He returned to Nannizabuloe that night with
one box only--but it was packed full of tools--and a copy of Fuller's
"Holy State," which at the last moment had proved too precious to be
parted with--at least, just yet.
The woodwork of the old pews--painted deal for the most part, but
mixed with a few boards of good red pine and one or two of teak,
relics of some forgotten shipwreck--lay stacked in the belfry and
around the font under the west gallery. Mr. Raymond and Taffy spent
an hour in overhauling it, chose out the boards for their first pew,
and fell to work.
At the end of another hour the pair broke off and looked at each
other. Taffy could not help laughing. His own knowledge of
carpentry had been picked up by watching Joel Hugh at work, and just
sufficed to tell him that his father was possibly the worst carpenter
in the world.
"I think my fingers must be all thumbs," declared Mr. Raymond.
The puckers in his face set Taffy laughing afresh. They both laughed
and fell to work again, the boy explained his notions of the
difficult art of mortising. They were rudimentary, but sound as far
as they went, and his father recognised this. Moreover, when the boy
had a tool to handle he did it with a natural deftness, in spite of
his ignorance. He was Humility's child, born with the skill-of-hand
of generations of lace-workers. He did a dozen things wrongly, but
he neither fumbled, nor hammered his fingers, nor wounded them with
the chisel--which was Humility's husband's way.
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