“I’ll do better than that,” Wilfrid assured them. “I’ll take ye to Cold Harbor. It’s part of a Roman house that we uncovered near the pottery. The walls were used in the old farmer’s time for a granary. It’s weather-proof, and there’s a stone hearth, and Dickon here will help swing a crane for the kettles. We’ve plenty stores if there’s a cook among ye.”
“We can make shift,” laughed Edrupt. “I’ll come to the house to-morrow and gossip a bit. Quentin here has your carved coffer for ye.”
“And here’s the lad that made the hinges and the handles,” Wilfrid added, with a hand on the big youth’s shoulder. “Sithee here, Dickon, you show them their way to their lodging, and I’ll e’en ride home and tell Edwitha to spare some pots and kettles for the cooking.”
Thus Dickon was shoved all in a moment, in the edge of an autumn evening, into the company of merchants and craftsmen such as he had never met. The North-countryman, Alan of York, was a glazier; David Saumond, a Scotch stone-mason coming up from Canterbury to do some work for an Abbey; Guy of Limoges was a goldsmith; Crispin Eyre, a shoemaker of London; there were two or three merchants, some weavers newly arrived from overseas, various servants and horse-boys, and two peddlers of dark foreign aspect. The talk was mostly in a mixture of French and English, but Dickon understood this better than he could speak it, and several of the men were as English as himself. In the merry company at supper he saw what Wilfrid had meant when he said that hand-skill without head-wisdom was walking blind-fold, and work done alone was limping labor. It was the England of the guilds breaking bread by that fire.
THE WANDER-YEARS
Fair is the light on the castle wall—
(Heigh-ho, for the road!)
Merry the wassail in hearth-warm hall—
(Blither the call of the road!)
When the moonlight silvers the sleeping plain,
And the wind is calling to heart and brain,
And the blood beats quick and the soul is fain—
Ah, follow the open road!
Low croons the mother while children sleep—
(Heigh-ho, for the road!)
And firelight shadows are warm and deep—
(Dearer the call of the road!)
Where the red fox runs and the merlin sings,
And the hedge is alive with the whir of wings,
And the wise earth whispers of nameless things—
Ah, follow the open road!
Safe is the nook we have made our own—
(Heigh-ho, for the road!)
Dear the comrades our hearts have known—
(Hark to the call of the road!)
Trumpets are calling and torches flare,
And a man must do, and a man must dare,—
Whether to victory or despair,—
Come, follow the open road!