In the Days of the Guild
by Louise Lamprey · English · Gutenberg #36934 · 394,180 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: In the Days of the Guild
Author: Louise Lamprey
Illustrator: Florence Mary Gardiner
Mabel K. Hatt
Release date: August 1, 2011 [eBook #36934]
Language: English
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[Illustration: "HE HELD UP THE SHOE WITH GREAT DISFAVOR"--_Page 138_]
IN THE DAYS
OF THE GUILD
BY
L. LAMPREY
WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR BY
FLORENCE GARDINER
AND NUMEROUS LINE DRAWINGS BY
MABEL HATT
[Illustration]
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
I PAGE
_The Old Road_ 1
THE BOY WITH THE WOOLPACK 3
How Robert Edrupt journeyed with the wool-merchants to
London
II
_The Biographer_ 13
BASIL THE SCRIBE 15
How an Irish monk in an English Abbey came to stand
before Kings
III
_Venetian Glass_ 27
THE PICTURE IN THE WINDOW 29
How Alan of the Abbey Farms learned to make stained
glass
IV
_Troubadour's Song_ 41
THE GRASSHOPPERS' LIBRARY 43
How Ranulph le Provencal ceased to be a minstrel and
became a troubadour
V
_The Wood-Carver's Vision_ 55
THE BOX THAT QUENTIN CARVED 57
How Quentin of Peronne learned his trade when a boy in
Amiens
VI
_The Caged Bouverel_ 69
AT THE SIGN OF THE GOLD FINCH 71
How Guy, the goldsmith's apprentice, won the desire of
his heart
VII
_Up Anchor_ 79
THE VENTURE OF NICHOLAS GAY 81
How Nicholas Gay, the merchant's son, kept faith with
a stranger and served the King
VIII
_London Bells_ 93
BARBARA, THE LITTLE GOOSE-GIRL 95
How Barbara sold geese in the Chepe and what fortune
she found there
IX
_Harper's Song_ 105
RICHARD'S SILVER PENNY 107
How Richard sold a web of russet and made the best of
a bad bargain
X
_Perfumer's Song_ 119
MARY LAVENDER'S GARDEN 121
How Mary Lavender came to be of service to an exiled
Queen
XI
_Pavement Song_ 131
SAINT CRISPIN'S DAY 133
How Crispin, the shoemaker's son, made a shoe for a
little damsel, and new streets in London
XII
_Concealed Weapons_ 143
THE LOZENGES OF GIOVANNI 144
How a Milanese baker-boy and a Paduan physician kept
poison out of the King's dish
XIII
_A Song of Birds and Beasts_ 157
A DYKE IN THE DANELAW 159
How David le Saumond changed the course of an ancient
nuisance
XIV
_London Bridge_ 173
AT BARTLEMY FAIR 175
How Barty Appleby went to the fair at Smithfield and
caught a miscreant
XV
_Midsummer Day in England_ 187
EDWITHA'S LITTLE BOWL 189
How Edwitha found Roman pottery in the field of a
Sussex farm
XVI
_Song of the Tapestry Weavers_ 197
LOOMS IN MINCHEN LANE 199
How Cornelys Bat, the Flemish weaver, befriended a
black sheep and saved his wool
XVII
_The Wishing Carpet_ 211
THE HERBALIST'S BREW 213
How Tomaso, the physician of Padua, found a cure for
a weary soul
XVIII
_The Marionettes_ 225
THE HURER'S LODGERS 229
How the poppet of Joan, the daughter of the capmaker,
went to court and kept a secret
XIX
_Armorer's Song_ 241
DICKON AT THE FORGE 243
How a Sussex smith found the world come to him in the
Weald
XX
_The Wander-Years_ 255
THE WINGS OF THE DRAGON 257
How Padraig made Irish wit a journeyman to Florentine
genius
XXI
_St. Eloi's Blessing_ 269
GOLD OF BYZANTIUM 271
How Guy of Limoges taught the art of Byzantium to
Wilfrid of Sussex
XXII
_The Watchword_ 281
COCKATRICE EGGS 283
How Tomaso the physician and Basil the scribe held
the keys of Empire
ILLUSTRATIONS
"He held up the shoe with great disfavor"
(_in colors_) _Frontispiece_
FACING
PAGE
"Waiting for the wool-merchants" 4
"'Some of us will live to see Thomas of Canterbury a Saint of
the Church'" 21
"The medallion was a picture in colored glass" 36
"'Upon my word, the race of wood-carvers has not yet come
to an end'" 67
"'Have you been here all this time?'" 86
"Barbara knew exactly where to go" (_in colors_) 96
"'It is time to set him building for England'" 168
"'How beautiful it is!' he exclaimed" (_in colors_) 194
"Tomaso seemed not to have seen her action" 216
"The Marionettes" 224
"'It is better than the sketch,' he cried heartily" 246
"'And there goes what would seat the King of England on the
throne of the Caesars,' quoth Tomaso" (_in colors_) 284
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.
[Illustration: "WAITING FOR THE WOOL-MERCHANTS"]
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 mediaeval 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.
[Illustration: "'SOME OF US WILL LIVE TO SEE THOMAS OF CANTERBURY A
SAINT OF THE CHURCH'"]
"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.
[Illustration: "THE MEDALLION WAS A PICTURE IN COLORED GLASS"]
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 PROVENCAL 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 Provencal, as he was one day to be known, was the son of a
Provencal 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 trouvere 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."
[Illustration: "'UPON MY WORD, THE RACE OF WOOD-CARVERS HAS NOT YET COME
TO AN END'"]
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!"
[Illustration]
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."
"Bless the urchin, he might have been born on board!" The young man
looked at Nicholas rather more attentively. "Your father has ships,
then?"
Nicholas nodded proudly. "The _Rose-in-June_, and the _Sainte Spirite_,
and the _Thomasyn_,--she's named for mother,--and the _Sainte
Genevieve_, because father was born in Paris, you know, and the _Saint
Nicholas_,--that's named for me. But I'm not old enough to have a
venture yet. Father says I shall some day."
The Pool of the Thames was crowded, and as the wind freshened the ships
looked even more like huge white-winged birds. Around them sailed and
wheeled and fluttered the real sea-birds, picking up their living from
the scraps thrown overboard,--swans, gulls, wild geese and ducks, here
and there a strange bird lured to the harbor by hope of spoil. The oddly
mated companions, the man and the boy, walked along busy Thames Street
and came to Tower Hill and the great gray fortress-towers, with a double
line of wall coiled around the base, just outside the City of London.
The deep wide moat fed from the river made an island for the group of
buildings with the square White Tower in the middle.
"None of your friends live there, I suppose?" the young man inquired,
and Nicholas smiled rather dubiously, for he was not certain whether it
was a joke or not. The Tower had been prison, palace and fort by turns,
but common criminals were not imprisoned there--only those who had been
accused of crimes against the State. "Lucky you," the youth added.
"London is much pleasanter as a residence, I assure you. I lodged not
far from here when I first came, but now I lodge----"
That sentence was never finished. Clattering down Tower Hill came a
troop of horse, and one, swerving suddenly, caught Nicholas between
his heels and the wall, and by the time the rider had his animal under
control the little fellow was lying senseless in the arms of the
stranger, who had dived in among the flying hoofs and dragged him clear.
The rider, lagging behind the rest, looked hard at the two, and then
spurred on without even stopping to ask whether he had hurt the boy.
Before Nicholas had fairly come to himself he shut his teeth hard to
keep from crying out with the pain in his side and left leg. The young
man had laid him carefully down close by the wall, and just as he
was looking about for help three of the troopers came spurring back,
dismounted, and pressed close around the youth as one of them said
something in French. He straightened up and looked at them, and in spite
of his pain Nicholas could not help noticing that he looked proudly and
straightforwardly, as if he were a gentleman born. He answered them in
the same language; they shook their heads and made gruff, short answers.
The young man laid his hand on his dagger, hesitated, and turned back
to Nicholas.
"Little lad," he said, "this is indeed bad fortune. They will not let me
take you home, but----" So deftly that the action was hidden from the
men who stood by, he closed Nicholas' hand over a small packet, while
apparently he was only searching for a coin in his pouch and beckoning
to a respectable-looking market-woman who halted near by just then. He
added in a quick low tone without looking at the boy, "Keep it for me
and say nothing."
Nicholas nodded and slipped the packet into the breast of his doublet,
with a groan which was very real, for it hurt him to move that arm. The
young man rose and as his captors laid heavy hands upon him he put some
silver in the woman's hand, saying persuasively, "This boy has been
badly hurt. I know not who he is, but see that he gets home safely."
"Aye, master," said the woman compassionately, and then everything grew
black once more before Nicholas' eyes as he tried to see where the men
were going. When he came to himself they were gone, and he told the
woman that he was Nicholas Gay and that his father was Gilbert Gay, in
Fenchurch Street. The woman knew the house, which was tile-roofed and
three-storied, and had a garden; she called a porter and sent him for
a hurdle, and they got Nicholas home.
The merchant and his wife were seriously disturbed over the
accident,--not only because the boy was hurt, and hurt in so cruel
a way, but because some political plot or other seemed to be mixed up
in it. From what the market-woman said it looked as if the men might
have been officers of the law, and it was her guess that the young man
was an Italian spy. Whatever he was, he had been taken in at the gates
of the Tower. In a city of less than fifty thousand people, all sorts
of gossip is rife about one faction and another, and if Gilbert Gay
came to be suspected by any of the King's advisers there were plenty
of jealous folk ready to make trouble for him and his. Time went by,
however, and they heard nothing more of it.
Nicholas said nothing, even to his mother, of the packet which he had
hidden under the straw of his bed. It was sealed with a splash of red
wax over the silken knot that tied it, and much as he desired to know
what was inside, Nicholas had been told by his father that a seal must
never be broken except by the person who had a right to break it.
Gilbert Gay had also told his children repeatedly that if anything was
given to them, or told them, in confidence, it was most wrong to say a
word about it. It never occurred to Nicholas that perhaps his father
would expect him to tell of this. The youth had told him not to tell,
and he must not tell, and that was all about it.
The broken rib and the bruises healed in time, and by the season when
the _Rose-in-June_ was due to sail, Nicholas was able to limp into
the rose-garden and play with his little sister Genevieve at sailing
rose-petal boats in the fountain. The time of loading the ships for
a foreign voyage was always rather exciting, and this was the best
and fastest of them all. When she came back, if the voyage had been
fortunate, she would be laden with spices and perfumes, fine silks and
linen, from countries beyond the sunrise where no one that Nicholas
knew had ever been. From India and Persia, Arabia and Turkey, caravans
of laden camels were even then bringing her cargo across the desert.
They would be unloaded in such great market-places as Moussoul,
Damascus, Bagdad and Cairo, the Babylon of those days. Alexandria and
Constantinople, Tyre and Joppa, were seaport market-cities, and here
the Venetian and Genoese galleys, or French ships of Marseilles and
Bordeaux, or the half-Saracen, half-Norman traders of Messina came for
their goods.
The _Rose-in-June_ would touch at Antwerp and unload wool for Flemish
weavers to make into fine cloth; she would cruise around the coast, put
in at Bordeaux, and sell the rest of her wool, and the grain of which
England also had a plenty. She might go on to Cadiz, or even through
the Straits of Gibraltar to Marseilles and Messina. The more costly the
stuff which she could pack into the hold for the homeward voyage, the
greater the profit for all concerned.
Since wool takes up far more room in proportion to its value than silk,
wine or spices, money as well as merchandise must be put into the
venture, and the more money, the more profit. Others joined in the
venture with Master Gay. Edrupt the wool-merchant furnished a part
of the cargo on his own account; wool-merchants traveled through the
country as agents for Master Gay. The men who served in the warehouse
put in their share; even the porters and apprentices sent something,
if no more than a shilling. There was some profit also in the passenger
trade, especially in time of pilgrimage when it was hard to get ships
enough for all who wished to go. The night before the sailing, Nicholas
escaped from the happy hubbub and went slowly down to the wharves. It
was not a very long walk, but it tired him, and he felt rather sad as he
looked at the grim gray Tower looming above the river, and wondered if
the owner of the packet sealed with the red seal would ever come back.
As he passed the little church at the foot of Tower Hill a light step
came up behind him, and two hands were placed on his shoulders.
"My faith!" said the young man. "Have you been here all this time?"
[Illustration: "'HAVE YOU BEEN HERE ALL THIS TIME?'"]
He was thinner and paler, but the laughter still sparkled in his dark
eyes, and he was dressed in daintily embroidered doublet, fine hose,
and cloak of the newest fashion, a gold chain about his neck and a harp
slung from his shoulder. A group of well-dressed servants stood near
the church.
"I'm well now," said Nicholas rather shyly but happily. "I'm glad you
have come back."
"I was at my wit's end when I thought of you, lad," went on the other,
"for I remembered too late that neither of us knew the other's name,
and if I had told mine or asked yours in the hearing of a certain
rascal it might have been a sorry time for us both. They made a little
mistake, you see,--they took me for a traitor."
"How could they?" said Nicholas, surprised and indignant.
"Oh, black is white to a scared man's eyes," said his companion
light-heartedly. "How have your father's ships prospered?"
"There's one of them,"--Nicholas pointed, proudly, across the little
space of water, to the _Rose-in-June_ tugging at her anchor.
"She's a fine ship," the young man said consideringly, and then, as he
saw the parcel Nicholas was taking from his bosom, "Do you mean to say
that that has never been opened? What sort of folk are you?"
"I never told," said Nicholas, somewhat bewildered. "You said I was not
to speak of it."
"And there was no name on it, for a certain reason." The young man
balanced the parcel in his hand and whistled softly. "You see, I was
expecting to meet hereabouts a certain pilgrim who was to take the
parcel to Bordeaux,--and beyond. I was--interfered with, as you know,
and now it must go by a safe hand to one who will deliver it to this
same pilgrim. I should say that your father must know how to choose his
captains."
"My father is Master Gilbert Gay,"--Nicholas held his head
very straight--"and that is Master Garland, the captain of the
_Rose-in-June_, coming ashore now."
"Oh, I know him. I have had dealings with him before now. How would
it be--since without your good help this packet would almost certainly
have been lost--to let the worth of it be your venture in the cargo?"
"My venture?" Nicholas stammered, the color rising in his cheeks. "My
venture?"
"It is not worth much in money," the troubadour said with a queer
little laugh, "but it is something. Master Garland, I see you have not
forgotten me,--Ranulph, called le Provencal. Here is a packet to be
delivered to Tomaso the physician of Padua, whom you know. The money
within is this young man's share in your cargo, and Tomaso will pay you
for your trouble."
Master Garland grinned broadly in his big beard. "Surely, sure-ly," he
chuckled, and pocketed the parcel as if it had been an apple, but
Nicholas noted that he kept his hand on his pouch as he went on to the
wharf.
"And now," Ranulph said, as there was a stir in the crowd by the church
door,--evidently some one was coming out. "I must leave you, my lad.
Some day we shall meet again." Then he went hastily away to join a
brilliant company of courtiers in traveling attire. Things were
evidently going well with Ranulph.
Nicholas thought a great deal about that packet in the days that
followed. He took to experimenting with various things to see what
could account for the weight. Lead was heavy, but no one would send a
lump of lead of that size over seas. The same could be said of iron.
He bethought him finally of a goldsmith's nephew with whom he had
acquaintance. Guy Bouverel was older, but the two boys knew each other
well.
"Guy," he said one day, "what's the heaviest metal you ever handled?"
"Gold," said Guy promptly.
"A bag that was too heavy to have silver in it would have gold?"
"I should think so. Have you found treasure?"
"No," said Nicholas, "I was wondering."
The _Rose-in-June_ came back before she was due. Master Garland came
up to the house with Gilbert Gay, one rainy evening when Nicholas and
Genevieve were playing nine-men's-morris in a corner and their mother
was embroidering a girdle by the light of a bracket lamp. Nicholas had
been taught not to interrupt, and he did not, but he was glad when his
mother said gently, but with shining eyes, "Nicholas, come here."
It was a queer story that Captain Garland had to tell, and nobody could
make out exactly what it meant. Two or three years before he had met
Ranulph, who was then a troubadour in the service of Prince Henry of
Anjou, and he had taken a casket of gold pieces to Tomaso the physician,
who was then in Genoa.
"They do say," said Captain Garland, pulling at his russet beard, "that
the old doctor can do anything short o' raising the dead. They fair
worshiped him there, I know. But it's my notion that that box o' gold
pieces wasn't payment for physic."
"Probably not," said the merchant smiling. "Secret messengers are more
likely to deliver their messages if no one knows they have any. But what
happened this time?"
"Why," said the sea captain, "I found the old doctor in his garden,
with a great cat o' Malta stalking along beside him, and I gave him the
packet. He opened it and read the letter, and then he untied a little
leather purse and spilled out half a dozen gold pieces and some jewels
that fair made me blink--not many, but beauties--rubies and emeralds and
pearls. He beckoned toward the house and a man in pilgrim's garb came
out and valued the jewels. Then he sent me back to the _Rose-in-June_
with the worth o' the jewels in coined gold and this ring here. 'Tell
the boy,' says he, 'that he saved the King's jewels, and that he has a
better jewel than all of them, the jewel of honor.'"
"But, father," said Nicholas, rather puzzled, "what else could I do?"
None of them could make anything of the mystery, but as Tomaso of Padua
talked with Eloy the goldsmith that same evening they agreed that the
price they paid was cheap. In the game the Pope's party was playing
against that of the Emperor for the mastery of Europe, it had been
deemed advisable to find out whether Henry Plantagenet would rule the
Holy Roman Empire if he could. He had refused the offer of the throne
of the Caesars, and it was of the utmost importance that no one should
know that the offer had been made. Hence the delivery of the letter to
the jeweler.
LONDON BELLS
London town is fair and great,
Many a tower and steeple.
Bells ring early and ring late,
Mocking all the people.
Some they say, "Good provender,"
Some they sing, "Sweet lavender,"
Some they call, "The taverner,"
Some they cry, "The fripperer
Is lord of London Town!"
London town is great and wide,
Many a stately dwelling,
And her folk that there abide
Are beyond all telling.
But by land or water-gate,
Aldgate, Newgate, Bishopsgate,
Ludgate, Moorgate, Cripplegate,
Bells ring early and ring late,
The bells of London Town.
VIII
BARBARA, THE LITTLE GOOSE-GIRL
HOW BARBARA SOLD GEESE IN THE CHEPE AND WHAT FORTUNE SHE FOUND THERE
Any one who had happened to be traveling along the Islington Road
between two and three o'clock in the morning, when London was a walled
city, would have seen how London was to be fed that day. But very few
were on the road at that hour except the people whose business it was to
feed London, and to them it was an old story. There were men with cattle
and men with sheep and men with pigs; there were men with little, sober,
gray donkeys, not much bigger than a large dog, trotting all so briskly
along with the deep baskets known as paniers hung on each side their
backs; men with paniers or huge sacks on their own backs, partly resting
on the shoulders and partly held by a leather strap around the forehead;
men with flat, shallow baskets on their heads, piled three and four deep
and filled with vegetables. That was the way in which all the butter,
fruit, poultry, eggs, meat, and milk for Londoners to eat came into
medieval London. Before London Wall was fairly finished there were laws
against any one within the city keeping cattle or pigs on the premises.
Early every morning the market folk started from the villages round
about,--there were women as well as men in the business--and by the
time the city gates opened they were there.
It was not as exciting to Barbara Thwaite as it would have been if she
had not known every inch of the road, but it was exciting enough on this
particular summer morning, for in all her thirteen years she had never
been to market alone. Goody Thwaite had been trudging over the road
several times a week for years--seven miles to London and seven miles
home--and sometimes she had taken Barbara with her, but never had she
sent the child by herself. Now she was bedridden and unless they were
to lose all their work for the last month or more, Barbara would have
to go to market and tend their stall. Several of the neighbors had
stalls near by, and they would look after the child, but this was the
busy season, and they could not undertake to carry any produce but
their own. A neighbor, too old to do out-of-door work, would tend the
mother, and with much misgiving and many cautions, consent was given,
and Barbara set bravely forth alone.
She had her hands full in more senses than one. Besides the basket she
carried on her head, full of cress from the brook, sallet herbs and
under these some early cherries, she had a basket of eggs on her arm,
and she was driving three geese. Barbara's geese were trained to walk
in the most orderly single file at home, but she had her doubts as to
their behavior in a strange place.
The Islington Road, however, was not the broad and dusty highway that it
is to-day, and at first it was not very crowded. Now and again, from one
of the little wooded lanes that led up to farmsteads, a marketman would
turn into the highway with his load, and more and more of them appeared
as they neared the city, so that by the time they reached the city
gate it was really a dense throng. From roads in every direction just
such crowds were pressing toward all the other gates, and boats laden
with green stuff, fruits, butter and cheese were heading for the wharves
on Thames-side, all bound for the market.
Naturally it had been discovered long before that some sort of order
would have to be observed, or there would be a frightful state of things
among the eatables. Like most cities, London was inhabited largely by
people who had come from smaller towns, and certain customs were common
more or less to every market-town in England. In the smaller towns the
cattle-market was held weekly or fortnightly, so that people not
anxious to deal in cattle could avoid the trampling herds. London's
cattle-market was not in the Chepe at all. It was in the fields outside
the walls, in the deep inbent angle which the wall made between
Aldersgate and Newgate, where Smithfield market is now. Even in the
Chepe each kind of goods had its own place, and once through the gates
the crowd separated.
[Illustration: "BARBARA KNEW EXACTLY WHERE TO GO"--_Page 97_]
Barbara knew exactly where to go. From Aldersgate she turned to the left
and followed the narrow streets toward the spire of St. Michael's Church
in Cornhill, where the poultry-dealers had their stands. Close by was
Scalding Alley, sometimes known as the Poultry, where poultry were sold
by the score, and the fowls were scalded after being killed, to make
them ready for cooking. Goody Thwaite's little corner, wedged in between
two bigger stalls, was not much more than a board with a coarse awning
over it, but she had been there a long time and her neighbors were
friends. Barbara set down her loads, dropped on the bench and scattered
a little grain for her geese. They had really behaved very well.
She was not very much to look at, this little lass Barbara. Her
grandfather had come from the North Country, and she had black hair and
eyes like a gypsy. She was rather silent as a rule, though she could
sing like a blackbird when no one was about. People were likely to
forget about Barbara until they wanted something done; then they
remembered her.
She penned in the geese with a small hurdle of wicker so that they
should not get away; she set out the cherries and cress on one side and
the eggs on the other; then she put the eggs in a bed of cress to set
off their whiteness; then she waited. An apprentice boy came by and
asked the price of the cherries, whistled and went on; a sharp-faced
woman stopped and looked over what she had, and went on. They were all
in a hurry; they were all going on some errand of their own. The next
person who came by was an old woman with a fresh bright face, white cap
and neat homespun gown. She too asked the price of the cherries and
shook her head when she heard it. "How good that cress looks!" she said
smiling.
Barbara held out a bunch of the cress.
"I can't give away the cherries," she said, "they are not mine, but
you're welcome to this."
"Thank you kindly, little maid," the old woman said, "my grandson's o'er
fond of it. Never was such a chap for sallets and the like."
A few minutes later a stout, rather fussy man stopped and bought the
whole basket of eggs. As he paid for them and signed to the boy who
followed to take them, Michael the poultryman in the next stall grinned
at Barbara.
"Ye don't know who that was, do you?" he said. "That was old Gamelyn
Bouverel the goldsmith. You'll be sorry if any of those eggs be addled,
my maiden."
"They're not," said Barbara. "I know where all our hens' nests are, and
Gaffer Edmunds' too. We sell for him since he had the palsy."
Then a tall man in a sort of uniform stopped, eyed the staff, and
without asking leave took one of the geese from the pen and strode off
with it hissing and squawking under his arm. But Michael shook his head
soberly as Barbara sprang up with a startled face.
"That was one o' the purveyors of my lord Fitz-Walter," he said. "He may
pay for the bird and he may not, but you can't refuse him. There's one
good thing--London folk don't have to feed the King's soldiers nor his
household. Old King Henry,--rest his soul!--settled that in the Charter
he gave the City, and this one has kept to it. My grand-dad used to tell
how any time you might have a great roaring archer or man-at-arms, or
more likely two or three or a dozen, quartered in your house, willy
nilly, for nobody knew how long. There goes the bell for Prime--that
ends the privilege."
Then Barbara remembered that the stewards of great houses were allowed
to visit the market and choose what they wished until Prime (about six
o'clock) after which the market was open to common folk. A merchant's
wife bought another goose and some cherries, and the remaining goose was
taken off her hands by the good-natured Michael, to make up a load of
his own for a tavern-keeper. The rest of the cherries were sold to a
young man who was very particular about the way in which they were
arranged in the basket, and Barbara guessed that he was going to take
them as a present to some one. The cress had gone a handful at a time
with the other things, and she had some of it for her own dinner, with
bread from the bakeshop and some cold meat which Goody Collins, her
neighbor on the other side, had sent for. She started for home in good
time, and brought her little store of money to her mother before any one
had even begun to worry over her absence.
The next market-day Barbara set forth with a light heart, but when she
reached her stall she found it occupied. A rough lout had set up shop
there, with dressed poultry for sale. A-plenty had been said about
it before Barbara arrived, both by Michael and the rough-tongued,
kind-hearted market-women. But Michael was old and fat, and no match for
the invader. Barbara stood in dismay, a great basket of red roses on her
head, her egg-basket on the ground, and the cherries from their finest
tree in a panier hung from her shoulder. The merchant's wife had asked
her if she could not bring some roses for rose-water and conserve, and
if she had to hawk them about in the sun they would be fit for nothing.
The Poultry was crowded, and unless she could have her little foothold
here she would be obliged to go about the streets peddling, which she
knew her mother would not like at all.
"What's the trouble here?" asked a decided voice behind her. She turned
to look up into the cool gray eyes of a masterful young fellow with a
little old woman tucked under his arm. He was brown and lithe and had an
air of outdoor freshness, and suddenly she recognized the old woman. It
was that first customer, and this must be the grandson of whom she had
spoken so fondly.
"This man says he has this place and means to keep it," Barbara
explained in a troubled but firm little voice. "He says that only the
poultry dealers have any right here,--but it's Mother's corner and she
has had it a long time."
"Aye, that she has," chorused two or three voices. "And if there was a
man belonging to them you'd see yon scamp go packing, like a cat out o'
the dairy. 'Tis a downright shame, so 'tis."
"Maybe a man that don't belong to them will do as well," said the youth
coolly. "Back here, gammer, out of the way--and you go stand by her,
little maid. Now then, you lummox, are you going to pick up your goods
and go, or do I have to throw them after you?"
The surly fellow eyed the new-comer's broad shoulders and hard-muscled
arms for a moment, picked up his poultry and began to move, but as he
loaded his donkeys he said something under his breath which Barbara did
not hear. An instant later she beheld him lying on his back in a
none-too-clean gutter with her defender standing over him. He lost no
time in making his way out of the street, followed by the laughter of
the Poultry. Even the ducks, geese and chickens joined in the cackle of
merriment.
"Sit thee down and rest," said the youth to Barbara kindly. "We must be
getting on, grandmother. If he makes any more trouble, send some one,
or come yourself, to our lodging--ask for Robert Edrupt at the house
of Master Hardel the wool-merchant."
"Thank you," said Barbara shyly. "There's plenty cress in the brook, and
I'll bring some next market-day--and strawberries too, but not for pay."
"Kindness breeds kindness, little maid," added the old woman, and
Barbara reflected that it sometimes breeds good fortune also.
This was not the end of Barbara's acquaintance with Dame Lysbeth and her
grandson. The old dame had taken a fancy to the self-possessed, quaintly
dignified little maid, and the Thwaite garden proved to have in it many
fruits and herbs which she needed in her housekeeping. It was a very
old-fashioned garden planted a long time ago by a tavern-keeper from
the south of France, and he had brought some pears and plums from his
old home in the south and grafted and planted and tended them very
carefully. There was one tree which had two kinds of pears on it, one
for the north side and one for the south.
Barbara's mother did not get any better. One day Robert Edrupt stopped
in the Poultry to buy a goose for dinner, to celebrate his home-coming
from a long wool-buying journey, and the stall was empty.
"Aye," said Goody Collins, wiping her eyes, "she was a good-hearted
woman, was Alison Thwaite, and there's many who will miss her. She died
two days ago, rest her soul."
Edrupt bought his goose of Michael and went on his way looking sober. A
plan had occurred to him, and when he talked it over with Dame Lysbeth
she heartily agreed. A day or two later Barbara, standing in the door of
the little lonely cottage and wondering what she should do now, saw the
two of them coming down the lane. Dame Lysbeth opened the gate and came
in, but Robert, after a bow and a pleasant word or two to Barbara, went
on to the next farm on an errand.
Barbara could hardly believe her ears when she heard what the old dame
had to say. The young wool-merchant had brought his grandmother to
London to keep house for him because he did not like to leave her alone
in her cottage in the west country, nor could he live there so far from
the great markets. But neither of them liked the city, and for the next
few years he would have to be away more than ever. He and Master Gay had
been considering a scheme for importing foreign sheep to see if they
would improve the quality of English wool. Before they did this Edrupt
would have to go to Spain, to Aquitaine, to Lombardy and perhaps even
further. While he was abroad he might well study the ways of the weavers
as well as the sheep that grew the fleece. He wanted to buy a farm he
had seen, with a tidy house on it, where Dame Lysbeth could have the
sort of home she was used to, but with maids to do the heavy farm work.
If Barbara would come and live there, and help see to things, she would
be very welcome indeed as long as she chose to stay.
Dame Lysbeth had never had a daughter, and she had often thought in the
last few months that if she had one, she would like to have just such
a girl as Barbara. The young girl, on her side, already loved her old
friend better than she had ever loved anybody but her own mother, and so
it came about that when the spring turned the apple orchards white about
King's Barton, three very happy people went from London to the farm near
that village, known as the Long Lea. It had land about it which was not
good enough for corn, but would do very well for geese and for sheep,
and there was room for a large garden, as well as the orchard. Even in
those early days, people who bought an English farm usually inherited
some of the work of the previous owner, and as Robert said, they would
try to farm Long Lea in such a way as to leave it richer than they found
it, and still lose no profit.
"Don't forget to take cuttings from this garden, lass," he said to
Barbara in his blunt, kindly way, as they stood there together for the
last time. "There are things here which we can make thrive in the years
to come."
"I have," said Barbara staidly. She motioned to a carefully packed and
tied parcel in a sack. "And there's a whole basket of eggs from all our
fowls."
Edrupt laughed. He liked her business-like little way.
"Did you take any red-rose cuttings?" he inquired. "There's a still-room
where the old castle used to be, and they'd use some, I believe."
"It's the Provence rose," Barbara said. "I took the whole bush up and
set it in a wooden bucket. Michael won't want that."
Michael the poultryman was adding the little garden and the stall in the
Poultry to his own business. He would cart away the little tumbledown
cottage and plant kale there.
"The Provence rose, is it?" queried Edrupt thoughtfully. "We'll have it
beside our door, Barbara, and that will make you feel more at home."
Both Barbara and the roses throve by transplanting. When Edrupt came
home from his long foreign journey, more than a year later, it was
rose-time, and Barbara, with a basket of roses on her arm, was
marshaling a flock of most important mother-ducks with their ducklings
into the poultry-yard. The house with its tiled and thatched roofs sat
in the middle of its flocks and fruits and seemed to welcome all who
came, and Dame Lysbeth, beaming from the window, looked so well content
that it did him good to see her.
HARPER'S SONG
O listen, good people in fair guildhall--
(Saxon gate, Norman tower on the Roman wall)
A King in forest green and an Abbot in gray
Rode west together on the Pilgrims' Way,
And the Abbot thought the King was a crossbowman,
And the King thought the Abbot was a sacristan.
(On White Horse Hill the bright sun shone,
And blithe sang the wind by the Blowing Stone,--
O, the bridle-bells ring merrily-sweet
To the clickety-clack of the hackney's feet!)
Said the King in green to the Abbot in gray,
"Shrewd-built is yon Abbey as I hear say,
With Purbeck marble and Portland stone,
Stately and fair as a Caesar's throne."
"Not so," quo' the Abbot, and shook his wise head,--
"Well-founded our cloisters, when all is said,
But the stones be rough as the mortar is thick,
And piers of rubble are faced with brick."
(The Saxon crypt and the Norman wall
Keep faith together though Kingdoms fall,--
O, the mellow chime that the great bells ring
Is wooing the folk to the one true King!)
Said the Abbot in gray to the King in green,
"Winchester Castle is fair to be seen,
And London Tower by the changeful tide
Is sure as strong as the seas are wide."
But the King shook his head and spurred on his way,--
"London is loyal as I dare say,
But the Border is fighting us tooth and horn,
And the Lion must still hunt the Unicorn."
(The trumpet blared from the fortress tower,
The stern alarum clanged the hour,--
O, the wild Welsh Marches their war-song sing
To the tune that the swords on the morions ring!)
The King and the Abbot came riding down
To the market-square of Chippenham town,
Where wool-packs, wheatears, cheese-wych, flax,
Malmsey and bacon pay their tax.
Quo' the King to the Abbot, "The Crown must live
By what all England hath to give."
"Faith," quoth the Abbot, "good sign is here
Tithes are a-gathering for our clerkes' cheer."
(The song of the Mint is the song I sing,
The crown that the beggar may share with the King,
And the clink of the coin rhymes marvelous well
To castle, or chapel, or market-bell!)
[Illustration]
IX
RICHARD'S SILVER PENNY
HOW RICHARD SOLD A WEB OF RUSSET AND MADE THE BEST OF A BAD BARGAIN
Richard was going to market. He was rather a small boy to be going on
that errand, especially as he carried on his shoulder a bundle nearly
as big as he was. But his mother, with whom he lived in a little,
whitewashed timber-and-plaster hut at the edge of the common, was too
ill to go, and the Cloth Fair was not likely to wait until she was well
again.
The boy could hardly remember his father. Sebastian Garland was a
sailor, and had gone away so long ago that there was little hope that he
would ever come back. Ever since Richard could remember they had lived
as they did now, mainly by his mother's weaving. They had a few sheep
which were pastured on the common, and one of the neighbors helped them
with the washing and shearing. The wool had to be combed and sorted and
washed in long and tedious ways before it was ready to spin, and before
it was woven it was dyed in colors that Dame Garland made from plants
she found in the woods and fields. She had been a Highland Scotch girl,
and could weave tyrtaine, as the people in the towns called the plaids.
None of the English people knew anything about the different tartans
that belonged to the Scottish clans, but a woman who could weave those
could make woolen cloth of a very pretty variety of patterns. She worked
as a dyer, too, when she could find any one who would pay for the work,
and sometimes she did weaving for a farm-wife who had more than her
maids could do.
Richard knew every step of the work, from sheep-fleece to loom, and
wherever a boy could help, he had been useful. He had gone to get elder
bark, which, with iron filings, would dye black; he had seen oak bark
used to dye yellow, and he knew that madder root was used for red, and
woad for blue. His mother could not afford to buy the turmeric, indigo,
kermes, and other dyestuffs brought from far countries or grown in
gardens. She had to depend on whatever could be got for nothing. The
bright rich colors which dyers used in dyeing wool for the London market
were not for her. Yellow, brown, some kinds of green, black, gray and
dull red she could make of common plants, mosses and the bark of trees.
The more costly dyestuffs were made from plants which did not grow wild
in England, or from minerals.
Richard was thinking about all this as he trudged along the lane, and
thinking also that it would be much easier for them to get a living if
it were not for the rules of the Weavers' Guild. This association was
one of the most important of the English guilds of the twelfth century,
and had a charter, or protecting permit, from the King, which gave them
special rights and privileges. He had also established the Cloth Fair at
Smithfield in London, the greatest of all the cloth-markets that were so
called. If any man did the guild "any unright or dis-ease" there was a
fine of ten pounds, which would mean then more than fifty dollars would
to-day. Later he protected the weavers still further by ordaining that
the Portgrave should burn any cloth which had Spanish wool mixed with
the English, and the weavers themselves allowed no work by candle-light.
This helped to keep up the standard of the weaving, and to prevent
dishonest dealers from lowering the price by selling inferior cloth. As
early as 1100 Thomas Cole, the rich cloth worker of Reading, whose wains
crowded the highway to London, had secured a charter from Henry I., this
King's grandfather, and the measure of the King's own arm had been taken
for the standard ell-measure throughout the kingdom.
Richard knew all this, because, having no one else to talk to, his
mother had talked much with him; and the laws of Scotland and England
differed in so many ways that she had had to find out exactly what she
might and might not do. In some of the towns the weavers' guilds had
made a rule that no one within ten miles who did not belong to the guild
or did not own sheep should make dyed cloth. This was profitable to the
weavers in the association, but it was rather hard on those who were
outside, and not every one was allowed to belong. The English weavers
were especially jealous of foreigners, and some of their rules had been
made to discourage Flemish and Florentine workmen and traders from
getting a foothold in the market.
Richard had been born in England, and when he was old enough to earn a
living, he intended to repay his mother for all her hard and lonely work
for him. As an apprentice to the craft he could grow up in it and belong
to the Weavers' Guild himself some day, but he thought that if there
were any way to manage it he would rather be a trader. He felt rather
excited now as he hurried to reach the village before the bell should
ring for the opening of the market.
King's Barton was not a very big town, but on market days it seemed very
busy. There was an irregular square in the middle of the town, with a
cross of stone in the center, and the ringing of this bell gave notice
for the opening and closing of the market. It was not always the same
sort of market. Once a week the farmers brought in their cattle and
sheep. On another day poultry was sold. In the season, there were corn
markets and grass markets, for the crops of wheat and hay; and in every
English town, markets were held at certain times for whatever was
produced in the neighborhood. Everybody knew when these days came, and
merchants from the larger cities came then to buy or sell--on other
days they would have found the place half asleep. In so small a town
there was not trade enough to support a shop for the sale of clothing,
jewelry and foreign wares; but a traveling merchant could do very well
on market days.
When Richard came into the square the bell had just begun to ring, and
the booths were already set up and occupied. His mother had told him to
look for Master Elsing, a man to whom she had sometimes sold her cloth,
but he was not there. In his stall was a new man. There was some trade
between London and the Hanse, or German cities, and sometimes they sent
men into the country to buy at the fairs and markets and keep an eye on
trade. Master Elsing had been one of these, and he had always given a
fair price. The new man smiled at the boy with his big roll of cloth,
and said, "What have you there, my fine lad?"
Richard told him. The man looked rather doubtful. "Let me see it," he
said.
The cloth was a soft, thick rough web with a long furry nap. If it was
made into a cloak the person who wore it could have the nap sheared off
when it was shabby, and wear it again and shear it again until it was
threadbare. A man who did this work was called a shearman or sherman.
The strange merchant pursed his lips and fingered the cloth. "Common
stuff," he said, "I doubt me the dyes will not be fast color, and it
will have to be finished at my cost. There is no profit for me in it,
but I should like to help you--I like manly boys. What do you want for
it?"
Richard named the price his mother had told him to ask. There was an
empty feeling inside him, for he knew that unless they sold that cloth
they had only threepence to buy anything whatever to eat, and it would
be a long time to next market day. The merchant laughed. "You will never
make a trader if you do not learn the worth of things, my boy," he said
good-naturedly. "The cloth is worth more than that. I will give you
sixpence over, just by way of a lesson."
Richard hesitated. He had never heard of such a thing as anybody
offering more for a thing than was asked, and he looked incredulously
at the handful of silver and copper that the merchant held out. "You had
better take it and go home," the man added. "Think how surprised your
mother will be! You can tell her that she has a fine young son--Conrad
Waibling said so."
Richard still hesitated, and Waibling withdrew the money. "You may ask
any one in the market," he said impatiently, "and if you get a better
price than mine I say no more."
"Thank you," said Richard soberly, "I will come back if I get no other
offer."
He took his cloth to the oldest of the merchants and asked him if he
would better Waibling's price, but the man shook his head. "More than
it is worth," he said. "Nobody will give you that, my boy." And from
two others he got the same reply. He went back to Waibling finally,
left the cloth and took his price.
He had never seen a silver penny before. It had a cross on one side and
the King's head on the other, as the common pennies did; it was rather
tarnished, but he rubbed it on his jacket to brighten it. He thought
he would like to have it bright and shining when he showed it to his
mother. All the time that he was sitting on a bank by the roadside,
a little way out of the town, eating his bread and cheese, he was
polishing the silver penny. A young man who rode by just then, with a
black-eyed young woman behind him, reined in his horse and looked down
with some amusement. "What art doing, lad?" he asked.
"It's my silver penny," said Richard. "I wanted it to be fine and bonny
to show mother."
"Ha!" said the young man. "Let's see." Richard held up the penny. "Who
gave you that, my boy?"
"Master Waibling the cloth-merchant," said Richard, and he told the
story of the bargain.
The young man looked grave. "Barbara," he said to the girl, "art anxious
to get home? Because I have business with this same Waibling, and I want
to find him before he leaves the town."
The girl smiled demurely. "That's like thee, Robert," she said. "Ever
since I married thee,--and long before, it's been the same. I won't
hinder thee. Leave me at Mary Lavender's and I'll have a look about her
garden."
The two rode off at a brisk pace, and Richard saw them halt at a gate
not far away, and while the girl went in the man mounted his horse again
and came back. "Jump thee up behind me, young chap," he ordered, "and
we'll see to this. The silver penny is not good. He probably got it in
some trade and passed it off on the first person who would take it. Look
at this one."
Edrupt held up a silver penny from his own purse.
"I didn't know," said Richard slowly. "I thought all pennies were
alike."
"They're not--but until the new law was passed they were well-nigh
anything you please. You see, this penny he gave you is an old one.
Before the new law some time, when the King needed money very badly,--in
Stephen's time maybe--they mixed the silver with lead to make it go
further. That's why it would not shine. And look at this." He took out
another coin. "This is true metal, but it has been clipped. Some thief
took a bag full of them probably, clipped each one as much as he dared,
passed off the coins for good money, and melted down the parings of
silver to sell. Next time you take a silver penny see that it is pure
bright silver and quite round."
By this time they were in the market-place. Edrupt dismounted, and gave
Richard the bridle to hold; then he went up to Waibling's stall, but the
merchant was not there.
"He told me to mind it for him," said the man in the next booth. "He
went out but now and said he would be back in a moment."
But the cloth-merchant did not come back. The web of cloth he had bought
from Richard was on the counter, and that was the only important piece
of goods he had bought. Quite a little crowd gathered about by the time
they had waited awhile. Richard wondered what it all meant. Presently
Edrupt came back, laughing.
"He has left town," he said to Richard. "He must have seen me before I
met you. I have had dealings with him before, and he knew what I would
do if I caught him here. Well, he has left you your cloth and the price
of the stuff, less one bad penny. Will you sell the cloth to me? I am a
wool-merchant, not a cloth-merchant, but I can use a cloak made of good
homespun."
Richard looked up at his new friend with a face so bright with gratitude
and relief that the young merchant laughed again. "What are you going to
do with the penny?" he asked the boy, curiously.
"I'd like to throw it in the river," said Richard in sudden wrath. "Then
it would cheat no more poor folk."
"They say that if you drop a coin in a stream it is a sign you will
return," said Edrupt, still laughing, "and we want neither Waibling nor
his money here again. Suppose we nail it up by the market-cross for a
warning to others? How would that be?"
This was the beginning of a curious collection of coins that might be
seen, some years later, nailed to a post in the market of King's Barton.
There were also the names of those who had passed them, and in time,
some dishonest goods also were fastened up there for all to see. When
Richard saw the coin in its new place he gave a sigh of relief.
"I'll be going home now," he said. "Mother's alone, and she will be
wanting me."
"Ride with me so far as Dame Lavender's," said the wool-merchant
good-naturedly. "What's thy name, by the way?"
"Richard Garland. Father was a sailor, and his name was Sebastian," said
the boy soberly. "Mother won't let me say he is drowned, but I'm afraid
he is."
"Sebastian Garland," repeated Edrupt thoughtfully. "And so thy mother
makes her living weaving wool, does she?"
"Aye," answered Richard. "She's frae Dunfermline last, but she was born
in the Highlands."
"My wife's grandmother was Scotch," said Edrupt absently. He was trying
to remember where he had heard the name Sebastian Garland. He set
Richard down after asking him where he lived, and took his own way home
with Barbara, his wife of a year. He told Barbara that the town was well
rid of a rascal, but she knew by his silence thereafter that he was
thinking out a plan.
"Some day," he spoke out that evening, "there'll be a law in the land to
punish these dusty-footed knaves. They go from market to market cheating
poor folk, and we have no hold on them because we cannot leave our work.
But about this lad Richard Garland, Barbara, I've been a-thinking. What
if we let him and his mother live in the little cottage beyond the
sheepfold? The boy could help in tending the sheep. If they've had sheep
o' their own they'll know how to make 'emselves useful, I dare say. And
then, when these foreign fleeces come into the market, the dame could
have dyes and so on, and we should see what kind o' cloth they make."
This was the first change in the fortunes of Richard Garland and his
mother. A little more than a year later Sebastian Garland, now captain
of Master Gay's ship, the _Rose-in-June_, of London, came into port and
met Robert Edrupt. On inquiry Edrupt learned that the captain had lost
his wife and son many years before in a town which had been swept by the
plague. When he heard of the Highland-born woman living in the Longley
cottage, he journeyed post-haste to find her, and discovered that she
was indeed his wife, and Richard his son. By the time that Richard was
old enough to become a trader, a court known as the Court of Pied-poudre
or Dusty Feet had been established by the King at every fair. Its
purpose was to prevent peddlers and wandering merchants from cheating
the folk. The common people got the name "Pie-powder Court," but that
made it none the less powerful. King Henry also appointed itinerant
justices--traveling judges--to go about from place to place and
judge according to the King's law, with the aid of the sheriffs of
the neighborhood who knew the customs of the people. The general
instructions of these courts were that when the case was between a rich
man and a poor man, the judges were to favor the poor man until and
unless there was reason to do otherwise. The Norman barons, coming from
a country in which they had been used to be petty kings each in his own
estate, did not like this much, but little the King cared for that.
Merchants like young Richard Garland found it most convenient to have
one law throughout the land for all honest men. Remembering his own hard
boyhood, Richard never failed to be both just and generous to a boy.
PERFUMER'S SONG
The rule of the world is heavy and hard,
Taketh of every life a share,
Strive as it may to cherish and guard
The dawning hope that was all so fair,
And yet, so sure as the night-wind blows,
Memory dwells in her place apart,
And the savor of rue or the breath of a rose
Brings peace out of trouble, dear heart, dear heart!
There was never a joy that the world can kill
So long as there lives a dream of the past,
For the alchemist in his fragrant still
Keeps fresh the dream to the very last.
So sure as the wind of the morning blows
To heal the trouble, to cool the smart,
The breath of lavender, thyme and rose
Will bring to thee comfort, dear heart, dear heart!
[Illustration]
X
MARY LAVENDER'S GARDEN
HOW MARY LAVENDER CAME TO BE OF SERVICE TO AN EXILED QUEEN
Mary Lavender lived in a garden. That seems really the best way to say
it. The house of Dame Annis Lavender was hardly more than four walls
and a roof, a green door and two small hooded windows. Instead of the
house having a garden the garden seemed rather to hold the cottage in
a blossomy lap.
A long time ago there had been a castle on the low hill above the
cottage. It was a Saxon castle, roughly built of great half-hewn stones,
its double walls partly of tramped earth. Nearly a century had passed
since a Norman baron had received the "hundred" in which the castle
stood, as a reward for having helped Duke William become William the
Conqueror. His domain was large enough for a hundred families to live
on, getting their living from the land. The original Saxon owner had
fled to join Hereward at Ely, and he never came back.
This rude Saxon castle was not what the Norman needed, at all. He must
have, if he meant to be safe in this hostile land, a fortress much
harder to take. He chose a taller hill just beyond the village, made it
higher with most of the stone from the old castle, and built there a
great square frowning keep and some smaller towers, with a double wall
of stone, topped by battlements, round the brow of the hill, and a ditch
around all. No stream being convenient to fill the moat he left it dry.
Here, where the Saxon castle had been, was nothing but a dimpled green
mound, starred over in spring with pink and white baby daisies, and
besprinkled with dwarf buttercups and the little flower that English
children call Blue Eyes. Mary liked to take her distaff there and spin.
The old castle had been built to guard a ford. The Normans had made a
stone bridge at a narrower and deeper point in the river, and Dame Annis
and Mary washed linen in the pool above the ford.
The countryside had settled down to the rule of the Normans with hardly
more trouble than the dismantled mound. Travelers often came over the
new bridge and stayed at the inn on their way to or from London, and
there were more than twice as many houses as there had been when Mary's
mother was a girl. Older people complained that the country could never
endure so much progress. This was a rather remote region, given over
mainly to sheep-grazing. On the great extent of "common" still unfenced,
the sheep wandered as they liked, and they often came nibbling about
Mary's feet as she sat on the mound.
There had been a garden about the ancient castle--several, in fact: the
herb-garden, the vegetable garden, and a sort of out-door nursery for
fruits and berries. The last had been against a southward-facing wall
and was nearly destroyed; but herbs are tenacious things, and the old
roots had spread into the vegetable patch, and flowers had seeded
themselves, until Dame Annis moved into the little cottage and began
to make her living.
Most of the old-fashioned cottage-garden flowers could be found there.
Thrift raised its rose-red spikes in crevices of a ruined wall.
Bluebells, the wild hyacinths, made heavenly patches of color among the
copses. Great beds of mustard and lavender, in early summer, were like
a purple-and-gold mantle flung down upon a field. Presently violets
bloomed in orderly rows in Dame Annis's new herb-garden, and roses were
pruned and trimmed and trained over old walls and trees.
It may seem odd that violets and roses should be among herbs. The truth
is that very few flowers were cultivated in the early Middle Ages
simply for ornament. Violets were used to make perfume. Roses were made
into rose-water and also into rose conserve, a kind of sweetmeat of
rose-petals, sugar and spice packed in little jars. Marigolds were
brought from the East by returning Crusaders for use in broth.
Pennyroyal, feverfew, camomile, parsley, larkspur, and other flowers
used to be grown for making medicine. One of the few herbs which grow
in modern gardens, which the Conqueror found in England when he came,
is tansy. The name comes from a Greek word meaning immortality. Tansy
was used to preserve meat, and to flavor various dishes. There were
also sage, marjoram, thyme, and many other herbs of which Dame Annis
did not know the names. One of the most precious finds that she made in
her digging and transplanting was a root of woad. This plant was used
for blue dye, and was so much in demand that England did not produce
enough and had to import it. It was too valuable for her to use it
herself; she cherished it and fed the soil, planting every seed,
promising Mary that some day she should have a gown dyed watchet blue,
of linen from their own flax. Mary was thinking about that gown as she
sat spinning and listening to the hum of the bees. She knew exactly how
it would be made from beginning to end.
The flax would be soaked in the brook until the strong stem-fibers were
all that were left; it would be hackled and washed and spun and finally
woven by their neighbor, Dame Garland, for Mary's mother had no loom.
This neighbor was as poor as themselves, but they would pay her in herbs
and dyestuffs. The leaves--not the flowers, which were yellow--from the
woad, would be crushed into a paste and allowed to ferment, and finally
made into little balls that would keep until needed.
Neither perfume nor dye could be bought in shops thereabouts, and there
were no factories anywhere for making either. Dame Lavender had been,
before she was married, maid to a great lady who had taught her women
how to make such things out of the plants in the castle garden. Now,
when her husband failed to come back from the wars in France, she
turned to the perfumer's trade as the one which she knew best.
There are a great many ways of making perfume at home. If she had had
a still, Dame Lavender could have made almost any sort of ordinary
perfume, flavor or medicine. In this process, a mixture of blossoms,
spices and drugs, or the blossoms alone, or the leaves, is cooked in a
glass bottle called a retort, with a long glass tube fitted to it so
that the steam must pass through the tube and cool in little drops.
These drops run out into a glass flask and are the perfume. Another way
was to gather flowers when perfectly fresh and put them into a kettle
of alcohol, which would take up the scent and keep it after the flowers
are taken out. Strong-scented flowers or leaves were put with salve in
a jar and covered, to perfume the salve. Dried plants of pleasant
fragrance, mixed with salve, could be left until the scent had been
taken up, then the whole could be melted and strained to remove the
herbs. Each herb and flower had to be gathered at the proper time, and
dried in the little attic. With this business, and the honey which the
bees made, and the spinning done by both mother and daughter, they
managed to make a living.
One day when they were at their busiest an old man came to the door and
asked for a night's lodging. He had a gentle way of speaking, although
his cloak was threadbare, and he seemed much interested in their work.
He knew some of the plants which they had never been able to name, and
told what they were good for. He seemed so old, poor and feeble, that
although she really needed all the money she could earn, Dame Lavender
refused the coin he offered her. She felt that if he fell ill somewhere,
he might need it.
The Norman castle on the hill had not been really lived in for some ten
years. There was a company of soldiers in it, with two or three knights
who came and went, but that was all. It had been built as a fortress,
and was one; and the situation was such that it could not easily be
made into anything else. The baron who owned it was in attendance upon
the King.
Then, one day, a rumor went floating about the village, like the scent
of growing hedges in spring. It was said that the castle was to be set
in order for some great lady; and that she would bring with her two or
three maids perhaps, but most of the work was to be done by the people
of the village. This was rather mystifying. Mary wondered why a great
lady should not rather choose to stay at the nunnery, where the Lady
Abbess had all things seemly and well-planned. It was an old Saxon
religious house and not at all rich; but Mary always liked to have an
errand up Minchen Lane. The lane had got its name from the nuns, who
were called "minchens" a long while ago. Sometimes they sent to get
some roots or plants from the garden of Dame Lavender. She had some
kinds that they had not.
It was nearly certain, at any rate, that the housekeeper at the castle
would want lavender and violets, and Dame Annis told Mary to get the
besom and sweep out the still-room. This was a shed with a stone floor,
the only room they had which was not used for living or sleeping. The
room they had given their strange guest, Tomaso of Padua as he called
himself, was the one where Mary and her mother usually slept, and they
had made up a pallet in the attic.
Mary worked briskly with her besom. It was just such a broom as English
people still use to sweep garden walks, a bundle of twigs tied on a
stick handle with a pliant osier. While she was at work she heard the
gate shut, and saw old Tomaso coming in.
It cannot be said that she was exactly glad to see him. She felt that
they might have all that they could do without a lodger just then. She
spoke to him courteously, however, and he smiled as if he read her
thoughts.
"I have not come to ask for your hospitality this time," he said,
"but to bring your good mother something in return for her kindness."
Beckoning to a boy who stood outside, he opened the gate, and the boy
led in a little donkey laden with the basket-work saddle-bags called
paniers. From these Tomaso took all the parts of a still, some fine
earthen and glass jars, flasks and bowls, and bundles of spice which
were like a whole garden packed into a basket.
"These," he said, "will be of assistance to your mother in her work. I
see her coming now, and I will talk with her awhile."
Mary felt as if the earth had turned inside out when she heard the
outcome of that conversation. The lady who was coming to the castle
was Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of England, and her coming was a
considerable responsibility to every one concerned. She had been found
just ready to join her sons, Richard and Geoffrey, in Aquitaine, where
they were fighting against their father, and she was to be shut up
in this remote fortress, in charge of one of the King's most trusted
knights, until he had disposed of the rebellion and had time to consider
the case. She would not, she declared, spend her days in a nunnery,
and the nuns of Minchen Lane were anything but anxious to have her.
There was a room in the Norman castle which could be fitted up as a
still-room, and it was desirable to have whatever was needed made within
the walls if possible. Would Mary undertake to go there and make herself
useful, either in ways that might aid the cook, or in any other duties
that she saw? The cook was an Italian. The maids of honor were daughters
of Norman-French families. Barbara Edrupt, the wife of the wool-merchant
who owned Longley Farm, was also, it appeared, going to lend a hand with
the spinning and train one or two country girls for the rough work. It
was no small task to maintain a royal lady in fitting state, even though
she was a prisoner. It was more difficult here because there was little
or nothing to do it with, and peddlers, merchants and other purveyors
from distant London or Paris might be a source of danger.
Dame Annis Lavender was rather doubtful, but she had confidence in Mary,
and it was settled that Mary should go. She was to have the gown of blue
sooner than she thought. The flax was already spun, Dame Garland did the
weaving, and she and Mary's mother dipped and dipped again until the web
was a deep exquisite blue like a summer sky. Barbara made Mary a gift of
a fair white linen cap and kerchief. The two girls, Barbara with her
black eyes and hair, Mary with her gold-brown braids and calm blue eyes
and wild-rose coloring, made a pretty picture together.
So at least thought the troubadour who came riding by and saw them. He
was in attendance upon the castellan, Thibaut of Toulouse, and a little
group of maids and pages coming to make ready for the Queen, who was
expected to arrive the next day. Thibaut's wife had been a Provencal
lady, and his daughter Philippa, by whose side the troubadour was
riding, was a trifle homesick for her childhood speech. She was very
glad of Ranulph's company.
As they came past the garden she bent sidewise in her saddle and looked
eagerly toward the gate. "Do you see--there?" she cried. "That is a
Provence rose."
"I will bring you some," the troubadour answered, and a moment later he
was striding toward the two girls among the flowers. They had never seen
any one like him,--so gay, so courteous and so straightforward.
"I come to beg a rose," he said. "Are not these the red roses of
Provence?"
"Surely," answered Barbara. "I brought the bush from my own home, and
gave Mary a cutting. There never was such a rose for bloom and
sweetness, we think. My husband he says so too."
Barbara blushed and smiled a little when she spoke of Robert, and she
and Mary quickly filled a basket with the roses. The next morning
Ranulph came again with the Provencal maid of honor to get more flowers,
and "strowing herbs,"--sweet-scented plants that gave out their
fragrance when trodden upon. The rushes used for floor-covering were
often mixed with these on festival days, and when new rushes were to be
put down the whole might be swept into the fire and burned. The maids of
honor made garlands for the wall, and thus the first breath of air the
Queen drew in her grim, small stone rooms high in the castle keep, was
laden with the scent of the blossoms of the South.
It was a cheerless abode, Mary and Barbara thought. There were no
hangings, no costly dishes nor candlesticks, no weapons or anything that
could be made into a weapon, nor any jewels or rich clothing.
Mary wondered a little that certain richly embroidered tapestries which
belonged to the nuns had not been borrowed, for she knew that the Lady
Abbess had lent them now and then. Philippa could have told her.
"It is well," said the Queen haughtily when she had seen her apartments,
"that they have given me no gold-woven arras for my prison. I think I
would burn it for the gold--if any of these jailers of mine could be
bought perchance."
The captivity of the royal prisoner was not, however, very severe. She
sometimes rode out under guard, she was allowed to walk upon the terrace
and in the walled garden, and she talked sometimes with the troubadour
and with old Tomaso. In one of the older towers of the castle the
physician had his rooms, and here he read in ancient books, or brewed
odd mixtures in his retorts and crucibles. He taught Mary more about the
management of a still, the use of herbs and the making of essences than
she had ever dreamed there was to learn. Physicians in those days might
be quacks or alchemists. Here and there one was what we call an
experimental chemist. Nearly a hundred years later some of Tomaso's
papers proved most valuable to the University of Padua.
PAVEMENT SONG
All along the cobblestones by Saint Paul's,
Clippety-clack the music runs, quick footfalls,
Folk that go a-hurrying, all on business bent,
They'll come to us in time, and we are content.
So we keep our cobble-shop, by Saint Paul's
Hammer-stroke and wax-thread, chasing up the awls,
Cobbling is a merry trade,--we'll not change with you,
We've leather good cheap, and all we can do!
XI
SAINT CRISPIN'S DAY
HOW CRISPIN, THE SHOEMAKER'S SON, MADE A SHOE FOR A LITTLE DAMSEL, AND
NEW STREETS IN LONDON
"Rip-rap--tip-tap--
Tick-a-tack--too!
Scarlet leather sewed together--
Thus we make a shoe!"
--WILLIAM ALLINGHAM.
London was a busy town when the long Venetian galleys and the tall ships
of Spain anchored in the Pool of the Thames. Leather and silk and linen
and velvet and broadcloth came to the London wharves, and London people
were busy buying, selling, making and decorating every sort of apparel,
from the girdle to hold a sword to the silken hood and veil of a lady.
And nobody was busier than the men who worked in leather.
Nowadays we go into a shop and try on shoes made perhaps a thousand
miles away, until we find a pair that will fit. But when Crispin Eyre's
father sold a pair of shoes he had seen those shoes made in his own
shop, under his own eye, and chosen the leather. It might be calfskin
from the yard of a tanner, who bought his hides from the man who had
raised the calf on his farm, or it might be fine soft goatskin out of
a bale from the galleons of Spain. In either case he had to know all
about leather, or he would not succeed in the shoe business. The man
who aspired to be a master shoemaker had to know how to make the whole
shoe. More different kinds of shoes were made in Thomas Eyre's shop
than most shops sell to-day, and as he had begun to use the hammer and
the awl when he was not yet ten years old, he knew how every kind
should be made.
Early in the morning, before a modern family would be awake, hammers
were going in the shoe-shops--tap-tap--tick-a-tack--tack! Sometimes by
the light of a betty lamp in the early winter evenings the journeymen
would be still at work, drawing the waxed thread carefully and quickly
through the leather. Hand-sewn and made of well-tanned hide, such a shoe
could be mended again and again before it was outworn. Riding-boots,
leather shoes, slippers, sandals, clogs, pattens, shoes of cloth, silk,
morocco, cloth-of-gold, velvet, with soles made of wood, leather, cork
and sometimes even iron, went to and fro in the shadow of St. Paul's
Cathedral, and sooner or later every kind crossed the threshold of
Thomas Eyre's shop. The well-to-do came to order shoes for themselves,
and the wooden-shod and barefoot came to get the shoes others would
wear.
Each trade kept to its own street, even in those early days. When the
Guilds had multiplied so that each part of each trade had its own
workers, who were not supposed to do anything outside their trade,
the man who made a shoe never mended one, and the cobbler never made
anything. Each trade had its Guild Hall, where the members met for
business councils or holidays, and some of them had their favorite
churches. It was like a very exclusive club. Men and women belonged to
these societies, they made rules about the length of time a man must
work before he could be a master workman, and they took care of their
own poor folk out of a common fund. Each Guild had its patron saint,
connected in some way with the craft it represented. The especial saint
of the shoemakers was St. Crispin, and his day was the twenty-fifth of
October.
The leather workers were among the most important artisans of London,
and in course of time each branch of the trade had its own Guild Hall.
The cordwainers or leather workers took their name from Cordova in
Spain, famous for its beautiful dyed, stamped, gilded and decorated
leather. The saddlers had their hall, and the lorimers or harness-makers
theirs, and the skinners and leather sellers and tanners had theirs.
London was rather behind some of the cities on the Continent, however,
both in the number and the power of her guilds. King Henry II. was not
over-inclined to favor guilds, especially in London, for London was too
independent, as it was, to please him. He had observed that when cities
grew so strong that they governed themselves they were quite likely to
make trouble for Kings, and not unnaturally, he felt that he had trouble
enough on his hands as things were without inviting more. If he had
allowed it London would have had a "Commune," as the organization of a
self-governing city was called, long ago.
Crispin heard this discussed more or less, for all sorts of chattering
and story-telling went on in the shop, and he heard also many stories
which tended to make him think. The popular tales and songs of the
Middle Ages were not by any means always respectful to Kings. The
people understood very well that there were good monarchs and bad ones,
and they were not blind to the reasons for the difference.
The story that Crispin liked best was the one about his own name, and on
this October day, seated on his low bench beside Simon, the oldest of
his shoemakers, he asked for it again.
"Aye, I'll warrant," grunted Simon, "an Eyre would be a born shoemaker,
and name him Crispin---- Eh, lad, what be you after with that leather?"
Crispin's fingers were strong, if small, and he was busy with hammer and
awl and waxed thread, making a little shoe.
"Just a shoe, Simon--go on with the story," said the boy, with a little,
shut-mouthed grin. Simon fitted the sole to the boot he was making and
picked up his hammer.
"It was a long time ago--(tap-tap) when the emperor of Rome was
a-hunting down the blessed martyrs, that there were two brothers,
Crispin and Crispian their names were, who lived in Rome and did nothing
but kindness to every one. But there be rascals--(trip-trip-trap!)--who
do not understand kindness, and ever repay it with evil. One of such a
sort lived in the same street as the two brothers, and secretly ran
to tell the Emperor that they were plotting against his life. Then
privately the wife of this evil-doer came and warned them, for that they
had given her shoes to her feet. So they fled out of the city by night
and came to France and dwelt in Soissons, where the cathedral now is.
"This England was a heathen country then, they say, and France not much
better. Before long the king of that kingdom heard of the strangers and
sent for them to know what their business was. When they said that their
business was to teach the people the story of our Lord, he asked who
this lord might be, and whether he was mightier than the king, or not.
"Then when the heathen king heard that the Lord of Crispin and Crispian
was more powerful than either King or emperor he had a mind to kill
them, but he was afraid. He asked if they had ever seen a palace finer
than his own, that was made of wood and hung with painted leather, and
they said that there were finer ones in Rome. Then said the king, 'Give
me a sign of the greatness of your Lord.' And they asked him what it
should be. And the king said, 'Cover the streets of my city with leather
and you shall go forth unharmed.' Only the rich had any leather in those
parts.
"That night Crispin and Crispian took the leather hide of their girdles
and made a pair of shoes for the king. And when they came before him in
the morning, they put the shoes upon his feet, the first shoes he had
ever seen, and told him to walk abroad and he would find all the streets
covered with leather."
The apprentices had been listening, and a laugh went round the shop, as
it always did at that part of the tale.
"Thus it came to pass," concluded Simon, "that the two brothers lived at
court and taught the king's leather workers how to make shoes, and that
is why Saint Crispin is the friend of shoemakers."
"What was the name of him who told you the tale, Simon?" Crispin asked
thoughtfully.
"Oh, he is dead these many years, but his name was Benet, and he came
from Soissons, and had been to Rome and seen the street where the
brothers lived. He had a nail out of one of the shoes they made for the
king. People came to our house while he was with us, only to see that
nail and hear the story. I heard it so many times that I learned it by
heart."
Old Simon drove in the last nail with a vicious stroke that sent it well
into the leather. "I'll warrant," he said, "the blessed Saint Crispin
made none o' them shoes we make here, with pointed toes and rose windows
on the leather, fitten for a lady." He held up the shoe with great
disfavor. It was for a courtier, and the toe was two feet long and
turned up, with a chain to fasten it to the knee. The front of the shoe
was cut into open work in a wheel shape to show the gay silken hose
underneath, and the shoe itself was of soft fine leather. With a parting
sniff, Simon tossed it to a slim, grinning youth who would finish it by
putting on gilding.
The shoe that Crispin was making was of a different sort. It was a
little round-toed sturdy thing, about the right size for a child of ten.
The mate to it was on the bench at his side, and he put them together
and looked at them rather ruefully. The shoe he had made was plain, and
the other was trimmed daintily with red morocco and cut in a quaint
round pattern on the toe--the decoration that was known as "a Paul's
window," because the geometric cut-work with the colored lining looked
like stained glass. Crispin frowned and shook his head.
"What's ailin' ye, lad?" Old Simon peered at the shoes in the boy's
hands. "Bless ye, those ben't mates!"
"I know that, but I haven't any colored leather for this one even if I
knew how to finish it," Crispin said with a sigh.
"Um-m-m!" Simon looked more closely at the little gay shoe. "That never
came from these parts. That's Turkey leather." He gave Crispin a sharp
glance. The great bell of Bow was ringing and the apprentices were
quitting work. "Where did this shoe come from, now?"
Crispin hesitated. "Don't you tell, now, Simon. I found a little maid
crying in Candlewick street--standing on one foot like a duck because
she had lost her other shoe. She was so light I could lift her up, and
I set her on a wall while I looked for the shoe, but it wasn't any good,
for a horse had stepped on it. She cried so about the shoe that I--I
said I would make her another. And then her father came back for her and
took her away."
"Who might she be?" inquired Simon dryly.
"I don't know. I didn't tell father. She said she would send for the
shoes though."
Simon had been rummaging in a leather bag behind his bench. "If she
don't there's plenty of other little wenches that wear shoes. If the
leather should be blue in place o' red, would that matter?"
"I shouldn't think so; one shoe is no good alone." Crispin began to be
hopeful.
Old Simon pulled out some pieces of soft fine leather the color of a
harebell and began to cut them quickly and deftly into fine scalloped
borders. "This ben't Turkey leather, but it is a piece from Spain, and
they learnt the trade of the paynim, so I reckon 'twill do. Stitch this
on the other shoe in place o' the red, and I'll cut the pattern."
Nobody would have believed that Simon's old, crooked fingers could
handle a knife so cleverly. In no time the pattern on the old shoe had
been copied exactly on the new one. When Crispin had stitched the blue
cut-work border on both, and Simon had rubbed the new leather on some
old scraps and cleaned the old a bit, the two little shoes looked like
twins.
"Is there a boy here named Crispin Eyre?" inquired a man's voice from
the doorway. Almost at the same time came the sweet lilting speech of
a little girl, "Oh, father, that is the boy who was so kind to me!"
Crispin and old Simon stood up and bowed, for the man who spoke was a
dignified person in the furred cloak and cap of a well-to-do merchant.
The little girl held fast to her father's hand and gazed into the shop
with bright interest. "Look at the shoes, father, aren't they pretty?"
The merchant balanced the little shoes in his broad hand. "Which did you
lose, Genevieve, child?"
"I--I don't know, father," the child said, pursing her soft lips.
"Cannot you tell?"
"By my faith," said the merchant thoughtfully, "if a London shoemaker's
boy does work like this I doubt Edrupt may be right when he says our ten
fingers are as good as any. This shoe is one of a pair from Cordova.
Who's your father, lad?"
"My father is Thomas Eyre, so please you, master," said the boy proudly,
"and I am Crispin."
"A good craft and a good name and a good workman," said the merchant,
and dropped a coin into the litter of leather scraps. It was the full
price of a new pair of shoes.
Crispin certainly could not have dreamed that his kindness to little
Genevieve Gay would be the occasion of new streets in London, but it
happened so. Master Gay, the merchant, came later to talk with Thomas
Eyre about the shoe trade. Then, instead of sending a cargo of Irish
hides abroad he gave Eyre the choice of them. Other shoemakers took the
rest, the shoe trade of London grew, and so did the tanneries. The
tanners presently needed more room by running water, and sought new
quarters outside London Wall. The business of London kept on growing
until the Leatherworkers' Guild had presently to send abroad for their
own raw material. England became more and more a manufacturing country
and less a farming country. In one or another trade almost every farming
product was of use. Hides were made into leather, beef went to the
cook-shops; horn was made into drinking-cups and lantern-lights, bones
were ground or burnt for various purposes, tallow made candles. What the
farmer had been used to do for himself on his farm, the Guilds began to
do in companies, and their farm was England.
CONCEALED WEAPONS
The tiniest weed that blooms in fallow ground
Arms all its children for the battle-field.
Its myriad warriors weapon'd cap-a-pie
Swarm forth upon the land. The bursting pods
Their elfin shrapnel scatter far and wide.
Aerial scouts on downy pinions flit,
And awns prick lancet-wise, and clutching burs
Grapple the fleeces of the wandering sheep,
Invade the farm-lands and possess the soil.
The curse of Eden falling on the flowers
Drove them to self-defense and made the world
One vast weed-garden. Yea, more dreadful still,
Buried within the heart of many a plant
Lie deadly drops of poisonous essences,
Nightshade and spearwort, aconite and poppy,
That slay more swift and sure than tempered steel.
The least of little folk, or soon or late,
May by such hidden terrors rule the great.
The least of little folk, unseen, unknown,
May find that saving strength is theirs alone.
XII
THE LOZENGES OF GIOVANNI
HOW A MILANESE BAKER-BOY AND A PADUAN PHYSICIAN KEPT POISON OUT OF THE
KING'S DISH
Ranulph the troubadour was riding along a lonely moorland trail, singing
softly to himself. In so poor a neighborhood there was little fear of
robbers, and the Barbary horse which he had under him could outrun
most other horses. The light-stepping hoofs made little noise upon the
springy turf, and as the song ended he heard some one sobbing behind a
group of stunted bushes. He halted and listened. The sound ceased.
"Ho there, little one--what is the trouble?"
He spoke in Saxon, the language of the country folk, but at the first
words a figure sprang up and dodged from shrub to rock like a scared
leveret. He called again quickly in French:
"Hola! little friend, wait a moment!"
There was no answer. Somehow he did not like to leave the mystery
unsolved. There must be a child in trouble, but what child could there
be in this wild place, and neither Norman nor Saxon? It was not far
enough to the West to be Welsh borderland, and it was too far south to
be near either Scotland or the Danelaw. He spoke in Provencal, and the
fugitive halted at the sound of the soft southern o's and a's; then he
spoke again in the Lombard dialect of Milan. A boy ventured out of the
thicket and stood staring at him. Ranulph flung himself off his horse
and held out his hand.
"Come here, little comrade, and tell me who you are, and why you are all
alone here."
The boy's dark eyes grew wider in his elvish face and his hands opened
and shut nervously as he answered in Italian:
"I am no one, and I have no home. Take me not to prison."
"There is no thought of a prison, my lad, but I cannot wait here. Come,
ride with me, and I will take you to a kind woman who will take care of
you."
The boy hesitated, but at last loneliness conquered timidity and
distrust, and he came. The troubadour swung him up to the front of the
saddle and they rode on through the gathering dusk. Forgetting his
terror as he heard the familiar sound of his native tongue, the boy told
his story readily enough. His name was Giovanni Bergamotto, but he had
been born in Milan, in the year that Barbarossa crossed the Alps. The
first thing that he could really remember was his mother crying over her
father and two brothers, who had been killed in the siege. He remembered
many days when there was nothing to eat in the house. When Milan was
taken he was old enough to walk at his mother's side as the people were
driven out and the city destroyed so that no one should ever live there
again. His father had been killed when the Emperor hung a siege-tower
all over with hostages and captives to be shot at by their own people
within the walls. He remembered his grandfather lifting him up to see
when the Carocchio was brought out, and the great crucifix above the
globe was lowered to do homage to the Emperor. He remembered seeing the
Imperial banner unfurled from the top of the Cathedral. These things,
his grandfather told him, no Milanese should ever forget.
He and his mother had wandered about from one city to another until his
mother died, two or three years later. He had worked for a pastry cook
who beat him and starved him. At last he had run away and stolen his
passage on a ship bound for England. They had beaten him when they found
him, but kept him to help the cook. When he landed at a southern port on
the English coast, he had found himself in a land of cold mist, where no
sun shone, no fruit grew, and no one knew his language. He had turned at
first naturally to the towns, for he was a city boy and craved the
companionship of the crowd. But when he said that he was a Lombard they
seemed to be angry. Perhaps there was some dreadful mistake, and he was
in a land where the Ghibellines, the friends of the Emperor, were the
rulers.
When at last he faltered out this question his new friend gave a
compassionate little laugh and patted his shoulder reassuringly.
"No, little one, there is no fear of that. This is England, and the
English King rules all the people. We have neither Guelf nor Ghibelline.
A red rose here--is just a rose," he added as he saw Giovanni's
questioning look at the crimson rose in his cap. Red roses were the
flower of the Guelf party in North-Italian cities, as the white rose was
the badge of the Ghibellines who favored the Imperial party; and the
cities were divided between the two and fiercely partisan.
"The Lombards in London," Ranulph went on, "are often money-lenders, and
this the people hate. That is why thy black hair and eyes and thy
Lombard tongue made them suspect thee, little comrade."
Giovanni gave a long sigh of relief and fell silent, and when he was
lifted off the horse at the door of Dame Lavender he had to be shaken
awake to eat his supper. Then he was put to bed in a corner of the attic
under the thatched roof, and the fragrance of well-known herbs and
flowers came stealing into his dreams on the silent wind of the night.
Language is not needed when a boy finds himself in the home of a born
mother. All the same, Giovanni felt still more as if he must have waked
up in heaven when he found sitting by the hearth a kind, grave old man
who was himself an Italian, and to whom the tragedy of the downfall of
Milan was known. Tomaso the physician told Dame Lavender all about it
while Giovanni was helping Mary sort herbs in the still-room. Mary had
learned a little of the physician's language and knew what he liked, and
partly by signs, partly in hobbling Italian, they arrived at a plan for
making a vegetable soup and cooking a chicken for dinner in a way that
Giovanni knew. As the fragrance of the simmering broth came in at the
door Tomaso sniffed it, smiled and went to see what the little waif was
about. Standing in the doorway he watched Giovanni slicing garlic and
nodded to himself. Men had died of a swift dagger-thrust in a bye-street
of Lombardy because they cut an onion or ate an orange in the enemy's
fashion. By such small signs were Guelf and Ghibelline known.
"My boy," said the old physician, when dinner was over and Giovanni,
pleased beyond measure at the compliments paid his cooking, was
awaiting further orders, "do you know that Milan is going to be
rebuilt?"
The Milanese boy's pinched white face lighted with incredulous rapture.
"Rebuilt?" he stammered.
"Some day," said Tomaso. "The people of four Lombard cities met in
secret and made that vow not three years after the Emperor gained his
victory. They have built a city at the joining of two rivers, and called
it Alexandria after the Pope whom he drove out of Rome. He still has his
own governors in the cities that he conquered, but the League is gaining
every month. Milan will be once more the Queen of the Midland--perhaps
before very long. But it is a secret."
"They may kill me," Giovanni stammered, "but I will not tell. I will
never tell."
Tomaso smiled. "I knew that, my son," he said. "That is why I spoke of
this to you. You may talk freely to me or to Ranulph the troubadour, but
to no one else unless we give you leave. You must be patient, wise and
industrious, and fit yourself to be a true citizen of the Commune. For
the present, you must be a good subject of the English King, and learn
the language."
Giovanni hid the precious secret in his heart during the months that
followed, and learned both English and French with a rapidity that
astonished Dame Lavender. He had a wisdom in herbs and flowers, too,
that was almost uncanny. In the kitchen-gardens of the great houses
where he had been a scullion, there were many plants used for perfumes,
flavorings or coloring fluids, which were quite unknown to the English
cook. He was useful to Dame Lavender both in the garden and the
still-room. He knew how to make various delicious cakes as well, and
how to combine spices and honey and syrups most cunningly, for he had
seen pastry-cooks and confectioners preparing state banquets, and he
never forgot anything he had seen.
The castle which crowned the hill in the midst of the small town where
Dame Lavender lived had lately been set in order for the use of a
very great lady--a lady not young, but accustomed to luxury and good
living--and all the resources of Dame Lavender's garden had been
taxed to provide perfumes, ointments and fresh rose-leaves, for the
linen-presses and to be strewn about the floors. Mary and her mother
had all that they could do in serving Queen Eleanor.
The Queen was not always easy to please. In her youth she had traveled
with Crusaders and known the strange cities of the East; she had
escaped once from a castle by night, in a boat, to free herself from
a too-persistent suitor. She was not one of the meek ladies who spent
their days in needlework, and as for spinning and weaving, she had asked
scornfully if they would have her weave herself a hair shirt like a
hermit. Mary Lavender was not, of course, a maid of honor, but she found
that the Queen seemed rather to like having her about.
"I wish I had your secret, Marie of the Flowers," said graceful
Philippa, one weary day. "Tell me what you do, that our Lady the Queen
likes so well."
Mary smiled in her frank, fearless way. "It may be," she answered, "that
it is the fragrance of the flowers. She desires now to embroider red
roses for a cushion, and I have to ask Master Tomaso how to dye the
thread."
The embroidering of red roses became popular at once, but soon there
was a new trouble. The Queen began to find fault with her food.
"This cook flavors all his dishes alike," she said pettishly. "He thinks
that colored toys of pastry and isinglass feed a man's stomach. When the
King comes here--although he never knows what is set before him, that is
true,--I would like well to have a fit meal for his gentlemen. Tell this
Beppo that if he cannot cook plain toothsome dishes I will send for a
farmer's wench from Longley Farm."
This was the first that had been heard of the King's intended visit, and
great was the excitement in the kitchen. Ranulph dismounted at the door
of Dame Lavender's cottage and asked for Giovanni. Beppo the cook had
been calling for more help, and the local labor market furnished nothing
that suited him. Would Giovanni come? He would do anything for Ranulph
and for Mary.
"That is settled, then," laughed Ranulph. "I shall not have to scour the
country for a scullion with hands about him instead of hoofs or horns."
In his fourteen years of poverty the little Italian had learned to hold
his tongue and keep his eyes open. Beppo was glad enough to have a
helper who did not have to be told anything twice, and in the
hurry-scurry of the preparations Giovanni made himself useful beyond
belief. The cakes, however, did not suit the Queen. Mary came looking
for Giovanni in the kitchen-garden.
"Vanni," she said, "will you make some of your lozenges for the banquet?
Beppo says you may. I think that perhaps his cakes are not simple
enough, and I know that the King likes plain fare."
Giovanni turned rather white. "Very well, Mistress Mary," he answered.
Giovanni's lozenges were not candies, although they were diamond-shaped
like the lozenges that are named after them. They were cakes made after
the recipe still used in some Italian bakeries. He pounded six ounces of
almonds; then he weighed eight eggs and put enough pounded sugar in the
opposite scale to balance them; then he took out the eggs and weighed an
equal amount of flour, and of butter. He melted the butter in a little
silver saucepan. The eggs were not beaten, because egg-beaters had not
been invented; they were strained through a sieve from a height into a
bowl, and thus mixed with air. Two of the eggs were added to the pounded
almonds, and then the whole was mixed with a wooden spoon in a wooden
bowl. The paste was spread on a thin copper plate and baked in an oven
built into the stone wall and heated by a fireplace underneath. While
still warm the cake was cut into diamond-shaped pieces, called lozenges
after the carved stone memorial tablets in cathedrals. The Queen
approved them, and said that she would have those cakes and none other
for the banquet, but with a little more spice. Beppo, who had paid the
sweetmeats a grudging compliment, produced some ground spice from his
private stores and told Giovanni to use that.
"Vanni," said Mary laughing as she passed through the kitchen on the
morning of the great day, "do you always scour your dishes as carefully
as this?" The boy looked up from the copper plate which he was
polishing. Mary thought he looked rather somber for a cook who had just
been promoted to the office of baker to the King.
"Things cannot be too clean," he said briefly. "Mistress Mary, will you
ask Master Tomaso for some of the spice that he gave to your mother, for
me?"
Mary's blue eyes opened. Surely a court cook like Beppo ought to have
all the spice needed for a simple cake like this. However, she brought
Giovanni a packet of the fragrant stuff an hour later, and found Beppo
fuming because the work was delayed. The basket of selected eggs had
been broken, the melted butter had been spilled, and the cakes were not
yet ready for the oven. Giovanni silently and deftly finished beating
his pastry, added the spice, rolled out the dough, began the baking.
When the cakes came out of the oven, done to a turn, and with a most
alluring smell, he stood over them as they cooled and packed them
carefully with his own hands into a basket. Mary Lavender came through
the kitchen just as the last layer was put in.
"Those are beautiful cakes, Vanni," she said kindly. "I am sure they are
fit for the King. Did you use the spice I gave you?"
Giovanni's heart gave a thump. He had not reckoned on the fact that
simple Mary had grown up where there was no need of hiding a plain
truth, and now Beppo would know. The cook turned on him.
"What? What?" he cried. "You did not use my spices? You take them and do
not use them?"
Mary began to feel frightened. The cook's black eyes were flashing and
his mustache bristling with excitement, until he looked like the cross
cat on the border of the Queen's book of fables. But Giovanni was
standing his ground.
"I used good spice," he said firmly. "Try and see."
He held out one of the cakes to Beppo, who dashed it furiously to the
ground.
"Where are my spices?" he shrieked. "You meant to steal them?" He dashed
at the lad and seized him as if to search for the spices. Giovanni shook
in his grasp like a rat in the jaws of a terrier, but he did not cringe.
"I sent that packet of spice to Master Tomaso an hour ago," he gasped
defiantly, "asking him if it was wholesome to use in the kitchen--and
here he is now."
At sight of the old physician standing calm as a judge in the doorway,
Beppo bolted through the other door, seized a horse that stood in the
courtyard and was gone before the astonished servants got their breath.
"What is all this?" inquired Tomaso. "I came to warn that man that the
packet of spice which you sent is poison. Where did you get it?"
"The cook bought it of a peddler and gave it to Vanni," answered Mary,
scared but truthful. "You all heard him say that he did," she added to
the bystanders. "He told Vanni to use it in these cakes, but Vanni used
the spice you gave us."
"I have seen that peddler before," gasped Giovanni. "He tried to bribe
me to take the Queen a letter and a packet, and I would not. I put some
of the spice in honey, and the flies that ate of it died. Then I sent it
to you."
"It was a subtle device," said Tomaso slowly. "The spice would disguise
the flavor. Every one knew that Giovanni was to make the cakes, and that
the Queen will not come to the banquet. When it is served do you send
each sauce to me for
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