DEATH IN THE SMITHY

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 140, 15 June 1936, Page 3

DEATH IN THE SMITHY

AN ENGLISHMAN'S STOEY

PILLAR OF VILLAGE

We have just lost our blacksmith, writes Kathleen Collison-Morley in the "Cape Times." He died from the results of an injury inflicted by some horse, ignored until its pain drove him to bed. It will be a long time before we cease to mourn him. He was the friend of two parishes, besides all those moorland farmers who considered shoeing a social event; bringing wife and family in the cart which was left upended near the forge, while the blacksmith deftly pared hoofs and distributed news between a mouthful of nails.

During nearly forty years he had worked for the Manor. It was his boast that the old squire had himself erected the signboard proclaiming his qualifications as a shoeing and general smith, although his skill was too wellknown to need advertisement. He rented an orchard, and the strip of pasture bordering the river which connected his cottage with his . business premises. His family was one of standing in the village. His mother-in-law reigned over the nearest farm, being famous for her poultry; his niece kept the little general store, where flowers bloomed earlier than in other gardens, and where correspondents posted their letters through a slit in the shutter; his son captained the cricket team. FORGOTTEN ROUTE.

The forge, had anybody been idle enough to admire it, commanded a view of hanging woods, thatched roofs, and the ford which gave the village its name. A packhorse bridge led to the bridlepath that was far older than the main road which had stolen its traffic. There, years ago, strings of nimble Exmoor ponies used to carry merchandise inland from the neighbouring port, now deserted by the sea. The forge had plied a brisk trade in their shoes; worn through by rocks or sucked off in bogs. Modern horsemen preferred the ford, splashing with a hollow noise through the water that in summer ran clear and brown fet-lock-deep, and in spate rushed down as high as a hunter's girths.

On one side the blacksmith could overlook the schoolhouse, and envy the schoolmistress" sweet peas; on the other a house that had been built upon land filched unfairly from its copyholder and which, in consequence, never flourished. Tenants came and went at yearly intervals, all in turn commissioning new gates, or fire dogs, or railings that he made in his spare time. Opposite was the dormered cot- j tage where the cobbler pursued a voca-1 tion as old as, and allied to, the. smith's own. A MEETING PLACE. The forge was a popular meeting place. There farm hands carried tools to be mended and lingered, discussing crops and market prices. Homegoing grooms would halt to shout details of the day's sport. The colt-breaker, soothing a wild youngster who had never seen iron before, commented with leisurely detail, and in a dialect incomprehensible to Midland ears, upon his own and other people's studs. Farmers brought their ■ draught horses for the blacksmith's advice on minor ailments; mostly arising, from ill-fitting harness or neglected frogs. Hunters at exercise would pause in passing, so agreeable were their memories of the place. Althpugh the blacksmith had never bestridden anything larger than a donkey,' leaving to his son the job of bicycling beside'the led horses whose owners were too busy to wai| for them, he was a good judge of form. He

assessed all clients from the hoof upwards, declaring, with truth, that no beast was good without sound feet. Almost every stable could show proofs of his skilful farriery. He, assisted by his boy, had thrown and shod a cartcolt whom no other man could handle. A year of his attention had cured one mare's contracted feet; for another case of brushing he had invented shoes with concave inner sides. A sufferer from corns had received relief from shoeing with bacon-fat and leather. Tender-solfed thoroughbreds wore his shoes with bevelled rims, and skipped like goats over the rocky hills.

OLD SHOES. Those horses who wfere boxed to neighbouring hunts during the season, noticed the difference between their own and other smiths. Directly before, and immediately after their visits they were rushed'to the forge, where the grooms told indignant tales of runs missed by lost shoes. On the evfe of hunting, it became a habit to call in for a few words on the scenting prospects and a timely nail or so. These were always administered in mid-lane, with the rider still seated in his saddle.

The blacksmith preserved a heap oi rusty shoes, sufficient to have supplied good luck to an entire city. Jn it plainly distinguishable to his eye were the outworn footwear of his customers; plain, heavy road-shoes for vanners, fullered shoes for hunters, racing-plates, tips for children's ponies, and the fancy contraptions that he disliked, although some folk insisted that they saved horses from slipping upon tarmac. When a local horse needed shoeing, a word overnight produced a set of new shoes; made to pattern and measure by memory, and only needing to be tacked into place. In an emergency he would select some part-worn specimens from the pile, alter them swiftly and charge halfprice for a temporary job. FROM PASTURE.

Every autumn, when, the horses came down from the moorland pastures where they summered, the blacksmith was bespoke. Wearing his Sunday suit and carrying the bag containing three sets of individual shoes, hammer, nails, rasp, pincers, hoofcutter, knife, and buffer he accompanied us in the car. Once on the hill he helped us to catch the horses, then shod them with incredible rapidity in a gateway. Undisturbed by the drove of colts still galloping round him, he discoursed of old friends; the wise grey whose feet had been so rotten with thrush when she was bought from a dealer, the chestnut horse whose brittle hoofs had caused such trouble in youth, the bay who hated the smell of his own horn sizzling, the brown blood mare. The latter's memory always stemmed the flood of pleasant reminiscence, for it was the blacksmith who had found her, after hours of search, lying under the hedge with a broken leg. It was tie who ran to the farm, in spite of his asthma, borrowed a gun, and shot her; oecause the groom could do not more than kneel in the ditch and murmur reassurances to an ear which he hoped was past hearing., Now, passing the forge at dusk, when the firelight spurts in time to the bellows, we still look for the blacksmith's pale, begrimed face, stooping among the sparks. We can only hope that all the horses he loved galloped to meet lirri in the Elysian Fields, shod in a manner of which even he would approve.