الفصل الفصل 21 · HOW AGOSTINO PISANO RISKED HIS HEAD.

. HOW AGOSTINO PISANO RISKED HIS HEAD.

Even the squires' table at the Abbey of St. Andrew's at Bordeaux was

on a very sumptuous scale while the prince held his court there. Here

first, after the meagre fare of Beaulieu and the stinted board of the

Lady Loring, Alleyne learned the lengths to which luxury and refinement

might be pushed. Roasted peacocks, with the feathers all carefully

replaced, so that the bird lay upon the dish even as it had strutted in

life, boars' heads with the tusks gilded and the mouth lined with silver

foil, jellies in the shape of the Twelve Apostles, and a great pasty

which formed an exact model of the king's new castle at Windsor--these

were a few of the strange dishes which faced him. An archer had brought

him a change of clothes from the cog, and he had already, with the

elasticity of youth, shaken off the troubles and fatigues of the

morning. A page from the inner banqueting-hall had come with word that

their master intended to drink wine at the lodgings of the Lord Chandos

that night, and that he desired his squires to sleep at the hotel of the

“Half Moon” on the Rue des Apotres. Thither then they both set out in

the twilight after the long course of juggling tricks and glee-singing

with which the principal meal was concluded.

A thin rain was falling as the two youths, with their cloaks over their

heads, made their way on foot through the streets of the old town,

leaving their horses in the royal stables. An occasional oil lamp at the

corner of a street, or in the portico of some wealthy burgher, threw a

faint glimmer over the shining cobblestones, and the varied motley crowd

who, in spite of the weather, ebbed and flowed along every highway. In

those scattered circles of dim radiance might be seen the whole

busy panorama of life in a wealthy and martial city. Here passed the

round-faced burgher, swollen with prosperity, his sweeping dark-clothed

gaberdine, flat velvet cap, broad leather belt and dangling pouch all

speaking of comfort and of wealth. Behind him his serving wench, her

blue whimple over her head, and one hand thrust forth to bear the

lanthorn which threw a golden bar of light along her master's path.

Behind them a group of swaggering, half-drunken Yorkshire dalesmen,

speaking a dialect which their own southland countrymen could scarce

comprehend, their jerkins marked with the pelican, which showed that

they had come over in the train of the north-country Stapletons. The

burgher glanced back at their fierce faces and quickened his step, while

the girl pulled her whimple closer round her, for there was a meaning in

their wild eyes, as they stared at the purse and the maiden, which

men of all tongues could understand. Then came archers of the guard,

shrill-voiced women of the camp, English pages with their fair skins and

blue wondering eyes, dark-robed friars, lounging men-at-arms, swarthy

loud-tongued Gascon serving-men, seamen from the river, rude peasants

of the Medoc, and becloaked and befeathered squires of the court, all

jostling and pushing in an ever-changing, many-colored stream, while

English, French, Welsh, Basque, and the varied dialects of Gascony and

Guienne filled the air with their babel. From time to time the throng

would be burst asunder and a lady's horse-litter would trot past towards

the abbey, or there would come a knot of torch-bearing archers walking

in front of Gascon baron or English knight, as he sought his lodgings after

the palace revels. Clatter of hoofs, clinking of weapons, shouts from the

drunken brawlers, and high laughter of women, they all rose up, like

the mist from a marsh, out of the crowded streets of the dim-lit city.

One couple out of the moving throng especially engaged the attention

of the two young squires, the more so as they were going in their own

direction and immediately in front of them. They consisted of a man and

a girl, the former very tall with rounded shoulders, a limp of one

foot, and a large flat object covered with dark cloth under his arm.

His companion was young and straight, with a quick, elastic step and

graceful bearing, though so swathed in a black mantle that little could

be seen of her face save a flash of dark eyes and a curve of raven hair.

The tall man leaned heavily upon her to take the weight off his tender

foot, while he held his burden betwixt himself and the wall, cuddling it

jealously to his side, and thrusting forward his young companion to act

as a buttress whenever the pressure of the crowd threatened to bear him

away. The evident anxiety of the man, the appearance of his attendant,

and the joint care with which they defended their concealed possession,

excited the interest of the two young Englishmen who walked within

hand-touch of them.

“Courage, child!” they heard the tall man exclaim in strange hybrid

French. “If we can win another sixty paces we are safe.”

“Hold it safe, father,” the other answered, in the same soft, mincing

dialect. “We have no cause for fear.”

“Verily, they are heathens and barbarians,” cried the man; “mad,

howling, drunken barbarians! Forty more paces, Tita mia, and I swear to

the holy Eloi, patron of all learned craftsmen, that I will never set

foot over my door again until the whole swarm are safely hived in their

camp of Dax, or wherever else they curse with their presence. Twenty

more paces, my treasure! Ah, my God! how they push and brawl! Get

in their way, Tita mia! Put your little elbow bravely out! Set your

shoulders squarely against them, girl! Why should you give way to these

mad islanders? Ah, cospetto! we are ruined and destroyed!”

The crowd had thickened in front, so that the lame man and the girl had

come to a stand. Several half-drunken English archers, attracted, as

the squires had been, by their singular appearance, were facing towards

them, and peering at them through the dim light.

“By the three kings!” cried one, “here is an old dotard shrew to have

so goodly a crutch! Use the leg that God hath given you, man, and do not

bear so heavily upon the wench.”

“Twenty devils fly away with him!” shouted another. “What, how, man!

are brave archers to go maidless while an old man uses one as a

walking-staff?”

“Come with me, my honey-bird!” cried a third, plucking at the girl's

mantle.

“Nay, with me, my heart's desire!” said the first. “By St. George! our

life is short, and we should be merry while we may. May I never see

Chester Bridge again, if she is not a right winsome lass!”

“What hath the old toad under his arm?” cried one of the others. “He

hugs it to him as the devil hugged the pardoner.”

“Let us see, old bag of bones; let us see what it is that you have

under your arm!” They crowded in upon him, while he, ignorant of their

language, could but clutch the girl with one hand and the parcel with

the other, looking wildly about in search of help.

“Nay, lads, nay!” cried Ford, pushing back the nearest archer. “This

is but scurvy conduct. Keep your hands off, or it will be the worse for

you.”

“Keep your tongue still, or it will be the worse for you,” shouted the

most drunken of the archers. “Who are you to spoil sport?”

“A raw squire, new landed,” said another. “By St. Thomas of Kent! we are

at the beck of our master, but we are not to be ordered by every babe

whose mother hath sent him as far as Aquitaine.”

“Oh, gentlemen,” cried the girl in broken French, “for dear Christ's

sake stand by us, and do not let these terrible men do us an injury.”

“Have no fears, lady,” Alleyne answered. “We shall see that all is

well with you. Take your hand from the girl's wrist, you north-country

rogue!”

“Hold to her, Wat!” said a great black-bearded man-at-arms, whose steel

breast-plate glimmered in the dusk. “Keep your hands from your bodkins,

you two, for that was my trade before you were born, and, by God's soul!

I will drive a handful of steel through you if you move a finger.”

“Thank God!” said Alleyne suddenly, as he spied in the lamp-light a

shock of blazing red hair which fringed a steel cap high above the heads

of the crowd. “Here is John, and Aylward, too! Help us, comrades, for

there is wrong being done to this maid and to the old man.”

“Hola, mon petit,” said the old bowman, pushing his way through the

crowd, with the huge forester at his heels. “What is all this, then?

By the twang of string! I think that you will have some work upon your

hands if you are to right all the wrongs that you may see upon this side

of the water. It is not to be thought that a troop of bowmen, with the

wine buzzing in their ears, will be as soft-spoken as so many young

clerks in an orchard. When you have been a year with the Company

you will think less of such matters. But what is amiss here? The

provost-marshal with his archers is coming this way, and some of you may

find yourselves in the stretch-neck, if you take not heed.”

“Why, it is old Sam Aylward of the White Company!” shouted the

man-at-arms. “Why, Samkin, what hath come upon thee? I can call to mind

the day when you were as roaring a blade as ever called himself a free

companion. By my soul! from Limoges to Navarre, who was there who would

kiss a wench or cut a throat as readily as bowman Aylward of Hawkwood's

company?”

“Like enough, Peter,” said Aylward, “and, by my hilt! I may not have

changed so much. But it was ever a fair loose and a clear mark with me.

The wench must be willing, or the man must be standing up against me,

else, by these ten finger bones! either were safe enough for me.”

A glance at Aylward's resolute face, and at the huge shoulders of Hordle

John, had convinced the archers that there was little to be got by

violence. The girl and the old man began to shuffle on in the crowd

without their tormentors venturing to stop them. Ford and Alleyne

followed slowly behind them, but Aylward caught the latter by the

shoulder.

“By my hilt! camarade,” said he, “I hear that you have done great things

at the Abbey to-day, but I pray you to have a care, for it was I who

brought you into the Company, and it would be a black day for me if

aught were to befall you.”

“Nay, Aylward, I will have a care.”

“Thrust not forward into danger too much, mon petit. In a little time

your wrist will be stronger and your cut more shrewd. There will be some

of us at the 'Rose de Guienne' to-night, which is two doors from the

hotel of the 'Half Moon,' so if you would drain a cup with a few simple

archers you will be right welcome.”

Alleyne promised to be there if his duties would allow, and then,

slipping through the crowd, he rejoined Ford, who was standing in talk

with the two strangers, who had now reached their own doorstep.

“Brave young signor,” cried the tall man, throwing his arms round

Alleyne, “how can we thank you enough for taking our parts against those

horrible drunken barbarians. What should we have done without you? My

Tita would have been dragged away, and my head would have been shivered

into a thousand fragments.”

“Nay, I scarce think that they would have mishandled you so,” said

Alleyne in surprise.

“Ho, ho!” cried he with a high crowing laugh, “it is not the head upon

my shoulders that I think of. Cospetto! no. It is the head under my arm

which you have preserved.”

“Perhaps the signori would deign to come under our roof, father,” said

the maiden. “If we bide here, who knows that some fresh tumult may not

break out.”

“Well said, Tita! Well said, my girl! I pray you, sirs, to honor my

unworthy roof so far. A light, Giacomo! There are five steps up. Now

two more. So! Here we are at last in safety. Corpo di Bacco! I would

not have given ten maravedi for my head when those children of the devil

were pushing us against the wall. Tita mia, you have been a brave girl,

and it was better that you should be pulled and pushed than that my head

should be broken.”

“Yes indeed, father,” said she earnestly.

“But those English! Ach! Take a Goth, a Hun, and a Vandal, mix them

together and add a Barbary rover; then take this creature and make him

drunk--and you have an Englishman. My God! were ever such people upon

earth! What place is free from them? I hear that they swarm in Italy

even as they swarm here. Everywhere you will find them, except in

heaven.”

“Dear father,” cried Tita, still supporting the angry old man, as he

limped up the curved oaken stair. “You must not forget that these good

signori who have preserved us are also English.”

“Ah, yes. My pardon, sirs! Come into my rooms here. There are some who

might find some pleasure in these paintings, but I learn the art of war

is the only art which is held in honor in your island.”

The low-roofed, oak-panelled room into which he conducted them was

brilliantly lit by four scented oil lamps. Against the walls, upon the

table, on the floor, and in every part of the chamber were great sheets

of glass painted in the most brilliant colors. Ford and Edricson gazed

around them in amazement, for never had they seen such magnificent works

of art.

“You like them then,” the lame artist cried, in answer to the look of

pleasure and of surprise in their faces. “There are then some of you who

have a taste for such trifling.”

“I could not have believed it,” exclaimed Alleyne. “What color! What

outlines! See to this martyrdom of the holy Stephen, Ford. Could you not

yourself pick up one of these stones which lie to the hand of the wicked

murtherers?”

“And see this stag, Alleyne, with the cross betwixt its horns. By my

faith! I have never seen a better one at the Forest of Bere.”

“And the green of this grass--how bright and clear! Why all the painting

that I have seen is but child's play beside this. This worthy gentleman

must be one of those great painters of whom I have oft heard brother

Bartholomew speak in the old days at Beaulieu.”

The dark mobile face of the artist shone with pleasure at the unaffected

delight of the two young Englishmen. His daughter had thrown off her

mantle and disclosed a face of the finest and most delicate Italian

beauty, which soon drew Ford's eyes from the pictures in front of him.

Alleyne, however, continued with little cries of admiration and of

wonderment to turn from the walls to the table and yet again to the

walls.

“What think you of this, young sir?” asked the painter, tearing off the

cloth which concealed the flat object which he had borne beneath his

arm. It was a leaf-shaped sheet of glass bearing upon it a face with a

halo round it, so delicately outlined, and of so perfect a tint, that it

might have been indeed a human face which gazed with sad and thoughtful

eyes upon the young squire. He clapped his hands, with that thrill of

joy which true art will ever give to a true artist.

“It is great!” he cried. “It is wonderful! But I marvel, sir, that you

should have risked a work of such beauty and value by bearing it at

night through so unruly a crowd.”

“I have indeed been rash,” said the artist. “Some wine, Tita, from the

Florence flask! Had it not been for you, I tremble to think of what

might have come of it. See to the skin tint: it is not to be replaced,

for paint as you will, it is not once in a hundred times that it is not

either burned too brown in the furnace or else the color will not hold,

and you get but a sickly white. There you can see the very veins and the

throb of the blood. Yes, diavolo! if it had broken, my heart would have

broken too. It is for the choir window in the church of St. Remi, and

we had gone, my little helper and I, to see if it was indeed of the size

for the stonework. Night had fallen ere we finished, and what could we

do save carry it home as best we might? But you, young sir, you speak as

if you too knew something of the art.”

“So little that I scarce dare speak of it in your presence,” Alleyne

answered. “I have been cloister-bred, and it was no very great matter to

handle the brush better than my brother novices.”

“There are pigments, brush, and paper,” said the old artist. “I do not

give you glass, for that is another matter, and takes much skill in the

mixing of colors. Now I pray you to show me a touch of your art. I thank

you, Tita! The Venetian glasses, cara mia, and fill them to the brim. A

seat, signor!”

While Ford, in his English-French, was conversing with Tita in her

Italian-French, the old man was carefully examining his precious head to

see that no scratch had been left upon its surface. When he glanced up

again, Alleyne had, with a few bold strokes of the brush, tinted in a

woman's face and neck upon the white sheet in front of him.

“Diavolo!” exclaimed the old artist, standing with his head on one side,

“you have power; yes, cospetto! you have power, it is the face of an

angel!”

“It is the face of the Lady Maude Loring!” cried Ford, even more

astonished.

“Why, on my faith, it is not unlike her!” said Alleyne, in some

confusion.

“Ah! a portrait! So much the better. Young man, I am Agostino Pisano,

the son of Andrea Pisano, and I say again that you have power. Further,

I say, that, if you will stay with me, I will teach you all the secrets

of the glass-stainers' mystery: the pigments and their thickening,

which will fuse into the glass and which will not, the furnace and the

glazing--every trick and method you shall know.”

“I would be right glad to study under such a master,” said Alleyne; “but

I am sworn to follow my lord whilst this war lasts.”

“War! war!” cried the old Italian. “Ever this talk of war. And the men

that you hold to be great--what are they? Have I not heard their names?

Soldiers, butchers, destroyers! Ah, per Bacco! we have men in Italy who

are in very truth great. You pull down, you despoil; but they build up,

they restore. Ah, if you could but see my own dear Pisa, the Duomo, the

cloisters of Campo Santo, the high Campanile, with the mellow throb of

her bells upon the warm Italian air! Those are the works of great men.

And I have seen them with my own eyes, these very eyes which look upon

you. I have seen Andrea Orcagna, Taddeo Gaddi, Giottino, Stefano, Simone

Memmi--men whose very colors I am not worthy to mix. And I have seen the

aged Giotto, and he in turn was pupil to Cimabue, before whom there was

no art in Italy, for the Greeks were brought to paint the chapel of the

Gondi at Florence. Ah, signori, there are the real great men whose names

will be held in honor when your soldiers are shown to have been the

enemies of humankind.”

“Faith, sir,” said Ford, “there is something to say for the soldiers

also, for, unless they be defended, how are all these gentlemen whom you

have mentioned to preserve the pictures which they have painted?”

“And all these!” said Alleyne. “Have you indeed done them all?--and

where are they to go?”

“Yes, signor, they are all from my hand. Some are, as you see, upon one

sheet, and some are in many pieces which may fasten together. There are

some who do but paint upon the glass, and then, by placing another sheet

of glass upon the top and fastening it, they keep the air from their

painting. Yet I hold that the true art of my craft lies as much in the

furnace as in the brush. See this rose window, which is from the model

of the Church of the Holy Trinity at Vendome, and this other of the

'Finding of the Grail,' which is for the apse of the Abbey church. Time

was when none but my countrymen could do these things; but there is

Clement of Chartres and others in France who are very worthy workmen.

But, ah! there is that ever shrieking brazen tongue which will not let

us forget for one short hour that it is the arm of the savage, and not

the hand of the master, which rules over the world.”

A stern, clear bugle call had sounded close at hand to summon some

following together for the night.

“It is a sign to us as well,” said Ford. “I would fain stay here forever

amid all these beautiful things--” staring hard at the blushing Tita as

he spoke--“but we must be back at our lord's hostel ere he reach it.”

Amid renewed thanks and with promises to come again, the two squires

bade their leave of the old Italian glass-stainer and his daughter. The

streets were clearer now, and the rain had stopped, so they made their

way quickly from the Rue du Roi, in which their new friends dwelt, to

the Rue des Apotres, where the hostel of the “Half Moon” was situated.