Читать книгу Tom Pinder, Foundling - D. F. E. Sykes - Страница 6

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THE Hanging Gate is a public-house of venerable aspect. It stands at the corner of one of four cross ways, where the road from the summit of Harrop Edge cuts the turnpike from Leeds to Manchester. It pays rates in the township of Diggle, and to Diggle it properly belongs; but the small cluster of tumble-down cottages that constitutes a very small hamlet rejoices in the name of Wakey, a name whose origin has hitherto baffled the researches of local antiquarians. The inn itself is a low, two-storied, rambling building. Its rooms are so low that a moderately tall man must dodge the oaken rafters. There is much stabling, now largely abandoned to the rats, for the pristine glory of the Hanging Gate departed with the stage coach. A long horse-trough by the side of the inn front still stands to remind the wayfarer of the days when the highway was quick with traffic, but the sign itself bears eloquent testimony of decay and fallen fortunes though it still flaunts its ancient legend on a miniature crate that rocks and creaks over the narrow doorway:

“This Gate hangs well and hinders none;

Refresh and pay and travel on.”

But on a certain winter’s night of 183—, when this story opens, the guest more bent upon refreshing than travelling on might have pleaded good excuse. Outside, the snow lay upon field and road knee-deep, the thatches, gables, and very faces of the scattered houses of Wakey were splashed and bespattered with snow, which for days had fallen in big flakes, silent and sad as the grey leaves of latest autumn, making thick the air as with the lighting of grasshoppers. The moon in the low-hanging sky was veiled by heavy masses of dark cloud that stole across the heavens like mutes oppressed by the sombre garb of woe. Signs of life about the Wakey there seemed none, save the mellowed light that shone across the bisecting roads from the curtained lattices of the Hanging Gate. It was eight o’clock and the hand-loom weavers or mill-hands habiting the small stone-build houses that straggled from the valley up the bleak sides of Harrop Edge had gone to bed, not so much because they were weary as to save fire and light. The village smithy flanking the stables of the Hanging Gate was closed and the smith himself, big burly Jim o’ Little Hannah’s had forged his last shoe and blown the last blast from his bellows, poured his last pint down his throat in the neighbouring taproom and trudged home to his little wife and large family. The few frequenters of the tap-room had tarried till tarry they might no longer, for times were bad, money was scarce and the credit given by the best of innkeepers has its limits.

Mrs. Betty Schofield, the buxom hostess of the Hanging Gate was no wise dismayed by the slackness of her custom. Rumour had it that Betty was a very warm woman. She had been some years a widow, and her husband had left her, as the gossips said, well worth picking up. Look at her as she sits in the long kitchen before a roaring fire of mingled coal, peat and logs. Below the medium height, with wavy brown hair, a soft brown eye, a dimpled chin, now inclined to the double, a full and swelling bust, a mouth not too small and smiling lips that parted only to display a perfect set of teeth—it does one good to look upon her rosy cheek.—Happy the man, you say, who shall own those ample charms and for whom shall beam the ready smile or soften the warm brown eyes.

There are another two seated in the brick-tiled kitchen. Mary o’ Stuart’s commonly called Moll o’ Stute’s, and Mr. William Black. Moll shall have precedence in honour of her sex and calling, a noble calling, of a verity, for Mary was the midwife of the valley. She is scantily clad for the time of the year, yet you judge that it is not from cold that she huddles by the fireside, but rather for convenience of lighting the black clay pipe she so intently sucks, one long skinny brown arm resting on her knee, her eyes fixed upon the glowing fire that casts its flickering light upon the sharp hard-featured face. Her black hair is long and though streaked with grey is still abundant, and rebellious locks, escaped from the coil, stray over the scraggy shoulders, round which a shabby, faded, flannel shawl hangs loosely. No one knows where Moll lives, if it be not at the Hanging Gate, which, if not her home, is for Moll a sort of Poste Restante, and if not there to be always seen there she can always be heard of. Moll has less need of fixed abode than ordinary mortals. She has reached the age of fifty or more, and still bears her virgin name and owns to neither chick nor child, though there were that breathed mysterious hints of wild passages of thirty years gone bye, when Moll’s cheek was soft and rosy and her form, though tall, lacked nought of grace and suppleness. “A saucy queen,” the village grannies said, “and one that always thought herself too good for common folk; but pride had had its fall,”—a reflection that seemed to bring comfort to the toothless, hollow-cheeked beldames as they wheezed asthmatically of the scandals of a youth long fled, when Mary’s foot light upon the village green and her laugh was readiest at feast or wakes.

On the opposite side of the hearth sat Mr. Black, the village Schoolmaster, a little lean man well past his meridian, his hair sparse and thin, and sparse and thin all his form and frame. He is clean shaven, but his lips are firm and his eye bright and keen. Though he has the lean and hungry look of the born conspirator, never did such a look so belie a man; for a gentler being never breathed than William Black, nor one more secure in the affection and esteem of high and low for many miles around. He was not a that country man and how or by what fate, driven by what adversity or sore mischance, he had drifted to that wild neighbourhood none presumed to know. He kept a day school for boys and girls, whose parents paid fourpence a child per week when they could afford it, and less when they couldn’t—generally less. Then on alternate week-nights he kept a night-school where strapping and ambitious youths from loom or farm or bench, whose education had been neglected in their tender youth sought painfully to learn to read and write and sum. These were known to pay as much as twopence a lesson. Mr. Black—even in those irreverent days and parts, where few even of the better sort escape a nick-name, he was always called Mr. Black,—was a bachelor, and his modest household and Mr. Black himself were ruled by a spinster sister, shrill of voice, caustic of speech, with profound contempt for her brother’s softness, but unceasing and untiring in the care of the household gods, and happiest in those “spring cleanings” that were not confined to spring. But to-night Mr. Black has fled before his sister’s voice and twirling mop, and a look of seraphic content rests upon his face as he meditatively puffs his long churchwarden and sniffs the fragrant odour of the mulled ale that simmers in the copper vessel, shaped like a candle-snuffer, or, as Mr. Black reflected, like a highly burnished dunce’s cap, and which the plump hand of Mrs. Schofield had thrust nigh to its rim in the very heart of the ruddy fire. The schoolmaster’s thin legs, clad in stout stockings of native wool, knit by Miss Black’s deft fingers, were crossed before the blaze and the grateful warmth falls upon them, the while the clogging snow slowly melts from his stout boots.

“Redfearn o’ Fairbanks is late to-night,” he said at length, after a silence broken only by the click of Mrs. Schofield’s steel knitting needles.

“Aye, it’s market day in Huddersfilt, yo’ know, Mr. Black, an’ th’ roads ’ll be bad to-neet. But Fairbanks ’ll win through if th’ mare dunnot fall an’ break his neck.”

“Th’ mare’s nooan foaled ’at ’ll break Tom o’ Fairbank’s neck,” said Moll o’ Stuart’s, grimly. “It’s spun hemp that bides for him, if there’s a God i’ heaven.”

“Whisht yo’ now, Moll, an’ quit speakin’ o’ your betters, leastwise if you canna speak respectful.”

“Betters! Respectful! Quo’ she,” retorted Molly with a defiant snort, pulling hard at her filthy cuddy.

“Aye betters!” snapped the landlady, or as nearly snapped as lips like hers could snap. “It’s me as says it, an’ me as ’ll stand to it. Wheer i’ all th’ parish will yo find a freer hand or a bigger heart nor Tom o’ Fairbanks? Tell me that, yo’ besom.”

“Aye free enew,” said Molly curtly.

Mrs. Schofield bridled indignantly.

“Oh! It’s weel for yo’ to sit by mi own fireside an’ eat o’ mi bread an’ nivver so happy as when yo’re castin’ up bye-gones ’at should be dead an’ buried long sin.”

“Aye, aye, let the dead past bury its dead,” put in the schoolmaster soothingly.

“An’ what if Redfearn o’ Fairbanks ware a bit leet gi’en i’ his young days,” went on the irate hostess. “He’s nooan th’ first an’ he’ll nooan be th’ last. He’s nobbut human like most folk ’at ivver I heard tell on. He’s honest enough now, if he’s had to wear honest. An’ it’s weel known.....”

But what was so well known that the voluble tongue of Mrs. Schofield was about to repeat it at large shall not be here set down, nor was destined that night to enlighten the company; for the outer door was opened, and a gust of keen wind laden with feathery flakes of snow whirled up the narrow passage, well nigh extinguishing the slender light of the oil lamp on the wall, and causing the great burnished metal dishes and the very warming-pan itself to sway gently on their hooks.

“It’s Fairbanks, hissen,” said Mrs. Schofield “Talk o’ the de’il,” muttered the irrepressible Moll but no one heeded.

Then was heard much stamping of feet in the outer passage and kicking of boot toes on the lintel of the door and not a little coughing and clearing of the throat.

“Ugh! Shut the door to, man,” cried a hearty voice; “do yo’ want me to be blown into th’ back-yard?”

The heavy bolt-studded door was pressed back and there strode into the room a tall well-built man. Top-booted, spurred, with riding-whip in hand, and wearing the long heavy-lapetted riding-coat of the period—a hale, hearty man fresh-complexioned, with close cropped crisping hair, the face clean shaven after the fashion of the times, a masterful man, you saw at a glance, and one who knew it. Though he was over the borderland of his fifth decade, time had neither wrinkled his ruddy face nor streaked his crisp brown hair. Behind him as he strolled into the kitchen, shambled a thick-set, saturnine, grim-visaged churl, who knew more of his master’s business and far more of his master’s secrets than the mistress of Fairbanks herself. It was Aleck, the shepherd and general factotum of Fairbanks farm, Aleck the silent, Aleck the cynic, Aleck the misogynist, against whose steeled heart successive milk-maids and servant wenches had cast in vain the darts and arrows of amorous eyes and who was spitefully averred to care only for home-brewed ale, and the sheep-dog, Pinder that now, already, was shaking the snow oft his shaggy coat preparatory to curling himself up before the fire.

“Sakes alive! It’s a rough ’un, good folk,” said the master of Fairbanks, “Good night to yo’ Betty, an’ to yo’, Mr. Black. I was feart aw should miss yo’. Give me a stiff ’un o’ rum hot wi’ sugar an’ a splash o’ lemon; an’ yo’ Aleck, will’t ha’ a pint o’ mulled?” Which redolent compound Mrs. Schofield was now pouring into a capacious pitcher.

“Tha knows better, mester,” was Aleck’s blunt reply. “A quart o’ ale, missis, an’ nooan too much yead on it—no fal-lals for me, mi stummack’s too wake.”

This was an unusually long speech for Aleck, and he sank exhausted on a settle that ran beneath a long narrow window, whilst the dog prone upon the hearth, his jaws resting on his fore paws, feigned sleep, but blinked at times from beneath twitching eyebrows at the rugged visage of the tanned, weather-beaten herdsman.

“An’ yo’ stabled th’ mare aw nivver heerd th’ stable door oppen?” queried Mrs Schofield.

“Nay, I left Bess at th’ Floating Lights. She cast a shoe coming over th’ Top. So we’n walked daan an welly up to mi chin aw’ve bin more nor once—it’s th’ heaviest fall aw mind on.”

“But you’re late Fairbanks,” said Mr Black. “I looked for you this hour and more. Have you had a good market?”

“Aye nowt to grumble at, an’ we Aleck? Sold forty head o’ beast an’ bought thirty as fine cattle as ever yo’ clapped e’en on, eh, Aleck? An’ we’re nooan strapped yet,” he laughed, as he drew a leather pouch from an inner pocket and cast it jingling on to the table. “Here Betty, put that i’th cupboard.”

“Have yo’ counted it?” asked Mrs. Schofield, handling the greasy bag gingerly.

“Count be danged,” said Mr. Redfearn, “saving your presence, schoolmaster. Gi’ me another jorum. Sup up, Aleck.”

Aleck supped up and silently handed his pewter to Mrs Schofield.

“But it wasn’t the market that kept me so late,” went on Mr Redfearn. “There were a meeting o’ th’ free holders o’ th’ district to consider the new Reform Bill. We met i’ th’ big room at th’ George, but it all came to nowt; though Harry Brougham talked and talked fit to talk a hen an’ chickens to death. Gosh! Our Mary’s a good ’un, but she couldn’t hold a can’le to Brougham.”

“Aye, did you hear Mr. Brougham?” asked Mr Black, with interest. “What manner of man is he?”

“Why nowt much to look at—aw could blow him away like thistle down; more like a monkey up a stick nor owt ’at I can think on. But talk! You should hear him! But he didn’t talk my vote out o’ me for all that. King and Church for me, say I. Th’ owd ways were good enough for my father an’ my father’s father an’ aw reckon they’ll do for me.”

“But he’s a marvellous man,” said Mr. Black. “Who but he could leave the Assizes at York, travel, there and back, over two hundred miles after the rising of the Court, address half-a-dozen meetings and be back next day taking his briefs—I think they call them—as fresh as new paint.”

“Aye, but that wern’t Brougham,” said Redfearn. “It wer’ Owdham browies.”

“Eh?” queried the schoolmaster.

“Aye, Owdham browies. I had it from a sure source. Th’ other day i’ th’ Court Harry wer’ fair done an’ it wer’ getting late. ‘Won’t your ludship adjourn, now?’ He says, as mild as milk.”

“‘No, sir,’ says th’ judge,‘I shall finish this case if I sit till midnight.’ Yo’ see he knew Harry only wanted to be off spoutin’ an’ th’ owd judge wer’ a Tory.”

“‘Very well, my lord,’ says Harry an’ turns to his clerk, an’ in a jiffy there war a basin o’ haver-bread wi’ hot beef drippin’ poured on it an pepper an salt an’ a pint o’ old port wine stirred in, an’ Harry spooinnin’ it into him like one o’clock, slap under th’ owd Judge’s nose. Th’owd felly wer’ a bit hungry hissen, an’ th’ smell set his mouth a watterin’ an’ he jumped up an’ adjourned th’ Court, an’ if he didn’t say ‘curse yo’,’ they say he looked it. But what ails Pinder?”

The sheep-dog had pricked its ears, then listened intently, then gone into the passage whining and growling.

“Pinder thinks it’s time to be goin’ whom’,” said Aleck, as he followed the cur into the passage. The dog laid its nose to the bottom of the thick door; whined and began frantically to scratch at the door beneath which the snow had drifted in thin sprays. When Aleck neared the dog it leaped on him and then with looks more eloquent than speech compelled him to the door.

“Ther’s summat up,” said Aleck, as he opened the door. “Bring th’ lantern, missus.”

The dog bounded out, set its head to the ground and howled dismally. Aleck stooped, his big hands swept away a big mound of snow and he lifted something in his arms. “Mak’ way theer,” he cried, as nearly excited as ever Aleck had been known to be; “mak’ way; it’s a woman an’ oo’s dead, aw’m thinkin’.”

He bore his burthen, almost covered with its cold winding sheet of snow, into the warm kitchen, and laid it before the fire. Mrs. Schofield had snatched a cushion from the settle and placed it under the head of the lifeless figure. The men had risen to their feet and gazed helplessly at the rigid form. They saw the fair young face, marble white and set, fair tresses, sodden through. Upon the feet were shoes of flimsy make, the heel gone from one of them. A slight cape covered a thin dress of good make and material, but far too tenuous for winter wear, and all was travel-stained and soaked through.

Moll o’ Stute’s thrust the men aside. “Go whom,” she said, “yo’re nooan wanted here.” She put her hand into the woman’s bosom. “Gi’ me some brandy,” she said. It was there already, held in Mrs. Schofield’s trembling hand. A little passed the lips and gurgled down the throat. A little more and the potent spirit did its saving work. The white thin hand twitched, the eyes partly opened, then closed again as a faint sigh breathed from the pallid lips.

“Put th’ warming pan i’ th’ best bed, an’ leet a fire upstairs,” commanded Moll. “I’st be wanted afore mornin’ or aw’st be capped.”

“Shall Aleck fetch Dr. Garstang?” ventured Mr. Redfearn.

“Garstang fiddlesticks,” snapped Moll. “This is wark for me, aw tell yo’. There’ll be one more i’ this house bi morn, and happen one less, God save us. But get you gone an’ moither me no more.”