David the Smith, scenting trouble, came trudging through the snow to help his neighbour. He passed Cilla with a quiet greeting—thinking overmuch of last night’s farewell to her in Garth Street—and busied himself at once with rescue of the flock. Simple of mind, strong of body, he set to his task at once, shouldered a ewe that was sick with the cold, and carried her down the pastures and along Garth Street, until he came to the turn of the road that led up to Good Intent. Widow Lister was at her door, as usual, walking up and down in front of her garden-strip, her feet protected from the snow by huge pattens, her eyes opened wide for any chance of gossip. She set her arms akimbo on seeing David, and her tongue was stilled for a moment. Indeed, David, swinging steadily forward under the burden that hung limp across his shoulders, his face full of great purpose and the tranquillity of strength, seemed to fill the snow-set canvas of Garth village.
“Why, David,” said the widow, in an awed voice, “you’re marrow to yond print o’ the Good Shepherd that’s hanging ower my chimbley-piece.”
David halted. The roots of his religion lay deep, and maybe for that reason he seldom spoke of it. “Oh, whisht, woman!” he said, with a shy, odd air of rebuke. “I’m a plain man o’ my hands, with a day’s work to do. I’ll thank ye not to name me in company with my betters.”
“There, now!” put in the widow plaintively. “You’re the first man I’ve come across who fought shy o’ praise. You are like, David, all the same—the ninety-and-nine you’ve left to bring the lost odd ’un in, just the same as in the pictur.”
“Ay,” answered David, as he moved forward, “but some o’ the ninety-and-nine are needing me, too, soon as I’ve gotten this lile ewe into shelter.”
The widow let him make ten paces forward; then, heedless as a child that every halt was so much added to the dead weight on his shoulders, she tripped after him, her pattens moving nimbly through the snow.
“Oh, David! I knew there was summat on my mind.”
David turned with weary good nature. “Well, if ’tis as heavy as what I carry on my back, Widow, I’m sorry for ye. What is ’t?”
“Nay, ’tis nobbut a bit of a window-fastener that willun’t catch. ’Tis such a little job, like, I thought you could slip in, any odd moment you had to spare and mend it for a poor, lone body. When the wind rises o’ nights, David, it wakes me fro’ my sleep, rattling the window so.”
“You and your loneliness!” grumbled David. “Well, I may think of it by and by.”