“His ’prentice hand He tried on man,And then He made the lasses, O,”
“His ’prentice hand He tried on man,And then He made the lasses, O,”
“His ’prentice hand He tried on man,
And then He made the lasses, O,”
whispered Ruth,
“Your ’prentice hands on linseys try,And then to West-o’-England’s fly.”
“Your ’prentice hands on linseys try,And then to West-o’-England’s fly.”
“Your ’prentice hands on linseys try,
And then to West-o’-England’s fly.”
CHAPTER X.
MITCHELL MILL.
I imagine few masters behave as handsomely by their men as Mr. Wrigley did by Jim and me when the news spread like fire from Harrop Green to Greenfield that Parson Holmes’s and Jim o’ ’Lijah’s, th’ Tuner, had dropped into a fortune and were going to start on their own bottom at Mitchell, commonly called Mickle Mill. “It’ll ta’ a guidish mony o’ them sort o’ mickles to ma’ a muckle,” the village wit had prophesied; but Mr. Wrigley was not among the croakers. He sent for Jim and me into the counting house, if so big a name can be given to the little office in which he kept his books and paid the wages each Saturday noon. Mr. Wrigley, I have said, was a man of few words, but a just.
“And so you youngsters are going to run Mitchell Mill?” he said.
“We’re going to try,” I answered meekly, almost feeling that I was doing Mr. Wrigley a personal injury.
“It’s a grave step,” he said, “a very grave step. But you’ve youth and courage. Never lose courage, whatever else you lose. There’s a saying I remember—it isn’t in the Bible, for I’ve looked for it from Genesis to Revelations. Perhaps it’s in th’ ‘Pocrypha—there’s a lot o’ good things in th’ ’Pocrypha—‘He who loses fortune loses much, who loses friends loses more, but who loses courage loses all.’ My first an’ last word to you both is, ‘Go steady an’ keep your tails up.’ If you ever want a bit of advice, don’t be too proud to ask, it, and you know where to come for it. What’s in these envelopes is from Mrs. Wrigley and myself. They should have been wedding presents—oh! we aren’t deaf at Holly Grove but I daresay it’ll come in handy now. Now be off with you, I’m busy. Oh! and I was to tell you to be sure to be at service next Sunday night and stop for th’ prayer meeting.”
We opened the envelopes when we got outside. There was a new Bank of England note for five pounds in each, fresh and crisp, straight from the bank.
“Aw’st go to that prayer meeting,” said Jim, “if aw nevver go to another. The Lord send we aren’t Matthy Haley’d to death, that’s all. But aw’m thinking th’ prayers ’ll be fro’ Mrs. Wrigley an’ th’ brass fro’ Mr. Wrigley, an’ wi’ all respec’ for th’ fair sex, gi’ me th’ brass.”
In this innuendo, however, it turned out that Jim did less than justice to the mistress of Holly Grove; for not to be outdone in magnanimity by her lord and master she invited my father, and Ruth, and Miriam—I can imagine with some misgivings in her case—and Mother Haigh, and Jim, and myself to high tea at Holly Grove. She accompanied the invitation to my reverend sire by an intimation that she would be much obliged if he would conduct a service in Wrigley Mill itself, for she was of opinion, she added, that, though tea drinkings and such like festivities might occasionally be conceded to the frailties of the flesh, such a crisis as had now been reached in the fortunes of Jim and myself were better marked by prayer if not by fasting. In this observation I can imagine my father wholeheartedly concurring, though I doubt his acquiescence when Mrs. Wrigley went on to deplore that the pastor of Pole Moor had wedded himself to the tenets of hyper-Calvinism, she herself finding, she averred, that doctrine but as dry ashes compared with the comforting and inspiring teaching of the sainted John Wesley.
The invitations to Mary Haigh, and Jim, and myself were not conveyed by word of mouth, as they might easily and at no cost have been, but reached us on separate and individual missives, at Mary’s house in Wrigley Mill Fold, by the Royal Mail. Never before in our lives had any one of us three residents in Mary’s humble cottage received a letter so transmitted, and each one of us twisted and turned the document about before mustering courage to break the wafers securing the letters.
“Whativver in the name o’ goodness is this?” exclaimed Mary. “Here, Abe, this’ll be for yo’, though, to be sewer, th’ postman swore it were for me. Aw weren’t for takkin’ it, but he’d noan tak’ it back. Aw’n noan oppened it, catch me at it. Aw’n more sense nor that. Aw nivver knew anyone ’at aw knew ha’ a letter bi post but Jane Stewart, an’ that wer’ to say their Moll ’ud run away wi’ a sojer. There’s bad luck i’ them innercent looikin’ bits o’ papper. Aw feel it i’ mi bones. When folk han onny gooid news to tell they bring it theirsen.”
“Weel, here goes,” said Jim, opening his letter with the air of one leading’ a forlorn hope, “let’s be knowing th’ warst on it. Read it out, Abe, unless bi onny chance it’s fro’ your Ruth, i’ which case aw’ll just off to Pole Moor an’ ax her to read it for me hersen.”
When Jim and his good mother realised that Mr. and Mrs. Wrigley desired the pleasure of their company to tea at ‘Holly Grove I doubt whether their pleasure and pride were equal to their consternation. To be sure, they had sat at table with the master and mistress of Holly Grove at Sunday school treats. That was one thing, but it was quite another to be specially invited as guests to Holly Grove; just as, I suppose, it is one thing to sit at one end of the table at a public banquet and see a Royal Prince, with a powdered flunkey at his back, and quite another to receive a pressing invitation to dine at Buckingham Palace: though, I suppose, even in the former case, as in the latter, you can go about for the rest of your life bragging that you’ve dined with Royalty. I knew a man that did. But that’ not to my story.
“Weel! aw nivver did!” gasped Mary. “Oh! my poor heart, it’s all o’ a quivver. Aw knew that dratted letter ’ud upset me for th’ rest o’ th’ week.
“Weel, there’s one gooid thing aw’n that silk gown mi aunt left me ’at aw’n had laid by i’ th’ prass these twenty year i’ lavender, an’ wi’ camphor to keep th’ moths off. There’ll be a seet o’ seams to be let out, to be sewer, for mi naunts were one o’ th’ lean kine, not to speak disrespectful o’ one ’at’s dead an’ gone, but truth’s truth an’ ’ll allus go farthest, choose what yo’ say. An’ even then aw’m feart aw’st ha’ to be poo’d into th’ frock bi horsepower, an’ it’ll give all ovver. But aw’ll n’er heed if it’ll last this do an’ yo’r two weddin’s. Aw’m noan likely to want it again. Aw’d aimed to leave it to Ruth after aw deed. But nah, aw’st wear it at th’ Holly Greave if it strangles me. Out o’ mi seet, yo’ grinnin’ lads, and mind how yo’ speik to me till this thing’s off mi mind.” And Mary went upstairs to the sacred press in a highly perturbed state of mind.
“We’re coming up i’ th’ world mighty quick,” quoth Jim, shaking his head very solemnly. “Aw’n heered abaat a chap ’at went up like a rocket an’ cum dahn like a stick, an’ aw’m feart this may be just such another do. Aw’n a gooid mind just to step ovver to th’ Pole an’ talk it ovver wi’ yo’r Ruth. Aw’n two neck-cloths, one’s a breet green an’ t’ other’s a mottled ’un, an’ aw wonder which oo’d like me to wear at th’ Holly Greave,” he concluded somewhat lamely.
“Yo’ll do nothing of the sort,” I said with emphasis. “Our Ruth will tie you to her apron strings fast enough, I can tell you, without your trapezing off to Pole Moor every five minutes to ask her to do it. You’ll just off with me to Mitchell Mill and set to work on that water-wheel. It will take us all our time to get things ship-shape by the day we’ve fixed for getting th’ looms in.
“Tha’rt a hard taskmaster, Abe,” sighed the love-sick giant. “When aw swopped Mester Wrigley for going partner wi’ yo’ aw just jumped out o’ th’ frying-pan into th’ fire. Aw’n put in more time at Mitchell Mill nor ever aw thowt it possible for one man to put in, an’ th’ sweat’s run off me like fat out o’ a Michaelmas gooise i’ a hot oven. But aw’ll do thee justice, Abe, tha’rt noan one to ax another to do what tha’rt noan ready to do thissen. Tha’s swept an’ painted an’ mortared an’ whitewashed inside an’ outside yond’ owd mill till tha stinks o’ turps, an’ limewash is all ovver thi yure (hair) an’ face an’ han’s an’ cloas to sich a tune tha’d do for a churchyard monniment, an’ afore tha can go other to th’ Hollygreave or onny other decent body’s haase aw’st ha’ to put thee i’ th’ scourin’ pan and steam thee, an’ then scrub thee dahn wi’ th’ besom.”
And indeed Jim and I had our hands full. Mitchell Mill had been long untenanted, and had fallen into sad disrepair inside and out. The thatch had fallen in in places, the doors hung on their hinges, there wasn’t a whole window to the place, the mill-dam needed dredging, head-goit and tail-goit cleansing, the water-wheel ought justly to have been mended with a new one—but that was out of the question. But the masonry was good and solid, the floorings sound, and the iron of the gearing, though rusted, still firm. And we got a lease renewable at option for a nominal rental, and that meant a lot to us. Of course, we couldn’t afford to employ slaters, or thackers, or masons, or carpenters, or painters, or millwrights; so we perforce turned ourselves into Jacks-of-all-trades. I made but poorly out except at the lighter jobs, but that Jim, though with many a grunt and groan more than half make-believe, did the work of six men. He had the strength of a Goliath, and could turn it to any use. Only give him plenty to eat and a fair allowance of his favourite homebrewed and Jim seemed as fresh as new paint and ready to start again after doing a day’s work that would have made every bone in my body ache for a week.
Now, in my young days I confess to a fondness for reading the works of Mr. Robert Owen, of Lanark, and, to be sure, we are all taught to believe in the brotherhood of man and to bear one another’s burden, and that may mean that the strong should cheerfully earn the whole cake and give the better half of it to the weak, thankful to be able to do it. And I suppose in a perfect state a man will do his day’s work just because it is his day’s work, and be content to share and share alike with a brother who either can’t or won’t do his. But, alas! we don’t live in a perfect state, and human nature will have a long way to travel before it ceases to be true that if you want to get the best out of a man set him to work for himself. Anyhow—I’m no philosopher—Jim and I toiled in those early days at Mitchell Mill, and for many a long year thereafter, like galley-slaves. We had a long row to hoe, and we knew it. And were there not Miriam and Ruth to cheer us when we despaired, and to lighten our toil by all the arts of loving and good women.
Now, one day in mid-March, whom should we spy seated on a low wall near the mill dam but that queer, uncanny Burnplatter, that same Daft Billy who had fetched me from the watch-night service to the bedside of old Mother Sykes, and who, I had reasons for believing, had carried me to my father’s door after Ephraim had left me for dead on Stanedge top. I could never quite get over a sort of shrinking from the man, but I knew that he loved Miriam as the hound loves its master, and hoped that for Miriam’s sake he would do me no ill if he did me no good. So I went to him with outstretched hand—which he disregarded—and asked him to share the beef and bread and cheese and onions which Jim and I had brought in our handkerchief for our mid-day meal.
“Aw want nowt to eit,” he said, with, I thought, scant courtesy. “Aw want to speik to thee private.” He scowled in the direction of poor Jim, and added, “Send yon’ hulkin’ fooil out o’ earshot.” I gave Jim a hint, and he took his tea-cake and pitcher to another part of the mill.
“Now, what is it?” I asked anxiously. “Nothing wrong with Miriam?”
“Not yetten.”
“But you fear harm to her?”
“Aw shouldn’t be here else. It’s none for love o’ you.”
I quite thought I could believe that.
“Well, well?”—impatiently.
“It’s Eph.—an’ them Bradburys. Leastwise, th’ young ’un.”
“But Tom o’ Bill’s a married man, with a family at that—what can he want with Miriam?”
“Oh! mostly to spite thee, aw reckon. He wants none o’ th’ lass. He’s his hands full at whom; but he’d hit thee through Miriam if he can.”
Now that was a very long speech for the taciturn Burnplatter, and ’twere wearisome to tell at large how, bit by bit, like getting gold out of quartz, I got from Daft Billy the story he had to tell.
It would seem, then, that my old friend and later rival and foe, Ephraim, aforetime poacher and horsedealer, had now quite cast in his lot with the gamekeepers at the Moorcock Inn. He was persuaded, too, that by right divine he was now King of the Burnplatters, in joint succession with Miriam to old Mother Sykes, whom, it appeared, that unruly tribe had regarded as their rightful Queen and head. Ephraim was not disposed to take his kingship lightly. He had exacted an oath of fealty from the Burnplatters, and trusted to his new-born friendship with the Bradburys to secure them a certain immunity from the ministers of the law, But he felt, as the most intense conviction of his being, that Miriam was destined alike by Nature, by kinship—he knew nothing, of course, of Mr Garside’s revelation—by their upbringing, and, he believed, by her own predilection, to be alike his bride and queen consort of the Burnplatters. Daft Billy often came across him on his wanderings over the moors that lie between Greenfield and Pole Moor, and had, as I could well imagine under no great pressure, accepted Ephraim’s invitations to drink. Ephraim would begin on ale, of which he would quaff great draughts, without appearing a penny the worse, and then, declaring that ale lay too cold on his stomach, would call for brandy. Now, though I am not learned in these matters, as how should I be, I have always understood that no greater error can be made than to mix your liquors. I cannot understand how this should be, for one would have said that alcohol is alcohol whether derived from the grain or vine. But so I am assured it is; and Daft Billy left me no room to doubt that when Ephraim had got well under way with the brandy bottle all the baser and more repulsive nature of the man betrayed itself. He would begin by boasting, bragging of his own good looks, and strength, and prowess, and skill as a judge and swapper of horse flesh; then he would fall to maudlin talk of his and Miriam’s childhood days, and of her girlish awe and admiration and affection for him; then he would flare up into wild denunciations of myself: he would cut my liver out and throw it to his dog to eat; he would set fire to Mitchell Mill and break every loom to stivers and burn every piece; he would break me in body and in fortune; he would mar me that no maid would look on me but with loathing; he would show Miriam which was the better man: he would—and this was really the gravamen of Daft Billy’s story—beguile her from the safe keeping and, as he deemed them, evil and corrupting influences of Pole Moor, and, will she nill she, make her his wedded wife.
“But all this,” I commented, “is but the raving of a drunken sot. People who really intend mischief don’t go babbling their designs over a pot. They lie low and keep their mouths shut. Then their blow falls like lightning out of a summer sky. Besides, there’s law in the land. As for the mill and our pieces, Jim and I can look after them. And as for Miriam—why, we aren’t in the Highlands of Scotland, where such things might be, but in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and, anyway, Miriam is not the girl to be forced into marriage by Ephraim Sykes and all the Burnplatters put together.”
But Daft Billy was not to be moved by all my eloquence.
“Yon lad means mischief,” he said. “He’d care not a snap of his fingers for all th’ law i’ England. He’s just out of his senses, what wi’ brandy an’ what wi’ jealousy, an’ what wi’ longing for the maid hersen. An’ when a man’s mad, he’s mad; an it s just sheer nonsense argeying about him as if he were i’ his reet senses. He’ll stick at nowt an’ damn the consekences.”
“But what’s to be done?” I asked with some impatience, for to tell the truth I attached mighty little importance to Daft Billy’s story. “Jim and I can’t put Mitchell Mill in our pockets and carry it about with us. And we can’t keep Miriam under lock and key till we’re wed—and that won’t be for many a long day, worse luck. And it would never do to breathe a word to Miriam about the matter. The girl’s happy enough now. Why, Billy, you would scarce know her for the same girl. Why don’t you come to Pole Moor and drink a dish of tea with my father like a Christian man? Then you can see for yourself what a change has come over the dear lass.”
“She ailed nowt afore ’at aw e’er saw,” averred Billy stoutly.
“She’s as happy as the day’s long,” I went on. “She’d but a dark childhood and maidenhood. But now the clouds have passed from her young life and her nature opens and blooms and is fragrant with sweet perfume like a rose under the summer sun. Ah! Billy, ’t would do your heart good to see the glad light in her eyes and hear the glad song of her as she goes about her work. I’m not going to darken her days for her by filling her mind with bogeys. Besides, again, whatcouldwe do?”
“Aw’n thowt o’ that,” said that daft man curtly. “Don yo’ think aw’n ta’en trouble to come here just to fley yo’? That’s noan my way. Aw tell yo’ aw’m as sewer as ivver aw were o’ owt ’at one road or other Ephraim ’ll try to get howd o’ Miriam, an’ if once oo gets into his clutches when th’ drink’s in him an’ all his evil passions burnin’ hot as hell flames, don yo’ think it likely oo’ll escape wi’out hurt? Does a moth go through th’ flame o’ th’ candle wi’out scorchin’ its wings? And yo’ sit theer an’ talk about law an’ its ministers, meanin’ th’ constables, aw suppose. What gooid will other law or Gospel be when th’ mischief’s done. Yo’ may piecen a cracked pot together, but th’ crack’s theer all th’ same. Aw’m noan what yo’ ca’ a pertickler sort o’ man. Burnplatts is noan exac’ly th’ spot for rearin’ saints. But aw tell yo’ this, Abel Holmes, aw love yon lass more nor ivver aw thowt it i’ mi natur’ to love any human being. Aw’n seen her come up sin’ oo began to lisp mi name. Aw’n borne her i’ these arms o’er mony a mile o’ crag an’ fell; her little arms han clung raand mi neck; her little lips han kissed mine; her little head, wi’ its clusters o’ ringlets, has pillowed itsen agen this hard owd heart o’ mine, and aw tell thee, man, if Ephraim Sykes, or onny other man ’at wronged that maid were at th’ bottom o’ Satan’s pit, aw’d lope in an’ glut missen wi’ th’ awfullest vengeance ’at a legion o’ devils could devise.”
I gazed with a horrid fascination on Daft Billy’s face as he uttered these words in a very torrent or whirlwind of speech. The man was wholly stirred from his wonted stolid demeanour. Hitherto I had known him as a morose, silent, phlegmatic being whom, to all seeming, nothing short of an earthquake or an electric battery could move. Well, I suppose the thoughts of danger to Miriam that his silent broodings had conjured up were the convulsion that had fired his passion and loosed his tongue. We ordinary folk are so begirt by law and order and convention that we forget the elemental forces and little realise the heights and depths to which human nature can soar or fall when law and order and convention are swept away as I have seen the dam walls swept away by the waters of a swollen, raging stream. I sat in silence till such time as Billy should recover himself, and then asked quietly, and as if unconcernedly:
“And your plan, Billy—what is it?”
“Weel,” said our visitor, lapsing into his accustomed taciturnity, “weel, aw’m come here to pick a quarrel wi’ yo’ or you long-legged peartner o’ yourn, or both on yo’.”
“To pick a quarrel! Why, whatever have we done wrong to you to quarrel about?”
“That’s nother here nor theer. We mun fa’ out about owt or nowt. An’ yo’ mun beat me wi’ a pickin’ rod till aw’m black an’ blue, or drag me through th’ mill dam, or put me into th’ sizin’ tub, or do owt yo’ like ’at ’ll leave a mark on me ’at aw can show at th’ ‘Moorcock.’ Then aw off to Ephraim an’ mak’ it out ’at aw’ll ha’ yo’r lives to pay yo aat. Yo’ see, if Eph. thinks aw’m on his side he’ll happen oppen aat to me more nor he has done, an’ forewarned’s forearmed. If we nobbut knew aforehand what he’s up to we can tak’ steps accordingly. But th’ main thing is to mak’ him believe aw’m just as set agen yo’ as he is hissen. Aw think it’ll have to be th’ mill dam. What sayn yo’?”
“Well, I for one am not going to beat you black and blue, nor yet drag you through the mill dam. But I quite think it will do no harm for you to make Ephraim and his new mates think we’re on bad terms. So be off these premises”—this with a very menacing tone “be off these premises, you idle, skulking blackguard. Get you out of sight of honest men and go to the scum you’re fit for, or I’ll souse you over head in th’ sizing tub.”
Daft Billy rose hurriedly to his feet, raised one arm as to ward off a blow, clenched his right fist ready for a fray, and eyed me with mingled amaze and indignation. Then a broad grin spread across his features, and he slowly winked first one eye, then the other:
“Tha’lt do, lad; tha’lt do. Aw’m off, and tha’rt noan sich a fooil as aw thowt thee.”
And he lumbered heavily away, chuckling audibly.
I confess I did not attach to the warnings of Daft Billy the importance that subsequent events were to demonstrate in a terrible and tragic manner they deserved. For one thing, I did not know Ephraim Sykes as Daft Billy did. I knew him to be a reckless, lawless sort of fellow, but thought that poaching and an occasional brawl were the limits beyond which even his ungoverned temper would not lead him. Nor, for another thing, had my experience of life and human nature then taught me what devastating havoc can be wrought in the heart of man by thwarted passion, its fires fed by strong drink. “Hell,” says the proverb, “has no fury like a woman scorned,” and I suppose a man who sees the woman he has for years looked upon as his own and whom after his wild and fiery fashion he loves, give the treasures of her young love to another, is in like case to a woman scorned. And, for yet another thing, was there not the entrancing thought that Miriam was to be at the special service at Wrigley Mill, the honoured guest of Mr. and Mrs. Wrigley.
The service was held in the weaving shed, the warping room not being large enough to hold all those who flocked to the meeting. For besides the mill hands at Wrigley Mill, it was known that a number of good folk from Diggle and Woolroad and Uppermill meant to attend the service, friends and well-wishers these of good old Jim. From Stanedge Top and Dig Lea and Harrop Green and Weakey and Harrop Edge and Tamewater right over the hill to Delph, Jim had hosts of friends, and not one to begrudge him his rise in the world. So when it was bruited abroad that this service was to be his farewell to Wrigley Mill, men and women, youths and maidens, wished to do him honour. And, of course, the girls were all agog to see our Ruth and Miriam. Jim had been somewhat of a general lover in the sense at least that he had ever had a hearty word and maybe a sly kiss for all the pretty lasses of the countryside; though I’d stake my life that no girl was ever wronged by Jim. It had been, indeed, a common jest against Jim that he was wedded to his old mother. Perhaps that was why the girls had so set their caps at him, for the French have a saying, I am told—and who should know a woman’s ways better than the French, who seem to think of little else?—that if you run after the provoking creatures they run away, but ifyourun away they’ll e’en run after you. And Jim was popular with the mothers, too; for who so tender and gentle as he with the little mites that in those days used to come down the rough hill sides in rain and sleet and snow of the dark winter mornings to earn their few shillings to swell the slender income of the family. Was it not Jim who let them warm their frozen hands and numbed feet by the boiler fires, and Jim who cared their sodden skirts and hose, and dried them carefully in the drying-hoil, and Jim who carried many a weary little toddlekin home on his broad shoulders hushing its sobs and drying its tears with lumps of goodstuff, all dirty and sticky from being kept in his coat by the blazing, roaring fires, but still goodstuff. And Jim was popular with the men, too, for he had not scorned to take his pint and stand his corner like a man at all the hostelries of those parts; and though, to be sure, there had been a sad falling off in these respects since he had taken to tramping over Stanedge to Pole Moor, it was hoped that marriage would restore him to sanity and his accustomed ways.
And about Miriam there were a thousand rumours and wild conjectures. Mary Haigh’s cottage had been simply besieged by women itching to know the very truth of the whole business; but, though Mary’s tongue ran on wheels most times, she knew when to keep it still. And, of course, the more she didn’t tell, the more everybody seemed to know. Miriam was the daughter of a wicked baronet, and had been changed at birth; Miriam had been proved to be the rightful heiress to fabulous sums now safely, perhaps too safely, coffered in that mysterious repository of great fortunes known as Chancery; Miriam had been the cause of a bloody feud between the gipsy king and the parson’s son; Miriam was a godless heathen who had been brought to grace by the little parson of Pole Moor; Miriam could neither read nor write; Miriam was a prodigy of wit and learning, and could divine the future by the stars—in fine, Miriam was more than a nine days’ wonder for all the womenfolk and some of the men of the other side of Stanedge, as we of Pole Moor called the Diggle Valley.
When Mary and Jim and I got to Holly Grove on the eventful afternoon of that ever-memorable service, we found my father and Miriam and Ruth already arrived, and seated in great state in one of the big front rooms of that imposing mansion. As we walked up Ward Lane and along the tree-flanked carriage drive there had been great debate as to whether we should knock boldly at the great white front door with the flower garden facing towards Greenfield, or whether we should, as usual, seek admission to the presence by way of the kitchen. The debate ended, as great debates often end, by a compromise, it being finally settled, to Jim’s secret relief, that Mary and I should take our courage in both hands and valiantly assail the front door knocker, whilst Jim modestly tapped at the back. We need have been under no apprehensions, for no sooner was Mary within than she was pounced upon by Mrs. Wrigley and Miriam and Ruth and conveyed upstairs to be relieved of bonnet and her wondrous shawl, and Jim and myself were bid by Mr. Wrigley to help ourselves to the gin and water if we wanted to wet our clays, as he called it, and then, taking no more notice of us, he fell to, hammer and tongs, at my poor father.
Now I had always known my good master as a silent, reserved man, very gentle with the children at the Sunday school, seldom taking vocal part in the prayer meetings, except in the hymns, which he sang very heartily and very much out of tune. But now, whether it was the gin and water, or whether it was the theme, he came out in quite a new character. I would have you know that those were the days of the great Reform Bill that set all classes by the ears. And Mr. Wrigley, as beseemed a good Wesleyan, was as stout a Tory as ever drew on a pair of Wellington tops, and my father, as was but natural in a Baptist, was as stout a Whig.
“I’ll tell you what it is, Mr. Holmes, this country is just going headlong to the dogs.” It is a curious fact: I have been young and now am old, yet there has never been a time when, to hear some folk, Old England has not been going headlong to the dogs—but this by the way. “Yes, sir, to the dogs. And little Johnny Russell” thus familiarly did Wrigley speak of Lord John—”little Johnny Russell’s whooping it on. Reform Bill! indeed—giving every twopenny-ha’penny householder the vote, forsooth. And it won’t end there, mark my words, sir. It’s but the thin end of the wedge. Before long my own workpeople will have the vote, and who’ll be master in my mill then I should like to know? What’s the like of them to know about politics and affairs of State I ask you? A man’s got to have a head on his shoulders, I can tell you, to mell with matters like that. And he must have a stake in the country, yes, sir, a stake, and then he feels the responsibility of the thing. But lower the franchise, and where are you? Why, at the mercy of the mob, sir, the mob, a set of rick-burning, frame-smashing, ignorant no-breeches. Help yourself to the gin, Mr. Holmes, and pass the tobacco-jar to the youngsters. They’re better without the Geneva water. Look what it’s done for France, sir, this reforming rubbish: revolution and republicanism, and the guillotine, red ruin, and the breaking up of laws: no king, no church, no State, no aristocracy, no property, nothing sacred, atheism rampant, virtue dethroned, and vice triumphant. Now I put it to you, Mr. Holmes, isn’t it only natural, part of God’s law in a manner of speaking, that men of birth, and family, and fortune, and education, men with a stake in the country, aye, I stick to that, a stake, sir, a stake, should have the ruling of it. Answer me that, if you can.”
Now if I never admired my father before I admired him that afternoon. There he sat in a lofty armchair, his little thin legs scarce touching the floor, his old black coat almost white at the seams, and looking sadly threadbare and shabby by contrast with the shining broadcloth Mr. Wrigley had donned for the occasion—yet did he cower and quail before the owner of Wrigley Mill, and that great mansion, and many a broad acre that lay around? Not he my certes. He was just as calm and composed as when he sat in our little parlour at the head of a conference of ministers, and the hotter Mr. Wrigley blew the cooler my father seemed.
“It’s true enough,” he said, “the great mass of the people are sadly ignorant. But whose fault is that? The great ones of the earth have ruled the roost for centuries, and yet we find they have left those whose natural guardians you say they are in an abysmal darkness.”
“They should educate themselves, sir,” bawled Mr. Wrigley; “that is, if they’ve the minds to carry it, which I doubt.
“That’s to flout your God, sir,” said my father. “Our heavenly Father is not so partial as you would have Him to be. One baby’s very much like another when it first blinks its little eyes at this strange world. Take a little prince from Buckingham Palace and bring him up in the gutter and a gutter-snipe he’ll be, blue blood or no blue blood; take a beggar’s brat and plant it in Buckingham Palace and ’twill make in time a very passable Prince.”
“And when are the working-classes to find time for education, sir, even if what you say’s true, which may be or may not be?” asked Mr. Wrigley as one who puts a poser.
“They’ll have to find time before they begin to work,” said my father stoutly. “Boys and girls of ten years of age ought to be at school and not in a mill. The manufacturers of this Riding are building up their fortunes on the life’s blood of tender and helpless children, and their little voices ascend to heaven and will yet be heard by their Father there.”
Yes, my father said that, and the walls of Holly Grove did not fall and bury him alive. I quaked in my chair. Mr. Wrigley grew purple in his wrath and was evidently rallying all his forces for a crushing rejoinder when fortunately Mrs. Wrigley sailed into the room with Mary and the two girls in her train. Mrs. Wrigley cast her keen glance at her husband.
“I believe you’ve been arguing, John. It’s that horrid gin. It’s a strange thing a man can’t take spirits without wanting to argue. And you lost your temper, too. I heard you from the bedroom. That temper of yours will be your undoing, John, You must pray against it, mustn’t he, Mr. Holmes?”
“Oh Lord!” muttered Mr. Wrigley, feebly, mopping his brow with a large silk handkerchief.
“Now we’ll go in to tea. John, you’ll take Ruth; Abel, look after Mrs. Haigh; Jim must look after himself, for I want Miriam to sit by me.”
Now I was mighty pleased and proud to see that from the first Mrs. Wrigley had taken a great fancy to my dear sweetheart. Perhaps it was her strange and sad story that had touched her heart; perhaps the mother’s heart in her breast yearned over the orphaned girl; or belike it was a way Miriam had of soft and yielding deference to those older than herself.
Now, no one would thank me to tell in full the story of that evening’s service. Matthey Haley surpassed himself. He had listened, I thought, with some impatience to my father’s discourse, which he based, somewhat unfeelingly I thought, on the cryptic saying of Ecclesiastes: “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof.” I was in a chastened mood, and listened meekly enough even to Matthey’s ranting, which usually jarred upon my feelings. But I was learning be-times that most difficult of all lessons: to be indulgent of the weaknesses of others; to all their faults a little blind; to all their virtues very kind. And though, to be sure, Matthey, when in full blast, did rave and roar as though indeed his God was “either talking, or he was pursuing, or he wag on a journey, or peradventure he slept and must be awaked;” yet I doubt not his God, as he conceived him, a sort of magnified man to be flattered, cajoled, and entreated, was to Matthey a very real Being, and Matthey’s religion to him a very real and living thing.
I had looked forward all the day to accompanying my father and the girls at least a part of the way home to Pole Moor; but at the close of the service Mrs. Wrigley was good enough to ask my father to allow Miriam to stay for a week or two at Holly Grove, adding that she had formed the highest estimate of my loved one’s graces of mind and heart, and hoped a little change from the routine of Pole Moor might be all to her benefit. To this my father willingly assented; so that instead of journeying over Stanedge with Miriam by my side, her little hand stealing into mine in the friendly cover of the night, I turned my face to Wrigley Mill Fold with only Mary as my companion. No need to say where Jim was.
“Eh,” said Mary, as we walked slowly down Ward Lane, “Eh! that aw should ha’ lived to see this day, an’ my ’Lijah ta’en away i’ his prime afore it come off. ‘Affliction sore long time he bore, physicians were i’ vain’; at least Dr. Garstang were. But happen he’s been permitted to look down from aboon an’ see his lone widder an’ th fruit o his loins sittin at table wi’ his owd mester an’ his mester’s missus. Did yo’ notice th’ spooin’s, Abe? Real silver, every one on ’em, hall-marked, an’ th’ salt cellars an’ th’ teapot. Aw wonder Mrs. Wrigley can sleep i’ bed o’ neets wi’ so mich silver about. Little cattle, little care’s a true sayin’. An’ th’ cups an’ saucers, Crown Derby ’oo towd me. An’ yo’ should ha’ seen upstairs. Th’ cloe’s on th’ bed that high they’d to ha’ a steppin’ stooil to get into bed; an’ a feather bed that soft an’ thick ’at it’s a wonder onnybody can be got to ger up in a mornin. An’ th’ hair brushes—iv’ry backs an’ han’les. An’ a wardrobe, aw think oo ca’ed it, wi’ a glass to it fro’ top to bottom, so yo’ could see yersen fro yead to fooit. It gay’ mi a turn it did, aw assewer yo’. Aw nivver seed missen full length afore, an’ aw could hardly believe it were me. An’ th’ dresses! Aw do believe oo’s a dress for evvry day i’ th’ week, an’ two for Sundays. An’ th’ linen—all ready choose oo dies. Oo showed me th’ sheets Mr. Wrigley’s to be laid out in, an’ th’ shirt wi’, frilled front, an’ th’ same for hersen. Oh, they needn’t be feart to go whenivver it may please th’ gooid Lord to ca’ ’em, for they’n all ready if it were to-morrow. An’ to think yo’ an’ our Jim may ha’ th’ same if it sud please the Lord to prosper yo’. Aw cannot bear to think on it, Abe; mi heart’s full to burstin’. Aw dunnot know what aw’n done to ha’ so mich happiness showered on mi i’ mi owd days”—and here Mary fairly sobbed, and the tears streamed down her cheeks.
I comforted her as best I could by saying that to be sure she hadn’t done much to deserve such luck: only been the best of wives, the best of mothers, and the best of friends, with a hand ready for any service and a heart that made all her neighbours’ troubles its own. And so by the time we reached her little cot Mary was her serene self once more, and on her straw mattress slept, I doubt not, as sweet a sleep as Mrs. Wrigley on her bed of down.
CHAPTER XI.
JIM AND I GO ON A QUEST.
NOW, though, as I have said, Miriam remained at Holly Grove as a guest of Mrs. Wrigley, I as not destined to see her any the oftener from her being so much the nearer. Mrs. Wrigley had not invited me to visit the great house during my sweetheart’s stay, which I thought she might well have done, and I was far too proud to go there uninvited. I could not forget that though I was now a master myself—in a very small way to be sure, but still a master—I had till quite recently been Mr. Wrigley’s man, and I still stood in some awe of him and his good lady. I am told that men who have been brought up as youths at our great public schools, such as Eton and Harrow, never quite get over the sense of trembling awe with which the headmaster impressed their young and plastic minds. They may become great generals, famous ministers of State, archbishops, aye, even prime ministers, in after life, yet to the end of their days their old headmaster is still their headmaster, a being little less august than Deity itself. Nay, in my own humble experience, I remember when I was a great, broad-shouldered man of forty years and more meeting at Huddersfield Market, for the first time for thirty years and more, one who used to bully and trounce me at the little village school we both attended. I had shot up into a big, strong man. To my great wonderment the bully of my youth was, in his prime of years, a little, peevish, spindle-shanked, weak-chested, pale-faced mannikin that I could have picked up and tossed over any stall without straining myself. And yet, at our first encounter at the market, when he made himself known to me, I felt a sudden sinking and sickening of my heart, such as I had often felt in the days so long gone by, when I had seen him striding across the playground towards me, wrath in his eye, majesty on his brow, a cricket-stump in his mighty hand with which to belabour poor, trembling me for some offence to his dignity as cock of the school. Aye, and would you believe it, at our first encounter at the market, the little fellow, though but a bummer, actually addressed me—me, a prosperous manufacturer, with good and coveted orders to place, in a patronising, condescending tone. But he soon altered his tune, I can tell you. All this to explain why, partly from pride and partly from cowardice, I kept away from Holly Grove during all the time of Miriam’s sojourn there, though I will not deny that when night had fallen, and there were only the moon and stars to witness my folly, I would steal across the fields to the Upper Intak’, and from a safe distance gaze wistfully at the chamber windows, and wonder in which room my goddess slept her sweet sleep and dreamed her pure dreams. One night I was blessed by seeing a shadow cross behind the window blind, and though the night was bitter cold I went hot as a stove all over me, my heart thumped in my breast, and my knees trembled under me. I learned afterwards that I had been staring at the window of Mrs. Wrigley’s very plain and elderly serving maid!
But if I did not go to Holly Grove Miriam came on one blessed occasion to Mary’s house in the Mill Fold. It was in the afternoon, when Jim and I were, of course, busy at Mitchell Mill. She explained to Mary that Mrs. Wrigley had thought she ought not to come to the house when I was likely to be at home: that it was not seemly for a maiden to run after a young man, even though she were plighted to him. Another thing she said, which threw me into much uneasiness and apprehension. Mrs. Wrigley, having heard the story of Miriam’s birth and parentage, as we had gleaned it from her father and old Mother Sykes, was clearly of opinion that inquiry ought to be made as to her relatives in general. Her grandmother Garside had, so Mrs. Wrigley argued, clearly been a lady of position and affluence, and was likely to have connexions in like case. These, doubtless, would welcome with fervour a young and beautiful relation, and who could say what might not ensue from opening up communications with the well-to-do Garside family. To this my Miriam had promptly replied that, so far as she could judge, her grandmother Garside had behaved atrociously to her own son Miriam’s unfortunate father, and to his much wronged wife, her mother: and that so far as she was concerned all the Garsides in Lancashire might be at the bottom of the sea and their money-bags with them: that she was more than content, aye, happy as the day was long, at the humble Manse at Pole Moor, that she asked no greater gift from Heaven than the love of the simple lad who had won her heart, and that she could conceive of no greater blessing than to share his life and fortunes be they better or worse. She had even ventured, though, she confessed to Mary, with much diffidence, to take up against Mrs. Wrigley that lady’s favourite weapon, a text from the Scriptures, and to remind her hostess that we are bidden to lay not up for ourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal, but to lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal; and that for her part she believed that a home, however humble, with fare however mean, where love reigned in the hearts of those that dwelt therein, was indeed a heaven upon earth, the very mirror and prototype of those mansions in the skies to which the chosen were called. Mrs. Wrigley had shaken her head sadly at what she called the romantic ravings of a moon-struck, silly maiden, who would know better than to talk such nonsense when she had a family of lusty lads and lasses clustering round an empty porridge bowl. Then the good dame had changed her tactics and had rebuked Miriam for her selfishness, bidding her to think of me and of how useful a little more capital and the backing of influential friends would be to a poor and struggling firm.
“And there,” concluded Miriam, “she pierced my armour, and I had no answer for her.”
“And what did you say to all this, Mary?” I asked, certain that Mary’s great gift of speech had not been allowed to rust during what must have been a prolonged colloquy.
“Why,” answered Mrs. Haigh, evidently itching to unburthen herself, “when your lass had said her say oo just med me sit dahn i’ th’ rocking-cheer, an’ oo raked th’ fire clean, an’ red th’ hearth up, an’ gate th’ tabble-cloth spread, an’ fot th’ loaf, an’ th’ butter, an’ some eggs fro’ th’ cellar-head, an’ set th’ pots, an’ got th’ toasting-fork, an’ med some toast, an’ boiled th’ eggs, an’ mashed some tea—oo’d browt a pun’ wi’ her fro’ Uppermill, wheer oo’d bin o’ purpose—an’ waited on me hand an’ fooit just as if aw’d bin a lady; an’ not till we’d etten an’ drunk yar fill would oo hearken to another word abaat th’ matter. ‘An empty stomach’s a bad counsellor,’ oo said. Then oo weshed an’ sided th’ pots, an’ set me bi th’ fire wi’ mi knitting. ‘Nah talk,’ oo said, smiling at me like a hangel fro’ heaven, which I awmost think oo is, though her browt up more like a heathen nor a Christian body.”
“And, of course, you talked,” I put in.
Mary looked at me sharply and bridled:
“One ’ud think yo’ thowt aw were gi’en to talkin’,” she said.
“Never a woman less so,” I protested—God forgive me.
“Weel, as it happens aw didn’t talk for a guidish bit, for oo’d put mi studyin’ cap on. Th’ more aw looked at th’ matter th’ harder it seems. Mi fust thowt were ’at Mrs. Wrigley had no call to putherspoke i’ th’ wheel. Miriam’s nother chick nor child o’ hern, ’at aw know on. But then it’s weel known ’at she’s so used to managin’ for everyone ’at works at Wrigley Mill, male an’ female, owd an’ young, single an’ wed, ’at it’s a sort o’ second natur’ wi her, an oo cannot help hersen. An’ oo means weel. Yo’ll mind when Ned Thewlis gate that silly young wench o’ Buckley’s into trouble, Mrs. Wrigley n’er rested till oo’d landed ’em both at Saddleworth Church an’ see’d her med an honest woman, an’ nobbut just i’ time.”
“Well, well,” I said impatiently.
“Yo’re gettin’ as bad as yar Jim,” said Mary, eyeing me coldly. “Yo’ didn’t used to be so. Aw rekkon yo’d better get used to lettin’ a woman say her say, if yo’ want to poo’ on wi’ yo’r wire, choose who she be, as weel as aw sud like.”
I groaned in spirit, and Mary continued her monologue, which long experience should have taught me was but her way of thinking aloud; so that to those side issues which flit across every one’s mind in discussing any subject, and which trained thinkers and practised speakers dismiss as irrelevant from their thoughts, Mary must needs give the spoken word.
“So, as I were, sayin’, yo’ munnot be hard o’ Mrs. Wrigley. It’s perhaps noan payin’ yo a gret compliment to think, as oo happen does, ’at Miriam’s throwin’ hersen away on yo’, an’ might do better for hersen, if oo’d haulf th’ chances her feyther’s dowter owt to ha’ had.”
The hot blood rushed to my face, and I sprang to my feet.
“I asked Miriam before ever I knew a word about her parentage or her fortune,” I began angrily.
“Aye, aye,” said Mary, placidly. “An’ oo took thee when tha were th’ only decent lookin’ or decent spokken felly oo’d ivver clapt e’en on, for yo’ cannot ca’ yon Ephraim other t’one or t’other. But nah, yo know, oo’s happen nowt to do but ma’ her case known i’ Manchester, an’ friends an’ relations, all on ’em weel to do, ’ll just spring up i’ dozens. Brass breeds brass, as onny fooil knows; an’ it’s noan likely ’at her grandmother Garside had nob’dy belongin’ to her, ’at ’ud happen ax nowt better nor to tak’ her bi th’ hand an’ do for her a seet better a worldly way o’ speikin’ nor even yo’r feyther, though, in course, i’ a heavenly way there’s no marrowing him, if aw’m to judge. Aw duzinot know ha fo’k hunt for lost kinfolk; send th’ bellman raand, aw reckon. Onny road, theer th’ case is, Abel, whether yo’ like it or not, an’ it’s not to be thowt ’at like it yo’ weel. It’s hard on thee, lad, an’ aw’m sorry for thee: but reight’s reight, an’ wrong’s no man’s reight. An’ Mrs Wrigley says.
“D——, Mrs. Wrigley,” I began, and went as near to swearing as ever I did in my life, but checked myself in time.
Mary eyed me sorrowfully. “Aw thowt yo’ were yo’r feyther’s son,” she said. “But aw’n said mi say, an’ yo’ can other like it or lump it. Ger aat o’ th’ haase an’ tak’ a walk bi thissen; an’ if yo’ want better guidance nor owd Mary Haigh can gi’e yo’, yo’r feyther’s son s’ud know wheer to seek it.”
It will be judged that I slept ill that night, and Jim must have found me an uneasy chamber-fellow. ‘Uneasy,’ says the poet, ‘lies the head that wears a crown.’ Alas! we all wear crowns of sorts, mostly of thorns; and it isn’t only the Scots thane that murders sleep. Over and over again in my midnight tossings and turnings I railed at Mrs. Wrigley and her meddling tongue. Of course the sting of the whole matter was that I knew she was in the right. My conscience smote me as I looked at things through her eyes. Mr. Garside’s dying charge to me had been to find his child, if child there should be and hand to it the little store he had husbanded so jealously. Well, she was found: so far so good. But if Mr. Garside had lived and found his daughter as I had found her, what wouldhehave done? Would he not forhersweet sake have sought to resume the station his birth and breeding entitled him to? And if that was what he would have done, was it not equally my duty, as standing as it were in his shoes, being indeed not only Miriam’s lover, but what old “Yallow Breeches”—of whom anon—described as one standingin loco parentis. That was the problem that drove sleep from my couch, and with which I confronted poor Jim when I could find it in my heart to rouse him from his Well-earned slumbers.
Jim listened drowsily as I poured the whole tale into his ears, yawning mightily and grumbling not a little at being robbed of his rest to hearken to the opinions of a couple of old women, as he irreverently called his mother and Mrs. Wrigley.
“Aw sud ha’ thowt we’d enough o’ yar hands wi’ Mitchell Mill wi’out bein’ set on to hunt up folks’ kith an’ kin. What does Miriam want wi’ onny o’ her own side? Won’t she ha’ enow o’ yours? There’ll be your feyther, an’ Ruth, an’, after a fashion, me an’ mi mother. That sud be relations enow to satisfy onny ordinary body—to say nowt o’ Ephraim o’ Burnplatts, who’s a handful o’ himself, though aw don’t gradely see wheer he comes in. Aw’m noan so keen o’ kinsfolk mysen, an aw’st be capped if yo’r Miriam doesn’t tak’ after me. But what ails askin’ her hersen? If oo’s frettin’ for her feyther’s folk—a feyther oo nivver saw, much less his folk—oo’s nowt to do but say so, an’ thin yo’ can set to wark; but let sleepin’ dogs lie, say I. N’er trouble trouble till trouble troubles.
“That won’t do, Jim,” I said. “I wish with all my heart it would, but it won’t. I’ll be honest with myself anyhow. You see, even if Miriam in her heart of hearts yearned after her relatives, and all their discovery may mean to her, she would never let on to me that it is so. She would fear to hurt me and to wound father and Ruth. No, no, I’ve to do what’s right, and no one’s back but mine can bear this burden.”
“Why not talk it ovver wi’ yo’r Ruth?” asked Jim “oo’s more sense i’ her little finger than tha has i’ that big yead o’ thine, an’ oo’ll noan stand shillyshallyin’ first this way an’ then that. If y’ like, as a pertickler favour to yo, aw’ll don missen up to-neet an’ walk ovver to th’ Pole, an’ put the whole case i’ front o’ Ruth, an’ yo’ be guided by her, that’s my advice.”
“No, no, Jim, it won’t do. I’m going into Lancashire myself, and if Miriam has any relations living I’m going to find them.”
“Tell, if tha’rt set, tha’rt set, an’ theer’s an end on ’t; but aw dunnot see th’ use o’ wakin’ me up i’ th’ middle o’ th’ neet to ax my advice if tha’d made up thi mind to go thi own way i’ th’ finish.” Jim had yet to learn that the only advice people welcome is that which confirms their own opinions.
“Weel, how are ta bahn to set agate?” asked Jim, after a pause. “Tha cannot varry weel go to Manchester axin’ ivvery blessed man tha comes across if he’s owt akin to Miriam’s feyther.”
“Did you ever hear of a lawyer called Roberts, I think, a Manchester man?”
“Owd ‘Yaller Breeches’? Aw sud think aw did.”
“Yaller Breeches?” I queried.
“Aye, they seyn a what do yo’ ca’ ‘em, a cust’mer o’ his—no, that’s noan th’ word.”
“A client,” I suggested.
“Aye, that’s it. A client o’ his ’at he’d gate out o’ a pertickler tight fix gay’ him a whole piece o’ yaller cloath, an’ he’s wearin’ it aat i’ breeches. Ne’er wears onny other sort, Sunday or warkday. They seyn hauf th’ rogues i’ Lancasheer ’at’s walkin’ th’ streets to-day ’ud ha’ bin i’ Towzer (jail) but for him.”
“That’s a doubtful sort of compliment,” I observed.
“Doubtful fiddlesticks,” quoth Jim. “If yo’ want to clean a chimbley yo’ don’t get a lace hankercher to it, dun yo’? It’s th’ same wi’ law, aw tak’ it. Yaller Breeches is th’ man for yo’r brass, aw tell yo’, an’ seem’ as to-morn’s a short day, aw’m agreeable to start wi’ yo’ to walk to Manchester afore th’ sun’s up, an’ we’st be theer bi th’ time he’s dahn to his office.”
“How shall we find it?”
“Ax th’ first bobby we meet, yo’ silly.”
“Why not take the coach?”
“Coach, says ta? What’s legs for, aw sud like to know, an’ it nobbut a matter o’ thirty mile fro’ here to Manchester an’ back. Why, aw knew a felly, a higgler he were, ’at used to walk sixty mile a day an’ go coortin’ at after. Aw’m thinkin’, Abe, tha’s getten some biggish notions i’ thi yead o’ late. Fingerin’ that brass o’ owd Garside’s gi’en thee a touch o’ what, wi’out offence, aw’ll tak’ leave to ca’ swelled yead. If we’n to mak’ Mitchell Mill go there’ll be no coaches for other thee nor me this monny a day. Look at owd Bamforth o’ Slowit yonder, as warm a man as yo’d find i’ these pearts, an him nowt but a han’-loom weiver to start wi. Did he do it on coaches, thinkst ta? Not he, bi gow. He telled me hissen. He used to stan’ Newcastle an’ Macclesfield markets wi’ his cloath. He sent th’ piece on bi th’ carrier. He’d ha’ hugged ’em if he could; but even a Doady has his limits.”
“A Doady?”
“Yo’ know all them parts is called Doady Land. So he sent th’ pieces on by th’ carrier, an’ for hissen just took Shank’s mare. Yo’ can reckon for yersen what a poo’ he had ovver clothiers ’at went bi th’ coach an’ had to put th’ coach fare on to th’ price o’ their pieces. An’ it isn’t th’ coach fare only. Yo’n to stop here for brekfus’, an’ theer for dinner, an’ theer agen for supper an’ them big coachin’-houses know how to charge for their victuals, aw reckon. Then there’s tips to th’ ostler, an th’ waiters, an’ th’ booits, an’ th’ chambermaids—to say nowt o’ th’ drinkin’. But owd Bamforth used to put a big apple pasty ’at their Sarah made for him up his weskit, an’ rare and warm it kept him i’ cowd weather, an’ he’s ca’ at a farmhouse on th’ road an’ get a pint o’ milk for a penny, or mebbe for th’ axin’—an’ theer he were. Coach, indeed! Do yo’ think aw’n gi’en up ale an’ denied missen all th’ little bit o’ pleasure aw ivver had just to throw mi brass away on coaches? No, Abe, lad, we’st fooit it, every inch on it, an’ don’t yo’ forget it.”
And foot it we did—right through Greenfield and Mossley and Stalybridge and Ashton, and so to Manchester, where, sure enough, we had no difficulty in finding the office of Mr. Roberts himself. To me, as I walked the streets of that vast city, it seemed stark madness to think that amid such a multitude as teemed on the wayside any human ingenuity could discover those of whom we were in quest. But that wonderful Yellow Breeches made light of the task.
“It’ll be easy as falling off a tree,” he said. “Garside, the Rev. James Garside, an ordained minister of the Church of England, a graduate of Oxford University. Why, man alive, I suppose I shall have nothing to do but ask at the university and they’ll tell us there who was the Rev. James’s father. And a Manchester merchant, and a rich one, and only dead a matter of forty or fifty years. Pooh! it’s as easy as sinning. But what the young lady ’ll do with her relations when she finds them, or what they ’ll do with her, beats me. A paltry four hundred pounds or so! Who’s going to bother about that? You see, if her relations are rich they won’t want her and her beggarly four hundred; if they’re poor, I take it she won’t want them. However, that’s your business. You say the girl is staying with Mrs. Wrigley at Holly Grove? Very good. Five guineas, please. You’ll hear from me within a week or two. Good morning.”
I paid the five guineas, whilst Jim looked mighty glum, but opened not his mouth till we regained the street.
“Five guineas! he exclaimed. ‘Five gowden guineas. ‘Bang went saxpence,’ th’ Scotchman said when he’d his first tot o’ whiskey i’ Lunnon. An’ bang went yo’r gooid brass; an’ all for what? Aw’m dalled if aw can tell yo. He’s getten howd, onny road, but aw nivver seed brass skip out o’ one chap’s fob into another felly’s as quick i’ my life. It beats conjurin’ hollow. Eh! mon, we’n missed our vocation, as yo’r feyther ‘d ca’ it. Here’s yo an’ me, ovver twelve foot o’ guid bone an’ flesh and blood between us, ’ll ha’ to toil an’ moil an’ sweat for mony a weary day to scrape that bras together, an’ he just says, ‘Five guineas; good morning,’ an’ th’ bonnie yaller gowd’s gone for gooid an’ aw. If ivver aw’n a son aw’ll breed him to be a ’torney. Aw thowt parsons an’ doctors ’d a easy time on it, but lawyerin’ for me, say I. Yo’ do get a bottle o’ physic aat o’ th’ doctor, but yo’n nowt owt o’ yon chap but ‘Gooid mornin’!’ Well, well, th’ longer aw live th’ plainer aw see ’at warkin’s a fooil’s job. Th’ harder th’ work, th’ less th’ pay. Show me a chap ’at slaves his blood to watter an’ aw’ll show yo’ one ’at ’ll, ten to one, dee i’th’ warkhouse. Show me one ’at does nowt fro’ morn to neet an’ aw’ll show thee a man, as like as not, clothed i’ purple an’ fine linen.”
“It’s brains, Jim, brains,” I said for his solace. “Now here were you an’ me cudgelling our heads how to get on the scent of poor Mr. Garside’s relations, and even your mother could suggest nothing better than setting the bell-man to work; and Mr. Roberts yonder had it all planned out in the twinkling of an eye. You’ll see he’ll run them to earth before you can say ‘Jack Robinson.’”
I proved a true prophet. A few days after our visit to Manchester a messenger came from Wrigley Mill to Mitchell Mill to say that I was wanted at once at Holly Grove. I wasn’t to stop to fettle myself up—I was to go as I was. Wondering not a little what could have chanced to cause this urgent summons, and conjuring up in my mind a thousand forebodings of I knew not what disaster, I made haste to Holly Grove. At the end of the drive there stood as fine an equipage as ever drove through Diggle, a carriage with a pair of mettlesome bays with silver-mounted harness tossing their glossy manes and pawing the ground impatiently. A coachman who sat proudly on the box and a groom who idled by the horses’ heads eyed me with much condescension as I hurried past them to the house.
In the front room I found Mrs. Wrigley and Miriam and a strange lady and gentleman, both, as even I could tell at a glance, richly dressed, with an air of distinction, and both far advanced in years.
Mrs. Wrigley motioned me to a seat, which I took, hardly knowing whether I stood on my head or my heels, and my heart sinking into my boots, for I felt instinctively that these strangers boded me no good. I glanced at Miriam, who remained standing, very pale and tremulous, twisting a tiny handkerchief nervously in her hands.
“This is Mr. and Mrs. Buckley, from Mossley,” said Mrs. Wrigley, by way of introduction. “They have been in communication with Mr. Roberts, the attorney you very wisely and properly consulted. You will do me the justice, Abel, to remember that I urged upon you to make search for Miriam’s kith and kin. I am thankful I did so, and that you had the good sense to act on my advice. Mrs. Buckley is the sister of the late Mrs. Garside, Miriam’s grandmother, if all your poor friend told you is true.”
“And that you may be sure it is,” I was just able to say.
“Perhaps, madam, you will permit me,” interrupted the old gentleman, with a courtly bow to Mrs. Wrigley. “This young gentleman,” turning to me, “is, I understand, Mr. Abel Holmes, and there have been some foolish love-passages between him and our fair young friend. Well, well, it was excusable enough, perhaps, as things were. And it seems pretty certain that her father, the recluse you tended in his dying hours, was indeed the son of my good wife’s elder sister. Of course, my lawyers will have to go into the matter thoroughly, but I don’t think there can be much question of the relationship. Everything tallies. And my dear wife declares that Miriam is strangely like her grandmother as a young women. Eh, dear?”
Mrs. Buckley bowed. “Indeed, indeed she is; but with a softer, gentler air. My sister was over proud and hard; but she suffered for it, poor dear, she suffered for it sorely.”
“Serve her right,” I thought, but said nothing.
“The Lord has not blessed my good wife with children,” continued Mr. Buckley. “Ours has been a long and happy wedded life, but though God has showered upon us wealth beyond our desires, He withheld from us the crowning gift of a child’s love. Your husband will know my mills at Micklehurst, Mrs. Wrigley. I’m a rich man, if I may say so without seeming to boast unduly; and until Mr. Roberts sought an interview with me I thought that all my wealth must go to religious or charitable objects. I thank God that He has restored to us, though at the eleventh hour, one whom we can welcome to our hearts and home as indeed our own. She shall be to us as our very daughter, and we can only pray that she will learn to love us as we are more than ready to love her.”
I looked at Miriam, sick at heart. I saw my love slipping from my arms, and my whole life seemed to stretch before me wrecked and desolate. And Miriam looked at me as though she waited for me to speak.
“You’re very good,” I babbled feebly.
“And now, Miriam,” said Mrs. Wrigley briskly, “I’m sure I congratulate you with all my heart. Have you no thanks for Mr. and Mrs. Buckley?”
“Yes, dear,” said the latter lady, “come, sit by my side and let us hear from your own lips that you will come to us.”
But Miriam for a while made no sign, but just stood, swaying slightly as she stood, and torturing that ill-used handkerchief.
Then Mr. Buckley resumed: “I understand, Mr. Holmes, that you have just started on your own. And I well, I envy you. You have youth and strength, and, so Mrs. Wrigley assures me, an excellent character. Well, again don’t think I’m boasting, John Buckley is worth having for a friend. Though my line is cotton, and yours woollen, I make no doubt I can find you customers for every inch of cloth you can turn out, and when you want capital to launch out, why, I’m your man.”
“ ‘Thirty pieces of silver,’ ” I groaned, “ ‘thirty pieces of silver.’ ”
“Eh, what?” asked Mr. Buckley, on whom the allusion was clearly lost.
But Miriam understood. She came and stood by my side.
“I thank you kindly, sir,” she said, dropping a courtesy first to Mr. Buckley and then to his stately lady. “I thank you kindly, but I’m not for sale. I’ve made my choice, Mr. Buckley, and I stand by it. I know you mean well, and indeed, indeed, I’m grateful to you. But I want nothing better than the lot I’ve chosen. Take me to your fine home, clothe me in silks and satins, give me carriages and jewels, let my whole life be one round of pleasure, and what will it avail? My heart is no longer mine to give. Abel, here, stole it when I was a poor, wandering outcast, and it is his to keep till he cast it from him, and then I know ’twill break, ’twill break.”
And then my manhood came back to me. I stood and put my arm round Miriam’s waist, and looked Mr. Buckley squarely in the face.
“Don’t think, sir,” I said, “that I have been silent because I wanted Miriam to go with you. I don’t know how I should have faced life if she had been seduced by your offer, as well she might have been. But I should have counted it shame in me to hold her to her troth if she wanted to be free. I’ve nothing to set against your wealth but a true man’s love and a poor man’s home, and it seems Miriam thinks they weigh down the scale.”
Then Mrs. Buckley, wiping, if I was not greatly mistaken, a tear from either eye, said very gently:
“Now, you young people, don’t you think you are jumping before you’ve got to the stile? I think, Mr. Holmes, if you’ll allow me an old woman's privilege, I think you show a very proper spirit, and just what I should have hoped and expected from you. Don’t think either my husband or I deem you unfitted for Miriam’s husband because you are poor and struggling. Why, bless you, when John Buckley first made eyes at me he was only a mill manager, and nigh as poor as you. And we’d a fight for it, at first, I can tell you; but they were the happiest days of our lives, weren’t they, John?”
And I declare the eyes that turned to the grey-headed old gentleman shone with such a light as a young maid turns upon the lover of her youth.
“No, no,” went on Mrs. Buckley, “there shall be no talk of parting two loving and faithful souls, not with my consent. All we ask is that you’ll spare Miriam to us for a month or two occasionally. We won’t spoil her, and we won’t corrupt her, and you’ll be free to see her just as often as you like, aye, even if you come in your clogs and smock. Why, man alive, nine out of every ten of the Lancashire manufacturers started in clogs and smock, and it’s only the fools that are ashamed to own it. But you’ll let us learn to know Miriam, won’t you? Ah! if you only knew how my old heart yearns for a daughter’s love.”
And then I did what Miriam afterwards told me made her proud of the lad of her choice. I strode across the room to where Mrs. Buckley sat, and I dropped on one knee and I raised her white, withered hands to my lips, and said softly:
“Let it be as you wish, madam.”
And so it was settled, and that very day Miriam was whisked off in that great carriage to the lordly hall at Mossley, her last words as I gazed fondly in her eyes and pressed her hands in mine being a promise to write a long letter to Pole Moor within a few days.
I suppose in these days people can scarce realise what an event in our lives was the receipt of a letter in the days of which I write. Our letters from Mossley must come byThe Fair Trader, the coach being met by old Matty, the Slaithwaite postmistress, who had to trudge painfully up the long, steep, rough road to Pole Moor. Be sure I did not fail on the Saturday after Miriam’s departure to hie me to my father’s house, and be sure, too, that Jim needed no pressing to accompany me. I fear me poor Mary in those days did not have much joy of her only son’s companionship. Ah, me! youth and love are sadly selfish. How readily do we, if not forget, seem to a parent’s eyes to forget or lightly consider the long years of care and anxious love and sacrifice that have smoothed and sheltered our tender years, when first we came under the glamour of love’s young dream.
Arrived at Pole Moor, we found Ruth in a high state of excitement. Miriam had been true to her word, and old Molly had brought her missive duly. I have it now before me as I write, the paper thin and frayed, the ink faint and faded: