But no rest was to be his. He went back to the anvil and worked till the perspiration dripped from his forehead. Then he returned to the house.
“My mouth is parched to-day, somehow,” he said; “did you say a parched mouth was a sign?”
“Shaf, lad! thou'rt hot wi' thy wark.”
Garth went back once more to the smithy, and, writhing under the torture of suspense, he worked until the very clothes he wore were moist to the surface. Then he went into the house again.
“How my brain throbs!” he said; “surely you said the throbbing brain was a sign, mother; and my brain does throb.”
“Tut, tut! it's nobbut some maggot thou's gitten intil it.”
“My pulse, too, it gallops, mother. You said the galloping pulse was a sign. Don't say you did not. I'm sure of it, I'm sure of it; and my pulse gallops. I could bear the parched mouth and the throbbing brain if this pulse did not run so fast.”
“Get away wi' thee, thou dummel-heed. What fagot has got hold on thy fancy now?”
There was only the swollen gland wanted to make the dread symptoms complete.
Garth went back to the anvil once more. His eyes rolled in his head. They grew as red as the iron that he was welding. He swore at the boy who helped him, and struck him fiercely. He shouted frantically, and flung away the hammer at every third blow. The boy slunk off, and went home affrighted. At a sudden impulse, Garth tore away the shirt from his breast, and thrust his left hand beneath his right arm. With that the suspense was ended. A mood of the deepest sadness and dejection supervened. Shuddering in every limb beneath all his perspiration, the blacksmith returned for the last time to the house.