“Doesn’t ta know? Oh, well, tha’ll happen find aht sooin’ enough. I’ th’ meantime yo’ may suppose ’at aw intend when aw dee to fahnd a ’sylum for loonatics, or perhaps aw’m thinkin’ a’ bequeaving a legacy for th’ endowment o’ Powl Moor Chapel. Yo’ may be sewer, whati’vver it is, it’ll be summat ’at ca’s for a seet o’ brass. Aw’ve getten three pun’ nineteen an’ sevenpence farden teed up i’ a stockin’ fooit, an’ i’ a varry little time aw’st look aht for a sootable investment”
Another symptom, that excited in me a languid speculation was the fact that Jim, about this time, embarked upon a determined effort to reform his speech with the result that much concentration was needed to follow his discourse This is a sample of his speech at this painful period of his progress in self improvement:
“Well, aw meean—that is, I mean ‘well,’ if we’re—aw mean, I meean ‘mean’—‘we are’ bun— that’s to say I mean goin’—drat it, aw’ve dropped th’ ‘g,’ as Ruth said—aw mean ‘going’ to th’ sarvice I mean th’ ‘service’ to-neet—theer aw go agen, aw mean ‘to-night’—it’s time we donned ussen, aw mean rid ussen up—no’h, that won’t do, nother—dressed ussen—no, that’s noan it, nother—aw mean ‘dressed ourselves.’”
I think it will not be denied that conversation with Jim in this phase of his development was attended with difficulties. However, we put on our Sunday best, and after Mary had straightened Jim’s neckcloth and inspected his boots and brushed an imaginary speck of dust from his coat sleeve—tender ministrations under which Jim fidgetted impatiently, declaring that his mother couldn’t make more coil if he was going to be wed—we set off for the Warping Room a few minutes before eleven o’clock, both feeling very sleepy, and much more inclined for bed than worship. We hadn’t far to go, for Mary’s cottage was in the front of a small block of buildings in the mill yard, and the office or counting house at the back, and over the counting house, up a short, worm-eaten flight of steps, the warping room, evidently two bedrooms knocked into one chamber—and a smallish chamber at that.
It was an ideal winter’s night. The moon sailed in a cloudless sky gemmed with glittering stars. The ground was deep in virgin snow. Not a breath of air fluttered the fallen flakes. No sound broke the silence save the babbling of Diggle Brook and the crunching of the snow under our clogging shoon. The Old Year was dying in a rare peace. It had been the year that had brought to me the greatest gifts life holds for man—a pure maiden’s trust and love—and I had nought but benedictions to soothe its passing. As we reached the foot of the short flight of stairs that led to the warping room we heard the words of the familiar hymn:
“Thy faithful people praise Thee, Lord,
For countless gifts received;
And pray for grace to keep the Faith,
Which saints of old believed.”
And the words found a ready echo in my heart.