“Deer Tom,This is to let yew ’no at Mr. Black’s bin took vary bad, an’s frettin’ becos yo’ dont com’ to see ’im. He’s i’ bed; wi’ a stroke i’th reight side, hopin’ you’re well which it leaves me, so no more at present fromYours trewly,BETTY SCHOFIELD.”
“Deer Tom,This is to let yew ’no at Mr. Black’s bin took vary bad, an’s frettin’ becos yo’ dont com’ to see ’im. He’s i’ bed; wi’ a stroke i’th reight side, hopin’ you’re well which it leaves me, so no more at present fromYours trewly,BETTY SCHOFIELD.”
“Deer Tom,
This is to let yew ’no at Mr. Black’s bin took vary bad, an’s frettin’ becos yo’ dont com’ to see ’im. He’s i’ bed; wi’ a stroke i’th reight side, hopin’ you’re well which it leaves me, so no more at present from
Yours trewly,
BETTY SCHOFIELD.”
Tom’s heart smote him. He was conscious that latterly he had been remiss in his visits to his friends beyond the hill. His new life was growing on him, and new interests filling his mind.
“Is it serious, do you know, Jack?” he asked.
“Moll ’o Stute’s says another do ’ll finish him. He’s had two doctors till ’im, an’ Moll says his constitooshun’ whativver ’oo meeans bi that, couldn’t ha’ stooid one, ne’er name two. But yo’ll come, Tom, an’ Betty says yo’ll do him more gooid nor physic.”
It would have been nothing out of the common for a hand to “jack” his work without saying “by your leave,” or “with your leave,” but that was not Tom’s way. He sought Mr. Tinker in the dingy little office, but he was not there,—he might be in the house, someone suggested; and Tom made for the house, a mere stride, not a stone-throw from the mill-gate. Jack trotted by his side like a faithful dog.
“Weel, I declare, if there beeant big Tom Pinder comin’ up th’ walk, miss,” exclaimed Betty, the cook, wiping her hands on her coarse apron, “an’ as shallockin’ a lookin’ felley wi ’im as ivver yo’ clapped een on,” and a knock at the kitchen door coincided with her wondering “what’s to do naah!”
Now Dorothy was in the very thick of that daintiest of all household doings the making of pastry for the Christmas fare. She was garbed in a pretty print dress, and a white bib and apron, spotlessly clean, became her vastly. Her small and shapely hands were cunningly turning the well-greased tins, and shaping the dough within and above a noble array of large and portly tins crammed with the makings of pork-pies and jimping the edges of lesser tins designed for the mince-meat that, not innocent of the flavour of brandy, scented the warm kitchen air. The sleeves of her dress were rolled up and gave play to as white and rounded an arm, with a dainty dimple at the elbow, as ever delighted the eyes of man. Her cheek was flushed either with the heat of the roaring fire or confusion at being so discovered by eyes whose sudden glance, quick withdrawn, betrayed a startled admiration more speakingly than speech.
“I beg your pardon, Miss, but is Mr. Tinker at home? He isn’t in the office, nor about the mill,” said Tom, whilst Jack alternate gaped and sniffed.
“Can’t yo’ shut th’ door after yo’, Tom Pinder,” exclaimed Betty, “or do yo’ think yo’re big enough to do for a door yersen?”
“Uncle’s not at home; he’s gone to Huddersfield, I think,” said Dorothy, hastily unrolling her sleeves, and hiding the glistening ivory of her arms.
“Mrs. Tinker, perhaps?” hazarded Tom.
“And aunt’s in bed, as bad as can be with a sick head-ache. A pretty Christmasweare likely to have; but is it any message you can leave?” for Tom had turned to go, “you look in trouble.”
“Jack here has brought me a message, Miss. It’s from an old friend, perhaps from the oldest, and it concerns the best friend I have in the world. My more than guardian Mr. Black, the schoolmaster at Diggle, is sick, it is feared unto death, and Jack here has won over th’ top through th’ snow to fetch me to him.”
“An’ dun yo’ meean to say, Tom Pinder,” broke in Betty, “’at this yer drowned rat of a man ’at stann’s theer gaupin’ as if he wer mooin-struck an’ drippin’ all ovver my cleean floor like a leeakin’ piggin’ ’s come all th’ way fro’ Diggle i’ this weather ’at’s nooan fit for a dog to be aat in.”
“Aye, Betty,” said Tom,—he was a prime favourite with Betty of old, and he knew it,—“not so warm as your kitchen, but it was urgent you see, and Jack’s an old friend too, aren’t you, Jack?”
But Jack’s eye and Jack’s thoughts were fixed upon something more to a hungry man’s purpose than mere matters of friendship—he had caught the whiff from the oven door—it was the scent of pork pie piping hot.
Dorothy caught the glance that waywards.
“Why how thoughtless I am. Now, Jack, I’m sure, as it’s Christmas time”—needless qualification—“you can eat some Christmas fare. And they’re the very first pies I’ve ever made, and Idohope they’ll be nice. Peggy, why don’t you set some plates?”
“And mind yo’ hot ’em afore th’ fire. Its simply beyond all belief how aw’ve to tell that girl to put hot plates wi’ hot meeat, an’ cowd wi’ cowd, i’steead o’ cowd wi’ hot an’ hot wi’ cowd.”
“And you Tom,”—and then with a hesitation as though in doubt, “I mean, Mr. Pinder, you will take something before you cross those terrible hills?”
If Dorothy had there and then asked Tom to sit down and make a comforting meal of dynamite washed down with prussic acid it is odds that he would have set to bowl and platter with a cheerful heart; but to put knife and fork into a rich brown crust that crunched beneath the blade and to see the hot jelly gush out over the plate and to catch the fragrance of the red and brown pork with judicious blending of lean and fat cut into squares like dice, and to see all this flanked by a crested jug of foaming beer.—Oh! Don’t talk to me of nectar and ambrosia.
“Yo’r health, miss,” said Jack, politely and as distinctly as he could with his mouth full, “and yo’rs, too, aw’m sure”—this to Betty, whose ample form he surveyed with lingering approval “and a merry Chersmas when it comes.”
But Tom, even as he plied his knife and fork heard ringing in his ears the words that some instinct or some dim apprehension or prompting of native delicacy had compelled from Dorothy’s lips.—“Mister Pinder”. Tom had never been called Mister Pinder before in all his life “Gentleman Tom” and “Dandy Tom” he heard occasionally from the lasses of the mill, smarting from that worst of feminine ailments—injuria formal spietal,—the quiet unconsciousness of or indifference to advances none too coy. But “Mr. Tom”—’t was the baptism into a new life, the stirring of a new manhood, his accolade; it fell on his senses as falls the sovereign’s sword on shoulder of kneeling knight. It was a new and nobler Tom that turned his face that afternoon over the hills to Diggle.
“Go to see your sick friend?” Dorothy had cried. “Why, of course you’ll go. I’m sure uncle would say so, and anyway if he faults anyone, why he must fault me.”
“An’ aw hope his first mince-pie may choke him if he does,” wished Betty, but kept her wishes to herself.
Tom was shocked at the change a few weeks had made in the old schoolmaster Mr. Black had, truly, been failing ever since the sudden and unexpected death of the shrill Priscilla some twelve months before. His devoted if exacting sister had gone to that land where there is neither dusting nor teaching, and where she must have received a shaking of cherished convictions if she found any schoolboys. Since then her brother had lived alone, cooking and generally doing for himself, save that one of the boys scrubbed the schoolroom floor and scrubbed the desks, in consideration of being put on the school free-list. More and more as the days wore on the schoolmaster had seemed to shrink within himself, and find a placid joy in the not wholly unpleasing melancholy of reflection and regret. Perhaps Priscilla’s faithful girding had been to him like a tonic and an irritant, and saved him from a natural tendency to the introspective absorption of a lonely life. Gradually the nightly symposia at theHanging Gatewere abandoned, much to the wrath of good Mistress Schofield, who roundly declared that “if th’ Schooilmaster had nobbut gone theer o’ neets, takin’ th’ best chair, an’ sittin’ i’th’ warmest corner, just to be out o’ reick o’ his sister’s tongue, she for one fun’ his room as gooid as his company.” Perhaps one reason for Mr. Black’s inconstancy might be found in the fact that so long as Priscilla lived, he knew there was a shield and buckler between him and the engines and weapons of attack the buxom widow knew so well how to employ. Priscilla gone, he felt himself as a city girt round and besieged, but helpless and defenceless, its strong tower razed to the ground. Reason be what it might the angle nook of the sanded kitchen knew him no more and the friendly circle had a very sensible gap. And ere long the news, the all but incredible news, spread through t’ village, and up the valley, and about the steep hill-sides, that “owd Black wer’ givin’ up teeachin’, and what to do wi’ th’ lads and lasses ’at wer’ allus under yo’r feet, or up to some mak’ o’ devilment till they we’ owd enough to go to th’ mill, ’ud pass a weary woman’s wits to tell.”
Tom felt as he neared the school a strangely depressing air of solitude and desertion. The playground no more resounded to the eager cries of boys revelling in a brief freedom, nor from the open windows came the murmuring buzz of unwilling voices droning in unison the tables of multiplication. The schoolmaster he found in his little bedroom, not in bed, indeed, but looking far fitter for bed than up. To Tom’s surprise, he found Moll o’ Stuarts in attendance on the sick man. She had, it transpired, carried the citadel of the sick-room by assault and taken possession with characteristic coolness and determination, and there she had announced her resolve to abide till the schoolmaster should be either better or worse. As for her more legitimate profession she declared:
“They mun get someb’dy else. Onyb’dy wer’ gooid enough to bring a fooil into th’ world, but it wer’ worth while tryin’ to keep a wise man in it. Th’ best of men’s poor feckless things when i’th’ best o’ health, but if they nobbut cut their little finger, they’re as useless as babes unborn, an’ it were well there wer somebody to look after him, sin’ those ’at had most reight to kept away for weeks at a time, an’ ne’er cam’ near till they wer’ sent for.” And with this Parthian shaft, Molly at a sign from the invalid, withdrew, to give Jack, who had stayed below, gazing open-mouthed at the maps and globes, the benefit of her pent storm of wrath.
“I’m glad you’ve come, Tom. I knew you would, but hesitated to send for you. I know you have little time away from work, and youth companies best with youth when work is laid aside.”
“Indeed, Mr. Black, I had no notion you were so ill or nothing could or should have kept me away. I would have come to help and nurse you if I had had to break my indentures and go before the magistrates for it.”
“I know it, lad, I know it; and it was pleasant to think there was one not so many miles away who had a warm place in his heart for the old man. You have been to me, Tom, as a son since first I held you in my arms, and I have even thanked God that to my childless life He sent the blessing of one I could cherish and foster as my own.”
Tom could find no words. He pressed the thin and shrunken hand that rested, oh! so feebly, on the arm of the pillowed chair.
“And now, lad, that you are here, you must let me say my say, for my strength is waning fast and a voice within tells me my days remain but few. Nay, lad, never greet my course is run, my work is done, and the vespers ring for eventide. I do not dread its shadows, lad, for a hand will hold mine when I tread the unknown way. Take this key, unlock that topmost drawer and bring me the case you will find there.”
Tom silently, treading softly did the master’s bidding.
Mr. Black raised the lid of the little casket and thence a small bundle of letters, their ink now faded to a pale yellow. They were tied together with a thin blue ribbon. Mr. Black touched them lovingly and sunk into a reverie from which Tom made no stir to rouse him. The vacant eyes of the invalid seemed to be looking through and beyond the stalwart youth or to be intent on the unforgotten scenes of a buried past.
Then with a wan smile and a gentle sigh the faint voice said:
“If I die, Tom, I trust you to place these with me.” Then, like a maiden confessing her heart’s secret:
“Ah! Tom, even your old dominie was young once—but there was Priscilla, you know.”
And what tragedy of a sacrificed life those letters revealed was never betrayed to the eyes of Tom or other man, for unopened and unread they laid upon the faithful, uncomplaining heart that treasured them.
“And, now, Tom, to business. This you see is my will. A man doesn’t die any sooner you know for making his will. When I lost Priscilla, a rare woman, Tom, but over tender for this World, a matchless Woman,—I made a new will. I haven’t much to leave, but what there is will be yours. I should like you to keep the books—don’t part with them. They have been very precious to me. Perhaps some day you will know how precious books can be. I had hoped, fondly hoped, that you would turn to scholarship and take my seat by the old desk—but it wasn’t to be, it wasn’t to be,” and the schoolmaster shook his head sadly.
Again Tom could find no words—what could he say, how could he tell the master that a few hours before the glance of a young maid’s eye and the trill of her glad young voice and the touch of her soft white hand had been of more moving eloquence than a guardian’s pleading, and that, as he pushed over the hills that day through depth of snow and stress of storm to the sickbed side, revolving many things in his awakened mind, he had made a great resolve and vowed a deep and binding vow.
“There remains but this,” continued Mr. Black. “You have seen this locket before. It was your mother’s. The time has come when I may place it where it belongs. You know its story. Wear it ever, and may God in His own good time raise the veil and grant light where now is darkness and certainly where all is fruitless conjecture.”
Tom took the locket, pressed it to his quivering lips and hid it in his bosom. “Lucy shall twine it about my neck,” he said, “and I will wear it ever.”
“Send for Moll now. I must lie down. You won’t forget Moll, when I am gone. She is a good soul, and has tended me well.”
The old man was assisted to his bed, and sank exhausted on the pillow. There was silence in the darkling chamber, save for the heavy breathing of the fast failing man.
“Read me the twenty-first Psalm,” he said, presently.
But Tom’s voice failed him, and broke as he read:
“‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.’”
And Tom kneeled by the bedside, and hid his face in the coverlet, nor restrained his tears.
And the light trembling hand of him who had so loved him rested on the bowed head, and the feeble voice was raised in prayer and benediction.
And the night fell and the “peace that passeth all understanding” entered therein and there abode.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE legacy left him by Mr. Black amounted to no less than a hundred pounds, which seemed to Tom a vast sum. Mr. Redfearn was sole executor of the will. Tom took possession of the books,—a few choice Latin authors, the Greek Testament, and many educational works. He selected, besides, a few articles of furniture, of which he made a present to Mrs. Garside; he did not forget Moll o’ Stuarts. Out of the proceeds of the portion of the furniture which he sold, there was just enough to pay for a mourning suit of good broadcloth for himself, and strangely ill at ease he felt when first he beheld himself arrayed in the glossy doeskin. But after the funeral, he had only to wear it on Sundays, when most people who could manage it by hook or crook contrived to wear decent suits, mainly of black,—black was the general, if not “the only wear.” The reason is not far to seek. Among the working-classes the better suit is a very distinct garment from what are called emphatically “wartday clo’es,” and is seldom worn except on Sunday, and at funerals.
There remained the hundred pounds, and the question was not easy of answer, what should he do with it? Under the will, Mr. Redfearn had power to apply the money for Tom’s advancement in life, even before his majority when it was to pass into his uncontrolled disposition. Tom cudgelled his brain so much and so vainly as to the ultimate application of this immense sum that he came to be thankful he could not, as yet, touch the bulk, or he would have been tempted to throw it into the river. He did not get much help from Mr. Redfearn.
“Yo’ see, Tom,” said his guardian, “a hundred pounds is a very awk’ard sum o’ money. It’s summat like a gooise, which is too much o’ a meal for one, an’ not enuff for two. Nah this legacy o’ yo’rs is summat i’th’ same fashion. It’s too much to go on th’ spree wi’, an’ ha’ done wi’ it, an’ off yo’r mind, so to speeak, and it’s too little to set up i’ business on yo’r own account,—at leastwise i’ ony business ’at’s likely to suit thee. Yo’ might start i’th’ grocery line, to be sure, but I doubt th’ little childer ’ud be feart to come into th’ shop if they seed six feet of brawn and muscle behind th’ counter. Besides they say it tak’s a very light hand to weigh grocer’s stuff aat to ony profit. I can think o’ nowt else. You might go into th’ public line on yo’r furtin in a smallish way, an’ there’s one thing ’at’s i’ yo’r favour, yo’d nooan want a chuckor aat.”
Tom shook his head emphatically: “Nay,” he said, “I will never make my living by giving my brother strong drink to his hurt.”
Redfearn laughed, “they’ll call yo’ ‘Parson Tom’ in a bit, lad. But happen yo’r i’th’ reight on it. For one gooid word yo’ can find to say for drink yo’ can find a hundred to say agen it, an’ then start afresh an’ tack another hundred to it. Folk will have it, but them as get’s th’ leeast has th’ best share, an’ I’ll nivver be one to set a young lad i’ th’ way o’ temptation. But has ta thowt o’ onything thi sen?”
Tom shook his head. “I’ve thought till I’m almost stalled of the thought of the money.”
“Well, there’s no hurry, that’s one comfort. Th’ brass ’ll nooan get less so long as it’s ith’ bank, that’s a sure thing. An’ yo’re not be out o’ your indentures yet. Tak’ yo’r time i’ makin’ up your mind, an’ remember ’at it’s th’ easiest thing i’ th’ world to put good money into business, but it’s quite another thing getting it back after yo’n once let go yo’r how’d.”
On one point Tom was quite resolved. So soon as his apprenticeship should be at an end, and sooner if might be, he would be his own master. He would not live and die a weaver, nor yet be content even to live and die a slubber. Other men had conquered Fate and he was resolved that by God’s help, he, too could and would. Why, the whole valley in which he did his daily task abounded with men who could tell of early privations, of years of patient unremitting toil, of Spartan endurance, of privations self-imposed and cheerfully borne, and of a notable success crowning and rewarding in middle life, the efforts of their youth and manhood’s prime. And Tom felt that he had him the makings of a man and though he had, as yet, unbosomed the inner workings of his soul to man nor woman, being, indeed more given to seek commune with himself rather than another, yet was his mind firmly fixed either to make a spoon or spoil a horn, as the saying goes. But how?
He had said nothing at home, as he now considered Ben Garside’s, about his little fortune, and as for the furniture which he had placed in the little cottage, Hannah declared, and meant it, that though it was “gooid on ’im to think o’ old fr’en’s, an’ like ’im, ’oo wer’ nooan so greedy as to do owt but store th’ thin’s for ’im, till such times as he wer’ wed, and warst wish ’at ’oo could wish ’im wer’ ’at he’d wed a lass ’at ’ud put as gooid a shine on th’ owd table, an’ cheers, an’ th’ oak-chest an’ linen-press and charney-cupboard as ’oo’d done, but that wer’ past prayin’ for now-a-days.”
There is no question that in this time of electricity and daily papers, news travels faster than in the times of our grandfathers but it travelled fast enough even then. And somehow it began to be whispered about the village that Gentlemen Tom “had come in for a fortin’.” with that delicacy of reserve which is nowhere more to be found than among the better end of the working classes, neither Ben, nor Hannah, nor Lucy spoke to him on the matter. It was his concern, and if he choose to have secrets from his best well-wishers they were not going to force his confidence; though it cannot be denied that when neighbours questioned Hannah on the subject, as she stood with her flour-poke and basket waiting her turn at Split’s counter of a Saturday afternoon she could give to her sibs no more satisfactory reply, than to tell them “to mell (meddle) o’ their own business, an’ ’ood try, God helping her, to mell o’ hers,”—a reply which was no more satisfactory to herself than to her gossips, for it not only brought a discussion of a highly interesting domestic topic to an untimely end, but it deprived Hannah of that assumption of exclusive intelligence which is as dear to a woman of conversational gifts as to a newspaper editor. But when Tom became aware by many subtle signs that not only had people heard something of his windfall, but that Hannah was piqued by his silence he resolved to take counsel with Ben. Even should he get no better advice than to seek advice.
“Ah, it’s a seet o’ brass lad, is a hunderd paands, an’ a gret responsibility. Aw dunnot think aw ivver seed more nor ten all at onc’t, an’ that fair med me gip.” It was thus Ben delivered himself one Sunday afternoon as he smoked his pipe before the kitchen fire. “Aw knew tha’d do nowt wi’out speikin’ to me or yar Hannah abaat th’ job, an’ we thowt no waur o’ thi’ for howdin’ thi tongue abaat it i’steead o’ makkin a spreead abaat it waur nor a peeacock wi’ it’s tail as some ’ud ha’ done. An’ as for wearin’ th’ brass o’ drink an’ wenchin’, as some ’ud ha’ done; why it wer better for thi’ ’at tha’ sud ha’ had a millstone then raand thi neck an’ bin plumped fair i’ th’ middle o’ th’ mill-dam.”
“Yes, but Ben, I can discover for myself what I shouldnotdo with the money; what I want to settle is what Ishoulddo with it.”
“It’s safe enew wheer it is, isn’t it?” asked Hannah, anxiously.
“Well, it’ as safe as the bank, any way,” Tom assured her.
Hannah seemed dubious. “Aw dunnot ma’ mich accaant o’ them banks. Ther’ wer’ Ingram’s, tha’ll mind oo’, Ben, i’ Hundersfild. It went dahn th’ slot an’ lots o’ folk lost ther brass through it. Aw’d just as sooin put my bit i’ th’ teea-caddy—but we’re nivver safe, as th’ lad said when he fun’ a sov’rin’.”
Ben had puffed his pipe in silence, but now waved the long churchwarden to bespeak attention.
“There’s yo’r writin’s to think on,” he said. “Yo’ munnot forget as yo’r bun’ to Jabez Tinker till y’or twenty-one, an’ thof mebbe nob’dy could blame yo’ if yo’ just went yo’r own gate as if th’ writin’s weren’t ther; still aw misdoubt me th’ law ’ud ha’ summat to say: an’ if yo’ once get into th’ lawyers’ han’s aw reely dunnot think yo’ need bother yo’rsen abaat what yo’ mun do wi’ yo’r fortin’.”
“But, Ben, whatever comes I mean to do the square thing by Mr. Tinker. I’ve served him faithfully up to now, and I don’t mean to end up by doing otherwise. But don’t you think he would release me, if it were fairly put to him, and he received some equivalent.”
“He mote,” said Ben, “an’ then agen he moten’t. But ther’s no harm i' axin’.”
“Aye, that’s just like yo’ men,” said Hannah, “nowt’ll do but goin’ at a thing like a bull at a red rag. Tom mun step i’ to th’ caantin’-haase, an’ say: ‘If yo’ please Mr. Tinker, aw’d like yo’ to breik mi writin’s, aw’n had some brass left me.’ Nah, that’s nooan my way.”
“Well, what is it, Hannah?”
“Sayin’s tellin’, an’ if aw tell’d yo’, yo’d be as wise as me. Th’ question is, what mun Tom do when he’s free?”
“Aye, that’s it,” said Tom. “Well aw ’ve my plan, Tom, if th’ missus, theer ’ll let a man get a word in edgeways. Nah! Hannah, if th’rt fair run daan aw ’ll go on.” Hannah disdained to make reply.
“Nah! my advice is,” said Ben, “just go on, as it were, quiet, for the next few months; but i’stead o’ bein’ satisfied i’ th’ mill wi’ just doin’ what tha’rt set to, keep thi een oppen an’ tak’ th’ cotton wool aat o’ yo’r ears, if yo’ happen to have ony in, an’ larn all ther’ is to larn at Tinker’s. He ’greed to teeach thee th’ trade o’ a clothier, an’ aw’ll be bun’ he has’nt swopped ten words wi’ yo’ sin a ’prentice yo’n bin an’ as for that druffen swill-tub, th’ slubber, he might teich yo’ th’ differ atween th’ feel o’ a strap an’ th’ feel o’ a pickin’-rod abaat yo’r back, an’ that’s abaat all. But till th’ time comes for thee to oppen aat to Tinker, aw’d recommend yo in a quiet way, to larn all tha can. Get to know th’ feel an’ th’ qualities o’ wool, an’ th’ prices, an’ th’ natur’ o’th’ dyes an’ acids, an’ aboon all mak frien’s wi’ th’ tuner, an’ larn to gear a machine, an’ tune it when it’s aat o’ gear.”
Tom nodded.
“Weel,” went on Ben, “as aw’n said. A hunderd paand ’s a seet o’ brass, an’ if yo’ know yo’r way abaat yo’ can get a set o’ machines wi’ it—what ’ll do for a start ony road i’ a sma’ish way, which is th’ best rooad an’ choose hah! Yo’ll ha nooa difficulty i’ gettin’ room an’ power, an’ what’s more, if yo’ winnot think awm sayin’ one word for thee an’ two for mysen, if yo’ like to start i’ manifactorin’ o’ thi own accaant, owd Ben Garsed’s mony a yer o’ gooid wark in him yet an’ he’ll be yo’r man, an’ that’s more nor he’d say for ony other being ’at walks o’ two legs atween here an’ th’ next spot.”
Tom’s eyes sparkled with a sudden light, and he leaped to his feet to the imminent peril of his head against the rafters.
“The very thing,” he cried, “the very, very thing. ‘Oh! wise King, oh! prudent King’—stupid that I was never to think of it before, couldn’t see wood for trees.—Lucy, you shall be our book-keeper. Let me see—Garside and Pinder, woollen manufacturers Holmfirth. Carried unanimously. Put it. Lucy, put it and hold up both your hands. My word, Ben, but you’ve a headpiece if you like. We’st nivver mend o’ that idea if we talk fro’ now till Doomsday. But will th’ money run to it?”
“Ben ’ll ha’ considered that,” said Hannah.
“He’s a deep un, is Ben, an’ if he wadn’t talk so much wod mak’ heead way yet; but it’s ’im for goin’ round an’ round a thing an’ under it an’ ovver it afore he’s made his mind up. Yo’n awmost to shak’ him to get an opinion aat on him sometimes.”
“Aw waren’t long i’ makkin’ up mi mind abaat one thing ony road th’ time aw clapt mi e’en o’ thee, lass,” said Ben, with a wink that comprehended both Tom and Lucy.
“Aye, an’ aw didn’t gi’ time to unmak’ it, noather,” chuckled Hannah, and cast a glance at Ben that made her look thirty years younger and set him thinking of the days when an apparently chance shaft from Hannah’s eyes set his heart a pit-a-pat.
“Aye, lad,” said Ben, “there’s folk started i’ this valley wi’ less nor a hundred pun’, ’at fairly stinks o’ brass naah. It’s noan th’ brass altogether ’at does th’ trick; there’s more i’ knowin’ haa to use it, an’ more still in knowin’ haa to keep what yo’ mak’ an’ turn it ovver an’ ovver like a rolling snowball. There’s mony a man can mak’ brass but it’s stickin’ to it bothers ’em.”
And so it was settled that Tom should bide his time, making haste slowly, as the Roman sage advises, and that, meanwhile, Ben should keep his weather-eye open for room and power.
And Tom was not content with such knowledge as could be acquired in the Mill. Although his hours at the loom were long enough in all conscience, and he certainly led laborious days, he resolved also to shun luxurious nights, if idling through the evenings with a novel of Sir Walter Scott or doing odd jobs about the house for Hannah Garside or, in the summer, strolling about the lanes and over the moors could be said to constitute a luxury. He joined the classes at the Mechanics’ Institute and nightly wrestled with the mysteries of Euclid, chevied the elusivexthrough algebraic equations, acquired enough of statics and dynamics to be appalled by the height, depth, and breadth of his own ignorance, and enough of chemistry to bring him to the same conclusion that the highway to ruin would be to trust to his own knowledge of that weird and fascinating science. But if of learning to be likely to be really useful in the career he had marked out for himself, Tom attained to little enough, his mind was all the better for the mental gymnastics his studies compelled. The books he conned demanded close application and sustained thought, and so, had he learned nothing from them at all, were an intellectual discipline that would tell in the battle of life, and rescued him from that flabby habit of mind that comes from desultory and random reading.
It was noticed too, that about this time Tom forsook in some measure his first love, the services of the Established Church, and became a very frequent worshipper at Aenon Chapel. Ben declared that he couldn’t make head or tail of this change from country walks turned to profitable account, as Ben conceived, by Ben’s discursive utterancesde omnibus rebus et aliis praterca, but more particularly and recurringly concerning the high metaphysics of Calvinistic theology.
“There’s a screw loose, somewhere,” he remarked solemnly to Hannah one Sunday afternoon when Tom, after brushing his suit of woe very sedulously and looking more than once in the little cracked glass to see if his tie were rightly bunched and his “toppin” duly “lashed” and parted had sidled rather shamefacedly out of the house with a hymn-book in one hand, whilst with the fore-finger of the other he assured himself that the coin destined for the collection box nestled securely in the corner of his waistcoat pocket. Hannah stayed her rocking and smoothed the sheen of her silken apron, but was mute.
“Aye,” continued Ben, “aw cannot tell whativver’s come ovver th’ lad. Aw say nowt agen his buryin’ his nose i’ books e’ery neet, an’ hardly goin’ to bed till aw’m thinkin o’ gettin’ up. That’s improvin’ his mind, that is, at least aw hope so—it’s only to be hoped he won’t addle it i’th process. But this chapel-goin’s beyond me. Mind yo’, aw nivver said so mich abaat his gooin’ to th’ church o’ a mornin’. He wer’ browt up so, and Mr. Black set a deal o’ store on it, so it wer’ like honourin’ yo’r father an yo’r mother, in a fashion o’ speikin’. But, dal me, chapel-goin’s like turnin’ his back on th’ church altogether. What doestamak on it, Hannah?”
“Nowt,” said Hannah, and Ben knew from experience that the wife of his bosom thought more than she was minded to tell.
“If it hadn’t been Tom,” continued Ben in a meditative and perhaps something of a tentative strain, “Tom ’at’s as steady as a booat-hoss aw sud be enclined to speckilate ther’ wer’ a wench at th’ bottom on it. What do’st think, Lucy, has he said owt to yo’ abaat it?”
“No, father. Tom has said nothing but that the new minister at Aenon ’s a very good preacher. One o’ th’ new school, he says.”
“Aye, aye, aw’n yerd abaat him. ‘A wind-bag,’ some o’th owd hands ca’ ’im. Bi all aw can mak’ aat he’s a trimmer ’at sets his sails to catch the wind o’ approval fro’ th’ upper seats o’ th’ ‘orthodox, orthodox Sons o’ auld John Knox,’ an’ the gale o’ applause fro’ th’ young ’uns ’at ’ud like to kick ovver th’ traces. He’s noather fish, nor flesh, nor fowl, nor gooid red herrin’—so folk sen, an’ goes on refinin’ an’ refinin’ and explainin’ till Deacon Whiteley says he’s refined and explained th’ owd Trust Deed away, an’ ther’s lots o’th owder end dunnot know whether they’re stood o’ their heads or their heels. An’ they dunnot hauf like th’ Band o’ Hope ’at he’s started i’ connection wi’ th’ Sunday Schooil, though aw’ll say nowt agen that missen.”
“It ’ud be a gooid thing if they’d ha’ a Band o’ Hope for th’ grown-up childer,” said Hannah. “I fancy from what Tom said to me t’other neet—I mean night,” began Lucy.
“Neet’s gooid enew,” interrupted her mother in a sharper tone than Lucy often heard. “Though awm awmost forced to be dumb, when yo’r father’s got owt to say, awm noather deaf nor blind, thank God; an’ aw’n noticed lately ’at Tom’s getten into a fine way o’ speikin’,—Miss Nancyfied aw ca’ it,—an’ yo’r followin’ suit. There’ll be no livin’ wi’ oather on yo’ sooin if it goes on.”
“Well, what is it yo’ wouldn’t be capped at?” asked Ben, by way of diversion.
“If Tom joined the Band of Hope,” said Lucy quietly, and, one would have judged, sadly.
“Th’ lad’s clean off,” said Ben. “That brass has bin too mich for his yed. Wi’ most folk it runs to drink, but aw reckon it depends o’ th’ constitooshun. But, dal me, if aw dunnot don missen up very next Sunday ’at ever is, an’ gooa wi’ ’im to th’ chapel an’ hear for missen; so, dooant forget, Hannah, to ha’ me a clean shirt, for aw munnot shame th’ lad.”
“Aye,” assented Hannah, “gooa, bi all meeans, an’ if a fooil’s advice worth’s takkin’, please thissen abaat keepin’ thi ears on th’ pulpit, but keep thi e’en on th’ pews.” And with this Delphic utterance Mrs. Garside began to lay the little round table for tea, with a clatter that threatened the longevity of the “chaney” cups and saucers that had descended with the Family Bible, and were almost as venerated.
And Lucy looked troubled with that trouble that seeks disguise in constrained cheerfulness.
“It’s a woman, then,” said Ben to himself. “Who’d ha’ thowt it, but whooa i’ th’ name o’ wonder can it be?”
Pursuant to his resolve, Ben, the next Sunday, volunteered to accompany Tom to Chapel, to Tom’s undisguised surprise.
“Well, yo’ see, lad,” explained the Senior, inwardly congratulating himself on the astuteness of his reply, “what’s gooid enough for thee ’ll daatless be gooid enough for thi partner ’at is to be.”
The Rev. David Jones was a man of middle stature, quick and nervous in his movements, and quick and nervous in his delivery. He had all the fire and not a little of the poetic feeling and imagination of his Welsh ancestry. He had the great gift of being able to see and understand the very crux of an abstruse problem and to state it lucidly. Then, when you held your breath for the solution, he would break into a rhapsody, and, in a torrent of words, metaphor piled upon metaphor in dazzling extravagance of phrase, he would scale the gamut of the emotions, and close the exordium as in the wild frenzy of an ancient seer.
“Ther’s a gooid deeal o’clout, Tom,” whispered Ben, “but aw’n nooan come to th’ puddin’.” But Ben spoke to ears that heard not. The rhapsodies of the eloquent Gael were thrown away on Tom. His eyes were fixed on the ample pew in which Mr. and Mrs. Tinker sat erect and listening apparently with much attention to the sermon. Mr. Tinker’s regard indeed, appeared to be more critical than appreciative.
“Jabez is too owd a bird to be ta’en wi’ chaff,” thought Ben. “Th’ parson’s main clever, reight enough, but there’s one yonder’s gotten his measure, or awm mista’en.”
But neither on his employer nor on the severe face of Mrs. Tinker was Tom’s wrapt look so intently fixed. By her uncle’s side sat Dorothy, looking, said Ben, in his afternoon account to Hannah, “just as if butter wouldn’t melt in her maath. She nivver took her e’en fro’ off her Bible or her hymn book or th’ parson, barrin’ once, an’ if ’oo didn’t look plainly at Tom then ’oo looked at me, that’s all aw can say. But it weren’t a look straight out o’ her e’en, yo’ mun understand, nor wi’ her eyes starin’ out o’ her yead, like some wenches ’ll look at a young felly; but just a sort o’ a squint aat o’th tail o’ her e’en, an’ then th’ lashes fell part way ovver ’em, an’ theer ’oo wer’ gazin’ at th’ parson as if ’ood nivver blinked. It’s a mercy ’oo didn’t look at me th’ same way again, or I’d ha’ made a fooil o’ missen some road or other, an’ chance it. An’ Tom, why he went as red as a peony, an’ his hand trem’led so he dropped a book an’ had to scrat it up wi’ his feet by reason o’th pew bein’ too narrow for him to get his yed dahn to reick it up wi’ his hand i’ th’ ordinary way. Aw poised his shin for ’im under th’ seeat to make him mind his manners for when awdogo to a chapel aw like to behave some-bit-like, an’ after that he listened to th’ sarmon as good as gowd.”
“And do you remember the text, father?”
“To be sure aw do, trust me for that. Aw gate Tom to nick it with his thumb in his book, an aw wer’ settlin’ dahn comfortable to th’ exposition when aw gate th’ full blast o’ Miss Dorothy’s look, choose ’oo it wer’ meant for. It had liked to ha’ bowled me ovver, but aw poo’d missen together, an’ aw’n getten th’ heads o’th discoorse. Reick us th’ Bible, missus. It wer’ eighth Romans, thirtieth. Read it up, Lucy.”
“Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”
“Nah! I thowt to missen, we’re in for it. Aw liked th’ chap’s courage. It’s holus-bolus, nah, says I, an’ th’ owder end they looked up at th’ parson wi’ a grim sort o’ look as much as to say, ‘Get ovver that if yo’ can’ an’ then they glowered at th’ younger end wi’ a look ’at said as plain as a pikestaff, ‘he’s bahn to throw yo’ ovver’ nah, wi’ yo’r new criticism an’ yo’r refinin’s.’”
“An’ did he?” asked Lucy and her mother in a breath.
And it may be just as well to say here and once for all, for the benefit of those who through no fault of their own, to be sure, but to their great loss notwithstanding, have not the privilege of being Yorkshire bred and born, that half-a-century ago theological discussion was, among the mill-hands of the West Riding, as common as ratting or dog-fighting or as disputing over the form of a foot-ball player in these degenerate days. Any fine Sunday of the year, if you walked in the country, you would come across a group of men, gravely excited, discussing with acumen, and all the artillery of text and commentary, original sin, predestination, effectual calling and the inefficiency of works.
“And did he?”
Ben shook his head. “He’s a deep ’un is yon’. They ca’ folk ’at go to Church o’ a mornin’ an’ chapel i’ th’ afternooin, devil-dodgers; but yon’s waur, he’s a deacon-dodger. He knew as weel as he knew his dinner ’d be spoilin’ bi hauf-past twelve ’at ther’ wer’ owd Split an’ Tommy Shaw, not to say Jabez Tinker, at’s happen more charity, just simply waitin’ to lay howd on a word here an’ a sentence theer to condemn; but he slipped past ’em a’. It wer’ clivver aw’ll nooan gainsay, but it wer’ nooan honest. Yo’ve happen no reight to expect brains i’ a parson, but th’ leeast he can do is to be honest.”
“But yo’ dunnot tell us ha he han’led th’ text,” said his wife impatiently.
“Why th’ cream on it wer’ this: ’at th’ Almighty fro’ th’ beginnin’ had foreordained th’ law o’ righteousness, just th’ same as he foreordained th’ law o’ gravitation an’ he elected to salvation them as walked therein, an’ them as didn’t were rejected. Same as th’ law o’ combustion,” he said, “if yo’ put yo’r finger i’th’ fire God had pre-arranged ’at yo’ sud be burned, an’ sarve yo’ reight.”
“Why that’s common sense enough to please you, father, you couldn’t find fault with that.”
“Aye’ that wer’ reight enough; but yo’ should ha’ heeard th’ way he wrapped it up an’ dressed it i’th catch words o’ th’ hard-an’-fast Baptists, so as to mak’ them o’ th’ owder end think it wer’ all th’ owd dish sarved up a bit different. But it wern’t; it wer’ common sense an’ nat’ral religion dressed up to mak’ ’em sound like Calvinism. He caught th’ deacons sleepin’, as he thowt, an’ stole their clo’es; but Jabez Tinker saw through him, aw tell yo’, an’ so did Ben Garsed, if heisan’ owd foo.”
“And what did Tom say to it all?” asked Lucy.
“Tom! Aw’ve no patience wi’ Tom. He walked all th’ way whom as if he wer’ dreamin’, an’ all ’at aw could get out on him wer’ ’at pale blue went varry well wi some shades o’ yoller. He wer’ thinkin o’ his dyein’, yo’ see.”
“Was he for sure?” asked Mrs. Garside, “which dun yo’ think’s th’ blindest, Lucy, a bat or a mole?”
But Lucy was looking out of the window and answer made none.
CHAPTER IX.
NEHEMIAH WIMPENNY, of Holmfirth, “Gentleman, one of Her Majesty’s &c.,” in other words a solicitor, was the only legal practitioner in the village or neighbourhood, and though not more than thirty years of age, enjoyed a considerable practice. His father, Ebenezer, had been a successful manufacturer and a zealous Methodist. Presumably he believed that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Certainly he shared the common belief that lawyers are very scarce in the celestial regions. But these convictions did not deter him from storing up riches in this world, nor from bringing up his son to the legal profession. Perhaps he had confidence in the axiom that exceptions prove the rule.
Nehemiah was well cut-out for a country lawyer: he had the native shrewdness and common sense, and if he did not know much law he found common-sense a very good substitute for it. His local knowledge was like that of a historic character extensive and peculiar, and his father’s acquaintances and business connections who, at first from friendship, gave their business to young Nehemiah, had no reason to complain of lack of his attention to their interests or ability to protect them. In person he was of medium height, of sandy hair and pale complexion, with a cold and fishy eye and a cold and clammy hand. He dressed loudly and flashily, but as the extravagance of his raiment was attributed to a twelve months’ stay in London in the office of a town agent its fashion or propriety few questioned. He was fond of jewellery, and displayed a good deal of it on his person, and was supposed by envious young manufacturers and merchants to be a“devil among the women,”—a reputation of which he was not a little vain, and which he sustained by the amorous glances anddoubles entendresof refreshment rooms and bars. He had spent a week in Paris, and hinted that he could an’ he would tell a thing or two about the iniquities of the gay city. This did not prevent Nehemiah from attending with laudable regularity at the Methodist Chapel, and anxious mammas with marriageable daughters, secure in the assurance that a reformed rake makes a very passable saint, viewed with complacency the attentions which it pleased this very common-place Lothario to pay to the virgins of their flock and fold; and the pastor of Zion Chapel himself, doubtless reflecting that he was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and to heal those that were sick and not those that were whole, was very tender indeed to a church-member who gave weekly signs of grace in the form of substantial contributions to the collection box, and whose quarterly pew-rent could always be depended on. It is only fair to Nehemiah to say that he never permitted his dissipations which were possibly much exaggerated, to interfere with business, and that, however deep his potations of the previous night, he was always to be found at his desk with a clear head and a steady hand, a circumstance, of itself, that secured Nehemiah more appreciation in a hard-drinking community, than would have been inspired by an intimate acquaintance with the wholecorpus juris.
Among his clients Nehemiah numbered Mr. Jabez Tinker, and he was therefore not surprised when the master of Wilberlee presented himself in the small, dingy, stuffy office which Nehemiah found sufficient for his needs. Mr. Tinker, of course, was well aware of the somewhat dubious moral character of the gentleman he had come to consult; but then he did not go to Nehemiah for morals but for professional assistance.
“Well, Mr. Tinker, and how do you find yourself this morning—warm, isn’t it.”
“Very,” said Mr. Tinker—“it’s warm, and it’s close for the time of the year. But any sort of weather ’ll do for your kind of work, I guess, Wimpenny.”
“Rather,—the warmer the better—get me used to a sultry climate. It’s as well to be prepared for the future, eh?”—Mr. Wimpenny’s expansive smile indicated his own appreciation of a very feeble jest; but his client’s countenance was not responsive.
“H’m,” said Mr. Tinker. “Well, Wimpenny, let’s get to business. I want to make my will, and it’s no use putting the thing off. I can always alter it?”
“Yes, yes, certainly—as long as a man lives he can alter his will, always supposing he remaincompos mentis; and we’re all human, Mr. Tinker, we’re all human.”
“It shouldn’t be a very complicated affair either,” went on Mr. Tinker. “Unfortunately, except the house I live in.”
“Snug little hole, but too near the mill,” thought his adviser.
“Except that, practically all I have is tied up in my business.”
“And a very good business too, Mr. Tinker, by all accounts.”
“I’ve nothing to complain of in that score; but it is unfortunate as things have turned out that I did not arrange differently. You see, I’ve no son to carry on the concern after my death.”
The lawyer nodded assent.
“I must provide for my widow, of course. She must have the house and furniture for her life, and I thought of, say, three hundred a year—not a penny more, she’d only give it to the chapel.”
Again the lawyer nodded, making notes, as he listened, on a sheet of foolscap.
“That’s plain speaking,” went on Mr. Tinker, “but where’s the £300 to come from? That’s the difficulty. Mills aren’t easy to let, and the bigger they are the fewer people want them. I suppose there’s nothing for it but the hammer. It’s enough to make us Tinkers all turn in our graves. But there it is.—Even if Dick—you won’t remember my brother, Richard,—if he’d had a son, it would have been different.”
“But we all know he left a very charming daughter,” said Wimpenny with a bow and a smirk.
“Dorothy’s right enough,” said her uncle, curtly. “But you can’t turn her into a manufacturer. Though she’s a sort of partner all the same. You know her father died suddenly.”
Of course Wimpenny knew.
“And her father was part owner of the mill and business. Well, the girl’s money is in the business still.”
“Phew! that’s bad, Mr. Tinker.”
“I know it is, and the worst of it, I’ve kept no separate accounts. I’ve treated Richard’s share just as my own. But my will must put all that right. Subject to my wife’s provision Dorothy must have all. There’ll be nob’dy else for it.”
Wimpenny did not speak for some time. He chewed the end of his quill instead, a way he had when absorbed in thought.
“It’s a bad business Mr. Tinker;” he said at length; “it was scarcely like you to confound accounts in that loose fashion and to put trust money into what was practically your own business. People might call it by an ugly name.”
Jabez flushed angrily. “What do you mean, sir? I treated my niece as my daughter, brought her up in my house as my own child, and now I propose to leave her my sole heiress. Nothing very ugly about that, I should think.”
“Not as things have turned out,” was the reply, “but you know as well as I do theymighthave turned out differently, and where would your ward’s money have been? However, it’s to-day and tomorrow we’re concerned with, not yesterday. Has it occurred to you that Miss Dorothy may marry?”
“Of course she may. One doesn’t need to pay six-and-eight to learn that.”
“Exactly,” said the unruffled lawyer. “Now an adopted daughter and an adopted daughter’s husband are often quite two different beings, and should Miss Tinker marry it’s the husband we should have to reckon with.”
“Well, I could pay him out, I suppose?”
“Of course you could—by selling Wilberlee at a sacrifice, a great sacrifice, or by putting a heavy mortgage on the property if it would carry it. We must remember that there are eighteen years of profits to set-off against Miss Dorothy’s up-bringing, and the Court of Chancery does not weigh trustees’ profits in a hair-balance, I can tell you.”
Mr. Tinker rose impatiently. “I didn’t come here to have you raise difficulties but to meet them, nor yet to be frightened by bug-bears.”
“Now you are unreasonable, Mr. Tinker. I shouldn’t be worth my salt if I didn’t put the situation plainly before you. You don’t go to a doctor for smooth sayings nor yet for sweetmeats instead of pills. No use getting huffed, you know.”
But Mr. Tinker was huffed. He was a Tinker and a magistrate, and had been a man of mark these thirty years, and was not pleasant to be told these things by a young lawyer who might have been his son. But he had the good sense to know that what Nehemiah said was truth.
“Ah, well,” he said, “I dare say we are meeting trouble half-way. You know what I want doing. I did everything for the best, and I don’t know that I care very much what the world says or your infernal Court of Chancery either, if it comes to that. When will you have the will ready, Wimpenny?”
“Let me see. To-day’s Monday. Say Thursday of next week. We close for Whitsuntide, you know.”
“Very good, so be it. I’ll call in on that day. I’ll be glad to have the thing off my mind before the holidays. Mrs. Tinker’s at Harrogate, and I was thinking of running over for a few days. Till Thursday, then,” and Mr. Tinker went his way feeling less comfortable in his mind than he had done for many a long day.
“Confound the fellow,” he said to himself, wiping his brow, “and confound his stuffy little office, too. It’s worse than the sweating-room at the Bank.”
Left to himself Nehemiah Wimpenny sunk into a deep reverie; and, to judge from the faint smile that occasionally played upon his face, a not unpleasing one.
“So Miss Dorothy’s to be old Tinker’s heiress,” thus ran his thoughts, “and that means probably old Eph. Thorpe’s into the bargain. Guess I rather frightened the immaculate Jabez with that hint of a probable Chancery suit. Talk about men starting at their own shadows, as if any possible suitor for the fair Dorothy would dream of muddling away not only her fortune, but her expectations by going to law with a man who could leave him or not leave him thousands of pounds just as the fancy took him. Should have thought Tinker was more level headed. It isn’t the money he’s frightened of, it’s the scandal. These cold, reserved, proud men are always so devilish thin-skinned. Wonder who the happy man ’ll be.—Haven’t heard of anyone nosing around.”
“By Jove! why shouldn’t I cut in myself? She’s a pretty little filly and a high-stepper too. I’ve had my fling, and it’s about time I looked around for Mrs. Nehemiah. Wonder I never meet her out anywhere. Tinker keeps her up pretty close apparently, perhaps she doesn’t care for high-teas, small talk, and cribbage. Shows her sense.”
“Wonder how I can get to know her. No use fishing for an invitation to Tinker’s. Jove! I have it. Didn’t he say he was off to Harrogate to cheer up the old woman. Let’s see, Jabez is an Aenonite. H’m, I must sweeten the Reverend David—well that’s easy enough. Pity I don’t go to Aenon; but that’s soon got over. One chapel’s as good as another to a broad-minded man. All retail the same blooming rot. I mean they all lead to the same place. Different roads to the same city— that’s the phrase.”
“Whitsuntide is it, next week? Shouldn’t mind a run over to Scarborough. Better than sulphur-water at Harrogate, friend Tinker. Why! there’ll be the Sunday School treats, band, flags, processions stale buns and coffee grounds. The sportive Dorothy’s pretty sure to be doing the cheap philanthropic with the kids—and Nehemiah ’ll be there or thereabouts, you bet.”
“But I’ll make sure how Richard left his money. Hearsay’s all very well, but matrimony on hearsay might turn out a sell. I’ll get a copy of his will. But that’ll be all right, I fancy. Gad, it’s dry work thinking. I’ll step across and have a tiddley at the Crown, and I might as well take little Polly that pair of gloves I promised her. Heigho, I guess I’ll have to swear off lovely Pollys, at any rate till the honeymoon ’s over.”
But before the sagacious Wimpenny abandoned himself to the delights of gin-and-bitters and the lively sallies of the lovely Polly, he dropped a confidential note to his London agent to procure a copy of Richard Tinker’s will and such information as the archives of Somerset House could furnish to the interested or the curious as to the Residuary and Legacy accounts filed by the deceased’s executor, Mr. Jabez Tinker, to wit.
This missive despatched with his own hand Nehemiah turned his steps towards the Crown, feeling very much at peace with himself and fully entitled to bask in the sunshine of Polly’s ready smile. On the way he chanced across the pastor of Aenon Chapel, who was devoting his morning to calling upon sundry of his flock and getting up an appetite for his mid-day dinner.
“Good morning, Mr. Jones the very man I wanted to see. I’ve a crow to pull with you. Won’t there be the usual school treat this Whitsuntide?”
“Certainly, Mr. Wimpenny We’d a special prayer last meeting for a fine day.”
“Well, now, I go to Zion. But we Nonconformists are not so narrow as our Church friends, eh? So long as the good work goes on, that’s the main thing isn’t it?”
“Most assuredly, Mr. Wimpenny, most assuredly. We’re only tools in the great Worker’s hands.”
“Quite so, Mr. Jones, quite so; my sentiments to a T, only better expressed. Now I know these efforts of the Sunday School cost money. I’m not good enough to be a teacher; but you must let me help in my own way. I hoped you would have called, as your predecessor did, and asked for a subscription, then we could have had a comfortable chat,” and Nehemiah slipped a sovereign into the parson’s palm.
Now Mr. Jones had gone very recently over the list of subscribers to the various efforts and celebrations of Aenon Chapel, and flattered himself that he knew to a nicety the amount for which every inhabitant of Holmfirth “was good;” but he certainly could not remember to have seen Nehemiah Wimpenny’s name for so much as a widow’s mite. But perhaps the lawyer was one of those worthy men who do good by stealth and blush to find it known. So he had no qualms about pocketing the coin.
“They say open confession ’s good for the soul,” went on Nehemiah. “I was just on my way to have a nip and a snack at the Crown—just a glass of bitter, you know”—Oh! Nehemiah, Nehemiah!—“No use asking you, I know. The old Vicar, now, always had a glass of sherry with me when we met. But they say you are just ruining the trade, with your temperance sermons and your temperance missions. You mustn’t do that Mr. Jones; for if you shut up public-housesImight as well shut up shop too. Well, good day, good day.”
Mr. Jones’s face was beaming.
“Do they really say so?” he asked.
“Of course they do, and mean it. There isn’t a publican in the town but would rejoice to have you popped off like an Irish rack-renter. Oh! By the bye, whose field do you have on Monday for your gala? I might manage to have an hour’s romp with your youngsters—any road I could squander a few nuts and have them racing for oranges.”
“Mr. Tinker has kindly let us have the loan of his paddock at the rear of Wilberlee. We’ve had it for years, till the school almost expect it as a right.”
“I see, I see—a prescriptive right. A better sort of prescription than a doctor’s, eh?”
Mr. Jones accorded the tribute of a smile. “You don’t allow your drier studies to dull your sense of humour, I perceive. By the way, the dear children of Zion are joining us this year both in the procession and the after proceedings, so you will not be hampered by any sense of a divided duty. I must not omit to thank you for your generous donation, but I assure you we shall value your presence among us more highly than any gift.”
“Don’t mention it—a bagatelle. Wish it were more. Make it yearly. But now I really must be off or I shall miss my snack.”
“And your glass of—bitter? I think you said,”
“Ah, well, I’ll make it mild to-day. That’s next to teetotal, you know. Again, good day. Hope to have the pleasure of an introduction to Mrs. Jones on Monday.”
“What a very excellent young man,” mused the reverend divine, as he scurried through his calls. “I wish brother Brown of Zion put more fervour into Temperance work.—He might win that young man to the cause”—a conclusion Mr. Jones might have modified had he seen the wink with which the very excellent young man favoured himself as he took the steps of the Crown Hotel and called for his “usual, and a smile with it, please, Polly.”
“Miah’s in extra spirits this morning. Wonder who’s feathers he’s been plucking so early,” was the mental comment of the slim-waisted damsel as she handed the “usual” with a coquettish air and neatly evaded the proffered salute.
“There’s someone coming!” she whispered, as she skipped away.
“There always is, damn ’em,” said that very excellent young man.
Whit-Monday in Yorkshire is the saturnalia of the Sunday schools, a festival to which both teachers and taught look forward with delighted anticipation. A committee of the teachers and those members of the congregation who are supposed to be musically gifted, select the hymns to be sung at the services and at the halts of the procession on its route, and the discussion and final settling of the hymn-sheets are not always attended by the harmony appropriate to the occasion. The lives of the organist and the choirmaster are made a burden to them, and before the sheet reaches the printer there is often a coolness between ladies who had vowed eternal friendship. The scholars are very zealously drilled by the choirmaster, the girls singing with zest at the “practices,” the boys stimulating their attention by pulling their hair, but lifting up their own voices under protest. The young ladies of the Sunday School wear a subdued modification of their Sunday best at the week-night practices and as they have neither father nor mother to escort them home at the somewhat late hour to which the practices are prolonged, have to make shift with the arm of a blushing and embarrassed teacher from the Boys’ School, and, to do them justice, the young ladies cheerfully submit to be thus accompanied. If it should be discovered during the homeward walk of this sober minded Phyllis and Stephen of the mills that their voices go well together, the practising at the school not unfrequently conduces to domestic duets, never, let us hope, to matrimonial discords. An ingenuous bride, not long ago, assured the writer that she simply doted on the Sunday School. When asked for the reason, she naively confessed that it was there she first met her Billy. As this frank young lady has since sent in her resignation as a teacher, it is to be assumed that she now dotes on Billy to the detriment of the Sunday School; but she has not thought it necessary to return the time-piece presented to her by her fellow-teachers on the eve of her wedding-day.
He must be a very callous individual indeed who does not delight in the sight of the scholars as they marshal under the folds of the School flag, blazoned with the name of the chapel and borne in a somewhat staggering fashion by sturdy teachers who find consolation for their tribulations in the honour of being standard-bearers. Even a slattern mother and a drunken father will make a shift at sacrifice to turn the “childer” out decent for the “Whissun treat.” It is indeed the time of year when the yearly Sunday suit is chosen. Poverty must indeed have made its home in the house of a Yorkshire mill-hand if a white muslin frock and brilliant sash and a new straw hat with bright ribbons cannot be found for the girls, and a new suit, be the material never so rough, for the lads. It is a feast to the eyes to see the young coquettes—a maid of five is often a promising if not a quite accomplished coquette—arrayed in all their glory, conscious of their charms and severely critical of the gowns of their comrades. There is the exhilaration of the strains of the brass band—which in all probability will be comfortably drunk before the day is out; there is the fluttering of the silken banners in the summer breeze, and, above all, there is the consciousness of being the beheld of all beholders. The boys look either bored or ashamed of themselves and wish they were nearer the buns and nuts, for which they are gloomily conscious they will have to pay by submitting to the humiliating exactions of kiss-in-the-ring. Every door of the village is open as the long procession winds through the narrow streets, and anxious matrons and elder sisters watch for their own to see the sash has retained its bunch and the flounces have not given: also to receive the soothing assurance that Annie or Lizzie is dressed as smart as the best of them. Then there is the singing of a hymn at the minister’s house and before the deacons’ and—pleasantest feature of all the day’s proceedings—the lifting of the sweet young voices under the window of a sick companion who listens from a tear-stained pillow to the air she may never sing again. The distinction almost compensates for pain.
Among those watched the procession was Ben Garside, Hannah, and Lucy. She had been wheeled to the open door. Her father and mother stood on the other side. Tom was in his bedroom, “fettling hissen,” as Hannah put it. Ben had put on his better suit, and shaved himself in honour of the holiday,—the last holiday of the year for working-folk till Christmas should come again. There were no Bank Holidays in those days. Hannah had put on her somewhat rusty silk dress, and would have scorned to acknowledge that it pinched round the waist more than it did a year before. As the rear rank of the scholars and the last banner disappeared up the street, Tom’s feet were heard descending the stairs.
“Tom ’ll be for off, nah,” said Hannah, “pity he couldn’t ha’ his baggin’ so’s things wouldn’t be lyin’ abaat all hours.”
“Now Ben,” said Tom, cheerily, “I’m ready, are you?”
“By Gosh! Aw sud think yo’ are ready: stan’ ther an’ let’s ha’ a looik at yo’.”
Tom laughed, and stood to attention. “Do the creases show very much?” he asked, “I feel like a draper’s parcel wrapped in brown paper.”
It was a great event. Tom had got a suit of navy blue serge for the summer, and it fitted him like a glove.
“Aw mun gi’ yo’ a pinch for new,” said Hannah, nipping the upper arm.
“An’ put a penny in his pocket,” added Lucy, “for luck.”
“It should be a shilling if it’s to match the pinch,” laughed Tom, rubbing his arm. “But where’s your bonnet, Hannah, and your hat, Lucy?”
“What’s ta thinkin’ on, Tom?” asked Ben.
“Why that we’re all going to the field together. I’m going to wheel Lucy and stand by her, and you and Hannah are to enjoy yourselves with the other young folk.”
Ben protested he wouldn’t budge an inch. “Not but what he liked to see th’ childer enjoy theirsen, but Whissunday wer’ a heathenish festival an’ a relic o’ superstition.”
“But you’ve knocked off work and donned—I mean dressed yourself,” remonstrated Tom.
“Aye at nooinin’. Who could wark wi’ that blethrin’ brass band brayin’ up an’ down th’ street?”
Mrs. Garside looked at Lucy. “It ’ud be a treeat for th’ lass,” she said.
“I should like it, but I should only be a hindrance. Fancy Tom standing by me for hours at a stretch and all the other young men in the field enjoying themselves. Take mother, father, and I’ll stop at home. No one will run away withme.” she added bravely, but there was a tear in her voice.
“If you stop at home, I stop,” said Tom emphatically. “Besides, as for being tied to your side all the time, when you get tired of me, and mother there’s tired of mooning about with Ben, we can take turn and turn about. I couldn’t enjoy myself a bit if you were stuck here all by yourself, and what’s more, I won’t try.”
“Well, then, that sattles it,” said Hannah. “We’ll all go, an’ th’ haase mun tak’ care on itsen. Awst put mi silver spooins i’ mi pocket, an’ there’s nowt else ’at means owt. Nah! Ben, stir thee, mon, an’ dunnot stan’ theer like a stuck sheep.”
“Aw’mready,” said Ben, “Aw’n nowt to do but don mi cap an’ that won’t tak me as long as it’ll tak’ thee to don thi bonnet. Tom an’ me could go to the field an’ be back afore yo’ an’ Lucy ’ll be ready.”
“Aw said stir thee. Put th’ kettle on. What’s th’ use o’ goin’ to th’ field an hour afore there’ll be ony theer. Tha doesn’t want a whole field to thissen, does ta? We’ll ha’ us baggin afore we start, an’ then we’st ha’ th’ day i’ front on us.”
“But aw could put mi finger dahn mi throit an’ feel mi dinner yet,” demurred Ben. “It’s nooan three o’clock bi th’ Church.”
“That’s noah odds. Aw’m nooan baan to ha’ thee worritin’ me all th’ afternooin becos yo’n nooan had thi baggin, an happen sneakin’ off into th’ village to get a pint becos tha’s a sinkin’ i’ thi’ stomach, an’ me lookin’ for thi all ovver th’ field, wanderin’ abaat gawpin’ as if aw’d just bin let loise aat o’th ’sylum, an’ thee stuck at th’Cropper’s Armsas large as life, makkin’ a beeast on thisen becos it’s Whissunday. Nooah! if yo’ dunnot want yo’r baggin nah, yo’ mun ha’ it agen yo’ do want it.”
Hannah’s feet and hands had been as busy as her tongue. She had turned up the skirt of her gown and put an apron over all, spread the cloth, fetched up the bread and the butter, cut and spread thick slices for herself and the men, and thin ones for Lucy, washed the lettuce, radishes, and shallots, smoothed the top of the salt-cellar, set Tom to toasting a couple of currant teacakes, produced a jar of raspberry jam and mashed the tea before you could say Jack Robinson.
“Aw’ve getten a caa-heel for thi supper, an’ tha can bring thisen a pint o’ Timmy (best ale) for supper as it’s holiday time,” she conceded to Ben, evidently in great good humour with herself at the prospect of their outing.
And so as the large field near Mr. Tinker’s house—there was but a privet hedge separating it from the house garden—began to fill, as the boys and girls gathered from their respective school-rooms, flushed from their hasty tea-drinking, the lads not without a guilty consciousness of a filched bun bulging their trousers pocket, as the brass band played their final tune before withdrawing to the nearest inn to partake of something better than “spotted Dick an’ washin’-up watter,” as a member irreverently styled the scholars’ repast, Ben Garside sauntered into the field trying to look as if Sunday School treats were an every-day occurrence of his life, Hannah sailed behind, whilst Tom with Lucy brought up the rear. There grew a large beech tree on the slope of the ground, and under its full-leaved branches Tom drew the chair in which Lucy sat, her cheeks faintly tinged with a delicate bloom and her eyes sparkling with the unwonted excitement. Her mother raised her to a sitting posture and settled the cushions and wraps as only she could, and “theer yo’ are, lass,” she concluded, with a fond look at her darling child, “theer yo’ are as right as ninepence.” But the mother’s heart was full as she remembered the day, but as yesterday, when Lucy’s little feet would have skimmed the greensward light as a fairy’s dance.
But Hannah was not long suffered to indulge in reflections sad or otherwise she was a popular character in the village, and everyone knew that Hannah’s bark was worse than her bite. Soon the good wives of the village began to stroll about the field, scanning each others’ dresses, and exchanging kindly greetings, whilst their good men sought secluded corners where they might enjoy a furtive pipe, and talk over the topics of the day; the serious minded discussing the last sermon, the pugnacious revelling in the shortcomings of Parliament and the misdeeds of ministers. A small group gathered round Lucy’s chair, some of them rosy-cheeked young lasses, who had worked with Lucy in the mill, and who now brought up their young men to be exhibited with all the pride of conquest. And Lucy had a smile and pleasant word for all, and many a strapping swain, as he lounged past the nook where Lucy held her little Court and let his glance dwell upon the delicate face with its refined and chastened beauty, knew rebellious thoughts against the fate that had put the crippled girl beyond the sighs and vows of man; and grey-headed grandsires, bent with age and toil, recalled the former days when they had suffered and striven for the easier lot their children owned.