The Sun.
London, England, 1865-10-31 00:00:00

THE HONEST BLACKSMITH.

William Stanfield, the blacksmith of Windholm, was per-
haps of all men in the village the most respected and
looked up to. He was well-to-do, which of course had some
share in the general regard, and had come of people
to-do from the third and fourth generation. The clergy-
man himself was not a greater authority in the parish. It
was not that his sagacity was extraordinary, for he had
been deceived now and then like other,people, and had
never concealed the fact ;—nor that ho was clever above
his neighbours, for the public of Windholm was thoroughly
aware that to get the "rights" of any business fairly
into William Stanfield's head required a degree of perse-
verance and patience difficult to attain ; especially in re-
gard to all kinds of chicanery, tricks, and meanness,
nothing could exceed the obtusity of the blacksmith's in-
tellect—and he nowise prided' himself upon his powers of
mind, or indeed upon any powers whatever, though ho had
a gratified half-consciousness of his own influence in the
little community. His strength, however, lay, not in his
talents, but in his character. He was the sublimated honest
man, brave honane galantuomo, of Windholm. In him the
transparency, the manful single-mindedness and pure
honour of an ideal Englishman had attained realisation.
There was nobody within 20 miles, good or bad, who
would not have trusted house or land, widow or orphan,
to William Stanfield with the most utter certainty of his
truth to the trust. No squire or gentleman of the district
came within a hundred miles of him in this respect. To
doubt the blacksmith would have been the same as to
doubt whether the pillars of earth stood fast, had any
daring sceptic ventured on such a notion ; but no such in-
fidel had ever yet appeared at Windholm. Ho was slow
in many things, this worthiest man of the village—above
all slow to wrath, all but impervious to suspicion, slow to be-
lieve anything that it was shame or sorrow to hear of. The
mild broad light of his eyes scarcely ever quickened out of
that mese and tranquillity which made you think instinc-
tively of the large, silent, unspeakable orbs in some dumb
creature's face, and of the grand ox-eyes of the heathen-
queen of heaven. His, too, were ox-eyes—large, soft, brown,
impenetrable, full of silent thoughtfulness, that never found
expression except in that good life which was more elo-
quent, a thousand times, than any words. Had Paul and
Barnabas been afloat on the world in our day, they would
have been brought unanimously, by universal consent of
the crowd, to William-Stanfield's door, had they gone-to
Windholm—whose house being worthy, they would not,
have departed from while they remained in the place—
who would have washed their feet and spread their board
and listened with reverence and candour but slow convic-
tion, saying little while the Divine message worked slowly
in his heart. But he was a man c,f little book-learning,
no reading to speak of, and altogether of an unitltellectual
development; though there were thoughts in him such as
few have—delicacies which few people understood—and a
certain poetic element in the worth which was so practi-
cal and real. Such was the blacksmith, the ideal man of
Windholm.

And here, a companion picture, is our first glimpse