THE BLACKSMITH.
The next day I set out after breakfast to inquire about a blacksmith.
It was not every or any blacksmith that would do. I must not fix on the
first to do my work because he was the first. There was one in the
village, I soon learned; but I found him an ordinary man, who, I have
no doubt, could shoe a horse and avoid the quick, but from whom any
greater delicacy of touch was not to be expected. Inquiring further, I
heard of a young smith who had lately settled in a hamlet a couple of
miles distant, but still within the parish. In the afternoon I set out
to find him. To my surprise, he was a pale-faced, thoughtful-looking
man, with a huge frame, which appeared worn rather than naturally thin,
and large eyes that looked at the anvil as if it was the horizon of the
world. He had got a horse-shoe in his tongs when I entered.
Notwithstanding the fire that glowed on the hearth, and the sparks that
flew like a nimbus in eruption from about his person, the place looked
very dark to me entering from the glorious blaze of the almost noontide
sun, and felt cool after the deep lane through which I had come, and
which had seemed a very reservoir of sunbeams. I could see the smith by
the glow of his horse-shoe; but all between me and the shoe was dark.
"Good-morning," I said. "It is a good thing to find a man by his work.
I heard you half a mile off or so, and now I see you, but only by the
glow of your work. It is a grand thing to work in fire."
He lifted his hammered hand to his forehead courteously, and as lightly
as if the hammer had been the butt-end of a whip.
"I don't know if you would say the same if you had to work at it in
weather like this," he answered.
"If I did not," I returned, "that would be the fault of my weakness,
and would not affect the assertion I have just made, that it is a fine
thing to work in fire."
"Well, you may be right," he rejoined with a sigh, as, throwing the
horse-shoe he had been fashioning from the tongs on the ground, he next
let the hammer drop beside the anvil, and leaning against it held his
head for a moment between his hands, and regarded the floor. "It does
not much matter to me," he went on, "if I only get through my work and
have done with it. No man shall say I shirked what I'd got to do. And
then when it's over there won't be a word to say agen me, or--"
He did not finish the sentence. And now I could see the sunlight lying
in a somewhat dreary patch, if the word _dreary_ can be truly used with
respect to any manifestation of sunlight, on the dark clay floor.
"I hope you are not ill," I said.
He made no answer, but taking up his tongs caught with it from a beam
one of a number of roughly-finished horse-shoes which hung there, and
put it on the fire to be fashioned to a certain fit. While he turned it
in the fire, and blew the bellows, I stood regarding him. "This man
will do for my work," I said to myself; "though I should not wonder
from the look of him if it was the last piece of work he ever did under
the New Jerusalem." The smith's words broke in on my meditations.
"When I was a little boy," he said, "I once wanted to stay at home from
school. I had, I believe, a little headache, but nothing worth minding.
I told my mother that I had a headache, and she kept me, and I helped
her at her spinning, which was what I liked best of anything. But in
the afternoon the Methodist preacher came in to see my mother, and he
asked me what was the matter with me, and my mother answered for me
that I had a bad head, and he looked at me; and as my head was quite
well by this time, I could not help feeling guilty. And he saw my look,
I suppose, sir, for I can't account for what he said any other way; and
he turned to me, and he said to me, solemn-like, 'Is your head bad
enough to send you to the Lord Jesus to make you whole?' I could not
speak a word, partly from bashfulness, I suppose, for I was but ten
years old. So he followed it up, as they say: 'Then you ought to be at
school,' says he. I said nothing, because I couldn't. But never since
then have I given in as long as I could stand. And I can stand now, and
lift my hammer, too," he said, as he took the horse-shoe from the
forge, laid it on the anvil, and again made a nimbus of coruscating
iron.
"You are just the man I want," I said. "I've got a job for you, down to
Kilkhaven, as you say in these parts."
"What is it, sir? Something about the church? I should ha' thought the
church was all spick and span by this time."
"I see you know who I am," I said.
"Of course I do," he answered. "I don't go to church myself, being
brought up a Methodist; but anything that happens in the parish is
known the next day all over it."
"You won't mind doing my job though you are a Methodist, will you?" I
asked.
"Not I, sir. If I've read right, it's the fault of the Church that we
don't pull all alongside. You turned us out, sir; we didn't go out of
ourselves. At least, if all they say is true, which I can't be sure of,
you know, in this world."
"You are quite right there though," I answered. "And in doing so, the
Church had the worst of it--as all that judge and punish their
neighbours have. But you have been the worse for it, too: all of which
is to be laid to the charge of the Church. For there is not one
clergyman I know--mind, I say, that I know--who would have made such a
cruel speech to a boy as that the Methodist parson made to you."
"But it did me good, sir?"
"Are you sure of that? I am not. Are you sure, first of all, it did not
make you proud? Are you sure it has not made you work beyond your
strength--I don't mean your strength of arm, for clearly that is all
that could be wished, but of your chest, your lungs? Is there not some
danger of your leaving someone who is dependent on you too soon
unprovided for? Is there not some danger of your having worked as if
God were a hard master?--of your having worked fiercely, indignantly,
as if he wronged you by not caring for you, not understanding you?"
He returned me no answer, but hammered momently on his anvil. Whether
he felt what I meant, or was offended at my remark, I could not then
tell. I thought it best to conclude the interview with business.
"I have a delicate little job that wants nice handling, and I fancy you
are just the man to do it to my mind," I said.
"What is it, sir?" he asked, in a friendly manner enough.
"If you will excuse me, I would rather show it to you than talk about
it," I returned.
"As you please, sir. When do you want me?"
"The first hour you can come."
"To-morrow morning?"
"If you feel inclined."
"For that matter, I'd rather go to bed."
"Come to me instead: it's light work."
"I will, sir--at ten o'clock."
"If you please."
And so it was arranged.