LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2129, 20 December 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

Gone to Leek are they ? Well, you’re at home, Rachel, at all events ; and we were coming to see you next. How’s the grandmother ?’ She had harried from the window to the door, and now stood curtseying on the threahhold —a thin, wiry old woman with keen black eyes, and a pleasant smile, and a look of pome intelligence and alertness, * Gravely,! sir, gradely,’ she replied * A bit frabbit2 o’ times ; but thot’s now’t to speak on. Wan yo’ be pleased to coom in?’

It was the smallest cottage cf the four, but clean and tidy. The bricked floor was freshly sanded; the furniture was well rubbed; the plates on the dresser were scrupulously clean. A Dutch clock ticked in one corner ; a cat lay curled up cosily in front of the fire ; while in a big round wicker chair with capacious arms, there crouched in the chimney-corner, blinking, silent, sightless, and b-nt nearly double, a very aged woman wroppod in a comfortable plaid shawl. * This is old Lois Bailey, of whom yon have heard.’ said Lancelot. ‘She is supposed to more thau a hundred; but cupariah registers, which were n; ver too well kept, took no account of the “moor-folk” till the beginning of this present century. She was an old woman, at all events, when my grandfather was a boy.’ ‘ I’m going on for three-score and ten myael’,’ said her grand-daughter, ‘an’ she war reckoned an ow’d ’ooman, nigh past child bearin’, when my mother was born. Eb, yon mun hollo to ’un, but the wnnno’ take no notice.’ * She’s more deaf than when I was here last,’ said Lancelot ; having shouted in her ear without eliciting a glimmer of recognition. ‘ Deed; then, I’m none so sure she be deaf at a’. Muster Brack’nb’ry.’ ‘ But, my good Kaohel. she mnst be deaf, or she would take some notice when spoken to.’ The woman shook her head. * She’ll hear a whisper sometimes ss well, nor do I ; an’ alius when yer least lookin’ for nn to be listnen. ’ She be so ow’d sir, an’ so far away loike,’ she added, with a touch of unconscious poetry, ‘that I’ve thowt mony times as how our voices doint alias reach to un.’ ‘ She mnst have been borne in the reign of George the Second,’ said Cochrane ; ‘ in which case, her great grand-mother might have been a contemporary of Kicbard the Third. It reminds one of Walpole’s anecdotes of the old Conntess of Desmond !’

THE MYSTERY ‘Deed; then, I’m none so sure she be deaf at a’. Master Brack’nb’ry.’ OF ‘ But, my good Kaohel. she must be deaf, or she would fake some notice when spoken LORD BRACKENBURY: woman shook her head. A NOW! * She’ll hear a whisper sometimes ss well, A NUVBiLi. nor do I ; an’alius when yer least lookin’ ■ for an to be listnen. ’ She be so ow’d sir, BY AMELIA B. EOWARDS an ’ 80 ar awa 7 loike, ’ she added, with a ' touch of unconscious poetry, 'that I’ve thowt Author of “Barbara’s History,” ■* Deben- mony times as how our voices doint alius reach to un.’ nam a Vow, &c. • She must have been borne in the reigu ——• of George the Second,’ said Cochrane ; * in ( Continued. which case, her great grand-mother might _ .... ... have been a contemporary of Richard the But Lancelot bad purposely seated himself Third. It reminds one of Walpole’s anecon the bench juat over the gin, and declined dotes of the old Countess of Desmond !’ to move. The pnp, meanwhile, being de- ‘ She hain’t get no cares,’ continned the loaited on the ground, was sprawling and grand-daughter, ‘an’she sleeps o’nights as blinking with the helpless gravity incidental peaceful as a babby. ’Tis nobbu* 3 babies’ to Its age and position. _ food she eats, neither —a drop o’ broth an’ Asa prim little pup a-sever. 1 said the soup, or a mug o’ boother-milk p!oonger4 rat-catcher, admiringly. • A’s the primest night an’ morninV little pnp as ever I feed or bred—muzzle’s ‘That’s poor food for a woman of her as blacks owoalz, A cooms on a good stock, years,’said Lancelot. ‘l’ll send you over sir. T owd bitch s the shurtiestS beast as some arrowroot, and a little wine and iver went on fower legs. A’sticks at nothin’ brandy.’ that bitch. Ud as lief tackle a boggart4 as a ‘ Thankee kindly. Muster BcacVnb’ry— Christian. thnf WfiVfl still a rlrnn left n’ tli« l.nt • ami

To Mr Horace Cochranes, of the Wax and Wafer Department, this North Country tongue was about as intelligible as a central African dialect. Dimly apprehending, however, that the praises of the pup were being snug, be mattered a vague assent. That interesting animal, meanwhile, was meandering moodily in the direction of the shed,

‘A’s a bit gloppenedS, ye see, sir,’ said Isaac apologetically. Cochrane cast an imploring glanoe at his friend.

* She hain’t get no cares,’ continned the grand-danghter, ‘ an’ she sleeps o’ nights as peaceful as a babby. ’Tis nobbu‘3 babies’ food she eats, neither —a drop o’ broth an’ soup, or a mug o’ boother-milk p!oonger4 night an’ morninV ‘ That’s poor food for a woman of her years,’ said Lancelot. ‘ I’ll send you over some arrowroot, and a little wine and brandy.’ ‘Thankee kindly. Muster BracVnb’ry—thof we’ve still a drop left o’ the last; and a power of good it doon her. Mon Ibe so bowd as to ax if yon’ve happened o’ no news o’ my lord ?’

‘ Arabic, npon my honor—Arable of the pnrest water,’ said Brackenbnry, answering the mnte appeal. * How ranch do yon want for him 7’ asked Cochrane, desperately. Old Isaac picked up the pap ; balanced it In the palm of his hand as if it were a tennis ball; opened its month ; pinched its tail; turned it this way and that; and finally put it on its legs again. ‘ Dll be worth a matter ©’twenty pun’ agln’s two year owd,’ said he. •Then you would do better to keep it.’ * Mayhappen I woan’t live two year, sir. I’m an own man, d’ye seel’ ‘ Which being translated, means that the pup hasn’t had the distemper,’ langhed Lancelot. ‘ Come, ’lsaac, you musn’t be too •lever.’

‘ No, Master Braok’n’bry, sir; but pups is a nesh6 sort o’ beases?, and I’d liefer get shut on ’an as soon as mebbe,B, Thot’s but reason. ’

Lancelot, meanwhile, to Mr Plant’s evident uneasiness, bad picked up a file that lay at the end of the bench, and was absently, as it seemed, trying it npon a piece of old iron hooping. All at once he stooped and pulled out the gin. ‘So this is what you were after just now ?’ said he; * sharpening the teeth of this infernal machine—which, I see, is of home manufacture ’

Lancelot shook bis head. ‘Eh, then, I’m afared we’ll never, never see an no more. ’Twar a drees day for him, and for the poor young leddy that war his sweetheart I’

* S’elp me. Muster Braok’nb’ry, the gin’s not mine, sir ! ’Twaa my lad Seth, air, picked nn oop i' the olongh, and brought on whoam. I’m an honest man, air, an* ratcatchin’s my trade, an’ I nlver set a gin in my loife sin’ I war a boy an’ knowed no better : and I wish I man drop down dead if thot’s not the blessed truth I’m tellin’ you !’ Lancelot looked at him, sternly incredulous.

‘lt was a fatal day, Haohel, ’ said Lancelot, in a low voice. *He war a’ goodness,’ continued the woman, heedless of the pain her well-meant lamentations might awaken. ‘Ud nowt a spark o’ pride about un. Ud ait doon in a poor men’s cottage, and listen to’s troubles, and talk to the chitherfi loike one of our own selves. I well mind the day I last saw un —a bitter snowy day it war, too, an'nigh to gloaming; an’ I war staining’ oop the pitch yonder wi’ a big paiifnll o’ waytet?, when my lord cam’ oop behind. “ Here, Rachel,” says he, “ gie me th’ pail —l’m better able to carry un nor you are ” An’ a’ whipped un oop licht as a feether, an’ carried an’ to the house door. Eh, then, I little thowt I’d never see un again.’ * That was four years ago, Bachel—nearly five,’ said Lancelot (he had heard this anecdote every time he came to the cottage in the course of those yc ars) * and I have given up hope at last.’ ‘ ’Deed, then, hopes hard eno’ to gie np when for the corpse lies crowd afore one’s eyes,’ said Bachel j * but it’s harder when ther's nowt but sorrow an’ waitin’ to show for it. An,’ Master Brack’nb’ry, yo’re not one to tak’ comfort in dead men's shoes.’

‘ He’s bo dead,’ said a voice that made them all start; a voice weak and quavering, but curiously distinct. ‘What makes you say that, Lois?’ cried Lancelot, rising quickly and bending over the old woman’s chair. ‘ Why do you say that ? Do you think my brother lives ?’ She had all this time been, not only motionless, but apparently unconscious, just breathing feebly, as in a placid sleep; but now, although her chin was still sunk on her breast, her hands were moving vaguely, like the hands of a blind person ; and she was rooking her body feebly to and fro.

‘Now, look you here, Isaac,’ he said, smashing the gin with hla heel ; ‘ if there’s a base thing in this world which I despise more than all other base things, its a lie I And if there’s a cowardly thing I hate above all other cowardly things, its cruelty to dum creatures. If yon took your gun, and went out and ehot my birds like a man, I might be angry ; but I wouldn’t be hard upon you. But that you should trap them in a hellish thing that breaks their legs and holds them alive for hours, and that yon should seek to shield yourself behind a lie—this is what I cannot forgive. There!—don’t open your lips, or I may be tempted to say that you shall turn out to-morrow, and never set foot on these moors again—and if once I say it, by Heaven! you’ll find I mean it. ’ Then, turning to his friend, ‘ Come Cochrane, he said, * you won’t care to deal with this chap, I know; and time’s going,’ They left the ratcatcher standing stock still, his lips pressed hard together, his bony fingers nervously twisting and crushing his cap. Seeing them stop at the next cottage, he clapped the cap on his head; flung the pup roughly back into the shed ; picked up the broken gin; and, muttering to himself, shambled into bis house and bolted the door.

' He’s no’ dead,’ she repeated twice or thrice.

'V ou remember me, Lois < ” said the young man, eagerly. I’m Lancelot—Master Lancelot, you used to call me, years ago, when we first came to Brackenbury. Cuthbert was a young man then, and I was a boy. You were always fond of Cuthbert, yon know. Poor Cuthbert! —he’s been four years lost, and we’ve given him up for dead.’

‘ I’d ha’ seen his corpse in my dreams ’gin he war dead,’ quavered the old woman. 1 1 seed ’em a’—fathers an’ sons, generation arter generation. He’s no’ dead, I tell ’ee—he’s no dead!’

In the next cottage, which stood alone at a distance of some thirty or forty yards, their lived a family named Stanway, represented on the present occasion by on unwashed baby, sprawling and crying on the threshold, a middle-aged woman boiling a pot over some sticks on the hearth, and two slatternly girls, one of whom was making pillow- lace, and the other sitting idle, with her elbow on the table. The men of the family, consisting of a father and three sons, were out.

‘Gone t’ Mow-Cop arter sand,’ explained the mother, civilly dusting a chair for ‘ th’ master.’

She waa'a decent-mannered, untidy body; but the girls were sullen and uncouth, and never stirred till roughly bidden to * adoon9 sitten tbar afore th’ gantlefolk, an’ stay th’ babbie a-ahroikin’!’

The young men stayed bore but a few minutes—just long enough for Cochrane to note the blaok hair and eyes and dnshy skins of the inmates. The girls were in rags, and looked as if their faces had been left unwashed and their hair uncombed for a week ; yet each wore a string of coloured beads round her tawny throat. The house was just as smart as squalid. The floor, the windows, the furniture, were grimmed with dirt; but the walls, which had been freshly gone over with some sort (f blued whitewash, and the inside of the door and the window frames, which had been painted bright red, were hideously gaudy. The two last cottages adjoined each other, being placed at a somewhat lower level, and fenced in by a broken palling, *No one at homo here, I suppose, ’ said Brsckenbnry, having knocked at the first door and received no answer. Whereupon a grizzled head, tied up in a staring red and yellow cotton handkerchief, was thrust out of a window in the next house, and a shrill voice replied •Tho’ be all gone t’ Leek horse-fair, an wunno be back afore baggiu’ timelO, but if— Eh, to bo sure, ’tie Muster Braok’nb’ry!’

‘God grant it, Lois! Bnt do you dream only of the dead. ‘Do yon never dream of the living ?’ Her bands dropped on her knees, and she seemed to lapse suddenly back into the old torpor, ‘ Lois ! Lois ! Listen to me—have yon dreamed of him living? Have you dreamed of him ? Have you seen him ? Answer me, Lois!’

‘lt an’t no good axin’ her, Master Brack’nb’ry,’ interposed the granddaughter anxiously. ‘ She’s far away now, an’ may happen she ’ont speak again for weeks. The sound o’ yer voice in her ear does nowt but mitherS her.’

(1) “ Gradely”—nicely. (2) “ Frabbit ” peevish. (3) “Nobbnt”—only. (4) “ Boothermilk ploonger ” —water with oatmeal stirred in it. (5) “Dree”—sad. (6) “ Chither ” children. (7) “ Wayter ” water. (8) “ Mither”—Worry, confuse. (To be continued .)