Part 10 (1/2)

'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 furnis.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+vering, 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 s.h.i.+ps, 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-s.h.i.+p 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.