as, in fact,
as poor as many a day-labourer; whilst the blacksmith, well-to-do,
bustling, popular, and open-handed, was a person of some importance in
the place. All this, however, had nothing to do with Mat and myself. It
never occurred to either of us that his jacket was out at elbows, or that
our mutual funds came altogether from my pocket. It was enough for us
that we sat on the same school-bench, conned our tasks from the same
primer, fought each other's battles, screened each other's faults,
fished, nutted, played truant, robbed orchards and birds' nests together,
and spent every half-hour, authorised or stolen, in each other's society.
It was a happy time; but it could not go on for ever. My father, being
prosperous, resolved to put me forward in the world. I must know more,
and do better, than himself. The forge was not good enough, the little
world of Chadleigh not wide enough, for me. Thus it happened that I was
still swinging the satchel when Mat was whistling at the plough, and that
at last, when my future course was shaped out, we were separated, as it
then seemed to us, for life. For, blacksmith's son as I was, furnace and
forge, in some form or other, pleased me best, and I chose to be a
working engineer. So my father by-and-by apprenticed me to a Birmingham
iron-master; and, having bidden farewell to Mat, and Chadleigh, and the
grey old Tors in the shadow of which I had spent all the days of my life,
I turned my face northward, and went over into "the Black Country."

I am not going to dwell on this part of my story. How I worked out the
term of my apprenticeship; how, when I had served my full time and become
a skilled workman, I took Mat from the plough and brought him over to the
Black Country, sharing with him lodging, wages, experience--all, in
short, that I had to give; how he, naturally quick to learn and brimful
of quiet energy, worked his way up a step at a time, and came by-and-by
to be a "first hand" in his own department; how, during all these years
of change, and trial, and effort, the old boyish affection never wavered
or weakened, but went on, growing with our growth and strengthening with
our strength--are facts which I need do no more than outline in this
place.

About this time--it will be remembered that I speak of the days when Mat
and I were on the bright side of thirty--it happened that our firm
contracted to supply six first-class locomotives to run on the new line,
then