The blacksmith, not for the first time, was puzzled by Billy the Fool. The natural’s unerring instinct for all that made for the primitive in bird or beast or human-folk, when coupled with his child’s disdain of everyday good sense, would have troubled keener wits than David’s. He recognized Reuben Gaunt, moreover, from the other’s description, and he fingered his tools no longer, but followed Billy’s story.
“Came whistling down the road, did the littlish chap. I wondered, like, at what, for ye or me could have outsized him two or three times over.”
David laughed, though he was little in the mood for it. At every turn of his path to-day—whether he were talking to Priscilla, or dining in the hedge-bottom with Farmer Hirst, or talking to Billy—Gaunt’s shadow crossed his path. Yet he laughed, for he was simple, too, and big, and there was something that tickled his fancy in this quiet assumption that little men had little right to whistle on the Queen’s highway.
“Came whistling down, did he?” asked the blacksmith, strangely eager for the story.
“Ay, and stopped when he saw me. ‘Flick-a-moroo!’ says he, and twitched my chin, and seemed to think he’d played a jest on me.”
Again David chuckled; for there was none in the Dale of Strathgarth that could mimic a man as faithfully as Billy, and he had caught Gaunt’s mincing accent to the life.
“‘Flick-a-moroo,’ says I, easy as answering a blackbird when he calls. I didn’t like having my chin tickled, David, but I bided like, as one might say. And then he says—’tis queer and strange how little a grown man can be, yet can strut like a turkey-cock—‘Ye seem to know what’s the meaning of flick-a-moroo’ says he, ‘though it’s more than I do.’ ‘Ay, I know the meaning of flick-a-moroo,’ I says.”
“Well, lad?” asked David, waiting till he had finished a laugh that came before the end of the story.
“Ye see, David”—a happy, cunning look was in the natural’s face—“ye see, we were near t’ other side o’ the road yonder, and I minded there was a snug, far drop over th’ wall, and some young nettles growing soft as a feather-bed. So I says again, ‘Oh, ay,’ says I, ‘I know the meaning o’ flick-a-moroo,’ says I; and I catches him, heels and head—’twould have made ye crack wi’ laughter, David, to see it—and I holds him over the wall awhile, and drops him soft as a babby into th’ nettles.”
Again David laughed. He could not help it. “And then, Fool Billy?” he asked.