Chapter 9

As the darkness deepened, Mr. Penrose--fearless of the storm, and at home on the wilds--made his way towards a lone farmstead known as 'Granny Houses,' and so-called because of an old woman who lived there, and who, by keeping a light in her window on dark winter nights, guided the colliers to a distant pit across the moors. She was the quaint product of the hills and of Calvinism, but shrewd withal, and of a kind heart. Indeed, the young minister had taken a strong liking to her, and frequently called at her far-away home.

'Ey, Mr. Penrose, whatever's brought yo aat a neet like this?' she cried, as the preacher stood white as a ghost in the doorway of the farmstead. 'Come in and dry yorsel. Yo're just i' time fur baggin (tea), and there's noan I'm as fain to see as yo'.'

'Thank you, Mrs. Halstead; I'm glad to be here. It's a grand night.' And looking through the open doorway at the great expanse of snow-covered moor, he said, 'What a beautiful world God's world is--is it not?'

'I know noan so mich abaat its beauty, but I know its a fearful cowd (cold) world to-neet. Shut that dur afore th' kitchen's filled wi' snow. When yo're as owd as me yo'll noan be marlockin' i' snow at this time o' neet. What's life to young uns is death to owd uns, yo' know. But draw up to th' fire. That's reet; naa then, doff that coite, and hev a soup o' tay. An' haa 'n yo' laft 'em all daan at Rehoboth? Clammin', I reckon.'

'You're not far from the word, Mrs. Halstead. Many of them don't know where to-morrow's food and to-morrow's fire is coming from.'

'Nowe, I dare say. Bud if they'd no more sense nor to spend their brass in th' summer, what can they expect? There's some fo'k think they can eyt their cake and hev it. But th' Almeety doesn't bake bread o' that mak'. He helps them as helps theirsels. He gay' five to th' chap as bed five, and him as bed nobbud one, and did naught wi' it--why, He tuk it fro' him, didn't He? I'll tell yo' what it is, Mr. Penrose, there's a deal o' worldly wisdom i' providence. Naa come, isn't there?'

Mr. Penrose laughed.

'Theer's that Oliver o' Deaf Martha's. Naa, I lay aught he's noan so mich, wi' his dog-feightin' and poachin'. His missis wur up here t'other day axin' for some milk for th' childer. An' hoo said ut everybody wur ooined (punished for want of food) at their house but Oliver an' th' dog. Theer's awlus enugh for them.'

'Yes, I believe that is so.'

'It wur that dog as welly killed Moses Fletcher, wurnd it?'

'I think it was,' replied Mr. Penrose.

'And haa is owd Moses sin yo' dipped him o'er agen? It 'll tak' some watter and grace to mak' him ought like, I reckon. But they tell me he's takken to gien his brass away. It 'll noan dry th' een o' th' poor fo'k he's made weep, tho'--will it, Mr. Penrose?'

'Perhaps not, Mrs. Halstead; but Moses is an altered man.'

'And noan afore it wur time. But what's that noise in th' yard? It saands like th' colliers. What con they be doin' aat o' th' pit at this time? They're noan off the shift afore ten, and it's nobbud hawve-past six.'

In another moment the door of the cottage was thrown open and a collier entered, white with falling snow, and breathless. When he had sufficiently recovered, he said:

'Gronny, little Job Wallwork's getten crushed in th' four-foot, and it's a'most up wi' him. They're bringin' on him here.'

'Whatever wilto say next, lad? Poor little felley, where's he getten hurt? On his yed?'

'Nay; he's crushed in his in'ards, and he hasnd spokken sin'. They're carryin' him on owd Malachi's coite' (coat).

A sound of shuffling feet was heard in the snow, and four men, holding the ends of a greatcoat, bore the pale-faced, swooning boy into the glare of Mrs. Halstead's kitchen. His thin features were drawn, and a clayey hue overspread his face--a hue which, when she saw with her practised eye, she knew was the shadow of the destroyer.

'Poor little felley!' she cried; 'and his mother a widder an' all.'

And then, bending down over the settle whereon they had placed the mangled lad, she pressed her lips on the pale brow, clammy with the ooze of death--lips long since forsaken by the early blush of beauty, yet still warm with the instinct which in all true women feeds itself with the wasting years. Tears fell from her eyes--tears that told of unfathomed deeps of motherhood, despite her threescore years and ten; while with lean and tremulous hand she combed back the dank masses of hair that lay in clusters about the boy's pallid face. Her reverence and love thus manifested--a woman's offering to tortured flesh in the dark chamber of pain--she unbuckled the leathern strap that clasped the little collier's breeches to his waist, and, with a touch gentle enough to carry healing, bared the body, now discoloured and torn, though still the veined and plastic marble--the flesh-wall of the human temple, so fearfully and wonderfully made.

The boy lay immobile. Scarce a pulse responded to the old woman's touch as she placed the palm of her hand over the valve of his young life. Nor did her fomentations rouse him, as feebler grew the protest of the heart to the separation of the little soul from the mangled body. At last the watchers thought the wrench was over, and Death the lord of life.

Then the clayey hue, so long overshadowing the face, faded away in the warmth of a returning tide of life, as a gray dawn is suffused by sunrise. The beat became stronger and more frequent, there was a movement in the passive limbs, and, opening his eyes dreamily, then wonderingly, and at last consciously, the lad looked into the old woman's face and said:

'Gronny!'

'Yi! it's Gronny, lad. And haa doesto feel?'

The boy tried to move, and uttered a feeble cry of pain.

'Lie thee still, lad. Doesto think thaa can ston this?' and the old woman laid another hot flannel on the boy's body.

At first he winced, and a look of terrible torture passed over his face. Then he smiled and said:

'Yi! Gronny, aw can bide thee to do ought.'

Mr. Penrose, helpless and silent, stood at the foot of the settle on which lay the dying boy, the colliers seeking the gloomy corners of the large kitchen, where in shadow they awaited in rude fear the death of their little companion. The old woman, cool and self-possessed, plied her task with a tenderness and skill born of long years of experience, cheering with words of endearment the last moments of the sufferer.

The boy's rally was brief, for internal hæmorrhage set in, and swiftly wrought its fatal work, sweeping the vital tide along channels through which it no longer returned to the fount of life, and leaving the weary face with a pallor that overmastered the flush that awhile before brought a momentary hope. His eyes grew dim, and the light from the lamp seemed to recede, as though it feared him, and would elude his gaze. The figures in the room became mixed and commingled, and took shapes which at times he failed to recognise. Then a sensation of falling seized him, and he planted his hands on the cushion of the settle, as though he would stay his descent.

Looking at Mr. Penrose through a ray of consciousness, he said:

'Th' cage is goin' daan fearfo quick. Pray!'

The old woman caught the word, and, turning to the minister, she said:

'He wants thee to mak' a prayer.'

Mr. Penrose drew nearer to the boy, and repeated the grand death-song of the saints: 'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.'

The boy shook his head--for him the words had no meaning. Then, raising himself, he said:

'Ax God O'meety to leet His candle. I'm baan along th' seam, an' it's fearfo dark!'

To Mr. Penrose the words were strange, and, turning to the colliers, he asked them what the boy wanted.

Then Malachi o' the Mount came towards the minister and said:

'Th' lad thinks he's i' th' four-foot seam, and he connot find his road, it's so dark, and he wants a leet--a candle, yo' know, same as we use in th' pit. He wants the Almeety to leet him along.'

Still Mr. Penrose was in darkness.

Then the boy turned to old Malachi, and, with a farewell look of recognition and a last effort of speech, said:

'Malachi, ax Him as is aboon to leet His great candle, and show me th' road along th' seam. It's some fearsome and dark.'

And Malachi knelt by the side of the lad, and, in broken accents and rude vernacular, said:

'O God O'meety, little Job's baan along th' four-foot seam, an' he connot see his gate (way). Leet Thy candle, Lord--Thy great candle--and mak' it as leet as day for th' lad. Leet it, Lord, and dunnot put it aat till he geds through to wheere they've no need o' candles, becose Thaa gies them th' leet o' Thysel.'

The prayer over, every eye was turned to the boy, on whose face there had broken a great light--a light from above.

II.

THE TWO MOTHERS.

The royal repose of death reigned over the features of little Job as his mother entered the kitchen of the Granny Houses Farm. She had been summoned from Rehoboth by a collier, fleet of foot, who, as soon as the injured boy was brought to the pit-bank, started with the sad news to the distant village. No sooner did the woman catch the purport of the news, than she ran out wildly into the snowy air--not waiting to don shawl or clogs, but speeding over the white ground as those only speed who love, and who know their loved ones are in need.

A wild wind was blowing from the north, and the fleecy particles fell in fantastic whirls and spirals, to drift in treacherous banks over the gullies and falls that lay along the path; while here and there thin black lines, sinuous in their trend, told where moorland waters flowed, and guided the hurrying mother to her distant goal. The groaning trees, tossed by the tempest, flung off showers of half-frozen flakes, that falling on her flaming cheeks failed to cool the fever of her suspense, while the yielding snow beneath her feet became a tantalus path, delaying her advance, and seeming to make more distant her suffering child.

Ploughing her way through the Green Fold Clough, she climbed the steeps at the further end, and stood, breathless, on the bank of the great reservoir that lay dark in the hollow of the white hills. Her heart beat savagely and loud--so loud that she heard it above the din of the storm; and cruel pain relentlessly stabbed her heaving side, while her breath was fetched in quick respirations.

As she thus stood, tamed in her race of love by the imperative call of exhausted nature, Dr. Hale loomed through the snowy haze, and, reading instinctively who she was and whither she was bound, proffered his assistance for the remaining half of the journey.

He had not walked with her for many yards before he saw her exposed condition. Her hair was flying in frozen tresses about her unshawled bosom, and no outer covering protected her from the chill blast.

'Mrs. Wallwork,' said he, 'you ought not to be crossing the moors a night like this, uncovered as you are. You are tempting Nature to do her worst with you, you know.'

'Ne'er heed me, doctor. It's mi lad yon aw want yo' to heed. I shall be all reet if he's nobbud reet. I con walk faster if yo' con,' and so saying, the jaded woman sprang, like a stung horse, under the spur of love.

'But I have two lives to think of,' replied Dr. Hale, 'both mother's and son's.'

'Mine's naught, doctor, when he's i' danger. Who bothers their yeds abaat theirsels when them as they care more for are i' need? Let's hurry up, doctor.'

And again she sprang forward, to struggle with renewed effort through the yielding snow. Then, turning towards her companion, she cried:

'Where wur he hurt, doctor? Did they tell yo'?'

But the doctor was silent.

Seizing his arm with eager grip, she continued:

'Dun yo' think he's livin', doctor? Or is he deead? Did they say he wur deead?'

'We must be patient a little longer,' was the doctor's kind reply. 'See! there's the light in the window of Granny Houses!'

And there shone the light--distant across the fields, and blurred and indistinct through the falling snow. Without waiting to find the path, the mother ran in a direct line towards it, scaling the walls with the nimbleness of youth, to fall exhausted on the threshold of the farmstead.

Raising herself, she looked round with a blank stare, dazed with the glow of the fire and the light of the lamp. In the further corners of the room, and away from each other, sat the old woman and Mr. Penrose and Malachi o' the Mount, while on the settle beneath the window lay the sheeted dead.

'Where's th' lad?' cried the mother, the torture of a great fear racking her features and agonizing her voice.

There was no reply, the three watchers by the dead helplessly and mutely gazing at the snow-covered figure that stood beneath the open doorway within a yard of her child.

'Gronny, doesto yer? Where's my lad? And yo', Malachi--yo' took him daan th' shaft wi' yo'; what ban yo' done wi' him?'

Still there was no response. A paralysis silenced each lip. None of the three possessed a heart that dared disclose the secret.

Seeing the sheeted covering on the settle, the woman, with frantic gesture, tore it aside, and when her eye fell on the little face, grand in death's calm, a great rigor took hold of her, and then she became rigid as the dead on whom her gaze was fixed.

In a little while she stooped over the boy, and, baring the cold body, looked long at the crushed and discoloured parts, at last bending low her face and kissing them until they were warm with her caress. Then old granny, turning round to Mr. Penrose, whispered:

'Thank God, hoo's weepin'!'

'Let her weep,' said Dr. Hale; 'there's no medicine like tears.'

* * * * *

That night, long after the snow had ceased to fall, and the tempestuous winds with folded wings were hushed in repose, and distant stars glittered in steely brightness, the two women, holding each other's hand, sat over the hearth of the solitary moorland farmstead. They were widows both, and both now were sisters in the loss of an only child.

Granny, as she was called, bore that name not from relationship, but from her kindliness and age. It was the pet name given to her by the colliers to whom she so often ministered in their risks and exposures at the adjacent pit. Into her life the rain had fallen. After fifteen years of domestic joy, her only child, a son, fell before the breath of fever, and in the shadow of that loss she ever since walked. Then her husband succumbed to the exposure of a winter's toil, and now for long she had lived alone. But as she used to say, 'Suppin' sorrow had made her to sup others' sorrow with them.' Her cup, though deep and full, had not embittered her heart, but led her to drink with those whose cup was deeper than her own. The death of little Job had rolled away the stone from the mouth of the sepulchre of her own dead child; and as she held the hand of the lately-bereaved mother she dropped many a word of comfort.

'I'll tell thee what aw've bin thinkin',' said the old woman.

'What han yo' bin thinkin', Gronny?'

'Why, I've bin thinkin' haa good th' Almeety is--He's med angels o' them as we med lads.'

'I durnd know what yo' mean, Gronny.'

'Why, it's i' this way, lass; my Jimmy and yor little Job wur aar own, wurnd they?'

'Yi, forsure they wur.'

'We feshioned 'em, as the Psalmist sez, didn't we?'

'Thaa sez truth, Gronny,' wept the younger woman.

'And we feshioned 'em lads an' o'.'

'Yi, and fine uns; leastways, my little Job wur--bless him.'

And the mother turned her tearful eyes towards the settle whereon lay the corpse.

'Well, cornd yo' see as God hes finished aar wark for us, and what we made lads, He's made angels on?'

'But aw'd sooner ha' kept mine. Angels are up aboon, thaa knows; an' heaven's a long way off.'

'Happen noan so far as thaa thinks, lass; and then th' Almeety will do better by 'em nor we con.'

'Nay, noan so, Gronny. God cornd love Job better nor I loved him.'

'But he willn't ged crushed in a coile seam i' heaven; naa, lass, will he?'

'Thaa's reet, Gronny, he willn't. But if He mak's us work here, why does He kill us o'er th' job, as he's killed mi little lad?'

'Thaa mun ax Mr. Penrose that, lass; I'm no scholard.'

'Aw'll tell thee what it is, Gronny. It noan seems reet that thee and me should be sittin' by th' fire, and little Job yonder cowd i' th' shadow. Let's pool up th' settle to th' fire; he's one on us, though he's deead.'

'Let him alone, lass; he's better off nor them as wants fire; there's no cowd wheer he's goan.'

Rising from her chair, and turning the sheet once more from off the boy's face, the mother said:

'Where hasto goan, lad? Tell thi mother, willn't taa?' And then, looking round at the old woman, she said, 'Doesto think he yers (hears) me, Gronny?'

'Aw welly think he does, lass; but durnd bother him naa. He's happen restin', poor little lad; or happen he's telling them as is up aboon all abaat thee--who knows?'

'Aw say, Gronny, Jesus made deead fo'k yer Him when He spok', didn't He?'

'Yi, lass, He did forsure.'

'Who wur that lass He spok' to when He turned 'em all aat o' th' room, wi' their noise and shaatin'?'

'Tha means th' rich mon's lass, doesndto?'

'Yi! Did He ever do ought for a poor mon's lass?'

'He did for a poor woman's lad, thaa knows--a widder's son--one like thine.'

'But he's noan here naa, so we's be like to bide by it, ey, dear? Mi lad! mi lad!'

'Don't tak' on like that, lass; noather on us 'll hev to bide long. It's a long road, I know, when fo'k luk for'ards; but it's soon getten o'er, and when thaa looks back'ards it's nobbud short. I tell thee I've tramped it, and I durnd know as I'm a war woman for the journey. It's hard wark partin' wi' your own; but then theer's th' comfort o' havin' had 'em. I'd rayther hev a child and bury it, nor be baat childer, like Miriam Heap yonder.'

'Aw dare say as yo're reet, Gronny; aw's cry and fret a deal over little Job, but then aw's hev summat to think abaat, shornd I? Aw geet his likeness taken last Rehoboth fair by a chap as come in a callivan (caravan), and it hengs o'er th' chimley-piece. But aw's noan see th' leet in his een ony more, nor yer his voice, nor tak' him wi' me to th' chapel on Sundos,' and the woman again turned to the dead boy, and fondly lingered over his familiar features, weeping over them her tears of despair.

'Come, lass, tha munn't tak' on like that. Sit yo' daan, an' I'll tell yo' what owd Mr. Morell said to me when mi lad lay deead o' th' fayver, and noan on 'em would come near me. He said I mut (must) remember as th' Almeety had nobbud takken th' lad upstairs. But aw sez, "Mr. Morell, theer's mony steps, an' I cornd climb 'em." "Yi," sez he, "theer is mony steps, but yo' keep climbin' on 'em every day, and one day yo'll ged to th' top and be i' th' same raam (room) wi' him." An', doesto know, every time as I fretted and felt daan, I used to think o' him as was upstairs, and remember haa aw wur climbin' th' steps an' gettin' nearer him.'

'But yo've noan getten to th' top yet, Gronny.'

'No, aw hevn't, but aw'm a deal nearer nor aw wur when he first laft me. An' doesto know, lass, aw feel misel to be gettin' so near naa that aw can welly yer him singin'. There's nobbud a step or two naa, and then we's be i' th' same raam.'

'An' is th' Almeety baan to mak' me climb as mony steps as thaa's climbed afore I ged into th' same raam as He's takken little Job too, thinksto?'

'Ey, lass. Aw durnd know; but whether thaa's to climb mony or few thaa'll hev strength gien thee, as aw hev.'

'Aw wish God's other room wurnd so far off, Gronny--nobbud t'other side o' th' wall instead o' th' story aboon. Durnd yo'?'

'Nay, lass; they're safer upstairs. Thaa knows He put's 'em aat o' harm's way.'

'But aw somehaa think aw could ha' takken care o' little Job a bit longer. And when he'd groon up, thaa knows, he could ha' takken care o' me.'

'Yi, lass; we're awlus for patchin' th'Almeety's work; and if He leet us, we's mak' a sorry mess on it and o'.'

'Well, Gronny, if I wur God Almeety I'd be agen lettin' lumps o' coile fall and crush th' life aat o' lads like aar Job. It's a queer way o' takkin 'em upstairs, as yo' co it.'

'Hooisht! lass, thaa mornd try to speerit through th' clouds that are raand abaat His throne. He tak's one i' one way, an another i' another; but if He tak's em to Hissel they're better off than they'd be wi' us.'

'Well, Gronny, aw tell thee, aw cornd see it i' that way yet;' and again the mother caressed the body of her son.

Once more she turned towards the old woman, and said:

'Aw shouldn't ha' caared so mich, Gronny, if he'd deed as yor lad deed--i' his own bed, an' wi' a fayver; bud he wur crushed wi' a lump o' coile! Poor little lad! Luk yo' here!' and the mother bared the body and showed the discoloured parts.

'Did ta' ever see a child dee o' fayver, lass?'

'Not as aw know on. Aw've awlus bin flayed, and never gone near 'em.'

'Thaa may thank God as thy lad didn't dee of a fayver. Aw's never forgeet haa th' measter and I watched and listened to aar lad's ravin's. Haa he rached aat wi' his honds, and kept settin' up and makin' jumps at what he fancied he see'd abaat him; and when we co'd him he never knowed us. Nowe, lass, he never knowed me until one neet he seemed to come to hissel, and then he looked at me and said, "Mother!" But it wur all he said--he never spok' at after.'

'Yi; but yo' see'd yur lad dee--and mine deed afore I could get to him.'

'That is so, lass! but as aw stood an' see'd mine deein', I would ha' gien onything if I could ha' shut mi een, or not bin wi' him. I know summat as what Hagar felt when hoo said, "Let me not see th' deeath o' th' child"--I do so.'

The younger woman wept, and the tears brought relief to her pent-up heart. She had found a mother's ear for her mother's sorrow; and the after-calm of a great grief was now falling over her. She leaned her aching head on the shoulders of the older and stronger woman by whose side she sat, and at last her sorrow brought the surcease of sleep. The fire threw its fitful flicker on her haggard face, lighting up in strange relief the lines of agony and the moisture of the freshly fallen tears. Now and again she sobbed in her slumber--a sob that shook her soul--but she slept, and sleep brought peace and oblivion.

'Sleep on, lass, sleep on, and God ease thi poor heart,' said the old Granny, as she held the woman's hand in hers. 'Thaa's hed both thi travails naa; thaa's travailed i' birth, and thaa's travailed i' deeath, like mony a poor soul afore thee. There wur joy when thaa brought him into th' world, and theer's sorrow naa he's goan aat afore his time. Ey, dear! A mother's life's like an April morn--sunleet and cloud, fleshes o' breetness, and showers o' rain.'

And closing her eyes, she, too, slept. And in that lone outlying fold, far away in the snowy bosom of the hills, there was the sleep of weariness, the sleep of sorrow, and the sleep of death. And who shall say that the last was not the kindliest and most welcome?

III.

THE SNOW CRADLE.

As Mr. Penrose and Malachi o' th' Mount closed the door of Granny Houses on the sorrowing widowed mother, there opened to them a fairy realm of snow. Stepping out on its yielding carpet of crystals, they looked in silent wonder at the fair new world, where wide moors slept in peaceful purity, and distant hills lifted their white summits towards the deep cold blue of the clearing sky. Steely stars glittered and magnified their light through the lens of the eager, frosty air, and old landmarks were hidden, and roads familiar to the wayfarer no longer discovered their trend. Little hillocks had taken the form of mounds, and stretches of level waste were swept by ranges of drift and shoulders of obstructing snow.