"He is right," said his father and Fergus's mother together.
And so it was settled.
The person the most difficult to satisfy that he was right was—no, not Fergus—sorry as he was he loved his own mother too much not to agree—poor Mrs. Conyfer herself, for whom the sacrifice was to be made. Gratian had to talk to her for ever so long, to assure her that it was for his own sake as well—that he would have been too miserable about her to have got any good from his new opportunities. And in the end she gave in, and allowed herself to enjoy the comfort of her little boy's care and companionship during her long weary time of slow recovery.
Fergus and his mother did not leave a day too soon. With early January the winter spirits, chained hitherto, broke forth in fury. Never had such falls of snow been known even in that wild region, and many a night Gratian, lying awake, unable to sleep through the rattle and racket, felt a strange excitement at the thought that all this was the work of his mysterious protectors.
"White-wings and Gray-wings seem really going mad," he thought once or twice. But the sound of laughter, mingling with the whistling and roaring and shrieking in the chimney, reassured him.
"No fear, no fear," he seemed to hear; "we must let our spirits out sometimes. But you'd better not go to school for a day or two, small Gratian, all the same."
And several "days or two" that winter it was impossible for him to go to school, or for any one to come to the Farm, so heavy and dark even at mid-day were the storm-clouds, so deep lay the treacherous snow-drifts. Not even the doctor could reach them. But fortunately Mrs. Conyfer was by this time much better. All she now required was care and rest.
"Oh, mother dear, how glad I am that I did not leave you!" Gratian would often say. "How dull and dreary and long the days would have seemed! You couldn't even have got letters from me."
And the lessons he learnt in that winter of patient waiting, of quiet watching and self-forgetfulness, bore their fruit.
And his four friends did not forget him. There came now and then a soft breath from the two gentle sisters whose voices were hushed to all others for a time, and more than once in some mysterious way Gratian felt himself summoned out to the lonely moorland by the two whose carnival time it was.