“I don't complain. What would be the use?”
In the same neighbourhood there is another excellent workman. He has always in the backyard of his house quite a number of antique Sussex firebacks maturing. He lays down firebacks as wise people lay down wine to mature. They look absurdly clean and fresh when they come from the place where he casts them, but time and the oxide of iron soon remedy all those defects, and when they have been lying rusting for a month or two the aspect of the design is changed. A rough scrubbing—not too much, but just enough—and an exposure in a brisk fire to produce the marks of long years of duty in the sturdy old yeoman's grate, with the crane swinging over it, and another specimen of the Sussex fireback is ready for the market. The market is always ready. It will take the sturdy old yeoman's crane, with its hooks and its levers, as well as his fireback, and so the industry of the craftsman and the craft of the dealer man are stimulated.
There is still a brisk trade done in the manufacture of ancient flint weapons—hatchets, spear barbs, arrow-heads, and the like—in our county, though I have heard that there has been a melancholy falling off in the volume of business done in this particular line during the past twenty years. It is never well to be too certain about the treasures one acquires nowadays, either in iron or flaky flint, but I have heard that long ago a collector had quite as great reason to be cautious. A large number of interesting flint weapons were with reasonable luck to be dredged out of the sand and mud of some rivers. It was only reasonable to suppose that these things had some thousands of years ago been in active use in battles fought at the ford, and that they had remained undisturbed for centuries in the bed of the river. I heard of an eminent archaeologist having acquired quite a number of these implements bearing unmistakable signs of antiquity. They had been dredged out of the Thames from time to time, he heard. Unfortunately he mentioned this fact to a dealer who had also heard of these dredgings, and offered to lend him the collection for examination. The first experiment upon them was the last. They had only to be boiled in a strong solution of soda to have their true character—their false character—revealed. When taken out of the kettle the things were as fresh as if made the day before. They had not been made the day before, but they had certainly been made within the year. They were nothing more than flaky fakes.
After all, it is safer for a tradesman to use his own imagination in the preparation of his wares than to ask his customers to use theirs. For instance a dealer in curious things, in Burford, seeing some funny wooden dolls in a shop window, bought the whole five and then used up some scraps of old brocade and remnants of Genoa velvet in dressing them in costumes to be found in the recognised authority. He exposed them for sale sitting in a row, and very amazing they must have appeared.
“Quaint things, are they not? Mediaeval puppets. I don't know that I ever saw the like before. Of course you see what they are meant to represent? Why, the Five Senses, to be sure. Fifteen guineas for the five. If I don't sell them at once I'll send them to the Victoria and Albert Museum. They'll jump at them.”
“I shouldn't mind buying one of them,” said the customer; “but I could not do with the whole five.”
“Sorry, sir; but you could scarcely ask me to break the set—I don't believe there is another set in existence,” said the dealer.
“I think you might let me have one. I have bought a lot of things from you from time to time.”
“I should like to, sir—yes, I should indeed like you to have one, but—you see the whole beauty of the set is that it is a set—the Five Senses.”
Some further conversation ensued, and at last the dealer showed himself to be less inflexible than he had been at first, and the customer secured one of the mediaeval curiosities for four pounds.