.

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.

She was a big, brawny, elderly woman with large bony hands, and a face that had hard and heavy features, which were dotted here and there with discolored warts.