Front matter (continued 5)

“Yes, Miss Tinker, I’m afraid I’m one of them—for Lizzie’s sake, of course.”

Dorothy looked sharply at Mr. Sykes, and there was a slight flush of colour on her cheek as she repeated “Oh, yes, for Lizzie’s sake, of course.” Was it possible that this very sedate young man could guess beyond his brief?

“Now I’ve got some money; at least I suppose so; though I’ve never seen it. But I’ve always understood my poor father that I don’t remember, made a will, and I was the only child. Now you must get to know all about that, and Mr. Pinder and Ben are not to go to the wall for want of money. Do you understand that?”

“But am I really to understand, Miss Tinker, that you propose to spend your money in helping my clients in fighting your own uncle?”

“I don’t care if he’s twenty times my uncle, though once time once is enough, thank you. But if he’s mean enough to try to ruin Ben Garside—”

“And Mr. Pinder?” put in the lawyer, quite casually.

“And I thought this lawyer stupid,” thought Dorothy, but ignored the interruption.

“Then I’m mean enough to fight him with his own weapons, uncle or no uncle.”

“It sounds parlously like champerty and maintenance,” said Mr. Sykes, more to himself than to Dorothy.

“There’s no sham about it, sir. I mean every word of it. I’ll let my uncle see he can’t treat me as he does poor aunt, like dirt under his feet.”

“God grant I’m spared the aunt,” groaned Edwin Sykes inwardly “what with her Lucy and her own quite bewildering self there are quite women enough in the case, without introducing an aunt.”

“If I follow you, Miss Tinker, you are desirous, for your friend Lucy’s sake, to help my client with money to carry on this unfortunate litigation. Have you any idea what the costs may amount to?”

“Not the slightest. But that doesn’t matter. The money shall be found.”

“I’ve another question to ask, Miss Tinker, and a very delicate one. May I ask how old you are?”

“And this is the man that can’t say Boh! to a goose,” again thought Dorothy.

“I suppose if I’d assurance enough for a lawyer I should tell you I’m as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth,” replied Dorothy merrily.

“That’s exactly what I’m driving at,” was the reply very seriously uttered. “I’m not at all sure that I should be justified in taking your money without my client’s knowledge and consent even if you were of full age, but from a minor!”

“Pshaw, I sha’n’t be a minor all my life. I shall be twenty one next birthday, and that’s on May 21st.”

“There’s many things may happen between now and your birthday.’’

“Exactly, your client may be ruined and Lucy may be broken-hearted, and all because of a silly punctilio.”

“Have you a copy of your father’s will.”

“Ah! Now you’re talking. I haven’t; but I suppose one can be procured. I should like to see one any way, for even a woman may be allowed a little curiosity as to her own fortune. After all, I may be as poor as a church mouse. But you can find out that for me and have no qualms, I hope.”

“Oh, yes, I shall be pleased to get you a copy of the will. I apprehend that you come to your inheritance in the general way.”

“And that is?”

“If and when you attain the age of twenty-one years, or marry under that age. By the way, that suggests one simple solution of the difficulty, you might marry.”

“Oh! That’s out of the question.”

“Not for, ahem!”—the young lawyer raised his long white hand to his mouth and coughed very slightly “not for Lucy’s sake?”

Dorothy rose with some dignity to close the interview. “Let me know please when have got the copy of the will. Meanwhile, I suppose I can rely on your discretion,” and Dorothy made to go.

“Nay, Miss Tinker, you have not permitted me to say my say. I am well aware that Mr. Pinder is a poor man. I am also a poor man. I had not intended to trouble my client in the event of defeat for more than the actual costs out of pocket. Those I couldn’t afford to advance. If you give me your simple word that these shall be paid sooner or later by someone, no matter who,” and here there was the barest suspicion of a twinkle in the young man’s eyes as he added, “or for whose sake, rest assured I shall not allow Mr. Pinder’s cause to fail for want of professional assistance. More I cannot promise.”

Dorothy extended her hand. “And you have my word that if I live you shall not suffer. I do so want Tom, I mean Mr. Pinder, to win if he’s in the right. I’ll do almost anything rather than he should be borne down simply by his poverty. I say almost anything. I draw the line at marrying, you know; besides,” and a look of sudden remembrance sprung to Dorothy’s eyes.

“Yes, besides?”

“Oh, it’s something you wouldn’t understand, about a horrid girl with green gloves,” and Dorothy tripped away with a smile and a nod.

“This case fairly bristles with women,” mused Edwin Sykes. Quintilian was right: Nulla causa sine femina.

And the months went by and the trial of the great cause of “Pinder at the suit of Tinker” seemed as far off as ever. First blood had been drawn by the defendant: the motion for an interim injunction and an account of profits had been refused by the Court, and the judge had made certain observation as to the precipitancy with which the action had been commenced that made that respectable practitioner, Mr. Nehemiah Wimpenny, who was present at the hearing of the motion, long that the floor of the Court would gape and swallow him to the bowels of the earth,—anywhere out of hearing of that calm, gentle voice dropping vitriol in honeyed accents. In proportion as Tom and Ben and the friends of Co-op Mill rejoiced, so did Mr. Tinker rage and storm. From the very filing of the Bill he had regretted that in his anger he had instituted proceedings that none knew better than himself were purely vexatious and vindictive. The monitor of the night watches had left him little peace. In vain he had tried to silence the still small voice by arguing to himself that to stop Co-op Mill would be to stop the irreligious services which more and more abundantly attracted men from the orthodox ministrations of Mr. Jones and the other chapels of the district. Mr. Tinker was no Jesuit. Again and again he more than half-resolved to bid Mr. Wimpenny stay his hand he would have been glad to be quit of the lawsuit, even if he had to pay the defendant’s costs as well as his own. But now that he was smarting under a rebuff, and his enemy was exulting in a momentary triumph,—give way now! No! That was not the stuff Jabez Tinker was made of. To be bested by a boy, a nobody that owed all he was and all he had to him, a serpent whom he had warmed in his breast,—it could not, it should not be.

And Nehemiah Wimpenny artfully fanned the flames of Mr. Tinker’s wrath. He pooh-poohed the temporary check.

“It wasn’t an engagement, my dear sir; an interlocutory motion is a mere skirmish, a sort of reconnoitering expedition, a simple device to draw the enemy’s fire. Now we know where they are. They have had to show their hand, sir. We know where their weak spots are.”

“That’s all very fine,” grumbled Tinker, gloomily. “We may have found their weak spot; but it seems to me they’ve found one or two of ours—and one sore one, too, judging by the way you squirmed when my Lord rubbed it into you.”

“Oh! That’s nothing,” laughed Wimpenny. “I took his salt cum grano, and I don’t doubt you’ll attach the same importance to this little contretemps. The trial’s the thing.’’

“You must win this case, Wimpenny, if money can win it.’’

“Money can do anything in this world,” said Wimpenny, “at least that’s my professional experience.”

Mr. Tinker left the lawyer’s office in anything but a tranquil frame of mind. He felt like a conspirator in a sordid crime. The very paltriness of the issues and the insignificance of his opponent galled and fretted him. But how retreat now that all the world was saying that Tom Pinder was more than a match for Jabez Tinker?

CHAPTER XIII.

FROM this time onward for some months there is little to record. The parties to the great law suit awaited with what patience they might the final trial of the all-important issue. The failure of the attempt to stay the work at Co-op Mill pending the final decision secured for Tom Pinder and his colleagues a welcome breathing space. If it were possible all hands bent themselves to their respective tasks with increased energy. The check to the plaintiff gave them heart for the present and hope for the future. Every precaution was taken to guard against any fouling or minishing of the stream.

The people of the Holme Valley are even to this day a litigious, disputatious race. They are law-loving in an inverted sense. An average native does not feel that he has lived his life unless he has at least once been prosecutor or plaintiff in a “law do.” With the poet he may be supposed to sing—

And the pros and cons of any cause celebre are discussed wherever men foregather long before the fierce light of the Courts beat upon the matter. The “company” of the village public constitute themselves into an informal jury. Generally each side has its adherents. The witnesses, or such of them as frequent the houses of entertainment, tell and tell again the story they are to repeat in Court. The strong and the weak points of the evidence are discussed, criticized, cross-examined, as it were, with all the acumen of the native mind, and all the freedom of irresponsibility, and of the license that ignores the trammelling confines of the laws of evidence. The peculiar qualifications of the local lawyers engaged are discussed with a particularity that would very much surprise, and not always gratify the gentlemen whose merits and demerits are so freely appraised. Illustrations drawn from previous forensic contests are liberally drawn upon. There is generally in the company some man who has purchased by bitter experience the right to speak with authority, who airs his knowledge of the intricate mazes of legal proceedings. His conversation bristles with technical terms. He speaks glibly of writs, summonses, subpoenas, judgments, appeals, bills of costs and the taxation thereof. If by good fortune he possesses a copy of an ancient text-book and can produce text and verse in support of his assertions he is an opponent to be admired, but shunned. In public-house controversy the man who is most dogmatic, who can shout loudest and longest is usually adjudged the victor, especially if he is prepared to back his opinion and table the money; but even he must yield to the visible dicta of the printed word. By the time the cause is ripe for hearing, bets have been made and taken; the adherents of the adversaries have ranged themselves; there are the village Montagues and Capulets, and the local attorney goes into Court the champion of a score of clients whose very existence he is unaware of.

Now in Holmfirth Jabez Tinker’s defeat had been celebrated at the Cropper’s Arms by a beast-heart supper. The landlord had provided the beast-heart in the due recognition of the policy of throwing a sprat to catch a mackerel. There had been some talk of inviting Edwin Sykes to preside at the supper, but even Holmfirth hardihood has its bounds. Tom Pinder, the landlord had shrewdly surmised, would prove a kill-joy, and as for Ben Garside, though every feeling of his heart said “yes” to the invitation, he was kept away partly by his own sense of propriety, but still more by the emphatic injunctions of his better half.

“Tha’rt nooan bahn to shaat, Ben, afore tha’rt aat o’ th’ wood, an’ when tha does shaat, tha mun do thi shaatin’ i’ decent company, an’ not amang yon’ beer-swillin’ hogs at th’ Cropper’s Arms. What do they care whether yo’ win or looise? There isn’t one on ’em but ’ud sell yo’ for a quart o’ ale. Yo’r nooan bahn to lower yo’rsen bi mixin’ amang that lot, it says i’th Book theer ’at i’ vain the net is spread i’ th’ seet o’ ony bird; but th’ kind o’ bird at th’ net o’ th’ Cropper’s is set for mun be bats darkened wi’ brewer’s grain, an’ that’s all t’ grain some on ’em feed on.”

It did not lessen Jabez Tinker’s irritation and general sense of all things being awry that he was in many ways made conscious that the only public opinion that he really cared about—that of his own neighbourhood—was dead against him. Mr. Tinker affected to despise the sentiments of his neighbours, and he certainly could not be accused of stooping to court popularity. But no man is really indifferent to the good or ill-word of his own little world. And Jabez was aware that even his own household was not on his side. To be sure in the rare visits he paid to his ailing wife at Harrogate he was sure of one sympathetic listener as he unfolded in brief, terse sentences the story of his wrongs, in which he had almost persuaded himself to believe, and of the indignities which he concluded must be patent to everyone. But Dorothy he knew to be openly and avowedly in the camp of the enemy, and this was an ever rankling sore. Jabez had declared to himself that his niece was the illest of all birds fouling its own nest. She was a Tinker, his brother’s daughter, and it was her bounden duty to take his side and fight his battle whether he were right or wrong. The mere stranger and passer-by, they might scan and scrutinize; but for the girl who slept under his roof and sat at his table to condemn her heart, was the blackest treason and gross ingratitude Jabez had never heard of Walpole’s reply to the county member who promised his vote whenever he should think the member in the right. “I want men who’ll back me right or wrong: through thick and thin.” But Jabez had the same views as to the countenance he was entitled to expect from his niece.

And Dorothy was made to feel that her uncle’s feelings were very bitter towards her. The subject of the lawsuit was never referred to, but Jabez, never a demonstrative or genial relative, now became cold, repellent, caustic. If there was a death in the house, Betty declared, it could not be gloomier, and if it wasn’t for leaving Miss Dorothy she wouldn’t care how soon she changed her name and state.

All this was, one may be sure, not conducive to Dorothy’s serenity. She had, too, at times, a sense of treachery to her uncle. Was she justified in secretly aiding and abetting his enemy, even if that enemy were an enemy malgré lui? How was she to be certain that what most people said was true, that her uncle was merely persecuting a rival in trade to crush him? Could she, indeed, believe that of that stern, austere man, the pillar of Aenon Chapel, quoted and esteemed throughout the whole Baptist denomination who of all other men, she had thought, however unlovable was at least a just man. These considerations were of themselves sufficient to disquiet a young and sensitive mind. There was another. Was Dorothy honest with herself? It was Dorothy who asked the question. And when man or maid has come to the pass of asking so searching a question it is odds that conscience has a ready “No.” Was it par exemple, quite the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, that it was only for her friend’s sake, and for the triumph of abstract justice against an unholy conspiracy that Dorothy had so overleaped the bounds of maidenly reserve and perilled her fortune in the quicksands of the law. And when Dorothy, in the still watches of the night, thus put Dorothy’s self into the witness box, and her fluttering heart gave its blunt reply, Dorothy was fain to draw the coverlet over a winsome face and hide the crimson blushes e’en from the sightless eyes of night, and toss and turn upon her uneasy couch courting and yet dreading the sleep that brought dreams that should not be for maids uncourted and unwon.

And to nights thus harassed followed days embittered by her uncle’s harsh, forbidding aloofness, and, to fill her cup to the brim, by the now unmistakable attentions of Nehemiah Wimpenny. That young ornament of the law had fully satisfied himself that Dorothy was worth the winning. He had even gone so far as to transfer his valued custom from the Rose and Crown, and Polly was left lamenting but sustaining her desertion with more philosophy than Ariadne or Dido.

“Good riddance of bad rubbish,” was all she said, and forthwith reserved her sweetest smiles and most languishing glances for the village surgeon, who had long sighed in vain, eclipsed by the greater attractions or,—may it be suggested?—by the deeper purse of the village attorney.

Nehemiah was now a constant visitor at Wilberlee, and by Jabez Tinker was always welcomed with a warmth that increased when the manufacturer perceived that the attorney’s visits were not purely professional. Jabez saw in his niece’s marriage relief from a daily source of irritation. True, the day drew nigh when he must be prepared to produce and vouch his accounts as executor and trustee of his late brother. But Jabez flattered himself that if anyone could be counted on to keep Wilberlee out of Chancery it would be Nehemiah Wimpenny, if Nehemiah Wimpenny were also Dorothy’s husband.

“Lawyers are fond of law, but it must be at somebody else’s expense,” he argued. “Wimpenny won’t be such a fool as to share my cake with others, when sooner or later he can have it all himself.”

But Nehemiah found the wooing of Dorothy up-hill work. The Holmfirth “Don Juan” was accustomed to the easy conquests of the bar-room and the side-wings of the Huddersfield Theatre. He found it difficult to teach his tongue the language to which it was a stranger, and after a painful hour or so spent in the parlour of Wilberlee in the attempt to interest or amuse the young heiress, his whole being cried out for the unrestrained freedom of Polly’s conversation, and for the ready appreciation Polly had always vouchsafed to his jests and innuendos which even Nehemiah knew would ensure his prompt expulsion from Wilberlee, probably at the point of the owner’s toe.

But as yet, at all events, he felt himself securely in Mr. Tinker’s goodwill. He had even gone so far as to drop a not obscure hint as to the aspirations he cherished in what he was pleased to call his heart.

“Win this accursed law-suit for me,” Jabez had said, “and we will talk about matters less important. Meanwhile, you had better make as sure of my niece’s consent as you may of mine. Not that Dorothy would stay for that. I wish you joy of her, that’s all. Women are kittle-cattle to shoe. I don’t think you’ll find my niece an exception to her sex.”

But Nehemiah, despite the guardian’s favour, confessed to himself that if he progressed at all in Dorothy’s good graces, his progress was crab-wise—backwards. What could he talk about? He feigned an interest in the sermons of the Rev. David Jones. But Dorothy yawned at the very mention of the minister’s name. Then he affected an interest in her Sunday School class, but Dorothy said Sunday School classes were generally a combination of scholars who didn’t want to learn and teachers who didn’t know how to teach, and as she felt herself to be one of the latter class, she was determined to give her class up. Then the desperate lover essayed his powers at the retailing of local gossip, telling with unction how young D— was supposed to be casting sheep’s eyes at Nancy N—; how the plain daughter of the vicar’s warden was shamelessly setting her cap at the new curate, and how the hue of Mrs. J—’s nose-end was erroneously attributed to poverty of blood.

In one topic only could he prevail on Dorothy to take an interest at all, and that was a topic on which Nehemiah was eloquent enough at first, but of which in time he became uncommonly shy,—the vexed question of water rights, with especial reference to the great case of “Pinder at the suit of Tinker.”

“So you’ve lost your application for an interim injunction?” Dorothy said demurely one night after tea, when her uncle had hurried off to a deacon’s meeting, promising speedy return, and hospitably pressing his guest to stay for the substantial supper of cold meats and pastry with which our hardier fathers braved the terrors of nightmare and dyspepsia.

“Oh, that’s nothing, Miss Dorothy,” said Nehemiah jauntily, glad of a subject of conversation in which he flattered himself he could shine, “nothing at all, I can assure you.”

“Then you expected to lose?”

“Well, not say expect, but fortune of war you know, fortune of war, glorious uncertainty, and all that, don’tcherknow.”

“But you are certain to win in the end, or is there a glorious uncertainty about that?”

“Oh! yes, sure to win in the long run. Pinder can’t stand the racket. Expected he’d have caved in long since. Can’t understand it. Sykes must be risking more than I’d like to. Sticks like a leech at all points.”

“There’s an old saying, Mr. Wimpenny, that Tear’em’s a good dog, but Holdfast’s a better. Perhaps Mr. Sykes is one of your Holdfast breed.”

“Ah! Ah! very good, indeed, Miss Tinker. Must remember that. But we shall shake him off yet, you bet.”

“Thank you, I don’t bet.”

“Beg pardon, Miss Tinker, only a way of speaking, don’tcherknow. No offence,” and Nehemiah told himself that Dorothy was a very difficult girl indeed.

“So you think you’ll wear Mr. Pinder out. Do you mean his patience or his means?”

“Oh! patience is cheap enough. I dare say Pinder has plenty of that. It’s the poor man’s assets, don’tcherknow.”

“I’m afraid that’s often too true, Mr. Wimpenny.”

“Well, I could have sworn it was about all the stock-in-trade Pinder had to break him in. But somebody’s finding the money, or else Sykes is a bigger fool than I take him to be.”

“Money, money, money, you men seem to talk and think of nothing but money.”

“And they say, Miss Tinker, that women have a very pretty notion of spending what the men think and talk about.”

“Well, I for one would rather talk of something else. You’re sure, now, uncle is going to win this case?”

“Well, of course I think so, or I shouldn’t have advised the proceedings.”

“But I suppose you advised the application for a what-do-you call it injunction. But you failed in that? Now I want you to tell me all about uncle’s grievances against Mr. Pinder. It is so delightful to find a lawyer who can make things so beautifully simple to a poor ignoramus of a girl like me. I can see now why you have so many cases in the Courts.”

“Oh! Dorothy, Dorothy.”

And forthwith the willing victim of woman’s guile talked at large of water encroachment, of unlawful ochre-water diverted from its natural course so that it passed by the head-goit of Co-op Mill, and only entered the river as it sped on to Wilberlee, to Mr. Tinker’s great damage and detriment. Never was Nehemiah more eloquent, never had he so wrapt and intent a listener.

“She’s just the woman for a lawyer’s wife,” thought Nehemiah, as he talked. “I’ll practise my speeches on her.”

“But, after all, it’s no use wearying you with all these details, Miss Tinker. We shall never reach a final trial. Your uncle isn’t the man to take a beating, and if we’re trounced in one Court we shall go to another. Pinder can’t stand the racket. I call it downright dishonest of him taking the savings of those deluded Co-opers, as they call them, and spending it on Sykes. Of course it’s all the better for me. But the whole thing’ll fizzle out in the Bankruptcy Court, and I take it there’ll be no necessity to wait for the Court of Chancery’s decision. Want of shekels will decide the question before we’re much older, mark my words.”

“How very charming!” quoth Dorothy. “Really, Mr. Wimpenny, I don’t know how to thank you for making everything so clear to me. Now these water-foulings by Mr. Pinder, I suppose anyone can see them? You’ve interested me so much I’ve a good notion to turn myself into an amateur expert; if that isn’t a contradiction in terms.”

“Not more anomalous than a woman with sense,” reflected Nehemiah. But he said with something of an effort.

“Well, the fact is Miss Tinker, there isn’t very much to see. It’s the eye of science, don’tcherknow, that we go by in these cases. The eye of science,” he repeated, evidently pleased with that phrase.

“Well, anyway, I’ll try what the eye of a woman can see some fine day. Perhaps I may find out something that has escaped all you clever men, and then you’ll have to take me up to London as a witness, I hope.”

It was, perhaps, in pursuance of this quite commendable resolve, that Dorothy one bright, cloudless day in August, clad in a close-fitting costume that permitted the graceful movement of her limbs without concealing the charming lines of her form came suddenly upon Tom Pinder in the neighbourhood of the Isle of Skye. Dorothy, who had, as far as the nature of the ground permitted, followed the course of the stream as it flowed from its source down the valley, was warm and flushed from the toilsome ascent, but the glow of health was on her cheek and its sparkle in her eye. Tom, on the contrary, was pale and careworn. Too sedulous devotion to his necessary work, too little rest of mind and body, but above all the constant anxiety and uncertainty for the future were telling their tale upon his robust, vigorous, elastic frame. But a glad light sprang to his eyes, and a happy smile to his lips as he met Dorothy’s outstretched hand.

“You are quite a stranger, Mr. Pinder; it is ages since I caught more than a glimpse of you. Betty is quite fretting that you never go to see her now. Vows she is wearing to skin and bone; but it must be by the eye of faith she attests the process.”

“No. I do not often get to Betty’s kitchen now,” said Tom, with something very like a sigh. “More’s the pity; you see, I can’t very well go openly, and you wouldn’t have me go like a thief in the night.”

“No, I would not. It’s all this wretched law business, of course. But which way were you going, uphill, or down?”

“Bilberry! Well, there’ll be a breeze from the water’s face. But I think I ought to be turning homewards.”

“May I accompany you, Miss Tinker? You pass near my own mill, you know.”

“La! my mill! how grand it sounds. I think I should like to say my mill, and to feel that the hands were my people. ’Tis a relic of feudalism, I suppose.”

Tom raised his eyebrows almost imperceptibly. He had not credited Dorothy with much historical knowledge.

“Oh, you needn’t look so superior, Mr. Wiseacre. I’ve read a book or two, though I don’t teach classes on Sunday, like a naughty, defiant unbeliever, as some folk are. But there, you shan’t accompany me homewards. That will perhaps teach you to veil your superiority.”

“I assure you, Miss Tinker,” began Tom, but boggled at his disclaimer, for he was a poor liar, and Dorothy had; divined his thoughts shrewdly.

“Instead,” said Dorothy, enjoying his confusion, “instead I will go on with you to Bilberry Reservoir: I’ve as much right to the cool breeze from its surface as you have, and if you’ve no very great objection, Mr. Pinder, you may give me your arm up the hill.”

Tom flushed to the brow and, feeling weak as water, hoped that Dorothy’s ears were not as quick, as her eyes, for sure she would have heard the beating of his heart.

“Do you know, Miss Dorothy, I think it’s the very first time I’ve been asked to give a lady my arm.”

“Been asked?” said Dorothy, and part withdrew her little hand.

“Or given it, of course. I should never dream of giving it unasked.”

“Oh!” said Dorothy, and her hand stole back again. “What, not to Lucy?”

“Oh, well, you know. Well, perhaps Lucy may have taken it sometimes when she felt overdone can’t say for sure. One doesn’t think of these things.”

“Oh! don’t they?” queried Dorothy, and her hand again made for retreat.

“Not with Lucy, I mean,” added Tom.

“Oh!” and the hand now was restful.

They walked slowly towards the reservoir, leaving the highway, and treading on the soft close-cropped grass that fringed the moor. A grouse, occasionally, whirring low near the heather, cried its alarmed “Go-back, go-back,” and the faint sound of the sportsman’s gun was borne upon the wind. Silence fell upon the two, a silence that Tom knew not, nor cared to break.

“And what about Miss Baxter’s apprentice?” at last spoke Dorothy, very softly.

Tom did not seem to hear. In truth he walked in a blissful trance. The question fell upon his ear, but the words, as words will when the mind is dreaming, tarried ere they reached his senses.

It seemed to Dorothy as if there had been a long gap in their conversation when he spoke.

“I beg your pardon, what did you say, Miss Dorothy?”

“I said, what about Miss Baxter’s apprentice?” and there was no mistaking the withdraw of the hand now.

“Miss Baxter’s apprentice!” said Tom, blankly. “Miss Baxter, the milliner, you mean.”

“Of course I mean her and her apprentice.”

“Well, what about them?” asked Tom, “and how came we to be talking about them?”

“What’s her name? I hope it’s a pretty one.”

“Why, Miss Baxter, to be sure.”

“Stupid! I mean her apprentice. The one that wears green gloves. She’s one of the teachers in our Sunday school. Oh! You know very well, sir.”

“I suppose you mean Miss Pounder.”

“What a horrid name: but what could you expect from a girl that wears green gloves. You really must buy her a pair of another colour. But there’s no great change from Pounder to Pinder. That will be one comfort for her. But I meant her Christian name.”

“Upon my word,” said Tom, “I haven’t an idea. It may be Jezebel for aught I know or care.”

“But I thought….”

“Yes, you thought?”

“Oh! nothing,” said Dorothy, “and here, thank goodness, we’re at the reservoir at last. Oh! isn’t the view down the valley just lovely?”

“It is,” said Tom, but his eyes were on Dorothy’s beaming face.

They lingered for some moments on the embankment of the vast sheet of water, each wrapt in thought. It was Dorothy who spoke.

“Wherever does all the water come from and how could they manage to trap it like this?”

“Oh, this reservoir is almost made by Nature. Yonder is Hoobrook Hill and there is Lum Bank. It needed but to throw a bank across the intervening space, and behold, the reservoir was made. The water comes from Holme Moss and the hills running up to Saddleworth. You would scarce think that this huge dam contains nigh a hundred million gallons of water, and that there is a pressure of several hundred thousand ton weight on the bank on which we stand.”

“Oh! Tom! if it were to burst!”

Pinder looked very grave. “I have often thought of that. It would be a calamity such as daunts the heart but to think of. I come here often of a moonlight night when I have made up my books for the day. It is sweet to be alone with God, and thoughts that come from God and turn to Him. But there seems some weird fascination that draws my steps hitherwards. Had I ever contemplated suicide….”

Dorothy’s hand sought his involuntarily “Never that Tom, never that.”

“I should have thought there was an unseen hand beckoning, me hither. This great expanse of water, so still, when the clouds brood over it, so sullen, so seeming peaceful confined, so terrible for infinite woe if it should I o’erleap its barrier, has cast its spell over me.”

“How gloomily you talk, Mr. Pinder!”

“It was ‘Tom’ but a moment gone.”

“Well, Tom, then—as we are such old friends.”

“Yes, Miss Dorothy, my heart misgives me about this slumbering giant. I doubt the strength of his chains. See here”—and he led toward the centre of the embankment. “Where we stand the surface is nearly a yard lower than the mouth of the culvert.”

“What’s the culvert for?” asked Dorothy.

“It is the safety valve of the reservoir.”

“I’m afraid I’m rather stupid.”

“You see, when the reservoir gets over full the excess should go down the culvert. As things are it would begin to overflow just where we stand. Indeed, more than once when the wind has set this way, I’ve seen the water trickle over here. Let that trickle be but continuous and a rill would become a gap, the gap a yawning aperture and this huge burthen of Nature’s most innocent fluid would hurl itself down the valley, and what or who could withstand it!”

“But, Tom, whose duty is it to see to these things?”

“The Commissioners. Your uncle is one of them.”

“Oh! I will speak to him, I promise you, and that right urgently. Would you, could you speak instead of me? Uncle is very wroth with me these days, and, oh! Tom, life is so dree at Wilberlee, I could find it in my heart at times to cry my very eyes out. And it’s all your fault.”

“My fault!” he repeated.

“Yes, yours, Tom why couldn’t you let uncle alone with your horrid law. You know he will have his own way, and, I think, your having been his apprentice makes it more galling.”

“And a workhouse brat at that,” said Tom, bitterly.

“Oh! never think of that, Tom. No one does. I don’t, and I don’t care if I do. It isn’t that: but uncle cannot bear to be thwarted. Can’t you let it drop?”

“Faith, I’d only be too glad. But it is Mr. Tinker that attacked me, and there is only one way to stop the law that I know of. Your uncle must give the word. But he wont, and I can’t.”

“Couldn’t you just let him have his own way; it will please him, and it won’t hurt you, nor your precious Co-op either.”

“I don’t know what you call hurting me: it will just ruin me, and what’s worse it will ruin a dozen others or so, poor Ben Garside among them.”

“But couldn’t you go lower down the stream? Mr. Sy——, I mean somebody,…. I mean” and here Dorothy lost herself altogether, and stood dumb-founded.

But Tom’s mind had seized upon the first suggestion of her words and he was unconscious of her embarrassment.

“Yes, if some good fairy would transport Co-op Mill below Wilberlee, we might manage very well. Say we had that carpet we read of in the Arabian Nights. But what’s the use of talking? I cannot stop the litigation, and your uncle wont.”

“Couldn’t you allow him the name of a victory if he promised to let things go on just as they were, and you had nothing to pay those greedy lawyers? I’m sure he is not an unreasonable man, only you’ve crossed him, somehow, Tom.”

“I couldn’t send him more water or power if I tried, I know that.”

“And do you think he doesn’t know it? Will you just go to him and humble yourself to him. I’ll engage he shall meet you half-way.”

“I’m shot if I do,” said Tom stoutly, “he began it and he must end it.”

“I thought you preached the gospel, Tom.”

“Aye, aye, that’s all very well; but there’s nothing in the Bible about eating dirt, or letting a man make a door mat of you for him to wipe his feet on. Besides, there’s others to think of, Miss Dorothy. There’s Ben, for one, and all those whose money is in the concern. They’d never be willing.”

“You shan’t hide behind Ben, nor yet the others. You know very well they’ll say aye to anything you said. I know I should, Tom.”

Is there ought so subtle in this world as a woman’s cozening tongue.

“Do promise, Tom,” and here Dorothy seemed parlously near letting flow the tears she had threatened a while back; “for Ben’s sake, for Lucy’s sake.”

“I cannot, Miss Dorothy, do not ask me. You do not know how hard it is for me to say you nay.”

“For my sake, Tom; because I ask you. Oh! I am so unhappy amid it all. I know not what I say, nor ask.”

“For your sake? Miss Dorothy, for your sake!”

“For mine, Tom,” whispered Dorothy, with down cast eyes and burning cheek.

How Tom at that moment constrained himself, and withheld the words that leapt to his lips, he could never tell.

“For your sake then, Dorothy,” was all he said.

She placed her hand within his arm, and in a silence that neither cared to break, they turned by mutual impulse to descend the hill homewards.

CHAPTER XIV.

Tom Pinder lost no time in waiting upon his solicitor and acquainting him with his desire that the proceedings should be stayed even if to stay them meant an ignominious surrender. Mr. Sykes did not conceal his surprise.

“What about the plaintiff’s costs?” he asked. Tom said he had reason to hope these would not be insisted on. “It is yours I’m much concerned about.”

“As to them, make your mind easy. I shall make out an account of my actual disbursements, and you must pay me off by such instalments as you find convenient.”

“But your labour?” protested Tom, “the days of manna are over long ago, and I suppose that if popular opinion were ought to go by lawyers would be the last body of men in the world for whom a special dispensation from the general rule would be made.”

“Ah well! popular opinion is sometimes wrong, let us hope, despite the saying, Vox populi vox Dei.”

“I thought you were a Radical, Mr. Sykes.”

“Yes, yes, but I am not so ardent a lover as to be blind to the faults of my mistress. But about this stay of proceedings. I must sound Wimpenny. I’m afraid he’ll be for his pound of flesh and all the other blood he can squeeze out of you. He’s very sore about that interim injunction and the judge’s remarks at the time would scarcely be as balm of Gilead to him.”

“I suppose Mr. Wimpenny will take his orders from his client.”

“Oh! of course. Well, we shall see what we shall see. That’s oracular, if it doesn’t convey much information. What about your scheme of Co-operative production on advanced lines? Is that to die an untimely death? It seemed to me a most promising essay in social economics. So long as you were content to work like a slave and be a poor man, with no prospect of being anything but a poor man, the system seemed flawless.”

“Systems for the regulation of human affairs will never be flawless, Mr. Sykes, till the men and women who are the flesh and blood of all systems are also flawless. Now I am far from being that.”

“I presume not,” said the lawyer, with something like a sigh. “I suppose you’ve got tired of this sacrificial altar and have secured a lucrative berth, and, like all the others, are going to worship the golden calf. Sic transit gloria mundi. I shed a tear to the memory of Co-op Mill and all the high resolves it enshrines. Who shall write its cold ‘Hic jacet.’”

“Nay, Mr. Sykes, I am not a Latin scholar; but if you will change your goose quill for the graver’s chisel, you shall inscribe on the corner stone of Co-op Mill a proud, a defiant Resurgam.”

“What! You intend to try again?”

“Certainly, I am already looking for premises below Mr. Tinker’s Mill. Unless the Holme takes to flowing uphill, I shall be safe from my present adversary, at all events.”

Mr. Sykes rose and grasped his client’s hand warmly. “That is good hearing, Mr. Pinder; you are a man. Ah! I don’t wonder at Miss —”; but here the man of law checked himself.

“Confound it. The murther was nearly out,” he muttered.

“I’ll write to Wimpenny at once,” he said, “but I mustn’t seem too hot for a settlement or he’ll hold out for all he knows. I shall begrudge him every penny that goes from your pocket to his. Well, good day. I wish I were a manufacturer, I’d turn world-mender too.”

“Oh! If you shew the world the example of one lawyer who has an idea beyond his bill of costs, you’ll have done your share,” laughed Tom. “Convert nine others and Huddersfield need not fear the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

Pinder had more trouble with Ben Garside and his colleagues than he had encountered from his solicitor. Ben was for a fight to the finish. “Tinker’s shewing th’ blue feather,” he opined. “What’s come ovver thee, Tom? Tha’rt nooan bahn to duff when things are lookin’ up a bit? Besides, th’ best terms we can mak ’ll be to pay us own ’torney an’ gi’ up Co-op Mill. We med as weel be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, and if we’re to be ruined we med as well be ruined gradely as hauf ruined. Aw reckon th’ bailies ’ll be bun to leeave us a bed to lig on, an we’st scrat along some rooad till they put th’ coffin lid ovver us. Aw say feight to th’ deeath. Talk abaat bowin’ th’ knee to Baal?”

“Baal!” quoth Hannah curtly. “Baal wer’ a respectable sort compared wi Jabez Tinker; an’ as for that Wimpenny, oh! If aw wer’ a man, wouldn’t aw just. That’s all.”

What “just” the irate dame would have done, words failed her to express, but judging from Hannah’s gestures it was something that would not have improved Nehemiah’s personal appearance.

But the negotiations with that gentleman which Mr. Sykes opened up did not promise to bear immediate fruit. It is possible that Mr. Wimpenny saw everything to be gained and nothing to be lost—by himself—in the sweetness long drawn out of proceedings in Chancery. The defendant’s overtures were not met in a conciliatory spirit, and Sykes advised that nothing further should be attempted in that direction. Tom felt that he could do no more, and when he told Dorothy the steps he had taken to fulfil the promise she had wrung from him, Dorothy expressed herself content.

“You can hold out till May 21st?” She only asked.

“Oh, dear me, yes. From what I can judge when a lawyer in a Chancery suit contemplates a move in the proceedings, he takes a month to think it over, then he takes counsel’s opinion, then he takes another month to think over counsel’s opinion, then he rests for a month to recuperate his energies after their unwonted strain, then he writes to his London agent indicating the step he wishes to be taken, the agent takes a month to think over his principal’s letter, and another month to reply to it, and at the end of all the country solicitor changes his mind, and the process circumbendibus begins de novo.”

“You ought to have been a lawyer, Tom,” commented Lucy. “You have been thinking over a certain step to my knowledge for more than twelve months, and you haven’t taken it yet.”

“And what’s that, Lucy?” asked Dorothy.

“Oh! you’ll know soon enough when he takes it,” was the most explicit answer that Dorothy could obtain, and with that she had to be content.

“I wonder why Dorothy mentioned the twenty-first of May next?” asked Tom of Lucy, when they were alone together.

“Why she comes of age then, stupid,” said Lucy, as shortly as ever she was known to speak.

But some months must elapse before that eventful day was due in the ordinary progress of the leaden-footed months. The Christmas of 1851 was for all in whose fortunes we are concerned, but a cheerless and anxious season. Work continued fairly good, and on that score there was nothing much to complain of. The winter months were open and depressing. The old adage that a green Yule makes a fat churchyard was amply verified. Low fevers were rife. The strains of the waits on Christmas Eve failed to arouse the sense of Christmas in the heart. Plum pudding and roast beef failed to stimulate to cheerfulness when all around was a damp, drizzly, clinging blanket of rain-charged atmosphere. For days together a pall of moisture settled over the Valley. The moors were soaked, and oozed like surcharged sponges. Every rill became a rivulet, every rivulet a river. The lower lands contiguous to the Holme were flooded. The dams were charged to the brinks, and in the mill-races the pressing waters strained the stoutest shuttles. From the hillsides the swollen streams brought rocky fragments rolling, tumbling, splashing. It was a man’s work to watch the river immediately below the tail-goits of every mill, to prevent the goit being blocked by the flotsam of the stream, and the water-wheel thrown into back-water.

It was an anxious time for Tom and Ben on more than one account. The apprehensions that had long possessed Tom as to the safety of Bilberry reservoir did not leave him. Rather he saw daily reasons for the more concern. The new year of 1852 saw little improvement in the weather, Almost daily Tom made his way to the banks of the great dam, surveying it with anxious eye. When he spoke his fears to old residents, they were pooh-poohed. It was the old cry of “Wolf.” The people in most immediate danger had been told so often that something was wrong with Bilberry embankment, and for so long had the gloomy predictions of the local Cassandras come to nought, that Tom spoke to deaf ears. None heeded him. Even Ben accorded him only the attention of politeness. The people lower down the Valley based their indifference to his suggestions of possible peril upon the indifference of those nearer the reservoir. If the people who lived cheek by jowl as it were with the big dam could afford to laugh at Tom’s dismal forebodings, why should they put themselves about. They recommended Tom to permit the Commissioners to know something about their business, and more than hinted that he had enough to do to look after his own particular concerns without worrying himself about what was after all a matter for the public authorities. It did not occur to them to reflect that if a man is drowned it does not matter much to him whether he has met his death through public or private defeasance.

On Tuesday, the 4th of February Tom had been as usual to market. He had done his business early in the afternoon, but had been detained in town by the necessity of seeing Mr. Sykes in connection with the eternal lawsuit. Then he had to wait for a train so that it was long past the hour for the evening meal when he reached Ben Garside’s house in Holmfirth. The tea-things had long been cleared away, but Hannah was soon bustling about preparing an appetising meal of broiled rashers, poached eggs, and tea and toasted teacake. The meal was grateful after the long wearying day. It had been a depressing day. The market had been slackly attended: the weather had something to do with that. It had rained pitilessly all day, a steady, persistent, dogged downpour, ceasing at times for the fragment of an hour, only to commence again, and so on, as if it never meant to stop. And as it was on the Tuesday, so it had been for three or four days before. At the “ordinary” at the Queen Hotel, kept by Mrs. Beevers, in the Market Street, the manufacturers from the valleys of the Colne and the Holme were full of talk of choked tail-goits water piled back into the wheel-race so that the wheel refused to turn upon its axis. The merchants shook their heads gloomily over the mild, open weather. They declared, as their grandchildren declare to-day, that when they were boys winter was winter; but now there was no depending on the weather, and the almanac was a snare and a delusion.

Tom lingered over his meal, luxuriating in the warmth of the room, and the pleasing rest of mind and body. But about nine o’clock the rain abated. The moon glided high in the heavens, sailing in and out among the masses of the drifting clouds. It looked as if the weather might take up after all. It was time it did. But wet or fine Tom had work to do he had fixed to do that night, work which could only be done at the mill, and which were better done that night. That done, the morrow would be clear for the morrow’s work. He would have an hour at his account books, he told Ben, and sleep at the mill, and Jack—you have not, reader, forgotten Work’us Jack—should bear him company. Hannah protested in vain that “Tom was killing himself with overwork. Flesh and blood couldn’t stand it, and Tom would never make old banes if he went on at that noit. It was bad enough to kill one’s self to keep one’s self, but it was ten times worse to kill one’s self building a house o’ cards, only to be blown down by that Jabez Tinker.”

So Tom and Jack turned out into the night and set forth up the valley toward Hinchliffe Mill. Their road lay at times by the winding serpentine course of the river, and when the watery moon glanced downwards with bleared eye from among the clouds they could see the swollen waters. They met scarce a soul. It was late and a’ready the lights in the village and on the hillsides were being extinguished in the “house” or chamber. An occasional cur sadly bayed the moon. The swollen waters of the river rolled in their bed with sullen sob. It was a night of dread through which the growing wind wailed amid its tears. The gloom of the hour and scene fell upon the comrades. Scarce a word passed between them, as with bent heads and cloaks close drawn they made their way through the mire of the high-road and the sloughs of known bye-paths little trod. It was hard on ten of the night when the mill was reached. Jack kindled a fire in the office-grate and sat beside it for a time to dry his shoon. He made a brew of strong coffee for his master to cheer him through his task. Then Jack in stocking-feet sought the wool-hole where he had improvised a bed of unscoured pieces, greasy, but snug and warm, and anon his loud breathing might be heard above the beating of the storm without.

Up to something near the weird midnight hour Tom bent over his invoices and books, fighting against the waywardness of thoughts that seemed intent on anything but accounts. At length he abandoned his task half done. He felt strangely wake and alert. At all times able to do with little sleep,—that is a feature of your mill-worker—to-night he felt that he should woo slumber in vain. Donning his pilot jacket that had been steaming and drying on a chair-back before the fire, and lighting a lanthorn and taking in his hand his stout gnarled shillelagh, bought from an Irish hay-maker last harvest-time, he set forth alone on his usual round of the mill-yard, leaving the outer door of the mill on the latch. His round finished, led by what impulse, moved by that presentment he did not stay to consider, he left the mill-yard and began to climb the hill towards Bilberry reservoir. He walked sharply, for the night air was biting shrewdly, and Tom was a noted walker. His long strides soon covered the distance that lay between the mill and the reservoir bank. Tom hummed an air to keep him company in that vast solitude. The sky was clearer now than an hour or two before, but the night was still dark enough to make the feeble glimmer of the lanthorn grateful. Tom moderated his pace as he neared the embankment. Was it worth while to climb its steep face or should he turn his steps downhill. He could hear the water above his head lapping against the copings of the bank. Still, as he had come so far he might, he thought, as well walk the round of the embankment. He was on the huge abutment that turned its breast towards the valley the long barricade that cooped up the vast pile of water, and slowly, the lanthorn dangling by his side and swaying in the wind, he began to tread the path on the embankment top, slowly for in the uncertain light, a slip might cost him a sousing, and it was no hour for a cold bath. But, as he walked, peering ahead to pierce the gloom, and watching carefully his steps by the lanthorn’s pale glimmer, he came, midway in his course, upon a sight that checked him with sudden halt, and made his heart stand still. There, at his very feet the water was trickling over the bank, and down the outside. A thin flow, perhaps, a couple of feet in width, had worn the upper soil, and now a continuous stream, not a quarter of an inch in depth, was gently, silently ebbing over the embankment. Even as Tom gazed spell-bound, he was sensible that the opening widened, the water that overflowed was deeper, and its escape in quicker time. A great fear seized on Tom, a dreadful thought well-nigh crushed his brain. He felt powerless to move. Then, with a cry, he rushed heedless along the embankment to the culvert. Not a drop of water flowed over the culvert’s lip. The pent giant had found an outlet for itself, and was making for it. Tom ran back to the gap he had but just left. Even by this faint light he saw the breach was wider, the furrow deeper. Sick at heart, scarce realising what he did, Tom with stick and hand tried to tear up stones, cobbles, or sods that might stem the growing current. He spent his time and in vain. Fast as he made his tiny barrier, the licking wavelets undermined it and washed it gently down the embankment side; and the stream that now, oh! so silently, so grimly wore away the surface layers, bit and gnawed into the vast barrier and the clinging earthwork. But to Tom, with action had come perception. Vivid as lightning’s flash the whole sequence of the possible, nay, the seeming inevitable, was borne upon his mind. He sprang to his feet, dashed down the embankment side. Not two hundred yards below the reservoir some houses stood darkling in the night, their inmates locked in sleep. With fist and stick Tom hammered at the door, thrust his stick, his fist through the windows of the bottom room, where oft the turn-up bed was stretched.

“Rouse ye, rouse ye!” he cried. “The reservoir! Flee for your lives!” Down to the Co-op Mill he dashed, racing as sure only as those do speed who know that Death follows hard upon their heels, and ever as he sped and passed some silent, lowly cot he paused a breathing space to rend the midnight silence with wild, yet wilder cry, “The flood! The flood! Haste ye, save yourselves.” He reached the gates of his own mill, dashed to the corner where Jack still slept in dreamless sleep. He kicked his prostrate form, he shook him, dragged him to his feet.

“Don yo’r breeches. Here’s yo’r’ clogs. Haste, man! Bilberry’s brust. Damn yo’ wakken. Ar’t deead?”

In that time of frenzied haste the language of his childhood came back to his lips.

Then as Jack, half awake, bewildered, donned his nether garments with but one idea, that Co-op Mill was on fire, Tom rushed to the stable where their one horse was housed. He threw a halter over its head; there was no time, no need for saddle. Jack had followed, thrusting his arms into his coat sleeves as he came. Tom sprang to the horse’s back. The gate still opened wide.

“Clutch mi leg, Jack, an’ stick to me an’ yell wi’ all thi might.”

Tom’s first thought had not been of Ben or his household; but gratitude, duty alike, made them his first care. He must reach Ben at any cost. The horse, urged by Tom’s prodding heels and by the sticks that beat upon its flanks, galloped down the hill. Jack could not keep pace; panting, gasping, clinging, he stumbled and fell.

“Make for Ben Garside’s,” shouted Tom, and was swallowed up in the night, the horse’s hoof beating the rain washed road with dull thuds, its heavy pants audible afar.

It was one o’clock and after when Tom made Ben’s cottage He thundered at the door, and in a marvellously short time that seemed eternity to Tom, the upper window was raised, and Ben’s capped head thrust forth.

“Th’ pub’s lower dahn, tha’ druffen fooil,” said Ben’s voice drowsily.

“Open, Ben, open for God’s sake. Th’ embankment’s burst at Bilberry.”

But ere Ben had ceased to gape out of the lattice, Hannah, in her petticoat, had run down the slender, narrow stairs, and unbolted the door.

“Quick, quick, where’s Lucy? Wakken her! Don yo’, Hannah. Ben, Ben, haste thee, man. Oh, here’s Jack; that’s reight lad, aw feart tha’d be longer.”

Lucy, pale, trembling, but calm, had come down, part dressed.

“Ar’t sure, Tom?” asked Ben.

“It’s giving bi inches, it cannot howd. What shall we do? Oh! What shall we do?”

“Mak’ for th’ hills, for sure,” gasped Jack, as he drew deep draughts of breath.

Then Tom felt a quiet hand upon his own, and Lucy by his side drew him part aloof.

“There’s Dorothy lower down,” she whispered, “and if flood come, oh! Woe is me for all at Wilberlee. Hark! the alarm is spread. Race to Wilberlee; and Tom! kiss me, it may be good-bye.”

Tom kissed the tremulous lips raised to his. “God keep you, Lucy, God keep us all. I cannot leave you.”

But Hannah, too, had thought of Wilberlee. “There’s Dorothy. Yo’ mun give th’ alarm at Wilberlee.”

“And you?” asked Tom: but even as he asked he had turned to the door where the horse, all untethered, stood.

“Ben an’ me ’ll manage,” said jack. “Up wi’ thee, Tom. By gosh! hark to ’em screechin’ up the valley.”

Aye, aye, the warning cries had been heard and heeded, and as Tom wrung Ben’s hand and vaulted to patient Bess’s back the wind bore to his ears the startled cry, “The flood! The flood! It’s come at last,” and as the mare, spinning cobbles and pebbles behind its clattering feet, galloping as though the foul fiend pursued, dashed past farm and mill and house Tom cried loud and ever tender, “Oh, rouse yo’, good folk, rouse yo’. Bilberry’s on yo’. The bank’s brust,” and the small-paned windows were raised with quick grasp from within, and startled faces with widening eyes peered forth into the night, and still Tom raised the cry, now hoarse, now shrill, in voice that almost failed. “The flood, the flood!” And loud and louder still behind him grew the cries, deep toned of men, anguished shrill of women, wailing tones of children roused from cradle and from cot. The sleepy valley behind him slept no more. It had roused to panic, to the sudden apprehension of ravage, ruin, death. Whither flee? How save the little hoarded wealth; how bear the infirm mother, who by inglenook declined daily to her grave cheered by the babbling prattle of her daughter’s bairns; how save the bairns themselves! And even as Tom rode the cries behind him swelled in volume till they fell upon his ears as a hoarse roar, broken by shrill and piercing shriek, and if his ears betrayed him not, above the din of human voice he heard the growl of gathered waters loosed. No use to look behind, the darkening skies veiled the sight. Thank God! Here is Wilberlee. Well Tom knew the entrance to the yard. Pray God the gate yielded to his thrust! It did. By there, through the yard, was the shortest cut to the house. He swung from the back of the beast, now blown and trembling. The panic had seized upon it. Grasping its mane Tom led it through the yard, round the mill gable. Here the noises from above were broken by the mill’s flank and hushed. Not a light shone through the windows of the house. All was silent within, but at the garden foot the river roared, and Tom in the dim light saw that on its foaming breast it bore objects, strange, hideous, torn from the fields, floating stacks of hay, ponderous engines and machines, the dark outline of animals swept quickly by.

“Oh! rouse yo’! rouse yo’!” shrieked Tom. He tore a boulder from a rockery by, and with it crashed at the stout outer door. It shook and groaned but yielded not. Tom remembered that the window of the sitting-room or drawing-room came to within a foot’s step from the ground. It was a moment’s work to dash the window open with his feet, and Tom amid the falling of the glass and the creaking crash of wood-work was within the dark room, his clothes rent, his face scratched, his hands bleeding. There were sounds above of awakening life. Tom sprung to the foot of the passage stairs, finding the inner door he knew not how. “Wake ye, wake ye,” he cried hoarsely.

Then a light glimmered above, on the landing. It was Jabez Tinker in his dressing gown. A candle was in his hand that he shaded from the upward current.

“Thank God, yo’re up,” shouted Tom, bounding up the steps. “Dress yo’, quick. Rouse the house. Bilberry’s burst. Oh! hark yo’.”

Some building higher up the river had fallen with a groan into the stream and frantic cries rent the leaden skies mingling with the crash of stone and iron and stout timbers torn like mere sprigs.

Suddenly from the well of darkness shone the gleam of a lanthorn. It was impossible to see who held it. Mr. Tinker cried out:

“Who’s that?”

“It’s me, Sergeant Ramsden,” said a calm, stentorian voice. “Glad you’re up, sir. Time to flit. Had to wade here. Where’s Betty?”

“I’m here, George; but yo’ munnot think o’ coming up till aw’ve med mysen some bit like.”

But the tramp of the sergeant was on the stairs already. His was a welcome presence. The hurry and agitation of the past hour had told on Tom. He felt sorely the need of help. Mr. Tinker seemed paralysed not so much from fear as the sudden waking from sleep to stand face to face with what perils none could tell. Betty clung to her constable, but he was probably used to being clung to for protection by the weaker sex.

“Where’s Peggy?” asked Tom.

“Gone to Harrogate to fetch aunt home.”

It was Dorothy who spoke. She had partially dressed, but her long, curling, beautiful glossy hair fell like a veil upon her shoulders to her waist she was pale and anxious, but she retained a great measure of composure. She had drawn to her uncle’s side but her eyes were on Tom.

“Are we safe here?” asked Mr. Tinker. “Is there any chance of my being able to get across the yard to the office?”

“Can’t be done, sir,” said the Sergeant, touching his high hat as well as he could with the hand that held the lanthorn. His other arm supported Betty.

“The garden’s three feet deep and more. Same in mill yard, no doubt, and rising every second; had to wade in. Glad to find window broken down.”

There was a sudden shriek from Betty. Through the door of the parlour that opened into the passage at the stair feet came a torrent of water nigh as high as the doorway itself. It flooded the passage, and, step by step, quicker than a man could mount them, scaled the staircase to the landing on which they stood. Small articles of furniture and ornaments were borne from the room, tossing and colliding as if in a grotesque dance.

“Make for the attic,” said Mr. Tinker, and led the way, followed by the women. Tom was hard upon them. The sergeant followed with an agile departure from his professional staidness, deliberation, and dignity of gait that only stress of circumstances constrained. If a withering glance could have arrested it the rapidly rising, gaining flood would have stayed its inroad.

The attic was a low, barely furnished room, immediately under the roof. It was lighted from above by a thick sky-window. It held two low beds of plain deal—the chaste couches of Betty and Peggy. There were two chests of drawers, one doubtless sacred to each maid. There were two chairs, a washstand, a portrait of the sergeant, staff-in-hand, and the like of a soldier over which Peggy was supposed to weep out her heart in moments of despondency.

“I doubt we’re not out of it here,” whispered the sergeant to Tom. He cast his light through the doorway. “See, the water mounts quickly. ’Twill be on us, and we mun drown like rats in a hole.”

“Can you swim?” asked Tom, under his breath.

The sergeant nodded.

“Doff your boots; keep your cloak and breeches nothing else. Get into that corner. Give me the light. Don’t let them see you doff. They’re fleyed enough.”

There was no time even for suspense. The water was already in the attic. Tom dragged a bed beneath the skylight and with a blow from his stick shivered the thick glass.

“Yo’ mun get through th’ skylight, Ramsden,” he bawled. The turmoil of the waters drowned all lower speech. “I’ll pass t’others to you.”

Ramsden nodded. The habit of discipline is invaluable in the hour of emergency. Tom had taken the command even in his old master’s house, and it seemed natural that he should order and others obey.

With difficulty he twisted the portly constable through the aperture. It was a tight squeeze.

“Tear up some of the slates. Widen th’ hole,” shouted Tom, as he dragged a trunk to the top of the bed to stand on. “Now Dorothy,” he whispered, “you next.”

“No, uncle,” she said, drawing back. This was no hour for ceremony. Tom almost lifted Mr. Tinker bodily on to the trunk, the sergeant from above seized his wrists, and Tom, with a mighty heave, hoisted him aloft.

“Now you, Betty,” said Dorothy.

It was well for Betty the stone slabs had been wrenched with little difficulty from the sounding lines of the aperture. She was stout and heavy as seemeth a cook, and if there had not been strong braced thighs on the stack, and arms like iron beneath her, Betty would have slept that morn her last sleep on earth in the tiny attic she had known so long.

“Now, Dorothy,” said Tom. She was already on the chest. He pressed her hand tenderly as she turned her face towards the gap through which the Sergeant had passed. Tom lifted her through almost bodily. “Come you, now,” she said as she left his arms.

“Here, sergeant,” bawled Tom, “take these blankets and things. It’ll be cold up there.” And Tom hastily passed blankets, sheets, and counterpanes through the window. Then those above heard him tearing at the bedsteads like one possessed. He rove them asunder by main force and passed the sections to the sergeant. Then springing on to the chest he thrust his arms to either side of the roof, and with a thrust of the feet that sent the box flying, forced and prised himself to the roof.

They could see little even by the light which the constable still retained. They were sure only that Wilberlee House was all but submerged, and that the devouring waters as they swept by them crawled up the sloping roof. From the thick darkness came shouts and wails and cries, and the thundering crash of falling buildings. By the lanthorn’s glare and the casual glimpsing of the moon they saw, as they strained their visions to pierce the black encircling pall, what looked like huge pieces of machinery that broke from the tomb of the night before their eyes and then were gone again. More than once, almost level with the house eaves, a face of a man or woman, a white, pallid, drawn face, with eyes distended in speechless horror, would flash above the waters and then be borne away like chaff in a mighty blast, or the long white trailing of a woman’s dress would shoot beneath their feet, come and go ere they realised it was come. And ever and anon those awful, thrilling, sickening cries, whose dread import they but too surely guessed. The night was bitter cold. They clung together, crouching low, their absorbing thought—would the house stand the shock of those pounding waters, would the dinning flood go on for ever?

Tom only had been engaged. Getting what hold he could by the low chimney of the house, he fastened together with the cording of the beds the disjointed laths, making a very passable raft. This he lowered to the verge of the roof. It might be needed, who might say? The very house seemed to shake under them as they crouched and waited in agonised suspense. Had it been less stoutly built it must ere this have been swept bodily away as rows upon rows of houses that night of doom were swept away by the devouring torrent—many bearing with them husband, wife and child, scarce roused from sleep ere the flood clasped them in the embrace of death.

And still the surging water rose higher and higher, now creeping slowly up the thatch, now sweeping swiftly upwards and now falling as suddenly for a foot or two, giving a momentary hope the violence of the storm was over—but only to surge nearer and nearer to those who now clung to the ridge of the arched roof. Tom contrived to crawl cautiously to Mr. Tinker’s side. With difficulty making the dazed man hear him above the roar of the waters and the dinn that stunned their sense, Tom made him understand that they must now trust to the frail raft he had improvised.

“It’s our only chance, sir. The bindings of the roof are giving. And look, look!”

Tom pointed across the mill-yard. The moon was clear of the clouds, and for a few moments the scene of desolation and the waste of waters might be seen by the silver light.

Mr. Tinker’s gaze followed the direction of the outstretched arms. Across the yard towered the long mill chimney, and it was rocking and swaying like a drunken man. There was not a moment to be lost. The sergeant and Tom slipped the raft on to the bosom of the racing flood. It was all but torn from their grasp.

“Get you on it with the women,” cried Tom. Betty was with difficulty placed upon the frail support. Mr. Tinker followed her. The sergeant, obedient to Tom’s gesture, sprang upon it.

“Now, Dorothy, jump for your life”; but even as the words left his lips, the bark was torn from his grasp. There was a shriek of terror from those aboard, and Ramsden cried, “The chimney. Oh! God! It’s falling!”

Tom breathed a prayer.

“It’s you and me for it, Dorothy. Can you trust me?” He passed his arm around her; she pressed her lips to his, and Tom, with his almost unconscious charge, leaped far out into the centre of the headlong current. And even as he leaped the great chimney-stack, its base destroyed, swayed towards the house, and in one unbroken mass fell upon the roof that had been their refuge, and Tom and Dorothy were lost in the crested billows that leaped with angry roar to meet the very skies.

CHAPTER XV.

SOME ten days or so after the events recorded in the last chapter, a stout woman past the middle age sat by a large four-posted bed in a spacious and well-furnished bedroom. The eider-down coverlet of the bed, its damask hangings, the prie-dieu by its side, the rich covering of the walls, the silken curtaining of the windows, the full pile of the carpets, the costly paintings on the walls indicated the abode of wealth and refinement. The woman by the bedside, on whom fell the genial rays of a bright-burning fire, was plainly but neatly dressed. The anxious glances she cast upon the figure stretched upon the bed seemed to bespeak a greater, a tenderer concern than that of the ordinary professional nurse. There was no sound in the room save the ticking of the massive marble clock upon the mantel, and the regular breathing of the patient. The nurse turned the pages of a ponderous family Bible, but as her attention was confined to the highly coloured illustrations it is probable the printed page was a dead letter to her eyes.

So absorbed was she in the contemplation of the ornate plate depicting the sale of Joseph by his brethren that she almost dropped the heavy book from her knees as a faint voice issued from between the curtain folds.

“Has th’ buzzer gone, Hannah?”

“Sakes, alive! If he isn’t wakken,” the nurse exclaimed, drawing back the curtain. “Eh! Tom, lad, it’s fain aw am to yer thi voice. But tha munnot talk nor fash thisen.”

“Has th’ buzzer gone?” the invalid asked again. Then his eyes wandered slowly and somewhat vacantly about the room.

“Where am I?” he asked.

“Aye, tha may weel ax, lad. Thou’rt at Mester Willie Brooke’s at Northgate House i’ Honley, an’ here tha’s been awmost ivver sin they sammed thi up i’th churchyard all swoonded away; an’ long it wer’ afore they knowed reightly whether tha wer’ wick or deead.”

“Have I been poorly?” asked Tom. “What am I doing here? Where’s Ben? Is he at th’ mill? There’s those pieces for Skilbeck’s want ’livering. Why isn’t Lucy here?”

“Poorly! Tha may weel say that, an’ off thi yed for days together, an’ of all th’ stuff ’at ivver a man talked, all abaat ’junctions, an’ love, an’ ferrets, an’ rabbits, an’ then tryin’ to swim, an’ it took two on us to howd thi i’ bed. But theer, it’s time tha had thi physic, an’ then thi mun go to sleep agen, an’ th’ cook ’ll mak thi some arrowroot, an’ thou’rt to have a glass o’ port wine in it, th’ doctor says, teetotal or no teetotal, which aw nivver did howd wi’ i’ time o’ sickness, an’ agen th’ law o’ natur’ in a way o’ speikin’.” But Hannah’s views on this grave question were lost upon the invalid. He had again sunk into deep and refreshing sleep, and as Hannah laid her hand gently upon his brow, the slight moisture told that the fever in which he had tossed and raved had succumbed to care and treatment.

When Tom awoke Hannah’s place had been taken by a tall, grey-haired man of spare form, broad shoulders and slightly bent, his forehead lined with the tracery of time and care. His eyes had been long fixed upon the features of the sleeping youth and seemed from their expression to seek for some flitting transient likeness they bore a moment but to lose the next. It was Jabez Tinker. From the face so often, so minutely scanned, the eyes of the watcher turned at times to a small gold locket he held in his palm. It bore in pearls the letters.

A.J.

It was the locket taken by Moll o’ Stuarts from the slender neck of the way-worn woman the Hanging Gate had received more than twenty years before, the locket confided to Tom by Mr. Black, and which, ever since, night and day, sleeping or waking, he had worn beneath his vest. Presently Mr. Tinker became aware by that subtle uneasy sense we all have felt, that Tom’s eyes were fixed inquiringly on his face. He rose somewhat stiffly to his feet and bent over the bed. He took the hand that lay upon the coverlet.

“Are you better, Tom?” he asked, very gently. “We have been very anxious about you.”

Tom looked upon the features, usually so stern, with puzzled interest. He seemed to be searching for some elusive memory of the past.

“I dreamed you were dead, drowned,” he said at length. “But I seem to remember so many strange things for an instant or two. Then it is all blank again. But mostly I seem to be fighting with some awful, pitiless enemy that tosses and whirls and throttles me till I choke. And then again all is dark and vague, and I remember nothing.”

“Well, you see, I am not dead yet, Tom, thanks be to God, and under God to you. ’Tis you, Tom, that have been nearer Jordan than I.”

“Jordan!” said Tom, musingly. “Jordan! I was right then. I knew there was a flood, somehow, but I thought it was Bilberry burst.” Then, as if the very words brought a flash of crowding memory and peopled his mind with vivid visions, he cried aloud:

“Dorothy! Dorothy! Where is Dorothy! Oh God, I’ve let her slip again,” and a look of anguish, of hopeless despair was on his face, and with trembling hands he covered his face, and burying his head in the pillow, sobbed as though his whole being would dissolve in tears.

Mr. Tinker beckoned to one who stood by the door. She had entered the room very quietly, fearing to wake the patient. It was Dorothy, looking frail and fragile, but not unhappy, for Hannah had told her that Tom was coming to his senses, and the long, weary waiting and fearing was at an end. As Dorothy with noiseless step approached the bed Mr. Tinker drew aside. Dorothy touched gently the hand bent upon the pillow, and stooped low, very low, so that her lips were very near, and her breath played upon his cheek.

“No, Tom!” she whispered. “Not lost—won.” And as Tom raised his face and gazed upon her as men upon the lineaments that are dearer to them than life, when life is sweetest, her eyes drooped beneath his ardent gaze, and the mantling colour suffused her cheek. She stole her hand into his, and for a while they were still. Jabez came and stood by his niece’s side.

“Leave us for a time, Dorothy,” he said. It was the voice of Jabez; but not the voice she had so long been used to hear. It was almost caressing in its gentleness. Dorothy smiled her assent.

“I’m to bring your arrowroot up, Tom, and I’ve made it myself. I know the port wine’s nice. I tasted it. Don’t let the food be spoiled, uncle, and, remember, Tom’s not to be bothered or upset. If he is, won’t Hannah give it you, that’s all,” and she tripped away with a glance at Tom that did him more good belike than arrowroot or wine.

Mr. Tinker waited until the door had closed upon her, then he drew a chair to the bedside.

“I mustn’t agitate you, Tom,” he spoke. “But, oh! If you could realise what my feelings have been since you have lain between life and death, my dread lest you might pass away and make no sign, the fears, the hopes alternate holding sway, the doubts, the prayers you would forgive much to an old and stricken man.” He opened the hand in which he still held the locket. Involuntarily Tom raised his to feel for the trinket he had so long cherished.

“Can you tell me the meaning of this locket? It was found upon your neck, they say, when you were picked up unconscious, scarce breathing, your heart but flickering, in the churchyard yonder, after the Flood had abated. You had saved Dorothy, how, she scarce seems to know. But she lay very near to you, her head upon your breast. They thought you both dead. But Dorothy was soon no worse. But this locket, speak, Tom, what does it mean?”

“It was my mother’s,” said Tom.

“And she?”

“She died the night I was born.”

“But her name? Who was she? For heaven’s sake, Tom, tell me all you know. You cannot divine how much hangs on your words. They mean perhaps as much to me as you.”

Then Tom told him the tale of the night on which this story opened.

“And Fairbanks, the landlady, the midwife? They can tell me more, they can speak to this. Does this Moll o’ Stute’s still live?”

“Oh, yes, Moll’s safe enough. Did you know my mother, Mr. Tinker?”

“Know her! Oh! my God, know her! But ask me no more now, Tom. Not a moment must be lost. Brook will lend me a horse. Mine went with the Flood. I’ll see you to-morrow. Now have your arrowroot and sleep and get strong and well. Whether my hopes are well founded or not, you’re my son from this day, Tom, for you saved my life, lad, and you saved Dorothy’s. And I’m proud of you, lad, I’m proud of you—Tom Pinder, foundling, and there isn’t a man in the valley that wouldn’t like to call you son, nor a girl you couldn’t win. Hannah and Dorothy’ll look after you till tomorrow, then.”

It was the afternoon of the next day before Jabez Tinker returned from his quest. In the interval between his departure and return, Hannah had yielded to Tom’s importunity, and sent for Ben.

“Eh! Lad,” was Ben’s greeting, as he wrung the invalid’s hand with a grip that made Tom wince, “aw could awmost find it i’ mi heart to call it an answer to prayer. Yo’ munnot let on to Hannah, but mony a time a day this last ten days an’ more, aw’ve been dahn o’ my marrow-bones a prayin’ tha med be spared Th’ laws o’ natur’s all vary weel, Tom, for th’ intellec’ but there’s times, lad, when th’ heart o’ man turns to its Maker like a babby to its mother i’ its pain. An’ this has been sich a time, aw reckon. Eh! man! its fair heart-breakin’ to gooa dahn th’ valley. Near on eighty folks drahned, caantin’ th’ childer in, an’ as for th’ damage to property, a quarter million pund willn’t cover it, folk sayn. Th’ Co-op. Mill’s gone, choose yah, an’ Wilberlee House an’ all. Yar bit o’ a whomstid’s safe, an’ that’s summat to be thankful for; but, eh, mon, aw dunnot know wheer we’st all ha’ to turn for summat to do, there’s thaasan’s an’ thaasan’s o’ folk aat o’ wark, an’ no prospec’ o’ ther getting onny, an’ i’ thick o’ winter, too.”

“It’s all a dreadful muddle to me, Ben, I can’t seem to remember much about it. How did you escape, and how came I here?”

“Well, aw nivver did!” exclaimed Ben. “Didn’t yo’ com’ an’ wakken me up, an’ didn’t Jack an’ me awmost carry th’ missus an’ yar Lucy till we gate ’em on to th’ ’ill-side. An’ if we couldn’t see mich on account o’ th’ dark we could hear enough. By God! aw thowt th’ end o’ th’ world wer’ come. An’ th’ skrikin’! Eh! lad, it wer’ enough to freeze th’ blood i’ yo’r veins. But that didn’t last long. It were short shrift for most on ’em. An’ then wonderin’ an’ wonderin’ what had come on yo’. Aw thowt Lucy’d go fair daft abaat yo’. That’s a heart for feelin’, if yo’ like. Then Jack couldn’t stand it no longer. He said he could swim down to Wilberlee if he could nobbut be sure of findin’ th’ road. He said ’at if tha wer’ deead he’d as lief be deead, too, an’ aat o’ th’ gate. An’, by gosh, he off, an’ ’atween runnin’ an’ wadin’ an’ swimmin’ he gate theer, but theer wer nooa signs o’ thee, or onybody else, for that matter, an’ nowt but part o’ th’ mill truck to be seen. Th’ chimbley wer’ clean gone. But it wer’ Jack that fun’ thee all th’ same up in Honley churchyard liggin’ ovver a gravestooan. An’ Miss Dorothy. Gow! lad, ha tha mun ha’ hugged her. It’s a mercy tha didn’t squeeze th’ life aat on her. Aw’ve nooan seen ’em missen, ’t isn’t likely,” and, Ben winked; “but yar Hannah says oo’s black an blue wheer thi arm held her. But oo’ll think none th’ worse of thee for that.”

“Get on with your story, Ben, and don’t be frivolous. Where’s Jack?”

“Oh, Jack’s all reight, barrin’ ’at he says he’s supped soa mich watter o’ late that nowt but owd ale an’ plenty on it ’ll tak’ th’ taste aat of his maath.”

“But you mustn’t let Jack get into evil courses Ben.”

“Oh! Jack ’ll be reight enough when he’s getten summat to do. But it’s the owd tale. ‘Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.’ Yo’ see ther’s a seet o’ folk come fro’ all th’ parts o’ Yorkshire an’ Lancashire to see th’ course o’ th’ flood and th’ deborah, as th’ newspapper ca’d th’ muck an’ th’ rubbish ’at’s left. Holmfirth’s more like a fair nor owt else. It’s as bad as Honley Feeast time. An’ all th’ seet-seers ’at can get howd o’ Jack mun treeat him. If he does get a bit fuddled afore bed-time it’s little wonder. Aw’ve often noticed ’at folk ’ll pay for a pint o’ ale for a chap ’at wouldn’t gi’ him a penny-teea-cake if he wer clammin’. Dun they let yo’ smoke i’ this fine room, Tom? Aw’m fair dyin’ for a reek o’ baccy.”

But now Dorothy entered with a tray covered with a napkin snowy-white and on it a basin of arrowroot, and Ben slipped his clay and flat tin box into his pocket.

“Aw rekkon aw’ll be gooin’, Tom, or Hannah ’ll be flytin’ me. Nivver yo’ get wed, Tom, if yo’ want to ca’ yo’r soul yo’r own. It’s just awful’ th’ way a felly’s put on after he’s once getten th’ noose raand ’is neck. Tak a frien’s advice Tom an’ be warned i’ time.”

And with a wink that meant volumes, Ben conveyed himself away, walking on tip-toe, as if afraid of waking a sleeper to whom sleep might mean life or death.

“Now, Tom, you’ve got to eat this just now,” said Dorothy, “wait till I see if it’s cool enough,” and she touched the lip of the spoon with hers and affected to taste the odorous compound with the air of a connoisseur. “It’s just nice, sir, and if that doesn’t cure you, nothing will.”

“I could drink a bucketful,” protested Tom. Couldn’t I have a chop or a steak? I’m as hungry as a hunter.’’

“Chop, indeed! I should think not. Later on you shall have a cup of chicken-broth and the weest slice of toast. You’ve no idea how ill you are.” Dorothy spoke lightly, but suddenly the woman gushed into her eyes, and it was a poor, faltering voice that said, “But you’re better now, thank God. Oh! Tom, if you had died!”

“Would you have cared very much, Dorothy?” asked Tom.

“Is that what you call eating arrowroot, sir? Listen, that’s uncle. How soon he’s back.” Dorothy had gone to the window and drawn aside the curtains. “The horse is covered with foam, and uncle looks ten years younger and as glad as a bridegroom.”

A quick step was heard on the stairs, and Jabez Tinker stood at the door of the sick-room.

“Is he awake, Dorothy?” whispered Mr. Tinker.

“Awake, yes, and likely to be, as far as I can see, what with one and another. Call this a sick-room. Better call it a show and charge for admission. It takes one maid’s time to attend to the door. If Mr. Brooke doesn’t send in a bill for a new knocker and fresh paint, he’s a saint.”

“There, there, chatterbox,” exclaimed Jabez, gaily. “Out you go, Dorothy, and don’t come up again till I ring. Then you may come, no one else.”

Mr. Tinker looked radiant, and, as Dorothy had said, younger by ten good years. In his impatience he almost pushed his niece from the room. Then he strode to the bed and held out both his hands to Tom.

“It’s true, Tom, it’s true, every word of it. Oh! that ever I should live to see this day. I’ve dreamed of it, I’ve prayed for it, and now it has come to me, this my great joy, out of the deep waters. Truly God moves in a mysterious way.”

Tom had risen to a sitting posture. Jabez flung a loose shawl—it was Dorothy’s—over his shoulders.

“You mustn’t risk taking cold,” he said, very gently. “Are you quite sure you feel strong enough to hear a rather long story, Tom, or would you rather wait?”

“I would rather hear it now, sir.”

“Then hear me to the finish and don’t judge me too harshly. God knows I’ve suffered enough without your condemnation. But it might have been worse, it might have been worse.”

Mr. Tinker was silent for a time, as if to arrange his thoughts or choose his words. Then very gravely he spoke:

“My father, Tom, was a very strict, stern man” (“I’m not surprised to hear that,” thought his listener) “and with an overweening sense of family pride. He was very proud that he was a Tinker, and, indeed, Tom, we are as old a family as there is in the valley. Never forget that. And we have an unsullied name. My father had another failing, if failing it be called. He was inordinately fond of money. He expected, he took it for granted, that both Dick and myself would marry not for money, of course, but where money was.

“But both his sons disregarded their father’s wishes. I, secretly, while he yet lived; Richard, as you know, after his death. It was my fate, at the house of a customer in Liverpool, to meet sweet Annie Lisle, the family governess. She was an orphan, alone and unfriended, in the world. What else she was, how sweet, how winsome, how patient, how true and how trustful I cannot bear to think of, still less speak. I won her love. I dared not speak of my passionate devotion at home. My father with the burden of age had become each year more exacting, less tolerant of opposition to his will. I feared to anger him. It was in his power to disinherit me by his will. I was absolutely dependent on him. The homestead was his, the mill, the business, were his. I was not man enough to face poverty, expulsion from my home, loss of social status—not even for my loved one’s sake. Call me a poltroon, Tom, a coward, a cur, if you like. I have used bitterer words than those to myself. I knew it would be hopeless to ask my father’s consent. He would have had one word—‘Go!’ Then I began, with a satisfaction I strove in vain to banish, to observe, nay, to gauge, the sign of my father’s failing health. I persuaded myself he was not long for this world, and in my heart of hearts I was glad. But my passion ill brooked delay. I urged Annie to a secret wedding. Reluctantly she consented. She procured a week’s holiday from her employer, and we were married by special license at the parish church of Seaford, on the south coast, a small fishing hamlet little frequented by the tourist or holiday-maker. It was a week of Paradise. Then my wife returned to her employment, I was to find a favourable opportunity of breaking the news to my father. Meantime anything might happen. I conjured my wife to keep our secret. I kept the certificate of our marriage, so afraid was I lest it should fall into another’s hand. My wife was not even to write to me lest my father’s suspicions should be aroused. I continued to call on my Liverpool customer as usual, and when he asked me as usual to dine or sup at his house, I treated my own wife with the distant courtesy one shows to a governess. One day, early in the winter of 1830, I called at the house of Mr.——, I was determined to take my wife away. My father had softened much during the past few months. He had agreed to pay me a fixed salary, instead of doling out a pound or two for pocket money. I had resolved to place Annie in some small cottage not far from Holmfirth I had thought of Greenfield. I could see her there each week. And there was another reason why another home should be found for her. Judge of my consternation when Mrs.—, in answer to the inquiry which I made with assumed indifference as to the health of the children and their governess, told me that Miss Lisle had been dismissed her service, dismissed ignominiously, without a character. I controlled myself as well as I could. Mrs. —— said enough to convince me that my darling had been dismissed under the darkest suspicion that can rest upon a pure, unsullied woman. But even then I did not disclose the truth. My wife had vanished and left no trace behind her. She had been true to her promise to me, even when a word would have cleared her name and confounded the angry jealous woman who spurned her from her home. Almost penniless she turned into the world. She never wrote to me or sent me word. Judge how I searched in all places likely and unlikely for her. Secretly, with what scant means I could procure. I instituted inquiries on every side; but my wife had disappeared as effectively as though she had never been. She had never worn her wedding ring; she had borne my name only during all that too brief week of wedded bliss at Seaford. Time went by; I knew my wife, if she still lived, must be a mother. I feared, then at last I persuaded myself, that in her shame and grief she had destroyed herself. I called upon my head the curse of the Almighty, but God seemed heedless of my blasphemous ravings. From that time life for me had lost its savour. I lived only for work, for business success. They were my distraction. Then, as you know, I married. But of that I need not speak. My wife bore me no children, and when I took Dorothy as my ward I almost hated the child because I could not love her as my own.”