The members of each guild tried to make their pageant as fine as they could. Indeed, they were expected to do so, for in 1394 we find the Mayor of York ordering the craftsmen "to bring forth their pageants in order and course by good players, well arrayed and openly speaking, upon pain of losing of 100 shillings, to be paid to the chamber without any pardon."* *Thomas Sharp, Dissertation on the Pageants. So, in order to supply everything that was needful, each member of a guild paid what was called "pageant silver." Accounts of how this money was spent were carefully kept. A few of these have come down to us, and some of the items and prices paid sound very funny now. "Paid for setting the world of fire 5d. For making and mending of the black souls hose 6d. For a pair of new hose and mending of the old for the white souls 18d. Paid for mending Pilate's hat 4d." The actors, too, were paid. Here are some of the prices:-- "To Fawson for hanging Judas 4d. Paid to Fawson for cock crowing 4d. Some got much more than others. Pilate, for instance, who was an important character, got 4s., while two angels only got 8d. between them. But while the rehearsing and acting were going on the players received their food, and when it was all over they wound up with a great supper. Chapter XXXIII HOW THE SHEPHERDS WATCHED THEIR FLOCKS IN this chapter I am going to give you a part of one of the Townley plays to show you what the beginnings of our drama were like, Although our forefathers tried to make the pageants as real as possible, they had, of course, no scenery, but acted on a little bare platform. They never thought either that the stories they acted had taken place long ago and in lands far away, where dress and manners and even climate were all very different from what they were in England. For instance, in the Shepherd's play, of which I am going to tell, the first shepherd comes in shivering with cold. For though he is acting in summer he must make believe that it is Christmas-time, for on Christmas Day Christ was born. And Christmas-time in England, he knows, is cold. What it may be in far-off Palestine he neither knows nor cares. "Lord, what these weathers are cold! and I am ill happed; I am near hand dulled so long have I napped; My legs they fold, my fingers are chapped, It is not as I would, for I am all lapped In sorrow. In storm and tempest, Now in the east, now in the west, Woe is him has never rest Mid-day or morrow." In this strain the shepherd grumbles until the second comes. He, too, complains of the cold. "The frost so hideous, they water mine een, No lie! Now is dry, now is wet, Now is snow, now is sleet, When my shoon freeze to my feet, It is not all easy." So they talk until the third shepherd comes. He, too, grumbles.