Front matter (continued 2)

And a good housewife Martha proved to be. There was not a cleaner house in all that country side. She had kept on Betty for Dorothy’s sake, and there was besides, Peggy, scullery maid and general help. Betty and Peggy would very much have preferred that their mistress had been neither so keen of eye nor sharp of tongue—for the Mistress who, as callers said, could not say boh to a goose, could talk thirteen to the dozen, so Betty averred, anent a grease spot or an iron-mould.

Martha’s lot, it may be said, if not an ideal, was now a serene one. Had she but had child of her own, she thought no happier woman could have been found in the wide West Riding. But in this Fate was unkind, and the withholding of the crowning blessing of a woman’s life, to hold her own babe to her breast, was all the harsher measure, that Martha knew her husband in his secret heart brooded over their long disappointment and nursed it as a grievance. Poor Martha! How many prayers, how many vows, were thine for this boon so freely granted to your husband’s poorest workman!

It was in vain that Martha tried to stay her heart’s longings by filling a mother’s place to the little niece left by that graceless Richard. All that duty dictated Martha did; did ungrudgingly conscientiously. But there is one thing in this world that is absolutely beyond the human will: it is the human heart. Love knows no reason, and is uninfluenced by the sternest logic. It is like the wind that bloweth where it listeth. School herself as Martha would she came, in time, to have a smouldering jealousy of little Dorothy, and the child’s quick perception taught it to shun the eye, and soon the company, of her aunt, and turn for comfort to buxom, homely Betty.

It is a Sunday afternoon in the Summer of the year ’45—a glorious summer’s afternoon. The garden at Wilberlee, stretching below the parlour window right down to the river-side—no great stretch, indeed—is ablaze with colour. The sky overhead is of rich deep blue, flecked with trailing wisps of feathery cloudlets. The lark sings high in mid ether. From the meadows round about comes the scent of the hay, and the garden gives forth its fragrance of musk and rose. In a low basket-chair, placed beneath the shades of an umbrageous chestnut tree, Mrs. Tinker sits, stiff, erect, unyielding. She is dressed in rich dark silk, and the lace of collar and cuffs have come from the skilled fingers of the nuns of Belgian convents. A religious periodical, the “Baptist Magazine,” lies unheeded on her lap, for Martha is watching, with wistful eyes, the graceful movements of a young girl, who flits from flower to flower, and bends occasionally to snip a bloom or leaf.

“Why are you getting flowers of a Sunday: Dorothy? You know your uncle would not like it. I’m sure we don’t want any more in the house—the parlour smells almost sickly with them—besides, it’s Sunday.”

“I don’t want them for the parlour, aunt Martha. They are for poor Lucy Garside.”

“Who’s Lucy Garside?”

“Why, aunt, how can you forget? She worked in uncle’s mill till she had to leave. It is something the matter with her legs and spine. Don’t you mind that pretty, rosy Lucy Garside, that used to be in your class at the Sunday School? But she isn’t rosy now—oh! so pale and thin, and has to lie all day on the settle.”

“You mean the sofa, child.”

“No, aunt, the kitchen settle I mean, they have no sofa; but they try to make it comfortable for her with shawls and things; and her mother is making a list hearth-rug for her to lie on, and then, may-be, she’ll be easier—and she loves flowers. You will let me take them, aunt Martha, won’t you?”

“Well, they’re gathered now, and it’s no use wasting them. But, in future, you must ask my leave before you cut more. And I don’t quite know how your uncle would like you going trashing about among those low mill-girls.”

“But, aunt”—and here Dorothy lowered her voice and glanced timorously at the opened window of the parlour—“but, aunt Martha, they say—in the village, I mean, not Lucy’s mother—that Lucy’s hurt her spine and crooked her legs working too long in the mill—hours and hours, and hours, they say, all the day and nearly all the night, and sleeping under the machines because she was too tired to go home to bed; and that, and not enough to eat, the doctor says, has made poor Lucy a cripple for life.”

“Then Dr. Wimpenny ought to be whipped for saying such things, and I won’t have you listening to these tittle-tattling stories. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, to let folks tell you lies about your uncle’s mill. Folk ought to be glad they can send their children to work, to earn their own living. How would they live if they couldn’t? But there’s no gratitude left in the world—that’s a fact. But there’s your uncle finished his nap, and you’d best be off; and don’t let me hear any more of your silly tales about things you don’t understand.”

It was a very prim and demure maiden that walked sedately from the side-gate of the house at Wilberlee, a large bunch or posy of flowers grasped in one little hand, a basket in the other. Dorothy had coaxed sundry delicacies from the not reluctant Betty—a loaf of bread, some slices of meat, a pot of jam, a glass of calves’-foot jelly, and a small packet of tea.

“Bless her bonny face,” remarked Betty to Peggy, the underling, “it isn’t i’ my heart to refuse her owt. But it’s to be hoped th’ missus ’ll never find it out.”

“Saints preserve us,” devoutly ejaculated Peggy, who was shrewdly suspected to have Milesian blood in her veins.

“Isn’t she a pictur’?” said Betty, as her eyes followed her little mistress until the gate shut her from admiring gaze.

“’Deed, then, she is—an’ as good as she’s purty,” assented Peggy.

“It’s Mr. Richard’s own child, she is,” went on Betty, reminiscently—“th’ same dancin’ e’en, an’ gladsome look, an’ merry smile; and yet, sometimes, when she’s thoughtful-like, an’ dreamy, you’d think she wer’ her own mother, as I could fancy her as a lass,”—and Betty heaved a very deep sigh, from a very capacious bosom.

And, indeed, Dorothy was a picture to gladden the eyes of man. The small coal-scuttle bonnet of Leghorn straw, with its drab strings, could not hide the pure oval of the face, nor its shade conceal its rich, warm complexion. The auburn ringlets, not corkscrewed to mechanic stiffness, but loosely curling, fell in clusters about her shoulders; and the child moved with an instinctive grace. Once out of the view of the garden and the house windows her pace quickened, she began to skip along joyously, her bonnet thrown back from the head, and her little feet, peeping and twinkling from beneath her shortened skirts, beat measure to the snatches of songs, that were not hymnal in their wording or their melody. As she passed the cottage doors, the good folk—standing by their thresholds to breath the air, or bask in the grateful sun, or while away the sleepy hours of unwonted rest in friendly gossip with “my nabs”—would turn to look upon the sweet and glad young face, and not one but had a hearty word and a friendly greeting for Miss Dorothy.

“Eh! But oo’s a bonny wench. A seet ov her ’s fair gooid for sore e’en. Oo’ll be a bright spot i’ some lucky chap’s whom some fine day, please the pigs.” And Dorothy had a nod, and a smile, too, for everyone; for she knew them all by name, and most of them worked for her uncle, either in the mill, or at their own loom in the long upper chamber of their little cottages.

“Oo’s bahn to see poor Lucy Garsed, Ben’s lass, aw’ll be bun; an’ oo’s noan empty-handed noather. See th’ posy oo’s getten; an’ mi mouth fair watters when aw think o’ what there’ll be i’th basket—noan o’ th’ missus’ sendin’, aw’ll go bail.”

“Aye, there’ll be summat beside tracks, if Miss Dorothy’s had a finger i’ th’ pie,”—and so the old wives’ tongues ran on.

The cottage of Ben Garside was barely furnished, but all was spick and span. Ben was a hand-loom weaver, and, of a week-day, by earliest day, til sunset in the spring and summer-tide, you could have heard the clack of his loom overhead as the nimble shuttle with its trail of weft sped across the warp. But to-day Ben has gone to stretch his legs on the moors, and it is Lucy’s mother who bids Dorothy welcome and relieves her of her parcels.

A long oaken settle runs under the deep window of the “house” or living room. The window ledge is full of pots of geranium, fuchsia, musk and rose that turn their petals to bathe in the glorious sunshine that streams with tempered warmth through the thick glazing of the long low window. Poor Lucy lies upon the couch, her cheeks so hollow, her skin so transparent, her brown soft eyes so unnaturally large and her look of patient suffering, and of the resignation of abandoned hope so heart-rending when it is stamped on the face of youth. But the large eyes brighten as Dorothy comes to the couch, and her thin hand, so white and bloodless, rests in loving, lingering caress upon Dorothy’s glossy tresses as she stoops over the invalid and leaves a kiss upon the pallid lips.

“Better to-day, I hope, Lucy.”

And Lucy, with a suspicious catch in her voice, says:

“Oh! Yes, better to-day, Miss Dorothy, almost well.”

Alas! There will be no well for Lucy till that best of all days shall dawn for her, where sickness and suffering enter not, and tears forget to flow.

“See what Aunt Martha has sent you,” said Dorothy presently,—may heaven forgive the fib,—“no, not the flowers. I gathered them all myself because I know just what you like best, and now all the afternoon, when I’m gone, you know, you must just do nothing but arrange them in that big glass on the drawers there. And this jam is for you, too, and the calves’-foot jelly to make you strong, you know, and the tea is for you, Mrs. Garside, when you’ve been washing and feel just like sinking through the ground, as I’ve heard you say you do.”

“And thank the missus kindly, Miss Dorothy, my respects; but whativver’s this?” and Mrs. Garside extracted the bread and meat.

“Oh! I’d forgotten them. These are for Ben.”

“Eh! But aw’m feart they’ll nivver keep till next Sunday i’ this welterin’ weather. To be sure aw might rub ’em wi’ salt, but Ben do want such a power o’ ale a’ter salt meat. But we’ll see, we’ll see. Eh! Miss Dorothy, but it’s yo’ that thinks o’ ivverybody an’ thof yo’ say it’s yor aunt, it’s well aw know—but least said, sooinest mended. But sit yo dahn an’ aw’ll dust that cheer i’ hauf a tick-tack—it’s fair cappin wheer all th’ muck comes fro’ this warm weather, fit to fry yo’ like a’ rasher o’ bacon; sit yo’ dahn, do, an’ throw yo’r hat off an’ yo’ll read ith Book a bit; not ’at aw held so much religion but Lucy theer likes it an’ it’s cheap, that’s one gooid thing or th’ poor folk ’ud get little enew on it.”

Mrs. Garside, who, it will be observed, did not allow her power of speech to rust for want of use, paused to draw breath for another effort.

“What shall I read, Lucy?”

“Oh! Just that story about Jesus at the pool of Bethesda. How I wish I could have been there.”

Mrs. Garside composed herself to listen, putting on that look of impenetrable stolidity and unreceptiveness that a good many people seem to think most appropriate for a Scripture-reading.

“In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the waters.…‘Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool; but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.’”

“Nah! If that isn’t Holmfirth all ovver, my name’s not Hannah Garsed” broke in that lady. “Holmfirth all ovver. Aw can see just how it wer’. Th’ poor man wer’ ligged theer all bi hissen, an’ nobbudy to help ’im. Then fust one an’ then another comes up an’ thruts ’im o’ one side. An’ if them watters wer’ owt like th’ Booik says, yo may mak’ sure ’at there’d be th’ rich folk theer wi’ their sarvants, an’ lackeys, an’ nusses an’ lady’s maids, to put ’em i’th’ watter an’ they’d ha’ th’ pick o’ ivverything. An’ yar Ben sez ’at if th’ heealin’ o’ th’ man wi a infirmary wer’ a miracle, it’s a bigger miracle ’at someb’dy hadn’t bowt that pool up an’ med a fortin’ out o’ it. Not ’at aw hold wi’ all yar Ben says, for there’s gooid folk amang th’ quality, as we’d no need to look further nor Wilberlee,” she concluded, with a penitent glance at the table.

“But I’ve some news for you, Mrs. Garside,” interrupted Dorothy, “and I hope it will be good news.”

“It’ll be summat fresh if it is,” murmured the irrepressible dame, “weel, out wi’ it.”

“You know uncle has been very busy lately, putting in new machinery?”

Mrs. Garside nodded. That did not concern her, except perhaps that it might mean either more or less country-work to the hand-loom weavers. But that would be to try for.

“And he is going to take another apprentice,” continued Dorothy. “I heard him tell Aunt Martha so and ask her where she should lodge him. Aunt Martha said she hadn’t an idea, anywhere would do for an apprentice. So I managed to catch uncle all by himself, and I said perhaps you would be glad to do for a boy.”

“And that’s what yo’ ca’ gooid news, is it, Dorothy? As if aw hadn’t enough to do wi’ th’ house-work and th’ cookin’, though that’s easy enough, God knows, an’ me bobbin-windin’ to keep Ben agate at th’ loom, an’ th’ little lass theer at might ha’ been a help an’ a comfort laid o’ her back fro’ morn to neet an’ neet to morn an’ all to do for, not but what it’s a pleasure to do for yo’, my pet, an’ it’s more aw wish your owd mother could do, an’ aw wodn’t swap her agen ony lass i’ all th’ valley; but a noisy lad a rampagin’ all abaat th’ haase an’ whistlin’ an’ happen stoppin’ out o’ neets till all hours, an nivver’ wipin’ his feet except upo’ th’ fender rails, an’ makkin’ enough noise to wakken th’ deead, an’ eitin’ enough for two! Not but what th’ bit o’ brass ’ud be welcome, an’ thank yo’ kindly. We’ll see when th’ time comes; its no use meetin’ trouble hauf way nor lawpin’ afore yo get to th’ stee, an’ doubtless yo’r aunt ’ll be speikin’ to me or yar Ben, an’ that ’ll be time enough, which awm obliged to yo’ all th’ same, miss, for givin’ a thowt o’ us an speikin’ a gooid word for us, though yo’r aunt knows weel as if aw did ha’ a boy aw’d do for ’im as well as here an’ theer a one, though aw say it, mebbe, as suldn’t.”

Who can unravel the tangled skein of life and say, as the foolish say, “This is fate,” or as the wise, “This the foreordaining of God, the will and fashioning of the great Designer, from the foundation of the world?” But call it Fate or what you will, certain enough it is that the very day after Dorothy’s visit to Dame Garside’s cottage, Jabez Tinker mounted his stout cob and rode up the road that leads past the Bilberry Reservoir, past the Isle of Skye and far-famed Bill’s o’ Jack’s, past the grey pile of St. Chad’s, and so to the Workhouse On the hill. His horse was taken at the gate by Workhouse Jack and Tom Pinder, and led to the stabling in the rear to have a draught of meal-and-water and a feed of oats. Jack and Tom lingered in the stable admiring the gloss of the horse’s coat, running fingers through its mane, smacking its warm flanks with many a “Whooa hup” and “Stan’ ovver, lass,” examining its hocks and its teeth, and generally doing those knowing things affected by the veriest tyro who would be thought wise in the deep and subtle matter of horseflesh.

But presently came the Workhouse Porter:

“Tom Pinder, th’ Master wants you in th’ office. No, not you, Jack; you can go into th’ potato patch and don’t let me catch you here again or you’ll know about it.”

The porter was a much more dignified man and more important in his own esteem than the master himself, so it is just as well he had not eyes at the back of his head to see that sign made by a certain application of thumb and outspanned fingers which in all times and countries has been deemed significant of contempt unutterable.

Tom followed the Porter wondering to the office. The Master was closeted with a tall, broad-shouldered, sparer, man, with clean shaven face, keen grey eyes, and hair tinged with grey at tee tell-tale temples. He sat by the table, a tankard of ale at his side, and his hand swinging his riding whip idly to and fro.

“This is the lad, then, Mr. Redfearn wrote to me about? He seems a likely lad enough, but somewhat overgrown. How old are you boy?”

“Rising fifteen, sir.”

Mr. Tinker eyed the youth from head to foot and turned him round and round, feeling the muscles of his arm and the thews of his thigh and calf as though he was appraising a horse at the Cattle Fair.

“Sound in wind and limb, I should judge,” he concluded, “but his age is against him. A lad should go into a mill young, Master, before his bones are set and his fingers stiff, if he’s to be any good. I’m not in your Union or I would have seen to this. The Guardians have no business to keep a big lumbering lout of a lad lazying about the House and eating his head off. It’s demoralising to the lad and is enough to pauperize a whole neighbourhood. What’s his name?”

“Pinder sir, Tom Pinder,” answered the Master, and, whilst Tom stared with all his eyes on the stranger, wondering vastly who he might be and what this interview might portend and wondering too if Workhouse Jack would remember to feed his rabbit and find a fresh sod of grass for his lark, the Master made apology for Tom’s height and girth.

“You see, Mr. Tinker, Pinder’s been kept longer than usual. There’s a sort of mystery about him, and both the Chairman and Mr. Black have taken uncommon interest in him. Indeed the Schoolmaster’s so wrapt up in him he couldn’t have been more if th’ lad had been his own son, which I’d almost think he was myself if it wasn’t so ridiculous. But there’s never no telling, is there, Mr. Tinker? these quiet uns is often as deep an’ dark as a pit, bu’ we’re all human, eh?” And Master winked a wink meant to be a summary of profound knowledge of the universal fallibility of the human race.

But Mr. Tinker was not a man to be winked at or joked with, nor apparently was he disposed to discuss the tempting topic of man’s—and woman’s—depravity—with a Workhouse Master, the sole audience a Workhouse foundling.

“Pinder,”—he said musingly, strumming meditatively on the table, and somewhat brusquely declining the Master’s hospitable offer to have in another jug of October ale, or something shorter if a cordial for the stomach would be more acceptable.—“Pinder—Tom Pinder? it isn’t a this country name. There was a Pinder at Marsden, a clothier in a small way—took to drink, banked, and showed his creditors a clean pair of heels; but you wouldn’t have a Marsden brat in this Union.”

“But he wasn’t called after his father,” said the Master, somewhat curtly, for if Jabez Tinker could be curt, curt too could the Master be, and any way, he was sovereign there except on Guardian days. “Damme, I can crow on my own dunghill,” he thought, “or I’m th’ poorest cock ever crowed this side of Stanedge.”

“Oh! I forgot, Mr. Redfearn said something about his being a bastard, a chance child—a rambling tale. I didn’t mind it, I was thinking about something else. ’Twill be his mother’s name?”

“No, nor his mother’s,” said the Master. “I don’t rightly know who he was called after. It had something to do with Mr. Redfearn’s shepherd. But it’s a long time since, and I forget. But what’s the odds? There th’ lad is. You can either take him or leave him, it’s all a price to me, and I reckon to th’ Guardians too.”

“When can he come?”

“Next week. There’ll be th’ papers to make out. Th’ overseers will sign th’ indentire. Five pounds they’ve to pay, I think t’was settled.”

“Yes, five Pounds; but if I’d known his age and size I’d have stood out for more. But it’s too late for haggling you’d send him over this day week. I’ll arrange about him. Tell him to bring the cob round, Tom, and so good day to you, Master. Time’s money these days, and I’ve wasted a whole forenoon over this job. Pinder, Pinder, it’s a strange name and yet there seems a look i’ the lad’s eye I’ve seen before somewhere. My respects to Mr. Redfearn when you see him, and tell him he should be too old a farmer by this to keep his cattle till they’re almost too far gone for the market.”

The Master smiled the official smile at a Guardian’s jest; but it was no very friendly glance that followed the erect form of the Holmfirth manufacturer as he turned his good mare’s head over the hills. “Tom’s in for a bad time of it, I’m thinking,” said the master.

It was Mr. Black who conveyed the lad with a father’s love from the Workhouse to Holmfirth. And the lad went with a heart light enough, though on his cheek the tears were wet he had shed at parting from the faithful Jack. He had solemnly made over to the lamenting Workhouse drudge his boyish treasures,—the lark, that obstinately refused to sing, the lop-eared rabbit, and the hedgehog he had rescued from the clogs and sticks of a posse of village urchins—captive not of bow and spear, but of fist and toe. Moll o’ Stuarts, too, had been to bid him farewell, and, as a parting gift, had bestowed on him a child’s caul.

“Keep that all th’ days o’ your life; nivver part wi’ it, wet or fine. Yo’ll allus know th’ weather by it, as guid as a glass an’ better nor bi a mony on ’em. An’ as long as that caul’s thine, drowneded bi watter yo’ canna be. There’s mony a fine spark at sails the seas ’ud be main glad o’ that same. Hanged yo’ may be, tho’ God forbid, but drownded nivver.” And in after years, of which the reader shall read in good time, Moll o’ Stuarts was able to invoke her prophetic soul, and to attribute to her own prescience the wonderful deliverance this story shall narrate. Moll, too, brought a pair of stout stockings knit by the widow Schofield’s own plump hands, and a crown-piece, that the night before had jingled in Tom o’ Fairbank’s well-filled leathern purse.

Over the hills trudged the Schoolmaster and his ward; the dominie thoughtful, and not a little sorrowful.

“Pray God we’ve done for the best,” was his pious hope, as they reached the low wall of the Church of St. Chad’s, and one at least thought of the fair unknown, whose son was setting forth into the untried paths of life, with all the glad, unquestioning undoubting confidence of eager youth. Hard by the Church Inn they turned to the face of the steep ascent of almost unbroken moorland, threaded by a rude and rutty path, strewn with rubble and boulders, torn and wrenched from the crags above by the driving storms and angry raging winds of the rolling years. On the lower face of the hill they passed, here and there, the rude shelter of a moorland cottier, whose cow and pig and poultry gained precarious living in the lean enclosures won from the sweeping stretch of heather and coarse grass or the lowly cottage whence the familiar clack of the hand-loom told of swaying beam and scudding shuttle. Anon they reached the summit; Mr. Black, notwithstanding the help from Tom’s sturdy arm, fain to rest upon one of the vast rocks belched forth from the bowels of the earth in some angry vomiting of the prisoned airs, and now, rounded and smooth-worn and dark with the gloom of ages, resting massive on the commanding summit called Pots and Pans.

“Yes, that indeed, is Bill’s o’ Jack s,” panted Mr. Black, in answer to Tom’s eager questioning.

“That is where the murder was done, murder most foul. Poor hapless Bill and Tom, I knew them well, a hale and hearty farmer, and his son a strapping gamekeeper. Done to death, whether for gain or revenge, none knew for certain, though it was shrewdly guessed, but nothing was ever proved and for ought is known, the murderers may dwell in our very midst. See yon little window left of the door, ’twas the old man’s bedroom. There, in a pool of blood, his lifeless body was found; his son,—his head cleaved by a heavy bill-lay lifeless in the kitchen. It was a little wench, who went betimes for milk, gave the alarm.”

“Was it long gone sir?” asked Tom, gazing spellbound at the farmhouse in the valley’s dip.

“In ’32—the year of the great Reform Bill. You were a bouncing baby then, Tom. But see how thick the bilberries lie snugly in the heather, and how a film settles on the ripened fruit as though the mist of the hills had kissed them with a lingering kiss. Better fill your kerchief, for well I guess they’ll be right welcome at Mrs. Garside’s, where you must make your home.

“And now, lad, turn your eyes once more upon the old church and towards the fields you know so well. Remember in that valley you were born and bred, and in that valley are those that love you well and who have knit you to their hearts. Yonderwards, in the other valley, is your future home; what trials, what labours there await you, who shall say? but as David said to his son, say I to you:

“’Be thou strong and shew thyself a man, and keep the charge of the Lord Thy God, to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, and His commandments, and His judgments and His testimonies that thou mayest prosper in all that thou doest, and whithersoever thou turnest thyself.’ And now, come, lad, ’tis a brave step from here to Holmfirth and the way will be long for me when I come back without thee.”

CHAPTER VI.

Tom Pinder was “apprenticed”—so the phrase ran—to Jabez Tinker with all the form and circumstance and not a little of the verbal exuberance of the law. The manufacturer bound himself to the overseers of Saddleworth who stood to the foundling in loco parentis, to teach his apprentice the art and calling of a clothier—so manufacturers were then styled, when men were less fond of high-sounding terms and preferred plain English to foreign-fangled names. He also undertook, under his hand and seal, to feed the said Tom and provide him one new suit of clothing each year until he should attain the age of twenty-one years. The overseers, on their part, engaged that the “said Tom should faithfully serve the said Jabez Tinker and his wife and family, his and their lawful orders should do, his secrets should keep, and his goods protect,” likewise that the said Tom, so long as his indenture should endure, taverns should not frequent, bowls nor dice should play, fornication should not commit, and marriage should not contract. As the delicate subject of wages was not so much as hinted at in this formidable document, it seemed pretty certain that the ingenuous apprentice would not be exposed to much temptation either from tavern or dice-box; and Mr. Black, after reading, no less than three times, the articles of this solemn covenant could not withhold his admiration of the zealous care the law manifested for the morals of the young. He should think better, he averred, of lawyers ever after, and was inclined to believe they must be a much maligned body of men. If there had only been some mention of the catechism, he said, the deed might have been framed by a Bishop. Mr. Redfearn to whom he thus unbosomed himself said nothing, but there were volumes in the wink he conveyed to the stolid Aleck.

“I could ha’ thoiled th’ absence o’ ony mention o’ th’ catechism if there’d been some mention o’ wage,” was his only spoken comment.

“But think of the immense advantage of learning the whole art and commerce of a clothier under such a teacher as Mr. Tinker,” urged Mr. Black.

Mr. Redfearn apparently did think, and what he thought was again conveyed to Aleck by a surreptitious wink.

Tom was not long in proving for himself the advantages of being an apprentice. They consisted, so far as he could make out, of being harder worked and more harshly treated than a paid hand, and as for instruction or initiation into the mysteries of the clothier’s craft, he was left to learn so much as his own eyes could teach him and his gumption acquire. It was fortunate for him that Ben Garside, with whom he lodged, lived at no great distance from the mill, for he had to be at his work by daybreak in the summer months, and long before the first uplifting of night’s black curtain in the cold winter morns. Many who worked in the same mill, young boys and girls not yet in their teens, had to trudge in all weathers from distant homes on the raw hill sides, often by lanes and footpaths deep in mud or slush, often by the light of the many stars, sometimes by the pale glimmer of the lanthorn, sometimes in Egyptian darkness, feeling their way by the touch of walls or hedges or trees, drenched by rain or sleet, pelted by hail, sinking into deep ruts or forging through the drifted snow, lightly clad, the warmest garment of the girls the shawl about their head and ears, their faces pinched and blue with cold, their fingers aching with the shrewd wintry pinch, starting from home without breakfast and hurrying with empty stomachs to their dreary work, ill-clad, ill-shod, worse-fed, and still worse paid. The hours of labour were long. Wilberlee Mill was, though not exclusively, mainly a water-mill, the motive power being led from the mill-dam by a head-goit to the great waterwheel, and from the wheel-race restored by the tail-goit, little diminished, to the river’s course, to serve the turn of mill owners lower down the stream. Often in dry seasons the supply of water was scant enough and hence it came that when the dam was flush of water the manufacturer reversed the process of making hay while the sun shone by making pieces while the rain fell. There was little or no restriction in the age at which a child might be sent to work, or the hours for which it might be kept there. It was of so common occurrence as to be almost regarded as a matter of course, not calling for comment, that a child nine or ten years of age should stand to its work sixteen or seventeen hours at a stretch, cramming its meal of water-porridge down its throat in the fluff-laden air of the weaving shed or spinning room, afraid to break off work even to eat a hurried and unsavoury meal. Sometimes the children were locked in the mill all night, and many would fall asleep as they stood, or drop exhausted by their machines only to be roused by a kick from the slubber’s clogs, a blow from a roller, or a resounding smack from the slubber’s strap.

Tom had been set to billy-piecing, but it was found that his fingers were too big and his joints too set for such work, so, to his great delight, he ceased to rub the skin off his knuckles till they bled again, and was transferred to the “scouring-hoil” and in time had charge of a willey, or as it was sometimes called a “devil,” or “fearnowt,” an iron monster into whose maw he threw the scoured wool just fresh from the “drying-hoil,” to be torn and “teased” by the hundred fangs of the insatiable mouth, digest as it were, in its mechanic stomach, and thence cast out in a light and airy fluff ready to be scribbled, slubbed and in time spun into warp and weft.

But though, for a time, Tom escaped the most arduous and confining and debilitating part of an operative’s daily lot, his lines were hard enough. He looked back upon his workhouse life with a sickening yearning, and when he remembered the regular and abundant meals of the House, his gorge rose at the ever-recurring surfeit of water-porridge to breakfast, water-porridge to dinner, water-porridge to supper, and water-porridge between meals.

But for all that Tom grew apace, and his was not the willowy, weedy growth of the towns. If the advocates of vegetarianism want to press their proofs, let them recur to the country-bred, porridge-fed youngsters of a by-gone generation, when they were not cooped up in mills and worked beyond the endurance of Nature. As Tom was often sent out with the lant-barrel to collect from the cottages for miles around the scouring liquid for which ammonia is the modern substitute, he had ample opportunity to stretch his legs and broaden his chest and brace his sinews; so that when, as time went on; he attained to the dignity of a loom, he was as well-set-up a youth as one would meet in a day’s march, straight, old Hannah Garside vowed, as any “picking rod,” with strong limbs and corded muscles, and, best of all, with a sound head and a warm heart,—a happy contrast to the many of his comrades whose shoulders were rounded, and backs bent and legs curved by weary hours of standing and stooping at tasks and under burdens beyond the immature powers of ill-nurtured bodies. It was a common saying in those days that nine out of every ten of the mill-hands of Holmfirth could not stop a pig with their legs.

But the happiest chance that befell the young apprentice was that which made him a lodger with Ben and Hannah Garside. It was long enough before he had much more than a nodding acquaintance either with them or their invalid daughter; for, of weekdays, he took his meals at the mill, and at night he was so dead-beat that he was fain to wash himself and steal to bed; and on Sundays, for many a week of his early apprenticeship it was his glad custom to bolt his morning meal and make off as fast as his legs could carry him over the moors to Saddleworth, generally arriving at St. Chad’s Church in time to be late for the morning service, but ample time to accompany Mr. Black or Mr. Redfearn home to a better dinner than Hannah Garside had ever seen, or even dreamed of.

But as the summer mellowed into autumn and the autumn drooped to Winter, there came Sundays when wind and rain made the tramp over the storm-beaten moors a matter not to be undertaken merely for a jaunt’s sake, and Tom had, perforce to put up with the somewhat meagre fare furnished by Hannah Garside.

Sunday was the one day in the week when there was meat hot and fresh to dinner-roast beef and Yorkshire pudding with pickled cabbage, and sometimes rice pudding. One can imagine what a welcome day that weekly day of rest and feasting was, the day when the village “knocker-up” forbore to rattle at the door or tap the chamber window with long stick, calling out belike: “Ger up, Tom, an’ howd th’ dog while aw wakken thee.” Daily use would break the morning sleep of the wearied toiler, but, oh! how sweet to remember with your first yawn that it was Sunday, and that if you liked you could spend the livelong day in bed, or at least, forego your morning meal and stretch between the blankets till the steaming fragrance from the revolving spit saluted your nostrils and sent you with yearning stomach down the rickety steps to cozen a sop from Hannah, stooping with reddened face over the spit, basting the revolving joint as it shed its dripping over the Yorkshire pudding, whilst Lucy, propped up with many pillows, peeled potatoes, or, on rare and great occasions, pared the apples for pie or pudding, chatting pleasantly, and soothing the ruffled temper of her mother.

And it was of Sunday afternoons that began those long talks with Ben Garside that had no less influence on Tom’s destiny than the earlier monitions of Mr. Black, or the shrewd worldly axioms of Tom o’ Fairbanks.

It had been a matter of less surprise than delight for Ben to find that Tom could not only read, but read without having to spell out or slur over long words. The joy of Hannah was great thereat, for so was Ben deprived of any pretext for sneaking out of a Sunday morning to the nearest public to hear the paper read. Now, she managed to produce each week a penny, by virtue of which Ben became one in a partnership of six, whose united contributions purchased a weekly paper. It mattered not at all that when it reached Ben’s house it was much thumbed and soiled and beer-stained, for in virtue of receiving it when truly it was a week old and much the worse for wear, Ben was allowed to retain it in perpetual proprietorship, and, had made a cover of “rolling boards” in which the copies were tenderly hoarded up and treasured.

Now Ben was a great politician, and if pressed upon so close and home a matter would profess and express himself an Owenite. Add to this that he very rarely troubled either chapel or church except on Christmas Day, and that he made a point of slinking out of the house if he chanced to be in when the vicar of the parish or the shepherd of a dissenting fold called at the cottage.

“Aw cannot abide parsons,” he confided to Tom one day. “Though aw wodn’t let yar Lucy yer me say so for worlds.”

Now Tom, as we know, had been taught to respect the Church, and he was absolutely against when Ben Garside, a little wiry, keen faced, middle-aged man, eager of speech and not a little fond of the sound of his own voice, went on:

“Weel, Tom, aw’m nowise minded to hurt yo’r feelin’s, an’ if th’ parsons wer owt like that Mister Black ’at yo set such store by, an’ well yo’ve a reet to by all accaants, if they tuk after him, aw’d happen ha’ cause to alter mi mind. But “ifs” an’ “buts” ma’ all th’ differ i’ this world, an’ they simply isn’t.”

“Well, they couldn’t be better,” said Tom, pleased with this tribute to his benefactor.

“Noah, but they set up to be. Nah aw’ll nooan go as fur as some folk ’at aw know, ’at say as parson’s bun’ to be oather a rogue or a fooil.”

“That’s strong, Ben, isn’t it?”

“Aye, lad, it’s nooan exactly what yo’d call meeat for babes; but aw reckon it meeans summat like this—’at if a parson believes all he preeaches he’s a fooil, an’ if he dunnot he’s t’other thing.”

“But surely,” began Tom.

“Aye, aye, aw know what yo’d say—’at they do believe. Weel then aw’ll tell yo’ I’m too mich respeck for their intellec’s to think at them, wi’ all their college larnin’, can believe one hawf o’ what ther paid to teach. Nooah, nooah, religion as them mak’ o’ preachers mis-ca’ their teachin’ is nobbut fit for women an’ childer, an’ to keep th’ ignorant i’ awe. Nah! aw’m a reely religious man missen, an’ that’s why aw dunnot hold wi parsons.”

This seemed a somewhat novel reason for discrediting ministers, and Tom could but look his surprise, which was exactly what Ben wanted.

“Nah! aw’ll gi’ yo’ a hinstance,” he said, sitting on a low wall—they were out for a walk—and bidding Tom follow his example. “Aw’ll gi’ yo’ a hinstance. Yo’n bin to th’ Baptis’ Chapel, wheer Jabez Tinker goes?”

Tom nodded.

“Nah, then, if yo’ll swallow all th’ parson says at Aenon yo’ mun believe that afore aw wer’ born aw wer’ predestined awther to heaven or hell—yo’ follow me?”

“Weel, tak’ it ’at aw wer’ predestined for hell, just for argyment’s sake.”

Tom thought it more than probable that this dreadfully free-spoken man was at least in danger of the fire, so he conceded the postulate.

“Nah! Do yo’ think it fair o’ God Almighty to send a poor weak sprawlin’ infant into th’ world, knowin’ full weel ’at after mebbe sixty or seventy yer o’ moilin’ an’ toilin’ an’ scrattin’, he’d end up wi’ weepin’ an’ wailin’ an’ gnashin’ o’ teeth for all eternity. Aw put it to yo’ Tom, wod yo’ ha’ done it yersen?”

“But if you were to go to Church, Ben, or even to Chapel,” began Tom.

“That doesn’t touch th’ point. Th’ point is at One they sen is Love, suld suffer a bairn to be born i’to this world, weel knowin’ its awful end.”

“And don’t you believe in God?” asked Tom, sinking his voice almost to a whisper and edging a little further off his companion.

“Aw do that, lad, but nooan i’ siccan a God as that’n. But aw’n nooan done wi’ th’ parsons yet—one thing at a time. Yo’ know aw can read th’ Bible, though nooan so glib-like as yo’ can, but aw think on what aw read. Nah chew this tex’ ovver th’ next time yo’ go to th’ church. Yo’ll find it i’th’ General Epistle o’ James:—

“’For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment, an’ yo’ hav’ respec’ to him ’at weareth the gay clothin’, an’ say unto him, sit yo’ here in a guid place; an’ say to th’ poor, stan’ yo’ theer, or sit under my fooitstooil.’ Well, lad, tha’s bin a Workhus lad thissen, an’ yo’ know weel enough wheer they towd yo’ to sit.”

Tom did know, and reflected that on the whole he had very much preferred the dark corners of the gallery to the chief places in the synagogue; but he had the sense to know his reasons were not of grace.

“Aye, an’ it’s th’ same all through,” went on the little hand-loom weaver, growing excited and warming to his topic. “It’s th’ same all through. They’re all tarred wi’ th’ same brush, or welly (well-nigh) all on ’em. They uphowd th’ rich, an’ they patronize th’ poor, aw’ most to a man. Why, see yo’, we’n been feightin’ for th’ Factory Act i’ this district ivver sin Sir Oastler tuk his coit off an’ put his neck to th’ collar i’ 1830, afore yo’ were born. How many o’th’ parsons i’ this district, dun yo’ think, has sided wi’ th hand agen th’ maisters? Ther’ wer th’ Reverend Madden, o’ Woodhouse, he com’ aat like a man, but he had to dare to be a Daniel an’ dare to stand alone, as th’ hymn says. Yo’st take all th’ progress ’at’s bin made i’th’ world sin th’ days o’ Adam, an’ tak’ it broadly speikin’ yo’ll find ’at th’ parsons ha’ bin agen it. There’s Stephen’s th’ Wesleyan minister an’ Chartist he cam’ to Huddersfield wheer had he to talk do’st think? I’th’ Parish Church? Not he, faith. I’th’ Wesleyan Chapel? Not he. I’th Hall 0’ Science, man, i’ Bath Buildings, a infidel shop, th’ bigots ca’ad it.”

“But surely, Ben, you believe in something. You say you believe in God. You believe in Christ too, don’t you?”

“Aye i’ th’ natural Christ, but nooan i’th’ travesty o’ Jesus o’ Nazareth ’at th’ owd monks twisted an’ fashioned out o’ th’ natural man till his own mother wouldn’t ha’ known him. Aw believe in him, but th’ parsons don’t.”

“Nay, nay, Ben,” expostulated Tom, bewildered, shocked, but interested.

“They dooan’t. They sen they do, an’ they happen think they do, for it’s wonderful, just fair cappin’, how folk can cheeat their own sen. Nah! Aw’ll just ax yo’ if yo’ wer to steal th’ vicar’s cooat, or poise his shins for ’im, wheer do’st think tha’d sleep to-neet? I’ th’ towzer,* wouldn’t ta.”

Tom thought this highly likely.

“But that’s nooan what Jesus towd folk. An’ what abaat heeapin’ up stores o’ riches i’ this world wheer moth an’ rust doth corrupt an’ thieves break through an’ steal? Weel, if there’s a chap i’ all this valley at’s keener after brass nor some o’th’ parsons aw know an’ some o’th’ deacons yo’ kno, aw dooant want to have ony truck wi’ ’em for one.”

Tom thought of Ephraim Thorpe, and was mute.

“But that’s nooan th’ warst aw han agen th’ parsons. They’re nobbud men, though they set thersen up for saints, an’ there’s good an’ bad amang ’em same as there is amang other folk, aye, an’ allus will be as long as th’ world goes round, but ther’s just one doctrine ’at sticks i’ my gizzard waur nor all th’ others.”

Tom thought it must be a particularly lumpy doctrine, if this were so, for Ben seemed to have a narrow and constricted throat.

“Yo’ heard th’ parson tell folk to be content wi’ that station i’ life to which it has pleased Providence to call ’em.”

“Well, it’s no use being anything else that I can see,” said Tom, getting tired of being talked down and jumped on, in a manner of speaking.

“A’m ashamed on yo’, Tom. Aw thowt better things on yo’, after all my talkin’ to yo’. Nah, my motto is, Be content just as long as yo’ can’t better yo’sen; but it’s yo’r bounden duty to yo’r sen an’ yo’r fam’ly, when yo’ get one, an’ yo’r fellow-men, to be as discontented as ever yo’n reason to be, an’ to try all yo’ know to better yo’sen an’ them. Discontent, lad, ’s th’ basis o’ all progress, an’ yo’ll nooan be a reformer till yo’r chock full on it. Look at Moses, nah!”

But Mrs. Garside might be seen at the cottage door beckoning them to tea, for there was ever a cup of tea on Sunday afternoon with wheat bread and fresh butter, and lettuce or watercress and radishes and spring onions, when the season served, and these fresh pulled from Ben’s little garden patch, or gathered from the brim of the purling brook.

Tea over, Ben seated himself by the hearth on which was spread the large warm list rug, like Joseph’s coat of many colours, lists which Lucy had herself cut and her own mother stitched into the stout canvas backing. Ben justly regarded this rug as a work of art, and when he ventured to plant his feet upon it of a Sunday night, did so, as it were, apologetically.

“But we hannot finished our talk yet, Tom,” he began, puffing vigorously at his clay pipe to assure that well-gripped glow that permits of soliloquy or monologue. “Aw wer’ sayin’ when Hannah ca’ed us in.”

“Now, father,” interrupted Lucy, “remember what day it is, don’t let us have any o’ those horrid politics, they only put yo’ in a fash an’ a tantrum.”

“Tom ’ll ha’ to bide it,” said Hannah, who was pleased to see her husband settle down by his own fireside and cross his legs upon his own hearth, as what wife is not. “Tom ’ll ha’ to bide it. Yo’r father’s like a eight-day clock. If Tom’s wun’ ’im up, Tom mun let ’im run daan.”

“Well, aw wer’ sayin’—at what wer’ aw sayin’?—guise-’ang-me if aw hannot forgotten wheer aw left off—Oh! Abaat Moses. Nah, tak’ th’ Book theer. Reick it daan, Hannah, reick it daan, Tom ’ll happen mash a ornament or crumple a fal-de-lal” and Ben winked at Tom in token that this must be taken as a subtle innuendo at Hannah’s over-tidiness.

But Hannah was impervious to innuendo, and carefully lifted down the ponderous family Bible, bound in stout leather covers with brass corners, and containing on the front leaf in faint ink and sprawling characters the brief records of marriages, births and deaths. The book had been given to Hannah by her grandmother on her death-bed, and never did priest of Levi touch the Ark of the Covenant with more reverent hand than hers as it held the sacred volume.

“Nah, lad, read that abaat th’ ovverseer an th’ Hebrew.”

Tom looked at Lucy for further explication.

“Father allus picks th’ fightin’ bits i’ th’ Scriptures,” she said.—“I like th’ stories o’ Jesus best, myssen—but as long as it’s i’ th’ Bible it must be good, so best humour him. It’s wheer Moses felled th’ taskmaster.”

And Tom read:

“‘And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren.

‘And he looked this way and that way and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.’”

“Aye, aye, blood’s thicker nor watter, all th’ warld ovver,” commented Hannah, who sat rocking herself softly before the dying embers of the fire, her nervous fingers playing with the corners of her apron, lacking the knitting needles that are to a woman what a pipe is to a man.

“Eh! That Moses wer’ a man after mi own heart,” burst in Ben. “Just think on it; theer he wer’, browt up o’ th’ fat o’ th’ land, wi’ th’ best o’ ivverything to eit an’ drink, an’ brass for owt; an’ nowt to do but scrape his leg to th’ powers ’at be an’ he wer’ a made man for life. There isn’t one man in a thaasand, pampered an’ fed an’ thrussen up as he wer’, but thrussen up as he thrussen up as he ’ud a left th’ poor bondslaves to shift for theirsens, yo’ needn’t go aat o’ Holmfirth to see that e’ry day o’ yo’r life. Gi’ a workin’ man a bit o’ power an’ a bit more wage an’ set ’im ovver t’ others an’ he’ll what-do-you-ca’ it?—‘out-Herod Herod,’” and Ben paused in evident gratification at this rounding of his period, but added on reflection, “or mebbe, aw sud say, out-Pharaoh Pharaoh. But Moses nah” ...

“Yes but, father,” said the gentle voice of Lucy, as she laid her thin white hand caressingly on her father’s knee—“Yar Lucy can leead th’ father wi’ a threed o’ silk,” thought the mother.—“Yes but, father, Moses had a direct order from God; ‘I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people out of Egypt.’”

“True enough, lass, true enough: but yo’ll obsarve ’at th’ angel o’ the Lord didn’t appear to Moses till he’d shown th’ stuff he wer’ made on. Aw tak’ it God likes to know summat abaat folk afore He sets ’em on to gaffer a job. Us workin’ folk didn’t go to Oastler i’ that gret haase o’ his at Fixby, aboon Huddersfilt yonder, till he’d written to th’ pappers an’ spokken aat like a man abaat th’ ill-usage o’th’ little childer. It’s a long day sin’ but we’st win yet, as sure as God’s i’ heaven, for He has surely heard the cry of the little uns, an’ He has seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them.”

“But, Ben,” said Tom, “we aren’t living in Egypt, an’ Queen Victoria isn’t Pharaoh, and we aren’t bond slaves.”

“Oh! th’ warst kind o’ slave’s him,” retorted Ben, “as doesn’t know he is a slave. Look at Lucy theer, her ’at sud ha’ bin, aye an’ wod ha’ bin’, as strong as a young colt, on’ what is ’oo nah, a lily brokken on its stalk—mi poor lass, mi poor lass”—and the father’s voice broke and the mother’s face was turned aside.

“Dunno greet, father I’m very happy, for aw nivver knew till aw wer bed-ridden how sweet life can be wheer love is.”

“Wheer’s yo’r een, Tom? “went on Ben very fiercely, to hide his softer feelings, “wheer’s thi e’en? aw say. Isn’t Sam Buckley th’ spinner at Wilberlee yet?”

Tom nodded.

“Weel, aw know Sam. ’As to ivver seen him peilin’ an’ cuffin’ th’ young ’uns abaat th’ yed, wi’ them big fists o’ his’n, little, wee, puny, ramshackle things o’ scorn an’ eight yer owd, all skin an’ bone, so to speak, an’ precious little bone at that. Hasn’t ta seen ’im strappin’ ’em an’ layin’ abaat ’im reet an’ left wi’ a roller as thick ay yo’r shackle, an’ crack’d ’em abaat t’ poll till th’ blood’s come, when he’s getten ’is skin full o’ four-ale? Things ha’ altered strangely if tha hasn’t, or else tha’rt stone-blind and past prayin’ for.”

Now Tom had seen this and felt it too; but he had supposed it was all part of the day’s work. He saw others put up with it, and he had put up with it—it might, for aught he knew, be involved in that all-controlling indenture of apprenticeship.

“Aye, it’s true enough,” he said, “I’ve wondered about it, Ben. Isn’t ther’ a law against it? Mr. Black says there’s one and the same law for the rich and the poor.”

“Then Mr. Black’s nooan as knowin’ as aw tak’ ’im to be. Law! Law fiddlesticks! Tak’ an’ overseer afore th’ magistrates—most on ’em manufacturers theirsen—for beeatin’ a child, nivver name a ’prentice—why, yo’ might as weel fall out wi’ owd Harry an’ go to hell for justice.—But it’s time yo wor i’ bed, lad, if tha meeans to gooa to-neet, an’ nivver tha forget abaat Moses. Gooid neet to yo’.”

Now it so befell that on the afternoon of the very next day it was Tom’s ill-fortune to become embroiled with that same Sam Buckley. The foreman spinner was a big, burly fellow, broad-shouldered and vast of paunch. He had the fishy eye and mottled face of the heavy drinker and a short and uncertain temper; not, perhaps an ill-meaning man, but quick and heavy with his shoulder-of-mutton hands. It chanced that Mr. Tinker had been obliged to go to Huddersfield that day and was not expected at the mill till late in the afternoon. As the day lengthened, the sky had become overcast, the air sultry with the unseasonable warmth and closeness that tells of a brooding storm or the artillery of the heavens. The upper room of the mill, where the billy-pieceners were mostly engaged, was a long, low chamber. Its walls had once been whitewashed but were now a dull, dirty colour from mingled grease and fluff and dust. The floors were cased with grease. There was little ventilation, except the air that entered when the door opened or through an odd broken Window; pane or so. The inner air was hot to sultriness, laden with the breath of a score or so of workers and with the rancid smell of machine oil. The spinner had gone to his dinner, and it was seldom he missed “calling” on his way back to the mill. It was a toss-up whether he would return in a good or a bad temper. If in a good one he would probably spend a half-hour or so in the weaving-shed among the grown-up girls who worked there, making jests and taking the coarse liberties they dared not resent if they would keep their looms. If in a bad temper he would make for the “billy-hoil,” where it would be safe to vent it. Now this afternoon he was in a particularly bad temper.—Monday is often given up to bad temper. The overeating of Sunday conduces to it, the fact that Monday is, in the parts of which I write, as sacred to the wash-tub as Sunday is to the chapel, does not soothe it. The moment Sam shoved open the door, with thunder on his brow and lightning in his eye, the quick-witted hands, sharp beyond their tender years, sniffed the threatening storm, and bent with intent looks and nimble fingers over their work. But little “Billy-come-a-lakin” had succumbed to the drowsy influences of the time and place. Sat upon the floor, his little legs outstretched, his back against the greasy wall, his dinner can by his side, Billy slept. He had just time to start from his slumber and his dreams when Sam pounced upon him and dragged him to the central gangway of the long chamber, the lad shrinking within himself, cowering and whimpering, and but half awake.

“So aw’ve caught o’, have aw, yo’ young gallows bird? This is th’ way yo’ rob yo’r mester, as soon as a man’s back’s turned.”

“Please sir aw couldn’t help it; summat cam’ ovver me, an’ mi legs seemed to ha’ nooa feel in ’em, an’ oh! aw wer so tired. Don’ beeat me, Sam, it’ll mak mi mother greet so, if ’oo sees th’ marks on me when aw doff missen to-neet.”

“Aw’ll mark yo’ nivver fear, aye an’ gi’ yo’ summat ’at ’ll keep yo wakken, too, yo’ idle good-for-nowt,” and Sam swung in with a piece of belting thicker and broader than a navvy’s belt.

Now it was at just this moment that Tom took the door. He had come from the dyehouse to match a cop.

“Hold,” he cried, and strode quickly up the room, “you won’t beat that child, Sam, wi’ that strap. Drop it, I say.”

“An’ who’ll stop me?” roared Sam.

“I will.”

“Then tak’ that for thi’ impudence yo’ d——d, meddlin’ workhouse bastard,” and Sam brought the stinging leather right across Tom’s flashing cheek.

Then, quick as lightning, sped a downright blow, straight from the shoulder true between the eyes, and Sam fell like a stricken ox, ignominious, into a skep of cops. There was the quick catching of breath from a score of throats as two score eyes watched the bully’s fall, and Tom, as he looked about him, felt prouder and gladder than all his life before.

“Eh! but aw’st catch it for this,” whispered Billy-come-a-lakin. “Aw’ll run for it whilst aw’ve th’ chance,” and he fled the place, and his billy knew him no more that week.

“Yo’n nooan heerd th’ last o’ this,” said Buckley, as he slowly picked himself up, dazed and scowling. “Aw’ll mak’ yo’ pay for this day’s wark, if aw swing for it, mind yo’r piecenin’, yo’ young limbs o’ Satan, an’ quit yo’r gapin’,” and the irate spinner stalked out of the “scribbling boil.”

Tom did the errand on which he had been sent by the dyer and made his way down the outer steps to return to his own work. He had to cross the mill-yard. Mr. Tinker had just ridden in at the gate and now was bending his head from the saddle to hearken to the tale Sam was pouring into his ear. Tom saw his master’s brow contract.

“Send him to me,” Tom heard, “I’ll deal with him. It’s rank mutiny.”

Tom stepped forward and stood by the horse’s side.

“I’m here, sir,” he said quickly, tho’ he could hear the beating of his own heart.

The riding-whip was raised with quick and angry menace. Tom never flinched, he only dug his nails into his palms to stay his tingling nerves. But the blow fell not.

“Where do you say you come from?”

“Diggle, sir,” and Tom’s quiet grey eye looked his master in the face. “You hired me yourself at the Workhouse.”

Jabez Tinker peered, in the falling autumn light, into the lad’s pale set face and scanned it searchingly.

“How came that weal across your cheek?”

“Sam can tell you best,” was the quiet reply.

“You said nothing of this Buckley,” said the master. “Mind when you come to me again, you don’t come with half a tale. Go your ways, Pinder, but let me have no more of this broiling or you’ll soon regret it.”

And Jabez Tinker dismounted, threw the reins to Buckley, who stood surlily by, waiting the upshot of his complaint, and walked without another word to the office. But he had sighed as he watched Tom’s upright, sinewy figure cross the mill yard, and a lingering, longing look followed the unwitting ’prentice.

CHAPTER VII.

TIME passed, as it will pass even in Holmfirth. Tom is still an apprentice, but in no fear of stick or strap from Sam Buckley, or any other Sam. The first Factory Act has become law, Ben Garside had a grievance the less, though when the night drew long it was still delight fighting his battles o’er again, to tell the oft-told tale of that famous march to York, when from Huddersfield, and all the parts contiguous, men, women, and little children made their weary way to York, to cry aloud that the iron-heel of capital might not crush out the infant life of the nation’s self. Ben’s limbs are stiffer by many a year since that historic tramp, but he straightens them and erect with flashing eye, as he dwells upon the heroic patience, the grim resolve of those who trod the long, long miles, and tells how weary men stayed with their arms the feeble, halting steps of bent and grey-headed sires, and worn and foot-sore women carried in their arms drooping children, not their own; how the rain fell in torrents, and the wind beat the cold showers in upon their drenched garments and many stole behind the hawthorn hedges, and the gray low stone walls, and slept the sleep of an exhaustion that was well nigh unto death; of how, as they came by some kindly waggoner, carting sacks of corn, or bales of wool, or barrels of good ale, the women and the children were taken up and given a sore-needed lift; how, as they passed through village and hamlet, hard-featured men and homely women came running into the road, and pressed upon them meat and drink, and wished them God-speed, and a safe return; of how when they reached the Castle yard in York itself, the clogs of many were clotted with the blood of their bruised and lacerated feet, and last, of how when their hearts were sick with hope deferred, the glad hour of triumph came, and the groans of the workers pierced the ears of Parliament, and the joy-bells rang to herald in the great Charter of the Toiler’s freedom.

But Tom had that to protect him which was better fashioned than any statute ever made, incomprehensible by amplitude of words. Now, in his nineteenth year, he is nearing the six feet of manhood, and his frame is well knit and strong. Simple fare has agreed with him, anyway, simple, fare and simple, cleanly ways. He is the delight of Hannah Garside’s eyes, and of eyes, too, younger and brighter than hers, though the winsome mill-hands of the valley declare that Tom Pinder is as dateless as a stone. “It’s time wasted on him,” they say, “he thinks o’ nowt but his books an’ his wark, an’ maybe o’ that poor ill-shaped Lucy Garsed.”

It is Saturday afternoon, and Hannah’s cottage is all “red up,” and Hannah herself is washed and dressed and ready to don herself, and sally forth a-shopping, when the clacking of Ben’s loom shall cease in the upper chamber. Lucy still tenants the settle under the window, but it is a stronger, bonnier Lucy than the wan frail Lucy of former days. Deformed she will always be, but some measure of bodily strength has been vouchsafed to her, and the bobbin-wheel by her side, presently to be put by, and a basket of bulky cops, and another of plenished bobbins tell that Lucy is no longer an unwilling divine in that busy hive, but can, with nimble fingers and pliant wrist, do the winding once her mother’s care.

“Now stand you there, Beauty, and stir a foot if you dare,” a voice is heard outside, a pleasant girlish voice; and without knock or ceremony the latch is lifted and a merry face, all smiles and sunshine, roses and dimples, peers in at the half-opened door.

“May I come in, and do you mind my fastening Beauty to the door-hasp, he is so restive, and always in a hurry to rush off home,” and without waiting for permission the speaker trips into the room and kisses Lucy on both cheeks, and gives Mrs. Garside a hearty hug.

“Why, if it isn’t Miss Dorothy!” exclaimed the good old dame. “My word, how yo’ dun grow, miss, to be sure. Deary me, an’ it only seems t’ other day aw held yo’ i’ mi arms an’ nussed yo’ o’ mi lap, an’ yo’ a wee-bit babbie kickin’ an’ croonin’ an’ little dreeamin’ o’ what yo’d lost upstairs, an’ yo’r father awmost off his head wi’ grief—deary, deary, how time dun fly, to be sure. But sit yo’ daan, nah do.”

How beautiful, how utterly bewitching and distracting a picture was Dorothy Tinker my art would utterly fail to tell. Image to yourself a lissom maiden of sweet seventeen, just of that happy medium height that reaches to a tall man’s heart, and of that rounded proportioning of form, with outline of graceful curve that company with health and exercise; dream of an oval face in which the blush rose dwells, a rounded dimpled chin, violet eyes dancing with mirth, carnation lips and ivory teeth, and the small head crowned with wealth of auburn hair, rippling in waves like a dimpling streamlet;—dream of all this, and still ’tis but a dream, and only eye and ear could tell you how sweet and dainty a maid was Dorothy. Men drew their breath sharp when first they looked on her, and young men ravished and betook themselves to poetry and woeful sighs, and wandering far and lone by moonlit ways.

“We don’t see much of you now-a-days, Miss Dorothy,” said Lucy, smiling fondly at her visitor.

“An what mak’ o’ a gown do yo’ ca’ that?” said the mother.

“Oh! this, Mistress Hannah Garside, wife of Benjamin of that ilk, is my riding-habit and to be respected accordingly. It is, I believe, the only one in Holmfirth. Neat, isn’t it?”

“Yo’ look like a lad i’ petticoits. Is it quite decent for a wench?” asked Mrs. Garside, somewhat anxiously.

“Decent! why, it’s the very pink of the latest fashion: the only wear, in fact, though I think I would rather be without the skirt on a windy day. Then there’d be an uplifting of hands and a searching of hearts, if you like.”

Mrs. Garside only looked half-satisfied.

“Yo’r th’ same, an’ yet not th’ same,” she said.

“Not the same! Hannah, why I should hope not indeed, or my good uncle’s money would be sadly wasted, and you know that wilful waste makes woeful want. I know or should know, for Aunt Tinker dins it in my ear every time I buy a new ribbon or a pair of gloves. The same, indeed! Why do you know, Hannah, I’m being finished,” and Dorothy dropped her voice as though she spoke a word of doom.

“Finished?” queried Lucy, “finished?”

“Aye finished, in very sooth. Fashioned, moulded, formed taught carriage and deportment, and several other extras at Miss Holmes’s highly fashionable, strictly select academy for young ladies in Huddersfield, and thither and thence I ride on Beauty every day of the blessed week bar Sundays and missin’s—but that’s an improper word and not to be spoken in genteel society.”

“A ’cademy! lor, think o’ that now,” said Hannah much impressed “an’ what do they larn yo’ now, furrin languages I’ll be bun.”

“Oh dear, yes! I can already relieve my feelings to my aunt in French that she cannot understand, and which I dare say, would puzzle Mons. Feugley, our French master, and I know some German words that sound so like swearing that Aunt Tinker gasps and grows pale when I use them, and I can tinkle on the piano and sing indifferently well for a screechy voice.”

“That’s nooan Gospel, my word,” put in Hannah, stoutly, and Lucy held up a reproving finger.

“And oh! tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Ascalon.”

“More furrin’ parts” groaned Hannah.

“I can, sh! speak low my voice, bend your heads and lend your ears.—I can dance!”

“Dance!” gasped Hannah.

“Yes, vraiment, which is French or German, I forget which, for of a verity and in good sooth—but they don’t know at home. It’s an extra extra, dancing is and Aunt Martha wouldn’t hear of it, and Uncle declared it was a vanity. But I learn all the same.”

“How do you manage it?” asked Lucy, with an admiring, caressing but wistful look at the beaming face.

“Why the other girls teach me, silly, in the bedroom. We dance in our nightdresses, when Fraulein has put out the gas. But it isn’t as nice, they say, as dancing with Professor Blanc, de Paris, vous savez.”

“Oh, Dorothy, how can you say such things!” and Lucy looked really shocked.

“But you, Lucy, you are altered too. Ah! How my tongue runs on. But there, it is such a relief to let it run just once in a way, for at school, it’s ‘Miss Tinker, give silence, if you please,’ and ‘Miss Tinker, less noise.’ and ‘Miss Tinker, cease laughing,’ till I’m Miss Tinkered to death, and you know what it is at home. I vow if it weren’t for old Betty and Irish Peggy, I’d soon be competent to conduct a school for the deaf and dumb. Yes, Lucy, you are altered too; you’re stouter and rosier, altogether happier looking, what’s come over the child, Hannah!”

“Ah! that’s all Tom’s doing,” said Hannah, “and God’s, mother dear,” softly added Lucy.

“Tom?” queried Dorothy, “who in the name of goodness is Tom?”

“Why, Tom,—oh, Tom is just Tom,” said Lucy, “you can’t have forgotten him, Miss Dorothy, you must remember to have seen him.”

“Not a remembrance!” exclaimed Dorothy emphatically; “but it’s an ugly name enough. Tom what? or maybe it’s the cat.”

“Ah! now aw see you’re only playing, miss,” said Hannah. “Noah, sen yo’? why, wheerivver han’ yo’r e’en bin not to see yar Tom, Tom Pinder, yo’ know—he’s warked for yo’r uncle these how mony years is’t, Lucy, lemme see, aye these five year an’ more, an’ if yo’ hannot seen him I’se warrant yo’re th’ only wench i’ Holmfirth ’at ha not.

“But what’s this Admirable Crichton to do with Lucy’s better looks?”

“Why, ivverything, if truth be spokken, as ever it shall be i’ this haase whiles Hannah Garsed has a tongue to speik. Yo’ mind what a pale peaky helpless critter ’oo wor five yer back, none fit to do a hand-stir for hersen. That wer’ after ’oo’d worked ’at yor’ uncle’s for a spell—but that’s nother here nor theer. An’ then, who but yo’r own sen up an’ spak’ to yo’r uncle ’at aw could, mebbe do wi’ a lodger, an’ didn’t he come—yo’r uncle, aw meean—an’ ’gree wi’ me to tak’ Tom an’ do for ’im, an’ he—yo’r uncle aw meean—wer’ to pay me hauf-a-craan a week for him, at first, an’ rise to four shillin’ afore Tom wer’ out o’ his writin’s, which awm sure it’s little enough when th’ weshin’s considered, an’ ’im that hearty yo’d think sometimes he’d eit a man off his horse, not but what he’s welcome to all he can howd an’ more till it, for aw couldn’t think more on ’im nor do more for ’im, if he wer’ my own lad, which aw sometimes awmost think he is, an’ yar Ben that set up wi’ ’im, an’ ’im so clivver at his books ’at it’s as gooid as a sermon an’ better nor some to yer th’ father an’ ’im a argeyfyin’ an’ a argeyfyin’ till yo’d think they’d nivver ha’ done.”

“But what about Lucy?”

“Weel, weren’t aw tellin’ yo’? Weel, at first when he come he wer’ a bit shy, like, o’ Lucy, an’ her o’ ’im; bud one day, a Sunday afternooin it wer, an’ th’ sun shinin’, an’ th’ sky as blue as weshin’-powder, Tom says it wer’ a shame o’ Lucy to be cooped up i’ th’ haase an’ ne’er taste th’ taste o’ fresh air; an’ he just up wi’ her in his arms, same as yo’d lift a babby, an’ carried her aat into garden, an’ th’ hedge wer’ all thick wi’ May-blossom, both white and red, an’ he gate a lot, an’ made a posy for her; an’ after that it wer’ a regular outin’ for her as long as th’ weather held, an’ after he’d come fro’ th’ mill, fit to drop, so to speik, he wer’ nivver too tired to gi’ Lucy her outin’. And then it wer’ Tom ’at put into yar Ben’s yed to ha’ a cheer on wheels, an’ he poo’d it hissen up an’ daan th’ loin, though lads and lasses, shameless hussies some on ’em, made nowt bud fun on ’im an’ ca’d him dree-nurse. Bud he sooin garr’d th’ lasses howd their tongues an’ keep aat o’ th’ loin—trust Tom for that—an’ when th’ lads went th’ lasses followed, trust them for that.”

“And how did he make them?” asked Dorothy, laughing.

“Oh! weel, he ca’s it moral suasion; but it looked uncommon like feightin th’ time aw’ see’d it. Ben says it wer’ effectual callin’.”

“H’m, I don’t think I shall like this same Master Tom of yours. He’s a paragon, and I don’t think paragons and I quite hit it.”

“Aw dooan’t know what yo’ meean bi a Paragon, miss, but there’s a Paragon what’s a public-haase i’ Westgate i’ Huddersfielt, an’ yo’ nivver wer’ further off yo’r horse, Miss Dorothy, though aw mak’ bold to say so. Why, yar Tom nivver touches a drop stronger nor teea, an’s awmost ’verted yar Ben, leastwise he tak’s nowt no stronger nor whom-brew’d an’ aw see that’ll nooan hurt ’im.”

“Aye, aye, I see, a paragon, a saint. Oh! I can picture him. Tall, you say? Yes, tall and thin and hollow-chested, stooping, pale, with long black hair as straight as a yard of pump-water; and he turns his eyes up and his toes in, and groans dismally, and his clothes don’t fit him, and he wears black cotton gloves on Sundays, an inch too long in the fingers, and he goes to temperance meetings and prayer meetings, and regularly to chapel twice on Sundays, and attends experience meetings and turns his soul inside out for the world—of Aenon Chapel—to gaze at. Oh! I think I see him now, that quite too precious Tom!”

“Weel, so yo’ may, Miss Dorothy,” said Hannah with a quiet smile. “He’s had his bath upstairs—nivver such a one there wer’ sin Adam for weshin’ hissen all ovver once a week whether he wants it or not—an’ nah, aw’ll be bun he’s mankin’ i’ th’ garden.”

And Hannah went into the back kitchen or scullery at the back of the “house” and, still smiling, beckoned to Dorothy. “Aye, he’s theer, sure enough.”

And this is what Dorothy saw: a young Hercules, stripped, save his vest, to the belted waist, his heels together, his toes out-turned, his knees braced, his breast expanded, his chin in air, and in his outstretched brawny arms whirled about his head a mighty pair of clubs—“it’s a windmill,” whispered Dorothy—“Oh! but he’s a proper man.”

“As ever yo’d see in a day’s walk,” chuckled Hannah,—“more o’ a Samson nor a saint, accordin’ to my readin’ o’ th’ Scriptur’s,—but ther’s neer a Dalilah o’ ’em all ’ll ha’ to cut Tom’s hair for ’im, trust owd Hannah for that.”

“H’m, that’s as may be,” said Dorothy in the maturity of wisdom, finished and formed at a select academy, and, turning to take her leave of Lucy.

“I must run away now, dear Lucy; ’t will never do to let your handsome lover catch me in this fright of a gown. I’ll come again some day when you’re likely to be by yourself. And, Lucy, dear, I daresay he isn’t at all a paragon. There, now, and don’t blush any more, or you’ll be struck so.”

Now although from this time forth Dorothy Tinker made more than one occasion to visit her sick friend, popping in at uncertain times of the day, as Mrs. Garside said, “promis’us-like” it was not till nigh up upon Christmas time, that she ever had speech with Tom. And this is how that came to pass. One day, a week or so before Yule-tide, when the snow lay heavy upon all the hills, no other than Workhouse Jack presented himself in Wilberlee mill yard, looking very like a middle-aged, beardless, lean and hungry image of Father Christmas. He was met in the yard by Sam Buckley.

“We don’t want no hands: we’re puttin’ no fresh ’uns on this side Easter, so off yo’ pack abaat yo’r business.”

“Be yo’ Mr. Tinker, sir?” said Jack.

“Nooah,” answered Sam, somewhat mollified by the implied compliment; “nooah, what do you want?”

“Isn’t this th’ spot at Tom Pinder works at?” asked Jack.

“Aye, if yo’ ca’ it workin’; some folk ’ud ca’ it lakin’. What does ta want to kno’ for? no good awm sure.”

“Well, aw’n getten a letter for him.”

“A letter! Who’s it fro’?”

“Aw reckon th’ letter tell that for itsen.”

“Well, hand it here, aw’ll see he gets it.”

“It’s varry partickler, yo’ see,” demurred Jack. “It’s fro’ a woman, an’ oo’ telled me at aw wor to ’liver it to nob’dy but Tom hissen, an’ ’oo’s a woman ’at generally has her own way i’ our parts.”

“Well, yo’ can oather gi’ it to me or wait outside th’ gate till he comes aat. Yo’ll nooan see Pinder afore th’ mills lose.”

“Tha’rt a liar; aw see ’im nah. Hey Tom lad, aw want thee!” and Jack adroitly dodged past the protesting slubber and ran up to Tom. Buckley deemed discretion the better part of valour and took himself off.

“Sithee, Tom,” almost gasped Jack in his eagerness, and casting a triumphant glance at the discomfited obstructionist, “sithee, there’s a letter for thee. It’s fro Betty Schofield at th’ Wakey, an’ tha’s to go back wi me. ’Oo’d ha’ put that i’t’ letter, aw wer to tell thee, but ’oo’d no more ink, an’ th’ pen gate cross-legged.”

And Tom read as follows:

“Deer Tom,

This is to let yew ’no at Mr. Black’s bin took vary bad, an’s frettin’ becos yo’ dont com’ to see ’im. He’s i’ bed; wi’ a stroke i’th reight side, hopin’ you’re well which it leaves me, so no more at present from

Yours trewly,

BETTY SCHOFIELD.”

Tom’s heart smote him. He was conscious that latterly he had been remiss in his visits to his friends beyond the hill. His new life was growing on him, and new interests filling his mind.

“Is it serious, do you know, Jack?” he asked.

“Moll ’o Stute’s says another do ’ll finish him. He’s had two doctors till ’im, an’ Moll says his constitooshun’ whativver ’oo meeans bi that, couldn’t ha’ stooid one, ne’er name two. But yo’ll come, Tom, an’ Betty says yo’ll do him more gooid nor physic.”

It would have been nothing out of the common for a hand to “jack” his work without saying “by your leave,” or “with your leave,” but that was not Tom’s way. He sought Mr. Tinker in the dingy little office, but he was not there,—he might be in the house, someone suggested; and Tom made for the house, a mere stride, not a stone-throw from the mill-gate. Jack trotted by his side like a faithful dog.

“Weel, I declare, if there beeant big Tom Pinder comin’ up th’ walk, miss,” exclaimed Betty, the cook, wiping her hands on her coarse apron, “an’ as shallockin’ a lookin’ felley wi ’im as ivver yo’ clapped een on,” and a knock at the kitchen door coincided with her wondering “what’s to do naah!”

Now Dorothy was in the very thick of that daintiest of all household doings the making of pastry for the Christmas fare. She was garbed in a pretty print dress, and a white bib and apron, spotlessly clean, became her vastly. Her small and shapely hands were cunningly turning the well-greased tins, and shaping the dough within and above a noble array of large and portly tins crammed with the makings of pork-pies and jimping the edges of lesser tins designed for the mince-meat that, not innocent of the flavour of brandy, scented the warm kitchen air. The sleeves of her dress were rolled up and gave play to as white and rounded an arm, with a dainty dimple at the elbow, as ever delighted the eyes of man. Her cheek was flushed either with the heat of the roaring fire or confusion at being so discovered by eyes whose sudden glance, quick withdrawn, betrayed a startled admiration more speakingly than speech.

“I beg your pardon, Miss, but is Mr. Tinker at home? He isn’t in the office, nor about the mill,” said Tom, whilst Jack alternate gaped and sniffed.

“Can’t yo’ shut th’ door after yo’, Tom Pinder,” exclaimed Betty, “or do yo’ think yo’re big enough to do for a door yersen?”

“Uncle’s not at home; he’s gone to Huddersfield, I think,” said Dorothy, hastily unrolling her sleeves, and hiding the glistening ivory of her arms.

“Mrs. Tinker, perhaps?” hazarded Tom.

“And aunt’s in bed, as bad as can be with a sick head-ache. A pretty Christmas we are likely to have; but is it any message you can leave?” for Tom had turned to go, “you look in trouble.”

“Jack here has brought me a message, Miss. It’s from an old friend, perhaps from the oldest, and it concerns the best friend I have in the world. My more than guardian Mr. Black, the schoolmaster at Diggle, is sick, it is feared unto death, and Jack here has won over th’ top through th’ snow to fetch me to him.”

“An’ dun yo’ meean to say, Tom Pinder,” broke in Betty, “’at this yer drowned rat of a man ’at stann’s theer gaupin’ as if he wer mooin-struck an’ drippin’ all ovver my cleean floor like a leeakin’ piggin’ ’s come all th’ way fro’ Diggle i’ this weather ’at’s nooan fit for a dog to be aat in.”

“Aye, Betty,” said Tom,—he was a prime favourite with Betty of old, and he knew it,—“not so warm as your kitchen, but it was urgent you see, and Jack’s an old friend too, aren’t you, Jack?”

But Jack’s eye and Jack’s thoughts were fixed upon something more to a hungry man’s purpose than mere matters of friendship—he had caught the whiff from the oven door—it was the scent of pork pie piping hot.

Dorothy caught the glance that waywards.

“Why how thoughtless I am. Now, Jack, I’m sure, as it’s Christmas time”—needless qualification—“you can eat some Christmas fare. And they’re the very first pies I’ve ever made, and I do hope they’ll be nice. Peggy, why don’t you set some plates?”

“And mind yo’ hot ’em afore th’ fire. Its simply beyond all belief how aw’ve to tell that girl to put hot plates wi’ hot meeat, an’ cowd wi’ cowd, i’steead o’ cowd wi’ hot an’ hot wi’ cowd.”

“And you Tom,”—and then with a hesitation as though in doubt, “I mean, Mr. Pinder, you will take something before you cross those terrible hills?”

If Dorothy had there and then asked Tom to sit down and make a comforting meal of dynamite washed down with prussic acid it is odds that he would have set to bowl and platter with a cheerful heart; but to put knife and fork into a rich brown crust that crunched beneath the blade and to see the hot jelly gush out over the plate and to catch the fragrance of the red and brown pork with judicious blending of lean and fat cut into squares like dice, and to see all this flanked by a crested jug of foaming beer.—Oh! Don’t talk to me of nectar and ambrosia.

“Yo’r health, miss,” said Jack, politely and as distinctly as he could with his mouth full, “and yo’rs, too, aw’m sure”—this to Betty, whose ample form he surveyed with lingering approval “and a merry Chersmas when it comes.”

But Tom, even as he plied his knife and fork heard ringing in his ears the words that some instinct or some dim apprehension or prompting of native delicacy had compelled from Dorothy’s lips.—“Mister Pinder”. Tom had never been called Mister Pinder before in all his life “Gentleman Tom” and “Dandy Tom” he heard occasionally from the lasses of the mill, smarting from that worst of feminine ailments—injuria formal spietal,—the quiet unconsciousness of or indifference to advances none too coy. But “Mr. Tom”—’t was the baptism into a new life, the stirring of a new manhood, his accolade; it fell on his senses as falls the sovereign’s sword on shoulder of kneeling knight. It was a new and nobler Tom that turned his face that afternoon over the hills to Diggle.

“Go to see your sick friend?” Dorothy had cried. “Why, of course you’ll go. I’m sure uncle would say so, and anyway if he faults anyone, why he must fault me.”

“An’ aw hope his first mince-pie may choke him if he does,” wished Betty, but kept her wishes to herself.

Tom was shocked at the change a few weeks had made in the old schoolmaster Mr. Black had, truly, been failing ever since the sudden and unexpected death of the shrill Priscilla some twelve months before. His devoted if exacting sister had gone to that land where there is neither dusting nor teaching, and where she must have received a shaking of cherished convictions if she found any schoolboys. Since then her brother had lived alone, cooking and generally doing for himself, save that one of the boys scrubbed the schoolroom floor and scrubbed the desks, in consideration of being put on the school free-list. More and more as the days wore on the schoolmaster had seemed to shrink within himself, and find a placid joy in the not wholly unpleasing melancholy of reflection and regret. Perhaps Priscilla’s faithful girding had been to him like a tonic and an irritant, and saved him from a natural tendency to the introspective absorption of a lonely life. Gradually the nightly symposia at the Hanging Gate were abandoned, much to the wrath of good Mistress Schofield, who roundly declared that “if th’ Schooilmaster had nobbut gone theer o’ neets, takin’ th’ best chair, an’ sittin’ i’th’ warmest corner, just to be out o’ reick o’ his sister’s tongue, she for one fun’ his room as gooid as his company.” Perhaps one reason for Mr. Black’s inconstancy might be found in the fact that so long as Priscilla lived, he knew there was a shield and buckler between him and the engines and weapons of attack the buxom widow knew so well how to employ. Priscilla gone, he felt himself as a city girt round and besieged, but helpless and defenceless, its strong tower razed to the ground. Reason be what it might the angle nook of the sanded kitchen knew him no more and the friendly circle had a very sensible gap. And ere long the news, the all but incredible news, spread through t’ village, and up the valley, and about the steep hill-sides, that “owd Black wer’ givin’ up teeachin’, and what to do wi’ th’ lads and lasses ’at wer’ allus under yo’r feet, or up to some mak’ o’ devilment till they we’ owd enough to go to th’ mill, ’ud pass a weary woman’s wits to tell.”

Tom felt as he neared the school a strangely depressing air of solitude and desertion. The playground no more resounded to the eager cries of boys revelling in a brief freedom, nor from the open windows came the murmuring buzz of unwilling voices droning in unison the tables of multiplication. The schoolmaster he found in his little bedroom, not in bed, indeed, but looking far fitter for bed than up. To Tom’s surprise, he found Moll o’ Stuarts in attendance on the sick man. She had, it transpired, carried the citadel of the sick-room by assault and taken possession with characteristic coolness and determination, and there she had announced her resolve to abide till the schoolmaster should be either better or worse. As for her more legitimate profession she declared:

“They mun get someb’dy else. Onyb’dy wer’ gooid enough to bring a fooil into th’ world, but it wer’ worth while tryin’ to keep a wise man in it. Th’ best of men’s poor feckless things when i’th’ best o’ health, but if they nobbut cut their little finger, they’re as useless as babes unborn, an’ it were well there wer somebody to look after him, sin’ those ’at had most reight to kept away for weeks at a time, an’ ne’er cam’ near till they wer’ sent for.” And with this Parthian shaft, Molly at a sign from the invalid, withdrew, to give Jack, who had stayed below, gazing open-mouthed at the maps and globes, the benefit of her pent storm of wrath.

“I’m glad you’ve come, Tom. I knew you would, but hesitated to send for you. I know you have little time away from work, and youth companies best with youth when work is laid aside.”

“Indeed, Mr. Black, I had no notion you were so ill or nothing could or should have kept me away. I would have come to help and nurse you if I had had to break my indentures and go before the magistrates for it.”

“I know it, lad, I know it; and it was pleasant to think there was one not so many miles away who had a warm place in his heart for the old man. You have been to me, Tom, as a son since first I held you in my arms, and I have even thanked God that to my childless life He sent the blessing of one I could cherish and foster as my own.”

Tom could find no words. He pressed the thin and shrunken hand that rested, oh! so feebly, on the arm of the pillowed chair.

“And now, lad, that you are here, you must let me say my say, for my strength is waning fast and a voice within tells me my days remain but few. Nay, lad, never greet my course is run, my work is done, and the vespers ring for eventide. I do not dread its shadows, lad, for a hand will hold mine when I tread the unknown way. Take this key, unlock that topmost drawer and bring me the case you will find there.”

Tom silently, treading softly did the master’s bidding.

Mr. Black raised the lid of the little casket and thence a small bundle of letters, their ink now faded to a pale yellow. They were tied together with a thin blue ribbon. Mr. Black touched them lovingly and sunk into a reverie from which Tom made no stir to rouse him. The vacant eyes of the invalid seemed to be looking through and beyond the stalwart youth or to be intent on the unforgotten scenes of a buried past.

Then with a wan smile and a gentle sigh the faint voice said:

“If I die, Tom, I trust you to place these with me.” Then, like a maiden confessing her heart’s secret:

“Ah! Tom, even your old dominie was young once—but there was Priscilla, you know.”

And what tragedy of a sacrificed life those letters revealed was never betrayed to the eyes of Tom or other man, for unopened and unread they laid upon the faithful, uncomplaining heart that treasured them.

“And, now, Tom, to business. This you see is my will. A man doesn’t die any sooner you know for making his will. When I lost Priscilla, a rare woman, Tom, but over tender for this World, a matchless Woman,—I made a new will. I haven’t much to leave, but what there is will be yours. I should like you to keep the books—don’t part with them. They have been very precious to me. Perhaps some day you will know how precious books can be. I had hoped, fondly hoped, that you would turn to scholarship and take my seat by the old desk—but it wasn’t to be, it wasn’t to be,” and the schoolmaster shook his head sadly.

Again Tom could find no words—what could he say, how could he tell the master that a few hours before the glance of a young maid’s eye and the trill of her glad young voice and the touch of her soft white hand had been of more moving eloquence than a guardian’s pleading, and that, as he pushed over the hills that day through depth of snow and stress of storm to the sickbed side, revolving many things in his awakened mind, he had made a great resolve and vowed a deep and binding vow.

“There remains but this,” continued Mr. Black. “You have seen this locket before. It was your mother’s. The time has come when I may place it where it belongs. You know its story. Wear it ever, and may God in His own good time raise the veil and grant light where now is darkness and certainly where all is fruitless conjecture.”

Tom took the locket, pressed it to his quivering lips and hid it in his bosom. “Lucy shall twine it about my neck,” he said, “and I will wear it ever.”