“Oh, as to that,” said the chef quickly, “I am not too proud to cook for people who like simple things—meat broiled and roasted with plain bread. And do you know that one must be a very fine cook to do such work well? When I am alone, which is not often, I prepare for myself fresh vegetables, broil a fish that has not forgotten the water,—and with a roll and a little fruit, that is my dinner. The soteltes at kings' tables, all colored sugar and pastry and isinglass—they are only good for people who can eat peacock, and those are very few. Do you know, Master Gay, what is the great secret of my art? To know what is good, and not spoil it.”
“I foresee,” laughed the merchant, “that we shall all be making excuses to come down from London if you stay in Sussex with your saucepans. But hey! there are the towers of the abbey already, and it is not yet mid-afternoon. Let us ride on to see Wilfrid and find out whether he approves of our fine plan.”
While this discussion of the noble art of cookery was going on miles away, Wilfrid and Edwitha, with no thought of inns, were watching the laborers digging where Wilfrid thought the rest of the building ought to be. In his travels he had seen other Roman houses better preserved than this, and by inquiring of learned men had gained some idea of Roman civilization. He had been told that Roman officials in England often built villas in places rather like this terrace, and since the building already unearthed was the end of the walls in one direction, the rest of the villa might be found under the cottage of old Bartram and his orchard, garden and cow-byre.
No other house in the neighborhood was as old as that cottage. It was built of beams put together without nails and filled in with a rude wattle-work plastered thickly with coat after coat of mud. Instead of being thatched like most houses of its kind the roof had been covered with fine red tiles,—possibly Roman work. It seemed that the soil must have washed in over the ruins of the Roman building so very long ago that there had been time for trees to grow above it.
Thus Wilfrid reasoned. As his laborers dug and moiled and sweated under the hot clear sun, he watched with lively interest for whatever they might turn up. It is to be feared that Edwitha's maids were less carefully looked after than usual after the work began, and the children spent every minute they could in following their mother or their father about to see what was going to happen.
There was another reason besides curiosity for keeping watch of the work. If any pottery should be discovered, Wilfrid did not wish to have it broken by a careless mattock.
Then Dorothy came running from the house to find her mother and father bending over a newly-unearthed Roman wall. “Father!” she cried, “a man is come to see you!”
“Oh!” said Wilfrid, not very eagerly. He brushed some of the earth from his clothes with a handful of weeds and went toward the gate, where a horseman sat awaiting him. As he came nearer the man dismounted and came toward him with outstretched hand.
“Alan!” cried the potter joyfully. “I heard you were abroad. Come in, and I'll send for Edwitha.”
“Not so fast,” said his guest. “I am but a harbinger. Guy Bouverel and Master Gay the merchant with his wife and son, and some others, are coming along. We'll stay at the Abbey, but we rode on to see you first. I've my wife with me, Wilfrid.”