“Nay, his mates wouldn’t speak. It’s the trade; hish!”
He hammered away for some time, and his skill with his hammer fascinated me so that I stopped on watching him. A hammer to me had always seemed to be a tool to strike straightforward blows; but Pannell’s hammer moulded and shaped, and always seemed to fall exactly right, so that a piece of steel grew into form. And I believe he could have turned out of the glowing metal anything of which a model had been put before his eyes.
“Well,” I said, “I must go to my writing.”
“Nay, stop a bit. We two ain’t said much lately. They all gone to Kedham?”
“Yes; how did you know?”
“Oh, we knows a deal. There aren’t much goes on as we don’t know. Look ye here; I want to say summat, lad, and I can’t—yes, I can.”
“Well, say it, then,” I said, smiling at his eagerness.
“Going to—look here, there was a rat once as got his leg caught in a trap.”
“Yes, I know there was,” I replied with a laugh.
“Nay, it’s nowt to laugh at, lad. Rats has sharp teeth; and that there rat—a fat smooth rat he were—he said he’d bite him as set that trap.”