IV.
SAVED AS BY FIRE
It was a narrow, gloomy yard, paved with rough flags dinted and worn by the wheels of traffic and the tread of many feet. On one side stood the factory, cheerless and gray, with its storied heights, and long rows of windows that on summer evenings flamed with the reflected caresses of the setting sun, and in the shorter days of winter threw the light of their illuminated rooms like beacon fires across the miles of moor. Flanking the factory were sheds and outbuildings and warehouses, through the open doors of which were seen skips and trollies and warps, and piles of cloth pieces ready for the market in the great city beyond the hills. Within a stone's-throw the sluggish river crept along its blackened bed, no longer a stream fresh from the hills, but foul with the service of selfish man.
It was breakfast hour, and the monotonous roar of machinery was hushed, no longer filling the air with the pulsations of mighty manufacture. The thud of the ponderous engines had ceased; the deafening rattle of the looms was no more heard; a myriad spooming spindles were at rest. A dreamy sound of falling waters floated from the weir, and the song of birds in a clump of stunted trees made music in the quiet of the morning light—it was Nature's chance to teach man in one of the brief pauses of his toil, had he possessed the ear to hearken or the heart to understand.
Beneath the shelter of a ‘lean-to’ a group of men sat, hurriedly gulping their morning meal, finding time, all the same, for loud talk and noisy chaff. They were prosaic, hard-faced men, with lines drawn deeply beneath their eyes, and complexions sallow, despite the breezes of the hills among which they were reared. From childhood they had been the slaves of labour; the bread they ate was earned by sweat and sorrow, while their spare hours were given to boisterous mirth—the rebound of exacting toil. Two or three were conning the betting news in a halfpenny paper of the previous evening, and talking familiarly of the chances of the favourites, while others disputed as to sentiments delivered in the last great political speech.
In one corner sat Amos Entwistle, the butt of not a little mirth from a half-dozen sceptics who had gathered round him. They addressed him as ‘Owd Brimstone,’ and made a burlesque of his Calvinistic faith, one going so far as to call him ‘a glory bird,’ while another declared he was ‘booked for heaven fust-class baat payin' for his ticket.’
‘Why should he pay for his ticket,’ asked an impudent-looking youth, ‘when th' Almeety's gan it him? Th' elect awlus travels for naught, durnd they, Amos?’
‘Thaa's more Scripture larning abaat thee nor I thought thaa had,’ said Amos, withdrawing his wrinkled face from the depths of a can out of which he was drinking tea. ‘But it's noan knowledge 'at saves, Dan; th' devils believe and tremble.’
‘But I noan tremble, Amos; I geet too mich brimstone i' yon fire hoile to be flayed at what yo' say is “resarved” for them as isn't called.’
(Dan's occupation was to feed the boiler fires.)
‘If thaa'rt noan flayed, that doesn't say thaa hasn't a devil,’ replied Amos, again raising the can to his lips.
‘Well, I'm noan to blame if a' cornd help miself, am I?’
But Amos remained silent.
‘Aw say, Amos,’ said a thoughtful-looking man, ‘aw often wonder if thaa'll be content when thaa geets up aboon to see us lot in t'other shop.’
‘Yi! and when we ax him, as th' rich mon axed Lazarus, for a sooap (drink) of summat cool, it'll be hard lines, wirnd (will not) it, owd lad, when thaa cornd help us?’ asked the man who sat against him.
‘Happen it will,’ replied Amos. ‘But thaa knows there'll be no sharin' baggin (tea or refreshment) there. Them as hed oil couldn't gi' it to them as hed noan.’
‘Then thaa'll not come across the gulf and help us, Amos?’
‘Nowe!’ cried Dan. ‘He'd brun (burn) his wings if he did.’
And at this all laughed, save the thoughtful man who put the first question to the old Calvinist.
‘Thaa knows, Amos,’ said he, ‘I look at it i' this way. Supposin' th' factory geet o' fire this mornin', an' yo' hed th' chance o' savin' that lass o' mine that back-tents for yo', yo'd save her, wouldn't yo'?’
‘Yi, lad, if I'd th' chance,’ replied Amos.
‘Then haa is it yo're so mich better nor Him, as yo' co th' Almeety, for yo' reckon He'll noan save some o' us?’
‘I tell thee I'd save th' lass if I hed th' chance. We con nobbud do what we're permitted to do. We're only instruments in th' Almeety's honds.’
‘But isn't th' Almeety His own Measter?’
‘So He is, but His ways are past findin' out.’
‘An' thaa means to say thaa'd save my lass, and th' Almeety wouldn't save me?’
‘It's decrees, thaa knows, lad, it's decrees,’ said Amos, unshaken by the argument of his friend.
‘Then there's summat wrang with th' decrees, that's all, Amos. There's been a mistak' somewhere.’
‘Hooist, lad! hooist! durnd talk like that. Woe to th' mon that strives wi' his Maker.’
‘If thi Maker's th' mon thaa maks Him aat to be, I'm noan partic'lar abaat oather His woes or His blessin's.’
‘No more am I,’ cried Dan, as he stood up and stretched himself with a yawn. ‘We mud as well mak' most o' life if we're booked for t'other shop, though mine's a warm un i' this world, as yo' all know.’
‘It is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy,’ said Amos, in solemn tones.
And the whistle sounded for the renewal of work, and the men dispersed.
The clock in the factory yard pointed to the hour of ten, and four hundred toilers were sweating out their lives in one of Manufacture's minting-shops of wealth. Overhead the shafting ran in rapid revolutions, communicating its power and speed by lengths of swaying, sagging belts to the machinery that stood so closely packed on the vibrating floors, and between which passed, and behind which stood, the operatives, unconscious of danger, and with scarce a care than how to keep pace with the speed of steam and the flying hours. Every eye was strained, and every nerve as highly strung as the gearing of the revolving wheels, the keen glances of the overlookers seeing to it that none paused until the hour of release.
The atmosphere was heavy, the temperature high, and flecks of ‘fly’ floated on the stifling air, wafted by the breath born of whirring wheels, and finding rest on the hair of women and the beards of men until the workers looked as though they were whitened by the snows of a premature decay.
Women and girls sang snatches of songs, and bits of old familiar airs, with no accompaniment but the roar and rattle around, their voices unheard save when some high-pitched note was struck; and others found odd moments when by lip-signs and dumb show they communicated with their fellow-workers.
Men and women, boys and girls, passed and repassed one another in narrow alleys and between revolving machinery, crushing together without sense of decency, and whispering hastily in one another's ear some lewd joke or impure word, the moisture from their warm flesh mingling with the smell of oil and cotton, and their semi-nude forms offering pictures for the realistic pen of a Zola or a Moore.
It was but one of the laps in the great race of competition where steam contends with human breath, and iron is pitted against flesh and blood. Over the hills were other factories where the same race was going on, where other masters were competing, and other hands were laying down life that they themselves and their little ones might live—examples of the strange paradox that only those can save their lives who lose them. Outside was pasturage and moorlands, and the dear, sweet breath of heaven, the flowers of the field, the song of birds, the yearning bosom of Nature warm with love towards her children. Yet here, within, was a reeking house of flesh—not the lazar ward of the city slum, but the sweating den of a competitive age.
In the top story of the factory Amos was walking to and fro among his roving frames, and dividing his time between hurried glances at his workers and a small greasy tract he held in his hand, entitled ‘An Everlasting Task for Arminians.’ Turning aside for a moment to drive some weary operative with a word as rough as a driver uses to his over-driven horse, he would return to the ‘Everlasting Task,’ and cull some choice sentence or read some twisted text used to buttress up the Calvinistic creed. Reading aloud to himself the words—‘Real Christian charity is swallowed up in the Will of God, nor is it in its nature to extend itself one step beyond, nor desire one thing contrary to, the glory of Jehovah. All the charity we possess beyond this may be properly called fleshly charity’—he lifted his eyes to see two of his ‘back-tenters’ playing behind the frames, and his real Christian charity displayed itself in pulling their ears until they tingled and bled, and in freely using his feet in sundry kicks on their shins. And yet, wherein was this man to blame? Was he not what commerce and Calvinism had made him?
The finger of the clock in the factory yard was creeping towards the hour of eleven, when a smell, ominous to every old factory hand, was borne into the nostrils of Amos. In a moment his ‘Everlasting Task’ was thrust into his shirt-breast, and he ran towards the door from which the stairway of the room descended.
No, he was not mistaken, the smell was the smell of fire, and scarcely had he gone down a half-dozen steps before he met a man with blanched face, who barely found breath to say:
‘Th' scutchin' room's ablaze.’
Amos carried a cool head. His religion had done one thing for him: it had made him a fatalist, and fatalists are self-contained.
In a moment he took in the whole situation. He knew that the stairways would act as a huge draught, up which the flames from the room below would bellow and blaze. He knew, too, that all way of escape being cut off below, screaming women and girls, maddened with fright, would rush to the topmost room of the mill, where probably they would become a holocaust to commerce. He knew, too, that those who sought the windows and let themselves down by ropes and warps would lose their presence of mind, and probably fall mangled and broken on the flag floor of the yard, sixty or seventy feet below. All this passed through his mind ere the old watch in his fob had marked the lapse of five seconds.
In a moment his resolve was taken. He went back to the roving-room with steady step, and a face as calm as though he were standing in the light of a summer sun. By the time he reached the room the machinery was beginning to slow down, and a mad stampede was being made by the hands towards the door.
Raising his arm, he cried:
‘Go back, lasses; there's no gate daan theer. Them of us as 'as to be brunt will be brunt, and them of us as is to escape will ged off wi' our lives. Keep cool, lasses; we'll do our best; and remember 'at th' Almeety rules.’
One thing turned out in the favour of Amos and of his rovers. The mad rush from below poured into the room under him, and not, as he expected, into his own, the lower room being one where there was a better chance of escape. Seeing this, he barred up his own doorway to prevent the girls and women swarming below, where they would have made confusion worse confounded. Then he beat out one of the windows, and proceeded to fix and lower a rope by way of escape.
‘Now then, lasses,’ said he, having rapidly completed his task, ‘th' little uns fust,’ and in a moment a girl of twelve was swinging seventy feet in the air, while a crowd of roaring humanity below held its breath, and gazed with dilating eyes on the child who hung between life and death. In a minute more the spell of silence broke, and a roar, louder than before, told that the little one had touched earth without injury, save hands all raw from friction with the rope along which she had slidden.
Child after child followed; then the women were taken in their turn, and lowered safely into the factory yard.
By the time it came to the turn of Amos, the roar of the fire sounded like the distant beating of many seas along a rock-bound coast. The hot breath was ascending, and thin tongues of flame began to shoot through the floor of the room where he stood. The pungent smell of burnt cotton stung his nostrils and blinded his eyes with pain, and the atmosphere was fevered to such a degree that with difficulty he drew his breath.
His turn had come, but was he the last in the room? Something told him that he was not, that he must look round and satisfy himself, otherwise his duty was unfulfilled.
The tongues of flame became fiercer; he saw them running along the joints of the boarding, and feeding on the oil and waste which had accumulated there for years. He felt his hour was come. But he was calm. God ruled. No mistake could be made by the Almighty—nor could any mistake be made by himself, for was he not under Divine guidance?
Calmly he walked along the length of the room, stepping aside to escape the flame, and searching behind each roving-frame in his walk, as though to assure himself that no one remained unsaved.
Coming to the last frame, he saw the fainting form of one of his back-tenters, the very child whose ears he had so savagely pulled but an hour before.
There she lay, with her pallid, pinched face across her arm, the flames creeping towards her as though greedy to feed themselves on her young life.
In an instant Amos stepped towards the child and raised her in his arms, intending to return to the window and so seek escape. He was too late, however; a wall of fire stretched across the room, and he felt the floor yielding beneath his feet.
He was still calm and self-contained. He thought of Him who was said to dwell in devouring flames, and was Himself a consuming fire. He thought of the three Hebrew youths and the sevenfold-heated furnace. He thought of the One who was the wall of fire to His people, and he was not afraid.
On swept the blaze. In a few moments he knew the roof must follow the fast-consuming floor. Still he was calm. He stepped on to one of the stone sills to secure a moment's respite, and he cried in an unfaltering voice, ‘The Lord reigneth. Let His will be done.’
Frantic efforts were being made by the crowd below to recall Amos, who had been seen to disappear from the window into the room. His name was shouted in wild and entreating cries, and men reared ladders, only to find them too short, while women threw up their arms and fell fainting in excitement on the ground.
On swept the flame. Still Amos held his own on the stone ledge. Grand was his demeanour—erect, despite his seventy years, clasping with a death grip the fainting child. All around him was smoke and mingling fire; but the Lord reigned—what He willed was right; in Him was no darkness at all.
Suddenly he lifted his eyes, and saw above him a manhole that led into the roof. In a moment he sprang along the frames, and passed in with his burden, and beat his way through the slates which in another minute were to fall in with the final collapse of the old factory.
Creeping along the ridge, he made his way towards the great chimney-shaft that ran up at one end of the building, and bidding the girl, who by contact with the air was now conscious, cling to his neck, the old man laid hold of the lightning-rod, and began his dangerous descent to the ground.
But he knew no fear; there was no tremor in his muscles; steadily he descended, feeling that God held his hands, and he told his Rehoboth friends afterwards, when he recounted his escape, that he felt the angels were descending with him.
When he reached the ground amid wild and passionate cries of joy, he disengaged the child from his neck, and wiping his face with the sleeve of his shirt, said:
‘The Lord's will be done.’
Dr. Hale, who was standing by the side of Mr. Penrose, and who heard the saying of old Amos, turned and said:
‘Calvinism grows strong men, does it not?’
‘Yi, doctor, yo're reet,’ exclaimed old Joseph; ‘theer's no stonning agen God's will.’
V.
WINTER SKETCHES.
I.
THE CANDLE OF THE LORD.
Through the summer months the old Bridge Factory stood in ruins; the only part that remained intact being the tall chimney-shaft, down which Amos Entwistle had brought the fainting child from out the flames. The days were long and the weather warm, and the inhabitants of Rehoboth spent the sunny hours in wandering over the moors, never dreaming of hard times and the closing year. A few of the more frugal and thrifty families had secured employment in a neighbouring valley, returning home at the week end. The many, however, awaited the rebuilding of the mill and the recommencement of work at their old haunt. But when the autumn set in chill and drear, and the October rains swept the trees and soaked the grass—when damp airs hung over the moors morning by morning, and returned to spread their chill canopy at eventide—faces began to wear an anxious look, and hearts lost the buoyancy of the idle summer hours.
There is always desolation in the late autumn on the moors. The great hills lose their bold contours, now dying away in a cold gray of sky, through which a blurred sun sheds his watery ray; while the bracken, with its beaten fronds, and the heather with its disenchanted bloom, change the gorgeous carpet of colour into wastes and wilds of cheerless expanse. The wind sobs as though conscious of the coming winter's stress—sad with its prophecy of want, and cold, and decay. Little rivulets that ran gleaming like silver threads—the Pactolian streams of childhood's home and lover's whisperings—now swell and deepen and complain, as though angry with the burdens of the falling clouds. Bared branches and low-browed eaves weep with the darkened and lowering sky, and withered leaves beat piteously at the cottage windows they once shadowed with their greenery, or lie limp and clayey on the roadside and the path. Then, in the silent night, there falls the first rime, and in the morning is seen the hoary covering that tells of the year's ageing and declining days. At the corner of the village street the hoarse cough is heard, and around the hearth the children gather closely, no longer sporting amid the flowers, or peopling the cloughs with fairy homes. A dispiriting hand tones down the great orchestra of Nature, and all her music is set to a minor key, her ‘Jubilate’ becoming a threnody—a great preludious sob.
It was in autumn hours such as these—and only too well known in Rehoboth—that old Mr. Morell used to discourse on the fading leaf, and tell of a harvest past and a summer ended, and bid his flock so number their days that they might apply their hearts unto wisdom. It was now, too, that the dark procession used to creep more frequently up the winding path to the Rehoboth grave-yard, and the heavy soil open oftener beneath old Joseph's spade, and the voice of the minister in deeper and more measured tones repeat the words, ‘We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.’ It was now also that the feeble and the aged shunned the darkening shadows of the streets, and crept and cowered over the kindling hearth in the sheltered home. In Rehoboth October and November were ever drear; and now that the old Bridge Factory was in ruins, and work scarce and food scant, the minds of the people were overcast with what threatened to be the winter of a discontent.
On an afternoon in mid-November, Mr. Penrose forsook his study for what he hoped might be an exhilarating walk across the gloomy moors. The snow—the first snow—was beginning to descend, gently and lazily, in pure, feathery flakes, remaining on earth for a moment, and then merging its crystals into the moisture that lay along the village street.
Turning a corner, he met Dr. Hale, who, after a hearty greeting, said:
‘What is this I hear about your resignation, Mr. Penrose?’
‘I don't know what you've heard, doctor, but I am resigning.’
‘Nonsense! Running away from ignorance, eh? What would you say if I ran away from disease?’
‘Canst thou minister to a mind diseased?’ was Mr. Penrose's sharp retort.
‘No, I cannot. But you can, and it's your duty to do so.’
‘You're mistaken, doctor. I cannot go to the root of the moral disease of Rehoboth. If it were drink, or profligacy, or greed, I might; but self-righteousness beat Jesus, and no wonder it beats me.’
Taking Mr. Penrose by the arm, Dr. Hale said:
‘You see that falling snow. Why does it disappear as soon as it touches earth?’
‘Because the earth is higher in temperature than the snow, and therefore melts it,’ replied the young man, wondering at the sudden change in the conversation.
‘And if it keeps on falling for another hour, why will it cease to disappear? Why will it remain?’ continued the doctor.
‘Because its constant falling will so cool the earth that the earth will no longer melt it,’ said Mr. Penrose, growing impatient with his examination in the rudiments of science.
‘Well said, my friend. And therein lies a parable. You think your teaching falls to disappear. No; it falls to prepare. You must continue to let it fall, and finally it will remain, and lodge itself in the minds of your people. There, now, I have given you one of the treasures of the snow. But here's old Moses. Good-morning, Mr. Fletcher; busy as usual?’
‘Yi, doctor, aw'm findin' these clamming fowk a bit o' brass.’
‘How's that, Moses?’ asked the minister.
‘Why, yo' know as weel as aw do, Mr. Penrose. Sin' I yerd yo' talk abaat Him as gies liberally, I thought aw'd do a bit on mi own accaant.’
‘There, now,’ said Dr. Hale, ‘the snow is beginning to stay, is it not?’
As the doctor and Moses said ‘Good-day,’ the pastor continued his walk in a brooding mood, scarce lifting his head from the ground, on which the flakes were falling more thickly and beginning to remain. Lost in thought, and continuing his way towards the end of the village, he was startled by a tapping at the window of Abraham Lord's cottage, and, looking up, he saw Milly's beckoning hand.
Passing up the garden-path and entering the kitchen, he bade the girl a good-afternoon, and asked her if she were waiting for the ‘angel een.’
‘Nay,’ said Milly; ‘I'm baan to be content wi' th' daawn (down) off their wings to-day.’
‘So you call the snow “angels' down,” do you?’
‘Ey, Mr. Penrose,’ cried her mother. ‘Hoo's names for everythin' yo' can think on. Hoo seed a great sunbeam on a bank of white claads t' other day, and hoo said hoo thought it were God Hissel', because th' owd Book said as He made th' clouds His chariot.’
‘But why do you call the snow “angels' down,” Milly?’
‘Well, it's i' this way, Mr. Penrose,’ replied the girl. ‘I've sin th' birds pool th' daawn off their breasts to line th' nest for their young uns. And why shouldn't th' angels do th' same for us? Mi faither says as haa snow is th' earth's lappin', and keeps all th' seeds warm, and mak's th' land so as it 'll groo. So I thought happen it wur th' way God feathered aar nest for us. Dun yo' see? It's nobbud my fancy.’
‘And a beautiful fancy, too, Milly.’
And all that waning afternoon, as Mr. Penrose climbed the hills amid the falling flakes, he thought of Milly's quaint conceit, and looking round amid the gathering gloom, and seeing the great stretch of snowy covering that now lay on the undulating sweeps, he asked himself wherein lay the difference between the vision of John the Divine when he saw the angels holding the four winds of heaven, and Milly when she saw the angels giving of their warmth to earth in falling flakes of snow.
As the darkness deepened, Mr. Penrose—fearless of the storm, and at home on the wilds—made his way towards a lone farmstead known as ‘Granny Houses,’ and so-called because of an old woman who lived there, and who, by keeping a light in her window on dark winter nights, guided the colliers to a distant pit across the moors. She was the quaint product of the hills and of Calvinism, but shrewd withal, and of a kind heart. Indeed, the young minister had taken a strong liking to her, and frequently called at her far-away home.
‘Ey, Mr. Penrose, whatever's brought yo aat a neet like this?’ she cried, as the preacher stood white as a ghost in the doorway of the farmstead. ‘Come in and dry yorsel. Yo're just i' time fur baggin (tea), and there's noan I'm as fain to see as yo'.’
‘Thank you, Mrs. Halstead; I'm glad to be here. It's a grand night.’ And looking through the open doorway at the great expanse of snow-covered moor, he said, ‘What a beautiful world God's world is—is it not?’
‘I know noan so mich abaat its beauty, but I know its a fearful cowd (cold) world to-neet. Shut that dur afore th' kitchen's filled wi' snow. When yo're as owd as me yo'll noan be marlockin' i' snow at this time o' neet. What's life to young uns is death to owd uns, yo' know. But draw up to th' fire. That's reet; naa then, doff that coite, and hev a soup o' tay. An' haa 'n yo' laft 'em all daan at Rehoboth? Clammin', I reckon.’
‘You're not far from the word, Mrs. Halstead. Many of them don't know where to-morrow's food and to-morrow's fire is coming from.’
‘Nowe, I dare say. Bud if they'd no more sense nor to spend their brass in th' summer, what can they expect? There's some fo'k think they can eyt their cake and hev it. But th' Almeety doesn't bake bread o' that mak'. He helps them as helps theirsels. He gay' five to th' chap as bed five, and him as bed nobbud one, and did naught wi' it—why, He tuk it fro' him, didn't He? I'll tell yo' what it is, Mr. Penrose, there's a deal o' worldly wisdom i' providence. Naa come, isn't there?’
Mr. Penrose laughed.
‘Theer's that Oliver o' Deaf Martha's. Naa, I lay aught he's noan so mich, wi' his dog-feightin' and poachin'. His missis wur up here t'other day axin' for some milk for th' childer. An' hoo said ut everybody wur ooined (punished for want of food) at their house but Oliver an' th' dog. Theer's awlus enugh for them.’
‘Yes, I believe that is so.’
‘It wur that dog as welly killed Moses Fletcher, wurnd it?’
‘I think it was,’ replied Mr. Penrose.
‘And haa is owd Moses sin yo' dipped him o'er agen? It 'll tak' some watter and grace to mak' him ought like, I reckon. But they tell me he's takken to gien his brass away. It 'll noan dry th' een o' th' poor fo'k he's made weep, tho'—will it, Mr. Penrose?’
‘Perhaps not, Mrs. Halstead; but Moses is an altered man.’
‘And noan afore it wur time. But what's that noise in th' yard? It saands like th' colliers. What con they be doin' aat o' th' pit at this time? They're noan off the shift afore ten, and it's nobbud hawve-past six.’
In another moment the door of the cottage was thrown open and a collier entered, white with falling snow, and breathless. When he had sufficiently recovered, he said:
‘Gronny, little Job Wallwork's getten crushed in th' four-foot, and it's a'most up wi' him. They're bringin' on him here.’
‘Whatever wilto say next, lad? Poor little felley, where's he getten hurt? On his yed?’
‘Nay; he's crushed in his in'ards, and he hasnd spokken sin'. They're carryin' him on owd Malachi's coite.’ (coat).
A sound of shuffling feet was heard in the snow, and four men, holding the ends of a greatcoat, bore the pale-faced, swooning boy into the glare of Mrs. Halstead's kitchen. His thin features were drawn, and a clayey hue overspread his face—a hue which, when she saw with her practised eye, she knew was the shadow of the destroyer.
‘Poor little felley!’ she cried; ‘and his mother a widder an' all.’
And then, bending down over the settle whereon they had placed the mangled lad, she pressed her lips on the pale brow, clammy with the ooze of death—lips long since forsaken by the early blush of beauty, yet still warm with the instinct which in all true women feeds itself with the wasting years. Tears fell from her eyes—tears that told of unfathomed deeps of motherhood, despite her threescore years and ten; while with lean and tremulous hand she combed back the dank masses of hair that lay in clusters about the boy's pallid face. Her reverence and love thus manifested—a woman's offering to tortured flesh in the dark chamber of pain—she unbuckled the leathern strap that clasped the little collier's breeches to his waist, and, with a touch gentle enough to carry healing, bared the body, now discoloured and torn, though still the veined and plastic marble—the flesh-wall of the human temple, so fearfully and wonderfully made.
The boy lay immobile. Scarce a pulse responded to the old woman's touch as she placed the palm of her hand over the valve of his young life. Nor did her fomentations rouse him, as feebler grew the protest of the heart to the separation of the little soul from the mangled body. At last the watchers thought the wrench was over, and Death the lord of life.
Then the clayey hue, so long overshadowing the face, faded away in the warmth of a returning tide of life, as a gray dawn is suffused by sunrise. The beat became stronger and more frequent, there was a movement in the passive limbs, and, opening his eyes dreamily, then wonderingly, and at last consciously, the lad looked into the old woman's face and said:
‘Gronny!’
‘Yi! it's Gronny, lad. And haa doesto feel?’
The boy tried to move, and uttered a feeble cry of pain.
‘Lie thee still, lad. Doesto think thaa can ston this?’ and the old woman laid another hot flannel on the boy's body.
At first he winced, and a look of terrible torture passed over his face. Then he smiled and said:
‘Yi! Gronny, aw can bide thee to do ought.’
Mr. Penrose, helpless and silent, stood at the foot of the settle on which lay the dying boy, the colliers seeking the gloomy corners of the large kitchen, where in shadow they awaited in rude fear the death of their little companion. The old woman, cool and self-possessed, plied her task with a tenderness and skill born of long years of experience, cheering with words of endearment the last moments of the sufferer.
The boy's rally was brief, for internal hæmorrhage set in, and swiftly wrought its fatal work, sweeping the vital tide along channels through which it no longer returned to the fount of life, and leaving the weary face with a pallor that overmastered the flush that awhile before brought a momentary hope. His eyes grew dim, and the light from the lamp seemed to recede, as though it feared him, and would elude his gaze. The figures in the room became mixed and commingled, and took shapes which at times he failed to recognise. Then a sensation of falling seized him, and he planted his hands on the cushion of the settle, as though he would stay his descent.
Looking at Mr. Penrose through a ray of consciousness, he said:
‘Th' cage is goin' daan fearfo quick. Pray!’
The old woman caught the word, and, turning to the minister, she said:
‘He wants thee to mak' a prayer.’
Mr. Penrose drew nearer to the boy, and repeated the grand death-song of the saints: ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.’
The boy shook his head—for him the words had no meaning. Then, raising himself, he said:
‘Ax God O'meety to leet His candle. I'm baan along th' seam, an' it's fearfo dark!’
To Mr. Penrose the words were strange, and, turning to the colliers, he asked them what the boy wanted.
Then Malachi o' the Mount came towards the minister and said:
‘Th' lad thinks he's i' th' four-foot seam, and he connot find his road, it's so dark, and he wants a leet—a candle, yo' know, same as we use in th' pit. He wants the Almeety to leet him along.’
Still Mr. Penrose was in darkness.
Then the boy turned to old Malachi, and, with a farewell look of recognition and a last effort of speech, said:
‘Malachi, ax Him as is aboon to leet His great candle, and show me th' road along th' seam. It's some fearsome and dark.’
And Malachi knelt by the side of the lad, and, in broken accents and rude vernacular, said:
‘O God O'meety, little Job's baan along th' four-foot seam, an' he connot see his gate (way). Leet Thy candle, Lord—Thy great candle—and mak' it as leet as day for th' lad. Leet it, Lord, and dunnot put it aat till he geds through to wheere they've no need o' candles, becose Thaa gies them th' leet o' Thysel.’
The prayer over, every eye was turned to the boy, on whose face there had broken a great light—a light from above.
II.
THE TWO MOTHERS.
The royal repose of death reigned over the features of little Job as his mother entered the kitchen of the Granny Houses Farm. She had been summoned from Rehoboth by a collier, fleet of foot, who, as soon as the injured boy was brought to the pit-bank, started with the sad news to the distant village. No sooner did the woman catch the purport of the news, than she ran out wildly into the snowy air—not waiting to don shawl or clogs, but speeding over the white ground as those only speed who love, and who know their loved ones are in need.
A wild wind was blowing from the north, and the fleecy particles fell in fantastic whirls and spirals, to drift in treacherous banks over the gullies and falls that lay along the path; while here and there thin black lines, sinuous in their trend, told where moorland waters flowed, and guided the hurrying mother to her distant goal. The groaning trees, tossed by the tempest, flung off showers of half-frozen flakes, that falling on her flaming cheeks failed to cool the fever of her suspense, while the yielding snow beneath her feet became a tantalus path, delaying her advance, and seeming to make more distant her suffering child.
Ploughing her way through the Green Fold Clough, she climbed the steeps at the further end, and stood, breathless, on the bank of the great reservoir that lay dark in the hollow of the white hills. Her heart beat savagely and loud—so loud that she heard it above the din of the storm; and cruel pain relentlessly stabbed her heaving side, while her breath was fetched in quick respirations.
As she thus stood, tamed in her race of love by the imperative call of exhausted nature, Dr. Hale loomed through the snowy haze, and, reading instinctively who she was and whither she was bound, proffered his assistance for the remaining half of the journey.
He had not walked with her for many yards before he saw her exposed condition. Her hair was flying in frozen tresses about her unshawled bosom, and no outer covering protected her from the chill blast.
‘Mrs. Wallwork,‘ said he, ‘you ought not to be crossing the moors a night like this, uncovered as you are. You are tempting Nature to do her worst with you, you know.’
‘Ne'er heed me, doctor. It's mi lad yon aw want yo' to heed. I shall be all reet if he's nobbud reet. I con walk faster if yo' con,’ and so saying, the jaded woman sprang, like a stung horse, under the spur of love.
‘But I have two lives to think of,’ replied Dr. Hale, ‘both mother's and son's.’
‘Mine's naught, doctor, when he's i' danger. Who bothers their yeds abaat theirsels when them as they care more for are i' need? Let's hurry up, doctor.’
And again she sprang forward, to struggle with renewed effort through the yielding snow. Then, turning towards her companion, she cried:
‘Where wur he hurt, doctor? Did they tell yo'?’
But the doctor was silent.
Seizing his arm with eager grip, she continued:
‘Dun yo' think he's livin', doctor? Or is he deead? Did they say he wur deead?’
‘We must be patient a little longer,’ was the doctor's kind reply. ‘See! there's the light in the window of Granny Houses!’
And there shone the light—distant across the fields, and blurred and indistinct through the falling snow. Without waiting to find the path, the mother ran in a direct line towards it, scaling the walls with the nimbleness of youth, to fall exhausted on the threshold of the farmstead.
Raising herself, she looked round with a blank stare, dazed with the glow of the fire and the light of the lamp. In the further corners of the room, and away from each other, sat the old woman and Mr. Penrose and Malachi o' the Mount, while on the settle beneath the window lay the sheeted dead.
‘Where's th' lad?’ cried the mother, the torture of a great fear racking her features and agonizing her voice.
There was no reply, the three watchers by the dead helplessly and mutely gazing at the snow-covered figure that stood beneath the open doorway within a yard of her child.
‘Gronny, doesto yer? Where's my lad? And yo', Malachi—yo' took him daan th' shaft wi' yo'; what ban yo' done wi' him?’
Still there was no response. A paralysis silenced each lip. None of the three possessed a heart that dared disclose the secret.
Seeing the sheeted covering on the settle, the woman, with frantic gesture, tore it aside, and when her eye fell on the little face, grand in death's calm, a great rigor took hold of her, and then she became rigid as the dead on whom her gaze was fixed.
In a little while she stooped over the boy, and, baring the cold body, looked long at the crushed and discoloured parts, at last bending low her face and kissing them until they were warm with her caress. Then old granny, turning round to Mr. Penrose, whispered:
‘Thank God, hoo's weepin'!’
‘Let her weep,’ said Dr. Hale; ‘there's no medicine like tears.’
That night, long after the snow had ceased to fall, and the tempestuous winds with folded wings were hushed in repose, and distant stars glittered in steely brightness, the two women, holding each other's hand, sat over the hearth of the solitary moorland farmstead. They were widows both, and both now were sisters in the loss of an only child.
Granny, as she was called, bore that name not from relationship, but from her kindliness and age. It was the pet name given to her by the colliers to whom she so often ministered in their risks and exposures at the adjacent pit. Into her life the rain had fallen. After fifteen years of domestic joy, her only child, a son, fell before the breath of fever, and in the shadow of that loss she ever since walked. Then her husband succumbed to the exposure of a winter's toil, and now for long she had lived alone. But as she used to say, ‘Suppin' sorrow had made her to sup others' sorrow with them.’ Her cup, though deep and full, had not embittered her heart, but led her to drink with those whose cup was deeper than her own. The death of little Job had rolled away the stone from the mouth of the sepulchre of her own dead child; and as she held the hand of the lately-bereaved mother she dropped many a word of comfort.
‘I'll tell thee what aw've bin thinkin',’ said the old woman.
‘What han yo' bin thinkin', Gronny?’
‘Why, I've bin thinkin' haa good th' Almeety is—He's med angels o' them as we med lads.’
‘I durnd know what yo' mean, Gronny.’
‘Why, it's i' this way, lass; my Jimmy and yor little Job wur aar own, wurnd they?’
‘Yi, forsure they wur.’
‘We feshioned 'em, as the Psalmist sez, didn't we?’
‘Thaa sez truth, Gronny,’ wept the younger woman.
‘And we feshioned 'em lads an' o'.’
‘Yi, and fine uns; leastways, my little Job wur—bless him.’
And the mother turned her tearful eyes towards the settle whereon lay the corpse.
‘Well, cornd yo' see as God hes finished aar wark for us, and what we made lads, He's made angels on?’
‘But aw'd sooner ha' kept mine. Angels are up aboon, thaa knows; an' heaven's a long way off.’
‘Happen noan so far as thaa thinks, lass; and then th' Almeety will do better by 'em nor we con.’
‘Nay, noan so, Gronny. God cornd love Job better nor I loved him.’
‘But he willn't ged crushed in a coile seam i' heaven; naa, lass, will he?’
‘Thaa's reet, Gronny, he willn't. But if He mak's us work here, why does He kill us o'er th' job, as he's killed mi little lad?’
‘Thaa mun ax Mr. Penrose that, lass; I'm no scholard.’
‘Aw'll tell thee what it is, Gronny. It noan seems reet that thee and me should be sittin' by th' fire, and little Job yonder cowd i' th' shadow. Let's pool up th' settle to th' fire; he's one on us, though he's deead.’
‘Let him alone, lass; he's better off nor them as wants fire; there's no cowd wheer he's goan.’
Rising from her chair, and turning the sheet once more from off the boy's face, the mother said:
‘Where hasto goan, lad? Tell thi mother, willn't taa?’ And then, looking round at the old woman, she said, ‘Doesto think he yers (hears) me, Gronny?’
‘Aw welly think he does, lass; but durnd bother him naa. He's happen restin', poor little lad; or happen he's telling them as is up aboon all abaat thee—who knows?’
‘Aw say, Gronny, Jesus made deead fo'k yer Him when He spok', didn't He?’
‘Yi, lass, He did forsure.’
‘Who wur that lass He spok' to when He turned 'em all aat o' th' room, wi' their noise and shaatin'?’
‘Tha means th' rich mon's lass, doesndto?’
‘Yi! Did He ever do ought for a poor mon's lass?’
‘He did for a poor woman's lad, thaa knows—a widder's son—one like thine.’
‘But he's noan here naa, so we's be like to bide by it, ey, dear? Mi lad! mi lad!’
‘Don't tak' on like that, lass; noather on us 'll hev to bide long. It's a long road, I know, when fo'k luk for'ards; but it's soon getten o'er, and when thaa looks back'ards it's nobbud short. I tell thee I've tramped it, and I durnd know as I'm a war woman for the journey. It's hard wark partin' wi' your own; but then theer's th' comfort o' havin' had 'em. I'd rayther hev a child and bury it, nor be baat childer, like Miriam Heap yonder.’
‘Aw dare say as yo're reet, Gronny; aw's cry and fret a deal over little Job, but then aw's hev summat to think abaat, shornd I? Aw geet his likeness taken last Rehoboth fair by a chap as come in a callivan (caravan), and it hengs o'er th' chimley-piece. But aw's noan see th' leet in his een ony more, nor yer his voice, nor tak' him wi' me to th' chapel on Sundos,’ and the woman again turned to the dead boy, and fondly lingered over his familiar features, weeping over them her tears of despair.
‘Come, lass, tha munn't tak' on like that. Sit yo' daan, an' I'll tell yo' what owd Mr. Morell said to me when mi lad lay deead o' th' fayver, and noan on 'em would come near me. He said I mut (must) remember as th' Almeety had nobbud takken th' lad upstairs. But aw sez, “Mr. Morell, theer's mony steps, an' I cornd climb 'em.” “Yi,” sez he, “theer is mony steps, but yo' keep climbin' on 'em every day, and one day yo'll ged to th' top and be i' th' same raam (room) wi' him.” An', doesto know, every time as I fretted and felt daan, I used to think o' him as was upstairs, and remember haa aw wur climbin' th' steps an' gettin' nearer him.’
‘But yo've noan getten to th' top yet, Gronny.’
‘No, aw hevn't, but aw'm a deal nearer nor aw wur when he first laft me. An' doesto know, lass, aw feel misel to be gettin' so near naa that aw can welly yer him singin'. There's nobbud a step or two naa, and then we's be i' th' same raam.’
‘An' is th' Almeety baan to mak' me climb as mony steps as thaa's climbed afore I ged into th' same raam as He's takken little Job too, thinksto?’
‘Ey, lass. Aw durnd know; but whether thaa's to climb mony or few thaa'll hev strength gien thee, as aw hev.’
‘Aw wish God's other room wurnd so far off, Gronny—nobbud t'other side o' th' wall instead o' th' story aboon. Durnd yo'?’
‘Nay, lass; they're safer upstairs. Thaa knows He put's 'em aat o' harm's way.’
‘But aw somehaa think aw could ha' takken care o' little Job a bit longer. And when he'd groon up, thaa knows, he could ha' takken care o' me.’
‘Yi, lass; we're awlus for patchin' th'Almeety's work; and if He leet us, we's mak' a sorry mess on it and o'.’
‘Well, Gronny, if I wur God Almeety I'd be agen lettin' lumps o' coile fall and crush th' life aat o' lads like aar Job. It's a queer way o' takkin 'em upstairs, as yo' co it.’
‘Hooisht! lass, thaa mornd try to speerit through th' clouds that are raand abaat His throne. He tak's one i' one way, an another i' another; but if He tak's em to Hissel they're better off than they'd be wi' us.’
‘Well, Gronny, aw tell thee, aw cornd see it i' that way yet;’ and again the mother caressed the body of her son.
Once more she turned towards the old woman, and said:
‘Aw shouldn't ha' caared so mich, Gronny, if he'd deed as yor lad deed—i' his own bed, an' wi' a fayver; bud he wur crushed wi' a lump o' coile! Poor little lad! Luk yo' here!’ and the mother bared the body and showed the discoloured parts.