Little Folks Part 18

"We should have to open the door, though, to see how the water was getting on," said Mary. "Would not that be a pity?"

"It would have to be done in any case to baste the meat," said Mrs.

Herbert. "Remember, we can no more dispense with basting in baking meat than we can in roasting it before the fire. If we try to do so, our meat will be spoilt. We must baste every quarter of an hour, and to do this we must lift the meat right out of the oven, and shut the door as soon as possible. If we were to baste the meat while it was in the oven, the latter would become cool, and we wish to keep the heat up the whole time. We should be careful also to shut the oven door gently. If we slam it, we shall force some of the hot air out of it."

"I never saw anything like it," said Margaret. "In cookery there are so many little things to remember."

"That is the case with whatever we learn, my dear little girl, if we try to learn thoroughly. And there is still another point to remember: when we take the meat out of the oven to baste it, we must notice whether it is browner in one part than another, and if it is, we must turn the tin, so that the side which is less cooked may take its turn in going to the hottest part of the oven. You know that one part of the oven is always hotter than another. In the same way, you should turn the meat over once or twice, that it may be equally cooked."

"How long will it have to be in the oven, ma'am?" said Mary.

"If you use the ventilator as I have told you to do, you may follow the same rules in baking meat that would hold good for roasting it: that is, you may allow a quarter of an hour to the pound, and a quarter of an hour over for red meats, and twenty minutes to the pound for white meats. But if the ventilator is not used, the oven would get very hot, and ten minutes to the pound, with ten minutes over, would probably be sufficient, excepting in cases where the meat was very thick and solid."

"And do we make gravy for baked meat in the same way that we make it for roast meat, ma'am?" said Mary.

"Certainly," said Mrs. Herbert.

"Well, I must say," said Margaret, when in course of time the baked meat was dished and set on the table, "that I think baked meat tastes quite as well as roast meat, and it is much less troublesome to cook."

"I do not agree with you, Margaret," replied her mother. "I do not consider baked meat is equal to roast meat. Nevertheless, if it is carefully cooked, if the ventilator is left open, and if the meat is well basted, there is not much difference between the two, and certainly baking is a very convenient mode of dressing meat. Besides this, it is a way which nine people out of every ten must adopt; they have no choice in the matter. Therefore, I hope you will try to remember what I have told you about baking."

"Indeed we will," said both the children.

(_To be continued._)

A Harvest Song.

_Words by_ GEORGE DAVIES.

_Music by_ J. M. BENTLEY, Mus. Doc.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

1. With the set-ting of the sun All the work is near-ly done, And the last up-lift-ed sheaf Brings the toil-ers sweet re-lief.

2. Down the nar-row coun-try lane Trails the hea-vy-la-den wain; Men and wo-men, old and young, Singing loud their sim-ple song.

3. Now the barn the corn re-ceives--Piled up high the gold-en sheaves; While the jol-ly reap-ers sing Till the ve-ry raft-ers ring.

Repeat in CHORUS.

Greet the reap-ers as they come With a wel-come har-vest-home!

WAITING FOR FATHER.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "ON THE Sh.o.r.e STAND WATCHING."]

Father's boat comes sailing, Sailing from the west; On the sh.o.r.e stand watching Those who love him best.

Blooms the gorse so golden On the breezy down, Comes a sound of joy-bells From the busy town.

In the fisher's cottage Mother's work is done, Through the open window Streams the sinking sun.

Cheerily the kettle Sings upon the fire, Ticks the old clock loudly, Creep the shadows higher.

Just now, in the gloaming, When the boat is in, And the fish are counted With a merry din,

All those five together Up the cliff will come, Peacefully and gladly, To their cosy home.

STORIES TOLD IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

_By_ EDWIN HODDER ("OLD MERRY").

II.--THE CORONATIONS IN THE ABBEY.

Come with me now inside the Abbey. We take off our hats here with great reverence, for we are not only in the House of G.o.d, but in the midst of the memorials of some of the most gifted of our countrymen. It is Poet's Corner. But we will not linger here; I want you to come right away into the chapel of Edward the Confessor, and as we pa.s.s along picture to yourselves how the Abbey looked on Coronation days, when the light from the great stained gla.s.s windows fell upon crowds of brave men and fair women, all robed in costumes of state to see the crown of England placed upon a monarch's head. You must try and imagine the moment when, as the Coronation rubric has it, "the Dean of Westminster bringeth the crown, and the Archbishop taking it of him, putteth it reverently upon the Queen's head. At the sight whereof the people with loud and repeated shouts cry, 'G.o.d save the Queen!' and trumpets sound, and by a signal given the great guns at the Tower are shot off."

Well, now we are in the chapel of Edward the Confessor, and I see you all look at that chair standing by the screen. It is well worth looking at, for it is doubtful whether there is any curiosity in all England to compare with it in interest. It is King Edward's chair, upon which English monarchs have been crowned for many centuries, and while we stand near it, I shall tell you very briefly about the crowning of some of our kings and queens.

For more than 800 years the coronations of English monarchs have regularly taken place in Westminster Abbey. Duke William of Normandy claimed the throne as lawful successor of Edward the Confessor, and upon the Confessor's gravestone the burly Norman stood to receive the crown of England. There were two nations represented in the throng a.s.sembled here that day. G.o.dfrey, Bishop of Coutances, made a speech in French, Alred, Archbishop of York, spoke in English, and then the crowd, some in French and some in English, hailed William the Conqueror as their king.

While this was going on inside the Abbey the Norman cavalry were without sitting on their war-horses, ready to quell any disturbance should it arise. They had not long to wait. It seems that they were not aware that their leader was to go through the form of receiving by popular vote the crown which he had already won by his sword, and when they heard the excited shouting inside the building they thought something had gone wrong, and so they set fire to the gates of the Abbey. Then the crowd inside the building were sure there was something wrong without, and they rushed out, only to be trodden down by the Norman horse-hoofs. Only monks and prelates remained within, and the ceremony of coronation was hurried through, while William, for the first time in his life, it is said, trembled from head to foot; and so ended the first coronation in the Abbey of which we have any authentic information.

Nothing of importance marks the coronation of William Rufus. When he perished in the New Forest, within four days Henry I. was in the Abbey claiming the crown, and making all sorts of promises in order to get the thing done speedily. So he was crowned by the Bishop of London, being in too great a hurry to wait for the arrival of either of the archbishops, who were away from London.

In those days, when times were troublous, kings were not so anxious to have throngs of people in fine dresses, and specially composed music and all that sort of thing. They only wanted men with good swords, and as much speed in being crowned as possible, for "delays were dangerous."

Stephen was almost as prompt as his predecessor; Henry ate his supper of lampreys on December the 1st, and Stephen was crowned on St. Stephen's Day, December 26th, 1135. At the next coronation, that of Henry II., Norman and Saxon rejoiced together at the prospect of an era of peace.

Prince Henry, son of Henry II., was crowned during his father's lifetime, on June 14th, 1170. At the coronation banquet, when his father stood behind him, the Prince remarked, "The son of an earl may well wait on the son of a king." The event took place during the height of the quarrel between Henry II. and Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, whose right it was to put the crown on the royal head. Accordingly Becket excommunicated the Archbishop of York and the a.s.sistant bishops who had officiated on the occasion. This led to the murder of Becket, with disastrous consequences too numerous for me to allude to here.

At the coronation of Richard I. there was a grand array of n.o.bles and prelates, who came with the king from his palace to the Abbey and witnessed the ceremony. Ill omens attended the occasion; a bat fluttered round and round the throne at mid-day, and at night (they say) there was a peal upon the bells, of which no one could give an explanation. But the day was also marked by real horrors. From superst.i.tious fears the Jews had been forbidden to witness the ceremony. But at the banquet some of them were discovered amongst the bystanders. They were at once beaten almost to death. The mob began plundering the Jews' houses, and murdering the inmates, and at York and other cities similar scenes quickly followed.

At John's coronation the custom began of having the canopy over the king's head carried by the five Barons of the Cinque Ports. This was in return for their aid to John in his frequent voyages. When Henry III.

succeeded, Westminster was in the hands of Prince Louis of France, "the Dauphin" of Shakespeare's play. The king was accordingly crowned at Winchester; but he had a second coronation in Westminster Abbey, on May 17, 1220, having on the previous day laid the foundation-stone of his Lady Chapel, which was to be the germ of an entirely new edifice. All previous coronations were said to be outdone by the feasting and joviality on this occasion.

There was high rejoicing when Edward I. came back from the Holy Land, two years after his accession, and was crowned in company with his beloved Eleanor, the first royal couple who were crowned in the Abbey together. Alexander III. of Scotland did homage on the following day, and in his honour 500 great horses were let loose in the crowd for any persons to catch and keep that could.

Edward I. brought from Scotland the noted stone upon which for centuries the Scottish monarchs had been installed, and had it placed in this oaken chair which still covers it. According to tradition, this stone was the one on which Jacob slept at Bethel, and which by a series of remarkable adventures had been transported successively to Egypt, Sicily, Spain, and Ireland. In Ireland they say it stood on the hill of Tara, and that upon it were enthroned the ancient Irish kings. Fergus, founder of the Scottish monarchy, took the stone to Dunstaffnage Castle, and Kenneth II. (here we get hold of historic fact) placed it at Scone in the ninth century. Wherever it may have wandered, it is unquestionably a piece of sandstone from the western coasts of Scotland, and is most probably (says Stanley) the stony pillow of St. Columba, on which his dying head was laid in the Abbey of Iona. On this stone the reign of every English monarch from Edward I. to Victoria has been inaugurated. Only once has it been taken out of the Abbey, and that was for Oliver Cromwell to be installed upon it as Lord Protector in Westminster Hall.

At the coronation of Edward II. the crown was carried by Piers Gaveston, the unworthy favourite whom it had been the dying wish of Edward I. to have excluded from the court. In 1327, Edward III. (by consent of his deposed father) was crowned whilst his mother Isabella, "the she-wolf of France" (as Gray calls her), pretended to weep all through the ceremony.

Of the coronation of Richard II. full details are preserved in the "Liber Regalis," a book drawn up by Abbot Littlington, and ever since carefully preserved by the Abbots and Deans, as it sets forth the order which has been observed in all subsequent ceremonials. Proceedings commenced with a grand procession through the city from the Tower, a custom which was kept up till the time of Charles I. The young king rode bareheaded, and was escorted by a body of knights, created for the occasion, and who, from the bath they took in company before a.s.suming their armour, were styled the Knights of the Bath. The young king was taken out fainting from the long ceremonial just as Sir John Dymote, as champion, rode up to the Abbey gates on his charger, to challenge any who dared to dispute the royal succession. It is the first time we hear of the Champion; but it was an age of knightly revivals, and this was probably one of them.