Open Writing

The old maxim, "Good intentions pave the way to Hell," is not without some truth, and although not all good intentions lead to Hades, I know of one instance in which it did precisely that. It cannot be gainsaid that his intentions were good, sincere, honest, and well-meaning, and he acted in what he considered to be the best interests of the man to whom he had contracted to sell the object. To be accurate, he had done more than contract; he had agreed, struck hands on the deal and received his money from the other fellow.

This was one of those rare cases where natural justice had overtaken both the good and the evil of the agreement, and unseated the villain without impoverishing the innocent. Some would call it poetic justice, but there was little poetical about the dealer's language when he came to collect his newly acquired property.

Zeke Swinburnee was a farmer, a man of the soil. He was hard working, straight as a die, honest, forthright, and dependable. However, when it came to anything other than his livestock and caring for his farm, he was somewhat naive. The demands of his occupation had not required him to be well read, well travelled, or suspicious of people who looked and smelled honest.

Bill Stickler, on the other hand, was urbane, sharp in business, no stranger to stretching or bending the truth to his advantage, and always kept a weather eye open for a good deal. He had been in the antique business for thirty or more years, and frequently went out on speculative trips, calling at farmhouses, and isolated dwellings with the prospect of picking up something for far less than it was worth and then selling it on at a handsome profit.

One day he spied the gate to Eden farm, and swung his Ford Prefect through it and drove along the dusty lane until he reached the remote farm. He drove the Prefect because it didn't do to look too well off when buying antiques from the artless who were his primary targets. He did his best to skip over the biggest mud puddles, the legacy of last night's hard rainfall, and knocked on the porch door.

As he waited for his I-tiddley-I-ti rap to be answered, he inspected the exterior of the building. It was just right. Cast iron gutters and drainpipes, a couple of lead sections, age-blackened ashlar facing stones, and old sash windows with rippled glass. He guessed the age of the place at around two hundred, maybe even two hundred and fifty, years. An ideal place for antiques to be sitting for a century or two and the occupants none the wiser. He would buy cheap, do some restoration work, and put them in his auction house. It is a credit to both his industry and his silver tongue that this method had yielded excellent advantages over the years, as his detached house on the coast, and his Aston Martin made evident.

The inner door opened, and was followed in short order by the porch door opening. Zeke smiled at the stranger. Bill extended his hand and took Zeke's, pumping it as if he was pleased to greet and old friend, and then explained his errand.

"I saw your house" began Stickler, "and just called on the off chance that you had some old furniture you wanted to sell." He waited, watching Zeke's face for signs of interest.

"Owd funnacha?" said Zeke at last, lifting his cap to scratch his unruly mop. "Nay lad, ah dunno abaht that.''

"It doesn't have to be good stuff. Just any old bit and bats that you don't use or that are in your way."

"Well, Ah've nowt ut'll be worth owt, onyrooad, as ah gate orl mah stuff from mi fether, and is fether."

"I don't want to take your time. I know you are a busy man, having your farm and everything to take care of, but I thought that seeing as I was here we might just take a quick look around and see if I can offer you a few pounds for something you don't use any more?"

"Ee, lad, ah dooan't nooah. Ah've getten t'caahs te milluk, an t'ogs mash to bile.''

"Can you spare me just a couple of minutes for a quick look, and then I'll be on my way? Please?"

"Thaa'd best cum in, then, lad, burrah wain't be able to spend a reet long tahm wi' thi."

"Thank you," said Stickler, moving into the doorway, so that Zeke had to move inside the house. "Where shall we start."

"Thah'd best staht in't parler," said Swinburnee, leading the way.

True to his world, the dealer did not spend much time. He knew what he was looking for, and apart from some late Georgian pieces that would have been worth his while if they had not been subject to the ravages of time, and the normal abuses of everyday life in a farmer's dwelling. He began to suspect that he was wasting his time, until he was led into a butler's pantry off the main kitchen.

His eagle eye detected a decent-sized desk that was covered in a rag and some ancient newspapers, and was utilised as a base for two rabbit hutches, complete with rabbits, and the usual accumulated mess that all rabbit keepers will recognise.

He turned on his heel as if to leave the pantry, but then, performed a Columboesque spin on his heel, and said, "That little table is just what I am looking for to go in my potting shed."

"It's nooan ser little," said Zeke, "That wain't gerrit in unless tha's getten a gurt big shed."

"It's a fair seized shed," said Bill, cutting off the dairyman's objection, "and I'll give you a good price for it. It's doing nothing but holding hutches, and with what I give you, you can get another table for them and still have a couple of hundred pounds for yourself."

Farmer Swinburnee's jaw dropped. "Art tha seyin tha'll gi me aboon two hunnerd pahnds fer it, lad?"

"I wouldn't normally go that high, but it is exactly what I need. How does three hundred pounds sound?"

"Well, Ah dooan't knooa, ah s'll hev ter think abaht it.''

But, even as Zeke was appealing for more time to consider the offer and get over his shock, Stickler was counting out five pounds notes at an alarming rate onto the edge of the desk. "Two hundred and fifty, two hundred and fifty-five, two hundred and sixty... "

"Three hunnerd!" said Swinburnee with so much enthusiasm that he surprised his usually phlegmatic self. "Ey up, lad, tha's getten thissen a deal."

He stuck out his calloused hand, and the dealer clasped it, sealing the bargain firmer than any contract written on paper.

"If tha wents to hev that owd table so badly as tha's willin' ter part wi three hunnerd quid, then tha s'all ev it!"

Almost too delighted to speak, the dealer handed over the wad to his victim, who took it gladly and stuffed it in his pocket.

"How art tha bahnta gerit ooam? It'll noan go insaahd a Fooard Perfect!''

"I'll bring a van and a man tomorrow to help me load it. Will nine o'clock be alright?"

"In't mornin'?''

"Yes. Nine am."

"That's grand," said the farmer. "And naah ah've gorra gerron wi mi wark. Sooa if tha'll excoois me, ah'll see this t'marn.''

A final handclasp, a closing door, a whirr of starter motor, a grinding of gears, and the Prefect disappeared in the cloud of dust from whence it had materialised some fifteen minutes earlier.

Inside the house, a bemused worthy was considering the events of the past quarter hour. He felt the cash in his pocket, and decided that he would facilitate the pick up of the desk by getting it out by the gate so that the dealer and his man would not have too far to carry it when they came for it on the morrow.

He considered the back door as the best and shortest way to get the piece outside. But that was through the tack room, and the tack room was filled almost wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling with all the saddles, harness, bits, reins, collars, and oat buckets that had been used since the farm came into the hands of Zeke's great-grandfather, and although he had often intended clearing it out and giving it to the agricultural museum in the distant town, he had not got around to doing it. Now, his hesitancy had created an impenetrable barricade.

"Ah s'al atta gerrit aht throo't front dooar," he told himself. After removing the hutches, and casting aside the papers and rag, he lifted it away from the wall. "By Gow," he exclaimed, "it's blummin evvy."

It was heavy. It had been made in an era when furniture was made to last and it was a substantial desk. He traced away some of the dust with his forefinger and smiled when he saw the delicate traceries of the figured walnut top, and the curiously beautiful inlaid edges. He did not remember it being so attractive. But then he had not looked closely at it since he was a young lad.

"Ah sall need a lift wi' this," he remarked through gritted teeth when he attempted to drag it towards the door of the pantry. "There's a bit er weight in it, ah'm capped at ar evvy it is."

He went though the door and standing outside the porch he cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled for his lad.

"Deeeee-NISS!" He tried again, "Deeeee-NISS!"

Dennis duly emerged from the barn and yelled back, "What dustha went, dad?"

"Cum an' gi us a 'and wi this!"

Awreit, dad, ah'm cummin'.''

And come he did. His father explained their good fortune, and together they hoyed and shoved the desk to get it outside ready for their benefactor. They did well, despite its bulk and weight, and they managed without knocking off any of the decorative bits, which Zeke thought was only right since it now belonged to the stranger and his potting shed.

They did well, that is, until they hit the snag. The snag was the porch. The old front door was the original that the master builder had hung there almost three hundred years earlier. It was English oak some three inches thick, and had a width of almost three feet, through which the desk had fitted when it was brought into the house following the death of an independently wealthy maiden aunt who lived in a mansion near Knaresborough. As far as anyone in the family could remember that was over a hundred years ago.

The porch, however, was a more recent addition put up in the late nineteen-fifties to help reduce icy draughts that followed on winter's heels. That door was a mere twenty eight inches, but the desk stood thirty-two inches from the floor, and its top was seven feet long, and four feet broad. Zeke and Dennis looked at the desk, then at the portal several times.

"Wha tha banna do, dad?" asked the inquisitive son.

"Ee, lad, Ah dunno. Ah'm fair flummoxed!" replied his bewildered father.

However, his bafflement was not of the permanent variety. Like most farmers used to coping with the vagaries of weather, pests, banks, government officials, taxmen and the like, he was quick-witted and inventive. Thus it was that when the white van rolled through the gate the following day, the desk was stood in the grass ready to be picked up and removed to its new location to enjoy a change of employment out of the animal kingdom and into the world of plants. He had even thrown a bucket of hot water tinctured with Jeyes Fluid over it just in case anything nasty was lurking in its folds and crevices that would cause blossom-end rot-or any variety of blight to the horticulturist's prize blooms.

"All ready, I see," observed the dealer, smelling a price of at least £4,000, maybe more, and an whacking profit for a couple of hours travel, a bit of a clean, a rub down with lemon silicone furniture polish, a swift journey to the bank, and all done easily and the yokel none the wiser! Truly, his cup ran over.

"Aye, all ready for thi, lad. Dusta wenta 'and wi' it into't van?"

"No, thank you. We'll manage between us." He motioned towards his burly assistant. "Will you just sign this bill of sale for me to keep it above board, and so I can prove that it belongs to me now?"

"Ah will," said the farmer, signing the document, and receiving a carbon of it, that he stuffed into his pocket.

"It's mine now," said the deceiver.

"Aye, that it is. All thaahn," confirmed the deceived.

The burly man opened the back doors of the van, and the two took up positions at each end of the table.

"Tha'll want these,'' said Zeke, handing Stickler the small bundle that had been laid on top of the table.

"Oh?" said Stickler. "What's this for?"

"Them's feet.''

"What?" asked the dealer.

"Them's its feit. It wor too wahd ter get throoah t'dooar, so Ah sooad off its feet. Ah noo that wun't mahnd c'os it's nobbut for thi pottin' shed. Tha meight be able to stick 'em back on, if tha wents."

He turned and strode down to the barn where his work was waiting. He could hear the fulminations close by the van as if Mr Stickler was upset about something. However, as Swinburnee had ridded himself of responsibility, it was none of his business and the man might swear at the table all he wished, as it was his now. Really his! That piece of paper proved it.

Bill Stickler fulminated all the way to his salesroom and for a considerable time afterwards. Zeke had acted out of the best of intentions, but Bill had acted out of the worst, hoping to dupe a simple man. It is equally self-evident that while good intentions can pave the road to Hell, that simple people often employ primitive methods when solving problems. Such as sawing the feet off the cabriole legs of a Louis XIVth figured walnut desk inlaid with the metal and tortoiseshell for which its designer and maker Monsieur Boulle is celebrated.

Copyright © Ronnie Bray

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Other stories at:
http://www.2theheart.com/author_ronnie_bray
http://www.meridianmagazine.com/voices/011024summer.html