He took a pouch from his pocket, and handed it to Billy. When the black clay pipe was charged, he passed a match across. It pleased him to see Billy light it tranquilly upon the anvil, pleased him to watch the slow wreaths of smoke curl among the rafters.
“Your ’baccy always smoked a lile thought sweeter than other folk’s,” said Billy.
In some muddled way, David understood that the welcome he had looked for, here in Garth, came from this massive, tranquil man whose power of speech was hindered. The warm air of the forge, the smell of it, soothed the fierce pain of David’s loss.
Billy the Fool laughed unexpectedly; it was his privilege. He had caught sight of Dan Foster’s lad, standing idle by the bellows with a look of wonderment about his cherry-red face.
“A queer lad, he,” said Billy. “He’s been working ever since you left, he has, while this same fool has had all the fun. ’Tis a terrible pranksome matter, this hammering horseshoes into shape. Ye take a bit o’ hard iron, and it says it will no way budge, however hard ye hit it; and ye say it shall budge; and then it gets into a fearful rage, and spits at ye with its lile, red sparks; and ye go on hammering, just for frolic, like, till bless me, if there hasn’t a horseshoe grown out o’ yond same bit of iron, like a sycamore-leaf fro’ the bud.”
The smith had lit his own pipe, and was listening with something of the old content to Billy’s familiar line of thought. All the fool’s interest in life, trace it deep enough, centred round growth of some kind. It might be growth of the plants under sheltered banks, that caught the first footsteps of the spring, which claimed attention from him; it might be the mother-work of birds when they hatched their eggs in the many nests he over-watched, or the whitening of the pastures when ewes began to drop their lambs; it might be the forging of an iron rail, or the building of a wall; but the instinct at the root of all his pleasures was growth. Untrammelled, as no other man in Garth was, by the frets and small indignities of daily life, Billy had learned insight into the deeper truths. He could write no verses, nor wished to; but he moved through the quiet village life, for all that, a great poet, not of his own dales only, but of the world.
David’s nature was akin to his in many ways, and at times such as this, when Billy let his heart peep out and showed why toil was play to him, the smith was apt to feel a touch of awe, as if he listened to a greater than himself who was talking of eternal verities. The next moment Billy would lose his high, abstracted look, and would return to some foolish detail of the world about him. He did so now.
“I’ve your money all ready for ye, David,” he said, going to the far corner of the smithy and reaching down a small, square box from the shelf. “Made the box myself, soon as ever ye left Garth, and made a slit, I did, big enough for money to go through, but not for fingers. Te-he, David! Not for fingers, I reckon.”
David was puzzled as the other jingled the coins as he crossed the floor, and placed his money-box in the smith’s hands. “What is all this, Billy?” he asked.
“Play money,” said the fool impassively. “Ye see, David, I’ve no more use for coins than for pebbles i’ a stream, so I saved ’em up against your home-coming. Charged terrible high prices, I, for shoeing a horse; and folk laughed, and they paid it, they did, because ’twas only Fool Billy; and there’ll be a right proper nest-egg ready for ye, David.”