The next few days were anxious ones for Quentin. His father did not die, but it was certain that he would do no more work as a mason for years, if ever. One of the older brothers came to take him home, and it was taken for granted that Quentin would go also. But the boy had a plan in his head.
There was none too much to eat at home, as it was, and it would be a long time before he was strong enough to handle stone like his father. Brother Basil, the monk who had seen his father caught under the falling wall, helped to rescue him, and taken care that he did not lose sight of his boy, had been very kind, but he did not belong in Amiens; he was on his way to Rome. Quentin met him outside the house on the day that Pierre came in from Peronne, and gave him a questioning look. He was wondering if Brother Basil would understand.
The smile that answered his look was encouraging.
“Well, my boy,” said Brother Basil in his quaintly spoken French, “what is it?”
Quentin stood very straight, cap in hand. “I do not want to go home,” he said slowly. “I want to stay here—and work.”
“Alone?” asked the monk.
Quentin nodded. “Marc and Pierre work all day in the fields, and I am of no use there; they said so. Pierre said it again just now. I am not strong enough yet to be of use. There is work here that I can do.”
He traced the outline of an ancient bit of carving on the woodwork of the overhanging doorway with one small finger. “I can do that,” he said confidently.
Brother Basil’s black eyebrows lifted a trifle and his mouth twitched; the boy was such a scrap of a boy. Yet he had seen enough of the oaken choir-stalls and the carved chests and the wainscoting of Amiens to know that a French wood-carver is often born with skill in his brain and his fingers, and can do things when a mere apprentice that others must be trained to do. “What have you done?” he said gravely.
“I carved a box for the mother, and when the cousin Adele saw it she would have one too. It was made with a wreath of roses on the lid, but I would not make roses for any one but the mother; Adele’s box has lilies, and a picture of herself. That she liked better.”