The two men returned towards the vicarage. At the paddock gate they
halted, and the old man concluded:
'I could not have wished a better man for her, Anthony. Mabbe the
Lord'll not be minded to spare me much longer. After I'm gone Rosa'll
hev all I possess. She was my poor brother Isaac's only child. After her
mother was taken, he, poor fellow, went altogether to the bad, and until
she came here she mostly lived among strangers. It's been a wretched
sort of childhood for her--a wretched sort of childhood. Ye'll take care
of her, Anthony, will ye not? ... Nay, but I could not hev wished for a
better man for her, and there's my hand on 't.'
'Thank ee, Mr. Blencarn, thank ee,' Anthony answered huskily, gripping
the old man's hand.
And he started off down the lane homewards.
His heart was full of a strange, rugged exaltation. He felt with a
swelling pride that God had entrusted to him this great charge--to tend
her; to make up to her, tenfold, for all that loving care, which, in her
childhood, she had never known. And together with a stubborn confidence
in himself, there welled up within him a great pity for her--a tender
pity, that, chastening with his passion, made her seem to him, as he
brooded over that lonely childhood of hers, the more distinctly
beautiful, the more profoundly precious. He pictured to himself,
tremulously, almost incredulously, their married life--in the winter,
his return home at nightfall to find her awaiting him with a glad,
trustful smile; their evenings, passed together, sitting in silent
happiness over the smouldering logs; or, in summer-time, the midday rest
in the hay-fields when, wearing perhaps a large-brimmed hat fastened
with a red ribbon, beneath her chin, he would catch sight of her,
carrying his dinner, coming across the upland.
She had not been brought up to be a farmer's wife: she was but a child
still, as the old parson had said. She should not have to work as other
men's wives worked: she should dress like a lady, and on Sundays, in
church, wear fine bonnets, and remain, as she had always been, the belle
of all the parish.
And, meanwhile, he would farm as he had never farmed before,
watching his opportunities, driving cunning bargains, spending
nothing on himself, hoarding every penny that she might have what
she wanted.... And, as he strode through the village, he seemed to
foresee a general brightening of prospects, a sobering of the fever
of speculation in sheep, a cessation of the insensate glutting, year
after year, of the great winter marts throughout the North, a slackening
of the foreign competition followed by a steady revival of the price
of fatted stocks--a period of prosperity in store for the farmer at
last.... And the future years appeared to open out before him, spread
like a distant, glittering plain, across which, he and she, hand in
hand, were called to travel together....
And then, suddenly, as his iron-bound boots clattered over the cobbled
yard, he remembered, with brutal determination, his mother, and the
stormy struggle that awaited him.
He waited till supper was over, till his mother had moved from the table
to her place by the chimney corner. For several minutes he remained
debating with himself the best method of breaking the news to her. Of a
sudden he glanced up at her: her knitting had slipped on to her lap: she
was sitting, bunched of a heap in her chair, nodding with sleep. By the
flickering light of the wood fire, she looked worn and broken: he felt a
twinge of clumsy compunction. And then he remembered the piteous, hunted
look in the girl's eyes, and the old man's words when they had parted at
the paddock gate, and he blurted out:
'I doot but what I'll hev t' marry Rosa Blencarn after all.'
She started, and blinking her eyes, said:
'I was jest takin' a wink o' sleep. What was 't ye were saying, Tony?'
He hesitated a moment, puckering his forehead into coarse rugged lines,
and fidgeting noisily with his tea-cup. Presently he repeated:
'I doot but what I'll hev t' marry Rosa Blencarn after all.'
She rose stiffly, and stepping down from the hearth, came towards him.
'Mabbe I did na hear ye aright, Tony.' She spoke hurriedly, and though
she was quite close to him, steadying herself with one hand clutching
the back of his chair, her voice sounded weak, distant almost.
'Look oop at me. Look oop into my face,' she commanded fiercely.
He obeyed sullenly.
'Noo oot wi 't. What's yer meanin', Tony?'
'I mean what I say,' he retorted doggedly, averting his gaze.
'What d'ye mean by sayin' that ye've _got_ t' marry her?'
'I tell yer I mean what I say,' he repeated dully.
'Ye mean ye've bin an' put t' girl in trouble?'
He said nothing; but sat staring stupidly at the floor.
'Look oop at me, and answer,' she commanded, gripping his shoulder and
shaking him.
He raised his face slowly, and met her glance.
'Ay, that's aboot it,' he answered.
'This'll na be truth. It'll be jest a piece o' wanton trickery!' she
cried.
'Nay, but't is truth,' he answered deliberately.
'Ye will na swear t' it?' she persisted.
'I see na necessity for swearin'.'
'Then ye canna swear t' it,' she burst out triumphantly.
He paused an instant; then said quietly:
'Ay, but I'll swear t' it easy enough. Fetch t' Book.'
She lifted the heavy, tattered Bible from the chimney-piece, and placed
it before him on the table. He laid his lumpish fist on it.
'Say,' she continued with a tense tremulousness, 'say, I swear t' ye,
mother, that 't is t' truth, t' whole truth, and noat but t' truth,
s'help me God.'
'I swear t' ye, mother, it's truth, t' whole truth, and nothin' but t'
truth, s'help me God,' he repeated after her.
'Kiss t' Book,' she ordered.
He lifted the Bible to his lips. As he replaced it on the table, he
burst out into a short laugh:
'Be ye satisfied noo?'
She went back to the chimney corner without a word. The logs on the
hearth hissed and crackled. Outside, amid the blackness the wind was
rising, hooting through the firs, and past the windows.
After a long while he roused himself, and drawing his pipe from his
pocket almost steadily, proceeded leisurely to pare in the palm of his
hand a lump of black tobacco.
'We'll be asked in church Sunday,' he remarked bluntly.
She made no answer.
He looked across at her.
Her mouth was drawn tight at the corners: her face wore a queer, rigid
aspect. She looked, he thought, like a figure of stone.
'Ye're not feeling poorly, are ye, mother?' he asked.
She shook her head grimly: then, hobbling out into the room, began to
speak in a shrill, tuneless voice.
'Ye talked at one time o' takin' a farm over Scarsdale way. But ye'd
best stop here. I'll no hinder ye. Ye can have t' large bedroom in t'
front, and I'll move ower to what used to be my brother Jake's room. Ye
knaw I've never had no opinion of t' girl, but I'll do what's right by
her, ef I break my sperrit in t' doin' on't. I'll mak' t' girl welcome
here: I'll stand by her proper-like: mebbe I'll finish by findin' soom
good in her. But from this day forward, Tony, ye're na son o' mine. Ye've
dishonoured yeself: ye've laid a trap for me--ay, laid a trap, that's t'
word. Ye've brought shame and bitterness on yer ould mother in her ould
age. Ye've made me despise t' varra sect o' ye. Ye can stop on here, but
ye shall niver touch a penny of my money; every shillin' of 't shall go
t' yer child, or to your child's children. Ay,' she went on, raising her
voice, 'ay, ye've got yer way at last, and mebbe ye reckon ye've chosen a
mighty smart way. But time 'ull coom when ye'll regret this day, when ye
eat oot yer repentance in doost an' ashes. Ay, Lord 'ull punish ye, Tony,
chastize ye properly. Ye'll learn that marriage begun in sin can end in
nought but sin. Ay,' she concluded, as she reached the door, raising her
skinny hand prophetically, 'ay, after I'm deed and gone, ye mind ye o' t'
words o' t' apostle--"For them that hev sinned without t' law, shall also
perish without t' law."'
And she slammed the door behind her.