Part 6 (1/2)

There is no place so full of old stories and of history--history that suddenly becomes quite a different matter from something you learn by the half-page out of an extremely dull book at school. This is history alive, and the dim old Tower becomes peopled with gay and gallant figures clad in s.h.i.+ning armour, bent on knightly adventures.

There you see mail s.h.i.+rts of woven links that slip like silken mesh through the fingers, yet could withstand the deadliest thrust of a dagger; maces with spiked heads, that only a mighty man could swing; swords such as that with which Coeur-de-Lion could slice through such a mace as though it were no more than a carrot--sinuous blades that Saladin loved, that would sever a down cus.h.i.+on flung in the air.

Daggers and poignards, too, of every age, needle-pointed yet viciously strong, with exquisitely inlaid hilts and fine-lined blades; long rapiers that brought visions of gallants with curls and lace stocks and silken hose, as ready to fight as to dance or to make a poem to a fair lady's eyebrow. Helmets of every age, with visors behind which the knights of old had looked grimly as they charged down the lists at ”gentle and joyous pa.s.sages of arms.” Horse-armour of amazing weight--”I always pictured those old knights prancing out on a thirteen-stone hack, but you'd want a Suffolk Punch to carry that ironmongery!” said Wally. So through room after room, each full of brave ghosts of the past, looking benevolently at the tall boy-soldiers from the New World; until at length came closing-time, and they went out reluctantly, across the flagged yard where poor young Anne Boleyn laid her gentle head on the block; where the ravens hop and caw to-day as their ancestors did in the sixteenth century when she walked across from her grim prison that still bears on its wall a scrawled ”Anne.” A dull little prison-room, it must have been, after the glitter and pomp of castles and palaces--with only the rugged walls of the Tower Yard to look upon from the tiny window.

”And she must have had such a jolly good time at first,” said Wally.

”Old Henry VIII was very keen on her, wasn't he? And then she was only his second wife--by the time he'd had six they must have begun to feel themselves rather two-a-penny!”

They found a 'bus that took them by devious ways through the City; the part of London that many Londoners never see, since it is another world from the world of Bond Street and Oxford Street, with their newness and their glittering shops. But to the queer folk who come from overseas, it is the real London, and they wander in its narrow streets and link fingers with the past. Old names look down from the smoke-grimed walls: Black Friars and White Friars, Bread Street, St.

Martin's Lane, Leadenhall Street, Temple Bar: the hurrying crowd of to-day fades, and instead come ghosts of armed men and of leather-jerkined 'prentices, less ready to work than to fight; of gallants with ruffs, and fierce sailor-men of the days of Queen Bess, home from the Spanish Main with s.h.i.+ps laden with gold, swaggering up from the Docks to spend their prize-money as quickly as they earned it. Visions of dark nights, with link-boys running beside chair-bearers, carrying exquisite ladies to routs and masques: of foot-pads, slinking into dark alleys and doorways as the watch comes tramping down the street. Visions of the press-gang, hunting stout lads, into every tavern, whisking them from their hiding-places and off to the s.h.i.+ps: to disappear with never a word of farewell until, years later, bronzed and tarred and strange of speech, they returned to astounded families who had long mourned them as dead. Visions of Queen Bess, with her haughty face and her red hair, riding through the City that adored her, her white palfrey stepping daintily through the cheering crowd: and great gentlemen beside her--Raleigh, Ess.e.x, Howard. They all wander together through the grey streets where the centuries-old buildings tower overhead: all blending together, a formless jumble of the Past, and yet very much alive: and it does not seem to matter in the least that you look down upon them from a rattling motor-'bus that leaves pools of oil where perchance lay the puddle over which Raleigh flung his cloak lest his queen's slipper should be soiled. Very soon we shall look down on the City from airs.h.i.+ps while conductors come and stamp our tickets with a bell-punch: but the old City will be unchanged, and it will be only we who look upon it who will pa.s.s like shadows from its face.

The Australians left their 'bus in Fleet Street, and dived down a narrow lane to a low doorway with the sign of the _Ches.h.i.+re Cheese_--the old inn with sanded floor and bare oak benches and tables, where Dr. Johnson and his followers used to meet, to dine and afterwards to smoke long churchwarden pipes and talk, as Wally said, ”such amazing fine language that it made you feel a little light-headed.” It is to be feared that the Australians had not any great enthusiasm for Dr. Johnson. They had paid a visit of inspection to the room upstairs where the great man used to take his ease, but not one of them had felt any desire to sit in his big armchair.

”You don't understand what a chance you're scorning,” Mr. Linton had said, laughing, as his family turned from the seat of honour. ”Why, good Americans die happy if they can only say they have sat in Dr.

Johnson's chair!”

”_I_ think he was an ill-mannered old man!” quoth Norah, with her nose tilted. Which seemed to end the matter, so far as they were concerned.

But if the Billabong family took no interest in Dr. Johnson, they had a deep affection for the old inn itself. They loved its dim rooms with their blackened oak, and it was a never-ending delight to watch the medley of people who came there for meals: actors, artists, literary folk, famous and otherwise; Americans, foreigners, Colonials; politicians, fighting men of both Services, busy City men: for everybody comes, sooner or later, to the old _Ches.h.i.+re Cheese_. Being people of plain tastes they liked the solid, honest meals--especially since increasing War-prices were already inducing hotels and restaurants everywhere to disguise a tablespoonful of hashed oddments under an elegant French name and sell it for as much money as a dinner for a hungry man. Norah used to fight shy of the famous ”lark-pudding” until it was whispered to her that what was not good beef steaks in the dish was nothing more than pigeon or possibly even sparrow! after which she enjoyed it, and afterwards pilgrimaged to the kitchen to see the great blue bowls, as big as a wash-hand basin, in which the puddings have been made since Dr. Johnson's time, and the great copper in which they are boiled all night. Legend says that any one who can eat three helpings of lark-pudding is presented with all that remains: but no one has ever heard of a hero able to manage his third plateful!

Best of all the Billabong folk loved the great cellars under the inn, which were once the cloisters of an old monastery: where there are unexpected steps, and dim archways, and winding paths where it is very easy to imagine that you see bare-footed friars with brown habits and rope girdles pacing slowly along. There they bought quaint brown jars and mustard-pots of the kind that are used, and have always been used, on the tables above. But best of all were the great oaken beams above them, solid as England itself, but blackened and charred by the Great Fire of 1666. Norah used to touch the burned surface gently, wondering if it was not a dream--if the hand on the broken charcoal were really her own, more used to Bosun's bridle on the wide plains of Billabong!

There were not many people in the room as they came in this evening, for it was early; dinner, indeed, was scarcely ready, and a few customers sat about, reading evening papers and discussing the war news. In one corner were an officer and a lady; and at sight of the former Jim and Wally saluted and broke into joyful smiles. The officer jumped up and greeted them warmly.

”Hullo, boys!” he said. ”I'm delighted to see you. Fit again?--you look it!”

”Dad, this is Major Hunt,” Jim said, dragging his father forward.

”You remember, of our regiment. And my sister, sir. I say, I'm awfully glad to see you!”

”Come and meet my wife,” said Major Hunt. ”Stella, here are the two young Australians that used to make my life a burden!”

Everybody shook hands indiscriminately, and presently they joined forces round a big table, while Jim and Wally poured out questions concerning the regiment and every one in it.

”Most of them are going strong,” Major Hunt said--”we have a good few casualties, of course, but we haven't lost many officers--most of them have come back. I think all your immediate chums are still in France.

But I've been out of it myself for two months--stopped a bit shrapnel with my hand, and it won't get better.” He indicated a bandaged left hand as he spoke, and they realized that his face was worn, and deeply lined with pain. ”It's stupid,” he said, and laughed. ”But when are you coming back? We've plenty of work for you.”

They told him, eagerly.

”Well, you might just as well learn all you can before you go out,”

Major Hunt said. ”The war's not going to finish this winter, or the next. Indeed, I wouldn't swear that my six-year-old son, who is drilling hard, won't have time to be in at the finis.h.!.+” At which Mrs.

Hunt shuddered and said, ”Don't be so horrible, Douglas!” She was a slight, pretty woman, cheery and pleasant, and she made them all laugh by her stories of work in a canteen.

”All the soldiers used to look upon us as just part of the furniture,”

she said. ”They used to rush in, in a break between parades, and give their orders in a terrible hurry. As for saying ”Please--well----”

”You ought to have straightened them up,” said Major Hunt, with a good-tempered growl.

”Ah, poor boys, they hadn't time! The Irish regiments were better, but then it isn't any trouble for an Irishman to be polite; it comes to him naturally. But those stolid English country lads can't say things easily.” She laughed. ”I remember a young lance-corporal who used often to come to our house to see my maid. He was terribly shy, and if I chanced to go into the kitchen he always bolted like a rabbit into the scullery. The really terrible thing was that sometimes I had to go on to the scullery myself, and run him to earth among the saucepans, when he would positively shake with terror. I used to wonder how he ever summoned up courage to speak to Susan, let alone to face the foe when he went to France!”