ler.

"Because he warn't there," said Gubblum.

Job lost all patience.

"Look here," he said, "if you're not hankering for a cold bath on a
frosty morning, laal man, I don't know as you've got any call to say
that again!"

"He warn't there," the "laal man" muttered doggedly.

The blacksmith had plunged his last heat into the water trough to cool,
and a cloud of vapor filled the smithy.

"Lord A'mighty!" he said, laughing, "that's the way some folks go
off--all of a hiss and a smoke."

"He warn't there," mumbled the peddler again, impervious to the homely
similitude.

"How are you so certain sure?" said Dick of the Syke. "You warn't there
yourself, I reckon."

"No; but I was somewhere else, and so was Paul Ritson. I slept at the
Pack House in Kezzick night afore last, and he did the same."

"Did you see him there?" said the blacksmith.

"No; but Giles Raisley saw him, and he warn't astir when Giles went on
his morning shift at eight o'clock."

The blacksmith broke into a loud guffaw.

"Tell us how he was at the Hawk and Heron in London at midsummer."

"And so he was," said Gubblum, unabashed.

"Willy-nilly, ey?" said the blacksmith, pausing over the anvil with
uplifted hammer, the lurid reflection of the hot iron on his face.

"Maybe he had his reasons for denying hisself," said Gubblum.

The blacksmith laughed again, tapped the iron with the hand-hammer, down
came the sledge, and the flakes flew.

Two miners entered the smithy.

"Good-morning, John; are ye gayly?" said one of them.

"Gayly, gayly! Why, it's Giles hissel'!"

"Giles," said the peddler, "where was Paul Ritson night afore last?"

"Abed, I reckon," chuckled one of the new-comers.

"Where abed?"

"Nay, don't ax me. Wait--night afore last? That was the night he slept
at Janet's, wasn't it?"

Gubblum's eyes twinkled with triumph.

"What, did I tell you?"

"What call had he to sleep at Keswick?" said the blacksmith; "it's
no'but four miles from his own bed at the Ghyll."

"Nay, now, when ye ax the like o' that--"

Tom, the postman, stopped his grindstone and snuckered huskily:

"Maybe he's had a fratch with yon brother--yon Hugh."

"I'm on the morning shift this week, and Mother Janet she said: 'Giles,'
she said, 'the brother of your young master came late last night for a
bed.'"

"Job, what do you say to that?" shouted the blacksmith above the
pulsating of the bellows, and with the sharp white lights of the leaping
fla