“I’ll call mother,” said Mrs. Whiteside, backing towards the door and eyeing her visitor suspiciously, for her mind misgave her as to whether it would be safe to leave him alone with the Family Bible or the stuffed birds.  “Mother!” she cried, raising her voice, “will you come for a minute?  There’s a visitor here.”

“Nay, lass, I can’t leave the bread,” called back an old woman’s voice, shrill yet strong.  “Ax the body to step in here, whoever ’tis.”

“Will ye come into the kitchen?” said Mrs. Whiteside unwillingly.  “My mother, ’tis a notion she has, ’ull never set foot in this ’ere room.  We’re Lancashire folk, ye see, mester, and tis the custom there to live mostly in the kitchen.”

The visitor followed her in silence across the passage and into the opposite room.  Hardly had he set foot inside the door before he uttered an exclamation, looking down the while at the floor.  The boards were scrubbed to an immaculate whiteness and strewn with sand.  He rubbed his boot backward and forward over the gritty surface with an odd smile; then, raising his eyes, he looked hastily round the room, averting his glance quickly when it fell upon the figure bending over the great brown pan in the fender.  Walking to the window he stood looking out without speaking.

“I hope the man’s got all his wits,” said Mrs. Whiteside to herself, “I never did see a chap act so strange.”

Through the open window a fine view could be had of tall grimy houses, and sooty roofs, with scarce a glint of sky between the chimney-stacks, and far down in the street below was the turmoil of city life; the roar and rush of it came echoing up even to that odd, peaceful little chamber.  The man neither saw nor heard; as he stood there it seemed to him that he was looking out upon the moorland, with the smell of the heather strong and spicy and sweet in his nostrils, and the cry of the peewit in his ears.  His chest heaved; then he turned about and faced the room again.  Yes, it was no dream; here was the house-place of a North Country cottage.  The sturdy deal table in the midst of the sanded floor, the oak dresser with its noble array of crockery, the big chest in the corner, the screened settle on one side of the hearth; and there, kneeling on the patchwork rug, the sturdy, strong-backed old woman, in bedgown and petticoat and frilled white cap, with lean, vigorous arms half-buried in a shining mass of dough.

“Well, what’s to do?” inquired she, glancing sharply over her shoulder.

“This ’ere gentleman says he’s brought news of our Will,” said Mrs. Whiteside hesitatingly.

The old woman uttered a cry, and, withdrawing her hands from the dough, wiped them hastily in her apron, and ran towards the stranger.

“News indeed,” she said.  “Eh dear, and how is my poor lad?  How is he, sir?  Eh, bless you for coomin’!  I scarce reckoned he were wick, ’tis so long sin’ we’n had a word of him.”