I
have had too much of it in my life. I think that I should like
to stay here for some time."
The boat-builder was surprised, but he was a man of heavy and
deliberate turn of mind and he did not commit himself to speech.
Tavernake continued.
"I used to know something of carpentering in my younger days," he
said, "and I don't think that I have forgotten it all. I wonder
if I could find anything to do down here?"
Matthew Nicholls stroked his beard thoughtfully.
"The folk round about are not over partial to strangers," he
observed, "and you'm been away so long I reckon there's not many
as'd recollect you. And as for carpentering jobs, there's Tom
Lake over at Lesser Blakeney and his brother down at Brancaster,
besides me on the spot, as you might say. It's a poor sort of
opening there'd be, if you ask my opinion, especially for one
like yourself, as 'as got education."
"I should be satisfied with very little," Tavernake persisted.
"I want to work with my hands. I should like to forget for a
time that I have had any education at all."
"That do seem mightily queer to me," Nicholls remarked,
thoughtfully.
Tavernake smiled.
"Come," he said, "it isn't altogether unnatural. I want to make
something with my hands. I think that I could build boats. Why
do you not take me into your yard? I could do no harm and I
should not want much pay."
Matthew Nicholls stroked his beard once more and this time he
counted fifty, as was his custom when confronted with a difficult
matter.
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