The Sabôt Maker’s Familydetails

One may hear [the wooden-shoe maker’s] noisy laughter and loud song ringing out to the accompaniment of the strokes of his short hatchet with which he shapes the rough-hewn blocks for the finisher.

[..]

Bound to the villages by the slenderest of ties, he nevertheless, unlike the charcoal burner, has somewhere or other a habitation of some sort, in which he lives except when his work is dull, or when he has given p his trade, through sickness or old age, and takes to his bed to die. (p. 100)