It was the height of a Cumbrian summer. Bracken Mere was as smooth as
a sheet of glass. The hills were green, gray, and purple to the
summits, and their clear outlines stood out against the sky. The sky
itself would have been cloudless but for one long scarf of plaited
white which wore away across a lake of blue. The ghyll fell like a
furled flag. The thin river under the clustering leaves sang beneath
its breath. The sun was hot and the air was drowsed by the hum of
insects.
And full of happy people was the meadow between the old house on the
Moss and the pack-horse road in front of it. It was the day of the
Wythburn sports, and this year it was being celebrated at
Shoulthwaite. Tents had been pitched here and there in out-of-the-way
corners of the field, and Mrs. Branthwaite, with her meek face, was
appointed chief mistress and dispenser of the hospitality of the
Shoulthwaite household.
“This is not taty-and-point,” said her husband, with a twinkle in his
eyes and a sensation of liquidity about the lips as he came up to
survey the outspread tables.
Mattha Branthwaite was once more resplendent in those Chapel-Sunday
garments with which, in the perversity of the old weaver's unorthodox
heart, that auspicious day was not often honored. Mrs. Ray had been
carried out in her chair by her stalwart sons. Her dear old face
looked more mellow and peaceful than before. Folks said the paralysis
was passing away. Mattha himself, who never at any time took a
melancholy view of his old neighbor's seizure, stands by her chair
to-day and fires off his sapient saws at her with the certainty that
she appreciates every saw of them.
“The dame's to the fore yit,” he says, “and lang will be.”
At Mrs. Ray's feet her son Willy lies on the grass in a blue jerkin
and broad-brimmed black hat with a plume. Willy's face is of the type
on which trouble tells. Behind him, and leaning on the gate that leads
from the court to the meadow, is Ralph, in a loose jacket with deep
collar and a straw hat. He looks years younger than when we saw him
last. He is just now laughing heartily at a batch of the
schoolmaster's scholars who are casting lots close at hand. One
bullet-headed little fellow has picked up a couple of pebbles, and
after putting them through some unseen and mysterious manoeuvres
behind him, is holding them out in his two little fists, saying,--
Neevy, neevy nack,
Whether hand will ta tack--
T' topmer or t' lowmer?
“What hantle of gibberish is that?” says Monsey Laman himself.
“_I_ is to tumble the poppenoddles,” cries the bullet-headed
gentleman. And presently the rustic young gamester is tossing
somersets for a penny.
In the middle of the meadow, and encircled by a little crowd of
excited male spectators, two men are trying a fall at wrestling.
Stripped to the waist, they are treating each other to somewhat
demonstrative embraces.
At a few yards' distance another little circle, of more symmetrical
outlines, and comprising both sexes, are standing with linked hands. A
shame-faced young maiden is carrying a little cushion around her
companions. They are playing the “cushion game.”
At one corner of the field there is a thicket overgrown with wild
roses, white and red. Robbie Anderson, who has just escaped from a
rebellious gang of lads who have been climbing on his shoulders and
clinging to his legs, is trying to persuade Liza Branthwaite that
there is something curious and wonderful lying hidden within this
flowery ambush.
“It's terrible nice,” he says, rather indefinitely. “Come, lass, come
and see.”
Liza refuses plump.
The truth is that Liza has a shrewd suspicion that the penalty of
acquiescence would be a kiss. Now, she has no particular aversion to
that kind of commerce, but since Robbie is so eager, she has resolved,
like a true woman, that his appetite shall be whetted by a temporary
disappointment.
“Not I,” she says, with arms akimbo and a rippling laugh of knowing
mockery. Presently her sprightly little feet are tripping away.
Still encircled by half a score of dogs, Robbie returns to the middle
of the meadow, where the wrestlers have given way to some who are
preparing for a race up the fell. Robbie throws off his coat and cap,
and straps a belt about his waist.
“Why, what's this?” inquires Liza, coming up at the moment, with
mischief in her eyes, and bantering her sweetheart with roguish jeers.
“_You_ going to run! Why, you are only a bit of a boy, you know. How
can _you_ expect to win?”
“Just you wait and see, little lass,” says Robbie, with undisturbed
good humor.
“You'll slidder all the way down the fell, sure enough,” saves Liza.
“All right; just you get a cabbish-skrunt poultice ready for my broken
shins,” says Robbie.
“I would scarce venture if I were you,” continues Liza, to the vast
amusement of the bystanders. “Wait till you're a man, Robbie.”
The competitors--there are six of them--are now stationed; the signal
is given, and away they go.
The fell is High Seat, and it is steep and rugged. The first to round
the “man” at the summit and reach the meadow again wins the prize.
Over stones, across streams, tearing through thickets, through belts
of trees--look how they go! Now they are lost to the sight of the
spectators below; now they are seen, and now they are hidden; now
three of the six emerge near the top.
The excitement in the field is at full pitch. Liza is beside herself
with anxiety.
“It's Robbie--no, yes--no--egg him on, do; te-lick; te-smack.”
One man has rounded the summit, and two others follow him
neck-and-neck. They are coming down, jumping, leaping, flying. They're
here, here, and it is--yes, it _is_ Robbie that leads!
“Well done! Splendid! Twelve minutes! Well done! Weel, weel, I oles do
say 'at ye hev a lang stroke o' the grund, Robbie,” says Mattha.
“And what do _you_ say?” says Robbie, panting, and pulling on his coat
as he turns to Liza, who is trying to look absent and unconcerned.
“Ay! Did you speak to me? I say that perhaps you didn't go round the
'man' at all. You were always a bit of a cheat, you know.”
“Then here goes for cheating you.” Robbie had caught Liza about the
waist, and was drawing her to that rose-covered thicket. She found he
was holding her tight. He was monstrously strong. What ever _was_ the
good of trying to get away?
Two elderly women were amused spectators of Liza's ineffectual
struggles.
“I suppose you know they are to be wedded,” said one.
“I suppose so,” rejoined the other; “and I hear that Ralph is to let a
bit of land to Robbie; he has given him a horse, I'm told.”
Matthew Branthwaite had returned to his station by Mrs. Ray's chair.
“Whear's Rotha?” says the old weaver.
“She said she would come and bring her father,” said Willy from the
grass, where he still lay at his mother's feet.
“It was bad manishment, my lad, to let the lass gang off agen with Sim
to yon Fornside.”
Mattha is speaking with an insinuating smile.
“Could ye not keep her here? Out upon tha for a good to nowt.”
Willy makes no reply to the weaver's banter.
At that moment Rotha and her father are seen to enter the meadow by a
gate at the lower end.
Ralph steps forward and welcomes the new-comers.
Sim has aged fast these last six months, but he is brighter looking
and more composed. The dalespeople have tried hard to make up to him
for their former injustice. He receives their conciliatory attentions
with a somewhat too palpable effort at cordiality, but he is only less
timid than before.
Ralph leads Rotha to a vacant chair near to where his mother sits.
“A blithe heart maks a blooming look,” says Mattha to the girl.
Rotha's face deserves the compliment. To-day it looks as fresh as it
is always beautiful. But there is something in it now that we have
never before observed. The long dark lashes half hide and half reveal
a tenderer light than has hitherto stolen into those deep brown eyes.
The general expression of the girl's face is not of laughter nor yet
of tears, but of that indescribable something that lies between these
two, when, after a world of sadness, the heart is glad--the sunshine
of an April day.
“This seems like the sunny side of the hedge at last, Rotha,” says
Ralph, standing by her side, twirling his straw hat on one hand.
There is some bustle in their vicinity. The schoolmaster, who prides
himself on having the fleetest foot in the district, has undertaken to
catch a rabbit. Trial of speed is made, and he succeeds in two hundred
yards.
“Theer's none to match the laal limber Frenchman,” says Mattha, “for
catching owte frae a rabbit to a slap ower the lug at auld Nicky
Stevens's.”
“Ha! ha! ha!” laughs Reuben Thwaite, rather boisterously, as he comes
up in time to hear the weaver's conceit.
“There's one thing I never caught yet, Master Reuben,” says Monsey.
“And what is it?” says the little blink-eyed dalesman.
“A ghost on a lime-and-mould heap!”
“Ha! ha! ha! He's got a lad's heart the laal man has,” says Mattha,
with the manner of a man who is conscious that he is making an
original observation.
And now the sun declines between the Noddle Fell and Bleaberry. The
sports are over, but not yet is the day's pleasure done. When darkness
has fallen over meadow and mountain the kitchen of the house on the
Moss is alive with bright faces. The young women of Wythburn have
brought their spinning-wheels, and they sit together and make some
pretence to spin. The young men are outside. The old folks are in
another room with Mrs. Ray.
Presently a pebble is heard to crack against the window pane.
“What ever can it be?” says one of the maidens with an air of profound
amazement.
One venturesome damsel goes to the door “Why, it's a young man!” she
says, with overpowering astonishment.
The unexpected creature enters the kitchen, followed by a longish line
of similar apparitions. They seat themselves on the table, on the
skemmels, on the stools between the spinners--anywhere, everywhere.
What sport ensues! what story-telling! what laughing! what singing!
Ralph comes downstairs, and is hailed with welcomes on all hands. He
is called upon for a song. Yes, he can sing. He always sang in the old
days. He must sing now.
“I'll sing you something I heard in Lancaster,” he says.
“What about--the Lancashire witches?”
“Who writ it--little Monsey?”
“No, but a bigger man than Monsey,” said Ralph with a smile.
“He _would_ be a mite if he were no bigger than the schoolmaster,” put
in that lady of majestic stature, Liza Branthwaite.
Then Ralph sang in his deep baritone, “Fear no more the heat o' the
sun.”
And the click of the spinning-wheels seemed to keep time to the slow
measure of the fine old song.
Laddie, the collie, was there. He lay at Ralph's feet with a solemn
face. He was clearly thinking out the grave problems attaching to the
place of dogs on this universe.
“Didn't I hear my name awhile ago?” said a voice from behind the door.
The head of the speaker emerged presently. It was Monsey Laman. He had
been banished with the “old folks.”
“Come your ways in, schoolmaster,” cried Robbie Anderson. “Who says
'yes' to a bout of play-acting?”
As a good many said “Yes,” an armchair was forthwith placed at one
corner of the kitchen with its back to the audience. Monsey mounted
it. Robbie went out of doors, and, presently re-entering with a
countenance of most woeful solemnity, approached the chair, bent on
one knee, and began to speak,--
Oh wad I were a glove upo' yon hand
'At I med kiss yon feàce.
A loud burst of laughter rewarded this attempt on the life of the
tragic muse. But when the schoolmaster, perched aloft, affecting a
peuking voice (a strangely unnecessary artistic effort), said,--
“Art thou not Romeo and a Montague?” and the alleged Romeo on his
knees replied, “Nowther, sweet lass, if owther thoo offend,” the
laughter in the auditorium reached the point of frantic screams. The
actors, like wise artists, were obviously indifferent to any question
of the kind of impression produced, and went at their task with
conscientious ardor.
The little schoolmaster smiled serenely, enchantingly, bewitchingly.
Robbie panted and gasped, and sighed and moaned.
“Did you ever see a man in such a case?” said Liza, wiping away the
hysterical tears of merriment that coursed down her cheeks.
“Wait a bit,” said Robbie, rather stepping out of his character.
It was a part of the “business” of this tragedy, as Robbie had seen it
performed in Carlisle, that Romeo should cast a nosegay up into the
balcony to Juliet. Robbie had provided himself with the “property” in
question, and, pending the moment at which it was necessary to use it,
he had deposited it on the floor behind him. But in the fervor of
impersonation, he had not observed that Liza had crept up and stolen
it away.
“Where's them flowers?” cried Romeo, scarcely _sotto voce_.
When the nosegay was yielded up to the lover on his knees, it was
found to be about three times as big as Juliet's head.
The play came to an abrupt conclusion; the spinning-wheels were pushed
aside, a fiddle was brought out, and then followed a dance.
“Iverything has a stopping spot but time,” said Mattha Branthwaite,
coming in, his hat and cloak on.
The night was spent. The party must break up.
The girls drew on their bonnets and shawls, and the young men
shouldered the wheels.
A large company were to sail up the mere to the city in the row-boat,
and Rotha, Ralph, and Willy walked with them to Water's Head. Sim
remained with Mrs. Ray.
What a night it was! The moon was shining at the full from a sky of
deep blue that was studded with stars. Not a breath of wind was
stirring. The slow beat of the water on the shingle came to the ear
over the light lap against the boat. The mere stretched miles away. It
seemed to be as still as a white feather on the face of the dead, and
to be alive with light. Where the swift but silent current was cut
asunder by a rock, the phosphorescent gleams sent up sheets of
brightness. The boat, which rolled slowly, half-afloat and
half-ashore, was bordered by a fringe of silver. When at one moment a
gentle breeze lifted the water into ripples, countless stars floated,
down a white waterway from yonder argent moon. Not a house on the
banks of the mere; not a sign of life; only the low plash of wavelets
on the pebbles. Hark! What cry was that coming clear and shrill? It
was the curlew. And when the night bird was gone she left a silence
deeper than before.
The citizens, lads and lasses, old men and dames, got into the boat.
Robbie Anderson and three other young fellows took the oars.
“We'll row ourselves up in a twinkling,” said Liza, as Ralph and Willy
pushed the keel off the shingle.
“Hark ye the lass!” cried Mattha. “We hounds slew the hare, quo' the
terrier to the cur.”
The sage has fired off the last rustic proverb that we shall ever hear
from his garrulous old lips.
When they were fairly afloat, and rowing hard up the stream, the girls
started a song.
The three who stood together at the Water's Head listened long to the
dying voices.
A step on the path broke their trance. It was a lone woman, bent and
feeble. She went by them without a word.
The brothers exchanged a look.
“Poor Joe,” said Rotha, almost in a whisper.
But the girl's cup of joy could bear this memory. She knew her love at
last.
Willy stepped between Rotha and Ralph. He was deeply moved. He was
about to yield up the dream of his life. He tried to speak, and
stopped. He tried again, and stopped once more. Then he took Rotha's
hand and put it into Ralph's, and turned away in silence.
* * * * *
And now these two, long knit together, soul to soul, parted by sorrow,
purified by affliction, ennobled by suffering, stand in this white
moonlight hand in hand.
Hereafter the past is dead to them, and yet lives. What was sown in
sorrow is raised in joy; what was sown in affliction is raised in
peace; what was sown in suffering is raised in love.
And thus the tired old world wags on, and true it is to-day as
yesterday that WHOM GOD'S HAND RESTS ON HAS GOD AT HIS RIGHT HAND.