That Lass O' Lowrie's / 1877

CHAPTER XI - Nib and His Master Make a Call

“Hoo's a queer little wench,” said one of the roughest Rigganite matrons, after Anice's first visit, “I wur i' th' middle o' my weshin when she coom,—up to th' neck i' th' suds,—and I wur vexed enow when I seed her standin' i' th' door, lookin' at me wi' them big eyes o' hers—most loike a babby's wonderin' at summat. 'We dunnot want none,' I says, soart o' sharp loike, th' minute I clapped my eyes on her. 'Theer's no one here as can read, an' none on us has no toime to spare if we could, so we dunnot want none.' 'Dunnot want no what?' she says. 'No tracks,' says I. And what do yo' think she does, lasses? Why, she begins to soart o' dimple up about th' corners o' her mouth as if I'd said summat reight down queer, an' she gi'es a bit o' a laff. 'Well,' she says, 'I'm glad o' that. It's a good thing, fur I hav'n't got none.' An' then it turns out that she just stopped fur nowt but to leave some owd linen an' salve for to dress that sore hond Jack crushed i' th' pit. He'd towd her about it as he went to his work, and she promised to bring him some. An' what's more, she wouldna coom in, but just gi' it me, an' went her ways, as if she had na been th' Parson's lass at aw, but just one o' th' common koind, as knowd how to moind her own business an' leave other folkses a-be.”

The Rigganites became quite accustomed to the sight of Anice's small low phaeton, with its comfortable fat gray pony. She was a pleasant sight herself as she sat in it, her little whip in her small gloved hand, and no one was ever sorry to see her check the gray pony before the door.

“Anice!” said Mr. Barholm to his curate, “well! you see Anice understands these people, and they understand her. She has the faculty of understanding them. There is nothing, you may be assured, Grace, like understanding the lower orders, and entering into their feelings.”

There was one member of Riggan society who had ranged himself among Miss Barholm's disciples from the date of his first acquaintance with her, who was her staunch friend and adviser from that time forward—the young master of “th' best tarrier i' Riggan.” Neither Jud Bates nor Nib faltered in their joint devotions from the hour of their first introduction to “th' Parson's daughter.” When they presented themselves at the Rectory together, the cordiality of Nib's reception had lessened his master's awkwardness. Nib was neither awkward nor one whit abashed upon his entrée into a sphere so entirely new to him as a well-ordered, handsomely furnished house. Once inside the parlor, Jud had lost courage and stood fumbling his ragged cap, but Nib had bounced forward, in the best of good spirits, barking in friendly recognition of Miss Barholm's greeting caress, and licking her hand. Through Nib, Anice contrived to inveigle Jud into conversation and make him forget his overwhelming confusion. Catching her first glimpse of the lad as he stood upon the threshold with his dubious garments and his abashed air, she was not quite decided what she was to do with him. But Nib came to her assistance. He forced himself upon her attention and gave her something to say, and her manner of receiving him was such, that in a few minutes she found Jud sidling toward her, as she half knelt on the hearth patting his favorite's rough back. Jud looked down at her, and she looked up at Jud.

“Have you taught him to do anything?” she asked. “Does he know any tricks?”

“He'll kill more rats i' ten minutes than ony dog i' Riggan. He's th' best tarrier fur rats as tha ivver seed. He's th' best tarrier for owt as tha ivver seed. Theer is nowt as he canna do. He con feight ony dog as theer is fro' heer to Marfort.” And he glowed in all the pride of possession, and stooped down to pat Nib himself.

He was quite communicative after this. He was a shrewd little fellow and had not spent his ten years in the mining districts for nothing. He was thoroughly conversant with the ways of the people his young hostess wished to hear about. He had worked in the pits a little, and he had tramped about the country with Nib at his heels a great deal. He was supposed to live with his father and grandmother, but he was left entirely to himself, unless when he was put to a chance job. He knew Joan Lowrie and pronounced her a “brave un;” he knew and reverenced “Owd Sammy Craddock;” he knew Joan's father and evidently regarded him with distrust; in fact there was not a man, woman or child in the place of whom he did not know something.

Mr. Barholm happening to enter the room during the interview, found his daughter seated on a low seat with Nib's head on her knee, and Jud a few feet from her. She was so intent on the task of entertaining her guest that she did not hear her father's entrance, and the Reverend Harold left the three together, himself in rather a bewildered frame of mind.

“Do you know?” he asked of his wife when he found her, “do you know who it is Anice is amusing in the parlor? What singular fancies the girl has, with all her good sense!”

CHAPTER XII - On Guard

Though they saw comparatively little of each other, the friendly feeling established between Anice and Joan, in their first interview, gained strength gradually as time went on. Coming home from her work at noon or at night, Joan would see traces of Anice's presence, and listen to Liz's praises of her. Liz was fond of her and found comfort in her. The days when the gray pony came to a stop in his jog-trot on the roadside before the gate had a kind of pleasurable excitement in them. They were the sole spice of her life. She understood Anice as little as she understood Joan, but she liked her. She had a vague fancy that in some way Anice was like Joan; that there was the same strength in her,—a strength upon which she herself might depend. And then she found even a stronger attraction in her visitor's personal adornments, in her graceful dress, in any elegant trifle she wore. She liked to look at her clothes and ask questions about them, and wonder how she would look if she were the possessor of such beautiful things.

“She wur loike a pictur,” she would say mournfully to Joan. “She had a blue gown on, an' a hat wi' blue-bells in it, an' summat white an' soft frilled up round her neck. Eh! it wur pretty. I wish I wur a lady. I dunnot see why ivverybody canna be a lady an' have such loike.”

Later Joan got up and went to the child, who lay upon the bed in a corner of the room.

There were thoughts at work within her of which Liz knew nothing. Liz only looked at her wondering as she took the sleeping baby in her arms, and began to pace the floor, walking to and fro with a slow step.

“Have I said owt to vex yo'?” said Liz.

“No, lass,” was the answer, “it is na thee as worrits me. I con scarce tell what it is mysen, but it is na thee, nivver fear.”

But there was a shadow upon her all the rest of the night. She did not lay the child down again, but carried it in her arms until they went to bed, and even there it lay upon her breast.

“It's queer to me as yo' should be so fond o' that choild, Joan,” said Liz, standing by the side of the bed.

Joan raised her head from the pillow and looked down at the small face resting upon her bosom, and she touched the baby's cheek lightly with her finger, flushing curiously.

“It's queer to me too,” she answered, “Get thee into bed, Liz.”

Many a battle was fought upon that homely couch when Liz was slumbering quietly, and the child's soft regular breathing was the only sound to be heard in the darkened room. Amid the sordid cares and humiliations of Joan's rough life, there had arisen new ones. She had secret struggles—secret yearnings,—and added to these, a secret terror. When she lay awake thinking, she was listening for her father's step. There was not a night in which she did not long for, and dread to hear it. If he stayed out all night, she went down to her work under a load of foreboding. She feared to look into the faces of her work-fellows, lest they should have some evil story to tell, she feared the road over which she had to pass, lest at some point, its very dust should cry out to her in a dark stain. She knew her father better than the oldest of his companions, and she watched him closely.

“He's what yo' wenches ud ca' a handsum chap, that theer,” said Lowrie to her, the night of his encounter with Derrick. “He's a tall chap an' a strappin' chap an' he's getten a good-lookin' mug o' his own, but,” clenching his fist slowly and speaking, “I've not done wi' him yet—I has not quite done wi' him. Wait till I ha', an' then see what yo'll say about his beauty. Look yo' here, lass,”—more slowly and heavily still,—“he'll noan be so tall then nor yet so straight an' strappin'. I'll smash his good-lookin' mug if I'm dom'd to hell fur it. Heed tha that?”

Instead of taking lodgings nearer the town or avoiding the Knoll Road, as Grace advised him to do when he heard of Joan's warning, Derrick provided himself with a heavy stick, stuck a pistol into his belt every night when he left his office, and walked home as usual, keeping a sharp lookout, however.

“If I avoid the fellow,” he said to Grace, “he will suspect at once that I feel I have cause to fear him; and if I give him grounds for such a belief as that I might as well have given way at first.”

Strange to say he was not molested. The excitement seemed to die a natural death in the course of a few days. Lowrie came back to his work looking sullen and hard, but he made no open threats, and he even seemed easier to manage. Certainly Derrick found his companions more respectful and submissive. There was less grumbling among them and more passive obedience. The rules were not broken, openly, at least, and he himself was not defied. It was not pleasant to feel that what reason and civility could not do, a tussle had accomplished, but this really seemed to be the truth of the matter, and the result was one which made his responsibilities easier to bear.

But during his lonely walks homeward on these summer nights, Derrick made a curious discovery. On one or two occasions he became conscious that he had a companion who seemed to act as his escort. It was usually upon dark or unpleasant nights that he observed this, and the first time he caught sight of the figure which always walked on the opposite side of the road, either some distance before or behind him, he put his hand to his belt, not perceiving for some moments that it was not a man but a woman. It was a woman's figure, and the knowledge sent the blood to his heart with a rush that quickened its beatings. It might have been chance, he argued, that took her home that night at this particular time; but when time after time, the same thing occurred, he saw that his argument had lost its plausibility. It was no accident, there was purpose in it; and though they never spoke to each other or in any manner acknowledged each other's presence, and though often he fancied that she convinced herself that he was not aware of her motive, he knew that Joan's desire to protect him had brought her there.

He did not speak of this even to Grace.

One afternoon in making her visit at the cottage, Anice left a message for Joan. She had brought a little plant-pot holding a tiny rose-bush in full bloom, and when she went away she left her message with Liz.

“I never see your friend when I am here,” she said, “will you ask her to come and see me some night when she is not too tired?”

When Joan came home from her work, the first thing that caught her eye was a lovely bit of color,—the little rose-bush blooming on the window-sill where Anice herself had placed it.

She went and stood before it, and when Liz, who had been temporarily absent, came into the room, she was standing before it still.

“She browt it,” explained Liz, “she wur here this afternoon.”

“Aye,” she answered, “wur she?”

“Aye,” said Liz. “An', Joan, what do yo' think she towd me to tell yo'?”

Joan shook her head.

“Why, she said I were to tell yo' to go and see her some neet when yo' wur na tired,—just th' same as if yo' wur a lady. Shanna yo' go?”

“I dunnot know,” said Joan awakening, “I canna tell. What does she want o' me?”

“She wants to see thee an' talk to thee, that's what,”—answered Liz,—“just th' same as if tha was a lady, I tell thee. That's her way o' doin' things. She is na a bit loike the rest o' gentlefolk. Why, she'll sit theer on that three-legged stool wi' the choild on her knee an' laff an' talk to me an' it, as if she wur nowt but a common lass an' noan a lady at aw. She's ta'en a great fancy to thee, Joan. She's allus axin me about thee. If I wur thee I'd go. Happen she'd gi' thee some o' her owd cloas as she's ta'en to thee so.”

“I dunnot want no owd cloas,” said Joan brusquely, “an' she's noan so daft as to offer 'em to me.”

“Well, I nivver did!” exclaimed Liz. “Would na tha tak' 'em? Tha nivver means to say, tha would na tak' 'em, Joan? Eh! tha art a queer wench! Why, I'd be set up for th' rest o' my days, if she'd offer 'em to me.”

“Thy ways an' mine is na loike,” said Joan. “I want no gentlefolks' finery. An' I tell you she would na offer 'em to me.”

“I nivver con mak' thee out,” Liz said, in a fret. “Tha'rt as grand as if tha wur a lady thy-sen. Tha'lt tak' nowt fro' nobody.”

“Wheer's th' choild?” asked Joan.

“She's laid on th' bed,” said Liz. “She wur so heavy she tired me an' I gave her a rose-bud to play wi' an' left her. She has na cried sin'. Eh! but these is a noice color,” bending her pretty, large-eyed face over the flowers, and inhaling their perfume; “I wish I had a bit o' ribbon loike 'em.”

CHAPTER XIII - Joan and the Picture

Notwithstanding Anice's interference in his behalf, Paul did not find his labors become very much lighter. And then after all his labor, the prospect before him was not promising. Instead of appearing easier to cope with as he learned more of it and its inhabitants, Riggan seemed still more baffling. His “district” lay in the lower end of the town among ugly back streets, and alleys; among dirt and ignorance and obstinacy. He spent his days in laboring among people upon whom he sometimes fancied he had obtained no hold. It really seemed that they did not want him—these people; and occasionally a more distressing view of the case presented itself to his troubled mind,—namely, that to those who might chance to want him he had little to offer.

He had his temporal thorn too. He found it difficult to read, hard to fix his mind on his modest sermons; occasionally he even accused himself of forgetting his duty. This had come since the night when he stood at the door and listened to his friend's warning concerning the Rector's daughter. Derrick's words were simple enough in themselves, but they had fallen upon the young Curate's ears with startling significance. He had given this significance to them himself,—in spite of himself,—and then all at once he had fallen to wondering why it was that he had never thought of such a possible denouement before. It was so very possible, so very probable; nay, when he came to think of it seriously, it was only impossible that it should not be. He had often told himself, that some day a lover would come who would be worthy of the woman he had not even hoped to win. And who was more worthy than Fergus Derrick—who was more like the hero to whom such women surrender their hearts and lives. If he himself had been such a man, he thought with the simplicity of affection, he would not have felt that there was need for fear. And the two had been thrown so much together and would be thrown together so frequently in the future. He remembered how Fergus had been taken into the family circle, and calling to mind a hundred trifling incidents, smiled at his own blindness. When the next day he received Anice's message, he received it as an almost positive confirmation. It was not like her to bestow favors from an idle impulse.

It was not so easy now to meet the girl in his visits to the Rectory: it was not easy to listen to Mr. Barholm while Anice and Fergus Derrick sat apart and talked. Sometimes he wondered if the time could ever come, when his friend would be less his friend because he had rivalled him. The idea of such a possibility only brought him fresh pain. His gentle chivalric nature shrank within itself at the thought of the bereavement that double loss would be. There was little room in his mind for the envies of stronger men. Certainly Fergus had no suspicion of the existence of his secret pain. He found no alteration in his gentle friend.

Among the Reverend Paul's private ventures was a small night school which he had managed to establish by slow degrees. He had picked up a reluctant scholar here, and one there,—two or three pit lads, two or three girls, and two or three men for whose attendance he had worked so hard and waited so long that he was quite surprised at his success in the end. He scarcely knew how he had managed it, but the pupils were there in the dingy room of the National School, waiting for him on two nights in the week, upon which nights he gave them instruction on a plan of his own. He had thought the matter so little likely to succeed at first, that he had engaged in it as a private work, and did not even mention it until his friends discovered it by chance.

Said Jud Bates to Miss Barholm, during one of their confidential interviews:

“Did tha ivver go to a neet skoo?”

“No,” said Anice.

Jud fondled Nib's ears patronizingly.

“I ha', an' I'm goin' again. So is Nib. He's getten one.”

“Who?” for Jud had signified by a gesture that he was not the dog, but some indefinite person in the village.

“Th' little Parson.”

“Say, Mr. Grace,” suggested Anice. “It sounds better.”

“Aye—Mester Grace—but ivverybody ca's him th' little Parson. He's getten a neet skoo i' th' town, an' he axed me to go, an' I went I took Nib an' we larned our letters; leastways I larned mine, an' Nib he listened wi' his ears up, an' th' Par—Mester Grace laffed. He wur na vext at Nib comin'. He said 'let him coom, as he wur so owdfashioned.'”

So Mr. Grace found himself informed upon, and was rather abashed at being confronted with his enterprise a few days after by Miss Barholm.

“I like it,” said Anice. “Joan Lowrie learned to read and write in a night school. Mr. Derrick told me so.”

A new idea seemed to have been suggested to her.

“Mr. Grace,” she said, “why could not I help you? Might I?”

His delight revealed itself in his face. His first thought was a selfish, unclerical one, and sudden consciousness sent the color to his forehead as he answered her, though he spoke quite calmly.

“There is no reason why you should not—if you choose,” he said, “unless Mr. Barholm should object. I need not tell you how grateful I should be.”

“Papa will not object,” she said, quietly.

The next time the pupils met, she presented herself in the school-room.

Ten minutes after Grace had given her work to her she was as much at home with it as if she had been there from the first.

“Hoo's a little un,” said one of the boys, “but hoo does na seem to be easy feart. Hoo does not look a bit tuk back.”

She had never been so near to Paul Grace during their friendship as when she walked home with him. A stronger respect for him was growing in her,—a new reverence for his faithfulness. She had always liked and trusted him, but of late she had learned to do more. She recognized more fully the purity and singleness of his life. She accused herself of having underrated him.

“Please let me help you when I can, Mr. Grace,” she said; “I am not blaming anybody—there is no real blame, even if I had the right to attach it to any one; but there are mistakes now and then, and you must promise me that I may use my influence to prevent them.”

She had stopped at the gate to say this, and she held out her hand. It was a strange thing that she could be so utterly oblivious of the pain she inflicted. But even Derrick would have taken her hand with less self-control. He was so fearful of wounding or disturbing her, that he was continually on his guard in her presence, and especially when she was thus warm and unguarded herself.

He had fancied before, sometimes, that she had seen his difficulties, and sympathized with him, but he had never hoped that she would be thus unreserved. His thanks came from the depths of his heart; he felt that she had lightened his burden.

After this, Miss Barholm was rarely absent from her place at the school. The two evenings always found her at work among her young women, and she made very steady progress among them.

By degrees the enterprise was patronized more freely. New pupils dropped in, and were usually so well satisfied that they did not drop out again. Grace gave all the credit to Anice, but Anice knew better than to accept it. She had been his “novelty” she said; time only would prove whether her usefulness was equal to her power of attraction.

She had been teaching in the school about three weeks, when a servant came to her one night as she sat reading, with the information that a young woman wished to see her.

“A fine-looking young woman, Miss,” added the girl. “I put her into your own room, as you give orders.”

The room was a quiet place, away from the sounds of the house, which had gradually come to be regarded as Miss Barholm's. It was not a large room but it was a pretty one, with wide windows and a good view, and as Anice liked it, her possessions drifted into it until they filled it,—her books, her pictures,—and as she spent a good deal of her time there, it was invariably spoken of as her room, and she had given orders to the servants that her village visitors should be taken to it when they came.

Carrying her book in her hand, she went upstairs. She had been very much interested in what she was reading, and had hardly time to change the channel of her thought. But when she opened the door, she was brought back to earth at once.

Against the end wall was suspended a picture of Christ in the last agony, and beneath it was written, “It is finished.” Before it, as Anice opened the door, stood Joan Lowrie, with Liz's sleeping child on her bosom. She had come upon the picture suddenly, and it had seized on some deep, reluctant emotion. She had heard some vague history of the Man; but it was different to find herself in this silent room, confronting the upturned face, the crown, the cross, the anguish and the mystery. She turned toward Anice, forgetting all else but her emotion. She even looked at her for a few seconds in questioning silence, as if waiting for an answer to words she had not spoken.

When she found her voice, it was of the picture she spoke, not of the real object of her visit.

“Tha knows,” she said, “I dunnot, though I've heerd on it afore. What is it as is finished? I dunnot quite see. What is it?”

“It means,” said Anice, “that God's Son has finished his work.”

Joan did not speak.

“I have no words of my own, to explain,” continued Anice. “I can tell you better in the words of the men who loved him and saw him die.”

Joan turned to her.

“Saw him dee!” she repeated.

“There were men who saw him when he died you know,” said Anice. “The New Testament tells us how. It is as real as the picture, I think. Did you never read it?”

The girl's face took an expression of distrust and sullenness.

“Th' Bible has na been i' my line,” she answered;

“I've left that to th' parsons an' th' loike; but th' pictur' tuk my eye. It seemt different.”

“Let us sit down,” said Anice, “you will be tired of standing.”

When they sat down, Anice began to talk about the child, who was sleeping, lowering her voice for fear of disturbing it. Joan regarded the little thing with a look of half-subdued pride.

“I browt it because I knowed it ud be easier wi' me than wi' Liz,” she said. “It worrits Liz an' it neer worrits me. I'm so strong, yo' see, I con carry it, an' scarce feel its weight, but it wears Liz out, an' it seems to me as it knows it too, fur th' minute she begins to fret it frets too.”

There was a certain shamefacedness in her manner, when at last she began to explain the object of her errand. Anice could not help fancying that she was impelled on her course by some motive whose influence she reluctantly submitted to. She had come to speak about the night school.

“Theer wur a neet skoo here once afore as I went to,” she said; “I larnt to reed theer an' write a bit, but—but theer's other things I'd loike to know. Tha canst understand,” she added a little abruptly, “I need na tell yo'. Little Jud Bates said as yo' had a class o' yore own, an' it come into my moind as I would ax yo' about it. If I go to th' skoo I—I'd loike to be wi' ye.”

“You can come to me,” said Anice. “And do you know, I think you can help me.” This thought had occurred to her suddenly. “I am sure you can help me,” she repeated.

When Joan at last started to go away, she paused before the picture, hesitating for a moment, and then she turned to Anice again.

“Yo' say as th' book maks it seem real as th' pictur,” she said.

“It seems so to me,” Anice answered.

“Will yof lend me th' book?” she asked abruptly.

Anice's own Bible lay upon a side-table. She took it up and handed it to the girl, saying simply, “I will give you this one if you will take it. It was mine.”

And Joan carried the book away with her.

CHAPTER XIV - The Open “Davy”

The engineer found this letter near his plate one morning on coming down to breakfast. His landlady explained that her daughter had picked it up inside the garden gate, where it had been thrown upon the gravel-walk, evidently from the road.

Derrick read it twice or three times before putting it in his pocket. Upon the whole, he was not unprepared for the intelligence. He knew enough of human nature—such human nature as Lowrie represented—to feel sure that the calm could not continue. If for the present the man did not defy him openly, he would disobey him in secret, while biding his time for other means of retaliation.

Derrick had been on the lookout for some effort at revenge; but so far since the night Joan had met him upon the road, Lowrie outwardly had been perfectly quiet and submissive.

After reading the letter, Derrick made up his mind to prompt and decisive measures, and set about considering what these measures should be, There was only one certain means of redress and safety,—Lowrie must be got rid of at once. It would not be a difficult matter either. There was to be a meeting of the owners that very week, and Derrick had reports to make, and the mere mention of the violation of the rules would be enough.

“Bah!” he said aloud. “It is not pleasant; but it must be done.”

The affair had several aspects, rendering it unpleasant, but Derrick shut his eyes to them resolutely. It seemed, too, that it was not destined that he should have reason to remain undecided. That very day he was confronted with positive proof that the writer of the anonymous warning was an honest man, with an honest motive.

During the morning, necessity called him away from his men to a side gallery, and entering this gallery, he found himself behind a man who stood at one side close to the wall, his Davy lamp open, his pipe applied to the flame. It was Dan Lowrie, and his stealthy glance over his shoulder revealing to him that he was discovered, he turned with an oath.

“Shut that lamp,” said Derrick, “and give me your false key.”

Lowrie hesitated.

“Give me that key,” Derrick repeated, “or I will call the gang in the next gallery and see what they have to say about the matter.”

“Dom yore eyes! does tha think as my toime 'll nivver coom?”

But he gave up the key.

“When it comes,” he said, “I hope I shall be ready to help myself. Now I've got only one thing to do. I gave you fair warning and asked you to act the man toward your fellows. You have played the scoundrel instead, and I have done with you. I shall report you. That's the end of it.”

He went on his way, and left the man uttering curses under his breath. If there had not been workers near at hand, Derrick might not have gotten away so easily. Among the men in the next gallery there were some who were no friends to Lowrie, and who would have given him rough handling if they had caught him just at that moment, and the fellow knew it.

Toward the end of the week, the owners came, and Derrick made his report. The result was just what he had known it would be. Explosions had been caused before by transgressions of the rules, and explosions were expensive and disastrous affairs. Lowrie received his discharge, and his fellow-workmen a severe warning, to the secret consternation of some among them.

That the engineer of the new mines was a zealous and really amiable young man, if rather prone to innovations, became evident to his employers. But his innovations were not encouraged. So, notwithstanding his arguments, the blast-furnaces held their own, and “for the present,” as the easy-natured manager put it, other matters, even more important, were set aside.

“There is much to be done, Derrick,” he said; “really so much that requires time and money, that we must wait a little. 'Rome, etc'.”

“Ah, Rome!” returned Derrick. “I am sometimes of the opinion that Rome had better never been built at all. You will not discharge your imperfect apparatus for the same reason that you will discharge a collier,—which is hardly fair to the collier. Your blast-furnaces expose the miners to as great danger as Lowrie's pipe. The presence of either may bring about an explosion when it is least expected.”

“Well, well,” was the good-natured response; “we have not exploded yet; and we have done away with Lowrie's pipe.”

Derrick carried the history of his ill-success to Anice, somewhat dejectedly.

“All this is discouraging to a man,” said Derrick, and then he added meditatively, “As to the rest, I wonder what Joan Lowrie will think of it.”

A faint sense of discomfort fell upon Anice—not exactly easy to understand. The color fluttered to her cheek and her smile died away. But she did not speak,—merely waited to hear what Derrick had to say.

He had nothing more to say about Joan Lowrie:—when he recovered himself, as he did almost immediately, he went back to the discussion of his pet plans, and was very eloquent on the subject.

Going home one evening, Derrick found himself at a turn of the road only a few paces behind Joan. He had thought much of her of late, and wondered whether she was able to take an utterly unselfish view of his action. She had a basket upon her arm and looked tired. He strode up to her side and spoke to her without ceremony.

“Let me carry that,” he said. “It is too heavy for you.”

The sun was setting redly, so perhaps it was the sunset that flung its color upon her face as she turned to look at him.

“Thank yo',” she answered. “I'm used to carryin' such-loike loads.”

But he took her burden from her, and even if she had wished to be left to herself she had no redress, and accordingly submitted. Influences long at work upon her had rendered her less defiant than she had been in the past. There was an element of quiet in her expression, such as Derrick had not seen when her beauty first caught his attention.

They walked together silently for a while.

“I should like to hear you say that you do not blame me,” said Derrick, at last, abruptly.

She knew what he meant, it was evident.

“I conna blame yo' fur doin' what were reet,” she answered.

“Right,—you thought it right?”

“Why should na I? Yo' couldna ha' done no other.”

“Thank you for saying that,” he returned. “I have thought once or twice that you might have blamed me.”

“I did na know,” was her answer. “I did na know as I had done owt to mak' yo' think so ill of me.”

He did not find further comment easy. He felt, as he had felt before, that Joan had placed him at a disadvantage. He so often made irritating mistakes in his efforts to read her, and in the end he seldom found that he had made any advance. Anice Barholm, with her problems and her moods, was far less difficult to comprehend than Joan Lowrie.

Liz was at the cottage door when they parted, and Liz's eyes had curiosity and wonder in them when she met her friend.

“Joan,” she said, peering over the door-sill at Derrick's retreating figure, “is na that one o' th' mesters? Is na it the Lunnon engineer, Joan?”

“Yes,” Joan answered briefly.

The pretty, silly creature's eyes grew larger, with a shade of awe.

“Is na it th' one as yore feyther's so bitter agen?”

“Yes.”

“An' is na he a gentleman? He dunnot look loike a workin' mon. His cloas dunnot fit him loike common foakes. He mun be a gentleman.”

“I've heerd foak ca' him one; an' if his cloas fit him reet, he mun be one, I suppose.”

Liz looked after him again.

“Aye,” she sighed, “he's a gentleman sure enow. I've seed gentlemen enow to know th' look on 'em. Did——” hesitating fearfully, but letting her curiosity get the better of her discretion nevertheless,—“did he court thee, Joan?”

The next moment she was frightened into wishing she had not asked the question. Joan turned round and faced her suddenly, pale and wrathful.

“Nay, he did na,” she said. “I am na a lady, an' he is what tha ca's him—a gentleman.”

CHAPTER XV - A Discovery

The first time that Joan appeared at the night school, the men and girls looked up from their tasks to stare at her, and whisper among themselves; but she was, to all appearances, oblivious of their scrutiny, and the flurry of curiosity and excitement soon died out. After the first visit her place was never vacant. On the nights appointed for the classes to meet, she came, did the work allotted to her, and went her way again, pretty much as she did at the mines. When in due time Anice began to work out her plan of co-operation with her, she was not disappointed in the fulfilment of her hopes. Gradually it became a natural thing for a slow and timid girl to turn to Joan Lowrie for help.

As for Joan's own progress, it was not long before Miss Barholm began to regard the girl with a new wonder. She was absolutely amazed to find out how much she was learning, and how much she had learned, working on silently and by herself. She applied herself to her tasks with a determination which seemed at times almost feverish.

“I mun learn,” she said to Anice once. “I will,” and she closed her hand with a sudden nervous strength.

Then again there were times when her courage seemed to fail her, though she never slackened her efforts.

“Dost tha think,” she said, “dost tha think as I could ivver learn as much as tha knows thysen? Does tha think a workin' lass ivver did learn as much as a lady?”

“I think,” said Anice, “that you can do anything you try to do.”

By very slow degrees she had arrived at a discovery which a less close observer might have missed altogether, or at least only arrived at much later in the day of experience. Anice's thoughts were moved in this direction the night that Derrick slipped into that half soliloquy about Joan. She might well be startled. This man and woman could scarcely have been placed at a greater distance from each other, and yet those half dozen words of Fergus Derrick's had suggested to his hearer that each, through some undefined attraction, was veering toward the other. Neither might be aware of this; but it was surely true. Little as social creeds influenced Anice, she could not close her eyes to the incongruous—the unpleasant features of this strange situation. And, besides, there was a more intimate and personal consideration. Her own feeling toward Fergus Derrick was friendship at first, and then she had suddenly awakened and found it something more. That had startled her, too, but it had not alarmed her till her eyes were opened by that accidental speech of Derrick's. After that, she saw what both Derrick and Joan were themselves blind to.

Setting her own pain aside, she stood apart, and pitied both. As for herself, she was glad that she had made the discovery before it was too late. She knew that there might have been a time when it would have been too late. As it was, she drew back,—with a pang, to be sure; but still she could draw back.

“I have made a mistake,” she said to herself in secret; but it did not occur to her to visit the consequences of the mistake upon any other than herself.

The bond of sympathy between herself and Joan Lowrie only seemed to increase in strength. Meeting oftener, they were knit more closely, and drawn into deeper faith and friendship. With Joan, emotion was invariably an undercurrent. She had trained herself to a stubborn stoicism so long, and with such determination, that the habit of complete self-control had become a second nature, and led her to hold the world aloof. It was with something of secret wonder that she awoke to the consciousness of the fact that she was not holding Anice Barholm aloof, and that there was no necessity for doing so. She even found that she was being attracted toward her, and was submitting to her influence as to a spell. She did not understand at first, and wondered if it would last; but the nearer she was drawn to the girl, the less doubting and reluctant she became. There was no occasion for doubt, and her proud suspiciousness melted like a cloud in the spring sunshine. Having armed herself against patronage and curiosity, she encountered earnest friendship and good faith. She was not patronized, she was not asked questions, she was left to reveal as much of herself as she chose, and allowed to retain her own secrets as if they were her own property. So she went and came to and from the Rectory; and from spending a few minutes in Anice's room, at last fell into the habit of spending hours there. In this little room the books, and pictures, and other refinements appealed to senses unmoved before. She drew in some fresh experience with almost every breath.

One evening, after a specially discouraging day, it occurred to Grace that he would go and see Joan; and dropping in upon her on his way back to town, after a visit to a parishioner who lived upon the high-road, he found the girl sitting alone—sitting as she often did, with the child asleep upon her knee; but this time with a book lying close to its hand and her own. It was Anice's Bible.

“Will yo' set down?” she said in a voice whose sound was new to him. “Theer's a chair as yo' con tak'. I conna move fur fear o' wakenin' th' choild. I'm fain to see yo' toneet.”

He took the chair and thanked her, and waited for her next words. Only a few moments she was silent, and then she looked up at him.

“I ha' been readin' th' Bible,” she said, as if in desperation. “I dunnot know why, unless happen some un stronger nor me set me at it. Happen it coom out o' settin here wi' th' choild. An'—well, queer enow, I coom reet on summat about childer,—that little un as he tuk and set i' th' midst o' them, an' then that theer when he said 'Suffer th' little childer to coom unto me.' Do yo' say aw that's true? I nivver thowt on it afore,—but somehow I should na loike to think it wur na. Nay, I should na!” Then, after a moment's pause—“I nivver troubled mysen wi' readin' th' Bible afore,” she went on, “I ha' na lived wi' th' Bible soart; but now—well that theer has stirred me up. If he said that—if he said it hissen—Ah! mester,”—and the words breaking from her were an actual cry,—“Aye, mester, look at th' little un here! I munnot go wrong—I munnot, if he said it hissen!”

He felt his heart beat quick, and his pulses throb. Here was the birth of a soul; here in his hands perhaps lay the rescue of two immortal beings. God help him! he cried inwardly. God help him to deal rightly with this woman. He found words to utter, and uttered them with courage and with faith. What words it matters not,—but he did not fail. Joan listened wondering, and in a passion of fear and belief.

She clasped her arms about the child almost as if seeking help from it, and wept.

“I munnot go wrong,” she said over and over again. “How could I hold th' little un back, if he said hissen as she mun coom? If it's true as he said that, I'll believe aw th' rest an' listen to yo'. 'Forbid them not—'. Nay, but I wunnot—I could na ha' th' heart.”