“Yours would have been spoiled; mine will shoe as well as before!” said Richard.
It did not occur to the lady that the youth spoke better than might have been expected of a country smith. She was one of the elect few that meet every one on the common human ground, that never fear and never hurt. Her childish size and look harmonized with the childlike in her style, but she affected nothing. She would have spoken in the same way to prince or poet-laureate, and would have pleased either as much as the blacksmith. At the same time she did have pleasure in knowing that her frankness pleased. She could not help being aware that she was a favourite, and she wanted to be; but she wanted nothing more than to be a favourite. She desired it with old Betty, sir Wilton's dairymaid, just as much as with Mr. Lestrange, sir Wilton's heir; and everybody showed her favour, for she showed everybody grace.
The old smith was finishing the shoeing, and the mare, well used to him, and with more faith in him, stood perfectly quiet. Richard, a little annoyed, had withdrawn, and scarce thinking what he did, had taken a rod of iron, thrust it into the fire, and begun to blow. The little lady approached him softly.
“I'm so sorry!” she said.
“I shall be sorry too, if you think of it any more, miss!” answered Richard. “Then there will be two sorry where there needn't be one!”
She looked up at him with a curious, interested, puzzled look, which seemed to say, “What a nice smith you are!”
The youth's manners had a certain—what shall I call it?—not polish, but rhythm, which came of, or at least was nourished by his love of the finer elements in literature. His friendly converse with books, and through them with certain of the dead who still speak, fell in with yet deeper influences, helping to set him in right atomic position toward other human atoms. His breed also contributed something. Happily for Richard, a man is not born only of his father or his grandfather; mothers have a share in the form of his being; ancestors innumerable, men and women, leave their traces in him. But what I have ventured to call the rhythm of his manner came of his love of verse, and of the true material of verse.
His hand kept on bleeding, and for a moment he was tempted, by bravado as well as kindness, to use the cautery so nigh, and prove to the girl how little he set by what troubled her; but he saw at once it would shock her, and took, instead, a handkerchief from his pocket to bind it with. Instantly the little lady was at his service, and he yielded to her ministration with a pleasure hitherto unknown to him. She took the handkerchief from his hand, but immediately gave it him again, saying, “It is too black!” and drawing her own from her pocket, deftly bound up his wound with it. Speech abandoned Richard. All present looked on in silence. Certain of the company had seen her the day before tie up the leg of a wounded dog, and had admired her for it; but this was different! She was handling the hand of a human being—man—a workman!—black and hard with labour! There was no necessity: the man was not in the least danger! It was nothing but a scratch! She was forgetting what was due to herself—and to them! Thus they thought, but thus they dared not speak. They knew her, and feared what she might say in reply. The mare was shod ere the handkerchief was tied to the lady's mind, and Simon stood, hammer in hand, looking on like the rest in silence, but with a curious smile.
As she took her hands from his, the young blacksmith looked thankfulness into her eyes—which sparkled and shone with the pleasure of human fellowship, and without the least shyness returned his gaze.
“There! Good-bye! I am so sorry! I hope your hand will be well soon!” she said, and at once followed her mare, which the smith's man was leading with caution through the door of the smithy, rather too low for Miss Brown.