'Highty-tighty!' she said, going up to Philip and putting a kind hand on his shoulder. 'What's amiss? What's wrong to-day may prove right on the morrow, so never fret, lad.'
Philip could not resist her sympathy, and she soon got from him the story of his reception by Sir Christopher, and how the great architect had scornfully told him to go and carve 'a sow and her little ones.'
'It was all my own fault,' continued the boy. 'I was so confused, I never told him of the bedstead I had carved for the Hall, nor of the mantel-shelf, but I blurted out about the trough, and then he bade me "carve a sow,"' and Philip turned red at the remembrance.
'He said that, did he?' said the woman eagerly. 'Then do it, and show your skill. Sir Christopher bade you come again, and he will not refuse to see you. Set to work on the sow, and mind she is a good one.'
Encouraged by these words, Philip got up, drank the broth, and, feeling cheered by the food, took his last crown-piece, bought a good block of wood, and returned to his attic.
He worked at his wood block from morning to night for the next week, hoping—aye, and praying earnestly—that he might turn out something that the master would not despise.
It was finished at last, and pronounced by the landlady to be 'as like a sow as one pea is like another.' So, hoping much and fearing more, Philip took his group, carefully wrapped in an apron lent him for the purpose, and made his way to the Cathedral yard.
'Hallo! here comes our young hedge-carpenter,' exclaimed the foreman, as Philip passed the gate. 'What's he got so carefully wrapped up? Another trough, I take it. Let's have a look at the treasure,' and as he spoke he reached towards the bundle.
But Philip would not part with it. 'No,' he said firmly. 'Sir Christopher set me the task, and he shall be the first to see it.'
Before long Sir Christopher appeared, and, seeing the boy standing humbly waiting by the gate, he called to him, and, taking the bundle from Philip's hands, slowly unwound the wrapping. There, to the very life, was a fat old sow, with nine little piglings grouped about her in every possible attitude.