At last, to the children’s delight, the curtains at the back of the stage parted, and they saw the ark. It was already very substantially built, for of course in the few minutes at the actors’ disposal they could do no more than _pretend_ to hammer and plane and saw. Indeed all the time that it was not in use, this ark hung in one of the churches in York, slung to the beams across the nave, from which place of safety it was every year taken down to do duty in the pageant. Margery and Colin gazed with admiration upon the big ship, which was very much like the Noah’s arks we see nowadays in the toy-shops, only of course enormously larger. It was roofed in at the top, and gaily painted. There were little windows along the sides that opened and showed glimpses of rooms within. A mast with sails and rigging appeared above the roof, and altogether a more satisfactory and interesting ark can scarcely be imagined. Noah and his sons began at once to work very busily, as though they were really building, Noah in these words explaining all there was to do: “Now in the Name of God I will begin To make the ship that we shall in, That we be ready for to swim At the coming of the flood. These boards I join together, To keep us safe from the weather, That we may roam both hither and thither, And safe be from this flood. Of this tree will I have the mast, Tied with cables that will last. With a sail-yard for each blast, And each thing in its kind. With topmast high and bowsprit, With cords and ropes I hold all fit To sail forth at the next weete [tide] This ship is at an end.” The ark, now finished by the pretended labours of the men, Noah turned to his wife and family. “Wife” (he said), “in this castle we shall be kept; My children and thou I would in leaped.” But Noah’s wife immediately began to show her temper. She had been looking all the time with scorn upon the building of the ship, and laughing with her neighbours, or “gossips,” as she called them, to see her husband and her sons working, as she considered, so foolishly; and when Noah begged her to come into safety, this was her contemptuous answer: “In faith, Noe, I had as lief thou had slept, For all thy frankishfare [nonsense], For I will not do after thy rede [advice].” “Good wife, do as I thee bid,” said Noah, coaxingly. “By Christ not, or I see more need, Though thou stand all the day and rave,” she replied, while the crowd broke into roars of laughter to see the husband and wife quarrelling. “Lord, that women be crabbed ay!” exclaimed Noah, amid fresh laughter, “And never are meek, that I dare say. This is well seen of me to-day, In witness of you each one. Good wife, let all this beere [noise] That thou makest in this place here; For they all ween thou art master, And so thou art, by St. John!”