"A canny morning, Mr. Christian," he shouted. "Bad luck for the parson's young lady, anyhow—her sweetheart is none to keen for the wedding," he said, turning again to the fire.
"She's a fine like lass, yon," said Tom o' Dint.
An old man, iron gray, with a pair of mason's mallets swung front and back across his shoulders, stepped into the smithy.
"How fend ye, John?" he said.
"Middling weel, Job," answered the blacksmith; "and what's your errand now?"
"A chisel or two for tempering."
"Cutting in the church-yard to-day, Job? Cold wark, eh?"
"Ey, auld Ritson's stone as they've putten over him."
The blacksmith tapped the peddler on the arm.
"Gubblum, shall I tell you what's a-matter with Paul?"
"Never you bother, John, it's die-spensy."
"It's fretting—that's it—fretting for his father."
"Fretting for his fiddlesticks!" shouted Dick, the miller; "Allan's dead this half a year."
"John's reet," said Job, the stone-cutter; "it is fretting."
Dick of the Syke got up off the iron rods.
"Because a young fellow has given you a job of wark to cut his father's headstone and tell a lie or two in letters half an inch deep and two shillings a dozen—does that show 'at he's fretting?"
"He didn't do nowt of the sort," said Job, hotly.
"Dusta mean as it were the other one—Hugh?" inquired the miller.
"Maybe that's reet," said Job.
Dick of the Syke was not to be beaten for lack of the logic of circumlocution.
"Then what for do you say as Paul is weeping his insides out about his father, when he leaves it to other folks to put a bit of stone over him and a few scrats on it?"
"Because I do say so," said Job, conclusively.
"And maybe you've got your reasons, Job," said the blacksmith with insinuating suavity.
"Maybe I have," said the mason. Then softening, he added, "I don't mind telling you, neither. Yesterday morning when I went to wark I found Paul Ritson lying full length across his father's grave. His clothes were soaking with dew, and his face was as white as a Feb'uary mist, and stiff and set like, and his hair was frosted over same as a pane in the church window."
"Never!"
"He was like to take no note of me, but I gave him a shake, and called out, 'What, Mr. Paul! why, what, man! what's this?'"
"And what ever did he say?"
"Say! Nowt. He get hissel' up—and gay stiff in the limbs he looked, to be sure—and walked off without a word."
Gubblum on the tool chest had removed his pipe from between his lips during the mason's narrative, and listened with a face of blank amazement.
"Weel, that is a stiffener," he said, drawing a long breath.
"What's a stiffener?" said Job, sharply.
"That 'at you're telling for gospel truth." Then, turning to the blacksmith, the peddler pointed the shank of his pipe at the mason, and said: "What morning was it as he found Paul Ritson taking a bath to hissel' in the kirk-yard?"
"Why, yesterday morning," said the smith.
"Well, he bangs them all at lying!" said Gubblum.
"What dusta say?" shouted Job, with sudden fury.
"As you've telt us a lie," answered Gubblum.
"Sista, Gubblum, if you don't take that word back I'll—I'll throw you into the water-butt!"
"And what would I do while you were thrang at that laal job?" asked the peddler.
The blacksmith interposed.
"Sec a rumpus!" he said; "you're too sudden in your temper, Job."
"Some folks are ower much like their namesakes in the Bible," said Gubblum, resuming his pipe.
"Then what for did he say it worn't true as I found young Ritson yesterday morning wet to the skin in the church-yard?" said Job, ignoring the peddler.
"Because he warn't there," said Gubblum.
Job lost all patience.
"Look here," he said, "if you're not hankering for a cold bath on a frosty morning, laal man, I don't know as you've got any call to say that again!"
"He warn't there," the "laal man" muttered doggedly.
The blacksmith had plunged his last heat into the water trough to cool, and a cloud of vapor filled the smithy.
"Lord A'mighty!" he said, laughing, "that's the way some folks go off—all of a hiss and a smoke."
"He warn't there," mumbled the peddler again, impervious to the homely similitude.
"How are you so certain sure?" said Dick of the Syke. "You warn't there yourself, I reckon."
"No; but I was somewhere else, and so was Paul Ritson. I slept at the Pack House in Kezzick night afore last, and he did the same."
"Did you see him there?" said the blacksmith.
"No; but Giles Raisley saw him, and he warn't astir when Giles went on his morning shift at eight o'clock."
The blacksmith broke into a loud guffaw.
"Tell us how he was at the Hawk and Heron in London at midsummer."
"And so he was," said Gubblum, unabashed.
"Willy-nilly, ey?" said the blacksmith, pausing over the anvil with uplifted hammer, the lurid reflection of the hot iron on his face.
"Maybe he had his reasons for denying hisself," said Gubblum.
The blacksmith laughed again, tapped the iron with the hand-hammer, down came the sledge, and the flakes flew.
Two miners entered the smithy.
"Good-morning, John; are ye gayly?" said one of them.
"Gayly, gayly! Why, it's Giles hissel'!"
"Giles," said the peddler, "where was Paul Ritson night afore last?"
"Abed, I reckon," chuckled one of the new-comers.
"Where abed?"
"Nay, don't ax me. Wait—night afore last? That was the night he slept at Janet's, wasn't it?"
Gubblum's eyes twinkled with triumph.
"What, did I tell you?"
"What call had he to sleep at Keswick?" said the blacksmith; "it's no'but four miles from his own bed at the Ghyll."
"Nay, now, when ye ax the like o' that—"
Tom, the postman, stopped his grindstone and snuckered huskily:
"Maybe he's had a fratch with yon brother—yon Hugh."
"I'm on the morning shift this week, and Mother Janet she said: 'Giles,' she said, 'the brother of your young master came late last night for a bed.'"
"Job, what do you say to that?" shouted the blacksmith above the pulsating of the bellows, and with the sharp white lights of the leaping flames on his laughing face.
"Say! That they're a pack of liars!" said the mason, catching up his untempered chisels and flinging out of the smithy.
When he had gone,