The building on the left of the enclosure was a long-backed erection,
now used for spar-making, sawing, crib-framing, and copse-ware
manufacture in general. Opposite were the wagon-sheds where Marty had
deposited her spars.
Here Winterborne had remained after the girl's abrupt departure, to see
that the wagon-loads were properly made up. Winterborne was connected
with the Melbury family in various ways. In addition to the
sentimental relationship which arose from his father having been the
first Mrs. Melbury's lover, Winterborne's aunt had married and
emigrated with the brother of the timber-merchant many years before--an
alliance that was sufficient to place Winterborne, though the poorer,
on a footing of social intimacy with the Melburys. As in most villages
so secluded as this, intermarriages were of Hapsburgian frequency among
the inhabitants, and there were hardly two houses in Little Hintock
unrelated by some matrimonial tie or other.
For this reason a curious kind of partnership existed between Melbury
and the younger man--a partnership based upon an unwritten code, by
which each acted in the way he thought fair towards the other, on a
give-and-take principle. Melbury, with his timber and copse-ware
business, found that the weight of his labor came in winter and spring.
Winterborne was in the apple and cider trade, and his requirements in
cartage and other work came in the autumn of each year. Hence horses,
wagons, and in some degree men, were handed over to him when the apples
began to fall; he, in return, lending his assistance to Melbury in the
busiest wood-cutting season, as now.
Before he had left the shed a boy came from the house to ask him to
remain till Mr. Melbury had seen him. Winterborne thereupon crossed
over to the spar-house where two or three men were already at work, two
of them being travelling spar-makers from White-hart Lane, who, when
this kind of work began, made their appearance regularly, and when it
was over disappeared in silence till the season came again.
Firewood was the one thing abundant in Little Hintock; and a blaze of
gad-cuds made the outhouse gay with its light, which vied with that of
the day as yet. In the hollow shades of the roof could be seen
dangling etiolated arms of ivy which had crept through the joints of
the tiles and were groping in vain for some support, their leaves being
dwarfed and sickly for want of sunlight; others were pushing in with
such force at the eaves as to lift from their supports the shelves that
were fixed there.
Besides the itinerant journey-workers there were also present John
Upjohn, engaged in the hollow-turnery trade, who lived hard by; old
Timothy Tangs and young Timothy Tangs, top and bottom sawyers, at work
in Mr. Melbury's pit outside; Farmer Bawtree, who kept the cider-house,
and Robert Creedle, an old man who worked for Winterborne, and stood
warming his hands; these latter being enticed in by the ruddy blaze,
though they had no particular business there. None of them call for
any remark except, perhaps, Creedle. To have completely described him
it would have been necessary to write a military memoir, for he wore
under his smock-frock a cast-off soldier's jacket that had seen hot
service, its collar showing just above the flap of the frock; also a
hunting memoir, to include the top-boots that he had picked up by
chance; also chronicles of voyaging and shipwreck, for his pocket-knife
had been given him by a weather-beaten sailor. But Creedle carried
about with him on his uneventful rounds these silent testimonies of
war, sport, and adventure, and thought nothing of their associations or
their stories.