Books › Old violins, 1905 › scan 155
Scan 155
Old violins, 1905
10 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 137. See the scan on archive.org.
1astonished owner's face, tore off the finger-board, loosened the neck, and drove a knife under the belly. The fiddle was soon in pieces, and he threw the loose fragments aside in a heap, took up his repairs again, and said he would attend to the matter by-and-by, and the gentleman need not stop; and we got no more out of old Hill that day, who immediately became re-absorbed in his work.
3I shall never forget the rueful and amazed look with which my poor friend beheld the tearing to pieces of his Cremona, but I touched him on the arm, and seeing that Hill was in no mood for talk, got him out of the shop, assuring him that it was all right, and that the great repairer had shown more interest than usual in his valuable instrument, or he would never have torn it to pieces then and there; and with such words I strove to comfort my perplexed and anxious friend.
5I am bound to add that although Hill kept him waiting several months, when the fiddle came back its owner was more than satisfied, and declared that he then heard his Cremona for the first time.
7Mr William Ebsworth Hill came of a family of violin-makers and violin-players. Joseph Hill, who was born 1715, was proud to trace his descent from the "Mr Hill" mentioned in Pepys' Diary as being employed to alter his lute and viall.
9Joseph was a prolific and excellent violin-maker, and carried on business in the early part of the eighteenth century at the sign of the Harp and Flute in the Haymarket.
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