He was not the man, however, to be disheartened by one repulse, and he had sufficient knowledge of human nature to realise that the coolness of his neighbours would gradually disappear as they accustomed themselves to the changed conditions, and that the best way to secure their trade was to make adequate preparations for turning out good and expeditious work. None of the workpeople had left him and he made it his first business to secure their favour by treating them well. The interval of stagnation was filled by painting the premises and making improvements in the shop. Within a fortnight a new machine was installed; before a month had passed two others followed; and everybody knew that the new proprietor was going to make a bid for trade on a large scale. Little wonder if, with such ample stores of warp and woof to draw upon, report and rumour worked as busily as a weaver’s shuttle, and produced a pile of material which the villagers cut and shaped according to their skill and judgment.
This, however, was not all. The sensation caused by the robbery and its dramatic sequel in Baldwin’s downfall was still keen when a new crop of rumours arose simultaneously with a change in the weather. Up to now the landscape had been wrapped in its thick warm mantle of snow, and for weeks on end the occupants of the scattered farms on the uplands had been compelled to shut themselves up in their snug kitchens and turn over and over again such scraps of spirit-stirring news as reached them from the throbbing centre of their world—this moorland metropolis of Mawm.
It was towards the middle of January that the weather broke, and a rapid thaw was followed by torrential rains and wild winds that swept over the moors from the south-west and washed every secret crevice of the Pennines.
On one of the wildest and darkest of these nights a man of the far moors whose thirst for good ale and good company had kept him at the “Packhorse” until closing-time, and who had then accepted Swithin’s invitation to accompany him to the shippen in the Long Close where he had a heifer to dispose of, had an experience on his homeward journey that sent him down to the inn again the next night, and made him for a short time the most important figure upon the stage.
Briefly the story he told was this.
As he was making his way over the fields in the direction of Gordel and the Girston road he “plumped fair into a fellow” who was walking towards him, and who uttered an impatient exclamation at the encounter. Job wished to know what the hangment he was doing there at that time of night; but received no answer, unless a suggestion that the questioner should betake himself to the devil could be regarded in that light. As the stranger was in Job’s words, “a likelier-looking chap” than himself and might for anything he knew be armed, as ill-disposed night prowlers were reported to be, he thought it prudent not to continue longer than was necessary in the man’s company, so wished him “Good night” as a measure of precaution and made his way as quickly as possible to the road.
Arrived there curiosity got the better of other impulses and he stood and looked over the Close; and as sure as he was sitting on the bench of that bar-parlour a glimmer of light had caught his eye in the distance: a light that had moved up and down in the neighbourhood of the shippen for about a quarter of an hour and had then disappeared.
Job, like the rest of the company, was hopeful that Swithin would be able to put two and two together.
Swithin, however, was unfriendly and discouraging.
“I saw nowt o’ no tramp,” he replied. “Job found a mare’s nest. Some fella’ll ha’ been taking a short cut to t’ high road, and Job’ll ha’ seen t’ light of my lantern through a chink i’ t’ shippen.”