"No, sir; I never married. You may call me Seth, if you please—most folks do. No, I've neither chick nor child belonging to me. I've a brother, but he and his family stick to their caravan."
"Stick to their caravan!" the boys echoed in astonishment.
"I come from gipsy stock. Stanley's a gipsy name," the blacksmith informed them. "I was born in a tent under the shelter of one of the Tors, and I've always had a kind of affection for Dartmoor on that account. Here's my native air, young gentlemen, and it's never too keen for me even in the sharpest weather. Ah, you look surprised to think I'm a gipsy! Perhaps you've been taught to despise the wandering race?"
"No, no!" Theodore cried hastily, "you mustn't think that."
"No, indeed," Jack added earnestly, "mother wouldn't teach us to despise anyone; that is, she always says so long as people are good, nothing else matters much."
"Your mother's quite right," was the hearty response. "But there's a lot of prejudice against gipsies, and perhaps it's not to be wondered at. When I was your age I expect it would have been difficult to find a more hardened young wretch for lying and stealing than I was! Often and often I've wondered I never came to be a gaolbird; but God spoke to me in time!"
"How did God speak to you?" Theodore asked, with great curiosity; then, fearing his question might be deemed impertinent, he added, deprecatingly, "please don't tell us if you would rather not."
"I don't mind your knowing," the blacksmith returned readily, "in fact it's a tale I'm rather partial to telling to show the loving kindness of Almighty God. It was this way. My mother died when I was a little chap, younger than either of you, and after she was gone, my father travelled the country with me and my brother, doing a trade in horse dealing. Father wasn't a bad sort at heart, but during one winter, which we spent near a big town in the north of England, he became mixed up with a shady lot of people, and they got the best of him, and made him the scapegoat for them all. It was a case of burglary, and my father was taken by the police. He might have got off easy if he'd have told who his accomplices were. But no, he wasn't one of that sort! So he got five years' penal servitude, and was sent to Princetown Prison. Have you ever seen the prison, young gentlemen?"
"No," they answered, their eager faces expressing their interest in his story.
"Ah! you can't think what it feels to a gipsy to be a prisoner. It killed my father; he couldn't stand it. My brother and I found our way to Princetown, and got hold of the prison chaplain, who promised he'd try to get us an interview with father because he was ill, and not likely to recover. Well, we saw him, and he was dying—poor old father!" The blacksmith passed the back of his hand across his eyes, and continued, "He could just speak. 'Seth,' he said to me, 'I'm dying, but I'm not afraid. Him as was born in a stable, and was the Friend of sinners and outcasts like us—He's going along with me. Promise you'll find Him too.' Well, I promised, and poor father died. Afterwards my brother and I went away, and earned our livings as best we could. My promise to father didn't trouble me much; I'd only given it to satisfy him, you see. But, some years afterwards, I fell sick, and was taken to a hospital, and there they told me of that same Lord Jesus, the Friend of sinners and outcasts, poor father had wanted me to find; and I learnt I hadn't far to go to seek Him because He was everywhere."