There is little more to tell. My story is like a web of knitting, and
now the point is reached where the stitches have to be cast off, and the
work left. It has been no more than a tale of apprenticeship, and
Hugh's man's life was but just beginning. Yet those years are enough to
tell us what the rest was likely to be.
For months he toiled at the second corbel, and in these months passed
out of his apprenticeship and became journeyman. Master Gervase was
wont to say that the lad was in a fair way to be spoilt, for the story
of that Lammas Day got abroad, as stories did in those days, carried
back by the Pomeroy retainers to Biry, and by the Raleghs to Street
Ralegh, and caught at by the wandering minstrels and story-tellers, who
were the great bearers of news about the country, and ever on the watch
for some gossip which they might retail at fair or castle, where it
travelled from the buttery hatch to my lady's closet, and lost naught in
the telling. The town had been crowded by these strangers at the time
of the corbel incident, the annual fair being held on Lammas Day, so
that there was fine opportunity for spreading of news; and when the
families from the great houses in the county came into the city, they
must needs go to the Cathedral to see the carving which had caused so
much stir, and those who had work of their own going on would have had
Hugh Bassett to carry it out. But nothing would draw him from the
corbel.
"I marvel at the lad," said John Hamlyn one day to his fellow-warden;
"he seems to care little for the over-praise he gets. 'Twould turn my
Ralph's head."
"His father's training has borne fruit," answered Elyas. "Hugh gave up
his own fancies, and held by what he had learnt to be duty; now he yet
thinks of the duty, and not of the glory to himself. He is as good to
me as any son could be."
"And may be thy son in good earnest?"
"With all my heart," said Gervase cheerfully. "But that must bide
awhile."
Hamlyn looked him up and down.
"Thou art as hale, goodman, as ever thou wert before thy sickness."
"Ay, thank God! When the spring comes and the cold of winter is over I
shall fall to work upon the _surs_."
"Best make speed, for the old master can hardly last much longer, and it
will not become thy dignity to be seen on a ladder when thou art in his
place."
"Tut, tut, man! were I King of England it would become me to work for
the King of kings. But this is idle telling. Wilt come into the yard?
That malapert Hal is like to drive William Franklyn out of his wits with
his idle pranks, and I am ever needed to keep the peace."
"And yet in sooth, goodman, thy prentices do thee credit--I would mine
were of the same value," said Hamlyn, with a sigh and a thought of his
son Ralph. "I really believe their thick pates can hold naught but the
desire to break those of others. Now there is that man of thine, Wat--
he," Hamlyn paused, "he is a likely fellow?"
"As good a lad as ever breathed," returned Gervase heartily. Then he
looked at the other warden and smiled. "Thou didst fling out something
just now of my having a son in Hugh. Maybe thou hast a thought of
finding a son thyself and more quickly?"
"I'd as lief know what like the lad is," said Hamlyn gruffly. "He
greatly favours our house, and on Holy Cross Day brought nuts enough to
Madge to feed a wood full of squirrels."
"He is a boy in his play yet," answered Elyas, "but I have marked him
closely, and he hath in him the making of a true man. I tell thee,
neighbour, thou wouldst do well for thy daughter's happiness to give her
Wat for a husband."
Hamlyn protested that it had not come to this yet, but it was easy to
see that he was well inclined to the young stonemason, and that if Wat's
fancy lasted, which at this time appeared probable, he might win pretty
Margaret for his wife. There was a squire in my Lord of Devon's meine
who was desirous to marry her, but Hamlyn had no liking for what he
called a roystering cut-throat trade, much preferring one of his own
craft, even though his daughter might have aspired to a richer suitor.
Wat's simple loyalty to his friend and total absence of self-seeking had
struck them all, and his corbel was greatly admired, so that the
Prideaux family in seeking someone to carve a rich monument had
expressed a hope that he would be chosen for the work.
Of Roger nothing had been heard. He had gone forth, forbidden to
return, and though Gervase's kind heart had yearned for a word which
might show repentance, and give him an excuse for helping him, the word
never came.
The winter was a sharp one, so sharp that Hugh's carving was somewhat
hindered by the extreme cold. And just at the New Year Agrippa died.
He had grown old and feeble, no longer able to swing about from rafter
to beam as in old days, most content to lie near the fire, wrapped in a
piece of warm scarlet Flemish wool which they provided for him, and in
his old age showing yet more markedly his likes and dislikes. Never had
he done more than tolerate Prothasy, and now, when she came near him, he
chattered and scolded with all his weak might. Franklyn, one or two of
the men, and prentice Hal he detested equally, but there was a new
prentice, Gilbert, whom he permitted to stroke him. Joan he loved,
saving always when Hugh was near. For him he had a passionate devotion
which was pathetic. When he was in the room he was never content unless
Hugh took him up, and he was jealous even of Joan if she withdrew Hugh's
attention. Yet in spite of his spoilt and irritable ways all the
household cared for the quaint little creature, and it was Gervase
himself who came down to the Cathedral, when they were singing nones in
the Lady Chapel, to fetch Hugh, who, his fingers having grown stiff over
his corbel with the bitter cold, had given it up for the day, and was
working under Franklyn's directions at some of the larger work which yet
remained to be finished in the choir.
"Joan would have thee home to see Agrippa," said the warden, laying his
hand as he loved to do on Hugh's shoulder; "the poor beast is sorely
sick--unto death, if I mistake not."
It did not take Hugh many minutes to dash through St Martin's Gate into
the High Street and his master's house. Joan called to him the moment
she heard his voice, and he found her in much distress, kneeling close
to the fire on which she had piled as many logs as she could. There
under his scarlet covering lay poor Agrippa at the last gasp, but still
able to recognise his master with the old look of love, and the
stretching forth his poor little shrunk paw. Hugh flung himself down by
his side, heaping endearments upon him, while Joan held back lest her
presence by Hugh should stir the little creature's anger. It was over
the next moment. One loving piteous look, one movement as though to
raise himself towards his master, and the eyes glazed and the limbs
stiffened, and Hugh's faithful little companion for more than seven
years was gone.
Joan sobbed bitterly, and Hugh was more moved than he would have cared
to let anyone but her see. They both knelt on by his side, till Hugh
rose and drew her to her feet.
"Poor Agrippa! He has had a happy home, thanks to thee. Thou wert his
first protector, Joan."
She looked up and smiled through her tears.
"When thou wast so frighted at mother that thou must needs break thy
indentures and run away! Father hath often told me of it. 'Twas well
it was father, and that he was able to keep it from coming to the guild.
But to think thou didst not know mother better."
She was a wise little maiden, capable as was Prothasy, and with as warm
affections, but a gentler manner of showing them. And from her father
she had inherited his gift of imagination and love of beauty, so that in
the greenwood not Hugh himself had a quicker eye for the loveliness of
interlacing trees, or the fancies of the foliage, and as he sometimes
told her, she should have been a boy and a stone-carver. The art of
painting, save in missals, can scarcely be said to have existed in those
days, when all beautiful materials, glow of colour, and picturesqueness
of line, were at its disposal, and art was forced to take refuge in
architecture, which it carried to its noblest height, or, with women, in
exquisite embroideries.
Joan had smiled, but she was very sad for Agrippa, and nothing would
comfort her but hearing of Hugh's progress with his _surs_, when 'twould
be finished and she might see it.
"It should have been done by now," said Hugh, "but this biting cold
stiffens my fingers so that I cannot venture on the delicate parts.
Come, now, Joan, what sayest thou to thy birthday--Candlemas Day?"
She clapped her hands.
"In good sooth. And if father is still better--which Our Lady grant!--
he will begin his work that month."
Elyas, indeed, showed no signs of his past sickness, and as the leech,
when Prothasy spoke to him, assured her that malignant influences no
longer threatened, she was greatly comforted. He said himself that his
memory failed, but no one else saw any unusual signs of this not
uncommon complaint, and there was little doubt that he would be elected
its master by the guild, which some two hundred years later was to
stretch itself so far as to incorporate together "Carpenters, Masons,
Joiners, and Glaziers and Painters."
There was no such excitement on Candlemas Day as there had been five
months before, for nothing hung on the uncovering of Hugh's carving
beyond learning whether his second work would equal the promise of his
first, and this to the outer world meant little. To his own little
world, and to the bishop, it meant much. The fame of his first work had
come through difficulties and by a roundabout fashion; in this that he
had now completed no one could either rightly or wrongly claim a part.
When therefore, after the Hours, the bishop and a few of his clergy
entered the choir, they found a knot of guild officers there, and all
Gervase's household, together with Hamlyn's wife and daughters, and a
few workmen who had not cared to keep holiday.
"No greenwood for thee, Hugh, to-day," Elyas had said, and the young man
was there himself, looking gravely content, and not, as Mistress Hamlyn
expressed it, in the least puffed with pride.
At a sign from the bishop, he mounted the ladder and drew off the
wrapping cloths.
Much had been seen during the carving, but now for the first time the
work was beheld in its full beauty, and from the group there went up an
irrepressible murmur of admiration.
It was a group of figures. At the top Our Lord and His Mother in glory;
below, a single figure of Saint Cecilia drawing music from an instrument
shaped something like a lute, but played with a bow; over her head,
inclined gently to the left, a little angel hovered. The grace and
sweetness of her attitude, the fall of the draperies, the delicacy of
the workmanship, raised the beholders into enthusiasm, and though the
corbel was not so prominent as the others, something in the angle in
which it was seen, and the manner in which it stood out against the
outer nave, added to the effect of beauty.
Hugh had modestly stood aside while the examination went on, but Joan
had stolen to him and slipped her hand in his, and now Elyas turned and
embraced him.
"Hugh," he said, "I am proud to count thee as my son."
Wat was there, too, absolutely beaming with delight, and seizing Hugh's
hand as if he would wring it off.
"Said I not, said I not,"--he began, and then, "no one can say aught
against thy work now; but, Hugh--"
"Ay?"
"Couldst not carve a Saint Margaret as well as a Saint Cecilia?
Prithee--"
But here his request was broken off by a message that the Lord Bishop
would speak with Hugh Bassett.
Bishop Bitton, who had aged fast of late, was leaning on the arm of one
of his priests, but his face was lit with that fire of enthusiasm which
could always be stirred in him by aught that was good or great. As Hugh
came up, he raised his hand, and the young man dropped on his knee to
receive the blessing.
And as, deeply moved, he rose and stood on one side, it seemed to him
that his father's dying voice stole softly upon his ears--
"Not for thyself, but for the glory of God."