"Only the young can speak to the young. . . . G.o.d grant that, at the right time, the right Prince may come to her over the meadows, and discourse honest music!"

_Splash!_

He sprang up and s.n.a.t.c.hed at his rod. A two-pound trout had risen almost under his nose.

CHAPTER XXIV.

FINIS CORONAT OPUS.

The great day dawned at last: the day to which all Merchester had looked forward for months, for which so many hundreds had been working, on which all must now pin their hopes: the opening day of Pageant Week.

I suppose that never in Merchester's long history had her citizens so frequently or so nervously studied their weather-gla.s.ses.

"Tarbolt, of all people!" murmured Brother Copas one afternoon in the Venables Free Library.

He had just met the Canon coming down the stairs, and turned to watch the retreating figure to the doorway.

"I am suffering from a severe shock," he announced five minutes later to Mr. Simeon, whom he found at work in Paradise. "Did you ever know your friend Tarbolt patronise this inst.i.tution before?"

"Never," answered Mr. Simeon, flushing.

"Well, I met him on the stairs just now. For a moment I knew not which alternative to choose--whether your desertion had driven him to the extreme course of reading a book or two for himself, or he had come desperately in search of you to promise that if you returned, all should be forgiven. . . . No, you need not look alarmed. He came in search of a newspaper."

"But there are no newspapers in the Library."

"Quite so: he has just made that discovery. Thereupon, since an animal of that breed cannot go anywhere without leaving his scent behind him, he has scrawled himself over half a page of the Suggestion' Book. He wants this Library to take in _The Times_ newspaper, 'if only for the sake of its foreign correspondence and its admirable weather-charts.' Signed, 'J. Tarbolt.' What part is the humbug sustaining, that so depends on the weather?"

"He takes Bishop Henry of Blois in the Fourth Episode. He wears a suit of complete armour, and you cannot conceive how much it--it--improves him. I helped him to try it on the other day,"

Mr. Simeon explained with a smile.

"Maybe," suggested Brother Copas, "he fears the effect of rain upon his 'h's.'"

But the gla.s.s held steady, and the great day dawned without a cloud.

Good citizens of Merchester, arising early to scan the sky, were surprised to find their next-door neighbours already abroad, and in consultation with neighbours opposite over strings of flags to be suspended across the roadway. Mr. Simeon, for example, peeping out, with an old dressing-gown cast over his night-shirt, was astounded to find Mr. Magor, the contiguous pork-seller, thus engaged with Mr.

Sillifant, the cheap fruiterer across the way. He had accustomed himself to think of them as careless citizens and uncultured, and their unexpected patriotism gave him perhaps less of a shock than the discovery that they must have been moving faster than he with the times, for they both wore pyjamas.

They were kind to him, however: and, lifting no eyebrow over his antiquated night-attire, consulted him cheerfully over a string of flags which (as it turned out) Mr. Magor had paid yesterday a visit to Southampton expressly to borrow.

I mention this because it was a foretaste, and significant, of the general enthusiasm.

At ten in the morning Fritz, head waiter of that fine old English coaching-house, "The Mitre," looked out from the portico where he stood surrounded by sporting prints, and announced to the young lady in the bar that the excursion trains must be "bringing them in hundreds."

By eleven o'clock the High Street was packed with crowds that whiled away their time with staring at the flags and decorations. But it was not until 1.0 p.m. that there began to flow, always towards the Pageant Ground, a stream by which that week, among the inhabitants of Merchester, will always be best remembered; a stream of folk in strange dresses--knights in armour, ladies in flounces and ruffs, ancient Britons, greaved Roman legionaries, monks, cavaliers, Georgian beaux and dames.

It appeared as if all the dead generations of Merchester had arisen from their tombs and reclaimed possession of her streets.

They shared it, however, with throngs of modern folk, in summer attire, hurrying from early luncheons to the spectacle.

In the roadway near the Pageant Ground crusaders and nuns jostled amid motors and cabs of commerce.

For an hour this mad medley poured through the streets of Merchester.

Come with them to the Pageant Ground, where all is arranged now and ready, waiting the signal!

Punctually at half-past two, from his box on the roof of the Grand Stand, Mr. Isidore gave the signal for which the orchestra waited.

With a loud outburst of horns and trumpets and a deep rolling of drums the overture began.

It was the work of a young musician, ambitious to seize his opportunity. After stating its theme largely, simply, in sixteen strong chords, it broke into variations in which the audience for a few moments might read nothing but cacophonous noise, until a gateway opened in the old wall, and through it a band of white-robed Druids came streaming towards the stone altar which stood--the sole stage "property"--in the centre of the green area. Behind them trooped a mob of skin-clothed savages, yelling as they dragged a woman to the sacrifice. It was these yells that the music interpreted.

The Pageant had opened, and was chanting in high wild notes to its own prelude.

Almost before the spectators realised this, the Arch-Druid had mounted his altar. He held a knife to the victim's throat.

But meanwhile the low beat of a march had crept into the music, and was a.s.serting itself more and more insistently beneath the disconnected outcries. It seemed to grow out of distance, to draw nearer and nearer, as it were the tramp of an armed host. . . .

It _was_ the tramp of a host. . . . As the Arch-Druid, holding his knife aloft, dragged back the woman's head to lay her throat the barer, all turned to a sudden crash of cymbals; and, to the stern marching-tune now silencing all clamours, the advance-guard of Vespasian swung in through the gateway. . . .

So for an hour Saxon followed Roman, Dane followed Saxon, Norman followed both. Alfred, Canute, William--all controlled (as Brother Copas cynically remarked to Brother Warboise, watching through the palings from the allotted patch of sward which served them for green-room) by one small Jew, perspiring on the roof and bawling orders here, there, everywhere, through a gigantic megaphone; bawling them in a _lingua franca_ to which these mighty puppets moved obediently, weaving English history as upon a tapestry swiftly, continuously unrolled. "Which things," quoted Copas mischievously, "are an allegory, Philip."

To the waiting performers it seemed incredible that to the audience, packed by thousands in the Grand Stand, this scolding strident voice immediately above their heads should be inaudible. Yet it was.

All those eyes beheld, all those ears heard, was the puppets as they postured and declaimed. The loud little man on the roof they saw not nor heard.

"Which things again are an allegory," said Brother Copas.

The Brethren of St. Hospital had no Episode of their own. But from the time of the Conquest downward they had constantly to take part in the moving scenes as members of the crowd, and the spectators constantly hailed their entry.

"Our coat of poverty is the wear to last, after all," said Copas, regaining the green-room and mopping his brow. "We have just seen out the Plantagenets."

In this humble way, when the time came, he looked on at the Episode of Henry the Eighth's visit to Merchester, and listened to the blank verse which he himself had written. The Pageant Committee had ruled out the Reformation, but he had slyly introduced a hint of it.

The scene consisted mainly of revels, dances, tournays, amid which a singing man had chanted, in a beautiful tenor, Henry's own song of _Pastime with good Companye_.--

"Pastime with good Companye, I love and shall until I die: Grudge who l.u.s.t, but none deny, So G.o.d be pleased, thus live will I.

For my pastance, Hunt, sing and dance, My heart is set.

All goodly sport For my comfort Who shall me let?"

With its chorus--

"For Idleness Is chief mistress Of vices all.

Then who can say But mirth and play Is best of all?"

As to the tune of it their revels ended, Henry and Catherine of Aragon and Charles the Emperor pa.s.sed from the sunlit stage, one solitary figure--the blind Bishop of Merchester--lingered, and stretched out his hands for the monks to come and lead him home, stretched out his hands towards the Cathedral behind the green elms.

"Being blind, I trust the Light.

Ah, Mother Church! If fire must purify, If tribulation search thee, shall I plead _Not in my time, O Lord_? Nay let me know All dark, yet trust the dawn--remembering The order of thy services, thy sweet songs, Thy decent ministrations--Levite, priest And sacrifice--those antepasts of heaven.

We have sinn'd, we have sinn'd! But never yet went out The flame upon the altar, day or night; And it shall save thee, O Jerusalem!

Jerusalem!"

"And I stole that straight out of Jeremy Taylor," murmured Brother Copas, as the monks led off their Bishop, chanting--

"Crux, in caelo lux superna, Sis in carnis hac taberna Mihi pedibus lucerna--