Front matter (continued 4)

Ruth fetched me a smacking kiss on my forehead.

“And bring her I will,” she cried, “if I’ve to make Jim hug her here,” and she tripped blithely out of the room and down the narrow staircase, singing like a thrush out of the lightness of her heart, and calling “Jim, Jim,” in her clear, young voice.

CHAPTER IX.

A GREAT TEA-DRINKING.

AND bring her she did: her and as tiny a kit of clothing as ever, I imagine, was borne even by the poorest emigrant leaving these shores for distant lands. Poor Miriam, she looked sadly abashed when first she set foot in our modest home. The Manse at Pole Moor, you may well believe, was not a palace, yet a palace it may well have seemed to one who all her young life had known nought but the dirty squalor of Burnplatts. And what a magician that saucy Ruth of ours proved herself in those early days of Miriam’s coming. I would have you to understand that whereas my Miriam was slender and willowy of bodily build, Ruth was not so tall as she by a good two inches and of a comfortable and restful plumpness. Yet, before Miriam had been three days beneath my father’s roof, behold her arrayed in one of Ruth’s frocks that, to the male eye at least, appeared to fit her like a glove. Then her hair—her glorious, shiny, lustrous locks, dark as night, that ever since I had known my love had flowed at large about her neck and shoulders and twisted and twined about her bosom in a curling disarray—Ruth had tucked it up into a coiling knot that nestled snugly in the nape of the neck. I vow that when Ruth led Miriam thus transfigured into my room, her eyes downcast, the ready blush mantling her cheeks, I scarce knew her at first glance. With what a gentle grace the moved; how soft and sweet her speech; there was a self-possession and composure about her that are foreign to the girls one mostly meets on the hill-sides, with their hearty ways and quick, bustling movements.

Now you won’t need to be told that if ever a man felt bursting with happiness that man was no other than myself in those weeks of my convalescence, with Miriam to keep me company, and, as Jim put it, “cocker me up like a great spoiled babby.” But I protest that Miriam was in greater danger of being spoiled than I. I say nothing of my wondering pride and worship in those days. It is right and natural that a lover should worship his mistress—doesn’t the very marriage service say, “With my body I thee worship?”—it is natural that he should deem her peerless among women; but I say that in those days my lover’s worship was blended with a sort of wondering awe and a fearful pride. For, whether it was the change from the wild and uncouth ways of the folk among whom she had been brought up, or the spirit of her father that moved in her blood, or the conscious striving to put her past behind her and be a new and nobler being for love’s sake, or all these and I know not what other subtler influences put together, that is a riddle I cannot solve. But this is certain, that the wild, elfish creature, more than half gipsy, to whom I had poured out my love on the wild moors that seemed so fitting setting for the picture she then made, became by quick, yet insensible, degrees a maiden of so sweet yet quiet a charm, moving serenely as a swan sails the waters, and, as it were, queening it among us without an effort and without even meaning it.

“I don’t know how it is,” said Ruth in commenting on this marvellous change to Jim. “She makes me feel as if she were a porcelain vase and I a common pewter flagon.”

“Well, aw always liked pewter mysen,” Jim had said. “Ale never tastes so guid as out o’ a pewter pot. Gi’ me pewter, let them ha’ porcelain ’at wants it.” But I don’t think Ruth took much comfort from this. Not that she bore Miriam any malice. Not she indeed. She just simply accepted her as an elder sister whom it was a pleasure and a duty to minister to and to admire. Miriam ran some danger of being spoiled, even by Ruth, until, after our guest had settled down somewhat into our ways, Ruth set her to help in the kitchen. And then came the amazing and, to Ruth, not unpleasing discovery that Miriam was just as ignorant of the commonest household duties as Ruth was proficient. She couldn’t bake, she couldn’t brew, she didn’t know what a churn was, she had never in her life made a pat of butter, and she had the most elementary notions even of the abstruse science of bed-making. And in the teaching of her new pupil Ruth was able to recover somewhat of that sense of general superiority which years of undisputed sway at Pole Moor had made a second nature with my good sister.

But in the spoiling of Miriam the greatest and chief of sinners was none other than my reverend father. Is it to be counted a weakness in a minister of the Gospel to seek to make converts to his faith? Surely nay, even though, as the Book says, he compass sea and land to do it.

And in matters of religion Miriam’s mind was a virgin soil. She was absolutely ignorant of doctrine. Until she came to Pole Moor never once had she set foot in Church or Chapel. As an infant she had not been baptised—a source of much satisfaction to my father, who was great in his scorn of what he called pædobaptism, which I take to mean the baptism of infants; and I have heard him hold forth by the hour upon the sinfulness of admitting puling babes to the membership of Christ’s Church, and on the whimsical practice of allowing sponsors in the persons of godfathers and godmothers to take upon themselves spiritual responsibility for the backslidings of their godchildren, for, as Enoch Hoyle sagely remarked, in the sight of God every tub must stand upon its own bottom. So my father set himself to preparing Ruth for baptism and admission to the Church of God at Pole Moor by expounding to her the true faith as declared by Calvin. And to all his teaching did Miriam seriously incline. It was a winsome sight, those drear winter nights, to see the old man sat by the glowing peat fire with Miriam on a hassock by his knees the while, one hand gently stroking her ebon locks, he fed her, as Enoch Hoyle put it, with the sincere milk of the Word, she staring musing into the red embers, her hands resting idle on her lap.

Now as to the absolute soundness of the doctrine preached by my father I have, I grieve to say, in these my riper years, had many heart-searchings. But no doubts troubled Miriam’s mind. I do not doubt that from the first she accepted my father as the very oracle of God. She stood as it were appalled before the immensity of his wisdom. That one man, and a little one at that, should have read all the books that cumbered the shelves of his little study, that he should be able to read the very Hebrew in which the Tables of the Law were traced by the Divine finger, that he could read and write the very tongue in which Jesus spoke to his disciples by the sea of Galilee or on the Mount,—oh! who could doubt that such a man must be as the prophets of old, his every word but the echo of the Master’s voice. I do verily believe that if, in some moment of inspired fervour, my father had assured Miriam that the moon was made of green cheese she would have e’en taken his word for it. Never before nor after had my father a more reverent, a more loving pupil. In very truth she sat at his feet and treasured his every word as a pearl beyond price.

But Enoch Hoyle, who felt it his duty to aid in Miriam’s spiritual and doctrinal education, was often sore discomfited, and confessed to me, oft with tears in his eyes, that he believed at bottom, despite her seeming conformity, Miriam was little better than a pagan and a heathen.

“And what makes you think so?” I asked the worthy deacon.

“Weel, aw’m oppen to tell yo’, if yo’re oppen to hear me,” quoth Enoch, settling himself for a good talk, than which there was nothing the good soul liked better, the sound of his own voice being ever the music he liked best. “Aw’ve been a member o’ Pole Moor sin’ th’ chapel were oppened in th’ year o’ our Lord 1790. Aw joined th’ church a bit afore that, when th’ saints met for prayer an’ thanksgivin’ in th’ Silent Woman, th’ public down i’ Slowit yonder. Aw’m not denyin’ ’at there were conveniences i’ holdin’ th’ sarvices i’ a licensed house, for preichin’s dry work, an’ listenin’ to some o’ th’ preichers we’n had to put up wi’ ’s drier still. Aw’ve allus thowt th’ Lord missed his way when he didn’t ca’ me to be a preicher mysen. But aw’ve done mi best to mak’ up for that mistake on th’ part o’ Providence bi keepin’ th’ regular ministers up to th’ mark. We’n had ’em o’ all mak’s sin’ th’ Pole were first oppened. There’s bin Calvinist an’ hyper-Calvinists an’ Fullerites an’ Antinomians, an’, as aw’n said, all mak’s, an’ they’n all had th’ benefit o’ owd Enoch Hoyle’s opinion o’ their doctrine an’ preichin’, an’ aw ma’ no doubt they were all th’ better for it. Aw’n stuck like a leech to th’ owd spot, an’ purge th’ flock as they liked, an’ some o’ th’ parsons welly purged it to death, they ne’er managed to purge Enoch Hoyle out o’ it. Aw’d have stuck to it if there’d bin nowt but heath-bobs to preich to, as folk said ’ud be th’ case when we raised our Ebenezer at th’ Pole.”

“But what in the name o’ goodness has all this ancient history to do with Miriam?” I asked.

“Aw’m comin’ to that, Abe, all i’ good time. Dunnot thee be impatient. Th’ gret fault o’ th’ present day is just that same wantin’ to cut things short. Why, if we tuk notice o’ th’ younger end they’d do away wi’ th’ very hour-glass on th’ pulpit desk, an’ we’d ne’er be sure we’d had our money’s worth. What aw want yo’ to understand is ’at me havin’ sat sin’ th’ sap were fresh i’ mi. veins till now aw’m in th’ sere an’ yellow leaf, under this preicher an’ that, aw should know th’ ins an’ outs o’ religious doctrine as weel as here an’ there a one.”

“That seems to stand to reason,” I conceded, though with some misgiving, for I could not see to what this prolix prelude tended.

“Weel,” proceeded Enoch, evidently gratified by my concession, “weel, if there’s one point on which aw’m more clear nor another it’s on th’ doctrine o’ predestination in a’ its fulness an’ consekenses.”

“Ah!” I interposed. “I’ll not be sorry to be enlightened on that point myself. I’ve never been on very sure ground there.”

“Hark yo’ theer now!” said Enoch with great gusto, “an’ yo’ th’ parson’s own son. There’s th’ guiding o’ the Lord i’ this. Aw’st happen kill two birds wi’ one stone yo’ an’ Miriam, aw mean. Weel, it’s this way. There’s no gettin’ away fro’ it ’at God Almighty knows th’ beginnin’ fro’ th’ end, even fro’ th’ beginnin’ o’ th’ world, aye, an’ afore that. Both thee an’ Miriam were in His mind’s eye, so to speik, afore th’ mooin was, or th’ sun or th’ stars, or the waters which are aboon the firmament, an’ them ’at are under the firmament.”

“It looks a long time, Enoch, but go ahead.”

“Weel, an’ if He knew ’at yo’ were goin’ to be born it’s ekally sartin He knew where yo’d go to when yo’ dee, an’ as He could just will it His own gait it’s plain as th’ nose on your face ’at we’re all predestinate oather for Heaven or Hell long afore we were oather born or thowt on.”

“It’s a hard saying, that, Enoch,” I demurred.

“Nowt o’ th’ sort,” maintained Enoch stoutly.

“It’s like sowing turnip seed. Tha knows ’at we sow it i’ han’fuls, an’ it comes up as thick as mustard an’ cress. Weel, we sort out th’ likely shoots an’ leave ’em i’ th’ ground to swell into turnips. T’others we just poo up an’ other mak’ into pottage or throw ’em to th’ pou’try—sheer waste o’ gooid seed, yo’ med say, an’ yet it’s th’ only way. It’s th’ same wi men an’ women. Some’s nobbut fit for pooin’ up an’ castin’ into th’ oven.”

“But, again, what has all this to do with Miriam?” I asked.

“Weel, aw were just speerin’ about owd Granny Sykes, th’ owd beldame at Burnplatts. An’ aw were tellin’ her how thankful oo owt to be to ha’ been ta’en into a Christian household where oo’d ha’ the means o’ grace an’ the hope o’ glory—bein’ dipped, aw mean—and so escape joinin’ Granny Sykes in th’ outer darkness wheer there’s weepin’, an’ wailin’, an’ gnashin’ o’ teeth.”

“Oh, you said that, did you?”

“Aw did. An’ oo’ went as white as a sheet, an’ her eyes shot lightnin’ an’ daggers as oo jumped up an’ just shook me till what few teeth aw han rattled i’ mi yead.”

“ ‘You believe that?’ ” oo said.

“ ‘Aye,’ aw towd her, it were just wovven for her wi’ a shuttle o’ adamant.’ ”

“ ‘Yo’ wicked old man,’ she cried, ‘yo’ wicked, wicked old man.’ Yo’ may tak’ my word for it, Abe, yon wench is a spit-fire, if ivver there were one. Oo’ll be a handful for onny man to tackle, an’ thank God it won’t be Enoch Hoyle.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or to storm; but Enoch Hoyle was Enoch Hoyle, a good man at heart, but surely he had forgotten the assurance that God is Love.

But I’d soon other things to think about than theological doctrines and hair-splittings. By the month of February—a dull, drizzly, raw month it was I well remember, with fits of heavy snow in and among, or maybe I was over nesh from being cooped up so long and cowering over the fire “counting th’ eoiks as Jim put it—and I was able to leave my sick-room and move about the house and into the open, but still in a feeble sort of way. And one night, Ruth and Miriam being gone together down into Slaithwaite shopping, my father bid me sit down as he had much to say to me that had been long on his mind, but which he had stored up till such time as I should be strong enough for serious thought and talk.

“So you and the maid Miriam have plighted troth,” he began, when his churchwarden was drawing comfortably.

“By your leave, father, yes,” I made answer in a shamefaced way, for young men, I know not why, would rather discuss their love affairs with anyone in the world than their own fathers—it’s different, I suppose, with their mothers, but, you see, I hadn’t one.

“Humph,” said my sire, somewhat shortly, “it was French leave, I take it.”

I hung my head.

“Well, well, all’s well that ends well, and I’ll say you’ve had more good luck than you deserve. Miriam’s a bonnie lass, and, what’s of infinitely more importance, a clever one and a good one. If anything could spoil a girl I should say such a bringing up as she must have had at Burnplatts would have done it. But she hath been like unto Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that passed through the fiery furnace, yet ‘upon their bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them.’ Truly with her, as with the three captives in Babylon, the Son of God must have walked whilst she dwelt in the tents of Shem. Aye, verily a goodly maiden and a fair. But thou’ll not have forgotten, Abel, my son, that she is also a maiden well dowered, though, I understand, she does not know it. Has it occurred to thee to think, lad, that it’s scarcely fair to her to hold her to a promise she made when she may have been in despair and ready to snatch at any chance of escape from that wretched and, I fear me, God-accursed Burnplatts?”

“Why, no, father, I’ve never given much thought to the money; but as to holding Miriam or any other lass if she wanted to be free—why, you know, it isn’t in me to do it. We can soon put it to the touch. Tell her of her fortune.”

“That’s what I’m going to do this very night. Nay, more. Four hundred pound’s a meaningless sound to most folk, and how much more to one who probably never fingered a golden coin of her own in all her life. I’ve been down to the bank and drawn Miriam’s fortune. They wanted me to have it in notes; but I’d none of their notes. ‘Give it me in gold,’ I insisted, ‘all in gold.’ And I carried it to Pole Moor, and a rare weight it was. And it shall be heaped before her eyes, and she shall see the yellow glisten of it, and hear the rich chink of it, and handle, and, if she likes, fondle it, as they say misers do, that she may realise that it is a real thing and all her own, and that if she list she may shake the dust of Pole Moor from her feet and go out into the wide world with power to pick and choose.”

Amen, and Amen, said I very heartily, for did I not know my Miriam?

And then we heard the sound of merry chatter and girlish laughter outside the door, and the deep bass of a voice I knew to be Jim’s, and the clatter of clog toes kicked against the step.

“They’re back sooner than I expected,” said my father, “but it’s as well. We’ll get this job through to-night. That will be your friend James Haigh. It wonderful how set he seems to be on you. He’s been unremitting in his inquiries anent your health. It passes me when that young man sleeps. He’s been here up to all hours of the night, and then had to walk through snow and slush the weary, lonesome way over Stanedge to his home.”

Miriam and Ruth came into the room, their eyes bright, their cheeks glowing from the keen air and the healthful exercise. Jim followed somewhat sheepishly in their rear, carrying a big market basket full of groceries. He saluted my father respectfully then grasped my hand, now somewhat worn and white, in his big, horny fist.

“Well, Abe, lad, how’st ta feelin’ nah? Tha mun be comin’ to thi corn again, judgin’ bi th’ layin’-in o’ provender thi sister’s done to-neet. Aw just happened to be dahn i’ Slowit when they wer’ goin’ into th’ shop, so aw in after ’em to buy a bit o’ baccy. By gosh, lad—gosh is noan swearin’ aw hope, Mr. Holmes, aw mun say summat, an’ aw think nother ‘gosh’ nor ‘golly’ ’ll do onny harm—by gosh, lad, aw’m thinkin’ it’s consumptive tha art, th’ way they feed thee. Aw nobbut wish someb’dy stick a knife into me an’ lig me dahn on Pole Moor doorsteps. Golly, aw do sweat, it’s aboon a joke huggin’ a load like that fro’ th’ bottom to th’ sky-line.”

“Why, Jim,” cried Miriam, “you swore it was only a featherweight, and nothing would serve but that you must help Ruth up the hill on your arm.”

Jim’s face went brick-red.

“It’s only when aw come to put it dahn aw felt it,” he stammered.

“He only wants a pitcher of home-brewed,” declared Ruth. “I’ll fetch it when I’ve got my things off and put our shawls over th’ winter-hedge in front o’ th’ kitchen fire. I declare they’re sopping. But you mustn’t say ‘sweat,’ Jim. How often have I to tell you? Only horses sweat. You don’t sweat, you perspire.”

“Oh! don’t aw though?” said Jim. “Weel, aw thowt aw did; but mebbe you’re reet an’ aw only pusspire. But, onny road, sin’ yo’re so pressin’, aw don’t mind a thimbleful or so.”

“A thimbleful,” laughed Ruth, as she left the room to fetch the jug. “As well try to water a ten acre field with a squirt. I never did see the likes of you for home-brewed. It’s well you’ve got no brains to addle, or addled they’d have been long since.”

“Did you ever hear the like?” asked Jim of no one in particular. “It’s th’ only weakness aw’n getten, an’ it seems to me aw’m nivver to hear th’ last on it.” And he sighed resignedly.

Meanwhile my father had fetched the heavy kist entrusted to me by Mr. Garside from under his bed-head, which he had deemed the safest place to keep it. He placed it solemnly in the centre of the table, as solemnly unlocked it, and poured its glittering contents out in a golden shower. As I have said, there were a trinket or two besides the yellow coins, and, while Jim and I stared at the growing pile and grabbed the guineas to prevent them rolling on to the floor, Miriam and Ruth paid just no heed to the precious coins, but pounced with little cries of delight upon the gemmed brooches and rings, with happy cries of “Oh, isn’t it sweet? Look at this, darling, and at this,” and so on. And Miriam picked up a brooch that glistened and sparkled by the light of the lamp, and drew Ruth to a long looking-glass that hung on the wall, and pinned it on her frock, and kissed and hugged her, then kissed and hugged her again, and told her it suited her so it must have been made on purpose for her. Then when we’d all quieted down a bit, my father explained at length to Miriam that all this was her very own, and asked what she was minded to do with it.

“Weel, aw mun be goin’!” Jim began, before Miriam could find words to answer my father. “It’s gettin’ latish, n’, aw’ve a tidy step. Why, guise hang me, if it isn’t goin’ on for ten o’ clock.”

“Better stop all night, Jim,” pressed my father. “It’s a rough night and a dark. You must sleep with Abe and lose a quarter to-morrow.”

“Thi arm’s noan smittlin’, is it, Abe? All reet, then, aw’ll stop, an’ thank ye; but aw thowt happen yo’d like to talk this fortin’ job ovver among yersen.”

“Such nonsense,” said Ruth.

“What shall I do with it?” asked Miriam. “What shall I do with it? Why, what should I do with it but leave it where it is. Keep it, Mr. Holmes, keep it and use it as you think best. I’ve no use for it. I don’t want it. I won’t have it. Buy yourself a new top-coat with it. You do want a new top-coat—doesn’t he, Ruth?”

“Fudge!” quoth my father testily, for he was somewhat sore on this point. “That coat’s a good coat, a very good coat, and years of wear in it still, with care. I’m calculating on that coat lasting my time; and if I should live to see a grandson breeched, which please God I shall”—and his dear old eyes rested lovingly on me and Miriam, who blushed a rosy red—”there’s some very good patching in it for a bairn’s breeks. But as for keeping that store of golden gear, why, that’s stark nonsense. It’s yours, and, now you’ve seen it and handled it, if you’ve no present use for it let it e’en go back forthwith to the bank, and lie at usury against a rainy day. What do you say, Ruth?”

Now my sister was idly toying with the heaped coins, letting them slide through her fingers and tinkle pleasantly in the ear; but her face was full of thought. She ever had the brains of the family had Ruth, though she was, of course, not learned like my father. But I’ve often noticed that your learned man has little wit for everyday affairs.

“You two are both out of your time, aren’t you?” she asked all of a sudden.

“What’s that got to do with it?” I snapped.

“And do you mean to go on slaving for Mr. Wrigley all your days? A poor look out for the girl you’ve clapped your eyes on. Do you either of you ever look ahead, I wonder? Time doesn’t stand still, if you do. What’s the use of good money rusting in th’ Bank? Not that if you take it there it’ll stop there. Do you think th’ Bank ’ll just lock it up in a strong-box an’ pay you interest just for th’ fun o’ keepin’ it safe for you. Where do they get th’ interest from to pay you? Why, by lending your money to folk ’at have th’ brains to use it. Oh! I’ve no patience with you.”

Jim nudged me delightedly. “Oo’s on th’ scent,” he whispered. “Eh! what a head-piece—an’ to be wasted on a woman!”

“H’m, I suppose so. I never thought of that,” said my father.

“Well,” continued Ruth, “I haven’t read it in books; but it stands to sense someone must addle th’ brass for th’ Bank to pay interest with. Th’ Bank isn’t a cheese ’at breeds golden maggots all o’ theirsen. An’ what I want to know is, why can’t these two great babbies o’ ours find a use for this money, if Miriam’s willing to trust it to ’em, an’ make a better living for themselves and for those that’ll look to them for a home, than ever they’ll make giving th’ best o’ their days to Mr. Wrigley or th’ best master that ever stood on two legs?”

The sheer audacity of the suggestion took my breath away. I glanced at Jim. His chop had fallen, his eyes were glued on Ruth, and he breathed heavily. Miriam had jumped up and flung her arms round Ruth’s neck, and was almost crying with delighted excitement.

“ ‘Rem acu tetigisti,’ ” quoth my father, “which in the vulgar tongue, means, ‘Thou hast touched the matter with a needle’s point.’ ”

“To be sewer there’s Mitchell Mill,” breathed Jim, heavily, “’at’s been goin’ to wreck an’ ruin this monny a year for want o’ somebdy to run it. An’ Diggle Brook’s as good a run o’ watter as ivver turned a wheel. But th’ varry thowt on it ma’es mi yead turn. Has it just popped into thi yead, Ruth, or hast ta been brewin’ this new brew on th’ quiet?”

“That’s my business,” Ruth made reply.

“Main point is, is it a good brew? What do you say, father?”

“I say that it’s nearly midnight, and we’ll all go to bed and sleep on it. But first let us take the matter to the Lord in prayer.”

And we all knelt, and my father read the “Evening Portion” and then poured forth a long and fervent prayer for guidance and wisdom in this momentous crisis of our lives.

Jim had to be up next morning long before daybreak that he might be at his work when the shuttle was drawn and the big water-wheel, with many a creak and groan, began to turn lazily on its axle and send its power pulsing through the mill. I got up with him; for it was high time I gave up my invalid ways and set my thoughts towards the work that lay before me. Early as we were, Miriam and Ruth were afoot before us; and a bright fire burned in the kitchen grate, and the porridge steamed on the table, and there was the pleasing sizzle of ham frying in a pan, and the fragrance of coffee piping hot—the bean was at 3/6 a pound in those days—and home-made bread, white, and close, and flaky, and butter pats of Ruth’s own deft making.

“Aw’ve been thinkin’ ovver what yo’ said last neet, Ruth, about Mitchell Mill,” said Jim with his mouth full.

“It’s manners to swallow your food before trying to talk, and, besides, I never mentioned Mitchell Mill. It was you.”

“It’s th’ same thing,” said Jim.

“Oh! is it? Well, what about it?”

“Can you think and snore at the same time?” I queried, for indeed Jim’s head had scarcely touched the pillow before he was fast asleep, and I doubt if he had stirred till I had, with difficulty, roused him from the deep slumber of a healthy and weary man who had sat up long after his usual bedtime.

“Thee be quiet, Abe, aw’ve enough wi’ Ruth. One dog one bull’s fair play onny day i’ th’ week. Aw say aw’n bin turnin’ it ovver i’ mi yead abaat Mitchell Mill, an’ aw’n come to a conclusion.”

“An’ what might it be, O most sagacious of men?” asked Ruth pertly.

“Well, aw’n come to th’ conclusion,” said Jim slowly—”aw’ll tak’ another slice o’ that theer ham, if yo’ don’t mind, Miriam. Aw dunnot know if it’s th’ way th’ pig’s been fed or whether it’s summat i’ th’ air, but aw allus will maintain ’at there’s nowt to ekal Pole Moor ham. Aw dunnot wonder at th’ chap ’at left it i’ his will ’at he sud be buried wi’ ham if he’d ivver sampled yourn at th’ Pole.”

Clearly Jim was a diplomatist of the first order. If there was one thing above another Ruth prided herself upon it was her ham.

“It’s partly th’ feeding,” she said, “but it’s mainly th’ curing. I will say it, though maybe I shouldn’t, I can cure a ham.”

“That you can, Ruth. Nah, if my grammar ’ud nobbut bin gooid pig tha’d ha’ had me cured long sin’, but aw’m feart aw’m too far gone even for thee, lass. But about Mitchell Mill?”

“Yes, about th’ Mill?” I said somewhat impatiently.

“Weel,” said Jim, very deliberately, “as aw were sayin’, aw’ve turned th’ thing ovver i’ my yead, while yo’ were sleepin’ as if yo’ hadn’t a care o’ your mind, just like a new-born babby ’at knows it’s nowt to do but turn its yead an’ there’s th’ tit ready to its mouth, an’ aw’ve come to a concloosion. Aw’ll just ha’ th’ heel o’ that loaf, Miriam, an’ a morsel o’ butter on it to polish off wi’.”

“Oh! do get on,” cried Ruth, “you and your conclusions.”

“ ‘Most haste, least speed,’ aw’n heard mi mother say, likewise ‘Hurry no man’s cattle, yo’ may leet to ha’ a mule o’ your own some day.’ ”

“That’s very like,” quoth Ruth, “and a very stupid mule at that.”

“Meaning me,” said the imperturbable Jim, slowly plastering his crust with butter, “an’ thank you kindly for th’ compliment.”

“But really, Jim,” put in Miriam gently, “joking apart, we’re all agog to know what conclusion you’ve come to.”

“Speak for yourself,” snapped Ruth. “I’ve no patience with the man. Anyways, it’s time he was off if he means to get to Wrigley Mill this blessed morning.”

“An’ that’s just what aw dunnot mean,” said Jim. “Yo’ see, aw’st pass Mitchell Mill on my way down fro’ th’ Cutting, an’ aw happen to know th’ felly ’at keeps th’ keys, an’ aw’ll just mak’ it i’ mi way to ovverhaul that ramshackle owd buildin’ fro’ top to bottom. Aw’n thowt o’ a lie to tell him.”

“Oh! Jim,” cried Miriam.

“A lie to tell him,” continued Jim unabashed. “Yo’ see, it ’ud nivver do to let all th’ countryside know what we’re after. For one thing, though Mr. Wrigley’s a just man an’ varry religious, at least his missus is, an’ that’s th’ same thing, for it’s weel known who wears th’ breeches at th’ Holly Grove, he’ll noan be too weel pleased at another mill startin’ just under his nose, so to speik. An’ if it all come to nowt, Abe an’ me might find ussen whistlin’ for a job, an’ a bird i’ th’ hand’s worth two in th’ bush, as aw’n heard mi mother say. So aw’st just say at aw’m thinkin’ o’ keepin’ two or three hundred yead o’ powtry, and that’s all Mitchell Mill’s fit for till someb’dy’s spent a pretty penny puttin’ it to reets agen. Why, there’s a month’s work on th watter-wheel, but aw can see to that, thank God.”

“But that conclusion of yours,” insisted Miriam.

“Oh! that,” said Jim. “Weel, aw’ll tell yo’. Yo’ see this brass o’ Miriam’s nother Abe’s nor mine.

“Oh! but it is,” put in my love hastily.

“Axin’ yo’r pardon, it isn’t. An’ what aw mean to say is a felly may mak’ ducks an’ drakes o’ his own brass, an’ nob’dy’s onny right to say owt. But when it comes to lakin’ wi’ other folk’s gear he cannot be too careful. So aw’n come to th’ concloosion—”

“Well?” we all cried.

“To talk th’ matter ovver fully wi’ mi’ owd mother. Oo’s nobbut a simple body yo’ may think, an’ a working woman all th’ days o’ her life; but aw’n ne’er known her wrong yet, an’ aw reckon oo’s too old to begin.”

We all burst out laughing at what seemed, as the writer says, “a lame and impotent conclusion,” but I fancy there was a glimmer of a tear in Ruth’s eye as she jumped up and began to side the breakfast things and put fresh water on to boil for my father’s morning stirabout. But Miriam said:

“That’s a good and a wise thought of yours, Jim. And I’m sure Ruth and Mr. Holmes would be very pleased if you could prevail on your good mother to come up here some afternoon and have tea with us. Let me play hostess, Ruth. Can’t I give a tea-party out of this wonderful fortune of mine?”

“We don’t kill a pig every day,” supplemented Jim.

“Next Thursday night, then,” decided Ruth. “I’ll see father doesn’t get called out that night, and there’s no service for a wonder. And what do you say to asking Enoch Hoyle? He’s been among th’ cloth all his life, and should know something about it.”

“Oh! Enoch’s reight enough,” admitted Jim, “if he’ll nobbut keep off religion, which aw tak’ to be a matter needin’ a mighty bit o’ larnin’ to understan’; though why it sud be soa it ’ud puzzle a plain man to explain. Aye, we’ll ha’ Enoch. But nob’dy else. ‘Too monny cooks spoil the broth,’ as aw’n heard mi owd mother say.” And Jim, after shaking Miriam heartily by the hand and slapping me on the sound side of my back, set off Digglewards, Ruth finding it necessary to show him as far as the garden gate, though there was light enough by now, for we had lingered an unconscionable time over our meal, and surely Jim knew his way well enough by this time to find the gate blindfold.

And then began the preparations for that never-to-be-forgotten feast. Miriam insisted that her money should pay for all, and that there should be no stint. And Ruth let herself go. She had a natural genius for cooking, but up to that day she had, she declared, been like the ancient Israelites in Egypt, required to make bricks without straw. I had once aggravated her by telling her I had read that in France no one was considered a good cook who could not make ten different savoury dishes out of an old boot sole, and I am not sure that she had not tried to make a hot-pot out of an old slipper stewed with potatoes, carrots, turnips, and cabbage. But now!—my mouth waters yet as I think of the store of good things that the unwearying Enoch, who had been requisitioned as fetcher and carrier, brought up from Slowit to Pole Moor—what pokes of flour, parcels of raisins, and currants, and almonds, and baking powder, and tea, and coffee, and sugar. I myself beat eggs and cut pork into pieces like dice till my shackle ached—a huge pork-pie was to be what a friend of mine, who knows the lingo, tells me I ought to call the pièce de résistance of that immortal feast. There was to be white bread and brown bread, muffins hot and muffins cold, currant cake—not shouting cake, mind you, but rich, creamy cake, stuffed with fruit—seed cake, hardcakes, custards, blancmange, wobbly jellies of all the colours of the rainbow, mince-pies, apple charlotte, a stuffed chine, a roast goose with apple sauce, a boiled fowl with boiled ham, and that crowning glory, the pork-pie. My father would shuffle into the kitchen in his old list slippers, ever down at the heel, and raise his eyes and hands in mute protest against this sinful prodigality, only to be driven forth with laughter and caresses at the point of the rolling-pin. But worst offender of all was that sad deceiver, Enoch Hoyle, who smuggled into the kitchen a bottle of Jamaica rum, purchased at his own cost and charge, vainly endeavouring to excuse himself by the pretext that mincemeat wouldn’t keep without some mak’ of spirits, and that unless we’d what he called brown cream in our tea we should all die of indigestion. I don’t know what that goodly spread cost Miriam, but it was worth it all to see those two bonnie lasses in clean print frocks, their sleeves rolled up above their elbows, displaying their white rounded arms, picking raisins and currants, cutting candied lemon, kneading dough, pricking loaves and teacakes, dusting table tops with flour, greasing tins with larded paper, raking fires, banging oven doors, plucking fowls, paring apples, and all the while singing, and laughing, and joking, and ordering me and poor Enoch about without a with-your-leave or by-your-leave, or any ceremony whatever. Depend upon it your true woman loves to be bustling in her kitchen when she has plenty to go at.

And, when the eventful day arrived, of course Enoch was the first to turn up, being nearest. He was arrayed in his very Sundayest Sunday suit, black broadcloth, somewhat rusty to be sure, knee breeches, pale blue worsted stockings, oft darned, patched shoes with bright steel buckles, a satin stock, a frilled shirt front, and a broad-brimmed beaver hat, which he had borrowed for the occasion from an uninvited and envious neighbour. Then about two o’clock, after Ruth had run half a score of times to the road and strained her eyes down the valley, returning each time somewhat ruffled in temper, up came Jim and his mother, not as we had supposed on Shanks’ mare, but, if you’ll believe me, in a bone-shaking rattletrap of a gig which, with a sorry quadruped to draw it, Jim had beguiled the trustful landlord of the “Hanging Gate” to lend him for that day only. I hastened to help Mary out, and would have ushered her into the parlour, but that she declared she would not sit till such times as she had put herself to rights.

“Aw were nivver so shakken afore i’ my life, an’ nivver so fleyed. That hoss mun be of a varry pious frame o’ mind for it wanted to go down on its knees ivvry twenty yards. Up hill, an’ it’s mostly up hill, it puffed, an’ coughed, an’ wheezed—hoopin’ cough, an’ asthma, an’ brownchitis isn’t to be named i’ th’ same week wi’ th’ way that hoss went on. An’ down hill it were warse. Th’ harness may ha’ fitted it once, though aw doubt it. But now it fair dances all ovver th’ poor beast’s body. An’ th’ trap creaked, an’ groaned, an’ rattled, an’ th’ seat kept slippin’ up an’ dahn, an’ back’ards an’ forrards, till aw could nivver be sewer whether aw sud fall out at th’ back or tipple a somersaut ovver th’ hoss’s yead. Aw wanted to ger aat an’ walk, but Jim said this being th’ do as it is, it were nobbut a due compliment to Pole Moor to drive up i’ style. But aw’st noan go back i’ that owd bone-shaker if aw’m to crawl o’ my hands an’ knees ovver th’ moor. But theer! aw’m rested now, aw’ll turn to an’ wash some o’ them pots. My, what a seet o’ pots to be sewer. They’ll none be all your own, aw’m thinkin’.”

Ruth explained that we had ventured to borrow some of the crockery used for Chapel and Sunday school anniversaries.

“Oh! well, then, them ’versaries is some good,” commented Mary. “But see yo’,” she exclaimed suddenly, “if aw hadn’t clean forgotten. Wheer’s that Jim? In th’ shippon puttin’ owd Barebones up? He’ll be fodderin’ her wi’ mi’ parcel if aw’m noan quick.”

But at this moment Jim appeared with a great parcel, wrapped in thick brown paper, in his hands.

“Aw’m noan come empty-handed,” explained Mary, “it’s noan my way. I suppose it isn’t other o’ you young women’s birth-day, is it? No? Weel, it can’t be helped; we mun mak’ believe it is. Yo’ mun tak’ these wi’ my good wishes. Aw med ’em missen, an’ aw’m thinkin’ they’ll noan be th’ waur for bein’ hand-made. Men med machines, an’ aw’m not denyin’ some on ’em’s a fair marvel; but God med hands.” And Mary undid the parcel and proudly displayed its contents. My father had come into the kitchen and greeted Mary heartily, and won her heart at once by his kindly welcome and some quite unmerited praise of the graceless Jim. And now Mary drew forth a woollen comforter, long, broad, thick, and soft, that you could almost have wound round and round my father’s whole body.

“This is for you, Mr. Holmes, if yo’ll be so kind as to wear it. Aw’n often heard how yo’ go trapezin’ ovver th’ moors i’ all sorts o’ weather, which, axin’ yo’r pardon, yo’n no right to do at yo’r time o’ life, though weel aw know it’s waste o’ breath to gi’ guid advice to th’ best o’ men. An’ wishin’ yo’ health an’ strength to wear it threadbare an’ me to live to mak’ yo’ another when that’s done. An’ these vests is for yo’ lasses. Yo’ can wear ’em ovver yo’r shimmies i’ winter time; they’d happen be a bit rough next to th’ skin. An’ these stockin’s is for yo’ girls, too. They’re happen a bit big i’ th’ cauf o’ th’ leg, but yo’ll thicken aat theer afore them stockin’s is ready for th’ rag bag, and they’ll mak’ varry guid floorcloths then. Aw did think while aw were about it aw’d mak’ some little socks aat o’ th’ wool aw had to spare ’at ’ud come in handy some day. But aw once knew a woman, up Harrop Edge way—Laban’s wife, yo’d mebbe know her, sir—an’ oo med a set o’ babby things when oo’d nobbut just started courtin’, and never chick nor child did she have to wear ’em.” But here Jim and I were hustled out of the kitchen, and what other confidences Mary might have to narrate were reserved for gentler ears.

Now into the details of that great revel I must not enter. The meal had been put off an hour beyond our usual time, which was enough of itself to put an edge on appetites kept in good fettle by daily labour, frugal fare, cleanly lives, and mountain air. So that I fear we listened with little patience and not over-much attention to the long, long grace my father must needs offer before we were at liberty to fall to. I daresay there are people who wonder at those who take a delight in a hearty feed. I expect these are the folk who all their lives have always had more than enough to eat. We were not in that case—far otherwise. The fare at Pole Moor was ample enough, but ever of the plainest, porridge and buttermilk, buttermilk and porridge, bacon and pork, pork and bacon, with haver bread—Ruth had as neat a turn of the wrist for swishing the meal and water on to a bakestone as ever you saw—butcher’s meat and white bread perhaps once a week, and now and then a dish of tea. For puddings and pies we fell back on fruit of our own growing, rhubarb and gooseberries mainly. Now I’ve often reflected—there’s nothing like a good dinner for inducing pious meditation—that it is a sure proof of the infinite goodness and wisdom of the great Architect of the universe that the best and most wholesome and necessary things are ever the most abundant and cheapest, and accessible to all God’s creatures. What, for instance, is cheaper than cold water? And what water is to man, inside and outside, the stupid creature never realises till he is compelled at times to do without. What fruit of the earth can a man turn to with such unfailing relish as the potato that any cottager can grow on a rough patch of ground, what vegetable more medicinal than the cabbage, what fruit more toothsome than rhubarb when the shoots are yet tender, or the gooseberry whilst still green and tart. I suppose your “gret fo’k,” as Mary called the quality, set much store on their grapes, and pines, and peaches, and other precious fruits I don’t even know the names of, but old Dr. Dean—and a better doctor never trod—would often say that a man would sooner stall of grapes, and pines, and peaches, and all such fallalls, than he would of rhubarb and gooseberries, and that for keeping a man’s innards in order those luxuries of the rich were not to be mentioned in the same week with the hardy produce of the cottage garden. But, there, all these sage thoughts were very far from my head as I sat next to Miriam at table, and, what time I was not kept busy passing cups and plates, did my level best to eat up to the standard Jim had set for himself and confided to me for my own guidance. We had been taught in our early days that company manners forbade the partaking twice of the same dish, and Jim had carefully modelled his slow and steady progress through the viands on that precept. So his bill of fare, to which he heroically adhered, was something like this:—

Pork-pie—1 plateful.

Roast goose with apple sauce—1 plateful.

Roast fowl with ham—1 plateful.

Currant cake with cheese—1 slice.

Blancmange—1 plateful.

Jelly: yellow—1 plateful.

Jelly: pink—1 plateful.

Mince-pie with cheese—One.

Muffins, hard-cakes, brown bread, white bread-company manners fix no limit to these details.

Tea—Two cups; three if you’ve cheek to ask for them.

Now I think you’ll agree that was a square meal for one man; but you must remember Jim was six feet four in his stockings, and six feet four requires a lot of support. It is a mercy all had not the stature and the appetites of Jim and myself, else Ruth and Miriam would not have been busy, as they were for many a day after, making up little parcels of the fragments that remained, carrying them to those of our neighbours who most needed such help, that they too might rejoice in Miriam’s good fortune.

We had got to the final stage of the repast—the last cup of tea, the one in which the elders gravely stirred half a wineglass of Jamaica rum, and to which even Ruth and Miriam, faintly protesting, were induced to add a tiny spoonful just to flavour it, when Mary startled us all by saying:

“Han yo’ clapt e’en o’ Ephraim o’ Burnplatts up this way lately?”

“Why, Mary,” I said, for no one else seemed able to find a word, “I didn’t know you and Ephraim were acquaint.”

“No more we are,” she made answer. “Aw dunnot suppose he knows me fro’ Adam, leastwise fro’ Eve. But aw know him, an’ aw’n seen him more nor once sin Abe here’s bin ligged o’ his back. He’s bin hangin’ about th’ Weighkey a goodish bit—him an’ Tom Bradbury fro’ Bill’s o Jack’s are just as thick as thieves bi all accaants. Yo’ see, Mr. Holmes, aw dunnot go abaat much missen, as yo’ll weel understan’, for what wi’ bakin’, an’ brewin’, an’ fettlin’, an’ pearkin’ th’ pieces, an’ mendin’ Jim’s clo’es, an’ your Abe’s, an’ mi own, aw’n mi hands full, an’ aw’n no time for callin’ an’ runnin’ abaat fro’ door to door sortin’ he-says an’ oo-says; but th’ hands at Wrigley Mill’s in an’ out o’ yar haase for one thing an’ another till it’s awmost like Lee Gap, an’ keep th’ door-step onny bit like one woman cannot do, an’ use th’ scraper an’ th’ door-mat they winnot do. But, of coorse, aw cannot shut mi ears to what’s goin’ on. An’ they do say ’at Ephraim’s fair thrown in wi’ them Bradburys, which who’d ha’ thowt it after that do at Huddersfilt ovver them hares. But they do say ’at when they aren’t at “The Bell” at Delph, or at “Th’ Cross Keys,” or at “Th’ Swan,” reelin’ fro’ one public-haase to another, Ephraim spends all his time at “Th’ Moorcock” at Bill’s o’ Jack’s. An’, what’s more, they sen ’at he’s larnin’ to be a gamekeeper, an’ is goin’ to be takken on bi th’ Bradburys an’ live wi’ ’em reg’lar—which set a thief to catch a thief’s bin done afore now”—and here Mary paused for breath, or, as Jim put it, “bet back a bit for another jump.”

My father shook his head gravely. “Like will to like,” he said. “There have ever been men, aye, since the world began, who, like Nimrod, the son of Cush, have been ‘mighty hunters before the Lord.’ Likewise have there been men like unto Ishmael, the son of Hagar, ‘wild men’ whose hands are against every man, and every man’s hands against them—rebels, as it were, against God and man, beings whom the yoke of society and civilisations chafes and galls, and their whole life is spent in feverish efforts to throw it off. It may well be that the blood of some far-off ancestor of the Eastern deserts stirs in the veins of this misguided young man. ’Twill be to him as a very gadfly, and if he have not—as how can he have?—the restraining influence of the Gospel, must he not ever follow the promptings of the flesh nor heed those of the spirit? I would fain see this youth, a comely lad as I remember him. May be he might yet be plucked as a brand from the burning. Was there not the godly John Bunyan, who wrote that ever blessed book, ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress,’ who yet in his hot, rebellious youth was a haunter of taverns, a thrower of dice, a blasphemer, aye, even guilty of denying the Holy Ghost. Yet did the Lord raise up in him a very prodigy of grace. Aye, aye, we’ll not abandon hope, even for such as Ephraim.”

“Aw’n often heard,” quoth Mary, who had listened to my father’s words with a deference she rarely accorded to the speech of mere man, “aw’n often heard, axin’ your pardon if aw’n puttin’ my spoke in, ’at a reformed rake ma’es th’ best o’ husbands; but aw dunnot know”—and here Mary shook her head doubtfully—“aw dunnot know, my ’Lijah were nowt o’ a rake hissen, other afore or ’at after we were wed, so aw cannot say for certain, but aw sud always be in fear an’ tremblin’ ’at if a man had once tasted th’ flesh-pots o’ Egypt he’d ha’ a hankerin’ after th’ smell an’ taste o’ ’em as long as he lived.”

“By gow, hearken to that,” whispered Jim in my ear, “if th’ owd woman isn’t quotin’ Scriptur’ to thi father. It’s like teichin’ your granny how to suck eggs.”

I saw my father was ready to mount his horse theologic, and I was by no means minded that our feast should become an occasion for a sermon. So I hastened to draw a herring across the trail:

“Father,” I broke in irrelevantly, “have you spoken to Enoch about our little venture at Mitchell Mill?”

“Now that’s well remembered, Abe,” my father was pleased to say. “Let us return thanks to the Giver of all good things for these His mercies, and Enoch and I will smoke a pipe in my study, and we’ll all take counsel together so soon as you women folk have cleared away. I should like to know what Mary has to say. But first I’ve my little surprise.” And my father, promising to be back anon, went slowly upstairs to his little bed-chamber, returning presently bearing in his hands what looked like an old cigar-box.

“This was your mother’s, Ruth,” he said very solemnly, “my dear saint in heaven’s. She used to keep her hus-wife, and her needles, and pins, and threads, and hooks, and eyes, and buttons, and beads, and button-hook, and I know not what else in it at one time. Then she took to storing little coins in it, wrapped singly in bits of paper, the rare savings from the egg and butter money. Then when your great aunt Rachel died without a will your mother fell to a small share of her money. Over sixty pounds it was, and your mother could never bear the thought of setting the money out to usury. She kept it in this same box, and since the Lord in His wisdom took her home I’ve added to it mite by mite as I could spare it. It was to be for Ruth here, her mother ever said, when she should wed. And if she’s to be a sort of partner in Mitchell Mill, why it will be a comfort to me to be rid of the money, and may God grant it increase.”

In vain Ruth declared she wouldn’t touch a penny of it, in vain she scolded my father for pinching himself unbeknown to her to provide for a strong, lusty, young woman, able to look after herself and him, too—my father was adamant; and Enoch Hoyle put an end to the fruitless discussion by rising from table, carefully dusting the crumbs from his coat and breeches, and moving towards the study:

“While yo’n bin fratchin’,” he said, “or as yo’ may say, argey-bargeying, aw’n bin thinkin’, an’ though Enoch Hoyle’s noan a scholard an’ farlearned, he’s noan ’bout wit wheer cloth comes in. Aw’n heerd a whiff abaat this Mitchell Mill job, though aw’ll grant yo’n bin unco’ canny abaat it an’ kep’ mum an’ close, which happen it’s as weel.”

Mary would have gone into the kitchen to help in the siding-up; but my father insisted that she too should be of our counsel.

“Now, Brother Hoyle,” hinted my father, when the churchwardens were lit.

“Axin’ yo’r pardon, Mr. Holmes,” said Enoch, “this is a company day, an’ we’ll ha’ company manners. Aw’m noan th’ buck aw used to be afore aw were soundly converted an’ dipped, but aw’n noan forgetten behaviour. Aw’ll mak’ way for Mistress Haigh here, by yo’r leave, though aw mun say that i’ things spiritooal—which this isn’t—aw howd firmly wi’ Saint Paul—see Corinthians one, fourteen, thirty-four an’ five, if aw remember reetly—when he says, under th’ inspiration o’ th’ Holy Ghost, bein’ as it were th’ amanooensis o’ th’ Spirit: ‘Let your women keep silence in the churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home; for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.”

“Yo’ bottle ’em up i’ th’ church,” whispered that irrepressible Jim, “an’ th’ stuff comes aat wi’ a bang an’ splathers all ovver th’ floor when yo’ poo’ th’ cork aat at whom.” Then aloud, encouragingly, “Tell ’em what yo’n thowt on an’ towd me afore we come.”

“Well, Mr. Holmes, and kind sirs all,” began Mary, and I knew from this mode of address that Mary had foreseen this occasion and that we were to hear what I have seen called in the newspapers a considered opinion. “Well, sirs, if a poor widder woman’s opnion’s o’ onny, valley, which aw’m not gainsayin’ it may be, aw’m thinkin’ they met do waur. There’s one thing sartin sure, ’at they’ll n’er do mich guid as they are. Matthy Haley’s getten th’ only shop worth owt mich at Wrigley Mill, an’ aw reckon Matthy’s a sticker, which nob’dy can blame him for that. There’s yar Jim theer tentin’ th’ engine and tunin’ th’ looms, an’ noan so bad for a lad ’at could awmost go to th’ hedge an’ see his nippins, axin’ yo’r pardon, aw’m sewer, for mentionin’ sich things, but it’s a way o’ speakin’ an’ will aat. An’ there’s yo’r Abe. Weel, a weiver’s a weiver all th’ world ovver, an’ weivin’ nobbut poverty-knockin’ when all’s said an’ done. Nah! aw’m noan so owd yet, but aw’n known dozens on dozens i’ this Valley an’ o’er th’ top (over Stanedge) ’at’s started for theirssen on a varry little brass, an’ wheer are they nah? Why tak’ Mr. Wrigley hissen, then there’s th’ Buckleys, an’ th’ Malalieus, an’ owd Farrar down i’ th’ bottom—oh! ivver so monny on ’em. An’ it’s gen’ly bin wi’ brass ’at’s come to ’em through th’ women. Other they’n wed it or some owd maid i’ th’ family ’at’s welly clammed hersen to death’s left it ’em. Aw know they like to ma’ it aat when they’n getten on i’ th’ world ’at it’s all their own clivverness, an’ prudence, an’ self—what do yo’ ca’ it?”

“Self-denial,” suggested my father.

“That’s it, an thank yo’, sir, but aw’m no scholar missen, self-denial, but yo’ mun tell that to th’ Horse Marines, as they seyn, though who th’ Horse Marines may be aw’n no more notion nor a babe unborn. There were nivver a weiver i’ this world ’at could keep hissen, an’ bring up a wife an’ childer, an’ save owt to speik on afore he were long too owd to think o’ startin’ for hissen; all th’ best o’ his days an’ strength gone i’ keepin’ body an’ soul together an’ pilin’ up a fortin’ for other fo’k. But a’ that’s nother here nor theer. In th’ blessed dispensation of providence an’ Mr. Garside, which aw’d nivver ha’ thowt it to look at him, an’ not forgettin’ yo’r gooid lady, Mr. Holmes, rest her soul, here th’ brass is to us hands, an’ th’ question is, what mun they do with it?”

“Th’art gettin’ to it, mother,” put in Jim. “Tha’s gone a long road round, but it’s happen for th’ gainest.”

Ruth and Miriam came in at this juncture, all spick and span, and Ruth very brazenfacedly, as I thought, squeezed down by the side of Jim on the settle, a tight fit, whilst Miriam, as had become her wont, nestled on a hassock by my father’s side, and stole a hand, still moist from much washing-up, into his.

“For shame of yourself, Jim,” quoth Ruth severely. “Please go on, Mrs. Haigh. Jim knows no better.”

“Crushed again,” said Jim meekly. “If aw were nobbut a bit less or thee a bit bigger, Ruth, aw’d teich thee th’ respec’ due to a man. Tha’ sud read what Saint Paul says. If ivver aw live to ha’ a house o’ mi own aw’ll ha’ that tex’ hung up conspicuous. But ger on, mother. Tha’s none run thissen dahn yetten, aw know.”

“Weel, now, about Mitchell Mill.” Mary took up her parable again. “Yo’ll noan be killed wi’ rent, that’s one gooid thing. An’ there’s a gooid run o’ watter, an’ there’s nob’dy aboon th’ stream to run yo’r wheel dry nor yet to foul th’ watter for th’ dye-house an’ scourin’ hoil. Then yo’ know yo’ll be near th’ cut an’ th’ tunnel under Stanedge, an’ that’ll come in gain for gettin’ yo’r stuff in an’ for sendin’ yo’r pieces out. But it’s abaat th’ hands aw’m most moithered. Yo’ see there’s nother on yo’ bin used to havin’ other fo’k under yo’, and as for yar Jim he’s that soft a gooid-lookin’ weiver or piecener or hurler could lake all day afore his varry e’en an’ mak’ believe oo were workin’ hersen to skin an’ bone an’ he’d nivver know. That’s th’ weak spot.”

Jim sighed heavily. Ruth regarded Mrs. Haigh with some disfavour.

“But aw’n bin thinkin’,” resumed Mary, “’at aw could see to that. If aw can addle a livin’ at whom burlin’ for Mr. Wrigley, aw can soor-lee do as mich i’ a mill-chamber workin’ for mi own son an’ pardner. Yo’ see aw’m thinkin’ aw’st na ha’ Jim to do for long”—and here Mary shot a sly glance at Ruth, which instantly smoothed that maiden’s ruffled feathers—“an’ time ’ll lig heavy o’ mi hands. Aw’st noan kill yo’ for wage. It’s little aw want, an’ if aw cannot shape for mi own lad it’s a bonny come-off.” And here Mary audibly sniffed and passed a trembling hand across her eyes. Jim got up and crossed the little room and patted his mother on the back with his big hand.

“That’s all reight, mother. Owt tha says goes, doesn’t it, Abe?”

“Mary knows that,” I said promptly.

“Then there’s th’ spinnin’,” continued Mary, recovering her composure and smiling at Jim bravely. “There’s these young lasses, axin’ yo’r pardon if aw mak’ too free, what’s to hinder them fro’ doin’ a seet on it at whom, leastwise till th’ babbies come, aye, an’ at after that, if they’ve hauf th’ sperrit aw think they han. Aw’ll teich ’em, an aw’n a spindle put by at whom awmost as gooid as new. Yo’ see if yo’n to ha’ a chance to get on to yo’r feet yo’ mun cut dahn th’ expenses at ivvery turn.”

“Oh! I’ll spin fast enough,” cried Ruth. “It’ll be nothing to turning a man round my little finger.”

“And wheer do aw come in?” asked Enoch, who had, doubtless with difficulty, kept silence for quite an unwonted while.

“Aye, aye, Brother Hoyle, and what do you say?” asked his pastor.

“Weel,” began Enoch with great promptitude, for he needed no pressing to speech, and was like our old eight-days clock, in that when once wound up he must needs be suffered to run down at his own sweet will. “Weel, aw think aw see mi way clearly to be o’ mich profit to yar young folk, an’ not forgettin’ missen at th’ same time, for is not the labourer worthy of his hire, and is it not written that thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn? Aw tak’ it that nother Abe here nor Jim knows mich abaat wool, nor yet abaat the buyin’ thereof. Nah yo’ know aw’n wovven guid wool an’ bad wool all th’ days o’ mi life, an’ what aw dunnot know abaat th’ feel, aye, an’ th’ smell, an’ th’ look o’ wool isn’t worth knowin’. Aw can mind th’ time when th’ packmen used to come ovver fro’ Halifax bi Merry Dale, an’ th’ Valley were fair musical with th’ jingle o’ th’ bells on their pack-horses’ necks. Ah! them were th’ days when yo’ could leet on a mort o’ cheap wool. But th’ wool-stapplers ha’ mostly done away wi’ all that, an’ yo’re more or less at their mercy nowadays, an’ it tak’s a sma’ man all his time to live. But there’s brass to be saved yet bi gerrin’ among th’ farmers on th’ moor-sides at th’ sheep-shearing, an’ buying th’ fleeces. An’ aw think, if it’s all th’ same to yo’, aw’ll just devote my talents to that department. Aw’m hale an’ hearty yet, an’ aw’m weel known. Not but what it’s a pity this didn’t happen thirty year sin’. All mi life aw’ve felt aw were called to greater things nor pushin’ th’ beam o’ a hand-loom, an’ throwin’ th’ shuttle, an’ workin’ th’ treddle, hand an’ fooit an’ back an’ eye all on th’ stretch together. An’ now th’ time’s come—th’ hour’s here, an’ th’ man’s here, an’ his name’s Enoch Hoyle. Nah so mich for th’ wool-buyin’. But it’s one thing to buy wool, an’ it’s another to mak’ it into stuff ’at’ll sell. An’ other o’ yo’ two young men gi’en a thowt to what mak’ o’ stuff yo’re goin’ to manifactur’?”

I looked at Jim and Jim looked at me, both very blankly. Neither spoke.

“Aw thowt as mich. Nah, it’s easy enough to talk o’ startin’ manifact’rin’ o’ yo’r own accaant; but th’ thing is to know what to mak’. Yo’n noa too mich brass to lake wi’; an’ yo’n yo’r name to make. Yo’ll be wantin’ to mak’ summat cheap an’ wi’ a ready sale: summat yo’ll noan sink mich brass in an’ at yo’ can shut as quick as yo’ can get it off th’ looms. Nah! han yo’ turned yo’r thowts to approns, linsey approns?”

Jim and I were still mute.

“Aw thowt as mich,” pursued Enoch triumphantly. “Yo’ were goin’ to manifactur’, but what yo’ were goin’ to manifactur’ yo’d no more thowt nor th’ babe unborn. Weel, if yo’n be guided by owd Enoch, yo’ll start wi’ approns, linsey approns. They’re rough, they’re cheap, if there’s a flaw or two i’ th’ weivin’ it’s no gret matter, an’ yo’ can deal wi’ th’ higglers direct. Then work yo’r way through approns, linsey approns, to flannel shirtin’s an’ shawls, an’ i’ ten years’ time, when owd Enoch ’ll happen be under th’ sod—all that’s mortal on him, but Enoch hissen castin’ down his crown afore the golden throne when th’ Lord’s med up his jewels—i’ ten years’ time, aw say, it’ll be sooin enough to talk o’ makkin’ gooid broad cloth. Yo’ll know th’ tricks o’ trade bi then, an’, God willin’, yo’ll ha’ med yersens a name an’ ha’ put a bit bye to launch out wi.”

“It seems to me,” said my father, “that Brother Enoch speaks the words of wisdom.”

whispered Ruth,

CHAPTER X.

MITCHELL MILL.

I imagine few masters behave as handsomely by their men as Mr. Wrigley did by Jim and me when the news spread like fire from Harrop Green to Greenfield that Parson Holmes’s and Jim o’ ’Lijah’s, th’ Tuner, had dropped into a fortune and were going to start on their own bottom at Mitchell, commonly called Mickle Mill. “It’ll ta’ a guidish mony o’ them sort o’ mickles to ma’ a muckle,” the village wit had prophesied; but Mr. Wrigley was not among the croakers. He sent for Jim and me into the counting house, if so big a name can be given to the little office in which he kept his books and paid the wages each Saturday noon. Mr. Wrigley, I have said, was a man of few words, but a just.

“And so you youngsters are going to run Mitchell Mill?” he said.

“We’re going to try,” I answered meekly, almost feeling that I was doing Mr. Wrigley a personal injury.

“It’s a grave step,” he said, “a very grave step. But you’ve youth and courage. Never lose courage, whatever else you lose. There’s a saying I remember—it isn’t in the Bible, for I’ve looked for it from Genesis to Revelations. Perhaps it’s in th’ ‘Pocrypha—there’s a lot o’ good things in th’ ’Pocrypha—‘He who loses fortune loses much, who loses friends loses more, but who loses courage loses all.’ My first an’ last word to you both is, ‘Go steady an’ keep your tails up.’ If you ever want a bit of advice, don’t be too proud to ask, it, and you know where to come for it. What’s in these envelopes is from Mrs. Wrigley and myself. They should have been wedding presents—oh! we aren’t deaf at Holly Grove but I daresay it’ll come in handy now. Now be off with you, I’m busy. Oh! and I was to tell you to be sure to be at service next Sunday night and stop for th’ prayer meeting.”

We opened the envelopes when we got outside. There was a new Bank of England note for five pounds in each, fresh and crisp, straight from the bank.

“Aw’st go to that prayer meeting,” said Jim, “if aw nevver go to another. The Lord send we aren’t Matthy Haley’d to death, that’s all. But aw’m thinking th’ prayers ’ll be fro’ Mrs. Wrigley an’ th’ brass fro’ Mr. Wrigley, an’ wi’ all respec’ for th’ fair sex, gi’ me th’ brass.”

In this innuendo, however, it turned out that Jim did less than justice to the mistress of Holly Grove; for not to be outdone in magnanimity by her lord and master she invited my father, and Ruth, and Miriam—I can imagine with some misgivings in her case—and Mother Haigh, and Jim, and myself to high tea at Holly Grove. She accompanied the invitation to my reverend sire by an intimation that she would be much obliged if he would conduct a service in Wrigley Mill itself, for she was of opinion, she added, that, though tea drinkings and such like festivities might occasionally be conceded to the frailties of the flesh, such a crisis as had now been reached in the fortunes of Jim and myself were better marked by prayer if not by fasting. In this observation I can imagine my father wholeheartedly concurring, though I doubt his acquiescence when Mrs. Wrigley went on to deplore that the pastor of Pole Moor had wedded himself to the tenets of hyper-Calvinism, she herself finding, she averred, that doctrine but as dry ashes compared with the comforting and inspiring teaching of the sainted John Wesley.

The invitations to Mary Haigh, and Jim, and myself were not conveyed by word of mouth, as they might easily and at no cost have been, but reached us on separate and individual missives, at Mary’s house in Wrigley Mill Fold, by the Royal Mail. Never before in our lives had any one of us three residents in Mary’s humble cottage received a letter so transmitted, and each one of us twisted and turned the document about before mustering courage to break the wafers securing the letters.

“Whativver in the name o’ goodness is this?” exclaimed Mary. “Here, Abe, this’ll be for yo’, though, to be sewer, th’ postman swore it were for me. Aw weren’t for takkin’ it, but he’d noan tak’ it back. Aw’n noan oppened it, catch me at it. Aw’n more sense nor that. Aw nivver knew anyone ’at aw knew ha’ a letter bi post but Jane Stewart, an’ that wer’ to say their Moll ’ud run away wi’ a sojer. There’s bad luck i’ them innercent looikin’ bits o’ papper. Aw feel it i’ mi bones. When folk han onny gooid news to tell they bring it theirsen.”

“Weel, here goes,” said Jim, opening his letter with the air of one leading’ a forlorn hope, “let’s be knowing th’ warst on it. Read it out, Abe, unless bi onny chance it’s fro’ your Ruth, i’ which case aw’ll just off to Pole Moor an’ ax her to read it for me hersen.”

When Jim and his good mother realised that Mr. and Mrs. Wrigley desired the pleasure of their company to tea at ‘Holly Grove I doubt whether their pleasure and pride were equal to their consternation. To be sure, they had sat at table with the master and mistress of Holly Grove at Sunday school treats. That was one thing, but it was quite another to be specially invited as guests to Holly Grove; just as, I suppose, it is one thing to sit at one end of the table at a public banquet and see a Royal Prince, with a powdered flunkey at his back, and quite another to receive a pressing invitation to dine at Buckingham Palace: though, I suppose, even in the former case, as in the latter, you can go about for the rest of your life bragging that you’ve dined with Royalty. I knew a man that did. But that’ not to my story.

“Weel! aw nivver did!” gasped Mary. “Oh! my poor heart, it’s all o’ a quivver. Aw knew that dratted letter ’ud upset me for th’ rest o’ th’ week.

“Weel, there’s one gooid thing aw’n that silk gown mi aunt left me ’at aw’n had laid by i’ th’ prass these twenty year i’ lavender, an’ wi’ camphor to keep th’ moths off. There’ll be a seet o’ seams to be let out, to be sewer, for mi naunts were one o’ th’ lean kine, not to speak disrespectful o’ one ’at’s dead an’ gone, but truth’s truth an’ ’ll allus go farthest, choose what yo’ say. An’ even then aw’m feart aw’st ha’ to be poo’d into th’ frock bi horsepower, an’ it’ll give all ovver. But aw’ll n’er heed if it’ll last this do an’ yo’r two weddin’s. Aw’m noan likely to want it again. Aw’d aimed to leave it to Ruth after aw deed. But nah, aw’st wear it at th’ Holly Greave if it strangles me. Out o’ mi seet, yo’ grinnin’ lads, and mind how yo’ speik to me till this thing’s off mi mind.” And Mary went upstairs to the sacred press in a highly perturbed state of mind.

“We’re coming up i’ th’ world mighty quick,” quoth Jim, shaking his head very solemnly. “Aw’n heered abaat a chap ’at went up like a rocket an’ cum dahn like a stick, an’ aw’m feart this may be just such another do. Aw’n a gooid mind just to step ovver to th’ Pole an’ talk it ovver wi’ yo’r Ruth. Aw’n two neck-cloths, one’s a breet green an’ t’ other’s a mottled ’un, an’ aw wonder which oo’d like me to wear at th’ Holly Greave,” he concluded somewhat lamely.

“Yo’ll do nothing of the sort,” I said with emphasis. “Our Ruth will tie you to her apron strings fast enough, I can tell you, without your trapezing off to Pole Moor every five minutes to ask her to do it. You’ll just off with me to Mitchell Mill and set to work on that water-wheel. It will take us all our time to get things ship-shape by the day we’ve fixed for getting th’ looms in.

“Tha’rt a hard taskmaster, Abe,” sighed the love-sick giant. “When aw swopped Mester Wrigley for going partner wi’ yo’ aw just jumped out o’ th’ frying-pan into th’ fire. Aw’n put in more time at Mitchell Mill nor ever aw thowt it possible for one man to put in, an’ th’ sweat’s run off me like fat out o’ a Michaelmas gooise i’ a hot oven. But aw’ll do thee justice, Abe, tha’rt noan one to ax another to do what tha’rt noan ready to do thissen. Tha’s swept an’ painted an’ mortared an’ whitewashed inside an’ outside yond’ owd mill till tha stinks o’ turps, an’ limewash is all ovver thi yure (hair) an’ face an’ han’s an’ cloas to sich a tune tha’d do for a churchyard monniment, an’ afore tha can go other to th’ Hollygreave or onny other decent body’s haase aw’st ha’ to put thee i’ th’ scourin’ pan and steam thee, an’ then scrub thee dahn wi’ th’ besom.”

And indeed Jim and I had our hands full. Mitchell Mill had been long untenanted, and had fallen into sad disrepair inside and out. The thatch had fallen in in places, the doors hung on their hinges, there wasn’t a whole window to the place, the mill-dam needed dredging, head-goit and tail-goit cleansing, the water-wheel ought justly to have been mended with a new one—but that was out of the question. But the masonry was good and solid, the floorings sound, and the iron of the gearing, though rusted, still firm. And we got a lease renewable at option for a nominal rental, and that meant a lot to us. Of course, we couldn’t afford to employ slaters, or thackers, or masons, or carpenters, or painters, or millwrights; so we perforce turned ourselves into Jacks-of-all-trades. I made but poorly out except at the lighter jobs, but that Jim, though with many a grunt and groan more than half make-believe, did the work of six men. He had the strength of a Goliath, and could turn it to any use. Only give him plenty to eat and a fair allowance of his favourite homebrewed and Jim seemed as fresh as new paint and ready to start again after doing a day’s work that would have made every bone in my body ache for a week.

Now, in my young days I confess to a fondness for reading the works of Mr. Robert Owen, of Lanark, and, to be sure, we are all taught to believe in the brotherhood of man and to bear one another’s burden, and that may mean that the strong should cheerfully earn the whole cake and give the better half of it to the weak, thankful to be able to do it. And I suppose in a perfect state a man will do his day’s work just because it is his day’s work, and be content to share and share alike with a brother who either can’t or won’t do his. But, alas! we don’t live in a perfect state, and human nature will have a long way to travel before it ceases to be true that if you want to get the best out of a man set him to work for himself. Anyhow—I’m no philosopher—Jim and I toiled in those early days at Mitchell Mill, and for many a long year thereafter, like galley-slaves. We had a long row to hoe, and we knew it. And were there not Miriam and Ruth to cheer us when we despaired, and to lighten our toil by all the arts of loving and good women.

Now, one day in mid-March, whom should we spy seated on a low wall near the mill dam but that queer, uncanny Burnplatter, that same Daft Billy who had fetched me from the watch-night service to the bedside of old Mother Sykes, and who, I had reasons for believing, had carried me to my father’s door after Ephraim had left me for dead on Stanedge top. I could never quite get over a sort of shrinking from the man, but I knew that he loved Miriam as the hound loves its master, and hoped that for Miriam’s sake he would do me no ill if he did me no good. So I went to him with outstretched hand—which he disregarded—and asked him to share the beef and bread and cheese and onions which Jim and I had brought in our handkerchief for our mid-day meal.

“Aw want nowt to eit,” he said, with, I thought, scant courtesy. “Aw want to speik to thee private.” He scowled in the direction of poor Jim, and added, “Send yon’ hulkin’ fooil out o’ earshot.” I gave Jim a hint, and he took his tea-cake and pitcher to another part of the mill.

“Now, what is it?” I asked anxiously. “Nothing wrong with Miriam?”

“Not yetten.”

“But you fear harm to her?”

“Aw shouldn’t be here else. It’s none for love o’ you.”

I quite thought I could believe that.

“Well, well?”—impatiently.

“It’s Eph.—an’ them Bradburys. Leastwise, th’ young ’un.”

“But Tom o’ Bill’s a married man, with a family at that—what can he want with Miriam?”

“Oh! mostly to spite thee, aw reckon. He wants none o’ th’ lass. He’s his hands full at whom; but he’d hit thee through Miriam if he can.”

Now that was a very long speech for the taciturn Burnplatter, and ’twere wearisome to tell at large how, bit by bit, like getting gold out of quartz, I got from Daft Billy the story he had to tell.

It would seem, then, that my old friend and later rival and foe, Ephraim, aforetime poacher and horsedealer, had now quite cast in his lot with the gamekeepers at the Moorcock Inn. He was persuaded, too, that by right divine he was now King of the Burnplatters, in joint succession with Miriam to old Mother Sykes, whom, it appeared, that unruly tribe had regarded as their rightful Queen and head. Ephraim was not disposed to take his kingship lightly. He had exacted an oath of fealty from the Burnplatters, and trusted to his new-born friendship with the Bradburys to secure them a certain immunity from the ministers of the law, But he felt, as the most intense conviction of his being, that Miriam was destined alike by Nature, by kinship—he knew nothing, of course, of Mr Garside’s revelation—by their upbringing, and, he believed, by her own predilection, to be alike his bride and queen consort of the Burnplatters. Daft Billy often came across him on his wanderings over the moors that lie between Greenfield and Pole Moor, and had, as I could well imagine under no great pressure, accepted Ephraim’s invitations to drink. Ephraim would begin on ale, of which he would quaff great draughts, without appearing a penny the worse, and then, declaring that ale lay too cold on his stomach, would call for brandy. Now, though I am not learned in these matters, as how should I be, I have always understood that no greater error can be made than to mix your liquors. I cannot understand how this should be, for one would have said that alcohol is alcohol whether derived from the grain or vine. But so I am assured it is; and Daft Billy left me no room to doubt that when Ephraim had got well under way with the brandy bottle all the baser and more repulsive nature of the man betrayed itself. He would begin by boasting, bragging of his own good looks, and strength, and prowess, and skill as a judge and swapper of horse flesh; then he would fall to maudlin talk of his and Miriam’s childhood days, and of her girlish awe and admiration and affection for him; then he would flare up into wild denunciations of myself: he would cut my liver out and throw it to his dog to eat; he would set fire to Mitchell Mill and break every loom to stivers and burn every piece; he would break me in body and in fortune; he would mar me that no maid would look on me but with loathing; he would show Miriam which was the better man: he would—and this was really the gravamen of Daft Billy’s story—beguile her from the safe keeping and, as he deemed them, evil and corrupting influences of Pole Moor, and, will she nill she, make her his wedded wife.

“But all this,” I commented, “is but the raving of a drunken sot. People who really intend mischief don’t go babbling their designs over a pot. They lie low and keep their mouths shut. Then their blow falls like lightning out of a summer sky. Besides, there’s law in the land. As for the mill and our pieces, Jim and I can look after them. And as for Miriam—why, we aren’t in the Highlands of Scotland, where such things might be, but in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and, anyway, Miriam is not the girl to be forced into marriage by Ephraim Sykes and all the Burnplatters put together.”

But Daft Billy was not to be moved by all my eloquence.

“Yon lad means mischief,” he said. “He’d care not a snap of his fingers for all th’ law i’ England. He’s just out of his senses, what wi’ brandy an’ what wi’ jealousy, an’ what wi’ longing for the maid hersen. An’ when a man’s mad, he’s mad; an it s just sheer nonsense argeying about him as if he were i’ his reet senses. He’ll stick at nowt an’ damn the consekences.”

“But what’s to be done?” I asked with some impatience, for to tell the truth I attached mighty little importance to Daft Billy’s story. “Jim and I can’t put Mitchell Mill in our pockets and carry it about with us. And we can’t keep Miriam under lock and key till we’re wed—and that won’t be for many a long day, worse luck. And it would never do to breathe a word to Miriam about the matter. The girl’s happy enough now. Why, Billy, you would scarce know her for the same girl. Why don’t you come to Pole Moor and drink a dish of tea with my father like a Christian man? Then you can see for yourself what a change has come over the dear lass.”

“She ailed nowt afore ’at aw e’er saw,” averred Billy stoutly.

“She’s as happy as the day’s long,” I went on. “She’d but a dark childhood and maidenhood. But now the clouds have passed from her young life and her nature opens and blooms and is fragrant with sweet perfume like a rose under the summer sun. Ah! Billy, ’t would do your heart good to see the glad light in her eyes and hear the glad song of her as she goes about her work. I’m not going to darken her days for her by filling her mind with bogeys. Besides, again, what could we do?”

“Aw’n thowt o’ that,” said that daft man curtly. “Don yo’ think aw’n ta’en trouble to come here just to fley yo’? That’s noan my way. Aw tell yo’ aw’m as sewer as ivver aw were o’ owt ’at one road or other Ephraim ’ll try to get howd o’ Miriam, an’ if once oo gets into his clutches when th’ drink’s in him an’ all his evil passions burnin’ hot as hell flames, don yo’ think it likely oo’ll escape wi’out hurt? Does a moth go through th’ flame o’ th’ candle wi’out scorchin’ its wings? And yo’ sit theer an’ talk about law an’ its ministers, meanin’ th’ constables, aw suppose. What gooid will other law or Gospel be when th’ mischief’s done. Yo’ may piecen a cracked pot together, but th’ crack’s theer all th’ same. Aw’m noan what yo’ ca’ a pertickler sort o’ man. Burnplatts is noan exac’ly th’ spot for rearin’ saints. But aw tell yo’ this, Abel Holmes, aw love yon lass more nor ivver aw thowt it i’ mi natur’ to love any human being. Aw’n seen her come up sin’ oo began to lisp mi name. Aw’n borne her i’ these arms o’er mony a mile o’ crag an’ fell; her little arms han clung raand mi neck; her little lips han kissed mine; her little head, wi’ its clusters o’ ringlets, has pillowed itsen agen this hard owd heart o’ mine, and aw tell thee, man, if Ephraim Sykes, or onny other man ’at wronged that maid were at th’ bottom o’ Satan’s pit, aw’d lope in an’ glut missen wi’ th’ awfullest vengeance ’at a legion o’ devils could devise.”

I gazed with a horrid fascination on Daft Billy’s face as he uttered these words in a very torrent or whirlwind of speech. The man was wholly stirred from his wonted stolid demeanour. Hitherto I had known him as a morose, silent, phlegmatic being whom, to all seeming, nothing short of an earthquake or an electric battery could move. Well, I suppose the thoughts of danger to Miriam that his silent broodings had conjured up were the convulsion that had fired his passion and loosed his tongue. We ordinary folk are so begirt by law and order and convention that we forget the elemental forces and little realise the heights and depths to which human nature can soar or fall when law and order and convention are swept away as I have seen the dam walls swept away by the waters of a swollen, raging stream. I sat in silence till such time as Billy should recover himself, and then asked quietly, and as if unconcernedly:

“And your plan, Billy—what is it?”

“Weel,” said our visitor, lapsing into his accustomed taciturnity, “weel, aw’m come here to pick a quarrel wi’ yo’ or you long-legged peartner o’ yourn, or both on yo’.”

“To pick a quarrel! Why, whatever have we done wrong to you to quarrel about?”

“That’s nother here nor theer. We mun fa’ out about owt or nowt. An’ yo’ mun beat me wi’ a pickin’ rod till aw’m black an’ blue, or drag me through th’ mill dam, or put me into th’ sizin’ tub, or do owt yo’ like ’at ’ll leave a mark on me ’at aw can show at th’ ‘Moorcock.’ Then aw off to Ephraim an’ mak’ it out ’at aw’ll ha’ yo’r lives to pay yo aat. Yo’ see, if Eph. thinks aw’m on his side he’ll happen oppen aat to me more nor he has done, an’ forewarned’s forearmed. If we nobbut knew aforehand what he’s up to we can tak’ steps accordingly. But th’ main thing is to mak’ him believe aw’m just as set agen yo’ as he is hissen. Aw think it’ll have to be th’ mill dam. What sayn yo’?”

“Well, I for one am not going to beat you black and blue, nor yet drag you through the mill dam. But I quite think it will do no harm for you to make Ephraim and his new mates think we’re on bad terms. So be off these premises”—this with a very menacing tone “be off these premises, you idle, skulking blackguard. Get you out of sight of honest men and go to the scum you’re fit for, or I’ll souse you over head in th’ sizing tub.”

Daft Billy rose hurriedly to his feet, raised one arm as to ward off a blow, clenched his right fist ready for a fray, and eyed me with mingled amaze and indignation. Then a broad grin spread across his features, and he slowly winked first one eye, then the other:

“Tha’lt do, lad; tha’lt do. Aw’m off, and tha’rt noan sich a fooil as aw thowt thee.”

And he lumbered heavily away, chuckling audibly.

I confess I did not attach to the warnings of Daft Billy the importance that subsequent events were to demonstrate in a terrible and tragic manner they deserved. For one thing, I did not know Ephraim Sykes as Daft Billy did. I knew him to be a reckless, lawless sort of fellow, but thought that poaching and an occasional brawl were the limits beyond which even his ungoverned temper would not lead him. Nor, for another thing, had my experience of life and human nature then taught me what devastating havoc can be wrought in the heart of man by thwarted passion, its fires fed by strong drink. “Hell,” says the proverb, “has no fury like a woman scorned,” and I suppose a man who sees the woman he has for years looked upon as his own and whom after his wild and fiery fashion he loves, give the treasures of her young love to another, is in like case to a woman scorned. And, for yet another thing, was there not the entrancing thought that Miriam was to be at the special service at Wrigley Mill, the honoured guest of Mr. and Mrs. Wrigley.

The service was held in the weaving shed, the warping room not being large enough to hold all those who flocked to the meeting. For besides the mill hands at Wrigley Mill, it was known that a number of good folk from Diggle and Woolroad and Uppermill meant to attend the service, friends and well-wishers these of good old Jim. From Stanedge Top and Dig Lea and Harrop Green and Weakey and Harrop Edge and Tamewater right over the hill to Delph, Jim had hosts of friends, and not one to begrudge him his rise in the world. So when it was bruited abroad that this service was to be his farewell to Wrigley Mill, men and women, youths and maidens, wished to do him honour. And, of course, the girls were all agog to see our Ruth and Miriam. Jim had been somewhat of a general lover in the sense at least that he had ever had a hearty word and maybe a sly kiss for all the pretty lasses of the countryside; though I’d stake my life that no girl was ever wronged by Jim. It had been, indeed, a common jest against Jim that he was wedded to his old mother. Perhaps that was why the girls had so set their caps at him, for the French have a saying, I am told—and who should know a woman’s ways better than the French, who seem to think of little else?—that if you run after the provoking creatures they run away, but if you run away they’ll e’en run after you. And Jim was popular with the mothers, too; for who so tender and gentle as he with the little mites that in those days used to come down the rough hill sides in rain and sleet and snow of the dark winter mornings to earn their few shillings to swell the slender income of the family. Was it not Jim who let them warm their frozen hands and numbed feet by the boiler fires, and Jim who cared their sodden skirts and hose, and dried them carefully in the drying-hoil, and Jim who carried many a weary little toddlekin home on his broad shoulders hushing its sobs and drying its tears with lumps of goodstuff, all dirty and sticky from being kept in his coat by the blazing, roaring fires, but still goodstuff. And Jim was popular with the men, too, for he had not scorned to take his pint and stand his corner like a man at all the hostelries of those parts; and though, to be sure, there had been a sad falling off in these respects since he had taken to tramping over Stanedge to Pole Moor, it was hoped that marriage would restore him to sanity and his accustomed ways.

And about Miriam there were a thousand rumours and wild conjectures. Mary Haigh’s cottage had been simply besieged by women itching to know the very truth of the whole business; but, though Mary’s tongue ran on wheels most times, she knew when to keep it still. And, of course, the more she didn’t tell, the more everybody seemed to know. Miriam was the daughter of a wicked baronet, and had been changed at birth; Miriam had been proved to be the rightful heiress to fabulous sums now safely, perhaps too safely, coffered in that mysterious repository of great fortunes known as Chancery; Miriam had been the cause of a bloody feud between the gipsy king and the parson’s son; Miriam was a godless heathen who had been brought to grace by the little parson of Pole Moor; Miriam could neither read nor write; Miriam was a prodigy of wit and learning, and could divine the future by the stars—in fine, Miriam was more than a nine days’ wonder for all the womenfolk and some of the men of the other side of Stanedge, as we of Pole Moor called the Diggle Valley.