“Then you’ve heard what’s to happen?” I asked.

“Aw yes, woman, yes,” she answered in a sadder tone, I thought.  “Everybody’s bound to hear it—­what with the bands practising for the procession, and the bullocks roasting for the poor, and the fireworks and the illuminations, and I don’t know what.”

She was silent for a moment after that, and then in her simple way she said: 

“But it’s all as one if you love the man, even if he is a lord.”

“You think that’s necessary, don’t you?”

“What, millish?”

“Love.  You think it’s necessary to love one’s husband?”

“Goodness sakes, girl, yes.  If you don’t have love, what have you?  What’s to keep the pot boiling when the fire’s getting low and the winter’s coming on, maybe?  The doctor’s telling me some of the fine ladies in London are marrying without it—­just for money and titles and all to that.  But I can’t believe it, I really can’t!  They’ve got their troubles same as ourselves, poor things, and what’s the use of their fine clothes and grand carriages when the dark days come and the night’s falling on them?”

It was harder than ever to speak now, so I got up to look at some silver cups that stood on the mantelpiece.

“Martin’s,” said his mother, to whom they were precious as rubies.  “He won them at swimming and running and leaping and climbing and all to that.  Aw, yes, yes!  He was always grand at games, if he couldn’t learn his lessons, poor boy.  And now he’s gone away from us—­looking for South Poles somewheres.”

“I know—­I saw him in Rome,” said I.

She dropped her porridge-stick and looked at me with big eyes.

“Saw him?  In Rome, you say?  After he sailed, you mean?”

I nodded, and then she cried excitedly to the doctor who was just then coming into the house, after washing his hands under the pump.

“Father, she saw himself in Rome after he sailed.”

There was only one himself in that house, therefore it was not difficult for the doctor to know who was meant.  And so great was the eagerness of the old people to hear the last news of the son who was the apple of their eye that I had to stay to breakfast and tell them all about our meeting.

While Martin’s mother laid the tables with oat-cake and honey and bowls of milk and deep plates for the porridge, I told the little there was to tell, and then listened to their simple comments.

“There now, doctor!  Think of that!  Those two meeting in foreign parts that used to be such friends when they were children!  Like brother and sister, you might say.  And whiles and whiles we were thinking that some day . . . but we’ll say no more about that now, doctor.”

“No, we’ll say no more about that now, Christian Ann,” said the doctor.

Then there was a moment of silence, and it was just as if they had been rummaging among half-forgotten things in a dark corner of their house, and had come upon a cradle, and the child that had lived in it was dead.