As he passed the smithy the lad stumbled.
The man looked hard at him as if suspecting some trickery; but when Phil was about to press on without a word the man asked in a low voice, who the de'il gaed yonder on sic like e'en and at sic like hoddin' gait.
At this Phil sat down on a stone, for his weakness had grown on him sorely, and replied that whither he was going he neither knew nor cared. Whereupon the man, whom he knew by his tongue to be a Scot, cried out, "Hech! The lad's falling!" And catching the youth by the arm, he lifted him off the stone and led him into the smithy.
Phil found himself in a chair with straight back and sides, but with seat and backing woven of broad, loose straps, which seemed as easy as the best goose-feathers. "It is nought," he said. "A spell of faintness caught me. I'll be going; I must find an inn; I'll be going now."
The man thrust a splinter of wood into the coals, and lighting therewith a candle in a lanthorn, he began rummaging in a cupboard behind the forge, whence he drew out a quarter loaf, a plate of cheese, a jug, and a deep dish in which there was the half of a meat pie. Placing before his guest a table of rough boards blackened with smoke, a great spoon, and a pint pot, he poured from the jug a brimming potful of cider, boiled with good spices and fermented with yeast.
"A wee healsome drappy," said he, "an' then the guid vittle. Dinna be laithfu'."
Raising the pot to his lips the lad drank deep and became aware he was famished for food, although he had not until then thought of hunger. As he ate, the quarter loaf, the cheese, and the half of a meat pie fell victims to his trenchering, and though his host plied the jug to fill his cup, when at last he leaned back he had left no morsel of food nor drop of drink.
Now, for the first time, he looked about him and gave heed to the smoking lanthorn, the dull glow of the dying sea-coals in the forge, the stern face of the smith who sat opposite him, and the dark recesses of the smithy. Outside was a driving rain and the screech of a gusty wind.
It was strange, he thought, that after all his doubts, he was well fed and dry and warm. The rain rattled against the walls of the smithy and the wind howled. Only to hear the storm was enough to make a man shiver, but warmed by the fire in the forge the lad smiled and nodded. In a moment he was asleep.