trains can bringthem, and go to their offices, which are in great buildings, manydifferent offices being in one building; and the streets are filled withmen hurrying this way and that, always in a hurry. There is no onestanding about or idling. Omnibuses and carts and cabs are all mixed uptogether in the roadway, until you would think it was impossible forthem ever to be disentangled again. And now and then some bold man on abicycle dares to ride right into the middle of it all, between thewheels and under the horses' noses, and how he ever gets through withoutbeing 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 muchof 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 andomnibuses and trains back to their homes and their children, and theCity is left still and silent, with just a quiet cat flitting across thestreet, and making a frightened jump when the big policeman turns hislantern on to her. 

The children of rich people seldom see this part of London. Perhapstheir 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, andwhen twelve o'clock comes they go for a walk. When they open thefront-door they see a long street, stretching both ways, filled withdark, dull-looking houses just the same as their own. The streetpavement is made of wood, which is quieter than stones, and when thecabs run past they make very little sound. If the children are luckythey live in a square, and there is a garden in the middle, with ironrailings round it, and everyone who lives in the square has a key toopen the gate; but it must not be left open, or other people would getin 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 whenthey are led by a string. The gardener would turn them out, for heimagines they would kick about in his flower-beds and rake out theseeds. This is not the sort of garden that a country child would carefor. But Jack and Ethel are not country children; they are quite used totheir garden, and like it very much. 

We can see them start on their morning walk with Miss Primity, theirgoverness. Both the children wear gloves--they never go out withoutthem--and in the street they walk quietly; but when they have passeddown the street and got into Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens, they canrun about as much as they like. In the Gardens there is a big roundpond, where Jack can sail his boat; and on Saturdays the water iscovered with white sails, and even men come down and join in the sport, making their toy boats race against one another. The boats are oftenquite large, and the scene is very gay and pretty. There are a greatmany ducks, which clamour to be fed; and there are other children theretoo. These may be friends of Jack's and Ethel's, and they can playtogether, and Ethel can show her new doll, and Jack can boast of all thethings he means to do when he grows up. The Gardens are very nice, butit is rather dull always having the same walk in the same place everyday, and sometimes the children get a little tired of it, and are gladwhen a half-holiday comes and an aunt or uncle carries them off to seesome of the wonderful things of which London is full. 

There is another part of London of which we have not yet spoken. We haveheard of the City and of the West End--the City, where business menwork, and the West End, where rich people live; but there is also theEast End, lying beyond the City, and the people who live here are nearlyall poor. If you asked any of the children of the East End if they hadseen Madame Tussaud's or the Zoo, they would grin, and say, 'Garn!' andif 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 thinkyou are telling stories. In the streets where these children liveeverything is dirty and nasty. A number of families live together in onehouse, perhaps even in one room, for I have heard of rooms where eachfamily had a corner. The women never do anything more than they canhelp. They never mend their old dresses, or wash themselves or theirchildren, or try to cook nicely; they do nothing. They spend the daysitting 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 onanyone who happens to pass. The poor little baby gets dreadful things toeat--things that you would think would kill an ordinary child--bits ofherring or apple, and anything else its mother eats, and sometimes evensips of beer or gin. If it cries, it is joggled about or slapped, and assoon as ever it is able to sit up, it is put down on the pavement amonga number of other dirty, untidy children and left to take care ofitself. When a little girl is seven she is thought quite old enough tolook after all the younger ones, and on Saturdays she goes off withother little girls, pushing a rickety old perambulator or a wooden cart, with perhaps two babies in it and several smaller children hanging on toher skirt; and she goes down the foul street and on until she comes to atiny little bit of ground, where there are seats and some bushes andhard paths, and this is a playground. But what do you think it reallyhas been? A graveyard, and there are still graves and big stones, showing that people have been buried there long years ago. But thechildren 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 thestreet. Then the poor little babies are left in their go-carts orperambulators, very often in the sun, with their heads hanging down overthe edge, while Liza talks to Bella; and they both put their hair incurl-papers, and show each other any small things they have picked up inthe street. They have no need of dolls, for both Bella and Liza haveliving dolls, which are often very troublesome; but they are quite usedto it, and if the live doll cries they just stop talking and rush up toit and push it up and down, or take it out and shake it about for a fewminutes, and then put it back again and go on with their talk. Sometimes, not often, they have a feast, and perhaps Bella brings out adirty bottle which she has picked up, and fills it with water at thefountain; and Liza takes from her pocket an apple and some stickytoffee, and perhaps one of the little ones has a bun. And then the appleis rubbed until it shines with a dirty bit of rag called apocket-handkerchief, and they all sit down together in a row and sharethe things; and even the baby has a hard lump of apple stuffed into itsmouth, for Liza and Bella do not mean to be unkind to their babies, forthey have mother-hearts in them. 

Well, of course, there are many other sorts of children in Londonbesides these: there are the children of working men, who are neatlydressed and go out on Sundays with their father and mother; there arechauffeurs' children who live near the garage, or in the mews, whererich people keep their motor-cars or carriages. It is not easy in Londonto find rooms for cars or carriages close to the house, so a number ofstables were built together, making a long yard like a street, and thepeople who lived near kept their carriages there, but there are fewercarriages now, and often the rooms in the mews are empty or used byoutside people, while the cars are kept at some big garage a littledistance off. There are many others who are not so lucky as chauffeurs'or coachmen's children; think of the little children who belong to theorgan-grinders, and who are taken about in a basket tied on to thegrinding organ, with the hideous noise in their ears all day. I wonderthat they can ever hear at all when they grow up. Many, very many, ofthe children have no playground at all but the street, the pavement, where people are passing all the time. They sit on the doorsteps andbreathe in the dust, and all their playthings, if they have any--andeven their food--are often thick with dust. I have seen a child rubbinga 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 ifthe rich children go through the streets in the poorer parts they are inmotor-cars or cabs, and in their part of the park there are not manypoor children, while in the parks where the poor children go you do notfind many rich ones. And though there are parts of London where poor andrich are very near together, yet their lives never mix as the lives ofcountry children do. Very often in the country a child knows the namesof all the other children in its village, and who they are and all aboutthem; but in London it is not so. And many rich children grumble all thetime if they do not have everything they want, and never think of theirpoor little brothers and sisters, who would snatch eagerly at many ofthe things they throw away. 

Have you heard the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, who piped sowonderfully that he could make anything follow him when he liked, andhow he piped so that all the rats ran after him, and he led them to theriver and they were drowned? When he asked the mayor and chief men inthe 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 whatwe wanted, and we won't pay you. ' So the piper was very angry, and pipedanother tune, and all the children in the town followed him; and he ledthem 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 PiedPiper came to London he would find very many more different sorts ofchildren 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 hadalmost forgotten to laugh, as well as those like the children ofHamelin, who were so bright and so gay. 

CHAPTER II

LONDON

Now, we have seen something of the children who live in London, and itis time to try to think a little of what London itself is like. As Ihave said, the boys and girls who live there do not know very much aboutit; they only know their own little corner of it, because London is sobig that it is almost impossible even for a grown-up person to know itquite well in every part. I have told you it is about seventeen mileslong and twelve broad, but you cannot understand really how long thatis; you can only get some little idea. This great town stretches on formile after mile, houses and houses and streets and streets, with hereand there a park, but even the park is surrounded by houses. Childrenwho live in small towns can always get out into the country and seegreen trees and grass and hedges, but many of the children who live inLondon 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, howit is divided into three parts, that is to say, the West End, where therich 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 poorpeople in the East. Some of the poor ones live in the West End, too, butroughly we may put it so, just to get some idea of the place. 

Through this great London there rolls a great river, and there isscarcely any need to say what the name of that river is, for every childknows about the Thames. The great river cuts London into two parts, andon the south side of it there are many poor streets with poor peopleliving in them, and close to the river is a palace, where the Archbishopof Canterbury lives. He is head of all the clergymen and all the bishopsof the English Church. The palace has stood there for many hundreds ofyears, and it is curious to think that this important man, who has somuch power, and who has the right to walk before all the dukes and earlswhen he goes to Parliament, lives there among the poor people on thesouth side of the river. 

The City, where men have their offices and go to work, is really quitea small part of London, but it is very important. Here there is the Bankof England, where bank-notes are made, and where there is gold in greatbars lying in the cellars. The Bank has streets all round its foursides, 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 agarden. It does seem so funny to find a garden here amongst all thehouses. If you went into the Bank to see it, you would meet a manwearing a funny cocked hat like those that men used to wear in oldtimes; and if you showed him that you had leave to go all over thebuilding, he would tell you where to go and be very civil. We shall hearmore about the Bank later on. 

Close to the Bank is the Mansion House, where the Lord Mayor lives. TheLord 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 buildingsaround near the Bank, and just here seven streets meet, and there is anopen space. Now, if you were suddenly dropped down into that open spaceat, say, the middle of the day, you would most certainly be run overunless you stood close beside the very biggest policeman you could see, for every thing on wheels is coming in every direction--bigmotor-omnibuses, generally painted the most vivid scarlet, crammed withpeople inside and on the top; taxi-cabs with patient drivers, who wouldnot jump if a gunpowder explosion went off under their noses; they haveto keep good-tempered all day long, in spite of the tangle of traffic;immense lorries loaded with beer barrels; and little tiny carts withgreengrocer's stuff, perhaps dragged by a dear little donkey, who looksas if he could run right under the bodies of the big dray-horses. Andall these things are coming so fast and so close to one another, that itseems a miracle anyone can get through. Not long ago an undergroundpassage with steps leading down to it was built, so that people can gounder 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 oneman, Sir Christopher Wren, a very clever man. But you will say, 'Why dopeople want churches in the City? Didn't you say that everyone went awayto their own houses at night and on Sundays? Isn't the City, then, quiteempty?'

Yes, that is true; on Sundays the City is empty, except for people whocome down to walk round and look at it. But the churches are stillthere, and there are still services in them on Sundays, because longyears ago good men left money to pay the clergymen, and no one has anyright to use it for any other purpose; so the clergymen preach, and veryfew people are there to hear. It seems odd, doesn't it? But there aremany things odd in this great, dear, smoky London of ours. There used tobe many more churches in the City than there are now; at one time therewere seventy churches or more all in this small space! There aren't somany now, but still there are a good many left. 

If you went on beyond the City, further away from the West End, youwould come to that miserable part where the poor people live, and insome parts here there are a great many foreigners, who come to Englandto get work, and who earn very little money, and are rough and rude, andall live together in one place. In some streets you would hardly hearEnglish spoken at all. On Saturday nights here the streets are quite asight, because the people have barrows or stalls by the sides of theroad instead of shops, and when evening comes they light them up withflaming 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 docome, and the pavement is covered with people pushing and jostling toget things cheaply. On one stall you will see piles of fruit--cheapgreen grapes hanging in bunches, red apples, yellow oranges, and perhapstomatoes; and on another stall nothing but raw meat, and here the womenbuy a little bit for their Sunday dinners; and on another stall there isnothing but yards and yards of white embroidery. It seems such a queerthing to sell there; but it is there: I have seen it, and the wonder isit does not get so black that no one could use it. Then another stallmay have fish, and here all sorts of shell-fish will be lying in littlesaucers with a pinch of pepper and a spoonful of vinegar over them, andpeople take them up and eat them there and then. And all down the streetthe lights flare, until you would think they must set fire toeverything, and the people at the stalls cry, 'Buy, buy, buy!' Andperhaps in the midst of all this noise and confusion you might see alittle baby, rolled up in a shawl, lying on the ground or in a box closeto a stall. 

If you went down to the river from the East End you would find many verywonderful things, but here hardly any London people from the West Endgo; it is so far that very few of the people who live in London haveever been there at all. The great river rolls on to the sea, and twicein every day and night the sea sends a strong tide flooding up toLondon, and the barges, bringing coal and straw and wood and many otherthings, use the tide to come up the river, for otherwise they must havea small steamboat to drag them. And by the side of the river there aregreat houses built right on the edge of the water, where all day longmen work, either taking things out of steamers or putting other thingsinto other steamers to go away to foreign countries. The river iscovered with steamers and barges and boats, just as the streets arecrowded with omnibuses and cabs and carts. Always men are working andbringing things to the great City and sending things out. If it were notso the City could not live at all, because the people must be fed andclothed, and they can't make everything they want or grow what they wantto eat in London itself. 

Down in this part of London there are huge docks, but I am quite sureyou do not know what docks are. They are basins of water, like immenseponds or lakes, shut in on all sides except for one entrance from theriver, and here ships can come in and lie snugly and safely withoutbeing pushed about by the tides, and they can be painted and mended andmade fit to go to sea again. One of these docks on a fine afternoon insummer is a very beautiful sight; all the tall masts and funnels of theships are mixed up together like a forest of trees, and the blue skypeeps through them and the blue water ripples round them. When you sawthis sight you would understand a little what a wonderful city Londonis, 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 notthe newest bridge, but it was built later than most of the others. Ithas two great towers rising one on each side, to the sky, and the bridgelies across low down between these towers. But when a big ship comes andwants to get up the river under the bridge, what is to be done? Thebridge is not high enough! Well, what does happen is this, and I hopethat every one of you will see it one day, for it is one of the grandestthings in all London: a man rings a bell, and the cabs and carriages andcarts and people who are on the bridge rush quickly across to the otherside, and when the bridge is quite empty then the man in the towertouches some machinery, and slowly the great bridge, which is like aroad, remember, rises up into the air in two pieces, just as you mightlift your hands while the elbows rested on your knees without moving, and the beautiful ship passes underneath, and the bridge goes back againquite gently into its place. This bridge has been called the Gate ofLondon, and it is a very good name, for it looks like a giant gate overthe river. Close to it is the Tower, of which you must often have readin your history books--the grim Tower where so many people who were notwicked at all were imprisoned, and where some of them were beheadedbecause, in the time when they lived, there were no laws such as thereare now safeguarding people's lives. The Tower will have a chapter toitself later on. 

This is all I am going to tell you at present about the City and theEast End, because it is quite impossible to tell everything. In the WestEnd, too, there are many interesting things, and the most interesting ofthem must have chapters to themselves; for instance, the palacesbelonging to the King, and the hospitals which are entirely forchildren. But there are other things which belong to the whole ofLondon, and must be mentioned here. There is, for instance, theEmbankment--rather a long word, but not a difficult one. It means thewall which was built for miles along beside the river to make a road andto prevent the river flooding right up to the houses. In old days, whenpeople had their houses on the water's edge, when there came a high tideor a strong wind, the water washed up over them, and did a great deal ofdamage; so it was decided to build a strong wall beside the river, whichthe water, even in the highest tide, could not leap over. It was awonderful piece of work. It is difficult to think of the number ofcartloads of solid earth and stone that had to be put down into thewater to make a firm foundation, and when that was done the wall had tobe built on the top. But though the river had been banked up it couldstill make itself disagreeable. In 1928, driven by strong winds and hightides, after much rain, it flowed up over the Embankment in some placesand broke through in others. It flooded many houses, and some peoplewere drowned. The river also helps to cause fog; it seems as though ithad gone to the smoke demon to find out what they could do to bespiteful, and they had agreed they could not do anything each byhimself, but that together they could be very nasty. So every now andthen the damp air which rises from the river, and the heavy smoke whichcomes out of the hundreds of chimneys, join together and make a thickblack veil, and hang over London and come down into the streets so thatpeople can't see where they are going, and when they breathe their nosesand mouths are filled with nasty, dirty smuts. You who are Londonchildren know Mr. Fog-fiend very well. When you wake on a morning inNovember and find the room still dark, and are told it is time to get upwhen it looks like the middle of the night, then you know the fog hascome; and he visits rich and poor alike. There is no keeping him in theEast End. 

With all her money and her cleverness London has never found outanything good enough to tempt Mr. Fog-fiend to go right away. No, hecomes often, and stays, perhaps, for weeks together, and the eyes ofchildren smart and their throats feel thick, and they find it so dull todo lessons by artificial light; and when the time comes for the dailywalk they cannot go out, because they might get run over, not being ableto see. And everything is very quiet, for the omnibuses and taxi-cabshave 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 whenthey cannot see the sun, which may be shining brightly in the countryall day long. Mr. Fog-fiend has many dresses; sometimes he puts on awhite one instead of a black one, and that is not so bad, because it isquite light, but just as if soft white shawls were hung in front of youreyes so that you couldn't see. But it is even more dangerous to try tocross the road in a white fog than in a black one. It is like livinginside a big white cloud. Then there is a yellow dress, which is theugliest of all. It is like yellow smoke, and it gets into people'sthroats and makes them cough, and it steals into all the rooms so thateven the lamp across the room looks quite dim; and the air is full ofit, and you taste it in all your food. But it is lucky that there arenot always fogs in London, or no one could live; they only come in thelast months of the year or the very early ones, and in the summer Londonchildren do not see fogs any more than country children do, thoughperhaps the sun does not shine always quite so brightly in London as itdoes 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, becauseI was afraid of confusing you with too many things at once, but youought to know now. You can tell for yourselves which side of London itis 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 isthat once Westminster and London were two separate places with longgreen fields and hedges lying between them, but the houses grew and grewuntil they met. Westminster is very proud, and though now she is mixedup with London, she says, 'I will be a city, too. ' And so she is a citywithin London, but there is no difference that you could tell betweenthe 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 somemore things about this wonderful town of London, which can swallow awhole city like Westminster and allow her still to be a city, and yetnot feel any indigestion!

CHAPTER III

THE KING'S PALACES

In the last chapter I said something about the King's palace. One of thefirst things that foreigners ask when they come to London is, 'Wheredoes the King live?' and when they see his London house they are quitedisappointed, because Buckingham Palace is not at all beautiful. Itstands at one end of a park called St. James's Park, and it is a hugehouse, with straight rows of plain windows. In front there is a bareyard, with high railings round it, and beside the gate there aresentries on guard. The palace is large, but very ugly, and anyone seeingonly 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 Palaceis very magnificent inside, and if you saw it on a day when the ladiesgo to Court to be presented to the King and Queen, you would no longerthink it dull. In the time of Queen Victoria, the ladies who wished tobe presented, which means to be introduced to the Queen, had to gothere in the daytime, and as they were obliged to wear evening dress andto have waving white feathers in their hair, and sometimes had to waithours and hours before their turn came to kiss the Queen's hand, itcannot have been much pleasure to them, and they must have felt oftenvery cross, especially when it was cold. But since the reign of KingEdward VII. , the Drawing-rooms, as they are called, when ladies arepresented to their Sovereign, are in the evening, and Queen Mary has hadgarden parties where young girls are 'presented' too, in afternoondress. It is not very interesting reading about descriptions offurniture, so I will only say that the great staircase in the palace isof white marble, and in the throne-room there is crimson satin and muchgilt, and the walls of the rooms are hung with magnificent pictures, andeverything 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 belongedto a man called the Earl of Arlington, and in his time no one in Englandknew anything about tea. Beer was generally drunk at every meal--beerfor breakfast, beer for dinner, beer for supper! But this Earl boughta pound of tea in Holland for sixty shillings, which was a great deal togive, for a pound of tea now costs about two shillings. And he broughtit home to his house and made the tea there, so that it seems verylikely that the first cup of tea ever drunk in England was made whereBuckingham Palace now stands, and I expect there are very few people whoknow that. 

At the side of Buckingham Palace there is a big garden with highside-walls. In this garden are held the royal garden parties attended bythousands in gorgeous raiment, including many Eastern potentates, aswell as ambassadors, generals, admirals, and others in uniform. Marlborough House, which was used by Queen Alexandra, King George'smother, during her lifetime, afterwards became the home of the Prince ofWales. 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 notso convenient. With its rambling courtyards and turrets it really looksold. You shall hear about its history presently. 

The Duke of York, the second son of the King, is married. It was a joyto the nation when he chose for himself Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, daughter of the Earl of Strathmore. Their baby daughter, PrincessElizabeth, has already won all hearts. 

All the children in our Royal Family have been very carefully andproperly brought up. The Queen is an excellent mother and has set anexample to all mothers. Not only have they received a special education, including the fluent use of many foreign tongues, but they have beentaught manners and self-control and unselfishness. It is not so easy tobe a good prince as some of you might think. The Prince of Wales mustoften be bored by all the hand-shaking and set speeches he has toendure, but he must always look pleased, and remember that though he issick of these things yet the people he is speaking to consider it theoccasion of their lives. 

The Prince's ready smile and pleasant nature have endeared him tothousands beyond the seas. And in his tours to India and the Dominionshe has done more to bind together the British Empire than any statesmanwho ever lived. He and his next brother, the Duke of York, are muchattached to one another. The Duke, who is still affectionately spokenof as Prince Albert, is of a serious turn of mind, and has already takenup philanthropic work for the hospitals and other institutions. Thencomes Princess Mary, the only girl in this large family, and a greatfavourite, not only with her brothers, but with the whole nation. In1922 she married Viscount Lascelles, and has two sturdy boys, Hubert andGerald. That she and her next brother should marry thus into the noblefamilies of Britain has drawn the ties between the nation and RoyalFamily closer than before. 

Prince Henry, the third son, is in the army, and has proved himself asportsman, excelling especially in polo and tent-pegging. He has chosenthe 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, whichshows that, as well as being full of fun, he can also be verythoughtful. The nurse who was looking after him said he must go to sleepand not talk any more, so he answered: 'Well, I'll just say one thingmore, and then I'll go to sleep. You know, nurse, that if I live I shallone 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'llmake a law that no one is to cut off the puppy dogs' tails; then I'llmake a law that no one is to put bearing-reins on horses. ' As he wassilent, 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. Itwas first built by King Henry VIII. , and very many of the kings andqueens of England have lived there. If you guessed all day you wouldnever guess what stood here before the palace, so I will tell you. Therewas a hospital for poor women who had leprosy. King Henry VIII. Hadbought a good deal of the park, and he thought he would like to have thehospital too, so he just took it. It was what he was in the habit ofdoing when he wanted anything. But our kings and queens never do thatnow. King Henry turned out the fourteen poor women who lived there, butsome people say he gave them money to make up for taking their home fromthem, and we hope he did. Then he built St. James's Palace. WhenCromwell had beheaded King Charles I. , there were some exciting times atSt. James's Palace. King Charles's children, the Duke of York and theDuke of Gloucester and the Princess Elizabeth, were kept in prisonhere, 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 tothe river, and took a boat, and so went down the river and escapedabroad, and was safe from his enemies. Afterwards, when England foundout what a mistake she had made, and how wicked she had been to kill herKing, she called back her King's son Charles to be Charles II. The Dukeof York was his younger brother, so when Charles II. Died withoutleaving any children, the Duke of York, who had escaped from the palacedressed like a woman, became king as James II. The night before he wascrowned he slept at St. James's Palace, and he must have thought of thedifference between his position then and when he had had to run away interror 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 init, 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 leftfor the birds, on the other part were put up wooden offices for theclerks in government employ. Not far off you can see the permanentGovernment offices, where the men who have been appointed to do all thebusiness of the country work. In the middle is the Horse Guards, wheretwo magnificent soldiers on black horses are on guard. They have shiningarmour and helmets and waving white plumes, and look very splendid; butit must be rather dull for them sitting there on their horses for somany hours without moving until they are relieved by their comrades, whotake it in their turn. 

In one of these great buildings, called the Treasury, all the work aboutthe money which England has to spend on her soldiers and sailors isdone; and in another, called the Admiralty, all the rules for the lifeof 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 SpringGardens, and people used to go there to dance and enjoy themselves; herethere were cows, and fashionable ladies used to get up early in themorning and go to drink the milk which had just been taken from thecows. At this place there was a spring of water, which used to start upfrom the ground if anyone walked over a particular piece of ground, andso pressed the grass with his foot. Sometimes a person did not knowthis, and would come walking quite gravely along and tread on thatplace, and a great stream of water would jump out of the ground all overhim, and the other people would shout and laugh with amusement to seehim so unexpectedly drenched. We would not like that much now--we shouldthink it rather rude and unkind to laugh at such a thing; but people hadrougher manners then. Now there are houses built nearly all over SpringGardens. King Charles I. , who had spent the night before he was murderedat 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 comesfrom Pall Mall, which was the name of an old game Charles II. Used toplay here. It must have been rather a funny game, and no one plays itnow. The players had long mallets, which were not quite like croquetmallets, but more like golf clubs, and they had a wooden ball about thesize of a croquet ball, and they tried to hit the ball through a hoophigh up in the air hanging from a pole. It must have been difficult andrather dangerous to have a ball as big as a croquet ball hopping aboutand jumping up in the air, but we do not read of any accidentshappening. 

Another palace in London, which is some way from the others and inanother park, is Kensington Palace, and this is not now used by the Kingat all, but he allows some ladies and gentlemen to live there. Thispalace will always be of very great interest to all of us, because itwas here that good Queen Victoria was born, and here she lived when shewas a little girl. Do you remember my telling you about KensingtonGardens 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 andplay in the gardens every day ever think of the childhood of littlePrincess Victoria. You know, when she was quite a little girl, it wasnot known that she would be Queen of England, because there were otherpersons between her and the throne; but they died one by one, so that atlast every one knew that Princess Victoria would one day be Queen ofEngland. But no one ever guessed what a long and glorious reign shewould have--longer than any other English Sovereign who has reigned; andnot only longer, but better. Her uncle, King William, who reignedbefore her, was an old man, while she was still quite young, and he diedvery suddenly in the night; so the Archbishop of Canterbury and one ofthe most important Ministers of State rode off at once to KensingtonPalace to tell Victoria that she was now Queen. They arrived about fivein the morning, and, of course, everyone in the palace was asleep. Sothey knocked and rang and thumped, and at last they made the porterhear. But when they told him to tell the attendants they must seePrincess Victoria, her maid was sent for, and she told them she had notthe heart to wake the Princess, for she was in such a sweet sleep. Sothen they said: 'We have come to the QUEEN on business, and even hersleep must give way to that. ' So the maid went away again and wokePrincess Victoria. Fancy being awakened out of your sleep to be toldthat you were Queen of England! Victoria was told she must not keep thelords waiting, and so she threw a shawl round her nightdress and slippedher feet into slippers, and went through into another large room withall her long hair hanging down; and when they saw her those two greatlords fell on their knees and kissed her hand. She was only eighteenthen, and she had before her such a wonderful life. It is said that shehad known for a little time before this that if anything happened to heruncle she would be Queen. So she was not quite unprepared, and when shehad been warned of this, her first exclamation was; 'Oh, I will begood!' Which showed she was good, for I think most people would havebeen rather proud about it, and would not have thought just at thatmoment of being good. 

Kensington Gardens is one end of a great park, and the other end iscalled Hyde Park, where the fashionable people drive in the afternoons. There are now many who prefer to drive in motor-cars, but there are afew who still use open carriages, with the fine horses tossing theirheads proudly as they trot. It is a great pity to see that so manypeople will put the rein, called a bearing-rein, upon their horses. Thisforces the poor animal's head up high, and holds it there, until hisneck 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, andnever mind that he is suffering pain. But to anyone who really loves ahorse there is nothing beautiful in this, and the horse looks far morebeautiful when he is free and holds his head high, or tosses it justbecause he likes to do so. 

The flowers in Hyde Park are often lovely, and in summer when they areout, and form a background for the shining cars in which people wait forthe Queen to pass, there is no grander sight to be seen anywhere. OnSundays, when it is fine, a great many fashionable people go to walk upand down in the Park after they have been to church, and then there aremany smart dresses to be seen. 

There is a great piece of water here called the Serpentine, because itcurves round like a serpent, and anyone can hire a boat and go for arow, and sometimes the whole of the water is covered with boats. Atother times in the winter, when the ice is safe, there are hundreds andhundreds of skaters to be seen. And in the mornings very early a goodmany men and boys go here to bathe, so that the poor old Serpentine getswell used; but perhaps he likes it, and it keeps him from feelinglonely. 

During the Great War the open spaces of the Park were freely used forthe drill and training of soldiers, and many people used to go to watchthe fresh-faced young lads springing out of the trenches they had dugand prodding with their bayonets at stuffed swinging sacks representingthe enemy. There is always something going on and something to see inHyde Park. 

CHAPTER IV

TRAINS AND HORSES

London is so large that it takes a long time to get from one end to theother, and the men who go down to the City for their work and come backevery day want means of getting about cheaply and quickly. So there areomnibuses and trains and cabs in numbers. But the trains in London donot run above ground--there would be no room for them in the crowdedstreets; so there are railways in the earth, deep down beneath all thehouses, and on them there are trains that run round in a circle. Thoseof you who have frequently been by the Underground Railway think nothingof it; to you it seems quite natural, for you are used to it. But itreally is a most astonishing piece of work, as you would realize if yousaw it for the first time. Just imagine how long it must have taken tocut out and carry away all the masses of earth that had to be removed tomake a tunnel of such a length--a tunnel which should run right roundunderneath London. The most wonderful thing is that the houses underwhich it ran did not fall down and break through into it. But that hasnever happened, for the men who built the tunnel made it very strong, and lined it with bricks. And all day long, while people are walkingabout in the streets and horses are trotting in the daylight, down belowthe trains in the underground are running, running in the dark. Itcannot 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 depthsof the earth; yet the men themselves seem quite happy. The worst part ofthe railway used to be that as there are not many places where the smokeand steam can get out into the air, they hung in the tunnels and madethe air very thick and bad, and there was, consequently, nearly always asort 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 byelectricity instead of steam. There are other underground railways inLondon 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 streetwhere they want to go to visit their friends or to shop. In these, thefares are on the same system as on other railways: you pay for yourticket according to the distance you wish to go; but in the first oneyou paid twopence for all distances alike--twopence if you wanted to goright from the West End to the City, and twopence all the same if youwere going to get out at the next station. Therefore some peoplenicknamed this railway 'The Twopenny Tube. '

Now, besides these underground trains, which are not seen, there aremany huge motor-omnibuses to convey people about the streets aboveground. These omnibuses are painted in very bright colours--generallyred--and the newest of all are made very conveniently so that thepassengers inside can mostly sit facing the way they are going, as theydo outside. You can go inside or out, and in summer it is a very goodway of seeing London to go on the top of an omnibus and watch all thatgoes on in the streets below; in the old days the horse omnibuses wereoften stuffy inside, with no windows to open at all, and it is a wonderanyone could be found to go in them. When the motor-omnibuses are fullthey carry a great many people. Those of the latest pattern carryfifty-four passengers inside and out. There is now a regulation to makeomnibuses stop only at certain fixed places which are shown bysign-boards with the numbers of the 'buses on them. This saves theconstant 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 waybefore the place they are going to. I have seen a woman--I'm afraidwomen are the worst in this respect--wave her umbrella to the conductorof an omnibus that was going at a good pace, so the omnibus stopped, andthe woman took quite a long time to go across the street to it; and whenshe reached it she asked if it were going to the place she wanted, andit was not, so all the stopping and waiting had been for nothing. Themotor 'buses go very much faster than the old horse 'buses, and as theycarry, also, many more people, altogether, as we have seen, they do morework in the way of conveyance altogether. 

You can go a long way in an omnibus for a few pence, but taxi-cabs aremuch more expensive; they are also very comfortable--no stopping andwaiting for other people then. You are carried swiftly and smoothly toyour destination, unless you are held up by the traffic; and you alwaysknow just how much you will have to pay, as the little clock facebeside the driver marks up the extra payment as the cab covers theground. 

The motor cabs in London are more comfortable than the hansoms were. Butthe old hansom was very good for seeing in the streets, as the driverwas behind and not in front of you. The four-wheel horse cabs seem veryslow 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 interestingthan the modern ones. 

I will tell you a story an omnibus horse told me. His name is Billy, andhe 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 couldnever get it down again into his nose-bag when he wanted to eat hisdinner, 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-likeas they stood side by side one day. Silly things! they're running allday long, and never know how far they'll have to go, while I just havemy one journey a day, and then I go back to my stable. You ought to seethat stable. I live up two stories high, and I walk upstairs to bedevery night. What are you laughing at? It's true. There are threestories at our place, and for staircases to reach the top ones there arelong sloping boards, like those you've seen put for chickens to get intoa 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 couldnot walk up a chicken-ladder, could I? In our stable we stand in longrows, a row on each side, with our heels together in the middle, andheads to the walls, and between the two rows of heels there's justenough 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 ropeacross their heels to keep 'em in, and to show people they must takecare. 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 forfive journeys, and one over. Well, in the mornings I go out with oldSally perhaps, and we trot up to the City and back; it's a matter ofabout 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, andit's a pull starting again, I can tell you. We know when the conductorrings the bell that means to start, and off we go without the drivertelling us, and when the conductor rings again that's to stop; it's easylearnt. At the other end, the City end, we have perhaps a quarter of anhour or twenty minutes, and then we come back. The whole thing doesn'ttake much over three hours, and we're done for that day; but our driverhe has to go on again with another pair, and then another, and so fivetimes 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 everysecond day he is off for two journeys. Once in ten days we get a dayoff, a holiday, while the odd horse, number eleven, he takes the bus inthe place of one of us. We have a doctor, too, to ourselves, and whenwe're ill we get medicine just as you do. Did you say that you had hearda 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 thatyou're giving me? Sugar, did you say? I don't know about that--I'drather not; but if you had an apple now, or a bit of bread, I'll eat itand welcome. '

You see, he was a common horse, this--not a gentleman, but agood-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, notfit to talk to! Now I can tell you all you want to know. Yes, I'm only acab-horse now, it's true, but once I was in a gentleman's carriage--oneof a pair, with a coachman and footman on the box, and my lady herselfused to pat my nose and give me sugar. They were grand times then--thatis, they seem grand when I think of them now--very little to do, and wewere scrubbed and polished until our coats were like satin. In theafternoon we danced round the Park. Yes, I say danced, because there wasa horrid thing called a bearing-rein that hurt us so much that we had todance and throw out our legs, and people said it was splendid. It mademe feel so angry that I didn't know what to do. But then I had a badtemper from the beginning, and it's my temper that has done for me. Oneday I wheeled round and leaped over the traces, and kicked the coachmanhard. We were standing in the mews, and I dashed out and ran away, andthe other horse fell down, and the carriage was smashed. Well, then Iwas sold, and---- But I'm not going to tell you about that. Yes, I knowit's my own fault, and I know I shouldn't have been a cab-horse if I'dbehaved; but I was wicked, and I used to bite, and now I've been whippedand beaten until I daren't do anything. Yes, even now I kick, and I hatemy life and I hate my driver. He gives me sugar sometimes, too; butthat's just because he doesn't want me to run away and dash him off hisbox, but I shall some day. I shall smash him up against a lamp-post justbecause I hate everyone. Oh, it's not a fine life, I can tell you. It'sall very well when I stand here waiting; but perhaps just when I've gotmy nose into my bag and begun to eat I hear a sharp whistle twice, andthat 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 gogalloping round the streets to see where the whistle comes from. Andwhen we find the right house, where someone is waiting, perhaps a manjumps in, and says: "To the station as fast as you can, and half a crownif you do it in a quarter of an hour. " Well, of course, it's my masterwho gets the money, but it's I that have to earn it. So we tear off fullspeed, 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 thestation, and the man inside leaps out and throws up the money and runsoff. Then my master strokes me down, and says: "Jenny, old girl, I'msorry 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 Icared about his bairns! And so it goes on all day long, and at night I'min a nasty stuffy stable with other horses coming and going, until itmakes me wild. I'll be glad when it's all over, I can tell you; but Ihave 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 cabmancould not make her happy. 

There are still many horses in London drawing carts of all kinds andvans, 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 interestingin the ordinary schools in London, for they are like those anywhereelse. But there are some special schools which belong to London, even ifthey are not still actually there; one of these is the Duke of York'sSchool for soldier-boys, which used to be at Chelsea, but has been movedinto the country near Dover. Five hundred little boys, the sons ofsoldiers, who are nearly all going to be soldiers themselves, are heretrained. They are dressed in a scarlet uniform in summer, just likesoldiers, and in winter wear dark-blue uniform, and the school is like abarracks where real soldiers live. The boys come here as young as nineyears old, and stay until they are fourteen or fifteen, and then if theylike it they go into the real army, and are drummer-boys. To see them onSunday is a pleasant sight. They have a chapel and a chaplain of theirown; on Sunday mornings the boys meet together and march up and downlike an army. They march beautifully, keeping step all the time, andwheeling round just as the men do, for they are carefully drilled. Thenthe 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, becausethey are well trained. But it is not long. It is a bright, shortservice, with a sermon, quite short and simple, so that the boys canunderstand it. There are many hymns, and when it is over they go backfor dinner. Dinner is very important, but before I tell you about that Iwill tell you what they get to eat for all their meals. They have cocoain the mornings for breakfast and bread-and-jam or bread-and-butter, andthey 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 andapple-sauce. I don't know if you like apple-sauce, but the soldier boysdo, and they think it is waste to eat it with pork; so they leave ituntil they have finished their meat, and then spread it on their breadand eat it separately. Afterwards there are plum-puddings, an ordinarybig plum-pudding for every table, and at each table there are eightboys. Each boy who sits at the head of a table marches out and marchesin 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 fourpieces; 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 isa pretty big bit that, an eighth of a plum-pudding, but it all goessomewhere; and the boy who cuts it has to be very careful to see that hedoes it quite fairly, so that no one gets more than anyone else. I thinkthe plum-pudding and the pork must be a good mixture, for you hardlyever see elsewhere such bright-looking faces as there are here. 

There is a big playground, with plenty of room for games and sports, andthere are long bedrooms, called dormitories, with rows of neat littlebeds. It is a good thing to think that these boys are growing up happyand good, and passing on into the army to be among England's bravesoldiers. When it was decided to move this school into the country manypeople were very sorry, but all agreed it was better for the boys. 

There is another school very like this one for sailor-boys, only thatis not in London either, but a long way down the river, so there is notmuch use in describing it here. There are homes for soldiers' daughtersand for sailors' daughters, too; there is nothing very different aboutthem from an ordinary school. 

Another school which belongs to London, though it too has now gone intothe country, is the Foundling Hospital. It seems funny to call a schoola hospital, but in old times the word 'hospital' did not mean, as itdoes now, a place for sick people, but any place where people were caredfor and made comfortable. This is rather a sad school in some ways, forit is a home for the poor little children whose parents have desertedthem or who have no parents; and the faces of the children are quitedifferent from those of the boys in the Duke of York's School. TheFoundling Hospital is a very large place indeed, and there are in itboth boys and girls, who stay until they are old enough to earn theirown living. The Hospital was begun many years ago by a kind captain of aship, who had seen places like it when he went to foreign countries. Hedid not quite know how to begin, but he was sure there were many poorlittle neglected children in London who must need a home, so he gavemoney to some men and asked them to see about it for him; and these menput a notice in some papers, saying that any baby under two months oldthat was brought would be taken in and no questions asked. You would beastonished at the number of babies that were brought; it seemed quiteimpossible that so many mothers could want to give away their littlechildren. And it was really like giving them away, for when the babieswere taken into the hospital the mothers never came to see them; and ifthey did come to the school many years after and saw all the childrenrunning about, they could not tell which was their little boy or girl. Sometimes the nurses used to keep a locket or some little thing broughtwith a child, so that if ever it was wanted they could say which childbelonged to which mother, but they never told anyone which was which. And many children had no locket or any other kind of token, and whenthey grew up they did not know who they were or who their mother andfather had been. Many were just left at the door, and others were putinto a big basket hung outside the door, and left there until someoneinside the hospital heard them crying and came and took them in. And itwas no wonder they cried, because sometimes the men or women whobrought them stole all the clothes and left the poor little naked babyin 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 veryfunny some of them were; Richard No-More-Known was one little boy whodied at five years old. Dorothy Butteriedore was another, because thelittle 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 ofJane Friday-Street that she went to service aged six. Poor little JaneFriday-Street! She must have been too much of a baby to do any work; onewould have thought she needed a nurse herself. The girl called GraceThat-God-Sent-Us ought to have been a very good girl, and there wasanother Jane That-God-Sent-Us, too; and there was a boy called JamesCinerius, because he was found on a cinder-heap. 

After a good many years it was found that there were far too manychildren left at the Hospital, and they could not all be kept; and sothe men who looked after the place made a rule that the mother mustbring her child and tell all she could about it, and if she was verypoor, and the father would not give her money or take care of her andthe child, then the child was taken in and kept. 

For a long time past babies who came to the hospital have been sent tothe country, and now the older ones live in the country too. Then, whenthey are fourteen, the boys have to learn some trade to earn theirliving, or become soldiers, and the girls begin to work as littleservants. The boys wear coats and trousers of a kind of chocolate colourwith brass buttons and red waistcoats, and the girls' dresses are thesame colour, and have trimmings of red. On Sundays the girls wear a highsnowy-white cap and a large white collar, and they used to sit in thegallery of the chapel, the girls on one side of the organ and the boyson the other. It was one of the sights of London; many people used to goto the chapel on Sundays to see it. 

After chapel the children march to their dining-rooms and walk in, andstand round the table and sing their grace before dinner. On Sundaysthey get mutton and potatoes and bread, and on some other days meat andpotatoes, and on some days fish and pudding. For breakfast they havebread, with butter or dripping, and boiled milk, or cocoa, or porridge;for tea they get bread-and-butter and milk, and for supper bread, withcheese, butter, or jam. 

It is a very good thing to think they are all being well taught andlooked after and helped to turn into honest men and women, but it isvery sad to think there are so many boys and girls whose parents don'twant them, and will willingly give them away; and we can't help feelingthat it can never be quite a happy place, for every child must feel thatit is only one in a crowd of others, and that no one loves itespecially. 

In old times it was the fashion for good men and women to found schoolsfor children where all the children had to wear a particular sort ofdress, and some of these were called Blue-coat Schools, and someGreen-coat, and some Gray-coat; but they are very different now, and thechildren don't wear the dress they used to. There is one very bigschool, which went from London into the country, called the Blue-coatSchool; this is just like any other school where big boys go, exceptthat the boys never wear hats, and have bright yellow stockings and along sort of skirt on to their coats, which must be very awkward forthem when they want to play cricket or football. What do you think theydo with it then? They just tuck the long skirt into their belts, andrun about like that, and very funny it looks. They will find this dresseven more awkward in the country than it was in London. The beautifulschool buildings that were begun by King Edward VI. , who was a cleverand 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 pitystill if the curious old dress is done away with and the boys dress justlike all other boys. It must be very odd never to wear a hat, whether itrains or whether the sun shines; but I suppose the boys get used tothat, and would feel uncomfortable in a hat. This school is calledChrist's Hospital as well as the Blue-coat School, so, you see, here isanother instance of the word 'hospital' being used to mean a school orhome. 

In old days the Blue-coat boys used to have a very hard time; their foodwas bad, and they did not get enough of it, and they ate it off woodenplatters. There is a story told that the boys had a custom of nevereating the fat of a particular sort of meat; they called it 'gags, ' andthough they might be very hungry they would never touch this fat. Butone day they saw a boy go and gather up all the 'gags' that hiscompanions had left, and take them away in his handkerchief. Verydisgusting, wasn't it? The other boys thought so too, and they watchedhim to see if he went and ate them himself. But he did not; he slippedaway when the others were not looking and went out into the town. Sothen they thought he went to sell them, and they were very angry, andwould not speak to that boy or play with him, and left him alone; butstill he used to get the 'gags' and carry them away. One day some otherboys followed him, and what do you think they found? That he used totake the 'gags' to his own father and mother, who were very poor andalmost beggars, and had nothing to eat. So the master praised him forbeing a good son, and not minding what the others said when he knew hecould do something to help his poor parents. 

In those days when a Blue-coat boy tried to run away he was shut up in alittle dark cell like a prison cell, and had only bread and water givento him, and saw no one and spoke to no one, and twice a week he wastaken out and flogged. It was no wonder the boys wanted to run away, forthe place was very wretched, and in the great dining-hall there wereswarms of rats that came out at night to pick up the crumbs, and theboys used to go and catch them for fun, not in traps, but in theirhands. I don't think girls would ever have liked that game, and theremust have been some nasty bites and scratches sometimes. 

A very small boy was crying one day when he came back to the schoolafter the holidays, and a master said to him: 'Boy, the school is yourfather; boy, the school is your mother; boy, the school is your brother, the school is your sister, your first cousin, your second cousin, andall the rest of your relations. ' I don't suppose it made that boy feelany better. It is very different now, and the boys are very happy, and agreat many clever men have been taught at that school, but in thoseearly days it cannot have been very comfortable. But this is enoughabout the Blue-coat School. 

In one school the boys play on the roof, because they have noplayground. 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 toovaluable, and is wanted for houses and streets. The school is for thechoir-boys of the cathedral, who sing more beautifully than any otherboys in the world. And if you were walking past the school you mightsuddenly hear a lovely voice rising higher and higher and higher, likea skylark or a nightingale, and this would be one of the boys practisinghis notes. The school is large and the roof is flat, and all over thetop and at the sides are high railings filled in with wire, so that theballs at cricket or football can't jump over the edge and come down onthe heads of the people walking in the street below. That would be asurprise, wouldn't it? to have a great football drop out of the sky onto your head. It is a funny idea, playing up there among the chimneysand the roofs, and I don't think it can be very clean; I expect the boyshave always to wash their hands before they put on their pure whitesurplices and go into the great solemn cathedral to sing. There is goingto be a chapter in this book telling something about the cathedral ofSt. Paul's, so you will remember this about the choir-boys when you cometo it. 

CHAPTER VI

LONDON MARKETS

There are seven millions of people in London. That does not give anyidea of the real number, but if you were to begin now and count hard forthree days and nights, you would not have counted a million then, evenif you never stopped to eat or to sleep. Just think of it, that greatcrowd of people all wanting to be fed, and many of them wanting threegood meals every day! If all the carts in the world were to be marchinginto London the whole time, you would think they could hardly bring foodenough for this multitude of people. Yet somehow it is done, and it doesnot 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 allthe meat come from, and the fruit and the flowers and vegetables, andall the things that must be kept fresh? Where does the shopman buythem? The shopman gets them from the markets, and the markets get themfrom the country. There are many great markets, and to-day we will visitthree of them--that where we can see the meat, and that where theflowers and vegetables are, and that where the fish are. The flowermarket 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 expectit 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 verydifficult to get there at all unless you can bicycle or can walk a longway without being tired. 

Early one Saturday morning, then, when the light is still dim, and wehave the streets all to ourselves, we start. It is so quiet. Not eventhe milkman is about yet, and the blinds of the houses are all down. Thewhole of the inhabitants of London seem asleep except you and me. We goright down into the City by London Bridge, and then in a very narrowdark 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 shoutingand pushing, and everyone is trying to get in and out of the market atonce. The market, which is called Billingsgate, is a great big placelike a barn, and when once we have pushed in among all the rough men andwomen there, we see a wonderful sight. You would think you were at theseaside from the smell, for there are great lumps of seaweed lying aboutamong the fish on the slabs, and they bring the breath of the sea withthem. Here is a crawling pile of black lobsters; they are alive, andthey turn bright-red when they have been boiled. Poor lobsters! theycan't think where they have got to, and they are stretching out theirlong whiskers and looking about with their great goggle eyes, and theman who wants to sell them is shouting, 'Come, buy! come, buy! finefresh lobsters alive, alive, oh!' All the fishmongers in London must behere, you would think, there are so many; and they buy the fish in greatquantities, not as we do in the shops by the weight, but by thenumber--so much for each fish, whether it is big or little. And thenthey sell them for more money than they gave for them to the people whowant them for breakfast and dinner, and so they make their living. Salmon, the king of all the fish, is always sold by weight, though, evenin this market. Look at the salmon--huge silver fish lying on thestalls, with their scales gleaming in the early light. When they are cutopen their flesh is pink, and all the other fish have white flesh. KingSalmon was taking a little exercise one day, dashing about in the saltsea or sailing up the river, perhaps, when he ran his great stupid headinto a net, and the more he struggled the worse it was, and strong as hewas--as strong as a fairly big dog--he could not break that net, and sohe was hauled out and brought to shore, where he died. Or perhaps he sawsomething very attractive in the water, and made a rush at it, only tofind a cruel hook firmly fixed in his mouth. He might dash away or liequiet, but wherever he was he knew the hook was still there; and when hewas tired with all his struggles, the fisherman at the other end of theline began to haul it in gradually, and poor old salmon was drawn nearerand nearer to the land, and at last picked out of the water with alanding-net. And now he lies at Billingsgate, waiting for someone to buyhim and take him to a shop to sell him again to be eaten. All roundthere are many cries--indeed, a noise such as you never heard before. What you hear is something like this: 'Haddock and cod, come buy! Finefresh fish, fresh cod, buy, buy! Here you are; couldn't buy any finer. All this lot for ten shillings! Look here! look here! Whiting andturbot! crabs crawling all alive, alive, oh! Shrimps do you want? Fineshrimps, the very best! Here you are, buy! buy!' and so on, everyoneshouting out to make the fishmongers buy their fish. Perhaps a crabcrawls too near the edge of his stall, and falls over with a crash, andthe man who owns him picks him up and throws him back, and off jumpsMaster Crab again as quick as you please, and does just the same thingagain. You would think he would not want to tumble down: it must hurthim, even through such a thick shell; but he thinks if he goes on longenough perhaps he'll find again those lovely rocks all soaked with thegreat sea tide, which somehow he seems to have lost. So he goes onscuttling about and tumbling down until someone picks him up and throwshim 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 againor hearing the water rushing in over the seaweed. 

He was perhaps lying under a great mass of seaweed in a deep pool, whena pole came walking along and poked into his side. He did not want it atall--in fact, he got quite angry with it, and shook himself free; butthat pole only waggled about, and stuck into him again, and at last heseized 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 overthe pool wanted. So the pole was pulled out with Master Crab sticking toit, and the man caught hold of him so neatly that he had not time to usehis claws, and popped him into a bag, and he has never found the seasidesince, and now he never will again. But perhaps he would not mind somuch if he knew that Mrs. Crab did not miss him at all, for she went outto seek him when he did not come home, and she smelt a piece of deadfish, just the very thing she liked most of all. So she crawled up theside of the funny basket that was lying in the water, and found that thebit of dead fish was inside it. But that did not matter, for there was ahole at the top; so in popped Mrs. Crab, and there she had to stay, forshe could not get out again. She tried and tried, but the hole was madewith bits of stick pointed inwards, so that she could not get up to itfrom 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 theirbaskets, they were quite pleased, for they found not only Mrs. Crab, but four of her friends whom she had invited inside because she feltlonely. So Mrs. Crab went to the market too, but it was not to the samemarket as her husband, and she did not meet him again. All those shrimpslying near were caught by boys with nets. The boys ran into the waterwith bare feet, and thrust their nets along the sandy bottom, and eachtime they came out they picked out the shrimps from the net and threwthem into a pail, and only the very strongest managed to hop back on tothe sand again; nearly all of them went to market. 

But while we have been looking at these things the market has beengetting emptier; and now there are only a few young lads left, who havelittle barrows and carts, and are called costers, and they are walkinground the stalls and picking out what they will buy after thefishmongers 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 havebrought 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 therevery early; but we can go to the meat market, which is not at all apretty sight, and a long way off. But it is very wonderful. Here thereis selling going on quite late, until about ten o'clock, perhaps, andeven to the middle of the day the place is still busy. It is a hugeplace with a great glass roof, and there are rows of stalls with narrowpassages like streets between them, and everywhere are great masses ofraw meat. It is a city of meat; you walk down lanes of meat--meateverywhere. All the butchers in London come here to choose what theywill buy, and from midnight onward all is bustle and business. Some ofthe meat comes to the market in vans, but the greater part comes bytrain. Right under the market there is a place scooped out in the earthlike a cellar, and the railway lines run in under there, and then fromthe vans standing on the lines it is easy to lift the meat up into themarket. Outside there is a great square, and in the early morning thissquare is filled with carts of every kind waiting to carry away the meatwhich the butchers buy. But all the meat does not come from England. Agreat deal of it comes from over the sea, from Australia and NewZealand, for England herself would never have enough to feed all herpeople. Close to the market at Smithfield there is another, wherenothing but poultry is sold. Rows and rows of dead chickens go every dayto fill all the shops--good chickens and bad chickens, the chickens thatobeyed their mothers and the chickens that didn't; they come here justthe 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 youwere grown up and had been to a ball in London, you might see, when youwere 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 hungbeside him. This is one of the carts bringing in the vegetables thatLondon wants for her dinner next day. London itself is like a greatogre--eating, always eating. You remember the story of the giant whoused to be quiet so long as the people brought him enough to eat? Andhow all the people in the country used to work day and night to bring incartloads of things, for fear if they allowed him to go hungry he wouldeat them instead? The giant could swallow up those cartloads as if theywere spoonfuls. And so it is with London. Men work day and nightbringing, always bringing, cartloads of meat and fruit and vegetables, and London swallows them all up; and next day there are more carts andmore food from the country, and so it goes on always. 

In the middle of the night, when most people are fast asleep, the manwho wants to sell his flowers or vegetables at Covent Garden Market mustbe up and out. In the dim light he harnesses his horse and lights hislamp. Perhaps his faithful dog watches him, and runs about quite pleasedto be going for a walk, even if it is in the middle of the night. Thenthe man starts off on his long, slow journey into London. Mile aftermile over muddy or dusty roads, through villages where everyone isasleep, where not even a dog barks, on and on to London. It may be verycold, 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 alittle boy, and takes him too, and you see the little boy, when the cartis coming back empty in the morning, lying sound asleep on the strawdead tired, while his father drives home. 

All the carts gather up to the market, and then they are unloaded. Onebrings vegetables, and another fruit, and another flowers, and by twoo'clock everything is in its place and ready to be sold. Then the buyerscome--shop people again, greengrocers and fruiterers--and they lookround 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 arearranged. It is lovely--like a huge flower-show. Of course, the flowersare different at different times of the year, but in the early summeryou can see banks and banks of roses, all colours--red and yellow andwhite--and masses of sweet-scented carnations and lilies and heliotrope;and the smell is very sweet, so different from the market atBillingsgate. All the people here, except you and me, are busy peoplecome to buy in order to sell again, and some of them don't look veryrich. Do you see that girl there in the corner with a red shawl and ahat with huge untidy feathers all out of curl? She is a flower-girl, andshe is going to spend two or three shillings on buying a basket offlowers. These she will do up into little bunches, and if she is luckyenough to sell them again she will make a few shillings before theevening. When she has chosen her flowers she goes away and sits down ona cold stone step, and begins pulling them about and blowing into theroses to make them open, and if you feel as I do you will not care tobuy them then; you would much rather she left them just as they wereand did not finger them. But she thinks people will be more likely tobuy them if they are carefully arranged. When she has done she startsoff to walk a long way to a stand where she goes every day, perhaps aplace where two or three streets join and there is an open space. Thereis one in the West End, where there is an island of pavement betweenlines of traffic north and south, east and west; the flower-girls sithere all day. They don't seem to mind the rain or wet at all; they arequite used to it. They don't pay anything for being here; but they arevery angry if another comes and takes their place, and the girl or womanto whom it belongs will perhaps fight the newcomer, and then thepoliceman has to come and separate them. 

Some of these places where the flower-women sit are made quite beautifulby the baskets of flowers. In the spring, when the daffodils are out, itlooks as if a patch of sunshine had fallen from the sky into the darkstreet. But all these flowers don't come from England. A great many aregrown 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 agreat cup of strong coffee and an immense hunch of bread or cake forbreakfast, or perhaps he goes to the public-house at the corner; but atany rate, before he goes back, he has something to eat, and then hepiles up his baskets, now empty, in which he brought the things andstarts off home. One of the most surprising things at Covent Garden isthe 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. Thecushion is to make it soft and prevent the hard wood of the box hurtingtheir heads, and they carry a huge boxful in this way more easily thanyou or I would carry a book. 

Long years ago, when London consisted of only a few houses andWestminster of another few houses, this market, which is now in themiddle of streets, was really a garden, and it belonged to a convent fornuns, and it is strange that it should be like a garden still with allits 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 andchildren at play, but we have not yet seen any of the poor littlechildren who cannot run about as others do, who have to be still, andwho very often suffer pain. A lady began a school for poor children whowere ill. She had been visiting poor people, and she had found out thatsometimes a mother had to leave her sick child the whole day long alonein one dark room. And very often these children were not ill for alittle time only, as any of you might be, but ill always from babyhood, without any hope of getting well. To take one case, little BeatriceAnnie Jones had a mother who was a widow, and used to go out to scrubpeople's floors and clean the houses; that is what is called being acharwoman. She had sometimes to go quite a long way to her work, andcould not come back in the middle of the day for dinner; so in themorning before she went she used to give Beatrice Annie a bit of breadand an egg, if she had enough money to buy one, and a few sticks, and alittle pan with water in it. Then she used to tidy up the room and goaway, leaving the child alone. The door must be locked, for a thiefmight come in and steal the few bits of things there were. The windowwas dirty and very high up; Beatrice Annie could only see out of it byclimbing on a rickety chair, and she could not stand there long, for ithurt her legs and back, for they were not like other little girls' legsand back, but weak and painful, so that she used to drag herself aboutthe floor on all fours, like a baby, rather than walk, even though shewas 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 thoughshe was very light and small, her mother was too tired to carry her downafter her day's work. Beatrice Annie was suffering from a disease verycommon with poor children, called rickets. It means that the bones arenot strong--they are like chalk, and will break very easily; even a falloff a chair might do it--and it is sometimes caused by the children nothaving had enough milk when they were babies. 

When her mother left her alone, Beatrice Annie used to look round theroom and sigh. It was a very dreary room. When you are ill, everyonebrings you nice things--flowers and jellies and pictures--to pass thetime. 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 solonely that she would have been glad if even a little mouse had come toplay with her; but the mice did not come to that room; there were notenough crumbs to please Mr. Mouse. Beatrice Annie could not read; shehad never been to school, for she was not strong enough. So she sat fora long time on the wooden floor and wondered what she should do. She hadone dirty wooden doll, dressed in rags, and for a little time she washedits face, wiping it with a bit of rag dipped in the corner of the littlepan 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 whenshe managed it, after trying several times, she could not stay long, itmade her legs ache so; and the street was very far down, she could notsee anything interesting. So the weary day went on. Long before oneo'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 towait before at last the old stairs creaked and her mother put the key inthe 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'sbeing left alone, and she always tried to bring home something for herto cheer her up. 

'Look, Beatrice Annie!' she cried, as she opened the door. 'What heverdo ye think I've brought for yer?' And she held up a bunch of redradishes for a treat. 

Well, when this lady found out that there were many children likeBeatrice Annie, she said that there might be a school just for such poorsick children, and that they could do as much or as little work as theyliked. Several rich people joined in sharing the expense of starting theschool, and one doctor gave a carriage that had two seats in it on whichchildren could lie right down, and others where they could sit. Then agood kind nurse was found, and every morning the nurse went round andcarried out or helped all the little sick children who were well enoughto come, and took them driving in their own carriage to school. She hadto begin very early, and go backwards and forwards several times, forthe carriage did not hold a great many children at a time, and therewere so many who wanted to come. She took them to a school in TavistockPlace, not very far from the British Museum, in a part of London calledBloomsbury, and by ten o'clock all the children were there. 

Then they began work, a little reading and writing, and a few sums; butthey were always carefully watched, and if any child seemed tired shewas made to stop and lie down on a sofa. At twelve o'clock dinner-timecame. At first a few of the children used to bring their own dinners, and as the mothers were very poor, sometimes the dinners were verynasty, 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 ofnewspaper, and show some cold herring, which smelt horrid. Or anotherwould bring out a lump of greasy pudding, as heavy as lead. So it wasarranged that if the mother could give a few pence, varying from threehalfpence to threepence, according to her means, the children shouldhave dinner at the school, and for these sums it is marvellous what adinner they get. Beef and mutton, with vegetables, light puddings ofmilk and fruit, and sometimes rich people send game, and then thesepoor little gutter children have dinners like princes and princesses. 

Though it is in the middle of London, there is a beautiful gardenbehind, which belongs to the Duke of Bedford, and he allows them to playthere, for the house to which it belonged is now pulled down. Some ofthe children go hopping about on their crutches, and even play gamesupon the smooth turf under the great shady trees. After being out for anhour, they come in and do such interesting work. All sorts of thingsthey 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. Sothat when they grow up and leave the school they may be able to earn aliving for themselves. 

At about three o'clock the carriage comes again, and they begin to gohome. 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 livedin, or about history, or about plants and animals. They had nothing tothink of to make them forget their pain. They could just sleep or liestill all day, like little animals. Now they are bright and happy. If byany chance they cannot go to school, or the carriage does not come, they cry bitterly. There are other schools begun now like this one, soperhaps 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 anyschool, and then it must go to a hospital. There is one of thesehospitals 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 wellcan be taken in here and made comfortable, and saved as much pain aspossible. 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 redflannel jackets when they sit up in bed, and have a tray put across thebed, and upon it for them to play with are the toys that kind peoplehave sent. The rooms are divided into two parts, for boys and girls, andthe children are received between the ages of three and ten, so thereare no tiny babies here. The large windows are down to the ground, sothe children can see what is going on outside, and I will tell you whatthey see: first, the Embankment; I have told you about that. It is likea broad road, and taxi-cabs and bicycles and many other things arealways passing and repassing. Then the river, up which the salt seatide rolls every day, and when the weather is very cold and stormy thegray 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 itbefore it can touch the water, so quick are they. 

On the river there are, in summer, pleasure-steamers crowded withpeople; these stop at a pier quite near the children's hospital, andsometimes they are so full that not another person can get on. Thenthere are great barges going slowly along, dragged by a littlesteam-tug; perhaps there are three or four barges one after another, solow in the water that it almost washes over their decks. They carrygreat piles of hay or coal further up the river, and they look likegreat lazy porpoises being towed along by the fussy little steamer. Ifthey are coming in with the tide, so that the current helps them, theydo not need the steam-tug; but men stand up at one end and help thebarge along, and guide it by a huge oar called a sweep. Some of thesemen and their wives live always on these barges, and earn their livingby 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'tbring fine frocks with her; but that doesn't matter, for it isn't likelythat she has any. The faces of the men and women get quite brown withbeing out always in the open air. It is a queer life that, always goingup and down, to and fro, upon the gray water, watching the red sun sinkat night and seeing him rise again; watching the sunlight ripple in thewater by day, and seeing the lights from the shore shine out sparklinglike jewels at night. 

The barges are quite low and have no funnels, so they can pass under thebridges; but the steamers have to bow down their funnels when they cometo a bridge, and then they raise them up again, as if they were verypolite gentlemen saying, 'How do you do?' to the bridge. 

Well, the children in the hospital can see these things, and for thosewhose beds don't face the windows there are looking-glasses so arrangedthat all that goes on is reflected in them, so that it is like awonderful picture-book, changing all day long. Though they look sohappy, poor children! some of them suffer dreadful pain, and it is sadto think this hospital is for incurable children--that is, children whocan never be well in this world. 

In one room there is a large picture; I am sure you have seen one likeit. It is Jesus Christ standing at a door, knocking, and the door isfast shut, and briars and brambles have grown all over it; but stillChrist stands knocking, hoping it may open. In His hand there is alantern, and the picture is called 'The Light of the World. ' Now, thereal picture, the one that the artist painted, from which all the otherslike it have been printed, was painted just where this children'shospital is; for the artist, whose name is Holman Hunt, had a housethere before the hospital was built. So he gave a very large copy of hispicture to the children, and wrote under it that it was from the artistwho made that picture, in that place, to Christ's little ones. 

There are other hospitals for children, which are for all sorts ofillnesses and not only for incurable ones. There is one in Chelsea, notfar 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, andso the nurses have plenty to do looking after these mites. Sometimes achild is very naughty when it first comes in, and will do nothing butscream and cry, and the nurses have to be very patient; but it alwayshappens that when it has been there for a time it loves them all so muchthat it cries when it gets well and has to go home. It is a funny sightto see a nurse or a sister having tea with perhaps three or fourchildren who are well enough to be up. They climb all over her likelittle kittens, and love her so much she cannot get rid of them. In thishospital each ward is named after some member of the Royal Family:Helena Ward, Alice Ward, and so on, after the Princesses Helena andAlice, daughters of Queen Victoria. 

There is a home for cripple girls in London, and another for crippleboys in a part of the West End called Kensington. Here the boys aretaken in and taught, not only lessons, but all kinds of things that boyscan do without having to walk. Some are tailors, and some make harnessfor carriage-horses, and some carve wood, and learn carpentering orshoemaking. And so they can earn their own living when they grow up tobe men. They all seem very happy, and when you meet them on a walk it isa touching sight; but yet not really sad, because their faces are brightand happy. Fancy meeting twenty or thirty boys going along together, every one of them lame or deformed in some way! Some go on crutches, andsome 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 ifit was like what she had expected, she said, 'No, ' and when I asked howit differed from the idea she had had, she said: 'I expected to see longrows and rows of houses, going on for miles and miles, but I neverthought there would be so many things in the streets--cabs and omnibusesand 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 thefirst time, especially if they came in what is called 'the season. ' Theseason lasts for three months--May, June, and July--and during that timethe people who live in the country, but are rich enough to have housesin 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 pointof being in London during the season; and many other people, who aregay and rich, come up to town just for those three months to meet alltheir friends and see what is going on. So the streets in the West Endare very full indeed. In the beginning of May, when the fine weathercomes, people in costly motor-cars appear in the Park in greaternumbers, until at the height of the season there are rows and rows ofthem. If you were to go to the Park any fine afternoon about that timeof the year and were to stand near one of the great gates at Hyde ParkCorner, you would see all the traffic drawn up in double lines, with thewell-dressed women inside the carriages waiting for something. They areinterested in seeing H. M. The Queen, who is very fond of driving in thePark. Perhaps also there may be with her the popular Duchess of York, from her house in Piccadilly, and possibly baby Princess Elizabeth. Whenthe royalties come there is quite a stir of excitement. The great irongates opening on to Constitution Hill are thrown open--they are onlyopened for royalty; everyone else has to go through the side gates--andthen there is a flash of scarlet liveries, and the crowd of peoplestanding in the open space before Hyde Park call out, 'The Queen, theQueen!' And the much-loved Queen drives smiling through them, bowingthis way and that, with that gracious manner that has made everyone loveher; and the men raise their hats and the ladies wave theirhandkerchiefs as the carriage dashes across the open space, kept clearby the police, and goes into the Park, where all the waiting carriagesare. The Queen has another lady with her, or perhaps her only daughterwho has now a home of her own, and they drive round and round the Parkseveral times, enjoying the fresh ah. 

The streets of London are in some places very narrow--too narrow toallow tram-cars to run through them as they do in some other largetowns, and at the height of the season the blocks in the traffic in someof the West-End streets are quite alarming. Imagine a tightly-packedmass of vehicles, restive horses in splendid carriages, hugemotor-omnibuses, smart automobiles, taxi-cabs, and tradesmen's vans, allsqueezed together. Perhaps the policeman has held up his hand at acrossing to let some carriages get across from a side street, andeverything has had to stop, public and private alike. Stand up on thetop of an omnibus and look this way and that: what can you see? Rows androws of great omnibuses crowded with people, both outside on the roofand inside, all waiting just because one man has held up his hand. Nothing astonishes foreigners more than this; indeed, some people say itis the one thing Frenchmen like most to see in London--the power of thepoliceman. He has perfect control of all the traffic, and if he says athing 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 policemenlittle 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 Frenchpoliceman would run about yelling at them and waving his little whitewand and shouting to them to stop, and when they took no notice he grewmore and more angry until he was almost frantic--so different from ourcalm, grave policeman with his majestic arm. Sometimes, when the roadwayis thick with carts and cabs and carriages, there is a roar in thedistance, a shout of many voices that makes your heart stand still. Itcomes again, louder and louder, nearer and nearer, and all the vehiclespull to one side and make a lane down the middle of the road. Right upthis lane dashes a shining fire-engine, with the smoke and sparks flyingout 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 farquicker than it takes to tell. In a minute they have dashed out ofsight; then the traffic closes up again. But there is another shout, another roar, and another engine follows the first; the firemen clingingto 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 thirdcomes, and then follows a great red ladder on wheels, pushed by men onfoot--that is a fire-escape. The fire can't be far away, so we run afterthe excited crowd, and soon come to a street blocked with people, whereflames and smoke are shooting out of the windows. It is a house wheremany girls are employed in a dressmaking business, and some of them havebeen got safely out; but there are others at those high windows, screaming for help and stretching out their arms. The brave firemenbegin to send great spouts of water on to the raging flames; they put upthe fire-escape, and one man mounts it, going right into the smoke. Hebrings down two of the girls from one story, and disappears for a momentinto the room; then he comes back, for the flames are beating fiercelyon him. In the wild confusion no one seems to know if all the girls areout or not; but presently one cries out that two are still in theback-rooms, now blazing fiercely. Up go the firemen again and plungeinto the windows right into the flames. A long time elapses. We hold ourbreath; it seems as if the brave men must have perished. Then there is acheer as a fireman appears with something in his arms. It is a girlunconscious; gently he lowers her down the ladder, and goes again tohelp his comrade. They reappear and come down in safety. Are all outnow? No; for all at once, at the end of the building furthest from thefire-escape, a woman appears shrieking wildly. She cannot wait, thoughthe men shout to her to do so; there are flames behind her clutching ather, 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 isheld, and a hush falls on the crowd as she plunges down. Hurrah! theblanket has caught her; she will be no worse. All are out now, but stillthe flames are fearful, and the houses on either side are threatened. The firemen play water on to them to keep them from catching alight, andan incessant stream of water spouts upwards from the great hose. Theroof goes in with a crash, but it is seen that the water is doingsomething--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 putout. If we came to see the house next day, it would stand up bare andsmoke-blackened, just four walls, with the roof burnt out, thestaircases gone, and inside only a mass of rubbish. Someone will have topay heavily, but, at any rate, at this particular fire no lives havebeen lost. 

The Fire Brigade is a wonderful power, and the brave men who belong toit perform heroic things in daily life without making any fuss. Thereare brigade stations all over London, and if a fire breaks out, it takesonly a few minutes for the brigade to be summoned. Not so very long agoall the engines were drawn by specially trained horses who stood readyin their stalls, with the harness swinging above them. At the firstsound of the alarm bell the harness was lowered, the straps buckled, andin a few moments the fire-engines were on the road. But now all theLondon fire-engines are run by motor power. In the streets there arelittle red posts with a glass at the top. By breaking it a bell is rungin the nearest fire station, and the men are warned. Mischievous boys ormen sometimes broke these glasses 'just for fun, ' and then ran away, andwhen 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 anyoneis caught doing it now without cause he is made to pay richly for hismischief, and quite rightly too. Yet it does happen sometimes that menand engine are summoned on a false alarm, and when they arrive they findonly a smouldering chimney, or perhaps even only a smoky one, and thepeople who have called them up have been needlessly alarmed. AtHampstead, in the north of London, where the ground is very high, thereis a great tower rising many feet into the air, from which one can seealmost all over London, and here there is a man always on duty to watchif fires break out. Of course, it would be a pretty big fire if he couldsee it from there, but then he could communicate with the neareststation and tell them to go to it. It must be a curious duty to stay allnight at that great height overlooking the vast city of London. Sometimes a fire breaks out in some of the great warehouses down by theriver, and then there is a magnificent sight. One such warehouse wasfull of paraffin oil, and you know paraffin burns more readily thananything else. As the barrels were caught by the flames the oil streamedout on to the water, and, floating on the top, seemed like a sea offlame. It must have been wonderful to see. The heat was so great thatno one could go near, but on the opposite bank thousands of peopleassembled and watched the flames. There were flames above and flamesbelow, fire shooting to the sky, and fire flowing down on the river'stide. The water reflected the fire above, and the fire that floated onits surface. It must have seemed like a burning world. That was a verydifficult task for the brigade. 

Sometimes the brave men themselves are injured or killed in theexecution of their work, and at all times when engaged with a fire theyrun some risk. 

But we have got a long way from the street where we saw the enginedashing down through the traffic, and we must come back again. All thebustle and the fuss that we have been talking of is on the roadway. Whatabout the pavements? The pavement is often just as crowded, and thoughpolicemen don't hold up their hands to prevent people walking there, yetit is often quite a long time before you can get through, especiallyoutside 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 oneside of the street, with very pretty windows full of beautiful things, many nursemaids come to wheel babies in perambulators. This is not forthe 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 goslowly along two together, talking of all the fine things they want tobuy, and staring with mouths and eyes round as saucers at the thingsthey see. Now two nursemaids with two perambulators on a narrow pavementdo not leave much room for anyone else, and people get tripped up andhave their toes crushed by the wheels, or have to step off into theroadway to make way for Selina Ellen and Martha Theresa, who are far toomuch interested in their conversation to make way for anyone. Once afunny thing happened. An old gentleman was strolling along very slowly, and Selina Ellen, never looking where she was going, pushed herperambulator into him from behind. It took the old gentleman right offhis legs, whereupon he sat down backwards on to the perambulator, babyand all! Poor baby! no wonder it screamed; it was a mercy it was notsquashed up altogether!

Yet there is some excuse for Selina Ellen and her kind, for the shopsare very beautiful. Those of you who have only seen shops in smallcountry towns can hardly imagine what they are like. The greatplate-glass windows stretch down the side of a street, and if you goinside the shop you walk through room after room of beautiful things, all arranged to show to the best advantage. The toy department would beenough to make any little girl or boy happy even to look at it. Thereare toys large and toys small; engines that can be wound up to run bythemselves; horses large enough to ride upon; balls of all colours andsizes; and dolls--oh, the dolls! Dolls black-eyed and brown-eyed andblue-eyed, dolls fair-haired and brown-haired, dolls dressed andundressed. It is perhaps just imagination, but it always seems to me ifwe could be there when the shop is shut up for the night and left quietwe 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 longwere putting away the ribbons and laces and folding up the greatcurtains and the dress-stuffs to leave everything tidy for the nightbefore they went away to their homes. They had been there since nineo'clock that morning, and were very tired, for people, even ladies, aresometimes very tiresome when they come to buy; but the young men andwomen have to be very polite always, and never lose their temper, orthey would be sent away. When the shop was just being shut up a ladyhurried 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 littlegirl 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 twobaby dolls, ' said the girl, and she took down one or two from theshelves. 

'Oh no, those are hideous!' said the lady. 'The doll must have browneyes and red-gold hair. '

'I don't think we have any like that, madam. Here is one with blue eyesand----'

'I didn't ask you for blue eyes, ' said the lady rudely. 'If you can'tshow me what I want I must go elsewhere. '

'One minute, madam; I believe there is just one doll such as youdescribe, if it hasn't been sold. '

She looked about, and after a little while saw the doll she wanted on ashelf. She reached up for it and tried to pull it down, but anotherdoll, rather larger, was leaning over it, so that she could not take onewithout the other. She thought the two seemed very close, but shedisentangled them, and laid the baby doll on the counter. As she did sothe big doll fell forward on the shelf, with its arms hanging over as ifthey 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 seemright, I must take it, and tell my maid to sew some lace on to-night tobe ready for Gladys in the morning, ' she said. 

The girl tied it up in a parcel for her, and she left the shop. Veryshortly after this everyone went home, and all was still in the dolls'department; and then suddenly there was a gentle little sniff, just asif a very wee kitten were crying, and a little movement from the shelfwhere 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 wouldhave to go some day. '

'I--I--can't help it, ' sobbed a gentle little voice; 'I did love thatbaby 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 ofhim. 'You did what no doll should ever do--you nearly showed you werealive 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 herso 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 ofdolldom, wherein we all swear never to speak or show a sign that we canunderstand the human world. You have broken the most solemn law in adaring 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 caredvery much for the baby. '

'What are you talking about?' growled the Gollywog. 'We don't want youropinion. We're going to have a trial now, and no women-dolls can sit onjuries, so you won't have anything to say. Provocation, indeed! If shehad pins stuck into her all over, or been roasted in front of a fireuntil she melted, as some dolls have done, you might have talked ofprovocation. She might have squeaked then, though many dolls havebravely endured these things in silence and died; but because ababy-doll she had taken a fancy to went away, to show off like that! Shedeserves death. '

Whereupon he stumped down off his shelf, and hunted about for a man-dollto make a jury to try the poor gentle doll. It was rather difficult tofind, for there were so few men-dolls; but at last he rummaged out of acorner a sailor-boy doll, who was terribly afraid of him, and of him hedemanded:

'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 poorlittle gentle doll gave a shriek and lost her balance, and fell headfirst on to the floor, where she was smashed to pieces. 

When the shopgirls came again in the morning, the one who had servedthe 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 besure; I remember seeing her fall down when I took away the other doll. Iought to have put her back. '

But the Gollywog, who had returned safely to his own corner, chuckled tohimself silently. 

CHAPTER IX

DOGS AND CATS

Have you ever heard of the Dogs' Home? It is for all the poor lost dogsthat the policemen find in the streets of London. Once upon a time therewas a very naughty little dog called Scamp; he had long pepper-and-salthair, and very short legs, and he did not think it was fun to go withthe children of the house he lived in for their walk in the Park: hewanted something more exciting, so he waited until they were notlooking, and then scampered off after another big dog he saw in thedistance. The big dog was very friendly, and began to play and runabout, and Scamp went after him as fast as his little short legs wouldgo; 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 slowlyacross the street to the little strip of grass that was surrounded by arailing on the other side, and if there was one thing he hated it wascats--nasty, cowardly, furry things! So he banged up suddenly, and thecat went off like a shot, and Scamp after her; but when he had chasedher for quite a long time, she ran up a tree, and he could only standand bark. A greengrocer's boy pretended to bark too, and teased him; sohe grew cross, and thought he would go home. But he discovered all atonce 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 thenset 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 andran faster, until he came to a wide street full of shops, and herepeople walking about, and carriages and cabs driving past, and he gotquite bewildered; and then, just when he was in despair, a policemancaught hold of him and looked for his collar. Now, the silly little doghad not got his collar on. Ethel had taken it off that morning to rub uphis name and address, and make them look nice and bright, and when shewanted to put it on again, he had raced round the room and played, andwould not let her catch him until the governess had called out that itwas lesson-time; so Ethel had gone down, leaving the collar lying on thetable, and after lesson-time had forgotten all about it. So the bigpoliceman 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 getdown when the policeman took him up and struggled hard. The policemanonly laughed, and patted his head. 'No, no, my fine fellow, ' he saidgood-naturedly; 'there'll be someone looking for you, or I'm muchmistaken, and I must do my best to let them find you. ' So he took him toa police-station near, and very soon Scamp was sent down with ashivering little fox-terrier to the Dogs' Home at Battersea. 

He did not understand that it was his only chance of getting home; forEthel and Jack's father would know about the home, and send there to seeif he were there first of all. And he thought that the people at theDogs' Home were going to keep him all his life, and he did not like theidea at all. For many dogs it would have been a comfortable place. Therewere nice little kennels and good beds of hay, and plenty of drinkingwater 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 andsleep on the chairs, and be petted and made a fuss with, and nobody tookany notice of him here. He was very hungry, though, so he tried to eata little of the dog-biscuit; but in the middle he suddenly thought ofEthel and Jack and how he loved them, and that he should never find themagain, and he stopped eating because a great lump seemed to stick in histhroat, and he went and sat down in a corner of the yard, just a heap ofgray hair and unhappiness. Presently a man came and patted him and spokekindly to him, but he took no notice. He thought how often he had beencross when Ethel had hurt him in combing his hair, though she had onlybeen trying to make him look nice, and how sulky he had been many timeswhen she wanted to play with him; and he thought if only he could getback he would be so good. All the bad things he had done in his lifecame into his mind as he sat in the yard. He remembered that, when hewas 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 hewas 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 youdidn'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 uncomfortableposition, while she pretended he was a baby. 

He had killed a canary once, and once--it was very sad, and he did notquite know how it had happened--he had got on to the sideboard and eatenthe cold beef while everyone was out at church on Sunday morning. Thebeef had been left there uncovered, and he was very hungry, and it smeltso good. He had climbed on to a chair and sniffed at it, and got alittle nearer and nearer, and all the time he knew quite well he wasdoing wrong. And at last he jumped up and began to eat great juicymouthfuls of it. Oh, how good it was! And he pulled it this way andthat, and the cloth on the sideboard had got all crumpled up, andsuddenly down went a dish of beetroot with a smash, and all the rich redjuice streamed over the cloth and on to the carpet. He was frightenedthen, and turned to run away; but his broad, flat paws had got into thebeetroot juice, and he left great marks all across the cloth. He heardthe latchkey in the front-door just at that moment, and he ran upstairsand hid under Ethel's bed. Then the family came in, and he heard theircry of dismay, and Ethel called for him; but he only hid deeper underthe bed. And then she came into the room, and said quite quietly, as ifshe knew he was there, though she never looked under the bed: 'Oh, Scamp! how could you?' And his broad tail went thump, thump against thefloor. So he was dragged out and whipped, and he felt very much ashamedof himself. 

Oh dear! if he could only get back to them all he would never do suchnaughty things again!

In the morning two or three other dogs were put into his yard, andthough 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 heexplained that all the well-bred dogs, the good ones, were kept for acertain time to allow their people to come and find them, and if at theend of that time no one came for them they were sold; but the mongrelsand little dogs that were of no value--well, it was very curious whathappened 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 allarranged very kindly. 'And of course, ' said the dog who was speaking, 'it is quite right there should be some distinction between me and amongrel!' She was very proud of herself, being a King Charles'sspaniel, with soft brown and white hair and hanging ears and largegoggle eyes. She came up to talk to Scamp after awhile; but he would notsay anything to her, for his heart was sore within him. Yet what he hadheard gave him some hope. All that day he sat with his face pressedclose 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 twoladies came past--gentle, kind ladies of the sort to which he wasaccustomed--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 whenthey 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 voicethat 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 hewas let out, and she went down on her knees to kiss and hug him, and hejumped about her so wildly that he nearly knocked her hat off. Surelythere 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 amuch worse time than dogs. You remember that a great many of thefashionable people only stay in London for the season, and then theyshut up their houses and go away into the country for several months. Well, sometimes they are so thoughtless as to leave their poor catswithout any food or shelter--they forget about them. But a cat can'tlive on nothing any more than a dog can. Perhaps poor puss has been outfor a walk, and comes back to find the house all shut and silent, andshe waits patiently a long time; but no one comes, and the boys in thestreet throw stones at her. So she runs across to the square, and waitsthere; but still the door is never opened. If she is lucky and clever athunting she may catch a little sparrow or find something in the roadwayto eat; but as the days go on she gets thinner and thinner, and weakerand weaker, and at last, perhaps, dies of starvation unless some kindperson takes the trouble to send her to a cats' home. The cats' homesare much the same as the dogs. If possible the cats are sold, and if notthey are quietly and painlessly killed--a much better fate than starvingin the streets. Sometimes the rich people do remember their cats, butcan'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 isthen well fed and happy; for a cat makes herself happy anywhere whereshe is comfortable much more readily than a dog does, and then when thefamily 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, areused 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 outby themselves for fear of getting lost or stolen, so often a dog has avery unhappy time. There are dogs who are so much accustomed to Londonthat they will follow an omnibus if their master is on it, and keeprunning by the side and looking up and barking. And they do not seem toget 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 smallhouse-dog. 

In one part of Hyde Park there is a dogs' burial-ground, where peoplecan bury their pets. You can see it from the road as you pass, or youcan go in and look at it. It is very full. There are numbers of smallstones like little gravestones put to mark the places where many a loveddog lies. Most of the stones are alike--small rounded ones with thedogs' names on them, and some are flat on the ground. There are flowersgrowing there, and the place is very bright and well cared for. We readhere the names of many dogs--Punch, Dinah, Crow, Ruby Heart, Bogey, andGirlie. Strange names for dogs. The stones do not tell us what sort ofdogs they were, though that would have been interesting. We can't findone in memory of Scamp, and I'm quite sure if he had died Ethel wouldhave had him buried here, so near the gardens where he often ran andplayed. So Scamp must be living still. But other sorrowing mistresseshave lost their little companions, and the inscriptions show a world oftenderness. We read, 'Alas, poor Zoe! as deeply mourned as ever dog wasmourned, ' and 'Darling Vic, ' 'Snow, a dear friend, ' 'Loving littleCharlie, ' 'Our faithful little friend Wobbles, ' 'Jack, most loving andmost fondly loved, ' and many another. It must have been a happy worldfor such loved dogs as these. 

CHAPTER X

ODDS AND ENDS

This is to be a chapter about all sorts of odd things that cannot befitted in anywhere else. For instance, have any of you heard about theMessenger Boys? If not, I think that will interest you. Someone onceformed a scheme of having a number of boys trained to go messages, ortake parcels, or do anything that was required in London. And he set upoffices all over London, where anyone could get one of these boys andsend 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 officesthere are a certain number of boys always going and coming. They takethe messages in order as they come, and they may get a nice one or anasty one. If you went into one of these offices and saw the boyssitting on a bench waiting, you would soon see how it works. Some of theboys are playing draughts, some are reading, but all are ready at anyminute to go where they are told. There is a young man in charge of theoffice, and someone comes in with a message. So he turns to No. 1, abright, chubby-faced little lad, and says, 'Go to this address and callfor a parcel for this lady, whose name is written down, and take theparcel to her house. Be as quick as you can, and you can take ataxi-cab. ' Off goes the boy, delighted to get such a nice job, and hefeels very important to call up a cab for himself. He knows exactlywhere to go and how much to pay the cabman, for he has learnt all thatbefore. The next boy is a big, awkward-looking lad, very tall for hisage, and the young man laughs a little as he gives him a message: 'Youare to call at No. 50 in this street, ' he says, 'and the lady will handover to you two children aged three and four. You are to take them tothe Zoo and let them have a good time, and bring them back before sixo'clock. '

The big boy makes a face. He does not fancy this idea at all; it is likebeing a nursemaid, and he thinks how silly he will look with two weechildren. And all the other boys are grinning; but he cannot refuse. Heis like a soldier, and must do just what he is told. So off he goes andasks 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 acrown for himself in addition to his fee, he feels he has had a goodday. 

Some time elapses when he has left the office before smart little No. 3gets anything to do, and then he is told to go to King's Cross Stationto meet two schoolboys and see their luggage is safe, and take themacross to Charing Cross. When he gets there he finds both the boys arebigger than himself, but they are country boys going to school for thefirst time, and are very frightened and bewildered, and little No. 3cheers 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 oftheir time is spent in taking notes about. You can see them anywhere inLondon in their neat dark-blue uniforms with silver decorations. Once agentleman walked into one of the Messenger Boy offices, and saidquietly, as if he were saying nothing extraordinary, 'I want a boy totake a note for me to America. '

The man in charge showed no surprise, but only asked when the boy wasto start. The gentleman said he might go the next day, which would givehim time to get his clothes together. 

The boy who was next on the list was called Jaggers, and he was abright, intelligent little lad. He ran home eagerly to ask if hisparents would let him go, and having got permission, he went offcheerfully the next day across the Atlantic Ocean to New York. Hearrived safely and delivered his message, and then went on to Chicagoand Philadelphia, as he had been instructed. He returned in eighteendays, 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 ofsilver for each place he had gone to. I think many a boy might have beenfrightened when told to go off to the other side of the world sosuddenly. 

After Jaggers another boy did an even pluckier thing. His name wasHalsey, and he was sent to California, which is on the other side ofAmerica, much further than New York, and he had to go right across thecontinent and find the way all by himself, and he was given no time toget ready as Jaggers was, but started almost immediately. That boyafterwards fought for England in South Africa in the Imperial Yeomanry, and is now in a responsible position in the Messenger Service. Anotherboy was sent to the Sultan of Turkey to take a dog as a present. I thinkthat must have been the most difficult to do of the three things, forthe dog might have died on the way, and when the boy got to Turkey hewould have the disadvantage of being in a country where a foreignlanguage was spoken. These are exceptional cases, of course, but theboys are still sometimes sent to the Continent with messages. But enoughabout the Messenger Boys. 

There is a sight to be seen in London nearly every evening, andparticularly on Saturday evenings, that always seems to me to be mosttouching, and that is the rows of little children waiting outside theshops for food that is sold cheaply. In great shops which sell food thatsoon perishes--for instance, fish, or fruit, or bread-stuffs--there isoften a certain quantity left over at night that will not be quite freshin the morning, and so it is sold cheaply, and it is this that thechildren of the poor come to buy. Some shops almost give it away. OnSaturday night, outside a pastry-cook's, there was a row of patient boysand girls, each with a basket or bag, and some had been standing therefor a long time, because it is a case of 'first come, first served, ' andno pushing is allowed. As another little child arrived it took up itsstand at the end of the row, and waited until the time came for closingthe shop. Then each child paid so much--say sixpence--and got a largequantity of bread, and so much cake, and if there was not enough to goround the last ones had to go away without any. 

At the fish shops there are different ways of doing this at differentshops. At one big shop all the fish that is over after the day's sale isdone is put into a large basket--there may be a piece of cod, andseveral small fish, and some whiting or mackerel--and then each childpays 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 poorlittle bairns watch eagerly until their own turn comes. See that big bitof cod? That would make a Sunday dinner for all of Ellen's people, andEllen watches it anxiously. There is a very small girl in front ofherself, and Ellen nearly cries when she sees the man put it into herbag; but she cheers up again when a whole fish, of what kind she is notquite sure, but still it looks very good, is passed on to her. There isno waiting afterwards. How the little feet run home, and how the shrilllittle voices cry, 'Mother, mother! look what I've got!' But it may bealso that a disappointed little girl goes away, crying softly, for shecame too late, so she had to stand quite at the end of the row, and whenher turn came there was nothing left. 'No more to-night, ' the shopmansaid cheerily, and seeing the pale, wistful little face, he added, 'Comein better time another week, little girl. '

The little girl stole away quietly, but when she got to a dark cornershe sat down and cried bitterly; it was not so much for the sake of thefish as because she knew she would get a beating from her drunken motherwhen she went home without it. Yet she could not help it; she had had somuch to do that day--work, work, work from morning to night, partly atschool, partly at home--and she had run to the fish shop as soon as evershe could, only to find herself too late. Children, there are sad timesin the lives of little girls such as these which none of you will everknow. 

But, as we have said once or twice, the lives of street children are byno 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 ofthe streets you can see the boys running about on roller skates--bits ofwood on tiny wheels, strapped on to their boots. The smooth Londonpavements 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 theroadway among the feet of the people walking, without minding in theleast. There are tops all over the streets at some times of the yearspinning gaily. The girls have their skipping-ropes, which are apt to bea nuisance to the people who want to walk on the pavements; butsometimes there is a side alley where no one goes, and here the childrencan 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 thepavement with white chalk, and then hop from one to the other kicking abit of stone along the pavement with their toe; they must send it intothe next square at every hop, and they must not put the other foot tothe 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 asquare, 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 childrendance; they don't mind that it has travelled in wind and weather forperhaps ten years, and that it has lost all tune it may have had, andonly grinds out a horrible noise: they like the noise, and dance up anddown holding their little skirts, or twirling one another round in greatenjoyment. The streets do not allow of wild, romping games, and it wouldbe dangerous to dash about and try to catch one another, so most ofthese are games that can be played on the pavement in safety. 

The children who live near parks are luckier than those who have onlythe 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, insummer, as far as you can see there are boys playing cricket. They areso 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 nextgame. Some of them have real wickets, and at one end there is acarefully kept ground where men play; but some of the little boys haveno wickets, and only a bit of wood for a bat. So they get a stick fromsomewhere and make it stand up in the ground, and then hang one of theirshabby little coats round it to make a wicket; but they shout loudlywith joy, and enjoy themselves at their game just as much as the biggerboys 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 thestones with coloured chalks. Sometimes he does them very well, and makesscenes of battles and views of pretty places or ships at sea, but atother times they are hideous and badly drawn. He does this in order thatpeople may give him pennies as they pass. He is not allowed to beg, andif he tried to the policeman would come and take him up; but he doesn'tlike hard work, so he sits beside his pictures and holds his cap outpiteously, and very often people give him pennies in passing, so hemakes a living without too much trouble. But unless he is old orcrippled, he ought to be doing better work than this. There are always agreat many odd men who have no work to do in London; there are some whoearn a living by going about in the early morning, when people put theirdustbins out, and picking out anything that they think they can sell--adisgusting trade; others used to watch until they saw a cab with luggageon it, and then they ran after it sometimes for miles and miles, andwhen it stopped they would offer to carry the boxes upstairs. These mencertainly earned their money, for they had to run fast and far, and tocarry a box up the flights and flights of stairs in a London house isnot an easy task; but, unfortunately, they were generally men who wereout of work through their own fault, who had been drunken or idle orrude, and they were not at all pleasant to deal with, and sometimes theymade themselves very disagreeable if they didn't get what theyconsidered enough money, and refused to go out of the house until apoliceman was fetched. So it is as well perhaps that now this means ofextorting money is impossible, for no man could run fast enough to keepup with a taxi-cab. 

The barrel-organ man we have already mentioned. He is frequently anItalian, and has a dark-haired woman with him, and she wears a redhandkerchief over her hair to make her look more foreign; and they gofrom house to house grinding out their awful tunes, and they get verywell paid, for the people in the poorer shops and in the foreign partsof London like the noise, and give them pennies. Sometimes the man has amonkey, which always attracts the children. Other men walk about withbarrows selling ice-cream; this is sold at a half-penny a time, and thechildren lick it out of little glasses and have no spoons: one wondershow often the glasses are washed. But that does not trouble the littlestreet children at all; they follow the ice-cream man in throngs likeflies in summer whenever it is hot. Poor little bairns! they have nomilk 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 inthe 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 sandwichedbetween two great boards, which he carries on his front and back. Onthese are written in large letters the name of a new play, or arestaurant, or anything else to which someone wants to attractattention. These men are paid a very little each day; they are hired alarge number together, and walk along by the side of the pavement withtheir great boards one after another, so the people passing in thestreet read the boards, and perhaps go to see the play or to dine atthe restaurant. The men are bound to keep on walking always together allday, and they very often are ashamed of their work; for they may havebeen something better than this, for to be a sandwich man is about thelowest work a man can do, but, at any rate, it is earning moneyhonestly, 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 storiesconnected with London, though they are generally rather sad ones. Therewas once a boy who became Edward V. , King of England, who had a sad lifeand a short one, and though he was a prince and a king I am sure hewould much rather have been neither. His father was Edward IV. , and hehad not become King of England by inheritance, but because he had wonthe crown by fighting. 

Before him Henry VI. Was king, and Edward claimed the throne by right ofhis birth. So they fought, and there was a civil war. You know what thatis--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, hisside called themselves Yorkists, and wore a white rose as a badge; andHenry VI. 's side called themselves Lancastrians, and wore a red rose. Edward was very strong and very handsome, and a great many peopleadmired him and fought for him because they thought he would make a fineking. And Henry was weak and feeble; but then he was king already, andhis father had been king before him; so a great many people took hisside for that reason. While they were still fighting Edward marriedsecretly a beautiful woman, a widow, called Elizabeth Woodville, andsoon after this he was so successful that he found he could settle inLondon and have himself crowned king, while Henry and his wife and sonhad to fly to Scotland. Then Edward told his great nobles that he wasmarried, and for a time all went on well. Edward and Elizabeth were veryhappy. They lived in great state, and soon a little daughter was givento them, and they called her Elizabeth. All the time poor Henry and hisbrave Queen Margaret and his son Edward were hiding away in lonelyplaces. Little did they think then that the time would soon come when itwould 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 inprison in the Tower of London, and then, no doubt, he felt he wasvery safe. But Edward had a follower called the Earl of Warwick, avery powerful man. And he was angry, because he had wanted the King tomarry a sister of the King of France; but the King had not done as hewished, for he had married Elizabeth Woodville. So the Earl of Warwickwaited for a good opportunity, and then raised up a disturbance inYorkshire. 

King Edward was frightened when he heard of this, and travelled north toquell the disturbance. And Warwick, who was in the north himself, seizedhim and made him prisoner. It was very bold of him to make the Kingprisoner in his own country. Now there were two kings in England bothprisoners--Edward in Yorkshire and Henry in London. However, King Edwardwas 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 ofHenry VI. , and with her he persuaded the French King to get together agreat army to go to England and fight against Edward. This was asurprise for Edward, who had never expected it, and he could not gettogether enough men to fight against Queen Margaret's army; so he had tofly, and he went over the sea to Holland. But he did not take his Queenwith him; he left her in England with her children, for by this timeshe had two other daughters besides Elizabeth, called Cicely and Anne. Poor Queen Elizabeth was in great distress; she did not know where to goor whom she could trust. But she was advised to go to the Sanctuary atWestminster. You have heard of Westminster already, and you remember itis a part of London, and at that time one of the King's palaces wasthere. 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 anywickedness and fled there he was safe; his enemies could not take himout. That was why it was called the Sanctuary, and it was like thecities of refuge in the Bible. It stood quite near to the place wherethe Abbey stands now, and many hunted people rushed there for safety. 

The Sanctuary was very dark, and had hardly any windows, and insidethere was a chapel. There was a flat roof, so that anyone who had gonethere for safety could climb up to the roof and peep over to see if hisenemies were waiting until he came out. It was not the sort of place fora queen, and I should think Elizabeth must have felt very sad and lonelythere. Perhaps she had only straw to lie upon instead of a soft bed, andbad food to eat instead of delicacies, and the darkness must have beenterrifying. Every moment she expected to hear the footfalls of a manrunning with a message to say her husband had been caught or evenkilled, because, of course, there were no papers or telegraphs; all thenews was sent by word of mouth or by messengers. Little Elizabeth wasonly 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 darkplace; but perhaps the Queen explained to them something of the reason. It is very odd that little Elizabeth was afterwards Queen of Englandherself. She married the man who was on the Lancastrian side and claimedto be king when Edward her father and her two brothers were dead, andHenry VI. And his son were dead also, and so the York and Lancasterlines were joined in one. 

Now while the Queen and her little daughters were there God sent themsome 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'sanxiety, and was, I dare say, quite as happy as most babies, and he musthave brought some brightness with him for his mother and sisters. 

After this Edward IV. Took heart again. Perhaps he felt that now he hada son to succeed him he must win back the throne, and he returned toEngland and fought again, and this time Queen Margaret and her men werequite defeated, and her son was killed. He was an Edward, too, and hewas then about eighteen. Now Edward IV. Was triumphant, and returned toLondon, and the very day he came back his enemy Henry VI. Died, so therewas no one to fight any more just then. 

Cannot you imagine what a happy time that would be when Elizabeth showedher husband the new little baby-boy? They christened him Edward afterhis father, and as he grew up he was always treated like a prince, andeveryone knew that one day he would be king after his father. He had abrother also, called Richard, two years younger, and some other sistersyounger still, called Katherine and Bridget. Bridget sounds to us now avery queer name for a princess, but it was quite fashionable then. Thelittle boys were very beautiful; they learned to ride and play at gamesand to shoot, and do all the other things that young nobles in thosedays were taught. The royal brothers wore fine suits of velvet andsatin, with little daggers at their waists, and their hair grew long ontheir shoulders. We should think long hair silly for boys now, but itwas the fashion then. Even men wore their hair quite long. These boysand their younger sisters, Katherine and Bridget, had always beentreated like princes and princesses; they could not remember the timewhen their father was an outcast and their mother had had to seekshelter in sanctuary. Even the older children would have but a dimrecollection of those days of anxiety and gloom, and would think itquite natural that they should be surrounded by pretty things, and thateveryone should serve them. 

According to a curious custom prevailing at that time, kings sometimesarranged marriages for their children when they were only a few yearsold, and sometimes even when they were babies. All King Edward'schildren were engaged to be married before they could speak! Ithappened, however, that most of these engagements were afterwardsbroken, but little Richard, who was created Duke of York, was actuallymarried 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, forpeople who are not like each other often agree the best. Edward was aquiet, rather clever boy, and Richard was full of fun and verymischievous. They had a great many uncles and aunts, for their motherhad five sisters all married to dukes and earls, and she had brothers aswell. Her eldest brother was Earl Rivers, and he was very good to hisnephews, and they loved him, and were always glad to see him. The boyshad also some step-brothers, their mother's sons by her first marriage, and they liked these older brothers very much. So they had many peoplewho took an interest in them, and I dare say they were a little bitspoilt. 

Their father, King Edward, had two brothers younger than himself. Onewas George, Duke of Clarence, and the other Richard, Duke of Gloucester. The Duke of Clarence was a weak, discontented man, who grumbledcontinually. The Duke of Gloucester was a hunchback, and he was asdeformed 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 hewould 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 believedhim, and had Clarence seized and taken to the Tower. Then Gloucester wasglad, and went about saying all the things he could think of againstClarence 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 Kingsometimes stayed there himself; but he lived generally at the palace ofWestminster, which stood where the Houses of Parliament stand now. Thegreat hall of this palace is still there, forming a part of the Housesof Parliament, but the rest of the building is very different from whatit was in King Edward's time. Then there was a high wall all round thepalace, and within it were streets of quaint old houses, with gables andangles, and in them lived the people who had to work for the King andhis Court--that is to say, all the carpenters, and blacksmiths, andother work-people. And when the King and the princes went riding throughthe streets on great occasions, these people used to hang out beautifulpieces of cloth of many colours--red and blue and gold--so that thecurious narrow streets looked like fairyland. The great wall was aprotection to all the people who lived inside, and made the palace andhouses like a little town by themselves. 

One day when young Edward and Richard rode in after they had beenplaying with the nobles at some sports, they heard that their uncleClarence was dead. They dared not ask how it was that he, a man in theprime of life, had died so suddenly, for their father looked very stern, and their uncle Richard seemed pretending to be sorry. But the truth wasthat Clarence had been killed by King Edward's orders, because Richardhad made up stories about him, and pretended that he had discovered aplot of Clarence's to dethrone the King and make himself King instead, and, unfortunately, King Edward had believed this wicked lie. No oneever knew exactly how Clarence had been killed, but it was whisperedthat, as he was a king's son, he had been allowed to choose his owndeath, and he had chosen to be drowned in a great barrel of wine. Thiswas the beginning of Richard's wickedness, and later he grew worse andworse, for he intended to be king himself some day, and so hedeliberately murdered everyone who stood in his way. He had begun withClarence, who was his elder brother, and who would have been king beforehim if anything had happened to the King and his sons, but he did notstop there. 

Prince Edward was only eight years old when this happened, and Richardwas six. 

Five years more went by, and during that time, though all seemed to bewell, there were really plots and schemes everywhere in the palace. TheDuke of Gloucester was always creeping about after the handsome King andflattering him, and trying to win his confidence. The King still lovedhis wife, Queen Elizabeth, and he gave her relations, the Woodvilles, important posts about the Court and showed them favour. And this did notplease Gloucester at all, for he hated the Queen, and was jealous of herrelations; and so he made up stories against them and told them to theKing, as he had done in the case of poor Clarence, but this time theKing was not quite so ready to believe him. 

But when little Edward was thirteen the King died suddenly, and then theDuke of Gloucester and the Queen's relations both tried to get youngEdward into their own hands, for they thought that a boy so young wouldbe easily controlled and made to do as they wished. Edward, who was nowKing Edward V. , loved his mother and all her family, and wished to beunder the care of his aunts and uncles on her side of the family; sowhen 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 hadplanned 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 soeasily. He had made his brother, the dead King, say before he died thathe was to be young Edward's guardian, and on the strength of that he nowclaimed the young King. Finding, however, that he had already gone tothe country, he sent a message to him saying he must come back, and hehimself started out for the country to meet him half-way. 

You can imagine that Earl Rivers and Lord Grey were anxious when theyreceived that message. But what could they do? If they refused to bringback the little King, the Duke would doubtless raise an army and comeagainst them and compel them to give him up. So they thought the bestway would be to pretend to do as Richard wished, but in reality to keepthemselves very near to the young King and to guard him from harm. Theyset out for London, therefore, bringing Edward with them, and the Dukeof Gloucester soon met them. He had with him a powerful noble calledLord Hastings, who, though he hated the Queen's relations and wasjealous of them, was still an upright, brave man, who would not havehurt a hair of young Edward's head. 

When the Duke of Gloucester and Lord Hastings met the other party, theywere very polite, and so friendly that Earl Rivers and Lord Grey thoughtthat they must have been mistaken, and that the Duke meant nothing butgood; so they foolishly gave up all precautions, and left themselves inthe power of the Duke. Then he seized them, and sent them off asprisoners to a strong tower in Yorkshire. 

Poor Edward V. Was terrified when he heard this, and found that he wasalone with his uncle Gloucester, and he fell on his knees and cried--youmust remember he was only thirteen--and begged his uncle to release theprisoners. Gloucester tried to comfort him, and assured him that he wasonly doing what was best for the safety of everyone. He told Edward thatthese men were bad men, and were plotting against him, and he said thatit was for his safety he had seized them; and then he said that he wastaking him back to London to his mother and brother and sisters, andthat when he got there he should be crowned King. Then Edward was alittle comforted. 

Lord Hastings, however, began to be anxious: he did not like the way inwhich Richard was getting all the power into his own hands; so though hewas no friend of the Queen mother's, he sent her a message to say thathe feared the Duke of Gloucester, and she would be wise to go to a placeof safety. I expect Gloucester found out about this message, for healways hated Hastings afterwards, and never rested until he had punishedhim, as you shall hear. 

When the Queen received the message she left the palace at Westminsterand hurried to the Sanctuary, where she had been once before, and shetook all her children with her. 

A bishop went to see her there, and he wrote a book about it, so we cantell now just how he found her. She was sitting upon rushes, which inthose days were used instead of carpets, and all around her were bagsand bundles and furniture, which had been hastily brought across fromthe palace. The Queen could be more comfortable this time than she hadbeen in the first dark and lonely days, for she had been able to bringsome of her own belongings to the gloomy Sanctuary. All the childrenwere there except Edward. The eldest girl, Elizabeth, was now seventeen, and must have been a great comfort to her mother; yet, in spite of allthis, it was a hard time for all of them, and more so when Richard fellill. Perhaps it was because he couldn't run about as usual; but they alltook great care of him, and presently he began to get better. I musttell you that on the very place where the Sanctuary used to stand is nowa large hospital called the Westminster Hospital; and so where littlePrince Richard was nursed by his frightened mother more than 400 yearsago, other people, and among them children, are now nursed back tohealth and strength. 

To go back to Edward and his uncle. The Duke was still pretending to bea good, kind uncle, and he treated Edward as a king. When they enteredLondon the Lord Mayor and Aldermen came out to meet them. It was asplendid sight. The Lord Mayor was dressed in scarlet, and 500 of thecitizens of London were in violet, and Edward himself, a very handsomeboy, sat his horse like a king, while his long fair curls fell down overhis blue velvet cloak. And the Duke of Gloucester took off his hat andbowed, and said to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, 'Behold your Prince andSovereign Lord!'

Then, as they rode on into the town, he told Edward that he should becrowned in a month. I wonder if Edward believed him? They went first tothe Bishop of London's house, and then on to the Tower; but Edward didnot feel afraid, because, as I said, the Tower was a palace as well as aprison, 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 boysinto 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, mustbe king. And he dared not kill either of them while Lord Hastings wasalive. So he thought of a plan, and this is what he did. He called ameeting of the great nobles to the Tower to talk about business ofState. Lord Hastings came, of course, among the others. At first Richardseemed to be in very good spirits, and laughed and jested; but as themorning went on he grew crosser and crosser, and at last he scowled somuch that all the nobles were afraid of him. Then suddenly he stretchedout his bare arm, and showed them that it was shrivelled and old. Ithad been like that since he was a baby, but now he pretended that it hadonly 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 witchand 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 bekilled?'

Lord Hastings knew quite well that the Queen had not done it; but he didnot dare to say so, so he answered: 'Ay, my lord, _if_ they have donethis thing they deserve death. '

Then Richard roared out in a fury: 'Dost thou answer me with "ifs"? Bymy head! I will not dine until thy head is off!'

And he made a sign to some soldiers he had placed there before, and theyrushed forward and carried out poor Lord Hastings on to the little stripof green outside, and there, before anyone could interfere, chopped offhis head on a log of wood that lay there. No one dare do anything, forthey were all afraid of the Duke of Gloucester; and Hastings sufferedsimply because he had been loyal to his little King. Richard had noheart to feel sorry for his victims; he just mowed down the people whostood 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 whowould have opposed him were out of the way: the King's uncle, Rivers, was imprisoned at Pontefract in Yorkshire, and Hastings was dead. SoRichard's next idea was to get the little Duke of York and take him tothe Tower to his brother, and then he would have everything in his ownhands. 

Even Richard of Gloucester could not go and drag his little nephewstraight out of sanctuary, for the Archbishop would not have allowed it, and all the people would have been horrified at the sacrilege and risenagainst him; so he sent some men to try to persuade the Queen to givethe boy up. 

The Archbishop and some nobles went on this errand, and they found QueenElizabeth sitting in the midst of her children in the dark Sanctuary, and when they told her their reason for coming she said never would shelet Richard go. She knew his uncle only wanted him to kill him, and shesaid of the Duke of Gloucester, 'He hath so tender a zeal unto him thathe feareth nothing but that he should escape him, ' which showed sheguessed his wicked plans. Besides, she added, the boy had been ill, andhe was only a little boy eleven years old, and he was better with hismother than with men in that gloomy Tower. But they told her Edward waslonely and wanted his brother to play with; so she answered that therewere many other boys, the sons of nobles, he could play with instead ofhis little brother, who still was not well enough to play. 

It seems dreadful that these men, who must have known the reason whyGloucester wanted his little nephew, should have gone on trying topersuade the poor mother to give him up; but they did, and they saidthat sanctuary was not meant for children at all, only for people whohad done wrong, and this boy had done nothing wrong, so he could notclaim the right of sanctuary. Then poor Queen Elizabeth saw that theywould take him whatever she said, and she could do no more. So she gavehim to the Archbishop, and said he must be responsible for him, and ifanything happened to the boy his blood would be on the Archbishop'shead. Yet the Archbishop took him. 

So Richard kissed his mother and sisters and ran out, and the firstperson he met was his wicked uncle, the Duke of Gloucester. AndGloucester caught him up in his arms and kissed him, and pretended tobe very fond of him, and took him at once to Edward. The brothers hadnot seen one another for some time, and Richard cried out with surprisewhen he found how tall Edward had grown--much taller than himself, andin the joy of meeting at first they were very happy together. 

The little boys were kept prisoners in the Tower, and suddenly theyheard that all the preparations which had been made for Edward'scoronation were going to do for the Duke of Gloucester's, and that hewas going to make himself king even while his nephews were alive! Cannotyou 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. Thencame the dreadful news that his two dear friends, his uncle Rivers andLord Grey, had been beheaded in Yorkshire. And, worse than all, somepage came talking, and said before Edward that he believed his uncle wasgoing to have him to walk in his train at the coronation--walk behindhis uncle like a page!

Perhaps Edward cried out, and said furious things at this; for if everthe 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 prisonerswithout harming them; but now he saw that every year they grew olderthey would be more dangerous to his plans, and so he resolved on aterrible deed. 

He sent for Robert Brackenbury, the keeper of the Tower, and told himplainly that if he would murder the little princes he should be wellpaid. Brackenbury was a brave man, and he refused boldly, saying hecould not do such a wicked thing for all the money in the world. ThenRichard said angrily: 'Will no man do what I want?' And a page who wassleeping on a couch near the door to guard it heard, and answered thathe knew a man who would do anything the Duke wanted. Richard told him tofetch this man, who was Sir James Tyrrell, and between them they made uptheir dreadful plot. Tyrrell was to ask Brackenbury to give him the keysof the Tower for one night, and in that night he would see the deed wasdone. Now Brackenbury could not refuse. He might guess what was going tohappen; 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, andwent away sorrowfully. 

Then in the dark of the night Sir James Tyrrell took with him twomen--rough, odious men, called Dighton and Probyn, who would have killedanyone for money. One was a gaoler at the Tower, and the other wasTyrrell's own groom, and the three crept up the dark winding stair tothe room the boys were sleeping in. Even those rough men were horrifiedat what they had come to do when they saw those two beautiful boys withtheir curling golden hair falling on their shoulders and their facesclose together, sleeping so sweetly. But they remembered the money theywere to have if they succeeded and the anger of wicked Richard if theyfailed, 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 waswaiting, and then, hurrying down the heavy stone staircase, they pulledout some of the great stones at the foot, and buried them there andcovered them up with stones. So that no one knew certainly what hadbecome of the princes at the time. But two hundred years after, in doingsome repairs, workmen came upon the bones of two boys, just about thesizes of the two little princes, at the foot of the stairs, and so thesecret came out. And now, if you visit the Tower, you can see the veryspot where they were buried. 

Well, that is the end of the story of Edward V. , and perhaps he was nomore unhappy dying as an innocent child than if he had lived to be a manand ruled England for many years. But wicked Richard did not enjoy thethrone 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. , whomarried Elizabeth, the boys' sister, and they two were the next king andqueen. 

CHAPTER XII

TOURNAMENTS AND PAGEANTS

In the last chapter I spoke about the young nobles who played with thelittle princes, and of their sports. In this chapter I will try toexplain how very different the lives of boys were then from what theyare now. 

It was the fashion then for the sons of nobles to be taken from theirhomes when they were about twelve and sent to some other nobleman'shouse, to be brought up there and educated. These boys were calledpages, and there were a great many of them about the Court. At thepalace of Westminster especially there would be many, for it wasconsidered a great thing for a boy to be noticed at Court. Every noblewho came to see the King would bring with him some of these pages. Thelife must have been on the whole very pleasant for the boys, but therewere many things in it that were disagreeable. For instance, it was oneof the duties of the pages to wait at table and to carve the dishes onthe sideboard, and they were taught to be very particular, and always towash their hands before carving. We are told of one boy that hisgentility 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 musthave made them red and rough, which would not be very genteel. 

The pages were gaily dressed, with short doublets of velvet and fur, andlittle daggers, and caps with a feather in them, and often they weremuch petted by the ladies, and were much spoilt in consequence. 

The boys joined in all the sports of the time, and there were many moresports 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 afavourite sport, and stag-hunting was very popular. It was part of theduty of pages to know how to skin and cut up the stag. Can you fancy arefined boy of twelve enjoying that? The pages had to ride with theirmasters and lead an extra horse if it were wanted, and they weresupposed always to be bright and courteous. This training served insteadof going to a public school, as boys do at present. As for games, theyhad as many as the boys of the present time. One was the quintain. Thiswas an upright post with two arms at the top, that swung round veryeasily. Tied to the end of one was a bag of sand and to the other ashield. The boy had to run up and hit the shield, and if he did not getout of the way very fast the bag of sand swung round and hit him on theback. Probably they played this in the courts of the palace, where arenow the Houses of Parliament, and where one of the yards is still calledNew 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 muchliked in the days about the time that Edward's sister Elizabeth marriedHenry 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 becalled so. He served some knight and rode with him to the wars, orattended him at home. While he had still been a page he had waited onthe ladies and played to them on the harp, or read to them while theyembroidered; but when he became esquire he very seldom saw the ladies, and was taught to consider them almost as far above him as angels. Forthe next few years he had a great deal to do. He had to dress andundress his master as if he had been a servant. He had to look after hismaster's horse, and when there was any fighting he had to carry a shieldand ride beside his master, ready to die for him if necessary. 

Among the games he played indoors were chess and draughts, both of whichpeople still play. One knight had perhaps many squires, and they wereall supposed to love him very much, and to be perfectly obedient to him. The young squires had games among themselves, and the squires of twodifferent knights had little contests, each trying to beat the others. The squires were able to run and jump straight on to a horse even whenthey were covered all over with heavy armour. They danced and turnedsomersaults, and performed many other exercises to make them strong andagile. Even princes had to be squires before they could be knights, and, if you remember, when Edward the Black Prince was fighting the French atCrecy, he was not then a knight, but was made a knight because he hadbeen 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 whenhe had brought him there he did not treat him as a prisoner at all, buthimself took the part of a humble squire, and waited on the French Kingwhile he had supper. Very few princes would have done that; they wouldrather have gloried in showing their superiority to their captive. Thepalace of the Savoy was in London, further down the river thanWestminster. It is all gone now except the chapel, where people still goto church on Sundays. 

Down beside this part of the river now runs a street with houses andshops on each side, and it is called the Strand. I wonder if you haveever heard of the strand at the seaside? It is an old word, meaning thebeach beside water, and the Strand in London reminds us of the time whenthere was no embankment, but the houses were right on the edge of thewater. Great palaces most of them were, where all the haughty nobleswith their following of squires lived. They have all gone now, thesegreat palaces, but one gate remains, a very handsome stone gate withsteps, and this was the gate of a great palace belonging to the Duke ofBuckingham, and here boats could come up so that the Duke could stepinto one from his stairs at the water gate; but when the embankment wasmade the river was hemmed in, and could not come so far up, and now thegate stands back a long way from the river in the middle of a greengarden. The people used the river a great deal then, going by water aswe go by land, and the water was covered with gaily-coloured barges andboats. 

After being a squire, the next thing was to be a knight. It was notevery 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, orsomething of that kind; but when it was decided that a young man mightbe made a knight, he had to watch his armour alone all night in achurch, and pray to be made worthy, and then in the morning he vowedalways to help the weak and avenge them, and never to draw back or beafraid, and never to use his sword except for the right. Then the Kingreceived him, and he knelt down, and the King gave him a light blow onthe shoulder with the flat side of the sword, and this made him a knightand 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 likereal fighting than play. They put on armour and mounted their horses, and then met to try to knock one another off. These fights were calledtournaments, and all the ladies came to watch them as nowadays they goto watch men play at polo or cricket. The chief place in London fortournaments was a place we have been to already, called Smithfield. Thatis where the meat market is now, and it is still a wide, open square. Agreat many things happened at Smithfield, and we shall hear of it againbefore 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 orpurple cloth, and there were special seats like thrones for the King andQueen; and people came flocking up as if to a fair, dressed in crimsonand gold and blue and green, with clothes made of velvet and silk, muchbrighter than anything we have now, and the men were quite as gay as theladies. Before the time for the tournament, the knights who were goingto take part in it would ride up on their prancing horses; some camefrom the Tower of London, and there is a street not far from St. Paul'sCathedral still called Knightrider Street, because the knights used tocome riding up there to the tournaments at Smithfield. 

Cannot you imagine how a young knight's heart would beat when he firsttook part in a tournament? Perhaps he was just one-and-twenty, and stillonly a boy in heart, and when he rode into that great open spaceeveryone cheered him, and he saw the ladies rising, sitting on tiers ofseats 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 seehim, a girl only seventeen, very sweet and fair and shy, who was amongthe Queen's maids-of-honour, and the young knight could not see her justthen for the crowds of other people there. But he knew that she would bewatching, and that he was to fight for her. For the glove he wore fixedon to his helmet was hers: she had given it to him the day before; noone else knew it was hers. But if he fell off his horse and rolled inthe mud, that glove would be rolled in the mud too, and then he would beso 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 allnervous, and he saw the man he had to fight come riding toward him, abig strong man on a great black horse. The two knights held up theirlong lances to salute the King and Queen and ladies, and bowed to eachother. A trumpet sounded, and the two horses rushed toward one another, the lances came against the strong armour with a crash, and the youngknight felt a wrench, for his horse was thrown back on its haunches; butit recovered itself and dashed on, passing the other knight, until hewheeled it round and came to meet his opponent again. This time, just asthey were going to meet, the horse of the older knight swerved, and hislance, striking crossways, broke in two, and the young knight couldeasily then have knocked him off his horse. But it was considereddisgraceful to strike an unarmed man, so he lowered his lance and rodepast without touching him, and all the people cheered. There was onemore meeting to be faced, only one, and if he could manage todistinguish himself then, that fair girl would be proud of him, andperhaps smile sweetly when he met her again, and allow him to kiss herhand. The thought so fired the young knight that when his opponent hadobtained a new lance and was awaiting him, he came on with such a paceand 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 hisheavy armour until his squires ran across the field and raised him up. Then all the people shouted wildly, and the young knight rode modestlyoff the field feeling very happy. 

If you saw Smithfield now you would not think such things could everhave happened there, for it is so bare and dull, and it was then somagnificent. 

Besides the tournaments, the people of London had many other shows. WhenQueen Elizabeth was crowned there was a wonderful procession. We allheard a great deal about the coronation of King George V. Well, it israther interesting to think that about three and a half centuriesbefore, Queen Elizabeth, when crowned, had a grand ceremony, andafterwards made a tour round the city, as the King of England alwaysdoes to this day after the ceremony has taken place. We have accounts ofElizabeth's procession that tells us exactly what it was like. The Queenwent very slowly and stopped very often, and whenever she stopped achild came forward and recited dull verses to her. It must have taken along time and been rather tiresome. But there were all sorts ofbeautiful things to look at in the meantime. In one place there was ahigh wooden scaffolding built up, and on it figures of Henry VII. Andhis Queen Elizabeth, who was the grandmother of the real QueenElizabeth. You remember how Henry VII. Married her because she was thesister of Edward V. , and so the York and Lancaster sides were joined inone? Well, to show this there sprouted out of the hands of these two waxfigures great boughs of roses, red and white mixed together, as a signthat the red and white roses of York and Lancaster were joined. At oneplace a child came forth and handed Elizabeth a copy of the Bible inEnglish, the first copy that the English people had ever had in theirown 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 itinto English. And everywhere children came out of odd places and saidcurious verses. I have heard one story, though I do not know if it istrue, that a little child had been covered all over with gold paint, andwas to be let down in a swing to greet the Queen as she passedunderneath; and when the time came, and the little gilt child waslowered, 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, becausehistory is too full of sad things, and tournaments and games ought to begay. 

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 missedout. But it is a story that is in some ways rather difficult tounderstand. When Sir Thomas was a little boy he was not Sir Thomas atall, 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 merchantskeep their goods. When Tom was fifteen he was sent, according to thecustom of the times, to be a page. And the household to which he wentwas a very great one indeed, nothing less than that of the Archbishop ofCanterbury, whose palace was not far from Westminster, on the other sideof the river. At this time Henry VII. Was king, and England was restingin peace after the long Wars of the Roses. Thomas waited at table likeother pages, and learnt many things, such as riding and tilting, as wellas 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 grewa little older it was thought a pity he should not learn more, so he wassent to Oxford University. When he had finished his time at Oxford hecame back to London, and became a barrister, and very soon after hebegan to think about marrying. 

He knew at that time three girls, sisters, and he liked the second onevery much; but then it was considered rather a disgrace if a youngersister were married before an elder one. And someone told him that theeldest sister liked him very much, so what did he do but propose to theeldest and marry her. She seems to have been a nice girl, and for sixyears they lived very happily together; and then she died, leaving himwith four children--three little daughters, Margaret, Elizabeth, andCicely, and one son, John. 

More felt that he could not leave his little ones motherless when theywere so young, and so he determined to marry again, and this time he wasnot so fortunate, for he chose a rather plain, cross woman, many yearsolder than himself, who was a widow. He thought perhaps she would be acareful manager, but the choice was unfortunate for him. 

King Henry VII. Was now dead, and his son, the Henry VIII. Who marriedsix wives one after the other, was on the throne. He was very fond ofMore, and often had him at the Court at Westminster, and gave him allsorts of honours and dignities, and finally made him a knight, so thathe was Sir Thomas, and his cross wife could call herself Lady AliceMore, 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 avillage three miles from London called Chelsea. It seems odd to think ofChelsea ever being a village by itself, for it is now all a part ofLondon. The houses have crept on and on, and covered up all the spacebetween until Chelsea is right in London. 

It is still a very pretty place beside the river, with shady trees andbeautiful houses, and in More's time it must have been charming. He hada large house with a garden stretching right down to the side of thewater, and from this he could step into his barge and go down toWestminster 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 veryloving father, but he never spoilt his children, and always took carethat they learnt their lessons. He used to say: 'Children, virtue andlearning are the meat, and play but the sauce. ' When any of themgrumbled at little hardships, he used to say: 'We must not look to go toheaven on feather beds. ' He was very fond of all of the children, but heloved the best his eldest daughter Margaret, Meg as he called her, andevery day as Meg grew older she and her father were more and more toeach other. Meg was clever, too; when still only a girl she could writeletters in Latin and read many very difficult books. 

The home life was rather different from that which we know now. Therewere some pages in the household, boys of good family, who came to learnfrom More as he had learnt from the Archbishop. One of these, WilliamRoper, was a very nice fellow, and he afterwards married Margaret. Thenthere was the Fool. It seems to us now such an odd idea to have a manpaid to make jokes, but in those days it was the fashion. Some man whohad a gift for saying funny things used to live in the household of agreat nobleman and be as amusing as he could, and for this he receivedpayment. More's fool was often rather impertinent, and at one time whenthere was a big dinner, and one of the guests happened to have aparticularly large nose, the fool said out loud: 'What a terrible nosethat gentleman has got!' So all the family pretended not to hear, andwere rather uncomfortable, and when the fool saw that, he said: 'How Ilied when I said that gentleman's nose was monstrous; now I come to lookat it I really think it's rather a small nose!' Well, of course, no onecould help laughing after that, and they all went off into peals ofmerriment, even the poor gentleman himself. 

In the early mornings when the air was fresh and sweet, and in summerthe garden full of roses, More would wander round with his dear Meg, andperhaps the other children would come, too, to look at all the pets. They kept a number of strange animals; there were rabbits, a monkey, afox, a ferret, a weasel, and many others, and the children themselveskept the cages clean, and were taught to be kind to them. Lady More didnot care for these things, she liked better to dress herself verysmartly and lace herself very tight; and when her husband laughed ather, she said, 'Tilly, vally, Sir Thomas! tilly, vally!' just as weshould 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 walkingin the street, who met her with the dog, suddenly cried out that it washers, and the dog knew her, and rushed and danced round her and lickedher hands. Lady More was very angry, and said it was her dog, andordered her footman to pick it up and carry it back home. Thebeggar-girl followed them all the way, crying; but when she arrived atthe house the door was shut, and she was left outside. When Sir Thomascame home that evening in his barge, as he stepped out on the land hesaw a poor little dirty girl with her face all stained with tears. Hewas always kind, so he stopped and asked her what was the matter, andshe told him all her story about having lost her dog. Now, Sir Thomaswas at that time the head of all the judges in England, having been madeLord Chancellor, and he was a very just man, so he would never let hiswife take what did not belong to her. He went, therefore, into his owngreat hall and sent for Lady More; then he asked her to stand at thetop end of the hall, and placed the little dirty girl down at the lowerend. Then he ordered a footman to bring in the dog and hold it in themiddle between the two, and he said that the dog should decide foritself; it must know its own mistress. And when he gave the word the manmust let it go, and both the women who claimed to be its mistress mustcall 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 shecould think of; but the little girl just said the one word, the dog'sname, and the dog bounded toward her in a moment, for it loved her, anddid not care for Lady More. So Sir Thomas said that settled it; the dogclearly belonged to the little girl and not to his wife. Lady More thenoffered the girl much money if she would sell the dog, and as she wasvery poor she did sell it at last, and left it behind with its newmistress. 

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 wasspent; but Sir Thomas himself did not care about eating and drinking, and liked best to have only vegetables and fruit and brown bread, andperhaps 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 goodat their lessons, and then he went off in his barge up the river to theCourt. 

The two elder girls, Meg and Elizabeth, learned very difficult things;but Cicely and little John were not so clever. John seems to have beenrather a stupid boy. It is said that the first Mrs. More wanted a boyvery much, and when he came and grew a little, and they found he wouldnever be very clever, More said: 'Thou hast wanted a boy, and now thouwilt have one that will be a boy all his life. '

In the evenings, when the barge came sweeping up the river, no doubt thegirls watched for it, and ran to greet their father, and then they wouldall go in together to the house. Perhaps he had brought with him someclever and learned men who were his friends from London, or a youngDutch painter called Holbein, who was hardly at all known then, but isnow counted among the greatest painters in the world. 

Sometimes, later in the evening, there would be seen a very grand bargeindeed, with scarlet and cloth of gold, sweeping up to thelanding-place; and then someone would call out 'The King!' and presentlyKing Henry VIII. Himself would step out and come up to see hisChancellor, and would walk up and down the garden with his arm roundMore's neck. He was very fond of More, and asked his advice about allsorts of things. More wanted to show him young Holbein's paintings, sohe had his hall hung with many of them, and one day, when the King camein unexpectedly, he took him in there to show them to him. Henry was sodelighted with them that he ordered Holbein to paint a picture ofhimself 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 togo back to Westminster, young Roper said to More how lucky he was to besuch 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 heanswered at once he had no cause to be proud, for if his head would winthe King a castle in France it would go. He was quite right; for hishead went afterwards for a much less thing than that. 

When More was still in the height of his power his daughter Margaretmarried William Roper. But More could not bear to part with Meg, and thehouse was large, so he said the young married couple should go on livingwith him and his wife just the same as before. 

More built a chapel on to Chelsea old church--a chapel which is therenow, and you may see it--and in it there is a large monument to hismemory. Of his great house and garden all is gone except a bit ofred-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, Catherineof Arragon, and wanted to marry Anne Boleyn, so he thought he woulddivorce Catherine. But even a king can't get rid of his wives wheneverhe likes; so he asked all his lords and nobles to say that he was quiteright, and that Catherine ought to be divorced, and that he ought neverto have married her, because long years before she had been married tohis brother, who had died. A great many of the nobles would have saidanything Henry wanted, but More was braver than that; he said plainlythat it would not be right for Henry to do this thing. So the King wasvery angry, and More found it impossible to continue to be LordChancellor; so he gave up his office, even though it meant that he wouldhave to change all his way of living and be a poor man again. Lady Moreused to go to service in Chelsea church, and More sat in another part ofthe same church, and on Sundays she used to wait to hear that herhusband was outside before she got up to go, and in order to let herknow 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 beingChancellor he had not spoken to his wife about it, for he knew she wouldbe very angry, and he always loved a joke; so he himself walked up theaisle and held open the pew-door, and said: 'Madam, the Chancellor hasgone. ' 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 veryplainly, and Margaret and her husband went into a little house near; andso badly off were the Mores that they could not afford fires, and whenthe weather grew colder, More and his wife and children used to gathertogether in one room and burn a great bundle of fern just to make a bigblaze and send them warm to bed. But through it all More was quitehappy. He had never wanted to be a great man: he preferred to livesimply with those he loved; but he was not long to be allowed to do eventhat. 

Henry devised a plan by which he could put More in prison. He drew up along paper saying that the King was the head of the Church, and thatwhatever he did was right, and that if he chose to divorce his wife hecould do it, because the power was in his own hands; and then hesummoned all the bishops and More to sign this. 

Sir Thomas More knew quite well what this meant, that it was only a planto get hold of him, for he could not sign what he did not think. It wason 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 wellthat it was very likely he should never come back; and he was quiteright: he never did come back. He said good-bye to his children andstepped into his barge. When he got to Lambeth he found that all the menthere assembled had signed except one called Bishop Fisher. Now, Fisherand More were Roman Catholics; that is to say, that they still believedin the power of the Pope--and they could not sign the paper withoutsigning what they thought a lie. They had been taught this, and so theybelieved 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 toChelsea, and at the end of five days he was taken to the Tower with oldBishop Fisher. 

When he landed at the Traitor's Gate, of which you shall hear morepresently, the porter asked him for his outside clothes, according to avery bad custom of the time, which allowed the porters to rob theprisoners thus. More gave him his cap, but the man was not content withthat, and he had to give his outside coat as well. 

It was just the beginning of the summer when the two men went to theTower, and they were put in separate cells. At first they were nottreated badly, and were allowed pens and paper to write letters; butafterwards these were taken from them, and More had to write his letterswith a coal. However, he had one great consolation--his daughter wassometimes allowed to come to see him. Perhaps the King thought that shewould persuade him to give in and sign the paper so that he might goback home. 

When the summer had passed and the weather grew colder, More and Fisherboth suffered from the cold, but especially poor old Bishop Fisher, whose clothes were in rags. And it was not until a whole year after theyhad been sent to the Tower that they were brought up to be tried. Morewas taken on foot through the streets to Westminster, a very longway--more than three miles. He was dressed in common clothes andsurrounded by a guard. Then he was tried at Westminster, and accused oftreason in not acknowledging the King's authority, but the real reasonwas 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 aman was condemned to death the executioner walked out of thejudgment-hall before the prisoner with the sharp edge of the axe turnedbackwards towards him. 

More had been tried in Westminster Hall, of which you have heardalready, and inside there it was very dark; but when he came out intothe bright sunshine he was quite dazzled for the moment and could notsee. But there was someone else who saw--someone who had been waiting inthe crowd in terrible anxiety, and when he saw that axe turned with thesharp edge toward More he knew it meant death; and he gave a greatshriek, and thrust himself through the guards and flung himself atMore'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 voyageit must have been, not for himself, but for thinking of all those dearones he must leave. 

When he arrived at the Tower he saw standing on the quay twofigures--his son John, then a man of twenty-five, and a tall, slightwoman in deepest black, his dear Meg. Even the soldiers made way for heras she flung her arms round her father's neck and cried out of herbreaking heart, 'My father! oh, my father!'--a cry which so touched someof those rough guards that they turned aside to hide the tears in theirown eyes. More tried to comfort her, and presently gently drew himselfaway. He felt it was almost too much for him; but as she turned away shecould not bear to let him go, and once more threw her arms round himwith that pitiful cry, and only gave way when at last she sank faintingon the ground. 

More then went on and left her so, and when she came to herself she knewit was all over, and that she had no more hope. Six days later, at nineo'clock in the morning, More was led out to suffer beheading, as BishopFisher had already suffered. When he had first gone to the Tower he hadbeen a man of middle age with a brown beard and brown hair; now after ayear of confinement and anxiety his hair was quite gray. When he wastold to make ready for his execution, he put on a silk robe, which whenthe gaoler saw he asked him to change for a common woollen one. Moreasked why, and was told that the clothes he was killed in became theproperty of the executioner, and the clothes he left behind in the Towerwere taken by his gaolers, and that this gaoler thought the silk robetoo good for the executioner. So More quietly changed to a commonerdress, for it mattered little to him. When he reached the scaffold, hefound he was too feeble to climb up the steps without help, and he askedone 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 askedhis forgiveness, which was granted; and then More knelt before theblock, and carefully put his beard aside, saying: '_That_ at least hascommitted no treason. ' Then with one stroke his head was cut off. Hisbody was buried near the chapel in the Tower; but, according to thecustom 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! Whatcould she do? She could not suffer it to stay there, so she bribed twomen and took a boat, and, going down the river, stole her own father'shead, and, wrapping it in a cloth, returned with her gruesome burden toChelsea, where she is said to have buried it in the church. Can youpicture anything more awful than the task of this brave woman?

Another of More's daughters was married, too, and she and Meg were bothhappy mothers with families of their own; but we may be quite sure thatso 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 wasbeheaded when she was only sixteen. This was Lady Jane Grey. She was acousin of young King Edward VI. , who succeeded his father Henry VIII. When he was a little boy of nine. At that time England had latelyestablished the Protestant religion, the Church of England as we have itnow, and all Roman Catholics had been forced to become Protestants or toleave the churches to those who were. Edward was a delicate little boy, and he had only reigned five years when he caught measles. He neverseemed to recover from them; he had a cold afterwards, which settled onhis 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 wereProtestants, for they knew that the next heir to the throne wasEdward's elder sister Mary, a woman of thirty-eight, a strong RomanCatholic; and they feared that if Queen Mary sat on the throne all theRoman Catholics would be restored to their places, and the Protestantswould be persecuted and perhaps murdered, all of which afterwards reallydid 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 thethrone instead of Mary, all would have been well with England. But thatthey could not do, for to set aside an older sister for a younger onewould have been impossible. So they looked around for someone else, andfixed on little Lady Jane Grey. 

Lady Jane was one of the three daughters of a nobleman called the Dukeof Suffolk; she was the eldest, and through her mother she was a cousinof King Edward's, and of his sisters Mary and Elizabeth, too. If Edwardhad had no sisters, Lady Jane would have been Queen after him. Thenobles had wanted her to marry Edward, who was just her own age; but theboy 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 heplanned a scheme by which he would be still more powerful. He persuadedEdward that Lady Jane must reign after him, for if she did not Englandwould suffer; and Edward, who loved the Protestant religion, consented. He made a will saying that Lady Jane was to be Queen instead of hissisters Mary and Elizabeth. Of course, he had no right to do this, for aking cannot say who is to reign after him; the throne must go to thenext heir. But Northumberland thought if he and all the nobles declaredLady Jane Queen, they could force the people of England to acknowledgeher. Then the clever Northumberland went further; he got Edward toconsent to the marriage of Lady Jane to Northumberland's only son, youngLord Guildford Dudley. Dudley was then a boy of seventeen, and Lady Janeonly 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 gentlelittle girl who loved her books, and never thought of thrones and kingsand queens. When she was quite young she could speak French and Italian, wrote Latin, and understood Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic. This wasthe more wonderful because in those days ladies were not supposed toknow very much; if they could do beautiful tapestry work and ride andsing a little, it was considered quite enough. There is a story told ofLady Jane that one day when a very clever man named Roger Ascham came tostay with her father, he found her sitting in a window-seat reading abook. Outside stretched the beautiful park, with its green grass andgreat shady trees, and the voices of the visitors and the other littlegirls who were amusing themselves came in at the window; but Lady Janesat curled up, as many little girls do nowadays, reading diligently, andnever taking any notice of the bright world outside. And the book shewas reading was the work of an ancient Greek philosopher called Plato, who wrote very interesting books, but ones that are hard even forgrown-up people to understand. It must have made a pretty picture, thatlittle pale girl bending over her book; and if anyone had said that inone 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, andshe told him she loved books, and they gave her much more pleasure thanthe things in which people usually tried to find pleasure. Then hewanted 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 gentleschoolmaster; for when I am in the presence of either father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merryor sad, be sewing, dancing, or doing anything else, I must do it, as itwere, in such weight, measure, and number, even as perfectly as theworld was made, or else I am so sharply taunted and cruellythreatened--yea, presently sometimes with pinches, nips, and bobs, andso cruelly disordered, that I think myself in hell until the time comethat I go to Mr. Aylmer, who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, withsuch fair allurements to learning, that I think all the time as nothingthat I am with him; and thus my book hath been so much my pleasure, andbringeth daily to me more pleasure and more, that in respect of it allother 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 cousinElizabeth, who was about five years older, and they had been in thesame house together; and, of course, if she had ever thought about it atall, she knew that first Mary, and after her Elizabeth, had the right tobe Queen when Edward died. Before Edward died, however, Jane was toldsuddenly that she must marry young Guildford Dudley. He was a handsomeboy and very gentle, and Jane seems to have loved him very dearly; soshe made no objection, and the marriage took place in a great hurry. Andat the same time her younger sister Katharine was also married to LordHerbert, the son of the Earl of Pembroke, so the quiet life in thebeautiful home in Leicestershire came to an end. 

Lady Jane knew, of course, that her cousin Edward was ill, and it musthave grieved her very much; for she was fond of him, and being just thesame age, they had learnt the same lessons together. But when Edwarddied she was not told of it until she received a message from herfather-in-law, the Duke of Northumberland, to go to his great house, called Sion House, on the Thames, not far from London. She went, neverthinking what was going to happen or why she was wanted; and when shewas there Northumberland himself and her own father, the Duke ofSuffolk, and some other lords came into the room, and, kneeling beforeher, told her that her young cousin Edward was dead, and that she mustsucceed him as Queen of England. Poor Lady Jane was so shocked andstartled that she fainted away. When she came round again they told hershe must be obedient and do as they told her. She pleaded with them, andsaid Mary must be Queen, and that for herself she was so young--onlysixteen; and she did not care to be Queen, but only wanted to live aquiet life with her husband, Lord Dudley. But they argued with her, andtold her she was a coward; that it was for the good of England, and thatif she refused she would be wicked; and at last she consented. Then allher life was changed. 

As I have said before, people used the river then a great deal more thanthey do now, and all persons of importance had state barges with rowersto row them up and down the water. Some of these barges were verymagnificent, with scarlet cloth and gold fringe, and looked likegorgeous birds floating on the water. A beautiful barge was waiting forLady Jane in front of Sion House, and she stepped into it, and was roweddown the river through London to the Tower. 

Now up to this time this story has not had much to do with London, butafter this all the rest of it happened in London. When Lady Jane enteredthe Tower the man who was then Lord Treasurer of England came to her, and, kneeling down, offered her the crown of England. And afterwardsNorthumberland and his party lost no time, but sent men all round Londonto cry out that Lady Jane Grey was now Queen of England. 

Meantime, Mary had been in the country. She had only just heard of herbrother's death, when she heard, too, of what Northumberland had done. Now, she did not resemble her poor little cousin; she was not only verymuch older, but of a very stern disposition--not at all likely to sitdown quietly and let another take her crown. So she made people go overall the countryside where she was and say that she was Queen, and thatmen might come and fight for her. Now many people felt that even if Marywere hard and cruel, still, it was fair that she should be Queen; somany nobles and gentlemen came to her, and she presently had a largearmy. When the story of the two Queens was heard, nearly everyone inEngland felt that Mary was right, and Northumberland began to think hehad 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, andthere, standing beside a cross called St. Paul's Cross, whereproclamations were made, cried out Mary was Queen, all the peopleshouted for joy. Bonfires were lit in the streets, and everywhere wasfeasting and rejoicing, and no one seemed to care about Lady Jane in theTower. 

So Northumberland saw how foolish he had been, and he hastened to sendJane back to Sion House; but he stayed in London himself, and cried outlike the rest that Mary was Queen. For only three weeks Jane had beenQueen, and all that time she had stayed in the gloomy Tower wishing shewere back in her country home. 

Then Mary rode in state into London, and went straight to the Tower. Herfirst care was to have Edward's funeral celebrated--for he had not yetbeen buried--and then she began to think about her enemies. Northumberland, of course, was her prisoner, together with some othernobles, and Northumberland and two others were condemned to death. So avery short time after he had brought his son's wife to the Tower as aqueen the Duke of Northumberland had his head cut off at the sameTower. Lady Jane and her husband were brought to the Tower as prisonersalso, 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, whichwas true. Perhaps they would have stayed in captivity for many years butfor the foolish friends, who, by trying to help them, made their fatemuch 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 shortlyafter she was crowned people began to rise in different parts of Englandand say that Lady Jane ought to be Queen instead. And for some time Maryhad to send troops to fight against the rebels, as those who rose infavour of Jane were called. At last one day an alarm was given that aman named Sir Thomas Wyatt had collected a large army, and was actuallyadvancing 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 palaceand carry her off. They really did come, too, and the army spread allover St. James's Park and all round the old palace--everywhere weresoldiers. At that time there was a great gateway, called the HolbeinGate, that stood across Whitehall, and in this Queen Mary stayed andwatched the fighting. With all her faults she was very brave, and whenshe saw her own guards driven in and dispersed, she showed no sign offear. 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 andfly to the Tower, where she would be safer; but Mary refused to go, andsaid all was not lost, and by her bravery and her words she soinspirited the men that they fought again, and succeeded in beating offWyatt's men. So Wyatt went on toward the city, and all the way he had tofight, and at last he was taken prisoner on Ludgate Hill, which is notfar from St. Paul's Cathedral. 

Then Mary knew that she was safe again; but she must have passed asleepless night and thought a great deal, for she at last made up hermind she would order Lady Jane Grey and her husband to be beheaded, forso long as they lived other men would rise, as Wyatt had done, and tryto make Jane Queen. 

It was a dreadful thing to do, but we must remember that in those daysexecutions were not thought so much of as they would be now. In thesedays anyone would be horrified to hear that a man's or woman's head wasto be cut off, and even the very worst murderers are only hanged; but inMary's day a great many people were beheaded every year. So in themorning, when Mary rode down to the city to thank her nobles and knightsfor fighting so bravely and defending her, she knew that before the daywas ended she would have signed the death-warrant of Lady Jane. When shecame to Temple Bar she stopped. Now, Temple Bar was a great gateway thatstood in the Strand, just where the City of London begins, and on itthere were ugly iron spikes; and sometimes the heads of those who hadbeen executed were stuck on these spikes, and stayed there until theyrotted away. All the people passing along the street could look up andsee the heads, and sometimes, when the wind was high, a ghastly headcame tumbling down into the street. We cannot think of such thingswithout horror; but in those days people were accustomed to them, anddid not mind them very much. When Mary came to Temple Bar she asked forink and paper, and wrote there the order for young Lady Jane and herhusband to be beheaded. 

Lady Jane was in the Tower when the news was brought to her. She had nowbeen a prisoner six months, and perhaps sometimes she had thought shemight die as her father-in-law had died; so when the priest Queen Marysent came to tell her the news, she received it quite calmly and withouta shudder. But when he tried to make her turn Roman Catholic, she toldhim she should never do that. The priest hurried back to Queen Mary, andsaid if the execution could be put off three days he might make LadyJane a Roman Catholic, so Queen Mary consented to delay a little. Butwhen 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 threedays she must sometimes have shuddered to think that not only must shedie, 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 ifshe 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 breakdown. He was to die first, and when the morning came, very early theguards led him past Lady Jane's window on his way to death. Then indeedshe must have felt that the bitterness of death was past. She hadwritten a long letter to Queen Mary explaining how everything hadhappened, and that it was never her wish to be a queen; and she hadwritten another to her father, knowing that he must be very sad, feelingit was all his fault that she had been led into this sad position; andanother to her younger sister Katharine to say good-bye. And now all wasdone, and soon her husband would be dead, and what had she left to livefor?

The execution of Guildford did not take long. Presently a low rumble ofcart-wheels over the stones told Lady Jane that they were bringing backhis dead body, and then she knew her turn must come. 

One can imagine the horror with which she heard the door open and sawSir 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 arrivedat the place of execution she made a little speech, saying that sheought never to have allowed anyone to persuade her to be queen; but thatshe was young--she had not known what was right. And then, without anyshow of fear, she laid her head on the block, and it was cut off at oneblow. 

So died the poor girl at only sixteen--a girl who loved her books, andwould have lived a quiet life if it had not been for the ambitious plansof 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 onthe fifth of November, for they are sure to know well. The beautifulfireworks, with their streams of coloured fire; the crackling of thesquibs; the gorgeous catherine-wheels and the coloured Roman candles;the great rockets that shoot up into the air with a swish, leavingbehind them a long tail of golden fire, and then burst into showers ofstars--all these may be seen on the fifth of November; and if you arereally lucky children, there will follow the great bonfire, with barrelsof tar poured over it to make the flames roar upward. They lick the baresticks put ready for them, and climb over the logs until they reach thefigure of Guy Fawkes himself, a stuffed figure like a scarecrow, whichstands at the highest point. The flames crackle gaily; the heat is incontrast with the fresh air of the November evening; all the peoplestanding by look strange and unlike themselves with that weird glow ontheir faces. Then Guy's hands curl up, an arm wavers, and he topplesheadlong into the glowing flames, to be burnt up altogether. Guy is onlymade of straw, so we need not be sorry for him; but it is a curiouscustom, and we have to go to history to find out what it means. Thatthere was a real man, a Guy Fawkes, who lived in James I. 's reign, youknow perhaps. This Guy was at first a Protestant, and as a little boyused to go to church with his mother; but as he grew older he became aRoman Catholic. Now, at that time in England there were many very hardand unjust laws against the Roman Catholics, not allowing them to holdoffices in the State, and preventing them from doing many things thatProtestants might do. People are wiser now, and realize that a man maybe a good man and a good servant of the country whatever his religion solong as he is in earnest, but in those days it was not so. Well, acertain number of lords and gentlemen who were Roman Catholics tried toget these laws altered; but they could not, and so they were very angryand bitter against the King and his Ministers, and joined together tomake a plot to be revenged on them. Guy Fawkes was one of the men inthis plot, and it may have been he who suggested the dreadful idea thatwas at last decided upon. However that may be, at first nothing wasdone, but the conspirators used to meet together in secret to talkthings over. They dare not meet openly, for if so many Catholicgentlemen had been discovered together, the King and his Ministers wouldhave suspected something wrong. In one great house in the countrybelonging to a young man called Sir Everard Digby, they met in a secretroom, with a floor that moved, so that if ever the King's officers camesuddenly to surprise them there, they could all escape by means of thefloor, which slipped up and let them out, whence they could go from thehouse by means of a secret passage. Digby was quite young, little morethan a boy, and he had just married a young and beautiful girl, when hebecame entangled in the detestable Gunpowder Plot. 

The plot, when it finally took form, was that the conspirators shouldhire a house near to the Houses of Parliament and dig an undergroundtunnel, which should reach right beneath the part of the House where theKing would be when the Houses of Parliament were opened the next time;that they should then put gunpowder there, and blow up the wholebuilding, killing the King and many of the great Ministers. Whileeveryone was thrown into terror and confusion by this, the otherconspirators 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 theCatholics, they expected to be able to make their own terms, and get thelaws against Catholics repealed by the nation. 

All this sounded very grand, but it was very difficult to do. It iswonderful that the conspirators managed to do so much as they did. Theyactually took a room near the Houses of Parliament, and began to digtheir underground passage. But they found this a much more difficult jobthan they had anticipated, for every bit of the soil they dug out had tobe carried away in baskets secretly by night; for people would naturallyhave noticed it if they had seen it, and begun to ask what was beingdone. But just when they had discovered how hard the work was going tobe, they heard that a cellar right under the Houses of Parliament was tobe let. Here was a chance! They took it at once, and gave up digging outtheir tunnel. Guy Fawkes was appointed to see that the scheme wascarried out, and his was the dangerous part. He had to buy barrels ofgunpowder singly and at different times, and see that they were carriedinto his cellar without anyone seeing them. Then he bought a great dealof wood in faggots and stacked it over the barrels of gunpowder, so thatif anyone did come into that cellar, he would never suspect it wasanything but an ordinary cellar for storing wood. The meeting ofParliament was to take place in October, and by August all was ready;then the meeting of Parliament was delayed, and the conspirators heardit was not to be until the fifth of November. The time now drew verynear. Then it occurred to some of the conspirators that perhaps some oftheir own friends who were members of Parliament would be blown up withthe rest, and they grew uneasy. Each one wanted to warn his own friendnot to go to Parliament that day, but no one knew how to do it for fearof betraying the plot. At last, however, one of the conspirators, whowas a brother-in-law of Lord Mounteagle's, sent Lord Mounteagle aletter, saying that he had better not go to Parliament on the day ofopening, for the Parliament was to receive 'a terrible blow, and yetshall not see who hurts them. ' Lord Mounteagle was naturally distressedto receive such a letter, without any sign who had sent it, and he tookit to the King. James was a clever man in some ways, and he saw at oncethat a terrible blow, yet not seen, must mean something to do withgunpowder; so he had the cellars under the Houses of Parliamentsearched, and discovered the barrels of gunpowder. Now Guy Fawkes knewnothing of this, but came the night before the fifth to be in time to dohis dreadful deed. He was a brave man, though a wicked one, caringlittle what evil he was doing. He had arranged a train of gunpowderrunning 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 theperson who lights it has time to get away before the explosionoccurs--and then he waited until the time when all the members ofParliament and the King should be there before setting a light to it. Cannot you picture Guy Fawkes alone in that gloomy cellar that night? Hedid not know that the plot was discovered; he thought that everythinghad been kept very secret, and that to-morrow he would set a light tothat match and hurry away, and before he had got very far he would heara sound that would seem to tear the very sky, and with a crash theHouses of Parliament would reel and fall, burying in their ruinshundreds of men and the King of England. These were not the same Housesof 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 doanything he found himself surrounded by soldiers, and knew that all wasover; that the least he could hope for was death, which he had richlydeserved, for he had intended to murder hundreds of men who had neverwronged him. 

All the implements for his terrible scheme were found upon him--the slowmatch and the lights, and when the faggots were thrown aside there werethe barrels of gunpowder. If the people could have got at Guy Fawkes, hewould have been torn in pieces; but he was kept from them by thesoldiers, and hurried off to the Tower. So all the people could do wasto 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 accountof the Tower; he was tortured on the rack to make him give up the namesof those who had been in the conspiracy with him. Again and again herefused, but at last the awful suffering weakened him so that he hardlyknew what he was doing; and when the torturers told him some of hiscomrades had been taken, which was not true, he believed them, andmoaned out the names of two or three of his fellow-conspirators. Amongthem was poor young Sir Everard Digby, who, when he heard that all waslost, mounted his horse and tried to get away to the sea to go across tothe Continent; but he was taken, and with many of the others, includingGuy Fawkes himself, was hanged. 

This, then, was the famous Gunpowder Plot which we celebrate on thefifth 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 couldstand calmly round and watch their King executed like a common criminalwithout raising a finger to save him. 

We have met Charles once before in this book, if you remember, when hewalked across Spring Gardens on his way to be murdered. He was born inScotland, and he had an elder brother, Prince Henry, so that it wasthought at first that Charles would not be King. But Prince Henry diedwhen Charles was only twelve, and so Charles became Prince of Wales andheir to the throne. 

By this time the Kings of England lived, when in London, not inWestminster Palace, but in another palace called Whitehall. When HenryVIII. Was King, the old palace of Westminster, of which you have heardso much in the story of Edward V. , had fallen into ruins, so Henrylooked about for another. Quite close to Westminster Palace there was agreat house called York House, which belonged to the Archbishops ofYork, and which they used when they came to London. Henry arranged thathe should have this for a new palace, so he moved there. It was not justone great building as we picture palaces in these days, but a number ofsmaller ones--courts and long ranges of houses--and in it lived all thepeople 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 theKing went from one of his palaces to another everything had to be takenin carts. We are told that three hundred carts went from Whitehall toGreenwich Palace at one time laden with linen cloths for the tables, wine, and gold and silver plate, and dresses and kitchen things, potsand pans, and other things. In that time people had tapestry hanging onthe 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 theywere not wanted. The floors were strewn with green leaves and scentedplants, which had to be put there freshly every day. It was all sodifferent from our own time that we can hardly imagine it. 

James I. Was the father of Charles, and he gave many splendidentertainments at this palace, in which, no doubt, Prince Charles tookpart. There were dinners and dances, and other things not so harmless;for instance, it was supposed to be great sport to see two poor cocksfight until they tore each other almost to pieces, and people used tobet on one cock or the other. There were also fights between bears andgreyhounds; and a wretched bull was tied to a stake and a number ofsavage dogs let loose on him, and the more the bull threw his head thisway and that, and stuck his great horns into the dogs, and the more thedogs seized him at the back, where he could not defend himself, and torehis 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 suchcruelty; but then it was the fashion--everyone did it, so he thought itmust be all right. King James was very fond of hunting, and while helived the Court was always gay. But the palace was getting more and moreold and inconvenient, and at last James thought he would build a newone. 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 moresplendid than the old one. Inigo Jones did so. We still have copies ofhis plans, and we can see what a wonderful palace he meant to havebuilt. It was to face the river on one side and to have rows of windowsand high round towers, and all along the roof there were to be figuresas large or larger than life standing on the parapet. It would have costthousands and thousands of pounds. But this beautiful palace was nevercompleted. The King died and Inigo Jones died, and the only bit of thisgreat new palace that was ever built is still standing, and you can seeit any day in London if you go down Whitehall. It is larger than anordinary-sized house, and has pillars running up the front and two rowsof windows, and is called the Banqueting Hall. 

Well, when James died his son Charles became King. Charles was thentwenty-five years old, and was still delicate and thin, and not verytall. His hair was long, parted in the middle, and falling on each sideof his face to his collar. His little neat beard was cut to a point, andhis eyes were very sad. He liked better to live quietly than to be aking. 

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 theonly King of England who was ever beheaded, I think she would havestayed in France. She was only just sixteen when she came to London, andall the strange faces and the strange language must have frightened hervery much. Charles had never seen her before, and when they met helooked at her as if she was not quite so small as he had expected; andshe laughed and showed him the heels of her shoes, which were quiteflat, and said: 'Sir, I stand upon mine own feet. I have no helps ofart. Thus high I am, and am neither higher nor lower. '

Henrietta Maria was dark, with black eyes and dark-brown hair, and wasvery quick and bright, and Charles loved her always to the end of hislife. 

After a time Henrietta was given Somerset House, a magnificent house inthe Strand, for herself, and all her French attendants lived there withher. Perhaps Charles felt that the old palace at Whitehall was hardlyfit for this bright little French woman, and perhaps it annoyed him tohear all the French people chattering about his own Court. SomersetHouse 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 churchesin order to take the stone of which they were built to make his own vastmansion. The Duke never lived there, for before it was finished he wasimprisoned in the Tower, and then beheaded. When Henrietta was there thefurniture was very magnificent and rich. We are told that one of the bedcoverlets, of embroidered satin, was worth £1, 000!

This Somerset House was pulled down when George III. Was King, andanother great house called by the same name was built instead. This oneis still standing, and in it there are offices belonging to theGovernment. In one part are all the wills that people have left whenthey died, and if anyone wants to see a particular will he can go thereand see it if he pays a shilling. 

One day when Queen Henrietta Maria lived in old Somerset House, Charlescame and told her he was going to send all her French attendants back toFrance except her lady's-maid and one other, for the French people weresaying things against the King and making mischief. Henrietta was muchgrieved, 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, aftermany terrible wars, Henrietta once again came back to London and livedat her old home. Not far from Somerset House, close by Charing CrossStation, was another great house in the Strand called York House. Ispoke of this before when I told you about the fine old water-gate stillstanding. That water-gate belonged to a handsome man called the Duke ofBuckingham. Buckingham had been a great favourite with the old King, James I. , and he had travelled abroad with Charles when he was Prince ofWales. Charles loved him very dearly, though he knew he was anambitious, selfish man, fond of pleasure. Charles and Henrietta had beenmarried three years, and during that time people had grumbled againstBuckingham because he was the King's favourite; but though he wasdisliked, no one ever guessed what would happen. Buckingham had gonedown to Portsmouth to arrange some matters about shipping, and there hewas stabbed to the heart by a man named Felton. When Felton was broughtto London to answer for his crime, the people followed him with shoutsand acclamations, so pleased were they that he had killed the hatedBuckingham. But King Charles himself was very sad at the loss of hisfriend. He was beginning to find out that being a king was not allpleasure. 

For one thing, he wanted money, and the Parliament would not give it tohim. Then he asked rich people to lend him some, and many refused. Ofcourse, he had a good deal of money; but he had very great expenses, andhe wanted more. So he quarrelled with the Parliament, and that was thebeginning of a long, sad contest. However, it did not get very seriousall at once; but the quarrels between the King and the Parliamentgradually grew worse and worse for many years. 

Charles and Henrietta had been married about five years when a littleson came to them, and they called him Charles after his father. He wasnot long without a playfellow; for a year after there was a daughtercalled Mary, and then another son called James. There is still inexistence a letter which his mother, the Queen, wrote to Prince Charleswhen he was a very little boy and was naughty, and would not take hismedicine. 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; perhapsshe was staying away at one of the palaces in the country. In LondonKing Charles still lived in Whitehall Palace, though he had another, ofwhich 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 ofParliament, and it was to the members of Parliament he applied formoney. 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 moneyany other way, he called them together again. 

After these wretched quarrels it must have been a pleasure to him to goback to the royal nursery, and forget about being a king for a time inplaying with his children. When little Charles was five years old therecame another little daughter, Elizabeth, and she, as she grew up, wasthe favourite of her sad, gentle father. 

Mary was a good girl, affectionate and warm-hearted; but she was notclever like Elizabeth. I think Charles must have been a nice boy; buthis brother James was such a horrid man when he came to be King yearsafterwards 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 boyprince, the Prince of Orange, who lived in Holland. She still lived withher father and mother; but she knew when she grew up she would bePrincess of Orange--would have to go to live in Holland with herhusband. 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 andParliament grew so bad that Charles was afraid, and had to fly for hislife. Little Charles, Prince of Wales, was twelve, and Elizabeth, theyounger girl, was seven, and there was a younger boy, Henry, Duke ofGloucester, 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 himafterwards. 

Henrietta, the Queen, fled to France and afterwards to Holland, whereshe sold her jewels to raise money to pay soldiers to fight for the Kingher husband. The two eldest boys were sent over to France too. PrincessMary went to her husband's family in Holland, and little Elizabeth andHenry were taken prisoners by the Parliament. 

The story of the battles between Charles and the Parliament can be readin history, and does not belong particularly to London. The end was verysad. The King was taken prisoner by the Parliamentarians, who were nowled by a man called Oliver Cromwell. 

Queen Henrietta had gone back to France, leaving a little baby namedafter herself in England. When this baby was two years old the Countessof Dorset, who had charge of her, wanted to take her over to her motherin France, and she was afraid that the little Princess would berecognised and seized by Cromwell's men, so she dressed her in a coarsestuff frock instead of the pretty laces and ribbons she had beenaccustomed to wear. But when they started on the journey the littlechild carefully explained, in her lisping, baby way, to everyone whospoke to her that she was generally dressed very differently, and thepoor Countess was much afraid that people would find out she was alittle princess. In spite of this they got safely over to France. WhenHenrietta 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 aFrenchman. 

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 thenfor many days there was what the Parliamentarians called a 'trial. ' Theyaccused their King of breaking laws, of trying to hinder the liberty ofthe people, and of many other things. Through it all Charles was patientand gentle, and even at the end, when they condemned him to death, heshowed no fear or horror. Some day you can go to Westminster and walkinto that great hall where this mock trial took place, and imagine thescene. It is all bare now, a great empty place with a stone floor andstone walls and no seats, and it is not used for anything; but when theKing was there it was filled with eager, bustling crowds all gone madfor a time, and willing to kill their King. Then Charles was told toprepare for death, but told also that he might see his children onceagain to bid them good-bye. 

These two children had been taken from one place to another by theirenemies, and not treated at all like a prince and princess. Elizabethwas now fourteen and Henry ten. They had been called plain Master andMiss instead of Prince and Princess, and had lived very plainly in thehouses of persons who were supposed to take care of them. 

When they saw their father and heard what he had to tell them, they werevery unhappy. Charles said to his little boy: 'Sweetheart, now they willcut off thy father's head. Mark, child, what I say--they will cut off myhead, and perhaps make thee King; but mark what I say, you must not be aking so long as your brothers Charles and James do live, for they willcut off your brothers' heads (if they can catch them), and cut off thyhead, too, at the last; and therefore I charge you, do not be made aking by them. ' At which the child, sighing, said: 'I will be torn inpieces first. '

Charles thought that the Parliamentarians might make Henry King becausehe was a little boy, and they could force him to do as they liked; butthey did not do that. 

[Illustration: THE CENOTAPH, WHITEHALL. ]

Then Charles went on to say that the two children must always beProtestants, and never become Roman Catholics. Their mother Henriettawas a Roman Catholic, and he was afraid she might try to make themchange their religion. And he was quite right; for afterwards, whenHenry went across to France, the Queen did everything in her power tomake him change. She was very cruel to him, took away his dinner, andwould not let him play or ride, and at last was going to send him to aRoman Catholic school. But Henry's brother Charles, who was stillwandering 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 takecare 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 RomanCatholics, turned to Elizabeth, and told her what books she must read soas to understand about the Protestant religion, and very difficult booksthey were for a little girl of fourteen; and he told her many otherthings, and that she must give his love to the other children. Then hesaid: 'Sweetheart, you will forget this?' And she answered: 'No, Ishall 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 andIreland, was to be killed. However, at last it was over, and Elizabethand her brother were taken down to be kept in Carisbrooke Castle in theIsle of Wight. Here the little girl pined away, and died when she wasonly fifteen. She was found kneeling before her open Bible with her headlying on the text 'Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavyladen, ' and she had passed into her rest. 

When King Charles had said good-bye to them, he tried to fix histhoughts on the other world, and to forget all his wicked enemies. Heslept that night at St. James's Palace, where our present Prince andPrincess of Wales lived with their children until a short time ago. Inthe morning Charles walked across the Park and Spring Gardens, where, ashe passed, he pointed out a tree that had been planted by his own elderbrother Henry, who had died young. Then he went across to the BanquetingHall. 

Hundreds and hundreds of people were waiting in Whitehall. They cannotall have been wicked, but they must all have been cowards, for not onedared to shout out and say, 'They must not, shall not, do this fearfulwrong. ' If anyone had, perhaps others would have joined in and helped tosave their King. But no, all were silent. Perhaps they felt to the lastminute that it could not be true, that something would happen to preventit. 

King Charles walked right through the Banqueting Hall under a beautifulceiling which he himself had paid a great painter to paint. You can walkthere 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 surewhich, but it is supposed to be the second one from one end--and when hestepped out on to the scaffold there was the dreadful executioner, withhis black mask on and his sharp axe. It was the custom for theexecutioner to wear a mask, and I think he must have been glad of itthat 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. Hesaid 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 whosefamily it still remains, and some other things, which he gave to BishopJuxon, who stood by, and as he did so he said: 'Remember. ' No one hasever quite known what he meant by that, for the Bishop never told. It issupposed either he meant that Bishop Juxon was to remember to give thesethings to his son Prince Charles, or that he was to tell Prince Charlesto remember to forgive his father's murderers. 

Then King Charles said to the executioner that he would put his head onthe block, and when he stretched out his hands he might strike. In a fewminutes he finished praying, and stretched out his hands. Down fell thesharp axe, and a deep groan rose up from all the multitude as KingCharles was beheaded. Now every day hundreds of people walk up and downon the pavement before the Banqueting Hall, but hardly one thinks ofthat 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 wasare houses and gardens; some of the houses are large and some are quiteold. Only the Banqueting Hall remains, that part of the magnificentpalace that Inigo Jones meant to build for James I. 

At the top of Whitehall at Charing Cross there is a statue of KingCharles on a horse, as if he were riding down toward the place where hedied. On the very spot where it stands, before it was put up, the worstof the men who murdered Charles were themselves executed only a shortdistance from the place of the King's execution. For after Cromwell'sdeath England realized her wickedness, and Charles's son came back toreign. But never, never can be forgotten the dreadful deed that happenedin 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 nonemore awful than the Great Plague, which happened when Charles II. , sonof King Charles I. , was on the throne. He had been restored to hiskingdom for less than five years when it happened. Two people died quitesuddenly in Westminster, and men looked grave and said it was theplague. But at first they did not think much of it, for the plague hadoften visited England before. But this time it was to be far, far worsethan anything anyone had ever known. It is said that the infection wasbrought over from the Continent in some bales of goods that merchantswere 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 ifthe plague leaped out from every corner, and people began dying all overLondon. There had been a hard frost, and it was when the frost thawedthat the plague seemed to gain fresh strength. Everybody began to askquestions. What were they to do? Couldn't they go away at once? Whatwere others doing to stop the spread of the infection? The awfulsuddenness of it terrified everyone. Persons who had been talking gailyand feeling quite well complained of feeling a swelling on the throat ora little sickness, and in an hour they were dead. Sometimes it began bya swelling that came under the arm (this was a sure sign), and sometimesby swellings on the neck. As the plague grew worse men dropped down inthe streets seized with it, and before their friends could be found theywere dead. All sorts of odd things were offered in order to keep awaythe infection. One, that a great many foolish people believed in, was adried toad strung on a string round the neck--as if that could have madeanyone safe!

Very soon all the rich people left London and fled away into thecountry, though, of course, the country people did not want them, forfear that they had brought the infection. But there were hundreds andhundreds of people who stayed in London and even tried to carry on theirbusiness. At first they struggled bravely and pretended nothing was thematter, but very soon this was impossible. 

You could not imagine what London looked like then. No one drove in thestreets, no one walked there if he could help it; grass grew up betweenthe cobble-stones, and nearly all the houses had shutters up, showingthat their inhabitants had gone away. A nurse would come quickly alongholding a little red staff in her hand to show she had been nursing aplague patient, and that other people had better avoid her. Then slowlydown 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!' justas if he were shouting to sell coals. And in the cart were the bodies ofthe people who had died of the plague. It was extraordinary that any mancould 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 anyimagination, a man who did not mind much what his work was so long as hehad some money to spend in drink. One of these men was sitting on hiscart one day when it was noticed that he seemed to be ill, and the nextmoment he fell off dead, having caught the plague. 

When people were dying by hundreds and hundreds there was no time tobury them properly: and yet they had to be buried, or the dead bodieswould make it impossible for anyone to live at all. So great pits weredug many yards wide, and into these the bodies of men, women, andchildren were put in rows and rows, one row on the top of another, andthe whole covered in with stuff called quicklime. Whenever anyone beganwith the plague, it was the duty of the head of the household to seethat a red cross was marked on his door as a warning to others to keepaway, and it must have been very sad to see these long red crosses on somany doors, with the grass-grown street in front of the houses, and theslow plague-cart going down the street. 

Another rule was that if anyone had a case of the plague within hishouse, he and all his household must be shut up indoors for forty daysfor fear of carrying the infection; but many people hated this so muchthat they used to hide the cases of the plague when they happened, andpretend that everyone was alive and well in their houses. When thepolice-officers found this out they used to visit the houses, and ifthey found anyone sick in one of them they would carry him or her off toa hospital called a pest-house, where all the sick could be together. Ifit is true what we read of these houses, it must have been almost worseto go there than to die. The smells and sights were so awful, and theshrieks of the poor wretches who had been seized with the plague were soterrifying, that there was not much chance of anyone who went thererecovering. 

The people who were forced to stay in London, either because they had nomoney to go away or nowhere else to go to, used to meet in St. Paul'sCathedral and ask one another the news. This was not the same cathedralthat is standing now, but one that was afterwards burnt in the GreatFire. The long aisle was called Paul's walk, and here in better timesthere were stalls for the sale of ribbons and laces and many otherthings, and people laughed and talked and strolled up and down, just asif it were a street and not a church at all. Now, in the plague timemost of the stalls were shut, and the people no longer came to buy, butto ask in hushed voices how many had died last week, and if there wereany sign that this awful disease was going to stop. It is almostimpossible to believe, but it is true, that thieves were very busy then. They used actually to go into the houses deserted by their owners, orleft 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 thetown; and so it was difficult to get these things at all, and those whowere in London were worse off than ever, and in danger of starving. 

We can imagine children crying for bread, and their mother going out atlast 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 theplague and had died in the streets, and he would leave his littlesisters and brothers and creep along the streets until he met the awfuldeath-cart; and then he would ask, and perhaps the man would tell himwhere to go to find out about his mother, and someone might be able todescribe 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 thatthat 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 hewould never see her. Perhaps he would beg a little oatmeal, and run backhastily to his brothers and sisters, and when he got there find them allfrightened and crying, for the eldest girl was very sick. He might turndown her dress, and see on her neck the awful plague-spot, and know thatshe, too, would die. And very likely by the next day the whole of thatfamily would be dead. Many people must have died of starvation, for allwork was stopped, but for the money given by charitable persons. TheKing himself gave £1, 000 a week. 

There is a story of a man who had a good deal of money, and he shuthimself and his household up in his house, and allowed no member of hisfamily to go out. The doors and windows were closed, so that it was alldark, and food was only got by tying a basket to a string and letting itdown at a certain time each day, when a person who had been paid to doso filled it with food. In the morning the whole family had breakfasttogether in a lower room, and afterwards the children were sent up toplay in the garret. In this way the greatest danger of infection wasescaped. 

Of course, so soon as foreign nations heard of the plague they sent nomore ships to England, and instead of being covered with vessels fromall lands, the Thames was deserted and silent. Worse than that, numbersof people threw the dead bodies of their friends who had died into thewater, and these floated down with the tide, or, catching in some pieror beside some boat, hung there until the air was filled with thedreadful smell of the rotting bodies. Cats and dogs were drowned, too, for fear that they should carry the infection, and their dead bodiesmade the river loathsome. Everywhere there were awful sights and soundsand smells; not even by the water could anyone escape. When the hotweather came in summer the plague grew worse; in one week four thousandpersons died of it. Four thousand! It is difficult to imagine. But thiswas not the worst: the deaths went on until London was a city of thedead, and the living were very few. Fathers had lost children, husbandswives, children parents; there was no household that had not sufferedfrom the plague. A preacher who used to go about the streets dressedonly in a rough garment of fur like John the Baptist had prophesied thatthe grass should grow in the streets, and that the living should not beable to bury the dead. It was long since the first part of this had beentrue, and now the second became true, too. The people who were left werenot enough to bury those who died, and even in the streets the bodieslay unburied. St. Paul's itself was used as a pest-house--that is tosay, as a hospital for the plague-stricken. We can imagine that thepeople who were left alive felt as if they were living in somenightmare dream from which they could not awake. They must have lost allhope of ever seeing London restored to itself, and the streets clean andbright once more. It was not until the summer was past and the coldweather began that the deaths were fewer, and when the number was onlyone thousand a week everyone began to get hopeful again. People who hadfled into the country began to come back, a few shopkeepers opened theirshops, the country people came timidly to bring vegetables for sale, andso gradually things got a little better. 

The houses were cleaned and whitewashed, the streets were cleansed, andlarge fires were lit to burn up any rubbish that might still holdinfection. St. Paul's Cathedral was cleaned out, and the beds that thepatients had used were burned, and all seemed better. 

Then happened another terrifying thing, even more alarming than theplague to the unfortunate people who lived in London at that time. Onenight, when everyone had gone to bed, the church bells in the city begantolling, and soon feet were heard hurrying on the streets; cries ofalarm woke even the laziest, and everyone hurried out to see what wasthe matter. Against the darkened evening sky they saw a lurid colourlike a crimson flag, and this changed and waved as columns of smokepassed in front of it; there was no doubt that a big fire had beenlighted somewhere. 

At first some may have thought this was only one of the bonfires thatthe police had lighted to burn up the rubbish, but they soon found itwas 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. Theflames seemed alive; they leaped from one to the other, they licked upthe woodwork on the gable fronts, they danced into the windows and in atthe doors--no one could stop them or save the houses once they had beentouched. The great red demon Fire licked up house after house as if heswallowed them with his great red mouth, and the more he ate the more hewanted; his appetite grew larger instead of less. There were only oldfire-engines, not like those we have to-day, and water was very scarce, and at first the people stood terrified, staring stupidly, and thenbegan to run away. It was not for some time that the authoritiesthought of pulling down some houses so as to make a gap over which thegreat red flames could not leap. But it is not easy work to pull downhouses, and before it could be done the flames leaped on again and againand drove them back. At first the poor people whose houses had caughtfire threw their furniture and goods into the streets to save them. Butthey 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 didnot 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 witha roar like a steam-engine; the shrieks of people in the streets weredrowned by the crash of the burning timbers as the roofs fell in. Theheat was so great that some persons, pressed too near to the fire by thecrowd, covered their scorched faces with their hands and screamed aloud. Everywhere was confusion and running to and fro, and yet no one could doanything to stop those terrible flames. When a big brewery was attackedby the fire, men rushed in and pulled out the casks into the street, andthen, forgetting the perils of the plague and of the fire, drank untilthey reeled about the streets, and some even fell into the flames andwere burnt. 

The place where the fire began was not far from London Bridge, and thered 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 bridgegot into boats, and, without heeding the awful heat and the showers ofsmuts, rowed away up the river to a safer place. 

The churches began to go soon, and when one was fairly caught its highspire was seen to quiver for a moment as if it were in pain, and thentopple right over with a crash. The dangers were increased by thefalling of such great masses of stone. The whole of that night theflames roared on, and devoured everything in their course. Even thosewhose 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 greatdanger that threatened his city, he was the first to go to help and tosuggest that houses must be pulled down to stop the flames. This wasvery difficult, because the houses to be pulled down had to be a longway in front of the fire, or there would not have been time to get themdown before the fire reached them. And when the people to whom theybelonged were told that they must come out because their houses were tobe destroyed, they very naturally objected, and said they were quitesure the fire would never get so far as that; and, anyway, why shouldtheir houses be pulled down and not others?

The fire had begun first in a poor quarter, but it soon came on to thehouses of wealthy merchants, and then a strange sight was seen: thesemen, hastily gathering up their gold and silver, their rich bales ofstuff and merchandise, hurried westward, and the streets were filledwith carts and men laden with goods jostling, pushing, and hurrying inboth directions. At the end of that day the fire still burned as if itwould never stop; surely never before had there been such a bonfire. Nota single person in London could go to bed. How did he know that he mightnot be awakened by the flames leaping in at his windows? No, everyonewas in the streets, either watching or talking or shouting, and very fewdid any good or knew what to do; they mostly got in the way of otherswho were trying to stop the flames. 

When that second awful night was past, the day dawned; but there waslittle light, for a great cloud of black smoke hung over everything, blotting out the sun. On the river were boats and barges and vessels ofall sorts laden with goods; in the streets the same weary, excitedcrowd. 

Out in the fields there were tents put up for the people whose houseshad been destroyed, and numbers of people camped there, crying andbemoaning their losses; many of them had lost all they possessed in theworld, and had no clothes and sometimes no food. 

At last it was seen that the flames must reach St. Paul's Cathedral, andeven those who were most careless held their breath at the thought ofthe destruction of so splendid a building. At that time St. Paul's wasbeing repaired, and the scaffolding round the walls served as fuel forthe flames, which leaped upon it and got such hold of it that the verystones became red hot. The roof and the tower of the cathedral were ablaze of fire; soon the lead with which the roof was covered began tomelt, and ran down in golden rain from every gutter into the streetbelow. You have perhaps seen in fireworks showers of golden rain, butthat was harmless; this was real boiling lead, and if it had struckanyone would have scorched him up. Streaming as it did from that greatheight, it came down with force, and set everything that it fell on ina blaze. The flames got inside the cathedral, and roared upwards throughthe staircases as through so many funnels, and then it was seen that thefall of the roof was inevitable. It came at last with a tremendouscrash, and showers of sparks shot upwards, lighting up the country formiles around. 

For the whole of the next day the flames continued, and on into the dayafter 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 gapswhich could not be bridged over by the flames, and so the Great Fireceased. 

A most curious thing was that the fire had begun in the house of a bakerin Pudding Lane, and the part where it was finally stopped was at PyeCorner, near Smithfield. It was very odd that both these names shouldhave had to do with eating. No one knows how it began, but the generalidea is that a servant-girl who was drying some sheets let them fallinto the fire, and then, seeing them flame up, was afraid, and thrustthem into the chimney; so the chimney caught fire, and the house, whichwas very dry and built of wood, flamed up, and the fire spread. Butother people say it was done on purpose by a man throwing a light intothe house window. 

Close to the spot where it began was put up later a tall monument, agreat column, which is hollow inside, with a staircase to the top, andanyone may go up by paying threepence; and on the summit there is alittle platform, which is caged in to prevent people from falling orflinging themselves over. From here there is a fine view of London; youcan see the river, and the ships going up and down, and the bridges, andthe tall steeples of all the churches built by Sir Christopher Wren forthe 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 figureof a funny little fat boy put up, and that you can see at Smithfield ifyou care to go there. 

The greater part of London was completely wiped out; the streets wereall gone--none knew even where their own houses had stood; there wereheaps of ashes everywhere, so hot that the boots of those who walkedover them were scorched. For long afterwards, when the workmen wereopening 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 taskof rebuilding the city demanded all the energy and sense of which thepeople were capable. There were many quarrels, of course, between peoplewho claimed more land than they ought to have had, and between otherswho were both quite sure their houses had stood on one spot. It was along time before a new London was built. But though the fire cost theLondoners many millions of pounds, and though it ruined many persons andcaused fearful loss, it was really a blessing, for it burnt away thingsthat might have carried the plague infection; and it burnt the oldunwholesome dirty wooden houses, and in their place were built betterhouses 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 supposehe or she would want to see most? It would depend on the character andage of that person. If it were a boy, he would be almost sure to say theZoological Gardens. A girl might choose Madame Tussaud's. But besidesthese there are many other things that could be chosen--St. Paul'sCathedral; the British Museum; Westminster Abbey. Also places ofentertainment, like Maskelyne's Mysteries, where there is conjuring sowonderful that, having seen it no one can believe the sight of his owneyes. At Christmas time many of the large shops turn themselves intoshows, with all sorts of attractive sights to be enjoyed free, so thatpeople may be brought into the shop and possibly buy something. Allthese 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, andevery 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 tothe end of the sights. But the first thing to see, the very first, oughtto be the Tower, because it is one of the few old buildings left inLondon, and there are so many stories connected with it they would makea big fat book in themselves. 

On the first morning of your visit to London you would get up in arather excited frame of mind, and be anxious to start off at once. Thatwould be as well, because if we are to go to the Tower it will take us along time to get there. 

Before the west end of London was built the Tower was in the importantpart of London. All that could then be called London clustered round it. In those days, when the country was unsettled and enemies appearedsuddenly outside a town, and might burn and destroy houses, and stealall that they could lay hands on, it was necessary to have a wall allround the city. This wall was very strong and high, and could bedefended by men with spears and arrows. It ran right round the city onthree sides, and on the fourth was the river. 

In the reign of William the Conqueror there was no strong castle orpalace for the King in London, but only an old fortress on one side ofthis wall, the east side, quite near to the river. This fortress hadstood there for a long time. No one knew when it had been built. KingWilliam ordered it to be pulled down, and in its place he caused astrong castle to be built. Part of the city wall was pulled down to makeroom 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 anomnibus or train and go right through the City until, at the place wherethe 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 anotherline of buildings, which have smaller towers set here and there uponthem at intervals. Circling round the outermost walls is a huge, deepditch, 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 astrong barrier of defence for the Tower, and attacking forces would havefound it a difficult matter to swim across that water with the archersand soldiers shooting down from the walls above, with flights of arrowsas thick as flights of pigeons. And, of course, the enemies would neverhave been allowed to put a boat on the water, for the archers would haveshot them while they were doing it. In old times the kings who livedhere must have felt very safe with their huge thick stone walls and thegreat rolling stream of gray water all round. The windows were made verysmall, so that arrows could not get into them easily to wound the peopleinside the rooms, and the staircases were of stone, very narrow, andthey wound round and round up into one of the towers. They were made sobecause then, if ever the enemies did manage to get inside the Tower andtramped upstairs, they would find that only one, or perhaps two, of themcould get up the steps together to fight, and the men who were guardingthe tower could keep them back for a long time. As I said also, thegardens are inside the Tower, so the people who lived there could walksafely 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 haveheard something interesting. But saddest of all must have been thegroans and cries of sorrowful prisoners, for besides being the King'spalace, as I have told you, it was also a prison. That seems very odd tous now. Fancy if we made part of Buckingham Palace, where the Kinglives, into a gaol! But in old times palaces and prisons were often inone building, partly because it was necessary for both to be very strongand to resist force, and it was not easy to build two strong buildingsin one place, so they made one do for both. When William the Conquerordied he had not finished his building, and William Rufus, his son, wenton with it. Rufus finished the square building in the middle, which hasfour little corner towers, and this is called the White Tower, not thatit is white at all, though it may have been when first built. Now it hasbeen blackened by many centuries of smoke. It was not until the reign ofRichard Coeur de Lion that the moat was made, and by that time the Towerhad grown very much, and was a strong place. John, Richard's brother, who tried to get the throne for himself while Richard was away fightingin the Holy Land, knew that the stronger he could make the Tower thebetter, for if he could hold it he would be King in London, and no onecould seize him and punish him. We shall hear something more about Johnlater. 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--thatis, a bridge which could be drawn up and let down again as the people inthe Tower liked. 

Close by the drawbridge was, until just before Queen Victoria's reign, aplace where lions and tigers and all sorts of wild animals lived. Itseems curious they should have been kept there, where they could nothave had any room to wander about, and when they were moved to theZoological Gardens it must have been much better for them. The animalswere 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 splendidTower Bridge that we read of before; there is the gray, glitteringriver; and there are many ships and barges floating up and down on thewater. 

Underneath our feet is a deep channel, now dry, where the river once ranin to fill up the moat. It flowed under a great gloomy archway with agate, and when the river was running here everyone who came to theTower by water had to land at that gate. It has an awful name, and someof 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 donow, they owned barges, great boats covered with an awning, and whenthey wanted to go from Westminster to the Tower they did not think ofdriving, for the streets were narrow and badly paved, the roads betweenLondon and Westminster quite dangerous; and they could not go by train, for no one had ever imagined anything so wonderful as a train, so theywent by water. 

When the prisoners who were in the Tower had to be tried before judgesthey were taken up the river in barges to Westminster, where all theevidence was heard, and then they were brought back again. How many ofthem made that last sad journey and entered the Traitor's Gate never tocome out again! They had been to Westminster to be tried, feeling quitesure 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! Theycame back down the river, and the sunshine might be just as gay, thewater as sparkling, as when they went, but to them it would all seemdifferent. The journey was short, too short for a man who knew it washis last! Then when they reached the Tower the barge would sail on up tothe Traitor's Gate, and the dark shadow of the heavy walls would fall onthe prisoner, and he would feel a chill at his heart as he stepped outon to those cold gray stones. 

Of some of those who suffered in the Tower you have heard. Sir ThomasMore landed here when he came in his barge from Chelsea, but we knowthat he was too brave and good to feel much fear. Lady Jane Grey landedhere when her father and father-in-law brought her here, calling herQueen; 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 sisterMary was on the throne, and Mary feared that people would make Elizabethqueen, so she sent her as a prisoner to the Tower. We know the verywords Elizabeth said as she landed, though nearly three hundred andfifty years have passed since then. She exclaimed: 'Here landeth as truea subject, being a prisoner, as ever landed on these stairs, and beforeThee, O God, I speak it, having none other friends but Thee. ' Then shesat 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 goout of her cell at all. Afterwards, when she became Queen on Mary'sdeath, one of the first places she visited was the Tower, perhapsbecause she felt pleased at being a Queen instead of a prisoner, andwanted to enjoy the contrast. 

There were many, many others who landed here, never to come forth againas free men. Some died in imprisonment; some were beheaded; somesuffered for their crimes; some were innocent, but suffered because theyhad aroused the anger of a jealous king. Some went into those walls tosuffer tortures worse than death--tortures of the thumbscrew and rack, to make them betray the names of their companions. Some came here asmartyrs, because they believed in God, and thought the suffering of thepresent time as nothing to the glory hereafter. 

Having looked long at the Traitor's Gate, we can pass on into the Towerand see what else is there. 

The prisoners went sometimes from the Traitor's Gate to the BloodyTower, so called from the fact that it was in a room here Edward V. Andhis brother were murdered by the order of their wicked uncle. The boys'bones were afterwards found at the foot of a staircase in the WhiteTower. The Bloody Tower was not always called this awful name; it usedto be known at first as the Garden Tower. In the Bloody Tower the Dukeof Northumberland, who tried to make Lady Jane Grey a queen, wasimprisoned before he was beheaded. He must have known he well deservedhis fate; but if he had any conscience he must often have felt verymiserable to think of Lady Jane and her young husband, his own son, whowould be likely to suffer for his fault too. 

Very soon the dark walls beheld another prisoner, Archbishop Cranmer, amartyr 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 gavein to his enemies, and said he would renounce his faith. He thought thenhe would be released; but no, he heard that he was to be burned all thesame. We can imagine the horror of the poor prisoner, who had denied hisreligion and yet not saved his life. He realized then how weak he hadbeen, and, like St. Peter, no doubt he wept bitterly. However, when theday came, and he was taken to Oxford to be burnt, he had recovered allhis strength of mind. He declared himself firmly a Protestant, and whenthe 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 hadsigned his denial. He held it there until it was all burned away, anddied 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, hadattracted great favour from Queen Elizabeth. It is said that one daywhen she was going to cross a puddle Raleigh sprang forward and flung abeautiful 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 worethen. Of course it was spoilt, and Elizabeth was much flattered by thecourtesy of the young man. She made him a knight, and he was raised togreat honour. He sailed across the seas and discovered new lands, and hebrought back tobacco and introduced smoking into England. When theSpaniards attacked England, the gay and gallant Sir Walter foughtvaliantly, and came back covered with honour and glory. No man couldhave had a brighter life, no man could have risen higher. And then camehis downfall. He was accused of plotting against King James, who hadsucceeded Queen Elizabeth. He was condemned to death and sent to theTower. There seems to be no reason to believe that Raleigh was guilty, but, guilty or innocent, he spent fourteen years in the Tower. He wasnot the kind of man to sit idle, so he set to work and wrote a book onthe history of the world, which kept him occupied, and showed that hewas clever as well as gay and daring. Then once more he was let out fora short time while he sailed to the West to discover a gold-mine ofwhich someone had told him. King James, who always wanted money, had lethim go on giving his promise he would come back. Raleigh did not findthe gold-mine, but he was a man of his word. He came back, though heknew the terrible prison and perhaps the block and axe were waiting forhim. He was beheaded in Whitehall, where King James's own son was sosoon after to be beheaded too. Raleigh's long imprisonment must havebeen dreadful to a man full of life and energy. Yet he hadcompensations: he was allowed to walk in the garden, and his historymust always have been a solace to him. 

There were many others imprisoned in the Bloody Tower; but we must passon. 

In walking from one part of the Tower to another we meet some mendressed very curiously in red dresses with velvet caps. These are theBeef-eaters, who guard the Tower, also called the Yeomen of the Guard. Their odd name and odd dress always attract people, and they are suchfine men that children sometimes wonder if they are called Beef-eatersbecause they eat a lot of beef! That is not so. The name is said to comefrom an old French word _buffetier_, which means a man who waited at abuffet or sideboard; and in old times the beef-eaters waited on the Kingand Queen, and they still wear the same costume they wore three hundredyears ago. Every night before midnight the chief Beef-eater goes to findthe chief warder; the Beef-eater carries the keys of the Tower, and witha guard of men the two go together to lock up the outer gate. When thesentinel who keeps watch hears them, he calls out, 'Who goes there?' andthe answer is, 'The Keys!' Then says the sentinel, 'Advance, KingGeorge's Keys!' This is a curious old custom. Close by the Bloody Toweris the Jewel House, where the crowns of the King and Queen and otherroyalties 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 rubiesand pearls as large as pigeon's eggs, and huge glittering diamonds. Inthis room there is a man always on watch, day and night. Yet the jewelswere once stolen by a daring man called Colonel Blood, who managed toget away from the Tower, but was caught soon after with the King's crownunder his cloak. This was in the reign of Charles II. 

In the White Tower are rooms full of armour worn by Englishsoldiers--armour of all the different ages, from the time when a manwore so much iron that if he fell down he could not get up again, andsometimes was actually smothered before he could get out of it, up tothe present day. 

In the White Tower there is one very awful dungeon, a little narrowcell, without a ray of light, no window at all--nothing but denseblackness. There must have been many prisoners kept here, for on thewalls there are sad cuttings, now half worn away, which tell how thepoor men occupied their time in chipping their names in the stone. Manyof the martyrs of Queen Mary's reign must have felt this terribleblackness, for there are texts of which the dates show that they werecut at that time. One of these is, 'Be faithful unto death, and I willgive thee a crown of life. ' The hand that traced out these letters longyears ago is still. The martyr has long since passed from the darknessof the narrow cell to the great brightness of eternal light. 

The torture instruments are shown in the White Tower too, and many ofthese brave martyrs felt the torture before they reached the light. Therack was very commonly used. On it men--yes, and women too--weresometimes stretched as on a bed; their wrists were tied with cords abovetheir 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 inopposite directions. The poor wretch might shriek and scream, or hemight turn as white as death and let never a sound escape him; but itwas all the same: the rack moved on. There was a doctor there to feelthe victim's heart and say when he could bear no more without dying. Andthen, when that happened, perhaps he fainted with the agony and wasreleased, and carried away to be allowed to recover a little, only to bebrought back another day. Sometimes he would bear it bravely enough thefirst time, but at the second time his courage would give way, and hewould cry out and say he would do whatever it was his persecutorswanted, perhaps change his religion, perhaps reveal the names of hiscompanions in a plot. There were other tortures, too--a kind of ironcage, called the Scavenger's Daughter, with a collar of iron to fastenround a man's neck and irons round his arms and legs, which cramped himup in an awful position, in which he was left for hours, until everybone ached as if it were red-hot. The thumbscrew was a little thing, butcaused great agony. It was fixed on to anyone's thumb, and then madetighter and tighter, until sometimes the wretched victim fainted away. Another way that people were tortured was by being hung up by theirthumbs, so that the whole weight of their bodies rested on the cords. Inthis position they were left for hours together. 

There is a very beautiful chapel in the White Tower which we mustcertainly see. Outside in the garden, opposite to another chapel, calledSt. Peter ad Vincula, is the execution ground, where so many people werebeheaded. But I think this is enough for one chapter, and we will learnsomething 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 wereexecuted on Tower Hill, which lies outside the walls; only a few whowere of royal birth or especially favoured were beheaded inside thewalls, where they could not be seen by the great multitude. And the plotof ground outside the chapel is the place where these favoured few werekilled. We can stand now on the spot where gentle Lady Jane Grey laidher little head on the block. She was not the first near the throne tohave been executed here. Two of the Queens of the bloodthirsty HenryVIII. Had died at the same place--Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard. Boththese Queens had been received here by Henry in great state before theirmarriages, and little had they thought when they arrived and weregreeted with guns firing and flags flying that very soon the bell wouldbe tolling for their death. It is difficult to believe in thecold-heartedness of a man like Henry. Anne Boleyn was a bright, gaylittle woman; she was the mother of Queen Elizabeth, and she had donenothing whatever to merit death. But Henry had seen someone else hewanted to marry, so he ordered his wife to be beheaded. It is said thathe waited under a great tree on a height in Richmond Park, some milesaway, to see a rocket fired up from the Tower, which was to announce thedeath of Anne, and to let him know he could marry Jane Seymour. Anne hadonly been his wife three years when he tired of her, and she wastwenty-nine when she was executed. Four years later the King marriedKatherine Howard, having had two wives--Jane Seymour and Anne ofCleves--in between. Poor Katherine was Queen only for two years, whenshe followed Anne to the block. 

The handsome and gallant Earl of Essex, who had been a favourite ofQueen Elizabeth's, also suffered here. He had lost the Queen's favour, and, after having been one of the principal men at the Court, wastreated with coldness and disdain. Essex's proud temper could not endurethis, and he made plots against the Queen, one of which was to kidnapher and carry her off as his prisoner. Elizabeth heard of this, and senther soldiers to seize him. Essex had then a house in the Strand, nearSt. Clement's Church, and he barricaded his house and defied the Queen'ssoldiers. Nothing could have been more mad. Elizabeth was furious whenshe 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, whowas at last forced to submit. He was tried, found guilty of hightreason, and condemned to death. But all the time Elizabeth, who muststill have cared for the high-spirited Essex, felt sure that he wouldnot 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 thatring to her, and she would help him. So she expected to receive the ringfrom him, and was very slow in signing his death-warrant; but the ringnever came, so she signed the warrant, and then she recalled it. Yetstill there was no sign from Essex. Elizabeth began to grow uneasy, andthought perhaps that the Earl was too proud to ask help from her when hehad 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 notasked 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'spromise; he had been rebellious and he was very proud, but now that hewas going to die in the full strength of his manhood it did not seem toohard a thing to do to ask a favour from Elizabeth, who had been so kindto him and was his Queen. After all, he had behaved very badly, and heknew it, and it was right to ask pardon. Perhaps this was what hethought, and he gave the ring to the Countess of Nottingham to take tothe 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 ifshe kept back the token Essex would surely die. 

So the time slipped away, and Elizabeth in her palace and Essex in hisprison both thought bitterly of each other. The execution drew verynear, 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 upcarrying a pardon from the Queen; but no, no one came, and at last helaid his head on the block, and perished thinking hard things of hisQueen. Not long after the Countess of Nottingham herself fell ill, andon her deathbed confessed to Elizabeth the wicked thing she had done. The knowledge that Essex had died believing her to have been faithlessto 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 SirWalter Raleigh, who was here for fourteen years; but there were othersimprisoned much longer. One man, a Duke of Orleans, afterwards King ofFrance, was here for twenty-five years; and Lord Courtenay, son of theEarl of Exeter, who was of the Royal Family and descended from EdwardIV. , was kept in the Tower almost his whole life for fear that he mightlay claim to the crown. 

When the King or Queen of England used the Tower as a palace, the partthey occupied was quite distinct from the prison. This part is now theGovernor's house, and the Governor, who is called the Lieutenant of theTower, lives in it. Here there are many splendid rooms, including agreat council-room, where the King and his nobles used to meet forconsultation. Underneath the house is a room where Lord Nithsdale wasimprisoned, and the story of his escape from the Tower is one of themost exciting in all history. 

In the reign of George I. A nobleman called the Earl of Nithsdale hadjoined in a plot to restore the Stuarts to the throne. You will rememberthat after the reign of James II. People said that Prince James was nothis son at all, but a baby which had been adopted by the King, who hadno son of his own; and as this was generally believed, after the Kinghad been driven into exile, his daughters, the Princesses Mary and Anne, came to the throne and reigned one after the other. When they died theEnglish crown was offered to a distant cousin, who was George I. Butmany English noblemen and gentlemen said that this was unfair, and thatthe son of James II. And his son after him should have been King. We cannever tell now which was right; but all this caused a great deal ofunhappiness and much fighting. Those who took up the cause of theStuarts were called Jacobites, and among this number was the Earl ofNithsdale. He was taken prisoner, and condemned by King George to diewith several others, and he was sent to the Tower, there to wait hisfate. 

But he had a beautiful and determined wife, who was resolved to save hislife. It was in the winter time, and, of course, there were then notrains to carry people swiftly and comfortably through the frosty air. So she started on her journey from Scotland on horseback, and rode asfar as Newcastle; but she was not a great horse-woman, and being weariedwith her exertions, she there took a coach and proceeded to York, takingwith her her faithful maid Evans. But when they got to York they foundthat so much snow had fallen that the coach could not go on to London atall. Now, all this time the days were passing, and every day that passedmade Lord Nithsdale's execution nearer. His poor wife was in a terriblestate of suspense; but she did not sit down and despair. She said thatif there were no coach then must she ride to London. And so shedid--rode about one hundred and eighty miles through all the snow, whichwas often up to her horse's girths, and at times she thought she wouldnot be able to get through after all. But at last she did, and when shearrived in London her husband was still alive. Never thinking of herselfor of her own weariness, Lady Nithsdale went to the Court, and used allthe 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 hearher, 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 toescape out of that gloomy Tower. She therefore begged permission to goto see him. At first even this was refused her, but she gave the guardsmoney, and at last they let her into the Tower. What a meeting that musthave been, and how cheered the husband must have been to think of thestrong 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 toarrange for the future. Brave Lady Nithsdale formed a plan, but to carryit out it was necessary to get the help of two other women. She foundone in a Mrs. Mills, in whose house she was lodging, and after somedifficulty she found another, a friend of Mrs. Mills, called Mrs. Morgan. Now, by this time it was the day before that fixed for LordNithsdale's execution, and everything depended on getting him out of theTower at once. Lady Nithsdale told her companions of her plan, which wasto make her husband walk out boldly through the guards dressed like awoman; 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 shemeant that Lord Nithsdale should wear. Mrs. Mills was a big, stoutwoman, with fair eyebrows and fair hair, and Lady Nithsdale hoped thatwhen her husband came through dressed in woman's clothes the guardswould think he was Mrs. Mills. When they arrived at the Tower, the poorwife got out and asked to be allowed to take a friend in to say farewellto 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 werein the cell where Lord Nithsdale was, Mrs. Morgan took off the extraclothes she had brought and left them for him to put on. Then shehurried back and told Mrs. Mills to come in. Lady Nithsdale ran to meetMrs. Mills, who pretended to cry very much, and kept her handkerchief upto her face; and when she got into the cell they waited a little whileand talked, for they hoped the gaolers, having seen some ladies passingbackwards and forwards, would now forget how many had gone into thecell. After a time Mrs. Mills went out again, and Lady Nithsdale keptcalling after her to tell her that she wanted her maid, and that themaid must come quickly, and then she went back again to her husband. Shehad painted his dark eyebrows fair, and she had put rouge on his cheeksand dressed him up in her own petticoats and the clothes Mrs. Morganhad left; and she had told him not to stride like a man, but to takelittle mincing steps, so that the guards should not notice anydifference. But there was one thing she could not hide, and that was hisbeard, and she had no time to cut it off; so she tucked it into hiscloak in front, and told him to keep his head down and hold hishandkerchief to his face and pretend to be crying bitterly. It was nowgetting dusky, and she was afraid that if they waited any longer thegaolers would bring candles and see what was being done. How the heartsof both husband and wife must have been beating when they opened thedoor and stepped forth into the anteroom where the guards were! LadyNithsdale talked a good deal rather loudly, and said she could notunderstand 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 toher 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 thecell herself. Then she talked again as if she were talking to herhusband, so that the gaolers should hear, and made answers for him in adeep man's voice. Brave heart! she must have been well-nigh faintingwith terror, and expecting to hear every minute a noise which wouldtell her she had been discovered. But after a time, when all seemedright, 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 neednot take in lights until Lord Nithsdale asked for them, for he waspraying, and did not wish to be disturbed. Then she went down to hercoach. 

And he really did get safely away; and the King was furious, and saidLady Nithsdale had given him more trouble than any woman in Europe. ButLady Nithsdale went and waited at a friend's house until she heard whereher husband was in hiding in a little poor house, and then she joinedhim, and they stayed there together until things could be arranged forhim to get over to France. A friend brought them a bottle of wine andsome bread, and on this they lived from Thursday to Saturday. But I donot expect they cared much what they ate, they must have been so happyto be together again. 

It was very seldom indeed anyone had escaped from the Tower. Once a mantried to, and let himself down by a rope from his window; but the ropebroke, and he fell headlong and was killed. The countess's plan was muchbetter. Luckily, she and her husband had good friends, and one of themlent Lord Nithsdale the livery of his servant, and, pretending he was afootman, took him to Dover, where he got a boat and managed to crossover to France in safety. His estates were all taken from him, but thatwas a little thing when he had saved his life. His devoted wife joinedhim 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 inthe Tower, and the judges tried to make him give up the names of hiscompanions; but villain as he was, Guy Fawkes was no coward, and herefused to turn traitor. Finding that he was obdurate, the judgesdecreed that he should suffer the torture of the rack, and accordinglyhe was racked again and again. At last in his agony he cried out that hewould tell the history of the conspiracy, but not reveal the names ofhis fellow-conspirators. This was not enough. Once again he was broughtto suffer the awful torture, and this time his gaolers told him thatsome of his comrades had been already taken, and were in the hands ofthe police. So Fawkes gave way and made a full confession, which wassigned 'Guido Fawkes, ' and is still kept. This was in November, and onthe last day of the following January he and three of his associateswere executed at Westminster. 

They were brought from the Tower to be executed, and Guy Fawkes was soweak and ill from the terrible tortures he had suffered that he couldscarcely 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 theirstories here. In one tower there is the word 'Jane, ' cut in the wall byLady Jane Grey's husband, the young Lord Dudley, and on many of thewalls are names and records cut by sorrowful men and women almostwithout 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 ofvisitors who come to see the place. The soldiers are in barracks in theTower, and they drill in the bottom of the deep moat, which is now quitedry. 

If we pass from the Tower we shall find outside Tower Hill, where by farthe greater number of executions took place. It is just a wide, openspace, paved like a street or market-place, and many people walk over itevery day without giving a thought to all that has happened there inbygone times. 

CHAPTER XX

THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS

If you go to the Zoological Gardens you ought to be a good walker andnot easily tired. The animals are in cages, but they are not all closetogether; there are long stretches of green grass and trees andbeautiful flower-beds between, and to go over the Zoo thoroughly takes avery long time. But it is not likely that any of you would want to knowit thoroughly; the things you want most to look at are not the curiousrare small animals or different sorts of birds, but the largest andbest-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 weought 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 oneside in a row. Behind them are the railed-in gardens belonging to thebeasts; but sometimes the doors between are shut, and the lions are notallowed to walk in their gardens. On fine sunny days, however, we cansee them there outside, licking their great lips and rolling aboutlazily on the warm ground. In the lion house about ten minutes to fourall the great animals begin to get restless; they walk up and down andwhine or howl, and as four o'clock draws near they get more and moreexcited, some of them going round and round in circles, always quickerand quicker. Though they have no watches, they know the time exactly, which is rather wonderful, for there is nothing to tell them fouro'clock is near. This is their one meal in the day, so no wonder theylook forward to it; and when you see what they get, it doesn't seem muchfor 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 passagebetween the cages, and the keeper pushes it along the front of the cagesto the end. Then the animals get frantic; the sight of the raw meatmakes them savage; they leap and howl--great howls that would make yourblood run cold if you heard them on a dark night when you were out inthe forest. The animal that goes round in circles goes so fast henearly 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 ofthe cage, which leaves just enough room to put the meat in; then hepicks out the piece he means for that animal and thrusts it through atthe 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, andgoes on to the next one, and so on until all are fed. Then a deepsilence follows; there is only a licking of great lips, a sort ofpurring of content, and a sound of bones being crunched or scraped, andwe 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 broadnose is wrinkled as he crunches his bone. He has torn all the meat offit almost at once, and his rough tongue has licked it clean until it isquite polished; but he still goes on chewing it with those huge whiteteeth as long as your finger--teeth that would crunch through your armin a moment. This old fellow is usually good-tempered for a lion, butwhen feeding-time comes his wife Mrs. Lioness has to go into the backden shut off by a little door to eat her dinner alone, or they wouldfight. Suddenly Mr. Lion raises his head and looks round grandly, as ifhe were ashamed of all those people who come to stare at him. He was aking 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 fixeshis eyes on that baby until it is out of sight. What a delicious morselit 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 bornin the Zoo--oh no; he had been caught when he was full grown. Heremembers quite well the wild, free life, where, if he were not sure ofa dinner every day, at least every now and then he got more than hecould eat. While he licks his bone he is in a quiet mood, and if youlistened very hard you might hear him talking. 

'Yes, ' he says (Lick, lick), 'that bone was very good, but there wasn'tenough 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 gentlemaneat his dinner before? They would open those silly round eyes a bitwider if these bars were not between us. I wish they could have seen methat day we caught the zebra. It was grand that!' (Lick, lick. ) 'I hadhunted all one night without getting even the whisk of a tail; and alsoduring the day in the glaring, hot African sun, when I wanted to go tosleep; and I was very hungry. We, I and my wife, lay down in the shade alittle while towards evening before we parted to see what we could pickup. There were the little ones to be considered, for when they had comerunning up and seen me with nothing, all their little tails droppeddown, and you never saw such a set of little cats in your life. I toldthem I would bring them something next time for certain; and so I setoff alone, as I said before, in the evening. 

'The sun had burnt up all the grass, which was a kind of dusty brick-redcolour; but that's not a bad thing for a lion, because he doesn't showagainst it. It was a very wide open plain where I was, with just a fewshrubs and odd bits of tree for shelter. Well, I crouched down under oneof these, trying to make myself as small as I could, and praying thatthe still air wouldn't send the smell of me over the plain to warn allthose silly creatures I wanted to catch. 

'Presently I smelt zebra. Now, good tender zebra makes a dish fit for aking, but the brute can trot at such a rate that I knew I shouldn't havea chance to catch him running. I must hide and leap out. The smell gotstronger and stronger, and then I saw them half a mile off, a wholeherd, galloping just as straight as they could come towards myhiding-place. I grew hot and cold then, I can tell you, and my tailquivered so I was afraid they would see it. I was in fine condition, andI reckoned that at the distance they would pass I could just by a verylong spring land on the back of the leader. But then they might at anymoment scent me, and I should be done for; up with their heels, andnothing 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 rightmoment, I gathered myself up, and with a great spring I cleared thedistance and landed clean on the back of the leader. That was a surprisefor him, I can tell you. He went down as if he had been shot, and theothers, with snorts of terror, flew away like the wind. One stroke of mypaw killed him, and then I stood up over his striped and quivering bodyand roared as loud as I could for my wife and little ones. They weren'tfar off, and they came as fast as they could; and to see those littlebeggars dancing about that zebra was a sight, almost as good a feelingit gave me as when I landed on that zebra's back. It had been a recordjump that. We measured it afterwards in strides, and my wife said shewas proud of me, and she always knew I could jump better than any otherlion in South Africa. 

'Well, those little beggars jumped on that zebra, and bit at him; butthe skin was too tough for their little teeth, bless them! It was thefunniest sight. But when the old woman and I started in, we did morethan that, I can tell you; we tore off great chunks of him, and thelittle ones ate what they could. They got in the way, too, and we had togive them a slap now and then to keep them in order; and they snarledand swore at each other until their mother had to quiet them. When wehad done we felt as if we could hardly walk, and we just wanted to gethome as fast as we could and do no more that night. We had pretty wellfinished up that zebra before we walked off, and the vultures camehopping round to clean up what we had left. I was feeling all rightthen, and we lay down comfortable and satisfied. Oh dear! I had quiteforgotten where I was; and now I wake up to find myself in this dullplace, where there is no hunting and no fun, where we are caged up inhorrid bars. '

Just as the lion finished speaking, Mrs. Lioness came out from theinner den. She was not nearly so handsome as her husband, and he thoughther not nearly so handsome as his first wife, who had hunted with him inSouth Africa; still, she was company, and that was something. 

We have stayed a long time at this lions' cage, and we must pass overall the rest of the lions--some of them born in captivity, who havenever known the delight of a wild, free life--and go on to the greatstriped Bengal tiger, with his magnificent head and handsome face. Thereis not the same tremendous strength in his appearance as in the lion's, but there is something almost more terrible in his long, gliding bodyand catlike movements, more ferocious altogether. In the wild state thelion prefers to prey upon animals, and will not turn on man unless he isdesperate. But a tiger sometimes takes to the life of a man-eater for noreason but because he likes the taste of human flesh; and once he hasbegun to eat human beings, he is a man-eater to the end of his days. Heturns man-eater sometimes, too, when he is old and his strong teethfail; and then he will hang about outside villages to pounce on asoft-flesh man, who is easier to catch than a wild animal. 

Tigers are very fierce; a mother tiger with her cubs will attackanything. When the cubs are little she teaches them to hunt forthemselves, taking them out with her on expeditions and showing them howto catch smaller animals, such as young calves or pigs, until they arestrong enough to hunt larger ones, when they leave her and beginhousekeeping 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 ofthem. You would think, to look at the royal tiger, with his reddishmarkings and black stripes, that he could be easily seen at a greatdistance, but this is not so. In the jungle where he lives the stems ofthe bamboos are light, and the markings of the tiger are so like hissurroundings that you might get quite close to him and never know it. Hewalks through the dense thick jungle with the loose, springy step of acat, and woe be to any luckless animal he sees! Sometimes he will findan enclosure with some young bullocks in it; then he will take one, andleave the others, for, unless he is a very young tiger, he does not killfor the love of it, but for food. He carries off his prey, and comesback a night or two after for a second one; and if the owner of thebullocks 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 curiousanimals. The most interesting are the enormous snakes, calledboa-constrictors, with bodies nearly as thick as a child's, and manyyards in length. They are not in cages, but in glass houses, like glassboxes. The glass is very thick and strong, and the snake does not dashhimself 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 himvery lazy. There he lies, with his oily body, covered with littlescales, hanging round the branch of a dead tree which has been put intohis house, or perhaps lying coiled up on the gravel floor in rings andrings, so beautifully neat that you wonder how he can take the troubleto fold himself up so nicely before he goes to sleep. He certainly wouldnot get crumpled if he lay anyhow, as your clothes would get crumpled ifyou did not fold them up. Watch him very closely. You can see hebreathes, and perhaps he glances up and winks with one eye, or darts outa wicked little tongue. How can a creature like that, so big and soslow, ever get any food? Well, he can go fast enough at times, and hedoes not often want a meal, because he eats so much at one time that itlasts him for many days. He writhes his great body along the ground inthe thick woods of his native country, and lies so still that you mighttread on him without seeing him. He lives in Brazil and other parts ofSouth America. Perhaps a young deer comes down to drink, all unconsciousof the hideous beast lying in watch. He stoops his pretty head, then, with a writhing movement, the boa is upon him. The deer strugglesfrantically, but the great folds of the snake close ever tighter andtighter round him with a strength that breaks his delicate bones andsqueezes the life out of him. When the animal, crushed and breathless, ceases to struggle, the boa opens his gaping mouth, and bit by bit thewhole animal--it may be still palpitating--is forced into that awfulthroat. The snake cannot tear his prey; he has no hands or feet, noclaws or hoofs. He can only swallow it whole. It would seem impossiblesometimes that he could get that mass into his comparatively narrowthroat; but his muscles are elastic. He stops half-way through hishorrid meal and lies still to rest, then another swallow and another. Inthe meantime, his teeth, like little sharp saws bent backwards, coveringall the roof of his mouth as well as the jaws, are firmly fixed intothe victim, so that it cannot draw back. When the disgusting meal isdone the great snake lies helpless and swollen, and has to wait untilhis 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, butrabbits and small things that he can swallow easily, and frogs, of whichall snakes are very fond, perhaps because they are slimy and slip downquickly. There are many other snakes beside the boa, some not so large, but more poisonous. The boa is not poisonous. He relies on his hugestrength to kill his enemies; but other snakes, such as vipers andrattlesnakes, are. Even when the head of a viper has been cut off itstill remains poisonous, and may cause death. The rattlesnake is socalled 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 sendsterror into the heart of anyone who is near, as he knows that at anymoment the snake may dart out upon him with its hideous head aloft andits wicked eyes gleaming. The rattlesnake is found in North America. 

The reptile house has been rebuilt and is very hot and damp, to suit theanimals who live there. In the middle there is a large tank withnumbers 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 werefloating 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 mightvery likely be the back or head of a crocodile. He has a bony coat likea suit of armour, and it would be very difficult indeed to break throughit, and he swims along, using both his strong tail and his flat feet. Heis what is called an amphibious animal, because he lives partly on landand partly in the water. He must breathe air, but he can shut up hisnostrils by a fold of skin as we shut our eyes, and can remain under thewater without breathing for some time. His enormous jaws are like a pairof great shears, and woe be to any animal or man who gets his legbetween them. It will be cut off as cleanly as the gardener cuts a tallflower with his shears. The crocodile lives in water, and catches fishand other things; he comes out at times and lies on the banks, and inthe evening, when the land animals come down to drink, he hides himselfin the water, and catches anything he can with his ugly snout. Fancy adainty antelope finding suddenly that his delicate nose was pinchedtightly by Mr. Crocodile's teeth, and that he was being drawn down, downto a hideous death!

But we have stayed much too long in the reptile house, and have not evenmentioned the pretty little green frogs and the many other things to befound there. 

On the other side of the lion house, away from the reptiles, is thesea-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 theythought they must be lions, and so they gained the name. There areseveral of them at the Zoo, huge clumsy looking creatures with bigwhiskers, and a skin like india-rubber. At one end of their pond is amass of artificial rock with caves and terraces, and when the sea-lionsare 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. Theylollop along on two front flippers and their strong muscular tail, andthen 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 movementsare so fast and graceful. Diving at one end of the pond, they are up atthe other before you have had time to take breath. 

The best time to see them is when they are fed, which is after the reallions. The keeper goes into the enclosure with a basket of fish, and intheir excitement the sea-lions writhe and wind and chase each other tillthe pond seems full of gigantic eels. He throws the fish one by one inall directions, and the great beasts simply dance after them. Even afterthe last fish has gone, still the happy commotion continues for severalminutes. 

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 seenin a more natural state than is possible when they are in cages. Thegreat idea is that the animals are not separated from the sight-seers bybars, 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 farbetter than under the old conditions; while the bears themselves are inthe open air, and have a good space to roam over and a fine pond tobathe in. They are some beautiful shaggy brown bears here, just the verymodel on which Teddy bears are made; and, if you are kind to them, andthrow them bits of biscuits across the fosse, some of them will sit upin the most engaging way and hug their hind feet, rocking themselvesbackwards and forwards in their excitement about the promised dainty. 

High over the bears' open places, rise rocks on which various sorts ofchamois and goats live happily. They can climb far above our heads andlook down on us, or leap from rock to rock as if they were in theirnative haunts. I often wonder what they think of the bears running aboutbelow them! Sometimes they must watch in surprise as they see the bearschasing each other. There are one or two together in most of the bigspaces, and they go through the most absurd antics, plunging in and outof their ponds, and eyeing one another cautiously as they stand with thewater running off their fur. 

There are a great many other bears too, for whom there is not room onthe Mappin terraces. These are in the old bear-quarters, which lookrather like two rows of open fronted shops standing back to back. Hereare 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 abear. There are also funny little bears who go head-over-heels to makepeople look at them. There is an open cage here, too, with a pond init. Sometimes the grizzlies live here; very fearful they look too, withtheir terrible claws, as long as fingers. Or there may be a family ofyoung ones romping together. 

Bears are to be found in nearly all parts of the world, and they arevery different from one another. Bears in their natural state would notattack men, but when men follow them up and try to hunt them they becomevery 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 brownbears who climb up a pole to get buns. 

Now we will go back again to visit the Polar bears who live in aspacious place at the end of the Mappin terraces, and deserve a littlemore attention than the rest because they are so very different in theirappearance and habits. 

One day I caught Mr. Polar Bear in a good humour, so that he wasactually willing to talk to me. 'It's not so bad here sometimes, ' saidhe. '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. Butit 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 onlycomfortable place is the bath, and that's lukewarm. Cold, do you callit? Oh, you don't know what cold is--real keen, cutting cold, whichmakes one feel young again and ready for anything. Oh for those longblue Arctic nights, when the sun never rises for days together, and thestars flash like diamonds, and the aurora shoots over the gleamingsky!--nights when everything is still, held in the grip of a frostgreater than you can imagine; where for miles and miles there is onlythe glittering ice reflecting the flashing sky and the deep blue shadowsunder hillocks of frozen snow. Then it's worth while to live. Shall Iever see it again? My wife used to say before she died that she didn'tknow what was the matter with me, I had grown so cross; I only growledat 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 sealin your life? Then you don't know what excitement is. You just try, andthen come and tell me if it isn't the best sport in the world. Theseseals--silly things!--make holes in the ice, and come up to breathe nowand then; and these holes are regular traps. Right down below theice-cold water lies fathoms deep, still and dark, and we cannot get thesilly things there; but here in the ice is a nice little round hole. Ihave been walking with great long silent strides over the beautifulfrosty snow, and I come on one of these, and lie down beside it, hidingmyself. 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 heara faint sound in the water, a little ripple, so faint that anyone notused 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 glisteningwith the wet. I am lying behind a hummock of snow--we call them hummocksthere--and he looks all round, and finally drags himself up on to theice; then with a bound I am on him. But there is only time for onetry--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 suppergone too. But if I get him, what a juicy feast, what masses of softflesh 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 thejoys 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 cagesthe height of a room, with bars filled in by wire to prevent the monkeysfrom getting their little hands through to snatch, for if ever anysaying 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 hattrimmed 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 spiesthe 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 thevery highest corner of his cage, where, jabbering with delight, he picksthe petals off one by one, and lets them float down to the ground. He isbig, so none of the others dare take his prize from him; but woe betideany little monkey who finds such a treasure. He darts off with it, andthen begins a wild race right across the cage; one monkey after anotherjoins in, leaping in the air from one swinging rope to another, andspringing up the bars of the cage. The little monkey jumps, catches arope, drops to the ground, and springs at another rope. Now he is in acorner, the others have him; but no, with a dive and a wriggle he hasslipped through them, and is chattering and grimacing on the other sideof the cage. 

Feed one of them with nuts, a little wrinkled black hand is put out toreceive them; if you touch it, you will feel it cold and clammy. Thelittle black palm holds the nuts for a second, and then the monkey cramsthem into its cheek, which makes a sort of pouch, and, retiring to thetop of the cage, cracks them one by one, throwing down the shells justas a boy would do. They are very human the monkeys; you cannot helpfeeling all the time they know a great deal more than they pretend. Haveyou ever looked into a monkey's eyes? If not, do so the next time youhave the chance; they are the saddest eyes on earth--just as if the poorlittle monkey thought a great many things in his small head, but couldnever express them, and so was very unhappy. There are a large numberof monkeys at the Zoo; they are never still, and so funny that they makeyou laugh outright sometimes. The bigger monkeys, which are called apes, are also very interesting, but are in another house altogether. Theyhave glass in front of their cages. Of all of them the chimpanzees arethe most human, and one or two of these are in separate cages, wherethey are bathed in artificial sunlight all day long to keep them in goodhealth, as they are very delicate. 

One of the latest additions to the Zoo is a wonderful Aquarium, whereall sorts of strange fishes and sea-creatures can be seen swimming aboutin natural surroundings, lit from above. From the huge wicked-lookingoctopuses with their snake-like feelers, to the tiny sea-horses withheads very like those of the knights in chess pieces, there are wondersuntold. 

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 andrhinoceroses. To reach these, we go through a tunnel and come up on theother side. 

The first thing we see here is a row of most brilliantly colouredparrots; I do not suppose you ever saw such colours anywhere else--thebrightest reds and blues and greens and oranges, all in the same bird. It seems almost impossible to believe that the feathers really grow likethat; it seems as if someone must have taken a big paintbrush and daubedon 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 aboutamong the green trees? Fancy, if we came across a great bird, as largeas the largest doll, brilliantly coloured, flying about in the garden athome! 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 thereason of this, the parrots are so conceited that they are pleased whenpeople 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 hisscarlet and blue! Now, who would have thought a bird could be likethat?'

On dull or cold days the parrots are indoors, and if you go into theirhouse you will hear a tremendous noise. All of them are shrieking andscreaming at once. Perhaps suddenly in the midst of all this din youwill hear a funny parrot voice saying: 'Thank you, my dear; Polly'squite well, ' which will make you jump. When you turn round you will seeit is one of the birds who is talking. They cannot all talk, and thosewho do just know a sentence or two without knowing the sense of it, andsay it on all occasions; but very proud they are of the accomplishment. There are dear little green parrakeets, too, who fly about in flocks inAustralia, looking like flights of animated green leaves. 

Besides parrots there are in the same house toucans, birds who haveenormous bills and rather small bodies--in fact, they seem to have spenttheir time growing bills. The bill, or beak, is like the claw of alobster, and is rich orange colour. The toucan's eye has bright blueround 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 isaltogether very grand, and he is so solemn that you think he mustimagine himself very superior. 

Just beyond the parrot house is a long range of buildings like a largestable, and here are the elephants and other big animals. Perhaps theelephant is out earning his living by walking round the Gardens with aseat on his back, on which anyone can have a ride who likes. He is verygentle and tame, though his enormous height and great swinging trunkmake him appear rather fearful. 

If he is at home, and we pay him a visit, he coils up his trunk or liftsit over his head, and shows a huge three-cornered mouth, into which, hegently insinuates, he would like you to throw biscuits. There are bothIndian and African elephants, and the African are generally the larger. 

Elephants as a rule have very good characters, and get fond of theirkeepers. They are big and gentle; yet in some cases they have suddenlyturned savage without any apparent reason. In the wild state they livein dense forests, and unless they were very strong and their hides werevery thick they could never get through the trees and shrubs at all; butthey force them asunder with their great strength, and snap the longtwining plants that hang from tree to tree. Any other animal would bewounded and torn with the spikes and thorns, but the elephant's hide isas strong as a board. He does not mind prickles, and the only sensitivepart of him is just behind the ear, so when he is tamed a man sits onhis neck, and with a little sharp-pointed spike pricks him behind theear on the side he wants him to go. It does not hurt, but the elephantfeels it and soon understands, and follows the directions as a horsefollows the pull of the reins in driving. Elephants live entirely ongreen food and vegetables, and never want to eat flesh. In their foreststhey can find plenty of food, and they tear down great branches of richtrees with their long trunks, and then strip the leaves off neatly andput them into their mouths. When the elephant is thirsty he goes to adeep watercourse and drinks, and then, sucking up water in his trunk, hesquirts it over his back and sides in a cooling shower-bath. 

If you understood elephant language, and came here one evening when theday's work was done and there were no other people about, you might hearthe elephants talking. 

'Those silly fools of humans!' says the Indian elephant; 'not one ofthem can throw straight. I can tell you half my time is spent in pickingup the bits of biscuit they mean to throw into my mouth and throwsomewhere else. I would have a school for teaching them to throwstraight if I were in authority. The bits are so little when you getthem 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 stuffyourself up with. For me, I don't care what I have to eat, but I do longfor a little heat and a good plunge in a real river with soft muddybanks instead of my wretched tank sometimes. '

'Ah!' the Indian elephant answers, 'is there anything like it, thatplunge after a long, hot, sleepy day, when one has stood about under thetrees? I used to have a particular tree I always went and leanedagainst. It just fitted my side, and I wore the trunk quite smooth. Andthere I stood all the long, hot day, with sound of the rich forest lifein 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, whenevening came, and it grew a little cooler, we used to join together, allof us who belonged to the same herd, and go down to the water. Then whatromping and splashing, what trumpeting and fun! We squirted each otherwith mud and water, and came out fresh and cool. Ah, those were grandtimes!'

'You were a fool to get caught, ' said the African one rudely, for shehad not very good manners. 'How did it happen?'

The Indian elephant looked quite sad, and winked his little eyes as ifhe thought he should cry. 'It was a terrible story that, ' he said, 'andthe lesson is, never depend on women. I met one day a handsome elephantin the forest, who seemed to me the nicest I had ever seen. She was notvery big, but her ears were particularly large, and hung down sogracefully; and as for her feet, I don't think I've ever seen suchbeautiful great flat feet on an elephant. Well, I loved her, and sheseemed to like me, and we talked together and rubbed trunks, and werevery happy, and I forgot where I was quite; and the next thing was Ifound I was shut in between high palisades, and when I tried to get outthe gate was shut. And then men threw ropes over me, and tied my feet togreat poles; and the wicked little elephant ran away grinning, for shewas a decoy. You've heard of them perhaps--elephants who are tamed byhumans, who teach them to be wicked and go out into the forest just inorder 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 someexercise 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 inthe 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 oftalking to each other. 

The rhinoceros is very different. His eyes are wicked, he turns his headfrom side to side; he would like to stick that horn at the end of hisnose into you if he could, and, holding you down with his great flatfeet, rummage about inside you with it, and you would not live very longunder that treatment. His skin hangs in great thick folds like plates ofarmour, and is so loose that it looks as if his tailor had fitted himvery badly. He is much smaller than the elephant, and his thick-set bodyshows great strength. He is hideously ugly according to our ideas; butrhinoceros' ideas are different, and he would probably think the smoothpink-and-white skin of a child hideous. He lives in the jungle and eatsthe leaves of trees, which he tears off with his long upper lip. Somerhinoceroses have two horns on their nose and some only one. You cansee both sorts in the Gardens. When the rhinoceros in its wild state hasa little calf, as its young one is called, the little one runs along infront of the mother at the sound of any danger, and the mother followsin a wallowing trot behind, so that if necessary her body could guard itfrom danger. Sometimes hunters shoot rhinoceroses and kill them, andthen eat part of them, which they say is very good, just like beef. 

After leaving the elephant and rhinoceros house, we pass some sheds andyards, with deer and other animals, and then come to another set ofbuildings like stables, where there are the hippopotami and giraffes. Ifyou thought the rhinoceros ugly, what will you think of thehippopotamus, with his great shovel-like nose and little ears? He lookslike a stupid fat pig, only many, many times larger than the largest pigthat ever lived. There are two of these animals in the Gardens now--alady 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 theZoological Gardens at Antwerp. Neither of them have known what it is towallow in the soft mud on the sides of rivers or the joy of living wildand free; they are fat, sleepy, stupid, and contented. There is a tankin their yard at the back, and they are free to walk out as much as theyplease. Sometimes they lie in the water with only their backs out for awhole afternoon at a time. 

The yards of the giraffe are next door, but separated by a high wirefence, so that even the long neck of the giraffe cannot bend over andtouch 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 hehad a stiff neck, he holds his head so high, and seems so grand. Giraffes are very delicate animals, and great care must be taken ofthem. When you think how difficult it must be to bring an animal with aneck like that over the sea and in a railway train to England, it seemswonderful that the Zoo ever owns one at all. Giraffes live on the openplains in Africa, and if they take fright they fly away over the groundwith their long legs, covering yards at each stride. If ever a huntergets near enough to one to throw a rope round him, he may think himselflucky indeed. If a giraffe has been caught like this, the hunters drawhim, kicking and struggling, up to a tree, tie him there, and leave himto fight and try to get free for a whole day and a night; sometimes hefights so desperately that he kills himself. However, if he is stillalive in the morning, the hunters come and find him exhausted, and theycan then take him away without so much danger of being killed by a blowfrom his great hoof or a swing of his hard head, which he uses to strikewith. Once down at the sea, a special place has to be made in the shipso that his long neck may not be cramped; and when landed in Englandthere is a long box-like arrangement fitted on to a compartment of atrain, and this can be bent down flat along the roof of the train whenit passes under a tunnel. Just think of the many difficulties there arebefore 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 thinkit cruel that he should be brought into captivity; but, after all, whenhe is here he is well looked after, and everything is done to make himcomfortable. And if he had not been brought here, thousands of peoplewould never have seen one of the most curious animals in the world. Thegiraffes at the Zoo are continually changing, for though some have beenborn here, they do not live long, and new ones have to be brought fromAfrica at great cost. 

Not far from the giraffe house are the zebras, with their beautifulblack and white stripes, looking like wonderfully marked donkeys. Theyare very wild and untameable and of uncertain temper; it is best not togo too near them. Well, with the zebras we have finished seeing all thewell-known animals of the larger kinds, and so we must say good-bye tothe Zoo, perhaps to come again another day. 

CHAPTER XXII

THE BRITISH MUSEUM

The British Museum is a very wonderful place, so wonderful that fewpeople understand what they see there. They wander along the corridorslooking 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 theMuseum with the idea of looking for anything particular, and they goaway without learning anything. No one man, however clever, couldunderstand about all the things that he will find there; and as for achild appreciating even a small part of the treasures there collected, it is impossible. Supposing a very clever man, who had travelled in manyforeign countries, had begun while he was still young to gather togetherall the valuable and curious things he saw to make a little museum, thatwould be worth seeing; but probably it would be made up of only certainthings that that particular man liked and understood. Now, the BritishMuseum is the museum belonging to the nation, and instead of onlycertain things being collected, there are curious and valuable thingsbelonging to every kind of study. For instance, if you were studying thedifferent nations or wild tribes of the earth, you would find thingsbelonging to various tribes of people in the Museum; or if you wereinterested in rare old books, you would find more of them at the Museumthan anywhere; or if you wanted to find out anything in any branch ofstudy, you would find clever men at the Museum who would help you. 

Sometimes a man who has made a collection of interesting things in hislifetime leaves it to the Museum at his death, or perhaps the Museumbuys his collection for the nation; and so every year more and morethings are accumulated, until the value of the treasures stored in thegreat building is greater than anyone could imagine. I expect when youhave read all this you will say: 'Then do let us go to the Museum. Evenif I don't understand, I'd like to see it. '

So we will go to this solid massive building across the wide space ofgravel in front, where the pigeons wheel round our heads and run abouton the ground almost under our feet, up the wide, shallow steps underthe huge columns into the great entrance-hall. It is all free. Thesmallest child and the most important man can walk in there alikewithout anyone's asking questions. As we stand in the entrance-hallthere is a wide staircase on one side, and in front of us are swingingglass doors leading by a passage to a great room called thereading-room. To go into this room it is necessary to get permissionfrom the attendants in the hall, who make you sign your name on a pieceof paper. Once inside, the size of the vast room almost takes yourbreath away. There is a great dome ceiling, and the walls are lined withbooks; there are shelves upon shelves, and thousands and thousands ofthem. In the middle of the room is a circular desk, where some men aresitting; and round this desk, again, there are shelves lined with hugebooks, and all these books are filled with nothing but the names of theother books which are kept at the Museum, and which anyone can see bytaking certain precautions. People are allowed to walk in just to seethe room, by asking in the hall; but if anyone wants to study here hehas to write beforehand for a ticket, then he can go in and look in thecatalogue (that is what the big books full of names are called) for thebook he wants. He writes it on a slip of paper, and puts on the paperalso the number of any seat in the room he has chosen. Then he placesthe piece of paper in a basket and goes away and waits, perhaps twentyminutes, for the books he wants--for he can ask for any number at onetime--and presently a man brings them to him. 

From the centre desk there are other long lines of desks like the spokesof a wheel stretching out from the middle to the sides of the room, andhere numbers of people sit reading all day long. It is very interestingthat so many people should work so hard. Look at one of them. He is anold clergyman, gray-haired, and with many wrinkles on his face. He isreading books of sermons so that he can preach next Sunday a sermon madeup 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, andhas been sent down here to write out some quotations from a book thatcannot be got anywhere else than at the Museum. She earns her living byworking for the office, and she likes it very much, and would not changeher life with another girl who drives about in a carriage dressed infifty-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? Perhapshe 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 waswell-off once and enjoyed his life, and many people were glad to beinvited to his house. But he was foolish and lost all his money, and nowhe comes up and asks for a few books just as a pretence, so that he cansit there in the warmth and comfort for a little while. There are manyauthors in the room busy making books, books, still more books, out ofthose 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 ofbooks pour in continually; there is no end to them. Even in the days ofSolomon it was said: 'Of making many books there is no end, and muchstudy is a weariness of the flesh. ' But the books that were then writtenwere as nothing to those that have since been written, and every yearbrings forth more than the one preceding. 

You have noticed that round this vast room the walls are covered withbooks looking gloomy and grey. But these are only a tiny part of thebooks stored here. If you ask the attendant in charge he will take youbehind those walls, where you will think you have stepped straight intoa dream-world, for there are passages and passages all lined with books. You might lose yourself, and wander on and on between streets of bookshigher than your head for many and many an hour. But the storage ofbooks is not the only difficulty the librarian has. He has to keepcopies of all the principal newspapers, too. Now, a newspaper in itselfis a little thing, small and thin; but when you think of newspapers bythe hundred, newspapers by the thousand, going on growing andaccumulating, then you can understand how difficult it must be to findroom for them all. 

Well, we can leave the book-room and go to other parts of the Museum. Wecan wander down corridors filled with beautiful statues or with mighty, enormous figures, far bigger than you can conceive until you have seenthem--figures whose fist is bigger than your whole body, whose fingersare about the size of you, made by the ancient Egyptians, the wonderfulpeople who held the Israelites in captivity--great frowning, mightyfigures brought here from across the sea. Or you can go down othercorridors lined with many things from savage lands--curious ornamentsand boats, and rough skin clothes; or you can see, too, the mostinteresting part of all, where there are mummies. 

In the days long ago, when the land of Egypt was very great andpowerful, while England was a lonely little island inhabited by savagemen, who knew of nothing beyond their own shores, the Egyptians used tospend much time and money on preserving the bodies of their dead, forthey thought that if a man's body were allowed to decay he could neverlive again in the other world; so when anyone died the body was cut openand filled with rich spices and wrapped in many bandages all steeped incertain ointments. And these things really did preserve the bodies fromdecay, 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 ofEgypt, now not great and mighty any more, and pull out the dead bodiesof their kings and queens, who lived and loved and reigned when ourancestors were savages, and we bring them back to England and put themin glass cases for everyone to see. There they lie, these people whothought so differently from us, who never knew anything about us, whowere 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 theyfit as into coffins; others have been taken out, and are shown with allthe red-brown bandages wound round and round their limbs, and in somecases part of these bandages have been undone and the foot or the leg ofa mummied man or woman is visible. 

There is not much else here that can be explained in writing, thoughmany things that you would care to see. 

At South Kensington there are many large fine buildings, and the finestof them all is the Victoria and Albert Museum, which was opened by KingEdward in 1909. It contains all sorts of wonderful and beautiful artwork. 

CHAPTER XXIII

THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

The Natural History Museum at South Kensington is a large building, andit is newer than the British Museum and not so gloomy. It is built ofdifferent sorts of yellow brick, and has tall towers, and stands amongwell-kept green lawns. When you go into the hall you see long galleriesstretching out on each side. In one there are most beautifully stuffedbirds 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 orbushes round that the birds choose to make their nests in when they arealive. We can see here all the different ways that birds take to hidetheir nests and young ones. Poor birds! they have so many enemies--theweasel, who sucks their eggs; the cat, who loves to eat their youngones; the birds larger than themselves, who prey upon them; and last, but not least, the cruel boys who destroy the nests 'for fun, ' and apoor sort of fun it is. 

There are two ways birds hide their nests: one by really hidingthem--that is to say, building them under a deep bank or in the thickestpart of a tree--and the other by making them so like their surroundingsthat it is difficult to see them at all. You all know instances of thefirst way; the second is not so common. But perhaps the commonest is theplover, who just brings together a few straws on the mud of a field andlays her eggs there without any protection; yet the eggs are so like themud-coloured surroundings that you might hunt for a long time, and evenwalk over them without seeing them. 

Down the middle of the room at the Museum are the more common Britishbirds, and we will look at one or two. But it is quite impossible totalk about all of them, or we should still be talking when the keeper ofthe Museum came to turn everyone out and shut up the building for thenight. 

Look first at this pretty clump of grass, with a bramble trailing overit and a bunch of primroses growing near. You would hardly have foundthe nest, so well hidden, unless you had known it must be there. It is arobin's, and the mother is bringing a caterpillar for her littlefamily. Which of the three gaping yellow mouths will get the deliciousmorsel? Quite near is a wren's nest in some ivy, and so neatly is thenest made of moss woven together that there is only one tiny little holeleft for the heads of the little wrens to peep out. The perky littlefather, with his tail cocked up, stands near. He is very shy andjealous, and so is his mate; if you put just the tip of your finger onthe edge of a wren's nest the birds would desert at once, leaving thewretched young ones to starve. The little brown bird in the next case isthe nightingale, who sings so sweetly; he is not much to look at, yet hehas a picturesque home, with meadow-sweet and wild roses growing overit. 

It is odd how many birds build on or near the ground, which you wouldthink was dangerous. The robin is particularly fond of this; it choosesan overhanging bank if it can find one, and though the nest is wellhidden, there is nearly always a cat prowling near to seize the youngones just when their first feathers are growing, so it seems wonderfulthat robins ever escape at all. On the left side is the wood-wren, witha 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 andother birds, who build under the projecting eaves of houses; of all thenests, these look the most safe and cosy. The house-martin is a reallyclever builder; he takes little mouthfuls of clay in his beak and sticksthem one by one under the deep overhanging tiles or slates of a house orbarn, and gradually forms a complete nest like a ball of clay, whichdries hard, and is stuck against the wall, with only one opening like alip at the top. The nest does not look comfortable, but it is, forinside it is lined with the softest white feathers, whereon are laid thepearly-white eggs. The sand-martin, the house-martin's cousin, prefersthe side of a cliff. He digs into a cliff or sandbank a long tunnelquite as long as your arm, and just big enough for him to pop in and outwith comfort. At the very far end of this in the warm darkness he putsbits of straw and feathers to make a bed, and here the young arehatched. Until they grow older they never go down that long mysterioustunnel where mother and father run in and out, but only see in thedistance the white gleam of a round hole. What a wonderful world it mustseem to the young bird when he first steps out! He is very timid, and ashe gets near the opening he hears the beating of the waves on the shoreperhaps, and then the great wide ocean opens before him and theillimitable sky. What a big world! He must turn almost giddy with frightand amazement. 

Some birds choose furze-bushes to build in, which must be prickly anduncomfortable, but are thick. Here there is a woodpecker family. Thewoodpecker is a fairly big bird, and he has a beautiful crimson streakon 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 thestrength and patience to cut into the solid wood--and when he has made adeep hole, he begins to make it bend down, and in the dip he makes hisnest. The young woodpeckers are therefore shut in very tightly andsafely. 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 dois very curious; but they are shy birds, and not often seen. 

Other birds, like the reed-warbler, build in reeds; this seems a verysafe plan. Here you see several tall green reeds growing out of thewater, 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 thereeds, which are strong enough to hold such a dainty thing. So thelittle nest swings and sways with the wind over the water, and thereed-warbler is safe from cats, at all events; but one imagines theyoung birds must sometimes tumble out and get drowned before they canfly. 

A very odd bird is quite near this, and that is the butcher bird. Hereally is a butcher--that is to say, he kills tiny animals and evenother little birds, and keeps them in a larder for use. For this purposehe chooses a bush with thorns, perhaps a hawthorn, and then when hecatches any small creature he sticks it on the thorns and leaves itthere spiked until it is wanted. Look at this one's larder. He has awretched little dead sparrow hanging by its neck from a big thorn, andtwo or three bumble-bees spiked too. We can imagine the mamma saying tothe little ones: 'No, dears, you mustn't have any sparrow to-night justbefore 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 goodchildren I'll give you each a bit of bumble-bee. ' The mother bird istalking to a young one who has got out of its nest. They are fat, stronglittle birds, as they should be with such food. 

After this we come to bigger birds--ducks and puffins. Puffins havebeaks like poll parrots, and are about the size of a rook; they haveneat 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 ownfine clothes. They live near water on cliffs, and sometimes use an oldrabbit burrow for a nest, in which they lay one pure white egg, and oneonly. When the young one is hatched the parent birds feed it on tinyfish and minnows. You can see here the puffin bringing up a minnow inhis beak for supper. 

Beyond are great grey and white gulls, with their keen beaks and stronglegs. They are pirates, the gulls, and will eat other birds' eggs ifthey can get them; they are wild and fierce. Another sea-bird, verydifferent in appearance, is the little stormy petrel. Very small andgraceful; he is a thin little bird, with a dark-brown coat, but at heartas wild as the proud gulls. He is never happy except when dancing overthe cold grey waves and feeling the dash of the spray. The petrel is atsea all day, and scorns the quiet land and delights of home. The howl ofthe storm, the clash of the water is music to it, and it would pine anddie in a cage on land. When it wants to lay an egg, it makes a nest notfar from its beloved sea, and lays there one egg; but even when theyoung one is hatched the mother cannot give up her wandering life. Sheis a wanderer by nature, and she only comes back at nights to see thatthe 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 someof them look. There is the long-eared owl, with his bent-in, short, hooked nose and funny feathered ears standing straight up. The littleowls are balls of soft fluff, and are eagerly looking at the dead mousethat father owl has brought for them to eat. They have a very roughnest, merely a platform of pine-twigs thrown together in the fork of afir-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 brightyellow eyes, with very large pupils as black as jet; his tail is spreadlike a turkey-cock's, and altogether he looks very terrifying. You wouldnot like to meet him alone if you had made him angry, for he is as largeas a fair-sized dog, and his ugly claws and savage beak would make shortwork of your soft face and bright eyes. Luckily, you are not likely tomeet him, for he doesn't live in England. 

It is worth while to cross over here to the other side of the galleryand see the great bustard, with his wonderful curving white feathers. Heis about the size of a small turkey, whose cousin he is, and his plumesare like those on a field-marshal's helmet. Near here are two curioussorts 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 asthe speckled stones around that you have to look hard to find them, andat a little distance they seem to vanish altogether. The funny littlewee birds, too, are just like rough sand, and have two black lines downtheir backs; crouching down without moving, they would be well hidden. The common tern lays its eggs amongst rough stones, where you wouldthink that anything so fragile as an egg would easily get broken. Nearhis case there is a beautiful pure white gull, who lives in the Arcticregions among the ice and snow. It is a wonderful law of Nature thatbirds and animals often resemble their surroundings. We have seen thatthe tiger is not easily seen among his bamboo-stems, and that birds thecolour of sand live on sand; well in the Arctic regions, where there isperpetual ice and snow, nearly all the creatures are pure white, fromthe great Polar bear down to the rabbits and gulls. This is explained bythe 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 childrentake after their parents they are white, too. And if one of the childrenhappens to be darker he is quickly eaten, and his whiter brothers andsisters escape. This white gull has made a nest that looks like nothingbut a muff of moss lying on very rough and sharp stones; there is notmuch reason why the little ones should want to climb out, at all events, while their feet are tender. Some enormous eagles attract attention: onewith strong beak and claws. A condor near is one of the largest birds inthe world. His native place is in South America, and at first whentravellers brought accounts of this gigantic bird they were notbelieved; but at last someone managed to shoot one and brought it toEngland, so then he had to be believed. The one here in the Museum hasspread his wings, and the length from end to end is larger than thetallest man. The hideous vultures near have scraggy necks, with a ruffround them. The vultures never kill animals for their own food, but liveon the refuse that is left by other animals or men. The eagle is likethe lion among the animals, and the vulture is like the jackal, who runsabout picking up all the nasty bits no one else will have. In the casesbeyond there are graceful swans and chubby ducks and flamingoes, birdswhose 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 thevery end of the gallery there are two huge cases as big as the side ofan ordinary room, and it is well to sit down here and look at them, forboth are full of interest. In part of one the space is taken up with agreat cliff, in which is the home of the golden eagle, wildest and mostuntameable of all eagles. He lives far up on lonely mountain heights, where the air is cold and pure. His great wings sail over vast darkchasms, where men have sometimes lost their lives. His eye sees anextraordinary distance, and his flight is very swift. He chooses for hishome a cave or natural hole on the face of a high cliff; this is calledthe eyrie, and here he gathers together sticks, and odds and ends tomake a kind of bedding for his young. When the little eaglets are youngthey are just like balls of white cotton-wool, with streaks of blackhere and there, all fluff and down, like those you see here. The motherand father birds go sailing high up in the sky, and suddenly theydescend with a swift dive and pounce on some tiny lamb who has strayedfrom his mother's side, and perhaps fallen over the edge of a cliff andcannot get back again. He has been bleating loudly to call his mother tohim, for he is too little to know he may attract enemies as well asfriends; and his cries have been heard by the eagle, who comes down likean avalanche, and, seizing him firmly in its great talons, carries himaway higher and higher to the nest in the cliff. Then there is a whirrand swoop, and the mother or father eagle, whichever it is, alights onthe rough platform in the cliff and lays the still warm and onlyhalf-dead woolly lamb before the young ones. There is not much chancefor it then, but let us hope it has been stunned and made unconsciouslong before this by its swift whirling voyage through the air. Eaglescatch rabbits, too, and anything they can find. In one nest there werefound the remains of nine grouse, four hares, part of a lamb, and manyother things. Here in the eagles' nest in the gallery you can see ahalf-eaten rabbit's leg hanging out over the edge, and other nastyremains. 

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 manydifferent sorts. This is a copy of a bit of a famous rock off the coastof Scotland called the Bass Rock, which rises out of the sea like anenormous stone many hundreds of feet high. At the times of the year whenbirds make their nests it is white with wild sea-birds, and the nestsare laid along the crevices and shelves of the bare rock, so neartogether that the birds can easily touch one another while they aresitting on them. If anyone fired a gun near the rock there would be asudden flight up into the air of hundreds of birds all at once, like agigantic cloud, flying, whirling, screaming, mixed up together, risinghigher and higher in great circles till you would feel stunned anddeafened and almost frightened, as if a piece of the sky had suddenlytaken shape and broken up over your head. These wild birds know they aresafe on the Bass Rock, and they take no care to protect their nests; noone could climb up those sheer precipices and steal the eggs. The birdssit there safely, looking down upon such heights as would make yougiddy even to see; and in front the blue sea stretches for miles. It isa wild, free life. 

Going back down the room, there may be time to notice the cases on thesides of the partitions full of stuffed birds, many very beautiful, butnot so interesting as those that are shown with their nests and youngones. Quite near the door is a case with some large birds as tall as achild of seven in it. They are cassowaries, with drooping dark-brownfeathers that look rather out of curl, and necks of crimson and blue. Further on there is a family of ostriches, the great father bird verygrand and with a black coat, and magnificent white tail-feathers--thosefeathers that ladies buy for their hats, and for which they give so muchmoney. Ostriches are kept on farms in South Africa, and theirtail-feathers are pulled out at certain seasons of the year; and thenthey grow, again and are soon ready to be pulled out again, and peoplemake much money this way. I do not know how much pain this gives theostrich, but it cannot be pleasant; and perhaps he wishes sometimes hewas not quite so grand, but was dressed in a plain dull-brown suittrimmed with dirty white like his humble wife. The ostrich is verysavage, and can never be depended on; he may turn upon the keeper whohas fed him and cared for him for years, and, seizing him, kick him withhis great feet until he is stunned, or dance upon him for no reason atall. He does not look safe; his narrow flat head and cruel eyes wouldmake you think he was a tyrant. The little ones running about at hisfeet look so ridiculously small in comparison that you would hardlythink they could be his children; but in time they, too, will grow biglike 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 alsobeautiful tails, but in quite a different style from the ostrich. Theyare smallish birds, but their long tails, reddish or yellowish incolour, fall like cascades or fountains of water on both sides. Ladiesalso 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. Itbuilds a little bower or grotto, and decorates it with shells andwhatever 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 iscalled the bower bird. These birds live in Australia, and their bowersare made of bits of strong grass or thin stick woven over to make asort of tunnel through which the bird can run. But the funniest thing isthat they like to put bright things, such as shells or pretty stonesabout for decoration. 

We must now leave the birds, which have taught us so much, and go on toother galleries. Just across the great hall is a long gallery entirelyfilled with the bones and skeletons of animals which are now no longerfound on earth. This does not sound attractive, but it is, almost moreso than the birds we have just left, though, of course, we shall notfind anything pretty here. 

Have you ever heard that there was a time when huge animals, larger thanthe largest elephant, lived and walked about on earth, not only in hotcountries, but in England, too? If man lived at all in those days hemust have been a poor, frightened, trembling little creature going inperil of his life from all the monsters who were around him. In Englandthe river Thames was surrounded by a thick jungle, with mighty trees andcreeping plants, like the jungles in India; and the climate was hot andsteamy like the inside of a greenhouse. Here lived enormous elephantscalled mammoths. As we enter the gallery we see one in front of us, amonstrous creature, who makes the ordinary elephant put behind him tocompare with him seem small. But larger still is the head of anotherbehind that again. Can you even imagine a beast that could carry tusksabout twelve feet long? That is to say, if two of the tallest men werelaid end to end they would be as long as that elephant's tusks, and thethickness of the tusks was as great as a man's thigh. Think of all thisweight! And it was resting on the head and neck of the elephant! Hisstrength must have been like the strength of an engine. You would havebeen less to him than a mouse is to us. It is not only guessing thatmakes us say these animals lived in England, for here are the realskulls and skeletons actually found buried in the earth. Further on iswhat 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 thestrangest of animals. Picture a creature as high as the room, standingup 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. Itcould 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 therewere any), it did not eat flesh, but only the leaves of trees and othervegetable things. It was called the giant ground sloth, and, as you mayjudge from this name, was not very quick in its movements. It was notfound in England, but in South America, and there are now no more likeit in existence; and if we had not got its skeleton we should never haveknown it had lived at all. There were many other curious creatures onearth 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 bigbird, bigger even than the ostrich, this you can see in a case near thesloth. 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 isthe 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 hisproud, free head and branching horns. 

Passing through the hall, we see three or four cases showing examples ofthe different colours of animals--the white ones among the snow, and theyellow ones on the sand, the protective colouring of which we spokebefore; and on the staircase sits a statue of Darwin, the wonderful manwho 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 alittle older you will find many things of great interest in Darwin'sbooks. Upstairs on one side is a gallery full of humming-birds, tinybirds some of them, no bigger than butterflies, and as brilliant asjewels, red and blue and green and yellow. It must be wonderful to seethem flashing about in their native land and hovering over the gorgeousflowers; but here, so many together in one case, they lose half theirbeauty, and they lack the sunshine to bring out their lovely colours. There is also a gallery full of pressed flowers, and here you can learnanything about flowers, leaves, and seeds; and on the other side thereis one full of stuffed animals. Now, we have seen the living animals atthe Zoo, and we do not care to see the dead ones here so much, though wecan just glance around it. But there is one animal you must see, becausethere is no living animal like it in the Zoo. 

This is a new animal called the okapi, only discovered during the lastfifty years in the dense forests of Africa, and its skin was stuffed andset up and is now here. One would have thought that all the animals nowliving would have been known long ago, and it seems almost ridiculousto speak of a 'new' animal; but this one was new to us. He is very muchlike a mixture of several other animals. He is about the size of a largeantelope, 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 bodyis a reddish colour like that of a cow; but his hind-legs are stripedlike a zebra. Now, what do you think of that for a new animal? You or Imight have invented something more original. It is just as if he hadbeen round to the other animals, and said: 'Please, I want to live. Willyou give me something?' And the antelope had said: 'Well, you may berather like me in size, but don't make yourself a shape that anyonecould mistake for me. ' So the poor, meek okapi had made himself thecolour and size of the antelope, but had taken the sloping back of agiraffe; 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 foolmight think you were me at a distance. ' So the meek okapi had added afew stripes on his legs, like a zebra, just to make him less like thescornful antelope. 

He lives in dense forests, and eats grass as a cow does, and is veryshy; and the only people who have seen him alive are the natives, whotold an Englishman about him, and then managed to shoot one, and bringits skin to sell to the Englishman. But now that he is known of, it willprobably not be long before a live one is captured. He is so gentle thatthey 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 hurthim, then his shyness might vanish, and his gentleness would make himsafe 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-hourdraws near, he will never be hungry again; the lion no longer is angrywhen the crowd stare, he cannot see them; the patient elephant has givenup for ever carrying children on his back, and the hippo has ceased towallow in the waters of his beloved bath. Even the silver-white polarbear 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 andSt. Paul's. Westminster is much the older of the two, for, as you haveheard, St. Paul's was burnt down in the Great Fire and entirely rebuiltthen, so that it is not yet two hundred and fifty years old, butWestminster is much more ancient. Long years ago, before the Saxonsinvaded England, there was some sort of church at this place built bymonks. In those days there were not all the bridges there are now overthe river, but only one, London Bridge, and as there was a ford orshallow place in the water near Westminster, many people who weretravelling and wanted to cross the river came down here, where theycould wade across without fear. 

In very early times Westminster was an island called the Isle ofThorney, 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 thewater; and even after many years, when the ditch running round theisland was dried up, yet still the land was marshy. It was an odd placeto choose for the building of a church. Then, as you have read inhistory, came the invasion of the Saxons, and the monks had to fly andleave their church, for the Saxons were not Christians, and they came toharry and ravage and burn; but after a long time, when the Saxons hadmade themselves lords of London and settled down, the Saxon king himselfbecame a Christian, and so he rebuilt the church by the river. There isan old legend told about Westminster which, whether you believe it ornot, is pretty. It is said that on the eve of the day when the newchurch was to be consecrated and dedicated to St. Peter, one Edric, afisherman, who lived close by, was awakened in the night by a voicecalling him. He thought the voice came out of the darkness on the otherside of the river, and as he often had to bring people across in hisboat, he went to find the person who called. On landing he found a veryvenerable-looking man, who carried some vessels that looked like holyvessels used in church. Edric wondered, but said nothing, and rowed himacross, and when they reached the church the stranger entered, and allat once the church was lit up by a radiant light, and a thousand lovelyvoices were heard singing like angels. Then when they ceased the lightdisappeared as suddenly as it had come, and the stranger turned andsaid: 'I am St. Peter, and I have hallowed the church myself. I chargethee to tell the bishop, and for a sign put forth upon the river andcast in thy nets, and thou shalt receive a miraculous draught offishes. '

So the fisherman did as he was told, and he found that the fishesenclosed in his net were so many that he could scarcely raise them fromthe 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 thechurch was built once more. King Edward the Confessor caused a greatpart of this new church to be built, and since his time the magnificentAbbey that now stands has grown up bit by bit around his church, beingadded to and enriched by many kings. 

Since the very earliest times it has been used as the burial-place ofkings and great men. It would be quite impossible to tell the names ofall those who lie here--poets, soldiers, artists, statesmen, andauthors--their graves are thick beneath the stones of the Abbey. It isthe greatest honour that the nation can offer any man to give him burialin Westminster Abbey. In one corner there are many poets buried, andthis is called the Poets' Corner. Another is peculiarly dedicated to themen who have ruled England as Prime Ministers or who have held officeunder the King. Near to the east end are many kings and queens andprinces and princesses buried. But of all these there is one that standsout by itself without any like it. This is the grave of the 'UnknownWarrior, ' a soldier who fell in the Great War, without any record of hisname or regiment. His body was brought here to be buried with all honourso that he might represent the thousands who died for Britain. 

The coronation chair is in the Abbey, the chair which encloses the stonebrought 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 aking of its own, he brought away with him the sacred stone on which allthe Scottish kings had been crowned up to that time, and he had itenclosed in a chair, and all the English kings since then have used itas their coronation chair. But now England and Scotland are one, and itwas a Scottish and not an English king who first joined the twokingdoms. James, who was James VI. Of Scotland, was, on the death ofQueen 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. OfEngland and VI. Of Scotland, and the two kingdoms were made one underthe name of Great Britain. 

The last coronation was that of King George V. , who was crowned on June22, 1911. All the streets of London had been made brilliant with flowersand lights until they were like those of a fairy town. Thousands andthousands of pounds had been spent, and people had given large sums forseats to see the procession going to the Abbey and coming away again. Great stands were erected at every open space and outside many of thehouses on the route of the procession. Even standing room in a windowwas eagerly sought for, and very many people who had left theirarrangements to the last minute could not find places at all. 

When I learned history at school Queen Victoria was still on thethrone, and she had reigned so long a time that people had to be a greatage to remember history books which ended at the reign of her uncleWilliam IV. The two reigns before her were short ones and so was that ofher son, Edward VII. , who came after her. He reigned only nine years anddied at the age of sixty-eight; by far the greater part of his long lifehad been spent preparing, as Prince of Wales, for the throne he filledso short a time. He was well over middle age before he became king. 

King Edward's eldest son, Prince Albert Victor, had died before himafter he had grown to manhood. He had never been strong. So the onlyremaining son became our King, George V. Long before this, after thedeath of his brother, he had married a distant cousin, 'Princess May, 'now our beloved Queen Mary; and, before their grandfather's death in1910, all the royal children at present living had been born. PrinceEdward was seventeen when he was made Prince of Wales in 1911. 

So they all took part in the coronation of their parents. A very gallantfigure was the fair young Prince of Wales in his magnificent dress. Buthe was not then known to the Empire as he is now when he has travelledthousands of miles to visit his father's dominions in the uttermostparts of the earth. 

Coronations do not happen very frequently and for this one people camefrom immense distances and from many foreign countries. 

When did the people begin gathering up in the streets to see the King onhis way to be crowned? No one can certainly tell, but it was before thedaylight dawned on June 22, 1911. In the darkness of the night thepolice marched to their positions in hundreds, and the soldiers who wereto line the route that the King and Queen would traverse made theirappearance. But even before the soldiers and the policemen took up theirstations came shadowy forms, who crept up to good places in the glimmerof the street-lamps as they blew in the night wind. These were peoplewho were so anxious to see the procession that they would gladly waitall 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 dawnedevery 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 hadbeen, but dull and cloudy. Hours went by before carriages containingthe princes and princesses began to pass toward the great Abbey wherethe ceremony was to be, and though the people cheered a little at thesight of them they were not very enthusiastic, for they were waitingbreathlessly to see the King and Queen, and princes and princesses didnot seem very important on this great day. 

Just before eleven o'clock the splendid state coach drawn by eightcream-coloured horses came round from the stables to the front ofBuckingham Palace, and then the people waiting near grew more intenselyexcited. The coach was just such as you might expect. It was all goldand glass, and swung upon high springs so lightly that as it stopped thebody of the coach swayed about, and had to be steadied by the footmen. The cream-coloured horses wore harness of crimson and gold, and theytossed their heads and pawed the ground, as if they knew quite well whatwas expected of them and how important they were. Then the King andQueen took their seats, and as they were seen there was a great outburstof 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 Georgewas really on his way to be crowned King of the greatest kingdom in theworld. The King and Queen were in royal robes, and they both bowed andsmiled, and the Queen's fair hair shone out like gold. As Princess shehad been popular but as Queen and a model mother to her children, thedarlings of the nation, she was to win a special position in the heartsof the people. The Royal couple did not wear their crowns on the way tothe Abbey, but they would return in them after the ceremony. 

As it went along under the trees in the park, the royal processionpassed close by some large stands built near St. James's Palace, thesewere filled with children from the Foundling Hospital, the homes forsoldiers' sons and daughters and sailors' sons and daughters, of whichyou have read in another chapter. 

One of the most pathetic figures at the coronation was that of thewidowed Queen-Mother, Alexandra, who had come as a beautiful young girlnearly 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 wayto the Abbey that loud roar of cheering was kept up. It must havebeen very delightful for the King and Queen to think how warmly alltheir people loved them, and how glad they were to see them crowned. 

Meantime, at the Abbey itself everything had been got ready for theceremony. It is the custom at a coronation that all the peers andpeeresses should be present, and that they should all dress alike inrich robes of crimson velvet and white ermine, and each peer and peeresshas a little coronet which he or she does not put on at first, but keepson a cushion until the King puts on his crown. Then all the littlecoronets are put on at the same instant. Now, the arrangements for thecoronation were very difficult to make, for all the peers and peeresseshad to have seats in the Abbey given to them, and there were so manythat 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 rolledup in their carriages, and alighted and gone inside there to wait. Iexpect 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 notcome 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 tosee a man dressed in crimson velvet and white ermine, with white silkstockings, 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. Thepeople watching must have enjoyed all this unusual grandeur, and felt asif 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 boomedout, telling that the King and Queen had left Buckingham Palace, and notvery long after they arrived at the hall which had been built at one endof the Abbey, and there the Duke of Norfolk, bareheaded, waited toreceive their Majesties. The Queen, being nearest to him, stepped outfirst, and she was clothed in cloth-of-gold, which shone and glitteredeven on that dull day. The King followed her, looking up with pleasedsurprise at the beautiful reception-hall that was prepared for him, andthey entered the Abbey hall to make ready for the procession in theAbbey itself. 

Already we have spoken so much of the grandeur of the spectacle that itis difficult to say more; perhaps no one who did not see it can everrealize quite what it was like. The peers and peeresses took theirplaces in the Abbey, and then the procession which was to walk up theaisle was formed. First came princes and princesses, with distinguishedpersons bearing their trains; then guests, invited by the King, and manyhigh officials and nobles, with coronets carried after them by pages;and then the clergy, who were the King's own chaplains. After that camethe Queen, with all her attendants and ladies and many more nobles, andthe jewels of the coronation called the Regalia; and then the King, withbishops before and on either side. He was attended by eight royal pages, boys of about twelve to fourteen years, who were dressed alike inscarlet coats, with bunches of white ribbon on their shoulders. Most ofthese boys were peers in their own right, their fathers having died, andthe titles having descended to them. They were followed by more noblesand more of the Court officials, and so the grand procession swept upthe Abbey aisle to the east end to begin the service. 

The boys of Westminster School, which adjoins the Abbey, have theprivilege of shouting out 'Vivat Rex!' at the coronation of theirSovereign--this means 'Let the King live'--and right heartily did thehundreds of young voices greet their King and Queen in this quaint way, shouting, 'Vivat, Vivat, Vivat Rex Georgius!' as the King was seenadvancing up the aisle. The organ rang out, trumpets sounded, and aglorious mass of sound ascended to the roof and died away in echoes inthe gray arches that have seen so many kings crowned and buried. 

We have heard that the first English Edward, the Confessor, began tobuild 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 Firstof England, who had brought here the coronation stone. On the chairwhich enclosed this stone sat the King. Among other notable peoplepresent that day were the Duke of Connaught, the late King's only livingbrother, and the Princess Royal, King George's eldest sister, with hertwo daughters. Also his other sisters the Queen of Denmark and PrincessVictoria. 

Among the reigning monarchs of other countries, who were guests, was theex-Kaiser, of Germany, now living in exile. His mother was King Edward'ssister. It is fortunate for her that she died before she saw all themisery and slaughter caused by her son in the Great War. There wereperhaps some present even then who knew the Kaiser's evil dreams ofworld-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, 'Godsave King George!' There were many more prayers and beautiful singing bythe 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 across on head, breast, and hands. After many other ceremonies, in thecourse of which the King received the sceptre and the orb, made of goldand mounted with precious stones, symbols of his authority, the crownwas brought forward, the magnificent crown, covered with rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and diamonds, and the Archbishop held it above theKing's head, and a great hush fell on all that vast congregation. Slowlyit was lowered, it touched the King's forehead, and the trumpetssounded, and all the nobles raised their coronets, and, putting them ontheir heads, shouted: 'God save the King!'

Then, after many prayers, and the blessing, the nobles headed by theArchbishop, came to do homage to the newly-crowned King. The Archbishopknelt down and vowed to be faithful, and, rising, kissed the King'scheek, and then slowly made way for the Prince of Wales, who in his turnknelt 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 thesame rank take precedence of one another according to the ancientness ofthe title they bear. But the whole question of title is a puzzling oneand we cannot go into it here. 

After this came the crowning of the Queen. A great pall of gold wassupported at four corners by four duchesses, who held it up while theQueen knelt before the King to swear to be true to him always. She wasthen anointed and crowned, and as her crown was put on her head by theArchbishop the coronets of all the peeresses flashed on to theirwearers' heads at the same moment, as the peers' coronets had done atthe 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 backin their royal coach to their palace, and the show, so far asWestminster Abbey was concerned, was ended. Westminster Abbey willalways be associated with this great and splendid ceremony, which hasbeen described so minutely, and whenever you visit the Abbey you willthink 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 wonderfulidea thought of after the Great War. So many thousands of men in thearmy 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 thenation. There the humble warrior lies, surrounded by the dust of kingsand statesmen, authors, poets, and sages. Other countries imitated thisidea, 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 setof curious wax figures, only eleven in number, representing QueenElizabeth, 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 theburial-place of kings and great men. 

St. Paul's Cathedral cannot claim the coronation of the kings, but it isa splendid building, with its great dome overlooking London far andwide. We can climb up through the belfry to the gallery which encirclesthe dome, and, looking down upon the street below, see the peoplecrawling about like ants. Around us the pigeons flash their wings in thesun, and beyond the houses we can catch a glimpse of the gray riverflowing down to the sea. Inside St. Paul's there is a great galleryrunning all around the dome, and if you stand at one side of this andwhisper gently, the whisper runs round the walls, and reaches the personstanding on the opposite side many yards away, across a great space. This is very curious, and because of it the gallery is called theWhispering Gallery. 

[Illustration: ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. ]

Though St. Paul's cannot claim the coronations, it has always been theplace to which our Sovereigns go for their services of thanksgiving. After great victories in old time, after deliverance from deadlyillness, after unexpected blessings, the King or Queen of England hasjourneyed to St. Paul's to hold a thanksgiving service. The greatest ofall these services were those at the Jubilee and Diamond Jubilee ofQueen Victoria. Of course, you all know that good Queen Victoria, themother of King Edward, reigned longer than any English Sovereign haddone before her. The three who came nearest to her in this respect wereGeorge III. , who reigned sixty years; Henry III. , who reigned fifty-sixyears; and Edward III. , who reigned fifty years. It was an oddcoincidence that each should be the third of his name. Queen Victoria'sreign was marked not only by its length, but by its happiness andprosperity. When she had been on the throne fifty years, she celebratedwhat is called a Jubilee, and then many foreign princes and sovereignscame over to England and joined in a procession, and went with her togive thanks in St. Paul's Cathedral. Ten years later, when she hadcompleted her sixtieth year on the throne, it was felt that she ought tohave another Jubilee, called a Diamond Jubilee, for having equalled theperiod of the longest reign in English history, and the Diamond Jubileewas hardly less splendid than the first one. After this Queen Victorialived to the beginning of 1901, thus having reigned very nearlysixty-three years and a half. It is very rare for any sovereign to dothis. To begin with, the sovereign must be quite young when he ascendsthe throne, and that is not always the case, and then he must live to agreat age. Queen Victoria was only eighteen when she became Queen, andshe was eighty-one when she died. At the two Jubilees the carriages ofthe Queen, with all the gorgeous attendants and outriders, formed agroup outside the great west door of St. Paul's, and waited while theservice was held; and all the stands and seats were thronged withpeople, and everyone cheered the Queen, who will in future times beknown as Victoria the Good. The whole of the route to St. Paul's wasmagnificently decorated, and every window and balcony, and even theroofs, were crowded with spectators. 

Some very famous men are buried in St. Paul's, though not so many asthere are in Westminster Abbey. Those who are here are chiefly militarymen, and the greatest soldier England has ever had is included amongthem, namely, the Duke of Wellington. 

If you have read history you will all know how the Duke of Wellingtonconquered Napoleon, who had so terrified the countries of Europe thatnone dare face him; and if England had not sent her soldiers under thegreat Duke to fight Napoleon, the whole course of European history wouldnow 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 methis fate at the Battle of Waterloo, and his career was ended. The Kingof 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 ofWellington there was a procession formed to go to St. Paul's, andWellington carried the sword of state before the Prince Regent to thecathedral. 

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 inWestminster. The name of Nelson is familiar to every child, and hissea-fights are perhaps more exciting to read about than the landvictories of Wellington. Nelson died nearly fifty years beforeWellington, and his coffin was made of the wood of the ship _Orient_. 

Earl Haig, whose name became a household word to every British childduring the Great War, had expressed a wish to be buried in the ruins ofDryburgh Abbey, near his own home, before he died, so his body is notfound here, though as one of England's great generals it might well behere. 

The great architect who built the Cathedral, Sir Christopher Wren, isburied here, too, and in the inscription on his tombstone there arewords in Latin, which mean, 'If thou desirest to see my monument, lookaround 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 ordinaryeveryday man going about his business in the London streets. This is acuriously shaped great block of stone in the midst of Whitehall, aboutwhich the traffic divides and passes on either side. It rears itself uplike a great cliff, and its base is never without wreaths and flowersswathing it. This is the Cenotaph, the national memorial to the Britishsoldiers who gave their lives in the Great War, 1914-1918. It is simplein form, but very solemn in outline, and you could not help knowing thatit meant something to do with the dead. On Armistice Day, each November11--for you know that the Great War ended at the eleventh hour of theeleventh day of the eleventh month--there is a solemn service here, andduring the two minutes' silence, after the strokes of Big Ben have begunto sound, thousands of people stand bareheaded and absolutely immovablearound 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 notfind it ready made in the earth or growing on trees; and if you think alittle, that could not be, for every country has its own money with itsown King's or President's head on the coins. Here in England we have theKing's head on one side and various designs on the other, which aredifferent according to the coins they adorn. It would be rather nice ifmoney did grow on bushes. Supposing we could have a row of them in thegarden. The penny ones might be like gooseberry bushes, rather low downand stumpy, and mother would say, 'Now, who will go and see if there areany ripe pennies for me to-day?' and we should see the great round brownpennies hanging ready to drop, and the little wee ones just beginning togrow, or perhaps having grown to the size of halfpennies; and we mightask, 'Shall we gather all we find, or leave the halfpennies for anotherday 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 toovaluable. You might drop some of the money and lose it in the mud;' andthe gold, I think, would have to be reared in hothouses only, and keptlocked up very carefully. 

Well, of course, this is just imagination. Take out a shilling and lookat it. It probably has the King's head on it, or it may have KingEdward's, or Queen Victoria's head if it is a very old one. Anythingfurther back than that would be valuable as a curiosity. All theseshillings are the same value, and it makes no difference which one youuse, and they have all been made at the Mint in London. It is notdifficult for anyone to get leave to go to see over the Mint, and it isa very interesting thing to do. The building is near the Tower, and doesnot look at all grand; in fact, it is difficult to believe that suchriches can come out of any building so poor looking. Here all the moneyfor England is coined--gold, silver, and copper. If we are lucky, theday we go we shall find the workmen making gold sovereigns, and pouringthem out so fast that it is like the old fairy story of Rumpelstiltskin. 

In the first room there are great furnaces, with dirty-looking caldronshanging over them, and in these caldrons there is not soup or anythingto eat, but gold, pure gold. This gold has been found in far-awaycountries and brought to England, and the men who bring it get paid somuch for it according to its weight, and then the Mint people turn itinto coins. The gold is all liquid, seething and boiling. The man whostands by the caldron has a pair of thick leather gloves to protect hishands in case sparks fly out. Suddenly he seizes the caldron with a pairof pincers, and, dragging it from the fire, he tilts it up so that themolten gold runs out in a stream into a number of tubes like longstraight jars joined together. The gold flows in, bubbles up, and thatone is full to the top; and then the next is filled, and the next, andso on to the end. Then the gold is left to cool. The big caldron goesback on to the furnace to boil more gold. As the gold boils a tinyquantity 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 useda certain number of times it is broken up and melted so as to recoverthis gold again, and not a grain is lost. 

When the gold which has been poured into the jars has cooled it is solidagain, and has taken the shape of the jars--that is to say, it is inbars of gold. You will be given one to handle and feel; it is a flat barof gleaming gold weighing a great deal. The bars are then taken and putunder a machine something like a mangle, and the machine squeezes andpresses them with such terrific force that they are squeezed out thinnerand thinner, and, of course, get longer and longer in the process. Justthink 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 thethickness of a sovereign. 

Now, each of these bars is passed through a machine, which cuts out ofit 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 abox. Take one up and look at it; it is smooth and clean and round, thesize of a sovereign, but it has as yet no King's head on it, and theedges are smooth, not rough as in a real sovereign. So each of theselittle 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 goesback 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 isunlocked for us to go through, and locked again behind us; this isbecause the gold is so valuable. No one is allowed to pass in and outwithout being watched, lest they should carry some away with them. Everynight each one of these rooms is carefully swept out, and the sweepingsboiled up to get any little particles of gold that are lying about, anda large amount of money is saved in this way. The men who work in eachroom are responsible for the gold in it; the gold is weighed on comingin and on going out, and any weight lacking has to be made up by the menout of their wages. 

Now we have got the little round sovereigns, which are cleaned andpolished and put into another machine; this machine has what is called adie in it--that is, a stamping instrument with the King's head on itready to print on the coin. The little sovereign is put on to a tinyround place, with a little collar of metal all round, and this collar isrough, like the edge of a shilling or a sovereign. Down comes the diewith enormous force, and stamps on the coin King George's head; theforce is so great that the coin is a little flattened out and pressedagainst the rough collar, so the edges become rough, too. Thus are bothsides done, and the sovereign is now a real sovereign, and could be usedto buy things at a shop. 

There are rows of these machines all hard at work, and we feel we are ina 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; andthe machine goes up and down, up and down, never stopping, and everytime it does its work, and a new sovereign drops away into a box below. Drip, drip, drip, sovereigns are raining down, dozens every minute, allnewly made; it seems as if we could easily get rich if we were allowedto make money like this. But the sovereigns are not finished yet; theymust go to be weighed, and all those that are not exactly the rightweight, but either too heavy or too light, go back to the melting-pot tobe made all over again; and only those that are exactly right are passedout new-minted to the Bank, from whence they go to all the people inGreat Britain and Ireland. It is reckoned that so many as one in everythree has to go back to the melting-pot, and be boiled and hammered andsqueezed 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 ismuch the most impressive to see. 

After leaving the Mint we might pay a visit to the Bank, which stands atthe meeting of many streets in the very midst of the City. It is astrong place built round a courtyard, with all the windows inward sothat burglars cannot get in. In the vaults below the Bank are many barsof gleaming gold, like those we have seen at the Mint; these are senthere for safety, and in time will go to the Mint to be coined. The Bankof England is very strong and safe, and anyone who keeps his money therehas no fear that he will lose it. The Bank is allowed by law to makenotes of its own, which are as good as money, and are received insteadof money, but it cannot make more than a certain number of these notesin any one year. You have heard of bank-notes, perhaps? Have you everseen one--a crisp, crackly bit of paper, with some printing on it, thatcould be burnt up any minute? These seem very unsafe to keep, but theyare convenient. If a man wants to go away for some time he could notcarry with him a great many gold sovereigns, for they would be soheavy; but if he takes a number of bank-notes they are quite light andeasy to carry, and are just as good as money. The most common is afive-pound note. Of course, accidents do happen sometimes when peopleare 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 verycareless; it was an expensive pipe-light to cost five pounds. 

In the Bank you are shown many interesting things, and one of the chiefof these is a book where are kept all the imitation bank-notes, calledforgeries, that men have made and tried to persuade people were realones. In some cases these are so cleverly done that even the bankersthemselves hardly knew the difference, and many, many people had beencheated by them. 

The great machines for printing bank-notes are inside the bank, and eachnote has a different number. Let us follow one throughout its life. Itis printed on special paper made for the bank, and not sold to anyoneelse, and it is printed in the Bank's own machine. It goes in at one endof the machine, just a blank bit of paper, and comes out at the otherworth five pounds. This seems almost more wonderful than making goldcoins. Downstairs, in the office of the Bank, a man comes in who has anaccount with the Bank--that is to say, he has given the Bank people alarge sum of money to keep for him--and he takes out some of it when helikes. He comes this morning to ask for twenty pounds, and it is givento him in four five-pound notes, which he folds up and puts in hispocket-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 fivepounds you owe me?'

So the first man gives him one five-pound note. The second man has topay his landlady's rent, and he owes her three pounds; so he gives herthe 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 toanother man; and so it goes on, wandering and wandering through thehands of hundreds of people. It started a very nice clean new note; butit gets crumpled and dirty, and at last one day it comes to a man whohas had some money given to him which he wants to put into the Bank, andhe pays this five-pound note in with the rest. So after its life it hasrest. It never goes out again into the world; but when once it comesback to the Bank it is torn up and destroyed. A great many men are keptat work only tearing up bank-notes; so every day, while many new onesare being made, many old ones are being torn up, and the number keepsabout the same. 

An old woman bought a mattress at a sale, and she thought she would undoit and shake up the stuff inside and make it softer, and when she cut itup she found among the stuffing some bits of paper that looked likebank-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 agreat deal was missing, there was enough left to show that there hadbeen twelve five-pound notes sewn up inside the mattress. They gave theold woman sixty pounds for them, saying that a bank-note meant a promiseon 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'swork when she bought that mattress. 

From the Bank we might pass on to the General Post-Office, and see howLondon's letters are dealt with. You may say that there cannot beanything interesting in that--that it is quite simple to sort outletters and send them to the right persons. Yes, if you or I had perhapssix letters we could do it easily; but if we had six thousand it wouldbe rather more difficult. The business of the General Post Office growsand increases every year, and the buildings are frequently enlarged. Even now they form the whole of a street to themselves. On one side isthe telegraphic department, where all the telegrams are received. We canunderstand very little about this, because it requires a long training;but we can see something of the enormous number of people whose wholework in life it is to take and send telegrams. If we get there aboutfive o'clock in the afternoon, we shall see some girls and littletelegraph-boys hurrying about with trays, on which are piles of cutbread-and-butter, and with great tin cans, like the cans in which hotwater is carried up for your bath. These cans are full of strong, hottea. Then we enter one room, so big that it almost startles you, andsee, seated at rows and rows of tables, many men, and nearly all of themare working away at the telegraph instrument before them--tick, tick, tick, tack; they cannot hear what you say, even though you talk quiteclose to them, for all their attention is taken up by their work. Foreight hours every day they sit here and take and send telegrams. Herecomes the tea; it is poured out into the large cup waiting for it, andthe man takes a drink or a bite as he works. Some of the workers buy jamto spread on their bread. In one place we see a tray with a large pileof cakes and biscuits; but these are being sold, though the tea andbread-and-butter are supplied by the Post-Office to its workers free. Itmust be a big business to make tea for about fifteen hundred personsevery day. No wonder cans are used to carry it about, for teapots wouldbe of very little use. In one room there are men doing all the telegramsfor the daily papers--accounts of great speeches, or races, or anythingimportant that people expect to hear about--and by means of oneinstrument one man can send the same news to five different places atthe same time. This sounds like a miracle to us, who do not understandhow it is done. In another room there are many girls who do just thesame work, and keep the same hours as the men, but are not paid so muchsimply because they are women; they are having tea too. They seem to bevery fond of shrimp-paste, which they spread on their bread-and-butterinstead of jam. In every room there is always a loud noise like the washof waves; that is made up of hundreds of busy little instruments tickingaway hard all at once. It seems wonderfully quiet when we leave itbehind, and step out into the street again where the lamps are beinglit. 

It is nearly six o'clock now, and opposite is the large building of thePost-Office where the letters are dealt with. Up the steps in front wesee the huge letter-box, with a great gaping slit of a mouth into whichboys and men are pouring letters as fast as they can; for at six o'clockthe country letters are sent off, and any posted after that will not bedelivered first thing next morning in the country, but will arrivelater. 

Come inside; we have a special order so that we can be admitted withoutany difficulty. Now we see from the inside what we saw from the outsidea 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 intoit, more letters and more, which fly down inside like a snowstorm ofenormous flakes. They drop into great clothes baskets, which are filledup 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 theletters. One boy outside has a bag, which he empties by tipping it up sothat a stream of letters runs down; he must be from an office. Here isanother, and another; but at last six o'clock strikes, the great basketshave been dragged away, and no more letters for the country go untilmuch later. The basketfuls have been emptied into sacks; these sacks aretied up with string and sealed with a piece of sealing-wax a good dealthicker than your wrist, and then they are flung down into the brightscarlet carts, which belong to the Post-Office, and which stand waitingoutside. Each driver starts off punctually with his load, and drives toanother great office in London where the country letters are sorted outand sent off. All this business used to be done here where we are, butin the last year or two it has been found better to keep the London andthe country letters separate. 

Now we turn to look at the London ones. There is a separate box for themto be posted in. Perhaps you who live in the country have never seenthat. At every large London office there are two boxes side by side, andinto one the people put their letters meant for the country, and intothe other those for London. The London letters are gathered from the boxand thrown out upon large tables, and down each side a row of boys andmen stand and sort them out like a pack of cards, putting them alltogether, face up, and with the stamp in the same position. When theyare arranged the boys carry a great bundle to another man who has tostamp 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 spinsat a tremendous pace, and on it are dark lines covered with wet ink. Aman 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 asthey pass the wheel the ink-lines run across the stamp and mark it sothat it cannot be used again. So quickly does the little wheel whirr andthe letters spin past that five hundred are done in a minute. Think ofthat; 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 toobig to go through the little space by the wheel, so the man who islooking after them picks out those and throws them up on to a tray, fromwhich they are gathered up and carried to another man, who stamps eachby hand, a much slower process. 

When the letters are stamped they are carried off to other men, who sortthem out, throwing them into different divisions, according to the partof London for which they are intended, and any that he cannot read, anythat 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 carriedoff to some men, who sit with ponderous books in front of them, and whowork solemnly, hunting out names and addresses. Perhaps one address isso badly written that it looks to you and me just as if a beetle hadfallen into an ink-bottle and walked over the paper. But the man at thedesk is accustomed to bad writing, he soon makes it out, and writes itneatly so that it can be read and the letter sent on. Another person hasput 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 menwork, gradually reducing the pile of letters before them, more areadded, so that it seems as if their work would never end. Near the firstmen who were sorting letters are others sorting out packets and throwingthem into baskets. Fast as they work, they cannot keep up with the freshpiles always poured in. They pitch the parcels into the baskets withspeed and accuracy generally, but sometimes in their haste a packetflies 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 oddthings--a clothes brush, a box of flowers, a locket, and a pair ofgloves. What is he doing? These are things which have been badly tiedup, and have consequently come undone in the post, and some of them haveno addresses, but perhaps there is a letter inside the parcel. Thisletter begins 'My darling, ' but there is no time to read it; all that iswanted is the address of the sender, to which the things can bereturned. This is quickly found, and the parcel is tied up again andsent back. But if you do not want to have any of your letters seen by aman in the Post-Office, you had better tie them up very carefully whenyou send them by post. The things for which no addresses can be found goto the Dead Letter Office, and every now and then there is a sale ofthem. 

But the Post-Office does its best always to find the people to whom thethings should be sent, and tries to please everyone, which is adifficult 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 areoccasionally lost, but at the great mass, the millions of letters, thatare sent safely through to their journey's end without being either lostor 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; butthere are a few facts that do not come very well into any of thepreceding chapters, and so to end up I am going to make a chapter aboutthe odd things. 

You remember that when Dick Whittington, weary and disheartened, wouldhave gone away from London, he heard the bells of Bow Church ringing, and what they seemed to say to him was, 'Turn again, Whittington, thriceLord Mayor of London. ' And he was so much encouraged that he did turnagain, and persevered, and in the end he rose so high as to be LordMayor, not once, but three times. 

It is a great thing to be the Lord Mayor. He is chosen every year, andrules the city for a year, and then resigns his grand position to hissuccessor. There is a splendid house right in the heart of the Citycalled the Mansion House, and here the Lord Mayor lives while he isLord Mayor, and here he gives great banquets. Sometimes the King andQueen come to lunch with him, and all the great people from abroad whovisit England go to see the Lord Mayor. When the King makes a processionthrough 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 isany longer any gate that needs unlocking, but this ceremony is kept upin memory of the time when London was surrounded by a high wall, whichprevented anyone getting in except by the gates. 

The ninth of November is Lord Mayor's Day. On that day the new LordMayor, who has been chosen for the year, makes a procession all roundLondon. This is a great holiday; the shops are shut, and people put ontheir best clothes and turn out into the streets, and very early in themorning the police begin to stop the omnibuses and cabs that are goingdown the City streets and turn them into other streets more out of theway. Then the crowds grow thicker and thicker, walking all over theroadway, so that there would be no room for anyone to drive through evenif it were permitted. At last the signal is given that the processionis coming. Then the police hurry about and push the people back, andmake a way for the procession, and everyone stands on tiptoe and strainsto see over his neighbour's shoulders. First come bands playing gaytunes and soldiers marching, and then more soldiers and more bands, andthen perhaps sailors, and it may be the fire-engine, not racing along toput out a fire, but with the horses trotting gently, while the peopleshout and cheer, for everyone admires the Fire Brigade. 

These are followed by the lifeboat men, who save life at sea, and fightwith the waves as the firemen fight with the flames. They have a greatlifeboat on a car, and the people cheer themselves hoarse at the sightof it. Then follow shows, with people dressed up to represent India orAsia, dragged along on great cars. One year there were men dressed up torepresent all the Lord Mayors there had been in the City since veryearly times, and the gay colours and the curious old-fashioned clotheswere very pretty. There may follow next the Duke of York's littlesoldier boys that you have read about, marching along with their bandplaying, and enjoying themselves very much. It is a holiday for them. 

There are also carriages with the officers of the City, the sheriffsand aldermen, who help the Lord Mayor with his duties, and who willperhaps themselves take his place in turn; and at last there is a greatshouting and cheering, and a huge coach appears painted with crimson andgold, like the glass coach that the fairy godmother made for Cinderella. It comes swinging along with the Lord Mayor inside. There are fourhorses covered with rich harness, and the fat coachman on the box, withhis three-cornered hat and brilliant livery, looks very proud of himselfand 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 indifferent directions, and Lord Mayor's Show is done for another year. 

When I began writing about the Lord Mayor I mentioned Dick Whittingtonand Bow bells. Bow Church is a very famous church. One way of expressingthe fact of being a Londoner used to be to say 'born within sound of Bowbells. '

The old church was burnt down with all the others in the Fire, and thechurch that now stands was built by Sir Christopher Wren. In the oldchurch it was a rule that the bell should be rung every night, and whenthe shopmen heard the bell they shut up their shops. Now, the men whorang the bell sometimes were late, and this made the apprentices, theyoung men who worked in the shops, very angry, for they wanted to getaway 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 theyoung 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 nowcalled Cheapside. I expect the clerk kept his promise, for the youngapprentices were very sturdy, and they would have given him 'knockes' atonce. I do not know how they liked being called children. 

On the top of Bow spire there was a figure of a dragon, which lookedvery fine when the sun shone; and in another part of the City, near theBank and the Mansion House, there was on the top of the Royal Exchange agrasshopper, which was the sign of a great merchant of QueenElizabeth's time, who built the first Exchange. Now, there was an oldsaying that when the grasshopper from the Exchange and the dragon fromBow Church should meet, the streets of London would run with blood. Butthis did not seem at all likely to happen, for there is a long distancebetween the Exchange and Bow Church. But rather less than a hundredyears ago the dragon was taken down to be cleaned, and at the same timesomeone thought the grasshopper wanted repair, and, as it happened, hetook it to the very same builder's yard where the dragon was, and thedragon and the grasshopper lay side by side. Then someone rememberedthat old saying, and was terrified; but there was no fighting, and thestreets of London did not run with blood, which shows that old sayingsdo not always come true. 

London City is now lighted by electricity, which has almost displacedgas, but there was a time not so long ago when the only lighting of thestreets was done by candles, and every man who owned a window lookingout on to the street was forced to burn a candle there from six to teno'clock every night. 

You can imagine that these candles did not make a very good light, andthere was plenty of opportunity for thieves and ruffians to annoyhonest men. When people went out at night they used to hire boys withtorches to run beside them. These boys were called link-boys, and theywaited in the streets to be hired, just as cabmen wait about now. Thetorches they carried were flaming pieces of wood, which burned verybrightly and made many sparks and much smell, and one would have thoughtthey 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 itis by no means all there is to tell; only some things are not easy forchildren 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 seethem for yourselves. But if you understand ever so little from this bookwhat a great and wonderful town London is, you will not have wasted yourtime in reading it. 

THE END

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