“But what are we to do till the end of the three hours?” asked Cyril.
The gatekeeper seemed neither to know nor to care. He appeared less interested in them than they could have thought possible. But the man who had crossed spears with him to bar the children’s way was more human.
“Let them go in and look about them,” he said. “I’ll wager my best sword they’ve never seen anything to come near our little—village.”
He said it in the tone people use for when they call the Atlantic Ocean the “herring pond”.
The gatekeeper hesitated.
“They’re only children, after all,” said the other, who had children of his own. “Let me off for a few minutes, Captain, and I’ll take them to my place and see if my good woman can’t fit them up in something a little less outlandish than their present rig. Then they can have a look round without being mobbed. May I go?”
“Oh yes, if you like,” said the Captain, “but don’t be all day.”
The man led them through the dark arch into the town. And it was very different from London. For one thing, everything in London seems to be patched up out of odds and ends, but these houses seemed to have been built by people who liked the same sort of things. Not that they were all alike, for though all were squarish, they were of different sizes, and decorated in all sorts of different ways, some with paintings in bright colours, some with black and silver designs. There were terraces, and gardens, and balconies, and open spaces with trees. Their guide took them to a little house in a back street, where a kind-faced woman sat spinning at the door of a very dark room.
“Here,” he said, “just lend these children a mantle each, so that they can go about and see the place till the Queen’s audience begins. You leave that wool for a bit, and show them round if you like. I must be off now.”
The woman did as she was told, and the four children, wrapped in fringed mantles, went with her all about the town, and oh! how I wish I had time to tell you all that they saw. It was all so wonderfully different from anything you have ever seen. For one thing, all the houses were dazzlingly bright, and many of them covered with pictures. Some had great creatures carved in stone at each side of the door. Then the people—there were no black frock-coats and tall hats; no dingy coats and skirts of good, useful, ugly stuffs warranted to wear. Everyone’s clothes were bright and beautiful with blue and scarlet and green and gold.