IV

For three hundred years there had been a Garstin at Hootsey: generation

after generation had tramped the grey stretch of upland, in the

spring-time scattering their flocks over the fell-sides, and, at the

'back-end', on dark, winter afternoons, driving them home again, down

the broad bridle-path that led over the 'raise'. They had been a race of

few words, 'keeping themselves to themselves', as the phrase goes;

beholden to no man, filled with a dogged, churlish pride--an upright,

old-fashioned race, stubborn, long-lived, rude in speech, slow of

resolve.

Anthony had never seen his father, who had died one night, upon the

fell-top, he and his shepherd, engulfed in the great snowstorm of 1849.

Folks had said that he was the only Garstin who had failed to make old

man's bones.

After his death, Jake Atkinson, from Ribblehead in Yorkshire, had come

to live at Hootsey. Jake was a fine farmer, a canny bargainer, and very

handy among the sheep, till he took to drink, and roystering every week

with the town wenches up at Carlisle. He was a corpulent, deep-voiced,

free-handed fellow: when his time came, though he died very hardly, he

remained festive and convivial to the last. And for years afterwards, in

the valley, his memory lingered: men spoke of him regretfully, recalling

his quips, his feats of strength, and his choice breed of Herdwicke

rams. But he left behind him a host of debts up at Carlisle, in Penrith,

and in almost every market town--debts that he had long ago pretended to

have paid with money that belonged to his sister. The widow Garstin sold

the twelve Herdwicke rams, and nine acres of land: within six weeks she

had cleared off every penny, and for thirteen months, on Sundays, wore

her mourning with a mute, forbidding grimness: the bitter thought that,

unbeknown to her, Jake had acted dishonestly in money matters, and that

he had ended his days in riotous sin, soured her pride, imbued her with

a rancorous hostility against all the world. For she was a very proud

woman, independent, holding her head high, so folks said, like a Garstin

bred and born; and Anthony, although some reckoned him quiet and of

little account, came to take after her as he grew into manhood.

She took into her own hands the management of the Hootsey farm, and set

the boy to work for her along with the two farm servants. It was

twenty-five years now since his uncle Jake's death: there were grey

hairs in his sandy beard; but he still worked for his mother, as he had

done when a growing lad.

And now that times were grown to be bad (of late years the price of

stock had been steadily falling; and the hay harvests had drifted from

bad to worse) the widow Garstin no longer kept any labouring men; but

lived, she and her son, year in and year out, in a close parsimonious

way.

That had been Anthony Garstin's life--a dull, eventless sort of

business, the sluggish incrustation of monotonous years. And until Rosa

Blencarn had come to keep house for her uncle, he had never thought

twice on a woman's face.

The Garstins had always been good church-goers, and Anthony, for years,

had acted as churchwarden. It was one summer evening, up at the

vicarage, whilst he was checking the offertory account, that he first

set eyes upon her. She was fresh back from school at Leeds: she was

dressed in a white dress: she looked, he thought, like a London lady.

She stood by the window, tall and straight and queenly, dreamily gazing

out into the summer twilight, whilst he and her uncle sat over their

business. When he rose to go, she glanced at him with quick curiosity;

he hurried away, muttering a sheepish good night.

The next time that he saw her was in church on Sunday. He watched her

shyly, with a hesitating, reverential discretion: her beauty seemed to

him wonderful, distant, enigmatic. In the afternoon, young Mrs. Forsyth,

from Longscale, dropped in for a cup of tea with his mother, and the two

set off gossiping of Rosa Blencarn, speaking of her freely, in tones of

acrimonious contempt. For a long while he sat silent, puffing at his

pipe; but at last, when his mother concluded with, 'She looks t' me fair

stuck-oop, full o' toonish airs an' graces,' despite himself, he burst

out: 'Ye're jest wastin' yer breath wi' that cackle. I reckon Miss

Blencarn's o' a different clay to us folks.' Young Mrs. Forsyth tittered

immoderately, and the next week it was rumoured about the valley that

'Tony Garstin was gone luny over t' parson's niece.'

But of all this he knew nothing--keeping to himself, as was his wont,

and being, besides, very busy with the hay harvest--until one day, at

dinner-time, Henry Sisson asked if he'd started his courting; Jacob

Sowerby cried that Tony'd been too slow in getting to work, for that the

girl had been seen spooning in Crosby Shaws with Curbison the

auctioneer, and the others (there were half-a-dozen of them lounging

round the hay-waggon) burst into a boisterous guffaw. Anthony flushed

dully, looking hesitatingly from the one to the other; then slowly put

down his beer-can, and of a sudden, seizing Jacob by the neck, swung him

heavily on the grass. He fell against the waggon-wheel, and when he rose

the blood was streaming from an ugly cut in his forehead. And

henceforward Tony Garstin's courtship was the common jest of all the

parish.

As yet, however, he had scarcely spoken to her, though twice he had

passed her in the lane that led up to the vicarage. She had given him a

frank, friendly smile; but he had not found the resolution to do more

than lift his hat. He and Henry Sisson stacked the hay in the yard

behind the house; there was no further mention made of Rosa Blencarn;

but all day long Anthony, as he knelt thatching the rick, brooded over

the strange sweetness of her face, and on the fell-top, while he tramped

after the ewes over the dry, crackling heather, and as he jogged along

the narrow, rickety road, driving his cartload of lambs into the auction

mart.

Thus, as the weeks slipped by, he was content with blunt, wistful

ruminations upon her indistinct image. Jacob Sowerby's accusation, and

several kindred innuendoes let fall by his mother, left him coolly

incredulous; the girl still seemed to him altogether distant; but from

the first sight of her face he had evolved a stolid, unfaltering

conception of her difference from the ruck of her sex.

But one evening, as he passed the vicarage on his way down from the

fells, she called to him, and with a childish, confiding familiarity

asked for advice concerning the feeding of the poultry. In his eagerness

to answer her as best he could, he forgot his customary embarrassment,

and grew, for the moment, almost voluble, and quite at his ease in her

presence. Directly her flow of questions ceased, however, the returning

perception of her rosy, hesitating smile, and of her large, deep eyes

looking straight into his face, perturbed him strangely, and, reddening,

he remembered the quarrel in the hay-field and the tale of Crosby Shaws.

After this, the poultry became a link between them--a link which he

regarded in all seriousness, blindly unconscious that there was aught

else to bring them together, only feeling himself in awe of her, because

of her schooling, her townish manners, her ladylike mode of dress. And

soon, he came to take a sturdy, secret pride in her friendly familiarity

towards him. Several times a week he would meet her in the lane, and

they would loiter a moment together; she would admire his dogs, though

he assured her earnestly that they were but sorry curs; and once,

laughing at his staidness, she nick-named him 'Mr. Churchwarden'.

That the girl was not liked in the valley he suspected, curtly

attributing her unpopularity to the women's senseless jealousy. Of

gossip concerning her he heard no further hint; but instinctively, and

partly from that rugged, natural reserve of his, shrank from mentioning

her name, even incidentally, to his mother.

Now, on Sunday evenings, he often strolled up to the vicarage, each time

quitting his mother with the same awkward affectation of casualness;

and, on his return, becoming vaguely conscious of how she refrained from

any comment on his absence, and appeared oddly oblivious of the

existence of parson Blencarn's niece.

She had always been a sour-tongued woman; but, as the days shortened

with the approach of the long winter months, she seemed to him to grow

more fretful than ever; at times it was almost as if she bore him some

smouldering, sullen resentment. He was of stubborn fibre, however,

toughened by long habit of a bleak, unruly climate; he revolved the

matter in his mind deliberately, and when, at last, after much plodding

thought, it dawned upon him that she resented his acquaintance with Rosa

Blencarn, he accepted the solution with an unflinching phlegm, and

merely shifted his attitude towards the girl, calculating each day the

likelihood of his meeting her, and making, in her presence, persistent

efforts to break down, once for all, the barrier of his own timidity. He

was a man not to be clumsily driven, still less, so he prided himself, a

man to be craftily led.

It was close upon Christmas time before the crisis came. His mother was

just home from Penrith market. The spring-cart stood in the yard, the

old grey horse was steaming heavily in the still, frosty air.

'I reckon ye've come fast. T' ould horse is over hot,' he remarked

bluntly, as he went to the animal's head.

She clambered down hastily, and, coming to his side, began breathlessly:

'Ye ought t' hev coom t' market, Tony. There's bin pretty goin's on in

Pe'rith today. I was helpin' Anna Forsyth t' choose six yards o'

sheetin' in Dockroy, when we sees Rosa Blencarn coom oot o' t' 'Bell and

Bullock' in company we' Curbison and young Joe Smethwick. Smethwick was

fair reelin' drunk, and Curbison and t' girl were a-houldin' on to him,

to keep him fra fallin'; and then, after a bit, he puts his arm round

the girl t' stiddy hisself, and that fashion they goes off, right oop t'

public street--'

He continued to unload the packages, and to carry them mechanically one

by one into the house. Each time, when he reappeared, she was standing

by the steaming horse, busy with her tale.

'An' on t' road hame we passed t' three on' em in Curbison's trap, with

Smethwick leein' in t' bottom, singin' maudlin' songs. They were passin'

Dunscale village, an't' folks coom runnin' oot o' houses t' see 'em go

past--'

He led the cart away towards the stable, leaving her to cry the

remainder after him across the yard.

Half-an-hour later he came in for his dinner. During the meal not a word

passed between them, and directly he had finished he strode out of the

house. About nine o'clock he returned, lit his pipe, and sat down to

smoke it over the kitchen fire.

'Where've ye bin, Tony?' she asked.

'Oop t' vicarage, courtin', he retorted defiantly, with his pipe in his

mouth.

This was ten months ago; ever since he had been doggedly waiting. That

evening he had set his mind on the girl, he intended to have her; and

while his mother gibed, as she did now upon every opportunity, his

patience remained grimly unflagging. She would remind him that the farm

belonged to her, that he would have to wait till her death before he

could bring the hussy to Hootsey: he would retort that as soon as the

girl would have him, he intended taking a small holding over at

Scarsdale. Then she would give way, and for a while piteously upbraid

him with her old age, and with the memory of all the years she and he

had spent together, and he would comfort her with a display of brusque,

evasive remorse.

But, none the less, on the morrow, his thoughts would return to dwell on

the haunting vision of the girl's face, while his own rude, credulous

chivalry, kindled by the recollection of her beauty, stifled his

misgivings concerning her conduct.

Meanwhile she dallied with him, and amused herself with the younger men.

Her old uncle fell ill in the spring, and could scarcely leave the

house. She declared that she found life in the valley intolerably dull,

that she hated the quiet of the place, that she longed for Leeds, and

the exciting bustle of the streets; and in the evenings she wrote long

letters to the girl-friends she had left behind there, describing with

petulant vivacity her tribe of rustic admirers. At the harvest-time she

went back on a fortnight's visit to friends; the evening before her

departure she promised Anthony to give him her answer on her return.

But, instead, she avoided him, pretended to have promised in jest, and

took up with Luke Stock, a cattle-dealer from Wigton.

V

It was three weeks since he had fetched his flock down from the fell.

After dinner he and his mother sat together in the parlour: they had

done so every Sunday afternoon, year in and year out, as far back as he

could remember.

A row of mahogany chairs, with shiny, horse-hair seats, were ranged

round the room. A great collection of agricultural prize-tickets were

pinned over the wall; and, on a heavy, highly-polished sideboard stood

several silver cups. A heap of gilt-edged shavings filled the unused

grate: there were gaudily-tinted roses along the mantelpiece, and, on a

small table by the window, beneath a glass-case, a gilt basket filled

with imitation flowers. Every object was disposed with a scrupulous

precision: the carpet and the red-patterned cloth on the centre table

were much faded. The room was spotlessly clean, and wore, in the chilly

winter sunlight, a rigid, comfortless air.

Neither spoke, or appeared conscious of the other's presence. Old Mrs.

Garstin, wrapped in a woollen shawl, sat knitting: Anthony dozed

fitfully on a stiff-backed chair.

Of a sudden, in the distance, a bell started tolling. Anthony rubbed his

eyes drowsily, and taking from the table his Sunday hat, strolled out

across the dusky fields. Presently, reaching a rude wooden seat, built

beside the bridle-path, he sat down and relit his pipe. The air was very

still; below him a white filmy mist hung across the valley: the

fell-sides, vaguely grouped, resembled hulking masses of sombre shadow;

and, as he looked back, three squares of glimmering gold revealed the

lighted windows of the square-towered church.

He sat smoking; pondering, with placid and reverential contemplation,

on the Mighty Maker of the world--a world majestically and inevitably

ordered; a world where, he argued, each object--each fissure in the

fells, the winding course of each tumbling stream--possesses its

mysterious purport, its inevitable signification....

At the end of the field two rams were fighting; retreating, then running

together, and, leaping from the ground, butting head to head and horn to

horn. Anthony watched them absently, pursuing his rude meditations.

... And the succession of bad seasons, the slow ruination of the farmers

throughout the country, were but punishment meted out for the

accumulated wickedness of the world. In the olden time God rained

plagues upon the land: nowadays, in His wrath, He spoiled the produce of

the earth, which, with His own hands, He had fashioned and bestowed upon

men.

He rose and continued his walk along the bridle-path. A multitude of

rabbits scuttled up the hill at his approach; and a great cloud of

plovers, rising from the rushes, circled overhead, filling the air with

a profusion of their querulous cries. All at once he heard a rattling of

stones, and perceived a number of small pieces of shingle bounding in

front of him down the grassy slope.

A woman's figure was moving among the rocks above him. The next moment,

by the trimming of crimson velvet on her hat, he had recognized her. He

mounted the slope with springing strides, wondering the while how it was

she came to be there, that she was not in church playing the organ at

afternoon service.

Before she was aware of his approach, he was beside her.

'I thought ye'd be in church--' he began.

She started: then, gradually regaining her composure, answered, weakly

smiling:

'Mr. Jenkinson, the new schoolmaster, wanted to try the organ.'

He came towards her impulsively: she saw the odd flickers in his eyes as

she stepped back in dismay.

'Nay, but I will na harm ye,' he said. 'Only I reckon what 'tis a

special turn o' Providence, meetin' wi' ye oop here. I reckon what ye'll

hev t' give me a square answer noo. Ye canna dilly-dally everlastingly.'

He spoke almost brutally; and she stood, white and gasping, staring at

him with large, frightened eyes. The sheep-walk was but a tiny

threadlike track: the slope of the shingle on either side was very

steep: below them lay the valley; distant, lifeless, all blurred by the

evening dusk. She looked about her helplessly for a means of escape.

'Miss Rosa,' he continued, in a husky voice, 'can ye na coom t' think on

me? Think ye, I've bin waitin' nigh upon two year for ye. I've watched

ye tak oop, first wi' this young fellar, and then wi' that, till

soomtimes my heart's fit t' burst. Many a day, oop on t' fell-top, t'

thought o' ye's nigh driven me daft, and I've left my shepherdin' jest

t' set on a cairn in t' mist, picturin' an' broodin' on yer face. Many

an evenin' I've started oop t' vicarage, wi' t' resolution t' speak

right oot t' ye; but when it coomed t' point, a sort o' timidity seemed

t' hould me back, I was that feared t' displease ye. I knaw I'm na

scholar, an' mabbe ye think I'm rough-mannered. I knaw I've spoken

sharply to ye once or twice lately. But it's jest because I'm that mad

wi' love for ye: I jest canna help myself soomtimes--'

He waited, peering into her face. She could see the beads of sweat above

his bristling eyebrows: the damp had settled on his sandy beard: his

horny fingers were twitching at the buttons of his black Sunday coat.

She struggled to summon a smile; but her under-lip quivered, and her

large dark eyes filled slowly with tears.

And he went on:

'Ye've coom t' mean jest everything to me. Ef ye will na hev me, I care

for nought else. I canna speak t' ye in phrases: I'm jest a plain,

unscholarly man: I canna wheedle ye, wi' cunnin' after t' fashion o'

toon folks. But I can love ye wi' all my might, an' watch over ye, and

work for ye better than any one o' em--'

She was crying to herself, silently, while he spoke. He noticed nothing,

however: the twilight hid her face from him.

'There's nought against me,' he persisted. 'I'm as good a man as any one

on 'em. Ay, as good a man as any one on 'em,' he repeated defiantly,

raising his voice.

'It's impossible, Mr. Garstin, it's impossible. Ye've been very kind to

me--' she added, in a choking voice.

'Wa dang it, I didna mean t' mak ye cry, lass,' he exclaimed, with a

softening of his tone. 'There's nought for ye t' cry ower.'

She sank on to the stones, passionately sobbing in hysterical and

defenceless despair. Anthony stood a moment, gazing at her in clumsy

perplexity: then, coming close to her, put his hand on her shoulder, and

said gently:

'Coom, lass, what's trouble? Ye can trust me.'

She shook her head faintly.

'Ay, but ye can though,' he asserted, firmly. 'Come, what is't?'

Heedless of him, she continued to rock herself to and fro, crooning in

her distress:

'Oh! I wish I were dead!... I wish I could die!'

--'Wish ye could die?' he repeated. 'Why, whatever can't be that's

troublin' ye like this? There, there, lassie, give ower: it 'ull all

coom right, whatever it be--'

'No, no,' she wailed. 'I wish I could die!... I wish I could die!'

Lights were twinkling in the village below; and across the valley

darkness was draping the hills. The girl lifted her face from her hands,

and looked up at him with a scared, bewildered expression.

'I must go home: I must be getting home,' she muttered.

'Nay, but there's sommut mighty amiss wi' ye.'

'No, it's nothing... I don't know--I'm not well... I mean it's

nothing... it'll pass over... you mustn't think anything of it.'

'Nay, but I canna stand by an see ye in sich trouble.'

'It's nothing, Mr. Garstin, indeed it's nothing,' she repeated.

'Ay, but I canna credit that,' he objected stubbornly.

She sent him a shifting, hunted glance.

'Let me get home... you must let me get home.'

She made a tremulous, pitiful attempt at firmness. Eyeing her keenly, he

barred her path: she flushed scarlet, and looked hastily away across the

valley.

'If ye'll tell me yer distress, mabbe I can help ye.'

'No, no, it's nothing... it's nothing.'

'If ye'll tell me yer distress, mabbe I can help ye,' he repeated, with

a solemn, deliberate sternness. She shivered, and looked away again,

vaguely, across the valley.

'You can do nothing: there's nought to be done,' she murmured drearily.

'There's a man in this business,' he declared.

'Let me go! Let me go!' she pleaded desperately.

'Who is't that's bin puttin' ye into this distress?' His voice sounded

loud and harsh.

'No one, no one. I canna tell ye, Mr. Garstin.... It's no one,' she

protested weakly. The white, twisted look on his face frightened her.

'My God!' he burst out, gripping her wrist, 'an' a proper soft fool

ye've made o' me. Who is't, I tell ye? Who's t' man?'

'Ye're hurtin' me. Let me go. I canna tell ye.'

'And ye're fond o' him?'

'No, no. He's a wicked, sinful man. I pray God I may never set eyes on

him again. I told him so.'

'But ef he's got ye into trouble, he'll hev t' marry ye,' he persisted

with a brutal bitterness.

'I will not. I hate him!' she cried fiercely.

'But is he _willin'_ t' marry ye?'

'I don't know ... I don't care ... he said so before he went

away ... But I'd kill myself sooner than live with him.'

He let her hands fall and stepped back from her. She could only see his

figure, like a sombre cloud, standing before her. The whole fell-side

seemed still and dark and lonely. Presently she heard his voice again:

'I reckon what there's one road oot o' yer distress.'

She shook her head drearily.

'There's none. I'm a lost woman.'

'An' ef ye took me instead?' he said eagerly.

'I--I don't understand--'

'Ef ye married me instead of Luke Stock?'

'But that's impossible--the--the--'

'Ay, t' child. I know. But I'll tak t' child as mine.'

She remained silent. After a moment he heard her voice answer in a

queer, distant tone:

'You mean that--that ye're ready to marry me, and adopt the child?'

'I do,' he answered doggedly.

'But people--your mother--?'

'Folks 'ull jest know nought about it. It's none o' their business. T'

child 'ull pass as mine. Ye'll accept that?'

'Yes,' she answered, in a low, rapid voice.

'Ye'll consent t' hev me, ef I git ye oot o' yer trouble?'

'Yes,' she repeated, in the same tone.

She heard him draw a long breath.

'I said 't was a turn o' Providence, meetin' wi' ye oop here,' he

exclaimed, with half-suppressed exultation.

Her teeth began to chatter a little: she felt that he was peering at

her, curiously, through the darkness.

'An' noo,' he continued briskly, 'ye'd best be gettin' home. Give me

ye're hand, an' I'll stiddy ye ower t' stones.'

He helped her down the bank of shingle, exclaiming: 'By goom, ye're

stony cauld.' Once or twice she slipped: he supported her, roughly

gripping her knuckles. The stones rolled down the steps, noisily,

disappearing into the night.

Presently they struck the turf bridle-path, and, as they descended

silently towards the lights of the village, he said gravely:

'I always reckoned what my day 'ud coom.'

She made no reply; and he added grimly:

'There'll be terrible work wi' mother over this.'

He accompanied her down the narrow lane that led past her uncle's house.

When the lighted windows came in sight he halted.

'Good night, lassie,' he said kindly. 'Do ye give ower distressin'

yeself.'

'Good night, Mr. Garstin,' she answered, in the same low, rapid voice in

which she had given him her answer up on the fell.

'We're man an' wife plighted now, are we not?' he blurted timidly.

She held her face to his, and he kissed her on the cheek, clumsily.