Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

thou ridest naked at noontide through the streets!" After beseeching her husband to free the city on some other condition, and he continuing obstinate, Godiva comes to the conclusion that she must perform this penance, in the following soliloquy: "God help them, good kind souls, I hope they will not crowd about me so to-morrow; oh, Leofric, could my name be forgotten, and yours only remembered! But perhaps my innocence may save me from reproach; and how many as innocent are in fear and famine! No eye will open on me but fresh from tears. What a young mother for so large a family! Shall my youth harm me? Under God's hand it gives me courage. Ah, when will the morning come? Ah, when will the noon. be over?" The legend of Peeping Tom, whose eye was shrivelled for his curiosity, is a legend of later date. The early accounts say nothing of any spectators. The two little heads of Leofric and Godiva may still be seen, in quaint stained glass, in Trinity Church, remnants of the large window in which their figures originally appeared. Peeping Tom," with his preposterous military hat, his leering smile, and his sawed-off arms, still leans benignly from a top window of the hotel!

66

Another legendary story of Coventry is told

by Michael Drayton, who describes Coventry in the days when St. Ursula brought

"That goodly virgin band,

Th' eleven thousand maids, chaste Ursula's band,"

66

as a poor thatched village."

Daily life in mediæval Coventry began early. A bell was rung to rouse the inhabitants to the day's work. This was "the beating of the bell called daybell." An inconvenient custom was that of allowing all kinds of animals and fowls to roam the streets freely. This made much confusion of traffic; the Leet Book states that "daily hurt comes from having beasts at large!

Beggars abounded, too, and for a long time unchecked. Finally they became such a nuisance and menace that it was decided in 1518 to deal with them by ordering them to move on. In the Leet Book one finds this record: "And those bigge beggars that wilnot work to get their living, but lie in the fields and break hedges and steal man's fruit. . let them be banished the town or else punish them so without favour that they shall be weary to bide!" Among curious names of Coventry Inns, may still be seen "The Pilgrim's Rest" and "The Spotted Dog."

The diminutive ornateness of the old carved St. John's Hospital is very quaint. Forty old ladies enjoy its hospitality, although no doubt they find it somewhat "6 stuffy" for daily living. The buildings in Coventry of this nature are especially attractive. There is another establishment for men, known as Bond's Almhouse, founded in 1506, "for ten poore men so long as the world shall endure, with a woman to look to them.” ("Poor Woman!" ejaculated the Little One, upon hearing this slightly ambiguous inscription!)

These beautiful old-world hospitals may be less sanitary than modern brick ones, but they are much more alluring. Henry James says that in Coventry "these pious foundations are so numerous as almost to place a premium on misery!" He makes very pleasant allusion to these establishments. "At Coventry I went to see a couple of old charities. . . places with black-timbered fronts, little clean-swept courts and Elizabethan windows. One of them was a romantic residence for a handful of old women, who sat each of them in a little cosy bower, in a sort of mediæval darkness; the other was a school for little boys of humble origin, and this latter was charming. I found the little boys playing at top in a gravelled court, in front of

the prettiest old building of tender-coloured stucco and painted timber, ornamented with two delicate little galleries and a fantastic porch. They were dressed in small blue tunics and odd caps like those worn by sailors, but, if I remember rightly, with little yellow tags affixed to them. I was free, apparently, to wander over the establishment; there was no sign of pastor or master anywhere, nothing but the little yellow-headed boys playing before the ancient house, and practising most correctly the Warwickshire dialect." The picture is singularly restful and attractive, I think.

In the station we met an amusing drunken man. He ambled up and asked us if we had a pin. Upon receiving a reply in the negative, he said: "No offense; I only advanced it(hic) - as an argument." Then, impressively, "What I am about to do is in the interests of my fellow men." Grandiloquently: Whatever concerns this country, concerns me. (hic) I have put a penny in that machine "-here, with an uncertain side-sweep, he indicated a slot-machine "The machine does not work. That penny is lost. So I have written this "

[ocr errors]

66

here he produced a dirty slip of paper, on which was printed in pencil pencil "OUT OF ORDER; PLEASE IGNORE IT." It was

the work of an instant to attach this to the offending monument; and he was satisfied. "I must warn my countrymen," he added, as he disappeared in the Birmingham train. Possibly he was a relic of the "bigge beggars who had been asked to move on in the early days!

A day at Rugby was much appreciated by the Little One, who made it a point to sit on the historic bed of Tom Brown, which our guide assured us was the same bed and in the same position as when occupied by Thomas Hughes. She also ate a biscuit out of the school box, and shuddered before the grate where Tom was "roasted." We were told that we were the first visitors who had ever thought of taking a photograph of Tom's bed, so I think I may claim that the accompanying illustration is probably unique!

It was interesting to drive out to Bilton Hall, the house which Joseph Addison built, and in which he lived with the Countess of Warwick after their marriage. Their initials are entwined in wrought iron over the garden gate, and a curious sort of Georgian pew, set among the trees, is known as Addison's Seat. In the little chapel close by the house there was a nice verse, inlaid in light wood, on the music-rack

« ПредишнаНапред »