THE BAROMETER

There existed a few years ago, in the Yorkshire wolds, a state of affairs in which the barometer was more consulted than the Bible, and the only barometer in the district hung in the hall of the Vicarage and belonged to the parson, who scanned it daily and out of its abstruse lettering gave no hope to his pining household. The relentless needle stood ever at “set fair,” and the terrible drought, which had already lasted for six whole weeks, continued. The dreary sheet of sky overhead stretched in its pitiless blueness over the baked brown earth that lay beneath, parched and cracked and yawning for rain. In between the rift set apart for their habitation, walked sad human beings, sighing and complaining, full of vague physical uneasiness and sense of stress of longing.

The Church and Vicarage of Barmoor, and the few cottages to which it ministered, made the only break in the wilderness of moorland that stretched away for miles to Pickering on the one side and Danby Moor on the other. Three trees grew near the Vicarage: the boughs of one hung over the roof of the lean-to, and made a land-mark over the moor. In the early spring they had been fine bunches of verdure. Now their tattered and disconsolate foliage hung motionless, shrinking day by day into the brown semblance of what were once green leaves. A little beck ran at the bottom of the parson’s garden, but it was now all but dry. Everything was dried and wasted, except the heather which sprouted and thickened and browned under the desolating shine of the pitiless sun, while the air above it quivered with refraction.

“The air is dancing!” cried the parson’s boys, lying in the thick tufts and looking towards the low ridges that bounded their moor to the north. Later on it grew so hot that the very sun was veiled in mist, and the air did not dance any more, but stood still with weariness, so the children said, again. A lighted candle, held in the kitchen garden, flared straight up, like a pillar.

The children tried it—they tried everything—everything permissible under the strict system of Vicarage discipline—to amuse themselves, in these days, when their elders were too tired and cross to undertake to keep them happy. They wandered about together, their arms heavily linked round each other’s shoulders, dragging their feet along the cinder paths in an irritating unison. They stood now, in their baggy little home-made clothes, on the path that led down the kitchen garden, bordered with feeble flowers. It was only bordered; the middle patch of ground was, perforce, devoted to useful vegetable cultivation. The living of Barmoor was not a rich living, and the Rev. Matthew Cooper, its incumbent, stood very low in position, birth, and education.

His gardener, who was also the sexton, was digging the potatoes for early dinner. He grunted while he dug, and his back was turned to the children, who watched, with a kind of fascination born of ennui, the turn of the fork and the roll of the loose mould, and the horny hand that came down every now and then and gathered up the harvest of his toil and flung it into a basket. Saunders was careless, and let several potatoes roll back into the furrow, out of the eight or so that each turn of the fork should yield.

“Oh, Saunders, look, ye’ve missed one!” piped the youngest child.

“Happen I have, Master John,” replied the old man. “It’s ower hot to be fashed!”

The child sighed.

“Won’t it really rain soon, Saunders dear?” he asked wearily. He had heard so much lately of this wonderful rain that was to heal all ills and make the world a pleasant place again. Child-like, he had forgotten what rain was like, and how he hated it, since it kept him indoors, and spoiled his play.

“Happen it may, happen it mayn’t!” muttered the old servant sulkily. With a sudden access of spite, he added, “Didn’t the master pray for it i’ church last Sunda’? But some folks has no influence with the Almighty. A’m sayin’ that the Lord ought to do it for His ain sake—the bonny garden’s fair perished for the want of a little kindly moisture.”

“I think it will rain soon!” said the youngest child again gravely. In his blue eyes was something of the rapt look of a visionary.

“Well, it doesna’ look much like it,” grumbled the old fellow, pointing up with his fork to the sky that hung above, a wall of greyness, and coming very close to earth, somehow. “What for suld it rain, think’st tha’?”

“Because it must in the end,” replied the child sturdily. “It wants to rain so badly. It is like me, when I want to cry and can’t. Oh, Saunders, there’s another potato you’ve left. What a lot you miss!”

“Gan awa’! Gan awa’,” said Saunders impatiently, “and let me get done. Gan awa’ an tew Hannah!”

He shook his pitchfork at them with playful savagery, and they turned away.

“Listen, Willie,” said the child called John, confidentially taking his brother’s arm, and leading him towards the kitchen, a low, one-storied outhouse attached to the house, overshadowed by the biggest of the elm trees. “Listen, Willie; I think the sky is like a great wall, very thick, and yet very brittle. There’s all sorts of queer things going on the other side of it, that we can’t see.”

“Tell us,” said the elder boy, dimly interested.

“There’s great bulls roaring, and sparks flying, like in Hobbie Noble’s forge, and a noise—such a noise! If there comes a hole in the wall; we shall see it.” His eyes dilated; he squeezed his less poetical minded brother’s hand.

“Hout!” said the listener, “I don’t care for that story much. Let us go in, and bide with Hannah a bit.”

The Vicarage rooms were damp and insufficiently lighted, but the Vicarage kitchen was bright and pleasant. Hannah’s lime and marl floor was freshly washed, her copper vessels as bright as the mirror in Mrs. Cooper’s best bedroom; but in spite of all these signs of previous activity the girl herself was sitting in a limp and weary attitude, her knees apart, and a great bowl of peas between them, which she was “podding” for dinner. Her eyes were heavy; her big lump of flaxen hair hung on one side of her head; her clumsy red hands moved among the pods lazily and inattentively. “Deary me—a deary me!” she murmured to herself at short intervals.

“Now, bairns!” She roused herself as the two slunk in. “I’ve not time for none of you. Gan awa’ and play, there’s good childer!”

“Don’t be cross, Hannah!” said the eldest timidly. “We’ve only comed in for a sup of milk.”

“The milk is all gone sour,” she replied shortly. “Ye mun just content yersel’s wi’ a drink of water from the pump. Now be off with you!”

She gave the thin, inoffensive house-cat a hoist with her foot, and settled down to her peas again.

The pump in the garden had gone dry long since and Hannah knew it. The water they used in the household—that all the village used—came from one place, the well at the bottom of the village, which had luckily continued its functions in spite of the drought.

The children, as Hannah knew well enough, did not really want anything to drink, they wanted nothing but the antidote of human conversation to the restlessness and uneasiness that they shared with Hannah and Saunders, and what their father was apt to call “the lower animals.” The house-dog was as restless as they, and would neither play with them nor stay quiet in his kennel. The hens fluttered brusquely in the hen-house, and the feverish rushing of wings that went on there made it an unpleasant abiding-place for the children. They sometimes amused themselves by going in to hunt for eggs, but they left them alone to-day, and wandered on to the open study window, where the Reverend Matthew Cooper, in hot, black clothes, was working at his sermon for next Sunday, putting his hand up to his head every now and again.

The two little boys were always somewhat in awe of their stern father, and all they dared do now was to stand and watch him, until the intermittent scraping of their feet on the walk in front of the window roused him from his meditations. He looked up; his brow was pained.

“Well, my laddies, what do you want?” He spoke kindly enough, but his voice dragged with fatigue and oppression.

“Father,” asked the eldest child, “Father, tell us; why don’t they send rain when you pray for it?”

“You had better go and ask your mother,” said the Vicar, with the sort of grim humour in which he usually dealt. He was by nature a hard, cold, God-fearing, painstaking, undeveloped man, conscious of having a wife who managed him. “What about your lessons? Willie, I gave you a chapter to write out. Go and do some work if you can’t play.”

“But we’ve got a headache, Father.”

“So have I—splitting. Run away now, and let me go on with my sermon. I haven’t even chosen my text yet.… ‘Who doeth great things and unsearchable.… Behold, He withholdeth the waters and they dry up.… He bindeth the waters in His thick clouds, and the cloud is not rent under them.… He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked.… If the scourge slay suddenly, He will laugh at the trial of the innocent!’ ”

The children left him, in desperation, and, going down to the bottom of the garden, took off their socks and sat with their feet in the diminished brook. The dog would not come with them, but snapped and growled at John when he tried to make overtures to it. Hannah, who came to look for them to fetch them to early dinner, could not find them, though they were only under the shade of the big rowan-bush near the brook-head. But she did not trouble herself to look very far, she herself could not have told you what ailed her.

“I cannot find them, mistress,” she said to their mother sitting, carving-knife in one hand and fork in the other, before the family joint, which Hannah had set before her, previous to going in search of the truants.

“Oh, very well! if they don’t choose to come in to their meals!”

Mrs. Cooper helped her husband to a plateful, and sent it in to him to his study, which he had intimated he was too busy to leave. She ate a small portion herself—not much—it was too hot to be hungry. She was a hard woman, and the absence of her two little sons did not affect her appetite in the least.

The kind-hearted maid gave them what she called “a bite and a sup” later on, when they came and put their apprehensive heads round the door cheek. She did not scold them. The youngest boy looked very pale and white, and avoided her eyes.

“Poor bairn!” she said, “he wants setting up with the sea air.”

The two children lay down after they had eaten, and slept on a heap of sacking, very clean and dry, near the woodstack. Their little bedroom was over the kitchen, and easy of access, but very dreary in the daytime because of the huge tree that overshadowed it. Hannah did not think of sending them up there, but flung a sack over their bare legs as they lay, and did not disturb them.

As the afternoon wore on to evening the hush became oppressive. Not a breath, not a sound of birds twittering, of fowls fluttering. Only the far-away moo of a discontented cow in an outhouse somewhere in the hills sounded like a faint trumpet call, and emphasized the stillness. The sky seemed nearer than ever now, and oppressively near, and all-encompassing.

As Hannah crossed the yard, just before supper, to throw a pail of scrapings into the pig-trough, she heard a noise. It was not Hodgson’s cow.… It might have been the grinding of one of Miller Farsyde’s flour wagons on the quartz that sprinkled the road up there beyond the brow—half-a-mile away. She did not know what it was—a very faint rumble. She thought no more of it, but as she crossed the courtyard on her way back something dropped on to the back of her hand which she could have sworn was a rain-drop.… !

The thought passed. Her country mind again was a blank. She gave the boys a shake as she passed in. “Come now, wake up! ’Tis supper time!”

The youngest boy stirred and frowned.

“Is it come?” he said—“the hole in the wall?”

“Whatten hole? Whatten wall? Whatten rubbish is the child talking about?” she said carelessly, brushing the loose straws off his jacket with strong sideway pats, and leading him in to the dining-room where supper was spread. Willie, the elder and more prosaic of the two, manifested some interest in the items of the meal. It was beans and bacon and porridge, too solid fare for such a day as this had been. The Vicar had finished his sermon, and was sitting in his place, as pale as his white tie, but otherwise placable enough. The eldest child went round to his own high chair in silence, but the youngest crossed the room to his mother’s side and pulled her by the sleeve.

“What ails ye, laddie?” she asked not unkindly.

“Will you give me a kiss, Mammy?” he asked shamefacedly and in a low voice, lest his brother should hear, and taunt him for being a “mammy pet.”

“What nonsense!” Mrs. Cooper said, with all the helpless shyness of a hard woman. She stooped down and kissed her little appealing son, nevertheless. “Now, sit down, and eat your supper quietly. Well, Mr. Cooper, how have ye got on with your sermon?”

“Badly!” replied her husband. “I seem to have such a weight on my brain—an oppression! It is quite dreadful. It is so bad, it really can’t last—something must happen. Eat your supper, John, and don’t stare.”

For the youngest child’s eyes were constantly fixed on his father, and little questions seemed to be trembling on his lips. He said nothing until supper was over, when he begged his mother to read to them, in which request he was seconded by his elder brother.

She got the big family Bible and reverently flirted the pages.…

“Read about the Israelites and the Plagues of Egypt,” suggested Willie.

“Very well,” the mother said equably. Her day’s work was done, she had time now, and was willing to please the children in their own way.

“ ‘And Moses stretched forth his rod towards the heaven, and the Lord sent thunder and hail——’ ”

“I wish He would,” murmured the Vicar.

“ ‘And the fire ran along the ground, and the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt.…’ ”

She was going on in her monotonous, uneducated voice, when the youngest child suddenly screamed and hid his face in the cushions of the sofa.

“Whisht, whisht!” she called out, by way of soothing him. “Why, you silly body, haven’t ye heard it all before?”

The child continued to sob.

His face remained hidden. Sternly his parent ignored his hysterical outburst.

“How old were the children of Israel?” asked Willie, by way of distracting the attention of his elders from this bad conduct on his brother’s part, which would assuredly end in both being sent off to bed. Crying was never allowed. “Were they as old as me, or only as old as John?”

Mrs. Cooper now gave her mind to the destruction of this erroneous impression under which her children had been labouring, and when it was done she raised her voice, and called “Hannah!” to the maid, who was to be heard moving heavily about in the passage.

John raised his tear-stained face from the sofa, a wild terror in his eyes. Willie clasped his hands together, and together they pleaded with an unaccountable vehemence.…

“Oh, no, no, Mother; please, Mother—we don’t want to go to bed. We can’t! We can’t!” both wailed.

“And what for no?” asked the mother, raising her strongly marked black eyebrows. “Why not to bed, to-night, same as other nights?”

“Because—because—oh, Mother! because we want another story. We want Abram and Isaac,” pleaded William. It was only an excuse, and the mother knew it.

“One story is quite enough for one evening,” she answered severely; “and John did not behave particularly well over that; I won’t hear any fond nonsense. Now you just trot along both of you! You are both as cross and sleepy as you can be. Bed’s the safest place for you!”

Her rough soothing was of no value. The children’s faces, as Hannah came in, were blanched with terror. John ran up to the kindly servant-maid, and hid his face in the folds of her linsey gown.

“I want to speak to you,” he sobbed.

“Noo, what then, ma honey?” said Hannah good-humouredly, stooping, till her smooth head touched his touzled one. “Well!”—as she raised her head—“did ye ever hear the like? What sets ye asking that? Mistress, he wants to know if they mayn’t creep in aside of father and mother to-night?”

“Please let us, Mother,” they murmured, almost inaudibly.

“I never heard anything so fond!” exclaimed Mrs. Cooper, laughing grimly. “Be off with ye both quietly, now, and let me hear no more nonsense.”

“We did once, Mother!”

“Once! Yes! when they were mending the roof of your bedroom; but the roof’s safe and sound over your heads now, at any rate. Why,” she laughed, “why, when I give ye a nice big bed to yourselves, should I go and cram my own and the master’s with two tiresome children, to kick me black and blue before morning? What are ye afeared of, I say?”

But they would own to nothing, and averted their eyes. A little underswell of sobbing, whimpering breaths testified to their distress.

“What’s come to the bairns, I wonder?” She was puzzled, through her thick mental hide of unsympathy. “They’re as fractious! It’s this unked weather sets us all out of our wits.”

“It must break,” said her husband, “there’s no sense in it. We may have rain to-morrow. I forgot to look at the glass as I passed in to-night. There may be a change soon, nay, there must be.… Come here, children, and say your prayers, and let’s have no more crying.”

They all at once realized the hopelessness of it all, and came meekly to his knee, Hannah folded her hands and looked on approvingly at the two flaxen heads, as in their innocent, pretty, piping voices they begged blessings on their hardened elders, and murmured deep contrition for the sins they had not yet committed. They wound up as usual with the prayer—

“ ‘Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee, O Lord, and by Thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of Thine only Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.’ ”

Sadly they rose and kissed their parents, who had so carelessly crossed them in their strong instinctive desire, and murmured inaudible good-nights. Then Hannah, taking a little submissive hand of each, led them out of the room.

They went past the weather-glass in the hall, whose strongly marked signs and signals of change they were too young, and Hannah too ignorant, to understand, and walked round by half roofless passages to the kitchen. Then Hannah, laughingly propelling “mischief in front of her,” inducted them up the shaky wooden staircase that led into the large room where they always slept, brooded over by the enormous over-arching elm-tree. Its branches tapped the little skylight pane when it was windy, but now they hung still like a drooping banner in a calm.

“I do believe it’s that ugly, girt tree they’re feared of!” Hannah thought to herself.

During the passage towards their sleeping place they said nothing, but the fingers of the younger child closed and unclosed round the maid’s stout thumb, and the touch struck her as very cold.

“I’d let you both creep in aside o’ me,” she said, “only I’m that fleyed o’ the mistress! She’d find us out, as sure as my name is Hannah Cawthorne.”

She set down the candle on the chest in the long, low, empty loft-room. The chest and the bed were almost the only articles of furniture in it. The wooden rafters that supported the roof made fanciful bars and arches over the white dimity quilt. The bed was large, clean and comfortless.

When the two children had undressed and lain down, Hannah Cawthorne, of a gloomy North Country turn of mind that ran continually on omens and predestinations, could not help thinking how like two corpses laid out they looked, lying so straight, their little bodies outlined under the quilt, their eyes wide open and staring at the roof. It made her uncomfortable.

“There’s nought to be afeared on,” she thought, trying to bring comfort to herself merely, for the children were still, submissive and past all repining now. “It’s as safe as a church, but all the same.… Now shut your eyes,” she said aloud, “there’s good lads, and say ‘Gentle Jesus’ till ye feel the sleep coming on ye. Oh, ye’ll sleep fine, trust me. Shall I leave ye the light?”

This was a wild stretch of authority. She might have lost her place over it. She was relieved when they shook their heads and declined it.

“See here,” she went on, producing an apple from her pocket. “See here, ye can munch this atween ye.”

She laid it down on the coverlet, but no little hand came forth to take it.

“Poor bairns, they’re sad-like.… Eh, she’s a hard woman, is the mistress! If they were mine, shouldn’t I like them to nestle in aside o’ me! This room is fair lonesome. Naebody could hear them if they were to skrike out.…”

“What are ye looking at, my honey?” she asked John curiously, for the child’s eyes remained obstinately fixed on the roof, as if he saw something there.

“He’s looking at the hole in the wall,” volunteered the eldest boy at last. “He’s shiverin’.”

“Hap him up in your arms, ma bonny bairn, that’ll soon warm him.… Now I must be going, lads.… Good-night to ye both.…”

Hesitating, reluctant, she took up her candle and made a start for the door.

“I don’t half like leaving them,” she murmured, as she stole out casting a last look at the two children, lying clasped, according to her recommendation, in each other’s arms. Their faces were hidden in each other’s necks, their sad apprehensive eyes were closed, obediently summoning sleep.

Gently snecking the door, she blundered down the rickety staircase, and made her way back into the other, safer part of the house. Ignorant, she passed by the mysterious oracle hanging in the hall, unable to read or understand the plain meaning which its hands now bore.

“Eh, but she’s a right hard woman, is the mistress, and master follows her in all things. He’d have let the poor childer come in aside him, when they begged and prayed fit to turn a heart of stone.…”

She did not toss on her hard pallet, but lay stupefied in the heavy slumber that was the meed of her arduous existence. Upstairs, in the best bedroom, the Reverend Matthew Cooper slept off his headache. His wife did not drowse, but lay by her husband’s side, straight and still as she had laid down, congratulating herself on the great healing storm that was even now breaking over the Vicarage, gloating over its promise of recomfiture and peace.… It thundered and lightened for two hours.

When morning dawned the great drought was over, and the air was refreshed.

Hannah, the maid, rose and went about her duties with a light heart, and presently, having started the kitchen fire, called the parson and his wife to resume theirs.

When it was time, she pulled her dirty kitchen apron aside, put the kettle where it could not for the moment boil over, and went to call the parson’s children.

She went up the crooked stair and opened the door gently, “not to waken them sudden.” The first thing she saw, before she screamed, was the wide, jagged hole on the rafters above the bed where they still lay in each other’s arms. The lightning that, guided by the tree which hung over the roof, had passed through to the innocent children and dealt them their unearned and undeserved death, had not divided them. They were quiet and unchanged in appearance except for some little blue marks like shot in the forehead of the one and the breast of the other.