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Read Ebook: The Sealed Valley by Footner Hulbert Potts William Sherman Illustrator
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Ebook has 2081 lines and 90379 words, and 42 pages
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HISTORICAL NOTES--ANTIQUITY, 1
ITALY IN MEDIAEVAL AND RENAISSANCE TIMES, 8
THE CLOISTERED INTARSIATORI AND THEIR PUPILS, 55
IN GERMANY AND HOLLAND, ENGLAND AND FRANCE, 84
THE PROCESS OF MANUFACTURE, 104
THE LIMITATIONS AND CAPABILITIES OF THE ART, 118
WORKSHOP RECEIPTS, 133
PLATE
GENERAL PREFACE TO THE SERIES
It is intended that each volume shall contain an historical sketch of the phase of design and craft treated of, with examples of the successful overcoming of the difficulties to be encountered in its practice, workshop recipes, and the modes of producing the effects required, with a chapter upon the limitations imposed by the material and the various modes of evading those limitations adopted by those who have not frankly accepted them.
PREFACE The subject treated of in this handbook has, until lately, received scant attention in England; and except for short notices of a general nature contained in such books as Waring's "Arts Connected with Architecture," technical descriptions, such as those in Holtzapffel's "Turning and Mechanical Manipulation," and a few fugitive papers, has not been treated in the English language. On the Continent it has, however, been the subject of considerable research, and in Italy, Germany, and France books have been published which either include it as part of the larger subject of furniture, or treat in considerable detail instances of specially-important undertakings. From these various sources I have endeavoured to gather as much information as possible without too wearying an insistence upon unimportant details, and now present the results of my selection for the consideration of that part of the public which is interested in the handicrafts which merge into art, and especially for the designer and craftsman, whose business it is or may be to produce such works in harmonious co-operation in the present day, as they often did in days gone by, and, it may be hoped, with a success akin to that attained in those periods to which we look back as the golden age of art.
The books from which I have drawn my information are principally the following:--
In German--Becker and Hefner Alteneck's "Kunstwerke and Ger?ths Schaften des Mittelalters und der Renaissance"; Bucher's "Geschichte der Technischen Kunst"; Burckhardt's "Additions to Kugler's Geschichte der Baukunst, and Geschichtethe--what do you call the sticks--?" She illustrated.
"Splints," put in Ralph.
"Yes, she take off the splints too soon, and try to work, and when I come home her arm is all crooked. All the time it grows more crookeder. She is so scare' she is sick. Can you fix it?" she asked anxiously.
"Surely!" said Ralph. "The arm must be broken again and reset."
"Broken again?" the girl said, with an alarmed look. "That hurt her bad. She not let you do that, I think. Can you put her to sleep?"
"Anaesthetic? Certainly!" said Ralph. "Where did you learn about anaesthetics?" he asked curiously.
"I have work in Prince George and Winnipeg three years," she said. "I know about a hospital."
"I'll come and take a look at your mother," Ralph said. In his manner there was still something of a doctor's condescension to an humble patient. "Where do you live?"
She paused before replying, and looked at him with a certain apprehensiveness. "North," she said slowly. "Seven days' journey from Gisborne portage."
He was effectually startled out of his superior attitude. "Seven days!" he cried. "How on earth do you expect me to do that!"
"I take you in my canoe," she said. "You back here three weeks or one month."
She was sensitive to ridicule; a proud, sullen look came over her face. "I pay you," she said quickly. "I pay what you want."
Ralph laughed indulgently. "I'm afraid you don't realize what it's worth," he said. "A month of a doctor's time! It would be cheap at three hundred dollars."
"I don't want you cheap," she said, with the air of a princess. "I pay more."
But his laughter had angered her; her face expressed only a sullen blank. She did not answer.
"What is your name?" Ralph repeated. "You must answer my questions, you know."
"I tell you what I like," she said scornfully.
Ralph was irritated. "Do you expect me to start on a wild-goose chase into the wilderness without knowing what I'm letting myself in for?" he said sharply.
"I pay you before you go," she said, with her princess air.
It did not help to soothe him. "Hang the pay!" he cried. "I'm not for sale. I don't go in for a thing unless I'm satisfied it's straight!"
She was not in the least intimidated by his raised voice. "You only got to do doctor's work," she said coldly.
Ralph stared at her, confused and nonplussed by the variety of emotions she excited in him. Her beauty aroused him, her indifference piqued him, and her inscrutability provoked his curiosity to the highest degree. Obstinacy in another always had the effect of awakening the same quality in Ralph. He said coldly: "It sounds queer to me. I'm not interested."
Clearly she still clung to the idea that it was a question of payment with him. His glances of scornful amusement at her clothes had not escaped her woman's perceptions. "You think I poor," she said. "You think I got nothing. I got plenty."
"I don't care what you've got," said Ralph. "Deal with me openly, and I'll meet you halfway."
Her hand went to the bosom of her dress and closed around something that was hidden there. "If I show you something, you promise not to tell?" she said, with sudden earnestness. "You shake hands and promise not to tell?"
More mystery! Curiosity waxed great in Ralph's breast and struggled with his irritation. "Hang these people!" he thought. "You never can tell what they're up to!" To her he said unwillingly: "If it's straight I promise not to tell."
"It is straight," she said proudly.
They shook hands on it. She drew a little bag of moosehide from her dress, and untied the thong that bound its mouth. Attentively watching Ralph's face to observe the effect on him, she suddenly turned the bag upside down over his desk, and a little flood of coarse yellow sand poured out upon it with a soft swish. There could be no mistaking the cleanness and the shine of it.
Ralph sprang up. "Gold!" he cried, amazed.
"It is yours," she said, with a little smile. "I give you more if you make my mot'er's arm straight."
"Where did you get it?" Ralph asked sharply.
"I dig it myself," she said. "Do you think I steal it?"
Ralph continued to stare at the yellow stuff as if it had hypnotized him.
"Better put it away," suggested the girl. "Somebody come, maybe. To see gold make white men crazy."
He swept it up handful by handful, and poured it back into the little bag. There was a magic in the feel of the bright, sharp grains and in the extraordinary weight of it that caused a red flag to be run up in his cheeks, and his eyes to shine. He judged from the weight of the little bag that he had in his hand already double the fee he had asked.
Ralph frowned. "What do you want to make such a mystery of the trip for?"
"I could lie to you if I want," she said, "and you not know."
Ralph's eyes were compelled to acknowledge the truth of this.
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