TO say that the service of the bill in Chancery on Tom was like a bolt from the blue would be but feebly to describe the consternation with which he perused the portentous document, and in time realized its meaning and effect. Tom was absolutely unconscious that either in thought, word, or deed he had wronged any of his neighbours below stream. He had not, to his knowledge, turned more dye-water into the river, or taken more pure water from it than the reasonable working of his mill demanded, and had been afore-time accustomed by his predecessor. He had received no complaint from Mr. Tinker, no request for abatement of any nuisance he might unwittingly have committed, or infringement he might innocently have caused, Nehemiah Wimpenny in his zeal to do his client’s behests, and in the animus he himself cherished against Tom, had even pretermitted the usual letter of courtesy preceding the firing of the first shot, the letter which in litigation is like the pourparlers of ambassadors preparatory to the formal declaration of war—an omission by the way, which Nehemiah had subsequent occasion to repent in sack-cloth and ashes. But for the present Nehemiah was jubilant and elate. Affidavits simply rained upon Tom. Photographers and surveyors swarmed about the banks of the Holme above and below Co-op Mill, and its waters were analysed and tested qualitatively and quantitatively as though the fate of empires depended on the issue. It was plain that Wimpenny meant to press the motion for an interim injunction, the effect of which would be to stop, if but temporarily, the work at Co-op Mill, and would of itself be as disastrous to its tenant as a final decree after full trial.
Tom and Ben discussed the situation in all its bearings.
“Aw’ll tell yo’ what it is,” said Ben, “it’s nowt but spite. Aw’ve known this stream, man and boy, for ovver fifty year, an’ th’ Co-op Mill as mony. An’ a hangel fro’ heaven couldn’t mak’ me believe as we’n done owt ’at Jabez Tinker’s a reight to complain on. It’s nowt but spite, Tom, it’s th’ owd tale ovver agen o’ th’ wolf an’ th’ lamb. He meeans to eit us up flesh an’ bone, that’s th’ long an’ th’ short on it. An’ what for? That lays ovver me entirely. Tha’s nivver crossed him i’ owt, has ta, Tom?”
And then, for the first time Tom told his friend of the offer Tinker had made to him at the close of his apprenticeship.
“An’ what didn’t ta tak’ th’ shop for, Tom? It ’ud ha’ been a seet easier for thee nor startin’ at th’ Co-op?”
“Well, you see Ben, we’d made all our arrangements and—”
“Aye, aye, aw see, lad, tha wer’ feeart aw sud think tha’d thrown me ovver. Eh, lad, me and yar Hannah an’ Lucy too, for that matter, ’ud ha’ gone to th’ big house afore yo’ sud ha’ gone agen yo’r best interests for us.”
“Oh, nonsense, Ben. I preferred the Co-op scheme. I never enjoyed my life so much as I have done since we went into it, and I shall never cast a regretful thought over either the labour or the wee bit money it has cost me. What worries me, Ben, so I can’t sleep o’nights, is the thought of the men who have joined us and put their life-savings into the concern. I shall never hold up my head again if they are to lose their money through their confidence in me.”
“And i’ me, Tom, i’ me, too. Yo’ see, lad, yo’ wer’ i’ a manner o’ speikin’ a stranger; but they’d known me all my life. But aw’m nooan feeart they’ll blame oather on us, after th’ first shock’s ovver. But if they dunnot ma’ Jabez Tinker sweeat for this job, they’re nooan th’ lad’s aw tak’ ’em for. If yo’ know onybody ’at’s interested i’ insurance companies just yo’ tell ’em to fight shy o’ Wilberlee Mill,” answered Ben savagely.
“That’s nonsense, Ben, and yo know it. Now what’s to be done?”
“Let’s go see Mister Re’fearn,” suggested Ben.
“I’m afraid he may think we want to ask him to help us out. We must take no money, Ben, from anybody. We’ll keep our good names if we lose every stick we have.”
“Oh! tha needn’t be so tetchy, Tom, Redfearn’s nooan fooil enough to lend us money to throw away. But yo’ know he’s had more deealin’s wi’ th’ law nor us, an’ though it gooas agen th’ grain, aw expec’ we’st ha’ to put a lawyer on to this job. We mun set a thief to catch a thief, aw ma’ no daat.”
So Tom and Ben set off for Fairbank’s and were fortunate enough to find Mr. Redfearn at home. He would hear no talk of business till all had sat down to a good dinner in his own well-furnished sitting room. “Folk always look on th’ gloomy side of things when their belly’s empty,” he observed, “an’ taking too doleful a way o’ lookin’ at things is just as foolish as takin’ too cheerful a one,” from which profound truism it will be seen that the farmer had learned something in the school of life that is not taught in academies or college. He listened at first to the story that Tom unfolded with the utmost attention and gravity. He even insisted on Tom reading to him the Chancery Bill and the pile of affidavits, but the prolixity and tautology of the legal phrasing soothed him like a soporific.
“It’s like bein’ i’ Church,” he muttered drowsily; and presently to complete the analogy, fell into a slumber from which he was only aroused by the entrance of Mrs. Redfearn with decanters, lemon, sugar and hot water, and a bottle of home-made rhubarb wine for the special cheer of Tom, whose habits she knew.
“Yo’ munnot think aw’ve been asleep” said Fairbanks. “Aw wer’ thinkin’, an’ aw can allus think best wi’ mi e’en shut. Th’ missus theer ’ll tell yo’ aw speik th’ truth, for ’oo often thinks awm asleep when ’oo’s givin’ me a leckter upstairs; but aw know ivvery word oo’s said th’ next mornin’ better than ’oo does hersen.”
“An’ much good my talkin’ does you, and much notice you take of it,” said Mrs. Redfearn, “but if yo’havebeen thinkin’ let’s hear what you’ve thowt on.”
“Tell Aleck to put Bob i’ th’ shafts. We’r’ bahn to Huddersfilt. This is a lawyer’s job, Tom, an’ aw think aw know th’ varry man for yo’. Yo’ know Sykes 0’ Wrigley Mill. He’s a lad i’ Huddersfilt ’at used to be a sort o’ teacher wi’ Mr. Black, an’ then wer’ ’prenticed to a ’torney in th’ taan. He’s started for hissen now. He’s as full o’ law as an egg’s full o’ meit, so folk sayn. But he’ll neer ma’ much aat awm feeart, for when he gets on his hind legs to speik, d— me if he can say boh! to a gooise. His wits all go a wool gatherin’ but he knows th’ law, none better, aw’m towd. An’ believe me or believe me not aw do think he’s honest so that wi’ his narvousness an’ his honesty, he’ll not mak’ much aat as a ’torney. Aw’m feart oather on ’em’s a drawback i’ his job; butbothtogether’s enough to sink a clivverer man nor Edwin Sykes ’ll ever be.”
It cannot be said that the anxious trio got much comfort from Mr. Sykes. He told them frankly that at the very best the litigation must be costly and prolonged, and that in the long run the Court would probably be guided by the weight and authority of the expert evidence.
“Now that means purse against purse. And I’m afraid, Mr. Pinder, that our guns are neither so many nor so heavy as our opponent’s. And Wimpenny won’t give us much rest.”
One grain of consolation they did bear away with them, however. Mr. Sykes was able to assure them that there was small likelihood of the Court granting aninteriminjunction.
“The Judge will know that to stop the work at the mill, even temporarily, would mean a probably irreparable loss. He won’t prejudge the case on an interlocutary proceeding. That will give you time to turn yourself round, Mr. Pinder, and I should say your best plan would be to look out for a mill lower down the stream,belowMr. Tinker’s. Then perhaps you can have a fling at him some fine day.”
“Eh! he’s a deep ’un is Ned for all his quiet ways. Talks like a judge doesn’t he? What’s that word— inter summat?”
“Interlocutory,” said Tom.
“An’ just think ’at aw’ve cuffed that lad mony a time when aw’ve found him moonin abaat Fairbanks wi’ a book i’ his hand. It’s just wonderful what education ’ll do.”
It did not remain a secret in Holmfirth that the new Co-op was in Chancery—name of dread import.Omne ignotum pro magnifico. The utmost that even the fairly well-informed could tell about Chancery was that it was a bottomless pit from which there was no escape, or a kind of legal den where the lawyers fed on the oysters called estates, flinging out the shells for the suitors to quarrel or get reconciled over. That was the utmost; but it was enough. Tom called a private meeting of all the hands and told them the facts. Their first feeling was one of blank dismay, their next and abiding feeling one of dogged resistance.
“It’s the devil’s plot, and hatched in hell,” said the spokesman of the men who had money in the concern. “But we’ll fight to the finish, an’ bi what we’n heard abaat this here Chancery, th’ finish ’ll be abaat th’ same time as th’ Day o’ Judgment.”
The news reached Dorothy through the faithful Betty.
“Well, the law can’t hurt Mr. Pinder if he’s done nothing wrong,” said her young mistress “The law is for evil-doers, and I suppose Mr. Pinder is not an evil-doer. He’s a very innocent looking one if he is.”
“Ah! it’s little yo’ know about th’ law, or me oather, come to that. But aw keep mi ears oppen an’ theydosay,—”
“Which, being interpreted, means ‘Serjeant Ramsden of the County Constabulary,’” interrupted Dorothy, with an arch smile. “Well, what do they,aliasSerjeant Ramsden, say.”
“Why,” answered Betty in no wise abashed. “He, aw meean they, say ’at it doesn’t matter a brass farden i’ Chancery whether a man’s i’ th’ reight or th’ wrang. It’s th’ longest purse at wins i’ th’ long run. Th’ Serjeant says, miss, ’at if Tom wins i’ one court yo’r uncle can peeal to a higher court, an’ on an’ on till it reaches th’ Lord Hissen.”
“The Lords, you mean, perhaps, Betty.”
“Weil, it’s all as one, for ought aw can see. It’s naked we come into th’ world, and naked we go aat on it, an aw reckon Tom ’ll be stripped pretty stark afore th’ case gets up to th’ Lords.”
“But what’s it all about, Betty? Dear me, if being in love makes a woman so tiresome as you are, I hope such a calamity will never befall me. WhathasMr. Pinder done?”
“Oh!” said Betty, “there’s no hope o’ yo’r escapin’ it unless so be as yo’r minded to play a very one-sided game. But if yo’ ax me what th’ law stir’s abaat, as far as aw can mak’ aat th’mestersays it’s abaat th’ watter-reets to th’ mill, butfolksen it’s nowt but spite, so nah yo’ han it plump an’ fair.”
“Meaning that my uncle has gone to law with his former apprentice from some petty feeling of jealousy, or just to cripple him or even ruin him?”
“That’s th’ talk o’th village, choose ha.”
“Well, I don’t believe it, Betty. My uncle is incapable of such conduct. But I’ll soon find out for myself. Get me my hat and cape this moment. I’m going out.” And Dorothy walked with quick, resolute steps to Ben Garside’s house. She was fortunate enough to find Lucy alone, and of this she was glad, for she was in no humour to enjoy Hannah’s garrulous speech.
“What’s this I hear, Lucy, about my uncle going to law with Mr. Pinder. I can make neither head nor tail of Betty at home, so I’ve come to you. It seems to me there’s something about law that forbids people to be intelligible when they’re talking of it?”
“Your uncle,” said Lucy very gravely, “has served a Bill in Chancery, I think they call it, on Tom.”
“What in the name of common sense is a Bill in Chancery? I know what a dressmaker’s bill is, but the other variety is beyond me.”
“I don’t quite know all the ins and outs of it,” replied Lucy, still very seriously. “But so far as I can make out your uncle complains that Tom fouls the stream and takes more water out than he’s any right to, and of course as Wilberlee is lower down the stream it must injure your uncle if it’s true.”
“And is it true?” asked Dorothy.
“Both Tom and father say there isn’t a word of truth in it.”
“And you believe them?”
“Of course I do,” said Lucy simply.
“Then what is there to look so gloomy about? ’Pon my word, Lucy, if you go on in the dumps like that I’ll shake you. I only wish somebody would bring a false charge against me. There’s nothing I should enjoy more than making them prove their words at no end of trouble and expense, and then laughing at the faces they’d pull when they failed to do it. If that’s Chancery I call Chancery a very good joke.”
“Aye, but Tom says it will take all they have in the world to prove that they’re in the right, and that month after month, for goodness knows how long, the money that should go for wages and in carrying on the mill must go to their lawyer. So it means ruin, win or lose.”
“And that’s what they call law, is it?” exclaimed Dorothy. “Anybody could see a set of men noodles made it. But what are they going to do?”
“Just carry on as long as they can, and then I don’t know what. It doesn’t matter so much for father. He can take to his hand-loom again, and now I’m so much stronger I hope to be a help to him. I can spin wonderful. But it will be a sad blow for Tom. His whole heart and soul were in the mill. Not for the money. I never knew anyone care less for money than Tom. But the hands were so contented and father says it was to prove a social and economic revolution, whatever that may mean.”
“It means apparently,” said Dorothy “ruining yourself for the general good. Does Tom,—Mr. Pinder, take it much to heart?”
“He pretends not to, always tries to put a cheerful face on when he talks to mother. But I know it’s just crushing the youth out of him. But it’s because those that went in with him may have to lose their money. And father says there’ll be no room for Tom in these parts if th’ Co-op’s stopped. The other manufacturers are sure to side with your uncle, and they’ll none of them give Tom a job if he asked for it.”
“Oh! they wouldn’t, eh?” Then suddenly. “Is Tomverydear to you, Lucy?”
Lucy flushed, and her eyes fell before Dorothy’s questioning look. But her voice, though low, was very steady as she spoke.
“I love him very much, Dorothy. Next to the love I have for mother and father there is no one in the world to me like Tom. He is my big brother, you know,” she added, with a faint smile.
“Oh! Those big brothers have a way of turning into big lovers,” said Dorothy. “That’s just their artful way. They get a poor innocent confiding girl to feel like a sister, and then when she begins to feel she cannot very well do without him, nothing will do but a ring and a parson. I know them,” said Dorothy viciously.
“Tom will never bemylover, Dorothy,” said Lucy, quietly.
“And why pray, Miss Pale-face?”
“Because he loves someone else. He has loved her for years.”
“What Parson Tom engaged! Tragedy upon tragedy. There are two blighted beings then; the course of their true love, ruffled by this dreadful Chancery. And who’s the luckless she? This is a world of surprises. Tom was not such a bat as to look outside this house for a prettier face and a sweeter heart than he’ll find inside it.”
“I didn’t say Tom was engaged,” said Lucy.
“I know you didn’t. Well, if it isn’t I’ll not venture another guess. Still, I’m a daughter of Eve after all, and I confess I hope Mr. Pinder is not going to throw himself away on some good-looking empty-head of a girl—a calf-love. You said it was a malady of standing, contracted young, if I remember.”
“Yes, she’s good-looking,” said Lucy.
“Andempty-headed?”
“You wouldn’t like me to say so.”
“I! What have my likes to do with it? It’s no concern of mine. Really, you stimulate my curiosity. Is it anyone I know? Does she go to our chapel?”
“Yes, she goes to Aenon,” said Lucy. “But there, I’ll tell you no more.”
“Oh! I can guess, and thank you for nothing. It’s that apprentice of Miss Baxter’s, the milliner. Now don’t deny it. I saw Mr. Pinder looking at her very much the last Sunday he honoured Aenon. The girl with the green gloves. The taste of some men—in dress I mean.”
“Have it your own way,” said Lucy, “you’ll find out someday, perhaps.”
“Oh! Bother Tom Pinder and his lady-loves green gloves as well. However did we get talking of such a trifle! Now, seriously, Lucy, do your father and the other want to fight this case, and can they win if they can fight.”
“They say so. But what’s the use of talking. If ifs and buts were apples and ducks!”
“And who knows but they are,” said Dorothy, springing to her feet. She kissed Lucy with a bright face. “Don’t lose heart, little pale-face. They aren’t beaten yet. Tell them not to give in. I say so. Now, good-bye,—you’re sure it’s green gloves?”
“You know I never said so. But good-bye.”
It is never safe to be certain about anything connected with the law; but the opinion may be hazarded that never in the long years of his tenancy did the office of Mr. Edwin Sykes receive a fairer client than the young lady who was closeted with that sedate professor of the gloomy science not long after the interview just recorded. The young lady did not seem in the least impressed by the sombre volumes of statutes and reports that lined the walls of the room, nor yet by the tape-bound bundles of foolscap, draft, and brief, neatly docketed, that were spread on a table by the lawyer’s side, so many pot-eggs, the ribald alleged, to tempt the unwary to lay.
Dorothy had accepted the chair Mr. Sykes had handed her, but flicked its horse-hair cushion with a delicate cambric handkerchief before complying with his invitation to be seated.
“How very musty everything is,” she remarked in explanation. “If I’d walked the length of New Street after sitting on your chair without first dusting it, everyone would have said either that I’d been knocked down by a tramp and robbed on my way from Holmfirth, or been to visit an attorney. There mayn’t be much difference in the consequences,” she added reflectively, “but I don’t want all the world to know my business. You can keep a secret, I suppose, Mr. Sykes?”
“It is part of my business,” the lawyer answered.
“Even from Mrs. Sykes—there is a Mrs. Sykes, I suppose.”
“Well, yes, as you are good enough to ask, thereisa Mrs. Sykes,—and till to-day I thought her the most daring of her sex” he would have liked to add.
“Ah! That’s a comfort. Now I can tell you everything. You wouldn’t think now I’m in great trouble, and I want you to help me out of it, and not a living soul but you must know about it.” As Dorothy looked radiantly happy as she made this doleful plaint it may be assumed that Mr. Sykes argued her case was not so desperate as her words.
“If you will tell me, Miss Tinker, the nature of your trouble I may be able to prescribe for you. We poor lawyers are not so clever as the doctors. We can’t diagnose by the looks, or, I confess, I should not advise you to abandon hope.”
“And this is the lawyer Ben said couldn’t say Boh! to a goose,” thought Dorothy.
“Now, how shall I begin?” she said.
“Suppose you try the beginning,” he suggested.
“You know Mr. Pinder, of Holmfirth?” asked Dorothy, glancing at a formidable pile of papers on the desk labelled “Pinder at the suit of Tinker.”
“If you mean Mr. Tom Pinder, of Co-op Mill, Hinchliff Mill, I think I may go so far as to say I do.”
“Come, that’s something,” said Dorothy. “You are so very cautious you might have added ‘without prejudice.’ Now is it a very bad case?” she concluded.
“Really! Miss Tinker.”
“Now I don’t want any humming and ha-ing, you know, Mr. Sykes. I take a very great interest in Mr. Pinder—well, not in him you know. That’s ridiculous: but in Lucy, you know” and Dorothy nodded with great significance, whilst the lawyer felt that he was getting deeper and deeper into a bog.
“I confess I don’t know,” he said, “and I must ask you to be a little more explicit.”
“Well,—dear me! How tiresome you are—it’s about this quarrel between uncle Jabez and Mr. Pinder.”
“Are you Mr. Tinker’s niece? Then really, Miss Tinker, I think if your uncle wants to open up any negotiations towards a settlement he’d better send his lawyer.”
“What! Nehemiah Wimpenny! How could he? Didn’t I tell you no one was to know anything of my visit but you and me, and Mr. Wimpenny’s the very last man in the world I’d chose for any errand of mine.”
“But in what can I help you, Miss Tinker? You will understand, of course, that I cannot discuss my client’s affairs with anyone without his knowledge and privilege,—no, not though an angel drop from the clouds.”
“I suppose that’s arechaufféfrom one of your pretty sayings to Lizzie Hudson. Oh! Yes! I know all about it Mr. Sykes. Lizzie and I were at school together, and I thought it just odious of her not to ask me to her wedding.”
“And only a minute ago she asked me if there were a Mrs. Sykes,” reflected the harassed young man. “Will she ever get to her story?”
“And that’s what gave me confidence to come to you, Mr. Sykes. Not the not being asked to the wedding, but because you were Lizzie’s husband, and I did think of calling on her and bringing her with me, but she’d have guessed,”—and here Dorothy stopped abruptly.
“Yes, she’d have guessed?” said Mr. Sykes, encouragingly.
“Never you mind what Lizzie would have guessed. It’s about this lawsuit I’ve come. I suppose I’d better come to the point.”
“Wish to heaven you would,” thought the lawyer.
“Now which do you think will win, uncle or Mr. Pinder?”
“If law and justice were one, Miss Tinker, there could only be one answer—Mr. Pinder.”
“But they aren’t,—so that means Tom, that’s Mr. Pinder, will lose.”
“You really must excuse me, Miss Tinker, I’ve said, even now, more than I’d any right to say.”
“But don’t you see, I want to help Mr. Pinder to win. That’s what I came for. Didn’t I tell you? Dear me, I wish I’d gone to Lizzie first.Sheisn’t slow, at any rate.”
Mr. Sykes smiled. “No, my wife is not slow-witted, and I’m afraid I am. Perhaps that’s why she took pity on me.”
“Shouldn’t wonder. Now the question is, how can we help Mr. Pinder, I mean Lucy, of course.”
Mr. Sykes felt his brain beginning to give way in the vain striving after his visitor’s drift. “Lucy,” he murmured hopelessly.
“Yes, Lucy. She’s my dearest friend. And she’s to marry Tom,—Mr. Pinder I mean. That is to say she would if he would; but she says he wont, and perhaps she’s right. Anyway, she wanted him to win this case, and I want him to win this case, and what’s more, I mean him to win this case,—for Lucy’s sake, of course, because she says it’s all spite, and neither law nor justice, and you say so too, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Now Lucy says it’s all a matter o’ money, I don’t mean matrimony; for goodness sakedon’trepeat that stupid jest. But I’ve had a long talk with Lucy, and she says it will cost Tom and Ben, that’s Lucy’s father, you know, heaps and heaps of money to fight the case to the end, and that’s just what they haven’t got. You’re the blood-sucker, I suppose?”
“Yes, Miss Tinker, I’m afraid I’m one of them—for Lizzie’s sake, of course.”
Dorothy looked sharply at Mr. Sykes, and there was a slight flush of colour on her cheek as she repeated “Oh, yes, for Lizzie’s sake, of course.” Was it possible that this very sedate young man could guess beyond his brief?
“NowI’vegot some money; at least I suppose so; though I’ve never seen it. But I’ve always understood my poor father that I don’t remember, made a will, and I was the only child. Now you must get to know all about that, and Mr. Pinder and Ben are not to go to the wall for want of money. Do you understand that?”
“But am I really to understand, Miss Tinker, that you propose to spend your money in helping my clients in fighting your own uncle?”
“I don’t care if he’s twenty times my uncle, though once time once is enough, thank you. But if he’s mean enough to try to ruin Ben Garside—”
“And Mr. Pinder?” put in the lawyer, quite casually.
“And I thought this lawyer stupid,” thought Dorothy, but ignored the interruption.
“Then I’m mean enough to fight him with his own weapons, uncle or no uncle.”
“It sounds parlously like champerty and maintenance,” said Mr. Sykes, more to himself than to Dorothy.
“There’s no sham about it, sir. I mean every word of it. I’ll let my uncle see he can’t treat me as he does poor aunt, like dirt under his feet.”
“God grant I’m spared the aunt,” groaned Edwin Sykes inwardly “what with her Lucy and her own quite bewildering self there are quite women enough in the case, without introducing an aunt.”
“If I follow you, Miss Tinker, you are desirous, for your friend Lucy’s sake, to help my client with money to carry on this unfortunate litigation. Have you any idea what the costs may amount to?”
“Not the slightest. But that doesn’t matter. The money shall be found.”
“I’ve another question to ask, Miss Tinker, and a very delicate one. May I ask how old you are?”
“And this is the man that can’t say Boh! to a goose,” again thought Dorothy.
“I suppose if I’d assurance enough for a lawyer I should tell you I’m as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth,” replied Dorothy merrily.
“That’s exactly what I’m driving at,” was the reply very seriously uttered. “I’m not at all sure that I should be justified in taking your money without my client’s knowledge and consent even if you were of full age, but from a minor!”
“Pshaw, I sha’n’t be a minor all my life. I shall be twenty one next birthday, and that’s on May 21st.”
“There’s many things may happen between now and your birthday.’’
“Exactly, your client may be ruined and Lucy may be broken-hearted, and all because of a silly punctilio.”
“Have you a copy of your father’s will.”
“Ah! Now you’re talking. I haven’t; but I suppose one can be procured. I should like to see one any way, for even a woman may be allowed a little curiosity as to her own fortune. After all, I may be as poor as a church mouse. But you can find out that for me and have no qualms, I hope.”
“Oh, yes, I shall be pleased to get you a copy of the will. I apprehend that you come to your inheritance in the general way.”
“And that is?”
“If and when you attain the age of twenty-one years, or marry under that age. By the way, that suggests one simple solution of the difficulty, you might marry.”
“Oh! That’s out of the question.”
“Not for, ahem!”—the young lawyer raised his long white hand to his mouth and coughed very slightly “not for Lucy’s sake?”
Dorothy rose with some dignity to close the interview. “Let me know please when have got the copy of the will. Meanwhile, I suppose I can rely on your discretion,” and Dorothy made to go.
“Nay, Miss Tinker, you have not permitted me to say my say. I am well aware that Mr. Pinder is a poor man. I am also a poor man. I had not intended to trouble my client in the event of defeat for more than the actual costs out of pocket. Those I couldn’t afford to advance. If you give me your simple word that these shall be paid sooner or later by someone, no matter who,” and here there was the barest suspicion of a twinkle in the young man’s eyes as he added, “or for whose sake, rest assured I shall not allow Mr. Pinder’s cause to fail for want of professional assistance. More I cannot promise.”
Dorothy extended her hand. “And you have my word that if I live you shall not suffer. I do so want Tom, I mean Mr. Pinder, to win if he’s in the right. I’ll do almost anything rather than he should be borne down simply by his poverty. I sayalmostanything. I draw the line at marrying, you know; besides,” and a look of sudden remembrance sprung to Dorothy’s eyes.
“Yes, besides?”
“Oh, it’s something you wouldn’t understand, about a horrid girl with green gloves,” and Dorothy tripped away with a smile and a nod.
“This case fairly bristles with women,” mused Edwin Sykes. Quintilian was right:Nulla causa sine femina.
And the months went by and the trial of the great cause of “Pinder at the suit of Tinker” seemed as far off as ever. First blood had been drawn by the defendant: the motion for aninteriminjunction and an account of profits had been refused by the Court, and the judge had made certain observation as to the precipitancy with which the action had been commenced that made that respectable practitioner, Mr. Nehemiah Wimpenny, who was present at the hearing of the motion, long that the floor of the Court would gape and swallow him to the bowels of the earth,—anywhere out of hearing of that calm, gentle voice dropping vitriol in honeyed accents. In proportion as Tom and Ben and the friends of Co-op Mill rejoiced, so did Mr. Tinker rage and storm. From the very filing of the Bill he had regretted that in his anger he had instituted proceedings that none knew better than himself were purely vexatious and vindictive. The monitor of the night watches had left him little peace. In vain he had tried to silence the still small voice by arguing to himself that to stop Co-op Mill would be to stop the irreligious services which more and more abundantly attracted men from the orthodox ministrations of Mr. Jones and the other chapels of the district. Mr. Tinker was no Jesuit. Again and again he more than half-resolved to bid Mr. Wimpenny stay his hand he would have been glad to be quit of the lawsuit, even if he had to pay the defendant’s costs as well as his own. But now that he was smarting under a rebuff, and his enemy was exulting in a momentary triumph,—give way now! No! That was not the stuff Jabez Tinker was made of. To be bested by a boy, a nobody that owed all he was and all he had to him, a serpent whom he had warmed in his breast,—it could not, it should not be.
And Nehemiah Wimpenny artfully fanned the flames of Mr. Tinker’s wrath. He pooh-poohed the temporary check.
“It wasn’t an engagement, my dear sir; an interlocutory motion is a mere skirmish, a sort of reconnoitering expedition, a simple device to draw the enemy’s fire. Now we know where they are. They have had to show their hand, sir. We know where their weak spots are.”
“That’s all very fine,” grumbled Tinker, gloomily. “We may have foundtheirweak spot; but it seems to me they’ve found one or two of ours—and one sore one, too, judging by the way you squirmed when my Lord rubbed it into you.”
“Oh! That’s nothing,” laughed Wimpenny. “I took his saltcum grano, and I don’t doubt you’ll attach the same importance to this littlecontretemps. The trial’s the thing.’’
“You must win this case, Wimpenny, if money can win it.’’
“Money can do anything in this world,” said Wimpenny, “at least that’s my professional experience.”
Mr. Tinker left the lawyer’s office in anything but a tranquil frame of mind. He felt like a conspirator in a sordid crime. The very paltriness of the issues and the insignificance of his opponent galled and fretted him. But how retreat now that all the world was saying that Tom Pinder was more than a match for Jabez Tinker?
CHAPTER XIII.
FROM this time onward for some months there is little to record. The parties to the great law suit awaited with what patience they might the final trial of the all-important issue. The failure of the attempt to stay the work at Co-op Mill pending the final decision secured for Tom Pinder and his colleagues a welcome breathing space. If it were possible all hands bent themselves to their respective tasks with increased energy. The check to the plaintiff gave them heart for the present and hope for the future. Every precaution was taken to guard against any fouling or minishing of the stream.
The people of the Holme Valley are even to this day a litigious, disputatious race. They are law-loving in an inverted sense. An average native does not feel that he has lived his life unless he has at least once been prosecutor or plaintiff in a “law do.” With the poet he may be supposed to sing—
“’Tis better to have sued and lostThan never sued at all.”
“’Tis better to have sued and lostThan never sued at all.”
“’Tis better to have sued and lost
Than never sued at all.”
And the pros and cons of anycause celebreare discussed wherever men foregather long before the fierce light of the Courts beat upon the matter. The “company” of the village public constitute themselves into an informal jury. Generally each side has its adherents. The witnesses, or such of them as frequent the houses of entertainment, tell and tell again the story they are to repeat in Court. The strong and the weak points of the evidence are discussed, criticized, cross-examined, as it were, with all the acumen of the native mind, and all the freedom of irresponsibility, and of the license that ignores the trammelling confines of the laws of evidence. The peculiar qualifications of the local lawyers engaged are discussed with a particularity that would very much surprise, and not always gratify the gentlemen whose merits and demerits are so freely appraised. Illustrations drawn from previous forensic contests are liberally drawn upon. There is generally in the company some man who has purchased by bitter experience the right to speak with authority, who airs his knowledge of the intricate mazes of legal proceedings. His conversation bristles with technical terms. He speaks glibly of writs, summonses, subpoenas, judgments, appeals, bills of costs and the taxation thereof. If by good fortune he possesses a copy of an ancient text-book and can produce text and verse in support of his assertions he is an opponent to be admired, but shunned. In public-house controversy the man who is most dogmatic, who can shout loudest and longest is usually adjudged the victor, especially if he is prepared to back his opinion and table the money; but even he must yield to the visibledictaof the printed word. By the time the cause is ripe for hearing, bets have been made and taken; the adherents of the adversaries have ranged themselves; there are the village Montagues and Capulets, and the local attorney goes into Court the champion of a score of clients whose very existence he is unaware of.
Now in Holmfirth Jabez Tinker’s defeat had been celebrated at theCropper’s Armsby a beast-heart supper. The landlord had provided the beast-heart in the due recognition of the policy of throwing a sprat to catch a mackerel. There had been some talk of inviting Edwin Sykes to preside at the supper, but even Holmfirth hardihood has its bounds. Tom Pinder, the landlord had shrewdly surmised, would prove a kill-joy, and as for Ben Garside, though every feeling of his heart said “yes” to the invitation, he was kept away partly by his own sense of propriety, but still more by the emphatic injunctions of his better half.
“Tha’rt nooan bahn to shaat, Ben, afore tha’rt aat o’ th’ wood, an’ when tha does shaat, tha mun do thi shaatin’ i’ decent company, an’ not amang yon’ beer-swillin’ hogs at th’Cropper’s Arms. What do they care whether yo’ win or looise? There isn’t one on ’em but ’ud sell yo’ for a quart o’ ale. Yo’r nooan bahn to lower yo’rsen bi mixin’ amang that lot, it says i’th Book theer ’at i’ vain the net is spread i’ th’ seet o’ ony bird; but th’ kind o’ bird at th’ net o’ th’Cropper’sis set for mun be bats darkened wi’ brewer’s grain, an’ that’s all t’ grain some on ’em feed on.”
It did not lessen Jabez Tinker’s irritation and general sense of all things being awry that he was in many ways made conscious that the only public opinion that he really cared about—that of his own neighbourhood—was dead against him. Mr. Tinker affected to despise the sentiments of his neighbours, and he certainly could not be accused of stooping to court popularity. But no man is really indifferent to the good or ill-word of his own little world. And Jabez was aware that even his own household was not on his side. To be sure in the rare visits he paid to his ailing wife at Harrogate he was sure of one sympathetic listener as he unfolded in brief, terse sentences the story of his wrongs, in which he had almost persuaded himself to believe, and of the indignities which he concluded must be patent to everyone. But Dorothy he knew to be openly and avowedly in the camp of the enemy, and this was an ever rankling sore. Jabez had declared to himself that his niece was the illest of all birds fouling its own nest. She was a Tinker, his brother’s daughter, and it was her bounden duty to take his side and fight his battle whether he were right or wrong. The mere stranger and passer-by, they might scan and scrutinize; but for the girl who slept under his roof and sat at his table to condemn her heart, was the blackest treason and gross ingratitude Jabez had never heard of Walpole’s reply to the county member who promised his vote whenever he should think the member in the right. “I want men who’ll back me right or wrong: through thick and thin.” But Jabez had the same views as to the countenance he was entitled to expect from his niece.
And Dorothy was made to feel that her uncle’s feelings were very bitter towards her. The subject of the lawsuit was never referred to, but Jabez, never a demonstrative or genial relative, now became cold, repellent, caustic. If there was a death in the house, Betty declared, it could not be gloomier, and if it wasn’t for leaving Miss Dorothy she wouldn’t care how soon she changed her name and state.
All this was, one may be sure, not conducive to Dorothy’s serenity. She had, too, at times, a sense of treachery to her uncle. Was she justified in secretly aiding and abetting his enemy, even if that enemy were an enemymalgré lui? How was she to be certain that what most people said was true, that her uncle was merely persecuting a rival in trade to crush him? Could she, indeed, believe that of that stern, austere man, the pillar of Aenon Chapel, quoted and esteemed throughout the whole Baptist denomination who of all other men, she had thought, however unlovable was at least a just man. These considerations were of themselves sufficient to disquiet a young and sensitive mind. There was another. Was Dorothy honest with herself? It was Dorothy who asked the question. And when man or maid has come to the pass of asking so searching a question it is odds that conscience has a ready “No.” Was itpar exemple, quite the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, that it was only for her friend’s sake, and for the triumph of abstract justice against an unholy conspiracy that Dorothy had so overleaped the bounds of maidenly reserve and perilled her fortune in the quicksands of the law. And when Dorothy, in the still watches of the night, thus put Dorothy’s self into the witness box, and her fluttering heart gave its blunt reply, Dorothy was fain to draw the coverlet over a winsome face and hide the crimson blushes e’en from the sightless eyes of night, and toss and turn upon her uneasy couch courting and yet dreading the sleep that brought dreams that should not be for maids uncourted and unwon.
And to nights thus harassed followed days embittered by her uncle’s harsh, forbidding aloofness, and, to fill her cup to the brim, by the now unmistakable attentions of Nehemiah Wimpenny. That young ornament of the law had fully satisfied himself that Dorothy was worth the winning. He had even gone so far as to transfer his valued custom from theRose and Crown, and Polly was left lamenting but sustaining her desertion with more philosophy than Ariadne or Dido.
“Good riddance of bad rubbish,” was all she said, and forthwith reserved her sweetest smiles and most languishing glances for the village surgeon, who had long sighed in vain, eclipsed by the greater attractions or,—may it be suggested?—by the deeper purse of the village attorney.
Nehemiah was now a constant visitor at Wilberlee, and by Jabez Tinker was always welcomed with a warmth that increased when the manufacturer perceived that the attorney’s visits were not purely professional. Jabez saw in his niece’s marriage relief from a daily source of irritation. True, the day drew nigh when he must be prepared to produce and vouch his accounts as executor and trustee of his late brother. But Jabez flattered himself that if anyone could be counted on to keep Wilberlee out of Chancery it would be Nehemiah Wimpenny, if Nehemiah Wimpenny were also Dorothy’s husband.
“Lawyers are fond of law, but it must be at somebody else’s expense,” he argued. “Wimpenny won’t be such a fool as to share my cake with others, when sooner or later he can have it all himself.”
But Nehemiah found the wooing of Dorothy up-hill work. The Holmfirth “Don Juan” was accustomed to the easy conquests of the bar-room and the side-wings of the Huddersfield Theatre. He found it difficult to teach his tongue the language to which it was a stranger, and after a painful hour or so spent in the parlour of Wilberlee in the attempt to interest or amuse the young heiress, his whole being cried out for the unrestrained freedom of Polly’s conversation, and for the ready appreciation Polly had always vouchsafed to his jests and innuendos which even Nehemiah knew would ensure his prompt expulsion from Wilberlee, probably at the point of the owner’s toe.
But as yet, at all events, he felt himself securely in Mr. Tinker’s goodwill. He had even gone so far as to drop a not obscure hint as to the aspirations he cherished in what he was pleased to call his heart.
“Win this accursed law-suit for me,” Jabez had said, “and we will talk about matters less important. Meanwhile, you had better make as sure of my niece’s consent as you may of mine. Not that Dorothy would stay for that. I wish you joy of her, that’s all. Women are kittle-cattle to shoe. I don’t think you’ll find my niece an exception to her sex.”
But Nehemiah, despite the guardian’s favour, confessed to himself that if he progressed at all in Dorothy’s good graces, his progress was crab-wise—backwards. Whatcouldhe talk about? He feigned an interest in the sermons of the Rev. David Jones. But Dorothy yawned at the very mention of the minister’s name. Then he affected an interest in her Sunday School class, but Dorothy said Sunday School classes were generally a combination of scholars who didn’t want to learn and teachers who didn’t know how to teach, and as she felt herself to be one of the latter class, she was determined to give her class up. Then the desperate lover essayed his powers at the retailing of local gossip, telling with unction how young D— was supposed to be casting sheep’s eyes at Nancy N—; how the plain daughter of the vicar’s warden was shamelessly setting her cap at the new curate, and how the hue of Mrs. J—’s nose-end was erroneously attributed to poverty of blood.
In one topic only could he prevail on Dorothy to take an interest at all, and that was a topic on which Nehemiah was eloquent enough at first, but of which in time he became uncommonly shy,—the vexed question of water rights, with especial reference to the great case of “Pinder at the suit of Tinker.”
“So you’ve lost your application for aninteriminjunction?” Dorothy said demurely one night after tea, when her uncle had hurried off to a deacon’s meeting, promising speedy return, and hospitably pressing his guest to stay for the substantial supper of cold meats and pastry with which our hardier fathers braved the terrors of nightmare and dyspepsia.
“Oh, that’s nothing, Miss Dorothy,” said Nehemiah jauntily, glad of a subject of conversation in which he flattered himself he could shine, “nothing at all, I can assure you.”
“Then you expected to lose?”
“Well, not say expect, but fortune of war you know, fortune of war, glorious uncertainty, and all that, don’tcherknow.”
“But you are certain to win in the end, or is there a glorious uncertainty about that?”
“Oh! yes, sure to win in the long run. Pinder can’t stand the racket. Expected he’d have caved in long since. Can’t understand it. Sykes must be risking more than I’d like to. Sticks like a leech at all points.”
“There’s an old saying, Mr. Wimpenny, that Tear’em’s a good dog, but Holdfast’s a better. Perhaps Mr. Sykes is one of your Holdfast breed.”
“Ah! Ah! very good, indeed, Miss Tinker. Must remember that. But we shall shake him off yet, you bet.”
“Thank you, I don’t bet.”
“Beg pardon, Miss Tinker, only a way of speaking, don’tcherknow. No offence,” and Nehemiah told himself that Dorothy was a very difficult girl indeed.
“So you think you’ll wear Mr. Pinder out. Do you mean his patience or his means?”
“Oh! patience is cheap enough. I dare say Pinder has plenty of that. It’s the poor man’s assets, don’tcherknow.”
“I’m afraid that’s often too true, Mr. Wimpenny.”
“Well, I could have sworn it was about all the stock-in-trade Pinder had to break him in. But somebody’s finding the money, or else Sykes is a bigger fool than I take him to be.”
“Money, money, money, you men seem to talk and think of nothing but money.”
“And they say, Miss Tinker, that women have a very pretty notion of spending what the men think and talk about.”
“Well, I for one would rather talk of something else. You’re sure, now, uncle is going to win this case?”
“Well, of course Ithinkso, or I shouldn’t have advised the proceedings.”
“But I suppose you advised the application for a what-do-you call it injunction. But you failed in that? Now I want you to tell me all about uncle’s grievances against Mr. Pinder. It is so delightful to find a lawyer who can make things so beautifully simple to a poor ignoramus of a girl like me. I can see now why you have so many cases in the Courts.”
“Oh! Dorothy, Dorothy.”
And forthwith the willing victim of woman’s guile talked at large of water encroachment, of unlawful ochre-water diverted from its natural course so that it passed by the head-goit of Co-op Mill, and only entered the river as it sped on to Wilberlee, to Mr. Tinker’s great damage and detriment. Never was Nehemiah more eloquent, never had he so wrapt and intent a listener.
“She’s just the woman for a lawyer’s wife,” thought Nehemiah, as he talked. “I’ll practise my speeches on her.”
“But, after all, it’s no use wearying you with all these details, Miss Tinker. We shall never reach a final trial. Your uncle isn’t the man to take a beating, and if we’re trounced in one Court we shall go to another. Pinder can’t stand the racket. I call it downright dishonest of him taking the savings of those deluded Co-opers, as they call them, and spending it on Sykes. Of course it’s all the better for me. But the whole thing’ll fizzle out in the Bankruptcy Court, and I take it there’ll be no necessity to wait for the Court of Chancery’s decision. Want of shekels will decide the question before we’re much older, mark my words.”
“How very charming!” quoth Dorothy. “Really, Mr. Wimpenny, I don’t know how to thank you for making everything so clear to me. Now these water-foulings by Mr. Pinder, I suppose anyone can see them? You’ve interested me so much I’ve a good notion to turn myself into an amateur expert; if that isn’t a contradiction in terms.”
“Not more anomalous than a woman with sense,” reflected Nehemiah. But he said with something of an effort.
“Well, the fact is Miss Tinker, there isn’t very much to see. It’s the eye of science, don’tcherknow, that we go by in these cases. The eye of science,” he repeated, evidently pleased with that phrase.
“Well, anyway, I’ll try what the eye of a woman can see some fine day. Perhaps I may find out something that has escaped all you clever men, and then you’ll have to take me up to London as a witness, I hope.”
It was, perhaps, in pursuance of this quite commendable resolve, that Dorothy one bright, cloudless day in August, clad in a close-fitting costume that permitted the graceful movement of her limbs without concealing the charming lines of her form came suddenly upon Tom Pinder in the neighbourhood of the Isle of Skye. Dorothy, who had, as far as the nature of the ground permitted, followed the course of the stream as it flowed from its source down the valley, was warm and flushed from the toilsome ascent, but the glow of health was on her cheek and its sparkle in her eye. Tom, on the contrary, was pale and careworn. Too sedulous devotion to his necessary work, too little rest of mind and body, but above all the constant anxiety and uncertainty for the future were telling their tale upon his robust, vigorous, elastic frame. But a glad light sprang to his eyes, and a happy smile to his lips as he met Dorothy’s outstretched hand.
“You are quite a stranger, Mr. Pinder; it is ages since I caught more than a glimpse of you. Betty is quite fretting that you never go to see her now. Vows she is wearing to skin and bone; but it must be by the eye of faith she attests the process.”
“No. I do not often get to Betty’s kitchen now,” said Tom, with something very like a sigh. “More’s the pity; you see, I can’t very well go openly, and you wouldn’t have me go like a thief in the night.”
“No, I would not. It’s all this wretched law business, of course. But which way were you going, uphill, or down?”
“Bilberry! Well, there’ll be a breeze from the water’s face. But I think I ought to be turning homewards.”
“May I accompany you, Miss Tinker? You pass near my own mill, you know.”
“La!mymill! how grand it sounds. I think I should like to saymymill, and to feel that the hands weremypeople. ’Tis a relic of feudalism, I suppose.”
Tom raised his eyebrows almost imperceptibly. He had not credited Dorothy with much historical knowledge.
“Oh, you needn’t look so superior, Mr. Wiseacre. I’ve read a book or two, though I don’t teach classes on Sunday, like a naughty, defiant unbeliever, as some folk are. But there, you shan’t accompany me homewards. That will perhaps teach you to veil your superiority.”
“I assure you, Miss Tinker,” began Tom, but boggled at his disclaimer, for he was a poor liar, and Dorothy had; divined his thoughts shrewdly.
“Instead,” said Dorothy, enjoying his confusion, “instead I will go on with you to Bilberry Reservoir: I’ve as much right to the cool breeze from its surface as you have, and if you’ve no very great objection, Mr. Pinder, you may give me your arm up the hill.”
Tom flushed to the brow and, feeling weak as water, hoped that Dorothy’s ears were not as quick, as her eyes, for sure she would have heard the beating of his heart.
“Do you know, Miss Dorothy, I think it’s the very first time I’ve been asked to give a lady my arm.”
“Been asked?” said Dorothy, and part withdrew her little hand.
“Or given it, of course. I should never dream of giving it unasked.”
“Oh!” said Dorothy, and her hand stole back again. “What, not to Lucy?”
“Oh, well, you know. Well, perhaps Lucy may have taken it sometimes when she felt overdone can’t say for sure. One doesn’t think of these things.”
“Oh! don’t they?” queried Dorothy, and her hand again made for retreat.
“Not with Lucy, I mean,” added Tom.
“Oh!” and the hand now was restful.
They walked slowly towards the reservoir, leaving the highway, and treading on the soft close-cropped grass that fringed the moor. A grouse, occasionally, whirring low near the heather, cried its alarmed “Go-back, go-back,” and the faint sound of the sportsman’s gun was borne upon the wind. Silence fell upon the two, a silence that Tom knew not, nor cared to break.
“And what about Miss Baxter’s apprentice?” at last spoke Dorothy, very softly.
Tom did not seem to hear. In truth he walked in a blissful trance. The question fell upon his ear, but the words, as words will when the mind is dreaming, tarried ere they reached his senses.
It seemed to Dorothy as if there had been a long gap in their conversation when he spoke.
“I beg your pardon, what did you say, Miss Dorothy?”
“I said, what about Miss Baxter’s apprentice?” and there was no mistaking the withdraw of the hand now.
“Miss Baxter’s apprentice!” said Tom, blankly. “Miss Baxter, the milliner, you mean.”
“Of course I mean herandher apprentice.”
“Well, what about them?” asked Tom, “and how came we to be talking about them?”
“What’s her name? I hope it’s a pretty one.”
“Why, Miss Baxter, to be sure.”
“Stupid! I mean her apprentice. The one that wears green gloves. She’s one of the teachers in our Sunday school. Oh! You know very well, sir.”
“I suppose you mean Miss Pounder.”
“What a horrid name: but what could you expect from a girl that wears green gloves. You really must buy her a pair of another colour. But there’s no great change from Pounder to Pinder. That will be one comfort for her. But I meant her Christian name.”
“Upon my word,” said Tom, “I haven’t an idea. It may be Jezebel for aught I know or care.”
“But I thought….”
“Yes, you thought?”
“Oh! nothing,” said Dorothy, “and here, thank goodness, we’re at the reservoir at last. Oh! isn’t the view down the valley just lovely?”
“It is,” said Tom, but his eyes were on Dorothy’s beaming face.
They lingered for some moments on the embankment of the vast sheet of water, each wrapt in thought. It was Dorothy who spoke.
“Wherever does all the water come from and how could they manage to trap it like this?”
“Oh, this reservoir is almost made by Nature. Yonder is Hoobrook Hill and there is Lum Bank. It needed but to throw a bank across the intervening space, and behold, the reservoir was made. The water comes from Holme Moss and the hills running up to Saddleworth. You would scarce think that this huge dam contains nigh a hundred million gallons of water, and that there is a pressure of several hundred thousand ton weight on the bank on which we stand.”
“Oh! Tom! if it were to burst!”
Pinder looked very grave. “I have often thought of that. It would be a calamity such as daunts the heart but to think of. I come here often of a moonlight night when I have made up my books for the day. It is sweet to be alone with God, and thoughts that come from God and turn to Him. But there seems some weird fascination that draws my steps hitherwards. Had I ever contemplated suicide….”
Dorothy’s hand sought his involuntarily “Never that Tom, never that.”
“I should have thought there was an unseen hand beckoning, me hither. This great expanse of water, so still, when the clouds brood over it, so sullen, so seeming peaceful confined, so terrible for infinite woe if it should I o’erleap its barrier, has cast its spell over me.”
“How gloomily you talk, Mr. Pinder!”
“It was ‘Tom’ but a moment gone.”
“Well, Tom, then—as we are such old friends.”
“Yes, Miss Dorothy, my heart misgives me about this slumbering giant. I doubt the strength of his chains. See here”—and he led toward the centre of the embankment. “Where we stand the surface is nearly a yard lower than the mouth of the culvert.”
“What’s the culvert for?” asked Dorothy.
“It is the safety valve of the reservoir.”
“I’m afraid I’m rather stupid.”
“You see, when the reservoir gets over full the excess should go down the culvert. As things are it would begin to overflow just where we stand. Indeed, more than once when the wind has set this way, I’ve seen the water trickle over here. Let that trickle be but continuous and a rill would become a gap, the gap a yawning aperture and this huge burthen of Nature’s most innocent fluid would hurl itself down the valley, and what or who could withstand it!”
“But, Tom, whose duty is it to see to these things?”
“The Commissioners. Your uncle is one of them.”
“Oh! I will speak to him, I promise you, and that right urgently. Would you, could you speak instead of me? Uncle is very wroth with me these days, and, oh! Tom, life is so dree at Wilberlee, I could find it in my heart at times to cry my very eyes out. And it’s all your fault.”
“Myfault!” he repeated.
“Yes, yours, Tom why couldn’t you let uncle alone with your horrid law. You know he will have his own way, and, I think, your having been his apprentice makes it more galling.”
“And a workhouse brat at that,” said Tom, bitterly.
“Oh! never think of that, Tom. No one does. I don’t, and I don’t care if I do. It isn’t that: but uncle cannot bear to be thwarted. Can’t you let it drop?”
“Faith, I’d only be too glad. But it is Mr. Tinker that attacked me, and there is only one way to stop the law that I know of. Your uncle must give the word. But he wont, and I can’t.”
“Couldn’t you just let him have his own way; it will please him, and it won’t hurt you, nor your precious Co-op either.”
“I don’t know what you call hurting me: it will just ruin me, and what’s worse it will ruin a dozen others or so, poor Ben Garside among them.”
“But couldn’t you go lower down the stream? Mr. Sy——, I mean somebody,…. I mean” and here Dorothy lost herself altogether, and stood dumb-founded.
But Tom’s mind had seized upon the first suggestion of her words and he was unconscious of her embarrassment.
“Yes, if some good fairy would transport Co-op Mill below Wilberlee, we might manage very well. Say we had that carpet we read of in theArabian Nights. But what’s the use of talking? I cannot stop the litigation, and your uncle wont.”
“Couldn’t you allow him the name of a victory if he promised to let things go on just as they were, and you had nothing to pay those greedy lawyers? I’m sure he is not an unreasonable man, only you’ve crossed him, somehow, Tom.”
“I couldn’t send him more water or power if I tried, I know that.”
“And do you think he doesn’t know it? Will you just go to him and humble yourself to him. I’ll engage he shall meet you half-way.”
“I’m shot if I do,” said Tom stoutly, “he began it and he must end it.”
“I thought you preached the gospel, Tom.”
“Aye, aye, that’s all very well; but there’s nothing in the Bible about eating dirt, or letting a man make a door mat of you for him to wipe his feet on. Besides, there’s others to think of, Miss Dorothy. There’s Ben, for one, and all those whose money is in the concern. They’d never be willing.”
“You shan’t hide behind Ben, nor yet the others. You know very well they’ll say aye to anything you said. I know I should, Tom.”
Is there ought so subtle in this world as a woman’s cozening tongue.
“Do promise, Tom,” and here Dorothy seemed parlously near letting flow the tears she had threatened a while back; “for Ben’s sake, for Lucy’s sake.”
“I cannot, Miss Dorothy, do not ask me. You do not know how hard it is for me to say you nay.”
“Formysake, Tom; becauseIask you. Oh! I am so unhappy amid it all. I know not what I say, nor ask.”
“For your sake? Miss Dorothy, for your sake!”
“For mine, Tom,” whispered Dorothy, with down cast eyes and burning cheek.
How Tom at that moment constrained himself, and withheld the words that leapt to his lips, he could never tell.
“For your sake then, Dorothy,” was all he said.
She placed her hand within his arm, and in a silence that neither cared to break, they turned by mutual impulse to descend the hill homewards.
CHAPTER XIV.