Louise Lamprey

“ Me, I am content for the time to be a fresco painter.”
“And if it is all to vanish in a few years, why do we paint?” mused Padraig with a swift melancholy in his voice.
Matteo’s hand fell heavily upon his arm. “Because we must not lose our souls—that is why. The life of our work will last long enough to be seen and known by others. They will remember it, and do their work better. Thus it will go on, generation after generation, until painters come who can use all that we have learned since Rome fell, and cap it with new visions. Every generation has its dragon to dispose of. ”

“ He drew with a bit of charcoal a line so beautiful that it was like music. It was not merely the meeting of two arcs of a circle, but the meeting of two mysteriously curved perfect lines. Sir Walter Giffard saw at a glance that here was the arch he had dreamed of.
He saw more than that. David was that rare builder, a man who can work with his hands and see all the time inside his soul the completed work. He could no more endure slipshod work or graceless lines in his building than the knight himself could do a cowardly or dishonest thing. ”

“ Ye who have been bowed down with the burden of his cruelty and his greed, rise up and stand straight like men, for he is dead.
“Ye, the gods of his fathers and mine, who know what he was in his lifetime, I call on ye to judge whether his slayer did well to kill him, for he is dead.
“Ye, the people of the Long White Mountain, who have heard the name of Romulus and the name of Remus, know now that we are the children whom he would have slain after he had killed our father and our mother, and that we were saved by a wolf of Mars to live and rule our own people now that Amulius is dead. ”

“ In the days of jarl and hersir, while yet the world was young, And sagas of gods and heroes the grim-lipped minstrel sung, With the beak of his open galley in the sunset's scarlet flame, Over the wild Atlantic the Norseland Viking came.
Life was a thing to play with,—oh, then the world was wide, With room for man and mammoth, and a goblin life beside. Now we have slain the mammoths, and we have driven the ghosts away, And we read the saga of Vinland in the light of a new-born day. ”

“ The thing that made it Lady Philippa's own particular room, which could have belonged to no one else, was the set of soft yet brilliant tapestries which covered the walls. They had been worked by her in her girlhood, and she sometimes felt that more than half her life was wrought into the quaint figures and innumerable flowers and leaves and emblems of those narrow panels of embroidery. They had adorned the room which had been hers in her father's castle, and single panels had curtained or covered wall-spaces in many other castles during her life as Queen Eleanor's maid of honor. ”

“ Sometimes by the light of a betty lamp in the early winter evenings the journeymen would be still at work, drawing the waxed thread carefully and quickly through the leather. Hand-sewn and made of well-tanned hide, such a shoe could be mended again and again before it was outworn. Riding-boots, leather shoes, slippers, sandals, clogs, pattens, shoes of cloth, silk, morocco, cloth-of-gold, velvet, with soles made of wood, leather, cork and sometimes even iron, went to and fro in the shadow of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and sooner or later every kind crossed the threshold of Thomas Eyre’s shop. ”

“ If Thou dost come as the great Lord of Life, The Lord of bear and wolf, and stag and fox, Leopard and ape, and rabbits of the rocks, We are thy children, as our brothers are,— The furry folk of forest fastnesses, The bright-winged birds that wanton with the breeze, The seal that sport amid the sapphire seas. We worship gods of lightning and of thunder, Of winds and hissing waves, the rainbow's wonder, The fruits and grains, borne by the kindly earth, And all the mysteries of death and birth. ”

“ The children who were here, there and everywhere, watching all that was done and helping where they could, felt as if they were looking on at the making of a new world. It was really almost like a miracle—some of the ignorant marsh folk thought it was one—when that uncultivated hilltop, overgrown with bushes and wind-stunted trees and with the rocky bones of it cropping out here and there, became a trim encampment of orderly thatched huts. The beasts grew sleek and fat on the good fodder and grazing, and no one had appeared so far who had any evil designs. ”

“ As he tightened the straps of his sandals he looked once more at the strange and savage assembly. There were some thirty men and women and several half-grown youngsters, garbed in wolfskins so shaped as to leave them free to run or climb. Shoes were skilfully fashioned like a great wolf-paw; skins were joined so cunningly that when the wearer loped along a hillside in the chill pale gold of the winter sunset, or skulked among the shadows of summer woods, any one would swear that what he saw was a lurking wolf. ”

“ The bulky loom of Cornelys Bat was set up next morning in the old hall, and the Queen came down to watch the strange, complex, curious task. Then she would take the shuttle herself and try it, and to the surprise of every one, kept at the task until she might well have challenged a journeyman. While the threads interlaced and shifted in a rainbow maze her mind was traveling strange pathways. The shuttle, flung to and fro in deft strong skill, was not like the needle with its maddening stitch after stitch, and there was no petty chatter in the room. ”

“ No one, who has not tried it, can imagine the sensation of living in a hostile land, removed from all that is familiar. Until his captivity began Aguilar had never been obliged to act for himself. He had always been under the authority of a superior. He had questioned and wondered, seen the injustice of this thing and that, but only in his own mind. When everything in his past life had been swept away at one stroke, his faith alone was left him in the wrecked and distorted world. He had never dreamed that Taxmar was learning to respect that faith. ”

“ The falcon flying down the windy sky, The swallow poised and darting in the sun, The guillemot beating seaward through the mist— We knew them every one, And heard from them of trumpets wakening war, Of steadfast beams that roofed our people warm, Of ships that blindfold through uncharted seas Triumphant rode the storm. Now come we to the battle of our dreams,— The trumpets neigh, the ranks are closing fast In that stern silence that men keep who know This hour may be their last— That they, like us, may riven and useless lie Ere once again the bright steel greets the sun. ”

“ Such an idea, to Colonus, to Emilius in the Sabine village, or even to the old chief Numa on Alba Longa would have seemed wildly impossible. It seemed to Romulus that if a band of outlaws had been welded into an effective fighting troop as he had welded them, a country might be made up of a great many different sorts of persons living peaceably together. He grinned as he thought of such a man as his old captain, Ruffo, obeying all the customs of the colony and giving his whole mind to the tilling of the soil and the raising of cattle. ”

“ The next morning Ranulph came again with the Provençal maid of honor to get more flowers, and “strowing herbs,”—sweet-scented plants that gave out their fragrance when trodden upon. The rushes used for floor-covering were often mixed with these on festival days, and when new rushes were to be put down the whole might be swept into the fire and burned. The maids of honor made garlands for the wall, and thus the first breath of air the Queen drew in her grim, small stone rooms high in the castle keep, was laden with the scent of the blossoms of the South. ”

“ Where the downward-swaying branches Shiver, quiver in the sun, And with low persistent murmur The hidden waters run, Far from bell and book and candle With their grisly ban, In the tangle of the rushes Sits the great god Pan. Oh, the unworn joy of living Is not far to find,— Leave the bell and book and candle Of the world behind, In your coracle slow drifting, Without haste or plan, You shall catch the wordless music Of the great god Pan. You shall wear the cap of rushes, And shall hear that day All the wild duck and the heron And the curlew say. ”

“ His quick mind pictured a royal garden adorned with these foreign shrubs and herbs, the wainscoting and furniture to be made by French and Italian joiners from these endless leagues of timber, the stately churches and castles which might be built by skilful masons from the abundant stone along these shores. Here was a province which, if it had not gold, had the material for many luxuries which must otherwise be bought with gold, and his clear Italian brain perceived that ingots of gold and silver are not the only treasure of kings. ”

“ V THE WOLF CUB The new moon was rising above a wet waste of marsh and tussock and tasseled reeds. A man and two boys climbed hastily up a hill. Before them they drove a bleating, cold, rain-wet, bewildered flock. As any shepherd will admit, sheep are among the silliest creatures in the world, and if there is any way for them to get themselves into trouble they will do it. ”

“ Matteo averred thoughtfully, “there will be cathedrals in Italy, France, Normandy, Aquitaine, England, greater than the world has seen. There will be cliffs and forests of stone-work—arches, towers, pinnacles, groined and vaulted roofs, hundreds of statues of the saints. Every inch of it will be made beautiful as the forest is—with vines and creeping mosses, blossoms and the little wood-folk that shelter among trees. There will be great windows of stained and painted glass. There will be altar-pieces like those that we only dream to-day. ”

“ Before the end Fate the old witch, who often loves to turn A man's words on him, kept the ships becalmed Even to thirst and famine; when instead They fed on leather, gnawed wood, and ate mice As did the Patagonian giants, when They begged such vermin for a savage feast. Then Fate, her jest outworn, blew them to shore On the green islands called the Isles of Thieves, And brought them to more islands—and still more, A kingdom of bright lands in sunny seas. Here did the Admiral land, and raise the Cross Above that heathen realm,—and here went down In battle for strange allies in strange lands. ”

“ They plunder and pillage as they list, whether it be palace, abbey or nunnery that lies in their way. Honor has no meaning to those who prey on the helpless.”
“My lord,” said Dickon hesitatingly, “you mean that—that—honor is for all men—though they take no vows?”
The stranger's voice rang like steel on steel. “Honor is for all true men—and women—king or knight, merchant or peasant, bond or free. A slave may be loyal to his master—the master must keep faith with the slave. Christ died for all—for their souls, not their houses of stone or brick or timber. ”

“ Dame Annis Lavender was rather doubtful, but she had confidence in Mary, and it was settled that Mary should go. She was to have the gown of blue sooner than she thought. The flax was already spun, Dame Garland did the weaving, and she and Mary’s mother dipped and dipped again until the web was a deep exquisite blue like a summer sky. Barbara made Mary a gift of a fair white linen cap and kerchief. The two girls, Barbara with her black eyes and hair, Mary with her gold-brown braids and calm blue eyes and wild-rose coloring, made a pretty picture together. ”

“ The custom is an old one and long given up, and I do not like to return upon a road that I have traveled, or dig up old bones.
“In the villages on the heights—in the lower valleys of the mountain range that lies there—” he waved a brown arm toward the far blue hills, “the people who dwell there are worshippers of our gods, and their ways are as the ways of this colony, O my fathers. Their women spin, they weave, they grind grain, they tend bees, they keep the household fire alive and bright, they are fair and pure. These are fit wives for our soldiers—or for any man. ”

“ Flashing in the sunlight, rainbows waking, Move your mighty oars keeping time. Sailors heave your anchors, chanting, chanting Some strange and mystic rime.
Pearls and gold we bring you, feathers of our wild birds, Glowing in the sunshine like flowers. Houses we will build you, food and clothing find you, You shall share in all that is ours.
Why do you frighten us, white men, white men? Can you not be friends for a day? Souls are like the sea-birds, flying, flying, Borne by the sea-wind away. ”

“ This Christendom of ours is all ringed round with heathenesse—Moors, Danes, Bulgars, Arabs, Turks—peoples white, brown, black, but caring naught for those things which are dear and precious to Christian men and women. I have been where the beacons flashed from hill to hill along the shore of Britain to warn the villages of Danish pirates. I have seen the Moors from Barbary come swarming over the borders of Granada and Andalusia until the Christians were all but driven back into the mountains. Our faith is not their faith, our oaths are not their oaths, nor our ways their ways. ”

“ This was something which Padraig had never seen. He had painted pictures himself on parchment, and drawn designs in color for the craftsmen, but a wall-painting so full of life and color that it looked like a live angel come down from the skies, he had never seen made by any man. ”