'He thinks it'll be a comfort like to the dear child some day.' 'Ah! he little knows what he has lost,' said Mistress Janet, looking at me as I sat wearily on the floor with my arm round the big dog's neck. 'Poor little dear!' and Dame Foster gave her deepest sigh. 'What is the poor widower to do, ma'am, left with that young child?' 'Ah! what indeed?' 'They say he's a hard man, strange and close. I hope he'll use the boy well.' Then they lowered their voices, and their two heads almost met across the table. So I heard no more. Farmer Foster came home one evening with a long black band round his hat. No one told me then; I have only guessed since that my mother was buried that day. With him was Master Caleb Morton, our schoolmaster. He had been a great friend of my mother's, and used to come often to the Castle. Peggy was sent to bring me indoors from my usual place on a high bank among the furze bushes, from where I could look across the farmyard and the cornfields--nearly all stubble now--towards the old keep at home. Master Caleb wanted to see me, Peggy said. I found him with the farmer and Dame Foster in the best parlour, not in the great kitchen where we generally lived. All three looked very grave. 'Willie,' Farmer Foster said, holding out his hand to me as I came near, 'Master Caleb saw your dear mother before she died, and she left a sort of message for you with him. He is come to give it to you now.' I looked up at Master Caleb. It seemed a hard, formal way of getting a message from my mother. I had far rather--and so I think would he--have gone with him to some quiet corner out of doors, and there have listened to her last words. But the farmer and his wife treated it as if it were a sort of solemn ceremony. They sat in two high-backed chairs opposite to each other, stiff and upright as if they had been in church, and signed to me to stand before Master Caleb. He hesitated, looking from me to them. At first he spoke just as he did in school, but presently he put his hand on my shoulder and drew me near to him. After all, the words he had to say were but very short and simple. Only just these: