Luke Barnicott, and Other Stories

by William Howitt

But at the time when my story opens, Beckey Barnicott was not a widow. She was the wife of Luke Barnicott, the millers man, that is, Ives's man. Luke Barnicott had been the miller's man at Ives's mill some time; he was a strapping, strong young fellow of eight-and-twenty. Old Nathan Abbot had the mill before Ives had it, and Luke Barnicott was Nathan Abbot's miller. There are many tales of the strength and activity of Luke Barnicott still going round that part of the country. Of the races that he ran on Monnycrofts' common side, and on Taghill Delves, amongst the gorse and broom and old gravel pits: of the feats he did at Monnycrofts and Eastwood wakes, and at Elkstown cross-dressing, where the old Catholic cross still stood, and was dressed in old Catholic fashion with gilded oak leaves and flowers at the wakes: of the wrestlings and knocking-down of the will-pegs, and carrying off all the prizes, and of jumping in sacks, and of a still greater jumping into and out of twelve sugar hogsheads all set in a row, and which feat Luke was the only one of the young fellows from all the country round that could do. Luke was, in fact, a jolly fellow when Beckey married him, and she was very proud of him, for he was a sober fellow, with all his frolics and feats, and Beckey said that the Marlpool might be the eighth wonder of the world, but her Luke was the ninth, because he could take his glass and be social-like, but never came home drunk. And, in fact, no millers get drunk. I can remember plenty of drunken fellows of all trades, but I don't remember a drunken miller. There is something in their trade that keeps them to it, and out of the ale-house. The wind and the water will be attended to, and so there is not much opportunity to attend to the beer or the gin-shop. Besides, if a miller were apt to get drunk, he would be apt to get drowned very soon, in the mill stream, or knocked on the head by a sail.

There's something pleasant and sober and serious in a mill. The wheel goes coursing round, and the pleasant water sparkles and plunges under it, or the great sails go whirling and whirling round, and the clear air of the hill top gives you more cheeriness than any drink; and the clapper claps pleasantly; and the mill keeps up a pleasant swaying and tremor, and the flour comes sliding down the hoppers into the sacks, and all is white and dusty, and yet clean; the mill and the sacks and the hoppers and the flour, and the miller's clothes, and his whiskers, and his hat; and his face is meally, and ruddy through the meal, and all is wholesome and peaceful, and has something in it that makes a man quietly and pleasantly grave.

Luke Barnicott was now the staid and grey-haired man of sixty: he had no actual need of the hair-powder of the mill to make him look venerable. On Sundays, when he was washed and dressed-up to appear at church, his head seemed still to retain the flour, though it had gone from his clothes, and his ruddy face had no mealy vail on it. Beckey, his wife, was grown the sober old woman, but still hale and active. She came to church in her black gipsy hat, all her white mob cap showing under it, in large patterned flouncing gown, in black stockings, high-heeled shoes, and large brass buckles that had been her grandmother's. On week days she might be seen in a more homely dress fetching water from the spring below, or digging up the potatoes in the garden for dinner. At other times she sat knitting in the fine weather on a seat facing to the evening sun, but giving shade in the earlier part of the day, under a rude porch of poles and sticks over the door, up which she trained every year a growth of scarlet runners, whilst around and under the windows grew the usual assortment of herbs, rue and camomile, rosemary and pennyroyal.

The Barnicotts lived at the old Reckoning House, so called because, when the collieries were active, just in that quarter, the men were paid their wages there. It was a very ordinary-looking brick tenement, now divided into two dwellings, in one of which to the west lived Luke and Beckey, and on the east side lived Tom Smith, the stockinger or stocking-weaver, and Peggy his wife. Tom Smith's frame kept up a pretty constant grating and droning sound, such as you hear in many a village of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and Leicestershire, and in some parts of Normandy, and it was almost the only sound that you heard about the Reckoning House, for neither of the families had any children, except one boy, the young Luke Barnicott, the grandson of the old Barnicotts. The Barnicotts' only son Patrick had been a great trouble to his parents, the shadow-spot in their lives. He had got amongst a wild set of young fellows of the neighbourhood, had been sharply scolded by old Luke, and in a fit of passion had gone for a soldier. He had died in the war in Spain, and his wife had died soon after of a fever, caught in nursing somebody suffering under that contagious affection. They had left their only child to the old folks, who was now a lad of about fourteen, and as mercurial and mischievous an imp as the neighbourhood could furnish. From the moment that he could run about he was in some scrape or some danger. He strolled about the common, plaguing asses and sheep and cattle that were grazing there, hunting up birds' nests and wasps' nests, hanging over the sides of a deep pond just below the Reckoning House, surrounded by thick trees, and more than once had gone headlong in, and came home streaming with water like a spout on a rainy day. Old Luke said he would go after his father if he escaped drowning or tumbling into some pit; and poor old Beckey was just like a hen with a duckling with this one little vagabond. Sometimes he was seen climbing on the mill sails, sometimes on the very ridge of a house, and looking down the chimney for swallow nests, at other times he was up in trees so high, swinging out on a long bough after some nests, so dizzily, that it made his poor old granny's head ache for a week after. They put him as soon as possible to the school in Monnycrofts to keep him out of danger, but sometimes, instead of reaching the school, he had been wiled away by his love of rambling into some distant wood, or along some winding brook, and looking after fish, when he should be conning his lesson. At others, instead of returning home at night after school, he was got into the blacksmith's shop, watching old Blowbellows at the glowing forge, and often in danger of having his eyes burnt by the large flying sparks, or having a kick from a horse that was being shod. Sometimes poor old Beckey had to go to the village of a dark stormy winter's evening to hunt up the truant with her lanthorn, and would find him after all at one of the pits sitting by the blazing fire, in a cabin made of blocks of coal, listening to the talk of the colliers over their ale.

When, however, young Luke Barnicott had nearly reached the age of fourteen, and had been set to scare birds in the fields, and to drive plough for the farmers, and gather stones from the land, and had gleaned in the autumn, and slid on the Marlpool in the winter, he took a fancy to become a collier. He was arrayed in a suit of coarse flannel, consisting of wide trousers and a sort of short slop, with an old hat with the brim cut off, and was sent down sitting on a chain at the end of a rope into the yawning pit sixty yards deep. There he was sent to drive a little railway train of coal waggons drawn by a pony in these subterranean regions, from the benk or face of the coal stratum, where the colliers were at work, to the pit's mouth; but Luke soon grew tired of that. He did not fancy living in the dark, and away from the sun and pleasant fields, so one day, as the master of the pits was standing on the pit-bank, up was turned Luke Barnicott, as invalided. He was lifted out of the chain by the colliers, and as he writhed about and seemed in great pain, the coal-master asked where he was hurt. He replied, in his leg. "Show me the place," said the master. Luke, with a good deal of labour and a look of much distress, drew off a stocking and showed a leg black enough with coal dust, but without any apparent wound. "Where is the hurt?" asked the master. "Here," said Luke, putting his hand tenderly on the calf. The master pressed it. Luke pretended to flinch, but the master did not feel satisfied. "Bring some water and wash the leg," he said, and water was soon brought in an old tin. The leg was washed, but no bruise, no blueness were visible. "Pshaw!" said the master, "that is nothing to make a squeak about." "Oh, it is the other leg, I think," said Luke. "The other leg!" exclaimed the master. "What! the fox has a wound and he does not know where! Pull off the other stocking." The stocking was pulled off by the colliers, but no injury was to be found! "Come, Barnicott," said the master, "so you are playing the old soldier over us! Why, what is the meaning of it?" "To say the truth, master," said Luke, with a sheepish look, "the fact was—I was daunted!"

At this confession the colliers set up a shout of laughter; and the master, with a suppressed smile, bade him begone about his business. After this Luke was some time at a loose end; he had nothing to do, and nobody would employ him. The story of his being "daunted" flew all round the neighbourhood, and he was looked on as a lazy, shifty lad, that was not to be trusted to. He strolled about the common, the asses and the sheep, and the geese, and the young cattle grazing there had a worse time of it than ever. The old people were in great distress about him; the grandfather's prediction that he would go after his father seemed every day more certain of fulfilment. Luke was active enough in setting traps for birds, and digging out rabbits, and even in setting a snare for a hare, which came by night to browse in the pretty large garden of cabbage and potatoes that surrounded the Reckoning House. And he was pretty successful in noosing hares and unearthing rabbits, but neither his grand-parents nor Tom Smith would let them come into their houses, lest they should get into trouble, and because that would have wholly confirmed the lad in his wild habits. Luke got through his days somehow, and in the evenings he used to go up and play with the lads at the Marlpool, and here he found plenty of people ready to take in slyly the fruits of his poaching, and give him a share of the feast at night. Old Luke meantime went in his mealy garb and with his care-marked and powdered face, to his mill and back, and many an hour of sad cogitation he had, as his clappers knocked and his sacks filled, on what was to become of this wild lad. Many a tear poor old Beckey shed over her knitting, and many a shake of his head gave Tom Smith, as he heard Beckey and Peggy talk of him.

One day Luke had found his way to the common, beyond the Marlpool, where the shaft of a new coal-pit was sinking. Nobody was to be seen on the ground about the pit as he approached, but when he came up and looked down, he saw a man at work in the bottom. The pit was sunk some thirty yards or so, and he recognised a man of the Marlpool, named Dick Welland, busy with his pick and shovel. It was evident that his butty or mate had gone away somewhere temporarily, probably for beer. There stood the windlass, with the rope depending, and the box at the bottom filled, ready to be drawn up at the man's return. Till then Dick Welland was a prisoner below.

Luke lay down on his stomach, and looked down the shaft. He called to the collier, and drew his attention to a brick which he held in his hand. "Dick," said he, "I've a good mind to drop a brick on thee!" The man in great terror cried out to him not to do it; for he had no means of escaping from the blow, which must kill him on the spot. There was yet no horizontal working under which he might run and take shelter. Luke was delighted with the opportunity of frightening the man, and laughing, still held the brick over the pit mouth, saying, "Now, now! it's coming. Look out!" The pitman was in agonies of terror; he entreated, he shouted, he moved from side to side of the pit, but still Luke, with the true spirit of a tyrant and an inquisitor, held aloft the brick, and cried, "I'll drop it, Dick. Now, it is coming!" This scene had continued for a quarter of an hour, during which time the man had endured ages of agony and terror, when Dick perceived the other man coming over the common with a little keg of beer: he quietly arose, and disappeared amongst the furze and broom.

It was time for Luke Barnicott to be going. No sooner did the man below perceive his butty above, than turning the earth out of the "cauf" or box, he sprang into it, and called to him to draw him up with all his might. Once on the bank, he cast a rapid glance round, and telling his mate in a few hurried words what had happened, they both dashed in amongst the furze bushes in quest of the culprit. They ran fiercely hither and thither; they doubled and crossed and beat over the whole common, as a sportsman beats for his game. But their game was nowhere to be found. Luke, aware of the vengeance that he had provoked, had securely hidden himself somewhere. His pursuers could discover him nowhere. They returned to the Marlpool, and related the atrocious deed. The whole place arose in a fury. All men and women vowed to pay the young tormentor off. Dick Welland's wife, a tall, stout amazon of a woman, the head taller than any woman of the whole country round; strong, good-looking, and accustomed to walk with the stout strides and the air of a virago, vowed merciless retribution on the culprit if ever she laid hands on him. Tarring and feathering are a trifle to what was promised him; he was to be dipped head foremost into the Marlpool, and held to within an inch of his life. He was to be flogged and cuffed, and pinched and nettled, and, in short, the whole blood of the Marlpool boiled and seethed in vengeful anticipation of horrors to be inflicted upon him.

But "no catch me, no have me!" A week went by and no Luke Barnicott re-appeared. Old Luke Barnicott went to his mill and back as usual, but with a much sadder and darker air; poor old Beckey's eyes were red with weeping, and her frame seemed all at once withered and grown shaky. The incensed colliers and the redoubtable virago, Doll Welland, his wife, had been seen watching the Reckoning House, night after night, suspecting that the culprit must steal there in the dark to get something to live on, for he could not live on the air. But Tom Smith solemnly assured inquirers that no Luke had been seen near home since the day when he flourished the brick over the pit-mouth; and that the old folks were miserable about him. How Luke lived or where, no one could guess; but those who knew him best imagined that he managed to keep soul and body together by nuts, and beech-nuts, and pig-nuts, which last he was very expert in digging out of pastures. Besides, farmer Palethorpe of the Youlgreaves, not far off, complained that his cows were heard running about one or two nights, and he believed somebody had been trying to milk them. "That's Barnicott!" said Welland, and he and his gigantic Doll carefully hunted over the woods and copses near Youlgreaves farm, but to no purpose. About a week after Luke's disappearance, and when his grandfather and grandmother began to think that he had gone quite off to seek his fortune, some boys who had been nutting in the Badger Dingles, near Youlgreaves, came racing home out of breath, saying they had either seen a ghost or Luke Barnicott, for he seemed to start out of the ground amongst the bushes, gave an unearthly shriek, and darted away through bush and "breer," and was gone. Poor old Beckey Barnicott swooned away, for she said she was sure the poor lad had been "clammed" to death in the woods, because he dared not come home; but Welland took another view of the matter, and starting off to the Badger Dingles, he and his strapping wife hunted the thickets again well over. They were near giving up their search when it occurred to them to examine an old hovel in a field up above the Dingles, and there they found a heap of fern in which somebody had evidently lain for some time, and in the very last night.