“We’ll begin on the level, like,” said Hirst, setting a box of nails on the turf at his feet, and holding his hammer, so David said, “as if he were going to fell a bullock.”
The beginning of the work was simple. The three unrolled the wire and got one end of it into its place, while Hirst nailed it fast against the upright. Then they stretched it to the next upright, and so went forward blithely.
“There’s naught so much to be feared, after all,” cried John Hirst, his voice rousing a sentry-rook that was watching them from the elm tree in the corner.
“Naught, save sore hands,” assented David. “Though I’ll own, Farmer, I never met stuff so maidish, and so crinkly-like to handle, as this same netting. Now, stretch it, lads! There, ’tis all in place for ye, Farmer.”
They finished netting the low end of the pen, and turned the corner; but soon the level of the ground grew higher, and, though the poles about them were stationed true in height, the netting would go lower and lower, till it threatened to be merged altogether in the rising ground above. They twisted it, and pulled it out of shape, and talked to it as if it were a bairn to be coaxed into a good temper. Naught served; the upper line of the wire descended constantly, and the look of this late-builded turkey-pen was a thing for the soberest man to laugh at.
John Hirst threw down his hammer at last, and kicked the box of nails against the wall, and stood off from his handiwork and looked at it.
“I’m not one to swear at any time,” he said, slowly, “but dang yond netting. Dang Reuben Gaunt, moreover, who brought new-fangled notions into Garth.”
The four men retreated to the wall, and sat thereon, glowering at the turkey-pen.
“Daren’t trust myself with speech, I,” said David. “Should say terrible things o’ yond wire-stuff, once I gave leave to my tongue.”
“I tell ye what,” said Hirst—his farm-men laughed to see his temper go by the board for once—“I tell ye what, David. We’ll rive the whole lot down, and build up the pen with good, honest lathes like your father did, and mine. And if any man speaks o’ wire-netting in my hearing for a year to come—why, I’ll ding him on the lugs.”