North, South and over the Sea Part 12

"How did ye know about the horse-block?" she inquired, "an' how did ye guess the shippons was throwed into one? Did our Will tell you about the place?"

He paused a moment, and then laughed.

"Often and often. He said he could find his way there blindfold, an' I doubt he made me know it as well as himself."

Mrs. Rigby stretched out her hand and touched the sprig of heather wistfully.

"The moor mun be lookin' gradely now," she said; "all one sheet o'

bloom, I reckon. Eh, I mind how I used to leave windows open, summer an' winter, an let the air come in, soomtimes hot an' soomtimes cowd, but al'ays wi' the smell o' the moor in it. Dear, when I think on't I can scarce breathe here."

"Come, mother, we're keepin' the gentleman standin' all this time,"

said Mary, suddenly recalled to a sense of her hospitable duties. "Sit ye down, sir, and sup a cup o' tea with us. Kettle's boilin', isn't it, mother? You're not in a hurry, are you, mester?"

"I reckon I can stop a twothree minutes," said the man.

Mrs. Whiteside glanced at him sharply, and her mother clapped her hands together.

"Ye're a Lancashire lad, for sure," cried she; "ye speak just same as our own folks up on the moor yon."

He hesitated for a moment.

"Aye, I'll not deny the talk cooms natural to me," he said. "I thought I'd forgot it, but my tongue seems to turn to it when I get agate o'

talkin' wi' Lancashire folks."

"I reckon you and our Will had many a crack together about the bonny North," said Mrs. Rigby, as she spread the cloth, smoothing it carefully with her wrinkled hands. "I'm fain to think my lad minds th'

owd place. Eh, I doubt he'd be nigh broken-hearted if he knowed we had to leave it--I like as if I could be glad to think he knows nought about it, poor lad. He didn't ever talk o' coomin' back, mester, did he?"

"He met think on't," said the visitor slowly, "if he could be sure of a welcome. But he run away, you see, again his father's will, an' he wur allus reckoned a good-for-nothin' kind o' chap--so he seemed to think."

"Who said that?" cried the old woman, pausing with the teapot poised in mid-air, and reddening all over her withered face.

"Well, 'twas a kind o' notion he seemed to have, and o' course, though it's ill blamin' the absent"--here he uttered a queer little laugh--"when all's said and done he hasn't acted so very well. Any chap wi' a heart in's breast 'ud ha' took thought for his own mother, and 'ud ha' seen as she was kept comfortable an' happy in her owd age, and not forced to shift to a strange place."

"I'm sure," put in Mrs. Whiteside indignantly, "I can't think what you're droppin' hints o' that mak' for, sir. A woman has to follow her husband, an' when his business takes him to London he takes her too.

Doin' very well, he is, i' th' coal business, an' I'm sure I make my mother as comfortable an' as happy as I can. Turn London into the moorside is what I cannot do, an' I'm not to be blamed for that. As you said jest now if any one was to blame 'twas my brother."

"Well, I'll not have n.o.body blamin' my lad," cried the old woman.

"He's not to be faulted for what he knowed nought about. If he'd knowed I doubt it 'ud ha' been different."

"That's true," interrupted the man; "if he'd knowed it 'ud ha' been different. He'd ha' kept his mother on the moor. If he was to come back now he'd have her awhoam again afore aught were long."

"Tis wonderful to hear you takin' up wi' that homely talk," said Mrs.

Whiteside, with a laugh, as she set a crusty loaf upon the table. "It fair brings me back. I scarce ever talk i' th' owd fashion now, wi'out 'tis a twothree words now an' then to please mother. Pull up, sir.

Will ye pour out the tea, mother? All's ready now."

"Nay, fetch me a pot of the wimberry jam," said Mrs. Rigby. "Theer's jest two of 'em left. My son-in-law," she explained to the visitor, "he's oncommon kind about humourin' my fancies, an' every year he fetches me a peck or two o' wimberries--you can get 'em reet enough here i' th' market, an' I make us a few pots o' jam--'tis the only kind as ever I could fancy. Eh, what baskets-full the childer used to bring me in i' th' owd days! Will ye cut yourself a bit o' bread, sir?

Tis a bit hard, I doubt; 'tis the end o' the last bakin'. I wur jest agate with the next lot when ye coom in."

He cut off a piece, and spread it with the wimberry jam, and ate a mouthful or two in silence; he seemed to swallow with difficulty, not because of the hardness of the fare, but because of a certain stirring at his heart. How long was it since he had sat him down at such a board as this, and tasted bread, pure and sweet and wholesome, such as cannot be bought in shops, with the fruit of the moor for condiment?

"I doubt it's hard," said Mrs. Whiteside commiseratingly, "and you're not eatin' a bit neither, mother. Come, fall to."

"Eh, I canna eat nought fur thinkin' o' yon lad o' mine. How could he go for to think he'd not be welcome! Ye'll write and an' tell him he'll be welcome, sir, wunnot ye?"

He nodded.

"Eh, I'd be fain to see him, I would that! Ye'll tell him kind an'

careful, mester, about me havin' to shift here, an' dunnot let him think I'm axing him to do mich for me."

"It's time for him to do summat for ye, though," said Will's friend gruffly.

"Nay, I don't ax it--I don't ax for nought. I n.o.bbut want to see his bonny face again."

"Happen you wouldn't know it," said Mrs. Whiteside; "he mun be awful altered now."

"Know it? Know my own lad! I'd pick him out among a thousand."

"I'm not so sure o' that," persisted her daughter. "Ye've seen our Will lately, I s'pose, mester? Can ye tell us what like he is?"

"He's rather like me," said the stranger.

"My word, ye don't say so!" gasped Mrs. Whiteside, while her mother, leaning forward, gazed eagerly into his face.

"He is very like me," he said brokenly, and then, of a sudden, stretching out his hand he plucked the old woman by the sleeve: "Wakken up, mother," he cried; "mother, 'tis time to wakken up!"

SENTIMENT AND "FEELIN'"

As a rule our Lancashire peasants are not sentimental; in fact, degenerate south-countrymen frequently take exception to their blunt ways and terrible plain-speaking. But occasionally they display an astonishing impressibility, and at all times know how to appreciate a bit of romance.

When three months after his wife's death, for instance, Joe Balshaw married her cousin, because, as he explained, "hoo favoured our Mary,"

all the neighbours thought such fidelity extremely touching.

I remember once when our little church was gaily decorated for the harvest festival some one had the happy thought of placing among the garlands of flowers and ma.s.ses of fruit and vegetables--thank-offerings from various parishioners--which were heaped on each side of the chancel, a miniature hayrick beautifully made and thatched, and a tiny cornstack to correspond. The sermon was over, and the service proceeding as usual, when suddenly a burst of sobs distracted the congregation, and Robert Barnes, the bluffest and burliest farmer in the whole property, was observed to be wiping his eyes with a red cotton handkerchief. In vain did his scandalised wife nudge and reprove him; he sobbed on, and she grew alarmed. "Wasn't he well?" she asked.

"Aye, well enough," groaned Robert; "but it's so beautiful. I cannot choose but cry!"

"Is't th' music, feyther?" inquired his daughter.

"Nay, nay--it's them there little stacks. Eh, they're--they're gradely. I never see sich a seet i' my life."

If this was not susceptibility, I don't know where to look for it.

No doubt a certain roughness of speech, an almost brutal frankness, is a noticeable northern characteristic. It strikes a stranger painfully, but is accepted and even appreciated by those accustomed to it from childhood.