Part 13 (2/2)

a heap for the gallows!--That ain't your brother?”

By this time Tommy had begun to feel at home with the blacksmith, from whose face the cloud had lifted a little, so that he looked less dangerous. He had edged nearer to the fire, and now stood in the light of it.

”No,” answered Clare, with an odd doubtfulness in his tone. ”I ought to say _yes_, perhaps, for all men are my brothers; but I mean I haven't any particular one of my very own.”

”That ain't no pity; he'd ha' been no better than you. I've a brother I would choke any minute I got a chance.”

While they talked, the blacksmith had put his iron in the fire, and again stood blowing the bellows, when his attention was caught by the gestures of the little red-eyed imp, Tommy, who was making rapid signs to him, touching his forehead with one finger, nodding mysteriously, and pointing at Clare with the thumb of his other hand, held close to his side. He sought to indicate thus that his companion was an innocent, whom n.o.body must mind. In the blacksmith Tommy saw one of his own sort, and the blacksmith saw neither in Tommy nor in Clare any reason to doubt the hint given him. Not the less was he inclined to draw out the idiot.

”Why do you let him follow you about, if he ain't your brother?” he said. ”He ain't nice to look at!”

”I want to make him nice,” answered Clare, ”and then he'll be nice to look at. You mustn't mind him, please, sir. He's a very little boy, and 'ain't been well brought up. His granny ain't a good woman--at least not very, you know, Tommy!” he added apologetically.

”She's a d.a.m.ned old sinner!” said Tommy stoutly.

The man laughed.

”Ha, ha, my chicken! you know a thing or two!” he said, as he took his iron from the fire, and laid it again on the anvil.

But besides the brother he would so gladly strangle, there was an idiot one whom he had loved a little and teazed so much, that, when he died, his conscience was moved. He felt therefore a little tender toward the idiot before him. He bethought himself also that his job would soon be at a stage where the fewer the witnesses the better, for he was executing a commission for certain burglars of his acquaintance. He would do no more that night! He had money in his pocket, and he wanted a drink!

”Look here, cubs!” he said; ”if you 'ain't got nowhere to go to, I don't mind if you sleep here. There ain't no bed but the bed of the forge, nor no blankets but this leather ap.r.o.n: you may have them, for you can't do them no sort of harm. I don't mind neither if you put a shovelful of slack and a little water now and then on the fire; and if you give it a blow or two with the bellows now and then, you won't be stone-dead afore the mornin'!--Don't be too free with the coals, now, and don't set the shed on fire, and take the bread out of my poor innocent mouth. Mind what I tell you, and be good boys.”

”Thank you, sir,” said Clare. ”I thought you would be kind to us! I've one friend, a bull, that's very good to me. So is Jonathan. He's a horse. The bull's name is Nimrod. He wants to gore always, but he's never cross with me.”

The blacksmith burst into a roar of laughter at the idiotic speech. Then he covered the fire with coal, threw his ap.r.o.n over Clare's head, and departed, locking the door of the smithy behind him.

The boys looked at each other. Neither spoke. Tommy turned to the bellows, and began to blow.

”Ain't you warm yet?” said Clare, who had seen his mother careful over the coals.

”No, I ain't. I want a blaze.”

”Leave the fire alone. The coal is the smith's, and he told us not to waste it.”

”He ain't no count!” said Tommy, as heartless as any grown man or woman set on pleasure.

”He has given us a place to be warm and sleep in! It would be a shame to do anything he didn't like. Have you no conscience, Tommy?”

”No,” said Tommy, who did not know conscience from copper. The germ of it no doubt lay in the G.o.d-part of him, but it lay deep. Tommy--no worse than many a boy born of better parents--was like a hill full of precious stones, that grows nothing but a few little dry shrubs, and shoots out cold sharp rocks every here and there.

”If you have no conscience,” answered Clare, ”one must serve for both--as far as it will reach! Leave go of that bellows, or I'll make you.”

Tommy let the lever go, turned his back, and wandered, in such dudgeon as he was capable of, to the other side of the shed.

”h.e.l.lo!” he cried, ”here's a door!--and it ain't locked, it's only bolted! Let's go and see!”

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