HAROUN THE CARPENTER
HAROUN THE CARPENTER
Haroun, bien entendu, was not his name, but it was that by which some called him among themselves. The reason will appear in the sequel. He lived in a low house of one storey, with a door in the middle, and a window on each side, a typical Welsh cottage, with a thatched roof, and the roof drawn down over the gables, also in a peculiarly Welsh style.
He had his yard and workshop behind the house. In front was a bit of garden, of which he took great care, and which was bright with flowers from earliest spring to latest fall.
“Aaron,” the squire’s wife would say, “how do you manage to get your bulbs to bloom before mine?”
“My lady,” he would reply, “I hold they like the smell of the wood.”
Aaron was, in fact, his Christian name. The reason why, in the rectory and in the Hall, he was called Haroun was this:—