“Yes?” he said, to encourage me.
“That you wasn’t so sad,” I blurted, with a rush, looking swift and deep into his gray eyes.
“Why not?” said he, taking my hand.
“I’m not wantin’ you t’ be.”
He put his arm over my shoulder. “Why not?” he asked. “Tell me why not, won’t you?”
The corners of my mouth fell. It may have been in sympathetic response to the tremolo of feeling in his voice. I was in peril of unmanly tears (as often chanced in those days)—and only women, as I knew, should see lads weep. I hid my face against him.
“Because, zur,” I said, “it makes me sad, too!”
He sat down and drew me to his knee. “This is very strange,” he said, “and very kind. You would not have me sad?” I shook my head. “I do not understand,” he muttered. “It is very strange.” (But it was not strange on our coast, where all men are neighbours, and each may without shame or offense seek to comfort the other.) Then he had me tell him tales of our folk, to which he listened with interest so eager that I quickly warmed to the diversion and chattered as fast as my tongue would wag. He laughed at me for saying “nar” for not (and the like) and I at him for saying “cawm” for calm; and soon we were very merry, and not only merry, but as intimate as friends of a lifetime. By and by I took him to see the Soldier’s Ear, which is an odd rock near the Rat Hole, and, after that, to listen to the sea coughing and gurgling at the bottom of Satan’s Well. And in all this he forgot that he was sad—and I that my mother was dead.
“Will you walk with me to-morrow, Davy?” he asked, when I said that I must be off home.
“That I will, zur,” said I.