Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/206

194 watchin' which way we went, so I 'd know the way back again."

The girl waited, touched. She asked, at last, gently: "Were you all alone?"

"No, miss. 'E was with me. We 'd run away together." "Run away?"

"Yes, miss."

"Why?"

She shook her head. "It 's a long story. It began before we ever knew it, when we went to school together. An' not such schools as you 'ave 'ere, miss. The floor was all stone like a sidewalk. An' there was no stove but a fireplace that burned peat. An' in the big pot that 'ung there, we put the potatoes we brought for our dinners—boys an' girls—an' marked them so we'd know our own. An' put the peat on the top o' the potlid, red-hot. An' roasted them all together. There 's no such potatoes now, miss—none so big an' mealy." "That was in the country?"

"Yes, miss. In Cumberland. You see, miss, I was born in London, but they brought me to Cumberland when I was a wee thing—because my mother was dead an' my father gone off with 'is regiment. An' when you come to the fields, so, from the choke of 'ouses an' streets, it 's the wonder of life, an' you never forget it. I remember to this day, drivin' across the fells with Uncle Wilson the first time I come to th' 'ouse—an' 'ow red the sky was over th' 'ills."

"It must have been beautiful."