"Feelin' real smart, be ye?" asked Mr. Ithuriel Butters. "Wal, I'm pleased to hear it."
Mr. Butters sat in the young doctor's second armchair, and looked at him with friendly eyes. His broad back was turned to the window, but Geoffrey faced it, and the light showed his face pale, indeed, but full of returning health and life; his arm was still in a sling, but his movements otherwise were free and unrestrained.
"You're lookin' fust-rate," said Mr. Butters. "Some different from the last time I see ye."
"I wonder what would have become of me if you had not happened along just then, Mr. Butters," said Geoffrey. "I think I owe you a great deal more than you are willing to acknowledge."
"Nothin' at all; nothin' at all!" said the old man, briskly. "I h'isted ye up out the ro'd, that was all; I sh'd have had to h'ist jest the same if ye'd be'n a critter or a lawg, takin' up the hull ro'd the way ye did."
"And how about bringing me home, three miles out of your way, and carrying me up-stairs, and all that? I suppose you would have done all that for a critter, eh?"
"Wal—depends upon the value of the critter!" said Mr. Butters, with a twinkle. "I never kep' none of mine up-stairs, but there's no knowin' these days of fancy stock. No, young man! if there's anybody for you to thank, it's that young woman. Now there's a gal—what's her name? I didn't gather it that day."
"Vesta—Miss Vesta Blyth."
"I want to know! my fust wife's name was Vesty; Vesty Barlow she was; yes, sir. I do'no' but I liked her best of any of 'em. Not but what I've had good ones since, but 'twas different then, seems' though. She was the ch'ice of my youth, ye see. Yes, sir; Vesty is a good name, and that's a good gal, if I know anything about gals. She's no kin to you, she said."
"No; none whatever."