The young man who was thus beset by two distinct bands of enemies, deserved a very different fate at the hands of his fellow-creatures.

For, at this moment, though any thing but happy himself, he was working some hours every day for the good of mankind; and was every day visiting as a friend the battered saw-grinder who had once put his own life in mortal peril.

He had not fathomed the letter Grace had sent him.  He was a young man and a straightforward; he did not understand the amiable defects of the female character.  He studied every line of this letter, and it angered and almost disgusted him.  It was the letter of a lady; but beneath the surface of gentleness and politeness lay a proposal which he considered mean and cold-blooded.  It lowered his esteem for her.

His pride and indignation were roused, and battled with his love, and they were aided by the healthy invigorating habits into which Dr. Amboyne had at last inveigled him, and so he resisted:  he wrote more than one letter in reply to Grace Carden; but, when he came to read them over and compare them with her gentle effusion, he was ashamed of his harshness, and would not send the letter.

He fought on; philanthropy in Hillsborough, forging in Cairnhope Church; and still he dreamed strange dreams now and then:  for who can work, both night and day, as this man did—­with impunity?

One night he dreamed that he was working at his forge, when suddenly the floor of the aisle burst, and a dead knight sprang from the grave with a single bound, and stood erect before him, in rusty armor:  out of his helmet looked two eyes like black diamonds, and a nose like a falcon’s.  Yet, by one of the droll contradictions of a dream, this impetuous, warlike form no sooner opened its lips, than out issued a lackadaisical whine.  “See my breastplate, good sir,” said he.  “It was bright as silver when I made it—­I was like you, I forged my own weapons, forged them with these hands.  But now the damps of the grave have rusted it.  Odsbodikins! is this a thing for a good knight to appear in before his judge?  And to-morrow is doomsday, so they all say.”

Then Henry pitied the poor simple knight (in his dream), and offered his services to polish the corslet up a bit against that great occasion.  He pointed toward his forge, and the knight marched to it, in three wide steps that savored strongly of theatrical burlesque.  But the moment he saw the specimens of Henry’s work lying about, he drew back, and wheeled upon the man of the day with huge disdain.  “What,” said he, “do you forge toys!  Learn that a gentleman can only forge those weapons of war that gentlemen do use.  And I took you for a Raby!”

With these bitter words he vanished, with flashing eyes and a look of magnificent scorn, and left his fiery, haughty features imprinted clearly on Henry’s memory.

One evening, as he plied his hammer, he heard a light sound at a window, in an interval of his own noise.  He looked hastily up, and caught a momentary sight of a face disappearing from the window.  It was gone like a flash even as he caught sight of it.