“But why Samuel?” I asked.

“An’ thot I dinna know.  I wantud ut so.”

“But why did you want it so?”

“An’ uz ut me thot would be answerun’ a such-like question?  Be there ony mon luvun’ or dead thot can answer?  Who can tell the why o’ like?  My Jamie was fair daft on buttermilk, he would drunk ut tull, oz he said humself, hus back teeth was awash.  But my Tumothy could no abide buttermilk.  I like tull lussen tull the thunder growlun’ an’ roarun’, an’ rampajun’.  My Katie could no abide the noise of ut, but must scream an’ flutter an’ go runnun’ for the mudmost o’ a feather-bed.  Never yet hov I heard the answer tull the why o’ like, God alone hoz thot answer.  You an’ me be mortal an’ we canna know.  Enough for us tull know what we like an’ what we duslike.  I like—­thot uz the first word an’ the last.  An’ behind thot like no men can go an’ find the why o’ ut.  I like Samuel, an’ I like ut well.  Ut uz a sweet name, an’ there be a rollun’ wonder un the sound o’ ut thot passes onderstandun’.”

The twilight deepened, and in the silence I gazed upon that splendid dome of a forehead which time could not mar, at the width between the eyes, and at the eyes themselves—­clear, out-looking, and wide-seeing.  She rose to her feet with an air of dismissing me, saying—­

“Ut wull be a dark walk home, an’ there wull be more thon a sprunkle o’ wet un the sky.”

“Have you any regrets, Margaret Henan?” I asked, suddenly and without forethought.

She studied me a moment.

“Aye, thot I no ha’ borne another son.”

“And you would . . .?” I faltered.

“Aye, thot I would,” she answered.  “Ut would ha’ been hus name.”

I went down the dark road between the hawthorn hedges puzzling over the why of like, repeating Samuel to myself and aloud and listening to the rolling wonder in its sound that had charmed her soul and led her life in tragic places.  Samuel!  There was a rolling wonder in the sound.  Aye, there was!

*** End of the project gutenberg EBOOK, the strength of the strong ***

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