“Dr. Green ought to see him,” Ned said. “A gunshot wound is not a thing to be trifled with.”
“The doctor ha' been up twice a day on the last three e days,” Luke replied. “Oi suppose they got frighted and were obliged to call him in.”
“They had better have done so at first,” Ned said; “they might have been quite sure that he would say nothing about it to the magistrates whatever was the matter with Stukeley. I thought that fellow would get into mischief before he had done.”
“It war a bad day for the village when he coomed,” Luke said; “what wi' his preachings and his talk, he ha' turned the place upside down. I doan't say as Varley had ever a good name, or was a place where a quiet chap would have chosen to live, For fighting and drink there weren't a worse place in all Yorkshire, but there weren't no downright mischief till he came. Oi wur afraid vor a bit when he came a-hanging aboot Polly, as the gal might ha' took to him, for he can talk smooth and has had edication, and Polly thinks a wonderful lot of that. Oi were main glad when she sent him aboot his business.”
“Well, there is one thing, Luke; if anything happens to him it will put an end to this Luddite business at Varley. Such a lesson as that in their midst would do more to convince them of the danger of their goings on than any amount of argument and advice.”
“It will that,” Luke said. “Oi hear as they are all moighty down in the mouth over that affair at Cartwright's. If they could not win there, when they were thirty to one, what chance can they have o' stopping the mills? Oi consider as how that has been the best noight's work as ha' been done in Yorkshire for years and years. There ain't a-been anything else talked of in Varley since. I ha' heard a score of guesses as to how you found owt what was a-going on in toime to get to the mill—thank God there ain't one as suspects as our Polly brought you the news. My own boys doan't know, and ain't a-going to; not as they would say a word as would harm Polly for worlds, but as they gets a bit bigger and takes to drink, there's no saying what mightn't slip out when they are in liquor. So you and oi and Bill be the only ones as ull ever know the ins and outs o' that there business.”
CHAPTER XX: CLEARED AT LAST.
The night was a wild one. The weather had changed suddenly, and the rain beat fiercely in the faces of the hands as they made their way back from the mill up to Varley. As the night came on the storm increased. The wind as it swept across the moor swirled down into the hollow in which Varley stood, as if it would scoop the houses out of their foundations, and the drops of rain were driven against roof and wall with the force of hailstones.
Bill Swinton was sitting up again with John Stukeley, and as he bent over the sick man's bed and tenderly lifted his head while he held a cup with some cooling drink to his lips, the contrast between his broad, powerful figure, and his face, marked with the characteristics alike of good temper, kindness, and a resolute will, and the thin, emaciated invalid was very striking. Stukeley's face was without a vestige of color; his eyes were hollow and surrounded by dark circles; his cheeks were of an ashen gray pallor, which deepened almost to a lead color round his lips.