The Village Smithy

Evening Star, Issue 26103, 17 May 1947, Page 10

The Village Smithy

, (Written by Mary Sqott for the * Evening Star.’) The advance of progress lias left some lamentable gaps in our village. In my earliest knowledge of it, there was only a store (which contained a corner labelled grandly “ His Majesty’s Dost Office ”) another rival store, a boarding house of very doubtful reputation, and a village smithy. Since ours is a nolicense district, there was no hotel —-a deficiency not acutely felt, since, to quote one of our old identities, “ There’s ways and ways of gettin’ round that.” To-day the post office :s no more; quick transit, rural deliveries, and private bags have supplanted it, and our telephones are connected with a town exchange. There are several comparatively up-to-date stores, two brightly-painted bowsers belonging to them, and a third outside the garage and repair shop, but neither boarding house nor smithy. The former Ido not regret, but the old building on the hill, which now stands stark and in ruins, once held a blacksmith’s forge which still brings back sentimental memories of “ them days.” For 15 years this smithy did a roaring trade, but when the last blacksmith left, driven out by the advancing tide of motor traffic, the bowsers and garage arose to take its place with the general public. But not with those who love and still use horses. To-day their problem is an acute one. There is no blacksmith for nearly 30 miles, so that most of the fanners have been obliged to do their own shooing. This, not very expertly achieved, leads to innumerable troubles for the horses, unknown in the days when Steve or Bill or Job had their roaring fires in the old smithy. It was my first acquaintance with the backblocks or with a forge, and the place seemed always packed with romance for me. It was some time before I realised that with at least two of these genial smiths, the place was also packed with illicit liquor. Such affairs were discreetly conducted, and it was a year before I understood the reason for the vast popularity of the ramshackle building. To me it was attractive enough, with its glowing fires on a frosty morning, its red-hot irons, the clanging of the smith’s hammer, and the deft shaping of the shoes, so that --our horse knew no cramping discomfort later. Difficult horses and illshaped hooves were treated by experts at that forge; there was no reason to fear the laming of a beloved hack through carelessness, or the rough treatment of a nervous youngster because the smith was irritable and unused to handling high-spirited horses.

We had 10 miles to go, so that we usually collected three or four horses and made a day of it. We picnicked under the willows by the tidal river while the smith did his work. The journey down was slow and difficult, for it is heavy work leading a couple of unwilling horses _ away 'from home, but it was worth it all for the joy of the return journey, when it was safe to couple your horses and drive them ahead, since there was practically no motor traffic on those clay roads. Then the horses could not take the homeward road fast enough. Knowing your hack’s feet well and truly tended, you could canter merrily along, without a thought for the patches of metal that had been so painful on the way dbwn, secure in the knowledge that there was no fear of a loose shoe for many weeks to come. The blacksmiths 1 knew were all alike in their expex-t handling of horses and their affection for them. I fancy that all three had an almost equal passion for liquor after hours. But there resemblance ended. Steve, the first I, knew, was an amiable old chap, with no wife and a very pretty daughter. In these respects he was like Longfellow’s blacksmith, but there the resemblance ended. Steve had none of the notable virtues of that legendary figure, nor was his daughter at all disposed to sing in the village choir. Quite the reverse. She was a gay lass and led her father and most of the local swains a pretty dance. However, she married discreetly in the end, and her father was eventually enticed from our poor district to the properous neighbourhood where she had her new home. He was a good smith charged a modest 4s for excellent work that would cost 11s to-day—if you could still find a smith of his calibre.

His successor was not a family man, but he had an. extraordinary aptitude for the dispensing of sly grog. He was a silent individual with a deceptive mildness of manner and an enormous punch in a fight.' And fights there were many, it was said, during the five years that Bill ran the forge. During all that time he evaded police intervention with incredible ease, thanks to the back-blocks grape vine which inevitably reported a policeman on his way. At once, work ceased abruptly at the smithy, while all hands set to work to conceal innumerable kegs and bottles in the hundreds of acres of bush and tea tree that rose behind the forge. But his luck was too good to last, and a zealous sergeant, taking a roundabout route and wearing plain clothes, came upon the scene when festivities were in full swing. An exemplary fine was met with eager subscriptions from all Bill’s innumerable clients, but his pride suffered a blow at this defeat at the hands of the law. The spirit went out of him, and he sold the business soon afterwards and went to a place which could only be reached by a road along the beach at low tide, and where, he said, “ there’d be them as would watch for interfering busies on their way.” . Job followed him and was the last of our smiths. Whether he continued his predecessor’s illicit trade I never knew, but he was a quiet and serious man of incredible strength, and the gentleness of manner and voice that sometimes goes with great size. He loved horses perhaps better than any of our smiths, and their ill treatment roused him to fierce wrath. 1 was at the forge once when some men brought in a lame horse, that had been ridden hard on a metal road. Job’s face flushed darkly and he said: “If I’d my way I’d drive you barefoot over them cobbles—with a whip to hurry you along.’ Such was his reputation that the men looked decidedly nervous. Of all our smiths I knew and liked him the best. He loved horses as few men do. and was gentle in touch and voice; the wildest colt was reassured by his hand. But motor traffic drove him awav in the end, whither we never j knew. To-day the smithy stands open to wind and rain, a mere shell, testi--1 fying to the advance of progress.