(_Savoy_, July 1896)
I
A stampede of huddled sheep, wildly scampering over the slaty shingle,
emerged from the leaden mist that muffled the fell-top, and a shrill
shepherd's whistle broke the damp stillness of the air. And presently a
man's figure appeared, following the sheep down the hillside. He halted
a moment to whistle curtly to his two dogs, who, laying back their ears,
chased the sheep at top speed beyond the brow; then, his hands deep in
his pockets, he strode vigorously forward. A streak of white smoke from
a toiling train was creeping silently across the distance: the great,
grey, desolate undulations of treeless country showed no other sign of
life.
The sheep hurried in single file along a tiny track worn threadbare amid
the brown, lumpy grass: and, as the man came round the mountain's
shoulder, a narrow valley opened out beneath him--a scanty patchwork of
green fields, and, here and there, a whitewashed farm, flanked by a dark
cluster of sheltering trees.
The man walked with a loose, swinging gait. His figure was spare and
angular: he wore a battered, black felt hat and clumsy, iron-bound
boots: his clothes were dingy from long exposure to the weather. He had
close-set, insignificant eyes, much wrinkled, and stubbly eyebrows
streaked with grey. His mouth was close-shaven, and drawn by his
abstraction into hard and taciturn lines; beneath his chin bristled an
unkempt fringe of sandy-coloured hair.
When he reached the foot of the fell, the twilight was already blurring
the distance. The sheep scurried, with a noisy rustling, across a flat,
swampy stretch, over-grown with rushes, while the dogs headed them
towards a gap in a low, ragged wall built of loosely-heaped boulders.
The man swung the gate to after them, and waited, whistling
peremptorily, recalling the dogs. A moment later, the animals
reappeared, cringing as they crawled through the bars of the gate. He
kicked out at them contemptuously, and mounting a stone stile a few
yards further up the road, dropped into a narrow lane.
Presently, as he passed a row of lighted windows, he heard a voice call
to him. He stopped, and perceived a crooked, white-bearded figure,
wearing clerical clothes, standing in the garden gateway.
'Good-evening, Anthony. A raw evening this.'
'Ay, Mr. Blencarn, it is a bit frittish,' he answered. 'I've jest bin
gittin' a few lambs off t'fell. I hope ye're keepin' fairly, an' Miss
Rosa too.' He spoke briefly, with a loud, spontaneous cordiality.
'Thank ye, Anthony, thank ye. Rosa's down at the church, playing over
the hymns for tomorrow. How's Mrs. Garstin?'
'Nicely, thank ye, Mr. Blencarn. She's wonderful active, is mother.'
'Well, good night to ye, Anthony,' said the old man, clicking the gate.
'Good night, Mr. Blencarn,' he called back.
A few minutes later the twinkling lights of the village came in sight,
and from within the sombre form of the square-towered church, looming by
the roadside, the slow, solemn strains of the organ floated out on the
evening air. Anthony lightened his tread: then paused, listening; but,
presently, becoming aware that a man stood, listening also, on the
bridge some few yards distant, he moved forward again. Slackening his
pace, as he approached, he eyed the figure keenly; but the man paid no
heed to him, remaining, with his back turned, gazing over the parapet
into the dark, gurgling stream.
Anthony trudged along the empty village street, past the gleaming
squares of ruddy gold, starting on either side out of the darkness. Now
and then he looked furtively backwards. The straight open road lay
behind him, glimmering wanly: the organ seemed to have ceased: the
figure on the bridge had left the parapet, and appeared to be moving
away towards the church. Anthony halted, watching it till it had
disappeared into the blackness beneath the churchyard trees. Then, after
a moment's hesitation, he left the road, and mounted an upland meadow
towards his mother's farm.
It was a bare, oblong house. In front, a whitewashed porch, and a narrow
garden-plot, enclosed by a low iron railing, were dimly discernible:
behind, the steep fell-side loomed like a monstrous, mysterious curtain
hung across the night. He passed round the back into the twilight of a
wide yard, cobbled and partially grass-grown, vaguely flanked by the
shadowy outlines of long, low farm-buildings. All was wrapped in
darkness: somewhere overhead a bat fluttered, darting its puny scream.
Inside, a blazing peat-fire scattered capering shadows across the
smooth, stone floor, flickered among the dim rows of hams suspended from
the ceiling and on the panelled cupboards of dark, glistening oak. A
servant-girl, spreading the cloth for supper, clattered her clogs in and
out of the kitchen: old Mrs. Garstin was stooping before the hearth,
tremulously turning some girdle-cakes that lay roasting in the embers.
At the sound of Anthony's heavy tread in the passage, she rose, glancing
sharply at the clock above the chimney-piece. She was a heavy-built
woman, upright, stalwart almost, despite her years. Her face was gaunt
and sallow; deep wrinkles accentuated the hardness of her features. She
wore a black widow's cap above her iron-grey hair, gold-rimmed
spectacles, and a soiled, chequered apron.
'Ye're varra late, Tony,' she remarked querulously.
He unloosened his woollen neckerchief, and when he had hung it
methodically with his hat behind the door, answered:
''Twas terrible thick on t' fell-top, an' them two bitches be that
senseless.'
She caught his sleeve, and, through her spectacles, suspiciously
scrutinized his face.
'Ye did na meet wi' Rosa Blencarn?'
'Nay, she was in church, hymn-playin', wi' Luke Stock hangin' roond
door,' he retorted bitterly, rebuffing her with rough impatience.
She moved away, nodding sententiously to herself. They began supper:
neither spoke: Anthony sat slowly stirring his tea, and staring moodily
into the flames: the bacon on his plate lay untouched. From time to time
his mother, laying down her knife and fork, looked across at him in
unconcealed asperity, pursing her wide, ungainly mouth. At last,
abruptly setting down her cup, she broke out:
'I wonder ye hav'na mare pride, Tony. For hoo lang are ye goin' t'
continue settin' mopin' and broodin' like a seck sheep? Ye'll jest mak
yesself ill, an' then I reckon what ye'll prove satisfied. Ay, but I
wonder ye hav'na more pride.'
But he made no answer, remaining unmoved, as if he had not heard.
Presently, half to himself, without raising his eyes, he murmured:
'Luke be goin' South, Monday.'
'Well, ye canna tak' oop wi' his leavin's anyways. It hasna coom't that,
has it? Ye doan't intend settin' all t' parish a laughin' at ye a second
occasion?'
He flushed dully, and bending over his plate, mechanically began his
supper.
'Wa dang it,' he broke out a minute later, 'd'ye think I heed the
cacklin' o' fifty parishes? Na, not I,' and, with a short, grim laugh,
he brought his fist down heavily on the oak table.
'Ye're daft, Tony,' the old woman blurted.
'Daft or na daft, I tell ye this, mother, that I be forty-six year o'
age this back-end, and there be some things I will na listen to. Rosa
Blencarn's bonny enough for me.'
'Ay, bonny enough--I've na patience wi' ye. Bonny enough--tricked oot
in her furbelows, gallivantin' wi' every royster fra Pe'rith. Bonny
enough--that be all ye think on. She's bin a proper parson's niece--the
giddy, feckless creature, an she'd mak' ye a proper sort o' wife, Tony
Garstin, ye great, fond booby.'
She pushed back her chair, and, hurriedly clattering the crockery, began
to clear away the supper.
'T' hoose be mine, t' Lord be praised,' she continued in a loud, hard
voice, 'an' as long as he spare me, Tony, I'll na see Rosa Blencarn set
foot inside it.'
Anthony scowled, without replying, and drew his chair to the hearth. His
mother bustled about the room behind him. After a while she asked:
'Did ye pen t' lambs in t' back field?'
'Na, they're in Hullam bottom,' he answered curtly.
The door closed behind her, and by and by he could hear her moving
overhead. Meditatively blinking, he filled his pipe clumsily, and
pulling a crumpled newspaper from his pocket, sat on over the
smouldering fire, reading and stolidly puffing.