SCILLA REASONS WITH HARTAS
'Then you won't do a half-day's job?'
'No, I won't that. I wonder you've fashed yoursel to come and ask me. You ken I never will, least of all of a Friday. It's against common sense to think t'Almighty means you to tail off a week when He's sent sike a downpour the first four days. I'll none trouble t' pits this side o' Sabbath.'
'You might be the religiousest man in t' land, Hartas.'
'It's none religion. It's common sense. Sabbath's a landmark; it'll hev its due on either side from me. I'm none going to split a week or two days. We left half a dozen loads o' stuff at t' shaft mouth last week-end, and not a cart 'll hev crossed t' moor this tempest. They may come thick to-day, and if you like to go and wait for custom, you can.'
Dick Chapman laughed angrily.
'If 'twer a matter o' trapping a few rabbits none ud be keener nor yoursel,' he said. 'I can't drop into t' pit alone, and so, as Reuben's off, I'm left in t' lurch. And next week's Martinmas.'
'I ken so.'
'And 'll no split that either, I reckon.'
'Martinmas's out o' count.'
'Ah! ah! there's no spree where there's no brass, eh?'
'Brass! Brass indeed! It's folk without fire and with friends that I think on. Now, Dick, make off. I'll promise four days in t' fore-end. How art thee going, on Nobbin?'
'I lay I'll keep drier on my own shanks, and there 'll be nought for Nobbin to do, though that deuced hind leg o' hers 'll be getting stiff enough for t' farrier if she stands much longer.'
'I'll look after Nobbin.'
'Just a walk along t' track 'll do nought.'
'I think I ken t' needs o' that limb by now.'
'Well, I'll gang and see what's doing.'
Chapman sauntered off, turning up his collar and jamming his hat down on his brows. The pits lay between the Mires and Old Lafer on the moor above the Hall, and here the three able-bodied men of the Mires worked in all seasons except hay-time. At hay-time they hired out to the low-country farmers as monthly labourers. A small stock of coal sufficed in summer to eke out the dwindling turfs in the peat shanties, and keep the fire smouldering while the household laboured in the meadows.
But there were days all the year round when the wild west wind, sweeping off Great Whernside, brought tempests of rain, and made it 'that rough on the tops' that no man could stand against it and even the sheep went uncounted. Then the doors at the Mires were fast shut, except when a woman in clogs pattered round for a skep of peats, or a man slouched down to the marsh to count the foaming streams pouring into it. This when it 'abated like.' Then would come another rush of wind and wet, blotting out the whole world to within a yard or two of the cottage windows.
If there were one kind of weather that Scilla detested more than another it was fog. A snow-storm or deluge of rain kept Hartas at home, but betwixt the liftings of fog he would make his way to the Inn at East Lafer, and when he came back at night there was a wath over the beck to cross, the moor-track to strike, and the pit-shaft to miss. It was nothing when he finished off by rolling down the slape sides of the hollow.
It was foggy to-day. Hartas was restless, and she was sure he would slip off after dinner. She had run into Chapman's and suggested the pits. But her hope had failed and she foresaw a vigil. She had not dared say a word while the men were talking, lest evident anxiety should make Hartas contradictious. But despite her forbearance he had been so. There was no managing him! She was frying bacon, and sighed over the pan, as into her simple mind there rushed the certainty of his headlong course to perdition, a perdition symbolised to her by the flames curling and hissing at every turn of the fork that sent sprints of fat on to the embers. This was really her idea of hell. She had an equally vivid one of heaven. Three miles away, straight as an arrow to the north, lay Wherndale. She had walked many a time to the edge of the moors to see it. Skirting a deep natural moat round an old copperas mine, she had slid down the refuse slide, and plunged through bracken, rush, and spagnum to a great rock overhanging the valley. From hence the view was glorious on a fine summer evening. The western valley lay bathed in sun-rays falling through the vapoury heat-mists shrouding the mountains; the eastern flooded with sunshine; the Meupher range clear against the sky. Below, the moor fell abruptly into meadow-land; rocks were scattered in Titanic confusion among the ling; the meadows dimpled with hollows; the lowering sun streamed through the foliage, and cast long shadows from every tree and hay-pike; mists of blue smoke hung above the farmsteads; here and there was a lake-like gleam of river. Scilla, with the velvet breeze blowing against her, felt that here was heaven. Did she not touch it, when the very tufts of grass over which she walked glistened like frosted silver, and the bent-flower gleamed like cloth of gold?
'I wish the fog would lift,' she said, as she placed dinner on the table, and they drew up their chairs. 'If it would, I'd mount Nobbin and give her a good stretch, better than you'll have patience for, maybe. We mustn't have her leg worsen.'
'It only worsens with standing in t' stable. We hevn't plenty o' work for her, winding up t' coil at t' pits; she'd thrive better on twice as much, and that's truth. I've an extra job for her to-day, and spite o' t' fog I'll carry it through.'
'Why, father, she'll be that stiff after these few days!'
'It works off t' farther she goes, and what with t' weather-shakken look o' t' skies when there is a rift, and Martinmas holiday at hand, she'll be heving so much stable that her leg 'll be her doom i' now.'
Scilla listened with a sensation of breathlessness. It was rarely he talked so much, or informed her of any of his intentions. She wondered what the 'extra job' was, but was so certain that she was to know that she easily hid her curiosity.
Hartas ate on phlegmatically, pushing his meat on to the knife with the fork, and thence conveying it with a pump-handle-like motion to his mouth. When he had finished he placed them cross-wise on the plate, drew the back of his hand across his lips, and tilted his chair, sticking his thumbs into the armholes of his coat.
'There's t' sale ower at Northside Edge to-day,' he said.
'Yes. Poor Mrs. Carling, how she'll feel it!'
'I met Luke Brockell when I wer i' Wonston some days back, and he wer talking o' taking his trolly up. He has his trolly, but he's lost his nag, dropped in a fit.'
'Then how could he take it up, and what would be the use of it? Does he want to put it in the sale?'
Hartas chuckled, leering at her with a scowling grin.
'Thee never wer a bright un, Scilla. All t' glint o' thy wits has run to waste in your hair. I kenned that when Kit gave you hare soup, and you never guessed what it was nor where it came from. There, there, no call to flare up! What, there's a glint in your temper too, is there?'
Scilla had turned deathly white, and pushed her chair back hastily, making a harsh sound on the roughly-paved floor that somehow suggested to Hartas the sound her voice would have had had she spoken. She looked at him with a threatening disdain as she stood a moment balancing her slight figure against the table, and apparently expecting him to speak. He did not, however, and she went to the door. Opening it, she leant against the lintel. There was something piteously like the fog that shrouded the world in the wanness that had overclouded her face. The sweet clearness of the blue eyes was gone. More than a suspicion of tears weighted their lids and lurked in the trembling of her mouth. But she was determined not to cry. It was not to fall a prey to the ready scoff that she had won her way through tribulation to a calm that—whatever the shocks of the future—should be abiding.
And at that moment the sky cleared, and a growing light which, in the absorption of Hartas's confidences, she had not noticed, burst into a ray of sunshine.
It fell upon her. She turned, and going in again sat down on the settle. A smile had flitted over her face.
'I know now what you meant, father. It was very stupid of me not to understand. Of course you offered Nobbin for Luke's trolly, and now you are going with her.'
She spoke in her usual bright voice, but not with any expectation of disarming him. She knew well by this stage of her dearly-bought experience that such men are not to be disarmed. Always surly, his surliness only varied in degree.
'Them that's fools this side o' t' grave are less like for it t' other,' he said. 'It's true I'm taking Nobbin ower to Northside Edge, but there's no need for all t' Mires to ken. It may or it mayn't come to Dick Chapman's knowledge, but mind you, you're dumb. I offered her to Dick to ride to t' pits.'
While he spoke, avoiding looking at her, a foreboding of some wholly formless but very decided evil darted into her mind. For an instant she hesitated to utter the suggestion of principle that rose simultaneously to her lips. But to have done so would have been to shirk what he was shirking.
'Of course Nobbin is half his,' she said.
Hartas did not answer but got up slowly.
'And what she earns must be his, half of it, I mean,' she said with more inward tremor, but more outward steadiness. 'Besides,' she added, getting up too and going close to him, 'do you think she's fit for this piece of work, father? It's all very well her hobbling a bit when it's only to the pits, and often no work when she gets there. No one could call us cruel to her, she's——'
Hartas raised his hand suddenly and struck out. But it was only into the air, and Scilla did not wince as he had hoped she would. He would not glance at her. Not for worlds would he have owned what the influence of that glance into her earnest unwavering eyes might have been.
'Cruel to her!' he exclaimed in his thick voice, 'she's as fat as butter, and if we're stinted she has her meat. Come, Scilla, what are you driving at? Let's leave riddles.'
'The law,' said Scilla, with an urgency which felt to her own keen emotions desperate. Was not the law her phantom, the dread avenger that dogged her steps and filled her thoughts? She loved her husband with all her heart, but in her utmost loyalty she still always considered him as a transgressor, not as a victim. To Hartas he was a victim, the victim of adverse circumstance, of an embodiment of spite in the shape of Elias Constantine. Hartas Kendrew's predominant article of faith was that in which Admiral Marlowe, Mr. Severn, and Elias Constantine were inextricably mingled. But his trinity in unity possessed, according to his distorted reasoning, a viciousness which could only nurture revengefulness.
'The law,' said Scilla again, nerving herself to appeal; 'don't let us put ourselves near it. It seems a dishonest thing to say,' she added, faltering a moment, while a look of perplexity filled her eyes, 'as though we were all the time doing wrong, but you know lots of folk 'll see Nobbin at Northside Edge, and if she goes lame——'
'There's not a sore on her, and what's a hobble? There's not a sprain about her. She's sound, I tell you. D—— the law!'
His violence convinced her of his misgivings. It was not then so much what Nobbin might earn that day, a sum that would probably be balanced on Chapman's side at the pits, but the risk he ran in taking her so far from home that made him anxious to do it quietly. But why run the risk? Where was the advantage of it? It could only be as a matter of convenience to Luke Brockell. She knew Luke and did not like him. Not that she had ever heard any evil of him. But there was something cautious and furtive about him that she instinctively resented. The straightforwardness which Hartas chose to construe as slowness of comprehension made her shrink from imputing interested or dishonest motives to others. But she was often compelled to do so. And now she searched her mind for a clue to this compact of friendliness on Hartas's part with a man who, on his side, would do well to keep out of his companionship.
She had moved aside and stood leaning against the settle-back with a droop in her figure expressive of her dismayed despondency. What more could she say or urge? To a man of Hartas Kendrew's temperament, risk added zest. To run into it quickened his sluggish blood to a degree which he cherished with delight; failure nurtured his lowest nature, success was only more enthralling as feeding a triumph whose chief charm lay in its maliciousness.
'You must have weighed it all, father,' Scilla said at last, timidly, again raising her eyes to his, and searching his face for confirmation of her worst fears. 'You know that if anything goes wrong when you take her off in this way, Dick 'll come down on us for all her value. And though she mayn't be worth much to others, she is to us.'
'You talk quite book-like,' said Hartas, with a sneer. It pleased him to think she had grasped the whole situation, and was made proportionately miserable. But after all, were not her qualms wholly womanly? His were those of manhood. He would dare the devil to do his worst at him. Had he not other plans for circumventing the devil's own? Luke Brockell was a more cautious chap than Kit, he would beat him out and out as a partner over the snare, the sack, and the dub; folks never pried into the stuff on his trolly; already grouse were again on their way from Admiral Marlowe's moors to distant markets, with which Luke dealt in the delf line. Luke had fast and influential friends, and he meant to leave no stone unturned whereby Luke might also be his.
END OF VOL. I
Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh
G. C. & Co.
Transcriber's Note: Although most printer's errors have been retained, some have been silently corrected. Some spelling and punctuation, capitalization, accents and formatting markup have been normalized and include the following:
Page 88 peek is now peak [peak in the masonry]
Page 213 the word as was written twice, [reflecting upon him as as]
Page 241 the double quotation mark has been replaced by a single quote to match the opening quote. [I saw you last—in July, was it not?">[