“I don't complain. What would be the use?”
In the same neighbourhood there is another excellent workman. He has
always in the backyard of his house quite a number of antique Sussex
firebacks maturing. He lays down firebacks as wise people lay down wine
to mature. They look absurdly clean and fresh when they come from the
place where he casts them, but time and the oxide of iron soon remedy
all those defects, and when they have been lying rusting for a month
or two the aspect of the design is changed. A rough scrubbing--not too
much, but just enough--and an exposure in a brisk fire to produce the
marks of long years of duty in the sturdy old yeoman's grate, with the
crane swinging over it, and another specimen of the Sussex fireback
is ready for the market. The market is always ready. It will take the
sturdy old yeoman's crane, with its hooks and its levers, as well as
his fireback, and so the industry of the craftsman and the craft of the
dealer man are stimulated.
There is still a brisk trade done in the manufacture of ancient flint
weapons--hatchets, spear barbs, arrow-heads, and the like--in our
county, though I have heard that there has been a melancholy falling off
in the volume of business done in this particular line during the past
twenty years. It is never well to be too certain about the treasures one
acquires nowadays, either in iron or flaky flint, but I have heard that
long ago a collector had quite as great reason to be cautious. A large
number of interesting flint weapons were with reasonable luck to be
dredged out of the sand and mud of some rivers. It was only reasonable
to suppose that these things had some thousands of years ago been in
active use in battles fought at the ford, and that they had remained
undisturbed for centuries in the bed of the river. I heard of an eminent
archaeologist having acquired quite a number of these implements bearing
unmistakable signs of antiquity. They had been dredged out of the Thames
from time to time, he heard. Unfortunately he mentioned this fact to a
dealer who had also heard of these dredgings, and offered to lend him
the collection for examination. The first experiment upon them was the
last. They had only to be boiled in a strong solution of soda to have
their true character--their false character--revealed. When taken out of
the kettle the things were as fresh as if made the day before. They had
not been made the day before, but they had certainly been made within
the year. They were nothing more than flaky fakes.
After all, it is safer for a tradesman to use his own imagination in the
preparation of his wares than to ask his customers to use theirs. For
instance a dealer in curious things, in Burford, seeing some funny
wooden dolls in a shop window, bought the whole five and then used up
some scraps of old brocade and remnants of Genoa velvet in dressing them
in costumes to be found in the recognised authority. He exposed them for
sale sitting in a row, and very amazing they must have appeared.
“Quaint things, are they not? Mediaeval puppets. I don't know that
I ever saw the like before. Of course you see what they are meant to
represent? Why, the Five Senses, to be sure. Fifteen guineas for the
five. If I don't sell them at once I'll send them to the Victoria and
Albert Museum. They'll jump at them.”
“I shouldn't mind buying one of them,” said the customer; “but I could
not do with the whole five.”
“Sorry, sir; but you could scarcely ask me to break the set--I don't
believe there is another set in existence,” said the dealer.
“I think you might let me have one. I have bought a lot of things from
you from time to time.”
“I should like to, sir--yes, I should indeed like you to have one,
but--you see the whole beauty of the set is that it is a set--the Five
Senses.”
Some further conversation ensued, and at last the dealer showed himself
to be less inflexible than he had been at first, and the customer
secured one of the mediaeval curiosities for four pounds.
A few days later another customer called and duly inspected the four
remaining dolls.
“Very curious, sir--very unique, I think. Of course you see the idea,
sir--the Four Seasons. Fifteenth-century Venetian, I should say. You
can see the bit of brocade--old Venetian beyond a question. I wish I
had half a dozen yards of it. Twenty guineas I'm asking for the set. I'm
afraid I couldn't break the set. It's hardly fair to ask me, sir.”
But eventually he yielded to the importunity of the customer and got
five guineas for a second of his creations.
“Singular things, sir--Early Italian Church puppets beyond doubt. They
used to dress them fantastically and stand them on the altar, I believe.
You observe the symbolic character of the set, sir--the Trinity. Votive
offerings and that, you know. Even in the present day you see such
things at wayside shrines in Catholic countries. I'm afraid it would
spoil the set to sell one out of the three, sir. You had better take the
three now that you have the chance. Very unique, I call them, and only
eighteen pounds for the three.”
But the man had no use for the three, and after some haggling he got the
one he wanted for £5, 10s.
“And then there were two,” as the story of the ten little nigger boys
has it.
“Church pieces, madam. Fourteenth-century Spanish--the embroidery is
Spanish, I am sure. I wish I had a yard of it. Adam and Eve they are
meant to represent,” etc. etc.
It seemed as if no one could do with more than one of these “very
unique” treasures; so he was forced to let the lady separate our first
parents, paying five pounds for making the divorce decree absolute.
Before the end of the week he had sold a unique example of a Flemish
doll--“One may see the like in some of Teniers' pictures. They treasure
them up from generation to generation in the houses of the old nobility.
It is very rarely that one gets into the market. You see they regard it
as a matter of family honour never to sell one of them.”
He sold it for six pounds, and took his wife to a theatre where,
curiously enough, the diverting play of _La Poupée_ was being performed.
It is a diverting play, but not, I think, “absolutely unique.”
It will be gathered from these instances of local business enterprise
how amply the modern spirit of making the most of one's opportunities of
“getting on” is represented among the commercial population of Burford.
Its manufacturers may be divided into two classes: the makers and the
fakers, and it is generally understood that the latter make the most
money.