He raised his head and stared at me.
“Why, what hev yow been doing to theeself, Mester John?” he said. “Thou looks—thou looks—”
He stopped short, and the thought suddenly came to me that last time he saw me I was a big boy, and that in eight years I had grown into a broad-shouldered man, six feet one high, and had a face bronzed by the Indian sun, and a great thick beard.
“Why, Pannell, don’t you know me?”
He threw down the piece of steel he had been hammering, struck the anvil a clanging blow with all his might, shouted “I’m blest!” and ran out of the smithy shouting:
“Hey! Hi, lads! Stivins—Gentles! The hull lot on yo’! Turn out here! Hey! Hi! Here’s Mester Jacob come back.”
The men who had known me came running out, and those who had not known me came to see what it all meant, and it meant really that the rough honest fellows were heartily glad to see me.
But first they grouped about me and stared; then their lips spread, and they laughed at me, staring the while as if I had been some great wild beast or a curiosity.
“On’y to think o’ this being him!” cried Pannell; and he stamped about, slapping first one knee and then the other, making his leather apron sound again.
“Yow’ll let a mon shek hans wi’ thee, lad?” cried Pannell. “Hey, that’s hearty! On’y black steel,” he cried in apology for the state of his hand.