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 in 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. he says. ""There's a woman wishes it to be done quickly," "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?" 666 '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 pleasureship 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. 666 66 "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. of me I'll be gone,' gone," I says, "If that's all you need "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 tonguelashing 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 Then I remembered the solemn chapel roof on me. |