London folk went up and down. Palace where sat a strong king, Tower where traitors lay in ward, wall maintained through the centuries upon the base the Romans laid, Aldgate, Newgate, Ludgate, Bishopsgate. London Bridge, London Stone, Baynard Castle, old Temple without the Templars, with the lawyers. Blackfriars, Whitefriars, Greyfriars, Austin Friars, Crutched Friars, crowd of monasteries and nunneries, great buildings of stone, lesser buildings of wood, churches and churches, and a good way out of town Westminster, where the king was building his great chapel with the wonderful roof. Sixty thousand, maybe seventy thousand people in London. Learned men were there, artists were there, merchants there, men of the Church, of the law, of the sword. Hidden Wickliffites, hidden Lollards were there. Astrologers and alchemists were there and men of the rosy cross. Navigators and discoverers were there, striving to show Henry what to do to balance or counter Ferdinand of Spain and Emmanual of Portugal. Mechanics and artisans were there, many and many men of many crafts. Guilds and guilds. London of the bells, of the Wall and the Thames; London outer, London inner.

Near the Old Jewry ran a narrow street where dwelled many workers in metal—ironsmith, coppersmith, silversmith, goldsmith—not the great known workers but the lesser ones that the great hired. A narrow street of poor houses, dark and noisy, or dark and still. The children were poured into the street, the women sat in the doors or clacked up and down. From some houses came always the clink of metal upon metal, from others the workers went away to other places of work. At night they returned. Now the sun cleansed all, now the fog came dull-footed into the street and the houses and stayed.

Jankin, a worker for an armourer, opened the door of an old house. A large room, which was a workshop, and four small rooms, and out of the house had recently been carried a bier. The man who died had been an old, independent metal worker. Here still were his furnace and his tools. Whatever had been his family it was gone; apprentices who had dwelled with him were away to other masters. “But his custom would come back,” said Jankin. “The whole thing for so many pounds. Something down, but the most could be worked out. ’Tis said there’s a ghost in the house, and so they don’t sell or rent it easily.”

The man with him said, “I rent it and buy the tools.”

Jankin answered, “If you do the work you used to do, master, ’t will be like planting a tree in a flowerpot!”

“No. And ‘master’ me no more, Jankin!”

“Diccon Dawn. It comes strange! But many a man and a great man is in danger. Well, you were never much in London, master, and you’re changed. Eh, those days I was with you in Paris! I hear them still between hammer strokes, and they come around me like fairies. And you’ll live here?”

“Aye.”

“The great vase you made for the cardinal! Tall as a man, and a wreath of silver dancers! And he would have you to sup with him—and even I in the hall had venison pasty and marchpane and such wine as Saint Vulcan drinks!”

“Let us go to the owner.”

Five days ago Wander Forest.

Owner of the house, heir of the dead man’s furnishings, was found. Yes, yes! let and sell on easy terms, Jankin, who was responsible, answering for Richard or Diccon Dawn, and the latter’s gold pieces also answering. The long June day saw the whole completed, key in the hand of Diccon Dawn, and still two hours lacking of sunset.

Quoth Jankin, “I can get you plain work to start on.”

He stood a middle-aged, surly, doggedly faithful man. “If you chose to work with me again, Jankin—?”

Jankin regarded workroom, regarded street through wide, low window. “Well, I will! I’d like to watch tree break flowerpot!”

Through the street alone, into the outer street near the river, a poor street also, filled with a great clanging noise. Men-at-arms poured by, going for some reason to the Tower. When they were passed he met a country cart, two girls, sisters, seated and a boy walking beside the horse. They had strawberries and they were crying them. “Strawberries! Strawberries! Make you young again! Strawberries!”

Down a cross street he saw the river and it was running sunset gold with beds of violets. He entered a poor house where lodged sailors’ wives, and here he sought and found Morgen Fay. “Come with me! I want to show you something.”

After a moment of silence she moved toward him and they went out together. They went through the street, a tall man and a woman very poorly clad, tall almost as he, and of a rich beauty. There was a great sunset this eve, bathing London and Thames and these two.

Diccon Dawn opened the door. They entered the workshop. “This place is now mine. I do not know if you know it, but I am a smith in gold and silver.”

Jankin had brought and left upon the table a loaf and cheese, a pitcher of ale and a platter heaped with strawberries. Moreover there was water provided and candles in the stand and he had swept the room. All the tools of this trade were about; at the back stood the furnace. The room faced the south and the west, and through the window streamed the glowing light. They entered, they drank a little water, then stood and faced each the other.

She spoke. “We came away upon the ship together, two mortals in the most merciless danger. ‘That cannot be helped!’ I thought, after the first astounding when all the blood went from my heart and my knees bent under me. The Vineyard shook us down together like two leaves in London. ‘That cannot be helped,’ I thought, ‘but now the wind will drive the one north and the other south!’ ‘Lodge at the Old Anchor,’ says Vineyard master. I go there, and I find you there before me. Still the wind does not rise. But now it must!”

“You have gold,” said the other. “I saw him to whom we owe more than gold give it to you. There is still lodging at the Old Anchor. Return there if you choose. I will walk with you. You shall lodge as you have lodged, and I as I have lodged. But this house is now mine. Lodge here, Morgen Fay!”

“No! Now at last we speak together! Now at last!”

“Now at last!”

She stood away from the table, he nearer window. Gold and red sunset was behind him, a gold and red pool upon the floor between them, and a rosy light struck her—face, head and throat.

It was again—it was again!

She cried, “Cell at Silver Cross, and you on your knees before heaven, and I the ape!”

He put his hands before his face. “All heaven was mine!”

“Dressed so, like the great picture, and with my fingers drawing or slackening cords that made the blue mantle to wave and lights to brighten. Oh, God—oh, God!”

“It is so, yet they brighten.”

She leaned against the wall, clasping her hands above her forehead. “Through wickedness and mire and hell and silly paradises I could come at times to her garden gate and feel her within, though ever was a fence between us! Her the Blessed, Her the Mother, Mother of All! A sweet song of her, a bright picture of her is that one who moved in Bethlehem and went down into Egypt and came back to Nazareth! A little song, a little story of her is the great picture in Silver Cross. All songs and all stories have her in them! But what I did, because I thought I was in danger and because there was mire in me, was to choose to clip the gold coin and take it from where it was needed and buy perdition with it! I chose to lie and cheat, to mock and perjure, to make her small and ugly—Her the Blissful, Her the Wholly Pure, Her the Strong and Beautiful!”

Richard Englefield turned to the window. Fiery light! The moon on the coasts of Italy! Fiery light!

Moments dropped, far apart, slowly, one after the other. Morgen Fay spoke again, in a changed tone. “I am not going back to the old life. To please myself I learned to make lace and I can make it rarely. There is here a guild of sewing women and lace-makers. A sailor’s wife told me.”

“Work if you will, Morgen. But do you lodge here!”

“Why—why?”

They moved. Light seemed to pour over them, red light. A horn was blown in the street. Again she cried out. “It is heaven that you love and seek, far above this and all sinning! When I was ape I saw that, the light falling on your face!”

“Heaven, yes—heaven grown small maybe, but heaven that man understands! Give me heaven!”

She cried, “Oh, the ape has done murder!”

“No! No murder was done. I thought so at first, and indeed it might seem so, but it was not. Diccon and Alice Dawn. Lodge here, Morgen, lodge here!”

The fiery light, the music in the street. The brown-gold figure, the smith in gold and silver, tall, like King David in the window of Saint Ethelred. “Decide! It is for you to decide!”

All her life seemed to come around her. All her life up to the ruined farm and Wander forest, and then and for a long time Wander forest, ruined farm. And then in full, sounding and lighted, Silver Cross. Four times in all. Prison, the Vineyard ship and the Old Anchor. Fire-red and brown-gold and shreds and lines of blue. Horns in the street, but somewhere a lute and a viol. Build as build you can! Vineyard ship, Old Anchor, fiery street, house of the smith, colour and odour of roses, viol, lute. She moved, she sat down by the table and buried her face in her arms. Presently he lighted the candles. “Come, Morgen, come and see the whole of it!”

“No!” said Morgen Fay and rose to her height. She stood up. “No! It is not little me thou art seeking—little me, little thee. Perhaps—it is great daring to say it—perhaps I also who have been ape am seeker! At any rate, I’ll not give thee tinsel who needeth gold! And now I am going back to Old Anchor.”