IN WHICH NANCY IS OVERWHELMED
ALTHOUGH the excitements of a moorland village are ordinarily few in
number and mild in quality they are of sturdy habit when they do occur,
and too well cared for to die of inanition like the starved and
overcrowded sensations of the towns.
Rumour which flies on swift wing in the busy centres and is quickly
chased away by denial, finds a comfortable breeding-ground in the lonely
places, and is cherished by the natives, who regard it as a veritable
bird of paradise with a voice of which only the echo is heard.
Moreover a village is not as accommodating as a town; and the farther it
is removed from industrial influences the less likely is it to view any
sudden change with the philosophic calm which lowers its voice to
whisper “The King is dead!” and forthwith raises it to shout “Long live
the King!”
Mawm furnished an illustration of both these facts. Baldwin Briggs had
been a fixture in the village: a piece of grit hewn out of the side of
their own bleak hills and therefore naturally rough and unyielding—even
coarse. Nobody had cared for him very much, for there had been in his
nature none of the kindliness that either begets or responds to
kindliness; yet there had been no marked aversion on the part of his
neighbours, who were aware that all sorts of natures like all sorts of
rock enter into the composition of a world.
If the truth may be told most of his acquaintances were secretly pleased
when news came that Baldwin had lost a considerable portion of his
money; and even when it was seen that the disaster was of greater
magnitude than they had realised their attitude suffered little change.
He had always made them uneasily conscious of his superiority as a man
of means; the crash brought down the millstone grit from its proud
position among the clouds to the level of the humbler and commoner
limestone, and gave to every villager whom he had cursed or snubbed a
comfortable sense of nearer equality. Providence was avenging these
insults: it was not for them to find fault with Providence.
When, however, the shock developed into an earthquake: when Providence
took the unwelcome shape of this foreigner, Inman; Mawm scowled and
muttered. To be driven from the devil he knew to the deep sea he
distrusted was an experience no man had bargained for; and when the
devil was such a broken-spirited boggart as Baldwin, the villagers’
sympathies warmed towards the man who was bone of their bone; for after
all there is a vast difference between a devil and a poor devil.
Baldwin, then, found not only Maniwel, but the bulk of his neighbours
well-disposed when with the foundering of his ship he lost all that he
had, and was so utterly beggared that even heart and hope—salvage which
many ship-wrecked souls manage to bear away with them, and with which
they find life still worth living—went with the rest. They greeted him
in friendly fashion when they met (which was indeed seldom for he
shunned society) but he responded with a scarcely perceptible nod and
kept his eyes on the ground until they had passed.
“It’ll go agen t’ grain, having to take his orders thro’ Maniwel and
Jagger, an’ living on their charity, as you mud say”—this was the
universal opinion, freely expressed and with much wise head-shaking: a
very natural conclusion.
It was incorrect. In the hour of his calamity Baldwin came to himself
and clung with a pitiful and almost childish sense of security to the
friend of his youth. Like the seeds in Arctic soil which have been
quickened into life by the warmth of some explorer’s camp fire and have
forced their tender shoots through the hard crust of earth, an
unsuspected virtue quickened in Baldwin, who by his actions—for words
failed him—showed himself grateful.
The dog-like look in his eyes made Maniwel uneasy and Jagger irritable.
“Come, come!” the father would say, “Tha owes us naught! Tha’rt working
for thi’ living, aren’t tha?” and the young man would growl out that it
pleased him to think they had taken the wind out of “yon beggar’s”
sails.
It was indeed a thought that comforted Jagger and compensated for much
that was not agreeable, that by his ungenerous and even brutal action
Inman had over-reached himself, alienating the sympathies of those who
had been growing more favourably disposed towards him and deepening the
dislike of the rest, so that he was left for a while almost without
customers. Inman himself recognised his mistake, and was vexed and
disconcerted, though he turned an unperturbed face to the world, saving
his ill-humour for his wife, whom he made to suffer vicariously for this
cunning move of Maniwel’s as he chose to regard it.
He was not the man, however, to be disheartened by one repulse, and he
had sufficient knowledge of human nature to realise that the coolness of
his neighbours would gradually disappear as they accustomed themselves
to the changed conditions, and that the best way to secure their trade
was to make adequate preparations for turning out good and expeditious
work. None of the workpeople had left him and he made it his first
business to secure their favour by treating them well. The interval of
stagnation was filled by painting the premises and making improvements
in the shop. Within a fortnight a new machine was installed; before a
month had passed two others followed; and everybody knew that the new
proprietor was going to make a bid for trade on a large scale. Little
wonder if, with such ample stores of warp and woof to draw upon, report
and rumour worked as busily as a weaver’s shuttle, and produced a pile
of material which the villagers cut and shaped according to their skill
and judgment.
This, however, was not all. The sensation caused by the robbery and its
dramatic sequel in Baldwin’s downfall was still keen when a new crop of
rumours arose simultaneously with a change in the weather. Up to now the
landscape had been wrapped in its thick warm mantle of snow, and for
weeks on end the occupants of the scattered farms on the uplands had
been compelled to shut themselves up in their snug kitchens and turn
over and over again such scraps of spirit-stirring news as reached them
from the throbbing centre of their world—this moorland metropolis of
Mawm.
It was towards the middle of January that the weather broke, and a rapid
thaw was followed by torrential rains and wild winds that swept over the
moors from the south-west and washed every secret crevice of the
Pennines.
On one of the wildest and darkest of these nights a man of the far moors
whose thirst for good ale and good company had kept him at the
“Packhorse” until closing-time, and who had then accepted Swithin’s
invitation to accompany him to the shippen in the Long Close where he
had a heifer to dispose of, had an experience on his homeward journey
that sent him down to the inn again the next night, and made him for a
short time the most important figure upon the stage.
Briefly the story he told was this.
As he was making his way over the fields in the direction of Gordel and
the Girston road he “plumped fair into a fellow” who was walking towards
him, and who uttered an impatient exclamation at the encounter. Job
wished to know what the hangment he was doing there at that time of
night; but received no answer, unless a suggestion that the questioner
should betake himself to the devil could be regarded in that light. As
the stranger was in Job’s words, “a likelier-looking chap” than himself
and might for anything he knew be armed, as ill-disposed night prowlers
were reported to be, he thought it prudent not to continue longer than
was necessary in the man’s company, so wished him “Good night” as a
measure of precaution and made his way as quickly as possible to the
road.
Arrived there curiosity got the better of other impulses and he stood
and looked over the Close; and as sure as he was sitting on the bench of
that bar-parlour a glimmer of light had caught his eye in the distance:
a light that had moved up and down in the neighbourhood of the shippen
for about a quarter of an hour and had then disappeared.
Job, like the rest of the company, was hopeful that Swithin would be
able to put two and two together.
Swithin, however, was unfriendly and discouraging.
“I saw nowt o’ no tramp,” he replied. “Job found a mare’s nest. Some
fella’ll ha’ been taking a short cut to t’ high road, and Job’ll ha’
seen t’ light of my lantern through a chink i’ t’ shippen.”
“Chinks doesn’t move up and down an’ back’ards an’ forrads same as a
chap was seeking his gallus button,” returned Job doggedly: and Swithin
turned on him with a fierceness that seemed out of all proportion to the
occasion.
“His gallus button! What does tha mean?” he asked almost menacingly.
“It was only a figger o’ speech,” Job answered surlily; at a loss to
know how he had aroused the old man’s ire.
“Then keep your figgers o’ speech and your daft boggart tales to
yourself,” growled Swithin.
“You’ve no ’casion to cut up so rough ’cos I didn’t fancy t’ heifer,”
said Job hotly; and disappointed that his communication had been
received so coolly, he soon took his departure.
The report spread, rumour companied with it; statements credible and
incredible multiplied; a mysterious stranger of sinister appearance who
lurked in the shadows and was never seen by day was believed in by every
villager except Inman and Swithin. The old man was particularly
incredulous and aggravatingly sarcastic. The word “daft” was always on
his lips; but the evidence of things not seen was good enough for the
generality, and faith in the obscure alien was almost universal.
Police Constable Stalker was not numbered with the believers. Whether it
was that Inman’s scepticism had influenced him or that the evidence was
not of the kind that is accepted in a police-court, he remained as
scornful and sceptical as Swithin himself. When his detractors ventured
to suggest that it was his business to lay the ghost or lay hands on it
he had one ready reply that reduced them to silence—
“A man can’t be everywhere at once!” he said. “We shall have to see if
we can’t arrange for a few ‘specials!’”
It was not until January had usurped February’s prerogative by filling
the dykes to overflowing that the weather moderated. Three days of
brilliant sunshine ushered in the year’s second month: three spring-like
days when the grass beside the swollen river lost its grey winterly look
and lay yellow-green in the warm sunlight.
Nancy, her well-shawled baby in her arms, left her home in the early
afternoon to walk for a while in the crisp, sweetly-scented air. The
footbridge near the house was under water so she turned down the road
and crossed the green in front of the “Packhorse,” at that hour deserted
of customers. From the doorway of the inn Albert threw her a pleasant
greeting.
“A grand day, Nancy! It’s good to see you about again. Have you ought i’
your poke you want to sell?”
“You haven’t money enough to buy, Albert,” she replied readily.
“Is that so?” he went on with affected astonishment. “These pedigree
pups does cost a sight o’ brass, I know!”
She smiled and passed on; but the words in their careless humour had
struck her heart like a blow. “These pedigree pups!” What was her
child’s pedigree? “By James Inman ex Nancy Clegg!” The burden she was
carrying that had been so light a moment or so before grew suddenly
heavy, and she was conscious of an aching arm. The sunshine that had
shed its radiance upon her spirits was blotted out by this leaden cloud,
and she was conscious of an aching heart. The wild grandeur of nature,
the wind-swept hills that she had thought to look upon with so much
pleasure, mocked her with a sense of harshness and stony indifference.
They were old—hoary with age: of what concern to them were the sorrows
of the puny mortals who came and went in the grey hamlet that sheltered
at their feet, and who were soon buried in the earth and forgotten? With
what fervent heat she had loved them! how cold they were to her!
Mechanically she drew the knitted wrap further across the sleeping
child’s face—in order to protect it from the frost the action said; but
as her heart told her, so that she might not see her husband’s features
reproduced on a smaller scale.
Her heart spoke and she listened. Immediately there came a revulsion of
feeling as sudden and tempestuous as the gales that leap full-grown from
the secret places of the mountains, and she pulled the wrap back and
raised the little head to her lips.
“My precious!” she said.
He opened his eyes and smiled into hers, gurgling his appreciation of
the light that shone there and the comfort of her arms; and not a shadow
lingered on her face. All the optimism of mother-love, all the brave
predictions that a woman associates with her first-born boy helped to
drive the black mood back. The child was her one comfort: the bow God’s
mercy had set in the cloud to show that her sinful folly had not doomed
her to utter despair. He was hers to mould and train as she would, for
her husband cared nothing for him,—she could almost thank God that it
was so—and they two would be companions in the days that lay ahead,
roaming the wild moors together and climbing to the very summits of the
mountains. She laughed aloud as in fancy she heard his laugh—the laugh
of the agile lad who makes fun of his mother’s tardiness; she lived in a
paradise of the future: a paradise ready-made on those bleak, grey
uplands, which were no longer frosty and heartless and old, but young
and bright as the spring-time....
She had gone far enough along the Tarn road—too far, indeed, for her
strength—and she turned back. The baby river, a good distance below,
seemed to her unusually loud and boisterous. The noise of its roaring
echoed strangely from the sides of old Cawden on whose lower slopes the
path she was treading ran. She would have noticed it more if her
forehead had not been buried so often against the soft flesh of her
baby’s neck. It was not until she reached the point where the Tarn road
joins that from Gordel that she became aware that the sound of rushing
water came not from the river below but from the hill above.
I have said already that the neighbourhood of Mawm is famous for its
natural curiosities; but of all the phenomena connected with it there is
none more remarkable than that which is associated with the hamlet’s
guardian hill.
At irregular intervals (for the action is uncertain and governed by
undiscovered causes) there pours from the foot of Cawden and from a
usually dry outlet a flood of water which has cut a deep channel at the
foot of the somewhat steep bank that flanks one side of the Gordel road
at this point. The bank shelves down to the Tarn road, and there the
torrent discharges itself upon the roadway, raging along its improvised
bed on its mad rush to the river with such force that the road is not
infrequently washed bare to the rock. For several hours the flood may
continue, and subside as quickly as it arose; and years may elapse
before there is any return of the eruption.
It was one of these capricious outbursts with which Nancy was now
confronted, and her passage was stopped by the sheet of water that
spread over the junction of the two roads for a considerable area and
was of uncertain depth. One glance told her that she must not attempt to
ford the stream there, and a second showed her that there was an easy
alternative. She had only to walk a few steps up the green and it would
be a simple matter to leap from the bank to the road, for the water was
still confined to its deep but narrow channel.
Not a soul was in sight though she heard men’s voices not far away. No
anticipation of difficulty troubled her, however; she could almost
stride across such an insignificant chasm; and she quickened her steps
in order to accomplish the movement before those who were approaching
should be at hand to poke fun at her.
That unnecessary haste was fatal. The bank was soft and muddy, and her
shoe caught in it as she jumped. She reached the other side but fell
back, and the baby was swept from her arms....
They carried her home, senseless: some said dead, like the infant which
Jagger bore in his arms. It was he and Jack Pearce whose voices Nancy
had heard. It was he who ran and seized the child but could not save its
fragile life. When they reached the village women pressed forward to
look on the white face of the mother, but gave no thought to the bairn
which might have been sleeping, for aught they knew, on Jagger’s breast.
The whole place was astir by the time they came to the bridge, and as
the procession of bearers and followers passed up the street Inman was
seen striding towards it. At sight of him Jagger hurried forward.
“Nancy’s stunned!” he explained. “She fell crossing t’ stream up above
yonder. She may ha’ hurt her head; but I doubt it isn’t that—t’ baby’s
dead: drowned!”
Without a word Inman took the child upon his own arm and turned
homewards. Jagger hesitated. A few yards separated them from the nearest
of the crowd.
“I’m downright sorry, lad!” he said with an effort.
“To the devil with your sorrow!” Inman answered; and Jagger left him.