“No, but I know t’ tale, mother, and it’s time it was coffined. If there’s a spell on t’ Clegg lassies I could like Nancy to break it, and Jagger’s more sense than to be frightened out of his wits wi’ jingles. But we’ll put ’em all on one side, and just read a chapter out o’ t’ Book for a bit of a lightening, before we go to bed. When it comes to troubles there’s them in t’ Book could give us all a long start and catch up with us quick. Jagger ’ud stare if he’d Job’s troubles to hug.”
The Book was put away and grannie left them, but the father sat on long past his usual hour, and by and by Hannah yawned and rose up to turn the key in the lock of the outer door.
“Quakers’ meetings turn me sleepy,” she said; and wished them good-night.
Not until stillness overhead told him that Hannah was in bed did Maniwel speak. A man of sound sense and judgment, prompt to decide which road to take when two ways met, and impatient of “softness,” like most moorland folk, he was himself more emotional than any of his neighbours. The trait had been present, though not so strongly marked, before the death of his wife, and had developed with the added responsibility her loss brought him; but it was really due to the mellowing influences of his religion—a religion he owed to an unschooled old shepherd who had spent a few months on the lonely farm where Maniwel’s parents had been employed. His only debt to the man was for the seed he had dropped as he had gone about his work. There had been no set preparation of the ground, no tilling or forcing, and the crop that was eventually produced would probably have been regarded by the sower as full of tares, for Maniwel’s creed was his own, and not something that had been standardised, like a plumber’s fittings. He had found it in the Gospels and without reducing it to a formula had fashioned his life on it, to the dismay of his father and the distrust of his mother, both of whom were worthy people who looked upon religion as a kind of medicine that it was advisable to have within reach for times of serious sickness, but which was likely to upset the stomach, and indeed the whole course of life, if taken regularly as a cordial. Yet if religion is what Mr. Carlyle called it—the thing a man honestly believes in his heart—Maniwel’s parents were not without it, for every superstition and old wife’s tale that lingered on the moors found a place in their creed.
Maniwel’s religion, then, was old enough to be new-fashioned, and therefore to be looked upon with misgiving by those who insisted on adherence to theological articles; but inasmuch as he kept up with his creed instead of hitching his wagon to a theoretical star, they were constrained to admit that he was a decent sort of chap, and a better guide and comforter than most when there was “a bit o’ bother on.”
His love for his two children was very deep, though that for his son was not unmixed with irritation at his sulkiness and want of stamina; conditions attributable, he told himself, to the circumstances that attended his birth and early up-bringing. He was concerned for him now, and with womanly clairvoyance could read something of both his mind and Nancy’s.
“Jagger!” he said, and the tone roused the young man from his dreams and caused him to turn an almost startled look on his father. “I’ve stopped up to have a word wi’ you when there’s nobody else by. A mother ’ud manage a job o’ this sort better than a man, but when the mother’s wanting a man must do his best. I was young myself once and I’ve stood where you’re standing. Your mother was all in all to me i’ them days, lad; and if I’d missed her t’ moor ’ud have become a wilderness. It’s a question she’d have asked you—do you feel i’ that way regarding Nancy?”
“Aye, God knows I do,” replied Jagger with emphasis.
“You want to be mortal sure on’t,” continued his father. “If you love t’ new business better than her—if you’d rather give her up than it—then you can afford to lose her.... Nay, you’d better hearken and let me talk; it’ll pay you better, if it isn’t for me to say so. Baldwin threw out a hint—he tried to pull it back but it was too late—’at yon young fellow ’at’s got your job is after her an’ all; but if you care for each other as you think you do there’s no ’casion to worry about that; there was more than me ’ud ha’ liked your mother.”
“I’ll wring his neck for him yet,” muttered Jagger savagely.