The History of David Grieve Part 14

CHAPTER VII

Spring came round again and the warm days of June. At Easter time David had made no further attempts to meet with Jenny Crum on her midnight wanderings. The whole tendency of his winter's mental growth, as well perhaps of the matters brutally raised and crudely sifted in Jerry Timmins's parlour, had been towards a harder and more sceptical habit of mind. For the moment the supernatural had no thrill in it for an intelligence full of contradictions. So the poor witch, if indeed she 'walked,' revisited her place of pain un.o.bserved of mortal eye.

About the middle of June David and his uncle went, as usual, to Kettlewell and Masholme, in Yorkshire, for the purpose of bringing home from thence some of that hardier breed of sheep which was required for the moorland, a Scotch breed brought down yearly to the Yorkshire markets by the Lowland farmers beyond the border.

This expedition was an annual matter, and most of the farmers in the Kinder Valley and thereabouts joined in it. They went together by train to Masholme, made their purchases, and then drove their sheep over the moors home, filling the wide ferny stretches and the rough upland road with a patriarchal wealth of flocks, and putting up at night at the village inns, while their charges strayed at will over the hills. These yearly journeys had always been in former years a joy to David. The wild freedom of the walk, the change of scene which every mile and every village brought with it, the resistance of the moorland wind, the spring of the moorland turf, every little incident of the road, whether of hardship or of rough excess, added fuel to the flame of youth, and went to build up the growing creature.

This year, however, that troubling of the waters which was going on in the boy was especially active during the Masholme expedition. He kept to himself and his animals, and showed such a gruff unneighbourly aspect to the rest of the world that the other drivers first teased and then persecuted him. He fought one or two pitched battles on the way home, showed himself a more respectable antagonist, on the whole, than his a.s.sailants had bargained for, and was thenceforward contemptuously sent to Coventry. 'Yoong man,'

said an old farmer to him once reprovingly, after one of these "rumpuses," '_yor_ temper woan't mouldy wi keepin.' Reuben coming by at the moment threw an unhappy glance at the lad, whose bruised face and torn clothes showed he had been fighting. To the uncle's mind there was a wanton, nay, a ruffianly look about him, which was wholly new. Instead of rebuking the culprit, Reuben slouched away and put as much road as possible between himself and Davy.

One evening, after a long day on the moors, the party came, late in the afternoon, to the Yorkshire village of Haworth. To David it was a village like any other. He was already mortally tired of the whole business--of the endless hills, the company, the bleak grey weather. While the rest of the party were mopping brows and draining ale-pots in the farmers' public, he was employing himself in aimlessly kicking a stone about one of the streets, when he was accosted by a woman of the shopkeeping cla.s.s, a decent elderly woman, who had come out for a mouthful of air, with a child dragging after her.

'Yoong mester, yo've coom fro a distance, hannot yo?'

The woman's tone struck the boy pleasantly as though it had been a phrase of cheerful music. There was a motherliness in it--a something, for which, perhaps all unknown to himself, his secret heart was thirsting.

'Fro Masholme,' he said, looking at her full, so that she could see all the dark, richly coloured face she had had a curiosity to see; then he added abruptly, 'We're bound Kinder way wi t' sheep--reet t'other side o' t' Scout.'

The woman nodded. 'Aye, I know a good mony o' your Kinder foak.

They've coom by here a mony year pa.s.st. But I doan't know as I've seen yo afoor. Yo're n.o.bbut a yoong 'un. Eh, but we get sich a sight of strangers here now, the yan fairly drives the tother out of a body's mind.'

'Doos foak coom for t' summer?' asked David, lifting his eyebrows a little, and looking round on the bleak and straggling village.

'Noa, they coom to see the church. Lor' bless ye!' said the good woman, following his eyes towards the edifice and breaking into a laugh, ''taint becos the church is onything much to look at. 'Taint nowt out o' t' common that I knows on. Noa--but they coom along o't' monument, an' Miss Bronte--Mrs. Nicholls, as should be, poor thing--rayder.'

There was no light of understanding in David's face, but his penetrating eyes, the size and beauty of which she could not help observing, seemed to invite her to go on.

'You niver heerd on our Miss Bronte?' said the woman, mildly.

'Well, I spose not. She was just a bit quiet body. n.o.bbody hereabouts saw mich in her. But she wrote bukes--tales, yo know--tales about t' foak roun here; an they do say, them as has read 'em, 'at they're terr'ble good. Mr. Watson, at t' Post Office, he's read 'em, and he's allus promised to lend 'em me. But soomhow I doan't get th' time. An in gineral I've naw moor use for a book nor a coo has for clogs. But she's terr'ble famous, is Miss Bronte, now--an her sisters too, pore young women. Yo should see t'

visitors' book in th' church. Aw t' grand foak as iver wor. They cooms fro Lunnon a purpose, soom ov 'em, an they just takes a look roun t' place, an writes their names, an goos away. Would yo like to see th' church?' said the good-natured creature--looking at the tall lad beside her with an admiring scrutiny such as every woman knows she may apply to any male. 'I'm goin that way, an it's my brother 'at has th' keys.'

David accompanied her with an alacrity which would have astonished his usual travelling companions, and they mounted the straggling village street together towards the church. As they neared it the woman stopped and, shading her eyes against the sunlight, pointed up to it and the parsonage.

'Noa, it's not a beauty, isn't our church. They do say our parson ud like to have it pulled clean down an a new one built. Onyways, they're goin to clear th' Brontes' pew away, an sich a rumpus as soom o' t' Bradford papers have bin makin, and a gradely few o' t'

people here too! I doan't know t' reets on 't missel, but I'st be sorry when yo conno see ony moor where Miss Charlotte an Miss Emily used to sit o' Sundays--An theer's th' owd house. Yo used to be 'lowed to see Miss Charlotte's room, where she did her writin, but they tell me yo can't be let in now. Seems strange, doan't it, 'at onybody should be real fond o' that place? When yo go by it i'

winter, soomtimes, it lukes that lonesome, with t' churchyard coomin up close roun it, it's enoof to gie a body th' shivers. But I do bleeve, Miss Charlotte she could ha kissed ivery stone in 't; an they do say, when she came back fro furrin parts, she'd sit an cry for joy, she wor that partial to Haworth. It's a place yo do get to favour soomhow,' said the good woman, apologetically, as though feeling that no stranger could justly be expected to sympathise with the excesses of local patriotism.

Did th' oother sisters write books?' demanded David, his eyes wandering over the bare stone house towards which the pa.s.sionate heart of Charlotte Bronte had yearned so often from the land of exile.

'Bless yo, yes. An theer's mony foak 'at think Miss Emily wor a deol cliverer even nor Miss Charlotte. Not but what yo get a bad noshun o' Yorkshire folk fro Miss Emily's bukes--soa I'm towd. Bit there's rough doins on t' moors soomtimes, I'll uphowd yo! An Miss Emily had eyes like gimlets--they seed reet through a body. Deary me,' she cried, the fountain of gossip opening more and more, 'to think I should ha known 'em in pinafores, Mr. Patrick an aw!'

And under the stress of what was really a wonder at the small beginnings of fame--a wonder which much repet.i.tion of her story had only developed in her--she poured out upon her companion the history of the Brontes; of that awful winter in which three of that weird band--Emily, Patrick, Anne--fell away from Charlotte's side, met the death which belonged to each, and left Charlotte alone to reap the harvest of their common life through a few burning years; of the publication of the books; how the men of the Mechanics'

Inst.i.tute (the roof of which she pointed out to him) went crazy over 'Shirley'; how everybody about 'thowt Miss Bronte had bin puttin ov 'em into prent,' and didn't know whether to be pleased or pique; how, as the noise made by 'Jane Eyre' and 'Shirley' grew, a wave of excitement pa.s.sed through the whole countryside, and people came from Halifax, and Bradford, and Huddersfield--aye, an Lunnon soomtoimes '--to Haworth church on a Sunday, to see the quiet body at her prayers who had made all the stir; how Mr. Nicholls, the curate, bided his time and pressed his wooing; how he won her as Rachel was won; and how love did but open the gate of death, and the fiery little creature--exhausted by such an energy of living as had possessed her from her cradle--sank and died on the threshold of her new life. All this Charlotte Bronte's townswoman told simply and garrulously, but she told it well because she had felt and seen.

'She wor so sma' and nesh; nowt but a midge. Theer was no la.s.st in her. Aye, when I heerd the bell tolling for Miss Charlotte that Sat.u.r.day mornin,' said the speaker, shaking her head as she moved away towards the church, 'I cud ha sat down an cried my eyes out.

But if she'd ha seen me she'd ha n.o.bbut said, "Martha, get your house straight, an doan't fret for me!" She had sich a sperrit, had Miss Charlotte. Well, now, after aw, I needn't go for t' keys, for th' church door's open. It's Bradford early closin day, yo see, an I dessay soom Bradford foak's goin over.'

So she marched him in, and there indeed was a crowd in the little ugly church, congregated especially at the east end, where the Brontes' pew still stood awaiting demolition at the hands of a reforming vicar. As David and his guide came up they found a young weaver in a black coat, with a sallow oblong face, black hair, high collars, and a general look of Lord Byron, haranguing those about him on the iniquity of removing the pews, in a pa.s.sionate undertone, which occasionally rose high above the key prescribed by decorum. It was a half-baked eloquence, sadly liable to bathos, divided, indeed, between sentences ringing with the great words 'genius' and 'fame,' and others devoted to an indignant contemplation of the ha.s.socks in the old pews, 'the touching and well-worn implements of prayer,' to quote his handsome description of them, which a meddlesome parson was about to 'hurl away,' out of mere hatred for intellect and contempt of the popular voice.

But, half-baked or no, David rose to it greedily. After a few moments' listening, he pressed up closer to the speaker, his broad shoulders already making themselves felt in a crowd, his eyes beginning to glow with the dissenter's hatred of parsons. In the full tide of discourse, however, the orator was arrested by an indignant s.e.xton, who, coming quickly up the church, laid hold upon him.

'No speechmakin in the church, if you _please_, sir. Move on if yo're goin to th' vestry, sir, for I'll have to shut up directly.'

The young man stared haughtily at his a.s.sailant, and the men and boys near closed up, expecting a row. But the voice of authority within its own gates is strong, and the champion of outraged genius collapsed. The whole flock broke up and meekly followed the s.e.xton, who strode on before them to the vestry.

'William's a rare way wi un,' said his companion to David, following her brother's triumph with looks of admiration. 'I thowt that un wud ha bin harder to shift.'

David, however, turned upon her with a frown. '_'Tis_ a black shame,' he said; 'why conno they let t' owd pew bide?'

'Ah, weel,' said the woman with a sigh, 'as I said afore, I'st be reet sorry when Miss Charlotte's seat's gone. But yo conno ha brawlin i' church. William's reet enough there.'

And beginning to be alarmed lest she should be raising up fresh trouble for William in the person of this strange, foreign-looking lad, with his eyes like 'live birds,' she hurried him on to the vestry, where the visitors' books were being displayed. Here the Byronic young man was attempting to pick a fresh quarrel with the s.e.xton, by way of recovering himself with his party. But he took little by it; the s.e.xton was a tough customer. When the local press was shaken in his face, the vicar's hireling, a canny, weather-beaten Yorkshireman, merely replied with a twist of the mouth,

'Aye, aye, th' newspapers talk--there'd be s...o...b..dy goin hoongry if they didn't;' or--' Them 'at has to eat th' egg knaws best whether it is addled or no--to my thinkin,' and so on through a string of similar aphorisms which finally demolished his antagonist.

David meanwhile was burning to be in the fray. He thought of some fine Miltonic sayings to hurl at the s.e.xton, but for the life of him he could not get them out. In the presence of that indifferent, sharp-faced crowd of townspeople his throat grew hot and dry whenever he thought of speaking.

While the Bradford party struggled out of the church, David, having somehow got parted from the woman who had brought him in, lingered behind, before that plain tablet on the wall, whereat the crowd which had just gone out had been worshipping.

EMILY, aged 29.

ANNE, aged 27.

CHARLOTTE, in the 39th year of her age.

The church had grown suddenly quite still. The s.e.xton was outside, engaged in turning back a group of Americans, on the plea that visiting hours were over for the day. Through the wide-open door the fading yellow light streamed in, and with it a cool wind which chased little eddies of dust about the pavement. In the dusk the three names--black on the white--stood out with a stern and yet piteous distinctness. The boy stood there feeling the silence--the tomb near by--the wonder and pathos of fame, and all that thrill of undefined emotion to which youth yields itself so hungrily.

The s.e.xton startled him by tapping him on the shoulder. 'Time to go home, yoong man. My sister she told me to say good neet to yer, and she wishes yo good luck wi your journey. Where are yo puttin up?'

'At the "Brown Bess,"' murmured the boy ungraciously, and hurried out. But the good man, unconscious of repulse and kindly disposed towards his sister's waif, stuck to him, and, as they walked down the churchyard together, the difference between the manners of official and those of private life proved to be so melting to the temper that even David's began to yield. And a little incident of the walk mollified him completely. As they turned a corner they came upon a bit of waste land, and there in the centre of an admiring company was the s.e.xton's enemy, mounted on a bit of wall, and dealing out their deserts in fine style to those meddling parsons and their underlings who despised genius and took no heed of the relics of the mighty dead. The s.e.xton stopped to listen when they were nearly out of range, and was fairly carried away by the 'go' of the orator.

'Doan't he do it nateral!' he said with enthusiasm to David, after a pa.s.sage specially and unflatteringly devoted to himself. 'Lor'

bless yo, it don't hurt me. But I do loike a bit o' good speakin, 'at I do. If fine worrds wor penny loaves, that yoong gen'leman ud get a livin aisy! An as for th' owd pew, I cud go skrikin about th'

streets mysel, if it ud do a ha'porth o' good.'

David's brow cleared, and, by the time they had gone a hundred yards further, instead of fighting the good man, he asked a favour of him.

'D'yo think as theer's onybody in Haworth as would lend me a seet o' yan o' Miss Bronte's tales for an hour?' he said, reddening furiously, as they stopped at the s.e.xton's gate.

'Why to be sure, mon,' said the s.e.xton cheerily, pleased with the little opening for intelligent patronage. 'Coom your ways in, and we'll see if we can't oblige yo. I've got a tidy lot o' books in my parlour, an I can give yo "Shirley," I know.'

David went into the stone-built cottage with his guide, and was shown in the little musty front room a bookcase full of books which made his eyes gleam with desire. The half-curbed joy and eagerness he showed so touched the s.e.xton that, after inquiring as to the lad's belongings, and remembering that in his time he had enjoyed many a pipe and 'gla.s.s o' yell' with 'owd Reuben Grieve' at the 'Brown Bess,' the worthy man actually lent him indefinitely three precious volumes--'Shirley,' 'Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography,'

and 'Nicholas Nickleby.'

David ran off hugging them, and thenceforward he bore patiently enough with the days of driving and tramping which remained, for the sake of the long evenings when in some lonely corner of moor and wood he lay full length on the gra.s.s revelling in one or other of his new possessions. He had a voracious way of tearing out the heart of a book first of all, and then beginning it again with a different and a tamer curiosity, lingering, tasting, and digesting.

By the time he and Reuben reached home he had rushed through all three books, and his mind was full of them.

'Shirley' and 'Nicholas Nickleby' were the first novels of modern life he had ever laid hands on, and before he had finished them he felt them in his veins like new wine. The real world had been to him for months something sickeningly narrow and empty, from which at times he had escaped with pa.s.sion into a distant dream-life of poetry and history. Now the walls of this real world were suddenly pushed back as it were on all sides, and there was an inrush of crowd, excitement, and delight. Human beings like those he heard of or talked with every day--factory hands and mill-owners, parsons, squires, lads and la.s.ses--the Yorkes, and Robert Moore, Squeers, Smike, Kate Nickleby and Newman Noggs, came by, looked him in the eyes, made him take sides, compare himself with them, join in their fights and hatreds, pity and exult with them. Here was something more disturbing, personal, and stimulating than that mere imaginative relief he had been getting out of 'Paradise Lost,' or the scenes of the 'Jewish Wars'!