“KINGDOM OF SCOTLAND.“PARISH OF GRETNA.“THESE ARE TO CERTIFY TO ALL WHOM IT MAY CONCERN that James Garside, of the City of Manchester, in the County of Lancaster, Clerk in Holy Orders, and Esmeralda Atkinson, of the same city, Spinster, being now both here present, and having declared to me that they are single persons, have now been married after the manner of the laws of Scotland. As witness our hands at Gretna the 13th day of April, 1812.“Witnesses: CALEB OSMALSTONE.DOUGLAS FEATHERSTONE.”
“KINGDOM OF SCOTLAND.“PARISH OF GRETNA.“THESE ARE TO CERTIFY TO ALL WHOM IT MAY CONCERN that James Garside, of the City of Manchester, in the County of Lancaster, Clerk in Holy Orders, and Esmeralda Atkinson, of the same city, Spinster, being now both here present, and having declared to me that they are single persons, have now been married after the manner of the laws of Scotland. As witness our hands at Gretna the 13th day of April, 1812.“Witnesses: CALEB OSMALSTONE.DOUGLAS FEATHERSTONE.”
“KINGDOM OF SCOTLAND.
“PARISH OF GRETNA.
“THESE ARE TO CERTIFY TO ALL WHOM IT MAY CONCERN that James Garside, of the City of Manchester, in the County of Lancaster, Clerk in Holy Orders, and Esmeralda Atkinson, of the same city, Spinster, being now both here present, and having declared to me that they are single persons, have now been married after the manner of the laws of Scotland. As witness our hands at Gretna the 13th day of April, 1812.
“Witnesses: CALEB OSMALSTONE.
DOUGLAS FEATHERSTONE.”
“Atkinson,” I repeated, inquiringly.
“Yes, ’twas the name of my mother’s old servant. She stood sponsor for the child when it was baptised. We spent some months of such bliss as it is given to few to know in the cottage at Grasmere, and there I left my bride, and returned to my mother’s house framing to my parent what excuse I could for my unwanted and protracted absence. But before I tore myself from my dear one’s arms I knew that she bore beneath her bosom the pledge of our mutual love, and I thrilled to think that when next I saw her—for my visits must needs be few—I might clasp our offspring to my breast.
“Several months elapsed before I was able to contrive a plausible pretext for absenting myself from home, and during that time my mother never ceased to press upon me the desirability of paying my court to the lady of her choice. She threw us constantly together, and so fearful was I of arousing suspicion in my mother’s mind that I affected to share her views, and paid, with what heart I could, my somewhat halting addresses to the not unwilling damsel. But at length the glad day came when, under cover of visiting a college friend in the North, I could take coach for Westmoreland, and you may judge with what eager ardour I made my way to the cottage where I had left my wife—for wife she was in the sight of God, and, I believe, of man. I sped up the garden path as one speeds on the wings of love; the door was locked, the shutters closed, no smoke rose from the chimney, sign of life about the place there was none. Half frantic with fears of I knew not what calamity, I sought the farmer from whom I had rented the house. He told me my wife had sent the key, along with a note to be delivered to me if and when I returned to Grasmere. You will find it there.”
Again I sought among the contents of the box, and found a letter written in a trembling hand, and blotted with many a tear:
“Your tutor has told me all. He says our marriage is no marriage—that you have tricked me by a farce. He tells me, too, that you are to marry Miss ——, and that our continued connection will be your ruin. You have ruined me and broken my poor heart, but I will not stand in the light of your future. May God forgive you. I go to my own people, if they will have me. ’T were better I had known no other.—ESMERALDA.”
“How I got back to Manchester I cannot tell. I broke in like one bereft of reason upon my mother and that false villain I had so blindly trusted. He sheltered himself behind my mother. She pleaded that all had been done for my best, and that I should live to thank her. In my wrath I cursed her, and swore she should never more be mother of mine, and spurning her from me I fled the house.
“I had some slight store of money of my own. I spent it wandering the country, seeking trace of my lost one. But she had vanished as completely as if the earth had swallowed her. I left England, and travelled abroad. One day, I saw in theTimesthe announcement of my mother’s death. I hastened home. She had made a will leaving me a small annuity for my life—the bulk of her fortune to that accursed tutor.
“My first impulse was to reject the legacy. But other counsels prevailed. I found in time this wild and lone retreat, and here I have waited for death, for I have neither lived nor cared to live. That box contains my horde. Take it to your father’s keeping. I charge you to find my wife and child, if child there be. The money is for them. If you cannot find them in three years from now take it for yourself, Abel, and may God’s blessing be with it and you.”
The old man, old not in years but old from privation, neglect, and mental suffering, sank back upon his pillow, and seemed to swoon away. I felt in a sore quandary. Here was I, alone in this remote cottage, with a man to all seeming at death’s door, little or no food in the house, no medicines or restoratives, and, to complicate matters, a box containing as my hasty rummage in it had disclosed, notes and gold of considerable value. Like most young people I had practically no knowledge of the treatment of the sick and I had an unreasoning terror of death. I knew enough, however, to feel sure that food and warmth and physic must be had and had at once. I made up a peat fire in the rusty range—the chimney smoked atrociously at first, but anon the damp was drawn out, and the fire glowed red and warm. I found some milk in a tin below stairs, which I judged had been left by some neighbouring farmer’s lass. I warmed it in a pan, and succeeded in getting my patient to swallow a few spoonfuls. I piled on to the bed all the covering I could find. I took from the store a spade guinea, carefully locked and stowed away beneath the bed that precious kist, and then, assuring, or trying to assure, the half-conscious sufferer that I wouldn’t be long gone, I hied me away across the moors to the “Floating Light.” There I purchased a bottle of brandy and such provisions as I thought most likely to be useful, and bribed a man I found drinking in the kitchen to make what speed he could down to Slaithwaite and bring back with him, at any cost, old William Dean, the doctor who had brought me and our Ruth into the world, and who cared the bodies of all the Colne Valley from Marsden to Milnsbridge Then, pretty heavily laden, or rather cumbered than laden, I set off once more for the hermit’s cottage.
Now, by this time the shades of night had begun to fall. There was no moon and few stars, and the track across the moor was none too plain, and I had to guide myself some extent by those turf covers those shooters put up when they are beating the grouse—landmarks I knew well from frequently passing that way. I was about midway to my destination when I heard a couple of gunshots in quick succession.
“Strange,” I thought. “It’s late hours for the shooters to be about. Happen it’s poachers, and if any of those gentry are about yon kist of gold’s none too safe, with no one but a dying man to guard it.”
It is curious that at this moment the thought of the Burnplatters crossed my mind—but they had an unenviable reputation, though, like enough, like a certain other personage, they were not as black as they were painted. Anyhow, I increased my pace almost to a run, but had hardly gone a score of yards when I was brought to a sudden stop by a sound that lifted the hair on my head. It was a deep moan, as of one in pain, followed by a petulant curse, and there was the heavy rustling as of a body dragging through the bracken and heather; another moan, and many another oath, and then silence.
Now, to be sure I’d enough on my hands with the sick parson, but I could not find it in my heart to leave a man, or maybe a woman, to perish on the moor, as wayfarers from Lancashire to Yorkshire, or t’other way about, often did in dark or fog. I had bought a pound of tallow dips at the “Floating Light,” for I’d no mind to sit out the night with my patient and ne’er the gleam of a light to company me withal. I put down my pack, and with much ado struck a light on my tinder box, and not a dozen yards ahead of me, near the track, sprawled, face downwards, the body of a man. I turned him over, dipped my kerchief in a pool of stagnant water, and mopped his forehead, forced some of that precious brandy down his throat, and had the satisfaction of hearing a deep sigh and a quick stream of profanity, which, however, I’m fain to confess was as tuneful to my ears as choicer language for when a man’s swearing he’s not like to die.
“Wheer am I, an’ who are ta?” And the man, raising himself with a grunt on to his elbow, peered into my face by the flickering light of the dip. “If it isn’t little Abe.” Now I was by no means little, but I suppose Ephraim—for Ephraim it was, sure enough as I had seen when I turned him over—still thought of me as the urchin he had companied with as a lad.
“You’re on Stanedge Moor, and how you got here and what you’re doing in this coil you known best—up to no good I reckon,” I said testily, for no man of my inches likes calling little. “Seems to me the question is, being here, how to get away. Are you hurt? You made noise enough.”
“Hurt! Aw sud think I am. Howd that silly light to my fooit—th’ reight ’un. Poo’ mi clog off if yo’ can, it’s swelled an’ all th’ daggers i’ hell’s shooitin’ through it. Tak’ this knife an’ cut th’ clog off, an’ don’t be feart of a drop o’ blood.”
I did as I was bid. “Gi’ me th’ clog, man—it’ll n’er do to leave it on th’ moor for a tell-tale. Not but what th’ varmint knew weel enough who they were shooitin’ at.”
“Th’ varmint?” I queried.
“Aye, them keepers at Bill’s o’ Jack’s. Aw seed ’em, an’ they seed me, worse luck. But aw’m all swimmin’. Gi’ us another swig o’ that liquor yo’ han i’ th’ bottle—tho’ what yo’ done here wi a quart o’ brandy to your own cheek passes me. Ugh!” he cried, as he put his foot to the ground, “aw’st n’er make o’er to th’ Burnplatts at this noit, There’s th’ hermit’ hut a bit forrard yonder. Aw’ve teed mony a rabbit to his door sneck unbeknown to him. Happen he’ll ta’ mi in for th’ neet till aw rest my foot. Onny port i’ a storm, tho’ aw’st none relish his company o’er mich.”
There was no help for it, so I picked up my traps and, marvelling greatly at what was to be the end of it all, led the way to the not distant cottage, Ephraim leaning heavily on my shoulder and limping lamely over the sheep track, “breathing out threatenings and slaughter,” though certainly not against “the disciples of the Lord.”
“Them Bradbury’s ’st pay for this, or my name’s not Eph. o’ th’ Burnplatts,” he muttered; and I thought it probable they would.
Now if I hadn’t a handful I should like to know what man ever had. It was with the utmost difficulty, with many a groan and many a halt for breathing space, that I got Ephraim safe landed at the cottage. I made him as comfortable as I could on some sacking in front of the fire in the lower room. He clamoured for more brandy, and wanted to finish the bottle and “be damned to his fooit,” as he put it. But I had to have sense for both—I that was never reckoned to have overmuch for one—and cut off discussion by carrying the bottle upstairs whither I knew Ephraim could not clamber. I found Mr. Garside much as I had left him, whether sleeping or half-conscious I could scarce determine—comatose Dr. Dean called it when at length—about daybreak—he rode up to the cottage and had painfully climbed the steep ladder-like staircase, puffing and blowing like a porpoise, as Ephraim said—for the doctor was fat and scant of breath.
“I’d hardly have turned out of my warm bed to come to this God-forsaken place for anyone but your father’s son,” he growled. “Why didn’t you send to Garstang at Saddleworth; he’s nearer. But no! it’s Bill Dean here, and Bill Dean there, till I’m worn to skin and bone.”
This as he bent over his elder patient—”that young gallows-lad can wait,” he had remarked—and felt his pulse and turned up his eyelids. “Clemmed to death, that’s what’s the matter with him, and it’s too far gone to be stopped I’m feared.”
“Don’t be frightened to order anything that’ll do him good,” I said. “There’s money for anything.”
“And how may that be?” he asked.
I told him of Mr Garside’s secret store, and then by a happy afterthought, I told him that the old man fancied he had a wife and child living somewhere, and that he had left it in charge to me to ferret them out, and if I didn’t find them in three years the money was to be mine.
“Is there much?”
“I haven’t counted it—but there’s a sight more than ever I saw in my life before.”
“This wants thinking on,” said Dr. Dean. “You bide here while I go down and see to that roving blade. ’Tis only a gunshot in his foot. I’ll have him on his leg’s in a day or two. Best have him carted off to th’ Burnplatts. Does he know about this money of the old man’s?”
“No, no one knows but you and me, that I’m aware of.”
“And best he shouldn’t. I wouldn’t trust a Burnplatter as far as I can throw a bull by the tail. But you must have a woman in the place there’ll be one wanted ere many hours be gone; he’ll scarce last the day out, or I’ll be cheated. Do you know of any decent body hereabouts?”
I mentioned Mary at Wrigley Mill.
“Couldn’t be better. I’ll ride on to th’ “Floating Light” and have my breakfast, and sore I need it; and I’ll send someone down for her. She must bring some sheets too. They’ll be needed to lay him out. And I’ll draw up some make of a Will about that money. It will never do to have only your word for it.”
Now that very thought had more than once crossed my mind. I suppose I must have dropped into the deep dreamless sleep of utter exhaustion in the chair I had drawn to Mr. Garside’s bedside. I was roused by a familiar voice below, plain enough to be heard.
“Weel, if ever aw saw a pig-hoil i’ my life, this is it”—’twas Mary soliloquising—“an’ aw reckon this’ll be th’ pig, he snores enough for a styeful, choose how. Eigh! Waken up. Who’s to do th’ house up, an’ thee sprawling on th’ hearthstone. Well, of all th’ messes! Blood all ovver th’ floor. Th’ doctor said nowt about a shambles or he’d no ha’ got me ovver th’ moor.”
“Mary,” I called softly. “It’s here you’re wanted. I’ll see to Ephraim.”
And so, to my great relief, I got Mary installed as nurse. I made some breakfast for Ephraim and myself, to which, despite his wound, which the doctor had dressed and of which Ephraim made very light, that worthy did ample justice. Then I curled myself up before the fire and slept like a log.
CHAPTER III.
POLE MOOR.
ON the third day after Mary’s installation as nurse Mr. Garside passed peacefully away, better cared for in his last days than he had been for many a long year. Whether he regained full consciousness or not ’tis hard to say. He rambled in his talk a great deal, and ’twas sometimes of his mother, sometimes, we judged, of his college days and friends, but mostly of Esmeralda. He seemed to be, in his sick fancies, in the cottage at Grasmere, with his bride by his side, and then his face shone, and his look was the look of a man full of a rich content, but at times a cloud gathered on his countenance, his brow knitted, and he would peer anxiously about with a bewildered air as though searching for his soul’s peace. “Esmeralda” was the last word that passed his lips. We buried him in Saddlworth Churchyard and Mary and myself were the only mourners.
Before he lapsed to final unconsciousness, whilst yet he had what Mary called “his know,” he signed a document drawn up by Dr. Dean, embodying the trust he had imposed on me, and appointing me his sole executor. I had suggested to the good doctor that he should join in the trust, but he declared with emphasis that he’d had enough to do with the bodies of the living without taking care of the goods of the dead.
The day before the funeral, not deeming it prudent to leave Ephraim alone in the house with the dead man’s horde, I got him, hobbling painfully on a crutch, as far as the “Floating Light.” There I knew he could take conveyance to Slaithwaite, and once there I made no doubt he could shift for himself. I promised that I would see him on my very next visit to Pole Moor.
Now Ephraim safely off my hands I was anxious to see my father and take his counsel on various matters, and, above all, to place that precious kist in a place more secure than a chimney could be deemed to be. I prevailed upon Jim to accompany me. I had often pressed him to spend a week-end with me at my father’s house, but he had always made excuses, the chief being that he’d be nervous among “fine fo’k.” In vain I had assured him that he would find no “fine fo’k” at Pole Moor. Jim had formed his conceptions of a parson from the vicar at St. Chad’s, and I verily believe Jim would have as soon spent a night in jail as in the Vicarage of St. Chad’s—sooner he had himself averred, if he could have “a reek o’ baccy.” However, it certainly was not to be thought of that I should carry the kist and its precious contents to Pole Moor with no company but my thoughts, for footpads over Stanedge were as common as blackberries.
So on a bright autumn Saturday morning Jim and I set forth from what had been the old hermit’s abode. We nailed up the door and the shutters before the window. The few sticks were not worth the moving. The books Mary took to Wrigley Mill. She had been mightily interested in the Greek Testament, though when I read her the Sermon on the Mount in that tongue she pronounced it gibberish and flatly refused to believe that our Lord or any other being had talked such stuff. As Jim and I strode briskly across the moor towards our destination, I bearing the box under my arm, I narrated to my wondering friend the story of the past few days.
“An’ how mich did th’ owd felly leave behind him?” asked Jim, eyeing the box.
“Dr. Dean counted the money and made a note of the contents. There’s a gold watch and chain, several rings—one of them of curious design and set about with precious stones, a woman’s ring from the size of it—I counted nine sapphires and diamonds alternating, and very faintly the initials “J. E.” intertwined. There’s ‘Mizpah’ graven on the inner side of it.”
“That sounds like a Bible name,” commented Jim.
“Yes,” I reminded him—I fear I rather liked to air my learning before Jim, and to be sure I must do something to justify the reputation for scholarship Jim had fastened on me, will I, nill I—“don’t you remember ’twas the name Laban gave to the heap he set up to mark his covenant with Jacob, saying, ‘The Lord watch between me and thee when we are absent one from another.’”
“Aw n’er heard tell on it,” said Jim. “But if it’s in th’ Bible aw daresay it’s all reight, but it sounds heathenish.”
“Dr. Dean says the ring is an engagement ring, and thinks it may have been given by Mr. Garside to his wife in his courting days and left behind her when she fled the house.”
“More fool oo,” quoth Jim, “but what can yo’ expect from a woman. What abaart th’ brass?”
“There’s over four hundred pounds, what with notes and gold.”
“And dost ta tell me tha’rt huggin’ ovver four hundred pun’ at this very minute?”
I nodded.
“Four hundred pun’! An’ tha’s th’ heir to it if tha doesn’t find th’ lass?”
Again I nodded.
“Hast ta said thi prayer sin’ tha knew on ’t?”
Again I nodded.
“An’ didn’t ta pray, as tha nivver prayed afore, that if that lass wint East the Lord ’ud surely turn thi footsteps West?”
“I can’t say I did.”
“Weel, if tha hasn’t sense for thissen, folk mun ha’ sense for thee. Aw’st put thi father up to it, an’ if he’ll noan tackle th’ job aw know one o’ th’ Methody preichers at will. Four hundred pun’!”
Pole Moor Baptist Chapel stands in about as wild, bleak, and exposed a spot as a religious community could well have chosen for a place of spiritual communion, and the stranger passing that way must often have wondered whence its pastor drew his flock. I’ve heard my father tell that his church had its small beginnings in the very heart of Slaithwaite, worshipping in an upper chamber of “The Silent Woman,” an inn whose sign depicted a female form bereft of head and so of tongue and speech. But the Earl of Dartmouth of that day owned all Slaithwaite and being, of course, a Churchman staunch and true, and, equally of course, a Tory the good old school, and believing, as Churchmen and Tories will believe despite long and bitter experience to the contrary, that the surest way to convince people of the error of their way and to convert them to the only true faith is to persecute and harry them, set about, or suffered his creature, the curate of St. James’s, to persecute and harry the deluded worshippers at “The Silent Woman”—“hardbedders” they were called, because, I suppose, of the unbending and uncomfortable nature of their doctrine. They were driven from that snug hostelry and sought in vain within the domain of the Earl for land on which to build their little Bethel. So they were fain to erect their chapel on the moor edge, and many and steep and rough were the weary miles the elect must plod to reach their shrine. But plod them they did by the score, bringing their dinners with them, aye, and their teas, too, eating their meals, in the summer time, seated on the gravestones that soon began to dot the little graveyard of the chapel.
They were a dour and uncomfortable lot, these fathers in Israel, “orthodox, orthodox sons of auld John Knox,” pitiless in their logic theologic, hard as granite and unbending as the oak, but just, terribly just. And argue! Oh, Lord! the times I’ve heard them after service, as they smoked their pipes by the fire in the schoolroom in the winter or under the glad sun in the summer, descant upon predestination and effectual calling; capping text with text. They were the “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ”; elect “to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled… reserved in heaven” for them. They were of those “ordained to eternal life,” feeding on the sincere milk of the Word. They hugged to their souls that hard saying of St. Paul: “Whom he did predestinate them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified” They had very vivid conceptions, too, of the lot of the unregenerate. Hell was very real to them, and about the tortures of the damned they had no doubt. And there were so very few that weren’t damned, damned from everlasting to everlasting. In my early youth, whilst still under the influence of this very literal interpretation of the Scriptures. I came to the conclusion that I could reckon on my fingers the elect of the Lord, pruning the elect of Pole Moor, making election of the very elect.
Now will it be credited that my father, who shepherded this ungentle flock, was of all men that ever I have known the meekest and the gentlest—to be sure there were those of his congregation who in their process of winnowing the chaff from the grain had winnowed out my father himself, perchance he, even he, was not of the truly chosen. But elect or non-elect, better man never trod shoe leather, none juster, none truer in speech and deed, none more charitable. We lived miles from the abodes of many of his church—yet in season and out of season, rain or shine, he made his visitations, trudging at dead of night, by the light of moon or lanthorn, across the wild, bleak, oft sodden moors, through hail, and sleet, and snow, and mire, to some distant homestead to pray by the bedside of the sick and dying; “in perils of waters, in perils by his own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness,… in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.” No man ever had a greater heart in so small a body—for truth to tell, he was but small of stature and lean withal as lean he might very well be considering how little he ate of the bread that perisheth and how ill he used his spare frame. He simply did not know fear, and, whilst all the countryside trembled and cringed before those godless Burnplatters, he bearded them in their very den, and so cowed them by the grandeur of his spirit and the sanctity of his life that they who were said to fear neither God, man, nor devil, came to reverence my father, and let it be known among all and sundry that to wrong him was to wrong them, and woe betide the evil-doer who should forget it.
Now at this time my sister Ruth kept my father’s house, my mother, whose sweet face I scarce remember yet seem at times to catch a glimpse of in my dreams, being many years dead, though living till enshrined in my father’s heart. Picture a maiden, “sweet and twenty,” just as high as a tall man’s heart, light of foot, soft of voice, with wavy auburn hair, dark-brown, soft eyes, yet not without their roguish twinkle, tempting lips, teeth of pearl, a neat waist, a neater ankle, a rounded bust, a shrewd, common-sense mind, a soft heart, and a ready tongue—and that was Ruth. A ray of sunshine in the house? Pooh! Ruth was spring and summer all in one, my father’s darling, my own torment and delight, the spoiled pet of the grave elders of the church, and the idol of their grown sons, whose assiduousness at the Sunday services and the weekly prayer meetings I very much fear must be set at least as much to Ruth’s score as to our father’s.
Now considering how awful were the terrors which the faithful at Pole Moor escaped ’tis sad to think how lightly they appraised the services of their pastor, if their appreciation must be measured by the stipend they afforded him. ’Tis true he lived rent free, had grazing for a cow, a mistal, a potato patch, pew rents, and the proceeds of an occasional collection—benefits the pillars of the church enumerated with unction as they reminded themselves that they did not muzzle the ox that trod out the corn. But they ever seemed to forget, and my father was the last to jog their memories, that no one came for alms to Pole Moor and went empty away. So if we had high thinking at the Manse we’d low living, and we seemed to thrive on it. We kept no servant now Ruth was grown, and my father foddered his cow fed his pig “mucked out” the mistal and stye, mowed his meadow, and dug his garden himself: and Ruth’s firm little hands milked the cow, tended the poultry, made the butter, made the bread, cooked our rare joints, and kept all as clean as a new ha’penny.
And so it chanced that as Jim and I drew near the little enclosure walled off from the moor, which served as our kitchen garden, we came upon the reverend pastor of Pole Moor, dressed in a long blue linen smock, his feet shod, in the homely clog, his bare and bald head perspiring freely as he thrust the prongs of a fork into the earth and, turned up the soil and threw the gathered potatoes into a small round basket.
“Who’s th’ owd felly?” asked Jim in a whisper.
“Well, father, how are you?” And I clasped his outstretched hand in mine as he drew the other across his moist brow before pulling his horn spectacles from the crown of his head, where they rested when he was not sleeping or engaged in searching for them in every nook and corner of the house, and often even then. “This is my friend Jim, of whom you’ve heard me speak.”
“And welcome kindly, Jim, to Pole Moor. You’ll stop the week-end, of course, though I fear you’ll have to share Abel’s bed—that is if it will hold you both. Have you seen Ruth? She’ll be milking, I doubt. But come your ways into the house. You’ll be tired after your walk, and a pint of home-brewed won’t come amiss. Or would you prefer buttermilk? Ruth! Ruth!” my father called, and as we entered the tiny manse—Jim spent a good few minutes scraping his feet on the doormat, an act his mother solemnly enjoined upon him e’er we left—Ruth herself emerged, hot and flushed, from the barn, her milking-stool tucked under one arm, a frothing piggin of milk fresh from the udders borne carefully in her right hand.
“Don’t come near me, Abe, or I’st spill.”
Jim has since confided to me that at first glance of my sister’s sonsie face and first sound of her tuneful voice his heart gave a bound within his breast and then left his keeping for good and all— and indeed the maiden was a picture fair enough to look upon. Anyway he grew red in the face, pulled off his cap, and made what he called “a bow and a scrape,” whilst Ruth smiled up into his face with one swift look that I doubt not took in his six feet six inches at a glance, and then scurried off, ostensibly to draw the home-brewed; though as a rule beer barrels are not kept in the bedroom, and it doesn’t need to don a clean print dress and ribbons and lash your hair before drawing a jug of ale.
We quenched our thirst with that modest home-brewed, Jim vowing without a qualm that better he’d never supped, no not in any inn between Greenfield and Huddersfield, and professing incredulity when assured that Ruth had brewed it herself; though, if truth must be told, the liquor was little other than coloured water with a head on it, and Jim could have drunk a barrel of it without, as they say, “getting forrader”—but I blush to say that from this out Jim began to display powers of dissimulation hitherto unsuspected, even going so far as to assure my reverend sire, before we left Pole Moor, that he had long felt uneasy about his own soul’s welfare, and doubted he should never find peace till he had been duly “dipped”—Jim, who could scarce be dragged to church, and who made open scoff of the Methody carryings-on at Wrigley Mill.
“You’d best fodder the cow, Ruth, and then we’ll have tea—the lads will be sharp set. Can you manage to cut the ham, or shall I help you?” But Jim declared that if there was one thing he could do better than another in this world it was to water and fodder a cow, bed her down, and muck out a shippon and as for cutting ham, he had missed his vocation in not being ’prenticed to a butcher. So Ruth tripped off to the kitchen, Jim, bending his broad shoulders to avoid banging his head as he passed through the low doorway, lumbering in her wake like a man-o’-war convoyed by a saucy frigate.
My father settled himself with a sigh of satisfaction in his easy chair, took his churchwarden from the mantelpiece, emptied the remainder of the beer into his pint pot, lit his pipe of “old Women’s baccy,” as shag was called in those days, and prepared to listen to my usual budget of the doings at Wrigley Mill during the last while back, casting curious and inquiring looks at the heavy box I had placed upon the table.
“I’ve a strange tale to tell, father,” I began. “And fain I am to be at home and have your counsel and assistance. You knew Mr. Turner, the hermit of Stanedge Moor, as they called him?”
“I rather knew of him than knew him. I came across him at times in my journeyings and would fain have communed with him, but he held aloof. A lone man, and I fear an unhappy man—but it was not for me to force myself upon him. Well, what of him?”
“He’s dead, and he’s committed that box to my keeping.” And then I told my tale.
“Now, what’s to be done, father? Four hundred pound and more’s a sight of money. You’ll have to look after that. I can’t keep it at Wrigley Mill, that’s certain sure. Mary would go off her head if she knew it was in the house, and I’d be dreaming of burglars and cutthroats till my nights were a burden to me.”
“This is a heavy matter Abel, my son—one to be pondered over nor determined lightly, to be taken to the Lord in Prayer. But one thing is borne in upon me, a thought that comes to me from the Book of Books, that well of wisdom—you must not do after the manner of that wicked and slothful servant to whom his lord said, ‘Thou oughtest to have put my money to the exchangers and then at my coming I should have received my own with usury.’ This lucre must to the bank that it increase and fructify till such time as the woman and her child be found.”
“That’s plain as a pikestaff,” I agreed. “But what can I do to find them? It seems to me Mr. Garside did all a man could do at the time, and after all those years...”
“I’ll think upon it, Abel, and a way may be opened unto us”—and that was all I could get out of him that night. It seemed to me that the good man had resolved upon a policy of what I have heard called “masterly inactivity”; and I’d great trust in my father’s judgment. And perhaps at the back of my head lurked insidious the thought, why should I be in such a hurry to be shut of four hundred pounds? I tried to banish this unworthy prompting of the devil, but there I confess it was, and I’ll not set up to be better than my neighbours.
It was a glorious night—the moor was just bathed in a moonlight you could almost see to read by. Ruth and Jim had disappeared into the mistal, some hay wanted cutting, and chop grinding, so Jim had said. I put my head through the shippon door as I passed and there were Jim and Ruth sat on a heap of pulled hay, the cow was bedded down for the night and placidly chewing her cud—but Ruth and Jim seemed to have found a deal to say to each other, and I was in no ways minded to disturb them and take Jim away, for the simple reason that I was bent on an errand on which it is proverbial that two are company and three are none. I set my face towards Ainley Place and Burnplatts, pretending to myself that ’twas but Christian charity to enquire as to the progress of Ephraim o’ Burnplatt’s game foot, but knowing full well in my heart of hearts, which beat tumultuous at the bare thought, that my eyes ached for another sight of the maiden Miriam; but how to compass my design I must perforce leave to the chapter of accidents.
Some hundred yards or so above the cluster of a score or more of the straw-thatched cots or hovels of mud and rubble that constituted the notorious hamlet, I came across a surly looking customer, clad in fustian and wearing a moleskin cap, seated on a low wall with a cur as unprepossessing as himself perched by his side. The beast bristled and shewed his teeth viciously, but the man quieted it with a word.
“Yo’re out late, mester, an’ summat out o’ yo’r latitude, aw’m thinkin’. Strangers are noan so welcome at Burnplatts this time o’ neet. But happen yo’re a buyer? Dun yo’ want a hoss or a moke belike? Aw can deal wi yo’ for th’ finest, clivverest donkey as ivver went a buntin’—an’ cheap, too.”
I said I was in no present need of either horse or donkey.
“It’s been warm to-day,” he volunteered.
“Pleasantly so.”
“Did yo’ come bi ‘Th’ Sun.’”
I acknowledged that I had passed the doors of that hospitable inn.
“Rare ale at ‘Th’ Sun.’”
I agreed.
“Aw could sup a quart now, by gow I could.”
I fumbled in my breeches pocket and pulled forth a silver coin. The rogue’s eyes glistened.
“I don’t want a horse. I want to know in which of these houses I shall find Ephraim Sykes.”
“Yo’r noan after him, are yo’?”
“After him?”
“Aye, a cop.”
I laughed. “No, a friend. Ephraim and I have been friends since we were lads together. I know he’s had an accident to his foot, and I want to see how he’s going on.”
“He lives in yon hoil yonder, th’ furthest fro’ here. I’d best go wi’ yo’—th’ dogs ’ud welly worry y’ if yo’ went by yo’rsen.” He got off the wall, his cur slunk at his heels, and we passed through the hamlet, our progress punctuated by a concert of howling, growling, baying, and barking from at least a hundred canine throats. We came to a single-storied house, like the rest, straw-thatched and rudely built, but I noticed, even by that illusive light, that it was longer and neater than others that we passed. A red light shone through a curtain drawn across the single window. “This is owd Mother Sykes’s,” my guide said, as I halted near the low door, and I slipped into his hand the coveted coin.
I knocked.
There was the sound as of muttering voices, and at last, long last, the portal was opened about half an inch, and I caught a glimpse of the old beldame I had seen at the Wakes.
“What dost want?” she said in a harsh voice. “We’re a’ i’ bed.”
“I want to see your Ephraim. It’s Abe Holmes, tell him.”
At my name she opened the door grudgingly, and I entered the low room. It was bare to the smoke grimed rafters. The walls were whitewashed, or had been once upon a time. The floor was of hard earth, but strewn with rushes. There was a sullen fire in a grate in a yawning chimney place, so wide and deep that it afforded room within the chimney nook for a seat on either side of the fire. A great iron pot hung over the fire, suspended by a chain attached to a bar across the chimney, and if my nose did not deceive me a very savoury supper was in preparation. There was a round three-legged table, three chairs, and a long oak settle, on which Ephraim lay covered with sacking. The house had clearly two rooms, for I noticed a doorway, and I concluded rightly that this inner chamber was the sanctum of Mother Sykes and the maiden I yearned to see. I strained my ears for sound of voice or movement within the room, but heard none.
The old dame seated herself on a stool before the fire, at times rising slowly and feebly and stirring the contents of the simmering pot with a thible.
“Well, how’s your foot, Ephraim?” I asked, cheerily as I could.
“Granny theer has bathed it wi’ some mak’ o’ herb—oo’s gret on herbs is Granny an’ it’s done it more good nor all th’ bottles in th’ doctor’s shop.”
“Dock-leaves an’ spring watter, nowt no more,” muttered the old dame.
“Aw can put mi fooit to th’ ground now, an’ I’st be dancin’ in a week, an’ then it’ll be ‘Oh! be joyful’ for yon Bradburys at Bill’s o’ Jack’s.”
“What were you doing on the Moor?” I asked. “Nowt, just now. Aw hadn’t even th’ tyke wi’ me. Nor a net, nor trap, nor gun, nor nowt. Aw were just comin’ whom. To be sure aw’d takken a short cut across th’ Moor, so aw suppose aw wer’ trespassin’ But they’ d no ca’ to shooit me for that. But us is fair game. ‘Gi’ a dog a bad name an’ hang him’ ’s true Gospel. But there’s law even for vermin, an’ if we cannot get it fro’ th’ justices—an’ weel we know we cannot—we’st tak’ it.”
“Why not have them up?” I suggested.
Ephraim snorted contemptuous. “Tak’ my advice, Abe. If ever yo’ fall out with the devil don’t yo go to hell for justice; an’ it’s th’ same thing as a man suspected o’ an unlicensed liking for fur an feathers appealing to th’ beaks for fair play. Quod ’em fust, an’ try ’em afterwards, is their way wi’ a Burnplatter.”
I couldn’t help thinking that in nine cases out of ten the method, if somewhat arbitrary, met the merits of the matter, but I did not feel called upon to say as much to Ephraim.
“I called at ‘The Sun’ as I came by,” I said, sheepishly. “I didn’t know how you might be off for brandy. It’s useful in cases of sickness.”
“I’m very sick, to be sure,” said Ephraim with great promptitude, “an’ so’s Granny, be’nt yo’ Granny?” A wintry smile parted the withered lips, and she hobbled to an old oaken cupboard that fitted into a corner of the room, and produced three drinking horns, rimmed with silver—“th’ wedding horns,” she called them. She produced also a short black pipe, crammed it with tobacco, took a hearty swig at the potent liquor, and sat down before the fire, sucking at her pipe in huge content, and condescending to eye me with much less disfavour than her reception had displayed.
“And this,” I could not help the repulsive reflection, “is the grandmother of my peerless Miriam!”
I rose to go. I itched to ask after Miriam, but somehow the words would not come. I could not place her in that coarse environment. I loathed to think of her as the associate of these abandoned Burnplatters.
“I’d be careful how you meddle with those Bradbury’s,” was my parting counsel to Ephraim. “The law’s the law, you know; and ’tis poor work for a horse to kick against the prick of the spur, and just as idle for a man to run his head against a stone wall. I’d give them a wide berth if I were you, Ephraim.”
“Yo’d turn t’ other cheek, I suppose,” sneered Ephraim. “But yo’ see I’m not a parson’s son, an’ if I were I could find a text or two more to my thinking than that—‘an eye for an eye an’ a tooth for a tooth is somewhere i’ t’ Bible, or I’m mista’en.”
I remembered to have heard my father say that the devil not only could quote the Scriptures to his purpose, but on one memorable occasion had actually done so. But every man to his trade. I’m no preacher and just as certainly I was not Ephraim’s keeper. So I took my leave, promising to look in again. Ephraim said neither yea nor nay to this, but the old dame, telling me they kept better brandy at “The Star” than “The Sun,” assured me I should be welcome.
I breathed more freely once out of that hamlet of ill-repute, and set off at a good pace towards Pole Moor, lamenting the failure of my attempt to get sight once more of Miriam, and wondering greatly what could have got her.
And lo! a mile and more from Burnplatts I spied her walking slowly homewards. Her step was listless, her whole being drooped. As I drew near I saw her features plainly by the moon’s cold light, and if I erred not a tear glistened on the long black lashes that curtained her glorious eyes. So rapt was she in thought that she was unconscious of my approach, and when I stood right in her path she started with a little cry, and her hand went to her bosom.
“Miriam!” I cried, and stretched out both my hands.
“Why, ’tis Abel Holmes” she said, and a blush mantled on her cheek If I’m any reader of what the poet calls the light that lies in woman’s eyes the maid was glad see me, and yet alarm mingled with her joy. She glanced apprehensively around the moor.
“Nay, we have it to ourselves,” I laughed, reading her thoughts “But you’re in trouble, Miriam I’m sure of it. Why your cheek is wet. Has anyone ill-used you? And I clenched my fist. I felt just then as if I could face an army of Burnplatters, and would welcome the chance of braying the lot to a jelly.
“Nay, ’tis nought, Abel, only thoughts, idle thoughts. They come over me at times when I’m all by my lone, and they make me sad. But perhaps I oughtn’t to call you Abel. But I heard your brave friend call you Abel.”
“Abe, more like.”
“Ah, well, ’tis all one. And so I thought of you as Abel.”
“Then you have thought of me,” I put in eagerly. “And so have I of you, Miriam. What a sweet name; I never thought a flame could sound so sweet. I’ve whispered it to my heart a thousand times, and the birds in the sky sing it to me, and the soft winds breathe it in my ear, and the very leaves of the trees rustle it, Miriam, Miriam.”
“Hush, hush, you must not say such things. Who am I but the poor outcast maid, and you the good parson’s son. ’Tis folly. And what do you know of me? Why, you’ve scarce ever seen me, though many’s the time I’ve watched you and your sister gathering bilberries on the moor, and wished that I, too, had a brother.
“You’ve Ephraim,” I said.
“Ephraim! Ephraim is not my brother. I could find it in my heart to wish he was. He is my cousin. At least they say so. But I don’t know, it’s all so dark to me. You see, I never knew either father or mother. Ever since I can remember ’twas only granddam and then Ephraim that they say’s my cousin. But I don’t know, I don’t know. I don’t feel it here,” and she passed her hand to her heart. “Ah, ’tis a piteous thing never to have know a mother’s love,” and her voice broke, and the tears threatened to fall.
“But they’re kind to you, Miriam?”
“Kind? Ah! Yes. They mean to be kind. They call me their Queen, and some of the older ones tell of days before they came to Burnplatts, when they had a Queen of their own, and they say I’m come to bring those days again. But oh! how I loathe it all the lying, the drinking, the stealing, the cursing. And the women! They’re worse than the men. And they hate me and speak ill of me because I will not be as they are. Why, even Ephraim bids them leave me alone.”
“And why do you wish Ephraim were your brother?”
“Because—because then,” she faltered, and hung her head in shamed confusion, “oh! then he’d be fond of me—in another way. But you won’t understand.”
Oh, didn’t I though.
“Well, never mind about Ephraim now,” I said. “Tell me about yourself.” We’d walked slowly on, side by side, away from Burnplatts, and had come to a small plantation of wind-battered trees that sheltered us from view, and we sat upon a granite boulder that bulged through the turf. “Tell me about yourself, Miriam—how do you pass your time, what do you do?”
“Oh! I can find enough to do. I knit. I’m a famous knitter. Granddam taught me that, and she sells the things I knit at the farmhouses round; and I make mops and brooms—they say mine are the cleverest fingers in all Burnplatts; and then, when I can buy a book, I read.”
“Read!” I could not help exclaiming, for though it has been said that reading and writing come by Nature, well I knew that Nature’s travails need a midwife if reading and writing are to be the issues.
“Aye, those were happy days when I learned to read and write. I was only a wee child then, and old Daddy was alive and dwelt with us at Burnplatts.”
“Old Daddy! You’re rich in relations‚” I broke in jealously.
She laughed merrily. “Daddy was no relation. ’Tis but the name we all called him by. He used to live at Burnplatts, but he’s been dead these many years. I don’t know how he came to be there, a poor, harmless, shiftless, old man he was. They all made game of him, and he was at everyone’s beck and nod. But they didn’t grudge him meat and drink when they found he could learn me to read and write, and sums, too,” she added triumphantly. “I’ve read the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ twenty times, and twenty times to that, and when you tore me from that horrid man at the Wakes I likened you to Greatheart in the story.”
I believe I blushed. “I’d have fared badly but for Jim,” I told her.
“Oh! Jim,” she said disparagingly, with that utter lack of justice in the award of praise and blame which riper years have taught me to look for her in her sex.
Well now, how long we sat there I don’t know: it seemed but a few minutes. But suddenly she sprang up in consternation. “I must be going; they’ll be searching for me.”
“I’ll see you home,” I said. “Tarry a while, Miriam, I’ve such a lot to say.”
“I daren’t. I must go, and go alone. You must not be seen with me. Granddam would bar me in, and Ephraim—oh! I daren’t think what Ephraim would do. He’s brave and means to be kind. But you cannot tell what he’s like when his blood’s up and the drink’s in him.”
“I’m not feared,” I said stoutly.
“No, but I am. Burnplatters don’t stick at trifles, and a knife in the back on a dark night’s little to them. Never come nigh Burnplatts again.”
“But, Miriam, see you I must. See, I’ll bring Ruth, my sister Ruth. You’d love Ruth.”
“Aye, but would Ruth love me?”
“I’ll go bail,” I answered with great confidence.
“I should dearly like it. But how to manage it. When will you be on Pole Moor again? To-morrow night I’ll be here an hour after sunset. And now go, go. Good-night and go.”
I pressed her hand and she sped away on feet that seemed scarce to touch the heather.
CHAPTER IV.
THE TRYST.
THE next day, being the Sabbath, all our household must go to Chapel. Jim, contrary to his wont on the day of rest, was astir betimes. We had shared the same bed, and I should think that between cockcrow and seven o’clock Jim had drawn his great silver watch from under his pillow a score of times, and seemed to find the hours go on leaden feet. To my impatient inquiry why he couldn’t be still and give me a chance of dropping off, he explained that he had promised our Ruth to milk the cow for her. Now I am firmly persuaded that Jim had never performed that delicate operation before, and for anything he knew to the contrary the udders might be relieved of their milky stream by machinery. At last, to my great content he got up, dressed, and stole down the creaking staircase in his stocking feet, and I heard him lighting the kitchen fire and, if I greatly erred not, vigorously fettling his boots—at which I marvelled not a little, for at Wrigley it was his mother who lit the fire and cleaned his boots—but then to be sure, Ruth was not his mother, nor yet his wife.
I suppose I shall never forget my father’s sermon of that, morning, nor, I think, will Jim. I learned long afterwards that it had been composed by my father and was that morning preached because one of the members of Pole Moor had so far fallen from grace as to marry one of the uncovenanted worshippers at St. James’s instead of fixing his affections upon a sister of the true faith.
Now, my father read as his first lesson the twenty-fifth of Numbers, and when he read the words, “And behold one of the children of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianitish woman in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation,” I could have sworn that he allowed his eyes to dwell sternly upon me—so true is it that conscience doth make cowards of us all; and when the sacred word went on to tell how Phinehas rose up from among the congregation and took a javelin in his hand, and went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly, I caught myself glaring defiantly round the unconscious worshippers of Pole Moor and mentally daring one and all to take up a javelin or, what would come handier to them, a pitchfork against me and Miriam. And the preacher’s text was sixth of second Corinthians, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what Communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?” And noticed that Jim fidgeted uneasily in his seat and glanced oft and furtively at Ruth; but she sat unmoved alike by lesson, text, and the diatribes my good father hurled against the daughters of the Erastian heretics And, indeed, I have ever noticed that whilst women are more devout than men, the shafts of theology fall harmless against the adamant of their common-sense. But Jim I knew was not a little perturbed in mind by my father’s discourse, as I gathered later from his indirect questioning.
“Who were Belial, Abel?”
“Belial?” I questioned in surprise.
“Aye, him ’at your father read about out o’ th’ Bible. He seemed to ha’ a rare grudge agen th’ poor chap, choose who he were.”
“Why, I’m not quite sure, Jim; but I think it’s a polite name for the devil.”
“Phew! Auld Harry! An’ well he might ha’. But surely he doesn’t mean ’at all th’ fo’k ’at hasn’t been reightly dipped be sons o’ Belial. An’, by th’ same token, what for should he be so bitter agen that Moabitish woman? That were a foulish name he ca’ed her. Th’ poor wench had done nought wrong ’at aw could mak’ out. But if it’s i’ th’ Bible aw suppose it’s all reight, an’, to be sure, your father’s further larnt nor us, an’ he sud know.”
Now it was not for me to cast a doubt upon my father’s teaching, but I had to comfort Jim some way.
“I take it ’tis but a manner of speaking, Jim. Religious people get into a way of flinging texts about. Now there’s one consolation about texts. If you find one that seems to bear all one way, you’ve only to look long enough and you’ll find another that bears just as plainly the other way. That’s why religious people, no matter what sect they belong to, can always find unction for their own souls, and nettles for other folk to sit on.”
“But your feyther seemed terrible in earnest. I didn’t rightly understand all he said. He’s a varry difficult man to sit under is yo’r feyther. When I go to Church aw can sleep reight through th’ sermon and o’er wakken till th’ parson gets to ‘And now to God the Father…’ But aw n’er closed mi e’en all this forenoon. He seems fair set agen th’ Church fo’k. Aw rekkon, now, if onnybody but a Baptist went after your Ruth your father ’ud show him to th’ door i’ double quick time.”
“I don’t think he’d like it, to be sure,” I conceded.
Jim looked very crestfallen.
“But then, you know, Jim, the fold is always open. Anyone can be dipped after full approval. He might attend regularly at Pole Moor, say for twelve months, and then I daresay he would be received into the company of the elect.”
“But don’t you think your feyther’d smell a rat? Mightn’t he tumble to it ’at th’ chap were after Ruth?”
“Not he, i’ faith,” I answered with confidence. “A preacher’s only too willing to believe that he’s the lure. And then, you know, Jim, if I know anything of our Ruth, all the texts in the Bible wouldn’t prevent her having the man she’d set her heart on.”
“Aw’m fain to hear it, Abe. Not that it’s onny business o’ mine, yo’ know. Aw were only axing in a general sort o’ way, you know.”
“Of course,” I said, as Jim seemed to look for some comment on this remark. “Of course.”
“You mean ’at ’oo’s booked already?”
“I mean nothing of the sort. Why, she’s only a chit of a girl yet. ’Twill be time enough for Ruth to be thinking of courting in another ten years’ time.”
“Ten fiddlesticks,” quoth Jim, rudely. “How mich younger is she than yersen, I sud like to know.”
“Oh! that’s different,” I snapped.
“Aw dunnot see it,” said Jim; and we arrived at his mother’s house in Wrigley Mill Fold as nearly on the verge of a tiff as ever we had been in our long acquaintance.
Now I suppose it was because I was not quite easy about my own affairs that I had listened with less than my usual patience to Jim’s maunderings. When chapel loosed that morning I had whispered to Ruth that I wanted some private talk with her; and, our simple midday meal concluded, and the pots sided away, she had joined me as I sauntered expectant in the garden. I drew her away from the house, and then I poured into her ears the story of the events that had so strangely broken the even tenor of my life—not omitting the scene at the Wakes, in which Jim had figured so bravely.
“My!” she commented, “wouldn’t I just like to have seen Jim throw that gamekeeper head over heels. He’s a proper man is Jim. And so ’twas he after all rescued the poor girl from the brute’s clutches. Not but what she deserved what she got—what does she want trolloping about at Fairs and Wakes? Why can’t she stop at home and earn her living like a decent body?”
“Oh! Ruth,” I protested.
“Oh! you may ‘Oh! Ruth’ me; but it’s there all the same. She’s no better than she should be, I’st warrant. Men don’t go mauling lasses about in that fashion unless they’ve been led up to it by th’ girls themselves I know their artful ways,” she added vindictively. “And I suppose Jim’s head over heels in love with the girl. It always happens so in th’ story-books.”
“I don’t think Jim’s given a second thought to her,” I hastened to assure her, for I saw which way the cat jumped “It’s me,” I added lamely, stammering and blushing like the booby I felt.
“You, you!” she cried. “Oh! Abel, what will father say? I’ll be bound that’s what he was driving at with his Midianitish woman, and I thought it as that girl down at Slaithwaite. Somebody’s been filling his ears with a fine tale.”
“Let’s hope not,” I said, affecting a cheerfulness I was far from feeling. “But, father or no father, I’m going to get Miriam away from those Burnplatts riff-raff if it’s to be done by hook or crook. A man’s not a pig if he chances to have been born in a stye, and Miriam’s a good girl, Burnplatter or no Burnplatter. And I want you to help me, Ruth. I’m hard hit, sis, and that’s the truth o’ ’t.”
Now, I suppose there never was maiden yet born into this world who has not revelled in a love story. You’ve only to look at the dear creatures as they crowd round a church door at a wedding to make sure of that. The sight of a white veil and orange blossoms sets their sweet hearts all of a quiver. They’re so in love with love that if they haven’t a romance of their own they’re quick to enter into another’s, and if the course of true love doesn’t run smooth it’s not for want of willing help to straighten the way. And I dare say my astute sister may have reflected that one good turn deserves another, and that she herself might have need of a brother’s backing in the days to come. Anyhow, though with many a discouraging shake of her clever little head, she promised me to do what she could to win to speech with Miriam and help me to my heart’s desire. Though what she could do she avowed she failed to see.
“She’s a strange girl, that Miriam of yours,” she averred. “I’ve seen her scores of times these years back. Why, she can’t be as old as I am for I remember her, a little, black-eyed, wild-looking, elfish thing, going about the moors with that half-witted Daddy folk said was such a scholar. I’ve come across her bilberrying, or sat upon a boulder making up bunches of wild flowers, and singing softly some strange heathenish song—she’s a sweet voice enough, I’ll allow. But she’s either feart or proud. I’d have made up to her many’s the time for my heart ached for the girl brought up among those good-for-nought Burnplatters, but no! she was off, like an unbroken colt, before I could say ten words. And more by token I’m a bit feared myself o’ that old witch she goes about with. Folk say she’s got the evil eye, and the girls always cross their fingers when she goes by.”
“I’m surprised at you, Ruth. Where’s your Christianity?”
“That’s all very well, Abel. But facts are facts, and there’s none so much smoke but what there’s a fire somewhere. She’s an evil name in the countryside, and I could wish your sweetheart—if it has to be, though let’s hope you’ll cure of it—had anyone but her for a granny. Then there’s that Ephraim—not but what he might have been all right if he’d been reared different. I remember him as nice a lad as ever strode—but those Burnplatters would spoil a saint.”
“But about. Miriam?” I interrupted, for I was not greatly concerned to hear my sister at large upon the possibilities of Ephraim’s nature.
“When are you to see her again?”
“To-night, please God.”
“I’d leave God out of the question in this job, Abel. Let’s hope it isn’t all a peck of the other one’s brewing.”
“Pshaw!” was all I’d patience to utter.
“Well, ‘pshaw’ be it. You see Miriam and tell her, I’ll make it in my way to meet her on the moor, and if she’s a mind to be friends with me, why, for your sake, Abel, I’ll go far out of my way to be friends with her. Though what th’ congregation will say if they come to know of my ’companying with her and that they will, for certain sure, is more than I care to think.”
“Can’t you say you’re trying to convert her Ruth? There’s more rejoicing, you know, over one sinner that repenteth—though I’ll knock the man down that calls Miriam a sinner. Still, if she could be got to chapel….”
“Abel Holmes wouldn’t fail to be at chapel, too. Why, man, I don’t suppose the poor girl’s got a go-to-meeting frock to bless herself with. But there, Jim’s come out of the house and gone into the barn. He’ll be lighting his pipe and setting th’ hay on fire if I don’t watch him. Go your ways, Abel, and good luck to you. ‘Who maun to Coupar, maun to Coupar.’ What has to be, will be’s good doctrine, if all’s fore-ordained from the beginning; but I could have wished the good Lord had ordained anyone but a Burnplatter for my sister-in-law”—and off she tripped towards the shippon.
I could scarce wait till our Sunday “drinking”—they call it tea nowadays—before I was off to keep my tryst with Miriam, making what I felt to be the lamest of excuses for shirking the evening service. Sundown, Miriam had set, and that I took to be about the time my father would have inverted the hour-glass on the edge of his pulpit and begun one of those long discourses of his that nothing short of an earthquake could have curtailed. So over the moors I sped on the wings of love, only, of course, to reach the plantation long before there were signs of Miriam, and to pass the interval in an agony of longing and apprehension. Sober-minded folk, with as much blood in their bodies as there is in a fish’s tail, may marvel at the fever that now contained me and point sagaciously to the fact that I knew little or nothing of the maiden.
But love, I take it, is like the wind that bloweth where it listeth, and one cannot tell whence it cometh. Time will not breed it, nor does it come of the will, nor yet of judgment and calculation. A man cannot love where he will, nor where he should, nor can he deny love entry when it clamours at the door of his heart. ’Tis like the importunate widow; it will not be said nay. And to my thinking love is born full grown, hot, and lusty. It isn’t a seedling that that has to be watered and sun-shone into life, nor yet a puny weakling that has to be coddled into strength and vigour. It is born a giant, and every man it sways is a hero for the nonce. Nor, I doubt, can love be cast out by prayer and fasting.
But it was not of philosophising I dreamed as I paced on and about that plantation, glancing at my watch and that laggard sun a thousand times, and raking the horizon with anxious eye. I vow I knew by the thumping of my heart that she was near ere sight or sound revealed her approach, and at weary length she came, not from the direction of Burnplatts, but as though she had made a wide detour, as indeed I learned she had, fetching a compass of many a mile’s length, and heeding the distance not one jot, for in those days, when coach fares were high, people had legs and knew how to use them, too, and thought little of covering on foot forty or fifty miles of rough country between sunrise and sundown of a summer’s day.
Now all the way from Pole Moor I had been inventing speeches in my head to outpour to Miriam. I had framed compliments after the manner of the gallants of whom I had read in books. I had even ransacked my memory for poetry, but could think of nothing but that silly jingle—