At another time he would have put his own work off, would have taken a hand till nightfall with the hedge-trimmers, would have given them jest for jest and laugh for laugh, while he trimmed, and cut, and bent the hawthorn boughs into their place. But to-day he could not.
“There’ll be a brisk time for the lasses, then,” he muttered, echoing the farm-hand’s idle speech. “Ay, there’s always trouble o’ that sort when Reuben Gaunt’s at hand.”
Through the quiet fields he went, but they brought little benediction to him. He remembered Gaunt and all his ways, remembered how, when he left Garth, there had been no sadness in the men’s faces, but grief and bitterness in many women’s.
“What the dangment do they see in him, these lasses?” growled David, as he climbed the wall and dropped into the highroad. “Littlish in the build—face as good to look at as a mangold-wurzel’s—must be those devil’s eyes of his, that never lie still for a moment, but go hunting like a dog that sniffs a fresh scent every yard.”
David had summed up his man with unerring judgment in that last thought—so far, that is, as we can judge of any man. Had Gaunt been downright evil, it would have been easier for the men of Garth to have thrashed him long ago into a likelier and more wholesome habit. But even to-day, when he was in a mood that, for him, was bitter, the blacksmith knew that his enemy was neither good nor bad, but purposeless. He had watched him grow from childhood; and year by year his name of Reuben seemed more and more a prophecy of days to come.
“Unstable as water—ay, just that,” thought David, as he reached the smithy.
Billy the Fool, after dusting the smithy fire with coke and smudge, had settled himself to sleep again; but he was awake on the instant when David’s footsteps sounded on the roadway. He rose, and shook himself with a big, heedless satisfaction.
“I’ve been a-dreaming, David,” was his greeting. “Dreamed I was wise, like ye are at most times—saving when Miss Priscilla comes.”
“Ay?” said the other, patting Billy on the shoulder.
“I didn’t like it, David! Glad to waken is Billy the Fool. There wasn’t no frolic in’t.”