Read Ebook: Lancashire Idylls (1898) by Mather Marshall

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Ebook has 1301 lines and 59804 words, and 27 pages

As the clock struck the fateful hour the old woman was carried to her grave; and as they lowered her, Joseph, with uncovered head, let fall the clods from his own hand, repeating, in a hoarse yet tremulous voice, the words:

'Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.'

In another moment the old sexton reeled, and fell into the arms of the men who stood near him. It was but a passing weakness, for he soon pulled himself together, and accompanied the mourners to the funeral tea, which was served in a neighbouring house.

Never afterwards, however, was old Joseph heard to rail at mourners when late, or known to close the Rehoboth gates against an overdue funeral.

A CHILD OF THE HEATHER.

'What, Milly! Sitting in the dark?' asked Mr. Penrose, as he entered the chamber of the suffering child, who was gazing through the open window at the silent stars.

'I were just lookin' at th' parish candles, as my faither co's 'em; they burn breetsome to-neet, sir.'

'Looking at them, or looking for them?' queried the somewhat perplexed divine. 'Can I bring the candles to you?'

'Yo' cornd bring 'em ony nearer than they are. They're up yon, sithi,' and so saying the child pointed to the evening sky.

'So you call the stars "parish candles," do you?' smilingly inquired Mr. Penrose. 'I never heard them called by that name before.'

'It's my faither co's 'em "parish candles," not me,' said the child.

'And what do you call them?'

'Happen if I tell yo' yo'll laugh at me, as my faither does.'

'No, I shall not. You need not be afraid.'

'Well, I co 'em angels' een .'

'A far prettier name than your father gives to them, Milly.'

'An' what dun yo' think hoo co's th' dew as it lies fresh on th' moors in a mornin'?' asked the mother, who was sitting in one of the shadowed corners of the room.

'I cannot say, I am sure, Mrs. Lord. Milly has such wonderful names for everything.'

'Why, hoo co's it angels' tears, and says it drops daan fro' th' een o' them as watches fro' aboon at the devilment they see on th' earth.'

'Milly, you are a poetess!' exclaimed the delighted minister. 'But do you really think the angels weep? Would it not destroy the joy of that place where sorrow and sighing are no more?'

'Well, yo' see, it's i' this road, Mr. Penrose. They say as th' angels are glad when bad folk turn good, and I suppose they'll fret theirsels a bit if th' bad folk keeps bad; and there's mony o' that mak' abaat here.'

Mr, Penrose was silent. Once more Milly was, unknown to herself furnishing him with thoughts; for, again and again, from the sickbed of this child had he gone forth with fresh fields of revelation opening before him. True, the idea of heaven's grief at earth's sin was not a pleasant one; but if joy at righteousness and repentance, why not grief at wickedness and hardness of heart?

While thus musing in the quiet of the darkening chamber, Milly turned from her contemplation of the stars with the somewhat startling question:

'Mr. Penrose, dun yo' think there'll be yethbobs i' heaven?'

'That's bothered her a deal latly,' broke in the mother, with a choking voice. 'Hoo sez hoo noan cares for heaven if hoo cornd play on th' moors, and yer th' wind, and poo yethbobs when hoo gets there. What dun yo' think abaat it, Mr. Penrose?'

Mr. Penrose was not long from college, and the metaphysics and dogmatics of the schools were more to his mind than the poetry and religion of this moorland child. If asked to discourse on personality, or expound the latest phase of German thought, he would have felt himself at home. Here, however, he who was the idol of the class-room sat silenced and foolish before a peasant girl. True, he could enter into an argument for a future state, and show how spiritual laws opposed the mundane imagination of the child. But, after all, wherein was the use?--perhaps the child was nearer the truth than he was himself. He would leave her to her own pristine fancies.

In a moment Milly continued:

'Th' Bible says, Mr. Penrose, that i' heaven there's a street paved wi' gowd . Naa; I'd raither hev a meadow wi' posies, or th' moors when they're covered wi' yethbobs. If heaven's baan to be all streets, I'd as soon stop o' this side--though they be paved wi' gowd an' o'.'

'Listen yo', how hoo talks, Mr. Penrose. Hoo's awlus talked i' that feshion sin' hoo were a little un. Aar owd minister used to co her "God's child."'

Mr. Penrose was a young man, and thought that 'Nature's child' would be, perhaps, a more fitting name, but held his thought unuttered. Wishing Milly and her mother a 'Good-night,' he descended the old stone staircase to the kitchen, where Abraham Lord sat smoking and looking gloomily into the embers of the fire.

'Has th' missus towd thee ought abaat aar Milly?' somewhat sullenly interrogated the father.

'Nothing of any moment,' said Mr. Penrose. 'Of course she could not; we were never together out of your daughter's presence.'

'Then aw'll tell thee. Milly's baan to-morn to th' infirmary to hev her leg tan off.'

The strong man shook in the convulsive grip of his grief. No tears came to his relief; the storm was deep down in his soul; outlet there was none.

'Mr. Penrose,' said he, laying a hand on the minister's shoulder; 'Mr. Penrose, if I'd ha' known afore I were wed that gettin' wed meant a child o' mine being tan fro' me and cut i' pieces by them doctor chaps, I'd never ha' wed, fond o' Martha as I wor and am. No, Mr. Penrose, I never would. They might tak' me, and do what they'n a mind wi' me, at their butcherin' shops. But her--'

Here the strong man was swept by another convulsive storm of feeling too deep for utterance. Subduing his passion by a supreme effort of will, he continued:

'However, them as knows best says as it's her only chance, and I'm noan goin' agen it. I shall go daan wi' her mysel' to-morn.'

Milly, or 'th' little lass o' Lord's,' as the villagers called her, was one of those phenomenal child personalities which now and again visit this world as though to defy all laws of heredity, and remind the selfish and the mighty of that kingdom in which the little one is ruler. A bright, bonny, light-haired girl--the vital feelings of delight pulsed through all her being. Born amid the moorlands, cradled in the heather, nourished on the breezy heights of Rehoboth, she grew up an ideal child of the hills. For years her morning baptism had been a frolic across the dewy uplands; and, evening by evening, the light of setting suns kindled holy fires in her rapturous and wonder-filled eyes. The native heart, too, was in touch with the native heath; for Milly's nature was deeply poetic, many of her questions betraying a disposition and sympathy strangely out of harmony with the kindly, yet rude, stock from which she sprang. From a toddling child her eye carried sunshine and her presence peace. Unconsciously she leavened the whole village, and toned much of the harsh Calvinism that knit together its iron creed. There was not one who did not in some way respond to the magic of her voice, her mood, her presence. Even Joseph softened as she stood by the yawning graves which he was digging, and questioned him as to the dying and the dead. The old pastor, Mr. Morell, stern man that he was, used to put his hand on her head, and call her his 'Goldilocks'; and he had once been heard to say, after leaving her, 'And a little child shall lead them.' Though somewhat lonely, there was neither priggishness nor precocity in her disposition; she was just herself--unspoiled from the hands of God and of Nature.

Shortly after her twelfth birthday she was caught on the moors by a heavy autumnal shower, and, unwilling to miss her ramble by returning home, pursued her way drenched to the skin. A severe illness was the consequence, an illness which left a weakness in her knee, eventually incapacitating her for all exercise whatever, and keeping her a prisoner to the house. The village doctor laboured long, but in vain was all his skill. At last a specialist from the great city beyond the hills was called, who ordered the child to be removed to the Royal Infirmary, where care, skill, and nourishment would all be within easy reach. So it came to pass one summer morning, as the sun lighted up the wide moors, and the hum of the factories in the valley began to be carried upwards towards the heights, a little crowd of folks gathered round the door of Abraham Lord's cottage to take a farewell of 'th' little lass.' About eight o'clock the doctor drove up, and in a few moments Milly was carried in his and her father's strong arms and gently laid in the cushioned carriage, and then slowly driven away from the home which now for the first time in her life she was leaving. The eyes of the onlookers were as moist as the dewy herbage on which they stood, and many a voice trembled in the farewell given in response to Milly's 'Good-bye.'

Throughout the whole of that dark day Milly's mother never left the cottage; and when her husband, weary and dispirited, returned at nightfall, she could scarcely nerve herself to question him lest some word of his should add another stab to her already sorely wounded heart. When ten o'clock struck, and Abraham Lord laid his hand on the key to shoot the lock for the night, he burst into tears, and turning to his wife, said: 'Never, my lass, wi' Milly on th' wrong side'; and for months the parents slept with an unbarred door.

'You have a remarkable patient in Milly Lord,' said Dr. Franks to Nurse West one morning.

'I have indeed, doctor. I never met with another like her in all my seven years' experience.'

'Does she talk much?'

'At times. But I should call her a silent child; at least, she does not talk like other children. When she does talk it is to make some quaint remark, or to ask some strange question.'

'Ah,' said the doctor, 'she's just asked me one. I referred her to you and the chaplain. Religion, you know, is not much in my line. But for all that, I must own it was a perplexing question.'

'Might I ask what it was, doctor?'

'She has guessed as much, doctor.'

'Does she seem to fear the operation?'

'Not at all. She talks as though it had to be. Do you think it will be successful?'

Dr. Franks shrugged his shoulders, uttering no word by way of reply.

'I should not like Milly to slip from us,' continued the nurse.

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