III.
For many days the child wandered on through the smiling fields whitening for the harvest, and ever and anon as he neared some village he would see bands of reapers going forth to their toil, singing glad songs; or would meet them returning home at the close of the day, weary, yet rejoicing in the glorious weather, and in the bounteous harvest which God had given them. Many amongst them would speak kindly to the child, and he always had food given him when he needed it; yet he would presently slip away from those who would have befriended him, saying in his heart,—
“These are all workers and toilers. Perchance, if I remain with them they will ask labour of me;” for his heart was yet set against any sort of toil, and as he went along and saw how the world toiled and laboured, he rejoiced to think that no man could ask service of him.
Anon he came, upon one hot, sultry day, to a village. The wide street was empty, for all the world was out in the harvest-fields, but the great trees which bordered the road on either side gave a grateful shade, and from the neighbourhood of an open door, half-way down the street, came the cheerful ring of a blacksmith’s hammer.
The child, being hot and weary, and disposed to linger in the shade, drew nearer, and, pausing by the open door, seated himself upon an upturned barrow and idly watched the flying sparks, and listened to the creaking of the bellows.
Many horses were waiting to be shod, and the smith attended to them in turn. But presently he gave a nod to his companion, who disappeared for a while, and he himself came out wiping his heated brow, and seated himself beside the child, in the cool shadow of the tree.
From beneath the barrow he drew forth provision for his mid-day meal, and, marking the weary and wistful face of the child, he gave him food and drink in abundance, and as they dined together he talked to him kindly.
“Whence art thou, boy?” he asked; “for I know not thy face, albeit I have lived here, man and boy, all my life.”
“I am from a far city,” answered the child; “a city that lies beyond yonder mountains.”
“Nay, that is far indeed!” said the smith; “and whither away now? For thou art over-young to wander alone through the world.”
“I know not,” answered the child, and then he suddenly crimsoned, he scarce knew why, as he felt the eyes of the smith rest gravely upon him.
“Is it well to fly from the nest where the hand of God hath placed us?” questioned the man with gentle severity: the child hung his head and gave no answer.
Dinner being ended, the smith arose and girded on his leather apron afresh; then he turned into the forge and grasped his heavy hammer. But the child eyed him in surprise.
“It is so hot at noonday,” he said; “surely thou wilt rest awhile ere thou dost labour again?”
The smith smiled as he swung his hammer, and blew up his forge with the great bellows.
“Nay, child,” he answered, “rest cometh at night, and sweet it is to the weary who have earned it by the labour of their hands in the appointed place; but the day is given us by the Master for work, and He looks that we fulfil our allotted tasks with the best that is in us. Look, too, at yon patient horses, waiting to be shod, and think of the loads of golden grain awaiting to be drawn homeward by them! Suppose a thunder-storm comes up to-night, and the grain is not housed because the horses be not shod, and that because the smith was sleeping the noontide hour away when he should have been at work. A fine story that for the Master’s ears!”
But the child looked about him round the forge, and said,—
“I had thought it all belonged to thee.”
“Ay, so it does,” answered the smith, “and was my father’s before me.”
“Then why canst thou not rest at thy will, since no man is thy master?”
But at that question the blacksmith turned upon him, and cried with a loud voice,—
“Child! Though the forge be mine, and the anvil and the iron, yet my time is not mine own, for I serve a Master to whom I must give account of each day as it passes. Yet,” he added, in a gentler voice, “He is full of compassion and tender mercy, and hath pity on the weakness of His children.”
And something in the good man’s face made the child ask,—
“Dost thou find pleasure, then, in His service?”
And the blacksmith answered,—
“His smile is worth far more than ten thousand pieces of silver. Ah, my child, thou hast still much to learn, seeing that thou knowest not as yet thy Master.”
But the words fell on unwilling ears, and in his heart the child said, “I have no master;” and presently, while the smith worked, he crept away in the lengthening shadows, for he feared lest the good man might seek to make him his fellow-labourer at the anvil.