“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,—