64 THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF MICHAEL SCOT 



of the ancient city remains to show what Toledo 

 must have been like in these early days. The 

 splendid and commanding site, swept about by 

 the waves of the Tagus ; the famous bridge of 

 Alcantara; the steep slope of approach crowned 

 by ancient fortifications ; and above all the massed 

 and massive houses of the old town, so closely 

 crowded together as hardly to give room for 

 streets that should rather be called lanes ; all 

 this, beneath the unchanging sky of the south, 

 recalls sufficiently what must have been the sur- 

 roundings of Scot's life during ten laborious years. 

 Even yet, where white- wash peels and stucco fails, 

 strange records of that forgotten past reveal them- 

 selves in the walls and on the house fronts : 

 sculptured stones of every age; bas-reliefs, ara- 

 besques ; windows in the delicate Moorish manner 

 of twin arches, and a central shaft with carved 

 cornices, long built up and forgotten till accident 

 has revealed them. 



Here then, perhaps in some house still standing, 

 the scholar come from Sicily made his home. 

 The quiet courtyard is forgotten ; the azulejos 

 have disappeared from walls and pavement ; the 

 rich wood-work of the ceilings, still bearing dim 

 traces of colour and gold, looks down on the life 

 of another age ; even the curious cedar book-chest 

 has crumbled to dust, for all its delicate defence 

 of ironwork spreading away like a spider's web 

 from hinges and from lock. But the name and 

 the fame endure, and the years which Michael 

 Scot spent in Toledo have left a deep mark upon 

 that and every succeeding age. 



