f the Refectory--a
noble place for a noble thing--a picture of Jonah.'

'Ah! Jonah an' his whale. I've never been as far 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 grey-beard
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."

'"What?" he said in a whisper.

'"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.'

'Which it's a gift. I had a foreman-bricklayer like him once,' said Mr
Springett. 'He used to prod 'em in the back like with a pointing-trowel,
and they did wonders.'