“He was sick,” admitted Uncle William, “—some. But it was some cussedness, too. That ain’t the main thing though.” Uncle William leaned nearer. “He’ll get well faster if he has suthin’ to kind o’ pester him.”
She looked at him with open eyes.
“It’s the way men be,” said Uncle William. “The Lord knew how ’t was, I reckon, when he made ’em. He hadn’t more’n got ’em done, ’fore he made wimmen.” He beamed on her genially. “He’ll get well a good deal faster if the’ ’s suthin’ he thinks he wants and can’t have.”
“Yes. How will you keep him away?” A little twinkle sounded in her voice.
“I’ll take him home with me,” said Uncle William, “up to Arichat.”
“Now?”
“Well, in a day or two—soon’s it’s safe. It’d do anybody good.” His face grew wistful. “If you jest see it once, the way it is, you’d know what I mean: kind o’ big sweeps,”—he waved his arm over acres of moor,—“an’ a good deal o’ sky—room enough for clouds, sizable ones, and wind. You’d o’t to hear our wind.” He paused, helpless, before the wind. He could not convey it.
“I have heard it.”
He stared at her. “You been there?”
“I’ve seen it, I mean—in Alan’s pictures.”