There & Back. George MacDonald
had the shoe on the end of a long hooked rod, and was hanging it beside others on a row of nails in a beam. Then he turned and said—
“There, lad! that’s off the anvil—and off my mind! Now I’m for you!”
“Grandfather,” said Richard, “I shouldn’t like to have you for an enemy!”
“Why not, you rascal! Do you think I would take unfair advantage of you?”
“No, that I don’t! But you’ve got awful arms and hands!”
“They’ve done a job or two in their day, lad!” he answered; “but I’m getting old now! I can’t do what I thought nothing of once. Well, no man was made to last for ever—no more than a horse-shoe! There’d be no work for the Maker if he did!”
“I’m glad to see we’re of one mind, grandfather!” said Richard.
“Well, why shouldn’t we—if so be we’re in the right mind!—Yes; we must be o’ one mind if we’re o’ the right mind! The year or two I may be ahead o’ you in gettin’ at it, goes for nothing: I started sooner!—But what may be the mind you speak of, sonny?”
The look of keen question the old man threw on him, woke a doubt in Richard whether he might not have misunderstood his grandfather.
“I think,” he answered, “if a man was made to last for ever, the world would get tired of him. When a horse or a dog has done his work, he’s content—and so is his master.”
“Nay, but I bean’t! I bean’t content to lose the old horse as I’ve shod mayhap for twenty years—no, not if I bean’t his master!”
“There’s no help for it, though!”
“None as I knows on. I’d be main glad to hear any news on the subjec’ as you can supply!—No, I ain’t content; I’m sorry!”
“Why don’t the parsons say the old horse’ll rise again?”
“‘Cause the parsons knows nought about it. How should they?”
“They say we’re going to rise again.”
“Why shouldn’t they? I guess I’ll be up as soon as I may! I don’t want no night to lie longer than rest my bones!”
“I mistook what you meant, grandfather. I thought, when you said you weren’t made to last for ever, that you meant there was an end of you!”
“Well, so you might, and small blame to you! It’s a wrong way of speaking we all have. But you’ve set me thinking—whether by mistake or not, where’s the matter! I never thought what come o’ the old horse, a’ter all his four shoes takes to shinin’ at oncet! For the old smith when he drops his hammer—I have thought about him. Lord!—to think o’ that anvil never ringin’ no more to this here fist o’ mine!”
While they talked, the blacksmith had put off his thick apron of hide; and now, catching up Richard’s portmanteau as if it had been a hand-basket, he led the way to a cottage not far from the forge, in a lane that here turned out of the high road. It was a humble place enough—one story and a wide attic. The front was almost covered with jasmine, rising from a little garden filled with cottage flowers. Behind was a larger garden, full of cabbages and gooseberry-bushes.
A girl came to the door, with a kind, blushing face, and hands as red as her cheeks—a great-niece of the old smith. He passed her and led the way into a room half kitchen, half parlour.
“Here you are, lad—at home, I hope! Sech as it is, an’ as much as it’s mine, it’s yours, an’ I hope you’ll make it so.”
He deposited the portmanteau, glanced quickly round, saw that Jessie had not followed them, and said—
“You’ll keep your good news till I’ve turned it over!”
“What good news, grandfather?”
“The good news that them as is close pared, has no call to look out for the hoof to grow. I’m not saying you’re wrong, lad—not yet; but everybody mightn’t think your news so good as to be worth a special messenger! So till you’re quite sure of it—”
“I am quite sure of it, grandfather!”
“I’m not; and having charge of the girl there, I’ll ha’ no dish served i’ my house as I don’t think wholesome!”
“You’re right there, grandfather! You may trust me!” answered Richard respectfully.
The blacksmith had spoken with a decision that was imperative. His red face shone out of his white beard, and his eyes sparkled out of his red face; his head gave a nod, and his jaws a snap.
They had tea, with bread and butter and marmalade, and much talk about John and Jane Tuke, in which the old man said oftener, “your aunt,” and “your uncle,” than “your father” or “your mother;” but Richard put it down to the confusion that often accompanies age. When the bookbinding came up, Richard was surprised to discover that the blacksmith was far from looking upon their trade as superior to his own. It was plain indeed that he regarded bookbinding as a quite inferior and scarce manly employment. To the blacksmith, bookbinding and tailoring were much the same—fit only for women. Richard did not relish this. He endeavoured to make his grandfather see the dignity of the work, insisting that its difficulty was the greater because of the less strength required in it: the strength itself had, he said, in certain of its operations, to be pared to the requisite fineness, to be modified with extreme accuracy; while in others, all the strength a man had was necessary, and especially in a shop like theirs, where everything was done by hand. But the fine work, he said, tired one much the most.
“Fine work!” echoed the smith with contempt. “There came a gentleman here to be shod t’other day from the Hall, who was a great traveller; and he told me he seen in Japan a blacksmith with a sprig of may on the anvil before him, an’ him a-copyin’ to the life them blossoms in hard iron with his one hammer! What say you to that, lad?”
“Wonderful! But that same man couldn’t do the heavy work you think nothing of, grandfather!”
“Nay, for that I don’t know. I know I couldn’t do his!”
“Then we’ll allow that fine work may be a manly thing as well as hard work. But I do wish I could shoe a horse!”
“What’s to hinder you?”
“Will you let me learn, grandfather?”
“Learn! I’ll learn you myself. You’ll soon learn. It’s not as if you was a bumpkin to teach! The man as can do anything, can do everything.”
“Come along then, grandfather! I want to let you see that though my hands may catch a blister or two, they’re not the less fit for hard work that they can do fine. I’ll be safe to shoe a horse before many days are over. Only you must have a little patience with me.”
“Nay, lad, I’ll have a great patience with you. Before many days are over, make the shoe you may, and make it well; but to shoe a horse as the horse ought to be shod, that comes by God’s grace.”
They went back to the smithy, and there, the very day of his arrival, more to Simon’s delight than he cared to show, the soft-handed bookbinder began to wield a hammer, and compel the stubborn iron. So deft and persevering was he, that, ere they went from the forge that same night, he could not only bend the iron to a proper curve round the beak of the anvil, but had punched the holes in half a dozen shoes. At last he confessed himself weary; and when his grandfather saw the state of his hands, blistered and swollen so that he could not close them, he was able no longer to restrain his satisfaction.
“Come!” he cried; “you’re a man after all, bookbinder! In six months I should have you a thorough blacksmith.”
“I wouldn’t undertake to make a bookbinder of you, grandfather, in the time!” returned Richard.
“Tit for tat, sonny, and it’s fair!” said Simon. “I should leave the devil his mark on your white pages.—How much of them do you rend now, as you stick