“Aiblins that's what gar'd him grow sae unco wise,” David ended. “You bear in mind, Master Roger, that every leevin' thing ye see, frae baukie-bird tae blackfish, kens some bit cantrip he doesna tell, and ye'll be a Solomon—if ye live.”
David was eating his bread and cheese on the lee side of the wall when Eleanor came by with a gray lump of clay in her hands.
“See what Gwillym has made,” she said.
David stopped with the cheese half way to his mouth. “Who's Gwillym?” he asked.
“He's a boy we've known ever since he was very little—he's only eight now—and he does make the most alive looking things out of clay. He heard you telling about Solomon talking with the birds and beasts, and he made this.”
The clay group was really an unusual piece of modelling for an untrained hand. That a child should have made it was more than remarkable. The thin bent figure of the wise King was seated on a throne formed of gnarled tree-roots. On his wrist a raven perched; on his shoulder crouched a squirrel, with tail alert for flight; two rabbits sat upright at his feet; a lamb huddled against his knee on one side and a goat on the other. The figures all had a curiously lifelike appearance. As Eleanor said, one felt that if they heard a noise they would go away. Moreover she saw with wonder that the head of King Solomon and his lifted hand made him a fair portrait of David.
David took the clay group in his hand, turned it about, whistled softly. “Wha owns this bairn?” he inquired.
“Howel's his father,” said Roger. “He's quite good to him—unless he's drunk. Then he pounds him. He hates to have Gwillym make images; he thinks it's witch-craft. Gwillym made an image of him once and the leg broke off, and that very same day Howel's donkey kicked him and made him lame for a week.”
“There's ower mony gowks in the land for a' the mills to grind,” said David, and that was all they could get out of him. They knew he was interested or he would not have been so Scotch. David could speak very good English, and did as a rule, but with Eleanor and Roger he often returned to the speech of his boyhood because they liked it so much.
They liked David exceedingly. He had seen more interesting things than any one else they knew. He showed Roger how to make a fish-pond, and he told Eleanor how the Saracen city in her tapestry ought to look. He had himself been a slave among the infidels, and the children heard his adventures with awe and delight. Eleanor loved the story of the bath-pavilion like a tiny palace, built by the emir for the lady Halima, and the turning of the course of a river to fill her baths and her fountains, and water her gardens. Roger's hero was the young English merchant who had escaped by swimming, under his master's very nose. If one could have such exciting experiences it seemed almost worth while to be a captive of the Moslems. But when Roger said so, David smiled a dry smile and said nothing.