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IV

But Nicanor went to the window and opened the wooden shutter and leaned out. He heard the roar of the many camps, blending into one vast undercurrent of sound; he caught the red gleam of fires half hidden behind intervening houses; now and then a bellowed chorus reached him. Also there were sweet tinkling sounds, of a kind which he had never heard before, which thrilled him strangely. Sudden desire took him to be out in the midst of this new stirring life; to see the crowded places, the mingling of many men. Preparations for the night were going on, for it was dark by now, with high twinkling stars. He could see, by leaning far out, the moving glare of torches held high as belated wayfarers crossed the ford, the reflection of the lights dancing on the shallow waters. The fascination of it, this his first sight of Life, gripped him, not to be denied. He sprang to the ledge of the window, writhed himself through, and dropped to the ground outside.

Then, at once, he was in a new world—a world of flickering flames and black dancing shadows, and strange sights and sounds, and restless figures passing always to and fro. And, quite dazed, he stumbled against one, not a rod from the house, who laughed, with a laughter which made him think of the tinkling music he had heard, and beckoned him, drawing him in the darkness. But Nicanor, thrilling through all the awakening soul and body of him, turned and ran, shy suddenly, but at what he did not know.

So he came to a fire burning in a ring of stones; and around the fire men were sitting, eating and drinking, and the light played on their faces. With them were women, at whom Nicanor stared agape. For they were very fair to look on, with jewel-bound hair and slumberous eyes, lithe as snakes, with bare shoulders and dress of strange clinging stuffs. These were dancing girls, being taken to the great inland cities for sale or hire. And near by, huddled close for warmth, were slaves—men, women, and children, chained in long strings, on the way to be sold in Gaul. Here were fishermen, also, and boatmen, gathered by themselves, a noisy crew, with loud jokes which Nicanor heard and did not understand. All about him was a babel of voices and laughter, boisterous and profane; now and then an altercation, short and violent. It went to Nicanor's head like wine. Never had he known anything like it; life like this had passed his bleak northern home entirely by. He drew nearer the groups around the fire, drinking it all in greedily—new sights, new sounds, new impressions. His face was flushed with excitement, his breath came short; so much he found to interest him that he stared bewildered, uncertain what to look at first. The smell of cooking food was in the air, mingled with the aromatic pungency of many fires of wood. Horn cups clashed; at intervals hoarse laughter drowned the shouts of teamsters and the creak and strain of wheels.

And suddenly, under the intoxication of it all, Nicanor found himself speaking in a new, fierce mood of exultation. What he was going to say he did not know; but his voice fell into the old measured chant, regular as the tramp of marching feet, which carried through all the tumult of sound around him. His heart beat hard, his hands clenched, but he flung back his head with eyes which glittered in the firelight. Those nearest looked on him in amazement, ready to scorn. Then they held silent, and listened. Others drew closer, to see what might be going on. More came, and more. Women left men's knees and joined the little crowd, smiling, then with parted lips of wonder. Nicanor neither saw nor heard them. For the first time in all his life he was carried beyond himself; in a physical ecstasy he spoke out that which clamored at his lips, caring nothing for his audience, unconscious of them utterly. And because that is the one thing which will grip men's minds and compel them, he held them spellbound, in spite of themselves—until, abruptly, in a flash, he became conscious of himself, seeing himself, hearing himself. That moment he lost his hold of them. And he knew it, and stopped short. And for an instant there was silence.

Then a woman drew a long breath which was like a sigh, and a man muttered something into his beard. The spell snapped; and like a flood let loose their talk leaped at him. They shouted, "More!" They would know who he was, and whence he came, and he must finish the tale for them. But Nicanor shook his head, dumbly, with a new and strange emotion surging through him. He was frightened at himself, at his feeling, at what he had done. And back of his fear lay something deeper, something which he could not name—half exultation, half truest awe, as though he stood in a presence mightier than he and knew himself for but the tool with which the work was wrought.

There came a woman, very wonderful, and hot as flame, and put into his hand a broad piece of silver, looking into his eyes. A man with a broken nose thrust a copper coin into his palm; others followed. For a moment he stood staring at the fire-lit faces around him like one foolish or in a trance, with his own face quite white. That he might receive money for his soul had never entered his head. Then he broke away from them all and ran—ran as though for his life—back to the house of Tobias, and clambered through the low window and flung himself upon the bed, laughing and sobbing and shaking, and clutching his coins in sweating hands.

For he had entered into his heritage at last, and the Future had become the Present.

V

The working-place of Master Tobias was a small room half underground, with three windows on a level with the street. Long boards on trestles were ranged upon three sides, leaving the centre free; these were much chipped and scarred, and black with oil and dirt. On these tables were small list-wheels for polishing, formed of circular thicknesses of woollen stuff clamped tightly between two wooden disks of smaller diameter which left a pliant edge of wool projecting, held firmly in wooden frames and turned by hand. There were trays of tools for carving and graving and scraping, and boxes of fine sand and of glass-parchment. In a corner was a grindstone; and the unclean floor was littered with sawdust and scrapings of bone. Here half a dozen men were working, in oil-stained aprons of leather. The wheels hummed continuously, with a steady droning; at intervals the great saw shrieked and grated; from the storeroom a boy brought long tusks ready for the first cutting.

Men have worked in ivory before ever history began, and of all known arts it is the most ancient and one of the most beautiful. And no two master-workmen have gone about it after precisely the same manner, but each has followed his own method of treating the bone, of cutting, which is a delicate business, of smoothing, and of polishing. At different ages widely differing means were employed to bring about the same effect. There were many curious things to be learned in the way of what and what not to do—how to treat bone with boiling vinegar, and secret processes of rolling out ivory and joining it invisibly, for the making of larger pieces than could possibly be cut from any one tusk. Lost secrets, these, to us; and being lost, by many doubted as having ever been. These things Master Tobias had learned, many years before, from a workman of Byzantium, where the work was already famous, and far and away ahead of all. This man, dying, had left Master Tobias all he knew, and tools such as never otherwise could he have obtained. So that the fame of Master Tobias went abroad through the province; and he did much work in the way of tablets, diptychs, caskets, figures of gods and goddesses and of Christian saints. Many a carven comb and jewel-box found its way to some haughty Roman beauty's dressing-table, the work of Master Tobias's own fat hands. He found good markets for his wares, since Roman love of bijouterie was strong, and he had few competitors. It was 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 ribs—for this effect he cut against the grain, in the way that Master Tobias had taught him—the pierced hands and feet, the draped cloth about the loins; slowly it formed under his eager fingers. He smoothed it with glass-parchment, polished it on the list-wheel; in the end painted it, with red lips and crimson drops of blood and draping of richest purple. And he chose that Christian symbol solely because, out of all the subjects offered by Master Tobias, it presented fewest difficulties in the matter of draperies—greatest stumbling block to all novices. So it was finished, and became the pride of his life—but not for what it was; only for that it was the work of his own hands. Had it been an offering to Apollo he would have loved it just as well. And when he had finished it, Master Tobias kissed him upon either cheek, even as he had done once before, and declared that he could die happy, for he should have a successor to keep his art alive.

But all this took much time; and meanwhile Nicanor was learning many things besides the art of carving.

When he was in the humor for it, Nicanor could work very well indeed, as he had shown. But more often than not he was sadly out of humor; and liked nothing so much as to slip away from the hum and drone of the wheels and the smell of bone and oil, and wander out of the quiet church precinct down to the busy life at the fords. Here was unending amusement; all day long he would watch the going and the coming, listen to the uproar of traffic, silent himself or mingling with the crowds.

Day after day narrow barges went up the Tamesis with the tide from the port of Londinium, deep-laden with wines and spices, silks, glass, candles, and rich stuffs from foreign lands; with lamps and statuary and paintings for the great Roman houses; with fruits and grain, vegetables, meats and poultry. And at the ebb came the barges down again, this time with wool and pelts, smelling villanously and tainting all the air as they went by. Here also was the river-ford, passable at low tide, marked out by stakes, and leading from the southern side of Thorney, opposite the marsh-ford, over to the mainland, where again the road began and stretched away to Londinium. Here the fisher-folk cast their nets for salmon in their season, for other fish in plenty the year round, shouting across to the bargemen passing up or down. These, besides the few priests and servants of Saint Peter's church, and the keepers of the inns, were the only ones who lived upon the Bramble Isle. All others came and went, and never stayed save for a night.

Day after day came craftsmen, traders of all kinds, merchants with bundles of hides on pack-horses to be shipped at Dubræ; mimes, actors, musicians, jugglers. Crested-helmeted cohorts, with glancing shields and bristling spears, splashed through the fords on their way south, stern dark-faced men from many nations. Long strings of slaves, who then as later formed so large a part of Britain's export trade, were marched with clanking chains along the highways. Always was color, life, movement, the clamor of voices, the rumble of wheels; a constant stir, ceaseless, pulsing, feverish.

It was small wonder, then, that Nicanor, alive in every fibre of his eager being, thirsting for adventure, should escape from the workshop's confinement as often as might be, to watch and wonder at the passing show. Also it was small wonder that Master Tobias did not like such rovings of his pupil, and openly disapproved. With reason he argued that if a man would make his work worth while he must stick to his bench and tools. But Nicanor, at such times, cared little whether or not he made that work worth while. At his bench he was restless, fretting to be gone. Only outside, amid hurrying men and the confusion of arrival and departure, was he at peace, entirely happy and content. And this was but natural, since young dogs strain always at the leash, and as his fate had written. But this, Master Tobias, bound heart and soul to his beloved task, could not understand.

Being both fiery, they clashed often, when dire confusion followed. Upon these occasions, Master Tobias, purple with wrath, brandished his burin and raved. Nicanor was an ingrate; Nicanor was a fool and a good-for-naught, who deserved everlasting punishment and would surely get it. And Nicanor, white-hot within and silent—two years before he would have screamed with rage like any other infuriate young wild thing—laid aside his tools and left the work-room, his head in air, his jaws set like steel to a thin smile, his wrath blazing all the fiercer for being dumb. Not until he found himself with a circle of gaping faces around him, hanging on his words, would his anger cool and his world right itself to normal. Then, his steam worked off, himself peaceful and serene, he would return to the house for supper, meet Master Tobias's menacing growls with demure politeness, and forthwith charm him into abject surrender with diabolical art. So peace would be restored, with the combatants firmer friends than ever—until the spirit within him moved Nicanor once more. And yet—for this is as it always happens—each fresh quarrel was fiercer than the one before.

It was after one of these passages-at-arms that Nicanor, losing his temper completely, spoke to Master Tobias as he had never dared speak before. And then, foolishly bound to keep the last word, strode off in a fume, out of the church grounds, through the huddle of houses and crowd of passing folk, whose clamor put him yet more out of sorts, and down to the river-ford. Here he paused, kicking up the earth with the toe of his laced leather shoe, in a very evil temper, wanting only something to vent his spleen upon. And standing thus, he heard all at once an outcry behind him, and wheeled, and saw a thing which made him forget his grievance and consider that after all he was more lucky in his lot than some.

At first he saw only a crowd of men and boys, who jeered and hooted. This was a sight not new; but in their midst he caught a glimpse of a crested helmet and the black cloak of a slave-driver. And then the crowd parted, and Nicanor saw a girl, a lean wisp of a thing, with burning eyes and a gray face framed in straight black hair, with chained wrists and a ragged frock which slipped aside to show a long red welt across her brown shoulders. The slave-driver held the end of the chain, his heavy whip tucked beneath one arm—a squat man with a black and brutal face and small hard eyes. He was appraising the girl's good points glibly, as though of a mare to be sold—her working strength, present perfections, future possibilities. The soldier, wax tablets and stylus in hand, his back half turned to Nicanor, made notes of what he said, at intervals throwing in a comment or a question.

"From the north, you say?"

"Ay, lord, born of a Roman soldier and a British wench. A good investment, noble sir, and the price but small—only five-and-fifty sestertii—and that because I give thanks to be rid of her."

"Hath she spirit, fire? I want not a puny, slinking chit."

"Spirit—fire!" the man repeated with a curse. "If that be what you wish, lord, it is here in very flesh. This young she-devil hath given me as much trouble as three men."

The soldier fumbled for his pouch and counted money into the dealer's hand. The latter counted it again, spat upon it for luck, made his mark in the Roman's book, and unchained the girl's wrists.

The Roman laid a hand on the shoulder of his bargain.

"Come, pretty one!" said he, and turned, so that for the first time his face was to be seen. "Thou'lt get no more blows nor curses, if so be thou'lt do thy duty well."

Leering, he drew her forward. Nicanor cast a glance upon him, and started, and hailed him. For the Roman was Valerius, the errant one; and what he wanted with a slave girl who had no beauty, and where he got her price, was more than Nicanor could tell.

Valerius, still with a hand on the girl's shoulder, grinned at him, and said:

"Why, now, friend, 'tis a very good day that brings thee to my sight. Not since I was repairer of sandals to the good fathers—thanks to thee—have I seen thee, though I hunted the place over for thee, and mourned right tenderly when I found thee not. And that was near a year ago."

And always, though his speech was pleasant, as he spoke he moved away, sidling, with a certain stealthiness, a glinting of his narrow eyes from side to side. Nicanor became interested, and followed a pace. The girl stared at him with desperate dumb eyes.

"Thou hast made a good purchase," he said carelessly, and thought that for an instant the other showed his teeth.

"Not for myself!" Valerius said humbly. Whether it suited him, for motives of his own, to play the worthy poor man, Nicanor could not tell. "I but act on behalf of my lord Eudemius, of the great white villa off the Noviomagus road, this side of Londinium—hey, now! by all the furies, what is this?"

For the gray-faced girl, with hunted eyes, flung herself suddenly from his hand, crying in a hoarse croak of a voice:

"Not for him! Not for the lord Eudemius, the Torturer! I am not bought for him!"

Again Nicanor found himself staring, for there was fear and anguish in her voice such as he had never heard in human tones. And as they looked at her in amazement, she rocked from side to side, sobbing without tears, and whispering keenly:

"Not for him! Ah, dear Christ in heaven! not for him!"

"And why not?" Valerius demanded. "What hast thou against him that his name sends thee squealing—"

"What against him?" the girl said fiercely. "He tortures—he mutilates—he strips flesh from living bones, and laughs! Let a slave raise an eyelid in his presence, and he were better dead. Ay, I know—I know! I will not go to him! I will drown—choke—hang myself first!"

She glared around her as though to seek deliverance where none was. Valerius shook her roughly by the arm.

"Thou'lt come with me and hush thy whining!"

They had reached a lane between the houses, unpaved, trampled hard and uneven by many feet. This lane was known then as the Street of the Black Dog; and it ended abruptly at the low stone wall which here marked the boundary of Saint Peter's land. By the wall, at the head of the street, was one of the rude stone crosses which were raised at intervals around the walls and at every gate therein. This was forty or fifty yards ahead of them as they stood. As Valerius touched the girl she sprang away from him and fled forward up the street, with head thrown back and torn rags fluttering and her black hair streaming behind her in a cloud. Valerius shouted and plunged after her, a hand outstretched with clutching fingers. And after them went Nicanor, his eyes alight with the lust of the chase, the fierce joy of the hunting, old as mankind itself. As Valerius snatched at a rag on the girl's shoulder, he gave a sharp yelp of triumph, as a hound yells when its leash-mate has nipped the fox. But the rag tore away as the girl struggled free. She reached the head of the street, a flying figure of terror, with the black-browed Roman at her heels and Nicanor racing alongside; staggered, recovered, stumbled again even as he touched her, and fell forward at the foot of the stone cross, with a sob like that of a horse ridden to the death, clasping the column with both hands and crying:

"I claim sanctuary! I claim sanctuary!"

Then her head fell forward on her outflung arms, and she lay with thin shoulders heaving to her fighting breath, and her face hidden in her tangled mane. Valerius stopped, almost in his stride, all but overrunning her, so close upon her had he been. He shook his balled fist and cursed her, glaring down upon her, not daring to touch so much as a strand of hair. For she was in the shelter of holy Church; and few men were bold enough to violate that terrible, wonderful Law of Sanctuary which even then was beginning to be dreaded and respected, and which high and low might claim alike. So that Valerius walked in half-circles about her, like a baffled beast which sees its prey torn from its very jaws; and she lay and shuddered, and Nicanor stood watching with avid eyes. For as yet he was only a very primitive young animal, with the instinct of his kind to join with the hunter against the hunted. People began to gather, quickly, clamoring with question and theory; and upon these Valerius scowled, biting his nails in fury. The girl raised herself, crouching close beneath the cross, and looked around her like a trapped thing, crying:

"A priest! Is there no Christian priest here who will tell this man that I be safe from him in sanctuary?"

Valerius pulled Nicanor to him.

"Go thou and find one," he said harshly; "for while she sticketh to this cross I dare not lay finger upon her lest I be torn limb from limb by fools. He can but give her up; for she is bought and paid for, and it is not hers to say whether she finds her master to her liking. And quick with thee, that I may get her where she cannot fly again."

So Nicanor went swiftly through the nearest gate into the yard of the church, and looked about him for a priest. And it seemed to him that the more hasty grew his search, the less was it rewarded, for he was in a desperate hurry to get back and see what followed. Presently, ahead of him, he saw a priest, whom he knew as Father Ambrose, and he ran to him, shouting:

"Holy Father, a slave hath claimed sanctuary at the cross by the Street of the Black Dog, and asketh for a priest to confirm her right."

The good Father kilted up his gown, and together they ran through the nearest byway to that street. And then, quite suddenly, as they reached the end of it, Nicanor felt with a shock that he must have mistaken the place. For although the cross was there, and the wall, and the street was the Street of the Black Dog, yet there was no sign of the girl, nor of Valerius, nor of any of those who had gathered to look on. So that Nicanor turned to Father Ambrose with a face of pure fright, and stammered:

"But I left them here, upon this spot! Or else I am sure bewitched!"

He looked to right and left and back to Father Ambrose. Father Ambrose shook his head and said passively:

"It may be that they have arranged the matter among themselves. Let us return."

He walked off, placid and unstirred; and Nicanor touched the cross to make sure that it was real and no delusion, and looked into the sky and around upon the clustered houses, and spoke no word at all. But he knew quite surely that the matter had not been arranged.

THE GARDEN OF DREAMS

BOOK II

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Book II

THE GARDEN OF DREAMS

I

The years went on—misty Springs, golden Summers, flaming Autumns, Winters stark and chill, leaving each its tale on the unrolling scroll of time. For in those years the consul departed from Britain with his forces, and the cities ruled themselves, each in a state of feudal independence, now warring amongst themselves, now making common cause against their common foes.

Were history to write itself more often with a view to cumulative dramatic effect, there would be small need for the romance of imagination. One would have history a tale, of swift climax and excitement, when it is in fact a scattered medley—a battle here, a bit of statecraft there; here a burning Rome, yonder a new God; and between these the commonplace round of human life and toil and death, the inevitable dead level of the tale. It is because of the long lapses between cause and effect, the revolutions slow and of secret tardy growth instead of by fire and sword, that men turn to Imagination to bridge the gap. Events, grand and stirring, woven, one believes, into the very fabric of history, are proved to be the pleasant tale of some ancient ardent romancer, with an eye for dramatic effect. And often it is the bit choicest and most intimate of detail, binding the chronicle into a dramatic whole, which the iron pick of Research digs from the heap of bones, and wise men say: "That brilliant hero never lived; this great battle was but a skirmish; some old monk wrote that—it never happened." Many a glowing jewel, cherished tenderly and shining bravely through the dust of ages, has turned, in the white light of knowledge, to worthless glass. So do the old gods perish.

Thus came the chronicle of Saxon conquest down to us—a brave and lusty tale, scarred with battles, written in blood, picturing a horde of savage foe-men that swarmed over the Walls and swept through a blood-drenched land. In fact and deed, it was a conquest of absorption rather than extermination, dramatic only in its vast significance; a gradual amalgamation of two forces, in which the stronger, cleaner Norse blood triumphed over worn-out and depleted Roman stock. As weeds, rank and sturdy, overrun a garden, choking out other plants, so in Britain, Saxon life overgrew Roman life, inch by inch, almost imperceptibly. The conquest was by no means bloodless. Towns were sacked and men were slain; here was an explosion, there an outbreak of lawlessness; but for the most part the change was wrought with deadly slowness and a sureness which nothing could check.

In these years Nicanor grew tall and strong and long of limb, and his voice ceased to play him false with strange pipings which had filled him with wrath and dire dismay. He learned to use eyes and ears as well as tongue; he worshipped at the altars of strange gods, and laughed at them. He lived from day to day as the birds live, picking up a crumb here and yonder. In the workshop he spent as little time as might be, restless, not content with what he had, ever eager for that which he had not, devoured by the curiosity which would lay hands on the strange throbbing thing called Life, and probe its inmost hidden meaning.

And as time went on, the unrest deepened which possessed him. He was unhappy, and he could not tell why. He wanted something, and he knew not what. His shyness developed into fierce aggressiveness, unreasonable, alarming. He prowled continually among the camps, sullen and quarrelsome, vaguely miserable, and blaming his misery upon all the world. He took to spending much time, with small profit to himself, among the chained gangs of slaves, where were cruel sounds and crueller sights. At the hiss and cut of the lash on bared backs and thighs he thrilled with savage exultation; he took morbid delight in the sight of pain inflicted; and this he could not at all understand. At this season his tales were all of war and blood and violence, of treachery and despair. When night came he slept fitfully or not at all, with uneasy half-formed dreams. And in these dreams he was always searching for a thing which had no name, starting over the river-ford upon the high southern bank, ending nowhere under gray skies and desolation. He neglected his carving, waged bloody battles with his fellow workmen, bullied Master Tobias like any slave-driver. Lonely and shy and sullen, he fought through his crisis by himself, not knowing that it was a crisis, nor why it had come upon him.

No one took the trouble to help him; he would not have thanked them if they had. Outwardly he was taller, more gaunt, with a certain rough virility which impressed. Men knew that he was savage, and baited him even while they feared him; himself only knew that he was miserable—more miserable, because he could not understand why he should be so at all. He lived the wild life of the camps, drinking, brawling, making fierce love with a vague notion that this was what he wanted, ever finding the fruit of desire change to ashes in his mouth. Always the power within him grew; and always he despised those upon whom he wrought his magic. For it was nothing to master these, to do with them as he willed; all his art was lost upon them since they could not understand.

He was then at work with Master Tobias upon a book-cover for the gospels, which was for Saint Peter's, and very much interested he was and pleased with his share in it. In the morning he went to work right willingly, with no thought other than to do as best he might with all his skill. So he got his tools, and the oil and glass-paper for the first polishing, and, Master Tobias not having yet appeared, started to go on himself with the bit of scroll he had begun the day before. Seeing it with fresh eyes after a lapse of hours, it struck him that a change might be made in one place with much advantage from the design which they had planned. So he made the change, and was still more pleased. When Master Tobias entered, Nicanor pointed to what he had done, and said:

"Is not this a better way, good sir? That corner needs balancing, and it is in my mind that the design should work up this way—" he illustrated with his burin—"and so bring into harmony—"

And then it was that the unexpected happened. For Master Tobias rose from his stool and stood over him, and said:

"Hast thou changed the design I made?"

Nicanor replied that he had, and wished to show the advantage of his new idea. But Master Tobias struck his hand aside, and shrill with rage, exclaimed:

"Thou good-for-nothing clod! Thou hast spoiled the work with thy clumsy handling! Why canst not leave alone what thou dost not understand? Who gave permission to change? Body of me! Must I stand over thee every hour in the day and switch thy hands for disobedience?"

"But it is not spoiled!" Nicanor protested with indignation.

Master Tobias stormed.

"I say it is! I say it is, and must be smoothed out and changed. And thou'lt stay within and do it, until all is as it was before. I'll show thee my designs are not to be altered thus unwarrantably!"

And herein he made a mistake. For when he said "Thou shalt!" Nicanor's impulse was "I will not!" and as yet he acted upon impulse. Master Tobias could have flogged him if he wished; Nicanor cared not a rap for flogging. He rose in open rebellion and pushed away his stool.

"Not I!" he said. "The design is false, and I will not put into my work what is not as it should be!"

He turned and marched out of the room—leaving Master Tobias dumb with astonishment and rage—surly and savage and very bitter, with his hand against every man because he thought that every man's hand was against him.

And then, quite suddenly, there swept over him the fierce, insistent longing for change which wrestles with every man at some time or other in his life; the hot desire to fling himself out of the rut into which that life inevitably must settle, to encounter anything, good or bad, so long as it brought a change. And because he was still too young to see that this is the very one thing which may not be; the one thing of which Fate says: "Come and go, and plan as ye will, but remember that I hold the leading-strings; for my name men call Circumstance, and my law is that man shall do not what he will, but what he must,"—because as yet he could not see this, he left Thorney that day for Londinium, saying no word of his grievance to any man, with his bundle tied to a stick upon his shoulder.

It was on the road to Londinium that he overtook one journeying in the same direction, who kept pace with him persistently, let him go fast or slow. This was a venerable man, with a long beard of white, and wise, all-seeing eyes that smiled and smiled beneath the penthouse of his brows. Nicanor came to hate him vindictively, with no reason at all, as he hated all the world just then.

Nicanor stopped at evening by the roadside, and sat down to eat the food he had brought with him. And this ancient man stopped also, and sat upon a stone near by, and watched him. Nicanor, with meat and black bread in his hands, glanced up, ready to scowl, and met the old man's eyes, smiling at him. It was so long since any man had done other than revile him—since one's own mood will reflect itself like an image in clear water upon the minds of those around one—that Nicanor was surprised into smiling back, uncertainly, it is true, but still smiling. Then it was as though a bit of that outer crust of moroseness melted, and left something of his old boyish shyness in its place. Without stopping in the least to think why he did it, he broke the bread and meat into two portions, and held out one, in silence, awkwardly, as a child who does not know whether his gift will be accepted or cast upon the ground.

Now if that old man, perhaps not understanding, had not taken what he offered, turning from him then, it must surely have been that Nicanor would have shrugged his shoulders, and flung the food upon the road, and shut up once more within his shell of surliness, with his opinion of mankind fully justified in his own mind. But whether he wanted it or not, the old man took his gift, with eyes grave yet always smiling upon his lowering, half-shamed face, and said in a voice like a deep-toned bell, so clear was it and vibrant:

"I thank thee, my son."

He ate the food, slowly; and Nicanor watched him slyly, as he ate his own supper, fancying himself vastly indifferent to all ancient smiling strangers. But deep down in his rough shy heart he was pleased for that he had succeeded in not turning another soul away from him—so small a thing has power to change the balance sometimes; and when the old man spoke he did not wish to repulse him, as often. The stranger said, quite as though he had a right to know:

"Son, art sure that it will be well for thee to go to Londinium? Is what thou seekest there?"

Nicanor answered with immense surprise:

"I seek nothing."

"So?" the old man said, and smiled. "Now I thought that surely thou wert seeking something, and very near to black despair because thou hadst not found it."

And at once, like an echo from another world, there came to Nicanor the memory of a time when he had wandered seeking for something which he could not name, upon the downs, under gray skies and desolation. And he did not know if this had really happened or had been but a dream. But he began to think the old man very strange and rather to be feared. He said:

"Old man, how may you tell that I seek for what I cannot find; and why would it be not well for me in Londinium?"

The old man's face changed then, so that for an instant Nicanor was frightened. For into it there came a high far look of utter peace, such as the face of a holy saint who has suffered all might wear, if he awakened. And while Nicanor stared, not knowing what to think about it, the old man said gently:

"Son, I may tell by right of having known myself what thou art knowing now. For the faces of men are as an open scroll to those who have learned to read what is writ therein, and thy story is upon thee very clear. Thou art in a world of thine own creation, but this world of men hath also claims upon thee, which thou canst not ignore. And I say to thee, go again to that place which thou hast left, for to find what thou art seeking, one need not go afield. And when thou hast found that thing, which is in this world of men, seek thou sanctuary, which is holy love."

Nicanor said: "I do not understand! What hath love to do with it?"—and told of the love that he had seen, which was all he knew. The old man listened, with unchanging eyes upon him, and said:

"Now truly I see thou dost not understand. This be not love, but a blast of furnace heat which scorcheth. But some time thou wilt come to understand the meaning of my words, and then shalt thou find sanctuary and peace. Ay, peace—that is what men cry for in the dark days that are passing; and they shall seek refuge and find none, and the bitterness of death shall be upon them. For it shall be said even as by the prophet of Babylon, mother of old evil—'Rome the Mighty is fallen—is fallen!'"

He swayed gently as he sat, with hands uplifted and eyes no longer smiling; and to Nicanor's eyes his long white beard and hair were as a mist of silver around his head.

"Thou also shalt pass through the Valley, for the Black Dog of trouble is upon thee; and thou shalt work out thine own unhappiness and thine own salvation. For thy way is the way of loneliness, and of misunderstanding, and of the Cross. And this is as it must be, since the price of heart's blood and heart's desire is pain, and for what thou gainest, thou must pay the price."

He ceased, and his hands fell to his sides and his white head drooped. He leaned to Nicanor, groping, old, and suddenly very feeble, and whispered:

"Son of men, I too have trod the path which thou art treading now. And I say to thee, seek thou sanctuary while yet there may be time, for no man knoweth what the end shall be. And when thou art entered in, all else on earth shall matter nothing, for thou shalt be at peace. This I know, O Youth, and tell thee, for—I did not enter in."

He rose and laid a withered hand on Nicanor's bent, shaggy head.

"Unto each his own appointed work, and his own appointed fate, and the reward which he hath merited. Now peace be with thee!"

He turned away and passed onward into the falling night.

Thereafter the world unrolled itself between them, for they never met again.

Wrapped in his cloak, Nicanor lay and stared at the stars above him, and pondered those things which he had heard. And, because again he could not understand, he put upon them his own interpretation. But he at once began to make a tale about that old man, with his silver beard and his smiling eyes; and so he fell asleep, thinking that that was all there was in it.

When he awoke at break of dawn, he was inclined to think the whole a dream. But there was a new and softer mood upon him, greatly surprising to himself, and the black soul within him was tamed and stilled. So, in blindly superstitious obedience to the word of the strange old man, he turned his face away from Londinium and all that he longed to find there, back toward the life which was his, and the work which was his, and the Isle of Brambles in the fords.

And so came Fate, hard following on his heels.

II

For out of the gray mists of morning came soldiers, six or eight, with ring of weapons and shuffling thud of feet; and with them was a centurion in command. These overtook Nicanor where he went slowly back toward Thorney; and the centurion laid a rough hand upon him and bade him halt. Nicanor turned; but before he could ask angrily why they had stopped him, his wrists were fast in handcuffs and he was a prisoner in chains. He turned upon the centurion.

"Now what is this? I have done no wrong. I demand release!"

"Demand if it please thee," the soldier said. "But in truth I think thee something more than fool to let thyself be thus caught doddering by the way. To escape once, and baffle all the great lord Eudemius's searchers, and then be stumbled upon like any sheep—faugh! I expected better things of thee!"

"Now have I naught at all to do with the lord Eudemius!" said Nicanor. He explained, carefully, who he was, and whence he came and to whom he belonged, and they turned a deaf ear to him. He was the man they sought, even the slave of Eudemius, escaped three days ago, with a reward out for his capture. This last explained it, but that Nicanor could not know. They insisted that they were in the right; all he could say and do would not convince them otherwise.

They skirted around Londinium by a street lined widely with tombs, and struck a road leading south and slightly west, which the men, talking among themselves, named the Noviomagus road. Ten miles, and they reached the station known by that name, and here took horse, with Nicanor mounted behind a guard. The road led through the neck of the great forest of Anderida, and came out again into the open, and they followed it until three hours after noon. Then they turned aside into a narrower branch road, and so rode easily for another hour until they entered a grove of ilex trees. To the farther end of this they came abruptly, and saw before them open country, a broad and gentle slope of hill; and on its summit a great stately house, white-walled, with outbuildings in the copse around it. In the centre of the blank wall of the front of the house which confronted them, was a gateway, with gates of bronze, and a porter's lodge. Here the porter, looking through his wicket, asked their business, and, being told, directed them around to the rear. So they entered at another smaller gate, and were in a court, open to the sky and surrounded on all sides by buildings, where slaves were working. This, Nicanor learned from the soldiers' talk, was in the quarters of the slaves.

"'Were I that woman, I should have wanted to love him.'"

And here the centurion found the overseer, and talked with him long and earnestly. The overseer paid over the reward, and the centurion, as Nicanor saw without at all understanding the transaction, returned certain broad pieces, which the steward hid away upon himself with a furtive glance around. The soldier then departed with his men, his tongue in his cheek; and the overseer came to where Nicanor stood in chains, and looked at him. He was a very fat man, with little eyes sunk in unwholesome flesh, and was far haughtier than the great lord Eudemius himself. When he saw Nicanor's face, he began unexpectedly to curse and bluster, and said:

"How now, fellow! Is this a trick thou and thy mates have played upon me, to obtain my master's gold? Thou art not he who escaped three days ago."

But light had broken upon Nicanor, and he answered:

"So I told them, and so thou couldst have seen if thou hadst looked before thou didst pay—and receive back—thy master's gold. If this be thy practice, sure thy lord must be the poorer for thy loyal service!"

But the overseer was talking very fast, without paying heed at all.

"By my head, but this is a scurvy trick to play a man! But now thou art here, here shalt thou stay in that other's place; for it would go hard with me were my lord to learn that reward had been paid for nothing—and a slave is a slave to him."

Nicanor turned on him in a blaze of wrath, and the fat overseer, wary of the lean strength of him, called his men.

"Take him to the armorer's and have put upon him the collar. And on pain of punishment let no man say he is not the one who went away."

So they put upon him the brazen collar of slaveship, with the name of Eudemius engraved thereon; and set him to work among the household slaves. And he, being alone, was helpless, and could do no more than bide his time as best he might.

But at first, when his bonds galled, he stormed, raging in fury at his impotence and the high-handedness of those who had betrayed him to his servitude. Finding that this brought him but blows and curses, and was of no manner of good, he calmed down and simmered inwardly. Then—and herein he surprised himself—he began to take an interest in this new life into which he had been cast. He had abiding faith in himself, and this is a thing of which every man has need; he was undergoing a new experience, which at the outset was interesting. When he became tired of it—well, he would then find means of escape. The work was not over hard, since there were many hands to lighten it; he was brought into contact with a magnificence of which he had never dreamed. As always, he kept his eyes and ears open; with his strange, sure prescience that all he could see and hear and know would be useful to him, somehow, somewhen, he set out to learn all he could of the life of the great mansion and of those who dwelt therein.

So he found out many things; and one day he found Varia, the great lord's daughter.

The house was so vast that one might lose himself with ease among its many halls and courts and passages if he did not know its plan. Nicanor, sent one day on an errand to the kitchens, reached them in safety; and then took the wrong way back, and found himself wandering in a part of the house new to him. This did not trouble him, for by then he was well known among the household servants, and was sure of soon meeting some one who would set him right. So, quite without thought, he pushed open a door at random, and then abruptly lost all his wits through sheer amazement and delight.

For he was in a garden, beautiful to his eyes beyond all words, with broad terraces and gleaming marble steps where peacocks strutted; with at one end a fountain banked in a tangle of roses, where sprays of water fell with silvery splash and tinkle; with marble seats and statues gleaming from the cool gloom of trees. Around the garden were high walls, vine-hung, with the surrounding buildings of the villa for a broken background. An untamed profusion of green life rioted here; pale flowers of night, whose fragrance hung heavy on the air, swam in a sea-green dusk; ivy clung and clambered along the crannies of gray walls; roses sprawled in a red torrent of perfume over the yellowing images of old gods and heroes. In one corner a placid lake gazed still-eyed at the sky, with white swans floating on its mirrored black and silver. Nicanor drew breath with a quick pleasure which was almost pain; here one might think great thoughts and dream great dreams. For it was as a bit of that Forgotten Land of dreams, through which all men have journeyed, though the road to it is lost, with a glamour of mystery and a charm upon it which held him spellbound.

Out of the velvet shadow into the still evening light, one came toward him, in silence, with dark hair hanging in heavy braids on either side of her pale face, with dusky eyes and scarlet lips and jewels that glimmered in the folds of her perfumed robes. He bowed before her, keeping his eyes upon her face; for though he was a slave, he was first a man, and next a poet, which means a lover of all things beautiful, and he had never seen a woman like her in all his life before.

"Who art thou?" she said. And though she was a great lady and the daughter of that noble house, she was yet a girl, and scarce beyond her childhood, and she drooped her head before his glance.

"Nicanor, thy slave," he answered, but his voice was not a slave's voice.

"Why art thou here?" she asked him. "This is mine own place, where none but I and my women come."

"I crave thy pardon, lady," he said; and told her how he came. In turn, her eyes rested on his face; and he, meeting them, felt his pulses leap to a sudden shock which sent the blood back pounding to his heart. For they were wandering eyes, awake and seeing, yet which slept, with no light of reason in them. So then he understood why the name of their lady was spoken throughout the household in hushed tones as of one dead; why she was so closely hidden from the eyes of the world. And she was the Lady Varia—the lord Eudemius's only child—the last of his great house, fair, futile flower.

"Nicanor," she repeated, with a pretty halting on the word. Her voice was low and dreaming, more tender than a dove's. "Where have I heard that name? Why, Nerissa hath told me thou art he who telleth tales to the men and maids at evening. See, it is evening now. Wilt not tell me too a tale? I should like it, for sometimes I am very lonely."

She was far above him as the stars; but she was a woman, and he a man—and the first tale was told within a garden. She held out a hand to him, and he took it and touched it to his forehead, and it fluttered in his and then lay still. She led him to a bench by the sleeping lake, a child whose will might not be thwarted, and bade him tell her tales such as he told her men and maidens. This the sure instinct of his art taught him he might not do, since those tales which held them thralled were not for such as she. But he locked his hands about his knee, and thought an instant, his head flung back and his eyes intent and eager, with an odd shining deep within them.

So his tale began, in the deep-voiced chant which had rung out by moor and camp-fire, hushed now, that the peace of the evening's stillness might not be broken. She sat quite still beside him, her hands clasped childlike in her lap, listening with parted lips. The dusk deepened, and the golden moon hung over the surrounding wall and flooded the garden in wan hoary light. The pool lay a lake of silver in a black fringe of trees. The night flowers breathed forth drowsy perfume, making heavy the summer air. Nicanor's voice rolled on, endlessly through the scented darkness. …

Until Nerissa, the old nurse, came upon them suddenly, clamoring for her charge. Varia sprang to her and kissed her, with fond coaxing arms about her, so that she relented, since her lady's will was law. She dismissed Nicanor, and he crossed his arms before his face, and went away from Paradise.

Varia hid her face on her nurse's shoulder—poor groping soul that found its happiness in things so small—and said:

"He hath told me tales, Nerissa, so strange and wonderful that never was aught like them in all the world. I will have him to come again, for I am so happy—so happy! And thou shalt not tell, for then he could not come, and he is not to suffer for it. Promise, Nerissa, dear Nerissa—it is but a little thing!"

Thus Varia.

And Nicanor—ah, Nicanor! That night there opened to him a new world—a world of beauty and of sweetness and of pain. He, a son of the soil, knowing his roughness, his uncouthness, his bondage, never giving them a thought till then, had led her by the hand, a daughter of the stars, for a little space, the barriers down between them. One bit of common ground they had; beyond it, distance immeasurable and impassable.

That night Nicanor was once more seeking, always seeking, for something vague and left unnamed; past the river-ford of Thorney, where ever that night-long search began; and so through all the world to where a garden lay in moonlight. Here also he would have sought, for he knew that what he strove to find was waiting. But a web of moonlight held him back from entering; and from the outer darkness an old man's voice came to him, clear as a deep-toned bell, which said:

"The price of heart's blood and heart's desire is pain, and for what thou gainest, thou must pay the price."