“Take it not so much to heart, goodman.”
“Nay, but I must, I must. ’Tis the injustice that weighs on me, and shame that Hugh should be served so scurvily. Roger! I shall speak presently with the bishop.”
He redoubled his earnestness, speaking, indeed, with so much decision, that the bishop was impressed. But, as he said, the feeling among the judges was very strong, and he did not himself believe that anything could be advanced that would turn them. There was, moreover, a conviction that Hugh was young enough to wait, and therefore, though a doubt might exist, they were opposed to giving him the benefit of the doubt. Nor could anything which Elyas advanced shake their determination. Something, it was true, was whispered as to an ugly story of a ladder, but the thing had never been proved against Roger, and except among the workmen had been forgotten. And the workmen were not the judges.
Ladders were now procured, and the corbels were minutely examined. Nothing, it was freely owned, approached the beauty of Hugh’s, and no other exceeded it in admirable workmanship. If both design and execution had been his, there could have been no question; as it was—
“The obstinate fools!” growled Gervase, under his breath.
Finally the workers were themselves admitted, Wat coming in eager and triumphant, with the certainty that Hugh’s success was assured, and Roger pale, nervous, glancing furtively from side to side, as if trying to read his fate in the faces round. Wat strode joyously to Gervase.
“Where is Hugh?” asked his master.
“Gone off, sir, in one of his solitary moods. But Mistress Prothasy is preparing a rare feast in his honour.” Then, as he noticed Gervase’s grave face, he stopped and stared at him.
“Ay, Wat, it is even so,” said Elyas, bitterly.
“These wise men will have it that the surs is my designing, and that Hugh hath but carved it. Heardest thou ever such injustice? I may talk, and they pay no more heed than if I were—thy dog whom thou hast set up there. And, by the mass,” he added kindly, “thou hast done him marvellous well, and there has been a talk of thy having the other corbel.”