thout a tremor in his
deep voice. The dog dropped his head and slunk towards Sim.

Then Ralph walked on.

The sun had risen over Lauvellen, and the white wings of a fair
morning lay on the hamlet in the vale below. Sim stood long on the
Raise, straining dim eyes into the south, where the diminishing figure
of his friend was passing out of his ken.

It was gone at length; the encircling hills had hidden it. Then the
unfriended outcast turned slowly away.

CHAPTER XVII. THE GARTHS: MOTHER AND SON.

The smoke was rising lazily in blue coils from many a chimney as Sim
turned his back on the Raise and retraced his steps to Wythburn.

In the cottage by the smithy--they stood together near the bridge--the
fire had been newly kindled. Beneath a huge kettle, swung from an
unseen iron hook, the boughs crackled and puffed and gave out the odor
of green wood.

Bared up to the armpits and down to the breast, the blacksmith was
washing himself in a bowl of water placed on a chair. His mother sat
on a low stool, with a pair of iron tongs in her hands, feeding the
fire from a bundle of gorse that lay at one side of the hearth. She
was a big, brawny, elderly woman with large bony hands, and a face
that had hard and heavy features, which were dotted here and there
with discolored warts. Her dress was slatternly and somewhat dirty. A
soiled linen cap covered a mop of streaky hair, mouse-colored and
unkempt.

"He's backset and foreset," she said in a low tone. "Ey, eye; he's
made a sad mull on't."

Mrs. Garth purred to herself as she lifted another pile of gorse on to
the crackling fire.

Joe answered with a grating laugh, and then with a burr he applied a
towel to his face.

"Nay, nay, mother. He has a gay bit of gumption in him, has Ray. It'll
be no kitten play to catch hold on him, and _they_ know that _they_
do."

The emphasis was accompanied by a lowered tone, and a sidelong motion
of the head towards a doorway that led out of the kitchen.

"Kitten play or cat play, it's dicky with him; nought so sure, Joey,"
said Mrs. Garth; and her cold eyes sparkled as she purred again with
satisfaction.

"That's what you're always saying," said Joe testily; "but it never
comes to anything and never will."

"Weel, weel, there's nought so queer as folk," mumbled Mrs. Garth.

Joe seemed to understand his mother's implication.

"I'm moider'd to death," he said, "what with yourself and them. I'm
right glad they're going