CHAPTER XIN WHICH THE COMPANY AT THE “PACKHORSE” ISINVITED TO DRINK A HEALTH
CHRISTMAS! The weather that ushered in the festive season was false to all the hoary traditions of crisp air and powdery snow, and could hardly have behaved more churlishly. When the sun turned away its red face from the melancholy scene at the Cove on that fateful Saturday afternoon in early December, it showed itself no more for a whole fortnight. The thin haze, which had been beautiful as gossamer when the noon-day sun shone through it, and resplendent as samite when the fingers of dying day embroidered it with gold, became a clammy mist, cold as the touch of death, that found the crevices in the human frame where aches and pains lay dormant and stirred them to activity. Old Cawden, shirted and night-capped, hid his great bulk from sight. Vapours rose like water-sprites from the stream and mingled with the cloud overhead. Robin and starling sat—who knows how miserably?—in their nests, and left crabbed winter to its mood of peevish silence.
On Christmas Eve a Viking’s wind, the “black-north-easter,” awoke in the caverns of the Pennines, and went out to sweep the mists from the moors with his broom of sleet, and right well he did his work. All through the hours of Christmas Day he carried on, and with such fierce zeal that hailstones dancedin the streets of Mawm almost without cessation, like goblins set free by some Lord of Misrule to celebrate their Saturnalia! Shades of Charles Dickens! There was little enough of his genial spirit upon the moors that Christmastide!
Conditions improved a little on Boxing Day, and the wind that blustered up the valley from the south, and barked at the heels of the black-north-easter, was kindlier and more playful. Patches of blue appeared among the clouds. The sun opened a sleepy eye at intervals and smiled on the grey old village, as much as to say that this game of hide-and-seek would not last for ever; and when evening fell the stars came out and studded a blue-black sky from horizon to horizon, with not a single cloud to dim the lustre of any one of them.
The sanded bar-parlour of the “Packhorse,” gaily decorated with holly and one huge bunch of mistletoe, was full, and business brisk. The landlord was kept on the run, but managed to find time to contribute an occasional scrap to the conversation of his guests, which was under no restraint. Prominent amongst the crowd because of his position near the fire, where he occupied an arm-chair and faced old Ambrose, was Maniwel Drake, whose custom it had always been to make the evening of Boxing Day the occasion of one of his rare visits to the inn; and it was plain to see that his presence had affected the drift of the elders’ talk.
“It’s nowt but what you could expect,” piped old Ambrose. “There wor a sayin’ o’ my mother’s when I wor a young lad ’at’s trew as Holy Gospil to this day, ’at there’s no gettin’ white meal out of a coal sack; and by that figger o’ speech I do Baldwin no wrong, neebours; not even this blessed Kersmas-time when we’re meant to be i’ love an’ charity, same as it says i’ t’ Prayer Book.”
“That’s a trew word, Ambrose,” said Swithin“Kersmas or Midsummer-day, a coal sack’s a coal sack and t’ description fits Baldwin same as a dinner o’ broth. But by his-sen Baldwin’s no match for Maniwel, being a bit over slow i’ t’ uptake; and what bothers me is ’at this young fellow should ha’ turned up just i’ t’ nick o’ time, as you may put it, to fill Jagger’s place and scheme for his maister, for there’s no getting over it ’at he has a gift God never gave him and the devil’s own headpiece for mischief-making.”
“Well, well,” said Maniwel cheerily; “we’re partly as we’re made, Swithin, and partly as we make ourselves, and there’s few of us ’at don’t carry both coal-sacks and meal-sacks about wi’ us; and it’s as much as we can do to see ’at we don’t use one for t’other ourselves without peeping into our neighbour’s storeholes. Baldwin isn’t all bad, as I can bear witness ’at worked alongside of him thirty year and more.”
“Maybe not,” conceded Swithin in a doubtful voice. “There’s worse, I dare say, if bad ’uns could all be put through t’ sieve. This here Inman now——”
“Aye,” interrupted old Ambrose with as much energy as his feeble frame was capable of; “but they’re both plannin’ an’ schemin’ for one end which is nayther more nor less nor to put a spoke i’ Maniwel’s wheel; an’ t’owd saying is reyt, ’at a man mud as weel eat the divel his-sen as t’ broth he’s boiled in. Baldwin swallows all this young fellow puts on his plate; and if one’s worse nor t’other it’s both on ’em. You can trust Maniwel to see what isn’t there; but I say they’re a pair o’ ill ’uns, an’ nowt but mischief is like to come when sich a pair o’ black crows get their ’eads together.”
“My word, but Ambrose has getten steam up,” said the landlord admiringly, as he leaned for a moment against the mantelpiece and held one hand towards the flame. “Since Inman came he’s had to bottle his-self a bit; but wi’ him being away for t’ holidays he’s blowing off i’ t’ old style.”
“He’s a black-hearted ’un,” began the old man again excitedly, but Maniwel interposed.
“He’s no friend o’ mine, right enough, Ambrose; but i’ this country we reckon a man innocent while he’s proved guilty, and it’s no blame to this Inman ’at he does his best for his own master. And seeing ’at Jagger and me know ’at we have t’ good will of all our neighbours we don’t ruffle our feathers over their goings-on same as a hen when it sees a hawk. Right enough, they’ve tried to rut t’ road a bit, but they can’t block it, so you’ve no ’casion to worry about us.”
“It was Inman ’at put Baldwin up to t’ trick of holding t’ whip over Joe Gardiner,” said one of the younger men. “Joe told me himself ’at Inman had done it, and threatened him ’at if he carried timber for you they’d start a dray o’ their own.”
“All right, my lad,” replied Maniwel, who knew better than any present what ingenious plans had been prepared and executed to hamper his business; how not only the carrier had been suborned to delay the carriage of his goods, but the timber-merchants themselves had been warned of the risk they were running in affording him supplies. These, and a dozen similar annoyances he and his son had suffered in silence, and had succeeded in countering with more or less difficulty.
“I don’t doubt but what you’re right, and no doubt he’d ha’ liked me and Jagger to pull a face over t’ job. But I’m a pig-headed chap myself, and bad to move when I get set; and it’s a theory o’ mine ’at a man who goes t’ straight road’ll find fewer pits to fall into than them ’at goes crook’d. And that being so I’ve never been one to wet my handkercher and try to make t’ ship move wi’ groaning into t’ sails; but just keep jogging on wi’ a good heart, and when one stick fails me, find another.”
A movement of pots and feet indicated the applause of Maniwel’s audience, for though there was not a manamong them who understood and shared his philosophy, his uprightness and geniality had made most men his well-wishers.
“And how be ye getting on, Maniwel, if it’s a fair question?” asked Swithin. “If nobbut them got on ’at deserved it you’d none be long on t’ road; but it’s a trew word ’at I’ve seen the wicked i’ great prosperity, and there’s some we could name ’at brass fair oozes out on.”
“Aye, reyt enough,” broke in the thin eager voice of old Ambrose; “but there’s a verse I made when I wor a young man ’at puts it in a nutshell. When a man’s in a gifted mood he sees things as clear as Cove watter, and two o’ them lines comes back to me at this minute:
‘Too mich o’ owtIs good for nowt’;
‘Too mich o’ owtIs good for nowt’;
‘Too mich o’ owtIs good for nowt’;
‘Too mich o’ owt
Is good for nowt’;
and it’ll ’appen turn out ’at Baldwin’ll go as dry as a gill i’ summer time.”
“It’ll none be James Inman’s fault if he isn’t drained,” said one of the younger men.
“Nay, but I wouldn’t go as far as that,” old Ambrose replied, shaking his head to emphasise the negative; “hawks willn’t pick out hawks’ een, and Baldwin is gettin’ into years and’ll maybe be thankful to have an able-bodied young fellow o’ t’ same kidney to fetch and carry for him.”
“Aye, but not to share what he fetches,” persisted the other, “they’re both playing for their own hand, and yon Inman’s t’ cleverest rogue o’ t’ two.”
“Nay, nay, come now!” Maniwel broke in, “it’s t’ wrong time o’ t’ year for calling any man a rogue; and it ’ud seem most of us better to look after our own ’tatie patch than to count t’ thistles in our neighbour’s plot. You were asking me how we’re getting on, Swithin, and all I can say is ’at things mightbe a deal worse; and we’ve good hopes ’at when I’ve got my brass in they’ll be a deal better. As to t’ wicked prospering—well, there’s some kinds o’ prosperity ’at ’ud be dear at a gift.”
Swithin had laid down his pipe and cleared his throat preparatory to answering this argument when the abrupt entrance of Inman turned all eyes in the direction of the door. With easy deliberateness the newcomer unwound the scarf from his neck and opened his great-coat, but removed neither. An amused and half-contemptuous smile was on his lips, and his dark eyes swept the company and rested for a moment with malignant satisfaction on the undisturbed features of Maniwel.
“We’re favoured to-night, I see,” he remarked. “ ‘The gods have come down in the likeness of men!’ ”
Nobody answered him, and he stood with his back to the closed door with the sardonic smile deepening about his lips.
“I haven’t had the opportunity of wishing you the usual compliments, gentlemen,” he continued. “Absence must be my apology, and my absence can be explained in a few words. I prefer to be my own messenger when I have any news, good or ill, to share with my neighbours, and what I have to tell you is altogether good. I have been married whilst I was away, and have just brought my bride home with me. She has bid me leave this sovereign with you, Albert, so that the company may drink her health—the health of Nancy Inman, lately Nancy Clegg. I won’t ask you to drink mine.”
He put the coin into the astonished landlord’s hand as he spoke, and curled his lip contemptuously as he noted the hostile silence which greeted the communication. Only one man spoke—it was he who had revealed his thoughts a moment before.
“A lass ’at’ll wed thee is no loss to nob’dy,” he muttered sourly.
“Indeed!” said Inman, wheeling round and fixing the speaker with an eye that stabbed. “I’ll remember that to your credit, Jack Pearce.”
“Nay,” said Maniwel calmly; “you’d best forget it. Jack spoke before he thought. There’s one at my house ’at’ll be sorry he’s lost her, if so be as Mr. Inman’s speaking truth, which I don’t doubt.”
“The truth’s here, in black and white,” Inman replied with equal calmness; “anyone can see it who wants”; and he offered a paper to the landlord.
“Then poor Nancy’s tied a knot wi’ her tongue ’at she willn’t be able to loosen wi’ her teeth,” wailed old Ambrose, and would have said more but Inman interrupted him.
“I fancy you find me in the way, gentlemen, and will discuss this happy event more freely in my absence. There are some of you I cannot expect to honour this toast with any enthusiasm; but I won’t remain to spy on you. I am to share my wife’s home, and you will excuse me if I now return there to share her company.”
He spoke mockingly, like an actor who had rehearsed his part until he knew it by heart, but when he was about to withdraw Maniwel’s voice stopped him.
“This’ll be sore news for Jagger, Mr. Inman, and well you know it. But disappointment comes to us all one time or another; and the lad played his cards badly and must make t’ best on’t. Maybe he’ll come to see ’at you were t’ best man for her; maybe she’ll come to see ’at you weren’t—there’s no telling. But anyway I’ll drink her health, my lad, wi’ a right good will, for I wish t’ lass naught but good, so if you were thinking ’at I should be one to stand out you’re mista’en. And there’s one word I’d say to you ’at it’ll do you no harm to remember—‘A good Jack makes a good Jill,’ and it’s t’ same with a bad ’un.”
The voice and the eyes were alike sympatheticand sincere, and Inman was disconcerted; but only for a moment.
“Much obliged, I’m sure,” he said dryly. “I hope you’ll spend a profitable evening in this Mutual Improvement Class, gentlemen. I’m sorry I can’t.”
When the door closed upon him Maniwel spoke again.
“This’ll be a sad blow, neighbours, for Jagger; but he’s got to keep his feet. I should be sorry for him to hear of it from anyone else, and I’ll step round home now, and help to buck him up. But if you’re agreeable we’ll just drink to the lass first. God bless her! say I.”
“Aye, and God help her!” growled the protester.
A dim light from a storm lantern threw into strong relief the features of father and son as they sat, the younger man on the bench; the older on an upturned box, amid the shadows of the workshop. Jagger’s eyes were on the ground, on the heap of shavings that he had been turning over with his foot for half an hour; gathering them into a heap, dispersing them, and gathering them again.
Maniwel’s eyes were fixed on his son’s face. Talking was over, or almost over. He had said all that he could think of; and if earnest solicitude for another’s welfare, keen anxiety that character should be hardened and tempered by adversity, is prayer, then Maniwel was praying. The door was barred, and there had been no interruption of any kind.
At length Jagger raised his head and met his father’s gaze. His own face was white and weary-looking; there were lines on the brow that looked in that feeble light like ink-smudges, and there were similar shadows at the corners of the mouth.
He had received the communication and all his father’s comments in absolute silence and now that he spoke his voice was hard and resolute.
“You’ll have heard, maybe, that ’Zekiel’s little laddied this afternoon. They came down soon after you went across to Albert’s, and I went back with ’em. They want to bury on Wednesday, so I’ll stay up and be getting on with the job.”
“I’ll bide wi’ you, lad,” said the father. “I’ve done naught this last three days”; but Jagger shook his head.
“Nay, get you to bed. I shall lose no sleep and you would. I’ve got something else to coffin beside Billy.”
“Well, happen you’ll be better by yourself. But when you’ve nailed your trouble up, lad, put it out o’ sight, and don’t let its ghost walk about wi’ you. There’s two ways of dealing wi’ trouble—you can either lie down and let it crush t’ sperrit out of you, or you can climb on t’ top of it and get an uplift.”
Jagger looked steadily into his father’s eyes.
“That’s so,” he said firmly. “I’ve got to put my back into this business now and make it move, and, by gen, I will.”