"Quite well," responded the stranger gruffly. "Well and hearty."
"Thank God for that!" cried the old woman.
"He told me," went on the other, and his voice still sounded rough and harsh from behind his great beard; "he told me if I were anywhere in Lancashire to look up the old place, and tell his folks he was alive and well."
"Has he been doin' pretty well, sir, d'ye know?" inquired the younger woman, politely, but with interest.
"Pretty well—lately; so I've been told," returned he.
"And he didn't send nothin' to his mother? Nothin' besides the message?" she went on. "Well, I call it a sin and a shame; 'twas scarce worth your while to seek us out for that."
"Howd thy din, Mary," cried Mrs. Rigby angrily. "Not worth while! Why, I'll bless the gentleman for it, an' pray for him day an' neet while I live. Wick an' hearty. My lad's wick an' hearty,—an' I was afeared he wur dead. An' he took thought on his owd mother so fur away, an' sent her word, bless him!"
"He might ha' sent ye somethin' else I think," said Mary wrathfully; "I don't hold wi' makin' such a to-do about a chap as never did nothin' for you in his life. There's others as is worth more nor him."
The old woman drew herself up, her eyes blazing in their sunken orbits.
"Mary," she said, "if ye mean to cast up as ye're keepin' me in my owd age, I tell ye plain, though there are strangers here, I think no shame on't. I brought ye into the world, an' I reared you an' worked hard for you till ye was up-grown, an' kept a whoam o'er your head wi' nought but the labour o' my two hands. An' now as I'm stricken in years an' the owd place is gone, I think no shame o' being' behowden to ye for mate an' shelter."