“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.