Master Harpham’s house appeared very grand to the children. It had a big carved doorway leading to the shop, and the rooms above seemed to them magnificently furnished, with their big oak chests, and their high-backed chairs with leather seats, and the ornamented beams across the ceiling. Mistress Harpham, a stout, rosy-faced dame, greeted them very kindly, and called to her son to come and be introduced to his little cousins. “Giles is going to act!” she told them proudly. “But not yet. His turn comes later. He is to be Isaac in the play of _Abraham’s Sacrifice_.” Colin and Margery looked with awe and amazement upon their cousin. He was a pretty boy of twelve, with fair hair hanging to his shoulders, and a pale, delicate little face. “Won’t you be frightened?” whispered Margery, gazing at him with breathless interest. “No; not very,” he said, laughing. “I have been in the plays before. Last year I was an angel.” “Take them to the window, Giles!” called his mother. “It’s time we were in our seats. Little ones in the front; grown-ups at the back!” The room was by this time full of townsfolk, invited by the glover and his wife, and the first-floor windows, as well as the upper ones, were crowded with people in holiday dresses; the women in snowy wimples, and gowns of many colours; the men in tunics of russet brown or dull green. Colin, Margery, and Giles sat on stools close to the window, and the country children looked with interest at the scene before them. The glover’s house was at the corner of the market-place, and the windows of all the houses surrounding it were hung with gay cloths, and packed from basement to roof with people. Below, in the cobble-paved square, with a babel of noise and confusion, the poorer folk crowded. “There won’t be any room when the play _does_ come!” exclaimed Colin. “The heralds will clear the way,” said Giles. “Last night it was such fun to watch them! They rode through all the town reading the proclamation. That’s a warning, you know, for every one to behave properly to-day.” “Oh, what did they say?” asked Margery, with interest. “Well, they came to the market-place here, on horseback, with trumpets, and one man shouted at the top of his voice. Let me see. What did he say? I believe I can remember some of it. It was like this.... _Oyez. We command, on the King’s behalf, and the Mayor and the Sheriffs of this city, that no man go armed in this city with swords nor Carlisle axes, nor none other defences in disturbance of the King’s peace and the play, or hindering of the procession of Corpus Christi, and that they leave their harness in their inns...._ I forget the words that came next, but they meant that each guild was to act its play in proper order. And that all manner of craftsmen who were responsible for a play should employ ‘good players well-arranged and openly speaking’ upon pain of a fine. And all that sort of thing, you know.” “I can’t think how you can remember it!” said Margery.