In the Days of the Guild Part 11

"Aye, I'll warrant," grunted Simon, "an Eyre would be a born shoemaker, and name him Crispin---- Eh, lad, what be you after with that leather?"

Crispin's fingers were strong, if small, and he was busy with hammer and awl and waxed thread, making a little shoe.

"Just a shoe, Simon--go on with the story," said the boy, with a little, shut-mouthed grin. Simon fitted the sole to the boot he was making and picked up his hammer.

"It was a long time ago--(tap-tap) when the emperor of Rome was a-hunting down the blessed martyrs, that there were two brothers, Crispin and Crispian their names were, who lived in Rome and did nothing but kindness to every one. But there be rascals--(trip-trip-trap!)--who do not understand kindness, and ever repay it with evil. One of such a sort lived in the same street as the two brothers, and secretly ran to tell the Emperor that they were plotting against his life. Then privately the wife of this evil-doer came and warned them, for that they had given her shoes to her feet. So they fled out of the city by night and came to France and dwelt in Soissons, where the cathedral now is.

"This England was a heathen country then, they say, and France not much better. Before long the king of that kingdom heard of the strangers and sent for them to know what their business was. When they said that their business was to teach the people the story of our Lord, he asked who this lord might be, and whether he was mightier than the king, or not.

"Then when the heathen king heard that the Lord of Crispin and Crispian was more powerful than either King or emperor he had a mind to kill them, but he was afraid. He asked if they had ever seen a palace finer than his own, that was made of wood and hung with painted leather, and they said that there were finer ones in Rome. Then said the king, 'Give me a sign of the greatness of your Lord.' And they asked him what it should be. And the king said, 'Cover the streets of my city with leather and you shall go forth unharmed.' Only the rich had any leather in those parts.

"That night Crispin and Crispian took the leather hide of their girdles and made a pair of shoes for the king. And when they came before him in the morning, they put the shoes upon his feet, the first shoes he had ever seen, and told him to walk abroad and he would find all the streets covered with leather."

The apprentices had been listening, and a laugh went round the shop, as it always did at that part of the tale.

"Thus it came to pa.s.s," concluded Simon, "that the two brothers lived at court and taught the king's leather workers how to make shoes, and that is why Saint Crispin is the friend of shoemakers."

"What was the name of him who told you the tale, Simon?" Crispin asked thoughtfully.

"Oh, he is dead these many years, but his name was Benet, and he came from Soissons, and had been to Rome and seen the street where the brothers lived. He had a nail out of one of the shoes they made for the king. People came to our house while he was with us, only to see that nail and hear the story. I heard it so many times that I learned it by heart."

Old Simon drove in the last nail with a vicious stroke that sent it well into the leather. "I'll warrant," he said, "the blessed Saint Crispin made none o' them shoes we make here, with pointed toes and rose windows on the leather, fitten for a lady." He held up the shoe with great disfavor. It was for a courtier, and the toe was two feet long and turned up, with a chain to fasten it to the knee. The front of the shoe was cut into open work in a wheel shape to show the gay silken hose underneath, and the shoe itself was of soft fine leather. With a parting sniff, Simon tossed it to a slim, grinning youth who would finish it by putting on gilding.

The shoe that Crispin was making was of a different sort. It was a little round-toed st.u.r.dy thing, about the right size for a child of ten.

The mate to it was on the bench at his side, and he put them together and looked at them rather ruefully. The shoe he had made was plain, and the other was trimmed daintily with red morocco and cut in a quaint round pattern on the toe--the decoration that was known as "a Paul's window," because the geometric cut-work with the colored lining looked like stained gla.s.s. Crispin frowned and shook his head.

"What's ailin' ye, lad?" Old Simon peered at the shoes in the boy's hands. "Bless ye, those ben't mates!"

"I know that, but I haven't any colored leather for this one even if I knew how to finish it," Crispin said with a sigh.

"Um-m-m!" Simon looked more closely at the little gay shoe. "That never came from these parts. That's Turkey leather." He gave Crispin a sharp glance. The great bell of Bow was ringing and the apprentices were quitting work. "Where did this shoe come from, now?"

Crispin hesitated. "Don't you tell, now, Simon. I found a little maid crying in Candlewick street--standing on one foot like a duck because she had lost her other shoe. She was so light I could lift her up, and I set her on a wall while I looked for the shoe, but it wasn't any good, for a horse had stepped on it. She cried so about the shoe that I--I said I would make her another. And then her father came back for her and took her away."

"Who might she be?" inquired Simon dryly.

"I don't know. I didn't tell father. She said she would send for the shoes though."

Simon had been rummaging in a leather bag behind his bench. "If she don't there's plenty of other little wenches that wear shoes. If the leather should be blue in place o' red, would that matter?"

"I shouldn't think so; one shoe is no good alone." Crispin began to be hopeful.

Old Simon pulled out some pieces of soft fine leather the color of a harebell and began to cut them quickly and deftly into fine scalloped borders. "This ben't Turkey leather, but it is a piece from Spain, and they learnt the trade of the paynim, so I reckon 'twill do. St.i.tch this on the other shoe in place o' the red, and I'll cut the pattern."

n.o.body would have believed that Simon's old, crooked fingers could handle a knife so cleverly. In no time the pattern on the old shoe had been copied exactly on the new one. When Crispin had st.i.tched the blue cut-work border on both, and Simon had rubbed the new leather on some old sc.r.a.ps and cleaned the old a bit, the two little shoes looked like twins.

"Is there a boy here named Crispin Eyre?" inquired a man's voice from the doorway. Almost at the same time came the sweet lilting speech of a little girl, "Oh, father, that is the boy who was so kind to me!"

Crispin and old Simon stood up and bowed, for the man who spoke was a dignified person in the furred cloak and cap of a well-to-do merchant.

The little girl held fast to her father's hand and gazed into the shop with bright interest. "Look at the shoes, father, aren't they pretty?"

The merchant balanced the little shoes in his broad hand. "Which did you lose, Genevieve, child?"

"I--I don't know, father," the child said, pursing her soft lips.

"Cannot you tell?"

"By my faith," said the merchant thoughtfully, "if a London shoemaker's boy does work like this I doubt Edrupt may be right when he says our ten fingers are as good as any. This shoe is one of a pair from Cordova.

Who's your father, lad?"

"My father is Thomas Eyre, so please you, master," said the boy proudly, "and I am Crispin."

"A good craft and a good name and a good workman," said the merchant, and dropped a coin into the litter of leather sc.r.a.ps. It was the full price of a new pair of shoes.

Crispin certainly could not have dreamed that his kindness to little Genevieve Gay would be the occasion of new streets in London, but it happened so. Master Gay, the merchant, came later to talk with Thomas Eyre about the shoe trade. Then, instead of sending a cargo of Irish hides abroad he gave Eyre the choice of them. Other shoemakers took the rest, the shoe trade of London grew, and so did the tanneries. The tanners presently needed more room by running water, and sought new quarters outside London Wall. The business of London kept on growing until the Leatherworkers' Guild had presently to send abroad for their own raw material. England became more and more a manufacturing country and less a farming country. In one or another trade almost every farming product was of use. Hides were made into leather, beef went to the cook-shops; horn was made into drinking-cups and lantern-lights, bones were ground or burnt for various purposes, tallow made candles. What the farmer had been used to do for himself on his farm, the Guilds began to do in companies, and their farm was England.

CONCEALED WEAPONS

The tiniest weed that blooms in fallow ground Arms all its children for the battle-field.

Its myriad warriors weapon'd cap-a-pie Swarm forth upon the land. The bursting pods Their elfin shrapnel scatter far and wide.

Aerial scouts on downy pinions flit, And awns p.r.i.c.k lancet-wise, and clutching burs Grapple the fleeces of the wandering sheep, Invade the farm-lands and possess the soil.

The curse of Eden falling on the flowers Drove them to self-defense and made the world One vast weed-garden. Yea, more dreadful still, Buried within the heart of many a plant Lie deadly drops of poisonous essences, Nightshade and spearwort, aconite and poppy, That slay more swift and sure than tempered steel.

The least of little folk, or soon or late, May by such hidden terrors rule the great.

The least of little folk, unseen, unknown, May find that saving strength is theirs alone.

XII

THE LOZENGES OF GIOVANNI

HOW A MILANESE BAKER-BOY AND A PADUAN PHYSICIAN KEPT POISON OUT OF THE KING'S DISH

Ranulph the troubadour was riding along a lonely moorland trail, singing softly to himself. In so poor a neighborhood there was little fear of robbers, and the Barbary horse which he had under him could outrun most other horses. The light-stepping hoofs made little noise upon the springy turf, and as the song ended he heard some one sobbing behind a group of stunted bushes. He halted and listened. The sound ceased.

"Ho there, little one--what is the trouble?"

He spoke in Saxon, the language of the country folk, but at the first words a figure sprang up and dodged from shrub to rock like a scared leveret. He called again quickly in French:

"Hola! little friend, wait a moment!"

There was no answer. Somehow he did not like to leave the mystery unsolved. There must be a child in trouble, but what child could there be in this wild place, and neither Norman nor Saxon? It was not far enough to the West to be Welsh borderland, and it was too far south to be near either Scotland or the Danelaw. He spoke in Provencal, and the fugitive halted at the sound of the soft southern o's and a's; then he spoke again in the Lombard dialect of Milan. A boy ventured out of the thicket and stood staring at him. Ranulph flung himself off his horse and held out his hand.