It was Prothasy who, after all, broke the tidings. She shrank from it at first, saying that Elyas was tenderer in words and less strange to Hugh, but her husband looked so grieved that, as usual, she repented, and did his bidding. And she was really kind, leading him in herself to look upon the peaceful face of the dead, and soothing his burst of tears with great patience and gentleness.
The days that followed were strange and miserable to poor Hugh. He had never been without his father, who had been father and mother both to him, and had made him so close a companion that in many ways he was much older than his years. And, in spite of all kindness, the sense of solitude and loneliness that swept over him when the funeral—which the guild of which Elyas was warden attended—was over, and he was back in the house, with a new life before him, to be lived among those who were, in good truth, strangers, was something which all his life long he could not forget.
The good master had him rightly enrolled as his apprentice, and then judged it well to leave him alone for a day or two, telling him he might go where he liked until his work began. No place seemed so comforting to Hugh as the Cathedral. He would go and watch the workers, and feed his keen sense of beauty with gazing on the fair upspringing lines and the noble sheaves of pillars, and wonder whether the day would come when work of his should find a place there, and his father’s dream be fulfilled.
Chapter Eight.
Difficulties.
It was about a week after this that Master Gervase in working dress went out into his yard. Dinner was over at an early hour, and the two meals of the day were long and plentiful as to cheer; so long and so plentiful, indeed, that there is a record in the preceding reign of thirty thousand dishes being served at one feast, and the sumptuary laws which regulated excesses in dress and food do not seem to have been uncalled for.
In Master Gervase’s household there was no excess, but abundance in every kind, and hearty partaking of beef and cider, Mistress Prothasy being famous for her housekeeping and capable ways, so that Elyas went into his yard with all the contentment of a well-fed man.
Men and prentices were hard at work in their different ways. Franklyn and Roger had the finest cutting, and Elyas paused before Roger’s crocket to examine his progress.