PHILIP WOOD AND SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN.

'Be off, I tell you! We want no loiterers here!' said a workman, roughly pushing away a country lad who was gazing with deep interest at the busy crowd of people engaged in the rebuilding of St. Paul's Cathedral.

This famous church, destroyed by the Great Fire in 1666, was now—some three years later—being restored under the direction of Sir Christopher Wren.

'I am not loitering, sir,' answered the lad humbly. 'I have come up from Suffolk to seek work. I can carve, and I can——'

'Be off, I tell you!' harshly interrupted the foreman; 'we want no hedge-carpenters here! Here comes the master. Be off, or he will make short work of you!'

The master, no less a person than the great Sir Christopher himself, now came up, and catching sight of the lad, said sternly:

'Who is that youth? Has he business here? If not, bid him begone, for lookers-on hinder the work.'

'Just what I was telling him, your honour,' said the foreman, scowling at the boy. 'He has come to look for work, he says, but I told him we wanted no country bumpkins here.'

Sir Christopher cast a searching glance at the boy. 'What sort of work can you do?' he asked.

The boy, Philip Wood, by name, was much flustered at being addressed by the great architect himself, and hardly knowing what he said, he stammered out, 'I am very fond of carving, sir.'

'Carving—umph! What was the last thing you carved?' asked Sir Christopher.

'The last thing was a trough, but——' and Philip was about to describe the group of roses and columbines he had made for the Squire's chimney-piece, but was interrupted by a scornful laugh from the foreman.

'A trough! and he to seek work on St. Paul's! Let him return to his swine.'

Sir Christopher joined in the laugh. Then, seeing the crestfallen look of the boy, he said, half-scornfully, 'Troughs! Well, then, you have seen pigs. Suppose your carve me a sow and her little ones; that will be in your line. Bring it me here this day week.'

He walked away, and the workmen burst into loud laughter as they hustled Philip out of the yard.

He, poor fellow, was utterly cast down at this mocking suggestion of Sir Christopher's, and hurrying back to his attic he flung himself on his bed and burst into tears.

Some hours later, his landlady, a motherly old soul, who pitied the friendless lad, toiled up the attic stairs with a basin of broth for him, knowing that he had had no food that day.

'Highty-tighty!' she said, going up to Philip and putting a kind hand on his shoulder. 'What's amiss? What's wrong to-day may prove right on the morrow, so never fret, lad.'

Philip could not resist her sympathy, and she soon got from him the story of his reception by Sir Christopher, and how the great architect had scornfully told him to go and carve 'a sow and her little ones.'

'It was all my own fault,' continued the boy. 'I was so confused, I never told him of the bedstead I had carved for the Hall, nor of the mantel-shelf, but I blurted out about the trough, and then he bade me "carve a sow,"' and Philip turned red at the remembrance.

'He said that, did he?' said the woman eagerly. 'Then do it, and show your skill. Sir Christopher bade you come again, and he will not refuse to see you. Set to work on the sow, and mind she is a good one.'

Encouraged by these words, Philip got up, drank the broth, and, feeling cheered by the food, took his last crown-piece, bought a good block of wood, and returned to his attic.

He worked at his wood block from morning to night for the next week, hoping—aye, and praying earnestly—that he might turn out something that the master would not despise.

It was finished at last, and pronounced by the landlady to be 'as like a sow as one pea is like another.' So, hoping much and fearing more, Philip took his group, carefully wrapped in an apron lent him for the purpose, and made his way to the Cathedral yard.

'Hallo! here comes our young hedge-carpenter,' exclaimed the foreman, as Philip passed the gate. 'What's he got so carefully wrapped up? Another trough, I take it. Let's have a look at the treasure,' and as he spoke he reached towards the bundle.

But Philip would not part with it. 'No,' he said firmly. 'Sir Christopher set me the task, and he shall be the first to see it.'

Before long Sir Christopher appeared, and, seeing the boy standing humbly waiting by the gate, he called to him, and, taking the bundle from Philip's hands, slowly unwound the wrapping. There, to the very life, was a fat old sow, with nine little piglings grouped about her in every possible attitude.

Sir Christopher looked long at the group, saying never a word, whilst poor Philip grew hot and cold with terror. He hardly knew if his work were good or bad; he only knew that he had put all his heart into it, and tried to do his very best.

At last the great man spoke.

'It is good! very good!' he said firmly. 'I will keep it and give you a guinea for it, and I engage you, young man, to work on this building. Attend at my office to-morrow forenoon.'

Philip bowed low; his heart was too full to speak, and Sir Christopher continued:

'I fear I did you some injustice a little time back, and for this I am sorry; but a great national work is entrusted to my care, and it is my duty to see that no part of the work falls into unskilful hands.'

So the country lad, Philip Wood of Sudbury, accomplished his ambition, and found regular work on St. Paul's Cathedral.

Those people who care to study the old parchments, still preserved, on which the building accounts of the Cathedral are kept, may read that large sums of money were from time to time paid to Philip Wood (or Haylittle as he was called after his marriage, when he took his wife's name), 'for carved work in the cathedral church of St. Paul.'

S. Clarendon.