xed for ever on his broad face, while they watched the quick, certain
fingers that copied it. Presently the man took a reed pen from his
satchel, and trimmed it with a little ivory knife, carved in the semblance
of a fish.

'Oh, what a beauty!' cried Dan.

''Ware fingers! That blade is perilous sharp. I made it myself of the best
Low Country cross-bow steel. And so, too, this fish. When his back-fin
travels to his tail--so--he swallows up the blade, even as the whale
swallowed Gaffer Jonah.... Yes, and that's my ink-horn. I made the four
silver saints round it. Press Barnabas's head. It opens, and then----' He
dipped the trimmed pen, and with careful boldness began to put in the
essential lines of Puck's rugged face, that had been but faintly revealed
by the silver-point.

The children gasped, for it fairly leaped from the page.

As he worked, and the rain fell on the tiles, he talked--now clearly, now
muttering, now breaking off to frown or smile at his work. He told them he
was born at Little Lindens Farms, and his father used to beat him for
drawing things instead of doing things, till an old priest called Father
Roger, who drew illuminated letters in rich people's books, coaxed the
parents to let him take the boy as a sort of painter's apprentice. Then he
went with Father Roger to Oxford, where he cleaned plates and carried
cloaks and shoes for the scholars of a College called Merton.

'Didn't you hate that?' said Dan after a great many other questions.

'I never thought on't. Half Oxford was building new colleges or
beautifying the old, and she had called to her aid the master-craftsmen of
all Christendie--kings in their trade and honoured of Kings. I knew them. I
worked for them: that was enough. No wonder----' He stopped and laughed.

'You became a great man,' said Puck.

'They said so, Robin. Even Bramante said so.'

'Why? What did you do?' Dan asked.

The artist looked at him queerly. 'Things in stone and such, up and down
England. You would not have heard of 'em. To come nearer home, I
re-builded this little St. Bartholomew's church of ours. It cost me more
trouble and sorrow than aught I've touched in my life. But 'twas a sound
lesson.'

'Um,' said Dan. 'We had lessons this morning.'

'I'll not afflict ye, lad,' said Hal, while Puck roared. 'Only 'tis
strange to think how that little church was re-built, re-roofed, and made
glorious, thanks to some few godly Sussex iron-masters, a Bristol sailor