Every time
his plane travelled along the edge, to my childish fancy, the board
said in plaintive tones of remonstrance, _in crescendo_, his name,
"Snewin, _Snewin_," and again, "SNEWIN," and even now the scent and
action of planing a deal board always brings back the scene clearly to
my mind.
I suppose, therefore, it was partly old associations that induced the
fascination of watching Tom G. at his work, but there were other
reasons. With his axe, the edge beautifully ground and sharpened to a
razor-like finish, he could trim a piece of wood, or shape it, so
neatly that it presented almost the appearance of having been planed;
his saw, with no apparent effort, raced from end to end of a board or
across the grain of a piece of "quartering," and his chisels and plane
irons were ground to the correct concave bevel that relieves the
parting of a chip or shaving, and gives what he called "sweetness" to
the cutting action. He was a strong Conservative, good at an argument,
and had many heated discussions with some of my men whose tendencies
leaned to the opposite side; but his sound logic and common sense were
observable in all his ideas, and I think he generally came off best as
a shrewd and clear-headed debater, for from his employment in various
places his horizon was wider than that of the ordinary farm labourers.
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