I was much afraid. "My mother's
dead an' buried, zur."

"I saw you," said he, "in the room--that night."

There was a long pause. Then, "What's _your_ name, zur?" I asked him.

"Mine?"

"Ay."

"Mine," said he, "is Luke--"

He stopped--and thoughtfully frowned. I waited; but he said no more.

"Doctor Luke?" I ventured.

"Well," he drawled, "that will serve."

Then I thought I must tell him what was in my heart to say. Why not? The
wish was good, and his soft, melancholy voice irresistibly appealed to
my raw and childish sympathies.

"I wisht, zur," I whispered, looking down at my boots, through sheer
embarrassment, "that you----"

My tongue failed me. I was left in a sad lurch. He was not like our
folk--not like our folk, at all--and I could not freely speak my mind.

"Yes?" he said, to encourage me.

"That you wasn't so sad," I blurted, with a rush, looking swift and deep
into his gray eyes.

"Why not?" said he, taking my hand.

"I'm not wantin' you t' be."

He put his arm over my shoulder. "Why not?" he asked. "Tell me why not,
won't you?"

The corners of my mouth fell. It may have been in sympathetic response
to the tremolo of feeling in his voice. I was in peril of unmanly tears
(as often chanced in those days)--and only women, as I knew, should see
lads weep. I hid my face against him.

"Because, zur," I said, "it makes me sad, too!"

He sat down and drew me to his knee. "This is very strange," he said,
"and very kind. You would not have me sad?" I shook my head. "I do not
understand," he muttered. "It is very strange." (But it was not strange
on our coast, where all men are neighbours, and each may without shame
or offense seek to comfort the other.) Then he had me tell him tales of
our folk, to which he listened with interest so eager that I quickly
warmed to the diversion and chattered as fast as my tongue would wag. He
laughed at me for saying "nar" for not (and the like) and I at him for
saying "cawm" for calm; and soon we were very merry, and not only merry,
but as intimate as friends of a lifetime. By and by I took him to see
the Soldier's Ear, which is an odd rock near the Rat Hole, and, after
that, to listen to the sea coughing and gurgling at the bottom of
Satan's Well. And in all this he forgot that he was sad--and I that my
mother was dead.

"Will you walk with me to-morrow, Davy?" he asked, when I said that I
must be off home.

"That I will, zur," said I.

"After breakfas