“Not always,” Wilfrid answered. “He’s got a many patterns drawn out on parchment besides what he carries in his head. But they’re only for show—to give an idea of the style. When he gets the size and shape and the wood he’s to use settled, he changes the pattern according to his own judgment. If a wood-carver doesn’t know his trade the design can be made by an artist, and all he need do is to follow it. But that’s not my idea of good work. Unless you’ve made such a thing yourself you don’t know how the lines are going to look. I’d never try to make a design for a fire-dog, and I doubt you’d make a poor job at shaping an earthen bowl. Then, if you want to suit yourself and your customer, you’ll be changing your pattern with every job. The work ought to grow—like a plant.”
“I know,” Dickon commented. “You make an iron pot for a woman, and another for her neighbor, and ten to one the second must be a bit bigger or narrower or somehow different. You’ve got to go by your eye.”
“They say,” Wilfrid went on musingly, “that there’s like to be mechanical ways to help the work—turn it out quicker—do the planing and gouging with some kind of engine and finish by hand. It seemed to me that would take the life out o’ the carving. I said so to Quentin, and he laughed. He said a man could use any tool to advantage if he had the head, but without thought you couldn’t make a shovel go right. I reckon that’s so.”
Adam Smith nodded. “Half the smiths don’t know the way to use a hammer,” he said, “and well-nigh all the rest don’t know what they’re making. You stick to the old forge a while yet, lad. There’s a bit to learn afore you’ll be master o’ the trade.”
“Your father’s right,” Master Wilfrid admitted. “You’ll not waste your time by learning all that he can teach you. As I was saying to you yesterday, you’ve been doing good plain work and learned judgment. You know how to bend a rod so that it’ll be strong, and that will make it look strong. And I’ll warrant when you come to make a grille for a pair of iron gates you’ll know where to put your cross-bars.”
For all that, Master Wilfrid did not mean to lose sight of Dickon. He knew how much a youth could learn by talking with men of other crafts, and he intended that Dickon should have his chance. He himself had lost no opportunity, while on his travels, of becoming acquainted with men who were doing good work in England, and now and then one of these men would turn off the main road to see him at his pottery or his home. When the time came to forge a pair of iron gates to the parish church, he saw to it that Dickon got the refusal of the work. With his favorite tools and his father’s gruff “God speed ye, lad!” Dickon rode forth to his first work for himself, and it was done to the satisfaction of every one.
“I knew that Sussex brains could handle that job,” Wilfrid exulted, as they looked at the finished task. In days when churches and cathedrals were open all day long, it was desirable to have some sort of open-work railing to keep stray beasts out of the chancel. In a more splendid building this railing might have been of silver, but the homely farmer-folk thought the iron of the Weald was good enough for them.
Up along the grassy track past the south door of the church rode a company of travelers, middle-class folk by their dress. As they came abreast of the gate the foremost called out, “Ho, Wilfrid, is there any tavern hereabouts? We be lost sheep in the wilderness. The Abbey guest-house is already full and they will not take us in.”
“Faith, it’s good to see thee here, Robert Edrupt,” the potter answered. “I could house three or four of you, but it’s harvest time, that’s a fact. No, there’s no tavern in the village. You see, most of the folk that travel this way go to the Abbey for a lodging.”
“We’ll stick together, I reckon,” answered Edrupt, “if you can give us some kind o’ shelter, and the makings of a meal. A barn would serve.”