The dog dropped his head and slunk towards Sim.
Then Ralph walked on.
The sun had risen over Lauvellen, and the white wings of a fair
morning lay on the hamlet in the vale below. Sim stood long on the
Raise, straining dim eyes into the south, where the diminishing figure
of his friend was passing out of his ken.
It was gone at length; the encircling hills had hidden it. Then the
unfriended outcast turned slowly away.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE GARTHS: MOTHER AND SON.
The smoke was rising lazily in blue coils from many a chimney as Sim
turned his back on the Raise and retraced his steps to Wythburn.
In the cottage by the smithy--they stood together near the bridge--the
fire had been newly kindled. Beneath a huge kettle, swung from an
unseen iron hook, the boughs crackled and puffed and gave out the odor
of green wood.
Bared up to the armpits and down to the breast, the blacksmith was
washing himself in a bowl of water placed on a chair. His mother sat
on a low stool, with a pair of iron tongs in her hands, feeding the
fire from a bundle of gorse that lay at one side of the hearth.
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