Clink of metals striking together, hammer sound, sound of the wheel,
sound of the fed furnace, sound of voices among metals. Up and down
this was the strain of the smiths’ street. Summer, autumn, winter,
spring, round went the wheel.
The street lay hot under the sun, the street stretched dim and
breathless under clouds. Rain poured down, freshness and song of the
sea drawn into the air. The wind sang his great song of vigour. Fog
came and shut the eyelids of the world, then passed away and one
started as from sleep. Snow fell in small flakes or in large flakes, in
few or in many. The street lay white, the roofs white.
All day voices in the long workroom, footsteps to and fro, sound of the
craft, Diccon Dawn fashioning beautiful things. He had helpers, Jankin
and a boy, and also his sister, Alice Dawn.
There was that which she could do and he showed her how. Those who came
that way in the smiths’ street saw a brother and sister, a tall pair,
working together. Beside this, she toiled like all the women in the
street. She kept the house clean, she bought the food and cooked it,
she took ewer and pail and went to the well. To and fro, to and fro. At
the well were women, in the street were women. She greeted and answered
greeting. Sometimes she was drawn into a knot of talkers. But she spoke
little herself. “Alice Dawn? Whence, then? The other end of England?
Thy brother does fine work, they say. When didst learn to work with
him? He has gotten thee a good gown and it sets thee like an earl’s
wife!” When she was gone they talked of her. “How old should you think?
She has too still ways for me! She looks like a queen. Nay, lass, to my
thinking like a quean!”
Clink, clink, clink in the street of the smiths. Water from the well,
dashing over the stones, water brought home in great ewer or pail,
balanced so.
Sometimes at sunset, go, the two of them, down to the river. Sunday
beyond the wall into green country, into sere autumn country, into
winter country. Mix and not mix with those about them, live and let
live, keeping observation as near as possible to ebb tide. Live--let
live! Live--let live! In this time the herb found some growing room.
Away from the smith’s street they saw the able king go by with his able
men, the queen with her ladies. They saw the cardinal and his train.
They heard of a Lollard burned, and they went not there; of a sorceress
burned and they went not there. They went somewhat silently and softly
that day. So long as they ran not foul of some one’s earthly ambition
or his jealousy or his fear, there was going room. Once they heard a
street preacher mourning that the time was so lax. A great time, an
active time, but lax, lax! What was this New Learning and crying that
Authority was within? Every day, somewhere, a monk broke from cloister
and a priest began to babble. For the bookmen, they were writing
perdition! Differers springing up like weeds, laughter rising, folk
prying into vain knowledge, conceiving a thing called “freedom.”
Clink, clink, clink in the street of the smith.
Diccon and Alice Dawn. Out of blind feeling there rose, they knew not
just when nor how, desire for that light which is comprehension. “Tell
me--” “Tell me--”
Breadth by breadth, work of the day done, or on holidays, they unrolled
the bale of old life and regarded the figures, the outer figures and
the figures of thought and feeling. Each grew to be to the other a vast
and deep and fortunate object of study. She would say, “When you were
in France, tell me--” or “What like was thy mother?” And he, “Tell me,
Morgen, of thy childhood and thy girlhood.” Her childhood became his
and his became hers. The like with girlhood and boyhood. They learned,
orb of orb, ocean of ocean, sharing and growing richer by the sharing.
“I remember” and “I remember.”
“I was a young girl, just over childness. I was dancing. My father
and mother watched. I do not know if they were truly my father and
mother, but I called them that. They watched me and they watched the
crowd watching. They always did that. If the crowd did not grow warm,
then afterwards in the booth they beat me. Oh, they beat me sore! So
I always thought _into_ the crowd as it were and willed it as hard as
I might, ‘Oh, love my dancing! Oh, love to look at me!’ I thought it
so hard that sometimes it seemed that the crowd and I were one, and I
beat their flame upward so that they, too, were dancing and liking it.
But I remember that day something beat my flame upward, too, far upward
and very wide! And the very earth and world was dancing, whirling
and rising like a golden ball in air, and great figures sat around,
laughing and applauding and crying, ‘You will do! You will do!’”
“Once in Italy, with my master Andrew the Goldsmith, I was walking
alone by olive trees and blue sea. The sun was low, there was the
greatest beauty! Then gold Apollo walked with me. I saw him in lines of
pale gold, and I felt him a great god, calm and happy. Vulcan is for
the smiths, but I changed that day to Apollo. Not that I left Vulcan,
but Apollo, too. The next month I made for Andrew the Goldsmith a cup
which when he looked at he said, ‘Thou’rt accepted!’”
“I remember--”
“When thou rememberest me--and I remember thee--”
“Will we come to remember all?”
Up and down, to and fro in the smiths’ street. Snow was falling, great
flakes, softly, smoothly. Jankin looked out of window. “Here cometh a
great Blackfriar!”
He walked along the street, a big Dominican out on his travels. Richard
Englefield glanced, but did not recognize him, though, a moment
afterwards, as he bent to his work, there rose in mind a picture of
Montjoy’s hall the day he stood there, bound and gagged, like to burst
in his rage and agony. Now he laid hand on graver’s tool and fell to
work. He was fashioning a silver dish like a shell. Jankin took his cap
and cloak and said good night, for the short day was closing.
Morgen Fay crossed the street in the snow, returning to the house from
some errand. Reaching the doorstone, she stood there a little because
of delight in the great white flakes. A friar spoke to her, “Eh, my
sister, a white Christmas!”
“Aye, Brother, they are coming like white butterflies.”
He looked more fully upon her, “Push back your hood, woman!”
She knew him. “Ah! Middle Forest!” Her heart stood still, then she
changed as she could expression of her face, roughened her voice.
“Whiter than last Christmas, Brother! That was a brown one here in
London.”
“It was white in Middle Forest!” He stared in doubt. “What is your
name?”
“Alice Dawn, Brother.”
Still he stared, but she saw his uncertainty increase.
“Did ever you have a sister who called herself Morgen Fay?”
She shook her head. “I had one named Mercy.”
“By Saint Thomas, likenesses are strange things!” said Friar Martin.
“There’s something that binds them together, if we could but get it
clear!” He looked up at the smith’s sign. “‘Diccon Dawn. Silver and
Gold.’ Alice Dawn! Well, you are like, all the same, so you had better
say your beads, my daughter, and keep from ill ways! _Benedicite!_”
He went on through the snowy street.
Diccon Dawn looked up from the fluted shell. “You are as pale as the
snow! What is it?”
“Is Jankin gone, and the boy? Here is Friar Martin of Saint Leofric’s.”
“Here!”
“In the street. He has gone by. But I know that he will return.”
Englefield rose from the silver work and they stood in the dusky room.
“Did he know you?” he asked.
She told.
He said, “It was chance his being here! He saw what he thought was
chance likeness. It will pass from his mind.”
“It may and it may not. Will there be raised a cry against me--against
us? Look!”
Hidden themselves, they looked through the window. Other side the
street, in the falling snow, stood Friar Martin, intent upon the
goldsmith’s house and sign. A man going by was stopped and questioned.
Alone once more, the friar gazed, dubitated, drew his picture. Diccon?
A Richard made silver dishes for Abbot Mark. June. He came into this
house in June, and none in these parts had known him before. And an
Alice Dawn like as a twin to Morgen Fay!
The friar made a movement. “_If this be so, what gain to Saint
Leofric?_” But first it was to tell beyond peradventure of a doubt if
it were so! He crossed the smith’s street and with his staff knocked
upon the door of Diccon Dawn.
“Shalt open to him?”
“If I do he may find likeness. If I do not--”
They stood in the dusky place, a long room with the red fire eye of the
small furnace dully winking, with the snow falling, falling. The friar
knocked again. “If we do not answer, then surely will he say, ‘Witch’s
house!’”
Englefield moved toward the door, but Friar Martin, impatient and bold,
did not wait, but lifting the latch, pushed inward. It was dusk, beyond
seeing clearly.
“Are you the smith?”
“Aye, Brother. Can I serve you?”
“I would see your work. But I cannot do so without light.”
“Work hour and shop hour are over. Best come to-morrow.”
“To-morrow we may all be dead. Canst not light candle?”
“Aye, I can.” He took a brand from the fire and suited action to word.
“There is not much here.” He held the candle to the silver shell,
but Friar Martin, who helped himself through life, shot out his hand
and took the taper and held it to the smith. Diccon Dawn stood in the
light and formed face of London smith who knew that in these later days
friars upon their travels were what they were and must be taken so.
They had their whims!
But Friar Martin said, “Did ever you wander by a stream called Wander?
Do you know a town named Middle Forest, and the Abbey of Silver Cross?”
Diccon Dawn shook his head. “I stick to my work, Brother. It’s night
and snowing fast!”
Light--light! It seemed to blaze around. “Didst never make silver
dishes for abbots?”
“No. I have a humbler trade. It nears curfew, Brother!”
“I met a woman upon your doorstep. Your wife or perhaps your sister?”
“My sister,--Curfew, Brother!”
The other was thinking, “I do not yet know wholly, but I guess, I
guess!” He said aloud, “Do smiths have visions? Doth heaven ever open
in this street?”
“All streets are ways to that. Curfew, Brother!”
It was dusk save for the one taper and the fire eye in the back of the
room. The friar was almost a giant, but the smith, too, was a strong
man, and somewhere in the house dwelled a witch! He had matter enough
to turn and twist this way and that, during the night, preparing the
vial of wrath. “Aye, it is late! I will go, having seen your silver
work!”
He went. The street was snowy. His great sandalled foot made no sound.
Going, a little chime rang in his brain. “I see the gain of Saint
Leofric! I see the gain of Saint Leofric!”
In the dusky room the two moved closer together. “Thy danger.” “Thine!”
“Ah, our danger!”
“Act, then!” He looked from the window. “Out of gate ere it is quite
night!”
They had warm mantles, good shoes. They made a packet of food, took
coin from the strong box. Englefield wrote a short letter and placed
it where Jankin should find it the first thing coming in, in the
morning,--find it, read it and burn it, though there was naught in it
that could harm Jankin. Jankin and the boy had had their wage paid that
day. Out quietly into the deep twilight, the snow falling.