POLE MOOR.
ON the third day after Mary's installation as nurse Mr. Garside passed
peacefully away, better cared for in his last days than he had been for
many a long year. Whether he regained full consciousness or not 'tis
hard to say. He rambled in his talk a great deal, and 'twas sometimes
of his mother, sometimes, we judged, of his college days and friends,
but mostly of Esmeralda. He seemed to be, in his sick fancies, in the
cottage at Grasmere, with his bride by his side, and then his face
shone, and his look was the look of a man full of a rich content, but at
times a cloud gathered on his countenance, his brow knitted, and he
would peer anxiously about with a bewildered air as though searching for
his soul's peace. "Esmeralda" was the last word that passed his
lips. We buried him in Saddleworth Churchyard and Mary and myself were
the only mourners.
Before he lapsed to final unconsciousness, whilst yet he had what Mary
called "his know," he signed a document drawn up by Dr. Dean,
embodying the trust he had imposed on me, and appointing me his sole
executor. I had suggested to the good doctor that he should join in the
trust, but he declared with emphasis that he'd had enough to do with
the bodies of the living without taking care of the goods of the dead.
The day before the funeral, not deeming it prudent to leave Ephraim
alone in the house with the dead man's horde, I got him, hobbling
painfully on a crutch, as far as the "Floating Light." There I knew
he could take conveyance to Slaithwaite, and once there I made no doubt
he could shift for himself. I promised that I would see him on my very
next visit to Pole Moor.
Now Ephraim safely off my hands I was anxious to see my father and take
his counsel on various matters, and, above all, to place that precious
kist in a place more secure than a chimney could be deemed to be. I
prevailed upon Jim to accompany me. I had often pressed him to spend a
week-end with me at my father's house, but he had always made excuses,
the chief being that he'd be nervous among "fine fo'k." In vain
I had assured him that he would find no "fine fo'k" at Pole Moor.
Jim had formed his conceptions of a parson from the vicar at St.
Chad's, and I verily believe Jim would have as soon spent a night in
jail as in the Vicarage of St. Chad's--sooner he had himself averred,
if he could have "a reek o' baccy." However, it certainly was not
to be thought of that I should carry the kist and its precious contents
to Pole Moor with no company but my thoughts, for footpads over Stanedge
were as common as blackberries.
So on a bright autumn Saturday morning Jim and I set forth from what had
been the old hermit's abode. We nailed up the door and the shutters
before the window. The few sticks were not worth the moving. The books
Mary took to Wrigley Mill. She had been mightily interested in the Greek
Testament, though when I read her the Sermon on the Mount in that tongue
she pronounced it gibberish and flatly refused to believe that our Lord
or any other being had talked such stuff. As Jim and I strode briskly
across the moor towards our destination, I bearing the box under my arm,
I narrated to my wondering friend the story of the past few days.
"An' how mich did th' owd felly leave behind him?" asked Jim,
eyeing the box.
"Dr. Dean counted the money and made a note of the contents. There's
a gold watch and chain, several rings--one of them of curious design
and set about with precious stones, a woman's ring from the size of
it--I counted nine sapphires and diamonds alternating, and very faintly
the initials "J. E." intertwined. There's 'Mizpah' graven on
the inner side of it."
"That sounds like a Bible name," commented Jim.
"Yes," I reminded him--I fear I rather liked to air my learning
before Jim, and to be sure I must do something to justify the reputation
for scholarship Jim had fastened on me, will I, nill I--"don't you
remember 'twas the name Laban gave to the heap he set up to mark his
covenant with Jacob, saying, 'The Lord watch between me and thee when
we are absent one from another.'"
"Aw n'er heard tell on it," said Jim. "But if it's in th'
Bible aw daresay it's all reight, but it sounds heathenish."
"Dr. Dean says the ring is an engagement ring, and thinks it may have
been given by Mr. Garside to his wife in his courting days and left
behind her when she fled the house."
"More fool oo," quoth Jim, "but what can yo' expect from a
woman. What abaart th' brass?"
"There's over four hundred pounds, what with notes and gold."
"And dost ta tell me tha'rt huggin' ovver four hundred pun' at
this very minute?"
I nodded.
"Four hundred pun'! An' tha's th' heir to it if tha doesn't
find th' lass?"
Again I nodded.
"Hast ta said thi prayer sin' tha knew on 't?"
Again I nodded.
"An' didn't ta pray, as tha nivver prayed afore, that if that lass
wint East the Lord 'ud surely turn thi footsteps West?"
"I can't say I did."
"Weel, if tha hasn't sense for thissen, folk mun ha' sense for
thee. Aw'st put thi father up to it, an' if he'll noan tackle
th' job aw know one o' th' Methody preichers at will. Four hundred
pun'!"
Pole Moor Baptist Chapel stands in about as wild, bleak, and exposed a
spot as a religious community could well have chosen for a place of
spiritual communion, and the stranger passing that way must often have
wondered whence its pastor drew his flock. I've heard my father tell
that his church had its small beginnings in the very heart of
Slaithwaite, worshipping in an upper chamber of "The Silent Woman,"
an inn whose sign depicted a female form bereft of head and so of tongue
and speech. But the Earl of Dartmouth of that day owned all Slaithwaite
and being, of course, a Churchman staunch and true, and, equally of
course, a Tory the good old school, and believing, as Churchmen and
Tories will believe despite long and bitter experience to the contrary,
that the surest way to convince people of the error of their way and to
convert them to the only true faith is to persecute and harry them, set
about, or suffered his creature, the curate of St. James's, to
persecute and harry the deluded worshippers at "The Silent
Woman"--"hardbedders" they were called, because, I suppose, of
the unbending and uncomfortable nature of their doctrine. They were
driven from that snug hostelry and sought in vain within the domain of
the Earl for land on which to build their little Bethel. So they were
fain to erect their chapel on the moor edge, and many and steep and
rough were the weary miles the elect must plod to reach their shrine.
But plod them they did by the score, bringing their dinners with them,
aye, and their teas, too, eating their meals, in the summer time, seated
on the gravestones that soon began to dot the little graveyard of the
chapel.
They were a dour and uncomfortable lot, these fathers in Israel,
"orthodox, orthodox sons of auld John Knox," pitiless in their logic
theologic, hard as granite and unbending as the oak, but just, terribly
just. And argue! Oh, Lord! the times I've heard them after service, as
they smoked their pipes by the fire in the schoolroom in the winter or
under the glad sun in the summer, descant upon predestination and
effectual calling; capping text with text. They were the "elect
according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification
of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus
Christ"; elect "to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled...
reserved in heaven" for them. They were of those "ordained to
eternal life," feeding on the sincere milk of the Word. They hugged to
their souls that hard saying of St. Paul: "Whom he did predestinate
them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and
whom he justified, them he also glorified" They had very vivid
conceptions, too, of the lot of the unregenerate. Hell was very real to
them, and about the tortures of the damned they had no doubt. And there
were so very few that weren't damned, damned from everlasting to
everlasting. In my early youth, whilst still under the influence of this
very literal interpretation of the Scriptures. I came to the conclusion
that I could reckon on my fingers the elect of the Lord, pruning the
elect of Pole Moor, making election of the very elect.
Now will it be credited that my father, who shepherded this ungentle
flock, was of all men that ever I have known the meekest and the
gentlest--to be sure there were those of his congregation who in their
process of winnowing the chaff from the grain had winnowed out my father
himself, perchance he, even he, was not of the truly chosen. But elect
or non-elect, better man never trod shoe leather, none juster, none
truer in speech and deed, none more charitable. We lived miles from the
abodes of many of his church--yet in season and out of season, rain or
shine, he made his visitations, trudging at dead of night, by the light
of moon or lanthorn, across the wild, bleak, oft sodden moors, through
hail, and sleet, and snow, and mire, to some distant homestead to pray
by the bedside of the sick and dying; "in perils of waters, in perils
by his own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city,
in perils in the wilderness,… in perils among false brethren; in
weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in
fastings often, in cold and nakedness." No man ever had a greater
heart in so small a body--for truth to tell, he was but small of
stature and lean withal as lean he might very well be considering how
little he ate of the bread that perisheth and how ill he used his spare
frame. He simply did not know fear, and, whilst all the countryside
trembled and cringed before those godless Burnplatters, he bearded them
in their very den, and so cowed them by the grandeur of his spirit and
the sanctity of his life that they who were said to fear neither God,
man, nor devil, came to reverence my father, and let it be known among
all and sundry that to wrong him was to wrong them, and woe betide the
evil-doer who should forget it.
Now at this time my sister Ruth kept my father's house, my mother,
whose sweet face I scarce remember yet seem at times to catch a glimpse
of in my dreams, being many years dead, though living till enshrined in
my father's heart. Picture a maiden, "sweet and twenty," just as
high as a tall man's heart, light of foot, soft of voice, with wavy
auburn hair, dark-brown, soft eyes, yet not without their roguish
twinkle, tempting lips, teeth of pearl, a neat waist, a neater ankle, a
rounded bust, a shrewd, common-sense mind, a soft heart, and a ready
tongue--and that was Ruth. A ray of sunshine in the house? Pooh! Ruth
was spring and summer all in one, my father's darling, my own torment
and delight, the spoiled pet of the grave elders of the church, and the
idol of their grown sons, whose assiduousness at the Sunday services and
the weekly prayer meetings I very much fear must be set at least as much
to Ruth's score as to our father's.
Now considering how awful were the terrors which the faithful at Pole
Moor escaped 'tis sad to think how lightly they appraised the services
of their pastor, if their appreciation must be measured by the stipend
they afforded him. 'Tis true he lived rent free, had grazing for a
cow, a mistal, a potato patch, pew rents, and the proceeds of an
occasional collection--benefits the pillars of the church enumerated
with unction as they reminded themselves that they did not muzzle the ox
that trod out the corn. But they ever seemed to forget, and my father
was the last to jog their memories, that no one came for alms to Pole
Moor and went empty away. So if we had high thinking at the Manse we'd
low living, and we seemed to thrive on it. We kept no servant now Ruth
was grown, and my father foddered his cow fed his pig "mucked out"
the mistal and stye, mowed his meadow, and dug his garden himself: and
Ruth's firm little hands milked the cow, tended the poultry, made the
butter, made the bread, cooked our rare joints, and kept all as clean as
a new ha'penny.
And so it chanced that as Jim and I drew near the little enclosure
walled off from the moor, which served as our kitchen garden, we came
upon the reverend pastor of Pole Moor, dressed in a long blue linen
smock, his feet shod, in the homely clog, his bare and bald head
perspiring freely as he thrust the prongs of a fork into the earth and,
turned up the soil and threw the gathered potatoes into a small round
basket.
"Who's th' owd felly?" asked Jim in a whisper.
"Well, father, how are you?" And I clasped his outstretched hand in
mine as he drew the other across his moist brow before pulling his horn
spectacles from the crown of his head, where they rested when he was not
sleeping or engaged in searching for them in every nook and corner of
the house, and often even then. "This is my friend Jim, of whom
you've heard me speak."
"And welcome kindly, Jim, to Pole Moor. You'll stop the week-end, of
course, though I fear you'll have to share Abel's bed--that is if
it will hold you both. Have you seen Ruth? She'll be milking, I doubt.
But come your ways into the house. You'll be tired after your walk,
and a pint of home-brewed won't come amiss. Or would you prefer
buttermilk? Ruth! Ruth!" my father called, and as we entered the tiny
manse--Jim spent a good few minutes scraping his feet on the doormat,
an act his mother solemnly enjoined upon him e'er we left--Ruth
herself emerged, hot and flushed, from the barn, her milking-stool
tucked under one arm, a frothing piggin of milk fresh from the udders
borne carefully in her right hand.
"Don't come near me, Abe, or I'st spill."
Jim has since confided to me that at first glance of my sister's
sonsie face and first sound of her tuneful voice his heart gave a bound
within his breast and then left his keeping for good and all--and
indeed the maiden was a picture fair enough to look upon. Anyway he grew
red in the face, pulled off his cap, and made what he called "a bow
and a scrape," whilst Ruth smiled up into his face with one swift look
that I doubt not took in his six feet six inches at a glance, and then
scurried off, ostensibly to draw the home-brewed; though as a rule beer
barrels are not kept in the bedroom, and it doesn't need to don a
clean print dress and ribbons and lash your hair before drawing a jug of
ale.
We quenched our thirst with that modest home-brewed, Jim vowing without
a qualm that better he'd never supped, no not in any inn between
Greenfield and Huddersfield, and professing incredulity when assured
that Ruth had brewed it herself; though, if truth must be told, the
liquor was little other than coloured water with a head on it, and Jim
could have drunk a barrel of it without, as they say, "getting
forrader"--but I blush to say that from this out Jim began to display
powers of dissimulation hitherto unsuspected, even going so far as to
assure my reverend sire, before we left Pole Moor, that he had long felt
uneasy about his own soul's welfare, and doubted he should never find
peace till he had been duly "dipped"--Jim, who could scarce be
dragged to church, and who made open scoff of the Methody carryings-on
at Wrigley Mill.
"You'd best fodder the cow, Ruth, and then we'll have tea--the
lads will be sharp set. Can you manage to cut the ham, or shall I help
you?" But Jim declared that if there was one thing he could do better
than another in this world it was to water and fodder a cow, bed her
down, and muck out a shippon and as for cutting ham, he had missed his
vocation in not being 'prenticed to a butcher. So Ruth tripped off to
the kitchen, Jim, bending his broad shoulders to avoid banging his head
as he passed through the low doorway, lumbering in her wake like a
man-o'-war convoyed by a saucy frigate.
My father settled himself with a sigh of satisfaction in his easy chair,
took his churchwarden from the mantelpiece, emptied the remainder of the
beer into his pint pot, lit his pipe of "old Women's baccy," as
shag was called in those days, and prepared to listen to my usual budget
of the doings at Wrigley Mill during the last while back, casting
curious and inquiring looks at the heavy box I had placed upon the
table.
"I've a strange tale to tell, father," I began. "And fain I am
to be at home and have your counsel and assistance. You knew Mr. Turner,
the hermit of Stanedge Moor, as they called him?"
"I rather knew of him than knew him. I came across him at times in my
journeyings and would fain have communed with him, but he held aloof. A
lone man, and I fear an unhappy man--but it was not for me to force
myself upon him. Well, what of him?"
"He's dead, and he's committed that box to my keeping." And then
I told my tale.
"Now, what's to be done, father? Four hundred pound and more's a
sight of money. You'll have to look after that. I can't keep it at
Wrigley Mill, that's certain sure. Mary would go off her head if she
knew it was in the house, and I'd be dreaming of burglars and
cutthroats till my nights were a burden to me."
"This is a heavy matter Abel, my son--one to be pondered over nor
determined lightly, to be taken to the Lord in Prayer. But one thing is
borne in upon me, a thought that comes to me from the Book of Books,
that well of wisdom--you must not do after the manner of that wicked
and slothful servant to whom his lord said, 'Thou oughtest to have put
my money to the exchangers and then at my coming I should have received
my own with usury.' This lucre must to the bank that it increase and
fructify till such time as the woman and her child be found."
"That's plain as a pikestaff," I agreed. "But what can I do to
find them? It seems to me Mr. Garside did all a man could do at the
time, and after all those years…."
"I'll think upon it, Abel, and a way may be opened unto us"--and
that was all I could get out of him that night. It seemed to me that the
good man had resolved upon a policy of what I have heard called
"masterly inactivity"; and I'd great trust in my father's
judgment. And perhaps at the back of my head lurked insidious the
thought, why should I be in such a hurry to be shut of four hundred
pounds? I tried to banish this unworthy prompting of the devil, but
there I confess it was, and I'll not set up to be better than my
neighbours.
It was a glorious night--the moor was just bathed in a moonlight you
could almost see to read by. Ruth and Jim had disappeared into the
mistal, some hay wanted cutting, and chop grinding, so Jim had said. I
put my head through the shippon door as I passed and there were Jim and
Ruth sat on a heap of pulled hay, the cow was bedded down for the night
and placidly chewing her cud--but Ruth and Jim seemed to have found a
deal to say to each other, and I was in no ways minded to disturb them
and take Jim away, for the simple reason that I was bent on an errand on
which it is proverbial that two are company and three are none. I set my
face towards Ainley Place and Burnplatts, pretending to myself that
'twas but Christian charity to enquire as to the progress of Ephraim
o' Burnplatt's game foot, but knowing full well in my heart of
hearts, which beat tumultuous at the bare thought, that my eyes ached
for another sight of the maiden Miriam; but how to compass my design I
must perforce leave to the chapter of accidents.
Some hundred yards or so above the cluster of a score or more of the
straw-thatched cots or hovels of mud and rubble that constituted the
notorious hamlet, I came across a surly looking customer, clad in
fustian and wearing a moleskin cap, seated on a low wall with a cur as
unprepossessing as himself perched by his side. The beast bristled and
shewed his teeth viciously, but the man quieted it with a word.
"Yo're out late, mester, an' summat out o' yo'r latitude,
aw'm thinkin'. Strangers are noan so welcome at Burnplatts this time
o' neet. But happen yo're a buyer? Dun yo' want a hoss or a moke
belike? Aw can deal wi yo' for th' finest, clivverest donkey as
ivver went a buntin'--an' cheap, too."
I said I was in no present need of either horse or donkey.
"It's been warm to-day," he volunteered.
"Pleasantly so."
"Did yo' come bi 'Th' Sun.'"
I acknowledged that I had passed the doors of that hospitable inn.
"Rare ale at 'Th' Sun.'"
I agreed.
"Aw could sup a quart now, by gow I could."
I fumbled in my breeches pocket and pulled forth a silver coin. The
rogue's eyes glistened.
"I don't want a horse. I want to know in which of these houses I
shall find Ephraim Sykes."
"Yo'r noan after him, are yo'?"
"After him?"
"Aye, a cop."
I laughed. "No, a friend. Ephraim and I have been friends since we were
lads together. I know he's had an accident to his foot, and I want to
see how he's going on."
"He lives in yon hoil yonder, th' furthest fro' here. I'd best go wi'
yo'--th' dogs 'ud welly worry y' if yo' went by yo'rsen." He got off
the wall, his cur slunk at his heels, and we passed through the hamlet,
our progress punctuated by a concert of howling, growling, baying, and
barking from at least a hundred canine throats. We came to a
single-storied house, like the rest, straw-thatched and rudely built,
but I noticed, even by that illusive light, that it was longer and
neater than others that we passed. A red light shone through a curtain
drawn across the single window. "This is owd Mother Sykes's," my guide
said, as I halted near the low door, and I slipped into his hand the
coveted coin.
I knocked.
There was the sound as of muttering voices, and at last, long last, the
portal was opened about half an inch, and I caught a glimpse of the old
beldame I had seen at the Wakes.
"What dost want?" she said in a harsh voice. "We're a' i' bed."
"I want to see your Ephraim. It's Abe Holmes, tell him."
At my name she opened the door grudgingly, and I entered the low room.
It was bare to the smoke grimed rafters. The walls were whitewashed, or
had been once upon a time. The floor was of hard earth, but strewn with
rushes. There was a sullen fire in a grate in a yawning chimney place,
so wide and deep that it afforded room within the chimney nook for a
seat on either side of the fire. A great iron pot hung over the fire,
suspended by a chain attached to a bar across the chimney, and if my
nose did not deceive me a very savoury supper was in preparation. There
was a round three-legged table, three chairs, and a long oak settle, on
which Ephraim lay covered with sacking. The house had clearly two rooms,
for I noticed a doorway, and I concluded rightly that this inner chamber
was the sanctum of Mother Sykes and the maiden I yearned to see. I
strained my ears for sound of voice or movement within the room, but
heard none.
The old dame seated herself on a stool before the fire, at times rising
slowly and feebly and stirring the contents of the simmering pot with a
thible.
"Well, how's your foot, Ephraim?" I asked, cheerily as I could.
"Granny theer has bathed it wi' some mak' o' herb--oo's gret on herbs
is Granny an' it's done it more good nor all th' bottles in th' doctor's
shop."
"Dock-leaves an' spring watter, nowt no more," muttered the old dame.
"Aw can put mi fooit to th' ground now, an' I'st be dancin' in a week,
an' then it'll be 'Oh! be joyful' for yon Bradburys at Bill's o'
Jack's."
"What were you doing on the Moor?" I asked. "Nowt, just now. Aw hadn't
even th' tyke wi' me. Nor a net, nor trap, nor gun, nor nowt. Aw were
just comin' whom. To be sure aw'd takken a short cut across th' Moor, so
aw suppose aw wer' trespassin' But they' d no ca' to shooit me for that.
But us is fair game. 'Gi' a dog a bad name an' hang him' 's true Gospel.
But there's law even for vermin, an' if we cannot get it fro' th'
justices--an' weel we know we cannot--we'st tak' it."
"Why not have them up?" I suggested.
Ephraim snorted contemptuous. "Tak' my advice, Abe. If ever yo' fall out
with the devil don't yo go to hell for justice; an' it's th' same thing
as a man suspected o' an unlicensed liking for fur an feathers appealing
to th' beaks for fair play. Quod 'em fust, an' try 'em afterwards, is
their way wi' a Burnplatter."
I couldn't help thinking that in nine cases out of ten the method, if
somewhat arbitrary, met the merits of the matter, but I did not feel
called upon to say as much to Ephraim.
"I called at 'The Sun' as I came by," I said, sheepishly. "I didn't know
how you might be off for brandy. It's useful in cases of sickness."
"I'm very sick, to be sure," said Ephraim with great promptitude, "an'
so's Granny, be'nt yo' Granny?" A wintry smile parted the withered lips,
and she hobbled to an old oaken cupboard that fitted into a corner of
the room, and produced three drinking horns, rimmed with silver--"th'
wedding horns," she called them. She produced also a short black pipe,
crammed it with tobacco, took a hearty swig at the potent liquor, and
sat down before the fire, sucking at her pipe in huge content, and
condescending to eye me with much less disfavour than her reception had
displayed.
"And this," I could not help the repulsive reflection, "is the
grandmother of my peerless Miriam!"
I rose to go. I itched to ask after Miriam, but somehow the words would
not come. I could not place her in that coarse environment. I loathed to
think of her as the associate of these abandoned Burnplatters.
"I'd be careful how you meddle with those Bradbury's," was my parting
counsel to Ephraim. "The law's the law, you know; and 'tis poor work for
a horse to kick against the prick of the spur, and just as idle for a
man to run his head against a stone wall. I'd give them a wide berth if
I were you, Ephraim."
"Yo'd turn t' other cheek, I suppose," sneered Ephraim. "But yo' see I'm
not a parson's son, an' if I were I could find a text or two more to my
thinking than that--'an eye for an eye an' a tooth for a tooth is
somewhere i' t' Bible, or I'm mista'en."
I remembered to have heard my father say that the devil not only could
quote the Scriptures to his purpose, but on one memorable occasion had
actually done so. But every man to his trade. I'm no preacher and just
as certainly I was not Ephraim's keeper. So I took my leave, promising
to look in again. Ephraim said neither yea nor nay to this, but the old
dame, telling me they kept better brandy at "The Star" than "The Sun,"
assured me I should be welcome.
I breathed more freely once out of that hamlet of ill-repute, and set
off at a good pace towards Pole Moor, lamenting the failure of my
attempt to get sight once more of Miriam, and wondering greatly what
could have got her.
And lo! a mile and more from Burnplatts I spied her walking slowly
homewards. Her step was listless, her whole being drooped. As I drew
near I saw her features plainly by the moon's cold light, and if I erred
not a tear glistened on the long black lashes that curtained her
glorious eyes. So rapt was she in thought that she was unconscious of my
approach, and when I stood right in her path she started with a little
cry, and her hand went to her bosom.
"Miriam!" I cried, and stretched out both my hands.
"Why, 'tis Abel Holmes" she said, and a blush mantled on her cheek If
I'm any reader of what the poet calls the light that lies in woman's
eyes the maid was glad see me, and yet alarm mingled with her joy. She
glanced apprehensively around the moor.
"Nay, we have it to ourselves," I laughed, reading her thoughts "But
you're in trouble, Miriam I'm sure of it. Why your cheek is wet. Has
anyone ill-used you? And I clenched my fist. I felt just then as if I
could face an army of Burnplatters, and would welcome the chance of
braying the lot to a jelly.
"Nay, 'tis nought, Abel, only thoughts, idle thoughts. They come over me
at times when I'm all by my lone, and they make me sad. But perhaps I
oughtn't to call you Abel. But I heard your brave friend call you Abel."
"Abe, more like."
"Ah, well, 'tis all one. And so I thought of you as Abel."
"Then you have thought of me," I put in eagerly. "And so have I of you,
Miriam. What a sweet name; I never thought a flame could sound so sweet.
I've whispered it to my heart a thousand times, and the birds in the sky
sing it to me, and the soft winds breathe it in my ear, and the very
leaves of the trees rustle it, Miriam, Miriam."
"Hush, hush, you must not say such things. Who am I but the poor outcast
maid, and you the good parson's son. 'Tis folly. And what do you know of
me? Why, you've scarce ever seen me, though many's the time I've watched
you and your sister gathering bilberries on the moor, and wished that I,
too, had a brother.
"You've Ephraim," I said.
"Ephraim! Ephraim is not my brother. I could find it in my heart to wish
he was. He is my cousin. At least they say so. But I don't know, it's
all so dark to me. You see, I never knew either father or mother. Ever
since I can remember 'twas only granddam and then Ephraim that they
say's my cousin. But I don't know, I don't know. I don't feel it here,"
and she passed her hand to her heart. "Ah, 'tis a piteous thing never
to have know a mother's love," and her voice broke, and the tears
threatened to fall.
"But they're kind to you, Miriam?"
"Kind? Ah! Yes. They mean to be kind. They call me their Queen, and some
of the older ones tell of days before they came to Burnplatts, when they
had a Queen of their own, and they say I'm come to bring those days
again. But oh! how I loathe it all the lying, the drinking, the
stealing, the cursing. And the women! They're worse than the men. And
they hate me and speak ill of me because I will not be as they are. Why,
even Ephraim bids them leave me alone."
"And why do you wish Ephraim were your brother?"
"Because--because then," she faltered, and hung her head in shamed
confusion, "oh! then he'd be fond of me--in another way. But you won't
understand."
Oh, didn't I though.
"Well, never mind about Ephraim now," I said. "Tell me about yourself."
We'd walked slowly on, side by side, away from Burnplatts, and had come
to a small plantation of wind-battered trees that sheltered us from
view, and we sat upon a granite boulder that bulged through the turf.
"Tell me about yourself, Miriam--how do you pass your time, what do you
do?"
"Oh! I can find enough to do. I knit. I'm a famous knitter. Granddam
taught me that, and she sells the things I knit at the farmhouses round;
and I make mops and brooms--they say mine are the cleverest fingers in
all Burnplatts; and then, when I can buy a book, I read."
"Read!" I could not help exclaiming, for though it has been said that
reading and writing come by Nature, well I knew that Nature's travails
need a midwife if reading and writing are to be the issues.
"Aye, those were happy days when I learned to read and write. I was only
a wee child then, and old Daddy was alive and dwelt with us at
Burnplatts."
"Old Daddy! You're rich in relations‚" I broke in jealously.
She laughed merrily. "Daddy was no relation. 'Tis but the name we all
called him by. He used to live at Burnplatts, but he's been dead these
many years. I don't know how he came to be there, a poor, harmless,
shiftless, old man he was. They all made game of him, and he was at
everyone's beck and nod. But they didn't grudge him meat and drink when
they found he could learn me to read and write, and sums, too," she
added triumphantly. "I've read the 'Pilgrim's Progress' twenty times,
and twenty times to that, and when you tore me from that horrid man at
the Wakes I likened you to Greatheart in the story."
I believe I blushed. "I'd have fared badly but for Jim," I told her.
"Oh! Jim," she said disparagingly, with that utter lack of justice in
the award of praise and blame which riper years have taught me to look
for her in her sex.
Well now, how long we sat there I don't know: it seemed but a few
minutes. But suddenly she sprang up in consternation. "I must be going;
they'll be searching for me."
"I'll see you home," I said. "Tarry a while, Miriam, I've such a lot to
say."
"I daren't. I must go, and go alone. You must not be seen with me.
Granddam would bar me in, and Ephraim--oh! I daren't think what Ephraim
would do. He's brave and means to be kind. But you cannot tell what he's
like when his blood's up and the drink's in him."
"I'm not feared," I said stoutly.
"No, but I am. Burnplatters don't stick at trifles, and a knife in the
back on a dark night's little to them. Never come nigh Burnplatts
again."
"But, Miriam, see you I must. See, I'll bring Ruth, my sister Ruth.
You'd love Ruth."
"Aye, but would Ruth love me?"
"I'll go bail," I answered with great confidence.
"I should dearly like it. But how to manage it. When will you be on Pole
Moor again? To-morrow night I'll be here an hour after sunset. And now
go, go. Good-night and go."
I pressed her hand and she sped away on feet that seemed scarce to touch
the heather.