Hanging like some vast Cyclops" dream High in the shifting weather gleam.
After dinner he sat at the open window, thinking of many things, until he finally fell asleep to dream of that illuminated vault in the castle, in which glitters mysteriously the crown and scepter of the ancient kings and queens of Scotland.
Into the glamour of this vision there came suddenly a dream of his mother, and his home, and he awakened from it with an intense conviction that his mother needed his presence, and that he must make all haste to reach his home. In half an hour he had paid his bill and taken a carriage for Leith harbor, and the yacht was speeding down the Firth ere the wan, misty daylight brightened the colorless sea. The stillness of sea and sky was magical and they were a little delayed by the calm, but in due time the wind sprang up suddenly and the yacht danced into Whitby harbor.
Then John parted from Captain Cook, saying as he did so, "Good-bye, Captain. We have had a happy holiday together. Get the yacht in order and revictualed, for in two weeks my brother Henry may join you. I believe he is for the south."
"Good-bye, sir. It has been a good time for me. You have been my teacher more than my master, and you are a rich man and I am a poor one."
"A man"s a man for all that, Captain."
"Well, sir, not always. Many are not men in spite of _all that_. G.o.d be with you, sir."
"And with you, Captain." Then they clasped hands and turned away, each man where Duty called him.
CHAPTER II
THE PEOPLE OF THE STORY
Slowly, steadily, to and fro, Swings our life in its weary way; Now at its ebb, and now at its flow, And the evening and morning make up the day.
Sorrow and happiness, peace and strife, Fear and rejoicing its moments know; Yet from the discords of such a life, The clearest music of heaven may flow.
Duty led John Hatton to take the quickest road to Hatton-in-Elmete, a small manufacturing town in a lovely district in Yorkshire. In Saxon times it was covered with immense elm forests from which it was originally called Elmete, but nearly a century ago the great family of Hatton (being much reduced by the pa.s.sage of the Reform Bill and their private misfortunes) commenced cotton-spinning here, and their mills, constantly increasing in size and importance, gave to the Saxon Elmete the name of Hatton-in-Elmete.
The little village had become a town of some importance, but nearly every household in it was connected in some way or other with the cotton mills, either as cotton masters or cotton operatives. There were necessarily a few professional men and shopkeepers, but there was street after street full of cotton mills, and the ancient manor of the lords of Hatton had become thoroughly a manufacturing locality.
But Hatton-in-Elmete was in a beautiful locality, lying on a ridge of hills rising precipitously from the river, and these hills surrounded the town as with walls and appeared to block up the way into the world beyond. The princ.i.p.al street lay along their base, and John Hatton rode up it at the close of the long summer day, when the mills were shut and the operatives gathered in groups about its places of interest. Every woman smiled at him, every man touched his cap, but a stranger would have noticed that not one man bared his head. Yorkshire men do not offer that courtesy to any man, for its neglect (originally the expression of strong individuality and self-respect) had become a habit as natural and spontaneous as their manner or their speech.
About a mile beyond the town, on the summit of a hill, stood Hatton Hall, and John felt a hurrying sense of home as soon as he caught a glimpse of its early sixteenth-century towers and chimneys. The road to it was all uphill, but it was flagged with immense blocks of stone and shaded by great elm-trees; at the summit a high, old-fashioned iron gate admitted him into a delightful garden. And in this sweet place there stood one of the most ancient and picturesque homes of England.
It is here to be noticed that in the early centuries of the English nation the homes of the n.o.bles distinctly represented local feeling and physical conditions. In the North they generally stood on hillsides apart where the winds rattled the boughs of the surrounding pines or elms and the murmur of a river could be heard from below. The hill and the trees, the wind and the river, were their usual background, with the garden and park and the great plantations of trees belting the estate around; the house itself standing on the highest land within the circle.
Such was the location and adjuncts of the ancient home of the Hattons, and John Hatton looked up at the old face of it with a conscious love and pride. The house was built of dark millstone grit in large blocks, many of them now green and mossy. The roof was of sandstone in thin slabs, and in its angles gra.s.s had taken root. In front there was a tower and tall gables, with b.a.l.l.s and pinnacles. The princ.i.p.al entrance was a doorway with a Tudor arch, and a large porch resting on stone pillars. Within this porch there were seats and a table, pots of flowers, and a silver Jacobean bell. And all round the house were gables and doorways and windows, showing carvings and inscriptions wherever the ivy had not hid them.
The door stood wide open and in the porch his mother was sitting. She had a piece of old English lace in her hand, which she was carefully darning. Suddenly she heard John"s footsteps and she lifted her head and listened intently. Then with a radiant face she stood upright just as John came from behind the laurel hedge into the golden rays of the setting sun, and her face was transfigured as she called in a strong, joyful voice,
"O John! John! I"ve been longing for you days and days. Come inside, my dear lad. Come in! I"ll be bound you are hungry. What will you take?
Have a cup of tea, now, John; it will be four hours before suppertime, you know."
"Very well, mother. I haven"t had my tea today, and I am a bit hungry."
"Poor lad! You shall have your tea and a mouthful in a few minutes."
"I"ll go to my room, mother, and wash my face and hands. I am not fit company for a dame so sweet as you are," and he lifted his right hand courteously as he pa.s.sed her.
In less than half an hour there was tea and milk, cold meat and fruit before John, and his mother watched him eating with a beaming satisfaction. And when John looked into her happy face he wondered at his dream in Edinburgh, and said gratefully to himself,
"All is right with mother. Thank G.o.d for that!"
She did not talk while John was eating, but as he sat smoking in the porch afterwards, she said,
"I want to ask you where you have been all these weeks, John, but Harry isn"t here, and you won"t want to tell your story twice over, will you, now?"
"I would rather not, mother."
"Your father wouldn"t have done it, whether he liked to or not. I don"t expect you are any different to father. I didn"t look for you, John, till next week."
"But you needed me and wanted me?"
"Whatever makes you say that?"
"I dreamed that you wanted me, and I came home to see."
"Was it last Sunday night?"
"Yes."
"About eleven o"clock?"
"I did not notice the time."
"Well, for sure, I was in trouble Sunday. All day long I was in trouble, and I am in a lot of trouble yet. I wanted you badly, John, and I did call you, but not aloud. It was just to myself. I wished you were here."
"Then yourself called to myself, and here I am. Whatever troubles you, mother, troubles me."
"To be sure, I know that, John. Well, then, it is your brother Harry."
A look of anxiety came into John"s face and he asked in an anxious voice, "What is the matter with Harry? Is he well?"
"Quite well."
"Then what has he been doing?"
"Nay, it"s something he wants to do."
"He wants to get married, I suppose?"
"Nay, I haven"t heard of any foolishness of that make. I"ll tell you what he wants to do--he wants to rent his share in the mill to Naylor"s sons."
Then John leaped to his feet and said angrily, "Never! Never! It cannot be true, mother! I cannot believe it! Who told you?"
"Your overseer, Jonathan Greenwood, and Harry asked Greenwood to stand by him in the matter, but Jonathan wouldn"t have anything to do with such business, and he advised me to send for you. He says the lad is needing looking after--in more ways than one."
"Where is Harry?"