notion, that the child might perchance be a stolen one. But the bellows
had filled and exhausted themselves many times before his mind was set
at rest with regard to his first fearful thought; at length, however,
the child moved its arm, and uttered a low moan, though without rousing
itself from its sleep; on which Shanty, being satisfied, turned back to
his block and his horse-shoe, and another half-hour or more passed,
during which the tempest subsided, the clouds broke and began to
disappear, and the stars to come forth one by one, pointing out the
direction of the heavens to the experienced eye of the night-walking
traveller. The woman observing this, arose, and taking the sleeping babe
in her arms whilst the other child clung to her cloak, she thanked the
blacksmith for the convenience of the shelter which he had given her;
when he, with the courtesy of one who, though poor and lowly, had been
admitted to high conference with his Redeemer, invited her to stay
longer--all night if she pleased,--regretting only that he had nothing
to offer her but a bed of straw, and a sup of sowens for the
little ones.

"For which," she replied, "I thank you; what can any one give more than
what he has. But time is precious to me, this night I must be over the
Border; mind me, however, I shall remember you, and mayhap may call
again." So saying, she passed out of the shed, almost as much
disregarded by Dymock in her going out, as she had been in coming in.

And now, for another hour, the strokes of the hammers of old Shanty and
the young stranger might have been heard far over the moor in the
stillness of the night, for the wind had entirely died away, and the
fitful glare of the forge, still shone as a beacon over the heath. At
length, however, the job which the stranger had undertaken was finished,
and Dymock, having given him a silver piece, the only one in his pocket,