“La Blanchotte is a good, honest girl, and upright and steady in spite of her misfortune, and would make a worthy wife for an honest man.” “That is true,” remarked the three others. The smith continued: “Is it the girl's fault if she went wrong? She had been promised marriage; and I know more than one who is much respected to-day, and who sinned every bit as much.” “That is true,” responded the three men in chorus. He resumed: “How hard she has toiled, poor thing, to bring up her child all alone, and how she has wept all these years she has never gone out except to church, God only knows.” “This is also true,” said the others. Then nothing was heard but the bellows which fanned the fire of the furnace. Philip hastily bent himself down to Simon: “Go and tell your mother that I am coming to speak to her this evening.” Then he pushed the child out by the shoulders. He returned to his work, and with a single blow the five hammers again fell upon their anvils. Thus they wrought the iron until nightfall, strong, powerful, happy, like contented hammers. But just as the great bell of a cathedral resounds upon feast days above the jingling of the other bells, so Philip's hammer, sounding above the rest, clanged second after second with a deafening uproar. And he stood amid the flying sparks plying his trade vigorously. The sky was full of stars as he knocked at La Blanchotte's door. He had on his Sunday blouse, a clean shirt, and his beard was trimmed. The young woman showed herself upon the threshold, and said in a grieved tone: “It is ill to come thus when night has fallen, Mr. Philip.” He wished to answer, but stammered and stood confused before her. She resumed: “You understand, do you not, that it will not do for me to be talked about again.” “What does that matter to me, if you will be my wife!” No voice replied to him, but he believed that he heard in the shadow of the room the sound of a falling body. He entered quickly; and Simon, who had gone to bed, distinguished the sound of a kiss and some words that his mother murmured softly. Then, all at once, he found himself lifted up by the hands of his friend, who, holding him at the length of his herculean arms, exclaimed: “You will tell them, your schoolmates, that your papa is Philip Remy, the blacksmith, and that he will pull the ears of all who do you any harm.” On the morrow, when the school was full and lessons were about to begin, little Simon stood up, quite pale with trembling lips: “My papa,” said he in a clear voice, “is Philip Remy, the blacksmith, and he has promised to pull the ears of all who does me any harm.” This time no one laughed, for he was very well known, was Philip Remy, the blacksmith, and was a papa of whom any one in the world would have been proud. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Original Short Stories of Maupassant, Volume 11, by Guy de Maupassant