In a Quiet Village

by S. Baring-Gould

Whatever Doble undertook in his profession he executed in the very best manner. If any fault appeared, it was in the quality of the material used, not in his use of it; and, consciously, he never would employ for his work any material but what he believed to be the very best. He spared himself no pains, he cut no time short over his work. The work he undertook, he undertook to do as well as it was possible for him to execute it, and I really believe he had not his superior in his own line in England, and if not in England then certainly not in Europe, and if not in Europe then—it goes without saying—not in the round world.

But he took, it must be conceded, a very long time over his task. Most persons who employed him lost patience because he was so slow. But slow he was not when one considered the quality of his workmanship. He scamped nothing. When he painted even a railing, he took infinite pains to holystone the wood till he had cleaned off every particle of old paint and had got the wood perfectly smooth. And each coat of paint was laid on with the greatest nicety. There was a carved oak table that once stood in our drawing-room. The fashion had set in for satin-wood, so the room was done up, doors, cabinets, tables, all to look like satin-wood. And all was done by Doble Drewe.

Most lovely make-believe satin-wood he produced. That was before the days of the “Seven Lamps of Architecture,” when Mr. Ruskin turned his bull’s-eye on shams, and showed that they were morally wrong. At the period of which I write everything must be a sham or it was not fashionable. Wood was painted to look like marble, and cement to imitate wood.

Well—about this carved table.

The other day I sent it to a furniture-dealer to remove the paint and develop the oak.

After a while it returned to me, and with it came the bill.

“Really, sir,” said the dealer, “I am ashamed at having asked so much, but it is incredible what labour it has taken my men to clean that table. Never saw nothing like it before. The paint simply wouldn’t come off. It was like taking the skin off a living man.”

“Ah!” said I, “Doble Drewe’s work.”

But if Doble was slow over his tasks, he was slower in sending in his bills. Why he did not make them out and transmit them to his customers till three, four, even six years had elapsed, I cannot tell, but it is a fact. And this lost him customers who could pay, because they did not relish having to give out money over items every one of which had passed from their memories. The only customers he gained were those thriftless creatures who did not want to pay there and then, and who hoped they might be more flush of money in a few years’ time than they were in the present. And some of his customers died, others became bankrupt, or left the neighbourhood without leaving their addresses, before Doble Drewe’s bills were ready. I know that mine came in for work done for my father five years after my father was dead, and I had thought all had been settled, probate paid, with deductions for bills, and Doble’s, of course, not deducted because I did not know it was due.

Now although scrupulously conscientious over his plumbing and glazing, his paper-hanging and painting, and though whilst on his work he had all his faculties engaged upon it, yet Doble had a soul for something very much above lead and paint and putty.