Rewards and Fairies - Penn State University

Rudyard Kipling
‘Benedetto says to ‘em, solemn as an owl: “You have saved to kill him because the English King had made him a knight.”
me thirty pounds, Mus’ Dawe,” and off he pealed. In some ‘“Ah!” says the Master, shaking his finger. “Benedetto, if
sort we were mad-drunk—I because dear life had been given you had killed my Hal, I should have killed you—in the clois-
back to me, and he because, as he said afterwards, because the ter. But you are a craftsman too, so I should have killed you
old crust of hatred round his heart was broke up and carried like a craftsman, very, very slowly—in an hour, if I could
away by laughter. His very face had changed too.
spare the time!” That was Torrigiano—the Master!’
‘“Hal,” he cries, “I forgive thee. Forgive me too, Hal. Oh, Mr Springett sat quite still for some time after Hal had
you English, you English! Did it gall thee, Hal, to see the rust finished. Then he turned dark red; then he rocked to and fro;
on the dirty sword? Tell me again, Hal, how the King grunted then he coughed and wheezed till the tears ran down his face.
with joy. Oh, let us tell the Master.”
Dan knew by this that he was laughing, but it surprised Hal
‘So we reeled back to the chapel, arms round each other’s at first.
necks, and when we could speak—he thought we’d been fight- ‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Mr Springett, ‘but I was thinkin’ of
ing—we told the Master. Yes, we told Torrigiano, and he some stables I built for a gentleman in Eighteen hundred Sev-
laughed till he rolled on the new cold pavement. Then he enty-four. They was stables in blue brick—very particular
knocked our heads together.
work. Dunno as they weren’t the best job which ever I’d done.
‘“Ah, you English!” he cried. “You are more than pigs. You But the gentleman’s lady—she’d come from Lunnon, new
are English. Now you are well punished for your dirty fishes. married—she was all for buildin’ what was called a haw-haw—
Put the draft in the fire, and never do so any more. You are a what you an’ me ‘ud call a dik—right acrost his park. A
fool, Hal, and you are a fool, Benedetto, but I need your middlin’ big job which I’d have had the contract of, for she
works to please this beautiful English King.”
spoke to me in the library about it. But I told her there was a
‘“And I meant to kill Hal,” says Benedetto. “Master, I meant line o’ springs just where she wanted to dig her ditch, an’ she’d
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