"Mr. Dow!" ejaculated the vicar, in a tone compounded of equal parts of astonishment and displeasure.
A big Cleveshire Dalesman, of the more prosperous type—handsome, well-dressed, a striking figure in his riding breeches and gaiters, now approached, lifting his cap from his fair hair, his eyes twinkling with a kind of enjoyment which he peculiarly relished.
"Your niece and me has been getting acquainted," he said, in his unrenderable soft-vowelled Dale speech. "Makin' friends, as you may say." It sounded more like: "Mäakin' freänds, as you mäay säa." But the phonetic rendering of dialect is a weariness, and will not here be attempted. "Fair enjoyin' werselves we've been, ever since leavin' York Station. I'm goin' to take her goods up t' Dale for her, since I expect you've only t' old mare an't' cart with you, Mr. Cooper."
Mr. Cooper could barely acknowledge the kindness, for angry mortification. He was a Southerner, planted down among people whom he disliked, because he did not in the least understand them. His idea of the peasant's correct attitude was a servile obedience to the parson, and that kind of gratitude which is rightly said to consist of a lively sense of favours to come. The sturdy independence, and I'm-as-good-as-you indifference of the North Country, was a positive offence to him, his only armour against it being a crust of ever increasing cold dignity and aloofness, which the Dalesmen saw, and chuckled over. His wife, who had come among them, ready with the ministrations which she understood—with condescending smiles, ill-made soup, old clothes and patronage—found no market for these commodities. A premature exhibition of them had produced such a condition of feeling, that now, as she came down the road, full of amiable intentions, the village became a desert, everyone slipping within doors and disappearing, sooner than encounter her.
Moreover, the Dale was full of nonconformity; and the attitude of the vicar towards dissent was that of silent, rigid dislike—of his wife, that kind of shocked horror with which some people talk of "the heathen."
So the Chetwynd-Coopers dwelt as aliens in their Northern parish, attributing their failure solely to causes exterior to themselves, and resolutely setting the advantages of fine moorland air, and the low price of provisions, against the vague depression which their isolation naturally caused.
But, among all the thorns in the vicar's dignified flesh, Farmer Dow, of Crow Gate Farm, the leading Dissenter in the Dale, was the sharpest. Poor Millie could not have made a more unfortunate entry upon the scenes, than under his auspices. The ice in the vicar's voice, as he declined his kindness, was obvious to the bystanders. But Dow was not to be denied. He had promised Millie that her goods should be taken up, and taken up they should be, that very night. She had taught him more about South Africa in half-an-hour than the newspapers had taught him in half a year. She was coming to tea with his mother, at Crow Gate, and going to keep him posted in the war news. He owed it to her to see after her baggage, after such entertainment. He helped her into the trap with such empressement that the onlookers were deeply moved; and the vicar's heart was hot within him as he drove away. His niece was, as he had feared, hopelessly Colonial.
But it was not the vicar's habit to speak in anger. Experience had given him a power of self-control which would have kindled the admiration of his parishioners, had they guessed what manner of man lay hidden under the dry, precise manner.
He waited until he had himself well in hand, and then commenced conversation—not upon the burning topic.
"I am sorry to see that you have hurt your arm."