Читать книгу Miriam: A Tale of Pole Moor and the Greenfield Hills - D. F. E. Sykes - Страница 8

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ON the slope of the hill as it shelves down to the Colne from Pole Moor lies the little cluster of houses called Burn Platts, and there dwelt, if so nomadic a people could be properly said to dwell anywhere, those terrors of the countryside, the bogeys of all the children for miles around, the Burnplatters—horse-dealers, gipsies, fortune-tellers cloth-lifters, roost-spoilers poachers, tramps, thieves, whiskey-spinners, and evil-doers generally. I could not remember a time when I had not lived in awe of the Burnplatters. The direst threat my mother knew, when my little sister Ruth and I were more than ordinarily perverse, was to send us to the Burnplatters.

The stories told of them and their wild doings were legion. They were said to have no religion of any sort of all, though, to be sure, it was conceded that when they were married they were properly tied at St. James’s Church. And a brave display they made at a wedding: bride and bridegroom, bravely decked, walking to and from the Church, a fiddler or two heading a procession of all the Burnplatters, old and young, male and female, twenty to thirty souls. The knot firmly tied, the procession made a round of all the public houses, in Slaithwaite, and finished the day with a sumptuous repast at the “Rose and Crown” on Cop Hill; and it was the general belief that the viands, of which there was no lack, were, to a chicken, either begged, borrowed, or stolen. Whether there was or ever had been any strain of Oriental blood among the Burnplatters I hesitate to say, though I incline to think there must have been some Spanish tinge, for no one could look upon Ephraim Sykes, the reputed leader of the gang, and credit him with nought but British blood. He was of about my own age. His face was tanned, his black hair curled close to his poll, his eye dark as night, and his passions as tumultuous as hell. A blow first and the word afterwards was ever his way. And he was as handsome as a picture. Half the girls in the valley were ready to forswear home, chapel, and respectability and join the Burnplatters at a word from Ephraim. He was the best horsebreaker between Leeds and Manchester. He feared nothing that went on four legs or two—men, dogs, horses or bullocks. When Armitage’s bull—Dick o’ Lijah’s that kept the “Rose” at the Cop—went mad they sent for Ephraim, and with my own eyes I saw him vault upon the raging creature’s back and ride it in a tearing rage twenty times round the paddock and then down to Booth Banks, and when they got back it was covered with foam and as quiet as a lamb. And Ephraim was popular even with the men folk, though feared. He made a mint, of money, horse—breaking, and it was light come, light go with him. Whenever he went into the “Silent Women,” or the “Globe,” or the “Star”, or the “Rose and Crown”, you should have seen the landlord’s face light up. It was open house while Ephraim was there, and, I’m sore to say it, there were in my young days more than two or three of the weavers and croppers of the Valley who liked a cheap drink if the Evil One himself had paid.

In my boyhood I had struck up an acquaintance with Ephraim Sykes. A Yorkshire tyke that a devout member of my father’s congregation had presented to me had been the first bond of union. Ephraim had come across me as I wandered aimlessly about the fields, with Tear’em at my heels, and had unceremoniously introduced himself, by way of Tear’em, in whom he manifested an interest that clearly did not embrace myself.

“Will she rot?” he asked, after surveying the bitch and commenting approvingly upon various points of perfection only patent to the eyes of a fancier. “Will she rot?”

“Not till she’s dead, I hope,” I replied in all innocence.

“Pool! thou ninny. Will she tak’ rotten?” and I gathered that he meant rats.

“She could if she liked,” I asseverated boldly, seeing that this was expected of her. “But, you see, she has the best of everything at the Manse. I share my porridge with her night and morning.”

“Porridge!” sniffed Ephraim disdainfully. “It’s rotten she wants, and rabbits. Han you a ferret” I confessed with shame that I had not.

“Well, I han.” And Ephraim produced from his jacket pocket a long white, snakey, writhing thing that eyed me viciously, but which curled and cuddled about Ephraim as if it loved him, as I don’t doubt it did.

“That’s the cliverest ferret this side o’ Owdham,” observed Ephraim in a tone that challenged contradiction. “Just yo’ feel the weight on him,” and he held out the creature in the palm of his hands. It eyed me as though to determine which was the juiciest part of my anatomy, and I declined the intimate acquaintance Ephraim was willing to press upon me.

“Feart o’ a ferret!” he sneered. “Tha’rt noan as gam’ as thi feyther.”

“What do you know of my father?” I asked quickly, for even as a lad I was jealous of that good man’s name and fame.

“Why more, happen, than yo think, though I am a Burnplatter. Hasn’t he been to th’ Burnplatts preichin’ time an’ time agen, though we’n towd him plain we don’t want him? An’ hasn’t he towd us to our faces wheer we’re bun to end if we don’t mend our ways? Didn’t he plump down on his knees i’ th’ very midst o’ us, an’ pray to heaven to remove the scales fro’ our eyes, as he ca’d it? An’ didn’t he come neet after neet to sit an’ pray wi’ little Lil when she were down wi’ th’ sma’ pox, an’ owd Jackson th’ Slowit passon, wouldn’t come within a mile o’ Burnplatts for love or money? Oh! he’s a gam’ ’un, is thi feyther. He wouldn’t be feart o’ a bit o’ a ferret, aw’ll be bun. Why he’d tak’ it bi’ th’ scruff o’ th’ neck an’ dip it th’ font if he thowt it ’ud do it onny guid. That’s th’ sort he is.”

This hearty commendation of my sire atoned no little for the slighting opinion Ephraim had evidently formed of myself—that and his approval of Tear’em for whom he volunteered to swop that wretch ferret, assuring me with tears in his eyes that the exchange would well-nigh—he said “welly”—ruin him, and that it was only the high regard he entertained for my father that prompted him to make this huge sacrifice. But part with Tear’em I would not. On this point I was adamant.

“Well,” said Ephraim, “let’s see if she’ll tak’ a rabbit. I don’t suppose she will. Come to look at her, she’s nobbut a poorish sort. Not much breed about that cur, aw’ rekkon. Aw’m fain yo’ didn’t ha’ th’ ferret after all”—a remark that proved Ephraim was a philosopher of sorts, and knew how to console himself in affliction.

But Tear’em had promptly falsified this last adverse judgment on her merits. Ephraim found a long drain that ran the length of a neighbouring field. The ferret went in at one end, whilst I nursed Tear’em at the other. Presently a rabbit bolted, and Tear’em tossed it in the air before it had run ten yards in the open.

And so began my friendship with Ephraim Sykes. Lord! what times we had on those dear old moors. It was Ephraim taught me to swim in Clough House mill dam; it was Ephraim who made me horrid sick with my first pipe; Ephraim who knew every bird nest on ground, in hedge, or wall, or tree; Ephraim who haunted old laithes and mistals with his ferret and my Tear’em; Ephraim who skinned the rats and dried and cured their skins and made me a cap thereout; Ephraim who knew where the biggest trout lurked under the sides of the brooks that babbled down the hillsides into the river Colne; Ephraim, I blush to say, who knew the ways of the nesting grouse and took their young before they left the nest.

He couldn’t read and he couldn’t write, and thought those accomplishments fit only for lawyers, doctors, and parsons. But of mother wit he’d enough to stock a parish. When I was not at my lessons we were inseparable though I could never get him to cross my father’s threshold, and to all my hints that I should visit him at Burnplatts he turned a deaf ear. And the years passed, and we grew older, and went our several ways—he frequenting horse fairs and feasts, and wakes, and thumps and I minding my warp at the tail of a loom. But Fate had much in store for Ephraim and me in common and what it was the patient reader will learn anon.

* * *

Now on the very Saturday after our junketing at the Wakes I announced to Mary my pious intent to visit my father at Pole Moor, and to call in upon Mr. Turner on my way. Jim, who heard me, eyed me narrowly, and then knowingly winked the dexter eye.

“How far’s th’ Burnplatts fro’ Pole Moor?” was all he said, but said in such a tone as to make his mother glance questioningly from him to me. “Shall aw go wi’ thee, Abel?”

“You can if you like,” I said curtly, and wishing that that confounded, tell-tale colour would desert my cheeks.

“Well, aw calc’late not this bout, though mich obliged to yo’ for your hearty invitation. Aw nivver was so mich pressed i’ my life. But, as yo’ sen, there’s occasions when two’s company and three’s none.”

Now I had said no such thing.

“I tell you I’m going to see Mr. Turner on my way, and I’m not sure that he’d care to be moithered with company,” I explained, somewhat lamely, I fear.

“And I’ve made him some beef-tea and a custard,” broke in Mary. “An’ mind yo’ see he eits ’em. Aw’d go wi’ yo’ mysen an’ red th’ house up for him, but to tell th’ truth aw’m noan so keen on folk ’at go live bi theirsen i’ a hut on a moor. It’s noan Christian, an’ there’s summat at th’ back on it, or my name’s not Mary Haigh.”

It was a glorious day of early autumn, and I strode blithely up the steep ascent that led from the Valley to the Cutting. (The Cutting is a rather deep defile where the road over Stanedge dips into the Diggle Valley.) My young heart sang within me, and I felt almost ashamed of the glad glow of perfect health and rich content that made the mere living so rich a feast, even for one so poor as I, when I reached the hermit’s cot, and lifted the sneck of the door.

There was no one in the bottom room or “house,” which was all uncared for—no fire in the grate, which argued badly for the comforts a sick man should have; and again I reproached myself that I had suffered myself to be beguiled into going to the Wakes, though a quick afterthought told me that to have missed the Wakes would have been to have missed one whose dark bright eyes had haunted me day and night ever since, dancing in and out with my shuttle at the loom, and mocking me in my dreams. I took off my clogs and stole in my stocking feet up the straight and narrow staircase that led to the upper chamber. Mr. Turner was tossing and turning on the pallet, muttering in a feverish sleep. So I lied me down again as softly as I could, raked out the embers from the rusty fireplace, kindled a fire, and set about warming up the beef-tea Mary’s forethought had provided. A violent fit of coughing waked the uneasy sleeper, and I carried up a basin-full of the broth, into which I had broken some haver-bread I found on a rack above the fireplace. Mr. Turner smiled and seemed pleased to see me. I propped him up in bed, covered his thin bent shoulders with an old frieze coat, and coaxed him to sip the broth out of a leaden spoon that I had found.

“I knew you’d not forget me, Abel,” he said feebly, “and it’s good of Mrs. Haigh to have sent me this excellent soup. Convey to her my compliments and thanks. Or, stay, you’ll find a trinket or two in what I’m going to hand over to you in charge. Select a fitting one, and ask Mrs. Haigh to wear it when the old hermit’s gone; the others keep in memory of the man you have befriended, whose solitude you have shared.”

I could scarce restrain a smile. I imagined Mary wearing anything the sick man would be likely leave behind him. I thought sure his wits were leaving him. But he went on:

“Put your arm up the chimney yonder. You’ll have to pull out the sacking. Don’t be afraid of soot. It’s little enough there’s in that flue. Your right arm, and feel on the left side.”

Wondering greatly, I did as I was bid, and felt my groping fingers touch what I rightly guessed to be the handle of a box. It was a rare weight, but I got the case down and took it to the bed-side. Mr. Turner, with trembling hands, undid the collar of his shirt, and took from a thin chain around his neck a small key.

“Now, listen,” he said, “and as you value your peace hereafter keep the charge I commit to you. You’re young, Abel, and I’ve not known you long. But I think I can trust you. I am about to tell you what has never before passed my lips. I know you have wondered often who I am, and why I have lived this lonely and wretched life. It’s a sad, sad tale—a tale of sin and shame and sorrow but maybe I shall be the easier for the telling of it, and there’s that to be done which must be done if it can be done There’s retribution to be made if it can be made, and yours must be the hands to do it.”

Now it must not be supposed that all this was spoken straight off, as I have written it. It was almost gasped out, and the cold, clammy sweat stood on the poor man’s brow as the words came feebly forth from his pallid lips.

“You know me, as all about here know me, and have known me ever since, some twenty long years ago, I came to dwell, to drag out my weary years rather, in this wretched haunt in this cold, bleak, inhospitable moor—known me as Mr. Turner, the mad hermit. But that is not my name—it is Garside, the Reverend James Garside, for I am a deacon, duly presented and admitted, of the Established Church. Aye, you may well start and stare. My father was a manufacturer in Manchester. His name, too, was James. I tell you this because you may need all the particulars I can furnish. He died when I was in my second year, leaving my mother in circumstances more than comfortable, I their only child. She was but young when my father left her a widow—he was her senior by many years. She never married again, but devoted her life to the upbringing of her unworthy son. My God! my God! how have I repaid that wealth of love so unstintingly lavished upon me. She could scarce bear me out of her sight, and as I grew older rejected the counsel of her few friends that I should be sent to the Grammar School. I must have a tutor, and be taught at home.

“I think I must have been about ten years old when an event occurred that disturbed the even tenour of our placid life. One winter’s morning I had risen betimes, and it so chanced that I was the first to open the massive door that opened on to the street. The snow was falling in slow, heavy flakes. It was scarcely light. There were no passers-by. The street was deserted, and covered deep by snow. I was peering through the gloom, looking for I know not what, when I was startled by a feeble wail that seemed to come from my very feet. I became aware of a small bundle, nigh buried in the cold coverlet of snow, that rested on the top most step of the broad flight that led from the street to the door. I stooped and picked up the bundle, and brushed off the snow, and carried it hastily into the kitchen, where the maid was lighting the fire. Between us we undid the wraps, and within we found a tiny infant, but a few months old. A scrap of paper was pinned to the poor, thin dress in which the babe was clad, and on it was scrawled in a rude hand: ‘Her name is Esmeralda.’ My mother was hastily summoned from her room. I was banished the kitchen, and when I was suffered to return beheld the child washed and kempt and clad in soft, warm flannels, and slumbering peacefully before a roaring fire on my mother’s lap.

“Now, whether it was that my mother’s heart yearned for a girl child, or that the forlornness and helplessness of the babe appealed to her, or that my own delight in the foundling—whom I made no delay in claiming as my own treasure-trove—influenced her, I know not, but to all the counsels of her friends to send the infant to the workhouse she turned a deaf ear. I cannot, for time presses, and my strength ebbs fast away, tell how the infant grew in years, in strength, and grace; how we were brought up together, as though she were indeed my little sister. Now when I was nineteen years of age, and she a beautiful dark-eyed maiden some nine years younger, I was sent to the University of Oxford to pursue my studies and qualify for the ministry, to which my mother had destined me from my cradle. My vacations were spent mostly in foreign travel, making the Grand Tour, as it used to be called in my young days. And so it chanced that I saw little of Esmeralda, until, education being considered complete, my degree taken, and I admitted to deacon’s orders, I returned in my twenty-seventh year to my mother’s house to await my first curacy. And I found the little maid I had nursed in my arms and dandled on my knees a beautiful, bewitching woman, with a beauty rare it made men thrill to look upon. I suppose there must have been some strain of Eastern blood in her, for though but seventeen she looked older; her form was fuller, more rounded than those of the maidens of our colder clime, and there was a seductiveness and a passionate warmth about her whole being that allured me probably all the more that both by temperament and from my training my passions were not lightly kindled.

“I should have told you that some faint-hearted efforts had been made by my mother to ascertain the mystery of Esmeralda’s parentage. Advertisements had been inserted in the papers and the police had been communicated with shortly after Esmeralda was received into our household—more from a sense of duty on my mother’s part than from any desire she felt to part with the child. But these efforts, if efforts they could be called, bore no fruit. But I have reason to believe that when Esmeralda was in her early teens she received secret communications that revealed to her the mystery of her birth, and that she had established secret relations with the author of her being, who, I strongly suspect, preyed upon the slender allowance of pin-money my mother gave to Esmeralda.

“But I must be brief. You will have guessed already that Esmeralda and I, thus brought together again when both were in the full flush of youth, and when nature clamours for love and love’s fulfilling, loved, and loved none the less ardently that we must conceal our passion. Though my mother for me ever a tender and thoughtful parent, her indulgence I knew to have its limits. She was proud of her kith and kin—the middle classes have their family pride, Abel, not less than and perhaps with as good a reason as the upper. Moreover she had long laid her plans for my alliance. I was to mate with the daughter of an old friend of my father’s, a manufacturer like himself, a girl fair enough to look upon and well dowered to boot, and whom ’tis like enough I should have learned to love had not my heart been engrossed by Esmeralda’s image. I knew that to thwart my mother in her long-cherished design would be to court my ruin, for gentle though she was she could ill bear crossing.

“Have I told you that the man who had been my tutor as a boy and youth, who had accompanied me on my foreign travels, had remained all these years an inmate of my mother’s house, partly to guide the studies of the maid, Esmeralda, whom my mother intended for a companion, and perchance a nurse, and partly as my mother’s secretary and business manager—for my mother’s estate, so frugally did she live, and so jealously did she guard her store, had grown to no mean dimensions? This man, this viper I should rather call him, had wormed himself into my confidence. I regarded him as a friend. It was not so much that I confided to him my love for Esmeralda as that he divined it—the wonder is that my mother had not herself divined it. When I spoke to him of my fixed resolve to make Esmeralda my wife he professed the utmost alarm if my mother should become aware of my infatuation, as he termed it. He affected to dissuade me from my purpose, and when he found that I laughed his warnings to the wind he counselled me to a secret marriage—anything rather than tell my mother, though I am persuaded that had I but been frank and firm my mother’s love would in the end have proved stronger than her pride and she would have blessed our union. But, I yielded to the insidious advice of the tempter the more readily, doubtless, that I saw therein the means of gratifying my love and avoiding a rupture with a parent who, by a stroke of the pen, could leave me penniless save for the meagre pittance of a curate.

“Let me hasten to the end. My tutor secured a charming cottage in the neighbourhood of Grasmere. My mother had gone to Matlock for a three months’ cure. Esmeralda and I journeyed by coach to Gretna Green, and there were made man and wife. Look in that box, and you will find a copy of the certificate of our marriage.”

I found the document—I found other things as well that made me catch my breath, but of these anon. It was a certificate of what used to be called a “red-hot wedding,” welded on the anvil for an altar. It ran: