“It will take at least an hour for the first play to reach the house of your Aunt Harpham,” she assured her. “It has but just begun at Mikelgate.”
But Margery was not happy till, having pushed their way out of the throng in the courtyard, they found themselves on the way to their kinswoman’s dwelling.
Master Harpham’s house appeared very grand to the children. It had a big carved doorway leading to the shop, and the rooms above seemed to them magnificently furnished, with their big oak chests, and their high-backed chairs with leather seats, and the ornamented beams across the ceiling. Mistress Harpham, a stout, rosy-faced dame, greeted them very kindly, and called to her son to come and be introduced to his little cousins.
“Giles is going to act!” she told them proudly. “But not yet. His turn comes later. He is to be Isaac in the play of Abraham’s Sacrifice.”
Colin and Margery looked with awe and amazement upon their cousin. He was a pretty boy of twelve, with fair hair hanging to his shoulders, and a pale, delicate little face.
“Won’t you be frightened?” whispered Margery, gazing at him with breathless interest.
“No; not very,” he said, laughing. “I have been in the plays before. Last year I was an angel.”
“Take them to the window, Giles!” called his mother. “It’s time we were in our seats. Little ones in the front; grown-ups at the back!”
The room was by this time full of townsfolk, invited by the glover and his wife, and the first-floor windows, as well as the upper ones, were crowded with people in holiday dresses; the women in snowy wimples, and gowns of many colours; the men in tunics of russet brown or dull green.
Colin, Margery, and Giles sat on stools close to the window, and the country children looked with interest at the scene before them. The glover’s house was at the corner of the market-place, and the windows of all the houses surrounding it were hung with gay cloths, and packed from basement to roof with people.