Читать книгу Lancashire Idylls (1898) - Marshall Mather - Страница 9

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‘What, Milly! Sitting in the dark?’ asked Mr. Penrose, as he entered the chamber of the suffering child, who was gazing through the open window at the silent stars.

‘I were just lookin' at th' parish candles, as my faither co's 'em; they burn breetsome to-neet, sir.’

‘Looking at them, or looking for them?’ queried the somewhat perplexed divine. ‘Can I bring the candles to you?’

‘Yo' cornd bring 'em ony nearer than they are. They're up yon, sithi,’ and so saying the child pointed to the evening sky.

‘So you call the stars “parish candles,” do you?’ smilingly inquired Mr. Penrose. ‘I never heard them called by that name before.’

‘It's my faither co's 'em “parish candles,” not me,’ said the child.

‘And what do you call them?’

‘Happen if I tell yo' yo'll laugh at me, as my faither does.’

‘No, I shall not. You need not be afraid.’

‘Well, I co 'em angels' een (eyes).’

‘A far prettier name than your father gives to them, Milly.’

‘An' what dun yo' think hoo co's th' dew as it lies fresh on th' moors in a mornin'?’ asked the mother, who was sitting in one of the shadowed corners of the room.

‘I cannot say, I am sure, Mrs. Lord. Milly has such wonderful names for everything.’

‘Why, hoo co's it angels' tears, and says it drops daan fro' th' een o' them as watches fro' aboon at the devilment they see on th' earth.’

‘Milly, you are a poetess!’ exclaimed the delighted minister. ‘But do you really think the angels weep? Would it not destroy the joy of that place where sorrow and sighing are no more?’

‘Well, yo' see, it's i' this road, Mr. Penrose. They say as th' angels are glad when bad folk turn good, and I suppose they'll fret theirsels a bit if th' bad folk keeps bad; and there's mony o' that mak' abaat here.’

Mr, Penrose was silent. Once more Milly was, unknown to herself furnishing him with thoughts; for, again and again, from the sickbed of this child had he gone forth with fresh fields of revelation opening before him. True, the idea of heaven's grief at earth's sin was not a pleasant one; but if joy at righteousness and repentance, why not grief at wickedness and hardness of heart?

While thus musing in the quiet of the darkening chamber, Milly turned from her contemplation of the stars with the somewhat startling question:

‘Mr. Penrose, dun yo' think there'll be yethbobs (tufts of heather) i' heaven?’

‘That's bothered her a deal latly,’ broke in the mother, with a choking voice. ‘Hoo sez hoo noan cares for heaven if hoo cornd play on th' moors, and yer th' wind, and poo yethbobs when hoo gets there. What dun yo' think abaat it, Mr. Penrose?’

Mr. Penrose was not long from college, and the metaphysics and dogmatics of the schools were more to his mind than the poetry and religion of this moorland child. If asked to discourse on personality, or expound the latest phase of German thought, he would have felt himself at home. Here, however, he who was the idol of the class-room sat silenced and foolish before a peasant girl. True, he could enter into an argument for a future state, and show how spiritual laws opposed the mundane imagination of the child. But, after all, wherein was the use?—perhaps the child was nearer the truth than he was himself. He would leave her to her own pristine fancies.

In a moment Milly continued:

‘Th' Bible says, Mr. Penrose, that i' heaven there's a street paved wi' gowd (gold). Naa; I'd raither hev a meadow wi' posies, or th' moors when they're covered wi' yethbobs. If heaven's baan to be all streets, I'd as soon stop o' this side—though they be paved wi' gowd an' o'.’

‘Listen yo', how hoo talks, Mr. Penrose. Hoo's awlus talked i' that feshion sin' hoo were a little un. Aar owd minister used to co her “God's child.” ’

Mr. Penrose was a young man, and thought that ‘Nature's child’ would be, perhaps, a more fitting name, but held his thought unuttered. Wishing Milly and her mother a ‘Good-night,’ he descended the old stone staircase to the kitchen, where Abraham Lord sat smoking and looking gloomily into the embers of the fire.

‘Has th' missus towd thee ought abaat aar Milly?’ somewhat sullenly interrogated the father.

‘Nothing of any moment,’ said Mr. Penrose. ‘Of course she could not; we were never together out of your daughter's presence.’

‘Then aw'll tell thee. Milly's baan to-morn to th' infirmary to hev her leg tan off.’

The strong man shook in the convulsive grip of his grief. No tears came to his relief; the storm was deep down in his soul; outlet there was none.

‘Mr. Penrose,’ said he, laying a hand on the minister's shoulder; ‘Mr. Penrose, if I'd ha' known afore I were wed that gettin' wed meant a child o' mine being tan fro' me and cut i' pieces by them doctor chaps, I'd never ha' wed, fond o' Martha as I wor and am. No, Mr. Penrose, I never would. They might tak' me, and do what they'n a mind wi' me, at their butcherin' shops. But her—’

Here the strong man was swept by another convulsive storm of feeling too deep for utterance. Subduing his passion by a supreme effort of will, he continued:

‘However, them as knows best says as it's her only chance, and I'm noan goin' agen it. I shall go daan wi' her mysel' to-morn.’

Milly, or ‘th' little lass o' Lord's,’ as the villagers called her, was one of those phenomenal child personalities which now and again visit this world as though to defy all laws of heredity, and remind the selfish and the mighty of that kingdom in which the little one is ruler. A bright, bonny, light-haired girl—the vital feelings of delight pulsed through all her being. Born amid the moorlands, cradled in the heather, nourished on the breezy heights of Rehoboth, she grew up an ideal child of the hills. For years her morning baptism had been a frolic across the dewy uplands; and, evening by evening, the light of setting suns kindled holy fires in her rapturous and wonder-filled eyes. The native heart, too, was in touch with the native heath; for Milly's nature was deeply poetic, many of her questions betraying a disposition and sympathy strangely out of harmony with the kindly, yet rude, stock from which she sprang. From a toddling child her eye carried sunshine and her presence peace. Unconsciously she leavened the whole village, and toned much of the harsh Calvinism that knit together its iron creed. There was not one who did not in some way respond to the magic of her voice, her mood, her presence. Even Joseph softened as she stood by the yawning graves which he was digging, and questioned him as to the dying and the dead. The old pastor, Mr. Morell, stern man that he was, used to put his hand on her head, and call her his ‘Goldilocks’; and he had once been heard to say, after leaving her, ‘And a little child shall lead them.’ Though somewhat lonely, there was neither priggishness nor precocity in her disposition; she was just herself—unspoiled from the hands of God and of Nature.

Shortly after her twelfth birthday she was caught on the moors by a heavy autumnal shower, and, unwilling to miss her ramble by returning home, pursued her way drenched to the skin. A severe illness was the consequence, an illness which left a weakness in her knee, eventually incapacitating her for all exercise whatever, and keeping her a prisoner to the house. The village doctor laboured long, but in vain was all his skill. At last a specialist from the great city beyond the hills was called, who ordered the child to be removed to the Royal Infirmary, where care, skill, and nourishment would all be within easy reach. So it came to pass one summer morning, as the sun lighted up the wide moors, and the hum of the factories in the valley began to be carried upwards towards the heights, a little crowd of folks gathered round the door of Abraham Lord's cottage to take a farewell of ‘th' little lass.’ About eight o'clock the doctor drove up, and in a few moments Milly was carried in his and her father's strong arms and gently laid in the cushioned carriage, and then slowly driven away from the home which now for the first time in her life she was leaving. The eyes of the onlookers were as moist as the dewy herbage on which they stood, and many a voice trembled in the farewell given in response to Milly's ‘Good-bye.’

Throughout the whole of that dark day Milly's mother never left the cottage; and when her husband, weary and dispirited, returned at nightfall, she could scarcely nerve herself to question him lest some word of his should add another stab to her already sorely wounded heart. When ten o'clock struck, and Abraham Lord laid his hand on the key to shoot the lock for the night, he burst into tears, and turning to his wife, said: ‘Never, my lass, wi' Milly on th' wrong side’; and for months the parents slept with an unbarred door.

‘You have a remarkable patient in Milly Lord,’ said Dr. Franks to Nurse West one morning.

‘I have indeed, doctor. I never met with another like her in all my seven years' experience.’

‘Does she talk much?’

‘At times. But I should call her a silent child; at least, she does not talk like other children. When she does talk it is to make some quaint remark, or to ask some strange question.’

‘Ah,’ said the doctor, ‘she's just asked me one. I referred her to you and the chaplain. Religion, you know, is not much in my line. But for all that, I must own it was a perplexing question.’

‘Might I ask what it was, doctor?’

‘Oh! she asked if I thought Jesus was sent here to suffer pain in order that God might find out what pain was; and if so, was it not queer that God should allow so much pain to exist. There now, nurse, you have a problem. By the way, do you think the child knows the limb has to be amputated?’

‘She has guessed as much, doctor.’

‘Does she seem to fear the operation?’

‘Not at all. She talks as though it had to be. Do you think it will be successful?’

Dr. Franks shrugged his shoulders, uttering no word by way of reply.

‘I should not like Milly to slip from us,’ continued the nurse.

‘Nor should I. We'll keep her if we can, and if she'll only help us with a good heart we may possibly manage to pull her through.’

And with a mirthless laugh the doctor turned on his heel, removing, when unobserved, his spectacles and wiping the moisture from them and from his eyes.

From the day that Milly entered the great infirmary, the charm of her childhood laid its spell upon all who came near her. Not only was the gloomy ward brighter for her presence, but patients and nurses were infected with her strange personality and undefinable influence. Even the doctors lingered a moment longer at her bedside, looking pensively into the light of those eyes whose fires had been kindled under sunny skies, and at the beauty of that face, kissed into loveliness by the wandering winds that played around Rehoboth heights.

At last the morning of the operation came, and Milly was wheeled into the theatre, where a crew of noisy students were joking and indulging in the frolics which, from time immemorial, have been the privilege of their order. As soon, however, as they caught sight of the child every voice was hushed, and quietness prevailed, for not a few already knew something of her winsomeness and beauty. As she was placed on the operating-table the sunlight fell through the lanthorn, and lighted up the golden clusters of her hair, the welcome rays calling forth from her now pale features a responsive smile. In another minute she lay peaceful and motionless under the anæsthetic—a statue, immobile, yet expressionful, as though carved by some master hand.

A burly-looking surgeon, with the sleeves of his operating coat neatly turned up, approached the table on which Milly was stretched, and in a business-like manner set about his task. Carefully handling one of his cold and glittering instruments, he paused; then bending himself over the patient, appeared as though about to make the first incision, yet hesitated.

‘What is the matter with old Rogers?’ asked the students, under their breath; and one or two of the doctors looked knowingly at each other.

There was nothing the matter, however, with old Rogers for long. He merely muttered something about it being a shame to cut into such flesh as Milly's, and proceeded to go calmly through his work, like the old hand that he was.

The operation was successful, and yet Milly seemed to make no satisfactory progress. The old flow of life returned not, and a settled gloom rested over her once merry heart. She was as one suffering from an indefinable hunger; even she herself knew not what it was she wanted. Unremitting was the attention shown, nurses and doctors alike doing their utmost, even to works of supererogation, on her behalf. Week by week her parents visited her, while there was not a patient in the ward who would not have sacrificed a half of her own chances of recovery, if by so doing she could have ensured hers. All, however, seemed in vain; rally she could not. The ward oppressed her, and the gloomy autumn clouds that hung over the wilderness of warehouses upon which her eye rested day by day canopied her with despair. She listened for the wind—but all she heard was its monotonous hum along the telegraph wires that stretched overhead. She looked for the birds—but all she saw was the sooty-winged house-sparrow that perched upon the eaves. She longed for the stars—but the little area of sky that grudgingly spared itself for her gaze was oftener clouded than clear as the night hour drew on. The truth was, she was pining for her native heath; but she knew it not, nor did her kindly ministrants.

In the next bed to Milly's lay a young woman slowly dying of an internal malady, whose home, too, was far away among the moors, and whose husband came week by week to visit her. On one of these visits he brought with him a bunch of flowers—for the most part made up of the ‘wildings of Nature’—among which was a tuft of heather in all the glory of its autumnal bloom. Turning towards the sick child, the poor woman reached out her wasted arm, and throwing a spray on to Milly's counterpane, said:

‘Here, lass, I'll gi' thee that.’

In a moment Milly's eyes flashed light, and the bloom of the moorland flower reflected itself in the blush of her cheeks. Throwing up both hands, and wild with a tide of new life, she cried:

‘Nurse! nurse! Sithee—a yethbob—a yethbob!’

From that hour commenced Milly's convalescence. What medicine and nursing failed to accomplish was carried to a successful issue by ‘a tuft of heather.’ For Milly did not die—indeed, she still lives; and although unable to roam and romp the moors that lie in great sweeps around her cottage home, she sits and looks at ‘th' angels' een’—as she still calls the stars—believing that in those heavenly watchers are the eyes that slumber not, nor sleep.