Under the Mendips Part 15

"Till I've settled my score. Your gov'nor was hard on me t'other day; he tried to get me sent to gaol. I'll smash his head for 'im next time I come across 'im, sure as my name is Bob Priday!"

The broad, Somersetshire lingo made the man all but unintelligible to Gilbert; but Joyce understood him well enough.

"Ye hand me out a guinea, now, or a trinket, and I'll let bygones be bygones, specially"--with a horrid leer--"if you'll give me a kiss with 'em; eh?"

In a moment Gilbert had sprung over the bushes which hedged in the track on either side, and had his hand on the man's throat.

"Let this young lady pa.s.s, you villain!" he said, shaking the huge form, who, taken unawares, had very little power of resistance. "Let her pa.s.s."

There is always something in a brave, strong, young spirit which is too much for the brute force of an untutored giant like Bob Priday. He staggered and fell back, Gilbert's hand being still at his throat.

Joyce, pale and trembling, did not lose her self-control. "Please let me pa.s.s," she said; "I have no money to give you, and if I had it would not be right to bribe you. My father only did his duty on the bench that day. You were guilty, and you know it; you got off unpunished, and you should be thankful, and try to lead a better life."

There was something wonderfully grand in the way Joyce spoke, though her face was white with girlish fear, and her lips quivered, her voice did not falter as she appealed to the huge man who might, she knew, shake off Gilbert's restraining hand, and spring on her at any moment.

"Let me pa.s.s," she said, "and this gentleman will----"

At this moment a woman's voice was heard, and a girl with a red handkerchief on her head, with an effort at respectable attire in her short, blue cotton frock, and large, thick boots, came over the tangled ma.s.s of heath and ling, and cried:

"Father! What are you about now, father?"

"You mind your own business, you hussy, and leave me alone."

"Oh, father!" the girl said, pa.s.sionately, "I wish you would be good.

Think how mother used to pray for you! Oh, dear lady," the girl said, bursting into tears, "I am heart-broken about father. Please, sir, let him go."

"Let me go!" said the giant, with a loud, discordant laugh; "I'll see about that." Then, with a mighty effort, he hurled Gilbert from him, and before he could recover his feet, he had seized Joyce's arm. "Give me the money, or I'll be even with your father; curse him!"

But the girl threw herself on her father and held him back, while Gilbert, stunned and bewildered by the force with which he had been hurled over the heather, staggered to his feet again, and, with a well-aimed blow at the back of the man's head, laid him sprawling on the path.

"Oh! I hope he is not hurt!" Joyce exclaimed involuntarily, as the huge form lay motionless; the girl leaning over him.

"He is not hurt," Gilbert said, "any more than he has hurt me; it was in self-defence," he added.

"Father, father!" moaned the girl. "Oh, sir! oh, miss! I don't know what to do!"

"Hold your tongue, and let me get up and at him again," growled the man, struggling to sit upright.

But his daughter had the advantage, and seated herself on her father's chest, saying to Gilbert, "I'll keep him quiet till you are out of sight, sir; I will indeed. I know you were driven to do it," she said.

"Father is always fighting; but, oh! sir, we have a hard time of it.

There is no work for the men and boys, and if it were not for the good lady's schools, and the help she gives, I don't know what would become of us. Many were starving last winter, and of course it is kind of hard, to know rich folks have plenty and we are starving. Mother died last fall; and though Mrs. More sent her physic, and the schoolmistress broth, she could not stand up against the fever, and trouble about poor father and Jim, and d.i.c.k, and the baby."

Joyce's eyes filled with tears. "What is to be done?" she said, helplessly; "what can be done?"

"I don't know, miss; I don't know. There's plenty of the ore left, but it is no use working it, there's no market for it. Mrs. More teaches us to pray to G.o.d and try to trust Him, but He does not seem to hear or help. I have been in service, and could get a place again at a Farm at Publow, through Mrs. More, but since mother is gone, there is none to look after baby. I do love the baby!"

"How long are you going to jaw like this, Sue? Let me get up and settle the question; if not now, I _will_ settle it at last."

"Come away," Gilbert said, putting his hand on Joyce's arm; "we can do no good. It is getting so dark. Do come!" He put his hand to his head, for he still felt dazed and giddy with his fall.

"Tell me your name," Joyce said, "and where I should find you."

"Susan Priday, Mendip Mines, that's my name, miss."

"I am going to see Mrs. More soon, and I will tell her about you," Joyce said, in a low tone; "and do believe I am sorry for you. How old are you?"

"Eighteen come Christmas," the girl said, looking up into Joyce's beautiful face with undisguised admiration.

"Just my age," Joyce said. "Oh, I should like to make you happy! How old is the baby?"

"Born when mother died--just nine months old; he is so pretty, he is!"

Joyce had seldom, if ever, spoken familiarly to any of the girls about the country side before. Mrs. Falconer had her views on the subject, and the "miner folks" were her especial aversion, while Mrs. More's attempts to civilise them were met with derision and scorn. The gulf set between her and her household of respectable maids, and the rough, half-clothed miner's families, was in her eyes impa.s.sable! What was the use of trying to reclaim those who preferred their own rough and evil ways?

They ought to be well punished for raids made on farm yards, and snares set in copses and plantations; but to teach them to read, and talk to them about their duty to G.o.d and their neighbour, was in Mrs. Falconer's eyes worse than lost labour; it did harm rather than good.

And not only by Mrs. Falconer was this view of the unclothed and unwashed ma.s.ses taken! In our days of widely spread and organised charities, and zeal, sometimes I fear hardly tempered with wisdom, it is difficult to throw ourselves back to the beginning of the century now drawing to its close, when efforts like those of the four sisters of the Mendips, of whom Hannah was the leading spirit, were met with scoffs and disapproval; or deep compa.s.sion, that educated women could be so misguided, as to wish to teach the boys and girls of their district, anything but to use their legs and arms in the service of their betters!

As I stood by the heavy stone in Wrington churchyard, in the gloom of an autumn afternoon, where the names of the four sisters are inscribed, I could but think of the grat.i.tude we ought to feel to them for their brave efforts to spread the knowledge of the religion of Christ amongst the poor of those 'rolling hills' and peaceful valleys of Somersetshire. It must have been hard for a woman of culture like Hannah More to be met by opposition, and in some cases fierce denunciation; harder still to be smiled at by those in high places, as a fanatic and a visionary. But turning from the ugly, weather-worn stone, enclosed in high rusty railings, to the beautiful church, where what light there was yet in the sky, came through the many-coloured window lately erected to Hannah More's memory, I thought, that as nothing that is good and beautiful, coming from the Fountain of all beauty and all goodness, can ever die, so the light which Hannah More kindled in many humble hearts was still shining in the eternal kingdom, where those that have lived as in the presence of the Son of G.o.d here, shine as the stars for ever in their Heavenly Father's realm.

That touch of Nature which makes the whole world kin brought the two girls near to each other, as Joyce laid her hand upon Susan's, and said:

"I am very sorry for you; I shall not forget you;" then added, looking down on the prostrate form which Susan had so determinedly kept from doing further mischief:

"I am sorry for you, too; it must be hard to want bread--but, but--do try to be good and find work."

"Find work, find work! If that's all you can say you'd better hold your tongue."

But though the words were rough the tones grew less fierce, and Susan, finding her restraint was no longer needed, stood up and watched Gilbert Arundel and Joyce pursue the narrow track across the heather till they were lost in the shadows of the gathering twilight.

"Do you know your way?" Gilbert asked.

"I think I do," Joyce answered; "our shepherd's cottage is on the next ridge, and when we get there we can see our own valley and the tower of the church."

"Are you very tired?" Gilbert asked again.

"Not very; but I cannot help trembling; it is so silly. Do tell me if that man hurt you."

"He gave me a good shaking. What a giant he is! I felt as your Nip or Pip might feel in Duke's clutches if he were angry."

"What a comfort we had not Charlotte with us, and that the boys had gone on so far! I hope they will not be very anxious at home."

They made but slow progress. Joyce's usually swift, elastic steps were slow and faltering. She took several wrong paths, and they came once to a steep dip in the heather, and were within a few inches of one of those rocky pits which are frequent on the face of the level country about Cheddar and the neighbouring district. Indeed Cheddar itself begins with one of these small defiles, when entered from the top of the Mendip, and the gradually increasing height of the rocks, and the widening of the gorge as the road winds through it, is one of its most striking features.

Joyce was so wholly unaccustomed to feel tired and unnerved, that she surprised herself, as well as Gilbert, by sitting down helplessly, and bursting into tears.

"Oh! we should have been killed if we had fallen down there. Won't you leave me, and go on to the shepherd's cottage? What can be the matter with me?" she said, sobbing hysterically.

Gilbert hardly knew whether distress at her condition, or delight in having her all to himself to comfort, predominated.