MARY.

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 62, 6 December 1930, Page 24

MARY.

Nobody knew her name, but, by common consent, she was called Mary. When the Flemish merchant saw her lying by the canal in the old town of Bruges, he touched her with the point of elegant leather shoe, and she held up her hands as if to protect herself. The merchant spoke to her in three languages before she was able to answer him in a mixture of French and English. She had come, she said, with the soldiers; but, as she was only three years old, she could explain nothing. She had evidently strayed from some ruined town.

“You are very dirty,” remarked the merchant “ ’Tis useless, no doubt, to ask you what has become of your mother?”

Mary merely smiled and trotted after him; soldiers or elegant merchants were all the same to her. In a narrow, cobbled street the merchant halted beside a stately house where the magnificent tapestries he sold were made. Then, telling his work people to give the child something to eat, he promptly forgot all about her.

The Flemish weavers allowed Mary to live in the cellar and gave her food. When the child saw the vats of coloured dye and the lovely tapestries stretched on frames,, her little fingers twitched. She longed to get hold of some of those bright wools. At the age of five she began to earn her living as a tapestry maker, learning to draw trees and animals, and to paint pictures for the others to copy.

One day in the year 1430, when the Duke of Burgundy married the Princess Isabella, and the fountains of Bruges poured forth wine and rosewater, Mary pushed her way into the palace where people were allowed to stand in the gallery and look down upon the banquet. She was eighteen now, and her eager eyes took in every detail of that sumptuous wedding feast When a live,ram with Its fleece dyed gold stepped out of a great pastie, she heard the young man beside her exclaim in English. She turned and looked at him.

“I have forgotten that language," she said. 4 He told her that he was an English merchant buying tapestries in Bruges, because English work-people could not dye wool such lovely colours, nor draw designs. “There are. many young men who would come and teach you,” replied Mary. “And I can draw the pictures.” And that is how Mary and a little band of Flemish workers went to England with the young merchant, and started what soon became a famous industry.