ow I bend the iron, and lo, and behold, it
has assumed something the outline of a petul.

I am not going to enter into further 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.

CHAPTER LXXXIV.

Heaviness had suddenly come over me, heaviness of heart, and of body
also. I had accomplished the task which I had imposed upon myself, and
now that nothing more remai