The parson, in the field outside, had stood in the turn-rows, resting on his plow-handles. He had been drawling "Bonny lass, canny lass;" but, catching the sound of angry words, he had paused and listened. When Job, the mason, flung away, he returned to his plowing, and disappeared down the furrow, the boy whistling at his horse's head.
"Why, Mattha, it is thee?" said the blacksmith, observing for the first time the second of the new-comers; "and how fend ye?"
"Middling weel, John, middling weel," said Matthew, in a low voice, resting on the edge of the trough.
It was Laird Fisher, more bent than of old, with deeper lines in his grave face and with yet more listless eyes. He had brought two picks for sharpening.
"Got your smelting-house at wark down at the pit, Mattha?" asked the blacksmith.
"Ey, John, it's at wark—it's at wark."
The miller had turned to go, but he faced about with ready anger.
"Lord, yes, and a pretty pickle you and your gaffer's like to make of me. Wad ye credit it, John? they've built their smelting-house within half a rod of my mill. Half a rod; not a yard mair. When your red-hot rubbish is shot down your bank, where's it going to go, ey? That's what I want to know—where's it going to go?"
"Why, into your mill, of course," said Gubblum, with a wink, from the tool-chest. "That'll maybe help you to go by fire when you can't raise the wind."
"Verra good for thee, Gubblum," laughed the blacksmith.
"I'll have the law on them safe enough," said the miller.
"And where's your damages to come from?"
"From the same spot as all the rest of the brass—that's good enough for me."
Matthew's voice followed the insinuating guffaw.
"I spoke to Master Hugh yesterday. I telt him all you said about a wall."
"Well?"
"He won't build it."
"Of course not. Why didsta not speak to Paul?"
"No use in that," said Matthew, faintly.
"Nay, young Hugh is a gaffer," exclaimed the blacksmith.
"And Paul has no say in it except finding the brass, ey?"
"I mak' no doubt as you're reet, Dick," said Matthew, meekly.
"It's been just so since the day auld Allan died," said the blacksmith. "He hadn't been a week in his grave before Hugh bought up Mattha's royalty in the Hammer Hole, and began to sink for iron. He's never found much ore, as I've heard tell on, but he goes ahead laying down his pumping engines, and putting up his cranes, and boring his mill-races, just as if he was proper-ietor of a royal mine."
"Hugh is the chain-horse, and Paul's no'but the mare in the shafts," said Gubblum.
"And the money comes somehow," said Tom o' Dint, who had finished the knife and was testing its edge in whittling a stick.
Matthew got up from his seat.
"I'll come again for the picks, John," he said quietly; and the old man stepped out of the bright glow into the chill haze.
"Mattha has never been the same since laal Mercy left him," said the blacksmith.
"Any news of her?" asked the peddler.
"Ax Tom o' Dint; he's the postman, and like to know if anybody in Newlands gets the scribe of a line from the wench," said the miller.
Tom shakes his head. "You could tell summat, an' you would, ey, Tom?" said the blacksmith, showing his teeth.
"Don't you misliken me," said the rural messenger in his husky tones; "I'm none of your Peeping Toms." And the postman drew up his head with as much pride of office as could be assumed by a gentleman of bowed legs and curtailed stature.
"It baffles me as Mattha hisself could make nowt of his royalty in the Hammer Hole, if there was owt to make out of it," said the miller from the gate, buttoning his coat up to his ears.
"I've heard as he had a mind to try his luck again," said Giles Raisley.
"Nay, nay, nowt of the sort," said the blacksmith. "When the laal lass cut away and left the auld chap he lost heart and couldn't bear the sight of the spot where she used to bide. So he started back to his bit place on Coledale Moss. But Hugh Ritson followed him and bought up his royalty—for nowt, as they say—and set him to wark for wage in his own sinking—the same that ruined the auld man lang ago."
"And he's like to see a fortun' come out of it yet," said Giles.
"It won't be Mattha's fortun', then."
"Nay, never fear," said the miner.
Gubblum shook the ashes out of his pipe, and said meditatively, "Mattha's like me and the cuckoo."
"Why, man, how's that?" said the blacksmith, girding his leather apron in a band about his waist. A fresh heat was in the fire; the bellows were belching; the palpitating flames were licking the smoky hood. A twinkle lurked in the blacksmith's eye. "How's that?" he repeated.
"He's allus stopping short too soon," said Gubblum. "My missis, she said to me last back end, 'Gubblum,' she said, 'dusta mind as it's allus summer when the cuckoo is in the garden?' 'That's what is is,' I said. 'Well,' she said, 'dusta not think it wad allus be summer if the cuckoo could allus be kept here?' 'Maybe so,' I says; 'but easier said nor done.' 'Shaf on you for a clothead!' says she; 'nowt so simple. When you get the cuckoo into the garden, build a wall round and keep it in.' And that's what I did; and I built it middling high, too, but it warn't high enough, for, wad ye think it, one day I saw the cuckoo setting off, and it just skimmed the top of that wall by a bare inch. Now, if I'd no'but put another stone—"
A loud peal of laughter was Gubblum's swift abridgment. The peddler tapped the mouth of his pipe on his thumb-nail, and smiled under his shaggy brows.
CHAPTER II.
When Parson Christian finished his plowing, the day was far spent. He gave the boy a shilling as day's wage for leading the horses, drove the team back to their owner, Robert Atkinson, paid five shillings for the day's hire of them, and set out for home. On the way thither he called at Henry Walmsley's, the grocery store in the village, and bought half a pound of tea, a can of coffee, and a stone of sugar; then at Randal Alston's, the shoemaker's, and paid for the repairing of a pair of boots, and put them under his arm; finally, he looked in at the Flying Horse and called for a pot of ale, and drank it, and smoked a pipe and had a crack with Tommy Lowthwaite, the publican.
The mist had risen as the day wore on, and now that the twilight was creeping down the valley, the lane to the vicarage could be plainly seen in its yellow carpeting of fallen leaves. An outer door of the house stood open, and a rosy glow streamed from the fire into the porch. Not less bright was the face within that was waiting to welcome the old vicar home.
"Back again, Greta, back again!" shouted the parson, rolling into the cozy room with his ballast under either arm. "There—wait—fair play, girl—ah, you rogue!—now that's what I call a mean advantage!"
There was a smack of lips, a little laugh in a silvery voice with a merry lilt in it, and then a deep-toned mutter of affected protestation breaking down into silence and a broad smile.
At arms-length Greta glanced at the parson's burdens, and summoned an austere look.
"Now, didn't I tell you never to do it again?" she said, with an uplifted finger and an air of stern reproof.
"Did you now?" said the parson, with an expression of bland innocence—adding,