"I think it is a very good plan, Osgod. You had best see your father in the morning, and if he consents to your having the boy, bring him down to the river-bank behind the abbey, where I will be awaiting you, and can there talk to him without observation. You are sure that he can be trusted to keep silence regarding what I tell him?"
"He can be trusted, my lord. In the first place he will enjoy playing his part, and in the second he will know well enough that I should nearly flay him alive with my stirrup-leather if he were to fail me, and that his life in the forge would be worse than ever."
The next morning Wulf strolled down to the river-bank after breaking his fast, and it was not long before Osgod joined him with the boy.
"Have you told him what he is required for, Osgod?" Wulf asked, as the boy, doffing his cap, stood before him with an air of extreme humility.
"I am not good at the telling of tales, as you know, my lord, and I thought it better that you should tell him just as much or as little as you chose."
"You don't like your work at the forge, Ulf?" for that Wulf had learned was the boy's name.
"I think that I like it better than it likes me," the boy replied. "When I get to do the fine work I shall like it, but at present it is 'fetch this tool, Ulf, or file that iron, or blow those bellows,' and if I do but smile I get a cuff."
"No, no, Ulf," Osgod said. "Of course, at present you are but a beginner, and at your age I too had to fetch and carry and be at the bidding of all the men; and it is not for smiling that you get cuffed, but for playing tricks and being away for hours when you are sent on a message to the next street, and doing your errands wrongly. My father tells me you will be a good workman some day. You will never be strong enough to wield a heavy hammer or to forge a battle-axe, but he says your fingers are quick and nimble, and that you will some day be able to do fine work such as clumsy hands could not compass. But that is not to the point now."
"You will be glad to be out of the forge for a bit, Ulf?" Wulf asked.
"That should I, but not always."