“Look here, cubs!” he said; “if you ain’t got nowhere to go to, I don’t mind if you sleep here. There ain’t no bed but the bed of the forge, nor no blankets but this leather apron: you may have them, for you can’t do them no sort of harm. I don’t mind neither if you put a shovelful of slack and a little water now and then on the fire; and if you give it a blow or two with the bellows now and then, you won’t be stone-dead afore the mornin’!--Don’t be too free with the coals, now, and don’t set the shed on fire, and take the bread out of my poor innocent mouth. Mind what I tell you, and be good boys.” “Thank you, sir,” said Clare. “I thought you would be kind to us! I’ve one friend, a bull, that’s very good to me. So is Jonathan. He’s a horse. The bull’s name is Nimrod. He wants to gore always, but he’s never cross with me.” The blacksmith burst into a roar of laughter at the idiotic speech. Then he covered the fire with coal, threw his apron over Clare’s head, and departed, locking the door of the smithy behind him. The boys looked at each other. Neither spoke. Tommy turned to the bellows, and began to blow. “Ain’t you warm yet?” said Clare, who had seen his mother careful over the coals. “No, I ain’t. I want a blaze.” “Leave the fire alone. The coal is the smith’s, and he told us not to waste it.” “He ain’t no count!” said Tommy, as heartless as any grown man or woman set on pleasure. “He has given us a place to be warm and sleep in! It would be a shame to do anything he didn’t like. Have you no conscience, Tommy?” “No,” said Tommy, who did not know conscience from copper. The germ of it no doubt lay in the God-part of him, but it lay deep. Tommy--no worse than many a boy born of better parents--was like a hill full of precious stones, that grows nothing but a few little dry shrubs, and shoots out cold sharp rocks every here and there. “If you have no conscience,” answered Clare, “one must serve for both--as far as it will reach! Leave go of that bellows, or I’ll make you.” Tommy let the lever go, turned his back, and wandered, in such dudgeon as he was capable of, to the other side of the shed. “Hello!” he cried, “here’s a door!--and it ain’t locked, it’s only bolted! Let’s go and see!” “You may if you like,” answered Clare, “but if you touch anything of the blacksmith’s, I’ll be down on you.” “All right!” said Tommy, and went out to see if there was anything to be picked up. Clare got on the stone hearth of the forge, and lay down in the hot ashes, too far gone with hunger to care for the clothes that were almost beyond caring for. He was soon fast asleep; and warmth and sleep would do nearly as much for him as food. Chapter XX. TOMMY RECONNOITRES.