“It is indeed a noble art,” said Father Joseph. “You did well to acquaint yourself with it.”
“The occasion however,” said the other, “did not arise. My pen hath therefore had but little practice, save for such strokes as I may have sometimes made in idleness to see the ink run. In short, for want of this practice my manner of writing is slow, while you, putting your pen daily to many sacred uses, have a speed with it that is no doubt swift as thought.”
“ ’Tis but a poor pen, and an aged hand,” said Father Joseph, “but such as it is …”
“Now I have need of a letter to be written in haste,” continued the Lord of the Tower, “for which I deemed your pen to be suited beyond the pens of any, and if you will write what I shall say the work will be speedily accomplished.”
“Gladly will I,” answered Father Joseph, his breath already beginning to come more easily from the rest he had had in the chair. “Gladly will I,” and he brought forward an ink-horn that hung at his girdle, and drew from under his robe a roll of parchment that was curled round a plume, for he had all these things upon him; and as soon as the Lord of the Tower had lent him a knife he had shaped the end of the quill for a pen in a moment, and pared it and all was ready. These things he took to a table and dipped the pen, and was readier to write than Gonsalvo was to think. For there was this difficulty about the letter that he desired to send to his son: he wished to exhort him to continue his studies with a redoubled vigour; such a message as Father Joseph would smile to hear, glowing for some while after with an inner satisfaction; but then again those studies were nothing less than the Black Art, and the produce of them no ordinary lucre, but a dross that might well seem to Father Joseph to come hot from the hands of Satan. How was he to ask that some of this dross should be sent full soon for the righteous purpose of settling his daughter comfortably in the holy bonds of wedlock, without shocking the good man by too open a reference to the method of its manufacture? It cost him some moments of thought and nigh puzzled him altogether. Then he began thus: and the pen of Father Joseph scurried behind his words.
“My dear son, I trust that you apply yourself diligently to your tasks and that you are already well advanced in your studies, and, in especial, in that study which I most commended to you. That coffer which I showed you the day before you left is in no better state than it was then. We urgently require somewhat that will cover the satin lining, which is in such ill repair. Your studies will have acquainted you with what material is best suited for this purpose, and you will be able to acquire some of it more easily than we and to send us sufficient. We have a neighbour shortly coming to visit us, and he will doubtless see the coffer, and, should he see the satin lining (in its present state of ill repair), it would shame us and Mirandola. Hasten therefore to send us some of that material that will best cover it. And the covering will need to be thick, for this neighbour has shrewd eyes. Your mother sends her love, and Mirandola. Your loving father, Gonsalvo of the Tower and Rocky Forest.”
“What studies does your worthy son pursue?” said Father Joseph.
“He is studying to take his proper place,” said Gonsalvo; “learning to be a man. He is being taught such things as concern his sphere in life; fitting himself for such responsibilities as will fall on him; learning to take an interest in the proper things; studying to concern himself with the things that matter.”
“I apprehend,” said Father Joseph.
But still the Lord of the Tower felt that more phrases yet were required of him, and he poured out all those he knew which, although having no meaning, could yet be introduced into conversation. There were far fewer of them then than there are now, so that he soon came to an end of them, but then he quoted proverbs and popular sayings and such circumlocution as had come down to him after serving various needs in former ages.
“I apprehend,” said Father Joseph.
Then the Lord of the Tower took the parchment and sealed it up with his seal. And Father Joseph sat there rubicund, affable, blinking; a study for anything rather than thought. Yet years of familiarity with incomplete confessions had given him a knack with the loose ends of parts of stories that enabled him to unravel them almost without thinking. This he had done already with the story now before him, but he desired to be sure, for he was a careful man.
“I have myself,” he said, “some material that might line a coffer, a very antique leather, or some damask that …”
“No, no,” said the Lord of the Tower, “I should not think of depriving you of these fair things.”
And Father Joseph knew from his haste to refuse this offer, and his eagerness to send the letter quickly, that he had indeed unravelled the story of Ramon Alonzo. Behind that beneficent smile that lingered after his speaking he pondered somewhat thus, so far as thoughts may be overtaken by words: “The Black Art! An evil matter. The earning of gold by dark means, perhaps even the making of it. Let us see to it that it be put to righteous uses, so that it be not entirely evil, both end and origin.”
And he began to plan uses for some of the gold that Ramon Alonzo
