ARTISAN REVIEW
503
eld well into hi side, the beer pot straight at his mouth when he
rank, though the stance and picture was
by
no means a stiff one.
hen I dodged out of sight in case he should sec me.
He drank as much beer as the colliers, and on leaving Wollaton
it every day, where he worked underground as a blacksmith, he
topped at the Admiral Rodney in the village for his customary few
ints. At Sunday dinner a quart bottle would be set on the table,
~hich
only he was allowed to drink.
If
his three grown-up sons
anted to drink at the same meal they had to go off and buy a
int of their own, though they could only bring a glass to the table,
t\'er the actual bottle.
If
they did there would be ructions, which
ould end in them O'etting knocked down - if they didn't take
away.
Later in life, when he was just above sixty, he used to send me
ut on Sunday morning to the Woodhouse for his ale, and I remem–
er the smell of it as the young woman at the beer-off poured it into
he funnel she held O\'er the bottle. He once gave me half a glass
·hen I got back, and was delighted when I staggered away from
he meal half drunk. On another occasion he gave me a pinch of
nuff, which set me sneezing around the hou. e and yard for hours.
was one of the few who appreciated his . ense of humor, though
he was universally known among
hi~
family as a rotter, and a "mean
ld swine," mo tly because all his actions added up to the fact that
he
liked making people dance to his tune.
His
elde~t
son, Oli\'er, had a girl friend when he was twenty,
Burton who was forty-five took a fancy to her. Much to the
i::lespair of hi son she also fancied him, being a loose and saucy
Voodhouse tart - according to other views. The iron peace of the
amily was
~battered
when Burton went off with her for a few days.
liver, who was a qualified blacksmith, went into the army because
tl:e Great War was on.
A few months later he was dead, not at the Battle of the Aisne,
or in the slaughter at Loos, but on a moor in Norfolk. Some of his
oisterous soldier-mates had, by way of a joke, fed rum to a string
of mules that Oliver was to lead across the moor at dusk. Enlivened
oo much, they kicked him to death, and he wasn't found till the
middle of the following day.
