“Well, there’s two score iron palings waiting to be hammered into shape, like, and Fool Billy reckons he’ll make a start at yond same, he will. Niver knew before what ’twas to have all this wonderful lot of play to get through with. David will laugh when he comes back. He always did say I was a queerish terrible chap when I settled to my play.” Priscilla was apt to search deeper into life since the troubled days arrived. She looked now at Billy, and remembered the scene last April at time of rescuing the lambs; she recalled the struggle at the edge of the pool, and Widow Mathewson’s tale of what had happened long ago at Marshlands; she sought in Billy’s face, as older folk had done, for some answer to the riddle of his character. She found no answer. Unhurried, skilled at his work so long as a comrade named it play, his blue, trusting eyes looked into hers, and, if they held a secret, kept it well. He looked again to see if Dan Foster’s lad were plying the bellows within doors; then, by force of habit, he drew out a blackened pipe, and as quietly replaced it. “There now!” he chuckled. “What wi’ all this play about, I forgot my manners. Fancied ye had a fill o’ baccy on ye, and maybe a match to go wi’ that same baccy. Te-he, but Billy’s a fool!” “Not so big i’ that way as he looks,” came a voice that went roaming down Garth street like pleasant thunder. “What, ye’re keeping Billy from his playtime? Shame on ye, Cilla.” “Nay, she’s not keeping me,” said Billy, taking Hirst’s open pouch. “Dan Foster’s lad is doing all the work these days, ye understand, and ’twould make your sides split to see him working at th’ old bellows.” “We’re not all as lucky as you,” said the yeoman, as he handed a match to Billy. “Most of us have no play--and, by that token, I’m bringing a horse to be shod to-morrow.” Billy lit his pipe, and drew quiet puffs before he answered. “Well now, Mr. Hirst, I’m right set on shoeing a horse to-morrow. After I’ve done wi’ yond iron palings, and after I’ve slept for a night in green-field’s bed, as a body might say, I’ll be ready for ye. ’Tis rare fun shoeing a lile horse, wi’ a daft lad doing all the bellows’ work for ye.” Hirst passed on with a cheery laugh, and linked his arm in Cilla’s as they went up to Good Intent. “Billy is like good pasture-land,” he said, with a backward glance at the forge. “Soft on the crust, and firm underneath. Oh, ay, David did well to leave Fool Billy in his place.” But Cilla did not answer. Her thoughts were half with David, who had left Garth when she needed him, and half with Reuben Gaunt, who hoped to keep a promise made to her. Reuben himself drove to Shepston; and he tried to get rid of the wish that Cilla had not crossed his path to-day--Cilla, with her witchcraft of dainty thoughts and comely living--Cilla, whose gift in life was to make folk see glamour in unexpected corners.