ksmith. I never see a forge at night, when seated on the
back of my horse, at the bottom of a dark lane, but I somehow or other
associate it with the exploits of this extraordinary fellow, with many
other extraordinary things, amongst which, as I have hinted before, are
particular passages of my own life, one or two of which I shall perhaps
relate to the reader.

I never associate Vulcan and his Cyclops with the idea of a forge. These
gentry would be the very last people in the world to flit across my mind
whilst gazing at the forge from the bottom of the dark lane. The truth
is, they are highly unpoetical fellows, as well they may be, connected as
they are with the Grecian mythology. At the very mention of their names
the forge burns dull and dim, as if snowballs had been suddenly flung
into it; the only remedy is to ply the bellows, an operation which I now
hasten to perform.

I am in the dingle making a horse-shoe. Having no other horses on whose
hoofs I could exercise my art, I made my first essay on those of my own
horse, if that could be called horse which horse was none, being only a
pony. Perhaps, if I had sought all England, I should scarcely have found
an animal more in need of the kind offices of the smith. On three of his
feet there were no shoes at all, and on the fourth only a remnant of one,
on which account his hoofs were sadly broken and lacerated by his late
journeys over the hard and flinty roads. "You belonged to a tinker
before," said I, addressing the animal, "but now you belong to a smith.
It is said that the household of the shoemaker invariably go worse shod
than that of any other craft. That may be the case of those who make
shoes of leather, but it shan't be said of the household of him who makes
shoes of iron; at any rate it shan't be said of mine. I tell you what,
my gry, whilst you continue with me, you shall both be better shod, and
better fed, than you were with your last master."

I am in the dingle making a petul; {267} 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, {268a} or tongues of flame; a small bar
of sastra, or i