The smith waited till Billy was drawing tranquil puffs--and indeed no man in Garth knew better how to smoke a pipe with true respect--then put a hand against the smithy wall, and leaned there, a figure of strength and of self-reliance. “I shouldn’t like the forge to pass into other hands, Billy. There’s been one o’ my name here since the Year One, or nigh about, and ’twouldn’t be seemly-like, to see another name above the door. Now, see ye, lad, suppose we called it play, ye and me, to set ye here as master-smith? ’Tis ever so much more play-work than blowing bellows, come to think on’t.” “Te-he!” laughed Billy. “Am I to play wi’ all your big, fine tools, David?” “Ay, just that I’ve taught ye the way o’ them, and Dan Foster’s lad from Brow Farm shall come and blow the bellows for you.” “Will that be work for Dan Foster’s lad, or play?” David caught the other’s meaning, with a quickness that he might well have shown when saying good-by to Cilla. “Hard work, Billy--grievous hard work, while you’re just playing at making horseshoes, fence-railings, and what not.” “And I’m to play at making horseshoes?” went on Fool Billy, smoking quietly into the face of the stark, blue sky and the heat of the midday sun. “I’m to play at smithy-work, while Dan Foster’s lad’s sweating hard at bellows-blowing?” David nodded as he filled his own pipe and lit it, leaning against the smithy wall. “It will be rare fun for ye, Billy--the lad working hard as ever he can sweat at the blowing, and ye just pleasuring wi’ making good horseshoes.” “It will that!” said Billy. “Fancied bellows-blowing was pastime, I, but now I see it quite contrary-like. Dan Foster’s lad will be Fool Billy, sweating at the bellows, and I shall be master-man. Te-he, David!” “Ay, te-he!” growled David. “Get the bellows a-blowing, Billy, for there’s work needs doing if I’m to get off by Tuesday o’ next week.” Billy obeyed. He had little gift of speech, but had the rarer quality of sympathy; and he knew, in his own odd way, how matters stood with the master of the forge. The smith did not move from his place against the wall until his pipe was smoked out. Then he gave a glance along the dust of Garth in the direction of Good Intent, and went into the forge. “I’ve met odd folk and queer happenings i’ my time,” he said to Billy, who was making the bellows roar; “but the queerest o’ the lot is life itself--just life as we’re living it, Billy.” Billy answered nothing, but played gently with the bellows. And David worked fiercely at the anvil. And the sick, dusty afternoon wore on, bidding all who had time for idle thoughts to remember how near the Black Fever lay to Garth. CHAPTER XV