In the Days of the Guild

by Louise Lamprey

  III

  THE PICTURE IN THE WINDOW

  HOW ALAN OF THE ABBEY FARMS LEARNED TO MAKE STAINED GLASS

  Alan sat kicking his heels on the old Roman wall which was the mostsolid part of the half-built cathedral. He had been born and brought upon a farm not far away, and had never seen a town or a shop, althoughhe was nearly thirteen years old. Around the great house in which themonks of the abbey lived there were a few houses of a low and humblesort, and the farm-houses thereabouts were comfortable; but there wasno town in the neighborhood. The monks had come there in the beginningbecause it was a lonely place which no one wanted, and because theycould have for the asking a great deal of land which did not seem to begood for anything. After they had settled there they proceeded to drainthe marshes, fell the woods in prudent moderation, plant orchards andraise cattle and sheep and poultry.

  Alan's father was one of the farmers who held land under the Abbey, ashis father and grandfather had done before him. He paid his rent out ofthe wool from his flocks, for very soon the sheep had increased farbeyond the ability of the monks to look after them. Sometimes, when anew wall was to be built or an old one repaired, he lent a hand withthe work, for he was a shrewd and honest builder of common masonry anda good carpenter as well. The cathedral had been roofed in so thatservices could be held there, but there was only one small chapel, andthe towers were not even begun. All that would have to be done whenmoney came to hand, and what with the King's wars in Normandy, andagainst the Scots, his expedition to Ireland, and his difficultieswith his own barons, the building trade in that part of England wasa poor one.

  Alan wondered, as he tilted his chin back to look up at the strong andgraceful arches of the windows near by, whether he should ever see anymore of it built. In the choir there were bits of stone carving whichhe always liked to look at, but there were only a few statues, and noglass windows. Brother Basil, who had traveled in France and Italy andhad taught Alan something of drawing, said that in the cities where hehad been, there were marvelous cathedrals with splendid carved towersand windows like jeweled flowers or imprisoned flame, but no suchglories were to be found in England at that time.

  The boy looked beyond the gray wall at the gold and ruby and violet ofthe sunset clouds behind the lace-work of the bare elms, and wonderedif the cathedral windows were as beautiful as that. He had an idea thatthey might be like the colored pictures in an old book which BrotherBasil had brought from Rome, which he said had been made still furthereast in Byzantium--the city which we know as Constantinople.

  In the arched doorway which led from the garden into the orchard someone was standing--a small old man, bent and tired-looking, with a packon his shoulder. Alan slid off the stone ledge and ran down the path.The old man had taken off his cap and was rubbing his forehead wearily.His eyes were big and dark, his hair and beard were dark and fine, hisface was lined with delicate wrinkles, and he did not look in the leastlike the people of the village. His voice was soft and pleasant, andthough he spoke English, he did not pronounce it like the villagepeople, or like the monks.

  "This--is the cathedral?" he said in a disappointed way, as if he hadexpected something quite different.

  "Yes," drawled Alan, for he spoke as all the farmer-folk did, with akind of twang.

  "But they are doing no work here," said the old man.

  Alan shook his head. "It has been like this ever since I can remember.Father says there's no knowing when it will be finished."

  The old man sighed, and then broke out in a quick patter of talk, as ifhe really could not help telling his story to some one. Alan could notunderstand all that he said, but he began to see why the stranger wasso disappointed. He was Italian; he had come to London from France, andonly two days after landing he had had a fall and broken his leg, sothat he had been lame ever since. Then he had been robbed of his money.Some one had told him that there was an unfinished cathedral here, andhe had come all the way on foot in the hope of finding work. Now, itseemed, there was no work to be had.

  What interested Alan was that this old man had really helped to buildthe wonderful French cathedrals of which Brother Basil had told, and hewas sure that if Brother Basil were here, something might be done. Buthe was away, on a pilgrimage; the abbot was away too; and Brother Peter,the porter, did not like strangers. Alan decided that the best thing todo would be to take the old man home and explain to his mother.

  Dame Cicely at the Abbey Farm was usually inclined to give Alan what heasked, because he seldom asked anything. He was rather fond of spendinghis time roaming about the moors, or trying to draw pictures of thingsthat he had seen or heard of; and she was not sure whether he wouldever make a farmer or not. She was touched by the old man's troubles,and liked his polite ways; and Alan very soon had the satisfaction ofseeing his new friend warm and comfortable in the chimney-corner. Therambling old farm-house had all sorts of rooms in it, and there was alittle room in the older part, which had a window looking toward thesunset, a straw bed, a bench, and a fireplace, for it had once beenused as a kitchen. It was never used now except at harvest-time, andthe stranger could have that.

  Nobody in the household, except Alan, could make much of the oldman's talk. The maids laughed at his way of speaking English; the mensoon found that he knew nothing of cattle-raising, or plowing, orcarpentering, or thatching, or sheep-shearing. But Alan hung aboutthe little room in all his spare time, brought fagots for the fire,answered questions, begged, borrowed or picked up somewhere whateverseemed to be needed, and watched with fascinated eyes all the doingsthat went on.

  The old man's name, it appeared, was Angelo Pisano, and he had actuallymade cathedral windows, all by himself. Although Italian born, he hadspent much of his life in France, and had known men of many nations,including the English. He meant now to make a window to show the Abbotwhen he returned, and then, perhaps, the Abbot would either let him stayand work for the Church, or help him to find work somewhere else.

  The first thing that he did was to mix, in a black iron pot that Alanfound among rubbish, some sand and other mysterious ingredients, andthen the fire must be kept up evenly, without a minute's inattention,until exactly the proper time, when the molten mass was lifted out in alump on the end of a long iron pipe. Alan held his breath as the old manblew it into a great fragile crimson bubble, and then, so deftly andquickly that the boy did not see just how, cut the bottle-shaped hollowglass down one side and flattened it out, a transparent sheet ofrose-red that was smooth and even for the most part, and thick anduneven around a part of the edge.

  Everything had to be done a little at a time. Angelo was working withsuch materials as he could get, and the glass did not always turn outas he meant it should. Twice it was an utter failure and had to bere-melted and worked all over again. Once it was even finer in colorthan it would have been if made exactly by the rule. Angelo saidthat some impurity in the metal which gave the color had made a morebeautiful blue than he expected. Dame Cicely happened to be there whenthey were talking it over, and nodded wisely.

  "'Tis often that way," said she. "I remember once in the baking, theoven was too cold and I made sure the pasties would be slack-baked, andthey was better than ever we had."

  Alan was not sure what the glassmaker would think of this taking it forgranted that cookery was as much a craft as the making of windows, butthe old man nodded and smiled.

  "I think that there is a gramarye in the nature of things," he said,"and God to keep us from being too wise in our own conceit lets it nowand then bring all our wisdom to folly. Now, my son, we will store theseaway where no harm can come to them, for I have never known God to workmiracles for the careless, and we have no more than time to finish thewindow."

  They had sheets of red, blue, green, yellow and clear white glass, notvery large, but beautifully clear and shining, and these were setcarefully in a corner with a block of wood in front of them forprotection.

  Then Angelo fell silent and pulled at his beard. The little money thathe had was alm
ost gone.

  "Alan, my son," he said presently, "do you know what lead is?"

  Alan nodded. "The roof of the chapel was covered with it," he said, "thechapel that burned down. The lead melted and rained down on the floor,and burned Brother Basil when he ran in to save the book with thecolored pictures."

  The glass-worker smiled. "Your Brother Basil," he said, "must have thesoul of an artist. I wonder now what became of that lead?"

  "They saved a little, but most of it is mixed up with the rubbish andthe ashes," Alan said confidently. "Do you want it?"

  Angelo spread his hands with a funny little gesture. "Want it!" he said."Where did they put those ashes?"

  Lead was a costly thing in the Middle Ages. It was sometimes used forroofing purposes, as well as for gutter-pipes and drain-pipes, becauseit will not rust as iron will, and can easily be worked. Alan had playedabout that rubbish heap, and he knew that there were lumps of lead amongthe wood-ashes and crumbled stones. Much marveling, he led the artist tothe pile of rubbish that had been thrown over the wall, and helped todig out the precious bits of metal. Then the fire was lighted once more,and triumphantly Angelo melted the lead and purified it, and rolled itinto sheets, and cut it into strips.

  "Now," he said one morning, "we are ready to begin. I shall make amedallion which can be set in a great window like embroidery on acurtain. It shall be a picture--of what, my son?"

  His dark eyes were very kind as he looked at the boy's eager face. Thequestion had come so suddenly that Alan found no immediate answer. Thenhe saw his pet lamb delicately nibbling at a bit of green stuff whichhis mother held out to it as she stood in her blue gown and white apron,her bright hair shining under her cap.

  "I wish we could make a picture of her," he said a little doubtfully.Angelo smiled, and with a bit of charcoal he made a sketch on a board.Alan watched with wonder-widened eyes, although he had seen the old mandraw before. Then they went together into the little room which hadseen so many surprising things, and the sketch was copied on the broadwooden bench which they had been using for a table. Then holding oneend of a piece of string in the middle of the lamb's back, Angeloslipped the charcoal through a loop in the other end, and drew a circleround the whole. Around this he drew a wreath of flowers and leaves.Then he laid the white glass over the lamb and drew the outline just asa child would draw on a transparent slate, putting in the curls of thewool, the eyes and ears and hoofs, with quick, sure touches. This done,he set the white glass aside, and drew Dame Cicely's blue gown and theblue of a glimpse of sky on the blue glass. The green of the grass andthe bushes was drawn on the green glass, and the roses on the red, andon the yellow, the cowslips in the grass. When all these had been cutout with a sharp tool, they fitted together exactly like the bits of apicture-puzzle, but with a little space between, for each bit of thepicture had been drawn a trifle inside the line to leave room for theframework.

  Now it began to be obvious what the lead was for. With the same deftnesshe had shown throughout the old glass-worker bent the strips of lead,which had been heated just enough to make them flexible, in and out andaround the edges of the pieces of colored glass, which were held inplace as the leaden strips were bent down over the edges, as a pictureis held in the frame. When the work was finished, the medallion was apicture in colored glass, of a woman of gracious and kindly bearing, apale gold halo about her face, her hand on the head of a white lamb,and a wreath of blossoms around the whole. When the sun shone throughit, the leaden lines might have been a black network holding a mass ofgems. Dame Cicely looked at it with awed wonder, and the lamb bleatedcheerfully, as if he knew his own likeness.

  "THE MEDALLION WAS A PICTURE IN COLORED GLASS"]

  Then there was an exclamation from the gateway, and they turned to seea thin-faced man in the robe and sandals of a monk, with sea-blue eyesalight in joy and surprise.

  "Is it you, indeed, Angelo!" he cried. "They told me that a glass-workerwas doing marvelous things here, and I heard a twelvemonth since thatyou were leaving Normandy for England. Where have you been all thistime?"

  The upshot of it all was that after much talk of old times and newtimes, Angelo was asked to make a series of stained glass windows forthe Abbey, with all the aid that the friendship of the Abbot and BrotherBasil could supply. He kept his little room at the farm, where he couldsee the sunset through the trees, and have the comfortable care of DameCicely when he found the cold of the North oppressive; but he had aglass-house of his own, fitted up close by the Abbey, and there Alanworked with him. The Abbot had met in Rouen a north-country nobleman, ofthe great Vavasour family, who had married a Flemish wife and was comingshortly to live on his estates within a few miles of the Abbey. Hedesired to have a chapel built in honor of the patron saint of hisfamily, and had given money for that, and also for the windows in theAbbey. The Abbot had been thinking that he should have to send for thesewindows to some glass-house on the Continent, and when he found that thework could be done close at hand by a master of the craft, he was morethan pleased. With cathedrals and churches a-building all over England,and the Abbot to make his work known to other builders of his Order,there was no danger that Angelo would be without work in the future.Some day, he said, Alan should go as a journeyman and see for himselfall the cathedral windows in Italy and France, but for the present hemust stick to the glass-house. And this Alan was content to do, for hewas learning, day by day, all that could be learned from a man superiorto most artists of either France or Italy.