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Now and then a glimpse of the rider's face could be caught, transported with joy of the struggle; then the dust would roll up and hide everything. No one was more pleased at the spectacle than the blacksmith. He was capering in the middle of the road, waving a hand-hammer and shouting "Hold him down! Hold him DOWN! Why do you let him jump up like that? If I was on that horse I'd show you!
"Then I'm sorry for it; a man don't meet wi' poets every day," saying which, he drew the scroll from the fire, and laid it, glowing, upon the anvil. "You was wishful to speak wi' me, I think?" he inquired. "Yes," I answered. "Ah!"'nodded the smith, "to be sure," and, forthwith, began to sing most lustily, marking the time very cleverly with his ponderous hand-hammer.
But the first sound he heard reassured him. It was the clear, metallic resonance of an anvil, the clanking of a sledge, and the clinking of a hand-hammer. Here, at the forge, he found work. It had been said in Poor Valley that he was already as good a blacksmith even as Pearce Tallam. He had great natural aptitude for the work, and considerable experience.
I stand, feet well apart, and swing the great "sledge" to whose diapason George's hand-hammer beats a tinkling melody, coming in after each stroke with a ring and clash exact and true, as is, and has been, the way of masters of the smithing craft all the world over from time immemorial. "George," said I, during a momentary lull, leaning my hands upon the long hammer-shaft, "you don't sing."
Simply because of their want of compass, or range and fall, as well as power of blow. A few moments' rapid thought satisfied him that it was by rigidly adhering to the old traditional form of hand-hammer of which the tilt, though driven by steam, was but a modification that the difficulty had arisen.
But upon the threshold I stopped all at once and drew softly back, for, despite the early hour, Prudence was there, upon her knees before the anvil, with George's great hand-hammer clasped to her bosom, sobbing over it, and, while she sobbed, she kissed its worn handle. And because such love was sacred and hallowed that dingy place, I took off my hat as I once more crossed the road.
The hand-hammer has always been an important tool, and, in the form of the stone celt, it was perhaps the first invented. When the hammer of iron superseded that of stone, it was found practicable in the hands of a "cunning" workman to execute by its means metal work of great beauty and even delicacy.
When the use of iron extended and larger ironwork came to be forged, for cannon, tools, and machinery, the ordinary hand-hammer was found insufficient, and the helve or forge-hammer was invented. This was usually driven by a water-wheel, or by oxen or horses. The tilt-hammer was another form in which it was used, the smaller kinds being worked by the foot.
Presently it faded; the hot iron was whisked upon the anvil, fiery sparks showered about as the rapid blows fell, and the echoing crags kept time with rhythmic beats to the clanking of the sledge and the clinking of the hand-hammer.
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