Tom Pinder lost no time in waiting upon his solicitor and acquainting him with his desire that the proceedings should be stayed even if to stay them meant an ignominious surrender. Mr. Sykes did not conceal his surprise.
“What about the plaintiff’s costs?” he asked. Tom said he had reason to hope these would not be insisted on. “It is yours I’m much concerned about.”
“As to them, make your mind easy. I shall make out an account of my actual disbursements, and you must pay me off by such instalments as you find convenient.”
“But your labour?” protested Tom, “the days of manna are over long ago, and I suppose that if popular opinion were ought to go by lawyers would be the last body of men in the world for whom a special dispensation from the general rule would be made.”
“Ah well! popular opinion is sometimes wrong, let us hope, despite the saying,Vox populi vox Dei.”
“I thought you were a Radical, Mr. Sykes.”
“Yes, yes, but I am not so ardent a lover as to be blind to the faults of my mistress. But about this stay of proceedings. I must sound Wimpenny. I’m afraid he’ll be for his pound of flesh and all the other blood he can squeeze out of you. He’s very sore about that interim injunction and the judge’s remarks at the time would scarcely be as balm of Gilead to him.”
“I suppose Mr. Wimpenny will take his orders from his client.”
“Oh! of course. Well, we shall see what we shall see. That’s oracular, if it doesn’t convey much information. What about your scheme of Co-operative production on advanced lines? Is that to die an untimely death? It seemed to me a most promising essay in social economics. So long as you were content to work like a slave and be a poor man, with no prospect of being anything but a poor man, the system seemed flawless.”
“Systems for the regulation of human affairs will never be flawless, Mr. Sykes, till the men and women who are the flesh and blood of all systems are also flawless. Now I am far from being that.”
“I presume not,” said the lawyer, with something like a sigh. “I suppose you’ve got tired of this sacrificial altar and have secured a lucrative berth, and, like all the others, are going to worship the golden calf.Sic transit gloria mundi. I shed a tear to the memory of Co-op Mill and all the high resolves it enshrines. Who shall write its cold ‘Hic jacet.’”
“Nay, Mr. Sykes, I am not a Latin scholar; but if you will change your goose quill for the graver’s chisel, you shall inscribe on the corner stone of Co-op Mill a proud, a defiantResurgam.”
“What! You intend to try again?”
“Certainly, I am already looking for premisesbelowMr. Tinker’s Mill. Unless the Holme takes to flowing uphill, I shall be safe from my present adversary, at all events.”
Mr. Sykes rose and grasped his client’s hand warmly. “That is good hearing, Mr. Pinder; you are a man. Ah! I don’t wonder at Miss —”; but here the man of law checked himself.
“Confound it. The murther was nearly out,” he muttered.
“I’ll write to Wimpenny at once,” he said, “but I mustn’t seem too hot for a settlement or he’ll hold out for all he knows. I shall begrudge him every penny that goes from your pocket to his. Well, good day. I wish I were a manufacturer, I’d turn world-mender too.”
“Oh! If you shew the world the example of one lawyer who has an idea beyond his bill of costs, you’ll have done your share,” laughed Tom. “Convert nine others and Huddersfield need not fear the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.”
Pinder had more trouble with Ben Garside and his colleagues than he had encountered from his solicitor. Ben was for a fight to the finish. “Tinker’s shewing th’ blue feather,” he opined. “What’s come ovver thee, Tom? Tha’rt nooan bahn to duff when things are lookin’ up a bit? Besides, th’ best terms we can mak ’ll be to pay us own ’torney an’ gi’ up Co-op Mill. We med as weel be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, and if we’re to be ruined we med as well be ruined gradely as hauf ruined. Aw reckon th’ bailies ’ll be bun to leeave us a bed to lig on, an we’st scrat along some rooad till they put th’ coffin lid ovver us. Aw say feight to th’ deeath. Talk abaat bowin’ th’ knee to Baal?”
“Baal!” quoth Hannah curtly. “Baal wer’ a respectable sort compared wi Jabez Tinker; an’ as for that Wimpenny, oh! If aw wer’ a man, wouldn’t aw just. That’s all.”
What “just” the irate dame would have done, words failed her to express, but judging from Hannah’s gestures it was something that would not have improved Nehemiah’s personal appearance.
But the negotiations with that gentleman which Mr. Sykes opened up did not promise to bear immediate fruit. It is possible that Mr. Wimpenny saw everything to be gained and nothing to be lost—by himself—in the sweetness long drawn out of proceedings in Chancery. The defendant’s overtures were not met in a conciliatory spirit, and Sykes advised that nothing further should be attempted in that direction. Tom felt that he could do no more, and when he told Dorothy the steps he had taken to fulfil the promise she had wrung from him, Dorothy expressed herself content.
“You can hold out till May 21st?” She only asked.
“Oh, dear me, yes. From what I can judge when a lawyer in a Chancery suit contemplates a move in the proceedings, he takes a month to think it over, then he takes counsel’s opinion, then he takes another month to think over counsel’s opinion, then he rests for a month to recuperate his energies after their unwonted strain, then he writes to his London agent indicating the step he wishes to be taken, the agent takes a month to think over his principal’s letter, and another month to reply to it, and at the end of all the country solicitor changes his mind, and the process circumbendibus beginsde novo.”
“You ought to have been a lawyer, Tom,” commented Lucy. “You have been thinking over a certain step to my knowledge for more than twelve months, and you haven’t taken it yet.”
“And what’s that, Lucy?” asked Dorothy.
“Oh! you’ll know soon enough when he takes it,” was the most explicit answer that Dorothy could obtain, and with that she had to be content.
“I wonder why Dorothy mentioned the twenty-first of May next?” asked Tom of Lucy, when they were alone together.
“Why she comes of age then, stupid,” said Lucy, as shortly as ever she was known to speak.
But some months must elapse before that eventful day was due in the ordinary progress of the leaden-footed months. The Christmas of 1851 was for all in whose fortunes we are concerned, but a cheerless and anxious season. Work continued fairly good, and on that score there was nothing much to complain of. The winter months were open and depressing. The old adage that a green Yule makes a fat churchyard was amply verified. Low fevers were rife. The strains of the waits on Christmas Eve failed to arouse the sense of Christmas in the heart. Plum pudding and roast beef failed to stimulate to cheerfulness when all around was a damp, drizzly, clinging blanket of rain-charged atmosphere. For days together a pall of moisture settled over the Valley. The moors were soaked, and oozed like surcharged sponges. Every rill became a rivulet, every rivulet a river. The lower lands contiguous to the Holme were flooded. The dams were charged to the brinks, and in the mill-races the pressing waters strained the stoutest shuttles. From the hillsides the swollen streams brought rocky fragments rolling, tumbling, splashing. It was a man’s work to watch the river immediately below the tail-goits of every mill, to prevent the goit being blocked by the flotsam of the stream, and the water-wheel thrown into back-water.
It was an anxious time for Tom and Ben on more than one account. The apprehensions that had long possessed Tom as to the safety of Bilberry reservoir did not leave him. Rather he saw daily reasons for the more concern. The new year of 1852 saw little improvement in the weather, Almost daily Tom made his way to the banks of the great dam, surveying it with anxious eye. When he spoke his fears to old residents, they were pooh-poohed. It was the old cry of “Wolf.” The people in most immediate danger had been told so often that something was wrong with Bilberry embankment, and for so long had the gloomy predictions of the local Cassandras come to nought, that Tom spoke to deaf ears. None heeded him. Even Ben accorded him only the attention of politeness. The people lower down the Valley based their indifference to his suggestions of possible peril upon the indifference of those nearer the reservoir. If the people who lived cheek by jowl as it were with the big dam could afford to laugh at Tom’s dismal forebodings, why should they put themselves about. They recommended Tom to permit the Commissioners to know something about their business, and more than hinted that he had enough to do to look after his own particular concerns without worrying himself about what was after all a matter for the public authorities. It did not occur to them to reflect that if a man is drowned it does not matter much to him whether he has met his death through public or private defeasance.
On Tuesday, the 4th of February Tom had been as usual to market. He had done his business early in the afternoon, but had been detained in town by the necessity of seeing Mr. Sykes in connection with the eternal lawsuit. Then he had to wait for a train so that it was long past the hour for the evening meal when he reached Ben Garside’s house in Holmfirth. The tea-things had long been cleared away, but Hannah was soon bustling about preparing an appetising meal of broiled rashers, poached eggs, and tea and toasted teacake. The meal was grateful after the long wearying day. It had been a depressing day. The market had been slackly attended: the weather had something to do with that. It had rained pitilessly all day, a steady, persistent, dogged downpour, ceasing at times for the fragment of an hour, only to commence again, and so on, as if it never meant to stop. And as it was on the Tuesday, so it had been for three or four days before. At the “ordinary” at the Queen Hotel, kept by Mrs. Beevers, in the Market Street, the manufacturers from the valleys of the Colne and the Holme were full of talk of choked tail-goits water piled back into the wheel-race so that the wheel refused to turn upon its axis. The merchants shook their heads gloomily over the mild, open weather. They declared, as their grandchildren declare to-day, that when they were boys winter was winter; but now there was no depending on the weather, and the almanac was a snare and a delusion.
Tom lingered over his meal, luxuriating in the warmth of the room, and the pleasing rest of mind and body. But about nine o’clock the rain abated. The moon glided high in the heavens, sailing in and out among the masses of the drifting clouds. It looked as if the weather might take up after all. It was time it did. But wet or fine Tom had work to do he had fixed to do that night, work which could only be done at the mill, and which were better done that night. That done, the morrow would be clear for the morrow’s work. He would have an hour at his account books, he told Ben, and sleep at the mill, and Jack—you have not, reader, forgotten Work’us Jack—should bear him company. Hannah protested in vain that “Tom was killing himself with overwork. Flesh and blood couldn’t stand it, and Tom would never make old banes if he went on at that noit. It was bad enough to kill one’s self to keep one’s self, but it was ten times worse to kill one’s self building a house o’ cards, only to be blown down by that Jabez Tinker.”
So Tom and Jack turned out into the night and set forth up the valley toward Hinchliffe Mill. Their road lay at times by the winding serpentine course of the river, and when the watery moon glanced downwards with bleared eye from among the clouds they could see the swollen waters. They met scarce a soul. It was late and a’ready the lights in the village and on the hillsides were being extinguished in the “house” or chamber. An occasional cur sadly bayed the moon. The swollen waters of the river rolled in their bed with sullen sob. It was a night of dread through which the growing wind wailed amid its tears. The gloom of the hour and scene fell upon the comrades. Scarce a word passed between them, as with bent heads and cloaks close drawn they made their way through the mire of the high-road and the sloughs of known bye-paths little trod. It was hard on ten of the night when the mill was reached. Jack kindled a fire in the office-grate and sat beside it for a time to dry his shoon. He made a brew of strong coffee for his master to cheer him through his task. Then Jack in stocking-feet sought the wool-hole where he had improvised a bed of unscoured pieces, greasy, but snug and warm, and anon his loud breathing might be heard above the beating of the storm without.
Up to something near the weird midnight hour Tom bent over his invoices and books, fighting against the waywardness of thoughts that seemed intent on anything but accounts. At length he abandoned his task half done. He felt strangely wake and alert. At all times able to do with little sleep,—that is a feature of your mill-worker—to-night he felt that he should woo slumber in vain. Donning his pilot jacket that had been steaming and drying on a chair-back before the fire, and lighting a lanthorn and taking in his hand his stout gnarled shillelagh, bought from an Irish hay-maker last harvest-time, he set forth alone on his usual round of the mill-yard, leaving the outer door of the mill on the latch. His round finished, led by what impulse, moved by that presentment he did not stay to consider, he left the mill-yard and began to climb the hill towards Bilberry reservoir. He walked sharply, for the night air was biting shrewdly, and Tom was a noted walker. His long strides soon covered the distance that lay between the mill and the reservoir bank. Tom hummed an air to keep him company in that vast solitude. The sky was clearer now than an hour or two before, but the night was still dark enough to make the feeble glimmer of the lanthorn grateful. Tom moderated his pace as he neared the embankment. Was it worth while to climb its steep face or should he turn his steps downhill. He could hear the water above his head lapping against the copings of the bank. Still, as he had come so far he might, he thought, as well walk the round of the embankment. He was on the huge abutment that turned its breast towards the valley the long barricade that cooped up the vast pile of water, and slowly, the lanthorn dangling by his side and swaying in the wind, he began to tread the path on the embankment top, slowly for in the uncertain light, a slip might cost him a sousing, and it was no hour for a cold bath. But, as he walked, peering ahead to pierce the gloom, and watching carefully his steps by the lanthorn’s pale glimmer, he came, midway in his course, upon a sight that checked him with sudden halt, and made his heart stand still. There, at his very feet the water was trickling over the bank, and down the outside. A thin flow, perhaps, a couple of feet in width, had worn the upper soil, and now a continuous stream, not a quarter of an inch in depth, was gently, silently ebbing over the embankment. Even as Tom gazed spell-bound, he was sensible that the opening widened, the water that overflowed was deeper, and its escape in quicker time. A great fear seized on Tom, a dreadful thought well-nigh crushed his brain. He felt powerless to move. Then, with a cry, he rushed heedless along the embankment to the culvert. Not a drop of water flowed over the culvert’s lip. The pent giant had found an outlet for itself, and was making for it. Tom ran back to the gap he had but just left. Even by this faint light he saw the breach was wider, the furrow deeper. Sick at heart, scarce realising what he did, Tom with stick and hand tried to tear up stones, cobbles, or sods that might stem the growing current. He spent his time and in vain. Fast as he made his tiny barrier, the licking wavelets undermined it and washed it gently down the embankment side; and the stream that now, oh! so silently, so grimly wore away the surface layers, bit and gnawed into the vast barrier and the clinging earthwork. But to Tom, with action had come perception. Vivid as lightning’s flash the whole sequence of the possible, nay, the seeming inevitable, was borne upon his mind. He sprang to his feet, dashed down the embankment side. Not two hundred yards below the reservoir some houses stood darkling in the night, their inmates locked in sleep. With fist and stick Tom hammered at the door, thrust his stick, his fist through the windows of the bottom room, where oft the turn-up bed was stretched.
“Rouse ye, rouse ye!” he cried. “The reservoir! Flee for your lives!” Down to the Co-op Mill he dashed, racing as sure only as those do speed who know that Death follows hard upon their heels, and ever as he sped and passed some silent, lowly cot he paused a breathing space to rend the midnight silence with wild, yet wilder cry, “The flood! The flood! Haste ye, save yourselves.” He reached the gates of his own mill, dashed to the corner where Jack still slept in dreamless sleep. He kicked his prostrate form, he shook him, dragged him to his feet.
“Don yo’r breeches. Here’s yo’r’ clogs. Haste, man! Bilberry’s brust. Damn yo’ wakken. Ar’t deead?”
In that time of frenzied haste the language of his childhood came back to his lips.
Then as Jack, half awake, bewildered, donned his nether garments with but one idea, that Co-op Mill was on fire, Tom rushed to the stable where their one horse was housed. He threw a halter over its head; there was no time, no need for saddle. Jack had followed, thrusting his arms into his coat sleeves as he came. Tom sprang to the horse’s back. The gate still opened wide.
“Clutch mi leg, Jack, an’ stick to me an’ yell wi’ all thi might.”
Tom’s first thought had not been of Ben or his household; but gratitude, duty alike, made them his first care. He must reach Ben at any cost. The horse, urged by Tom’s prodding heels and by the sticks that beat upon its flanks, galloped down the hill. Jack could not keep pace; panting, gasping, clinging, he stumbled and fell.
“Make for Ben Garside’s,” shouted Tom, and was swallowed up in the night, the horse’s hoof beating the rain washed road with dull thuds, its heavy pants audible afar.
It was one o’clock and after when Tom made Ben’s cottage He thundered at the door, and in a marvellously short time that seemed eternity to Tom, the upper window was raised, and Ben’s capped head thrust forth.
“Th’ pub’s lower dahn, tha’ druffen fooil,” said Ben’s voice drowsily.
“Open, Ben, open for God’s sake. Th’ embankment’s burst at Bilberry.”
But ere Ben had ceased to gape out of the lattice, Hannah, in her petticoat, had run down the slender, narrow stairs, and unbolted the door.
“Quick, quick, where’s Lucy? Wakken her! Don yo’, Hannah. Ben, Ben, haste thee, man. Oh, here’s Jack; that’s reight lad, aw feart tha’d be longer.”
Lucy, pale, trembling, but calm, had come down, part dressed.
“Ar’t sure, Tom?” asked Ben.
“It’s giving bi inches, it cannot howd. What shall we do? Oh! What shall we do?”
“Mak’ for th’ hills, for sure,” gasped Jack, as he drew deep draughts of breath.
Then Tom felt a quiet hand upon his own, and Lucy by his side drew him part aloof.
“There’s Dorothy lower down,” she whispered, “and if flood come, oh! Woe is me for all at Wilberlee. Hark! the alarm is spread. Race to Wilberlee; and Tom! kiss me, it may be good-bye.”
Tom kissed the tremulous lips raised to his. “God keep you, Lucy, God keep us all. I cannot leave you.”
But Hannah, too, had thought of Wilberlee. “There’s Dorothy. Yo’ mun give th’ alarm at Wilberlee.”
“And you?” asked Tom: but even as he asked he had turned to the door where the horse, all untethered, stood.
“Ben an’ me ’ll manage,” said jack. “Up wi’ thee, Tom. By gosh! hark to ’em screechin’ up the valley.”
Aye, aye, the warning cries had been heard and heeded, and as Tom wrung Ben’s hand and vaulted to patient Bess’s back the wind bore to his ears the startled cry, “The flood! The flood! It’s come at last,” and as the mare, spinning cobbles and pebbles behind its clattering feet, galloping as though the foul fiend pursued, dashed past farm and mill and house Tom cried loud and ever tender, “Oh, rouse yo’, good folk, rouse yo’. Bilberry’s on yo’. The bank’s brust,” and the small-paned windows were raised with quick grasp from within, and startled faces with widening eyes peered forth into the night, and still Tom raised the cry, now hoarse, now shrill, in voice that almost failed. “The flood, the flood!” And loud and louder still behind him grew the cries, deep toned of men, anguished shrill of women, wailing tones of children roused from cradle and from cot. The sleepy valley behind him slept no more. It had roused to panic, to the sudden apprehension of ravage, ruin, death. Whither flee? How save the little hoarded wealth; how bear the infirm mother, who by inglenook declined daily to her grave cheered by the babbling prattle of her daughter’s bairns; how save the bairns themselves! And even as Tom rode the cries behind him swelled in volume till they fell upon his ears as a hoarse roar, broken by shrill and piercing shriek, and if his ears betrayed him not, above the din of human voice he heard the growl of gathered waters loosed. No use to look behind, the darkening skies veiled the sight. Thank God! Here is Wilberlee. Well Tom knew the entrance to the yard. Pray God the gate yielded to his thrust! It did. By there, through the yard, was the shortest cut to the house. He swung from the back of the beast, now blown and trembling. The panic had seized upon it. Grasping its mane Tom led it through the yard, round the mill gable. Here the noises from above were broken by the mill’s flank and hushed. Not a light shone through the windows of the house. All was silent within, but at the garden foot the river roared, and Tom in the dim light saw that on its foaming breast it bore objects, strange, hideous, torn from the fields, floating stacks of hay, ponderous engines and machines, the dark outline of animals swept quickly by.
“Oh! rouse yo’! rouse yo’!” shrieked Tom. He tore a boulder from a rockery by, and with it crashed at the stout outer door. It shook and groaned but yielded not. Tom remembered that the window of the sitting-room or drawing-room came to within a foot’s step from the ground. It was a moment’s work to dash the window open with his feet, and Tom amid the falling of the glass and the creaking crash of wood-work was within the dark room, his clothes rent, his face scratched, his hands bleeding. There were sounds above of awakening life. Tom sprung to the foot of the passage stairs, finding the inner door he knew not how. “Wake ye, wake ye,” he cried hoarsely.
Then a light glimmered above, on the landing. It was Jabez Tinker in his dressing gown. A candle was in his hand that he shaded from the upward current.
“Thank God, yo’re up,” shouted Tom, bounding up the steps. “Dress yo’, quick. Rouse the house. Bilberry’s burst. Oh! hark yo’.”
Some building higher up the river had fallen with a groan into the stream and frantic cries rent the leaden skies mingling with the crash of stone and iron and stout timbers torn like mere sprigs.
Suddenly from the well of darkness shone the gleam of a lanthorn. It was impossible to see who held it. Mr. Tinker cried out:
“Who’s that?”
“It’s me, Sergeant Ramsden,” said a calm, stentorian voice. “Glad you’re up, sir. Time to flit. Had to wade here. Where’s Betty?”
“I’m here, George; but yo’ munnot think o’ coming up till aw’ve med mysen some bit like.”
But the tramp of the sergeant was on the stairs already. His was a welcome presence. The hurry and agitation of the past hour had told on Tom. He felt sorely the need of help. Mr. Tinker seemed paralysed not so much from fear as the sudden waking from sleep to stand face to face with what perils none could tell. Betty clung to her constable, but he was probably used to being clung to for protection by the weaker sex.
“Where’s Peggy?” asked Tom.
“Gone to Harrogate to fetch aunt home.”
It was Dorothy who spoke. She had partially dressed, but her long, curling, beautiful glossy hair fell like a veil upon her shoulders to her waist she was pale and anxious, but she retained a great measure of composure. She had drawn to her uncle’s side but her eyes were on Tom.
“Are we safe here?” asked Mr. Tinker. “Is there any chance of my being able to get across the yard to the office?”
“Can’t be done, sir,” said the Sergeant, touching his high hat as well as he could with the hand that held the lanthorn. His other arm supported Betty.
“The garden’s three feet deep and more. Same in mill yard, no doubt, and rising every second; had to wade in. Glad to find window broken down.”
There was a sudden shriek from Betty. Through the door of the parlour that opened into the passage at the stair feet came a torrent of water nigh as high as the doorway itself. It flooded the passage, and, step by step, quicker than a man could mount them, scaled the staircase to the landing on which they stood. Small articles of furniture and ornaments were borne from the room, tossing and colliding as if in a grotesque dance.
“Make for the attic,” said Mr. Tinker, and led the way, followed by the women. Tom was hard upon them. The sergeant followed with an agile departure from his professional staidness, deliberation, and dignity of gait that only stress of circumstances constrained. If a withering glance could have arrested it the rapidly rising, gaining flood would have stayed its inroad.
The attic was a low, barely furnished room, immediately under the roof. It was lighted from above by a thick sky-window. It held two low beds of plain deal—the chaste couches of Betty and Peggy. There were two chests of drawers, one doubtless sacred to each maid. There were two chairs, a washstand, a portrait of the sergeant, staff-in-hand, and the like of a soldier over which Peggy was supposed to weep out her heart in moments of despondency.
“I doubt we’re not out of it here,” whispered the sergeant to Tom. He cast his light through the doorway. “See, the water mounts quickly. ’Twill be on us, and we mun drown like rats in a hole.”
“Can you swim?” asked Tom, under his breath.
The sergeant nodded.
“Doff your boots; keep your cloak and breeches nothing else. Get into that corner. Give me the light. Don’t let them see you doff. They’re fleyed enough.”
There was no time even for suspense. The water was already in the attic. Tom dragged a bed beneath the skylight and with a blow from his stick shivered the thick glass.
“Yo’ mun get through th’ skylight, Ramsden,” he bawled. The turmoil of the waters drowned all lower speech. “I’ll pass t’others to you.”
Ramsden nodded. The habit of discipline is invaluable in the hour of emergency. Tom had taken the command even in his old master’s house, and it seemed natural that he should order and others obey.
With difficulty he twisted the portly constable through the aperture. It was a tight squeeze.
“Tear up some of the slates. Widen th’ hole,” shouted Tom, as he dragged a trunk to the top of the bed to stand on. “Now Dorothy,” he whispered, “you next.”
“No, uncle,” she said, drawing back. This was no hour for ceremony. Tom almost lifted Mr. Tinker bodily on to the trunk, the sergeant from above seized his wrists, and Tom, with a mighty heave, hoisted him aloft.
“Now you, Betty,” said Dorothy.
It was well for Betty the stone slabs had been wrenched with little difficulty from the sounding lines of the aperture. She was stout and heavy as seemeth a cook, and if there had not been strong braced thighs on the stack, and arms like iron beneath her, Betty would have slept that morn her last sleep on earth in the tiny attic she had known so long.
“Now, Dorothy,” said Tom. She was already on the chest. He pressed her hand tenderly as she turned her face towards the gap through which the Sergeant had passed. Tom lifted her through almost bodily. “Come you, now,” she said as she left his arms.
“Here, sergeant,” bawled Tom, “take these blankets and things. It’ll be cold up there.” And Tom hastily passed blankets, sheets, and counterpanes through the window. Then those above heard him tearing at the bedsteads like one possessed. He rove them asunder by main force and passed the sections to the sergeant. Then springing on to the chest he thrust his arms to either side of the roof, and with a thrust of the feet that sent the box flying, forced and prised himself to the roof.
They could see little even by the light which the constable still retained. They were sure only that Wilberlee House was all but submerged, and that the devouring waters as they swept by them crawled up the sloping roof. From the thick darkness came shouts and wails and cries, and the thundering crash of falling buildings. By the lanthorn’s glare and the casual glimpsing of the moon they saw, as they strained their visions to pierce the black encircling pall, what looked like huge pieces of machinery that broke from the tomb of the night before their eyes and then were gone again. More than once, almost level with the house eaves, a face of a man or woman, a white, pallid, drawn face, with eyes distended in speechless horror, would flash above the waters and then be borne away like chaff in a mighty blast, or the long white trailing of a woman’s dress would shoot beneath their feet, come and go ere they realised it was come. And ever and anon those awful, thrilling, sickening cries, whose dread import they but too surely guessed. The night was bitter cold. They clung together, crouching low, their absorbing thought—would the house stand the shock of those pounding waters, would the dinning flood go on for ever?
Tom only had been engaged. Getting what hold he could by the low chimney of the house, he fastened together with the cording of the beds the disjointed laths, making a very passable raft. This he lowered to the verge of the roof. It might be needed, who might say? The very house seemed to shake under them as they crouched and waited in agonised suspense. Had it been less stoutly built it must ere this have been swept bodily away as rows upon rows of houses that night of doom were swept away by the devouring torrent—many bearing with them husband, wife and child, scarce roused from sleep ere the flood clasped them in the embrace of death.
And still the surging water rose higher and higher, now creeping slowly up the thatch, now sweeping swiftly upwards and now falling as suddenly for a foot or two, giving a momentary hope the violence of the storm was over—but only to surge nearer and nearer to those who now clung to the ridge of the arched roof. Tom contrived to crawl cautiously to Mr. Tinker’s side. With difficulty making the dazed man hear him above the roar of the waters and the dinn that stunned their sense, Tom made him understand that they must now trust to the frail raft he had improvised.
“It’s our only chance, sir. The bindings of the roof are giving. And look, look!”
Tom pointed across the mill-yard. The moon was clear of the clouds, and for a few moments the scene of desolation and the waste of waters might be seen by the silver light.
Mr. Tinker’s gaze followed the direction of the outstretched arms. Across the yard towered the long mill chimney, and it was rocking and swaying like a drunken man. There was not a moment to be lost. The sergeant and Tom slipped the raft on to the bosom of the racing flood. It was all but torn from their grasp.
“Get you on it with the women,” cried Tom. Betty was with difficulty placed upon the frail support. Mr. Tinker followed her. The sergeant, obedient to Tom’s gesture, sprang upon it.
“Now, Dorothy, jump for your life”; but even as the words left his lips, the bark was torn from his grasp. There was a shriek of terror from those aboard, and Ramsden cried, “The chimney. Oh! God! It’s falling!”
Tom breathed a prayer.
“It’s you and me for it, Dorothy. Can you trust me?” He passed his arm around her; she pressed her lips to his, and Tom, with his almost unconscious charge, leaped far out into the centre of the headlong current. And even as he leaped the great chimney-stack, its base destroyed, swayed towards the house, and in one unbroken mass fell upon the roof that had been their refuge, and Tom and Dorothy were lost in the crested billows that leaped with angry roar to meet the very skies.
CHAPTER XV.
SOME ten days or so after the events recorded in the last chapter, a stout woman past the middle age sat by a large four-posted bed in a spacious and well-furnished bedroom. The eider-down coverlet of the bed, its damask hangings, the prie-dieu by its side, the rich covering of the walls, the silken curtaining of the windows, the full pile of the carpets, the costly paintings on the walls indicated the abode of wealth and refinement. The woman by the bedside, on whom fell the genial rays of a bright-burning fire, was plainly but neatly dressed. The anxious glances she cast upon the figure stretched upon the bed seemed to bespeak a greater, a tenderer concern than that of the ordinary professional nurse. There was no sound in the room save the ticking of the massive marble clock upon the mantel, and the regular breathing of the patient. The nurse turned the pages of a ponderous family Bible, but as her attention was confined to the highly coloured illustrations it is probable the printed page was a dead letter to her eyes.
So absorbed was she in the contemplation of the ornate plate depicting the sale of Joseph by his brethren that she almost dropped the heavy book from her knees as a faint voice issued from between the curtain folds.
“Has th’ buzzer gone, Hannah?”
“Sakes, alive! If he isn’t wakken,” the nurse exclaimed, drawing back the curtain. “Eh! Tom, lad, it’s fain aw am to yer thi voice. But tha munnot talk nor fash thisen.”
“Has th’ buzzer gone?” the invalid asked again. Then his eyes wandered slowly and somewhat vacantly about the room.
“Where am I?” he asked.
“Aye, tha may weel ax, lad. Thou’rt at Mester Willie Brooke’s at Northgate House i’ Honley, an’ here tha’s been awmost ivver sin they sammed thi up i’th churchyard all swoonded away; an’ long it wer’ afore they knowed reightly whether tha wer’ wick or deead.”
“Have I been poorly?” asked Tom. “What am I doing here? Where’s Ben? Is he at th’ mill? There’s those pieces for Skilbeck’s want ’livering. Why isn’t Lucy here?”
“Poorly! Tha may weel say that, an’ off thi yed for days together, an’ of all th’ stuff ’at ivver a man talked, all abaat ’junctions, an’ love, an’ ferrets, an’ rabbits, an’ then tryin’ to swim, an’ it took two on us to howd thi i’ bed. But theer, it’s time tha had thi physic, an’ then thi mun go to sleep agen, an’ th’ cook ’ll mak thi some arrowroot, an’ thou’rt to have a glass o’ port wine in it, th’ doctor says, teetotal or no teetotal, which aw nivver did howd wi’ i’ time o’ sickness, an’ agen th’ law o’ natur’ in a way o’ speikin’.” But Hannah’s views on this grave question were lost upon the invalid. He had again sunk into deep and refreshing sleep, and as Hannah laid her hand gently upon his brow, the slight moisture told that the fever in which he had tossed and raved had succumbed to care and treatment.
When Tom awoke Hannah’s place had been taken by a tall, grey-haired man of spare form, broad shoulders and slightly bent, his forehead lined with the tracery of time and care. His eyes had been long fixed upon the features of the sleeping youth and seemed from their expression to seek for some flitting transient likeness they bore a moment but to lose the next. It was Jabez Tinker. From the face so often, so minutely scanned, the eyes of the watcher turned at times to a small gold locket he held in his palm. It bore in pearls the letters.
A.J.
A.J.
It was the locket taken by Moll o’ Stuarts from the slender neck of the way-worn woman theHanging Gatehad received more than twenty years before, the locket confided to Tom by Mr. Black, and which, ever since, night and day, sleeping or waking, he had worn beneath his vest. Presently Mr. Tinker became aware by that subtle uneasy sense we all have felt, that Tom’s eyes were fixed inquiringly on his face. He rose somewhat stiffly to his feet and bent over the bed. He took the hand that lay upon the coverlet.
“Are you better, Tom?” he asked, very gently. “We have been very anxious about you.”
Tom looked upon the features, usually so stern, with puzzled interest. He seemed to be searching for some elusive memory of the past.
“I dreamed you were dead, drowned,” he said at length. “But I seem to remember so many strange things for an instant or two. Then it is all blank again. But mostly I seem to be fighting with some awful, pitiless enemy that tosses and whirls and throttles me till I choke. And then again all is dark and vague, and I remember nothing.”
“Well, you see, I am not dead yet, Tom, thanks be to God, and under God to you. ’Tis you, Tom, that have been nearer Jordan than I.”
“Jordan!” said Tom, musingly. “Jordan! I was right then. I knew there was a flood, somehow, but I thought it was Bilberry burst.” Then, as if the very words brought a flash of crowding memory and peopled his mind with vivid visions, he cried aloud:
“Dorothy! Dorothy! Where is Dorothy! Oh God, I’ve let her slip again,” and a look of anguish, of hopeless despair was on his face, and with trembling hands he covered his face, and burying his head in the pillow, sobbed as though his whole being would dissolve in tears.
Mr. Tinker beckoned to one who stood by the door. She had entered the room very quietly, fearing to wake the patient. It was Dorothy, looking frail and fragile, but not unhappy, for Hannah had told her that Tom was coming to his senses, and the long, weary waiting and fearing was at an end. As Dorothy with noiseless step approached the bed Mr. Tinker drew aside. Dorothy touched gently the hand bent upon the pillow, and stooped low, very low, so that her lips were very near, and her breath played upon his cheek.
“No, Tom!” she whispered. “Not lost—won.” And as Tom raised his face and gazed upon her as men upon the lineaments that are dearer to them than life, when life is sweetest, her eyes drooped beneath his ardent gaze, and the mantling colour suffused her cheek. She stole her hand into his, and for a while they were still. Jabez came and stood by his niece’s side.
“Leave us for a time, Dorothy,” he said. It was the voice of Jabez; but not the voice she had so long been used to hear. It was almost caressing in its gentleness. Dorothy smiled her assent.
“I’m to bring your arrowroot up, Tom, and I’ve made it myself. I know the port wine’s nice. I tasted it. Don’t let the food be spoiled, uncle, and, remember, Tom’s not to be bothered or upset. If he is, won’t Hannah give it you, that’s all,” and she tripped away with a glance at Tom that did him more good belike than arrowroot or wine.
Mr. Tinker waited until the door had closed upon her, then he drew a chair to the bedside.
“I mustn’t agitate you, Tom,” he spoke. “But, oh! If you could realise what my feelings have been since you have lain between life and death, my dread lest you might pass away and make no sign, the fears, the hopes alternate holding sway, the doubts, the prayers you would forgive much to an old and stricken man.” He opened the hand in which he still held the locket. Involuntarily Tom raised his to feel for the trinket he had so long cherished.
“Can you tell me the meaning of this locket? It was found upon your neck, they say, when you were picked up unconscious, scarce breathing, your heart but flickering, in the churchyard yonder, after the Flood had abated. You had saved Dorothy, how, she scarce seems to know. But she lay very near to you, her head upon your breast. They thought you both dead. But Dorothy was soon no worse. But this locket, speak, Tom, what does it mean?”
“It was my mother’s,” said Tom.
“And she?”
“She died the night I was born.”
“But her name? Who was she? For heaven’s sake, Tom, tell me all you know. You cannot divine how much hangs on your words. They mean perhaps as much to me as you.”
Then Tom told him the tale of the night on which this story opened.
“And Fairbanks, the landlady, the midwife? They can tell me more, they can speak to this. Does this Moll o’ Stute’s still live?”
“Oh, yes, Moll’s safe enough. Did you know my mother, Mr. Tinker?”
“Know her! Oh! my God, know her! But ask me no more now, Tom. Not a moment must be lost. Brook will lend me a horse. Mine went with the Flood. I’ll see you to-morrow. Now have your arrowroot and sleep and get strong and well. Whether my hopes are well founded or not, you’re my son from this day, Tom, for you saved my life, lad, and you saved Dorothy’s. And I’m proud of you, lad, I’m proud of you—Tom Pinder, foundling, and there isn’t a man in the valley that wouldn’t like to call you son, nor a girl you couldn’t win. Hannah and Dorothy’ll look after you till tomorrow, then.”
It was the afternoon of the next day before Jabez Tinker returned from his quest. In the interval between his departure and return, Hannah had yielded to Tom’s importunity, and sent for Ben.
“Eh! Lad,” was Ben’s greeting, as he wrung the invalid’s hand with a grip that made Tom wince, “aw could awmost find it i’ mi heart to call it an answer to prayer. Yo’ munnot let on to Hannah, but mony a time a day this last ten days an’ more, aw’ve been dahn o’ my marrow-bones a prayin’ tha med be spared Th’ laws o’ natur’s all vary weel, Tom, for th’ intellec’ but there’s times, lad, when th’ heart o’ man turns to its Maker like a babby to its mother i’ its pain. An’ this has been sich a time, aw reckon. Eh! man! its fair heart-breakin’ to gooa dahn th’ valley. Near on eighty folks drahned, caantin’ th’ childer in, an’ as for th’ damage to property, a quarter million pund willn’t cover it, folk sayn. Th’ Co-op. Mill’s gone, choose yah, an’ Wilberlee House an’ all. Yar bit o’ a whomstid’s safe, an’ that’s summat to be thankful for; but, eh, mon, aw dunnot know wheer we’st all ha’ to turn for summat to do, there’s thaasan’s an’ thaasan’s o’ folk aat o’ wark, an’ no prospec’ o’ ther getting onny, an’ i’ thick o’ winter, too.”
“It’s all a dreadful muddle to me, Ben, I can’t seem to remember much about it. How did you escape, and how came I here?”
“Well, aw nivver did!” exclaimed Ben. “Didn’t yo’ com’ an’ wakken me up, an’ didn’t Jack an’ me awmost carry th’ missus an’ yar Lucy till we gate ’em on to th’ ’ill-side. An’ if we couldn’t see mich on account o’ th’ dark we could hear enough. By God! aw thowt th’ end o’ th’ world wer’ come. An’ th’ skrikin’! Eh! lad, it wer’ enough to freeze th’ blood i’ yo’r veins. But that didn’t last long. It were short shrift for most on ’em. An’ then wonderin’ an’ wonderin’ what had come on yo’. Aw thowt Lucy’d go fair daft abaat yo’. That’s a heart for feelin’, if yo’ like. Then Jack couldn’t stand it no longer. He said he could swim down to Wilberlee if he could nobbut be sure of findin’ th’ road. He said ’at if tha wer’ deead he’d as lief be deead, too, an’ aat o’ th’ gate. An’, by gosh, he off, an’ ’atween runnin’ an’ wadin’ an’ swimmin’ he gate theer, but theer wer nooa signs o’ thee, or onybody else, for that matter, an’ nowt but part o’ th’ mill truck to be seen. Th’ chimbley wer’ clean gone. But it wer’ Jack that fun’ thee all th’ same up in Honley churchyard liggin’ ovver a gravestooan. An’ Miss Dorothy. Gow! lad, ha tha mun ha’ hugged her. It’s a mercy tha didn’t squeeze th’ life aat on her. Aw’ve nooan seen ’em missen, ’t isn’t likely,” and, Ben winked; “but yar Hannah says oo’s black an blue wheer thi arm held her. But oo’ll think none th’ worse of thee for that.”
“Get on with your story, Ben, and don’t be frivolous. Where’s Jack?”
“Oh, Jack’s all reight, barrin’ ’at he says he’s supped soa mich watter o’ late that nowt but owd ale an’ plenty on it ’ll tak’ th’ taste aat of his maath.”
“But you mustn’t let Jack get into evil courses Ben.”
“Oh! Jack ’ll be reight enough when he’s getten summat to do. But it’s the owd tale. ‘Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.’ Yo’ see ther’s a seet o’ folk come fro’ all th’ parts o’ Yorkshire an’ Lancashire to see th’ course o’ th’ flood and th’ deborah, as th’ newspapper ca’d th’ muck an’ th’ rubbish ’at’s left. Holmfirth’s more like a fair nor owt else. It’s as bad as Honley Feeast time. An’ all th’ seet-seers ’at can get howd o’ Jack mun treeat him. If he does get a bit fuddled afore bed-time it’s little wonder. Aw’ve often noticed ’at folk ’ll pay for a pint o’ ale for a chap ’at wouldn’t gi’ him a penny-teea-cake if he wer clammin’. Dun they let yo’ smoke i’ this fine room, Tom? Aw’m fair dyin’ for a reek o’ baccy.”
But now Dorothy entered with a tray covered with a napkin snowy-white and on it a basin of arrowroot, and Ben slipped his clay and flat tin box into his pocket.
“Aw rekkon aw’ll be gooin’, Tom, or Hannah ’ll be flytin’ me. Nivver yo’ get wed, Tom, if yo’ want to ca’ yo’r soul yo’r own. It’s just awful’ th’ way a felly’s put on after he’s once getten th’ noose raand ’is neck. Tak a frien’s advice Tom an’ be warned i’ time.”
And with a wink that meant volumes, Ben conveyed himself away, walking on tip-toe, as if afraid of waking a sleeper to whom sleep might mean life or death.
“Now, Tom, you’ve got to eat this just now,” said Dorothy, “wait till I see if it’s cool enough,” and she touched the lip of the spoon with hers and affected to taste the odorous compound with the air of a connoisseur. “It’s just nice, sir, and if that doesn’t cure you, nothing will.”
“I could drink a bucketful,” protested Tom. Couldn’t I have a chop or a steak? I’m as hungry as a hunter.’’
“Chop, indeed! I should think not. Later on you shall have a cup of chicken-broth and the weest slice of toast. You’ve no idea how ill you are.” Dorothy spoke lightly, but suddenly the woman gushed into her eyes, and it was a poor, faltering voice that said, “But you’re better now, thank God. Oh! Tom, if you had died!”
“Would you have cared very much, Dorothy?” asked Tom.
“Is that what you call eating arrowroot, sir? Listen, that’s uncle. How soon he’s back.” Dorothy had gone to the window and drawn aside the curtains. “The horse is covered with foam, and uncle looks ten years younger and as glad as a bridegroom.”
A quick step was heard on the stairs, and Jabez Tinker stood at the door of the sick-room.
“Is he awake, Dorothy?” whispered Mr. Tinker.
“Awake, yes, and likely to be, as far as I can see, what with one and another. Call this a sick-room. Better call it a show and charge for admission. It takes one maid’s time to attend to the door. If Mr. Brooke doesn’t send in a bill for a new knocker and fresh paint, he’s a saint.”
“There, there, chatterbox,” exclaimed Jabez, gaily. “Out you go, Dorothy, and don’t come up again till I ring. Then you may come, no one else.”
Mr. Tinker looked radiant, and, as Dorothy had said, younger by ten good years. In his impatience he almost pushed his niece from the room. Then he strode to the bed and held out both his hands to Tom.
“It’s true, Tom, it’s true, every word of it. Oh! that ever I should live to see this day. I’ve dreamed of it, I’ve prayed for it, and now it has come to me, this my great joy, out of the deep waters. Truly God moves in a mysterious way.”
Tom had risen to a sitting posture. Jabez flung a loose shawl—it was Dorothy’s—over his shoulders.
“You mustn’t risk taking cold,” he said, very gently. “Are you quite sure you feel strong enough to hear a rather long story, Tom, or would you rather wait?”
“I would rather hear it now, sir.”
“Then hear me to the finish and don’t judge me too harshly. God knows I’ve suffered enough without your condemnation. But it might have been worse, it might have been worse.”
Mr. Tinker was silent for a time, as if to arrange his thoughts or choose his words. Then very gravely he spoke:
“My father, Tom, was a very strict, stern man” (“I’m not surprised to hear that,” thought his listener) “and with an overweening sense of family pride. He was very proud that he was a Tinker, and, indeed, Tom, we are as old a family as there is in the valley. Never forget that. And we have an unsullied name. My father had another failing, if failing it be called. He was inordinately fond of money. He expected, he took it for granted, that both Dick and myself would marry not for money, of course, but where money was.
“But both his sons disregarded their father’s wishes. I, secretly, while he yet lived; Richard, as you know, after his death. It was my fate, at the house of a customer in Liverpool, to meet sweet Annie Lisle, the family governess. She was an orphan, alone and unfriended, in the world. What else she was, how sweet, how winsome, how patient, how true and how trustful I cannot bear to think of, still less speak. I won her love. I dared not speak of my passionate devotion at home. My father with the burden of age had become each year more exacting, less tolerant of opposition to his will. I feared to anger him. It was in his power to disinherit me by his will. I was absolutely dependent on him. The homestead was his, the mill, the business, were his. I was not man enough to face poverty, expulsion from my home, loss of social status—not even for my loved one’s sake. Call me a poltroon, Tom, a coward, a cur, if you like. I have used bitterer words than those to myself. I knew it would be hopeless to ask my father’s consent. He would have had one word—‘Go!’ Then I began, with a satisfaction I strove in vain to banish, to observe, nay, to gauge, the sign of my father’s failing health. I persuaded myself he was not long for this world, and in my heart of hearts I was glad. But my passion ill brooked delay. I urged Annie to a secret wedding. Reluctantly she consented. She procured a week’s holiday from her employer, and we were married by special license at the parish church of Seaford, on the south coast, a small fishing hamlet little frequented by the tourist or holiday-maker. It was a week of Paradise. Then my wife returned to her employment, I was to find a favourable opportunity of breaking the news to my father. Meantime anything might happen. I conjured my wife to keep our secret. I kept the certificate of our marriage, so afraid was I lest it should fall into another’s hand. My wife was not even to write to me lest my father’s suspicions should be aroused. I continued to call on my Liverpool customer as usual, and when he asked me as usual to dine or sup at his house, I treated my own wife with the distant courtesy one shows to a governess. One day, early in the winter of 1830, I called at the house of Mr.——, I was determined to take my wife away. My father had softened much during the past few months. He had agreed to pay me a fixed salary, instead of doling out a pound or two for pocket money. I had resolved to place Annie in some small cottage not far from Holmfirth I had thought of Greenfield. I could see her there each week. And there was another reason why another home should be found for her. Judge of my consternation when Mrs.—, in answer to the inquiry which I made with assumed indifference as to the health of the children and their governess, told me that Miss Lisle had been dismissed her service, dismissed ignominiously, without a character. I controlled myself as well as I could. Mrs. —— said enough to convince me that my darling had been dismissed under the darkest suspicion that can rest upon a pure, unsullied woman. But even then I did not disclose the truth. My wife had vanished and left no trace behind her. She had been true to her promise to me, even when a word would have cleared her name and confounded the angry jealous woman who spurned her from her home. Almost penniless she turned into the world. She never wrote to me or sent me word. Judge how I searched in all places likely and unlikely for her. Secretly, with what scant means I could procure. I instituted inquiries on every side; but my wife had disappeared as effectively as though she had never been. She had never worn her wedding ring; she had borne my name only during all that too brief week of wedded bliss at Seaford. Time went by; I knew my wife, if she still lived, must be a mother. I feared, then at last I persuaded myself, that in her shame and grief she had destroyed herself. I called upon my head the curse of the Almighty, but God seemed heedless of my blasphemous ravings. From that time life for me had lost its savour. I lived only for work, for business success. They were my distraction. Then, as you know, I married. But of that I need not speak. My wife bore me no children, and when I took Dorothy as my ward I almost hated the child because I could not love her as my own.”
There was a long silence. Tom feared to speak. He guessed the rest too surely.
“One present only had I given to my sweetheart. It was a locket with our initials intertwined, and a love-knot of our hair inside. It was a whim of Annie’s. Tom, my boy, my son, you have worn that locket about your neck. Can you forget the wrong I did your mother, and forgive the father who can never forgive himself?”
“Nay, Mr. Tinker, nay, father, if indeed I am your son,” faltered Tom.
“I’ve seen Moll o’ Stute’s. I’ve seen Mrs. Schofield. They remembered the features of your mother as though she died but yesterday. Besides—but there can be no question of it.”
“Well, father,” said Tom, very solemnly, “I thank God that I am indeed your son. It is not for me to judge or to forgive. I will try to be to you all your son should be.”
Jabez bent over the bed and kissed Tom’s brow, and the tears streamed down the face of the elder man, his pride humbled, his cold reserve broken down, the man of iron melted to a gentleness he had never known before.
“Do you know, Tom,” he half laughed, half sobbed, “you’re not unlike what I was at your age. You’re a Tinker, whether you like it or not.”
“And a Lisle,” added Tom, and lay back upon his pillow in great comfort. Then he added:
“So Dorothy’s my cousin.”
Jabez nodded.
“Can I come in?” spoke Dorothy’s voice outside. “Open the door, uncle, I’ve both hands full.”
“I’ll leave you together, Tom. I know more than you think I know,” whispered the old man, and quitted the room.
“Of all the born conspirators commend me to Jabez Tinker, Esq., J.P., of Wilberlee Mill, that was, and to Mr. Tom Pinder, of Co-op. Mill, also that was. Here’s your chicken-broth, sir, and you’re to drink a glass of champagne—doctor’s orders.”
“Put it on the table, Dorothy, for a moment. I want to speak to you. Come, stand here, please.”
Dorothy pouted, but obliged, “Behold, thine handmaiden,” she said, “what wills my lord?”
“Dorothy, be serious for a moment. Your uncle has told me a strange story. I cannot repeat it all. Can you credit it? I am your cousin!”
“Oh! poor fellow, he’s raving again. I knew how it would be, all this talking. I’m sorry to hear it, Tom—I do so hate cousins. I’ve dozens of ’em, and not one nice one in the lot.”
“And I’m not Tom Pinder, either.”
“And who may you please to be?”
“Only Tom Tinker, son of Jabez Tinker, of Wilberlee Mill that was and is to be.”
Dorothy part withdrew from the bedside and looked long and fixedly on Tom.
“And is that all you have to tell me, Mr. Tom Tinker?”
“No, Dorothy, I have another secret to tell you. But you must come closer, closer still. Dorothy, I love you. I have loved you for years. Will you be my wife?”
Dorothy made answer none. But when Tom drew her face to his she suffered him.
“My darling, oh, my darling! I love you more than life,” murmured Tom in her ear.
“And is that what you call telling me a secret? You silly boy, I’ve known it ever so long.”
“And you, Dorothy, how long have you loved me?”
“Ah! that’s my secret.”
The story I set about to tell is told. Another house stands by Wilberlee Mill; another mill stands upon the ruins of Wilberlee, and Tom Tinker is master of the mill, and nominal master of the house. There is a Young Jabez plays about an old man’s knee, and a sweet fair-haired Lucy prattles and babbles on its godmother’s knee. Lucy Garside was bridesmaid at Dorothy’s wedding, and was sponsor for her daughter at the font. She remained unmarried through her life, and she, too, had a secret; it was one that was never told.
Wilberlee Mill prospered. The hands were paid on the same principles as Tom and Ben had introduced at Co-op. Mill, and prospered with the mill. If Tom was never rich as this world counts riches, he was rich in a wealth above a miser’s dream.
“What about the action ‘Pinder at the suit of Tinker,’” asked Nehemiah Wimpenny of his client.
“Judgment for the defendant with costs,” was the curt reply.
“Happy to draw the marriage settlements,” ventured the unabashed attorney.
“Thank you, Edwin Sykes will do that,” was the reply.
Wimpenny returned to his siege of the facile heart of the lively Polly, and in time wedded her. But their marriage was not a happy one. Nehemiah’s attachment to the bar of theRose and Crownsurvived Polly’s translation to a loftier sphere of life. He became a confirmed tippler, and his clients left him one after the other. He became in time that most pitiable of objects—a pot-house lawyer, and only escaped the last disgrace of a lawyer’s life because no one would trust him with their money.
Ben Garside took to Methodism in his old age, and wore glossy black-cloth o’ Sundays. But he always averred that he had fallen from his best ideals, and suffered the fear for his own soul to deaden his concern for the souls of others. He and Jack smoked many a pipe together in the calm summer months of peaceful and prosperous years, seated on the crumbling walls of Co-op. Mill, and mourning over a vanished dream.
The last sage dictum of Ben to be recorded in this narrative suggested its title. It was uttered on the eve of his friend’s wedding.
“Aw reckon, Tom, as ha’ tha’ll be goin’ to Aenon Chapel after tha’rt wed?”
“Why so?” asked Tom
“Cost tha’rt one o’ th’ elect.”
“I don’t take you, Ben.”
“Why, mon, doesn’t elect mean chossen.”
“I suppose so, Ben.”
“Why, doesn’t ta see, tha’rt Dorothy’s choice?”
THE END.
THE HOLMFIRTH FLOOD.