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At the lower end, where they stand upon the plates, they are not fastened, but rest simply on a V-shaped cut, and when the last board is off they tumble over like a row of ninepins and you may be bowled out with them if you are not clever enough to foresee this. As with the roof-boards, so with the floors and walls.
Only in the houses of magnates was recourse had to tiles imported from China or slates of copper-bronze. In the better class of house, the roof-boards were held in place by girders, but humble folks used logs of timber, or stones, to prevent wind-stripping, and these weights imparted an untidy, rude appearance to the structure.
It had no chimney, and so the men lost none of its warmth. The smoke ascended steadily and spread itself under the blackened beams and roof-boards in dense blue layers. But about eighteen inches beneath the spring of the roof there ran a line of small trap-doors with sliding panels, to admit the cold air, and below these the room was almost clear of smoke.
They were so consumed with a desire to see it finished, that Thyrsis would stay at the work until darkness came upon him, and sometimes even worked by moon-light, or with a lantern. And how proud they would be when the carpenter came next morning, and found the last roof-boards laid, or the flooring all completed!
At night, or on stormy days, the skin of a bear was hung across the doorway; for there was no door on hinges to be opened and shut. There was no ceiling to the room. But the inmates of the cabin, by looking up, could see the bare rafters and the rough roof-boards, which Mr. Lincoln himself had split and hewn.
This description of The Funeral of Balder is by William Morris: " Guest Gazed through the cool dusk, till his eyes did rest Upon the noble stories, painted fair On the high panelling and roof-boards there; For over the high sea, in his ship, there lay The gold-haired Balder, god of the dead day, The spring-flowers round his high pile, waiting there Until the gods there to the torch should bear; And they were wrought on this side and on that, Drawing on towards him.
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