While the setting sun gleamed on Grayfleet, its grim church, and its
cluster of red-tiled dwellings, Uncle Luke took a footpath leading
across the marshes. All around them the landscape was flat and level,
with little or no vegetation; for over the dark low levels the sea
had crawled, and would crawl again. Here and there hovered a seagull,
tempted in from the distant salt water, and searching the marsh for
plunder; and once, as they passed a shallow pool, blood-red in the
light, a heron rose with a harsh cry and flapped slowly away.
A walk of half a mile across the marsh brought them to the river side,
and within view of a sort of pendant to the upper village, in the shape
of a row of tiny red-tiled cottages on the very bank. Here there was a
ferry-house, with a licence ‘to sell ale and tobacco.’
As they turned into the river path, the ferry-boat was crossing
leisurely, with a freight of country girls on their way home from
Grayfleet.
Uncle Luke trotted cheerfully along, still holding Madeline by the hand.
Her eyes were now on the shining river and the drifting ferry-boat, and
she had almost forgotten her scene with the Rector.
They were a curious pair. The girl was a slender slight thing, wild as
some wayside weed. Her form was curiously light and graceful; her face,
with its large passionate eyes, very wistful and sad. The common cotton
frock and coarse country shoes and stockings became her well, though her
limbs were somewhat long and shapeless as yet. And if the girl was not
a little fairylike, Uncle Luke would certainly have passed well for
a Gnome, or say rather, one of those quaint Trolls whose task it was,
according to Scandinavian legend, to work busily in the bowels of the
earth.
All the week long Uncle Luke _did_ work, on the black river barge of
which he was mate and his brother captain. From Monday to Saturday his
figure was clad in blue jersey, red cap, and rough tarpaulin trousers,
and he helped to work the barge on its short journeys up and down the
crowded river. But on the present occasion, it being a holiday, his
attire was radiant--a high chimney-pot hat, very broad at the brim,
and large enough to descend to his ears, a blue pilot coat, a white
waistcoat, and a coloured cotton shirt, blue navy trousers, and lace-up
boots. For Uncle Luke loved splendour, and nothing suited him better
than to shine glorious in the eyes of his neighbours; though Uncle Mark,
who was his elder brother, and strictly pious, disapproved of all these
vanities of apparel.
It may be admitted, without further preamble, that Uncle Luke, though
able-bodied, was mentally deficient; indeed, in the estimation of many
sober and wiser people, a simple fool, or, in the local parlance, little
better than a natural. Yet his shortcomings were by no means upon the
surface, and it would have taken a very wise man to understand them at a
glance. He was harmless, industrious, and in some respects particularly
shrewd. He knew how many pence make a shilling, and how many shillings
a pound, as well as most men, and he had a sharp intuitive perception
of human character. With all this he was simple beyond measure, and his
reasoning faculties were absolutely infinitesimal.
Great as was his good nature, he strongly resented any imputation on his
sagacity. His brother Mark had secured him work at a very low wage, on
the understanding that he was weak and easily tired; and there on the
barge, under his brother’s eye, he laboured cheerfully, save when some
one was cruel enough to take advantage of his weakness or to deride his
infirmity. At such times, he was subject to wild fits of passion. When
these were over, he would creep into the cabin, cry like a child, and
perhaps take to his hammock for days.
But to-day he looked happy enough, partly on account of his lucky
escape from the Rector, and partly because Madeline had promised him the
unparalleled treat of cutting open her bright new money-box.
This was a kind of temptation he never could resist. Had he possessed a
watch, he would have taken it to pieces to examine the works; and he had
been languishing with curiosity for days, puzzling his head, as many a
child has done, to know what was inside the money-box labelled ‘Savings’
Bank,’ with its front pointed like a town hall, and a slit in its top
for the reception of vagrant pence.
Having come in sight of the ferry, the two walked on quickly. The sun
blazed down on them with golden splendour, and from beneath their feet
the dust arose in a cloud. Neither spoke; Madeline continued to impress
an occasional kiss on the hand which she still held fondly in hers--and
to each of these exhibitions of feeling her companion replied by a
broad grin. Suddenly, however, he gave a start and, looking down at his
flushed and dusty companion, said quickly--
‘I say, Madlin, you’d best put on your Sunday hat. There be Uncle Mark
at the garden gate!’
Without a word, Madeline obeyed. She took the hat, which for coolness
and comfort she had swung on her arm, and tied it carefully on her head.
Then regaining possession of her uncle’s hand, she walked decorously
up to one of the little green cottage gates, on the other side of which
stood, indeed, her Uncle Mark.
Though Luke and Mark were brothers, they were as unlike one another as
two men could possibly be. Mark Peartree stood six feet in his shoes;
he was very thin, and he stooped slightly at the shoulders. His hair
was grey, his face red as a Ripston pippin, but his cheeks were sunken,
perhaps from the loss of many teeth.
The cottage was one of a row of red brick, with creepers crawling over
the front, a small plot of garden facing the river, enclosed by green
wooden railings and a green wooden gate. Upon one of the gates now
leaned Uncle Mark, clad, too, in his Sunday best, but much less gaudily
than Luke, and looking down the road with impatience marked on every
lineament of his face.
‘Here you be at last,’ he said, when the vagrant pair came up. ‘Why,
mate alive, can’t you be home at meal times? Mother’s in a powerful
rage. Brother Brown be coming this afternoon, and he’ll be here afore we
can get our wittles done!’
At this speech the smile faded from Luke’s face; but, before he could
utter a word in reply, another voice, evidently that of a female, chimed
in from the cottage--
‘I’m sure, father, it be like you to be asking Brother Brown and the
Brethren here of a Good Friday, as if we didn’t get enough of them every
day i’ the year. However, coming they be, but we shan’t get the dinner
over any the quicker with you standing racketing there!’
The speaker stood in the doorway, the red brick and the green creepers
framing her as she stood. A comfortable looking woman, dressed in a
clean cotton gown, with a coarse white apron tied round her waist. She
was short and stout, with a brown good-humoured face and glossy black
hair. She wore a cap the long ends of which were thrown over her
shoulders and pinned behind, as if for freedom; her sleeves were rolled
up nearly to the elbow, and her hands and arms were mottled brown and
red with constant work in soap and water.
At sight of this figure, no other indeed than Mrs. Mark Peartree, or,
as Madeline called her, ‘Aunt Jane,’ the good-humoured grin again took
possession of Uncle Luke’s face. Passing through the little gate he made
for the door and at once entered the house, while Madeline transferred
her attentions to Uncle Mark.
‘It wasn’t any fault o’ Uncle Luke’s,’ she said, looking up into the
weather-beaten face, ‘indeed, Uncle Mark, ’twas all on account o’ _me_
that he was so long--I was up there with Polly Lowther, looking at the
graves.’
In her eagerness to excuse her favourite, Madeline might have revealed
the dreaded secret of the dance, but Uncle Mark, who had his own reasons
for wishing to get the dinner quickly disposed of, patted her hand and
said--
‘All right, Madlin, my lass;’ and, taking her small hot hand in his big
horny first, led her into the house.
It was a very small house. A long narrow passage led from the front door
to the back, and midway in the passage was a flight of narrow carpetless
stairs. On the right opened out two rooms--a kitchen, and a parlour, as
it was called. During the week, while the men were at work on the river,
the parlour was carefully closed up. No fire was ever lit in it--it was
dark, well polished, and genteel, with a bit of drugget for a carpet, a
china shepherd and shepherdess, and several shells on the mantelpiece,
and on the walls two highly illuminated pictures, one representing the
Prodigal Son, the other Susannah and the Elders. But in the centre
of the mantelpiece stood the crowning glory of the apartment--a small
‘weather-cottage’ made of wood, formed in the shape of a roofed shed,
and containing two figures, one of ‘Darby’ and another of ‘Joan,’
standing on either side of a piece of wood, suspended in the centre by
a quicksilver pole. When the weather was fine, Joan swung out, with her
basket on her arm, as if going to market, and left Darby under cover;
when it was wet, Joan retreated, and Darby emerged to brave the elements
like a man. This weather-cottage was a miracle of art in Madeline’s
eyes, and was regarded with no little reverence by all the members of
the house. Indeed, the parlour altogether was a sanctuary, full of a
pious clamminess and darkness, and even Mrs. Peartree never entered
it without a certain awe, tempered with a sense of increased
respectability. From week’s end to week’s end they remained in the
red-tiled kitchen, while on Sunday evening, and indeed on every festive
occasion like the present, the parlour was thrown open for the family
use.