“By the by,” I asked, “where is Ephraim?”
“Ax me another,” quoth Jim, eyeing me sideways. “He’s vanished. Ne’er been heard on sin’ New Year’s Eve, same neet yo’ were set on. Some folk’s puttin’ this an’ that together. But aw’m not for speerin’.”
“Well, don’t, Jim, there’s a good lad. An’ shut Enoch’s mouth if you can. I’ve my reasons. Ah, here’s Ruth with th’ browies, an’ I’m mortal hungry, and as dry as a lime kiln.”
It was almost worth while being ill to savour those browies and that ale. Never, sure, were nectar and ambrosia sweeter on Olympian lips than that homely mixture of haver-bread and beef-dripping, piping hot, and pepper and salt, washed down with innocent home-brewed. I’ve lived to see the day when men and women drink tea by the quart when their fathers quaffed their home-brewed; and shattered nerves and dyspeptic stomachs tell what’s amiss. Worse still, I’ve lived to see the day when you can travel the countryside for miles around and hardly a housewife be found that can brew a peck of honest malt. It’s malt and chemicals now, dear bought at the public-house; and muddled heads and shaky limbs tell what’s amiss.
But so long as my father lived never did drop of alien brew pass the doors of Pole Moor Manse, and as for spirits save a thimbleful of brandy in case of sickness the very name was anathema in my father’s ears and while I was spooning my brownies with great gusto and meditating another mighty pull at the pewter jug, my dear old father stole softly up the narrow staircase in his stocking-feet, having doffed his shoon in the kitchen, partly to avoid noise, but more to avoid dirt and Ruth’s consequent and instant railing accusations. And when he saw me so valiantly engaged, the little, thin man, with a heart as tender as a woman’s and as dauntless as Goliath’s, could find no words to speak, but must needs sit by my couch and softly pat my big hand, and bid me not to talk more but sleep if I could. And, knowing well that no petition could please him better, I asked him to read just a verse or two from the Book that was indeed to him the Book of Life, and as he read in his grave, soft voice, all tremulous now, how the Master came nigh to the gate of a certain city and there was one carried out, the only son of his mother and she a widow, and how the Lord had compassion on her and bade her weep not, and how the young man sat up and began to speak, and “he delivered him to his mother,” the warm tears trickled softly down the hollow cheeks, and I knew that not in Nain only was “God glorified,” and full of thankfulness to heaven for the love of this sainted man, and still weak, doubtless, from loss of blood and confinement to bed, and low diet, and drowsy perchance, from the ale I had drunk, and at natural peace with God and man, I sank into a natural sleep, and so slumbered with my father’s hand in mine.
It was not till some days afterwards, I being then much stronger, and my arm having sunk to something like its normal size, and I feeling little after effects from my wound, save a most voracious appetite that Ruth condescended to tell me her reasons for acquitting the Bill’s o’ Jack’s folk of having part or parcel in the attack I had been so rudely treated. It seemed that on the afternoon of the day I had been discovered propped against the Manse, Ruth had sallied forth in a blinding snowstorm to fetch from Dr. Dean’s surgery in Slaithwaite the potions and lotions he had prescribed. And not far from Pole Moor, evidently waiting about on the chance of waylaying anyone who left the parson’s house, she had come across the shrinking form of Miriam, looking, as Ruth declared, more like a sheeted ghost than a human being, so shrouded was she in the fallen flakes, white her face, so piteous and “feart” her eyes.
“Oh, Ruth, at last, at last; I thought no one would ever come! How is he, how is he? Will he get better? What does the doctor say?” Miriam had cried.
“And how do you know our Abe’s badly, I should like to know,” Ruth had answered tartly, for one may be sure she was in none the best of tempers, and small blame to her.
“Oh, Ruth, dear, dear Ruth, don’t speak unkindly to me. I’m sure I’ve enough to bear without you turning on me,” and here, it seemed, poor Miriam, who was not one of your crying sort, had fairly broken down, and Ruth, all there on the lone road and in the blinding snow, had put her arm round the swaying form, and Miriam had sobbed out her story on Ruth’s gentle breast.
“Granny’s like to die,” she had said, “and couldn’t or wouldn’t rest till she had seen Abe. She had found the ring Abe had given me, and after that nothing would quieten her but seeing Abe. And Daft Billy had brought Abe long after midnight, and Ephraim was there, and there were angry words and foul looks, and Ephraim went off in ugly mood. Then after a long, long time Abe started out, but whether for Pole Moor or Wrigley Mill I didn’t know for sure. And after he had gone I couldn’t rest for thinking of Ephraim’s black looks. Something here,” putting her hand over her fluttering heart, “seemed to tell me that danger menaced Abe. I dare not leave the sick woman, or I would myself have braved the darkness and the storm even in that grim hour. So, unable to still the forebodings that beset me, I stole out of the house to the hovel where Daft Billy dwells by his lone. I roused him with difficulty, and told him my fears. As he valued my friendship I bade him follow Abe’s footsteps, if he could trace them in the snow, and see Abe, himself unseen, safe bestowed either at Pole Moor or Wrigley Mill.” And Billy, who it seemed was in the habit of sleeping in his clothes, as saving trouble and blankets, had snatched up a lanthorn and made off in the dark, whilst Miriam returned to the sick woman’s side, to count the minutes, aye, the seconds, till news should come. Then after a never-ending waiting, after the late dawn of day, Billy had returned to Burnplatts, had thrust open her cottage door, and said just this and no more: