“’Tis often that way,” said she. “I remember once in the baking, the oven was too cold and I made sure the pasties would be slack-baked, and they was better than ever we had.”
Alan was not sure what the glassmaker would think of this taking it for granted that cookery was as much a craft as the making of windows, but the old man nodded and smiled.
“I think that there is a gramarye in the nature of things,” he said, “and God to keep us from being too wise in our own conceit lets it now and then bring all our wisdom to folly. Now, my son, we will store these away where no harm can come to them, for I have never known God to work miracles for the careless, and we have no more than time to finish the window.”
They had sheets of red, blue, green, yellow and clear white glass, not very large, but beautifully clear and shining, and these were set carefully in a corner with a block of wood in front of them for protection.
Then Angelo fell silent and pulled at his beard. The little money that he had was almost gone.
“Alan, my son,” he said presently, “do you know what lead is?”
Alan nodded. “The roof of the chapel was covered with it,” he said, “the chapel that burned down. The lead melted and rained down on the floor, and burned Brother Basil when he ran in to save the book with the colored pictures.”
The glass-worker smiled. “Your Brother Basil,” he said, “must have the soul of an artist. I wonder now what became of that lead?”
“They saved a little, but most of it is mixed up with the rubbish and the ashes,” Alan said confidently. “Do you want it?”
Angelo spread his hands with a funny little gesture. “Want it!” he said. “Where did they put those ashes?”