"Yes," said the man deliberately; "'tis a bit of heather--and it comes from Boggart Moor. I picked it last week when I went to look for you."
"'Twas wonderful kind of you to go all that way, I'm sure," said Mrs. Whiteside. "I doubt our Will reckoned we was livin' there still. Tis years an' years since we've had a word from him. He didn't know I'd got wed, very like."
"No, he didn't," said the man. "He thought his mother and sister were livin' still in the little cot up yonder. I had hard work to trace you."
"How does the little place look, sir?" asked the old woman, with a wistful look.
"Much as usual," returned he, half absently. "They'n shifted the horse-block, an' thrown the two shippons into one, an' tiled the wash-house roof."
Mrs. Rigby clacked her tongue, and her daughter stared.
"How did ye know about the horse-block?" she inquired, "an' how did ye guess the shippons was throwed into one? Did our Will tell you about the place?"
"Often and often. He said he could find his way there blindfold, an' I doubt he made me know it as well as himself."
Mrs. Rigby stretched out her hand and touched the sprig of heather wistfully.
"The moor mun be lookin' gradely now," she said; "all one sheet o' bloom, I reckon. Eh, I mind how I used to leave windows open, summer an' winter, an let the air come in, soomtimes hot an' soomtimes cowd, but al'ays wi' the smell o' the moor in it. Dear, when I think on't I can scarce breathe here."
"Come, mother, we're keepin' the gentleman standin' all this time," said Mary, suddenly recalled to a sense of her hospitable duties. "Sit ye down, sir, and sup a cup o' tea with us. Kettle's boilin', isn't it, mother? You're not in a hurry, are you, mester?"
"I reckon I can stop a twothree minutes," said the man.
Mrs. Whiteside glanced at him sharply, and her mother clapped her hands together.
"Ye're a Lancashire lad, for sure," cried she; "ye speak just same as our own folks up on the moor yon."
"Aye, I'll not deny the talk cooms natural to me," he said. "I thought I'd forgot it, but my tongue seems to turn to it when I get agate o' talkin' wi' Lancashire folks."
"I reckon you and our Will had many a crack together about the bonny North," said Mrs. Rigby, as she spread the cloth, smoothing it carefully with her wrinkled hands. "I'm fain to think my lad minds th' owd place. Eh, I doubt he'd be nigh broken-hearted if he knowed we had to leave it--I like as if I could be glad to think he knows nought about it, poor lad. He didn't ever talk o' coomin' back, mester, did he?"