THE RISING WIND.
They dined in the middle of the day at Marshcotes Manor, and they dined
well. Mrs. Lomax, consequently, liked to have a clear hour's sleep in
the afternoon--a luxury which Griff made the basis of one of those
tender little accusations that were constantly passing between mother
and son.
"And now, I suppose, you will want to _reflect_ for awhile," he said,
when Thursday's dinner was over and Mrs. Lomax had risen from the table.
"You need not put that ironical emphasis on the 'reflect,' Griff. I
want to sleep, and am not ashamed to confess it."
"Yet you grumble when my work takes me away from you. I'm going to be
jealous, too: I grudge you that wasted hour."
"Foolish boy! You may kiss me, if you like, just as a bribe to get rid
of you. There, there; away you go. Are you going to ride?"
"Yes; for an hour or so."
"Of course. If it is not your ridiculous work that stands in the way,
then you must needs rush off to the stable. It is lucky for me, Griff,
that I _can_ sleep with such a thankless son on my conscience."
"Talk to Lassie about it, mother: she will have exercise, and no one
but I can manage her properly. That's what I like about the mare; she
is twice as faithful as any woman I have come across--except my mother."
Mrs. Lomax frowned, a real frown; she did not like Griff's occasional
flippancies about women.
"I think, boy, if you had stayed at Marshcotes, your opinions might
have kept more wholesome. Your south-country women must be curious,
Griff."
He smiled a little at her prejudices, and patted her on her rough grey
hair, and went out. But a cloud was on his face as he mounted Lassie,
standing saddled at the door.
"I think," he murmured, "that if mother knew about Sybil Ogilvie, and
the dance she led me, she would never speak to me again."
The blood rushed hot to his cheeks, and Lassie was surprised by an
impatient jerk of the snaffle. She would stand a good deal from Griff,
but an unprovoked assault of this kind, before ever they had cleared
the garden gravel, was too much for any mare of good breeding. She
shook her head just once, and tore through the open gate like a thing
bewitched.
"I hope he won't break his neck; it is rather a failing in the family,"
sighed Mrs. Lomax, patiently, as she watched him down the highroad.
Griff soon brought the mare to reason, and explained to her that,
having lately dined, he was in no mood for such violent exercise.
Lassie took this as an apology and forgave him; and they ambled
contentedly round by Ling Crag, Wynyates, and back again. As they were
crossing the moor close to Marshcotes, Griff espied a tall figure
making towards them. It proved to be Kate Strangeways, returning from
the village grocery with a well-filled basket. He drew rein and slipped
off his nag.
"You're looking tired," he said, in his direct way, with a keen glance
at her face.
"I am tired, but it can't be helped. I think I'm falling lazy nowadays,
Mr. Lomax."
"Lazy? Well, if you like the word. Mother tells me a different tale.
You're coming to have tea with us before you walk the three miles back
to Peewit."
She coloured slightly.
"Oh, no, thank you! It's time I was home."
"Nonsense!" put in Griff, brusquely. "I say you are coming."
"Up here we are not accustomed to being ordered about," said Kate,
between vexation and amusement.
"Except by one of your own kind. Come, Mrs. Strangeways, I'm moor-born,
too, and you know what that means. I intend to have my way."
She gave in at last, and it was not until they struck the village that
Griff bethought him there was a certain oddity in the situation. When
they reached the Manor, he learned from Rebecca that Mrs. Lomax had
been called out to see some sick body in the village; and he was rather
sorry that he had given his off-hand invitation to Kate Strangeways. He
told Becky, however, to bring in the tea, and speedily found himself
launched into such a brisk discussion that he entirely forgot his
mother's absence. They got, by a round-about route, to literature, and
from that to some books which Griff had lately lent her. They were
all novels of the day, some of them written by friends of his own,
and he had thought them exceedingly good when he had first read them.
Griff knew that Kate and his mother had been friends for a long while
past, yet it staggered him a little to discover that this wife of a
master-quarryman was capable, not only of reading, but of digesting,
the novels he had lent her.
"I don't understand story-writing," she explained, with a
half-hesitating air. "I only know about the life we live, all of us;
and that is a different thing."
He looked hard at her, with a puzzled air.
"It ought not to be. What these men are striving for, they would tell
you, is to get life _as it is_. They seemed to me to ring true when I
read them." Yet he faltered on the words. To what did they ring true,
he could not help asking himself? To the falsity he had cherished
through ten long years of his life, answered conscience. But he was
stubborn: it was one thing for him to ridicule his late acquaintances,
and quite another to listen to some one else doing the same; from sheer
contrariety he grew warm in defence of the novels.
"But those books--you won't think me silly, Mr. Lomax? you are so much
cleverer--they don't describe women, as I know them."
Kate, too, was holding her ground, despite a feeling that this
argumentative being must know a hundred times as much as she did about
the art of character-drawing.
Griff got up and leaned against the mantelshelf. He was nettled. It
was all so true, he felt--and it was bitter to have to admit that this
woman, whom he had vaguely patronized as affording a valuable model,
should be able to tell him what it had taken him so long to learn.
"I--I thought they did," he said lamely.
"Of course, you know best. Only they seem to me either too good or too
bad--and far too clever. There isn't one real _heart-sob_ in all these
books--and women, God knows, live by heart-sobs in real life."
She remembered herself at that, and flushed. It was too easy to forget
how clever Mr. Lomax was, and she was surely a very silly woman. But
Griff knew she was right; he said nothing for that very reason, because
he felt so cross.
Then the mother came in, and smothered her surprise at finding the two
of them chatting so snugly together, and gave Kate a hearty welcome.
"Mrs. Strangeways has been abusing my judgment of women," laughed
Griff, his good temper restored.
Kate tried to expostulate, but Mrs. Lomax cut her short.
"Quite right, my dear, quite right. All Griff's pet women are like
dough that has been badly kneaded. I tell him so, often, and he doesn't
half like it. Perhaps he took it more kindly from you?"
"I say, two to one! This isn't fair," protested her son.
"You will weather the storm, Griff," retorted the old lady,
imperturbably. "After all, you have made a name for yourself; a
knowledge of women was not necessary there. The whirr of a gale across
the heather carried you through; you forgot your weaknesses sometimes."
"Would you like some tea, mother?" ventured Griff, mildly.
When Kate Strangeways finally rose to go, Lomax insisted on "setting
her on her way." "I'll go agatards wi' ye," he laughed, translating his
intentions into the language of the country, as he loved to do when
talking to Mrs. Strangeways.
Kate, laughing too, congratulated him on his knowledge of the tongue,
and they set off in high good spirits. He did not leave her till they
reached the top of the last rise that lay between themselves and Peewit
House; and when they said good-bye, he had secured a half-promise that
she would sit to him for her portrait.
A surly-looking rascal, with a beard an inch long and a cutty pipe
rammed tight in one corner of his mouth, was leaning over the fence;
Lomax judged him to be a farm-hand, said his farewells to Kate, and set
off back across the moor.
"Well, I'm beggared!" muttered Joe Strangeways, removing the cutty pipe
from his jaws.
Griff went to look up his friend the preacher on the following
afternoon. He found him in a state of wild self-castigation. Gabriel's
eyes were far too bright, and his fingers twitched to the tune of each
fresh thought. That marvellous straight-forwardness of his came to the
front at once.
"Well, Griff, lad, I was drunk the night before last."
"Not quite that, old fellow; a bit bothered by the road, that's all;
it's not an easy path through Hazel Dene."
"I was drunk, I tell you. Yes, and I was mortal sick in the night,
Griff. But it wasn't the sickness of the carnal body I cared for; the
trouble went deeper than that."
"Your head was bad the next morning?" queried Griff, innocently.
"Man, yes! But it's not that I mean. Think of the sin: think of a
preacher of God's word showing himself no more than a cutting from the
old stock." This was Gabriel's unconquerable pride coming out; he was
humble in theory only.
"When you've understood that a little better," said the other gravely,
"you'll be fit to preach. Good-bye, old chap; just ponder on that for a
while. When are you coming for another ride?"
The preacher looked through and beyond his friend.
"I never thought to come to this. Let him that thinketh he standeth
take heed lest he fall. Look here," he broke off, with a sudden flash
of fury, "they say that the Lord looks after His own. Well, I don't
believe it. Why did He bring that girl across my path?"
"To make a man of you," said Griff, and vanished.
Betty Binns was lying in wait for him without. A subdued exultation was
visible in her face.
"I war sure, Mr. Lummax," cried she--"I war sure ye didn't rightly
know what war good for th' innards of a man o' God. Th' maister,
yester-morn, war as yaller as hen-corn, an' his heäd warked fit to
burst. _That's_ what comes along o' strong meät when th' Sperrit hes
hold on a man."
"Betty," said Griff, "you mustn't be hard on me. I meant it for the
best."
"Ay, ay, them as is for meaning th' best is allus for doing th' worst!"
And Betty was retiring in triumph, when the other called her back.
"Just tell your master, will you, that I shall be here at nine sharp
to-morrow night, and shall expect him to be ready for a ride. You have
no objection to offer, have you, Betty?" he added, with an air of
humble deference.
"Get along wi' ye! There's no mak o' shame i' th' young fowk nowadays,
no shame at all. It taks a likelier nor ye, Mr. Griff, to trail Betty
Binns. Now, will ye let me shut th' door, or willun't ye?"
"Parting, Betty, is such sweet sorrow, that I----?" He found himself
talking to the bare oak of the door, and laughed mightily, in his boy's
way, as he swung down the garden-path and into the highroad.
Remembering, later in the evening, that his whisky had run out, he
slipped across to the Bull to buy a bottle. A crowd of idlers was
hanging about the steps, with Joe Strangeways conspicuous in their
midst. Joe was in his usual condition of semi-drunkenness, and he
scowled on seeing Lomax approach.
"That's him," muttered a companion; "tha wert talking big, Joe, about
what tha'd do to him when tha cotched him. Now's thy chance." The
tone was ironical, and did not suggest any great confidence in the
quarryman's practical bravery.
Strangeways felt that he must make a demonstration of some kind, in
view of a few recent utterances of his. He squared his shoulders so as
to dispute possession of the doorway, thrust out his lower jaw, and
regarded Griff with an air of sullen mockery.
"There's a saying, Griff Lummax, that lang i' th' leg spells soft i'
th' heäd," he observed, repeating his favourite little pleasantry.
A chuckle sounded from the bystanders. Griff stopped on the lowest
step, took his pipe out of his mouth, and regarded Strangeways with
an air of quiet gravity; when he spoke, it was with a good Yorkshire
brogue that not one of the bystanders could have bettered.
"There's another saying, mate. Lang i' th' drink spells short i' th'
wit."
A big laugh went up at that. They were fond of Griff at Marshcotes, and
they liked to find him ready with his tongue. Joe's face grew red, with
a dash of purple about the gills. He had nothing to say, so confined
himself to filling the doorway a little more completely.
"I want to pass," said Griff.
"Oh, tha dost, dost 'a? Well, it's gooid for young 'uns to want."
"I want to pass," repeated Griff.
"So tha said," responded the quarryman, emboldened by the other's
quietness. "And how if tha'rt not going to be let pass?"
Griff said not another word, but took the four steps in one easy bound,
twisted Joe round in his hands, set his foot to the man's heel and his
right arm to his chest, and lowered him gently to the ground, where he
lay with his feet on the threshold and his head on the bottom step.
Then he went indoors and did his business.
"It's time tha wert wending home, Joe," suggested one of the crowd.
"It taks a likelier nor thee to tackle Griff Lummax."
"Lang i' th' leg, an' strong i' th' arm," laughed another.
Joe, having got to his feet again, shambled off towards the churchyard
gate.
"Bide a bit, lads," he growled. "Bide till I've getten my fist round
th' heft of a knife, and I'll cut th' bleeding heart out on him."
Lomax, unaware of Joe's delicately-expressed intentions, sketched the
adventure to his mother when he got back, and wondered what particular
quarrel the man had with him.
"What was he like, Griff?" asked Mrs. Lomax.
"Oh, I don't know. Short and thickset, with a stubbly chin and a beery
eye."
"Would you like to know who he is?"
"I should, rather. I don't seem to remember his face a bit, and I
prided myself on knowing all the moorside."
"He is Joe Strangeways--your moor woman's husband."
"Nonsense, mother! It can't be."
"Haven't they taught you, Griff, during all those years you have been
away, that there is no such word as 'can't'? He _is_ her husband."
Griff kicked the fender, for no apparent reason, and brought down the
fire-irons with a rattle.
"But, mother--he was a brute--a drunken beast--a----"
"That does not alter facts, though, does it? I know Joe Strangeways
very well, Griff; I had to teach him a lesson once."
She told him of that afternoon when she had gone to meet the quarryman
on his return from work and had given him "a piece of her mind." Griff
laughed rarely at the fierceness of this mother whom he was wont to
tease beyond all limits of endurance. But he went out presently, and
his step was heavy; he felt angry with Kate Strangeways because she had
descended to the level of this unshaven clown. It was the first bit of
real feeling he had experienced towards the woman who had heretofore
struck him in the light of a valuable model.