Читать книгу Judith of the Red Hand - J. Monk Foster - Страница 13

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A year and some two or three months have passed since we chronicled the woe of Judith and marriage of her old lover. It was autumn now; the cornfields were shorn and the grain garnered; the dried, sapless leaves were beginning to fall; and the quiet, humdrum life of Saxilham was going on much as usual.

Judith Trafford was still at work at the mouth of the Hill End Mine. That time she had named to her would-be wooer, Roderick Norbury, had come and gone many weeks since, and the man had got his answer. That it was not to his liking may be gathered from the fact that the pitman had been on the spree lately; was rougher, gruffer, and more lawless than of old; and that he and the handsome, red-haired pit-brow lassie passed without speaking.

Of her own tribulation never a whisper had crossed the deep-hearted, strong-willed girl's lips. To all gossip, fanciful or truthful, she had paid no heed. The sympathetic or curious queries of her best friends had been ignored; nor was she ever known to speak a harsh word of the man who had abandoned her, or the woman who had taken her place.

Nor did Judith either seek or evade the new master of Saxilhurst, and his happy, gentle-natured wife. In the village street, or at the colliery where they came together occasionally, the maid of the mine never betrayed herself by word or sign—even when soft-tongued Mrs. Gabriel Blackwood addressed her. If her heart was on fire, her brain reeling, she was stone to all seeming, and this iciness of demeanour made folk say that the girl had never really cared for her lost lover.

Outwardly, Judith's life was ordered much in the fashion of former days. She was more chary of speech and sadder-eyed, she had no gossip for her workmates, and never laughed at their womanly jests and sallies; her evenings were spent mostly at home, and the Sabbath often saw her at Sunday school or church.

By this time everybody knew, or seemed to think, that a fierce quarrel had sundered Gabriel and Judith. Norbury had got that story bruited about and no one had dreamt of questioning its truth. Blackwood had done well for himself; but the lass he had given up was far and away the handsomest of all the lassies in the neighbourhood, and Gabriel's espousal of his old master's daughter had been the signal for honester, if less comely lads, to lay their love and service at Judith's feet.

Her answer to them was that given to Roderick Norbury. She loved no man on Earth—and never loved one; and would never marry until she did. Her suitors left her humbled, disappointed, and wondering why God had made so gloriously beautiful a woman with so little heart. No wonder Gabriel Blackwood had gone elsewhere to wed.

The passing of that year and three months had brought a wondrous change in the old manager and new master of the Hill End Colliery. His marriage seemed to have cast him into a position for which nature had expressly moulded him. One born to the power he now wielded, the money he had at command, could not have carried himself with more grace, dignity, and self-possession.

Within a month of his wedding Nancy Haliburton he had ceased to be manager merely of the Hill End Mine; he was master thereof, and all men knew it; while a new man was filling his former position. This had been his wife's urgent wish; the tender-hearted creature could not bear to think that this big, handsome demi-god she called her husband, should face the perils of the pit when there was no need; and he had given way with a good grace.

But the loving and trusting woman had done much more than that. When her wedded life was only some few weeks' old she insisted upon her lord becoming absolutely master of all she possessed. It was the utmost she could do or think of to testify her unbounded love and faith, and his mild protests were perhaps not intended to dissuade her. Even her solicitor's strenuous advice was ignored and soon Gabriel Blackwood was not master in name merely, but in fact as well.

To do Gabriel no more than justice, it must be written that the implicit trust of his doting spouse was never betrayed. If he did not love her passionately, he respected her greatly. He was a tender, courteous, deferential lover; in the course of their short wedded life he never occasioned Nancy a moment's anxiety or pain; and when she bore him a son, 15 months after marriage, the loving, simple-hearted woman's cup of joy was full to overflowing.

From the outlet discerning men of business were led to expect great things of Blackwood. He was a born leader of men; had the persuasiveness and personal charm which made men eager to follow him; was shrewd, clever, resolute, self-controlled; had a quick and fertile intelligence; was full of ideas and plans for the future, and with only such measure of success as he was entitled to expect, the future was certain to hail him as one of those whom Carlyle was fond of designating Captains of Industry.

And soon the people of Saxilham were furnished with evidence of Blackwood's enterprise and intentions. In less than half a year after Gabriel became a Benedict he had held consultations with the different landowners in the village and neighbourhood; had secured the option of working all such seams of coal as might be found under the soil; and that wise provision made, boring operations were forthwith begun in various quarters by skilled workers.

Hitherto, it had been held by most miners and mining engineers that the only profitable seam of coal in the vicinity was that then worked at the Hill End Mine; but Silas Haliburton, Gabriel's father, and others, had thought differently, and now our new master was resolved to put the matter to the proof.

Old fogies of the mining world had smiled or sneered at Blackwood's rashness; and talked about putting a beggar on horseback and letting him ride to the devil; but when, after some two or three months' work, it became known that the earth-borers had discovered a couple of valuable seams of coal, and that Gabriel had obtained the right to work them on most favourable terms, the erstwhile scoffers had all wry mouths.

The mantle of comparative opulence and power which had fallen so suddenly upon Gabriel Blackwood became him well, and fitted him like a second skin. Handsome, cheery of speech, warm-natured and open-handed, even his workmen had good things to say of him. For once the old saying that an ex-workman makes the worst employer proved wrong. Some slight concessions granted to the Hill End miners had earned their good will, and the half-hundred of sinkers and labourers working at the two new pits being sunk within a stone's cast of the old adit were ready to swear to a man that they had never known a better master.

One night, between eleven and twelve, it chanced that Judith Trafford was making her way home along the Saxilham high-road, just outside the village. The late autumn was fast verging into winter now; dead leaves lay thick underneath the trees; a full moon rode high in the blue-black vault of heaven; and save herself, not a wayfarer was visible in the quiet, light-flooded lane.

The pit-brow girl had been on a visit to one of her friends and workmates who was lying seriously ill; various matters had detained her much longer than she had anticipated, but the beauty of the night and the shortness of her homeward journey had made Judith refuse an escort.

Passing the entrance to Saxilhurst, Judith chanced to glance that way, and saw lights burning in the big stone house beyond the trees. Then she remembered that Mrs. Gabriel Blackwood was said to be seriously indisposed.

With an irrepressible sigh she hurried on, quickening her pace, and she had gained that point where the highroad sloped down into the valley, over the bridge and into the village, when a man's form loomed up in front. He was coming towards her slowly but with the moon at his back his face was in deep shadow, and they were abreast before she recognised him. It was Gabriel Blackwood.

"Judith!" he cried, in a strange, hard tone. "You here and at this hour! Where have you been?"

"What is that to you, Gabriel Blackwood?" was her angry retort. "Are you my keeper? Cannot I go and come as I wish?"

"I had forgotten, Judith," he said, humbly. "Forgive me, won't you? I have been terribly upset—I rushed out of the house to cool my brain!" and as he spoke he swept his hand over a sweat-dewed brow.

She made as if to glide away; but he stopped her by flinging wide his arms, asking in a tense, nervous, excited way, as he stooped towards her:

"Do you know what has happened, Judith?"

"What can happen now to concern me?" She flung those words in his face like stones, adding sharply. "Get out of my way, Gabriel Blackwood! I have no wish to be seen with you at such a time as this!"

"Judith!" and his voice sank to a whisper, "I am free! I am free! Poor Nancy is dead; died in my arms half-an-hour ago. And you are single still! Judith! Judith! Have you no word to say to me?"

Next instant he had clasped her in his arms, drawn her to him, and was raining fierce, hot, swift kisses upon her face and lips. When he released her she was white with anger, sobbing with shame; and darting past him she ran quickly towards the village, leaving him there, half-ashamed, too, at his own vehemence.