There was a sort of open place in front of
the Joyful Heart, with a market-cross in the
middle, and a spring where the young
women used to come for water, and stand
talking there, telling each other the news.
The painters used to put them down too—
spring and all; and I don’t wonder at their
fancying them. For, when I was sitting that
way in the porch, looking out at them, the
red petticoats, and the queer jars, and the
old cross, and the sun going down behind,
made a kind of picture very pretty to
look at. I've seen the same of it many a
time in some of those places about the
Spanish main, when the foreign women stood
round about and carried their jars in the
same fashion. Only there was no Joyful
Heart. I always missed the Joyful Heart
in such places. Neither was there the Great
Forge just over the way, facing the Joyful
Heart. I must put in a word here about
the Forge, though I have been a long time
coming round to the point.

I never saw such a forge as that—never!
It must have been another bit of the old
Abbey—the great gate, most likely, for it
was nothing but a huge, wide, archway.
Very handsomely worked, though, and
covered with moss like the rest. There was
a little stone hutch at the top, that looked
like a belfry. The bell was gone long ago, of
course, but the rings were there, and the
stauncheons, all soundly made—good work
as I could have turned out myself. Some
one had run up a bit of building at the back,
which kept out the wind and made all snug,
and there you had as handsome a forge as I
ever came across.

It was kept by a young man of the name
of Whichelo—Will Whichelo. But he had
another name besides that, and I think a
better one. If you were to go asking
through the village for one Will Whichelo,
why, you would come back about as wise
as you went; unless, indeed, you chanced
upon the minister or the schoolmaster. No;
but because he was always seen hard at his
work, swinging his hammer with good-will,
and stepping back at every stroke to get a
better sweep—because he laid his whole soul to
the business—the Ashbrooke folk christened
him Ding Dong Will. He was always singing
and at his work. Many a nice young woman
of the village would have been glad if Ding
Dong Will had looked her way. But he never
took heed of any of them, or was more than
civil and gentle with them.

“Look ye,” he would say, leaning on his
great hammer, “are they the creatures for
handling cold iron, or lifting the sledge? No,
no!” and would take up his favourite stave
of Hammer and anvil! hammer and anvil!
lads, yoho!

I was but a youngster at that time, but had
a great hankering after the iron business. I
would be nothing else, I told my father, who
wanted to send me up to London to learn
accounts. I was always dropping down there,
and would stay half the day, leaning against
the arch and watching the forging. Coming
along of a night, I used to get quite cheerful
when I saw the blaze of the furnace, and the
chinking of the iron was the finest music for
me I ever heard—finer than the organ tunes
even. Sometimes a dusty rider would come
galloping in, and pull up sharp at the Forge;
he had cast a shoe on the road, and Ding
Dong Will would come out and take the
horse’s measure. Then the village folk would
get standing round, in twos and threes, all of
them eyeing over the horse and the rider,
too. Then he would get upon his nag once
more, and the little crowd would open, and
he ride away harder than he came, Ding
Dong Will, with his hammer over his shoulder,
looking after him till he got to the turn of
the hill.

At last, my father came round and gave up
making me a clerk—it would never have
done—and Ding Dong Will, who had a liking
for me, agreed to take me at the Forge. I
soon got to use the big sledge fairly enough
—nothing, of course, to Ding Dong Will;
and so we worked away from morning till
night, like two Jolly Millers. There was fine
music at the Forge, when the two of us were
at it.

Ding Dong Will never went to the Joyful
Heart; he said he had no time to be idle;
but I went pretty often—that is, when the
day was done and work over—just to have a
talk in the cool porch, and hear what
company was in the house. For, Miss Arthur—
Mary Arthur—she that used to sit in the
parlour and manage the house, was never
very stand-off to me. But she had a reason
of her own for that, as you will see. She
was niece to old Joe Fenton, the landlord,
who brought her down from London to keep
things going. In short, she was as good as
mistress there. Folks said she kept her
head a little high; but, to say truth, I never
found her so. She had had her schooling
up in London, and had learned manners with
the best of them, so it was but nature she
should be a stroke above the girls of the
place. That was why they didn’t like her.
About her looks? Ah! she was a beauty!
Such hair—it went nigh down to her feet—
and her eyes—why they shot fire like a pair
of stars—and she had a way of shifting them
back and forward, and taking your measure
at every look, that made you feel quite
uneasy. All the young fellows were by
the ears about her, but she never heeded or
encouraged them; unless it might be that
she had a leaning to one—and that was to
Ding Dong Will opposite. No one thought
of such a thing, she kept it so close; but she
might as well have had a leaning to a lump
of cold iron.

The way I came to suspect it was this.
The old Forge, as I said, was just fronting the
Joyful Heart; and, every morning, as sure