The upper stage was just on a level with their eyes, and Margery clasped her hands in delight.
“We’ve got the best place of all!” she whispered to her brother.
As yet the curtains of the upper platform were close drawn, and she had time to look at the whole car before the play actually began.
The lower half, she noticed, was all covered in by brightly-coloured painted cloths, so that nothing of the interior could be seen.
“That’s where the players dress,” Giles told her. “And there are trap-doors and steps leading from it to the upper part, which is the stage, you know. And——.”
But the curtains were now pulled aside, disclosing what seemed to the children a grand and beautiful scene. A canopy, painted deep blue to represent the sky, stretched above the head of an imposing figure seated upon a gilt throne.
Those of you who have seen pictures of popes, can imagine the dress of the player who represented Almighty God. He wore a mitre upon his head, over hair that was made stiff with gold. His beard was also of stiff gold, and his robes were magnificently embroidered and clasped with jewels. In his hand he held a jewelled sceptre. The floor at his feet was strewn with rushes, and at first there was nothing on the stage but this stately figure, over-arched by the blue sky.
Then he spoke, chanting in a grave full voice, so that the sound of it reached over the market-place; and these were his words, put into the kind of English we speak to-day. Below on this page you will find them as they were then written.
“I am gracious and great, God without beginning;
I am maker unmade, all might is in me;