"And what about Peter Pease, the tinker's smart little lad? Is there nothing for him, Miss Hazel?" cried the blacksmith with a twinkle.
Hazel stared at him in bewilderment, and Master Nathaniel cried gleefully, "Why, it's the same name, by the Harvest of Souls! Were you, then, the little chap who saw Pugwalker picking the berries?"
And Hazel said in slow amazement, "You were the little boy who spoke to my grandfather ... that night? I never thought...."
"That I'd begun so humbly, eh? Yes, I was the son of a tinker, or, as they liked to be called, of a whitesmith. And now I'm a blacksmith, and as white is better than black I suppose I've come down in the world." And he winked merrily.
"And you remember the circumstances alluded to by the late farmer?" asked Master Nathaniel eagerly.
"That I do, my lord Seneschal. As well if they had happened yesterday. I won't easily forget the farmer's face that night when I offered him my basketful—but though the death-berries are rare enough I found them in those days commoner to pick up than ha'pence. And I won't easily forget Master Pugwalker's face, either, while he was plucking them. And little did he know there was a squirrel watching him with a good Dorimare tongue in his head!"
"Have you ever seen him since?"
The blacksmith winked.
"Come, come!" cried Master Nathaniel impatiently. "Have you seen him since? This is no time for beating about the bush."
"Well, perhaps I have," said the blacksmith slowly, "trotting about Swan, as brisk and as pleased with himself as a fox with a goose in his mouth. And I've often wondered whether it wasn't my duty as law-man to speak out ... but, after all, it was very long ago, and his life seemed to be of better value than his death, for he was a wonderfully clever doctor and did a powerful lot of good."