Chapter 1

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

A Pair of Clogs, and other stories, by Amy Walton.

________________________________________________________________________ In the first of the stories a young girl-child is stolen by the gypsies. Yet they decide to give the child up, and they leave it in an out-house owned by a young clergyman. The latter isn't very pleased at this, but his wife certainly is, and they bring the child up.

After a few years, and in a particularly tense moment, the true mother is found. An agreement is reached, whereby the child is shared.

As with Amy Walton short stories, there is not only a well-told tale but also a moral.

________________________________________________________________________ A PAIR OF CLOGS, AND OTHER STORIES, BY AMY WALTON.

STORY ONE, CHAPTER 1.

HER FIRST HOME.

"My! What a pretty pair of clogs baby's gotten!"

The street was narrow and very steep, and paved with round stones; on each side of it were slate-coloured houses, some high, some low; and in the middle of it stood baby, her curly yellow head bare, and her blue cotton frock lifted high with both fat hands. She could not speak, but she wanted to show that on her feet were tiny new clogs with bright brass tips.

She stopped in front of all her acquaintances, men, women, children, and even dogs. Each of them, except the last, made much the same remark, and she then toddled cheerfully on, until nearly everyone in the village of Haworth knew of this wonderful new thing.

The baby's mother lived in Haworth, but all day long she had to work in the town of Keighley down below in the valley, for she was a factory-girl. From the hillside you could see the thick veil of smoke, never lifted, which hung over the tall chimneys and grey houses; the people there very seldom saw the sky clear and blue, but up at Haworth the wind blew freshly off the wide moor just above, and there was nothing to keep away the sunshine. This was the reason that Maggie Menzies still lived there, after she had taken to working in the factory; it was a long walk to and from Keighley, but it was healthier for the "li'le lass" to sleep in the fresh air. Everything in Maggie's life turned upon that one small object; the "li'le lass" was her one treasure, her one golden bit of happiness, the reason why she cared to see the sun shine, or to eat, or drink, or rest, or to be alive at all. Except for the child she was alone in the world, for her husband had been killed in an accident two years ago, when the baby was only a month old. Since then she had been Maggie's one thought and care; no one who has not at some time in their lives spent all their affection on a single thing or person can at all understand what she felt, or how strong her love was. It made all her troubles and hardships easy merely to think of the child; just to call to mind the dimples, and yellow hair, and fat hands, was enough to make her deaf to the whirr and rattle of the restless machinery, and the harsh tones of the overseer. When she began her work in the morning she said to herself, "I shall see her in the evening;" and when it was unusually tiresome during the day, and things went very wrong, she could be patient and even cheerful when she remembered "it's fur _her_." The factory-girls with boisterous good-nature had tried to make her sociable when she first came; they invited her to stroll with them by the river in the summer evenings, to stand and gossip with them at the street corners, to join in their parties of pleasure on Sundays. But they soon found it was of no use; Maggie's one idea, when work was over, was to throw her little checked shawl over her head, and turn her steps quickly towards a certain house in a narrow alley near the factory, for there, under the care of a neighbour, she left her child during the day.

It would have been much better, everyone told her, to leave her up at Haworth instead of bringing her into the smoky town; Maggie knew it, but her answer was always the same to this advice:

"I couldn't bring myself to it," she said. "I niver could git through the work if I didn't know she was near me."

So winter and summer, through the damp cold or the burning heat, she might be seen coming quickly down the steep hill from Haworth every morning clack, clack, in her wooden shoes, with her child in her arms. In the evening her pace was slower, for she was tired, and the road was hard to climb, and the child, generally asleep, weighed heavily. For the baby was getting beyond a baby now; she was nearly two years old. How pretty she was, how clever, what dear little knowing ways she had, what tiny feet and hands! How yellow her hair was, how white her skin! She was unlike any child in Haworth; she was matchless!

And indeed, quite apart from her mother's fond admiration, the baby was a beautiful child, delicately formed, and very different from the blunt-featured children of those parts; she was petted by everyone in the village, and had in consequence such proud, imperious little ways that she was a sort of small queen there; the biggest and roughest man among them was her humble subject, and ready to do her bidding when she wished to be tossed in the air or to ride pickaback. She could say very few words yet, but nothing could exceed her brightness and intelligence--a wonderful baby indeed!

She had been christened Betty; but the name was almost forgotten in all sorts of loving nicknames, and lately the people of Haworth had given her a new one, which she got in the following manner:--

Nearly at the bottom of the steep village street there was a cobbler's stall which Maggie passed every day in her journeys to and from Keighley. It was open to the road, and in it hung rows and rows of clogs of all sizes--some of them big enough to fit a man, and some for children, quite tiny. They all had wooden soles, and toes slightly turned-up tipped with gleaming brass, and a brass buckle on the instep; nearly all the people in Haworth and all the factory-girls in Keighley wore such shoes, but they were always called "clogs." Inside the stall sat an old man with twinkling blue eyes, and a stumpy turned-up nose: he sat and cobbled and mended, and made new clogs out of the old ones which lay in great heaps all round him. Over his stall was the name "T Monk," but in the village he was always known as Tommie; and though he was a silent and somewhat surly character, Tommie's opinion and advice were often asked, and much valued when given. Maggie regarded him with admiration and respect. When she passed with her child in her arms he always looked up and nodded, though he seldom gave any other answer to her "Good-day, Master Monk." Tommie never wasted his words: "Little words mak' bonnie do's," he was accustomed to say.

But one evening the sun happened to shine on the row of brass-tipped clogs, and made them glisten brightly just as Maggie went by. It caught the baby's attention, and she held out her arms to them and gave a little coo of pleasure.

"T'little lass is wantin' clogs, I reckon," said Tommie with a grim smile.

Maggie held out the baby's tiny foot with a laugh of pride.

"Here's a foot for a pair of clogs, Master Monk," she said; "t'wouldn't waste much leather to fashion 'em."

Tommie said nothing more, but a week afterwards he beckoned to Maggie with an important air as she went by.

"You come here," he said briefly.

Maggie went into the stall, and he reached down from a nail a pair of tiny, neatly finished clogs. They had jaunty brass-bound toes, and a row of brass nails all round where the leather joined the wooden sole, and on the instep there gleamed a pair of smart brass clasps with a pattern chased on them.

"Fur her," said Tommie as he gave them to Maggie. As he did so the baby stretched out her hands to the bright clasps.

"See!" exclaimed the delighted Maggie; "she likes 'em ever so. Oh, Master Monk, how good of yo'!"

"Them clasps _is_ oncommon," said Tommie, regarding his work thoughtfully, his blue eyes twinkling with satisfaction, "I cam' at 'em by chance like."

Maggie had now taken off her baby's shoe, and fitted the clog on to the soft little foot.

"Ain't they bonnie?" she said.

The baby leaned forward and, seizing one toe in each hand, rocked herself gently to and fro.

Tommie looked on approvingly.

"Yo'll find 'em wear well," he said; "they're the best o' leather and the best o' workmanship."

After six months more were gone the baby began to walk, and you might hear a sharp little clatter on the pavement, like the sound of some small iron-shod animal. Tommie heard it one morning just as it was Maggie's usual time to pass, and looked out of his stall. There was Maggie coming down the road with a proud smile on her face, and the baby was there too. But not in her mother's arms. No, she was erect on her own small feet, tottering along in the new wooden clogs.

"My word!" exclaimed Tommie, his nose wrinkling with gratification; "we'll have to call her Little Clogs noo."

It was in this way that Maggie's child became known in the village as "Little Clogs." Not that it was any distinction to wear clogs in Haworth, everyone had them; but the baby's feet were so tiny, and she was so eager to show her new possession, that the clogs were as much noticed as though never before seen. When she stopped in front of some acquaintance, lifted her frock with both hands, and gazed seriously first at her own feet and then up in her friend's face, it was only possible to exclaim in surprise and admiration:

"Eh! To be sure. What pretty, pretty clogs baby's gotten!"

It was the middle of summer. Baby was just two years old and a month, and the clogs were still glossy and new, when one morning Maggie took the child with her down to Keighley as usual. It was stiflingly hot there, after the cool breeze which blew off the moor on the hillside; the air was thick with smoke and dust, and, as Maggie turned into the alley where she was to leave her child, she felt how close and stuffy it was.

"'Tain't good for her here," she thought, with a sigh. "I reckon I must mak' up my mind to leave her up yonder this hot weather."

But the baby did not seem to mind it. Maggie left her settled in the open doorway talking cheerfully to one of her little clogs which she had pulled off. This she filled with sand and emptied, over and over again, chuckling with satisfaction as a stray sunbeam touched the brass clasps and turned them into gold. In the distance she could hear the noise of the town, and presently amongst them there came a new sound--the beating of a drum. Baby liked music. She threw down the clog, lifted one finger, and said "Pitty!" turning her head to look into the room. But no one was there, for the woman of the house had gone into the back kitchen. The noise continued, and seemed to draw baby towards it: she got up on her feet, and staggered a little way down the alley, tottering a good deal, for one foot had the stout little clog on it, and the other nothing but a crumpled red sock. By degrees, however, after more than one tumble, she got down to the end of the alley, and stood facing the bustling street.

It was such a big, noisy world, with such a lot of people and horses and carts in it, that she was frightened now, put out her arms, and screwed up her face piteously, and cried, "Mammy, mammy!"

Just then a woman passed with a tambourine in her hand and a bright coloured handkerchief over her head. She shook the tambourine and smiled kindly at baby, showing very white teeth.

"Mammy, mammy!" said baby again, and began to sob.

"Don't cry, then, deary, and I'll take you to mammy," said the woman. She looked quickly up the alley, no one in sight. No one in the crowded street noticed her. She stooped, raised the child in her arms, wrapped a shawl round her, and walked swiftly away. And that evening, when Maggie came to fetch her little lass, she was not there; the only trace of her was one small clog, half full of sand, on the door-step!

The woman with the tambourine hurried along, keeping the child's head covered with her shawl, at her heels a dirty-white poodle followed closely. The street was bustling and crowded, for it was past twelve o'clock, and the workpeople were streaming out of the factories to go to their dinners. If Maggie had passed the woman, she would surely have felt that the bundle in her arms was her own little lass, even if she had not seen one small clogged foot escaping from under the shawl. Baby was quiet now, except for a short gasping sob now and then, for she thought she was being taken to mammy.

On and on went the woman through the town, past the railway-station, and at last reached a lonely country road; by that time, lulled by the rapid, even movement and the darkness, baby had forgotten her troubles, and was fast asleep. She slept almost without stirring for a whole hour, and then, feeling the light on her eyes, she blinked her long lashes, rubbed them with her fists, and stretched out her fat legs.

Next she looked up into mammy's face, as she thought, expecting the smile which always waited for her there; but it was not mammy's face, or anything like it. They were sharp black eyes which were looking down at her, and instead of the familiar checked shawl, there was a bright yellow handkerchief over the woman's head, and dangling ornaments in her ears. Baby turned up her lip in disgust, and looked round for someone she knew, but everything was strange to her. The woman, in whose lap she was lying, sat in a small donkey-cart, with two brown children and some bundles tightly packed in round her; a dark man walked by the side of it, and a dirty-white poodle ran at his heels. Discovering this state of things baby lost no time, but burst at once into loud wailing sobs and cries of "Mammy, mammy; me want mammy."

She cried so long and so bitterly that the woman, who had tried at first to soothe her by coaxing and petting, lost patience, and shook her roughly.

"Be still, little torment," she said, "or I'll throw you into the pond."

They were the first angry words baby had ever heard, and the experience was so new and surprising that she checked her sobs, staring up at the woman with frightened tear-filled eyes. She soon began to cry again, but it was with much less violence, only a little distressed whimper which no one noticed. This went on all day, and by the evening, having refused to touch food, she fell into an exhausted slumber, broken by plaintive moans. It was now dark, and being some miles from Keighley, the tramps thought it safe to stop for the night; they turned off the main road, therefore, tethered the donkey in a grassy lane, and crept into an old disused barn for shelter. The two children, boys of eight or nine years old, curled themselves up in a corner, with Mossoo, the poodle, tucked in between them, and all three covered with an old horse-cloth. The gypsy and his wife sat talking in the entrance over a small fire of dry wood they had lighted.

"You've bin a fool, Seraminta," said the man, looking down at the baby as she lay flushed with sleep on the woman's lap, her cheeks still wet with tears. "The child'll git us into trouble. That's no common child. Anyone 'ud know it agen, and then where are we? In quod, sure as my name's Perrin."

"You're the fool," replied the woman, looking at the man scornfully. "Think I'm goin' to take her about with a lily-white skin like that? A little walnut-juice'll make her as brown as Bennie yonder, so as her own mother wouldn't know her."

"Well, what good is she to us anyhow?" continued the man sulkily. "Only another mouth ter feed. 'Tain't wuth the risk."

"You hav'n't the sperrit of a chicken," replied the woman. "One 'ud think you was born yesterday, not to know that anyone'll give a copper to a pretty little kid like her. Once we git away down south, an' she gives over fretting, I mean her to go round with the tambourine after the dog dances in the towns. She'll more than earn her keep soon."

The man muttered and growled to himself for a short time, and said some very ugly words, but presently, stretched on the ground near the fire, he settled himself to sleep. The short summer night passed quickly away, and nothing disturbed the sleepers; the owls and bats flitted in and out of the barn, as was their custom, and, surprised to find it no longer empty, flapped suddenly up among the rafters, and looked down at the strangers by the dim light of the moon; at the two children huddled in the corner, with Mossoo's tangled head between them; at the dark form of Perrin, near the ashes of the fire; and at the fair child in Seraminta's arms, sleeping quietly at last. Before the cock in the farmyard near had answered a shrill friend in the distance more than twice, the whole party, except the baby, was awake, the donkey harnessed, and the journey continued.

Day after day passed in the same manner, and baby still cried for "Mammy," but every day less and less, for the tramps were kind to her in their rough way, and fortunately her memory was short, and soon ceased to recall Maggie's loving care and caresses. So before she had led her new life a week, she had found things to smile at again; sometimes flowers which the freckled Bennie picked for her in the hedges, sometimes the gay rattle of the tambourine, sometimes a ride on the donkey's back; the poodle also, from having been an object of fear, had now become a friend.

Mossoo was a dog who had known trouble. He well remembered the days when he had had to learn to dance, and what it was to shrink from blows, and to howl with pain and fear under punishment. Times were not so bad for him now, because his education was over, but still he had to work hard for his living. In every town they passed he must stiffen his long thin back, raise himself on his small feet, and dance gravely to the sound of the tambourine; if this happened at the end of a long day's tramp, it was both difficult and painful, but he seldom failed, for he knew the consequences--no supper and a beating.

Accordingly, until a certain sign was given, he kept one pink-rimmed eye on his mistress's face, and revolved slowly round and round, with drooping paws and an elegant curtsying movement, the centre of an admiring ring. Sometimes, when the performance was over, and he carried round a small tin plate for coppers, the spectators would drop off one by one, and give him nothing; sometimes he got a good deal, and took it to his mistress with joyful wags of his ragged tasselled tail. Now, Mossoo had noticed the addition of baby to the accustomed party, and also her passionate sobs and cries. She was in trouble, as he had often been, and one day this trouble was even deeper than usual. They had stopped to rest in a little wayside copse, and after the donkey was unharnessed the man and the two boys had started off on a foraging expedition, or, in other words, to see what they could beg or steal from the farmyards and houses near. Mossoo was left behind. Crouched on the ground, with his nose between his paws, he kept a watchful eye on Seraminta, who was busying herself with the child. She was going to make her "so as her own mother wouldn't know her." And first with a piece of rag she smeared over her pretty white skin with some dark juice out of a bottle; next she took off the little frock and underclothes which Maggie had always kept so neatly, and put on her a frock and petticoat of stiff striped stuff. Then she proceeded to remove the one little clog, but this baby resented. She had been quiet till now, and allowed her things to be changed without resistance, but this last indignity was too much. She fought, and kicked, and cried, and pushed at the woman with her tiny hands. Poor baby! They were far too small and weak to be of any use. In no time the friendly little clog, with its glistening clasp and bright toe, was gone, and in its place there was an ugly broken-out boot which had once belonged to Bennie. Her work done, Seraminta put the child on the ground and gave her a hard crust to play with. Baby immediately threw it from her with all her strength, cast herself flat on her face, and shrieked with anger and distress. She was heartbroken to have the clog taken from her, and cried as violently for it as she had done for mammy.

"You've got a fine temper of yer own, my young queen," said Seraminta, looking down at the small sobbing form. She did not attempt to quiet her, but turning away proceeded to arrange some bundles in the cart which stood at a short distance.

Mossoo was not so indifferent; he had watched the whole affair, and if he did not understand why the baby cried, at least he knew she was in trouble. True he had not seen a stick used, but here was the same result. He went and sat down near her, and wagged his tail to show he sympathised, but as she was lying on her face she did not even know he was there, and the sobs continued. Finding this, Mossoo sat for some time with his tongue hanging out, uncertain how to proceed, but presently noticing a little bit of bare fat neck he gave it a gentle lick. Baby turned her head; there were two bright eyes with pink rims close to her, and a ragged fringe of dirty-white hair, and a red tongue lolling out; she was so startled at this that she screamed louder than ever, and hid her face again. Unsuccessful, but full of zeal and compassion, the poodle next bethought himself of finding her a stick or a stone to throw for him; Bennie was never tired of playing this game with him, and perhaps the baby might like it too. He ran sniffing about with his nose to the ground, and presently caught sight of something that glistened, lying in the grass near the cart. It was the little clog. Quite unconscious of making a lucky hit, he took it in his mouth, carried it to her, and placed it with gentle care close to her ear. This time Mossoo had done the right thing, for when she saw what he had brought, a watery little smile gleamed through baby's tears, her sobs ceased, she sat up and seized the clog triumphantly. Waving it about in her small uncertain hands, she hit the friendly poodle smartly on the nose with it as he stood near; then leaning forward, grasped his drooping moustache and pulled it, which hurt him still more; but he did not cease to wag his tail with pleasure at his success.

From that day "Mossy," as she called the dog, was added to the number of baby's friends--the other two were Bennie and the little clog. To this last she confided, in language of her own, much that no one else understood, and Seraminta did not again attempt to take it from her. She was thankful that the child had something to soothe her in the stormy fits of crying which came when she was offended or thwarted in her will. At such times she would kick and struggle until her little strength was exhausted, and at last drop off to sleep with the clog cuddled up to her breast. Seraminta began to feel doubtful as to the advantages of her theft, and Perrin, the gypsy man, swore at his wife and reproached her in the strongest language for having brought the child away.

"I tell you what, my gal," he said one day, "the proper place for that child's the house, an' that's where she'll go soon as I git a chance. She've the sperrit of a duchess an' as 'orty in her ways as a queen. She'll never be no good to us in our line o' bizness, an' I'm not agoin' to keep her."

They wrangled and quarrelled over the subject continually, for Seraminta, partly from obstinacy, and partly because the child was so handsome, wished to keep her, and teach her to perform with the poodle in the streets. But all the while she had an inward feeling that Perrin would outwit her, and get his own way. And this turned out to be the case.