I walked across the moors and right on to Wrigley Mill Fold in a dream. Ah! love is your only wizard. It touches the eyes of maid and man, and lo! there is a new world that holds nothing commonplace, nothing tawdry, nothing mean. The heart that throbs with love’s exquisite pain knows no fear but that it lose its love. Here was I, but just free of my indentures, with no craft in my hand but that of a poverty-knocker all my worldly gear on my back, and plighted to a girl that all the men and women I had been taught to reverence and take pattern by, the men and women who made my little world, would look askance upon. And was I a whit dismayed? Not I i’ faith. I’d youth, and strength, and health, knit muscles, and a clear head, and crowning gift of all, a loved one’s love. Fear! I laughed at obstacles. I was the lord of Destiny.
Mary has often told me since that when took the door that night my face shone as though transfigured and that she knew all of a crack, as she put it that my feet had trod the Mount Delectable and my eyes seen the golden strand. But all she said was:
“And wheer’s our Jim? I’ll be bun he’s ca’ed Gate. I should ha’ thought ’at after being at Pole Moor an’ listenin’ to two guid sarmons he could ha’ come streight whom, gooid Sunday neet as it is, an’ all. But theer, some women has th’ beck on it, an’ some hannot, an’ there’s an’ end on it. Theer’s Betty Haley’s Matthy can lead th’ prayer meetings an’ pray for hauf an hour at a spell, rollin’ up th’ whites o’ his e’en an’ callin’ on th’ Spirit till he’s awmost hoarse, an’ now they sen he’s to be put on th’ Plan an’ be a pudden parson,(a local preacher) an’s getten up Mrs. Wrigley’s sleeve, an’ oo’s nagging at th’ owd felly to put him forrard i’ th’ mill, an’ he’ll be an ovver-seer an’ happen a peartner, th’ sallow-faced, greasy windbag ’at he is. An’ aw’m sure, though aw say it ’at suddent, aw’m as gooid a woman onny day as Betty Haley ivver were, as yo’n nowt to do but look at her house to see. Cleanliness is next to godliness, mi owd mother used to say, an’ aw’n getten cleanliness onnyroad, an’ that’s more nor Betty Haley can say or ivver could.” and here Mary was fain to pause for breath.
And from this outpouring I knew that Mary had been to the service in the Warping Room at Wrigley Mill. My employer’s good lady, having had high words with the Vicar’s wife about some parish matter—so ’twas said at all events—had shaken dust of St. Chad’s from her very substantial feet, and had started a Methodist in a room above the counting-house, which, on week days, was used for warping the yarn. Matthew Haley was one of the hands, a black-headed bilious looking man, much suspected by the other workpeople of carrying tales to the counting-house But he’d as much gab as a Philadelphia lawyer, and having, as he put it, “raised his Ebenezer” in the upper chamber at Wrigley Mill, was now become a bright and shining light in the little congregation which consisted almost exclusively of the millpeople. He was Mary’s particular aversion, however, and she, who, had known Matthy’s mother from a girl, never ceased to wonder that a child of Betty’s should to all seeming be born to grace whilst her own lad should openly scoff at Matthy’s perfervid supplications.
“Why, Mary,” I said, when I could at length get in a word edgeways, “you wouldn’t swop your Jim for Matthy Haley, would you?”
“No, that aw wouldn’t. Not if they’d gi’ me all Wrigley Mill to booit—a nasty, greasy,”—I think Mary meant unctuous—“slimy, creeping, sneck-liftin’, underhand tittle-tattler. But it does go agen th’ grain to think ’at sich as him s’ud be thrusten forrard an’ stond i’ th’ high places o’ th’ synagogue, so to speak, when a proper, straightforrard, guid-hearted lad like y’er Jim, ’at wouldn’t hurt a flea, ’is put dahn as nowt. Aw tell yo’ what it is, Abe, aw’ve wintered an’ summered some th’ fo’k i’ Diggle ’at nivver missed nother Chapel nor Sunday School sin Mrs. Wrigley too’ up wi’ th’ Methodies, an’ all aw can say is if God Almighty cannot see through ’em, it’s time some’un up an’ oppened His e’en for Him.”
“Don’t yo’ fret yourself, Mary,” I assured her. “God is not mocked, an’ I’d rather stand with Jim on the last day than with many a Wrigley Mill saint, aye, even if he’d a pint pot in his hand.” And so Mary’s wrath simmered down, though from the way she gave the occasional slap with her thible at the porridge as she stirred it on the hob, I judged that in imagination she was venting her wrath on the unconscious Matthy.
Jim sauntered in just as Mary and I drew to table, and mollified his mother by the hearty way he handled his spoon.
“There’s nowt like a gooid sermon an’ a gooid walk ’at after it for gi’ing’ a man a relish for his victuals,” he declared. “An’ if yo’ want a gooid sarmon wi’in ten mile o’ Wrigley Mill yo’ mun go to Pole Moor for it. What do’st say, mother, if we join th’ Baptists?”
“Tha were browt up Church,” reminded his mother.