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Wherewith Macrae received his combination of gifts and retired; the mummy being completely rifled, and the construction of the body, a frame of light, open wicker-work, revealed. Aunt Jane had had it made at the basketmaker's, while as to the head and covering, her own ingenious fingers had painted and fashioned them.
For the rest, the basketmaker's cottage being at the farthest outskirts of the straggling village inhabited by a labouring peasantry, his way of life was not much known nor much inquired into.
Then one cheerful frosty noon George Morley and his fair cousin walked boldly /en evidence/, before the prying ghostly windows, across the broad gravel walks; gained the secluded shrubbery, the solitary deeps of park- land; skirted the wide sheet of water, and, passing through a private wicket in the paling, suddenly came upon the patch of osier-ground and humble garden, which were backed by the basketmaker's cottage.
George went on; and so eloquently, and so touchingly did he describe both grandsire and grandchild, so skilfully did he intimate the mystery which hung over them, that Lady Montfort became much moved by his narrative; and willingly promised to accompany him across the park to the basketmaker's cottage the first opportunity.
Ever since Sophy, on his account, refused the offer which would have transferred her, not for a few daily hours, but for habitual life, from a basketmaker's roof to all the elegancies and refinements of a sphere in which, if freed from him, her charms and virtues might win her some such alliance as seemed impossible, while he was thus dragging her down to his own level, ever since that day the old man had said to himself, "I live too long."
It proved of excellent advantage to me now, that when I was a boy, I used to take great delight in standing at a basketmaker's in the town where my father lived, to see them make their wicker-ware; and being, as boys usually are, very officious to help, and a great observer of the manner how they worked those things, and sometimes lending a hand, I had by these means full knowledge of the methods of it, so that I wanted nothing but the materials; when it came into my mind, that the twigs of that tree from whence I cut my stakes that grew might possibly be as tough as the sallows, willows, and osiers, in England; and I resolved to try.
Waife rose; Sophy turned half in flight. The visitors approached. Here slowly, lingeringly, let fall the curtain. In the frank license of narrative, years will have rolled away ere the curtain rise again. Events that may influence a life often date from moments the most serene, from things that appear as trivial and unnoticeable as the great lady's visit to the basketmaker's cottage.
Incredulous and indignant, and longing to be empowered to vindicate his friend's fair name, George seized his hat, and strode quick along the path towards the basketmaker's cottage.
He had spent the week in travelling; partly, though not all the way, on foot, to the distant village, in which he had learned in youth the basketmaker's art! He had found the very cottage wherein he had then lodged vacant and to be let. There seemed a ready opening for the humble but pleasant craft to which he had diverted his ambition.
The bird form was probably in familiar use long before it was employed in the decoration of basketry. It is copied from a Zuñi shield and is the device of an order or the totem of a clan. The style is quite conventional, as a result of the various constraints surrounding its production. But what a strange metamorphosis takes place when it is presented in the basketmaker's language.
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