Then up and on again, through the rough uneven lane, higher and higher into the breast of the Scout. What if he met Jim Wigson on the way? What if Aunt Hannah, still unreconciled, turned him from the door? No matter! Rancour and grief have no hold on mortals walking in such an April world--in such an exquisite and sunlit beauty. On! let thought and nature be enough! Why complicate and c.u.mber life with relations that do but give a foothold to pain, and offer less than they threaten?
There is smoke rising from Wigson"s, and figures moving in the yard. Caution!--keep close under the wall. And here at last is Needham farm, at the top of its own steep pitch, with the sycamore trees in the lane beside it, the Red Brook sweeping round it to the right, the rough gate below, the purple Scout mist-wreathed behind.
There are cows lowing in the yard, a horse grazes in the front field; through the little garden gate a gleam of sun strikes on the struggling crocuses and daffodils which come up year after year, no man heeding them; there is a clucking of hens, a hurry of water, a flood of song from a lark poised above the field. The blue smoke rises into the misty air; the sun and the spring caress the rugged lonely place.
With a beating heart David opened the gate into the field, walked round the little garden, let himself into the yard, and with a hasty glance at the windows mounted the steps and knocked.
No answer. He knocked again. Surely Aunt Hannah must be about somewhere. Eleven o"clock; how quiet the house was!
This time there was a clatter of a chair on a flagged floor inside, and a person with a slow laboured step came and opened.
It was Reuben. He adjusted his spectacles with difficulty, and stared at the intruder.
"Uncle Reuben!--I thought it was such a fine day, I"d just run over and see the old place, and bring you some news," said David, smiling and holding out his hand.
Reuben took it, stupefied. "Davy," he said, trembling. Then with a sudden movement he whipped the door to behind him, and shut it close.
"Whist!" he said, putting his old finger to his lip. "T" servant"s just settlin her i" t" kitchen. She"s noa ready yet--she"s been terr"ble bad th" neet. Coom yo here." And he descended the steps with infinite care, and led David to the wood-shed.
"Is Aunt Hannah ill?" asked David, astonished.
Reuben leant against the wall of the shed, and took off his spectacles, as though to wipe them with his old and shaking hands.
Then David saw a sort of convulsion pa.s.s across his ungainly face.
"Aye," he said, looking down, "aye, she"s broken is Hannah. Yo didna knaw?"
"I"ve heard nothing."
Reuben recounted the facts. Since her stroke of last spring, and the partial recovery which had followed upon it, there had been little apparent change, except perhaps in the direction of slowly increasing weakness. She was a wreck, and likely to remain so.
Hardly anybody but Reuben could understand her now, and she rarely let him out of her sight. He could not get time to attend to the farm, was obliged to leave things to the hired man, and was in trouble often about his affairs.
"Bit yo see, she hasna t" reet use of her speach," he said, excusing himself humbly to this handsome city nephew. "An" she conno gie ower snipin aw at onst. "Twudna be human natur". An"t" gell"s worritin" an" I mun tell her what t" missis says."
David asked if he might see her, or should he just turn back to the town? Reuben protested, his hospitality and family feeling aroused, his poor mind torn with conflicting motives.
"I believe she"d fratch if she didna see tha," he said at last.
"A"ll just goo ben, and ask."
He went in, and David remained in the wood-shed, staring out at the familiar scene, at Louie"s window, at the steps where he and she had fed the fowls together.
The door opened again, and Reuben reappeared on the steps, agitated and beckoning.
David went in, stepping softly, holding his blue cloth cap in his hand. In another instant he stood beside the old cushioned seat in the kitchen, looking down at Hannah.
This Hannah! this his childhood"s enemy! this shawled and shrunken figure with the white parchment face and lantern cheeks!
He stooped to her and said something about why he had come. Reuben listened wondering.
"Louie"s married and got a babby--dosto hear, Hannah? And he--t"
lad--did yo iver see sich a yan for growin?"
He wished to be mildly jocular. Hannah"s face did not move. She had just touched her nephew with her cold wasted hand. Now she beckoned to him to sit down at her right. He did so, and then for the first time he could believe that Hannah, the old Hannah, was there beside them. For as she slowly studied his dress, the Inverness cape then as now a favourite garb in Manchester, the hand holding the cap, refined since she saw it last by commerce with books and pens rather than hurdles and sheep, the broad shoulders, the dark head, her eye for the first time met his, full, and a weird thrill went through him. For that eye--dulled, and wavering--was still Hannah.
The old hate was in it, the old grudge, all that had been at least for him and Louie the inmost and characteristic soul of their tyrant. He knew in an instant that she had in her mind the money of which he and his sister had robbed her, and beyond that the offences of their childhood, the infamy of their mother. If she could, she would have hurled them all upon him. As it was, she was silent, but that brooding eye, like a smouldering spark in her blanched face, spoke for her.
Reuben tried to talk. But a weight lay on him and David. The gaunt head in the coa.r.s.e white nightcap turned now to one, now to the other, pursued them phantom-like. Presently he insisted that his nephew must dine, avoiding Hannah"s look. David would much rather have gone without; but Reuben, affecting joviality, called the servant, and some food was brought. No attempt was made to include Hannah in the meal. David supposed that it was now necessary to feed her.
Reuben talked disjointedly of the neighbours and his stock, and asked a few questions, without listening to the answers, about David"s affairs, and Louie"s marriage. In Hannah"s presence his poor dull wits were not his own; he could in truth think of nothing but her.
After the meal, however, when a draught of ale had put some heart in him, he got up with an air of resolution.
"I mun goo and see what that felly"s been doin" wi" th"
Huddersfield beeasts," he said; "wilta coom wi" me, Davy? Mary!"
He called the little maid. Hannah suddenly said something incoherent which David could not understand. Reuben affected not to hear.
"Mary, gie your mistress her dinner, like a good gell. An" keep t"
house-door open, soa "at she can knock wi" t" stick if she wants owt."
He stood before her restless and ashamed, afraid to look at her.
Then he suddenly stooped and kissed her on the forehead. David felt a lump in his throat. As he took leave of her the spell, as it were, of Reuben"s piteous affection came upon him. He saw nothing but a dying and emaciated woman, and taking her hand in his, he said some kind natural words.
The hand dropped from his like a stone. As he stood at the door behind Reuben, the servant came forward with a plate of something which she put down inside the fender. As she did so, she awkwardly upset the fire-irons, which fell with a crash. Hannah started upright in her chair, with a rush of half-articulate words, grasping fiercely for her stick with glaring eyes. The servant, a wild moorland la.s.s, fled terrified, and at the "house" door turned and made a face at David.
Outside Reuben slowly mastered himself, and woke up to some real interest in Louie"s doings. David told him her story frankly, so far as it could be separated from his own, and, pressed by Reuben"s questions, even revealed at last the matter of the six hundred pounds. Reuben could not get over it. Sandy"s "six hunderd pund"
which he had earned with the sweat of his brow, all handed over to that minx Louie, and wasted by her and a rascally French husband in a few months--it was more than he could bear.
"Aye, aye, marryin"s varra weel," he said impatiently. "A grant tha it"s a great sin coomin thegither without marryin. But Sandy"s six hunderd pund! Noa, I conno abide sich wark."
And he fell into sombre silence, out of which David could hardly rouse him. Except that he said once, "And we that had kep" it so long. I"d better never ha gien it tha." And clearly that was the bitter thought in his mind. The sacrifice that had taxed all his moral power, and, as he believed, brought physical ruin on Hannah, had been for nothing, or worse than nothing. Neither he nor David nor anyone was the better for it.
"I must go over the shoulder to Frimley," said David at last. They had made a half-hearted inspection of the stock in the home fields, and were now pa.s.sing through the gate on to the moor. "I must see Margaret Dawson again before I take the train back."
Reuben looked astonished and shook his head as though he did not remember anything about Margaret Dawson. He walked on beside his nephew for a while in silence. The Red Brook was leaping and dancing beside them, the mountain ashes were just bursting into leaf, the old smithy was ahead of them on the heathery slope, and to their left the Downfall, full and white, thundered over its yellow rocks.
But they had hardly crossed the Red Brook to mount the peak beyond when Reuben drew up.
"Noa"--he said restlessly--"noa. I mun goo back. T" gell"s flighty and theer"s aw maks o" mischief i" yoong things." He stood and held his nephew by the hand, looking at him long and wistfully. As he did so a calmer expression stole for an instant into the poor troubled eyes.
"Very like a"st not see tha again, Davie. We niver know, Livin"s hard soomtimes--soa"s deein, folks say. I"m often freet"nt of deein"--but I should na be. Theer"s noan so mich peace here, and we _knaw_ that wi" the Lord theer"s peace."
He gave a long sigh--all his character was in it--so tortured was it and hesitating.
They parted, and the young man climbed the hill, looking back often to watch the bent figure on the lower path. The spell had somehow vanished from the sunshine, the thrill from the moorland air. Life was once more cruel, implacable.
He walked fast to Frimley, and made for the cottage of Margaret"s brother. He remembered its position of old.
A woman was washing in the "house" or outer kitchen. She received him graciously. The weekly money which in one way or another he had never failed to pay since he first undertook it, had made him well known to her and her husband. With a temper quite unlike that of the characteristic northerner, she showed no squeamishness at all about the matter. If it hadn"t been for his help, they would just have sent Margaret to the workhouse, she said bluntly; for they had many mouths to feed, and couldn"t have burdened themselves with an extra one. She was quite "silly" and often troublesome.
"Is she here?" David asked.