The Wrong Thing
Dan had gone in for building model boats; but after he had filled theschoolroom with chips, which he expected Una to clear away, they turnedhim out of doors and he took all his tools up the hill to Mr Springett'syard, where he knew he could make as much mess as he chose. Old MrSpringett was a builder, contractor, and sanitary engineer, andhis yard, which opened off the village street, was always full ofinteresting things. At one end of it was a long loft, reached by aladder, where he kept his iron-bound scaffold-planks, tins of paints,pulleys, and odds and ends he had found in old houses. He would sit hereby the hour watching his carts as they loaded or unloaded in the yardbelow, while Dan gouged and grunted at the carpenter's bench near theloft window. Mr Springett and Dan had always been particular friends,for Mr Springett was so old he could remember when railways were beingmade in the southern counties of England, and people were allowed todrive dogs in carts.
One hot, still afternoon--the tar-paper on the roof smelt likeships--Dan, in his shirt-sleeves, was smoothing down a new schooner'sbow, and Mr Springett was talking of barns and houses he had built. Hesaid he never forgot any stick or stone he had ever handled, or anyman, woman, or child he had ever met. Just then he was very proud of theVillage Hall at the entrance of the village, which he had finished a fewweeks before.
'An' I don't mind tellin' you, Mus' Dan,' he said, 'that the Hall willbe my last job top of this mortal earth. I didn't make ten pounds--no,nor yet five--out o' the whole contrac', but my name's lettered on thefoundation stone--Ralph Springett, Builder--and the stone she's beddedon four foot good concrete. If she shifts any time these five hundredyears, I'll sure-ly turn in my grave. I told the Lunnon architec' sowhen he come down to oversee my work.'
'What did he say?' Dan was sandpapering the schooner's port bow.
'Nothing. The Hall ain't more than one of his small jobs for him, but'tain't small to me, an' my name is cut and lettered, frontin' thevillage street, I do hope an' pray, for time everlastin'. You'll wantthe little round file for that holler in her bow. Who's there?' MrSpringett turned stiffly in his chair.
A long pile of scaffold-planks ran down the centre of the loft. Danlooked, and saw Hal o' the Draft's touzled head beyond them. [See 'Halo' the Draft' in PUCK OF POOK'S HILL.]
'Be you the builder of the Village Hall?' he asked of Mr Springett.
'I be,' was the answer. 'But if you want a job--'
Hal laughed. 'No, faith!'he said. 'Only the Hall is as good and honesta piece of work as I've ever run a rule over. So, being born hereabouts,and being reckoned a master among masons, and accepted as a mastermason, I made bold to pay my brotherly respects to the builder.'
'Aa--um!' Mr Springett looked important. 'I be a bit rusty, but I'll tryye!'
He asked Hal several curious questions, and the answers must havepleased him, for he invited Hal to sit down. Hal moved up, alwayskeeping behind the pile of planks so that only his head showed, and satdown on a trestle in the dark corner at the back of Mr Springett'sdesk. He took no notice of Dan, but talked at once to Mr Springett aboutbricks, and cement, and lead and glass, and after a while Dan went onwith his work. He knew Mr Springett was pleased, because he tuggedhis white sandy beard, and smoked his pipe in short puffs. The twomen seemed to agree about everything, but when grown-ups agree theyinterrupt each other almost as much as if they were quarrelling. Halsaid something about workmen.
'Why, that's what I always say,' Mr Springett cried. 'A man who can onlydo one thing, he's but next-above-fool to the man that can't do nothin'.That's where the Unions make their mistake.'
'My thought to the very dot.' Dan heard Hal slap his tight-hosed leg.'I've suffered 'in my time from these same Guilds--Unions, d'you call'em? All their precious talk of the mysteries of their trades--why, whatdoes it come to?'
'Nothin'! You've justabout hit it,' said Mr Springett, and rammed hishot tobacco with his thumb.
'Take the art of wood-carving,'Hal went on. He reached across theplanks, grabbed a wooden mallet, and moved his other hand as though hewanted something. Mr Springett without a word passed him one of Dan'sbroad chisels. 'Ah! Wood-carving, for example. If you can cut wood andhave a fair draft of what ye mean to do, a' Heaven's name take chiseland maul and let drive at it, say I! You'll soon find all the mystery,forsooth, of wood-carving under your proper hand!' Whack, came themallet on the chisel, and a sliver of wood curled up in front of it. MrSpringett watched like an old raven.
'All art is one, man--one!' said Hal between whacks; 'and to wait onanother man to finish out--'
'To finish out your work ain't no sense,' Mr Springett cut in. 'That'swhat I'm always sayin' to the boy here.' He nodded towards Dan. 'That'swhat I said when I put the new wheel into Brewster's Mill in Eighteenhundred Seventy-two. I reckoned I was millwright enough for the job'thout bringin' a man from Lunnon. An' besides, dividin' work eats upprofits, no bounds.'
Hal laughed his beautiful deep laugh, and Mr Springett joined in tillDan laughed too.
'You handle your tools, I can see,' said Mr Springett. 'I reckon, ifyou're any way like me, you've found yourself hindered by those--Guilds,did you call 'em?---Unions, we say.'
'You may say so!' Hal pointed to a white scar on his cheekbone. 'Thisis a remembrance from the Master watching-Foreman of Masons on MagdalenTower, because, please you, I dared to carve stone without their leave.They said a stone had slipped from the cornice by accident.'
'I know them accidents. There's no way to disprove 'em. An' stones ain'tthe only things that slip,' Mr Springett grunted. Hal went on:
'I've seen a scaffold-plank keckle and shoot a too-clever workman thirtyfoot on to the cold chancel floor below. And a rope can break--' 'Yes,natural as nature; an' lime'll fly up in a man's eyes without any breatho' wind sometimes,' said Mr Springett. 'But who's to show 'twasn't aaccident?'
'Who do these things?' Dan asked, and straightened his back at the benchas he turned the schooner end-for-end in the vice to get at her counter.
'Them which don't wish other men to work no better nor quicker than theydo,' growled Mr Springett. 'Don't pinch her so hard in the vice, Mus'Dan. Put a piece o' rag in the jaws, or you'll bruise her. More thanthat'--he turned towards Hal--'if a man has his private spite laid upagainst you, the Unions give him his excuse for workin' it off.'
'Well I know it,'said Hal.
'They never let you go, them spiteful ones. I knowed a plasterer inEighteen hundred Sixty-one--down to the wells. He was a Frenchy--a badenemy he was.' 'I had mine too. He was an Italian, called Benedetto.I met him first at Oxford on Magdalen Tower when I was learning mytrade-or trades, I should say. A bad enemy he was, as you say, but hecame to be my singular good friend,' said Hal as he put down the malletand settled himself comfortably.
'What might his trade have been--plastering' Mr Springett asked.
'Plastering of a sort. He worked in stucco--fresco we call it. Madepictures on plaster. Not but what he had a fine sweep of the hand indrawing. He'd take the long sides of a cloister, trowel on his stuff,and roll out his great all-abroad pictures of saints and croppy-toppedtrees quick as a webster unrolling cloth almost. Oh, Benedetto coulddraw, but 'a was a little-minded man, professing to be full of secretsof colour or plaster--common tricks, all of 'em--and his one single talkwas how Tom, Dick or Harry had stole this or t'other secret art fromhim.'
'I know that sort,' said Mr Springett. 'There's no keeping peace ormaking peace with such. An' they're mostly born an' bone idle.'
'True. Even his fellow-countrymen laughed at his jealousy. We two cameto loggerheads early on Magdalen Tower. I was a youngster then. Maybe Ispoke my mind about his work.'
'You shouldn't never do that.' Mr Springett shook his head. 'That sortlay it up against you.'
'True enough. This Benedetto did most specially. Body o' me, theman lived to hate me! But I always kept my eyes open on a plank or ascaffold. I was mighty glad to be shut of him when he quarrelled withhis Guild foreman, and went off, nose in air, and paints under h
is arm.But'--Hal leaned forward--'if you hate a man or a man hates you--'
'I know. You're everlastin' running acrost him,' Mr Springettinterrupted. 'Excuse me, sir.' He leaned out of the window, and shoutedto a carter who was loading a cart with bricks.
'Ain't you no more sense than to heap 'em up that way?' he said. 'Takean' throw a hundred of 'em off. It's more than the team can compass.Throw 'em off, I tell you, and make another trip for what's left over.Excuse me, sir. You was sayin'-'
'I was saying that before the end of the year I went to Bury tostrengthen the lead-work in the great Abbey east window there.'
'Now that's just one of the things I've never done. But I mind there wasa cheap excursion to Chichester in Eighteen hundred Seventy-nine, an'I went an' watched 'em leadin' a won'erful fine window in ChichesterCathedral. I stayed watchin' till 'twas time for us to go back. Dunno asI had two drinks p'raps, all that day.'
Hal smiled. 'At Bury, then, sure enough, I met my enemy Benedetto. Hehad painted a picture in plaster on the south wall of the Refectory--anoble place for a noble thing--a picture of Jonah.'
'Ah! Jonah an' his whale. I've never been as far as Bury. You've workedabout a lot,' said Mr Springett, with his eyes on the carter below.
'No. Not the whale. This was a picture of Jonah and the pompion thatwithered. But all that Benedetto had shown was a peevish grey-beardhuggled up in angle-edged drapery beneath a pompion on a wooden trellis.This last, being a dead thing, he'd drawn it as 'twere to the life. Butfierce old Jonah, bared in the sun, angry even to death that his coldprophecy was disproven--Jonah, ashamed, and already hearing the childrenof Nineveh running to mock him--ah, that was what Benedetto had notdrawn!'
'He better ha' stuck to his whale, then,' said Mr Springett.
'He'd ha' done no better with that. He draws the damp cloth off thepicture, an' shows it to me. I was a craftsman too, d'ye see?'
'"Tis good," I said, "but it goes no deeper than the plaster."
'"What?" he said in a whisper.
'"Be thy own judge, Benedetto," I answered. "Does it go deeper than theplaster?"
'He reeled against a piece of dry wall. "No," he says, "and I know it.I could not hate thee more than I have done these five years, but if Ilive, I will try, Hal. I will try." Then he goes away. I pitied him, butI had spoken truth. His picture went no deeper than the plaster.'
'Ah!' said Mr Springett, who had turned quite red. 'You was talkin' sofast I didn't understand what you was drivin' at. I've seen men--goodworkmen they was--try to do more than they could do, and--and theycouldn't compass it. They knowed it, and it nigh broke their heartslike. You was in your right, o' course, sir, to say what you thought o'his work; but if you'll excuse me, was you in your duty?'
'I was wrong to say it,' Hal replied. 'God forgive me--I was young!He was workman enough himself to know where he failed. But it allcame evens in the long run. By the same token, did ye ever hear o' oneTorrigiano--Torrisany we called him?'
'I can't say I ever did. Was he a Frenchy like?'
'No, a hectoring, hard-mouthed, long-sworded Italian builder, as vain asa peacock and as strong as a bull, but, mark you, a master workman. Morethan that--he could get his best work out of the worst men.'
'Which it's a gift. I had a foreman-bricklayer like him once,' said MrSpringett. 'He used to prod 'em in the back like with a pointing-trowel,and they did wonders.'
I've seen our Torrisany lay a 'prentice down with one buffet and raisehim with another--to make a mason of him. I worked under him at buildinga chapel in London--a chapel and a tomb for the King.'
'I never knew kings went to chapel much,' said Mr Springett. 'But Ialways hold with a man--don't care who he be--seein' about his own gravebefore he dies. 'Tidn't the sort of thing to leave to your family afterthe will's read. I reckon 'twas a fine vault?'
'None finer in England. This Torrigiano had the contract for it, asyou'd say. He picked master craftsmen from all parts--England, France,Italy, the Low Countries--no odds to him so long as they knew theirwork, and he drove them like--like pigs at Brightling Fair. He called usEnglish all pigs. We suffered it because he was a master in his craft.If he misliked any work that a man had done, with his own great handshe'd rive it out, and tear it down before us all. "Ah, you pig--youEnglish pig!" he'd scream in the dumb wretch's face. "You answer me? Youlook at me? You think at me? Come out with me into the cloisters. Iwill teach you carving myself. I will gild you all over!" But whenhis passion had blown out, he'd slip his arm round the man's neck, andimpart knowledge worth gold. 'Twould have done your heart good, Mus'Springett, to see the two hundred of us masons, jewellers, carvers,gilders, iron-workers and the rest--all toiling like cock-angels, andthis mad Italian hornet fleeing one to next up and down the chapel. Doneyour heart good, it would!'
'I believe you,' said Mr Springett. 'In Eighteen hundred Fifty-four, Imind, the railway was bein' made into Hastin's. There was two thousandnavvies on it--all young--all strong--an' I was one of 'em. Oh, dearieme! Excuse me, sir, but was your enemy workin' with you?'
'Benedetto? Be sure he was. He followed me like a lover. He paintedpictures on the chapel ceiling--slung from a chair. Torrigiano madeus promise not to fight till the work should be finished. We were bothmaster craftsmen, do ye see, and he needed us. None the less, I neverwent aloft to carve 'thout testing all my ropes and knots each morning.We were never far from each other. Benedetto 'ud sharpen his knife onhis sole while he waited for his plaster to dry--wheet, wheet, wheet.I'd hear it where I hung chipping round a pillar-head, and we'd nod toeach other friendly-like. Oh, he was a craftsman, was Benedetto, but hishate spoiled his eye and his hand. I mind the night I had finished themodels for the bronze saints round the tomb; Torrigiano embraced mebefore all the chapel, and bade me to supper. I met Benedetto when Icame out. He was slavering in the porch Like a mad dog.'
'Workin' himself up to it?' said Mr Springett. 'Did he have it in at yethat night?'
'No, no. That time he kept his oath to Torrigiano. But I pitied him. Eh,well! Now I come to my own follies. I had never thought too little ofmyself; but after Torrisany had put his arm round my neck, I--I'--Halbroke into a laugh--'I lay there was not much odds 'twixt me and acock-sparrow in his pride.'
'I was pretty middlin' young once on a time,' said Mr Springett.
'Then ye know that a man can't drink and dice and dress fine, and keepcompany above his station, but his work suffers for it, Mus' Springett.'
'I never held much with dressin' up, but--you're right! The worstmistakes I ever made they was made of a Monday morning,' Mr Springettanswered. 'We've all been one sort of fool or t'other. Mus' Dan, Mus'Dan, take the smallest gouge, or you'll be spluttin' her stem worksclean out. Can't ye see the grain of the wood don't favour a chisel?'
'I'll spare you some of my follies. But there was a man calledBrygandyne--Bob Brygandyne--Clerk of the King's Ships, a little, smooth,bustling atomy, as clever as a woman to get work done for nothin'--awon'erful smooth-tongued pleader. He made much o' me, and asked me todraft him out a drawing, a piece of carved and gilt scroll-work for thebows of one of the King's Ships--the SOVEREIGN was her name.'
'Was she a man-of-war?'asked Dan.
'She was a warship, and a woman called Catherine of Castile desired theKing to give her the ship for a pleasure-ship of her own. I did notknow at the time, but she'd been at Bob to get this scroll-work done andfitted that the King might see it. I made him the picture, in an hour,all of a heat after supper--one great heaving play of dolphins and aNeptune or so reining in webby-footed sea-horses, and Arion with hisharp high atop of them. It was twenty-three foot long, and maybe ninefoot deep--painted and gilt.'
It must ha' justabout looked fine,' said Mr Springett.
'That's the curiosity of it. 'Twas bad--rank bad. In my conceit I mustneeds show it to Torrigiano, in the chapel. He straddles his legs,hunches his knife behind him, and whistles like a storm-cock through asleet-shower. Benedetto was behind him. We were never far apart, I'vetold you.
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'"That is pig's work," says our Master. "Swine's work. You make any moresuch things, even after your fine Court suppers, and you shall be sentaway."
'Benedetto licks his lips like a cat. "It is so bad then, Master?" hesays. "What a pity!"
'"Yes," says Torrigiano. "Scarcely you could do things so bad. I willcondescend to show."
'He talks to me then and there. No shouting, no swearing (it was too badfor that); but good, memorable counsel, bitten in slowly. Then he setsme to draft out a pair of iron gates, to take, as he said, the tasteof my naughty dolphins out of my mouth. Iron's sweet stuff if you don'ttorture her, and hammered work is all pure, truthful line, with a reasonand a support for every curve and bar of it. A week at that settledmy stomach handsomely, and the Master let me put the work through thesmithy, where I sweated out more of my foolish pride.'
'Good stuff is good iron,' said Mr Springett. 'I done a pair of lodgegates once in Eighteen hundred Sixty-three.'
'Oh, I forgot to say that Bob Brygandyne whipped away my draft of theship's scroll-work, and would not give it back to me to re-draw. He said'twould do well enough. Howsoever, my lawful work kept me too busied toremember him. Body o' me, but I worked that winter upon the gates andthe bronzes for the tomb as I'd never worked before! I was leaner thana lath, but I lived--I lived then!' Hal looked at Mr Springett with hiswise, crinkled-up eyes, and the old man smiled back.
'Ouch!' Dan cried. He had been hollowing out the schooner's after-deck,the little gouge had slipped and gashed the ball of his left thumb,--anugly, triangular tear.
'That came of not steadying your wrist,' said Hal calmly. 'Don't bleedover the wood. Do your work with your heart's blood, but no need to letit show.' He rose and peered into a corner of the loft.
Mr Springett had risen too, and swept down a ball of cobwebs from arafter.
'Clap that on,' was all he said, 'and put your handkerchief atop. 'Twillcake over in a minute. It don't hurt now, do it?'
'No,' said Dan indignantly. 'You know it has happened lots of times.I'll tie it up myself. Go on, sir.'
'And it'll happen hundreds of times more,' said Hal with a friendly nodas he sat down again. But he did not go on till Dan's hand was tied upproperly. Then he said:
'One dark December day--too dark to judge colour--we was all sitting andtalking round the fires in the chapel (you heard good talk there), whenBob Brygandyne bustles in and--"Hal, you're sent for," he squeals. Iwas at Torrigiano's feet on a pile of put-locks, as I might be here,toasting a herring on my knife's point. 'Twas the one English thing ourMaster liked--salt herring.
'"I'm busy, about my art," I calls.
'"Art?" says Bob. "What's Art compared to your scroll-work for theSOVEREIGN? Come."
'"Be sure your sins will find you out," says Torrigiano. "Go with himand see." As I followed Bob out I was aware of Benedetto, like a blackspot when the eyes are tired, sliddering up behind me.
'Bob hurries through the streets in the raw fog, slips into a doorway,up stairs, along passages, and at last thrusts me into a little coldroom vilely hung with Flemish tapestries, and no furnishing except atable and my draft of the SOVEREIGN's scrollwork. Here he leaves me.Presently comes in a dark, long-nosed man in a fur cap.
'"Master Harry Dawe?" said he.
'"The same," I says. "Where a plague has Bob Brygandyne gone?"
'His thin eyebrows surged up in a piece and come down again in a stiffbar. "He went to the King," he says.
'"All one. Where's your pleasure with me?" I says, shivering, for it wasmortal cold.
'He lays his hand flat on my draft. "Master Dawe," he says, "do you knowthe present price of gold leaf for all this wicked gilding of yours?"
'By that I guessed he was some cheese-paring clerk or other of theKing's Ships, so I gave him the price. I forget it now, but it workedout to thirty pounds--carved, gilt, and fitted in place.
'"Thirty pounds!" he said, as though I had pulled a tooth of him. "Youtalk as though thirty pounds was to be had for the asking. None theless," he says, "your draft's a fine piece of work."
'I'd been looking at it ever since I came in, and 'twas viler even thanI judged it at first. My eye and hand had been purified the past months,d'ye see, by my iron work.
'"I could do it better now," I said. The more I studied my squabbyNeptunes the less I liked 'em; and Arion was a pure flaming shame atopof the unbalanced dolphins.
'"I doubt it will be fresh expense to draft it again," he says.
'"Bob never paid me for the first draft. I lay he'll never pay me forthe second. 'Twill cost the King nothing if I re-draw it," I says.
'"There's a woman wishes it to be done quickly," he says. "We'll stickto your first drawing, Master Dawe. But thirty pounds is thirty pounds.You must make it less."
'And all the while the faults in my draft fair leaped out and hit mebetween the eyes. At any cost, I thinks to myself, I must get it backand re-draft it. He grunts at me impatiently, and a splendid thoughtcomes to me, which shall save me. By the same token, It was quitehonest.'
'They ain't always,' says Mr Springett. 'How did you get out of it?'
'By the truth. I says to Master Fur Cap, as I might to you here, I says,"I'll tell you something, since you seem a knowledgeable man. Is theSOVEREIGN to lie in Thames river all her days, or will she take the highseas?"
'"Oh," he says quickly, "the King keeps no cats that don't catch mice.She must sail the seas, Master Dawe. She'll be hired to merchants forthe trade. She'll be out in all shapes o' weathers. Does that make anyodds?"
'"Why, then," says I, "the first heavy sea she sticks her nose into'llclaw off half that scroll-work, and the next will finish it. If she'smeant for a pleasure-ship give me my draft again, and I'll porture you apretty, light piece of scroll-work, good cheap. If she's meant for theopen--sea, pitch the draft into the fire. She can never carry thatweight on her bows."
'He looks at me squintlings and plucks his under-lip.
'"Is this your honest, unswayed opinion?" he says.
'"Body o' me! Ask about!" I says. "Any seaman could tell you 'tistrue. I'm advising you against my own profit, but why I do so is my ownconcern."
'"Not altogether ", he says. "It's some of mine. You've saved me thirtypounds, Master Dawe, and you've given me good arguments to use againsta willful woman that wants my fine new ship for her own toy. We'll nothave any scroll-work." His face shined with pure joy.
'"Then see that the thirty pounds you've saved on it are honestly paidthe King," I says, "and keep clear o' women-folk." I gathered up mydraft and crumpled it under my arm. "If that's all you need of me I'llbe gone," I says. "I'm pressed."
'He turns him round and fumbles in a corner. "Too pressed to be madea knight, Sir Harry?" he says, and comes at me smiling, withthree-quarters of a rusty sword.
'I pledge you my Mark I never guessed it was the King till that moment.I kneeled, and he tapped me on the shoulder.
'"Rise up, Sir Harry Dawe," he says, and, in the same breath, "I'mpressed, too," and slips through the tapestries, leaving me like a stuckcalf.
'It come over me, in a bitter wave like, that here was I, a mastercraftsman, who had worked no bounds, soul or body, to make the King'stomb and chapel a triumph and a glory for all time; and here, d'ye see,I was made knight, not for anything I'd slaved over, or given my heartand guts to, but expressedly because I'd saved him thirty pounds and atongue-lashing from Catherine of Castille--she that had asked for theship. That thought shrivelled me with insides while I was folding awaymy draft. On the heels of it--maybe you'll see why--I began to grinto myself. I thought of the earnest simplicity of the man--the King, Ishould say--because I'd saved him the money; his smile as thoughhe'd won half France! I thought of my own silly pride and foolishexpectations that some day he'd honour me as a master craftsman. Ithought of the broken-tipped sword he'd found behind the hangings; thedirt of the cold room, and his cold eye, wrapped up in his own concerns,scarcely resting on me. Then I remembered the solemn chapel roof andthe bronzes
about the stately tomb he'd lie in, and--d'ye see?---theunreason of it all--the mad high humour of it all--took hold on me tillI sat me down on a dark stair-head in a passage, and laughed till Icould laugh no more. What else could I have done?
'I never heard his feet behind me--he always walked like a cat--but hisarm slid round my neck, pulling me back where I sat, till my head layon his chest, and his left hand held the knife plumb over myheart--Benedetto! Even so I laughed--the fit was beyond myholding--laughed while he ground his teeth in my ear. He was starkcrazed for the time.
'"Laugh," he said. "Finish the laughter. I'll not cut ye short. Tellme now"--he wrenched at my head--"why the King chose to honouryou,--you--you--you lickspittle Englishman? I am full of patience now.I have waited so long." Then he was off at score about his Jonah in BuryRefectory, and what I'd said of it, and his pictures in the chapel whichall men praised and none looked at twice (as if that was my fault!), anda whole parcel of words and looks treasured up against me through years.
'"Ease off your arm a little," I said. "I cannot die by choking, for Iam just dubbed knight, Benedetto."
'"Tell me, and I'll confess ye, Sir Harry Dawe, Knight. There's a longnight before ye. Tell," says he.
'So I told him--his chin on my crown--told him all; told it as welland with as many words as I have ever told a tale at a supper withTorrigiano. I knew Benedetto would understand, for, mad or sad, he was acraftsman. I believed it to be the last tale I'd ever tell top of mortalearth, and I would not put out bad work before I left the Lodge. Allart's one art, as I said. I bore Benedetto no malice. My spirits, d'yesee, were catched up in a high, solemn exaltation, and I saw all earth'svanities foreshortened and little, laid out below me like a town from acathedral scaffolding. I told him what befell, and what I thought of it.I gave him the King's very voice at "Master Dawe, you've saved me thirtypounds!"; his peevish grunt while he looked for the sword; and how thebadger-eyed figures of Glory and Victory leered at me from the Flemishhangings. Body o' me, 'twas a fine, noble tale, and, as I thought, mylast work on earth.
'"That is how I was honoured by the King," I said. "They'll hang ye forkilling me, Benedetto. And, since you've killed in the King's Palace,they'll draw and quarter you; but you're too mad to care. Grant me,though, ye never heard a better tale." 'He said nothing, but I felt himshake. My head on his chest shook; his right arm fell away, hisleft dropped the knife, and he leaned with both hands on myshoulder--shaking--shaking! I turned me round. No need to put my footon his knife. The man was speechless with laughter--honest craftsman'smirth. The first time I'd ever seen him laugh. You know the mirth thatcuts off the very breath, while ye stamp and snatch at the short ribs?That was Benedetto's case.
'When he began to roar and bay and whoop in the passage, I haled himout into the street, and there we leaned against the wall and had it allover again--waving our hands and wagging our heads--till the watch cameto know if we were drunk.
'Benedetto says to 'em, solemn as an owl: "You have saved me thirtypounds, Mus' Dawe," and off he pealed. In some sort we were mad-drunk--Ibecause dear life had been given back to me, and he because, as he saidafterwards, because the old crust of hatred round his heart was broke upand carried away by laughter. His very face had changed too.
'"Hal," he cries, "I forgive thee. Forgive me too, Hal. Oh, you English,you English! Did it gall thee, Hal, to see the rust on the dirty sword?Tell me again, Hal, how the King grunted with joy. Oh, let us tell theMaster."
'So we reeled back to the chapel, arms round each other's necks, andwhen we could speak--he thought we'd been fighting--we told the Master.Yes, we told Torrigiano, and he laughed till he rolled on the new coldpavement. Then he knocked our heads together.
'"Ah, you English!" he cried. "You are more than pigs. You are English.Now you are well punished for your dirty fishes. Put the draft in thefire, and never do so any more. You are a fool, Hal, and you are a fool,Benedetto, but I need your works to please this beautiful English King."
'"And I meant to kill Hal," says Benedetto. "Master, I meant to kill himbecause the English King had made him a knight."
'"Ah!" says the Master, shaking his finger. "Benedetto, if you hadkilled my Hal, I should have killed you--in the cloister. But you are acraftsman too, so I should have killed you like a craftsman, very, veryslowly--in an hour, if I could spare the time!" That was Torrigiano--theMaster!'
Mr Springett sat quite still for some time after Hal had finished.Then he turned dark red; then he rocked to and fro; then he coughed andwheezed till the tears ran down his face. Dan knew by this that he waslaughing, but it surprised Hal at first.
'Excuse me, sir,' said Mr Springett, 'but I was thinkin' of some stablesI built for a gentleman in Eighteen hundred Seventy-four. They wasstables in blue brick--very particular work. Dunno as they weren't thebest job which ever I'd done. But the gentleman's lady--she'd comefrom Lunnon, new married--she was all for buildin' what was calleda haw-haw--what you an' me 'ud call a dik--right acrost his park. Amiddlin' big job which I'd have had the contract of, for she spoke to mein the library about it. But I told her there was a line o' springs justwhere she wanted to dig her ditch, an' she'd flood the park if she wenton.'
'Were there any springs at all?' said Hal.
'Bound to be springs everywhere if you dig deep enough, ain't there?But what I said about the springs put her out o' conceit o' diggin'haw-haws, an' she took an' built a white tile dairy instead. But whenI sent in my last bill for the stables, the gentleman he paid it 'thouteven lookin' at it, and I hadn't forgotten nothin', I do assure you.More than that, he slips two five-pound notes into my hand in thelibrary, an' "Ralph," he says--he allers called me by name--"Ralph," hesays, "you've saved me a heap of expense an' trouble this autumn." Ididn't say nothin', o' course. I knowed he didn't want any haws-hawsdigged acrost his park no more'n I did, but I never said nothin'. Nomore he didn't say nothin' about my blue-brick stables, which was reallythe best an' honestest piece o' work I'd done in quite a while. Hegive me ten pounds for savin' him a hem of a deal o' trouble at home. Ireckon things are pretty much alike, all times, in all places.'
Hal and he laughed together. Dan couldn't quite understand what theythought so funny, and went on with his work for some time withoutspeaking.
When he looked up, Mr Springett, alone, was wiping his eyes with hisgreen-and-yellow pocket-handkerchief.
'Bless me, Mus' Dan, I've been asleep,' he said. 'An' I've dreamed adream which has made me laugh--laugh as I ain't laughed in a long day.I can't remember what 'twas all about, but they do say that when oldmen take to laughin' in their sleep, they're middlin' ripe for the nextworld. Have you been workin' honest, Mus' Dan?'
'Ra-ather,' said Dan, unclamping the schooner from the vice. 'And lookhow I've cut myself with the small gouge.'
'Ye-es. You want a lump o' cobwebs to that,' said Mr Springett. 'Oh, Isee you've put it on already. That's right, Mus' Dan.'