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at the blacksmith hard, his child's eyes-blue and unclouded by the storms of life-showing big beneath their heavy brows of reddish-brown.

'I doubt 'tis work, David Blake,' he said dispassionately.

'Nay, now! Would I ask thee to work, lad? Fond o' thee as I am, and knowing labour's harmful to thee?'

'I shouldn't like to be trapped into work. 'Twould scare me when I woke o' nights and thought of it.'

'See ye, then, Billy '-blowing the bellows gently—' is it work to make yon sparks go, blue and green and red, as fast as ever ye like to drive 'em? Play, I call it, and I've a mind, now I come to think on 't, just to keep ye out o' the game, and go on playing it myself.'

Billy the Fool drew nearer, with an anxious look. Ye wouldn't do that, or ye'd not be Blacksmith David,' he said, with unerring knowledge of the other's kindliness. Te-he! 'Tis just a bit o' sporting—I hadn't thought of it i' that light.'

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And soon he was blowing steadily; for the lad's frame was a giant's, when he chose to use it, and no fatigue had ever greatly touched him. From time to time, as the blacksmith paused to take a red-hot bar from the furnace or to put a cold one in, he would nod cheerfully at Billy the Fool and emphasise the frolicsome side of his employment.

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'Ye've an easy time, Billy,' he would say. See me sweating here at beating iron into horseshoe shape-and ye playing at chasing sparks all up the chimley!'

The sweat was pouring from Billy, too, by this time, but he did not heed. Plump and soft his laugh came, as he forced the sparks more swiftly from the coals.

'Was born for playtimes, I, Blacksmith David,' he cried in great delight. I've heard tell of silver spoons, popped unbeknownst-like into babbies' cradles. I war a babby o' that make, I reckon, for sure 'tis I'm always playing, when I'm not always idling in between times.'

'Ye were lucky fro' birth,' David answered, driving the hole for the last nail. Some folk is, while other-some must work.' 'Why do ye work, Blacksmith David?' asked Billy the Fool, with entire simplicity.

'Oh, just a fancy, lad. Seems as I have to, somehow. There were no silver spoons dropped into my cradle. Hive o' bees swarmed there, I fancy, for I've had a few in my bonnet ever since.'

There was another silence, while Billy the Fool, working hard at the bellows, looked long and meditatively at David Blake.

'I wouldn't like to hurt ye, Blacksmith David,' he said at last, but I reckon ye're just a bit daft-witted like. Why don't ye play or idle all your time, same as I do?'

David threw the finished horseshoe on the heap at his left hand, and was about to answer when a shadow came between the reeking smithy and the fresh and open sunshine beyond the door. 'Oh, 'tis ye, Priscilla?' he said, looking up. spring-look in your face."

Ye've got the

The girl had worn that look, indeed, from babyhood. The fairies had laid no silver spoons in her cradle, but they had put a better gift; for she was born when spring was coming in, and even her mother, hard-working farm-wife as she was, had thought of primroses and of marsh-marigolds by the moor-stream's brim, and of the greening trees, as she watched the healthy comeliness of her little lass grow with the seasons.

Now, as she stood half in, half out of the smithy door, Priscilla was radiant in her young and pliant beauty. To David Blake's fancy-rough, kindly, not far wide of the mark at any timeshe made the day new-washed and happier'; yet it was Billy the Fool who next found his tongue.

'Te-he! Ye look as if life was playtime for ye, too,' said he, still blowing at his bellows, but looking at her slily over his shoulder.

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'Maybe,' she laughed-and the kind, wise music of the thrush was in her laughter. "Tis very true, Billy. Life's playtime for me.'

David Blake looked at her, and liked her a little the better; for he knew that Priscilla worked hard, worked long and with a blithe face, each day of her life. To the blacksmith it seemed, in between doing odd jobs that brought him in a livelihood, that his prime work in life was to love Priscilla ever and ever a little more— and each day to find himself more tongue-tied in her presence.

It was Billy who took up the talk again, though Blake, tomorrow's morn, would think of twenty things he might have said, and curse himself in a quiet way for having failed to say them.

'I'm always playing, as a man might say, myself,' chuckled Billy 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 VOL. XXV.-NO. 145, N.S.

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face. 'We're playing, Billy, you and I. Only the blacksmith works.'

'He's a bit of a fool, by that token,' hazarded Billy.

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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, blacksmith,' said Billy the Fool, 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 brown eyes were wistful as a dog's asking for commands.

'Ye'll be idle now,' said the blacksmith. Play first, laddie, and idleness at after.'

Ay, you're right, David the Smith-you're always right, saving odd times, when you're a Fool Billy like myself. Miss Priscilla has a trick o' making ye Billy the Fool, 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.

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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 himselfagain like a shaggy, trusty dog-along the smithy floor. 'Get ye to work, David the Smith, and leave me to my play-work.'

They went out into the spring-time, 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, maybebut 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 am I without a tool to my back."

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.

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'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 spring-time'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!'

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Priscilla glanced at him with a roguery as dainty and secure as that of the spring itself. They say ye can talk to the fourfooted 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 trills and furbelows o' life-they just look at ye, and feel your hands going smooth and quiet down their flanks, and they know.'

'Billy the Fool 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 Intenta 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.

Give you thanks, David,' said Farmer Hirst, a broad, welltimbered man, with a voice like thunder on the distant hills. 'She's the pick of the lot, this roan ye've saved, and saving's saving, whether it is your child or your cow that's ailing.'

‘Ah, now!' murmured the blacksmith, 'there's joy in saving beasties, and no thanks needed.'

'Well, thanks are waiting for ye when ye care to pick 'em upwhich ye seldom do, David-and meanwhile I've to see if my men are cutting the thorn-hedge to my liking. Priscilla, there's cake and ale within doors; there's one in Garth can look better to David's needs than ever I could do.'

Now David's laugh was hearty; but it was a child's whisper when compared with Farmer Hirst's, especially when the older man fancied that he was using rare diplomacy. A true yeoman of the north was this master of Good Intent-owned his own house and land, his own quiet, wholesome pride, his line of goodly forbears. And so, because he had learned to know a man when he saw him, he had long ago chosen David as the favoured suitor.

'Lasses must wed, leaving their fathers lonely,' the farmer would say to himself as he sat o' nights-Priscilla gone to bed—

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