Format: Single
“What on earth have you brought that timber-tug here for? We aren’t building a railway bridge. Why, in America, half-a-dozen two-by-four bits would be ample.” … “All I say is that you can put up larch and make a temp’ry job of it; and by the time the young master’s married it’ll have to be done again. Now, I’ve brought down a couple of as sweet six-by-eight oak timbers as we’ve ever drawed. You put ’em in an’ it’s off your mind or good an’ all. T’other way—I don’t say it ain’t right, I’m only just sayin’ what I think—but t’other way, he’ll no sooner be married than we’ll have it all to do again. You’ve no call to regard my words, but you can’t get out of that.” … “Make it oak then; we can’t get out of it.” |
This is from “An Habitation Enforced” in Actions and Reactions. A wealthy young American couple have bought an estate in deepest Sussex, and settled down to country life in England. They have recently had their first baby, George, who will inherit one day. They have brought him with them down to the woods, where their men are building a new footbridge over a flooded brook. They are discovering that in Old England people expect to build for posterity. |
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