“I’m always playing, as a man might say, myself,” chuckled the Fool. “Playing at bellows-blowing now. See the lile sparks go up, Miss Priscilla--’tis I that send them, right enough.” “Why, yes,” she said, nodding pleasantly at his wide and gaping face. “We’re playing, Billy, you and I. Only the blacksmith works.” “He’s a bit of a fool, by that token,” hazarded Billy. The blacksmith, when he laughed at all, laughed from his lungs outward. “Always guessed it, Priscilla,” said he, making his anvil ring. “Billy’s a child, but old in wisdom. Bit of a fool I’ll be to the end, I reckon.” “I’m playing, David,” said Billy, while the blacksmith halted in his work to steal a glance at Priscilla. “Get ye on with your work o’ making horseshoes, if I’m playing the tune to ye.” Again David laughed. “Keeps me at it, Priscilla,” he said. “Never met a taskmaster so hard to drive a man as Billy.” “We want ye at Good Intent,” said Priscilla, laughing too--and her laughter was a pleasant thing to hear, reminding David again of throstles when the spring comes in. “You can ease your hold of the bellows, Billy,” said David, with an alacrity that was patent to the girl, modest and proud as she was. “When I am called to Good Intent Farm--well, I go, most times, and ne’er ask what’s wanted, and leave smithy-work behind.” “Robbing me o’ my playtime,” panted Billy the Fool, as he mopped his forehead. He looked up at David, and his blue eyes were wistful as a dog’s asking for commands. “Ye’ll be idle now,” said the blacksmith. “Play first, laddie, and idleness after.” “Ay, you’re right,--you’re always right, saving odd times, when you’re a Fool Billy like myself. Miss Priscilla has a trick o’ making ye daft-witted, I’ve noticed.” The village natural, with his huge body and his big, child’s eyes, had a way of finding out his neighbours’ secrets, and had no shame at all in telling folk what each wanted to hide from the other. Priscilla turned her face away, and David reddened like a lovesick lad. “Keep the forge-fire going quietly,” said the blacksmith. “That’s idleness for ye--just to lie dreaming this side of it, and time and time to put the fuel on.” “Ay, that’s idleness,” said Billy, as he stretched himself--again like a shaggy, trusty dog--along the smithy floor. “Get ye to work, David, and leave me to my play-work.” They went out into the springtime, David and Priscilla, and the breeze was cool and sweet about them as if it blew from beds of primroses. The lass wished that David Blake had more to say, wished that the quickness of the spring would run off his tongue’s end; she did not know that he felt it--more than she, maybe--but had no words in which to tell her of it. “You make a body thoughtless-like, Priscilla,” he said at last. “Never asked ye what the job was I was wanted for; and here I am without a tool to my back.”