Seth | Page 5

me a bit, lad. I'm better worth yo're mettle."
"What's takken yo', lass?" said her mother at another time. "Yo're that
theer soft about th chap as theer's no makkin' yo' out. Yo' wur nivver
loike to be soft afore," somewhat testily. "An' it's noan his good looks,
neyther."
"No," said Bess--"it's noan his good looks."

"Happen it's his lack on 'em, then?"
"Happen it is." And there the discussion ended for want of material.
There was one person, however, who did not join in the jesting; and
this was Langley. When he began to understand the matter he regarded
the two with sympathetic curiosity and interest. Why should not their
primitive and uncouth love develop and form a tie to bind the homely
lives together, and warm and brighten them? It may have been that his
own mental condition at this time was such as would tend to often his
heart, for an innocent passion, long cherished in its bud, had burst into
its full blooming during the months he had spent amid the novel beauty
and loneliness, and perhaps his new bliss subdued him somewhat.
Always ready with a kindly word, he was specially ready with it where
Seth was concerned. He never passed him without one, and frequently
reined in his horse to speak to him at greater length. Now and then, on
his way home at night, he stopped at the shanty's door, and summoning
the lad detained him for a few minutes chatting in the odorous evening
air. It was thoroughly in accordance with the impulses of his frank and
generous nature that he should endeavor to win upon him and gain his
confidence. "We are both Deepton men," he would say, "and it is
natural that we should be friends, We are both alone and a long way
from home."
But the lad was always timid and slow of speech.
His gratitude showed itself in ways enough, but it rarely took the form
of words. Only, one night as the horse moved away, he laid his hand
upon the bridle and held it a moment, some powerful emotion showing
itself in his face, and lowering his voice until it was almost a whisper.
"Mester," he said, "if theer's ivver owt to be done as is hard an' loike to
bring pain an' danger, yo'll--yo'll not forget me?"
Langley looked down at him with a mingled feeling of warm pity and
deep bewilderment. "Forget you?" he echoed.
The dullness seemed to have dropped away from the commonplace
face as if it had been a veil; the eyes were burning with a hungry pathos

and fire and passion; they were raised to his and held him with the
power of an indescribable anguish. "Dunnot forget as I'm here," the
voice growing sharp and intense, "ready an' eager an' waitin' fur th'
toime to come. Let me do summat or brave summat or suffer summat,
for God's sake!"
When the young man rode away it was with a sense of weight and pain
upon him. He was mystified. People were often grateful to him, but
their gratitude was not such as this; this oppressed and disturbed him. It
was suggestive of a mental condition whose existence seemed almost
impossible. What a life this poor fellow must have led since the
simplest kindliness aroused within him such emotion as this! "It is hard
to understand," he murmured; "it is even a little horrible. One fancies
these duller natures do not reach our heights and depths of happiness
and pain, and yet----Cathie, Cathie, my dear," breaking off suddenly
and turning his face upward to the broad free blue of the sky as he
quickened his horse's pace, "let me think of you; this hurts me."
But he was drawn nearer to the boy, and did his best to cheer and help
him. His interest in him grew as he saw him oftener, and there was not
only the old interest, but a new one. Something in the lad's face--a
something which had struck him as familiar even at first--began to
haunt him constantly. He could not rid himself of the impression it left
upon him, and yet he never found himself a shade nearer a solution of
the mystery.
"Raynor," he said to him on one of the evenings when he had stopped
before the shanty, "I wish I knew why your face troubles me so."
"Does it trouble yo', mester?"
"Yes," with a half laugh, "I think I may say it troubles me. I have tried
to recollect every lad in Deepton, and I have no remembrance of you."
"Happen not, mester," meekly. "I nivver wur much noticed, yo' see: I'm
one o' them as foak is more loike to pass by."
An early train arriving next morning brought visitors