Masters of the Guild Part 16

To Thee whom the trout in the rainbow foam drifting Behold in the sunlight through wet leaf.a.ge sifting (And vanish like shadows of clouds in the water) G.o.d of the Streams, I pay this my tribute.

To Thee whom the skylark, in rapture ascending Adores in his dithyramb perfect, unending, (And vanishes in the high heaven still singing) G.o.d of the Mist, I utter this prayer.

To Ye whom my children, born here in my mansion, Reverence beyond the G.o.ds of their fathers, And love as they love their own mother, G.o.ds of the Land, I build ye this temple!

XII

COLD HARBOR

Wilfrid, the potter, stood with his wife and children, looking at what was left of a little old cottage. Fire had left it a heap of ashes and half- burned timbers and rubbish. The red roof-tiles glowed like embers of dead centuries.

"I'd never ha' turned the old man out," he said pensively, "but now he's gone and the cot's gone too, we'll see what's under this end of Cold Harbor."

Edwitha, his wife, looked up, her eyes sparkling through quick tears.

"I was hoping you'd say that, Wilfrid," she said with eager wistfulness.

"I've longed so to know--but he'd lived there since our fathers and mothers were children. 'Twould ha' been like taking the soul out of his body to drive him away."

She was a slender, pretty creature, almost as childlike in her way of speaking as if she had been no older than Dorothea or Alfred. The children listened with pleased excitement commingled with a certain awe. Gaffer Bartram had seemed as much a part of their lives as the sun or the wind or the old pollard willow. When he was strong enough he taught Alfred to snare rabbits and catch moles; when rheumatism crippled him he sat by the door making baskets and telling Dorothy rhymes and tales of seventy years ago. Then first his old gray cat Susan had disappeared, after that the old man himself, and last the cottage caught fire and burned. And father was actually giving orders to the men to dig up the garden and see what lay under it.

There is a mysterious immovable setness about the Suss.e.x Downs. What is there seems to have been there always. The oldest man cannot say when the great white hollows were first scooped out of the chalk, or the dewponds made on the heights. Ever since there were people in Suss.e.x--whether it is five thousand years ago or fifteen thousand--the short wind-swept turf has been grazed by woolly flocks. Before ever a Norman castle held a vantage- height the tansy grew dark and rank in cottage gardens and the children went gathering woodruff and speedwell and the elfin gold of "little socks and shoes." Any change, good or bad, is a loss to some one--the land is so full of the life of the past.

Wilfrid and Edwitha well understood this, though they would never have put it into fine phrases. They could not have said it except to each other, and for that there was no need of speech. Because of it they had left the old man at peace in his cottage, and even after he was dead they put off the uncovering of what might lie under the soil of his garden and his orchard.

Wilfrid's pottery had grown up in the last ten years near a claybank, not far from the boundary between his father's land and Edwitha's old home. An irregular terrace broke the slope above it, and here the tilled land had come to an end at one point because the plows came hard against a buried Roman wall. Not being able to break up the solid masonry of Roman builders done a thousand years before, Wilfrid's father had cleared away the soil, roofed over the ruin which he found, and used it to store grain. This was Cold Harbor.

As Wilfrid's pottery prospered he found another use for the building.

There was no tavern thereabouts, and when the Saxon abbey five or six miles away could house no more guests, or his workmen could not all find lodging in the neighborhood, it was possible to shelter there. The roof was weather-tight, a wood fire could be built on the stone hearth, and with fresh straw from Borstall Farm for beds, provisions from the same source, and their own cloaks for covering, travelers found themselves fairly comfortable.

Like others of its kind the building came to be known as "Cold Harbor," a "herbergage" or lodging, without food or heat being provided. Sometimes an enterprising innkeeper would take possession of such a place after a time and furnish it as an inn.

At this very time, unknown to Wilfrid, some of his friends were discussing such a possibility as they rode up from Dover. Gilbert Gay the merchant, his wife Thomasyn and his son Nicholas were returning from France, and in their company were Alan of York and Josian his wife, Guy Bouverel the goldsmith, and others. West of Canterbury they came up with a stout bright-eyed little man who looked as if he had fed well all his life, and was called Martin Bouvin.

"What luck, Martin?" asked Master Gay. The little man spread his hands in a gesture of comic despair. All the tavern-sites seemed to be held by some religious house that owned the land, or some n.o.bleman who allowed the innkeeper to use his device as a sign.

"There ought to be an inn there in Suss.e.x where Wilfrid's pottery is,"

observed the goldsmith. "When I halt there to see Wilfrid I find nine times out of ten that I must e'en quarter myself on him. D'ye remember that old place he calls Cold Harbor? That would be a proper house for a tavern."

"It is not large enough," objected the merchant. "Any tavern worth the name would need more room than that within a twelvemonth. Still, other buildings could be added. If you and the potter can come to an agreement, Bouvin, I will aid you in fitting up the building and you may repay me in dinners. There's not a cook this side Rouen who can match your chestnut soup."

"Made with the yolk of an egg and a little wine of Xeres?" asked Guy with interest. "Giovanni made it so for us once."

The merchant waved a protesting hand. "No, no, no, no--lemon, man, lemon, with white stock, pepper, salt, a little parsley. Sherry is an excellent drink, but not in chestnut soup, I pray you."

"What matters it," asked Alan innocently, "so the food is wholesome and pleasant?

"That is what might be expected of you, you Northern barbarian," laughed Guy. "Where did you get your cunning, Martin?"

The little man's beady black eyes twinkled knowingly. "A true cook, Master Bouverel, takes all good things where he finds them. I make bouillabaisse for those who like it, but--between you and me--Norman matelote of fish is just as good. I cook pigeon broth as they do in Boulogne, I make black bean soup as they do in Spain. I was born in Boulogne, but I have cooked in many other places--in Avignon, where they say the angels taught them how to cook--Messina, Paris, Genoa, all over Aquitaine with the routiers.

Perigueux is a very agreeable place--you know the truffles there? I cook sometimes cutlets of lamb and veal in a ca.s.serole with truffles, mushrooms, bacon in strips, a lemon sliced, shallots, some chicken stock, and herbs--yes, that is very good. Oh, I can cook for French, Norman, Gascon, Spanish, Lombard--any people. Only in Goslar. That was one horreeble place, Goslar! The people eat pork and cabbage, pork and cabbage, and black bread--chut!" He made a grimace at the memory.

"I fear you will find some of that sort among our English travelers," said Gilbert Gay amusedly. "Not all of them will appreciate--what was that you gave us in Paris? epigrammes of lamb, the cutlets dipped in chicken stock and fried. Swine are still among our chief domestic animals."

"Oh, as to that," said the chef quickly, "I am not too proud to cook for people who like simple things--meat broiled and roasted with plain bread.

And do you know that one must be a very fine cook to do such work well?

When I am alone, which is not often, I prepare for myself fresh vegetables, broil a fish that has not forgotten the water,--and with a roll and a little fruit, that is my dinner. The soteltes at kings' tables, all colored sugar and pastry and isingla.s.s--they are only good for people who can eat peac.o.c.k, and those are very few. Do you know, Master Gay, what is the great secret of my art? To know what is good, and not spoil it."

"I foresee," laughed the merchant, "that we shall all be making excuses to come down from London if you stay in Suss.e.x with your saucepans. But hey!

there are the towers of the abbey already, and it is not yet mid- afternoon. Let us ride on to see Wilfrid and find out whether he approves of our fine plan."

While this discussion of the n.o.ble art of cookery was going on miles away, Wilfrid and Edwitha, with no thought of inns, were watching the laborers digging where Wilfrid thought the rest of the building ought to be. In his travels he had seen other Roman houses better preserved than this, and by inquiring of learned men had gained some idea of Roman civilization. He had been told that Roman officials in England often built villas in places rather like this terrace, and since the building already unearthed was the end of the walls in one direction, the rest of the villa might be found under the cottage of old Bartram and his orchard, garden and cow-byre.

No other house in the neighborhood was as old as that cottage. It was built of beams put together without nails and filled in with a rude wattle-work plastered thickly with coat after coat of mud. Instead of being thatched like most houses of its kind the roof had been covered with fine red tiles,--possibly Roman work. It seemed that the soil must have washed in over the ruins of the Roman building so very long ago that there had been time for trees to grow above it.

Thus Wilfrid reasoned. As his laborers dug and moiled and sweated under the hot clear sun, he watched with lively interest for whatever they might turn up. It is to be feared that Edwitha's maids were less carefully looked after than usual after the work began, and the children spent every minute they could in following their mother or their father about to see what was going to happen.

There was another reason besides curiosity for keeping watch of the work.

If any pottery should be discovered, Wilfrid did not wish to have it broken by a careless mattock.

Then Dorothy came running from the house to find her mother and father bending over a newly-unearthed Roman wall. "Father!" she cried, "a man is come to see you!"

"Oh!" said Wilfrid, not very eagerly. He brushed some of the earth from his clothes with a handful of weeds and went toward the gate, where a horseman sat awaiting him. As he came nearer the man dismounted and came toward him with outstretched hand.

"Alan!" cried the potter joyfully. "I heard you were abroad. Come in, and I'll send for Edwitha."

"Not so fast," said his guest. "I am but a harbinger. Guy Bouverel and Master Gay the merchant with his wife and son, and some others, are coming along. We'll stay at the Abbey, but we rode on to see you first. I've my wife with me, Wilfrid."

"That's news indeed," said the potter cordially. "And who may she be? Some foreign damsel you met in your pilgrimage?"

"That's one way of saying it," answered Alan smiling. "You shall see her and judge for yourself. How's all here?"

Wilfrid smiled rather sheepishly. "You and your wife must come and stay with us," he insisted. "We'll make you welcome, spite of being a bit upset. Edwitha has been taking holiday. We're digging up the farm to see what's at the other end of Cold Harbor, lad."

"Make no ado about us," Alan protested. "It's partly about Cold Harbor that we came--but here they all are, upon my life!"

A merry company of travelers rode up the lane, and as they dismounted Edwitha came over the little footpath across the field, with the children clinging to her hands--a little embarra.s.sed to find so many folk arriving and she not there. The boy scampered up to his father piping loudly, "Father, come you quick--we've found a picture in the ground!"

"What's all this?" asked Master Gay. And after Wilfrid's explanation nothing would do but that they all should go immediately to see what had come to light. When they beheld it the younger men could not keep from taking a hand themselves. With brooms of twigs, and potsherds, and water from the well in Cold Harbor, they industriously swept and sc.r.a.ped and washed the pavement which the men had now partly uncovered.

It was a mosaic floor of tiny blocks of red, black, yellow, white, brown, cream and slate-blue, set in cement so strong that not an inch of the fine even surface had warped. It was not a large pavement, and might have been the floor of a small dining or sitting-room so placed as to command a view of the valley. A part of one wall remained. It had been plastered and then covered with a finer plaster which was frescoed with a row of painted pillars against the deep marvelous red of Pompeii. The design of the floor was not at first clear. The edge was decorated with a conventional pattern in gray and white. The corners were cut off by diagonal lines making an eight-sided central s.p.a.ce. This was outlined by a guilloche, or border of intertwining bands of brilliant colors. Inside this again was a circle divided into alternate square and triangular s.p.a.ces with still brighter borders, containing each some bird or animal. In the central s.p.a.ce was a seated figure playing on a harp, while around him were packed in a close group a lion, a ram, a bull, a goat, a crab, fishes, and other figures.

n.o.body at first saw what it could be.

"If I mistake not," said the little stout man, Martin Bouvin, at last, "it is Sir Orpheus playing to the beasts."