Billy the Fool, at the extreme end of Garth, was passing the time of day with David the Smith, as his wont was; for the two were rather like an elder and a younger brother, and sought each other out by instinct. It was two weeks and a day since Billy had dropped his victim into a bed of growing nettles, and neither he nor David had spoken of the matter since—the blacksmith, because he was too fastidious, in a rough fashion, when a rival was in case; the natural, because he forgot such trifles until the season for remembrance came. Reuben Gaunt, for his part, had kept silence, and had thanked heaven, in his own random way, that the jest of his sitting down among the nettles was not common gossip now in Garth. For Reuben hated to be laughed at, as the half and between men of this world always shrink from the laughter of their neighbours.
“The birds are all a-mating and a-building, David the Smith,” said Billy. “Cannot ye hear the throstles calling to the hen-birds?”
“Ay,” growled David, a sudden anger coming to him; “but ye and me are no way mated, Billy the Fool. What ails us, lad?”
“Life ails us,” said Billy unexpectedly. “We’re over slow and overpleasant, David. Chase ’em and have ’em, David the Smith—that’s how I’ve seen the bird-folk go a-wooing. Te-he, there’s Miss Priscilla!” he broke off, and seemed about to run and greet her, in his friendly, dog-like way, when a second figure came into the street from the bridle-track that led to Thorlburn.
The natural stopped, suddenly as if he had been indeed a dog and his master had whistled him down.
“Garth Street is not what it used to be, David,” he observed, dispassionately. “More muckiness about the roads, though why I know not, seeing they’re smooth and silver at this moment.”
David said nothing for awhile; but he saw Reuben Gaunt lift his cap to Priscilla, with that indescribable air of overdoing the matter which roused the blacksmith’s temper. He saw, too, that they stayed and chatted—Priscilla laughing—and afterwards went up the Thorlburn bridle-way, which led to a field-track winding at long last to Good Intent.
“Come in, Billy,” said the smith—his voice came suddenly, and was half-brother to a sob—“come away in and play at blowing the bellows, while I fire the ends of those posts that Farmer Hirst is wanting.”
“What does he want ’em for, like?” asked the natural, curious at all times.
“To make a pen for yon rambling turkeys. The hens will go wandering after the cock-bird, and they’re laying in the hedge-bottoms, and over t’ other side the beck, and Lord knows where. ’Tisn’t the hens I blame, Billy; ’tis the ruffling master-bird, with his tail spread like a silly peacock’s. Pen him in we will, Billy—and, if he breaks his neck in the wire-netting, so much the better for all sides.”