Читать книгу Magic London - Netta Syrett - Страница 4

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For a moment she felt frightened and lost, till she saw that Godmother stood beside her. “Where are we? What is this place?” she stammered.

“London.”

Betty thought of the London through which she had driven this very day. She saw again the crowded streets, the streams of traffic, the long rows of shops, the huge buildings of all sorts; the churches, the banks, the railways. How could this be London?

She looked down at the long grass on which she was standing,—grass that sloped to a clear river. On the opposite bank she saw something rather like a castle or fortress, a large brick building with zigzag battlements and turrets. This castle was reached by a bridge made of broad beams resting on piles of wood driven into the water, and beyond and on either side of the fort she saw, dotted here and there, strange-looking houses, with orchards and gardens and fields all about them.

“We drove over London Bridge this morning, didn’t we?” Godmother asked.

“Yes,” murmured Betty, bewildered.

“Well. There it is!” Godmother pointed to the bridge with its wooden planks and roughly-made railings of wood. “The London you know to-day began just about where we are standing now,” she went on, “and there”—again she pointed—“you see the first bridge that was ever built across the river.”

“Then we’re ever so far back in the Past?” asked Betty.

“We’ve gone back to a day four hundred years after the birth of Christ.”

Before she had time to realize the strangeness of this, Betty’s attention was attracted by the most curious-looking boat she had ever seen, coming round a bend of the river. It had a high curved prow, and it was crowded with men wearing helmets that flashed in the sun, short tunics to their knees, and plates of brass covering their legs. Two rows of long oars stretched on either side of the boat, and as it drew nearer Betty saw that, though it had a sail, the helmeted soldiers were rowing it, and thus making it move very fast.

“Oh, look! look!” she almost shouted. “Who are these men?”

“Roman soldiers, of course,” said Godmother. “Remember the date. It is 400 years after Christ, and our country (called Britain then) has been conquered by, and belongs to, Rome. Many Romans have been settled here now for as long as three hundred years. That building,” she pointed to the Castle, “is the fortress where the Roman soldiers live. We shall see them disembark in a minute, and go into their barracks. This boat of theirs is called a galley, and it was in boats like it that the first Roman soldiers came sailing up this river Thames when they conquered the country.”

“Yes! yes! the boat is stopping! Now they’re going into the fortress!” exclaimed Betty excitedly, as with breathless interest she watched the soldiers being marched along the river bank by their officers.

“Can we go across the bridge?” she asked a moment later.

“Of course we can. No one sees us. No one hears us. We are invisible—for as long as we choose to be. Come, we’ll cross over to the fortress.”

Dancing with excitement, Betty followed her on to the bridge, over which, all the time she and Godmother had been standing on the bank, people had been crossing and recrossing. They were the strangest-looking folk imaginable, but so far she had been too confused and too interested in the soldiers to do more than glance at them.

“Let us stand here a moment, and watch,” Godmother suggested, drawing her back against the wooden parapet of the bridge.

“That’s a Roman nobleman,” she observed, as a fine-looking man passed, wearing a tunic, a white cloak wrapped round part of his body, the end flung over one shoulder, and sandals made of twisted leather. “That’s his villa over there.” She pointed to a house at some little distance set in the midst of blossoming fruit-trees.

“Here’s a British merchant coming!” she went on. “Look at his long furry trousers under the cloak, or toga as it is called, which he is wearing in imitation of the Romans. He has become so ‘Romanized’ that he copies the conquerors of his country in every possible way.”

“But for all that, he doesn’t look a bit like a Roman!” declared Betty, as she stared at the man’s red hair, which hung to his shoulders. “Oh! do look at this dear little girl!” she exclaimed almost in the same breath.

A woman leading a pretty fair-haired child was moving towards them. The little girl, who was bare-footed, wore a straight gown made of woollen material, dyed blue. She had big blue eyes, and her tangled curly hair hung loose about her face. All at once, just as she passed them, a coin fell from her hand and, dropping through a chink between the planks of the bridge, fell into the water with a splash.

The woman, talking angrily in a language that sounded strange and barbarous, shook the child, who began to cry.

“Oh, poor little thing!” said Betty pitifully. “Her mother needn’t be so cross with her! They’re British people, I suppose?”

“Yes. That was the money to pay the toll at the end of the bridge,” explained Godmother, “and now it’s at the bottom of the river.”

But Betty soon forgot the little girl in her interest in watching the other people who passed and re-passed, and looking at the boats which floated up and down the stream laden with all sorts of merchandise.

THE SLAVE MARKET

“London, as you see, was an important port even in these far-off days, four hundred years after Christ,” Godmother remarked. “Tin and iron and lead and oysters are going away in some of those boats to other countries, and all sorts of things are coming in as exchange.... Now let us go on to the fortress and climb up to the battlements. Fortunately no one will interfere with us, and we shall get a good view of the country from the top.”

It was a very weird experience to pass unchallenged into the courtyard of the castle, filled with laughing, shouting and quarrelling soldiers. These men paid no attention to them, and Godmother led the way up a winding stone staircase to a pathway on the inner side of the battlements. From this height they had a wonderful view over the surrounding country, and as she gazed, Betty was lost in amazement.

The Monument, that great column to the top of which she had so recently climbed, was, she remembered, close to London Bridge. Therefore she must now be standing near the very same spot as that from which only this morning she had looked over London. It was an amazing thought.

She remembered the countless spires and domes and towers which rose far above their roofs, and the swarming traffic in all the streets.

Upon what a different scene she looked now! In place of the miles and miles of streets and houses, she saw along a narrow strip of the shore, right and left of the wooden bridge, a few steep lanes or alleys, lined with poor low dwellings. A few wharves and quays stretched along the bank of the river just below. There certainly a busy life went on, for men were loading and unloading boats. Behind the lanes leading down to the river, there was a belt of cultivated land, dotted over with gleaming one-storied dwellings which Godmother said were Roman villas, and beyond them, enclosing all the cultivated land, rose a strong wall with towers at intervals. But behind the wall came a long stretch of marshy ground, leading to the edge of a huge forest—a dark and gloomy and endless forest, clothing a line of hills, and stretching away, away, as far as eye could see.

Godmother was leaning on the parapet beside her.

“We are facing north now,” she said, and added suddenly, “You’ve been to Hampstead Heath, of course?”

Betty could not imagine what Hampstead Heath had to do with the scene upon which she was gazing, but she said, “Yes, we go nearly every Sunday.”

“Well, then, you have seen a tiny bit that is left of that great forest in front of you. There’s very little ‘forest’ about Hampstead Heath now, certainly, but such as it is, it is the descendant of that very one you see before you, which, a thousand years ago, stretched for hundreds of miles over this island.”

From the other side of the fortress, to which they presently moved, the view was equally strange, for here there was nothing to be seen but swampy land, just emerging from the water which everywhere surrounded it.

“We are looking south,” Godmother said, “and now that you see this great stretch of water right and left, you will understand why the first name of London was the lake fort.”

“Is that what Llyn-din means?” Betty asked.

“Yes. In the British language, Llyn-din means just that, and in the Roman language the word became Londinium—the Fortress on the Lake.”

“I do wish I could speak to some of the people,” said Betty, after a moment during which she watched the sunlight sparkling on the great expanse of water that ran under the oldest of all the London Bridges.

“Well, I can manage that for you. There’s no end to magic if you once learn how to work it,” Godmother added with her curious smile. “Let’s go down into the market-place.”

Between the houses that sloped down to the river just below, there was an open space, and from where she stood, Betty could see it was filled by a lively crowd of people, some evidently British, others Roman. They were buying and selling, and the noise and shouting of the crowd could be plainly heard.

“What’s that large building on the little hill just above the market-place?” Betty asked.

“That’s the Roman Hall of Justice, where people who have done wrong are tried, and sentenced to punishment,” replied the old lady as the child followed her to the top of the steps.

A few minutes later they stood in the market-place, where Betty could have lingered for hours watching the strange crowd. It was by no means entirely made up of Romans and British. Many dark-skinned, dark-eyed men from Eastern lands were there as well. “They are traders from lands even farther off than Rome,” Godmother explained. “For London, you know, has always been filled with foreign merchants. Some of these are buying British slaves to take back with them in their ships to their own countries. You see that little group of girls and boys over there, wrapped in rough skin coats? They come from a part of Britain beyond the forest, and they have been bought by that black-haired man with the turban and the gold earrings.”

Betty looked at the poor children pityingly as they stood huddled together, confused and frightened. It was dreadful to think of them being sold as though they were sheep or cows! But her attention was all at once distracted by a boy of about her own age, who, having passed quite close, all at once turned round and stopped. It was the first time that any one had seen her, for up to this moment both she and Godmother had been invisible. But it was evident that, to the boy at least, this was no longer the case. He smiled, and walking towards her, said, “You are a stranger? You would like to see my father’s house?”

He was a Roman boy, as Betty at once recognized, and strangely enough she did not feel it at all odd that she should understand his speech, though afterwards she knew it must be Latin. At the time, however, she wondered how he guessed that she was desperately anxious to go into one of the many Roman houses so beautifully set among orchards and gardens.

“Yes, if you please,” was all she could find to say.

“Come then,” said the boy, smiling again pleasantly, but paying no heed to Godmother.

Betty turned to her, puzzled and uncertain, but Godmother only laughed.

“Don’t trouble about finding me again. It will be all right. Go with him, and stay as long as you like. You’ll discover it’s not so long as you imagine.”

Thus encouraged, Betty very willingly followed her guide. He was a handsome boy, dressed very much as the Roman nobleman on the bridge had been clothed, except that the cloak he wore over his tunic had a broad purple band round its edge. That, as she afterwards learnt from Godmother, being the usual dress for Roman boys, for it was not till they were grown up, that they wore the tunic without this purple border.

“That is our villa,” he began presently when they came in sight of a long one-storied house surrounded by trees and shrubs. “My father has much land here, and many farms.”

“Will you tell me your name?” asked Betty shyly.

“My name is Lucius.... I will take you first straight through the house,” said the boy. By this time they had reached its entrance, and Betty caught a beautiful vision of rooms divided by pillars, each one opening into the next; of painted ceilings and walls, of coloured stone pavements, of couches with purple silk cushions upon them, and pedestals upon which statues stood. It was only a flashing glimpse she had of all this, and though she saw everything with the greatest distinctness, she was somehow conscious that none of it was actually real; that even Lucius was not really alive, even while she saw him as plainly as though he had been flesh and blood. Deep down in her mind, she knew that everything she saw and heard, was what had once existed but was over and done with long, long ago, and was only revived for a moment.

And yet everything looked so real. Just as this sad feeling came to her, she was walking over a pavement made of small coloured stones fitted together to make a pattern. This she knew was called mosaic work, and she noticed the design of it, which was that of a woman seated on the back of some animal in the centre of the pavement.

By the time she had walked through the villa and out of it upon a terrace overlooking the country, Betty had a confused idea of great luxury and beauty, displayed in a very different sort of house from any she had ever seen before.

“Ask me any questions you like,” said Lucius presently. But Betty scarcely knew where to begin.

“This country is called Britain, isn’t it?” she said at last, remembering her history. “And you Roman people conquered it?”

“We did,” answered the boy, smiling. “Long ago. Four hundred years ago.”

“And the British people are not angry about it anymore?”

“No. Why should they be? Everything is peaceful now.”

“But at first there was fighting, I suppose?”

“Long and bitter fighting,” said Lucius. “There is a story, which I believe is true, that when my ancestors first came to Britain, more than three hundred years ago, there was a British Queen who led men to battle against us. She actually took and burnt this town of Londinium—which was then, however, much smaller and less important than it is now.”

“Boadicea!” thought Betty, remembering in a flash the statue on Westminster Bridge.

But Lucius was again speaking. “My own family has been settled here nearly two hundred years. It was my great-grandfather who built this villa, and he was born in Londinium.”

“We call it London,” murmured Betty. But Lucius did not seem to hear her. “Then I suppose it was a good thing for the British to be conquered?” she inquired.

The boy laughed. “Without doubt. They were savages when we came, and we’ve taught them everything. From us they’ve learnt how to till the land,”—he nodded towards a field. “Those are British labourers working there now. They’ve learnt how to make roads after our famous Roman plan. You can see one of our roads from this corner of the terrace. And how to build houses and ships, and work in metal and do a thousand other things. Some of them have grown rich, and have been educated, so that they are as good scholars now as we are. Already Londinium is a famous port to which foreign merchants come bringing riches. My father says it will some day be a great city, equal to any city in the world.”

“It has become a great city!” exclaimed Betty to herself, remembering the London she knew. It was sad to think that if she had spoken aloud, the boy would not have understood her, and she hastened to ask another question.

“Are these British people Christians?”

“Oh yes!” said Lucius. “Ever since we became Christians ourselves, you know. Of course when my ancestors first came here, they themselves were pagans. They worshipped gods and goddesses like Apollo and Venus. But that’s a hundred years ago. Now Londinium is a Christian city, and we’re teaching the British to be Christians also. It’s rather difficult though, because a great many of them cling to their old gods. Still, most of them at least call themselves Christians.”

“Do you like living in this country—in Britain?” asked Betty after a moment.

“Oh yes. It’s my home. I was born here. But I should like to go to Rome—the city from which my great-grandfather came when he settled here, and built this villa. Perhaps I shall, some day,” he went on dreamily. “My father often says we may have to go back to our own land. There are troubles there. The barbarians are growing stronger and stronger, and some day Rome will need all the fighting men she can get to defend her.”

“But the British will have no one to defend them if you go,” objected Betty.

Lucius shrugged his shoulders. “No, poor things. Their state will be very desperate if enemies come to invade them when we are gone....”

Betty scarcely listened to the end of his sentence, for she had made a discovery which interested her too much. On his third finger Lucius wore the very ring which not long ago had been in her own hand! But before she could exclaim, Betty found herself standing once more upon London Bridge, with her Godmother beside her, and strangely enough Godmother was repeating almost the very words the boy had just uttered!

“Poor things! They little know what a terrible time is before their children’s children!”

“You mean the British? When the Romans have gone?” said Betty, who by this time was beginning to accept all the strange things that were happening without much surprise.

“Yes. In a few years that villa you have just seen, and all the other beautiful Roman houses, will have dropped into decay. There will be no one left in London except perhaps a handful of British slaves, and most of them will have to flee to that forest over there, to escape from the murderous people who will overrun this island....”

The people were still passing to and fro upon London Bridge, as Betty gazed about her. The sunlight was still sparkling on the river, and from the fortress came the sound of the tramping feet of the soldiers.

“There’s a little boat just putting off,” said Godmother. “The man in it is going to fish higher up the river. We’ll step in with him. It’s a great advantage to be invisible!” she added, smiling, as they hurried down to the bank.

It was strange nevertheless to be seated opposite a shaggy-haired, bare-legged fisherman, who took no notice of them, but as the boat glided on, Betty was soon so interested in the scenery they were passing that she almost forgot the silent man who was rowing them. Very soon they had passed all the gardens and orchards on the banks, and now on either side there was nothing but a waste of water with here and there a low reed-covered island just showing above its level.

“We are now passing under Westminster Bridge,” observed Godmother presently. “On our left is St. Thomas’s Hospital and Lambeth Palace, and on our right the Houses of Parliament, with Westminster Abbey behind it.”

Betty stared. She thought Godmother must be joking.

“Perfectly true,” the old lady assured her in answer to her smile. “On that island just above the water on the right, in another six hundred years, Westminster Abbey will rise.”

Betty heard the gurgling of the water as it washed between the reeds and bulrushes of the island, and as she thought of the beautiful Cathedral under whose shadow her godmother’s house stood, it seemed a miracle that such a change could have taken place.

“Human beings are rather wonderful, aren’t they?” remarked Godmother, smiling, as though she read her thoughts. “They drain wet land and make it useful for growing food, or for buildings. They bore tunnels through solid rocks. They build bridges over rivers, and do a thousand things to alter the world for their own convenience. Who could have imagined that this great London of ours, the largest city in the world, could have grown up from this?” Godmother waved her hand towards the swamps and streams, east, west and south of where they sat rocking in the boat beside the swampy island.

“Just think of it!” she exclaimed after a moment’s silence. “This marsh, and that forest to the north, and all the open land as far as we can see in every direction, is now covered with streets and shops, with churches and schools and railway stations, and is the dwelling-place of millions of people.”

“It’s almost as wonderful as this magic way of seeing it as it used to be!” declared Betty. “Tell me again how far back in the Past we are?”

“All this is one thousand five hundred years ago,” said Godmother softly.

The fisherman had tied up his boat to a stake driven into the shore of the island, where later the great Cathedral of Westminster was to stand. The sun was setting, the water was a sheet of gold and crimson, and above the island a flight of birds rose suddenly with shrill cries.... The next second they stood in the white-panelled parlour.

“Oh!” cried Betty, rubbing her eyes. She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “Why!” she stammered, “it was three o’clock the last time I saw it, and it’s still three. It must have stopped!”

Godmother shook her head. “It hasn’t stopped. Time is almost as magic a thing as——”

“As all we’ve seen,” put in Betty eagerly. “Oh, Godmother, it has been wonderful! But no one will ever believe it.”

“Don’t try to make them,” replied Godmother. “You’ll find it quite easy not to,” she added with her queer little smile. Then as the bell rang, “Here comes your maid to fetch you.”

“Oh, but this isn’t the end of the magic? You’ll let me come again? You’ll let me see how London goes on?” Betty implored.

“To-morrow I’m going to take you to a Museum,” returned the old lady. “I don’t think you’ll find it dull,” she said comfortingly, as Betty’s face fell. “I shall fetch you at three o’clock, and mind you don’t keep me waiting.”