Free The Iron Master by Jean Stubbs

traveller.

 
    View from the Smithy
     
    Four
     
    ‘I don’t know as I’m man enough, let alone master enough, to fill your clogs!’ William had said to Aaron Helm.
    ‘Nay, lad,’ the smith had replied, ‘you might find as they slop about your feet at first, but time’ll come when they’re too rough and too tight for the likes of you. Then you’ll be looking round for a pair of fine leather shoon wi’ silver buckles!’
    That fashionable era seemed far off. Aaron died shortly before Christmas, and William spent the festival at Kit’s Hill with his family before opening up the forge officially at Flawnes Green. This was a poignant celebration for him: a harking-back to the past as the Howarths and their servants dined at one table; a vision of the future as his mother superintended his departure.
    During Aaron’s last illness Dorcas had employed a widow of good repute to cook and clean for him. Now that careful choice of hers would look after William. She had arranged the cramped living quarters behind his shop to the best advantage, and seen that the big farm wagon was packed with home produce. Ned and young Dick had driven it over, and the three men made a holiday of this removal: rolling the barrel of strong beer into the little larder, heaving in a sack of potatoes and another of Swedish turnips, hanging up a flitch of bacon, taking care that the salt pork was nowhere near the tallow candles, setting out butter and cheese and eggs upon the stone slab, stacking the wheat and barley loaves, fetching in a currant cake and a block of gingerbread.
    To this bachelor bounty the ladies of Thornton House had contributed an exotic array of gifts. Besides the hundred gold guineas from Miss Wilde to mark the end of William’s apprenticeship, there were a dozen bottles of fine old crusty port and his great-grandfather’s silver-headed cane. Aunt Phoebe, not to be outdone, had bestowed upon him the last of her late father’s claret and a little heap of pen-wipers, most beautifully stitched. And Agnes and Sally had presented him with red and white marmalades from their store-cupboard.
    That late December evening, alone in his humble kingdom, William savoured the rare delight of independence and solitude. The kitchen beams, blackened by age and years of smoke, were low enough to brush the top of his head. In its deep recess, a fire glowed on the hearth. On the mantelshelf above stood a pair of iron candlesticks, a couple of blue and white china plates, and two pottery figurines such as farmers’ wives buy from the packman when they have egg money to spare. Aaron’s ingenuity was apparent in the wrought-iron chimney crane, by means of which pots and pans could be moved into different positions over the fire, and raised or lowered accordingly. There was a mechanical spit which turned by use of iron weights on a pulley, and even an iron fire-dog with a toasting-fork welded to his head. An iron kettle simmered on its hook. His chops were cooking in a hanging grill. Potatoes were baking in hot ashes. His table in one corner of the room was laid and waiting. William Wilde Howarth, blacksmith of Flawnes Green, was a happy man.
    As well as the forge William had inherited Aaron Helm’s last apprentice, Stephen Turner. He was a slight lad for this kind of craft, just fifteen years old, shy and withdrawn. William wondered why Aaron had accepted him, but did not wish to seem critical, though Aaron himself remarked that a shout, a clout, and a kick up the backside were all the boy was worth.
    But in the three months of Aaron’s dying William had contented himself with winning back old customers and setting the business on its feet again. So the shortcomings of Stephen were no more than a minor irritant, a brief disturbance in the routine, until the time when William was made responsible for the smithy and a human being he neither knew nor cared for. According to ancient law the apprentice must be provided for in the event of a