above th' ground), to pick and tie up the heather. It seems all
like yesterday, and yet it's a long long time agone. Poor sister
Sally has been in her grave this forty year and more. But I often
wonder if the hawthorn is standing yet, and if the lasses still go
to gather heather, as we did many and many a year past and gone. I
sicken at heart to see the old spot once again. May be next summer
I may set off, if God spares me to see next summer."

"Why have you never been in all these many years?" asked Mary.

"Why, lass! first one wanted me and then another; and I couldn't go
without money either, and I got very poor at times. Tom was a
scapegrace, poor fellow, and always wanted help of one kind or
another; and his wife (for I think scapegraces are always married
long before steady folk) was but a helpless kind of body. She were
always ailing, and he were always in trouble; so I had enough to do
with my hands, and my money too, for that matter. They died within
twelvemonth of each other, leaving one lad (they had had seven, but
the Lord had taken six to Hisself), Will, as I was telling you on;
and I took him myself, and left service to make a bit of a
home-place for him, and a fine lad he was, the very spit of his
father as to looks, only steadier. For he was steady, although
nought would serve him but going to sea. I tried all I could to set
him again a sailor's life. Says I, 'Folks is as sick as dogs all
the time they're at sea. Your own mother telled me (for she came
from foreign parts, being a Manx woman) that she'd ha' thanked any
one for throwing her into the water.' Nay, I sent him a' the way to
Runcorn by th' Duke's canal, that he might know what th' sea were;
and I looked to see him come back as white as a sheet wi' vomiting.
But the lad went on to Liverpool and saw real ships, and came back