“Nay! There was summat to be done, and ye’d have been i’ the way.” They looked at each other, the man who had suffered and the woman who had suffered much. On their faces was that light, steady, quiet and full of wonder, which touches those who have just stood near to death. “Have you been--” he began, with quick intuition, and could not put his question into words. “Ay, getting th’ poor lass ready.” The widow’s lips trembled. She reached out for Gaunt’s hand impulsively. “I should have been readying her for her wedding instead, Reuben! Oh, my lad, ’tis a queer make o’ business, this o’ living and dying--but ’specially the living.” Gaunt knew that he was needed, and answered the call. “There, mother, you’re not left alone.” The words were few, but the tone of them gave new strength to Mrs. Mathewson. “You can call me mother often--never too often; it’s only fro’ your lips I shall iver hear the name again.” Throughout the watch which these two had shared, no moment had been so full of unexpected tenderness. The widow was leaning on Reuben as on a trusted son, and he was standing to her--not in promise, but in deed--as a stay-by in her latter years. The grip of his hands helped her to face what had to come; the steady ring of his voice relieved a solitude whose silence might otherwise have broken down her spirit. “I must get word down to the coffiner at Garth,” said Reuben, knowing how the thought of work to be done would steady Mrs. Mathewson. “I’ll look for a farm-lad to pass up the fields, and shout to him.” “Nay, but ye willun’t! I’ve planned it all out i’ my mind these last two hours. Nathan, the coffiner, wouldn’t come within a mile o’ Ghyll; I know Nathan, an’ he’s frightened o’ smaller things nor fever. See ye, Reuben! She was always full o’ fancies, an’ often she’d say to me, sitting beside the hearth o’ nights, ‘Mother,’ she’d say, ‘if ever I happen to die, like, I’d like to be buried clean i’ the peat, not down i’ a wet churchyard.’ She lived lonely, ye see, like myseln, an’ I fancy she’d no liking for many neighbours, even i’ th’ kirkyard.” Reuben was ill at ease. He had made no pretence of godliness in years past, but at a time such as this old memories revived. “Mother, you’d have the parson--you’ll laugh at me, maybe--but surely you’d have the parson say a prayer above her?”