"He looked good but hard. But I liked him," was Gracie's comment afterwards.
"Yo' be the new curate," he said at once, taking in Eager in a large comprehensive gaze.
"Charles Eager, the new curate, Mr. Rimmer. How is your wife to-day? I understand----"
"Ay, hoo's bed-rid. We're Wesleyans, but hoo'll be glad to see yo' and th' little lady." And he turned back to the house.
"All I have left. There have been many between, but we are the last, and so we're very good friends."
"An' so ye should. A fine name yon, Grace Eager. An' what are yore graces, an' what are yo' eager for, missie?"
"She's full of all graces and eager for all good, like her big brother. Isn't that it, Gracie?" laughed Charles, to cover her confusion at so pointed a questioning.
She nodded and squeezed his hand and skipped by his side, and so they came back to the house.
"Someun to see yo', Kattrin," he said, as he opened the door and ushered them in.
It was but a small room and the furnishings were of the simplest, but everything was spick-and-span in its ordered brightness. There was a small fire with a kettle on the hob, and in one corner was a bed with a sweet-faced woman in it, propped up with pillows so that she could look out of the window.
"Yo're welcome, whoever yo' are," she said.
"It's new curate, Mr. Eager, an' 's li'll sister."
"Ech, a'm glad to see yo', sir, though we don't trouble church much here. Nivver set eyes on last curate, nivver once."
"I apologise for him, Mrs. Rimmer; perhaps he found the long walk through the sand too much for him."
"Ay; he wasn't much of a man," said Rimmer quietly. "Yo're a different breed, I'm thinking. Yo're tackling them Carron lads, an' that's a good job. I seen yo' about the sands with 'em."
"Yes; they're worth tackling, aren't they?"
"Surely; and yo're the man for the job! Now I mun get along or I'll miss tide. Yo'll excuse me, an' if yo'll talk a while with the missus she'll be glad. She dunnot get too many visitors. Good-bye, wife!" And he went out quietly and tramped sturdily away to his work.
"He's a right good mon," said his wife fervently. "And he aye bids me good-bye in case he nivver comes back, and he aye says a prayer for me outside the door. It's a bad, bad coast this," she said, with a sigh. "It took his feyther, an' his grandfeyther, and it's aye on his mind that sometime it'll take him too. An' it may be onytime."