Geoff followed her into the kitchen. It was low and large, with a small deep-set window at each corner, as is usual in such cottages. Before the fire was spread a large rug of home manufacture, made of scraps of coloured cloth, arranged in an indistinct pattern upon a black background, and Bampfylde was occupying himself busily, putting forward a large high easy-chair in front of the fire, and breaking the “gathered” coals to give at once heat and light. “Sit you down there,” he said, thrusting Geoff into it almost with violence, “you’re little used to midnight strolling. Me, it’s meat and drink to me to be free and aneath the stars. Let her be, let her be. She’s not like one of your ladies. Her own way, that’s all the like of her can ever get to please them--and she’s gotten that,” he said, giving another vigorous poke to the fire. Up here among the fells the fire was pleasant, though it was the middle of August: and Geoff’s young frame was sufficiently unused to such long trudges to make him glad of the rest. He sat down and looked round him with a grateful sense of the warmth and repose. A north-country cottage was no strange place to young Lord Stanton, and all the tremour of the adventure had passed from him at the sight of the light and the homely, kindly interior. No harm could possibly happen in so familiar an atmosphere, and in such a natural place. Meantime old ’Lizabeth, with a thrill of agitation in her movements which was very apparent, busied herself in laying the table, putting down a clean tablecloth, and placing bread, cheese, and milk upon it. “I have wine, if you like wine better,” she said. “He will get it, but he takes none himself--nothing, poor lad, nothing. He’s a good son and a good lad--many a time I’ve thanked God that He’s left me such a lad to be the comfort of my old age.” Wild Bampfylde gave a laugh which was harsh and broken. “You were not always so thankful,” he said, producing out of some unseen corner a black bottle; “but the milk is better of its kind, being natural, than the wine.” “Hush, lad; milk is little to the like of him; but _that’s_ good, for I have it here for--a sick person. Take something, take something, young gentleman. You can trust them that have broken bread in your presence, and sat at your table. Well, if you will have the milk, though it costs but little, it’s good too; I would not give my brown cow for ne’er a one in the dales; and eat a bit of the wheaten bread,--it’s baker’s bread, like what you eat at your own grand house. I would not be so mean as to set you down, a gentleman like you, to what’s good and good enough for us. The griddle-cake! no, but you’ll not eat that, my young lord, not that; it’s o’er homely for the like of you.” “I am not hungry,” said Geoff, “and I came here, you know, not to eat and drink, but to hear something you had to tell me, Mrs. Bampfylde--” “My name is ’Lizabeth--nobody says mistress to me.”