THE TRYST.
THE next day, being the Sabbath, all our household must go to Chapel.
Jim, contrary to his wont on the day of rest, was astir betimes. We had
shared the same bed, and I should think that between cockcrow and seven
o'clock Jim had drawn his great silver watch from under his pillow a
score of times, and seemed to find the hours go on leaden feet. To my
impatient inquiry why he couldn't be still and give me a chance of
dropping off, he explained that he had promised our Ruth to milk the cow
for her. Now I am firmly persuaded that Jim had never performed that
delicate operation before, and for anything he knew to the contrary the
udders might be relieved of their milky stream by machinery. At last, to
my great content he got up, dressed, and stole down the creaking
staircase in his stocking feet, and I heard him lighting the kitchen
fire and, if I greatly erred not, vigorously fettling his boots--at
which I marvelled not a little, for at Wrigley it was his mother who lit
the fire and cleaned his boots--but then to be sure, Ruth was not his
mother, nor yet his wife.
I suppose I shall never forget my father's sermon of that, morning, nor,
I think, will Jim. I learned long afterwards that it had been composed
by my father and was that morning preached because one of the members of
Pole Moor had so far fallen from grace as to marry one of the
uncovenanted worshippers at St. James's instead of fixing his affections
upon a sister of the true faith.
Now, my father read as his first lesson the twenty-fifth of Numbers, and
when he read the words, "And behold one of the children of Israel came
and brought unto his brethren a Midianitish woman in the sight of Moses
and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who
were weeping before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation," I
could have sworn that he allowed his eyes to dwell sternly upon me--so
true is it that conscience doth make cowards of us all; and when the
sacred word went on to tell how Phinehas rose up from among the
congregation and took a javelin in his hand, and went after the man of
Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of
Israel, and the woman through her belly, I caught myself glaring
defiantly round the unconscious worshippers of Pole Moor and mentally
daring one and all to take up a javelin or, what would come handier to
them, a pitchfork against me and Miriam. And the preacher's text was
sixth of second Corinthians, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with
unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with
unrighteousness? and what Communion hath light with darkness? and what
concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth
with an infidel?" And noticed that Jim fidgeted uneasily in his seat and
glanced oft and furtively at Ruth; but she sat unmoved alike by lesson,
text, and the diatribes my good father hurled against the daughters of
the Erastian heretics And, indeed, I have ever noticed that whilst women
are more devout than men, the shafts of theology fall harmless against
the adamant of their common-sense. But Jim I knew was not a little
perturbed in mind by my father's discourse, as I gathered later from his
indirect questioning.
"Who were Belial, Abel?"
"Belial?" I questioned in surprise.
"Aye, him 'at your father read about out o' th' Bible. He seemed to ha'
a rare grudge agen th' poor chap, choose who he were."
"Why, I'm not quite sure, Jim; but I think it's a polite name for the
devil."
"Phew! Auld Harry! An' well he might ha'. But surely he doesn't mean 'at
all th' fo'k 'at hasn't been reightly dipped be sons o' Belial. An', by
th' same token, what for should he be so bitter agen that Moabitish
woman? That were a foulish name he ca'ed her. Th' poor wench had done
nought wrong 'at aw could mak' out. But if it's i' th' Bible aw suppose
it's all reight, an', to be sure, your father's further larnt nor us,
an' he sud know."
Now it was not for me to cast a doubt upon my father's teaching, but I
had to comfort Jim some way.
"I take it 'tis but a manner of speaking, Jim. Religious people get into
a way of flinging texts about. Now there's one consolation about texts.
If you find one that seems to bear all one way, you've only to look long
enough and you'll find another that bears just as plainly the other way.
That's why religious people, no matter what sect they belong to, can
always find unction for their own souls, and nettles for other folk to
sit on."
"But your feyther seemed terrible in earnest. I didn't rightly
understand all he said. He's a varry difficult man to sit under is yo'r
feyther. When I go to Church aw can sleep reight through th' sermon and
o'er wakken till th' parson gets to 'And now to God the Father…' But
aw n'er closed mi e'en all this forenoon. He seems fair set agen th'
Church fo'k. Aw rekkon, now, if onnybody but a Baptist went after your
Ruth your father 'ud show him to th' door i' double quick time."
"I don't think he'd like it, to be sure," I conceded.
Jim looked very crestfallen.
"But then, you know, Jim, the fold is always open. Anyone can be dipped
after full approval. He might attend regularly at Pole Moor, say for
twelve months, and then I daresay he would be received into the company
of the elect."
"But don't you think your feyther'd smell a rat? Mightn't he tumble to
it 'at th' chap were after Ruth?"
"Not he, i' faith," I answered with confidence. "A preacher's only too
willing to believe that he's the lure. And then, you know, Jim, if I
know anything of our Ruth, all the texts in the Bible wouldn't prevent
her having the man she'd set her heart on."
"Aw'm fain to hear it, Abe. Not that it's onny business o' mine, yo'
know. Aw were only axing in a general sort o' way, you know."
"Of course," I said, as Jim seemed to look for some comment on this
remark. "Of course."
"You mean 'at 'oo's booked already?"
"I mean nothing of the sort. Why, she's only a chit of a girl yet.
'Twill be time enough for Ruth to be thinking of courting in another ten
years' time."
"Ten fiddlesticks," quoth Jim, rudely. "How mich younger is she than
yersen, I sud like to know."
"Oh! that's different," I snapped.
"Aw dunnot see it," said Jim; and we arrived at his mother's house in
Wrigley Mill Fold as nearly on the verge of a tiff as ever we had been
in our long acquaintance.
Now I suppose it was because I was not quite easy about my own affairs
that I had listened with less than my usual patience to Jim's
maunderings. When chapel loosed that morning I had whispered to Ruth
that I wanted some private talk with her; and, our simple midday meal
concluded, and the pots sided away, she had joined me as I sauntered
expectant in the garden. I drew her away from the house, and then I
poured into her ears the story of the events that had so strangely
broken the even tenor of my life--not omitting the scene at the Wakes,
in which Jim had figured so bravely.
"My!" she commented, "wouldn't I just like to have seen Jim throw that
gamekeeper head over heels. He's a proper man is Jim. And so 'twas he
after all rescued the poor girl from the brute's clutches. Not but what
she deserved what she got--what does she want trolloping about at Fairs
and Wakes? Why can't she stop at home and earn her living like a decent
body?"
"Oh! Ruth," I protested.
"Oh! you may 'Oh! Ruth' me; but it's there all the same. She's no better
than she should be, I'st warrant. Men don't go mauling lasses about in
that fashion unless they've been led up to it by th' girls themselves I
know their artful ways," she added vindictively. "And I suppose Jim's
head over heels in love with the girl. It always happens so in th'
story-books."
"I don't think Jim's given a second thought to her," I hastened to
assure her, for I saw which way the cat jumped "It's me," I added
lamely, stammering and blushing like the booby I felt.
"You, you!" she cried. "Oh! Abel, what will father say? I'll be bound
that's what he was driving at with his Midianitish woman, and I thought
it as that girl down at Slaithwaite. Somebody's been filling his ears
with a fine tale."
"Let's hope not," I said, affecting a cheerfulness I was far from
feeling. "But, father or no father, I'm going to get Miriam away from
those Burnplatts riff-raff if it's to be done by hook or crook. A man's
not a pig if he chances to have been born in a stye, and Miriam's a good
girl, Burnplatter or no Burnplatter. And I want you to help me, Ruth.
I'm hard hit, sis, and that's the truth o' 't."
Now, I suppose there never was maiden yet born into this world who has
not revelled in a love story. You've only to look at the dear creatures
as they crowd round a church door at a wedding to make sure of that. The
sight of a white veil and orange blossoms sets their sweet hearts all of
a quiver. They're so in love with love that if they haven't a romance of
their own they're quick to enter into another's, and if the course of
true love doesn't run smooth it's not for want of willing help to
straighten the way. And I dare say my astute sister may have reflected
that one good turn deserves another, and that she herself might have
need of a brother's backing in the days to come. Anyhow, though with
many a discouraging shake of her clever little head, she promised me to
do what she could to win to speech with Miriam and help me to my heart's
desire. Though what she could do she avowed she failed to see.
"She's a strange girl, that Miriam of yours," she averred. "I've seen
her scores of times these years back. Why, she can't be as old as I am
for I remember her, a little, black-eyed, wild-looking, elfish thing,
going about the moors with that half-witted Daddy folk said was such a
scholar. I've come across her bilberrying, or sat upon a boulder making
up bunches of wild flowers, and singing softly some strange heathenish
song--she's a sweet voice enough, I'll allow. But she's either feart or
proud. I'd have made up to her many's the time for my heart ached for
the girl brought up among those good-for-nought Burnplatters, but no!
she was off, like an unbroken colt, before I could say ten words. And
more by token I'm a bit feared myself o' that old witch she goes about
with. Folk say she's got the evil eye, and the girls always cross their
fingers when she goes by."
"I'm surprised at you, Ruth. Where's your Christianity?"
"That's all very well, Abel. But facts are facts, and there's none so
much smoke but what there's a fire somewhere. She's an evil name in the
countryside, and I could wish your sweetheart--if it has to be, though
let's hope you'll cure of it--had anyone but her for a granny. Then
there's that Ephraim--not but what he might have been all right if he'd
been reared different. I remember him as nice a lad as ever strode--but
those Burnplatters would spoil a saint."
"But about. Miriam?" I interrupted, for I was not greatly concerned to
hear my sister at large upon the possibilities of Ephraim's nature.
"When are you to see her again?"
"To-night, please God."
"I'd leave God out of the question in this job, Abel. Let's hope it
isn't all a peck of the other one's brewing."
"Pshaw!" was all I'd patience to utter.
"Well, 'pshaw' be it. You see Miriam and tell her, I'll make it in my
way to meet her on the moor, and if she's a mind to be friends with me,
why, for your sake, Abel, I'll go far out of my way to be friends with
her. Though what th' congregation will say if they come to know of my
'companying with her and that they will, for certain sure, is more than
I care to think."
"Can't you say you're trying to convert her Ruth? There's more
rejoicing, you know, over one sinner that repenteth--though I'll knock
the man down that calls Miriam a sinner. Still, if she could be got to
chapel…."
"Abel Holmes wouldn't fail to be at chapel, too. Why, man, I don't
suppose the poor girl's got a go-to-meeting frock to bless herself with.
But there, Jim's come out of the house and gone into the barn. He'll be
lighting his pipe and setting th' hay on fire if I don't watch him. Go
your ways, Abel, and good luck to you. 'Who maun to Coupar, maun to
Coupar.' What has to be, will be's good doctrine, if all's fore-ordained
from the beginning; but I could have wished the good Lord had ordained
anyone but a Burnplatter for my sister-in-law"--and off she tripped
towards the shippon.
I could scarce wait till our Sunday "drinking"--they call it tea
nowadays--before I was off to keep my tryst with Miriam, making what I
felt to be the lamest of excuses for shirking the evening service.
Sundown, Miriam had set, and that I took to be about the time my father
would have inverted the hour-glass on the edge of his pulpit and begun
one of those long discourses of his that nothing short of an earthquake
could have curtailed. So over the moors I sped on the wings of love,
only, of course, to reach the plantation long before there were signs of
Miriam, and to pass the interval in an agony of longing and
apprehension. Sober-minded folk, with as much blood in their bodies as
there is in a fish's tail, may marvel at the fever that now contained
me and point sagaciously to the fact that I knew little or nothing of
the maiden.
But love, I take it, is like the wind that bloweth where it listeth, and
one cannot tell whence it cometh. Time will not breed it, nor does it
come of the will, nor yet of judgment and calculation. A man cannot love
where he will, nor where he should, nor can he deny love entry when it
clamours at the door of his heart. 'Tis like the importunate widow; it
will not be said nay. And to my thinking love is born full grown, hot,
and lusty. It isn't a seedling that that has to be watered and sun-shone
into life, nor yet a puny weakling that has to be coddled into strength
and vigour. It is born a giant, and every man it sways is a hero for the
nonce. Nor, I doubt, can love be cast out by prayer and fasting.
But it was not of philosophising I dreamed as I paced on and about that
plantation, glancing at my watch and that laggard sun a thousand times,
and raking the horizon with anxious eye. I vow I knew by the thumping of
my heart that she was near ere sight or sound revealed her approach, and
at weary length she came, not from the direction of Burnplatts, but as
though she had made a wide detour, as indeed I learned she had, fetching
a compass of many a mile's length, and heeding the distance not one jot,
for in those days, when coach fares were high, people had legs and knew
how to use them, too, and thought little of covering on foot forty or
fifty miles of rough country between sunrise and sundown of a summer's
day.
Now all the way from Pole Moor I had been inventing speeches in my head
to outpour to Miriam. I had framed compliments after the manner of the
gallants of whom I had read in books. I had even ransacked my memory for
poetry, but could think of nothing but that silly jingle--
"Carnation's red,
The violet's blue,
The rose is sweet,
And so are you;"
but those Valentine lines I dismissed as an utterly inadequate
expression of my sentiments And, after all, it was love's labour lost,
for, when she drew near me I could only grasp her hand and gaze upon her
face till she would not meet my eye, but hung down her head and fetched
her breath as if she'd been running, though I vow she must have crawled
to the place. And when speech came to me all I could find to say at
first was that it had been a grand day but was cooler now; and then a
clucking grouse whizzed past not a stone throw from us, swift and strong
on wing, and chuntering its weird "Go back, go back," almost as plain as
a man can speak. We started away from each other as if we'd been our
first parents in Eden caught talking to the serpent, for, indeed,
there's no gainsaying our nerves were all a-quiver that night. Miriam,
being a woman, was the first to recover her self-possession.
"Where's Ruth?" she asked. "I thought you'd bring your sister. I
shouldn't have come, but for that--at least, well, perhaps not."
"Come, that's better," I said. "You'll see Ruth fast enough. She's just
dying to see you." Now that was pure invention.
"Ah, why so?" And then I saw my opening.
"Why! Because I've told her, Miriam, what an angel you are, and how
lonesome, and how much in need of a sister's sympathy and help. And I've
told her what I've come here this night to tell you--that I love you, I
love you, I love you. Oh! Miriam, I'm not clever, and I cannot twist my
tongue to smooth speeches, but I know this, that you are the sun of my
heaven, the light and warmth of my life. I haven't lived till now. I've
breathed, but I haven't lived, and now I cannot think of life without
you, Miriam."
Her bosom rose and fell tumultuous; she swayed as though a sudden
weakness had filched her strength; and she looked at me ah! well, I have
seen that look in one woman's eyes, and those were hers, and at that
glance my heart leaped in my breast, and I had my arm about her waist
and she was clasped to my breast, and I was raining kisses on her dark
tresses, her cheeks, her quivering lips And it wasn't the russet moor
by Burnplatts we stood on then, nor did the grey, Puritan sky of an
English autumn arch above our heads, nor were those the notes of common
moorland songsters that sang their evening hymn--we stood entwined on
the plains of Paradise, and heaven's own light bathed us in its
unspeakable effulgence, and heaven's choir luted ravishing music to our
ears. 'Twas love, the first, pure, soul-revealing love of man and maid:
the nectar one tastes but once, and tasting first knows life.
The sky was studded with stars before I would let Miriam go, though many
a time she vowed she dare not stop a minute, and made to go, and as many
times shrank coyly back into the haven of my arms, and giving back kiss
for kiss. And then she would have gone with my purpose half fulfilled,
but that in pulling out my watch I drew out also the ring which Mr.
Garside had given me for my own, the ring engraved "Mizpah," that even
by the moon's light sparkled and glistened as I slipt it on to Miriam's
finger.
"No! no! not there. I musn't wear it there. See, it shall be close my
heart," and she kissed it and slid it within the folds of her dress.
"I'll wear it there, and no one at Burnplatts must see it. Why, there's
men there would rob a church for less than these bright stones. And
Granny and Ephraim Oh! I'm feart, I'm feart. Best take it back, Abel,
and keep it for me till we're----," and then she stopped in sweet
confusion.
"Nay let it bide where 'tis. But tell me, Miriam why do you fear?"
"Because ever since I was a little one Granny's always said I was to wed
Ephraim and he, and he--oh! in his wild way I think he loves me. And
I'd always taken it for granted that I should be his wife though now I
know I didn't love him. And then you came, and I knew what love is, and
it seems strange that ever I should have thought of Ephraim in that way.
But, I'm feart, oh! I'm feart--not for myself, but for you, when
Ephraim knows the truth. Oh! what should I do if harm came to you, if my
love should be your curse?"
Of course I chided her for her groundless fears, a lass's whimsies I
called them, and, clasping her in a long embrace, bade her banish her
gloomy thoughts and leave it to me to win our way to the sweet
fulfilling of our love.
"Then there's that horrid man at the Wakes," she faltered. "It wasn't
the first time he'd spoken to me, though he never touched me before."
"What, Tom o' Bills, o' th' 'Moorcock'?"
Now "the Moorcock Inn" is a little public house high up above Greenfield
on the slope from the road that crosses the hills from Lancashire into
Yorkshire, and there resided Bill o' Jack's, innkeeper and gamekeeper, a
wizened, crafty, old sinner, whose grey hairs were not venerable, with
an evil heart and a foul tongue. More often than not Bill's son, Tom,
was to be found at the Inn, when not striding the moors or tippling in
the hostelries of Greenfield or Saddleworth. Tom, too, was a gamekeeper,
a burly, blustering bully of a fellow, much given to ale and strong
waters, and to coarse amours with the light o' loves of the
country-side, though he had a wife and children of his own living at
Sidebank, near Greenfield. It was given out that the poor neglected
woman lived there that her children might be near their work at
Greenfield Mill; but I fancy Tom o' Bill's had less worthy reasons for
spending most of his nights at the Moorcock. Father and son were
Bradburys--sprung of a good yeoman stock, to be sure, but themselves
debauched by the calling they had given their lives to, for I have noted
as a strange thing, and not easy to be accounted for, that men whose
soul's ken is limited to a dog and a gun, and the ways of wild birds,
and hares, and rabbits, and the vermin that prey on them weasels, and
stoats, and the like, are oft tavern-haunters, and dicers, and brawlers,
and blasphemers and sons of Belial in many other ways, of which the less
said the better. My blood boiled within me at thought of Miriam clasped
in that lecher's arms, his evil eye gloating on her sweet face.
"Perhaps 'twas only the drink," I said to soothe her, for she trembled
as she spoke of Tom o' Bill's.
"It isn't always the drink. He's as bad when he's sober. He wants me to
go serve at "the Moorcock," and says he'll load me with jewels, and I
shall live like a lady. He must have the cunning of a fox, for often
when I've thought for sure I'd given him the go-bye in my journeys
across the moor he's sprung from behind a wall or risen sudden from the
heather. And I think it's because of me he's so down on Ephraim. He's
boasted in his cups that he'll never rest till he has the King's
bracelets on Ephraim's wrists and him sent to the Plantations. There's
evil blood between them, and I fear me there'll be blood let if things
go on"--and she shivered in my arms.
"This isn't Ephraim's business now; it's mine," I declared. But she
clung to me, and bade me if I loved her give the Bradburys a wide berth.
I soothed her with smooth sayings, but made no promise, for it seemed a
hard thing that in this fair England of ours a maiden even a Burnplatter
should be evilly entreated and not a constable bold enough to do the
work he was paid for. It was an old saying in those days that
gamekeepers and the constables were thick as thieves, and that a brace
of grouse or a hare at Christmas time could close the mouth and eyes of
the constables who were so quick to clap a poor weaver in the stocks if
he got quarrelsome in his cups and the Justices on the Bench were as bad
as the keepers, sportsmen, and game preservers to a man, except perhaps
the Vicar of St. Chad's, and he was too butty with his brother justices
to thwart them in their handling of the men the keepers hauled before
them. But I'd a notion of English law amid justice, and I thought Parson
Holmes's son could hold his own even against a keeper.
I set no great store by myself, as indeed why should I, but I had a
great opinion of my father's name and calling. Why, even the Vicar of
St. James's had been heard to speak respectfully of the pastor of Pole
Moor ever since the day when that incumbent had written a lengthy
epistle to my father anent the laying on of hands, couched in the Greek
tongue, thinking, maybe, so to humiliate my father, and the doughty
little minister, not to be outdone, had replied at twice the length,
not, to be sure, in Greek, but in Hebrew!
I walked home that night, 'twixt gloam and moon, in a world bewitched.
I forgot all about Jim, about my father, about Ruth, doubtless racking
their brains in vain, wondering why I did not return to supper.
I walked across the moors and right on to Wrigley Mill Fold in a dream.
Ah! love is your only wizard. It touches the eyes of maid and man, and
lo! there is a new world that holds nothing commonplace, nothing tawdry,
nothing mean. The heart that throbs with love's exquisite pain knows no
fear but that it lose its love. Here was I, but just free of my
indentures, with no craft in my hand but that of a poverty-knocker all
my worldly gear on my back, and plighted to a girl that all the men and
women I had been taught to reverence and take pattern by, the men and
women who made my little world, would look askance upon. And was I a
whit dismayed? Not I i' faith. I'd youth, and strength, and health, knit
muscles, and a clear head, and crowning gift of all, a loved one's love.
Fear! I laughed at obstacles. I was the lord of Destiny.
Mary has often told me since that when took the door that night my face
shone as though transfigured and that she knew all of a crack, as she
put it that my feet had trod the Mount Delectable and my eyes seen the
golden strand. But all she said was:
"And wheer's our Jim? I'll be bun he's ca'ed Gate. I should ha' thought
'at after being at Pole Moor an' listenin' to two guid sarmons he could
ha' come streight whom, gooid Sunday neet as it is, an' all. But theer,
some women has th' beck on it, an' some hannot, an' there's an' end on
it. Theer's Betty Haley's Matthy can lead th' prayer meetings an' pray
for hauf an hour at a spell, rollin' up th' whites o' his e'en an'
callin' on th' Spirit till he's awmost hoarse, an' now they sen he's to
be put on th' Plan an' be a pudden parson,(a local preacher) an's getten
up Mrs. Wrigley's sleeve, an' oo's nagging at th' owd felly to put him
forrard i' th' mill, an' he'll be an ovver-seer an' happen a peartner,
th' sallow-faced, greasy windbag 'at he is. An' aw'm sure, though aw say
it 'at suddent, aw'm as gooid a woman onny day as Betty Haley ivver
were, as yo'n nowt to do but look at her house to see. Cleanliness is
next to godliness, mi owd mother used to say, an' aw'n getten
cleanliness onnyroad, an' that's more nor Betty Haley can say or ivver
could…." and here Mary was fain to pause for breath.
And from this outpouring I knew that Mary had been to the service in the
Warping Room at Wrigley Mill. My employer's good lady, having had high
words with the Vicar's wife about some parish matter--so 'twas said at
all events--had shaken dust of St. Chad's from her very substantial
feet, and had started a Methodist in a room above the counting-house,
which, on week days, was used for warping the yarn. Matthew Haley was
one of the hands, a black-headed bilious looking man, much suspected by
the other workpeople of carrying tales to the counting-house But he'd as
much gab as a Philadelphia lawyer, and having, as he put it, "raised his
Ebenezer" in the upper chamber at Wrigley Mill, was now become a bright
and shining light in the little congregation which consisted almost
exclusively of the mill people. He was Mary's particular aversion,
however, and she, who, had known Matthy's mother from a girl, never
ceased to wonder that a child of Betty's should to all seeming be born
to grace whilst her own lad should openly scoff at Matthy's perfervid
supplications.
"Why, Mary," I said, when I could at length get in a word edgeways, "you
wouldn't swop your Jim for Matthy Haley, would you?"
"No, that aw wouldn't. Not if they'd gi' me all Wrigley Mill to
booit--a nasty, greasy,"--I think Mary meant unctuous--"slimy,
creeping, sneck-liftin', underhand tittle-tattler. But it does go agen
th' grain to think 'at sich as him s'ud be thrusten forrard an' stand i'
th' high places o' th' synagogue, so to speak, when a proper,
straightforrard, guid-hearted lad like y'er Jim, 'at wouldn't hurt a
flea, 'is put dahn as nowt. Aw tell yo' what it is, Abe, aw've wintered
an' summered some th' fo'k i' Diggle 'at nivver missed nother Chapel nor
Sunday School sin Mrs. Wrigley too' up wi' th' Methodies, an' all aw can
say is if God Almighty cannot see through 'em, it's time some'un up an'
oppened His e'en for Him."
"Don't yo' fret yourself, Mary," I assured her. "God is not mocked, an'
I'd rather stand with Jim on the last day than with many a Wrigley Mill
saint, aye, even if he'd a pint pot in his hand." And so Mary's wrath
simmered down, though from the way she gave the occasional slap with her
thible at the porridge as she stirred it on the hob, I judged that in
imagination she was venting her wrath on the unconscious Matthy.
Jim sauntered in just as Mary and I drew to table, and mollified his
mother by the hearty way he handled his spoon.
"There's nowt like a gooid sermon an' a gooid walk 'at after it for
gi'ing' a man a relish for his victuals," he declared. "An' if yo' want
a gooid sarmon wi'in ten mile o' Wrigley Mill yo' mun go to Pole Moor
for it. What do'st say, mother, if we join th' Baptists?"
"Tha were browt up Church," reminded his mother.
"Aw'm noan so sure they'n getten th' rooit o' th' matter," quoth Jim,
wagging his head gravely, as he scraped the sides of the bowl with his
spoon. "Aw'm noan fully decided i' my own mind. It tak's a deal o'
thinkin' ovver, an' aw think it 'ud nobbut be fair to tak' St. Chad's
and Pole Moor turn an' turn abaat till I'm fair settled one road or
t'other--th' church i' t' mornin' an' t' chapel at neet. What says ta,
Abe?"
"Why, you never get up in time for morning service," I said.
"Weel, when aw missed th' Church, aw could mak' up for it bi stoppin' to
th' prayer meetin' at neet."
"It's a far cry to Pole Moor," I objected.
"Not it, marry. Your Ruth says there's folk go to Pole Your fro Meltham
an' owd 'uns at that."
"Oh! If Ruth wants you to go…."
"Nay, nay, not 'oo. 'Oo only mentioned it casual like,"
I shrugged my shoulders. I had my own notions, I daresay Jim had in
later years.
"But, onny road," concluded Jim, "aw'st noan join Matthy's lot. He come
to me 't other day when aw were tunin' a loom an' swearin' a bit to
missen, which some o' them looms 'ud mak' a parson swear, an' he towd me
to my face he never missed a neet but he took me to the Lord i' prayer.
Aw towd him I knew there was a mule i' th' garden somegate, an' if he
didn't stop it aw'd poise his soul out." And Jim pulled off his boots
with a mighty grunt of relief--he swore by clogs as the only footgear
for human wear--and lumbered heavily to bed.