"It wasn't so very cold—you usedn't to mind the cold, mother," said the boy.
"Maybe not so much as now," she replied. "I think I'm getting rheumatic like my father and mother before me, for I can't move about so quick, and then one feels the cold more."
"What makes people have rheumatics?" asked Gratian.
"Folk don't have it so much hereabout," his mother answered; "but I don't belong to the moor country, you know. My home was some way from this, down in the valley, where it's milder but much damper—and damp is worst of anything for rheumatism. Dear me, I remember my old grandmother a perfect sight with it—all doubled up—you wondered how she got about. But she was a marvel of patience, and so cheery too. I only hope I shall be like her in that, if I live so long, for it's a sore trial to an active nature to become so nearly helpless."
"Had she nobody to be kind to her when she got so ill?" asked Gratian.
"Oh yes; her children were all good to her, so far as they could be. But they were all married and about in the world, and busy with their own families. She was a good deal alone, poor old grandmother."
"Mother," said Gratian quickly. "If you ever got to be like that, I would never marry or go about in the world. I'd stay at home to be a comfort to you. I'd run all your messages and do everything I could for you. Mother, I wish you'd let me be more use to you now already, even though you're not so ill."
Mrs. Conyfer smiled, but there was more pleasure than amusement in her smile.
"I do think being at the Big House has done you good, Gratian. You never used to notice or think of things so much before you went there," she said. "And you're getting very handy, there's no doubt. I hope I shall never be so laid aside, but I'm sure you'd do your best, my dear. Now I think I shall go to bed, and you must be off too. Father's out still—he and Jonas have so much to see to these cold nights, seeing that all the creatures are warm and sheltered. There's snow not far off, they were saying. The wind's in the north."
Gratian's dreams were very grotesque that night. He dreamt that his mother was turned into a sea-gull, all except her face, which remained the same. And she could neither walk nor fly, she was so lame and stiff, or else it was that her wings were cut—he was not sure which. Then he heard Green-wings's voice saying, "She only wants a sight of the sea to make her well. Gratian, you should take her to the sea; call the cocks and hens to help you;" and with that he thought he opened his eyes and found himself on the terrace where he had been walking with Fergus, and there was a beautiful little carriage drawn by about a dozen cocks and hens; but when he would have got in, Fergus seemed to push him back, saying, "Not yet, not yet, your mother first," and Fergus kept looking for Mrs. Conyfer as if he did not know that she was the poor sea-gull, standing there looking very funny with the little red knitted shawl on that Gratian's mother wore when it was a chilly morning. And just then there came flying down from above, Gratian's four friends. Nobody seemed to see them but himself, and the cocks and hens began making such a noise that he felt quite confused.