CHAPTER I

Produced by Charles Franks, Robert Prince

THE HISTORY

OF

DAVID GRIEVE

BY

MRS. HUMPHRY WARD

AUTHOR OF 'ROBERT ELSMERE,' ETC.

TO THE DEAR MEMORY OF MY MOTHER

CONTENTS

BOOK I CHILDHOOD

BOOK II YOUTH

BOOK III STORM AND STRESS

BOOK IV MATURITY

BOOK I CHILDHOOD

CHAPTER I

'Tak your hat, Louie! Yo're allus leavin summat behind yer.'

'David, yo go for 't,' said the child addressed to a boy by her

side, nodding her head insolently towards the speaker, a tall and

bony woman, who stood on the steps the children had just descended,

holding out a battered hat.

'Yo're a careless thing, Louie,' said the boy, but he went back and

took the hat.

'Mak her tie it,' said the woman, showing an antiquated pair of

strings. 'If she loses it she needna coom cryin for anudder. She'd

lose her yead if it wor loose.'

Then she turned and went back into the house. It was a smallish

house of grey stone, three windows above, two and a door below.

Dashes of white on the stone gave, as it were, eyebrows to the

windows, and over the door there was a meagre trellised porch, up

which grew some now leafless roses and honeysuckles. To the left of

the door a scanty bit of garden was squeezed in between the hill,

against which the house was set edgeways, and the rest of the flat

space, occupied by the uneven farmyard, the cart-shed and stable,

the cow-houses and duck-pond. This garden contained two shabby

apple trees, as yet hardly touched by the spring; some currant and

gooseberry bushes, already fairly green; and a clump or two of

scattered daffodils and wallflowers. The hedge round it was broken

through in various places, and it had a casual neglected air.

The children went their way through the yard. In front of them a

flock of some forty sheep and lambs pushed along, guarded by two

black short-haired collies. The boy, brandishing a long stick,

opened a gate deplorably in want of mending, and the sheep crowded

through, keenly looked after by the dogs, who waited meanwhile on

their flanks with heads up, ears cocked, and that air of

self-restrained energy which often makes a sheep-dog more human

than his master. The field beyond led to a little larch plantation,

where a few primroses showed among the tufts of long, rich grass,

and the drifts of last year's leaves. Here the flock scattered a

little, but David and the dogs were after them in a twinkling, and

the plantation gate was soon closed on the last bleating mother.

Then there was nothing more for the boy to do than to go up to the

top of the green rising ground on which the farm stood and see if

the gate leading to the moor was safely shut. For the sheep he had

been driving were not meant for the open moorland. Their feeding

grounds lay in the stone-walled fields round the homestead, and had

they strayed on to the mountain beyond, which was reserved for a

hardier Scotch breed, David would have been answerable. So he

strode, whistling, up the hill to have a look at that top gate,

while Louie sauntered down to the stream which ran round the lower

pastures to wait for him.

The top gate was fast, but David climbed the wall and stood there a

while, hands in his pockets, legs apart, whistling and looking.

'They can't see t' Downfall from Stockport to-day,' he was saying

to himself; 'it's coomin ower like mad.'

Some distance away in front of him, beyond the undulating heather

ground at his feet, rose a magnificent curving front of moor, the

steep sides of it crowned with black edges and cliffs of grit, the

outline of the south-western end sweeping finely up on the right to

a purple peak, the king of all the moorland round. No such colour

as clothed that bronzed and reddish wall of rock, heather, and

bilberry is known to Westmoreland, hardly to Scotland; it seems to

be the peculiar property of that lonely and inaccessible district

which marks the mountainous centre of mid-England--the district of

Kinder Scout and the High Peak. Before the boy's ranging eye spread

the whole western rampart of the Peak--to the right, the highest

point, of Kinder Low, to the left, 'edge' behind 'edge,' till the

central rocky mass sank and faded towards the north into milder

forms of green and undulating hills. In the very centre of the

great curve a white and surging mass of water cleft the mountain

from top to bottom, falling straight over the edge, here some two

thousand feet above the sea, and roaring downward along an almost

precipitous bed into the stream--the Kinder--which swept round the

hill on which the boy was standing, and through the valley behind

him. In ordinary times the 'Downfall,' as the natives call it, only

makes itself visible on the mountain-side as a black ravine of

tossed and tumbled rocks. But there had been a late snowfall on the

high plateau beyond, followed by heavy rain, and the swollen stream

was to-day worthy of its grand setting of cliff and moor. On such

occasions it becomes a landmark for all the country round, for the

cotton-spinning centres of New Mills and Stockport, as well as for

the grey and scattered farms which climb the long backs of moorland

lying between the Peak and the Cheshire border.

To-day, also, after the snow and rains of early April, the air was

clear again. The sun was shining; a cold, dry wind was blowing;

there were sounds of spring in the air, and signs of it on the

thorns and larches. Far away on the boundary wall of the farmland a

cuckoo was sitting, his long tail swinging behind him, his

monotonous note filling the valley; and overhead a couple of

peewits chased each other in the pale, windy blue.

The keen air, the sun after the rain, sent life and exhilaration

through the boy's young limbs. He leapt from the wall, and raced

back down the field, his dogs streaming behind him, the sheep, with

their newly dropped lambs, shrinking timidly to either side as he

passed. He made for a corner in the wall, vaulted it on to the

moor, crossed a rough dam built in the stream for sheep-washing

purposes, jumped in and out of the two grey-walled sheep-pens

beyond, and then made leisurely for a spot in the brook--not the

Downfall stream, but the Red Brook, one of its westerly

affluents--where he had left a miniature water-wheel at work the

day before. Before him and around him spread the brown bosom of

Kinder Scout; the cultivated land was left behind; here on all

sides, as far as the eye could see, was the wild home of heather

and plashing water, of grouse and peewit, of cloud and breeze.

The little wheel, shaped from a block of firwood, was turning

merrily under a jet of water carefully conducted to it from a

neighbouring fall. David went down on hands and knees to examine

it. He made some little alteration in the primitive machinery of

it, his fingers touching it lightly and neatly, and then, delighted

with the success of it, he called Louie to come and look.

Louie was sitting a few yards further up the stream, crooning to

herself as she swung to and fro, and snatching every now and then

at some tufts of primroses growing near her, which she wrenched

away with a hasty, wasteful hand, careless, apparently, whether

they reached her lap or merely strewed the turf about her with

their torn blossoms. When David called her she gathered up the

flowers anyhow in her apron, and dawdled towards him, leaving a

trail of them behind her. As she reached him, however, she was

struck by a book sticking out of his pocket, and, stooping over

him, with a sudden hawk-like gesture, as he sprawled head

downwards, she tried to get hold of it.

But he felt her movement. 'Let goo!' he said imperiously, and,

throwing himself round, while one foot slipped into the water, he

caught her hand, with its thin predatory fingers, and pulled the

book away.

'Yo just leave my books alone, Louie. Yo do 'em a mischeef whaniver

yo can--an I'll not have it.'

He turned his handsome, regular face, crimsoned by his position and

splashed by the water, towards her with an indignant air. She

laughed, and sat herself down again on the grass, looking a very

imp of provocation.

'They're stupid,' she said, shortly. 'They mak yo a stupid gonner

ony ways.'

'Oh! do they?' he retorted, angrily. 'Bit I'll be even wi yo. I'll

tell yo noa moor stories out of 'em, not if yo ast iver so.'

The girl's mouth curled contemptuously, and she began to gather her

primroses into a bunch with an air of the utmost serenity. She was

a thin, agile, lightly made creature, apparently about eleven. Her

piercing black eyes, when they lifted, seemed to overweight the

face, whereof the other features were at present small and pinched.

The mouth had a trick of remaining slightly open, showing a line of

small pearly teeth; the chin was a little sharp and shrewish. As

for the hair, it promised to be splendid; at present it was an

unkempt, tangled mass, which Hannah Grieve, the children's aunt,

for her own credit's sake at chapel, or in the public street, made

occasional violent attempts to reduce to order--to very little

purpose, so strong and stubborn was the curl of it. The whole

figure was out of keeping with the English moorside, with the

sheep, and the primroses.

But so indeed was that of the boy, whose dark colouring was more

vivacious and pronounced than his sister's, because the red of his

cheek and lip was deeper, while his features, though larger than

hers, were more finely regular, and his eyes had the same piercing

blackness, the same all-examining keenness, as hers. The yellowish

tones of his worn fustian suit and a red Tam-o'-Shanter cap

completed the general effect of brilliancy and, as it were,

_foreignness_.

Having finished his inspection of his water-mill, he scrambled

across to the other side of the stream so as to be well out of his

sister's way, and, taking out the volume which was stretching his

pocket, he began to read it. It was a brown calf-bound book, much

worn, and on its title-page it bore the title of 'The Wars of

Jerusalem,' of Flavius Josephus, translated by S. Calmet, and a

date somewhere in the middle of the eighteenth century. To this

antique fare the boy settled himself down. The two collies lay

couched beside him; a stone-chat perched on one or other of the

great blocks which lay scattered over the heath gave out his

clinking note; while every now and then the loud peevish cluck of

the grouse came from the distant sides of the Scout.

Titus was now making his final assault on the Temple. The Zealots

were gathered in the innermost court, frantically beseeching Heaven

for a sign; the walls, the outer approaches of the Sanctuary were

choked with the dying and the dead. David sat absorbed, elbows on

knees, his face framed in his hands. Suddenly the descent of

something cold and clammy on his bent neck roused him with a most

unpleasant shock.

Quick as lightning he faced round, snatching at his assailant; but

Louie was off, scudding among the bilberry hillocks with peals of

laughter, while the slimy moss she had just gathered from the edges

of the brook sent cold creeping streams into the recesses of

David's neck and shoulders. He shook himself free of the mess as

best he could, and rushed after her. For a long time he chased her

in vain, then her foot tripped, and he came up with her just as she

rolled into the heather, gathered up like a hedgehog against

attack, her old hat held down over her ears and face. David fell

upon her and chastised her; but his fisticuffs probably looked more

formidable than they felt, for Louie laughed provokingly all the

time, and when he stopped out of breath she said exultantly, as she

sprang up, holding her skirts round her ready for another flight,

'It's greened aw yur neck and yur collar--luvely! Doan't yo be

nassty for nothink next time!'

And off she ran.

'If yo meddle wi me ony moor,' he shouted after her fiercely, 'yo

see what I'll do!'

But in reality the male was helpless, as usual. He went ruefully

down to the brook, and loosening his shirt and coat tried to clean

his neck and hair. Then, extremely sticky and uncomfortable, he

went back to his seat and his book, his wrathful eyes taking

careful note meanwhile of Louie's whereabouts. And thenceforward he

read, as it were, on guard, looking up every other minute.

Louie established herself some way up the further slope, in a steep

stony nook, under two black boulders, which protected her rear in

case of reprisals from David. Time passed away. David, on the other

side of the brook, revelling in the joys of battle, and all the

more alive to them perhaps because of the watch kept on Louie by

one section of his brain, was conscious of no length in the

minutes. But Louie's mood gradually became one of extreme flatness.

All her resources were for the moment at an end. She could think of

no fresh torment for David; besides, she knew that she was

observed. She had destroyed all the scanty store of primroses along

the brook; gathered rushes, begun to plait them, and thrown them

away; she had found a grouse's nest among the dead fern, and,

contrary to the most solemn injunctions of uncle and keeper,

enforced by the direst threats, had purloined and broken an egg;

and still dinner-time delayed. Perhaps, too, the cold blighting

wind, which soon made her look blue and pinched, tamed her

insensibly. At any rate, she got up after about an hour, and coolly

walked across to David.

He looked up at her with a quick frown. But she sat down, and,

clasping her hands round her knees, while the primroses she had

stuck in her hat dangled over her defiant eyes, she looked at him

with a grinning composure.

'Yo can read out if yo want to,' she remarked.

'Yo doan't deserve nowt, an I shan't,' said David, shortly.

'Then I'll tell Aunt Hannah about how yo let t' lambs stray lasst

evenin, and about yor readin at neet.'

'Yo may tell her aw t' tallydiddles yo can think on,' was the

unpromising reply.

Louie threw all the scorn possible into her forced smile, and then,

dropping full-length into the heather, she began to sing at the top

of a shrill, unpleasing voice, mainly, of course, for the sake of

harrying anyone in her neighbourhood who might wish to read.

'Stop that squealing!' David commanded, peremptorily. Whereupon

Louie sang louder than before.

David looked round in a fury, but his fury was, apparently,

instantly damped by the inward conviction, born of long experience,

that he could do nothing to help himself. He sprang up, and thrust

his book into his pocket.

'Nobory ull mak owt o' yo till yo get a bastin twice a day, wi an

odd lick extra for Sundays,' he remarked to her with grim emphasis

when he had reached what seemed to him a safe distance. Then he

turned and strode up the face of the hill, the dogs at his heels.

Louie turned on her elbow, and threw such small stones as she could

discover among the heather after him, but they fell harmlessly

about him, and did not answer their purpose of provoking him to

turn round again.

She observed that he was going up to the old smithy on the side of

Kinder Low, and in a few minutes she got up and sauntered lazily

after him.

'T' owd smithy' had been the enchanted ground of David's childhood.

It was a ruined building standing deep in heather, half-way up the

mountain-side, and ringed by scattered blocks and tabular slabs of

grit. Here in times far remote--beyond the memory of even the

oldest inhabitant--the millstones of the district, which gave their

name to the 'millstone grit' formation of the Peak, were fashioned.

High up on the dark moorside stood what remained of the primitive

workshop. The fire-marked stones of the hearth were plainly

visible; deep in the heather near lay the broken jambs of the

window; a stone doorway with its lintel was still standing; and on

the slope beneath it, hardly to be distinguished now from the great

primaeval blocks out of which they had sprung and to which they

were fast returning, reposed two or three huge millstones. Perhaps

they bordered some ancient track, climbed by the millers of the

past when they came to this remote spot to give their orders; but,

if so, the track had long since sunk out of sight in the heather,

and no visible link remained to connect the history of this high

and lonely place with that of those teeming valleys hidden to west

and north among the moors, the dwellers wherein must once have

known it well. From the old threshold the eye commanded a

wilderness of moors, rising wave-like one after another, from the

green swell just below whereon stood Reuben Grieve's farm, to the

far-distant Alderley Edge. In the hollows between, dim tall

chimneys veiled in mist and smoke showed the places of the cotton

towns--of Hayfield, New Mills, Staleybridge, Stockport; while in

the far northwest, any gazer to whom the country-side spoke

familiarly might, in any ordinary clearness of weather, look for

and find the eternal smoke-cloud of Manchester.

So the deserted smithy stood as it were spectator for ever of that

younger, busier England which wanted it no more. Human life

notwithstanding had left on it some very recent traces. On the

lintel of the ruined door two names were scratched deep into the

whitish under-grain of the black weather-beaten grit. The upper one

ran: 'David Suveret Grieve, Sept. 15, 1863;' the lower, 'Louise

Stephanie Grieve, Sept. 15, 1863.' They were written in bold

round-hand, and could be read at a considerable distance. During

the nine months they had been there, many a rustic passer-by had

been stopped by them, especially by the oddity of the name

_Suveret_, which tormented the Derbyshire mouth.

In a corner of the walls stood something more puzzling still--a

large iron pan, filled to the brim with water, and firmly bedded on

a foundation of earth and stones. So still in general was the

shining sheltered round, that the branches of the mountain ash

which leant against the crumbling wall, the tufts of hard fern

growing among the stones, the clouds which sailed overhead, were

all delicately mirrored in it. That pan was David Grieve's dearest

possession, and those reflections, so magical, and so alive, had

contrived for him many a half-hour of almost breathless pleasure.

He had carried it off from the refuse-yard of a foundry in

the valley, where he had a friend in one of the apprentices.

The farm donkey and himself had dragged it thither on a certain

never-to-be-forgotten day, when Uncle Reuben had been on the other

side of the mountain at a shepherds' meeting in the Woodlands,

while Aunt Hannah was safely up to her elbows in the washtub. Boy's

back and donkey's back had nearly broken under the task, but there

the pan stood at last, the delight of David's heart. In a crevice

of the wall beside it, hidden jealously from the passer-by, lay the

other half of that perpetual entertainment it provided--a store of

tiny boats fashioned by David, and another friend, the lame

minister of the 'Christian Brethren' congregation at Clough End,

the small factory town just below Kinder, who was a sea-captain's

son, and with a knife and a bit of deal could fashion you any craft

you pleased. These boats David only brought out on rare occasions,

very seldom admitting Louie to the show. But when he pleased they

became fleets, and sailed for new continents. Here were the ships

of Captain Cook, there the ships of Columbus. On one side of the

pan lay the Spanish main, on the other the islands of the South

Seas. A certain tattered copy of the 'Royal Magazine,' with

pictures, which lay in Uncle Reuben's cupboard at home, provided

all that for David was to be known of these names and places. But

fancy played pilot and led the way; she conjured up storms and

islands and adventures; and as he hung over his pan high on the

Derbyshire moor, the boy, like Sidney of old, 'sailed the seas where

there was never sand'--the vast and viewless oceans of romance.

CHAPTER II

Once safe in the smithy, David recovered his temper. If Louie

followed him, which was probable, he would know better how to deal

with her here, with a wall at his back and a definite area to

defend, than he did in the treacherous openness of the heath.

However, just as he was settling himself down, with a sigh of

relief, between the pan and the wall, he caught sight of something

through one of the gaps of the old ruin which made him fling down

his book and run to the doorway. There, putting his fingers to his

mouth, he blew a shrill whistle along the side of the Scout. A bent

figure on a distant path stopped at the sound. It was an old man,

with a plaid hanging from his shoulders. He raised the stick he

held, and shook it in recognition of David's signal. Then resuming

his bowed walk, he came slowly on, followed by an old hound, whose

gait seemed as feeble as his master's.

David leant against the doorway waiting. Louie, meanwhile, was

lounging in the heather just below him, having very soon caught him

up.

'What d'yo want 'im for?' she asked contemptuously, as the

new-comer approached: 'he'd owt to be in th' sylum. Aunt Hannah says

he's gone that silly, he owt to be took up.'

'Well, he woan't be, then,' retorted David. 'Theer's nobory about as

ull lay a finger on 'im. He doan't do her no harm, nor yo noather.

Women foak and gells allus want to be wooryin soomthin.'

'Aunt Hannah says he lost his wits wi fuddlin,' repeated Louie

shrilly, striking straighter still for what she knew to be one of

David's tenderest points--his friendship for 'owd 'Lias Dawson,' the

queer dreamer, who, fifteen years before, had been the schoolmaster

of Frimley Moor End, and in local esteem 't' cliverest mon abeawt

t'Peak.'

David with difficulty controlled a hot inclination to fall upon his

sister once more. Instead, however, he affected not to hear her,

and shouted a loud 'Good mornin' to the old man, who was toiling up

the knoll on which the smithy stood.

'Lias responded feebly, panting hard the while. He sank down on a

stone outside the smithy, and for a while had neither breath nor

voice. Then he began to look about him; his heaving chest subsided,

and there was a rekindling of the strange blue eyes. He wore a high

white stock and neckcloth; his plaid hung round his emaciated

shoulders with a certain antique dignity; his rusty wideawake

covered hair still abundant and even curly, but snow-white; the

face, with its white eyebrows, was long, thin, and full of an

ascetic delicacy.

'Wal, Davy, my lad,' the old man said at last, with a sort of

pompous mildness; 'I winna blame yo for 't, but yo interrupted me

sadly wi yur whistlin. I ha been occupied this day wi business o'

_graat_ importance. His Majesty King Charles has been wi me

since seven o'clock this mornin. And for th' fust time I ha been

gettin reet to th' _bottom_ o' things wi him. I ha been

_probin_ him, Davy--probin him. He couldno riddle through wi

lees; I kept him to 't, as yo mun keep a horse to a jump--straight

an tight. I had it aw out about Strafford, an t'Five Members, an

thoose dirty dealins wi th' Irish devils! Yo should ha yerd it,

Davy--yo should, I'll uphowd yo!'

And placing his stick between his knees, the old man leant his

hands upon it, with a meditative and judicial air. The boy stood

looking down at him, a broad smile lighting up the dark and vivid

face. Old 'Lias supplied him with a perpetual 'spectacle' which

never palled.

'Coe him back, 'Lias, he's soomwheer about. Yo need nobbut coe him,

an he'll coom.'

'Lias looked fatuously pleased. He lifted his head and affected to

scan the path along which he had just travelled.

'Aye, I daur say he's not far.--Yor Majesty!'

And 'Lias laid his head on one side and listened. In a few seconds

a cunning smile stole over his lips.

'Wal, Davy, yo're in luck. He's noan so onwillin, we'st ha him here

in a twinklin. Yo may coe him mony things, but yo conno coe him

proud. Noa, as I've fund him, Charles Stuart has no soart o' pride

about him. Aye, theer yo are! Sir, your Majesty's obleeged an

humble servant!'

And, raising his hand to his hat, the old man took it off and swept

it round with a courtly deliberation. Then replacing it, he sat

with his face raised, as though to one standing near, his whole

attitude full of a careful and pompous dignity.

'Now then, yor Majesty,' said 'Lias grimly,' I'st ha to put that

question to yo, yance moor, yo wor noan so well pleased wi this

mornin. But yo shouldno be soa tender, mon! Th' truth can

do yo _noa_ harm, wheer yo are, an I'm nobbut askin for

_informashun's_ sake. Soa out wi it; I'st not use it agen yo.

_That--wee--bit--o'--damned--paper,_--man, what sent poor

Strafford to his eend--yo mind it?--aye, _'at yo do!_ Well,

now'--and the old man's tone grew gently seductive--_'explain

yursel._ We'n had _their_ tale,' and he pointed away to

some imaginary accusers. 'But yo mun trust an Englishman's sense o'

fair play. Say your say. We 'st gie yo a varra patient hearin.'

And with chin thrown up, and his half-blurred eyes blinking under

their white lashes, 'Lias waited with a bland imperativeness for the

answer.

'Eh?' said 'Lias at last, frowning and hollowing his hand to his

ear.

He listened another few seconds, then he dropped his hand sharply.

'What's 'at yo're sayin?' he asked hastily; ''at yo couldno help it,

not _whativer_--that i' truth yo had nothin to do wi't, no

moor than mysel--that yo wor _forcit_ to it--willy-nilly--by

them devils o' Parliament foak--by Mr. Pym and his loike, wi whom,

if God-amighty ha' not reckoned since, theer's no moor justice i'

His Kingdom than yo found i' yours?'

The words came out with a rush, tumbling over one another till they

suddenly broke off in a loud key of indignant scorn. Then 'Lias

fell silent a moment, and slowly shook his head over the inveterate

shuffling of the House of Stuart.

''Twinna do, man--'twinna do,' he said at last, with an air of

fine reproof. 'He wor your _friend_, wor that poor sinner

Strafford--your awn familiar friend, as t' Psalm says. I'm not

takin up a brief for him, t' Lord knows! He wor but meetin his

deserts, to _my_ thinkin, when his yed went loupin. But yo put

a black mark agen _yore_ name when yo signed that bit paper

for your awn skin's sake. Naw, naw, man, yo should ha lost your awn

yed a bit sooner fust. Eh, it wor base--it wor cooardly!'

'Lias's voice dropped, and he fell muttering to himself

indistinctly. David, bending over him, could not make out whether

it was Charles or his interlocutor speaking, and began to be afraid

that the old man's performance was over before it had well begun.

But on the contrary, 'Lias emerged with fresh energy from the gulf

of inarticulate argument in which his poor wits seemed to have lost

themselves awhile.

'But I'm no blamin yo awthegither,' he cried, raising himself, with

a protesting wave of the hand. 'Theer's naw mak o' mischief i' this

world, but t' _women_ are at t' bottom o't. Whar's that proud

foo of a wife o' yourn? Send her here, man; send her here! 'Lias

Dawson ull mak her hear reason! Now, Davy!'

And the old man drew the lad to him with one hand, while he raised

a finger softly with the other.

'Just study her, Davy, my lad,' he said in an undertone, which

swelled louder as his excitement grew, 'theer she stan's, by t' side

o' t' King. She's a gay good-lookin female, that I'll confess to,

but study her; look at her curls, Davy, an her paint, an her

nakedness. For shame, madam! Goo hide that neck o' yourn, goo hide

it, I say! An her faldaddles, an her jewles, an her ribbons. Is

that a woman--a French hizzy like that--to get a King out o'

trooble, wha's awready lost aw t' wits he wor born wi?'

And with sparkling eyes and outstretched arm 'Lias pointed sternly

into vacancy. Thrilled with involuntary awe the boy and girl looked

round them. For, in spite of herself, Louie had come closer, little

by little, and was now sitting cross-legged in front of 'Lias. Then

Louie's shrill voice broke in--

'Tell us what she's got on!' And the girl leant eagerly forward,

her magnificent eyes kindling into interest.

'What she's got on, my lassie? Eh, but I'm feart your yead, too, is

fu' o' gauds!--Wal, it's but nateral to females. She's aw in white

satin, my lassie,--an in her brown hair theer's pearls, an a blue

ribbon just howdin down t' little luve-locks on her forehead--an on

her saft neck theer's pearls again--not soa white, by a thoosand

mile, as her white skin--an t' lace fa's ower her proud shoothers,

an down her luvely arms--an she looks at me wi her angry eyes--Eh,

but she's a queen!' cried 'Lias, in a sudden outburst of

admiration. 'She hath been a persecutor o' th' saints--a varra

Jeezebel--the Lord hath put her to shame--but she's moor

sperrit--moor o't' blood o' kingship i' her little finger, nor

Charles theer in aw his body!'

And by a strange and crazy reversal of feeling, the old man sat in

a kind of ecstasy, enamoured of his own creation, looking into thin

air. As for Louie, during the description of the Queen's dress she

had drunk in every word with a greedy attention, her changing eyes

fixed on the speaker's face. When he stopped, however, she drew a

long breath.

'It's aw lees!' she said scornfully.

'Howd your tongue, Louie!' cried David, angrily.

But 'Lias took no notice. He was talking again very fast, but

incoherently. Hampden, Pym, Fairfax, Falkland--the great names

clattered past every now and then, like horsemen, through a maze of

words, but with no perceptible order or purpose. The phrases

concerning them came to nothing; and though there were apparently

many voices speaking, nothing intelligible could be made out.

When next the mists cleared a little from the old visionary's

brain, David gathered that Cromwell was close by, defending himself

with difficulty, apparently, like Charles, against 'Lias's

assaults. In his youth and middle age--until, in fact, an event of

some pathos and mystery had broken his life across, and cut him off

from his profession--'Lias had been a zealous teacher and a

voracious reader; and through the dreams of fifteen years the

didactic faculty had persisted and grown amazingly. He played

schoolmaster now to all the heroes of history. Whether it were

Elizabeth wrangling with Mary Stuart, or Cromwell marshalling his

Ironsides, or Buckingham falling under the assassin's dagger at

'Lias's feet, or Napoleon walking restlessly up and down the deck

of the 'Bellerophon,' 'Lias rated them every one. He was lord of a

shadow world, wherein he walked with kings and queens, warriors and

poets, putting them one and all superbly to rights. Yet so subtle

were the old man's wits, and so bright his fancy, even in

derangement, that he preserved through it all a considerable

measure of dramatic fitness. He gave his puppets a certain freedom;

he let them state their case; and threw almost as much ingenuity

into the pleading of it as into the refuting of it. Of late, since

he had made friends with Davy Grieve, he had contracted a curious

habit of weaving the boy into his visions.

'Davy, what's your opinion o' that?' or, 'Davy, my lad, did yo iver

hear sich clit-clat i' your life?' or again, 'Davy, yo'll not be

misled, surely, by sich a piece o' speshul-pleadin as that?'

So the appeals would run, and the boy, at first bewildered, and

even irritated by them, as by something which threw hindrances in

the way of the only dramatic entertainment the High Peak was likely

to afford him, had learnt at last to join in them with relish. Many

meetings with 'Lias on the moorside, which the old seer made alive

for both of them--the plundering of 'Lias's books, whence he had

drawn the brown 'Josephus' in his pocket--these had done more

than anything else to stock the boy's head with its present

strange jumble of knowledge and ideas. _Knowledge_, indeed, it

scarcely was, but rather the materials for a certain kind of

excitement.

'Wal, Davy, did yo hear that?' said 'Lias, presently, looking round

on the boy with a doubtful countenance, after Cromwell had given an

unctuous and highly Biblical account of the slaughter at Drogheda

and its reasons.

'How mony did he say he killed at that place?' asked the boy

sharply.

'Thoosands,' said Dawson, solemnly. 'Theer was naw mercy asked nor

gi'en. And those wha escaped knockin on t' yead were aw sold as

slaves--every mon jock o' them!'

A strong light of anger showed itself in David's face.

'Then he wor a cantin murderer! Yo mun tell him so! If I'd my way,

he'd hang for 't!'

'Eh, laddie, they were nowt but rebels an Papists,' said the old

man, complacently.

'Don't yo becall Papists!' cried David, fiercely, facing round upon

him. 'My mither wor a Papist.'

A curious change of expression appeared on 'Lias's face. He put his

hand behind his ear that he might hear better, turned a pair of

cunning eyes on David, while his lips pressed themselves together.

'Your mither wor a Papist? an your feyther wor Sandy Grieve. Ay,

ay--I've yeerd tell strange things o' Sandy Grieve's wife,' he said

slowly.

Suddenly Louie, who had been lying full length on her back in the

sun, with her hat over her face, apparently asleep, sat bolt

upright.

'Tell us what about her,' she said imperiously.

'Noa--noa,' said the old man, shaking his head, while a sort of

film seemed to gather over the eyes, and the face and features

relaxed--fell, as it were, into their natural expression of weak

senility, which so long as he was under the stress of his favourite

illusions was hardly apparent. 'But it's true--it's varra true--I've

yeerd tell strange things about Sandy Grieve's wife.'

And still aimlessly shaking his head, he sat staring at the

opposite side of the ravine, the lower jaw dropping a little.

'He knows nowt about it,' said David, roughly, the light of a

sombre, half-reluctant curiosity, which had arisen in his look,

dying down.

He threw himself on the grass by the dogs, and began teasing and

playing with them. Meanwhile Louie sat studying 'Lias with a

frowning hostility, making faces at him now and then by way of

amusement. To disappoint the impetuous will embodied in that small

frame was to commit an offence of the first order.

But one might as well make faces at a stone post as at old 'Lias

when his wandering fit was on him. When the entertainment palled,

Louie got up with a yawn, meaning to lounge back to the farm and

investigate the nearness of dinner. But, as she turned, something

caught her attention. It was the gleam of a pool, far away beyond

the Downfall, on a projecting spur of the moor.

'What d' yo coe that bit watter?' she asked David, suddenly

pointing to it.

David rolled himself round on his face, and took a look at the

bluish patch on the heather.

'It hasna got naw name,' he said, at a venture.

'Then yo're a stoopid, for it has,' replied Louie, triumphantly.

'It's t' _Mermaid_ Pool. Theer wor a Manchester mon at Wigsons'

last week, telling aw maks o' tales. Theer's a mermaid lives

in 't--a woman, I tell tha, wi' a fish's tail--it's in a book,

an he read it out, soa _theer_--an on Easter Eve neet she cooms

out, and walks about t' Scout, combin her hair--an if onybody sees

her an wishes for soomthin, they get it, sartin sure; an--'

'Mermaids is just faddle an nonsense,' interrupted David, tersely.

'Oh, is they? Then I spose books is faddle. Most on 'em are--t'

kind of books yo like--I'll uphowd yo!'

'Oh, is they?' said David, mimicking her. 'Wal, I like 'em, yo see,

aw t' same. I tell yo, mermaids is nonsense, cos I _know_ they

are. Theer was yan at Hayfield Fair, an the fellys they nearly

smashed t' booth down, cos they said it wor a cheat. Theer was just

a gell, an they'd stuffed her into a fish's skin and sewed 'er up;

an when yo went close yo could see t' stuffin runnin out of her. An

theer was a man as held 'er up by a wire roun her waist, an waggled

her i' t' watter. But t' foak as had paid sixpence to coom in, they

just took an tore down t' place, an they'd 'a dookt t' man an t'

gell boath, if th' coonstable hadn't coom. Naw, mermaids is faddle,'

he repeated contemptuously.

'Faddle?' repeated 'Lias, interrogatively.

The children started. They has supposed 'Lias was of doting and

talking gibberish for the rest of the morning. But his tone was

brisk and as David looked up he caught a queer flickering

brightness in the old man's eye, which showed him that 'Lias was

once more capable of furnishing amusement or information.

'What do they coe that bit watter, 'Lias?' he inquired, pointing to

it.

'That bit watter?' repeated 'Lias, eyeing it. A sort of vague

trouble came into his face, and his wrinkled hands lying on his

stick began to twitch nervously.

'Aye--theer's a Manchester man been cramming Wigsons wi tales--says

he gets 'em out of a book--'bout a woman 'at walks t' Scout Easter

Eve neet,--an a lot o' ninny-hommer's talk. Yo niver heer now about

it--did yo, 'Lias?'

'Yes, yo did, Mr. Dawson--now, didn't yo?' said Louis,

persuasively, enraged that David would never accept information

from her, while she was always expected to take it from him.

'A woman--'at walks t' Scout,' said 'Lias, uncertainly, flushing as

he spoke.

Then, looking tremulously from his companions to the pool, he said,

angrily raising his stick and shaking it at David, 'Davy, yo're

takin advantage--Davy, yo're doin what yo owt not. If my Margret

were here, she'd let yo know!'

The words rose into a cry of quavering passion. The children stared

at him in amazement. But as Davy, aggrieved, was defending himself,

the old man laid a violent hand on his arm and silenced him. His

eyes, which were black and keen still in the blanched face, were

riveted on the gleaming pool. His features worked as though under

the stress of some possessing force; a shiver ran through the

emaciated limbs.

'Oh! yo want to know abeawt Jenny Crum's pool, do yo?' he said at last

in a low agitated voice. 'Nobbut look, my lad!--nobbut look!--an see for

yoursen.'

He paused, his chest heaving, his eye fixed. Then, suddenly, he

broke out in a flood of passionate speech, still gripping David.

'_Passon Maine! Passon Maine!_--ha yo got her, th' owd woman?

Aye, aye--sure enough--'at's she--as yo're aw drivin afore

yo--hoontit like a wild beeast--wi her grey hair streamin, and her

hands tied--Ah!'--and the old man gave a wild cry, which startled

both the children to their feet. 'Conno yo hear her?--eh, but it's

enough to tear a body's heart out to hear an owd woman scream like

that!'

He stopped, trembling, and listened, his hand hollowed to his ear.

Louie looked at her brother and laughed nervously; but her little

hard face had paled. David laid hold of her to keep her quiet, and

shook himself free of 'Lias. But 'Lias took no notice of them now

at all, his changed seer's gaze saw nothing but the distance and

the pool.

'Are yo quite _sure_ it wor her, Passon?' he went on,

appealingly. 'She's nobbut owd, an it's a far cry fro her bit

cottage to owd Needham's Farm. An th' chilt might ha deed, and t'

cattle might ha strayed, and t' geyats might ha opened o'

theirsels! Yo'll not dare to speak agen _that_. They _might_?

Ay, ay, we aw know t' devil's strong; but she's eighty-one year

coom Christmas--an an--. Doan't, _doan't_ let t' childer see,

nor t' yoong gells! If yo let em see sich seets they'll breed

yo wolves, not babes! Ah!'

And again 'Lias gave the same cry, and stood half risen, his hands

on his staff, looking.

'What is it, 'Lias?' said David, eagerly; 'what is 't yo see?'

'Theer's my grandfeyther,' said 'Lias, almost in a whisper, 'an owd

Needham an his two brithers, an yoong Jack Needham's woife--her as

losst her babby--an yoong lads an lasses fro Clough End, childer

awmost, and t' coonstable, an Passon Maine--Ay--ay--yo've doon it!

Yo've doon it! She'll mak naw moor mischeef neets--she's gay quiet

now! T' watter's got her fasst enough!'

And, drawing himself up to his full height, the old man pointed a

quivering finger at the pool.

'Ay, it's got her--an your stones are tied fasst! Passon Maine says

she's safe--that yo'll see her naw moor--

While holly sticks be green,

While stone on Kinder Scoot be seen.

But _I_ tell yo, Passon Maine _lees!_ I tell yo t' witch ull

_walk_--t' witch ull _walk!_'

For several seconds 'Lias stood straining forward--out of

himself--a tragic and impressive figure. Then, in a moment, from

that distance his weird gift had been re-peopling, something else

rose towards him--some hideous memory, as it seemed, of personal

anguish, personal fear. The exalted seer's look vanished, the

tension within gave way, the old man shrank together. He fell back

heavily on the stone, hiding his face in his hands, and muttering

to himself.

The children looked at each other oddly. Then David, half afraid,

touched him.

'What's t' matter, 'Lias? Are yo bad?'

The old man did not move. They caught some disjointed words,--'cold--ay,

t' neet's cold, varra cold!'

''Lias!' shouted David.

'Lias looked up startled, and shook his head feebly.

'Are yo bad, 'Lias?'

'Ay!' said the old schoolmaster, in the voice of one speaking

through a dream--'ay, varra bad, varra cold--I mun--lig me down--a

bit.'

And he rose feebly. David instinctively caught hold of him, and led

him to a corner close by in the ruined walls, where the heather and

bilberry grew thick up to the stones. 'Lias sank down, his head fell

against the wall, and a light and restless sleep seemed to take

possession of him.

David stood studying him, his hands in his pockets. Never in all

his experience of him had 'Lias gone through such a performance as

this. What on earth did it mean? There was more in it than

appeared, clearly. He would tell Margaret, 'Lias's old wife, who

kept him and tended him like the apple of her eye. And he would

find out about the pool, anyway. _Jenny Crum's pool?_ What on

earth did that mean? The name had never reached his ears before. Of

course Uncle Reuben would know. The boy eyed it curiously, the

details of 'Lias's grim vision returning upon him. The wild

circling moor seemed suddenly to have gained a mysterious interest.

'Didn't I tell yo he wor gone silly?' said Louie, triumphantly, at

his elbow.

'He's not gone that silly, onyways, but he can freeten little

gells,' remarked David, dryly, instinctively putting out an arm,

meanwhile, to prevent her disturbing the poor sleeper.

'I worn't freetened,' insisted Louie; '_yo_ were! He may skrike

aw day if he likes--for aw I care. He'll be runnin into hedges

by dayleet soon. Owd churn-yed!'

'Howd your clatterin tongue!' said David, angrily, pushing her out

of the doorway. She lifted a loose sod of heather, which lay just

outside, flung it at him, and then took to her heels, and made for

the farm and dinner, with the speed of a wild goat.

David brushed his clothes, took a stroll with the dogs, and

recovered his temper as best he might. When he came back, pricked

by the state of his appetite, to see whether 'Lias had recovered

enough sanity to get home, he found the old man sitting up, looking

strangely white and exhausted, and fumbling, in a dazed way, for

the tobacco to which he always resorted at moments of nervous

fatigue. His good wife Margaret never sent him out without mended

clothes, spotless linen, and a paper of tobacco in his pocket. He

sat chewing it awhile in silence; David's remarks to him met with

only incoherent answers, and at last the schoolmaster got up and

with the help of his stick tottered off along the path by which he

had come. David's eyes followed the bent figure uneasily; nor did

he turn homeward till it disappeared over the brow.

CHAPTER III

Anyone opening the door of Needham Farm kitchen that night at eight

would have found the inmates at supper--a meagre supper, which

should, according to the rule of the house, have been eaten in

complete silence. Hannah Grieve, the children's aunt, and mistress

of the farm, thought it an offence to talk at meals. She had not

been so brought up.

But Louie this evening was in a state of nerves. The afternoon had

seen one of those periodical struggles between her and Hannah,

which did so much to keep life at Needham Farm from stagnating into

anything like comfort. The two combatants, however, must have taken

a certain joy in them, since they recurred with so much regularity.

Hannah had won, of course, as the grim self-importance of her

bearing amply showed. Louie had been forced to patch the

house-linen as usual, mainly by the temporary confiscation of her

Sunday hat, the one piece of decent clothing she possessed, and to

which she clung with a feverish attachment--generally, indeed,

sleeping with it beside her pillow. But, though she was beaten, she

was still seething with rebellion. Her eyes were red, but her

shaggy head was thrown back defiantly, and there was hysterical

battle in the expression of her sharply-tilted nose and chin.

'Mind yorsel,' cried Hannah angrily, as the child put down her

plate of porridge with a bang which made the housewife tremble for

her crockery.

'What's t' matter wi yo, Louie?' said Uncle Reuben, looking at her

with some discomfort. He had just finished the delivery of a long

grace, into which he had thrown much unction, and Louie's manners

made but an ill-fitting Amen.

'It's nasty!' said the child passionately. 'It's allus

porridge--porridge--porridge--porridge--an I hate it--an it's

bitter--an it's a shame! I wish I wor at Wigson's--'at I do!'

Davy glanced up at his sister under his eyebrows. Hannah scanned

her niece all over with a slow, observant scrutiny, as though she

were a dangerous animal that must be watched. Otherwise Louie might

have spoken to the wall for all the effect she produced. Reuben,

however, was more vulnerable.

'What d' yo want to be at Wigson's for?' he asked. 'Yo should

be content wi your state o' life, Louie. It's a sin to be

discontented--I've tellt yo so many times.'

'They've got scones and rhubarb jam for tea!' cried the child,

tumbling the news out as though she were bursting with it. 'Mrs.

Wigson, she's allus makin em nice things. She's kind, she is--she's

nice--she wouldn't make em eat stuff like this--she'd give it to

the pigs--'at she would!'

And all the time it was pitiful to see how the child was gobbling

up her unpalatable food, evidently from the instinctive fear, nasty

as it was, that it would be taken from her as a punishment for her

behaviour.

'Now, Louie, yo're a silly gell,' began Reuben, expostulating; but

Hannah interposed.

'I wudn't advise yo, Reuben Grieve, to go wastin your breath on

sich a minx. If I were yo, I'd keep it fur my awn eating.'

And she calmly put another slice of cold bacon on his plate, as

though reminding him of his proper business. Reuben fell silent and

munched his bacon, though he could not forbear studying his niece

every now and then uncomfortably. He was a tall, large-boned man,

with weakish eyes, sandy whiskers and beard, grown in a fringe

round his long face, and a generally clumsy and disjointed air. The

tremulous, uncertain movements of his hand as he stretched it out

for one article of food after another seemed to express the man's

character.

Louie went on gulping down her porridge. Her plate was just empty

when Hannah caught a movement of Reuben's fork. He was in the act

of furtively transferring to Louie a portion of bacon. But he could

not restrain himself from looking at Hannah as he held out the

morsel. Hannah's answering look was too much for him. The bacon

went into his mouth.

Supper over, Louie went out to sit on the steps, and Hannah

contemptuously forbore to make her come in and help clear away. Out

in the air, the child slowly quieted down. It was a clear, frosty

April night, promising a full moon. The fresh, nipping air blew on

the girl's heated temples and swollen eyes. Against her will

almost, her spirits came back. She swept Aunt Hannah out of her

mind, and began to plan something which consoled her. When would

they have their stupid prayers and let her get upstairs?

David meanwhile hung about the kitchen. He would have liked to ask

Uncle Reuben about the pool and 'Lias's story, but Hannah was

bustling about, and he never mentioned 'Lias in her hearing. To do

so would have been like handing over something weak, for which he

had a tenderness, to be worried.

But he rummaged out an old paper-covered guide to the Peak, which

he remembered to have been left at the farm one summer's day by a

passing tourist, who paid Hannah handsomely for some bread and

cheese. Turning to the part which concerned Clough End, Hayfield,

and the Scout, he found:--

'In speaking of the Mermaiden's Pool, it may be remarked that the

natives of several little hamlets surrounding Kinder Scout have

long had a tradition that there is a beautiful woman--an English

Hamadryad--lives in the side of the Scout; that she comes to bathe

every day in the Mermaid's Well, and that the man who has the good

luck to behold her bathing will become immortal and never die.'

David shut the book and fell pondering, like many another wiser

mortal before him, on the discrepancies of evidence. What was a

Hamadryad? and why no mention of Easter Eve? and what had it all to

do with the witch and Parson Maine and 'Lias's excitement?

Meanwhile, the thump made by the big family Bible as Hannah

deposited it on the table warned both him and the truant outside

that prayer-time had come. Louie came in noisily when she was

called, and both children lounged unwillingly into their appointed

seats.

Nothing but the impatience and indifference of childhood, however,

could have grudged Reuben Grieve the half-hour which followed.

During that one half-hour in the day, the mild, effaced man, whose

absent-minded ways and complete lack of business faculty were the

perpetual torment of his wife, was master of his house. While he

was rolling out the psalm, expounding the chapter, or 'wrestling'

in prayer, he was a personality and an influence even for the wife

who, in spite of a dumb congruity of habit, regarded him generally

as incompetent and in the way. Reuben's religious sense was strong

and deep, but some very natural and pathetically human instincts

entered also into his constant pleasure in this daily function.

Hannah, with her strong and harsh features settled into repose,

with her large hands, reddened by the day's work, lying idle in her

lap, sat opposite to him in silence; for once she listened to him,

whereas all day he had listened to her; and the moment made a daily

oasis in the life of a man who, in his own dull, peasant way, knew

that he was a failure, and knew also that no one was so well aware

of it as his wife.

With David and Louie the absorbing interest was generally to see

whether the prayer would be over before the eight-day clock struck

nine, or whether the loud whirr which preceded that event would be

suddenly and deafeningly let loose upon Uncle Reuben in the middle

of his peroration, as sometimes happened when the speaker forgot

himself. To-night that catastrophe was just avoided by a somewhat

obvious hurry through the Lord's Prayer. When they rose from their

knees Hannah put away the Bible, the boy and girl raced each other

upstairs, and the elders were left alone.

An hour passed away. Reuben was dozing peacefully in the

chimney-corner; Aunt Hannah had just finished putting a patch

on a pair of Reuben's trousers, was folding up her work and

preparing to rouse her slumbering companion, when a sound

overhead caught her ear.

'What's that chilt at now?' she exclaimed angrily, getting up and

listening. 'She'd owt ta been in bed long ago. Soomthin mischeevous,

I'll be bound. And lighting a dip beside her, she went upstairs

with a treacherously quiet step. There was a sound of an opening

door, and then Reuben downstairs was startled out of his snooze by

a sudden gamut of angry cries, a scurrying of feet, and Hannah

scolding loudly--

'Coom downstairs wi yo!--coom down an show your uncle what a figure

o' foon yo'n been makkin o' yorsel! I'st teach yo to burn three

candles down awbut to nothink 'at yo may bedizen yorsel in this

way. Coom along wi yo.'

There was a scuffle on the stairs, and then Hannah burst open the

door, dragging in an extraordinary figure indeed. Struggling and

crying in her aunt's grip was Louie. White trailing folds swept

behind her; a white garment underneath, apparently her nightgown,

was festooned with an old red-and-blue striped sash of some foreign

make. Round her neck hung a necklace of that gold filigree work

which spreads from Genoa all along the Riviera; her magnificent

hair hung in masses over her shoulders, crowned by the primroses of

the morning, which had been hurriedly twisted into a wreath by a

bit of red ribbon rummaged out of some drawer of odds-and-ends;

and her thin brown arms and hands appeared under the white

cloak--nothing but a sheet--which was being now trodden underfoot

in the child's passionate efforts to get away from her aunt. Ten

minutes before she had been a happy queen flaunting over her attic

floor in a dream of joy before a broken, propped-up looking-glass

under the splendid illumination of three dips, long since secreted

for purposes of the kind. Now she was a bedraggled, tear-stained

Fury, with a fierce humiliation and a boundless hatred glaring out

of the eyes, which in Aunt Hannah's opinion were so big as to be

'right down oogly.' Poor Louie!

Uncle Reuben, startled from his snooze by this apparition, looked

at it with a sleepy bewilderment, and fumbled for his spectacles.

'Ay, yo'd better luke at her close,' said Hannah, grimly, giving

her niece a violent shake as she spoke; 'I wor set yo should just

see her fur yance at her antics. Yo say soomtimes I'm hard on her.

Well, I'd ask ony pusson aloive if they'd put up wi this soart o'

thing--dressin up like a bad hizzy that waaks t' streets, wi

three candles--_three_, I tell yo, Reuben--flarin away, and the

curtains close to, an nothink but the Lord's mussy keepin 'em from

catchin. An she peacockin an gallivantin away enough to mak a cat

laugh!'

And Aunt Hannah in her enraged scorn even undertook a grotesque and

mincing imitation of the peacocking aforesaid. 'Let goo!' muttered

Louie between her shut teeth, and with a wild strength she at last

flung off her aunt and sprang for the door. But Hannah was too

quick for her and put her back against it. 'No--yo'll not goo till

your ooncle there's gien yo a word. He _shan't_ say I'm hard

on yo for nothink, yo good-for-nowt little powsement--he shall see

yo as yo are!'

And with the bitterness of a smouldering grievance, expressed in

every feature, Hannah looked peremptorily at her husband. He, poor

man, was much perplexed. The hour of devotion was past, and outside

it he was not accustomed to be placed in important situations.

'Louie--didn't yo know yo wor a bad gell to stay up and burn t'

candles, an fret your aunt?' he said with a feeble solemnity, his

look fixed on the huddled white figure against the mahogany press.

Louie stood with eyes resolutely cast down, and a forced smile,

tremulous, but insolent to a degree, slowly lifting up the corners

of her mouth as Uncle Reuben addressed her. The tears were still

running off her face, but she meant her smile to convey the

indomitable scorn for her tormentors which not even Aunt Hannah

could shake out of her.

Hannah Grieve was exasperated by the child's expression.

'Yo little sloot!' she said, seizing her by the arm again, and

losing her temper for good and all, 'yo've got your mither's bad

blude in yo--an it ull coom out, happen what may!'

'Hannah!' exclaimed Reuben, 'Hannah--mind yoursel.'

'My mither's _dead_,' said the child, slowly raising her dark,

burning eyes. 'My mither worn't bad; an if yo say she wor, yo're a

_beast_ for sayin it! I wish it wor yo wor dead, an my mither

wor here instead o' yo!'

To convey the concentrated rage of this speech is impossible. It

seemed to Hannah that the child had the evil eye. Even she quailed

under it.

'Go 'long wi yo,' she said grimly, in a white heat, while she

opened the door--'an the less yo coom into _my_ way for t'

future, the better.'

She pushed the child out and shut the door.

'Yo _are_ hard on her, Hannah!' exclaimed Reuben, in his

perplexity--pricked, too, as usual in his conscience.

The repetition of this parrot-cry, as it seemed to her, maddened

his wife.

'She's a wanton's brat,' she said violently; 'an she's got t'

wanton's blood.'

Reuben was silent. He was afraid of his wife in these moods. Hannah

began, with trembling hands, to pick up the contents of her

work-basket, which had been overturned in the scuffle.

Meanwhile Louie rushed upstairs, stumbling over and tearing her

finery, the convulsive sobs beginning again as soon as the tension

of her aunt's hated presence was removed.

At the top she ran against something in the dark. It was David, who

had been hanging over the stairs, listening. But she flung past

him.

'What's t' matter, Louie?' he asked in a loud whisper through the

door she shut in his face; 'what's th' owd crosspatch been slangin

about?'

But he got no answer, and he was afraid of being caught by Aunt

Hannah if he forced his way in. So he went back to his own room,

and closed, without latching, his door. He had had an inch of dip

to go to bed with, and had spent that on reading. His book was a

battered copy of 'Anson's Voyages,' which also came from 'Lias's

store, and he had been straining his eyes over it with enchantment.

Then had come the sudden noise upstairs and down, and his candle

and his pleasure had gone out together. The heavy footsteps of his

uncle and aunt ascending warned him to keep quiet. They turned into

their room, and locked their door as their habit was. David

noiselessly opened his window and looked out.

A clear moonlight reigned outside. He could distinguish the rounded

shapes, the occasional movements of the sheep in their pen to the

right of the farmyard. The trees in the field threw long shadows

down the white slope; to his left was the cart-shed with its black

caverns and recesses, and the branches of the apple-trees against

the luminous sky. Owls were calling in the woods below; sometimes a

bell round the neck of one of the sheep tinkled a little, and the

river made a distant background of sound.

The boy's heart grew heavy. After the noises in the Grieves' room ceased

he listened for something which he knew must be in the air, and caught

it--the sound of a child's long, smothered sobs. On most nights they

would not have made much impression on him. Louie's ways with her

brother were no more engaging than with the rest of the world; and she

was not a creature who invited consolation from anybody. David, too,

with his power of escape at any time into a world of books and dreams or

simply into the wild shepherd life of the moors, was often inclined to a

vague irritation with Louie's state of perpetual revolt. The food was

nasty, their clothes were ugly and scanty, Aunt Hannah was as hard as

nails--at the same time Louie was enough to put anybody's back up. What

did she get by it?--that was his feeling; though, perhaps, he never

shaped it. He had never felt much pity for her. She had a way of putting

herself out of court, and he was, of course, too young to see her life

or his own as a whole. What their relationship might mean to him was

still vague--to be decided by the future. Whatever softness there was in

the boy was at this moment called out by other people--by old 'Lias and

his wife; by Mr. Ancrum, the lame minister at Clough End; by the dogs;

hardly ever by Louie. He had grown used, moreover, to her perpetual

explosions, and took them generally with a boy's natural callousness.

But to-night her woes affected him as they had never done before.

The sound of her sobbing, as he stood listening, gradually roused

in him an unbearable restlessness. An unaccountable depression

stole upon him--the reaction, perhaps, from a good deal of mental

exertion and excitement in the day. A sort of sick distaste awoke

in him for most of the incidents of existence--for Aunt Hannah, for

Uncle Reuben's incomprehensible prayers, for the thought of the

long Puritanical Sunday just coming. And, in addition, the low

vibrations of that distant sobbing stirred in him again, by

association, certain memories which were like a clutch of physical

pain, and which the healthy young animal instinctively and

passionately avoided whenever it could. But to-night, in the dark

and in solitude, there were no distractions, and as the boy put his

head down on his arms, rolling it from side to side as though to

shake them off, the same old images pursued him--the lodging-house

room, and the curtainless iron bed in which he slept with his

father: reminiscences of some long, inexplicable anguish through

which that father had passed; then of his death, and his own lonely

crying. He seemed still to _feel_ the strange sheets in that

bed upstairs, where a compassionate fellow-lodger had put him the

night after his father died; he sat up again bewildered in the cold

dawn, filled with a home-sickness too benumbing for words. He

resented these memories, tried to banish them; but the nature on

which they were impressed was deep and rich, and, once shaken,

vibrated long. The boy trembled through and through. The more he

was ordinarily shed abroad, diffused in the life of sensation and

boundless mental curiosity, the blacker were these rare moments of

self-consciousness, when all the world seemed pain, an iron vice

which pinched and tortured him.

At last he went to his door, pulled it gently open, and with bare

feet went across to Louie's room, which he entered with infinite

caution. The moonlight was streaming in on the poor gauds, which

lay wildly scattered over the floor. David looked at them with

amazement. Amongst them he saw something glittering. He picked it

up, saw it was a gold necklace which had been his mother's, and

carefully put it on the little toilet table.

Then he walked on to the bed. Louie was lying with her face turned

away from him. A certain pause in the sobbing as he came near told

him that she knew he was there. But it began again directly, being

indeed a physical relief which the child could not deny herself. He

stood beside her awkwardly. He could think of nothing to say. But

timidly he stretched out his hand and laid the back of it against

her wet cheek. He half expected she would shake it off, but she did

not. It made him feel less lonely that she let it stay; the impulse

to comfort had somehow brought himself comfort. He stood there,

feeling very cold, thinking a whirlwind of thoughts about old

'Lias, about the sheep, about Titus and Jerusalem, and about

Louie's extraordinary proceedings--till suddenly it struck him that

Louie was not crying any more. He bent over her. The sobs had

changed into the long breaths of sleep, and, gently drawing away

his hand, he crept off to bed.

CHAPTER IV

It was Sunday afternoon, still cold, nipping, and sunny. Reuben

Grieve sat at the door of the farmhouse, his pipe in his hand, a

'good book' on his knee. Beyond the wall which bounded the farmyard

he could hear occasional voices. The children were sitting there,

he supposed. It gave him a sensation of pleasure once to hear a

shrill laugh, which he knew was Louie's. For all this morning,

through the long services in the 'Christian Brethren' chapel at

Clough End, and on the walk home, he had been once more pricked in

his conscience. Hannah and Louie were not on speaking terms. At

meals the aunt assigned the child her coarse food without a word,

and on the way to chapel and back there had been a stony silence

between them. It was evident, even to his dull mind, that the girl

was white and thin, and that between her wild temper and mischief

and the mirth of other children there was a great difference.

Moreover, certain passages in the chapel prayers that morning

had come home sharply to a mind whereof the only definite gift

was a true religious sensitiveness. The text of the sermon

especially--'Whoso loveth not his brother, whom he hath seen, how

shall he love God, whom he hath not seen?'--vibrated like an

accusing voice within him. As he sat in the doorway, with the sun

stealing in upon him, the clock ticking loudly at his back, and the

hens scratching round the steps, he began to think with much

discomfort about his dead brother and his brother's children.

As to his memories of the past, they may perhaps be transformed

here into a short family history, with some details added which

had no place in Reuben's mind. Twenty years before this present

date Needham--once Needham's--Farm had been held by Reuben's

father, a certain James Grieve. He had originally been a kind of

farm-labourer on the Berwickshire border, who, driven southwards in

search of work by the stress of the bad years which followed the

great war, had wandered on, taking a job of work here and another

there, and tramping many a score of weary miles between, till at

last in this remote Derbyshire valley he had found a final

anchorage. Needham Farm was then occupied by a young couple of

the name of Pierson, beginning life under fairly prosperous

circumstances. James Grieve took service with them, and they valued

his strong sinews and stern Calvinistic probity as they deserved.

But he had hardly been two years on the farm when his young

employer, dozing one winter evening on the shafts of his cart

coming back from Glossop market, fell off, was run over, and

killed. The widow, a young thing, nearly lost her senses with

grief, and James, a man of dour exterior and few words, set himself

to keep things going on the farm till she was able to look life in

the face again. Her sister came to be with her, and there, was a

child born, which died. She was left better provided for than most

women of her class, and she had expectations from her parents.

After the child's death, when the widow began to go about again,

and James still managed all the work of the farm, the neighbours

naturally fell talking. James took no notice, and he was not a man

to meddle with, either in a public-house or elsewhere. But

presently a crop of suitors for the widow began to appear, and it

became necessary also to settle the destiny of the farm. No one

outside ever knew how it came about, for Jenny Pierson, who was a

soft, prettyish creature, had given no particular sign; but one

Sunday morning the banns of James Grieve, bachelor, and Jenny

Pierson, widow, were suddenly given out in the Presbyterian chapel

at Clough End, to the mingled astonishment and disgust of the

neighbourhood.

Years passed away. James held his own for a time with any farmer of

the neighbourhood. But, by the irony of fate, the prosperity which

his industry and tenacity deserved was filched from him little by

little by the ill-health of his wife. She bore him two sons, Reuben

and Alexander, and then she sank into a hopeless, fretful invalid,

tormented by the internal ailment of which she ultimately died. But

the small farmer who employs little or no labour is lost without an

active wife. If he has to pay for the milking of his cows, the

making of his butter, the cooking of his food, and the nursing of

his children, his little margin of profit is soon eaten away; and

with the disappearance of this margin, existence becomes a blind

struggle. Even James Grieve, the man of iron will and indomitable

industry, was beaten at last in the unequal contest. The life at

the farm became bitter and tragic. Jenny grew more helpless and

more peevish year by year; James was not exactly unkind to her, but

he could not but revenge upon her in some degree that ruin of his

silent ambitions which her sickliness had brought upon him.

The two sons grew up in the most depressing atmosphere conceivable.

Reuben, who was to have the farm, developed a shy and hopeless

taciturnity under the pressure of the family chagrin and

privations, and found his only relief in the emotions and

excitements of Methodism. Sandy seemed at first more fortunate.

An opening was found for him at Sheffield, where he was apprenticed

to a rope-maker, a cousin of his mother's. This man died before

Sandy was more than halfway through his time, and the youth went

through a period of hardship and hand-to-mouth living which ended

at last in the usual tramp to London. Here, after a period of

semi-starvation, he found it impossible to get work at his own

trade, and finally drifted into carpentering and cabinet-making.

The beginnings of this new line of life were incredibly difficult,

owing to the jealousy of his fellow-workmen, who had properly

served their time to the trade, and did not see why an interloper

from another trade, without qualifications, should be allowed to

take the bread out of their mouths.

One of Sandy's first successes was in what was called a

'shop-meeting,' a gathering of all the employés of the firm he

worked for, before whom the North-countryman pleaded to be allowed

to earn his bread. The tall, finely grown, famished-looking lad

spoke with a natural eloquence, and here and there with a

Biblical force of phrase--the inheritance of his Scotch blood and

training--which astonished and melted most of his hearers. He was

afterwards let alone, and even taught by the men about him, in

return for 'drinks,' which swallowed up sometimes as much as a

third of his wages.

After two or three years he was fully master of his trade, an

admirable workman, and a keen politician to boot. All this time he

had spent his evenings in self-education, buying books with every

spare penny, and turning specially to science and mathematics. His

abilities presently drew the attention of the heads of the

Shoreditch firm for which he worked, and when the post of a foreman

in a West-end shop, in which they were largely interested, fell

vacant, it was their influence which put Sandy Grieve into the

well-paid and coveted post. He could hardly believe his own good

fortune. The letter in which he announced it to his father reached

the farm just as the last phase of his mother's long martyrdom was

developing. The pair, already old--James with work and anxiety, his

wife with sickness--read it together. They shut it up without a

word. Its tone of jubilant hope seemed to have nothing to do with

them, or seemed rather to make their own narrowing prospects look

more narrow, and the approach of the King of Terrors more black and

relentless, than before. Jenny lay back on her poor bed, with the

tears of a dumb self-pity running down her cheeks, and James's only

answer to it was conveyed in a brief summons to Sandy to come and

see his mother before the end. The prosperous son, broadened out of

knowledge almost by good feeding and good clothes, arrived. He

brought money, which was accepted without much thanks; but his

mother treated him almost as a stranger, and the dour James, while

not unwilling to draw out his account of himself, would look him up

and down from under his bushy grey eyebrows, and often interpose

with some sarcasm on his 'foine' ways of speaking, or his

'gen'leman's cloos.' Sandy was ill at ease. He was really anxious

to help, and his heart was touched by his mother's state; but

perhaps there was a strain of self-importance in his manner, a

half-conscious inclination to thank God that his life was not to be

as theirs, which came out in spite of him, and dug a gulf between

him and them. Only his brother Reuben, dull, pious, affectionate

Reuben, took to him, and showed that patient and wondering

admiration of the younger's cleverness, which probably Sandy had

reckoned on as his right from his parents also.

On the last evening of his stay--he had luckily been able to make

his coming coincide with an Easter three days' holiday--he was

sitting beside his mother in the dusk, thinking, with a relief

which every now and then roused in him a pang of shame, that in

fourteen or fifteen more hours he should be back in London, in the

world which made much of him and knew what a smart fellow he was,

when his mother opened her eyes--so wide and blue they looked in

her pinched, death-stricken face--and looked at him full.

'Sandy!'

'Yes, mother!' he said, startled--for he had been sunk in his own

thoughts--and laying his hand on hers.

'You should get a wife, Sandy.'

'Well, some day, mother, I suppose I shall,' he said, with a change

of expression which the twilight concealed.

She was silent a minute, then she began again, slow and feebly, but

with a strange clearness of articulation.

'If she's sick, Sandy, _doan't grudge it her._ Women 'ud die

fasster iv they could.'

The whole story of the slow consuming bitterness of years spoke

through those fixed and filmy eyes. Her son gave a sudden

irrepressible sob. There was a faint lightening in the little

wrinkled face, and the lips made a movement. He kissed her, and in

that last moment of consciousness the mother almost forgave him his

good clothes and his superior airs.

Poor Sandy! Looking to his after story, it seems strange that any

one should ever have felt him unbearably prosperous. About six

months after his mother's death he married a milliner's assistant,

whom he met first in the pit of a theatre, and whom he was already

courting when his mother gave him the advice recorded. She was

French, from the neighbourhood of Arles, and of course a Catholic.

She had come to London originally as lady's-maid to a Russian

family settled at Nice. Shortly after their arrival, her master

shot his young wife for a supposed intrigue, and then put an end to

himself. Naturally the whole establishment was scattered, and the

pretty Louise Suveret found herself alone, with a few pounds, in

London. Thanks to the kind offices of the book-keeper in the hotel

where they had been staying, she had been introduced to a milliner

of repute in the Bond Street region, and the results of a trial

given her, in which her natural Frenchwoman's gift and her acquired

skill came out triumphant, led to her being permanently engaged.

Thenceforward her good spirits--which had been temporarily

depressed, not so much by her mistress's tragic ending as by her

own unexpected discomfort--reappeared in all their native

exuberance, and she proceeded to enjoy London. She defended herself

first against the friendly book-keeper, who became troublesome, and

had to be treated with the most decided ingratitude. Then she

gradually built herself up a store of clothes of the utmost

elegance, which were the hopeless envy of the other girls employed

at Madame Catherine's. And, finally, she looked about for

serviceable acquaintances.

One night, in the pit of Drury Lane Theatre, while 'The Lady of

Lyons' was going on, Sandy Grieve found himself next to a dazzling

creature, with fine black eyes, the smooth olive skin of the South,

white teeth, and small dimpled hands, hardly spoilt at all by her

trade. She had with her a plain girl-companion, and her manner,

though conscious and provocative, had that haughtiness, that

implied readiness to take offence, which is the _grisette's_

substitute for breeding. She was, however, affable to Sandy, whose

broad shoulders and handsome, well-to-do air attracted her

attention. She allowed him to get her a programme, to beguile her

into conversation, and, finally, to offer her a cup of coffee.

Afterwards he escorted the two to the door of their lodging, in one

of the streets off Theobald's Road, and walked home in a state of

excitement which astonished him.

This happened immediately before his visit to the farm and his

mother's death. During the six months after that event Sandy knew

the 'joy of eventful living.' He was establishing his own business

position, and he was courting Louise Suveret with alternations of

despair and flattered passion, which stirred the now burly,

full-blooded North-countryman to his depths. She let him escort her

to her work in the morning and take her home in the evening, and

she allowed him to give her as many presents of gloves, ribbons,

bonbons--for which last she had a childish passion--and the like,

as he pleased. But when he pressed her to marry him she generally

laughed at him. She was, in reality, observing her world,

calculating her chances, and she had several other strings to her

bow, as Sandy shrewdly suspected, though she never allowed his

jealousy any information to feed upon. It was simply owing to the

failure of the most promising of these other strings--a failure

which roused in Louise one of those white heats of passion

which made the chief flaw in her organisation, viewed as a

pleasure-procuring machine--that Sandy found his opportunity. In a

moment of mortal chagrin and outraged vanity she consented to marry

him, and three weeks afterwards he was the blissful owner of the

black eyes, the small hands, the quick tongue, and the seductive

_chiffons_ he had so long admired more or less at a distance.

Their marriage lasted six years. At first Louise found some

pleasure in arranging the little house Sandy had taken for her

in a new suburb, and in making, wearing, and altering the

additional gowns which their joint earnings--for she still worked

intermittently at her trade--allowed her to enjoy. After the first

infatuation was a little cooled, Sandy discovered in her a paganism

so unblushing that his own Scotch and Puritan instincts reacted in

a sort of superstitious fear. It seemed impossible that God

Almighty should long allow Himself to be flouted as Louise flouted

Him. He found also that the sense of truth was almost non-existent

in her, and her vanity, her greed of dress and admiration, was so

consuming, so frenzied, that his only hope of a peaceful life--as

he quickly realised--lay in ministering to it. Her will soon got

the upper hand, and he sank into the patient servant of her

pleasures, snatching feverishly at all she gave him in return with

the instinct of a man who, having sold his soul, is determined at

least to get the last farthing he can of the price.

They had two children in four years--David Suveret and Louise

Stephanie. Louise resented the advent of the second so intensely

that poor Sandy become conscious, before the child appeared, of a

fatal and appalling change in her relation to him. She had been

proud of her first-born--an unusually handsome and precocious

child--and had taken pleasure in dressing it and parading it before

the eyes of the other mothers in their terrace, all of whom she

passionately despised. But Louie nearly died of neglect, and the

two years that followed her birth were black indeed for Sandy. His

wife, he knew, had begun to hate him; in business his energies

failed him, and his employers cooled towards him as he grew visibly

less pushing and inventive. The little household got deeper and

deeper into debt, and towards the end of the time Louise would

sometimes spend the whole day away from home without a word of

explanation. So great was his nervous terror--strong, broad fellow

that he was--of that pent-up fury in her, which a touch might have

unloosed, that he never questioned her. At last the inevitable end

came. He got home one summer evening to find the house empty and

ransacked, the children--little things of five and two--sitting

crying in the desolate kitchen, and a crowd of loud-voiced,

indignant neighbours round the door. To look for her would have

been absurd. Louise was much too clever to disappear and leave

traces behind. Besides, he had no wish to find her. The hereditary

self in him accepted his disaster as representing the natural

retribution which the canny Divine vengeance keeps in store for

those who take to themselves wives of the daughters of Heth. And

there was the sense, too, of emerging from something unclean, of

recovering his manhood.

He took his two children and went to lodgings in a decent street

near the Gray's Inn Road. There for a year things went fairly well

with him. His boy and girl, whom he paid a neighbour to look after

during the day, made something to come home to. As he helped the

boy, who was already at school, with his lesson for the next day,

or fed Louie, perched on his knee, with the bits from his plate

demanded by her covetous eyes and open mouth, he got back, little

by little, his self-respect. He returned, too, in the evenings to

some of his old pursuits, joined a Radical club near, and some

science lectures. He was aged and much more silent than of yore,

but not unhappy; his employers, too, feeling that their man had

somehow recovered himself, and hearing something of his history,

were sorry for him, and showed it.

Then one autumn evening a constable knocked at his door, and,

coming in upon the astonished group of father and children,

produced from his pocket a soaked and tattered letter, and showing

Sandy the address, asked if it was for him. Sandy, on seeing it,

stood up, put down Louie, who, half undressed, had been having a

ride on his knee, and asked his visitor to come out on to the

landing. There he read the letter under the gas-lamp, and put it

deliberately into his pocket.

'Where is she?' he asked.

'In Lambeth mortuary,' said the man briefly--'picked up two hours

ago. Nothing else found on her but this.'

Half an hour afterwards Sandy stood by a slab in the mortuary, and,

drawing back a sheet which covered the burden on it, stood face to

face with his dead wife. The black brows were drawn, the small

hands clenched. What struck Sandy with peculiar horror was that one

delicate wrist was broken, having probably struck something in

falling. She--who in life had rebelled so hotly against the least

shadow of physical pain! Thanks to the bandage which had been

passed round it, the face was not much altered. She could not have

been long in the water. Probably about the time when he was walking

home from work, she--He felt himself suffocating--the bare

whitewashed walls grew dim and wavering.

The letter found upon her was the strangest appeal to his pity. Her

seducer had apparently left her; she was in dire straits, and there

was, it seemed, no one but Sandy in all London on whose compassion

she could throw herself. She asked him, callously, for money to

take her back to some Nice relations. They need only know what she

chose to tell them, as she calmly pointed out, and, once in Nice,

she could make a living. She would like to see her children, she

said, before she left, but she supposed he would have to settle

that. How had she got his address? From his place of business

probably, in some roundabout way.

Then what had happened? Had she been seized with a sudden

persuasion that he would not answer, that it was all useless

trouble; and in one of those accesses of blind rage by which her

clear, sharp brain-life was at all times apt to be disturbed, had

she rushed out to end it all at once and for ever? It made him

forgive her that she _could_ have destroyed herself--could

have faced that awful plunge--that icy water--that death-struggle

for breath. He gauged the misery she must have gone through by what

he knew of her sensuous love for comfort, for _bien-être_. He

saw her again as she had been that night at the theatre when they

first met,--the little crisp black curls on the temples, the

dazzling eyes, the artificial pearls round the neck, the slight

traces of powder and rouge on brow and cheek, which made her all

the more attractive and tempting to his man's eye--the pretty foot,

which he first noticed as she stepped from the threshold of the

theatre into the street. Nature had made all that, to bring her

work to this grim bed at last!

He himself died eighteen months afterwards. His acquaintances never

dreamt of connecting his death with his wife's, and the connection,

if it existed, would have been difficult to trace. Still, if little

David could have put his experiences at this time into words, they

might have thrown some light on an event which was certainly a

surprise to the small world which took an interest in Sandy Grieve.

There was a certain sound which remained all through his life

firmly fixed in David's memory, and which he never thought of

without a sense of desolation, a shiver of sick dismay, such as

belonged to no other association whatever. It was the sound of a

long sigh, brought up, as it seemed, from the very depths of being,

and often, often repeated. The thought of it brought with it a

vision of a small bare room at night, with two iron bedsteads, one

for Louie, one for himself and his father; a bit of smouldering

fire in a tiny grate, and beside it a man's figure bowed over the

warmth, thrown out dark against the distempered wall, and sitting

on there hour after hour; of a child, wakened intermittently by the

light, and tormented by the recurrent sound, till it had once more

burrowed into the bed-clothes deep enough to shut out everything

but sleep. All these memories belonged to the time immediately

following on Louise's suicide. Probably, during the interval

between his wife's death and his own, Sandy suffered severely from

the effects of strong nervous shock, coupled with a certain growth

of religious melancholy, the conditions for which are rarely

wanting in the true Calvinist blood. Owing to the privations and

exposure of his early manhood, too, it is possible that he was

never in reality the strong man he looked. At any rate, his fight

for his life when it came was a singularly weak one. The second

winter after Louise's death was bitterly cold; he was overworked,

and often without sleep. One bleak east-wind day struck home. He

took to his bed with a chill, which turned to peritonitis; the

system showed no power of resistance, and he died.

On the day but one before he died, when the mortal pain was gone,

but death was absolutely certain, he sent post-haste for his

brother Reuben. Reuben he believed was married to a decent woman,

and to Reuben he meant to commend his children.

Reuben arrived, looking more bewildered and stupid than ever, pure

countryman that he was, in this London which he had never seen.

Sandy looked at him with a deep inward dissatisfaction. But what

could he do? His marriage had cut him off from his old friends, and

since its wreck he had had no energy wherewith to make new ones.

'I've never seen your wife, Reuben,' he said, when they had talked

awhile.

Reuben was silent a minute, apparently collecting his thoughts.

'Naw,' he said at last; 'naw. She sent yo her luve, and she hopes iv

it's the Lord's will to tak yo, that it ull foind yo prepared.'

He said it like a lesson. A sort of nervous tremor and shrinking

overspread Sandy's face. He had suffered so much through religion

during the last few months, that in this final moment of humanity

the soul had taken refuge in numbness--apathy. Let God decide. He

could think it out no more; and in this utter feebleness his terror

of hell--the ineradicable deposit of childhood and inheritance--had

passed away. He gathered his forces for the few human and practical

things which remained to him to do.

'Did she get on comfortable with father?' he asked, fixing Reuben

with his eyes, which had the penetration of death.

Reuben looked discomposed, and cleared his throat once or twice.

'Wal, it warn't what yo may call just coomfortable atween 'em. Naw,

I'll not say it wor.'

'What was wrong?' demanded Sandy.

Reuben fidgeted.

'Wal,' he said at last, throwing up his head in desperation, 'I

spose a woman likes her house to hersel when she's fust married. He

wor childish like, an mighty trooblesome times. An she's allus

stirrin, and rootin, is Hannah. Udder foak mus look aloive too.'

The conflict in Reuben's mind between his innate truthfulness and

his desire to excuse his wife was curious to see. Sandy had a

vision of his father sitting in his dotage by his own hearth, and

ministered to by a daughter-in-law who grudged him his years and

his infirmities, as he had grudged his wife all the troublesome

incidents of her long decay. But it only affected him now as it

bore upon what was still living in him, the one feeling which still

survived amid the wreck made by circumstance and disease.

'Will she be kind to _them?_' he said sharply, which a motion

of the head towards the children, first towards David, who sat

drooping on his father's bed, where for some ten or twelve hours

now he had remained glued, refusing to touch either breakfast or

dinner, and then towards Louie, who was on the floor by the fire,

with her rag dolls, which she was dressing up with smiles and

chatter in a strange variety of finery. 'If not, she shan't have

'em. There's time yet.'

But the grey hue was already on his cheek, his feet were already

cold. The nurse in the far corner of the room, looking up as he

spoke, gave him mentally 'an hour or two.'

Reuben flushed and sat bolt upright, his gnarled and wrinkled hands

trembling on his knees.

'She _shall_ be kind to 'em,' he said with energy. 'Gie 'em to

us, Sandy. Yo wouldna send your childer to strangers?'

The clannish instinct in Sandy responded. Besides, in spite of his

last assertion, he knew very well there was nothing else to be

done.

'There's money,' he said slowly. 'She'll not need to stint them of

anything. This is a poor place,' for at the word 'money' he noticed

that Reuben's eyes travelled with an awakening shrewdness over the

barely furnished room; 'but it was the debts first, and then I had

to put by for the children. None of the shop-folk or the fellows

at the club ever came here. We lived as we liked. There's an

insurance, and there's some savings, and there's some commission

money owing from the firm, and there's a bit investment Mr. Gurney

(naming the head partner) helped me into last year. There's

altogether about six hundred pound. You'll get the interest of it

for the children; it'll go into Gurneys', and they'll give five per

cent. for it. Mr. Gurney's been very kind. He came here yesterday,

and he's got it all. You go to him.'

He stopped for weakness. Reuben's eyes were round. Six hundred

pounds! Who'd have thought it of Sandy?--after that bad lot of a

wife, and he not thirty!

'An what d' yo want Davy to be, Sandy?'

'You must settle,' said the father, with a long sigh. 'Depends on

him what he turns to. If he wants to farm, he can learn with you,

and put in his money when he sees an opening. For the bit farms in

our part there'd be enough. But I'm feeart'(the old Derbyshire word

slipped out unawares)'he'll not stay in the country. He's too

sharp, and you mustn't force him. If you see he's not the farming

sort, when he's thirteen or fourteen or so, take Mr. Gurney's

advice, and bind him to a trade. Mr. Gurney'll pay the premiums for

him and he can have the balance of the money--for I've left him to

manage it all, for himself and Louie too--when he's fit to set up

for himself.--You and Hannah'll deal honest wi 'em?'

The question was unexpected, and as he put it with a startling

energy the dying man raised himself on his elbow, and looked

sharply at his brother.

'D' yo think I'd cheat yo, or your childer, Sandy?' cried Reuben,

flushing and pricked to the heart.

Sandy sank back again, his sudden qualm appeased. 'No,' he said, his

thoughts returning painfully to his son. 'I'm feeart he'll not stay

wi you. He's cleverer than I ever was, and I was the cleverest of

us all.'

The words had in them a whole epic of human fate. Under the prick

of them Reuben found a tongue, not now for his wife, but for

himself.

'It's not cliverness as ull help yo now, Sandy, wi your Maaker! and

yo feeace t' feeace wi 'un!' he cried. 'It's nowt but satisfacshun

by t' blood o' Jesus!'

Sandy made no answer, unless, indeed, the poor heart within made

its last cry of agony to heaven at the words. The sinews of the

spiritual as well as the physical man were all spent and useless.

'Davy,' he called presently. The child, who had been sitting

motionless during this talk watching his father, slid along the bed

with alacrity, and tucking his little legs and feet well away from

Sandy's long frame, put his head down on the pillow. His father

turned his eyes to him, and with a solemn, lingering gaze took in

the childish face, the thick, tumbled hair, the expression, so

piteous, yet so intelligent. Then he put up his own large hand, and

took both the boy's into its cold and feeble grasp. His eyelids

fell, and the breathing changed. The nurse hurriedly rose, lifted

up Louie from her toys, and put her on the bed beside him. The

child, disturbed in her play and frightened by she knew not what,

set up a sudden cry. A tremor seemed to pass through the shut lids

at the sound, a slight compression of pain appeared in the grey

lips. It was Sandy Grieve's last sign of life.

Reuben Grieve remembered well the letter he had written to his

wife, with infinite difficulty, from beside his brother's dead

body. He told her that he was bringing the children back with him.

The poor bairns had got nobody in the world to look to but their

uncle and aunt. And they would not cost Hannah a penny. For Mr.

Gurney would pay thirty pounds a year for their keep and bringing

up.

With what care and labour his clumsy fingers had penned that last

sentence so that Hannah might read it plain!

Afterwards he brought the children home. As he drove his light cart

up the rough and lonely road to Needham Farm, Louie cried with the

cold and the dark, and Davy, with his hands tucked between his

knees, grew ever more and more silent, his restless little head

turning perpetually from side to side, as though he were trying to

discover something of the strange, new world to which he had been

brought, through the gloom of the February evening.

Then at the sound of wheels outside in the lane, the back door of

the farm was opened, and a dark figure stood on the threshold.

'Yo're late,' Reuben heard. It was Hannah's piercing voice that

spoke. 'Bring 'em into t'back kitchen, an let 'em take their shoes off

afore they coom ony further.'

By which Reuben knew that it had been scrubbing-day, and that her

flagstones were more in Hannah's mind than the guests he had

brought her. He obeyed, and then the barefooted trio entered the

front kitchen together. Hannah came forward and looked at the

children--at David white and blinking--at the four-year-old Louie,

bundled up in an old shawl, which dragged on the ground behind her,

and staring wildly round her at the old low-roofed kitchen with the

terror of the trapped bird.

'Hannah, they're varra cold,' said Reuben--'ha yo got summat hot?'

'Theer'll be supper bime-by,' Hannah replied with decision. 'I've

naw time scrubbin-days to be foolin about wi things out o' hours.

I've nobbut just got straight and cleaned mysel. They can sit

down and warm theirsels. I conno say they feature ony of _yor_

belongins, Reuben.' And she went to put Louie on the settle by the

fire. But as the tall woman in black approached her, the child hit

out madly with her small fists and burst into a loud howl of

crying.

'Get away, nasty woman! _Nasty_ woman--ugly woman! Take me

away--I want my daddy,--I want my daddy.' And she threw herself

kicking on the floor, while, to Hannah's exasperation, a piece of

crumbling bun she had been holding tight in her sticky little hand

escaped and littered all the new-washed stones.

'Tak yor niece oop, Reuben, an mak her behave'--the mistress of the

house commanded angrily. 'She'll want a stick takken to her, soon,

_I_ can see.'

Reuben obeyed so far as he could, but Louie's shrieks only ceased

when, by the combined efforts of husband and wife, she had been put

to bed, so exhausted with rage, excitement, and the journey, that

sleep mercifully took possession of her just after she had

performed the crowning feat of knocking the tea and bread and

butter Reuben brought her out of her uncle's hand and all over the

room.

Meanwhile, David sat perfectly still in a chair against the wall,

beside the old clock, and stared about him; at the hams and bunches

of dried herbs hanging from the ceiling; at the chiffonnier, with

its red baize doors under a brass trellis-work; at the high wooden

settle, the framed funeral cards, and the two or three coloured

prints, now brown with age, which Reuben had hung up twenty years

before, to celebrate his marriage. Hannah was propitiated by the

boy's silence, and as she got supper ready she once or twice

noticed his fine black eyes and his curly hair.

'Yo can coom an get yor supper,' she said to him, more graciously

than she had spoken yet. 'It's a mussy yo doant goo skrikin like

your sister.'

'Thank you, ma'am,' said the little fellow, with a townsman's

politeness, hardly understanding, however, a word of her

north-country dialect--' I'm not hungry.--You've got a picture of

General Washington there, ma'am;' and, raising a small hand

trembling with nervousness and fatigue, he pointed to one of the

prints opposite.

'Wal, I niver,' said Hannah, with a stare of astonishment. 'Yo're a

quare lot--the two o' yer.'

One thing more Reuben remembered with some vividness in connection

with the children's arrival. When they were both at last

asleep--Louie in an unused room at the back, on an old wooden

bedstead, which stood solitary in a wilderness of bare boards;

David in a sort of cupboard off the landing, which got most of its

light and air from a wooden trellis-work, overlooking the

staircase--Hannah said abruptly to her husband, as they two were

going to bed, 'When ull Mr. Gurney pay that money?'

'Twice a year--so his clerk towd me--Christmas an Midsummer. Praps

we shan't want to use it aw, Hannah; praps we might save soom on it

for t' childer. Their keep, iv yo feed em on parritch, is nobbut a

fleabite, an they'n got a good stock o' cloos, Sandy's nurse towd

me.'

He looked anxiously at Hannah. In his inmost heart there was a

passionate wish to do his duty to Sandy's orphans, fighting with a

dread of his wife, which was the fruit of long habit and

constitutional weakness.

Hannah faced round upon him. It was Reuben's misfortune that

dignity was at all times impossible to him. Now, as he sat in his

shirt-sleeves and stocking-feet, flushed with the exertion of

pulling off his heavy boots, the light of the tallow candle falling

on his weak eyes with their red rims, on his large open mouth with

the conspicuous gap in its front teeth, and his stubby hair, he was

more than usually grotesque. 'As slamp an wobbly as an owd

corn-boggart,' so his neighbours described him when they wished to

be disrespectful, and the simile fitted very closely with the

dishevelled, disjointed appearance which was at all times

characteristic of him, Sundays or weekdays. No one studying the

pair, especially at such a moment as this--the _malaise_ of

the husband--the wife towering above him, her grey hair hanging

loose round her black brows and sallow face instinct with a rugged

and indomitable energy--could have doubted in whose hands lay the

government of Needham Farm.

'I'll thank yo not to talk nonsense, Reuben Grieve,' said his wife

sharply. 'D'yo think they're _my_ flesh an blood, thoose

childer? An who'll ha to do for 'em but me, I should loike to know?

Who'll ha to put up wi their messin an their dirt but _me_?

Twenty year ha yo an I been married, Reuben, an niver till

this neet did I ha to goo down on my knees an sweep oop after

scrubbin-day! Iv I'm to be moidered wi em, I'll be paid for 't.

Soa I let yo know--it's little enough.'

And Hannah took her payment. As he sat in the sun, looking back on

the last seven years, with a slow and dreaming mind, Reuben

recognised, using his own phrases for the matter, that the

children's thirty pounds had been the pivot of Hannah's existence.

He was but a small sheep farmer, with very scanty capital. By dint

of hard work and painful thrift, the childless pair had earned a

sufficient living in the past--nay, even put by a bit, if the

truth of Hannah's savings-bank deposits were known. But every

fluctuation in their small profits tried them sorely--tried

Hannah especially, whose temper was of the brooding and grasping

order. The _certainty_ of Mr. Gurney's cheques made them very

soon the most cheerful facts in the farm life. On two days in the

year--the 20th of June and the 20th of December--Reuben might be

sure of finding his wife in a good temper, and he had long shrewdly

suspected, without inquiring, that Hannah's savings-bank book,

since the children came, had been very pleasant reading to her.

Reuben fidgeted uncomfortably as he thought of those savings.

Certainly the children had not cost what was paid for them. He

began to be oddly exercised this Sunday morning on the subject of

the porridge Louie hated so much. Was it his fault or Hannah's if

the frugal living which had been the rule for all the remoter farms

of the Peak--nay, for the whole north country--in his father's

time, and had been made doubly binding, as it were, on the dwellers

in Needham Farm by James Grieve's Scotch blood and habits, had

survived under their roof, while all about them a more luxurious

standard of food and comfort was beginning to obtain among their

neighbours? Where could you find a finer set of men than the

Berwickshire hinds, of whom his father came, and who were reared on

'parritch' from year's end to year's end?

And yet, all the same, Reuben's memory was full this morning of

disturbing pictures of a little London child, full of town

daintiness and accustomed to the spoiling of an indulgent father,

crying herself into fits over the new unpalatable food, refusing it

day after day, till the sharp, wilful face had grown pale and

pinched with famine, and caring no more apparently for her aunt's

beatings than she did for the clumsy advances by which her uncle

would sometimes try to propitiate her. There had been a great deal

of beating--whenever Reuben thought of it he had a superstitious

way of putting Sandy out of his mind as much as possible. Many

times he had gone far away from the house to avoid the sound of the

blows and shrieks he was powerless to stop.

Well, but what harm had come of it all? Louie was a strong lass

now, if she were a bit thin and overgrown. David was as fine a boy

as anyone need wish to see.

_David?_

Reuben got up from his seat at the farm door, took his pipe out of

his pocket, and went to hang over the garden-gate, that he might

unravel some very worrying thoughts at a greater distance from

Hannah.

The day before he had been overtaken coming out of Clough End by Mr.

Ancrum, the lame minister. He and Grieve liked one another. If

there had been intrigues raised against the minister within the

'Christian Brethren' congregation, Reuben Grieve had taken no part

in them.

After some general conversation, Mr. Ancrum suddenly said, 'Will you

let me have a word with you, Mr. Grieve, about your nephew

David--if you'll not think me intruding?'

'Say on, sir--say on,' said Reuben hastily, but with an inward

shrinking.

'Well, Mr. Grieve, you've got a remarkable boy there--a curious and

remarkable boy. What are you going to do with him?'

'Do wi him?--me, sir? Wal, I doan't know as I've iver thowt mich

about it,' said Reuben, but with an agitation of manner that struck

his interrogator. 'He be varra useful to me on t' farm, Mr. Ancrum.

Soom toimes i' t' year theer's a lot doin, yo knaw, sir, even on a

bit place like ours, and he ha gitten a good schoolin, he ha.'

The apologetic incoherence of the little speech was curious. Mr.

Ancrum did not exactly know how to take his man.

'I dare say he's useful. But he's not going to be the ordinary

labourer, Mr. Grieve--he's made of quite different stuff, and, if I

may say so, it will pay you very well to recognise it in good time.

That boy will read books now which hardly any grown man of his

class--about here, at any rate--would be able to read. Aye, and

talk about them, too, in a way to astonish you!'

'Yes, I know 'at he's oncommon cliver wi his books, is Davy,'

Reuben admitted.

'Oh! it's not only that. But he's got an unusual brain and a

wonderful memory. And it would be a thousand pities if he were to

make nothing of them. You say he's useful, but--excuse me, Mr.

Grieve--he seems to me to spend three parts of his time in loafing

and desultory reading. He wants more teaching--he wants steady

training. Why don't you send him to Manchester,' said the minister

boldly, 'and apprentice him? It costs money, no doubt.'

And he looked interrogatively at Reuben. Reuben, however, said

nothing. They were toiling up the steep road from Clough End to the

high farms under the Scout, a road which tried the minister's

infirm limb severely; otherwise he would have taken more notice of

his companion's awkward flush and evident discomposure.

'But it would pay you in the long run,' he said, when they stopped

to take breath; 'it would be a capital investment if the boy lives,

I promise you that, Mr. Grieve. And he could carry on his education

there, too, a bit--what with evening classes and lectures, and the

different libraries he could get the use of. It's wonderful how all

the facilities for working-class education have grown in Manchester

during the last few years.'

'Aye, sir--I spose they have--I spose they have,' said Reuben,

uncomfortably, and then seemed incapable of carrying on the

conversation any further. Mr. Ancrum talked, but nothing more was

to be got out of the farmer. At last the minister turned back,

saying, as he shook hands, 'Well, let me know if I can be of any

use. I have a good many friends in Manchester. I tell you that's a

boy to be proud of, Mr. Grieve, a boy of promise, if ever there was

one. But he wants taking the right way. He's got plenty of mixed

stuff in him, bad and good. I should feel it anxious work, the next

few years, if he were my boy.'

Now it was really this talk which was fermenting in Reuben, and

which, together with the 'rumpus' between Hannah and Louie, had led

to his singularly disturbed state of conscience this Sunday

morning. As he stood, miserably pulling at his pipe, the whole

prospect of sloping field, and steep distant moor, gradually

vanished from his eyes, and, instead, he saw the same London room

which David's memory held so tenaciously--he saw Sandy raising

himself from his deathbed with that look of sudden distrust--'Now,

you'll deal honest wi 'em, Reuben?'

Reuben groaned in spirit. 'A boy to be proud of' indeed. It seemed

to him, now that he was perforce made to think about it, that he

had never been easy in his mind since Sandy's orphans came to the

house. On the one hand, his wife had had her way--how was he to

prevent it? On the other, his religious sense had kept pricking and

tormenting--like the gadfly that it was.

Who, in the name of fortune, was to ask Hannah for money to send

the boy to Manchester and apprentice him? And who was going to

write to Mr. Gurney about it without her leave? Once upset the

system of things on which those two half-yearly cheques depended,

how many more of them would be forthcoming? And how was Hannah

going to put up with the loss of them? It made Reuben shiver to

think of it.

Shouts from the lane behind. Reuben suddenly raised himself and

made for the gate at the corner of the farmyard. He came out upon

the children, who had been to Sunday school at Clough End since

dinner, and were now in consequence in a state of restless animal

spirits. Louie was swinging violently on the gate which barred the

path on to the moor. David was shying stones at a rook's nest

opposite, the clatter of the outraged colony to which it belonged

sounding as music in his ears.

They stared when they saw Reuben cross the road, sit down on a

stone beside David, and take out his pipe. David ceased throwing,

and Louie, crossing her feet and steadying herself as she sat on

the topmost bar of the gate by a grip on either side, leant hard on

her hands and watched her uncle in silence. When caught unawares by

their elders, these two had always something of the air of captives

defending themselves in an alien country.

'Wal, Davy, did tha have Mr. Ancrum in school?' began Reuben,

affecting a brisk manner, oddly unlike him.

'Naw. It wor Brother Winterbotham from Halifax, or soom sich name.'

'Wor he edifyin, Davy?'

'He wor--he wor--a leather-yed,' said David, with sudden energy,

and, taking up a stone again, he flung it at a tree trunk opposite,

with a certain vindictiveness as though Brother Winterbotham were

sitting there.

'Now, yo're not speakin as yo owt, Davy,' said Reuben reprovingly,

as he puffed away at his pipe and felt the pleasantness of the

spring sunshine which streamed down into the lane through the still

bare but budding branches of the sycamores.

'He _wor_ a leather-yed,' David repeated with emphasis. 'He

said it wor Alexander fought t' battle o' Marathon.'

Reuben was silent for a while. When tests of this kind were going,

he could but lie low. However, David's answer, after a bit,

suggested an opening to him.

'Yo've a rare deal o' book-larnin for a farmin lad, Davy. If yo wor

at a trade now, or a mill-hand, or summat o' that soart, yo'd ha

noan so mich time for readin as yo ha now.'

The boy looked at him askance, with his keen black eyes. His uncle

puzzled him.

'Wal, I'm not a mill-hand, onyways,' he said, shortly, 'an I doan't

mean to be.'

'Noa, yo're too lazy,' said Louie shrilly, from the top of the

gate. 'Theer's heaps o' boys no bigger nor yo, arns their ten

shillins a week.'

'They're welcome,' said David laconically, throwing another stone

at the water to keep his hand in. For some years now the boy had

cherished a hatred of the mill-life on which Clough End and the

other small towns and villages in the neighbourhood existed. The

thought of the long monotonous hours at the mules or the looms was

odious to the lad whose joys lay in free moorland wanderings with

the sheep, in endless reading, in talks with 'Lias Dawson.

'Wal, now, I'm real glad to heer yo say sich things, Davy, lad,'

said Reuben, with a curious flutter of manner. 'I'm real glad. So yo

take to the farmin, Davy? Wal, it's nateral. All yor forbears--all

on em leastways, nobbut yor feyther--got their livin off t' land.

It cooms nateral to a Grieve.'

The boy made no answer--did not commit himself in any way. He went

on absently throwing stones.

'Why doan't he larn a trade?' demanded Louie. 'Theer's Harry Wigson,

he's gone to Manchester to be prenticed. He doan't goo loafin round

aw day.'

Her sharp wits disconcerted Reuben. He looked anxiously at David.

The boy coloured furiously, and cast an angry glance at his sister.

'Theer's money wanted for prenticin,' he said shortly.

Reuben felt a stab. Neither of the children knew that they

possessed a penny. A blunt word of Hannah's first of all, about

'not gien 'em ony high noshuns o' theirsels,' aided on Reuben's

side by the natural secretiveness of the peasant in money affairs,

had effectually concealed all knowledge of their own share in the

family finances from the orphans.

He reached out a soil-stained hand, shaking already with incipient

age, and laid it on David's sleeve.

'Art tha hankerin after a trade, lad?' he said hastily, nay,

harshly.

David looked at his uncle astonished. A hundred thoughts flew

through the boy's mind. Then he raised his head and caught sight of

the great peak of Kinder Low in the distance, beyond the green

swells of meadowland,--the heathery slopes running up into its

rocky breast,--the black patch on the brown, to the left, which

marked the site of the smithy.

'No,' he said decidedly. 'No; I can't say as I am. I like t' farmin

well enough.'

And then, boy-like, hating to be talked to about himself, he shook

himself free of his uncle and walked away. Reuben fell to his pipe

again with a beaming countenance.

'Louie, my gell,' he said.

'Yes,' said the child, not moving.

'Coom yo heer, Louie.'

She unwillingly got down and came up to him. Reuben put down his

pipe, and fumbled in his waistcoat pocket. Out of it, with

difficulty, he produced a sixpence.

'Art tha partial to goodies, Louie?' he said, dropping his voice

almost to a whisper, and holding up the coin before her.

Louie nodded, her eyes glistening at the magnitude of the coin.

Uncle Reuben might be counted on for a certain number of pennies

during the year, but silver was unheard of.

'Tak it then, child, an welcome. If yo have a sweet tooth--an it's

t' way wi moast gells--I conno see as it can be onythin else but

Providence as gave it yo. So get yorsel soom bull's-eyes, Louie,

an--an'--he looked a little conscious as he slipped the coin into

her eager hand--'doan't let on ti your aunt! She'd think mebbe I

wor spoilin your teeth, or summat,--an, Louie--'

Was Uncle Reuben gone mad? For the first time in her life, as it

seemed to Louie, he was looking at what she had on, nay, was even

taking up her dress between his finger and thumb.

'Is thissen your Sunday frock, chilt?'

'Yes,' said the girl, flushing scarlet, 'bean't it a dishclout?'

And she stood looking down at it with passionate scorn. It was a

worn and patched garment of brown alpaca, made out of an ancient

gown of Hannah's.

'Wal, I'm naw judge i' these matters,' said Reuben, dubiously,

drawing out his spectacles. 'It's got naw holes 'at I can see, but

it's not varra smart, perhaps. Satan's varra active wi gells on

this pint o' dress--yo mun tak noatice o' that, Louie--but--listen

heer--'

And he drew her nearer to him by her skirt, looking cautiously up

and down the lane and across to the farm.

'If I get a good price for t' wool this year--an theer's a new

merchant coomin round, yan moor o' t' buyin soart nor owd Croker,

soa they say, I'st save yo five shillin for a frock, chilt. Yo can

goo an buy it, an I'st mak it straight wi yor aunt. But I mun get a

good price, yo know, or your aunt ull be fearfu' bad to manage.'

And he gazed up at her as though appealing to her common sense in

the matter, and to her understanding of both his and her situation.

Louie's cheeks were red, her eyes did not meet his. They looked

away, down towards Clough End.

'Theer's a blue cotton at Hinton's,' she said, hurriedly--'a

light-blue cotton. They want sixpence farthin,--but Annie Wigson

says yo could bate 'em a bit. But what's t' use?' she added, with a

sudden savage darkening of her bright look--'she'd tak it away.'

The tone gave Reuben a shock. But he did not rebuke it. For the

first time he and Louie were conspirators in the same plot.

'No, no, I'd see to 'at. But how ud yo get it made?' He was

beginning to feel a childish interest in his scheme.

'Me an Annie Wigson ud mak it oop fast enough. Theer are things I

can do for her; she'd not want no payin, an she's fearfu' good at

dressmakin. She wor prenticed two years afore she took ill.'

'Gie me a kiss then, my gell; doan't yo gie naw trooble, an we'st

see. But I mun get a good price, yo know.'

And rising, Reuben bent towards his niece. She rose on tiptoe, and

just touched his rough cheek. There was no natural childish

effusiveness in the action. For the seven years since she left her

father, Louie had quite unlearnt kissing.

Reuben proceeded up the lane to the gate leading to the moor. He

was in the highest spirits. What a mercy he had not bothered Hannah

with Mr. Ancrum's remarks! Why, the boy wouldn't go to a trade, not

if he were sent!

At the gate he ran against David, who came hastily out of the

farmyard to intercept him.

'Uncle Reuben, what do they coe that bit watter up theer?' and he

pointed up the lane towards the main ridge of the Peak. 'Yo

know--that bit pool on t' way to th' Downfall?'

The farmer stopped bewildered.

'That bit watter? What they coe that bit watter? Why, they coe it

t' Witch's Pool, or used to i' my yoong days. An for varra good

reason too. They drownded an owd witch theer i' my grand-feyther's

time--I've heerd my grandmither tell th' tale on't scores o' times.

An theer's aw mak o' tales about it, or used to be. I hannot yeerd

mony words about it o' late years. Who's been talkin to yo, Davy?'

Louie came running up and listened.

'I doan't know,' said the boy,--'what soart o' tales?'

'Why, they'd use to say th' witch walked, on soom neets i' th'

year--Easter Eve, most pertickerlerly--an foak wor feeart to goo

onywhere near it on those neets. But doan't yo goo listenin to

tales, Davy,' said Reuben, with a paternal effusion most rare with

him, and born of his recent proceedings; 'yo'll only freeten yorsel

o' neets for nothin.'

'What are witches?' demanded Louie, scornfully. 'I doan't bleeve in

'em.'

Reuben frowned a little.

'Theer wor witches yance, my gell, becos it's in th' Bible, an

whativer's in th' Bible's _true_,' and the farmer brought his

hand down on the top bar of the gate. 'I'm no gien ony judgment

about 'em nowadays. Theer wor aw mak o' queer things said

about Jenny Crum an Needham Farm i' th' owd days. I've heerd

my grandmither say it worn't worth a Christian man's while to

live in Needham Farm when Jenny Crum wor about. She meddled wi

everythin--wi his lambs, an his coos, an his childer. I niver seed

nothin mysel, so I doan't say nowt--not o' my awn knowledge. But I

doan't soomhow bleeve as it's th' Awmighty's will to freeten a

Christian coontry wi witches, _i' th' present dispensation_.

An murderin's a graat sin, wheder it's witches or oother foak.'

'In t' books they doan't coe it t' Witch's Pool at aw,' said Louie,

obstinately. 'They coe it t' _Mermaid's_ Pool.'

'An anoother book coes it a "Hammer-dry-ad,"' said David,

mockingly, 'soa theer yo are.'

'Aye, soom faddlin kind of a name they gie it--I know--those

Manchester chaps, as cooms trespassin ower t' Scout wheer they

aren't wanted. To hear ony yan o' _them_ talk, yo'd think

theer wor only three fellows like 'im cam ower i' three ships, an

two were drownded. T'aint ov ony account what they an their books

coe it.'

And Reuben, as he leant against the gate, blew his smoke

contemptuously in the air. It was not often that Reuben Grieve

allowed himself, or was allowed by his world, to use airs of

superiority towards any other human being whatever. But in the case

of the Manchester clerks and warehousemen, who came tramping over

the grouse moors which Reuben rented for his sheep, and were always

being turned back by keepers or himself--and in their case

only--did he exercise, once in a while, the commonest privilege of

humanity.

'Did yo iver know onybody 'at went up on Easter Eve?' asked David.

Both children hung on the answer.

Reuben scratched his head. The tales of Jenny Crum, once well known

to him, had sunk deep into the waves of memory of late years, and

his slow mind had some difficulty in recovering them. But at last

he said with the sudden brightening of recollection:

'Aye--of _coorse!_--I knew theer wor soom one. Yo know 'im,

Davy, owd 'Lias o' Frimley Moor? He wor allus a foo'hardy sort o'

creetur. But if he wor short o' wits when he gan up, he wor mich

shorter when he cam down. That wor a rum skit!--now I think on 't.

Sich a seet he wor! He came by here six o'clock i' th' mornin. I

found him hangin ower t' yard gate theer, as white an slamp as a

puddin cloth oop on eend; an I browt him in, an was for gien him

soom tay. An yor aunt, she gien him a warld o' good advice about

his gooins on. But bless yo, he didn't tak in a word o' 't. An for

th' tay, he'd naw sooner swallowed it than he runs out, as quick as

leetnin, an browt it aw up. He wor fairly clemmed wi' t' cold,--'at

he wor. I put in th' horse, an I took him down to t' Frimley

carrier, an we packed him i' soom rugs an straw, an soa he got

home. But they put him out o' t' school, an he wor months in his

bed. An they do tell me, as nobory can mak owt o' 'Lias Dawson

these mony years, i' th' matter o' brains. Eh, but yo shudno meddle

wi Satan.'

'What d'yo think he saw?' asked David, eagerly, his black eyes all

aglow.

'He saw t' woman wi t' fish's tail--'at's what he saw,' said Louie,

shrilly.

Reuben took no notice. He was sunk in silent reverie poking at his

pipe. In spite of his confidence in the Almighty's increased

goodwill towards the present dispensation, he was not prepared to

say for certain what 'Lias Dawson did or didn't see.

'Nobory should goo an meddle wi Satan,' he repeated slowly after an

interval; and then opening the yard gate he went off on his usual

Sunday walk over the moors to have a look at his more distant

sheep.

Davy stood intently looking after him; so did Louie. She had

clasped her hands behind her head, her eyes were wide, her look and

attitude all eagerness. She was putting two and two together--her

uncle's promise and the mermaid story as the Manchester man had

delivered it. You had but to see her and wish, and, according to

the Manchester man and his book, you got your wish. The child's

hatred of sermons and ministers had not touched her capacity for

belief of this sort in the least. She believed feverishly, and was

enraged with David for setting up a rival creed, and with her uncle

for endorsing it.

David turned and walked towards the farmyard. Louie followed him,

and tapped him peremptorily on the arm. 'I'm gooin up theer Easter

Eve--Saturday week'--and she pointed over her shoulder to the

Scout.

'Gells conno be out neets,' said David firmly; 'if I goo I can tell

yo.'

'Yo'll not goo without me--I'd tell Aunt Hannah!'

'Yo've naw moor sense nor rotten sticks!' said David, angrily.

'Yo'll get your death, an Aunt Hannah 'll be stick stock mad wi

boath on us. If I goo she'll niver find out.'

Louie hesitated a moment. To provoke Aunt Hannah too much might,

indeed, endanger the blue frock. But daring and curiosity

triumphed.

'I doan't care!' she said, tossing her head; 'I'm gooin.'

David slammed the yard gate, and, hiding himself in a corner of the

cowhouse, fell into moody meditations. It took all the tragic and

mysterious edge off an adventure he had set his heart on that Louie

should insist on going too. But there was no help for it. Next day

they planned it together.

CHAPTER V

'Reuben, ha yo seen t' childer?' inquired Aunt Hannah, poking her

head round the door, so as to be heard by her husband, who was

sitting outside cobbling at a bit of broken harness.

'Noa; niver seed un since dinner.'

'They went down to Clough End, two o'clock about, for t' bread, an

I've yerd nothin ov em since. Coom in to your tay, Reuben! I'll

keep nothin waitin for them! They may goo empty if they conno keep

time!'

Reuben went in. An hour later the husband and wife came out

together, and stood looking down the steep road leading to the

town.

'Just cast your eye on aw them stockins waitin to be mended,' said

Hannah, angrily, turning back to the kitchen, and pointing to a

chair piled with various garments. 'That's why she doon it, I spose.

I'll be even wi her! It's a poor soart of a supper she'll get this

neet, or he noather. An her stomach aw she cares for!'

Reuben wandered down into the road, strolled up and down for nearly

an hour, while the sun set and the light waned, went as far as the

corner by Wigson's farm, asked a passer-by, saw and heard nothing,

and came back, shaking his head in answer to his wife's shrill

interrogations.

'Wal, if I doan't gie Louie a good smackin,' ejaculated Hannah,

exasperated; and she was just going back into the house when an

exclamation from Reuben stopped her; instead, she ran out to him,

holding on her cap against the east wind.

'Look theer,' he said, pointing; 'what iver is them two up to?'

For suddenly he had noticed outside the gate leading into the field

a basket lying on the ground against the wall. The two peered at it

with amazement, for it was their own basket, and in it reposed the

loaves David had been told to bring back from Clough End, while on

the top lay a couple of cotton reels and a card of mending which

Louie had been instructed to buy for her aunt.

After a moment Reuben looked up, his face working.

'I'm thinkin, Hannah, they'n roon away!'

It seemed to him as he spoke that such a possibility had been

always in his mind. And during the past week there had been much

bad blood between aunt and niece. Twice had the child gone to bed

supperless, and yesterday, for some impertinence, Hannah had given

her a blow, the marks of which on her cheek Reuben had watched

guiltily all day. At night he had dreamed of Sandy. Since Mr.

Ancrum had set him thinking, and so stirred his conscience in

various indirect and unforeseen ways, Sandy had been a terror to

him; the dead man had gained a mysterious hold on the living.

'Roon away!' repeated Hannah scornfully; 'whar ud they roon to?

They're just at soom o' their divilments, 'at's what they are. An if

yo doan't tak a stick to boath on them when they coom back, _I

will_, soa theer, Reuben Grieve. Yo niver had no sperrit wi

'em--niver--and that's yan reason why they've grown up soa ramjam

full o' wickedness.'

It relieved her to abuse her husband. Reuben said nothing, but hung

over the wall, straining his eyes into the gathering darkness. The

wooded sides of the great moor which enclosed the valley to the

north were fading into dimness, and to the east, above the ridge of

Kinder Low, a young moon was rising. The black steep wall of the

Scout was swiftly taking to itself that majesty which all mountains

win from the approach of night. Involuntarily, Reuben held his

breath, listening, hungering for the sound of children's voices on

the still air. Nothing--but a few intermittent bird notes and the

eternal hurry of water from the moorland to the plain.

There was a step on the road, and a man passed whistling.

'Jim Wigson!' shouted Hannah, 'is that yo, Jim?'

The man opened the yard gate, and came through to them. Jim was the

eldest son of the neighbouring farmer, whose girls were Louie's

only companions. He was a full-blooded swaggering youth, with whom

David was generally on bad terms. David despised him for an oaf who

could neither read nor write, and hated him for a bully.

He grinned when Hannah asked him questions about the truants.

'Why, they're gone to Edale, th' yoong rascots, I'll uphowd yo!

There's a parcel o' gipsies there tellin fortunes, an lots o' foak

ha gone ower there to-day. You may mak your mind up they've gone to

Edale. That Louie's a limb, she is. She's got spunk enough to waak

to Lunnon if she'd a mind. Oh, they'll be back here soon enough,

trust 'em.'

I shut _my_ door at nine o'clock,' said Hannah, grimly. 'Them

as cooms after that, may sleep as they can.'

'Well, that'll be sharp wark for th' eyes if they're gone to Edale,'

said Jim, with a laugh. 'Its a good step fro here to Edale.'

'Aye, an soom o' 't bad ground,' said Reuben uneasily--'vara bad

ground.'

'Aye, it's not good walkin, neets. If they conno see their way when

they get to the top o' t' Downfall, they'll stay theer till it gets

mornin, if they've ony sort o' gumption. But, bless yo, it bean't

gooin to be a dark neet, '--and he pointed to the moon. 'They'll be

here afore yoo goo to bed. An if yo want onybody to help yo gie

Davy a bastin, just coo me, Mr. Grieve. Good neet to yo.'

Reuben fidgeted restlessly all the evening. Towards nine he went

out on the pretext of seeing to a cow that had lately calved and

was in a weakly state. He gave the animal her food and clean

litter, doing everything more clumsily than usual. Then he went

into the stable and groped about for a lantern that stood in the

corner.

He found it, slipped through the farmyard into the lane, and then

lit it out of sight of the house.

'It's bad ground top o' t' Downfall,' he said to himself,

apologetically, as he guiltily opened the gate on to the

moor--'varra bad ground.'

Hanna shut her door that night neither at nine nor at ten. For by

the latter hour the master of the house was still absent, and

nowhere to be found, in spite of repeated calls from the door and

up the lane. Hannah guessed where he had gone without much

difficulty; but her guess only raised her wrath to a white heat.

Troublesome brats Sandy's children had always been--Louie more

especially--but they had never perpetrated any such overt act of

rebellion as this before, and the dour, tyrannical woman was filled

with a kind of silent frenzy as she thought of her husband going

out to welcome the wanderers.

'It's a quare kind o' fatted calf they'll get when _I_ lay

hands on 'em,' she thought to herself as she stood at the front

door, in the cold darkness, listening.

Meanwhile David and Louie, high up on the side of Kinder Scout,

were speculating with a fearful joy as to what might be happening

at the farm. The manner of their escape had cost them much thought.

Should they slip out of the front door instead of going to bed? But

the woodwork of the farm was old and creaking, and the bolts and

bars heavy. They were generally secured before supper by Hannah

herself, and, though they might be surreptitiously oiled, the

children despaired--considering how close the kitchen was to the

front door--of getting out without rousing Hannah's sharp ears.

Other projects, in which windows and ropes played a part, were

discussed. David held strongly that he alone could have managed any

one of them, but he declined flatly to attempt them with a 'gell.'

In the same way he alone could have made his way up the Scout and

over the river in the dark. But who'd try it with a 'gell'?

The boy's natural conviction of the uselessness of 'gells' was

never more disagreeably expressed than on this occasion. But he

could not shake Louie off. She pinched him when he enraged her

beyond bounds, but she never wavered in her determination to go

too.

Finally they decided to brave Aunt Hannah and take the

consequences. They meant to be out all night in hiding, and in the

morning they would come back and take their beatings. David

comfortably reflected that Uncle Reuben couldn't do him much harm,

and, though Louie could hardly flatter herself so far, her tone,

also, in the matter was philosophical.

'Theer's soom bits o' owd books i' th' top-attic,' she said to

David; 'I'll leave 'em in t' stable, an when we coom home, I'll tie

'em on my back--under my dress--an she may leather away till

Christmas.'

So on their return from Clough End with the bread--about five

o'clock--they slipped into the field, crouching under the wall, so

as to escape Hannah's observation, deposited their basket by the

gate, took up a bundle and tin box which David had hidden that

morning under the hedge, and, creeping back again into the road,

passed noiselessly through the gate on to the moor, just as Aunt

Hannah was lifting the kettle off the fire for tea.

Then came a wild and leaping flight over the hill, down to the main

Kinder stream, across it, and up the face of the Scout--up, and up,

with smothered laughter, and tumbles and scratches at every step,

and a glee of revolt and adventure swelling every vein.

It was then a somewhat stormy afternoon, with alternate gusts of

wind and gleams of sun playing on the black boulders, the red-brown

slopes of the mountain. The air was really cold and cutting,

promising a frosty night. But the children took no notice of it.

Up, and on, through the elastic carpet of heather and bilberry, and

across bogs which showed like veins of vivid green on the dark

surface of the moor; under circling peewits, who fled before them,

crying with plaintive shrillness to each other, as though in

protest; and past grouse-nests, whence the startled mothers soared

precipitately with angry duckings, each leaving behind her a loose

gathering of eggs lying wide and open on the heather, those newly

laid gleaming a brighter red beside their fellows. The tin box and

its contents rattled under David's arm as he leapt and straddled

across the bogs, choosing always the widest jump and the stiffest

bit of climb, out of sheer wantonness of life and energy. Louie's

thin figure, in its skimp cotton dress and red crossover, her long

legs in their blue worsted stockings, seemed to fly over the moor,

winged, as it were, by an ecstasy of freedom. If one could but be

in two places at once--on the Scout--and peeping from some safe

corner at Aunt Hannah's wrath!

Presently they came to the shoulder whereon--gleaming under the

level light--lay the Mermaid's Pool. David had sufficiently

verified the fact that the tarn did indeed bear this name in the

modern guide-book parlance of the district. Young men and women,

out on a holiday from the big towns near, and carrying little red

or green 'guides,' spoke of the 'Mermaid's Pool' with the accent of

romantic interest. But the boy had also discovered that no

native-born farmer or shepherd about had ever heard of the name, or

would have a word to say to it. And for the first time he had

stumbled full into the deep deposit of witch-lore and belief still

surviving in the Kinder Scout district, as in all the remoter

moorland of the North. Especially had he won the confidence of a

certain 'owd Matt,' a shepherd from a farm high on Mardale Moor;

and the tales 'owd Matt' had told him--of mysterious hares coursed

at night by angry farmers enraged by the 'bedivilment' of their

stock, shot at with silver slugs, and identified next morning with

some dreaded hag or other lying groaning and wounded in her bed--of

calves' hearts burnt at midnight with awful ceremonies, while the

baffled witch outside flung herself in rage and agony against the

close-barred doors and windows--of spells and wise men--these

things had sent chills of pleasing horror through the boy's frame.

They were altogether new to him, in this vivid personal guise at

least, and mixed up with all the familiar names and places of the

district; for his childish life had been singularly solitary,

giving to books the part which half a century ago would have been

taken by tradition; and, moreover, the witch-belief in general had

now little foothold among the younger generation of the Scout, and

was only spoken of with reserve and discretion among the older men.

But the stories once heard had struck deep into the lad's quick and

pondering mind. Jenny Crum seemed to have been the latest of all

the great witches of Kinder Scout. The memory of her as a real and

awful personage was still fresh in the mind of many a grey-haired

farmer; the history of her death was well known; and most of the

local inhabitants, even the boys and girls, turned out, when you

came to inquire, to be familiar with the later legends of the Pool,

and, as David presently discovered, with one or more tales--for the

stories were discrepant--of 'Lias Dawson's meeting with the witch,

now fifteen years ago.

'_What_ had 'Lias seen? What would they see?' His flesh crept

deliciously.

'Wal, owd Mermaid!' shouted Louie, defiantly, as soon as she had

got her breath again. 'Are yo coomin out to-night? Yo'll ha coompany

if yo do.'

David smiled contemptuously and did not condescend to argue.

'Are yo coomin on?' he said, shouldering his box and bundle again.

'They'st be up after us if we doan't look out.'

And on they went, climbing a steep boulder-strewn slope above the

pool till they came to the 'edge' itself, a tossed and broken

battlement of stone, running along the top of the Scout. Here the

great black slabs of grit were lying fantastically piled upon each

other at every angle and in every possible combination. The path

which leads from the Hayfield side across the desolate tableland of

the Scout to the Snake Inn on the eastern side of the ridge, ran

among them, and many a wayfarer, benighted or mist-bound on the

moor, had taken refuge before now in their caverns and recesses,

waiting for the light, and dreading to find himself on the cliffs

of the Downfall.

But David pushed on past many hiding-places well known to him, till

the two reached the point where the mountain face sweeps backward

in the curve of which the Downfall makes the centre. At the outward

edge of the curve a great buttress of ragged and jutting rocks

descends perpendicularly towards the valley, like a ruined

staircase with displaced and gigantic steps.

Down this David began to make his way, and Louie jumped, and slid,

and swung after him, as lithe and sure-footed as a cat. Presently

David stopped. 'This ull do,' he said, surveying the place with a

critical eye.

They had just slid down a sloping chimney of rock, and were now

standing on a flat block, over which hung another like a penthouse

roof. On the side of the Downfall there was a projecting stone, on

which David stepped out to look about him.

Holding on to a rock above for precaution's sake, he reconnoitred

their position. To his left was the black and semicircular cliff,

down the centre of which the Downfall stream, now tamed and thinned

by the dry spring winds, was trickling. The course of the stream

was marked by a vivid orange colour, produced, apparently, in the

grit by the action of water; and about halfway down the fall a mass

of rock had recently slipped, leaving a bright scar, through which

one saw, as it were, the inner mass of the Peak, the rectangular

blocks, now thick, now thin, as of some Cyclopean masonry,

wherewith the earth-forces had built it up in days before a single

alp had yet risen on the face of Europe. Below the boy's feet a

precipice, which his projecting stone overhung, fell to the bed of

the stream. On this side at least they were abundantly protected.

On the moorside the steep broken ground of the hill came up to the

rocky line they had been descending, and offered no difficulty to

any sure-footed person. But no path ran anywhere near them, and

from the path up above they were screened by the grit 'edge'

already spoken of. Moreover, their penthouse, or half-gable, had

towards the Downfall a tolerably wide opening; but towards the moor

and the north there was but a narrow hole, which David soon saw

could be stopped by a stone. When he crept back into their

hiding-place, it pleased him extremely.

'They'll niver find us, if they look till next week!' he exclaimed

exultantly, and, slipping off the heavy bundle strapped on his

back, he undid its contents. Two old woollen rugs appeared--one a

blanket, the other a horse-rug--and wrapped up in the middle of

them a jagged piece of tarpaulin, a hammer, some wooden pegs, and

two or three pieces of tallow dip. Louie, sitting cross-legged in

the other corner, with her chin in her hands, looked on with her

usual detached and critical air. David had not allowed her much of

a voice in the preparations, and she felt an instinctive aversion

towards other people's ingenuities. All she had contributed was

something to while away the time, in the shape of a bag of

bull's-eyes, bought with some of the sixpence Uncle Reuben had

given her.

Having laid out his stores, David went to work. Getting out on the

projecting stone again, he laid the bit of tarpaulin along the

sloping edge of the rock which roofed them, pegged it down into

crevices at either end, and laid a stone to hold it in the middle.

Then he slipped back again, and, behold, there was a curtain

between them and the Downfall, which, as the dusk was fast

advancing, made the little den inside almost completely dark.

'What's t' good o' that?' inquired Louie, scornfully, more than

half inclined to put out a mischievous hand and pull it down again.

'Doan't worrit, an yo'll see,' returned David, and Louie's

curiosity got the better of her malice.

Stooping down beside her, he looked through the hole which opened

to the moor. His eye travelled down the hillside to the path far

below, just visible in the twilight to a practised eye, to the

river, to the pasture-fields on the hill beyond, and to the smoke,

rising above the tops of some unseen trees, which marked the site

of the farmhouse. No one in sight. The boy crawled out, and

searched the moor till he found a large flattish stone, which he

brought and placed against the opening, ready to be drawn quite

across it from inside.

Then he slipped back again, and in the glimmer of light which

remained groped for his tin box. Louie stooped over and eagerly

watched him open it. Out came a bottle of milk, some large slices

of bread, some oatcake, and some cheese. In the corner, recklessly

near the cheese, lurked a grease-bespattered lantern and a box of

matches. David had borrowed the lantern that afternoon from a

Clough End friend under the most solemn vows of secrecy, and he

drew it out now with a deliberate and special relish. When he had

driven a peg into a cranny of the rock, trimmed half a dip

carefully, lighted it, put it into the lantern, and hung the

lantern on the peg, he fell back on his heels to study the effect,

with a beaming countenance, filled all through with the essentially

human joy of contrivance.

'Now, then, d'yo see what that tarpaulin's for?' he inquired

triumphantly of Louie.

But Louie's mouth was conveniently occupied with a bull's-eye, and

she only sucked it the more vigorously in answer.

'Why, yo little silly, if it worn't for that we couldno ha no leet.

They'd see us from t' fields even, as soon as it's real dark.'

'Doan't bleeve it,' said Louie, laconically, in a voice much

muffled by bull's-eyes.

'Wal, yo needn't; I'm gooin to have my tea.'

And David, diving into the tin, brought out a hunch of bread and a

knob of cheese. The voracity with which he fell on them, soon, with

him also, stopped up the channels of speech. Louie, alarmed perhaps

by the rapidity with which the mouthfuls disappeared, slid up on

her heels and claimed her share. Never was there a more savoury

meal than that! Their little den with its curtain felt warm for the

moment after the keen air of the moor; the lantern light seemed to

shut them in from the world, gave them the sense of settlers

carving a home out of the desert, and milk which had been filched

from Aunt Hannah lay like nectar in the mouth.

After their meal both children crept out on to the moor to see what

might be going on in the world outside. Darkness was fast

advancing. A rising wind swept through the dead bracken, whirled

round the great grit boulders, and sent a shiver through Louie's

thin body.

'It's cowd,' she said pettishly; 'I'm gooin back.'

'Did yo spose it wor gooin to be warm, yo little silly? That's why

I browt t' rugs, of course. Gells never think o' nothin. It's

parishin cowd here, neets--fit to tie yo up in knots wi th'

rheumatics, like Jim Spedding, if yo doan't mind yorsel. It wor

only laying out a neet on Frimley Moor--poachin, I guess--'at

twisted Jim that way.'

Louie's countenance fell. Jim Spedding was a little crooked

greengrocer in Clough End, of whom she had a horror. The biting

hostile wind, which obliged her to hold her hat on against it with

both hands, the black moor at their feet, the grey sweep of sky,

the pale cloudy moon, the darkness which was fast enveloping

them--blotting out the distant waves of hill, and fusing the great

blocks of grit above them into one threatening mass--all these

became suddenly hateful to her. She went back into their den,

wrapped herself up in one of the tattered rugs, and crept sulkily

into a corner. The lantern gleamed on the child's huddled form, the

frowning brow, the great vixenish eyes. She had half a mind to run

home, in spite of Aunt Hannah. Hours to wait! and she loathed

waiting.

But gradually, as the rug warmed her, the passion for adventure and

mystery--the vision of the mermaid--the hope of the blue

cotton--reasserted themselves, and the little sharp face relaxed.

She began to amuse herself with hunting the spiders and beetles

which ran across the rocky roof above her head, or crept in and out

of the crevices of stone, wondering, no doubt, at this unbidden and

tormenting daylight. She caught one or two small blackbeetles in a

dirty rag of a handkerchief--for she would not touch them if she

could help it--and then it delighted her to push aside the curtain,

stretch her hand out into the void darkness, and let them fall into

the gulf below. Even if they could fly, she reflected, it must 'gie

'em a good start.'

Meanwhile, David had charged up the hill, filled with a sudden

curiosity to see what the top of the Scout might look like by

night. He made his way through the battlement of grit, found the

little path behind, gleaming white in the moonlight, because of the

quartz sheddings which wind and weather are forever teasing out of

the grit, and which drift into the open spaces; and at last, guided

by the sound and the gleam of water, he made out the top of the

Downfall, climbed a high peat bank, and the illimitable plateau of

the Scout lay wide and vast before him.

Here, on the mountain-top, there seemed to be more daylight left

than on its rocky sides, and the moon among the parting clouds

shone intermittently over the primeval waste. The top of the Peak

is, so to speak, a vast black glacier, whereof the crevasses are

great fissures, ebon-black in colour, sometimes ten feet deep, and

with ten feet more of black water at the bottom. For miles on

either side the ground is seamed and torn with these crevasses, now

shallower, now deeper, succeeding each other at intervals of a yard

or two, and it is they which make the crossing of the Peak in the

dark or in mist a matter of danger sometimes even for the native.

David, high on his bank, from which the black overhanging eaves

curled inwards beneath his feet to a sullen depth of water, could

see against the moonlit sky the posts which marked the track from

the Downfall to the Snake Inn on the Glossop Road. Miss that

track--a matter of some fifteen minutes' walk for the sturdy farmer

who knows it well--and you find yourself lost in a region which has

no features and no landmarks, where the earth lays snares for you

and the mists betray you, and where even in bright sunshine there

reigns an eternal and indescribable melancholy. The strangeness and

wildness of the scene entered the boy's consciousness, and brought

with them a kind of exaltation. He stood gazing; that inner life of

his, of which Louie, his constant companion, knew as good as

nothing, asserting itself.

For the real companions of his heart were not Louie or the boys

with whom he had joked and sparred at school; they were ideas,

images, sounds, imaginations, caught from books or from the talk of

old 'Lias and Mr. Ancrum. He had but to stand still a moment, as it

were, to listen, and the voices and sights of another world came

out before him like players on to a stage. Spaces of shining water,

crossed by ships with decks manned by heroes for whom the blue

distance was for ever revealing new lands to conquer, new

adventures to affront; the plumed Indian in his forest divining the

track of his enemy from a displaced leaf or twig; the Zealots of

Jehovah urging a last frenzied defence of Jehovah's Sanctuary

against the Roman host; and now, last of all, the gloom and flames,

the infernal palaces, the towering fiends, the grandiose and

lumbering war of 'Paradise Lost': these things, together with the

names and suggestions of 'Lias's talk--that whole crew of shining,

fighting, haranguing men and women whom the old dreamer was for

ever bringing into weird action on the moorside--lived in the boy's

mind, and in any pause of silence, as we have said, emerged and

took possession.

It was only that morning, in an old meal-chest which had belonged

to his grandfather, James Grieve, he had discovered the old

calf-bound copy of 'Paradise Lost,' which was now in one of his

pockets, balanced by 'Anson's Voyages' in the other. All the

morning he had been lying hidden in a corner of the sheepfold

devouring it, the rolling verse imprinting itself on the boy's

plastic memory by a sort of enchantment--

Yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild,

The seat of desolation, void of light,

Save what the glimmering of these livid flames

Casts pale and dreadful.

He chanted the words aloud, flinging them out in an ecstasy

of pleasure. Before him, as it seemed, there stretched that very

plain 'forlorn and wild,' with its black fissures and its

impenetrable horizons; the fitful moonlight stood for the

glimmering of the Tartarean flames; the remembered words and the

actual sights played into and fused with each other, till in the

cold and darkness the boy thrilled all through with that mingling

of joy and terror which is only possible to the creature of fine

gifts and high imagination.

Jenny Crum, too! A few more hours and he might see her face to

face--as 'Lias had seen her. He quaked a little at the thought, but

he would not have flinched for the world. _He_ was not going

to lose his wits, as 'Lias did; and as for Louie, if she were

frightened it would do her good to be afraid of something.

Hark! He turned, stooped, put his hand to his ear.

The sound he heard had startled him, turned him pale. But he soon

recovered himself. It was the sound of heavy boots on stones, and

it was brought to him by the wind, as it seemed, from far below.

Some one was coming after them--perhaps more than one. He thought

he heard a voice.

He leapt fissure after fissure like a young roe, fled to the top of

the Downfall and looked over. Did the light show through the

tarpaulin? Alack!--there must be a rent somewhere--for he saw a dim

glow-worm light beyond the cliff, on the dark rib of the mountain.

It was invisible from below, but any roving eye from the top would

be caught by it in an instant. In a second he had raced along the

edge, dived in and out of the blocks, guiding his way by a sort of

bat's instinct, till he reached the rocky stairway, which he

descended at imminent risk of his neck.

'Put your hand ower t'leet, Louie, till I move t'stone!'

The light disappeared, David crept in, and the two children

crouched together in a glow of excitement.

'Is't Uncle Reuben?' whispered Louie, pressing her face against the

side of the rocks, and trying to look through the chink between it

and the covering stone.

'Aye--wi a lantern. But there's talkin--theer's someone else. Jim

Wigson, mebbe.'

'If it's Jim Wigson,' said Louie, between her small, shut teeth,

'I'll bite him!'

'Cos yo're a gell! Gells and cats bite--they can't do nowt else!'

Whereupon Louie pinched him, and David, giving an involuntary kick

as he felt the nip, went into first a fit of smothered laughter,

and then seized her arm in a tight grip.

'Keep quiet, conno yo? Now they're coomin, an I bleeve they're

coomin this way!'

But after another minute's waiting, he was quite unable to obey his

own injunction and he crept out on the stone overlooking the

precipice to look.

'Coom back! They'll see yo.' cried Louie, in a shrill whisper; and

she caught him by the ankle.

David gave a kick. 'Let goo; if yo do 'at I shall fall an be kilt!'

She held her breath. Presently, with an exclamation, he knelt down

and looked over the edge of the great sloping block which served

them for roof.

'Wal, I niver! Theer's nobory but Uncle Reuben, an he's talkin to

hissel. Wal, this is a rum skit!'

And he stayed outside watching, in spite of Louie's angry commands

to him to come back into the den. David had no fears of being

discovered by Uncle Reuben. If it had been Jim Wigson it would have

been different.

Presently, on the path some sixty feet above them, but hidden from

them by the mass of tumbled rocks through which they had descended,

they heard someone puffing and blowing, a stick striking and

slipping on the stones, and weird rays of light stole down the

mountain-side, and in and out of the vast blocks with which it was

overstrewn.

'He's stopt up theer,' said David, creeping in under the gable, 'an

I mun hear what he's sayin. I'm gooin up nearer. If yo coom we'll

be caught.'

'Yo stoopid!' cried Louie. But he had crawled up the narrow chimney

they had come down by in a moment, and she was left alone. Her

spirit failed her a little. She daren't climb after him in the

dark.

David clambered in and out, the fierce wind that beat the side of

the mountain masking whatever sounds he may have made, till he

found himself directly under the place where Reuben Grieve sat,

slowly recovering his breath.

_'O Lord! O Lord!_ They're aw reet, Sandy--they're aw reet!'

The boy crouched down sharply under an overhanging stone, arrested

by the name--Sandy--his father's name.

Once or twice since he came to Kinder he had heard it on Uncle

Reuben's lips, once or twice from neighbours who had known James

Grieve's sons in their youth. But Sandy had left the farm early and

was little remembered, and the true story of Sandy's life was

unknown in the valley, though there were many rumours. What the

close and timid Reuben heard from Mr. Gurney, the head of Sandy's

firm, after Sandy's death, he told to no one but Hannah. The

children knew generally, from what Hannah often let fall when she

was in a temper, that their mother was a disgrace to them, but they

knew no more, and, with the natural instinct of forlorn creatures

on the defensive, studiously avoided the subject within the walls

of Needham Farm. They might question old 'Lias; they would suffer

many things rather than question their uncle and aunt.

But David especially had had many secret thoughts he could not put

away, of late, about his parents. And to hear his father's name

dropped like this into the night moved the lad strangely. He lay

close, listening with all his ears, expecting passionately, he knew

not what.

But nothing came--or the wind carried it away. When he was rested,

Reuben got up and began to move about with the lantern, apparently

throwing its light from side to side.

'David! Louie!'

The hoarse, weak voice, strained to its utmost pitch, died away on

the night wind, and a weird echo came back from the cliffs of the

Downfall.

There was no menace in the cry--rather a piteous entreaty. The

truant below had a strange momentary impulse to answer--to disclose

himself. But it was soon past, and instead, he crept well out of

reach of the rays which flashed over the precipitous ground about

him. As he did so he noticed the Mermaid's Pool, gleaming in a pale

ray of moonlight, some two hundred feet below. A sudden alarm

seized him, lest Reuben should be caught by it, put two and two

together and understand.

But Reuben was absorbed in a discomfort, half moral, half

superstitious, and nothing else reached the slow brain--which was

besides preoccupied by Jim Wigson's suggestion. After a bit he

picked up his stick and went on again. David, eagerly watching,

tracked him along the path which follows the ridge, and saw the

light pause once more close to the Downfall.

So far as the boy could see, his uncle made a long stay at a point

beyond the stream, the bed of which was just discernible, as a sort

of paler streak on the darkness.

'Why, that's about whar th' Edale path cooms in,' thought David,

wondering. 'What ud he think we'd be doin theer?'

Faint sounds came to him in a lull of the wind, as though Reuben

were shouting again--shouting many times. Then the light went

wavering on, defining in its course the curved ridge of the further

moor, till at last it made a long circuit downwards, disappearing

for a minute somewhere in the dark bosom of Kinder Low, about

midway between earth and sky. David guessed that Uncle Reuben must

be searching the smithy. Then it descended rapidly, till finally it

vanished behind the hill far below, which was just distinguishable

in the cloudy moonshine. Uncle Reuben had gone home.

David drew a long breath. But that patient quest in the dark--the

tone of the farmer's call--that mysterious word _Sandy_, had

touched the boy, made him restless. His mood grew a little flat,

even a little remorseful. The joy of their great adventure ebbed a

little.

However, he climbed down again to Louie, and found a dark elfish

figure standing outside their den, and dancing with excitement.

'Wouldn't yo like to ketch us--wouldn't yo?--wouldn't yo?'

screeched the child, beside herself. She too had been watching, had

seen the light vanish.

'Yo'll have t' parish up after yo if yo doan't howd your tongue,'

said David roughly.

And creeping into their den he relit the lantern. Then he pulled

out a watch, borrowed from the same friend who had provided the

lantern. Past nine. Two hours and more before they need think of

starting downwards for the Pool.

Louie condescended to come in again, and the stone was drawn close.

But how fierce the wind had grown, and how nipping was the air!

David shivered, and looked about for the rugs. He wrapt Louie in

the horse-rug, which was heaviest, and tucked the blanket round

himself.

'Howd that tight round yo,' he commanded, struck with an uneasy

sense of responsibility, as he happened to notice how starved she

looked, 'an goo to sleep if yo want to. I'll wake yo--I'm gooin to

read.'

Louie rolled the rug round her chrysalis-like, and then, disdaining

the rest of David's advice, sat bolt upright against the rock, her

wide-open eyes staring defiantly at all within their ken.

The minutes went by. David sat close up against the lantern,

bitterly cold, but reading voraciously. At last, however, a sharper

gust than usual made him look up and turn restive. Louie still sat

in the opposite corner as stiffly as before, but over the great

staring eyes the lids had just fallen, sorely against their owner's

will; the head was dropping against the rock; the child was fast

asleep. It occurred to David she looked odd; the face seemed so

grey and white. He instinctively took his own blanket and put it

over her. The silence and helplessness of her sleep seemed to

appeal to him, to change his mood towards her, for the action was

brotherly and tender. Then he pushed the stone aside and crept out

on to the moor.

There he stood for a while, with his hands in his pockets, marking

time to warm himself. How the wind bit to be sure!--and it would be

colder still by dawn.

The pool showed dimly beneath him, and the gruesome hour was

stealing on them fast. His heart beat quick. The weirdness and

loneliness of the night came home to him more than they had done

yet. The old woman dragged to her death, the hooting crowd, the

inexorable parson, the struggle in the water, the last gurgling

cry--the vision rose before him on the dark with an ever ghastlier

plainness than a while ago on the mountain-top. _How_ had 'Lias

seen her that the sight had changed him so? Did she come to him

with her drowned face and floating grey hair--grip him with her

cold hands? David, beginning to thrill in good earnest, obstinately

filled in the picture with all the horrible detail he could think

of, so as to harden himself. Only now he wished with all his heart

that Louie were safe at home.

An idea occurred to him. He smiled at it, turned it over, gradually

resolved upon it. She would lead him a life afterward, but what

matter?--let her!

From the far depths of the unseen valley a sound struck upwards,

piercing through the noises of river and wind. It was the clock of

Clough End church, tolling eleven.

Well, one could not stand perishing there another hour. He stooped

down and crawled in beside Louie. She was sleeping heavily, the

added warmth of David's blanket conducing thereto. He hung over

her, watching her breathing with a merry look, which gradually

became a broad grin. It was a real shame--she would be just mad

when she woke up. But mermaids were all stuff, and Jenny Crum would

'skeer' her to death. Just in proportion as the adventure became

more awesome and more real did the boy's better self awake. He grew

soft for his sister, while, as he proudly imagined, iron for

himself.

He crept in under the blanket carefully so as not to disturb her.

He was too tired and excited to read. He would think the hour out.

So he lay staring at the opposite wall of rock, at its crevices,

and creeping ants, at the odd lights and shadows thrown by the

lantern, straining his eyes every now and then, that he might be

the more sure how wide awake they were.

Louie stretched herself. What was the matter? Where was she? What

was that smell? She leant forward on her elbow. The lantern was

just going out, and smelt intolerably. A cold grey light was in the

little den. What? Where?

A loud wail broke the morning silence, and David, sleeping

profoundly, his open mouth just showing above the horse-rug, was

roused by a shower of blows from Louie's fists. He stirred

uneasily, tried to escape them by plunging deeper into the folds,

but they pursued him vindictively.

'Give ower!' he said at last, striking back at random, and then

sitting up he rubbed his eyes. There was Louie sitting opposite to

him, crying great tears of rage and pain, now rocking her ankle as

if it hurt her, and now dealing cuffs at him.

He hastily pulled out his watch. Half-past four o'clock!

'Yo great gonner, yo!' sobbed Louie, her eyes blazing at him

through her tears. 'Yo good-for-nowt, yo muffin-yed, yo donkey!' And

so on through all the words of reviling known to the Derbyshire

child. David looked extremely sheepish under them.

Then suddenly he put his head down on his knees and shook with

laughter. The absurdity of it all--of their preparations, of his

own terrors, of the disturbance they had made, all to end in this

flat and futile over-sleeping, seized upon him so that he could not

control himself. He laughed till he cried, while Louie hit and

abused him and cried too. But her crying had a different note, and

at last he looked up at her, sobered.

'Howd your tongue!--an doan't keep bully-raggin like 'at! What's t'

matter wi yo?'

For answer, she rolled over on the rock and lay on her face,

howling with pain. David sprang up and bent over her.

'What _iver's_ t' matter wi yo, Louie?'

But she kept him off like a wild cat, and he could make nothing of

her till her passion had spent itself and she was quiet again, from

sheer exhaustion.

Then David, who had been standing near, shivering, with his hands

in his pockets, tried again.

'Now, Louie, do coom home,' he said appealingly. 'I can find yo a

place in t' stable ull be warmer nor this. You be parished if yo

stay here.' For, ignorant as he was, her looks began to frighten

him.

Louie would have liked never to speak to him again. The thought of

the blue cotton and of her own lost chance seemed to be burning a

hole in her. But the stress of his miserable look drew her eyes

open whether she would or no, and when she saw him her self-pity

overcame her.

'I conno walk,' she said, with a sudden loud sob. 'It's my leg.'

'What's wrong wi't?' said David, inspecting it anxiously. 'It's got

th' cowd in't, that's what it is; it's th' rheumatics, I speck. Yak

howd on me, I'll help yo down.'

And with much coaxing on his part and many cries and outbursts on

hers he got her up at last, and out of the den. He had tied his tin

box across his back, and Louie, with the rugs wrapped about her,

clung, limping, and with teeth chattering, on to his arm. The child

was in the first throes of a sharp attack of rheumatism, and half

her joints were painful.

That was a humiliating descent! A cold grey morning was breaking

over the moor; the chimneys of the distant cotton-towns rose out of

mists, under a sky streaked with windy cloud. The Mermaid's Pool,

as they passed it, looked chill and mocking; and the world

altogether felt so raw and lonely that David welcomed the first

sheep they came across with a leap of the heart, and positively

hungered for a first sight of the farm. How he got Louie--in whose

cheeks the fever-spots were rising--over the river he never quite

remembered. But at last he had dragged her up the hill, through the

fields close to the house, where the lambs were huddling in the

nipping dawn beside their mothers, and into the farmyard.

The house rose before them grey and frowning. The lower windows

were shuttered; in the upper ones the blinds were pulled closely

down; not a sign of life anywhere. Yes; the dogs had heard them!

Such a barking as began! Jock, in his kennel by the front door,

nearly burst his chain in his joyful efforts to get at them; while

Tib, jumping the half-door of the out-house in the back yard, where

he had been curled up in a heap of bracken, leapt about them and

barked like mad.

Louie sank down crying and deathly pale on a stone by the stable

door.

'They'll hear that fast enoof,' said David, looking anxiously up at

the shut windows.

But the dogs went on barking, and nothing happened. Ten minutes of

chilly waiting passed away.

'Tak him away, _do!_' she cried, as Tib jumped up at her. 'No,

I woan't!--I woan't!'

The last words rose to a shriek, as David tried to persuade her to

go into the stable, and let him make her a bed in the straw. He

stood looking at her in despair. They had always supposed they

would be locked out; but surely the sleepers inside must hear the

dogs. He turned and stared at the house, hungering for some sign of

life in it. Uncle Reuben would hear them--Uncle Reuben would let

them in!

But the blinds of the top room never budged. Louie, with her head

against the stable-door, and her eyes shut, went on convulsively

sobbing, while Tibby sniffed about her for sympathy. And the bitter

wind coming from the Scout whistled through the yard and seemed to

cut the shivering child like a knife.

'I'll mak a clunter agen th' window wi some gravel,' said David at

last, in desperation. And he picked up a handful and threw it,

first cautiously, then recklessly. Yes!--at last a hand moved the

blind--a hand the children knew well, and a face appeared to one

side of it. Hannah Grieve had never looked so forbidding as at that

moment. The boy caught one glance of a countenance pale with wrath

and sleeplessness; of eyes that seemed to blaze at them through the

window; then the blind fell. He waited breathlessly for minute

after minute. Not a sound.

Furiously he stooped for more gravel, and flung it again and again.

For an age, as it seemed to him, no more notice was taken. At last,

there was an agitation in the blind, as though more than one person

was behind it. It was Hannah who lifted it again; but David thought

he caught a motion of her arm as though she were holding some one

else back. The lad pointed excitedly to Louie.

'She's took bad!' he shouted. 'Uncle Reuben!--Uncle Reuben!--coom

down an see for yorsel. If yo let her in, yo can keep me out as

long as yo like!'

Hannah looked at him, and at the figure huddled against the

stable-door--looked deliberately, and then, as deliberately, pulled

the blind down lower than before, and not a sign of Reuben

anywhere.

A crimson flame sprang to David's cheek. He rushed at the door, and

while with one hand he banged away at the old knocker, he thumped

with the other, kicking lustily the while at the panels, till

Louie, almost forgetting her pains in the fierce excitement of the

moment, thought he would kick them in. In the intervals of his

blows, David could hear voices inside in angry debate.

'Uncle Reuben!' he shouted, stopping the noise for a moment, 'Uncle

Reuben, Louie's turned sick! She's clemmed wi t' cold. If yo doan't

open th' door, I'll go across to Wigson's, and tell 'em as Louie's

parishin, an yo're bein th' death on her.'

The bolt shot back, and there stood Reuben, his red hair sticking

up wildly from his head, his frame shaking with unusual excitement.

'What are yo makin that roompus for, Davy?' began Reuben, with

would-be severity. 'Ha done wi yo, or I'll have to tak a stick to

yo.'

But the boy stood akimbo on the steps, and the old farmer shrank

before him, as David's black eye travelled past him to a gaunt

figure on the stairs.

'Yo'll tak noa stick to me, Uncle Reuben. I'll not put up wi it,

and yo know it. I'm goin to bring Louie in. We've bin on t' moor by

t' Pool lookin for th' owd witch, an we both on us fell asleep, an

Louie's took the rheumatics.--Soa theer.--Stan out o' t' way.'

And running back to Louie, who cried out as he lifted her up, he

half carried, half dragged her in.

'Why, she's like death,' cried Reuben. 'Hannah! summat hot--at

woonst.'

But Hannah did not move. She stood at the foot of the stairs,

barring the way, the chill morning light falling on her threatening

attitude, her grey dishevelled hair and all the squalid disarray of

her dress.

'Them as doos like beggar's brats,' she said grimly, 'may fare like

'em. _I_'ll do nowt for 'em.'

The lad came up to her, his look all daring and resolution--his

sister on his arm. But as he met the woman's expression, his lips

trembled, he suddenly broke down.

'Now, look here,' he cried, with a sob in his throat. 'I know we're

beggar's brats. I know yo hate th' seet on us. But I wor t' worst.

I'm t' biggest. Tak Louie in, and bully-rag me as mich as yo like.

Louie--_Louie_!' and he hung over her in a frenzy, 'wake up,

Louie!'

But the child was insensible. Fatigue, the excitement of the

struggle, the anguish of movement had done their work--she lay like

a log upon his arm.

'She's fainted,' said Hannah, recognising the fact with a sort of

fierce reluctance. 'Tak her up, an doan't stan blatherin theer.'

And she moved out of the way.

The boy gathered up the thin figure, and, stumbling over the

tattered rugs, carried her up by a superhuman effort.

Reuben leant against the passage wall, staring at his wife.

'Yo're a hard woman, Hannah--a hard woman,' he said to her under

his breath, in a low, shaken voice. 'An yo coed 'em beggar's

brats--oh Lord--Lord!'

'Howd your tongue, an blow up t' fire,' was all the reply she

vouchsafed him, and Reuben obeyed.

Meanwhile upstairs Louie had been laid on her bed. Consciousness

had come back, and she was moaning.

David stood beside her in utter despair. He thought she was going

to die, and he had done it. At last he sank down beside her, and

flinging an arm round her, he laid his hot cheek to her icy one.

'Louie, doan't--doan't--I'll tak yo away from here, Louie, when I

can. I'll tak care on yo, Louie. Doan't, Louie,--doan't!'

His whole being seemed rent asunder by sympathy and remorse. Uncle

Reuben, coming up with some hot gruel, found him sitting on the bed

beside his sister, on whom he had heaped all the clothing he could

find, the tears running down his cheeks.

CHAPTER VI

From that night forward, David looked upon the farm and all his

life there with other eyes.

Up till now, in spite of the perennial pressure of Hannah's

tyrannies, which, however, weighed much less upon him than upon

Louie, he had been--as he had let Reuben see--happy enough. The

open-air life, the animals, his books, out of all of them he

managed to extract a very fair daily sum of enjoyment. And he had

been content enough with his daily tasks--herding the sheep, doing

the rough work of the stable and cow-house, running Aunt Hannah's

errands with the donkey-cart to Clough End, helping in the

haymaking and the sheep-shearing, or the driving of stock to and

from the various markets Reuben frequented. All these things he had

done with a curious placidity, a detachment and yet readiness of

mind, as one who lends himself, without reluctance, to a life not

his own. It was this temper mainly, helped, no doubt, by his

unusual tastes and his share of foreign blood and looks, which had

set him apart from the other lads of his own class in the

neighbourhood. He had few friends of his own age, yet he was not

unpopular, except, perhaps, with an overbearing animal like Jim

Wigson, who instinctively looked upon other people's brains as an

offence to his own muscular pretensions.

But his Easter Eve struggle with Hannah closed, as it were, a

childhood, which, though hard and loveless, had been full of

compensations and ignorant of its own worst wants. It woke in him

the bitterness of the orphan dependant, who feels himself a burden

and loathes his dependence. That utter lack of the commonest

natural affection, in which he and Louie had been brought up--for

Reuben's timorous advances had done but little to redress the

balance--had not troubled him much, till suddenly it was writ so

monstrous large in Hannah's refusal to take pity on the fainting

and agonised Louie. Thenceforward every morsel of food he took at

her hands seemed to go against him. They were paupers, and Aunt

Hannah hated them. The fact had been always there, but it had never

meant anything substantial to him till now. Now, at last, that

complete dearth of love, in which he had lived since his father

died, began to react in revolt and discontent.

The crisis may have been long preparing, those words of his uncle

as to his future, as well as the incident of their locking out, may

have had something to say to it. Anyway, a new reflective temper

set in. The young immature creature became self-conscious, began to

feel the ferments of growth. The ambition and the restlessness his

father had foreseen, with dying eyes, began to stir.

Reuben's qualms returned upon him. On the 15th of May, he and David

went to Woodhead, some sixteen or seventeen miles off, to receive

the young stock from the Yorkshire breeders, which were to be

grazed on the farm during the summer. In general, David had taken

the liveliest interest in the animals, in the number and quality of

them, in the tariff to be paid for them, and the long road there

and back had been cheered for the farmer by the lad's chatter, and

by the athletic antics he was always playing with any handy gate or

tree which crossed their path.

'Them heifers ull want a deal o' grass puttin into 'em afoor

they'll be wuth onybody's buyin, Davy,' said Reuben, inspecting his

mixed herd with a critical eye from a roadside bank, as they

climbed the first hill on their return journey.

'Aye, they're a poor lot,' returned David, shortly, and walked on

as far in front of his uncle as might be, with his head in the air

and his moody look fixed on the distance.

'T' Wigsons ull be late gettin whoam,' began Reuben again, with an

uneasy look at the boy. 'Owd Wigson wor that full up wi yell when I

last seed him they'll ha a job to get him started straight this

neet.'

To this remark David had nothing at all to say, though in general

he had a keen neighbourly relish for the misdeeds of the Wigsons.

Reuben did not know what to make of him. However, a mile further on

he made another attempt:

'Lord, how those Yorkshire breeders did talk! Yo'd ha thowt they'd

throw their jaws off the hinges. An a lot o' gimcrack notions as

iver wor--wi their new foods, an their pills an strengthening

mixtures--messin wi cows as though they wor humans. Why conno they

leave God Awmighty alone? He can bring a calvin cow through beawt

ony o' their meddlin, I'll uphowd yo!'

But still not a word from the lad in front. Reuben might as well

have talked to the wall beside him. He had grown used to the boy's

companionship, and the obstinate silence which David still

preserved from hour to hour as they drove their stock homewards

made a sensible impression on him.

Inside the house there was a constant, though in general a silent,

struggle going on between the boy and Hannah on the subject of

Louie. Louie, after the escapade of Easter Eve, was visited with a

sharp attack of inflammatory rheumatism, only just stopping

short of rheumatic fever. Hannah got a doctor, and tended her

sufficiently while the worst lasted, partly because she was, after

all, no monster, but only a commonly sordid and hard-natured woman,

and partly because for a day or two Louie's state set her

pondering, perforce, what might be the effect on Mr. Gurney's

remittances if the child incontinently died. This thought

undoubtedly quickened whatever natural instincts might be left in

Hannah Grieve; and the child had her doctor, and the doctor's

orders were more or less followed.

But when she came downstairs again--a lanky, ghostly creature, much

grown, her fierce black eyes more noticeable than ever in her

pinched face--Hannah's appetite for 'snipin'--to use the expressive

Derbyshire word--returned upon her. The child was almost bullied

into her bed again--or would have been if David had not found ways

of preventing it. He realised for the first time that, as the young

and active male of the household, he was extremely necessary to

Hannah's convenience, and now whenever Hannah ill-treated Louie her

convenience suffered. David disappeared. Her errands were undone,

the wood uncut, and coals and water had to be carried as they best

could. As to reprisals, with a strong boy of fourteen, grown very

nearly to a man's height, Hannah found herself a good deal at a

loss. 'Bully-raggin' he took no more account of than of a shower of

rain; blows she instinctively felt it would have been dangerous to

attempt; and as to deprivation of food, the lad seemed to thrive on

hunger, and never whistled so loudly as when, according to Hannah's

calculations, he must have been as 'keen-bitten as a hawk.' For the

first time in her life Hannah was to some extent tamed. When there

was business about she generally felt it expedient to let Louie

alone.

But this sturdy protection was more really a matter of roused pride

and irritation on David's part than of brotherly love. It was the

tragedy of Louie Grieve's fate--whether as child or woman--that she

was not made to be loved. Whether _she_ could love, her story

will show; but to love her when you were close to her was always

hard. How different the days would have been for the moody lad, who

had at last learnt to champion her, if their common isolation and

dependence had but brought out in her towards him anything

clinging--anything confidential, any true spirit of comradeship! On

the contrary, while she was still ill in bed, and almost absolutely

dependent on what he might choose to do for her, she gibed and

flouted him past bearing, mainly, no doubt, for the sake of

breaking the tedium of her confinement a little. And when she was

about again, and he was defending her weakness from Aunt Hannah, it

seemed to him that she viewed his proceedings rather with a

malicious than a grateful eye. It amused and excited her to see him

stand up to Hannah, but he got little reward from her for his

pains.

She was, as it were, always watching him with a sort of secret

discontent. He did not suit her--was not congenial to her.

Especially was she exasperated now more than ever by his bookish

tastes. Possibly she was doubly jealous of his books; at any rate,

unless he had been constantly on his guard, she would have hidden

them, or done them a mischief whenever she could, in her teasing,

magpie way.

One morning, in the grey summer dawn, Louie had just wakened, and

was staring sleepily at the door, when, all of a sudden, it

opened--very quietly, as though pushed by some one anxious not to

make a noise--and Reuben's head looked round it. Louie, amazed,

woke up in earnest, and Reuben came stealthily in. He had his hat

and stick under his arm, and one hand held his boots, while he

stepped noiselessly in his stocking feet across the room to where

Louie lay--'Louie, are yo awake?'

The child stared up at him, seeing mostly his stubble of red hair,

which came like a grotesque halo between her and the wall. Then she

nodded.

'Doan't let yor aunt hear nothin, Louie. She thinks I'm gone out to

th' calves. But, Louie, that merchant I towd yo on came yesterday,

an he wor a hard un, he wor--as tough as nails, a sight worse nor

owd Croker to deal wi, ony day in th' week. I could mak nowt on

him--an he gan me sich a poor price. I darn't tak a penny on 't

from your aunt--noa, I darn't, Louie,--not if it wor iver so.

She'll be reet down mad when she knaws--an I'm real sorry about

that bit dress o' yourn, Louie.'

He stood looking down at her, his spectacles falling forward on his

nose, the corners of his mouth drooping--a big ungainly culprit.

For a second or two the child was quite still, nothing but the

black eyes and tossed masses of hair showing above the sheet. Then

the eyes blinked suddenly, and flinging out her hand at him with a

passionate gesture, as though to push him away, she turned on her

face and drew the bedclothes over her head.

'Louie!' he said--'Louie!'

But she made no sign, and, at last, with a grotesquely concerned

face, he went out of the room and downstairs, hanging his head.

Out of doors, he found David already at work in the cowhouse, but

as surly and uncommunicative as before when he was spoken to. That

the lad had turned 'agen his wark,' and was on his way to hate the

farm and all it contained, was plain even to Reuben. Why was he so

glum and silent--why didn't he speak up? Perhaps he would, Reuben's

conscience replied, if it were conveyed to him that he possessed a

substantial portion of six hundred pounds!

The boy knew that his uncle watched him--anxiously, as one watches

something explosive and incalculable--and felt a sort of contempt

for himself that nothing practical came of his own revolt and

discontent. But he was torn with indecision. How to leave

Louie--what to do with himself without a farthing in the

world--whom to go to for advice? He thought often of Mr. Ancrum,

but a fierce distaste for chapels and ministers had been growing on

him, and he had gradually seen less and less of the man who had

been the kind comrade and teacher of his early childhood. His only

real companions during this year of moody adolescence were his

books. From the forgotten deposit in the old meal-ark upstairs,

which had yielded 'Paradise Lost,' he drew other treasures by

degrees. He found there, in all, some tattered leaves--three or

four books altogether--of Pope's 'Iliad,' about half of Foxe's

'Martyrs'--the rest having been used apparently by the casual

nurses, who came to tend Reuben's poor mother in her last days,

to light the fire--a complete copy of Locke 'On the Human

Understanding,' and various volumes of old Calvinist sermons, which

he read, partly because his reading appetite was insatiable, partly

from a half-contemptuous desire to find out what it might be that

Uncle Reuben was always troubling his head about.

As to 'Lias Dawson, David saw nothing of him for many long weeks

after the scene which had led to the adventure of the Pool. He

heard only that 'Lias was 'bad,' and mostly in his bed, and feeling

a little guilty, he hardly knew why, the lad kept away from his old

friend.

Summer and the early autumn passed away. October brought a spell of

wintry weather; and one day, as he was bringing the sheep home, he

met old Margaret, 'Lias's wife. She stopped and accosted him.

'Why doan't yo coom and see 'Lias sometimes, Davy, my lad? Yo might

leeten him up a bit, an' he wants it, t' Lord knows. He's been

fearfu' bad in his sperrits this summer.'

The lad stammered out some sheepish excuses, and soon made his way

over to Frimley Moor. But the visits were not so much pleasure as

usual. 'Lias was very feeble, and David had a constant temptation to

struggle with. He understood that to excite 'Lias, to throw him

again into the frenzy which had begotten the vision of the Pool,

would be a cruel act. But all the same he found it more and more

difficult to restrain himself, to keep back the questions which

burnt on his tongue.

As for 'Lias, his half-shut eye would brighten whenever David

showed himself at the door, and he would point to a wooden stool on

the other side of the fire.

'Sit tha down, lad. Margret, gie him soom tay,' or 'Margret, yo'll

just find him a bit oatcake.'

And then the two would fall upon their books together, and the

conversation would glide imperceptibly into one of those scenes of

half-dramatic impersonation, for which David's relish was still

unimpaired.

But the old man was growing much weaker; his inventions had less

felicity, less range than of old; and the watchful Margaret, at her

loom in the corner, kept an eye on any signs of an undue

excitement, and turned out David or any other visitor, neck and

crop, without scruple, as soon as it seemed to her that her

crippled seer was doing himself a mischief. Poor soul! she had

lived in this tumult of 'Lias's fancies year after year, till the

solid world often turned about her. And she, all the while, so

simple, so sane--the ordinary good woman, with the ordinary woman's

hunger for the common blessings of life--a little love, a little

chat, a little prosaic well-being! She had had two sons--they were

gone. She had been the proud wife 'o' t' cliverest mon atwixt

Sheffield an Manchester,' as Frimley and the adjacent villages had

once expressed it, when every mother that respected herself sent

her children to 'Lias Dawson's school. And the mysterious chances

of a summer night had sent home upon her hands a poor incapable,

ruined in mind and body, who was to live henceforward upon her

charity, wandering amid the chaotic wreck and debris of his former

self.

Well, she took up her burden!

The straggling village on Frimley Moor was mainly inhabited by a

colony of silk hand-loom weavers--the descendants of French

prisoners in the great war, and employed for the most part by a

firm at Leck. Very dainty work was done at Frimley, and very

beautiful stuffs made. The craft went from father to son. All

Margaret's belongings had been weavers; but 'Lias, in the pride of

his schoolmaster's position, would never allow his wife to use the

trade of her youth. When he became dependent on her, Margaret

bought a disused loom from a cousin, had it mended and repaired,

and set to work. Her fingers had not forgotten their old cunning;

and when she was paid for her first 'cut,' she hurried home to

'Lias with a reviving joy in her crushed heart. Thenceforward, she

lived at her loom; she became a skilled and favoured worker, and

the work grew dear to her--first, because 'Lias lived on it, and,

next, because the bright roses and ribbon-patterns she wove into

her costly stuffs were a perpetual cheer to her. The moors might

frown outside, the snow might drift against the cottage walls:

Margaret had always something gay under her fingers, and threw her

shuttle with the more zest the darker and colder grew the

Derbyshire world without.

Naturally the result of this long concentration of effort had been

to make the poor soul, for whom each day was lived and fought, the

apple of Margaret's eye. So long as that bent, white form sat

beside her fire, Margaret was happy. Her heart sank with every

fresh sign of age and weakness, revived with every brighter hour.

He still lorded it over her often, as he had done in the days of

their prosperity, and whenever this old mood came back upon him,

Margaret could have cried for pleasure.

The natural correlative of such devotion was a drying up of

interest in all the world beside. Margaret had the selfishness of

the angelic woman--everything was judged as it affected her idol.

So at first she took no individual interest in David--he cheered up

'Lias--she had no other thought about him.

On a certain November day David was sitting opposite to 'Lias. The

fire burnt between them, and on the fire was a griddle, whereon

Margaret had just deposited some oatcakes for tea. The old man was

sitting drooped in his chair, his chin on his breast, his black

eyes staring beyond David at the wall. David was seized with

curiosity--what was he thinking about?--what did he see? There was

a mystery, a weirdness about the figure, about that hungry gaze,

which tormented him. His temptation returned upon him irresistibly.

'Lias,' he said, bending forward, his dark cheek flushing with

excitement, 'Louie and I went up, Easter Eve, to t' Pool, but we

went to sleep an saw nowt. What was't yo saw, 'Lias? Did yo see her

for sure?'

The old man raised his head frowning, and looked at the boy. But

the frown was merely nervous, he had heard nothing. On the other

hand, Margaret, whom David had supposed to be in the back kitchen,

but who was in reality a few steps behind him, mending something

which had gone wrong in her loom, ran forward suddenly to the fire,

and bending over her griddle somehow promptly threw down the tongs,

making a clatter and commotion, in the midst of which the cakes

caught, and old 'Lias moved from the fender, saying fretfully,

'Yo're that orkard wi things, Margret, yo're like a dog dancin.'

But in the bustle Margaret had managed to say to David, 'Howd your

tongue, noddle-yed, will yo?'

And so unexpected was the lightning from her usually mild blue eyes

that David sat dumbfounded, and presently sulkily got up to go.

Margaret followed him out and down the bit of garden.

And at the gate, when they were well out of hearing of 'Lias, she

fell on the boy with a torrent of words, gripping him the while

with her long thin hand, so that only violence could have released

him. Her eyes flamed at him under the brown woollen shawl she wore

pinned under her chin; the little emaciated creature became a fury.

What did he come there for, 'moiderin 'Lias wi his divilments'? If

he ever said a word of such things again, she'd lock the door on

him, and he might go to Jenny Crum for his tea. Not a bite or a sup

should he ever have in her house again.

'I meant no harm,' said the boy doggedly. 'It wor he towd me about

t' witch--it wor he as put it into our yeds--Louie an me.'

Margaret exclaimed. So it was he that got 'Lias talking about the

Pool in the spring! Some one had been 'cankin wi him about things

they didn't owt'--that she knew--'and she might ha thowt it wor'

Davy. For that one day's 'worritin ov him' she had had him on her

hands for weeks--off his sleep, and off his feed, and like a

blighted thing. 'Aye, it's aw play to yo,' she said, trembling all

through in her passion, as she held the boy--'it's aw play to yo

and your minx of a sister. An if it means deein to the old man

hissel, _yo_ don't care! "Margaret," says the doctor to me

last week, "if you can keep his mind quiet he may hang on a bit.

But you munna let him excite hissel about owt--he mun tak things

varra easy. He's like a wilted leaf--nobbut t'least thing will

bring it down. He's worn varra thin like, heart an lungs, and aw t'

rest of him." An d' yo think I'st sit still an see yo _murder_

him--the poor lamb--afore my eyes--me as ha got nowt else but him

i' t' wide warld? No--yo yoong varlet--goo an ast soom one else

about Jenny Crum if yo 're just set on meddlin wi divil's wark--but

yo'll no trouble my 'Lias.'

She took her hands off him, and the boy was going away in a

half-sullen silence, when she caught him again.

'Who towd yo about 'Lias an t' Pool, nobbut 'Lias hissel?'

'Uncle Reuben towd me summat.'

'Aye, Reuben Grieve--he put him in t' carrier's cart, an behaved

moor like a Christian nor his wife--I allus mind that o' Reuben

Grieve, when foak coe him a foo. Wal, I'st tell yo, Davy, an if

iver yo want to say a word about Jenny Crum in our house

afterwards, yo mun ha a gritstone whar your heart owt to be--that's

aw.'

And she leant over the wall of the little garden, twisting her

apron in her old, tremulous hands, and choking down the tears which

had begun to rise. Then, looking straight before her, and in a low,

plaintive voice, which seemed to float on hidden depths of grief,

she told her story.

It appeared that 'Lias had been 'queer' a good while before the

adventure of the Pool. But, according to his wife, 'he wor that

cliver on his good days, foak could mak shift wi him on his bad

days;' the school still prospered, and money was still plentiful.

Then, all of a sudden, the moorland villages round were overtaken

by an epidemic of spirit-rapping and table-turning. 'It wor sperrits

here, sperrits there, sperrits everywhere--t' warld wor gradely

swarmin wi 'em,' said Margaret bitterly. It was all started,

apparently, by a worthless 'felly' from Castleton, who had a great

reputation as a medium, and would come over on summer evenings to

conduct seances at Frimley and the places near. 'Lias, already in an

excitable, overworked state, was bitten by the new mania, and could

think of nothing else.

One night he and the Castleton medium fell talking about Jenny

Crum, the witch of Kinder Scout, and her Easter Eve performances.

The medium bet 'Lias a handsome sum that he would not dare face

her. 'Lias, piqued and wrathful, and 'wi moor yell on board nor he

could reetly stan,' took the bet. Margaret heard nothing of it. He

announced on Easter Eve that he was going to a brother in Edale for

the Sunday, and gave her the slip. She saw no more of him till the

carrier brought home to her, on the Sunday morning, a starved and

pallid object--'gone clean silly, an hutched thegither like an owd

man o' seventy--he bein fifty-six by his reet years.' With woe and

terror she helped him to his bed, and in that bed he stayed for

more than a year, while everything went from them--school and

savings, and all the joys of life.

'An yo'll be wantin to know, like t' rest o' 'em, what he saw!'

cried Margaret angrily, facing round upon the boy, whose face was,

indeed, one question.' "Margaret, did he tell tha what t' witch

said to un?"--every blatherin idiot i' th' parish asked me that, wi

his mouth open, till I cud ha stopped my ears an run wheniver I

seed a livin creetur. What do I keer?--what doos it matter to me

what he saw? I doan't bleeve he saw owt, if yo ast _me_. He

wor skeert wi his own thinkins, an th' cowd gripped him i' th'

in'ards, an twisted him as yo may twist a withe of hay--Aye! it wor

a _cruel_ neet. When I opened t' door i' t' early mornin, t'

garden wor aw black--th' ice on t' reservoir wor inches thick. Mony

a year afterwards t' foak round here ud talk o' that for an April

frost. An my poor 'Lias--lost on that fearfu Scout--sleepin out

wi'out a rag to cover him, an skeert soomhow--t'Lord or t'Devil

knows how! And then foak ud have me mak a good tale out o'

it--soomthin to gie 'em a ticklin down their backbane--soomthin to

pass an evenin--_Lord!'_

The wife's voice paused abruptly on this word of imprecation, or

appeal, as though her own passion choked her. David stood beside

her awkwardly, his eyes fixed on the gravel, wherewith one foot was

playing. There was no more sullenness in his expression.

Margaret's hand still played restlessly with the handkerchief. Her

eyes were far away, her mind absorbed by the story of her own fate.

Round the moorside, on which the cottage was built, there bent a

circling edge of wood, now aflame with all the colour of late

autumn. Against its deep reds and browns, Margaret's small profile

was thrown out--the profile already of the old woman, with the

meeting nose and chin, the hollow cheek, the maze of wrinkles round

the eyes. Into that face, worn by the labour and the grief of the

poor--into that bending figure, with the peasant shawl folded round

the head and shoulders--there had passed all the tragic dignity

which belongs to the simple and heartfelt things of human life, to

the pain of helpless affection, to the yearning of irremediable

loss.

The boy beside her was too young to feel this. But he felt more,

perhaps, than any other lad of the moorside could have felt. There

was, at all times, a natural responsiveness in him of a strange

kind, vibrating rather to pain than joy. He stood by her,

embarrassed, yet drawn to her--waiting, too, as it seemed to him,

for something more that must be coming.

'An then,' said Margaret at last, turning to him, and speaking more

quietly, but still in a kind of tense way, 'then, when 'Lias wor

took bad, yo know, Davy, I had my boys. Did yo ever hear tell o'

what came to 'em, Davy?'

The boy shook his head.

'Ah!' she said, catching her breath painfully, 'they're moast

forgotten, is my boys. 'Lias had been seven weeks i' his bed, an I

wor noan so mich cast down--i' those days I had a sperrit more 'n

most. I thowt th' boys ud keer for us--we'd gien em a good bringin

up, an they wor boath on 'em larnin trades i' Manchester. Yan

evenin--it wor that hot we had aw t' doors an windows open--theer

came a man runnin up fro t' railway. An my boys were kilt,

Davy--boath on 'em--i' Duley Moor Tunnel. They wor coomin to spend

Sunday wi us, an it wor an excursion train--I niver knew t' reets

on 't!'

She paused and gently wiped away her tears. Her passion had all

ebbed.

'An I thowt if I cud ha got 'em home an buried 'em, Davy, I could

ha borne it better. But they wor aw crushed, an cut about, an

riddlet to bits--they wudna let me ha em. And so we kep it fro

'Lias. Soomtimes I think he knows t' boys are dead--an then

soomtimes he frets 'at they doan't coom an see him. Fourteen year

ago! An I goo on tellin him they'll coom soon. An last week, when I

towd him it, I thowt to mysel it wor just th' naked truth!'

David leant over the gate, pulling at some withered hollyhocks

beside it. But when, after a minute of choking silence, Margaret

caught his look, she saw, though he tried to hide it, that his

black eyes were swimming. Her full heart melted altogether.

'Oh, Davy, I meant naw offence!' she said, catching him by the arm

again. 'Yo're a good lad, an yo're allus a welcome seet to that poor

creetur. But yo'll not say owt to trouble him again, laddie--will

yo? If he'd yeerd yo just now--but, by t' Lord's blessin, he did

na--he'd ha worked himsel up fearfu'! I'd ha had naw sleep wi him

for neets--like it wor i' th' spring. Yo munna--yo munna! He's all

I ha--his livin 's my livin, Davy--an when he's took away--why,

I'll mak shift soomhow to dee too!'

She let him go, and, with a long sigh, she lifted her trembling

hands to her head, put her frilled cap straight and her shawl. She

was just moving away, when something of a different sort struck her

sensitive soul, and she turned again. She lived for 'Lias, but she

lived for her religion too, and it seemed to her she had been

sinning in her piteous talk.

'Dinna think, Davy,' she said hurriedly, 'as I'm complainin o' th'

Lord's judgments. They're aw mercies, if we did but know. An He

tempers th' wind--He sends us help when we're droppin for sorrow.

It worn't for nothin He made us all o' a piece. Theer's good foak

i' th' warld--aye, theer is! An what's moor, theer's soom o' th'

best mak o' foak gooin about dressed i' th' worst mak o' clothes.

Yo'll find it out when yo want 'em.'

And with a clearing face, as of one who takes up a burden again and

adjusts it anew more easily, she walked back to the house.

David went down the lane homewards, whistling hard. But once, as he

climbed a stile and sat dangling his legs a moment on the top, he

felt his eyes wet again. He dashed his hand impatiently across

them. At this stage of youth he was constantly falling out with and

resenting his own faculty of pity, of emotion. The attitude of mind

had in it a sort of secret half-conscious terror of what feeling

might do with him did he but give it head. He did not want to

feel--feeling only hurt and stabbed--he wanted to enjoy, to take

in, to discover--to fling the wild energies of mind and body into

some action worthy of them. And because he had no knowledge to show

him how, and a wavering will, he suffered and deteriorated.

The Dawsons, indeed, became his close friends. In Margaret there

had sprung up a motherly affection for the handsome lonely lad; and

he was grateful. He took her 'cuts' down to the Clough End office

for her; when the snow was deep on the Scout, and Reuben and David

and the dogs were out after their sheep night and day, the boy

still found time to shovel the snow from Margaret's roof and cut a

passage for her to the road. The hours he spent this winter by her

kitchen fire, chatting with 'Lias, or eating havercakes, or helping

Margaret with some household work, supplied him for the first time

with something of what his youth was, in truth, thirsting for--the

common kindliness of natural affection.

But certainly, to most observers, he seemed to deteriorate. Mr.

Ancrum could make nothing of him. David held the minister at

arm's-length, and meanwhile rumours reached him that 'Reuben

Grieve's nevvy' was beginning to be much seen in the public-houses;

he had ceased entirely to go to chapel or Sunday school; and the

local gossips, starting perhaps from a natural prejudice against

the sons of unknown and probably disreputable mothers, prophesied

freely that the tall, queer-looking lad would go to the bad.

All this troubled Mr. Ancrum sincerely. Even in the midst of some

rising troubles of his own he found the energy to buttonhole Reuben

again, and torment him afresh on the subject of a trade for the

lad.

Reuben, flushed and tremulous, went straight from the minister to

his wife--with the impetus of Mr. Ancrum's shove, as it were, fresh

upon him. Sitting opposite to her in the back kitchen, while she

peeled her potatoes with a fierce competence and energy which made

his heart sick within him, Reuben told her, with incoherent

repetitions of every phrase, that in his opinion the time had come

when Mr. Gurney should be written to, and some of Sandy's savings

applied to the starting of Sandy's son in the world.

There was an ominous silence. Hannah's knife flashed, and the

potato-peelings fell with a rapidity which fairly paralysed Reuben.

In his nervousness, he let fall the name of Mr. Ancrum. Then Hannah

broke out. '_Some_ foo',' she knew, had been meddling, and she

might have guessed that fool was Mr. Ancrum. Instead of defending

her own position, she fell upon Reuben and his supporter with a

rhetoric whereof the moral flavour was positively astounding.

Standing with the potato-bowl on one hip and a hand holding the

knife on the other, she delivered her views as to David's laziness,

temper, and general good-for-nothingness. If Reuben chose to incur

the risks of throwing such a young lout into town-wickedness, with

no one to look after him, let him; she'd be glad enough to be shut

on him. But, as to writing to Mr. Gurney and that sort of talk, she

wasn't going to bandy words--not she; but nobody had ever meddled

with Hannah Grieve's affairs yet and found they had done well for

themselves.

'An I wouldna advise yo, Reuben Grieve, to begin now--no, I

wouldna. I gie yo fair noatice. Soa theer's not enough for t' lad

to do, Mr. Ancrum, he thinks? Perhaps he'll tak th' place an try?

I'd not gie him as mich wage as ud fill his stomach i' th'

week--noa, I'd not, not if yo wor to ask _me_--a bletherin

windy chap as iver I saw. I'd as soon hear a bird-clapper preach as

him--theer'd be more sense an less noise! An they're findin it out

down theer--we'st see th' back on him soon.'

And to Reuben, looking across the little scullery at his wife, at

the harsh face shaken with the rage which these new and intolerable

attempts of her husband to dislodge the yoke of years excited in

her, it was as though like Christian and Hopeful he were trying to

get back into the Way, and found that the floods had risen over it.

When he was out of her sight, he fell into a boundless perplexity.

Perhaps she was right, after all. Mr. Ancrum was a meddler and he

an ass. When next he saw David, he spoke to the boy harshly, and

demanded to know where he went loafing every afternoon. Then, as

the days went on, he discovered that Hannah meant to visit his

insubordination upon him in various unpleasant ways. There were

certain little creature comforts, making but small show on the

surface of a life of general abstinence and frugality, but which,

in the course of years, had grown very important to Reuben, and

which Hannah had never denied him. They were now withdrawn. In her

present state of temper with her better half, Hannah could not be

'fashed' with providing them. And no one could force her to brew him

his toddy at night, or put his slippers to warm, or keep his meals

hot and tasty for him, if some emergency among the animals made him

late for his usual hours--certainly not the weak and stammering

Reuben. He was at her mercy, and he chafed indescribably under her

unaccustomed neglect.

As for Mr. Ancrum, his own affairs, poor soul, soon became so

absorbing that he had no thoughts left for David. There were

dissensions growing between him and the 'Christian Brethren.' He

spoke often at the Sunday meetings--too often, by a great deal, for

the other shining lights of the congregation. But his much speaking

seemed to come rather of restlessness than of a fall 'experience,'

so torn, subtle, and difficult were the things he said. Grave

doubts of his doctrine were rising among some of the 'Brethren'; a

mean intrigue against him was just starting among others, and he

himself was tempest-tossed, not knowing from week to week whether

to go or stay.

Meanwhile, as the winter went on, he soon perceived that Reuben

Grieve's formidable wife was added to the ranks of his enemies. She

came to chapel, because for a Christian Brother or Sister to go

anywhere else would have been a confession of weakness in the face

of other critical and observant communities--such, for instance, as

the Calvinistic Methodists, or the Particular Baptists--not to be

thought of for a moment. But when he passed her, he got no greeting

from her; she drew her skirts aside, and her stony eye looked

beyond him, as though there were nothing on the road. And the

sharp-tongued things she said of him came round to him one by one.

Reuben, too, avoided the minister, who, a year or two before, had

brought fountains of refreshing to his soul, and in the business of

the chapel, of which he was still an elder, showed himself more

inarticulate and confused than ever. While David, who had won a

corner in Mr. Ancrum's heart since the days of their first

acquaintance at Sunday-school--David fled him altogether, and would

have none of his counsel or his friendship. The alienation of the

Grieves made another and a bitter drop in the minister's rising cup

of failure.

So the little web of motives and cross-motives, for the most part

of the commonest earthiest hue, yet shot every here and there by a

thread or two of heavenlier stuff, went spinning itself the winter

through round the unknowing children. The reports which had reached

Mr. Ancrum were true enough. David was, in his measure,

endeavouring to 'see life.' On a good many winter evenings the lad,

now nearly fifteen, and shooting up fast to man's stature, might

have been seen among the topers at the 'Crooked Cow,' nay, even

lending an excited ear to the Secularist speakers, who did their

best to keep things lively at a certain low public kept by one

Jerry Timmins, a Radical wag, who had often measured himself both

in the meeting-houses and in the streets against the local

preachers, and, according to his own following, with no small

success. There was a covered skittle-ground attached to this house

in which, to the horrid scandal of church and chapel, Sunday dances

were sometimes held. A certain fastidious pride, and no doubt a

certain conscience towards Reuben, kept David from experimenting in

these performances, which were made as demonstratively offensive to

the pious as they well could be without attracting the attention of

the police.

But at the disputations between Timmins and a succession of

religious enthusiasts, ministers and others, which took place on

the same spot during the winter and spring, David was frequently

present.

Neither here, however, nor at the 'Crooked Cow' did the company

feel the moody growing youth to be one of themselves. He would sit

with his pint before him, silent, his great black eyes roving round

the persons present. His tongue was sharp on occasion, and his

fists ready, so that after various attempts to make a butt of him

he was generally let alone. He got what he wanted--he learnt to

know what smoking and drinking might be like, and the jokes of the

taproom. And all by the help of a few shillings dealt out to him

this winter for the first time by Reuben, who gave them to him with

a queer deprecating look and an injunction to keep the matter

secret from Hannah. As to the use the lad made of them, Reuben was

as ignorant as he was of all other practical affairs outside his

own few acres.

CHAPTER VII

Spring came round again and the warm days of June. At Easter time

David had made no further attempts to meet with Jenny Crum on her

midnight wanderings. The whole tendency of his winter's mental

growth, as well perhaps of the matters brutally raised and crudely

sifted in Jerry Timmins's parlour, had been towards a harder and

more sceptical habit of mind. For the moment the supernatural had

no thrill in it for an intelligence full of contradictions. So the

poor witch, if indeed she 'walked,' revisited her place of pain

unobserved of mortal eye.

About the middle of June David and his uncle went, as usual, to

Kettlewell and Masholme, in Yorkshire, for the purpose of bringing

home from thence some of that hardier breed of sheep which was

required for the moorland, a Scotch breed brought down yearly to

the Yorkshire markets by the Lowland farmers beyond the border.

This expedition was an annual matter, and most of the farmers in

the Kinder Valley and thereabouts joined in it. They went together

by train to Masholme, made their purchases, and then drove their

sheep over the moors home, filling the wide ferny stretches and the

rough upland road with a patriarchal wealth of flocks, and putting

up at night at the village inns, while their charges strayed at

will over the hills. These yearly journeys had always been in

former years a joy to David. The wild freedom of the walk, the

change of scene which every mile and every village brought with it,

the resistance of the moorland wind, the spring of the moorland

turf, every little incident of the road, whether of hardship or of

rough excess, added fuel to the flame of youth, and went to build

up the growing creature.

This year, however, that troubling of the waters which was going on

in the boy was especially active during the Masholme expedition. He

kept to himself and his animals, and showed such a gruff

unneighbourly aspect to the rest of the world that the other

drivers first teased and then persecuted him. He fought one or two

pitched battles on the way home, showed himself a more respectable

antagonist, on the whole, than his assailants had bargained for,

and was thenceforward contemptuously sent to Coventry. 'Yoong man,'

said an old farmer to him once reprovingly, after one of these

"rumpuses," '_yor_ temper woan't mouldy wi keepin.' Reuben

coming by at the moment threw an unhappy glance at the lad, whose

bruised face and torn clothes showed he had been fighting. To the

uncle's mind there was a wanton, nay, a ruffianly look about him,

which was wholly new. Instead of rebuking the culprit, Reuben

slouched away and put as much road as possible between himself and

Davy.

One evening, after a long day on the moors, the party came, late in

the afternoon, to the Yorkshire village of Haworth. To David it was

a village like any other. He was already mortally tired of the

whole business--of the endless hills, the company, the bleak grey

weather. While the rest of the party were mopping brows and

draining ale-pots in the farmers' public, he was employing himself

in aimlessly kicking a stone about one of the streets, when he was

accosted by a woman of the shopkeeping class, a decent elderly

woman, who had come out for a mouthful of air, with a child

dragging after her.

'Yoong mester, yo've coom fro a distance, hannot yo?'

The woman's tone struck the boy pleasantly as though it had been a

phrase of cheerful music. There was a motherliness in it--a

something, for which, perhaps all unknown to himself, his secret

heart was thirsting.

'Fro Masholme,' he said, looking at her full, so that she could see

all the dark, richly coloured face she had had a curiosity to see;

then he added abruptly, 'We're bound Kinder way wi t' sheep--reet

t'other side o' t' Scout.'

The woman nodded. 'Aye, I know a good mony o' your Kinder foak.

They've coom by here a mony year passt. But I doan't know as I've

seen yo afoor. Yo're nobbut a yoong 'un. Eh, but we get sich a

sight of strangers here now, the yan fairly drives the tother out

of a body's mind.'

'Doos foak coom for t' summer?' asked David, lifting his eyebrows a

little, and looking round on the bleak and straggling village.

'Noa, they coom to see the church. Lor' bless ye!' said the good

woman, following his eyes towards the edifice and breaking into a

laugh, ''taint becos the church is onything much to look at. 'Taint

nowt out o' t' common that I knows on. Noa--but they coom along

o't' monument, an' Miss Bronte--Mrs. Nicholls, as should be, poor

thing--rayder.'

There was no light of understanding in David's face, but his

penetrating eyes, the size and beauty of which she could not help

observing, seemed to invite her to go on.

'You niver heerd on our Miss Bronte?' said the woman, mildly.

'Well, I spose not. She was just a bit quiet body. Nobbody

hereabouts saw mich in her. But she wrote bukes--tales, yo

know--tales about t' foak roun here; an they do say, them as has

read 'em, 'at they're terr'ble good. Mr. Watson, at t' Post Office,

he's read 'em, and he's allus promised to lend 'em me. But soomhow

I doan't get th' time. An in gineral I've naw moor use for a book

nor a coo has for clogs. But she's terr'ble famous, is Miss Bronte,

now--an her sisters too, pore young women. Yo should see t'

visitors' book in th' church. Aw t' grand foak as iver wor. They

cooms fro Lunnon a purpose, soom ov 'em, an they just takes a look

roun t' place, an writes their names, an goos away. Would yo like

to see th' church?' said the good-natured creature--looking at the

tall lad beside her with an admiring scrutiny such as every woman

knows she may apply to any male. 'I'm goin that way, an it's my

brother 'at has th' keys.'

David accompanied her with an alacrity which would have astonished

his usual travelling companions, and they mounted the straggling

village street together towards the church. As they neared it the

woman stopped and, shading her eyes against the sunlight, pointed

up to it and the parsonage.

'Noa, it's not a beauty, isn't our church. They do say our parson

ud like to have it pulled clean down an a new one built. Onyways,

they're goin to clear th' Brontes' pew away, an sich a rumpus as

soom o' t' Bradford papers have bin makin, and a gradely few o' t'

people here too! I doan't know t' reets on 't missel, but I'st be

sorry when yo conno see ony moor where Miss Charlotte an Miss Emily

used to sit o' Sundays--An theer's th' owd house. Yo used to be

'lowed to see Miss Charlotte's room, where she did her writin, but

they tell me yo can't be let in now. Seems strange, doan't it, 'at

onybody should be real fond o' that place? When yo go by it i'

winter, soomtimes, it lukes that lonesome, with t' churchyard

coomin up close roun it, it's enoof to gie a body th' shivers. But

I do bleeve, Miss Charlotte she could ha kissed ivery stone in 't;

an they do say, when she came back fro furrin parts, she'd sit an

cry for joy, she wor that partial to Haworth. It's a place yo do

get to favour soomhow,' said the good woman, apologetically, as

though feeling that no stranger could justly be expected to

sympathise with the excesses of local patriotism.

Did th' oother sisters write books?' demanded David, his eyes

wandering over the bare stone house towards which the passionate

heart of Charlotte Bronte had yearned so often from the land of

exile.

'Bless yo, yes. An theer's mony foak 'at think Miss Emily wor a

deol cliverer even nor Miss Charlotte. Not but what yo get a bad

noshun o' Yorkshire folk fro Miss Emily's bukes--soa I'm towd. Bit

there's rough doins on t' moors soomtimes, I'll uphowd yo! An Miss

Emily had eyes like gimlets--they seed reet through a body. Deary

me,' she cried, the fountain of gossip opening more and more, 'to

think I should ha known 'em in pinafores, Mr. Patrick an aw!'

And under the stress of what was really a wonder at the small

beginnings of fame--a wonder which much repetition of her story had

only developed in her--she poured out upon her companion the

history of the Brontes; of that awful winter in which three of that

weird band--Emily, Patrick, Anne--fell away from Charlotte's side,

met the death which belonged to each, and left Charlotte alone to

reap the harvest of their common life through a few burning years;

of the publication of the books; how the men of the Mechanics'

Institute (the roof of which she pointed out to him) went crazy

over 'Shirley'; how everybody about 'thowt Miss Bronte had bin

puttin ov 'em into prent,' and didn't know whether to be pleased or

pique; how, as the noise made by 'Jane Eyre' and 'Shirley' grew, a

wave of excitement passed through the whole countryside, and people

came from Halifax, and Bradford, and Huddersfield--aye, an Lunnon

soomtoimes '--to Haworth church on a Sunday, to see the quiet body

at her prayers who had made all the stir; how Mr. Nicholls, the

curate, bided his time and pressed his wooing; how he won her as

Rachel was won; and how love did but open the gate of death, and

the fiery little creature--exhausted by such an energy of living as

had possessed her from her cradle--sank and died on the threshold

of her new life. All this Charlotte Bronte's townswoman told simply

and garrulously, but she told it well because she had felt and

seen.

'She wor so sma' and nesh; nowt but a midge. Theer was no lasst in

her. Aye, when I heerd the bell tolling for Miss Charlotte that

Saturday mornin,' said the speaker, shaking her head as she moved

away towards the church, 'I cud ha sat down an cried my eyes out.

But if she'd ha seen me she'd ha nobbut said, "Martha, get your

house straight, an doan't fret for me!" She had sich a sperrit, had

Miss Charlotte. Well, now, after aw, I needn't go for t' keys, for

th' church door's open. It's Bradford early closin day, yo see, an

I dessay soom Bradford foak's goin over.'

So she marched him in, and there indeed was a crowd in the little

ugly church, congregated especially at the east end, where the

Brontes' pew still stood awaiting demolition at the hands of a

reforming vicar. As David and his guide came up they found a young

weaver in a black coat, with a sallow oblong face, black hair, high

collars, and a general look of Lord Byron, haranguing those about

him on the iniquity of removing the pews, in a passionate

undertone, which occasionally rose high above the key prescribed by

decorum. It was a half-baked eloquence, sadly liable to bathos,

divided, indeed, between sentences ringing with the great words

'genius' and 'fame,' and others devoted to an indignant

contemplation of the hassocks in the old pews, 'the touching and

well-worn implements of prayer,' to quote his handsome description

of them, which a meddlesome parson was about to 'hurl away,' out of

mere hatred for intellect and contempt of the popular voice.

But, half-baked or no, David rose to it greedily. After a few

moments' listening, he pressed up closer to the speaker, his broad

shoulders already making themselves felt in a crowd, his eyes

beginning to glow with the dissenter's hatred of parsons. In the

full tide of discourse, however, the orator was arrested by an

indignant sexton, who, coming quickly up the church, laid hold upon

him.

'No speechmakin in the church, if you _please_, sir. Move on

if yo're goin to th' vestry, sir, for I'll have to shut up

directly.'

The young man stared haughtily at his assailant, and the men and

boys near closed up, expecting a row. But the voice of authority

within its own gates is strong, and the champion of outraged genius

collapsed. The whole flock broke up and meekly followed the sexton,

who strode on before them to the vestry.

'William's a rare way wi un,' said his companion to David,

following her brother's triumph with looks of admiration. 'I thowt

that un wud ha bin harder to shift.'

David, however, turned upon her with a frown. '_'Tis_ a black

shame,' he said; 'why conno they let t' owd pew bide?'

'Ah, weel,' said the woman with a sigh, 'as I said afore, I'st be

reet sorry when Miss Charlotte's seat's gone. But yo conno ha

brawlin i' church. William's reet enough there.'

And beginning to be alarmed lest she should be raising up fresh

trouble for William in the person of this strange, foreign-looking

lad, with his eyes like 'live birds,' she hurried him on to the

vestry, where the visitors' books were being displayed. Here the

Byronic young man was attempting to pick a fresh quarrel with the

sexton, by way of recovering himself with his party. But he took

little by it; the sexton was a tough customer. When the local

press was shaken in his face, the vicar's hireling, a canny,

weather-beaten Yorkshireman, merely replied with a twist of the

mouth,

'Aye, aye, th' newspapers talk--there'd be soombody goin hoongry if

they didn't;' or--' Them 'at has to eat th' egg knaws best whether

it is addled or no--to my thinkin,' and so on through a string of

similar aphorisms which finally demolished his antagonist.

David meanwhile was burning to be in the fray. He thought of some

fine Miltonic sayings to hurl at the sexton, but for the life of

him he could not get them out. In the presence of that indifferent,

sharp-faced crowd of townspeople his throat grew hot and dry

whenever he thought of speaking.

While the Bradford party struggled out of the church, David, having

somehow got parted from the woman who had brought him in, lingered

behind, before that plain tablet on the wall, whereat the crowd

which had just gone out had been worshipping.

EMILY, aged 29.

ANNE, aged 27.

CHARLOTTE, in the 39th year of her age.

The church had grown suddenly quite still. The sexton was outside,

engaged in turning back a group of Americans, on the plea that

visiting hours were over for the day. Through the wide-open door

the fading yellow light streamed in, and with it a cool wind which

chased little eddies of dust about the pavement. In the dusk the

three names--black on the white--stood out with a stern and yet

piteous distinctness. The boy stood there feeling the silence--the

tomb near by--the wonder and pathos of fame, and all that thrill of

undefined emotion to which youth yields itself so hungrily.

The sexton startled him by tapping him on the shoulder. 'Time to go

home, yoong man. My sister she told me to say good neet to yer, and

she wishes yo good luck wi your journey. Where are yo puttin up?'

'At the "Brown Bess,"' murmured the boy ungraciously, and hurried

out. But the good man, unconscious of repulse and kindly disposed

towards his sister's waif, stuck to him, and, as they walked down

the churchyard together, the difference between the manners of

official and those of private life proved to be so melting to the

temper that even David's began to yield. And a little incident of

the walk mollified him completely. As they turned a corner they

came upon a bit of waste land, and there in the centre of an

admiring company was the sexton's enemy, mounted on a bit of wall,

and dealing out their deserts in fine style to those meddling

parsons and their underlings who despised genius and took no heed

of the relics of the mighty dead. The sexton stopped to listen when

they were nearly out of range, and was fairly carried away by the

'go' of the orator.

'Doan't he do it nateral!' he said with enthusiasm to David, after

a passage specially and unflatteringly devoted to himself. 'Lor'

bless yo, it don't hurt me. But I do loike a bit o' good speakin,

'at I do. If fine worrds wor penny loaves, that yoong gen'leman ud

get a livin aisy! An as for th' owd pew, I cud go skrikin about th'

streets mysel, if it ud do a ha'porth o' good.'

David's brow cleared, and, by the time they had gone a hundred

yards further, instead of fighting the good man, he asked a favour

of him.

'D'yo think as theer's onybody in Haworth as would lend me a seet

o' yan o' Miss Bronte's tales for an hour?' he said, reddening

furiously, as they stopped at the sexton's gate.

'Why to be sure, mon,' said the sexton cheerily, pleased with the

little opening for intelligent patronage. 'Coom your ways in, and

we'll see if we can't oblige yo. I've got a tidy lot o' books in my

parlour, an I can give yo "Shirley," I know.'

David went into the stone-built cottage with his guide, and was

shown in the little musty front room a bookcase full of books which

made his eyes gleam with desire. The half-curbed joy and eagerness

he showed so touched the sexton that, after inquiring as to the

lad's belongings, and remembering that in his time he had enjoyed

many a pipe and 'glass o' yell' with 'owd Reuben Grieve' at the

'Brown Bess,' the worthy man actually lent him indefinitely three

precious volumes--'Shirley,' 'Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography,'

and 'Nicholas Nickleby.'

David ran off hugging them, and thenceforward he bore patiently

enough with the days of driving and tramping which remained, for

the sake of the long evenings when in some lonely corner of moor

and wood he lay full length on the grass revelling in one or other

of his new possessions. He had a voracious way of tearing out the

heart of a book first of all, and then beginning it again with a

different and a tamer curiosity, lingering, tasting, and digesting.

By the time he and Reuben reached home he had rushed through all

three books, and his mind was full of them.

'Shirley' and 'Nicholas Nickleby' were the first novels of modern

life he had ever laid hands on, and before he had finished them he

felt them in his veins like new wine. The real world had been to

him for months something sickeningly narrow and empty, from which

at times he had escaped with passion into a distant dream-life of

poetry and history. Now the walls of this real world were suddenly

pushed back as it were on all sides, and there was an inrush of

crowd, excitement, and delight. Human beings like those he heard of

or talked with every day--factory hands and mill-owners, parsons,

squires, lads and lasses--the Yorkes, and Robert Moore, Squeers,

Smike, Kate Nickleby and Newman Noggs, came by, looked him in the

eyes, made him take sides, compare himself with them, join in their

fights and hatreds, pity and exult with them. Here was something

more disturbing, personal, and stimulating than that mere

imaginative relief he had been getting out of 'Paradise Lost,' or

the scenes of the 'Jewish Wars'!

By a natural transition the mental tumult thus roused led to a more

intense self-consciousness than any he had yet known. In measuring

himself with the world of 'Shirley' or of Dickens, he began to

realise the problem of his own life with a singular keenness and

clearness. Then--last of all--the record of Franklin's life,--of

the steady rise of the ill-treated printer's devil to knowledge and

power--filled him with an urging and concentrating ambition, and

set his thoughts, endowed with a new heat and nimbleness, to the

practical unravelling of a practical case.

They reached home again early on a May day. As he and Reuben,

driving their new sheep, mounted the last edge of the moor which

separated them from home, the Kinder Valley lay before them,

sparkling in a double radiance of morning and of spring. David

lingered a minute or two behind his uncle. What a glory of light

and freshness in the air--what soaring larks--what dipping

swallows! And the scents from the dew-steeped heather--and the

murmur of the blue and glancing stream!

The boy's heart went out to the valley--and in the same instant he

put it from him. An indescribable energy and exultation took

possession of him. The tide of will for which he had been waiting

all these months had risen; and for the first time he felt swelling

within him the power to break with habit, to cut his way.

But what first step to take? Whom to consult? Suddenly he

remembered Mr. Ancrum, first with shame, then with hope. Had he

thrown away his friend? Rumour said that things were getting worse

and worse at chapel, and that Mr. Ancrum was going to Manchester at

once.

He ran down the slopes of heather towards home as though he would

catch and question Mr. Ancrum there and then. And Louie? Patience!

He would settle everything. Meanwhile, he was regretfully persuaded

that if you had asked Miss Bronte what could be done with a

creature like Louie she would have had a notion or two.

CHAPTER VIII

'Reach me that book, Louie,' said David peremptorily; 'it ull be

worse for yo if yo don't.'

The brother and sister were in the smithy. Louie was squatting on

the ground with her hands behind her, her lips sharply shut as

though nothing should drag a word out of them, and her eyes blazing

defiance at David, who had her by the shoulder, and looked to the

full as fierce as she looked provoking.

'Find it!' was all she said. He had been absent for a few minutes

after a sheep that had got into difficulties in the Red Brook, and

when he returned, his volume of Rollin's 'Ancient History'--'Lias's

latest loan--which he had imprudently forgotten to take with him,

had disappeared.

David gave her an angry shake, on which she toppled over among the

fallen stones with an exasperating limpness, and lay there

laughing.

'Oh, very well,' said David, suddenly recovering himself; 'yo keep

yor secret. I'st keep mine, that's aw.'

Louie lay quiet a minute or two, laughing artificially at

intervals, while David searched the corners of the smithy, turning

every now and then to give a stealthy look at his sister.

The bait took. Louie stopped laughing, sat up, put herself

straight, and looked about her.

'Yo hain't got a secret,' she said coolly; 'I'm not to be took in wi

snuff that way.'

'Very well,' said David indifferently, 'then I haven't.'

And sitting down near the pan, he took out one of the little boats

from the hole near, and began to trim its keel here and there with

his knife. The occupation seemed to be absorbing.

Louie sat for a while, sucking at a lump of sugar she had swept

that morning into the _omnium gatherum_ of her pocket. At last

she took up a little stone and threw it across at David.

'What's yor silly old secret about, then?'

'Where's my book, then?' replied David, holding up the boat and

looking with one eye shut along the keel.

'Iv I gie it yer, an yor secret ain't wo'th it, I'll put soom o'

that watter down yor neckhole,' said Louie, nodding towards the

place.

'If yo don't happen to find yorsel in th' pan fust,' remarked David

unmoved.

Louie sucked at her sugar a little longer, with her hands round her

knees. She had thrown off her hat, and the May sun struck full on

her hair, on the glossy brilliance of it, and the natural curls

round the temples which disguised a high and narrow brow. She no

longer wore her hair loose. In passionate emulation of Annie

Wigson, she had it plaited behind, and had begged an end of blue

ribbon of Mrs. Wigson to tie it with, so that the beautiful arch of

the head showed more plainly than before, while the black eyes and

brows seemed to have gained in splendour and effectiveness, from

their simpler and severer setting. One could see, too, the length

of the small neck and of the thin falling shoulders. It was a face

now which made many a stranger in the Clough End streets stop and

look backward after meeting it. Not so much because of its beauty,

for it was still too thin and starved-looking for beauty, as

because of a singular daring and brilliance, a sense of wild and

yet conscious power it left behind it. The child had grown a great

piece in the last year, so that her knees were hardly decently

covered by the last year's cotton frock she wore, and her brown

sticks of arms were far beyond her sleeves. David had looked at her

once or twice lately with a new kind of scrutiny. He decided that

she was a 'rum-looking' creature, not the least like anybody else's

sister, and on the whole his raw impression was that she was plain.

'How'll I know yo'll not cheat?' she said at last, getting up and

surveying him with her arms akimbo.

'Can't tell, I'm sure,' was all David vouchsafed. 'Yo mum find out.'

Louie studied him threateningly.

'Weel, I'd be even wi yo soomhow,' was her final conclusion; and

disappearing through the ruined doorway, she ran down the slope to

where one of the great mill-stones lay hidden in the heather, and

diving into its central hole, produced the book, keenly watched the

while by David, who took mental note of the hiding-place.

'Naw then,' she said, walking up to him with her hands behind her

and the book in them, 'tell me yor secret.'

David first forcibly abstracted the book and made believe to box

her ears, then went back to his seat and his boat.

'Go on, can't yo!' exclaimed Louie, after a minute, stamping at

him.

David laid down his boat deliberately.

'Well, yo won't like it,' he said; 'I know that. But--I'm off to

Manchester, that's aw--as soon as I can goo; as soon as iver I can

hear of onything. An I'm gooin if I don't hear of onything. I'm

gooin onyways; I'm tired o' this. So now yo know.'

Louie stared at him.

'Yo ain't!' she said, passionately, as though she were choking.

David instinctively put up his hands to keep her off. He thought

she would have fallen upon him there and then and beaten him for

his 'secret.'

But, instead, she flung away out of the smithy, and David was left

alone and in amazement. Then he got up and went to look, stirred

with the sudden fear that she might have run off to the farm with

the news of what he had been saying, which would have precipitated

matters unpleasantly.

No one was to be seen from outside, either on the moor path or in

the fields beyond, and she could not possibly have got out of sight

so soon. So he searched among the heather and the bilberry

hummocks, till he caught sight of a bit of print cotton in a hollow

just below the quaint stone shooting-hut, built some sixty years

ago on the side of the Scout for the convenience of sportsmen.

David stalked the cotton, and found her lying prone and with her

hat, as usual, firmly held down over her ears. At sight of her

something told him very plainly he had been a brute to tell her his

news so. There was a strong moral shock which for the moment

transformed him.

He went and lifted her up in spite of her struggles. Her face was

crimson with tears, but she hit out at him wildly to prevent his

seeing them. 'Now, Louie, look here,' he said, holding her hands, 'I

didna mean to tell yo short and sharp like that, but yo do put a

body's back up so, there's no bearin it. Don't take on, Louie. I'll

coom back when I've found soomthin, an take yo away, too, niver

fear. Theer's lots o' things gells can do in Manchester--tailorin,

or machinin, or dress-makin, or soomthin like that. But yo must get

a bit older, an I must find a place for us to live in, so theer's

naw use fratchin, like a spiteful hen. Yo must bide and I must

bide. But I'll coom back for yo, I swear I will, an we'll get shut

on Aunt Hannah, an live in a little place by ourselves, as merry as

larks.'

He looked at her appealingly. Her head was turned sullenly away

from him, her thin chest still heaved with sobs. But when he

stopped speaking she jerked round upon him.

'Leave me behint, an I'll murder her!'

The child's look was demoniacal. 'No, yo won't,' said David,

laughing. 'I' th' fust place, Aunt Hannah could settle a midge like

yo wi yan finger. I' th' second, hangin isn't a coomfortable way o'

deein. Yo wait till I coom for yo, an when we'st ha got reet away,

an can just laugh in her face if she riles us,--_that_'ll

spite her mich moor nor murderin.'

The black eyes gleamed uncannily for a moment and the sobbing

ceased. But the gleam passed away, and the child sat staring at the

moorland distance, seeing nothing. There was such an unconscious

animal pain in the attitude, the pain of the creature that feels

itself alone and deserted, that David watched her in a puzzled

silence. Louie was always mysterious, whether in her rages or her

griefs, but he had never seen her sob quite like this before. He

felt a sort of strangeness in her fixed gaze, and with a certain

timidity he put out his arm and laid it round her shoulder. Still

she did not move. Then he slid up closer in the heather, and kissed

her. His heart, which had seemed all frostbound for months, melted,

and that hunger for love--home-love, mother-love--which was,

perhaps, at the very bottom of his moody complex youth, found a

voice.

'Louie, couldn't yo be nice to me soomtimes--couldn't yo just take

an interest, like, yo know--as if yo cared a bit--couldn't yo?

Other gells do. I'm a brute to yo, I know, often, but yo keep aggin

an teasin, an theer's niver a bit o' peace. Look here, Loo, yo give

up, an I'st give up. Theer's nobbut us two--nawbody else cares a

ha'porth about the yan or the tother--coom along! yo give up, an

I'st give up.'

He looked at her anxiously. There was a new manliness in his tone,

answering to his growing manliness of stature. Two slow tears

rolled down her cheeks, but she said nothing. She couldn't for the

life of her. She blinked, furiously fighting with her tears, and at

last she put up an impatient hand which left a long brown streak

across her miserable little face.

'Yo havn't got no trade,' she said. 'Yo'll be clemmed.' David

withdrew his arm, and gulped down his rebuff. 'No, I sha'n't,' he

said. 'Now you just listen here.' And he described how, the day

before, he had been to see Mr. Ancrum, to consult him about leaving

Kinder, and what had come of it.

He had been just in time. Mr. Ancrum, worn, ill, and harassed to

death, had been cheered a little during his last days at Clough End

by the appearance of David, very red and monosyllabic, on his

doorstep. The lad's return, as he soon perceived, was due simply to

the stress of his own affairs, and not to any knowledge of or

sympathy with the minister's miseries. But, none the less, there

was a certain balm in it for Mr. Ancrum, and they had sat long

discussing matters. Yes, the minister was going--would look out at

Manchester for an opening for David, in the bookselling trade by

preference, and would write at once. But Davy must not leave a

quarrel behind him. He must, if possible, get his uncle's consent,

which Mr. Ancrum thought would be given.

'I'm willing to lend you a hand, Davy,' he had said, 'for you're on

the way to no trade but loafing as you are now; but square it with

Grieve. You can, if you don't shirk the trouble of it.'

Whereupon Davy had made a wry face and said nothing. But to Louie

he expressed himself plainly enough.

'I'll not say owt to oather on 'em,' he said, pointing to the

chimneys of the farm, 'till the day I bid 'em good-bye. Uncle

Reuben, mebbe, ud be for givin me somethin to start wi, an Aunt

Hannah ud be for cloutin tin him over the head for thinkin of it.

No, I'll not be beholden to yan o' them. I've got a shillin or two

for my fare, an I'll keep mysel.'

'What wages ull yo get?' inquired Louie sharply.

'Nothin very fat, that's sure,' laughed David. 'If Mr. Ancrum can do

as he says, an find me a place in a book-shop, they'll, mebbe, gie

me six shillin to begin wi.'

'An what ull yo do wi 'at?'

'Live on't,' replied David briefly.

'Yo conno, I tell yo! Yo'll ha food an firin, cloos, an lodgin to

pay out o't. Yo conno do 't--soa theer.'

Louie looked him up and down defiantly. David was oddly struck with

the practical knowledge her remark showed. How did such a wild imp

know anything about the cost of lodging and firing?

'I tell yo I'll live on't,' he replied with energy; 'I'll get a room

for half a crown--two shillin, p'r'aps--an I'll live on sixpence a

day, see if I don't.'

'See if yo do!' retorted Louie, 'clemm on it more like.'

'That's all yo know about it, miss,' said David, in a tone,

however, of high good humour; and, stretching one of his hands down

a little further into his trousers pocket, he drew out a

paper-covered book, so that just the top of it appeared. 'Yo're

allus naggin about books. Well; I tell yo, I've got an idea out o'

thissen ull be worth shillins a week to me. It's about Benjamin

Franklin. Never yo mind who Benjamin Franklin wor; but he wor a

varra cute soart of a felly; an when he wor yoong, an had nobbut a

few shillins a week, he made shift to save soom o' them shillins,

becos he found he could do without eatin _flesh meat_, an that

wi bread an meal an green stuff, a mon could do very well, an save

soom brass every week. When I go to Manchester,' continued David

emphatically, 'I shall niver touch meat. I shall buy a bag o'

oatmeal like Grandfeyther Grieve lived on, boil it for mysel, wi a

sup o' milk, perhaps, an soom salt or treacle to gi it a taste. An

I'll buy apples an pears an oranges cheap soomwhere, an store 'em.

Yo mun ha a deal o' fruit when yo doan't ha meat. Fourpence!' cried

Davy, his enthusiasm rising, 'I'll live on _thruppence_ a day,

as sure as yo're sittin theer! Seven thruppences is one an nine;

lodgin, two shillin--three an nine. Two an three left over, for

cloos, firin, an pocket money. Why, I'll be rich before yo can look

roun! An then, o' coorse, they'll not keep me long on six shillings

a week. In the book-trade I'll soon be wuth ten, an moor!'

And, springing up, he began to dance a sort of cut and shuffle

before her out of sheer spirits. Louie surveyed him with a flushed

and sparkling face. The nimbleness of David's wits had never come

home to her till now.

'What ull I earn when I coom?' she demanded abruptly.

David stopped his cut and shuffle, and took critical stock of his

sister for a moment.

'Now, look here, Louie, yo're goin to stop where yo are, a good bit

yet,' he replied decidedly. 'Yo'll have to wait two year or so--moor

'n one, onyways,' he went on hastily, warned by her start and

fierce expression. 'Yo know, they can ha th' law on yo,' and he

jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the farm. 'Boys is all

reet, but gells can't do nothink till they're sixteen. They mun

stay wi th' foak as browt 'em up, an if they run away afore their

sixteenth birthday--they gets put in prison.'

David poured out his legal fictions hastily, three parts convinced

of them at any rate, and watched eagerly for their effect on Louie.

She tossed her head scornfully. 'Doan't b'lieve it. Yo're jest

tellin lees to get shut o' me. Nex summer if yo doan't send for me,

I'll run away, whativer yo may say. So yo know.'

'Yo're a tormentin thing!' exclaimed David, exasperated, and began

savagely to kick stones down the hill. Then, recovering himself, he

came and sat down beside her again.

'I doan't want to get shut on yo, Louie. But yo won't understand

nothin.'

He stopped, and began to bite at a stalk of heather, by way of

helping himself. His mind was full of vague and yet urgent thoughts

as to what became of girls in large towns with no one to look after

them, things he had heard said at the public-house, things he had

read. He had never dreamt of leaving Louie to Aunt Hannah's tender

mercies. Of course he must take her away when he could. She was his

charge, his belonging. But all the same she was a 'limb'; in his

opinion she always would be a 'limb.' How could he be sure of her

getting work, and who on earth was to look after her when he was

away?

Suddenly Louie broke in on his perplexities.

'I'll go tailorin,' she cried triumphantly. 'Now I know--it wor t'

Wigsons' cousin Em'ly went to Manchester; an she earned nine

shillin a week--nine shillin I tell yo, an found her own thread.

Yo'll be takin ten shillin, yo say, nex year? an I'll be takin

nine. That's nineteen shillin fur th' two on us. _Isn't_ it

nineteen shillin?' she said peremptorily, seizing his arm with her

long fingers.

'Well, I dessay it is,' said David, reluctantly. 'An precious tired

yo'll be o' settin stitchin mornin, noon, an neet. Like to see yo

do't.'

'I'd do it fur nine shillin,' she said doggedly, and sat looking

straight before her, with wide glittering eyes. She understood from

David's talk that, what with meal, apples, and greenstuff, your

'eatin' need cost you nothing. There would be shillings and

shillings to buy things with. The child who never had a copper but

what Uncle Reuben gave her, who passed her whole existence in

greedily coveting the unattainable and in chafing under the rule of

an iron and miserly thrift, felt suddenly intoxicated by this

golden prospect of illimitable 'buying.' And what could possibly

prevent its coming true? Any fool--such as 'Wigson's Em'ly'--could

earn nine shillings a week at tailoring; and to make money at your

stomach's expense seemed suddenly to put you in possession of a

bank on which the largest drawings were possible. It all looked so

ingenious, so feasible, so wholly within the grip of that

indomitable will the child felt tense within her.

So the two sat gazing out over the moorland. It was the first

summer day, fresh and timid yet, as though the world and the sun

were still ill-acquainted. Down below, over the sparkling brook, an

old thorn was quivering in the warm breeze, its bright thin green

shining against the brown heather. The larches alone had as yet any

richness of leaf, but the sycamore-buds glittered in the sun, and

the hedges in the lower valley made wavy green lines delightful to

the eye. A warm soft air laden with moist scents of earth and plant

bathed the whole mountain-side, and played with Louie's hair.

Nature wooed them with her best, and neither had a thought or a

look for her.

Suddenly Louie sprang up.

'Theer's Aunt Hannah shoutin. I mun goo an get t' coos.'

David ran down the hill with her.

'What'll yo do if I tell?' she inquired maliciously at the bottom.

'If yo do I shall cut at yance, an yo'll ha all the longer time to

be by yoursen.'

A darkness fell over the girl's hard shining gaze. She turned

abruptly, then, when she had gone a few steps, turned and came back

to where David stood whistling and calling for the dogs. She caught

him suddenly from behind round the neck. Naturally he thought she

was up to some mischief, and struggled away from her with an angry

exclamation. But she held him tight and thrust something hard and

sweet against his lips. Involuntarily his mouth opened and admitted

an enticing cake of butter-scotch. She rammed it in with her wiry

little hand so that he almost choked, and then with a shrill laugh

she turned and fled, leaping down the heather between the boulders,

across the brook, over the wall, and out of sight.

David was left behind, sucking. The sweetness he was conscious of

was not all in the mouth. Never that he could remember had Louie

shown him any such mark of favour.

Next day David was sent down with the donkey-cart to Clough End to

bring up some weekly stores for the family, Hannah specially

charging him to call at the post-office and inquire for letters. He

started about nine o'clock, and the twelve o'clock dinner passed by

without his reappearance.

When she had finished her supply of meat and suet-pudding, after a

meal during which no one of the three persons at table had uttered

a word, Louie abruptly pushed her plate back again towards Hannah.

'David!' was all she said.

'Mind your manners, miss,' said Hannah, angrily. 'Them as cooms

late gets nowt.' And, getting up, she cleared the table and put the

food away with even greater rapidity than usual. The kitchen was no

sooner quite clear than the donkey-cart was heard outside, and

David appeared, crimsoned with heat, and panting from the long tug

uphill, through which he had just dragged the donkey.

He carried a letter, which he put down on the table. Then he looked

round the kitchen.

'Aunt's put t' dinner away,' said Louie, shortly, ''cos yo came

late.'

David's expression changed. 'Then nex time she wants owt, she can

fetch it fro Clough End hersel,' he said violently, and went out.

Hannah came forward and laid eager hands on the letter, which was

from London, addressed in a clerk's hand.

'Louie!' she called imperatively, 'tak un out soom

bread-an-drippin.'

Louie put some on a plate, and went out with it to the cowhouse,

where David sat on a stool, occupying himself in cutting the pages

of a number of the _Vegetarian News,_ lent him in Clough End,

with trembling hands, while a fierce red spot burnt in either

cheek.

'Tak it away!' he said, almost knocking the plate out of Louie's

hands; 'it chokes me to eat a crumb o' hers.'

As Louie was bearing the plate back through the yard, Uncle Reuben

came by.' What's--what's 'at?' he said, peering shortsightedly at

what she held. Every month of late Reuben's back had seemed to grow

rounder, his sight less, and his wits of less practical use.

'Summat for David,' said Louie, shortly, ''cos Aunt Hannah woan't

gie him no dinner. But he woan't ha it.'

Reuben's sudden look of trouble was unmistakable. 'Whar is he?'

'I' th' coo-house.'

Reuben went his way, and found the dinnerless boy deep, or

apparently deep, in recipes for vegetable soups.

'What made yo late, Davy?' he asked him, as he stood over him.

David had more than half a mind not to answer, but at last he

jerked out fiercely, 'Waitin for th' second post, fust; then t'

donkey fell down half a mile out o' t' town, an th' things were

spilt. There was nobody about, an' I had a job to get 'un up at a'.'

Reuben nervously thrust his hands far into his coat-pockets.

'Coom wi me, Davy, an I'st mak yor aunt gie yer yor dinner.'

'I wouldn't eat a morsel if she went down on her bended knees to

me,' the lad broke out, and, springing up, he strode sombrely

through the yard and into the fields.

Reuben went slowly back into the house. Hannah was in the

parlour--so he saw through the half-opened door. He went into the

room, which smelt musty and close from disuse. Hannah was standing

over the open drawer of an old-fashioned corner cupboard, carefully

scanning a letter and enclosure before she locked them up.

'Is 't Mr. Gurney's money?' Reuben said to her, in a queer voice.

She was startled, not having heard him come in, but she put what

she held into the drawer all the more deliberately, and turned the

key.

'Ay, 't is.'

Reuben sat himself down on one of the hard chairs beside the table

in the middle of the room. The light streaming through the shutters

Hannah had just opened streamed in on his grizzling head and face

working with emotion.

'It's stolen money,' he said hoarsely. 'Yo're stealin it fro Davy.'

Hannah smiled grimly, and withdrew the key.

'I'm paying missel an yo, Reuben Grieve, for t' keep o' two

wuthless brats as cost moor nor they pays,' she said, with an

accent which somehow sent a shiver through Reuben. '_I_ don't

keep udder foaks' childer fur nothin.'

'Yo've had moor nor they cost for seven year,' said Reuben, with

the same thick tense utterance. 'Yo should let Davy ha it, an gie

him a trade.'

Hannah walked up to the door and shut it.

'I should, should I? An who'll pay for Louie--for your luvely limb

of a niece? It 'ud tak about that,' and she pointed grimly to the

drawer, 'to coover what she wastes an spiles i' t' yeer.'

'Yo get her work, Hannah. Her bit and sup cost yo most nothin. I

cud wark a bit moor--soa cud yo. Yo're hurtin me i' mi conscience,

Hannah--yo're coomin atwixt me an th' Lord!'

He brought a shaking hand down on the damask table-cloth among the

wool mats and the chapel hymn-books which adorned it. His long,

loose frame had drawn itself up with a certain dignity.

'Ha done wi your cantin!' said Hannah under her breath, laying her

two hands on the table, and stooping down so as to face him with

more effect. The phrase startled Reuben with a kind of horror.

Whatever words might have passed between them, never yet that he

could remember had his wife allowed herself a sneer at his

religion. It seemed to him suddenly as though he and she were going

fast downhill--slipping to perdition, because of Sandy's six

hundred pounds.

But she cowed him--she always did. She stayed a moment in the same

bent and threatening position, coercing him with angry eyes. Then

she straightened herself, and moved away.

'Let t' lad tak hisself off if he wants to,' she said, an iron

resolution in her voice. 'I told yo so afore--I woan't cry for 'im.

But as long as Louie's here, an I ha to keep her, I'll want that

money, an every penny on't. If it bean't paid, she may go too!'

'Yo'd not turn her out, Hannah?' cried Reuben, instinctively

putting out an arm to feel that the door was closed.

'_She_'d not want for a livin,' replied Hannah, with a bitter

sneer; 'she's her mither's child.'

Reuben rose slowly, shaking all over. He opened the door with

difficulty, groped his way out of the front passage, then went

heavily through the yard and into the fields. There he wandered by

himself for a couple of hours, altogether forgetting some newly

dropped lambs to which he had been anxiously attending. For months

past, ever since his conscience had been roused on the subject of

his brother's children, the dull, incapable man had been slowly

reconceiving the woman with whom he had lived some five-and-twenty

years, and of late the process had been attended with a kind of

agony. The Hannah Martin he had married had been a hard body

indeed, but respectable, upright, with the same moral instincts as

himself. She had kept the farm together--he knew that; he could not

have lived without her, and in all practical respects she had been

a good and industrious wife. He had coveted her industry and her

strong will; and, having got the use of them, he had learnt to put

up with her contempt for him, and to fit his softer nature to hers.

Yet it seemed to him that there had always been certain conditions

implied in this subjection of his, and that she was breaking them.

He could not have been fetching and carrying all these years for a

woman who could go on wilfully appropriating money that did not

belong to her,--who could even speak with callous indifference of

the prospect of turning out her niece to a life of sin.

He thought of Sandy's money with loathing. It was like the cursed

stuff that Achan had brought into the camp--an evil leaven

fermenting in their common life, and raising monstrous growths.

Reuben Grieve did not demand much of himself; a richer and more

spiritual nature would have thought his ideals lamentably poor.

But, such as they were, the past year had proved that he could not

fall below them without a dumb anguish, without a sense of shutting

himself out from grace. He felt himself--by his fear of his

wife--made a partner in Hannah's covetousness, in Hannah's cruelty

towards Sandy's children. Already, it seemed to him, the face of

Christ was darkened, the fountain of grace dried up. All those

appalling texts of judgment and reprobation he had listened to so

often in chapel, protected against them by that warm inward

certainty of 'election,' seemed to be now pressing against a bared

and jeopardised soul.

But if he wrote to Mr. Gurney, Hannah would never forgive him till

her dying day; and the thought of making her his enemy for good put

him in a cold sweat.

After much pacing of the upper meadows he came heavily down at last

to see to his lambs. Davy was just jumping the wall on to his

uncle's land, having apparently come down the Frimley path. When he

saw his uncle he thrust his hands into his pockets, began to

whistle, and came on with a devil-may-care swing of the figure.

They met in a gateway between two fields.

'Whar yo been, Davy?' asked Reuben, looking at him askance, and

holding the gate so as to keep him.

'To Dawson's,' said the boy, sharply.

Reuben's face brightened. Then the lad's empty stomach must have

been filled; for he knew that 'Dawsons' were kind to him. He

ventured to look at him more directly, and, as he did so, something

in the attitude of the proud handsome stripling reminded him of

Sandy--Sandy, in the days of his youth, coming down to show his

prosperous self at the farm. He put his large soil-stained hand on

David's shoulder.

'Goo yor ways in, Davy. I'll see yo ha your reets.'

David opened his eyes at him, astounded. There is nothing more

startling in human relations than the strong emotion of weak

people.

Reuben would have liked to say something else, but his lips opened

and shut in vain. The boy, too, was hopelessly embarrassed. At

last, Reuben let the gate fall and walked off, with downcast head,

to where, in the sheep-pen, he had a few hours before bound an

orphan lamb to a refractory foster-mother. The foster-mother's

resistance had broken down, she was lying patiently and gently

while the thin long-legged creature sucked; when it was frightened

away by Reuben's approach she trotted bleating after it. In his

disturbed state of feeling the parallel, or rather the contrast,

between the dumb animal and the woman struck home.

CHAPTER IX

But the crisis which had looked so near delayed!

Poor Reuben! The morning after his sudden show of spirit to David

he felt himself, to his own miserable surprise, no more courageous

than he had been before it. Yet the impression made had gone too

deep to end in nothingness. He contracted a habit of getting by

himself in the fields and puzzling his brain with figures--an

occupation so unfamiliar and exhausting that it wore him a good

deal; and Hannah, when he came in at night, would wonder, with a

start, whether he were beginning 'to break up.' But it possessed

him more and more. Hannah would not give up the money, but David

must have his rights. How could it be done? For the first time

Reuben fell to calculation over his money matters, which he did not

ask Hannah to revise. But meanwhile he lived in a state of

perpetual inward excitement which did not escape his wife. She

could get no clue to it, however, and became all the more

forbidding in the household the more she was invaded by this wholly

novel sense of difficulty in managing her husband.

Yet she was not without a sense that if she could but contrive to alter

her ways with the children it would be well for her. Mr. Gurney's cheque

was safely put away in the Clough End bank, and clearly her best policy

would have been to make things tolerable for the two persons on whose

proceedings--if they did but know it!--the arrival of future cheques in

some measure depended. But Hannah had not the cleverness which makes the

successful hypocrite. And for some time past there had been a strange

unmanageable change in her feelings towards Sandy's orphans. Since

Reuben had made her conscious that she was robbing them, she had gone

nearer to an active hatred than ever before. And, indeed, hatred in such

a case is the most natural outcome; for it is little else than the

soul's perverse attempt to justify to itself its own evil desire.

David, however, when once his rage over Hannah's latest offence had

cooled, behaved to his aunt much as he had done before it. He was

made placable by his secret hopes, and touched by Reuben's

advances--though of these last he took no practical account

whatever; and he must wait for his letter. So he went back

ungraciously to his daily tasks. Meanwhile he and Louie, on the

strength of the great _coup_ in prospect, were better friends

than they had ever been, and his consideration for her went up as

he noticed that, when she pleased, the reckless creature could keep

a secret 'as close as wax.'

The weeks, however, passed away, and still no letter came for

David. The shepherds' meetings--first at Clough End for the

Cheshire side of the Scout, and then at the 'Snake Inn' for the

Sheffield side--when the strayed sheep of the year were restored to

their owners, came and went in due course; sheep-washing and

sheep-shearing were over; the summer was halfway through; and still

no word from Mr. Ancrum.

David, full of annoyance and disappointment, was seething with

fresh plans--he and Louie spent hours discussing them at the

smithy--when suddenly an experience overtook him, which for the

moment effaced all his nascent ambitions, and entirely did away

with Louie's new respect for him.

It was on this wise.

Mr. Ancrum had left Clough End towards the end of June. The

congregation to which he ministered, and to which Reuben Grieve

belonged, represented one of those curious and independent

developments of the religious spirit which are to be found

scattered through the teeming towns and districts of northern

England. They had no connection with any recognised religious

community, but the members of it had belonged to many--to the

Church, the Baptists, the Independents, the Methodists. They were

mostly mill-hands or small tradesmen, penetrated on the one side

with the fervour, the yearnings, the strong formless poetry of

English evangelical faith, and repelled on the other by various

features in the different sects from which they came--by the

hierarchical strictness of the Wesleyan organisation, or the

looseness of the Congregationalists, or the coldness of the Church.

They had come together to seek the Lord in some way more intimate,

more moving, more effectual than any they had yet found; and in

this pathetic search for the 'rainbow gold' of faith they were

perpetually brought up against the old stumbling-blocks of the

unregenerate man,--the smallest egotisms, and the meanest vanities.

Mr. Ancrum, for instance, had come to the Clough End 'Brethren'

full of an indescribable missionary zeal. He had laboured for them

night and day, taxing his sickly frame far beyond its powers. But

the most sordid conspiracy imaginable, led by two or three of the

prominent members who thought he did not allow them enough share in

the evening meetings, had finally overthrown him, and he had gone

back to Manchester a bitterer and a sadder man.

After he left there was an interregnum, during which one or two of

the elder 'Brethren' taught Sunday school and led the Sunday

services. But at last, in August, it became known in Clough End

that a new minister for the 'Christian Brethren' had come down, and

public curiosity in the Dissenting circles was keen about him.

After a few weeks there began to be a buzz in the little town on

the subject of Mr. Dyson. The 'Christian Brethren' meeting-room, a

long low upper chamber formerly occupied by half a dozen

hand-looms, was crowded on Sundays, morning and evening, not only

by the Brethren, but by migrants from other denominations, and the

Sunday school, which was held in a little rickety garret off the

main room, also received a large increase of members. It was

rumoured that Mr. Dyson was specially successful with boys, and

that there was an 'awakening' among some of the lowest and roughest

of the Clough End lads.

'He ha sich a way wi un,' said a much-stirred mother to Reuben

Grieve, meeting him one day in the street, 'he do seem to melt your

varra marrow.'

Reuben went to hear the new man, was much moved, and came home

talking about him with a stammering unction, and many furtive looks

at David. He had tried to remonstrate several times on the lad's

desertion of chapel and Sunday school, but to no purpose. There was

something in David's half contemptuous, half obstinate silence on

these occasions which for a man like Reuben made argument

impossible. To his morbid inner sense the boy seemed to have

entered irrevocably on the broad path which leadeth to destruction.

Perhaps in another year he would be drinking and thieving. With a

curious fatalism Reuben felt that for the present, and till he had

made some tangible amends to Sandy and the Unseen Powers for

Hannah's sin, he himself could do nothing. His hands were unclean.

But some tremulous passing hopes he allowed himself to build on

this new prophet.

Meanwhile, David heard the town-talk, and took small account of it.

He supposed he should see the new-comer at Jerry's in time. Then if

folk spoke true there would be a shindy worth joining in.

Meanwhile, the pressure of his own affairs made the excitement of

the neighbourhood seem to him one more of those storms in the

Dissenting tea-cup, of which, boy as he was, he had known a good

many already.

One September evening he was walking down to Clough End, bound to

the reading-room. He had quite ceased to attend the 'Crooked Cow.'

His pennies were precious to him now, and he saved them jealously,

wondering scornfully sometimes how he could ever have demeaned

himself so far as to find excitement in the liquor or the company

of the 'Cow.' Half-way down to the town, as he was passing the

foundry, whence he had drawn the pan which had for so long made the

smithy enchanted ground to him, the big slouching appprentice who

had been his quondam friend and ally there, came out of the foundry

yard just in front of him. David quickened up a little.

'Tom, whar are yo goin?'

The other looked round at him uneasily.

'Niver yo mind.'

The youth's uncouth clothes were carefully brushed, and his fat

face, which wore an incongruous expression of anxiety and

dejection, shone with washing. David studied him a moment in

silence, then he said abruptly--

'Yo're goin prayer-meetin, that's what yo are.'

'An if I am, it's noa consarn o' yourn. Yo're yan o'

th'unregenerate; an I'll ask yo, Davy, if happen yo're goin town

way, not to talk ony o' your carnal talk to me. I'se got hindrances

enough, t' Lord knows.'

And the lad went his way, morosely hanging his head, and stepping

more rapidly as though to get rid of his companion.

'Well, I niver!' exclaimed David, in his astonishment. 'What's

wrong wi yo, Tom? Yo've got no more spunk nor a moultin hen. What's

getten hold o' yo?''

Tom hesitated a moment. '_Th' Lord!_' he burst out at last,

looking at Davy with that sudden unconscious dignity which strong

feeling can bestow for the moment on the meanest of mortals. 'He's

a harryin' me! I haven't slep this three neets for shoutin an

cryin! It's th' conviction o' _sin_, Davy. Th' devil seems a

howdin me, an I conno pull away, not whativer. T' new minister

says, 'Dunnot yo pull. Let Jesus do't all.' He's strang, He is.

'Yo're nobbut a worm.' But I've naw _assurance_, Davy, theer's

whar it is--I've naw assurance!' he repeated, forgetting in his

pain the unregenerate mind of his companion.

David walked on beside him wondering. When he had last seen Tom he

was lounging in a half-drunken condition outside the door of the

'Crooked Cow,' cracking tipsy jokes with the passers-by.

'Where is the prayer-meetin?' he inquired presently.

'In owd Simes's shed--an it's late too--I mun hurry.'

'Why, theer'll be plenty o' room in old Simes's shed. It's a fearfu

big place.'

'An lasst time theer was na stannin ground for a corn-boggart; an I

wudna miss ony o' Mr. Dyson's prayin, not for nothin. Good neet to

yo, Davy.'

And Tom broke into a run; David, however, kept up with him.

'P'raps I'll coom too,' he said, with a kind of bravado, when they

had passed the bridge and the Kinder printing works, and Clough End

was in sight.

Tom said nothing till they had breasted a hill, at the top of which

he paused panting, and confronted David.

'Noo yo'll not mak a rumpus, Davy,' he said, mistrustfully.

'An if do, can't a hundred or two o' yo kick me out?' asked David,

mockingly. 'I'll mak no rumpus. P'raps yor Mr. Dyson'll convert

me.'

And he walked on laughing.

Tom looked darkly at him; then, as he recovered his wind, his

countenance suddenly cleared. Satan laid a new snare for him--poor

Tom!--and into his tortured heart there fell a poisonous drop of

spiritual pride. Public reprobation applied to a certain order of

offences makes a very marketable kind of fame, as the author of

_Manfred_ knew very well. David in his small obscure way was

supplying another illustration of the principle. For the past year

he had been something of a personage in Clough End--having always

his wits, his book-learning, his looks, and his singular parentage

to start from.

Tom--the shambling butt of his comrades--began to like the notion

of going into prayer-meeting with David Grieve in tow; and even

that bitter and very real cloud of spiritual misery lifted a

little.

So they marched in together, Tom in front, with his head much

higher than before; and till the minister began there were many

curious glances thrown at David. It was a prayer-meeting for boys

only, and the place was crammed with them, of all ages up to

eighteen.

It was a carpenter's workshop. Tools and timber had been as far as

possible pushed to the side, and at the end a rough platform of

loose planks had been laid across some logs so as to raise the

preacher a little.

Soon there was a stir, and Mr. Dyson appeared. He was tall and

loosely built, with the stoop from the neck and the sallow skin

which the position of the cotton-spinner at work and the close

fluffy atmosphere in which he lives tend to develop. Up to six

months ago, he had been a mill-hand and a Wesleyan class-leader.

Now, in consequence partly of some inward crisis, partly of revolt

against an 'unspiritual' superintendent, he had thrown up mill and

Methodism together, and come to live on the doles of the Christian

Brethren at Clough End. He had been preaching on the moors already

during the day, and was tired out; but the pallor of the harsh face

only made the bright, commanding eye more noticeable. It ran over

the room, took note first of the numbers, then of individuals,

marked who had been there before, who was a new-comer. The audience

fell into order and quiet before it as though a general had taken

command.

He put his hands on his hips and began to speak without any

preface, somewhat to the boys' surprise, who had expected a prayer.

The voice, as generally happens with a successful revivalist

preacher, was of fine quality, and rich in good South Lancashire

intonations, and his manner was simplicity itself.

'Suppose we put off our prayer a little bit,' he said, in a

colloquial tone, his fixed look studying the crowded benches all

the while. 'Perhaps we'll have more to pray about by-and-by....

Well, now, I haven't been long in Clough End, to be sure, but I

think I've been long enough to get some notion of how you boys here

live--whether you work on the land, or whether you work in the

mills or in shops--I've been watching you a bit, perhaps you didn't

think it; and what I'm going to do to-night is to take your lives

to pieces--take them to pieces, an look close into them, as you've

seen them do at the mill, perhaps, with a machine that wants

cleaning. I want to find out what's wrong wi them, what they're

good for, whose work they do--_God's or the devil's_ ... First

let me take the mill-hands. Perhaps I know most about their life,

for I went to work in a cotton-mill when I was eight years old, and

I only left it six months ago. I have seen men and women saved in

that mill, so that their whole life afterwards was a kind of

ecstasy: I have seen others lost there, so that they became true

children of the devil, and made those about them as vile and

wretched as themselves. I have seen men grow rich there, and I have

seen men die there; so if there is anything I know in this world it

is how factory workers spend their time--at least, I think I know.

But judge for yourselves--shout to me if I'm wrong. Isn't it

somehow like this?'

And he fell into a description of the mill-hand's working day. It

was done with knowledge, sometimes with humour, and through it all

ran a curious undercurrent of half-ironical passion. The audience

enjoyed it, took the points, broke in now and then with comments as

the speaker touched on such burning matters as the tyranny of

overlookers, the temper of masters, the rubs between the different

classes of 'hands,' the behaviour of 'minders' to the 'piecers'

employed by them, and so on. The sermon at one time was more like a

dialogue between preacher and congregation. David found himself

joining in it involuntarily once or twice, so stimulating was the

whole atmosphere, and Mr. Dyson's eye was caught perforce by the

tall dark fellow with the defiant carriage of the head who sat next

to Tom Mullins, and whom he did not remember to have seen before.

But suddenly the preacher stopped, and the room fell dead silent,

startled by the darkening of his look. 'Ay,' he said, with stern

sharpness. 'Ay, that's how you live--them's the things you spend

your time and your minds on. You laugh, and I laugh--not a bad sort

of life, you think--a good deal of pleasure, after all, to be got

out of it. If a man must work he might do worse. _O you poor

souls!_'

The speaker stopped, as though mastering himself. His face worked

with emotion; his last words had been almost a cry of pain. After

the easy give and take of the opening, this change was electrical.

David felt his hand tremble on his knee.

'Answer me this!' cried the preacher, his nervous cotton-spinner's hand

outstretched. 'Is there any soul here among you factory lads who, when

he wakes in the morning, _ever thinks of saying a prayer?_ Not one of

you, I'll be bound! What with shovelling on one's clothes, and gulping

down one's breakfast, and walking half a mile to the mill, who's got

time to think about prayers? God must wait. He's always there above, you

think, sitting in glory. He can listen any time. Well, as you stand at

your work--all those hours!--is there ever a moment _then_ for putting

up a word in Jesus' ear--Jesus, Who died for sinners? Why, no, how

should there be indeed? If you don't keep a sharp eye on your work the

overlooker 'ull know the reason why in double-quick time!... But there

comes a break, perhaps, for one reason or another. Does the Lord get it?

What a thing to ask, to be sure! Why, there are other spinners close by,

waiting for rovings, or leaving off for "baggin," and a bit of talk and

a bad word or two are a deal more fun, and come easier than praying.

Half-past five o'clock at last--knocking-off time. Then you begin to

think of amusing yourselves. There's loafing about the streets, which

never comes amiss, and there's smoking and the public for you bigger

ones, and there's betting on Manchester races, and there's a bout of

swearing every now and then to keep up your spirits, and there are other

thoughts, and perhaps actions, for some of you, of which the less said

in any decent Christian gathering the better! And so bedtime comes round

again; still not a moment to think of God in--of the Judgment which has

come a day closer--of your sins which have grown a day heavier--of your

soul which has sunk a day further from heaven, a day nearer to hell? Not

one. You are dead tired, and mill-work begins so early. Tumble in--God

can wait. He has waited fourteen, or eighteen, or twenty years already!

'But you're not all factory hands here. I see a good many lads

I know come from the country--from the farms up Kinder or Edale

way. Well, I don't know so much about your ways as I do about

mills; but I know some, and I can guess some. _You_ are not shut

up all day with the roar of the machines in your ears, and the

cotton-fluff choking your lungs. You have to live harder, perhaps.

You've less chances of getting on in the world; but I declare to

you, if you're bad and godless--as some of you are--I think there's

a precious sight less excuse for you than there is for the

mill-hands!'

And with a startling vehemence, greater by far than he had shown in

the case of the mill-workers, he threw himself on the vices and the

callousness of the field-labourers. For were they not, day by day,

and hour by hour, face to face with the Almighty in His marvellous

world--with the rising of His sun, with the flash of His lightning,

with His clouds which dropped fatness, and with the heavens which

declare His glory? Nothing between them and the Most High, if they

would open their dull eyes and see! And more than that. Not a bit

of their life,' but had been dear to the Lord Jesus--but He had

spoken of it, taught from it, made it sacred. The shepherd herding

the sheep--how could he, of all men, forget and blaspheme the Good

Shepherd? The sower scattering the seed--how could he, of all men,

forget and blaspheme the Heavenly Sower? Oh, the crookedness of

sin! Oh, the hardness of men's hearts!

The secret of the denunciations which followed lay hidden deep in

the speaker's personal history. They were the utterances of a man

who had stood for years at the 'mules,' catching, when he could,

through the coarse panes of factory glass, the dim blue outlines of

distant moors. _Here_ were noise, crowd, coarse jesting, mean

tyrannies, uncongenial company--everything which a nervous,

excitable nature, tuned to poetry in the English way through

religion, most loathed; _there_ was beauty, peace, leisure for

thought, for holiness, for emotion.

Meanwhile the mind of David Grieve rose once or twice in angry

protest. It was not fair--it was unjust--and why did Mr. Dyson

always seem to be looking at him?--flinging at him all these

scathing words about farming people's sins and follies? He was

shaken and excited. Oratory, of any sort, never failed to stir him

extraordinarily. Once even he would have jumped up to speak, but

Tom Mullins's watchful hand closed on his arm. Davy shook it off

angrily, but was perforce reminded of his promise. And Mr. Dyson

was swift in all things. The pitiless sentences dropped; the

speaker, exhausted, wiped his brow and pondered a moment; and the

lads from the farms about, most of whom David knew by sight, were

left staring at the floor, some inclined to laugh by reaction,

others crimson and miserable.

Well; so God was everywhere forgotten--in the fields and in

the mill. The greedy, vicious hours went by, and God still

waited--waited. Would he wait for ever?

'_Nay!_'

The intense, low-spoken word sent a shiver through the room. The

revivalist passion had been mounting rapidly amongst the listeners,

and the revivalist sense divined what was coming. To his dying day

David, at least, never forgot the picture of a sinner's death

agony, a sinner's doom, which followed. As to the first, it was

very quiet and colloquial. The preacher dwelt on the tortured body,

the choking breath, the failing sight, the talk of relations and

friends round the bed.

'Ay, poor fellow, he'll not lasst mich longer; t' doctor's gien

him up--and a good thing too, for his sufferins are terr'ble to

see.'

'And your poor dying ears will catch what they say. Then will your

fear come upon you as a storm, and your calamity as a whirlwind.

Such a fear!

'Once, my lads--long ago--I saw a poor girl caught by her hair in

one of the roving machines in the mill I used to work at. Three

minutes afterwards they tore away her body from the iron teeth

which had destroyed her. But I, a lad of twelve, had seen her face

just as the thing caught her, and if I live to be a hundred I shall

never forget that face--that horrible, horrible fear convulsing it.

'But that fear, my boys, was as _nothing_ to the sinner's fear

at death! Only a few more hours--a few more minutes, perhaps--and

then _judgment_! All the pleasant loafing and lounging, all

the eating and drinking, the betting and swearing, the warm sun,

the kind light, the indulgent parents and friends left behind;

nothing for ever and ever but the torments which belong to sin, and

which even the living God can no more spare you and me if we die in

sin than the mill-engine, once set going, can spare the poor

creature that meddles with it.

'Well; but perhaps in that awful last hour you try to pray--to call

on the Saviour. But, alas! alas! prayer and faith have to be

learnt, like cotton-spinning. Let no man count on learning that

lesson for the asking. While your body has been enjoying itself in

sin, your soul has been dying--dying; and when at the last you bid

it rise and go to the Father, you will find it just as helpless as

your poor paralysed limbs. It cannot rise, it has no strength; it

cannot go, for it knows not the way. No hope; no hope. Down it

sinks, and the black waters of hell close upon it for ever!'

Then followed a sort of vision of the lost--delivered in short

abrupt sentences--the form of the speaker drawn rigidly up

meanwhile to its full height, the long arm outstretched. The

utterance had very little of the lurid materialism, the grotesque

horror of the ordinary ranter's hell. But it stole upon the

imagination little by little, and possessed it at last with an

all-pervading terror. Into it, to begin with, had gone the whole

life-blood and passion of an agonised soul. The man speaking had

himself graven the terrors of it on his inmost nature through many

a week of demoniacal possession. But since that original experience

of fire which gave it birth, there had come to its elaboration a

strange artistic instinct. Day after day the preacher had repeated

it to hushed congregations, and with every repetition, almost,

there had come a greater sharpening of the light and shade, a

keener sense of what would tell and move. He had given it on the

moors that afternoon, but he gave it better to-night, for on the

wild walk across the plateau of the Peak some fresh illustrations,

drawn from its black and fissured solitude, had suggested

themselves, and he worked them out as he went, with a kind of joy,

watching their effect. Yet the man was, in his way, a saint, and

altogether sincere--so subtle a thing is the life of the spirit.

In the middle, Tom Mullins, David's apprentice-friend, suddenly

broke out into loud groans, rocking himself to and fro on the form.

A little later, a small fair-haired boy of twelve sprang up from

the form where he had been sitting trembling, and rushed into the

space between the benches and the preacher, quite unconscious of

what he was doing.

'Sir!' he said; 'oh, sir!--please--I didn't want to say them bad

words this mornin; I didn't, sir; it wor t' big uns made me; they

said they'd duck me--an it do hurt that bad. Oh, sir, please!'

And the little fellow stood wringing his hands, the tears coursing

down his cheeks.

The minister stopped, frowning, and looked at him. Then a smile

broke on the set face, he stepped up to the lad, threw his arm

round him, and drew him up to his side fronting the room.

'My boy,' he said, looking down at him tenderly, 'you and I, thank

God, are still in the land of the _living_; there is still

time to-night--this very minute--to be saved! Ay, saved, for ever

and ever, by the blood of the Lamb. Look away from yourselves--away

from sin--away from hell--to the blessed Lord, that suffered and

died and rose again; just for what? For this only--that He might,

with His own pierced hands, draw every soul here to-night, and

every soul in the wide world that will but hear His voice, out of

the clutches of the devil, and out of the pains of hell, and gather

it close and safe into His everlasting arms!'

There was a great sob from the whole room. Rough lads from the

upland farms, shop-boys, mill-hands, strained forward, listening,

thirsting, responding to every word.

_Redemption--Salvation--_ the deliverance of the soul from

itself--thither all religion comes at last, whether for the ranter

or the philosopher. To the enriching of that conception, to the

gradual hewing it out in historical shape, have gone the noblest

poetry, the purest passion, the intensest spiritual vision of the

highest races, since the human mind began to work. And the

historical shape may crumble; but the need will last and the

travail will go on; for man's quest of redemption is but the

eternal yielding of the clay in the hands of the potter, the

eternal answer of the creature to the urging indwelling Creator.

CHAPTER X

Half an hour later, after the stormy praying and singing which had

succeeded Mr. Dyson's address, David found himself tramping up the

rough and lonely road leading to the high Kinder valley. The lights

of Clough End had disappeared; against the night sky the dark woody

side of Mardale Moor was still visible; beneath it sang the river;

a few stars were to be seen; and every now and then the windows of

a farm shone out to guide the wayfarer. But David stumbled on,

noticing nothing. At the foot of the steep hill leading to the farm

he stopped a moment, and leant over the gate. The little lad's cry

was in his ears.

Presently he leapt the gate impatiently, and ran up whistling.

Supper was over, but Hannah ungraciously brought him out some cold

bacon and bread. Louie hung about him while he ate, studying him

with quick furtive eyes.

'Whar yo bin?' she said abruptly, when Hannah had gone to the back

kitchen for a moment. Reuben was dozing by the fire over the local

paper.

'Nowhere as concerns yo,' said David, shortly. He finished his

supper and went and sat on the steps. The dogs came and put their

noses on his knees. He pulled absently at their coats, looking

straight before him at the dark point of Kinder Low.

'Whar yo bin?' said Louie's voice again in his ear. She had

squatted down on the step behind him.

'Be off wi yer,' said David, angrily, getting up in order to escape

her.

But she pursued him across the farmyard.

'Have yo got a letter?'

'No, I haven't.'

'Did yo ask at t' post-office?'

'No, I didn't.'

'An why didn't yo?'

'Because I didn't want--soa there--get away.' And he stalked off.

Louie, left behind, chewed the cud of reflection in the darkness.

Presently, to his great disgust, as he was sitting under a wall of

one of the pasture-fields, hidden, as he conceived, from all the

world by the night, he heard the rustle of a dress, the click of a

stone, and there was Louie dangling her legs above him, having

attacked him in the rear.

'Uncle Reuben's talkin 'is stuff about Mr. Dyson. I seed 'im gooin

passt Wigsons' this afternoon. He's nowt--he's common, he is.'

The thin scornful voice out of the dark grated on him intolerably.

He bent forward and shut his ears tight with both his hands. To

judge from the muffled sounds he heard, Louie went on talking for a

while; but at last there had been silence for so long, that he took

his hands away, thinking she must have gone.

'Yo've been at t' prayer-meetin, I tell yo, an yo're a great stupid

muffin-yed, soa theer.'

And a peremptory little kick on his shoulder from a substantial

shoe gave the words point.

He sprang up in a rage, ran down the hill, jumped over a wall or

two, and got rid of her. But he seemed to hear her elfish laugh for

some time after. As for himself, he could not analyse what had come

over him. But not even the attraction of an unopened parcel of

books he had carried home that afternoon from Clough End--a loan

from a young stationer he had lately made acquaintance with--could

draw him back to the farm. He sat on and on in the dark. And when

at last, roused by the distant sounds of shutting up the house, he

slunk in and up to bed, he tossed about for a long time, and woke

up often in the night. The tyrannous power of another man's faith

was upon him. He could not get Mr. Dyson out of his head. How on

earth could anybody be so _certain_? It was monstrous that any

one should be. It was canting stuff.

Still, next day, hearing by chance that the new-comer was going to

preach at a hamlet the other side of Clough End, he went, found a

large mixed meeting mostly of mill-hands, and the tide of

Revivalism rolling high. This time Mr. Dyson picked him out at

once--the face and head indeed were easily remembered. After the

sermon, when the congregation were filing out, leaving behind those

more particularly distressed in mind to be dealt with more

intimately in a small prayer-meeting by Mr. Dyson and a

prayer-leader, the minister suddenly stepped aside from a group of

people he was talking with, and touched David on the arm as he was

making for the door.

'Won't you stay?' he said peremptorily. 'Don't trifle with the Lord.'

And his feverish divining eyes seemed to look the boy through and

through. David flushed, and pushed past him with some inarticulate

answer. When he found himself in the open air he was half angry,

half shaken with emotion. And afterwards a curious instinct, the

sullen instinct of the wild creature shrinking from a possible

captor, made him keep himself as much as possible out of Mr.

Dyson's way. At the prayer-meetings and addresses, which followed

each other during the next fortnight in quick succession, David was

almost always present; but he stood at the back, and as soon as the

general function was over he fled. The preacher's strong will was

piqued. He began to covet the boy's submission disproportionately,

and laid schemes for meeting with him. But David evaded them all.

Other persons, however, succeeded better. Whenever the revivalist

fever attacks a community, it excites in a certain number of

individuals, especially women, an indescribable zeal for

proselytising. The signs of 'conviction' in any hitherto

unregenerate soul are marked at once, and the 'saved' make a prey

of it, showing a marvellous cunning and persistence in its pursuit.

One day a woman, the wife of a Clough End shoemaker, slightly known

to David, met him on the moors.

'Will yo coom to-night?' she said, nodding to him. 'Theer'll be

prayin' at our house--about half a dozen.'

Then, as the boy stopped, amazed and hesitating, she fixed him with

her shining ecstatic eyes.

'Awake, thou that sleepest,' she said under her breath, 'and Christ

shall give thee light.'

She had been carrying a bundle to a distant farm. A child was in

her arms, and she looked dragged and worn. But all the way down the

moor as she came towards him David had heard her singing hymns.

He hung his head and passed on. But in the evening he went, found

three or four other boys his own age or older, the woman, and her

husband. The woman sang some of the most passionate Methodist

hymns; the husband, a young shoemaker, already half dead of asthma

and bronchitis, told his 'experiences' in a voice broken by

incessant coughing; one of the boys, a rough specimen, known to

David as a van-boy from some calico-printing works in the

neighbourhood, prayed aloud, breaking down into sobs in the middle;

and David, at first obstinately silent, found himself joining

before the end in the groans and 'Amens,' by force of a contagious

excitement he half despised but could not withstand.

The little prayer-meeting, however, broke up somewhat in confusion.

There was not much real difference of opinion at this time in

Clough End, which was, on the whole, a strongly religious town.

Even the Churchmanship of it was decidedly evangelical, ready at

any moment to make common cause with Dissent against Ritualism, if

such a calamity should ever threaten the little community, and very

ready to join, more or less furtively, in the excitements of

Dissenting revivals. Jerry Timmins and his set represented the only

serious blot on what the pious Clough Endian might reasonably

regard as a fair picture. But this set contained some sharp

fellows--provided outlet for a considerable amount of energy of a

raw and roving sort, and, no doubt, did more to maintain the mental

equilibrium of the small factory-town than any enthusiast on the

other side would for a moment have allowed. The excitement which

followed in the train of a man like Mr. Dyson roused, of course, an

answering hubbub among the Timminsites. The whole of Jerry's circle

was stirred up, in fact, like a hive of wasps; their ribaldry grew

with what it fed on; and every day some new and exquisite method of

harrying the devout occurred to the more ingenious among them.

David had hitherto escaped notice. But on this evening, while

he and his half-dozen companions were still on their knees,

they were first disturbed by loud drummings on the shoemaker's

door, which opened directly into the little room where they

were congregated; and then, when they emerged into the street,

they found a mock prayer-meeting going on outside, with all the

usual 'manifestations' of revivalist fervour--sighs, groans,

shouts, and the rest of it--in full flow. At the sight of David

Grieve there were first stares and then shrieks of laughter.

'I say, Davy,' cried a drunken young weaver, sidling up to him on

his knees and embracing him from behind, 'my heart's real touched.

Gie me yor coat, Davy; it's better nor mine, Davy; and I'm yor

Christian brother, Davy.'

The emotion of this appeal drew uproarious merriment from the knot

of Secularists. David, in a frenzy, kicked out, so that his

assailant dropped him with a howl. The weaver's friends closed upon

the 'Ranters,' who had to fight their way through. It was not till

they had gained the outskirts of the town that the shower of stones

ceased, and that they could pause to take stock of their losses.

Then it appeared that, though all were bruised, torn, and furious,

some were inclined to take a mystical joy in persecution, and to

find compensation in certain plain and definite predictions as to

the eternal fate in store for 'Jerry Timmins's divils.' David, on

the other hand, was much more inclined to vent his wrath on his own

side than on the Timminsites.

'Why can't yo keep what yo're doin to yorsels?' he called out

fiercely to the knot of panting boys, as he faced round upon them

at the gate leading to the Kinder road. 'Yo're a parcel o'

fools--always chatterin and clatterin.'

The others defended themselves warmly. 'Them Timmins lot' were

always spying about. They daren't attack the large meetings, but

they had a diabolical way of scenting out the small ones. The

meetings at the shoemaker's had been undisturbed for some few

nights, then a Timminsite passing by had heard hymns, probably

listened at the keyhole, and of course informed the main body of

the enemy.

'They're like them nassty earwigs,' said one boy in disgust,

'they'll wriggle in onywheres.'

'Howd yor noise!' said David, peremptorily. 'If yo wanted to keep

out o' their way, yo could do't fasst enough.'

'How!' they inquired, with equal curtness.

'Yo needn't meet in th' town at aw. Theer's plenty o' places up on

t' moor,' and he waved his hand towards the hills behind him, lying

clear in the autumn moonlight.' Theer's th' owd smithy--who'd find

yo there?'

The mention of the smithy was received as an inspiration. There is

a great deal of pure romantic temper roused by these revivalistic

outbreaks in provincial England. The idea of the moors and the old

ruin as setting for a secret prayer-meeting struck the group of

excited lads as singularly attractive. They parted cheerfully upon

it, in spite of their bruises.

David, however, walked home fuming. The self-abandonment of the

revival had been all along wellnigh intolerable to him--and now,

that he should have allowed the Timminsites to know anything about

his prayers! He very nearly broke off from it altogether in his

proud disgust.

However he did ultimately nothing of the sort. As soon as he grew

cool again, he was as much tormented as before by what was at

bottom more an intellectual curiosity than a moral anguish. There

was _some_ moral awakening in it; he had some real qualms

about sin, some real aspirations after holiness, and, so far, the

self-consciousness which had first stirred at Haworth was deepened

and fertilised. But the thirst for emotion and sensation was the

main force at work. He could not make out what these religious

people meant by their 'experiences,' and for the first time he

wanted to make out. So when it was proposed to him to meet at the

smithy on a certain Saturday evening, he agreed.

Meanwhile, Louie was sitting up in bed every night, with her hands

round her sharp knees, and her black brows knit over David's

follies. It seemed to her he no longer cared 'a haporth' about

getting a letter from Mr. Ancrum, about going to Manchester, about

all those entrancing anti-meat schemes which were to lead so easily

to a paradise of free 'buying' for both of them. Whenever she tried

to call him back to these things he shook her off impatiently, and

their new-born congeniality to each other had been all swamped in

this craze for 'shoutin hollerin' people she despised with all her

heart. When she flew out at him, he just avoided her. Indeed, he

avoided her now at all times, whether she flew out or not. There

was an invincible heathenism about Louie, which made her the

natural enemy of any 'awakened' person.

The relation of the elders in the farm to the new development

in David was a curious one. Hannah viewed it with a secret

satisfaction. Christians have less time than other people--such,

at least, had been her experience with Reuben--to spend in

thirsting for the goods of this world. The more David went to

prayer-meetings, the less likely was he to make inadmissible

demands on what belonged to him. As for poor Reuben, he seemed to

have got his wish; while he and Hannah had been doing their best to

drive Sandy's son to perdition through a downward course of

'loafing,' God had sent Mr. Dyson to put Davy back on the right

road. But he was ill at ease; he watched the excitement, which all

the lad's prickly reticence could not hide from those about him,

with strange and variable feelings. As a Christian, he should have

rejoiced; instead, the uncle and nephew shunned each other more

than ever, and shunned especially all talk of the revival. Perhaps

the whole situation--the influence of the new man, of the local

talk, of the quickened spiritual life around him, did but aggravate

the inner strain in Reuben. Perhaps his wife's satisfaction, which

his sharpened conscience perceived and understood, troubled him

intolerably. At any rate, his silence and disquiet grew, and his

only pleasure lay, more than ever, in those solitary cogitations we

have already spoken of.

The 15th of October approached--as it happened, the Friday before

the smithy prayer-meeting. On that day of the year, according to

ancient and invariable custom, the Yorkshire stock--steers,

heifers, young horses--which are transferred to the Derbyshire

farms on the 15th of May, are driven back to their Yorkshire

owners, with all the fatness of Derbyshire pastures showing on

their sleek sides. Breeders and farmers meet again at Woodhead,

just within the Yorkshire border. The animals are handed over to

their owners, paid for at so much a head, and any preventible

damage or loss occurring among them is reckoned against the farmer

returning them, according to certain local rules.

As the middle of the month came nearer, Reuben began to talk

despondently to Hannah of his probable gains from his Yorkshire

'boarders.' It had been a cold wet summer; he was 'feart' the

owners would think he might have taken more care of some of the

animals, especially of the young horses, and he mentioned certain

ailments springing from damp and exposure for which he might be

held responsible. Hannah grew irritated and anxious. The receipts

from this source were the largest they could reckon upon in the

year. But the fields on which the Yorkshire animals pastured were

at some distance from the house; this department of the farm

business was always left wholly to Reuben; and, with much grumbling

and scolding, she took his word for it as to the probable lowness

of the sum he should bring back.

David, meanwhile, was sometimes a good deal puzzled by Reuben's

behaviour. It seemed to him that his uncle told some queer tales at

home about their summer stock. And when Reuben announced his

intention of going by himself to Woodhead, and leaving David at

home, the boy was still more astonished.

However, he was glad enough to be spared the tramp with a set of

people whose ways and talk were more and more uncongenial to him;

and after his uncle's departure he lay for hours hidden from Louie

among the heather, sometimes arguing out imaginary arguments with

Mr. Dyson, sometimes going through passing thrills of emotion and

fear. What was meant, he wanted to know, by '_the sense of

pardon'?_ Person after person at the prayer-meetings he had been

frequenting had spoken of attaining it with ecstasy, or of being

still shut out from it with anguish. But how, after all, did it

differ from pardoning yourself? You had only, it seemed to him, to

think very hard that you were pardoned, and the feeling came.

How could anybody tell it was more than that? David racked his

brain endlessly over the same subject. Who could be sure that

'experience' was not all moonshine? But he was as yet much too

touched and shaken by what he had been going through to draw any

trenchant conclusions. He asked the question, however, and therein

lay the great difference between him and the true stuff of

Methodism.

Meanwhile, in his excitement, he, for the first time, ceased to go

to the Dawsons' as usual. To begin with, they dropped out of a mind

which was preoccupied with one of the first strong emotions of

adolescence. Then, some one told him casually that 'Lias was more

ailing than usual, and that Margaret was in much trouble. He was

pricked with remorse, but just because Margaret would be sure to

question him, a raw shyness came in and held him back from the

effort of going.

On the Saturday evening David, having ingeniously given Louie the

slip, sped across the fields to the smithy. It was past five

o'clock, and the light was fading. But the waning gold of the

sunset as he jumped the wall on to the moor made the whole autumnal

earth about him, and the whole side of the Scout, one splendour.

Such browns and pinks among the withering ling; such gleaming

greens among the bilberry leaf; such reds among the turning ferns;

such fiery touches on the mountain ashes overhanging the Red Brook!

The western light struck in great shafts into the bosom of the

Scout; and over its grand encompassing mass hung some hovering

clouds just kindling into rosy flame. As the boy walked along he

saw and thrilled to the beauty which lay spread about him. His mood

was simple, and sweeter than usual. He felt a passionate need of

expression, of emotion. There was a true disquiet, a genuine

disgust with self at the bottom of him, and God seemed more than

imaginatively near. Perhaps, on this day of his youth, of all days,

he was closest to the Kingdom of Heaven.

At the smithy he found about a dozen persons, mostly youths, just

come out from the two or three mills which give employment to

Clough End, and one rather older than the rest, a favourite

prayer-leader in Sunday meetings. At first, everything felt

strange; the boys eyed one another; even David as he stepped in

among them had a momentary reaction, and was more conscious of the

presence of a red-haired fellow there with whom he had fought a

mighty fight on the Huddersfield expedition, than of any spiritual

needs.

However, the prayer-leader knew his work. He was slow and pompous;

his tone with the Almighty might easily have roused a hostile sense

of humour; but Dissent in its active and emotional forms kills the

sense of humour; and, besides, there was a real, ungainly power in

the man. Every phrase of his opening prayer was hackneyed; every

gesture uncouth. But his heart was in it, and religious conviction

is the most infectious thing in the world. He warmed, and his

congregation warmed with him. The wild scene, too, did its

part--the world of darkening moors spread out before them; the

mountain wall behind them; the October wind sighing round the

ruined walls; the lonely unaccustomed sounds of birds and water.

When he ceased, boy after boy broke out into more or less

incoherent praying. Soon in the dusk they could no longer see each

other's faces; and then it was still easier to break through

reserve.

At last David found himself speaking. What he said was at first

almost inaudible, for he was kneeling between the wall and the pan

which had been his childish joy, with his face and arms crushed

against the stones. But when he began the boys about pricked up

their ears, and David was conscious suddenly of a deepened silence.

There were warm tears on his hidden cheeks; but it pleased him

keenly they should listen so, and he prayed more audibly and

freely. Then, when his voice dropped at last, the prayer-leader

gave out the familiar hymn, 'Come, O thou Traveller unknown:'--

Come, O thou Traveller unknown,

Whom still I hold, but cannot see!

My company before is gone,

And I am left alone with Thee;

With Thee all night I mean to stay,

And wrestle till the break of day.

Wilt thou not yet to me reveal

Thy new unutterable name?

Tell me, I still beseech thee, tell--

To know it now resolved I am.

Wrestling, I will not let thee go,

Till I thy name, thy nature know.

* * *

'Tis Love! 'tis Love--thou lovest me!

I hear thy whisper in my heart;

The morning breaks, the shadows flee,

Pure universal Love thou art;

To me, to all, thy mercies move,

Thy nature and thy name is Love.

Again and again the lines rose on the autumn air; each time the

hymn came to an end it was started afresh, the sound of it

spreading far and wide into the purple breast of Kinder Scout. At

last the painful sobbing of poor Tom Mullins almost drowned the

singing. The prayer-leader, himself much moved, bent over and

seized him by the arm.

'Look to Jesus, Tom. Lay hold on the Saviour. Don't think of your

sins; they're done away i' th' blood o' the Lamb. Howd Him fast.

Say, "I believe," and the Lord ull deliver yo.'

With a cry, the great hulking lad sprang to his feet, and clasped

his arms above his head--

'I do believe--I will believe. Help me, Lord Jesus. Oh, I'm saved!

I'm saved!' And he remained standing in an ecstasy, looking to the

sky above the Scout, where the red sunset glow still lingered.

'Hallelujah! hallelujah! Thanks be to God!' cried the

prayer-leader, and the smithy resounded in the growing darkness

with similar shouts. David was almost choking with excitement. He

would have given worlds to spring to Tom Mullins's side and

proclaim the same faith. But the inmost heart of him, his real

self, seemed to him at this testing moment something dead and cold.

No heavenly voice spoke to _him_, David Grieve. A genuine pang

of religious despair seized him. He looked out over the moor

through a gap in the stones. There was a dim path below; the fancy

struck him that Christ, the 'Traveller unknown,' was passing along

it. He had already stretched out His hand of blessing to Tom

Mullins.

'To me! to me, too!' David cried under his breath, carried away by

the haunting imagination, and straining his eyes into the dusk. Had

the night opened to his sight there and then in a vision of glory,

he would have been no whit surprised.

Hark!--what was that sound?

A weird scream rose on the wind. The startled congregation in the

smithy scrambled to their feet. Another scream, nearer apparently

than the first, and then a loud wailing, broken every few seconds

by a strange slight laugh, of which the distance seemed quite

indefinite. Was it close by, or beyond the Red Brook?

The prayer-leader turned white, the boys stood huddled round him in

every attitude of terror. Again the scream, and the little ghostly

laugh! Looking at each other wildly, the whole congregation broke

from the smithy down the hill. But the leader stopped himself.

'It's mebbe soom one in trouble,' he said manfully, every limb

trembling. 'We mun go and see, my lads.' And he rushed off in the

direction whence the first sound had seemed to come--towards the

Red Brook--half a dozen of the bolder spirits following. The rest

stood cowering on the slope under the smithy. David meanwhile had

climbed the ruined wall, and stood with head strained forward, his

eyes sweeping the moor. But every outline was sinking fast into the

gulf of the night; only a few indistinct masses--a cluster of

gorse-bushes, a clump of mountain ash--still showed here and there.

The leader made for one of these darker patches on the

mountain-side, led on always by the recurrent screams. He reached

it; it was a patch of juniper overhanging the Red Brook--when

suddenly from behind it there shot up a white thing, taller than

the tallest man, with nodding head and outspread arms, and such

laughter--so faint, so shrill, so evil, breaking midway into a

hoarse angry yell.

'_Jenny Crum! Jenny Crum!_' cried the whole band with one

voice, and, wheeling round, they ran down the Scout, joined by the

contingent from the smithy, some of them falling headlong among the

heather in their agony of flight, others ruthlessly knocking over

those in front of them who seemed to be in their way. In a few

seconds, as it seemed, the whole Scout was left to itself and the

night. Footsteps, voices, all were gone--save for one long peal of

most human, but still elfish, mirth, which came from the Red Brook.

CHAPTER XI

A dark figure sprang down from the wall of the smithy, leapt along

the heather, and plunged into the bushes along the brook. A cry in

another key was heard.

David emerged, dragging something behind him.

'Yo limb, yo! How dare yo, yo little beast? Yo impident little

toad!' And in a perfect frenzy of rage he shook what she held. But

Louie--for naturally it was Louie--wrenched herself away, and stood

confronting him, panting, but exultant.

'I freetened 'em! just didn't I? Cantin humbugs! "_Jenny Crum!

Jenny Crum!_"' And, mimicking the voice of the leader, she broke

again into an hysterical shout of laughter.

David, beside himself, hit out and struck her. It was a heavy blow

which knocked her down, and for a moment seemed to stun her. Then

she recovered her senses, and flew at him in a mad passion, weeping

wildly with the smart and excitement.

He held her off, ashamed of himself, till she flung away, shrieking

out--

'Go and say its prayers, do--good little boy--poor little babby.

Ugh, yo coward! hittin gells, that's all yo're good for.'

And she ran off so fast that all sight of her was lost in a few

seconds. Only two or three loud sobs seemed to come back from the

dark hollow below. As for the boy, he stopped a second to

disentangle his feet from the mop and the tattered sheet wherewith

Louie had worked her transformation scene. Then he dashed up the

hill again, past the smithy, and into a track leading out on to the

high road between Castleton and Clough End. He did not care where

he went. Five minutes ago he had been almost in heaven; now he was

in hell. He hated Louie, he hated the boys who had cut and run, he

loathed himself. No!--religion was not for such as he. No more

canting--no more praying--away with it! He seemed to shake all the

emotion of the last few weeks from him with scorn and haste, as he

ran on, his strong young limbs battling with the wind.

Presently he emerged on the high road. To the left, a hundred yards

away, were the lights of a wayside inn; a farm waggon and a pair of

horses standing with drooped and patient heads were drawn up on the

cobbles in front of it. David felt in his pockets. There was

eighteenpence in them, the remains of half-a-crown a strange

gentleman had given him in Clough End the week before for stopping

a runaway horse. In he stalked.

'Two penn'orth of gin--hot!' he commanded.

The girl serving the bar brought it and stared at him curiously.

The glaring paraffin lamp above his head threw the frowning brows

and wild eyes, the crimson cheeks, heaving chest, and tumbled hair,

into strong light and shade. 'That's a quare un!' she thought, but

she found him handsome all the same, and, retreating behind the

beer-taps, she eyed him surreptitiously. She was a raw country

lass, not yet stript of all her natural shyness, or she would have

begun to 'chaff' him.

'Another!' said David, pushing forward his glass. This time he

looked at her. His reckless gaze travelled over her coarse and

comely face, her full figure, her bare arms. He drank the glass she

gave him, and yet another. She began to feel half afraid of him,

and moved away. The hot stimulant ran through his veins. Suddenly

he felt his head whirling from the effects of it, but that horrible

clutch of despair was no longer on him. He raised himself defiantly

and turned to go, staggering along the floor. He was near the

entrance when an inner door opened, and the carter, who had been

gossiping in a room behind with the landlord, emerged. He started

with astonishment when he saw David.

'Hullo, Davy, what are yo after?'

David turned, nearly losing his balance as he did so, and clutching

at the bar for support. He found himself confronted with Jim

Wigson--his old enemy--who had been to Castleton with a load of hay

and some calves, and was on his way back to Kinder again. When he

saw who it was clinging to the bar counter, Jim first stared and

then burst into a hoarse roar of laughter.

'Coom here! coom here!' he shouted to the party in the back parlour.

'Here's a rum start! I do declare this beats cock-fighting!--this do.

Damn my eyes iv it doosn't! Look at that yoong limb. Why they towd me

down at Clough End this mornin he'd been took "serious" --took wi a

prayin turn--they did. Look at un! It ull tak 'im till to-morrow mornin

to know his yed from his heels. He! he! he! Yo're a deep un, Davy--yo

are. But yo'll get a bastin when Hannah sees yo--prayin or no prayin.'

And Jim went off into another guffaw, pointing his whip the while

at Davy. Some persons from the parlour crowded in, enjoying the

fun. David did not see them. He reached out his hand for the glass

he had just emptied, and steadying himself by a mighty effort,

flung it swift and straight in Jim Wigson's face. There was a crash

of fragments, a line of blood appeared on the young carter's chin,

and a chorus of wrath and alarm rose from the group behind him.

With a furious oath Jim placed a hand on the bar, vaulted it, and

fell upon the lad. David defended himself blindly, but he was dazed

with drink, and his blows and kicks rained aimlessly on Wigson's

iron frame. In a second or two Jim had tripped him up, and stood

over him, his face ablaze with vengeance and conquest.

'Yo yoong varmint--yo cantin yoong hypocrite! I'll teach yo to show

imperence to your betters. Yo bin allus badly i' want o' soombody

to tak yo down a peg or two. Now I'll show yo. I'll not fight yo,

but I'll flog yo--_flog yo_--d' yo hear?'

And raising his carter's whip he brought it down on the boy's back

and legs. David tried desperately to rise--in vain--Jim had him by

the collar; and four or five times more the heavy whip came down,

avenging with each lash many a slumbering grudge in the victor's

soul.

Then Jim felt his arm firmly caught. 'Now, Mister Wigson,' cried the

landlord--a little man, but a wiry--'yo'll not get me into trooble.

Let th' yoong ripstitch go. Yo've gien him a taste he'll not forget

in a week o' Sundays. Let him go.'

Jim, with more oaths, struggled to get free, but the landlord had

quelled many rows in his time, and his wrists were worthy of his

calling. Meanwhile his wife helped up the boy. David was no sooner

on his feet than he made another mad rush for Wigson, and it needed

the combined efforts of landlord, landlady, and servant-girl to

part the two again. Then the landlord, seizing David from behind by

'the scuft of the neck,' ran him out to the door in a twinkling.

'Go 'long wi yo! An if yo coom raisin th' divil here again, see iv I

don't gie yo a souse on th' yed mysel.' And he shoved his charge

out adroitly and locked the door.

David staggered across the road as though still under the impetus

given by the landlord's shove.

The servant-girl took advantage of the loud cross-fire of talk

which immediately rose at the bar round Jim Wigson to run to a

corner window and lift the blind. The boy was sitting on a heap of

stones for mending the road, looking at the inn. Other passers-by

had come in, attracted by the row, and the girl slipped out

unperceived, opened the side door, and ran across the road. It had

begun to rain, and the drops splashed in her face.

David was sitting leaning forward, his eyes fixed on the lighted

windows of the house opposite. The rays which came from them showed

her that his nose and forehead were bleeding, and that the blood

was dripping unheeded on the boy's clothes. He was utterly

powerless, and trembling all over, but his look 'gave her a turn.'

'Now, luke here,' she said, bending down to him. 'Yo jes go whoam.

Wigson, he'll be out direckly, an he'll do yo a hurt iv he finds

yo. Coom, I'll put yo i' the way for Kinder.'

And before he could gather his will to resist, she had dragged him

up with her strong countrywoman's arms and was leading him along

the road to the entrance of the lane he had come by.

'Lor, yo _are_ bleedin,' she said compassionately; 'he shud ha

thowt as how yo wor nobbut a lad--an it wor he begun aggin fust.

He's a big bully is Wigson.' And impulsively raising her apron she

applied it to the blood, David quite passive all the while. The

great clumsy lass nearly kissed him for pity.

'Now then,' she said at last, turning him into the lane, 'yo know

your way, an I mun goo, or they'll be raisin the parish arter me.

Gude neet to yo, an keep out o' Wigson's seet. Rest yursel a bit

theer--agen th' wall.'

And leaving him leaning against the wall, she reluctantly departed,

stopping to look back at him two or three times in spite of the

rain, till the angle of the wall hid him from view.

The rain poured down and the wind whistled through the rough lane.

David presently slipped down upon a rock jutting from the wall, and

a fevered, intermittent sleep seized him--the result of the spirits

he had been drinking. His will could oppose no resistance; he slept

on hour after hour, sheltered a little by an angle of the wall, but

still soaked by rain and buffeted by the wind.

When he awoke he staggered suddenly to his feet. The smart of his

back and legs recalled him, after a few moments of bewilderment, to

a mental torture he had scarcely yet had time to feel. He--David

Grieve--had been beaten--thrashed like a dog--by Jim Wigson! The

remembered fact brought with it a degradation of mind and body--a

complete unstringing of the moral fibres, which made even revenge

seem an impossible output of energy. A nature of this sort, with

such capacities and ambitions, carries about with it a sense of

supremacy, a natural, indispensable self-conceit which acts as the

sheath to the bud, and is the condition of healthy development.

Break it down and you bruise and jeopardise the flower of life.

Jim Wigson!--the coarse, ignorant lout with whom he had been, more

or less, at feud since his first day in Kinder, whom he had

despised with all the strength of his young vanity. By to-morrow

all Kinder would know, and all Kinder would laugh. 'What! yo

whopped Reuben Grieve's nevvy, Jim? Wal, an a good thing, too!

A lick now an again ud do _him_ noa harm--a cantankerous yoong

rascot--pert an proud, like t' passon's pig, I say.' David could

hear the talk to be as though it were actually beside him. It burnt

into his ear.

He groped his way through the lane and on to the moor--trembling

with physical exhaustion, the morbid frenzy within him choking his

breath, the storm beating in his face. What was that black mass to

his right?--the smithy? A hard sob rose in his throat. Oh, he had

been so near to an ideal world of sweetness, purity, holiness! Was

it a year ago?

With great difficulty he found the crossing-place in the brook, and

then the gap in the wall which led him into the farm fields. When

he was still a couple of fields off the house he heard the dogs

beginning. But he heard them as though in a dream.

At last he stood at the door and fumbled for the handle. Locked!

Why, what time could it be? He tried to remember what time he had

left home, but failed. At last he knocked, and just as he did so he

perceived through a chink of the kitchen shutter a light on the

scrubbed deal table inside, and Hannah's figure beside it. At

the sound of the knocker Hannah rose, put away her work with

deliberation, snuffed the candle, and then moved with it to the

door of the kitchen. The boy watched her with a quickly beating

heart and whirling brain. She opened the door.

'Whar yo bin?' she demanded sternly. 'I'd like to know what business

yo have to coom in this time o' neet, an your uncle fro whoam.

Yo've bin in mischief, I'll be bound. Theer's Louie coom back wi a

black eye, an jes because she woan't say nowt about it, I know as

it's yo are at t' bottom o' 't. I'm reg'lar sick o' sich doins in a

decent house. Whar yo bin, I say?'

And this time she held the candle up so as to see him. She had been

sitting fuming by herself, and was in one of her blackest tempers.

David's misdemeanour was like food to a hungry instinct.

'I went to prayer-meetin,' the lad said thickly. It seemed to him

as though the words came all in the wrong order.

Hannah bent forward and gave a sudden cry.

'Why, yo bin fightin! Yo're all ower blood! Yo bin fightin,

and I'll bet a thousand pund yo draw'd in Louie too. And

_sperrits_! Why, yo _smell_ o' sperrits! Yo're jes _reekin_

wi 'em! Wal, upon my word!'--and Hannah drew herself back,

flinging every slow word in his face like a blow. 'Yo feature

your mither, yo do, boath on you, pretty close. I allus said it ud

coom out i' yo too. Prayer-meetin! Yo yoong hypocrite! Gang your

ways! Yo may sleep i' th' stable; it's good enough liggin for yo

this neet.'

And before he had taken in her words she had slammed the door in

his face, and locked it. He made a feeble rush for it in vain.

Hannah marched back into the kitchen, listening instinctively first

to him left outside, and then for any sound there might be from

upstairs. In a minute or two she heard uneven steps going away; but

there was no movement in the room overhead. Louie was sleeping

heavily. As for Hannah, she sat down again with a fierce decision

of gesture, which seemed to vibrate through the kitchen and all it

held. Who could find fault with her? It would be a lesson to him.

It was not a cold night, and there was straw in the stable--a deal

better lying than such a boy deserved. As she thought of his

'religious' turn she shrugged her shoulders with a bitter scorn.

The night wore on in the high Kinder valley. The stormy wind and

rain beat in great waves of sound and flood against the breast of

the mountain; the Kinder stream and the Red Brook danced under the

heavy drops. The grouse lay close and silent in the sheltering

heather; even the owls in the lower woods made no sound. Still, the

night was not perfectly dark, for towards midnight a watery moon

rose, and showed itself at intervals between the pelting showers.

In the Dawsons' little cottage on Frimley Moor there were still

lights showing when that pale moon appeared. Margaret was watching

late. She and another woman sat by the fire talking under their

breaths. A kettle was beside her with a long spout, which sent the

steam far into the room, keeping the air of it moist and warm for

the poor bronchitic old man who lay close-curtained from the

draughts on the wooden bed in the corner.

The kettle sang, the fire crackled, and the wind shook the windows

and doors. But suddenly, through the other sounds, Margaret was

aware of an intermittent knocking--a low, hesitating sound, as of

some one outside afraid, and yet eager, to make himself heard.

She started up, and her companion--a homely neighbour, one of those

persons whose goodness had, perhaps, helped to shape poor

Margaret's philosophy of life--looked round with a scared

expression.

'Whoiver can it be, this time o' neet?' said Margaret--and she

looked at the old clock--'why, it's close on middle-neet!'

She hesitated a moment, then she went to the door, and bent her

mouth to the chink--

'Who are yo? What d' yo want?' she asked, in a distinct but low

voice, so as not to disturb 'Lias.

No answer for a minute. Then her ear caught some words from

outside. With an exclamation she unlocked the door and threw it

open.

'Davy! Davy!' she cried, almost forgetting her patient.

The boy clung to the lintel without a word.

'Coom your ways in!' she said peremptorily, catching him by the

sleeve. 'We conno ha no draughts on th' owd man.'

And she drew him into the light, and shut the door. Then as the

shaded candle and firelight fell on the tall lad, wavering now to

this side, now to that, as though unable to support himself, his

clothes dripping on the flags, his face deadly white, save for the

smears of blood upon it, the two women fell back in terror.

'Will yo gie me shelter?' said the boy, hoarsely; 'I bin lying hours

i' th' wet. Aunt Hannah turned me out.'

Margaret came close to him and looked him all over.

'What for did she turn yo out, Davy?'

'I wor late. I'd been fightin Jim Wigson, an she smelt me o' drink.'

And suddenly the lad sank down on a stool near, and laid his head

in his hands, as though he could hold it up no longer. Margaret's

blanched old face melted all in a minute.

'Howd 'un up quick!' she said to her companion, still in a whisper.

'He hanno got a dry thread on--and luke at that cut on his

yed--why, he'll be laid up for weeks, maybe, for this. Get his

cloos off, an we'll put him on my bed then.'

And between them they dragged him up, and Margaret began to strip

off his jacket. As they held him--David surrendering himself

passively--the curtain of the bed was drawn back, and 'Lias,

raising himself on an elbow, looked out into the room. As he caught

sight of the group of the boy and the two women, arrested in their

task by the movement of the curtain, the old man's face expressed,

first a weak and agitated bewilderment, and then in an instant it

cleared.

His dream wove the sight into itself, and 'Lias knew all about it.

His thin long features, with the white hair hanging about them,

took an indulgent amused look.

'_Bony_--eh, Bony, is that _yo_, man? Eh, but yo're cold

an pinched, loike! A gude glass o' English grog ud not come amiss

to yo. An your coat, an your boots--what is 't drippin? _Snaw?

_ Yo make a man's backbane freeze t' see yo. An there's hot wark

behind yo, too. Moscow might ha warmed yo, I'm thinkin, an--'

But the weak husky voice gave way, and 'Lias fell back, still

holding the curtain, though, in his emaciated hand, and straining

his dim eyes on David. Margaret, with tears, ran to him, tried to

quiet him and to shut out the light from him again. But he pushed

her irritably aside.

'No, Margaret,--doan't intrude. What d' yo know about it? Yo know

nowt, Margaret. When did yo iver heer o' the Moscow campaign? Let

me be, woan't yo?'

But perceiving that he would not be quieted, she turned him on his

pillows, so that he could see the boy at his ease.

'He's bin out i' th' wet, 'Lias dear, has Davy,' she said; 'and it's

nobbut a clashy night. We mun gie him summat hot, and a place to

sleep in.'

But the old man did not listen to her. He lay looking at David, his

pale blue eyes weirdly visible in his haggard face, muttering to

himself. He was still tramping in the snow with the French army.

Then, suddenly, for the first time, he seemed troubled. He stared

up at the pale miserable boy who stood looking at him with

trembling lips. His own face began to work painfully, his dream

struggled with recognition.

Margaret drew David quickly away. She hurried him into the further

corner of the cottage, where he was out of sight of the bed. There

she quickly stripped him of his wet garments, as any mother might

have done, found an old flannel shirt of 'Lias's for him, and,

wrapping him close in a blanket, she made him lie down on her own

bed, he being now much too weak to realise what was done with him.

Then she got an empty bottle, filled it from the kettle, and put it

to his feet; and finally she brought a bowlful of warm water and a

bit of towel, and, sitting down by him, she washed the blood and

dirt away from his face and hand, and smoothed down the tangled

black hair. She, too, noticed the smell of spirits, and shook her

head over it; but her motherliness grew with every act of service,

and when she had made him warm and comfortable, and he was dropping

into the dead sleep of exhaustion, she drew her old hand tenderly

across his brow.

'He do feature yan o' my own lads so as he lies theer,' she said

tremulously to her friend at the fire, as though explaining

herself. 'When they'd coom home late fro wark, I'd use to hull 'em

up so mony a time. Ay, I'd been woonderin what had coom to th' boy.

I thowt he'd been goin wrang soomhow, or he'd ha coom aw these

weeks to see 'Lias an me. It's a poor sort o' family he's got. That

Hannah Grieve's a hard un, I'll uphowd yo. Theer's a deal o' her

fault in 't, yo may mak sure.'

Then she went to give 'Lias some brandy--he lived on little else

now. He dropped asleep again, and, coming back to the hearth, she

consented to lie down before it while her friend watched. Her

failing frame was worn out with nursing and want of rest, and she

was soon asleep.

When Davy awoke the room was full of a chill daylight. As he moved

he felt himself stiff all over. The sensation brought back memory,

and the boy's whole being seemed to shrink together. He burrowed

first under his coverings out of the light, then suddenly he sat up

in bed, in the shadow of the little staircase--or rather

ladder--which led to the upper story, and looked about him.

The good woman who had shared Margaret's watch was gone back to her

own home and children. Margaret had made up the fire, tidied the

room, and, at 'Lias's request, drawn up the blinds. She had just

given him some beef-tea and brandy, sponged his face, and lifted

him on his pillows. There seemed to be a revival of life in the old

man, death was for the moment driven back; and Margaret hung over

him in an ecstasy, the two crooning together. David could see her

thin bent figure--the sharpened delicacy of the emaciated face set

in the rusty black net cap which was tied under the chin, and fell

in soft frills on the still brown and silky hair. He saw her

weaver's hand folded round 'Lias's, and he could hear 'Lias

speaking in a weak thread of a voice, but still sanely and

rationally. It gave him a start to catch some of the words--he had

been so long accustomed to the visionary 'Lias.

'Have yo rested, Margaret?'

'Ay, dear love, three hours an moor. Betsy James wor here; she saw

yo wanted for nowt. She's a gude creetur, ain't she, 'Lias?'

'Ay, but noan so good as my Margaret,' said the old man, looking at

her wistfully.' But yo'll wear yorsel down, Margaret; 'yo've had no

rest for neets. Yo're allus toilin' and moilin', an I'm no worth

it, Margaret.'

The tears gushed to the wife's eyes. It was only with the nearness

of death that 'Lias seemed to have found out his debt to her. To

both, her lifelong service had been the natural offering of the

lower to the higher; she had not been used to gratitude, and she

could not bear it.

'Dear heart! dear love!' David heard her say; and then there came

to his half-reluctant ear caresses such as a mother gives her

child. He laid his head on his knees, trying to shut them out. He

wished with a passionate and bitter regret that he had not been so

many weeks without coming near these two people; and now 'Lias was

going fast, and after to-day he would see them both no more--for

ever?

Margaret heard him moving, and nodded back to him over her

shoulder.

'Yo've slept well, Davy,--better nor I thowt yo would. Your cloos

are by yo--atwixt yo an t'stairs.'

And there he found them, dry and brushed. He dressed hastily and

came forward to the fire. 'Lias recognised him feebly, Margaret

watching anxiously to see whether his fancies would take him again.

In this tension of death and parting his visions had become almost

more than she could bear. But 'Lias lay quiet.

'Davy wor caught i' th' rain, and I gave him a bed,' she explained

again, and the old man nodded without a word.

Then as she prepared him a bowl of oatmeal she stood by the fire

giving the boy motherly advice. He must go back home, of course,

and never mind Hannah; there would come a time when he would get

his chance like other people; and he mustn't drink, for, 'i' th'

first place, drink wor a sad waste o' good wits,' and David's were

'better'n most;' and in the second, 'it wor a sin agen the Lord.'

David sat with his head drooped in his hand apparently listening.

In reality, her gentle babble passed over him almost unheeded. He

was aching in mind and body; his strong youth, indeed, had but just

saved him from complete physical collapse; for he had lain an

indefinite time on the soaking moor, till misery and despair had

driven him to Margaret's door. But his moral equilibrium was

beginning to return, in virtue of a certain resolution, the one

thing which now stood between him and the black gulf of the night.

He ate his porridge and then he got up.

'I mun goo, Margaret.'

He would fain have thanked her, but the words choked in his throat.

'Ay, soa yo mun, Davy,' said the little body briskly. 'If theer's an

onpleasant thing to do it's best doon quickly--yo mun go back and

do your duty. Coom and see us when yo're passin again. An say

good-bye to 'Lias. He's that wick this mornin--ain't yo, 'Lias?'

And with a tender cheerfulness she ran across to 'Lias and told him

Davy was going.

'Good-bye, Davy, my lad, good-bye,' murmured the old man, as he

felt the boy's strong fingers touching his. 'Have yo been readin

owt, Davy, since we saw yo? It's a long time, Davy.'

'No, nowt of ony account,' said David, looking away.

'Ay, but yo mun keep it up. Coom when yo like; I've not mony books,

but yo know yo can have 'em aw. I want noan o' them now, do I,

Marg'ret? But I want for nowt--nowt. Dyin 's long, but it's

varra--varra peaceful. Margaret!'

And withdrawing his hand from Davy, 'Lias laid it in his wife's with

a long, long sigh. David left them so. He stole out unperceived by

either of them.

When he got outside he stood for a moment under the sheltering

sycamores and laid his cheek against the door. The action contained

all he could not say.

Then he sped along towards the farm. The sun was rising through the

autumn mists, striking on the gold of the chestnuts, the red of the

cherry trees. There were spaces of intense blue among the rolling

clouds, and between the storm past and the storm to come the whole

moorland world was lavishly, garishly bright.

He paused at the top of the pasture-fields to look at the farm.

Smoke was already rising from the chimney. Then Aunt Hannah was up,

and he must mind himself. He crept on under walls, till he got to

the back of the farmyard. Then he slipped in, ran into the stable,

and got an old coat of his left there the day before. There was a

copy of a Methodist paper lying near it. He took it up and tore it

across with passion. But his rage was not so much with the paper.

It was his own worthless, unstable, miserable self he would have

rent if he could. The wreck of ideal hopes, the defacement of that

fair image of itself which every healthy youth bears about with it,

could not have been more pitifully expressed.

Then he looked round to see if there was anything else that he

could honestly take. Yes--an ash stick he had cut himself a week or

two ago. Nothing else--and there was Tibby moving and beginning to

bark in the cowhouse.

He ran across the road, and from a safe shelter in the fields on

the farther side he again looked back to the farm. There was

Louie's room, the blind still down. He thought of his blow of the

night before--of his promises to her. Aye, she would fret over his

going--he knew that--in her own wild way. She would think he had

been a beast to her. So he had--so he had! There surged up in his

mind inarticulate phrases of remorse, of self-excuse, as though he

were talking to her.

Some day he would come back and claim her. But when? His

buoyant self-dependence was all gone. It had nothing to do with

his present departure. That came simply from the fact that it was

_impossible_ for him to go on living in Kinder any longer--he

did not stop to analyse the whys and wherefores.

But suddenly a nervous horror of seeing anyone he knew, now that

the morning was advancing, startled him from his hiding-place. He

ran up towards the Scout again, so as to make a long circuit round

the Wigsons' farm. As he distinguished the walls of it a shiver of

passion ran through the young body. Then he struck off straight

across the moors towards Glossop.

One moment he stood on the top of Mardale Moor. On one side of him

was the Kinder valley, Needham Farm still showing among its trees;

the white cataract of the Downfall cleaving the dark wall of the

Scout, and calling to the runaway in that voice of storm he knew so

well; the Mermaid's Pool gleaming like an eye in the moorland. On

the other side were hollow after hollow, town beyond town, each

with its cap of morning smoke. There was New Mills, there was

Stockport, there in the far distance was Manchester.

The boy stood a moment poised between the two worlds, his ash-stick

in his hand, the old coat wound round his arm. Then at a bound he

cleared a low stone wall beside him and ran down the Glossop road.

Twelve hours later Reuben Grieve climbed the long hill to the farm.

His wrinkled face was happier than it had been for months, and his

thoughts were so pleasantly occupied that he entirely failed to

perceive, for instance, the behaviour of an acquaintance, who

stopped and started as he met him at the entrance of the Kinder

lane, made as though he would have spoken, and, thinking better of

it, walked on. Reuben--the mendacious Reuben--had done very well

with his summer stock--very well indeed. And part of his earnings

was now safely housed in the hands of an old chapel friend, to whom

he had confided them under pledge of secrecy. But he took a

curious, excited pleasure in the thought of the 'poor mouth' he was

going to make to Hannah. He was growing reckless in his passion for

restitution--always provided, however, that he was not called upon

to brave his wife openly. A few more such irregular savings, and,

if an opening turned up for David, he could pay the money and pack

off the lad before Hannah could look round. He could never do it

under her opposition, but he thought he could do it and take the

consequences--he _thought_ he could.

He opened his own gate. There on the house doorstep stood Hannah,

whiter and grimmer than ever.

'Reuben Grieve,' she said quickly, 'your nevvy's run away. An if yo

doan't coom and keep your good-for-nothin niece in her place, and

make udder foak keep a civil tongue i' their head to your wife,

I'll leave your house this neet, as sure as I wor born a Martin!'

Reuben stumbled into the house. There was a wild rush downstairs,

and Louie fell upon him, David's blow showing ghastly plain in her

white quivering face.

'Whar's Davy?' she said. 'Yo've got him!--he's hid soomwhere--yo

know whar he is! I'll not stay here if yo conno find him! It wor

_her_ fault'--and she threw out a shaking hand towards her

aunt--'she druv him out last neet--an Dawsons took him in--an

iverybody's cryin shame on her! And if yo doan't mak her find

him--she knows where he is--I'll not stay in this hole!--I'll kill

her!--I'll burn th' house!--I'll--'

The child stopped--panting, choked--beside herself.

Hannah made a threatening step, but at her gesture Reuben sprang

up, and seizing her by both wrists he looked at her from a height,

as a judge looks. Never had those dull eyes met her so before.

'Woman!' he cried fiercely. 'Woman! what ha yo doon wi Sandy's son?'

BOOK II YOUTH

CHAPTER I

A tall youth carrying a parcel of books under his arm was hurrying

along Market Place, Manchester. Beside him were covered flower

stalls bordering the pavement, in front of him the domed mass of

the Manchester Exchange, and on all sides he had to push his way

through a crowd of talking, chaffering, hurrying humanity.

Presently he stopped at the door of a restaurant bearing the

idyllic and altogether remarkable name--there it was in gilt

letters over the door--of the 'Fruit and Flowers Parlour.' On the

side post of the door a bill of fare was posted, which the young

man looked up and down with careful eyes. It contained a strange

medley of items in all tongues--

'Marrow pie

_Haricots à la Lune de Miel_

_Vol-au-Vent à la bonne Santo:_

Tomato fritters

Cheese 'Ticements

_Salad saladorum_'

And at the bottom of the _menu_ was printed in bold red

characters,

'No meat, no disease. _Ergo_, no meat, no sin.

Fellow-citizens, leave your carnal foods,

and try a more excellent way.

I. E. Push the door and walk in.

The Fruit and Flowers Parlour

invites everybody and overcharges nobody.'

The youth did not trouble, however, to read the notice. He knew it

and the 'Parlour' behind it by heart. But he moved away, pondering

the _menu_ with a smile.

In his amused abstraction--at the root of which lay the appetite of

eighteen--he suddenly ran into a passer-by, who stumbled against a

shop window with an exclamation of pain. The youth's attention was

attracted and he stopped awkwardly.

'People of your height, young man, should look before them,' said

the victim, rubbing what seemed to be a deformed leg, while his

lips paled a little.

'Mr. Ancrum,' cried the other, amazed.

'Davy!'

The two looked at each other. Then Mr. Ancrum gripped the lad's

arm.

'Help me along, Davy. It's only a bruise. It'll go off. Where are

you going?'

'Up Piccadilly way with a parcel,' said Davy, looking askance at

his companion's nether man. 'Did I knock your bad leg, sir?'

'Oh no, nothing--never mind. Well now, Davy, this is

queer--decidedly queer. Four years!--and we run against each other

in Market Street at last. Tell me the truth, Davy--have you long

ago given me up as a man who could make promises to a lad in

difficulties and forget 'em as soon as he was out of sight? Say it

out, my boy.'

David flushed and looked down at his companion with some

embarrassment. Their old relation of minister and pupil had left a

deep mark behind it. Moreover, in the presence of that face of Mr.

Ancrum's, a long, thin, slightly twisted face, with the stamp

somehow of a tragic sincerity on the eyes and mouth, it was

difficult to think as slightingly of his old friend as he had done

for a good while past, apparently with excellent reason.

'I supposed there was something the matter,' he blurted out at

last.

'Well, never mind, Davy,' said the other, smiling sadly. 'We can't

talk here in this din. But now I've got you, I keep you. Where are

you?'

'I'm in Half Street, sir--Purcell's, the bookseller.'

'Don't know him. I never go into a shop. I have no money. Are you

apprentice there?'

'Well, there was no binding. I'm assistant. I do a lot of business

one way and another, buying and selling both.'

'How long have you been in Manchester?'

'Four years, sir.'

The minister looked amazed.

'And I have been here, off and on, for the last three. How have we

missed each other all that time? I made inquiries at Clough End,

when--ah, well, no matter; but it was too late. You had decamped,

no one could tell me anything.'

David walked on beside his companion, silent and awkward. The

explanation seemed a lame one. Mr. Ancrum had left Clough End in

May, promising to look out for a place for the lad at once, and to

let him know. Six whole months elapsed between that promise and

David's own departure. Yes, it was lame; but it was so long ago,

and so many things had happened since, that it did not signify.

Only he did not somehow feel much effusion in meeting his old

friend and playfellow again.

'Getting on, Davy?' said Ancrum presently, looking the lad up and

down.

David made a movement of the shoulders which the minister noticed.

It was both more free and more graceful than ordinary English

gesture. It reawakened in Ancrum at once that impression of

something alien and unusual which both David and his sister had

often produced in him while they were still children.

'I don't know,' said the boy slowly; and then, after a hesitation

or two, fell silent.

'Well, look here,' said Ancrum, stopping short; 'this won't do for

talk, as I said before; but I must know all about you, and I must

tell you what I can about myself. I lodge in Mortimer Road, you

know, up Fallowfield way. You can get there by tram in twenty

minutes; when will you come and see me? To-night?'

The lad thought a moment.

'Would Wednesday night do, sir? I--I believe I'm going to the music

to-night.'

'What, to the "Elijah," in the Free Trade Hall? Appoint me a place

to meet--we'll go together--and you shall come home to supper with

me afterwards.'

David flushed and looked straight before him.

'I promised to take two young ladies,' he said, after a moment,

abruptly.

'Oh!' said Mr. Ancrum, laughing. 'I apologise. Well, Wednesday

night, then.--Don't you forget, Davy--half-past seven? Done.

_Fourteen_, Mortimer Road. Good-bye.'

And the minister turned and retraced his steps towards Market

Place. He walked slowly, like one much preoccupied, and might have

run into fresh risks but for the instinctive perception of most

passers-by that he was not a person to be hustled. Suddenly he

laughed out--thinking of David and his 'young ladies,' and

comparing the lad's admission with his former attitude towards

'gells.' Well, time had but wrought its natural work. What

a brilliant noticeable creature altogether--how unlike the

ordinary run of north-country lads! But that he had been from the

beginning--the strain of some nimbler blood had always shown

itself.

Meanwhile, David made his way up Piccadilly--did some humourist

divert himself, in days gone by, with dropping a shower of London

names on Manchester streets?--and deposited his parcel. Then the

great clock of the Exchange struck twelve, and the Cathedral

followed close upon it, the sounds swaying and vibrating above the

crowds hurrying through Market Street. It was a damp October day.

Above, the sky was hidden by a dark canopy of cloud and smoke; the

Cathedral on its hill rose iron-black above the black streets and

river; black mud encrusted all the streets, and bespattered those

that walked in them. Nothing more dreary than the smoke-grimed

buildings on either hand, than the hideous railway station across

the bridge, or the mud-sprinkled hoardings covered with flaring

advertisements, which led up to the bridge, could be well imagined.

Manchester was at its darkest and grimmest.

But as David Grieve walked back along Market Street his heart

danced within him. Neither mud nor darkness, neither the squalor of

the streets, nor the penetrating damp of the air, affected him at

all. The crowd, the rush of life about him, the gas in the shops,

the wares on which it shone, the endless faces passing him, the

sense of hurry, of business, of quick living--he saw and felt

nothing else; and to these his youth was all atune.

Arrived in Market Place again he made his way with alacrity to the

'Parlour.' For it was dinner time; he had a free half-hour, and

nine times out of ten he spent it at the 'Parlour.'

He walked in, put his hat on its accustomed peg, took his seat at a

table near the door, and looked round for some one. The low

widespreading room was well filled, mostly with clerks and shopmen;

the gas was lit because of the darkness outside, and showed off the

gay panels on the walls filled with fruit and flower subjects, for

which Adrian O'Connor Lomax, commonly called 'Daddy,' the owner of

the restaurant, had given a commission to some students at the

Mechanics' Institute, and whereof he was inordinately proud. At the

end of the room near the counter was a table occupied by about half

a dozen young men, all laughing and talking noisily, and beside

them shouting, gesticulating, making dashes, now for one, now for

another--was a figure, which David at once set himself to watch,

his chin balanced on his hand, his eyes dancing. It was the thin

tall figure of an oldish man in a long frock-coat, which opened in

front over a gaily flowered silk waistcoat. On the bald crown of

his head he wore a black skull cap, below which certain grotesque

and scanty tails of fair hair, carefully brushed, fell to his

shoulders. His face was long and sharply pointed, and the surface

of it bronzed and wrinkled by long exposure, out of all likeness to

human skin. The eyes were weirdly prominent and blue; the gestures

had the deliberate extravagance of an actor; and the whole man

recalled a wizard of pantomime.

David had hardly time to amuse himself with the 'chaffing' of

Daddy, which was going on, and which went on habitually at the

Parlour from morning till night, when Daddy perceived a new-comer.

He turned round sharp upon his heels, surveyed the room with the

frown of a general.

'Ah!' he said with a theatrical air, as he made out the lad at the

further table. 'Gentlemen, I let you off for the present,' and

waving his hand to them with an indulgent self-importance, which

provoked a roar of laughter, he turned and walked down the

restaurant, with a quick swaying gait, to where David sat.

David made room for him in a smiling silence. Lomax sat down, and

the two looked at each other.

'Davy,' said Daddy severely, 'why weren't you here yesterday?'

'When did you begin opening on Sundays, Daddy?' said the youth,

attacking a portion of marrow pie, which had just been laid before

him, his gay curious eyes still wandering over Daddy's costume,

which was to-day completed by a large dahlia in the buttonhole, as

grotesque as the rest.

'Ah bedad, but I'm losing my memory entirely;--and you know it, you

varmint. Well then, it was Saturday you weren't here.'

'You're about right there. I was let off early, and got a walk out

Ramsbottom way with a fellow. I hadn't stretched my legs for two

months, and--I'll confess to you, Daddy--that when we got down from

the moor, I was--overtaken--as the pious people say--by a mutton

chop.'

The lad looked up at him laughing. Daddy surveyed him with chagrin.

'I knew you were a worthless lukewarm sort of a creature.

Flesh-eating's as bad as drink for them that have got it in 'em.

It'll come out. Well, go your ways! _You'll_ never be Prime

Minister.'

'Don't distress yourself, Daddy. As long as marrow pies are good, I

shall eat 'em--you may count on that. What's that cheese affair

down there?' and he pointed towards the last item but one in the

bill of fare. Instead of answering, the old man turned on his seat,

and called to one of the waitresses near. In a second David had a

'Cheese 'Ticement' before him, at which he peered curiously. Daddy

watched him, not without some signs of nervousness.

'Daddy,' said David, calmly looking up, 'when I last saw this

article it was called "Welsh rabbit."'

'Davy, you've no soul for fine distinctions,' said the other

hastily. 'Change the subject. How have my _dear_ brother-in-law

and you been hitting it off lately?'

David went on with his ''Ticement,' the corners of his mouth

twitching, for a minute or so, then he raised his head and slowly

shook it, looking Daddy in the face.

'We shall bear up when we say good-bye, Daddy, and I don't think

that crisis is far off. It would have come long ago, only I do

happen to know a provoking deal more about books than any assistant

he ever had before. Last week I picked him up a copy of "Bells and

Pomegranates" for one and nine, and he sold it next day for two

pound sixteen. There's business for you, Daddy. That put off our

breach at least a fortnight, but unless I discover a first folio of

Shakespeare for sixpence between now and then, I don't see what's

to postpone the agony after that--and if I did I should probably

speculate in it myself. No, Daddy, it's coming to the point, as the

tiger said when he reached the last joint of the cow's tail. And

it's your fault.'

'My fault, Davy,' said Lomax, half tremulous, half delighted,

drawing a chair close up to the table that he might lose nothing of

the youth's confidences. 'What d'ye mean by that, ye spalpeen?'

'Well, wasn't it you took me to the Hall of Science, Daddy, and

couldn't keep a quiet tongue in your head about it afterwards?

Wasn't it you lent me the "Secularist," which got me into the worst

rumpus of the season? Oh, Daddy, you're a bad un!'

And the handsome lad leant back in his chair, stretching his long

legs and studying Daddy with twinkling eyes. As for Lomax, he

received the onslaught with a curious mixture of expressions, in

which a certain malicious pleasure, crossed by an uneasy sense of

responsibility, was the most prominent. He sat drumming on the

table, his straggling beard falling forward on to his chest, his

mouth pursing itself up. At last he threw back his head with

energy.

'I'll not excuse myself, Davy; you're well out of it. You'll be a

great man yet--always provided you can manage yourself in the

matter of flesh meat. It was to come one way or the other--you

couldn't put up much longer with such a puke-stocking as my

precious brother-in-law. (That's one of the great points of

Shakespeare, Davy, my lad--perhaps you haven't noticed it--you get

such a ruck of bad names out of him for the asking! Puke-stocking

is good--real good. If it wasn't made for a sanctimonious

hypocrite of a Baptist like Purcell it ought to have been.)

And "Spanish-pouch" too! Oh, I love "Spanish-pouch"! When I've

called a man "Spanish-pouch", I'm the better for it, Davy--the

bile's relieved.'

'Thank you, Daddy; I'll remember the receipt. I say, were you ever

in Purcell's shop?'

'Purcell's shop? Why, of course I was, you varmint! Wasn't it there

I met my Isabella, his sister? Ah, the poor thing! He led her a

life; and when I was his assistant I took sides with her--that was

the beginning of it all. At first we hadn't got on so badly--I had

a pious fit on myself in those days--but one day at tea, I had been

making free--taking Isabella's part. There had been a neighbour

there, and the laugh had been against him. Well, after tea, we

marched back to the shop, and says he to me, as black as thunder,

"I'm quite willing, Lomax, to be your Christian brother in here:

when we're in society I'd have you remember it's different. You

should know your place."

'"Oh, should I?" says I. (Isabella had been squeezing my hand under

the table and I didn't care what I said.) "Well, you'd better find

some one as will, and be d--d to your Christian brotherhood." And

I took my cap up and marched out, leaving him struck a pillar of

salt with surprise, and that mad!--for we were in the middle of

issuing the New Year's catalogue, and he'd left most of it to me.

And three weeks after--'

Daddy rose quivering with excitement, put his thumbs into his

waistcoat pocket, and bent over the back of his chair towards

David. As he stood there, on tiptoe, the flaps of the long coat

falling back from him like wings, his skull-cap slightly awry, two

red spots on either wrinkled cheek, and every feature of the sharp

brown face alive with the joy of his long-past vengeance, he was

like some strange perching bird.

'--Three weeks after, Davy, I married my Isabella under his

puritanical nose, at the chapel across the way; and the bit of

spite in it--bedad!--it was like mustard to beef. (Pish! what am I

about!) And I set up shop almost next door to the chapel, and took

the trade out of his mouth, and enjoyed myself finely for six

months. At the end of that time he gave out that the neighbourhood

was too "low" for him, and he moved up town. And though I've been

half over the world since, I've never ceased to keep an eye on him.

I've had a finger in more pies of his than he thinks for!'

And Daddy drew himself up, pressing his hands against his sides,

his long frame swelling out, as it seemed, with sudden passion.

David watched him with a look half sympathetic, half satirical.

'I don't see that he did you much harm, Daddy.'

'Harm!' said the little man, irascibly. 'Harm! I must say you're

uncommon slow at gripping a situation, Davy. I'd my wife's score to

settle, too, I tell you, as well as my own. He'd sat on his poor

easy-going sister till she hadn't a feature left. I knew he had.

He's made up of all the mean vices--and at the same time, if you

were to hear him at a prayer meeting, you'd think that since Enoch

went up to heaven the wrong way, the world didn't happen to have

been blessed with another saint to match Tom Purcell.' And, stirred

by his own eloquence, Daddy looked down frowning on the youth

before him.

'What made you give up the book-trade, Daddy?' asked David, with a

smile.

It was like the pricking of a bladder. Daddy collapsed in a moment.

Sitting down again, he began to arrange his coat elaborately over

his knees, as though to gain time.

'David, you're an inquisitive varmint,' he said at last, looking up

askance at his companion.' Some one's been telling you tales,

by the look of you. Look here--if Tom Purcell's a blathering

hypocrite, that is not the same thing precisely as saying that

Adrian O'Connor Lomax is a perfect specimen of the domestic

virtues. Never you mind, my boy, what made me give up bookselling.

I've chucked so many things overboard since, that it's hardly worth

inquiring. Try any trade you like and Daddy'll be able to give you

some advice in it--that's the only thing that concerns you. Well

now, tell me--' and he turned round and put his elbows on the

table, leaning over to David--'When are you coming away, and what

are your prospects?'

'I told you about a fortnight would see it out, Daddy. And there's

a little shop in--But it's no good, Daddy. You can't keep secrets.'

The old man turned purple, drew himself up, and looked fiercely at

David from behind his spectacles. But in a second his mood changed

and he stretched his hand slowly out across the table.

'On the honour of a Lomax,' he said solemnly.

There was a real dignity about the absurd action which melted

David. He shook the hand and repeated him. Leaning over he

whispered some information in Daddy's ear, Daddy beamed. And in the

midst of the superfluity of nods and winks that followed David

called for his bill.

The action recalled Daddy to his own affairs, and he looked on

complacently while David paid.

''Pon my word, Davy, I can hardly yet believe in my own genius.

Where else, my boy, in this cotton-spinning hole, would you find a

dinner like that for sixpence? Am I a benefactor to the species,

sir, or am I not?'

'Looks like it, Daddy, by the help of Miss Dora.'

'Aye, aye,' said the old man testily,--'I'll not deny that Dora's

useful to the business. But the _inspiration_, Davy, 's all

mine. You want genius, my boy, to make a tomfool of yourself like

this,' and he looked himself proudly up and down. 'Twenty customers

a week come here for nothing in the world but to see what new rigs

Daddy may be up to. The invention--the happy ideas, man, I throw

into one day of this place would stock twenty ordinary businesses.'

'All the same, Daddy, I've tasted Welsh rabbit before,' said David

drily, putting on his hat.

'I scorn your remark, sir. It argues a poorly furnished mind. Show

me anything new in this used-up world, eh? but for the name and the

dishing up--Well, good-bye, Davy, and good luck to you!'

David made his way across Hanging Ditch to a little row of houses

bearing the baldly appropriate name of Half Street. It ran along

the eastern side of the Cathedral close. First came the houses,

small, irregular, with old beams and projections here and there,

then a paved footway, then the railings round the close. In full

view of the windows of the street rose the sixteenth-century

church which plays as best it can the part of Cathedral to

Manchester. Round it stretched a black and desolate space paved

with tombstones. Not a blade of grass broke the melancholy of those

begrimed and time-worn slabs. The rain lay among them in pools,

squalid buildings overlooked them, and the church, with its

manifest inadequacy to a fine site and a great city, did but little

towards overcoming the mean and harsh impression made--on such a

day especially--by its surroundings.

David opened the door of a shop about halfway up the row. A bell

rang sharply, and as he shut the outer door behind him, another at

the back of the shop opened hastily, and a young girl came in.

'Mr. Grieve, father's gone out to Eccles to see some books a

gentleman wants him to buy. If Mr. Stephens comes, you're to tell

him father's found him two or three more out of the list he sent.

You know where all his books are put together, if he wants to see

them, father says.'

'Yes, thank you, Miss Purcell, I do. No other message?'

'No.' The speaker lingered. 'What time do we start for the music

to-night? But you'll be down to tea?'

'Certainly, if you and Miss Dora don't want it to yourselves.' The

speaker smiled. He was leaning on the counter, while the girl stood

behind it.

'Oh dear, no!' said Miss Purcell with a half-pettish gesture. 'I

don't know what to talk to Dora about now. She thinks of nothing

but St. Damian's and her work. It's worse than father. And, of

course, I know she hasn't much opinion of _me_. Indeed, she's

always telling me so--well, not exactly--but she lets me guess fast

enough.'

The speaker put up two small hands to straighten some of the

elaborate curls and twists with which her pretty head was crowned.

There was a little consciousness in the action. The thought of her

cousin had evidently brought with it the thought of some of those

things of which the stern Dora disapproved.

David looked at the brown hair and the slim fingers as he was meant

to look at them. Yet in his smiling good humour there was not a

trace of bashfulness or diffidence. He was perfectly at his ease,

with something of a proud self-reliant consciousness in every

movement; nothing in his manner could have reminded a spectator of

the traditional apprentice making timid love to his master's

daughter.

'I've seen you stand up to her though,' he said laughing. 'It's like

all pious people. Doesn't it strike you as odd that they should

never be content with being pious for themselves?'

He looked at her with bright sarcastic eyes.

'Oh, I know what you mean!' she said with an instant change of

tone; 'I didn't mean anything of the sort. I think it's shocking of

you to go to that place on Sundays--so there, Mr. Grieve.'

She threw herself back defiantly against the books which walled the

shop, her arms folded before her. The attitude showed the long

throat, the rounded bust, and the slender waist compressed with

some evident rigour into a close-fitting brown dress. That Miss

Purcell thought a great deal of the fashion of her hair, the style

of her bodices, and the size of her waist was clear; that she was

conscious of thinking about them to good purpose was also plain.

But on the whole the impression of artificiality, of something

over-studied and over-done which the first sight of her generally

awakened, was soon, as a rule, lost in another more attractive--in

one of light, tripping youth, perfectly satisfied with itself and

with the world.

'I don't think you know much about the place,' he said quietly,

still smiling.

She flushed, her foolish little sense of natural superiority to

'the assistant' outraged again, as it had been outraged already a

hundred times since she and David Grieve had met.

'I know quite as much as anybody need know--any respectable

person--' she maintained angrily. 'It's a low, disgraceful

place--and they talk wicked nonsense. Everyone says so. It doesn't

matter a bit where Uncle Lomax goes--he's mad--but it is a shame he

should lead other people astray.'

She was much pleased with her own harangue, and stood there

frowning on him, her sharp little chin in the air, one foot beating

the ground.

'Well, yes, really,' said David in a reflective tone; 'one would

think Miss Dora had her hands full at home, without--'

He looked up, significantly, smiling. Lucy Purcell was enraged

with him--with his hypocritical sympathy as to her uncle's

misdoings--his avoidance of his own crime.

'It's not uncle at all, it's you!' she cried, with more logic than

appeared. 'I tell you, Mr. Grieve, father won't stand it.'

The young man drew himself up from the counter.

'No,' he said with great equanimity, 'I suppose not.'

And taking up a parcel of books from the counter he turned away.

Lucy, flurried and pouting, called after him.

'Mr. Grieve!'

'Yes.'

'I--I didn't mean it. I _hope_ you won't go. I know father's

hard. He's hard enough with me.'

And she raised her hands to her flushed face. David was terribly

afraid she was going to cry. Several times since the orphan girl of

seventeen had arrived from school three months before to take her

place in her father's house, had she been on the point of confiding

her domestic woes to David Grieve. But though under the terms of

his agreement with her father, which included one meal in the back

parlour, the assistant and she were often thrown together, he had

till now instinctively held her aloof. His extraordinary good looks

and masterful energetic ways had made an impression on her

schoolgirl mind from the beginning. But for him she had no

magnetism whatever. The little self-conceited creature knew it, or

partially knew it, and smarted under it.

Now, he was just beginning an awkward sentence, when there was a

sound at the outer door. With another look at him, half shy, half

appealing, Lucy fled. Conscious of a distinct feeling of relief,

David went to attend to the customer.

CHAPTER II

The customer was soon content and went out again into the rain.

David mounted a winding iron stair which connected the downstairs

shop with an upper room in which a large proportion of the books

were stored. It was a long, low, rambling place made by throwing

together all the little bits of rooms on the first floor of the old

house. One corner of it had a special attraction for David. It was

the corner where, ranged partly on the floor, partly on the shelves

which ran under the windows, lay the collection of books that

Purcell had been making for his customer, Mr. Stephens.

Out of that collection Purcell's assistant had extracted a very

varied entertainment. In the first place it had amused him to watch

the laborious pains and anxiety with which his pious employer had

gathered together the very sceptical works of which Mr. Stephens

was in want, showing a knowledge of contents, and editions, and

out-of-the-way profanities, under the stimulus of a paying

customer, which drew many a sudden laugh from David when he was

left to think of it in private.

In the next place the books themselves had been a perpetual feast

to him for weeks, enjoyed all the more keenly because of the

secrecy in which it had to be devoured. The little gathering

represented with fair completeness the chief books of the French

'philosophers,' both in the original French, and in those English

translations of which so plentiful a crop made its appearance

during the fifty years before and after 1800. There, for instance,

lay the seventy volumes of Voltaire. Close by was an imperfect copy

of the Encyclopaedia, which Mr. Stephens was getting cheap; on the

other side a motley gathering of Diderot and Rousseau; while

Holbach's 'System of Nature,' and Helvetius 'On the Mind,' held

their rightful place among the rest.

Through these books, then, which had now been on the premises for

some time--Mr. Stephens being a person of uncertain domicile, and

unable as yet to find them a home--David had been freely ranging.

Whenever Purcell was out of the way and customers were slack, he

invariably found his way to this spot in the upper room. There,

with his elbows on the top of the bookcase which ran under the

window, and a book in front of him--or generally two, the original

French and a translation--he had read Voltaire's tales, a great

deal of the Encyclopaedia, a certain amount of Diderot, for whom he

cherished a passionate admiration, and a much smaller smattering of

Rousseau. At the present moment he was grappling with the

'Dictionnaire Philosophique,' and the 'Système de la Nature,'

fortified in both cases by English versions.

The gloom of the afternoon deepened, and the increasing rain had

thinned the streets so much that during a couple of hours David had

but three summonses from below to attend to. For the rest of the

time he was buried in the second volume of the 'Dictionnaire

Philosophique,' now skipping freely, now chewing and digesting, his

eyes fixed vacantly on the darkening church outside. Above all, the

article on _Contradictions_ had absorbed and delighted him.

There are few tones in themselves so fascinating to the nascent

literary sense as this mock humility tone of Voltaire's. And in

David's case all that passionate sense of a broken bubble and a

scattered dream, which had haunted him so long after he left

Kinder, had entered into and helped toward his infatuation with

his new masters. They brought him an indescribable sense of

freedom--omniscience almost.

For instance:--

'We must carefully distinguish in all writings, and especially in

the sacred books, between real and apparent contradictions.

Venturous critics have supposed a contradiction existed in that

passage of Scripture which narrates how Moses changed all the

waters of Egypt into blood, and how immediately afterwards the

magicians of Pharaoh did the same thing, the book of Exodus

allowing no interval at all between the miracle of Moses and the

magical operation of the enchanters. Certainly it seems at first

sight impossible that these magicians should change into blood what

was already blood; but this difficulty may be avoided by supposing

that Moses had allowed the waters to reassume their proper nature,

in order to give time to Pharaoh to recover himself. This

supposition is all the more plausible, seeing that the text, if it

does not favour it expressly, is not opposed to it.

'The same sceptics ask how when all the horses had been killed by

the hail in the sixth plague Pharaoh could pursue the Jews with

cavalry. But this contradiction is not even apparent, because the

hail, which killed all the horses in the fields, could not fall

upon those which were in the stables.'

And so on through a long series of paragraphs, leading at last to

matters specially dear to the wit of Voltaire, the contradictions

between St. Luke and St. Matthew--in the story of the census of

Quirinus, of the Magi, of the massacre of the Innocents, and what

not--and culminating in this innocent conclusion:--

'After all it is enough that God should have deigned to reveal to us

the principal mysteries of the faith, and that He should have

instituted a Church in the course of time to explain them. All

these contradictions, so often and so bitterly brought up against

the Gospels, are amply noticed by the wisest commentators; far from

harming each other, one explains another; they lend each other a

mutual support, both in the concordance and in the harmony of the

four Gospels.'

David threw back his head with a laugh which came from the very

depths of him. Then, suddenly, he was conscious of the church

standing sombrely without, spectator as it seemed of his thoughts

and of his mirth. Instantly his youth met the challenge by a rise

of passionate scorn! What! a hundred years since Voltaire, and

mankind still went on believing in all these follies and fables, in

the ten plagues, in Balaam's ass, in the walls of Jericho, in

miraculous births, and Magi, and prophetic stars!--in everything

that the mockery of the eighteenth century had slain a thousand

times over. Ah, well!--Voltaire knew as well as anybody that

superstition is perennial, insatiable--a disease and weakness of

the human mind which seems to be inherent and ineradicable. And

there rose in the boy's memory lines he had opened upon that

morning in a small Elizabethan folio he had been cataloguing with

much pains as a rarity--lines which had stuck in his mind--

Vast superstition! glorious style of weakness,

Sprung from the deep disquiet of man's passion

To dissolution and despair of Nature!--

He flung them out at the dark mass of building opposite, as though

he were his namesake flinging at Goliath. Only a few months before

that great church had changed masters--had passed from the hands of

an aristocratic and inaccessible bishop of the old school into

those of a man rich in all modern ideas and capacities, full of

energy and enthusiasm, a scholar and administrator both. And

_he_ believed all those absurdities, David wanted to know?

Impossible! No honest man could, thought the lad defiantly, with

the rising colour of crude and vehement feeling, when his attention

had been once challenged, and he had developed mind enough to know

what the challenge meant.

Except, perhaps, Uncle Reuben and Dora Lomax, and people like that.

He stood thinking and staring out of window, one idea leading to

another. The thought of Reuben brought with it a certain softening

of mood--the softening of memory and old association. Yes, he would

like to see Uncle Reuben again--explain to him, perhaps, that old

story--so old, so distant!--of his running away. Well, he

_would_ see him again, as soon as he got a place of his own,

which couldn't be long now, whether Purcell gave him the sack or

not. Instinctively, he felt for that inner pocket, which held his

purse and his savings-bank book. Yes, he was near freedom now,

whatever happened!

Then it occurred to him that it was unlucky he should have stumbled

across Mr. Ancrum just at this particular juncture. The minister,

of course, had friends at Clough End still. And he, David, didn't

want Louie down upon him just yet--not just yet--for a month or

two.

Then the smile which had begun to play about the mouth suddenly

broadened into a merry triumph. When Louie knew all about him and his

contrivances these last four years, wouldn't she be mad! If she were to

appear at this moment, he could tell her that she wore a pink dress at

the 'wake' last week,--when she was at chapel last,--what young men were

supposed to be courting her since the summer, and a number of other

interesting particulars--

'Mr. Grieve! Tea!'

His face changed. Reluctantly shutting his book and putting it into

its place, he took his way to the staircase.

As David opened the swing door leading to the Purcells' parlour at

the back of the shop he heard Miss Purcell saying in a mournful

voice, 'It's no good, Dora; not a haporth of good. Father won't let

me. I might as well have gone to prison as come home.'

The assistant emerged into the bright gaslight of the little room

as she spoke. There was another girl sitting beside Lucy, who got

up with a shy manner and shook hands with him.

'Will you take your tea, Mr. Grieve?' said Lucy, with a pettish

sigh, handing it to him, and then throwing herself vehemently back

in her hostess's chair, behind the tea tray. She let her hands hang

over the arms of it--the picture of discontent. The gaslight showed

her the possessor of bright brown eyes, under fine brows slenderly

but clearly marked, of a pink and white skin slightly freckled, of

a small nose quite passable, but no ways remarkable, of a dainty

little chin, and a thin-lipped mouth, slightly raised at one

corner, and opening readily over some irregular but very white

teeth. Except for the eyes and eyebrows the features could claim

nothing much in the way of beauty. Yet at this moment of

seventeen--thanks to her clear colours, her small thinness, and the

beautiful hair so richly piled about her delicate head--Lucy

Purcell was undeniably a pretty girl, and since her arrival in

Manchester she had been much more blissfully certain of the fact

than she had ever succeeded in being while she was still under the

repressive roof of Miss Pym's boarding-school for young ladies,

Pestalozzi House, Blackburn.

David sat down, perceiving that something had gone very wrong, but

not caring to inquire into it. His whole interest in the Purcell

household was, in fact, dying out. He would not be concerned with

it much longer.

So that, instead of investigating Miss Purcell's griefs, he asked

her cousin whether it had not come on to rain. The girl opposite

replied in a quiet, musical voice. She was plainly dressed in a

black hat and jacket; but the hat had a little bunch of cowslips to

light it up, and the jacket was of an ordinary fashionable cut.

There was nothing particularly noticeable about the face at first

sight, except its soft fairness and the gentle steadfastness of the

eyes. The movements were timid, the speech often hesitating. Yet

the impression which, on a first meeting, this timidity was apt to

leave on a spectator was very seldom a lasting one. David's idea of

Miss Lomax, for instance, had radically changed during the three

months since he had made acquaintance with her.

Rain, it appeared, _had_ begun, and there must be umbrellas

and waterproofs for the evening's excursion. As the two others were

settling at what time David Grieve and Lucy should call for Dora in

Market Place, Lucy woke up from a dream, and broke in upon them.

'And, Dora, you know, I _could_ have worn that dress with the

narrow ribbons I showed you last week. It's all there--upstairs--in

the cupboard--not a crease in it!'

Dora could not help laughing, and the laugh sent a charming light

into her grey, veiled eyes. The tone was so inexpressibly doleful,

the manner so childish. David smiled too, and his eyes and Dora's

met in a sort of friendly understanding--the first time, perhaps,

they had so met. Then they both turned themselves to the task of

consolation. The assistant inquired what was the matter.

'I wanted her to go with me to the dance at the Mechanics'

Institute next week,' said Dora. 'Mrs. Alderman Head would have

taken us both. It's very nice and respectable. I didn't think uncle

would mind. But Lucy's sure he will.'

'Sure! Of course I'm sure,' said Lucy sharply. 'I've heard him talk

about dancing in a way to make anybody sick. If he only knew all

the dancing we had at Pestalozzi House!'

'Does he think all dancing wrong?' inquired David.

'Yes--unless it's David dancing before the Ark, or some such

nonsense,' replied Lucy, with the same petulant gloom.

David laughed out. Then he fell into a brown study, one hand

playing with his tea-cup, an irrepressable smile still curving

about his mouth. Dora, observing him across the table, could not

but remember other assistants of Uncle Purcell whom she has seen

sitting in that same place, and the airs which Miss Purcell in her

rare holidays had given herself towards those earlier young men.

And now, this young man, whenever Purcell himself was out of the

way, was master of the place. Anyone could see that, so long as he

was there, Lucy was sensitively conscious of him in all that she

said or did.

She did not long endure his half-mocking silence now.

'You see, Dora,' she began again, with an angry glance towards

him, 'father's worse than ever just now. He's been so aggravated.'

'Yes,' said Dora timidly. She perfectly understood what was meant,

but she shrank from pursuing the subject. But David looked up.

'I should be very sorry, I'm sure, Miss Purcell, to get in your way

at all, or cause you any unpleasantness, if that's what you mean. I

don't think you'll be annoyed with me long.'

He spoke with a boyish exaggerated dignity. It became him, however,

for his fine and subtle physique somehow supported and endorsed it.

Both girls started. Lucy looked suddenly as miserable as she had

before looked angry. But in her confused state of feeling she

renewed her attack.

'I don't understand anything about it,' she said, with plaintive

incoherence. 'Only I can't _think_ why people should always be

making disturbances. Dora! Doesn't _everybody_ you know think

it wicked to go to the Hall of Science?'

She drew herself up peremptorily. David resumed the half smiling,

half meditative attitude which had provoked her before. Dora looked

from one to the other, a pure bright color rising in her cheek.

'I don't know anything about that,' she said in a low voice. 'I

don't think that would matter, Lucy. But, oh, I do wish father

wouldn't go--and Mr. Grieve wouldn't go.'

Her voice and hand shook. Lucy looked triumphantly at David.

Instinctively she realised that, especially of late, David had come

to feel more respectfully towards Dora than she had ever succeeded

in making him feel towards herself. In the beginning of their

acquaintance he had often launched into argument with Dora about

religious matters, especially about the Ritualistic practices in

which she delighted. The lad, overflowing with his Voltaire and

d'Holbach, had not been able to forbear, and had apparently taken a

mischievous pleasure in shocking a bigot--as he had originally

conceived Lucy Purcell's cousin to be. The discussion, indeed, had

not gone very far. The girl's horror and his own sense of his

position and its difficulties had checked them in the germ.

Moreover, as has been said, his conception of Dora had gradually

changed on further acquaintance. As for her, she had now for a long

time avoided arguing with him, which made her outburst on the

present occasion the more noticeable.

He looked up quickly.

'Miss Lomax, how do you suppose one makes up one's mind--either

about religion or anything else? Isn't it by hearing both sides?'

'Oh, no--no!' she said, shrinking. 'Religion isn't like anything

else. It's by--by growing up into it--by thinking about it--and

doing what the Church tells you. You come to _know_ it's true.'

That the Magi and Balaam's ass are true! What folly! But somehow

even his youthful ardour could not say it, so full of pure and

tremulous pain was the gaze fixed upon him. And, indeed, he had no

time for any answer, for she had just spoken when the bell of the

outer door sounded, and a step came rapidly through the shop.

'Father!' said Lucy, lifting the lid of the teapot in a great

hurry. 'Oh, I wonder if the tea's good enough.'

She was stirring it anxiously with a spoon, when Purcell entered, a

tall heavily built man, with black hair, a look of command, and a

step which shook the little back room as he descended into it. He

touched Dora's hand with a pompous politeness, and then subsided

into his chair opposite Lucy, complaining about the weather, and

demanding tea, which his daughter gave him with a timid haste,

looking to see whether he were satisfied as he raised the first

spoonful to his lips.

'Anything worth buying?' said David to his employer. He was leaning

back in his chair, with his arm round the back of another. Again

Dora was reminded by contrast of some of the nervous lads she had

seen in that room before, scarcely daring to eat their tea under

Purcell's eye, flying to cut him bread, or pass him the sugar.

'No,' said Purcell curtly.

'And a great price, I suppose?'

Purcell looked up. Apparently the ease of the young man's tone and

attitude put the finishing stroke to an inward process already far

advanced.

'The price, I conceive, is _my_ business,' he said, in his

most overbearing manner. 'When you have to pay, it will be yours.'

David flushed, without, however, changing his position, and Lucy

made a sudden commotion among the teacups.

'Father,' she said, with a hurried agitation which hardly allowed

her to pick up the cup she had thrown over, 'Dora and I want to

speak to you. You mustn't talk business at tea. Oh, I _know_

you won't let me go; but I _should_ like it, and Dora's come

to ask. I shouldn't want a new dress, and it will be _most_

respectable, everyone says; and I _did_ learn dancing at

school, though you didn't know it. Miss Georgina said it was stuff

and nonsense, and I must--'

'What _is_ she talking about?' said Purcell to Dora, with an

angry glance at Lucy.

'I want to take her to a dance,' said Dora quietly, 'if you would

let her come. There's one at the Mechanics' Institute next week,

given by the Unicorn benefit society. Mrs. Alderman Head said I

might go with her, and Lucy too if you'll let her come. I've got a

ticket.'

'I'm much obliged to Mrs. Alderman Head,' said Purcell

sarcastically. 'Lucy knows very well what I think of an unchristian

and immodest amusement. Other people must decide according to their

conscience, _I_ judge nobody.'

At this point David got up, and disappeared into the shop.

'Oh yes, you do judge, uncle,' cried Dora, roused at last, and

colouring. 'You're always judging. You call everything unchristian

you don't like, whether its dancing, or--or--early celebration, or

organ music, or altar-cloths. But you can't be always right--nobody

can.'

Purcell surveyed her with a grim composure.

'If you suppose I make any pretence to be infallible, you are quite

mistaken,' he said, with slow solemnity--no one in disclaiming

Papistry could have been more the Pope--'I leave that to your

priests at St. Damian's, Dora. But there _is_ an infallible

guide, both for you and for me, and that's the Holy Scriptures. If

you can show me any place where the _Bible_ approves of

promiscuous dancing between young Christian men and women, or of a

woman exposing her person for admiration's sake, or of such vain

and idle talking as is produced by these entertainments, I will let

Lucy go. But you can't. "Whose adorning let it not be--"'

And he quoted the Petrine admonition with a harsh triumphant

emphasis on every syllable, looking hard all the time at Dora, who

had risen, and stood confronting him in a tremor of impatience and

disagreement.

'Father Russell--' she began quickly, then changed her form of

expression--'Mr. Russell says you can't settle things by just

quoting a text. The Bible has to be explained, he says.'

Purcell's eyes flamed. He launched into a sarcastic harangue,

delivered in a strong thick voice, on the subject of 'Sacerdotalism,'

'priestly arrogance,' 'lying traditions,' 'making the command of

God of no effect,' and so forth. While his sermon rolled along,

Dora stood nervously tying her bonnet strings, or buttoning her

gloves. Her heart was full of a passionate scorn. Beside the

bookseller's muscular figure and pugnacious head she saw with

her mind's eye the spare forms and careworn faces of the young

priests at St. Damian's. Outraged by this loud-voiced assurance,

she called to mind the gentleness, the suavity, the delicate

consideration for women which obtained among her friends.

'There's not a pin to choose,' Purcell wound up, brutally, 'between

you and that young infidel in there,' and he jerked his thumb

towards the shop. 'It all comes of pride. He's bursting with his own

wisdom,--you will have the "Church" and won't have the Bible.

What's the Church!--a pack of sinners, and a million sinners are no

better than one.'

'Good-bye, Lucy,' said Dora, stooping to kiss her cousin, and not

trusting herself to speak. 'Call for me at the quarter.'

Lucy hardly noticed her kiss, she sat with her elbows on the table,

holding her little chin disconsolately, something very like tears

in her eyes. In the first place, she was reflecting dolefully that

it was all true--she was never to have any amusement like other

girls--never to have any good of her life; she might as well be a

nun at once. In the second, she was certain her father meant to

send young Grieve away, and the prospect drew a still darker pall

over a prospect dark enough in all conscience before.

Purcell opened the door for Dora more punctiliously than usual, and

came back to the hearthrug still inflated as it were with his own

eloquence. Meanwhile Lucy was washing up the tea things. The little

servant had brought her a bowl of water and an apron, and Lucy was

going gingerly through an operation she detested. Why shouldn't

Mary Ann do it? What was the good of going to school and coming

back with Claribel's songs and Blumenthal's _Deux Anges_ lying

on the top of your box,--with a social education, moreover, so

advanced that the dancing--mistress had invariably made you waltz

alone round the room for the edification and instruction of the

assembled company,--if all you had to do at home was to dust and

wash up, and die with envy of girls with reprobate fathers? As she

pondered the question, Lucy began to handle the cups with a more

and more unfriendly energy.

'You'll break some of that china, Lucy!' said Purcell, at last

disturbed in his thoughts. 'What's the matter with you?'

'Nothing!' said Lucy, taking, however, a saucer from the line as

she spoke so viciously that the rest of them slipped with a clatter

and only just escaped destruction.

'Mind what you're about,' cried Purcell angrily, fearing for the

household stuff that had been in the establishment so much longer

and was so much more at home there than Lucy.

'I know what it is,' he said, looking at her severely, while his

great black presence seemed to fill the little room. 'You've lost

your temper because I refused to let you go to the dance.'

Lucy was silent for a moment, trying to contain herself; then she

broke out like a child, throwing down her apron, and feeling for

her handkerchief.

'It's _too_ bad--it's _too_ bad--I'd rather be Mary

Ann--_she's_ got friends, and evenings out--and--and parties

sometimes; and I see nobody, and go nowhere. What did you have me

home for at all?'

And she sat down and dried her eyes piteously. She was in real

distress, but she liked a scene, and Purcell knew her peculiarities.

He surveyed her with a sort of sombre indulgence.

'You're a vain child of this world, Lucy. If I didn't keep a

look-out on you, you'd soon go rejoicing down the broad way. What

do you mean about amusements? There's the missionary tea to-morrow

night, and the magic-lantern at the schools on Saturday.'

Lucy gave a little hysterical laugh.

'Well,' said Purcell loudly, 'there'll be plenty of young people

there. What have you got to say against them?'

'A set of _frights_ and _gawks_,' said Lucy, sitting bolt

upright in a state of flat mutiny, and crushing her handkerchief on

her knee between a pair of trembling hands. 'The way they do their

hair, and the way they tie their ties, and the way they put a chair

for you--it's enough to make one faint. At the Christmas treat

there was one young man asked me to trim his shirt-cuffs for him

with scissors he took out of his pocket. I told him _I_

wasn't his nurse, and people who weren't dressed ought to stay at

home. You should have seen how he and his sister glared at me

afterwards. I don't care! None of the chapel people like me--I know

they don't, and I don't want them to, and I wouldn't _marry_

one of them.'

The gesture of Lucy's curly head was superb.

'It seems to me,' said Purcell sarcastically, 'that what you mostly

learnt at Blackburn was envy, malice, and all uncharitableness. As

to marrying, child, the less you think of it for the present the

better, till you get more sense.'

But the eyes which studied her were not unkindly. Purcell liked

this slim red and white creature who belonged to him, whose

education had cost him hard money which it gave him pleasure to

reckon up, and who promised now to provide him with a fresh field

for the management and the coarse moral experiment which he loved.

She would be restive at first, but he would soon break her in. The

idea that under her folly and childishness she might possibly

inherit some of his own tenacity never occurred to him.

'I can't imagine,' said Lucy inconsequently, with eyes once more

swimming, 'why you can't let me do what Dora does! She's _much_

better than I am. She's a saint, she is. She's always going to

church; she's always doing things for poor people; she never thinks

about herself, or whether she's pretty, or--Why shouldn't I dance

if she does?'

Purcell laughed.

'Aye!' he said grimly, 'that's the Papistical way all over. So many

services, so much fasting, so much money, so much knocking under to

your priest, so much "church work"--and who cares a brass farthing

what you do with the rest of your time? Do as I tell you, and dance

away! But I tell you, Christianity wants _a new heart_!'

And the bookseller looked at his daughter with a frowning severity.

Conversation of this kind was his recreation, his accomplishment,

so to speak. He had been conducting a difficult negotiation all day

of the diamond-cut-diamond order, and was tired out and disgusted

by the amount of knowledge of books which even a gentleman may

possess. But here was compensation. A warm hearthrug, an unwilling

listener, and this sense of an incomparable soundness of view,--he

wanted nothing more to revive him, unless, indeed, it were a larger

audience.

As for Lucy, as she looked up at her father, even her childish

intelligence rose to a sense of absurdity. As if Dora hadn't a new

heart; as if Dora thought it was enough to go to church and give

sixpences in the offertory!

But her father overawed her. She had been left motherless at ten

years old, and brought up since away from home, except for

holidays. At the bottom of her she was quite conscious that she

knew nothing at all about this big contemptuous person, who ordered

her about and preached to her, and never let himself be kissed and

played with and coaxed as other girls' fathers did.

So she went on with her washing up in a crushed silence, very sorry

for herself in a vague passionate way, the corners of her mouth

drooping. Purcell too fell into a reverie, the lower jaw pushed

forward, one hand playing with the watch-chain which adorned his

black suit.

'Did you give Grieve that message?' he asked at last.

Lucy, still sulky, nodded in reply.

'What time did he come in from dinner?'

'On the stroke of the half-hour,' said Lucy quickly. 'I think he

keeps time better than anybody you ever had, father.'

'Insolent young whelp!' said Purcell in a slow, deliberate voice.

'He was at that place again yesterday.'

'Yes, I know he was,' said Lucy, with evident agitation. 'I told him

he ought to have been ashamed.'

'Oh, you talked to him, did you? What business had you to do that,

I wonder? Well, what did he say?'

'He said--well, I don't know what he said. He don't seem to think

it matters to anybody where he goes on Sunday!'

'Oh, indeed--don't he? I'll show him some cause to doubt the truth

of that proposition,' said Purcell ponderously; 'or I'll know the

reason why.'

Lucy looked unhappy, and said nothing for a minute or two. Then she

began insistently, 'Well, _does_ it matter to you?'

This deplorable question--viewed from the standpoint of a Baptist

elder--passed unnoticed, for with the last words the shop-bell

rang, and Purcell went off, transformed on the instant into the

sharp, attentive tradesman.

Lucy sat wiping her cups mechanically for a little while. Then,

when they were all done, and Mary Ann had been loftily commanded to

put them away, she slipped upstairs to her own room, a little attic

at the top of the house. Here she went to a deal press, which had

been her mother's, opened it, and took out a dress which hung in a

compartment by itself, enveloped in a holland wrapper, lest

Manchester smuts should harm it. She undid the wrapper, and laid it

on the bed. It was an embroidered white muslin, adorned with lace

and full knots of narrow pink ribbon.

'What a trouble I had to get the ribbon just that width,' she

thought to herself ruefully, 'and everybody said it was so uncommon.

I might as well give it Dora. I don't believe I shall ever wear it.

I don't know what'll become of me. I don't get any chances.'

And shaking her head mournfully from side to side, she sat on

beside the dress, in the light of her solitary candle, her hands

clasped round her knee, the picture of girlish despair, so far as

anything so daintily gowned, and shoed, and curled, could achieve

it. She was thinking drearily of some people who were coming to

supper, one of her father's brother elders at the chapel, Mr.

Baruch Barton, and his daughter. Mr. Barton had a specialty for the

prophet Zephaniah, and had been several times shocked because Lucy

could not help him out with his quotations from that source. His

daughter, a little pinched asthmatic creature, in a dress whereof

every gore and seam was an affront to the art of dressmaking, was

certainly thirty, probably more. And between thirty and the

Psalmist's limit of existence, there is the very smallest

appreciable difference, in the opinion of seventeen. What

_could_ she have to say to Emmy Barton? Lucy asked herself.

She began yawning from sheer dulness, as she thought of her. If it

were only time to go to bed!

Suddenly she heard a sound of raised voices in the upper shop on

the floor below. What could it be? She started up. 'Mr. Grieve and

father quarrelling!' She knew it must come to that!

She crept down the stairs with every precaution possible till she

came to the door behind which the loud talk which had startled her

was going on. Here she listened with all her ears, but at first to

very little purpose. David was speaking, but so rapidly, and

apparently so near to the other end of the room, that she could

hear nothing. Then her father broke in, and by dint of straining

very hard, she caught most of what he said before the whole

colloquy came abruptly to an end. She heard Purcell's heavy tread

descending the little iron spiral staircase leading from the lower

shop to the upper. She heard David moving about, as though he were

gathering up books and papers, and then, with a loud childish sob

which burst from her unawares, she ran upstairs again to her own

room.

'Oh, he's going, he's going!' she cried under her breath, as she

stood before the glass winking to keep the tears back, and biting

her handkerchief hard between her little white teeth. 'Oh, what

shall I do? what shall I do? It'll be always the same; just when

anyone _might_ like me, it all stops. And he won't care one

little, little bit. He'll never think of me again. Oh, I do think

somebody might care about me--might be sorry for me!'

And she locked her hands tight before her, and stared at the glass,

while the tears forced their way. But all the time she was noticing

how prettily she stood, how slim she was. And though she smarted,

she would not for the world have been without her smart, her

excitement, her foolish secret, which, for sheer lack of something

to do and think about, had suddenly grown to such magnitude in her

eyes. It was hard to cherish a hopeless passion for a handsome

youth, without a halfpenny, who despised you, but it was infinitely

better than to have nothing in your mind but Emmy Barton and the

prophet Zephaniah. Nay, as she washed her hands and smoothed her

dress and hair with trembling fingers, she became quite friendly

with her pain--in a sense, even proud of it, and jealous for

it. It was a sign of mature life--of something more than mere

school-girlishness. Like the lover in the Elizabethan sonnet, 'She

had been vexed, if vexed she had not been!'

CHAPTER III

'Come in, David,' said Mr. Ancrum, opening the door of his little

sitting-room in Mortimer Street. 'You're rather late, but I don't

wonder. Such a wind! I could hardly stand against it myself. But,

then, I'm an atomy. What, no top-coat in such weather! What do you

mean by that, sir? You're wet through. There, dry yourself.'

David, with a grin at Mr. Ancrum's unnecessary concern for him,

deposited himself in the carpet chair which formed the minister's

only lounge, and held out his legs and arms to the blaze. He was

wet indeed, and bespattered with the blackest mud in the three

kingdoms. But the battle with wind and rain had so brought into

play all the physical force of him, had so brightened eye and

cheek, and tossed the black hair into such a fine confusion, that,

as he sat there bending over the glow of the fire, the crippled man

opposite, sickly with long confinement and over-thinking, could not

take his eyes from him. The storm with all its freshness, youth

with all its reckless joy in itself, seemed to have come in with

the lad and transformed the little dingy room.

'What do you wear trash like that for in a temperature like this?'

said the minister, touching his guest's thin and much-worn coat.

'Don't you know, David, that your health is money? Suppose you get

lung trouble, who's to look after you?'

'It don't do me no harm, sir. I can't get into my last year's coat,

and I couldn't afford a new one this winter.'

'What wages do you earn?' asked Ancrum. His manner was a curious

mixture of melancholy gentleness and of that terse sharpness in

practical things which the south country resents and the north

country takes for granted.

'Eighteen shillings a week, since last November, sir.'

'That ought to be enough for a top-coat, you rascal, with only

yourself to feed,' said Mr. Ancrum, stretching himself in his hard

armchair, so as to let his lame leg with its heavy boot rest

comfortably on the fender. David had noticed at first sight of him

that his old playfellow had grown to look much older than in the

Clough End days. His hair was nearly white, and lay in a large

smooth wave across the broad brow. And in that brow there were deep

furrows, and many a new and premature line in the hollow cheeks.

Something withering and blighting seemed to have passed over the

whole man since those Sunday school lessons in the Christian

Brethren's upper room, which David still remembered so well. But

the eyes with their irresistible intensity and force were the same.

In them the minister's youth--he was not yet thirty-five--still

spoke, as from a last stronghold in a failing realm. They had a

strange look too, the look as of a secret life, not for the

passer-by.

David smiled at Ancrum's last remark, and for a moment or two

looked into the fire without speaking.

'Well, if I'd bought clothes or anything else this winter, I should

be in a precious worse hole than I am,' he said reflectively.

'Hole? What's wrong, Davy?'

'My master gave me the sack Monday.'

'Humph!' said Ancrum, surveying him. 'Well, you don't look much cast

down about it, I must say.'

'Well, you see, I'd laid my plans,' said the young man, an

irrepressible gaiety and audacity in every feature. 'It isn't as

though I were taken by surprise.'

'Plans for a new place, I suppose?'

'No; I have done with that. I am going to set up for myself. I know

the trade, and I've got some money.'

'How old are you, Davy?'

'Just upon twenty,' said the lad, quietly.

The minister pursed up his lips and whistled a little.

'Well, that's bold,' he said. 'Somehow I like it, though by all the

laws of prudence I ought to jump down your throat for announcing

such a thing. But how did you get your money? and what have you

been doing these four years? Come, I'm an old friend,--though I

dare say you don't think me much of a fellow. Out with it! Pay me

anyway for all those ships I made you long ago.'

And he held out his blanched hand, little more now than skin and

bone. David put his own into it awkwardly enough. At this period of

his life he was not demonstrative.

The story he had to tell was, to Ancrum's thinking, a remarkable

one. He had come into Manchester on an October evening with five

shillings and threepence in his pocket. From a point on the

south-western border of the city he took a 'bus for Deansgate and

Victoria Street. As he was sitting on the top, feeding his eyes on

the lights and the crowd of the streets, but wholly ignorant where

to go and what first step to take, he fell into talk with a decent

working-man and his wife sitting beside him. The result of the talk

was that they offered him shelter at fourpence a night. He

dismounted with them at Blackfriars Bridge, and they made their way

across the river to a street in Salford, where he lodged with them

for a week. During that week he lived on oatmeal and an occasional

baked potato, paying his hostess eighteenpence additional for the

use of her fire, and the right to sit in her kitchen when he was

not tramping about in search of work. By the end of the week he had

found a post as errand-boy at a large cheap bookseller's and

stationer's in Deansgate, at eight shillings a week, his good

looks, manner, and education evidently helping him largely, as Mr.

Ancrum could perceive through the boy's very matter-of-fact account

of himself. He then made an agreement for bed, use of fire, and

kitchen, with his new friends at four shillings a week, and by the

end of six months he was receiving a wage of fourteen shillings as

salesman and had saved close on five pounds.

'Well, now, come, how did you manage that, Davy?' said Mr. Ancrum,

interrupting. 'Don't run on in that fashion. Details are the only

interesting things in life, and details I'll have. You must have

found it a precious tight fit to save that five pounds.'

Whereupon David, his eye kindling, ran out Benjamin Franklin and

the 'Vegetarian News,' his constant friends from the first day of

his acquaintance with the famous autobiography till now, in spite

of such occasional lapses into carnal feeding as he had confessed

to Daddy. In a few minutes Ancrum found himself buried in 'details'

as to 'flesh-forming' and 'bone-forming' foods, as to nitrogen and

albumen, as to the saving qualities of fruit, and Heaven knows what

besides. Long before the enthusiast had spent his breath or his

details, the minister cried 'Enough!'

'Young materialist,' he said growling, 'what do you mean at your age

by thinking so much about your body?'

'It wasn't my body, sir,' said David, simply, 'it was just business.

If I had got ill, I couldn't have worked; if I had lived like other

chaps, I couldn't have saved. So I had to know something about it,

and it wasn't bad fun. After a bit I got the people I lodged with

to eat a lot of the things I eat--and that was cheaper for me of

course. The odd thing about vegetarianism is that you come not to

care a rap what you eat. Your taste goes somehow. So long as you're

nourished and can do your work, that's all you want.'

The minister sat studying his visitor a minute or two in silence,

though the eyes under the care-worn brow were bright and restless.

Any defiance of the miserable body was in itself delightful to a

man who had all but slain himself many times over in the soul's

service. He, too, had been living on a crust for months, denying

himself first this, then that ingredient of what should have been

an invalid's diet. But it had been for cause--for the poor--for

self-mortification. There was something just a little jarring to

the ascetic in this contact with a self-denial of the purely

rationalistic type, so easy--so cheerful--put forward without the

smallest suspicion of merit, as a mere business measure.

David resumed his story. By the end of another six months it

appeared that he had grown tired of his original shop, with its

vast masses of school stationery and cheap new books. As might have

been expected from his childish antecedents, he had been soon laid

hold of by the old bookstalls, had read at them on his way from

work, had spent on them all that he could persuade himself to spare

from his hoard, and in a year from the time he entered Manchester,

thanks to wits, reading, and chance friendships, was already a

budding bibliophile. Slates and primers became suddenly odious to a

person aware of the existence of Aldines and Elzevirs, and bitten

with the passion, then just let loose on the book-buying world, for

first editions of the famous books of the century. Whenever that

sum in the savings bank should have reached a certain height, he

would become a second-hand bookseller with a stall. Till then he

must save more and learn his trade. So at the end of his first year

he left his employers, and by the help of excellent recommendations

from them got the post of assistant in Purcell's shop in Half

Street, at a rise of two shillings, afterwards converted into four

shillings a week.

'And I've been there three years--very near,' said David,

straightening himself with a little nervous gesture peculiar to

him. 'If you'd been anywhere about, sir, you'd have wondered how I

could have stayed so long. But I wanted to learn the trade and I've

learnt it--no thanks to old Purcell.'

'What was wrong with him?'

'Mostly brains!' said the lad, with a scornful but not unattractive

conceit. 'He was a hard master to live with--that don't matter. But he

is a fool! I don't mean to say he don't know a lot about some

things--but he thinks he knows everything--and he don't. And he'll not

let anyone tell him--not he! Once, if you'll believe it, he got the

Aldine Virgil of 1501, for twenty-five shillings--came from a gentleman

out Eccles way--a fellow selling his father's library and didn't know

bad from good,--real fine tall copy,--binding poor,--but a _stunner_

take it altogether--worth twenty pounds to Quaritch or Ellis, any day.

Well, all I could do, he let a man have it for five shillings profit

next day, just to spite me, I believe, because I told him it was a good

thing. Then he got sick about that, I believe, though he never let out,

and the next time he found anything that looked good,--giminy!--but he

put it on. Now you know, sir'--Mr. Ancrum smiled at the confidential

eagerness of the expert--'you know, sir, it's not many of those Venice

or Florence Dantes that are worth anything. If you get the first edition

of Landino's 'Commentary,' or the other man's, Imola's, isn't it--'

The minister lifted his eyebrows--the Italian came out pat, and, so

far as he knew, right--

'Well, of course, _they're_ worth money--always fetch

their price. But the later editions are no good at all--nobody but a

gentleman-collector, very green, you know, sir'--the twinkle in the

boy's eye showed how much his subject was setting him at his

ease--'would be bothered with them. Well, if he didn't get hold of

an edition of 1540 or so--worth about eight shillings, and dear at

that--and send it up to one of the London men as a good thing. He

makes me pack it and send it and _register_ it--you might have

thought it was the Mazarin Bible, bar size. And then, of course,

next day, down comes the book again flying, double quick. I kept

out of his way, post-time! But I'd have given something to see the

letter he got.'

And David, rising, put his hands in his pockets, and stood before

the fire chuckling with irrepressible amusement.

'Well, then you know there's the first editions of Rousseau--not a

bit rare, as rare goes--lucky if you get thirty shillings for the

"Contrat Social," or the "Nouvelle Heloise," even good copies--'

Again the host's eyebrows lifted. The French names ran remarkably;

there was not the least boggling over them. But he said nothing,

and David rattled on, describing, with a gusto which never failed,

one of Purcell's book-selling enormities after another. It was

evident that he despised his master with a passionate contempt. It

was evident also that Purcell had shown a mean and unreasoning

jealousy of his assistant. The English tradesman inherits a

domineering tradition towards his subordinates, and in Purcell's

case, as we know, the instincts of an egotistical piety had

reinforced those of the employer. Yet Mr. Ancrum felt some sympathy

with Purcell.

'Well, Davy,' he said at last, 'so you were too 'cute for your man,

that's plain. But I don't suppose he put it on that ground when he

gave you the sack?'

And he looked up, with a little dry smile.

'No!' cried David, abruptly. 'No! not he. If you go and ask

_him_ he'll tell you he sent me off because I would go to the

Secularist meetings at the Hall of Science, and air myself as an

atheist; that's his way of putting it. And it was doing him harm

with his religious customers! As if I was going to let him dictate

where I went on Sundays!'

'Of course not,' said Ancrum, with a twist of his oddly shaped

mouth. 'Even the very youngest of us might sometimes be the better

for advice; but, hang it, let's be free--free to "make fools of

ourselves," as a wise man hath it. Well, Davy, no offence,' for his

guest had flushed suddenly. 'So you go to the Hall of Science? Did

you hear Holyoake and Bradlaugh there the other night? You like

that kind of thing?'

'I like to hear it,' said the lad, stoutly, meeting his old

teacher's look, half nervously, half defiantly. 'It's a great deal

more lively than what you hear at most churches, sir. And why

shouldn't one hear everything?'

This was not precisely the tone which the same culprit had adopted

towards Dora Lomax. The Voltairean suddenly felt himself to be

making excuses--shabby excuses--in the presence of somebody

connected, however distantly, with _l'infame_. He drew himself

up with an angry shake of his whole powerful frame.

'Oh, why not?' said Ancrum, with a shrug, 'if life's long

enough'--and he absently lifted and let fall a book which lay on

the table beside him; it was Newman's 'Dream of Gerontius'--'if

life's long enough, and--happy enough! Well, so you've been

learning French, I can hear. Teaching yourself?'

'No; there's an old Frenchman, old Barbier--do you know him, sir?

He gives lessons at a shilling an hour. Very few people go to him

now; they want younger men. And there's lot's of them about. But

old Barbier knows more about books than any of them, I'll be bound.'

'Has he introduced you to French novels? I never read any; but

they're bad, of course--must be. In all those things I'm a

Britisher and believe what the Britishers say.'

'We're just at the end of "Manon Lescaut,"' said David, doggedly.

'And partly with him, partly by myself, I've read a bit of

Rousseau--and a good lot of Diderot,--and Voltaire.'

David threw an emphasis into the last name, which was meant to

atone to himself for the cowardice of a few minutes before. The old

boyish feeling towards Mr. Ancrum, which had revived in him when he

entered the room, had gradually disappeared again. He bore the

minister no real grudge for having forgotten him, but he wished it

to be clearly understood that the last fragments of the Christian

Brethren yoke had dropped from his neck.

'Ah! don't know anything about them,' said Ancrum, slowly; 'but

then, as you know, I'm a very ignorant person. Well, now, was it

Voltaire took you to the secularists, or the secularists to

Voltaire?'

David laughed, but did not give a reply immediately.

'Well, never mind,' said the minister, 'All Christians are fools, of

course--that's understood.--Is that all you have been learning

these four years?'

'I work at Latin every morning,' said David, very red, and on his

dignity. 'I've begun Greek, and I go to the science classes,

mathematics and chemistry, at the Mechanics' Institute.'

Mr. Ancrum's face softened.

'Why, I'll be bound you have to go to work pretty early, Davy?'

'Seven o'clock, sir, I take the shutters down. But I get an hour

and a half first, and three hours in the evening. This winter I've

got through the "Aeneid," and Horace's "Epistles" and "Ars

Poetica." Do you remember, sir?'--and the lad's voice grew sharp

once more, tightening as it were under the pressure of eagerness

and ambition from beneath--'do you remember that Scaliger read the

"Iliad" in twenty days, and was a finished Greek scholar in two

years? Why can't one do that now?'

'Why shouldn't you?' said Mr. Ancrum, looking up at him. 'Who helps

you in your Greek?'

'No one; I get translations.'

'Well, now, look here, Davy. I'm an ignorant person, as I told you,

but I learnt some Latin and Greek at Manchester New College. Come

to me in the evenings, and I'll help you with your Greek, unless

you've got beyond me. Where are you?'

The budding Scaliger reported himself. He had read the 'Anabasis,'

some Herodotus, three plays of Euripides, and was now making some

desperate efforts on Aeschylus and Sophocles. Any Plato? David made

a face. He had read two or three dialogues in English; didn't want

to go on, didn't care about him. Ah! Ancrum supposed not.

'Twelve hours' shop,' said the minister reflecting, 'more or less,--two

hours' work before shop,--three hours or so after shop; that's what you

may call driving it hard. You couldn't do it, Richard Ancrum,' and he

shook his head with a whimsical melancholy. 'But you were always a poor

starveling. Youth that _is_ youth's tough. Don't tell me, sir,' and he

looked up sharply, 'that you don't amuse yourself. I wouldn't believe

it. There never was a man built like you yet that didn't amuse himself.'

David smiled, but said nothing.

'Billiards?'

'No, sir.'

'Betting?'

'No, sir. They cost money.'

'Niggardly dog! Drink?--no, I'll answer that for myself.'

The minister dropped his catechism, and sat nursing his lame leg

and thinking. Suddenly he broke out with, 'How many young women are

you in love with, David?'

David showed his white teeth.

'I only know two, sir. One's my master's daughter--she's rather a

pretty girl, I think--'

'That'll do. You're not in love with her. Who's the other?'

'The other's Mr. Lomax's daughter,--Lomax of the Parlour, that

queer restaurant, sir, in Market Place. She--well, I don't know how

to describe her. She's not good-looking--at least, I don't think

so,' he added dubiously. 'She's very High Church, and fasts all

Lent. I think she does Church embroidery.'

'And doesn't think any the better of you for attending the Hall of

Science? Sensible girl! Still, when people mean to fall in love,

they don't think twice of that sort of thing. I make a note of

Lomax's daughter. Ah! enter supper. David, if you let any 'ism

stand between you and that veal pie, I despair of your future.'

David, however, in the course of the meal, showed himself as

superior to narrowness of view in the matter of food-stuffs as in

other matters. The meal went merrily. Mr. Ancrum dropped his

half-sarcastic tone, and food, warmth, and talk loosened the lad's

fibres, and made him more and more human, handsome, and attractive.

Soon his old friend knew all that he wanted to know,--the sum David

had saved--thirty pounds in the savings-bank--the sort of stock he

meant to set up, the shop he had taken--with a stall, of course--no

beginner need hope to prosper without a stall. Customers must be

delicately angled for at a safe distance--show yourself too much,

and, like trout, they flashed away. See everything, force nothing.

Let a book be turned over for nineteen days, the chances were that

on the twentieth you would turn over the price. As to expecting the

class of cheap customers to commit themselves by walking into a

shop, it was simple madness. Of course, when you were 'established,'

that was another matter.

By the help of a certain wealthy Unitarian, one Mr. Doyle, with

whom he had made friends in Purcell's shop, and whom he had boldly

asked for the use of his name as a reference, the lad had taken--so

it appeared--a small house in Potter Street, a narrow but

frequented street in the neighbourhood of Deansgate and all the

great banks and insurance offices in King Street. His shop took up

the ground floor. The two floors above were let, and the tenants

would remain. But into the attics and the parlour kitchen behind

the shop, he meant, ultimately, when he could afford it, to put

himself and his sister. He could only get the house on a yearly

tenancy, as it and the others near it were old, and would probably

be rebuilt before long. But meanwhile the rent was all the lower

because of the insecurity of tenure.

At the mention of the boy's sister, Ancrum looked up with a start.

'Ah, to be sure! What became of that poor child after you left? The

Clough End friends who wrote to me of your disappearance had more

pity for her, Davy, than they had for you.'

A sudden repulsion and reserve darkened the black eyes opposite.

'There was no helping it,' he said with hasty defiance. There was a

moment's silence. Then a wish to explain himself rose in David.

'I couldn't have stayed, sir,' he said, with a curious

half-reproachful accent. 'I told you about how it was before you

left. And there were other things. I should have cut my own throat

or some one else's if it had gone on. But I haven't forgotten

Louie. You remember Tom Mullins at the foundry. He's written me

every month. I paid him for it. I know all about Louie, and they

don't know anything about me. They think I'm in America.'

His eyes lit again with the joy of contrivance.

'Is that kind, Davy?'

'Yes, sir--' and for the first time the minister heard in the boy's

voice the tone of a man's judgment. 'I couldn't have Louie on me

just yet. I was going to ask you, sir, not to tell the people at

Clough End you've seen me. It would make it very hard. You know

what Louie is--and she's all right. She's learnt a trade.'

'What trade?'

'Silk-weaving--from Margaret Dawson.'

'Poor soul--poor saint! There'd be more things than her trade to be

learnt from Margaret Dawson if anyone had a mind to learn them.

What of 'Lias?'

'Oh, he died, sir, a week after I left.' The lad's voice dropped.

Then he added slowly, looking away, 'Tom said he was very quiet--he

didn't suffer much--not at the end.'

'Aye, the clouds lift at sunset,' said Mr. Ancrum in an altered

tone; 'the air clears before the night!'

His head fell forward on his breast, and he sat drumming on the

table. They had finished supper, the little, bustling landlady had

cleared away, and Davy was thinking of going. Suddenly the minister

sprang up and stood before the fire, looking down at his guest.

'Davy, do you want to know why I didn't write to you? I was ill

first--very ill; then--_I was in hell!_'

David started. Into the thin, crooked face, with the seeking eyes,

there had flashed an expression--sinister, indescribable, a sort of

dumb rage. It changed the man altogether.

'I was in hell!' he repeated slowly. 'I know no more about it. Other

people may tell you, perhaps, if you come across them--I can't.

There were days at Clough End--always a certain number in the

year--when this earth slipped away from me, and the fiends came

about me, but this was months. They say I was overdone in the

cotton famine years ago just before I came to Clough End. I got

pneumonia after I left you that May--it doesn't matter. When I knew

there was a sun again, I wrote to ask about you. You had left

Kinder and gone--no one knew where.'

David sat nervously silent, not knowing what to say, his mind

gradually filling with the sense of something tragic, irreparable.

Mr. Ancrum, too, stood straight before him, as though turned to

stone. A t last David got up and approached him. Had Ancrum been

looking he must have been touched by the change in the lad's

expression. The hard self-reliant force of the face had melted into

feeling.

'Are you better now, sir? I knew you must have been ill,' he

stammered.

Ancrum started as though just wakened.

'Ill? Yes, I was pretty bad,' he said briskly, and in his most

ordinary tone, though with a long breath.' But I'm as fit as

anything now. Good night, Davy, good night. Come a walk with me

some day? Sunday afternoon? Done. Here, write me your new address.'

The tall form and curly black head disappeared, the little

lodging-house room, with its round rosewood table, its horsehair

sofa, its chiffonnier, and its prints of 'Sport at Balmoral' and

'The Mother's Kiss,' had resumed the dingy formality of every day.

The minister sank into his seat and held his hands out over the

blaze. He was in pain. All life was to him more or less a struggle

with physical ill. But it was not so primarily that he conceived

it. The physical ill was nothing except as representing a

philosophical necessity.

That lad, with all his raw certainties--of himself, his knowledge,

his Voltaire--the poor minister felt once or twice a piteous

envy of him, as he sat on through the night hours. Life was

ill-apportioned. The poor, the lonely, the feeble--it is they who

want certainty, want hope most. And because they are lonely and

feeble, because their brain tissues are diseased, and their life

from no fault of their own unnatural, nature who has made them

dooms them to despair and doubt. Is there any 'soul,' any

'personality' for the man who is afflicted and weakened with

intermittent melancholia? Where is his identity, where his

responsibility? And if there is none for him, how does the accident

of health bestow them on his neighbour?

Questions of this sort had beset Richard Ancrum for years. On the

little book-table to his right lay papers of Huxley's, of

Clifford's, and several worn volumes of mental pathology. The

brooding intellect was for ever raising the same problem, the same

spectre world of universal doubt, in which God, conscience, faith,

were words without a meaning.

But side by side with the restlessness of the intellect there had

always gone the imperious and prevailing claim of temperament.

Beside Huxley and Clifford, lay Newman's 'Sermons' and 'Apologia,'

and a little High Church manual of self-examination. And on the

wall above the book-table hung a memorandum-slate on which were a

number of addresses and dates--the addresses of some forty boys

whom the minister taught on Sunday in one of the Unitarian Sunday

schools of Manchester, and visited in the week. The care and

training of street arabs had been his passion when he was still a

student at Manchester New College. Then had come his moment of

utterance--a thirst for preaching, for religious influence; though

he could not bring himself to accept any particular shibboleth or

take any kind of orders. He found something congenial for a time to

a deep though struggling faith in the leadership of the Christian

Brethren. Now, however, something had broken in him; he could

preach no more. But he could go back to his old school; he could

teach his boys on Sundays and week days; he could take them out

country walks in spite of his lame limb; he could deny himself even

the commonest necessaries of life for their sake; he could watch

over each of them with a fervour, a moral intensity which wore him

out. In this, in some insignificant journalism for a religious

paper, and in thinking, he spent his life.

There had been a dark page in his history. He had hardly left

Manchester New College when he married suddenly a girl of some

beauty, but with an undeveloped sensuous temperament. They were to

live on a crust and give themselves to the service of man. His own

dream was still fresh when she deserted him in the company of one

of his oldest friends. He followed them, found them both in black

depths of remorse, and took her back. But the strain of living

together proved too much. She implored him to let her go and earn

her living apart. She had been a teacher, and she proposed to

return to her profession. He saw her established in Glasgow in the

house of some good people who knew her history, and who got her a

post in a small school. Then he returned to Manchester and threw

himself with reckless ardour into the work of feeding the hungry,

and nursing the dying, in the cotton famine. He emerged a broken

man, physically and morally, liable thenceforward to recurrent

crises of melancholia; but they were not frequent or severe enough

to prevent his working. He was at the time entirely preoccupied

with certain religious questions, and thankfully accepted the call

to the little congregation at Clough End.

Since then he had visited his wife twice every year. He was

extremely poor. His family, who had destined him for the

Presbyterian ministry, were estranged from him; hardly anyone in

Manchester knew him intimately; only in one house, far away in the

Scotch lowlands, were there two people, who deeply loved and

thoroughly understood him. There he went when his dark hours came

upon him; and thence, after the terrible illness which overtook him

on his leaving Clough End, he emerged again, shattered but

indomitable, to take up the battle of life as he understood it.

He was not an able nor a literary man. His mind was a strange

medley, and his mental sight far from clear. Of late the study of

Newman had been a revelation to him. But he did not cease for that

to read the books of scientific psychology which tortured him--the

books which seemed to make of mind a function of matter, and man

the slave of an immoral nature.

The only persistent and original gift in him--yet after all it is

the gift which for ever divides the sheep from the goats--was that

of a 'hunger and thirst after righteousness.'

CHAPTER IV

It was towards noon on a November day, and Dora Lomax sat working

at her embroidery frame in the little sitting-room overlooking

Market Place. The pale wintry sun touched her bent head, her deftly

moving hand, and that device of the risen Christ circled in golden

flame on which she was at work. The room in which she sat was old

and low; the ceiling bulged here and there, the floor had

unexpected slopes and declivities. The furniture was of the

cheapest, the commonest odds and ends of a broker's shop, for the

most part. There was the usual horsehair suite, the usual cheap

sideboard, and dingy druggeting of a large geometrical pattern. But

amid these uninviting articles there were a few things which gave

the room individuality--some old prints of places abroad, of

different shapes and sizes, which partly disguised the blue and

chocolate paper on the walls; some bits of foreign carving, Swiss

and Italian; some eggs and shells and stuffed birds, some of these

last from the Vosges, some from the Alps; a cageful of canaries,

singing their best against the noise of Manchester; and, lastly, an

old bookcase full of miscellaneous volumes, mostly large and

worthless 'sets' of old magazines and encyclopaedias, which

represented the relics of Daddy's bookselling days.

The room smelt strongly of cooking, a mingled odour of boiling

greens and frying onions and stored apples which never deserted it,

and produced a constant slight sense of nausea in Dora, who, like

most persons of sedentary occupation, was in matters of eating and

digestion somewhat sensitive and delicate. From below, too, there

seemed to spread upwards a general sense of bustle and disquiet.

Doors banged, knives and plates rattled perpetually, the great

swing-door into the street was for ever opening and shutting, each

time shaking the old, frail house with its roughly built additions

through and through, and there was a distant skurry of voices that

never paused. The restaurant indeed was in full work, and Daddy's

voice could be heard at intervals, shouting and chattering. Dora

had been at work since half-past seven, marketing, giving orders,

making up accounts, writing bills of fare, and otherwise organising

the work of the day. Now she had left the work for an hour or two

to her father and the stout Lancashire cook with her various

handmaidens. Daddy's irritable pride liked to get her out of the

way and make a lady of her as much as she would allow, and in her

secret heart she often felt that her embroidery, for which she was

well paid as a skilled and inventive hand, furnished a securer

basis for their lives than this restaurant, which, in spite of its

apparent success, was a frequent source of dread and discomfort to

her. The money obligation it involved filled her sometimes with a

kind of panic. She knew her father so well!

Now, as she sat absorbed in her work, sewing her heart into it, for

every stitch in it delighted not only her skilled artistic sense

but her religious feeling, little waves of anxious thought swept

across her one after another. She was a person of timid and

brooding temperament, and her father's eccentricities and past

history provided her with much just cause for worry. But to-day she

was not thinking much of him.

Again and again there came between her and her silks a face, a face

of careless pride and power, framed in strong waves of black hair.

It had once repelled her quite as much as it attracted her. But at

any rate, ever since she had first seen it, it had taken a place

apart in her mind, as though in the yielding stuff of memory and

feeling one impression out of the thousands of every day had,

without warning, yet irrevocably, stamped itself deeper than the

rest. The owner of it--David Grieve--filled her now, as always,

with invincible antagonisms and dissents. But still the thought of

him had in some gradual way become of late part of her habitual

consciousness, associated always, and on the whole painfully

associated, with the thought of Lucy Purcell.

For Lucy was such a little goose! To think of the way in which she

had behaved towards young Grieve in the fortnight succeeding his

notice to quit, before he finally left Purcell's service, made Dora

hot all over. How could Lucy demean herself so? and show such

tempers and airs towards a man who clearly did not think anything

at all about her? And now she had flung herself upon Dora,

imploring her cousin to help her, and threatening desperate things

unless she and David were still enabled to meet. And meanwhile

Purcell had flatly forbidden any communication between his

household and the young reprobate he had turned out, whose

threatened prosperity made at this moment the angry preoccupation

of his life.

What was Dora to do? Was she to aid and abet Lucy, against her

father's will, in pursuing David Grieve? And if in spite of all

appearances the little self-willed creature succeeded, and Dora

were the means of her marrying David, how would Dora's conscience

stand? Here was a young man who believed in nothing, and openly

said so, who took part in those terrible atheistical meetings and

discussions, which, as Father Russell had solemnly said, were like

a plague-centre in Manchester, drawing in and corrupting soul after

soul. And Dora was to help in throwing her young cousin, while she

was still almost a child with no 'Church principles' to aid and

protect her, into the hands of this enemy of the Lord and His

Church?

Then, when it came to this point, Dora would be troubled and drawn

away by memories of young Grieve's talk and ways, of his dashes

into Market Place to see Daddy since he had set up for himself, of

his bold plans for the future which delighted Daddy and took her

breath away; of the flash of his black eyes; the triumphant energy

of his youth; and those indications in him, too, which had so

startled her of late since they--she and he--had dropped the futile

sparrings in which their acquaintance began, of an inner softness,

a sensitive magnetic something--indescribable.

Dora's needle paused in mid-air. Then her hand dropped on her lap.

A slight but charming smile--born of youth, sympathy, involuntary

admiration--dawned on her face. She sat so for a minute or two lost

in reminiscence.

The clock outside struck twelve. Dora with a start felt along the

edge of her frame under her work and brought out a book. It was a

little black, worn manual of prayers for various times and

occasions compiled by a High Church dignitary. For Dora it had a

talismanic virtue. She turned now to one of the 'Prayers for

Noonday,' made the sign of the cross, and slipped on to her knees

for an instant. Then she rose happily and went back to her work. It

was such acts as this that made the thread on which her life of

mystical emotion was strung.

But her father was a Secularist of a pronounced type, and her

mother had been a rigid Baptist, old-fashioned and sincere, filled

with a genuine horror of Papistry and all its ways.

Adrian O'Connor Lomax, to give Daddy his whole magnificent name,

was the son of a reed-maker, of Irish extraction, at Hyde, and was

brought up at first to follow his father's trade--that of making

the wire 'reed,' or frame, into which the threads of the warp are

fastened before weaving. But such patient drudgery, often

continued, as it was in those days, for twelve and fourteen hours

out of the twenty-four, was gall and wormwood to a temperament like

Daddy's. He developed a taste for reading, fell in with Byron's

poems, and caught the fever of them; then branched out into

politics just at the time of the first Reform Bill, when all over

Lancashire the memory of Peterloo was still burning, and when men

like Henry Hunt and Samuel Bamford were the political heroes of

every weaver's cottage. He developed a taste for itinerant

lecturing and preaching, and presently left his family and tramped

to Manchester.

Here after many vicissitudes--including an enthusiastic and on the

whole creditable participation, as an itinerant lecturer, in the

movement for the founding of Mechanics' Institutes, then spreading

all over the north--Daddy, to his ill-fortune, came across his

future brother-in-law, the bookseller Purcell. At the moment Daddy

was in a new and unaccustomed phase of piety. After a period of

revolutionary spouting, in which Byron, Tom Paine, and the various

publications of Richard Carlile had formed his chief scriptures, a

certain Baptist preacher laid hold of the Irishman's mercurial

sense. Daddy was awakened and converted, burnt his Byron and his

Tom Paine in his three-pair back with every circumstance of insult

and contumely, and looked about for an employer worthy of one of

the elect. Purcell at the time had a shop in one of the main

streets connecting Manchester and Salford; he was already an elder

at the chapel Daddy frequented; the two made acquaintance and Lomax

became Purcell's assistant. At the moment the trade offered to him

attracted Daddy vastly. He had considerable pretensions to

literature; was a Shakespearian, a debater, and a haunter of a

certain literary symposium, held for a long time at one of the old

Manchester inns, and attended by most of the small wits and poets

of a then small and homely town. The gathering had nothing saintly

about it; free drinking went often hand in hand with free thought;

Daddy's infant zeal was shocked, but Daddy's instincts were

invincible, and he went.

The result of the bookselling experiment has been already told by

Daddy himself. It was, of course, inevitable. Purcell was then a

young man, but in his dealings with Daddy he showed precisely the

same cast-iron self-importance, the same slowness of brain coupled

with the same assumptions of an unbounded and righteous authority,

the same unregenerate greediness in small matters of gain and loss

which now in his later life had made him odious to David Grieve.

Moreover, Daddy, by a happy instinct, had at once made common cause

with Purcell's downtrodden sister, going on even, as his passionate

sense of opposition developed, to make love to the poor humble

thing mainly for the sake of annoying the brother. The crisis came;

the irritated tyrant brought down a heavy hand, and Daddy and

Isabella disappeared together from the establishment in Chapel

Street.

By the time Daddy had set up as the husband of Purcell's sister in

a little shop precisely opposite to that of his former employer, he

had again thrown over all pretensions to sanctity, was, on the

contrary, convinced afresh that all religion was one vast perennial

imposture, dominated, we may suppose, in this as in most other

matters, by the demon of hatred which now possessed him towards his

brother-in-law. His wife, poor soul, was beginning to feel herself

tied for good to the tail of a comet destined to some mad career or

other, and quite uncontrollable by any efforts of hers. Lomax had

married her for the most unpromising reasons in the world, and he

soon tired of her, and of the trade, which required a sustained

effort, which he was incapable of giving. As long as Purcell

remained opposite, indeed, hate and rivalry kept him up to the

mark. He was an attractive figure at that time, with his long fair

hair and his glancing greenish eyes; and his queer discursive talk

attracted many a customer, whom he would have been quite competent

to keep had his character been of the same profitable stuff as his

ability.

But when Purcell vanished across the river into Manchester, the

zest of Daddy's bookselling enterprise departed also. He began to

neglect his shop, was off here and there lecturing and debating,

and when he came back again it was plain to the wife their scanty

money had been squandered on other excesses than those of talk. At

last the business fell to ruins, and debts pressed. Then suddenly

Daddy was persuaded by a French commercial traveller to take up his

old trade of reed-making, and go and seek employment across the

Channel, where reed-makers were said to be in demand.

In ecstasy at the idea of travel thus presented to him, Daddy

devoured what books about France he could get hold of, and tried to

teach himself French. Then one morning, without a word to his wife,

he stole downstairs and out of the shop, and was far on the road to

London before his flight was discovered. His poor wife shed some

tears, but he had ceased to care for her she believed, largely

because she had brought him no children, and his habits had begun

to threaten to lead her with unpleasant rapidity to the workhouse.

So she took comfort, and with the help of some friends set up a

little stationery and fancy business, which just kept her alive.

Meanwhile Lomax found no work in Picardy, whither he had first

gone, and ultimately wandered across France to Alsace, in search of

bread, a prey to all possible hardships and privations. But nothing

daunted him. The glow of adventure and romance was on every

landscape. Cathedrals, forests, the wide river-plains of central

France, with their lights and distances,--all things on this new

earth and under these new heavens 'haunted him like a passion.' He

travelled in perpetual delight, making love no doubt here and there

to some passing Mignon, and starving with the gayest of hearts.

At Mulhausen he found work, and being ill and utterly destitute,

submitted to it for a while. But as soon as he had got back his

health and saved some money, he set out again, walking this time,

staff in hand, over the whole Rhine country and into the

Netherlands. There in the low Dutch plains he fell ill again, and

the beauty of the Rhineland was no longer there to stand like a

spell between him and the pains of poverty. He seemed to come to

himself, after a dream in which the world and all its forms had

passed him by 'apparelled in celestial light.' And the process of

self-finding was attended by some at least of those salutary pangs

which eternally belong to it. He suddenly took a resolution, crept

on board a coal smack going from a Dutch port to Grimsby, toiled

across Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, and appeared one evening, worn

to a shadow, in his wife's little shop in Salford.

He was received as foolish women in whom there is no ineradicable

taint of cruelty or hate will always receive the prodigal who

returns. And when Daddy had been fed and clothed, he turned out for

a time to be so amiable, so grateful a Daddy, such good company, as

he sat in the chair by his wife's fire and told stories of his

travels to her and anybody else who might drop in, that not only

the wife but the neighbourhood was appeased. His old friends came

back to him, he began to receive overtures to write in some of the

humbler papers, to lecture on his adventures in the Yorkshire and

Lancashire towns. Daddy expanded, harangued, grew daily in good

looks and charm under his wife's eyes.

At last one day the papers came in with news of Louis Philippe's

overthrow. Daddy grew restless, and began to study the foreign news

with avidity. Revolution spread, and what with democracy abroad and

Chartism at home, there was more stimulus in the air than such

brains as Daddy's could rightly stand. One May day he walked into

the street, looked hesitatingly up and down it, shading his eyes

against the sun. Then with a shake of his long hair, as of one

throwing off a weight, he drew his hat from under his arm, put it

on, felt in his pockets, and set off at a run, head downwards,

while poor Isabella Lomax was sweeping her kitchen. During the next

few days he was heard of, rumour said, now here, now there, but one

might as well have attempted to catch and hold the Pied Piper.

He was away for rather more than twenty months. Then one day, as

before, a lean, emaciated, sun-browned figure came slowly up the

Salford street, looking for a familiar door. It was Daddy. He went

into the shop, which was empty, stared, with a countenance in which

relief and repulsion were oddly mingled, at the boxes of

stationery, at the dusty counter with its string and glass cases,

when suddenly the inside door, which was standing ajar, was pushed

stealthily inwards, and a child stood in the doorway. It was a

tottering baby of a year old, holding in one fat hand a crust of

bread which it had been sucking. When it saw the stranger it looked

at him gravely for a second. Then without a trace of fear or

shyness it came forward, holding up its crust appealingly, its rosy

chin and lips still covered with bread-crumbs.

Daddy stared at the apparition, which seemed to him the merest

witchcraft. For it was _himself_, dwarfed to babyhood and

pinafores. His eyes, his prominent brow, his colour, his trick of

holding the head--they were all there, absurdly there.

He gave a cry, which was answered by another cry from behind. His

wife stood in the door. The stout, foolish Isabella was white to

the lips. Even she felt the awe, the poetry of the moment.

'Aye,' she said, trembling. 'Aye! it's yourn. It was born seven

months after yo left us.'

Daddy, without greeting his wife, threw himself down by the babe,

and burst into tears. He had come back in a still darker mood than

on his first return, his egotistical belief in himself more rudely

shaken than ever by the attempts, the failures, the miseries of the

last eighteen months. For one illuminating moment he saw that he

was a poor fool, and that his youth was squandered and gone. But in

its stead, there--dropped suddenly beside him by the forgiving

gods--stood this new youth sprung from his, and all his own, this

child--Dora.

He took to her with a passion which the trembling Isabella thought

a great deal too excessive to last. But though the natural Daddy

very soon reappeared, with all the aggravating peculiarities which

belonged to him, the passion did last, and the truant strayed no

more. He set up a small printing business with the help of some old

customers--it was always characteristic of the man that, be his

failings what they might, he never lacked friends--and with

lecturing and writing, and Isabella's shop, they struggled on

somehow. Isabella's life was hard enough. Daddy was only good when

he was happy; and at other times he dipped recklessly into vices

which would have been the ruin of them all had they been

persistent. But by some kind fate he always emerged, and more and

more, as years went on, owing to Dora. He drank, but not

hopelessly; he gambled, but not past salvation; and there was

generally, as we have said, some friend at hand to pick the poor

besmirched featherbrain out of the mire.

Dora grew up not unhappily. There were shifts and privations to put

up with; there were stormy days when life seemed a hurricane of

words and tears. But there were bright spaces in between, when

Daddy had good resolutions, or a little more money than usual; and

with every year the daughter instinctively knew that her spell over

her father strengthened. She was on the whole a serious child, with

fair pale hair, much given to straying in long loose ends about her

prominent brow and round cheeks. Yet at the Baptist school, whither

she was sent, she was certainly popular. She had a passion for the

little ones; and her grey-blue eyes, over which in general the

fringed lids drooped too much, had a charming trick of sudden

smiles, when the soft soul behind looked for an instant clearly and

blithely out. At home she was a little round-shouldered drudge in

her mother's service. At chapel she sat very patiently and happily

under a droning minister, and when the inert and despondent

Isabella would have let most of her religious duties drop, in the

face of many troubles and a scoffing husband, the child of fourteen

gently and persistently held her to them.

At last, however, when Dora was seventeen, Isabella died of cancer,

and Daddy, who had been much shaken and terrified by her sufferings

in her last illness, fell for a while into an irritable melancholy,

from which not even Dora could divert him. It was then that he

seemed for the first time to cross the line which had hitherto

divided him from ruin. The drinking at the White Horse, where the

literary circle met of which Lomax had been so long an ornament,

had been of late going from bad to worse. The households of the

wits concerned were up in arms; neighbourhood and police began to

assert themselves. One night the trembling Dora waited hour after

hour for her father. About midnight he staggered in, maddened with

drink and fresh from a skirmish with the police. Finding her there

waiting for him, pale and silent, he did what he had never done

before under any stress of trouble--struck and swore at her. Dora

sank down with a groan, and in another minute Lomax was dashing his

head against the wall, vowing that he would beat his brains out. In

the hours that followed, Dora's young soul was stretched as it were

on a rack, from which it rose, not weakened, but with new powers

and a loftier stature. All her girlish levities and illusions

seemed to drop away from her. She saw her mission, and took her

squalid Oedipus in charge.

Next morning she went to some of her father's friends, unknown to

Daddy, and came back with a light in her blanched face, bearing the

offer of some work on a Radical paper at Leicester. Daddy, now

broken and miserable, submitted, and off they went.

At Leicester the change of moral and physical climate produced for

a while a wonderful effect. Daddy found himself marvellously at

ease among the Secularist and Radical stockingers of the town, and

soon became well known to them as a being half butt, half oracle.

Dora set herself to learn dressmaking, and did her best to like the

new place and the new people. It was at Leicester, a place seething

with social experiment in its small provincial way, with

secularism, Owenism, anti-vaccination, and much else, that Lomax

fell a victim to one 'ism the more--to vegetarianism. It was there

that, during an editorial absence, and in the first fervour of

conversion, Daddy so belaboured a carnivorous world in the columns

of the 'Penny Banner' for which he worked, and so grotesquely and

persistently reduced all the problems of the time to terms of

nitrogen and albumen, that curt dismissal came upon him, and for a

time Dora saw nothing but her precarious earnings between them and

starvation. It was then also that, by virtue of that queer charm he

could always exercise when he pleased, he laid hold on a young

Radical manufacturer and got out of him a loan of 200 pounds for

the establishment of a vegetarian restaurant wherein Leicester was

to be taught how to feed.

But Leicester, alas! remained unregenerate. In the midst of Daddy's

preparations a commercial traveller, well known both to Manchester

and Leicester, repeated to him one day a remark of Purcell's, to

the effect that since Daddy's migration Manchester had been well

rid of a vagabond, and he, Purcell, of a family disgrace. Daddy,

bursting with fatuous rage, and possessed besides of the wildest

dreams of fortune on the strength of his 200 pounds, straightway

made up his mind to return to Manchester, 'pull Purcell's nose,' and

plant himself and his prosperity that was to be in the bookseller's

eyes. He broke in upon Dora at her work, and poured into her

astonished ears a stream of talk, marked by a mad inventiveness,

partly in the matter of vegetarian receipts, still more in that of

Purcell's future discomforts. When Daddy was once launched into a

subject that suited him, he was inexhaustible. His phrases flowed

for ever; of words he was always sure. Like a certain French talker,

'his sentences were like cats: he showered them into air and they

found their feet without trouble.'

Dora sat through it, bewildered and miserable. Go back to

Manchester where they had been so unhappy, where the White Horse

and its crew were waiting for her father, simply to get into debt

and incur final ruin for the sake of a mad fancy she humoured but

could not believe in, and a still madder thirst for personal

vengeance on a man who was more than a match for anything Daddy

could do! She was in despair.

But Daddy was obdurate, brutal in his determination to have his

way; and when she angered him with her remonstrances, he turned

upon her with an irritable--

'I know what it is--damn it! It's that Puseyite gang you've taken up

with--you think of nothing but them. As if you couldn't find antics

and petticoats and priests in Manchester--they're everywhere--like

weeds. Wherever there's a dunghill of human credulity they swarm.'

Dora looked proudly at her father, as though disdaining to reply,

gentle creature that she was; then she bent again over her work,

and a couple of tears fell on the seam she was sewing.

Aye, it was true enough. In leaving Leicester, after these two years,

she was leaving what to her had been a spiritual birthplace,--tearing

asunder a new and tender growth of the soul.

This was how it had come about.

On her first arrival in Leicester, in a _milieu_, that is to

say, where at the time 'Gavroche,' as M. Renan calls him--the

street philosopher who is no less certain and no more rational than

the street preacher--reigned supreme, where her Secularist father

and his associates, hot-headed and early representatives of a phase

of thought which has since then found much abler, though hardly

less virulent, expression in such a paper, say, as the 'National

Reformer,' were for ever rending and trampling on all the current

religious images and ideas, Dora shrank into herself more and more.

She had always been a Baptist because her mother was. But in her

deep reaction against her father's associates, the chapel which she

frequented did not now satisfy her. She hungered for she knew not

what, certain fastidious artistic instincts awakening the while in

unexpected ways.

Then one Easter Eve, as she came back from an errand into the

outskirts of the town, she passed a little iron church standing in

a very poor neighbourhood, where, as she knew, a 'Puseyite' curate

in charge officiated, and where a good many disturbances which had

excited the populace had taken place. She went in. The curate, a

long, gaunt figure, of a familiar monkish type, was conducting

'vespers' for the benefit of some twenty hearers, mostly women in

black. The little church was half decorated for Easter, though the

altar had still its Lenten bareness. Something in the ordering of

the place, in its colours, its scents, in the voice of the priest,

in the short address he delivered after the service, dwelling in a

tone of intimate emotion, the tone of the pastor to the souls he

guides and knows, on the preparation needful for the Easter

Eucharist, struck home to Dora. Next day she was present at the

Easter festival. Never had religion spoken so touchingly to her

before as through these hymns, these flowers, this incense, this

Eucharistic ceremonial wherein--being the midday celebration--the

congregation were merely hushed spectators of the most pathetic and

impressive act in the religious symbolism of mankind. In the dark

corner where she had hidden herself, Dora felt the throes of some

new birth within her. In six weeks from that time she had been

admitted, after instruction, to the Anglican communion.

Thenceforward another existence began for this child of English

Dissent, in whom, however, some old Celtic leaven seems to have

always kept up a vague unrest, till the way of mystery and poetry

was found.

Daddy--the infidel Daddy--stormed a good deal, and lamented himself

still more, when these facts became known to him. Dora had become a

superstitious, priest-ridden dolt, of no good to him or anyone else

any more. What, indeed, was to become of him? Natural affection

cannot stand against the priest. A daughter cannot love her father

and go to confession. Down with the abomination--_écrasez

l'infame!_

Dora smiled sadly and went her way. Against her sweet silent

tenacity Daddy measured himself in vain. She would be a good

daughter to him, but she would be a good churchwoman first. He

began to perceive in her that germ of detachment from things

earthly and human which all ceremonialism produces, and in a sudden

terror gave way and opposed her no more. Afterwards, in a curious

way, he came even to relish the change in her. The friends it

brought her, the dainty ordering of the little flower-decked

oratory she made for herself in one corner of her bare attic room,

the sweet sobriety and refinement which her new loves and

aspirations and self-denials brought with them into the house,

touched the poetical instincts which were always dormant in the

queer old fellow, and besides flattered some strong and secret

ambitions which he cherished for his daughter. It appeared to him

to have raised her socially, to have made a lady of her--this

joining the Church. Well, the women must have some religious bag or

other to run their heads into, and the Church bag perhaps was the

most seemly.

On the day of their return to Manchester, Daddy, sitting with

crossed arms and legs in a corner of the railway carriage, might

have sat for a fairy-book illustration of Rumpelstiltzchen. His old

peaked hat, which he had himself brought from the Tyrol, fell

forward over his frowning brow, his cloak was caught fiercely about

him, and, as the quickly-passing mill-towns began to give notice of

Manchester as soon as the Derbyshire vales were left behind, his

glittering eyes disclosed an inward fever--a fever of contrivance

and of hate. He was determined to succeed, and equally determined

to make his success Purcell's annoyance.

Dora sat opposite, with her bird-cage on her knee, looking sad

weary. She had left behind, perhaps for ever, the dear friends who

had opened to her the way of holiness, and guided her first steps.

Her eyes filled with tears of gratitude and emotion as she thought

of them.

Two things only were pleasant to remember. One was that the Church

embroidery she had begun in her young zeal at Leicester, using her

odds and ends of time, to supplement the needs of a struggling

church depending entirely on voluntary contributions, was now

probably to become her trade. For she had shown remarkable aptitude

for it; and she carried introductions to a large church-furniture

shop in Manchester which would almost certainly employ her.

The other was the fact that somewhere in Manchester she had a

girl-cousin--Lucy Purcell--who must be about sixteen. Purcell had

married after his migration to Half Street; his wife proved to be

delicate and died in a few years; this little girl was all that was

left to him. Dora had only seen her once or twice in her life. The

enmity between Lomax and Purcell of course kept the families apart,

and, after her mother's early death, Purcell sent his daughter to a

boarding-school and so washed his hands of the trouble of her

bringing up. But in spite of these barriers Dora well remembered a

slim, long-armed schoolgirl, much dressed and becurled, who once in

a by-street of Salford had run after her and, looking round

carefully to see that no one was near, had thrust an eager face

into hers and kissed her suddenly. 'Dora,--is your mother better? I

wish I could come and see you. Oh, it's horrid of people to

quarrel! But I mustn't stay,--some one'll see, and I should just

catch it! Good-bye, Dora!' and so another kiss, very hasty and

frightened, but very welcome to the cheek it touched.

As they neared Manchester, Dora, in her loneliness of soul, thought

very tenderly of Lucy--wondered how she had grown up, whether she

was pretty and many other things. She had certainly been a pretty

child. Of course they must know each other and be friends. Dora

could not let her father's feud come between her and her only

relation. Purcell might keep them apart; but she would show him she

meant no harm; and she would bring her father round--she would and

must.

Two years had gone by. Of Daddy's two objects in leaving Leicester,

one had so far succeeded better than any rational being would have

foreseen.

On the first morning after their arrival he went out, giving Dora

the slip lest she might cramp him inconveniently in his decision;

and came back radiant, having taken a deserted seed-shop in Market

Place, which had a long, irregular addition at the back, formerly a

warehouse, providentially suited, so Daddy declared, to the

purposes of a restaurant. The rent he had promised to give seemed

to Dora a crime, considering their resources. The thought of it,

the terror of the servants he was engaging, the knowledge of the

ridicule and blame with which their old friends regarded her

father's proceedings, these things kept the girl awake night after

night.

But he would hear no remonstrances, putting all she had to say

aside with an arrogant boastfulness, which never failed.

In they went. Dora set her teeth and did her best, keeping as

jealous a watch on the purse-strings as she could, and furnishing

their three rooms above the shop for as few shillings as might be,

while Daddy was painting and decorating, composing _menus_,

and ransacking recipes with the fever of an artist, now writing

letters to the Manchester papers, or lecturing to audiences in the

Mechanics' Institute and the different working men's clubs, and now

plastering the shop-front with grotesque labels, or posing at his

own doorway and buttonholing the passers-by in the Tyrolese

brigand's costume which was his favourite garb.

The thing took. There is a certain mixture of prophet and

mountebank which can be generally counted upon to hit the popular

fancy, and Daddy attained to it. Moreover, the moment was

favourable. After the terrible strain of the cotton-famine and the

horrors of the cholera, Manchester was prosperous again. Trade was

brisk, and the passage of the new Reform Bill had given a fresh

outlet and impulse to the artisan mind which did but answer to the

social and intellectual advance made by the working classes since

'32. The huge town was growing fast, was seething with life,

with ambitions, with all the passions and ingenuities that

belong to gain and money-making and the race for success. It

was pre-eminently a city of young men of all nationalities,

three-fourths constantly engaged in the _chasse_ for money,

according to their degrees--here for shillings, there for

sovereigns, there for thousands. In such a _milieu_ any man

has a chance who offers to deal afresh on new terms with those

daily needs which both goad and fetter the struggling multitude at

every step. Vegetarianism had, in fact, been spreading in

Manchester; one or two prominent workmen's papers were preaching

it; and just before Daddy's advent there had been a great dinner in

a public hall, where the speedy advent of a regenerate and

frugivorous mankind, with length of days in its right hand, and a

captivating abundance of small moneys in its waistcoat pocket, had

been freely and ardently prophesied.

So Daddy for once seized the moment, and succeeded like the veriest

Philistine. On the opening day the restaurant was crowded from

morning till night. Dora, with her two cooks in the suffocating

kitchen behind, had to send out the pair of panting, perspiring

kitchen-boys again and again for fresh supplies; while Daddy, at

his wits' end for waiters, after haranguing a group of customers on

the philosophy of living, amid a tumult of mock cheers and

laughter, would rush in exasperated to Dora, to say that

_never_ again would he trust her niggardly ways--she would be

the ruin of him with her economies.

When at night the doors were shut at last on the noise and the

crowd, and Daddy sat, with his full cash-box open on his knee,

while the solitary gaslight that remained threw a fantastic and

colossal shadow of him over the rough floor of the restaurant, Dora

came up to him dropping with fatigue. He looked at her, his gaunt

face working, and burst into tears.

'Dora, we never had any money before, not when--when--your mother

was alive.'

And she knew that by a strange reaction there had come suddenly

upon him the memory of those ghastly months when she and he through

the long hours of every day had been forced--baffled and

helpless--to watch her mother's torture, and when the sordid

struggle for daily bread was at its worst, robbing death of all its

dignity, and pity of all its power to help.

Do what she would, she could hardly get him to give up the money

and go to bed. He was utterly unstrung, and his triumph for the

moment lay bitter in the mouth.

It was now two years since that opening day. During that time the

Parlour had become a centre after its sort--a scandal to some and a

delight to others. The native youth got his porridge, and apple

pie, and baked potato there; but the place was also largely haunted

by the foreign clerks of Manchester. There was, for instance, a

company of young Frenchmen who lunched there habitually, and in

whose society the delighted Daddy caught echoes from that

unprejudiced life of Paris or Lyons, which had amazed and

enlightened his youth. The place assumed a stamp and character. To

Daddy the development of his own popularity, which was like the

emergence of a new gift, soon became a passion. He deliberately

'ran' his own eccentricities as part of the business. Hence his

dress, his menus, his advertisements, and all the various antics

which half regaled, half scandalised the neighbourhood. Dora

marvelled and winced, and by dint of an habitual tolerance retained

the power of stopping some occasional enormity.

As to finances, they were not making their fortune; far from it;

but to Dora's amazement, considering her own inexperience and her

father's flightiness, they had paid their way and something more.

She was no born woman of business, as any professional accountant

examining her books might have discovered. But she had a passionate

determination to defraud no one, and somehow, through much toil her

conscience did the work. Meanwhile every month it astonished her

freshly that they two should be succeeding! Success was so little

in the tradition of their tattered and variegated lives. Could it

last? At the bottom of her mind lay a constant presentiment of new

change, founded no doubt on her knowledge of her father.

But outwardly there was little to justify it. The craving for drink

seemed to have left him altogether--a not uncommon effect of this

particular change of diet. And his hatred of Purcell, though in

itself it had proved quite unmanageable by all her arts, had done

nobody much harm. In a society dependent on law and police there

are difficulties in the way of a man's dealing primitively with his

enemy. There had been one or two awkward meetings between the two

in the open street; and at the Parlour, among his special

intimates, Daddy had elaborated a Purcell myth of a Pecksniffian

character which his invention perpetually enriched. On the whole,

however, it was in his liking for young Grieve, originally a casual

customer at the restaurant, that Dora saw the chief effects of the

feud. He had taken the lad up eagerly as soon as he had discovered

both his connection with Purcell and his daring rebellious temper;

had backed him up in all his quarrels with his master; had taken

him to the Hall of Science, and introduced him to the speakers

there; and had generally paraded him as a secularist convert,

snatched from the very jaws of the Baptist.

And now!--now that David was in open opposition, attracting

Purcell's customers, taking Purcell's water, Daddy was in a tumult

of delight: wheeling off old books of his own, such as 'The Journal

of Theology' and the 'British Controversialist,' to fill up David's

stall, running down whenever business was slack to see how the lad

was getting on; and meanwhile advertising him with his usual

extravagance among the frequenters of the Parlour.

All through, however, or rather since Miss Purcell had returned

from school, Dora and her little cousin Lucy had been allowed to

meet. Lomax saw his daughter depart on her visits to Half Street,

in silence; Purcell, when he first recognised her, hardly spoke to

her. Dora believed, what was in fact the truth, that each regarded

her as a means of keeping an eye on the other. She conveyed

information from the hostile camp--therefore she was let alone.

CHAPTER V

'Why--Lucy!'

Dora was still bending over her work when a well-known tap at the

door startled her meditations.

Lucy put her head in, and, finding Dora alone, came in with a look

of relief. Settling herself in a chair opposite Dora, she took off

her hat, smoothed the coils of hair to which it had been pinned,

unbuttoned the smart little jacket of pilot cloth, and threw back

the silk handkerchief inside; and all with a feverish haste and

irritation as though everything she touched vexed her.

'What's the matter, Lucy?' said Dora, after a little pause. At the

moment of Lucy's entrance she had been absorbed in a measurement.

'Nothing!' said Lucy quickly. 'Dora, you've got your hair loose!'

Dora put up her hand patiently. She was accustomed to be put to

rights. It was characteristic at once of her dreaminess and her

powers of self-discipline that she was fairly orderly, though she

had great difficulty in being so. Without a constant struggle, she

would have had loose plaits and hanging strings about her always.

Lucy's trimness was a perpetual marvel to her. It was like the

contrast between the soft indeterminate lines of her charming face

and Lucy's small, sharply cut features.

Lucy, still restless, began tormenting the feather in her hat.

'When are you going to finish that, Dora?' she asked, nodding

towards the frame.

'Oh it won't be very long now,' said Dora, putting her head on one

side that she might take a general survey, at once loving and

critical, of her work.

'You oughtn't to sit so close at it,' said Lucy decidedly; 'you'll

spoil your complexion.'

'I've none to spoil.'

'Oh, yes, you have, Dora--that's so silly of you. You aren't sallow

a bit. It's pretty to be pale like that. Lots of people say so--not

quite so pale as you are sometimes, perhaps--but I know why

_that_ is,' said Lucy, with a half-malicious emphasis.

A slight pink rose in Dora's cheeks, but she bent over her frame

and said nothing.

'Does your clergyman _tell_ you to fast in Lent, Dora--who

tells you?'

'The Church!' replied Dora, scandalised and looking up with bright

eyes. 'I wish you understood things a little more, Lucy.'

'I can't,' said Lucy, with a pettish sigh, 'and I don't care

twopence!'

She threw herself back in her rickety chair. Her arm dropped over

the side, and she lay staring at the ceiling. Dora went on with her

work in silence for a minute, and then looked up to see a tear

dropping from Lucy's cheek on to the horsehair covering of the

chair.

'Lucy, what _is_ the matter?--I knew there was something

wrong!'

Lucy sat up and groped energetically for her handkerchief.

'You wouldn't care,' she said, her lips quivering--'nobody cares!'

And, sinking down again, she hid her face and fairly burst out

sobbing. Dora, in alarm, pushed aside her frame and tried to caress

and console her. But Lucy held her off, and in a second or two was

angrily drying her eyes.

'Oh, you can't do any good, Dora--not the least good. It's

father--you know well enough what it is--I shall never get on with

father if I live to be a hundred!'

'Well, you haven't had long to try in,' said Dora, smiling.

'Quite long enough to know,' replied Lucy, drearily. 'I know I shall

have a horrid life--I must. Nobody can help it. Do you know we've

got another shopman, Dora?'

The tone of childish scorn she threw into the question was

inimitable. Dora with difficulty kept from laughing.

'Well, what's he like?' '_Like?_ He's like--like nothing,'

said Lucy, whose vocabulary was not extensive. 'He's fat and

ugly--wears spectacles. Father says he's a treasure--to me--and

then when they're in the shop I hear him going on at him like

anything for being a stupid. And I have to give the creature tea

when father's away, to clear up after him as though he were a

school-child. And father gets in a regular passion if I ask him

about the dance and there's a missionary tea next week, and he's

made me take a table--and he wants me to teach in Sunday

School--and the minister's wife has been talking to him about my

dress--and--and--No, I _can't_ stand it, Dora--I can't and I

won't!'

And Lucy, gulping down fresh tears, sat intensely upright, and

looked frowningly at Dora as though defying her to take the matter

lightly.

Dora was perplexed. Deep in her dove-like soul lay the fiercest

views about Dissent--that rent in the seamless vesture of Christ,

as she had learnt to consider it. Her mother had been a Baptist

till her death, she herself till she was grown up. But now she

had all the zeal--nay, even the rancour--of the convert. It

was one of her inmost griefs that her own change had not come

earlier--before her mother's death. Then perhaps her mother, her

poor--poor--mother, might have changed with her. It went against

her to urge Lucy to make herself a good Baptist.

'It's no wonder Uncle Tom wants you to do what he likes,' she said

slowly. 'But if you don't take the chapel, Lucy--if you want

something different, perhaps--'

'Oh, I don't want any _church_, thank you.' cried Lucy, up in

arms. 'I don't want _anybody_ ordering me about. Why can't I go

my own way a bit, and amuse myself as I please? It is _too_,

too bad!'

Dora did not know what more to say. She went on with her work,

thinking about it all. Suddenly Lucy astonished her by a question

in another voice.

'Have you seen Mr. Grieve's shop, Dora?'

Dora looked up.

'No. Father's been there a good many times. He says it's capital

for a beginning and he's sure to get on fast. There's one or two

very good sort of customers been coming lately. There's the Earl of

Driffield, I think it is--don't you remember, Lucy, it was he gave

that lecture with the magic lantern at the Institute you and I went

to last summer. He's a queer sort of gentleman. Well, he's been

coming several times and giving orders. And there's some of the

college gentlemen; oh, and a lot of others. They all seem to think

he's so clever, father says--'

'I know the Earl of Driffield quite well,' said Lucy loftily, 'He

used to be always coming to our place, and I've tied up his books

for him sometimes. I don't see what's good of being an earl--not to

go about like that. And father says he's got a grand place near

Stalybridge too. Well, if _he's_ gone to Mr. Grieve, father'll

be just mad.' Lucy pursed up her small mouth with energy. Dora

evaded the subject.

'He says when he's quite settled,' she resumed presently, 'we're to

go and have supper with him for a house-warming.'

Lucy looked ready to cry again.

'He couldn't ask me--of course he couldn't,' she said,

indistinctly. 'Dora--Dora!'

'Well? Oh, don't mix up my silks, Lucy; I shall never get them

right again.'

Lucy reluctantly put them down.

'Do you think, Dora, Mr. Grieve cares anything at all about me?'

she said at last, hurrying out the words, and looking Dora in the

face, very red and bold.

Dora laughed outright.

'I knew you were going to ask that!' she said. 'Perhaps I've been

asking myself!'

Lucy said nothing, but the tears dropped again down her cheeks and

on to her small quivering hands--all the woman awake in her.

Dora pushed her frame away, and put her arm round her cousin, quite

at a loss what to say for the best.

Another woman would have told Lucy plumply that she was a little

fool; that in the first place young Grieve had never shown any

signs of making love to her at all; and that, in the second, if he

had, her father would never let her marry him without a struggle

which nobody could suppose Lucy capable of waging with a man like

Purcell. It was all a silly fancy, the whim of a green girl, which

would make her miserable for nothing. Mrs. Alderman Head, for

instance, Dora's chaperon for the Institute dance, the sensible,

sharp-tongued wife of a wholesale stationer in Market Street, would

certainly have taken this view of the matter, and communicated it

to Lucy with no more demur than if you had asked her, say, for her

opinion on the proper season for bottling gooseberries. But Dora,

whose inmost being was one tremulous surge of feeling and emotion,

could not approach any matter of love and marriage without a

thrill, without a sense of tragedy almost. Besides, like Lucy, she

was very young still--just twenty--and youth answers to youth.

'You know Uncle Tom wouldn't like it a bit, Lucy,' she began in her

perplexity.

'I don't care!' cried Lucy, passionately. 'Girls can't marry to

please their fathers. I should have to wait, I suppose. I would get

my own way somehow. But what's the good of talking about it, Dora?

I'm sick of thinking about it--sick of everything. He'll marry

somebody else--I know he will--and I shall break my heart, or--'

'Marry somebody else, too,' suggested Dora slyly.

Lucy drew herself angrily away, and had to be soothed into

forgiving her cousin. The child had, in fact, thought and worried

herself by now into such a sincere belief in her own passion, that

there was nothing for it but to take it seriously. Dora yielded

herself to Lucy's tears and her own tenderness. She sat pondering.

Then, suddenly, she said something very different from what Lucy

expected her to say.

'Oh! if I could get him to go and talk to Father Russell! He's so

wonderful with young men.'

Her hand dropped on to her knee; she looked away from Lucy out of

the window, her sweet face one longing.

Lucy was startled, and somewhat annoyed. In her disgust with her

father and her anxiety to attract David's notice, she had so

entirely forgotten his religious delinquencies, that it seemed

fussy and intrusive on Dora's part to make so much of them. She

instinctively resented, too, what sounded to her like a tone of

proprietary interest. It was not Dora that was his friend--it was

she!

'I don't see what you have to do with his opinions, Dora,' she said

stiffly; 'he isn't rude to you now as he used to be. Young men are

always wild a bit at first.'

And she tossed her head with all the worldly wisdom of seventeen.

Dora sighed and was silent. She fell to her work again, while Lucy