CHAPTER III
Jim the Blacksmith
The village of Brammerton seemed only half awake. A rumbling cart was slowly wending its way up the hill, three or four old men were standing yarning at the inn corner; now and again, a busy housewife would appear at her door and take a glimpse of what little was going on and disappear inside just as quickly as she had shown herself. The sound of the droning voices of children conning their lessons came through the open window of the old schoolhouse.
These were the only signs and sounds of life that forenoon in Brammerton. Stay!—there was yet another. Breaking in on the general quiet of the place, I could hear distinctly the regular thud of hard steel on soft, followed by the clear double-ring of a small hammer on a mellow-toned anvil.
One man, at any rate, was hard at work,—Jim Darrol,—big, honest, serious giant that he was.
Light of heart and buoyant in body, I turned down toward the smithy. I looked in through the grimy, broken window and admired the brawny giant he looked there in the glare of the furnace, with his broad back to me, his huge arms bared to the shoulders. Little wonder, thought I, Jim Darrol can whirl the hammer and put the shot farther than any man in the Northern Counties.
How the muscles bulged, and wriggled, and crawled under his dark, hairy skin! What a picture of manliness he portrayed! And, best of all,—I knew his heart was as good and clean as his body was sound.
I tiptoed cautiously inside and slapped him between the shoulders. He wheeled about quickly. He always was a solemn-looking owl, but this morning his face was clouded and grim. As he recognised me, a terrible anger seemed to blaze up in his black eyes. I could see the muscles tighten in his arms and his fingers close firmly over the shaft of the hammer he held. I could see a new-born, but fierce hatred burning in every inch of his enormous frame.
"Hello, Jim, old man! Who has been rubbing you the wrong way?" I cried.
His jaws set. He raised his left hand and pointed with his finger to the open doorway.