"I understand some of what Gray-wings said," he thought. "It's the same in mother's face and in hers when she looks at Fergus." And he held up his mouth for a kiss. "Have you been happy at the Big House?" Mrs. Conyfer asked. "Were they kind to you? She seems a kind lady, if one can trust to pretty looks." "Oh! she's very kind," answered Gratian eagerly; "and so's Fergus. He's her boy, mother--he can't walk, nor scarcely stand. But he's getting better--the air here will make him better." "It's to be hoped so, I'm sure," said the farmer's wife, with great sympathy in her tone. "It must be a terrible grief--the poor child--I couldn't find it in my heart to refuse to let you go when Mr. Cornelius told me of his affliction. But you were happy, and they were good to you?" "Oh, mother! yes--happier than ever I was in my life." Mrs. Conyfer smiled and yet sighed a little. She knew her child was not altogether like his compeers of the moor country--she was proud of it, and yet sometimes afraid with a vague misgiving. "Come in and warm yourself--it's a cold evening. There's some hot girdle cakes and a cup of Fernflower's milk for your supper--though maybe you had so many fine things to eat at the Big House that you won't be hungry." "Ah, but I am, though," he said brightly; and the big kitchen looked so cheery, and the little supper so tempting, that Gratian smiled with satisfaction. "How good of you to make it so nice for me, mother!" he said. "I could never like _anywhere_ better than my own home, however beautiful it was." CHAPTER X. THE STORY OF THE SEA-GULL "Now my brothers call from the bay, Now the great winds shoreward blow, Now the salt tides seaward flow, Now the wild white horses play, Champ and chafe and toss in the spray, Children dear, let us away! This way, this way!" _The Forsaken Merman_ The winter--the real winter, such as it is known up in that country--came on slowly that year. There was no snow and but little frost before Christmas. Fergus gained ground steadily, and his mother, who at first had dreaded the experiment of the bleak but bracing air, was so encouraged that she stayed on from week to week. And through these weeks there was never a half-holiday which the two boys did not spend together. Gratian was learning much--more than even those who knew him best had full understanding of; much, much more than he himself knew. "He is like a different child," said the schoolmaster one day to the lady, when she had looked in as she was passing through the village; "if you had seen him a year ago; he seemed always dreaming or in the clouds. I really thought I should never succeed in teaching him anything. You have opened his mind."