“Fine work!” echoed the smith with contempt. “There came a gentleman here to be shod t'other day from the Hall, who was a great traveller; and he told me he seen in Japan a blacksmith with a sprig of may on the anvil before him, an' him a-copyin' to the life them blossoms in hard iron with his one hammer! What say you to that, lad?”
“Wonderful! But that same man couldn't do the heavy work you think nothing of, grandfather!”
“Nay, for that I don't know. I know I couldn't do his!”
“Then we'll allow that fine work may be a manly thing as well as hard work. But I do wish I could shoe a horse!”
“What's to hinder you?”
“Will you let me learn, grandfather?”
“Learn! I'll learn you myself. You'll soon learn. It's not as if you was a bumpkin to teach! The man as can do anything, can do everything.”
“Come along then, grandfather! I want to let you see that though my hands may catch a blister or two, they're not the less fit for hard work that they can do fine. I'll be safe to shoe a horse before many days are over. Only you must have a little patience with me.”
“Nay, lad, I'll have a great patience with you. Before many days are over, make the shoe you may, and make it well; but to shoe a horse as the horse ought to be shod, that comes by God's grace.”
They went back to the smithy, and there, the very day of his arrival, more to Simon's delight than he cared to show, the soft-handed bookbinder began to wield a hammer, and compel the stubborn iron. So deft and persevering was he, that, ere they went from the forge that same night, he could not only bend the iron to a proper curve round the beak of the anvil, but had punched the holes in half a dozen shoes. At last he confessed himself weary; and when his grandfather saw the state of his hands, blistered and swollen so that he could not close them, he was able no longer to restrain his satisfaction.