Now drawing out the bar a little way to see how it was taking its heat, and now thrusting it quickly back again, he brought it to the colour of white flame, and, snatching it out with his pliers and laying it on the face of the anvil, he shaped it with blow after blow of the hand hammer, thrust it again into the coals and blew up the fire, again laid it on the anvil, and, smiting it until the sparks flew in showers, worked it, with a deftness marvellous in the eyes of the lad, who sat agape at the fury of his strokes, into the shape of a dagger or dirk.
At last, heating it in the coals to the redness of blood and throwing it on the floor to cool, he paced the smithy, muttering to himself. After a time he took it up again and with the files in their order—the rough, the bastard, the fine and the smooth—worked it down, now trying the surface with fingertips, now plying his file as if the Devil were at his elbow and his soul's salvation depended upon haste, until the shape and surface pleased him.
He then thrust it again into the coals and blew up the fire softly, watching the metal with great care till it came to blood-red heat, when he quenched it in a butt of water and, laying it on the bench, rubbed it with a whetstone until the black scurf was gone and the metal was bright. Again he laid it in the coals and slowly heated it, watching with even greater care while the steel turned to the colour of light gold and to the colour of dark gold; then with a deft turn of the pliers he snatched it out and thrust it deep into the water.
As he had worked, his angry haste had subsided and now, drawing out the metal, he studied it closely and smiled. Then he looked up and meeting the eyes of Philip Marsham, who had sat for an hour watching him, he gave a great start and cried, "God forgie us! I hae clean forgot the lad!"
Laying aside his work he pushed before the chair the smoke-stained table he had used the night before, placed on it a bowl and a spoon, and, setting a small kettle on the forge, blew up the fire until the kettle steamed. He then poured porridge from the kettle into the bowl, and bringing from the cupboard a second quarter-loaf, nodded at the lad and, as an afterthought, remarked, "There's a barrel o' water ahint the smiddy, an ye'd wash."
Rising, Phil went out and found the barrel, into which he thrust head and hands to his great refreshment; and returning, he sat down to the bread and porridge.
While Phil ate, the smith worked at a bit of bone which he shaped to his desire as a handle for the dirk.
With light taps of the riveting-hammer he drove it into place and bound it fast with ferules chosen from a box under the cot. He then sat looking a long time at Phil, nodded, smiled, ran his fingers through his beard, smiled again and, with a fine tool, fell to working on the ferules. There had been a friendly look in the lad's eyes, and of friendly looks the smith had got few in England. People bought his work because he was a master craftsman, but the country folk of England had little love for the Scots who came south in King James's time and after, and a man had need to look sharp lest he fall victim to theft or worse than theft. He stopped and again looked at his guest, ran his fingers through his beard and demanded suddenly, "Thy name, laddie?"
"Philip Marsham."
"Ye'll spell it out for me?"