The Broad Highway by Jeffery Farnol (ebook reader with highlight function TXT) 📖

rages, at which times ‘e don’t mind who ‘e ‘its—”

“No—nor Wheer!” added the Innkeeper.

“Oh, ‘e be a bad man, be Black Jarge when ‘e’s took, for ‘e ‘ave a knack, d’ye see, of takin’ ‘old o’ the one nighest to un, and a-heavin’ of un over ‘is ‘ead’.”

“Extremely unpleasant!” said I.

“Just what he done this marnin’ wi’ Sam,” nodded the Innkeeper —“hove un out into the road, ‘e did.”

“And what did Sam do?” I inquired.

“Oh! Sam were mighty glad to get off so easy.”

“Sam must be a very remarkable fellow—undoubtedly a philosopher,” said I.

“‘E be nowt to look at!” said the Ancient.

Now at this moment there came a sudden deep bellow, a hoarse, bull-like roar from somewhere near by, and, looking round in some perplexity, through the wide doorway of the smithy opposite, I saw a man come tumbling, all arms and legs, who, having described a somersault, fell, rolled over once or twice, and sitting up in the middle of the road, stared about him in a dazed sort of fashion.

“That’s Job!” nodded the Ancient.

“Poor fellow!” said I, and rose to go to his assistance.

“Oh, that weren’t nothin’,” said the Ancient, laying, a restraining hand upon my arm, “nothin’ at all. Job bean’t ‘urt; why, I’ve seen ‘em fall further nor that afore now, but y’ see Job be pretty heavy handlin’—even for Black Jarge.”

And, in a little while, Job arose from where he sat in the dust, and limping up, sat himself down on the opposite bench, very black of brow and fierce of eye. And, after he had sat there silent for maybe five minutes, I said that I hoped he wasn’t hurt.

‘Urt?” he repeated, with a blank stare. “‘Ow should I be ‘urt?”

“Why, you seemed to fall rather heavily,” said I.

At this Job regarded me with a look half resentful, half reproachful, and immediately turned his back upon me; from which, and sundry winks and nods and shakes of the head from the others, it seemed that my remark had been ill-judged. And after we had sat silent for maybe another five minutes, the Ancient appeared to notice Job’s presence for the first time.

“Why, you bean’t workin’ ‘s arternoon then, Job?” he inquired solemnly.

“Noa!”

“Goin’ to tak’ a ‘olleyday, p’r’aps?”

“Ah! I’m done wi’ smithin’—leastways, for Black Jarge.”

“And him wi’ all that raft o’ work in, Job? Pretty fix ‘e’ll be in wi’ no one to strike for ‘im!” said Simon.

“Sarves un right tu!” retorted Job, furtively rubbing his left knee.

“But what’ll ‘e do wi’out a ‘elper?” persisted Simon.

“Lord knows!” returned the Ancient; “unless Job thinks better of it.”

“Not me,” said that individual, feeling his right elbow with tender solicitude. “I’m done wi’ Black Jarge, I am. ‘E nigh broke my back for me once afore, but this is the last time; I never swing a sledge for Black Jarge again—danged if I du!”

“And ‘im to mend th’ owd church screen up to Cranbrook Church,” sighed the Ancient; “a wunnerful screen, a wunnerful screen! older nor me—ah! a sight older hunneds and hunneds o’ years older—they wouldn’t let nobody touch it but Black Jarge.”

“‘E be the best smith in the South Country!” nodded Simon.

“Ay, an’ a bad man to work for as ever was!” growled Job. “I’ll work for ‘e no more; my mind’s made up, an’ when my mind’s made up theer bean’t no movin’ me—like a rock I be!”

“‘Twould ha’ been a fine thing for a Siss’n’urst man to ha’ mended t’ owd screen!” said the Ancient.

“‘Twould that!” nodded Simon, “a shame it is as it should go to others.”

Hereupon, having finished my ale, I rose.

“Be you’m a-goin’, young maister?” inquired the Ancient.

“Why, that depends,” said I. “I understand that this man, Black George, needs a helper, so I have decided to go and offer my services.”

“You!” exclaimed Job, staring in open-mouthed amazement, as did also the other two.

“Why not?” I rejoined. “Black George needs a helper, and I need money.”

“My chap,” said Job warningly, “don’t ye do it. You be a tidy, sizable chap, but Black Jarge ud mak’ no more o’ you than I should of a babby—don’t ye do it.”

“Better not,” said Simon.

“On the contrary,” I returned, “better run a little bodily risk and satisfy one’s hunger, rather than lie safe but famishing beneath some hedge or rick—what do you think, Ancient?”

The old man leaned forward and peered up at me sharply beneath his hanging brows.

“Well?” said I.

“You’m right!” he nodded, “and a man wi’ eyes the like o’ yourn bean’t one as ‘tis easy to turn aside, even though it do be Black Jarge as tries.”

“Then,” said Job, as I took up my staff, “if your back’s broke, my chap—why, don’t go for to blame me, that’s all! You be a sight too cocksure—ah, that you be!”

“I’m thinkin’ Black Jarge would find this chap a bit different to Job,” remarked the Ancient. “What do ‘ee think, Simon?”

“Looks as if ‘e might take a good blow, ah! and give one, for that matter,” returned the Innkeeper, studying me with half-closed eyes, and his head to one side, as I have seen artists look at pictures. “He be pretty wide in the shoulders, and full in the chest, and, by the look of him, quick on ‘is pins.”

“You’ve been a fightin’ man, Simon, and you ought to know—but he’ve got summat better still.”

“And what might that be, Gaffer?” inquired the Innkeeper.

“A good, straight, bright eye, Simon, wi’ a look in it as says, ‘I will!’”

“Ah! but what o’ Jarge?” cried Job. “Black Jarge don’t mind a man’s eyes, ‘cept to black frequent; ‘e don’t mind nothin’, nor nobody.”

“Job,” said the Ancient, tapping his snuff-box, “theer’s some things as is better nor gert, big muscles, and gert, strong fists—if you wasn’t a danged fule you’d know what I mean. Young man,” he went on, turning to me, “you puts me in mind o’ what I were at your age though, to be sure, I were taller ‘n you by about five or six inches, maybe more—but don’t go for to be too cock-sure for all that. Black Jarge aren’t to be sneezed at.”

“And, if you must ‘it un,” added the Innkeeper, “why, go for the chin—theer aren’t a better place to ‘it a man than on the chin, if so be you can thump it right—and ‘ard enough. I mind ‘t was so I put out Tom Brock o’ Bedford—a sweet, pretty blow it were too, though I do say it.”

“Thank you!” said I; “should it come to fighting, which Heaven forfend, I shall certainly remember your advice.” Saying which, I turned away, and crossed the road to the open door of the smithy, very conscious of the three pairs of eyes that watched me as I went.

Upon the threshold of the forge I paused to look about me, and there, sure enough, was the smith. Indeed a fine, big fellow he was, with great shoulders, and a mighty chest, and arms whose bulging muscles showed to advantage in the red glow of the fire. In his left hand he grasped a pair of tongs wherein was set a glowing iron scroll, upon which he beat with the hammer in his right. I stood watching until, having beaten out the glow from the iron, he plunged the scroll back into the fire, and fell to blowing with the bellows. But now, as I looked more closely at him, I almost doubted if this could be Black George, after all, for this man’s hair was of a bright gold, and curled in tight rings upon his brow, while, instead of the black, scowling visage I had expected, I beheld a ruddy, open, well-featured face out of which looked a pair of eyes of a blue you may sometimes see in a summer sky at evening. And yet again, his massive size would seem to proclaim him the famous Black George, and no other. It was with something of doubt in my mind, nevertheless, that I presently stepped into the smithy and accosted him.

“Are you Black George?” I inquired. At the sound of my voice, he let go the handle of the bellows, and turned; as I watched, I saw his brows draw suddenly together, while the golden hairs of his beard seemed to curl upward.

“Suppose I be?”

“Then I wish to speak with you.”

“Be that what you’m come for?”

“Yes.”

“Be you come far?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a pity.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause you’ll ‘ave a good way to go back again.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, for one thing, I means as I don’t like your looks, my chap.”

And why don’t you like my looks?”

“Lord!” exclaimed the smith, “‘ow should I know—but I don’t—of that I’m sartin sure.”

“Which reminds me,” said I, “of a certain unpopular gentleman of the name of Fell, or Pell, or Snell.”

“Eh?” said the smith, staring.

“There is a verse, I remember, which runs, I think, in this wise:

“‘I do not love thee, Doctor Fell, or Pell, or Snell, For reasons which I cannot tell; But this I know, and know full well, I do not love thee, Doctor Fell, or Pell, or Snell.’”

“So you’m a poet, eh?”

“No,” said I, shaking my head.

“Then I’m sorry for it; a man don’t meet wi’ poets every day,” saying which, he drew the scroll from the fire, and laid it, glowing, upon the anvil. “You was wishful to speak wi’ me, I think?” he inquired.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Ah!“‘nodded the smith, “to be sure,” and, forthwith, began to sing most lustily, marking the time very cleverly with his ponderous hand-hammer.

“If,” I began, a little put out at this, “if you will listen to what I have to say” But he only hammered away harder than ever, and roared his song the louder; and, though it sounded ill enough at the time, it was a song I came to know well later, the words of which are these:

“Strike! ding! ding! Strike! ding! ding! The iron glows, And loveth good blows As fire doth bellows. Strike! ding! ding!”

Now seeing he was determined to give me no chance to speak, I presently seated myself close by, and fell to singing likewise. Oddly enough, the only thing I could recall, on the moment, was the Tinker’s song, and that but very imperfectly; yet it served my purpose well enough. Thus we fell to it with a will, the different notes clashing, and filling the air with a most vile discord, and the words all jumbled up together, something in this wise:

“Strike! ding! ding!