David was able to do so many jobs, and do them handily, that it might be one of twenty that was asked of him to-day, and he looked anxiously at Priscilla, to ask if he should go back for his tools. “I was watching the water-wagtails,” she answered, scarcely hearing him. “They’re home to the old stream again, David, and that means the spring is here, or hereabouts.” He watched the pair of mating birds sit, first on the low stone wall that guarded the stream, then flicker to the road, their white tails moving like a lady’s fan. “Mating-time, Priscilla,” said he. Something in his voice, something in the true, quiet ring of it moved Priscilla strangely. “They’re bonnie birds, David,” she said. “Winter’s out, and springtime’s coming in, when they wag their trim, white tails.” “Ay, true. But what tools ought I to have brought, like?” Priscilla sighed, for dull-wittedness did not commend itself to-day. “No tools at all, David. The roan cow I’m so fond of has lodged a slice of turnip in her throat, and father cannot move it.” “Easy as falling out of a tree, Priscilla. Lord, I thought you farmer-folk knew somewhat--but when it comes to a cow, ye’ve got to whistle for David the Smith!” Priscilla glanced at him with a roguery as dainty and secure as that of the spring itself. “They say ye can talk to the four-footed things, David, and make them understand ye. Pity ye can’t spare more words for us poor two-footed folk.” “Ay, but the beasts are sensible, somehow, lass. They don’t maze ye up with words and what ye might call the frills and furbelows o’ life--they just look at ye, and feel your hands going smooth and quiet down their flanks, _and they know_.” “Billy has that sort of instinct, I have noticed,” said Priscilla demurely. “There’s not a dog in the countryside that won’t come and fawn on him--though some of our dogs are not just gentle.” David gave another of his great, hearty laughs. “My father always said, when he was alive, that I’d been intended for a natural, and missed it only by good luck. I’m fond of Billy the Fool myself; simple and slow is Billy, and what he lacks in wit he makes up for in heart-room.” “That’s true, David,” said the girl, a little daunted, as she often was, by David’s settled outlook upon things. For herself, there were times when she longed to cross the limits of this life at Garth, longed for the romance of the beyond; but when David talked as he was talking now she felt shamefacedly that he was in the right to be content within the boundaries of the fields and the blithe, raking hills, the village smithy and the village farmsteads. David Blake did not belie his reputation when, after following the wood-path through the Ghyll, they came to Good Intent--a grey and well-found homestead--and sought the mistals. What with surgeon’s skill and the skill that comes from utter friendship with all cattle, he did what neither Priscilla nor her father could have done.