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Occasionally, after his meals, he lingered for a few moments watching her at her work when she was alone, sitting by the fire or near the door, and regarding her business-like movements with a wistful air of wonder and admiration. And yet so unobtrusive were these mute attentions that Bess Janner was never roused to any form of resentment of them.
Will yo' coom out here?" He followed her, wondering and sad. His heart was heavy with the pain and mystery the narrow walls inclosed. When they paused a few yards from the house, the one face was scarcely more full of sorrow than the other, only that the woman's was wet with tears. She was not given to many words, Bess Janner, and she wasted few in the story she had to tell.
So it was Seth Raynor who watched by the bedside, and labored with loving care and a patience which knew no weariness, until the worst was over and Langley was among the convalescent. "The poor fellow and Bess Janner were my only stay," the young doctor was wont to say. "Only such care as his would have saved you, and you had a close race of it as it was."
The fact was, that at the first spreading of the report a panic had seized upon the settlement, and Janner and his wife were by no means the least influenced by it A stolidly stubborn courage upheld Bess, but even she was subdued and somewhat awed. "I niwer heerd much about th' cholera," Seth said to her after breakfast. "Is this here true, this as thy feyther says?"
Miss Janner, regarding the humble face with some impatience, remarkably enough, found nothing to deride in it, though, being neither a beauty nor in her first bloom, and sharp of tongue, as I have said, she was somewhat given to derision as a rule. In truth, the uncomplaining patience in the dull, soft eyes made her feel a little uncomfortable.
"Theer's summat noice about that theer young chap," Janner remarked with the slowness of a man who was rather mystified by the fascination under whose influence he found himself "sum-mat as goes wi' th' grain loike." "Ay," answered his wife, "so theer is; an' its natur' too. Coom along in, lad," to Seth, "an ha' summat to eat: yo' look faintish."
So it was easy enough to parley with "th' missus." "A Lancashire lad, Mrs. Janner," he said, "and so I know you'll take care of him. Lancashire folk have a sort of fellow feeling for each other, you see; that was why I could not make up my mind to leave him until I saw him in good hands; and yours are good ones.
"Dunnot yo' turn agen me," he whispered: "yo' wouldna if yo' knew." "But I dunnot know," Bess answered, a trifle doggedly, despite her inward relentings. "I comn to yo'," persisted the lad, "because I thowt yo' wouldna turn agen me: yo' wouldna," patiently again, "if yo' knew." Gradually the ponderous witticism in which Janner had indulged became an accepted joke in the settlement.
"An' if it's cholera, it's death;" and he let his hand fall heavily upon the table. "Ay," put in Mrs. Janner in a fretful wail, "fur they say as it's worse i' these parts than it is i' England th' heat mak's it worse an' here we are i' th' midst o' th' summer-toime, an' theer's no knowin' wheer it'll end. I wish tha'd takken my advice, Janner, an' stayed i' Lancashire.
Four or live foak wur takken down ill last neet, Seth, an' th' young mester wur among 'em; an' theer's them as says it's cholera." It seemed as if he had not caught the full meaning of her words; he only stared at her in a startled, bewildered fashion. "Cholera!" he repeated dully. "Theer's them as knows it's cholera," said Janner, with gloomy significance.
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