Their lords and masters have ere this gone to their work, and, with the inevitable2 short pipe in their mouths, are tramping along best pace to keep up a circulation and keep out the chill of the early morn.
[Pg 213]
But there is another sound which mingles3 itself with the chiming clock and the Babel of female voices; it is the measured "clang, clang" of iron to iron, and as one wends ones way towards that part of the village from whence it comes, the dull roar of the furnace and the sparks flying upwards4 tell us that we are approaching "t' smithy," and that Joe Billings and his mate are hard at work.
Presently, three of the Squires5 horses are seen coming up the road in their clothing, and Joe, having nearly completed the shoeing of the farm nags6 that had been there since half-past six, turns his attention to the wants of their more noble companions. "Two shod all round and one removed," says the groom7 as he comes up; "and look here, old man, don't keep us waiting no longer than you can help; it's a bit chilly8 this morning."
"First come first served," replies Joe; and turning to his mate: "'Ere, Bill, look out them 'unting shoes for t' Squire's 'osses. Who-ho, mare9, 'old up;" and the rasp of the file again[Pg 214] plays an accompaniment to the tune10 that Joe whistles as he works.
"Now then, mayster," says he to the Squire's groom as he finishes; and the hunters being brought up to the forge the anvil11 chorus strikes up, and the lads clap their hands as the sparks fly from the red-hot iron. More horses arrive, and grooms12 grumble13 among themselves at having to wait their turn. Some try and persuade Joe by soft words to give them precedence, others say they wish they had gone to some rival shop; but Joe pays no attention to them, merely giving vent14 to his favourite maxim15: "First come first served."
At last one impatient youngster who does not know the Lappington Blacksmith, having only come down from London a few days before, commences to bully16, and says: "Look 'ere, I ain't going to 'ave my 'osses catch their deaths of cold while you tinkers that moke," pointing to a rough pony17 belonging to a small market-gardener. "I'll just speak to my governor about it. I'm d——d if I'll come[Pg 215] here again. Gemmen's 'osses first's what I say—do'e hear, slow coach?"
Never a word answers Joe, and the bystanders smile; but the young groom loses his temper, and tries to take the "moke," as he calls it, away, and substitute his own horses.
Then Joe does look up, and dropping the foot on which he was at work, says: "My lad, you'll get yourself into trouble in a minute."
"How's that?" asks the groom.
"Why," replies Joe slowly, "if you don't drop that pony's head in two twos, I shall have to teach you manners. I ain't a quarrelsome chap, but when a whipper-snapper like you comes messing with my business it's a bit too hot. I'm blowed if I shan't have to lock you up, or put you in the pond. drop it, will yer?" and then, as the young fool persists, he suddenly walks up to him, seizes him as he would a dog, and putting him into a shed where he keeps his old iron, turns the key, and with a chuckle18 resumes his work, whistling the while as gaily19 as ever.
[Pg 216]
Nor does he let the infuriated master of the horse out of his confinement20 till he has finished the quadrupeds, when, opening the door, with mock politeness, he says: "Your lordship's 'osses is done, if so be you've a mind to take 'em away."
Shouts of laughter greet the groom as he emerges from the shed, and angry as he is he has sense enough to see that the laugh is not on his side; so without a word he trots21 off, inwardly vowing22 vengeance23 against Joe Billings.
"There'll be a bother over this job, Joe," says Harry24 the Second Whip, who has come down to the forge from the kennels25. "Young Cock-a-hoop will make a fine tale of it when he gets home."
"Well," replies Joe, "what can they do? If they takes the shoeing away it won't break me, and when I says a thing I means it. Them as comes first is served first, and if they don't like it they can lump it."
After finishing off with Harry, Joe slips on[Pg 217] his coat (such a coat too! all patched, grimy, and full of small holes burnt by the sparks), and, rolling up his leather apron26, he takes himself away to see if "t' missus has got breakfust ready." Half an hour suffices for his meal, and by the time he returns he finds quite a string awaiting his arrival, and he sets to work with a will.
At last he comes to a horse shod on the French system, with the shoe let in and the frog on the ground, and he calls his mate to point it out. "Here, Bill," says he, "here's one of them Charley shoes as I was a-telling you of. Did yer ever see such a fanglement?" "Why, there ain't no bloomin' shoe at all," replies his assistant, gazing open-mouthed, and listening to Joe's lecture on the subject. "Be we to shoe 'un like that, I wonder?"
"No, no, my lad," interrupts the groom in charge; "the governor only tried it as an experiment, and he wants the 'oss shod in the usual way again."
"Proper way, you means," says Joe; "you[Pg 218] won't catch me a-doing an animal after that fashion, I can tell yer. Them experiments is all very well for the Mossoos, who don't 'unt, but when it comes to gitting over a country—laws, it's ridickerlous!"
By ten o'clock Joe has pretty nearly finished, except an odd job or two, such as tacking27 on a loose shoe for Mr. Grimes the butcher, or "fettling up" old Betty Wilson's donkey, and he has time to turn his attention to a ploughshare or a harrow that requires doctoring, or maybe the springs of Farmer Giles's tax-cart.
As he is engaged on one of these a lad runs in panting and out of breath with a message as "'ow Mr. Stiles would be main glad if Mayster Billings would step over and look at t' red coo, as 'e's afeard on 'er dropping."
"Right, my lad," says Joe; "just nip down and tell my missus to give yer my medicine-box and that bottle of stuff as stands in the winder, and then come back wi' 'em."
[Pg 219]
It may be gathered from this that Joe combines the office of cow-doctor with his other employment; and I may safely say that a better one of the old-fashioned school could hardly be found anywhere. Certainly his remedies for both cow and horse are simple to a degree. Nevertheless, he is entirely29 successful, and by a sort of rule of thumb dispenses30 medicine, of which the analysis may be peculiar31, but the efficacy undoubted.
He has the greatest contempt for all veterinary surgeons, and is wont32 to say he "would as soon shoot the beast as let them mess any cow of his about."
Patent medicine is another of his pet aversions, and it is a sort of standing33 joke to ask him his opinion of "Hoplemuroma" or "Neurasthenhipponskellisterizon."
"Oh, get out. Don't come blathering me with yer hops34 and skillyrison!" he will say. "'Ow the deuce do I know what muck they puts into 'em? Suppose I was to call one of my oils 'Smithyjoebillingtonyeyson,' what[Pg 220] the —— would old Farmer Stiles say, and what better stuff would it be for all its crack-jaw name? No, damme, call a spade a spade. None o' that new-fangled bosh for Joe Billings."
Joe has been at the smithy for some five-and-twenty years now, and though he numbers considerably35 over fifty years of age, is as hale and hearty36 a man as one would wish to see. One failing he has got which generally attacks him on Saturday nights, and that is a miscalculation as to the amount of liquor he can comfortably carry. A dangerous man is he to cross when in his cups, moreover, for his arm is as powerful as the leg of a horse, and he has besides got some knowledge of the noble art.
Indeed it is within the recollection of many a Lappingtonian how Joe at one time fought with the "Brummagem Pet" for twenty-five pounds a-side, and how, though terribly mauled, he stuck to it like a man, and, blinded as he was, managed in the sixteenth round to[Pg 221] knock "the Pet" out of time with a terrific left-hander on the temple, shouting as he delivered the blow: "There's a taste of Bullshire for yer!"
However, it is not often that the sturdy Blacksmith gets into a row, for he would far sooner sit still and listen to an account of a good run or the records of some bygone champion of the Ring. Indeed, everything connected with sport of any kind goes straight to his soul, and that there are few sporting subjects you can mention he does not know something about is evident from the pertinent37 remarks he occasionally lets fall.
On a hunting-day, if the hounds are anywhere within reach, Joe may be seen at the smithy with an array of different-sized shoes ready laid out beside him, and as he works on some job in the shop he keeps one eye down the road, on the look-out for some unfortunate sportsman who has had the misfortune to get a shoe off.
It is his pride that he can tack28 a shoe[Pg 222] on quicker than any man in the country. "Yer see," he says, "I 'as 'em all ready by me, and when I sees the gent a-coming, I 'ain't got no cause to look 'ere and there and heverywhere for the stuff I wants. There they are, and it's on and away in a jiff."
All the time he is asking the sportsman about the day: "What sort of a run? where he left the hounds? and where they was a-going to draw next?" And then, having received his due, he will step outside, take a look which way the wind is, and direct the thrown-out fox-hunter as to his most likely course in order to hit off the hounds again.
Odd to say, he is seldom wrong (unless, indeed, they have had a quick find, and gone away before the sportsman arrives at the indicated spot); for long experience has taught Joe all the short cuts in the country, together with which he combines an innate38 knowledge of the run of a fox. Old Tom Wilding the Huntsman, and Sir John Lappington the Master, are, in his opinion, the two greatest men in[Pg 223] England. For, as he puts it, "Without them two where would be the 'ounds? and without the 'ounds where would my bloomin' business go to?"
Then perhaps someone will point out that he might make a better thing out of cow-doctoring; but his reply will be: "Oh, that's your opinion, is it? well; it ain't mine. Look'ee 'ere—any fool, 'cept a vetery, who's got a ounce of sense, can do a cow; but mark yer, it takes a goodish time to make a man a blacksmith; and though I say it as perhaps shouldn't, there ain't a man as I gives in to in the matter of shoeing an 'oss, no matter where he comes from. No, as long as I can use my arm" (and he bares a limb that would not disgrace a statue of Hercules), "and there's any wind in the old bellows39, I sticks to t' smithy. Blacksmith I was bred, and so I'll die; and all I wants is, when our ould parson 'as finished the reading over my grave, to 'ave a plain bit of a 'eadstone put up, with simple 'Joe Billings, the Lappington Blacksmith,' wrote on it;" and[Pg 224] then Joe will turn to and whistle a lively air, just to get the idea of his demise40 out of his head, and the bystanders will say among themselves that at present they can't spare old Joe, who has for five-and-twenty years made the sparks fly and rung out the anvil chorus in the smithy at Lappington.
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1
dames
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| n.（在英国）夫人（一种封号），夫人（爵士妻子的称号）( dame的名词复数 )；女人 | |
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2
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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mingles
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| 混合，混入( mingle的第三人称单数 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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4
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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squires
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| n.地主，乡绅( squire的名词复数 ) | |
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nags
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| n.不断地挑剔或批评（某人）( nag的名词复数 )；不断地烦扰或伤害（某人）；无休止地抱怨；不断指责v.不断地挑剔或批评（某人）( nag的第三人称单数 )；不断地烦扰或伤害（某人）；无休止地抱怨；不断指责 | |
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7
groom
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| vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁 | |
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8
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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mare
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| n.母马，母驴 | |
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10
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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11
anvil
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| n.铁钻 | |
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12
grooms
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| n.新郎( groom的名词复数 )；马夫v.照料或梳洗（马等）( groom的第三人称单数 )；使做好准备；训练；（给动物）擦洗 | |
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13
grumble
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| vi.抱怨；咕哝；n.抱怨，牢骚；咕哝，隆隆声 | |
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14
vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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15
maxim
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| n.格言，箴言 | |
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16
bully
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| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
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17
pony
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| adj.小型的；n.小马 | |
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18
chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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19
gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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20
confinement
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| n.幽禁，拘留，监禁；分娩；限制，局限 | |
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21
trots
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| 小跑，急走( trot的名词复数 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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22
vowing
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| 起誓，发誓（vow的现在分词形式） | |
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23
vengeance
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| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
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24
harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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25
kennels
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| n.主人外出时的小动物寄养处，养狗场；狗窝( kennel的名词复数 )；养狗场 | |
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26
apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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27
tacking
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| （帆船）抢风行驶，定位焊[铆]紧钉 | |
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28
tack
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| n.大头钉；假缝，粗缝 | |
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29
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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30
dispenses
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| v.分配，分与；分配( dispense的第三人称单数 )；施与；配（药） | |
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31
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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32
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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33
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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34
hops
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| 跳上[下]( hop的第三人称单数 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花 | |
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35
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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36
hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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37
pertinent
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| adj.恰当的；贴切的；中肯的；有关的；相干的 | |
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38
innate
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| adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的 | |
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39
bellows
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| n.风箱；发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的名词复数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的第三人称单数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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40
demise
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| n.死亡；v.让渡，遗赠，转让 | |
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