Chapter 5

BEGINNING TO BE GREAT.

The boys had some fresh plan for the next day, and when Alfred went up to bed they were all whispering eagerly; but as soon as their brother entered the room they pretended to be asleep.

Alfred said nothing till he was undressed and about to get into his bed, and then he only wished them good night.

There was no reply, and the boy felt hurt; but just then he recollected something which made him clap his right hand first to his cheek and then to his forehead, as if he fully expected to find both places still wet and warm. They felt still as if his mother's lips had but just left them.

From that moment Alfred lay quite still in the darkness, feeling very happy and contented, till all at once a long-drawn restful sigh escaped his lips, and he was just dropping off to sleep when he awoke again and lay listening, for his three brothers, believing that he had gone off to sleep, began talking again in an eager whisper, but what about he could not tell, till all at once Red said something about "otters."

They were going to have a grand otter hunt up the little Wantage stream with the dogs; and for a few moments a feeling of bitter disappointment came over the boy, for he had looked forward to the day when that hunt would take place.

He felt better when he recalled the Queen's words as he wished her good night. They were:

"I am so glad, Fred, my boy. You have made me feel very happy."

"Father Swythe must have told her what I said," thought Alfred, and in another minute he was asleep.

The next morning after breakfast the boy did not feel half so brave, and he was thinking of how he could get away to the monk's quiet cell-like room without his brothers seeing him; but he was spared from all trouble in that way, for the monk came up to him smiling.

"I'm going to speak to your brothers, Fred," he said. "I told the Queen that you had promised to try very hard, and she said she was very glad, but she would be so much happier if your brothers came too; so I am going to ask them to come. Do you know where they are?"

"Out in the broad courtyard," said Alfred quickly; but Father Swythe shook his head.

"No," he said; "I came across just now, and they were not there."

At that moment the distant barking of a dog was heard; followed by a yelping chorus which made the boy run to the window and look out, to catch sight of three figures and some half-dozen dogs disappearing over the hill slope.

"I think they have gone after the otters with the dogs," said Alfred sadly.

"Oh, I see," said the monk; "and you feel dull because you are not with them?"

Alfred was too honest to deny it.

"Never mind, boy," said the little monk cheerily; "come to my room, and we'll finish making the ink, and then you can learn to read the letters as I make them, while I write out a poem for the Queen; and then I'll get out the red and blue and yellow, and the thin leaves of gold, and we'll try and make a beautiful big letter like those in the Queen's book, and finish it off with some gold."

"But you can't do that?" cried Alfred, interested at once.

"Perhaps not so well as in the Queen's beautiful book; but come and see."

The boy eagerly took hold of the monk's hand, and they were soon seated at the little table in Swythe's room, with the light shining full upon the slate slab, the pebble grinder, and the black patch.

"You said that was ink yesterday," said the boy, as Swythe gave the pebble a few turns round, and then looked to see if the ink was of the right thickness, which it was not, so a feather was dipped in a water-jug, and a few drops allowed to fall upon the black patch.

"There," said Swythe, "a good writer makes all his own ink. Now you grind that up till it is well mixed. Gently," cried Swythe; "that ink is too precious to be spread all over the slab. Grind it round and round. That's the way! That will do!"

As he spoke, Swythe took a thin-bladed knife and a good-sized, nicely-cleaned fresh-water mussel-shell, and let the boy carefully scrape up all the ink from the slab and place it in the shell.

"That's well done!" he said. "Now we'll write a line of letters."

"Yes," cried the boy; "let me write them."

"I wish you could, Fred, my boy," said the monk, smiling; "but you must first learn."

"That's what I want to do," cried the boy eagerly. "But how am I to learn?"

"By watching me. Now see."

Swythe rose from the table and opened a box, out of which he took a crisp clean piece of nearly transparent sheepskin and a couple of quill pens, sat down again, and then from another box he drew out a piece of lead and a flat ruler--not a lead-pencil such as is now used, but a little pointed piece of ordinary lead--with which he deftly made a few straight lines across the parchment, and then very carefully drew a beautiful capital A, which he finished off with scrolls and turns and tiny vine-leaves with a running stalk and half-a-dozen tendrils.

"But you have put no grapes," cried Alfred.

"Give me time," said Swythe good-humouredly, and directly after he faintly sketched in a bunch of grapes, broad at the top and growing narrower till it ended in one grape alone.

"Oh, I wish I could do that!" cried Alfred eagerly. "But I could never do it so well!"

"I'm going to persevere till I make you do it better," said Swythe. "Now we'll leave that for a bit and begin a Latin lesson."

Alfred sighed and looked longingly at the faint initial letter.

But his interest was taken up directly, for Swythe took up one of his quill pens, examined it, and then, after giving the ink a stir, dipped in his pen and tried it.

The next minute, while the boy sat resting his chin upon his hands, it seemed as if beautifully-formed tiny letters kept on growing out of the pen, running off at the point, and standing one after another in a row, almost exactly the same size, till four words stood out clearly upon the cream-coloured parchment.

As he formed the letters with his clever white fingers, Swythe repeated the name of each, pausing a little to give finish and effect as well as sound to the words he formed, till he had, after beginning some little distance in, made so many words upon one of the faintly-drawn lines and reaching right across the parchment.

"It's wonderful!" cried Alfred. "I could never do that!"

"It is not wonderful, and you soon will be able to do it," said Swythe; "but let's say all those words over again letter by letter, and then the words."

"They are Latin?" asked the boy.

"Yes," said Swythe, "and you are going to learn them so as to know them next time you see them."

Alfred shook his head, but he managed to repeat the Latin words straightforward, and after a while pick them out when asked. Then the monk proceeded to get out his colours so as to ornament the big initial letter of what Alfred had learned in Latin as well as in English was "The History of the Good King Almon."

Then came the most interesting part of the lesson, for, after Swythe had placed his colours ready--red, yellow, and blue--all in powders ground up so fine that it was necessary to shut out the breeze which came in at the window, Alfred learned how the monk made his brushes, by taking a tuft of badger's hair and tying up one end carefully with a very fine thread of flax.

"Now watch me," said the old man, and Alfred looked closely while Swythe took a duck's quill out of a bunch, cut off the hollow part, and then lightly cut off the end where it had grown from the duck's wing. Then the tuft of badger's hair was held by its tied end and passed through the monk's lips so as to bring the hairs together to a point, which was carefully pushed into the most open part of the quill and screwed round till the whole of the tuft was inside. Then a thrust with a thin piece of wood sent the hairs right through, all but the tied-up ends; and Swythe held his work up in triumph--a complete little paint-brush.

"How clever!" cried the boy eagerly; "but how did you get that badger's hair?"

"Saved," said Swythe, "when the dogs killed that badger last year."

"And the ducks' quills?"

"I picked them up when the ducks were plucked by the scullion."

"You did not tell me how you made that black paint."

"By holding a piece of slate over the burning wick of the lamp till there was plenty of soot to be scraped off and mixed up with gum water made from plum-tree gum, the same as I am going to use to mix up these colours, you see."

As he spoke Swythe took a clean mussel-shell and placed in it a tiny portion of scarlet powder.

"That's a pretty colour!" said the boy. "What is it?"

"The colour made by burning some quicksilver and brimstone together in a very hot fire till it is red, and afterwards I grind it up into fine dust. Now," he said, "I'm going to mix this up with gum; and then we'll paint all the back of the parchment behind the big letter red."

Alfred watched the monk's clever touches with the point of his little brush till there was a great square patch upon which the letter seemed to stand.

"Beautiful!" cried Alfred. "Now it's done!"

"Oh, no," said Swythe; "that's the beginning! Now we'll paint the scroll."

"Why do you say _we_" said the boy. "It is you."

"It's we, because you are helping me," said the monk. "Very soon you will be doing letters like this, and then I shall help you."

Alfred sighed.

"Are you going to paint that scroll red too?"

"No: purple," was the reply, and Swythe took up another little packet, which he opened slowly.

"Why, that's blue," cried Alfred.

"Wait a moment!" said Swythe, taking up another clean mussel-shell, into which he put a tiny patch of the bright blue dust. "Now you shall see it turn purple."

Taking up the brush, whose hairs were thickly covered with red paint, he poured a few drops of gum water into the shell amongst the blue powder, mixed all together with the red brush, and to the boy's great delight a beautiful purple was the result.

Then the leaves that had been sketched in had to be done, and while the boy wondered another shell was taken, the brush carefully washed, and a little of the blue dust was mixed with some yellow, when there was a brilliant green, which the monk made brighter or darker by adding more yellow or more blue.

The big ornamental letter was now becoming very bright and gay, Alfred looking upon it as finished; but Swythe went on.

"It's very wonderful!" said the boy. "You seem as if you can make any colours out of red, yellow, and blue."

"So will you soon!" said Swythe, smiling, and still painting away, till at the end of a couple of hours, which seemed to have passed away like magic, the monk began to carefully clean his brush with water.

"That's done now!" cried Alfred, with a sigh of as much sorrow as pleasure, for he felt it to be a pity that the task was finished. "But do you know, Father Swythe," he continued, as he held his head on one side and looked critically at the staring white letter with its beautiful ornamentation, "I think if I could paint and painted that