She buckles to wi’ old George Stroude, young tanner down Fogbourne way, soon ater. Reckon as he were workin more’n his straps backerds an forruds, when I were shilly-shallyin. Aye.
Heh.
Though I bint grizzlin, mind. I got down to’t afore long. A brace o’ nippers. Aye aye.
‘That’s a Webb,’ people’d say, ‘that there’s a Webb.’ They’d point at their cupboards an say it, or in the church where he’d done poppy-heads. It weren’t nothin fancy, it weren’t fancywork like the stuff up at the Hall, an it weren’t hardly ever painted, an gilded, as I sees up at the Hall — but it were solid an agreeable, an still be, for nowt o’ Webb’s work have ever buckled or cracked. He chosed his timber like a body chooses a woman. For life, an no shilly-shallyin.
He have a-bin in the ground these five year, and I misses him. Winter of ’97 he died. Jus afore he hacked his last he’d cock a ear, abed, an hear the dingin in the yard, an he’d know what we were puttin together. He knowed when it were his own coffen. He hears the boards ripped, an sits bolt up in bed, an swears we en’t got it seasoned proper. All through the hammerin o’ the brads it were shaped beautiful in his own head, an he sweared like fury when he heared one hit off. I says sweared, but it weren’t no blasphemy, for he were a church-goer all his days. An that be at the heart o’ this story, if you were to cleft it — that, an his hardness. He were pure oak.
Now I don’t hold wi’ them as says Abraham Webb were the spit of his father in skill. His father stuck to wheels, an had other men do gates an stairs an so forth. No comparin. But I do know as Isaac Webb’s father, Jepthah Webb, bein Abraham’s granfer, made a wheel poorly so it broke an pitched a man into the next Kingdom. Aye. That were way back, up at Plumm’s, the year old dame Anne was made. But by my reckonin, Abraham had soaked up the skill so he were well nigh saturated, an hardly needed to larn in his head. He ud allus have a sweet smell about him, for he were reared in sawdust. You should’ve seed his hands, hard as a nave an as well nigh chopped, for they’d never been more’n a night away from irons, an allus dark as a gipsy’s from oak-juice, he’d felled so many.
Thank’ee.
Aye. He were right stumpy, he were, an ud allus stand straddle wise, when he weren’t at summat, wi’ them hands in his britches, axin nowt o’ narn save they get to it, an ud give a bastin to the young-uns if they gives him lip, or shambles in late. I knows, for I feeled it, an it allus drayed blood. But he were patient as the Lord wi’ an aggy line, if the boy was eager, an ud allus show us the right way. He were two men.
One treated us aright, t’other not.
Your health, sir.
Aye.
For it weren’t so much the beatin, as the hours. We’d be on a job, an he’d have us there afore cock-crow, sayin as how life was for toilin, an to get gumption a body didn’t pick it up abed, an then kep us till late a-night. I remimbers them walks — three, four, five mild — athurt the down to some farm or other, pitch dark a-winter, an nowt but a glimmerin in the east o’ summertime, an rabbit-scuts we couldn’t touch, all our irons an whatnot in our boxes, luggin it all, clatterin along, and then back to our shop an at them floorboards, or doors, or whatever, till well ater candlelight, even o’ summer. It weren’t jolly, no. There was one lad, name o’ Tuck, who didn’t ought to have bin apprenticed anyways, but he gets so down in the mouth about it all he throws his box in the river from Saddle Bridge one night, dog-tired, an goes to sea. Abraham be that fretted about the box he gets me to jump in an fish him out, an them poplars were aready turnin leaf. One didn’t say no, though. Some o’ the tools were gone acause the box were ope when I found he, though it were nowt the worse for the dowsin, an old Abraham wanted me to go back in an fish up them as were fallen out, but I were that shrammed an chatterin I couldn’t hear him, an he let me off.
There was a bradawl missin, an a truein plane, an a tenon-saw. That were sad.
Aye.
See these fingers? Rheumatics. Useless.
Couldn’t mend a broomstick now. Time was when I were that busy I could’ve waded through the shavins.
Ah well.
Old Abraham ud say to me, ‘Samuel, if thee en’t a doer, thee be good as dead.’ He were cock-eyed, mind, an this gid him a queer look. But he had the truest line of arn on us. He ud snap that lampblack an saw on it like it were butter, an the grain felled away clean like it were made that way. I could tell his sawin blind. It were music.
One time we gets some work up at the Hall, an not jus the back-stairs, neither. Ladybitch Chalmers wanted her broke bits mended, didn’t she? I got a peepful of her stuff, I did. All gilded an carved like it were breathed out an no iron hadn’t ever touched it, all leaves an twined in bedwine an ivery door had a-chitted some ivy atop. Smell o’ wax, though I don’t go along wi’ polishin as the fine ones do. Hands on the rails do it, an the boards gets greasy an slippy. They likes the shine, see. Anyways, I gets a bit of a pier-glass, a banger of a glass, twice the size of I, an there was a bit of a wing nicked off a what-d’ye-call, a cupid. I carved this wing out like my life hanged on it, an were right proud at it, all the same, an tapped it on wi’ a fillet aback to keep it from topplin off an upsettin her ladyship, though she weren’t lackin in cupids, was she, the way she goed on? — an in comes Abraham, an squints at it, an sucks his teeth, an shoves his hands in his britches, an stands straddle-wise, an hums an hahs, an says, ‘Samuel, that ben’t a wing for a cupid so much as a hawk.’ An I says, ‘Nay, Mr Webb, not so much a hawk, more a lark.’ An he smiles, an says, ‘Samuel, best take her down. Thee have got to be handlin on her like thee be smitten.’ Wood was allus ‘her’ to Abraham.
An I did. Still there, I shouldn’t wonder. Though they don’t deserve it. I’ll tell thee on that some other time. She were a crabby old bitch, Lady Chalmers. I seed her picture, from way back, an she were handsome then. Though she still thought she were, the way she beautified herself wi’ all that white stuff, an all them red ribbons in her hair. She were not much better nor her son, I’ll say that, an that be all but swearin, round here. We don’t forget easy. Recallin don’t get ramshackle, not round here. No.
See that chap come in now? You ax him about the Chalmers. Atween you an I, he have bagged more deer nor they have. That be his sister wi’n, old Mags Knapp. She was allus broken-mouthed. Lost her teeth ploughin, we say. Green Man reglars, don’t know what they be doin in the Never Fear. As you knows as the New Inn, though it en’t bin new for a tarnal long time. Had a drop aready. Maybe the law be on ’em. That’ll be summat. There en’t a mother’s son in here as hasn’t tried to get what be theirs by right, off o’ them Chalmers. Don’t tell narn. You be ridin through. Nowt o’ yourn, sir.
No.
What Abraham ud allus say to me: ‘Thee be adrift, Samuel, an if thee don’t get hammerin, thee’ll sink.’ He was full o’ them concoctions, was Abraham. But he were right. My work allus had a weakness about it. Not a big ’un. Jus a kind o’ touch about it, that it weren’t solid, like his were, all the way from start to finish. It’d start strong, but ud be gnarley, or bungersome, an then strong, an so on. Jus a touch.
Ah well.
Can’t all be masters. No.
He could spot a tree as were ready better nor arn other. That was what he had. Dead o’ winter, frost cracklin, sap down, first light up in the copses — Baylee mainly, good oak there, middlin tough acause the soil en’t thin, an Smithy Copse for elm, an top o’ Frum Down for beech, though they’ve mostly gone now, them as were past Five Elms Farm, on account o’ the storms, for they don’t root deep, beech, an they were right on brow there, afore sarsens, though there be a fine clump on the estate, agin river, where they put that daft temple, aye, an wych astraddle the river ater Quabb Bottom jus afore old Master Pottinger’s mill, goin up, in Grigg’s, for we needed a goodish lot o’ wych, for the furniture, though I prefers the Dutch, plenty o’ that out Bursop way, an roundabouts, Dutch bein easy on the palm an works wi’ you, don’t it? — an there he’d be, deep in Baylee, eyein this butt, that butt, an allus better nor his bro for seein the wheel in the crooked uns, ezackerly right, an ud mark ’em, I can see him now, wi’ a flick o’ the gouge an stride through the old mist, cracklin over the floor — an he’d be fellin the next day, he’d be that quick at hagglin.