And I am ready bowne [prepared].”
But Noah’s wife at once showed by her grumbling speech that she was obstinate, and did not intend to do much work:
“And we shall bring timber too,
For women nothing else to do;
Women be weak to undergo
Any great travail,”
she declared.
At last, to the children’s delight, the curtains at the back of the stage parted, and they saw the ark. It was already very substantially built, for of course in the few minutes at the actors’ disposal they could do no more than pretend to hammer and plane and saw. Indeed all the time that it was not in use, this ark hung in one of the churches in York, slung to the beams across the nave, from which place of safety it was every year taken down to do duty in the pageant.
Margery and Colin gazed with admiration upon the big ship, which was very much like the Noah’s arks we see nowadays in the toy-shops, only of course enormously larger. It was roofed in at the top, and gaily painted. There were little windows along the sides that opened and showed glimpses of rooms within. A mast with sails and rigging appeared above the roof, and altogether a more satisfactory and interesting ark can scarcely be imagined.
Noah and his sons began at once to work very busily, as though they were really building, Noah in these words explaining all there was to do: