HOW THE HOUSE WAS BUILT 3 



iron substitute for honest hand-work, no moral sloth- 

 fulness in the providing of all these lesser finishings. 

 It takes more time, more trouble ; it may even take a 

 good deal of time and trouble, but then it is just right, 

 and to see and know that it is right is a daily reward 

 and a never-ending source of satisfaction. 



Some heavy oak timber-work forms a structural 

 part of the inner main framing of the house. Posts, 

 beams, braces, as well as doors and their frames, 

 window-frames and mullions, stairs and some floors, 

 are of good English oak, grown in the neighbourhood. 

 I suppose a great London builder could not produce 

 such work. He does not go into the woods and buy 

 the standing timber, and season it slowly in a roomy 

 yard for so many years, and then go round with the 

 architect's drawing and choose the piece that exactly 

 suits the purpose. The old country builder, when he 

 has to get out a cambered beam or a curved brace, 

 goes round his yard and looks out the log that grew 

 in the actual shape, and taking off two outer slabs by 

 handwork in the sawpit, chops it roughly to shape 

 with his side-axe and works it to the finished face 

 with the adze, so that the completed work shall for 

 ever bear the evidence of his skill in the use of these 

 grand old tools, and show a treatment absolutely in 

 sympathy with the nature and quality of the material. 



Though the work of the London builder is more 

 technically perfect, it has none of the vigorous vitality 

 and individual interest of that of the old countryman, 



