Georgina 2/8

Henry had once been a knight and was among the first group of drivers that George had recruited to form his new company. Today he was driving his cart slowly along the forest tracks carrying a ploughshare to be repaired by the blacksmith at Lurbridge, before going on to pick up some timber from the yard by the river and returning to Lower Dene.

He was feeling particularly happy; today was the day he finally paid off the loan that he’d taken out from the squire to buy his cart. From now on all of his wages and his share of the company profits was going to be his to spend as he would.

Then disaster struck! The cartwheel ran over a particularly bad hole on the road and with a sharp cracking noise the wooden axle broke right across the middle. The wheels tilted inwards and locked against the side of the cart body and there he was, stuck about two miles away from his destination. He climbed down from his seat to have a look at the damage. He could think of no reason why the nearly new cart should let him down in any way, unless someone had been tampering with it.

Then he groaned as he saw the reason for the damage. The centre of the axle had been eaten away by woodworm and the jolt it had taken as the cart bounced over the hole had caused it to break. He was going to have a quiet word with the craftsman who had built the vehicle, there was no reason why such bad quality material should have been used.

He took his horse out of the harness and rode off bareback towards the village. He had to hope that the locals would be honest enough to leave his load alone, should any one of them come across it by accident.

The blacksmith at Lurbridge was only too pleased to come out and help him. After all, he needed to repair the ploughshare before he could earn any money himself. He listened sympathetically to Henry’s story, loaded some of his equipment on his own cart and together they set off to the scene of the accident.

They were both relieved when they found the cart exactly as it had been left. Then with the help of a few large stones and some wedges, they levered the cart up until the axle was more or less straight and the wheels were hanging freely from the cart sides. Then the blacksmith took two long iron bars and clamped them one either side of the broken axle.

“That should see you back to my forge,” he said, “then I should pop down to the timber yard if I were you and have a short sharp talk with the carpenters down there. They’ve no call sending out rubbish like this. It’s been nicely made as well; you think they’d have noticed that the wood wasn’t any good before they went to all the trouble of making it!”

Once back at the blacksmith’s, the broken pieces and the wheels were taken off the cart body. Henry borrowed a saddle and strapped one half of the broken axle across his horse, before riding down to the timber yard. The carpenters couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw the state of the timber and called the foreman over to have a look for himself.

“This must have happened since we made it. There’s no way we could make this and not find some evidence of the worm!”

“Well it’s practically new,” said Henry, “and I want to know what you intend to do about it.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll replace this free of charge,” said the foreman, “our work is highly respected round here, as you know. I just don’t understand how it could have happened. I mean to say there’s the carpenter’s mark as his approval of a job well done. Martin lad come here a moment will you.”

Martin left the job he was working on and came across to see why he was wanted. “Well I’m blessed,” he said as he looked at the damage, “I don’t believe I didn’t see the state of that piece of timber before I started work on it, let alone after I’d finished!”

Henry eventually had to leave his cart at the timber yard while a new axle was made and the repairs completed. He borrowed a saddle and trotted back to Lower Dene on his horse to report his misfortunes back to George as quickly as possible. The delivery schedules would have to be adjusted now that one cart was out of action for a week. If the company wasn’t careful they might even lose some of their customers. There were one or two who were still upset about the poor quality of the goods they’d received after that business with the pigeons.