"How hard she has toiled, poor thing, to educate her lad all alone, and
how much she has wept since she no longer goes out, save to go to church,
God only knows."

"This also is true," said the others.

Then no more was heard than the bellows which fanned the fire of the
furnace. Phillip hastily bent himself down to Simon:

"Go and tell your mamma that I shall come to speak to her."

Then he pushed the child out by the shoulders. He returned to his work
and with a single blow the five hammers again fell upon their anvils.
Thus they wrought the iron until nightfall, strong, powerful, happy,
like hammers satisfied. But just as the great bell of a cathedral
resounds upon feast days above the jingling of the other bells, so
Phillip's hammer, dominating the noise of the others, clanged second
after second with a deafening uproar. And he, his eye on fire, plied his
trade vigorously, erect amid the sparks.

The sky was full of stars as he knocked at La Blanchotte's door. He had
his Sunday blouse on, a fresh shirt, and his beard was trimmed. The young
woman showed herself upon the threshold and said in a grieved tone:

"It is ill to come thus when night has fallen, Mr. Phillip."

He wished to answer, but stammered and stood confused before her.

She resumed:

"And still you understand quite well that it will not do that I should be
talked about any more."

Then he said all at once:

"What does that matter to me, if you will be my wife!"

No voice replied to him, but he believed that he heard in the shadow of
the room the sound of a body which sank down. He entered very quickly;
and Simon, who had gone to his bed, distinguished the sound of a kiss and
some words that his mother said very softly. Then he suddenly found
himself lifted up by the hands of his friend, who, holding him at the
length of his herculean arms, exclaimed to him:

"You will tell them, your school-fellows, that your papa is Phillip Remy,
the blacksmith, and that he will pull the ears of all who do you any
harm."

On the morrow, when the school was full and lessons were about to begin,
little Simon stood up quite pale with trembling lips:

"My papa," said he in a clear voice, "is Phillip Remy, the blacksmith,
and he has promised to box the ears of all who do me any harm."

This time no one laughed any longer, for he was very well known, was
Phillip Remy, the blacksmith, and was a papa of whom anyone in the world
would have been proud.