as not until the establishment of Saxon dominion that the art
obtained a permanent foothold in Britain; and then it went back to its
first crude beginnings, as did nearly all other things at that second
conquest.

So behold Nicanor, bare-armed and in leathern apron, carrying tusks to
and fro, cleaning them after their arrival from the merchants' hands,
and giving them out to the workmen as required. Thus he came to learn
the various shades of coloring; how to tell when bone was healthy and
might be expected to take the cutting well, or when it would be apt to
crack and split under the saw. Having come to know the differences in
degree, he was put to checking off the lots as they arrived, according
to kind and grade. Mammoth tusks of elephants, sometimes ten feet in
length, weighing close on a hundred pounds, solid to within six inches
of the tip; teeth and tusks of the wild boar, walrus-bone and
whale-bone, used for coarser work and filling,--all these he must tell
apart at a glance. For to the untrained, bone is bone.

This was light work, and left him time to watch what others did;
whereby, quite unconsciously, he absorbed much useful knowledge, which
was as Master Tobias intended. Then, being well acquainted with color
and texture and grain, he was put to help with the big saw,
coarse-toothed, worked by two men, and had to learn to cut his lengths
to a fraction of an inch as required, with the least possible waste.
This took him some time, for a bone is full of twists and turns which
render it liable to be cut to pieces, so that much care is needful. So
he went up, step by step, knowing well each detail before he undertook
the next, until at last he began to work under Master Tobias's own eye.
And then, for the first time, having acquired an insight into the art,
was he able to appreciate the skill of the master-workman. And this is
the way of all art from the beginning, and as it must be to the end,
since only he who knows may understand.

In long course of time, when many months had gone, came the day when he
brought forth his own first work, a crucifix, the fruit of his own
labors, touched by no other hands from first to last. Himself he
selected the tusk, flawless, finely grained; cut it to the block, shaped
it, the upright of the cross, the arms, the rough outline of the Christ
upon it. Then, bit by bit, cutting, cutting, cutting, the figure grew,
with rounding outlines, and coherent features. The straining ri