But having no one to help me, I go on hammering till I have fairly knocked off as much as I want, and then I place the piece in the fire, and again apply the bellows, and take up the song where I left it off; and when I have finished the song, I take out the iron, but this time with my plaistra, or pincers, and then I recommence hammering, turning the iron round and round with my pincers: and now I bend the iron, and lo, and behold, it has assumed something the outline of a petul.
I am not going to enter into farther details with respect to the process--it was rather a wearisome one.

I had to contend with various disadvantages: my forge was a rude one, my tools might have been better; I was in want of one or two highly necessary implements, but, above all, manual dexterity.

Though free of the forge, I had not practised the albeytarian art for very many years, never since--but stay, it is not my intention to tell the reader, at least in this place, how and when I became a blacksmith.

There was one thing, however, which stood me in good stead in my labour, the same thing which through life has ever been of incalculable utility to me, and has not unfrequently supplied the place of friends, money, and many other things of almost equal importance--iron perseverance, without which all the advantages of time and circumstances are of very little avail in any undertaking.

I was determined to make a horseshoe, and a good one, in spite of every obstacle--ay, in spite o' dukkerin.