“There, lad! that's off the anvil—and off my mind! Now I'm for you!”
“Grandfather,” said Richard, “I shouldn't like to have you for an enemy!”
“Why not, you rascal! Do you think I would take unfair advantage of you?”
“No, that I don't! But you've got awful arms and hands!”
“They've done a job or two in their day, lad!” he answered; “but I'm getting old now! I can't do what I thought nothing of once. Well, no man was made to last for ever—no more than a horse-shoe! There'd be no work for the Maker if he did!”
“I'm glad to see we're of one mind, grandfather!” said Richard.
“Well, why shouldn't we—if so be we're in the right mind!—Yes; we must be o' one mind if we're o' the right mind! The year or two I may be ahead o' you in gettin' at it, goes for nothing: I started sooner!—But what may be the mind you speak of, sonny?”
The look of keen question the old man threw on him, woke a doubt in Richard whether he might not have misunderstood his grandfather.
“I think,” he answered, “if a man was made to last for ever, the world would get tired of him. When a horse or a dog has done his work, he's content—and so is his master.”
“Nay, but I bean't! I bean't content to lose the old horse as I've shod mayhap for twenty years—no, not if I bean't his master!”