Shanty the Blacksmith | Page 4

are now shaping; why may it not serve my turn as well as another?
so let me have it, and you shall have its worth down on the nail."
"Did not I tell you," said Shanty, sullenly, "that it must be a cast shoe
that must keep off a witch; every fool allows that."
"Well," said the young man, looking about him, "have you never a cast
shoe?"
"No," replied Shanty, "I have none here fit for your turn."
"I am not particular," returned the young man, "about the shoe being an
old one; there is as much virtue, to my thinking, in a new one; so let me
have that you are about."
"You shall have none of my handiworks, I tell you," said Shanty,
decidedly, "for none of your heathenish fancies and follies. The time
was when I lent myself to these sort of follies, but, thank my God, I
have learned to cast away, aye, and to condemn such degrading
thoughts as these. Believe me, young man, that if God is on your side,
neither witch nor warlock, or worse than either, could ever hurt you."
"Well," said the young man, "if you will not make me one, will you let
me make one for myself?"

"Are you a smith?" said Mr. Dymock, before Shanty could reply.
"Am I a smith?" answered the young man; "I promise you, I should
think little of myself if I was not as much above him, (pointing to
Shanty, who was hammering at his horse-shoe, with his back towards
him,) as the sun is brighter than the stars."
Shanty took no notice of this piece of insolence; but Mr. Dymock
having asked the stranger a few more questions, proceeded to show him
the job he wanted done to his plough, and from one thing to another,
the young man undertook to accomplish it in a few hours, if the master
of the shed would permit. Shanty did by no means seem pleased, and
yet could not refuse to oblige Mr. Dymock; he, however, remarked, that
if the coulter was destroyed, it was no odds to him. The young stranger,
however, soon made it appear that he was no mean hand at the work of
a blacksmith; he had not only strength, but skill and ingenuity, and in a
short time had so deeply engaged the attention of Dymock by his
suggestions of improvements to this same plough, that the young laird
saw none but him, and allowed the evening to close in, and the
darkness of night to cover the heath, whilst still engaged in talking to
the stranger, and hearkening to his ingenious comments on the
machinery of the plough.
In the meantime, although the sun had set in golden glory, dark and
dense clouds had covered the heavens, the wind had risen and whistled
dismally over the moor, and a shower of mingled rain and sleet blew
into the shed, one side of which was open to the air. It was in the midst
of this shower, that a tall gaunt female, covered with a ragged cloak,
and having one child slung on her back, and another much older in her
hand, presented herself at the door of the shed, and speaking in a broad
northern dialect, asked permission to shelter herself and her bairns, for
a little space in the corner of the hut. Neither Dymock nor the young
man paid her any regard, or seemed to see her, but Shanty made her
welcome, and pointing to a bench which was within the glow of the fire
of the forge, though out of harm's way of sparks or strokes, the woman
came in, and having with the expertness of long use, slung the child
from her back into her arms, she sate down, laying the little one across

her knee, whilst the eldest of the two children dropped on the bare earth
with which the shed was floored, and began nibbling a huge crust
which the mother put into his hand.
In the meantime, work went on as before the woman had come in, nor
was a word spoken, till Shanty, looking up from the horse-shoe which
he was hammering, remarked in his own mind, that he wondered that
the little one stretched on the woman's knee, was not awakened and
frightened by the noise of the forge; but there the creature lies, he
thought, as if it had neither sense or hearing. When this strange thought
suggested itself, the old man dropped his hammer, and fixing his eye on
the infant, he seemed to ask himself these questions,--What, if the child
should be dead? would a living child, drop as that did from the back of
the woman on her lap, like a lump of clay, nor move, nor