Page:A C Doyle - The White Company.djvu/268

238 which look upon you. I have seen Andrea Orcagna, Taddeo Gaddi, Giottino, Stefano, Simone Memmi—men whose very colours I am not worthy to mix. And I have seen the aged Giotto, and he in turn was pupil to Cimabue, before whom there was no art in Italy, for the Greeks were brought to paint the chapel of the Gondi at Florence. Ah, signori, these are the real great men whose names will be held in honour when your soldiers are shown to have been the enemies of human kind.' 'Faith, sir,' said Ford, 'there is something to say for the soldiers also; for, unless they be defended, how are all these gentlemen whom you have mentioned to preserve the pictures which they have painted?'

'And all these?' said Alleyne. 'Have you indeed done them all?—and where are they to go?'

'Yes, signor, they are all from my hand. Some are, as you see, upon one sheet, and some are in many pieces which may fasten together. There are some who do but paint upon the glass, and then, by placing another sheet of glass upon the top and fastening it, they keep the air from their painting. Yet I hold that the true art of my craft lies as much in the furnace as in the brush. See this rose window, which is from the model of the Church of the Holy Trinity at Vendôme, and this other of the "Finding of the Grail," which is for the apse of the Abbey church. Time was when none but my countrymen could do these things; but there is Clement of Chartres and others in France who are very worthy workmen. But, ah! there is that ever-shrieking brazen tongue which will not let us forget for one short hour that it is the arm of the savage, and not the hand of the master, which rules over the world.'

A stern clear bugle call had sounded close at hand to summon some following together for the night.

'It is a sign to us as well,' said Ford. 'I would fain stay here for ever amid all these beautiful things'—staring hard at the blushing Tita as he spoke—'but we must be back at our lord's hostel ere he reach it.'