Chapter 11

To how many of nervous temperament is self-consciousness the bane of existence--while the more such try to master it, the more unnatural they become! It separates souls, begetting an aloofness which, misunderstood, ends in mistrust and alienation; and it lies at the root of too many of the fatal misconceptions of life. There are loving hearts that would pay any price to be freed from the self-enfolding toils that wrap them in these crisis hours. And so would Miriam's, for she felt herself shrink within herself at the approach of Matt. She knew nothing of mental moods, never having heard of them, nor being able to account for, or analyze, them. All she knew, poor girl, was that for the first time in her life she was not herself; and as she responded to Matt's warm greeting, she felt she was not the wife, nor the woman, who but a few weeks ago had so affectionately farewelled him, and who but a few moments ago so longed for his return.

Nor was Matt unconscious of this change, for as soon as the greeting was over he said, with tones of anxiety in his voice:

'What ails thee, my lass?'

'Who sez as onnythin' ails me?' was her reply, but in a tone of such forced merriment that Matt only grew the more concerned.

'Who sez as onnything ails thee?' cried he. 'Why those bonny een o' thine--an' they ne'er tell lies.'

Miriam was walking at his side, her dark eyes seeking the ground, and half hidden by the droop of their long-fringed lids. Indeed, she was too timid to flash their open searching light, as was her wont, into the face of Matt; and when she did look at him, as at times she was forced to, the glance was furtive and the gaze unsteady.

'Come, mi bonny brid (bird),' said her husband, betraying in his voice a deeper concern, 'tell thi owd mon what's up wi thee. I've ne'er sin thee look like this afore. Durnd look on th' grass so mich. Lift that little yed (head) o' thine. Thaa's no need to be ashamed o' showing thi face--there's noan so mony at's better lookin'--leastways, I've sin noan.'

Miriam was silent; but as Matt's hand stole gently into hers, and she felt the warm touch of his grasp, her heart leapt, and its pent-up burden found outlet in a sob. Then he stayed his steps, and looked at her, as a traveller would pause and look in wonderment at the sudden portent in the heavens of a coming storm, and putting his hand beneath the little drooping chin, he raised the pretty face to find it wet with tears.

'Nay! nay! lass, thaa knows I conrot ston salt watter, when it's i' a woman's een.

But Miriam's tears fell all the faster

'I'll tell yo' what it is, owd lass. I shornd hev to leave yo' agen,' and his arm stole round the little neck, and he drew the sorrowful face to his own, and kissed it. 'But tell yor owd mon what's up wi yo'.'

'Ne'er mind naa, Matt; I'll--tell--thee--sometime,' sobbed the wife.

'But I mun know naa, lass, or there'll be th' hangments to play. I'll be bun those hens o' Whittam's hes been rootin' up thi flaars in th' garden. By gum! if they hev, I'll oather neck 'em, or mak' him pay for th' lumber (mischief).'

'Nowe, lad--thaa'rt--mista'en--Whittam's hens hesn't bin i' th' garden sin' thaa towd him abaat 'em last.'

'Then mi mother's bin botherin' thee agen,' said Matt, in a sharp tone, as though he had at last hit upon the secret of his wife's sorrow.

'Wrang once more,' replied Miriam, with a light in her eye; and then, looking up at her husband with a gleam, she said: 'I durnd think as thi mother'll bother me mich more, lad.'

'Surely th' old lass isn't deead!' he cried in startled tones. And then, recollecting her treatment of Miriam, he continued: 'But I needn't be afeard o' that, for thaa'll never cry when th' old girl geets to heaven. Will yo', mi bonnie un?'

'Shame on thee, Matt,' said Miriam, smiling through her tears.

'Bless thee for that smile, lass. Thaa looks more thisel naa. There's naught like sunleet when it's in a woman's face.'

'Thaa means eyeleet,' Miriam replied, with a gleam of returning mirth.

'Ony kind o' leet, so long as it's love-leet and joy-leet, and i' thi face, an o'. But thaa's noan towd me what made thee so feeard (timid) when aw met thee.'

By this time Matt and his wife were on the threshold of their cottage, and the woman's heart beat loudly as she felt the moment of her great confession was at hand.

'Naa, come, Merry' (he always called her Merry in the higher moments of their domestic life)--'come, Merry, no secrets, thaa knows. There's naught ever come atween thee and me, and if I can help, naught ever shall.'

Miriam started, and once more wondered if the little life of which Matt as yet knew nothing would come in between herself and him, and divide them; or whether it would bind more closely their already sacred union.

'Naa, Merry,' continued he, seating himself in the rocking-chair, or 'courtin'-cheer,' as he called it, and drawing his blushing, yielding wife gently on his knee, 'naa, Merry, whod is it?'

'Cornd ta guess?' asked she, hiding her face on his shoulder.

'Nowe, lass; aw've tried th' hens and mi mother, and aw'm wrang i' both, an' aw never knew aught bother thee but t' one or t' other on 'em. Where mun I go next?'

Again there were tears in Miriam's eyes, and with one supreme effort she raised her blushing face from Matt's shoulder to his bushy whiskers, and burying her rosy lips near his ear, whispered something, and then sank on his breast.

Then Matt drew his wife so closely to him that she bit her lips to stifle the cry of pain that his love-clasp brought; and when he let her go, it was that he might shower on her a rain of kisses, diviner than had ever been hers in the seven happy years of their past wedded life. For some minutes Matt sat with Miriam in his arms, a spell of sanctity and silence filling the room. In that silence both heard a voice--a little voice--preludious of the music of heaven, and they peopled the light which haloed them with a presence, childlike and pure. Then it was that Miriam looked up at her husband and said:

'Th' promise is not brokken, thaa sees, after all. It's to us and to aar childer, for all thi mother hes said so mich abaat it.'

'Ey, lass,' replied he, his manhood swept by emotion, 'o' sich is the kingdom o' heaven.'

And a gleam of firelight fell on the darkening wall, and lit up an old text which hung there, and they both read, 'Children are a heritage from God.'

* * * * *

'An' arto baan to keep it a secret, lass?' asked Matt, when once the spell of silence was broken.

'Why shouldn't I? There's no one as aw know as has any reet to know but thee.'

'But they'll noan be so long i' findin' it aat. Then they'll never let us alone, lass. There'll be some gammin', aw con tell thee.'

'I'm noan feared on 'em, Matt. I con stan' mi corner if thaa con.'

'Yi, a dozen corners naa, lass. Thaa knows it used to be hard afore when they were all chaffin' me at th' factory, but they can talk their tungs off naa for aught I care. But they'll soon find it aat.'

'None as soon as thaa thinks, Matt. They've gan o'er sperrin (being inquisitive) long sin', and when they're off th' scent they're on th' wrang scent.'

'Aw think aw'd tell mi mother, lass, if aw were thee.'

'Let her find it aat, as t'others 'll hev to do.'

'As thaa likes, lass. But thaa knows hoo's fretted and prayed and worrited hersel a deal abaat thee for mony a year. And if hoo deed afore th' child were born we sud ne'er forgive aarsels.'

'Thaa'rt mebbe reet, lad. It'll pleaz her to know, and hoo's bin a good mother to thee.'

'Yi. Hoo's often said as if hoo could nobbud be a gron'mother hoo'd say, as owd Simeon said, "Mine een hev sin Thy salvation."'

'Well, we'll go up and see her when th' chapel loses to-morrow afternoon. Put that leet aat, lad; it's time we closed aar een.'

Matt turned down the lamp, and shot the bolt of his cottage door, and followed his wife up the worn stone stairway to the room above, to rest and await the dawning of the Sabbath.

That night, as the moonbeams fell in silver shafts through the little window, and filled the chamber with a haze of subdued light, a mystic presence, unseen, yet felt, filled all with its glory. The old four-poster rested like an ark in a holy of holies, its carved posts of oak gleaming as the faces of watching angels on those whose weary limbs were stretched thereon. The rugged features of Matt were touched into grand relief, his hair and beard dark on the snowy pillow and coverlet on which they lay. On his strong, outstretched arm reposed she whom he so dearly, and now so proudly, loved, her large, lustrous eyes looking out into the sheeted night, her pearly teeth gleaming through her half-opened lips, from which came and went her breath in the regular rhythm and sweetness of perfect health. Long after her husband slept she lay awake, silently singing her own 'Magnificat'--not in Mary's words, it is true, but with Mary's music and with Mary's heart.

And then she slept--and the moonbeams paled before the sunrise, and the morning air stirred the foliage of the trees that kissed the window-panes, and little birds came and sang their matins, and another of God's Sabbaths spread its gold and glory over the hills of Rehoboth.

II.

HOW DEBORAH HEARD THE NEWS.

It was Sabbath on the moors--on the moors where it was always Sabbath.

Old Mr. Morell used to say, 'For rest, commend me to these eternal hills;' and so Matt Heap thought as he threw open his chamber casement and looked on their outline in the light of morning glory. Their majesty and strength were so passionless, their repose so undisturbed. How often he wondered to himself why they always slept--not the sleep of weariness, but of strength! And how often, when vexed and jaded, had he shared their calm as his eyes rested on them, or as his feet sought their solitudes! How they stirred the inarticulate poetry of his soul! At times he found himself wondering if their sweeping lines were broken arcs of a circle drawn by an infinite hand; and anon, he would ask if their mighty mounds marked the graves of some primeval age--mounds raised by the gods to the memory of forces long since extinct.

As Matt looked at these hills, there rolled along their summits snowy cumuli--billowy masses swept from distant cloud tempests, and now spending their force in flecks of white across the blue sky-sea that lay peaceful over awakening Rehoboth. A fresh wind travelled from the gates of the sun, laden with upland sweets, and mellowing moment by moment under the directer rays of the eastern king; while the sycamores in the garden, as if in playful protest, bent before the touch of its caress, only to rise and rustle as, for the moment, they escaped the haunting and besetting breeze, lending to their protest the dreamy play of light and shade from newly-unsheathed leaves. There was a strange silence, too--a silence that made mystic music in Matt's heart--a silence all the more profound because of the distant low of oxen, and the strain of an old Puritan hymn sung by a shepherd in a neighbouring field. Matt's heart was full, and, though he knew it not, he was a worshipper--he was in the spirit on the Lord's Day.

'Is that thee, Matt?'

'Yi, lass, for sure it is. Who else should it be, thinksto?'

'Nay, I knew it were noabry but thee; but one mun say summat, thaa knows. What arto doin' at th' winder? Has th' hens getten in th' garden agen?'

'Nowe, not as aw con see.'

'Then what arto lookin' at? Thaa seems fair gloppened (surprised).'

'I'm nobbud lookin' aat a bit. It's a bonny seet and o', I can tell thee.'

'Thaa's sin' it mony a time afore, lad, hesn't ta? Is there aught fresh abaat it?'

'There's summat fresh i' mi een, awm thinkin'. Like as I never seed th' owd country look as grand as it looks this morn.'

'Aw'll hev a look wi' thee, Matt; ther'll happen be summat fresh for my een and o'.'

And so saying, Miriam crept to his side and, in unblushing innocence, took her stand at the window with Matt.

It was a comely picture which the little birds saw as they twittered round and peeped through the ivy-covered casement where Matt and Miriam stood framed in the morning radiance and in the glow of domestic love--she with loose tresses lying over her bare shoulders, all glossy in the sunshine, her head resting on the strong arm of him who owned her, and drew her in gentle pride to his beating heart--the two together looking out in all the joy of purity and all the unconscious ease of nature on the sun-flooded moors.

'It's grand, lass, isn't it?'

'Yi, Matt, it is forsure.'

'And them hills--they're awlus slumberin', am't they? Doesto know, I sometimes wish I could be as quiet as they are. They fret noan; weet or fine, it's all th' same to them.'

'They're a bit o'er quiet for me, lad. I'd rather hev a tree misel. It tosses, thaa knows, and tews i' th' tempest, and laughs i' th' sunleet, and fades i' autumn. It's some like a human bein' is a tree.'

'An' aw sometimes think there's summat very like th' Almeety i' th' hills.'

'Doesto, Matt? Ey, aw shouldn't like to think He were so far off as they are, nor as cowd (cold) noather.'

'Nay, lass, they're noan so far off. Didn't owd David say, "As th' mountens are raand abaat Jerusalem, so th' Lord is raand abaat His people"?'

'He did, forsure. But didn't he say that a good man were like a tree planted by th' brookside?'

'Yi; and he said summat else abaat a good woman, didn't he, Miriam?'

'What were that, lad?'

'Why, didn't th' owd songster say, "Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by th' sides o' thine house, and thi childer like olive plants raand abaat thy table"?'

Miriam blushed, and held up her lips to be kissed; nor did Matt faintly warm them with his caresses.

* * * * *

That afternoon, as Matt and Miriam walked down the field-path towards the Rehoboth shrine, they wondered how it was that so much praise was rendered to the Almighty outside the temple made with hands. Both of them had been taught to locate God in a house. Rehoboth chapel was His dwelling-place--not the earth with the fulness thereof, and the heavens with their declaration of glory. Yet, somehow or other, they felt to-day that moor and meadow were sacred--that their feet trod paths as holy as the worn stone aisle of the conventicle below. The airs of spring swept round them, carrying notes from near and far--whisperings from the foliage of trees, and cadences from moors through whose herbage the wind lisped, and from doughs down which it moaned. Early flowers vied with the early greenery carpeting the fields, and the grass was long enough to wave in shadow and intermingle its countless glistening blades. Then their hearts went out towards Nature's harmonies; and tears started to Miriam's eyes as the larks dropped their music from the sunny heights. Now they passed patient oxen looking out at them with quiet, impressive eyes, and the plaintive bleat of the little lambs still brought many a throb to Miriam's heart.

Turning down by the Clough, they met old Enoch and his wife, who, though on their way to Rehoboth, were so full of the spirit of the hour and the season that they thought little of the bald ritual and barn-like sanctuary that was drawing their steps.

'This is grond, lad,' said Enoch to Matt, as he threw back his shoulders to take a deep inspiration of the moorland air. 'It's fair like a breath o' th' Almeety.'

'Yi; it's comin' fro' th' delectable mountains, for sure it is. I'm just thinkin' it's too fine to go inside this afternoon.'

'I'll tell thee what, Matt, I know summat haa that lad Jacob felt when he co'd th' moorside th' gate o' heaven.'

'Ey, bless thee, Enoch, it wernd half as grand as this!' said his wife, as she plucked a spray of may blossom from a hawthorn that overarched the path through the Clough.

'Mebbe not, lass; but aw know summat haa he felt like.'

'Did it ever strike thee, Enoch, that there were a deal o' mountain climbin' among th' owd prophets--like as they fun th' Almeety on th' brow (hill)?'

'Aw never made much o' th' valleys, lad. Them as lived in 'em hes bin a bad lot. We may well thank God as we live up as high as we do. But I'll tell yo' what--we're baan to be lat' for the service. Step it aat, lasses.'

On reaching the chapel yard, they found Amos Entwistle dismissing his catechism class with a few words of warning as to deportment during service, whilst old Joseph was busy cuffing the unruly lads whose predilections for dodging round the gravestones overcame the better instinct of reverence for the day and for the dead. Mr. Penrose was just entering the vestry, and discordant sounds came through the open door as of stringed instruments in process of tuning.

The congregation was soon seated--a hardy race, reared on the hills, and disciplined in the straitest of creeds. Stolid and self-complacent, theirs was an unquestioning faith, accepting, as they did, the Divine decrees as a Mohamedan accepts his fate. What was, was right--all as it should be; elect, or non-elect, according to the fore-knowledge, it was well. Sucking in their theology with their mothers' milk, and cradled in sectarian traditions, they loved justice before mercy, and seldom walked humbly before God. And yet these Rehoboth mothers had borne and reared a strong offspring--children hard, narrow, and self-righteous, yet of firm fibre, and of real grit withal.

The mothers of Rehoboth were famous women, and bore the names of the great Hebrew women of old. Among them were Leahs, Hannahs, Hagars, and Ruths, yet none held priority to Deborah Heap, the mother of Matt. Tall, gaunt, iron-visaged, with crisp, black locks despite her threescore years, she was a prophetess among her kindred--mighty in the Scriptures, and inflexible in faith.

Hers was the illustrious face of that afternoon's congregation--the face a stranger would first fasten his eye on, and on which his eye would remain; a face, too, he would fear. History was writ large on every line, character had set its seal there, and a crown of superb strength reposed on the brow. She guarded the door of her pew, which door she had guarded since her husband's death; and her deep-set eyes, glowing with suppressed passion, never flinched in their gaze at the preacher. Now and again the thin nostrils dilated as Mr. Penrose smote down some of her idols; but for this occasional sign her martyrdom was mute and inexpressive.

No one loved Deborah Heap, although those who knew her measured out to her degrees of respect. She was never known to wrong friend or foe; and yet no kindly words ever fell from her lips, nor did music of sympathy mellow her voice. Her life had been unrelieved by a single deed of charity. She was, in old Mr. Morell's language, 'a negative saint.' Mr. Penrose went further, and called her 'a Calvinistic pagan.' But none of these things moved her.

The grievance of her life was Matt's marriage with an alien; for Miriam was a child of the Established Church. Great, too, was the grievance that no children gladdened the hearth of the unequally yoked couple; and this the old woman looked on as the curse of the Almighty in return for her son's disobedience in sharing his lot with the uncovenanted.

And yet Matt loved his mother; not, however, as he loved his wife, for whom he held a tender, doating love, which the old woman was quick to see, though silent to resent, save when she said that 'Matt were fair soft o'er th' lass.' Nothing so pleased him as to be able to respect his mother's wish without giving pain to his wife. Always loyal to Miriam, he sought to be dutiful to Deborah, and, though the struggle was at times hard and taxing, few succeeded better in holding a true balance of behaviour between the twin relations of son and husband.

Now that Miriam had confided to him her secret, he felt sure his mother's anger would be somewhat turned away when she, too, shared it. And all through the afternoon service he moved restlessly, eager for the hour when, at her own fireside, he could convey the glad news to her ears.

And when that hour came, it came all too soon, for never were Matt and Miriam more confused than when they faced each other at the tea-table of Deborah. A painful repression was on them; ominous silence sealed their lips, and they flushed with a heightened colour. Matt's carefully-prepared speech forsook him--all its prettiness and poetry escaped beyond recall; and Miriam was too womanly to rescue him in his dilemma.

'It's some warm,' said Matt, drawing his handkerchief over his heated brow.

'Aw durnd know as onybody feels it but thisel, lad,' replied his mother; 'but thaa con go i' th' garden, if thaa wants to cool a bit. Tea's happen made thee sweat.'

Then followed another painful pause, in which Miriam unconsciously doubled up a spoon, on seeing which the old woman reminded her that her 'siller wurnd for marlockin' wi' i' that fashion'; and no sooner had she administered this rebuke than Matt overturned his tea.

'Are yo' two reet i' yor yeds (heads)?' snapped his mother. 'Yo' sit theer gawmless-like, one on yo' breakin' th' spoons, and t'other turnin' teacups o'er. What's come o'er yo'?'

'Mother,' stammered Matt, 'Miriam has summat to tell yo'.'

'Nay, lad, thaa may tell it thisel,' said Miriam.

'Happen thaa cornd for shame, Miriam,' stammered Matt.

'I durnd know as I've ought to be ashamed on, but it seems as though thaa hedn't th' pluck.'

The old woman grew impatient, and, supposing she was being fooled, rose from the table, and said:

'I want to know noan o' your secrets. I durnd know as I ever axed for 'em, and if yo' wait till aw do, I shall never know 'em.'

'It's happen one as yo'd like to know, though, mother.'

'It's happen one as you'd like to tell, lad,' replied the old woman, softening.

'Well, if we durnd tell yo', yo'll know soon enough, for it's one o' them secrets as willn't keep--will it, Miriam?' asked Matt of his blushing wife.

But Miriam was silent, and refused to lift her face from the pattern of the plate over which she bent low.

'Dun you think yor too owd to be a gronmother?' asked Matt of his parent, growing in boldness as he warmed to his confession.

'If I were thee I'd ax mysel if I were young enugh to be a faither, that I would,' said the old woman.

'Well, I shall happen be one afore so long, shornd I, Miriam?'

But tears were streaming from Miriam's eyes, and she answered not.

And then there dawned on the mind of Deborah the cause of her son's confusion, and a light stole across the hard lines of her face as she said:

'Is that it, lad? Thank God! thaa'rt in th' covenant after all.'

III.

'IT'S A LAD!'

'Naa, Matt, put on thi coite and fotch th' doctor, an tak' care thaa doesn't let th' grass grow under thi feet.'

Matt needed no second bidding. In a moment he was ready, and before the old nurse turned to re-ascend the chamber stairs the faithful fellow was on his way towards the village below.

It was a morning in November, and as Matt hurried along he passed many on their way to a day's work at the Bridge Factory in the vale. Most of them knew him, dark though it was, and greeting him, guessed the errand on which he raced. Once or twice he collided with those who were slow to get out of his path, and almost overturned old Amos Entwistle into the goit as he pushed past him on the bank that afforded the nearest cut to the village.

'Naa, lad, who arto pushin' agen, and where arto baan i' that hurry? Is th' haase o' fire, or has th' missus taan her bed?'

But Matt was beyond earshot before the old man finished his rude rebuke.