第205章

I am in the dingle making a petul;and I must here observe that whilst I am making a horse-shoe the reader need not be surprised if I speak occasionally in the language of the lord of the horse-shoe-Mr.Petulengro.I have for some time past been plying the peshota,or bellows,endeavouring to raise up the yag,or fire,in my primitive forge.The angar,or coals,are now burning fiercely,casting forth sparks and long vagescoe chipes,or tongues of flame;a small bar of sastra,or iron,is lying in the fire,to the length of ten or twelve inches,and so far it is hot,very hot,exceeding hot,brother.And now you see me prala,snatch the bar of iron,and place the heated end of it upon the covantza,or anvil,and forthwith I commence cooring the sastra as hard as if I had been just engaged by a master at the rate of dui caulor,or two shillings,a day,brother;and when I have beaten the iron till it is nearly cool,and my arm tired,I place it again in the angar,and begin again to rouse the fire with the pudamengro,which signifies the blowing thing,and is another and more common word for bellows;and whilst thus employed I sing a gypsy song,the sound of which is wonderfully in unison with the hoarse moaning of the pudamengro,and ere the song is finished,the iron is again hot and malleable.Behold,I place it once more on the covantza,and recommence hammering;and now I am somewhat at fault;I am in want of assistance;I want you,brother,or some one else,to take the bar out of my hand and support it upon the covantza,whilst I,applying a chinomescro,or kind of chisel,to the heated iron,cut off with a lusty stroke or two of the shukaro baro,or big hammer,as much as is required for the petul.But having no one to help me,I go on hammering till I have fairly knocked off as much as I want,and then I place the piece in the fire,and again apply the bellows,and take up the song where I left it off;and when I have finished the song,I take out the iron,but this time with my plaistra,or pincers,and then I recommence hammering,turning the iron round and round with my pincers:and now I bend the iron and,lo and behold!it has assumed something of the outline of a petul.

I am not going to enter into farther details with respect to the process-it was rather a wearisome one.I had to contend with various disadvantages;my forge was a rude one,my tools might have been better;I was in want of one or two highly necessary implements,but,above all,manual dexterity.Though free of the forge,I had not practised the albeytarian art for very many years,never since-but stay,it is not my intention to tell the reader,at least in this place,how and when I became a blacksmith.There was one thing,however,which stood me in good stead in my labour,the same thing which through life has ever been of incalculable utility to me,and has not unfrequently supplied the place of friends,money,and many other things of almost equal importance-iron perseverance,without which all the advantages of time and circumstance are of very little avail in any undertaking.I was determined to make a horse-shoe,and a good one,in spite of every obstacle-ay,in spite of dukkerin.At the end of four days,during which I had fashioned and refashioned the thing at least fifty times,I had made a petul such as no master of the craft need have been ashamed of;with the second shoe I had less difficulty,and,by the time I had made the fourth,I would have scorned to take off my hat to the best smith in Cheshire.

But I had not yet shod my little gry:this I proceeded now to do.

After having first well pared the hoofs with my churi,I applied each petul hot,glowing hot,to the pindro.Oh,how the hoofs hissed!and,oh,the pleasant pungent odour which diffused itself through the dingle!-an odour good for an ailing spirit.

I shod the little horse bravely-merely pricked him once,slightly,with a cafi,for doing which,I remember,he kicked me down;I was not disconcerted,however,but,getting up,promised to be more cautious in future;and having finished the operation,I filed the hoof well with the rin baro,then dismissed him to graze amongst the trees,and,putting my smaller tools into the muchtar,I sat down on my stone,and,supporting my arm upon my knee,leaned my head upon my hand.Heaviness had come over me.