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I'd have told him what I thought of him." "I promise you," said Mavis, "that I told Mrs. Neath what I thought of her." "An' I'm right glad you did." This new inmate under their roof was Norah Veale, a twelve-year-old daughter of the Hadleigh Wood hurdle-maker.
Then the maker with a special narrow and exceedingly sharp hatchet chops off at one blow each of the projecting ends, with admirable accuracy, never missing his aim or exceeding the exact degree of strength necessary to sever the superfluous bit without injuring the hurdle itself. The hurdle-maker is paid at a price per dozen, and he earns and deserves "good money."
His guests were grooms, second-horsemen, one or two farmers, and several dealers the people who are rarely in a hurry when out hunting; and after them came pedestrians, a sturdy fellow in a red coat with a terrier in his pocket and a terrier under his arm, a keeper, a wood-cutter, Abraham Veale the hurdle-maker, and just riffraff the very tail of the hunt, and, as the tail of the tail, that stupid trade-neglecting Mr.
In counties where hazel is grown in the coppices, a wattled or "flake" hurdle is the favourite, and they afford much more shelter to sheep in the fold than the open withy hurdle, but, being more lightly made, they require stakes and "shackles" to keep them in position. The hazel hurdle-maker may be seen in the coppice surrounded by his material and the clean fresh stacks of the work completed.
"Ho-haw!" broke in a hurdle-maker in a corner; and then, regretting the publicity of his merriment, put his fingers bashfully to his stubble lips. "Now," said the banjo, "it's of a pertikler night and a pertikler skinful that I'm a-going to tell you; and that night fell dark, and that skinful were took a hundred years ago this December, as I'm a Jack-pudden!"
The art of making wattled hurdles is passed on and carried down from father to son for generations; the hurdle-maker is usually a cheery man and receives a gracious welcome from the missus and the maids when he calls at the farm-house, often emphasized by a pint of home-brewed. He combines the accuracy of the draughtsman with the delicate touch of the accomplished lawn-tennis player.
By trade a hurdle-maker, he lived in one of the few remaining mud cottages on the skirts of Hadleigh Upper Wood, and in his hovel he had bred an immense family.
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