The tears were in David’s eyes at last. He had gone on a wasted errand to another land, and had returned empty of thanks and pocket; he had come cheerily home, ready to start afresh with strong hands and a clean conscience as his only capital, and had encountered Widow Lister and her anxiety touching a tin kettle borrowed years ago. He had looked down from Hirst’s croft at a strip of sunlit highroad, and had seen a pair of lovers, full of spring’s tender insolence and right-of-way. All had slipped from under his feet, all save Billy the Fool, whose pleasure, like his own, was to give—always to give, asking no return, claiming only a pipeful of tobacco at the day’s end, and a tranquil smoke over the morrow’s gifts to other folk.
David passed a hand across his eyes, and moved to the anvil, and took up the hammer. “Ye can run home, lile lad,” he said, turning to Dan Foster’s lad. “Stay, here’s a sixpence for ye to spend on yourself. Billy, ’tis work and play again, as i’ the old days. Just bend your back to the bellows.”
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original.