"And it"ll happen hundreds of times more," said Hal with a friendly nod as he sat down again. But he did not go on till Dan"s hand was tied up properly. Then he said:
"One dark December day--too dark to judge colour--we was all sitting and talking round the fires in the chapel (you heard good talk there), when Bob Brygandyne bustles in and--"Hal, you"re sent for," he squeals. I was 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 our Master liked--salt herring.
""I"m busy, about my art," I calls.
""Art?" says Bob. "What"s Art compared to your scroll-work for the _Sovereign_. Come."
""Be sure your sins will find you out," says Torrigiano. "Go with him and see." As I followed Bob out I was aware of Benedetto, like a black spot 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 pa.s.sages, and at last thrusts me into a little cold room vilely hung with Flemish tapestries, and no furnishing except a table and my draft of the _Sovereign"s_ scroll-work. 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 a piece and come down again in a stiff bar.
"He went to the King," he says.
""All one. What"s your pleasure with me?" I says shivering, for it was mortal cold.
"He lays his hand flat on my draft. "Master Dawe," he says, "do you know the 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 the King"s Ships, so I gave him the price. I forget it now, but it worked out to thirty pounds--carved, gilt, and fitted in place.
""Thirty pounds!" he said, as though I had pulled a tooth of him. "You talk as though thirty pounds was to be had for the asking. None the less," 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 than I judged it at first. My eye and hand had been purified the past months, d"you see, by my iron work.
""I could do it better now," I said. The more I studied my squabby Neptunes the less I liked "em; and Arion was a pure flaming shame atop of 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 for the 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 stick to your first drawing, Mus" 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 me between the eyes. At any cost, I thinks to myself, I must get it back and re-draft it. He grunts at me impatiently, and a splendid thought comes to me, which shall save me. By the same token, "twas quite honest."
"They ain"t always," said 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 the _Sovereign_ to lie in Thames river all her days, or will she take the high seas?"
""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 for the trade. She"ll be out in all shapes o" weathers. Does that make any odds?"
""Why, then," says I, "the first heavy sea she sticks her nose into "ll claw off half that scroll-work, and the next will finish it. If she"s meant for a pleasure-ship give me my draft again, and I"ll porture you a pretty, light piece of scroll-work, good, cheap. If she"s meant for the open sea, pitch the draft into the fire. She can never carry that weight 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 "tis true.
I"m advising you against my own profit, but why I do so is my own concern."
""Not altogether," he says. "It"s some of mine. You"ve saved me thirty pounds, Master Dawe, and you"ve given me good arguments to use against a wilful woman that wants my fine new ship for her own toy. We"ll not have any scroll-work." His face shined with pure joy.
""Then see that the thirty pounds you"ve saved on it are honestly paid the King," I says, "and keep clear o" womenfolk." I gathered up my draft and crumpled it under my arm. "If that"s all you need of me I"ll be gone," I says, "for I"m pressed."
"He turns him round and fumbles in a corner. "Too pressed to be made a knight, Sir Harry?" he says, and comes at me smiling, with three-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"m pressed, too," and slips through the tapestries, leaving me like a stuck calf.
"It come over me, in a bitter wave like, that here was I, a master craftsman, who had worked no bounds, soul or body, to make the King"s tomb and chapel a triumph and a glory for all time; and here, d"you see, I was made knight, not for anything I"d slaved over, or given my heart and guts to, but expressedly because I"d saved him thirty pounds and a tongue-lashing from Catherine of Castile--she that had asked for the ship. That thought shrivelled me withinsides while I was folding away my draft. On the heels of it--maybe you"ll see why--I began to grin to myself. I thought of the earnest simplicity of the man--the King, I should say--because I"d saved him the money; his smile as though he"d won half France! I thought of my own silly pride and foolish expectations that some day he"d honour me as a master craftsman. I thought of the broken-tipped sword he"d found behind the hangings; the dirt 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 and the bronzes about the stately tomb he"d lie in, and--d"ye see?--the unreason of it all--the mad high humour of it all--took hold on me till I sat me down on a dark stair-head in a pa.s.sage, and laughed till I could laugh no more. What else could I have done?
[Ill.u.s.tration: I kneeled, and he tapped me on the shoulder. "Rise up, Sir Harry Dawe," he says.--P. 74.]
"I never heard his feet behind me--he always walked like a cat--but his arm slid round my neck, pulling me back where I sat, till my head lay on his chest, and his left hand held the knife plumb over my heart--Benedetto! Even so I laughed--the fit was beyond my holding--laughed while he ground his teeth in my ear. He was stark crazed for the time.
""Laugh," he said. "Finish the laughter. I"ll not cut ye short. Tell me now"--he wrenched at my head--"why the King chose to honour you--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 Bury Refectory, and what I"d said of it, and his pictures in the chapel which all men praised and none looked at twice (as if that was _my_ fault!) and a 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 I am just dubbed knight, Benedetto."
""Tell me, and I"ll confess ye, Sir Harry Dawe, knight. There"s a long night before ye. Tell," says he.
"So I told him--his chin on my crown--told him all; told it as well and with as many words as I have ever told a tale at a supper with Torrigiano. I knew Benedetto would understand, for, mad or sad, he was a craftsman. I believed it to be the last tale I"d ever tell top of mortal earth, and I would not put out bad work before I left the lodge. All art"s one art, as I said. I bore Benedetto no malice. My spirits, d"you see, were catched up in a high, solemn exaltation, and I saw all earth"s vanities foreshortened and little, laid out below me like a town from a cathedral 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 thirty pounds!" his peevish grunt while he looked for the sword; and how the badger-eyed figures of Glory and Victory leered at me from the Flemish hangings. Body o" me, "twas a fine, n.o.ble tale, and, as I thought, my last work on earth.
""That is how I was honoured by the King," I said. "They"ll hang ye for killing 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 him shake. My head on his chest shook; his right arm fell away, his left dropped the knife, and he leaned with both hands on my shoulder--shaking--shaking! I turned me round. No need to put my foot on his knife. The man was speechless with laughter--honest craftsman"s mirth. The first time I"d ever seen him laugh. You know the mirth that cuts off the very breath, while ye stamp and s.n.a.t.c.h at the short ribs? That was Benedetto"s case.
"When he began to roar and bay and whoop in the pa.s.sage, I haled him out into the street, and there we leaned against the wall and had it all over again--waving our hands and wagging our heads--till the watch came to know if we were drunk.
"Benedetto says to "em, solemn as an owl: "You have saved me thirty pound, Mus" Dawe," and off he pealed. In some sort we were mad drunk--I because dear life had been given back to me, and he because, as he said afterwards, because the old crust of hatred round his heart was broke up and 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 the Master."
"So we reeled back to the chapel, arms round each other"s necks, and when 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 cold pavement. 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 the fire, 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----"