Rewards and Fairies - Penn State University

Rudyard Kipling
‘One dark December day—too dark to judge colour—we ‘“The same,” I says. “Where a plague has Bob Brygandyne
was all sitting and talking round the fires in the chapel (you gone?”
heard good talk there), when Bob Brygandyne bustles in and— ‘His thin eyebrows surged up in a piece and come down
“Hal, you’re sent for,” he squeals. I was at Torrigiano’s feet on again in a stiff bar. “He went to the King,” he says.
a pile of put-locks, as I might be here, toasting a herring on ‘“All one. Where’s your pleasure with me?” I says, shivering,
my knife’s point. ’Twas the one English thing our Master for it was mortal cold.
liked—salt herring.
‘He lays his hand flat on my draft. “Master Dawe,” he says,
‘“I’m busy, about my art,” I calls.
“do you know the present price of gold leaf for all this wicked
‘“Art?” says Bob. “What’s Art compared to your scroll-work gilding of yours?”
for the Sovereign? Come.”
‘By that I guessed he was some cheese-paring clerk or other
‘“Be sure your sins will find you out,” says Torrigiano. “Go of the King’s Ships, so I gave him the price. I forget it now,
with him and see.” As I followed Bob out I was aware of but it worked out to thirty pounds—carved, gilt, and fitted
Benedetto, like a black spot when the eyes are tired, sliddering in place.
up behind me.
‘“Thirty pounds!” he said, as though I had pulled a tooth
‘Bob hurries through the streets in the raw fog, slips into a of him. “You talk as though thirty pounds was to be had for
doorway, up stairs, along passages, and at last thrusts me into the asking. None the less,” he says, “your draft’s a fine piece of
a little cold room vilely hung with Flemish tapestries, and no work.”
furnishing except a table and my draft of the Sovereign ’s scroll- ‘I’d been looking at it ever since I came in, and ’twas viler
work. Here he leaves me. Presently comes in a dark, long- even than I judged it at first. My eye and hand had been purinosed
man in a fur cap.
fied the past months, d’ye see, by my iron work.
‘“Master Harry Dawe?” said he.
‘“I could do it better now,” I said. The more I studied my
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