Part 4 (1/2)
Perhaps I could help. But please don't say anything if you would rather not.”
”There's not much to tell,” he responded, ”but what there is 'll soon be all round t' moorside. You see, I've lived at yon farm, two miles off, all my life, and I'm well known, and folks talk a good deal in these country places, where there isn't much going on.
”I walked into Fawks.h.i.+ll to see Dr. Trempest this morning, and he's been with me to Airlee to see a big doctor there--one o' these consulting men--and he gives me a month or happen five weeks at t'
outside. There's nought can be done. Summat growing i' t' inside 'at can't be fairly got at, and we shall have to make t' best on 't. But it'll be a sad tale for t' missus and t' la.s.s, and telling 'em is a job I don't care for.
”You see, we none of us thought it was ought much 'at ailed me, for I've always been a worker, and I haven't missed many meals i' five and fifty year, and it comes a bit sudden-like at t' finish.”
What could I say? I saw it all and felt the pity of it. G.o.d knows I would have helped him if I could. The old wave of emotion which used to sweep over me so often surged forward again; and again I was powerless in the presence of the enemy.
I said something of this, but my friend shook his head in protest.
”Nay, but I don't look at it i' that way. I'm no preacher, but there's One above 'at knows better than us, and I wouldn't like to think 'at t'
Old Enemy 'ad ought to do wi' it. I've always been one to work wi' my hands, and book-learning hasn't been o' much account to me, but there's _one_ Book, miss, 'at I have read in, and it says, 'O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to G.o.d which giveth _us_ the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.'”
I sat with my head in my hands for a long time after Farmer Brown had left, and when at length I raised my eyes the shadows had left the moor, and I saw that the sun would set in a clear sky.
CHAPTER VI
OVER THE MOOR TO ROMANTON
We have had our promised holiday, Mother Hubbard and I, and a right royal one. On those rare occasions when work may be laid aside and hard-earned coin expended upon the gratification of the senses, our younger neighbours turn their steps to Airlee or Broadbeck, and seek the excitements of the picture palace or the music-hall; their elders are seldom drawn from the village unless to the solemn festivities of a ”burying.”
We spent our day in the great alfresco palace of Nature, amid pictures of G.o.d's painting, and returned at night, tired in body, but with heart and soul and brain refreshed by unseen dews of heaven's own distilling.
Fortunately we have had a spell of fine, dry weather, with occasional strong winds--at least, they were strong to me, but the folk about here dismiss them contemptuously as ”a bit of a blow.” Had the weather been wet Mother Hubbard's cherished desire to ”take me across the moor” to Romanton would have had to be postponed indefinitely.
We were to drive as far as ”Uncle Ned's” in Mr. Higgins' market cart, Mr. Higgins having volunteered to ”give us a lift,” as it was ”nowt out of his way.”
We started early, before the morning mists had forsaken the valleys, and whilst night's kindly tears still sparkled on the face of the meadows. It was good to lean back, my hand in Mother Hubbard's and my feet resting on the baskets in the bottom of the cart, and drink in sight and sound and crisp morning air.
What a peaceful world it was! I thought for a moment of the mad rush of petrol-driven buses along Holtorn, and the surging tide of sombre humanity which filled the footpaths there. This had been the familiar moving picture of my morning experience for more years than I care to remember, and now--this. Beyond, the meadows and the shawl of mist in the valley, a long stretch of gold and golden-brown where gorse and bracken company together, the one in its vigorous and glowing prime, the other in the ruddy evening of its days, but not a whit less resplendent.
Overhead, a grey-blue sky, with the grey just now predominating, but a sky of promise, according to Mr. Higgins, with never a hint of breakdown. By and by the blue was to conquer, and the sportive winds were to let loose and drive before them the whitest and fleeciest of clouds, but always far up in high heaven.
In the distance, just that delightful haze which the members of our Photographic Society so often referred to as ”atmosphere”--a mighty word, full of mystic meaning.
Here and there we pa.s.s a clump of trees, heavily hung with bright scarlet berries, whose abundance, our conductor informs us, foretells a winter of unusual severity. ”That's t' way Providence provides for t'
birds,” he says. It may be so, though I daresay naturalists would offer another explanation. All the same, it is pleasing to see how the blackbirds and thrushes enjoy the feast, though they have already stripped some of the trees bare, and to that extent have spoiled the picture.
Mr. Higgins was not disposed to leave us to the uninterrupted enjoyment of the landscape. He is a thick-set little man, on the wrong side of sixty, I should judge, with a clean top lip and a rather heavy beard; and I suspect that the hair upon his head is growing scanty, but that is a suspicion founded upon the flimsiest of evidence, as I have never yet seen him without the old brown hat which does service Sundays and weekdays alike.
He jogged along by the side of the steady mare, who never varied her four-miles-an-hour pace, and who, I am sure, treated her master's reiterated injunction to ”come up” with cool contempt; but he fell back occasionally to jerk a few disjointed remarks towards the occupants of the cart.
”Fox,” he said, inclining his head vaguely in the direction of a lonely farm away on the hillside to the right. ”Caught him yesterda' ... been playin' Old 'Arry wi' t' fowls ... shot him ... good riddance.”
We made no comment beyond a polite and inquiring ”Oh?” and he continued to be communicative.
”Just swore, did Jake ... swore an' stamped about ... but t' missus ...