time that the hammer continued to sound, being about the space usually employed in fixing a horseshoe. But the instant the sound ceased, Tressilian, instead of interposing the space of time which his guide had required, started up with his sword in his hand, ran round the thicket, and confronted a man in a farrier’s leathern apron, but otherwise fantastically attired in a bear-skin dressed with the fur on, and a cap of the same, which almost hid the sooty and begrimed features of the wearer—“Come back, come back!” cried the boy to Tressilian, or you will be torn to pieces—no man lives that looks on him.”—In fact, the invisible smith (now fully visible) heaved up his hammer, and showed symptoms of doing battle.
But when the boy observed that neither his own entreaties, nor the menaces of the farrier, appeared to change Tressilian’s purpose, but that, on the contrary, he confronted the hammer with his drawn sword, he exclaimed to the smith in turn, “Wayland, touch him not, or you will come by the worse!—the gentleman is a true gentleman, and a bold.”
“So thou hast betrayed me, Flibbertigibbet?” said the smith; “it shall be the worse for thee!”
“Be who thou wilt,” said Tressilian, “thou art in no danger from me, so thou tell me the meaning of this practice, and why thou drivest thy trade in this mysterious fashion.”
The smith, however, turning to Tressilian, exclaimed, in a threatening tone, “Who questions the Keeper of the Crystal Castle of Light, the Lord of the Green Lion, the Rider of the Red Dragon?—
