“And in ten years, that Prior hopes to be Archbishop without doubt,” said the King with a shrug. “Was that all?”
“Nay,” said David. “Their ashlars are set up for vanity and to be seen o’ men. Ye must have regard to the disposition of the building-stone when ye build for good an’ all. It doesna like to be stood up just anyhow. Let it lie as it lay in the quarry, and it’s content.”
Barty was watching the group, his blue eyes blazing and the apple-red color flushing his round cheeks. The King was talking to David as if he were pleased, and David, though properly respectful, was not in the least afraid. The Plantagenets were a race of building Kings. They all knew a master mason when they saw him.
“So you changed the ancient course of the flood into that culvert, did you?” the King inquired, with a glance at the new channel.
“Aye,” said David. “No man can rule the watters of the heavens, and it’s better to dyke a flood than to dam it, if ye can.” The King, with a short laugh, borrowed tablet and ink-horn from his scribe and made a note or two.
“When I find a Scotch mason with an English apprentice building Norman arches in the Danelaw,” said Henry, “it is time to set him building for England. I hear that William, whom they call the Englishman, is at work in Canterbury. When you want work you may give him this, and by the sight of God have a care that there is peace among the building-stones.”
David must have done so, for on one of the stones in a world-famed cathedral may be seen the mason’s mark of David le Saumond and the fish which is his token.