SCILLA REASONS WITH HARTAS
'Then you won't do a half-day's job?'
'No, I won't that. I wonder you've fashed yoursel to come and ask me.
You ken I never will, least of all of a Friday. It's against common
sense to think t'Almighty means you to tail off a week when He's sent
sike a downpour the first four days. I'll none trouble t' pits this side
o' Sabbath.'
'You might be the religiousest man in t' land, Hartas.'
'It's none religion. It's common sense. Sabbath's a landmark; it'll
hev its due on either side from me. I'm none going to split a week or
two days. We left half a dozen loads o' stuff at t' shaft mouth last
week-end, and not a cart 'll hev crossed t' moor this tempest. They may
come thick to-day, and if you like to go and wait for custom, you can.'
Dick Chapman laughed angrily.
'If 'twer a matter o' trapping a few rabbits none ud be keener nor
yoursel,' he said. 'I can't drop into t' pit alone, and so, as Reuben's
off, I'm left in t' lurch. And next week's Martinmas.'
'I ken so.'
'And 'll no split that either, I reckon.'
'Martinmas's out o' count.'
'Ah! ah! there's no spree where there's no brass, eh?'
'Brass! Brass indeed! It's folk without fire and with friends that I
think on. Now, Dick, make off. I'll promise four days in t' fore-end.
How art thee going, on Nobbin?'
'I lay I'll keep drier on my own shanks, and there 'll be nought for
Nobbin to do, though that deuced hind leg o' hers 'll be getting stiff
enough for t' farrier if she stands much longer.'
'I'll look after Nobbin.'
'Just a walk along t' track 'll do nought.'
'I think I ken t' needs o' that limb by now.'
'Well, I'll gang and see what's doing.'
Chapman sauntered off, turning up his collar and jamming his hat down
on his brows. The pits lay between the Mires and Old Lafer on the moor
above the Hall, and here the three able-bodied men of the Mires worked
in all seasons except hay-time. At hay-time they hired out to the
low-country farmers as monthly labourers. A small stock of coal sufficed
in summer to eke out the dwindling turfs in the peat shanties, and keep
the fire smouldering while the household laboured in the meadows.
But there were days all the year round when the wild west wind,
sweeping off Great Whernside, brought tempests of rain, and made it
'that rough on the tops' that no man could stand against it and even
the sheep went uncounted. Then the doors at the Mires were fast shut,
except when a woman in clogs pattered round for a skep of peats, or a
man slouched down to the marsh to count the foaming streams pouring into
it. This when it 'abated like.' Then would come another rush of wind and
wet, blotting out the whole world to within a yard or two of the cottage
windows.
If there were one kind of weather that Scilla detested more than another
it was fog. A snow-storm or deluge of rain kept Hartas at home, but
betwixt the liftings of fog he would make his way to the Inn at East
Lafer, and when he came back at night there was a wath over the beck
to cross, the moor-track to strike, and the pit-shaft to miss. It was
nothing when he finished off by rolling down the slape sides of the
hollow.
It was foggy to-day. Hartas was restless, and she was sure he would slip
off after dinner. She had run into Chapman's and suggested the pits.
But her hope had failed and she foresaw a vigil. She had not dared say
a word while the men were talking, lest evident anxiety should make
Hartas contradictious. But despite her forbearance he had been so. There
was no managing him! She was frying bacon, and sighed over the pan, as
into her simple mind there rushed the certainty of his headlong course
to perdition, a perdition symbolised to her by the flames curling and
hissing at every turn of the fork that sent sprints of fat on to the
embers. This was really her idea of hell. She had an equally vivid one
of heaven. Three miles away, straight as an arrow to the north, lay
Wherndale. She had walked many a time to the edge of the moors to see
it. Skirting a deep natural moat round an old copperas mine, she had
slid down the refuse slide, and plunged through bracken, rush, and
spagnum to a great rock overhanging the valley. From hence the view was
glorious on a fine summer evening. The western valley lay bathed in
sun-rays falling through the vapoury heat-mists shrouding the mountains;
the eastern flooded with sunshine; the Meupher range clear against
the sky. Below, the moor fell abruptly into meadow-land; rocks were
scattered in Titanic confusion among the ling; the meadows dimpled with
hollows; the lowering sun streamed through the foliage, and cast long
shadows from every tree and hay-pike; mists of blue smoke hung above
the farmsteads; here and there was a lake-like gleam of river. Scilla,
with the velvet breeze blowing against her, felt that here was heaven.
Did she not touch it, when the very tufts of grass over which she walked
glistened like frosted silver, and the bent-flower gleamed like cloth
of gold?
'I wish the fog would lift,' she said, as she placed dinner on the
table, and they drew up their chairs. 'If it would, I'd mount Nobbin and
give her a good stretch, better than you'll have patience for, maybe. We
mustn't have her leg worsen.'
'It only worsens with standing in t' stable. We hevn't plenty o' work
for her, winding up t' coil at t' pits; she'd thrive better on twice as
much, and that's truth. I've an extra job for her to-day, and spite o'
t' fog I'll carry it through.'
'Why, father, she'll be that stiff after these few days!'
'It works off t' farther she goes, and what with t' weather-shakken look
o' t' skies when there is a rift, and Martinmas holiday at hand, she'll
be heving so much stable that her leg 'll be her doom i' now.'
Scilla listened with a sensation of breathlessness. It was rarely he
talked so much, or informed her of any of his intentions. She wondered
what the 'extra job' was, but was so certain that she was to know that
she easily hid her curiosity.
Hartas ate on phlegmatically, pushing his meat on to the knife with the
fork, and thence conveying it with a pump-handle-like motion to his
mouth. When he had finished he placed them cross-wise on the plate, drew
the back of his hand across his lips, and tilted his chair, sticking his
thumbs into the armholes of his coat.
'There's t' sale ower at Northside Edge to-day,' he said.
'Yes. Poor Mrs. Carling, how she'll feel it!'
'I met Luke Brockell when I wer i' Wonston some days back, and he wer
talking o' taking his trolly up. He has his trolly, but he's lost his
nag, dropped in a fit.'
'Then how could he take it up, and what would be the use of it? Does he
want to put it in the sale?'
Hartas chuckled, leering at her with a scowling grin.
'Thee never wer a bright un, Scilla. All t' glint o' thy wits has run to
waste in your hair. I kenned that when Kit gave you hare soup, and you
never guessed what it was nor where it came from. There, there, no call
to flare up! What, there's a glint in your temper too, is there?'
Scilla had turned deathly white, and pushed her chair back hastily,
making a harsh sound on the roughly-paved floor that somehow suggested
to Hartas the sound her voice would have had had she spoken. She looked
at him with a threatening disdain as she stood a moment balancing her
slight figure against the table, and apparently expecting him to speak.
He did not, however, and she went to the door. Opening it, she leant
against the lintel. There was something piteously like the fog that
shrouded the world in the wanness that had overclouded her face. The
sweet clearness of the blue eyes was gone. More than a suspicion of
tears weighted their lids and lurked in the trembling of her mouth.
But she was determined not to cry. It was not to fall a prey to the
ready scoff that she had won her way through tribulation to a calm
that--whatever the shocks of the future--should be abiding.
And at that moment the sky cleared, and a growing light which, in the
absorption of Hartas's confidences, she had not noticed, burst into a
ray of sunshine.
It fell upon her. She turned, and going in again sat down on the settle.
A smile had flitted over her face.
'I know now what you meant, father. It was very stupid of me not to
understand. Of course you offered Nobbin for Luke's trolly, and now you
are going with her.'
She spoke in her usual bright voice, but not with any expectation
of disarming him. She knew well by this stage of her dearly-bought
experience that such men are not to be disarmed. Always surly, his
surliness only varied in degree.
'Them that's fools this side o' t' grave are less like for it t' other,'
he said. 'It's true I'm taking Nobbin ower to Northside Edge, but
there's no need for all t' Mires to ken. It may or it mayn't come to
Dick Chapman's knowledge, but mind you, you're dumb. I offered her to
Dick to ride to t' pits.'
While he spoke, avoiding looking at her, a foreboding of some wholly
formless but very decided evil darted into her mind. For an instant she
hesitated to utter the suggestion of principle that rose simultaneously
to her lips. But to have done so would have been to shirk what he was
shirking.
'Of course Nobbin is half his,' she said.
Hartas did not answer but got up slowly.
'And what she earns must be his, half of it, I mean,' she said with
more inward tremor, but more outward steadiness. 'Besides,' she added,
getting up too and going close to him, 'do you think she's fit for this
piece of work, father? It's all very well her hobbling a bit when it's
only to the pits, and often no work when she gets there. No one could
call us cruel to her, she's----'
Hartas raised his hand suddenly and struck out. But it was only into the
air, and Scilla did not wince as he had hoped she would. He would not
glance at her. Not for worlds would he have owned what the influence of
that glance into her earnest unwavering eyes might have been.
'Cruel to her!' he exclaimed in his thick voice, 'she's as fat as
butter, and if we're stinted she has her meat. Come, Scilla, what are
you driving at? Let's leave riddles.'
'The law,' said Scilla, with an urgency which felt to her own keen
emotions desperate. Was not the law her phantom, the dread avenger that
dogged her steps and filled her thoughts? She loved her husband with
all her heart, but in her utmost loyalty she still always considered
him as a transgressor, not as a victim. To Hartas he was a victim, the
victim of adverse circumstance, of an embodiment of spite in the shape
of Elias Constantine. Hartas Kendrew's predominant article of faith was
that in which Admiral Marlowe, Mr. Severn, and Elias Constantine were
inextricably mingled. But his trinity in unity possessed, according
to his distorted reasoning, a viciousness which could only nurture
revengefulness.
'The law,' said Scilla again, nerving herself to appeal; 'don't let us
put ourselves near it. It seems a dishonest thing to say,' she added,
faltering a moment, while a look of perplexity filled her eyes, 'as
though we were all the time doing wrong, but you know lots of folk 'll
see Nobbin at Northside Edge, and if she goes lame----'
'There's not a sore on her, and what's a hobble? There's not a sprain
about her. She's sound, I tell you. D---- the law!'
His violence convinced her of his misgivings. It was not then so much
what Nobbin might earn that day, a sum that would probably be balanced
on Chapman's side at the pits, but the risk he ran in taking her so
far from home that made him anxious to do it quietly. But why run the
risk? Where was the advantage of it? It could only be as a matter of
convenience to Luke Brockell. She knew Luke and did not like him.
Not that she had ever heard any evil of him. But there was something
cautious and furtive about him that she instinctively resented. The
straightforwardness which Hartas chose to construe as slowness of
comprehension made her shrink from imputing interested or dishonest
motives to others. But she was often compelled to do so. And now she
searched her mind for a clue to this compact of friendliness on
Hartas's part with a man who, on his side, would do well to keep out of
his companionship.
She had moved aside and stood leaning against the settle-back with a
droop in her figure expressive of her dismayed despondency. What more
could she say or urge? To a man of Hartas Kendrew's temperament, risk
added zest. To run into it quickened his sluggish blood to a degree
which he cherished with delight; failure nurtured his lowest nature,
success was only more enthralling as feeding a triumph whose chief charm
lay in its maliciousness.
'You must have weighed it all, father,' Scilla said at last, timidly,
again raising her eyes to his, and searching his face for confirmation
of her worst fears. 'You know that if anything goes wrong when you take
her off in this way, Dick 'll come down on us for all her value. And
though she mayn't be worth much to others, she is to us.'
'You talk quite book-like,' said Hartas, with a sneer. It pleased him to
think she had grasped the whole situation, and was made proportionately
miserable. But after all, were not her qualms wholly womanly? His were
those of manhood. He would dare the devil to do his worst at him. Had he
not other plans for circumventing the devil's own? Luke Brockell was a
more cautious chap than Kit, he would beat him out and out as a partner
over the snare, the sack, and the dub; folks never pried into the stuff
on his trolly; already grouse were again on their way from Admiral
Marlowe's moors to distant markets, with which Luke dealt in the delf
line. Luke had fast and influential friends, and he meant to leave no
stone unturned whereby Luke might also be his.
END OF VOL. I
_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_
G. C. & Co.
Transcriber's Note: Although most printer's errors have been retained,
some have been silently corrected. Some spelling and punctuation,
capitalization, accents and formatting markup have been normalized and
include the following:
Line 1544 peek is now peak
Line 3575 the word as was written twice, [reflecting upon him as as]
Line 4026 the double quotation mark has been replaced by a single
quote to match the opening quote. [I saw you last--in July, was it
not?"]
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