Hal smiled. 'At Bury then, sure enough, I met my enemy Benedetto. He had painted a picture in plaster on the south wall of the Refectory--a noble place for a noble thing--a picture of Jonah.'
'Ah! Jonah an' his whale. I've never been as fur as Bury. You've worked about a lot,' said Mr. Springett, with his eyes on the carter below.
'No. Not the whale. This was a picture of Jonah and the pompion that withered. But all that Benedetto had shown was a peevish greybeard huggled up in angle-edged drapery beneath a pompion on a wooden trellis. This last, being a dead thing, he'd drawn it as 'twere to the life. But fierce old Jonah, bared in the sun, angry even to death that his cold prophecy was disproven--Jonah, ashamed, and already hearing the children of Nineveh running to mock him--ah, that was what Benedetto had _not_ drawn!'
'He better ha' stuck to his whale, then,' said Mr. Springett.
'He'd ha' done no better with that. He draws the damp cloth off the picture, an' shows it to me. I was a craftsman too, d'ye see?
'"'Tis good," I said, "but it goes no deeper than the plaster."
'"Be thy own judge, Benedetto," I answered. "Does it go deeper than the plaster?"
'He reeled against a piece of dry wall. "No," he says, "and I know it. I could not hate thee more than I have done these five years, but if I live, I will try, Hal. I will try." Then he goes away. I pitied him, but I had spoken truth. His picture went no deeper than the plaster.'
'Ah!' said Mr. Springett, who had turned quite red. 'You was talkin' so fast I didn't understand what you was drivin' at. I've seen men--good workmen they was--try to do more than they could do, and--and they couldn't compass it. They knowed it, and it nigh broke their hearts like. You was in your right, o' course, sir, to say what you thought o' his work; but if you'll excuse me, was you in your duty?'
'I was wrong to say it,' Hal replied. 'God forgive me--I was young! He was workman enough himself to know where he failed. But it all came evens in the long run. By the same token, did ye ever hear o' one Torrigiano--Torrisany we called him?'
'I can't say I ever did. Was he a Frenchy like?'
'No, a hectoring, hard-mouthed, long-sworded Italian builder, as vain as a peacock and as strong as a bull, but, mark you, a master workman. More than that--he could get his best work out of the worst men.'