Читать книгу A Man of the Moors - Sutcliffe Halliwell - Страница 7

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At eight of the next evening, Griff Lomax was surprised by a visit from the preacher—surprised, because only a few hours ago they had parted at the end of a long ride together.

Gabriel wore an air of clumsy craftiness which sat laughably ill upon him.

"It's time you paid your respects at the mill, don't you think?" he said, shifting from foot to foot.

"Oh, the wind blows there, does it?" laughed Griff, noting that the preacher's face was more carefully shaven than usual, and that he wore a shirt of fine linen.

"I know them, Griff, and you don't. It seems but neighbourly to go together."

"You saw her this afternoon, I fancy? Gabriel, boy, you're in a bad way. I have work to do; can't you wait till to-morrow?"

Lomax was in a teasing humour, and refused to take the preacher's—or any other—matters seriously.

"Well, of course—if you can't come," murmured Gabriel, with crestfallen looks.

"He can come, Gabriel; and, what is more, I shall see that he does," said Mrs. Lomax, who had entered unobserved.

Griff had given her a hint as to how matters stood, and the old lady was entirely of her son's mind, "that it would make a man of Gabriel."

Griff took his mother in both arms and lifted her as if she had been a baby.

"Oh, you threaten me, little mother, do you?" cried he looking fierce.

"Griff, what a boy you are—put me down again. I shall never be able to train you properly," she added whimsically. "I can't learn the trick of being angry with you."

"Honour thy father and thy mother," murmured Gabriel Hirst, scandalized for the hundredth time by Griff's relations with the old lady. "I wish Griff was more respectful."

The end of it was, of course, that Lomax set off with his friend. Through the churchyard they gained the moor, and thence struck across to the foot of Ling Crag village. The last of the sunset was dying over the heath, and something in the aspect of that well-loved country of his touched an inner chord in the preacher.

"It's sweet and clean, Griff," he said presently. "It seems to be telling me not to take shame if——"

He broke off there, and Griff supplied finish and answer alike in his brief, "You can believe it, Hirst."

They crossed the stile on their left, and pushed up the darkening valley. The stream brawled beside them; from a farm on the crest of the ridge came the clatter of milking-pails and the guttural cries of the farmer's men. The tail of a stiff west wind blew down the Dene, and Gabriel Hirst, for a few brief moments, threw his sins to the breeze and let it make what it would of them. But his heart misgave him when they stood at Miller Rotherson's door. The maid was long in responding to his knock, and his disquietude grew almost to a panic; he would have turned and fled, had he been alone.

Then, after Nancy had admitted them and shown them into the parlour where the miller was smoking his pipe, Gabriel could find no word to say, and Lomax had to take the initiative. Old Rotherson took stock of the stranger, decided that he liked the hang of him, and declared it was downright neighbourly to pay him a call in this way.

"Well," laughed Griff, "apart from anything else, I was curious to see the man who could make Dene Mill pay. When I was last at home the old place had been unlet for years, and people said that the big millers near the towns had it all their own way nowadays."

"And there was no room for the smaller men, they told you? Oh, yes, they told me that tale, too, when I started here. They were wrong, Mr. Lomax. I said, the first time I saw the mill, that a man who could let all that water-power run to waste, day in and day out, deserved to starve. I trusted a little in Providence, and a good deal in my own head, and I got the place dirt cheap on a long lease. I supply half the countryside now, and am bidding fair to secure the other half. The big towns are too far from Marshcotes and Ling Crag and the scattered farmhouses that hug the moor."

"Providence, Mr. Rotherson——" Gabriel began, then stopped. His spiritual arguments grew tangled, for his carnal ear had detected the swish-swish of skirts along the passage.

"So this is Gabriel's lady," thought Lomax, as Greta came in, with a pretty bashfulness that suited her well. "There seems more excuse for his lunacy than there did."

"This is my little girl, Mr. Lomax," said the miller, with an explanatory wave of his churchwarden pipe.

Gabriel Hirst watched the girl's unformed bow, and the shy uplifting of her eyes to Griff's. A sudden pang struck through him, taking him unawares. Not till this moment had he seen his friend in the light of a possible rival.

Greta was perverse to-night. Instinctively she fell to comparing the little points of manner, dress, speech, in which the two men differed. She grew angry with the preacher for compelling such comparison; now and then she blushed for Gabriel Hirst, as she had not blushed when he came upon her with her little bare feet paddling in the water. She had taken the only vacant chair, which chanced to be close to Griff's: Hirst sat by the miller at the other side of the room, and tried to talk, listening eagerly the while for scraps of the conversation that was passing between the other two.

"And how do you like our wild country?" asked Griff, by way of making idle chit-chat.

Gabriel was in the middle of a polemical discussion with old Rotherson, but he paused for Greta's answer. She glanced across at the preacher and saw that he was listening.

"Well enough," she said, with a toss of the head. "But the people are like the country—rather too wild, don't you think?"

The preacher writhed in his chair; it was a girl's unbalanced coquetry, yet it cut straight to his simple heart. And the two on the other side of the fireplace went on with their light talk, and Greta let no chance of a stab go by, knowing well that the man who presumed to care for her would hear her every word. Lomax, seeing by the man's face how things were going, strove to lead his companion into quieter channels; but her wit was nimble, and, no matter what the topic might be, she made it good for a covert gibe at Gabriel.

"Greta, lass, it's about time we had some glasses in," said the miller at length. "Smoking's dry work without a drop of whisky to help it down. You take a dram now and then, Mr. Lomax?"

"That I do."

"I thought you looked that sort, somehow," said the miller, with an involuntary glance at Gabriel.

When the whisky had been brought in, with icy, beaded water from the well-spring just without the house door; when old Rotherson had allowed his guest to mix him a glass, and had entreated him, with a jovial twinkle, "not to drown the miller;" when Griff had helped himself to a liberal half-and-half, which the strength of his head warranted—it occurred to Lomax to effect a redistribution of seats. Gabriel, seeing him hovering vaguely on the outskirts of the hearthrug, at length divined that he had an opportunity of sitting beside the girl; he moved clumsily across the floor, and Greta frowned as she watched him.

"I was at chapel on Sunday night," she observed.

"So I saw. Did you—did you——"

"Like your sermon?" she finished demurely. "I suppose I did, only—I was disappointed. You have such a reputation for—wildness—and I wanted to hear you really inspired."

The miller caught her words.

"Greta, don't be so forward with your tongue. It isn't fair to badger a man on a week-day about the work he does on Sunday."

"But Mr. Hirst badgers people on a week-day, father, about the things they don't do on Sunday. It's only tit for tat."

"God knows I mean it for the best," muttered Gabriel, too low for any but Greta to hear.

She glanced at him, and dropped her air of mockery. A softer light came into her grey eyes. Then again she looked across the hearth, and saw how at home the two men were with their pipes and glasses; and back her eyes travelled to the preacher, in his ill-cut clothes of black, glooming there with neither pipe in his mouth nor glass at his side, his hands sitting lonely on his knees. "If only he weren't such a woman," she murmured, and rose to bid them all good night.

Gabriel sat in his corner, after she had gone, without word or motion. He felt like one who has sold his soul to the devil, and been cheated of his price at the end of it all. Where was the swift enthusiasm for the Word that had braced him to ten years of fervid preaching? Gone. Where was his feud with the flesh? Swallowed up in the depths of two grey eyes. What had he gained? Scorn that was harder to bear than sin, mockery which no wrestling with the Adversary had taught him how to parry.

Griff, meanwhile, talked glibly to the miller, hoping to cover his friend's moroseness.

"There is land attached to the mill yet? Do you farm it, as your predecessor did?"

Old Rotherson smiled grimly.

"Yes, I farm it—after a fashion. But it's sadly like trying to skin a flint, as the saying goes. You've a hard country up here, Mr. Lomax."

"For grass, yes. But we're fine when it comes to growing heather."

"And what good is heather, I'd like to know?" quoth the practical miller. "It will make a broom to sweep my floors with, but what else can you do with it? There's one other thing that grows well hereabouts, though; one of my fields is as full as it will hold of parsley, and I can't make it out. Never a bit of parsley-seed have I sown; yet up it comes as if the seed had been raining from the sky."

Griff chuckled, and his host glanced at him inquiringly.

"Hares are very fond of parsley; wonderfully fond," murmured the younger man, with a sly look in his eyes.

"Well, so they are. Only last night I was looking out of my bedroom window, and I counted five all at once in the field. But that doesn't help me to know how the parsley came there."

"It is curious," said Griff. But he hinted never a word of the old-time nights when he and Jack o' Ling Crag had gone out salting their neighbours' fields with parsley-seed.

They rambled on from this topic to that, till they were startled by a mighty sob that came from across the hearth. Gabriel Hirst, wrapped all this while in his own miserable thoughts, had instinctively given vent to the despair at his heart.

"Nay, nay, lad," said the miller, kindly. "You're overwrought a bit. Take a drop of strong drink, and you'll see the world in a better light." He got up from his armchair, and poured out a tolerable measure of the spirit, never stopping to think that his goodwill might be misdirected. The preacher took the glass from his hands.

"I wouldn't, if I were you, old fellow," interposed Lomax; "you're not used to it, and——"

But a devil had come into Gabriel's eyes.

"I'll go my own way," he said sullenly, and swallowed the tumblerful in three big gulps. They said good night to the miller soon after—it was past eleven—and the preacher's step was uneven as he left the room.

The mill stream was dancing with the moonbeams through Hazel Dene, but Gabriel was in no humour to mark such trivial beauty. He stopped when they reached the little pool with the pine-log on its bank. He gripped Lomax's arm and gazed into his face.

"She was mine that day, Griff Lomax. I wish to God I'd never brought you here, to spoil a blessed Sabbath's work."

"Man, you're a fool. Come home to bed, before you pick a quarrel with some one who is not your friend."

"Friend? Yes, and a pretty friend you've shown yourself." A hiccough had intruded itself into the preacher's voice, as the fresh air made headway with the whisky. He laughed like a madman, and sat himself down heavily on the log. "The flesh, the flesh, the flesh!" he yelled, with a hiccough between each word. Then he fell to crooning like a child; he tucked his sable legs under him, and swore that the preacher was topping the rise on the opposite side of the stream. Finally, he rose from his seat, and regarded the other with grave inquiry. "Why does the stream want to get to the sea?" he demanded. "The ways of the Lord are surely strange?"

"I give it up, old chap. Come home to bed, I tell you."

Griff threaded his arm through Hirst's, and led him, steadier on his feet now and meek as a lamb, to his own door. Latches were unknown in Ling Crag, but the preacher always carried the door-key with him; he was often abroad at nights, and neither Betty Binns nor her husband, who slept in the house, could be expected to wait up for him at these times. Gabriel Hirst made two or three ineffectual assaults on the door, then handed the key to Lomax.

"Griff," he said, with unsober cunning, "I'm a sinful man, and vengeance shall come like a thief in the night—but I shouldn't like Betty to hear. Help me to bed, Griff, for old times' sake."

When Lomax came out into the moonlight again, after locking up the house and pushing Gabriel's key under the mat, the smile on his lips was a tender one. "The pace is a bit swift for old Gabriel nowadays," he muttered. "He's been drunk for the first time in his life, and in love for the first time. It will do him good in the long run, because there's solid bottom under that hysterical piety of his. But, Lord, what a time of retribution he will make for himself!"

He strolled along the highroad in the direction of Wynyates: the night was calm, and he felt in no humour to return. Greta and her queer, two-sided lover slipped gradually from his mind, and Kate Strangeways, his treasure-trove, took their place. His pulses quickened, with a passion that was entirely artistic; this moor woman, as he saw her now, was a being wonderful, remote, magnificent; he almost feared to handle her, lest he should spoil her in the drawing. Yet he must certainly ask her to sit to him, whether he made the best of his chances or not. He turned at last and started home at a brisk pace. At the door of the Dog and Grouse he espied the landlord, swallowing a mouthful of fresh air before he turned in for the night.

"Good night to you, Mr. Lummax," called Jack o' Ling Crag.

"Hallo, Jack! I thought you'd be in bed long ago."

"Well, so I should be, sir, in a orn'ary sort o' way. But things hes been happening, sir—such things as keep a plain man out o' bed thinking on 'em."

Griff cocked his head a little on one side, and gave Jack a look which suggested that some kind of Freemasonry existed between them.

"Have you been taking a little midnight exercise, Jack? I feared they'd catch one or both of us many a time last year."

Jack o' Ling Crag gurgled complacently.

"Nay, now, Mr. Lummax, is it likely 'at they'd nobble an owd bird like me wi' gamekeeper chaff? It's all right, I says, an' none 'ud deny it, that chaps like Dick the Cobbler should be cotched: they're green hands meeting green hands—for all th' owd lot o' keepers, an' a smart set they war, is gone—an' it's a toss up whether it ends in th' coort-house for Dicky an' his mates, or i' broken heäds for th' keepers. But me—Lord, sir, I thowt ye knew me better nor to go thinking owt o' that sort!"

"Still," said Griff, with a slow, retrospective smile, "still, we ran it pretty close that night in Birch Wood. Do you remember? By Jove, but it was sport!"

"I remember varry weel, Mr. Lummax; for that war th' first time I felt sartin sure ye'd getten a heädpiece on your shoulders—ay, lad, your father's heädpiece. It do seem queer," he added, meditatively, "that even th' gentry up hereabouts is allus itching for a bit o' poaching. There war old Tom Hirst, now; he war a regular nipper afore religion stuck in his gizzard an' choked th' life out on him. Mony's the time—— But it gets chilly, like, standing i' th' road. What say ye to a glass o' th' blend 'at a two or three on us knows about?"

"I say that nothing would suit me better, if our friend Lee has not grown wide-awake since I used to know him."

"I've a great respect for Constable Lee, sir," observed Jack, gravely, as he led the way indoors, "an' Constable Lee hes an ekal respect for Jack o' Ling Crag. We've niver hed a wrang word sin' a little scrape 'at it took me all my time to get him clear of: he's a man what bears gratitude, an' ye may tak my word for that."

"And, in any case, I'm coming in as your guest. Bless me, it's odd if a respectable innkeeper can't entertain a friend to a glass of whisky."

"That's so, sir; an' proud to be named your friend."

"About this matter that has been keeping you out of your bed?" said Griff presently, holding his glass to the light and looking through it with the eye of a man on whom good drink is not wasted.

"Oh, that? It's nowt so varry special, when all's said; only it's not ivery day 'at a gent comes to Ling Crag a-house-hunting—nor ivery twelvemonth that he leaves a ten-pun note behind him."

"And who was he? From these parts?"

"Nay, he war fro' th' low country; as to his name, I mind me now he niver mentioned it. At after he'd had a bite o' supper, he asks me fair an' square if I could light my eye on a likely house i' th' neighbourhood; he wanted a bit o' shooiting, said he. Well, I bethowt me o' Wynyates, an' telled him 'at th' agent war coming this varry morn to collect his bits o' rents; an' what does my gentleman do but settle it all right off wi' th' agent, an' gi'e me a ten-pun note—to settle his bill wi', as he put it. Then, sooin as he'd settled about a couple o' rooms being got ready i' th' Hall afore th' week war out, off he rides again to Saxilton."

"Saxilton? What should he find to do in Saxilton?"

"Nay, that I can't say, save that he'd left some traps there an' wanted to fetch 'em. Summat a bit queer-like, eh, i' sich a whirlwind o' a man coming to Wynyates?"

"It does seem odd. I say, Jack, we'll have a night at his game some time; it's a year and three months since we went out together, and that is fifteen months too long."

"Well, if it's all th' same to ye, Mr. Lummax, I'd rather tak th' Squire o' Saxilton's game: he niver give me nowt, didn't Squire, save a cut on th' side o' th' heäd wi' his riding-whip; there warn't no bank-notes parted company wi' him."

This was a touch of morality that tickled Griff mightily.

"The old Squire is that kind of man," he laughed. "If he takes to a man, he can't do too much for him; but if he doesn't——"

"The Lord help him!—He's a rough customer, is Roger Daneholme: I reckon ye'll know him?"

"Only by repute. Perhaps you'll introduce me some night, Jack?"

"Happen I will, sir—wi' the stock of a gun for salute. What!—going? Well, good neet, sir; good neet."