e finished. We were both
master craftsmen, do ye see, and he needed us. None the less, I never
went aloft to carve 'thout testing all my ropes and knots each morning.
We were never far from each other. Benedetto 'ud sharpen his knife on
his sole while he waited for his plaster to dry--_wheet, wheet, wheet_.
I'd hear it where I hung chipping round a pillar-head, and we'd nod to
each other friendly-like. Oh, he was a craftsman, was Benedetto, but his
hate spoiled his eye and his hand. I mind the night I had finished the
models for the bronze saints round the tomb; Torrigiano embraced me
before all the chapel, and bade me to supper. I met Benedetto when I
came out. He was slavering in the porch like a mad dog.'

'Working himself up to it?' said Mr. Springett. 'Did he have it in at ye
that night?'

'No, no. That time he kept his oath to Torrigiano. But I pitied him. Eh,
well! Now I come to my own follies. I had never thought too little of
myself; but after Torrisany had put his arm round my neck, I--I'--Hal
broke into a laugh--'I lay there was not much odds 'twixt me and a
cock-sparrow in his pride.'

'I was pretty middlin' young once on a time,' said Mr. Springett.

'Then ye know that a man can't drink and dice and dress fine, and keep
company above his station, but his work suffers for it, Mus' Springett.'

'I never held much with dressin' up, but--you're right! The worst
mistakes _I_ ever made they was made on a Monday morning,' Mr.
Springett answered. 'We've all been one sort of fool or t'other. Mus'
Dan, Mus' Dan, take the smallest gouge, or you'll be spluttin' her stern
works clean out. Can't ye see the grain of the wood don't favour a
chisel?'

'I'll spare you some of my follies. But there was a man called
Brygandyne--Bob Brygandyne--Clerk of the King's Ships, a little, smooth,
bustling atomy, as clever as a woman to get work done for nothin'--a
won'erful smooth-tongued pleader. He made much o' me, and asked me to
draft him out a drawing, a piece of carved and gilt scroll-work for the
bows of one of the King's ships--the _Sovereign_ was her name.'

'Was she a man-of-war?' asked Dan.

'She was a war-ship, and a woman called Catherine of Castile desired the
King to give her the ship for a pleasure-ship of her own. _I_ did not
know at the time, but she'd been at Bob to get this scroll-work done and
fitted that the King might see it. I made him the picture, in an hour,
all of a heat after supper--one great heavi