IN THE DAYS
OF THE GUILD

BY
L. LAMPREY

WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR BY
FLORENCE GARDINER
AND NUMEROUS LINE DRAWINGS BY
MABEL HATT

NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1918, by
Frederick A. Stokes Company

All rights reserved including that of translation
into foreign languages.

Printed in the United States of America

To
MY FATHER
HENRY PHELPS LAMPREY

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE OLD ROAD

The horse-bells come a-tinkling by the shoulder of the Down,
The bell of Bow is ringing as we ride to London Town.
O the breath of the wet salt marshes by Romney port is sweet,
But sweeter the thyme of the uplands under the horses’ feet!

It’s far afield I’m faring, to the lands I do not know,
For the merchant doth not prosper save he wander to and fro,
Yet though the foreign cities be stately and fair to see,
It’s an English home on an English down, and my own lass for me!

IN THE DAYS OF THE GUILD

I
THE BOY WITH THE WOOLPACK
HOW ROBERT EDRUPT JOURNEYED WITH THE WOOL-MERCHANTS TO LONDON

In the reign of King Henry II., when as yet there were no factories, no railways or even coaches, no post-offices and no tea-tables in England, a boy sat on a hillside not far from Salisbury Plain, with a great bale of wool by his side. It was not wrapped in paper; it was packed close and very skillfully bound together with cords, lengthwise and crosswise, making a network of packthread all over it. The boy’s name was Robert Edrupt, but in the tiny village where he was born he had always been called Hob. He had been reared by his grandfather, a shepherd, and now the old shepherd was dead and he was going to seek his fortune.

The old grandmother, Dame Lysbeth, was still alive, but there was not much left for her to live on. She had a few sheep and a little garden, chickens, a beehive, and one field; and she and her grandson had decided that he should take the wool, which was just ready for market when the sudden death of the shepherd took place, and ask the dealers when they came by if they would not take him with them to London. Now he was waiting, as near the road as he could get, listening hard for the tinkle of their horse-bells around the shoulder of the down.

The road would not really be called a road to-day. It was a track, trodden out about half way up the slope of the valley in some parts of it, and now and then running along the top of the long, low hills that have been called downs as long as the memory of man holds a trace of them. Sometimes it would make a sharp twist to cross the shallows of a stream, for there were scarcely any bridges in the country. In some places it was wide enough for a regiment, and but faintly marked; in others it was bitten deep into the hillside and so narrow that three men could hardly have gone abreast upon it. But it did not need to be anything more than a trail, or bridle-path, because no wagons went that way,—only travelers afoot or a-horseback. At some seasons there would be wayfarers all along the road from early in the morning until sunset, and they would even be found camping by the wayside; at other times of the year one might walk for hours upon it and meet nobody at all. Robert had been sitting where he was for about three hours; and he had walked between four and five miles, woolpack on shoulder, before he reached the road; he had risen before the sun did that morning. Now he began to wonder if the wool-merchants had already gone by. It was late in the season, and if they had, there was hardly any hope of sending the wool to market that year.

But worry never worked aught, as the saying is, and people who take care of sheep seem to worry less than others; there are many things that they cannot change, and they are kept busy attending to their flocks. Robert, who did not intend to be called Hob any more, took from his pouch some coarse bread and cheese and began munching it, for by the sun it was the dinner-hour—nine o’clock. Meanwhile he made sure that the silver penny in the corner of the pouch, which hung at his girdle and served him for a pocket, was safe. It was. It was about the size of a modern halfpenny and had a cross on one side. A penny such as this could be cut in quarters, and each piece passed as a coin.

Just as the last bit of bread and cheese vanished there came, from far away over the fern, the jingle-jink-jing of strings of bells on the necks of pack-horses. A few minutes later the shaggy head and neck of the leader came in sight. They were strong, not very big horses; and while they were not built for racing, they were quick walkers. They could travel over rough country at a very good pace, even when, as they now were, loaded heavily with packs of wool. Robert stood up, his heart beating fast: he had never seen them so close before. The merchants were laughing and talking and seemed to be in a good humor, and he hoped very much that they would speak to him.

“Ho!” said the one who rode nearest to him, “here’s another, as I live. Did you grow out of the ground, and have you roots like the rest of them, bumpkin?”

Robert bowed; he was rather angry, but this was no time to answer back. “I have wool to sell, so please you,” he said, “and—and—if you be in need of a horse-boy, I would work my passage to London.”

The man who had spoken frowned and pulled at his beard, but the leader, who had been talking to some one behind him, now turned his face toward Robert. He was a kindly-looking, ruddy-cheeked old fellow, with eyes as sharp as the stars on a winter night that is clear.

“Hum!” he said genially. “Who are you, and why are you so fond to go to London, young sheep-dog?”

Robert told his story, as short and straight as he could, for he could see that some of the merchants were impatient. This was only one pack of wool, and at the next market-town they would probably find enough to load all the rest of their train of horses, when they could push straight on to London and get their money. “If you desire to know further of what I say,” the boy ended his speech, “the landlord of the Woolpack will tell you that our fleeces are as fine and as heavy as any in the market, so please you, master.”

“Hum!” the wool-merchant said again. “Give him one of the spare nags, Gib, and take up the pack, lad, for we must be getting on. What if I find thee a liar and send thee back from the inn, hey?”

“If I be a liar, I will go,” said Robert joyfully, and he climbed on the great horse, and the whole company went trotting briskly onward.

Robert found in course of time, however, that when we have got what we want, it is not always what we like most heartily. He had been on a horse before, but had never ridden for any length of time, and riding all day long on the hard-paced pack-horses over hill and valley was no play. Then, when they reached the town, and the merchants began to joke and trade with the shepherds who had brought in their wool for market-day, and all the people of the inn were bustling about getting supper, he had to help Gib and Jack, the horse-boys, to rub down the horses, take off their packs, and feed and water them. He nearly got into a terrible pickle for not knowing that you must not water a horse that has been traveling for hours until it has had at least half an hour to rest and cool off. When he finally did get his supper, a bowl of hot stew and some bread and cheese,—and extremely good it tasted,—it was time for bed. He and the other serving-lads had to sleep on the wool packs piled in the open courtyard of the inn, which was built in a hollow square,—two-story buildings and stables around the square court where the horses and baggage were left. This did not trouble Robert, however. He had slept on the open hillside more than once, and it was a clear night; he could see Arthur’s Wain shining among the other stars, and hear the horses, not far away, contentedly champing their grain.

The next morning he woke up lame and weary, but that wore off after a time. Nobody in the company paid attention to aching muscles; what was occupying the minds of the traffickers was the fear of getting the wool to London too late to secure their price for it. Italian and Flemish merchants had their agents there, buying up the fleeces from the great flocks of the abbeys, and Master Hardel had taken his company further west than usual, this year. No stop would be made after this, except to eat and sleep, for the horses were now loaded with all that they could carry.

On the second night, it rained, and every one was wet,—not as wet as might be supposed, however, considering that no umbrellas and no rubber coats existed. Each man wore instead of a hat a pointed hood, with a cape, the front turned back from his eyes. By folding the cape around him he could keep off the worst of the rain, for the cloth had a shaggy nap, and was close-woven as well. On legs and feet were long woolen hose which dried when the sun came out; and some had leathern tunics under their cloaks.

It was rather jolly on the road, even in the rain. The dark-bearded man, who was called Jeffrey, knew numberless tales and songs, and when he could turn a jest on any of the party he invariably did. No one took any especial notice of Robert, except that the man called Gib shifted as much of his own work on him as possible, and sometimes, when they were riding in the rear, grumbled viciously about the hard riding and small pay. There is usually one person of that sort in any company of travelers.

Robert minded neither the hard work nor Gib’s scolding. He was as strong as a young pony, and he was seeing the world, of which he had dreamed through many a long, thyme-scented day on the Downs, with soft little noises of sheep cropping turf all about him as he lay. What London would be like he could not quite make out, for as yet he had seen no town of more than a thousand people.

At last, near sunset, somebody riding ahead raised a shout and flung up his arm, and all knew that they were within sight of London—London, the greatest city in England, with more than a hundred churches inside its towered city wall. They pushed the horses hard, hoping to reach the New Gate before eight o’clock, but it was of no use. They were still nearly a mile from the walls when the far sound of bells warned them that they were too late. They turned back and stayed their steps at an inn called the Shepherd’s Bush, out on the road to the west country over which the drovers and the packmen came. A long pole over the door had on its end a bunch of green boughs and red berries—the “bush” told them that ale was to be had within. The landlord was a West Country man, and Robert found to his joy that the landlord’s old father had known Colin Edrupt the shepherd and Dame Lysbeth, and danced at their wedding, nearly half a century before.

Next morning, with the sun still in their eyes as they trotted briskly Londonward, they came to the massive gray wall, with the Fleet, a deep swift river, flowing down beside it to the Thames. They were waiting outside New Gate when the watchmen swung open the great doors, and the crowd of travelers, traders and country folk began to push in. The men with the woolpacks kept together, edging through the narrow streets that sloped downward to the river where the tall ships were anchored. The jingle of the bridle-bells, that rang so loud and merrily over the hills, was quite drowned out in the racket of the city streets where armorers were hammering, horsemen crowding, tradesmen shouting, and business of every sort was going on. Robert had somehow supposed that London would be on a great level encircled by hills, but he found with surprise that it was itself on a hill, crowned by the mighty cathedral St. Paul’s, longer than Winchester, with a steeple that seemed climbing to pierce the clouds. At last the shaggy laden horses came to a halt at a warehouse by the river, where a little, dried-up-looking man in odd garments looked the wool over and agreed with Master Hardel on the price which he would pay. Robert could not understand a word of the conversation, for the wholesale merchant was a Hollander from Antwerp, and when he had loaded his ship with the wool it would go to Flanders to be made into fine cloth. Robert was so busy watching the transactions that when the master spoke to him it made him jump.

“Here is the money for thy wool, my lad,” the old man said kindly. “Hark ’ee, if you choose to ride with us again, meet me at Shepherd’s Bush on the sixth day hence, and you shall have that good-for-naught Gib’s place. And keep thy money safe; this is a place of thieves.”

That was how Robert Edrupt rode from the West Country and settled in his mind that some day he would himself be a wool-merchant.

THE BIOGRAPHER

The little green lizard on Solomon’s wall
Basked in the gold of a shimmering noon,
Heard the insistent, imperious call
Of hautboy and tabor and loud bassoon,
When Balkis passed by, with her alien grace,
And the light of wonder upon her face,
To sit by the King in his lofty hall,—
And the little green lizard saw it all.

The little green lizard on Solomon’s wall
Waited for flies the long day through,
While the craftsmen came at the monarch’s call
To the task that was given each man to do,
And the Temple rose with its cunning wrought gold,
Cedar and silver, and all it could hold
In treasure of tapestry, silk and shawl,—
And the little green lizard observed it all.

The little green lizard on Solomon’s wall
Heard what the King said to one alone,
Secrets that only the Djinns may recall,
Graved on the Sacred, Ineffable Stone.
And yet, when the little green lizard was led
To speak of the King, when the King was dead,
He had only kept count of the flies on the wall,—
For he was but a lizard, after all!

II
BASIL THE SCRIBE
HOW AN IRISH MONK IN AN ENGLISH ABBEY CAME TO STAND BEFORE KINGS

Brother Basil, of the scriptorium, was doing two things at once with the same brain. He did not know whether any of the other monks ever indulged in this or not. None of them showed any signs of it.

The Abbot was clearly intent, soul, brain and body, on the ruling of the community. In such a house as this dozens of widely varied industries must be carried on, much time spent in prayer, song and meditation, and strict attention given to keeping in every detail the traditional Benedictine rule. In many mediæval Abbeys not all these things were done. Rumor hinted that one Order was too fond of ease, and another of increasing its estates. In the Irish Abbey where Brother Basil had received his first education, little thought was given to anything but religion; the fare was of the rudest and simplest kind. But in this English Abbey everything in the way of clothing, tools, furniture, meat and drink which could be produced on the lands was produced there. Guests of high rank were often entertained. The church, not yet complete, was planned on a magnificent scale. The work of the making of books had grown into something like a large publishing business. As the parchments for the writing, the leather for the covers, the goose-quill pens, the metal clasps, the ink, and the colors for illuminated lettering, were all made on the premises, a great deal of skilled labor was involved. Besides the revenues from the sale of manuscript volumes the Abbey sold increasing quantities of wool each year. Under some Abbots this material wealth might have led to luxury. But Benedict of Winchester held that a man who took the vows of religion should keep them.

With this Brother Basil entirely agreed. He desired above all to give his life to the service of God and the glory of his Order. He was a skillful, accurate and rapid penman. Manuscripts copied by him, or under his direction, had no mistakes or slovenly carelessness about them. The pens which he cut were works of art. The ink was from a rule for which he had made many experiments. Every book was carefully and strongly bound. Brother Basil, in short, was an artist, and though the work might be mechanical, he could not endure not to have it beautifully done.

The Abbot was quite aware of this, and made use of the young monk’s talent for perfection by putting him in charge of the scriptorium. In the twelfth century the monks were almost the only persons who had leisure for bookmaking. They wrote and translated many histories; they copied the books which made up their own libraries, borrowed books wherever they could and copied those, over and over again. They sold their work to kings, noblemen, and scholars, and to other religious houses. The need for books was so great that in the scriptorium of which Brother Basil had charge, very little time was spent on illumination. Missals, chronicles and books of hymns fancifully decorated in color were done only when there was a demand for them. They were costly in time, labor and material.

Brother Basil could copy a manuscript with his right hand and one half his brain, while the other half dreamed of things far afield. He could not remain blind to the grace of a bird’s wing on its flight northward in spring, to the delicate seeking tendrils of grapevines, the starry beauty of daisies or the tracery of arched leafless boughs. Within his mind he could follow the gracious curves of the noble Norman choir, and he had visions of color more lustrous than a sunrise.

Day by day, year by year, the sheep nibbled the tender springing grass. Yet the green sward continued to be decked with orfrey-work of many hues—buttercups, violets, rose-campion, speedwell, daisies—defiant little bright heads not three inches from the roots. His fancies would come up in spite of everything, like the flowers.

But would it always be so? Was he to spend his life in copying these bulky volumes of theology and history—the same old phrases, the same authors, the same seat by the same window? And some day, would he find that his dreams had vanished forever? Might he not grow to be like Brother Peter, who had kept the porter’s lodge for forty years and hated to see a new face? This was the doubt in the back of his mind, and it was very sobering indeed.

Years ago, when he was a boy, he had read the old stories of the missionary monks of Scotland and Ireland. These men carried the message of the Cross to savage tribes, they stood before Kings, they wrought wonders. Was there no more need for such work as theirs? Even now there was fierce misrule in Ireland. Even now the dispute between church and state had resulted in the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury on the steps of the altar. The Abbeys of all England had hummed like bee-hives when that news came.

Brother Basil discovered just then that the ink was failing, and went to see how the new supply was coming on. It was a tedious task to make ink, but when made it lasted. Wood of thorn-trees must be cut in April or May before the leaves or flowers were out, and the bundles of twigs dried for two, three or four weeks. Then they were beaten with wooden mallets upon hard wooden tablets to remove the bark, which was put in a barrel of water and left to stand for eight days. The water was then put in a cauldron and boiled with some of the bark, to boil out what sap remained. When it was boiled down to about a third of the original measure it was put into another kettle and cooked until black and thick, and reduced again to a third of its bulk. Then a little pure wine was added and it was further cooked until a sort of scum showed itself, when the pot was removed from the fire and placed in the sun until the black ink purified itself of the dregs. The pure ink was then poured into bags of parchment carefully sewn and hung in the sunlight until dry, when it could be kept for any length of time till wanted. To write, one moistened the ink with a little wine and vitriol.

As all the colors for illumination must be made by similar tedious processes, it can be seen that unless there was a demand for such work it would not be thrifty to do it.

Brother Basil arrived just in time to caution the lay brother, Simon Gastard, against undue haste. Gastard was a clever fellow, but he needed watching. He was too apt to think that a little slackness here and there was good for profits. Brother Basil stood over him until the ink was quite up to the standard of the Abbey. But his mind meanwhile ran on the petty squabblings and dry records of the chronicle that he had just been copying. How, after all, was he better than Gastard? He was giving the market what it wanted—and the book was not worth reading. If men were to write chronicles, why not make them vivid as legends, true, stirring, magnificent stories of the men who moved the world? Who would care, in a thousand years, what rent was paid by the tenant farmers of the Abbey, or who received a certain benefice from the King?

As he turned from the sunlit court where the ink was a-making, he received a summons to the Abbot’s own parlor. He found that dignitary occupied with a stout and consequential monk of perhaps forty-five, who was looking bewildered, snubbed, and indignant. Brother Ambrosius was most unaccustomed to admonitions, even of the mildest. He had a wide reputation as a writer, and was indeed the author of the very volume which Brother Basil was now copying. He seemed to know by instinct what would please the buyers of chronicles, and especially what was to be left out.

It was also most unusual to see the Abbot thoroughly aroused. He had a cool, indifferent manner, which made his rebukes more cutting. Now he was in wrathful earnest.

“Ambrosius,” he thundered, “there are some of us who will live to see Thomas of Canterbury a Saint of the Church. But that is no reason why we should gabble about it beforehand. You have been thinking yourself a writer, have you? Your place here has been allowed you because you are—as a rule—cautious even to timidity. Silence is always safe, and an indiscreet pen is ruinous. The children of the brain travel far, and they must not discuss their betters.”

“Shall we write then of the doings of binds and swinkers?” asked the historian, pursing his heavy mouth. “It seems we cannot write of Kings and of Saints.”

“You may write anything in reason of Kings and of Saints—when they are dead,” the Abbot retorted. “But if you cannot avoid treasonable criticism of your King, I will find another historian. Go now to your penance.”

And Brother Ambrosius, not venturing a reply, slunk out.

In the last three minutes Brother Basil had seen far beneath the surface of things. His deep-set blue eyes flamed. The dullness of the chronicle was not always the dullness of the author, it seemed. The King showed at best none too much respect for the Church, and his courtiers had dared the murder of Becket. Surely the Abbot was right.

“Basil,” his superior observed grimly, “in a world full of fools it would be strange if some were not found here. It is the business of the Church to make all men alike useful to God. Because the murder of an Archbishop has set all Christendom a-buzz, we must be the more zealous to give no just cause of offence. I do not believe that Henry is guilty of that murder, but if he were, he would not shrink from other crimes. In the one case we have no reason to condemn him; in the other, we must be silent or court our own destruction. There are other ways of keeping alive the memory of Thomas of Canterbury besides foolish accusations in black and white. There may be pictures, which the people will see, ballads which they will hear and repeat—the very towers of the Cathedral will be his monument.

“I have sent for you now because there is work for you to do elsewhere. The road from Paris to Byzantium may soon be blocked. The Emperor of Germany is at open war with the Pope. Turks are attacking pilgrims in the Holy Land. Soon it may be impossible, even for a monk, to make the journey safely. The time to go is now.

“You will set forth within a fortnight, and go to Rouen, Paris and Limoges; thence to Rome, Byzantium and Alexandria. I will give you memoranda of certain manuscripts which you are to secure if possible, either by purchase or by securing permission to make copies. Get as many more as you can. The King is coming here to-night in company with the Archbishop of York, the Chancellor, a Prince of Ireland, and others. He may buy or order some works on the ancient law. He desires also to found an Abbey in Ireland, to be a cell of this house. I have selected Cuthbert of Oxenford to take charge of the work, and he will set out immediately with twelve brethren to make the foundation. When you return from your journey it will doubtless be well under way. You will begin there the training of scribes, artists, metal workers and other craftsmen. It is true that you know little of any work except that of the scriptorium, but one can learn to know men there as well as anywhere. You will observe what is done in France, Lombardy and Byzantium. The men to whom you will have letters will make you acquainted with young craftsmen who may be induced to go to Ireland to work, and teach their work to others. Little can be done toward establishing a school until Ireland is more quiet, but in this the King believes that we shall be of some assistance. I desire you to be present at our conference, to make notes as you are directed, and to say nothing, for the present, of these matters. Ambrosius may think that you are to have his place, and that will be very well.”

The Abbot concluded with a rather ominous little smile. Brother Basil went back to the scriptorium, his head in a whirl. Within a twelvemonth he would see the mosaics of Saint Mark’s in Venice, the glorious windows of the French cathedrals, the dome of Saint Sophia, the wonders of the Holy Land. He was no longer part of a machine. Indeed, he must always have been more than that, or the Abbot would not have chosen him for this work. He felt very humble and very happy.

He knew that he must study architecture above anything else, for the building done by the monks was for centuries to come. Each brother of the Order gathered wisdom for all. When a monk of distinguished ability learned how to strengthen an arch here or carve a doorway there, his work was seen and studied by others from a hundred towns and cities. Living day by day with their work, the builders detected weaknesses and proved step by step all that they did. Cuthbert of Oxenford was a sure and careful mason, but that was all. The beauty of the building would have to be created by another man. Glass-work, goldsmith work, mosaics, vestments and books might be brought from abroad, but the stone-work must be done with materials near at hand and such labor as could be had. Brother Basil received letters not only to Abbots and Bishops, but to Gerard the wood-carver of Amiens, Matteo the Florentine artist, Tomaso the physician of Padua, Angelo the glass-maker. He set all in order in the scriptorium where he had toiled for five long years. Then, having been diligent in business, he went to stand before the King.

Many churchmen pictured this Plantagenet with horns and a cloven foot, and muttered references to the old fairy tale about a certain ancestor of the family who married a witch. But Brother Basil was familiar with the records of history. He knew the fierce Norman blood of the race, and knew also the long struggle between Matilda, this King’s mother, and Stephen. Here, in the plainly furnished room of the Abbot, was a hawk-nosed man with gray eyes and a stout restless figure, broad coarse hands, and slightly bowed legs, as if he spent most of his days in the saddle. The others, churchmen and courtiers, looked far more like royalty. Yet Henry’s realm took in all England, a part of Ireland, and a half of what is now France. He was the only real rival to the German Emperor who had defied and driven into exile the Pope of Rome. If Henry were of like mind with Frederick Barbarossa it would be a sorry day indeed for the Church. If he were disposed to contend with Barbarossa for the supreme power over Europe, the land would be worn out with wars. What would he do? Brother Basil watched the debating group and tried to make up his mind.

He wrote now and then a paragraph at the Abbot’s command. It seemed that the King claimed certain taxes and service from the churchmen who held estates under him, precisely as from the feudal nobles. The Abbots and Bishops, while claiming the protection of English law for their property, claimed also that they owed no obedience to the King, but only to their spiritual master. Argument after argument was advanced by their trained minds.

But it was not for amusement that Henry II., after a day with some hunting Abbot, falcon on fist, read busily in books of law. Brother Basil began to see that the King was defining, little by little, a code of England based on the old Roman law and customs handed down from the primitive British village. Would he at last obey the Church, or not?

Suddenly the monarch halted in his pacing of the room, turned and faced the group. The lightning of his eye flashed from one to another, and all drew back a little except the Abbot, who listened with the little grim smile that the monks knew.

“I tell ye,” said Henry, bringing his hard fist down upon the oaken table, “Pope or no Pope, Emperor or no Emperor, I will be King of England, and this land shall be fief to no King upon earth. I will have neither two masters to my dogs, nor two laws to my realm. Hear ye that, my lords and councilors?”

VENETIAN GLASS

Sea-born they learned the secrets of the sea,
Prisoned her with strong love that left her free,
Cherished her beauty in those fragile chains
Whereof this precious heritage remains.

Venetian glass! The hues of sunset light,
The gold of starlight in a winter night,
Heaven joined with earth, and faeryland was wrought
In these the crystal Palaces of Thought.

III
THE PICTURE IN THE WINDOW
HOW ALAN OF THE ABBEY FARMS LEARNED TO MAKE STAINED GLASS

Alan sat kicking his heels on the old Roman wall which was the most solid part of the half-built cathedral. He had been born and brought up on a farm not far away, and had never seen a town or a shop, although he was nearly thirteen years old. Around the great house in which the monks of the abbey lived there were a few houses of a low and humble sort, and the farm-houses thereabouts were comfortable; but there was no town in the neighborhood. The monks had come there in the beginning because it was a lonely place which no one wanted, and because they could have for the asking a great deal of land which did not seem to be good for anything. After they had settled there they proceeded to drain the marshes, fell the woods in prudent moderation, plant orchards and raise cattle and sheep and poultry.

Alan’s father was one of the farmers who held land under the Abbey, as his father and grandfather had done before him. He paid his rent out of the wool from his flocks, for very soon the sheep had increased far beyond the ability of the monks to look after them. Sometimes, when a new wall was to be built or an old one repaired, he lent a hand with the work, for he was a shrewd and honest builder of common masonry and a good carpenter as well. The cathedral had been roofed in so that services could be held there, but there was only one small chapel, and the towers were not even begun. All that would have to be done when money came to hand, and what with the King’s wars in Normandy, and against the Scots, his expedition to Ireland, and his difficulties with his own barons, the building trade in that part of England was a poor one.

Alan wondered, as he tilted his chin back to look up at the strong and graceful arches of the windows near by, whether he should ever see any more of it built. In the choir there were bits of stone carving which he always liked to look at, but there were only a few statues, and no glass windows. Brother Basil, who had traveled in France and Italy and had taught Alan something of drawing, said that in the cities where he had been, there were marvelous cathedrals with splendid carved towers and windows like jeweled flowers or imprisoned flame, but no such glories were to be found in England at that time.

The boy looked beyond the gray wall at the gold and ruby and violet of the sunset clouds behind the lace-work of the bare elms, and wondered if the cathedral windows were as beautiful as that. He had an idea that they might be like the colored pictures in an old book which Brother Basil had brought from Rome, which he said had been made still further east in Byzantium—the city which we know as Constantinople.

In the arched doorway which led from the garden into the orchard some one was standing—a small old man, bent and tired-looking, with a pack on his shoulder. Alan slid off the stone ledge and ran down the path. The old man had taken off his cap and was rubbing his forehead wearily. His eyes were big and dark, his hair and beard were dark and fine, his face was lined with delicate wrinkles, and he did not look in the least like the people of the village. His voice was soft and pleasant, and though he spoke English, he did not pronounce it like the village people, or like the monks.

“This—is the cathedral?” he said in a disappointed way, as if he had expected something quite different.

“Yes,” drawled Alan, for he spoke as all the farmer-folk did, with a kind of twang.

“But they are doing no work here,” said the old man.

Alan shook his head. “It has been like this ever since I can remember. Father says there’s no knowing when it will be finished.”

The old man sighed, and then broke out in a quick patter of talk, as if he really could not help telling his story to some one. Alan could not understand all that he said, but he began to see why the stranger was so disappointed. He was Italian; he had come to London from France, and only two days after landing he had had a fall and broken his leg, so that he had been lame ever since. Then he had been robbed of his money. Some one had told him that there was an unfinished cathedral here, and he had come all the way on foot in the hope of finding work. Now, it seemed, there was no work to be had.

What interested Alan was that this old man had really helped to build the wonderful French cathedrals of which Brother Basil had told, and he was sure that if Brother Basil were here, something might be done. But he was away, on a pilgrimage; the abbot was away too; and Brother Peter, the porter, did not like strangers. Alan decided that the best thing to do would be to take the old man home and explain to his mother.

Dame Cicely at the Abbey Farm was usually inclined to give Alan what he asked, because he seldom asked anything. He was rather fond of spending his time roaming about the moors, or trying to draw pictures of things that he had seen or heard of; and she was not sure whether he would ever make a farmer or not. She was touched by the old man’s troubles, and liked his polite ways; and Alan very soon had the satisfaction of seeing his new friend warm and comfortable in the chimney-corner. The rambling old farm-house had all sorts of rooms in it, and there was a little room in the older part, which had a window looking toward the sunset, a straw bed, a bench, and a fireplace, for it had once been used as a kitchen. It was never used now except at harvest-time, and the stranger could have that.

Nobody in the household, except Alan, could make much of the old man’s talk. The maids laughed at his way of speaking English; the men soon found that he knew nothing of cattle-raising, or plowing, or carpentering, or thatching, or sheep-shearing. But Alan hung about the little room in all his spare time, brought fagots for the fire, answered questions, begged, borrowed or picked up somewhere whatever seemed to be needed, and watched with fascinated eyes all the doings that went on.

The old man’s name, it appeared, was Angelo Pisano, and he had actually made cathedral windows, all by himself. Although Italian born, he had spent much of his life in France, and had known men of many nations, including the English. He meant now to make a window to show the Abbot when he returned, and then, perhaps, the Abbot would either let him stay and work for the Church, or help him to find work somewhere else.

The first thing that he did was to mix, in a black iron pot that Alan found among rubbish, some sand and other mysterious ingredients, and then the fire must be kept up evenly, without a minute’s inattention, until exactly the proper time, when the molten mass was lifted out in a lump on the end of a long iron pipe. Alan held his breath as the old man blew it into a great fragile crimson bubble, and then, so deftly and quickly that the boy did not see just how, cut the bottle-shaped hollow glass down one side and flattened it out, a transparent sheet of rose-red that was smooth and even for the most part, and thick and uneven around a part of the edge.

Everything had to be done a little at a time. Angelo was working with such materials as he could get, and the glass did not always turn out as he meant it should. Twice it was an utter failure and had to be re-melted and worked all over again. Once it was even finer in color than it would have been if made exactly by the rule. Angelo said that some impurity in the metal which gave the color had made a more beautiful blue than he expected. Dame Cicely happened to be there when they were talking it over, and nodded wisely.

“’Tis often that way,” said she. “I remember once in the baking, the oven was too cold and I made sure the pasties would be slack-baked, and they was better than ever we had.”

Alan was not sure what the glassmaker would think of this taking it for granted that cookery was as much a craft as the making of windows, but the old man nodded and smiled.

“I think that there is a gramarye in the nature of things,” he said, “and God to keep us from being too wise in our own conceit lets it now and then bring all our wisdom to folly. Now, my son, we will store these away where no harm can come to them, for I have never known God to work miracles for the careless, and we have no more than time to finish the window.”

They had sheets of red, blue, green, yellow and clear white glass, not very large, but beautifully clear and shining, and these were set carefully in a corner with a block of wood in front of them for protection.

Then Angelo fell silent and pulled at his beard. The little money that he had was almost gone.

“Alan, my son,” he said presently, “do you know what lead is?”

Alan nodded. “The roof of the chapel was covered with it,” he said, “the chapel that burned down. The lead melted and rained down on the floor, and burned Brother Basil when he ran in to save the book with the colored pictures.”

The glass-worker smiled. “Your Brother Basil,” he said, “must have the soul of an artist. I wonder now what became of that lead?”

“They saved a little, but most of it is mixed up with the rubbish and the ashes,” Alan said confidently. “Do you want it?”

Angelo spread his hands with a funny little gesture. “Want it!” he said. “Where did they put those ashes?”

Lead was a costly thing in the Middle Ages. It was sometimes used for roofing purposes, as well as for gutter-pipes and drain-pipes, because it will not rust as iron will, and can easily be worked. Alan had played about that rubbish heap, and he knew that there were lumps of lead among the wood-ashes and crumbled stones. Much marveling, he led the artist to the pile of rubbish that had been thrown over the wall, and helped to dig out the precious bits of metal. Then the fire was lighted once more, and triumphantly Angelo melted the lead and purified it, and rolled it into sheets, and cut it into strips.

“Now,” he said one morning, “we are ready to begin. I shall make a medallion which can be set in a great window like embroidery on a curtain. It shall be a picture—of what, my son?”

His dark eyes were very kind as he looked at the boy’s eager face. The question had come so suddenly that Alan found no immediate answer. Then he saw his pet lamb delicately nibbling at a bit of green stuff which his mother held out to it as she stood in her blue gown and white apron, her bright hair shining under her cap.

“I wish we could make a picture of her,” he said a little doubtfully. Angelo smiled, and with a bit of charcoal he made a sketch on a board. Alan watched with wonder-widened eyes, although he had seen the old man draw before. Then they went together into the little room which had seen so many surprising things, and the sketch was copied on the broad wooden bench which they had been using for a table. Then holding one end of a piece of string in the middle of the lamb’s back, Angelo slipped the charcoal through a loop in the other end, and drew a circle round the whole. Around this he drew a wreath of flowers and leaves. Then he laid the white glass over the lamb and drew the outline just as a child would draw on a transparent slate, putting in the curls of the wool, the eyes and ears and hoofs, with quick, sure touches. This done, he set the white glass aside, and drew Dame Cicely’s blue gown and the blue of a glimpse of sky on the blue glass. The green of the grass and the bushes was drawn on the green glass, and the roses on the red, and on the yellow, the cowslips in the grass. When all these had been cut out with a sharp tool, they fitted together exactly like the bits of a picture-puzzle, but with a little space between, for each bit of the picture had been drawn a trifle inside the line to leave room for the framework.

Now it began to be obvious what the lead was for. With the same deftness he had shown throughout the old glass-worker bent the strips of lead, which had been heated just enough to make them flexible, in and out and around the edges of the pieces of colored glass, which were held in place as the leaden strips were bent down over the edges, as a picture is held in the frame. When the work was finished, the medallion was a picture in colored glass, of a woman of gracious and kindly bearing, a pale gold halo about her face, her hand on the head of a white lamb, and a wreath of blossoms around the whole. When the sun shone through it, the leaden lines might have been a black network holding a mass of gems. Dame Cicely looked at it with awed wonder, and the lamb bleated cheerfully, as if he knew his own likeness.

Then there was an exclamation from the gateway, and they turned to see a thin-faced man in the robe and sandals of a monk, with sea-blue eyes alight in joy and surprise.

“Is it you, indeed, Angelo!” he cried. “They told me that a glass-worker was doing marvelous things here, and I heard a twelvemonth since that you were leaving Normandy for England. Where have you been all this time?”

The upshot of it all was that after much talk of old times and new times, Angelo was asked to make a series of stained glass windows for the Abbey, with all the aid that the friendship of the Abbot and Brother Basil could supply. He kept his little room at the farm, where he could see the sunset through the trees, and have the comfortable care of Dame Cicely when he found the cold of the North oppressive; but he had a glass-house of his own, fitted up close by the Abbey, and there Alan worked with him. The Abbot had met in Rouen a north-country nobleman, of the great Vavasour family, who had married a Flemish wife and was coming shortly to live on his estates within a few miles of the Abbey. He desired to have a chapel built in honor of the patron saint of his family, and had given money for that, and also for the windows in the Abbey. The Abbot had been thinking that he should have to send for these windows to some glass-house on the Continent, and when he found that the work could be done close at hand by a master of the craft, he was more than pleased. With cathedrals and churches a-building all over England, and the Abbot to make his work known to other builders of his Order, there was no danger that Angelo would be without work in the future. Some day, he said, Alan should go as a journeyman and see for himself all the cathedral windows in Italy and France, but for the present he must stick to the glass-house. And this Alan was content to do, for he was learning, day by day, all that could be learned from a man superior to most artists of either France or Italy.

TROUBADOUR’S SONG

When we went hunting in Fairyland,
(O the chiming bells on her bridle-rein!)
And the hounds broke leash at the queen’s command,
(O the toss of her palfrey’s mane!)
Like shadows we fled through the weaving shade
With quivering moonbeams thick inlaid,
And the shrilling bugles around us played—
I dreamed that I fought the Dane.

Clatter of faun-feet sudden and swift,
(O the view-halloo in the dusky wood!)
And satyrs crowding the mountain rift,
(O the flare of her fierce wild mood!)
Boulders and hollows alive, astir
With a goat-thighed foe, all teeth and fur,
We husked that foe like a chestnut bur—
I thought of the Holy Rood.

We trailed from our shallop a magic net,
(O the spell of her voice with its crooning note!)
By the edge of the world, where the stars are set,
(O the ripples that rocked our boat!)
But into the mesh of the star-sown dream
A mermaid swept on the lashing stream,
A drift of spume and an emerald gleam—
I remembered my love’s white throat.

When we held revel in Fairyland,
(O the whirl of the dancers under the Hill!)
The wind-harp sang to the queen’s light hand,
(O her eyes, so deep and still!)
But I was a captive among them all,
And the jeweled flagons were brimming with gall,
And the arras of gold was a dungeon-wall,—
I dreamed that they set me free!

IV
THE GRASSHOPPERS’ LIBRARY
HOW RANULPH LE PROVENÇAL CEASED TO BE A MINSTREL AND BECAME A TROUBADOUR

On a hillside above a stone-terraced oval hollow, a youth lay singing softly to himself and making such music as he could upon a rote. The instrument was of the sort which King David had in mind when he said, “Awake, psaltery and harp; I myself will awake early.” It was a box-shaped thing like a zither, which at one time had probably owned ten strings. The player was adapting his music as best he might to favor its peculiarities. Notwithstanding his debonair employment, he did not look as if he were on very good terms with life. His cloak and hose were shabby and weather-stained, his doublet was still less presentable, his cheeks were hollow, and there were dark circles under his eyes. Presently he abandoned the song altogether, and lay, chin in hand, staring down into the grass-grown, ancient pit.

It had begun its history as a Roman amphitheater, a thousand years before. Gladiators had fought and wild beasts had raged in that arena, whose encircling wall was high enough to defy the leap of the most agile of lions. Up here, on the hillside, in the archways outside the outermost ring of seats, the slaves had watched the combats. The youth had heard something about these old imperial customs, and he had guessed that he had come upon a haunt of the Roman colonists who had founded a forgotten town near by. He wondered, as he lay there, if he himself were in any better ease than those unknown captives, who had fought and died for the amusement of their owners.

Ranulph le Provençal, as he was one day to be known, was the son of a Provençal father and a Norman mother. In the siege of a town his father had been killed and his mother had died of starvation, and he himself had barely escaped with life. That had been the penalty of being on the wrong side of the struggle between the Normans of Anjou and their unwilling subjects in Aquitaine. At the moment the rebellious counts of Aquitaine were getting the best of it. Ranulph knew little of the tangled politics of the time, but it seemed to him that all France was turned into a cockpit in which the sovereign counts of France, who were jealous of their independence, and the fierce pride of the Angevin dukes who tried to keep a foothold in both France and England, and the determined ambition of the King who sat in Paris, were warring over the enslavement of an unhappy people. He himself had no chance of becoming a knight; his life was broken off before it had fairly begun. He got his living by wandering from one place to another making songs. He had a voice, and could coax music out of almost any sort of instrument; and he had a trick of putting new words to familiar tunes that made folk laugh and listen.

Neighborhood quarrels had drained money and spirit out of the part of the country where he was, and he had almost forgotten what it was like to have enough to eat. The little dog that had followed him through his wanderings for a year foraged for scraps and fared better than his master; but now small Zipero was hungry too. The little fellow had been mauled by a mastiff that morning, and a blow from a porter’s staff had broken his leg. Ranulph had rescued his comrade at some cost to himself, and might not have got off so easily if a sudden sound of trumpets had not cleared the way for a king’s vanguard. As the soldiers rode in at the gates the young minstrel folded his dog in his cloak and limped out along the highway. Up here in the shade of some bushes by the deserted ruins, he had done what he could for his pet, but the little whimper Zipero gave now and then seemed to go through his heart.

Life had been difficult before, but he had been stronger, or more ignorant. He had made blithe songs when he was anything but gay at heart; he had laughed when others were weeping and howling; he had danced to his own music when every inch of his body ached with weariness; and it had all come to this. He had been turned out of his poor lodgings because he had no money; he had been driven out of the town because he would not take money earned in a certain way. He seemed to have come to the end.

If that were the case he might as well make a song about it and see what it would be like. He took up the rote, and began to work out a refrain that was singing itself in his head. Zipero listened; he was quieter when he heard the familiar sound. The song was flung like a challenge into the silent arena.

The Planet of Love in the cloud-swept night
Hangs like a censer of gold,
And Venus reigns on her starlit height
Even as she ruled of old.
Yet the Planet of War is abroad on earth
In a chariot of scarlet flame,
And Mercy and Loyalty, Love and Mirth
Must die for his grisly fame.

Ravens are croaking and gray wolves prowl
On the desolate field of death,
The smoke of the burning hangs like a cowl—
Grim Terror throttles the breath.
Yet a white bird flies in the silent night
To your window that looks on the sea,
To bear to my Lady of All Delight
This one last song from me.

“Princess, the planets that rule our life
Are the same for beggar or King,—
We may win or lose in the hazard of strife,
There is ever a song to sing!
We are free as the wind, O heart of gold!
The stars that rule our lot
Are netted fast in a bond ninefold,—
The twist of Solomon’s Knot.”

“So you believe that, my son?” asked a voice behind him. He sat up and looked about; an old man in a long dusky cloak and small flat cap had come over the brow of the hill. He answered, a trifle defiantly, “Perhaps I do. At any rate, that is the song.”

“Oh, it is true,” the old man said quietly as he knelt beside Zipero on the turf. He examined the bandages on the little dog’s neck and forelegs, undid them, laid some bruised leaves from his basket on the wounds. The small creature, with his eyes on his master’s face, licked the stranger’s hand gratefully to show that he was more at ease. “Man alone is free. This herb cannot change itself; it must heal; that one must slay. Saturn is ever the Greater Malignant; our Lady Venus cannot rule war, nor can Mars rule a Court of Love. The most uncertain creature in the world is a man. The stars themselves cannot force me to revile God.”

Ranulph was silent. After months and years among rude street crowds, the dignity and kindliness of the old man’s ways were like a voice from another world.

“I can cure this little animal,” the stranger went on presently, “if you will let me take him to my lodgings, where I have certain salves and medicines. I shall be pleased if you will come also, unless you are occupied.”

Ranulph laughed; that was absurd. “I am a street singer,” he said. “My time is not in demand at present. I must tell you, however, that the Count is my enemy—if a friendless beggar can have such a thing. One of his varlets set his ban-dog on us both, this morning.”

“He will give me no trouble,” said the old man quietly. “Come, children.”

Ranulph got to his feet and followed with Zipero in his arms. At the foot of the hill on the other side was a nondescript building which had grown up around what was left of a Roman house. The unruined pillars and strongly cemented stone-work contrasted oddly with the thatch and tile of peasant workmen. They passed through a gate where an old and wrinkled woman peered through a window at them, then they went up a flight of stairs outside the wall to a tower-room in the third story. A chorus of welcome arose from a strange company of creatures, caged and free: finches, linnets, a parrot, a raven which sidled up at once to have its head scratched, pigeons strutting and cooing on the window-ledge, and a large cat of a slaty-blue color with solemn, topaz eyes, which took no more note of Zipero than if he had been a dog of stone. A basket was provided for the small patient, near the window that looked out over the hills; the old servingwoman brought food, simple but well-cooked and delicious, and Ranulph was motioned to a seat at the table. It was all done so easily and quickly that dinner was over before Ranulph found words for the gratitude which filled his soul.

“Will you not tell me,” he said hesitatingly at last, “to whom I may offer my thanks—and service—if I may not serve you in some way?”

“Give to some one else in need, when you can,” said his host calmly. “I am Tomaso of Padua. A physician’s business is healing, wherever he finds sickness in man or beast. Your little friend there needed certain things; your need is for other things; the man who is now coming up the stairs needs something else.” Taking a harp from a corner he added, “Perhaps you will amuse yourself with this for an hour, while I see what that knock at the door means, this time.”

Whoever the visitor was, he was shown into another room, and Ranulph presently forgot all his troubles and almost lost the consciousness of his surroundings, as the harp sang under his hand. He began to put into words a song which had been haunting him for days,—a ballad of a captive knight who spent seven long years in Fairyland, but in spite of all that the Fairy Queen’s enchantment could do, never forgot his own people. Many of the popular romances of the time were fairy-tales full of magic spells, giants, caverns within the hills, witches and wood-folk hoofed and horned like Pan, sea-monsters, palaces which appeared and vanished like moon-shine. When they were sung to the harp-music of a troubadour who knew his work, they seemed very real.

“That is a good song,” said a stranger who had come in so quietly that Ranulph did not see him. “Did you find it in Spain?”

Ranulph stood up and bowed with the grace that had not left him in all his wandering life. “No,” he said, his dark eyes glinting with laughter, “I learned it in the Grasshoppers’ Library. I beg your pardon, master,—that is a saying we have in Provence. You will guess the meaning. A learned physician found me there, studying diligently though perhaps not over-profitably upon a hillside.”

“Not bad at all,” said the stranger, sitting down by Ranulph in the window and running over the melody on the harp. His fingers swept the strings in a confident power that showed him a master-musician, and he began a song so full of wonder, mystery and sweetness that Ranulph listened spellbound. Neither of them knew that for centuries after they sat there singing in a ruined Roman tower, the song would be known to all the world as the legend of Parzifal.

“I too have studied in the Grasshoppers’ Library,” said the singer, “but I found in an ancient book among the infidels in Spain this tale of a cup of enchantment, and made use of it. I think that it is one of those songs which do not die, but travel far and wide in many disguises, and end perhaps in the Church. You are one of us, are you not?”

“I am a street singer,” Ranulph answered, “a jongleur—a jester. I make songs for this,”—he took up his battered rote and hummed a camp-chorus.

“Do you mean to say that you play like that—on that?” asked the other. “Your studies must have led you indeed to Fairyland. You ought to go to England. The Plantagenets are friendly to us troubadours, and the English are a merry people, who delight in songs and the hearing of tales.”

Ranulph did not answer. Going to England and going to Fairyland were not in the same class of undertaking. Fairyland might be just over the border of the real world, but it cost money to cross the seas.

Tomaso came in just then, his deep-set eyes twinkling. “It is all right,” he said, nodding to the troubadour.

“I have been telling our friend here that he should go to England,” said the latter, rising and putting on his cloak. “If, as you say, his father was loyal to the House of Anjou, Henry will remember it. He is a wise old fox, is Henry, and he needs men whom he can trust. He is changing laws, and that is no easy thing to do when you have a stubborn people with all sorts of ideas in their heads about custom, and tradition, and what not. He wants to make things safe for his sons, and the throne on which he sits is rocking. The French king is greedy and the Welsh are savage, and Italian galleys crowd the very Pool of London. I remember me when I was a student in Paris, a Welsh clerk—he calls himself now Giraldus Cambrensis, but his name then was Gerald Barri,—had the room over mine, the year that Philip was born. We woke up one night to find the whole street ablaze with torches and lanterns, and two old crones dancing under our windows with lighted torches in their hands, howling for joy. Barri stuck his head out of window and asked what ailed them, and one of them screamed in her cracked voice, ‘We have got a Prince now who will drive you all out of France some day, you Englishmen!’ I can see his face now as he shouted back something that assuredly was not French. I tell you, Philip will hate the English like his father before him, and these are times when a troubadour who can keep a merry face and a close tongue will learn much.”

As the door closed the physician sat down in his round-backed chair, resting his long, wrinkled hands upon the arms. “Well, my son,” he said in his unperturbed voice, “I find somebody yonder is very sorry that you were thrown out of the gates this morning.”

Ranulph glanced up quickly, but said nothing.

“He had no idea that you were here, of course. He came to get me to ask the stars what had become of you, as you could not be found on the road. When he found that you would not serve him in the matter of the dagger and the poison, he never intended to let you leave the town, but as you know, your dog, seeing you mishandled, flew at his varlet, and the thick-headed fellow drove you out before he had any further orders. By such small means,” old Tomaso stroked Zipero’s head, “are evil plans made of no account.”

Ranulph drew a long breath. He had lost color.

“But you,” he faltered, “you must not shelter me if he is thus determined. He will take vengeance on you.”

The physician smiled. “He dares not. He is afraid of the stars. He knows also that I hold the death of every soul in his house in some small vial such as this—and he does not know which one. He knows that I have only to reveal to any minstrel what I know of his plans and his doings, and he would be driven from the court of his own sovereign. He can never be sure what I am going to do, and he does not know himself what he is going to do, so that he fears every one. By the twelve Houses of Fate, it must be unpleasant to be so given over to hatred!

“Now, my son, let us consider. You heard what Christian said but now of the need of the House of Anjou for faithful service. A trouvère can go where others cannot. He knows what others dare not ask. He can say what others cannot. Were it not for that prince of mischief and minstrelsy, Bertran de Born, Henry and his folk would have been at peace long ago. Know men’s hearts, and though you are a beggar in the market-place, you can turn them as a man turns a stream with a wooden dam. You shall go with Christian to Troyes and thence to Tours, and I will keep your little friend here until he is restored, and bring him to you when I come to that place. If search is made for you it will be made in Venice, where they think you have gone.”

Ranulph, with the aid of his new friends, went forth with proper harp and new raiment a day or two afterward, and repaid the loan of old Tomaso when he met the latter in Tours some six months later. He did not give up his studies in the Grasshoppers’ Library, but the lean years were at an end both for him and for Zipero.

THE WOOD-CARVER’S VISION

The Hounds of Gabriel racing with the gale,
Baying wild music past the tossing trees,
The Ship of Souls with moonlight-silvered sail
High over storm-swept seas,
The faun-folk scampering to their dim abode,
The goblin elves that haunt the forest road,
With visage of the snake and eft and toad,—
I carve them as I please.

Bertrand’s gray saintly patriarchs of stone,
Angelo the Pisan’s gold-starred sapphire sky,
Marc’s Venice glass, a jeweled rose full-blown,—
Envy of none have I.
Mine be the basilisk with mitered head,
And loup-garou and mermaid, captive led
By little tumbling cherubs who,—’tis said,—
Are all but seen to fly.

Why hold we here these demons in the light
Of the High Altar, by God’s candles cast?
They are the heathen creatures of the night,
In heavenly bonds made fast.
They are set here, that for all time to be,
When God’s own peace broods over earth and sea,
Men may remember, in a world set free,
The terrors that are past.

V
THE BOX THAT QUENTIN CARVED
HOW QUENTIN OF PERONNE LEARNED HIS TRADE WHEN A BOY IN AMIENS

Any one who happened to be in the market-place of Amiens one sunshiny summer morning in the last quarter of the twelfth century, might have seen a slim, dark, dreamy-eyed boy wandering about with teeth set in a ripe golden apricot, looking at all there was to be seen. But the chances were that no one who was there did see him, because people were very busy with their own affairs, and there was much to look at, far more important and interesting than a boy. In fact Quentin, who had come with his father, Jean of Peronne, to town that very morning, was not important to any one except his father and himself.

They had been living in a small village of Northern France, where they had a tiny farm, but when the mother died, Jean left the two older boys to take care of the fields, and with his youngest son, who was most like the mother, started out to find work elsewhere. He was a good mason, and masons were welcome anywhere. In all French cities and many towns cathedrals, castles or churches were a-building, and no one would think of building them of anything but stone.

While Quentin speculated on life as it might be in this new and interesting place, there was a shout of warning, a cry of terror from a woman near by, a dull rumble and crash, and a crowd began to gather in the street beside the cathedral. Before the boy could reach the place, a man in the garb of a Benedictine monk detached himself from the group and came toward him.

“My boy,” he said kindly, “you are Quentin, from Peronne? Yes? Do not be frightened, but I must tell you that your father has been hurt. They are taking him to a house near by, and if you will come with me, I will take care of you.”

The next few days were anxious ones for Quentin. His father did not die, but it was certain that he would do no more work as a mason for years, if ever. One of the older brothers came to take him home, and it was taken for granted that Quentin would go also. But the boy had a plan in his head.

There was none too much to eat at home, as it was, and it would be a long time before he was strong enough to handle stone like his father. Brother Basil, the monk who had seen his father caught under the falling wall, helped to rescue him, and taken care that he did not lose sight of his boy, had been very kind, but he did not belong in Amiens; he was on his way to Rome. Quentin met him outside the house on the day that Pierre came in from Peronne, and gave him a questioning look. He was wondering if Brother Basil would understand.

The smile that answered his look was encouraging.

“Well, my boy,” said Brother Basil in his quaintly spoken French, “what is it?”

Quentin stood very straight, cap in hand. “I do not want to go home,” he said slowly. “I want to stay here—and work.”

“Alone?” asked the monk.

Quentin nodded. “Marc and Pierre work all day in the fields, and I am of no use there; they said so. Pierre said it again just now. I am not strong enough yet to be of use. There is work here that I can do.”

He traced the outline of an ancient bit of carving on the woodwork of the overhanging doorway with one small finger. “I can do that,” he said confidently.

Brother Basil’s black eyebrows lifted a trifle and his mouth twitched; the boy was such a scrap of a boy. Yet he had seen enough of the oaken choir-stalls and the carved chests and the wainscoting of Amiens to know that a French wood-carver is often born with skill in his brain and his fingers, and can do things when a mere apprentice that others must be trained to do. “What have you done?” he said gravely.

“I carved a box for the mother, and when the cousin Adele saw it she would have one too. It was made with a wreath of roses on the lid, but I would not make roses for any one but the mother; Adele’s box has lilies, and a picture of herself. That she liked better.”

Brother Basil was thinking. “Quentin,” he said, “I know a wood-carver here, Master Gerard, who is from Peronne, and knows your talk better than I. He was a boy like you when he began to learn the work of the huchier and the wood-carver, and he might give you a place in his shop. Will your father let you stay?”

“He will if I get the chance,” said Quentin. “If I ask him now, Pierre will say things.”

Like many younger brothers, Quentin knew more about the older members of his family than they knew about him.

Brother Basil’s smile escaped control this time. He turned and strode across the market-place to the shop of Master Gerard, beckoning Quentin to follow.

“Master,” he said to the old huchier, who was planing and chipping and shaping a piece of Spanish chestnut, “here is a boy who has fallen in love with your trade.”

Master Gerard glanced up in some surprise. “He likes the trade, does he?” was the gruff comment he made. “Does the trade like him?”

“That is for you to say,” said Brother Basil, and turning on his heel he went out, to walk up and down in the sunshine before the door and meditate on the loves of craftsmen for their crafts.

“What can you do?” asked the old man shortly, still working at his piece of chestnut.

Quentin took from his pouch a bit of wood on which he had carved, very carefully, the figure of a monk at a reading-desk with a huge volume before him. He had done it the day before after he had been with Brother Basil to bring some books from the Bishop’s house, and although the figure was too small and his knife had been too clumsy to make much of a portrait of the face, he had caught exactly the intent pose of the head and the characteristic attitude of the monk’s angular figure. Master Gerard frowned.

“What sort of carving is that!” he barked. “The wood is coarse and the tools were not right. You tell me you did it?”

Quentin stood his ground. “It is my work, Master,” he said. “I had only this old knife, and I know the wood is not right, but it was all that I had.”

“And you want to learn my trade—eh?” said the old man a little more kindly. “You have no father?”

Quentin explained. Master Gerard looked doubtful. He had met boys before who liked to whittle, and wished to work in his shop; he had apprentices whose fathers were good workmen and wished their sons to learn more than they could teach; but very seldom did he meet a boy who would work as he himself had worked when he was a lad, never satisfied with what he did, because the vision in his mind ran ahead of the power in his fingers. He was an old man now, but he was still seeing what might be done in wood-working if a man could only have a chance to come back, after he had spent one lifetime in learning, and use what he had learned, in the strength of a new, clear-sighted youth. He had sons of his own, but they were only good business men. They could sell the work, but they had no inspirations.

“I will let you try what you can do,” he said at last, “that is, if your father is willing. Tell him to come and see me before he goes home. And look you—come back when you have told him this, and copy this work of yours in the proper fashion, with tools and wood which I will give you.”

Quentin bowed, thanked the old wood-carver, walked, by a great effort, steadily out of the shop and answered a question of Brother Basil’s, and then flashed like a squirrel in a hurry across the square and up the narrow winding stair in the side street where his father lodged, with the news. Pierre began two or three sentences, but never finished them. Jean of Peronne knew all about Master Gerard, and was only too glad to hear of such a chance for his motherless boy. And all the happy, sunlit afternoon Quentin sat in a corner, working away with keen-edged tools that were a joy to the hand, at a smooth-grained, close-fibered bit of wood that never splintered or split.

Master Gerard was what might be called a carpenter, or cabinet-maker. He did not make doors or window-frames, or woodwork for houses, because the great houses of that day were built almost entirely of stone. Neither did he make furniture such as chairs, tables, or bureaus, because it was not yet thought of. Kings’ households and great families moved about from castle to castle, and carried with them by boat, or in heavy wagons over bad roads, whatever comforts they owned. Modern furniture would have been fit for kindling-wood in a year, but ancient French luggage was built for hard travel. Master Gerard made chests of solid, well-seasoned wood, chosen with care and put together without nails, by fitting notch into notch at the corners. These were called huches, and Master Gerard was a master huchier.

These huches were longer and lower than a large modern trunk, and could be set one on another, after they were carried up narrow twisting stairways on men’s shoulders. The lid might be all in one piece, but more often it was in halves, with a bar between, so that when the chest was set on its side or end the lids would form doors. Ledges at top and bottom protected the corners and edges, and there might be feet that fitted into the bottom of the chest and made it easier to move about. The larger ones were long enough to use for a bed, and in these the tapestries that covered the walls, the embroidered bed-hangings, the cushions and mattresses to make hard seats and couches more comfortable, and the magnificent robes for state occasions, could be packed for any sort of journey. Huches were needed also for silver and gold state dishes, and the spices, preserved fruits and other luxuries needed for state feasts. It was desirable to make the chests beautiful as well as strong, for they were used as furniture; there might be a state bedstead, a huge wardrobe and one or two other furnishings in the apartments used by great folk, but the table was a movable one made of boards on trestles, and the carved huches, decorated with the heraldic emblems of the owner, served innumerable purposes. When one sees the specimens that are left, it does not seem surprising that when kings and queens went anywhere in the Middle Ages they went, if possible, by water. Luggage of that kind could be carried more easily by barge than by wagon.

After the first day, when he finished the small carved figure of Brother Basil for his master to see, Quentin did almost anything but carving. He ran errands, he sharpened tools, he helped a journeyman at his work, he worked on common carpentering which required no artistic skill. The work which Master Gerard undertook was not such as an apprentice could be trusted to do. Quentin, watching as closely as he could all that was done in the shop, saw that one sort of wood was chosen for one use, and another kind for a different job; he saw how a tool was handled to get a free, bold curve or a delicate fold of drapery, and he found out more about the trade in a year than most modern carpenters ever learn.

It was hot and uncomfortable in Amiens that summer. Life inside walls, among houses crowded and tall, was not like life in a country village, but it was not in Quentin to give up. When he felt like leaving the noisy, treeless town for the forest he would try to make a design of the flowers he remembered, or carve a knotted branch with the tools that he was allowed to use. He knew that when he should be entrusted with the carving of a chest, if that time ever came, he would have to be able to make his own design, if necessary, for that was a part of the work.

Chests were carved on the lids and ends, which showed when they were set up, and sometimes they were covered with carving. Master Gerard had a chest of his own, full of patterns which he brought out to show his patrons now and then, but which no one else ever touched. These patterns, however, were rarely followed exactly. Each great family had its own heraldic device, and the leopard, the dragon, the dolphin, the fleur-de-lis, the portcullis, or whatever it might be, must form an important part of the decoration. Some of the patterns, while their proportions were perfect, were too simple for the taste of the one who ordered the chest, and had to be varied. Some were too elaborate for a small piece of work, and had to be made simpler. The wood-carver had very little chance of success unless he was also an artist, as he usually was.

One day a great piece of carving was finished, and Master Gerard himself went to see that the workmen carried it safely; it was a chest in the form of a half-circle, for the tapestries and embroideries of the cathedral, in which the state mantle and robes of the Bishop could be laid flat with all their heavy gold-work. The youngest journeyman, Pol, who was left to mind the shop, slipped out a few minutes later, charging Quentin strictly to stay until he came back.

Quentin had no objection. He wanted to try a pattern of his own for a small huche that was finished all but the carving. He had in mind a pattern of Master Gerard’s, a border simple yet beautiful. It was copied from the inner wall of a Greek temple, although he did not know that. It was a running vine with leaves and now and then a flower, not like any vine that he had ever seen. The inclosed oblong on the lid was divided into halves by a bar, in the form of a woman’s figure. Quentin thought that that was rather too stately a decoration for a small chest, and he decided to use a simple rounded bar, with grooves, which he knew that he could do well.

He was not sure how the border went. Of course, he might wait until Master Gerard came back and ask to see the pattern, but he did not quite like to do that. It might seem presuming. He wondered how it would do to try apricot twigs laid stem to tip in a curving line, a ripe fruit in place of the flower of the pattern, and blossom-clusters here and there. He tried it cautiously, drawing the outline first on a corner, and it looked so well that he began to carve the twigs.

He was finishing the second when he heard a voice in the doorway.

“Does Master Gerard do his work with elves? Or have the fairies taken him and left a changeling?” The voice was musical with laughter, and the boy looked up to see a lovely and richly-robed lady standing within the door. A little behind her was a young man in the dress of a troubadour, and servingmen stood outside holding the bridles of the horses.

Quentin sprang to his feet and bowed respectfully. “Master Gerard is but absent for an hour or two,” he said; “shall I run to the Cathedral and fetch him?”

“Nay,” the lady answered, sinking into the high-backed chair in the corner, “it is cool here, and we will await him. Ranulph, come look at this coffret. I maintain that the fairies teach these people to work in wood as they do. Saw you ever the like?”

The troubadour bent over the just-begun carving. “This is no boy’s play; this is good work,” he said. “You have the right notion; the eye and the hand work together like two good comrades.”

“My lord shall see this when he comes. I like the work.” She touched the cheek of the apricot with a dainty finger. “Where did you get the pattern?”

Quentin looked down, rather shyly; he did not feel sure that he would be believed. “I had no pattern,” he said. “I remembered one that Master Gerard made for a great house a month since—”

“And so do I!” laughed the lady. “Now I know where I saw that border. Therefore, not having the copy before you——”

“You invented this variation. Upon my word, the race of wood-carvers has not come to an end,” laughed the young man. “I think that his Royal Highness will like this coffret well.”

All in a flash it came to Quentin who this was. Some time before he had heard that the Princess Margaret, daughter of the French King, was in the city, with her husband, Prince Henry of England. It was for the Prince that Master Gerard had made that other chest. Things linked themselves together in this world, it seemed, like the apricots and blossoms of his design.

“Finish the chest,” said the Princess after a pause. “I will have it for a traveling casket. Can you carve a head on the top—or two heads, facing one another, man and woman?”

“Like this?” asked Quentin, and he traced an outline on the bench. It was the lady’s beautiful profile.

Master Gerard came in just then, and Pol came slinking in at the back door. The next day Quentin was promoted to Pol’s place, and finished his chest in great content and happiness. It was the beginning in a long upward climb to success.

THE CAGED BOUVEREL

I am a little finch with wings of gold,
I dwell within a cage upon the wall.
I cannot fly within my narrow fold,—
I eat, and drink, and sing, and that is all.
My good old master talks to me sometimes,
But if he knows my speech I cannot tell.
He is so large he cannot sing nor fly,
But he and I are both named Bouverel.

I think perhaps he really wants to sing,
Because the busy hammer that he wields
Goes clinking light as merry bells that ring
When morris-dancers frolic in the fields,
And this is what the music seems to tell
To me, the finch, the feathered Bouverel.

“Kling-a-ling—clack!
Masters, what do ye lack?
Hammer your heart in’t, and strike with a knack!
Flackety kling—
Biff, batico, bing!
Platter, cup, candlestick, necklace or ring!
Spare not your labor, lads, make the gold sing,—
And some day perhaps ye may work for the King!”

VI
AT THE SIGN OF THE GOLD FINCH
HOW GUY, THE GOLDSMITH’S APPRENTICE, WON THE DESIRE OF HIS HEART

Bang—slam—bang-bang—slam! slam! slam!

If anybody on the Chepe in the twelfth century had ever heard of rifle-practice, early risers thereabouts might have been reminded of the crackle of guns. The noise was made by the taking down of shutters all along the shop fronts, and stacking them together out of the way. The business day in London still begins in the same way, but now there are plate-glass windows inside the shutters, and the shops open between eight and nine instead of soon after day-break.

It was the work of the apprentices and the young sons of shop-keepers to take down the shutters, sweep the floors, and put things in order for the business of the day. This was the task which Guy, nephew of Gamelyn the goldsmith, at the sign of the Gold Finch, particularly liked. The air blew sweet and fresh from the convent gardens to the eastward of the city, or up the river below London Bridge, or down from the forest-clad hills of the north, and those who had the first draft of it were in luck. London streets were narrow and twisty-wise, but not overhung with coal smoke, for the city still burned wood from the forests without the walls.

On this May morning, Guy was among the first of the boys who tumbled out from beds behind the counter and began to open the shops. The shop-fronts were all uninclosed on the first floor, and when the shutters were down the shop was separated from the street only by the counter. Above were the rooms in which the shop-keeper and his family lived, and the second story often jutted over the one below and made a kind of covered porch. In some of the larger shops, like this one of Goldsmiths’ Row, the jewelers’ street, there was a third story which could be used as a storeroom. There were no glass cases or glass windows. Lattices and shutters were used in window-openings, and the goods of finer quality were kept in wooden chests. The shop was also a work-room, for the shopkeeper was a manufacturer as well, and a part if not all that he sold was made in his own house.

Guy, having stacked away the shutters and taken a drink of water from the well in the little garden at the rear, got a broom and began to sweep the stone floor. It was like the brooms in pictures of witches, a bundle of fresh twigs bound on the end of a stick, withes of supple young willow being used instead of cord. Some of the twigs in the broom had sprouted green leaves. Guy sang as he swept the trash out into the middle of the street, but as a step came down the narrow stair he hushed his song. When old Gamelyn had rheumatism the less noise there was, the better. The five o’clock breakfast, a piece of brown bread, a bit of herring and a horn cup of ale, was soon finished, and then the goldsmith, rummaging among his wares, hauled a leather sack out of a chest and bade Guy run with it to Ely House.

This was an unexpected pleasure, especially for a spring morning as fair as a blossoming almond tree. The Bishop of Ely lived outside London Wall, near the road to Oxford, and his house was like a palace in a fairy-tale. It had a chapel as stately as an ordinary church, a great banquet-hall, and acres of gardens and orchards. No pleasanter place could be found for an errand in May. Guy trotted along in great satisfaction, making all the speed he could, for the time he saved on the road he might have to look about in Ely House.

For a city boy, he was extremely fond of country ways. He liked to walk out on a holiday to Mile End between the convent gardens; he liked to watch the squirrels flyte and frisk among the huge trees of Epping Forest; he liked to follow at the heels of the gardener at Ely House and see what new plant, shrub or seed some traveler from far lands had brought for the Bishop. He did not care much for the city houses, even for the finest ones, unless they had a garden. Privately he thought that if ever he had his uncle’s shop and became rich,—and his uncle had no son of his own,—he would have a house outside the wall, with a garden in which he would grow fruits and vegetables for his table. Another matter on which his mind was quite made up was the kind of things that would be made in the shop when he had it. The gold finch that served for a sign had been made by his grandfather, who came from Limoges, and it was handsomer than anything that Guy had seen there in Gamelyn’s day. Silver and gold work was often sent there to be repaired, like the cup he had in the bag, a silver wine-cup which the Bishop’s steward now wanted at once; but Guy wanted to learn to make such cups, and candlesticks, and finely wrought banquet-dishes himself.

He gave the cup to the steward and was told to come back for his money after tierce, that is, after the service at the third hour of the day, about half way between sunrise and noon. There were no clocks, and Guy would know when it was time to go back by the sound of the church bells. The hall was full of people coming and going on various errands. One was a tired-looking man in a coarse robe, and broad hat, rope girdle, and sandals, who, when he was told that the Bishop was at Westminster on business with the King, looked so disappointed that Guy felt sorry for him. The boy slipped into the garden for a talk with his old friend the gardener, who gave him a head of new lettuce and some young mustard, both of which were uncommon luxuries in a London household of that day, and some roots for the tiny walled garden which he and Aunt Joan were doing their best to keep up. As he came out of the gate, having got his money, he saw the man he had noticed before sitting by the roadside trying to fasten his sandal. The string was worn out.

A boy’s pocket usually has string in it. Guy found a piece of leather thong in his pouch and rather shyly held it out. The man looked up with an odd smile.

“I thank you,” he said in curious formal English with a lisp in it. “There is courtesy, then, among Londoners? I began to think none here cared for anything but money, and yet the finest things in the world are not for sale.”

Guy did not know what to answer, but the idea interested him.

“The sky above our heads,” the wayfarer went on, looking with narrowed eyes at the pink may spilling over the gray wall of the Bishop’s garden,—“flowers, birds, music, these are for all. When you go on pilgrimage you find out how pleasant is the world when you need not think of gain.”

The stranger was a pilgrim, then. That accounted for the clothes, but old Gamelyn had been on pilgrimage to the new shrine at Canterbury, and it had not helped his rheumatism much, and certainly had given him no such ideas as these. Guy looked up at the weary face with the brilliant eyes and smile,—they were walking together now,—and wondered.

“And what do you in London?” the pilgrim asked.

“My uncle is a goldsmith in Chepe,” said the boy.

“And are you going to be a goldsmith in Chepe too?”

“I suppose so.”

“Then you like not the plan?”

Guy hesitated. He never had talked of his feeling about the business, but he felt that this man would see what he meant. “I should like it better than anything,” he said, “if we made things like those the Bishop has. Uncle Gamelyn says that there is no profit in them, because they take the finest metal and the time of the best workmen, and the pay is no more, and folk do not want them.”

“My boy,” said the pilgrim earnestly, “there are always folk who want the best. There are always men who will make only the best, and when the two come together——” He clapped his hollowed palms like a pair of cymbals. “Would you like to make a dish as blue as the sea, with figures of the saints in gold work and jewel-work—a gold cup garlanded in flowers all done in their own color,—a shrine threefold, framing pictures of the saints and studded with orfrey-work of gold and gems, yet so beautiful in the mere work that no one would think of the jewels? Would you?”

“Would I!” said Guy with a deep quick breath.

“Our jewelers of Limoges make all these, and when kings and their armies come from the Crusades they buy of us thank-offerings,—candlesticks, altar-screens, caskets, chalices, gold and silver and enamel-work of every kind. We sit at the cross-roads of Christendom. The jewels come to us from the mines of East and West. Men come to us with full purses and glad hearts, desiring to give to the Church costly gifts of their treasure, and our best work is none too good for their desire. But here we are at Saint Paul’s. I shall see you again, for I have business on the Chepe.”

Guy headed for home as eagerly as a marmot in harvest time, threading his way through the crowds of the narrow streets without seeing them. He could not imagine who the stranger might be. It was dinner time, and he had to go to the cook-shop and bring home the roast, for families who could afford it patronized the cook-shops on the Thames instead of roasting and baking at home in the narrow quarters of the shops. In the great houses, with their army of servants and roomy kitchens, it was different; and the very poor did what they could, as they do everywhere; but when the wife and daughters of the shopkeeper served in the shop, or worked at embroidery, needle-craft, weaving, or any light work of the trade that they could do, it was an economy to have the cooking done out of the house.

When the shadows were growing long and the narrow pavement of Goldsmith’s Row was quite dark, someone wearing a gray robe and a broad hat came along the street, slowly, glancing into each shop as he passed. To Guy’s amazement, old Gamelyn got to his feet and came forward.

“Is it—is it thou indeed, master?” he said, bowing again and again. The pilgrim smiled.

“A fine shop you have here,” he said, “and a fine young bird in training for the sign of the Gold Finch. He and I scraped acquaintance this morning. Is he the youth of whom you told me when we met at Canterbury?”

It was hard on Guy that just at that moment his aunt Joan called him to get some water from the well, but he went, all bursting with eagerness as he was. The pilgrim stayed to supper, and in course of time Guy found out what he had come for.

He was Eloy, one of the chief jewelers of Limoges, which in the Middle Ages meant that his work was known in every country of Europe, for that city had been as famous for its gold work ever since the days of Clovis as it is now for porcelain. Enamel-work was done there as well, and the cunning workmen knew how to decorate gold, silver, or copper in colors like vivid flame, living green, the blue of summer skies. Eloy offered to take Guy as an apprentice and teach him all that he could for the sake of the maker of the Gold Finch, who had been his own good friend and master. It was as if the head of one of the great Paris studios should offer free training for the next ten years to some penniless art student of a country town.

What amazed Guy more than anything else, however, was the discovery that his grumbling old uncle, who never had had a good word to say for him in the shop, had told this great artist about him when they met five years before, and begged Eloy if ever he came to London to visit the Gold Finch and see the little fellow who was growing up there to learn the ancient craft in a town where men hardly knew what good work was. Even now old Gamelyn would only say that his nephew was a good boy and willing, but so painstaking that he would never make a tradesman; he spent so much unnecessary time on his work.

“He may be an artist,” said Eloy with a smile; and some specimens of the work which Guy did when he was a man, which are now carefully kept in museums, prove that he was. No one knows how the enamel-work of Limoges was done; it is only clear that the men who did it were artists. The secret has long been lost—ever since the city, centuries ago, was trampled under the feet of war.

UP ANCHOR

Yo-o heave ho! an’ a y-o heave ho!
And lift her down the bay—
We’re off to the Pillars of Hercules,
All on a summer’s day.
We’re off wi’ bales of our Southdown wool
Our fortune all to win,
And we’ll bring ye gold and gowns o’ silk,
Veils o’ sendal as white as milk,
And sugar and spice galore, lasses—
When our ship comes in!

VII
THE VENTURE OF NICHOLAS GAY
HOW NICHOLAS GAY, THE MERCHANT’S SON, KEPT FAITH WITH A STRANGER AND SERVED THE KING

Nicholas Gay stood on the wharf by his father’s warehouse, and the fresh morning breeze that blew up from the Pool of the Thames was ruffling his bright hair. He could hear the seamen chanting at the windlass, and the shouts of the boatmen threading their skiffs and scows in and out among the crowded shipping. There were high-pooped Flemish freighters, built to hold all the cargo possible for a brief voyage; English coasting ships, lighter and quicker in the chop of the Channel waves; larger and more dignified London merchantmen, that had the best oak of the Weald in their bones and the pick of the Southdown wool to fill them full; Mediterranean galleys that shipped five times the crew and five times the cargo of a London ship; weather-beaten traders that had come over the North Sea with cargoes of salt fish; and many others.

The scene was never twice the same, and the boy never tired of it. Coming into port with a cargo of spices and wine was a long Mediterranean galley with oars as well as sails, each oar pulled by a slave who kept time with his neighbor like a machine. The English made their bid for fortune with the sailing-ship, and even in the twelfth century, when their keels were rarely seen in any Eastern port, there was little of the rule of wind and sea short of Gibraltar that their captains did not know.

Up Mart Lane, the steep little street from the wharves, Nicholas heard some one singing a familiar chantey, but not as the sailors sang it. He was a slender youth with a laugh in his eye, and he was singing to a guitar-like lute. He was piecing out the chantey and fitting words to it, and succeeding rather well. Nicholas stood by his father’s warehouse, hands behind him and eyes on the ship just edging out to catch the tide, and listened to the song, his heart full of dreams.

“Hey, there, youngster!” said the singer kindly as he reached the end of the strophe. “Have you a share in that ship that you watch her so sharply?”

“No,” said Nicholas gravely, “she’s not one of father’s ships. She’s the Heath Hen of Weymouth, and she’s loaded with wool, surely, but she’s for Bordeaux.”