“Here you are, lad—at home, I hope! Sech as it is, an' as much as it's mine, it's yours, an' I hope you'll make it so.”
He deposited the portmanteau, glanced quickly round, saw that Jessie had not followed them, and said—
“You'll keep your good news till I've turned it over!”
“What good news, grandfather?”
“The good news that them as is close pared, has no call to look out for the hoof to grow. I'm not saying you're wrong, lad—not yet; but everybody mightn't think your news so good as to be worth a special messenger! So till you're quite sure of it—”
“I am quite sure of it, grandfather!”
“I'm not; and having charge of the girl there, I'll ha' no dish served i' my house as I don't think wholesome!”
“You're right there, grandfather! You may trust me!” answered Richard respectfully.
The blacksmith had spoken with a decision that was imperative. His red face shone out of his white beard, and his eyes sparkled out of his red face; his head gave a nod, and his jaws a snap.
They had tea, with bread and butter and marmalade, and much talk about John and Jane Tuke, in which the old man said oftener, “your aunt,” and “your uncle,” than “your father” or “your mother;” but Richard put it down to the confusion that often accompanies age. When the bookbinding came up, Richard was surprised to discover that the blacksmith was far from looking upon their trade as superior to his own. It was plain indeed that he regarded bookbinding as a quite inferior and scarce manly employment. To the blacksmith, bookbinding and tailoring were much the same—fit only for women. Richard did not relish this. He endeavoured to make his grandfather see the dignity of the work, insisting that its difficulty was the greater because of the less strength required in it: the strength itself had, he said, in certain of its operations, to be pared to the requisite fineness, to be modified with extreme accuracy; while in others, all the strength a man had was necessary, and especially in a shop like theirs, where everything was done by hand. But the fine work, he said, tired one much the most.